"Lori Montgomery" - Report: One in Four Millionaires Pays Less in Taxes than Some in Middle Class

Published on Wednesday, October 12, 2011 by The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/report-one-in-four-millionaires-pays-less-in-taxes-than-the-middle-class/2011/10/12/gIQAh8XNfL_story.html

by Lori Montgomery

A quarter of millionaires in the United States pay a smaller share of their income in federal taxes than many middle-class families, according to a new congressional analysis that offers fresh support for President Obama’s push to raise taxes on the nation’s wealthiest households.

The report, by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, found that when all federal taxes are taken into account, including taxes on wages, investment income and corporate profits, households earning more than $1 million face an average tax rate of about 30 percent — significantly higher than the roughly 19 percent rate paid by households earning less than $100,000owever, the average obscures a great deal of variation within income categories, the report says, with some millionaires paying rates as high as 35 percent and others paying rates as low as 24 percent. Using 2006 IRS data, the CRS found that about 94,500 households making more than $1 million a year paid a lower rate than the most heavily taxed households earning less than $100,000 year. About 10.4 million moderate-income families paid more than 26.5 percent of their earnings in federal taxes.

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"Seed Daily" - Petition demands US label genetically engineered food

Staff Writers, Seed Daily
Washington (AFP) Oct 4, 2011

http://www.seeddaily.com/reports/Petition_demands_US_label_genetically_engineered_food_999.html

Supporters and producers of organic foods petitioned the US government Tuesday for mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods, and encouraged consumers to go online and join the cause.

The 21 petitioners want the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to use the full power of the law to ensure that consumers know when they are buying food made with genetically modified ingredients.

"The absence of mandatory labeling disclosures for genetically engineered foods is misleading to consumers," says the 25-page legal petition, drafted by lawyers at the non-profit Center for Food Safety in Washington.

"The requested actions are necessary to prevent economic fraud, and to protect consumers who are deceived by thinking the absence of labeling means the absence of genetically engineered foods."

To pile on the pressure, organizers launched a website, justlabelit.org, on Tuesday where the American public can "flood" the FDA with a pre-written comment in support of the petition.

"Genetically engineered foods are required to be labeled in the 15 European Union nations, Russia, Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, and many other countries around the world," the prepared comment says.

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"Seed Daily" - China says 100 mln farmers to move to cities by 2020

Staff Writers, Seed Daily
Beijing (AFP) Oct 10, 2011

http://www.seeddaily.com/reports/China_says_100_mln_farmers_to_move_to_cities_by_2020_999.html 

More than 100 million Chinese farmers will move to cities by 2020, posing huge challenges for urban planners and already stretched social welfare systems, according to a new official forecast.

China has seen an unprecedented wave of urbanisation as millions of migrant workers have flooded cities to provide the cheap labour that has helped the world's second-largest economy achieve breakneck growth.

A new government report released to some state media on Sunday said the urban population would top 800 million by 2020, up from 666 million in 2010, as more rural Chinese sought better incomes in the cities.

China's rapid urbanisation is already creating social problems, with migrant workers often treated as class citizens, and the National Population and Family Planning Commission report called for "equal public services" for all.

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"Science Daily" - Violent Games Emotionally Desensitizing, Research Suggests

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111012124019.htm ScienceDaily (Oct. 12, 2011) — After excessively violent events, shoot 'em up games regularly come under scrutiny. In Norway, several first-person shooter games disappeared from the market for a while after the killings. Does intense fighting on a flat screen display also result in aggressive behavior in real life? Researchers from the University of Bonn found brain activity patterns in heavy gamers that differed from those of non-gamers.

The study's results have just been published in the scientific journal Biological Psychology.

"First-person shooter" games have been discussed in connection with violence over and over. Participants take on the role of a shooter fighting opponents in a war-like situation using different weapons. The Norwegian killer is said to have participated in such worlds intensely before he killed dozens of people in Oslo's government district and on the vacation island of Utoya. And after the shooting sprees in Erfurt, Emsdetten and Winnenden, the debate whether violent games lower the inhibition threshold and result in violent behavior was revived again. Psychologists, epileptologists and neurologists from the University of Bonn studied the effect of shoot 'em up game images and other emotionally charged photos on the brain activity of heavy gamers. "Compared to people who abstain from first-person shooters, they show clear differences in how emotions are controlled," reported lead author Dr. Christian Montag from the Institute of Psychology at the University of Bonn.

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"Ethan A. Huff" - How to heal a cavity naturally and nutritionally without the need for 'drilling and filling'

by Ethan A. Huff, staff writer

http://www.naturalnews.com/z033854_cavities_remedies.html

(NaturalNews) Having a dentist drill out a tooth and fill it with composite, ceramic, or toxic amalgam is not the only way to deal with the onset of a cavity. Sarah Pope, a mother and Nutrition Education and Chapter Leader for the Weston A. Price Foundation, tells the story on her blog of how her young son's cavity was completely healed through one simple dietary, as well as supplementation with a combination of two powerful healing oils.

When Sarah's husband first noticed the deep crater on the side their son's lateral incisor tooth, the couple immediately decided to call the dentist and schedule an appointment to have it filled. Though familiar with nutritional protocols for healing tooth cavities naturally, Sarah and her husband decided that the cavity was too severe, and that the best course of action was to have it filled as soon as possible in order to prevent it from rotting completely.

But since the first available appointment was scheduled for several weeks out, Sarah decided to instruct her son to go through with the natural tooth healing protocol anyway. This included him daily consuming raw butter and honey on two pieces of toast, and supplementing with a teaspoon of fermented cod liver oil and three capsules of butter oil.

According to Sarah's account, her son had already been eating tahini and honey on toast every day, as well as consuming cod liver oil. But she decided to simply switch out his tahini for raw butter, and add butter oil to his daily dose of fermented cod liver oil, a synergistic combination long-hailed by Dr. Weston A. Price as a highly-therapeutic nutritional healing treatment.

However, just one day before her son's appointment, Sarah received a call from the dentist's office notifying her that the dentist had to make a sudden out-of-town trip, and that the appointment would have to be rescheduled another few weeks out. So Sarah's son continued the raw butter and butter oil routine during that time and, to make a long story short, saw his cavity vanish completely.

This amazing healing story is an inspiration because of its simplicity -- what could be easier than eating fresh raw butter and taking a little bit of oil every day? It is also a testament to the amazing healing power of natural foods.

"Dave Gabriele" - Meditation nourishes the brain

by Dave Gabriele

http://www.naturalnews.com/z033850_meditation_brain.html

(NaturalNews) What is it about meditation that invokes so much mystery? When asked, people conjure images of difficult lotus positions, strange beliefs and exotic settings. Of course, none of that is necessary and the realities of a person sitting comfortably on their living room floor for a few minutes isn't quite as interesting. Confounding public perceptions even more are the religious connotations that are sometimes connected to meditation. This only serves to further alienate people who could potentially benefit. This is unfortunate since it can easily be argued that prayer in any religion is a form of meditation. The practice of meditation has a long history in almost every major historical civilization and religion, yet there is so much that is not known.

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"Science Daily" - Can't Buy Me Love: Study Shows Materialistic Couples Have More Money and More Problems

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111013085237.htm  ScienceDaily (Oct. 13, 2011) — New research to be published Oct. 13 confirms The Beatles' lyrical hypothesis and finds that "the kind of thing that money just can't buy" is a happy and stable marriage.

Scholars at Brigham Young University studied 1,734 married couples across the United States. Each couple completed a relationship evaluation, part of which asked how much they value "having money and lots of things."

The researchers' statistical analysis showed that couples who say money is not important to them score about 10 to 15 percent better on marriage stability and other measures of relationship quality than couples where one or both are materialistic.

"Couples where both spouses are materialistic were worse off on nearly every measure we looked at," said Jason Carroll, a BYU professor of family life and lead author of the study. "There is a pervasive pattern in the data of eroding communication, poor conflict resolution and low responsiveness to each other."

The findings will be published Oct. 13 in the Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy.

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"McGill University" - Feeding the world while protecting the planet

McGill University, October 12, 2011

http://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/news/item/?item_id=202006http://

The problem is stark: One billion people on earth don’t have enough food right now. It’s estimated that by 2050 there will be more than nine billion people living on the planet.

Meanwhile, current agricultural practices are amongst the biggest threats to the global environment. This means that if we don’t develop more sustainable practices, the planet will become even less able to feed its growing population than it is today.

But now a team of researchers from Canada, the U.S., Sweden and Germany has come up with a plan to double the world’s food production while reducing the environmental impacts of agriculture. Their findings were recently published in the journal Nature.

By combining information gathered from crop records and satellite images from around the world, they have been able to create new models of agricultural systems and their environmental impacts that are truly global in scope.

McGill geography professor Navin Ramankutty, one of the team leaders on the study, credits the collaboration between researchers for achieving such important results.  “Lots of other scholars and thinkers have proposed solutions to global food and environmental problems. But they were often fragmented, only looking at one aspect of the problem at one time. And they often lacked the specifics and numbers to back them up. This is the first time that such a wide range of data has been brought together under one common framework, and it has allowed us to see some clear patterns. This makes it easier to develop some concrete solutions for the problems facing us.”

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People Speak Truth to Power - Indian Point Rally! [Video]

Gary Null speaks at the highly successful Rally to Close Indian Point and Stop Hydrofracking on Saturday, October 8.

Don't forget to sign the Online Petition to the Governor and State Assemblies of NY:

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"Barbara Ehrenreich" - The Guys in the 1% Brought This On



Published on Thursday, October 13, 2011 by The Progressive

http://www.progressive.org/one_percent_barbara_ehrenreich.html

by Barbara Ehrenreich

At the risk of being pedantic, let me point out that “99% versus 1%” is not a class analysis, not in any respectable sociological sense. Shave off the top 1% and you’re still left with some awfully steep divides of wealth, income and opportunity. The 99% includes the ordinary rich, for example, who may lack private jets but do have swimming pools and second homes. It also includes the immigrant workers who mow their lawns and clean their houses for them. This is not a class. It’s just the default category left after you subtract the billionaires.

Some of the diversity of the 99% is clearly on display at the variations occupations around the country. I’ve seen occupiers who look like they picked up their camping skills on vacations in the national parks, as well as those who normally make their homes on the streets, even when they’re not protesting. Occupy Wall Street has attracted contingents of airplane pilots, electricians and construction workers -– the latter often from the new World Trade Center being built a block away. You’ll also find schoolteachers, professors, therapists, office workers and, of course, the usual crusty punks of indistinct provenance and profession. In Washington, I met one occupier wearing a crisp blue dress shirt and a tie emblazoned with tiny elephants. He said he was a Republican, a lawyer, and he’d had enough.

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