Monday, November 21, 2011

Campus Police Chief Put on Leave in Pepper Spray Incident


Amidst calls by the faculty and students for the UC Chancellor to resign, she has put the Police Chief on Administrative Leave in response to the despicable pepper spray attack by campus police. Check out the video below - it's sickening.

Police Pepper Spray UC Davis Protesters Nov 18,2011

Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis - Video

Police Attack Peaceful UC Davis Students With Pepper Spray 

Saturday, November 19, 2011

NYPD blasting Occupy protesters with powerful military megaphone - LRAD

I first read about the Long Range Acoustic Device - LRAD - being used against American civilians as a crowd control tool during an event at Western Illinois University. LRADs have been used in war zones as a device to disorient combatants and also as a communications device. The NYPD possesses two of these weapons and reportedly used at least one of them on 11/15 when they cleared Zucotti Park of peaceful Occupy Wall Street protestors. These devices are capable of causing hearing loss and other ailments and surely should not be used against American citizens peacefully exercising their rights of assembly and free speech.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/314641

NY Police Using LRAD Sound Cannons Against Protesters

More detail on the use of LRAD by the NYPD. 
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/11/17-6


Occupy Wall Street Crackdowns: Was The Federal Government Involved?


The NYPD and FBI are currently denying that the Feds provided training and guidance  to police forces seeking to remove protestors from the public square across America. This report indicates the involvement of the FBI and Homeland Security in the recent NYC actions, and any student of American history would not be surprised by such federal involvement in seeking to quell social unrest. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/18/occupy-wall-street-crackdowns_n_1101685.html


Keith Olbermann's Special Report on Mayor Bloomberg's Decision to Evict OWS Protesters

Friday, November 18, 2011

Occupy Wall Street Evicted by $174.5 Million Subsidized Firm

The Occupy Wall Street movement compels authorities to grapple with the legal protections of free speech and assembly embedded in our democratic constitution, and it's become quite an inconvenience for those who are perfectly content with the status quo. Recent crackdowns on OWS encampments throughout the country shine a glaring light on the contradictions between the ever-present rhetoric of American "freedom" and the grim reality of the violence instigated by the NYPD (and other police forces around the country) against peaceful, non-violent protesters. This post reveals that Mayor Bloomberg's decision to ruthlessly clear out Zucotti Park came at the behest of a corporate real estate power enjoying generous public subsidies.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-stoehr/occupy-wall-street-evicted_b_1098642.html

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Talking Turkey

This little ditty from the Pew Environmental Group details what has become of the American Turkey farming tradition with the advent of industrial farming. Like other animals, such as chicken, beef cattle and pigs, turkeys today are raised in confined feedlots (CAFOs) under horrible conditions. The birds produce ungodly amounts of manure in these concentrated production operations and use enormous amounts of water, with adverse environmental effects and pollution resulting. Furthermore, the turkeys are fed GMO corn and soy grain as opposed to their natural grass and vegetable-based diet. Antibiotics are also used liberally in CAFO's to prevent the spread of disease in the unsanitary dwellings that the birds inhabit. All of this is not intended to create despair but rather to underscore that we all have the opportunity to influence these issues by voting with our pocket books. If you are troubled by the state of industrial agriculture and livestock production then you can act by supporting local farmers when possible. Every dollar spent on local or organic products makes a difference and will ultimately help to change the practices of industrial producers. Money and markets are all that matter to these operations and they will respond to the preferences of consumers. One need only to look as far as Europe where familiar name brand products are produced without GMOs for sale on that continent because the people there have demanded labeling of all products containing GMOs there.
http://www.pewenvironment.org/news-room/other-resources/talking-turkeys-85899366620

It's too late to order a heritage breed turkey for this season but you may want to check out this site and order a Bourbon Red or other traditional bird that is sustainably raised in the future. I recently read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, and learned about many remarkable heritage livestock breeds as well as the inspiring growth of sustainable farming, centered around non-hybrid and non-GMO heirloom seeds, taking place around the country.
http://www.efowl.com/Bourbon_Red_Turkeys_p/1303.htm

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle website.
http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/

Monday, November 14, 2011

EPA Finds Compound Used in Fracking in Wyoming Aquifer

Read this EPA report on contamination from fracking in Wyoming over the past ten years and imagine such devastation to drinking water in the Delaware River Water Basin or New York State's reservoir system. The lightly regulated exemption-fueled natural gas industry cannot be trusted to protect public health in the northeast when it has so completely failed to do so out west and other parts of the country. 
http://www.propublica.org/article/epa-finds-fracking-compound-in-wyoming-aquifer

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Glenn Greenwald, How the Rich Subverted the Legal System

Greenwald illustrates how the OWS movement has been ignited by the widely held belief that powerful interests are not held to the same standard as ordinary citizens, in an unjust legal system.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175458/tomgram%3A_glenn_greenwald%2C_how_the_rich_subverted_the_legal_system/?utm

Consciousness: What You Don't Know Might Kill You

This piece examines the issue of GMO food labeling through the Ayurveda lens; pointing out the dangers of genetically hacked, nutritionally deficient foods that animals will not consume if given a choice, and tracking the rapid growth of allergies, autism, ADHD, diabetes, obesity and cancers since the introduction of GMOs to the food stream.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vaishali/gmo-seeds-food_b_1031515.html

CDC Deliberately Manipulated, Covered Up Scientific Data Showing Link Between Vaccines Containing Mercury and Autism

The blatant disregard of many regulatory agencies in the US regarding risks to public health is appalling. A Danish study showing a direct link between Mercury and autism was rewritten by CDC administrators to alter results and then published in a leading medical journal under pressure from the agency. Autism now strikes something like one in seventy American boys and the rates have been dramatically increasing in tandem with our government's public push for vaccines.
http://www.naturalnews.com/034038_vaccines_autism.html