Yummy, Corn and Soy Beans with a side of Monsantos Yummy Secert Agent Orange Sauce...... I'll Pass

 

Ah, the sweet smell of Agent Orange in the morning. 

Our benevolent agricultural guardians at the USDA have announced that they are allowing the introduction of new corn and soybean seeds that have been designed specifically to withstand a dousing with 2,4-D, a key ingredient in the infamously deadly Agent Orange. 

 

Now we get to be the unwilling guinea pigs while USDA-approved test fields are planted. 

It seems that our government did not learn its lesson from the millions of people gruesomely affected by the ingredients of Agent Orange the first time around. 
Agent Orange, you may recall, was brought to wartime Vietnam by the evil masterminds at Dow and Monsanto. American forces sprayed it all over the countryside of Vietnam from 1961 to 1971. Its purpose was to defoliate trees and shrubs that were providing cover to enemy forces, and to kill food crops that were providing sustenance. 

This caused damage to the ecosystem of Vietnam that is still present today. More than 5 million acres of forests were destroyed, and half a million acres of farmland were tainted. It will take centuries of nurturing for the land to recover. 

The environment was not the only thing affected. Exposure to Agent Orange resulted in five horrible illness in those exposed: soft-tissue sarcoma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, chronic lymphocytic leukemia (including hairy-cell leukemia), Hodgkin’s disease, and chloracne. (source) What’s even worse is that the damage may not be limited to those directly exposed – it can affect offspring even up to 3rd and 4th generations. 

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Over a million US veterans were also exposed: 
In 2010, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs provided $16.2 billion in compensation to 1,095,473 Vietnam-era veterans. The agency does not relate these service-connected benefit figures directly to Agent Orange/dioxin exposure or to any other possible cause of illness, nor does it provide data on total compensation for the years since the war ended.

Thousands of U.S. veterans returning from Vietnam reported health problems almost immediately and rapidly associated them with Agent Orange/dioxin exposure. Controversy over these assertions began just as fast, and continues now.MORE AT SOURCE 

How is a GMO Different from Cross-Breeding?

Genetic modification is the process of forcing genes from one species into another entirely unrelated species. Unlike cross breeding or hybridization—both of which involve two related species and have been done without ill effects for centuries—genetic engineering forcefully breaches the naturally-occuring barriers between species.

Example: Corn + DNA from soil bacteria that is naturally immune to RoundUp herbicide + e.coli bacteria + soil bacteria that causes tumors in plants (which enables the plant’s cell wall to be breached) = RoundUp Ready Corn (one of several RoundUp Ready crops engineered by Monsanto).

Moscow Has a Muslim Problem

FRANCE FALLING INTO MUSLIM HANDS - USA is Following in France's Footstep...

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman says Britain was right to let Bobby Sands ‘commit suicide’

The revolutionary spirit of freedom
Portions of this article were first published anonymously in 'Republican News', December 16th, 1978. The smuggled out article recalls how the spirit of republican defiance grew within him, and is a semi-autobiographical account.

BOBBY SANDS was born in 1954 in Rathcoole, a predominantly loyalist district of north Belfast. His twenty-seventh birthday fell on the ninth day of his sixty-six-day hunger strike. His sisters Marcella, one year younger, and Bernadette, were born in April 1955 and November 1958, respectively. All three lived their early years at Abbots Cross in the Newtownabbey area of north Belfast. A second son, John, now nineteen, was born to their parents John and Rosaleen, now both aged 57, in June 1962.


The sectarian realities of ghetto life materialised early in Bobby's life when at the age of ten his family were forced to move home owing to loyalist intimidation even as early as 1962. Bobby recalled his mother speaking of the troubled times which occurred during her childhood; 'Although I never really under stood what internment was or who the 'Specials' were, I grew to regard them as symbols of evil '.


Of this time Bobby himself later wrote: ''I was only a working-class boy from a Nationalist ghetto, but it is repression that creates the revolutionary spirit of freedom. I shall not settle until I achieve liberation of my country, until Ireland becomes a sovereign, independent socialist republic. ''

When Bobby was sixteen years old he started work as an apprentice coach builder and joined the National Union of Vehicle Builders and the ATGWU. In an article printed in 'An Phoblacht/Republican News' on April 4th, 1981, Bobby recalled: ''Starting work, although frightening at first became alright, especially with the reward at the end of the week. Dances and clothes, girls and a few shillings to spend, opened up a whole new world to me.''



Avigdor Liberman praises how Margaret Thatcher handled hunger strikers deaths

Israel’s Foreign Minister has praised Britain’s decision to let Irish ‘terrorist hunger strikers commit suicide’ in 1981.

Minister Avigdor Liberman made the controversial claim after the recent release of jailed terrorist, Samer Issawi after a 266 day hunger strike.

Criticizing the release, Liberman referred to the British government’s handling of the 1981 hunger strikes in Northern Ireland, led by Bobby Sands.

And he praised the stance taken by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet.

Liberman said: “More than 10 of the protesters died in the hunger strike, among them a striker that was elected at the time to the British Parliament by one of the voting regions in North Ireland.

“Despite all that, the British government under Margaret Thatcher did not submit to the prisoners’ demands. In the end the strike ended without the conditions of the striking prisoners being met.

“Every normal democratic country that aspires to defend itself, like the great democracy of Britain that I mentioned would already have returned Issawi to his cell.

“Like the British minister Humphrey Atkins said of the Irish hunger strike, ‘if he persistently wishes to commit suicide, he is welcome to pursue his intent.”

Read more: http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Israeli-Foreign-Minister-says-Britain-was-right-to-let-Bobby-Sands-commit-suicide-238771561.html#ixzz2pbciVV3s 
Follow us: @IrishCentral on Twitter | IrishCentral on Facebook

4 states confirm water pollution from drilling, Ohio: Shale drillers must report chemicals locally

Ohio: Shale drillers must report chemicals locally

COLUMBUS — A list of toxic chemicals used by Ohio shale drillers must be made available locally to governments, first responders and residents under a new state directive.

Ohio officials notified companies that a federal chemical disclosure law trumps a 2001 state law requiring that the information only be filed with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, The Columbus Dispatch reported Monday.

The state gave companies until Sept. 21 to begin complying with the federal law.

The guidance affecting the state’s burgeoning hydraulic fracturing industry follows an April letter in which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency made clear that Ohio’s chemical-reporting laws don’t supersede federal right-to-know requirements.

The letter came in response to a complaint by a coalition of environmental and community groups involving a January chemical emergency near St. Marys in Auglaize County.

Associated Press review of complaints casts doubt on industry view that it rarely happens.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — In at least four states that have nurtured the nation's energy boom, hundreds of complaints have been made about well-water contamination from oil or gas drilling, and pollution was confirmed in a number of them, according to a review that casts doubt on industry suggestions that such problems rarely happen.

The Associated Press requested data on drilling-related complaints in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Texas and found major differences in how the states report such problems. Texas provided the most detail, while the other states provided only general outlines. And while the confirmed problems represent only a tiny portion of the thousands of oil and gas wells drilled each year in the U.S., the lack of detail in some state reports could help fuel public confusion and mistrust.

Foul tap-water odors, flavor persist

Columbus water officials are baffled by lingering foul odors and flavors that have some residents apologizing to out-of-town guests and area restaurants warning customers.

Officials blame algae and organic materials stirred up when seasonal temperature changes roiled Hoover Reservoir. The reservoir serves about 500,000 city and suburban water customers north of I-70 through the Hap Cremean Water Plant.

The water is not harmful, city utilities spokeswoman Laura Young Mohr said yesterday. The city has received about 1,000 complaints since mid-November, she said.

“It smells like creek water and tastes so bad that you have to spit it out immediately,” said Jane Starcher, a North Linden resident. “Who wants to shower with water that is smelly?”

The AP found that Pennsylvania received 398 complaints in 2013 alleging that oil or natural gas drilling polluted or otherwise affected private water wells, compared with 499 in 2012. The Pennsylvania complaints can include allegations of short-term diminished water flow, as well as pollution from stray gas or other substances. More than 100 cases of pollution were confirmed over the past five years.

Just hearing the total number of complaints shocked Heather McMicken, an eastern Pennsylvania homeowner who complained about water-well contamination that state officials eventually confirmed.

"Wow, I'm very surprised," said McMicken, recalling that she and her husband never knew how many other people made similar complaints, since the main source of information "was just through the grapevine."

The McMickens were one of three families that eventually reached a $1.6 million settlement with a drilling company. Heather McMicken said the state should be forthcoming with details.

Over the past 10 years, hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has led to a boom in oil and natural gas production around the nation. It has reduced imports and led to hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue for companies and landowners, but also created pollution fears.

Extracting fuel from shale formations requires pumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of water, sand and chemicals into the ground to break apart rock and free the gas. Some of that water, along with large quantities of existing underground water, returns to the surface, and it can contain high levels of salt, drilling chemicals, heavy metals and naturally occurring low-level radiation.

But some conventional oil and gas wells are still drilled, so the complaints about water contamination can come from them, too. Experts say the most common type of pollution involves methane, not chemicals from the drilling process.         thank you battleskin88

Big lagoons could hold Ohio fracking waste

Fracking wastewater lagoons the size of football fields could dot eastern Ohio as state officials draft rules for the storage sites.

Oil and gas drillers use the lagoons to store millions of gallons of water contaminated with fracking chemicals, toxic metals and radium that come up from shale wells. Companies clean the water of pollutants so it can be recycled to frack new wells.

“We are putting in a process to outline their standards of construction and their length of use,” said Mark Bruce, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

A provision in the most-recent state budget requires Natural Resources officials to create rules and permits for them. Similar lagoons are common in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

Common Core test book brainwashes kids into opposing ‘big box’ stores -

Common Core test book brainwashes kids into opposing ‘big box’ stores - EAGnews.org powered by Education Action Group Foundation, Inc.

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NEW YORK – Many people see the value of so-called big box stores like Walmart or Home Depot: low prices and numerous items under one roof.

But the providers of sample Common Core-aligned tests see a more sinister agenda.

And they want students to learn about that while they’re preparing for the new assessments.

“Show What You Know on the Common Core” is a book published by Show What You Know Publishing. The Grade 6 student workbook features a fictitious article on “Megamart,” a seemingly fictitious chain (that turns out to actually exist) that wants to construct a store, supposedly in Florida.

“Mayor Ric Bass” of the unnamed town supports the store, according to the article. But many residents don’t, and one was so upset that he was injured at a city meeting where the matter was discussed. Eek!

Students then read a similarly fictitious letter to the editor in which the owner of a local store berates “Megamart.”

“The mayor admitted that Megamart is infamous for closing small businesses where it goes,” the writer, Lucidia James Pickett, states. “Local entrepreneurs cannot compete with the low prices of Megamart, and they will have to move their stores elsewhere to keep their sales up and their businesses running.”

States Considered More than 500 Immigration Bills in 2013

States Considered More than 500 Immigration Bills in 2013

While the Gang of Eight and federal legislation dominated the immigration news in 2013, a new report from FAIR finds that more than 500 immigration-related bills were introduced in state legislatures across the country. These bills encompassed issues such as extending in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens, granting driver’s licenses to illegal aliens and implementing state-wide anti-detainer policies that impede federal enforcement of immigration laws.

The report, 2013: Trends in State Immigration-related Legislation, which summarizes the trends in state immigration-related bills, notes that there was a dramatic increase in the number of bills introduced this year compared to 2012:

2013 saw a significant spike in the introduction of state immigration-related legislation. This spike can be attributed to two main factors. First, pushed by local amnesty advocates, pro-illegal immigration legislators introduced numerous bills and resolutions to complement the push for amnesty from the White House and the United States Senate.

Second, the introduction of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in 2012 inspired a host of bills as states grappled with the decision of whether to extend or restrict benefits to this new class of persons not recognized under federal law….As of August 31, 2013, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) estimated the total number of illegal aliens approved for DACA at around 600,000, while an estimated 1 million additional illegal aliens are still eligible.  USCIS has approved 97 percent of all applicants to the DACA program.

Anti-Detainer Policies

This year, Connecticut and California passed the first state-wide anti-detainer policies in the country, which:

…impede federal enforcement of immigration law by restricting state and local law enforcement agencies from complying with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer requests, except under limited circumstances. An ICE detainer request advises jails to hold aliens for no more than an additional 48 hours to allow ICE agents time to make arrangements for the transfer of the alien into federal custody for the purpose of removing the alien.

Similar legislation was considered in other states in 2013: