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Arsenic-Laced Coffee - Good for You |
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Sunday, 21 September 2014 08:05 |
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Brasch writes: "You’re sitting in your favorite restaurant one balmy September morning. Your waitress brings a pot of coffee and a standard 5-ounce cup. 'Would you like cream and sugar with it?' she asks. You drink your coffee black. And hot. You decline her offer."
(photo: foodbeast)
Arsenic-Laced Coffee - Good for You
By Walter Brasch, Reader Supported News
21 September 14
 ou’re sitting in your favorite restaurant one balmy September morning. Your waitress brings a pot of coffee and a standard 5-ounce cup. “Would you like cream and sugar with it?” she asks. You drink your coffee black. And hot. You decline her offer.
“Would you like arsenic with it?” she asks. Arsenic? You’re baffled. And more than a little suspicious.
“It enhances the flavor,” says your waitress. “I really don’t think I want arsenic,” you say, now wondering why she’s so cheerful. “It really does enhance the flavor – and there’s absolutely no harm in it,” she says.
“But it’s arsenic!” you reply. “That’s rat poison. It can kill you.” “Only in large doses,” she says. “I’ll add just 150 drops to your coffee. It tastes good and won’t harm you,” she says, still as cheery as ever.
“But 150 drops is deadly!” you reply, looking around to see if you’re on “Candid Camera.” You’re not, and she’s serious.
“It’s really nothing,” she says, explaining that 150 drops, when mixed with five ounces of coffee, is only 0.5 percent of the total. She explains that 99.5 percent of the coffee – about 2,800 drops – is still freshly-brewed coffee.
Ridiculous? Of course it’s ridiculous.
But the oil and gas industry want you to believe that 99.5 percent of all the fluids they shove into the earth to do horizontal fracturing, also known as fracking, is harmless. Just fresh river water. Move along. Nothing to see here.
As to the other half of one-percent? They tell you it’s just food products. Table salt. Guar gum (used in ice cream and baked goods). Lemon juice. Nothing to worry about, they assure you.
The Environmental Protection Agency, in 2013, identified about 1,000 chemicals the oil and gas industry uses in fracking operations, most of them carcinogens at the strengths they shove into the earth. Depending upon the geology of the area and other factors, the driller uses a combination of fluids – perhaps a couple of dozen at one well, a different couple of dozen at another well. But, because industry-friendly state legislatures have allowed the companies to invoke “trade secrets” protection, they don’t have to identify which chemicals and in what strengths they use at each well. Even health professionals and those in emergency management aren’t allowed to know the composition of the fluids – unless they sign non-disclosure statements. Patients and the public are still kept from the information.
What is known is that among the most common chemicals in fracking fluids, in addition to arsenic, are benzene, which can lead to leukemia and several cancers, reduce white blood cell production in bones, and cause genetic mutation; formaldehyde, which can cause leukemia and genetic and birth defects; hydrofluoric acid, which can cause genetic mutation, chronic lung disease, and third degree burns, affect bone structure and the central nervous system, and cause cardiac arrest; nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide, which can cause pulmonary edema and heart disease; radon, which has strong links to lung cancer; and toluene, which in higher doses can produce nausea, muscle weakness, and memory and hearing loss.
Each well requires an average of three to eight million gallons of water for the first frack, depending upon the geology of the area. Energy companies drilling in the Pennsylvania part of the Marcellus Shale, the most productive of the nation’s shales, use an average of 4.0–5.6 million gallons of water per frack. That’s only an average. Seneca Resources needed almost 19 million gallons of water to frack a well in northeastern Pennsylvania in 2012; Encana Oil & Gas USA used more than 21 million gallons of water to frack one well in Michigan the following year. A well may be fracked several times (known as “restimulation”), but most fracking after the first one is usually not economical.
After the water, chemicals, and proppants (usually about 10,000 tons of silica sand) are shoved deep into the earth, most have to be brought back up. Flowback water, also known as wastewater, contains not just chemicals and elements that went into the earth, but elements that were undisturbed in the earth until the fracking process had begun. Among the elements that are often present in the flowback water are Uranium-238, Thorium-232, and Radium, which decays into Radon, one of the most radioactive and toxic of all gases.
Wastewater is often stored in plastic-lined pits, some as large as an acre. These pits can leak, spilling the wastewater onto the ground and into streams. The waste water can also evaporate, eventually causing health problems of those living near the pits, who can be exposed by inhaling the invisible toxic clouds or by absorbing it through their skin. In the eight years since drilling began in the Marcellus Shale, about 6.5 billion gallons of wastewater have been produced.
Many of the pits are now closed systems. But that doesn’t prevent health problems. Trucks pick up the wastewater and transport it to injection wells that can be several hundred miles away. At any point in that journey, there can be leaks, especially if the truck is involved in a highway accident.
Assuming there are no accidents or spills, the trucks will unload flowback water into injection pits, shoving the toxic waste back into the ground, disturbing the earth, and leading to what geologists now identify as human-induced earthquakes.
Now, let’s go back to the industry’s claim of innocence – that 99.5 percent of all fluids shoved into the earth are completely harmless. Assuming only five million gallons of pure river water are necessary for one frack at one well, that means at least 25,000 gallons are toxic.
Would you like cream and sugar with that?
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
Dr. Brasch, an award-winning social-issues journalist, is the author of 20 books. His latest book is the critically-acclaimed Fracking Pennsylvania: Flirting With Disaster, an overall look at the economics, politics, health, and environmental effects of fracking.
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Irate NSA Staffer Doesn't Like Being Filmed in Public for Some Reason |
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Sunday, 21 September 2014 08:03 |
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Cook writes: "The NSA sent someone bearing the nametag 'Neal Z.' to the University of New Mexico’s Engineering and Science Career Fair today, in the hopes of recruiting young computer geniuses to help manage the yottabytes of data it is collecting about you."
(photo: The Intercept)
Irate NSA Staffer Doesn't Like Being Filmed in Public for Some Reason
By John Cook, The Intercept
21 September 14
 he NSA sent someone bearing the nametag “Neal Z.” to the University of New Mexico’s Engineering and Science Career Fair today, in the hopes of recruiting young computer geniuses to help manage the yottabytes of data it is collecting about you. But instead of eager young applicants, Mr. Z. encountered University of New Mexico alumnus Andy Beale and student Sean Potter, who took the rare opportunity of being in the room with a genuine NSA agent to ask him about his employer’s illegal collection of metadata on all Americans. Mr. Z. did not like that one bit.
In two videos posted on YouTube—each shot from a slightly different perspective—you can watch Beale politely question Mr. Z. about NSA programs, and watch Mr. Z. attempt to parry those queries with blatant falsehoods like, ”NSA is not permitted to track or collect intelligence on U.S. persons.” As Beale continues to attempt to engage the recruiter on the legality of the NSA’s mass surveillance initiatives, Mr. Z. becomes increasingly angry, calling him a “heckler,” saying, ”You do not know what you’re talking about,” and warning, “If you don’t leave soon, I’m going to call university security to get you out of my face.”
After a few minutes of back-and-forth, Mr. Z announces, “You’re done,” and attempts to grab the phone that Potter had been using to film the encounter, literally at the very moment he says, “I’m not touching your phone.” Beale and Potter were later ejected from the facility by campus police for “causing a disturbance,” though their on-camera behavior is unfailingly quiet and civil. The officers declined to act on their complaint that Mr. Z’s phone grab constituted assault. The videos are below, judge for yourself. And be careful if you catch an NSA staffer in the wild, they’re wound pretty tightly these days.
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Why This Ukraine Ceasefire Will Stick |
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Sunday, 21 September 2014 08:01 |
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Kaletsky writes: "The war in eastern Ukraine, which has had more impact on the European economy than any news coming out of Frankfurt or Brussels, appears to be ending. Despite the sporadic attacks that have wrecked previous ceasefire attempts."
A boy sits on an armored personnel carrier as he poses for a picture during a parade in Luhansk, eastern Ukraine, September 14, 2014. (photo: Reuters/Marko Djurica)
Why This Ukraine Ceasefire Will Stick
By Anatole Kaletsky, Reuters
21 September 14
he war in eastern Ukraine, which has had more impact on the European economy than any news coming out of Frankfurt or Brussels, appears to be ending. Despite the sporadic attacks that have wrecked previous ceasefire attempts.
Investors have mostly assumed that the ceasefire would not hold, either because Russian President Vladimir Putin is deceitful and greedy for more territorial conquest, or because Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko would not accept the splintering of his country that Russia demands. But this fashionable pessimism is probably wrong.
The ceasefire no longer relies on good faith or benevolence but on a convergence of interests: Putin has achieved all his key objectives, and Poroshenko recognizes that trying to reverse militarily the Russian gains would be national suicide.
Admittedly, there is still a “party of war” in Kiev, seemingly led by Prime Minister Arsenyi Yatsenyuk, who has called on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to back his country in an all-out war with Russia. But this week’s vote in the Ukrainian Parliament on temporary autonomy for the rebel regions suggests that most of the country’s politicians have abandoned hope of winning a war with Russia. They also understood that Western military assistance is not coming.
This may sound like a grimly defeatist analysis. Yet a modest victory for Russia was actually the least bad outcome to be expected — given that there was never any chance of economic sanctions stopping Putin, for reasons explained here in March. There are several good reasons to welcome the incipient Ukraine deal:
First, this compromise is infinitely better for Ukraine, as well as for Europe, than a protracted war. Though Poroshenko has been forced to make major concessions by offering partial autonomy to the Donbas rebels, this was inevitable.
In fact, the compromise now under discussion seems close to the deal that Putin and Poroshenko were near reaching over the summer, partly in response to the German government’s appeal for a non-military resolution to the crisis. Unfortunately, potential progress was shattered when pro-Russian rebels shot down Malaysian Airlines Flight 17. This outrage forced German Chancellor Angela Merkel to abandon her role as an honest broker and simultaneously emboldened Ukrainian hopes of gaining Western military support.
Second, Putin shows no sign of wanting to extend Russia’s boundaries after absorbing Crimea and destabilizing the Donbas. Putin has proved that he will fight against any further encroachment onto Russia’s boundaries by the European Union and NATO, which he now views as an expansionist empire.
This does not mean, however, that Putin hopes to restore Russian control over countries already absorbed by the EU and NATO, such as Poland or Lithuania. Whatever Putin’s ambitions, he understands that Russia is too weak economically to compete directly against EU and NATO “imperialism.”
Rather than trying to reverse the territorial expansion achieved in the 1990s by the European Union and NATO, Putin’s record suggests a status quo leader trying to preserve existing spheres of influence.
Third, the precedent set by carving out parts of Ukraine is not necessarily catastrophic for international law in Europe. Russia’s annexation of Crimea was not, as is often claimed, the first attempt since 1945 to move European borders by military force. Borders were forcibly changed in the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Turkish invasion of Northern Cyprus and the “frozen conflicts” in Moldova, Georgia and Azerbaijan.
Finally, what about the economic consequences for Russia and Ukraine? For Ukraine, which could potentially challenge Poland as the dominant power in Central Europe and overtake France as Europe’s leading agricultural producer, the key question is how much help the EU will provide by way of financial support and technical assistance.
Ukraine’s population of 44 million is roughly equal to Romania, Bulgaria and the former Yugoslavia combined. Whether the EU is willing to devote the huge resources in money, time and manpower necessary to reform Ukraine is far more important to the country’s future than the precise terms of a Donbas autonomy deal.
For Russia, the long-term effects of the Ukraine crisis are equally ambiguous. Russia is certainly suffering from the economic sanctions. In the long run, however, it could reap economic benefits from them, while its politics become even more authoritarian.
Russia’s economy is based on exporting energy to finance the import of Western consumer and capital goods — a glaring example of the “natural resource curse” described by textbooks of development economics. Textbooks, however, often fail to mention that the resource curse is a logical consequence of David Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage: the classical free-trade idea that every country should specialize in whatever it makes most efficiently and import other goods.
Overcoming the resource curse means counteracting comparative advantage. One obvious way to do that is trade protectionism.
A country that wants to become less dependent on exporting resources must take steps to reduce its imports and support domestic production of the goods and services it wants to consume. While policies of self-reliance have sometimes proved disastrous — as in India, Argentina and the old Soviet Union — protection of domestic industries has been crucial for economic development in Japan, South Korea, China and Brazil. It also was key to the United States and Germany in their early stages of industrialisation.
Russia, in its two decades of post-Communist development since 1992, has zealously applied the theory of comparative advantage and become one of the most open large economies outside the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Its trade-to-gross domestic product ratio of 52 percent is equal to China’s, far higher than Indonesia’s or India’s and almost double Brazil’s
If sanctions push Russia onto a path of greater self-reliance, its manufacturing and service industries will surely grow faster, even if their quality falls further behind Western standards. If Putin wants to strengthen domestic industries, he will have to improve business and strengthen the rule of law.
The Ukraine confrontation and subsequent sanctions could help transform Russia from a petro-dollar society addicted to imports of Western luxury into a poorer economy that is less flashy — but better balanced and ultimately stronger.
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California Spends $62,300 to Keep Inmate in Jail Per Year, $9,200 to Educate Child in K-12 School |
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Sunday, 21 September 2014 07:58 |
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Simmons writes: "For far too many children who live just a few miles away from where my daughters are being raised in Los Angeles, going to prison is a norm. And this standard is sadly reinforced by the investment, or lack thereof, of our taxes in their future."
Money spent on each prisoner in California dwarfs what is spent educating children. (photo: Andy Sacks/Getty Images)
California Spends $62,300 to Keep Inmate in Jail Per Year, $9,200 to Educate Child in K-12 School
By Russell Simmons, Reader Supported News
20 September 14
 ever once have I imagined either of my daughters ever going to prison. Never have I had the image in my head of my children getting finger-printed, photographed and processed by police officers at the local precinct. Never have I imagined Aoki or Ming in an orange jumpsuit walking through intake at LA County Jail. This is not their reality. This is not in their cards. This is not the eventual outcome of their dream deferred.
I moved to California about a year and half ago to be closer to my two beautiful daughters. As they got older, I wanted to be part of their lives every day, and being on the other side of the country just wasn't working. I know that these two girls are blessed. Their education is best in the world. They have the best mother a kid could ever hope for and they have material advantages that other kids their age do not. However, what I admire about Ming and Aoki is that they recognize that kids from other neighborhoods, places that look more like where their daddy grew up, have tremendous obstacles to overcome that my daughters don't have to worry about. So, I try to teach them to not just worry about their own welfare, but also worry about the well-being of all children living in their state, their country and their world.
For far too many children who live just a few miles away from where my daughters are being raised in Los Angeles, going to prison is a norm. And this standard is sadly reinforced by the investment, or lack thereof, of our taxes in their future. In the state of California, we now spend $62,300 per prison inmate per year while only $9,200 to educate a child in a K-12 school. If that statistic doesn't disturb you, consider this: Since 1984, the state has built 22 state prisons while only one new University of California school. As a tax-paying citizen, I find it deplorable that our priorities are focused on expanding our prison system rather than expanding the mind of a child. As I have stated many times in the past, I have no problem paying taxes, as long as it serves to uplift people and keep them out of the justice system, rather than further create space to put more into that system.
That is why I am proud to be the executive producer of a new television ad from Californians for Safety and Justice, an organization bringing together Californians to replace prison and justice system waste with commonsense solutions that create safe neighborhoods and save public dollars. This ad, part of their #SchoolsNotPrisons public education campaign, highlights the implications of perpetually investing in prisons at the expense of our next generation. It highlights the backwards thinking that has infiltrated the mentality of the powerful. The system as set up now serves to maintain a never-ending cycle of loss. Loss of friends. Loss of mentors. Loss of the family unit. Destruction of community. Recent studies have revealed that for many kids, having a parent in prison is more detrimental to a child's health and development than divorce or even the death of a parent. Hundreds of thousands of children in California have parents who are incarcerated. Investing in prisons at the expense of our children is more than tacit approval of dismissing a generation of young children. It is willful ignorance.
We must create more winners, and keep that force moving throughout generations to come. We have already allowed huge a portion of the people I grew up with to fall by the wayside. The deterioration stops now. It's time for us all to stand up. California is at the forefront of this shift. Now is the time to join our movement and fight for #SchoolsNotPrisons.
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t exactly 1pm on Sunday, the streets of New York City are going to fill with the sound of clanging pots, marching bands, church bells and whatever other kinds of noisemakers that participants of 
