Image by Getty Images via @daylifeRepublicans Launch Sneak Attack on Clean Water in Budget
The GOP's CR budget bill includes language that would deny funding to the EPA to implement guidelines needed to enforce the Clean Water Act.
Bill Moyers: America Can't Deal With Reality -- We Must Be Exposed to the Truth, Even If It Hurts
Many people inhabit a closed belief system on whose door they have hung the "Do Not Disturb" sign.
History Makers is an organization of broadcasters and producers from around the world concerned with the challenges and opportunities faced by factual broadcasting. Bill Moyers was the keynote speaker at the 2011 convention on January 27, 2011, in New York City.
It is a sad world that exists only in the present, unaware of the long procession that brought us here. As Milan Kundera’s insight reminds us, the struggle against power "is the struggle of memory against forgetting."
Paul Orfalea described to me how he teaches history "backwards" to college students who have learned little about the past in high school, don't know that the past is even alive, much less that it lives in them and question its value today. He hands his students a contemporary story from some daily news source, tells them to begin with the "now" of it and to then walk the trail back down the chronology to trace the personalities, circumstances and choices that made it today's news. Their assignment, in effect, is to begin at the entrance to the cave and rewind Ariadne's thread in the opposite direction, back to the deep origins of the story. In an era marked by the lack of continuity and community between the generations, this strikes me as an inspired way to stretch young imaginations across the time zones of human experience.
Fred Friendly and Edward R. Murrow created "See It Now" and "CBS Reports," which set the standard for investigative reporting and documentaries of unprecedented power and impact. One of their collaborations was the famous documentary on the demagogic and dangerous Senator Joseph McCarthy. They made the brilliant decision to let McCarthy speak for himself, an entire broadcast's worth of his bullying words and techniques. McCarthy obligingly hanged himself on national television, far more effectively and fatally than anyone else's words could. His own words had turned Americans against his demagoguery - something for which the right to this day has never forgiven what they denounced as the "Communist Broadcasting System."
Fed Up Americans Run First-Ever Anti-Afghanistan-War TV Ad
Americans of all ideological persuasions are fed up with the Afghanistan War. We’re fed up with a $5.7 billion-per-month military campaign that’s gone nowhere over the past 12 months. We’re fed up with being told we’ll have to do without vital public services because of the sorry state of our national finances, while at the same time our politicians are spending $2 billion a year to police a dusty Afghan town called Marjah. But most of all, we’re tired of the song-and-dance from officials who think they can spin a year full of ugly setbacks as “progress.”
Some Members of Congress, thankfully, do hear the voices of their constituents.
They face an uphill fight in a Capitol awash with war industry lobbying dollars, but every time they take a vote, they’re building on the last roll call, expanding the number of people willing to stand up and say, “enough.”
That’s why we helped run the first-ever anti-Afghanistan-War ad on TV in Washington, D.C. this week: to support the efforts of public servants willing to cast the tough votes, and to tell our politicians we want our troops brought home–because it’s time.
If you’re fed-up with this war that’s not making us safer and that’s not worth the costs, join Rethink Afghanistan on Facebook and Twitter.
THE EMPIRE STRIKES AGAIN: Sex, Oil, Chaos and Corruption at the American University of Iraq Fromhttp://whowhatwhy.com/
For more than one hundred years, American business leaders (usually with the cooperation of local potentates) have funded Christian missionaries to set up universities in foreign countries with valuable resources to exploit. This collaboration has served to create a more friendly environment for establishing a business foothold while simultaneously fulfilling the missionaries’ desire to spread the Word around the globe.
In the Middle East — where the business has primarily been oil — the Rockefellers and others generously funded such institutions as the American University of Beirut, which was established on the bedrock of conservative Christian values more than one hundred years ago. It began modestly, with one class of sixteen students in 1863. Over time, it became a venerable academic oasis, characterized by values that could be accurately described as cosmopolitan and liberal.
the task of building and running the American University of Iraq-Sulaimaniya was given to Bush/Cheney administration loyalists. Generally, they were neoconservative ideologues with a fundamentalist Christian outlook, who brashly dismissed prior experience and scholarship so far as it concerned the culture and conditions on the ground.
The failure to do even the most basic homework was quickly apparent. Right after its opening, the university was caught up in a sex scandal.
....... replacement Agresto was immediately confronted with the fact that Iraq wasn’t Eastern Europe but rather a frenetic Middle Eastern shooting gallery. “Visits to the universities he was trying to rebuild and the faculty he wanted to invigorate were more and more dangerous, and infrequent,” wrote Washington Post correspondent Rajiv Chandrasekaran. “His Iraq staff was threatened by insurgents…his plans to repair hundreds of campus buildings were scuttled by the Bush administration’s decision to shift reconstruction efforts and by the failure to raise money from other sources…”
Joe Rogan and Explosions in the Sky
source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXAusRLJiKg
Pollution triggers genetic resistance mechanism in local fish
ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 18, 2011, from http://www.sciencedaily.com
For 30 years, two General Electric facilities released about 1.3 million pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into New York's Hudson River, devastating and contaminating fish populations. Some 50 years later, one type of fish -- the Atlantic tomcod -- has not only survived but appears to be thriving in the hostile Hudson environment.
Looking at the ability of the fish to respond to the contaminants, researchers found the primary changes occurred in a receptor gene called AHR2, which is important in mediating toxicity in early life stages and can control sensitivity to PCBs. In his work over the last 16 years in the Acushnet River Estuary near New Bedford, Mass., biologist Mark E. Hahn has found the same gene involved in controlling other fishes' responses to PCBs.
Wirgin noted that tomcod spawn in the winter, and in the summer become "a major component of the diets of striped bass and other fish." This can lead to "an abnormal transfer of contaminants up the food chain," perhaps all the way to humans.
How Monsanto And Evangelical Christian Organizations Hijacked The Taxpayer Money Intended For Haiti
U.S. taxpayer dollars are, against Presidential directive, being funneled from the United States Agency for International Development to Billy Graham's charities for use in Christian proselytizing—all while building Sarah Palin's 2012 campaign army.
( For another angle on this, Palin-linked 'evangelical'...not likely....churches promote fearmongering of 'witches' in Kenya ; which has led to murders. )
A report on U.S. contracts for reconstruction found that only $1.60 of every $100 awarded goes to Haitian firms, essentially meaning that the brunt of Haiti funding actually functions as stimulus for economies elsewhere.
Monsanto contacted NGOs in Haiti so that those organizations will "support farmers with recommendations and resources [including] helping farmers decide whether to use additional inputs (including fertilizer and herbicides)." Two of the NGOs Monsanto identified are the WINNER organization and World Vision, both heavily funded by USAID. This means your tax dollars will be used to purchase any "additional inputs" from Monsanto.
(Of course, Haiti needs to be a corn-producing nation now, since its former rice economy was obliterated by Bill Clinton, whose subsidies for U.S. rice farmers destroyed Haiti's rice industry. As an Oxfam report notes, the total of U.S. aid to Haiti is nearly $80 million less than the $434 million annual subsidies for U.S. rice production. That's rice that taxpayer-funded NGOs now buy to help feed starving Haitians, in what is maybe the darkest joke of all time following Clinton's appointment as co-chair of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission.)
more at http://www.theawl.com/2011/01/our-government-funded-mission-to-make-haiti-christ...
Mexico freeze kills 80-100 pct of crops; US food prices to soar
The extreme freezing temperatures hit a very broad section of major growing regions in Mexico, from Hermosillo in the north all the way south to Los Mochis and even south of Culiacan. The early reports are still coming in but most are showing losses of crops in the range of 80 to 100%.
Even shade house product was hit by the extremely cold temps. It will take 7-10 days to have a clearer picture from growers and field supervisors, but these growing regions haven’t had cold like this in over a half century.
This time of year, Mexico supplies a significant percent of North America’s row crop vegetables such as green beans, eggplant, cucumbers, squash, peppers, asparagus, and round and roma tomatoes.
Florida normally is a major supplier for these items as well but they have already been struck with severe freeze damage in December and January and up until now have had to purchase product out of Mexico to fill their commitments; that is no longer an option.
With the series of weather disasters that have occurred in both of these major growing areas, we will experience immediate volatile prices, expected limited availability, and mediocre quality at best.
This will not only have an immediate impact on supplies, but because of very strong blossom drops, this will also impact supplies 30 – 60 days from now.
The GOP's CR budget bill includes language that would deny funding to the EPA to implement guidelines needed to enforce the Clean Water Act.
Bill Moyers: America Can't Deal With Reality -- We Must Be Exposed to the Truth, Even If It Hurts
Many people inhabit a closed belief system on whose door they have hung the "Do Not Disturb" sign.
History Makers is an organization of broadcasters and producers from around the world concerned with the challenges and opportunities faced by factual broadcasting. Bill Moyers was the keynote speaker at the 2011 convention on January 27, 2011, in New York City.
It is a sad world that exists only in the present, unaware of the long procession that brought us here. As Milan Kundera’s insight reminds us, the struggle against power "is the struggle of memory against forgetting."
Paul Orfalea described to me how he teaches history "backwards" to college students who have learned little about the past in high school, don't know that the past is even alive, much less that it lives in them and question its value today. He hands his students a contemporary story from some daily news source, tells them to begin with the "now" of it and to then walk the trail back down the chronology to trace the personalities, circumstances and choices that made it today's news. Their assignment, in effect, is to begin at the entrance to the cave and rewind Ariadne's thread in the opposite direction, back to the deep origins of the story. In an era marked by the lack of continuity and community between the generations, this strikes me as an inspired way to stretch young imaginations across the time zones of human experience.
Fred Friendly and Edward R. Murrow created "See It Now" and "CBS Reports," which set the standard for investigative reporting and documentaries of unprecedented power and impact. One of their collaborations was the famous documentary on the demagogic and dangerous Senator Joseph McCarthy. They made the brilliant decision to let McCarthy speak for himself, an entire broadcast's worth of his bullying words and techniques. McCarthy obligingly hanged himself on national television, far more effectively and fatally than anyone else's words could. His own words had turned Americans against his demagoguery - something for which the right to this day has never forgiven what they denounced as the "Communist Broadcasting System."
Fed Up Americans Run First-Ever Anti-Afghanistan-War TV Ad
Americans of all ideological persuasions are fed up with the Afghanistan War. We’re fed up with a $5.7 billion-per-month military campaign that’s gone nowhere over the past 12 months. We’re fed up with being told we’ll have to do without vital public services because of the sorry state of our national finances, while at the same time our politicians are spending $2 billion a year to police a dusty Afghan town called Marjah. But most of all, we’re tired of the song-and-dance from officials who think they can spin a year full of ugly setbacks as “progress.”
Some Members of Congress, thankfully, do hear the voices of their constituents.
They face an uphill fight in a Capitol awash with war industry lobbying dollars, but every time they take a vote, they’re building on the last roll call, expanding the number of people willing to stand up and say, “enough.”
That’s why we helped run the first-ever anti-Afghanistan-War ad on TV in Washington, D.C. this week: to support the efforts of public servants willing to cast the tough votes, and to tell our politicians we want our troops brought home–because it’s time.
If you’re fed-up with this war that’s not making us safer and that’s not worth the costs, join Rethink Afghanistan on Facebook and Twitter.
THE EMPIRE STRIKES AGAIN: Sex, Oil, Chaos and Corruption at the American University of Iraq Fromhttp://whowhatwhy.com/
For more than one hundred years, American business leaders (usually with the cooperation of local potentates) have funded Christian missionaries to set up universities in foreign countries with valuable resources to exploit. This collaboration has served to create a more friendly environment for establishing a business foothold while simultaneously fulfilling the missionaries’ desire to spread the Word around the globe.
In the Middle East — where the business has primarily been oil — the Rockefellers and others generously funded such institutions as the American University of Beirut, which was established on the bedrock of conservative Christian values more than one hundred years ago. It began modestly, with one class of sixteen students in 1863. Over time, it became a venerable academic oasis, characterized by values that could be accurately described as cosmopolitan and liberal.
the task of building and running the American University of Iraq-Sulaimaniya was given to Bush/Cheney administration loyalists. Generally, they were neoconservative ideologues with a fundamentalist Christian outlook, who brashly dismissed prior experience and scholarship so far as it concerned the culture and conditions on the ground.
The failure to do even the most basic homework was quickly apparent. Right after its opening, the university was caught up in a sex scandal.
....... replacement Agresto was immediately confronted with the fact that Iraq wasn’t Eastern Europe but rather a frenetic Middle Eastern shooting gallery. “Visits to the universities he was trying to rebuild and the faculty he wanted to invigorate were more and more dangerous, and infrequent,” wrote Washington Post correspondent Rajiv Chandrasekaran. “His Iraq staff was threatened by insurgents…his plans to repair hundreds of campus buildings were scuttled by the Bush administration’s decision to shift reconstruction efforts and by the failure to raise money from other sources…”
Joe Rogan and Explosions in the Sky
source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXAusRLJiKg
Pollution triggers genetic resistance mechanism in local fish
ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 18, 2011, from http://www.sciencedaily.com
For 30 years, two General Electric facilities released about 1.3 million pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into New York's Hudson River, devastating and contaminating fish populations. Some 50 years later, one type of fish -- the Atlantic tomcod -- has not only survived but appears to be thriving in the hostile Hudson environment.
Looking at the ability of the fish to respond to the contaminants, researchers found the primary changes occurred in a receptor gene called AHR2, which is important in mediating toxicity in early life stages and can control sensitivity to PCBs. In his work over the last 16 years in the Acushnet River Estuary near New Bedford, Mass., biologist Mark E. Hahn has found the same gene involved in controlling other fishes' responses to PCBs.
Wirgin noted that tomcod spawn in the winter, and in the summer become "a major component of the diets of striped bass and other fish." This can lead to "an abnormal transfer of contaminants up the food chain," perhaps all the way to humans.
How Monsanto And Evangelical Christian Organizations Hijacked The Taxpayer Money Intended For Haiti
U.S. taxpayer dollars are, against Presidential directive, being funneled from the United States Agency for International Development to Billy Graham's charities for use in Christian proselytizing—all while building Sarah Palin's 2012 campaign army.
( For another angle on this, Palin-linked 'evangelical'...not likely....churches promote fearmongering of 'witches' in Kenya ; which has led to murders. )
A report on U.S. contracts for reconstruction found that only $1.60 of every $100 awarded goes to Haitian firms, essentially meaning that the brunt of Haiti funding actually functions as stimulus for economies elsewhere.
Monsanto contacted NGOs in Haiti so that those organizations will "support farmers with recommendations and resources [including] helping farmers decide whether to use additional inputs (including fertilizer and herbicides)." Two of the NGOs Monsanto identified are the WINNER organization and World Vision, both heavily funded by USAID. This means your tax dollars will be used to purchase any "additional inputs" from Monsanto.
(Of course, Haiti needs to be a corn-producing nation now, since its former rice economy was obliterated by Bill Clinton, whose subsidies for U.S. rice farmers destroyed Haiti's rice industry. As an Oxfam report notes, the total of U.S. aid to Haiti is nearly $80 million less than the $434 million annual subsidies for U.S. rice production. That's rice that taxpayer-funded NGOs now buy to help feed starving Haitians, in what is maybe the darkest joke of all time following Clinton's appointment as co-chair of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission.)
more at http://www.theawl.com/2011/01/our-government-funded-mission-to-make-haiti-christ...
Mexico freeze kills 80-100 pct of crops; US food prices to soar
The extreme freezing temperatures hit a very broad section of major growing regions in Mexico, from Hermosillo in the north all the way south to Los Mochis and even south of Culiacan. The early reports are still coming in but most are showing losses of crops in the range of 80 to 100%.
Even shade house product was hit by the extremely cold temps. It will take 7-10 days to have a clearer picture from growers and field supervisors, but these growing regions haven’t had cold like this in over a half century.
This time of year, Mexico supplies a significant percent of North America’s row crop vegetables such as green beans, eggplant, cucumbers, squash, peppers, asparagus, and round and roma tomatoes.
Florida normally is a major supplier for these items as well but they have already been struck with severe freeze damage in December and January and up until now have had to purchase product out of Mexico to fill their commitments; that is no longer an option.
With the series of weather disasters that have occurred in both of these major growing areas, we will experience immediate volatile prices, expected limited availability, and mediocre quality at best.
This will not only have an immediate impact on supplies, but because of very strong blossom drops, this will also impact supplies 30 – 60 days from now.
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