Karl Grossman: Radiation is Good for You? The Hormesis Scam

By KARL GROSSMAN

http://counterpunch.org/grossman07252011.html

Among the nuttiest theories about radiation is that it is good for you.
Yes, radiation is good for you - it exercises the immune system.

That's what some nuclear scientists claim. They call it the "hormesis radiation" theory. These scientists don't just want to minimize or even flatly deny the deadly impacts of radioactivity - they want people to think it's healthy.

An advocate of the "hormesis radiation" theory was scheduled to peddle the theory tomorrow before the U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River Site-Citizens Advisory Board.

The DOE's Savannah River Site is a radioactive mess -- 310 square miles in South Carolina -- thatincludes the Savannah River National Laboratory and five now closed nuclear reactors. It's been used through the years to produce plutonium and tritium for nuclear weapons, plutonium-based MOX fuel for nuclear power plants and plutonium to power NASA space probes, and do other things nuclear. It is in an area of South Carolina which has a large minority population. It's been designated a high-pollution Superfund site.

Click to read more ...

Dean Baker: The Payroll Tax Cut -- A Stimulus That Progressives Should Oppose

Monday 25 July 2011

by: Dean Baker, Truthout | News Analysis

http://www.truth-out.org/payroll-tax-cut-stimulus-progressives-should-oppose/1311605717

President Obama is proud of the fact that he was willing to bargain away the core of the country's social safety net to reach an agreement with the Republicans on the debt ceiling. According to accounts of the negotiations, he had agreed to raise the eligibility age for Medicare to 67. He had also agreed to a change in the cost-of-living adjustment formula for Social Security that would reduce benefits by an average of more than 3 percent. This is in addition to the cuts in Medicaid and other programs that would also have been part of the deal.

Fortunately, the Republicans walked away because of the tax increases in the deal. This is not the first time that the Republicans may have inadvertently saved Social Security. Their impeachment of President Clinton put an end to any plans that he had for privatizing the program.

However, we cannot count on Republican intransigence to always come to the rescue of Social Security. We know that we have a president in the White House who is perfectly willing to bargain away the program if the occasion arises.

Click to read more ...

Sam Pizzigati: Plutocracy -- If Corporations and the Rich Paid 1960s-Level Taxes, the Debt Would Vanish

By Sam Pizzigati, Campaign for America's Future
Posted on July 24, 2011, Printed on July 25, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/151754/plutocracy%3A_if_corporations_and_the_rich_paid_1960s-level_taxes%2C_the_debt_would_vanish

Once upon a time in America, back a century ago, our nation's rich paid virtually nothing in taxes to the federal government. And that same federal government did virtually nothing to better the lives of average Americans.

But those average Americans would do battle, over the next half century, to rein in the rich and the corporations that made them ever richer. And that struggle would prove remarkably successful. By the 1950s, America's rich and the corporations they ran were paying significant chunks of their annual incomes in taxes — and the federal projects and programs these taxes helped finance were actually improving average American lives.

America's wealthy, predictably, counterattacked — and, by the 1980s, they were scoring successes of their own.

Click to read more ...

ENewspf.com: White House Pact with Industry to Push Genetically Engineered Plants

ENewspf.com

Thursday, 21 July 2011
http://www.enewspf.com/latest-news/science-a-environmental/25563-white-house-pactwith-industry-

In an effort to boost exports, the Obama White House has entered into a joint venture with the agricultural biotechnology industry to remove barriers to the spread of genetically engineered (GE) crops, even on national wildlife refuges, according to documents posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).  Today, PEER sued the White House Trade Representative, Office of Management & Budget (OMB) and the State Department to force release of documents detailing their partnership with industry.

Recent successful lawsuits brought by PEER with the Center for Food Safety have underlined the incompatibility of GE crops with refuge habitats, which has strengthened objections from GE-averse nations. The Biotechnology Industry Association (BIO), whose most prominent member is Monsanto, the world's biggest source of GE crops, approached the Obama White House for assistance. In late 2010, the White House formed an interagency "Agriculture Biotech Working Group" consisting of more than 35 officials from ten agencies to promote GE agriculture.  This Working Group includes officials from the White House and its OMB, Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP), Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and the Trade Rep.  It also has officials from State, Justice, Agriculture, EPA and FDA.

Click to read more ...

"JESSE McKINLEY" - Farm Thieves Target Grapes, and Even Bees

New York Times,  July 21, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/22/us/22crime.html?_r=1

By JESSE McKINLEY

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — Sgt. Walt Reed said he could tell right away that the grapes were stolen. They looked like an ordinary bunch. Except, he said, for the way they were dressed.

“Usually grapes are put into plastic bags,” said Sergeant Reed, a 28-year veteran of the Kern County Sheriff’s Office. “But these grapes were just thrown in a Styrofoam box.”

Sergeant Reed — who eventually arrested a suspect after staking out a Kern County vineyard — is just one of dozens of deputies on the front lines of agricultural crime in California, home to the nation’s most productive farms and the people who prey on them. While thievery has long been a fact of life in the country, such crimes are on the rise and fighting them has become harder in many parts of California as many grants for rural law enforcement have withered on the vine.

Click to read more ...

"J. D. Heyes" - Gardening activities reduce lung cancer risk by 50%

by J. D. Heyes 

http://www.naturalnews.com/033121_gardening_lung_cancer.html

(NaturalNews) Not only is having a green thumb a great way to stay healthier and happier, but new research shows it can actually protect you from cancer.

Noted cancer treatment and research center M.D. Anderson, at the University of Texas, found in a study that time spent gardening once or twice a week can reduce the risk of cancer by 50 percent in lifelong nonsmokers. Moreover, researchers found, the same level of gardening activity by former smokers can reduce cancer risk by as much as 40 percent.

And while researchers said they weren't exactly sure if gardening reduced the incidence of cancer more than other physical activities, they did find that it was the most commonly shared trait among the study's participants.

The cancer-prevention benefits of gardening are also echoed by the American Institute of Cancer Research, which said that gardening is a physical activity that not only helps prevent cancer but also contributes to overall health and endurance.

Click to read more ...

Kevin Kamps: Atomic Power in a Destabilized Climate

By KEVIN KAMPS

http://counterpunch.org/kamps07222011.html

The nuclear power industry has spent a lot of money on public relations and national advertizing campaigns aimed at convincing the public and decision makers that atomic energy is a solution to the worsening climate crisis. But extreme weather, likely made more frequent and intense by the growing concentration of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, means that nuclear power is too risky to operate amidst the climate chaos. Current historic floods on the Missouri River, threatening the Fort Calhoun and Cooper (of the same design as Fukushima) atomic reactors in Nebraska, have underscored the point. So has a historic wildfire that recently came dangerously close to tens of thousands of 55 gallon barrels of plutonium-contaminated wastes at the Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab in New Mexico.

Fortunately, a record number of tornadoes, some of record size, this spring across the Midwest, South, and Southeast, did not strike atomic reactors, although some were forced to shut down as a safety precaution when primary electric grids failed. Previous direct hits by tornadoes at atomic reactors, such as Davis-Besse, Ohio, in June 1998, came close to causing a catastrophic radioactivity release, as did Hurricane Andrew at Turkey Point nuclear power plant near Miami in 1992.

Given their vulnerable locations, on sea coasts, rivers, the Great Lakes, etc., atomic reactors grow more risky with the worsening climate crisis. In fact, the 104 operating reactors at 65 sites in 30 states across the U.S. are almost all vulnerable to extreme weather events.

Click to read more ...

Bob Burnett: How Obama Squandered the High Hopes of Those Who Elected Him

By Bob Burnett, AlterNet
Posted on July 24, 2011, Printed on July 25, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/151757/how_obama_squandered_the_high_hopes_of_those_who_elected_him

As he heads for the debt-limit showdown with Republicans, President Obama cannot be comforted by the latest Gallup Poll that shows him trailing the generic Republican presidential candidate by five percentage points. Republicans won't vote for him; Obama has lost support among Independents and has alienated many Democrats. What happened?

Fortunately for Obama, there is no "generic" Republican presidential candidate; the GOP isn't offering vanilla but instead varieties of tutti-frutti. Head to head the president leads each of the announced candidates including Romney and Bachmann. But that shouldn't cause observers to discount his drooping poll numbers. The president has a problem that may thwart his reelection bid.

Click to read more ...

The Guardian/UK: Melting Arctic Ice Releasing Banned Toxins, Warn Scientists

Published on Monday, July 25, 2011 by The Guardian/UK

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/24/melting-arctic-ice-banned-toxins-pops

 

Unknown amount of trapped persistent organic pollutants poses threat to marine life and humans as temperatures rise

The warming of the Arctic is releasing toxic chemicals that had been trapped in the ice and cold water, scientists have discovered.

The researchers warn that the amount of the poisons in the polar region is unknown and their release could "undermine global efforts to reduce environmental and human exposure to them".

The chemicals seeping out as temperatures rise include the pesticides DDT, lindane and chlordane as well as the industrial chemicals PCBs and the fungicide hexachlorobenzene (HCB). All of these are know as persistent organic pollutants (Pops), and are banned under the 2004 Stockholm convention.

Click to read more ...

"Captain America" - 9/11 -- Who Really Benefited?

Fact and Not Fiction...

By Captain America

Global Research, July 24, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25762

Global Research Editor's Note

We bring to the attention of our readers this provocative review of the strategic and corporate interests behind 9/11 including Wall Street, the Texas oil companies and the defense contractors. 

The statements in this article are corroborated by numerous studies, books, news articles and research reports published since September 2001. 

In the course of almost ten years, Global Research has conducted a detailed review and analysis of the 9/11 attacks, focussing on their broad implications as well as their historical significance. See our 9/11 and the War on Terrorism Dossier

Michel Chossudovsky, July 24, 2011

---

Forget so-called conspiracy theories. Instead look at reality. Dare ask yourself who actually seems to have benefited from the 9-11 calamity. In light of the debt ceiling debates and the continuous corrupt politics as usual of Washington D.C., it is time for the American people, and individual states of this federation, to look at a troubling set of facts. It seems there were “several” beneficiaries of 9-11 that don’t exactly fit the story line we were constantly fed by the propaganda machine and mainstream media as to how to connect the dots (which we were rhetorically asked to do).

Here is a list of peoples that benefited. Most of this list is factual. Some are more opinion but with strong support in reality-based argument:

Click to read more ...