ALL WE HAVE TO DO IS STAND UP~ AND THEIR LITTLE GAME IS OVER!



Tuesday 30 October 2018

Metal Toxin turning Fashion Statements to Cancer Risk

It seems unthinkable that manufacturers would include cadmium, a heavy metal that causes neurological damage and is a known carcinogen, in children’s jewelry.

Yet this was the case for many years until 2010. That’s when an investigation found Chinese manufacturers, among others, were using deadly cadmium in children’s necklaces and other costume jewelry.

The human body has no use for cadmium, and therefore no way to eliminate it on its own.

That means avoiding it is the safest thing you can do. But that becomes problematic, especially for women, when it is hiding in plain sight around their neck and on their fingers.

Wait… wasn’t cadmium banned from jewelry?

You’d think that ban on children’s jewelry would have taken care of things. But apparently, some manufacturers continued using the toxic metal. And its effects on women are particularly devastating…

Some women’s jewelry is still full of cadmium
Last month, the Center for Environmental Health found that some jewelry being sold along with women’s dresses and shirts was made of nearly pure cadmium.

The Oakland-based non-profit tested jewelry found in national store chains including Ross, Nordstrom Rack, and Papaya. Their tests all took place in the San Francisco Bay area.

While the sampling is small, Caroline Cox, senior scientist at the Center, had this to say: “If you’re a person that buys and is wearing that jewelry, you don’t really care whether it’s a common problem or a rare problem. You have a problem.”

Indeed, this is disturbing news for women all over the country. After all, these national retailers distribute their toxic jewelry throughout the country, not just in San Francisco.

The dangers of cadmium exposure
Aside from being a carcinogen and neurotoxin, cadmium is also an endocrine disruptor. More accurately, it mimics the female hormone estrogen, and so has been tied to hormone-related cancers including breast and endometrial cancer.

One study found that high cadmium levels were associated with a 23 percent higher endometrial cancer risk. But the risks don’t end with cancer…

Other dangers associated with cadmium include:

Neurological. Studies show that cadmium changes the structure and function of our cells, particularly our nervous system. It has been cited as a possible precursor to the neurological changes leading to diseases including Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and Alzheimer’s.
Respiratory. Inhaling cadmium fumes, either at work or in cigarette smoke, increases your risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and emphysema.
Cardiovascular.  Even low levels of cadmium exposure and blood cadmium have been associated with hypertension.
Kidneys.  Of all our organs, the kidneys are in the gravest danger from cadmium exposure. A rare disorder called Fanconi syndrome (not to be confused with Fanconi anemia) affects the filtering tubes of the kidneys. It is often inherited, but can also develop as a result of exposure to toxins.
Symptoms of acquired Fanconi’s syndrome (as opposed to hereditary) include bone disease, muscle weakness, and low blood potassium. Unfortunately, this condition is hard to detect and may take as long as ten years after exposure to show up. By the time a diagnosis is made, there is usually bone and kidney damage.

Bones.  In later stages of cadmium poisoning, bone lesions appear that often accompany lesions on the kidneys. Researchers believe these bone lesions are associated with poor absorption of Vitamin D, so it’s not surprising that osteoporosis often accompanies cadmium poisoning.
“Itai-itai” disease. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the first pollution-related disease being recognized in Japan. “It hurts, it hurts” is the English translation.
Symptoms include kidney damage and osteomalacia, a bone-softening disorder, as well as small body size, darkened skin, and severe anemia. In all, 200 people in Japan have been recognized as having itai-itai disease caused by cadmium pollution in the Jinzu River. Of the 200, five are still alive.

Where else does cadmium hide?
Cadmium in jewelry is just the tip of the iceberg.

Many drinking glasses, especially older ones, contain cadmium and lead.
Cigarette smoke is full of cadmium.
Nickel and cadmium batteries can leave residue on the skin, which then can be ingested.
Many paints also contain cadmium.
How to protect yourself
Cadmium exposure is toxic to all humans. It causes damage to virtually every system in our bodies.

Remember that avoiding cadmium as much as possible is the best way to protect yourself, but there are some things you can do to help…

Limit your exposure to certain foods. Scallops, mussels, oysters, liver and kidney meat often have higher cadmium content. Buy organic meat and fish whenever possible.
Eat cadmium-fighting foods. Certain foods have been shown to act as natural antagonists to cadmium. These include tomatoes and garlic.
Wear protective equipment. If you work at a job where cadmium exposure is possible, wear protection for your body, hands, and face.
Take probiotics. One of the simplest silver bullets against cadmium exposure may be the humble probiotic. A study published in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology found that mice who drank cadmium-laced water and were fed the probiotic Lactobacillus plantarum for eight weeks had less cadmium in their intestinal tissues than mice who didn’t get the probiotic.

Saturday 13 October 2018

Technocracy-Where Decision Makers Are Selected on the Basis of Expertise in their Areas of Responsibility and Scientific knowledge

Technocracy is a proposed system of governance where decision-makers are selected on the basis of their expertise in their areas of responsibility, particularly scientific knowledge. This system explicitly contrasts with the notion that elected representatives should be the primary decision-makers in government, though it does not necessarily imply eliminating elected representatives. Leadership skills for decision-makers are selected on the basis of specialized knowledge and performance, rather than political affiliations or parliamentary skills.

The term technocracy was originally used to advocate the application of the scientific method to solving social problems. Concern could be given to sustainability within the resource base, instead of monetary profitability, so as to ensure continued operation of all social-industrial functions. In its most extreme sense technocracy is an entire government run as a technical or engineering problem and is mostly hypothetical. In more practical use, technocracy is any portion of a bureaucracy that is run by technologists. A government in which elected officials appoint experts and professionals to administer individual government functions and recommend legislation can be considered technocratic.Some uses of the word refer to a form of meritocracy, where the ablest are in charge, ostensibly without the influence of special interest groups.



History of the term
The term technocracy is derived from the Greek words τέχνη, tekhne meaning skill and κράτος, kratos meaning power, as in governance, or rule. William Henry Smyth, a Californian engineer, is usually credited with inventing the word technocracy in 1919 to describe "the rule of the people made effective through the agency of their servants, the scientists and engineers", although the word had been used before on several occasions.Smyth used the term Technocracy in his 1919 article "'Technocracy'—Ways and Means to Gain Industrial Democracy," in the journal Industrial Management . Smyth's usage referred to Industrial democracy: a movement to integrate workers into decision making through existing firms or revolution.

In the 1930s, through the influence of Howard Scott and the technocracy movement he founded, the term technocracy came to mean, 'government by technical decision making', using an energy metric of value. Scott proposed that money be replaced by energy certificates denominated in units such as ergs or joules, equivalent in total amount to an appropriate national net energy budget, and then distributed equally among the North American population, according to resource availability.

There is in common usage found the derivative term technocrat. The word technocrat can refer to someone exercising governmental authority because of their knowledge, or "a member of a powerful technical elite", or "someone who advocates the supremacy of technical experts". McDonnell and Valbruzzi define a prime minister or minister as a technocrat if “at the time of his/her appointment to government, he/she: has never held public office under the banner of a political party; is not a formal member of any party; and is said to possess recognized non-party political expertise which is directly relevant to the role occupied in government”. In Russia, the President of Russia has often nominated ministers based on technical expertise from outside political circles, and these have been referred to as "technocrats".

Precursors
Before the term technocracy was coined, technocratic or quasi-technocratic ideas involving governance by technical experts were promoted by various individuals, most notably early socialist theorists such as Henri de Saint-Simon. This was expressed by the belief in state ownership over the economy, with the function of the state being transformed from one of pure philosophical rule over men into a scientific administration of things and a direction of processes of production under scientific management. According to Daniel Bell:

"St. Simon's vision of industrial society, a vision of pure technocracy, was a system of planning and rational order in which society would specify its needs and organize the factors of production to achieve them."

Citing the ideas of St. Simon, Bell comes to the conclusion that the "administration of things" by rational judgement is the hallmark of technocracy.

Alexander Bogdanov, a Russian scientist and social theorist, also anticipated a conception of technocratic process. Both Bogdanov’s fiction and his political writings, which were highly influential, suggest that he expected a coming revolution against capitalism to lead to a technocratic society.

From 1913 until 1922, Bogdanov immersed himself in the writing of a lengthy philosophical treatise of original ideas, Tectology: Universal Organization Science. Tectology anticipated many basic ideas of systems analysis, later explored by cybernetics. In Tectology, Bogdanov proposed to unify all social, biological, and physical sciences by considering them as systems of relationships and by seeking the organizational principles that underlie all systems.

Arguably, the Platonic idea of philosopher-kings represents a sort of technocracy in which the state is run by those with specialist knowledge, in this case, knowledge of the Good, rather than scientific knowledge.[citation needed] The Platonic claim is that those who best understand goodness should be empowered to lead the state, as they would lead it toward the path of happiness. Whilst knowledge of the Good is different to knowledge of science, rulers are here appointed based on a certain grasp of technical skill, rather than democratic mandate.

Characteristics
Technocrats are individuals with technical training and occupations who perceive many important societal problems as being solvable, often while proposing technology-focused solutions. The administrative scientist Gunnar K. A. Njalsson theorizes that technocrats are primarily driven by their cognitive "problem-solution mindsets" and only in part by particular occupational group interests. Their activities and the increasing success of their ideas are thought to be a crucial factor behind the modern spread of technology and the largely ideological concept of the "information society". Technocrats may be distinguished from "econocrats" and "bureaucrats" whose problem-solution mindsets differ from those of the technocrats.

The former government of the Soviet Union has been referred to as a technocracy. Soviet leaders like Leonid Brezhnev often had a technical background in education; in 1986, 89% of Politburo members were engineers.

Several governments in European parliamentary democracies have been labeled 'technocratic' based on the participation of unelected experts ('technocrats') in prominent positions.Since the 1990s, Italy has had several such governments (in Italian, governo tecnico) in times of economic or political crisis,including the formation in which economist Mario Monti presided over a cabinet of unelected professionals. The term 'technocratic' has been applied to governments where a cabinet of elected professional politicians is led by an unelected prime minister, such as in the cases of the 2011-2012 Greek government led by economist Lucas Papademos, and the Czech Republic's 2009–2010 caretaker government presided over by the state's chief statistician, Jan Fischer. In December 2013, in the framework of the national dialogue facilitated by Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet, political parties in Tunisia agreed to install a technocratic government led by Mehdi Jomaa.

In the article "Technocrats: Minds Like Machines", it is stated that Singapore is perhaps the best advertisement for technocracy: the political and expert components of the governing system there seem to have merged completely. This was underlined in a 1993 article in "Wired" by Sandy Sandfort, where he describes the information technology system of the island even at that early date making it effectively intelligent.

Engineering
Following Samuel Haber, Donald Stabile argues that engineers were faced with a conflict between physical efficiency and cost efficiency in the new corporate capitalist enterprises of the late nineteenth century United States. The profit-conscious, non-technical managers of firms where the engineers work, because of their perceptions of market demand, often impose limits on the projects that engineers desire to undertake.

The prices of all inputs vary with market forces thereby upsetting the engineer's careful calculations. As a result, the engineer loses control over projects and must continually revise plans. To keep control over projects the engineer must attempt to exert control over these outside variables and transform them into constant factors.

Leaders of the Communist Party of China are mostly professional engineers. The Five-year plans of the People's Republic of China have enabled them to plan ahead in a technocratic fashion to build projects such as the National Trunk Highway System, the China high-speed rail system, and the Three Gorges Dam.

Technocracy movement

The American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen was an early advocate of technocracy, and was involved in the Technical Alliance as was Howard Scott and M. King Hubbert (who later developed the theory of peak oil). Veblen believed that technological developments would eventually lead toward a socialistic organization of economic affairs. Veblen saw socialism as one intermediate phase in an ongoing evolutionary process in society that would be brought about by the natural decay of the business enterprise system and by the inventiveness of engineers. Daniel Bell sees an affinity between Veblen and the Technocracy movement.

In 1932, Howard Scott and Marion King Hubbert founded Technocracy Incorporated, and proposed that money be replaced by energy certificates. The group argued that apolitical, rational engineers should be vested with authority to guide an economy into a thermodynamically balanced load of production and consumption, thereby doing away with unemployment and debt.

The technocracy movement was highly popular in the USA for a brief period in the early 1930s, during the Great Depression. By the mid-1930s, interest in the movement was declining. Some historians have attributed the decline of the technocracy movement to the rise of Roosevelt's New Deal.

Historian William E. Akin rejects the conclusion that technocracy ideas declined because of the attractiveness of Roosevelt and the New Deal. Instead Akin argues that the movement declined in the mid-1930s as a result of the technocrats' failure to devise a 'viable political theory for achieving change'. Akin postulates that many technocrats remained vocal and dissatisfied and often sympathetic to anti-New Deal third party efforts.
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