Monday
Jun202011
The Way of the Corporation in the United States
June 20, 2011 Someone had sent me this amusing and illustratve explanation of modern coporate structure. Enjoy!
Forging his way through the predictable UK media censorship: Dr Andrew Wakefield Responds to Measles Outbreak in Swansea
June 20, 2011 Monday
Jun202011
"Science Daily" - More Evidence Vitamin D Boosts Immune Response
June 20, 2011 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110617185105.htm
ScienceDaily (June 18, 2011) — Laboratory-grown gingival cells treated with vitamin D boosted their production of an endogenous antibiotic, and killed more bacteria than untreated cells, according to a paper in the June 2011 issue of the journal Infection and Immunity. The research suggests that vitamin D can help protect the gums from bacterial infections that lead to gingivitis and periodontitis. Periodontitis affects up to 50 percent of the US population, is a major cause of tooth loss, and can also contribute to heart disease. Most Americans are deficient in vitamin D.
His interest piqued by another laboratory's discovery that vitamin D could stimulate white blood cells to produce natural proteins that have antibiotic activity, Gill Diamond of the UMDNJ -- New Jersey Dental School, Newark, showed that vitamin D could stimulate lung cells to produce LL-37, a natural antibiotic protein, and kill more bacteria. That suggested that , vitamin D might help cystic fibrosis patients. Next, in the new research, he showed that vitamin D has the same effct on gingival cells.
Then, Diamond found that vitamin D also stimulates gingival cells to produce another protein, called TREM-1, which had not been well-studied, but which was thought to be made by white blood cells. He found that it boosts production of pro-inflammatory cytokines.
The new research also showed that vitamin D coordinates expression of a number of genes not previously considered to be part of the vitamin D pathway. Those genes may be involved in additional infection-fighting pathways. A more comprehensive understanding of how vitamin D carries out this regulation at the molecular level -- something Diamond hopes to investigate -- will enable targeted therapies using vitamin D, he says.
Monday
Jun202011
"Science Daily" - How Many US Deaths Are Caused by Poverty and Other Social Factors? About the Same as Deaths from Heart Attacks and Stroke, Study Finds
June 20, 2011 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110616193627.htm
ScienceDaily (June 18, 2011) — How researchers classify and quantify causes of death across a population has evolved in recent decades. In addition to long-recognized physiological causes such as heart attack and cancer, the role of behavioral factors -- including smoking, dietary patterns and inactivity -- began to be quantified in the 1990s. More recent research has begun to look at the contribution of social factors to U.S. mortality. In the first comprehensive analysis of such studies, researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health found that poverty, low levels of education, poor social support and other social factors contribute about as many deaths in the U.S. as such familiar causes as heart attacks, strokes and lung cancer.
The full study findings are published online ahead of print in the American Journal of Public Health.
The research team, led by Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH, chair of the Mailman School Department of Epidemiology, estimated the number of U.S. deaths attributable to social factors using a systematic review of the available literature combined with vital statistics data. They conducted a MEDLINE search for all English-language articles published between 1980 and 2007 with estimates of the relation between social factors and adult all-cause mortality. Ultimately they considered 47 studies for meta-analysis. After calculating for the relative risks of mortality from social factors, researchers obtained prevalence estimates for each social factor using primarily Census Bureau data. Individual social factors included education, poverty, health insurance status, employment status and job stress, social support, racism or discrimination, housing conditions and early childhood stressors. Area-level social factors included area-level poverty, income inequality, deteriorating built environment, racial segregation, crime and violence, social capital and availability of open or green spaces.
Monday
Jun202011
Monsanto's failure to provide binding legal covenant to protect family farmers threatened by GMO contamination necessitates amended complaint Family Farm Defenders
June 20, 2011 June 1 2011
http://www.wisbusiness.com/index.iml?Article=238357
NEW YORK - New threats by Monsanto have led to the filing of an amended complaint [link] by the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) in its suit on behalf of family farmers, seed businesses, and organic agricultural organizations challenging Monsanto's patents on genetically modified seed. Twenty-three new plaintiffs have joined with the original 60 in the amended complaint, bringing the total number represented in the case to 83. The plaintiffs in the suit, titled Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA), et al. v. Monsanto and pending in the Southern District of New York, now include 36 family farmer, food, agricultural research, food safety, and environmental organizations representing hundreds of thousands of members including several thousand certified organic, biodynamic, or otherwise non-transgenic family farmers.
"Our clients don't want a fight with Monsanto, they just want to be protected from the threat they will be contaminated by Monsanto's genetically modified seed and then be accused of patent infringement," said PUBPAT Executive Director Daniel B. Ravicher. "We asked Monsanto to give our clients reassurance they wouldn't do such a thing, and in responsethey chose instead to reiterate the same implicit threat to organic agriculture made in the past."
Monday
Jun202011
"Weather Tech" - US Orders News Blackout Over Crippled Nebraska Nuclear Plant
June 20, 2011 Weather Tech, June 20, 2011
http://www.myweathertech.com/?p=1866
A shocking report prepared by Russia’s Federal Atomic Energy Agency (FAAE) on information provided to them by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) states that the Obama regime has ordered a “total and complete” news blackout relating to any information regarding the near catastrophic meltdown of the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant [photo top left] located in Nebraska.
According to this report, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant suffered a “catastrophic loss of cooling” to one of its idle spent fuel rod pools on 7 June after this plant was deluged with water caused by the historic flooding of the Missouri River which resulted in a fire causing the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) to issue a “no-fly ban” over the area.
Located about 20 minutes outside downtown Omaha, the largest city in Nebraska, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant is owned by Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) who on their website denies their plant is at a “Level 4” emergency by stating: “This terminology is not accurate, and is not how emergencies at nuclear power plants are classified.”
Monday
Jun202011
"Associated Press" - US Nuke Regulators Weaken Safety Rules
June 20, 2011 Published on Monday, June 20, 2011 by Associated Press
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/06/20
NEW JERSEY - Federal regulators have been working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nation's aging reactors operating within safety standards by repeatedly weakening those standards, or simply failing to enforce them, an investigation by The Associated Press has found.
This April 2006 photo made available by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in response to a public records request by The Associated Press shows a badly rusted valve in a containment spraying system that was initially a focus of concern as workers tried to find the source of leaks at the closed Indian Point 1 reactor in New York state. The leakage was eventually traced to spent fuel pools. The reactor had been shut down since 1974. (AP) Time after time, officials at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission have decided that original regulations were too strict, arguing that safety margins could be eased without peril, according to records and interviews.
The result? Rising fears that these accommodations by the NRC are significantly undermining safety — and inching the reactors closer to an accident that could harm the public and jeopardize the future of nuclear power in the United States.
Examples abound. When valves leaked, more leakage was allowed — up to 20 times the original limit. When rampant cracking caused radioactive leaks from steam generator tubing, an easier test of the tubes was devised, so plants could meet standards.
Monday
Jun202011
Chris Hedges: This Hero Didn’t Stand a Chance
June 20, 2011 http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/this_hero_didnt_stand_a_chance_20110620/
Posted on Jun 20, 2011
By Chris Hedges
Tim DeChristopher is scheduled to be sentenced in a Salt Lake City courtroom by U.S. District Judge Dee Benson on July 26. He faces up to 10 years in prison and a $750,000 fine for fraudulently bidding in December 2008 on parcels of land, including areas around eastern Utah’s national parks, which were being sold off by the Bush administration to the oil and natural gas industry. As Bidder No. 70, he drove up the prices of some of the bids and won more than a dozen other parcels for $1.8 million. The government is asking Judge Benson to send DeChristopher to prison for four and a half years.
His prosecution is evidence that our moral order has been turned upside down. The bankers and swindlers who trashed the global economy and wiped out some $40 trillion in wealth amass obscene amounts of money, much of it provided by taxpayers. They do not go to jail. Regulatory agencies, compliant to the demands of corporations, refuse to impede the destruction unleashed by the coal, oil and natural gas companies as they turn the planet into a hothouse of pollutants, poisoned water, fouled air and contaminated soil in the frenzied quest for greater and greater profits. Those who manage and make fortunes from pre-emptive wars, embrace torture, carry out extrajudicial assassinations, deny habeas corpus and run up the largest deficits in human history are feted as patriots. But when a courageous citizen such as DeChristopher peacefully derails the corporate and governmental destruction of the ecosystem, he is sent to jail.
“The rules are written by those who profit from the status quo,” DeChristopher said when I reached him by phone this weekend in Minneapolis. “If we want to change that status quo we have to step outside of those rules. We have to put pressure on those within the political system to choose one side or another.”
Monday
Jun202011
Robert Parry: How Robert Gates' Lies and Cover-Ups Earned Him a Long, Prestigious Career -- At the Expense of the American People
June 20, 2011 By Robert Parry, Consortium News
Posted on June 19, 2011, Printed on June 20, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/151342/how_robert_gates%27_lies_and_cover-ups_earned_him_a_long%2C_prestigious_career_--_at_the_expense_of_the_american_people
On Wednesday, Sen. Patrick Leahy asked departing Defense Secretary Robert Gates about future U.S. relations with Pakistan and other "governments that lie to us." Gates responded, in his flat Kansas twang, that "most governments lie to each other. That's the way business gets done."
Gates' Realpolitik answer before the Senate Appropriations Committee drew appreciative laughter from the audience and the usual press kudos for his "refreshing candor," but Gates's response could also be a reminder about his own dubious honesty regarding his role in major government scandals.
After all, if "most governments lie to each other," it follows that government officials do the lying and the U.S. government is not immune from the practice. So, if Gates felt that his work for past presidents - while he was at the CIA or the White House - needed to be protected by lying, would he lie?
Monday
Jun202011
Karen Greenberg: Business as Usual on Steroids -- The Obama Administration Doubles Down on the War on Terror
June 20, 2011 Published on Sunday, June 19, 2011 by TomDispatch.com
In the seven weeks since the killing of Osama bin Laden, pundits and experts of many stripes have concluded that his death represents a marker of genuine significance in the story of America’s encounter with terrorism. Peter Bergen, a bin Laden expert, was typically blunt the day after the death when he wrote, "Killing bin Laden is the end of the war on terror. We can just sort of announce that right now."
Yet you wouldn’t know it in Washington where, if anything, the Obama administration and Congress have interpreted the killing of al-Qaeda’s leader as a virtual license to double down on every “front” in the war on terror. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was no less blunt than Bergen, but with quite a different endpoint in mind. “Even as we mark this milestone,” she said on the day Bergen’s comments were published, “we should not forget that the battle to stop al-Qaeda and its syndicate of terror will not end with the death of bin Laden. Indeed, we must take this opportunity to renew our resolve and redouble our efforts.”
Monday
Jun202011
Michael Hudson: When Only "Crazies" See the Bank Giveaway for What It Was
June 20, 2011 By MICHAEL HUDSON
http://counterpunch.org/hudson06172011.html
Financial crashes were well understood for a hundred years after they became a normal financial phenomenon in the mid-19th century. Much like the buildup of plaque deposits in human veins and arteries, an accumulation of debt gained momentum exponentially until the economy crashed, wiping out bad debts – along with savings on the other side of the balance sheet. Physical property remained intact, although much was transferred from debtors to creditors. But clearing away the debt overhead from the economy’s circulatory system freed it to resume its upswing.
That was the positive role of crashes: They minimized the cost of debt service, bringing prices and income back in line with actual “real” costs of production. Debt claims were replaced by equity ownership. Housing prices were lower – and more affordable, being brought back in line with their actual rental value. Goods and services no longer had to incorporate the debt charges that the financial upswing had built into the system.
Financial crashes came suddenly. They often were triggered by a crop failure causing farmers to default, or “the autumnal drain” drew down bank liquidity when funds were needed to move the crops. Crashes often also revealed large financial fraud and “excesses.”
This was not really a “cycle.” It was an ascending curve, ending in a vertical plunge. But popular terminology called it a cycle because the pattern was similar again and again, every eleven years or so. When loans by banks and debt claims by other creditors could not be paid, they were wiped out in a convulsion of bankruptcy.