Insanity: US Approves Bee Death Pesticide as EU Bans It

Corporate politics is business as usual inside the United States, as I am once again shocked to report the EPA has sided with industry lobbyists over public health in approving a highly dangerous pesticide that the European Union recently decided to ban over fears of environmental devastation. Not only have neonicotinoid pesticides been linked repeatedly to mass bee deaths, also known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), but the continued use of such pesticides threatens other aspects of nature (and humans) as well.

What’s even more amazing is that the decision not only comes after the EU publicly discussed the major dangers surrounding the use of the pesticides, but after the USDA released a report surrounding the continued honeybee deaths and the related effects — a report in which they detailed pesticides to be a contributing factor. Just the impact on the honeybees alone, and we now know that these pesticides are killing aquatic life and subsequently the birds that feed upon them, amounts to a potential $200 billion in global damages per year. We’re talking about the devastation of over 100 crops, from apples to avocados and plums.
And there’s countless scientists and a large number of environmental science groups speaking out on this. The EPA has no lack of information the subject. And sure, there are other contributing factors to bee deaths, there’s no question about that. We have an environment right now being hit with Monsanto’s Roundup even in residential areas, we have chemical rain, we have insane amounts of EMF — but it’s pretty clear that neonicotinoid pesticides are at least a major contributing factor. And beyond that, they have no place in the food supply to begin with.
The Pesticide Action Network (PAN) details the EU ban that came right before the EPA acceptance of the death-linked  pesticide:

“The EU vote comes after significant findings by the European Food Safety Agency that these pesticides pose an unacceptable risk to bees and their use should be restricted. Along with habitat loss and pathogens, a growing body of science points to neonicotinoid pesticides as a key factor in drastically declining bee populations.”

So why are they approving this pesticide to now pollute the United States in what potentially amounts to an even larger capacity than the EU? A move that will ultimately escalate the price of food worldwide due to the likely nature of continued bee deaths and subsequent crop impact? That’s the power of phony corporate science.

 Anthony Gucciardi
Natural Society

Hungary Destroys ALL MONSANTO GMO Corn Field

Hungary Destroys All Monsanto GMO Corn Field

 Source: NaturalSociety.com  by Anthony Gucciardi

Hungary has taken a bold stand against biotech giant Monsanto and genetic modification by destroying 1000 acres of maize found to have been grown with genetically modified seeds, according to Hungary deputy state secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development Lajos Bognar. Unlike many European Union countries, Hungary is a nation where genetically modified (GM) seeds are banned. In a similar stance against GM ingredients, Peru has also passed a 10 year ban on GM foods.
Almost 1000 acres of maize found to have been ground with genetically modified seeds have been destroyed throughout Hungary, deputy state secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development Lajos Bognar said. The GMO maize has been ploughed under, said Lajos Bognar, but pollen has not spread from the maize, he added.

Unlike several EU members, GMO seeds are banned in Hungary. The checks will continue despite the fact that seek traders are obliged to make sure that their products are GMO free, Bognar said.
During the invesigation, controllers have found Pioneer Monsanto products among the seeds planted.
The free movement of goods within the EU means that authorities will not investigate how the seeds arrived in Hungary, but they will check where the goods can be found, Bognar said. Regional public radio reported that the two biggest international seed producing companies are affected in the matter and GMO seeds could have been sown on up to the thousands of hectares in the country. Most of the local farmers have complained since they just discovered they were using GMO seeds.

With season already under way, it is too late to sow new seeds, so this years harvest has been lost.
And to make things even worse for the farmers, the company that distributed the seeds in Baranya county is under liquidation. Therefore, if any compensation is paid by the international seed producers, the money will be paid primarily to that company’s creditors, rather than the farmers.

How to Recycle Old Chairs

I especially like the one with the ivy covering it.

Monsanto Owned Companies

 

In the recent outrage over the Monsanto Protection Act, here’s a simple list of companies that use Monsanto products. By staying away from products made by these companies on the list above, you can make sure your dollars are not going to support 'Monsanto' and at the same time watch out for the health of your family and your loved ones.

Join Maria Rodale - Fight GMOs

The other day I was feeling overwhelmed and defeated about the whole GMO thing. There is SO MUCH evidence that GMOs and the chemicals that are used in concert with them (like Round up) are destroying our health and planet. Hundreds of thousands of people have signed petitions and answered surveys that they want GMOs at least labeled if not completely out of our food system. (Are you listening, Mr. President?) But then it occurred to me. We have the solution! Ultimately, there is only one way to ensure that GMOs are out of our food supply, and that is to buy, grow, and eat only organic food. Eating certified-organic food is the only way you can ensure that you are not poisoning your children, poisoning yourself, and poisoning our environment. Isn't that worth a few extra bucks in the supermarket? A few extra questions to your farmer at the farmers' market? And the more we buy organics, the cheaper they'll become. So, let's join together and support the businesses that align with our belief that GMOs do not belong in our food. Let's vote with our dollars. The power is in our hands. Will you join me?
—Maria Rodale

Why Didn't I Think of That?

Eta Aquarid Meteor Shower

The Eta Aquarid meteor shower occurs each year in early May because the orbit of Halley's Comet closely approaches the orbit of Earth in two places. The first is the May timeframe, which leads to the Eta Aquarids. The other point occurs in mid-October, producing the Orionid meteor shower.

When and where to watch
The Eta Aquarid meteor shower is predicted to peak early on Sunday morning, but dark skies and clear weather are vital to observe them. Under ideal conditions (a dark, moonless sky) about 55 to 60 of these very swift meteors might be seen per hour.
The meteor shower appears at about one-quarter of its peak strength for several days before and after May 5. This is a very good year to look out for the Eta Aquarid meteors from Halley's Comet because the moon will be at a thin, waning crescent phase, and just 20-percent illuminated and providing little interference for viewing these swift streaks of light.
From places south of the equator, the Eta Aquarids typically put on very good show. Australian stargazers consider them to be the best meteor display of the year.
But for those watching from north of the equator, it's a much different story.

Where to look

The apparent origin point of a meteor shower in the night sky is known as its radiant. For the Eta Aquarids, the radiant is found within the "Water Jar" of the constellation Aquarius, which begins to rise above the eastern horizon around 3 a.m. your local time. Unfortunately, this constellation never really gets very high as seen from north temperate latitudes. And soon after 4 a.m. local time, the morning twilight will begin to brighten the sky.
So if you are hoping to see up to 60 meteors per hour, forget it. With the radiant so low above the horizon, the majority of those meteors will be streaking below the horizon and out of sight.
In fact, from North America, typical Aquarid rates are only 10 meteors per hour at 26 degrees north latitude (Miami, Fla., or Brownsville, Texas), 5 per hour at around 35 degrees latitude (Los Angeles, Calif., or Cape Hatteras, N.C.) and practically zero to the north of 40 degrees (New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia).
 "So," you may be thinking, "What's the point of getting up before dawn to watch?" The answer: Despite the long odds, you still just might see something spectacular.

Catch an Earthgrazer, or comet crumb
For most, perhaps the best hope is perhaps catching a glimpse of a meteor emerging from the radiant that will skim the atmosphere horizontally — much like a bug skimming the side window of an automobile.
Meteor watchers call such shooting stars "earthgrazers" and they are known for spectacularly long, colorful long-lasting trails. 
"These meteors are extremely long," Robert Lunsford of the International Meteor Organization explained. "They tend to hug the horizon rather than shooting overhead where most cameras are aimed."
"Earthgrazers are rarely numerous," NASA meteor expert Bill Cooke, a member of the Space Environments team at the Marshall Space Flight Center has said. "But even if you only see a few, you're likely to remember them."
If you do catch sight of one early these next few mornings, remember that you are likely seeing the incandescent streak produced by material which originated from the core of Halley's Comet.
So it is that the shooting stars that we have come to call the Eta Aquarids are really an encounter with the traces of a famous visitor from the depths of space and from the dawn of creation.

                                        An Eta Aquarid meteor streaks through the night sky.

WTG Seattle

 

 

 

 

Seattle’s vision of an urban food oasis is going forward. A seven-acre plot of land in the city’s Beacon Hill neighborhood will be planted with hundreds of different kinds of edibles: walnut and chestnut trees; blueberry and raspberry bushes; fruit  trees, including apples and pears; exotics like pineapple, yuzu citrus, guava, persimmons, honeyberries, and lingonberries; herbs; and more. All will be available for public plucking to anyone who wanders into the city’s first food forest.

“This is totally innovative, and has never been done before in a public park,” Margarett Harrison, lead landscape architect for the Beacon Food Forest project, tells TakePart. Harrison is working on construction and permit drawings now and expects to break ground this summer.

The concept of a food forest certainly pushes the envelope on urban agriculture and is grounded in the concept of permaculture, which means it will be perennial and self-sustaining, like a forest is in the wild. Not only is this forest Seattle’s first large-scale permaculture project, but it’s also believed to be the first of its kind in the nation.

“The concept means we consider the soils, companion plants, insects, bugs—everything will be mutually beneficial to each other,” says Harrison.
That the plan came together at all is remarkable on its own. What started as a group project for a permaculture design course ended up as a textbook example of community outreach gone right.
"Friends of the Food Forest undertook heroic outreach efforts to secure neighborhood support. The team mailed over 6,000 postcards in five different languages, tabled at events and fairs, and posted fliers,” writes Robert Mellinger for Crosscut. 
Neighborhood input was so valued by the organizers, they even used translators to help Chinese residents have a voice in the planning.
So just who gets to harvest all that low-hanging fruit when the time comes?
“Anyone and everyone,” says Harrison. “There was major discussion about it. People worried, ‘What if someone comes and takes all the blueberries?’ That could very well happen, but maybe someone needed those blueberries. We look at it this way—if we have none at the end of blueberry season, then it means we’re successful.”

By Clare Leschin-Hoar

Frozen Yoghurt

I have been making our own yoghurt for a couple of years now. The only problem is when I make it, I have approximately two and a half quarts of it to use up before it goes sour. Oh what to do????

This morning I found my answer.

Frozen berry yoghurt 
Anneka Manning's frozen yoghurt from The Low GI Family Cookbook  is perfect for desserts or snacks and serves 6.

250g (9oz) fresh or frozen mixed berries
3 x 200 g (7oz) tubs low fat vanilla yoghurt
2 egg whites
2 tbsp floral honey



Place the berries and yoghurt in a food processor and blend until smooth. Transfer to a medium-sized bowl and set aside. Whisk the egg whites in a clean, dry bowl until stiff peaks form. Add the honey a tablespoon at a time, whisking well after each addition until thick and glossy. Fold into the berry yoghurt mixture until just combined. Pour the mixture into an airtight container and place in the freezer for 4 hours or until frozen. Use a metal spoon to break the frozen yoghurt into chunks. Blend again in a food processor until smooth. Return to the airtight container and refreeze for 3 hours or until frozen. Serve in scoops.

Looks good doesn't it? I can't wait to try it. Maybe today since the temperature here is going to be a rip roaring 27 C (80 F)! 

Organic Mulches

Examples of organic mulches include:

• Bark, Shredded or Chipped
• Compost
• Composted Manure
• Grass Clippings
• Newspaper
• Shredded Leaves
• Straw

Organic mulch will decompose and have to be replaced, however in the process it will also improve your soil’s fertility and, of course, its organic content. Generally the dryer and woodier the mulch, the slower it will decompose and the less nutrients it will give to the soil.

• Bark mulches are best used around trees, shrubs and in garden beds where you won’t be doing a lot of digging, like front walkways and foundation plantings. These woody mulches don’t mix well into the soil and it can become a hassle to have to keep moving them aside to make way for new plants.
• Compost and Composted Manure can be used anywhere, as long as they are relatively well composted and weed free. You can use them as a coating of mulch or simply side dress plants with them during the growing season, to insulate and give a boost of slow released nutrients.
• Grass Clippings are a mixed bag and are best suited to remote areas of your garden where you basically want to suppress weeds. Grass clippings, like most green plant debris with a high water content, decompose very rapidly and in the process they can get somewhat slimy, with an unpleasant odor - so use with discretion. Grass clippings also tend to mat down and not allow water to pass through. 
• Ideally you should use a mulching mower and leave the clippings on the lawn to add fertility to that soil. However if you do bag your grass clippings, don’t throw them away unless you have used weed killer or some other pesticide on your lawn. Synthetic lawn care products can be bad for some flowers and you certainly don’t want to use them in your vegetable garden. But untreated grass clippings can either be dumped into your compost bin or used to mulch open, unplanted areas.
• Newspaper as mulch is becoming more and more popular. Most newspapers have switched over to organic dyes, especially for their black & white sections. Shredded newspaper has been used for years to keep plant roots moist while shipping. Layered sheets of newspaper also have great moisture retention abilities and they act like other organic mulches as far as suppressing weeds and controlling soil temperatures. They are also great for smothering existing grass, to jump start a new garden bed.
• To use as a mulch in the garden, spread a layer of 4 - 8 sheets of newspaper around the plants. Moisten the sheets to keep them in place. On windy days it’s easier to moisten the sheets before you place them down. Cover the newspaper with a 1-3 inch layer of another organic mulch and the weed protection should last throughout the growing season.
• Shredded Leaves are natures favorite mulch. Shredded leaves can be used as mulch anywhere and have the added bonus of being free. I have never had so many earth worms in my flower gardens as I’ve had since I started using shredded leaf mulch about 3 years ago. Even my compost pile doesn’t have as much activity as under these leaves.
• Some gardeners don’t like the look of leaves in their garden and they probably aren’t appropriate for formal gardens. But if you spread a layer in the spring, before plants spread out, the leaf mulch tends to blend into the view within a short time. Shredded leaves are perfect for woodland gardens and I always spread a layer over my vegetable garden in the fall, to begin decomposing over the winter.
  Unshredded leaves can mat together and repel water, in rainy areas. But I have to confess that if my leaves get too wet to shred, I’ll use them as mulch anyway and simply stir them up a bit if they appear to get matted.
  
• Straw and Salt Hay are popular mulches for the vegetable garden. They keep the soil and soil born diseases from splashing up on lower plant leaves and make paths less muddy. Straw decomposes very slowly and will last the entire growing season. It also makes a nice home for spiders and other beneficial insects who will move in and help keep the pest population in control. And finally, it’s easy to either rake up or work into the soil when it’s time to plant a new crop or put the vegetable garden to bed. 
•  Whatever mulch you choose, apply it soon after planting, before new weeds sprout. Apply a 2-4 inch thick layer of mulch, avoiding direct contact with the plant stems. Piling mulch around the stem can lead to rotting and can provide cover for munching mice and voles.