It is with heavy heart that I break this sad news about another death.
This will not be added to the official list of deaths, as it was “accidental”
One of the country’s leading cancer researchers was found dead in a rubber body suit in woodland in a “bizarre sex fetish”, an inquest heard today. Continue reading
These following doctors were not content with half-truths, propaganda, and lies. They did their own research. Continue reading
Antonio Ereditato, spokesman for the international group of researchers, said that measurements taken over three years showed neutrinos pumped from CERN near Geneva to Gran Sasso in Italy had arrived 60 nanoseconds quicker than light would have done.
There’s some debate over just how many planets our solar system has because Pluto never gets a break. But the argument is about to get a lot weirder with the announcement of a potential new planet circling the sun. Meet Planet Nine, the planet we didn’t know existed. Continue reading
Russia has developed and registered a highly-effective vaccine against the deadly Ebola virus, president Vladimir Putin said Wednesday.
“We have registered a vaccine against Ebola that shows, after a series of tests, a very high effectiveness, even higher than the vaccines currently used for Ebola treatment in the world,” Putin said at a meeting with Cabinet members. Continue reading
A study from the 1990s hascome to light, proving that compared to unvaccinated children, vaccinated children were more likely to suffer from asthma, eczema, ear infections, hyperactivity and many other chronic conditions.
Furthermore, the study identified that there was a ten-fold increase in the incidence of tonsillitis in the children who were vaccinated, and a total lack tonsillectomy operations among the children who were unvaccinated.
For millennia, our ancestors have enjoyed, and even regarded as sacred, a variety of mind-altering substances. Cultural artifacts, visionary artwork and rituals in many indigenous cultures and past civilizations point to this fact. As Ethan Nadelmann remarked in a recent TED talk, “Our desire to alter our consciousness may be as fundamental as our desires for food, companionship, and sex.” Continue reading
A quarter of Americans surveyed could not correctly answer that the Earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around, according to a report out Friday from the National Science Foundation.
The survey of 2,200 people in the United States was conducted by the NSF in 2012 and released on Friday at an annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago. Continue reading
Nestled in the hills of Appalachia (Eastern United States), nearly hidden from the rest of the world, the Institute of BioAcoustic Biology and Sound Health quietly goes about changing the future; and the quality of life for those who live on this planet.
This tiny non-profit research institute has provided supporting evidence for the ancient claims that the sounds of the voice can act as a holographic representation of health and wellness.
Scientifically, Sound Health has proven that people with similar diseases, toxicities, syndromes, traumas…have similar, if not identical, vocal anomalies; and that information can be used to support optimal form and function.
Water is one of our most precious and neglected natural resources. Without an abundant water supply life as we know would not exist. Everyday we take for granted the fact that we turn on the faucet and an unlimited supply of blue gold is delivered to our door step. Continue reading
Truthstream Media – by Aaron Dykes
At least he certainly OUGHT to have known that oral polio vaccines were discontinued in the U.S. due to their known contribution to vaccine-derived paralysis. Continue reading
Dr. Diane Harper was the lead researcher in the development of the human papilloma virus vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix. She is the latest to come forward and question the safety and effectiveness of these vaccines. Continue reading
In another blow and contradiction to mainstream scientific claims which consistently report that Cannabis causes brain damage, a recent study shows the opposite. Continue reading
The average person that consents to a vaccine injection, either for themselves or for their children, genuinely believes it is for the betterment of health. What they are not aware of is that even their doctor is likely unfamiliar with the toxic ingredients contained in vaccines which can immediately begin to degrade both short- and long-term health. If your doctor insists that vaccines are safe, then they should have absolutely no problem in signing this form so that you may archive it for your own records on the event of an adverse reaction. Continue reading
Despite new findings that prove a heightened crisis in US bee populations and a recent ban in Europe on similar chemical applications, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has decided to further endanger the population Monday by approving a “highly toxic” new pesticide.
The “EPA continues to put industry interests first to exacerbate an already dire pollinator crisis,” writes the group Beyond Pesticides.
The agency granted sulfoxaflor, a product of the Dow Chemical Company, “unconditional registration” for use on vegetables, fruits, barley, canola, ornamentals, soybeans and wheat among others, despite the EPA’s own classification of the insecticide as “highly toxic to honey bees.”
According to the Washington Examiner, the EPA’s studies on the chemical’s long-term effect on bees proved to be “inconclusive due to some issues with the study designs” and thus the EPA has proposed simply reducing the amount applied.
As part of their decision, the EPA approved new language for the sulfoxaflor labels which reads, “Do not apply this product at any time between 3 days prior to bloom and until after petal fall,” during heightened pollinator activity.
Further, they approved an additional ‘advisory pollinator statement’:
Notifying known beekeepers within 1 mile of the treatment area 48 hours before the product is applied will allow them to take additional steps to protect their bees. Also limiting application to times when managed bees and native pollinators are least active, e.g., before 7 am or after 7pm local time or when temperature is below 55oF at the site of application, will minimize risk to bees.
Though the EPA believes this advisory to be “robust” enough to protect pollinators, environmental advocacy groups such as Beyond Pesticides believe such statements “not only underscore the risks to bees” but prove to be unrealistic since systemic pesticides, including sulfoxaflor, “continue to exist in the plant (including pollen and nectar) for longer periods of time that well surpasses the recommended application intervals, and therefore expose bees to residues longer than suggested.”
And, in addition to harming bees, sulfoxaflor has been known to cause tumors and carcinomas in mice and rats and has been classified as “suggestive evidence of carcinogenic potential.”
Dismissing these concerns, the EPA alternately points to the “need for sulfoxaflor by industry and agriculture groups to control insects no longer being controlled by increasingly ineffective pesticide technologies,” proving the ongoing and harmful nature of unsustainable techniques such as pesticide sprays.
Following Europe’s announcement that they would suspend the use of bee-harming neonicotinoids in an effort to combat the rampant colony collapse crisis, many hoped the US would announce similar reforms.
However, following this week’s announcement, groups say it is clear the EPA will continue pursue an “irresponsible” and “counter-intuitive” agenda in regards to bee health and the environment.
The list of antidepressants that can cause sudden death is growing exponentially, with citalopram - under the brand names Celexa and Cipramil - the latest such drug to be added, according to a new study.
The research, published recently in the British Medical Journal, revealed that the drug tends to cause a lengthening of the Q-T interval, a part of the cycle of heart beat measured by an electrocardiogram, or what is more commonly known as an EKG or ECG. Indeed, a number of drugs are known for creating this phenomenon, the most notable among them being methadone, which has been documented as causing sudden death in some patients, especially when dosages are increased too rapidly.
“There are no symptoms indicating a risk. A perfectly normal person will literally drop dead,” writes Heidi Stevenson at GaiaHealth.com.
A silent killer
The heartbeat is regulated by a series of electrical pulses, and key points of the pattern printed on an EKG are labeled P, Q, R, S, T. If the time between the Q and T waves is lengthened, it is referred to as “Q-T elongation,” or a prolonged Q-T segment; the only way to know if it is occurring; however, is with an EKG.
“There are generally no external clues, so outside of testing, you would have no way of knowing that you’ve been affected,” Stevenson writes.
Researchers, in their report, were specific about the risk of sudden death associated with Celexa; the larger the dose, the greater the risk. Also, they noted that the Food and Drug Administration has said, “Citalopram causes dose-dependent QT interval prolongation. Citalopram should no longer be prescribed at doses greater than 40 mg per day.”
That claim is supported in Medscape’s drug reference for citalopram. “Doses above 40 mg/day are not recommended because of risk for QT prolongation without additional benefit for treating depression,” says the reference.
In performing their study, researchers examined 38,397 adults who were either taking an antidepressant or methadone at some time between February 1990 and August 2011, a period of more than two decades. Antidepressants taken during that period by the patients involved in the study include citalopram (Celexa), escitalopram (Lexapro), fluoxetine (Prozac), paroxetine (Paxil), sertraline (Zoloft), amitriptyline, bupropion (Zyban), duloxetine (Cymbalta), mirtazapine (Remeron), nortriptyline, and venlafaxine (Effexor).
Each participant received an EKG 14-90 days after they had taken their prescribed medication. Researchers found that all antidepressants affect the A-T interval in some manner, though methadone affected it more significantly by a great amount.
In one drug, however - bupropion (Zyban) - had the opposite effect. The Q-T interval was shortened. But a shorter Q-T interval, by comparison, can also cause heart arrhythmias and fainting, conditions which can also lead to sudden death.
Earlier research found a similar connection
The worst antidepressants - those which lengthened the Q-T interval the most, on average - were citalopram (Celexa), escitalopram (Lexapro), and amitriptyline, researchers said. Overall, one in five subjects taking these drugs experienced abnormal EKGs, and specifically longer Q-T intervals. Researchers said the clinical significance of these findings; however, is as yet unknown.
Writes Stevenson:
We do know that an extended QT interval can result in sudden death. In reality, this doesn’t happen often - though no one can quantify the frequency of death. So, it seems that the only ethical approach is to inform people of the potential risk of sudden death by taking these drugs.
But we already know that genuine informed consent almost never happens. People are routinely told that the risk is minimal and the specifics are not stated. Ultimately, though, the only one who lives the results are the person inside your own skin.
Earlier research also found that antidepressants caused a lengthening of the Q-T interval. In 2004, Dr. Dan M. Roden, of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, writing in The New England Journal of Medicine, said that, in the previous decade, “the single most common cause of the withdrawal or restriction of the use of drugs that have already been marketed has been the prolongation of the QT interval,” which can be “fatal.”
Sources:
http://reference.medscape.com/drug/celexa-citalopram-342958
http://www.courses.ahc.umn.edu
http://www.naturalnews.com/040433_antidepressants_sudden_death_drug_list.html#ixzz2U2PsKXPP
It’s not a done deal, but Vermont took the first step toward legally requiring the labeling of foods that have been genetically modified.
Although the Vermont House moved the legislation one step toward becoming law last week, the GMO industry is fighting it tooth and nail, threatening lawsuits right and left. As a recent Truthout article noted,“Monsanto Threatens to Sue Vermont Over GMO Labeling Bill.”
The threat of legal action by multi-billion dollar corporations who are acquiring a monopoly on patented genetically modified food lets states like Vermont know that they will spend unlimited amounts of money on litigation, thus striking fear in state legislators who are worried about economically fragile budgets. As a May 13th Grist article quotes an NPR report:
No representatives on Thursday argued against the concept of more transparent food labeling. The most frequent point of opposition voiced on the floor concerned a likely lawsuit from the biotech or food industries that the Attorney General’s Office estimates could cost the state more than $5 million.
Grist comments on this argument in relation to a failed proposition in California:
A ballot initiative that would have required GMO labels in California was defeated last year after Monsanto and other corporations spent nearly $50 million on ads opposing it. A national GMO-labeling bill was introduced recently in Congress, but it has little to no chance of becoming law./Vermont House members caved a little in not requiring that milk or meat, for example, that come from animals who have been fed GMO’s be labeled as a concession to the behemoth genetically modified food industry. But it would require all food that contains GMO ingredients or is from a genetically engineered animal (salmon, for instance) be labeled as such.
So what would the Vermont bill accomplish?
Grist puts it succintly:
Most of the corn, soy, and sugar beets grown in the U.S. are genetically modified, and they’re widely used in processed foods. But shoppers who want to avoid them have no good way of doing so. Requiring food manufacturers to label genetically modified foods would allow people to say “no” to such products.
Transparency in knowing what we are eating: isn’t it a basic right to be given full information on what we put into our bodies? Monsanto and the other GMO giants are rightfully fearful that people will avoid genetically engineered food in large numbers and hurt their profits. But health and personal choice come before hiding the truth, stock prices, share holder dividends and executive compensation.
The lopsided (107-37) passage of the genetically modified foods labeling bill in the Vermont House joins other state victories on progressive issues that BuzzFlash at Truthout has recently highlighted. These include Minnesota becoming the 12th State to legalize same-sex marriage and the Vermont Senate voting to back abolishing any claim to legal corporate personhood.
What this means is that state-by-state activists are making headway on progressive issues becoming law, advancing crucial public policy as Washington remains grid locked. State elected holders are generally more responsive to local constituents because of the smaller size of their districts. Money still has a very large impact on state legislatures – to be sure – but less so on social issues than in the nation’s capital.
Is this cause for a moment of celebration? Yes, it proves that the logjam of backwards-looking policies can be broken.
Moreover, it’s a call to activists to dig in for a long slog. With hard disciplined efforts, victories can be won.
You won’t believe how much….well, you probably will believe it after all you’ve seen from these insane people, though Joe Romm’s Soros funded Climate Progress has no problem with the wasted money, as the writer, Brad Johnson, discusses
On Friday, the City of New York allocated $294 million of Superstorm Sandy recovery funds for resiliencyprojects to respond to the threat of fossil-fueled climate change.
(From the press release) The City has set aside $294 million for resiliency investments to be detailed in a report issued by the Special Initiative for Rebuilding and Resiliency later this month.
“HUD’s approval of our comprehensive Action Plan enables us to take the next critical step toward recovery – launching the programs for home rebuilding and business assistance that will rejuvenate the neighborhoods Sandy hit hardest,” said Deputy Mayor for Operations Cas Holloway. “We’ll also take the first steps toward making the City more resilient to the impacts that we know climate change will bring.”
What this looks like is more planning sessions, reports, spreading awareness, and all sorts of measures which won’t actually Do Something, but will also surely increase thecost of living in NYC, all for something that may or may not happen naturally in the far future, instead of spending the money to directly help the citizens of NYC.
BEIJING/LONDON – Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu slammed Prof. Stephen Hawking for joining the boycott against Israel and cancelling plans to attend President Shimon Peres’s conference next month, saying the celebrated physicist should “study the facts.”
Asked by The Jerusalem Post about Hawking’s boycott at a press briefing, Netanyahu said, “He should investigate the truth, he is a scientist. He should study the facts and draw the necessary conclusions: Israel is an island of reason, moderation and a desire for peace.”
Netanyahu said that Hawking knows that there are many false theories in science. “There are also false theories in politics, and this [the slandering of Israel] is one of them, maybe the foremost among them,” he said. “There is no state that yearns for peace more than Israel, nor any state that has done more for peace than Israel.”
One official in the prime minister’s entourage went even further, comparing Hawking to Shakespeare and Voltaire, both of whom held anti-Semitic sentiments.
“History shows that there are people who are no less great than Hawking who believed things about Jews that it was impossible to imagine they actually believed,” he said. “I am talking about Voltaire, or Shakespeare. How do you explain that someone with the encyclopedic knowledge of Voltaire believed what he did about the Jews. How can you explain it? But it is a fact.”
Apparently, the official continued, “intelligence and achievements are no guarantee for understanding the truth about the Jews or their state.
What was true regarding Jews for generations, is now true about the state of the Jews.”
Meanwhile questions have been asked as to why Hawkins felt it fit to visit Iran in 2007 and China in 2006.
Left-wing political blog Left Foot Forward, sister-site of the US blog Think Progress, questioned why Hawking visited China “where some of the most visible and egregious human rights violations committed by the Chinese state have occurred” and were highlighted by Human Rights Watch several years before his visit.
Commenting on Iran, the blog said: “As far as I am aware, there was no statement at the time from Hawking refusing to travel to the Islamic Republic out of “respect” for the country’s political dissidents, or until the government stopped executing homosexuals.”
In summary, Left Foot Forward said: “Is Israel uniquely bad, or has hypocrisy towards the Jewish state become so widely accepted among some progressives that even an eminent scholar like Hawking is susceptible to hypocritical and lazy double standards?”
Cambridge University said on Thursday that The Jerusalem Post was the catalyst behind the decision to retract its statement about Hawking’s ill health and confirm what was really behind his decision to withdraw from next month’s Presidents of Major American Jewish Communities Conference.
On Wednesday morning the university had released a statement saying the renowned physicist pulled out of the Jerusalem event because of ill health.
“Professor Hawking has decided to cancel his planned visit to Israel on the advice of doctors,” the spokesman said.
Later that day, the university retracted this after the Postshowed proof that Hawking had told organizers of the June 18-20 conference that pressure from Palestinian academics made him withdraw.
“I have received a number of emails from Palestinian academics,” Hawking said in the letter. “They are unanimous that I should respect the boycott. In view of this I must withdraw from the conference.”
When this was put to Tim Holt, acting director of communications at Cambridge, he was surprised and said he would look into it. Hours later, the university retracted its statement and confirmed that Hawking withdrew in order to respect the boycott.
“We had understood previously that his decision was based purely on health grounds, having been advised by doctors not to fly,” Holt said. On Thursday, Holt said that the information from the letter provided by the Post had made them amend their position.
“When we realized that the letter was being made public by you [the Post] we changed the statement to reflect this.
Prof. Hawking’s health is a factor and his doctors have indeed instructed that he should not travel,” he said.
Well, looks like so far that “me tel u” was right after all
http://quakes.globalincidentmap.com/
Iran, Papua New Guinea And Oklahoma Earthquakes 2013: Multiple Quakes Shake The World
Earthquakes shook widely separated parts of the world Tuesday.
A 6.6 magnitude earthquake hit Papua New Guinea Tuesday night, with the state of Oklahoma experiencing unprecedented seismic action for the area during the same period, according to the United States Geological Survey. Iran also felt a 7.8 quake that injured many people on Tuesday, the USGS said.
A tsunami warning has not been issued for Papua New Guinea, where residents are used to quakes due to their close proximity to the Pacific “Ring of Fire.” There have yet to be any reports of injuries or fatalities as a result of the quake.
A magnitude-4.3 earthquake shook Oklahoma early Tuesday, the United States Geological Survey reported.
The quake struck at 12:56 a.m. local time (1:56 a.m. ET) around 30 miles northeast of Oklahoma City. It was measured at a depth of 3.1 miles, the USGS said.
A small earthquake of magnitude 3.0 preceded the temblor, and two small tremors with magnitudes of 2.8 and 3.3 rattled nearby within 20 minutes of the initial quake.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/16/17773446-series-of-earthquakes-shakes-oklahoma?lite
Yes, very unusual, as per USGS since yesterday we had 9 earthquakes 5.0+
5.1 19km SW of Yuhu, China 2013-04-17 01:46:02 26.004°N 99.830°E 55.0
6.6 23km ESE of Aitape, Papua New Guinea 2013-04-16 22:55:27 3.218°S 142.543°E 13.0
5.0 87km SE of Muara Siberut, Indonesia 2013-04-16 18:22:29 2.192°S 99.729°E 27.8
5.2 72km S of Kotaagung, Indonesia 2013-04-16 11:26:06 6.140°S 104.734°E 52.9
7.8 83km E of Khash, Iran 2013-04-16 10:44:20 28.107°N 62.053°E 82.0
5.6 125km WSW of Panguna, Papua New Guinea 2013-04-16 10:00:24 6.652°S 154.405°E 10.0
5.0 125km SSW of Lata, Solomon Islands 2013-04-16 09:05:28 11.702°S 165.254°E 10.0
5.3 52km SSW of Motuo, China 2013-04-16 08:34:12 28.874°N 95.115°E 31.7
5.0 32km SSE of Tondano, Indonesia 2013-04-16 03:48:44 1.048°N 125.059°E 87.0
Just to quote thou, Feb 8/9/10 were also very active days. Feb-8 we had this:
5.5 103km ESE of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.0 22km SSW of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.0 23km SSE of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.2 26km SSE of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.1 29km SE of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.3 14km E of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.7 77km ESE of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.8 77km W of Panguna, Papua New Guinea
5.1 46km WSW of Lata, Solomon Islands
7.1 31km SE of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.2 29km S of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.2 27km S of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.3 43km S of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.1 32km SSE of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.0 24km SE of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.0 23km SSE of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.1 25km SSE of Lata, Solomon Islands
6.8 21km SSE of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.5 121km W of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.2 34km SSW of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.5 35km S of Lata, Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands were shaking like jelly in a roller-coaster cart that day. The next day it wasn’t so different:
5.2 14km SSE of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.5 22km SSE of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.1 30km SSW of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.3 30km S of Lata, Solomon Islands
6.6 25km S of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.2 15km S of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.0 110km SSW of Lata, Solomon Islands
6.9 2km N of Yacuanquer, Colombia
5.0 39km SSW of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.1 130km S of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.4 60km SSW of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.0 152km SSW of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.5 23km SE of Lata, Solomon Islands
5.0 26km SE of Iwaki, Japan
Not so significant, but just now a 4.4 in Japan:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usb000g8qq#summary
Today’s quakes so far(7:55 am):
Mag. Location
5.7 107km E of Khash, Iran
5.6 25km WSW of Miura, Japan
5.6 209km W of Abepura, Indonesia
5.1 8km NNW of Linao, Philippines
5.1 19km SW of Yuhu, China
5.0 47km NNE of Yonakuni, Japan
4.9 42km N of Yonakuni, Japan
4.9 55km NNE of Yonakuni, Japan
4.9 47km NNE of Yonakuni, Japan
4.8 116km E of Khash, Iran
4.7 26km WSW of Darapidap, Philippines
4.7 42km N of Yonakuni, Japan
4.7 39km NNE of Yonakuni, Japan
4.7 57km NE of Yonakuni, Japan
4.7 59km NE of Yonakuni, Japan
4.6 56km NE of Yonakuni, Japan
4.6 West Chile Rise
4.5 62km ENE of Yonakuni, Japan
4.4 57km NE of Yonakuni, Japan
4.4 82km SSE of Shimoda, Japan
4.2 12km NNE of Ishigaki, Japan
4.1 9km SW of Alberto Oviedo Mota, Mexico
3.2 5km ESE of Luther, Oklahoma
2.7 68km WSW of Middleton Island, Alaska
2.6 67km WSW of Cordova, Alaska
2.5 51km SSE of Lone Pine, California
Well, that’s all I see in official USGS site. There are some more, I’ll post as soon as they have increased in number.
A report by Jeremy Scahill in The Nation (Blackwater’s Black Ops, 9/15/2010) revealed that the largest mercenary army in the world, Blackwater (now called Xe Services) clandestine intelligence services was sold to the multinational Monsanto. Blackwater was renamed in 2009 after becoming famous in the world with numerous reports of abuses in Iraq, including massacres of civilians. It remains the largest private contractor of the U.S. Department of State “security services,” that practices state terrorism by giving the government the opportunity to deny it.
Many military and former CIA officers work for Blackwater or related companies created to divert attention from their bad reputation and make more profit selling their nefarious services-ranging from information and intelligence to infiltration, political lobbying and paramilitary training – for other governments, banks and multinational corporations. According to Scahill, business with multinationals, like Monsanto, Chevron, and financial giants such as Barclays and Deutsche Bank, are channeled through two companies owned by Erik Prince, owner of Blackwater: Total Intelligence Solutions and Terrorism Research Center. These officers and directors share Blackwater.
One of them, Cofer Black, known for his brutality as one of the directors of the CIA, was the one who made contact with Monsanto in 2008 as director of Total Intelligence, entering into the contract with the company to spy on and infiltrate organizations of animal rights activists, anti-GM and other dirty activities of the biotech giant.
Contacted by Scahill, the Monsanto executive Kevin Wilson declined to comment, but later confirmed to The Nation that they had hired Total Intelligence in 2008 and 2009, according to Monsanto only to
keep track of “public disclosure” of its opponents. He also said that Total Intelligence was a “totally separate entity from Blackwater.”
However, Scahill has copies of emails from Cofer Black after the meeting with Wilson for Monsanto, where he explains to other former CIA agents, using their Blackwater e-mails, that the discussion with Wilson was that Total Intelligence had become “Monsanto’s intelligence arm,” spying on activists and other actions, including “our people to legally integrate these groups.” Total Intelligence Monsanto paid $ 127,000 in 2008 and $ 105,000 in 2009.
No wonder that a company engaged in the “science of death” as Monsanto, which has been dedicated from the outset to produce toxic poisons spilling from Agent Orange to PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), pesticides, hormones and genetically modified seeds, is associated with another company of thugs.
Almost simultaneously with the publication of this article in The Nation, the Via Campesina reported the purchase of 500,000 shares of Monsanto, for more than $23 million by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which with this action completed the outing of the mask of “philanthropy.” Another association that is not surprising.
It is a marriage between the two most brutal monopolies in the history of industrialism: Bill Gates controls more than 90 percent of the market share of proprietary computing and Monsanto about 90 percent of the global transgenic seed market and most global commercial seed. There does not exist in any other industrial sector monopolies so vast, whose very existence is a negation of the vaunted principle of “market competition” of capitalism. Both Gates and Monsanto are very aggressive in defending their ill-gotten monopolies.
Although Bill Gates might try to say that the Foundation is not linked to his business, all it proves is the opposite: most of their donations end up favoring the commercial investments of the tycoon, not really “donating” anything, but instead of paying taxes to the state coffers, he invests his profits in where it is favorable to him economically, including propaganda from their supposed good intentions. On the contrary, their “donations” finance projects as destructive as geoengineering or replacement of natural community medicines for high-tech patented medicines in the poorest areas of the world. What a coincidence, former Secretary of Health Julio Frenk and Ernesto Zedillo are advisers of the Foundation.
Like Monsanto, Gates is also engaged in trying to destroy rural farming worldwide, mainly through the “Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa” (AGRA). It works as a Trojan horse to deprive poor African farmers of their traditional seeds, replacing them with the seeds of their companies first, finally by genetically modified (GM). To this end, the Foundation hired Robert Horsch in 2006, the director of Monsanto. Now Gates, airing major profits, went straight to the source.
Blackwater, Monsanto and Gates are three sides of the same figure: the war machine on the planet and most people who inhabit it, are peasants, indigenous communities, people who want to share information and knowledge or any other who does not want to be in the aegis of profit and the destructiveness of capitalism.
* The author is a researcher at ETC Group
As details emerge about the Texas fertilizer plant that was the site of Wednesday’s fatal explosion and fire, a few tidbits can be gleaned from a 2007 lawsuit that the plant’s owners filed against agribusiness giant Monsanto Co.
The suit, filed as a potential class action in U.S. District Court for the western district of Texas, claimed that Monsanto had artificially inflated prices for its herbicide Roundup through anti-competitive actions. The suit did not relate to storing fertilizer, believed to be at the root of Wednesday’s blast.
The suit was filed by Texas Grain Storage Inc. The company now calls itself West Fertilizer Co.
In the suit, the company said that it was started in 1957 as a grain-storage business by the Plasek family in the town of West, Texas. It later built a small fertilizer-blend plant and started selling fertilizer to area farmers.
Zak Covar, executive director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, told a news conference Wednesday that the fertilizer storage and blending facility had been there since 1962.
Transition towns are a movement modeled after the UN’s Agenda 21 to create communities that adhere to the initiative that center around reducing CO2 emissions.
Under the alarmist perspective of man-made climate change, founders Rob Hopkins and Naresh Giangrande created the Transition Model based on studies conducted by Ben Brangwyn on global relocalization agendas.
At an initial Transition Bristol meeting in the UK, the Tudor Trust began funding this initiative. This led to the creation of the Transition Initiatives Primer , an explanatory guide to the scheme and fake grassroots groups who coerced communities into adopting the plan.
Transition Initiatives were created in Australia, Canada, England, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, USA, and Wales. Training courses have been developed to ensure that this ideal becomes a global movement. Issues under Transition Initiatives governance are food production, manipulation techniques in dealing with local governments, sustainable housing, reduction of public energy consumption, adaptation of communities to resemble transition cities and control over local economies.
A propaganda film entitled In Transition 1.0 was produced with the global audience in mind, giving more credence to this UN takeover of our local communities.
Groups like the West Coast Environmental Law (WCEL) have been pushing for Transition Towns for several years. In British Columbia alone, they have begun to take root in Victoria , Vancouver ,Nelson , Salt Spring, Powell River and the Cowichan Valley.
The Green Communities Program has help spread the propaganda of SmartGrowth ideology through SmartGrowth BC and the SmartGrowth Bylaws Guide a marketing tract on British Columbia bylaws that support UN Agenda 21.
The dangers that Transition Towns impose on our sovereignty and individuality are:
• They refocus town planning and infrastructure on implementation of Agenda 21
• They appear to be grassroots operations
• They promote the Peak Oil mythology as an energy scare-tactic
• They support SmarthGrowth which is code for Agenda 21
• They aspire to control framing, disburse ability to farm, and pressure governmental policies on farming that reflect Agenda 21
• Use the hoax of man-made climate change as the purpose for imposing policy control by building cities that are designed to reduce carbon emissions
• Securitize local food stores, businesses, healthcare and fuel
• Ensure SmarthGrowth controls all citizens ability to acquire any needs for human survival
• Create internal advocacies that band together to purvey Transition Town propaganda to elected officials and local governments
By working on the ground level, Transition Towns can over take states and nations quicker than funneling through the bureaucracy of national governments.
To anticipate any problems, this movement has secured a legion of lawyers to be hired at the whim of the Environmental Dispute Resolution Fund , a WCEL “society” developed to infuse the court system with legal disputes to intimidate lawmakers into submitting to their “suggestions”. They impose “identifying structures and rules that encourage . . . favored strategies” as defined by the Transition Town movement.
By erecting a parallel structure to the local governments in place, that can ensure authorization by those local government through time honored and patient hounding of officials in community meetings where they use the Delphi Technique to coerce innocent citizens into backing their agendas. In this way, at community meetings the “grassroots” advocates of Transition Towns can assume a false devil’s advocate position and divide and conquer the attendees at the meetings to ensure their desired outcome is supported by the end of the meeting.
In the end places like Victoria are being over-run by the Transition Town movement which has convinced the Victoria City Council to send a bill to the taxpayers for an estimated $140,000 to influence and network a fake organic movement with the assistance of the Occupy Movement in Victoria, BC.
This is why the UN Agenda 21 is so insidious. It attacks at the local level, getting the citizens of these towns and cities to fight for its implementation; all the while hiding its true nature.
The future of our world under Agenda 21 means buffer zones, areas designated inhabitable for humans in the name of biodiversity and the securitization of all resources need for base human survival. And the UN will be at the helm.
This is the dream of the global Elite.
http://www.occupycorporatism.com/transition-towns-agenda-21-comes-to-life/
Hundreds of people are feared dead as a massive earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale rocked Iran on Tuesday.
As per the US Geological Survey, the quake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale had its epicentre on the Iran-Pakistan border at a depth of 15.2 kilometres. It was located 86 kilometres east-southeast of the Iranian city of Khash.
A government officials told a news agency that “it was the biggest earthquake in 40 years and we are expecting hundreds of dead”.
There are no further details of the extent of the damage. The rescue teams are being sent to the quake stricken areas.
The quake was felt in Iran, Pakistan and a major part of West Asia.
At least 37 people were killed and 850 wounded when a 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit south-west Iran on April 10.
A leaked study examining genetically-modified corn reveals that the lab-made alternative to organic crops contains a startling level of toxic chemicals.
An anti-GMO website has posted the results of an education-based consulting company’s comparison of corn types, and the results reveal that genetically modified foods may be more hazardous than once thought.
The study, the 2012 Corn Comparison Report by Profit Pro, was published recently on the website for Moms Across America March to Label GMOs, a group that says they wish to “raise awareness and support Moms with solutions to eat GMO Free as we demand GMO labeling locally and nationally simultaneously.” They are plotting nationwide protests scheduled for later this year.
The report, writes the website’s Zen Honeycutt, was provided by a representative for De Dell Seed Company, an Ontario-based farm that’s touted as being Canadian only non-GMO corn seed company.
“The claims that ‘There is no difference between GMO corn and NON Gmo corn’ are false,” says Honeycutt, who adds she was “floored” after reading the study.
According to the analysis, GMO corn tested by Profit Pro contains a number of elements absent from traditional cord, including chlorides, formaldehyde and glyphosate. While those elements don’t appear naturally in corn, they were present in GMO samples to the tune of 60 ppm, 200pm and 13 ppm, respectively.
Honecutt says that the United States Environmental Protection Agency (FDA) mandates that the level of glyphosate in American drinking water not exceed 0.7 ppm and adds that organ damage in some animals has been linked to glyphosate exposure exceeding 0.1 ppm.
“Glyphosate is a strong organic phosphate chelator that immobilizes positively charged minerals such as manganese, cobalt, iron, zinc [and] copper,” Dr. Don Huber attested during a separate GMO study recently released, adding that those elements “are essential for normal physiological functions in soils, plants and animals.”
“Glyphosate draws out the vital nutrients of living things and GMO corn is covered with it,” adds Honeycutt, who notes that the nutritional benefits rampant in natural corn are almost entirely removed from lab-made seeds: in the samples used during the study, non-GMO corn is alleged to have 437-times the amount of calcium in genetically modified versions, and 56- and 7-times the level of magnesium and manganese, respectively.
These studies come on the heels of a recent decision on Capitol Hill to approve an annual agriculture appropriations bill, even though a provision within the act contained a rider that frees GMO corporations such as the multi-billion-dollar Monsanto Company from liability. The so-called “Monsanto Protection Act,” written by a lawmaker that has lobbied for the agra-giant, says biotech companies won’t need federal approval to test and plant GMO-crops, even if health risks are unknown.
“The provision would strip federal courts of the authority to halt the sale and planting of an illegal, potentially hazardous GE crop while the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) assesses those potential hazards,” reads a letter to the House of Representatives that was delivered to Congress last month with the signatures of dozens of food businesses and retailers, as well as interest groups and agencies representing family farmers. “Further, it would compel USDA to allow continued planting of that same crop upon request, even if in the course of its assessment the Department finds that it poses previously unrecognized risks.”
Civilian Cancer Deaths Expected to Skyrocket Following Radiological Incidents
The White House has given final approval for dramatically raising permissible radioactive levels in drinking water and soil following “radiological incidents,” such as nuclear power-plant accidents and dirty bombs. The final version, slated for Federal Register publication as soon as today, is a win for the nuclear industry which seeks what its proponents call a “new normal” for radiation exposure among the U.S population, according Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).
Issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, the radiation guides (called Protective Action Guides or PAGs) allow cleanup many times more lax than anything EPA has ever before accepted. These guides govern evacuations, shelter-in-place orders, food restrictions and other actions following a wide range of “radiological emergencies.” The Obama administration blocked a version of these PAGs from going into effect during its first days in office. The version given approval late last Friday is substantially similar to those proposed under Bush but duck some of the most controversial aspects:
In soil, the PAGs allow long-term public exposure to radiation in amounts as high as 2,000 millirems. This would, in effect, increase a longstanding 1 in 10,000 person cancer rate to a rate of 1 in 23 persons exposed over a 30-year period;
“This is a public health policy only Dr. Strangelove could embrace. If this typifies the environmental leadership we can expect from Ms. McCarthy, then EPA is in for a long, dirty slog,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that the EPA package lacks a cogent rationale, is largely impenetrable and hinges on a series of euphemistic “weasel words.”
“No compelling justification is offered for increasing the cancer deaths of Americans innocently exposed to corporate miscalculations several hundred-fold.”
Reportedly, the PAGs had been approved last fall but their publication was held until after the presidential election. The rationale for timing their release right before McCarthy’s confirmation hearing is unclear.
Since the PAGs guide agency decision-making and do not formally set standards or repeal statutory requirements, such as the Safe Drinking Water Act and Superfund, they will go into full effect following a short public comment period. Nonetheless, the PAGs will likely determine what actions take place on the ground in the days, weeks, months and, in some cases, years following a radiological emergency.
Source: Global Research
Rocky Mountain Pawn & Gun is confident about its own cultural identity. Before entering the shop – a palace of weaponry and camouflage gear – customers must pass a sign indicating that hippies should use the back door.
“Until they change that question, there’s no way,” said Chris Burnett, manager of Rocky Mountain Pawn & Gun, who said the federal form all firearms purchasers are required to fill out effectively prohibits the sale of firearms to medical marijuana card holders.
Then, in a glass display case inside the shop, another sign reads, “Federal Law Prohibits the sale of firearms to medical marijuana card holders.”
According to Chris Burnett, the store’s manager, the second sign isn’t a “hippies can’t have guns” joke, but an edict handed down from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a federal agency.
Burnett said the shop put up the sign after an ATF agent called Rocky Mountain Pawn & Gun and said “anyone who has a medical marijuana card will not pass a background check.”
The ATF did not respond to requests for comment.
Nearly 100,000 Coloradoans are licensed to use medical marijuana, which treats a range of ailments, including pain, insomnia, nausea and vomiting, loss of appetite and muscle spasms.
Colorado law is in conflict with federal law, which criminalizes marijuana in all circumstances and by definition applies to the whole country.
Burnett said on the application to own a firearm, which is submitted to the federal government, the applicant is asked whether he or she has ever used illegal drugs, and because marijuana is illegal according to federal law, medical marijuana users must answer “yes” or commit a crime – meaning they are categorically disqualified from gun ownership.
While the gun lobby and the grass lobby are not intuitive political allies, this is the too-rare legal determination that has both in uproar.
“It’s difficult to explain it to people who we have to turn away, because they say, ‘I did this the right way, I got a permit,’ meanwhile, people who are buying it from their neighbors can still go out and by a gun,” Burnett said.
Though Burnett feared the federal government had amassed a database of medical marijuana users, against which the federal government would cross-check firearm applications as it putatively does felony convictions, Mark Sally, spokesman with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, said that was impossible.
Only the state has that list, he said, and like all matters between doctors and patients, it is confidential.
Stuart Prall, a lawyer and marijuana advocate, said Rocky Mountain Pawn’s dilemma was indicative of the confusing state of the law regarding cannabis.
“I don’t think anybody should be denied rights, because people are taking one medicine as opposed to another medicine, and that’s true for parental rights, gun rights, any rights,” he said.
He said the unresolved and increasing contradictions in state law and federal law regarding marijuana meant that “it’s completely confusing to everybody.”
http://www.durangoherald.com/article/20130410/NEWS01/130419961/0/News/Guns-verboten-for-pot-users
China bird flu outbreak at 38, Taiwan reports 42 suspected cases, none confirmed
The human H7N9 avian influenza outbreak in China has grown to 38 cases, according to the World Health Organization. Of this total, 10 have resulted in death.
“Based on a seven-day dormant period of virus, the middle of this month is going to be a critical moment for containing any epidemic of H7N9.
…Authorities are still working through the theory that people are contracting the virus through direct contact with infected birds.
The authorities say there’s been no discernable proof of people-to-people transmissions…”.
http://english.cri.cn/6909/2013/04/11/191s758967.htm
H7N9 will not peter out anytime soon: health official
Taipei, April 11 (CNA) The new strain of H7N9 avian flu will not disappear anytime soon, the deputy minister of the Department of Health (DOH) said Thursday.
Although Taiwanese experts who recently returned from a fact-finding visit to Shanghai reportedly suggested that a bird flu pandemic will not occur in the short term, the virus will not peter out soon either, Lin Tzou-yien said at a meeting on prevention measures that was attended by officials from the DOH and the Council of Agriculture (COA).
(AP) A new report on American aid to Haiti in the wake of that country’s devastating earthquake finds much of the money went to U.S.-based companies and organizations.
The Center for Economic and Policy Research analyzed the $1.15 billion pledged after the January 2010 quake and found that the “vast majority” of the money it could follow went straight to U.S. companies or organizations, more than half in the Washington area alone.
Just 1 percent went directly to Haitian companies.
The report’s authors said that a lack of transparency makes it hard to track all the money.
“It is possible to track who the primary recipients of USAID funds are, yet on what are these NGOs and contractors spending the money?” authors Jake Johnston and Alexander Main wrote. “What percent goes to overhead, to staff, vehicles, housing, etc.? What percent has actually been spent on the ground in Haiti?”
USAID did not respond to requests to comment on the report Friday.
Hardware from a spacecraft that the Soviet Union landed on Mars in 1971 might appear in images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
While following news about Mars and NASA’s Curiosity rover, Russian citizen enthusiasts found four features in a five-year-old image from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that resemble four pieces of hardware from the Soviet Mars 3 mission: the parachute, heat shield, terminal retrorocket and lander. A follow-up image by the orbiter from last month shows the same features.
The Mars 3 lander transmitted for several seconds after landing on Dec. 2, 1971, the first spacecraft to survive a Mars landing long enough to transmit anything.
Images of the possible Mars 3 features, taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, are available at http://uahirise.org/ESP_031036_1345 andhttp://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA16920 .
“Together, this set of features and their layout on the ground provide a remarkable match to what is expected from the Mars 3 landing, but alternative explanations for the features cannot be ruled out,” said HiRISE Principal Investigator Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona, Tucson. “Further analysis of the data and future images to better understand the three-dimensional shapes may help to confirm this interpretation.”
In 1971, the former Soviet Union launched the Mars 2 and Mars 3 missions to Mars. Each consisted of an orbiter plus a lander. Both orbiter missions succeeded, although the surface of Mars was obscured by a planet-encircling dust storm. The Mars 2 lander crashed. Mars 3 became the first successful soft landing on the Red Planet, but stopped transmitting after just 14.5 seconds for unknown reasons.
The predicted landing site was at latitude 45 degrees south, longitude 202 degrees east, in Ptolemaeus Crater. HiRISE acquired a large image at this location in November 2007. This image contains 1.8 billion pixels of data, so about 2,500 typical computer screens would be needed to view the entire image at full resolution. Promising candidates for the hardware from Mars 3 were found on Dec. 31, 2012.
Vitali Egorov from St. Petersburg, Russia, heads the largest Russian Internet community about Curiosity, athttp://vk.com/curiosity_live . His subscribers did the preliminary search for Mars 3 via crowdsourcing. Egorov modeled what Mars 3 hardware pieces should look like in a HiRISE image, and the group carefully searched the many small features in this large image, finding what appear to be viable candidates in the southern part of the scene. Each candidate has a size and shape consistent with the expected hardware, and they are arranged on the surface as expected from the entry, descent and landing sequence.
“I wanted to attract people’s attention to the fact that Mars exploration today is available to practically anyone,” Egorov said. “At the same time we were able to connect with the history of our country, which we were reminded of after many years through the images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.”
An advisor to the group, Alexander Basilevsky, of Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry, Moscow, contacted McEwen suggesting a follow-up image. HiRISE acquired the follow-up on March 10, 2013. This image was targeted to cover some of the hardware candidates in color and to get a second look with different illumination angles. Meanwhile, Basilevsky and Erogov contacted Russian engineers and scientists who worked on Mars 3 for more information.
The candidate parachute is the most distinctive feature in the images. It is an especially bright spot for this region, about 8.2 yards (7.5 meters) in diameter. The parachute would have a diameter of 12 yards (11 meters) if fully spread out over the surface, so this is consistent. In the second HiRISE image, the parachute appears to have brightened over much of its surface, probably due to its better illumination over the sloping surface, but it is also possible that the parachute brightened in the intervening years because dust was removed.
The descent module, or retrorocket, was attached to the lander container by a chain, and the candidate feature has the right size and even shows a linear extension that could be a chain. Near the candidate descent module is a feature with the right size and shape to be the actual lander, with four open petals. The image of the candidate heat shield matches a shield-shaped object with the right size if partly buried.
Philip J. Stooke from the University of West Ontario, Canada, suggested the direction of search and offered helpful advice. Arnold Selivanov (one of the creators of Mars 3) and Vladimir Molodtsov (an engineer at NPO Lavochkin, Moscow) helped with access to data archives.
HiRISE is operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson. The instrument was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project and Curiosity are managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
For more information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been studying Mars from orbit since 2006, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mro .
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-132&cid=release_2013-132
With tensions on the Korean peninsula soaring to include threats of nuclear war, frustration is mounting at what US policy experts see as the failure of all efforts to rein in North Korea.
Decades of threats have waxed and waned despite myriad attempts to reach out for talks or punish the regime, as seen recently in the tightening of UN sanctions.
North Korea watchers see a familiar pattern in which the communist state ramps up threats or takes actions such as missile launches or nuclear tests in a bid to show anger and force concessions from the United States.
Observers saw parallels between the latest crisis and 1994 when Pyongyang took on a bellicose tone as it faced pressure over its nuclear program at a time of political transitions in both North and South Korea.
The 1994 crisis ended when former US president Jimmy Carter flew to Pyongyang, setting the stage for a joint energy project that has been the inspiration for several initiatives since.
“I still don’t find any of the latest North Korean rhetoric that shocking. It’s perfectly predictable,” said Joel Wit, a former State Department official who was in charge of implementing the 1994 energy agreement.
“The difference this time is that they have nuclear weapons,” said Wit, now a scholar at Columbia University.
North Korea has threatened to attack the United States with nuclear weapons, although experts doubt it is able to. The United States, in turn, carried out runs by its nuclear-capable B-2 bomber as part of exercises with South Korea.
Other new factors in the latest crisis include question marks over North Korea’s young leader Kim Jong-Un and growing unhappiness from China over its smaller ally’s insolence.
Bruce Cumings, chairman of the history department at the University of Chicago and the author of several books on North Korea, said the 24-hour news environment had also changed the dynamics behind Pyongyang’s threats.
“You get instant attention on the World Wide Web which is so different than when I used to read their Central News Agency reports in the early ‘90s that would come a week late through Tokyo and you never knew if anyone would pay attention,” he said.
But Cumings said that North Korea’s tactics followed a pattern dating to even before the 1950-53 Korean War, when the communist leadership would threaten to destroy the South’s army.
“It is always the case with North Korea that when its back is put to the wall, it lashes out and it creates problems. It says: ‘If you want to sanction us, this is what you’re going to get’,” he said.
Cumings warned that tensions “are inevitable as long as the United States and South Korea are not willing to engage with North Korea.” “The North Koreans go about things in the worst way — they are their own worst enemy — but they keep saying that they want to talk to the United States in particular,” he said. But President Barack Obama’s administration has ruled out what is widely considered North Korea’s main aim — its symbolic recognition as a nuclear weapons state, seen by the regime as critical to ensure its survival.
The Obama administration, after long hesitation, last year sealed an aid-for-disarmament agreement with North Korea that fell apart in a matter of weeks after Pyongyang attempted to test a rocket.
The previous administration of George W. Bush similarly swung widely in its approach to North Korea. Bush famously grouped North Korea as part of an “axis of evil” and under his watch Pyongyang tested its first nuclear device.
But Bush, like Bill Clinton before him, tried late in his term to seal a historic far-reaching agreement with North Korea.
Some US conservatives criticized the Bush outreach and have called for an entirely new approach. Representative Ed Royce, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has called on the United States to avoid any future deals with North Korea and instead aim at toppling the regime.
Written by Gary Franchi
ATLANTA – At the 2013 Atlanta Music Liberty Fest, Kristen Meghan, former Air Force Bio-Environmental Engineer gave a ground breaking presentation of what she had discovered about Chemtrails while serving her Country.
This brave young lady has put her livelihood / life on the line for U.S. Please take a minute to thank her and help U.S. by redistributing this Video and any other VALID information about Chemtrails to as many people as you can.
Geo-engineering is a GLOBAL issue, other countries must get this information as well. “They” are spraying the majority of the population… Why?
TOP SECRET Mission – Chemtrail Pilots Cause Near Face to Face Mid-air Collision
(theatlanticwire.com)Welcome to the future of education where your textbook—and therefore your teacher—knows exactly how much of your homework you did, how, and when. The idea is that this data will improve outcomes, helping teachers better understand their students habits. And with CourseSmart teachers can do just that, as The New York Times‘ David Streitfeld explains today. Through what is called “the engagement index” a professor can track the a student’s study habits, by looking at what pages of the book were opened, when, and how they took notes. “It’s Big Brother, sort of, but with a good intent,” says Tracy Hurley, the dean of Texas A&M’s school of business, which has started testing the technology along with eight other schools.
While helping professors understand why certain students are struggling is a good thing, as we’ve learned repeatedly, it’s difficult to predict how people will use data. Take this example of how the CourseSmart data lead to suspicion of a student who had good grades:
Adrian Guardia, a Texas A&M instructor in management, took notice the other day of a student who was apparently doing well. His quiz grades were solid, and so was what CourseSmart calls his “engagement index.” But Mr. Guardia also saw something else: that the student had opened his textbook only once.
Guardia told Streitfeld this was a cause for concern: “Are you really learning if you only open the book the night before the test? I knew I had to reach out to him to discuss his studying habits.” Of course, students, especially at or above college level, don’t all learn the exact same way. By the traditional outcome measurements (i.e. grades) and even the newfangled CourseSmart “engagement index” (an example of which you can see here), this student was doing fine, but the new granular data allowed a teacher to be skeptical about that student’s work.
The introduction of new subjective judgments already, understandably, has students worried. Hillary Torres with good grades, but “low engagement” scores, told Streitfeld: “If he looks and sees, ‘Hillary is not really reading as much as I thought,’ does that give him a negative image of me? His opinion really matters. Maybe I need to change my study habits.” But unless instructors want to change how they evaluate students, why should she change the methods that are working for her?
Even worse, another good student had to sit down with her professor to fit her study habits to some Silicon Valley company’s textbook. In the Times comments, Charlotte writes: “I never studied the way the program thought I should. I took notes on paper, read only what I thought was important, and used outside resources to study.” All of these would not be captured by the CourseSmart metrics. “By studying the way I thought was best for me I did well in the class, and finished with an A. I ended up with a very low engagement score which prompted my professor to set up multiple meetings with me over the semester about my supposedly poor study habits, and how he could help me. I didn’t need help. It was all a complete waste of time.”
These aren’t the best case scenarios of course. In an ideal world, the aggregate data would help textbook authors to create better learning materials and give educators insight into how much these very expensive supplemental materials are actually helping the learning experience. But since when has data ever been used just for good?
(Activist Post) Even though Monsanto’s biotech rider slipped through Congress in a matter of days and was signed into law by Obama as the Continuing Resolution spending bill - it didn’t take long for a vast majority to catch on and become outraged. Soon, it was a major part of the collective consciousness, making all kinds of rounds in the corporate-run media.
It is section 735 of HR933 that keeps courts from halting illegally or hazardous genetically modified crops in progress. Media clowns are often there to defuse serious ire in the public. But, they can also teach and out the absurdity in Congress and corporate ploys.
In a recent clip seen below, Jon Stewart focuses on how strange it is for the rider to be in a spending bill, the lameness of Congress claiming they did not know about the bill that they passed, and if only one Senator had stood up against the bill…oh wait, one did. See for yourself….
Not only did Senator Jon Tester stand up and out this rider on the Senate floor, but probably close to a million people called the Congressional and White House lines after having only a few days to find out about it.
Congress really had to be bought and sold to run over public outcry like this. And, of course, our president is cozy with biotech moguls - even placing them in leadership positions in the USDA and FDA. That outcry, my friends, is why Jon Stewart knows about it and had to poke fun on The Daily Show. Your activism brought this debacle into the public eye. Thank you.
This is the second time that a rider was slipped into an unrelated bill; this time going all the way. Supposedly it’s only good for six months, but the six-month expiration date is for government spending. So will this rider that’s been heavily pushed by Monsanto for over a year suddenly evaporate in September? My magic 8-Ball says, “Outlook not so good…”
Food critic Jesse Hirsch wrote up a great Monsanto Protection Act timeline to follow the rider on its suspicious ride.
Again, let’s go back to what we did before - stop giving Monsanto our dollars and vote with our forks.
(RT) The 11 largest drug companies have made $711 billion in profits in just a decade, largely due to overcharging Medicare, which does not seek out competitive prices and uses taxpayer funds to support Big Pharma.
Since Medicare is prohibited from purchasing drugs based on their cost, its prescription drug program has been making large payouts to drug companies that have overcharged the program for years, according to an analysis by Health Care for America Now (HCAN).
“There is nothing wrong with a company making profits – that’s what their supposed to do. But the drug industry’s profits are excessive as a result of overcharging American consumers and taxpayers,” writes Ethan Rome, executive director of HCAN, for the Huffington Post. “We pay significantly more than any other country for the exact same drugs.”
Rome notes that per capita drug spending in the US is 40 percent higher than in Canada, 75 percent greater than in Japan, and nearly 300 percent greater than Denmark.
The 11 largest global prescription drug companies have skyrocketed since the MedicarePart D prescription drug program was launched in 2006. The government health program enables seniors and the disabled to buy taxpayer-subsidized coverage for many of the most widely disseminated medicines. But Medicare is prohibited from negotiatingprices with pharmaceutical companies or seeking out more cost-effective drugs, thereby costing seniors, the disabled and American taxpayers billions of dollars more than some argue the drugs are worth.
Some lawmakers have recently urged Congress to consider changing the law, for the sake of cutting unnecessarily high costs. Wisconsin Democratic State Senator Jon Erpenbach told Wisconsin Public Radio that his state could save $1.2 billion over ten years if Congress were to allow Medicare to partake in prescription drug negotiations.
“I understand that pharmaceutical companies are for-profit companies,” he told the station last week. “I understand there’s a lot of research and development that goes into the products that they produce. All of that being said, it shouldn’t cost us more to get that kind of pharmaceuticals we need to have.”
But according to the HCAN analysis, Big Pharma spends very little on research and development. Even though pharmaceuticals cite research as a costly part of its operations, the money spent on this is exaggerated, Rome claims. Drug companies spend 19 times more on marketing than on research and development – another reason why the industry reaps so much in profits each year, he adds.
US President Barack Obama has long promised to repeal the prohibition on Medicarenegotiations with drug companies, but has so far failed to do so. The Veterans Administration currently negotiates drug prices, and manufacturers argue that lettingMedicare take over the negotiations would make no difference to the industry. Supporters of drug manufacturers also continue to emphasize the high costs of research and development.
But the Congressional Budget Office found that if Medicare were to receive the same bulk-purchasing discounts on prescription drugs that state Medicaid programs receive, the federal government would cut its spending by $137 billion over 10 years.
“Our politicians give all kinds of tax breaks and subsidies to big corporations that don’t need them: Big Oil. Wall Street. Companies that ship our jobs overseas,” Rome writes. “Every gift to a special interest, including allowing Big Pharma to overchargeMedicare, is an expenditure of scarce tax dollars. That’s called wasteful spending.”
Did you know that there are thousands upon thousands of homeless people that are living underground beneath the streets of major U.S. cities? It is happening in Las Vegas, it is happening in New York City
and it is even happening in Kansas City. As the economy crumbles, poverty in the United States is absolutely exploding and so is homelessness. In addition to the thousands of “tunnel people” living under the streets of America, there are also thousands that are living in tent cities, there are tens of thousands that are living in their vehicles and there are more than a million public school children that do not have a home to go back to at night. The federal government tells us that the recession “is over” and that “things are getting better”, and yet poverty and homelessness in this country continue to rise with no end in sight. So what in the world are things going to look like when the next economic crisis hits?
When I heard that there were homeless people living in a network of underground tunnels beneath the streets of Kansas City, I was absolutely stunned. I have relatives that live in that area. I never thought of Kansas City as one of the more troubled cities in the United States.
But according to the Daily Mail, police recently discovered a huge network of tunnels under the city that people had been living in…
Below the streets of Kansas City, there are deep underground tunnels where a group of vagrant homeless people lived in camps.
These so-called homeless camps have now been uncovered by the Kansas City Police, who then evicted the residents because of the unsafe environment.
Authorities said these people were living in squalor, with piles of garbage and dirty diapers left around wooded areas.
The saddest part is the fact that authorities found dirty diapers in the areas near these tunnels. That must mean that babies were being raised in that kind of an environment.
Unfortunately, this kind of thing is happening all over the nation. In recent years, the tunnel people of Las Vegas have received quite a bit of publicity all over the world. It has been estimated that more than 1,000 people live in the massive network of flood tunnels under the city…
Deep beneath Vegas’s glittering lights lies a sinister labyrinth inhabited by poisonous spiders and a man nicknamed The Troll who wields an iron bar.
But astonishingly, the 200 miles of flood tunnels are also home to 1,000 people who eke out a living in the strip’s dark underbelly.
Some, like Steven and his girlfriend Kathryn, have furnished their home with considerable care – their 400sq ft ‘bungalow’ boasts a double bed, a wardrobe and even a bookshelf.
Could you imagine living like that? Sadly, for an increasing number of Americans a “normal lifestyle” is no longer an option. Either they have to go to the homeless shelters or they have to try to eke out an existence on their own any way that they can.
In New York City, authorities are constantly trying to root out the people that live in the tunnels under the city and yet they never seem to be able to find them all. The following is from a New York Post article about the “Mole People” that live underneath New York City…
The homeless people who live down here are called Mole People. They do not, as many believe, exist in a separate, organized underground society. It’s more of a solitary existence and loose-knit community of secretive, hard-luck individuals.
The New York Post followed one homeless man known as “John Travolta” on a tour through the underground world. What they discovered was a world that is very much different from what most New Yorkers experience…
In the tunnels, their world is one of malt liquor, tight spaces, schizophrenic neighbors, hunger and spells of heat and cold. Travolta and the others eat fairly well, living on a regimented schedule of restaurant leftovers, dumped each night at different times around the neighborhood above his foreboding home.
Even as the Dow hits record high after record high, poverty in New York City continues to rise at a very frightening pace. Incredibly, the number of homeless people sleeping in the homeless shelters of New York City has increased by a whopping 19 percent over the past year.
In many of our major cities, the homeless shelters are already at maximum capacity and are absolutely packed night after night. Large numbers of homeless people are often left to fend for themselves.
That is one reason why we have seen the rise of so many tent cities.
Yes, the tent cities are still there, they just aren’t getting as much attention these days because they do not fit in with the “economic recovery” narrative that the mainstream media is currently pushing.
In fact, many of the tent cities are larger than ever. For example, you can check out a Reuters video about a growing tent city in New Jersey that was posted on YouTube at the end of March right here. A lot of these tent cities have now become permanent fixtures, and unfortunately they will probably become much larger when the next major economic crisis strikes.
But perhaps the saddest part of all of this is the massive number of children that are suffering night after night.
For the first time ever, more than a million public school children in the United States are homeless. That number has risen by 57 percentsince the 2006-2007 school year.
So if things are really “getting better”, then why in the world do we have more than a million public school children without homes?
These days a lot of families that have lost their homes have ended up living in their vehicles. The following is an excerpt from a 60 Minutes interview with one family that is living in their truck…
This is the home of the Metzger family. Arielle,15. Her brother Austin, 13. Their mother died when they were very young. Their dad, Tom, is a carpenter. And, he’s been looking for work ever since Florida’s construction industry collapsed. When foreclosure took their house, he bought the truck on Craigslist with his last thousand dollars. Tom’s a little camera shy – thought we ought to talk to the kids – and it didn’t take long to see why.
Pelley: How long have you been living in this truck?
Arielle Metzger: About five months.
Pelley: What’s that like?
Arielle Metzger: It’s an adventure.
Austin Metzger: That’s how we see it.
Pelley: When kids at school ask you where you live, what do you tell ‘em?
Austin Metzger: When they see the truck they ask me if I live in it, and when I hesitate they kinda realize. And they say they won’t tell anybody.
Arielle Metzger: Yeah it’s not really that much an embarrassment. I mean, it’s only life. You do what you need to do, right?
But after watching a news report or reading something on the Internet about these people we rapidly forget about them because they are not a part of “our world”.
Another place where a lot of poor people end up is in prison. In a previous article, I detailed how the prison population in the United States has been booming in recent years. If you can believe it, the United States now has approximately 25 percent of the entire global prison population even though it only has about 5 percent of the total global population.
And these days it is not just violent criminals that get thrown into prison. If you lose your job and get behind on your bills, you could be thrown into prison as well. The following is from a recent CBS News article…
Roughly a third of U.S. states today jail people for not paying off their debts, from court-related fines and fees to credit card and car loans, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Such practices contravene a 1983 United States Supreme Court ruling that they violate the Constitutions’s Equal Protection Clause.
Some states apply “poverty penalties,” such as late fees, payment plan fees and interest, when people are unable to pay all their debts at once. Alabama charges a 30 percent collection fee, for instance, while Florida allows private debt collectors to add a 40 percent surcharge on the original debt. Some Florida counties also use so-called collection courts, where debtors can be jailed but have no right to a public defender. In North Carolina, people are charged for using a public defender, so poor defendants who can’t afford such costs may be forced to forgo legal counsel.
The high rates of unemployment and government fiscal shortfalls that followed the housing crash have increased the use of debtors’ prisons, as states look for ways to replenish their coffers. Said Chettiar, “It’s like drawing blood from a stone. States are trying to increase their revenue on the backs of the poor.”
If you are poor, the United States can be an incredibly cold and cruel place. Mercy and compassion are in very short supply.
The middle class continues to shrink and poverty continues to grow with each passing year. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately one out of every six Americans is now living in poverty. And if you throw in those that are considered to be “near poverty”, that number becomes much larger. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 146 million Americans are either “poor” or “low income”.
For many more facts about the rapid increase of poverty in this country, please see my previous article entitled “21 Statistics About The Explosive Growth Of Poverty In America That Everyone Should Know“.
But even as poverty grows, it seems like the hearts of those that still do have money are getting colder. Just check out what happened recently at a grocery store that was in the process of closing down in Augusta, Georgia…
Residents filled the parking lot with bags and baskets hoping to get some of the baby food, canned goods, noodles and other non-perishables. But a local church never came to pick up the food, as the storeowner prior to the eviction said they had arranged. By the time the people showed up for the food, what was left inside the premises—as with any eviction—came into the ownership of the property holder, SunTrust Bank.
The bank ordered the food to be loaded into dumpsters and hauled to a landfill instead of distributed. The people that gathered had to be restrained by police as they saw perfectly good food destroyed. Local Sheriff Richard Roundtree told the news “a potential for a riot was extremely high.”
Can you imagine watching that happen?
But of course handouts and charity are only temporary solutions. What the poor in this country really need are jobs, and unfortunately there has not been a jobs recovery in the United States since the recession ended.
In fact, the employment crisis looks like it is starting to take another turn for the worse. The number of layoffs in the month of March was 30 percent higher than the same time a year ago.
Meanwhile, small businesses are indicating that hiring is about to slow down significantly. According to a recent survey by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, small businesses in the United States are extremely pessimistic right now. The following is what Goldman Sachs had to say about this survey…
Components of the survey were consistent with the decline in headline optimism, as the net percent of respondents planning to hire fell to 0% (from +4%), those expecting higher sales fell to -4% (from +1%), and those reporting that it is a good time to expand ticked down to +4% (from +5%). The net percent of respondents expecting the economy to improve was unchanged at -28%, a very depressed level. However, on the positive side, +25% of respondents plan increased capital spending [ZH: With Alcoa CapEx spending at a 2 year low]. Small business owners continue to place poor sales, taxes, and red tape at the top of their list of business problems, as they have for the past several years.
So why aren’t our politicians doing anything to fix this?
For example, why in the world don’t they stop millions of our jobs from being sent out of the country?
Well, the truth is that they don’t think we have a problem. In fact, U.S. Senator Ron Johnson recently said that U.S. trade deficits “don’t matter”.
He apparently does not seem alarmed that more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities have been shut down in the United States since 2001.
And since the last election, the White House has seemed to have gone into permanent party mode.
On Tuesday, another extravagant party will be held at the White House. It is being called “In Performance at the White House: Memphis Soul”, and it is going to include some of the biggest names in the music industry…
As the White House has previously announced, Justin Timberlake (who will be making his White House debut), Al Green, Ben Harper, Queen Latifah, Cyndi Lauper, Joshua Ledet, Sam Moore, Charlie Musselwhite, Mavis Staples, and others will be performing at the exclusive event.
And so who will be paying for all of this?
You and I will be. Even as the Obamas cry about all of the other “spending cuts” that are happening, they continue to blow millions of taxpayer dollars on wildly extravagant parties and vacations.
Overall, U.S. taxpayers will spend well over a billion dollars on the Obamas this year.
I wonder what the tunnel people that live under the streets of America think about that.
Read more at http://investmentwatchblog.com/the-tunnel-people-that-live-under-the-streets-of-america/#y0LM9Kvua2B11raq.99
A group of ancient lines in the archaeological zone of Buenos Aires, in Nazca, have been destroyed by heavy machinery, El Comercio reported.
According to the daily, the machinery belongs to a firm that is removing limestone from the area.
The lines are located near kilometer marker 444 of the Panamericana Sur Highway. The area adjacent to the lines have reportedly also been affected, due to land being removed from the area.
Eduardo Herrán Gómez de la Torre, director of research at Ojos de Condor, described the extensive damage in the area. “We have witnessed the irreparable destruction to a set of lines and trapezoids that existed in the area,” Herrán said.
“The limestone firm responsible has not been sanctioned or supervised by the authorities of the Regional Directorate of Culture of Ica, despite being in this great archaeological reserve.”
“The company argues that the land where the plant is installed is private property and that the owner can do whatever he wants on his land, but this is not so,” he added.
Mario Olaechea Aguije, Nazca’s regional head of culture, said the limestone quarry was located within private property, and that the owner was free to work the land.
However, according to the daily, the private property is located within an area that was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, 18 years ago.
April 7 — Editor’s note: The most iconic portions of the Nazca Lines were not affected by the mine, and remain open to sight-seeing.
This story quotes from an article that appeared in the online version of El Comercio on March 14.
Yesterday we reported that Wesley Snipes was finally released from prisonafter serving a 3 year sentence for refusing to pay the government extortion racket known as “taxation”. If you had a difficult time seeing through the scam of taxation with that story, hopefully this one can show you how taxation is blatant theft and thuggery.
10 Maryland counties, including the one that I live in will now be taxing people for how much rain falls on their property. How much area is paved on their property, and how big their deck is will be primary factors in this new taxation scheme.
According to a local newspaper:
In 2010 the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency ordered Maryland to reduce stormwater runoff into the Chesapeake Bay so that nitrogen levels fall 22 percent and phosphorus falls 15 percent from current amounts. The price tag: $14.8 billion.
And where do we get the $14.8 billion? By taxing so-called “impervious surfaces,” anything that prevents rain water from seeping into the earth (roofs, driveways, patios, sidewalks, etc.) thereby causing stormwater run off. In other words, a rain tax.And who levies this new rain tax? Witness how taxation, like rain, trickles down through the various pervious levels of government until it reaches the impervious level — me and you.
The EPA ordered Maryland to raise the money (an unfunded mandate), Maryland ordered its 10 largest counties to raise the money (another unfunded mandate) and, now, each of those counties is putting a local rain tax in place by July 1. So, if you live in Montgomery, Prince George’s, Howard, Anne Arundel, Carroll, Harford, Charles, Frederick, Baltimore counties or Baltimore city, you’ll be paying a rain tax on your next property tax bill.
The article goes on to explain the government will survey peoples property using drones and satellite imagery.
Homeowners will bear the brunt of the rain tax: of the $14.8 billion to be raised — $482 million each year until 2025 — about three-quarters will come from residential property owners. The rate is expected to start at $100 a year for most homeowners, although that could rise. The only rain tax shelter: credits and exemptions for property owners who follow stormwater “best practices.” How the money will be spent is another murky situation.
As i reported last week, while the government uses the EPA to tax drivers and regulate how people are landscaping in their back yards, that same government has uncontrollable biological weapons sitting all over the country like toxic time bombs.
Most specifically, the area in question, the Chesapeake bay is terribly polluted with toxic chemical, biological and radioactive waste that was released from the Lockheed Martin facility in Middle River MD, and the Aberdeen Proving Grounds military base in Aberdeen MD, since around the time of World War 2. Both of these facilities have unleashed a stew of toxic waste into rivers that lead directly into the bay, even going as far as storing radio active waste under the seabed for decades. I will be doing a full series of reports on these toxic waste sites in the coming weeks and months, stay tuned to intellihub.com for more information.
Pigs, Ducks, Black Swans, Chickens And Now Fish: The Shanghai Animal Apocalypse Accelerates
Shanghai just can’t catch a break – first it was floating dead pigs, then ducks, then black swans, then mass chicken exterminations, and now fish. From the Telegraph: ” Just weeks after over 16,000 putrefying pigs were pulled from Shanghai’s Huangpu river, more than 250kg of dead carp had to be retrieved from a river in the city’s Songjiang district. Mystery still surrounds the cause of death, but numerous explanations have surfaced in the Chinese media since residents first complained about the foul-smelling fish last Monday. Theories reportedly include climate change, electrocution, an explosion or even a drug overdose. The Shanghai Daily quoted a local government official who “speculated” the fish could have been “drugged.” So, in China things are so good, even the fish are ODing on sleeping pills? Hardly, but the fact that this is even floated “out there” just shows how miserably The Onion has missed its IPO window.
MCD slashing chicken prices in Shanghai on birdflu. How is YUM faring?
How do you know when the people “just say no” to chicken over rampant bird flu concerns? When even McDonalds (whose ad campaign for the past decade “I am loving it” continues to be an anagram for “ailing vomit“) is forced to slash chicken-related prices, in this case the 20 piece McNuggets, from CNY36 to CNY20. Pretty soon not even giving away the McMystery meat will clear out the shelves of all chicken-related fast food first in Shanghai and soon elsewhere in China. Finally, we dread to imagine the horrors that will befall Yum (read China KFC sales), now that after so much pain, the fast-food chain had finally reported a modest bounce in Chinese sales. So much for that.
Xinhua News Agency@XHNews22 h
Another H7N9 infection was reported in Anhui Province Sunday night, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in China to 21.
H7N9 Bird Flu Cases Reach 21 In China; Death Total Unchanged At Six
Three new cases of the deadly bird flu H7N9 were discovered in China yesterday, bringing the total in the country to 21, the government’s Xinhua news agency reported this morning. The sick have all been discovered in eastern China; Shanghai, one of the country’s most important international business hubs, has 10 of the cases.
Eastern Chinese cities have been closing live poultry markets and taking other measures to try to contain the disease which has killed six to date.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/russellflannery/2013/04/07/deadly-h7n9-bird-flu-cases-reach-21-in-china-death-total-unchanged-at-six/
Quite a lot of information here including the 21st case.
H7N9: Asia braces for spillover
Officials throughout Asia are implementing measures to protect themselves from a new strain of bird flu – H7N9 – that has so far infected 21 people in China, killing six.
These are the first human infections and deaths to have been recorded from this virus strain worldwide. China’s neighbours have reacted by boosting hospital capabilities and disease surveillance, strengthening border control, issuing reminders to ban illegal poultry imports, and more vigorously testing what is imported.
…
Gregor Peter@L0gg0l1 h
PLA officer calls H7N9 virus a US ‘bio-psychological weapon’, causes outrage in Chinese social media http://www.scmp.com/comment/blogs/article/1209796/pla-officer-calls-h7n9-virus-us-bio-psychological-weapon
Gregor Peter@L0gg0l2 h
Senior Chinese military official calls new bird flu a ‘US bio-psychological weapon’ http://www.weibo.com/1571497285/zqWOWFPoL … (h/t @Asher_Wolf) #H7N9
(www.dailypaul.com) The more things change, the more they stay the same. My first “political activism” as an adult was to try to get Hanford shut down. Here I am decades later, back where I started. This plant was a bad design 30 years ago, and guess what? It is STILL a bad design. And, it is still utterly immoral to dump radioactive waste on our descendants.
3 days ago: King 5 News: Nuclear board warns of Hanford tank explosion risk
“State and federal officials have long known that hydrogen gas could build up inside the tanks at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, leading to an explosion that would release radioactive material. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board recommended additional monitoring and ventilation of the tanks last fall, and federal officials were working to develop a plan to implement the recommendation.”
Got that? LAST FALL the Fed starting “working on a plan.”
Yesterday: “Unexpected gas releases”
KING 5 News has learned there’s been a series of unexpected hydrogen gas releases from a tank holding radioactive waste at Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
Confidential sources say it began on March 16 and lasted for several days, much longer than usual, and they worry a single spark could have set off an explosive release of radioactivity.
