"Tom Laskawy" - GOP votes against food safety—again

by Tom Laskawy

The House Republicans' war on food safety continues. As reported in the Chicago Tribune, the House recently voted to kill the USDA's Microbiological Data Program (MDP), a 10-year-old program that tests produce for a wide variety of pathogens, including the strain of E. coli that caused the deadly outbreak in Germany.

Every year, the MDP screens around 15,000 samples of produce the agency considers particularly vulnerable to contamination, such as sprouts, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, cantaloupe, and cilantro, for pathogens, including salmonella and multiple strains of E. coli. If anything is found, the information is passed on to the FDA, which can then institute a recall. Significantly, the MDP represents a much broader testing regime than the FDA's own, which only manages to screen 1,000 samples a year.

Despite the fact that positive tests out of the MDP have led to 19 recalls in the last two years, the produce lobby has been agitating for some time to kill it as another one of those onerous, wasteful, and "duplicative" government programs. The Tribune references a memo written this spring by the produce lobby and sent to USDA Chief Tom Vilsack laying out these arguments, and it appears the House GOP decided to act on them.

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"John Farrell" - For U.S. electricity, bigger isn’t better

By: John Farrell

The United States doesn't need another nuclear or coal power plant. Instead, it's time to abandon our 20th-century electricity system -- dominated by large, centralized utilities -- for a 21st-century electricity system that allows a network of independently owned and widely dispersed renewable energy producers to flourish.

The 20th-century electricity grid was mostly a tale of "bigger is better." Utilities built ever-larger fossil fuel and nuclear power plants in pursuit of the cheapest possible electricity. For a 20th-century society, it worked. But the paradigm has changed.

Since the year 2007, national electricity consumption has leveled off. In many states, it has declined. Coupled with new state policies to promote energy efficiency, it's possible to halt the growth in electricity use.

We don't need more electricity: We need cleaner electricity.

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"Brad Johnson" - GOP introduces slash-and-burn budget for the environment

by Brad Johnson

6 Jul 2011 1:25 PM

Republicans have officially unveiled a slash-and-burn budget plan for the environment, with drastic cuts to environmental agencies and numerous riders to exempt polluters from science-based regulation. The House Appropriations Committee released the Interior and Environment Appropriations bill for the fiscal year 2012, to be considered in subcommittee tomorrow. The legislation includes major cuts in funding for the Department of the Interior, the EPA, the Forest Service, and various independent and related agencies.

This Tea Party budget eviscerates protections [PDF] for air, water, and land while delivering industry lobbyists a grab bag of favors. The bill denies not only the threat of global warming pollution, but also that of formaldehyde, coal ash, and pesticides. The bill cuts EPA funding by $1.8 billion, or 20 percent, below President Obama's request, and caps employment at 1992 levels. The bill restores $55 million in offshore oil and gas subsides. The bill overrules the Department of Interior's provisional decision to protect the Grand Canyon from uranium mining (Sec. 445).

Some of the many riders in the budget bill [PDF] include:

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"Mara Hvistendahl" - Missing: 163 Million Women

Ever wonder what happens when societies favor boys over girls?

By Mara Hvistendahl

Editors' note: Science magazine correspondent Mara Hvistendahl was a college student in China when she first saw an elementary school classroom where boys seriously outnumbered girls. Returning to China as a journalist several years later, she set out to investigate how, exactly, an estimated 163 million females came to be missing from the Asia's population—in South Korea, Vietnam, and Georgia, as well as India and China. The compelling result is Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men, a new book that both shows how Western organizations and scientists played a role in introducing sex selection to Asia and paints a bleak picture of societies where a dearth of women puts everyone at risk.

In the weeks since the book came out, Hvistendahl has been making the rounds, addressing the World Affairs Council, the World Policy Institute, and officials from the US State Department. New York Times columnist Ross Douthat (read our profile of him) cited the book's revelations about sex selection to argue against abortion. Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins weighed in, too, claiming Hvistendahl was attacking science over advances in prenatal technologies—to which the author responded with a post suggesting that Dawkins hadn't actually read the book. But many who have agree that it's a thought-provoking look at a mounting demographic problem. The following excerpt is adapted from the book's opening chapter.

***

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"Tim Murphy" - Michele Bachmann's Redistricting Whopper

 By Tim Murphy

Tue Jul. 5, 2011 7:40 AM PDT

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) Markn3tel/Flickr

In successive weeks, GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has been the subject of fawning profiles in the nation’s two most influential conservative political magazines, the Weekly Standard and the National Review (subscription required). The stories, which lean heavily on interviews with the congresswoman, are revealing in that they more or less present Bachmann's life story as she'd like to portray it—her political conversion after reading Gore Vidal's Burr, her travels in Israel, her unexpected entry into state politics. And her perpetual underdog status: Both stories report that Bachmann had so riled up Minnesota Democrats that, when they drew up new state senate districts in 2002, she was their top target. Here's the Standard's Matthew Continetti:

Bachmann won the state senate seat in November 2000. The question was how long she'd be able to keep the office. Redistricting forced her to run against a 10-year Democratic incumbent, Jane Krentz, in 2002. A committee chairman, Krentz had the support of environmental and women's groups. The Democrats who controlled the state senate had created the new district with her in mind.

National Review's Robert Costa says much the same thing: "Minnesota pols tried to shoo her out of office during the 2002 redistricting process."

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"Tom Philpott" - Philly Sacrifices 26 School Kitchens to the Austerity Gods

By Tom Philpott

Tue Jul. 5, 2011 9:40 AM PDT

PB&J as metaphor: a prefab lunch in an Illinois public-school cafeteria. Mrs. Q/Fed Up with Lunch blog

As negotiations over the "debt ceiling" drag on (handy MoJo explainer here), one thing is clear: Austerity is coming to the United States. No matter what—whether the Republicans accept minor tax hikes as part of a deal; whether bond investors freak out or don't freak out; whether Obama and the Democrats completely cave in to GOP insanity or just partially cave (as they already have)—the federal government will slice spending by about $1 trillion over the next decade, most likely including cuts to important social-insurance programs like Medicare and Medicaid. 

Let's be clear: Slashing government spending at a time of lingering 9 percent unemployment and stagnant wages is imbecilic. You don't have to be John Maynard Keynes to understand that when corporations stop hiring and investing, the federal government has to fill the gap, not widen it. And as the University of Texas economist James K. Galbraith has demonstrated numerous times over the past year (most recently here), the most-dire problems facing the nation are the related ones of underemployment and underinvestment in vital infrastructure, not budget deficits or the national debt. Our existing fossil-fuel-based infrastructure—roads, bridges—is crumbling. And if we're going to transition to a post-fossil-fuel economy, we'll need to build up decentralized electricity grids, wind and solar energy capacity, mass transit, local and regional food systems, and more—investments that aren't being made at nearly a sufficient rate by private actors.

Galbraith likes to quote Keynes, architect of the postwar recovery: "There is work to do; there are men to do it. Why not bring them together?" Instead, congressional GOP leaders and (to a lesser extent) the president seem intent on keeping them apart. Results will likely be disastrous; the cascading effects of ill-timed austerity will likely lead to yet larger bills down the road. Penny wise, dollar poor.

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"Andy Kroll" - Dems, Reformers Fight to Close Political Dark Money Loophole

 By Andy Kroll

| Tue Jul. 5, 2011 1:49 PM PDT

 Beverly & Pack/Flickr

A top Congressional Democrat, joined by two leading campaign finance reform groups here in Washington, has raised the ante on his demand that a federal court close a gaping loophole in the nation's laws against dark money in politics. In April, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and two campaign finance groups announced that they were filing suit against the Federal Election Commission, after more than 90 percent of the funders behind election ads went unnamed in the 2010 elections. On Tuesday, they submitted a new brief and asked the judge to consider the challenge with haste.

The legal challenge zeroes in on a decision made by the FEC, the nation's underwhelming watchdog for campaign finance, that dramatically undercut federal disclosure requirements for what are called "electioneering" advertisements—ads that outright support or oppose a candidate. Here's what happened in a nutshell: In 2007, the FEC essentially told corporations and labor unions that unless donors said outright that they wanted their money to fund electioneering ads, those donors could stay secret—disclosure rules be damned. The decision flew in the face of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law of 2002, which said that any union or corporation funding electioneering ads must reveal all contributors of $1,000 or more.

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"Rosalind Peterson" - PERSISTENT JET CONTRAILS & MAN-MADE CLOUDS CHANGE OUR CLIMATE HARMING AGRICULTURE & OUR NATURAL RESOURCES

http://newswithviews.com/Peterson/rosalindA.htm

http://newswithviews.com/Peterson/rosalind117.htm

 By Rosalind Peterson       July 12, 2009

It is sometimes difficult to separate out fact from fiction and beliefs.  It is even more difficult when United States citizens live under a government which classifies as “secret” more and more information with each passing day. In addition, many government agencies, scientists, and researchers decide that certain information should not be given to the public because they know that the public would say “NO”, to many of their experiments or actions.

            Thus, unraveling exactly why jet contrails began to abnormally persist and turn into white haze and man-made clouds, since the late 1980s, has been difficult…requiring hours of research into government documents, university studies, and following every lead to find answers to these questions.  What we do know and can prove has broad implications for human health, agriculture crop production, the health of the earth’s pollinators, lack of photosynthesis (direct sunlight needed for all trees and plants to grow and produce crops), and climate change.  The following is a brief history of persistent jet contrails and man-made clouds:

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Consumers International: Consumer rights victory as US ends opposition to GM labelling guidelines

Consumers International, Press release, 5 July 2011

*Twenty year struggle within global food safety body ends with 'consumer rights milestone'

*Move clears way for greater monitoring of the effects of GM organisms 

Consumers International (CI)i and its member organisations celebrated victory today as regulators from more than 100 countries agreed on long overdue guidance on the labelling of genetically modified (GM) food.

The Codex Alimentarius Commissionii, made up of the world's food safety regulatory agencies, has been labouring for two decades to come up with consensus guidance on this topic.

In a striking reversal of their previous position, on Tuesday, during the annual Codex summit in Geneva, the US delegation dropped its opposition to the GM labelling guidance document, allowing it to move forward and become an official Codex text.

The new Codex agreement means that any country wishing to adopt GM food labelling will no longer face the threat of a legal challenge from the World Trade Organization (WTO). This is because national measures based on Codex guidance or standards cannot be challenged as a barrier to trade.

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International Business Times: Global Warming Worse Than Thought, Warm Water the Culprit

International Business Times, Monday, July 4, 2011 12:03 PM EDT

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/174019/20110704/warm-ocean-ice-melt-sea-level-arizona.htm

Global warming and the melting of the polar caps is worse than previously thought, according to a new study from the University of Arizona that appeared in Nature Geoscience.

The study asserted that the culprit is warming ocean waters.

"Water has a much larger heat capacity than air.  If you put an ice cube in a warm room, it will melt in several hours. But if you put an ice cube in a cup of warm water, it will disappear in just minutes," said Jianjun Yin, who worked on the study.

Water has the second highest specific heat capacity of all known substances.  It, rather than air, holds most of the earth's global warming heat, so it makes sense that its impact on global warming is significant.

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