Friday, July 07, 2017

June 29,. 2017
By Chad Livengood

Law firms (click here) have billed state government agencies $14 million for the criminal investigation and legal defense of state employees ensnared in the Flint water crisis — and the costs to taxpayers aren't expected to subside anytime soon.

A Crain's analysis of state agency expenditures found 31 individual law firms have joined the fray in defending 33 state officials ranging from Gov. Rick Snyder to low-level epidemiologists in the state health department.

State agencies have capacity in current contracts to spend at least another $6 million for private law firms defending employees, records show.

The law firm that's been paid the most to date is the one conducting a lengthy criminal investigation of how Flint's municipal water system became tainted with lead and may have been a breeding ground for a deadly bacterial outbreak.

Attorney General Bill Schuette's office has paid the Royal Oak-based Flood Law PLLC more than $4.2 million to date for a criminal investigation that has resulted in felony charges against 15 state and Flint officials, including new charges leveled last month against Michigan's top two public health officials....

What have the families been paid?

When I think about the "Alt Right"/"All White" and in the face of the reality "Peaceful Genocide," I have to ask, why did Geroge W. Bush increase the level of arsenic in the USA drinking water.

Only the poor and working poor can't really afford bottle water. We all know the socioeconomic standard in the USA to find our minorities.

May 15, 2017
By Bethany Halford

The arsenic-containing feed additive roxarsone (click here) was used for more than 60 years to promote weight gain and to prevent parasitic infections in poultry and swine before its use was halted in Europe and North America because of concerns of exposure to cancer-causing arsenic metabolites. But the additive is still used in Asia. Researchers led by the University of Alberta’s X. Chris Le and Wuhan University’s Bin Hu were...

Unfortunately, when government leaders decide it is okay to kill people, albeit slowly, there are scientists that come along and ruin it for them.

Anran ChengRebecca Tyne,  Yu Ting KwokLouis ReesLorraine CraigChaipat LapineeMitch D’ArcyDominik J. Weiss, and Pascal Salaün. J. Chem. Educ.201693 (11), pp 1945–1950. September 7, 2016.

"Investigating Arsenic Contents (click here) in Surface and Drinking Water by Voltammetry and the Method of Standard Additions."

Arsenic has been suspicious of being a dangerous chemical to the human body since the early 1900s.

Edgar B. Kenrick, Reinsch's Test for Arsenic. (click here) J. Am. Chem. Soc.190224 (3), pp 276–276. March 1902.

During the George W. Bush administration arsenic had a real comeback, not just in water, but, in medicine. Arsenic was legalized and listed as preferred for a method of chemotherapy. No lie. When asked to administer it, I refused.

Arsenic Trioxide (click here)

As well as its needed effects, arsenic trioxide (the active ingredient contained in Trisenox) may cause unwanted side effects that require medical attention.

So while being treated for cancer the side effects may kill you, such as PERMANENT decreased urine output, a more common side effect. There are no temporary side effects of arsenic.

If any of the following (click here) side effects occur while taking arsenic trioxide, check with your doctor or nurse immediately:

More common:
  • Chills
  • convulsions (seizures)
  • cough
  • decreased urine output
  • dry mouth
  • eye pain
  • general feeling of illness
  • headache
  • increased thirst
  • irregular heartbeat
  • loss of appetite
  • mood changes
  • muscle pain or cramps
  • nausea or vomiting
  • numbness or tingling in hands, feet, or lips
  • sore throat
  • trouble breathing
  • unusual tiredness or weakness
Less common:
  • Abdominal or stomach cramps
  • black, tarry stools
  • bluish lips or skin
  • blurred vision
  • chest pain
  • dizziness or lightheadedness
  • fever
  • flushed, dry skin
  • fruit-like breath odor
  • increased hunger
  • increased urine output
  • irregular or pounding heartbeat or pulse
  • painful or difficult urination
  • sores, ulcers, or white spots on the lips or in the mouth
  • stomachache
  • sweating
  • swollen glands
  • unexplained weight loss
  • unusual bleeding or bruising
  • unusual weight gain
Rare
  • Anxiety
  • behavior changes similar to drunkenness
  • bleeding
  • blood in the urine or stools
  • bluish fingernails, palms, or nailbeds
  • bruising
  • cloudy urine
  • cold sweats
  • cool pale skin
  • drowsiness
  • headache
  • large hives or rash
  • persistent bleeding or oozing from puncture sites, mouth, or nose
  • severe nausea
  • shakiness
  • sore mouth or tongue
  • swelling of the eyelids, lips, or face
  • vomiting of blood or material that looks like coffee grounds
  • white patches in the mouth or on the tongue
If any of the following symptoms of overdose occur while taking arsenic trioxide, get emergency help immediately:
Symptoms of overdose:
  • Confusion
  • convulsions (seizures)
  • muscle weakness, severe
The "Alt Right"/All White really was very covert all these years. They have been the staunch constituency to the Republican Party and for the most part have been viewed as an annoyance with dangerous outbursts of murder, etc. But, I have to admit they were far more invasive to government policy than anyone expected.

North Korea is kind of like it's own ISIS. It has unspoken networks of financial means.

North Korea has always been dependent on financial aid. China has it's biggest financier until recently. The USA used to participate with assistance to North Korea, but, that ended with "W."

September 1, 2010
By Barbara Demick

BeijingThe Chinese President, Hu Jintao, (click here) has promised the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, help in developing his country's economy, while Mr Kim spoke of his desire to resume nuclear talks during a summit in the north-eastern Chinese city of Changchun, China has announced.

The belated announcement this week about the meeting on Friday put an end to a five-day state visit that was bizarrely secretive even by the standards of Mr Kim, 68, one of the world's most reclusive rulers. Mr Kim had slipped across the border into China in his armoured train early on Thursday, eluding detection by border residents and journalists and giving a very public snub to the former US president Jimmy Carter, who was in Pyongyang to successfully win the release of Aijalon Mahli Gomes, an American held since January for illegally entering the country....

In the 2002 "axis of evil" speech North Korea reacted by reengaging it's nuclear program. It removed the UN seals from the reactor. Words do have consequences and it was an extremely foolish speech.

It was so foolish "W" attempted to back peddle from it.

Dec. 7, 2017
By Helene Cooper

Washington, Dec. 6 — President Bush, (click here) directly engaging the man he publicly called a “tyrant,” wrote a letter to North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-il, in which he held out the prospect of normalized relations with the United States if North Korea fully disclosed its nuclear programs and dismantled its nuclear reactor, administration officials said Thursday....

...The proliferation issue has taken on new importance since an Israeli strike in Syria in September, which administration and Israeli officials say was conducted against a nuclear plant near the Euphrates River that was supplied with material from North Korea. Administration officials want North Korea to disclose what help it may have given Syria, although they also acknowledge that any such assistance occurred before North Korea agreed to dismantle its nuclear reactor and disclose its nuclear programs....

56th General Conference– Nuclear Verification in Syria (click here)

...Administration officials are walking something of a tightrope between pressing hard for the declaration and compromising with North Korean negotiators to get one and declare victory. Several senior officials said they were mindful of criticism from national security hawks in Washington, who do not want to see a deal go through because they do not believe that North Korea will abide by it.

“This is like Lucy and Charlie Brown and the football,” said John R. Bolton, the former United States ambassador to the United Nations. “How many times are we going to go through this with them?”

Bolton was just an egotistical idiot.

February 26, 2016
By Heesun Wee

...A key source of income (click here) is exported commodities, namely minerals. Other sources of cash flow include exported North Korean slave labor to China, and as far away as Europe. Plus, there's a growing financial ecosystem that crosses borders and includes the use of outside commercial banks, as well as front and shell companies. This expanding financial web allows the ruling elite to move money and acquire everything, from luxury goods to weapons of mass destruction components, according to United Nations documents, congressional testimony and research by North Korea experts....

The reason North Korea is successful in building more powerful bombs is due to the influence of it's new leader's ability to obtain money. Here a highly dangerous country, with it's people suffering in poverty is receiving funds from banks that are interested in making profits. Those ideas of profits will disappear as soon as any war should break out.

..."We can't expect North Korea to bargain its way out of the current attraction to nuclear weapons," Kirby told CNBC.com. "We have to continue to prepare for rendering accountable those who defy humanity and defy the institutions of humanity which include the [UN] Security Council, which has adopted very strong resolutions that North Korea has simply ignored."...

I like Christopher Hitchens. He speaks out, often to his own professional demise when affiliated with one news media or another. But, Mr. Hitchens is a detail person to understand the underlying reality of dangerous paths.

7 July 2017

...North Korea this week (click here) took a major step forward in its missile programme after test-launching an ICBM in defiance of the world.

The test, the first of its kind by North Korea, raised speculation the DPRK is now capable of delivering a nuclear weapon to places as far away as northern Australia and Alaska, blindsiding many who believed it was some way off getting this far.

New York-based political analyst and Asian specialist Sean King said things have suddenly got a lot more serious in regards to North Korea.

"The launch, a truly successful ICBM or not, is a long overdue wakeup call that's been decades in the making," he told news.com.au....

It started long ago and now the world has concluded nuclear weapons can no longer be tolerated.

03 June 1961

President John F. Kennedy (click here) meets with Chairman Nikita Khrushchev at the US Embassy residence, Vienna, Austria. US Department of State photograph in the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library, Boston.

...On July 25, 1963, (click here) after only 12 days of negotiations, the two nations agreed to ban testing in the atmosphere, in space, and underwater. The next day, in a television address announcing the agreement, Kennedy claimed that a limited test ban" is safer by far for the United States than an unlimited nuclear arms race."...

If the non-nuclear nations work together to isolate the nuclear nation's economies and isolate them and their plutocrats, the end of nuclear weapons will come to pass.

July 7, 2017
By Edith Lederer

New York: (click here) The president of the UN conference drafting what could be the first-ever treaty to ban nuclear weapons says more than 120 countries have agreed on the text, which is expected to be formally adopted on Friday, US time, although all nuclear-armed nations are boycotting the effort.

Elayne Whyte Gomez, Costa Rica's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, said at a news conference on Thursday that "this will be a historic moment and it will be the first multilateral nuclear disarmament treaty to be concluded in more than 20 years."

In December, UN member states overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling for negotiations on a treaty that would outlaw nuclear weapons over strong opposition from nuclear-armed countries and their allies, which have boycotted the negotiations....

Economies of non-nuclear nations can join in a common market place and have great leaders that demand the end of nuclear weapons, otherwise, the isolation of nuclear powers will be implemented. Perhaps, Chancellor Angela Merkel is a good place to begin to lead such efforts. It is possible.

120 countries. The economic viability of that market place is endless. The biggest challenge is to break the bonds between China and the USA when it comes to economic dependency.

June 17, 2017
By Kimberly Amadeo

The U.S. debt to China is $1.092 trillion, (click here) as of April 2017. That's 27.9 percent of the $3.9 trillion in Treasury bills, notes, and bonds held by foreign countries. The rest of the $19.9 trillion national debt is owned by either the American people or by the U.S. government itself. For more, see Who Owns the U.S. National Debt?

China holds less than the $1.1 trillion held by Japan. Both countries have reduced their holdings in the past year, but China has reduced it faster....
Nuclear nations have one thing in common, DEBT. If they can't pay their debt, they can't build nuclear weapons.

Citizens of allied countries have no confidence in the USA Commander and Chief.

July 7, 2017
Anne Summers

At 3.15pm last Sunday (click here) I was standing in a slow-moving line at the Gelateria at Eataly, on the third floor of the World Trade Centre 4 in lower Manhattan, when I saw a supervisor move towards the women dispensing the ice-creams. He spoke quietly but we could hear his words: "We need to evacuate the building."...

...On the mezzanine I was slightly unnerved to see camouflage-wearing soldiers standing beside the NYPD, but they too seemed unruffled and that calmed us. Whether by training or instinct, these officers were managing our fear and thereby preventing what could have been a dangerous eruption of panic-driven efforts of self-preservation....

...A few hours earlier, President Donald Trump had tweeted a video of himself seemingly beating up a reporter from CNN, the cable news channel that he excoriates as a source of "fake news" for its reporting on his presidency. It was perhaps the maddest and most inflammatory of his tweets to date (and that's saying something) and it was chilling to realise that this is the man who would be in charge of calming the nation had there actually been a terrorist attack at the World Trade Centre that day.

I was reassured to see the wisdom of the crowd last Sunday. It gave me some hope to see people exude a calm control that eludes their President. While he rants, they were orderly. He incites violence, they were savvy enough to know how to stop us all from coming to harm....

...we had dined at Eataly and been more than a little discomfited to find ourselves gazing down on the two large reflecting pools, that mark the site of the twin towers that disintegrated in the terrorism attacks on September 11, 2001.

More than 3000 people died in those attacks. Their names are etched on the edges of the reflecting pools in a powerful and emotional commemoration of the horror of that day. The memorial is a place to ponder on the evil of that action. It did not seem right for it to be part of the outlook from an expensive restaurant.

Yet it is a sign that September 11, 2001, is an intrinsic part of the city's story, absorbed into daily life, making people careful but not cowed. Broadway audiences uncomplainingly submit to scans of handbags just as airline travellers accept full body scans. New York will do all it can to prevent another attack but, as I learnt last Sunday, if there's a threat, the people know what to do.

It's a shame we can't say the same of the US President.