July 2, 2011

Vikki N. Spruill

June 30, 2011

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vikki-n-spruill/ocean-trash-is-no-picnic_b_887791.html

Every summer, my family makes a trip out to the beautiful beaches of Nantucket Island. I simply love being here at the ocean, many miles out to sea. It restores me, and it reminds me that the work Ocean Conservancy is doing to protect it is so important.

As the 4th of July holiday weekend approaches, I know this beach will become more crowded — with people, and sadly, with trash.

Ocean trash is the summer’s real beach traffic. Food wrappers, beverage containers, and cups, plates and cutlery are always among the top ten items removed from our beaches in Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup, the world’s largest volunteer effort for ocean health.

Summer is also full of celebrations. Unfortunately, balloons, so light and buoyant, can travel many miles in the air and in the water. Marine animals, like endangered sea turtles, that mistake balloons for food can choke or develop often-fatal digestive problems.

Cleanup participants have found enough cups, plates, forks, knives and spoons over the last 25 years to host a picnic for 2 million people. And they’ve picked up enough glass and plastic bottles to provide every resident of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston a cold beverage on a hot summer day.

Jason Linkins

June 30, 2011

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/30/mark-halperin-dick_n_887908.html

I have to say, I’ve always wondered what it might take for high-profile political pundit Mark Halperin to, say, get “indefinitely suspended from MSNBC” or otherwise find himself on the outs with the people who mass-produce political punditry. There’s no doubt that he’s long been permitted to suck steadily from the udder of conventional wisdom and expectorate the backwash all over the media landscape. And there’s never been any consequences meted out for all those times he’s been hysterically bad at his job. It matters to no one in the media that he is a misogynist hypocrite, a Matt Drudge tongue-bather — or that the clearest evidence of his bankruptcy is the fact that ABC’s “The Note” was never better than when Halperin took his obsequious, insidery wink-nudgery elsewhere.

But Halperin was caught on a live microphone saying the Obama was “kind of a dick,” and now people at MSNBC are mad at him. But why? As Alex Pareene points out, everyone at MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” was basically goading Halperin into saying something outre Thursday morning:

Dr. Mercola June 30, 2011 http://blogs.mercola.com/sites/vitalvotes/archive/2011/06/30/better-than-fish-oil-at-reducing-triglycerides-and-cholesterol-levels.aspx A recent study found that a krill oil supplemented diet reduces the activities of the mitochondrial tricarboxylate carrier and of the cytosolic lipogenic enzymes in rats.  The mitochondrial tricarboxylate carrier supplies cytosol with the carbon units necessary for hepatic lipogenesis. Rats fed with a …

Dr. Mercola

June 30, 2011

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/06/30/5-ways-to-afford-whole-foods-on-a-budget.aspx

Whole food — that is to say, unprocessed and unrefined food — has the reputation of being expensive. But there are many ways to add whole food to your diet while sticking to your budget. Seattle PI suggests a few:

1. Buy seasonal: Fruits and vegetables are both cheaper and tastier when purchased in season.
2. Use the bulk bins: You won’t pay for packaging, labeling and advertising.
3. Grow your own: A sunny yard or even a window box can add cheap, fresh food to your plate.
4. Use your freezer: Stock up and freeze when whole food is on sale.
5. Reduce waste: Don’t let leftovers go to waste.

Stephen C. Webster

June 30, 2011

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/06/30/bill-would-eliminate-taxes-on-gold-silver-coi/

Senators Rand Paul (R-KY), Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced legislation this week that would eliminate all taxes on gold and silver coins, elevating them from the status of “collectables” to “legal tender” of the same status as Federal Reserve notes.

Currently, only the state of Utah recognizes gold coins as legal tender, but Republicans in 12 other states are pushing similar measures, in spite of warnings that such laws could serve to undermine the value of the U.S. dollar.

“In order to rebuild strength and confidence in our economy, we need both the fiscal discipline to cut wasteful spending and the monetary discipline to restrain further destructive monetizing of our debt,” DeMint said in an advisory. “This legislation would encourage wider adoption of sound money measures, and that’s a step in the right direction.”

Jess Zimmerman June 30, 2011 Please click on link to see Map: http://www.grist.org/list/2011-06-30-how-much-hotter-has-your-state-gotten Here’s what the new normal looks like. Once a decade, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration updates its definition of “normal” temperatures, based on the average temperatures of the previous 30 years. Here’s how the 1981-2010 “normal” compares …

Over 1,000 people injured as Egyptians riot over delays in police officer prosecution

Hamza Hendawi

June 30, 2011

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/story/index.html?story=/news/feature/2011/06/30/ml_egypt_19

Egyptian security forces clashed for a second day in Cairo Wednesday with hundreds of youths demanding that the country’s military rulers speed up prosecution of police officers accused of brutality during mass protests that forced Hosni Mubarak to step down. More than 1,000 people have been injured, a senior official said.

In scenes reminiscent of the 18-day uprising that ousted Mubarak on Feb. 11, riot police deployed around the Interior Ministry building and fired in the air or used tear gas as demonstrators threw rocks and firebombs. The fighting left streets littered with rocks and debris and a heavy, white cloud of tear gas hung over the area.

By late afternoon, army troops backed by armored vehicles took over from riot police who had been protecting the Interior Ministry, closing all roads leading to the complex, the official Middle East News Agency, MENA, reported.

The protests attest to the ongoing upheaval in Egypt nearly five months after Mubarak stepped down. The country is struggling with a worsening economic crisis and as a security vacuum that has led to a surge in crime.

The question of meting out justice to those responsible for the deaths of some 850 protesters during the uprising, as well as for regime stalwarts charged with corruption, is among the most divisive in post-Mubarak Egypt. Many of those who took part in the uprising accuse the ruling military of showing too much reverence to key figures of the old regime and lenience with senior police commanders accused of ordering the killing of protesters.

Gigi Ibrahim, one of the protesters, said security forces rained tear gas on them.

“It was like January 25,” she said, referring to the first day of the uprising. “The protesters have enough anger, either because change has not come or because the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces hasn’t done enough” to meet their demands.

MENA quoted Assistant Health Minister Abdul-Hameed Abazah as saying that of the injured, some 900 were treated on the spot and more than 120 went to hospitals.

Tom Engelhardt

June 30, 2011

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/barack_obama/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/06/30/obama_afghanistan_speech

It’s already gone, having barely outlasted its moment — just long enough for the media to suggest that no one thought it added up to much.

Okay, it was a little more than the military wanted, something less than Joe Biden would have liked, not enough for the growing crew of anti-war congressional types, but way too much for John McCain, Lindsey Graham, & Co.

I’m talking about the 13 minutes of “remarks” on “the way forward in Afghanistan” that President Obama delivered in the East Room of the White House two Wednesday nights ago.

Tell me you weren’t holding your breath wondering whether the 33,000 surge troops he ordered into Afghanistan as 2009 ended would be removed in a 12-month, 14-month, or 18-month span. Tell me you weren’t gripped with anxiety about whether 3,000, 5,000, 10,000, or 15,000 American soldiers would come out this year (leaving either 95,000, 93,000, 88,000, or 83,000 behind)?

You weren’t? Well, if so, you were in good company.

Tom Levitt
The Ecologist, 30 June 2011
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/961236/greenpeace_takes_on_monsanto_over_pesticides_arms_race.html

*Main ingredient of Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer is being linked to cancer, birth defects and Parkinson’s disease and should be banned, according to campaigners behind new report

The use of the popular weedkiller, ‘Roundup’, in public parks and on agricultural crops is a danger to public health, according to a new analysis of scientific evidence.

One of the main ingredients of Roundup, as well as several other herbicides, is a chemical known as glyphosate. A review of academic research, conducted by Greenpeace and the anti-GM campaign group GM Freeze, suggests exposure to it can cause cancer, hormonal imbalance, birth defects and neurological illnesses including Parkinson’s.

Jewish Haiku

Beyond Valium,
peace is knowing one’s child
is an internist.

On Passover we
opened the door for Elijah.
Now our dog is gone.

After the warm rain
the sweet smell of camellias.
Did you wipe your feet?

Her lips near my ear,
Aunt Sadie whispers the name
of her friend’s disease.

Today I am a man
Tomorrow I will return
to the seventh grade.

Testing the warm milk
on her wrist, she sighs softly
But her son is forty.

The sparkling blue sea
reminds me to wait an hour
after my sandwich.

Christopher Mims

 June 28, 2011

http://www.grist.org/list/2011-06-28-company-wants-to-turn-worlds-biggest-coal-field-into-worlds-bigg

A 250 mile long coal seam discovered deep in the interior desert of Australia’s Northern Territory appears to be the most gigantic coal deposit on planet Earth, and Central Petroleum Limited wants to burn it all. They project it will take them at least a century to go through the entire reserve, or right about until they’ve turned Australia’s notoriously harsh desert into an incomprehensibly lifeless hellscape populated by miners in climate controlled space-suits.

Their approach is somewhat unconventional: Central Petroleum wants to liquefy the coal underground, turn it into a gas, and then transform that gas back into a liquid, to be used like conventional oil. They project the field could produce 1 billion barrels a year, thus totally solving peak oil FOREVER for about ten minues.

David Espo

June 28, 2011

http://www.salon.com/wires/us/2011/06/28/D9O54D4O1_us_debt_showdown/index.html

Two Senate rebels jumped into Congress’ cut-the-deficit competition on Tuesday, proposing to raise the age of Medicare eligibility to 67 and increase monthly premiums for millions of current beneficiaries.

“We can’t save Medicare as we know it,” said Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., who authored the plan with Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. “We can only save Medicare if we change it,” he added in an apparent jab at President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats.

Democrats reacted with criticism of the proposal, which Coburn said was designed to rescue the financially imperiled program and help the nation confront a “wall of debt.” Republicans betrayed no sign of support either.

If nothing else, the response underscored the difficulty of legislative free-lancing at a time the Obama administration and congressional leaders are struggling to negotiate a compromise that cuts future deficits and clears the way for an increase in the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt.

Without a debt limit increase by Aug. 2, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has warned, the government could default, risking calamity for the U.S. economy and serious effects worldwide.

Watch this video right here: British video clip on bailing out the European economies http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=thSTpGnWEAs