Wednesday, September 12th, 2018
Olga Naidenko, Senior Science Advisor for Children's Environmental Health - Environmental Working Group
Stephan: Yet another proof that when Republicans govern your life, and the lives of your family, are at greater risk in a host of ways. This is not a party it is a White supremacist christofascist cult run by oligarchs for their profit and at the expense of what they see as peasants.
If you have any reason to believe your water is compromised, follow this from the report, "Atrazine and similar herbicides can be removed from tap water by carbon filters, including inexpensive countertop pitchers. If you have, or suspect you might have contaminants in your tap water, EWG’s
Water Filter Guide can help identify the best options. "
In a move that echoes pesticide industry wishes, the Environmental Protection Agency chose to ignore recent science and human health studies on atrazine, a weed-killer that turns male frogs into females and may increase the risk of cancer, The New York Times reported last month.
Atrazine is manufactured by agrochemical giant Syngenta. It is sprayed mostly on Midwest corn fields and is consistently one of the most-detected crop chemicals in drinking water.
According to EWG’s Tap Water Database, which aggregates testing data from utilities nationwide, in 2015, atrazine was found in water systems serving nearly 30 million Americans in 27 states.
Due to its ability to disturb the fine-tuned hormonal balance in the body, even at low doses, atrazine can affect the reproductive system and the developing fetus. The European Union completely phased out atrazine because of its potential to contaminate drinking water.
In the U.S. in 2013, Syngenta settled a class action lawsuit brought by water utilities with atrazine contamination for $105 million. The settlement money was distributed to communities with the most contamination, but for many systems, that amount was insufficient to cover costs of long-term water treatment.
In […]
No Comments
Wednesday, September 12th, 2018
ZACK FORD, - Think Progress
Stephan: Several years ago at a conference I went into the hotel bathroom with someone I was pretty certain was an FTM (female to male). He went to one of the toilet booths, as I went up to the urinal, and we finished at the same time, washed our hands, and walked out together. As this was happening I was struck by just how loony and sexually dysfunctional the whole transgender bathroom issue actually is. Really; it's quite sick, by which I mean it is a form of mental disorder with no reality in facts. Now we have the evidence that this is true.
Opponents of transgender equality have long argued that respecting people’s gender identities will somehow endanger women and make them vulnerable to assault or invasion of privacy. A group of psychiatrists recently investigated this claim, however, and found almost nothing to support the argument.
In a new study published in The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, a team of researchers sought out any evidence they could find that sexual predators are somehow taking advantage of transgender equality. Despite searching various archives, the only claims they found were those being peddled by anti-LGBTQ groups like the Family Research Council, American Family Association, and Liberty Counsel. Those lists did not survive the researchers’ scrutiny.
“A thorough review revealed that only a small number of cases actually involve perpetrators who were transgender, perpetrators who falsely claimed to be transgender, or perpetrators who attempted to disguise themselves as a member of the opposite sex to gain restroom access,” the report stated.
In an op-ed for HuffPost Tuesday, lead researcher Brian Barnett, a psychiatrist in Cleveland, Ohio, was a bit more blunt. “We found only one instance — one! — of a transgender perpetrator in an alleged sex crime in a changing room,” he wrote.
“Likewise,” he continued, […]
No Comments
Tuesday, September 11th, 2018
Elizabeth Shogren , - truthdig
Stephan: When you live in a world where facts don't matter, and greed is all you care about and serve I guess this makes sense. To anyone in the fact-based world this is sabotage of America's wellbeing; actually, I think it is a form of treason.
Bryce Canyon National Park in southwestern Utah.
Credit: Mer / Flickr
Park officials scrubbed all mentions of climate change from a key planning document for a New England national park after they were warned to avoid “sensitive language that may raise eyebrows” with the Trump administration.
The superintendent of the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park in Massachusetts had signed off a year ago on a 50-page document that outlines the park’s importance to American history and its future challenges. But then the National Park Service’s regional office sent an email in January suggesting edits: References to climate change and its increasing role in threats to the famous whaling port, such as flooding, were noted in the draft, then omitted from the final report, signed in June.
The draft and the emails were obtained by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
The documents provide a rare peek behind the usually closed curtains of the Trump administration. They illustrate how President Donald Trump’s approach to climate change impacts the way that […]
No Comments
Tuesday, September 11th, 2018
Stephan: Climate change, what climate change? The Trump administration and the Republican party are damaging the planet's wellbeing, which includes America's wellbeing, in a way that history will come to regard, I believe, as a crime against humanity. Trump and the Republicans will be seen in the future in much the same way we think about national socialism and Hitler today.
Credit: www.hullfinancialplanning.com
WEST VIRGINIA IS second only to Wyoming in both coal production and President Trump’s winning vote percentage in the 2016 general election. So it was no surprise that Trump flew to the Mountain State on Tuesday to stump for his new plan to boost coal-fired power plants by cutting regulations on planet-warming carbon emissions.
“We love clean, beautiful West Virginia coal,” Trump told supporters at the Charleston Civic Center, while mocking renewable energy and natural gas, which have displaced coal in electric utilities across the US. “We love [coal],” he said. “You know, it’s indestructible stuff. In times of war, in times of conflict, you can blow up those windmills. They fall down real quick. You can blow up those pipelines real quick. You can do a lot of things to those solar panels, but you know what you can’t hurt, coal. You can do whatever you want to coal.”
Trump’s new power plant proposal—released by the EPA on Tuesday—would give states more leeway in regulating carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, and allow older coal plants to […]
No Comments
Tuesday, September 11th, 2018
MARK HAND, - Think Progress
Stephan: The Republican Party is quite literally a danger to your health. They are the party of the oligarchs, most of whom care only about becoming even richer than they already are. Human wellbeing? Planetary wellbeing? Who cares?
Utah Republican Representative Rob Bishop,
Credit:Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call
Two leaders of the House Natural Resources Committee are continuing their crusade against environmental groups. This time they are targeting the World Resources Institute (WRI), a well-respected international environmental and climate research group, over its environmental and sustainability programs in China.
Reps. Rob Bishop (R-UT), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, and Oversight and Investigations subcommittee Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-AR) sent a letter Wednesday to WRI President Andrew Steer asking him to provide information on work WRI has done with the Chinese government.
The House members gave WRI until next Wednesday to produce a large set of documents, including any information related to whether the group has registered as a foreign agent. The Republicans also requested a list of all WRI personnel who have engaged in “any work by WRI referring or related to China from January 1, 2014 to the present.”
The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) requires all people and organizations acting in the U.S. on behalf of foreign countries to register with the […]
No Comments
