October 15, 2015

Monsanto hid Roundup’s Cancer Risk According to California Lawsuit

Not that it is a stranger to product liability considering it was the primary maker of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, but St. Louis-based chemical giant Monsanto may be facing a plethora of class-action lawsuits over one of its flagship products, Roundup weed killer. In March, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the herbicide in Roundup, glyphosate, a “probable human carcinogen.” The declaration was followed-up by several countries banning or severely restricting the use of glyphosate, including the Netherlands, Bermuda, and Sri Lanka, with France banning it for use in gardens in June. Glyphosate is the world’s most common herbicide, with the most recent data from the U.S. Geological Survey estimating that 280 million pounds of it was used in the U.S. in 2012. Out of the 130 countries that still permit the product; the U.S. is by far the Monsanto’s largest consumer with over 20 percent of global sales. That may change, however, as California has followed the WHO’s lead earlier in the month. The state’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) issued a “notice of intent” that it will also list glyphosate as a probable carcinogen, which is required by the state’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 for any product that the WHO’s cancer division lists as a carcinogen. The OEHHA classification requires companies with 10 or more employees in the state to provide a “clear and reasonable warning” of any product on the list of its dangers.

Mere weeks after the designation was announced, former California field worker Enrique Rubio filed a lawsuit against Monsanto in Central California Federal Court on September 22nd, claiming that his 1995 bone cancer diagnosis at the age of 38 was caused by years of using Roundup commercially as part of his job, first in Oregon during the late 1980s, and then in California and Texas during the early 1990s. In the lawsuit, Rubio states his belief that his cancer was caused by spraying roundup in the fields attended on an average basis of two days a week year-round with a hand pump while driving a tractor and wearing a paper facemask. The complaint references Monsanto’s “prolonged campaign of misinformation” regarding glyphosate, adding that “Agricultural workers are, once again, victims of corporate greed. Monsanto assured the public that Roundup was harmless. In order to prove this, Monsanto championed falsified data and attacked legitimate studies that revealed its dangers.” Rubio has been unable to work due to his diagnosis, and says in the suit that he “has suffered and continues to suffer grave injuries.” Rubio is seeking compensatory and punitive damages to help with his economic losses, citing strict liability for knowingly marketing a product with a design defect, failure to warn consumers of the product’s risks, as well as willful negligence and breach of implied warrantee.

The lawsuit is alleging that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) discovered that two laboratories hired by Monsanto to conduct safety testing of Roundup falsified data, first over a 1976 test in which three lab executives were convicted of fraud after the EPA audited its data, and again regarding a 1991 test in a different lab, also leading to three employees being convicted of fraudulent laboratory practices. Despite discovering the evidence of fraud, the EPA still changed its 1985 classification of glyphosate from “possibly carcinogenic” in 1991 to “evidence of non-carcinogenicity in humans,” (Group E), which includes the caveat that the grouping does not imply that the product definitively will not cause cancer in any circumstance. In addition to the multitude of international cancer studies, Roundup has also been linked to “chronic kidney and liver diseases, diabetes, heart disease, hypothyroidism, and leaky gut syndrome,” according to the Center of Research on Globalization. The lawsuit also points to studies that demonstrate traces of glyphosate in food, as well as in the urine of farm workers, and even in “urban dwellers who are not in direct contact with glyphosate.”

Although California’s pioneering classification in the U.S. may prompt a change by the federal regulators, the EPA continues to assert that the product is safe and environmentally friendly. Upon learning about the notice of intent, celebrity activist Erin Brockovich, of the eponymous award-winning 2000 film, posted on her Facebook account, “Monsanto had a bad day yesterday … It’s finally the beginning of the end.” Brockovich’s declaration may be premature, however, given the alleged coziness between the EPA and Monsanto, and the effectiveness of the chemical lobby. In an interview with Agri-Pulse, company spokesperson Charla Lord said, “Glyphosate is an effective and valuable tool for farmers and other users, including many in the State of California. During the upcoming comment period, we will provide detailed scientific information to OEHHA about the safety of glyphosate and work to ensure that any potential listing will not affect glyphosate use or sales in California.” Other activists are comparing Monsanto’s treatment of Roundup similarly to the tobacco lawsuits over the past 20 years, noting that it wasn’t the products’ original levels of harmfulness that was the cause for guilt, but the fact that companies concealed knowledge of the dangers for years. Much like tobacco, as global health studies continue to contradict Monsanto’s claims, the Rubio lawsuit may force the company to provide enough documentation to prove the plaintiff’s claim of foreknowledge. If that happens, the amount of class-action suits, as well as potential settlement size, may rival Big Tobacco.

http://www.legalreader.com/monsanto-hid-roundups-cancer-risk-according-to-california-lawsuit/

October 15, 2015

Fuming Bernie supporters: Why is CNN deleting our comments?

Seeing their comments repeatedly deleted by CNN, Bernie Sanders supporters are hopping mad today.

Already feeling the news network’s coverage had become rabidly pro-Hillary in the aftermath of last night’s debate, Facebook users leaving reactions on CNN’s page are now continually re-posting them, knowing they will be quickly removed. There are hundreds in a seeming battle with the network, with no explanation as to why.

Some users and messages appear to be specifically targeted, especially those accusing CNN of having conflicts of interest that make it naturally inclined to back Hillary.

In particular, they’re citing last night’s initial Facebook poll data showing Bernie had won the debate handily. They are claiming the network is now burying that information in today’s coverage.

http://mediaequalizer.com/brian-maloney/2015/10/fuming-bernie-supporters-why-is-cnn-deleting-our-comments

October 15, 2015

The RIP Bullet

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October 14, 2015

Chinese middle class now the world's largest

Source: AFP

China's middle class has overtaken the United States to become the world's largest, Credit Suisse said Tuesday in its latest report on global wealth.

Asia will be the scene for the greatest expansion of the world's middle class, it predicted.

The Swiss bank said with 109 million adults "this year, the Chinese middle class for the first time outnumbered" that in the United States at 92 million.

While the number of middle class worldwide grew last year at a slower pace than the wealthy, it "will continue to expand in emerging economies overall, with a lion's share of that growth to occur in Asia," Credit Suisse chief executive Tidjane Thiam said in a statement accompanying the bank's annual Global Wealth Report.

Read more: https://in.news.yahoo.com/chinese-middle-class-now-worlds-152813920.html

October 13, 2015

Anyone have a clue why there's three names for the "terrorist" in Iraq and Syria.

Politicians and pundits regularly use three names.

ISIS/ Daesh/ ISIS

I'm guessing there is a nuance I'm missing.

October 13, 2015

Israelis killed in Jerusalem bus stabbing and car ramming

Source: Guardian UK

Two Palestinians armed with a knife and a gun have launched a deadly attack on a Jerusalem bus, killing two Israelis and injuring three more in the worst day of violence since the start of the current escalation in tensions.

In an almost simultaneous attack in a Jewish neighbourhood of the city on Tuesday morning, an assailant rammed a car at speed into a bus stop before stabbing bystanders, killing one and injuring two others.

Footage showed those waiting at the stop thrown into the air and the driver, a man in a blue T-shirt, running from the car with what appears to be a meat cleaver and hacking at one of the people knocked down. He moved on to start attacking an older looking ultra-orthodox man before being shot by a security guard.

Amid calls by Jerusalem’s mayor, Nir Barkat, to seal Palestinian neighbourhoods of the city, the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, is to meet in an emergency session with his security cabinet to consider his response later on Tuesday.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/13/jerusalem-bus-stabbing-escalation-in-violence-israel-palestine

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Video of the horrific car attack. Warning extreme violence and death

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=372_1444745300

October 13, 2015

Man hit by 16-pound pine cone in S.F. park files $5 million suit

tourist visiting the Bay Area for Fleet Week last year was doing nothing more than reading and napping under a tree in a federal waterfront park in San Francisco when a 16-pound pine cone fell on him and crushed his skull, his lawyer said Monday.

Now, Sean Mace, a U.S. Navy veteran, is suing the U.S. government, the National Park Service, the Department of the Interior and San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park where he was injured for $5 million in the hopes of changing policies so that no one else falls victim to the same type of bizarre incident.

“This guy has an irreversible brain injury and he’s only in his mid-50s,” said Scott Johnson, a San Francisco attorney representing Mace in the lawsuit. “He’s had two surgeries already and he is going to need a third.”

Mace went to the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park at the Fort Mason Center on Oct. 12, 2014, to find a spot to watch the Blue Angels air show. He found himself what he thought was a peaceful place to read and rest in the northeast corner of the park under a stand of coniferous Araucaria bidwillii trees, more commonly known as bunya pines or false monkey puzzle trees, according to the lawsuit filed Sept. 4 in San Francisco federal court.

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Man-hit-by-16-pound-pine-cone-in-S-F-park-files-6567225.php

October 13, 2015

Israel vows to defeat 'knife terror' after new attacks

Source: AFP

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Monday that Israel would not bow to "knife terror" while four stabbings in Jerusalem gave no sign of Palestinian unrest slowing.

Frustrated Palestinian youths have defied president Mahmud Abbas as well as an Israeli crackdown by staging violent protests in annexed east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, while 18 stabbings have targeted Jews since October 3.

There have been warnings of the risk of a full-blown uprising, or Palestinian intifada.

The stabbings have killed two Israelis and wounded about 20, including a 13-year-old critically injured on Monday.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/three-jersualem-stabbings-spread-more-fear-135015052.html

October 13, 2015

Tourists record great white shark devouring seal near Alcatraz

Savage nature was on display when a great white shark devoured a seal just a few feet off Alcatraz Island in full view of gawking tourists, the first attack by the ferocious finned predator in the modern history of San Francisco Bay.

The bloody spectacle over the weekend was proof that one of the most feared beasts of prey in the ocean sometimes takes feeding forays into bay waters that swimmers, windsurfers and kayakers frequent. Some believe it was also a sign that this year’s robust El Niño is driving sharks northward into uncharted territory.

The attack was recorded in all its gory detail by a tourist standing on a dock, complete with the superlative-laced exclamations of a boy who had a once-in-a-lifetime view of the carnage.

“That’s a great white! Holy crud!” yelled the boy in the video taken by tourist Meredith Coppolo Shindler, which showed the telltale dorsal fin skimming around a deep red plume of blood left by the butchered pinniped.

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Tourists-record-great-white-shark-devouring-seal-6566229.php

October 12, 2015

Controversy after scientist finds rare bird -- and kills it

When scientists start to fight, I try to take a ringside seat.

I know they won't throw punches. Instead, they will brandish higher-grade weapons such as intellectual and moral superiority.

And so it is in the case of Chris Filardi. He's the director of Pacific Programs at the American Museum of Natural History.

Last month, he was in the Solomon Islands with other researchers. They first heard, then espied the rare male moustached kingfisher.

Then, as the Dodo reports, the beautiful orange and blue bird was "collected as a specimen for additional study." This turns out to have been a slight euphemism for "killed for additional study."

Filardi wasn't universally popular for this decision. He took to Audubon to write: "Why I Killed A Rare Kingfisher So That I Could Study It And Become More Famous." Wait, no. His article was headlined: "Why I Collected a Moustached Kingfisher." (The comments section to this article is well worth a read.)

http://www.cnet.com/news/controversy-after-scientist-finds-rare-bird-and-kills-it/