Britta Riley: A garden in my apartment

Gingrich - a historian with history

Of course someone found a photo of Gingrich with Arafat shaking hands. Gingrich always loved the limelight and has always belonged to the say/do anything to get noticed school of politics/celebrity. But now he is someone else and tomorrow he will be... whomever he needs to be to please his current audience...

Amplify’d from www.haaretz.com

After Gingrich declares Palestinians 'invented', picture emerges of U.S. Presidential hopeful with Yasser Arafat

A few days after U.S. Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich thrust himself into controversy by declaring that the Palestinians are an "invented" people who want to destroy Israel , a picture of him emerged embracing former Palestinian Yasser Arafat in 1993, when Gingrich was House minority whip. Read more at www.haaretz.com

 

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Assassination by Drone - Legal? Not.

When the US intentionally executes political leaders of organizations attacking or planning attacks against the US, its Armed Forces, or Diplomatic Corps using drones or snipers, are US laws and Executive Orders being violated? Read this Executive Order in place since 1981 and decide for yourself. Should it be changed or given better definition? I say yes - what say you?

Amplify’d from www.cia.gov

Executive Order 12333

December 4, 1981 (As Amended by Executive Orders 13284 (2003), 13355 (2004) and 13470 (2008))

2.11 Prohibition on Assassination. No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in or conspire to engage in assassination. Read more at www.cia.gov

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Big Ag - Superbugs and the meat we eat - connected

Anyone who says we do not need more protection from over-zealous big agriculture companies who drug animals at will and then endanger us - is either being paid by big agriculture or just hiding from facts of more food sickening Americans.

Amplify’d from www.wired.com

More MRSA Found In U.S. Retail Meat (Turkey, Too)

There are two new studies out that confirm, once again, that drug-resistant staph or MRSA — normally thought of as a problem in hospitals and out in everyday life, in schoolkids, sports teams, jails and gyms — is showing up in animals and in the meat those animals become. Read more at www.wired.com

 

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Running Out of Antibiotics: Europe Gets It

Running Out of Antibiotics: Europe Gets It:

In the United States, it’s been “Get Smart About Antibiotics” Week this past week, an annual observance in which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its medical and public health partners try to raise awareness of antibiotic resistance. The real action this week though was in Europe, where individual researchers and the EU’s version of a CDC — the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control — are speaking out about the problem with unusual candor.

Here’s the short version: In Europe, according to the ECDC, 25,000 people each year die as a result of multi-drug resistant infections, causing an additional cost to society of 1.5 billion Euros ($2.02 billion): 938 million Euros ($1.27 billion) in hospital and outpatient medical costs, and an additional 596.3 million Euros ($806 million) in lost productivity.

Dr. Marc Sprenger, director of the ECDC, said Friday:

This certainly is an underestimate of the true economic impact of antimicrobial resistance. In particular, the figures were based on data for just five multidrug-resistant bacteria.The estimate was also based on a conservative figure for the cost of a day in hospital… We think the real cost of treating a patient with a multidrug-resistant infection would be higher than this. My take home message is that antimicrobial resistance is one of the most serious public health challenges that we face.

Sprenger was talking at the release of a major Europe-wide report (press release here too) that found organisms that cause serious hospital infections are becoming substantially resistant to last-resort drugs. In some countries, 50 percent of Klebsiella isolates are resistant to carbapenems — that’s the almost-untreatable hospital superbug CRKP that has appeared in 37 US states so far — and so are 25-50 percent of Pseudomonas isolates, another deadly hospital-acquired organism.

Meanwhile, 13 countries just in the EU have found more than 100 cases of infection with bacteria carrying NDM-1, the gene and enzyme that renders organisms effectively untreatable by any antibiotic except for 1-2 old, imperfect drugs. And the ECDC warns that the various countries within the EU simply don’t have the surveillance or personnel to track that bug as it walks undetected across borders in the guts of unknowingly infected people and into hospitals.

Simultaneously, in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, a British researcher expressed her frustration that no one takes this seriously. In an online essay, Laura Piddock, who is president of the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, says:

When… patients are denied treatment with a new cancer drug because of its expense, there is public outrage despite the possibility of extending life by only a few weeks. Antibiotics are not perceived as essential to health or the practice of medicine, despite such agents saving lives so that individuals can live for many years after infection… Cancer drugs… sometimes only extend life for weeks or months, whereas antibiotics can extend life for years.

Possibly the most encouraging thing about the EU’s candor is how directly it confronts the tie between antibiotic resistance in human medicine and antibiotic use in agriculture. On Thursday, the European Commission announced a 5-year, 12-point plan to reduce resistance, and half of their proposed “concrete actions” address curbing antibiotic use in agriculture:

• Improve awareness raising on the appropriate use of antimicrobials


• Strengthen EU law on veterinary medicines and on medicated feed


• Introduce recommendations for prudent use of antimicrobials in veterinary medicine


• Strengthen infection prevention and control in hospitals, clinics, etc.


• Introduce legal tools to tighten prevention and control of infections in animals in the new EU Animal Health Law


• Promote unprecedented collaboration to bring new antimicrobials to patients


• Promote efforts to analyse the need for new antibiotics in veterinary medicine


• Develop and/or strengthen multilateral and bilateral commitments for the prevention and control of AMR


• Strengthen surveillance systems on AMR and antimicrobial consumption in human medicines


• Strengthen surveillance systems on AMR and antimicrobial consumption in animal medicines


• Reinforce and co-ordinate research


• Improve communication on AMR to the public.

And just in case those seem like theoretical, low-priority concerns, a new coalition rose up in Europe last week to emphasize how important ag antibiotic control really is to human health. Three groups — the Soil Association, Compassion in World Farming and Sustain: The Alliance for Better Food and Farming — published a report that painstakingly documents the connections between specific antibiotics used in farming and specific drug-resistant organisms showing up in humans in European countries.

The groups call for cutting antibiotic use on EU farms in half by 2015. Noting that agriculture has simply ignored calls for reduced use on the basis of human health and animal welfare, they smartly propose recasting it as a competitive issue: Lesser antibiotics as a sign of better quality.

The EU has done more than most other regions of the world to monitor farm animal welfare and outlaw some of the worst intensive farming practices (battery cages, sow stalls, veal crates). EU reforms have had an important impact in encouraging similar changes in practices worldwide, through either voluntary action by industry or through law.

The EU should now take the lead again with effective action to end the misuse of antibiotics in farming, and ensure the conditions are provided for the animals to maintain good health based on their own immune systems rather than through routine reliance on antibiotics.

This would be in the interests of Europe’s farmers, establishing their reputation globally for high-quality standards while meeting the demand of their customers, who seek higher standards of animal welfare, more transparency and better quality in their food production.

See Also:

• Opposing industrial-scale pig farming — in Europe


• EU Parliament Votes To Oppose Most Farm Antibiotic Use


• Superbugs in Canadian chicken? Yes, and US too


• Government Health Agency Agrees Mega-Farms Are A Health Risk …


• Opposing industrial-scale pig farming — in Europe

Flickr/JeremyBrooks/CC

Trying to buy US Congress to be Pals with Big Business

Everyone else beware of ads by US Chamber that claim they are on your side - they are not. They and their biggest US businesses are the ones who have moved all the jobs out of the US and paved the way for today's taking everyone in the 99% down several rungs so they can decide how you will live or not!

Amplify’d from www.latimes.com

Chamber of Commerce getting early start with attack ads

"The business community has been under unprecedented threat," Rob Engstrom, part of a two-man team running the chamber's political operation, said in explaining why the trade group will break its previous political spending record — $50 million — to try to elect a more business-friendly Congress. Read more at www.latimes.com

 

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All day - blog, pray, think, work for peace! http://amplify.com/u/a1gnm1

Do something for peace - Blog it Nov. 4th

Wondering what you can do to help peace seep into everyone's mind? Now waiting here - just blog along with thousands of others in 120+ countries for Peace on Friday!

Amplify’d from mimiwrites.blogspot.com

November 4, 2011 Bloggers from all across the globe will blog for peace. We will speak with one voice. One subject One day

What is it? A small group of bloggers answered a challenge I tossed one angst-filled October day in 2006.  I wanted to know what would happen if all bloggers everywhere signed their name across a globe and all posted the SAME POST on the SAME DAY. I created a graphic and made the first one.  I asked them to write "Dona nobis pacem" which is Latin for "grant us peace" across the graphics image and post it on their blogs in November.  Fifty-two people responded enthusiastically and soon it began to spread like a beautiful lyric across the internet. Read more at mimiwrites.blogspot.com

 

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New Flu Study - a survey of old research

You might give lots of credence to new research but "opinions based on surveying old research papers and "averaging" it and making implied judgments on research that was not done?



I got my shot and will continue doing so, until I see basic research based on current vaccine results - not a survey on other people's research.

Amplify’d from www.thelancet.com

Efficacy and effectiveness of influenza vaccines

Original Text Prof Michael T Osterholm PhD a , Nicholas S Kelley PhD a, Prof Alfred Sommer MD b, Edward A Belongia MD c

We searched Medline for randomised controlled trials assessing a relative reduction in influenza risk of all circulating influenza viruses during individual seasons after vaccination (efficacy) and observational studies meeting inclusion criteria (effectiveness). Eligible articles were published between Jan 1, 1967, and Feb 15, 2011

We screened 5707 articles and identified 31 eligible studies Read more at www.thelancet.com

 

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Land Theft from Mayans Continues - Shame

The land must really be good if people have been stealing it and killing Mayans for it for more than 500 years. It took the Irish, nearly 500 years to regain their nation and culture from the English. You have to wonder how the thieves think they can steal and control a culture, even today. The theft in Guatemala continues but those who were born to the land for more than 12,000 years continue to struggle for their rights since the Spanish came. Could that be what the predictions of 2012 are about? That the Mayans begin to get their land back then?

Amplify’d from intercontinentalcry.org

I am told Tzalbal is the first village to find out that their land was nationalised, and the first to publicly denounce this and demand, unconditionally, that their land be given back. Nonetheless, the case of Tzalbal is illustrative of what the conflict in Guatemala was about. This conflict was about land.

The natives of Tzalbal appear to be the unwanted actors in a drama that always seems to repeat itself in Guatemala. A drama which has run for more than 500 years where invaders, whether spanish, military or "representative" democratic governments, steal the land of the indigenous peoples through laws and violence.

United, the Ixiles present shout, "We don´t want another master!", "Finish the law! Give us back our land!"

Patricio Rodriguez

We will get our land back, bit by bit, step by step" .

See more at intercontinentalcry.org

 

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The canaries of climate change - The Boston Globe

The canaries of climate change - The Boston Globe

Posted using ShareThis

Buffy Sainte Marie - "I'm Going Home"

Fracking drill technique sparks protest in Germany

Fracking drill technique sparks protest in Germany: Hydraulic fracturing - or 'fracking' - is used to get natural gas from difficult places. It's going through a boom in the US, but opinion is split in Europe. Critics are concerned about environmental and health effects.

An Afghan woman says no to the darkness

For too many Afghan women, their life is one of darkness - no light for laughter and opportunity. This poem says much and one wonders how strong she must to be to still claim her right to light!

Amplify’d from www.awwproject.org

Society Ritual

A dark life! A lone girl! Whose heart only feels pain.

When I think about my life, and the other girls’ lives It is a huge load on my heart. Our society does not allow us a chance to progress. When I think of the future Everywhere is dark.

This is life’s tradition, a ritual Fighting against them is the only way I will stand strongly against all darknesses. Read more at www.awwproject.org

 

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Vaccine deniers as harmful as climate warming deniers?

Vaccines - especially vaccines for polio, small pox, and measles - have saved countless lives since their introduction. Opting out of vaccines, in many case, threatens public health and increasingly - global health.



Are they 100% effective? Are they 100% safe? Nope. Most are in the 99% effective and safe range.



Can you look both ways before crossing a street in a car, on foot or a bike and still get hit? Yes but the chances are really, really small. So, would you advise people not to look or not to cross the street?

Amplify’d from afludiary.blogspot.com

WHO: Measles Outbreaks In The Americas, Europe & Africa

During the 1950s – before the introduction of the measles vaccine – in the United States alone the disease infected roughly 4 million, hospitalized nearly 50,000,  and contributed to the deaths of several hundred every year.

Lower vaccine uptake, and increases in international travel, have increased opportunities for the measles virus to spread – even to areas that had previously all but eliminated it. Read more at afludiary.blogspot.com

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Putin’s Diving Exploit Was a Setup, Aide Says

Putin’s Diving Exploit Was a Setup, Aide Says: Video of the Russian Prime Minister Putin discovering ceramic jugs from the sixth century during a dive was a contrived, his press secretary said. - Wannabe Tsar Putin has to get a new press aide, I guess.

Both Soviet and Tsar in One

Both Soviet and Tsar in One:

by Lilit Gevorgyan, St. Petersburg Times, Russia - Putin reinvented himself as the main advocate of state capitalism, resulting in part from a power struggle and drive to curtail oligarchic influence on the energy sector. He has since shown little interest in modernization or diversification of the economy, and has seen the emergence of a new circle of oligarchs. These oligarchs have close ties to the Kremlin without the inclination to challenge Putin.

(title unknown)

ElazPlanet:

some woman in the bar down the street

mixed media on a wooden drawer

Divorce - Solution to Palestine-Israel "Relationship?"

A humorous and pointed prod to get Israel to think outside the box and get to peace.

Amplify’d from blog.onevoicemovement.org

For Israel, divorce might be the best option

New York, September 28, 2011—Dozens of OneVoice Israel youth leaders demanded a “divorce” from Palestine, plastering posters on and around rabbinical courts across Israel on Monday, pushing Israelis to see the opportunity in the recent Palestinian UN bid.

Shirly Coifman, coordinator of the Ben Gurion chapter, posts forms around Beer Sheva.

Even areas around the Israeli settlement of Ariel were plastered with mock divorce forms. Read more at blog.onevoicemovement.org

 

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Dollar$ Chase Killing Ocean/Sharks

Our collective desire to have meat or fish everyday, is killing the Amazon, our oceans, and grasslands. The end is visible already - Cod and Blue Fin Tuna are just two about to go. Self-denial and hiding will not stop the death of this planet for your children and grandchildren! Change or die - as they say...

Amplify’d from www.seashepherd.org

Another Industrial Shark Fishing Vessel is Apprehended in Galapagos

The Reina del Cisne, together with two small boats, was equipped with longlines, a fishing method prohibited by Galapagos regulations. Upon inspection of the mothership, dozens of dead sharks were found in their holds. The navy ordered the vessel to San Cristobal Island for further inspection, where it has been detained pending the ongoing investigation. The 12 crewmembers have all been placed under arrest. Read more at www.seashepherd.org

 

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New FDA Regulation to Save Lives from Sick Meats

Some limits - read on - but this is good government from the word go and the reason that my distant relative Teddy Roosevelt began regulating the industries that were killing Americans.

Amplify’d from www.wired.com

Big News But: USDA Bans “Other” E. coli Strains

Maryn McKenna

today from the US Department of Agriculture: It has agreed that, starting in March 2012, six more strains of E. coli will be considered “adulterants,” putting them in the same regulatory category as the much-feared E. coli O157:H7.

Declaring an substance to be an adulterant means that it cannot legally be distributed in food, and that therefore food processors can legally be held to account for products that contain it. Read more at www.wired.com

 

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Sikorsky Blackhawk parts surpass gold in value!

What happens when DoD gets green light to spend, spend, spend? They spend way over what things really cost and contractors laugh all the way to bank. Ya think someone is padding retirement jobs after leaving DoD procurement jobs?

Amplify’d from pogoblog.typepad.com

More Spare Parts Horror Stories: This Time It's Sikorsky

The Department of Defense Inspector General (DoD IG) has struck again. After a hard hitting audit report earlier this year on overpriced helicopter spare parts supplied by Boeing, the DoD IG yesterday issued an executive summary on overpriced spare parts for Blackhawk helicopters from Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation. In sum, “Sikorsky charged the Army $11.8 million or 51.4 percent more ($34.7 million versus $22.9 million) than fair and reasonable prices for 28 parts.” Read more at pogoblog.typepad.com

 

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The worst government corporations can buy?

75% of the members of the "super" committee are holding fund raisers while trying to figure out how to fix the Federal budget and the American economy. Well, I'd say the fix is in - wouldn't you. What will it take to wake these folks up that the whole world is watching and are being sickened by what they see!?!



Get a grip and get outside of your money box!

Amplify’d from www.washingtonpost.com

The Influence Industry: Supercommittee members are lining up fundraisers

Just hours before the first organizational meeting of the budget-cutting “supercommittee,” Republican member Dave Camp was scheduled to hold a fundraiser for his congressional campaign.

Camp is among at least nine members of the 12-member supercommittee who have scheduled fundraisers this fall, putting them in a position to take money from industry donors at the same time they are helping to decide what to cut from government spending.

See more at www.washingtonpost.com

 

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A Teacher's Song Amidst Gunfire in Monterrey, Mexico

When will they just be able to sing again because they are happy?!?

Amplify’d from www.rnw.nl

Map Monterrey, Mexico Monterrey, Mexico A teacher's song Published on : 7 September 2011 - 1:32pm | By The State We're In . (Photo: RNW)

Martha Rivera Alanis isn’t exactly the kind of person who’d seek fame on YouTube. She’s a dedicated kindergarten teacher in Monterrey, Mexico. Earlier this year, gunfire from drug gangs came dangerously close to her class full of five and six-year-olds.

Read more at www.rnw.nl

 

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Making fun of and disrespecting President Obama benefits whom? So could it be that some well-known pseudo-progressive organizations talking about the President "caving" to this and that - not being tough enough - whatever are really front organizations for the Koch Brothers and the Tea Party? Think about it? The school yard bully shouting is designed to get them noticed, get donations and ad dollars.



So are they making enough money by just dissing the President and getting your donations and ad dollars from your web visits? Is someone taking money under the table from others who "profit" when people think less of the President? http://amplify.com/u/a1cak7

COPD: Chronic bronchitis; Emphysema; Bronchitis - GOP Lobby claiming that gutting EPA clean air regulations will give country more jobs - The jobs will be for funeral directors, COPD clinics and Doctors and the cost? Your health, you parents health and your children's. Small price to pay for their false religion of We-can-do-anything-for-a-profit-and-pretend-no-one-ever-gets-hurt!



The Pro-Asthma and Lung Cancer Lobby is joining forces with them in near future, as soon as they can find a slick way to sell risking death their way will be worth the cost to your loved ones health. http://amplify.com/u/a1cajy

Standing by Vermont!

Working together works - as community people, Vermont State Guard, Vermont government, and FEMA all pull together!

Amplify’d from climate-connections.org

Vermont: The Recovery from Hurricane Irene Begins

In all, over 200 roads across the state were closed due to wash outs from the heavy rains that pelted the state for nearly twenty-four hours on Sunday, August 28.

Before the sun was up on Tuesday morning, thirty FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) tractor-trailers had arrived at the National Guard’s Camp Johnson with water, ready to eat meals, blankets, cots and other supplies.

Waterbury was submerged under 10 feet or more of water when the Winooski River rose to record flood levels in minutes. Read more at climate-connections.org

 

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Gunrunner/Fast and Furious: Bush/Cheney Fail?

Seems that Project Gunrunner which turned into Fast and Furious all began as a Bush/Cheney sloppy attempt to control drug guns.

Amplify’d from bsnorrell.blogspot.com

Project Gunrunner explodes: Lies from Arizona

Brenda Norrell

Project Gunrunner, and then “Fast and Furious,” were supposedly ATF sting operations to track weapons used by drug cartels in Mexico. Thousands of weapons were purchased by "straw" buyers in the US, then allowed to "walk" across the border into Mexico, walk into the hands of drug cartels.

An e-mail from a Flagstaff police officer about Project Gunrunner is dated March 17, 2008

“ATF Southwest Border Strategy Project Gunrunner Weapons of Choice," with the date stated as revised in Feb. 2008.

Project Gunrunner began as a pilot project in Laredo, Texas, in 2005 and was expanded as a national initiative in 2006 Read more at bsnorrell.blogspot.com

 

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Are we killing ourselves - not so softly?

You get sick in the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s - go home, soup, sleep and get better; wash wound regularly, bandage daily, get better.



You get sick in 1950s to 2011 and increasingly you get antibiotics prescribed for being sick or hurt and you get well in about the same amount of time.



1950s til now - Industry starts putting/using antibiotic in and on everything: Drugs for animals, rinses for food, and on and on and on.



Oops! 2001 and on we discover some things getting seriously out of whack. Did we/have we overdosed on antibacterials with the best of intentions and perhaps set a course that will facilitate a worldwide pandemic worse than fabled black plague and 1918 flu?



¿How do we figure out what we have done and how we can straighten things out? Or is it too late?

Amplify’d from www.wired.com

Antibiotics: Killing Off Beneficial Bacteria… For Good?

Maryn McKenna

Martin Blaser of New York University’s Langone Medical Center argues that antibiotics’ impact on gut bacteria is permanent — and so serious in its long-term consequences that medicine should consider whether to restrict antibiotic prescribing to pregnant women and young children.

Early evidence

our friendly flora never fully recover

Overuse of antibiotics could be fuelling the dramatic increase in conditions such as obesity, type 1 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, allergies and asthma, which have more than doubled in many populations. Read more at www.wired.com

 

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Glenn Beck, Crossroads, People for the American Way, Van Jones, Jane Hamsher, and Russ Feingold have all figured out they have a common purpose and have formed a marketing group called WNU Inc. (Wingnuts United) to serve their common need - to make a living by getting gullible Americans to listen to them for advice and give them money through donations or advertising.



Think I will stick with supporting my party and candidates/representatives directly.



There are many more who fill up cyberspace and the airwaves with shouts of their truths you know who they are. You know who they are. There are also many groups that focus on specific issues and work hard on them, as opposed to some NGOs who are now just in the business of supporting their leader and staff. You also know that those NGOs that start supporting and advocating on everything are slipping into being just about themselves. EOR = end of rant - smile. http://amplify.com/u/a1bs0s

Who Gets Credit for Jobs? Those hiring

A. Gov. Perry responsible for job growth in Texas? Former Governator and Gov. Brown responsible for jobs gains in California?

or

B. How about the companies that did the hiring because they needed more workers and their customers are happy with them or want their product/service!



If you chose A. you are ready to move into the state of self-denial of facts to satisfy what you want to be true.



If you chose B., welcome back to reality or congratulations on not being sucked in by folks who want to sell you futures and pasts that will and have never existed so they can pick you pocket while they are getting you to take eye off of reality? Grin.



Good for employers in California - you still got a ways to go but you are getting there!

Amplify’d from feeds.bizjournals.com via Google Reader

California posts six-figure job gains

In the last 12 months, California has added 189,600 jobs, according to On Numbers. Since July 2010, California's job growth was second only to Texas, which added 269,500 jobs, according to seasonally adjusted figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It also added jobs in 9 of those 12 months. Read more at feeds.bizjournals.com

 

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Future Payoff Price for Dropping Charges

Latest news is that the Prosecutors have recommended that the charges be dropped against the former head of the IMF. I suspect that we will find out in the future that DA Vance will profit greatly from his mishandling of the case. The message? Don't mess with powerful men, take any offered payoff, if offended or harmed - deal with it. Scum win this time or at least briefly. This type of behavior of attacking women who have been attacked has to end!

Amplify’d from feministing.com via Google Reader

Breaking: DSK case to likely be dismissed; Rally in NYC today

Regardless of Diallo’s past and any changed versions of stories she may have made about what she did after the alleged assault, it does not mean she wasn’t raped. The fact that there is DNA evidence, the fact new medical reports state Diallo’s injuries were those of sexual assault, and the fact that Strauss-Kahn is currently being accused of attempted rape by his daughter’s friend, is a hell of a lot of evidence that this should not end here. Read more at feministing.com

 

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Old Scourge Battering Vietnam Death Toll - 81

Hand, foot and mouth disease - many think in an old disease but it has spread over much of Vietnam and has infected many more thousands and caused even more deaths of late in China. A by-product of industrialized and globalized agriculture and too great a focus on profit over safety?

Amplify’d from www.thanhniennews.com

Hand, foot and mouth disease spreads to pandemic levels

The Ministry of Health is considering declaring hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) a pandemic, as more than 32,000 cases of the illness have killed 81 across the country so far this year.

“During any given day, we have 7,000 patients in hospital being examined at HCMC Children’s Hospital 1,” said Dr. Tang Chi Thuong, the hospital’s director. “Of those, around 2,000 must stay at the hospital for treatment.” Read more at www.thanhniennews.com

 

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A Superbug may be ready to go global

How so? If the bug (bacteria) talked about in the attached article, manages to figure out how to bypass the last remaining drug that can treat it - then an advance from hospital to hospital and country to country could be rather rapid because of air travel patterns. What does that mean - a number of people who might otherwise survive treatment for another life threatening disease will die from a bacterial infection they contract while in treatment.



The natural system is working its way to overcome our overuse of anti-bacterial drugs in food, water, and in industrialized mammal, avian, and marine agriculture.

Amplify’d from www.wired.com

Ringing the Warning Bell: Colistin-Resistant Klebsiella

Maryn McKenna

In all the latest bad news about bacteria becoming highly resistant — through carbapenem resistance, or the “Indian supergene” NDM-1 — there has been one hopeful thread: All of the organisms have remained susceptible to one very old, little-used drug called colistin. That might be about to change. Which would be very, very bad news.

To recap: A resistance factor is spreading that leaves very serious infections treatable by only a single remaining drug, one which is acknowledged not to be perfect. The more a drug is used, the faster resistance against it develops. Especially for Gram-negative infections, there are no new drugs in the pipeline. Read more at www.wired.com

 

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Kill their spirit, wolves, land, water til when?

Why is it that we still honor and admire First Nations people while we continue to allow companies and governments to try and steal their land, appropriate their culture? I do not know the answer, I do know it is wrong. How to fix it? No sure but we should try a lot harder than we have.

Amplify’d from buffy-sainte-marie.blogspot.com

My Country Tis of Thy People You're Dying: Video-Lyrics

Now that the pride of the sires receives charity. Now that we're harmless and safe behind laws. Now that my life's to be known as your heritage. Now that even the graves have been robbed. Now that our own chosen way is your novelty. Hands on our hearts We salute you your victory: Choke on your blue white and scarlet hypocrisy. Pitying your blindness; How you never see - that the eagles of war whose wings lent you glory, Were never no more than buzzards & crows: Pushed some wrens from their nest; Stole their eggs; changed their story. The mockingbird sings it; It's all that she knows. "Oh what can I do?", say a powerless few. With a lump in your throat and a tear in your eye: Can't you see how their poverty's profiting you? My country 'tis of thy people you're dying.

See more at buffy-sainte-marie.blogspot.com

 

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Good Practice+Too Many Drugs=Planet/People Killers

In short - integrated agriculture supports self-sustaining use of all organic materials. Industrialize the process to maximize profit/yield by adding massive amounts anti-bacterial drugs to the process and you grow drug resistant bacteria and superbugs that - well read on how good intentions and bad science in service to profit could end up killing us. Chinese shrimp on the barbie or at Red Lobster - those shrimp are grown are grown in ponds fertilized by untreated chicken manure - bird flu anyone?

Amplify’d from www.wired.com

Drug Resistance in Food — Coming from Aquaculture?

Maryn McKenna

Salmonella Kentucky ST198, it is much more drug-resistant than the US Heidelberg outbreak, and it has been spreading since 2002 from Egypt and north Africa through Europe, and has now been identified in the United States. Its primary vector appears to be chicken meat.

The authors are especially concerned about farms that practice what’s called “integrated aquaculture,” in which chicken litter and manure are used to fertilize ponds in which fish are grown, and waste from the ponds is harvested and used as poultry feed. Read more at www.wired.com

 

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