Sunday, July 31
Friday, July 29
D'Oh!
According to the Food and Drug Administration, half of produce currently tested in grocery stores contains measurable residues of pesticides. Laboratory tests of eight industry-leader baby foods reveal the presence of 16 pesticides, including three carcinogens.
According to EPA's "Guidelines for Carcinogen Risk Assessment," children receive 50% of their lifetime cancer risks in the first two years of life.
In blood samples of children aged 2 to 4, concentrations of pesticide residues are six times higher in children eating conventionally farmed fruits and vegetables compared with those eating organic food
Parents, Guess What? Three New Studies Show TV Lowers Kids Learning Abilities
From:
July 4th, 2005
TV is Bad for Children's Education, Studies Say
By Andrew SternReuters
The more time children spend watching television the poorer they performacademically, according to three studies published on Monday.
Excessive television viewing has been blamed for increasing rates ofchildhood obesity and for aggressive behavior, while its impact on schoolinghave been inconclusive, researchers said.
But studies published on the topic in this month's Archives of Pediatrics &Adolescent Medicine concluded television viewing tended to have an adverseeffect on academic pursuits.
For instance, children in third grade (approximately 8 years old) who hadtelevisions in their bedrooms -- and therefore watched more TV -- scoredlower on standardized tests than those who did not have sets in their rooms.
In contrast, the study found having a home computer with access to theInternet resulted in comparatively higher test scores.
"Consistently, those with a bedroom television but no home computer accesshad, on average, the lowest scores and those with home computer access butno bedroom television had the highest scores," wrote study author DinaBorzekowski of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
American homes with children have an average of nearly three televisionseach, the report said, and children with televisions in their bedroomsaveraged nearly 13 hours of viewing a week compared to nearly 11 hours bychildren who did not have their own sets.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has urged parents to limit children'stelevision viewing to no more than one to two hours per day -- and to try tokeep younger children away from TV altogether.
LIMITED BENEFITS
In two other studies published in the same journal, children who regularlywatched television before the age of 3 ended up with lower test scores lateron, and children and adolescents who watched more television were lesslikely to go on to finish high school or earn a college degree.
University of Washington researchers reported that 59 percent of U.S.children younger than age 2 watch an average of 1.3 hours of television perday, though there is no programing of proven educational value for childrenthat young.
Their analysis of 1,800 children over a decade showed television watchingwas linked to poorer cognitive development among children younger than 3 andbetween the ages of 6 and 7.
TV watching appeared to help 3- to 5-year-olds with basic readingrecognition and short-term memory, but not reading comprehension ormathematics, so the net effect of television watching is "limited in itsbeneficial impact," wrote study author Frederick Zimmerman.
Similarly, Robert Hancox of the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand,found that children and adolescents who watched more television had lesseducational attainment regardless of their intelligence, socioeconomicstatus or childhood behavioral problems.
But condemning television as a vast wasteland -- government regulator NewtonMinow's oft-quoted diatribe against the medium -- would be unfair asprograming is not "monolithic," an editorial accompanying the studies said.
"Parents should be encouraged to incorporate well-produced, age-appropriateeducational TV into their children's lives. Such programing represents avaluable tool for stimulating children's cognitive development," wrote ArielChernin and Deborah Linebarger of the University of Pennsylvania.
According to EPA's "Guidelines for Carcinogen Risk Assessment," children receive 50% of their lifetime cancer risks in the first two years of life.
In blood samples of children aged 2 to 4, concentrations of pesticide residues are six times higher in children eating conventionally farmed fruits and vegetables compared with those eating organic food
Parents, Guess What? Three New Studies Show TV Lowers Kids Learning Abilities
From:
July 4th, 2005
TV is Bad for Children's Education, Studies Say
By Andrew SternReuters
The more time children spend watching television the poorer they performacademically, according to three studies published on Monday.
Excessive television viewing has been blamed for increasing rates ofchildhood obesity and for aggressive behavior, while its impact on schoolinghave been inconclusive, researchers said.
But studies published on the topic in this month's Archives of Pediatrics &Adolescent Medicine concluded television viewing tended to have an adverseeffect on academic pursuits.
For instance, children in third grade (approximately 8 years old) who hadtelevisions in their bedrooms -- and therefore watched more TV -- scoredlower on standardized tests than those who did not have sets in their rooms.
In contrast, the study found having a home computer with access to theInternet resulted in comparatively higher test scores.
"Consistently, those with a bedroom television but no home computer accesshad, on average, the lowest scores and those with home computer access butno bedroom television had the highest scores," wrote study author DinaBorzekowski of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
American homes with children have an average of nearly three televisionseach, the report said, and children with televisions in their bedroomsaveraged nearly 13 hours of viewing a week compared to nearly 11 hours bychildren who did not have their own sets.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has urged parents to limit children'stelevision viewing to no more than one to two hours per day -- and to try tokeep younger children away from TV altogether.
LIMITED BENEFITS
In two other studies published in the same journal, children who regularlywatched television before the age of 3 ended up with lower test scores lateron, and children and adolescents who watched more television were lesslikely to go on to finish high school or earn a college degree.
University of Washington researchers reported that 59 percent of U.S.children younger than age 2 watch an average of 1.3 hours of television perday, though there is no programing of proven educational value for childrenthat young.
Their analysis of 1,800 children over a decade showed television watchingwas linked to poorer cognitive development among children younger than 3 andbetween the ages of 6 and 7.
TV watching appeared to help 3- to 5-year-olds with basic readingrecognition and short-term memory, but not reading comprehension ormathematics, so the net effect of television watching is "limited in itsbeneficial impact," wrote study author Frederick Zimmerman.
Similarly, Robert Hancox of the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand,found that children and adolescents who watched more television had lesseducational attainment regardless of their intelligence, socioeconomicstatus or childhood behavioral problems.
But condemning television as a vast wasteland -- government regulator NewtonMinow's oft-quoted diatribe against the medium -- would be unfair asprograming is not "monolithic," an editorial accompanying the studies said.
"Parents should be encouraged to incorporate well-produced, age-appropriateeducational TV into their children's lives. Such programing represents avaluable tool for stimulating children's cognitive development," wrote ArielChernin and Deborah Linebarger of the University of Pennsylvania.
Wednesday, July 27
Monday, July 25
Sunday, July 24
Hot enough to make ya think...
Ferocious Heat Maintains Grip Across the West
Published: July 23, 2005
PHOENIX, July 22 - A relentless and lethal blanket of heat has settled on much of the western United States, forcing the cancellation of dozens of airline flights, threatening the loss of electrical power, stoking wildfires and leaving 20 people dead in Phoenix alone in just the past week.
Officials of the National Weather Service estimate that more than 200 heat records have been broken in the West during the last two weeks. On Tuesday, Las Vegas tied its record for any date, 117 degrees. Reno and other locations in Nevada have set records with nine consecutive days of temperatures at 100 or higher. The temperature in Denver on Wednesday reached 105 degrees, making it the hottest day there since 1878. The highest temperature for the entire region during the heat wave has been 129, recorded at Death Valley, Calif.
The reasons for that are related to engineering. Aircraft manufacturers have customarily set temperature limits at which their planes can be safely operated. (The limits are lower at higher altitudes, as in the Rocky Mountains, and higher at lower altitudes, as in the desert that surrounds Las Vegas.) High temperatures mean aircraft engines must take in more air in order to create the greater thrust the planes need to leave the ground. But airplane makers also have limits on the amount of thrust that an engine can produce. If the engines exceed those limits, they may not perform properly. At that point, aircraft manufacturers advise, the airlines should remove weight from planes - either passengers or cargo - or, in the worst cases, not fly at all.
United Airlines canceled seven United Express flights out of Denver on Wednesday, when the record-tying temperature there exceeded the operating limit for the carrier's propeller planes, said a spokesman, Jeff Green. "It was just so extreme, and stayed on so long, that we had to cancel flights," Mr. Green said.
In Death Valley, meanwhile, the temperature never dropped below 100 degrees in two 24-hour periods.
Andy Bailey, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Las Vegas, said: "It's probably fair to say what just wrapped up was probably the most intense heat wave the city's ever seen. We had a string of four days where it was 115 or above."
Poll: Americans Say World War III Likely
By WILL LESTER, Associated Press
Those findings come six decades after the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The war claimed about 400,000 U.S. troops around the world, more than three times that many Japanese troops and at least 300,000 Japanese civilians.
Six in 10 Americans said they think such a war is likely, while only one-third of the Japanese said so, according to polling done in both countries for The Associated Press and Kyodo, the Japanese news service.
"I feel like we're in a world war right now," said Susan Aser, a real estate agent from Rochester, N.Y.
Two-thirds of Americans say the use of atomic bombs was unavoidable. Only 20 percent of Japanese felt that way and three-fourths said it was not necessary. One-half of Americans approve of the use of the atomic bombs on Japan.
Published: July 23, 2005
PHOENIX, July 22 - A relentless and lethal blanket of heat has settled on much of the western United States, forcing the cancellation of dozens of airline flights, threatening the loss of electrical power, stoking wildfires and leaving 20 people dead in Phoenix alone in just the past week.
Officials of the National Weather Service estimate that more than 200 heat records have been broken in the West during the last two weeks. On Tuesday, Las Vegas tied its record for any date, 117 degrees. Reno and other locations in Nevada have set records with nine consecutive days of temperatures at 100 or higher. The temperature in Denver on Wednesday reached 105 degrees, making it the hottest day there since 1878. The highest temperature for the entire region during the heat wave has been 129, recorded at Death Valley, Calif.
The reasons for that are related to engineering. Aircraft manufacturers have customarily set temperature limits at which their planes can be safely operated. (The limits are lower at higher altitudes, as in the Rocky Mountains, and higher at lower altitudes, as in the desert that surrounds Las Vegas.) High temperatures mean aircraft engines must take in more air in order to create the greater thrust the planes need to leave the ground. But airplane makers also have limits on the amount of thrust that an engine can produce. If the engines exceed those limits, they may not perform properly. At that point, aircraft manufacturers advise, the airlines should remove weight from planes - either passengers or cargo - or, in the worst cases, not fly at all.
United Airlines canceled seven United Express flights out of Denver on Wednesday, when the record-tying temperature there exceeded the operating limit for the carrier's propeller planes, said a spokesman, Jeff Green. "It was just so extreme, and stayed on so long, that we had to cancel flights," Mr. Green said.
In Death Valley, meanwhile, the temperature never dropped below 100 degrees in two 24-hour periods.
Andy Bailey, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Las Vegas, said: "It's probably fair to say what just wrapped up was probably the most intense heat wave the city's ever seen. We had a string of four days where it was 115 or above."
Poll: Americans Say World War III Likely
By WILL LESTER, Associated Press
Those findings come six decades after the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The war claimed about 400,000 U.S. troops around the world, more than three times that many Japanese troops and at least 300,000 Japanese civilians.
Six in 10 Americans said they think such a war is likely, while only one-third of the Japanese said so, according to polling done in both countries for The Associated Press and Kyodo, the Japanese news service.
"I feel like we're in a world war right now," said Susan Aser, a real estate agent from Rochester, N.Y.
Two-thirds of Americans say the use of atomic bombs was unavoidable. Only 20 percent of Japanese felt that way and three-fourths said it was not necessary. One-half of Americans approve of the use of the atomic bombs on Japan.
Saturday, July 23
Once more, for the back of the house
WASHINGTON - The Transportation Security Administration violated privacy protections by secretly collecting personal information on at least 250,000 airline passengers, congressional investigators said Friday.
The Government Accountability sent a letter to Congress saying the collection violated the Privacy Act, which prohibits the government from collecting information on people without their knowledge.
The information was collected as the agency tested a program, now called Secure Flight, to conduct computerized checks of airline passengers against terrorist watch lists.
TSA had promised it would only use the limited information about passengers that it had obtained from airlines. Instead, the agency and its contractors compiled files on people using data from commercial brokers and then compared those files with the lists.
The GAO reported that about 100 million records were collected.
The Government Accountability sent a letter to Congress saying the collection violated the Privacy Act, which prohibits the government from collecting information on people without their knowledge.
The information was collected as the agency tested a program, now called Secure Flight, to conduct computerized checks of airline passengers against terrorist watch lists.
TSA had promised it would only use the limited information about passengers that it had obtained from airlines. Instead, the agency and its contractors compiled files on people using data from commercial brokers and then compared those files with the lists.
The GAO reported that about 100 million records were collected.
Justice Roberts?
"President Bush said the job of the Supreme Court was extremely important because these are the people we choose to pick the next president of the United States." --Jay Leno
"You realize he is only 50 years old. He could serve on the court for the next 40 years. So he could still be there when we pull out of Iraq." --Jay Leno
Let's ponder the fact that Roberts has gone through 50 years on this planet without ever saying anything controversial. That's just unnatural. --Ann Coulter
"After all the media's speculation about Edith this or Hispanic that, they picked a white guy. And not just any white guy, A really white guy. John Roberts? That's the fake name that every underage kid busted with booze uses." --Daily Show correspondent Ed Helms
White House Won't Show All Roberts Papers
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050724/ap_on_go_su_co/roberts_records_2;_ylt=AhteW8K1JL9dGJHbgp_qgmFuCM0A;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
"You realize he is only 50 years old. He could serve on the court for the next 40 years. So he could still be there when we pull out of Iraq." --Jay Leno
Let's ponder the fact that Roberts has gone through 50 years on this planet without ever saying anything controversial. That's just unnatural. --Ann Coulter
"After all the media's speculation about Edith this or Hispanic that, they picked a white guy. And not just any white guy, A really white guy. John Roberts? That's the fake name that every underage kid busted with booze uses." --Daily Show correspondent Ed Helms
White House Won't Show All Roberts Papers
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050724/ap_on_go_su_co/roberts_records_2;_ylt=AhteW8K1JL9dGJHbgp_qgmFuCM0A;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
a seething mass of toxic smutmulch?
Sex on the brain Mark Pilkington Thursday July 14, 2005 The Guardian
It is all around us, seeping into our brains, via magazines, newspapers and television. Once there, it gets to work, "reflexively and mechanically restructuring the brain "; terrifyingly, "involuntary cellular change takes place even during sleep, resisting informed consent ".
According to Dr Judith Reisman, pornography affects the physical structure of your brain turning you into a porno-zombie. Porn, she says, is an "erototoxin ", producing an addictive "drug cocktail " of testosterone, oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin with a measurable organic effect on the brain.
Some of us might consider this a good thing. Not Reisman: erototoxins aren't about pleasure, they're a "fear-sex-shame-and-anger stimulant". Reisman's paper on the subject The Psychopharmacology of Pictorial Pornography Restructuring Brain, Mind & Memory & Subverting Freedom of Speech has helped make her the darling of the anti-pornography crusade, and in November last year she presented her erototoxin theory to the US senate.
Under the auspices of Utah's Lighted Candle Society (LCS), Reisman and Victor Cline, a clinical psychologist at the University of Utah, began raising money from American conservative and religious organisations. They hope to raise at least $3m to conduct MRI scans on victims under the influence of porn and so prove their theories correct. They foresee two possible outcomes: if they can demonstrate that porn physically "damages " the brain, that might open the floodgates for "big tobacco"-style lawsuits against porn publishers and distributors; second, and more insidiously, if porn can be shown to "subvert cognition " and affect the parts of the brain involved in reasoning and speech, then "these toxic media should be legally outlawed, as is all other toxic waste, and eliminated from our societal structure ".
What's more, people whose brains have been rotted by pornography are no longer expressing "free speech " and, for their own good, shouldn't be protected under the First Amendment.
But there's a catch. Much of Reisman's research in developing her theory has necessitated examining hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pornographic magazines and films. By her own reasoning her brain ought, by now, to be a seething mass of toxic smutmulch ...
It is all around us, seeping into our brains, via magazines, newspapers and television. Once there, it gets to work, "reflexively and mechanically restructuring the brain "; terrifyingly, "involuntary cellular change takes place even during sleep, resisting informed consent ".
According to Dr Judith Reisman, pornography affects the physical structure of your brain turning you into a porno-zombie. Porn, she says, is an "erototoxin ", producing an addictive "drug cocktail " of testosterone, oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin with a measurable organic effect on the brain.
Some of us might consider this a good thing. Not Reisman: erototoxins aren't about pleasure, they're a "fear-sex-shame-and-anger stimulant". Reisman's paper on the subject The Psychopharmacology of Pictorial Pornography Restructuring Brain, Mind & Memory & Subverting Freedom of Speech has helped make her the darling of the anti-pornography crusade, and in November last year she presented her erototoxin theory to the US senate.
Under the auspices of Utah's Lighted Candle Society (LCS), Reisman and Victor Cline, a clinical psychologist at the University of Utah, began raising money from American conservative and religious organisations. They hope to raise at least $3m to conduct MRI scans on victims under the influence of porn and so prove their theories correct. They foresee two possible outcomes: if they can demonstrate that porn physically "damages " the brain, that might open the floodgates for "big tobacco"-style lawsuits against porn publishers and distributors; second, and more insidiously, if porn can be shown to "subvert cognition " and affect the parts of the brain involved in reasoning and speech, then "these toxic media should be legally outlawed, as is all other toxic waste, and eliminated from our societal structure ".
What's more, people whose brains have been rotted by pornography are no longer expressing "free speech " and, for their own good, shouldn't be protected under the First Amendment.
But there's a catch. Much of Reisman's research in developing her theory has necessitated examining hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pornographic magazines and films. By her own reasoning her brain ought, by now, to be a seething mass of toxic smutmulch ...
July 18, 2005
America's Truth Deficit
By WILLIAM GREIDER
DURING the cold war, as the Soviet economic system slowly unraveled, internal reform was impossible because highly placed officials who recognized the systemic disorders could not talk about them honestly. The United States is now in an equivalent predicament. Its weakening position in the global trading system is obvious and ominous, yet leaders in politics, business, finance and the news media are not willing to discuss candidly what is happening and why. Instead, they recycle the usual bromides about the benefits of free trade and assurances that everything will work out for the best.
Much like Soviet leaders, the American establishment is enthralled by utopian convictions - the market orthodoxy of free trade globalization. A few brave dissenters have stated the matter plainly and called for significant policy shifts to stop the hemorrhaging. Warren Buffett, the legendary investor, says the United States is destined to become not an "ownership society," but a "sharecropper society." But his analysis, and others like it, are brushed aside.
An authentic debate might start by asking heretical questions: Why is the United States one of the few advanced economies that suffers from perennial trade deficits? Why do new trade agreements, despite official promises, always leave the United States with a deeper deficit hole, with another wave of jobs moving overseas? How do the authorities explain the 30-year stagnation of working-class wages that is peculiar to America? Are we supposed to believe that everyone else is simply more competitive or slyly breaking the rules? In the last three decades, American policymakers have succeeded in closing the trade gap with only one event - a recession.
But to describe plausible remedies is to explain why none are likely. The webs of mutual interests connecting government, corporate boardrooms and Wall Street are too deeply woven, as are habits of thought among policy makers and politicians. So I do not expect anything fundamental will be altered in time. We are going to find out if the dissenters are right.
William Greider, the national affairs columnist of The Nation, is the author of "One World, Ready or Not."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/18/opinion/18greider.html?incamp=article_popular&pagewanted=print
America's Truth Deficit
By WILLIAM GREIDER
DURING the cold war, as the Soviet economic system slowly unraveled, internal reform was impossible because highly placed officials who recognized the systemic disorders could not talk about them honestly. The United States is now in an equivalent predicament. Its weakening position in the global trading system is obvious and ominous, yet leaders in politics, business, finance and the news media are not willing to discuss candidly what is happening and why. Instead, they recycle the usual bromides about the benefits of free trade and assurances that everything will work out for the best.
Much like Soviet leaders, the American establishment is enthralled by utopian convictions - the market orthodoxy of free trade globalization. A few brave dissenters have stated the matter plainly and called for significant policy shifts to stop the hemorrhaging. Warren Buffett, the legendary investor, says the United States is destined to become not an "ownership society," but a "sharecropper society." But his analysis, and others like it, are brushed aside.
An authentic debate might start by asking heretical questions: Why is the United States one of the few advanced economies that suffers from perennial trade deficits? Why do new trade agreements, despite official promises, always leave the United States with a deeper deficit hole, with another wave of jobs moving overseas? How do the authorities explain the 30-year stagnation of working-class wages that is peculiar to America? Are we supposed to believe that everyone else is simply more competitive or slyly breaking the rules? In the last three decades, American policymakers have succeeded in closing the trade gap with only one event - a recession.
But to describe plausible remedies is to explain why none are likely. The webs of mutual interests connecting government, corporate boardrooms and Wall Street are too deeply woven, as are habits of thought among policy makers and politicians. So I do not expect anything fundamental will be altered in time. We are going to find out if the dissenters are right.
William Greider, the national affairs columnist of The Nation, is the author of "One World, Ready or Not."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/18/opinion/18greider.html?incamp=article_popular&pagewanted=print
Horse-and-Plow Farming Making a Comeback
By JOSEPH B. FRAZIER, Associated Press Writer Fri Jul 22, 3:23 AM ET
SISTERS, Ore. - To some, the thought of a farmer patiently working the field behind a horse and plow might evoke pangs of nostalgia for the early days of agriculture. But in fact, the practice is making a comeback.
Ol' Dobbin hasn't run the tractors out of the fields yet. But increasingly, small farmers are finding horse-powered agriculture a workable alternative to mechanization.
Lynn Miller, whose quarterly "Small Farmer's Journal" tracks horse-farming, estimates about 400,000 people depend in some measure on animal power for farming, logging and other livelihoods. He says the number is on the rise.
Many are Amish farmers in Iowa and Pennsylvania who shun mechanization, but some are farmers who have turned to horses because of the bottom line, citing soaring fuel prices and the ability of the animals to produce their own replacements.
They also say the animals are better for the soil and can be used in wet weather when a tractor often cannot.
Miller, who farms with horses on his own ranch, said the practice began spreading beyond Amish communities about 20 years ago.
"When I started 31 years ago there were no companies making equipment for animal-powered agriculture," he said in his office in this central Oregon town. "Fifteen years ago I could count them. Today I have no idea how many there are."
Miller estimated that 60 percent to 70 percent of those who try horse-and-plow farming stay with it. "It takes a certain personality," he said. "It's a craft, not a science."
Miller said a farmer with horses can earn triple or more the earnings per acre than one farmed by agribusiness.
Ron VanGrunsven farms about 50 acres with horses near Council, Idaho, and has used horses for years there and in Oregon's Willamette Valley.
"They're more economical," he said. "They raise their own replacements, you can train them yourself and raise their feed."
A mare can produce a foal every year or so, and Miller says that, if properly trained, one can bring about $2,000 after two years.
A plow horse usually lasts 16 or 18 years, Miller said. He said he looks after his stable of nine carefully and veterinarian bills rarely total $200 a year.
VanGrunsven said a two-horse team and a farmer can plow about an acre and a half a day if the ground is right and that an acre usually produces more than enough hay to feed a horse for a year.
"Most of my equipment is not new," said VanGrunsven. "It is from the 1930s or earlier. It has been repaired and cleaned up. ... The older things were designed so they could be fixed if they broke. When newer things break, they have to be replaced."
Horse farming was common until the end of World War II, when the government and manufacturers started promoting mechanization to soak up the surplus industrial capacity, Miller said.
Horses could often be used as down payments for tractors, he said, "and they went to the glue factories by the hundreds of thousands."
___
On the Net:
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_bi_ge/storytext/farm_scene/15864564/SIG=1157sjgmm/*http://www.smallfarmersjournal.com/
http://www.newfarm.org/depts/student-farm/index.shtml
By JOSEPH B. FRAZIER, Associated Press Writer Fri Jul 22, 3:23 AM ET
SISTERS, Ore. - To some, the thought of a farmer patiently working the field behind a horse and plow might evoke pangs of nostalgia for the early days of agriculture. But in fact, the practice is making a comeback.
Ol' Dobbin hasn't run the tractors out of the fields yet. But increasingly, small farmers are finding horse-powered agriculture a workable alternative to mechanization.
Lynn Miller, whose quarterly "Small Farmer's Journal" tracks horse-farming, estimates about 400,000 people depend in some measure on animal power for farming, logging and other livelihoods. He says the number is on the rise.
Many are Amish farmers in Iowa and Pennsylvania who shun mechanization, but some are farmers who have turned to horses because of the bottom line, citing soaring fuel prices and the ability of the animals to produce their own replacements.
They also say the animals are better for the soil and can be used in wet weather when a tractor often cannot.
Miller, who farms with horses on his own ranch, said the practice began spreading beyond Amish communities about 20 years ago.
"When I started 31 years ago there were no companies making equipment for animal-powered agriculture," he said in his office in this central Oregon town. "Fifteen years ago I could count them. Today I have no idea how many there are."
Miller estimated that 60 percent to 70 percent of those who try horse-and-plow farming stay with it. "It takes a certain personality," he said. "It's a craft, not a science."
Miller said a farmer with horses can earn triple or more the earnings per acre than one farmed by agribusiness.
Ron VanGrunsven farms about 50 acres with horses near Council, Idaho, and has used horses for years there and in Oregon's Willamette Valley.
"They're more economical," he said. "They raise their own replacements, you can train them yourself and raise their feed."
A mare can produce a foal every year or so, and Miller says that, if properly trained, one can bring about $2,000 after two years.
A plow horse usually lasts 16 or 18 years, Miller said. He said he looks after his stable of nine carefully and veterinarian bills rarely total $200 a year.
VanGrunsven said a two-horse team and a farmer can plow about an acre and a half a day if the ground is right and that an acre usually produces more than enough hay to feed a horse for a year.
"Most of my equipment is not new," said VanGrunsven. "It is from the 1930s or earlier. It has been repaired and cleaned up. ... The older things were designed so they could be fixed if they broke. When newer things break, they have to be replaced."
Horse farming was common until the end of World War II, when the government and manufacturers started promoting mechanization to soak up the surplus industrial capacity, Miller said.
Horses could often be used as down payments for tractors, he said, "and they went to the glue factories by the hundreds of thousands."
___
On the Net:
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_bi_ge/storytext/farm_scene/15864564/SIG=1157sjgmm/*http://www.smallfarmersjournal.com/
http://www.newfarm.org/depts/student-farm/index.shtml
Thursday, July 21
We Interrupt this commercial...
London mayor blames west for creating conditions for terrorism
http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-234/0507200854152759.htm
Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will [America's] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.
John Quincy Adams
If ye wanna duck and cover with me...
Nine out of 10 New Yorkers now stock emergency supplies in their homes in case of a terror attack http://nydailynews.com/front/story/329527p-281502c.html
Wednesday, July 20
Get on Up.
http://www.globalsolutions.org/who/who_home.html
UCS President Kevin Knobloch is scheduled to appear on the PBS television program NOW to talk about the growing problem of political interference in science this Friday, July 22, 2005.
Kevin is representing the UCS Restoring Scientific Integrity campaign, launched in 2004 to combat an unprecedented level of abuse of federal government science by political appointees. UCS has released two major reports detailing examples of misconduct on issues from toxic mercury pollution to breast cancer to forest management.
The hour-long program is expected to focus on one well-known example of scientific abuse: the Bush administration’s long history of manipulating, suppressing, and distorting the science on global warming. Last month, the New York Times reported that Phil Cooney, a former oil industry lobbyist working for the White House, edited scientific climate change reports to significantly exaggerate uncertainty about the science behind global warming. Two days after the Times article, Cooney resigned and took a job with Exxon-Mobil.
The Restoring Scientific Integrity campaign: To date, more than 6,700 scientists, including 49 Nobel Laureates, have signed a statement decrying the current situation as unprecedented and calling for change. Scientists interested in joining their colleagues in signing the statement should click here. Non-scientist activists who want to demonstrate their support for this campaign should sign the scientific integrity call to action.
UCS recently released two surveys of government scientists at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries division. The surveys showed that political interference in science has become pervasive at both agencies, diminishing the morale of staff scientists and making it difficult for the agencies to fulfill their missions of protecting endangered wildlife and marine life.
Visit the UCS website to learn more about efforts to prevent the abuse of science.
Tuesday, July 19
the war
lies our fathers told us http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/3269420
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/07/21/humans_are_main_cause_of_warming_scientist_says/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+National+News
our investments http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/07/17/MNG5GDPEK31.DTL
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050719/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_trust
The country on a string....
And really, how many times does this guy have to tell them he's not quitting? I'll bet he was having fun though - playing Lucy and the football to Georgie's Charlie Brown.
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2005/07/15/national/w093555D88.DTL
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2005/07/15/national/w093555D88.DTL
Here today?
Article Launched: 07/17/2005 01:00:00 AM
Try doing anything but ranching with a ranch
By Sureva Towler
I'm looking at a map of the New West, and your spread ain't on it. There's no money in firing up the tractor. You can't make it selling cows.
Last year Harry cleared $23,000 running cows on an $8 million spread. The views are spectacular, but his kid's still going to college on loans, and he's not taking his old lady on a Club Med cruise anytime soon. Harry says ranchers have to sell out, sell real estate or come into money. You better be content to live poor and die rich, because soaring land values are great for securing loans that are impossible to repay.
Once upon a time you could save the ranch by getting an extension at the bank, working twice as hard, growing your own feed, leasing more land or having more children. Today, even if you own your spread, you can expect only a 2 to 4 percent return on your investment - less than you can get on a CD with no work and no investment.
Up at Dry Lake, the talking heads at chambers, banks and extension, small-business and economic-development offices are saying that anyone who thinks what-worked-for-Grandpa-will-work-for-
me, has his shorts over his head. Where we once mined gold, coal, livestock and recreation, they're now hawking agri-tourism, heritage-tourism, adventure-tourism, wilderness-tourism, gourmet-tourism, athletic-tourism and ecotourism with the zeal of medicine men. Diversification and value added are the new mantra.
Put a hot tub in the bunkhouse and call it a B&B. Run dudes. Let the kids manage a U-Pick-Em, and put the Old Lady to work making service berry jellies, soaps, bath salts and candles. Sell emu oil. Grow stuff that isn't traded on the commodities market. Raise medicinal plants like osha, which sells for 10 times the price of hay. Harvest endangered species like Thurber fescue under contract to the Forest Service. Sell spruces, lodgepoles and chokecherries with landscape value.
Don't cut the crabgrass then call the back 40 a preserve for hunters or photographers. On the Web there's a lady peddling "decorator" tumbleweed, a man shredding Aspen bark to use as packing material, and a granny selling toy straw bales that cost more than a real one.
Sell access to Orvis for fly-fishing, to American Sportsmen for game hunting, and to the Boy Scouts for field trips. Open a petting zoo, putting green, shooting range. Host tours for bird-watchers and historians or executive retreats. Raise llamas, alpaca, yak and other exotics. Sell saddles on cattle drives and trail rides. Build a pole barn big enough for 900
picnickers to chow down on steaks at reunions and weddings. Dig a 9-foot barbecue pit and throw luaus and nut frys for Kiwanis, Lions and Rotarians.
Fact of the matter is, ranchers and farmers do not play well with others. They are independent SOBs and have every intention of staying that way. They claim they're too dumb to do different. Harry says he's packing it in because the cost of money is too high, govmint regulations are stifling, he's tired of working so hard, and his granddaddy would come back to haunt him if he began selling conservation easements, fenced hunting leases or yee-haw adventures.
Makes you wonder how many pumpkin patches, corn mazes and hayrides the nation can support? How many times will a person pay to pet a goat? To what extent does the sale of landscapes painted on saw blades affect the GNP?
More important, do you really want your kids to grow up in a roadside stand selling jerky, stick horses and barbecue sauce? Can you surrender your privacy, hayfields and front porch to rubbernecking yahoos, whining children and ill-mannered dogs, every one of whom needs a restroom? Do you really want to smile eight hours a day and spend the evening around the campfire with a bunch of turkeys?
A continuing Department of Agriculture National Survey on Recreation and the Environment, launched in 1960, advises that every year 62 million grown-ups and 20 million school children, about a third of the entire U.S. population, travel an average of 80 miles to find a farm or ranch experience. Travel agents throughout America, who trace their migration routes, say they all lust for Colorado.
So instead of pulling cows, bus in youth groups so they can ride tractors, milk cows, run the horses ragged, and jump up and down on grapes.
If Disney can do it, so can you. You can always use a cattle prod for crowd control. Meanwhile, take a rancher out to lunch, because he may not be around for long.
Try doing anything but ranching with a ranch
By Sureva Towler
I'm looking at a map of the New West, and your spread ain't on it. There's no money in firing up the tractor. You can't make it selling cows.
Last year Harry cleared $23,000 running cows on an $8 million spread. The views are spectacular, but his kid's still going to college on loans, and he's not taking his old lady on a Club Med cruise anytime soon. Harry says ranchers have to sell out, sell real estate or come into money. You better be content to live poor and die rich, because soaring land values are great for securing loans that are impossible to repay.
Once upon a time you could save the ranch by getting an extension at the bank, working twice as hard, growing your own feed, leasing more land or having more children. Today, even if you own your spread, you can expect only a 2 to 4 percent return on your investment - less than you can get on a CD with no work and no investment.
Up at Dry Lake, the talking heads at chambers, banks and extension, small-business and economic-development offices are saying that anyone who thinks what-worked-for-Grandpa-will-work-for-
me, has his shorts over his head. Where we once mined gold, coal, livestock and recreation, they're now hawking agri-tourism, heritage-tourism, adventure-tourism, wilderness-tourism, gourmet-tourism, athletic-tourism and ecotourism with the zeal of medicine men. Diversification and value added are the new mantra.
Put a hot tub in the bunkhouse and call it a B&B. Run dudes. Let the kids manage a U-Pick-Em, and put the Old Lady to work making service berry jellies, soaps, bath salts and candles. Sell emu oil. Grow stuff that isn't traded on the commodities market. Raise medicinal plants like osha, which sells for 10 times the price of hay. Harvest endangered species like Thurber fescue under contract to the Forest Service. Sell spruces, lodgepoles and chokecherries with landscape value.
Don't cut the crabgrass then call the back 40 a preserve for hunters or photographers. On the Web there's a lady peddling "decorator" tumbleweed, a man shredding Aspen bark to use as packing material, and a granny selling toy straw bales that cost more than a real one.
Sell access to Orvis for fly-fishing, to American Sportsmen for game hunting, and to the Boy Scouts for field trips. Open a petting zoo, putting green, shooting range. Host tours for bird-watchers and historians or executive retreats. Raise llamas, alpaca, yak and other exotics. Sell saddles on cattle drives and trail rides. Build a pole barn big enough for 900
picnickers to chow down on steaks at reunions and weddings. Dig a 9-foot barbecue pit and throw luaus and nut frys for Kiwanis, Lions and Rotarians.
Fact of the matter is, ranchers and farmers do not play well with others. They are independent SOBs and have every intention of staying that way. They claim they're too dumb to do different. Harry says he's packing it in because the cost of money is too high, govmint regulations are stifling, he's tired of working so hard, and his granddaddy would come back to haunt him if he began selling conservation easements, fenced hunting leases or yee-haw adventures.
Makes you wonder how many pumpkin patches, corn mazes and hayrides the nation can support? How many times will a person pay to pet a goat? To what extent does the sale of landscapes painted on saw blades affect the GNP?
More important, do you really want your kids to grow up in a roadside stand selling jerky, stick horses and barbecue sauce? Can you surrender your privacy, hayfields and front porch to rubbernecking yahoos, whining children and ill-mannered dogs, every one of whom needs a restroom? Do you really want to smile eight hours a day and spend the evening around the campfire with a bunch of turkeys?
A continuing Department of Agriculture National Survey on Recreation and the Environment, launched in 1960, advises that every year 62 million grown-ups and 20 million school children, about a third of the entire U.S. population, travel an average of 80 miles to find a farm or ranch experience. Travel agents throughout America, who trace their migration routes, say they all lust for Colorado.
So instead of pulling cows, bus in youth groups so they can ride tractors, milk cows, run the horses ragged, and jump up and down on grapes.
If Disney can do it, so can you. You can always use a cattle prod for crowd control. Meanwhile, take a rancher out to lunch, because he may not be around for long.
Saturday, July 16
A chukl fer ya - HA!
Found floating in cyberspace.....
Euro-English becoming a standard
The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English". It should serve to make English easier to read and pronounce for non English speaking citizens.
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double leters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.
By the 4th yer pepl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".
During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru. Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.
Euro-English becoming a standard
The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English". It should serve to make English easier to read and pronounce for non English speaking citizens.
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double leters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.
By the 4th yer pepl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".
During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru. Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.
Friday, July 15
Yeah well, that's Britain
ANNUAL DEATHS FROM VARIOUS DRUGS IN BRITAIN
Tobacco: 100,000
Alcohol: 6,000
Heroin: 652
Methadone: 97
Ecstasy: 25
Crack: 20
Amphetamines: 12
Cocaine: 11
Marijuana: 0
[Government report]
Tobacco: 100,000
Alcohol: 6,000
Heroin: 652
Methadone: 97
Ecstasy: 25
Crack: 20
Amphetamines: 12
Cocaine: 11
Marijuana: 0
[Government report]
Are we there yet?
Americans who are the most efficient people on earth. . . have invented so wide a range of pithy and hackneyed phrases that they can carry on a conversation without giving a moment's reflection to what they are saying and so leave their minds free to consider the more important matters of big business and fornication - Somerset Maugham
History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.-- Abba Eban
The Productivity Problem
Jonathan Tasini
July 14, 2005
Jonathan Tasini is president of the Economic Future Group
One of the enduring myths of the American Dream is that if you just work hard, you will eventually reap your economic reward and get ahead. Corporate leaders, helped by politicians, still try to make that rhetorical argument as a way of hiding what they are really up to (Darwinian globalization, for example). But a startling, relatively ignored, shift has taken place that bears the seeds of an economic and political earthquake.
For decades, workers’ wages were tied to productivity. The idea was simple: When workers produce more—either tangible products or services—in an hour of work than before, they are being more efficient and, usually, that means more profit for a corporation. Historically, increased efficiency flowed to workers in the form of higher wages.
Not anymore. The link between productivity gains and wages has been broken. Recently, the Economic Policy Institute showed that productivity has grown almost three times faster than wages since 2001. During that time, 70 percent of the nation’s income growth has gone straight into corporate coffers as profits—presumably to continue to finance staggering pay and benefits for executives—a complete reversal from the previous seven business cycles when 77 percent of the overall income growth went to wages.
Although the theft of workers’ sweat of the brow is even more obvious today, the erosion began about three decades ago. Joel Rogers, director of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, has made a recent stunning calculation: Had wages tracked productivity as they have over the past 30 years, “median family income in the U.S. would be about $20,000 higher today than it is.”
Check this out: Taking into account productivity, the minimum wage should be $19.12—which would make it almost 50 percent above today’s median wage (not to mention the pathetic $5.15 current minimum wage). Rogers concludes: “It’s fair to say that most American workers today are making substantially less than the (historically, productivity-normed) wage of the economy’s worst-off workers of a generation ago.” Now, most of us would find this lopsided economic arrangement obscene just by its sheer unfairness: No matter how hard you work, you won’t get a fair return on your labor. Beyond the unfairness, it also tears at the country’s social fabric because an economic system cannot endure if it is perceived to be unfair and fails to deliver a rising standard of living.
This raw deal is making a few people nervous in the financial elite. “American workers, long accustomed to receiving their ‘just reward’ as defined by their marginal productivity contribution, are facing the most profound disappointment of the modern era,” writes Stephen Roach, chief economist and director of global economic analysis for Morgan Stanley, in a recent analysis. “The extraordinary stagnation of earned labor income in the past four years reflects a fundamental breakdown of the relationship between worker pay and productivity.” Roach and others worry that that breakdown bodes ill for the economy: Consumers are running on empty, weighed down by debt, which forces many of them to rely on assets like price-inflated homes. That, they say, is unsustainable, both economically and politically.
Why has this happened? It’s not a result of a neutral, inevitable economic fact, like the sun setting in the west. It happens because corporations can get away with hogging the fruits of economic activity. It happens because politicians will not stand up and decry either the unfairness of the theft and the underlying corporate greed that siphons away workers’ deserved rewards.
And, sadly, it reflects the weak state of the labor movement. When unions are strong, everyone benefits—union and non-union workers alike. Through collective bargaining, unions act as a counterforce to an unjust diversion of income, creating a system that spreads out the rewards for hard work. Unions turn bad jobs and low wages into good jobs and decent livelihoods. The best middle-class jobs program is, indeed, mass unionization.
Let me make two side points here. First, when wages don’t grow, even when productivity is high, it undermines our nation’s retirement system. This is because taxes on workers wages are the central revenue source for the Social Security system. A key reason the 1983 Greenspan Commission’s modifications to the Social Security system came up short is precisely because wage growth did not match what had been forecasted more than two decades ago. “If wages had grown as the Commission forecast, and inequality had not increased we wouldn’t even have a Social Security shortfall over the next 75 years,” observes Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Weisbrot is quick to point out that the projected shortfall is quite small, and according to President Bush’s numbers, the program today is financially stronger than it has been throughout most of its 70-year history.
Second, the outsized corporate windfall from productivity works hand in hand with the other factor propelling the massive redistribution of income in society: Compensation and tax policies that are shifting vast wealth to the upper 10 percent of the population.
All this brings into sharp relief the rhetorical emptiness of political leaders who call for a culture where “personal responsibility” rules and believe the solution for every economic problem is more tax cuts. I say to them: Let workers exercise their personal responsibility by giving them the free choice to vote for a union, and, rather than pay them off with a $300 average tax cut check, reward the daily supreme personal responsibility they show when they march off to work by giving them a paycheck reflecting a fair return on their labor.
History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.-- Abba Eban
The Productivity Problem
Jonathan Tasini
July 14, 2005
Jonathan Tasini is president of the Economic Future Group
One of the enduring myths of the American Dream is that if you just work hard, you will eventually reap your economic reward and get ahead. Corporate leaders, helped by politicians, still try to make that rhetorical argument as a way of hiding what they are really up to (Darwinian globalization, for example). But a startling, relatively ignored, shift has taken place that bears the seeds of an economic and political earthquake.
For decades, workers’ wages were tied to productivity. The idea was simple: When workers produce more—either tangible products or services—in an hour of work than before, they are being more efficient and, usually, that means more profit for a corporation. Historically, increased efficiency flowed to workers in the form of higher wages.
Not anymore. The link between productivity gains and wages has been broken. Recently, the Economic Policy Institute showed that productivity has grown almost three times faster than wages since 2001. During that time, 70 percent of the nation’s income growth has gone straight into corporate coffers as profits—presumably to continue to finance staggering pay and benefits for executives—a complete reversal from the previous seven business cycles when 77 percent of the overall income growth went to wages.
Although the theft of workers’ sweat of the brow is even more obvious today, the erosion began about three decades ago. Joel Rogers, director of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, has made a recent stunning calculation: Had wages tracked productivity as they have over the past 30 years, “median family income in the U.S. would be about $20,000 higher today than it is.”
Check this out: Taking into account productivity, the minimum wage should be $19.12—which would make it almost 50 percent above today’s median wage (not to mention the pathetic $5.15 current minimum wage). Rogers concludes: “It’s fair to say that most American workers today are making substantially less than the (historically, productivity-normed) wage of the economy’s worst-off workers of a generation ago.” Now, most of us would find this lopsided economic arrangement obscene just by its sheer unfairness: No matter how hard you work, you won’t get a fair return on your labor. Beyond the unfairness, it also tears at the country’s social fabric because an economic system cannot endure if it is perceived to be unfair and fails to deliver a rising standard of living.
This raw deal is making a few people nervous in the financial elite. “American workers, long accustomed to receiving their ‘just reward’ as defined by their marginal productivity contribution, are facing the most profound disappointment of the modern era,” writes Stephen Roach, chief economist and director of global economic analysis for Morgan Stanley, in a recent analysis. “The extraordinary stagnation of earned labor income in the past four years reflects a fundamental breakdown of the relationship between worker pay and productivity.” Roach and others worry that that breakdown bodes ill for the economy: Consumers are running on empty, weighed down by debt, which forces many of them to rely on assets like price-inflated homes. That, they say, is unsustainable, both economically and politically.
Why has this happened? It’s not a result of a neutral, inevitable economic fact, like the sun setting in the west. It happens because corporations can get away with hogging the fruits of economic activity. It happens because politicians will not stand up and decry either the unfairness of the theft and the underlying corporate greed that siphons away workers’ deserved rewards.
And, sadly, it reflects the weak state of the labor movement. When unions are strong, everyone benefits—union and non-union workers alike. Through collective bargaining, unions act as a counterforce to an unjust diversion of income, creating a system that spreads out the rewards for hard work. Unions turn bad jobs and low wages into good jobs and decent livelihoods. The best middle-class jobs program is, indeed, mass unionization.
Let me make two side points here. First, when wages don’t grow, even when productivity is high, it undermines our nation’s retirement system. This is because taxes on workers wages are the central revenue source for the Social Security system. A key reason the 1983 Greenspan Commission’s modifications to the Social Security system came up short is precisely because wage growth did not match what had been forecasted more than two decades ago. “If wages had grown as the Commission forecast, and inequality had not increased we wouldn’t even have a Social Security shortfall over the next 75 years,” observes Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Weisbrot is quick to point out that the projected shortfall is quite small, and according to President Bush’s numbers, the program today is financially stronger than it has been throughout most of its 70-year history.
Second, the outsized corporate windfall from productivity works hand in hand with the other factor propelling the massive redistribution of income in society: Compensation and tax policies that are shifting vast wealth to the upper 10 percent of the population.
All this brings into sharp relief the rhetorical emptiness of political leaders who call for a culture where “personal responsibility” rules and believe the solution for every economic problem is more tax cuts. I say to them: Let workers exercise their personal responsibility by giving them the free choice to vote for a union, and, rather than pay them off with a $300 average tax cut check, reward the daily supreme personal responsibility they show when they march off to work by giving them a paycheck reflecting a fair return on their labor.
Thursday, July 14
While this oughta be headline, we've got politics and power to argue over
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/07/12/MNG8SDMMR01.DTL
One doesn't need to be a scientist anymore to have the sense that we are out on a limb here.
BLOOMBERG NEWS: Pacific salmon swim as far as 2,000 miles to lay their eggs in rivers up and down the Northwest. Once caught, some make a longer journey: 8,000 miles round-trip to China. Facing growing imports of low-cost seafood, fish processors in the Northwest, including Seattle-based Trident Seafoods, are sending part of their catch of Alaskan salmon or Dungeness crab to China to be filleted or de-shelled before returning to U.S. tables. "There are 36 pin bones in a salmon and the best way to remove them is by hand," says Charles Bundrant, founder of Trident, which ships about 30 million pounds of its 1.2 billion-pound annual harvest to China for processing. "Something that would cost us $1 per pound labor here, they get it done for 20 cents in China."
Thetimeisnowthetimeisnowthetimeisnowthetimeisnowthetimeisnowthetimeisnow
Thanks, Ed for the heads up!
One doesn't need to be a scientist anymore to have the sense that we are out on a limb here.
BLOOMBERG NEWS: Pacific salmon swim as far as 2,000 miles to lay their eggs in rivers up and down the Northwest. Once caught, some make a longer journey: 8,000 miles round-trip to China. Facing growing imports of low-cost seafood, fish processors in the Northwest, including Seattle-based Trident Seafoods, are sending part of their catch of Alaskan salmon or Dungeness crab to China to be filleted or de-shelled before returning to U.S. tables. "There are 36 pin bones in a salmon and the best way to remove them is by hand," says Charles Bundrant, founder of Trident, which ships about 30 million pounds of its 1.2 billion-pound annual harvest to China for processing. "Something that would cost us $1 per pound labor here, they get it done for 20 cents in China."
Thetimeisnowthetimeisnowthetimeisnowthetimeisnowthetimeisnowthetimeisnow
Thanks, Ed for the heads up!
Slipping Into Paradise II
Having perused this (afore-mentioned) delightfully odd little book, I wanted to share a few excerpts. :j
"New Zealand has been isolated from the rest of the landmasses of the world for millions of years now. Jared Diamond..has said, "New Zealand is as close as we will get to the opportunity to study life on another planet.""
(1986)"David Lange, New Zealand Labor party prime minister, was asked to argue"nuclear weapons are morally indefensible" at a debate at the Oxford Union. His official advisors were appalled, thinking(correctly) that he would offend both the United States and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's government. His opponent? None other than Jerry Falwell... founder of the Moral Majority. In the debate, Lange said, "I got the warmest response when I referred to American efforts to make an example of New Zealand. We were being told by the United States that we we could not decide for ourselves how to defend ourselves...That, I said, was exactly the totalitarianism we were fighting against. The audience roared." Lange won the debate and returned to New Zealand a national hero."
"In a 1975 book, Crops and Man, the late Jack Harlan, perhaps America's most distinguished botanist, wrote that "man is by definition the first and primary weed under whose influence all other weeds have evolved." I like the idea of humans as urweed, the uberweed...Displacement is in our very nature...We are in a constant state of elbowing our way into a place we were not intended to inhabit. We conquer, we ravage, we destroy, and once in awhile we learn...how to live in relative peace with species who were already there."
"This profound dis-ease, in England, in Germany, in France, in America, and just about everywhere else, was not something I have ever felt in New Zealand....Perhaps it is because the more glaring faults of the other countries are absent here:The government is relatively benign, unlike America; intellectual life..is not fraudulant as it is in France...the cities are not crowded, dangerous, dirty or expensive, the way London is. I make it sound a little bit like Canada, I know. And truth to tell, New Zealand is much like Canada[http://www.wildcanada.net/frontpage.asp?a=ac]: somewhat dull, slightly lackluster, a bit behind the times, lacking a certain sense of colorfulness, and yet decent, reliable, kindly, honest. If Vancouver had more sunshine, I would consider living there. If Toronto were in the tropics, I would definitely think it worth considering. But when you take into account that New Zealand has all of the better traits of Canada, and yet is an island set in the Pacific Ocean and is, in many ways, a Polynesian island culture, you become suddenly aware that you are living in a most remarkable place."
"So in what sense can I call New Zealand home after having lived here just three years? the answer came to me the other day when somebody told me he "owned" the river in front of his house. That was pretty funny. I was with a Maori friend, and he thought it was funny, too. How do you own a river? Come to think of it, how do you own any property?... It will be here long after you and I are gone. We lay claim to things that cannot be laid claim to. These pemanant natural objects mock us. I don't know about (a) rock, but I'm pretty sure that the tree has a life of its own, a biography in fact. The pond is teeming with life, over which I have no control. The emotion that these natural objects arouse in me are truly mine. Those I own. Those belong to me. But those same natural objects arouse different emotions in other people. All those emotions are theirs to own as well. It doesn't matter if they have lived there all their life or just a day, they can still feel and be made to feel by their natural surroundings. Home is where we feel most deeply....
When we lose that connection, when we no longer feel anything for a place, we can say that it is no longer home. The greatest loneliness is being where you feel you do not belong. It is an odd sensation that can overcome a man(I speak deliberately here)just about anywhere."
"New Zealand has been isolated from the rest of the landmasses of the world for millions of years now. Jared Diamond..has said, "New Zealand is as close as we will get to the opportunity to study life on another planet.""
(1986)"David Lange, New Zealand Labor party prime minister, was asked to argue"nuclear weapons are morally indefensible" at a debate at the Oxford Union. His official advisors were appalled, thinking(correctly) that he would offend both the United States and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's government. His opponent? None other than Jerry Falwell... founder of the Moral Majority. In the debate, Lange said, "I got the warmest response when I referred to American efforts to make an example of New Zealand. We were being told by the United States that we we could not decide for ourselves how to defend ourselves...That, I said, was exactly the totalitarianism we were fighting against. The audience roared." Lange won the debate and returned to New Zealand a national hero."
"In a 1975 book, Crops and Man, the late Jack Harlan, perhaps America's most distinguished botanist, wrote that "man is by definition the first and primary weed under whose influence all other weeds have evolved." I like the idea of humans as urweed, the uberweed...Displacement is in our very nature...We are in a constant state of elbowing our way into a place we were not intended to inhabit. We conquer, we ravage, we destroy, and once in awhile we learn...how to live in relative peace with species who were already there."
"This profound dis-ease, in England, in Germany, in France, in America, and just about everywhere else, was not something I have ever felt in New Zealand....Perhaps it is because the more glaring faults of the other countries are absent here:The government is relatively benign, unlike America; intellectual life..is not fraudulant as it is in France...the cities are not crowded, dangerous, dirty or expensive, the way London is. I make it sound a little bit like Canada, I know. And truth to tell, New Zealand is much like Canada[http://www.wildcanada.net/frontpage.asp?a=ac]: somewhat dull, slightly lackluster, a bit behind the times, lacking a certain sense of colorfulness, and yet decent, reliable, kindly, honest. If Vancouver had more sunshine, I would consider living there. If Toronto were in the tropics, I would definitely think it worth considering. But when you take into account that New Zealand has all of the better traits of Canada, and yet is an island set in the Pacific Ocean and is, in many ways, a Polynesian island culture, you become suddenly aware that you are living in a most remarkable place."
"So in what sense can I call New Zealand home after having lived here just three years? the answer came to me the other day when somebody told me he "owned" the river in front of his house. That was pretty funny. I was with a Maori friend, and he thought it was funny, too. How do you own a river? Come to think of it, how do you own any property?... It will be here long after you and I are gone. We lay claim to things that cannot be laid claim to. These pemanant natural objects mock us. I don't know about (a) rock, but I'm pretty sure that the tree has a life of its own, a biography in fact. The pond is teeming with life, over which I have no control. The emotion that these natural objects arouse in me are truly mine. Those I own. Those belong to me. But those same natural objects arouse different emotions in other people. All those emotions are theirs to own as well. It doesn't matter if they have lived there all their life or just a day, they can still feel and be made to feel by their natural surroundings. Home is where we feel most deeply....
When we lose that connection, when we no longer feel anything for a place, we can say that it is no longer home. The greatest loneliness is being where you feel you do not belong. It is an odd sensation that can overcome a man(I speak deliberately here)just about anywhere."
Help fire Karl
This site is run by NY Congresswoman Louise Slaughter -
http://www.rovespinkslip.com
Food for thought:j
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/13/opinion/13wed1.html?th&emc=th
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/13/opinion/13vowell.html?th&emc=th
http://www.rovespinkslip.com
Food for thought:j
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/13/opinion/13wed1.html?th&emc=th
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/13/opinion/13vowell.html?th&emc=th
Wednesday, July 13
Ugh
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050712/1a_cover12.art.htm
At the risk of, well quite a few things... I grew up on the edge of a small city, on the edge of the suburbs, of some rurality--woods and rivers and croaking fields. And that was one of the best things to have happened to me! 'To each their own', but the degree to which my childhood chums got out of the goddam house has come to reflect their relationship to the world. By that I mean their physical, mental and spiritual health. For all its security and comfort, the critical time when an adolescent makes forays into the wider world shapes them as much as the home did. Was it pool parties, parades, pilot snakes, gravel pits, girls on bikes, butterflies, flagpoles, fire engines, fire ants, art class, catamounts or cooties that got your goat?
Couldn't have these in the house. And as we Americans seal ourselves off inside a hermetic and paved existance, childhoods wonders would fade to black.
Or not...
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/050713_tvfrm.htm
At the risk of, well quite a few things... I grew up on the edge of a small city, on the edge of the suburbs, of some rurality--woods and rivers and croaking fields. And that was one of the best things to have happened to me! 'To each their own', but the degree to which my childhood chums got out of the goddam house has come to reflect their relationship to the world. By that I mean their physical, mental and spiritual health. For all its security and comfort, the critical time when an adolescent makes forays into the wider world shapes them as much as the home did. Was it pool parties, parades, pilot snakes, gravel pits, girls on bikes, butterflies, flagpoles, fire engines, fire ants, art class, catamounts or cooties that got your goat?
Couldn't have these in the house. And as we Americans seal ourselves off inside a hermetic and paved existance, childhoods wonders would fade to black.
Or not...
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/050713_tvfrm.htm
Hey, we got Secrets!!
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/12/opinion/12tue3.html?th&emc=th
"Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hard-headed realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, & county commissioners." ed abbey
"Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hard-headed realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, & county commissioners." ed abbey
He said it
"We have only two modes - complacency and panic."JAMES R. SCHLESINGER, the first energy secretary, in 1977, on the country's approach to energy.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050712/ignoring_the_coming_collapse.php
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050712/ignoring_the_coming_collapse.php
Tuesday, July 12
Recommendations
One of the most interesting books I've read in the last few years was called Guns, Germs and Steel. Under this diminutive title, the author narrates the 'Old and New' worlds first contact, and how those stories have, and continue to shape the world we know. After winning the Pulitzer prize, lo and behold, there's a show on it(and not the networks) starting tonight.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/07/0706_050706_diamond.html
Just yesterday I was yapping with a coworker about the author's new book, called Collapse. I have it on my desk, waiting to begin. My fellow worker (a philosopher-shelver?!) had the 25 disc audio version, which he was listening to as he did his job. Interestingly, he derided it as "pulp", and quickly moved on to more esoteric subjects. But I look forward to reading it still, and no less to Geographics treatment of Guns... I found that it tied many of the 'strains' of my undergrad study in history, anthropology, and geography into a quite unpreposterous view of the last 600 years hereabouts.
I highly encourage everyone to check them out...
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/23413/
Press Release, The Sustainable Energy Forum
Roads to nowhere leading us astray
"Peak Oil - An Urgent Issue for New Zealand". Available at http://www.sef.org.nz/papers.html, the SEF document proposes a nine-point action plan which the incoming Government needs to adopt to help mitigate the effects of the potential crisis. The Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) predicts that the peak will occur in 2007, and even a world-wide industry body like the International Energy Agency predicts that it could occur as early as 2013.”"World oil production and refinery capacity is barely keeping pace with demand, and prices are steadily rising. Once demand consistently exceeds supply, prices will rise even more sharply, and oil will become increasingly scarce. That's bad news for a country like New Zealand at the end of a long supply chain” said Mr Jones. SEF wants the incoming Government to focus on Peak Oil as an urgent priority. All sectors of our society, from agriculture to industry and transport, will be affected. We need to develop strategies to help these sectors reduce their dependence on oil. We need a major expansion of public transport and rail freight options. We need to stop wasting money on new roads. We need to put in place effective vehicle fuel efficiency standards, and stop importing inefficient gas-guzzling vehicles."All New Zealanders need to think about this issue, because it will affect them, and their children. The longer we put this issue in the too-hard basket, the harder will be the transition to an era when oil is no longer cheap or plentiful. It's time to take action” concluded Mr Blakeley.
Or, by peril, Your attention span may be shrinking already: Nearly Two-thirds of U.S. Adults Believe Human Beings Were Created by God
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050706/nyw130.html?.v=17
A majority of U.S. adults (54%) do not think human beings developed from earlier species, up from 46 percent in 1994
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/07/0706_050706_diamond.html
Just yesterday I was yapping with a coworker about the author's new book, called Collapse. I have it on my desk, waiting to begin. My fellow worker (a philosopher-shelver?!) had the 25 disc audio version, which he was listening to as he did his job. Interestingly, he derided it as "pulp", and quickly moved on to more esoteric subjects. But I look forward to reading it still, and no less to Geographics treatment of Guns... I found that it tied many of the 'strains' of my undergrad study in history, anthropology, and geography into a quite unpreposterous view of the last 600 years hereabouts.
I highly encourage everyone to check them out...
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/23413/
Press Release, The Sustainable Energy Forum
Roads to nowhere leading us astray
"Peak Oil - An Urgent Issue for New Zealand". Available at http://www.sef.org.nz/papers.html, the SEF document proposes a nine-point action plan which the incoming Government needs to adopt to help mitigate the effects of the potential crisis. The Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) predicts that the peak will occur in 2007, and even a world-wide industry body like the International Energy Agency predicts that it could occur as early as 2013.”"World oil production and refinery capacity is barely keeping pace with demand, and prices are steadily rising. Once demand consistently exceeds supply, prices will rise even more sharply, and oil will become increasingly scarce. That's bad news for a country like New Zealand at the end of a long supply chain” said Mr Jones. SEF wants the incoming Government to focus on Peak Oil as an urgent priority. All sectors of our society, from agriculture to industry and transport, will be affected. We need to develop strategies to help these sectors reduce their dependence on oil. We need a major expansion of public transport and rail freight options. We need to stop wasting money on new roads. We need to put in place effective vehicle fuel efficiency standards, and stop importing inefficient gas-guzzling vehicles."All New Zealanders need to think about this issue, because it will affect them, and their children. The longer we put this issue in the too-hard basket, the harder will be the transition to an era when oil is no longer cheap or plentiful. It's time to take action” concluded Mr Blakeley.
Or, by peril, Your attention span may be shrinking already: Nearly Two-thirds of U.S. Adults Believe Human Beings Were Created by God
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050706/nyw130.html?.v=17
A majority of U.S. adults (54%) do not think human beings developed from earlier species, up from 46 percent in 1994
What's good
Home of Salmon http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/10/travel/10salmon.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1121101885-4aUXKCTU78HQhCuPXTi4RQ
100 mpg http://www.wired.com/news/autotech/0,2554,68101,00.html
straw bale, bb http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/state/050711strawhouse.shtml
get on up http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/07/08/building_support_for_green_housing/
o gosh! REUTERS - U.S. workers say they squander over two hours a day at the workplace, with surfing the Web, socializing with co-workers and simply "spacing out" among the top time-wasting activities, according to a survey. Nearly a quarter of those surveyed said they squandered their work hours because they were underpaid.
http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050711/2005-07-11T130717Z_01_N11381607_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-LIFE-WORKERS-WASTE-DC.html
100 mpg http://www.wired.com/news/autotech/0,2554,68101,00.html
straw bale, bb http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/state/050711strawhouse.shtml
get on up http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/07/08/building_support_for_green_housing/
o gosh! REUTERS - U.S. workers say they squander over two hours a day at the workplace, with surfing the Web, socializing with co-workers and simply "spacing out" among the top time-wasting activities, according to a survey. Nearly a quarter of those surveyed said they squandered their work hours because they were underpaid.
http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050711/2005-07-11T130717Z_01_N11381607_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-LIFE-WORKERS-WASTE-DC.html
Monday, July 11
Another wrench in the plans of 'entrepeneurs'
Brazil may build $100 laptops
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/06/30/brazil.laptop.ap/
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/06/30/brazil.laptop.ap/
Back to the point
Hum-diggetty, I love libraries. Today, Sunday, I wandered the empty aisles before opening and recalled the peace and awe I felt as a child in them. And today as every day, I found a few books worthy of an 'affair'. I think todays gem has to be "Slipping into Paradise, Why I Live in New Zealand" by American Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson. He's apparently written twenty books. How about them kiwi-apples!?!
From the introduction:
"New Zealanders and foreigners do go on and on about the physical beauty of New Zealand. It's not so easy to talk about the beauty of a landscape because we are really talking about a great deal more than landscape. We are talking about us in the landscape. While we bring ourselves--and all our baggage--to a place, we really have little effect on that place, whereas the place has a deep effect on us. I don't mean that we can't ruin a landscape--we are amazingly adept at that--I just mean that our own bad mood does not affect the flowers and the trees around us. We can contaminate a place physically, but not spiritually, whereas landscapes rarely effect us physically but do so by touching our spirit."
In my experience so far, people generally have awkward responses to my ambition(which is yet all it is) to move over there. Understandable, tho I have trouble with the implausibilty many seem to covet. Wouldn't anyone allow themselves such a possibility? In this country awash in mythos and industrial dreaming? What I fear is (recall 9/11) that many harbor an abortive construct deep within, that despite the cacaphonous din of projected dreams (film, self-help, hero-sports), whole avenues of thought remain just aside, out there, an apparition-as-twin.
Sigh
From the introduction:
"New Zealanders and foreigners do go on and on about the physical beauty of New Zealand. It's not so easy to talk about the beauty of a landscape because we are really talking about a great deal more than landscape. We are talking about us in the landscape. While we bring ourselves--and all our baggage--to a place, we really have little effect on that place, whereas the place has a deep effect on us. I don't mean that we can't ruin a landscape--we are amazingly adept at that--I just mean that our own bad mood does not affect the flowers and the trees around us. We can contaminate a place physically, but not spiritually, whereas landscapes rarely effect us physically but do so by touching our spirit."
In my experience so far, people generally have awkward responses to my ambition(which is yet all it is) to move over there. Understandable, tho I have trouble with the implausibilty many seem to covet. Wouldn't anyone allow themselves such a possibility? In this country awash in mythos and industrial dreaming? What I fear is (recall 9/11) that many harbor an abortive construct deep within, that despite the cacaphonous din of projected dreams (film, self-help, hero-sports), whole avenues of thought remain just aside, out there, an apparition-as-twin.
Sigh
Sunday, July 10
opinions?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/07/06/BL2005070601211_pf.html
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-oppin074333415jul07,0,3402299,print.column?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlines
http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/ClimateChange/html/climate070505.html
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2005/7/8/161638/4256
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-oppin074333415jul07,0,3402299,print.column?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlines
http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/ClimateChange/html/climate070505.html
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2005/7/8/161638/4256
Saturday, July 9
Sticks to your Bones
Chemical Compound in Dupont's Teflon a Likely Carcinogen
Compound in Teflon A 'Likely Carcinogen'
By Juliet Eilperin Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, June 29, 2005;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/28/AR2005062801458.html
The Environmental Protection Agency's own scientific advisory panel has identified perfluorooctanoic acid, a chemical compound used to make Teflon, as a "likely carcinogen" in a report it plans to submit to the agency next month.
The EPA is in the midst of a major investigation into how the compound, which is used to make stain- and stick-resistant surfaces and materials for products including Gore-Tex fabrics and pizza boxes, gets into consumers' blood and whether it affects their health. It is also seeking millions of dollars in fines from DuPont Co., which makes PFOA in Parkersburg, W.Va., on the grounds that the chemical giant failed for 20 years to report possible health and environmental problems linked to the compound.
The scientific advisory panel does not draw conclusions on whether using products made with PFOA, such as nonstick pans, poses a cancer risk. Instead, it says that the fact that animal studies have identified four different kinds of tumors in both male and female rats and mice that had been exposed to the compound convinced a majority of its members that it is a likely carcinogen.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Health Screenings for Teflon to Start
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Tens of thousands of Ohio and West Virginia residents could be tested over the next year to determine if their health has been affected by drinking water containing a chemical used to make the nonstick substance Teflon.
DuPont Co. agreed in February to pay for the screenings to settle a class-action lawsuit. Teflon is one of the company's most popular products; the substance can be found in everything from cookware and clothing to car parts and flooring.
The tests will begin this month for residents who receive their drinking water from six public water districts, or from private wells within the districts, where concentrations of ammonium perfluorooctanoate, also known as PFOA and C8, have been found.
The water supplies are near DuPont's Washington Works plant, along the Ohio River near Parkersburg. About 80,000 residents live in the districts, and it's hoped at least 60,000 will participate in the screening.
Only residents who received the water for at least a year before December 3, 2004, are eligible.
Each blood sample will be subjected to 51 tests, including those that check for the presence of C8, organ function and cancer markers.
DuPont agreed to the health screenings to settle a 2001 lawsuit filed by residents who alleged the company intentionally withheld and misrepresented information concerning the nature and extent of the human health threat posed by C8 in drinking water. About $70 million has been allocated for resident payments and lab work.
Though used since World War II, C8's long-term effects on humans are unknown.
A federal scientific review panel has said the chemical is "likely" to be carcinogenic to humans, but DuPont officials have disputed the draft report.
In a separate matter, DuPont has set aside $15 million to settle EPA complaints that the company failed to report information over two decades about the potential environmental and human health risks of the chemical, although no agreement has been reached. In May, the company was served with a subpoena from a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., for documents related to the chemical.
___
DuPont: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_he_me/storytext/dupont_teflon_lawsuit/15724528/SIG=10ngjr8h9/*http://www.dupont.com
EPA's PFOA page: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_he_me/storytext/dupont_teflon_lawsuit/15724528/SIG=11cj5a1sv/*http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/pfoa/index.htm
Compound in Teflon A 'Likely Carcinogen'
By Juliet Eilperin Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, June 29, 2005;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/28/AR2005062801458.html
The Environmental Protection Agency's own scientific advisory panel has identified perfluorooctanoic acid, a chemical compound used to make Teflon, as a "likely carcinogen" in a report it plans to submit to the agency next month.
The EPA is in the midst of a major investigation into how the compound, which is used to make stain- and stick-resistant surfaces and materials for products including Gore-Tex fabrics and pizza boxes, gets into consumers' blood and whether it affects their health. It is also seeking millions of dollars in fines from DuPont Co., which makes PFOA in Parkersburg, W.Va., on the grounds that the chemical giant failed for 20 years to report possible health and environmental problems linked to the compound.
The scientific advisory panel does not draw conclusions on whether using products made with PFOA, such as nonstick pans, poses a cancer risk. Instead, it says that the fact that animal studies have identified four different kinds of tumors in both male and female rats and mice that had been exposed to the compound convinced a majority of its members that it is a likely carcinogen.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Health Screenings for Teflon to Start
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Tens of thousands of Ohio and West Virginia residents could be tested over the next year to determine if their health has been affected by drinking water containing a chemical used to make the nonstick substance Teflon.
DuPont Co. agreed in February to pay for the screenings to settle a class-action lawsuit. Teflon is one of the company's most popular products; the substance can be found in everything from cookware and clothing to car parts and flooring.
The tests will begin this month for residents who receive their drinking water from six public water districts, or from private wells within the districts, where concentrations of ammonium perfluorooctanoate, also known as PFOA and C8, have been found.
The water supplies are near DuPont's Washington Works plant, along the Ohio River near Parkersburg. About 80,000 residents live in the districts, and it's hoped at least 60,000 will participate in the screening.
Only residents who received the water for at least a year before December 3, 2004, are eligible.
Each blood sample will be subjected to 51 tests, including those that check for the presence of C8, organ function and cancer markers.
DuPont agreed to the health screenings to settle a 2001 lawsuit filed by residents who alleged the company intentionally withheld and misrepresented information concerning the nature and extent of the human health threat posed by C8 in drinking water. About $70 million has been allocated for resident payments and lab work.
Though used since World War II, C8's long-term effects on humans are unknown.
A federal scientific review panel has said the chemical is "likely" to be carcinogenic to humans, but DuPont officials have disputed the draft report.
In a separate matter, DuPont has set aside $15 million to settle EPA complaints that the company failed to report information over two decades about the potential environmental and human health risks of the chemical, although no agreement has been reached. In May, the company was served with a subpoena from a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., for documents related to the chemical.
___
DuPont: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_he_me/storytext/dupont_teflon_lawsuit/15724528/SIG=10ngjr8h9/*http://www.dupont.com
EPA's PFOA page: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_he_me/storytext/dupont_teflon_lawsuit/15724528/SIG=11cj5a1sv/*http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/pfoa/index.htm
Friday, July 8
When I was a young girl I remember getting a charge out of teasing the neighbor dogs from behind the fence. My parents would yell at me to stop with warnings of, "You'll be sorry when that dog gets out from behind that fence." Had I been bitten, although they would have tended my wounds, admonished the owner for letting the dog escape, and tested the animal for rabies, they would not have felt very sorry for me knowing that I had antagonized the creature and goaded it into attack - my innocent bystander arms taking the injuries brought on by my asshole brain. I thought about it and learned not to antagonize potentially rabid dogs (or poke hornets' nests, or stick my hand down a badger hole, or see how much I can make a snake rattle).
While my heart breaks for London and it's tragedy, I can't help thinking how much better off we would be had our leaders learned these simple childhood truths.
Namaste
BNR
While my heart breaks for London and it's tragedy, I can't help thinking how much better off we would be had our leaders learned these simple childhood truths.
Namaste
BNR
Thursday, July 7
Tuesday, July 5
Heritage Foundation's Values in action
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/01/AR2005070101881.html
And in case you wondered..Cell phone users 'four times more likely to crash'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=355502&in_page_id=1770
And in case you wondered..Cell phone users 'four times more likely to crash'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=355502&in_page_id=1770
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