Democracy does have some negative policy externalities and perhaps the drought is having a mass effect on some otherwise quite progressive towns at the intersection of oil refineries and a terminus of the regional rapid transit line. Actually, if they'd reset all the targeting data for Ukiah, I'd certainly feel a lot better.
RICHMOND -- Richmond police have been inundated with calls for help from people who feel under attack from space-based weaponry because of a city council resolution passed last month, according to Mayor Tom Butt.
Councilwoman Jovanka Beckles introduced the Richmond resolution in support of a 2001 bill introduced by then-U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, in an effort to ensure that Richmond residents would not be targets of space-based weaponry, reports CBS San Francisco.
"It is imperative that Richmond adopt this resolution in effort to stand in solidarity with residents who claim to be under assault from space-based weapons that should be outlawed by the Space Preservation Act," Beckles said at the May 19 city council meeting, where the resolution passed 5-2.
Kucinich's resolution never passed, but versions of it referred to alleged technologies including chemtrails, particle beams, electromagnetic radiation, plasmas, extremely low-frequency or ultra high-frequency energy radiation and mind control technology.
Beckles said at the May 19 meeting that the resolution was intended to "include all of the things people are feeling the pressure of and feeling the attacks of."
Vice Mayor Jael Myrick said in a statement that he now regrets voting in favor of the resolution.
"It has become clear in the past two weeks that this resolution is being used by some to validate very dangerous conspiracy theories that may be having a real negative impact on the lives of people with serious mental illness and those around them," Myrick said.
The vagueness of what makes a weapon a weapon means that it is difficult to regulate their creation.
The only hard rules on space weapons were set forth in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, initially signed by the United States, United Kingdom, and former Soviet Union and now signed by about 100 nations. It holds that nations should strive to use outer space for “peaceful purposes” and may not launch nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit around the Earth, on the moon, or toward any other celestial body.
Attempts to beef up the rules have not been successful. Russia and China have drafted multiple versions of a treaty called, exhaustively, the Treaty on Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space and of the Threat or Use of Force Against Outer Space Objects, but the United States’ U.N. delegate voted against it in 2008, calling the treaty “a diplomatic ploy by [Russia and China] to gain a military advantage.”
When Russia and China submitted a revised version this summer, the U.S. rejected it again, this time saying the treaty doesn’t adequately define its terms and doesn’t effectively prevent the full range of possible weapons.