Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 1187

Plastic-Eating Wax Worms

[image error] (Source: Federica Bertocchini/Paolo Bombelli/Chris Howe)

State of Global Garbage

Research from former World Bank urban development specialists Dan Hoornweg and his colleagues Perinaz Bhada-Tata and Chris Kennedy have found that without transformational changes in how we use and reuse materials, the amount of garbage we throw away will continue to increase and will not peak this century. While developing countries still produce the majority of global garbage, it is developing countries that are also increasing their production; they also found that the sooner Sub-Saharan Africa’s waste increase peaks, the sooner we will be able to determine when the world’s trash problem will decline.

The World Bank notes with grave concern that if business continues as usual solid waste generation will increase 70% by 2025 and by 2100 will reach 11 million tonnes per day globally. Moreover, the cost of dealing with such vast amounts of trash produced are increasing, putting enormous pressure on both governments and the environment.

Therefore, any innovative means in dealing with garbage will likely reduce these pressures and move us towards a scenario that involves a brighter and greener future. It is highly noteworthy find then that a particular king of worm (the wax worm) has been found that eats plastic – a major component of non-biodegradable garbage.

Spanish National Research Council scientist and amateur beekeeper Federica Bertocchini was fortunate to discover that wax worms that normally feed on wax in the wild also have a voracious appetite for devouring plastic. Bertocchini realised the discovery when she released a worm infestation from one of her beehives into a plastic bag in her garbage; the worms were able to escape by eating their way out of the plastic bag.The Galleria mellonella, or wax worm as it is known, can eat up to 92 milligrams of plastic within 12 hours when at least 100 of them are present.

Until now, the only use of such worms was as premium fish bait, but their new found ability could present itself as a solution to one of our major global problems. The worms are able to break down polyethylene with the same enzymes they use to break down wax in the wild.

The ramification of this great find is that scientists believe they could extract the gene responsible for the enzyme and put it into E.coli bacteria or marine phytoplankton in order to break down plastics in the wild. Additionally, large numbers of these worms could be bred and then set on plastic waste in order to help reduce it. However this latter use depends on further research to figure out whether the worms were in fact eating plastic as food or just as a means of escape.

Source: Plastic-Eating Wax Worms

5 Sustainability Resources Your Town Needs

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To be sustainable all towns need a community garden(s), a seed library, community compost, a tool library and several re-stores. New Plymouth has 3 out 5 but still needs a tool library. Hopefully food waste collection and community compost will come out of the Zero Waste proposal being developed by New Plymouth District Council.

Green World Hypothesis

My spouse and I just moved from Ithaca, NY to St. Paul, MN. I had known leading up to our move to Ithaca that it was a hippy Mecca, but we’ve been pleasantly surprised to learn about the forward-thinking resources in the Twin Cities.

At least one community garden

This one is pretty obvious, but if your town doesn’t have a community garden I highly recommend one. A community garden is a great place for apartment, condo, townhouse, and city dwellers to grow some of their own food. Plots vary in size. Small plots tend to be about 10×10 ft., but our local community garden offers 15×20 ft. plots. We are sharing one with my parents-in-law this season, and I will report back on our progress. Community gardens aren’t just a great resource for gardeners. Many community gardens set aside a few plots to grow donations for a local food…

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Soundtrack for a Revolution

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Soundtrack for a Revolution

Directed by Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman (2009)

This week Māori TV showed the extraordinary documentary Soundtrack for a Revolution about the 1960s civil rights movement. The premise of the film is that black protestors who demonstrated nonviolently to end segregation and win voting rights knew they were risking their lives – but the enduring power of their protest songs gave them the courage to do so.

The film retells the story of the southern civil rights struggle, starting with the with Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and ending with Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968. It combines great footage of mass meetings and protests, Martin Luther King speeches, commentary by former movement participants and leaders and major protest songs staged in a variety of settings (churches, concerts, mass meetings, etc). It even features a clip from a 1950s propaganda film explaining why Mississippi’s large number (greater than 50%) of Negroes in Mississippi made segregation essential to keep white people safe.

Prior to seeing this documentary, I was unaware of the major economic impact the civil rights movement had on the South. The Montgomery bus boycott, which lasted nearly a year, almost bankrupted the bus company. Likewise Woolworth’s took a major financial hit during the Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins (1960). Because black customers occupied all the seats and Woolworth’s refused to serve them, their lunch counters in no revenue for weeks.

The film finishes with a moving tribute to the dozens of civil rights workers murdered by white vigilante violence in most cases anonymously as southern law enforcement – most were never investigated by law enforcement personnel implicated in the killings) during the 13 year struggle.

The film is available at the Māori TV website for the next two weeks: Soundtrack to a Revolution

Democrats Claim Legal Right to Rig 2016 Primaries

Source: Matt Agorist

Make no mistake, the DNC admitting to having the right to rig the 2016 democratic primary is just the tip of the iceberg. If this goes to trial, America will see even more of the dark underbelly that is the American election process.

 

 

Last year, the political election process exposed Americans to more corruption and vote rigging than at any time in their history. Now, a recent lawsuit has exposed that this corruption and fraud is actually standard operating procedure.

The lawsuit, filed against the Democratic National Committee, and its former chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, by Bernie Sanders donors reveals the DNC believes its own rules of impartiality don’t apply, and they can pick whatever candidate they wish.

“We could have voluntarily decided that, ‘Look, we’re gonna go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way,” DNC’s lawyer Bruce Spiva told a Florida court.

The lawsuit, originally filed in June, accuses the DNC and its former chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz of seven different violations, including fraud, negligent misrepresentation, unjust enrichment, and negligence.

As RT reports, 

A South Florida court presided over by U.S. Federal Judge William J. Zloch heard the defendants argue a Motion to Dismiss last week, which revealed a number of surprising arguments made by the DNC’s lawyers.

The most shocking was the argument that, despite impartiality being part of both its charter and bylaws, the DNC is free to choose the nominee it wishes, and could “go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way.”The defendants’ lawyers also argued the suit is based on an “internal rule” which cannot be enforced, and that the term “impartial” can’t be defined.

 “People paid money in reliance on the understanding that the primary elections for the Democratic nominee—nominating process in 2016 were fair and impartial,” the plaintiff’s lawyer Jared Beck said. “And that’s not just a bedrock assumption that we would assume just by virtue of the fact that we live in a democracy, and we assume that our elections are run in a fair and impartial manner. But that’s what the Democratic National Committee’s own charter says. It says it in black and white.”

 

However, as the Free Thought Project pointed out last year, impartiality was nowhere to be found.

Beginning in Iowa and eventually getting blown wide open in Arizona, the fraud and suppression of votes quickly let Americans know that the DNC was set in their rigging ways.

Examples of this fraud were captured on video, documented on paper, and even broadcast live on television.

The defendants, in their motion to dismiss the lawsuit, argued that a judge cannot determine how the DNC carries out its nomination process, noting that it would “drag the Court right into the political squabbles.”

However, Judge Zlock responded by saying, “So you are suggesting that this is just part of the business, so to speak, that it’s not unusual for, let’s say, the DNC, the RNC to take sides with respect to any particular candidate and to support that candidate over another?” 

And that is exactly what voters witnessed last year.

The mainstream media was even complicit in the selection of Hillary Clinton over Sanders. As the Free Thought Project reported last year, a firestorm exploded when the AP abruptly announced Clinton had garnered sufficient delegates and superdelegates to clinch the nomination — before California even held its primary. Irate voters justifiably condemned the inexplicable announcement as premature, especially in light of California polls showing Clinton outpaced by or neck and neck with Bernie Sanders.

Whether or not the judge will rule to dismiss the case remains unknown. However, if it does go to court, Wasserman Schultz and others would be forced to give depositions. And, during these depositions, evidence from WikiLeaks, Guccifer and others will be presented.

Source: DNC Just Admitted They Had The Legal Right To Rig The 2016 Primaries

Monsanto Hires Armies of Trolls to Silence Online Dissent

By RT News
Global Research, May 03, 2017

RT 2 May 2017

 

Biotech giant Monsanto is being accused of hiring, through third parties, an army of Internet trolls to counter negative comments, while citing positive “ghost-written” pseudo-scientific reports which downplay the potential risks of their products.

The documents emerged during pre-trials on 50 lawsuits against Monsanto which were pending in the US District Court in San Francisco. The plaintiffs allege that exposure to the biotech giant’s flagship product, the herbicide Roundup, caused them or their relatives to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma, while Monsanto concealed the potential risks.

In March, a judge ruled, despite Monsanto’s objections, that the documents obtained by the plaintiffs could be released. The court papers are being gathered at the website of food-safety whistleblower organization US Right to Know.

The plaintiffs alleged that Monsanto targeted all online materials and even social media comments that indicate potential dangers of its products, according to one document released late in April.

“Monsanto even started the aptly-named ‘Let Nothing Go’ program to leave nothing, not even Facebook comments, unanswered; through a series of third parties, it employs individuals who appear to have no connection to the industry, who in turn post positive comments on news articles and Facebook posts, defending Monsanto, its chemicals, and GMOs,” the document reads.

On a larger scale, Monsanto allegedly

“quietly funnels money to ‘think tanks’ such as the ‘Genetic Literacy Project’ and the ‘American Council on Science and Health”– organizations intended to shame scientists and highlight information helpful to Monsanto and other chemical producers,” according to the plaintiffs.

The accusations are backed by a batch of emails, used in court as evidence, which were written by some Monsanto executives, instructing the staff to “ghost-write” articles and then have some “independent scientists” just sign their names under the “study” in order to reduce costs.

“A less expensive/more palatable approach might be to involve experts only for the areas of contention, epidemiology and possibly MOA (depending on what comes out of the IARC meeting), and we ghost-write the Exposure Tox & Genetox sections,” the letter’s excerpt reads. “An option would be to add Greim and Kier or Kirkland to have their names on the publication, but we would be keeping the cost down by us doing the writing and they would just edit & sign their names so to speak. Recall that is how we handled Williams Kroes & Munro, 2000.”

Monsanto, however, dismissed such allegations, claiming that the plaintiffs’ attorneys took a “single comment in a single email out of context.” The new accusations appear to be better-founded than earlier ones, which were largely based on the words of one of Monsanto’s top executives, Dr. William Moar, who reportedly said at a conference in January 2015 that the company had an “an entire department,” dedicated to “debunking” science which disagreed with the agrochemical giant’s own research.

One of Monsanto’s most well-known attempts to silence “bad” science was related to a report issued by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in March 2015. Monsanto promptly labelled the report as “biased,” and demanded it be retracted. The report said Roundup’s key ingredient glyphosate was “probably carcinogenic.”

“We question the quality of the assessment,” Monsanto’s vice president of global regulatory affairs, Philip Miller, said. “The WHO has something to explain.”

‘Lawsuits have no merit, glyphosate does not cause cancer’ – Monsanto to RT

In a response to this story, a Monsanto representative has sent a statement to RT, “confidently [saying] that glyphosate is not the cause” of cancer.

Saying that “no regulatory agency in the world considers glyphosate a carcinogen,” Monsanto referred to regulatory authorities in Europe, US, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and Australia, who “have publicly reaffirmed that glyphosate does not cause cancer.”

“Plaintiffs’ attorneys in the United States have been soliciting plaintiffs for potential lawsuits since an ad hoc working group called IARC incorrectly classified glyphosate,” the statement said, adding that “these attorneys are attempting to tie the IARC classification to individual cases of cancer, and they have been running advertisements to recruit plaintiffs. These lawsuits have no merit.”

“While IARC’s erroneous classification has attracted media attention and been used repeatedly by certain anti-agriculture organizations to generate unwarranted fear and confusion, regulators around the world continue to support the safe use of glyphosate,” Monsanto’s email to RT said, adding that the company “empathize[s] with anyone facing cancer.”

The original source of this article is RT
Copyright © RT News, RT, 2017

Source: Monsanto Accused of Hiring Army of Trolls to Silence Online Dissent – Court Papers

Canada produces 66% of its electricity from renewables

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In 2015 Canada produced about 66 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources, according to a new report. The country is the second biggest producer of hydro electricity in the world, accounting for 10 per cent of the entire world’s generation.

TheBreakAway

Source: Independent.co.uk

Ian Johnston

May 3, 2017

Canada produced about 66 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources, according to a new report.

The country is the second biggest producer of hydro electricity in the world, accounting for 10 per cent of the entire world’s generation.

About 60 per cent of Canada’s electricity in 2015 was produced by hydro with the remaining amount coming from wind, solar and biomass, according to the National Energy Board (NEB) report.

Shelley Milutinovic, chief economist at the board, said: “Canada’s hydro generation has allowed the country to be one of the global leaders in renewable energy for years.

Read more

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Venezuela: Maduro Calls for Popular Assembly to Create a New Constitution

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro called this Monday May for a National Constituent Assembly, in accordance with Article 347 of the Constitution, with the aim of preserving the peace and stability of the nation.



“Today May 1st, I announce that, in use of my presidential powers and in accordance with article 347, I call upon the original constituent power so that the working class and the people, in a popular constituent process, can convene a National Constituent Assembly … It is the hour, it is the way”, President said during his address at the great march of the working class held in the Bolivar avenue, downtown Caracas.

Maduro detailed this process is initiated to empower people and to transform the State with the creation of a new Magna Carta deeply communal and working.

“I call on the original constituent power to achieve the peace the Republic needs, to defeat the fascist coup and to make the people, with their sovereignty, impose peace, harmony, true national dialogue,” added Maduro accompanied by the massive labor force that marched to celebrate Labor Day and the labor demands achieved during the Bolivarian Revolution.

Article 347 establishes the Venezuelan people “are the depository of the original constituent power” and consequently, it can call for the Constituent Assembly to “transform the State, create a new legal order and draft a new constitution.”

“We need to transform the State, especially that rotten National Assembly that is there … Everything we do will be to strengthen the pioneer constitution, the wise Bolivarian Constitution of 1999. We activated the constituent power for the people to take all the power of the country,” he said.

Maduro added this constituent must be citizen-inclusive, and anchored in the civil-military union and not of political parties or elites. “A civic, working, communal, missionary, peasant, feminist, youth, student, indigenous, but above all a working constituent assembly, deeply communal,” he emphasized.

The Constitution in Article 348 also grants the President the power to make the call. Moreover, Article 349 of the Constitution provides that President of the Republic “can not object to the new Constitution. The constituted powers can in no way impede the decisions of the Constituent Assembly. For purposes of the promulgation of the new Constitution, the same shall be published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Venezuela or in the Gazette of the Constituent Assembly.”

Great Missions must be included in the Constitution

The President explained this call, to be made in the Council of Ministers as established by law, will have as a goal, in addition to consolidating peace and overcoming the continuing coup the opposition is mounting, “to perfect the economic, social and political system of the people.”

To this end, Maduro proposed that the great social missions, as well as the rights of Venezuelan youth, will form part of the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

“I want to constitutionalize all missions and great missions, including the Housing Mission, so that no one will ever take them away from the people … I want to constitutionalize the Health Mission Barrio Adentro so that no one can ever privatize it. I want to constitutionalize the Clap and the Food Mission. I want to constitutionalize the Great Mission Barrio Nuevo, Barrio Tricolor, along with the Housing Mission, but also I want us to update ourselves and make a special chapter to get recorded the rights of youth and Venezuelan students,” he said.

He informed that in the next few hours he will deliver to the National Electoral Council the bases of this call, so that the people’s power can choose, by direct vote, the constituents who will create the new Constitution.

“In the next few hours I will send the electoral bases of this call to the Electoral Power. It will be an elected constituent, with a direct vote of the people, to choose about 500 constituents approximately. Some 200-250 elected by the bases,” he said.

In this regard, he urged the whole Venezuelan people to stand firm in defense of the legacy of Commander Hugo Chavez, who was the first to convene a national constituent assembly in 1999, with the aim of reforming the 1961 Constitution.

“The day has come, do not let me down, do not let Chavez down, do not let the homeland down,” he said.

Debate in the streets

President Maduro urged the popular power to debate in the streets the constitutional process, with the support of a presidential commission that will take the proposal for popular bases to decide how the system of election and scope of this new process will be.

“This commission will be presided over by the constituent Elias Jaua Milano and Aristobulo Isturiz vice president of the pioneer (constituent), Hermann Escarra, Isaias Rodriguez, Earle Herrera, Cilia Flores, Delcy Rodriguez, Iris Varela, Noeli Pocaterra and Francisco Ameliah will be participating there,” he said.

The President also rejected ongoing violent acts being carried out throughout the nation. “We are the children of the greatest democrat in the history of our country, our Commander Hugo Chavez, the great founder of democracy, we are a generation of men and women forged in a debate of ideas, in the street fights, we have faced everything and we do not want a civil war.”

Source: Venezuela: Maduro Calls for Popular Assembly to Create a New Constitution

171 years ago today, Dickens condemned solitary confinement

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How far has the US come since Dickens’ visit in 1846? If anything conditions in US prisons have become much, much worse.

Moorbey'z Blog

by Peter Wagner

When Charles Dickens came to the United States, he wanted to see two things: Niagara Falls and Eastern State Penitentiary. He expected to be impressed with this radical new type of prison with a solitary confinement system. Instead, he was horrified. PPI’s Leah Sakala made this graphic to commemorate this anniversary:

source: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/201...

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The State Department/CIA Psy-Op Against North Korea

T he Haircut – A North Korean Adventure

Hokusai Films (2017)

Film Review

The Haircut is a 20-minute classic Aussie satire exposing the blatant western propaganda aimed at demonizing North Korean leader Kim Jung Un. Prior to seeing this film, it never occurred to me that constant propaganda churned out about Kim Jung Un is virtually identical to the psy-ops painting Saddam Hussein, Manuel Noriega and Bashar al-Assad as insane monsters – and used to justify US invasion of their countries.

The video begins by reviewing jathe US-directed split of Korea in 1945 (similar to the US-British directed split of India-Pakistan and of Vietnam) to thwart the establishment of a unified nationalist socialist government unfriendly to western interests. Following the Korean War (1950-53), land reforms (ie returning land to landless peasants) continued under North Korean leader Kim Jung Il. Meanwhile South Korea was placed under the control of a US puppet dictator. South Korean troops remained under the control of the US military until 1994, a year after the South Korean people overthrew the last US-installed dictator (see The Long US War Against the Third World).

The filmmakers proceed to expose a number of specific lies the CIA, State Department and corporate media aggressively propagate to portray North Korea as a dangerous rogue state, starting with the myth that all North Korean men are required to wear their hair like Kim Jung Un. They trace this particular psy-op back to the CIA’s own Radio Free Asia – which credits the claim to “unnamed sources.”

They go on to examine the oft repeated slur about North Korean prison camps, pointing out that no country in the world comes close to the US record for imprisoning its population.

The film finishes with an actual visit to various North Korean tourist sites.

Trump says he’s thinking about breaking up the big banks

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Unlike Obama, at least he has the guts to raise the issue – but I won’t hold my breath.

Breaking News, Business, Financial and Economic News, World News and Video

President Donald Trump said Monday he was contemplating breaking up the big Wall Street banks.

“I’m looking into that right now,” he told Bloomberg about bringing back the “old system” that separated consumer lending and investment banking.

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