Tuesday, May 31, 2011

31 May - Morning News Notes

Image by Jay Reimer via Flickr

The Morning Plum

The House is set to vote today on a proposal for a debt ceiling hike

Dems think* it’s politically impossible not to accede to the GOP demand for deep cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. ( * Allegation unsupported by the evidence )

big Medicare cuts will be necessary

Studies now conclusively show the imminent danger of ocean collapse due to increased ocean acidity as a result of CO2 emissions.

“As the risk of crashing the food web in the oceans is now emerging as the most immediate danger among all global warming related phenomena, we must use this new information to cut through the well-funded denial and move forward together,” says Jim Fournier, Founder of Planetwork and CEO of Biochar Engineering Corp. “In order to protect our children and defend life as we know it, we will need to transform our society as completely and rapidly as the mobilization for WWII. Humanity now faces our most serious challenge; we will either rise to it or risk crashing the global ecosystem.”
[1] http://www.iucn.org

( Um. Think ignoring the Nitrogen Cycle and oxygen depletion - dead zones - will cure matters more effectively by supporting carbon trading and IPCC revenues?

Routine use of antibiotics and germicides culture resistant life and kill those with which we commonly have lived without excessive trauma. Have you washed with toxins today ? )

UCI researchers find link between environment and genetics in triggering MS

Using blood samples from about 13,000 people, Demetriou and colleagues identified the way environmental factors – including metabolism and vitamin D3, obtained through either sunlight exposure or diet – interact with four genes (interleukin-7 receptor-alpha, interleukin-2 receptor-alpha, MGAT1 and CTLA-4) to affect how specific sugars are added to proteins regulating the disease.

Bacteria as Endangered Species

by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA on 05.31.11

Food & Health (food)

Humans may be 90% bacteria, but Elisabeth Fukonia—writing over at The Permaculture Research Institute of Australia—argues that some bacteria are becoming an endangered species. Like wild fermentation advocate Sandor Katz, Fukonia believes we need to reintroduce traditionally fermented foods like sauerkraut and kimchi back into our diets. This is, she argues, a crucial matter of health, and perhaps even life and death:

Meanwhile industrial 'food' production focuses on what should be missing from food rather than the presence of essential nutrients

14 Now Dead, 329 with HUS, 1,200 Ill in European E. coli O104 Outbreak

May 30, 2011

Of those that have died, most are women 80 years of age and older. They survived the bombing of World War II and died from eating cucumbers - go figure.

The Backyard Medicine Chest – Easy to Grow, Healing Herbs to Beat the Corporate Medical Monopoly*

Proponents of the status quo will argue that the corporate predator that now passes itself off as healer is the price we must pay for innovation. On more than one occasion, I have been asked by said advocates to “name one medical innovation coming out of Cuba, Canada or the Soviet Union [or any other system not motivated by profit].” This argument belongs in the same world of manipulative propaganda spewed by the same predatory establishment that brings you hospital bills that cost more than a new house.

Mississippi Flooding Worsens Gulf Environment

The most severe flooding of the Mississippi River in many decades has earned it a "special mention" in American Rivers' annual list of Most Endangered Rivers recently announced, and that flooding is also expected to worsen the state of the environment in the Gulf of Mexico. The pollution threatens drinking water and quality of life from Texas to Florida.

Nancy Paraskevopolus, a marine life activist, says the flood water is contributing to the most tainted coastal ecosystem in the world, approaching the North Florida coastline.

Day 73: Updates on War Against Libya and Africa, May 31

Libyan War: Over 9,000 NATO Air Missions, Nearly 3,500 Strike Sorties

Rebels Reject Truce Offer, NATO Bombs Libyan Cities
http://www.rferl.org/content/libya_nato_bombing_cease-fire_zuma/24210311.html

Parliament needs to discuss regime change in Libya

www.theglobeandmail.com

The objectives of the mission that was authorized by the United Nations and supported unanimously in the House of Commons in March appear to have changed.

From Libya With Love ... and Rage

Coming back from Tripoli, after visiting with some of the 70 thousand families which fled the NATO mercenaries and placed in the homes of foreign workers who fled after the closure of their businesses. I met one Nasser Ali Sajer Attagag, 29, from Misurata, captured March 18th from the loyalist forces of the “Armed Peoples.” They are like ‘Dead Man Walking’. I’m still sick to my stomach remembering his butchered face and his horror stories: Libyan soldiers had their throats slit, sliced, hanging in front of the courthouse, locked in a meat freezer, pro-Gaddafi families crushed to death, their daughters kidnapped, handed over to the “revolutionary youth”, raped – their breasts cut - bled to death during the “party of the revolution”. You will listen to everything and hear their stories in the next documentary: “Damned Arab Spring – revolutions, wars and counter-wars …NATO in the Arab world … ”

Afghanistan "sovereignty"

A spate of horrific civilian killings by NATO in Afghanistan has led Afghan President Hamid Karzai to demand that NATO cease all air attacks on homes. That is likely to be exactly as significant you think it would be, as The Los Angeles Times makes clear:

Tom Engelhardt | Dumb Question of the Twenty-first Century: Is It Legal? Post-Legal America and the National Security Complex
Is the Libyan war legal? Was Bin Laden’s killing legal? Is it legal for the president of the United States to target an American citizen for assassination? Were those “enhanced interrogation techniques” legal? These are all questions raised in recent weeks. Each seems to call out for debate, for answers. Or does ...
[Read more] [Low bandwidth link]

Dave Lindorff | It's the Military, Stupid!: Don't Blame America's Debt Crisis on Social Security and Medicare
Amid all the nonsense and gobbledegook that has been written about banking industry and about the economic slump during the last four years of the global financial crisis, New York Times reporter Gretchen Morgenson has stood out both for the clarity of her analysis, and for her willingness to go after the guilty parties in the political and especially the ...
[Read more] [Low bandwidth link]

Allison Kilkenny | Starve the bums
Sometimes the level of pure contempt aimed at the poor from the ruling elite in this country reaches such an awe-inspiring level that I’m left speechless. Obviously, this isn’t a new trend. There’s always been a class war, of sorts, in America since the days of railroad barons and starving immigrants who did all the railroad building, but ...
[Read more] [Low bandwidth link]

Treating the Economy as a Joke

Sometime today, the House Republicans will hold a vote on whether or not to raise the debt limit with no strings attached, as the Obama administration has requested. The idea is to prove to the administration that the health of the global economy is now a hostage to the GOP's extreme demands for massive, unprecedented cuts in domestic spending and entitlements. Essentially, the Republicans are saying, "Destroy your own base of political support, punish the elderly, the needy, and our veterans, or the global economy gets it." It's not a serious vote. It's a joke vote.

Shamus Cooke | Venezuelans Mobilize Against Obama's Sanctions
(Caracas, Venezuela) Seeing is believing. Any hope that Venezuelans had in the Obama administration has been shattered against the recent U.S.-imposed sanctions on Venezuela's state-owned oil company, PDVSA. Two massive rallies were held in one week in Caracas against this U.S. foreign intervention. Many of the speakers and many in the audience with their ...
[Read more] [Low bandwidth link]

Read David Axe’s fantastic account of the Pima County SWAT raid:

Agencies’ Lack of Coordination Hindered Supply of Crucial Gas, Report Says

( This should handicap debunking of claims of nuclear WMD stocks by the 'Axis of Evil'. You know : the nations subject to voluntary independent( ? ) investigation certifying they do NOT have WMD. )

Keith Olbermann | What's a 'Death Ceiling'?

readersupportednews.org

Todays term is 'death ceiling.' You can also find out where you can see Countdown, starting June 20th. Oh, and Bill O'Reilly edges out Ruppert Murdoch's son as 'worst person of the day.' Keith Olbermann, Countdown Online/Current TV

Robert Reich | The Truth About the American Economy

readersupportednews.org

‎'As we should have learned from the Great Prosperity - the 30 years after World War II when America grew because most Americans shared in the nation's prosperity - we cannot have a growing and vibrant economy without a growing and vibrant middle class.' Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog

An Unlikely Power Duo Emerges in the Global Fight Against 'Climate Change'TM REG'D

They are expected to announce a new formal partnership with the World Bank, which will eventually provide financial and technical assistance for cities seeking to reduce emissions by improving energy efficiency in transit, power generation, lighting and public buildings.
Cities now house more than half of the world’s population, and while they occupy 2 percent of the globe’s land mass, cities consume 70 percent of global energy and produce 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions