NASA Scientist, Religious Leaders Arrested in Tar Sands Protest

Environment News

WASHINGTON, DC, August 29, 2011 (ENS) – NASA climatologist Dr. James Hansen was arrested today in front of the White House where he was demonstrating in opposition to the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline that would bring thick crude oil from Alberta to refineries in Oklahoma and Texas. Dr. Hansen heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City and is a climate research scientist at the Earth Institute, Columbia University.

Arrests are continuing at the White House, where about 140 people gathered on the sidewalk as part of a two-week long sit-in to protest TransCanada’s proposed 1,700 mile pipeline.
Dr. James Hansen is arrested protesting the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline in front of the White House, August 29, 2011 (Photo by Ben Powless)

The protest has led to the arrest of 521 people since August 20, when protestors began the Tar Sands Action sit-in at the White House. The protest will continue until September 3.

Because the proposed pipeline would cross the United States-Canada border, a Presidential Permit issued by the U.S. State Department is required for the project to proceed. The protestors are demanding that President Barack Obama decline to issue a permit for the pipeline because of the environmental damage it would cause.

The rest of the story
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The Animal: On George Orwell, Frankenfood, Corporate Farms, & The Matrix

from Wikipedia

George Orwell, in his book Animal Farm, wrote about Old Major, the old boar on the Manor Farm, who calls the animals on the farm for a meeting, where he compares the humans to parasites and teaches the animals a revolutionary song, “Beasts of England.”

When Major dies three days later, two young pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, assume command and turn his dream into a philosophy. The animals revolt and drive the drunken and irresponsible Mr. Jones from the farm, renaming it “Animal Farm.”

The Seven Commandments of Animalism are written on the wall of a barn. The most important is the seventh, “All animals are equal.” All the animals work, but the workhorse, Boxer, does more than others and adopts the maxim — “I will work harder.”

Which brings me to the here and now, and the effects of agrocorportions on food production for folks all over the planet. We are rapidly approaching the era of Frankenfood and if the Agrocorp’s have their way we won’t even be able to grow our own. There is a movement to re-instate small farms and organic methods
, but large corporations like Monsanto are buying influence in government, in our educational system, and even the corporate media.

So…Lets take a break and watch the effects of tampering with Mother Nature, and what can happen to life forms on our fragile planet if there are no controls on genetic manipulation, chemical farming, and animal factory practices.

This comes in eight parts. Just doubleclick the screen to go to Youtube where you can see the complete movie…G%

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The Right’s Inability To Grasp Climate Change Is Dangerous

The Right’s Inability to Grasp Climate Change May Be Funny, But It’s Also Very Dangerous

AlterNet / By Daniela Perdomo

February 12, 2010

The so-called Snowpocalypse has brought out the funny bone in the right-wing media, but their inability to correctly draw causal connections is very dangerous.

Climate change conspiracies are hardly new, but the so-called Snowpocalypse in Washington D.C. has returned them front-and-center to every single right-wing media outlet.

A Fox News anchor smugly claimed that the record snow had not only buried people’s cars — it was also “burying” global warming theories. In a World Net Daily radio segment, someone joked that liberals would soon be claiming the snowfall — and global warming — was the Tea Party movement’s fault. And the family of Sen. James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, built a six-foot-tall igloo on Capitol Hill and topped it off with a sign that read, “Al Gore’s New Home,” before posting it on Facebook to the delight of climate change non-believers across the country. (From a commenter: “What if the D.C. tent cities became IGLOO cities?? The irony!” Bashing global warming and the homeless in one fell swoop — classy.)

For years since climate change has been accepted fact among the bulk of the international scientific and environmental community, many people have contended that global warming is a farce brought on by a New World Order (often embodied by the relatively powerless United Nations) to construct a world government that will undermine American sovereignty and make us all slaves to Al Gore and his green business cronies, who will be swimming in our green — our hard-earned cash. Certainly not all global warming deniers fall into this particular conspiracy camp, but it’s among the more popular story-lines.

MORE HERE

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Bu$h Crime Family leaves DU on the table for Obama

Gulf War Illnesses Debate Rages On for 18 Years: No End in Sight for the Sick

by: Thomas D. Williams, truthout.org

Thursday 19 March 2009

Barack Obama is now the fourth president facing the scientific and bureaucratic conundrum around the US-created ongoing wartime hazards producing disastrous health complications for soldiers and civilians.

Eighteen years after the six-week first Gulf War, maladies still haunt thousands of US and allied service members as well as estimated hundreds of thousands of Iraqi, Kuwaiti and Afghan civilians. A myriad of scientists and government officials insist it is bewildering to pinpoint whether countless chemical and radiological hazards either killed or sickened hundreds of thousands of US service members, allied soldiers and Iraqi, Kuwaiti and Afghan civilians. Federal health officials have not only denied monetary and health assistance to thousands of veterans, whose illnesses they say cannot be linked to US created wartime hazards, but they have mostly failed to assist the Iraqi, Kuwaiti and Afghan civilian health system.

“Our war (the first Gulf War) was the most toxic as far as exposures ever in history,” said Denise Nichols, a retired US Air Force registered nurse and veterans’ advocate, who herself suffers from wartime illness. “How can parents or the American citizens trust their government or encourage their young to enlist when this history of neglect and denial of gulf war illness is allowed to fester … [the US Department of Veterans Affairs] has betrayed us. [The Department of Defense] has betrayed us. The government for 17 years betrayed the trust we as soldiers, airmen, marines, or sailors had, and our trust must be regained by [incoming President Barack Obama].”

~more~

LINKS:

From The Department Of it’s about f*$%king time

GAO

Have DU will travel a special publication by the Lone Star Iconoclast in crawford Texas. Published on March 1, 2006, this is an important report on DU from several perspectives. It is a fairly large PDF file and might take a while to download, but worth the weight, err wate? …zzzZZZ

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The “Benefits” of “Free” Trade. Introducing the NAFTA Flu

I seldom cross-post from Reconstitution, but this is important enough that I would like to get it as much attention as I can give it.

Many of us have been screaming for YEARS that we are killing people in the name of “free” trade, and the pollution and deprivation it visits upon the underdeveloped world. It appears that maybe some of that is coming back to visit us, with a vengeance.

One of my main criticisms of “free” trade as practiced by American corporatists is the willful blind-eye we turn to what these corporations do to the countries they offshore our jobs to. They willfully subcontract work to firms that are more or less (and sometimes EXACTLY, as in the case of KBR) slaveholders. But there is so much more that “free” trade brings to other countries, in the form of toxic pollution that would never be tolerated in most Western countries (except for Texas, Alaska, Mississippi, and Alabama, of course.)

The President promised to address the environmental tsunami that NAFTA turned loose on Mexico, and then he backed off, after some pressure from American corporatists who are interested in nothing but profits. Without a doubt, some of those who pressured the President happen to be corporate “factory” farmers, who can find dealing with the waste that animal husbandry produces to be difficult, to say the least. In Mexico, of course, they’ve never had to worry about any of that; they’ve turned vast swaths of Mexico into toxic wastelands, without regard for either the population near where they set up shop, or the environment.

Do you suppose that maybe NOW, the President might consider actually keeping that promise?

Sewage-filled lagoons at a pig farm in eastern Mexico – a product of the North American free trade deal – are suspected of creating ground zero conditions for swine flu in this country.

Environmentalists argue lax regulations in the factory farming that boomed in Mexico right after the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and the U.S. are making people sick – and not just with swine flu.

“You might call this the `NAFTA flu,'” said Rick Arnold, co-ordinator of Common Frontiers, a Canadian coalition focusing on Latin America and issues of economic integration.

He argues multinationals are getting away with dire conditions not allowed north of the border.

Environmental groups three years ago began protesting against operations at the Carroll Farms in Veracruz, jointly operated by U.S. pork giant Smithfield Farms.

The first confirmed case of swine flu originated with a 5-year-old boy from the town of La Gloria, near the farm. He recovered.

Medical officials have not pinpointed where the outbreak began.

And from its Virginia headquarters, Smithfield officials insist there is no evidence linking their operations to the disease.

Smithfield Farms, the world’s largest pork producer with $12 billion in annual sales, opened Carroll Farms in 1994, calling it a “joint venture.

At home, the company was fined $12.6 million (U.S.) in 1997 after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency disclosed it was dumping raw pig sewage into a river flowing into Chesapeake Bay.

The health ministry, which earlier said 168 people were believed killed by swine flu in Mexico, yesterday would confirm only 12 of those deaths as being from swine flu and would not say how many more cases were suspected.

The air in Mexico City, once called the “most polluted” by the World Health Organization, is loaded with human fecal matter, gases, dust and other toxic materials.

“The pollution affects our eyes, throats and lungs,” said Dr. Erendira Gallardo Lobera, a general practitioner. She said the Mexican government should take stronger measures to ensure residents of the capital aren’t breathing in rat and dog feces with their oxygen.

For 30 years, the proponents of “free” trade have been extolling its many wonders. Among those wonders are a steady slide in Western living standards, small farmers in much of the developing world driven to suicide, slavery, pollution… and now, brand new (and lethal) diseases.

What’s not to LOVE about “free” trade?

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FDA Opens “Pandora’s Box” by Approving Food from Clones for Sale

FDA requires no tracking system for clones or labeling of products produced from clones or their offspring.

centerforfood safety.org

(January 15, 2008) Washington, DC – Today, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) condemned the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) irresponsible determination that milk and meat from cloned animals are safe for sale to the public. In addition, the FDA is requiring no tracking system for clones or labeling of products produced from clones or their offspring. This action comes at a time when the U.S. Senate has voted twice to delay FDA’s decision on cloned animals until additional safety and economic studies can be completed by the National Academy of Sciences and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

MORE

Don’t worry, bee happy

Well, here it is from the horses mouth folks. BIO bragging about their lobbying efforts during the Bu$h administration. All we can hope for is that the horse wasn’t genetically altered with Bill Orielly’s genes, because, needless to mention, that would be like mr. Ed’s worst night mare.

About BIO

Government Relations

“Most biotech observers look to Wall Street for insights on the industry’s prospects, but in fact, what happens in Washington and the statehouses has a profound impact on the bottom line. In 2002, BIO’s Government Relations Department won a number of legislative victories, with the signing of laws to limit liability, improve biodefense and promote biotech research. Equally important,BIO’s lobbying team beat back measures that would have decimated intellectual property protection and permitted reimportation of potentially dangerous counterfeit drugs. BIO also staked out positions on issues that remain in play as of early 2003, including proposals to expand Medicare drug coverage and change stock option accounting.”

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Earth Hour: Lights out at 8:30 PM March 28, 2009

Hmm, interesting concept* wonder if there is anyone out there who will notice. I will be participating, always the optimist when it comes to group think, and I hope that the participation is 100%. If our troubled old planet is being observed from other lifeforms in our galaxy an event like this might get their attention. Not only could the light fluxuation be seen, on an hourly basis, but a decrease in energy could be observed.

With a flick of the light switch, we the sheeple will have spoken and if this is successful at all we might consider greater sacrifices as we, “shudder” shut down our computers, telephones, radios, teevee’s, and all the other amenities that we consider indespsensible. With any luck, maybe next year, we could have a “The Day The Earth Stood Still” moment…G:

YOUR LIGHT SWITCH IS YOUR VOTE

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Hemp Is Not Pot: It’s the Economic Stimulus and Green Jobs Solution We Need

We can make over 25,000 things with it. Farmers love it. Environmentalists love it. You can’t get high from it. So why is it still illegal?

By Dara Colwell, AlterNet. Posted March 26, 2009.

While Uncle Sam’s scramble for new revenue sources has recently kicked up the marijuana debate — to legalize and tax, or not? — hemp’s feasibility as a stimulus plan has received less airtime.

But with a North American market that exceeds $300 million in annual retail sales and continued rising demand, industrial hemp could generate thousands of sustainable new jobs, helping America to get back on track.

“We’re in the midst of a dark economic transition, but I believe hemp is an important facet and has tremendous economic potential,” says Patrick Goggin, a board member on the California Council for Vote Hemp, the nation’s leading industrial hemp-farming advocacy group. “Economically and environmentally, industrial hemp is an important part of the sustainability pie.”

With 25,000 known applications from paper, clothing and food products — which, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal this January, is the fastest growing new food category in North America — to construction and automotive materials, hemp could be just the crop to jump-start America’s green economy.

But growing hemp remains illegal in the U.S. The Drug Enforcement Administration has lumped the low-THC plant together with its psychoactive cousin, marijuana, making America the planet’s only industrialized nation to ban hemp production. We can import it from Canada, which legalized it in 1997. But we can’t grow it.

FULL STORY

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Presidents weekly address, Agro Corporations & Victory Gardens

by Geezer Power

Mr. Obama mentions “The Department of Agriculture will close a loophole to prevent diseased cows from entering the food supply And, the government will invest in the FDA to substantially increase the number of food inspectors and modernize food safety labs”. He also mentions “Americans can trust that there is a strong system in place to ensure that the medications we give our children will help them get better, not make them sick; and that a family dinner won’t end in a trip to the doctor’s office”. Also worthy of mention is “In 2006, it was contaminated spinach. In 2008, it was salmonella in peppers and possibly tomatoes. And just this year, bad peanut products led to hundreds of illnesses and cost nine people their lives”.

In keeping with the open and transparent objectives of our new administration, “Change We Can Believe In”, we would be remiss if we didn’t question the viability of the large agricultural corportions and their detrimental effects on our food supply. The use of genetically engineered crops, the use of hormones in animal food supplies, along with the use of antibiotics is reaching proportions that will effectively put the worlds food supply in peril. Recent legislation that is now before congress will stifle any efforts to promote natural and organic methods of food production.

For you senior readers, out there on the tubes, you probably remember that the government promoted the Victory Garden” to help the war effort. We didn’t have any genes, hormones, or herbicides, at that time and home gardens produced one third of the food for the country at that time. I might mention that water didn’t cost much in those days, and was pretty much taken for granted, like…if you were thirsty you drank from the garden hose.

Keep in mind folks, that HR875, which if passed means that organic gardening methods and crops will be controlled by the Food Police. This legislation, now before congress, heavily influenced by lobbyists from huge food producers is so broad based that technically someone with a little backyard garden could get fined and have their property siezed.

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The “Corporate Media” says “Yes We Can”

Rush’s costume is actually “The Surviva Ball” which is designed by “The Yes Men to protect Haliburton executives from Mother Nature’s anguish about global warming, but, of course, this corporate media spokesman will never approach the pranks of the real Yes Men, who have been exposing the real enemy for years.

Operation Chaos

On April 23, 2008 Rush Limbaugh made the statement that he is dreaming/hoping for riots after the Dems convention if they choose Hillary over Obama. He even sang his statment to the “I’m Dreaming of a “WHITE” Christmas” tune. It appears to me that he is hoping African-Americans will revolt if Obama doesn’t win and in his dreams we would riot and wipe each other out so that he can indeed have a “white” Christmas/country.

Another notable statement by this filthy fat man was made on September 26, 2007, was about what he called “phony soldiers”and concerned our troops in Iraq. The Phony soldiers controversy refers to the controversy surrounding a statement by Rush Limbaugh in which he allegedly referred to Iraq war veterans critical of the war as “phony soldiers”. In response to Limbaugh’s comments, United States Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sent a letter to Mark P. Mays, CEO of Clear Channel Communications. The letter of complaint requested that Mays “publicly repudiate these comments and ask Mr. Limbaugh to apologize” for the remarks. The Reid letter was signed by 41 Democratic senators.

Limbaugh, who argued that the comment was not in reference to Iraq War veterans but to persons falsely claiming to be such veterans, obtained the letter and sold it on eBay for $2,100,100, the record for a charitable auction on that site. He donated the funds to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation with a matching donation of his own.

This might appear to be generosity, but Limbaugh was using money and influence to buy himself out of a sticky situation. According to a 2001 article in U.S. News & World Report, Limbaugh had an eight-year contract, at the rate of $31.25 million a year. On July 2, 2008, Matt Drudge reported that Limbaugh signed a contract extension through 2016 that is worth over $400 million, breaking records for any broadcast medium — television or radio.

Limbaugh’s personal “phony soldier moment” is damning to say the least. His birthdate was ranked as 175 in the Vietnam War draft lottery, but no one was drafted above 125. He was classified as “1-Y” (later reclassified “4-F”) due to either a football knee injury or a diagnosis of Pilonidal disease, probably the latter, which shows that he is a real pain in the arse.

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