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Thursday, August 25, 2011

30

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"There's Justice In The Universe"
Last spring, USDA officials said they were considering a change in how
the agency tests meat for dangerous pathogens like E. coli.  This was
welcomed news after some of the largest meat recalls in history.  But
just a few months later, agency officials were backing off this plan.
Instead, the meat industry wants to find a new use for a failed
technology: irradiation.

Irradiation is an expensive, impractical technology that lets meat
companies try to cover up their sloppy practices rather than preventing contamination by slowing down their lines and cleaning up their plants. It creates new chemical byproducts in food and the long term health impacts of eating irradiated food are still unknown.

The meat industry wants USDA to let them use irradiation on whole beef carcasses (normally irradiation is done at the end of the line after meat is processed and packaged.)  And to make matters worse, they want the agency to change how irradiation is regulated so they won't have to label meat products that undergo this treatment.
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/

Consumers need USDA to do more testing for contamination in meat
plants, not let the meat industry try to push a quick fix that causes
more problems than it solves.

The deadline to comment is October 18th so don't hesitate!  Let the USDA know you do not support irradiation.

Take Action:
http://action.foodandwaterwatch.org/t/5915/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26100
A growing number of think tanks sound good for the environment but advocate for industries that could cause environmental headaches. (You think Americans for Balanced Energy Choices touts solar power? Nope.) Try to match the groups below with their mission, and you’ll get the idea.
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/money/news/2008/11/green-groups/overview/green-groups-ov.htm

For more on "green myths vs. reality", go to www.frontgroups.org, a joint project of Consumer Reports WebWatch and the Center for Media and Democracy.
http://www.frontgroups.org/frontgroups

Example:
/> "Americans for Balanced Energy Choices"  was merged with "Center for Energy and Economic Development" to form a new coal industry front group, "American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity", on April 17, 2008.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Americans_for_Balanced_Energy_Choices

{Liars and thieves.}
Girls' education provides perhaps the single highest return on investment in the developing world.

    * Educated girls tend to marry later
    * They are better paid in the workplace
    * They have fewer, healthier children
    * They are more likely to send their own children to school
    * They are better able to protect themselves against diseases (e.g., HIV)
    * They assume a more active role in social, economic and political decision-making throughout their lives

In short, investing in girls' education yields spectacular social benefits for the current generation as well as those to come.

Take Action, Join:
http://www.care.org/
In today's Austin American-Statesman newspaper (B2) & at www.Statesman.com  'photo gallery', there's a picture(s) of a WWII B-17 bomber, the Liberty Belle.  What a wonderful piece of American History!  When teaching Reading to underachievers, I often used true stories about real people to both educate and motivate --- the stories about WWII airmen (e.g., bomber crews, Tuskegee Airmen) were among the best.  At one time, I was even able to go with my students to air shows sponsored by the Confederate Air Force.  [One of my student's grandfather died in a bomber over Germany. And remember that Bob Dole was a wounded WWII bomber pilot.]

The mortality rate among daylight bombing crews was horrendous.  Even so, their lives were well spent ---  they were true American heroes.

The History Channel has aired some excellent footage and information about the B-17s (and other WWII bombers).  NetFlix has a good assortment of similar videos.

I can only hope that at least a few of my former students will be aware of this opportunity to go look at one of the few remaining B-17s that's still airworthy.

http://www.libertyfoundation.org/
http://www.cafb29b24.org/

Note: On page B2, to the left of the bomber photo, is another WWII hero pictured -- Frank Denius, who received four Silver Stars and two Purple Hearts in WWII. 

Think of the above and then remember Obama standing passively during the playing of the Star Spangled banner during the Democratic Primary campaign.  What a putz!
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/anthem.asp
"Population removal", a loose synonym for "genocide", is now being used by 'hard right wingers' as also meaning abortion (which they've already equated with 'contraception').

Gail Lowe, Republican candidate for the Texas State Board of Education, told the Young County Republican Women that she will turn down any textbook encouraging "population removal" (by which she means contraception) / as in 'sex ed'.   This is in line with the fear that many whites have of losing their dominant position is society because of the world's overpopulation spilling into America.  A 'war that's being lost in the bedroom' by whites.

Instead of supporting Bush's Global Gag Rule that effectively shuts off aid for family planning services in those countries who desperately need it, Lowe should be pushing for universal use of contraception aka birth control pills & condoms.  Abortion is only a last desperate choice when contraception has not been intelligently utilized.

"Is U.S. Policy Truly Pro-life?":
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/opinion/09kristof.html?hp

Take Action:
http://www.freechoicesaveslives.org/campaign/2008_candidates
"The idea that the universe is worth studying
just because it’s worth studying is a religious
idea. If you think the universe is fundamentally
good and that it’s an expression of a good God,
then studying how the universe works is a
way of becoming intimate with the Creator.
It’s a kind of worship. And that’s been a big
motivation for doing any kind of science....
science can purge religion of superstition.”
http://tinyurl.com/65fo6u

[My Comment: The rigid literalistic thinking
'bunch' (like the zealots who destroyed the
great library of Alexandria) are incapable of
relating to the abstractness of this quote. 
They want to believe in a vindictive God sitting on a throne.  That's the level one expects of pagans newly converted to 'monotheism' / and is reflective of how they've not yet made the transition from 'superstitious religion' to 'religious spirituality'.  If their backwards thinking wasn't such a great liability, I'd have more patience -- but their wrong thinking puts us all in greater jeopardy than we'd otherwise be (e.g., issue of contraception, NASA funding, thinking Iraq is God's plan).]
ABC Refuses To Run WeCanSolveIt.org Ad (even though they run misleading ads from fossil fuel companies):
View 30 second spot-
http://www.wecansolveit.org/page/s/ABC


Oil Money Flowing Into Washington:

Senator John Cornyn (R-TX)
Accepted $1,328,975 from the oil and gas industry since 2000.
Supported the industry in 100% of selected votes.

Senator Kay Hutchison (R-TX)
Accepted $940,939 from the oil and gas industry since 2000.
Supported the industry in 100% of selected votes.

Profiles of selected votes for members of the U.S. Senate:
http://oilmoney.priceofoil.org/voteTables.php

Learn more:
http://oilmoney.priceofoil.org/federalRaceGraph.php?type=search
Eventually, we will "lose" the war in Afghanistan simply because it's not a conventional war that can be won.  However, we can achieve objectives -- if we can define them. 

Afghanistan is a desperately poor and uneducated nation.  And the mountainous region it shares with a similarly described region of Pakistan is an especially good refuge for the Taliban & Al Qaeda Muslim extreme fundamentalists. 

We can keep the enemy from taking over as long as we're there -- but we can't stay forever.  They know that & we know it, too.  The best we can hope to concretely achieve is to keep them so occupied there that it'll give them something to do besides flying planes into skyscrapers, etcetera.  If they want to achieve martyrdom by dying while fighting the infidels, then the least we can do is to help them along their way.  Better there than here.

However, in the process, we need to do all we can to provide economic development and universal public education there wherever we can ( no Bibles, please --- emphasis on public health and sustainable farming). The military can only buy us some time in order to attempt to get this in place.

Also read:

http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=574&topicId=100007185&docId=l:862356180&start=3
Homeowners who spend more than a third of their income on housing expenses (mortgages/rent, utilities, insurance, maintenance, etcetera) are considered to be 'financially burdened'.  With such expenses having increased by 65% in the past decade, the percentage of 'financially burdened Americans' has increased significantly.  Banking deregulation and non-enforcement of laws regarding fraud at the highest levels has led to the 'privatizing of profit & the socialization of risk' with the Wall Street Bailout.

Though I despise the greedy opportunism of corporate financial institutions, I also hold in low regard those people who signed ARMs, etcetera on homes they should have known that they could not afford.  Darwin, it seems, was right.
Hospital infections cost an estimated $27.5 billion each year and lead to almost 100,000 deaths. Most people are unaware of the seriousness of this deadly public health threat because hospital infection rates are kept secret.

Last session, Texas passed a law to require hospitals to disclose infection rates, but then didn't fund the law. The Legislative Budget Board is meeting now to negotiate funding for this and many other bills.

Ask the Board to fund the Hospital Infection Reporting Act!  The Act lets patients know how well their local hospitals prevent infections.  Ask the Legislative Budget Board to fund this important patient safety bill by filling out the information below.:

https://secure.consumersunion.org/site/Advocacy?JServSessionIdr001=bfgmo6a9u1.app45a&cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1969

&

https://secure.consumersunion.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1743