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Heavy mobile use 'damages sperm'
Nov 5, 2006
Focus: Health
Action Request: Various
Location: United States
Heavy mobile use 'damages sperm'
Heavy use of mobile phones may damage men's fertility, a study has suggested.

Researchers found those men who used a phone for four hours or more a day had fewer sperm and those they had moved less well and were of poorer quality.

The Ohio study involving 364 men was presented to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine in New Orleans.

But a UK expert said it was unlikely the phones were to blame, as they were in use and not near the testes, and it may be being sedentary was the cause.

The team from the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio tested the sperm of 364 men who were being treated at fertility clinics in Mumbai, India, with their partners.

It was found that the heaviest users, those who used their phones for more than four hours a day had the lowest average sperm counts, at 50 million per millilitre (ml) and the least healthy sperm.

Men who used their phones for between two and four hours a day averaged sperm counts of 69 million per ml and had moderately healthy sperm.

Those who said they did not use mobile phones at all had the highest average sperm counts, of 86 million per ml, and their sperm was of the highest quality seen.

'Used without thinking twice'

Dr Ashok Agarwal, who led the research, told the New Orleans conference the study did not prove mobiles damaged fertility, but said it showed more research was warranted.

"There was a significant decrease in the most important measures of sperm health and that should definitely be reflected in a decrease in fertility, which is seen worldwide.

"People use mobile phones without thinking twice what the consequences might be.

"It is just like using a toothbrush, but mobiles could be having a devastating effect on fertility.

"It still has to be proved, but it could be having a huge impact because mobiles are so much part of lives."

He suggested radiation from mobile phones might harm sperm by damaging DNA, affecting the cells in the testes which produce testosterone or the tubes where sperm is produced.

But a British expert cast doubt on the suggested link between mobile phone use and infertility in the men studied.

Dr Allan Pacey, senior lecturer in andrology at the University of Sheffield, said: "This is a good study, but I don't think it tackles the issue.

"If you're using your phone for four hours a day, presumably it is out of your pocket for longer.

"That raises a big question: how is it that testicular damage is supposed to occur?"

Dr Pacey, who is honorary secretary of the British Fertility Society, added: "If you are holding it up to your head to speak a lot, it makes no sense that it is having a direct effect on your testes."

He added that people who use phones for longer might be more sedentary, more stressed or eat more junk food, which might be more likely explanations for the link found in the study.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/6079782.stm
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Posted: Nov 5, 2006 6:56am
Use and initiate local renewable energy sources in developmet aid
Jun 13, 2006
Focus: Environment
Action Request: Petition
Location: United States
 We want to point out that for many low income development countries struggling with foreign debt, the import of fossile fuels constitute a heavy burden on these countries national economies

We therefore urge the UN, and especially the UNDP to target this issue, especially by adapting renewable energy usage from local sources when available in their activities in low income countries ... and when no possible sources is avalaible, to actively seek to initiate projects for production of renewable energy.

We urge all international and national development agencies, as well as NGO's active in low income countries to participate in this.

In the future, farmers will harvest not only food and crops for trading, but also energy crops. PV systems can provide high quality lighting, windpower can pump water or generate electricity, and plant oil can be used to provide heavy duty mechanical power necessary for agricultural processing, tractors, and transportation. The local production means local employment, and local generation of income.

These new enterprises can meet the energy needs of under-served populations while reducing the environmental and health consequences of existing energy use, particularly low quality biomass fuels such as wood and dung.

We would like to intiate projects that can catalyse local economic growth & sustainable development by working in partnership with rural populations and local entrepreneurs. We vision a high level of networking - bringing people and organizations together in sharing the vision, foster cooperation and coordination of their activities.

What we see need to be done:
* Training and tools to help entrepreneurs start and develop clean energy businesses
* Enterprise start-up support in areas such as business planning, structuring and financing
* Seed capital for early stage enterprise development
* Partnerships with banks and NGOs involved in rural energy development

More info:

http://www.freewebs.com/tcfactory/greeningways/

Sign the petition:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/579320391
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Posted: Jun 13, 2006 3:24am
ENERGY CRISIS: Ford And Diesel Never Intended Cars To Use Gasoline
Jun 11, 2006

ENERGY CRISIS: Ford And Diesel Never Intended Cars To Use Gasoline



  • By
    ,

When Henry Ford told a New York Times reporter that ethyl alcohol was "the fuel of the future" in 1925, he was expressing an opinion that was widely shared in the automotive industry. "The fuel of the future is going to come from fruit like that sumach out by the road, or from apples, weeds, sawdust -- almost anything," he said. "There is fuel in every bit of vegetable matter that can be fermented. There's enough alcohol in one year's yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for a hundred years."

Henry Ford's first Model-T was built to run on hemp gasoline and the car itself was constructed from hemp. On his large estate, Ford was photographed among his hemp fields. The car, 'grown from the soil,' had hemp plastic panels whose impact strength was 10 times stronger than steel; (source: Popular Mechanics, 1941).

Rudolf Diesel, the inventor of the diesel engine, designed it to run on vegetable and seed oils like hemp; he actually ran the thing on peanut oil for the 1900 World's Fair. Henry Ford used hemp to not only construct cars but also fuel them.

As an alternative to methanol, hemp has at least one glowing report: the plant produces up to four times more cellulose per acre than trees. And a hemp crop grows a little quicker than a forest.

As for an alternative to petroleum...
  • Hemp grows like mad from border to border in America; so shortages are unlikely. And, unlike petrol, unless we run out of soil, hemp is renewable.
  • Growing and harvesting the stuff has much less environmental impact than procuring oil.
  • Hemp fuel is biodegradable; so oil spills become fertilizer not eco-catastrophes.
  • Hemp fuel does not contribute to sulfur dioxide air poisoning.
  • Other noxious emissions like carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons are radically slashed by using "biodiesel.
  • Hemp fuel is nontoxic and only a mild skin irritant; anybody who's ever cleaned out an old carburetor with gasoline can confirm the same is not true for petrol.
  • Growing hemp for fuel would be a tremendous boon for American farmers and the agricultural industry.


Fuel of the Future

Ford recognized the utility of the hemp plant. He constructed a car of resin stiffened hemp fiber, and even ran the car on ethanol made from hemp. Ford knew that hemp could produce vast economic resources if widely cultivated.

Ford's optimistic appraisal of cellulose and crop based ethyl alcohol fuel can be read in several ways. First, it can be seen as an oblique jab at a competitor. General Motors had come to considerable grief that summer of 1925 over another octane boosting fuel called tetra-ethyl lead, and government officials had been quietly in touch with Ford engineers about alternatives to leaded gasoline additives. Secondly, by 1925 the American farms that Ford loved were facing an economic crisis that would later intensify with the depression. Although the causes of the crisis were complex, one possible solution was seen in creating new markets for farm products. With Ford's financial and political backing, the idea of opening up industrial markets for farmers would be translated into a broad movement for scientific research in agriculture that would be labelled "Farm Chemurgy." 2

Why Henry's plans were delayed for more than a half century:

Ethanol has been known as a fuel for many decades. Indeed, when Henry Ford designed the Model T, it was his expectation that ethanol, made from renewable biological materials, would be a major automobile fuel. However, gasoline emerged as the dominant transportation fuel in the early twentieth century because of the ease of operation of gasoline engines with the materials then available for engine construction, a growing supply of cheaper petroleum from oil field discoveries, and intense lobbying by petroleum companies for the federal government to maintain steep alcohol taxes. Many bills proposing a National energy program that made use of Americas vast agricultural resources (for fuel production) were killed by smear campaigns launched by vested petroleum interests. One noteworthy claim put forth by petrol companies was that the U.S. government's plans "robbed taxpayers to make farmers rich".
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Posted: Jun 11, 2006 6:29am
GOV'T. WINS COURT AUTHORIZATION TO SPY ON CELL PHONE USE
Jan 5, 2006
GOV'T. WINS COURT AUTHORIZATION TO SPY ON CELL PHONE USE

PART 1
Posted 1:00 AM Eastern by David Bresnahan January 3, 2006
NewsWithViews.com
Summary: Despite three court rulings that cell phone tracking by government agencies without a court order is illegal, a fourth court ruling has now authorized blanket spying. The government can now use cell phone data to track physical location, without a search warrant or probable cause.

NEW YORK -- A federal court issued an opinion permitting government agencies to use cell phone data to track a cell phone's physical location, without a search warrant based on probable cause. The ruling seems to be in line with recent revelations about President Bush authorizing secret, warrantless wiretaps. The court opinion on Dec. 20, 2005 went largely unnoticed by the media or the public, but may have major ramifications on privacy rights and issues. Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein of the United States District Court, Southern District of New York issued the opinion, despite three previous rulings to the contrary by other judges. There is no party to appeal, so the ruling paves the way for government agencies in all states to begin cell phone tracking without legal difficulty. There was only one party in each case that was rejected by other courts, the same party in the case that was given approval -- the Department of Justice. The DOJ did not appeal the cases it lost, and there is no party to appeal the case it won. "What other new surveillance powers has the government been creating out of whole cloth and how long have they been getting away with it?" commented the non-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation on it's web site. The DOJ revealed an attitude that a court order is not needed in the brief submitted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Brown: "A cell phone user voluntarily transmits a signal to the cell phone company, and thereby 'assumes the risk' that the cell phone provider will reveal to law enforcement the cell-site information." When the issue comes up in other courts there will be no case of appeal for judges to review for guidance, creating the more likely situation that each subsequent case will be easier and easier for the DOJ and other government agencies to win, say legal analysts commenting in various blogs. Legitimate needs for tracking have been used by commercial vendors and government agencies to justify monitoring of all consumers with a cell phone. The checks and balances put in place to protect individual privacy, such as court orders, are in jeopardy by blanket use of tracking systems that have no accountability, according to government watchdog groups and privacy advocates. National Engineering Technology Corporation (NET) is actively negotiating with various state department of transportation agencies to track cell phone users, without their permission. The data will be used to study traffic flow and provide information to various systems and third parties to notify drivers of ways to avoid traffic congestion. News stories tell of car thieves captured because a toll transponder, or other Global Positioning System (GP device in a car used to identified their location. Web sites already exist that enable the public the ability to track the location of cell phones. These sites advertise services to do things such as know the location of a teenager, or find a lost child. The present traffic systems do not capture the personal information available from each cell phone, but opponents of cell phone tracking express concerns about the potential for that information to easily be included with the simple click of a computer mouse. The DOJ was previously turned down by other judges in New York, Long Island, and Texas. Each time the DOJ included a request to capture the dialing information of incoming and outgoing calls, as well as physical location of each phone. The previous judges rejected the requests stating that investigators cannot track cell phones without going through the hoops necessary for getting a traditional search warrant.

Tomorrow part 2: "Government Tracking Cell Phones Without Court Orders" © 2006 -
NewsWithViews.com - All Rights Reserved
http://www.newswithviews.com/BreakingNews/breaking39.htm
-- If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers. Thomas Pynchon If evidence of a fact is clear, positive, uncontradicted and of such nature it cannot rationally be disbelieved, the court must instruct that fact has been established as a matter of law. Roberts v. Del Monte Properties Co., 111 CA2d. 69 (1952). They will do whatever we let them get away with. Joseph Heller When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
-- Have a great day - He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their substance The rights of the individuals are restricted only to the extent that they have been voluntarily surrendered by the citizenship to the agencies of government. City of Dallas v Mitchell, 245 S.W. 944 http://www.state-citizen.org/ (818) 703-5037 voice Citizens Law Hour 7pm to 8pm Pacific Time Monday thru Thursday join the group on Paltalk (download from www.paltalk.com go into the misc group then Citizenship Law Hour) Or listen to the Law Hour at http://www.republicradio.com/index2.htm
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Posted: Jan 5, 2006 6:22am

 
 
 
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