Fine detective work

For more cartoons by Tom Tomorrow, CLICK HERE.

Republican American Dream

ICYMI: Signs of xmas

25 poinsettia varieties on sale by URI Master Gardeners, Nov. 30-Dec. 1

Todd McLeish

For those interested in holiday decorating, Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 are very big days. 

On that Friday and Saturday, the URI Master Gardeners will host their annual poinsettia sale, and 25 different poinsettia varieties will be available for purchase.

The event takes place at URI’s East Farm on Route 108 in Kingston from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Nov. 30 and 9 a.m. to noon on Dec. 1. The cost of each poinsettia is $10 while supplies last.

“The Master Gardeners have nursed the plants into a glorious display of mostly red plants, with some whites, pinks and variegated plants as well,” said Kate Venturini of the URI Cooperative Extension. “Visitors will be impressed with the size and health of the plants, as well as with their vibrant colors.”

Would Dow Chemical lie to us?

Industry bias taints study on widely used insecticide

Brian Bienkowski for the Environmental Health News

Researchers who examined Dow Chemical Company-sponsored animal tests performed two decades ago on the insecticide chlorpyrifos found inaccuracies in what the company reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency compared to what the data showed.

And, according to internal EPA communication, agency scientists also had issues with the study interpretations, yet the agency approved the compound for continued use anyway.

"EPA staff scientists and staff were telling management there were problems," said Jennifer Sass, senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, who was not involved in the current study but has worked on issues related to toxics, including chlorpyrifos, for decades.

"And management disregarded it."

“JFK Democrat” or Reagan Democrat?

Speakernomics tastes like trickle-down and oligarchy

Steve Ahlquist in UpriseRI 

“The economy is moving in the right direction,” said Rhode Island Speaker of the House Nicholas Mattiello (Democrat, District 15, Cranston) to Providence Journal‘s Ed Achorn in an interview conducted shortly after a caucus vote that more or less confirmed Mattiello as Speaker for another two years. 

“We had good policies. We’ve cut taxes. We’ve reduced regulations. [italics mine] We are incentivizing people and companies to come to the State of Rhode Island. Our policies are good and the results are showing. We have more jobs than ever before our unemployment rate is at 3.9 percent, I believe. We’re moving in the right direction.”

The policy of cutting taxes and reducing regulations is called supply-side economics, most famously known as Reaganomics or trickle-down economics. It doesn’t work.

The idea is that tax cuts and deregulation make the rich more likely to invest and expand the economy, because they will have more money and it will be easier to launch new business schemes without all that troublesome red tape to wade through. 

The reality is that tax cuts on the rich simply make the rich richer, driving economic and income inequality, which today is at record levels.

"Thank you, Saudi Arabia"

Then and now

History right off our coast

New images of RI’s historic sunken submarines help URI historian make case for protection

Todd McLeish

New underwater imagery shows the sunken remains of U.S. submarine USS L8, German submarine U-853, and U.S. merchant ship Black Point in Rhode Island waters. (Images courtesy of NOAA Office of Exploration and Research)

When the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Exploration and Research sought to test out a new technology for producing high-resolution images of the sea floor, University of Rhode Island maritime historian and archaeologist Rod Mather suggested the perfect test sites – the resting places of four historic sunken submarines in Rhode Island waters.

“Rhode Island was a major player in the development of submarine warfare, beginning just after the Civil War, when an experimental torpedo facility was developed in Newport,” said Mather, a professor of history and the director of the URI Applied History Lab. 

“When the Navy expanded its operations in World War I, the Newport torpedo station manufactured a huge number of torpedoes, and that station had 13,000 workers and built a third of all the torpedoes used by the U.S. in World War II.”

Gluten: threat or menace?

Should you eat a low-gluten diet?

University of Copenhagen The Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences

An increasing number of people choose a low-gluten diet, even though they are not allergic to the dietary substance. 

This trend has sparked public debate about whether or not low-gluten diets are recommendable for people without allergies.

Now, researchers from University of Copenhagen among others have looked into just that.

In an intervention study of healthy Danish adults, reported in Nature Communications, an international team of scientists shows that a low-gluten but fibre-rich diet changes the community of gut bacteria and decreases gastrointestinal discomfort such as bloating and is linked to a modest weight loss. 

The changes in intestinal comfort and body weight relate to changes in gut bacteria composition and function.

Diploma and a union card

Graduate teaching and research assistants at Brown vote to unionize

 Brian E. Clark

(AFT photo)

Four months after Brown agreed to election procedures with graduate student representatives, eligible students voted in favor of unionization in an election managed by the American Arbitration Association.

After a four-day secret ballot election that culminated on Monday, Nov. 19, eligible Brown University graduate students in research and teaching positions have voted in favor of union representation.

The American Arbitration Association (AAA), which managed the election, tallied the results and reported that by a majority count of 576 to 394, eligible graduate students voted to unionize. 

Romaine lettuce is too dangerous to sell. Guns are not

Gun violence kills 96 people every day.

RYAN KORONOWSKI

On Thanksgiving Day 2018, Americans couldn’t buy romaine lettuce because of a CDC recall linked to an E. Coli outbreak. 

But even though gun violence is so mundane that a shooting at a mall in Alabama Thursday evening barely made national news, guns were still freely available at stores like Walmart across the country.

The Centers for Disease Control issued a food safety alert on Tuesday afternoon, urging Americans to refrain from eating, and retailers from selling, any romaine lettuce, “until we learn more about the outbreak.” Five people died from an E. coli outbreak in June, and nearly two hundred people got sick.

Food safety is certainly an important thing to get right, but the number of Americans who die from foodborne illness every year — 3,000 according to the CDC — is dwarfed by the 30,000-plus annual fatalities caused by guns in America.

On Thanksgiving Day, after the federal government had taken swift action to protect citizens from pathogen-laden romaine leaves, one male teen suspect in a Birmingham, Alabama mall allegedly shot and injured two others, including a 12-year-old girl. He was pursued by police, shot, and killed. Those were not the only casualties caused by guns that day.

Trump insults Jesus

For more cartoons by Ted Rall, CLICK HERE.

VIDEO: How we help red states

To watch this video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnVPVd5YXnI

How old McDonald did it

The taming of the dog, cow, horse, pig and rabbit

Earlham Institute

Research at the Earlham Institute into one of the 'genetic orchestra conductors', microRNAs, sheds light on our selectively guided evolution of domestic pets and farmyard animals such as dogs and cows.

What does a cow, a horse, a pig, a rabbit and a dog have in common, and how similar or dissimilar are their genetic conductors?

They're all animals domesticated by humans -- and the results have been quite incredible. 

Over just a few thousand years of selective breeding, these creatures have been bred for specific characteristics, leading to an incredible morphological and behavioral variety across breeds . 

Better understanding of the domestication process can lead to better, more sustainable food and a greater understanding of human diseases.

Fast food chains sloppy about toxic chemicals

Report: Restaurant Chains Slow to Reduce Chemical Hazards

By ecoRI News staff

A recently released report by Safer Chemicals Healthy Families reveals that major retail companies are making slow but meaningful progress at improving the chemical safety of the products, food, and packaging they sell.

However, nearly half of those scored, including every restaurant chain evaluated, have failed to take any public measures to help eliminate toxic chemicals from the products they carry. 

The third annual Who’s Minding the Store? A Report Card on Retailer Actions to Eliminate Toxic Chemicals evaluated and graded the chemical policies and practices of 40 of the largest North American retailers, including supermarket and fast-food chains.

Four retailers received the highest grades for their work to protect customers from toxic products and packaging, setting the pace for the industry: Apple (A+), Target (A), Walmart (A-), and IKEA (A-). In 2018, Walgreens, Rite Aid, and Amazon were ranked “most improved,” with all three companies announcing sweeping chemical safety policies over the past two months.

Woonsocket, R.I.-based CVS Health received a B+. Both Best Buy and Trader Joe’s have taken action on toxic chemicals in thermal receipt paper and Mike Schade, Mind the Store Campaign director and report co-author, said he would like to see CVS could join them in addressing this issue.

Nearly half of retailers evaluated for the 2018 report received a grade of F for failing to announce policies or publicly report progress to assess, reduce, or eliminate toxic chemicals in the products or packaging they sell.