Day: March 13, 2009

Hospital drinking fountains?

The Hanover and District Hospital in Ontario, Canada is planning to ban the sale of bottle water in favor of tap water available through drinking fountains and water dispensing machines, according to The Post (Hanover, Ontario). The move is part of the hospital’s “commitment to a green environment.”

Water fountains? Ick! In a hospital? OMG!

A November 2008 study by San Francisco Department of Health researchers and published in in Epidemiology and Infections observed that,

Interactive water fountains are established sources of gastrointestinal infections yet most health codes fail to regulate their design and operation.

A February 2006 study by University of Texas School of Public Health researchers and published in the Southern Medical Journal reported that,

… drinking water fountains can be an unexpected and unappreciated source of intake of metal and bacterial contaminants.

Then there’s the trend away from disinfecting drinking water with chlorine — a problem in Ontario not too long ago. As related on the American Chemistry Council web site:

Even where water treatment is widely practiced, constant vigilance is required to guard against waterborne disease outbreaks. Well-known pathogens such as E. coli are easily controlled with chlorination, but can cause deadly outbreaks given conditions of inadequate or no disinfection. A striking example occurred in May 2000 in the Canadian town of Walkerton, Ontario. Seven people died and more than 2,300 became ill after E. coli and other bacteria infected the town’s water supply. [Emphasis added] A report published by the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General concludes that, even after the well was contaminated, the Walkerton disaster could have been prevented if the required chlorine residuals had been maintained.

Steve Milloy’s new book Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them spotlights how green will make you life less safe and more inconvenient.

Take action:

Contact Katrina Wilson, President and CEO, Hanover and District Hospital at 519-364-2341 Ext. 206 or by e-mail at kwilson@hanoverhospital.on.ca.

Fight the biggest land grab in 30 years

As we reported earlier this week, the biggest land grab in 30 years failed in the House this week.

The Land Rights Network just issued the following action alert:

S22: You Won, See How Your Congressman Voted

Look at the hero’s and zeros. You won . . . for now.

Congratulations. Your calls made a difference. You won the first round. Supporters of S22 brought the bill up on a special rule that required a 2/3 vote to win and they lost.

It’s likely they will come back next week or later and try to vote again,
this time under normal majority rules.

You have time to congratulate the hero’s that voted against S22 and try to convince the zeros that voted for it to vote against it next time.

—–Attention: You may have trouble understanding the list of votes below. They had been converted from columns into one column so the alpha listing seems to start and then restart. We decided we would forward this to you as it came to us because of time. The big thing to look for is did they vote for (Yea) S22 (bad) or against (Nay) S22 (good).

We appreciate very much the help we received in getting this vote analysis.

    Action Items:

  1. Please forward this message as widely as possible.
  2. Call your Congressman. S22 will likely receive another vote next week. This time they will use regular rules. They tried to rush it through on the special rules calendar and lost.

    You can call any Congressman at (202) 225-3121. You have no time to waste. You must deluge your Congressman with calls. Make sure he or she knows they’ll get the credit they deserve for this vote.

  3. Congratulate the Congressmen who voted against S22. This is important, as others will be pushing them to change their vote.
  4. Make sure to call the Congressmen who voted for S22. Let them know you are keeping score and keeping a record.
  5. Call your friends and neighbors. Get them to call your
    Congressman. This is a vote you can win. But it must be an all out effort.

Remember, S22 includes over 150 separate bills including Wilderness, Heritage Areas and other types of land grab bills on top of the 32 million acre National Landscape Conservation System designed and pushed by Bruce Babbitt.

This is the biggest land grab in nearly 30 years.

S 22 2/3 YEA-AND-NAY 11-Mar-2009 12:38 PM

BILL TITLE: Omnibus Public Land Management Act

Yeas Nays PRES NV
Democratic 248 3 3
Republican 34 141 3
Independent
TOTALS 282 144 6

—- YEAS 282 — These are your zeros.
—- NAYS 144 — These are your hero’s.

Click here to see who voted how.

UN head: US a ‘deadbeat’

United Nations head Ban Ki-moon, who is looking to thrust global governance on the U.S. through global warming regulation, called the U.S. a “deadbeat” on Thursday. Apparently the U.S. has been been somewhat tardy in paying its 22 percent of the UN’s $5 billion operating budget.

The most outrage that the Obama administration could muster publicly was to have White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs call Ban’s word choice “unfortunate.”

So not only does the corrupt (e.g., oil-for-food) and incompetent (you-name-the-international-crisis) UN use U.S. taxpayer money to advance its anti-American mission, but we get insulted to boot. And all the Obama administration does is to peep about Ban’s choice of words — not his sentiment.

Steve Milloy discusses “America in the Rearview Mirror” in his new book Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them.

Green potty of the future: Must-see video

We recently spotlighted a New York Times op-ed promoting urine recycling through a urine diversion toilet.

So check out this GreenOceanProject YouTube video of how a urine diversion toilet works.

Steve Milloy’s new book Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them to learn how the greens plan to reduce your standard of living to squatting over a hole.

Top Democrat to propose climate welfare

Carbon Control News reported today that,

Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), a senior member of the House Ways & Means Committee and chairman of the subcommittee on income security, is drafting climate change legislation that aims to ensure low-income households are not adversely affected by the higher costs for energy and consumer goods that will accompany federal restrictions on greenhouse gases.

By providing low-income households with direct rebates and tax credits, McDermott views this legislation as addressing “social justice” concerns. A similar proposal was recently made by the Center for Budget Policy Priorities.

Greens attack baby shampoos

Green groups, masquerading as the “Campaign for Safe Cosmetics” this week attacked personal care products companies via a new report claiming that children’s bath products are:

“contaminated with the cancer causing chemicals formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane” and that the chemicals “were not disclosed on product labels because the contaminants are exempt from labeling laws.”

Fortunately, the industry is fighting back. The Personal Care Products Council points out in a release that:

  • “1,4 dioxane is a byproduct that can form in trace or miniscule amounts during the manufacturing process for ingredients that help to ensure mildness of some personal care products such as shampoo and bubble bath”
  • the “FDA has monitored 1,4 dioxane in cosmetic and personal care products since the 1970s [and] has stated that the 1,4 dioxane levels found in their monitoring of personal care products and cosmetics ‘do not present a hazard to consumers.'”
  • “Formaldehyde is a simple compound consisting of hydrogen, oxygen and carbon. It occurs naturally in the air we breathe and is even part of the human metabolism. Plants and animals also produce formaldehyde, and it is released as a byproduct of certain vegetables, such as Brussels sprouts and cabbage, when they are cooked.”
  • Historically, formaldehyde was first used as a biological preservative more than a century ago. Today, formaldehyde-releasing preservatives are ingredients that help to ensure the safety of products by protecting them from harmful contamination by microorganisms during storage and during continued use by consumers. These preservatives have the ability to replace used-up formaldehyde by releasing it in very small amounts over time as needed. The use of formaldehyde-releasing preservatives ensures that the actual level of free formaldehyde in the product remains very low but sufficient enough to prevent or eliminate bacterial growth. Exposures to formaldehyde through personal care products are generally extremely low”
  • The Cosmetic Ingredient Review (CIR), an independent panel of scientific and medical experts who assess the safety of ingredients used in U.S. cosmetic and personal care products, “concluded that formaldehyde in cosmetics and personal care products is safe and should not exceed 0.2 percent (2,000 ppm) when measured as free formaldehyde.” Click here for the FDA regulations on formaldehyde.
  • Even “the European Union’s Cosmetic Directive allows use of formaldehyde in cosmetic and personal care products at a maximum concentration of 0.2 percent or 2,000 ppm (free formaldehyde).

The scientific vacuity of the green attack on products like Johnsons’s Baby Shampoo, Sesame Street Bubble Bath, Baby Magic Baby Lotion and others is perhaps best exemplified by the endorsement of the University of Pittsburgh’s Devra Lee Davis, whose work was once labeled in Science magazine as “uninteresting,” “uninformative,” “boring” and “old junk” by famed epidemiologist Sir Richard Doll.

The true nature of the attack on baby bath products is evidenced by actual forces behind the supposed “Campaign for Safe Cosmetics.” These groups include the Environmental Working Group, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, the National Environmental Trust and U.S. PIRG. The groups are not interested in consumer safety or environmental protection so much as they are advancing their anti-people/anti-business social and political agenda.

Take action: