Half Empty – What is the problem?

April 25 (Reuters) – Heavy use of the world’s most popular herbicide, Roundup, could be linked to a range of health problems and diseases, including Parkinson’s, infertility and cancers, according to a new study. The peer-reviewed report, published last week in the scientific journal Entropy, said evidence indicates that residues of “glyphosate,” the chief ingredient in Roundup weed killer, which is sprayed over millions of acres of crops, has been found in food. Those residues enhance the damaging effects of other food-borne chemical residues and toxins in the environment to disrupt normal body functions and induce disease, according to the report, authored by Stephanie Seneff, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Anthony Samsel, a retired science consultant from Arthur D. Little, Inc. Samsel is a former private environmental government contractor as well as a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body,” the study says. We “have hit upon something very important that needs to be taken seriously and further investigated,” Seneff said. Environmentalists, consumer groups and plant scientists from several countries have warned that heavy use of glyphosate is causing problems for plants, people and animals. The EPA is conducting a standard registration review of glyphosate and has set a deadline of 2015 for determining if glyphosate use should be limited. The study is among many comments submitted to the agency. Monsanto is the developer of both Roundup herbicide and a suite of crops that are genetically altered to withstand being sprayed with the Roundup weed killer. More http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/2013/04/25/roundup-herbicide-health-issues-disease_n_3156575.html?icid=hp_front_popular_art Read more...

MADRID (AP) — With more than 6 million people unemployed for the first time, Spain’s jobless rate shot up to a record 27.2% in the first quarter, the National Statistics Institute said Thursday, in another grim picture of the recession-wracked country. The agency said the number of people unemployed rose 237,400 the first three months of the year, a 1.1% increase from the previous quarter. The number of people out of work stood at 6.2 million, first time the number has breached 6 million. The number of people considered long-term unemployed — out of a job more than a year — increased to 3.5 million while the unemployment rate for those under 25 years old was a staggering 57%. The government also said its survey found the number of households without anyone working had risen by 72,400 to 1.91 million. “The situation is really bad, with all the cuts that there have been, there are families that are going through a bad time because a lot of families have all the members unemployed and they don’t have any income,” said shop assistant Rodrigo Limpias , 30. More http://m.usatoday.com/article/money/2111765 Read more...

I spent years as a political pundit on mainstream TV — at CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. I was outnumbered, outshouted, red-baited and finally terminated. Inside mainstream media, I saw that major issues were not only dodged, but sometimes not even acknowledged to exist. Today there’s an elephant in the room: a huge, yet ignored, issue that largely explains why Social Security is now on the chopping block. And why other industrialized countries have free college education and universal healthcare, but we don’t. It’s arguably our country’s biggest problem — a problem that Martin Luther King Jr. focused on before he was assassinated 45 years ago, and has only worsened since then (which was the height of the Vietnam War). That problem is U.S. militarism and perpetual war. More http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/jeff-cohen/us-militarism-mainstream-media_b_3068969.html?icid=hp_front_featured_art Read more...

(CNN) – In a new poll, Americans indicated that they support universal background checks by a margin of 91% to 8%. Even in households with guns, the margin was an overwhelming 88% to 11%. “We think it’s reasonable to provide mandatory instant criminal background checks for every sale at every gun show. No loopholes anywhere for anyone.” Did President Barack Obama say that? No, that’s from an advertisement taken out by the NRA in USA Today in 1999. But a more powerful NRA today is in no mood to follow the slogan of their “be reasonable” ad campaign of 14 years ago. This relatively small group — the NRA boasts that it has 4.5 million members, which is peanuts compared to the roughly 40 million AARP members — might have the political power to pull it off. Federal law prohibits selling guns to felons or the mentally ill. Background checks are the only way to enforce that law. So, besides criminals and the insane, who could possibly oppose universal background checks? Gun manufacturers. Background checks on gun sales: How do they work? They are the ones who call the shots at the NRA, and they are the most important people in the opposition. The manufacturers don’t want anything that interferes with total gun sales and profits. Background checks would impose a minor burden on gun transactions, but more importantly, limit the size of the market (and therefore, profits) in two ways. The direct loss of profit comes because closing the current gaping loophole in the background check system will shut off sales to criminals and the mentally ill who are effectively free to buy all the guns they want at gun shows and through private transactions. But there is also an indirect loss of profit: Cutting off sales to the mentally ill and criminals will reduce crime and thereby reduce the public’s demand for guns for self-protection. More http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/10/opinion/donohue-background-checks/index.html?c=politics Read more...