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Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Parmasan cheese might contain wood cellulose

Some Parmesan cheeses contain at least some cellulose, and some contain no cheese at all. It says right on the bottle: cellulose.
  • Castle Cheese Inc is doctoring it's Parmesan cheese with wood cellulose. They make the Market Pantry brand for Target.
  • Cellulose is a safe additive, and an acceptable level is 2 percent to 4 percent, according to Dean Sommer, a cheese technologist at the Center for Dairy Research in Madison, Wisconsin.
  • The FDA regulates what can legally be called Parmesan or Romano according to standards established in the 1950s to ensure that manufacturers wouldn’t sell cheeses wildly different in composition.


Source
Bloomberg.

Monday, November 28, 2016

Aloe vera gels may not contain aloe vera

Consumers be warned: Popular aloe vera gels may have no aloe vera in them at all! Gels from Target, Walmart and CVS were tested and found to have no aloe vera at all.

Beware of store brands. This is similar to another story where store brand Walgreen's vitamins didn't have the amount of vitamin in them that the label said.

  • The U.S. Food and Drug Administration doesn’t approve cosmetics before they’re sold and has never levied a fine for selling fake aloe.
  • Aloe’s three chemical markers — acemannan, malic acid and glucose — were absent in the tests. 
  • In all the samples, lactic acid, a component that indicates degraded aloe vera, was absent.
  • The four gels that Bloomberg had analyzed were Wal-Mart’s Equate Aloe After Sun Gel with pure aloe vera; Target’s Up & Up Aloe Vera Gel with pure aloe vera; CVS Aftersun Aloe Vera Moisturizing Gel; and Walgreens Alcohol Free Aloe Vera Body Gel.

Source
Foxnews.
The actual Bloomberg report.

Saturday, November 26, 2016

EM Drive produces thrust without exhaust

NASA confirms the EM drive works. Their study here. Energy goes in, and thrust comes out, but there is no exhaust. It seems to defy Newton's law of conservation of momentum.

Source
Forbes. Nov 23, 2016.

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Demand for organic feed increasing

This mill wants farmers to have animal feed which doesn't sicken their animals. Sick and dead animals are expensive for farmers.

Farmers describe how GMO feed makes their animals sick:
Many things were tried, but the one common thread among the farmers on the film was that they all ditched GMO feed for a non-GMO blend. The improvements were significant and they were noticed in a short period of time. The cows and pigs continued to improve more and more as time went on.
Danish farmer switches to non-GMO feed, health of pigs improve dramatically.

Iowa farmer switches to non-GMO feed, drug costs for animals cut in half. Jim Blomgren switches to non-GMO seed, which is cheaper.

Long-term toxicology study on pigs fed GMO feed. PDF. ISSN 1177-4258. Journal of Organic Systems, 2013. Flawed study claims GMO feed is safe. Discussion here.

Source
Scratch and Peck.

Swearing grandma makes vegan Thanksgiving food

I just thought it was funny.

Link.


Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Kindle Fire 7" to be $33.33 on Black Friday

Go to this link, or search for it on Amazon. This will be the version that has ads, but if you don't connect to the internet, the ad won't change. That's what I did with my Kindle K3, and it was fully functional without connecting to the internet.

WARNING: electronics often are produced specially for Black Friday sales. These electronics are produced cheaply, using cheaper components, and don't last as long, and usually have a slightly different model number just for Black Friday. Thus these products will sometimes not last as  long. Cheaper does not mean a better value.

Source
ZDNet.
BJ's Wholesale to feature $33.33 Kindle Fire with ads.



Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Local Gov't can Prohibit GMOs says US Court of Appeals

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued its decisions Friday on whether federal and Hawai'i state laws preempt Hawai'i counties' authority to regulate genetically engineered (GE) crops and pesticide use. Of significance to state and local communities throughout the U.S., the Ninth Circuit ruled that federal law—specifically, the Plant Protection Act—does not prohibit states and counties from passing local laws to regulate and ban commercially-grown GE crops.

At the same time, however, the court ruled that under Hawai'i law, counties and municipalities do not have the authority to regulate GE crops (as some in other states do), and that Hawai'i state law places such authority in the hands of the State alone.

Source
Ecowatch.

Sunday, November 20, 2016

Food Democracy Now report on glyphosate in food

Highlights:
  1. Chronically ill humans had significantly higher glyphosate residues in urine than healthy humans.
  2. Their instrumentation includes Gas Chromatography (GC-FID, GC-FPD, GC-TSD, GC-ECD, GCMS, GCMSMS) and Liquid Chromatography (LC-FD, LC-UV, LC-RID, LC-MSMS).
  3. Glyphosate is absorbed into the plant's cells so it cannot be washed off. This is a big concern for this pesticide. 
  4. There are specific concerns over the link between glyphosate and Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and a few other cancers. 
  5. There is a graph of glyphosate levels vs effects on pg 14. Even tiny levels of a poison can cause harm.
  6. Why is glyphosate assumed to be safe? Because it does not exceed US limits, but even low levels can cause problems.

Is IARC the only gov't agency not paid off by Monsanto?

PDF file, 29 pgs. "Glyphosate: Unsafe on any plate." Archiv.is link.


Thursday, November 17, 2016

High levels of glyphosate found in many American foods

American foods, including Cheerios, Doritos, Oreos, Goldfish and Ritz crackers and Stacy’s Pita Chips were found to have high levels of glyphosate. Levels found in these product are well above the levels found by independent peer-reviewed studies which show that ultra-low levels of glyphosate can cause organ damage starting at 0.1 parts per billion (ppb). This is 1,750 times lower than what the EPA currently claims is safe. The highest levels detected were found in General Mills' Original Cheerios, which were simply off the charts, at 1,125.3 ppb!
Other foods from this test which contained glyphosate: Kellogg corn flakes, Frosted Flakes, Raisin Bran. Some of these are exported to the UK.

Other brands that contained glyphosate: Kellogg's, Pepsico, Stacy's, General Mills, Lucy's, Back To Nature, Nabisco, Little Debbie, Campbell's soup. 

Tests were done in an FDA-registered lab using the gold standard for testing.

Protect your family, educate yourself.

Sources
Article: Food Democracy Now.
Actual test results from Detox Project

Monday, November 14, 2016

Sonoma County (California) bans GMO crops

Sonoma County voted to ban all GMO crops in the county. The reason being organic crops can be contaminated with GMO pollent, and then Monsanto can sue the farmers and take their farms. Also, people don't want organic produce contaminated with GMO genes, such as the ones that produce the Bt toxin that also hurts people.GMOs are bad for farmers because it's too easy to violate Monsanto's draconian agreement.

Source
Ecowatch.

Thursday, November 10, 2016

Edison's nickle-iron cell making a comeback.

The alkaline nickle-iron battery is making a comeback. It is reusable, non-polluting, and can be slowly charged over 40 years. It is very tolerant of over- and under-charging and short circuits.

  1. Self-discharge rate: 10-15% per month, so it needs trickle charging.
  2. Stored energy: 30-50kw/kg (2.2 lbs).
  3. Normal cell voltage: 1.2vdc
  4. Energy per USD: 1.5-6.6vdc

Source
Off Grid Quest.

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

How is unemployment since 2008?

First, it is incorrect to say "x% of people are unemployed" because some people are retired, quite a few actually. So we say "x% of civilian workers are unemployed", which is the definition of the U3 unemployment number. This looks at how many people who are able to work, are actually unemployed.

There are several ways to track unemployment in the US. The most common number used by the US major media is the U3 rate. Here are how all the rates are defined.
  1. U-1, persons unemployed 15 weeks or longer, as a percent of the civilian labor force;
  2. U-2, job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs, as a percent of the civilian labor force;
  3. U-3, total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force (this is the definition used for the official unemployment rate); (note: this does not count gov't workers)
  4. U-4, total unemployed plus discouraged workers, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus discouraged workers;
  5. U-5, total unemployed, plus discouraged workers, plus all other marginally attached workers, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers; and
  6. U-6, total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers.
But we need to define some more terms.
  1. The unemployed: The official concept of unemployment (as measured in the CPS by U-3 in the U-1 to U-6 range of alternatives) includes all jobless persons who are available to take a job and have actively sought work in the past four weeks.
  2. Discouraged workers (U-4, U-5, and U-6 measures) are persons who are not in the labor force, want and are available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They are not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the prior 4 weeks, for the specific reason that they believed no jobs were available for them. 
  3. The marginally attached (U-5 and U-6 measures) are a group that includes discouraged workers. The criteria for the marginally attached are the same as for discouraged workers, with the exception that any reason could have been cited for the lack of job search in the prior 4 weeks. 
  4. Persons employed part time for economic reasons (U-6 measure) are those working less than 35 hours per week who want to work full time, are available to do so, and gave an economic reason (their hours had been cut back or they were unable to find a full-time job) for working part time. These individuals are sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers.
As of Q3 of 2016, the U3 is 3.5% of workers are unemployed. But the U6, which includes the under-employed, is 9.8%, so there's about 32.5 million workers unemployed. Rush Limbaugh said on the radio today that 90 million people are unemployed. If he means 90 million workers, that is false.

The labor participation rate (number of all people who are actually working) is 63%. So that means 37% are unemployed. 325,000,000 * .37 = 120.25 million people are not working. This is not the same as unemployed civilian workers. This number includes the retired also. People who are not working is not the same as civilian workers who are unemployed.

Be careful you understand what words the media is using, and what those words mean. Vague words made by talking heads are often disingenuous and meant to mislead.

Links
U3 graph here 2006-2016.
2d graph by year and month where a colored square indicates unemployment rate.
The current US population is 325,000,000.


Sunday, November 6, 2016

Relationships are what matter most.

One of the few books to cover all the basics, and not being limited to a psychologist's pet theory, this book is a great handbook for relationships of all kinds. You deserve happiness, learn how to get it here: on Leanpub

Leanpub is where authors get more royalties than Amazon.

Glyphosate found in children's vaccines

Glyphosate has been found in childhood vaccines and has been confirmed by independent laboratories. These vaccines were found to contain glyphosate in the ppb range: MMR (Merk) II, DTAP Adacel (Sanofi Pasteur), Influenza Fluvirin (Novaris), HepB-Energix-B (Glaxo Smith Kline), Pneumonoccal Vax Polyvalent Pneumovax 23 (Merk).

There are more and more studies that show even low amounts of glyphosate are toxic to mammals and other animals.Go to this collection of studies and look for a tag like "glyphosate". This page has links to more collections of studies about glyphosate and other pesticides.


Source
Ecowatch.

Friday, November 4, 2016

How to make 4000% return on investment in 2 hours

From a Stanford professor's assignment: each team was given $5 to make money in 2 hours. The winning team made $600! Read the article to find out how.

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Honda releasing hydrogen-powered car in 2016

Honda is planning to release a hydrogen-powered car in March 2016 that, in an emergency, could even power your house.The clean-energy car called the FCV, which emits only water as a waste product, will have a range of 300 miles (480km) and seating for up to five people But problems with hydrogen fuel, such as a lack of infrastructure to support a nationwide fleet of cars, will need to be solved before the technology is adopted.
While hydrogen power burns more cleanly, it does require using energy to split the hydrogen gas from water. The FCV will have a range of 300 miles (480km) between fill-ups and seating for up to 5 children.


Source
Dailymail.
The 2016 Honda Clarity fuel-cell car. Autoweek.
The Honda Clarity. Honda.com.

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Study says Splenda (Sucralose) not safe

A study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, says Splenda is not safe. The study was based on mice, who were fed Splenda daily, and later saw a definite increase in certain types of cancers.

Many foods contain Splenda, sometimes listed as sucralose. These items that contain Splenda are often labeled "low calorie" or "diet". This includes many sodas in the US. 

Source
US Food Safety.com