Poll: Clinton supporters not embracing Obama. One week after Sen. Hillary Clinton made a public show of unity with Sen. Barack Obama, a new survey suggests supporters of the New York senator are increasingly less likely to follow her lead.
Accounting Plan Would Allow Use of Foreign Rules. Officials say regulatory changes would attract investment and enhance U.S. competitiveness, but critics say the changes would dilute safeguards.
Normally, I wouldn't presume to speak for the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, but given Jefferson's reverence for our most precious resource, i.e., the soil, he surely would have appreciated the underlying message of Pixar's latest animated opus--that it's our civic duty to be good stewards of the land.
Yeah, yeah, I know that WALL-E's creator, Andrew Stanton, is insisting that WALL-E is first and foremost a love story, but the whole plot hinges on another relationship: the one between us and the dirt beneath our feet. Jefferson was an early advocate of maintaining soil fertility through such practices as crop rotation, and would doubtless be horrified by the pollution and depletion of our topsoil that's become standard operating procedure since the advent of industrial agriculture.
(Of course, he'd also be appalled that the Fourth of July has turned into a giant meat-fest; Jefferson was an unabashed lover of fruits and veggies who maintained that produce should dominate our diet and meat should be used sparingly, as a "seasoning" or "condiment.")
Set in the year 2815, 700 years after the Earth's been trashed by mindless consumers and a monolithic corporation named Buy n Large, WALL-E depicts a nation whose excesses have launched it into perpetual astro-exile on a fleet of super-duper Buy n Large-sponsored spaceships. Its morbidly obese, infantalized citizens, too fat to stand upright, zip around aimlessly on their hovercraft-style loungers sipping sodas, playing video games, and awaiting the day the Earth will have detoxed enough to be "recolonized."
Some folks are eager to dismiss this cautionary tale of a corpulent corporatocracy as a far-fetched scenario aimed at advancing some eco-extremist agenda, but it's an eerie echo of the warnings from Jared Diamond, the Pulitzer-Prize winning UCLA professor of geography and author of Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. In a precursor to Collapse that Diamond wrote for Harper's back in 2003, he challenged the conventional wisdom that we have to weigh environmental concerns against economic considerations, citing the popular misconception that:
<div style="border-style: double; padding: 5px; background-color: #cccc99">...we must balance the environment against human needs. That reasoning is exactly upside-down. Human needs and a healthy environment are not opposing claims that must be balanced; instead, they are inexorably linked by chains of cause and effect. We need a healthy environment because we need clean water, clean air, wood, and food from the ocean, plus soil and sunlight to grow crops. We need functioning natural ecosystems, with their native species of earthworms, bees, plants, and microbes, to generate and aerate our soils, pollinate our crops, decompose our wastes, and produce our oxygen. We need to prevent toxic substances from accumulating in our water and air and soil...Our strongest arguments for a healthy environment are selfish: we want it for ourselves, not for threatened species like snail darters, spotted owls, and Furbish louseworts. In WALL-E's world, mankind has failed to recognize this inexorable link, forcing a mass exodus into outer space and leaving behind a barren landscape littered with post-consumer crap and unable to support any vegetation.
Watching WALL-E trundle through this lifeless landscape on his daily rounds, compacting garbage and salvaging such manmade marvels as a spork and a Rubik's cube, you realize that it's not about saving the earth. The planet will, in all likelihood, be able to withstand whatever drastic alterations to its ecosystem we've unwittingly unleashed. It's ourselves we have to save.
Will we figure this out in time to avert the kind of catastrophic future portrayed in WALL-E? As Diamond notes in Collapse:
:Perhaps the crux of success or failure of a society is to know which core values to hold onto, and which ones to discard and replace with new values."
If only we had a clue about what to discard and what to replace. After leaving a matinee of WALL-E last weekend, I stopped into the Chelsea Home Depot, which, in a rare concession to place, is housed in an elegant turn-of-the-century cast-iron building. On my way to the garden department to buy mulch for my windowboxes, I passed a display of cheap kitchen faucets with a sign reading, "Why Fix It When You Can Replace It?" No wonder we're the trashiest people on the planet. If the Great Pacific Garbage Patch grows any bigger, we'll have to colonize it and declare it the 51st state. The signs that our habitat's under siege are everywhere, but our "Drive All You Want, We'll Drill More" culture motors on, oblivious. With the cost of a barrel of oil setting new records each day, more and more Americans reportedly support the idea of offshore drilling, despite the fact that it can't possibly solve the underlying problem that demand is increasingly going to outstrip supply as China and India follow in our tire tracks.
Sadly, WALL-E's anti-consumer, anti-corporate message is undermined by the regrettable array of cheap, mass-produced WALL-E tchotchkes destined for the garbage heap. It's a shame that Pixar couldn't pass on the obligatory merchandise tie-ins, but that doesn't diminish the importance of the film's S.O.S: Save Our Soil. It's a message that this nation of babies, big and small, needs to heed. Colony collapse disorder--it's not just for bees!
Finally, a mystery has been solved for Dr. Valdemar Welz, a Boston dentist with a 30-year practice. For the last two decades and in growing numbers, patients have shown signs of tooth enamel damage and complained of heightened sensitivity.
""Everybody is seeing it in their practice," said Dr. Welz.
But now he sees a clear reason.
Toothpaste abuse is now proven to cause tooth damage and has for decades, according to a published dental study in the International Dental Journal by Dr. Thomas Abrahamsen, a leading clinical researcher in the field of dentistry.
"Patients who abuse toothpaste typically dislike the color of their teeth. These individuals mistakenly believe that the more they brush their teeth, the whiter they will become. Actually the opposite occurs; as the enamel becomes thinner, the dentine is closer to the surface, resulting in a darker overall appearance, which encourages more brushing," wrote Dr. Abrahamsen in his research.
His 2008 report - The Worn Dentition -Pathognomonic Patterns of Abrasion and Erosion- is based on a 33-year study of dental casts taken from surface-damaged teeth. Tooth abrasion has many causes, but toothpaste abuse has a recognizable pattern.
Toothpaste manufacturers recommend brushing with a pea-sized squirt of toothpaste, but often, users will line the entire head of a toothbrush, sometimes with two bars, and brush vigorously.
Abrasives are common ingredients in toothpaste. CoupIed with vigorous brushing, damage results in a unique "sandblasted" effect on tooth enamel. The results become worse depending on the time, speed, and pressure applied while brushing. Eventually, treatment is needed to replace the loss of tooth structure.
Dr. Abrahamsen's study indicates that brushing alone, without toothpaste, does not cause the same degree of wear, nor does the firmness or softness of toothbrush bristles affect the tooth enamel. However, the soft tissue at the gum line can be worn away by vigorous brushing with firm bristles.
In 1964, R. S. Manley measured wear caused by toothbrushes v. toothpaste. Mouth models created from extracted teeth were mechanically brushed with the same pressure.
When one sample group used only plain water during tooth brushing, no appreciable wear resulted. But under the same conditions, the separate group applying toothpaste produced wear.
Abrasion studies trace back to laboratory experiments published in 1907 by W. D. Miller, the man who discovered the bacteriological process of tooth decay. Toothpaste abrasion has been observed in dental literature for 280 years, according to Dr. Abrahamsen.
"My latest research using modern toothbrushes and toothpastes clearly proves the past and present claims to be true," he wrote in an email.
His current findings question a major underpinning of dental health - daily brushing with toothpaste.
"Very few dentists are aware of the slow insidious destruction from toothpaste. We're talking a billion dollar business," said Dr. Abrahamsen, who holds positions with the American Board of Prosthodontics, the American College of Prosthodontists and the American Academy of Restorative Dentistry.
Other causes of tooth abrasion, such as teeth grinding (bruxism), were addressed in his study. Separately, erosion of tooth enamel from a chemical/dissolving process has three main causes: swishing sodas in the mouth while drinking, mulling foods high in fruit acid in the mouth, or regurgitation from bulimia, which damages teeth because of powerful stomach acids.
Combinations of causes are quite common, according to the study. For example, a person might drink a lot of sodas and grind their teeth at night, which both contribute to wear.
But each cause shows a very specific pattern when studied on dental casts, according to Abrahamsen, and toothpaste is clearly a leading contributor to abrasion. When the enamel is worn away, the underlying dentine is exposed, causing discoloration and tooth sensitivity.
One Harvard dental expert is skeptical of isolating toothpaste as the leading culprit and noted that the levels of abrasives vary among brands of toothpaste.
"I don't think the dental literature supports toothpaste alone, but the combined use of toothpaste and tooth brushing," according to Dr. Nachum Samet, a prosthodontist and Director of Restorative Dentistry with the Harvard School of Dentistry.
He felt manufacturers should reduce the abrasives in their products, but he also stressed the proven benefits of toothpaste in fighting cavities and gum disease, and that perhaps the wear attributed to toothpaste is "not extremely significant."
"I think this is a reasonable 'price,' when comparing it to the known benefits of tooth brushing and fluoride countering toothpastes," he said.
But one Boston dentist is throwing out the family toothpaste and now is advising his patients to do the same.
"Stop using toothpaste and brush with an electric toothbrush and water and then floss. Don't use toothpaste because almost all toothpastes are abrasive," advised Dr. Welz.
While anti-foreign oil advocates and environmentalists may have found common cause in the use of biofuels, a new unpublished World Bank report estimates that the recent increase in biofuel production has actually contributed to a 75% rise in global food prices, sparking riots across the world and pushing over 100 million beneath the poverty line.
This figure greatly contradicts the U.S. government’s analysis that biofuels’ have affected only 3% of the global food market prices.
The Guardian:
Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.
The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.
The figure emphatically contradicts the US government’s claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.
Senior development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush.
The Buffalo News reports that former Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards will debate Karl Rove on Sept. 26 on the campus of the University of Buffalo as part of the school’s Distinguished Speakers Series. In the midst of the U.S. attorney scandal, Edwards called on President Bush to “fire Karl Rove.” When Rove announced he was resigning from the White House, Edwards released a statement that simply read “Goodbye, good riddance.”
Two Subplots in Guantánamo’s Long Legal Story. The Bush administration’s effort to prosecute detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, now has two fast-moving subplots, and either one could soon write something of a final chapter.
In an interview last March with Bloomberg’s Judy Woodruff, the late conservative scholar William F. Buckley said President Bush’s legacy would be judged purely on Iraq. He stressed, “It’s important that we acknowledge in the inner councils of state that it (the war) has failed, so that we should look for opportunities to cope with that failure.”
In an interview with Bloomberg TV yesterday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was unable to acknowledge the failure of Iraq. Woodruff presented Buckley’s argument to Rice that Bush’s legacy will be Iraq. “That’s just fine,” said Rice.
“We tend to forget very quickly what Saddam Hussein meant. … In the post 9/11 environment, you couldn’t let a threat to international peace and stability like that remain.” She added:
Yes, it’s been very, very tough. But I know that great historical events go through difficult phases and often emerge with the world left for the better. And I am proud of the decision of this administration to overthrow Saddam Hussein. I am proud of the liberation of 25 million Iraqis.
Watch it:
Rice tends to forget what she thought of Iraq prior to 9/11. In July 2001, Rice said on CNN: “In terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let’s remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.” (See the video.)
He's a Yankee Doodle Jesse
A Yankee Doodle do or die
A real live nephew of the Ku Klux Klan
Died on the Fourth of July...
"I hope what future generations learn about me will be based on the truth and not the deliberate inaccuracies those who disagreed with me took such delight in repeating." - Jesse Helms to the Associated Press in 2005.
Fair enough Jesse. I'll let you speak for yourself...
"White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories?" (1950)
"The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that's thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men's rights." (1963)
"Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced." (1981)
"The University of North Carolina (UNC)... the University of Negroes and Communists..." (1995)
"Blacks, gays and lesbians are responsible for the proliferation of AIDS"
"There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy." (1988)
"All Latins are volatile people." (1986)
"The New York Times and Washington Post are both infested with homosexuals themselves. Just about every person down there is a homosexual or lesbian."
"Mr. Clinton better watch out if he comes down here [Fort Bragg]. He'd better have a bodyguard. " (1994)
"What is really at stake is whether or not America will allow the cultural high ground in this nation to sink slowly into an abyss of slime to placate people who clearly seek or are willing to destroy the Judaic-Christian foundations of this republic." (1990)
"I've been portrayed as a caveman by some. That's not true. I'm a conservative progressive, and that means I think all men are equal, be they slants, beaners or niggers." (1985)
"I have tried at every point to seek God's wisdom on the decisions I made, and I made it my business to speak up on behalf of the things God tells us are important to Him."
