NEELA BANERJEE, - Los Angeles Times
Stephan: Here is the latest on fracking. As you can see virtually everything the petroleum industry is saying is a lie, and their position is to act first and find out how many people are harmed second. These people really are the dark side of the force.
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration proposed updated rules for oil and gas development on federal lands – an effort to catch up with the boom in use of the controversial technique of hydraulic fracturing – but struck a compromise that failed to satisfy industry and most environmentalists.
Both sides focused on the contentious issue of disclosure of compounds that companies use during hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which entails injecting millions of gallons of water and sand laced with chemicals into rock formations to unlock oil and gas deposits.
The proposed rules would require companies for the first time to disclose the chemicals they use within 30 days of ‘fracking
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KATHRYN SMITH, - Politico
Stephan: There is not much in this report on U.S. Healthcare that will come as a surprise to anyone who reads SR regularly. But it will confirm the points I have been making. We don't have a healthcare system in the U.S. in the sense of a system designed to produce national wellness. We have an illness profit system. When it produces health that's wonderful, but that is not the point of the drill as this latest report makes clear.
The United States spends more on health care than 12 other industrialized countries, a new Commonwealth Fund study finds – but that doesn’t mean this country’s care is any better.
The U.S. spent nearly $8,000 per person for health care services in 2009, the study found, confirming that ‘health care spending in the U.S. dwarfs that found in any other industrialized country.
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Stephan: In a democracy when citizens no longer trust and respect the central institutions of government that democracy is in real trouble. The assessment of most Americans concerning the Congress, as is well known, is in single digits, the lowest since such records have been kept. The Presidency always goes up and down. But the Supreme Court usually enjoys real respect and esteem. However, that is changing and the third leg of our Constitutional structure, has fallen to new lows. This is not a trivial issue, and it is a measure -- based on real data, properly collected and analysed -- as to how corrupt and compromised are government, as a structural entity, has become.
Note particularly that this decline in respect and esteem holds true across the political spectrum.
Click through to see the charts.
Overview
Public assessments of the Supreme Court have reached a quarter-century low. Unlike evaluations over much of the past decade, there is very little partisan divide. The court receives relatively low favorable ratings from Republicans, Democrats and independents alike.
The survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted April 4-15, 2012 among 1,514 adults nationwide, finds 52% offering a favorable opinion of the Supreme Court, down from 58% in 2010 and the previous low of 57%, in 2005 and 2007. About three-in-ten (29%) say they have an unfavorable view, which approaches the high reached in 2005 (30%).
Declining Ratings across Party Lines
There are virtually no partisan differences in views of the Supreme Court: 56% of Republicans, and 52% of both Democrats and independents rate the Supreme Court favorably. And the decline in court ratings has occurred across party lines over the past three years. In April 2009, soon after Barack Obama took office, 70% of Republicans, 63% of Democrats, and 64% of independents held a favorable opinion of the court.
Republican ratings fell steeply between 2009 and 2010, with the appointments of Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to the court. Democratic ratings remained relatively high through 2010, but have […]
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CHRIS KAISER, Cardiology Editor - MedPage Today
Stephan: Since they were introduced Tasers have been enthusiastically embraced by police across America. Even on my little island our small police force all wear them on their belts. The idea was they were nonlethal alternatives to guns. Accumulating research suggests they are not quite as nonlethal as was once believed.
Primary source:
Zipes DP 'Sudden cardiac arrest and death associated with application of shocks from a taser electronic control device' Journal of the American Heart Association 2012; DOI: 10.1161/
A shock to the chest from a stun gun can cause sudden cardiac arrest and death, a small study suggested.
In eight cases of stun-gun induced loss of consciousness, the first recorded rhythms were ventricular tachycardia/fibrillation in six and asystole (after about 30 minutes of nonresponsiveness) in one, according to the first clinical study of taser effects published in a peer reviewed journal.
An external defibrillator reported a shockable rhythm in one case, but no recording was made, Douglas P. Zipes, MD, from Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, reported online in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
Given the animal and clinical data, Zipes concluded that shocks from stun guns can cause ventricular fibrillation, which can lead to death.
Stun guns, also known as tasers, are classified as nonlethal weapons. They are not considered firearms and, therefore, are not regulated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Zipes noted.
However, they are capable of delivering an initial shock of 50,000 volts, followed by shorter 1,200-volt shocks that the user can stop, repeat, or sustain longer.
The safety of stun guns has been questioned, particularly by Amnesty International, which reported more than 500 deaths in the U.S. following shocks from stun guns […]
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ARI LEVAUX, - AlterNet (U.S.)
Stephan: Several readers wrote me when I ran the story about olive oil reporting the fact that much of what is sold as olive oil is, in fact, adulterated. They suggested using canola oil. From what I know of the subject this is not a good alternative, and I have been looking for a report that would explain why this is the case. Here it is.
To look at many cookbooks, you’d think olive oil and canola oil were identical twins separated at birth. Countless recipes call for ‘extra-virgin olive oil or canola oil,’ as if the two were interchangeable.
This implied equivalence is odd. Extra-virgin olive oil is cold-pressed from a fruit that has been cultivated for more than 7,000 years, with no refining beyond filtration. Canola oil is refined with heat, pressure, solvents, and bleach, and comes from the seed of a plant that’s younger than the Rolling Stones.
The canola plant was conceived when demand for rapeseed oil plummeted in the late 1940s, and the Canadian rapeseed industry began seeking and creating new markets for its product. Since the Industrial Revolution, rapeseed oil has been an important component of lubricants for ships and steam engines, because unlike most oils it sticks to wet metal. During World War II the U.S. built a lot of ships, and so needed lots of rapeseed oil, but couldn’t get it from traditional suppliers in Europe and Asia. The Canadian rapeseed industry, which had been relatively small, exploded to fill the gap, and played an important role in the allied naval effort, becoming rich and powerful in the process.
But rapeseed […]
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