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The Leaking Wars Have Begun Over Hillary Clinton’s FBI File

by JosetteSeely Posted on August 19, 2016

Mother Jones

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From the New York Times on Thursday:

Pressed by the F.B.I. about her email practices at the State Department, Hillary Clinton told investigators that former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell had advised her to use a personal email account. The account is included in the notes the Federal Bureau of Investigation handed over to Congress on Tuesday, relaying in detail the three-and-a-half-hour interview with Mrs. Clinton in early July that led to the decision by James B. Comey, the bureau’s director, not to pursue criminal charges against her.

Well, that didn’t take long. Should we assume that basically everything in the FBI file is going to be steadily leaked to the press? Magic 8-Ball says “Signs point to yes.”

And I don’t even know which side leaked this. Democrats who figured it justified Hillary’s behavior? Republicans trying to make it look like Hillary is passing the buck? Hard to say. At this point, though, Congress might as well just release the entire package. Whatever’s in it, we’re better off getting the whole thing instead of periodic leaks strategically taken out of context to make Hillary look either good or bad.

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The Leaking Wars Have Begun Over Hillary Clinton’s FBI File

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Understanding Louisiana’s big flood risks

by theacntnt1985-01 Posted on August 18, 2016

high water

Understanding Louisiana’s big flood risks

By on Aug 18, 2016Share

This story was originally published by Wired and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

There is a lot of water in southern Louisiana right now. The region’s been lashed with rain for the past week — the water has inundated freeways, surged past levees, and left about 40,000 homes water-logged husks of their former selves. The rain has stopped, for now. And when the water finally drains, people will return to their homes, pick up what’s left, and start rebuilding.

But the climate science prognosis doesn’t look good. This is the eighth time in about a year that 500-year rainfall has hammered the United States, and climate change will make extreme weather events like this more common. That means, among other things, millions of dollars worth of property damage. Fixing everything up and managing the growing threat of climate-related destruction hinges on flood insurance — which relies on ever-evolving, incomplete maps to determine risk. But new models will make it possible to better predict floodplains as it becomes increasingly dangerous to live on the coast.

The system isn’t perfect, but for people living in flood-prone regions like southern Louisiana, it’s the best line of defense, says Rafael Lemaitre, a FEMA spokesperson. If you’re covered, FEMA will pay out as much as $250,000 to repair your home.

But there are problems with how those policies get parceled out. “So much of it starts with what you define as a floodplain,” says Craig Colten, a geographer at Louisiana State University. FEMA creates flood risk maps that delineate areas of the region with a certain likelihood of being flooded every year. (An area that has a 1 percent probability of being flooded every year is called a 100-year floodplain.) Then, they base insurance premiums on where residents fall in those areas — the higher the risk, the higher the price.

Those maps, it turns out, are only updated every decade or so, when FEMA looks back on which places have flooded in the past. “It’s going to be a while before the recent flooding is factored into the maps,” Colten says. And the way water moves on the land is changing all the time: More developed areas with roads and parking lots lead to more runoff, for example. Climate change, too, is dramatically increasing the risk of flooding.

What coastal communities really need is predictive flood maps: projections of flood risk based on modeling. Right now, pretty much all flood insurance comes from FEMA, which, again, updates its maps infrequently and also allows residents to comment and push back on the boundaries, effectively letting them determine their own flood risk. Insurance companies, which might have the capital to invest in models that incorporate climate change, have largely stayed out of the business since the 1920s — partly because it’s too risky, partly because government-subsidized rates are too low for private companies to compete with.

But that may change soon, says Jeff Waters, a flood modeler at Risk Management Solutions, which models catastrophe risk for insurance companies. In recent years, he says, computers have finally been able to handle the computationally draining task of modeling something as dynamic as flooding across the U.S. Better modeling could lead to better estimates of risk in certain places, which would allow companies to price policies accordingly and residents to really understand how risky their locations are. And as FEMA enacts some much-needed reforms (like phasing out government subsidies, for one), it may become easier for insurance companies to offer up flood policies, too.

Another way to manage deepening risks, Colten says, is to widen the pool of people who buy into flood insurance. Currently, only the people living in 100-year floodplain areas are really expected to buy insurance — they’re the ones most at risk, after all. But if the insurance pool included people from 500-year floodplains, say, the risk would spread out more thinly. This scheme would’ve worked well for the flooding happening now, Colten says, since the water traveled far beyond the 100-year floodplain.

And FEMA is going with another, more direct way of managing the increasing risks of climate change: encouraging more severe weather-resistant infrastructure. Some of the funds FEMA provides for a disaster go toward rebuilding cities and houses to stricter code and in areas that aren’t quite so risky — say, at higher elevations or further away from the ocean. “Instead of constantly rebuilding for the next disaster, it’s much smarter to use federal dollars to build safer and build back,” says Lemaitre. As climate change risks climb and insurance costs rise to reflect reality, the shoreline of Louisiana will change, too: fewer buildings on the coast, and a lot more houses on stilts.

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Understanding Louisiana’s big flood risks

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Trump’s Ag Czar Runs His Business Like Herbalife

by KraigFreeh07 Posted on August 18, 2016

Mother Jones

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On Tuesday, the Donald Trump campaign formally announced its Agricultural and Rural Advisory Committee—a crew of more than 60 GOP politicians (including Texas’ colorful ag commissioner, Sid Miller) and agribusiness execs, chaired as previously announced by Nebraska cattleman and business operator Charles Herbster, whom I wrote about a couple of weeks ago.

Since then, I’ve learned something interesting about Herbster’s company, Conklin, a Kansas City-based firm with an odd mix of product lines: pesticide additives called adjuvents; fertilizers for farms and lawns; probiotics for livestock, pets, and even people; industrial roof coatings; and motor oils for “everything from semis to farm equipment to race cars.”

Turns out, it’s a multilevel marketing operation: one of those companies—like Avon, Amway, or Herbalife—that sell their products to the public through a network of individual “distributors” who make money not just based on their own sales, but also from the sales of others they’ve managed to recruit.

The homepage of the Conklin’s website lays out the business model. “Our superior products are your ticket to a financially-independent life. Become a Conklin distributor today! Get Started.” The link goes to a page stating that “in the last 40 years, Conklin has made it possible for thousands of ambitious people to increase their income and achieve financial independence.”

Since it’s privately held and not publicly traded, it’s hard to say how large of a company Conklin is. It’s certainly well connected in Nebraska Republican political circles. When I called the company to ask, the receptionist referred me to the voicemail of Carlos Castillo, vice president of governmental affairs for the company. Before taking the Conklin job, Castillo served as a top aide to former Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman—who now serves on Conklin’s board of directors and was recently named as a member of the Trump ag advisory committee chaired by Herbster.

In this video, an interview with the trade publication Agri-Pulse released July 27, Herbster and Heineman make the case for Trump.

I have repeatedly called Herbster, Castillo, and Heineman to ask for more information on Conklin, but have so far not heard back.

According to the MLM-promoting website Business for Home, Conklin brought in an estimated revenue of $28 million in 2015—tiny compared with industry giants Amway, Herbalife, and Avon, which drew in billions of dollars per year, and just the 239th largest US MLM, according to the website.

MLM is a highly controversial business model. Critics like Robert FitzPatrick, president of Pyramid Scheme Alert and co-author of the book False Profits: Seeking Financial and Spiritual Deliverance in Multi-level Marketing and Pyramid Schemes, says the model by its nature concentrates profits at the top of the chain and keeps most “distributors” in the red.

FitzPatrick noted that the Federal Trade Commission has long taken an indulgent view of MLMs, distinguishing between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” MLMs. But the agency’s recent settlement with Herbalife “may change all that,” he added. Last month, the giant MLM agreed to pay $200 million to consumers the company “deceived into believing they could earn substantial money selling diet, nutritional supplement, and personal care products,” according to an FTC statement.

Conklin has “the classic MLM hallmarks,” FitzPatrick told me. Another MLM expert, Jon Taylor of the Consumer Awareness Institute, echoed FitzPatrick’s assessment of Conklin. He told me Conklin has “all the hallmarks” of an MLM.

Of course, the spectacle of GOP politicians rubbing shoulders with MLM purveyors is nothing new, as Rick Perlstein showed in a 2013 Nation series. The DeVos family, owners of the enormous MLM Amway, have played a large role in shaping the modern Republican Party, as Mother Jones‘ Andy Kroll laid out in a 2014 article.

And Trump himself has dabbled in the MLM business model. He made “millions of dollars for extolling ACN Inc., a multilevel marketing firm that has weathered regulatory investigations in three countries,” the Wall Street Journal reports. And he licensed his name to a vitamin-hawking MLM that became known as Trump Network, whose owners eventually went bankrupt, the Washington Post reports.

With Trump’s surprise success sending the GOP into disarray, he’s apparently having to bring in second-tier MLM titans like Herbster, FitzPatrick told me. He noted that last month’s Republican National Convention featured a speech by a representative of Youngevity, an elixir-selling MLM closely associated with the prominent right-wing conspiracy theorist and broadcaster Alex Jones, an avid Trump supporter.

In the above video interview, Herbster makes a claim about the 2016 presidential campaign that at this point seems as likely as someone achieving “financial independence” by peddling supplements to friends: “I believe we the Trump campaign will win. I don’t think there’s any question about that.”

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Trump’s Ag Czar Runs His Business Like Herbalife

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How Honeybees Buzz Out Pests

by AngieKerns Posted on August 17, 2016

Research has discovered that honeybees can reduce the activity of plant-eating caterpillars, even though honeybees dont harm them in any way. This is another great reason to promote bees and other pollinators in our farms and gardens. Not only do you get the pollination benefits, you may also be able to reduce insecticide use.

How Do Bees Protect Against Pests?

A University of Wurzburg study set up two tents that contained bell pepper and soy bean plants. One tent included a bee hive and the other tent was closed to bees.

They introduced beet armyworms into both tents. Armyworms eat much more than beet greens and are a serious pest of many vegetable and flower crops.

Honeybees themselves are not predatory and dont harm insects like armyworms. But parasitic wasps will prey on the caterpillars by either eating them or laying eggs in their body. The eggs will later hatch and the wasp larvae will eat the caterpillar from the inside out.

As young caterpillars, armyworms are voracious leaf eaters. Although, when a wasp flies over, their natural response is to stop moving and eating. They sometimes even drop off the plant for extra safety.

The study found that the armyworms in the tent with bees circulating amongst the flowers ate about two-thirds less leaves than those in the bee-free tent.

Researchers concluded that the beating of a bees wings most likely mimics the sound of a predatory wasp. This is probably what makes the caterpillars stop eating in order to avoid a perceived predator.

What This Could Mean for Reducing Pesticide Use

The United States applied 857 million pounds of pesticides in the year 2007, with 80 percent being used by the agriculture industry. Unfortunately, more recent statistics are not available, but its likely that current pesticide usage would be similar.

Out of that total, almost 100 million pounds were insecticides. Many insecticides can have far-reaching effects on human health and the health of ecosystems.

For instance, organophosphates are a type of insecticide that damages the nervous system of both mammals and insects. They have also been used as a nerve gas during wars, a practice which has been banned by the Geneva Convention due to their high toxicity.

Research has also shown that wide-spread use of the insecticides called neonicotinoids has contributed to collapsing bee populations globally.

Its clear we need to find better ways to control pests, particularly on agricultural crops. Promoting pollinating insects could be the perfect way to reduce insecticide use and costs, while also helping boost global bee populations.

How Can You Help Promote Pollinators?

You may already be using various methods to support pollinators in your yard. This will benefit your own garden as well as any surrounding farms. These are some of the key ways to help pollinators.

Plant wild spaces. Pollination isnt all about honeybees. Thousands of other species of insects and animals also help plants spread pollen, such as butterflies, bats, moths, flies and even some mammals. All these creatures need wild spaces to live in.

Any garden beds will help boost your local populations of beneficial insects and other pollinators. If you have enough space, you can designate a completely wild area where humans arent allowed.

Grow organically. Insecticides and other pesticides harm more than just the pests youre targeting. They can contaminate ground water, the food supply and the air. Its important to find non-toxic ways to control unwanted visitors in your yard.

Provide food and water. Most pollinating insects eat pollen, so including a wide variety of flowering plants is ideal. Herbs like oregano, thyme and lavender are always insect magnets. Many native plants like blanket flower, Echinacea and bee balm are also favorites. And dont rule out flowering shrubs, vines and trees like wild roses, honeysuckle or linden trees.

Pollinators also need a source of water. A sunken dish in the ground filled with water and pebbles for landing sites will do the job. Bird baths, ponds and larger water features are also great.

Almond orchard with imported bee hives

How Can This Be Applied to Agriculture?

Agricultural operations can incorporate similar strategies as your backyard on a much larger scale.

An excellent example is in the almond orchards in California. Currently, theres a situation where the local honeybee populations arent large enough to pollinate the hundreds of thousands of acres of commercial almond trees.

Every February when the almonds bloom, more than one million beehives need to be shipped into the orchards to help with pollination. Thats more than half of all honeybees farmed in the United States, and theyre trucked in from all corners of the country.

The Journal of Applied Ecology published a study pointing out that it may not be sustainable to rely solely on one species (honeybees) for pollination of almonds. Researchers found that orchards surrounded by areas of semi-natural vegetation were visited by more wild bee species and other pollinating insects. In addition, greater numbers of wild pollinators visited when organic agricultural practices were used.

Also, fruit set increased as the percentage of natural habitat surrounding the orchards increased.

If almond orchards incorporated larger wild spaces to promote pollinators and moved to more organic cultivation practices, it would help solve their shortage of bees as well potentially reducing damage due to leaf-eating pests.

Related
11 Foods We Would Lose Without Pollinators
Want to Pollinators to Visit Your Yard? Heres How to Attract Them
Sunflowers: Delicious in More Ways Than One

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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How Honeybees Buzz Out Pests

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Donald Trump’s New Campaign Chief Was Already Leading His Propaganda Machine

by AlphonsoChauncy Posted on August 17, 2016

Mother Jones

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For months, the conservative news outlet Breitbart News has acted as an unofficial mouthpiece for Donald Trump and lead propagator of the populist, anti-immigrant sentiment that his campaign has tapped into. So it’s fitting that this unofficial relationship is now a little more official, with the site’s executive chairman, Stephen Bannon, joining the Trump campaign as its CEO.

Bannon has blurred the line between journalism and right-wing political advocacy for years. While at the helm of Breitbart News, which he took over in spring 2012 after the sudden death of its founder Andrew Breitbart, Bannon founded a research outfit targeting Democrats and establishment Republicans. He also participated in Groundswell, a group of right-wing activists, journalists, and others who secretly coordinated talking points attacking Democrats and advancing conservative causes. When Breitbart News editor-at-large Ben Shapiro left the publication this spring, he accused Bannon of turning the site into “Trump’s personal Pravda.”

Bannon’s arrival is part of a larger shakeup of the Trump campaign, which is scrambling to mount a comeback amid slumping poll numbers nationally and in key swing states. In addition to Bannon, who is taking a leave from Breitbart News to work for Trump, pollster Kellyanne Conway has been named campaign manager. The elevation of Bannon and Conway appears to amount to a demotion for campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who is under scrutiny for his work for the pro-Russian governing party in Ukraine. Manafort had been running Trump’s operation since the nominee’s original campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, was ousted in June.

With Trump’s campaign cratering, the Republican National Committee held a “come to Jesus” meeting last week to urge Trump to act more presidential and stay on script. But the selection of Bannon, known for his combative style, suggests Trump will take a different route. Under Bannon, Breitbart News has not only targeted Democrats but has made a blood sport of going after establishment Republicans—even conservatives such as Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan. Breitbart News has published near-daily articles over the last month blasting Ryan and propping up his right-wing primary challenger. (Breitbart News said Ryan was “desperate” and “running scared,” but the House Speaker easily won his August 10 primary with 84 percent of the vote.)

When news of Bannon’s new role atop Trump’s campaign broke on Wednesday morning, Stuart Stevens, Mitt Romney’s former chief strategist, tweeted, “Steve Bannon potentially having inside knowledge of a classified briefing is insane. POTUS should postpone or cancel briefing of Trump.” Glenn Beck freaked out on his radio show, saying, “Ask people who worked at Breitbart! He’s a horrible despicable human being.” Breitbart News, meanwhile, reveled in the anguish of the establishment with such headlines as “WaPo: Trump’s Stephen K. Bannon Hire ‘a Middle Finger to the GOP Establishment.'”

Bannon and Breitbart News‘ unwavering sympathies for Trump were forced into the open this spring when Lewandowski manhandled then-Breitbart News reporter Michelle Fields. Instead of backing Fields, the news outlet seemed to go out of its way to disprove her story and support the Trump campaign’s version of events. Even though a Washington Post reporter witnessed the episode and corroborated Fields’ account—and video footage later emerged showing the altercation—Breitbart News ran a series of articles questioning her claims, reportedly with Bannon’s full support. Politico reported that Bannon “made several disparaging remarks” about Fields in conference calls, and the Daily Beast reported that Bannon allegedly referred to Fields as “that f*****g c**t” to others at the publication as the fallout from the incident was unfolding. Fields ultimately resigned; she now writes for the Huffington Post. Several other Breitbart News staffers quit in protest of how Bannon and the publication’s leadership had handled the situation.

Bannon is a relatively new arrival on the political scene. A former Naval officer, he attended Harvard Business School and spent the 1980s working as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs. In 1990, he left New York for Los Angeles, where he started a small investment bank focused on Hollywood clientele. He hit the jackpot when he brokered Ted Turner’s acquisition of the media company that owned the TV show Seinfeld. Bannon agreed to accept a stake in Seinfeld, a little-known show at the time, instead of a cash fee. To this day, royalties from the show help fund Bannon’s conservative political activities. By the end of the 1990s, Bannon had entered the film business, first as a producer and later as a director whose credits include documentaries venerating Ronald Reagan and the tea party. Those efforts led Bannon into the orbit of the conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart and ultimately put him atop the conservative provocateur’s new empire.

After Bannon’s role with Trump campaign was announced, Shapiro, Breitbart News’ former editor-at-large, penned a scathing post about his onetime boss. “Bannon’s ascension is the predictable consummation of a romance he ardently pursued,” Shapiro wrote. “I joked with friends months ago that by the end of the campaign, Steve Bannon would be running Trump’s campaign from a bunker. That’s now reality. Every nightmare for actual conservatives has come true in this campaign. Why not this one, too?”

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Donald Trump’s New Campaign Chief Was Already Leading His Propaganda Machine

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These Are the States That Might Legalize Pot Next

by donlink237 Posted on August 17, 2016

Mother Jones

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Talk of legal marijuana is growing across the US like a—well, you get it.

This November, voters in five states where some form of medical marijuana is already legal will decide whether to authorize recreational use: Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts, and Nevada.

Another four states, Arkansas, Florida, Montana, and North Dakota, will vote on legalizing medical marijuana. Michigan, Missouri, and Oklahoma may also vote on medical marijuana, but advocates are still working to get their initiatives on the ballot.

With the presidential election likely to boost voter turnout and polls showing as many as 54 percent of Americans in favor of legalization, pot supporters are feeling confident, says Mason Tvert, communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project.

While opponents warn of unknown health effects and the possibility of spawning a “big marijuana” industry, Tvert argues that “life has gone on as usual” in states where marijuana has already been legalized—Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington, along with the District of Columbia.

All five of this fall’s state legalization campaigns have adopted the same slogan, “Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol.” The measures would allow anyone 21 or over to use the drug, and establish legal cultivation and retail markets, alongside taxation and regulatory regimes.

Here’s a rundown on where voters could choose to legalize this November:

Arizona

Supporters of Proposition 205, the legalization measure, withstood a challenge this summer from a collection of business groups and individuals who sued claiming that backers didn’t have enough valid signatures to get on the ballot. Upon review, the secretary of state found the campaign had well over the necessary 150,642 signatures.

But opponents of the bill, including Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery and Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk, are still trying to knock the question off the ballot. They’re among the backers of another suit filed last week aiming to have the measure tossed, arguing the proposed law is flawed, and that the brief summary of the law that voters will read on election day fails to effectively explain what all the bill would do.

Latest poll: 52 percent oppose legalization (O.H. Predictive Insights, July)

California

After an attempt to legalize recreational marijuana in California failed in 2010, both supporters and opponents of legal weed see the state as a key battleground.

As of early August, the pro-legalization camp had raised nearly $7 million. ($2.5 million came from Napster founder and former Facebook president Sean Parker.)

While the opposition campaign in the state had only raised $125,000 at that time, at least one national organization has signaled it’s intentions to fight the measure: Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), a group which includes former Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) and former George W. Bush administration official David Frum, has put up $2 million to fight legalization efforts in November.

SAM president Kevin Sabet, a former advisor in the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, told the Los Angeles Times he expects a lot of the group’s resources will go to the Golden State.

“If there is one thing we agree on with legalization advocates,” Sabet said, “it’s that California is important.”

Latest poll: 60 percent support legalization (Public Policy Institute of California, May)

Maine

Early opponents feared Maine’s Question 1 could allow large companies to push out the state’s already established and thriving medical marijuana industry, which has nearly tripled in size since 2011. But the measure would reserve 40 percent of business licenses for small-scale growers.

Last fall, the MPP-backed Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol campaign joined forces with a local organization, Legalize Maine, in order to avoid having competing ballot measures. The pro-legalization campaign raised $1 million in June and July.

Latest poll: 53.8 percent support legalization (Maine People’s Resource Center, May)

Massachusetts

Polls over the past two years have been close, and the state’s contest may shape up to be the tightest of the five.

The opposition has some big names on their side, including Republican Governor Charlie Baker and Attorney General Maura Healey and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, both Democrats.

But the pro-campaign claims support from Democratic Boston City Council President Michelle Wu, who has said “it just seems ridiculous that kids at Harvard can smoke pot and have incredibly successful careers while blacks and Latinos, particularly boys and men, who are using the same substance are sent to jail.”

Latest poll: 51 percent oppose legalization (Gravis Marketing, July)

Nevada

Not long ago, legalization supporters had the backing of the editorial board of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the largest paper in the state. But after Sheldon Adelson, a casino magnate and Republican megadonor, purchased the paper late last year, the editorial board published an piece predicting that the new owner would enforce a “complete reversal” on marijuana legalization.

In June, the paper ran an editorial with a simple takeaway: “Voters should ‘just say no’ to legalizing recreational marijuana on Election Day.”

Supporters of the initiative include several state legislators, including Nevada State Sen. Richard Segerblom, a major proponent of the state’s medical marijuana system. (A local dispensary has named a sativa strain, “Segerblom Haze,” in his honor.)

The state’s most prominent Democrat, Senator Harry Reid isn’t so supportive. “If I had to vote on it now, I wouldn’t vote for it,” Reid said Tuesday. “That’s something we need to look at quite a bit longer. I think it’s something that we have to be very careful with.”

Latest poll: 50 percent support legalization (KTNV-TV/Rasmussen, July)

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These Are the States That Might Legalize Pot Next

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The One Plan – Yogi Cameron Alborzian

by Myrna Posted on August 15, 2016

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

The One Plan

A Week-by-Week Guide to Restoring Your Natural Health and Happiness

Yogi Cameron Alborzian

Genre: Self-Improvement

Price: $0.99

Publish Date: January 8, 2013

Publisher: HarperOne

Seller: HarperCollins


What if you could follow a program that, like in so many other books, helped you get results in only a couple of weeks? As with these other programs, you could lose weight, attract more beneficial relationships, and find a greater state of balance in very little time. But what if, on top of all that, the program helped you create not just a fast change, but a permanent one? What if you had a plan that has all the benefits of a short-term overhaul but with the guidance necessary to ensure that it's the last program you'll ever need? Over two thousand years ago, the Indian sage Patanjali compiled what we now know as The Yoga Sutras, a concise text that forms the basis of everything we know today about the philosophy of the yogic path. In The One Plan, Yogi Cameron lays out a fifty-two-week structure based on Patanjali's teachings as well as the ancient medical system of Ayurveda; it delivers the proven authenticity of an ancient path but has been adapted to take your life in the modern world into account. As a practical and accessible guide to help you improve your life, The One Plan will provide you with specific exercises and regimens for crafting an effective daily routine, tips and reminders for becoming truly grounded in that routine, real-life stories and inspiration, practical tools for responding to life's inevitable struggles and setbacks, and even a section on eating the Ayurveda way. By following the One Plan, you will live a life of health, balance, and purpose. Your commitment to the One Plan may last fifty-two weeks, but the changes you make will last a lifetime.

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The One Plan – Yogi Cameron Alborzian

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Is Trump Even Aware of Where He’s Speaking?

by DedraBayldon5 Posted on August 15, 2016

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump will deliver a speech on Monday afternoon in Youngstown, Ohio, a quintessential Rust Belt city that has declined sharply from its manufacturing boom times. It’s the kind of place where Trump is perfectly positioned to make inroads among white working-class residents who have long voted Democratic but are drawn to Trump’s opposition to free-trade deals and his pitch for a return to better days.

But Trump doesn’t plan to talk about the economy in Youngstown. Instead, he will deliver a foreign policy address focused on ISIS.

In his speech, Trump will also propose an “ideological test” to administer to all immigrants entering the United States, according to the Associated Press. The “test for admission” would include questionnaires, a search of the immigrants’ social-media accounts, and interviews with friends and family to assess the immigrant’s views on religious liberty, gender equality, and LGBT rights.

The foreign policy focus is a strange one for Youngstown, where the dissolution of the domestic steel industry triggered economic depression and racial tensions—the very circumstances that have fueled Trump’s rise. But it wouldn’t be the first time Trump has delivered a message to one audience that is better suited to another.

At a rally in Loudoun County, Virginia, earlier this month, Trump rattled off a list of shuttered manufacturing plants—the exact topic that would most resonate in a place like Youngstown. But Loudoun County is not in the Rust Belt. It’s the richest county in the United States, thanks to lucrative defense contracts after September 11, 2001. All the factories Trump mentioned during this speech were far from the Washington, DC, exurbs of Loudoun County. One was in North Carolina.

Trump kept up the trend last week in southwestern Virginia coal country, where a speech to coal miners focused as much on the latest batch of Hillary Clinton’s emails as on the future of the state’s coal mines. Surrounded on stage by miners in hard hats, Trump couldn’t resist a reference to his winery in Charlottesville, Virginia, the college town 250 miles from where Trump was speaking in Abingdon. “I don’t know if you know my Charlottesville place, but it’s a fantastic place,” he said. “It’s now a winery, it’s one of the largest wineries on the East Coast.”

Trump has also insisted on campaigning in blue states he is highly unlikely to win. He gave a rambling talk in Fairfield, Connecticut, on Saturday evening. At the end of August, he plans to campaign in Oregon, another deep-blue state in an election where even some Republican strongholds are turning purple.

And then there was Trump’s puzzling decision to hold a rally in Portland, Maine, earlier this month. Because Maine allocates electoral votes by congressional district, Trump has a shot to win the state’s relatively conservative 2nd District. The only problem: He held his rally in the wrong district.

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Is Trump Even Aware of Where He’s Speaking?

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Discover Your Soul’s Path Through the Akashic Records – Linda Howe

by Myrna Posted on August 13, 2016

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

Discover Your Soul’s Path Through the Akashic Records

Taking Your Life from Ordinary to ExtraOrdinary

Linda Howe

Genre: Spirituality

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: February 3, 2015

Publisher: Hay House

Seller: Hay House, Inc.


Do you have an inner knowing that there is more to life? Would you like to identify your soul’s true path? Are you compelled by a desire to contribute more meaningfully in the world? In this remarkable book, Linda Howe reveals how to effectively make the shift from ordinary to ExtraOrdinary living—a life suffused with purpose, aliveness , and The Akashic Records can be understood as the “Cosmic Chronicles of You”: an energetic archive, or dimension of consciousness, that tells the story of your soul’s journey through space and time as a human being. By learning to access this dimension, you will gain insight into your earthly experience and discover how to transform your life into one that radiates light and magnetizes good. In these pages, enter the inspirational, fascinating realm of the Akasha with Linda as she shares her very accessible and student-tested processes designed to facilitate your awakening to your true identity and soul’s destiny. Explore the essential consciousness concepts of the Records, excavate the obstructing beliefs on your path, and learn how to realign to your soul’s highest purposes. Meditations, or Akashic Reflections , guide you every step of the way. Application of Linda’s teachings is guaranteed to make a critical difference in your life right here, right now. An ExtraOrdinary life is within your reach! What are you waiting for?

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Discover Your Soul’s Path Through the Akashic Records – Linda Howe

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How Oyster Farming is Cleaning Our Water

by pauletteguajardo Posted on August 10, 2016

American palates are becoming more and more refined these days, with trends like pescetarianism and the farm-to-table movement increasing the demand for locally raised fish and shellfish. Overfishing remains a huge problem and so do contaminated waterwaysbut there may be a simple, natural solution on the horizon: oysters.

Increased Demand for Local Shellfish

Oyster farming on the East Coast has doubled in the past six years, according to NPR, and its no mystery why. Americans who can afford to do so are becoming increasingly interested in where their food comes from. They want local, sustainable, organic, antibiotic-free food and this desire has made a big mark in both foodie culture and agriculture.

“As much food as possibly can go on my plate at the least amount of money I can spend used to be the way things were,” says Jimmy Parks, a chef and owner of the Butcher Station in Winchester, Virginia. “Now people are getting away from that, and they’re gravitating toward … cleaner sources.”

For some species, like salmon and tuna, this trend may be alarming. Fish farms are notoriously dirty and bad for the planet, with antibiotics, unnatural fish feed, overpopulation and huge amounts of waste putting a strain on oceanic and river ecosystems.

Oysters, however, are a different story.

Oysters as Natural Water Filters

For one thing, oyster farming has an extremely low carbon footprint. According to the environmental news blog Grist, oysters are one of the cleanest animal protein sources you can eat in terms of carbon emissions.

Additionally, oysters act as natural water purifiers. According to The Nature Conservancy, roughly 40 percent of U.S. waterways are currently considered too polluted for swimming or fishing. Oysters can help change that. Grist reports that a mature oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water every day. That means that just one acre of populated oyster territory can filter 140 million gallons of water per day.

The mighty bivalves are ocean filters, Grist reports. Oysters soak up nitrogen through their flesh, turning the nutrient into a benign gas. They absorb nitrogen into their shells, too, and can store it there for decades, or even centuries, long after the little creature inside its shell is dead. At their most plentiful, the Chesapeakes oysters were capable of filtering all 18 trillion tons of bay water in about a week, rendering it nearly crystal clear.

Gulnihal Ozbay, an oyster researcher at the University of Delaware, told NPR that oysters not meant for consumption could be added to polluted waterways to help purify them, hopefully making them more appropriate for swimming, drinkingand fishing down the road.

Rebuilding Ecosystems and Economies

Finally, oysters stand to improve the health of some very important ecosystems: those of local waterways and our own human economies.

“The coolest thing is within our cages we see these little shrimp-like creatures that actually eat the pseudofeces of the oysters, Tim Devine, a Maryland-based oyster farmer, tellsNPR. And then things like seahorses and crabs and other things eat those little guys, and then the food chain has begun.”

This helps create a reef-like ecosystem within the waterway, bolstering aquatic populations and filtering water to boot.

From a human population perspective, these mighty little mollusks also play a strong role in maintaining balanced local economies. For years, Chesapeake Bay fisherman survived on proceeds from oyster hunting and sales. When oyster populations collapsed due to overfishing, many oystermen considered making career changes.

I tell you, there was nothing left, fisherman Johnny Shockley told Grist. We knew every spot there was in this river that was a good oyster bottom, and they were all gone.”

Maryland only legalized aquaculture (oyster and clam farming) as recently as 2009. Since then, the economy around oysters and other shellfish has begun to recover, to the relief of many local fisherman and their families.

Oysters are small creatures, but they sure can make a big impact, and its tiny steps that could add up to big changes for our oceans and waterways.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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How Oyster Farming is Cleaning Our Water

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