MIAMI: AERIAL ORGANOPHOSPHATE SPRAYING
August 3rd, 2016In Miami? Run.
Also, if anyone knows the name of the firm that’s doing the spraying, let me know.
Inert Ingredients are in most pesticide applications and naled is no exception. Caroline Cox from the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides (NCAP) lists solvents in Dibrom that are listed as “inert ingredients”:
Napthaline: which has been classified by the EPA as a “possible human carcinogen” because it has caused lung tumors in mice. It has also caused headaches, restlessness, lethargy, nausea, diarrhea, and anemia
1,2,4-trimethylbenzene: it is a eye and skin irritant and a nervous system depressant that causes headaches, fatigues, nausea, and anxiety as well as asthmatic bronchitis.…
Unfortunately the most toxic route of exposure is inhalation and the most common application is as a mist making inhalation the most likely route as well (#ATSDR, 2007).
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Naled’s health effects stem from its cholinesterase inhibiting mechanisms which are common to all Organophosphates. It is a “severe” skin and eye irritant and can be ingested on food or in water, but it is most harmful and potent if it is inhaled (#Cox, 2002). Toxicologists at the University of California found that naled when inhaled is twenty times more toxic to rats as opposed to when it is ingested (#Cox, 2002).
Chronic Effects
Studies conducted on dogs and rates showed that naled does cause chronic nervous system damage resulting in a mineralization of the spinal cord and decreased nervous system enzyme activity that led to partial paralysis (#Cox, 2002).
Via: Reuters:
Florida will conduct an aerial insecticide spraying campaign at dawn on Wednesday in an effort to kill mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus, officials in Miami-Dade County said.
The campaign will cover a 10-mile area that includes the one-mile-square area just north of downtown Miami that health officials have identified as the hub of Zika transmission in the state, the officials said on Tuesday.
On Monday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an unprecedented travel warning, urging pregnant women to avoid travel to the Miami neighborhood at the center of the investigation.
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The aerial spraying campaign was recommended by the CDC in conjunction with the Florida Health Department to reduce adult mosquito populations that might be capable of carrying the Zika virus.
In a conference call on Tuesday, CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden expressed concern that vector control efforts so far have not been as effective as hoped. A CDC expert is currently conducting tests in Miami to see if mosquitoes in the area have developed insecticide resistance.
Florida had been using two products in the pyrethroid class of insecticides. In its aerial campaign, the state will use a chemical called Naled that has been approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to Joseph Conlon, a spokesman for the American Mosquito Control Association.
Naled is from a different class of insecticides known as organophosphates. According to the CDC, the chemical has been widely used to control mosquito populations in the United States, including in Miami, Tampa and New Orleans.
The CDC recommended the same chemical for aerial spraying in Puerto Rico, but the recommendation has been met with protests from residents concerned about its impact on health, bees, agriculture and the environment.
Related: The Link Between Mosquito Spraying and Autism
U.S. Sent Pallets of Cash to Iran as Americans Were Freed
August 2nd, 2016Via: Wall Street Journal:
The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward.
Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane, according to these officials. The U.S. procured the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland, they said.
The money represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
World’s Largest Solar Power Plant Planned for Chernobyl Nuclear Wasteland
August 2nd, 2016Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.
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Via: Electrek:
The world’s most famous and damaging nuclear meltdown is now being considered for the world’s largest solar power plant. The Ukrainian nuclear power station Chernobyl had a nuclear meltdown on April 26, 1986. Since then 1,600 square miles of land has been deemed an ‘exclusion zone’ as the radiation levels are too high for human health. But in a recent interview, Ukraine’s ecology minister said the government was negotiating with two US investment firms and four Canadian energy companies, which have expressed interest in the Chernobyl’s solar potential.
It would be among the modern world’s greatest technical ironies if one of the worst industrial accidents ever would be replaced with a solar power plant, one of the world’s safest energy technologies.
Peter Thiel Is Very, Very Interested in Young People’s Blood
August 2nd, 2016Via: Inc.:
More than anything, Peter Thiel, the billionaire technology investor and Donald Trump supporter, wants to find a way to escape death. He’s channeled millions of dollars into startups working on anti-aging medicine, spends considerable time and money researching therapies for his personal use, and believes society ought to open its mind to life-extension methods that sound weird or unsavory.
Speaking of weird and unsavory, if there’s one thing that really excites Thiel, it’s the prospect of having younger people’s blood transfused into his own veins.
CDC Issues Historic Travel Warning Over Miami Zika Outbreak
August 1st, 2016Zika Virus Made Available to Researchers by Rockefeller Foundation in 1953
While Brazil Was Eradicating Zika Mosquitoes, America Made Them Into Weapons
And Now: “Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Join The Fight To Stop Zika Virus”
Bonus: Florida!
Via: CNN:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an unprecedented travel warning Monday, advising pregnant women and their partners not to travel to a small community just north of downtown Miami, where Zika is actively circulating. This is the first time the CDC has warned people not to travel to an American neighborhood for fear of catching an infectious disease, according to agency spokesman Tom Skinner.
The warning came after 10 additional people in Florida were found to have been infected with Zika virus after being bitten by local mosquitoes, bringing the total to 14.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott and CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden announced the development in separate news conferences Monday. The new cases were found by door-to-door surveys of 200 people in their homes and businesses, and they were identified by urine and blood samples that tested positive for the virus or an antibody.
Saturday Night in Kentucky: Armed Men in Body Armor at Walmart Tell Police They Were Preparing for Doomsday
August 1st, 2016This isn’t normal?
Via: Lexington Herald Leader:
A report of a car full of men in body armor with semi-automatic weapons brought Lexington police to the Walmart on Richmond Road on Saturday night. Officers found two men, one in body armor, a 20-year-old woman and a six-month old baby.
Lt. Jackie Newman said that when Lexington police officers got the three people out of the car about 11:15 p.m., they said they were preparing for doomsday and needed supplies. A 26-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman were in the car with their 6-month-old baby and a 19-year-old man, police spokeswoman Brenna Angel said Monday.
The older man had just bought a bulletproof vest, a semi-automatic AK-47 and a .357 Magnum revolver, Angel said. He was wearing the vest, and both weapons were loaded and visible in the vehicle. He told officers that they had recently received a settlement from a car crash and used the money to buy tactical gear “should the end of days occur or should there be an Armageddon-type situation,” Angel said.
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All three voluntarily came to police headquarters for questioning that night, Lt. Richard Willoby said. The three cooperated with police, and no charges were filed.
GlaxoSmithKline and Google Team Up to Create New Bioelectronics Health Company
August 1st, 2016😯
Via: The Verge:
British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline and Google’s parent company Alphabet have announced they’re creating a new company to develop bioelectronic medicines. The joint venture will be named Galvani Bioelectronics and will be headquartered in the UK, with 55 percent of equity interest owned by GSK and 45 percent owned by Alphabet’s Verily Life Sciences division (formerly known as Google Life Sciences). Galvani will initially be funded with £540 million over the next seven years ($712 million), and plans to have treatments ready for regulatory approval by 2023.
Tim Kaine’s Unlikely Biography
August 1st, 2016Via: Mad Cow Productions:
A 21-year old Harvard Law School student spending 1981 in Honduras as a Jesuit volunteer is as absurd as an English tutor parachuting before D-Day into Normandy to teach French children when to use “their” and when to use “they’re.”
It doesn’t pass the smell test.
Delphi to Begin Testing On-Demand Robot Taxis in Singapore
August 1st, 2016Via: Bloomberg:
Delphi Automotive Plc, the vehicle-electronics supplier that last year conducted the first coast-to-coast U.S. demonstration of a self-driving car, will begin testing autonomous autos in Singapore this year that may lead to robot taxis by the end of the decade.
The test will involve six autonomous autos, starting with the modified Audi Q5 the supplier used last year to travel from San Francisco to New York in self-driving mode. In Singapore, the cars initially will follow three predetermined routes and by 2019 will range freely based on customer requests, without a driver or a human minder, according to Glen DeVos, a Delphi senior vice president.
“We actually will have point-to-point automated mobility on demand with no driver in the car,” he said at a briefing with reporters at Delphi’s Troy, Michigan, operations base. “It’s one of the first, if not the very first, pilot programs where we’ll demonstrate mobility-on-demand systems.”
Related: Uber is planning on investing $500 million to map the world’s roads
1980s Nuclear War Nightmares
August 1st, 2016Reading the piece about the 390th Strategic Missile Wing in Tucson, Arizona reminded me about being somewhat traumatized as a child by seeing news shows on TV discussing nuclear war. Yep, even as a young kid, I used to watch a lot of news on TV and read newspapers and news magazines. I was so into it that my parents would let me stay up to watch Nightline with them, which I did most nights.
There were several Nightline episodes that discussed nuclear war back in those days and I went looking for some of them just now. I found this one from 1985, which I definitely remember watching, about a sudden nuclear attack scenario:
Then I found this one from 1983 about SDI, which I was also obsessed with:
I tried to find an episode from even further back in which Koppel discusses a map of the U.S. that showed Southern California peppered with primary and secondary targets. The place I lived had overlapping red circles. I think that was THE thing that used to give me nightmares. I couldn’t find that episode. There was also a clip from either Nightline or Frontline that showed a B-52 crew pulling their curtains that also featured heavily in my nightmares…
I’m glad I didn’t see Threads back in those days, which probably gave lots of British children nightmares and was much more intense than the polite conversation and military B-roll depictions fed to Americans.
Anyway, that was me. Apple 2e, phone modem, D&D, pellet guns and nightmares about nuclear war. Happy days!
