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Recent News:
from Phys.org:
Researchers predict average-sized 'dead zone' for Gulf of Mexico in 2016
A University of Michigan researcher and colleagues from several institutions are forecasting an average but still large "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico this year. The forecast calls for an oxygen-depleted, or hypoxic, region of 5,898 square miles, an area roughly the size of Connecticut and similar to the past several years. The forecast was released today by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, which sponsors the work. Farmland runoff containing fertilizers and livestock waste, much of it from as far away as the Corn Belt, is the main source of the nitrogen and phosphorus that cause the annual Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone, which is also known as a dead zone. The gulf contains diverse marine life, including nationally important commercial and recreational fisheries. Organisms unable to leave the low-oxygen dead zone become stressed and can die of suffocation.
from E&E Publishing:
Okla. shaking jumped 50 percent in 2015
The number of earthquakes in Oklahoma rose 50 percent last year, easily surpassing the record number that hit the state in 2014. Oklahoma Geological Survey (OGS) data show that the state was shaken by 881 earthquakes of magnitude 3 or greater, or an average of 2.4 per day. That's up from 585 in 2014. U.S. Geological Survey data show that California had 128 such quakes in 2015. Scientists and state officials say the increase in earthquakes in Oklahoma likely has been caused by wastewater disposal from oil and gas operations. Oil production methods that yield unusually large volumes of water have combined with favorably aligned faults under the state to cause the unprecedented shaking.
from Wisconsin State Journal:
Pipeline company sues county over moot insurance requirement
A Canadian oil pipeline company that is building a tar sands oil pumping station in northeastern Dane County sued the county on Monday over the continued inclusion of permit language requiring it to buy spill insurance, despite a new state law forbidding that requirement.... The state Legislature included language in the state budget, signed by Gov. Scott Walker in July, that prohibits such insurance requirements, but the county zoning committee on Sept. 29 voted to restore the requirement, adding a note that reflects the state law... County Board Chairwoman Sharon Corrigan has said that the board left the insurance requirement in the permit in case a future Legislature changes the law.
from Science, via Vice Motherboard:
Every Forest Biome on Earth Is Actively Dying Right Now
Forests are ecological superheroes--they ventilate the planet, nurture the most biodiverse habitats on Earth, and regulate global climate and carbon cycles. From the poles to the equator, our survival is completely dependent on healthy woodlands. But according to the latest issue of Science, which is devoted to forest health, every major forest biome is struggling. While each region suffers from unique pressures, the underlying thread that connects them all is undeniably human activity.... "The health of the immense and seemingly timeless boreal forest is presently under threat, together with the vitality of many forest-based communities and economies," the researchers said. Temperate forests aren't faring much better, according to another study from the issue written by US Geological Survey ecologists Constance Millar and Nathan Stephenson. Temperate forests are primarily composed of deciduous trees that shed their leaves seasonally, and are common in mid-latitude regions around the world....
from The Guardian:
Eleven Thousand Cubic Yards of Radioactive Nuclear Test Debris Leaching into Ocean
Officially, this vast structure is known as the Runit Dome. Locals call it The Tomb.... Below the 18-inch concrete cap rests the United States' cold war legacy to this remote corner of the Pacific Ocean: 111,000 cubic yards of radioactive debris left behind after 12 years of nuclear tests. Brackish water pools around the edge of the dome, where sections of concrete have started to crack away. Underground, radioactive waste has already started to leach out of the crater: according to a 2013 report by the US Department of Energy, soil around the dome is already more contaminated than its contents.... "Runit Dome represents a tragic confluence of nuclear testing and climate change," said Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, who visited the dome in 2010. "It resulted from US nuclear testing and the leaving behind of large quantities of plutonium," he said. "Now it has been gradually submerged as result of sea level rise from greenhouse gas emissions by industrial countries led by the United States."
from New York Times:
Oklahoma Court Rules Homeowners Can Sue Oil Companies Over Quakes
The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that homeowners who have sustained injuries or property damage from rampant earthquakes they say are caused by oil and gas operations can sue for damages in state trial courts, rejecting efforts by the industry to block such lawsuits from being decided by juries and judges. ...
from Rolling Stone:
What's Killing the Babies of Vernal, Utah?
...an alarming number of babies were dying in Vernal -- at least 10 in 2013 alone, what seemed to her a shockingly high infant mortality rate for such a small town... in Vernal, a town literally built by oil, raising questions about the safety of fracking will brand you a traitor and a target... Suspect One: the extraordinary levels of wintertime pollution plaguing the Basin since the vast new undertaking to frack the region's shale filled the air with toxins.
from LA Times:
Ruptured pipeline was corroded, federal regulators say
Corrosion had eaten away nearly half of the metal wall of a pipeline that ruptured and spilled up to 101,000 gallons of crude oil along the Santa Barbara coast last month, federal regulators said Wednesday... The 10.6-mile pipeline had "extensive" external corrosion, and the thickness of the pipe's wall where it broke had degraded to an estimated one-sixteenth of an inch, the pipeline agency said.
from Beaver County Times:
Pitt study shows link between fracking, lower birth weights
University of Pittsburgh researchers say a groundbreaking study focusing on southwest Pennsylvania released Wednesday shows that pregnant women living near natural gas fracking wells are more likely to have babies with lower birth weights... The team determined that the mothers closest to wells with hydraulic fracturing, commonly referred to as fracking, were 34 percent more likely to have babies who were "small for gestational age" compared to mothers who lived farthest away from wells.
from InsideClimate News:
In Heavily Fracked Ohio County, Unsafe Levels of Toxic Pollutants
Emissions generated by fracking operations may be exposing people to some toxic pollutants at levels higher than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers safe for long-term exposure, according to scientists from Oregon State University and the University of Cincinnati... The team found chemicals released during oil and gas extraction that can raise people's risk of cancer and respiratory ailments.
from Endocrine Society:
BPA harms dental enamel in young animals, mimicking human tooth defect
A tooth enamel abnormality in children, molar incisor hypomineralization (MIH), may result from exposure to the industrial chemical bisphenol A (BPA), authors of a new study conclude after finding similar damage to the dental enamel of rats that received BPA. The study results will be presented Friday at the Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego. "Human enamel defects may be used as an early marker of exposure to BPA and similar-acting endocrine disruptors," Babajko said.... Recent published data show that MIH affects up to 18 percent of children ages 6 to 9 years. Although the cause is unclear, it appears to have an environmental origin, according to the study authors.
from LiveScience:
Utah Suicides Linked to Air Pollution
Suicide may be linked to air pollution, according to new research that finds spikes in completed suicides in the days following peak pollution levels. The research took place in Utah, part of the United States' western "suicide belt." Suicide is the 10th-leading cause of death in the United States; in Utah, it is the eighth. Though the notion that suicide and air quality could be linked may not seem intuitive, similar studies in South Korea, Taiwan and Canada have also linked the two.... They found that suicide risk went up two to three days after levels of fine particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide rose.
from Ensia:
What are we doing to our children's brains?
The numbers are startling. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1.8 million more children in the U.S. were diagnosed with developmental disabilities between 2006 and 2008 than a decade earlier. During this time, the prevalence of autism climbed nearly 300 percent, while that of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder increased 33 percent. CDC figures also show that 10 to 15 percent of all babies born in the U.S. have some type of neurobehavorial development disorder. Still more are affected by neurological disorders that don't rise to the level of clinical diagnosis.... a significant and growing body of research suggests that exposure to environmental pollutants is implicated in the disturbing rise in children's neurological disorders.
from LiveScience:
Chemical in Plastics May Alter Boys' Genitals Before Birth
Baby boys who are exposed in the womb to a chemical used in soft plastics may show small signs of altered genital development, according to new research published today. The study, which included more than 700 infants in four U.S. cities, is the largest of its kind to date. It confirms earlier findings in humans and animals that exposure to certain types of chemicals called phthalates may lead to changes in the way the male reproductive tract develops, said Dr. Russ Hauser, an epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health, who was not involved in the new study. Phthalates are a large group of industrial chemicals used in a variety of consumer products, such as food packaging, flooring, perfumes and lotions.
from Reuters:
Tests planned on mysterious 'milky rain' in U.S. Pacific Northwest
Scientists from two U.S. Pacific Northwest laboratories plan to conduct tests of unusual precipitation that fell across the region over the weekend in hopes of pinpointing the origins of so-called "milky rain" that has mystified residents, officials said on Wednesday.... The National Weather Service has said it believes the powdery rain was most likely a byproduct of dust storms hundreds of miles away in Nevada, although it could not rule out volcanic ash from Japan as a possible culprit.
from Climate Progress:
The Ocean Now Has At Least 700 Pieces Of Plastic Per Person On Earth
A study published on Wednesday estimates that the ocean contains over 260,000 tons, or 5.25 trillion pieces, of plastic. The study found that the amount of microplastics, pieces of plastic that are less than half a centimeter, found on the ocean's surface were much smaller than expected.... Over 90 percent of the searches that the study did contained plastic, and polystyrene made up most of the plastics found. One of the researchers said that in some areas with larger amounts of debris, there was more plastic in the water than living creatures.
from Newsweek:
Boxer Rebellion: A Pocketed Cellphone May Be Behind Your Infertility
The object that billions of people around the world hold to their face to make calls or place in their pocket when not in use emits radio frequency energy, which is considered a potential health hazard... "With fertility, the verdict isn't out anymore," contended Michael Lam in an interview with Newsweek. Lam is the co-founder of Belly Armor, a company that got its start in 2009 making maternity, prenatal and nursing products out of a silver conductive textile. In September, the company expanded their products into the world of male fertility by launching a radiation-shielding boxer brief for men. The underwear, which is specifically targeted to men trying to conceive, costs about $50 a pair due to the high cost of silver fabric.
from Mother Jones:
That Takeout Coffee Cup May Be Messing With Your Hormones
Most people know that some plastics additives, such as bisphenol A (BPA), may be harmful to their health. But an upcoming study in the journal Environmental Health finds that entire classes of plastics--including the type commonly referred to as styrofoam and a type used in many baby products--may wreak havoc on your hormones regardless of what additives are in them... The new study suggests that sometimes the resins themselves are part of the problem, though additives such as dyes and antioxidants can make it worse. In the case of polystyrene, the resin used in styrofoam and similar products, the authors tested 11 samples and consistently found estrogen seepage after exposure to intense steam or ultraviolet rays.
from Bloomberg:
EPA Power Plant Mercury Rule Gets U.S. Supreme Court Review
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to decide whether the Obama administration went too far with new power-plant pollution caps the government estimates will cost almost $10 billion a year. The justices today said they will hear industry and state contentions that the Environmental Protection Agency didn't adequately consider those costs when it limited mercury and other hazardous pollutants.
from Reuters:
Chemicals in sunscreen, aftershave may affect male fertility
A new study suggests chemicals in sunscreen may impair men's ability to father children, government scientists say, but other experts question whether the chemicals wound up in men's urine from sunscreen or through another route. The FDA has not authorized the substances - benzophenone-2, known as BP-2, and 4-hydroxybenzophenone, known as 4-OH-BP - for use in sunscreens. And BP-2 does show up as an ingredient in aftershaves, colognes, antiperspirant and other personal-care products.
from Associated Press:
Fracking to be permitted in GW National Forest
Environmentalists and energy boosters alike welcomed a federal compromise announced Tuesday that will allow fracking in the largest national forest in the eastern United States, but make most of its woods off-limits to drilling. The decision was highly anticipated because about half of the George Washington National Forest sits atop the Marcellus shale formation, a vast underground deposit of natural gas that runs from upstate New York to West Virginia and yields more than $10 billion in gas a year.
from New York Times:
Obesity Is Tied to Pollutants
Exposure to secondhand smoke and roadway traffic may be tied to increased body mass index in children and adolescents, a new study suggests. Researchers studied 3,318 children in 12 Southern California communities beginning at an average age of 10, and then followed them through age 18. They used parental questionnaires to establish exposure to smoking, and data on traffic volume and levels of nitrogen dioxide, ozone and particulates to track pollution.
from Reuters:
Armyworm resistance to GMO crops seen in U.S. -study
Crop-devouring armyworms are showing increasing resistance in some U.S. farm fields to a popular type of genetically modified crop that should kill them, scientists said on Monday. The evolution of insect resistance "is a great threat" long- term to the sustainability of the GMO crop biotechnology that has become a highly valued tool for many U.S. farmers, according to Fangneng Huang, an entomologist at Louisiana State University (LSU) and lead researcher for a three-year study.
from San Francisco Chronicle:
Traces of radiation from Fukushima detected off California
The first faint traces of radioactivity in the ocean from the Fukushima nuclear disaster have been detected 100 miles off Eureka, a scientist who has been monitoring radiation levels across the Pacific reported Monday. The levels of the radioactive element Cesium-134 were far lower than any radiation that would pose a threat to human or marine life, said Ken Buesseler, a nuclear chemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod. The radioactivity was detected in samples of ocean water volunteers aboard a research vessel from the Moss Landing Marine Laboratory in Monterey County collected last August. The samples were sent for analysis to Buesseler's lab at Woods Hole.... No federal government agency finances efforts to track radioactivity in ocean water, so Buesseler has created a volunteer organization of coastal residents to collect water samples periodically and send them to his lab at Woods Hole. He has volunteers collecting water samples along the coast from San Diego to Canada and around Hawaii.
from David Suzuki:
The New 'F' Word
While dithering over neonicotinoids -- bee-killing pesticides banned in Europe -- Canadian regulators are poised to approve a closely-related poison called flupyradifurone. We call it the new "F"-word. Like neonics, flupyradifurone attacks the nervous system of insect pests. Both are systemic pesticides that are taken up by plants and move through their tissues into pollen, fruits and seeds. Both are also persistent, sticking around in the environment and, with repeated applications, building up over time. Health Canada says flupyradifurone may pose a risk to bees, birds, worms, spiders, small mammals and aquatic bugs -- familiar words to anyone following Canada's slow-motion review of neonics. Dust from corn seed treated with neonics is implicated in large-scale bee die-offs during planting season in Ontario and Quebec. Not only is this is alarming in its own right; the dead bees are the proverbial canaries in the coal mine, signalling broader ecological consequences.
from DesdemonaDespair:
Graph of the Day: Distribution of plastic pollution in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans
When marine ecologist Andres Cozar Cabanas and a team of researchers completed the first ever map of ocean trash, something didn't quite add up. Their work, published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, did find millions of pieces of plastic debris floating in five large subtropical gyres in the world's oceans. But plastic production has quadrupled since the 1980s, and wind, waves, and sun break all that plastic into tiny bits the size of rice grains. So there should have been a lot more plastic floating on the surface than the scientists found. "Our observations show that large loads of plastic fragments, with sizes from microns to some millimeters, are unaccounted for in the surface loads," says Cozar, who teaches at the University of Cadiz in Spain, by e-mail. "But we don't know what this plastic is doing. The plastic is somewhere--in the ocean life, in the depths, or broken down into fine particles undetectable by nets."
from London Daily Mail:
Chemicals in plastic 'are making women less interested in sex': Low libido linked to additives used to soften materials found in every home
Chemicals found in PVC flooring, plastic shower curtains, processed food and other trappings of modern life may be sapping women's interest in sex. A study has linked low libido with the additives used to soften plastics which are found in every home. Women with the highest levels of phthalates in their bodies were more than twice as likely to say 'not tonight dear' as those with the lowest amounts.
from Mother Jones:
Why Did Top Scientific Journals Reject This Dr. Bronner's Ad?
David Bronner, CEO of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, presides over a company with famously wacky product labels. Sample sentence, from the 18-in-1 Hemp PEPPERMINT soap bottle: "Each swallow works hard to be perfect pilot-provider-teacher-lover-mate, no half-true hate!" But Bronner himself, grandson of the founder (the one with the elaborate prose style), has emerged as a serious, though fun-loving, activist, particularly around pesticides and genetically modified crops, as Josh Harkinson's recent Mother Jones profile shows. But apparently, Bronner's writing on GMOs is too hot for the advertising pages of the English-speaking world's two most renowned science journals, Science and Nature--even though a slew of magazines, including Scientific American, The New Yorker, Harper's, The Nation, Harvard, and, yes, Mother Jones, accepted the Bronner ad. It consists of a short essay, known in publishing as an advertorial, that's nothing like the wild-eyed rants on his company's soap bottles. Bronner's ad (PDF) focuses on how GMO crops have led to a net increase in pesticide use in the United States, citing an analysis by Ramon Seidler, a retired senior staff scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency.
from Wageningen University and Research Centre, via ScienceDaily:
Plastic nanoparticles also harm freshwater organisms
Organisms can be negatively affected by plastic nanoparticles, not just in the seas and oceans but in freshwater bodies too. These particles slow the growth of algae, cause deformities in water fleas and impede communication between small organisms and fish.... In the study into the effects of tiny plastic particles in freshwater, PhD candidate Ellen Besseling and student Bo Wang exposed water fleas to various nanoplastic concentrations. At higher concentrations, algae growth declined. Water fleas were also smaller following exposure to nanoplastics and their offspring malformed in various ways. 'These are the first malformations that have been seen in freshwater organisms and we do not yet know how big the problem really is', says Ellen Besseling. She believes that more research is needed into the sources, concentrations and effects of nanoplastic in water and on other organisms.
from London Guardian:
Drugs flushed into the environment could be cause of wildlife decline
Potent pharmaceuticals flushed into the environment via human and animal sewage could be a hidden cause of the global wildlife crisis, according to new research. The scientists warn that worldwide use of the drugs, which are designed to be biologically active at low concentrations, is rising rapidly but that too little is currently known about their effect on the natural world. Studies of the effect of pharmaceutical contamination on wildlife are rare but new work published on Monday reveals that an anti-depressant reduces feeding in starlings and that a contraceptive drug slashes fish populations in lakes.
from Canadian Press:
Pesticides linked to bee deaths pose 'massive' ecological threat, watchdog warns
The widespread use of neonicotinoid pesticides by Ontario farmers, which has been linked to the deaths of bees, could have a "massive impact" on our ecological system, the province's environment watchdog warned Tuesday. "All the science is not done, but everything that I have before me ... suggests to me that this is the biggest threat to the structure and ecological integrity of the ecosystem that I have ever encountered in my life, bigger than DDT, " said Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller as he released his annual report. Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane was banned in Canada in 1972 because of environmental and safety concerns, and even Environment Minister Glen Murray admitted the neonicotinoid class of pesticides is "much more toxic" than DDT.
from St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
Study: EPA carbon rules would save thousands of lives in Illinois and Missouri
A new study concludes that Missouri and Illinois would reap some of the largest public health benefits in the country from rules requiring utilities to cut back on carbon pollution. Researchers at Harvard, Boston and Syracuse universities found the two states could save thousands of lives from 2020 to 2030 if utilities implement carbon control measures at coal plants. Limiting carbon dioxide pollution from coal plants also leads to reduced soot and other pollutants that cause heart and respiratory problems. Under a scenario similar to the EPA's recently proposed carbon pollution rules, the researchers estimated Missouri could prevent 1,200 deaths between 2020 and 2030. In Illinois, about 2,100 lives could be saved.
from Reuters:
U.S. foods labeled 'natural' often contain GMOs, group reports
majority of U.S. packaged foods labeled as "natural" and tested by Consumer Reports actually contained a substantial level of genetically modified ingredients, according to a report issued Tuesday by the non-profit product testing group. Consumers are being misled by the "natural" label, said Urvashi Rangan, executive director of Consumer Reports Food Safety and Sustainability. Consumer Reports said it had conducted a survey of more than 80 different processed foods containing corn or soy, the two most widely grown genetically engineered crops in the United States, to determine whether labeling claims for GMO presence were accurate. While foods labeled as "non-GMO," or "organic" were found to be free of genetically modified corn and soy, virtually all of the foods labeled as "natural" or not labeled with any claim related to GMO content contained substantial amounts of GMO ingredients, Consumer Reports said.
from AccuWeather:
Typhoon Phanfone Bears Down on Japan
The southern coast of Honshu, from the prefectures of Wakayama to Chiba, will bear the brunt of Phanfone's fury. Destructive wind gusts of 160 to 195 kph (100 to 120 mph) threaten to cause widespread and significant damage to trees and structures. Residents should prepare for extensive and lengthy power outages.... Residents should prepare for widespread flooding, damage to trees and some structures, power outages and flight cancellations. The worst of Phanfone will blast Tokyo later on Sunday night through Monday morning. Douty expects conditions to rapidly improve around Tokyo on Monday afternoon as Phanfone races out to sea and transitions to a non-tropical system. Widespread rain totals of 200 to 250 mm (8 to 10 inches) are also expected from eastern Shikoku to the Honshu prefecture of Fukushima, triggering widespread and life-threatening flash flooding.
from JAMA - Journal of the American Medical Association:
Waistlines of U.S. adults continue to increase
The prevalence of abdominal obesity and average waist circumference increased among U.S. adults from 1999 to 2012, according to a study. Waist circumference is a simple measure of total and intra-abdominal body fat. Although the prevalence of abdominal obesity has increased in the United States through 2008, its trend in recent years has not been known.... The overall age-adjusted prevalence of abdominal obesity increased significantly in the U.S. from 46.4 percent in 1999-2000 to 54.2 percent in 2011-2012.
from London Guardian:
Lack of toilets blights the lives of 2.5bn people, UN chief warns
The world's lack of progress in building toilets and ending open defecation is having a "staggering" effect on the health, safety, education, prosperity and dignity of 2.5 billion people, the UN deputy secretary general, Jan Eliasson, has warned.... According to the UN, 2.5 billion people still lack "improved sanitation facilities" - defined as ones that "hygienically separate human excreta from human contact", down only 7 percent since 1990, when 2.7 billion lacked access, and more than a billion people - most of whom live in rural areas - have to defecate in gutters, behind bushes or into water. More people have access to mobile phones than toilets, it says.
from Daily Kos :
Fire retardant chems, cancer, health problems
In a reckless, "hope-for-the-best" approach that puts us all at risk, U.S. policy allows the release of synthetic chemicals into the environment--before their potentially devastating impacts have been adequately evaluated. Multiple Senate bills to fix this toxic system over the past decade have been snuffed out. On July 24, 2014, U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) introduced a bill, the "Protecting American Families from Toxic Chemicals Act" (S. 2656), which would ban a number of "persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic" synthetic chemicals such as brominated fire (or flame) retardants (BFRs).... BFRs enter our bodies mainly when we inhale or swallow dust. Various BFRs have been linked to cancer, thyroid disruption, memory and learning problems, delayed mental and physical development, lower IQ, early puberty, and reduced fertility. Ironically, BFRs start "fires" in our bodies by causing inflammation.
from Reuters:
China police seize 30,000 tonnes of tainted chicken feet
Chinese police have seized over 30,000 tonnes of tainted chicken feet, common on restaurant menus in China, in the latest food scandal to hit the country. Authorities have detained 38 people involved in the sale of the chicken feet in provinces including the eastern province of Zhejiang, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday. The arrests followed raids on nine supplier factories in nearby Jiangsu, Anhui, Henan and Guangdong provinces, Xinhua said, adding police found that excess hydrogen peroxide was being added to the meat.
from Washington Post:
Jellyfish swarm takes over Florida beaches, stinging hundreds
They don't get the same attention as shark attacks (or even great white sightings), but jellyfish ruin far more weekends, descending on beaches like water-bound locusts. The latest example came in the waters along Daytona Beach and New Smyrna Beach. This past weekend, more than 400 swimmers were stung by jellyfish at the Florida beaches, according to Reuters. The swarm of serial stingers prompted lifeguards to raise purple flags warning of hazardous marine life.
from National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research:
Trash burning worldwide significantly worsens air pollution
Unregulated trash burning around the globe is pumping far more pollution into the atmosphere than shown by official records. A new study estimates that more than 40 percent of the world's garbage is burned in such fires, with emissions that can substantially affect human health and climate.
from South China Morning Post:
Toxic alert as Hong Kong suffers highest number of red tides in 26 years
The city has been hit by the worst six months of red tides in 26 years, with the highest number of potentially harmful algae species recorded, analysis by the Post has revealed. Scientific experts said the algal blooms might indicate that pollution is increasing and climate patterns shifting. They would not rule out the possibility that a lethal red tide - that can kill off marine life en masse - could strike soon, although these are almost impossible to forecast.
from Associated Press:
Less shake from artificial quakes, fed study says
Man-made earthquakes, a side effect of some high-tech energy drilling, cause less shaking and in general are about 16 times weaker than natural earthquakes with the same magnitude, a new federal study found. People feeling the ground move from induced quakes -- those that are not natural, but triggered by injections of wastewater deep underground-- report significantly less shaking than those who experience more normal earthquakes of the same magnitude, according to a study by U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist Susan Hough.
from Rodale News, via TruthOut:
New GMO Poised for Approval Despite Public Outcry
Despite its own admission that it will cause an up to sevenfold increase in chemical pesticide use, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is poised to approve a new type of genetically engineered seed built to resist one of the most toxic weedkillers on the market. Now, total approval hinges on the Environmental Protection Agency. If that federal body approves the new GMO, farmers will be free to plant corn and soy seeds genetically manipulated to live through sprayings of Dow's "Enlist Duo" herbicide, a chemical cocktail containing both glyphosate and the antiquated, toxic chemical 2,4-D. Ironically, in the 1990s, chemical companies said the development of GMOs would eliminate the need to use older, more dangerous chemicals like 2,4-D. But as GMO use ramped up over the last few decades, chemical use increased, and many weeds are no longer responding to glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup and the current chemical of choice for GMO farmers. This has created a "superweed" crisis, resulting in millions of acres of U.S. fields' being infested with hard-to-kill weeds.
from PhysOrg:
Mexico acid leak leaves orange river, toxic water
Yesenia is one of 20,000 people left without water since a massive sulfuric acid leak last week at the Buenavista copper mine in northwestern Mexico, one of the largest in the world. She waited in the sweltering heat with her mother and two daughters for water brought into the town of Arizpe by a tanker truck, but left empty-handed after the truck ran dry, unable to meet the demand from the seven affected towns.... An estimated 40,000 cubic meters (10.6 million gallons) of sulfuric acid, which is used to dissolve copper from ore for processing ,leaked out of a holding tank at the mine, owned by leading Latin American mining company Grupo Mexico. The spill happened on August 6, but the authorities say the company only informed them 24 hours later.... Juan Rebolledo, Grupo Mexico's vice president for international relations, downplayed the impact. "The content of these acids is not toxic in itself," he said on radio network Formula. "There's no problem, nor any serious consequence for the population, as long as we take adequate precautions and the company pours lime into the river, as it is currently doing." The mine has dumped 100 tonnes of lime into the Sonora to neutralize the acidity, according to the state government.
from Los Angeles Times:
Oil companies fracking into drinking water sources, new research shows
Energy companies are fracking for oil and gas at far shallower depths than widely believed, sometimes through underground sources of drinking water, according to research released Tuesday by Stanford University scientists.... "Thousands of gallons of diesel fuel and millions of gallons of fluids containing numerous inorganic and organic additives were injected directly into these two formations during hundreds of stimulation events," concluded Dominic DiGiulio and Robert Jackson of Stanford's School of Earth Sciences... they point out that there is no way of knowing the effects of fracking into groundwater resources because regulators have not assessed the scope and impact of the activity.
from Scientific American:
BPA-Free Plastic Containers May Be Just as Hazardous
... recent research reveals that a common BPA replacement, bisphenol S (BPS), may be just as harmful. BPA is the starting material for making polycarbonate plastics. Any leftover BPA that is not consumed in the reaction used to make a plastic container can leach into its contents. From there it can enter the body. BPS was a favored replacement because it was thought to be more resistant to leaching.... Nearly 81 percent of Americans have detectable levels of BPS in their urine. And once it enters the body it can affect cells in ways that parallel BPA. A 2013 study by Cheryl Watson at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston found that even picomolar concentrations (less than one part per trillion) of BPS can disrupt a cell's normal functioning, which could potentially lead to metabolic disorders such as diabetes and obesity, asthma, birth defects or even cancer.
from Center for Effective Government:
GAO Report Finds Problems with EPA Groundwater Protection Program
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is not adequately monitoring more than 172,000 wells used to enhance oil and gas drilling and dispose of drilling wastewater, according to a July 28 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The report, based on two years of research, identified several significant problems with EPA's program to protect groundwater from drilling chemicals and wastes. Since millions get their drinking water from groundwater, these problems raise significant questions about how effectively and consistently we are protecting public drinking water.
from CBC:
Tailings pond breach in BC threatens pristine deepwater lake system, sockeye salmon; state of emergency declared
A local state of emergency has been declared in an area where a B.C. tailings pond wall collapsed, sending millions of cubic metres of mine waste water and metals-laden sand into local waterways.... The breach sent 10 million cubic metres of water and 4.5 million cubic metres of metals-laden sand out into local waterways, scouring away the banks of Hazeltine Creek and sending debris flowing into Quesnel Lake and Polley Lake, which rose 1.5 metres.... A summary of the material dumped into the tailings pond last year was filed with Environment Canada. It said there was 326 tonnes of nickel, over 400,000 kilograms of arsenic, 177,000 kilograms of lead and 18,400 tonnes of copper and its compounds placed in the pond last year.
from Columbus Dispatch:
Ohioan gets prison after workers dump toxic drilling brine
The owner of a northeastern Ohio business that collected and stored toxic fluids from oil- and gas-drilling operations was sentenced yesterday in Cleveland to 28 months in federal prison and fined $25,000.... "Clean air and fresh water is the birthright of every man, woman and child in this state," U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach said in a statement after the sentencing. "Intentionally breaking environmental laws is not the cost of doing business. It's going to cost business owners their freedom."
from Washington Post:
As more male bass switch sex, a strange fish story expands
...In the latest study, smallmouth bass and white sucker fish captured at 16 sites in the Delaware, Ohio and Susquehanna rivers in Pennsylvania had crossed over into a category called intersex, an organism with two genders.... The previous studies detected abnormal levels of compounds from chemicals such as herbicides and veterinary pharmaceuticals from farms, and from sewage system overflows near smallmouth-bass nesting areas in the Potomac. Those endocrine-disrupting chemicals throw off functions that regulate hormones and the reproductive system. In the newest findings, at one polluted site in the Susquehanna near Hershey, Pa., 100 percent of male smallmouth bass that were sampled had eggs,
from Associated Press:
Toledo's water crisis was a decade in the making from farms and sewage plants, experts say
The toxins that contaminated the drinking water supply of 400,000 people in northwest Ohio didn't just suddenly appear. Water plant operators along western Lake Erie have long been worried about this very scenario as a growing number of algae blooms have turned the water into a pea soup color in recent summers, leaving behind toxins that can sicken people and kill pets. In fact, the problems on the shallowest of the five Great Lakes brought on by farm runoff and sludge from sewage treatment plants have been building for more than a decade.
from London Daily Mail:
Do foam cups contain cancer-causing chemicals? Leading panel says styrene may be a 'human carcinogen'
A chemical used in foam cups and disposable food containers may cause cancer, scientists have warned. Styrene can be 'reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen', the National Research Council in the U.S. said yesterday. The conclusion was reached by a team of 10 experts in toxicology, chemistry and medicine.
from Mother Jones:
Halliburton Fracking Spill Mystery: What Chemicals Polluted an Ohio Waterway?
On the morning of June 28, a fire broke out at a Halliburton fracking site in Monroe County, Ohio. As flames engulfed the area, trucks began exploding and thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals spilled into a tributary of the Ohio River, which supplies drinking water for millions of residents. More than 70,000 fish died. ... This episode highlights a glaring gap in fracking safety standards. In Ohio, as in most other states, fracking companies are allowed to withhold some information about the chemical stew they pump into the ground to break up rocks and release trapped natural gas.... According to a preliminary EPA inquiry, more than 25,000 gallons of chemicals, diesel fuel, and other compounds were released during the accident, which began with a ruptured hydraulic line spraying flammable liquid on hot equipment. The flames later engulfed 20 trucks, triggering some 30 explosions that rained shrapnel over the site and hampered firefighting efforts.
from The Independent (UK):
Drug-resistant bacteria: Sewage-treatment plants described as giant 'mixing vessels' after scientists discover mutated microbes in British river
Superbugs resistant to some of the most powerful antibiotics in the medical arsenal have been found for the first time in a British river - with scientists pinpointing a local sewage-treatment plant as the most likely source. Scientists discovered the drug-resistant bacteria in sediment samples taken downstream of the sewerage plant on the River Sowe near Coventry. The microbes contained mutated genes that confer resistance to the latest generation of antibiotics. The researchers believe the discovery shows how antibiotic resistance has become widespread in the environment, with sewage-treatment plants now acting as giant "mixing vessels" where antibiotic resistance can spread between different microbes.
from ThinkProgress.org:
Company That Caused Historic West Virginia Chemical Spill Fined $11k
The company responsible for letting 10,000 gallons of a mysterious chemical seep into West Virginia's drinking water supply this past January was fined $11,000 by the U.S. Department of Labor on Monday, just two days before the six-month anniversary of the historic spill. After inspecting the facilities at Freedom Industries' chemical storage site in Charleston, the Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) found that, at the time of the spill, Freedom Industries' chemical tanks containing crude MCHM had been surrounded by a wall that was not liquid tight. That violation that warranted a $7,000 fine. OSHA also hit Freedom Industries with an additional $4,000 fine for not having railings on an elevated platform used for loading and storing the chemical in the tanks. Both violations were labeled by OSHA as "serious," warranting monetary penalties.... Wednesday marks the sixth month anniversary of the day when Freedom's tanks spilled 10,000 gallons of crude MCHM -- the licorice-scented chemical mixture used in the coal production process -- into West Virginia's Elk River, tainting the water supply for 300,000 civilians. In the aftermath, nearly 600 people checked themselves into local hospitals with what federal epidemiologists called "mild" illnesses, such as rash, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and diarrhea.
from Phys.org:
Leading scientists express rising concern about 'microplastics' in the ocean
Microplastics - microscopic particles of plastic debris - are of increasing concern because of their widespread presence in the oceans and the potential physical and toxicological risks they pose to organisms.... In an article published today in the journal Science, the two scientists have called for urgent action to "turn off the tap" and divert plastic waste away from the marine environment. Microplastics have now been documented in all five of the ocean's subtropical gyres - and have even been detected in Arctic sea ice - with some of the highest accumulations occurring thousands of miles from land. These plastic bits have been found in organisms ranging in size from small invertebrates to large mammals, and are known to concentrate toxic chemicals already present in seawater. This raises concern about the potential consequences to marine organisms....
from Guardian:
Neonicotinoids linked to recent fall in farmland bird numbers
New research has identified the world's most widely used insecticides as the key factor in the recent reduction in numbers of farmland birds. The finding represents a significant escalation of the known dangers of the insecticides and follows an assessment in June that warned that pervasive pollution by these nerve agents was now threatening all food production. The neonicotinoid insecticides are believed to seriously harm bees and other pollinating insects, and a two-year EU suspension on three of the poisons began at the end of 2013. But the suspected knock-on effects on other species had not been demonstrated until now.... At least 95 percent of neonicotinoids applied to crops ends up in the wider environment, killing the insects the birds rely on for food, particularly when raising chicks.
from Phys.org:
Marine bacteria unfazed by rising ocean acidification
The new study, published in Environment Microbiology Reports, shows for the first time that even if ocean acidification reaches the levels predicted for the year 2100, the bacterial community will remain unaffected.... He suspects that the resistance of marine bacteria to ocean acidification means they will be able to evolve an even higher level of resilience before 2100, as they get used to higher acid levels. 'Hitting them with a big stick we see a huge capacity for resistance, but over the long term they have an enormous evolutionary capacity, he says. 'Over the next 100 years there will be millions of generations of bacteria, so if we still have a steadily increasing amount of carbon dioxide, as is predicted, being absorbed into oceans the bacterial communities will adapt.'
from Reuters:
U.S., stung by bee decline, sets plan to save pollinators
The White House on Friday announced a federal strategy to reverse a rapid decline in the number of honey bees and other pollinators in the United States that threatens the development of billions of dollars in crops. As part of the plan, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced $8 million in funding for farmers and ranchers in five states who establish new habitats for honey bee populations.... Over recent years, bees have been dying at a rate the U.S. government says is economically unsustainable. Honey bees pollinate plants that produce about a quarter of the food consumed by Americans, including apples, watermelons and beans.... The recent increased loss of honey bee colonies is thought to be caused by factors including a loss of natural forage and inadequate diets, mite infestations and diseases, loss of genetic diversity, and exposure to certain pesticides.
from Chronicle-Herald:
Fracking's magic-bullet moment fading fast
I was cruising the Internet a couple of weeks ago when this headline in the Los Angeles Times made my eyes pop: "U.S. officials cut estimate of recoverable Monterey shale oil by 96 per cent." Ninety six per cent! Since the Monterey formation accounts for two-thirds of the supposed reserves available for fracking that would make the U.S. not only energy independent but a powerhouse exporter to the world, this was a big bubble bursting. Amazing that you haven't heard of it, but such is the tenacity of the world's built-in resistance to energy reality.
from The Tyee:
Canada's 500,000 Leaky Energy Wells: 'Threat to Public' -- Fracking Makes It Worse
Alberta, for example, has failed to collect baseline data on the state of its groundwater resources prior to and after intense oil and gas activity for decades despite repeated warnings by scientists to do so. In recent years the increasing use of hydraulic fracturing has had the effect of drawing a red circle around the hidden liability of wellbore leakage. Fracking has not only added more wellbores (and methane pathways) to the landscape in the rush to develop difficult hydrocarbons trapped in shale rock and coal but added more pressure and stress to wellbores causing more leaks. The Waterloo report, quietly released last month, notes that the fluid injection of steam, water, sand or chemicals to force out more hydrocarbons "elevates the mechanical and thermal loading on wellbores, and significantly increases the probability of leakage problem development during the operational lifetime of the wellbore, before final abandonment."
from Earth Institute, via Science Daily:
Modern ocean acidification is outpacing ancient upheaval: Rate may be ten times faster
Some 56 million years ago, a massive pulse of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere sent global temperatures soaring. In the oceans, carbonate sediments dissolved, some organisms went extinct and others evolved. Scientists have long suspected that ocean acidification caused the crisis -- similar to today, as humanmade CO2 combines with seawater to change its chemistry. Now, for the first time, scientists have quantified the extent of surface acidification from those ancient days, and the news is not good: the oceans are on track to acidify at least as much as they did then, only at a much faster rate.... "We are dumping carbon in the atmosphere and ocean at a much higher rate today -- within centuries," said study coauthor Richard Zeebe, a paleoceanographer at the University of Hawaii. "If we continue on the emissions path we are on right now, acidification of the surface ocean will be way more dramatic than during the PETM."
from Associated Press:
Cow blamed for causing spill in North Dakota oil patch
A cow is suspected of causing a spill of natural gas liquids near a tributary of the Little Missouri River, prompting North Dakota regulators to warn energy companies to ensure their facilities are bovine-proof. State Environmental Health Chief Dave Glatt said Thursday that a cow might have rubbed against a tank valve two days earlier, spilling about 20 barrels of natural gas condensate near Sully Creek, south of Medora in western North Dakota.
from Mother Jones:
Big Dairy Is Putting NanoMetal in Your Food
The rapid emergence of nanotechnology suggests that size does, indeed, matter. It turns out that if you break common substances like silver and nickel into really, really tiny particles--measured in nanometers, which are billionths of a meter--they behave in radically different ways.... According to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN -- a joint venture of Virginia Tech University and the Wilson Center... lists 96 food items currently on US grocery shelves that contain unlabeled nano ingredients. Examples include Dannon Greek Plain Yogurt, Silk Original Soy Milk, Rice Dream Rice Drink, Hershey's Bliss Dark Chocolate, and Kraft's iconic American Cheese Singles, all of which now contain nano-sized titanium dioxide. As recently as 2008, only eight US food products were known to contain nanoparticles, according to a recent analysis from Friends of the Earth--a more than ten-fold increase in just six years.
from Alaska Dispatch:
Arctic sea ice littered with tiny bits of 'microplastic' pollution
Dartmouth scientist Rachel Obbard was looking at samples of Arctic sea ice for small organisms when something else caught her eye: Tiny, bright-colored bits and pieces and miniature string-like objects that did not seem to belong. Those small specks turned out to be a type of pollution known as microplastics. Their presence in sea ice collected from the central Arctic Ocean showed that some of the vast quantities of garbage and pollution floating in the world's seas has traveled to the northernmost waters.... sea ice holding the small bits of trash is thinning and likely to shed them back into the water, where they can be ingested by fish, birds and mammals...
from New Orleans Advocate:
BP plans to appeal oil spill settlement ruling to the Supreme Court
After a federal appeals court denied a request to rehear its case, international energy company BP will seek relief with the nations highest court. The decision handed down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit this week would close the door on BP's attempt to have a court redefine the terms of a settlement agreement that governs the criteria in which claims are paid. For much of the past year, the company has disputed the current standard, arguing that failing to require claimants to show "direct evidence of causation" essentially expands the class of people eligible to receive payments.
from Associated Press:
Probe finds scant oversight of chemical plants
The government has no way of fully knowing which U.S. chemical facilities stock ammonium nitrate, the substance that exploded last year at a Texas fertilizer plant and killed 14 people, congressional investigators say. Outdated federal policies, poor information sharing with states and a raft of industry exemptions point to scant federal oversight, says a new report obtained by The Associated Press. The report found regulatory gaps in environmental and worker protections and urged broad changes to U.S. safety rules.
from Huffington Post:
Minnesota Becomes First State To Ban Antibacterial Chemical Triclosan From Soaps
It's widely used nationwide as a germ-killing ingredient in soaps, deodorants and even toothpaste, but it's being banned in Minnesota. Gov. Mark Dayton on Friday signed a bill to make Minnesota the first state to prohibit the use of triclosan in most retail consumer hygiene products. The Minnesota House and Senate passed it earlier last week because of health and environmental concerns about the chemical.
from Huffington Post:
53 Million Gallons Of Nuclear Waste May Soon Be Stored Right Next To The Great Lakes
A proposed Canadian nuclear waste site near the shores of Lake Huron is facing mounting criticism from Michigan lawmakers who say it's dangerous and called on the federal government to intervene.... "Building a nuclear waste dump less than a mile from one of the largest freshwater sources in the world is a reckless act that should be universally opposed," Michigan Rep. Dan Lauwers (R-Brockway Township) said in a statement Monday.
from Associated Press:
Fed govt failed to inspect higher risk oil wells
The government has failed to inspect thousands of oil and gas wells it considers potentially high risks for water contamination and other environmental damage, congressional investigators say. The report, obtained by The Associated Press before its public release, highlights substantial gaps in oversight by the agency that manages oil and gas development on federal and Indian lands. Investigators said weak control by the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management resulted from policies based on outdated science and from incomplete monitoring data.
from New York Times:
Still Counting Gulf Spill's Dead Birds
After the Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew out in the Gulf of Mexico some 50 miles from the nearest land, responders were left to cope with a search area of nearly 40,000 square miles, as well as wind and currents that kept evidence of damage away from the more easily searchable coastline. Patrollers recovered fewer than 3,000 dead birds. But some had suspected that many more were unaccounted for. Now a team of scientists has tried to quantify the extent of damage inflicted on the gulf's bird population from the oil spill caused by the explosion. Based on models using publicly available data, the studies estimated that about 800,000 birds died in coastal and offshore waters.
from LiveScience:
Rare Earthquake Warning Issued for Oklahoma
Mile for mile, there are almost as many earthquakes rattling Oklahoma as California this year. This major increase in seismic shaking led to a rare earthquake warning today (May 5) from the U.S. Geological Survey and the Oklahoma Geological Survey. In a joint statement, the agencies said the risk of a damaging earthquake -- one larger than magnitude 5.0 -- has significantly increased in central Oklahoma... While scientists haven't ruled out natural causes for the increase, many researchers suspect the deep injection wells used for the disposal of fracking wastewater could be causing the earthquake activity.
from Columbus Business First:
Fracking disposal wells may cause quakes 30 miles away, researchers say
Oil and gas development could induce earthquakes at a further range than previously thought, according to new seismic research. Wastewater disposal wells, which hold millions of gallons of leftover fracking-related fluid, may be changing stress on existing faults and causing earthquakes spread out from the actual well. "Our results, using seismology and hydrogeology, show a strong link between a small number of wells and earthquakes migrating up to 50 kilometers (31 miles) away," Katie Keranen, assistant professor of geophysics at Cornell University, said in a release.
from Huffington Post:
Mysterious Holes In Indiana Sand Dune Could Be 'New Geological Phenomenon'
Mysterious holes that were discovered at an Indiana sand dune last year -- and which nearly swallowed a child -- will keep a Lake Michigan park closed indefinitely. The National Park Service announced last week that Mt. Baldy in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, about an hour from Chicago, will be closed for the summer and beyond. The decision was made after two new holes in the dunes were found. "The continued development of these holes in the dune surface poses a serious risk to the public," Acting Superintendent Garry Traynham said in a statement. Scientists have been unable to determine how the holes, which seem to appear and disappear within a day, are formed in the 43-acre dune.
Well, there's more stories than this -- but that was 75 of them! You may want to try the PANICloud for more specific topics!


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Over the past few years, textile fibre composites have become an interesting material for architects and designers. The material developed by the felt industry is a combination of natural fibres and bonding fibres that provides potent acoustic properties, high dimensional stability, low weight and a haptically appealing surface.
So far, the material has been almost exclusively used for two-dimensional panels in the field of sound absorption, though fibre composites have not yet reached their potential. The possibilities of thermal forming and the usage of a variety of processing technologies open a wide spectrum of innovative design possibilities, especially in the fields of product and interior design.
Together with innovative designers, CABS DESIGN has set itself the task to further explore the potential of the material, develop new products made of the fibre composite NITONA® and market high-quality design solutions.
NITONA® sets new standards in the acoustic design of spaces. Thanks to a wide processing window, the innovative material adapts to the requirements of interior design and the functionality of spaces and gives designers the freedom to bring good design and acoustic comfort into harmony. NITONA® provides very good sound absorption in a wide frequency range and does not contain prohibited or harmful substances.
- High sound absorption in a wide frequency range
- High quality surface that looks and feels good
- High stability and low weight
- Broad range of colours and special colours
- Ökotex Standard 100
- 100% recycable
- Fire protection class B S2 D0
- Acoustic elements "Made in Germany"

subset: commoncrawl


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|Legislators Arguments for Bringing Back the Death Penalty
|"an opportunity to craft a new, stronger capital punishment statute that not only meets constitutional standards, but also potentially contains safeguards to further augment the high integrity of the process."
|Even if a new death penalty statute corrects the 6th amendment violations, requiring unanimous jury recommendations for death and disallowing judges from overriding jury recommendations, it wouldn't fix its other problems including high cost, high error rate, racial bias, and ineffectiveness in deterring murder and healing victims and communities.
|"The First State has a long history of applying it cautiously, judiciously, and infrequently."
|NOT CAUTIOUSLY: Forensic evidence not required. Jermaine Wright was sentenced to death without a shred of forensic evidence. He spent over 20 years on death row before pleading no contest and being released with time served; only three states have a number of aggravating factors equal to or higher than Delaware.
NOT JUDICIOUSLY: violated the 6th amendment to the U.S. Constitution; prosecutorial misconduct in several cases; unethical: defendants are threatened with death sentences in order to get them to plead guilty to lesser charges; racial bias; ineffective: over 40% of those given a death sentence are not ultimately executed.
NOT INFREQUENTLY: DE has recently been listed 5th in death sentences per capita and 3rd in executions per capita since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
|"capital punishment can serve as a deterrent, possibly preventing the worst of crimes from ever being committed"
|In spite of its frequent use of the death penalty, Delaware is in the top 10 states in terms of murder rate. States with the death penalty have consistently higher murder rates than those without the death penalty.
|"the only appropriate punishment for some offenses of such a heinous nature that no other sanction would be adequate."
|The death penalty violates the sentencing guidelines of Delaware's Sentencing Accountability Commission (SENTAC). Life Without Parole is an appropriate sentence as it punishes while allowing for the possibility of offenders taking responsibility for their crime.
|"Until this week, Delaware was one of 31 states that authorized capital punishment."
|"Only 2% of the counties in the U.S. have been responsible for the majority of cases leading to executions since 1976. Likewise, only 2% of the counties are responsible for the majority of today's death row population and recent death sentences. To put it another way, all of the state executions since the death penalty as reinstated stem from cases in just 15% of the counties in the U.S."
|"We realize there are lingering questions about the equity of its application, but that is a separate issue"
|Equity should not be separate, but should be central, especially given the history of racial bias in Delaware's death penalty. "Black defendants who kill white victims are more than six times as likely to receive the death penalty as are black defendants who kill black victims."


text:
Stones Bracelet
Regular price$45.00
- Free worldwide shipping
- Low stock - 5 items left
- Inventory on the way
Get back to the basics. Fundamental for every modern gent's jewelry collection, these stretchy stone bead bracelets can be worn as single strands or stacked up as desired.
- TYPE: Stones
- SIZE : 8mm
- MATERIAL TYPE: A-grade semi-precious gemstones
- CLASP COLOUR: Polished Silver
- CLASP TYPE: 316L Stainless Steel
Use collapsible tabs for more detailed information that will help customers make a purchasing decision.
Ex: Shipping and return policies, size guides, and other common questions.


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Last week I commented in this space about the Tea Party's desire to make a symbolic cut in government by eliminating the American Community Survey and the Economic Census at the US Census. This would change economic statistics in the US, upending a system that has been in place since the end of World War II. And it really makes no sense for pro-business Republicans to be leading the charge, since business is one of the primary beneficiary of all this data about the US population and business.
Over the weekend, the economic correspondent for the New York Times wrote an opinion piece. She pointed out how many businesses had come out against this change, including the United States Chamber of Commerce, the National Retail Federation and the National Association of Home Builders.
The article did give a hint about what might actually be going on. To quote the article:
"Republicans may hope that when the Senate and House bills go to a conference committee, a final compromise will keep the survey, but make participation in it voluntary. Under current law, participation is mandatory."
That observation is rather amazing, since there is no mystery to the answer. That question has been studied. Let me quote from the summary of a report on the consequences from imposing voluntary participation:
* "A dramatic decrease occurred in mail response when the survey was voluntary. The mail cooperation rate fell by over 20 percentage points and the final response rate after all three modes of data collection was about four percentage points lower…
* The estimated annual cost of implementing the ACS would increase by at least 38 percent if the survey was voluntary and the survey maintained the current reliability levels.
* The use of voluntary collection methods had a negative impact on traditionally low response areas that will compromise our ability to produce reliable data for these areas and for small population groups such as Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and American Indians and Alaska Natives.
Lower reliability and higher cost seem like a dumb thing to aspire to produce. Like I said last week, this proposal is just stupid.


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Blog Archives
Café Central – The Place where Food makes Heart Do the Talking
This is a review of a place we have been addicted to in recent times. The restaurant, Café Central located in T.Nagar has enamored us in more than one way. The big plus is the restaurant has given us an option to dine in a hangout trending place as a family with varied tastes. Just a bit of elaboration here, a trendy college going girl with latest taste, a typical south Indian palate and a moderation of both is our family taste. It is certainly a tough call satisfying all of us under one roof and saying that this place has become a favorite place is no exaggeration. Now to the food we had, we already have been there twice, but we just managed to try out just a wee bit of the menu.Read the rest of this entry


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Macholib - Analyze and edit Mach-O headers¶
macholib can be used to analyze and edit Mach-O headers, the executable format used by Mac OS X.
It's typically used as a dependency analysis tool, and also to rewrite dylib
references in Mach-O headers to be
@executable_path relative.
Though this tool targets a platform specific file format, it is pure python code that is platform and endian independent.
General documentation¶
Reference Guide¶
macholib.MachO— Utilities for reading and writing Mach-O headers
macholib.MachoGraph— Graph data structure of Mach-O dependencies
macholib.MachOStandalone— Create standalone application bundles
macholib.SymbolTable— Class to read the symbol table from a Mach-O header
macholib.dyld— Dyld emulation
macholib.dylib— Generic dylib path manipulation
macholib.framework— Generic framework path manipulation
macholib.mach_o— Low-level definitions
macholib.ptypes— Packable types
Online Resources¶
Macholib was written by Bob Ippolito and is currently maintained by Ronald Oussoren <email@example.com>.


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"NERTs don't get hurt."
This is slogan is repeated often during Neighborhood Emergency Response Team (NERT) training sessions held throughout the year in various San Francisco neighborhoods.
Led by the San Francisco Fire Department (SFFD), NERT is a community-based training program dedicated to a neighbor-helping-neighbor approach, educating San Franciscans with tools and resources needed in the event of a disaster. NERT is a free program for individuals, neighborhood groups and community-based organizations in San Francisco to learn the basics of personal preparedness and prevention. The training also includes hands-on disaster skills that helps individuals respond to a personal emergency as well as act as members of a neighborhood response team.
Since 1990, the NERT program was born following the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989 and has trained more than 24,700 San Francisco residents to be self-reliant in unforeseen catastrophes and major incidents. The program also shows how civilians can assist first responders in various disaster scenarios, including search and rescue, triage, and putting out small fires.
Following a major earthquake, the SFPUC's primary responsibility is to secure its infrastructure and restore service to support first responders. The SFPUC's partnership SFFD and NERT allows for an organized approach to empower residents to participate in emergency response. This includes NERT members and other community-based organizations to help set up the water manifold in the event of an emergency and distribute potable water to those in need.
As related to the SFPUC's emergency preparedness and response, NERT has three specific responsibilities when they assist the SFPUC:
- Damage observation: Be the "eyes and ears" on the ground and note visible damage.
- Water quality information and notification: Help to communicate safe techniques for determining if water is safe to use and how to treat water.
- Assist to distribute potable water: Setting up the water manifold, collect or distribute bottle water donations, and set up large water containers for the community to receive water.
In the event the SFPUC leverages NERT during an emergency, there is a chain of command to maximize efficiency in communication and mobilization.


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I did not know Eavan Boland before this, did not know Paula Meehan. I did know the exquisiteness of words, the occasional poet that tells my heart, spells my heart, rips rebuilds reweaves renews and changes the world for me. Gift-givers. Both of these women are such poets.
Instead I bought this book because they were writing cities.
I bought this book because I love Dublin, too. This post focuses on words and writers and cities, but I loved every word, every poem, the so-much-more, the different-for-all-of-us that lies in every line. Paula Meehan at the ends says 'The way a poem lets you hold so much in mind'. Which is why each poem will forever be so much more than what I write here. This is an apology for narrowing them down really, for making too obvious how much this blog is to mark and capture things I hope to weave together sometime in the futures. Not tell how things are. I'd have to write poetry for that.
The intro is from editor Jody Allen Randolph, and situates everything nicely — there is so much to think about here:
What gives cities their unique identities? As this book will suggest, a city gets its identity not just from its buildings, its industries, its history, its public events, and its notable citizens. It also finds its identity from being imagined. The years, decades, centuries in which a city shapes its inhabitants add up to a rich life and afterlife of meaning and memory. Those meanings and memories requires language and expression (9).
She writes 'We also understood that poets both find and give identity to the city…As editors, we imagined this book as a topography of the city with the poet…' Thus poems arranged topographically not chronologically, in sections of river, city, suburb.
And this, a paradigm…I am never sure I like those, but this works better than most:
But we wanted to do more that just suggest the ways in which a poet has imagined a city over a span of four or five decades. We wanted to sketch out a paradigm for how a city is imagined. To this end, we envisioned a series of suggestive dialogues between text and image, and between poet and poet. (11)
And so a skimming of poetry, pulling bits and pieces that speak to the city and hopefully not damaging the whole and damn but you should go read them all anyway.
From City of Shadows, a reclaiming of the ordinary for poetry, so much of her work is about that.
I absorbed the sense that poetry was safe here in this city at twilight, with its violet sky and constant drizzle, within this circle of libraries and pubs and talks about stanzas and cadences. Beyond it was the ordinariness which could only dissipate it; beyond it was a life for which no visionary claim could be made. (13)
Except Boland makes this claim, scatters it in beauty and pain across the page.
Once in Dublin (my city of white pepper):
Small things
make the past.
Make the present seem out of place.
How do I know my country? Let me tell you
it has been difficult to do. And when I do
go back to difficult knowledge, it is not
to that street or those men raised
high above the certainties they stood on —
Ireland hero history — but how
I went behind the linen room and up
the stone stairs and climbed to the top.
And stood for a moment there, concealed
by shadows. In a hiding place.
Waiting to see. Wanting to look again.
Into the patient face of the unhealed. (19)
The Huguenot Graveyard at the Heart of the City
This city with its colours of sky and day —
and which is dear to us and particular —
was not a place to them: merely
the one witty step ahead of hate which
is all they could keep. Or stay. (21)
Migrations, our city through the eyes of others, an empathy with the plight of strangers. Everything our world lacks now.
Tree of Life
for dawn to make us clear to one another
Let the sun
inch above the roof-tops,
Let love
be the light that shows again
the blossom to the root. (27)
An Elegy For My Mother in Which She Scarcely Appears
as is my mother, on this Dublin evening of
fog crystals and frost as she reached out to test
one corner of a cloth for dryness as the prewar
Irish twilight closes in and down on the room
and the curtains are drawn and here am I,
not even born and already a conservationist,
with nothing to assist me but the last
and most fabulous of beasts — language, language —
which knows, as I do, that it's too late
to record the loss of these things but does so anyway,
and anxiously, in case it shares their fate. (33)
Language, over and over it is language in many of the same ways other colonised people experience its loss, its erasure, the way it shapes experience and meaning. Much here reminded of Assia Djebar among others.
And Eavan Boland loves rivers too, and their complex relationship with the city, here a generative one.
Gifts of the River
I begin with the Liffey because a river is not a place: it is a maker of places. Without the river there would be no city. Every day, turning its narrow circle, endlessly absorbing and re-absorbing the shapes and reflections of the city, it mirrors what it created. With the river, the city every day has to throw itself again into those surfaces, those depths, those reflections which have served as the source of all its fictions. (43)
The Scar
Dawn on the River.
Dublin arises out of what reflects it.
Anna Liffey
looks to the east, to the sea, (45)
And here, I don't know why I was surprised, happily, but so I was. Empire. Its complexities.
The Harbour
City of shadows and of the gradual
capitulations to the last invader
this is the final one: signed in water
and witnessed in granite and ugly bronze and gun-metal.
And by me. I am your citizen: composed of
your fictions, your compromise, I am
a part of your story and its outcome.
And ready to record its its contradictions. (55)
The Mother Tongue
The old pale ditch can still be seen
less than half a mile from my house–
its ancient barrier of mud and brambles
which mireth next unto Irishmen
is now a mere rise of coarse grass,
a rowan tree and some thinned-out spruce,
where a child is playing at twilight.
I stand in the shadows. I find it
hard to believe now that once
this was a source of our division:
Dug. Drained. Shored up and left
to keep out and keep in. That here
the essence of a colony's defence
was the substance of the quarrel with its purpose:
Land. Ground. A line drawn in rain
and clay and the roots of wild broom–
behind it the makings of a city,
beyond it rumours of a nation–
by Dalkey and Kilternan and Balally
through two ways of saying their names.
I was born on this side of the Pale.
I speak with the forked tongue of colony.
But I stand in the first dark and frost
of a winter night in Dublin and imagine
my pure sound, my undivided speech
travelling to the edge of this silence.
As if to find me. And I listen: I hear
what I am safe from. What I have lost. (77)
The segregated spaces created by power, created for domination, the damage they do to hearts and lives:
Here is the city—
its worn-down mountains,
its grass and iron,
its smoky coast
seen from the high roads
on the Wicklow side.
From Dalkey Island
to the North Wall,
to the blue distance seizing its perimeter,
its old divisions are deep within it.
And in me also.
And always will be.
Out of my mouth they come:
The spurred and booted garrisons.
The men and women
they dispossessed.
What is a colony
if not the brutal truth
that when we speak
the graves open.
And the dead walk?
I am awe-struck by these poems. I sat, and then dragged myself back to the register of prose.
Glad I did. It is a wonderful conversation between the wonderful Paula Meehan, who crosses class boundaries and tells Eavan Boland:
I realised that an accent is not a politics…then it was, suddenly, both a political and a literary argument. About who writes the city. I began to see that the city you were writing into your poems was not a scenic backdrop for the working out of the drama of the self, that, in fact, your relationship was with the polis, with the power structures of the state as manifest in architecture, in statuary, in the suffered histories of the excluded as much as in the commemorated and sanctioned official histories. (98)
She responds:
…I was interested in looking at a city as a place where the ghosts of power are remembered and tested. For me these ghosts are often colonial. But sometimes they're just the spirits of place. (98)
I always puzzled at being told Irish poets have a great 'sense of place'. I suspected that underneath was an unstated 'and you should stay in your place'. It felt like a simplification…It has become such a cliche that it masks, possibly drains of power, one of the most vital and crucial acts of the poet, the compact between the non-human and the human. Between the locale and its creatures, what waters and nourishes, as well as what threatens, what grows there. You mention 'spirit of place' and this rings truer to me than 'sense of place'. We can trace this aspect of our work back to the Dinnseanchas, the responsibility we once had to enshrine, possibly encode, in language the lore and etymology of place. (98)
and again Paula on language:
And now consider the other games that are being played, when you sit down to work with a poem: with the language itself, English and its imperial nature, our resistant version of it, the beautiful words with their own histories, their ghosts; the play with the shape of the poem…The way a poem lets you hold so much in mind. That excites me. It's the hit I get from making a poem. Why I go back again and again, craving the making.
Aren't we always making the city up? The cities? (101)
and again
To walk the streets of the city was, is, to stroll at will through the layers of its making and its peopling, to learn to place a particular building withing its era…all that, and always the lives lived there.
But, I have a sense also of something else at work — a kind of dream city or dreaming city. It doesn't exactly map on to any known verifiable place. It's the private sonic Dublin each poet makes — the individual song of the self in place, the free self in the given place. Maybe that's our true city? (104)
They talk of Joyce, Akhmatova, Flann O'Brien and The Charwoman's daughter by James Stephens which I too loved with a great love. Paula is more like me, writes of poverty and housing, being put in place, always fighting. Which makes this conversation between two such different voices so rich.
Final words from Boland responding to Meehan's raising of the power of words and voice, of poems as communal:
The adjective 'communal' has a related verb — an old-fashioned one — which is 'communing'. A word I've always loved. And one, when you look at it, that's quite a bit removed from the adjective that seems close to it. For me, even when a poem is not apparently communal, even when it seems to be private, it can still commune. In fact it may make a particularly strong community with a reader, and still not be communal, just by speaking to and of solitude…truly one of the great possibilities for the poem. (107)


text:
2018 has been another good year, both on a professional work front and a personal front. Here I am going to look back at some of the achievements and failures, starting with goals I set at the end of last year.
Review of my 2018 goals
Well these have been nothing short of a massive disappointment. I set 2 main goals. One to run 1,100 miles and the other to reduce the amount of alcohol I drink.
I have categorically failed on both counts, but more detail on the specifics later.
Running and personal fitness
My running goal for 2018 was to run at least 1,100 miles. This was set as I ran 1000 miles in 2017. I failed to achieve this in 2018 mainly because of 2 reasons:
- Injury – I have had some back problems pretty much all year, starting in about March and only just getting right as I type this post. Having a sore back has meant at the time I was very restricted in what activity I could do. Hopefully, this will be behind me know and not get in the way in 2019.
- Cycling – this year I have been cycling a lot more on the https://markwilkinson.blog/2018/05/first-proper-bike-ride-in-years/bike I purchased in the middle of last year. This should have been my goal, to be honest rather than a running distance as going both is pretty difficult.
I have really enjoyed my cycling and at the time of
My running, although thwarted by injury has still gone well. I have run 566.1 miles in 2018 with a total of 123 runs, running for a total of over 70 hours.
I was also really pleased that I managed to run at least 1 10km run in each month of the year and in fact many months had more than 2. The furthest I have ever run in one stint is just over 8 miles and I hope to beat that in 2019.
Work at Highrise Digital
It has been a mixed year with our WordPress development company – Highrise Digital. Whilst we have worked on some great projects and completed so fantastic work, we have seen profits dip a little (nothing too alarming) which is something we are looking to address in the new year.
I also was pleased to attend some lovely retreats with colleagues. We stayed in London in January and then in the summer we have a lovely few days in the small village of Clifford Chambers near Stratford-upon-Avon. Being a remote company it is always good to get together in person now and again. I am also looking forward to our trip to Italy early in the new year.
On my travels
Nowhere exotic I am afraid but I was lucky enough to have some great holidays both abroad and in the United Kingdom in 2018.
I am looking forward to more travels in 2019 with family and friends.
Goals for 2019
As I failed miserably this year to meet my goals (of which I am not a massive fan of
- Complete a single run of over 8.5 miles – this would beat my current single run record and something I feel that I could achieve.
- Complete a dry January – yes that means no alcohol in January


text:
"She's big as a man's fist,
Big as a black-pepper shaker
Filled with gris-gris dust,
Like two fat gladiolus bulbs
Grown into a burst of twilight.
Lumpy & fertile, earthy
& egg-shaped, she's pregnant
With all the bloomy hosannas
Of love hunger. Beautiful
In a way that forces us to look
At the ground, this squat
Venus in her braided helmet
Is carved from a hunk of limestone
Shaped into a blues singer.
In her big smallness
She makes us kneel."[i]
[i] Komunyakaa, Yusef; Talking Dirty to the Gods; Farrar, Straus and Giroux; New York, New York; 2000; p. 17.


text:
How Can Retail Firms Increase Their Sales Through Inventory Control?
Retail businesses rely on sales to earn revenue and increase profits. These companies purchase merchandise and resell it to customers. Inventory control involves considering which items to buy and the quantity of each. Styles change, and so do customer tastes. The company needs to anticipate the amount of sales it can make at a profitable price. When the inventory becomes obsolete, the company can no longer sell it profitably and loses money. Retail firms increase their total sales when they use effective inventory control.
Reduce Oversupply
One way to use inventory control for increasing sales involves not purchasing more inventory than necessary. Purchasing too many items leads to excessive inventory levels. As consumers purchase newer versions of the products, the company sells its remaining inventory at reduced prices. The company loses money by selling the products at the reduced prices. With effective inventory control, the company reduces the amount of inventory it needs to sell at reduced prices.
Create Demand
Another way of using inventory control to increase sales involves creating demand by acquiring a limited quantity of a product. By offering a limited supply of items, the company creates an increased demand among consumers. Each customer wants to purchase the item before the company runs out. The company can charge a higher price for the item because of the higher demand. This increases the company's total sales.
Reduce Shortages
Inventory control involves balancing between purchasing too many products and purchasing too few. A company can increase sales by ensuring that it maintains enough products in inventory to fill customer orders. When the company maintains a smaller inventory level, it runs the risk of shortages for customers. Those customers often shop at competitor stores, and the company loses its sale. As long as the company maintains enough inventory items to fill customer orders, it records the sales.
Increase Complementary Sales
Companies can also increase sales by maintaining a sufficient level of complementary products in inventory. For example, a retail store that sells vacuums should keep a supply of vacuum cleaner bags in inventory. Customers who purchase the vacuums also purchase vacuum cleaner bags.


text:
McConnell to Trump: I too like the wall
Mitch McConnell wants Donald Trump to know this: He's got the president's back on funding the border wall, even if it might have to wait until after the election.
As Trump said Tuesday that he doesn't "care what the political ramifications are" of forcing a government shutdown over border wall funding, the Senate majority leader continued to try and impress upon Trump that Senate Republicans are willing to fight for the border wall. But he made clear that the Senate is going to continue its work on less controversial spending bills in the hopes of passing as many of the 12 annual funding bills as possible before the Sept. 30 deadline.
"I support what the president is trying to do on the wall. Most of my members do as well," McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters. "We're going to continue to discuss it with him and hope that this process can achieve what he would like to achieve on the wall and also get these appropriations bills signed into law which is quite different than what's happened in the past."
Trump, of course, loathed the massive omnibus spending bill passed earlier in the year that delivered just a small amount of border security funding. But though Congress is working to avoid a catch-all bill at the end of the year, McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) are aiming to leave the border fight until after the November midterms.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is waging an uphill battle to take back the Senate majority, suggested that Republicans could be punished in the midterms by voters if they fail to fund the government and don't overrule Trump's border wall push.
"Usually the person that loses the shutdown is the person who caused it. And Donald Trump is making no bones about it, that he might think of causing it," said Schumer, whose own party forced a brief shutdown over immigration earlier this year. "I would hope my Republican colleagues have the strength to resist the president's interference,"
Last week, Trump, Ryan and McConnell met privately and discussed the House and Senate's approach. People briefed on the meeting said that Trump seemed to agree that putting off the border fight until next year makes sense.
But on Tuesday he lashed out at the idea that he's willing to wait for the wall.
"I don't care what the political ramifications are, our immigration laws and border security have been a complete and total disaster for decades, and there is no way that the Democrats will allow it to be fixed without a Government Shutdown," Trump tweeted. "A Government Shutdown is a very small price to pay for a safe and Prosperous America!"
Asked directly about Trump's tweet, McConnell demurred: "I'm hoping we're going to be able to resolve this issue. We know it's important to him."
Under the current plan of congressional leaders, Republicans would work to fund the majority of the government through spending bill packages in September. Whatever is not completed by Sept. 30 would then be funded through the election via a stopgap spending bill.
Funding the Department of Homeland Security would likely not come to the Senate floor and instead be patched into late November or December due to intractable partisan differences over wall funding. The House is planning to provide $5 billion for Trump's wall, but the Senate is angling to give Trump $1.6 billion. In the Senate, spending bills will require the support of at least nine Democrats this fall.


text:
Jim Friend/Dearborn Times Herald Newspapers/August 18, 1999
Looking for a little excitement to spice up your night life? Then spend two hours in a greasy-spoon restaurant at Henry Ford Community College.
The restaurant is the set for the HFCC's Theatre Arts Department's 1999 summer production, "When You Comin Back Red Ryder?" The show opened August 12 and runs until August 22. Directed by George Poppvich, 'Ryder' tells the story of a troubled drifter who psychologically and physically attacks the patrons at the diner in New Mexico Desert. It was written in 1973 by Tony Award Winning author Mark Medoff ("Children of a Lesser God") and was his first professionally produced play.
'Ryder' has been produced in several different languages around the world. In 1979 it was made into a film in starring Pat Hingle, Candy Clark and Marjoe Gortner. The titlle role refers to a comic and film figure of the 30's and and 40's. Red Ryder was a cowboy hero and his sidekick, an Indian, was named Little Beaver. Ryder was known for the strength of his convictions and the directness of his actions.
HFCC's production is not an updated version, Popovich said. The period. as stated by the author, is the end of the sixties. The choice of the period is apt because of the representation of the loss of innocence. The main character Teddy; hero, villain or tragic hero, may give the first impression that he is a deplorable person. As we learn more about him we see that he has a deep insight about the people he meets, much deeper than they have about themselves. Teddy, clinging to the days of innocence is driven by his inner demons to strip away the innocence of those around him and make them confront the shallow lives they're leading.
Popovich said he chose the play because it was challenging for his student actors.
"There is more than a fair amount of stage combat and there is an extended variety of character type" Popovich said. "It's language is strongly modern and holds up well. Although the play is 25 years-old, it's reminiscent of the dialog in such films as 'Pulp Fiction' 'Payback' and 'Jackie Brown."'
Popovich added that elements of 'Ryder' have been seen in movies such as 'Kalifornia' 'Natural Born Killers' and 'Badlands'.
"We intend to produce a tight , powerful, heavy-hitting show," Popovich said. "If you enjoy intense, engaging drama, you will not be dissapointed."
The eight member cast includes William Spicher as Stephen, Joanne Robertson as Angel, Michael Overbay as Lyle,Corey Stephenson as Clarisse, James Piche as Richard, Tim Jacobs as Teddy, and Nicole Laginess as Cheryl.
Because of the adult content of the production, no one under the age of 18 will be admitted into the performances. Seating is also limited to 100 people at each performance. The seats are placed on the stage, putting audience members four feet from the action.


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Perishable goods lost, destroyed, written off because of Covid19 – Will you get GST ITC Refund?
Due to the current situation it is obvious that there has been an impact on the suppliers of perishable goods. The major impact is specifically on the food processing sectors, textiles, grocery and other farm items where the nature of goods are perishable. These sectors will now be facing a situation where, higher tax is to be paid due to inventory loss now being compounded with the reversal of Input Tax Credit.
Impact of ITC of Perishable Goods
In accordance with the provisions of the GST Law there is no credit available for goods lost, stolen, destroyed or written off or disposed by way of free samples. Thereby in such cases where the perishable goods inventory are obsolete or no longer in use there will be reversal of ITC. The decay of perishable goods being a slow process there are more chances of reduction in value due to partial decay. This leads to a forced sale at a lower price than the actual price by the business.
For E.g. Mr. Mohan sales goods at Rs, 200 normally, and purchases the same at Rs 130. But due to partial decay the final value of product for sale has reduced to 100. Now the question arises if Mr. Mohan can claim full ITC of Rs 130 or not?
We will understand the above example with the provisions of law highlighting the concept of block credit
What is block credit?
Although you have paid GST while making a purchase but due to certain conditions you are restricted and not allowed to claim the same. The GST which is paid during purchase but cannot be claimed are called blocked input tax credit and are covered under section 17 (5) of the CGST Act, 2017
Relevant Section
Section 17 (5) of CGST Act
ITC is not available in some cases as mentioned in section 17(5) of CGST Act, 2017. Some of them are as follows:
a. motor vehicles and other conveyances except under specified circumstances;
b. goods and/or services provided in relation to;
i. Food and beverages, outdoor catering, beauty treatment, health services, cosmetic and plastic surgery, except under specified circumstances;
ii. Membership of a club, health and fitness center;
iii. Rent-a-cab, life insurance, health insurance except where it is obligatory for an employer under any law;
iv. Travel benefits extended to employees on vacation such as leave or home travel concession;
c. Works contract services when supplied for construction of immovable property, other than plant & machinery, except where it is an input service for further supply of works contract;
d. Goods or services received by a taxable person for construction of immovable property on his own account, other than plant & machinery, even when used in course or furtherance of business;
e. Goods and/or services on which tax has been paid under composition scheme;
f. Goods and/or services used for private or personal consumption, to the extent they are so consumed;
g. Goods lost, stolen, destroyed, written off, gifted, or free samples;
h. Any tax paid due to short payment on account of fraud, suppression, mis-declaration, seizure, detention.
From the above it is clear that Input tax credit shall not be available on goods lost, stolen, destroyed, written off, gifted, or free samples and therefore perishable goods fall under this ambit and shall denied the claim of Input tax credit.
Cautions to be considered
- If ITC is availed on such Invoices there are chances of facing demand with the department.
- You are advice to maintain records about such invoices and frame business policies so as to approve such tax positions.


text:
What's the Best Time To Visit Peru?
Figuring out the best time to visit Peru depends on factors like weather, tourist high season, annual events…and where you're going.
As Matador member Amber Eve points out, "Peru has three major climates: the coast, the mountains, and the Amazon." Amber, who lived in Lima from 2008 to 2010, continues:
For the coast, I suggest January-March, as that is the time of year it is sunniest (the rest of the year is generally cloudy and gray), with temperatures between 70-80 degrees farenheit.
In the mountains, January, February, and March are the rainy months, which you should try to avoid, if possible.
Finally, if you're heading to the Amazon, it's best to go June-August, thereby avoiding the rainy season and the nasty mosquitoes (read: malaria) that go along with it.
Of course, if luck is on your side, you could find sun on the coast in April, with clear skies in the mountains and dry ground in the Amazon.
Karen Ward, another Matador member with local knowledge about Peru, adds this:
Most people when they go to Peru will want to go to the mountains, so best avoid the rainy season. That runs from November to around March-April. So I would suggest May and June and then September. This way you avoid the very busy tourist season (July-August).
May is also a good time for festivals — Q'olloriti is in May and Inti Raymi in June.
For the coast, this is also a good time as the coldest, foggiest, and wettest months are July and August. Dec-Feb have the best weather on the coast but beaches get packed with Peruvians.
My experience
My wife and I rented a hostel room in Cuzco for a month in May, 2009.
Days were dry. I remember sitting in my "location independent office" at Norton's Pub one afternoon and being really confused/surprised when it sprinkled for 5 minutes. It's easy to forget about rain when you don't see it for a while.
Nights got chilly — most hostels/hotels should be able to provide a space heater for a couple extra bucks a night.
Most importantly, we had excellent weather for a trek to Choquequirao and a trip to Machu Picchu by car.
So, what's the best time to visit Peru?
Short answer: late-April/May/early-June, or late-August/September