NEELA BANERJEE, - Los Angeles Times
Stephan: Yet another sign of the corruption of the Obama Administration, and its gutting of regulatory oversight to the benefit of its corporate masters. Corruption is the only manifestation of bipartisanship in our present government. You can see it most clearly in GMOs and industrial agriculture, financial oversight, Big Pharma, and anything having to do with carbon energy.
People continue to be beguiled by what Obama says, and don't seem to notice what his administration actually does. In my view, the only thing to be said on his behalf is that he is not quite as bad as the Republican would have been.
WASHINGTON — One year ago, the Environmental Protection Agency finished testing drinking water in Dimock, Pa., after years of complaints by residents who suspected that nearby natural gas production had fouled their wells. The EPA said that for nearly all the 64 homes whose wells it sampled, the water was safe to drink.
Yet as the regulator moved to close its investigation, the staff at the mid-Atlantic EPA office in Philadelphia, which had been sampling the Dimock water, argued for continuing the assessment.
In an internal EPA PowerPoint presentation obtained by the Tribune/Los Angeles Times Washington Bureau, staff members warned their superiors that several wells had been contaminated with methane and substances such as manganese and arsenic, most likely because of local natural gas production.
The presentation, based on data collected over 4 1/2 years at 11 wells around Dimock, concluded that ‘methane and other gases released during drilling (including air from the drilling) apparently cause significant damage to the water quality.’ The presentation also concluded that ‘methane is at significantly higher concentrations in the aquifers after gas drilling and perhaps as a result of fracking [hydraulic fracturing] and other gas well work.’
Critics say the decision in July 2012 by EPA headquarters in […]
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MICHAEL SMITH, North American Correspondent - MedPage Today
Stephan: If you know any new mothers you might pass this along. It could change their child's life.
Source references:
Belfort MB, et al 'Infant feeding and childhood cognition at ages 3 and 7 years: Effects of breastfeeding duration and exclusivity' JAMA Pediatr 2013; DOI: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2013.455.''
Dimitri A. Christakis 'Breastfeeding and cognition: Can IQ tip the scale?' JAMA Pediatr 2013; DOI: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2013.470.
Longer breastfeeding over the first year of life was linked to better understanding of language at 3 and better verbal and nonverbal intelligence at 7, researchers reported.
Also, any breastfeeding — as opposed to none — was associated with better verbal intelligence at 7, according to Mandy Belfort, MD, of Boston Children’s Hospital, and colleagues.
The findings, from a prospective cohort study, support a causal link between breastfeeding and later intelligence, Belfort and colleagues argued online in JAMA Pediatrics.
Taken with other research, Belfort and colleagues said, the study supports national and international recommendations in favor of exclusive breastfeeding through 6 months and at least some breastfeeding in the rest of the first year.
Indeed, the possible impact on cognition might be the factor that increases breastfeeding in the U.S., commented Dimitri Christakis, MD, of the Seattle Children’s Hospital Research Institute.
In an accompanying editorial, he noted that breastfeeding is known to reduce the incidence of such things as gastroenteritis, otitis media, and atopic eczema, but those outcomes, while desirable, do not have ‘dramatic public health consequences.’
Children’s cognitive function might be ‘the force that tilts the scale’ and prompts a range of changes in policy and public opinion on breastfeeding, Christakis argued.
He also noted that […]
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MORGANA MATUS, - inhabitat
Stephan: The corporate media pays no attention, you almost never see a mention of what is happening, and the American government doesn't want you to know about it. But here is the reality of the Alberta Tar Sands. This is a vile project, ill-conceived, and with great power to destroy the environment.
Click through to see the pictures of what this project is doing to the environment.
In Cold Lake, Alberta an environmental disaster is unfolding. The Primrose bitumen emulsion site has been seeping tar over 30 acres of swampy forest for the past nine weeks. Already, the viscous substance has contaminated a large swath of vegetation and killed dozens of animals. About 26,000 barrels of tar have been removed from the area. An anonymous government scientist told the Star that the leak was not going away, that no one understood the causes of the problem, and do not have any effective remediation measures in place. A spokesperson for the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER), which oversees the extraction sites, is currently working with owner Canadian Natural Resources Ltd to begin to clean up the mess.
bitumen, tar, extraction, global warming
The Primrose site extracts 100,000 barrels of bitumen out of the ground each day through a process known as cyclic steam stimulation (CSS). The method injects millions of gallons of pressurized steam hundreds of feet down into the earth where it loosens the bitumen enough for it to be pumped to the surface. Eighty percent of all bitumen that can be extracted can only be removed by steam, and although it has been described as a more environmentally friendly […]
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DAVID KNOWLES, - New York Daily News
Stephan: Here is some good news about GMOs. Since the Obama Administration actively serves the interests of the GMO corporations, a grassroots response has grown up. If the Obama Agriculture Department won't require GMO labeling, some companies and market farmers are Akidoing the issue and labeling their food as being non-GMO. I think this is a good and exciting trend, an example of citizen power, and I urge you to support it.
For the American restaurant chain Chipotle, ‘food with integrity
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HOPE YEN, AP Business Writer - USA TODAY/The Associated Press
Stephan: As you read this remember that six members of the Walton family which owns WalMart have wealth equal to 42.5 per cent of the entire American population, and that they are part of the 300 people in the world who amongst themselves have more wealth than 43 per cent of the human race. Never, in human history, has this level of wealth disparity between poor and rich been so great.
Note particularly that the racial differences in wealth are disappearing. This is an economic class issue, not a racial one, although amongst poor whites Rightist demagogues stir race hatred, claiming affirmative action is one of the sources of their poverty. It is a massive lie but one believed by millions including, apparently, the Rightist faction of the Supreme Court.
WASHINGTON — Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.
Survey data exclusive to The Associated Press points to an increasingly globalized U.S. economy, the widening gap between rich and poor, and the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs as reasons for the trend.
The findings come as President Obama tries to renew his administration’s emphasis on the economy, saying in recent speeches that his highest priority is to ‘rebuild ladders of opportunity’ and reverse income inequality.
As nonwhites approach a numerical majority in the U.S., one question is how public programs to lift the disadvantaged should be best focused – on the affirmative action that historically has tried to eliminate the racial barriers seen as the major impediment to economic equality, or simply on improving socioeconomic status for all, regardless of race.
Hardship is particularly growing among whites, based on several measures. Pessimism among that racial group about their families’ economic futures has climbed to the highest point since at least 1987. In the most recent AP-GfK poll, 63% of whites called the economy ‘poor.’
‘I think it’s going to get […]
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