After a horrible bout of food poisoning this reaffirms that I need to eat healthy and cook at home.  While out and about on a Sunday afternoon, my boyfriend and I grabbed Korean street meat.  We tried to go to Subway prior to that but they were closed.  The meat smelled and looked good, so we thought let’s try it.

It looked like a cylinder of  meat loaf on a piece of dokbeokki (rice cake that is thick and the equivalent of pasta).  It had a mild sweet sauce on it and it was very good.  A few hours later I become quite gassy and from there the diarrhea and vomiting begin.  I was sick like this for about 24 hours.  I didn’t go to the doctor’s but I definitely know it was food poisoning.  I can’t be sure that it was the meat on a stick thing, but because I don’t know, I just want to avoid food like that.  I’m more than petrified and still in shock that something could be so harmful to your body.

I’m not sure what’s worse the throwing up and diarrhea or the aftermath. I’ve been in serious pain from vomiting and not too sure what can be done to alleviate it.  To make matters worse I had to continue to work and finally today I made a point to say that I’m not staying and arranged for the others to cover my classes.  It sucks when you know how sick you are but your employer doesn’t take you seriously.  Back home I would’ve been sent home immediately allowed the time to recuperate.  In Korea, they don’t believe in being sick.

It’s the second country in the world with longest working hours, not because they are hardworkers but because they give off this illusion.  If more people were allowed to go home and rest up while sick, I bet their working hours would drop dramatically.

So back to the food poisoning…it’s definitely made me realize that my body is precious and deserves the very best foods ALL of THE TIME!  I don’t ever want to be in pain like this again.  Therefore, if I was ever lost about what to do in terms of my health and eating right, this unfortunate event has put me back on the straight and narrow.

Food poisoning was for me, both a curse and a blessing.

Peace, Love and Bananas

Take a Plaster - Bamboo’s strength and vitality.

Wood vinegar plasters were developed to help revitalize the body and promote better health and longevity.  Wood vinegar plasters are totally natural, safe and easy to use.

 Wood vinegar plasters:

- soothe pain and reduces swelling 

- strengthen the immune system 

- relieve fatigue 

- improve the quality of sleep 

- improve metabolism

Your body is bombarded constantly by environmental pollutants and attacked by toxins present in food and drinks.  Such substances build up in your body continuously.  If not removed, the substances can become toxic waste accumulating in your body and contributing to the occurrence of various diseases and brain dysfunctions. 

Accumulated toxic waste tends to affect and disturb all systems in your body and so to predispose your body organs, joints and tissues to inflammations.  Once the microorganisms that induce inflammation start to proliferate, the disease begins to develop.  And when the waste substances present in your body reach a certain level, you can experience fatigue, restlessness, brain and nervous disturbances and other health problems.

Benefiting from the experience and well-proven procedures of traditional Chinese medicine, Take a Plaster detox patches help cleanse your body of toxic waste.

There are over 360 reflection points on the surface of the human body.  More than 60 of them are located on the soles, which traditional Chinese medicine regards as the “second heart” of the body.  Toxins travel through your body during the day and accumulate in the reflection zones of your feet.  Wood vinegar essence extracted from some tree species has the capability to absorb toxins through the reflection points on the soles.

And it is this principle fostered by traditional Chinese medicine that is used by the new Akuna product – the Take a Plaster patch.  As the blood circulating through your body passes through your feet, the patches applied to the soles absorb toxins accumulated in the body.  The harmful substances are thus removed in a natural manner and it is easier for blood to flow through the legs and feet.  In this way your body will attain the optimum health.

Main ingredients:

 
Wood vinegar improves blood circulation and exerts an osmotic effect facilitating the transfer of toxins through cell membranes, whereby it helps significantly in removing harmful substances via pores on the soles.  Wood vinegar also has the capacity to remove toxins from swollen body parts and relieves other problems that cause swelling.

Bamboo vinegar is a very rare and valuable by-product of bamboo carbonization. It features exceedingly good absorption and sterilization properties.  In fact, bamboo vinegar is believed to be three times as efficient as wood vinegar. Its favorable herbal properties can be used to remove unwanted harmful waste substances and toxins from human body.

Tourmaline transfers the cleansing and liberating energy with its stabilizing and purging effect to the whole nervous system.  In the product, tourmaline removes blocks and improves blood circulation and metabolism.  As a consequence, tourmaline is also efficient in relieving stress, improving vigor and strengthening the immune system.

Additional ingredients:

Dextrin, carapace powder, vitamin C, vegetable fibers

FAQs

How long should I use the plasters for?

The duration of use depends on how often you have used similar products or procedures in the past, and how unwell you feel.  If you have not used any detox methods before or for a long time, it is advisable to use them for at least one month.  However any detoxifying is good for your body so even using them for two weeks may provide benefits.

How do the plasters work with other Akuna products?

Take a Plaster detox plasters complement nicely the existing comprehensive series of Akuna natural health products, i.e. Alveo and Onyx Plus.  The plasters do not supersede any of the existing products.  On the contrary, their interaction makes for a better quality of human body care.  This extended product range provides a unique method of prevention, health care and attainment of a higher level of health status optimization.  Now the detoxification plasters constitute an integral part of the series of Akuna’s self-care products.  In other words, Take a Plaster help you take care of your own health.

Can I use the plasters anywhere else on body?

Plasters can be used on any part of the body where you experience discomfort, such as knees, shoulders, back, etc.  The color of the sheet will change according to the condition of your health.  Initially the plaster sheets may appear darker but with regular use, the sheets will progressively get lighter and lighter, indicating a steady improvement in your health.

Who can use Take a Plaster wood vinegar plasters?

It can be used by everyone for easy and effective detoxifying.  Please note that due to a lack of scientific evidence they are not recommended for children or pregnant women.

What side effects do Take a Plaster plasters have?

Unless you are allergic to the ingredients, until now, no side effects have been noted.  There are no known adverse reactions during the use of these plasters.

 
Manufacturing process
Take a Plaster plasters are manufactured in a GMP and ISO certified facility.  Akuna’s Scientific Board inspects the Take a Plaster manufacturing process on an ongoing basis and sees to it that all criteria are strictly complied with.

The effects, efficacy and safety of detoxification products made of purely natural materials have been proved in practice by millions of people during centuries of use of traditional Chinese medicine.

Until next time…Stay healthy

Katarzyna

Here I’ve compiled a list not of the most desired gifts for the season, because that would simply reinforce your cultural mediocrity. Rather, these are the 5 gifts that need to be given – the gifts that keep on giving, as they say. So, if you’re smart, you’ll give them to yourself.

5. Gold Bullion

You’ve probably already missed out on the serious cash-in, but the shit doesn’t look like it’s getting any cheaper. Even if it isn’t bullion, don’t fret. You can even rip out your grandad’s fillings and melt ‘em down for profit. Get a douche bottle filled with chloroform and let the old cocker really have it. When he’s out, make your move – you’ll have plenty of time. Smooth things over with some tube socks when he comes to. Or, if you’re lucky you can just dig the sonuvabitch up and take what he won’t miss. Get a backhoe to uproot the leprechaun tree, just get dat gold. Imminent global monetary collapse or bust (yeah, that’s a tautology).

4. Drugs

Welcome to the 21st century. We all suppose communism a failure. Meanwhile, democracy and capitalism have brought us liberty, equality, fraternity. Now that we’re all on equal footing, the ignorant can be well represented in government and it’s about time. You can get pulled over by a gay black cop and it’s about time. You can vote your favorite at www.ratemyrape.com and it’s about time. Women’s liberation and free love have given us the wave of the future, an endless spew out of those bastardshitters to spawn abject poverty and intellectual decrepitude. Who doesn’t appreciate a little escapism? Don’t get caught holding the bag. Groceries or meth? Meth.

3. Firearms

People say more guns means more crime. Really, I think it just facilitates natural selection. Protect ya neck. ‘Nuff said.

2. Sex Toys

Frankly, I’m sick of hearing about ignorant cowards settling down and having kids. As a relationship professional, I recommend that straight couples try to introduce a little role-playing. Guys, try to convince her of your role as abortion doctor; it might work. Otherwise, get creative with what you’re putting it in/putting in it. Of course, not everyone is in the same boat, so if you’re a girl that takes certain precautions, I applaud you. Yet even so, before long these bright, healthy women are likely to suffer a bruised esophagus and be in need of a reconstituted rectum. Get ol’ Stabby McDickhouse one of these.

1. Plastic Surgery

Okay, former Miss Argentina died on Sunday when she was getting an assjob. Sorry about your luck, but who wants to live with a mombutt cellulite parade anyhow? I don’t watch television, but I always wanted a show that was a mashup of The Swan and Pimp My Ride. Television is too full of cowards for that, so sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands. Get at me if you want me to pimp out your face.

Ok, so I was on Twitter, and there was a trending topic of pointless signs. This gave me an idea to go around collecting amazing signs and to put them in a two part post for all my readers. So I found them, and here they are along with my comments to each of them.

is rain supposed to be dry?

wait..warthogs?

my car will be fine though...

my car is supposed to work underwater thought

good luck figuring it out

I won't trespass on this property

it is a traffic light tree!

But I wanted to jump in the toxic waste!

this makes me want to throw a stone at it

haha wow

wow...

only in America

is this person dislexic?

where is the snow here?

I hope that people understand this sign

what do I need to obey?

isn't the bridge being out more important?

which sign do I follow?

we need a sign to let us know about a sign?

so if you need access, then you can get through?

dog

really? I couldn't tell

Parking for a drive through pharmacy?

penguines? are they the ones from Madagascar?

it is the other left?

I thought it was purple!

which one do I follow?

which way is the one way?

haha nice

so..if nothing happened then why is there a plaque

http://www.infondoalmar.info/

(EN) My friend Paolo together with infographic designer David Boardman launched today the english version of  in.fondo.al.mar (under the sea),  an info-visualisation work-in-progress project about a series of sinkings and incidents in the Mediterranean Sea in the last 30 years, involving  “poison-ships”, which are suspected of having carried toxic and radioactive waste.

The most shocking fact about these sinkings is that the ships would have been sunk deliberately to dispose of tons of toxic, chemical and radioactive waste. The mechanism is simple: you own a big container ship that has an accident and is sinking or is very old. You don’t want to lose all the money so you sell your ship to organized crime which will stuff it with toxic waste (ah the business of toxic waste!) and let it sink.

I made the story simple, but many subjects are involved in this traffic, also some institutions: here’s an article in italian on the topic written by Paolo and other journalists, going deeper on the topic.

(IT) Il mio amico Paolo e il designer infografico David Boardman hanno lanciato oggi la versione in inglese di in.fondo.al.mar , un progetto di infovisualizzazione work-in-progress con lo scopo di mappare una serie di affondamenti e incidenti avvenuti nel Mediterraneo negli ultimi 30 anni,  delle cosiddette “navi tossiche”, sospettate di trasportare rifiuti tossici e radioattivi.

Il fatto scioccante di questi affondamenti è che le navi sarebbero state fatte affondare deliberatamente per liberarsi di tonnellate di rifiuti tossici, chimici e radioattivi. Il meccanismo è semplice. Possiedi una nave container che ha un incidente e sta affondando o è molto vecchia. Non vuoi perdere tutti i soldi, allora decidi di venderla al crimine organizzato che la riempie di rifiuti tossici (ah il business dei rifiuti tossici!) e la fa affondare.

E’ più complicato di così e i soggetti coinvolti sono numerosi, compreso alcune istituzioni: per approfondire l’argomento leggi l’articolo scritto da Paolo e altri giornalisti.

Hazardous Waste Site Map:

KBR, Inc.—a recently former subsidiary of Halliburton and profiteer of the Iraq War, which is the largest non-union construction company in the U.S.—faces a class-action lawsuit claiming burning waste exposed 100,000 Iraqis and foreign troops to cancer-causing toxins, Daniel Tencer reports at The Raw Story.

by Daniel Tencer

9 Nov 09 | Raw Story

Defense contractor KBR may have exposed as many as 100,000 people, including U.S. troops, to cancer-causing toxins by burning waste in open-air pits in Iraq, says a series of class-action lawsuits filed against the company.

At least 22 separate lawsuits claiming KBR poisoned American soldiers in Iraq have been combined into a single massive lawsuit that says KBR, which until not long ago was a subsidiary of Halliburton, sought to save money by disposing of toxic waste and incinerating numerous potentially harmful substances in open-air “burn pits.”

According to one of the lawsuits (PDF), filed in a federal court in Nashville, KBR burned “tires, lithium batteries … biohazard materials (including human corpses), medical supplies (including those used during smallpox inoculations), paints, solvents, asbestos insulation, items containing pesticides, polyvinyl chloride pipes, animal carcasses, dangerous chemicals, and hundreds of thousands of plastic water bottles.”

And they did so within plain sight of U.S. troops operating in Iraq, the lawsuit states. “In some instances, the burn pit smoke was so bad that it interfered with the military mission,” the Nashville lawsuit states. “For example, the military located at Camp Bucca, a detention facility, had difficulty guarding the facility as a result of the smoke.”

The plaintiffs note that the military “did not prevent” KBR from disposing of the waste “in a safe manner that would not have harmed plaintiffs. The military wanted the defendants to solve the burn pit problems.”

The lawsuit “claims at least 100,000 people were endangered by the contractors’ ‘utter indifference to and conscious disregard’ of troops’ welfare,” notes the Courthouse News Service.

At a hearing of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee on Friday, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) said that KBR continues to use burn pits at the U.S.’s largest base in Iraq.

“The Army and the contractor in charge of this waste disposal—Kellogg, Brown, and Root—made frequent and unnecessary use of these burn pits and exposed thousands of U.S. troops to toxic smoke,” Dorgan said. “Burn pits are still used at the Balad Airbase in Iraq, which is the largest U.S. base in that country.”

A 2008 report by the Pentagon asserted that “adverse health risks are unlikely” from the burn pits, but that assertion was challenged by retired Lt. Col. Darrin Curtis, a biomedical sciences officer who took some of the air samples used in the report.

“Although I have no hard data, I believe that the burn pits may be responsible for long-term health problems in many individuals,” the Air Force Times quoted Curtis as saying. “I think we are going to look at a lot of sick people.”

The lawsuit “claims at least 100,000 people were endangered by the contractors’ ‘utter indifference to and conscious disregard’ of troops’ welfare,” notes the Courthouse News Service.

At a hearing of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee on Friday, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) said that KBR continues to use burn pits at the U.S.’s largest base in Iraq.

“The Army and the contractor in charge of this waste disposal—Kellogg, Brown, and Root—made frequent and unnecessary use of these burn pits and exposed thousands of U.S. troops to toxic smoke,” Dorgan said. “Burn pits are still used at the Balad Airbase in Iraq, which is the largest U.S. base in that country.”

A 2008 report by the Pentagon asserted that “adverse health risks are unlikely” from the burn pits, but that assertion was challenged by retired Lt. Col. Darrin Curtis, a biomedical sciences officer who took some of the air samples used in the report.

“Although I have no hard data, I believe that the burn pits may be responsible for long-term health problems in many individuals,” the Air Force Times quoted Curtis as saying. “I think we are going to look at a lot of sick people.”

When the Dollar Rallies, the Market Will Crash

by Mike Whitney
by Mike Whitney
Recently by Mike Whitney: Lehman Died So TARP and AIG Might Live

Interest rates. The Fed does not need slinky women in plunging necklines to peddle money. All it needs is low interest rates. When rates are pushed lower than the rate of inflation, the Fed provides a subsidy for borrowing. This is not as hard to grasp as it sounds. If I offered to give you $1.00 for very 90 cents you gave me in return, you would buy as many dollars from me as you could. The Fed operates the same way. It generates market activity by creating incentives for borrowing. Borrowing leads to speculation, and speculation leads to steadily rising asset prices. This is how the game is played. The Fed is not an unbiased observer of free market activity. The Fed drives the market. It fuels speculation and controls behavior by fixing interest rates.

When Lehman Bros flopped last year, markets went into freefall. A sharp correction turned into a full-blown panic. The bubble burst and trillions of dollars in credit vanished in a flash. Trading in exotic debt-instruments stopped overnight. A global sell-off ensued. Markets crashed. For a while, it looked like the whole system might collapse.

The Fed’s emergency intervention pulled the system back from the brink, but the economy is still wracked with deflation. Billions in toxic waste now clog the Fed’s balance sheet. The dollar has fallen like a stone.

When the financial system blows up and credit is sucked down a capital-hole, the economy goes into a downward spiral. Businesses slash inventory and lay off workers, workers have to cut back on spending and credit. That creates less demand for products, which leads to more lay-offs. This is the vicious circle policymakers try to avoid. That’s why Fed chair Ben Bernanke wheeled out the heavy artillery and launched the most aggressive central bank intervention in history.

The Fed dropped rates to zero, but its Quantitative Easing (QE) program (which monetizes the debt) actually pushes rates even lower to roughly negative 2 percent.

Bernanke has underwritten every sector of the financial system with government guarantees. He has provided full-value loans for dodgy collateral which is worth only a fraction of its original value. The market can no longer operate without the Fed. The Fed IS the market, which is why it is foolish to talk about a "recovery". The idea of recovery implies a free-standing system based on supply and demand. But, for now, the government provides the demand, which is why there is no market and no recovery. Analysts at Goldman Sachs sum it up like this:

"How much of the rebound in real GDP was due to the fiscal stimulus, and where do we stand in terms of the effects of stimulus thus far? Although precise answers are impossible at this juncture, several aspects of the report are consistent with our estimates that the fiscal package enacted in mid-February as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) would have accounted for virtually all of the growth reported for the third quarter."

Positive growth is an illusion created by government spending. The economy is still flat on its back. Consumer spending and credit are in sharp decline. Unemployment is steadily rising (although at a slower pace) and wages are flatlining with a chance of falling for the first time in 30 years. Deflationary pressures are building. The talk of a "jobless recovery" is intentionally misleading. Jobs ARE recovery; therefore a jobless recovery merely points to asset-inflation brought on by erratic monetary policy. Surging stocks shouldn’t be confused with a genuine recovery.

The Fed faces stiff headwinds ahead. Low interest rates can have unintended consequences. The "cheapness" of the greenback has made the dollar the funding currency for the carry trade. Investors are borrowing low-cost dollars and using them to purchase higher-interest assets elsewhere. The process, which is rapidly escalating, is fraught with peril as economist Nouriel Roubini points out in an article in the Financial Times:

"Since March there has been a massive rally in all sorts of risky assets… and an even bigger rally in emerging market asset classes (their stocks, bonds and currencies). At the same time, the dollar has weakened sharply, while government bond yields have gently increased but stayed low and stable…

But while the US and global economy have begun a modest recovery, asset prices have gone through the roof since March in a major and synchronized rally… Risky asset prices have risen too much, too soon and too fast compared with macroeconomic fundamentals.

So what is behind this massive rally? Certainly it has been helped by a wave of liquidity from near-zero interest rates and quantitative easing. But a more important factor fueling this asset bubble is the weakness of the US dollar, driven by the mother of all carry trades. The US dollar has become the major funding currency of carry trades as the Fed has kept interest rates on hold and is expected to do so for a long time. Investors who are shorting the US dollar to buy on a highly leveraged basis higher-yielding assets and other global assets are not just borrowing at zero interest rates in dollar terms; they are borrowing at very negative interest rates…

Every investor who plays this risky game looks like a genius – even if they are just riding a huge bubble financed by a large negative cost of borrowing…

…This policy feeds the global asset bubble it is also feeding a new US asset bubble…
The reckless US policy that is feeding these carry trades is forcing other countries to follow its easy monetary policy… This is keeping short-term rates lower than is desirable… So the perfectly correlated bubble across all global asset classes gets bigger by the day.

But one day this bubble will burst, leading to the biggest co-ordinated asset bust ever: if factors lead the dollar to reverse and suddenly appreciate… the leveraged carry trade will have to be suddenly closed as investors cover their dollar shorts. A stampede will occur as closing long-leveraged risky asset positions across all asset classes funded by dollar shorts triggers a co-ordinated collapse of all those risky assets – equities, commodities, emerging market asset classes and credit instruments." ("The Mother of all Carry Trades Faces an Inevitable Bust," Nouriel Roubini, Financial Times.)

Everyone who watches the market has noticed the inverse correlation of stocks to the dollar. When the dollar fades, stocks soar. And when the dollar strengthens, stocks plunge. Eventually, the dollar will reverse-course and stage a comeback, probably when Bernanke stops his printing operations. That will trigger the next severe correction which will burst bubbles across all asset classes.

Bernanke’s success in reflating sagging asset prices has depended entirely on interest rate manipulation and liquidity injections. There’s been no effort to patch household balance sheets, increase production, or strengthen overall demand. It’s a clever trick by a master illusionist, but it has its costs. When the dollar rallies, markets will crash. And Bernanke will be responsible.

November 7, 2009

Mike Whitney [send him mail] lives in Washington state.

Copyright © 2009 Mike Whitney

brought to you by: Chuck Madere

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update

Financial Suicide Bombers

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Clickables

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poster

bumper sticker

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Matt Taibi on Goldman Sachs
“a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”

Gulnura Toralieva (GT): Why do you think climate change is not on the agenda of developing countries and the Central Asian region in particular?

Cleo Paskal (CP): Climate change was presented by the developed world to the developing world. They’ve projected their own problems on to developing countries without really understanding what issues have importance for people in places like Central Asia. If you talk with somebody in Central Asia about climate change it doesn’t really make much sense. But if you talk with them about agriculture or water security then they understand clearly what the problems could be.

We know, for example, that Kazakhstan is desertified to about 60 per cent and with climate change it could go to about 80 per cent. And in Central Asia, we know that there are problems of water supply and food security and a range of other issues related to the environment, but what hasn’t been made clear is that climate change will affect existing environmental issues as well.

GT: Who should care about climate change and its environmental impact? Is it a problem of developed countries or the developing world?

CP: Central Asia has a long experience with environmental change. The Aral Sea is a good example, where man-made messing up of the environment has had severe environmental consequences. Climate change is a component of environmental change. You cannot address climate change alone without addressing other environmental problems. They all interconnect. This is the first thing. Then there is a question about how you handle climate change. It can be handled in two stages. You can mitigate it, to stop it from accelerating, or you can adapt to it. In most cases, people talk about mitigation and adaptation.

In the case of Central Asia, it is clear that not a lot of mitigation can be done. That economy has already been stretched thin. They have large existing industrial challenges left over from Soviet period. More critical issues for Central Asia are things like radioactive tailings and electrical and water systems. Those need to be dealt with. And if you deal with those they will help with adaptation to climate change.

Adaptation was predominantly developed in the developing world. The developing countries have had to adapt to environmental assaults for a long time. The science of adaptation is advanced in the developing world. The developed world has a lot to learn from developing countries when it comes to adaptation and the developing world really needs to start mitigation.

GT: What are the major social, political and economic implications of climate change on developing countries’ security?

CP: The developing countries are not one country. Each country has its own challenges and each region of each country has its own challenges. And that is the problem with environmental change, that it is not one problem it is a million problems. If you are in a coastal area, the problem could be flooding, it could be salt water getting into your fresh water system. If you in a dry area or desert area, it could be even dryer or you could get dust storms. If you are in mountain regions, it could be erosion or glacier melting.  

So there may be many different sorts of problems and it will take many different sorts of solutions. And I would encourage people in the developing world who have found local solutions – and there are some good local solutions – to build bridges to other developing-world countries to see what you could learn from each other. Often the solutions found in the developing world are inexpensive, low-tech, and efficient. And those are the sorts of things which will be needed globally but can be developed, implemented and expanded through the developing world quite easily right now.

GT: Kyrgyzstan, the country I’m from, has serious environmental problems such as huge toxic waste dumps caused by radioactive production. As most of the uranium tailing sites are located in densely populated and natural disaster-prone areas of Central Asia’s largest river basins, they represent a major potential risk to the region’s water supply and the health of millions of people.

The problem is exacerbated by landslides caused by frequent rainfall near uranium dumps. If it is a consequence of climate change, what can you suggest we do to mitigate the negative impacts or to prevent the catastrophe?

CP: What you are talking about is a serious issue and gets even worse because Kyrgyzstan is also in an active seismic zone and there is evidence that as glacier melting takes weight off certain areas and puts it on others that can create more seismic movements. Heavy precipitation can also get into fissures and cracks and create a build up of pressure and create more seismicity.

In many different ways, climate change can exacerbate existing problems. The first step is to understand the problem, to do a really good, ground-level survey of what existing waste dumps there are, for example, and what the likely climate change projected for the region will be. In the case of Kyrgyzstan, you have a good survey from the Soviet administration, have good scientists domestically and there are good Russian scientists who were in the country but who have left. I would encourage building bridges with all the scientists who have left to try to make sure you have all the accurate data available. Files may have disappeared; they may have gone to Moscow.

You really need to know what has happened in your country in order to figure out how to move forward in a sustainable and safe way. In science, people tend to work in their own areas. So the people who work in radioactive tailings may or may not have spoken to people working in climate change or in hydrology or whatever.

GT: In one of your publications you said that climate change may affect the stability and security of some regions. It may even have negative impact on the security of the most stable regions. What can you say about the Central Asian region?

CP: It is a funny thing that people talk about Central Asia as if it is one homogenous country with one homogenous environment. As you know, there are many different people and there are many environmental situations. Some countries have a lot of water, some countries have no water. Some countries are close to Afghanistan, some are close to China. It is not one country.

So the challenges will be different. There are commonalities obviously, but when you look at environmental change, the impact is so regional that you must understand what has happened locally.

The other thing about Central Asia is its neighbours. The countries that are neighbouring China will start to get – and already have in fact seen – an increased influence from China. China has severe environmental problems. It hasn’t got enough water or food for its own population. So it will look to Siberia or appropriate countries in Central Asia to secure food and possibly water supplies. When China goes into a country, it is likely to want to ensure a degree of political control. That can affect your security situation.

Environmental change may also affect the security situation at a basic level if there is not enough food and water for the local population. There are potential areas where security can be compromised. We used to think about Central Asia firstly as a part of the Soviet Union but it is really an important component of global balance that is focused in a volatile area with Afghanistan, Russia and China and, to a certain degree, India also.

GT: What can Central Asian countries and Kyrgyzstan in particular address at the global climate change conference in Copenhagen in December?

CP: Kyrgyzstan hasn’t got an accurate understanding of its own problems and figuring out what it needs to address those problems and to ensure that those needs are met is important. It is in the interest of the developed world for the developing world to be as stable as possible. And if the developing world can clearly state “This is what we need” then that will be helpful to create global stability.

GT: The Central Asian states have many disagreements on energy and water sharing issues. The Soviet energy system united all five regional states, but doesn’t suit the interests of all these countries. Upstream and downstream countries always have room for being dissatisfied with each other’s policy.

Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan said recently that they are going to leave the Soviet-made system. Most of the countries work on developing their own energy systems and finding ways to be independent. But it is expensive and in some ways not possible. What is your view of this problem? What kind of implications does this situation have on regional stability?

CP: It is a serious problem. There are many serious problems. When the Soviet Union fell apart, it left Central Asia with three legacies, with three different problems which made unification or regional stability a little difficult.

One is that the infrastructure was designed for a whole – not just for a regional whole but a pan-Soviet whole. So the physical infrastructure was designed to be able to enforce co-operation even if it really doesn’t make sense.

The legal infrastructure has a similar problem. And the most obvious example is the borders, which divide tribes and language groups. The inherited legal infrastructure can cause problems when it comes to water- and power-sharing agreements.

Third is that Central Asian countries start to get real cultural polarisation and social fragmentation and then it becomes difficult to get over and it makes all the things more difficult. There is no feeling that you are all together. That’s why countries might think “Why should I deal with this country, if I have nothing in common with it except ancient history? Why can’t I deal with China or Russia instead?” Social cohesion comes first. If social cohesion starts to break apart, all the relations become difficult.

The existing system has some serious problems. It is old; it hasn’t been properly maintained and it was designed for a different environment. When you build such constructions you make environmental assessments: how much water is in the rivers, how much rainfall and so on and you look to the last 50 or 100 years to make these calculations. Those calculations no longer mean anything. The next 50 to 100 years will probably be very different from previous decades. That hydro installation you built which made perfect sense in 1980 may already make no sense today because of increased sedimentation, changing precipitation or glacier runoff.

The existing infrastructure you have may be severely affected by the environment. That old-build infrastructure may in no way be suitable to the new environment. The question is, in designing the new infrastructure, are they taking into account environmental change. Or are they designing it in the same way as they always design it. I suspect they don’t take environmental change into account. I’m not sure that this infrastructure will be able to deliver. It is important to take into account environmental change for both new and old infrastructure.

Occasionally we get updates about stories we’ve done. Here’s one we thought we’d pass along.

In early 2007 Homelands produced a profile of Pedro Córdoba Valdivieso, a metal worker in Peru who was suffering from an incurable lung ailment. Córdoba worked for a giant American-owned smelter called Doe Run in the Andean town of La Oroya. The Blacksmith Institute has rated La Oroya among the ten most polluted places in the world.

When Doe Run bought the smelter from the Peruvian government in 1997, it committed to a ten-year program to cut down on toxic emissions. By most accounts, the company has done much of what it agreed to do. But around the time we reported the story, Doe Run was lobbying the government for more time to complete a plant that would reduce the smelter’s sulfur dioxide emissions. Peru eventually agreed to give the company until October 2009 to finish the work. Early this year, pleading poverty, Doe Run asked that the deadline be extended again.

Peru said no. The company then shut down for three months and sent all its workers home. In late September, after demonstrations by Doe Run employees anxious to get back to work, Peru’s congress cried uncle, granting the company another 30 months to complete the sulfur dioxide plant. The fear was that insisting that Doe Run keep its word would jeopardize 20,000 jobs. It’s a Hobson’s choice that is sadly familiar to poor countries, poor communities and poor people everywhere.

We wish we could tell you more about Pedro Córdoba’s condition. But we do have an update on another WORKING profilee: the Kenyan runner Salina Kosgei. Kosgei, who won the Boston Marathon in April 2009, ran in the ING New York City Marathon on November 1. She tripped and fell early in the race but still ended up finishing fifth. Congratulations, Salina!

Tempers flare as disputed Curtis Park railyard development plan nears Sacramento City Council hearing

By Jim Wasserman

jwasserman@sacbee.com

It may be 2020 before Sacramento developer Paul Petrovich finishes building his proposed Curtis Park Village project on a toxic, abandoned railyard, but at long last his colorful, almost unprecedented, journey to get it to City Hall for a vote is nearing the finish line.

Neighborhood opponents, specifically board members of the Sierra Curtis Neighborhood Association, have worked equally hard, seeking changes to a design they consider too suburban, too commercial and too car-friendly for their traditional, century-old walkable community.

A constant theme: What he’s proposing – even if not perfect – is far better than existing conditions at the site, which has sat vacant for years, a weedy field dotted with puddles and filled with toxics-laden dirt.

http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/story/2297198.html

Uranium tailing, Mailusuu, Kyrgyzstan

The prime minister of Kyrgyzstan yesterday asked for international help to tackle toxic waste, with a local ecologist warning that the country faces “a radioactive catastrophe”. But a UN official argued that to get action the country needs to develop joint proposals with other Central Asian governments.

Premier Igor Chudinov, speaking about global climate change at the UN General Assembly in New York, spoke about the triple challenge facing the country. With 92 hazardous waste dumps holding 475 million tons of waste containing radionuclides and other toxic substances, even the most urgent cleanup measures would cost up to $40 million, money which the debt-laden nation doesn’t have. In addition, Kyrgyzstan is seeking investment money for sustainable development of the country’s infrastructure.

Indira Jakipova, editor of Ekois, the Ecological Information Service for Kyrgyzstan, said that there is a risk of huge radioactive catastrophe in the region which is exacerbated by frequent rainfalls and landslides caused by climate change. “The consequences of radioactive waste can be fatal for many millions of people. The rehabilitation is a very expensive process. That is why Kyrgyzstan needs support from international financial institutions.”

Mr Chudinov said that “the world community must more actively use foreign debt swap for sustainable development”. But Jyrgalbek Ukashev, coordinator of the UN project Enhancing Coordination for Disaster Response in the Kyrgyz Republic said that for his plea to be heard, the Kyrgyz Government must build up effective project proposals jointly with other Central Asian states’ governments’”

October 27, 2009

There’s a ticking time bomb in Serbia, where doctors have reported a sharp increase in cancer deaths among locals and claim this could be linked to NATO’s use of depleted uranium shells during the 1999 bombings.

Serbia is a beautiful country, but it appears to be dangerous to live in. After NATO used depleted uranium munitions there during the 1999 bombing campaign, military experts from Belgrade have registered an increased radiation level and claim the area is highly contaminated.

PART ONE: ADVANCED DE-GREASE

Dear Reader:

You may think that because I chose to “work at home” I must love to clean. Not so! I keep things mostly de-cluttered. I wash my dishes once or twice a day. I wipe down work surfaces and table surfaces and bathroom surfaces. The kitchen floor gets swept. However, when it comes to the down and dirty cleaning jobs, I balk. The bathtub gets soap scummy. The refrigerator is not pristine. The stove rarely gets an application of Easy Off Oven Cleaner. I vacuum the sofa once in awhile, but it probably should be done every day on account of the dog hairs. I don’t even want to talk about my windows.

So, when the online mom’s group in which I’m involved began featuring daily cleaning tips, my conscience started nagging at me that maybe, perhaps, I might want to think about the kitchen cupboards. More specifically, the tops of the kitchen cupboards where I store my bean pot, large ceramic bowls, and a pancake warmer. Above eye level, the cupboards often fall victim to the “out of sight, out of mind” phenomenon. I have to stand on a chair and climb up onto the kitchen counters in order to see up there. Still, I knew those cupboard tops must be looking rather nasty.

“Fine. Okay. I’ll do it,” I grudgingly agreed to my inner Mrs. Clean who had also, by the way, encouraged me to pick up a book about environmentally-safe cleaning products–what you can purchase as well as how to make your own–a year or so ago from One Earth Natural Food Store in Shapleigh. The book is entitled CLEAN & GREEN: THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO NONTOXIC AND ENVIRONMENTALLY SAFE HOUSEKEEPING by Annie Berhold-Bond and published by Ceres Press in Woodstock, NY. Click on the link to zip over to Annie’s website where there are more books and ideas.

CLEAN AND GREEN begins with a list of commonly-used commercial cleaning products and why they are bad for us and the environment. For example, all purpose cleaners can contain phosphates, chlorine, bleach, kerosene, petroleum products, solvents, EDTA, and naptha. These chemicals can be toxic or harmful to the following: fat cells, mother’s milk, liver and kidneys, and the central nervous system. Environmentally, some of the ingredients are considered hazardous waste, cause algae bloom, form DDT which affects wildlife, activate metals in lakes, are nonrenewable resources, and contaminate the air and water. (page 7.) When we purchase these cleaning products, we are also supporting an industry that pollutes during production.

“As to the environment, one of the bleakest trips that you can take is to ride the train from New York City to Washington, D.C. The train winds through the murkiest, muckiest, most discolored earth you could imagine. The tracks are lined with refineries and smokestacks. The manufacturers causing this devastation are producing products that we use at home: paints, furniture polish, laundry soap. What we throw away of these products goes into our landfills, and from there it can leach into our water. The same goes for what we wash down the drain.” (page 3.)

I decided to try one of her all-purpose cleaner recipes for the cupboards and the kitchen walls. I didn’t have any washing soda (my local market doesn’t carry it. I may have to bring a list of my desires to the owner. I really, really need my Green Mountain Pumpkin Spice Coffee in the fall . . . ) so I went with the Plain And Simple spray cleaner recipe which uses borax, distilled white vinegar and hot water. I was able to find borax and vinegar at the local market. A spray bottle from my fabulous local hardware store (they always have everything. It’s amazing!) was not very expensive. I’ve been cutting up old towels and tee-shirts for rags, so I had plenty on hand. I mixed up my cleaner and set to work on the grease, wondering: would this cleaner cut it?

The area above my cupboards was covered with a disgusting film of cooking grease, dust, and the desiccated bodies of insects. (Okay, only a few dead insect bodies, but still!) The cleaner loosened the film on the first application, and I was able to wipe the surfaces squeaky clean on the second. The rags, needless to say, were filthy when I was finished and hour or so later. I even sprayed down the painted walls above and below the cupboards, and I think the borax really brightened them up. I washed bean pot and bowls and the pancake warmer in the sink and hoisted them back into place. Stepping back, I surveyed my work. I saw that it was good. There you go, Mrs. Clean. Don’t say I never did anything for you. (Have I mentioned how working alone at home can lead to imaginary conversations with your inner muses? This time I can’t even blame it on the toxic chemical cleaners.)

A few days later, I took one of Annie’s suggestions from the book and mixed up a fresh batch of cleaner including a half a cup or so of herbal tea that I steeped for a couple hours. I also pounded up some lemon zest and sage leaves, put the mixture in a small jar, covered it with walnut oil, and set it on my windowsill where it should turn into a nice essential oil in a couple of weeks. Adding the liquid from a vitamin E capsule is supposed to help it stay fresh. I’m hoping these nice scents added to homemade cleaning products will inspire me to better housekeeping. You never know, it just might work.

Tune in next week to read about my next experiment with homemade cleaning products. I suspect that not only will these natural cleaners be safer for my family and the environment, but also they may be cheaper in the long run. I’ll try to compute the costs for Part Two: Ring around the Bathtub.

Yes, we have no bananas

Freddy Durante, he of the proposed cellphone tower overlooking North Mianus School, has once again slashed the price of his house at 334 Palmer Hill and it’s down to $923,000 from an original asking price of $1.3 million.  No mention on the listing whether Verizon is still willing to pay $15,000 a month for the privilege of making school kids glow in the dark but I understand Waste Management is offering a similar sum to operate a toxic dump site there. In fact, since both uses are compatible, this could be quite an investment.

Question: what happens when a court gags a newspaper? Answer: The gag sags, 140 characters at a time. That’s what happened this month when microbloggers tweeted what The Guardian couldn’t report. Plus, they tweeted that The Guardian couldn’t report that it couldn’t report, thus making this a “super-injunction“. The case invovled multinational oil company Trafigura, which has been accused of dumping  toxic waste at various sites in Ivory Coast. Trafigura secured a ruling in a British court enjoining The Guardian from reporting on the issue in the event that it come up in parliament. The issue did come up, and The Guardian duly didn’t report on it. But editor Alan Rushbridger (pictured) did let the blogosphere know that it was being gagged from reporting on a parliamentary matter. That’s when human rights activist Richard Wilson got to work online. He and then thousands of others microblogged about this. And low and behold the gag order was broken, and then lifted. Which goes to show that in the age of the social networking,  it’s much tougher to suppress speech. Or put another way, if a government or judiciary wants to suppress speech, it has to suppress the internet.

In the days after the twitter-outing of Trafigura’s gag order, many members of the British parliament voiced outrage over this attempt to block public access to parliamentary speech. Now Gordon Brown’s government is  moving to put a stop to the most egregious super-injunctions.

Next in the podcast, a group of Beijing and expat artists discover a Chinese word that seems to convey the state of China today. The word is 凑合 or in pinyin, cou huo. It means…well, it’s difficult to translate. But it conveys construction on-the-go, assembling something through improvisation, making do. It has both positive and negative attributes, and the artists explore both.  The exhibit traveled around Beijing in an appropriately makeshift tent, as artistically rendered above.

Finally, two segments on endangered languages. First an interview with French linguist Claude Hagège who’s written a book about the death of languages. Then a report on the near-death of the native American Lakota language;  its potential rebirth comes with an assist from a German rock star.

Listen in iTunes or here.

Italian investigators are scouring a shipwreck allegedly containing toxic and radioactive waste dumped by the mafia in the Mediterranean. Following years of speculation, environmentalists, local politicians and now the EU are urging the government to act.

Sometime you learn new things about your home state. Sometimes those things break your heart.

Emelle.

I’ve never been there. Evidently, the 2000 census says only 31 people live there.

Emelle: site of great sadness, threat to us all.

1978. Enter Waste Management. There is a lot to say about this company. What exists on the Interwebs is not attractive, but is potent. It earns over $16 billion a year. And because of it, Emelle is home to the largest hazardous waste dump in the nation (and maybe the world).

From a 1992 case decided by the United States Supreme Court (504 U.S. 334):

The parties do not dispute that the wastes and substances being landfilled at the Emelle facility “include substances that are inherently dangerous to human health and safety and to the environment. Such waste consists of ignitable, corrosive, toxic and reactive wastes which contain poisonous and cancer-causing chemicals and which can cause birth defects, genetic damage, blindness, crippling and death.” Increasing amounts of out-of-state hazardous wastes are shipped to the Emelle facility for permanent storage each year. From 1985 through 1989, the tonnage of hazardous waste received per year has more than doubled, increasing from 341,000 tons in 1985 to 788,000 tons by 1989. Of this, up to 90% of the tonnage permanently buried each year is shipped in from other States.

A pretty comprehensive discussion of the dump at Emelle lives on the University of Michigan servers here. I wish that the person who did the coding for the page knew how to make all of the punctuation marks show up as actual punctuation marks and not as little question marks. Other than that, it’s a good start.

Here’s where the science kicks in. The Emelle dump is over the Cretaceous Eutaw aquifer. According to some academics from Auburn,

Over 50 million gallons of water per day is pumped from the Eutaw aquifer reaching more than 650,000 people in 20 counties. The quality of drinking water supplied to this increasingly large population has been the concern of many in recent years. Although many have studied the geology of the coastal plain, elevated metal (iron, manganese, and strontium) content, water-sediment interaction, and influence of subsurface microorganisms on groundwater chemistry remain insufficiently understood. Preliminary data indicate that high alkalinity levels correlate with high metal concentrations in groundwater.

This does not make me happy. Further, hydrologists writing articles about the aquifer point out that it has an important filtering role. And this is where our drinking water comes from.

So then there’s this red-text-on-powder-blue-background webpage, which links up to this 1991 Greenpeace report.

It’s frustrating because all of the information on this dump appears to be dated. Obviously it was a hot issue to battle with Waste Management Inc. back in the 1990s. Maybe everyone has simply gotten burned out on the issue. Or maybe they were right to pick out a super poor part of Alabama with low population density for their dump. Hard to get people organized out there, especially when the corporation is pumping the “jobs” angle.

That’s what we’ve seen in other environmental justice fiascos here in Alabama. For example, over in Perry County (Be sure to click on the video). Local leaders have been bought off. People take poison because they think it’ll help their pocketbooks. Slightly different deal over in Anniston with the military and the chemical weapons incinerator. People will take risks with their health (and the health of their children) if they think there’s a buck to be made. And as long as Alabama remains poor (and those poor people remain disorganized and short-sighted), we’ll remain the dumping ground for the trash of the nation.

Alabama: America’s Toilet. Just doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as our actual slogan.

Well and truly gagged: freedom of speech in the UK?

What else could we possibly be talking about at the end of this tumultuous week? Leona Lewis getting smacked in the gob? The Falmouth Oyster festival?

No, of course it was the case of the superinjunction and the twits, the different  messes left on the coasts of Africa and in the House of Commons. And what a huge, all-consuming mess it has become.

On the face of it, it may look like a victory for the crusading knights of The Guardian, and all other champions of free speech.

In reality, it has just opened a can of really awkward worms that someone is going to have to deal with in the near future.

Even Mr Charisma himself, Gordon Brown, has acknowledged that the whole question of ’superinjunctions’ is something that will have to be reconsidered, and the Justice Secretary Jack Straw is currently looking into the matter.

Politicians from across the parties have been united in their criticism of the gagging order, with the Tory MP  Peter Bottomley reporting Carter-Ruck to the Law Council, and the Lib Dems securing a more wide-ranging debate on the subject for this Wednesday.

But even prior to this scandal, Britain was in need of a really hard look at the legal processes that can lead to such injuctions being placed on people and organisations, and gagging the logical, democratic process that should occur.

London is widely considered the libel capital of the globe, where ‘offended’ parties have long used our strangely constructed legal statutes to take legal actions against those who they feel have wronged them.

In reality, this is a breach of freedom of speech, and over time could have a devastating effect on civil liberties in this country.

In the USA, California governor Arnie has just become the latest US governor to ban ‘libel tourism’, eg parties using the British legal framework to sue overseas people and companies.

New York, New Hampshire, Illinois, Florida and Hawaii have already done so. The fact that these states have deemed it enough of a problem to protect people and companies within their own borders is hardly a thumbs up for how our legal framework is being used, is it?

You would hope that the legal implications of this whole affair might lead to wide-ranging changes within our countries legal framework, changes that effectively protect and secure the right to true freedom of speech (especially when the matter is being discussed within our own democratically elected House of Commons).

The lawyers of Carter-Ruck, in trying to impose this ridiculous injunction, weren’t necessarily wrong  – the law was. Lets hope the aftermath of this can lead to some much needed change.