Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 1206
March 4, 2017
The Soil Solution to Climate Change
The Soil Solution to Climate Change
SustainableWorld (2014)
Film Review
This informational film, based on the French 4 per 1,000 initiative, proposes an ancient form of carbon sequestration* as an alternative to risky technological methods of carbon sequestration. There is strong scientific consensus that to prevent catastrophic global warming, atmospheric CO2 levels must be reduced from 400 parts per million (ppm) to 350 ppm.
The 4 per 1,000 initiative encourages all UN member countries to increase the carbon in their soils by 0.4% per year by transitioning from industrial agriculture – which tends to strip soil of carbon – to more traditional practices that tend to replenish soil carbon (and simultaneously increase yields: see Organic and Sustainable Farming Increases Yields by 79% or More).
According to the filmmakers, adopting the French initiatiative would also reverse the planet’s rapid depletion of top soil. At present, 50-80% of the world’s top soil has been lost due to loss of carbon. We continue to lose roughly 24 billion tons of topsoil a year due to heavy plowing and use of chemical fertilizers and synthetic pesticides. All three practices kill important soil organisms responsible for replenishing soil carbon.
This systematic lost of carbon, the fibrous matter we find in soil, also destroys water quality – largely by facilitating run-off of these chemicals into our waterways. Healthy carbon-rich soils absorb and retain water like a sponge, helping to prevent both flooding and drought.
The film finishes by exploring organic farming techniques – increased use of cover cops, plant diversity and planned grazing – that assist plants in sequestering carbon.
For more information about the 4 per 1,000 initiative see Join the 4 per 1000 Initiative
*Carbon sequestration – a natural or artificial process by which carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere and held in solid or liquid form.
March 3, 2017
Legal Weed is Doing What Trump’s Wall and a Trillion Dollar Drug War NEVER Will
Source: Claire Bernish
Vowing to be “ruthless,” building a mammoth wall, and revisiting crackdowns on federal cannabis prohibition won’t stop barbarous drug cartels or the flow of substances the State deems illegal into the United States — reinvigorating the war on drugs will, in fact, have quite the opposite effect ostensively intended.
But if he sticks to his word (unlike with that dubious swamp promise) President Donald Trump will empower the exact criminals he eviscerates publicly by keeping illicit substances the prized goods of the black market.
Perhaps the president simply has not examined the overwhelming evidence across-the-board that decriminalization or legalization focuses funds on providing help to addicts, robs cartels of viability, lowers the rate of drug abuse, and empties prisons of otherwise nonviolent offenders.
Or perhaps he has.
Because the war on drugs wasn’t meant to be won — or, at least, not by anyone but the pharmaceutical industry, the military-industrial machine, the for-profit prison-industrial complex, politicians, and, perhaps incidentally, violent drug cartels.
“We’ve defended the borders of other nations, while leaving our own borders wide open, for anyone to cross — and for drugs to pour in at a now unprecedented rate,” Trump proclaimed in his first full speech to Congress, moments later adding that, with getting tough, “Our terrible drug epidemic will slow down and ultimately, stop.”
Abandoning logic for a fear-based appeal to the perpetually paranoid masses, Trump continues heralding the notorious border Mexico border wall as a feasible method to keep the bad guys and bad drugs out of the U.S. — presumably under the premise Americans will be safer. He continued,
“For that reason, we will soon begin the construction of a great wall along our southern border. It will be started ahead of schedule and, when finished, it will be a very effective weapon against drugs and crime.
“As we speak, we are removing gang members, drug dealers, and criminals that threaten our communities and prey on our citizens. Bad ones are going out as I speak tonight and as I have promised.”
Not many would argue the presence of violent gang members isn’t desirable — particularly if they involved in violent and destructive behavior — but expecting the deportation of criminals and cartel members to somehow stifle the drug pipeline or thwart criminal activity is ludicrously negligent.
Worse, reviving the dead horse that is the cannabis prohibition robs Americans of a vital medicine not only treating everything from cancer, Crohn’s disease, childhood epilepsy, PTSD, and countless other conditions, it prevents people addicted to tobacco and dangerous opioid painkillers from having access to a potential cure.
Claiming you have the country’s best interests at heart while ratcheting up the effort to prosecute those who use a plant, for any reason, belies Trump’s actual goals of placating the somnambulant masses while ensuring excessive laws generate income for prisons, police, and Big Pharma.
“But this president can’t, as he as forcefully remarked, expect much fairness from the national media, and if he keeps promising draconian reductions in crime and especially drug abuse, and doesn’t act accordingly, it will haunt him,” writes the National Review’s Conrad Black. “The War on Drugs has largely been a fraud and a complete failure. After the imprisonment of nearly 7 million people and the spending of at least $1.5 trillion, narcotics are as readily available — and as or more widely used — and absorb more of the GDP than ever. And the United States is not blameless in the inflammation of virtual civil wars in Mexico, Colombia and elsewhere, though there were many other contributing causes in those countries.”
If the new administration sought seriously for a major victory in the war on drugs, Trump and his cohorts would look to Portugal and other countries where — although kinks are still being worked out — decriminalization of all drugs has had impressive results in reducing crime, addiction, and imprisonment.
But broad decriminalization wouldn’t keep Americans addicted to prescription opioid pharmaceuticals — thus yanking the unspoken basis for U.S. troop presence out from under that operation. Broad decriminalization, by nature, means less people would wind up mired in the boggling complexity that is the court and prison system.
Something darker than pure profit motivates political drug warriors, however — this isn’t just about the money.
Cannabis prohibition and the classification of substances as arbitrarily harmful — despite voluminous evidence even so-called harder drugs like LSD, psilocybin, and cocaine have viable medicinal qualities — represent an insidious method of control. American society tends to conflate morality with legality, thus instilling a stigma around substances, against those who ingest, and particularly against anyone struggling with dependence.
Drugs and users have been horrendously stigmatized throughout the duration of this failed political battle, precisely as former President Richard Nixon desired when he ratcheted up the war on pot in the name of criminalizing the antiwar left and being black. The worse opinion the public maintains of drug culture, the simpler it will be for the State to hoodwink the ignorant into believing the easily-refuted — such as that cannabis holds no medical value and those who partake must be stoners and amoral lawbreakers.
This pits citizen against citizen and neighbor against neighbor, as the State encourages everyone to poke their noses in the affairs of everyone else, and dutifully report anything even minimally suspicious.
Militarized police investigating drug ‘crimes’ have permission to knock down doors, ransack residences, seize assets — houses, cars, cash, savings, and any valuables — in many cases, when the activity is only suspected of taking place.
As a bellicose nation with the most bloated military budget on the planet, our choice of belligerent language aptly describes the war on drugs and its consequences — masking the need to question its validity with the somber overtones of a military endeavor.
“Instead of conducting a serious war,” Black continues, “which would entail a massive sweep of campuses and a severe interdiction of delivery, as well as a tight control of border points and the air approaches to the country, it has been easier, these 40 years, just to troll through African-American and Latino areas, round up users, give first offenders a soft ride for denunciations of their suppliers, and send 7 million of such easily replaceable people to prison on absurdly extreme sentences, and masquerade as warriors against drugs. If the anti-drug war were conducted against white middle- and upper-income-area users, and the university students of America, with the same zeal it is waged against the non-white poor, the demand for and supply of drugs would decline sharply, the obscenely inflated number of incarcerated people would skyrocket, the ranks of students in institutions of higher learning would be thinned out sharply; and practically every elected official in the country would be impeached, recalled, or hammered at the polls.”
In telling ways, the United States has surreptitiously held loyal to its Puritanical roots, sanctimoniously denouncing illicit substances on the world stage while secretly taking a toke or snorting a line behind closed doors.
This — that Americans, like anyone else, wish to be left to live life without a nanny state dictating what should be verboten — is the elephant in the drug war room.
Trump doesn’t want to end the war on drugs anymore than any other president in a succession of administrations who see value in depriving the populace of liberties while profiting off the misery criminalization brings.
No matter how tall or impenetrable the president and his supporters build this wall — no matter how tough on crime and drugs, users and dealers U.S. police forces get — nothing will ever stop these substances from circulating.
Demand necessitates supply, but rather than legalization and resuscitating the economy through businesses centered on cannabis and hemp, the carbon-copy White House has chosen the predictable, stale, and forever-hollow call to arms against drugs.
But in actuality Trump’s heightened war on drugs just another tired manifestation of the government’s war on you.
Source: Legal Weed is Doing What Trump’s Wall and a Trillion Dollar Drug War NEVER Will
photo credit: Rotational – Own work, Public Domain, Link
Study Suggests Cannabis Could Halt Progression of Alzheimers
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Researchers have found that THC (a substance found in cannabis) may help slow the growth of the amyloid beta protein, which promotes the progression of Alzheimer’s.
1. A Potential Breakthrough
Anyone who has an elderly loved one knows that Alzheimer’s disease can be absolutely devastating. The good news is that scientists may have hit a breakthrough in Alzheimer’s research.
2. What Causes Alzheimer’s?
Well, no one’s quite sure, but what we do know is that it’s the result of the build-up of two types of lesions in the brain: amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. In order to develop the first-ever effective treatment for Alzheimer’s, we’d have to find something that would clear out these lesions…
And that’s where cannabis comes into play.
3. Cannabis To The Rescue
Tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, is an active compound found in cannabis. Researchers have found that it may help to slow the growth of the amyloid beta protein, which can aid in the progression of Alzheimer’s.
4. The Basics
To break it…
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Carving Africa Up
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The Pentagon worms its way into all countries in Africa.
[SEE: U.S. Wary of Its New Neighbor in Djibouti: A Chinese Naval Base]
[SEE: Pentagon Worms Its Way Into All Countries of Africa]
A Guide To The Pentagon’s Shadowy Network Of Bases In Africa
Interactive google map that goes along with this piece linked here
March 2, 2017
Europe Votes To Impose Visas On Americans
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On Thuesday, EU lawmakers voted to force Americans to apply for visas when traveling to Europe in response to Washington refusing to allow all Europeans to travel to the States visa-free.
Donald Trump may soon find himself on the receiving end of a “visa war” that could have dire consequences for trans-Atlantic travel and European tourism. On Thuesday, EU lawmakers voted to force Americans to apply for visas when traveling to Europe in response to Washington refusing to allow all Europeans to travel to the States visa-free.
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The vote by show of hands was the latest in an ongoing “visa war” between Brussels and Washington DC, which now looks set to come to a head after MEPs today agreed that US nationals crossing the Atlantic should require additional travel documents as long as citizens from five EU countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania) are kept from entering America without a visa. A European Parliament source told Telegraph Travel this was a “serious negative step in the EU-USA visa war”.
Following today’s vote, the EU Commission now has two months to…
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11 Quotes From Trump’s Speech Exposing Dismal Reality Of Obama’s Legacy
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#1 “Ninety-four million Americans are out of the labor force”
#2 “Over 43 million people are now living in poverty”
#3 “More than one in five people in their prime working years are not working”
#4 “In the last eight years, the past administration has put on more new debt than nearly all of the other Presidents combined”
#5 “We have the worst financial recovery in 65 years”
#6 “Over 43 million Americans are on food stamps”
#7 “We’ve lost more than one-fourth of our manufacturing jobs since NAFTA was approved”
#8 “We’ve lost 60,000 factories since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001″
#9 “Our trade deficit in goods with the world last year was nearly 800 billion dollars”
#10 “Obamacare premiums nationwide have increased by double and triple digits. As an example, Arizona went up 116 percent last year alone.”
#11 “We’ve spent trillions and trillions of dollars overseas, while our infrastructure at home has so badly crumbled”
Via Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog,
After Tuesday night, nobody should have any more doubt that the U.S. economy has been in the process of collapsing. Donald Trump?s speech to a joint session of Congress is being hailed as his best speech ever. Even CNN?s Van Jones praised Trump, which shocked many observers. Jones said that when Trump honored the widow of slain Navy Seal Ryan Owens that it ?was one of the most extraordinary moments you have ever seen in American politics?, and Jones believes that Trump ?became President of the United States in that moment?. But Trump?s speech is not just being praised for that one moment.
He detailed many of the most important problems that our nation is facing, and he explained his prescription for addressing those problems.
Hopefully Trump?s words helped people to understand that our problems did not get fixed just because he…
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Putin: A Russian Primetime TV Documentary
Exclusive: Fantastic Russian Prime Time 2 HR Putin documentary
Masterskaya (2016)
English subtitles
Film Review
This film, despite being an obvious pro-Putin propaganda piece, provides interesting historical background on his role in thwarting western efforts to turn Russia into a third world sweatshop.
The beginning of the documentary, describing the plans laid by Putin’s cabinet to remove the oligarchs from power (see How Putin Outwitted the Russian Oligarchs ), confirm what I have always suspected: that his rise to global prominence relies heavily on his ability to choose skilled advisors.
This documentary also clearly conveys that he’s as much a populist as Donald Trump – though a far more skilled one. An amazingly effective speaker, his ability to influence and manage large groups is unparalleled among world leaders.
Although he tends to be extremely guarded about disclosing personal feelings, the film contains a few revealing clips from TV interviews. In one, he admits to his mistaken belief as a KGB agent that political conflict with the West would dissolve once Russians abandoned their Communist ideology. He now realizes that Russia will always have tension with the West based on competing geopolitical interests (ie competing demands for resources, markets, labor etc).
I was also intrigued to hear him discuss his enormous debt to teacher and mentor Anatoly Sobchak. Sobchak was a legal scholar and politician who co-wrote the constitution of the Russian Federation and was the first democratically elected mayor of St Petersburg. He died under suspicious circumstances in 2000.
The film’s main weakness is its total dismissal of Russia’s opposition movement as being too chaotic and disorganized for Putin to take seriously. While there is good reason to suspect CIA involvement in various anti-Putin street protests, it seems to be there would also be legitimate protest against the enormous obstacles to registering new political parties in Russia, as well as major censorship by the mainly state-controlled media.
I was also irritated by the repeated emphasis on Putin being a self-sacrificing leader with no interest whatsoever in personal wealth or power. According to various former insiders, Putin has immense personal wealth and may be one of the richest men in the world. See Putin Corruption: Five Things We Learned About the President’s Secret Wealth
March 1, 2017
Michigan Bill Would Allow People To Opt Out Of Smart Meters, Undermine Federal Program
Source: Tenth Amendment Center
A bill introduced in the Michigan House would allow customers to opt out of installing “smart meter” technology on their homes and businesses. Passage of this bill would allow Michigan residents to protect their own privacy [to say nothing of protecting themselves against brain tumors and other serious health problems linked to smart meters – see Doctor Explains How Smart Meters are a Serious Risk to Your Health], and it would take a step toward blocking a federal program in effect.
Rep. Gary Glenn (R-Midland) introduced House Bill 4220 (HB4220) along with 17 bipartisan co-sponsors on Feb. 15. The legislation would allow Michigan residents to opt out of any utility company smart meter program with no penalty.
Smart meters monitor home energy usage in minute detail in real time. The devices transmit data to the utility company were it gets stored in databases. Anybody with access to the data can download it for analysts. Without specific criteria limiting access to the data, these devices create significant privacy issues. Smart meters can also be used to remotely limit power usage during peak hours.
HB4220 provides a comprehensive smart meter opt-out right for utility customers.
A utility shall not do any of the following:
(a) Make the provision of any portion of utility service to a customer contingent on the customer receiving service through any meter or similar device other than a traditional meter. a utility may prohibit a customer with a traditional meter from participating in certain time-of-day tariff discounts.
(b) Except as otherwise provided in this section, impose any fee or disincentive on a customer for opting out of or not accepting the installation of an advanced meter or hub meter or the use of an advanced meter function.
(c) Install an advanced meter or upgrade the functionality of the advanced meter after the effective date of the amendatory act that added this section unless the customer has been properly notified and has not opted out of the installation or upgrade.
The legislation would also require utility companies to give customers 45 days notice before installing smart meter technology with a right to decline installation. If a smart meter were installed before the legislation was enacted, the utility company would have to remove it free of charge.
PRIVACY CONCERNS
The proliferation of smart meters creates significant privacy concerns. The data collected can tell anybody who holds it a great deal about what goes on inside a home. It can reveal when residents are at home, asleep or on vacation. It can also pinpoint “unusual” energy use, and could someday serve to help enforce “energy usage” regulations. The ACLU summarized the privacy issues surrounding smart meters in a recent report.
“The temptation to use the information that will be collected from customers for something other than managing electrical loads will be strong – as it has been for cell phone tracking data and GPS information. Police may want to know your general comings and goings or whether you’re growing marijuana in your basement under grow lights. Advertisers will want the information to sell you a new washing machine to replace the energy hog you got as a wedding present 20 years ago. Information flowing in a smart grid will become more and more ‘granular’ as the system develops.”
The privacy issues aren’t merely theoretical. According to information obtained by the California ACLU, utility companies in the state have disclosed information gathered by smart meters on thousands of customers. San Diego Gas and Electric alone disclosed data on more than 4,000 customers. The vast majority of disclosures were in response to subpoenas by government agencies “often in drug enforcement cases or efforts to find specific individuals,” according to SFGate.
“Mark Toney, executive director of the Utility Reform Network watchdog group, said the sheer number of data disclosures made by SDG&E raised the possibility that government agencies wanted to sift through large amounts of data looking for patterns, rather than conducting targeted investigations.”
Refusing to allow a smart meter on your property is the only sure-fire way to ensure your energy use data won’t fall into the hands of government agents or private marketers, or end up stored in some kind of government database. Passage of HB4220 would make opting out a legal option for New Yorkers and give them control over their own privacy.
IMPACT ON FEDERAL PROGRAMS
The federal government serves as a major source of funding for smart meters. A 2009 program through the U.S. Department of Energy distributed $4.5 billion for smart grid technology. The initial projects were expected to fund the installation of 1.8 million smart meters over three years.
The federal government lacks any constitutional authority to fund smart grid technology. The easiest way to nullify such programs is to simply not participate. HB4220 would make that possible. If enough states pass similar legislation, and enough people opt out, the program will go nowhere. Opting out follows a strategy James Madison advised in Federalist #46. “Refusal to cooperate with officers of the Union” provides a powerful means to fight back against government overreach. Such actions in multiple states would likely be effective in bringing down federal smart meter programs.
UP NEXT
HB4220 will need to pass the House Committee On Energy Policy before it can be considered by the full House. Stay in touch with our Tenther Blog and our Tracking and Action Center for the latest updates.
Source: Michigan Bill Would Allow People To Opt Out Of Smart Meters, Undermine Federal Program
Doctors could prescribe houses to the homeless under radical Hawaii bill
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Hawaii state senator Josh Green (who is also a physician) has introduced a bill to reduce state medical costs by classifying homelessness as a medical condition and allowing doctors to prescribe houses for it.
Newly introduced bill would classify homelessness as a medical condition, as research suggests healthcare spending falls when people have been housed
by Liz Barney in Honolulu
One day last month, Stephen Williams asked a passerby for help and then collapsed on the sidewalk. When the ambulance arrived in downtown Honolulu, his temperature was well over 104F.
A life-threatening staph infection had entered his bloodstream. Williams, who lives on the dusty streets of Chinatown, spent seven days hooked to an IV, treatment that can cost $40,000, according to the hospital that admitted him. But Williams didn’t pay: the bill was covered by government dollars in the form of Medicaid. Over the past four years, he has been to the hospital for infections 21 times, he said, a consequence of psoriasis flare-ups in a humid climate and unsanitary conditions.
Cases such as these have prompted a groundbreaking new proposal in Hawaii…
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Shell Knew Too. Oil Giant’s 1991 Film Warned of Climate Change
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Shell Oil’s farsighted 1991 film, titled Climate of Concern, set out with crystal clarity how the world was warming and that serious consequences could well result.
Climate Denial Crock of the Week
Props for making the film.
Somewhat deficient in follow up.
Climate change “at a rate faster than at any time since the end of the ice age – change too fast perhaps for life to adapt, without severe dislocation”. That was the startling warning issued by the oil giant Shell more than a quarter of a century ago.
The company’s farsighted 1991 film, titled Climate of Concern, set out with crystal clarity how the world was warming and that serious consequences could well result.
“Tropical islands barely afloat even now, first made inhabitable, and then obliterated beneath the waves … coastal lowlands everywhere suffering pollution of precious groundwater, on which so much farming and so many cities depend,” says the film’s narrator, over disturbing images of people affected by natural disasters and famine. “In a crowded world subject to such adverse shifts of climate, who would take care of…
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The Most Revolutionary Act
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