CJE Sunday News Briefs
New Health Threat: Nanoparticle Inhalation
WS – Man made, Corporate exploited and Media ignored.
According to University of Edinburgh researchers, nanoparticles could be the next big health risk, inducing effects similar to asbestos.
“Concern has been expressed that new kinds of nanofibers being made by the nanotechnology industries might pose a risk because they have a similar shape to asbestos,” explains Ken Donaldson, Professor of Respiratory Toxicology at the University of Edinburgh and a member of the research team. “We knew that long fibers, compared with shorter fibers, could cause tumours but until now we did not know the cut-off length at which this happens. Knowing the length beyond which the tiny fibers can cause disease is important to ensure that safe fibers are made in the future as well as to help to understand the current risk from asbestos and other fibers.”
The experiment
Prolonged exposure to nanoparticles results in the particles lodging themselves in the pleural membrane. Normal breathing in the presence of nanoparticles is sufficient to achieve this effect, but the researchers gave their lab rats an injected dose of silver nanoparticles in one of five defined length classes to speed things up, and figure out where the threshold lies. Then they monitored the mice using a scanning electron microscope to see what happens. According to their findings, fibers longer than 4µm cause lesions in the pleural membrane, making it difficult and painful to breathe. The pleural membrane surrounds the lungs and ‘lubricates’ the lungs and surrounding chest cavity, allowing the lungs to painlessly expand and contract. When inflamed, the two surrounding membranes rub against each other, causing excessive pain. These lesions may lead to long-term mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer associated with asbestos. More…
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United States Sentencing Commission Hacked By Anonymous
WS – Snicker,Snicker and Snicker.
The main deface has occurred some time today with signs that it was coming late yesterday.
The first signs that the site may come under attack or be already in control of hackers was a link posted over 12 hours before the main defacing showing its having a internal 500 error on its main page.
The attack on the website was a specific target as the website is the core that sets guidelines for Sentencing in united states. They have attached a pgp file that is said to contain information obtained from other systems and the file is said to be distributed to various places for safe keeping.
So once again Anonymous is doing the a job they should not have to do to make certain people listen to the general public and answer the questions they have. More…
Today is “I’m here for you day” But, you have to find me first.
Deal may end area oil pipeline protests
WS – Quoting the companies attorneys is not really reliable and this reporter knows it. This is more a standard plea bargain when corrupt courts, multi-national corporations and highly paid lawyers, want a potential threat marginalized.
The reporter is attempting to convince the readers that, a movement to stop the pipeline of over a million people, from two countries, including Tar Sands Blockade, Rising Tide North America, Rising Tide Texas and the 20 individual defendants will end because “TransCanada company obtained a permanent injunction” against them.
Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is commonly, though not always,defined as being nonviolent resistance. It is one form of civil resistance.
If the protests of TransCanadas pipeline stops… I’ll eat my ponytail!.
Attorneys for TransCanada and anti-pipeline groups reached an agreement Friday in Wood County District Court that could signal a retreat on the part of tree sitters and other demonstrators who have dogged a controversial oil pipeline crossing East Texas.
TransCanada spokesman David Dodson said the company obtained a permanent injunction against Tar Sands Blockade, Rising Tide North America, Rising Tide Texas and 20 individual defendants.
“This is a significant development,” Dodson said. “The judgment that was signed on Friday afternoon was agreed to by all of these individuals and organizations.” More…
Rio’s Exploding Manholes Menace Residents and Highlight Aging Infrastructure
WS - Aging Infrastructure has been removed from the American lexicon. Can’t comment on this one. Sorry!
RIO DE JANEIRO — David McLaughlin was thrilled to be in Brazil. He had arrived here from Ohio State University on a Fulbright grant to research Brazilian hip-hop music with his wife, Sarah Lowry, a scholar of Russian literature. The graduate students, newlyweds, set out one morning in June 2010 to search for an apartment in the beachfront neighborhood of Copacabana.
Then, while crossing a bustling avenue, the asphalt under their feet started to tremble. A fireball surged suddenly from a manhole, enveloping Ms. Lowry in flames. Mr. McLaughlin leapt on her and extinguished the fire. But Ms. Lowry had burns on 80 percent of her body and spent 70 days in the hospital here. Mr. McLaughlin was burned on 35 percent of his body. More…
Exploding Manholes Caused Several Car Fires in Soho 12/29/12
REPORTS: EXIT LOCKED AT BURNED BANGLADESH FACTORY
WS – Must help contain the fire. Why else would all the Multi-National Corporate “Sweat Shops” have the doors locked at factories they employ?
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Bangladesh’s government has ordered an investigation into allegations that the sole emergency exit was locked at a garment factory where a fire killed seven female workers, an official said Sunday.
The fire Saturday at the Smart Export Garment Ltd. factory occurred just two months after a blaze killed 112 workers in another factory near the capital, raising questions about safety in Bangladesh’s garment industry, which exports clothes to leading Western retailers. The gates of that factory were locked. More…
Welfare War: GOP’s Campfield Advocates Starving Children With Bad Grades
WS – Does State Rep. Stacey Campfield still beat his wife and molest puppies? Just curious.
A continuing push to stigmatize welfare recipients has taken a new and deplorable form in Tennessee, where State Rep. Stacey Campfield — author of the “don’t say gay” bill — has suggested that parents in families on assistance be held to a higher standard of academic excellence for their children, or face starvation.
Stacey Campbell has had it in for the poor and welfare recipients for some time, and has proposed drug testing measures in the past for those who get public assistance.
Masking his Jonathan Swiftian proposal as an initiative for “breaking the cycle of poverty,” Campbell opts to use hunger as a motivator rather than say, bolstering educational programs for at-risk or low-income Tennessean kids. The conservative lawmaker frames the myriad challenges facing financially strapped Americans as one of “accountability” rather than a years-long soft job market and skyrocketing living costs coupled with wages that have remained flat for decades.
According to Campbell, it’s simply a matter of watching their kids starve that will inspire the working poor — many of whom hold down two or three jobs and still qualify for assistance — and no educational or school-based initiatives would be a better approach than depriving already deprived children of basic nutritional sustenance. More…
The government of science
WS – You will not see this story in any US media.
No, no, no – ala -la la, ala,la la…
In the United States, the military controls much of the science budget directly [EPA]
In order to have a say in objectives of science, we must exercise some direct control over how funds are distributed.
We give huge amounts to science through our taxes. Isn’t it about time we had some say in what the money was used for?
In my first two pieces for Al Jazeera this year I wrote about the related matters of communication and money. Recent events have made it clear that democratic control of the economy requires a much greater degree of public participation in monetary policy. But it is also clear that the current organisation of knowledge in the major media makes this participation impossible in practical terms.
Though the origins and nature of money are not uncanny or complicated, the media contrive to make them a matter of deep mystery. This fact alone makes reform of the systems of communication an urgent priority.
To communication and credit we should add a third area where unaccountable power has hidden behind both real and invented complexity. In the decades since the Second World War states and their corporate lieutenants have made science into a valuable instrument for the pursuit of their interests. In the process they have denied the rest of us important opportunities to shape the world in which we live. More…
