http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN27311701
By Jon Hurdle
PHILADELPHIA, Aug 27 (Reuters) - U.S. government scientists have for the first time found chemical contaminants in drinking water wells near natural gas drilling operations, fueling concern that a gas-extraction technique is endangering the health of people who live close to drilling rigs.
The Environmental Protection Agency found chemicals that researchers say may cause illnesses including cancer, kidney failure, anemia and fertility problems in water from 11 of 39 wells tested around the Wyoming town of Pavillion in March and May this year.
The report issued this month did not reach a conclusion about the cause of contamination but named gas drilling as a potential source.
Gas drilling companies say the gas drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," is safe, but opponents contend it pollutes groundwater with dangerous substances.
Evidence of a link between gas drilling and water contamination would set back development of a clean-burning fuel promoted by the Obama administration as crucial to the future of U.S. energy production.
Some experts believe the United States holds more than 100 years worth of natural gas reserves. The new findings may raise questions about the process companies such as EnCana Corp (ECA.TO), Halliburton Co (HAL.N) and others commonly use to pump the gas from deep geological formations. Encana, Canada's biggest energy company, is drilling in Pavillion.
"There may be an indication of groundwater contamination by oil and gas activities," said the 44-page report, which received little public attention when released on Aug. 11. "Many activities in gas well drilling (and) hydraulic fracturing ... involve injecting water and other fluids into the well and have the potential to create cross-contamination of aquifers."
Among the contaminants found in some of the wells was 2-butoyethanol, or 2-BE, a solvent used in natural gas extraction, which researchers say causes the breakdown of red blood cells, leading to blood in the urine and feces, and can damage the kidneys, liver, spleen and bone marrow.
Greg Oberley, an EPA scientist who has been testing the water samples, said the agency did not set out to prove that hydraulic fracturing caused groundwater contamination, but was responding to complaints from local residents that their well water had become discolored or foul-smelling or tasted bad.
The investigation was the EPA's first in response to claims that gas drilling is polluting water supplies, he said. Testing will continue.
LINK TO GAS INDUSTRY?
While the EPA team has not determined how the chemicals got into the water, many are associated with gas drilling, Oberley said in a telephone interview.
"The preponderance of those compounds in the area would be attributable to the oil and gas industry," he said.
In hydraulic fracturing, energy companies inject a mixture of water, sand and chemicals a mile (1.6 km) or more underground at high pressure, causing rock to fracture and release natural gas.
Drillers such as EnCana are not required to disclose the chemicals they use because of an exemption to the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, granted to the oil and gas industry in 2005.
In the U.S. Congress, concern about the safety of fracking led to the introduction in June this year of a bill that would require disclosure of fracking chemicals.
Industry representatives say fracking chemicals are heavily diluted and are injected thousands of feet below drinking-water aquifers through steel and concrete shafts that prevent the escape of toxic substances into water supplies.
Randy Teeuwen, a spokesman for EnCana, said the substances found by the EPA had been "tentatively identified." He said many were naturally occurring and some are commonly found in household products and agricultural degreasers.
He said EnCana was working with the agency to identify possible sources of the contamination. "One of those sources could be oil and gas development," Teeuwen said.
Teeuwen said EnCana, which operates 248 wells in the area, stopped using 2-BE in spring 2009 because of concerns about its health effects.
"It's a banned substance as far as EnCana is concerned," Teeuwen said.
John Fenton, a farmer in Pavillion, a rural community of about 150 people, said residents blame gas drilling for a range of illnesses including rare cancers, miscarriages and nervous system disorders.
Families with contaminated water wells have been advised by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention not to drink the water, which in some cases was black and oily, with a petroleum-like sheen, and a smell of gas, Fenton said.
"The stress is incredible," Fenton told Reuters. "People have built their lives and businesses here. What's it all worth now?"
Perverse and sickening (+)
http://www.theygaveusarepublic.com/diary/3443/perverse-and-sickening
I don't get stunned speechless very damned often, but that has been my fallback position since Monday when the IG report on torture was released.
It was bad enough to learn that our own SERE training guidelines, developed to assist our own forces to resist torture should they be captured, had been turned on it's head and perverted, twisted into a how-to for would-be Torquemadas.
Now we learn that a survival document produced by Transport Canada to help seafarers survive hypothermia should they end up in the water was used as a how-to manual to inflict maximum pain.
A CIA manual, intended for medical officers monitoring the interrogation of suspects, describes 20 methods of interrogation. Water dousing - which the manual said could be combined with nudity, stress positions and slaps - was ranked fifth most severe on the list of methods.The 2005 CIA manual refers to the Transport Canada publication "Survival in Cold Waters: Staying Alive" to set the limits on cold water exposure.
Water dousing, which differs from waterboarding, can include dousing detainees with water or immersing them in cold water for up to six hours.
The 92-page Transport Canada document was written for seafarers and boaters and outlines conditions that can induce hypothermia and lead to death.
"Materials that were meant to help insure that people can better survive when they are immersed in cold water was in fact being used in this program to insure that cold water could be used to inflict the maximum pain and suffering possible," said Alex Neve, head of Amnesty International Canada.
The use of survival documents to fine-tune torture is a special kind of venal, craven evil. Pathologically evil. Everyone needs to go to jail for this. Especially the medical personnel who, with utter banality, defined parameters for a technique they knew was patently illegal and in violation of every single oath they had ever taken to their profession. "First, do no harm." Didn't that ring any fucking bells with them?
It was bad enough to learn that they calmly monitored the pulse-ox of detainees as they were water boarded.
But with this revelation, it is plainly clear that it is incumbent upon medical societies to issue statements demanding accountability for the medical personnel who complied with illegal orders. Especially when our oath is to humanity itself, and nothing trumps that. Those who can violate that oath so glibly must be removed from the profession. Period.
The brief post I did yesterday on Ted Kennedy's April 7, 1968 speechCastro: US aims to overthrow Chavez's government
to the Alaska state Democratic convention didn't really do it justice. It's a grainy black-and-white film but the audio of Kennedy's lilting Boston accent is clear, and the speech Kennedy delivers, which I was not familiar with until yesterday, stands even 40 years later as a close-to-perfect expression of modern American liberalism.To set the scene, Martin Luther King had been assassinated on April 4, a Thursday. Sen. Robert Kennedy, then campaigning for the Presidency was supposed to address the convention on that following Sunday in Sitka, but sent his brother instead so he could monitor violence in the wake of King's murder. Robert's own murder would come just two months later.
So the speech comes at a momentous time. Yet even in the heat of that moment, the speech transcends the shock of recent events. I assume it was written for Robert to deliver, but Ted delivers it was a seriousness and forcefulness that belies his age at the time: 36.
Maybe I'm falling into the trap of inflating the significance of the deceased's life, but the speech is so well-written and powerfully delivered that it deserves consideration among the great American political speeches. Fast-forward to the 5:20 mark, where Kennedy uses the King assassination to launch into his passionate assertion and defense of liberalism.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=104656§ionid=351020702
The former Cuban leader's attack on the White House came on the eve of a summit of South American presidents that could be overshadowed by a growing row over a deal between Washington and Bogota to give the American military access to seven Colombian bases.
Washington's "only purpose with these bases is the ability to put US troops in South America in a matter of hours," Castro said in an article published on the official government website cubadebate.cu.
The United States insists that the facilities, spread across the territory of its main regional ally, are aimed at fighting drug gangs and left-wing rebels in Colombia.
Castro said America's real objective was to "eliminate the revolutionary process" begun by Venezuela's leader Hugo Chavez, a key Cuban ally, and to "gain control of the oil and other natural resources in Venezuela."
"The delivery of land to establish seven US military bases in Colombia directly threatens the sovereignty and integrity of the peoples of South and Central America and the great Latin American fatherland our forefathers dreamed of," Castro added.
Israel calls for 'crippling' sanctions against Iran
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=104646§ionid=351020104
The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for "crippling sanctions" against Iran to halt the country's nuclear program.
"There is not much time" to halt Tehran's nuclear ambitions, Netanyahu told reporters after talks with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Thursday.
"I think the most important thing that can be put in place is what the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called crippling sanctions. It is possible to put real pressure, real economic pressure, on this regime if the major powers of the world unite," AFP quoted Netanyahu as saying.
The hawkish premier said that even if opposition from China and Russia prevents the UN Security Council from approving tougher sanctions against Tehran, a "coalition of the willing" could enact its own measures.
Merkel for her part said that if Iran failed to meet international obligations by next month, "more serious steps", including energy sanctions, would have to be considered.
Israel, which is the only possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, accuses Iran of attempting to develop a military nuclear program - an allegation vehemently denied by Tehran.
Iran says that its nuclear program is solely aimed at peaceful application of the technology, specifying that it needs the power source for electricity generation to meet the country's growing demand.
Greenpeace Exposes Oil Industry’s Really Dirty Face
http://planetsave.com/blog/2009/08/20/greenpeace-exposes-oil-industrys-really-dirty-face
As if $82 million in lobbying so far this year isn’t enough, the oil industry decided to fake public concern and challenge the upcoming climate bill further than they already are through really dishonest means recently. Greenpeace received a leaked memo from the American Petroleum Institute (API) last week urging members to have their employees pretend to be typical citizens concerned about energy and the upcoming climate bill.
Greenpeace helped by leaking the memo and laying Astroturf outside the API headquarters in D.C. (the fake grassroots activism the API was engaging in is known as “astroturfing”). The Astroturf had the logos of ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and Chevron on it, some of the biggest oil players who are involved in the scandalous institute.
The memo from the API President that Greenpeace leaked told the CEOs of major companies (i.e. ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and Chevron) to “indicate to your company leadership - your strong support for employee participation in the rallies” and to treat the memo as “secretive” because “we don’t want our critics to know our game plan.”
Unfortunately for Big Oil, but fortunate for the American public, many of the API’s members have actually expressed support for “cap and trade” climate legislation and someone leaked the memo.
Greenpeace states that the API was also citing economic statistics in a misleading way and the “scam makes a mockery of the public debate on climate action.” Greenpeace righteously states: “Government climate and energy policy must be based on climate science and the genuine expression of public opinion”.
For more on this story, read the Greenpeace press release or “Oil Lobby’s ‘Energy Citizens’ Astroturf Campaign Exposed”
1 - The Great Collapse of 2009 with Mike Walker
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWl40hKtu58&feature=related
Reverse Aging: Easier Than You Think
http://www.alternet.org/story/142232/reverse_aging:_easier_than_you_think/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=alternet
Here's an innovative way to lower health care costs: Set everyone's biological clock back 20 years. Senior citizens of 75 will enjoy the strength and stamina they had at 55, meaning they will need far less medical attention. The energetic elderly will remain productive members of their community later into life, which could also ease the strain on Social Security.
Granted, this sounds like an unusually wonky episode of The Twilight Zone. But three decades ago, Harvard University psychologist Ellen Langer conducted a landmark experiment that suggested reverse aging needn't be relegated to the realm of science fiction. Her revealing study, the many follow-ups it spawned and the implications of their findings are the subject of her fascinating new book Counterclockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility.
It's a brightly written work — Langer has a knack for metaphors — that deftly challenges an array of assumptions we hold about health. She reminds readers that many definitive-sounding diagnoses are in fact best guesses, and that no study, however elegant and persuasive, can truly tell us the best course of treatment for any particular patient. Physicians, she counsels, should be thought of as "consultants." Ultimately, we know our own bodies best.
In a sense, this is a book about the limits of empirical knowledge. But as Langer sees it, the ambiguity that inevitably accompanies medical research can be profoundly liberating. If we can't be sure that a diagnosis — or a widely accepted truism such as "memory loss is inevitable with age" — truly applies in our case, we're less likely to stick ourselves with a self-limiting label. "While many of our experienced disabilities may be a natural part of aging," she writes, "many are instead a function of our mindsets about old age."
The ingenious counterclockwise experiment was conducted in 1979. Langer and her students recruited two small groups of elderly men to spend a week living in a secluded New Hampshire monastery. Those in the control group spent the seven days reminiscing about the past, while those in the experimental group effectively re-entered the past. Their environment was designed to convey the impression they were living in 1959. They watched movies, listened to songs and read magazines from that era and discussed "current events" such as the first U.S. satellite launches.
"Both groups came out of the experience with their hearing and memory improved," Langer reports. (It appears our bodies respond to being intellectually and emotionally engaged.) But members of the experimental group experienced more dramatic benefits. They were more likely to improve their scores on an intelligence test; more likely to show improvement in joint flexibility and dexterity; and more likely to look younger, as judged by a group of outside observers who compared before-and-after photos. Also, their fingers were longer. Since their arthritis declined in severity, they were able to extend their digits past the point they could a week earlier.
A fluke, perhaps? Well, Langer offers plenty of other data suggesting a strong link between self-perception and health. My favorite involves a group of hotel maids who reported their long hours and family responsibilities didn't give them time to exercise. They were then told that their work, with all its bending and scrubbing, in fact involves quite a bit of exercise. So informed, they lost an average of 2 pounds over the next four weeks. Langer, who has spent several decades studying the effects of mindfulness, notes the women were paying renewed attention to activities that long ago became routine and mechanical. That, she suggests, is the key: If you're noticing the precise condition of the carpet rather than daydreaming as you vacuum, chances are you'll push the machine a little bit harder. ( Page 1 of 2 )
Task force to probe missing, murdered women in Manitoba
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2009/08/26/mb-task-force-murdered-manitoba.html
Over the last two decades, 75 aboriginal women have gone missing in Manitoba, according to aboriginal groups. None of Chomiak, the Winnipeg police and the RCMP would put a number on the quantity of cases they expect to review.
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Why large carbon-fibre planes are still grounded
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327224.400-why-large-carbonfibre-planes-are-still-grounded.html
10 Tips for Improving Your Beach Photos
Categories: Cool Photos, Featured, Guides
Written By: admin
Beach photography presents many unique challenge to the amateur photographer due mainly to the extreme photographic conditions in which it is often undertaken. Contending with an abundance of light, reflections and movement can leave some photographers grasping at straws, but it can also produce some of the most starkly beautiful images of any subject matter. We’ve put together a list of things that you may want to consider more guidelines than rules, but which might help you take your beach photos from the realm of average to great. Well, at least we hope they do.
1) Shoot in the Golden Hours – It is going to be very difficult to take an above average beach photo in the middle of the day. Even on cloudy days, there is usually going to be a problem with over exposure. While many photographers put their cameras away between 10am and 2pm, that time is usually extended dramatically when shooting beach scenes – especially if you are lucky enough to live in an area with reasonably good weather. As you can see from the photos below, the best images are usually taken at sunset or sunrise, so try to emulate that.
2) Capture Motion – With lower light and longer exposures comes the chance to capture the motion of the waves and sea. As you can see, this can really result in some haunting images that are ten different kinds of awesome.
3) Remember the Rule of Thirds – Composition of beach photos is just as important as any other type of photography. Remember to consider the rule of thirds and you shouldn’t go too far wrong with your beach composition.
4) Remember the Sunny F16 Rule – If you absolutely, positively must shoot at the beach when the sun in shining, then you might at least come away with some images worth looking at if you remember the sunny F16 rule. This is not an ideal situation, but if you are even remotely experienced with photography you will realise that there are very few ideal situations in this hobby and when they come up, you usually get a prize for the resulting images!
5) Take Advantage of Reflection – Being around so much water is going to give you a lot of opportunities to take advantage of reflection. If you need some inspiration then check out these reflection photos to see what we mean. Getting reflections under the right circumstances can add a huge element of interest to your images.
6) Don’t Ignore Black and White – While you may think of the water or beach as a place where you can get fantastic contrasting colours (and you would be right) you might also like to take a moment to consider black and white images. Some of the greats were able to get incredible black and white seascapes that ooze atmosphere. Look at this image for instance:
7) Use Driftwood in the Composition – You can find it on almost any beach and you can use it in good composition and to draw the viewer’s eyes to an area of the image. You can also move it around to build the image you want. (Ok, some people might consider that cheating, but we all do it!)
8) Think About the Weather – While the beach might provoke mental images of flawless cloudless days, more dramatic weather can result in incredible images at a beach. Look at the brewing storm in the image below to see what we mean or check out these storm photos to see what can be done when shooting in extreme weather.
9) Use Clouds for Drama – Going along with considering the weather is watching out for clouds. Most of the best images of beaches somehow incorporate clouds into the composition to add interest to the beach.
10) Don’t Forget Night Time – Beaches usually make us think about beautiful sunrises and sunsets. Don’t forget that you can get some spectacular night time beach photos too. There are a whole heap of separate issues in incorporating the moon into a photo but the results can be great. Check out our moon photos post to get some more inspiration.
Other Awesome Beach Photos
Concluding Thoughts
Shooting at the beach presents its own set of challenges with lighting, motion and composition. Even so, even a rudimentary adherence to some of the suggestions here should increase the chances that you’re able to capture an image a cut above most other beach photos. A bit of experimentation and deference to the conditions will mean you should come up with a couple of solid photos.
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