Tag Archives: broadcasting

EVOLUTION MYTHS – Jeffrey K. Lyons

by Myrna Posted on February 12, 2019

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

EVOLUTION MYTHS

A Critical View of neo-Darwinism

Jeffrey K. Lyons

Genre: Nature

Price: $7.99

Publish Date: November 28, 2018

Publisher: Liberty Hill Publishing

Seller: South Tx Broadcasting dba Xulon Press


Today, evolutionary theory is ubiquitous in our secular education systems. This book is a critical view of neo-Darwinism, which is the dominant dogma throughout secular higher education and K-12 public education. The criticisms of neo-Darwinism cited in this book are from various overlapping groups of: scientists, atheists, philosophers and university professors. If you are looking for a resource that will give you sound arguments and facts, that will aid you in thinking critically about Darwinism; this is the resource for you. Evolution is no longer a biological theory.  It permeates the natural sciences, social sciences and philosophy. It has become a meta-theory. Whenever scientific data are absent, both natural and social scientists resort to narrative as a super glue. Evolution is open to criticism! You will discover the following: Who popularized the term  evolution  and why Darwin opposed the term  evolution   How many times Darwin referred to the Creator in  The Origin of Species What world famous scientist believed DNA was not naturally caused The Three Barriers to Life, that evolution cannot explain Proof that life cannot be the result of random forces How catastrophic events wiped out about 90% of life on Earth Who are some of the leading scientists and philosophers that dare to question  evolution Chapter summaries will guide you through the topics Hundreds of scientific sources are cited for further research

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EVOLUTION MYTHS – Jeffrey K. Lyons

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This Lead-Poisoned City Could Be Trump’s Flint

by DanielPamn Posted on March 15, 2017

Mother Jones

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In East Chicago, Indiana, where 90 percent of this population of 29,000 are people of color and one-third live below the poverty line, a lead crisis is unfolding and residents are concerned that the Environmental Protection Agency under Scott Pruitt is unlikely to respond.

For decades, industrial plants polluted the air and soil with lead and arsenic in East Chicago neighborhoods that included a public housing complex and an elementary school. In 2014, the EPA declared the lead plant in the area a Superfund site and began the cleanup, but a Reuters investigation in 2016 found that children living near the Superfund site still had elevated levels of lead in their blood. The EPA subsequently tested the water and found that not only did the homes in the vicinity have elevated levels of lead in their drinking water, but so did the entire city—much as Flint did during its 2014 water crisis. The EPA estimated that up to 90 percent of East Chicago homes received water through lead service lines.

In December 2016, before the EPA’s findings were made public, Mayor Anthony Copeland sent a letter to then-Gov. Mike Pence, the vice president-elect, asking him to declare a state of emergency in the city so communities could acquire financial assistance for residents being forced to relocate because of the lead contamination at the Superfund site. Pence denied the request, but it was subsequently approved by his successor, Eric Holcomb.

This month, a coalition of East Chicago residents sent a petition to the EPA renewing their request for help and asking for water filters, expanded blood level testing for children, and assurance that those affected had access to Medicaid. The petition charges that neither the city nor the state provided an adequate response to the discovery of lead in the drinking water and that the EPA has the authority to act, just as it did in Flint.

But the EPA that the community petitioned has radically changed. The appointment of Administrator Scott Pruitt, who often “disagrees” with scientific fact and was determined to gut the agency, set the stage for cutting programs that deter pollution and rolling back regulations that keep air and drinking water safe. Leaked versions of the EPA budget showed plans to slash funds for lead pollution cleanup efforts and environmental justice programs, both of which could assist the residents of East Chicago. The head of the EPA’s justice office resigned after more than two decades of service, saying the proposed cuts are a signal “that communities with environmental justice concerns may not get the attention they deserve.”

“East Chicago is precisely the kind of community to be affected by cuts,” says Anjali Waikar, an attorney from the Natural Resources Defense Council. “This is the heart of what environmental justice is. This is an opportunity for the federal government to exercise muscle and avoid another Flint disaster.”

But will it?

The EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice manages several programs aimed at protecting the human health and environment in communities overburdened by environmental pollution. The Environmental Justice Small Grants Program awards funding to community-based organizations that work with communities facing such issues. With the support of such a grant, a 2013 project funded an education campaign on childhood lead poisoning in Baltimore that helped nearly 16,000 residents.

The EPA’s slow response was widely criticized in the aftermath of the Flint disaster. When he made a campaign stop in Flint, Donald Trump pledged to fix the city’s water problems if he won. “It used to be that cars were made in Flint and you couldn’t drink the water in Mexico,” he said. “And now the cars are made in Mexico and you can’t drink the water in Flint. It’s terrible.” During his confirmation hearings, Pruitt attributed the crisis to EPA’s failure to act quickly. “There should have been a more rapid response,” he said.

Shortly after the EPA received the petition from East Chicago, a spokesperson for the agency told Indiana Public Broadcasting that the agency “will review the petition and will continue to work with the city and state to protect the health of East Chicago residents.”

But East Chicago and Flint are likely not anomalies. A 2016 NRDC report found that 18 million Americans got their water from sources that had lead violations the previous year. The violations ranged from failure to treat water to reduce lead levels to failure to report lead results to the government or public.

“The states have shown that if there’s not a strong federal minimum of water standards, it will fall below that,” says Jennifer Chavez of Earthjustice. She notes that the Trump administration’s aggressive approach to cutting regulations “is just ignoring history and evidence of what happens when regulations aren’t in place.”

Early in his campaign, Trump was clear about his dislike of environmental regulations. “Environmental Protection, what they do is a disgrace,” he told Fox News Sunday‘s Chris Wallace. “Every week they come out with new regulations.” Historically, poor communities and communities of color have been especially vulnerable to pollution and environmental waste. With abundant cheap land, poor neighborhoods are regular dumping grounds for industrial pollutants. And long-term neglect means cities with lead pipes often are ignored.

“The legacy of racial discrimination and marginalization that leaves them with fewer resources also leaves them underinvested,” says Khalil Shahyd, an environmental justice expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Communities with few resources are usually unable to fight back as effectively as wealthier ones. For example, the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline was originally slated to go through Bismarck, North Dakota. Residents there fought back and the route was reworked and is now slated to pass through tribal land belonging to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. In the past, environmental justice activists have sued the EPA and various entities over environmental violations and in some cases have won.

For instance, the city of Tyler, Texas, is predominantly black and poor and was accused of violating the Clean Water Act for pumping raw sewage into the city’s water supply. A few days before Trump’s inauguration, the city settled with the EPA and the Department of Justice and agreed to pay a fine and upgrade the sanitary sewer system.

But for residents of East Chicago, the restructuring of the EPA could hinder their efforts to provide safe drinking water, and time is running out. “The disastrous effects of lead in our soil have already taken a toll on our community,” said East Chicago resident Sherry Hunter in an NRDC press release. “But lead coming through our taps takes this mess to a whole new, unacceptably horrible level.”

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This Lead-Poisoned City Could Be Trump’s Flint

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Oregon explosion reminds us that oil trains are “weapons of mass destruction”

by RoccoKroemer Posted on June 6, 2016

Oregon explosion reminds us that oil trains are “weapons of mass destruction”

By on Jun 6, 2016Share

An oil train that went off the tracks and burst into flames in the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon last week hasn’t been cleaned up yet, but the railroad is already back to business as usual. And many North Americans are feeling renewed anxieties about the danger of what activists call “bomb trains.”

On Friday, 16 Union Pacific train cars filled with highly combustible fracked oil from the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota derailed outside Mosier, Ore. Multiple cars caught fire, and about 100 people were evacuated from nearby homes. Elizabeth Sanchey, one of the first responders, told Oregon Public Broadcasting that the scene “looked like the apocalypse.” This weekend, a sheen of oil was spotted on the Columbia River nearby.

Mosier city officials quickly passed an emergency motion calling on Union Pacific to remove all oil from the damaged cars before the line was reopened, but Union Pacific just pushed the disabled cars to the side of the track and restarted operations. As of this writing, the cars are still filled with oil.

Oil train derailment in Mosier, Ore.Columbia Riverkeeper

“Restarting trains before the high-risk carnage of their last accident is even cleared from the tracks is telling Mosier they are going to play a second round of Russian roulette without our town,” said Mayor Alrene Burns in a statement. “It’s totally unacceptable.”

Mosier’s citizens agree. Dozens of locals — including city officials, tribal representatives, faith leaders, and members of environmental groups — gathered in nearby Hood River, Ore., over the weekend to protest the oil trains moving through their communities.

Protesters gathered after Mosier oil-train explosion.Columbia Riverkeeper

Mosier, of course, isn’t the only town at risk.

Crude oil from the Bakken shale is especially flammable, and it is transported all across the U.S. and Canada. In 2013, a train moving Bakken crude derailed in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, killing 47 people and destroying much of the town center. It was the most deadly oil-train derailment in recent history, but it was far from the only one. In the past few years, more than a dozen derailments and explosions have occurred, leading to evacuations, oil spills, and, in some cases, fires that burned for days.

The 2013 oil-train disaster in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. Public Herald

Though oil transport by rail is increasingly common, many residents have no idea that these trains are passing through their communities. (This map shows some rail lines that transport oil, as well as sites where accidents have occurred.) In 2014, national railroad operators agreed to eight voluntary measures to lower the risk of derailments, including reducing speed in some cities and increasing inspections, but communities still aren’t getting the information they would need to effectively respond to disasters, let alone prevent them.

Mosier has about 400 residents, but these oil trains aren’t only going through rural areas and small towns. They go through major American cities as well.

In Seattle, an oil train carrying nearly 100 cars derailed underneath a bridge in 2014. While all the cars were left intact and there was no public safety risk, according to officials, the incident underscored the potential for disaster. And that potential is huge: Last year, a KOMO News investigation captured video of more than a hundred train cars filled with oil rolling past the Seattle Seahawks football stadium as 32,000 fans watched a game inside. The Seattle City Council has called for railroads to curb oil train shipments through the city, but the companies have refused to comply, or even to release train schedules. And there’s no law that requires them to.

“The railroads are bringing weapons of mass destruction through our cities,” Fred Millar, oil safety and hazardous materials expert, tells Grist, and the only thing firefighters can do in the event of an explosion is to back off and let it burn.

As for Mosier, all evacuees have been allowed to return home, but their ordeal is far from over. The city’s wastewater treatment plant is offline, residents have a boil advisory for drinking water, and the full oil cars are still sitting there beside the tracks.

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Oregon explosion reminds us that oil trains are “weapons of mass destruction”

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Ted Cruz Really Hates Climate Change

by Laura Brown Posted on November 13, 2015

Mother Jones

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Yesterday I dinged Ted Cruz for blathering about how he’d eliminate five cabinet departments. Big deal. The programs would just go elsewhere. Instead, tell me what programs you’d eliminate.

As it turns out, Cruz does have a list of programs he wants to get rid of. It’s really hard to find because his website is a horrific mess, but here it is:

  1. Climate Ready Water Utilities Initiative
  2. Climate Research Funding for the Office of Research and Development
  3. Climate Resilience Evaluation Awareness Tool
  4. Global Methane Initiative
  5. Green Infrastructure Program
  6. Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program
  7. New Starts Transit Program
  8. Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund
  9. Regulation of CO2 Emissions from Power Plants and all Sources
  10. Regulation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Vehicles
  11. Renewable Fuel Standard Federal Mandates
  12. UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
  13. UN Population Fund (abortion)
  14. USDA Catfish Inspection Program (genuinely wasteful)
  15. Appalachian Regional Commission (helps poor people)
  16. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Obama program)
  17. Corporation for Public Broadcasting (culture war)
  18. Corporation for Travel Promotion (???)
  19. Legal Services Corporation (helps poor people)
  20. National Endowment for the Arts (culture war)
  21. National Endowment for the Humanities (culture war)
  22. Presidential Election Campaign Fund (no one uses it anymore)
  23. Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation (???)
  24. Sugar Subsidies (anti-Rubio)
  25. Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (part of hated Obama stimulus program)

I’ve re-ordered this list to make clear just how much Cruz hates climate change. Nearly half of his cuts are to programs related to the environment or climate change. Cruz also wants to ditch some culture warrior stuff (arts, humanities, public broadcasting), some anti-liberal stuff (legal services, CFPB, TIGER), some anti-Rubio stuff (sugar subsidies), and some genuinely stupid stuff (USDA catfish inspection, a clever protectionist measure beloved of catfish-producing states).

So how much would this save? Cruz says $50 billion per year, but that seems pretty optimistic. The catfish thing, for example, costs $14 million, and lots of items on the list don’t cost the government anything. I suppose I could google all 25 of them and see what they add up to, but not today. My horseback guess, though, is maybe $10-20 billion.

I’ve tried to identify the reasons Cruz hates each of these programs, but I came up blank on two of them: travel promotion and the Saint Lawrence Seaway. Maybe they’re genuinely wasteful. I’m not sure.

In any case, this is it. Cruz deserves credit for at least making a list, which is more than most candidates are willing to do. But will this actually save more than a tiny fraction of his stupendous tax cuts? Not a chance.

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Ted Cruz Really Hates Climate Change

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We Are Programmed to Receive

by VRBSanorabni Posted on September 19, 2015

Mother Jones

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It’s Saturday, and I am oh-so-tired of Donald Trump. (The latest: he finally coughed up his favorite Bible verse, but it doesn’t actually appear anywhere in the Bible. Since this was an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, he knew this had to be coming but still didn’t bother to look up a genuine verse. I swear, he’s just taunting us. He’s actually a Democrat with an IQ of 300 and he’s running a test to see just how far you can bamboozle the press corps and the conservative base and still lead the Republican primary race. Judging by Wednesday’s debate performance, he’s finally tiring of the gag because it appears you simply can’t go too far.)

So: no more Donald. Instead, prepare yourself for a ridiculous topic explored at ridiculous length. Here’s the background: the iPod in my car is set to permanent shuffle play, and yesterday the Eagles’ “Hotel California” came up. I’ve heard this song hundreds of times, I suppose, but this time one word in the final famous lines suddenly struck me as odd:

“Relax,” said the night man,
“We are programmed to receive.
You can check out any time you like,
But you can never leave.”

Programmed? This song was written in 1976, before the PC revolution and the rise of Silicon Valley conspired to make programming into a common word. See update below. Even cheap programmable calculators had just barely started to hit the market. It was certainly a common word among techie types, which is probably why it never seemed odd to me before, but was it common among shaggy rock musicians? It doesn’t seem like it would be. Did Don Henley take an intro CS course at North Texas State? Or is the word being used in a different sense?

Naturally, I went to my favorite source for word usage over time, the Google Ngram Viewer. Here’s what it shows:

There are two notable things here. First, the use of programmed peaks in 1984. That’s odd. You’d think it would have kept on rising into the stratosphere. It’s in common use today for everything from building a space shuttle to setting up your toaster oven. UPDATE: In comments, weirdnoise suggests that this is because coding is used rather than programming these days. Could be.

More germane to my question, however, is the fact that its use starts to rise around 1940. What’s up with that? This is obviously a non-computer usage, since digital computers hadn’t been invented at that point. So let’s go to Google Books and check things out. Programmed appears to have been commonly used in four basic senses. Here are examples of each:

War Housing: Hearings Before the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds, 1942: “The 20,000 units in item 5b and the 100,000 additional Government dormitories yet to be programmed and financed, as shown in item 5c….”

Variety Radio Directory, 1940: “National Broadcasting Co. Owned and/or Managed and/or Programmed Stations—474….”

Health and Its Maintenance: A Hygiene Text for Women, 1931: “She has always programmed her work. She never undertook more than she could do and do well….”

Life magazine ad, 1949: “IBM products using electronic principles: Card-programmed Calculator….”

In order, the four senses in which programmed was used are: (1) in construction and engineering scheduling, (2) in radio scheduling, (3) as a generic synonym for scheduled, and (4) the IBM sense, which is a precursor to the common computer programming sense of today.

The first three of these are all variants of scheduled, or else used in the similar sense of verbing the noun program. The final one is the source of the contemporary usage of the word in the software biz.

So what were the Eagles thinking of? It doesn’t make sense that it was used as a synonym for scheduled. That doesn’t read right, and anyway, why not just use the word scheduled instead? The computer sense works in context, but somehow seems unlikely. That leaves us with the radio programming sense, and I suppose that’s the right one. Musicians would obviously be familiar with this usage, and so would their audience.

I warned you that this was a ridiculously long post about a ridiculous topic. Don’t blame me if you read all the way to the end. But now that you have, feel free to comment if you think there’s a possibility I’ve left out.

UPDATE: Via Twitter, Dan Perkins (aka Tom Tomorrow) reminds me that programmed—in the computer programming sense—was fairly commonly used in science fiction TV and movies in the 60s and 70s. For example, here it is from 1965 in the first episode of Lost in Space:

DR. SMITH: I have reprogrammed the robot. His power has been activated. Exactly eight hours after launch the robot will destroy the spaceship with all hands aboard.

Here it is from 1967 in I, Mudd, an episode in the original Star Trek series:

KIRK: Who sent you?
NORMAN (an android): I am not programmed to respond in that area.

Here it is from 1968 in 2001: A Space Odyssey:

INTERVIEWER: Do you believe that Hal has genuine emotions?
POOLE: Well, he acts like he has genuine emotions. He’s programmed that way to make it easier for us to talk to him.

And from 1972 in Silent Running:

LOWELL: Hey, that’s really excellent. Now, um…you see, what I’ve done is…I’ve reprogrammed both of you so that now you’ll respond directly to me.

And of course, from 1977 in Star Wars:

OWEN: You, I suppose you’re programmed for etiquette and protocol.
THREEPIO: Protocol? Why, its my primary function, sir. I am well-versed in all the customs—
OWEN: I have no need for a protocol droid.
THREEPIO: Of course you haven’t, sir. Not in an environment such as this. That is why I have been programmed—

OK, I’ll stop now. The point is that perhaps the computer programming sense of the word was actually pretty common in popular culture by 1976. So I guess there was no real mystery to be solved after all.

UPDATE: Or maybe it’s being used in the new-agey sense of cult programming. That would make sense on multiple levels.

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We Are Programmed to Receive

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Koalas Get Laid By Making This Horrifyingly Disgusting Grunting Sound

by SherrieRuckman Posted on July 10, 2015

Mother Jones

Listen to the sound in that video. If I had to guess what it meant, soliciting sex would probably be pretty far down my list. It strikes me more as the sound a Chicago Bears fan might make after swilling a pitcher of Bud Light.

But new research has revealed for the first time that this mysterious bellowing is most likely the male koalas’ mating call.

Weekends are always better when they start with koalas.


This Koala Is So Cute You’ll Want It To Get Away With Stealing This Kid’s Car


Koalas Are Cute and Cuddly. This Video Proves They Are Also Fearsome Warriors.


We Have Some Good News For You About the Koala That Was Burned in the Fire


Please, Please Stop Making Mittens for Koalas


Here Is a Photo of President Obama Holding a Koala


Koalas Get Laid By Making This Horrifyingly Disgusting Grunting Sound

Despite their popularity, relatively little is known about koalas’ social interactions, since they tend to be solitary and thus difficult to study. To overcome that challenge, researchers at Australia’s University of Queensland fitted 21 koalas on St. Bees Island with GPS tracking collars during the summertime mating season.

Over two months, the GPS devices recorded how often koalas came into contact with one another. The scientists found that while male-female interactions increased during mating season, male-male encounters remained rare, suggesting that the male koalas had a way of avoiding each other while attracting females.

The most likely explanation is that bellow, lead author William Ellis told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:

Researchers suggest that the male koala’s bellowing serves to warn other males away from their territory, so there’s no need for close-up grappling and competition.

Ellis says the bellows may also be a way of communicating important information to potential mates.

“Our studies on the bellows have certainly shown us that the bellow itself contains information on size but also individuality; they are distinct for each particular male,” he says…

Given the often isolated nature of koala groups, individuality of bellows may help female koalas avoid mating with close relatives, thereby maintaining the population’s genetic diversity, says Ellis.

Happy Friday!

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Koalas Get Laid By Making This Horrifyingly Disgusting Grunting Sound

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This Is What Every Fire Season Could Soon Look Like

by ReginalJobe Posted on January 5, 2015

Mother Jones

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Jane Derijcke sorts through her burnt possessions in Hastings, Victoria, after a wildfire destroyed her home. Mike Keating/Newspix/Rex Features via AP

Australian fire crews are battling some of the worst wildfires the state of South Australia has seen in decades. The South Australian Country Fire Service, the agency in charge of response, says 22 firefighters have been injured so far. The service says the conditions over the weekend are rivaled only by those experienced during the notorious “Ash Wednesday” fires of 1983, which killed 75 people.

The South Australian blazes, centered in the Adelaide Hills that surround the state capital, began last Friday. Since then, the fires have consumed more than 46 square miles, and destroyed or damaged 26 homes, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. While residents have begun the tortuous process of picking through the rubble of burnt-out houses, the battle across southern Australia, including in the neighboring state of Victoria, is far from over. On Monday, roughly 700 firefighters took advantage of relatively cooler temperatures—they are currently battling fires into the night. But conditions are expected to worsen on Tuesday and Wednesday, with temperatures likely to soar above 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

The fires have reignited the country’s ongoing debate about how best to tackle climate change, which is helping fuel an ever-increasing number of wildfires, and lengthening Australia’s fire seasons. “Every year we are going to face these extreme weather events, which are going to cost lives and infrastructure, and enough is enough,” said Christine Milne, the leader of the country’s Greens party.

Here are some photos from this weekend:

Columns of smoke rise from the Adelaide Hills in this photo taken on January 2. More than 30 homes are already feared destroyed. Hewitt Wang/Xinhua/ZUMA

Firefighter Lukas Lane-Geldmacher rescues a dog from the Tea Tree Gully Boarding Kennel and Cattery during the Adelaide Hills fire on January 3. Dylan Coker/Newspix/Rex Features via AP

Fire crews battle a wildfire in Kersbrook, outside Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. Campbell Brodie/Newspix/Rex Features via AP

South Australia wasn’t the only state impacted by fires. Here, John Gaylor stands amid the wreckage of his firewood business in Hastings, Victoria. Mike Keating/Newspix/Rex Features via AP

Trees blackened by this weekend’s fires in the Adelaide Hills. Hewitt Wang/Xinhua/ZUMA

This spectacular and frightening photo, taken by Ben Goode, and shared on his Facebook page, Earth Art Photography:

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Post by Earth Art Photography.

And finally, these firefighters have a pointed message for the Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, who is known for scrapping the nation’s cap-and-trade program, and gutting various government agencies tasked with fighting climate change:

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This Is What Every Fire Season Could Soon Look Like

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Breaking: Sydney on Lockdown As Dramatic Siege Unfolds

by Glory Miche Posted on December 15, 2014

Mother Jones

The heart of Sydney, Australia, is currently in lockdown, as a siege unfolds at a downtown cafe. Reporting is still fuzzy and ongoing, but here’s what we know so far: Police are responding to a situation at the Lindt Cafe in Martin Place, a central plaza in the city surrounded by banks and law firms, and not far from the state parliament buildings and the Sydney Opera House.

The number of hostages taken have not been confirmed. Channel Seven, a TV station with studios and offices in Martin Place, is reporting police sources as saying there are 13 people being held. The number of hostage-takers has also not been confirmed.

Twitter users have posted images of people, apparently hostages, with their hands against the windows of the cafe and holding up a black flag with Arabic writing on it. Guardian Australia is reporting the flag reads, “There is no god but the God, Muhammad is the messenger of God.” It is not the Islamic State flag. Large parts of the area have been cordoned off.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which has unlocked its live stream for an international audience, is providing rolling coverage. Channel Seven is also providing live coverage here.

The Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, has released a statement saying his government is convening an emergency session of the National Security Committee of Cabinet:

UPDATE: Sunday, December 14, 2014, 9 p.m. EST: The Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has addressed reporters in Australia’s capital, Canberra. He didn’t provide any further factual detail about the unfolding saga in Sydney. Notably, he did not outline potential reasons for the attack. “We don’t yet know the motivation of the perpetrator,” he said, though he added that “obviously there are some indications” the attack could be political in nature. Abbott said the normal business of government would continue:

I can understand the concerns and anxieties of the Australian people at a time like this, but our thoughts and prayers must above all go out to the individuals who are caught up in this. I can think of almost nothing more distressing, more terrifying than to be caught up in such a situation and our hearts go out to these people.

UPDATE 2: Monday, December 15, 2014, 12:15 a.m. EST: It appears that at least three hostages have gotten free, though whether they escaped or were released is not yet clear.

As things unfold, we’ve compiled a list of sources on Twitter to follow. Find it here.

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Breaking: Sydney on Lockdown As Dramatic Siege Unfolds

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Canada’s Coverage of the Ottawa Shootings Put American Cable News to Shame

by SpencerBarnhill Posted on October 22, 2014

Mother Jones

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The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation today gave a master class in calm, credible breaking news reporting.

Anchored by the unflappable Peter Mansbridge, news of the shootings in Ottawa unfolded live on the CBC much like they do here in the United States: lots of sketchy details, conflicting reports, unreliable witnesses, and a thick fog of confusion. All of that was familiar. What was less familiar was how Mansbridge and his team managed that confusion, conveying a concise and fact-based version of fast-moving events to viewers across Canada and the world.

This live bit of level-headed reporting by Mansbridge, from around 11:10am Wednesday, should be given to journalism students around the country. It basically contains everything you need to know about why CBC did its audience proud:

MANSBRIDGE: And so, the situation is, as we say, tense and unclear. And it’s on days like this—we keep reminding you of this and it’s important—it’s on days like this, where a story takes a number of different pathways, a number of changes occur, and often rumors start in a situation like this. We try to keep them out of our coverage, but when they come, sometimes from official sources, like members of Parliament, you tend to give them some credence. But you carefully weigh it with what we’re also witnessing. It’s clear that the situation is not over. It is clear the police are in an intense standby situation and continue to be on the lookout, and until somebody blows the all-clear on this we will continue to stay on top of it and watch as the events unfold.

Watch below, courtesy of the CBC:

The broadcast was deliberative and deferential to the facts even when they were sparse. Exacting and painstaking, but never slow or boring, Mansbridge weighed the credibility of every detail, constantly framing and reframing what we knew and, most crucially, how we knew it. He literally spoke the news as it happened, using his experience not to opine nor fill the gaps in his knowledge, but to provide the necessary support for his team’s reporting.

Getting things wrong during fast-moving live coverage is, of course, common. Coverage of the Washington Navy Yard shooting last year got the details wrong early and often: It misstated the perpetrator’s name, age, and how many guns he had. Following the Boston Marathon bombing in April 2013, there was false coverage about the identity of the bombers, and anonymous sources leading journalists to nonexistent bombs and arrests. On The Media‘s handy “breaking news consumer’s handbook” is a great round-up of the reporting errors that get repeated every time there is a mass shooting.

No newscast, especially live news, is immune to mistakes, and during the initial haze of leads and counter-leads, it’s easy to point fingers. But for the six-some hours of CBC broadcasting I watched off-and-on (mostly on) today, I never once felt lost in the wall-to-wall speculation that has characterized so many recent breaking news broadcasts in the United States.

It seems like others on Twitter agree that CBC did pretty damn well today:

See the article here:  

Canada’s Coverage of the Ottawa Shootings Put American Cable News to Shame

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Is 2014 the "Tipping Point" for the GMO Labeling Movement?

by DanielJoseph Posted on September 29, 2014

Mother Jones

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Is this the year that voters will finally insist on knowing which supermarket foods contain genetically modified organisms? Activists in Oregon say the momentum is on their side for a GMO labeling initiative on the November ballot. “The electorate in Oregon has a greater awareness of this issue than in other states,” says Sandeep Kaushik, a spokesman for Yes On 92, as the initiative is known. “We are approaching a tipping point.”

Read “How Dr. Bronner’s Turned Activism Into Good Clean Fun”

In 2002, Oregon became first state to try and pass a GMO labeling initiative—Measure 27 lost by a margin of more than 2 to 1. But the more recent initiatives in California and Washington suffered far narrower defeats, despite a barrage of attack ads bankrolled by biotech, grocery, and ag conglomerates. Washington’s I-522, the most expensive ballot measure in state history, lost by barely 1 percent—a mere 19,000 votes.

Oregon may now be poised to finish what it started: A poll released in July by Oregon Public Broadcasting put support for GMO labeling at a whopping 77 percent. Even if it wins, Oregon probably won’t be the first state to require disclosure. A labeling bill approved in April by the Vermont Legislature takes effect in 2016, assuming it doesn’t get overturned by a lawsuit. Maine and Connecticut have also passed GMO labeling laws, though they’re contingent upon further regional support. Such laws are common outside the United States, and this year alone, according to Slate, 25 states have proposed 67 pieces of legislation related to GMO labeling. But the Oregon prop (and possibly a similar one in Colorado) would be the first directly enacted by voters—a major PR victory for the movement against GMO foods.

Despite the unpopularity of GMOs with consumers, the debate over their health and environmental impacts is far from settled. While the commercialization of GMOs has triggered few health complaints, long-term studies on the chronic health effects of GMOs have been sparse. Pest- and herbicide-resistant GMO crops have boosted yields around the world, benefiting farmers and the poor, but they have also spawned chemical resistant “superbugs” and “superweeds.”

The labeling campaigns are designed to bypass the thorny scientific debate by reframing the issue around the consumer’s “right to know.” This idea polls extremely well with voters, but not so well that it can’t be overcome by an avalanche of spending on political ads. For instance, 66 percent of Washington voters supported I-522 in the summer of 2013, yet some $22 million in spending against the measure whittled support down to 49 percent by Election Day. A similar phenomenon is under way in Oregon, where a poll released by a Portland TV station last week showed that voter support for the labeling measure has fallen to 53 percent, with 16 percent undecided.

Advocates for Oregon’s I-92 remain optimistic, however. While rural areas of Washington and California are strongly opposed to labeling, that’s less the case so far in Oregon, where GMO contamination incidents have angered farmers and two rural counties have banned cultivation of GM crops. The Oregon measure is also well timed: Young voters, who tend to support labeling, didn’t turn out to vote last year in Washington, but Oregonians will cast ballots this year on a pot legalization initiative, which is seen as a potential magnet for the non-AARP crowd. Anti-GMO activists, for the first time, are also funding a registration drive to target young voters.

For now, at least, I-92’s backers have raised more money than its opponents, but nobody expects that advantage to last. In Washington, the anti-GMO crowd was outspent 3 to 1, and the chasm would have been even wider were it not for the heavy involvement of a few organics companies, notably Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, which is shoveling money at the Oregon effort.

Unlike its opponents in Big Food and Ag, Dr. Bronner’s hasn’t entered the fight to retain its own bottom line, at least not directly—GMOs don’t play much of a role in the soap business. Yet the company has become a fascinating model for how genuine corporate activism can increase sales and create a fiercely loyal customer base, as I noted last year in a profile of David Bronner, the family business’ idealistic, third-generation CEO. About half of Dr. Bronner’s profits go towards activism. “If we are not maxed out and pushing our organization to the limit,” he asked me at the time, “then what are we doing?”

Originally posted here:

Is 2014 the "Tipping Point" for the GMO Labeling Movement?

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