YouTube Added: 05.09.2011
Flashback:
Month: September 2011
Fukushima’s Long Link To A Dark Nuclear Past (New York Times)
– Fukushima’s Long Link to a Dark Nuclear Past (New York Times, Sep. 5, 2011):
ISHIKAWA, Japan — Kiwamu Ariga skirted the paddies of ripening rice, moving briskly despite his 81 years to reach a pile of yellowish rocks at the foot of a steep, forested hillside.
It was here that, as a junior high school student in the final months of World War II, Mr. Ariga and his classmates were put to work hacking rocks out of the hill’s then exposed stone face until the blood ran from their sandaled feet. The soldiers told them nothing beyond instructing them to look for stones with brown or black spots.
Then one day, Mr. Ariga recalled, an officer finally explained what they were after: “With the stones that you boys are digging up, we can make a bomb the size of a matchbox that will destroy all of New York.” Mr. Ariga said he did not learn other details of Japan’s secrecy-wrapped efforts to build an atomic bomb until years after the war.
“We had no idea what we were doing here, in our bare feet, digging out radioactive uranium,” Mr. Ariga said, standing between cedar saplings as spindly as his aging legs. “Now, 66 years later, we are exposed to radiation again.”
Read moreFukushima’s Long Link To A Dark Nuclear Past (New York Times)
How To Find Radioactive-Free Food In Japan
For your information…
– (Guest Post) How to Source Radioactive Material-Free Food in Japan: Food Co-Op (EX-SKF, Sep. 6, 2011):
Not all co-ops (grocery stores operated as cooperatives) are equal, but some are decidedly more customer-friendly (as opposed to producer-friendly) and take care in sourcing the food that are not contaminated with radioactive materials AND disclosing the detailed information of their testing.
One of the readers of this blog, William Marcus, has sent me his observations on sourcing the safe food in Japan. William currently lives in Osaka with his family with the toddler son. He says co-ops in Japan are not centralized (which I didn’t know), and that more east and north you go co-ops tend not to disclose the details of the testing they do (if they do the testing) on the foodstuff they sell.
The particular COOP that he recommends is “Shizenha” co-op headquartered in Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture and has operations in Tokushima Prefecture in Shikoku region. The co-op, he says, has just started to accept membership from Kanto and Tohoku regions.
———————————————-
I live in Osaka and sourcing clean food for our toddler son has become the biggest concern of ours, after monitoring the fallout plumes and contamination in our vicinity (which thankfully, seems to be quite limited compared to California, my home state). We have always been interested in buying healthy food and have belonged to COOP for many years.
US Man Arrested For Smuggling Grenade Parts To Mexico Drug Cartel
– U.S. man nabbed for smuggling grenade parts to Mexico cartel (Reuters, Sep. 6, 2011):
Mexican police arrested a U.S. man accused of trafficking grenade and gun parts to one of the country’s deadliest drug cartels in a sign the gangs could now be making their own weapons, authorities said on Tuesday.
Federal police captured Jean Baptiste Kingery last week at a house in the Pacific tourist town of Mazatlan in Sinaloa state, where they seized a small cache of guns and found a Hummer sports utility vehicle parked outside.
Read moreUS Man Arrested For Smuggling Grenade Parts To Mexico Drug Cartel
FedEx And Pepsi Are Top Defense Contractors? 5 Corporate Brands Making A Killing On America’s Wars
– FedEx and Pepsi Are Top Defense Contractors? 5 Corporate Brands Making a Killing on America’s Wars (AlterNet, September 3, 2011):
Chances are, if you’ve ever sent a package overnight, bought a PC or a can of soda, you’ve paid your hard-earned money to a major Pentagon contractor. While large defense corporations that make fighter jets and armored vehicles garner the most attention, tens of thousands of “civilian” companies, from multi-national corporations hawking toothpaste and shampoo to big oil behemoths and even local restaurants scattered across the United States, all supply the Pentagon with the necessities used to carry on day-to-day operations and wage America’s wars. And they’ve made a killing doing it since 9/11.
In 2001, the massive arms dealers Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman ranked one, two and five among Department of Defense contractors, raking in $14.7 billion, $13.3 billion and $5.2 billion, respectively, in contracts. Last year, Lockheed’s contract dollars were almost double their pre-9/11 level, clocking in at $28 billion, while Boeing’s had jumped to almost $19 billion and Northrop Grumman, still in the five spot, had more than doubled its 2001 take, with $12.8 billion in contracts.
The DOJ’s Escalating Criminalization Of Speech
– The DOJ’s escalating criminalization of speech (Salon, Sep 4, 2011):
(updated below)
Over the past several years, the Justice Department has increasingly attempted to criminalize what is clearly protected political speech by prosecuting numerous individuals (Muslims, needless to say) for disseminating political views the government dislikes or considers threatening. The latest episode emerged on Friday, when the FBI announced the arrest and indictment of Jubair Ahmad, a 24-year-old Pakistani legal resident living in Virginia, charged with “providing material support” to a designated Terrorist organization (Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT)).
What is the “material support” he allegedly gave? He produced and uploaded a 5-minute video to YouTube featuring photographs of U.S. abuses in Abu Ghraib, video of armored trucks exploding after being hit by IEDs, prayer messages about “jihad” from LeT’s leader, and — according to the FBI’s Affidavit — “a number of terrorist logos.” That, in turn, led the FBI agent who signed the affidavit to assert that “based on [his] training and experience, it is evident that the video . . . is designed as propaganda to develop support for LeT and to recruit jihadists to LeT.” The FBI also claims Ahmad spoke with the son of an LeT leader about the contents of the video and had attended an LeT camp when he was a teenager in Pakistan. For the act of uploading that single YouTube video (and for denying that he did so when asked by the FBI agents who came to his home to interrogate him), he faces 23 years in prison.
Let’s be very clear about the key point: the Constitution — specifically the Free Speech clause of the First Amendment — prohibits the U.S. Government from punishing someone for the political views they express, even if those views include the advocacy of violence against the U.S. and its leaders. One can dislike this legal fact. One can wish it were different. But it is the clear and unambiguous law, and has been since the Supreme Court’s unanimous 1969 decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio, which overturned the criminal conviction of a Ku Klux Klan leader who had publicly threatened violence against political officials in a speech.
Now It Is Illegal To Describe What The TSA Did To You: Female Blogger Threatened With Defamation Suit For Writing About TSA ‘Rape’
– Female Blogger Threatened With Defamation Suit For Writing About TSA ‘Rape’ (Forbes, Sep. 6, 2011):
Attacking the TSA for its privacy-invasive screening procedures has become a favorite activity for many journalists, especially Matt Drudge. TSA horror stories are often featured prominently on The Drudge Report and he has taken to calling Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (of which the TSA is a part) “Big Sis.”
Napolitano, who doesn’t think Drudge “means [the nickname] kindly” said at a recent Politico event that Drudge is wrong in describing DHS programs as Orwellian and that “the privacy impact of new airport screening technology and similar programs are thoroughly vetted before they are implemented,” in Josh Gerstein’s words.
“We want to be conscious of civil liberties and civil rights protections—and we are,” Napolitano said, as reported by Politico.
On the same day as this piece came out, TechDirt reports on a passenger who would likely disagree with the Secretary. After a particularly aggressive patdown in March that might be better termed a feel-up, advice blogger Amy Alkon graphically described how she sobbed loudly while a TSA agent put her hands “into” her — four times. She screamed “You raped me” after the LAX patdown and took the agent’s name with plans to file charges of sexual assault. Those plans fell through after consulting an attorney, but she did blog about it and included the agent’s name, thereby inflicting her own assault — on the agent’s Google search results.
The TSA agent then hired a lawyer who contacted Alkon asking her to remove the post, threatening her with a defamation lawsuit, and asking for a settlement of $500,000. “Rape is a very serious charge,” writes lawyer Vicki Roberts on Thedala Magee’s behalf. She also says that Alkon, on a return trip to the airport in May called her client “a bad person” who had “sexually molested” her.
Free speech lawyer Marc Randazza has stepped in to assert Alkon’s right to post about her patdown experience, and to defend both her definition of the patdown as rape and, regardless of that, her right to rhetorical hyperbole. Techdirt has a copy of the letter Randazza drafted in response to the defamation threat.
“After [the agent Thedala] Magee’s assault on Ms. Alkon’s vagina and dignity, Ms. Alkon exercised her First Amendment right to recount this incident to others in person and through her blog,” writes Randazza. “This was not only her right — it was her responsibility.”
Virginia: North Anna Reactors ‘Control Rods Dropped INTO The Reactor Core And Stopped The Nuclear Chain Reaction, Shutting Down The Reactor’
– Dominion: North Anna Reactors Won’t Restart Until Safety Assured (WHSV, Sep. 5, 2011):
Dominion Virginia Power said Friday it won’t restart the two nuclear reactors at its North Anna Power Station rattled by the Aug. 23 earthquake until the company is convinced it is safe.
Former Japan PM Kan: TEPCO Wanted To Abandon Fukushima! … ‘NOBODY MIGHT LIVE IN TOKYO NOW’
– Former Japan PM: I thought nuke mishap could destroy Tokyo (Dong-a Ilbo, September 6, 2011):
Former Japanese Prime Minister Kan Naoto says he felt a sense of crisis that the nuclear plant mishap in Fukushima could obliterate Tokyo and its vicinity, said the Japanese daily Tokyo Shimbun Tuesday.
Kan, who stepped down as prime minister Friday, said, “The week shortly after the accident is the period when I felt the highest sense of crisis,” adding, “The thought of an uninhabited Tokyo made me shudder.”
“At around 3 a.m. March 15, three days after the accident, I got a report from then Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Banri Kaieda that Tokyo Power Corp. was about to withdraw from the nuclear facility. So instantly I summoned the company`s president Masataka Shimizu and asked him to set up a joint countermeasures headquarters of the government and the company at the company’s headquarters,” Kan said.
“Had Tokyo Power Corp. withdrawn from the nuclear power plant, nobody might live in Tokyo now.”
Kan said, “If the power company had pulled out of the facility and left nuclear fuel unattended, the cooling water would have dried out within dozens of hours and the meltdown of reactors would have occurred,” adding, “If this had been the case, radioactive materials several or even dozens of times as much as those leaked in Chernobyl would had leaked. The country was brought to the brink of collapse.”
Read moreFormer Japan PM Kan: TEPCO Wanted To Abandon Fukushima! … ‘NOBODY MIGHT LIVE IN TOKYO NOW’
Labor Day 2011: Celebrating The Lack Of Jobs In America?
‘Only 47 percent of the U.S. workforce is “fully employed” at this point.’
– Labor Day 2011: What Are We Celebrating? The Lack Of Jobs In America? (Economic Collapse, September 4th, 2011):
If you still have a good job, you certainly have something to celebrate on Labor Day 2011. So far you have survived the decline of the U.S. economy. But your day may be coming soon. This weekend, there will be millions of Americans that will not be doing any celebrating. They are not enjoying a break from their jobs because they don’t have any jobs. In fact, it seems kind of heartless for the rest of us to be celebrating while so many of our countrymen are destitute. What are we celebrating on Labor Day 2011? The lack of jobs in America? At this point, the U.S. economy closely resembles a gigantic game of musical chairs. Every time the music stops, even more good jobs are pulled out of the game and even more workers are added. Once upon a time, if you really wanted a job in America you could get one. But now the competition for even the most basic jobs is absolutely brutal. If you gathered together all of the unemployed people in the United States, they would constitute the 68th largest country in the world. It would be a nation larger than Greece. All of those unemployed people are not going to be taking trips with their families this holiday weekend. Instead, most of them are going to be trying to figure out what to do with their shattered lives.
Read moreLabor Day 2011: Celebrating The Lack Of Jobs In America?
Dr. Helen Caldicott Interviews Nuclear Engineer Arnie Gundersen & Japanese Nuclear Activist Aileen Mioko Smith: Japan Hasn’t Got The Message – Second Fukushima Occuring – Rising Radiation Levels In Japan And Government Denial (MP3)
– Arnold Gundersen with a Fukushima update / Aileen Mioko Smith on rising radiation levels in Japan and government denial (Dr. Helen Caldicott, Sep. 2, 2011):
Listen Now Download the show by right-clicking the link.
This week, Dr. Caldicott gets an update on the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan from Arnold Gundersen, a consultant with Fairewinds Associates. Two recent items from the Fairewinds website: Too Close For Comfort – Floods, Earthquakes & Tsunamis and Newly Released TEPCO Data Proves Fairewinds Assertions of Significant Fuel Pool Failures at Fukushima Daiichi. Listen to our earlier programs featuring Gundersen here and here. As background for today’s program, read the recent news articles Greenpeace: Fukushima Schools Unsafe After Clean-Up, Cesium in Incinerator Dust Across East Japan and Japan’s Cesium Leak Equal to 168 ‘45 A-Bombs.
Later in the program, we hear from Japanese nuclear activist, Aileen Mioko Smith of Green Action Japan, based in Kyoto, on the alarming increase in radiation levels in Japan and government inaction. First, Smith discusses her research into health effects from the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear disaster. The conversation moves to rising radiation levels in Japan citizens are reporting, the lack of government testing, Japanese protests about the high levels of contamination in Fukushima prefecture, and Smith’s concerns about high radiation exposures in children.
Ikea Used East German Political Prisoners As Slave Labour To Make Furniture
– Ikea ‘used political prisoners in GDR as slave labour’ (Telegraph, Sep. 5, 2011):
Swedish retail giant Ikea used political prisoners in East Germany as “slave labour” to make furniture, secret police files unearthed by a German broadcaster appear to show.
Ikea developed strong links with the communist state in the 1970s, opening a number of manufacturing facilities, one of which, according to Stasi records discovered by German television company WDR, used political prisoners to construct sofas.
The factory in Waldheim stood next to a prison, and inmates were used as unpaid labour, it is claimed. Gaols in the Democratic Republic housed significant numbers of political prisoners, with some estimates indicating they made up at least 20 per cent of the entire prison population.
Read moreIkea Used East German Political Prisoners As Slave Labour To Make Furniture
Gulf Of Mexico: Massive Oil Slick Stretches For Nearly 10 Miles (Video)
– New evidence of a massive oil slick near Deepwater Horizon site (Raw Story, Sep. 1, 2011):
A California nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection and preservation of wildlife has discovered what seems to be a massive oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico near the area of the original Deepwater Horizon spill.
In a flight over the Gulf Tuesday, OnWingsOfCare.org founder and pilot Dr. Bonny Schumaker spotted an oil slick that stretched for nearly 10 miles.
Last week, two Louisiana State University men took a boat into the Gulf and returned with video evidence of large blooms of crude oil swelling up to the water’s surface where the doomed oil rig once hovered.
BP had firmly denied that the well is continuing to leak.
“None of this is true,” they said in a statement.
Watch this video from OnWingsOfCare.org, uploaded Aug. 30, 2011.
YouTube Added: 30.08.2011
TEPCO To STOP Free Food For Fukushima Workers
– TEPCO to Stop Free Food at J-Village for Fukushima I Nuke Plant Workers (EX-SKF, Sep. 6, 2011):
or so the tweet by the worker at the plant with big twitter followings says:
???????????????J????????14?????????????
Oh by the way, like I tweeted some time ago, we’re notified September 14 will be the last day of [free food] distribution at J-Village.
J-Village is the staging area for the plant workers. After September 14, TEPCO will make the workers pay for food, if what he tweeted is true.
Chicago: Several 6-Year-Old Kids Handcuffed And Threatened For Hours For Talking In Their First Grade Class
– 6-year-old kids handcuffed in class (RT, Sep. 2, 2011):
A lawsuit out of Chicago, Illinois alleges that several 6- and 7-year-old students at a city public school were handcuffed and threatened for hours all for talking during their first grade class.
LaShanda Smith, one of the student’s mothers, is seeking $100,000 from the city for damages both “permanent” and “personal” that she says her son suffered as a result of the incident, which allegedly occurred in 2010 at a school in the south side of the city. Smith’s attorney Michael Carin tells the Chicago Tribune that he has attempted to resolve the issue without bringing the battle into the courtroom, but the school Board officials have ignored his attempts at reaching a settlement.
“Unfortunately, we had to file a lawsuit because the Chicago Board of Education ignored my client on the day of the imprisonment and every day thereafter,” Carin writes in an email to the Tribune. “We hope the Chicago Board of Education acknowledges its responsibility and resolves the matter quickly.”
Deutsche Bank CEO (BILDERBERG) Josef Ackermann Just Gave A Terrifying Speech In Frankfurt (Video)
Bilderberg 2010 in Sitges: Josef Ackermann
– Deutsche Bank CEO Just Gave A Terrifying Speech In Frankfurt (Business Insider, Sep. 5, 2011):
Josef Ackermann just gave a terrifying speech about the fragility of the Euro banking sector right now.
At a conference in Frankfurt he said, “It is an open secret that numerous European banks would not survive having to revalue sovereign debt held on the banking book at market levels.”
We have translated the speech based on Handelsbatt’s, the organizer of the event where Ackermann spoke, account of it.
“In recent weeks, the distrust of the financial markets has spread to the banks because they are now suffering from the debt crisis in Europe and have a lot of exposure to, for example, Greek bonds.”
“Since the financial crisis, some European banks have lost a third or more of their market capitalization,” he said, according to Google Translate.
“Most institutions have a rating of “below the book value or at best.”
2 Mexicans Deny Terrorism, Face 30 Years For BOGUS Tweet
– 2 Mexicans deny terrorism, face 30 years for tweet (AP, Sep 04, 2011):
MEXICO CITY — Think before you tweet.
A former teacher turned radio commentator and a math tutor who lives with his mother sit in a prison in southern Mexico, facing possible 30-year sentences for terrorism and sabotage in what may be the most serious charges ever brought against anyone using a Twitter social network account.
Prosecutors say the defendants helped cause a chaos of car crashes and panic as parents in the Gulf Coast city of Veracruz rushed to save their children because of false reports that gunmen were attacking schools.
Read more2 Mexicans Deny Terrorism, Face 30 Years For BOGUS Tweet
‘Welcome To The Recovery’: California Employment at RECORD LOW
See also:
– ‘Welcome To The Recovery’: The US Jobs Crisis Worsens – Unemployment Report Bleak On All Counts
Flashback:
– Welcome to the Recovery (New York Times, by Timothy Geithner, August 2, 2010)
‘Recovery’ is the ‘Greatest Depression’.
– California Employment at Record Low 55.4 Percent as Fewer Women Find Jobs (Bloomberg, Sep 4, 2011):
The percentage of working-age Californians with jobs has fallen to a record low, and employment may not return to pre-recession levels until the second half of the decade, according to a research group.
Just 55.4 percent of working-age Californians, defined as those 16 or older, had a job in July, down from 56.2 percent a year earlier and the lowest level since 1976, the Sacramento- based California Budget Project said in a report released late yesterday.
California’s 12 percent unemployment rate in July, the nation’s second-highest after Nevada, compared with 9.1 percent nationwide. The most-populous state lost 1.4 million jobs during the recession that began three years ago, and has gained back only 226,800, or about 17 percent, according to the report.
Read more‘Welcome To The Recovery’: California Employment at RECORD LOW
Obama Regime Orders Sweeping Sanctions and Regime Change in Syria WITHOUT Congressional Approval
– Obama Orders Sweeping Sanctions and Regime Change in Syria Without Congress (Activist Post, Sep 5, 2011):
Once again President Obama has used the authority vested in him in the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the National Emergencies Act to impose sweeping sanctions against a sovereign nation without Congressional approval.
On August 18th, 2011, Obama signed Executive Order 13582: Blocking Property of the Government of Syria and Prohibiting Certain Transactions With Respect to Syria, which authorizes the seizure of all Syrian-owned property and interests in property in the United States. It also bans exports of U.S. services to Syria, the import of petroleum from Syria, and any new investment in Syria or those who support them.
The following actions are now prohibited:
(a) new investment in Syria by a United States person, wherever located;
(b) the exportation, reexportation, sale, or supply, directly or indirectly, from the United States, or by a United States person, wherever located, of any services to Syria;
(c) the importation into the United States of petroleum or petroleum products of Syrian origin;
(d) any transaction or dealing by a United States person, wherever located, including purchasing, selling, transporting, swapping, brokering, approving, financing, facilitating, or guaranteeing, in or related to petroleum or petroleum products of Syrian origin; and
(e) any approval, financing, facilitation, or guarantee by a United States person, wherever located, of a transaction by a foreign person where the transaction by that foreign person would be prohibited by this section if performed by a United States person or within the United States.
Rogue SSL Certificates Issued For CIA, MI6, Mossad
– Rogue SSL certs were also issued for CIA, MI6, Mossad (Help Net Security):
The number of rogue SSL certificates issued by Dutch CA DigiNotar has balooned from one to a couple dozen to over 250 to 531 in just a few days.As Jacob Appelbaum of the Tor project shared the full list of the rogue certificates, it became clear that fraudulent certificates for domains of a number of intelligence agencies from around the world were also issued during the CA’s compromise – including the CIA, MI6 and Mossad.
Additional targeted domains include Facebook, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Skype, Twitter, Tor, WordPress and many others.
He received the list from sources in the Dutch Government, which has retracted its statement about trusting DigiNotar’s PKIoverheid CA branch, announced to its citizens that it cannot guarantee the security of its own websites, and taken over DigiNotar’s operations and immediately organized audits of its infrastructure.
Mystery Flash At Fukushima Nuclear Plant (Video – Sep. 5, 2011)
YouTube Added:04.09.2011
Original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHnWK13NPiU (x4) 4??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EiR4VFfku4 (x20) 20??
Warning:
* This video is for the verification.
* Please judgement calmly.
* For now, Significant abnormality has not been announced this day by TEPCO
Blind (Shortfilm – Post-Nuclear Tokyo)
YouTube Added: 02.09.2011
blind – Shortfilm:
The film is set in post-nuclear Tokyo in a dimension not so distant from ours. Young salary-man’s morning commute takes a surreal turn.
Homepage: http://www.blind-film.net/
Minister Yoshio Hachiro: Number Of Japan’s Nuclear Power Plants To Be ‘ZERO’ In The Future
– No. of Japan’s nuclear plants to be zero in future: Hachiro (Mainichi/Kyodo, September 6, 2011):
TOKYO (Kyodo) — Industry minister Yoshio Hachiro said Tuesday that the number of Japan’s nuclear power plants would be “zero” in the future, based on Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s policy of not building new nuclear power plants and decommissioning aged ones.
“Considering the premier’s remarks at press conferences, it would be zero,” Hachiro told reporters in answer to the question whether the number of nuclear plants would reduce to none in the future.
Hachiro added that it would be “difficult” to proceed with plans to build new nuclear plants whose construction has yet to begin, such as Chugoku Electric Power Co.’s Kaminoseki plant in Yamaguchi Prefecture. “Public opinion is generally united in reducing (nuclear plants), instead of increasing them,” he said.
Read moreMinister Yoshio Hachiro: Number Of Japan’s Nuclear Power Plants To Be ‘ZERO’ In The Future
The Endangered Species Act & Agenda 21 (Video)
YouTube Added: 05.09.2011
States Rights vs. The Supreme Court -Tom Woods
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5wG3rgFgec
‘Taking Liberty’ – Dr. Michael Coffman
http://takingliberty.us/TLHome.html
Other Information by Dr. Coffman on the ESA:
http://www.restoringamerica.org/unconstitutional_origins.htm
http://www.newswithviews.com/Coffman/mike2.htm
find out more about Agenda 21 at MorphCity.com
http://morphcity.com/
Polar bear scam
http://www.theclimategatebook.com/confirmed-al-gores-dead-polar-bear-hoax/
AND NOW: EPA Declares HAY A POLLUTANT!!!!!
… in effort to destroy all family farms, organic farms and natural cattle feeders.
– EPA Declares Hay a Pollutant in Effort to Antagonize Small and Mid-Sized U.S. Cattle Feeders (R-Calf USA, September 1, 2011):
Billings, Mont. – During his presentation on the status of the nation’s new country-of-origin labeling (COOL) law, and on behalf of the R-CALF USA COOL Committee, R-CALF USA member and Kansas cattle feeder Mike Callicrate was asked a non-COOL question that set convention goers on their heels during the 12th Annual R-CALF USA Convention held August 26-27 in Rapid City, S.D.
“Has the Environmental Protection Agency declared hay a pollutant?” an audience member asked. Callicrate responded affirmatively and explained that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently initiated a formal enforcement action against his Kansas feedlot for, among other things, failure to store his hay in a pollution containment zone. “Now that EPA has declared hay a pollutant, every farmer and rancher that stores hay, or that leaves a broken hay bale in the field is potentially violating EPA rules and subject to an EPA enforcement action,” Callicrate said. “How far are we going to let this agency go before we stand up and do something about it?”