*growl* I haven't read the specifics of this but god, I cannot believe there isn't more to this than meets the eye. My little pea brain can't wrap around something like that. How could this happen? Doesn't it feel sometimes like we're going backwards???

P.s. Signing petitions!

It always amazes me to see which animals folks get upset about being slaughtered. Slaughter cows, sheep, goats, chickens, turkeys, game hens, deer (yes deer are raised for slaughter) pigs, buffalo in ways that will make you puke.........but hey........shrug.....we like eating those critters in the US

but horses.........oh hell no.........shaking my head....don't be eating my friend Flicka..........

and then there is dogs and cats which are human food in many parts of the world.......

I will be willing to bet horse will be on the menu of some fancy dancy $$$$$$$$$ restaurant soon. And I would be willing to bet many a farmer/rancher/poor person has eaten horse particularly in those hard hard times.

They are being slaughtered most likely for dog/cat/? food and glue (hooves) and for their hides. At least historically that has been the uses of slaughtered horses.

I think ALL, EVERY slaughter house should be humane and clean. ....many in the country are not.

Your American horses were being slaughtered anyway - except they had to endure long trips to Canada or Mexico first.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/he...-official.html

Health Official Takes Parting Shot at ‘Waste’
By ROBERT PEAR
Published: December 3, 2011

WASHINGTON — The official in charge of Medicare and Medicaid for the last 17 months says that 20 percent to 30 percent of health spending is “waste” that yields no benefit to patients, and that some of the needless spending is a result of onerous, archaic regulations enforced by his agency.
Enlarge This Image
Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg News

Dr. Donald M. Berwick testifying before the Senate Finance Committee in November 2010.

The official, Dr. Donald M. Berwick, listed five reasons for what he described as the “extremely high level of waste.” They are overtreatment of patients, the failure to coordinate care, the administrative complexity of the health care system, burdensome rules and fraud.

“Much is done that does not help patients at all,” Dr. Berwick said, “and many physicians know it.”

Just another reason for single payer health care using the Veterans Administration Model. You never will find this kind of waste (if even half of it is true) in the VA system. The VA provides cost-effective health care with no one but your doctor deciding what treatment, tests, procedures, surgery and drugs you need. There is no waiting for approval of a test, procedure or treatment in the VA system. The VA has the highest rated satisfaction surveys of ALL health care providers/systems in the country. The VA provides the most cost effective care in the country.

The VA negotiates drug prices with drug companies.....medicare/medicaid cannot do this....there is no donut hole....there is no need for supplemental health insurance that only provides profit for big pharma and big for-profit health care.

Single payer financing of health care based on the Veteran's Administration model. If it's good enough for veterans, it's good enough for every person living in this country.

I like my meat. I eat it no more than twice a week because I believe it is a selfish food that should be consumed in extreme moderation. Just the grain alone we use to feed the alarming number of animals raised for consumption would feed (hopefully reach) so many more people than the meat will. The factory ranches and farms are humungous consumers of fossil fuel and prolific producers of poisonous wastes. That is my only reason for lowering my meat consumption as much as I am comfortable doing. What moved me about the article was this "The way it works is that ever since 2005, there has been a section of the Agriculture appropriations bill that de-funds (to wit, bars the expenditure of taxpayers’ dollars on) a program for the USDA to inspect foreign-owned horse plants. Now that the de-funding law has been deleted, supporters...will go back to lobbying Congress for millions of dollars annually to run the inspection program...The simple question is: do we want our tax dollars spent to inspect horses...so foreign owners of slaughter plants can profit? In the midst of a recession when other crucial programs such as Medicare and education are suffering deep cuts, the answer is a resounding, “no.” That's what moved me. But honestly I don't know enough about the horse slaughtering business to judge if it is true or not. I do believe we should consider our meat consumption carefully no matter the type.

This is so not over...
 

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/426391/thu...T-large570.jpg

TOKYO — Japan's crippled nuclear power plant leaked about 45 tons of highly radioactive water from a purification device over the weekend, its operator said, and some may have drained into the ocean. The leak is a reminder of the difficulties facing Tokyo Electric Power Co. as it tries to meet its goal of bringing the tsunami-damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant to a cold shutdown by year's end.

A pool of radioactive water was discovered midday Sunday around a decontamination device, TEPCO said in a statement on its website. After the equipment was turned off, the leak appeared to stop. Later, workers found a crack in a concrete barrier leaking the contaminated water into a gutter that leads to the ocean. TEPCO estimated about 300 liters leaked out before the crack was blocked with sandbags.

Officials were checking whether any water had reached the nearby ocean. The leakage of radioactive water from the Fukushima plant into the Pacific Ocean in the weeks after the March 11 accident caused widespread concern that seafood in the coastal waters would be contaminated.

The pooled water around the purification device was measured Sunday at 16,000 bequerels per liter of cesium-134, and 29,000 bequerels per liter of cesium-137, TEPCO said. That's 270 times and 322 times higher, respectively, than government safety limits, according to the Citizens' Nuclear Information Center in Tokyo.

Cesium-137 is dangerous because it can last for decades in the environment, releasing cancer-causing radiation. The half-life of cesium-134 is about two years, while the half-life of cesium-137 is about 30 years. TEPCO is using the purification devices to decontaminate water that has been cooling the reactors. Three of the plant's reactor cores mostly melted down when the March 11 tsunami knocked out the plant's cooling system.

Radiation and Thyroid Cancer
 

As one who had my thyroid removed due to cancer (passed 10-year mark now, so considered cured) I know what to expect in Japan (and perhaps farther away) following this accident. This is a true tragedy. The aftereffects will be felt for years, for everyone.

The US also has caused its fair share of thyroid cancers due to all of the above ground testing that took place in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Obviously, this subject is near and dear to my heart and one I follow fairly regularly.

The US and above ground nuclear weapons testing
The first above-ground nuclear weapon test was conducted by the U.S. in southeastern New Mexico on July 16, 1945. Between 1945 and 1963, hundreds of above-ground blasts took place around the world. The number and size (yield) of blasts increased, particularly in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Following the signing of the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963 by the U.S., U.S.S.R., and Great Britain, most above-ground blasts ceased. The ambient radiation monitoring systems in place at the time recorded sharp increases in atmospheric radiation as the number and size of the blasts increased (Some above-ground weapons testing by other countries continued until 1980.)

NIH and the Individual Dose and Risk Calculator for Nevada Test Site fallout
This calculator estimates the radiation dose from I-131 absorbed by your thyroid gland from nuclear tests conducted at the Nevada Test Site (NTS). The calculator estimates your risk of thyroid cancer from this exposure. This calculator also provides an estimate of probability of causation/assigned share (PC/AS) for individuals who have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

Testing was conducted at the NTS from 1951 through 1992. However, only the above-ground tests conducted from 1951 through 1962, and some of the underground tests conducted from 1961 through 1970, are included in this calculator.

https://ntsi131.nci.nih.gov/

Chernobyl and Thyroid cancer
"For the last two decades, attention has been focused on investigating the association between exposure caused by radionuclides released in the Chernobyl accident and late effects, in particular thyroid cancer in children. Doses to the thyroid received in the first few months after the accident were particularly high in those who were children and adolescents at the time in Belarus, Ukraine and the most affected Russian regions and drank milk with high levels of radioactive iodine. By 2005, more than 6,000 thyroid cancer cases had been diagnosed in this group, and it is most likely that a large fraction of these thyroid cancers is attributable to radioiodine intake. It is expected that the increase in thyroid cancer incidence due to the Chernobyl accident will continue for many more years, although the long-term increase is difficult to quantify precisely."

http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html

The U.S. has caused its fair share of most, if not all cancers. The crap in our air, soil/agriculture practices, water. Horrendous.

I'm sorry you experienced this first hand.

<--- had hys own bout with cancer at age 40.

I agree completely, every slaughter house should be humane and clean. Most are not.

When I posted this link, it was because it was breaking news. Posting this does not mean I am ignorant to the atrocities that are happening to other animals, or the fact that these practices were and are being used with horses and other animals shipped from the U.S to countries with more lenient policies, or that I value the humane treatment of one species over another.

Bottom line... This is just another horrifying practice involving animal abuse for the sake of $$.

Occasionally I lose hope in our ability to evolve. Devolving seems too often the characteristic of modern humans.

It's not even close to over, yet there is a media blackout here in the US. No surprise, corporations who build and maintain nuclear power plants here have the means and power to make sure the media stays quiet.

My cervical cancer was the direct result of DES in vitamins prescribed to pregnany women in the 1950's that had had earlier miscarriages or still births. I'm fine, it has been over 25 years now since dealing with this. Thousands of women of my generations have had to deal with this. Then post the 60's development of oral contraceotion, the levels of breast cancers related to the levels of estrogen in them began (including for my mother).

The problem is that most of the kinds of cancers that arise due to environmental exposure or by prescription and OTC drugs take years to develop. By the time we have evidence of causation, there are generations already in danger.

I decided to go to the website and calculate what my risk was based on how many glasses of milk I drank as a kid, raised in New Jersey and this is what it calculated for me:

"Since you reported that you were diagnosed with a thyroid cancer in the year 2000, you may be interested in the likelihood that your exposure and your disease are related.

We estimate that, in a very large population of individuals with your age and sex, with exposure histories similar to yours, about 34% of all thyroid cancers diagnosed in the year 2000 would not have occurred in the absence of exposure.

This percentage represents the individual "share" of the total exposure-related increase. Thus, your "assigned share" of the estimated increase due to exposure (also loosely known as "probability of causation") is 34%."

I agree with what you are saying here when it comes to medication. I strongly disagree that our government doesn't have clear evidence of cancer being caused right now by a slew of environmental situations that they ignore. Every. Single. Day. But that is just my belief.

I would write more if I was not on my iPhone.

Belgium Becomes The Second Modern Nation With A Gay Leader



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15983739

I am grateful to all who posted comments on this story. It did me good to see/hear so much vigilance and desire for change.

I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's Disease a few years ago. I have had a mass on my thyroid, and after a series of FNAs (fine needle aspirations), I was told by an ENT that I should have my thyroid removed because of suspicious-looking cells that he believed were cancerous but couldn't determine the nature of with certainty except in autopsy. After an initial reaction, I threw myself into researching the type of cell found in the latest FNA, the likelihood of a malignancy, and the costs, procedure and effects of a thyroidectomy.

Among the many things I learned, such as that fewer than one percent of the thyroid nodules that add the kind of cell mine has are cancerous, I discovered iodine and began the search for an iodine-literate doctor. I would highly suggest that anyone who is not eating kelp, or any other iodine-saturated foods, on a daily basis look into iodine. It is believed 98% of us are iodine deficient, and this has a number of ramifications in terms of human health.

And, I would suggest that those of us who are already wary of the hideous, pervasive and wasteful nightmare that has been unleashed on this planet and those who have experienced one or more environmentally-related sicknesses continue the fight for detoxified air, water and soil. It does matter.

Smoking can make nipples fall off

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/1...f/?hpt=hp_bn10

I wonder if there are smokers who will read that and think, Well, that does it! I go on the patch, starting tomorrow. Maybe I'll be able to avoid that cancer and heart disease and COPD, too. That'd be a plus.