It's mind-boggling to grasp all of the toxins that people are exposed to these days in daily life. These toxics are dangerous for everyone but especially young children and pregnant mothers. The Canadian Partnership for CHildren's Health and Environment has just issued guidelines for avoiding some of the most common toxins that can be found in people's homes.
http://www.naturalnews.com/032730_children_toxic_chemicals.html
The Supreme Court ruled in a 8-0 decision against several states and the city of New York that sought to reduce greenhouse gas pollution using the nuisance theory to allow federal judges to intervene against major polluters. The court denied federal judges this power in arguing that climate policy should be set by climate experts, such as the EPA. However, the court also suggested that state legislatures and judges could act to supplement environmental regulations that the EPA cannot or will not enforce. The states rights issue could very well cut both ways, challenging conservatives oft-stated support for the tenth amendment.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/06/20/248783/supreme-court-climate-policy-should-be-set-by-actual-experts-in-climate-policy/
"Failed cables. Busted seals. Broken nozzles, clogged screens, cracked concrete, dented containers, corroded metals and rusty underground pipes – all of these and thousands of other problems linked to aging were uncovered in the AP’s yearlong investigation. And all of them could escalate dangers in the event of an accident."
The NRC is not only in bed with the nuclear industry but has been cheating on the American public in other ways as well. Weak regulations and a willingness to automatically renew leases for old nuclear plants with 20-year extensions is one aspect of the problem but now there is ample evidence that the agency fails to enforce some of the most basic regulatory requirements for operators. In so doing, the NRC is toying with the health of millions of Americans so that their pals in the nuclear industry can save a few bucks by not performing basic maintenance designed to ensure the safety of the public from unnecessary and potentially catastrophic nuclear contamination.
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/06/20/248657/ap-nuclear-regulators-weaken-safety-rules/
AP Study: US Nuclear Regulators Weaken Safety Rules
http://www.pjstar.com/free/x1781765020/AP-study-U-S-nuclear-regulators-weaken-safety-rules
This piece details the graduation reduction in the legal power of progressive labor law and its effects on unions and the strength of the middle class over the past 50 years. Laws that protected unions' right to strike and also to participate in secondary or sympathy strikes have been eviscerated with news laws such as Taft-Hartley that severely restricted the ability to apply leverage against employers in disputes. Other laws undermined negotiated agreements between employers and unions that prohibited many forms of direct action and protest from unionized workers. The result is a country and labor force with a steep decline in middle class prosperity with few options available to reverse this trend. The author contends that labor must reinvent itself, and reinvigorate the public debate, in order to reclaim the rights of labor to fully organize and collaborate in actions designed to secure greater bargaining power on behalf of working people.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/19/984611/-Think-Big:-For-labor-law,-we-have-to-go-back-to-the-future?utm
The national frenzy that resulted in 1986 after the sudden death of future NBA star Len Bias unleashed the most severe legislation the War on Drugs has ever seen. Without scientific review and study of the proposed laws, Democrats and Republicans rushed to pass tough legislation. Well, the resulting law was certainly tough, but it was also discriminatory and ended up putting hundreds of thousands of mostly black and hispanic Americans in jail for possession of modest amounts of crack and powder cocaine. The law also instituted a 100-1 ratio for crack that disproportionately affected minorities. That severity ratio was cut to 18-1 in 2010 but is still completely arbitrary. In 1986 the federal prison population was 36,000 and today it's swelled to 216,000, and the war goes on.
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/06/19/len_bias_cocaine_tragedy_still_affecting_us_drug_law/index.html
The town of Fairbanks Alaska recently voted to ban flouridation of local water because there is already enough flouride in their water and added flouride would pose a risk to babies on formula. Flouride is also well documented to adversely affect populations with kidney disease and diabetes, and over 24 studies demonstrate excess flouride's association in lowering IQ in children. Andrew Young has come out against flouridation in Atlanta, Peter Vallone has introduced a bill to ban it in NYC, and now Ralph Nader has joined this crusade.
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/06/06/3680339/ralph-nader-joins-influential.html
Fairbanks City Council Votes to End Practice of Adding Flouride to Communities Drinking Water
http://www.dailyjournal.net/view/story/6eae692ee966401a87e302f1bb6273d5/AK--Fairbanks-Fluoride/
The 'Healthful' Drink That Can Damage Your Health
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/06/05/poor-and-minority-americans-disproportionately-harmed-by-fluoride.aspx
Flouride Debate Makes A Splash in New York
http://nycitynewsservice.com/2011/06/15/fluoride-debate-makes-a-splash/
If only I could discount the issues raised in this Farm Wars piece regarding the recent e Coli. outbreak in Europe, and the backlash it has generated against organics after they were blamed as the source of the deadly disease. Unfortunately, I have already heard calls for irradiating seeds and recognize that this poses a daunting threat to the entire natural and organic health food industry. There is compelling evidence that government agencies favor the biotech agenda over organic interests and a recent history of rulings against organic and natural foods providers on the part of the USDA and the FDA. Regarding the origins of the rare new e Coli. strain, there is very little intellectual curiosity in the mainstream about how exactly it came to be in existence, and we need to push for answers to the critical question of how the pathogen became resistant to eight classes of antibiotics, and how it managed to infect a sprouts farm in Germany.
http://farmwars.info/?p=6236&utm
America's reckless push for more nuclear energy and massive natural gas fracking, rigorously embraced by the Obama Administration, is remarkably tone deaf in relation to the rest of the world. Our politicians enthusiastically sell these energy policies despite the blatant and overwhelming evidence that both technologies are unsafe and potentially devastating for the people of the planet. Japan and Germany have renounced nuclear energy in favor of more sustainable and less toxic and volatile sources. The National Assembly of France has banned fracking outright and South Africa has halted a major natural gas fracking project. The good ole US of A, meanwhile, breathlessly advocates for the great, unregulated Fracking Rush, threatening to poison drinking water and devastate farming, and wants to put little nuclear reactors all over the country despite the ongoing global contamination of the planet from the out-of-control reactors at Fukushima.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/11483/americas_energy_ethos_do_regardless_of_harm/
Apparently, the only way for Congress, absent new legislation, to prevent an action by the FDA is to withhold funding from the agency. The House took this step, a first in US history, to protect wild salmon and human populations from contamination by a bioengineered salmon that contains pesticide and growth hormone genes that make it grow twice as fast as natural salmon.
http://www.NaturalNews.com/032719_GM_salmon_Congress.html
House Votes to Block FDA Approval of Genetically Modified Salmon
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/16/genetically-modified-salmon-fda-approval_n_877983.html
Daily Kos muses on the state of the Republic and while things are, indeed, a tad depressing, I still believe it is incumbent on all of us who care about the country we live in and the prospects for the future to stand up and fight for social justice before it's too late.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/18/986340/-The-Neverdamnending-Story?utm
This post points out that the extreme weather we saw in April is, in fact, related to global warming, and backs up this assertion with comments from prominent climate scientists and other references while taking the NYT to task for a dangerously misleading headline.
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/06/18/247938/crappy-headline-ruins-new-york-times-story-climate-change-extreme-weather/
Good story, crappy headline:
Scientists See More Deadly Weather, But Dispute The Cause
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/science/earth/16climate.html?_r=2&hpw
I was unaware of this situation at Fort Calhoun until a friend mentioned it this morning. We don't know if there is radiation escaping from the site already and the government is not eager to provide this information in any case. The plant recently received a twenty-year extension from the NRC despite structural shortcomings, and there are now serious questions as to whether the overloaded spent fuel rod pools there are contaminating flood waters that surround the facility. We've really got to find a way to wind down our active nuclear reactors and stop industry from building new reactors with 100% federal government subsidies.
http://coto2.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/midwest-floods-heighten-nuclear-power-plant-crisis/#more-16714
The name of the GOP game in government these days is privatization. It is a game in which corporations seek to play with public money to provide services traditionally delivered by the public sector. There are very few cases, if any, in which privatization has benefited the public interest, whether measured in terms of cost or services provided. In Wisconsin, public outcry led the Walker administration to remove a provision to sell state power plants in no-bid deals without public comment, but the Fitzwalkerstan gang is still pushing the privatization agenda hard.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/17/privatization-wisconsin_n_873871.html
Robert Reich deconstructs the income and wealth numbers of the American economy over the past thirty years and concludes that there cannot be a strong recovery without a more robust middle class.
http://front.moveon.org/scribbling-sharpie-illustrates-the-truth-about-our-economy/#.Tfp28twgEA1;facebook
Frustration is growing among US Mayors as they struggle to deal with budget cuts while the federal government continues to spend over $2 billion a week in Afghanistan. Their call to "bring the war dollars home" could have an enormous impact in the effort to rebuild in America, spur job creation and support education throughout the country.
http://www.alternet.org/news/151336/will_u.s._mayors_vote_against_war/?utm
I didn't even realize there was a Nixon in government these days but this one, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, had the political courage to veto a voter ID law passed by the state's conservative legislature. Correctly pointing out that the law requiring state-issued ID would discriminate against seniors and those with disabilities among others, Nixon said that disenfranchisement of certain classes of people was unacceptable.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/17/986245/-Missouri-Gov-Jay-Nixon-vetoes-voter-suppression-law?utm
Efforts by the Japanese government to limit information on radiation contaminated produce and drinking water are ongoing as we are continually getting after-the-fact updates on details from the nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima and increased radiation levels in the environment from the authorities. Radioactive sludge from Fukushima has been burned by incinerators in Tokyo and tests from those areas confirm contamination levels comparable to those in Fukushima Prefecture where the nuclear meltdowns occurred.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-wagner/report-from-tokyo-reading_b_876470.html
Nuclear Never Safe - Greenpeace Pressures US Regulators
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/nuclear-never-safe/blog/35323
Due to the fact that new homes can be classified as 'green' if they reduce energy consumption by sealing off leaks to outside air, most of these homes completely miss the goal of promoting a healthier environment because they continue to be built with a vast array of toxic materials that release toxins in the home. It's more effective to use toxin-free materials when building a new home than to focus exclusively on the energy conservation aspects promoted by builders looking to jump on the 'green' bandwagon.
http://www.NaturalNews.com/032733_green_home_indoor_air_quality.html
