For the second time in two months, a rare deadly yellow bellied sea snake has washed ashore at one of southern California's most popular beaches.

Pelamis platurus, related to the cobra family (Elapidae)

Yellowbelly Sea Snake      Carpenter0     Wikipedia.org

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El Nino washes a SECOND posionous sea snake onto popular California beach which has not seen any for THIRTY YEARS

By Regina F. Graham For Dailymail.com and Evan Bleier For Dailymail.com

Published: 22:18 EST, 19 December 2015 | Updated: 03:17 EST, 20 December 2015 

For the second time in two months, a rare deadly sea snake has washed ashore at one of southern California's most popular beaches.

A dead 27-inch-long male yellow bellied sea snake was discovered last week during a coastal cleanup campaign by volunteers for the Surfrider Foundation in Huntington Beach, the Los Angeles Times reported.

In October, a two-foot-long yellow bellied sea snake was discovered slithering onto Silver Strand State Beach in Ventura County, but it died shortly after being taken to a US Fish and Wildlife Service office nearby.

The venomous sea serpent, known to scientists as Pelamis platura, was first spotted in 1972 during an El Niño in San Clemente.

Deadly: A dead 27-inch-long male yellow bellied sea snake (above) was discovered last week during a coastal cleanup campaign by the Surfrider Foundation

The latest yellow bellied sea snake discovered was found at the popular Huntington Beach in California (file photo above)

A descendant of Australian tiger snakes, experts believe the arrival of the sea snake is a harbinger of El Niño because the last time it appeared in California was during the weather system in the '80s.

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Mark-1 Plumbing Ford F-250 sold to Autonation in Houston, Texas. Ends up in Syria being used as a weapons platform with US company signage intacty!

Texas plumber wants $1 million from dealership that sold his truck to jihadists

Published time: 14 Dec, 2015 19:48

 

 

A December 2014 photo of the Ford truck used by jihadists in Syria. The "Mark-1 Plumbing" sign is clearly visible © Twitter

 

 

A Texas plumber has dealt with death threats and abusive phone calls after the Ford truck he sold to a local dealership showed up in the hands of jihadists in Syria ‒ with his company sign intact. Now he is suing for at least $1 million in damages.

 

 

TrendsSyria unrest

 

Mark Oberholtzer, who runs Mark-1 Plumbing in Galveston, Texas, says that Autonation Ford Gulf Freeway, a dealership in Houston, resold his 2005 Ford F-250 pick-up without removing the decal with his company’s name and phone number. After the truck ended up in the hands of a Syrian rebel group, a photo of it showed up on Twitter and was featured on the final episode of Comedy Central’s ‘Colbert Report’.

Colbert joked that Syria “is going down the toilet, but for the first time, they know who to call to unclog it.”


By the end of that day, “Mark-1's office, Mark-1's business phone, and Mark's personal cell phone had received over 1,000 phone calls from around the nation,” ranging from degrading to expletive-laced death threats, according to the lawsuit filed in Harris County by Oberholtzer’s attorneys. Up to 200 calls per day continued to come in over the next three weeks, and the plumber still gets calls to this day, especially after Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) commits an atrocity somewhere, the lawsuit said.

View image on Twitter

 

 

Follow

Caleb Weiss @Weissenberg7

Chechen Jaish al Muhajireen wal Ansar using plumbing truck against regime in #Aleppo

12:37 PM - 15 Dec 2014

In the complaint, Oberholtzer says the dealership stopped him from removing the decal, claiming that doing so would damage the paint. At no time did anyone at the dealership inform Oberholtzer that they would  

“leave the decals on the truck, which would be transferred in some fashion to international jihadists conducting warfare upon innocents in Syria,”

the lawsuit stated, calling what happened an “incomprehensible and horrific eventuality.”

 

Noting that the plumber had sold several of his old trucks to dealerships in Texas over the years, the lawsuit goes on to add:

 “On none of these occasions have any of those dealers transferred to international jihadists the traded-in vehicle with Plaintiffs’ identifying marking still upon them.”

According to Carfax vehicle history reports, attached to the lawsuit as evidence, the truck was sold at an auction on November 11, 2013. It was exported from Houston and ended up in Mersin, a port in southeastern Turkey. On December 15, 2014, a photo of the truck posted on Twitter showed it being used as a weapons platform by a jihadist group in Syria – with the “Mark-1 Plumbing” sign still there.



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By the end of 2015, the chronically homeless population of Utah may be virtually gone. And the secret is quite simple: Give homes to the homeless.

NBC NEWS

Utah's Strategy for the Homeless: Give Them Homes

by Jacob Rascon and NBC News

Utah's Chronic Homeless Rate Drops 91% When It Gives the Needy Housing2:30

By the end of 2015, the chronically homeless population of Utah may be virtually gone. And the secret is quite simple:

Give homes to the homeless.

"We call it housing first, employment second," said Lloyd Pendleton, director of Utah's Homeless Task Force.

Even Pendleton used to think trying to eradicate homelessness using such an approach was a foolish idea.

"I said: 'You guys must be smoking something. This is totally unrealistic,'" Pendleton said.
But the results are hard to dispute.

In 2005, Utah was home to 1,932 chronically homeless. By April 2015, there were only 178 — a 91 percent drop statewide.

"It's a philosophical shift in how we go about it," Pendleton said. "You put them in housing first ... and then help them begin to deal with the issues that caused them to be homeless."

Chronically homeless persons — those living on the streets for more than a year, or for four times in three years, and have a debilitating condition — make up 10 percent of Utah's homeless population but take up more than 50 percent of the state's resources for the homeless.

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Syngenta mixed GMOs into US crops to force the world to accept untested biotechnology, lawsuit claims

NaturalNews

Monday, December 14, 2015 by: J. D. Heyes


(NaturalNews) Agri- and biotech giant Syngenta is being sued by hundreds of farmers in at least 20 states for shocking business practices, including using the American people as GMO guinea pigs.
According to Arkansas Business, one of the lawsuits against the Swiss seed manufacturer, which has been filed on behalf of two Newport-area farms, alleges that Syngenta "has engaged in a criminal conspiracy to contaminate the U.S. corn crop to force China (and) other nations that buy U.S. corn and U.S. farmers to accept" GMO corn.

The publication further reported in online editions:

The suit, field by the Emerson Poynter law firm, which has offices in Little Rock and Houston, alleges that Syngenta violated the Racketeer Influenced & Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, which is usually used to fight organized crime.

The firm filed the class-action suit in January on behalf of Eagle Lake Farms and Kenny Falwell, both operating farms in the Newport area. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas. At least eight other suits have also been filed against the seed maker, the news report said.

In all, there are hundreds of pending suits against Syngenta that have been filed by American farmers since last fall. The suits claim that Syngenta caused financial losses of between $1 billion and $2.9 billion to U.S. corn farmers after selling them GMO corn that China had yet to approve for use. China is a major (and growing) importer of American corn and maize-related byproducts.

Drop in value

 

In particular, the suits identified the Agrisure Viptera seed, also known as MIR 162. The suits say the seeds have been genetically altered to resist corn pests including earworms and cutworms. The seed was approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2010.

In November 2013, China began banning shipments of U.S. corn after its scientists detected the GMO trait, leading to a dramatic decrease in the price and value of U.S. corn. The suits allege that even farmers who did not use the GMO corn suffered economic losses as well.

Farmers in 20 states have filed suit. Together, they represent 86 percent of all corn planted in the United States last year, plaintiffs' lawyers said.

Arkansas Business further reported:

China went on to approve Viptera in December, but plaintiffs' lawyers say the development has little, if any, effect on their case. Scott Powell of Hare Wynn Newell & Newton of Birmingham, Alabama, is one of those lawyers.

China, with its rapidly expanding middle class, has "a voracious appetite for corn," Powell said, and when it stopped buying U.S. corn, it found other vendors, like Brazil. And once a country finds a substitute vendor for a product, it rarely switches back.

It's not just farmers lining up to sue Syngenta for its shady practice. Other agri-business giants are suing as well.

'We don't mess with China'

 

For example ADM, one of the world's largest processors of corn, filed suit against the Swiss company in November. "Syngenta chose to sell a corn seed product with traits that were not approved in all major export markets, without undertaking reasonable stewardship practices to prevent the resulting crop from commingling with or otherwise tainting the rest of the U.S. corn supply," an ADM spokeswoman told Arkansas Business.

For it's part, Syngenta says the suits are baseless, saying it "believes that the lawsuits are without merit and strongly upholds the right of growers to have access to approved new technologies that can increase both their productivity and their profitability," as reported by AgWeb.com.

The company added that it "commercialized the trait in full compliance with regulatory and legal requirements," "obtained import approval from major corn importing countries," and "has been fully transparent in commercializing the trait over the last four years."

U.S. farmers take China's business seriously.

"We don't mess with China," Deb Volnek, a Nebraska farmer involved in the suit against Syngenta, told Reuters. "When China buys something, the markets go up. When they don't, the markets go down."


Sources:

http://www.arkansasbusiness.com
http://www.agweb.com
http://www.reuters.com

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Washington to Whomever: Please Fight the Islamic State for Us

Published on

Thursday, December 10, 2015

by

TomDispatch

 

Why the Gulf States, the Kurds, the Turks, the Sunnis, and the Shia Won’t Fight America’s War

by

Peter Van Buren

 

 

 

President Barack Obama addresses the nation from the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, Sunday night, Dec. 6, 2016. In a rare Oval Office address, Obama vowed the United States would overcome a terror threat that has entered a "new phase" as he sought to reassure Americans shaken by recent attacks in Paris and California. (Photo: Saul Loeb, AP)

In the many strategies proposed to defeat the Islamic State (IS) by presidential candidates, policymakers, and media pundits alike across the American political spectrum, one common element stands out: someone else should really do it. The United States will send in planes, advisers, and special ops guys, but it would be best -- and this varies depending on which pseudo-strategist you cite -- if the Arabs, Kurds, Turks, Sunnis, and/or Shias would please step in soon and get America off the hook.

The idea of seeing other-than-American boots on the ground, like Washington’s recently deep-sixed scheme to create some “moderate” Syrian rebels out of whole cloth, is attractive on paper. Let someone else fight America's wars for American goals. Put an Arab face on the conflict, or if not that at least a Kurdish one (since, though they may not be Arabs, they’re close enough in an American calculus). Let the U.S. focus on its “bloodless” use of air power and covert ops. Somebody else, Washington’s top brains repeatedly suggest, should put their feet on the embattled, contested ground of Syria and Iraq. Why, the U.S. might even gift them with nice, new boots as a thank-you.
Is this, however, a realistic strategy for winning America’s war(s) in the Middle East?


The Great Champions of the Grand Strategy

Recently, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton openly called for the U.S. to round up some Arab allies, Kurds, and Iraqi Sunnis to drive the Islamic State’s fighters out of Iraq and Syria. On the same day that Clinton made her proposal, Bernie Sanders called for “destroying” the Islamic State, but suggested that it “must be done primarily by Muslim nations.” It’s doubtful he meant Indonesia or Malaysia.

Among the Republican contenders, Marco Rubio proposed that the U.S. “provide arms directly to Sunni tribal and Kurdish forces.” Ted Cruz threw his support behind arming the Kurds, while Donald Trump appeared to favor more violence in the region by whoever might be willing to jump in.
The Pentagon has long been in favor of arming both the Kurds and whatever Sunni tribal groups it could round up in Iraq or Syria. Variouspundits across the political spectrum say much the same.
They may all mean well, but their plans are guaranteed to fail. Here’s why, group by group.


The Gulf Arabs

Read More Here

Home-delivered meals reduce feelings of loneliness among seniors

 

Written by Catharine Paddock PhD

Published: Tuesday 8 December 2015 at 3am PST

email

 

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Homebound seniors who have home-delivered meals report significantly less loneliness than those who do not, according to a study published in Journals of Gerontology, Series B.

 

 

 

There was a significant reduction in self-reported feelings of loneliness among homebound seniors who had home-delivered meals, compared with those who did not.
Image credit: Michael Cohea/Brown University

 

The pressure to cut costs brings with it the possibility of overlooking the less tangible benefits when seeking alternative models in the provision of a public service.

Nutrition service providers are no exception, and the new study - conducted as a randomized, controlled trial - shows that home-delivered meals do more than nourish physical well-being; they also have a positive emotional effect in the lives of older people who are stuck at home.

It appears that the regular knock on the door, with the opportunity to exchange some friendly words with the person delivering the meal, goes a long way to reducing feelings of loneliness in older people in need.

Lead author Kali Thomas, assistant professor (research) of health services, policy and practice at Brown University School of Public Health in Providence, RI, says:
"This continues to build the body of evidence that home-delivered meals provide more than nutrition and food security."

Prof. Thomas, a former volunteer for Meals on Wheels, believes the study is one of only a few that has rigorously examined the long-presumed psychological benefits of home-delivered meal service. It is certainly the first randomized, controlled trial to measure the effect on loneliness, she notes.

Many participants socially isolated

The trial participants were 626 older adults from eight American cities who were on waiting lists to receive Meals on Wheels. They were randomly assigned to three groups.

In one group, the participants received a daily fresh meal, in another they received a weekly delivery of frozen meals, and in the third group they remained on the waiting list - this was the control group.
The trial ran for 15 weeks. All participants were interviewed at the start and end of the period.

Read More Here

Obama beats global warming drums while NOAA admits 6 year cooling trend in the Antarctic and refuses to testify before Congress defying subpoena.

     

The New American

 

Friday, 04 December 2015

At UN Summit, Obama Blames America for Global Warming

Written by Alex Newman

 

Speaking at a United Nations “climate” summit in Paris, Obama blamed America for alleged man-made global warming and claimed that the nation embraces its responsibility to “do something” about the alleged problem. That “something,” of course, at least in the administration's view, involves redistributing the wealth of embattled U.S. taxpayers to Third World governments and dictatorships for climate reparations, as well as shackling the American economy with draconian controls to reduce emissions of what serious scientists know as the “gas of life.” Sounding like a wannabe messiah, Obama even claimed that “we finally determined we would save our planet.” However, lawmakers in Congress and the American people have made clear that they neither believe in the increasingly discredited anthropogenic global-warming (AGW) theory nor in the alleged solutions to the supposed problem.

Dictators and other heads of state have typically arrived at UN conferences toward the end of the show. This time, however, hoping desperately to secure a global “climate” agreement where past summits have failed, UN organizers decided Obama and other “world leaders” should show up at the start. Obama complied, spewing gargantuan amounts of CO₂ and arriving in Paris to deliver various speeches hyping the AGW theory, along with illegal pledges to hand out your money. “I've come here personally, as the leader of the world's largest economy and the second-largest emitter, to say that the United States of America not only recognizes our role in creating this problem, we embrace our responsibility to do something about it,” Obama claimed at the ongoing conference, which featured some 150 dictators and heads of government and state.

Of course, Obama is not the “leader” of the “world's largest economy.” His job description is to serve as the chief executive of the federal government, to faithfully execute the laws, and to uphold and defend the Constitution. His other claims were even more ludicrous. For instance, the notion that America recognizes its alleged role in creating the alleged problem could not be more wrong. According to a Pew survey released last year, just 40 percent of Americans even believe the increasingly discredited AGW theory. And without a doubt, far less than that would agree that the nation should shackle its economy and redistribute its wealth to Third World regimes under the guise of dealing with a problem that the overwhelming majority of Americans do not even believe exists.

Obama also apparently sought to deceive his fellow rulers by touting his unconstitutional and illegitimate decrees, without noting that the American people's elected representatives, state governments, and the courts are currently in the process of dismantling those decrees. “Over the last seven years, we've made ambitious investments in clean energy, and ambitious reductions in our carbon emissions,” he told the UN and its member regimes, touting half-baked, taxpayer-funded “renewable energy” schemes imposed by the federal government (such as the now-bankrupt crony solar company Solyndra, which put huge sums of taxpayer funds into the pockets of Obama donors). Obama also touted his rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline and the “the first-ever set of national standards” purporting to regulate what Obama referred to as “carbon pollution.”

  Read More Here

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Obama blames America for non-existent global warming

September 24, 2014 6:52 AM MST

Barack Obama speaks at U.N. climate summit.

Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

While speaking at the United Nations on Tuesday, President Obama blamed the United States for global warming, even though there has been no global warming for nearly 18 years. While the administration insists global warming is a real threat, one professor issued a paper saying there has been no global warming for 19 years.

 "But there should be no question that the United States of America is stepping up to the plate," Obama said. "We recognize our role in creating this problem; we embrace our responsibility to combat it. We will do our part, and we will help developing nations do theirs. But we can only succeed in combating climate change if we are joined in this effort by every nation –- developed and developing alike. Nobody gets a pass."

Obama hyped action the United States has taken, touting moves taken against power companies in what has been described as a "war on coal." According to the president, the United States has reduced its total "carbon pollution" by more than any other nation.

  Read More Here


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FULL Speech HD: Barack Obama at Paris Climate Conference (Cop21)

Best Videos HD

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Published on Nov 30, 2015

FULL Speech HD: Barack Obama to give final statement on last day in Paris (Cop21) chttps://youtu.be/Nq5oG6kIIPA

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US President Barack Obama holds news conference at Paris Climate Summit - COP21

The Best Videos HD

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Published on Dec 1, 2015

US President Barack Obama holds news conference at Paris Climate Summit - COP21

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ScienceInsider

Breaking news and analysis from the world of science policy

NOAA

Data collected by NOAA ocean buoys like this are at the heart of the dispute.

House science panel demands more NOAA documents on climate paper

By

Carolyn Gramling

5 November 2015 12:00 pm

Carolyn is a staff writer for Science and is the editor of the In Brief section.

..........

It’s getting hot in here. A dispute between the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) over a climate change paper published this summer is escalating. The latest salvos include a second letter from Representative Lamar Smith (R–TX) to NOAA Administrator Kathryn Sullivan seeking internal communications and documents authored by NOAA employees and a letter from the American Meteorological Society condemning Smith’s demands and warning about its implications for all federally funded research.

The quarrel began with a paper by NOAA scientists published 5 June in Science that revised historical atmosphere and ocean temperature data records found to have been poorly calibrated. In 2013 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had noted that the temperature data seemed to suggest that global warming had slowed down beginning around 1998. But the Science paper showed that apparent slowdown in global warming vanished when the data were corrected to account for various sources of bias.

That paper immediately caught Smith’s attention, triggering multiple committee requests for data and methodologies related to the study. NOAA told the committee that the findings were already publicly available and met twice with committee staff to brief them on the results.

But that response didn’t satisfy Smith. On 13 October, he subpoenaed all of NOAA’s internal emails related to the paper, asking for the information by 27 October. In response, the committee’s Democrats wrote to Smith on 23 October, noting that the subpoena “appears to be furthering a fishing expedition” and saying that it oversteps the committee’s bounds, as the paper is a research study and not a policy decision. House Republican leadership this year had given Smith the authority to issue subpoenas without the consent of the minority party.

Read More Here

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Investors.com

Investors Business Daily

Did Federal Agency Commit Climate Fraud? Sure Looks Like It

 

10/28/2015 06:30 PM ET

 

Junk Science: Worried about climate fraud, Congress is investigating a federal agency for allegedly manipulating weather data to show recent global warming when there is none. So why is the agency refusing to cooperate?

First, a little background: Satellite temperature readings clearly show no warming trend for the last 18 years, 8 months and counting. None.

This fact is significant for two reasons: One, satellite temperature readings are the most comprehensive and thus the most accurate. And, two, the pause in warming since 1998 undercuts the entire global warming agenda of the environmental movement and its allies on the left who see in climate change an opportunity to impose greater government control over our lives.

Yes, we're skeptical of "climate change," at least as defined by the green extremists. Climate is always changing. No one denies that. What's at issue is how it's changing and why. The science is still unclear.

 Earlier this year, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists took part in a study that found — no surprise — that the "pause" in global warming from 1998 to 2013 didn't exist.

 Their change didn't come from actual temperature readings. It came from extensive data manipulation and tinkering. Instead of a pause, they found a surge.

Read More Here

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NOAA Scientists In Standoff With Congress Over Climate Study - Newsy

Newsy Science

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Published on Oct 28, 2015

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is refusing to hand over its climate scientists' emails to Rep. Lamar Smith. See more at http://www.newsy.com/ 

Follow Sebastian Martinez: http://www.twitter.com/sebastiansings 

 Sources: House Committee on Science, Space and Technology https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSEXF... 

Bloomberg http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/... 

NASA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaJJt... 

C-SPAN http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4549291... Science http://www.sciencemag.org/content/348... 

The Hill http://thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/2529... 

Getty Images http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/new... 

Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/john_fi... 

Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/2180443... 

 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtpJs... 

World Climate Research Programme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6jXc... 

Nature http://www.nature.com/news/us-science... 

Image via: Getty Images / Mark Wilson http://gettyimages.com

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Family Survival Protocol – Microcosm News

Learning to Create A Better Future

In the last few weeks NASA has revealed the overall amount of ice has increased at the Antarctic and the amount of sea ice has also extended. ANTARCTIC temperatures have cooled over the past six years, study finds.

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TPP a Disaster for Natural Health

 

TPP Deal Finally Revealed

By anh-usa on December 1, 2015 

Details of the long-secret Trans-Pacific Partnership are public at last: it will undermine the safety of our food supply, make medicine more expensive, and give power to the biotech monopoly. Action Alert!

A few weeks ago, the full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal was finally released after many years of closed-door negotiations between officials from the US and eleven other countries, all of whom border the Pacific Ocean. Its provisions were apparently kept secret from all but the biotech and pharmaceutical industries.

Leaked documents during the trade negotiations provided reason to be concerned about the final agreement. And now, a review of the deal’s twenty-nine chapters and five thousand pages proves these early concerns were completely justified. The final package now awaits a vote in Congress, which is likely to take place in Spring 2016.

Here are some of the most pressing concerns for natural health advocates:

It Undermines the Safety of the Food Supply

 

The TPP contains a number of provisions that threaten current food safety laws.

Generally speaking, passage of the TPP would mean that any US food safety law concerning things like pesticides, food additives, or labeling that is more stringent than “international standards” may be considered an “illegal barrier” to trade, and subject to enforcement. We have learned to beware of such “international standards.” They are largely determined by global special interests.

The TPP expands corporate power in other ways. The deal includes an investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system in which multinational corporations can challenge a host company’s regulations in an international court. ISDS has been a fixture in other trade treaties, including NAFTA (the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement), and has been used to challenge countries’ economic policies, anti-smoking efforts, and environmental preservation laws. It is another giveaway to Big Food and other powerful multinational interests—a recurring theme throughout the TPP document.
The trade agreement also undercuts US efforts to inspect food imports. The agreement limits food import inspections at the border “to what is reasonable and necessary,” and if an issue arises, a country must also provide an “opportunity for a review of the decision.” This provision, referred to as the Rapid Response Mechanism, may give exporting countries the right to challenge basic food safety provisions in the US.

It Gives New Patent Protections to Big Pharma

 

The TPP contains an entire chapter on intellectual property rights, with many provisions relating to pharmaceutical patents. No doubt heavily influenced by the pharmaceutical industry, the trade deal will force signatory countries to accept many of the same patent laws that have kept drug prices so astronomically high in the US.

The deal would extend and broaden certain patent and data protections for the pharmaceutical industry, which Big Pharma can then use to keep prices high and delay competition from generics. It is a wonderful gift to the pharmaceutical industry—but a grave loss to patients in developing countries looking for access to affordable drugs.

The TPP also allows a practice known as “evergreening,” which lets drug companies extend a patent on an old drug when it can be used to treat a new condition—another boon for Big Pharma’s monopoly power.

Even when Big Pharma loses in the TPP, it wins. One of the more controversial topics in TPP negotiations concerned patent and data protections for biologic drugs—medicines derived not from inert chemical compounds but from living organisms. Big Pharma wanted twelve years of exclusivity— they already have this in the US—and US trade officials pushed hard in the negotiations to make this the standard. Instead, the deal grants them at least five years of exclusivity and as much as eight.

It’s Also a Gift to Biotech Seed Companies

 

Finally, the TPP deal expands biotech’s monopoly over the seed industry. The deal requires all twelve countries to join a number of global intellectual property treaties. One of these treaties is the 1991 International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV91), which emphasizes the rights of seed companies over farmers. Among other things, UPOV91:

• Requires intellectual property (IP) protection for all plant species;
• Provides IP protection for 20 to 25 years; and
• Stops farmers from exchanging seeds—a common and important practice in many developing nations and indeed throughout human history.

In countries that have not already turned agriculture over to the biotech industry, this could mean a substantial rewrite of regulations meant to protect farmers.

Other treaties that signatory countries are compelled to join make it easier to apply for patents—making it very likely that more plants and seeds will be patented.

If these gifts to industry were not enough, President Obama moved earlier this summer to have the deal “fast-tracked”—that is, Congress will be given a fixed period to review the agreement, after which time legislators must make a yes/no vote without the possibility of amending the deal. Essentially, it’s “take it or leave it.”

We say: leave it. And if the US does reject it, do not worry about losing the reduction of tariffs that is already included. There will just be a second (and, we hope, a better) version to replace it.
Action Alert! Write to your members of Congress and urge them to oppose the TPP deal, which undermines consumers and farmers and extends monopoly rights to major industries. Please send your message immediately.

AquaBounty’s genetically modified (GMO) salmon facing further backlash from national grocery stores and restaurant chains : Costco and Red Lobster Say No to GMO Salmon

Costco and Red Lobster Say No to GMO Salmon

Lorraine Chow | November 25, 2015 9:21 am |

 

 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) controversial approval of AquaBounty’s genetically modified (GMO) salmon has garnered further backlash from national grocery stores and restaurant chains.

Costco, the second largest retailer in the world with 487 stores and one of the largest retailers of salmon and seafood in the U.S., has made a firm commitment not to sell GMO salmon.





“Although the FDA has approved the sale of GM salmon, Costco has not sold and does not intend to sell GM salmon at this time,” the company said in a statement.

Costco’s move to reject GMO salmon comes after vehement opposition from anti-GMO activists.
According to a statement from Friends of the Earth, Walmart and Publix are among the last remaining large retail grocers in the U.S. that have not yet rejected GMO salmon.

“The market is rejecting GMO salmon. Stores won’t sell it and people don’t want to eat it,” said Friends of the Earth Campaigner Dana Perls. “Now other retailers like Walmart and restaurants need to follow suit, and we need mandatory GMO labeling so that consumers know how to avoid GMO salmon.”

More than 60 grocery store chains representing more than 9,000 stores across the U.S. have made commitments to not sell GMO salmon, including Safeway, Kroger, Target, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Aldi and many others.

The nation’s largest seafood restaurant is also denying GMO salmon. Red Lobster, with 705 North American locations and more than 40 internationally, told the Dallas Morning News that it would not sell GMO salmon last Friday.

Incidentally, consumers might not even know they’re eating GMO salmon. AquaBounty’s salmon, which is genetically altered to grow to market size in half the time of conventional salmon, will not require a GMO label under FDA guidelines.

It’s unclear if we’ll  ever see labels for genetically altered food, period—not just salmon. Currently, the hotly contested Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act—dubbed by opponents as the Denying Americans the Right to Know Act or DARK Act—languishes in the Senate.

The act, H.R. 1599, which passed the House of Representatives in July, bans states from issuing mandatory labeling laws for foods containing GMOs. The bill gives the FDA the authority to establish national standards and regulations for GMO food. The Department of Agriculture would be granted full discretion over the law’s implementation.

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Out of control CPS in Alabama medically kidnap 7 children including a newborn. Judge slaps a gag order on parents to keep them quiet.

Health Impact News

Grandparents Come Forward Reporting CPS Kidnappings in Corrupt Alabama – Parents Gagged by Court

 

The Cartee family together at a visit before the baby was born. (Source: Bring Back Home The 7 Cartee Kids Facebook page)

UPDATE 11/27/2015

Grandparents Come Forward Reporting CPS Kidnappings in Corrupt Alabama – Parents Gagged by Court

by Health Impact News/MedicalKidnap.com Staff

A gag order was placed on Tony and Sabrina Cartee by a Randolph County judge to prevent them from talking to media and the public about the medical kidnapping of their children by Child Protective Services. However, Sabrina’s parents are not under the gag order, and contacted Health Impact News reporting that they can no longer sit back and watch the unjust destruction of their family by Child Protective Services, and one social worker in particular. Tommy and Winnie Crumbley, Sabrina’s parents, had a great deal to say about what is happening in the lives of their grandchildren. They are frightened for their well-being and want them to come back home.

As previously reported, the Cartee children were taken by Child Protective Services, known as DHR (Department of Human Resources) in Alabama, when their then 5 year old son began “eloping” – the term used when autistic children wander away from home. One of his older brothers had already been diagnosed as autistic, and the family suspected that he was as well. They just didn’t have a diagnosis yet.

When their newest baby was born in September 2014, DHR seized the breastfeeding baby from her mother’s arms just 2 days after she was born.

Original story:

Alabama Seizes 7 Children from Family After Child with Autism Wandered to Neighbors

The violations of the family’s moral, legal, and Constitutional rights are numerous and egregious, report the Crumbleys. They say that their grandchildren should never have been taken away from their parents, and they want to see them returned to Sabrina and Tony, “where they belong.”
The Cartee’s 17 year old daughter has also emailed us, saying:

I want to go home, my parents have not done anything wrong and we don’t deserve to be harrassed by Alecia [social worker] anymore!!

Children Were Supposed to Be Returned Home in August

When the children were first taken, Tommy Crumbley reports that Alecia McFarland, the social worker from Randolph County DHR, told his daughter that if it was left up to Alecia, she would never let the Cartee children come home. She gave no reason why, and the Crumbleys don’t understand her apparent hostility toward their family.

The Crumbleys told us that the Randolph County judge ruled in June that all of the children were to be returned home by the time school started in August. At the time, the 7 children were living in 4 separate places, some with relatives and some in foster homes. Even though DHR seized all the children at the same time (except the baby, who wasn’t yet born), they wanted to “transition” the children home, a few at a time. Allegedly, the social workers thought it would be “overwhelming” for all of the children to come home at once.

The Cartees’ newborn was taken days after birth. She just turned a year old. She has yet to spend a single night at home. Photos courtesy Crumbley family

 

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Toxic Babies: Why Children Increasingly Share Their Parents’ Toxicity and Nutritional Deficiencies

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10th September 2013
By Raluca Schachter
Contributing Writer for Wake Up World

I have to admit, even the title sounds disturbing! But I believe it’s high time to stop sugar coating the reality we live in. I see in my practice more and more children who share their parents’ nutritional deficiencies and toxicity. Yes, a pure, innocent baby who’s barely starting life is also touched by the harsh environment we live in these days, and parents can pass down their imbalances to their baby.
This article is not supposed to offer a pessimistic view, but rather to help raise awareness, prepare and teach you about how to better take care of your children’s health.
This became really necessary considering that:

• Environmental toxicity is one of the most important causes of chronic illness in the world today.
• Heavy metals as well as petrochemicals play an important role in toxic buildup and disease.
• Every man, woman and child in the United States has at least one petrochemical solvent in their blood stream and likely more than 100.
• In the past 40 years, every single person tested in the United States has been found to have styrene in their blood…
• … and given that everyone has styrene in their blood, the excretion of this petrochemical solvent in the urine should also show up on everyone’s test.
• The most symptomatic and chronically ill individuals are those with poor excretion patterns.

 

How Toxic Is Our World Today?

Over 80,000 man-made chemicals have been added to our environment. Most of them are toxins and a great many are carcinogens and endocrine disrupters. The situation with each passing year grows worse, not better. Toxins now pervade the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, and the seemingly endless array of body care products — toothpastes, mouthwashes, hair products, makeup, shampoos, soaps, lip balms, body lotions, sun products, etc.

 

 

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France continues military strikes against ISIS in wake of Paris attack

RT America

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Published on Nov 17, 2015

French President Francois Hollande has called the Paris attacks an ‘act of war’ by the Islamic State and called on the global community to step up its fight against the terrorist regime by bombing Syria. Simone Del Rosario reports from Paris.

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November 18, 2015

Amb. Marc GinsbergFmr. U.S. Ambassador to Morocco; White House Middle East Adviser

France Cries ISIS -- Obama Cries Uncle -- A Field Guide to a Better Battle Against ISIS

Posted: 11/18/2015 10:10 am EST Updated: 1 hour ago 

Based on President Obama's defiant ("I know better than everyone") defensive crouch at his post-Paris attacks G-20 Turkey press conference don't expect a sea change in White House policy against ISIS. Just think of more sloppy spit across the ISIS swamp. Better yet, designate it "Leading From As Far Behind as Possible, Version 2.0."

It was Obama at his most unappealing - setting up the red herrings and imaginary (if not imaginative) policy alibis that is his want in a vain attempt to silence his growing chorus of ISIS critics. The president's stubborn insistence that anyone daring to challenge his failing, slap-dash anti-ISIS strategy that has squandered so much and produced so little is merely playing politics: "W" wannabees bent on repeating the historical error of the Iraq invasion.

If only, as Obama whined in Anatalya, his ISIS critics would cease engaging in petty "political games or offering shallow solutions..." by challenging him on ISIS, life would be well and good for all. It's akin to him asserting that between birth and death there is nothing in between, case closed!
Smearing anyone who smells the malodorous odor of a failing Syria/Iraq/ISIS policy a mile away is a self-serving falsehood Obama frequently resorts to when cornered. By persisting in this un-presidential conduct Mr. Obama camouflages his own failures no longer able to be hidden - sinking to the low level of Politician-in-Chief rather than rising to a respected Commander-in-Chief as ISIS pounds at our doorstep.

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PARIS TERROR ATTACK

French prosecutor: 9th suspect in Paris terror attacks being sought

France made an unprecedented demand Tuesday that its European Union allies support its military action against the Islamic State group after the attacks in Paris.

by Tiffany Wilson

Tuesday, November 17, 2015 03:33PM

GERMANY (KGO) --

Authorities are seeking a ninth suspect in Friday's attacks in Paris, a French prosecutor's spokeswoman told ABC News. The spokeswoman did not reveal any details about the suspect's identity.

France took unprecedented action Tuesday when it invoked the Mutual-Defense article of the EU Treaty. Now all 28 member nations must help France in its war against ISIS.

French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said all 27 of France's EU partners responded positively, and they could help "either by taking part in France's operations in Syria or Iraq, or by easing the load or providing support for France in other operations."

"Every country said: I am going to assist, I am going to help," Drian said.

VIDEO: France carries out raids, names more potential attackers

Arriving for talks in Brussels with his EU counterparts, Greek Defense Minister Panagiotis Kammenos told reporters that the Paris attacks were a game-changer for the bloc.
"This is Sept. 11 for Europe," he said.
French President Francois Hollande has vowed to forge a united coalition capable of defeating the jihadists at home and abroad. NATO allies were sharing intelligence and working closely with France, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said.
Noting that victims of the Paris attacks came from at least 19 nations, Hollande says the international community, led by the U.S. and Russia, must overcome their deep-seated divisions over Syria to destroy IS on its home turf.

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