China Downplays Risk to Children from Lead Poisoning

June 27th, 2012

Via: Reuters:

Chinese children suffering lead poisoning from polluting smelters and factories have been denied testing, effective treatment and even basic information by officials who downplayed health threats, a human rights advocacy group said on Wednesday.

The report from Human Rights Watch comes after China’s latest lead pollution outbreak, when 103 children and scores of adults were poisoned by tinfoil-making workshops in eastern Zhejiang province.

Beijing has vowed to clean up this chronic pollution, but New York-based Human Rights Watch said those efforts only go so far in addressing the needs of hundreds of thousands of children it says are suffering from lead poisoning in China.

Lead, especially harmful for children, can lead to learning difficulties and behavioral problems, and often parents who work at the plants bring home extra doses on their clothes and skin.


Louisiana: Creationists Get Public School Vouchers

June 27th, 2012

I’m seeing a lot of outrage about this, but I actually don’t think it’s any worse than the sludge that’s pumped into the minds of children who are subjected to regular public school. The nuts are running the nuthouses in both camps, if you ask me.

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Via: Washington Post:

This would be funny if it weren’t so, well, not funny.

A biology textbook used by a Christian school in Louisiana that will be accepting students with publicly funded vouchers in the fall says that the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland is real. And it isn’t just any monster but a dinosaur — an effort to debunk evolution and bolster creationist theory.

The story, reported in the Scotsman newspaper in Scotland, says that Eternity Christian Academy in Westlake is one of the many Christian schools in the United States that uses these books published by Accelerated Christian Education.

The Biology 1099 edition includes a passage about the Loch Ness Monster that says, in part, according to the newspaper:

“Are dinosaurs alive today? Scientists are becoming more convinced of their existence. Have you heard of the ‘Loch Ness Monster’ in Scotland? ‘Nessie’ for short has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses, and photographed by others. Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur.”

Marie Carrier, principal of Eternity Christian Academy, was quoted by the New York Daily News as saying that she would like to accept 135 voucher students for next year to join the 38 children already attending the school in grades 1 through 8.

The reason all of this matters now to the public is that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal recently signed a law that sets up the largest voucher program of any state in the country. Some 125 private and religious schools from across the state are qualified to participate in the Louisiana Believes program, which gives families public money to pay school tuition for their children.


U.S. Supreme Court Nixes State’s Ban on Corporate Campaign Spending

June 27th, 2012

Via: Missoulian:

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision Monday, summarily reversed a Montana Supreme Court ruling and struck down the state’s century-old ban on corporate donations to political candidates.

The ruling opens the door for corporations and unions to spend directly from their treasury on advertising and other independent expenditures promoting or opposing candidates in state elections in Montana this year, for the first time in 100 years.

Research Credit: RP


China: Genetically Modified Cows Churn Out ‘Human Breast Milk’

June 27th, 2012

Via: Reuters:

Chinese scientists have produced a herd of genetically modified cows that make milk that could substitute for human breast milk — a possible alternative to formula in a nation rocked by tainted milk powder scandals.

Researchers at the State Key Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology of the China Agricultural University introduced human genetic coding into the DNA of Holstein dairy cow embryos, then transferred the embryos into cow surrogates.

In 2003, after years of testing on mice, scientists managed to create the first cow that could produce milk with the same nutritional properties as human breast milk, but with a taste even stronger and sweeter.

“The genetically modified cow milk is 80 percent the same as human breast milk,” said Li Ning, a professor and the project’s director as well as lead researcher.

“Our modified cow milk contains several major properties of human milk, in particular proteins and antibodies which we believe are good for our health and able to improve our immune system.”

Over 300 cloned cattle now live on an experimental farm in suburban Beijing, with new calves delivered every week.

Li’s team, which is supported by a major Chinese biotechnology company, aims to have an affordable form of the milk on the market within three years.

Behind their efforts is a series of poisonings and toxin scandals that have shaken consumer trust in China’s dairy sector and its products.

In 2008, at least six children died and nearly 300,000 fell ill from drinking powdered milk laced with melamine, an industrial chemical added to low quality or diluted milk to fool inspectors checking for protein levels.


TSA Agent Spills Ashes of Man’s Grandfather, Laughs

June 27th, 2012

Via: RTV6:

A man’s attempt to bring the ashes of his grandfather home to Indianapolis ended with an angry scene in a Florida airport, with the ashes spilled on the terminal floor.

John Gross, a resident of Indianapolis’ south side, was leaving Florida with the remains of his grandfather — Mario Mark Marcaletti, a Sicilian immigrant who worked for the Penn Central Railroad in central Indiana — in a tightly sealed jar marked “Human Remains.”

Gross said he didn’t think he’d have a problem, until he ran into a TSA agent at the Orlando airport.

“They opened up my bag, and I told them, ‘Please, be careful. These are my grandpa’s ashes,'” Gross told RTV6’s Norman Cox. “She picked up the jar. She opened it up.

“I was told later on that she had no right to even open it, that they could have used other devices, like an X-ray machine. So she opened it up. She used her finger and was sifting through it. And then she accidentally spilled it.”

Gross says about a quarter to a third of the contents spilled on the floor, leaving him frantically trying to gather up as much as he could while anxious passengers waited behind him.

“She didn’t apologize. She started laughing. I was on my hands and knees picking up bone fragments. I couldn’t pick up all, everything that was lost. I mean, there was a long line behind me.”


Injection Wells: The Poison Beneath Us

June 26th, 2012

Via: Pro Publica:

Over the past several decades, U.S. industries have injected more than 30 trillion gallons of toxic liquid deep into the earth, using broad expanses of the nation’s geology as an invisible dumping ground.

No company would be allowed to pour such dangerous chemicals into the rivers or onto the soil. But until recently, scientists and environmental officials have assumed that deep layers of rock beneath the earth would safely entomb the waste for millennia.

There are growing signs they were mistaken.

Records from disparate corners of the United States show that wells drilled to bury this waste deep beneath the ground have repeatedly leaked, sending dangerous chemicals and waste gurgling to the surface or, on occasion, seeping into shallow aquifers that store a significant portion of the nation’s drinking water.

Research Credit: midnightagain


Germany: Religious Circumcisions Are Crimes

June 26th, 2012

Via: The Local:

Non-medical circumcision is a “serious and irreversible interference in the integrity of the human body,” the Cologne district court ruled.

This criminalises religious circumcisions performed by Jews and Muslims, the Financial Times Deutschland newspaper said on Tuesday. It says circumcision should be considered a crime of bodily harm.

Thousands of very young boys are circumcised in Germany each year, mainly for religious reasons.

In the United States most boys are circumcised shortly after birth – regardless of their religion, though the practice has declined in recent years and anti-circumcision protest groups have sprung up.

German doctors performing circumcisions that are not medically necessary have until now operated in a grey legal area. Until now they could claim that they were unaware that performing a circumcision is a crime.


Mexico City Airport Shooting Suspects Are Police

June 26th, 2012

Via: MSNBC:

Three policemen died in a shootout with two other officers suspected of drug trafficking at Mexico City’s airport on Monday, as panicked travelers scrambled for cover in the busy facility.

The shootout occurred when three federal officers approached the two suspects in the airport’s Terminal 2, which handles international and domestic flights. Two agents were killed at the terminal and another later died of his injuries in hospital.

More than a dozen shots were heard, Milenio Television reported. Television footage showed a body lying on the floor of the terminal in what appeared to be a publicly accessible area of the airport.

The suspects, who remain at large, are believed to be part of a larger group of officials involved in a cocaine ring, Mexico’s security ministry said in a statement.

“The Federal Police has identified the two officers who opened fire and several investigative units are now focused on capturing them,” the federal Public Safety Department said in a statement.


The American War Racket

June 26th, 2012

Via: Daily Reckoning:

Our president is a portrait of failure and homicide… According to The New York Times he personally approves the list of unfortunates his drones will assassinate. And for what? Philip Giraldi does the “Terrorism Arithmetic”:

Only three American citizens were kidnapped by overseas terrorists in 2011 (in Somalia, Afghanistan, and Iraq, all of which were war zones), and only 17 were killed in foreign lands (15 in Afghanistan, a war zone)…. Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations has determined that the number of Americans killed in terrorist attacks is comparable to the number crushed to death by falling television sets or furniture each year.

But every president wants to be a war president. War is America’s #1 zombie industry.


CNBC: We’re All Slaves to Central Banks

June 26th, 2012

Via: CNBC Reposted on YouTube:


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