Archive for April, 2010
Millions Drink Toxic Water In The USA, But It’s EPA-Approved!
Photo: Matthew Bowden (www.digitallyrefreshing.com)
From Natural News:
It has been so long since the federal law regulating tap water has been updated that since 2004, more than one-fifth of the U.S. population has consumed tap water that the government classifies as toxic, but still approves for human consumption.
“People don’t understand that just because water is technically legal, it can still present health risks,” said Pankaj Parekh, director of water quality for the City of Los Angeles.
Even though more than 60,000 chemicals are used in the United States each year and most have never been tested for human safety, the Safe Water Drinking Act regulates only 91 different toxins. Many of these are regulations have not been updated since the 1980s or even since the law was first passed in 1974. The law does not take into account newer findings that certain chemicals can be more toxic in combination than separately. To top it…
NYPD Confiscated Hundreds of Bicycles on Earth Day For Obama Visit
Is this just ironic or a necessary security measure? John Del Signore writes in Gothamist:
…”citing security concerns that bikes might be secret pipe bombs, NYPD officers clipped the locks of hundreds of bikes along Houston Street this morning in preparation for President Obama’s speech at Cooper Union. The bikes were unceremoniously put in the back of the truck. Onlookers were not given information as to what would become of the bikes. Happy Earth Day!”
Image Via Twitter by @rafcard
We’re trying to get information on this from the NYPD, and will let you know if they respond. Until then, we can only assume Obama hates cyclists and wants all bike lanes permanently painted over.
4 Million Americans To Be Fined Unless They Get Health Coverage When Obama’s Plan Kicks In
From Nick Pell’s article “Hate To Say I Told Ya So” from the Black Sun Gazette:
And that’s not just a cliche. I hate being right about this shit. Believe me, nothing would make me happier than feeling like I could cheerlead for the Democrats or some broad-based left formation. It would certainly make my life a lot easier and I might be able to declare a “victory” from time to time. The sad fact is that the Democrats and the left groups who apologize for them are not merely misguided souls on the same team as me. Nor are they merely deceivers who mislead the working class. Rather, they are active participants in attacking the working class, their living standards and working conditions.
Case in point: Not only will the health care bill leave four million people uninsured — to say nothing of the people paying too much for sub-standard coverage —…
The Financial Crisis As Crime Story
Plunder director Danny Schechter writing for the Nation:
The case has not even been heard in court and the company denies all the allegations. Almost every business publication has carried commentaries by insiders who say the government may have a hard time prevailing, and dismissing all the Sturm and Drang.
And yet the public seems to be delighted if not outraged by the SEC’s charges against Goldman Sachs, the opulent investment bank that many Americans see as the poster child of those causing the financial crisis. Even in the world of business where dislike of government crackdowns is dominant, a new poll shows that a majority believe Goldman is getting what it deserves.
Argyle Executive Forum conducted the survey electronically among its senior corporate leadership community.
The precise wording of the survey question was:
As Goldman Sachs Group is currently at the center of a legal maelstrom triggered by the SEC’s fraud charge last week, we…
Political Publicists Manipulate Consumers With Anthro-Aesthetic Narrative
While the the American public at large varies in its level of outrage over U.S. government spending levels, over the past week, the physical appearance of Tea Party protesters served as a point of fixation for commenters describing their points of view from every part of the ideological spectrum. The overarching thesis of every paid mainstream commenter, in rough paraphrase, has been “I am not a racist; the people who disagree with me are racists. This validates my conclusions about the level and direction of federal government spending.”
These types of conflicting arguments float around either (1) pointing our the aesthetic homogeneity of the Tea Party protesters or (2) referencing the presence of ethnic minority participation in Tea Party protests in order to expose the previous dynamic as spurious or, daresay, racist unto itself. This common practice by detracting and promoting onlookers is deeply ironic, because, for the most part, virtually…
Mystery Military Space Plane
An Air Force plane prompts concerns about space-based military operations. CNN’s Barbara Starr reports.
Ron Paul on HR2194: “Today’s Conversation Was Nothing But War Propaganda!”
From the Daily Paul:
Congressman Paul took to the House floor on Thursday to oppose H.R. 2194, the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act, and he warned against the war propaganda being spread in the House.
While Economy Collapsed, SEC Staffers Surfed For Porn
Wondering why experts and watchdogs didn’t see the banking crisis coming? They were busy doing some of their own analysis. The Daily News writes:
The country’s top financial watchdogs…spent hours gawking at porn Web sites as the economy teetered on the brink, according to a memo released Thursday night.
The shocking findings include Securities and Exchange Commission senior staffers using government computers to browse for booty and an accountant who tried to access the raunchy sites 16,000 times in one month.
Their titillating pastime was discovered during 33 probes of employees looking at explicit images in the past five years, said the memo obtained by The Associated Press. Seventeen of the randy employees were “at a senior level” earning salaries of up to $222,418.
Texas City Reinstates Corporal Punishment In Public Schools
If there’s one thing Texans love besides barbecue, it’s paddling their kids. From the Washington Post:
“There are times when maybe a good crack might not be a bad idea,” said Robert Pippin, a custom home builder who sports a goatee and cowboy boots. His son graduated from Temple schools several years ago.
Corporal punishment remains legal in 20 states, mostly in the South, but its use is diminishing. Ohio ended it last year, and a movement for a federal ban is afoot. Most school districts across the country banned paddling of students long ago. Texas sat that trend out.
But even by Texas standards, Temple is unusual. The city, a compact railroad hub of 60,000 people, banned the practice and then revived it at the demand of parents who longed for the orderly schools of yesteryear. Since paddling was brought back to the city’s 14 schools by a unanimous board vote in…
U.S. Military Suffers Major Defeat In Korengal Valley, Forced To Retreat
View of the Korengal Valley, Afghanistan, from Firebase Phoenix
James Circello for uruknet.info:
The U.S. military has retreated from a base in the remote Korengal Valley, Afghanistan, after spending over four years trying to hold the ground. The U.S. forces even negotiated the terms of their defeat, paying the resistance fighters and leaving them the base fully intact with buildings, fuel, generators and military equipment, in order to be allowed a peaceful retreat out of the valley.
The corporate media and, for the most part, the Pentagon brass have framed the forced retreat from the “Valley of Death” as a “shift” in strategy. This so-called shift has been eye-opening for the soldiers and marines who have lost friends and shed blood in the mountains of Afghanistan, while forced to defend an outpost which U.S. military commanders have argued is “a remote backwater of limited strategic value.”
Despite its “limited strategic value,” a startling 42…
Killer Fungus Spreading In U.S. & Canada
Amanda Gardner reports on the deadly fungus for CNN:
A rare but life-threatening tropical fungus that causes lung infections in both people and animals has been seen in the Pacific Northwest and could spread, researchers are reporting.
The fungus, known as Cryptococcus gattii (or C. gattii), has infected dozens of humans and animals–including cats, dogs, and dolphins–in Washington and Oregon in the past five years. While rare, the fungus has been lethal in about 25 percent of the people in the U.S. who have developed infections, according to Edmond Byrnes III, a doctoral student in molecular genetics and microbiology at Duke University and one of the lead authors of a new study about the fungus.
In the study, Byrnes and his colleagues analyzed 18 cases in people and 21 in animals that occurred in the U.S. between 2005 and 2009.
The symptoms of infection include chest pain, a persistent cough, shortness of breath, fever,…
The John Searl Story DVD Trailer — The Controversy
Does John Searl have the answer to the energy crisis? He claims he does…
Furthermore, Searl says he’s had it for over 60 years. Regarded by many as ‘The Godfather’ of free energy or zero point energy science, Professor Searl believes his magnetic generator, the Searl Effect Generator (SEG), can save our planet from economic and environmental disaster. So, what if he’s telling the truth? A new documentary called The John Searl Story is out now:
Is Your Job So Boring It’s Killing You?
London researchers studied 7,524 civil workers, and concluded “those who report being bored are more likely to die younger than those who are not bored.”
Severe job boredom made them 2.5 times more likely to die of cardiovascular disease, and this article argues chronic boredom also “lures desperate humans into ‘make-me-feel-alive’ behavior like over-eating, alcoholism, sex addiction, drug dependency, smoking, self-mutilation, off-road racing, fist-fighting, pathological gambling, and vandalism…”
There’s also a helpful list of the most boring cities, books, and jobs, plus the countries where you’re most likely to commit suicide. It’s the #1 reason people oppose immortality, according to one survey, but fortunately, this article predicts boredom will vanish in the future — “especially after all redundant work is performed by robots.” Still, if you get bored while reading this, click away to safety!
“I don’t want your death on my conscience.”
Claim: Man Who Shot Polish Plane Crash “Gunshots” Footage Stabbed To Death
More fuel for the Polish plane crash conspiracy theories, from PrisonPlanet.com:
The man who filmed a video that appeared to depict gunshots being fired in the immediate aftermath of the Polish plane crash has apparently been stabbed to death in what many are claiming was a deliberate assassination to silence the individual from making public whatever it was he saw.
New Doubts On Who Was Behind 2001 Anthrax Attacks
Bruce Ivins. Photo: U.S. Army
There are many skeptics when it comes to the FBI purporting to “close the case” on the 2001 anthrax attacks, led perhaps by Eric Nadler and Bob Coen. Now they have some high profile support from a colleague of the conveniently-dead scapegoat, Bruce Ivins, reported in the New York Times:
A former Army microbiologist who worked for years with Bruce E. Ivins, whom the F.B.I. has blamed for the anthrax letter attacks that killed five people in 2001, told a National Academy of Sciences panel on Thursday that he believed it was impossible that the deadly spores had been produced undetected in Dr. Ivins’s laboratory, as the F.B.I. asserts.
Asked by reporters after his testimony whether he believed that there was any chance that Dr. Ivins, who committed suicide in 2008, had carried out the attacks, the microbiologist, Henry S. Heine, replied, “Absolutely not.” At the Army’s biodefense…
Another Look What “Death” Is: Photos of ‘Sky Burials’ in Tibet
OK, this is some pretty rough stuff. But it really made me think about about how we deal with our deceased in Western countries. I suppose in some ways it’s appropriate for Earth Day. Or Halloween. Take your pick.
NOT FOR SENSITIVE SOULS!
Click through to mbvtravel to see the full set of photos. You have been warned.
Get Off The Bottle
Here at the disinformation NYC offices we recently ditched our 5-Gallon water jugs and fitted a water filter cooler (tastes just as good, no more storage of those jugs – and it’s cheaper!). We were educated about the ills of the plastic bottles by filmmaker Stephanie Soechtig, whose movie Tapped we’ll be releasing on DVD this summer. Stephanie is here in New York for Earth Day and appeared on CBS Early Show this morning (video below). If you’re in New York, don’t miss an exclusive screening of Tapped at the Sunshine Theater this evening, preceded by a bottle exchange sponsored by Whole Foods, where the first 100 guests to bring an empty plastic water bottle to the event will receive cool Kleen Kanteen bottles in exchange and after that, people will receive coupons for 40% off Klean Kanteen stainless steel bottles (outside the theater at 6 PM).
Martina Hoffman’s Landscapes of the Sacred Feminine
Spirit Wind, 2007. Source: martinahoffmann.com
Martina Hoffmann is a painter and sculptress whose imagery has been inspired by expanded states of consciousness: the realms of the imagination, meditation, shamanic journeys and the dream state. The unique iconography of her painted landscapes reveal a deep connection to the sacred feminine while her sculptural work is undeniably influenced by African energy. Michael Robinson, Creative Director of Reality Sandwich, interviews Martina:
1. What’s your personal mantra?
Every one of our actions affects reality as a whole, so impeccability is of the essence. This is my mantra.
“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.” Chief Seattle, 1854
2. What does the role of Artist mean to you?
Art reflects the state of the world and its sentiments about all aspects of life as seen…
Geico Voice-Over Actor Fired for Criticizing Tea Party
Lots of people think it’s the voice of the Gecko, no, it’s another guy. But does seem lame that he was fired for exercising his right to free speech as a private citizen:
