There are few intelligent, informed, unbiased people still walking the Earth so ignorant or corrupt as to publicly preach against Marijuana, hemp, and their health and industrial benefits to society and the Earth, but the State of Ohio is ruled by such a Neanderthal - Ohio Democratic Governor Ted Strickland - who is likely to lose his position of power to a Republican in the upcoming November election because he is such a cowardly, industry sell-out. His Lieutenant Governor, Lee Fisher - thinking he had some success in his work with Strickland that he should build-upon - seems positioned to hand an Ohio Senate Seat to a Republican for similar display of cowardice. And they certainly deserve to lose.

According to the Marijuana Policy Project, about the progress of Ohio to join the civilized world allowing the sick to use marijuana to live better, our Governor is already a loser, and deserves to lose re-election... “The governor feels that the predominant opinion of the medical community is that there are existing medicines available that provide appropriate patient care,“ said a statement issued recently. “So based on that opinion and the current research, he feels this type of legislation doesn’t seem necessary or warranted.“

As Ohio is so contaminated by pollution - especially from the heavy mining and industry Strickland and Fisher have supported here - the citizens here live unhealthy lives and die young, horrible deaths. To deny citizens access to any medicine to help comfort them - especially a medicine that may be grown for free - is criminal. Below is more from MPP about the pathetic leadership of Ohio, and what citizens may do about them - followed by a recent article by a doctor about the medical benefits of Marijuana - Andrew Weil: Medical Marijuana's Tremendous Potential for Curing Ailments - Cutting through all the government misinformation - and some of the politics around denying those benefits to citizens, as is perpetuated by sell-out mis-informers like our Ohio Governor Ted Strickland...

The chart above shows citizens of Northeast Ohio have the worst level of mortality from coal fired power plants in America - based on an online risk assessment tool accompanying the September 2010 Clean Air Taskforce study The Toll From Coal - An Updated Assessment of Death and Disease from America’s Dirtiest Energy Source. As the introduction states: "Among all industrial sources of air pollution, none poses greater risks to human health and the environment than coal-fired power plants – perhaps most consequential of all from a public health standpoint – fine particle pollution."

Fine particles are especially dangerous because they can bypass the body’s defensive mechanisms and become lodged deep in the human lung. Indeed, research also indicates that short-term exposures to fine particle pollution is linked to cardiac effects, including increased risk of heart attack. Meanwhile, long-term exposure to fine particle pollution has been shown to increase the risk of death from cardiac and respiratory diseases and lung cancer, resulting in shorter life-expectancy for people living in the most polluted cities compared to people who live in cleaner cities. And although research suggests fine particles reduce the average life span of the general population by a few years, the life of an individual dying as a result of exposure to air pollution may be shortened by 14 years.

The hopeful news for Northeast Ohio in this science is:

Because most fine particle-related deaths are thought to occur within a year or two of exposure, reducing power plant pollution will have almost immediate benefits.

The worst news is, considering the greatest harm to human health comes from fine particle pollution, and Northeast Ohio has many more sources of fine particle pollution than just the 500 major coal power plants considered in the data of this study (think Mittal), it is an understatement to say the air pollution situation in Northeast Ohio is far worse than it appears in this Clean Air Taskforce report, and there Ohio is ranked the second-worst America gets... and the Cleveland-area is the 8th most toxic metropolitan area in the county...

I'm exploring where to base ICEarth brightest greenest development in Ohio, going forward, and am open to suggestions. I already know I will co-locate in Austin, Texas, and in Colorado and California... but where shall we operate from in Ohio?

The Medical Center Company provides dirty, polluting coal-powered heat to many of Northeast Ohio's most "cherished" organizations, including the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA), seriously compromising the value of the CMA to citizens of the region and world - this is being opposed by the real leaders of this community. As the Cleveland Museum of Art has just hired a new Director, David Franklin, from Canada, I must wonder if the Board and Trustees who hired him advised him on these issues surrounding the heating of his new home. Immediately, before worrying about exhibition schedules and completion of the museum expansion, Mr. Franklin must plan to move his museum away from coal, meaning move CMA away from heat from MCCO.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer posted a welcoming opinion editorial championing the Cleveland Museum of Art and its new director to the public, and I was pleased to add to that opinion the fact Mr. Franklin must have very different priorities than the other leadership in University Circle ever has - he must oppose using coal to heat his museum, polluting his community, and he must lead other organizations in University Circle away from coal. How he does that will in fact be his greatest challenge ever. I wish him success, as I always wish the CMA success. I am a sincere supporter of the Museum - the right kind of supporter, without compromise.

According to the American Lung Association, 24,000 people a year die prematurely because of pollution from coal-fired power plants. And every year 38,000 heart attacks, 12,000 hospital admissions and an additional 550,000 asthma attacks result from power plant pollution. It is therefore not surprising to read, in The Place My Father Didn't Want Me to See, an article by Plain Dealer Columnist Connie Schultz, published in Parade Magazine this Labor Day weekend, that Ms. Schultz' father died of a heart attack after having worked as a mechanic in a coal fired power plant for 34 years.

As Ms. Schultz writes: "I never knew what Dad did at the plant, but I saw the toll that 34 years of hard physical labor took on him. He had surgery on his shoulder, his hand, his spine. At 48, he had his first heart attack and bypass. He retired in 1993, right after the last kid graduated from college. But the damage was done. A few years later, another surgeon shoved stents into his arteries. The next heart attack killed him. He was 69." She further observed, from once having visited her father at his plant: "I stared at my father, covered in sweat and coal ash, and for the first time had to consider why he was so often angry for no apparent reason."

What is surprising is that Ms. Schultz does not offer her readers of this story the learning opportunity to understand that industrial pollution from burning coal kills 10,000s of fathers, mothers and babies in America each year - I don't know of studies proving "hard physical labor" does the equivalent. There is clear evidence that working with coal causes heart attacks, among a long list of health impacts... including mental illness. From a recent study in Korea: "When particulate matter (a common form of air pollution) spiked, the risk of suicide increased by 9 percent over the next two days, the researchers found. Among people with heart disease, the increased risk was even greater, about 19 percent." Beyond the physiological impacts of pollution, knowing you are being killed by pollution makes you angry... I certainly know that for a fact, as my family is being killed by a coal power plant in my neighborhood, and I have grandparents who died of industrial poisoning, and I am angry about all that. Angry at Connie Schultz' family.

Connie Schultz is married to U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown and his family is in the coal burning business, as his brother is Robert Brown... Chairman of the Board of Medical Center Company (MCCO), a coal burning power plant located next to University Hospitals, in University Circle, Cleveland, Ohio, which burns over 44,000 TONS of coal a year, emitting over 4,000 TONS of air pollution into surrounding neighborhoods.... killing people in my neighborhood unnecessarily.

I'm starting my deep research into the corruption that is Medical Center Company (MCCO) - Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown's family coal fired pollution factory in University Circle, Cleveland Ohio - and as I search the web for articles about Senator Brown's energy policy, I find good opportunities to educate the world about the harm his family pollution does here.

For example, the Breakthrough Institute has a posting about Senator Brown - The Sherrod Brown Test: Finding Consensus on Climate Policy... If we want to pass policies that will truly catapult the United States into a clean and prosperous energy economy, slash global warming pollution, and make clean energy cheap and abundant, we need to pass the "Sherrod Brown Test." - to which I posted the following clarification for the world:

You should disclose Senator Sherrod Brown's brother Robert Brown is Chairman of the Board of Medical Center Company (MCCO), which is a coal fired steam plant in a poor urban disadvantaged Cleveland neighborhood... burns 44,000 tons of coal a year... pumps over 4,000 tons of pollution into our air (since the 1930s) - all to heat private institutions like Case Western Reserve University (where Robert Brown is Treasurer), University Hospitals, the Cleveland Orchestra and the Cleveland Museum of Art - and they want a license to burn coal for 5 more years... and want to build an additional coal plant in the same neighborhood... Sherrod is the King of Coal in Ohio.

Figure 1 shows projected Ohio prison inmate population growth through July 2012 (Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, July 2009)

I noticed an interesting link from a few Facebook friends to the Marijuana Policy Project website at "Netherlands to Close Prisons: Not Enough Criminals", which reports "The Dutch government is getting ready to close eight prisons because they don’t have enough criminals to fill them. Officials attribute the shortage of prisoners to a declining crime rate." MPP points out, with glee... "For years prohibitionists, including our own Drug Enforcement Administration, have claimed — falsely — that the tolerant marijuana policies of the Netherlands have made that nation a nest of crime and drug abuse."

Based on a quick illustrative analysis of data provided by MPP of the prison populations of the Netherlands and California... I calculated the imprisonment rate for Ohio, with a baseline population of 11.5 million people, if we had the incarceration rates of the Netherlands. Ohio would have a prison population of about 8,000 people.

In fact, in mid 2008, Ohio's incarceration (or imprisonment) rate, which is calculated from counts of incarcerated persons per 100,000 total residents, was 445 (Bureau of Justice Statistics) - representing a prison population of over 51,000 - more than 6x the incarceration rate in the Netherlands - costing Ohio over $1.6 BILLION per year.

Worse, as posted April 27, 2010, on Crime Reporter - "Ohio prison crowding at crisis stage" - "the Ohio General Assembly allowed the state prison budget to grow this year, despite looming multi-billion-dollar budget deficits. Ohio’s statewide inmate population climbed within 128 inmates of the all-time record of 51,273 this month, prompting state lawmakers and Gov. Ted Strickland to blame one another for inaction."

Susan Miller just sent me County Executive Green Party Candidate David Ellison's written statement to the Federal EPA protesting the burning of coal by Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown's brother (Plain Dealer columnist Connie Schultz' Brother-in-Law) Robert Brown's Medical Center Company (MCCO), which harms the health of my family and the millions of citizens of Northeast Ohio... spreading death and destruction worldwide.

Is David Ellison the only candidate for County Executive who formally protested the burning of coal at MCCO? That should be easy to determine.

I challenge the other candidates for County Executive... and ALL standing local politicians... to put forth their written positions submitted to the Federal EPA regarding burning coal at the politically-corrupt MCCO plant, in politically-corrupt University Circle, or withdraw from offices and races to represent citizens in government anywhere in the world, for cause (being murder).

real NEOans - did you notice difficulty breathing today... all week... especially near downtown?

NOACA has an explanation. The air in urban Cleveland is highly polluted and causing you harm.

Location

Case Study: Modus Operandi of Illuminati... Fabricate Crisis and Fear... Switch Idols on Braindead Citizens... Leverage Racism.

Witness!

If you ever come to question the intent and modus operandi of the Illuminati, just witness how they fabricated a crisis in the trading of LeBron James... creating instability and fear among millions of loyal Ohioans and Americans... and then witness how they just switched idols on hate-programmed braindead zombie Citizens of Northeast Ohio, fabricating broad public outrage against a talented, young black man to stir racial hatred against an entire class of new leaders, in an important swing election year.

Sierra Club Lone Star Chapter Headquarters, on the fringe of the University of Texas campus in Austin, Texas

A few days after attending the EPA public hearing regarding the renewal of the license for Medical Center Company to continue burning coal in University Circle - which was OPPOSED by representatives of the Sierra Club, Environmental Health Watch, Earth Day Coalition, Women Speak Out For Peace and Justice, and all citizens who testified - I met with Neil Carman, Ph.D., the Clean Air Director of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, in Austin, Texas, to discuss real NEO air pollution issues, the MCCO licensing situation, and next steps for improving the environment in Northeast Ohio.

Dr. James Hansen, Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, considered by many to be foremost climatologist in the world

As Northeast Ohio leadership MUST forcefully involve citizens as activists against the harm caused in our community and worldwide by pollution here, and address the resulting economic and public health damage here, it is important to reflect on what is an environmental activist, and how people may become actively engaged in community redevelopment through environmentalism.

Facts prove it is unsafe to live near the Arcelor/Mittal Cleveland Works steel mill, and citizens of Northeast Ohio have reasons to be concerned about 100s of other major toxic pollution point sources in the greater Cleveland area, yet our regional pollution monitoring has been broken since 2003, and is broken today, and citizens and the media do not care at all. How is it possible the people living in one of them most polluted places in America do not care about public health - about their own health? How did citizens here become such nihilists?

Northeast Ohioans must rise up from metal and soot ashes still being spewed upon us by excessively polluting toxic industrial forces that have corrupted local politics and destroyed the region and the lives of those living here... yet leaders and citizens here do not care.

I received a press release from the EPA today - DOE Announces Nearly $120 Million to Advance Innovative Weatherization Projects, Highlights Progress in the Program Nationally - highlighting $120 million in Federal stimulus funds going to 102 organizations across America to drive innovation under the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Weatherization Assistance Program... and none of the awardees are in Ohio (see list below). Linked to this article about this program is a table of homes weatherized around the county as of June 2010, through Federal stimulus funding, and Ohio is well represented - and I believe our house in East Cleveland was weatherized through such funding - it is disturbing no Ohio programs are part of this latest round of funding...! Why not?