Oregon Oddities and West Virginia Worry: This Mortal Coil

Dr. Peter Goodwin, Father of OR Suicide Law, Takes Own Life
from oregonlive.com: Peter Goodwin, the first doctor in Oregon to campaign publicly for the terminally ill to obtain medical help in ending their lives, died Sunday shortly after exercising the right he fought to secure. He was 83. Goodwin's four adult children and their spouses surrounded him in his Terwilliger Plaza apartment when he took a planned overdose of a prescribed drug Sunday.

Related Oregon Oddities:
Insufferable Portland?*
Updates on 'Insufferable Portland'*
Original 'Insufferable Portland' Piece from Weekly Standard*
More than 800,000 Oregonians received food stamp benefits in January*
Oregon employers slash 6,400 jobs in February; unemployment rate holds at 8.8 percent*
Fired Oregon School Boards Association executive director had charged questionable expenses*
Northwest Training and Testing EIS/OEIS:
Navy invites public comment on its offshore testing and training proposals*
Men identified, search suspended for missing Oregon boaters*
Man's body recovered from Willamette River in North Portland*
West Coast governments agree on plan to deal with debris from Japanese tsunami*
The First Four Minutes:
A Timeline of Portland's Upcoming Cataclysmic Quake*
Robert J. Caldwell, editorial page editor of The Oregonian, dies*
Oregon paper publishes embarrassing correction after editor found dead in sex act*

Federal Prisoners in WV Test MP3 Player Program
from wtrf.com: Hundreds of female inmates at a federal prison in West Virginia are testing a program to bring the quality of entertainment behind bars into the 21st century. More than 400 inmates have spent about $70 apiece to buy MP3 players from the commissary in the Federal Prison Camp at Alderson. U.S. Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Traci Billingsley says the program is essentially a technology update because inmates have been able to buy radios for decades. If it works in West Virginia, it will be rolled out to other federal facilities in late spring or early summer. Billingsley says keeping inmates occupied helps promote safety, particularly in overcrowded prisons where stress, conflict and the risk of violence is high.

Related WV Worry:
West Virginia Passes Texting Ban*
W.Va. unemployment climbs to 8.2 percent*
Eight Years After Abu Ghraib, Lynndie England's Not Doing So Well*
Flashback: Bayer plant still home to MIC stockpile / MIC killed thousands in Bhopal*

biowars/envirohealth: spilling, sinkhole & sickened

bp commands govt to strangle off media coverage of oil gusher*
news networks say access to oil spill ’slowly being strangled off'*
obama sends bomb, mars experts to fix bp oil spill*
gulf oil spill: 'this disaster just got enormously worse'*
video: browner says bp has 'financial interest’ in downplaying spill size*
video: energy expert says nuking oil leak 'only thing we can do'*
30 shocking quotes about spill that reveal the soul-crushing horror this disaster is causing*
physics professor: oil leak could last for years*
bp cited for more than a spill or leak a day in the US for the last 20yrs*
US launches criminal investigation into oil spill*
goldman sachs sold $250m of bp stock before spill*
video: filmmaker spike lee states the obvious: bp in cahoots with govt*
concerns over another bp oil rig in the gulf*
gulf oil spill solution restores environment in just 6 weeks*
a hole in the bottom of the ocean*
bp chief tony hayward sold shares weeks before oil spill*
evidence points to bp oil spill false flag?*
bp, with government support, hid videos showing size of oil spill*
oblivious to oil in mississippi, possible troops in louisiana*
video: bp continues to deny oil plumes exist*
marine techie: end gulf oil spill with 'mother of all bombs'*
US names 13 countries, plus un which have offered oil aid*
senate hearing disrupted as woman pours liquid on self*
witness statement says bosses knew gulf oil rig disaster was 'gonna happen': report*

biowars/envirohealth: infection, detection, pollution

obama to crush economy with massive co2 taxes next week*
dr jack cassell refuses to treat obama supporters*
pfizer ordered to pay up over 'aids-like' virus infections*
pfizer's bad week: kickbacks, whistleblowers & doctors on the payroll*
bayer beats out exxon for most toxic corporate air polluter title*
bacteria detection is anti-terror effort*
pentagon beefs up biosecurity*
government may have to waste millions of h1n1 vaccines*
tularemia detected in ohio air*
nasa getting $2.4b for climate change research*
baja earthquake upgraded to 7.2 magnitude*
major earthquake strikes sumatra, indonesia*
anthrax scare leads to evacuation of 2 texas schools*
genetically engineered 'enviropig' waiting for approval in US & canada*

biowars/envirohealth: babies, bayer & synthetic organisms

video: the government has your baby's dna*
mass vaccination planned in haiti, death toll continues way up*
mumps outbreak spreads among people who got vaccinated against mumps
bayer to pay $1.5m in 2nd lawsuit over gm rice*
anthrax warnings for uk heroin users*
pentagon plans to create immortal 'synthetic organisms'*
illinois earthquake downgraded to 3.8*
hell freezes over: dc knocked out cold by record snow*

biowars/swine flu updates: 2nd wave, big shots, bayer & the bees

second wave of swine flu pandemic begins to hit US*
strip club gives seniors a shot in the arm*
seasonal flu shot may increase h1n1 risk*
washington state lifts limit on mercury preservative in swine-flu shots*
video: doctor says h1n1 vaccine has high levels of squalene*
senators turn back id requirement for immigrant healthcare*
uk girl dies after receiving cervical cancer vaccine*
ramsey county, minnesota holds mass vaccination drill 'operation big shot'*
military to get mandatory swine flu shots soon*
dr adrian gibbs: swine flu virus created from pig vaccine?*
new film blames bayer for plight of honey bees*
critics say pandemic emergency bill tramples privacy rights*
canada will protect gsk, swine flu vaccine maker, from lawsuits*
santa clara county declares state of emergency for h1n1*
video: new york health care workers in revolt*

bayer pesticide factory explosion in west virginia kills 1

from ap: Federal officials are investigating the cause of a plant explosion that rocked an area west of Charleston, hurling a fireball hundreds of feet into the air, killing one worker and injuring a second.

Among many other chemicals, the Bayer CropScience plant produces methyl isocyanate, which killed at least 15,000 people in the infamous leak at a Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal, India in 1984. But the chemical was not involved in the explosion, Kanawha County Emergency Management Director Dale Petry said, and was stored in steel-wrapped underground containers that were far from the blast.

State Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman Kathy Cosco said the primary chemical involved, methyl isobutyl ketone, is highly flammable but not especially toxic.

"They have a lot of chemicals at the plant and they do take great steps to protect them," said Joe Thornton, spokesman for the state Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety. "I think everything that can be done to protect those chemicals is being done, and I think the public at large is safe."

...and remember, our nazi friends at bayer sold an hiv-contaminated vaccine called factor viii...