from ON THE GROUND (gen conservation district paper):
--water makes up 83% of our blood, 70% of our brain and 90% of our lungs. body = about 70%
--a tomato is 95%; apple, pineapple and ear of corn are 80%
--97% of world's water is salty and 2% of world's water is in ice caps
----meaning on 1% of water for human consumption
--a dairy cow drinks 4 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon milk
--first municipal water filtration works was in paisley scotland in 1832
--public water suppliers process 38 billion gallons of water/day
MI FARM NEWS feb 28 2012:
p. 8 study gives insight into antibiotics and pig feeds -- the article summarizes a study by msu and the usda's ag research service. antibiotics are used to protect livestock from disease, boost growth rates and enhance feed efficiency; but according to the article scientists don't know how antibiotics achieve the last 2 of the 3. here's a wow statement: scientists "are concerned that on-farm use of these medications may contribute to the development of strains of microbes resistant to conventional antibiotics, which are potentially harmful to humans and animals", said James Tiedje, msu distinguished professor of microbiology and molecular genetics and of crop and soil sciences. he suggests antibiotic resistances are a huge challenge for society and studies to understand what makes pathogens resistant are vital. other quoted finding -- both diversity and abundance of antibiotic resistance genes increased in the intestinal microbial communities of the pigs treated w/antibiotics. LONGER TERM STUDIES NEEDED -- some of the genes found in the treated pigs were unexpected and usually linked to antibiotics not used in the study -- microbial genes associated w/production and use of energy by microbes increased in abundance in the antibiotic fed pigs, which may shed light on how antibiotics increase livestock growth and feed efficiency -- e coli populations increased in the intestines of the treated pigs. FURTHER STUDY IS NEEDED to clarify this observation. MY QUESTION--why more study? to prolong the use and do more harm to humans?
The Washington Spectator
feb 15 2012 -- How voter ID laws suppress registration drives and block democratic votes --"IN was one of the earliest states to pass a voter ID bill, in 2077. In separate opinions upholding the law, Appeals Court Justice Richard Posner and Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer observed that attorneys representing the state of IN could provide no evidence of voter id fraud. 'as far as anyone knows', posner wrote, 'no one in IN and not many people elsewhere, are known to have been prosecuted for impersonating a registered voter.'
Justin Levitt, a Loyola Law School prof who works w/the Brennan Center for Justice, has been gathering evidence of polling place voter fraud. 'I keep an open door. I think I'm up to 11 or 12 possible attempts that people have pointed to across the country since 2000. There have been about 400 million ballots cast in general elections. . .since 2000.'
Hightower Lowdown nov 2011
Jaime Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase gave NYP Foundation 4.6 million--the largest ever given to the police foundation. odd that original spot for occupy wall street was to be chase plaza but the NYPD was there ahead of the protesters to shut down the plaza. so they settled in zuccotti park. and i like this: "This is exactly the sort of corrupt coziness between corporate abd governmental elites that has brought people into the streets".
quotations:
cnbs's kudlow report = aligned w/Lenin
eric cantor = the growing mob occupying wall street
fox = convicted criminals, methadone felons, and professional handcuff-lock-pickers
mitt romney = i think it's dangerous, this class welfare
rush linbaugh = anarchists and union thugs there is no doubt in my mind that the white house is behind this. obama is setting up riots.
rand paul = occupiers will become a parisian mob and rich people don't deserve them
glenn beck = these guys are worse than robespieerre, they will come for you and drag you into the streets and kill you...they are marxist radicals...they'll kill everybody
herman cain = don't blame wall street. if you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself. to protest wall street and the bankers is basically saying you're anti-capitalism. protesting is anti-american. these demonstrators i honestly don't understand what are they looking for?
Hightower dec 2012
-Gingrich worked w/Freddie Mac 6 years and was paid at least 1.6 million
-richest .01 of the 1% fewer that 15,000 households have 6% of all us income
-a jpmorgan chase analyst found that about 75% of recent increases in profit margins come from knocking down worker pay and benefits
- stanford university issued a map of prosperity based on family income in the various neighborhoods of america's 117 largest urban areas. it confirms the middle class decline w/nearly a 20 point drop since 1970 in the percentage of people living middle class lives--down from 65 % to 44% today.
romney = i think it's time for programs that w like but that we simply can't affort to be stopped. . .and i'm going to do that (listing the nat endowment for the arts, nat. endowment for the humanities, pbs, npr, and amtrak)
USA today--march 8
company offering to buy gov prison facilities--ludicrous--and worse yet the harley lappin was director of the fed bureau of prisons and he's now in the position to offer that buy; on behalf of corrections corporation of america, less than a yr after retiring from his federal post. WHEN in the hell is someone or enough someones going to PUT A STOP to this in america? corporations ruling and destroying america. "Lappin, appointed bureau of prisons director in 2003 after successfully managing the restart of federal executions w/ the 2001 lethal injection of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, retired last May after being charged w/driving under the influence in Annapolis, MD".
same game plan different state: while in Arizona i read the AZ daily star--article about repub sponsored bills targeting gov employee unions appear stalled in the az senate--bill to bar using tax dollars to pay for workers' union activities. intro'd by sen rick murphy repub from peoria; he introduced 2 other bills--one to ban collective bargaining w/ public employee unions and second bar using gov workers paychecks to collect union dues. last week 4th bill approved by senate: bar paycheck weithholoding for unions and other entities w/o annual re authorizations by the workers. sound like MI?
share garden: ampleharvest.org
contest = endlesssummerblooms.com
easter egg decorations: graphicsfairy.blogspot.com or thevintagemoth.blogspot.com
colors: ritdye.com
april country living: stevenson "don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant"
icicles--suggestion for good tasting tomatoes from rareseeds.com
same game plan different state: while in Arizona i read the AZ daily star--article about repub sponsored bills targeting gov employee unions appear stalled in the az senate--bill to bar using tax dollars to pay for workers' union activities. intro'd by sen rick murphy repub from peoria; he introduced 2 other bills--one to ban collective bargaining w/ public employee unions and second bar using gov workers paychecks to collect union dues. last week 4th bill approved by senate: bar paycheck weithholoding for unions and other entities w/o annual re authorizations by the workers. sound like MI?
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Governor signs dues deduction ban
Late last week before leaving for Europe, Gov. Snyder signed HB 4929, making it illegal for school districts to bargain with their employees' contract language allowing for payroll deduction of dues. The legislation, which passed both chambers of the Legislature the day after the announcement of the Protect Our Jobs campaign to preserve collective bargaining rights in the state constitution, only applies to K-12 public school employees. It has immediate effect, but allows for the practice to continue where there are existing contracts.
This is a blatant example of political retribution, with lawmakers shoving through a bill as retaliation for people standing up for their rights. MEA, along with other school employee unions, is looking at potential legal challenges to this law (now known as Public Act 53 of 2012).
Petition rule changes move to Senate
A bill to change the rules on how petitions are circulated, HB 5063, passed the House on a 64-46 vote this week with an amendment that exempted current petition drives from mandatory Secretary of State approval. The bill now moves to the Senate for consideration.
House Republican claimed their legislation is saving groups from wasting their time circulating invalid petitions. But many other groups from both sides are questioning the wisdom of putting the power of approving petitions in the hands of a partisan elected official.
Democrats continue to challenge the Republican's questionable tactics that are ramming through legislation and not following constitutional mandates. House Democrats intend to ask for a record roll call vote on immediate effect for every bill passed by the House.
Please call your state Senator and urge them to vote no on HB 5063.
Timing for MPSERS changes and budget may coincide
Look for legislation before spring break that would change retirement benefits for public school employees. An eight-member, all-Republican work group has been meeting for months looking to make reforms.
The group is looking at several solutions--one being moving everyone in the Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System (MPSERS) from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan. This, however, would require a hefty upfront cost. Another option could be to make employees pay more. School districts are now picking up 24 percent of MPSERS costs. There is $179 million in the Governor's budget to help school districts defray costs.
The goal is to have legislation to the Governor in time for the budget so school districts can have a better handle on their finances. But no legislation has been introduced to date--as bills are introduced, MEA will be providing analysis and calls to action to all members.
Republicans are distraught over what they claim is more than $45 million in unfunded liability. They don't seem to be so upset over the fact that their push for privatization and charter schools is part of the reason for that problem.
House Education Committee votes on morality issue
In a heated discussion, the House Education Committee dealt another blow to universities' "local control" when it approved a bill and two resolutions that protect religious freedom for some.
HB 5040 prohibits any public university from disciplining or discriminating against a student in counseling, social work or psychology program who refused to provide services to a client with a different religious belief. The two resolutions call on President Obama and Congress to also legislate such protections.
The legislation stems from the Julea Ward case. She was dismissed from Eastern Michigan University’s counseling program in her senior year after she refused to work with a homosexual client because she held strong religious beliefs that did not condone homosexuality. The bill is named after her.
Some Republican Committee members attempted to take the moral high ground to challenge the testimony of Emily Dievendorf, policy director of Equality Michigan who opposed the bill. She cautioned Committee members that they were not elected to legislate morality.
Snyder wants elimination of some workplace safety rules to help businesses
If you haven't seen enough bills to provide reasons to get involved in the Protect Our Jobs campaign to preserve the right to collectively bargain over wages, benefits and working conditions, here is another.
Gov. Snyder wants his administration to work on changing or eliminating hundreds of state workplace safety rules streamline business regulations.
Because there are 334 Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration (MIOSHA) rules that exceed federal regulations, Snyder wants to strip worker protections and make the workplace a more dangerous place to be.
This looks like another example of the administration favoring CEOs over the middle class.
Join ProPublica on Monday, April 9, for an in-depth conversation about fracking.
monday march 19:
well the first words out of c and j when they just got back were what he didn't eat yet? you didn't wake him up? that's going to get him off schedule. we won't get any sleep tonight. he'll be up. . . (no one said wake him up to feed by the way)
josh has disappeared somewhere
i told c we could turn right around and go home and she said they were told to get him on a schedule of every 4 hrs
i also mentioned looking a gift horse in the mouth; needless to say i'm beyond pissed. their baby; their problem
The Patriot Act You Don’t Know About
When the federal government wants some information under Section 215 of the Patriot Act—which allows agents to access “tangible things” like business records—it goes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. This much we know.
What we don’t know is how broadly FISA interprets Section 215—what information it allows federal agents to access, and to what extent the government must prove “relevance” to a terrorism investigation.
Two men who do know, however—Senators Mark Udall and Ron Wyden of the Senate Intelligence Committee—have consistently sounded alarms about what FISA is allowing under Section 215. While unable to reveal specifically what they have learned, the two Senators have repeatedly said that the public would be shocked if it knew what information was being collected with the help of FISA and the Patriot Act.
This week, Udall and Wyden wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder asking him to address this issue (emphasis is theirs):
We believe most Americans would be stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted section 215 of the Patriot Act. As we see it, there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows. This is a problem, because it is impossible to have an informed public debate about what the law should say when the public doesn't know what its government thinks the law says.
The two senators were spurred to write after learning the Justice Department wants to dismiss lawsuits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Times that seek to find out exactly how the government is interpreting Section 215.
But it’s not the first time they’ve raised the issue, to Holder nor publicly—we’ve flagged it before here, and Wyden gave a dramatic speech on the Senate floor about this last year:
In 2009, the administration promised it would establish a process for “reviewing, redacting and releasing significant opinions” of FISA, but as the letter from Udall and Wyden notes, this hasn’t happened once.
One has to assume Udall and Wyden are legitimately disturbed by what they know—it’s extremely unusual for two senators to go so public about secret information they are privy to, and especially to prod a president (and former Senate colleague) from their own party. Will we ever know what has alarmed them?
USA today tues 3-20 about voter fraud "states battle voting fraud w/epidemic of new limits"
texas new law to protect--good to note that att general greg abbott "noted that the state had prosecuted 50 cases of vote fraud over the past decade--an average of 5 cases a year". "hispanic registered voters are about 2x as likely as non-hispanics to lack a photo ID. also interesting that getting a voter ID card is free but getting one might be a challenge since 81 of texas' 254 counties have no driver's license offices; "if voters lack the document required to qualify for a free one, the cheapest alternative requires them to spend $22 for a copy of their birth certificate"
sustainablefurishings.org
thecompanystore.com
Innocent cat is shocked you blame him for mess. Shocked and hurt.
-George W. B
sunday 3-25-12
--pray for you enemies and those who persecute you--interesting since one of online articles was aghast that teacher suggested moment of prayer for enemy
--issues are important but people are more important
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