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anonymous

Arsenic in Rice: of Baby and Bath Water - 0 views

health.usnews.com/...in-rice-of-baby-and-bath-water

health arsenic

shared by anonymous on 01 Oct 12 - Cached
  • Arsenic is an element present in the earth's crust. There would likely be some of it in ground water even without the human activities that traumatize that crust in a variety of ways, but not enough to threaten health. Our various activities that have moved both rocks and water, from mining to drilling wells into aquifers, have resulted in significant mobilization of arsenic from rock into ground water.
  • Arsenic comes in two forms, organic and inorganic.
  • Organic arsenic, which is present in foods in very small amounts, is probably non-toxic, and may even be an essential trace element.
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • Inorganic arsenic is certainly a toxin, as was made famous in the movie, Arsenic and Old Lace. It is the primary variety released from rocks into water, and the main concern for human health.
  • Attention to arsenic in the environment by the Environmental Protection Agency, and in our food by the FDA, can only be a good thing, advancing food safety. Eating a variety of whole grains, for those without reasons to avoid them such as gluten sensitivity, is good for health in general—and may also reduce arsenic intake.
  • But inevitably, when a peril in our food or medicine cabinet or environment is pointed out to us, it invites the hyperbole of concentrated media attention, an inclination to invoke conspiracy theories, and at least some temptation to panic. When we do give in to panic, we tend to jettison the baby along with the bath water, resulting in net harm.
  • 1. Don't make perfect the enemy of good.
  • since we can't have perfectly pure food, the operative question in the real world is: Which of the available choices are best for health?
  • The presence of a contaminant in food does not reliably indicate that eating the food is harmful.
  • Similarly, there is more arsenic in brown rice than white, but the health benefits of eating a whole grain may outweigh that.
  • 2. Don't exaggerate a risk just because you don't control it.
  • We have known for decades that the four leading causes of chronic disease and premature death in industrialized countries are smoking, poor dietary pattern, lack of physical activity, and obesity. Yet these four are routinely ignored or neglected by people who get very worked up over the latest chemical threat in our food or environment.
  • We should not ignore big risks just because they are under our control, nor exaggerate much smaller ones simply because they are not.
  • 3. New in the news is not new in the world.
  • The tendency when a chemical threat is highlighted in the news is to think the threat itself is new, and the consequences are unknown, and in the future. But if arsenic in rice or other foods does actually contribute to cancer risk, it has been doing so for years.
  • the notion that there is a spike in cancer or other disease rates looming around the next bend is misguided; we are already around that bend, and any harms of arsenic are already part of the epidemiologic landscape we know.
  • Perfectly pure food is, alas, not available on this planet. So those of us living here should focus on net health effects rather than the media hype du jour, and do the best we can with the food supply we've got.
  • anonymous on 01 Oct 12
     
    "Predictably, there was widespread media attention to a recent release by Consumer Reports highlighting contamination of rice by arsenic. In customary "consumer watchdog" fashion, Consumer Reports presented a long list of popular consumer products, from cooking rice, to rice cakes, to breakfast cereal, and most worrisome, baby food, with arsenic levels in each. The story was covered extensively by the major network news programs."
anonymous

Impacts of Missile Defense Cuts on U.S.-Russian Relations | Stratfor - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...ense-cuts-us-russian-relations

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 19 Mar 13 - Cached
  • There are several possible reasons for the move, most notably U.S. hopes for a thaw in tensions with Russia, which fiercely opposes the entire missile defense plan. Washington needs Moscow to cooperate on a range of issues, and talks between the two countries have stalled in recent months. But while the decision to scrap the fourth phase of the plan could lead to progress in negotiations, the move will not assuage all of Russia's concerns about the U.S. missile shield in Europe. Various disputes will remain unresolved between Washington and Moscow and continue to preclude a long-elusive comprehensive reset in U.S.-Russian relations.
  • The original plan called for deployment of shorter- and medium-range interceptors in the first three phases and longer-range interceptors in the fourth phase.
  • The first phase, which involved radar stations in Turkey and ship-based missile defense systems in the Mediterranean, has already been implemented.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • During the second and third phases, more-advanced interceptors capable of targeting short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles would be deployed to Romania by 2015 and Poland by 2018.
  • In the fourth phase, the longer-range SM-3 Block IIB missiles would be deployed in Romania and Poland around 2022.
  • Compared to its predecessors in the Standard Missile-3 line, the SM-3 Block IIB would have enhanced seeking capabilities and a more powerful booster
  • This is why the SM-3 Block IIB faced fierce opposition from Russia, which sees the interceptor as a possible threat to its own strategic nuclear missile arsenal.
  • U.S. defense officials insist that the cancellation of the missile defense plan's final phase had nothing to do with Russia but was rather motivated by technological and budgetary factors.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 19 Mar 13
       
      "nothing to do with Russia" should be in quotes. :Clears throat:
  •  In an era of defense budget cuts, funding for the risky program became harder to justify. But regardless of Washington's exact reasons for the changes, they address at least some of Russia's concerns over the U.S. missile defense plans.
  • The White House would like to continue to reduce the stockpiles of nuclear weapons in Russia and the United States beyond the limits imposed by the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which places a ceiling on the number of deployed delivery systems and strategic warheads possessed by each country. To achieve this, the White House needs Russian participation in order to withstand opposition to the treaty from national security hawks in Congress.
  • Washington also wants Russian cooperation in a number of other issues, including the Iranian nuclear program and the conflict in Syria. The United States also needs to secure access to the Northern Distribution Network, the primary logistical route into Afghanistan, which will be critical to the U.S. withdrawal over the next two years.
  • Initial Russian reactions to the U.S. announcement have been less than optimistic. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, for example, said the move was not a concession, and Russia still objects to the parts of the overall plan that remain.
  • Moreover, the United States may decide to focus on a different intercontinental ballistic missile defense system that would still provoke objections from the Russians. On March 15, for example, Hagel also announced plans to deploy 14 additional ground-based interceptors at Fort Greely, Alaska, -- missiles theoretically capable of defending against intercontinental ballistic missiles, although the program's development and deployment have been marred by numerous failed tests. The apparent demise of the SM-3 Block IIB could also lead to the deployment of additional missile defense systems along the U.S. East Coast.
  • Hagel said that the U.S. commitment to defending Europe remains ironclad, and other U.S. officials have been quick to emphasize that the first three phases of the European Phased Adaptive Approach remain in place and on track to cover all European NATO members by 2018.
  • The U.S. military presence in Poland and Romania will continue to be an obstacle in U.S.-Russian relations.
  • So while the changes to the U.S. missile defense plan address a key issue for Russia, they do not resolve all of Moscow's concerns -- especially those related to developments in missile defense technology or the continued stationing of U.S. forces in Russia's near abroad.
  • anonymous on 19 Mar 13
     
    "The United States appears to be scaling back its ballistic missile shield efforts in Central Europe. On March 15, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced that the United States would cancel the fourth phase of its European Phased Adaptive Approach missile defense plan and "restructure" the Standard Missile-3 Block IIB program -- a highly advanced interceptor expected to shield against intercontinental ballistic missiles. Essentially, Hagel was announcing that development of the interceptor, a central component part of the fourth phase, would be scrapped."
anonymous

F'd: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World's Worst New Warplane - War is... - 0 views

medium.com/...5c95d45f86a5

shared by anonymous on 20 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Lockheed’s F-117 stealth fighter was developed in a breakneck 30 months by a close-knit team of 50 engineers led by an experienced fighter designer named Alan Brown and overseen by seven government employees. Brown said he exercised strict control over the design effort, nixing any proposed feature of the plane that might add cost or delay or detract from its main mission.The F-35, by contrast, is being designed by some 6,000 engineers led by a rotating contingent of short-tenure managers, with no fewer than 2,000 government workers providing oversight. The sprawling JSF staff, partially a product of the design’s complexity, has also added to that complexity like a bureaucratic feedback loop, as every engineer or manager scrambles to add his or her specialty widget, subsystem or specification to the plane’s already complicated blueprints … and inexperienced leaders allow it.
  • Instead of revitalizing the Pentagon’s air arsenal as intended, the JSF is eating it — and putting future war strategy at risk. In 2012 an embarrassed Frank Kendall, the Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer, called the F-35 “acquisitions malpractice.”
  • Jet design like any engineering practice requires disciplined choices. The JSF is the embodiment of ambivalence — a reflection of the government and Lockheed’s inability to say that some things could not or should not be done.
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  • By contrast, the Chinese J-31 does not appear compromised at all. Surrounded by rivals with powerful air forces — namely India, Russia, Japan and U.S. Pacific Command — and with no grudge-holding Marine Corps to hijack fighter design, it would make sense that China prioritized the air-combat prowess of its new jet over any historical score-settling.
  • Ward said any future warplane should have clear and narrow requirements, as opposed to the F-35's broad, incompatible guidelines. Development timelines should be fast, budgets should be inexpensive, the overall concept should be simple and hardware should be as tiny as possible, Ward recommended. “What you don’t do is hold up complexity as a desirable attribute,” he said.
  • anonymous on 20 Aug 13
     
    "The price tag -currently an estimated $1 trillion to design, build and operate 2,400 copies-is steadily going down. Production of dozens of the planes a year for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps is getting easier. Daily flight tests increasingly are hitting all the right marks. Or so proponents would have you believe."
anonymous

Think Again: Ronald Reagan - 0 views

www.foreignpolicy.com/...think_again_ronald_reagan

criticalthinking politics

shared by anonymous on 07 Jun 10 - Cached
  • The Gipper wasn't the warhound his conservative followers would have you think.
  • These days, virtually every time someone on the American right bashes President Barack Obama for kowtowing to dictators or failing to shout that we're at war, they light a votive candle to Ronald Reagan.
  • He launched exactly one land war, against Grenada, whose army totaled 600 men. It lasted two days. And his only air war -- the 1986 bombing of Libya -- was even briefer.
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  • at an early meeting, when Secretary of State Alexander Haig suggested that achieving this goal might require bombing Cuba, the suggestion "scared the shit out of Ronald Reagan," according to White House aide Michael Deaver. Haig was marginalized, then resigned, and Reagan never seriously considered sending U.S. troops south of the border, despite demands from conservative intellectuals like Norman Podhoretz and William F. Buckley.
  • Reagan's political genius lay in recognizing that what Americans wanted was a president who exorcised the ghost of the Vietnam War without fighting another Vietnam. Although Americans enjoyed Reagan's thunderous denunciations of Central American communism, 75 percent of them, according to a 1985 Louis Harris survey, opposed invading Nicaragua.
  • So Reagan created Potemkin Vietnams. His biographer Lou Cannon calls him "shameless" in using Grenada to revive America's Vietnam-wounded pride. The war resulted in more medals per soldier than any military operation in U.S. history. When he bombed Libya in 1986, Reagan goosed American nationalism again, declaring, "Every nickel-and-dime dictator the world over knows that if he tangles with the United States of America, he will pay a price."
  • Reagan's role in winning the Cold War lies at the core of the American right's mythology.
  • The legend goes like this: Reagan came into office, dramatically hiked defense spending, unveiled the Strategic Defense Initiative (his "Star Wars" missile shield), and aided anti-communist rebels in the Third World. Unable to keep pace, the Kremlin chose Gorbachev, who threw in the towel.
  • Reagan began abandoning his hard-line anti-Soviet stance in late 1983, 18 months before Gorbachev took power.
  • Reagan, who had long harbored a genuine terror of nuclear war reflected in his decades-old belief -- often ignored by backers on the right -- that nuclear weapons should eventually be abolished.
  • In 1983, two movies triggered Reagan's latent anti-nuclear views: Matthew Broderick's WarGames, which portrays a young computer hacker who almost starts a nuclear war, and ABC's The Day After, which depicts Lawrence, Kansas, in the aftermath of one.
  • According to Colin Powell, national security advisor from 1987 to 1989, Reagan had been deeply affected by the 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still
  • This combination of electoral and psychological anxiety led Reagan, late in his first term, to begin a dramatic rhetorical shift. Declaring that "nuclear arsenals are far too high," in January 1984 he told the country that "my dream is to see the day when nuclear weapons will be banished from the face of the Earth."
  • When they did meet in Geneva, in November, Reagan whispered to Gorbachev, "I bet the hard-liners in both our countries are bleeding when we shake hands."
  • An initial meeting scheduled for 15 minutes lasted five hours.
  • By 1988, though the Soviet Union had not yet released Eastern Europe from its grip, Reagan was explicitly denying that the Soviet Union still constituted an "evil empire" and had begun calling Gorbachev "my friend."
  • Commentary's Norman Podhoretz declared that neoconservatives were "sinking into a state of near political despair."
  • By 1984, after Reagan withdrew troops from their peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, Podhoretz moaned that "in the use of military power, Mr. Reagan was much more restrained" than his right-wing supporters had hoped.
  • In 1986, when Reagan would not cancel his second summit with Gorbachev over Moscow's imprisonment of an American journalist, Podhoretz accused him of having "shamed himself and the country" in his "craven eagerness" to give away the nuclear store.
  • Will wrote that he "is painfully fond of the least conservative sentiment conceivable, a statement taken from an anti-conservative, Thomas Paine: 'We have it in our power to begin the world over again.' Any time, any place, that is nonsense."
  • the irony is that in Reagan's own "war on terror," his policies more closely resembled Obama's than Bush's.
  • Almost five years later, in his final moments as president, he told press secretary Marlin Fitzwater that "the only regret I have after eight years is sending those troops to Lebanon." Then he saluted and walked out of the Oval Office for the last time.
  • Of course, the 9/11 attacks gave Bush a massive jolt of popularity and sent Congress diving for cover, all of which made the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq much easier.
  • For many contemporary conservatives, being a Reagan disciple means acting as if there are no limits to American strength. But the real lessons of Reaganism are about how to wield national power and bolster national pride when your hands are partially tied.
  • That means understanding that America's foreign-policy debates are often cultural debates in disguise.
  • If Obama does not want to be Jimmy Carter, if he does not want Americans to equate his restraint with their humiliation, he must be as aggressive as Reagan in finding symbolic ways to soothe Americans' wounded pride.
  • Obama needs to remind Americans that their most successful Cold War presidents -- Reagan included -- saw the conflict as a primarily economic struggle.
  • In the nascent economic and ideological struggle between the United States and China, wars that Washington cannot possibly pay for -- and which leave the country more reliant on foreign central bankers -- don't make America stronger; they make it weaker.
  • anonymous on 07 Jun 10
     
    By Peter Beinart at Foreign Policy on June 7, 2010. I have always been fascinated by the difference between perception and reality when it comes to Reagan.
anonymous

NATO's Lack of a Strategic Concept - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...1_natos_lack_strategic_concept

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 12 Oct 10 - Cached
  • The gravity of the Soviet threat and the devastation of continental Europe after World War II left the European NATO allies beholden to the United States for defense. Any hope of deterring an ambitious USSR resided in Washington and its nuclear arsenal.
  • the Soviets were confident enough throughout the Cold War to maintain a no-first-use policy on nuclear weapons in the belief that their conventional advantage in armor would yield quick results. NATO simply did not have that luxury.
  • Three major developments changed how different alliance members formulate their threat perception.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • First, 9/11 brought home the reality of the threat represented by militant Islamists.
  • Second, NATO’s enlargement to the Baltic states combined with the pro-Western Georgian and Ukrainian color revolutions — all occurring in a one-year period between the end of 2003 and end of 2004 — jarred Moscow into a resurgence that has altered the threat environment for Central Europe.
  • When the United States does fully reawaken to the Russian resurgence, it will find that only a portion of NATO shares a similar view of Russia.
  • Third, Europe’s severe economic crisis has made Germany’s emergence as the political leader of Europe plain to all.
  • Central Europeans are nervously watching as Paris and Berlin draw closer to Moscow while committed Atlanticists — Western European countries traditionally suspicious of a powerful Germany — such as Denmark, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom want to reaffirm their trans-Atlantic security links with the United States in light of a new, more assertive, Germany.
  • The United States launched proxy wars in Korea and Vietnam largely to demonstrate unequivocally to European governments — and the Kremlin — that the United States was willing to bleed in far corners of the planet for its allies. U.S. troops stationed in West Germany, some of whom were in immediate danger of being cut off in West Berlin, served to demonstrate U.S. resolve against Soviet armor poised on the North European Plain and just to the east of the Fulda Gap in Hesse. Recent years have not seen a reaffirmation of such resolve, but rather the opposite when the United States — and NATO — failed to respond to the Russian military intervention in Georgia, a committed NATO aspirant though not a member. This was due not only to a lack of U.S. forces but also to Germany’s and France’s refusal to risk their relationships with Russia over Georgia.
  • The disparate threat environment is grafted on to a membership pool that can be broadly split into three categories: the United States, Canada and committed European Atlanticists (the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Denmark)
  • Led by the United States, Atlanticists want the alliance oriented toward non-European theaters of operation (e.g., Afghanistan) and non-traditional security threats (think cybersecurity, terrorism, etc.); an increase of commitments from Core Europeans in terms of defense spending; and a reformed decision-making system that eliminates a single-member veto in some situations while allowing the NATO secretary-general to have predetermined powers to act without authorization in others.
  • Led by Germany and France, Core Europe wants more controls and parameters predetermined for non-European deployments (so that it can limit such deployments); a leaner and more efficient alliance (in other words, the freedom to cut defense spending when few are actually spending at the two percent gross domestic product mandated by the alliance); and more cooperation and balance with Russia and more consultations with international organizations like the United Nations (to limit the ability of the United States to go it alone without multilateral approval).
  • The Central Europeans ultimately want NATO to reaffirm Article 5 both rhetorically and via military exercises (if not the stationing of troops); commitment to the European theater and conventional threats specifically (in opposition to the Atlanticists’ non-European focus); and mention of Russia in the new Strategic Concept as a power whose motives cannot be trusted (in opposition of Core European pro-Russian attitudes).
  • The problem with NATO today, and for NATO in the next decade, is that different member states view different threats through different prisms of national interest. Russian tanks concern only roughly a third of member states — the Intermarum states — while the rest of the alliance is split between Atlanticists looking to strengthen the alliance for new threats and non-European theaters of operations and the so-called “Old Europe” that looks to commit as few soldiers and resources as possible toward either set of goals in the next 10 years.
  • Without that looming threat, other matters — other differences — begin to fracture the alliance.
  • During the Cold War, NATO was a military alliance with a clear adversary and purpose. Today, it is becoming a group of friendly countries with interoperability standards that will facilitate the creation of “coalitions of the willing” on an ad-hoc basis and of a discussion forum.
  • anonymous on 12 Oct 10
     
    "Twenty-eight heads of state of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will meet in Lisbon on Nov. 20 to approve a new "Strategic Concept," the alliance's mission statement for the next decade. This will be NATO's third Strategic Concept since the Cold War ended. The last two came in 1991 - as the Soviet Union was collapsing - and 1999 - as NATO intervened in Yugoslavia, undertaking its first serious military engagement." By Marko Papic at StratFor on October 12, 2010.
anonymous

The Russian Swagger is Back - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...20101202_russian_swagger_back

geopolitics russia

shared by anonymous on 03 Dec 10 - Cached
  • A timeline helps to understand the statements surrounding the case, and broader U.S.-Russian relations.
  • The 10 intelligence officers, working secretly in the United States, were arrested almost simultaneously on June 28 in a major FBI operation. A quick spy swap was orchestrated by July 9; the spies were returned to Moscow.
  • a handful of these agents had been tracked for years in ongoing counterintelligence investigations, so something important triggered the sudden arrests.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • we suspect the leak occurred for one of three reasons:
  • Officials within or overseen by the U.S. Department of Defense wanted to counteract Putin’s claims of the spies’ relative innocence; second, U.S. counterintelligence investigators could be using the leak to “shake the trees” and watch for unusual communications traffic or activities by possible suspects; and this could be another move as Washington combats Russia’s push to spread its side of the story, that it is back on the world stage as a counterbalance to the United States.
  • Putin’s entire interview on Larry King was meant to remind the U.S. public that Russia still has many capabilities to challenge the United States. He spoke of the vast nuclear arsenal, regional alliances and — of course — spies. This was directed at a U.S. audience.
  • Putin identified the reality that every country “operates a foreign intelligence network.” U.S.-Russian intelligence and counterintelligence activities have changed little in decades, and no doubt is back in public view.
  • anonymous on 03 Dec 10
     
    "As the world mulls Thursday's naming of Russia as the 2018 World Cup host, as well as the Wednesday CNN interview with Russian Premier Vladimir Putin and the U.S. response, we should not overlook two new claims about the case of 10 Russian spies arrested in the United States in June. Answering a question from American high-profile interviewer Larry King, Putin said the "deep-cover agents" did not damage U.S. interests and would only have been activated in a crisis. Before the interview aired, The Washington Times journalist Bill Gertz published a report sourced to a retired intelligence official that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) was undergoing a counterintelligence investigation linked to Russians who were charged with acting as undeclared agents of a foreign country. In the murky world of state espionage, both countries are playing games of deception. " At StratFor on December 3, 2010.
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