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Author: Leslie Eastman

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Leslie Eastman

I am an Environmental Health and Safety Professional, as well as a science/technical writer for a variety of news and professional publications. I have been a citizen activist since 2009, and am one of the co-founders of the San Diego-based group, Southern California Tax Revolt Coalition.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 15, 2016 3 Comments
An expert's report in the Harvard Public Health Review asserts that the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro could cause a "full-blown public health disaster” because of the Zika virus unless the event is postponed, relocated or canceled. The author of this analysis is Amir Attaran, Associate Professor of Law and Population Health and the holder of the Canada Research Chair in Law, Population Health and Global Development Policy at the University of Ottawa. His education includes a D.Phil in immunology from the University of Oxford. Interestingly, Attran has been a fighter for for renewed use of DDT in sub-Saharan Africa to combat malaria. His full piece in the Harvard publication makes 5 key points, which are as follows:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 14, 2016 9 Comments
While the Obama Administration is setting the country on fire with public school transgender bathroom dictates, a Wyoming man has scored a major legal victory against a regulatory Goliath. The Pacific Legal Foundation represented Wyoming rancher Andy Johnson in challenging an EPA compliance order threatening him with $37,500 per day in fines for constructing a stock pond on his property. The PLF lawsuit argued that Johnson’s pond is expressly exempt from the Clean Water Act and that the stream in which he constructed the pond is not a jurisdictional water because it does not affect a navigable water. And, as an extra bonus, a former Corps of Engineers enforcement officer asserted that Johnson's pond has many environmental benefits, including fish and wildlife habitat and enhanced water quality.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 13, 2016 7 Comments
Legal Insurrection's sci-fi fans will recall our recent report on the legal case filed by CBS/Paramount against a fan-based film being funded by Kickstarter donations. I was intrigued by the team from the Language Creation Society (LCS), who filed an amicus brief challenging Paramount’s dubious claim about copyright infringement based on the fan-film's use of the Klingon language.  I noted that Marc Randazza (a first amendment attorney) and Alex Shepard had filed an amusing and scholarly legal document filled with Klingon words, its alphabet, and cultural references on behalf of that group. Fortunately, two LCS board members were able to be guests on the Canto Talk show this week, and provided an update on the case as well as details on constructed languages (conlangs) and their organization.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 11, 2016 14 Comments
I must admit, I have seen a lot of crack-pot theories about Climate Change/Global Warming in the past two decades. However, Ghassan Hage (a Lebanese-Australian academic serving as Future Generation Professor of Anthropology and Social Theory at the University of Melbourne in Australia) has hit the motherlode of social justice nuttiness. Three Massachusetts Institute of Technology entities (Global Studies and Languages, Global Borders Research Collaboration, and Anthropology) sponsored his presentation, which answered the burning question: Is Islmabopbia Accelerating Global Warming?
This talk examines the relation between Islamophobia as the dominant form of racism today and the ecological crisis. It looks at the three common ways in which the two phenomena are seen to be linked: as an entanglement of two crises, metaphorically related with one being a source of imagery for the other and both originating in colonial forms of capitalist accumulation. The talk proposes a fourth way of linking the two: an argument that they are both emanating from a similar mode of being, or enmeshment, in the world, what is referred to as ‘generalised domestication.’
As an environmental health and safety professional, I assess that the only way Islamophobia contributed to global warming is from the hot air Hage emitted while presenting this lecture, which was given May 9.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 09, 2016 17 Comments
Mother Nature has engaged our neighbors to the North in a battle, as a massive wildfire has consumed the forests around the oil-sands region of Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada since May 1. The Canadians may finally be making some progress in containing the conflagration after one-week of intense fire-fighting.
Canadian officials showed some optimism on Sunday they were beginning to get on top of the country's most destructive wildfire in recent memory, as favorable weather helped firefighters and winds took the flames southeast, away from oil sands boomtown Fort McMurray. There was still no time line, however, for getting Fort McMurray's 88,000 inhabitants back into what remains of their town, or when energy companies would be able to restart operations at evacuated sites nearby. The wildfires have cut Canada's vast oil sands output in half. "It definitely is a positive point for us, for sure," said Alberta fire official Chad Morrison in a news briefing, when asked if the fight to contain the flames had a reached a turning point. "We're obviously very happy that we've held the fire better than expected," said Morrison. "This is great firefighting weather, we can really get in here and get a handle on this fire, and really get a death grip on it."

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 07, 2016 25 Comments
I still assert that Donald Trump will vanquish Hillary Clinton in the fall, especially when his likely opposition begins working for him! Via Fox News contributor and talk show host Tammy Bruce comes an ad being put out by the Clinton campaign. The video backfires, because it provides example after example of strong positions Trump offers that appeal to his record-number of primary voters.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 07, 2016 7 Comments
Finally, some good news from the Golden State! It looks like we have solved all our other problems, so Governor Jerry Brown was able to focus on the issue of paramount importance: Smoking!
Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday signed a package of bills that will regulate the manufacture and sale of e-cigarettes and increase the legal smoking age from 18 to 21. Other bills the governor signed will close loopholes in existing smoke-free workplace laws and require that all K-12 schools be tobacco-free.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 07, 2016 13 Comments
The California primary is heating up hotter than the sauce Hillary Clinton carries. We described the riots and mayhem that surrounded Donald Trump's appearances in the Golden State last week, replete with Mexican flags and arrests. Now, Bernie Sanders' supporters targeted a Hillary Clinton event in Monterey Park in Los Angeles, forcing her to cut short her speech to a mere 14 minutes.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 04, 2016 18 Comments
In the wake of Bernie Sanders' shock win in Indiana, and now substantially narrowed GOP field, the center of the Democratic Party's political universe is now California. Since there is currently a mere two point poll gap between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, every vote in this state is critical. So, both Clintons will be in California for various events over the next few weeks. Yesterday, I read that the former President would be in San Diego's Balboa Park Club for a speech. So I donned by Star Wars t-shirt (May the Fourth be with you) and attempted to blend in with Clinton fans for a on-scene report.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 04, 2016 11 Comments
When the primary season started, there were 18 Republican candidates and 3 Democratic hopefuls. In a twist of irony of roller-coaster-sized proportions, the Republicans have their presumptive nominee while the Democrats are still engaging in an intense ballot battle. The fight for the nomination continues with Senator Bernie Sanders' upset win in Indiana.
Bernie Sanders triumphed over Hillary Clinton in Indiana’s open primary Tuesday, boosting the grassroots candidate’s argument that the party’s superdelegates should flip their support to him in July’s Democratic convention. Sanders spoke to thousands of supporters in Louisville, Ky., before Indiana’s results were in. He called for an end to closed primaries and criticized Clinton for her ties to Wall Street and paid speeches to Goldman Sachs — a sign the heated rhetoric on the Democratic side shows no signs of cooling down.
This win is critical, because Hillary cannot quite create the narrative that Donald Trump now can about being the likely nominee. That is, unless she relies on those superdelegates.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 04, 2016 23 Comments
In 2008, the only war that presidential candidate Obama embraced was the one on the American coal industry.
So, if somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can — it’s just that it will bankrupt them, because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.
It appears this is the sole successful Obama campaign, too. And Obama's victory has been even more spectacular than he could have anticipated. Instead of killing of new coal companies, the "green house gas" regulations and the move to natural gas has led the Chapter 11 filings by major and well-established American coal producers.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 03, 2016 6 Comments
The untimely death of music icon Prince underscores the importance of never taking a day for granted. The cause of his demise at the relatively young age of 57 is still the source of much speculation. Reports indicate that hip injuries sustained during his dynamic performances led to an addiction to pain killers, which he was preparing to address.
The 57-year-old “Purple Rain” singer knew he was hooked on Percocet before his death, possibly of an overdose, last week — so he entered an out-patient treatment program, the Minneapolis station KSTP 5 Eyewitness News reported. The superstar attended the unnamed rehab center to move away from using medication prescribed for his severe hip pain, according to the station.He scored the opioid pills from multiple doctors, including “a personal friend,” TMZ reported.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 01, 2016 79 Comments
I love my husband, but he is one of the "doom-and-gloomers" who insists Hillary Clinton will win in November, and in a landslide if the GOP candidate is Donald Trump. This post is my response to him, and all the other naysayers and pessimists out there I see in social media. There are a myriad of reasons any Republican candidate can win in the end. In light of recent developments in California, however, I would like to focus why Donald Trump specifically can achieve a glorious victory over Hillary Clinton this fall. I promise to prepare another, similar post if the summer conventions generate an alternative electoral battle combination. My case will begin with some remarks my hairstylist made this week, during my regular hair-coloring session.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 29, 2016 48 Comments
Anti-Trump protesters surrounded rally sites, waved Mexican flags, and ventured to prevent Trump supporters from seeing The Donald speak. The term "protesters" being used to describe these thuggish demonstrators is an inaccurate, weak description. They harassed and intimidated Trump's supports who were attempting to hear the candidate speak at two separate California events.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 29, 2016 20 Comments
Star Trek enthusiasts are just about the most passionate among the many entertainment industry fandoms. Because there hasn't been any new television episodes recently (though a new CBS production is slated to begin filming soon), and the latest movies have been less than satisfying for many series buffs, veteran entrepreneur Alec Peters raised $101,000 on Kickstarter to produce Prelude to Axanar. This short film would then inspire more contributions for a larger production, as an offshoot of the Star Trek: New Voyages fan-based series.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 28, 2016 4 Comments
Unwinding after a day of regulatory analysis and political opining, I often read true crime novels. A compelling one I just started is In He Killed Them All by Fox News Channel host Jeanine Pirro. Pirro's book engagingly and brilliantly details her experiences trying to bring suspected murderer Robert Durst to justice for the deaths of his first wife Kathleen (Kathie) McCormack Durst, Morris Black, and his longtime friend Susan Berman. The title of the book stems from the dramatic conclusion of the popular 2015 HBO series that centered around these cases, The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst. During the last episode, after being confronted with some damning evidence in the form of letters, Durst headed to the bathroom to regain his composure.
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