Sputnik – January 29, 2020

The United States does not currently have a landfill for nuclear waste from the defense industry, which is normally stored inside metal canisters buried underground near the nuclear plants where it was produced.

The United States could face the risk of nuclear contamination due to inadequate nuclear waste storage methods, a new publication in the journal Nature Materials revealed.

According to the lead scientist behind the research, Xiaolei Guo, the existing techniques are insufficient to keep waste stored safely, as the material used in the current storage methods quickly becomes corroded, raising the risk of nuclear waste leaking into the soil, water and air.

The research team carried out an experiment in simulated conditions under Yucca Mountain where the US waste repository is expected to be built. They found that the corrosion level of stainless steel, used in storage canisters, was ‘severe’ due to chemical reactions being accelerated by nuclear waste […]

via US At Risk of Ecological Disaster Due to Improperly Stored Nuclear Waste, New Study Finds

The Smoking Man / 1 day ago

Source – naturalblaze.com

– “…In May of 2019, less than a year before the outbreak began, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a press release that gave an overview of the projects that the new lab was currently working on. The projects included SARS, Ebola, Hemorrhagic fever, Lassa fever, avian influenza A(H5N1), Rift Valley fever, and others”

Biolab for “Most Dangerous Pathogens on Earth” Opened in Wuhan Before Outbreak – By John Vibes

As of Thursday afternoon, 23 million people in seven Chinese cities have been placed on quarantine due to the sudden outbreak of a deadly SARS-like virus called 2019-nCoV.

The illness is said to have originated in a seafood market in Wuhan and quickly spread to other areas of China, then Japan, Thailand, South Korea, and the United States. Suspected cases have been reported in Australia and Scotland. However, it is possible that there is more to the story as Chinese authorities have been running a censorship campaign to prevent the spread of information about the virus that deviates from official statements.

[…]

One very strange coincidence in the development of this outbreak is the fact that a new biolab, tasked with studying the most dangerous pathogens on earth, recently began operating in Wuhan, where the illness is said to have originated.

Back in 2017, just before experiments at the lab began, the prestigious science journal Nature published an article expressing concerns about pathogens escaping from the new Wuhan lab. The laboratory is a biosafety level-4 (BSL-4) facility, which is the highest level of biocontainment. BSL-4 facilities must meet rigid standards for decontaminating the area as well as workers after every experiment. However, BSL-4 labs remain extremely controversial because critics argue that these measures may not be enough to prevent a virus from escaping.

According to Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey, the SARS virus has escaped from high-level containment facilities in Beijing multiple times.

In May of 2019, less than a year before the outbreak began, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a press release that gave an overview of the projects that the new lab was currently working on. The projects included SARS, Ebola, Hemorrhagic fever, Lassa fever, avian influenza A(H5N1), Rift Valley fever, and others.

Scientists have examined the genetic code of the new virus and have found that it is more closely related to SARS than any other human coronavirus. In BSL-4 labs, researchers can tweak or combine deadly viruses to create mutated strains of the original illness. A 2013 report in Nature indicated that scientists in China were creating hybrid viruses in labs.

“A team of scientists in China has created hybrid viruses by mixing genes from H5N1 and the H1N1 strain behind the 2009 swine flu pandemic, and showed that some of the hybrids can spread through the air between guinea pigs,” the article revealed.

The results of the hybrid virus experiment were published in the journal Science […]

via COVER-UP: Biolab for “Most Dangerous Pathogens on Earth” Opened in Wuhan Before Outbreak – By John Vibes

By Donna Laframboise | Big Picture News | January 27, 2020

Much scientific research is now conducted by tribes. Some tribes think certain foods are good for us. Eggs, fat, coffee, dairy, whatever. Other tribes insist their own research shows the opposite.

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) has just published a shocking account of how the ‘eat red meat sparingly’ tribe tried to make research by a rival tribe disappear.

Last fall, a collection of systematic reviews were published by a prominent journal, the Annals of Internal Medicine (see here, here, here, here, and here). Online publication happened on October 1st, prior to the material appearing in the printed journal in mid-November.

After carefully reviewing scientific evidence concerning meat consumption, the PhDs and medical doctors involved formulated a clinical guideline, aka a nutritional recommendation, which was published at the same time. This was intended to help practicing doctors provide appropriate advice to their patients.

The short version is that most of these researchers (11 votes to 3), believe no reliable evidence justifies telling adults to eat less red meat and less processed meat. As this commentary explains, nutritional research is typically “shaky.” Studies that identify a link between meat consumption and a particular disease usually show tiny increases in risk.

The Annals had taken into account the feedback of peer reviewers both pro and con, and had made its call. To quote editor-in-chief Christine Laine, “the public should know we don’t have great information on diet.”

The JAMA article tells us that, as the Annals was preparing to publish this material online, the anti-meat tribe began mobilizing. An estimated 2,000 vitriolic e-mails flooded into Laine’s inbox during a half-hour period.

Members of an organization called the True Health Initiative contacted her at least twice. They complained about the wording of a press release the journal was circulating about the upcoming research. They also urged her to “preemptively retract publication of these papers” for “the sake of public understanding and public health” (read their letter here).

How did these people react when their outrageous attempts to suppress scientific results failed? Did they start behaving like grownups? Hardly. Instead, they complained to an agency of the US government, the Federal Trade Commission. You can read about that here in their own words.

The anti-meat tribe thinks a government body tasked with ensuring marketplace competition and fair business practices should be second-guessing medical journals. Arguing that the journal’s press release amounted to misleading advertising, their petition asked the Trade Commission to:

permanently prohibit [the Annals of Internal Medicine] from disseminating, or causing the dissemination of the advertisement at issue and require [the journal] to issue a public retraction and corrective statement regarding the advertisement. [bold added]

When that went nowhere, did these people finally start behaving in a civilized manner? I’m afraid not. Their next stop was the Philadelphia district attorney’s office. You know, the prosecutors and detectives tasked with keeping citizens safe from criminals. (The Annals offices are in Philadelphia.)

In their own press release, the anti-meat tribe said the Annals should be investigated for “potential reckless endangerment.” The journal, they insisted, had distributed “dangerous and misleading information.”

The entity that turned first to the Trade Commission and then to the criminal justice system calls itself the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. It’s unofficial motto is: if you can’t persuade people to do what you want, find a third party who’ll compel them to do so. Just kidding. It actually sees itself as leading a “revolution” – based on the idea that plant-based diets “can prevent and even reverse diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure.”

This is a lobby group, an activist organization. According to its own website, only 12,000 of its 175,000 members (7%) are actually physicians […]

via Cancel Culture Hits Medical Journals

via US Continues To Manipulate Massive Anti-US Iraqi Demonstrations and Conspirators

RT | January 22, 2020

Democratic presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard is suing two-time White House runner-up Hillary Clinton over her claim that Gabbard was a “Russian asset,” alleging that the lie hurt not just her campaign but the entire election.

Clinton “lied about her perceived rival Tulsi Gabbard… publicly, unambiguously, and with obvious malicious intent” when she claimed Gabbard was “the favorite of the Russians,” the campaign alleges in the suit, filed on Wednesday in the federal Southern District of New York. While Clinton isn’t technically running against Gabbard in the 2020 contest, the filing drily notes that the role of president is “a position Clinton has long coveted, but has not been able to attain.”

The filing alleges Clinton harmed not just Gabbard but also “American voters” and “American democracy” by pushing the baseless smear, citing “scientifically conducted opinion surveys” indicating that millions of potential voters believed Clinton’s claims due to her status as a political insider and authority figure with likely access to non-public information. Over 200 articles have been published amplifying the smear since Clinton first uttered it in an October episode of Democratic strategist David Plouffe’s ‘Campaign HQ’ podcast, and the campaign estimates the former secretary of state’s attacks cost Gabbard $50 million in lost donations, lost votes, and reputational damage.

While Clinton never retracted the inflammatory claim that Gabbard was working for the Kremlin – despite a formal request from the Hawaii congresswoman’s campaign – her representatives did attempt to retrospectively muddy the waters. After Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill verified that she was indeed referring to Gabbard with a snarky “if the nesting doll fits” after Clinton’s initial comments in October, he subsequently backpedaled, trying to claim that Clinton meant Republicans – not Russians – were pulling the candidate’s strings. The resulting “corrections” streamed unevenly through the media, confusing no one bar a few copy-editors.

The Gabbard campaign has requested a jury trial in addition to legal restrictions on republishing the smear, and also seeks at least $50 million in compensatory, punitive and special damages. The filing painstakingly lays out Gabbard’s history of service to her country, indicating that Clinton could not possibly have believed the Iraq war vet and House Foreign Relations Committee member was “the favorite of the Russians,” and must therefore have been deliberately lying. It cites Clinton’s “long-time grudges” as the likely rationale for the attack, recalling that Gabbard resigned her post as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee in protest and voiced support for Clinton’s rival Bernie Sanders after it emerged that the DNC had put its thumb on the scale in the 2016 primary contest to help the former New York senator. […]

via ‘Obvious malicious intent’: Tulsi Gabbard hits Clinton with defamation suit over ‘Russian asset’ smear

In Manhattan, the homeless shelters are full, and the luxury skyscrapers are vacant.

Such is the tale of two cities within America’s largest metro. Even as 80,000 people sleep in New York City’s shelters or on its streets, Manhattan residents have watched skinny condominium skyscrapers rise across the island. These colossal stalagmites initially transformed not only the city’s skyline but also the real-estate market for new homes. From 2011 to 2019, the average price of a newly listed condo in New York soared from $1.15 million to $3.77 million.

But the bust is upon us. Today, nearly half of the Manhattan luxury-condo units that have come onto the market in the past five years are still unsold, according to The New York Times.

What happened? While real estate might seem like the world’s most local industry, these luxury condos weren’t exclusively built for locals. They were also made for foreigners with tens of millions of dollars to spare. Developers bet huge on foreign plutocrats—Russian oligarchs, Chinese moguls, Saudi royalty—looking to buy second (or seventh) homes.

But the Chinese economy slowed, while declining oil prices dampened the demand for pieds-à-terre among Russian and Middle Eastern zillionaires. It didn’t help that the Treasury Department cracked down on attempts to launder money through fancy real estate. Despite pressure from nervous lenders, developers have been reluctant to slash prices too suddenly or dramatically, lest the market suddenly clear and they leave millions on the table.

The confluence of cosmopolitan capital and terrible timing has done the impossible: It’s created a vacancy problem in a city where thousands of people are desperate to find places to live.

From any rational perspective, what New York needs isn’t glistening three-bedroom units, but more simple one- and two-bedroom apartments for New York’s many singles, roommates, and small families. Mayor Bill De Blasio made affordable housing a centerpiece of his administration. But progress here has been stalled by onerous zoning regulations, limited federal subsidies, construction delays, and blocked pro-tenant bills.

In the past decade, New York City real-estate prices have gone from merely obscene to downright macabre. From 2010 to 2019, the average sale price of homes doubled in many Brooklyn neighborhoods, including Prospect Heights and Williamsburg, according to the Times. Buyers there could consider themselves lucky: In Cobble Hill, the typical sales price tripled to $2.5 million in nine years […]

via Why Manhattan’s Skyscrapers Are Empty — Easy Money

By Tess Owen

A huge rally against gun control is shaping up to be a bizarre meeting of the minds.

— Read on http://www.vice.com/en_us/article/akwv4k/why-antifa-is-siding-with-thousands-of-pro-gun-conservatives-in-virginia

via Why This Antifa Group Is Siding With Thousands of Pro-Gun Conservatives In Virginia — The Prestige

The Seattle City Council passed a bill Monday that establishes new restrictions on corporate donations in local elections, delivering a blow to the likes of Amazon.

The bill prohibits companies from spending money on city elections if at least 5% of their stock is owned by foreign investors. Amazon, which is headquartered in Seattle, would fall under that umbrella, as foreign investors hold at least 9% of its stock, according to Reuters.

Lorena Gonzalez, City Council president and the bill’s author, said the campaign finance restrictions would result in a “big shift” in how corporations can influence local elections.

Amazon poured a record $1.5 million into Seattle’s city council races in 2019, hoping to elect a number of candidates viewed as more friendly to businesses […]

via Blow to Amazon as Seattle passes new political spending restrictions

On Jan 15, 2020, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, along with Katarina Verrelli, on behalf of herself and others who seek access to vaccine information, filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Plaintiffs allege that Defendant Adam Schiff has abused government power and infringed on their free-speech rights.

“Who appointed Congressman Adam Schiff as Censor-in-Chief?” asks AAPS General Counsel. “No one did, and he should not be misusing his position to censor speech on the internet.”

In February and March 2019, Rep. Schiff contacted Google, Facebook, and Amazon, to encourage them to de-platform or discredit what Schiff asserted to be inaccurate information on vaccines. He then posted the letters and press release on the House.gov website.

Within 24 hours of Schiff’s letter to Amazon dated Mar 1, 2019, Amazon removed the popular videos Vaxxed and Shoot ’Em Up: the Truth About Vaccines from its platform for streaming videos […]

via Rep. Adam Schiff Sued by Physicians for Censoring Vaccine Debate – AAPS | Association of American Physicians and Surgeons

Griffith University research indicates that patients suffering from allergic rhinitis, otherwise known as hay fever, can specifically benefit from probiotic supplements.

In a study funded by Winclove Probiotics, Griffith’s research team at the Menzies Health Institute QLD found eight weeks of supplementation with a specific multi-species probiotic reduced symptoms of allergic rhinitis and medication use.

This study published in the Journal Genes, found most allergy patients (64%) responded with a clinical improvement in their QoL score, otherwise known as the quality of life scale.

Whilst noting that not all people with allergies respond similarly, Dr. Pete Smith of Queensland Allergy Services and a member of the study team said, “our study may allow us to personalize probiotic treatment for individuals with seasonal allergic rhinitis” […]

via Study Finds Probiotics Help Hayfever Symptoms — Madison Area Lyme Support Group