http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want to keep from the public eye.
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Common Dreams:
"Fracking Debris Ten Times Too Radioactive for Hazardous Waste Landfill. A truck carrying cuttings from a Pennsylvania fracking site was quarantined at a hazardous-waste landfill and sent back after its contents triggered a radiation alarm showing the load was emitting 96 microrem of radiation per hour; the landfill rejects waste with levels above 10 microrems. The radioactive material from a site in the Marcellus Shale formation was radium 226, a common contaminant from the decay of uranium-238 that tends to accumulate in bone and can get into water.
Officials said 'everything was by the book in this case' because the alarm went off as designed; the fracking operators can now either re-apply at that landfill or take their deadly waste to an out-of-state facility that accepts it - and yes, they exist. The scariest thing here: Pennsylvania, which is currently studying radiation contamination associated with fracking wells, claims to be the only state that even requires landfills to monitor radiation levels...
'Long-term exposure to radium increases the risk of developing several diseases. Inhaled or ingested radium increases the risk of developing such diseases as lymphoma, bone cancer, and diseases that affect the formation of blood, such as leukemia and aplastic anemia. These effects usually take years to develop. External exposure to radium’s gamma radiation increases the risk of cancer to varying degrees in all tissues and organs.' "
-->The NY Times ran a feel-good article last January 25 about radiation monitoring in Pennsylvania, but failed to print anything about this actual landfill contamination. Our newspaper of record seldom covers stores about radioactive contamination from nuclear power plants or from fracking.
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Common Dreams:
"The active ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup herbicide may be 'the most biologically disruptive chemical in our environment,' being responsible for a litany of health disorders and diseases including Parkinson’s, cancer and autism, according to a new study.
It's 'the most popular herbicide on the planet,' widely used on crops like corn and soy genetically engineered to be 'Roundup Ready,' and sprayed on weeds in lawns across the US. But in the peer-reviewed study published last Thursday in the journal Entropy, authors Anthony Samsel, an independent scientist and consultant, and Stephanie Seneff, a senior research scientist at MIT, crush the industry's claims that the herbicide glyphosate is non-toxic and as safe as aspirin.
Looking at the impacts of glyphosate on gut bacteria, Samsel and Seneff found that the herbicide 'enhances the damaging effects of other food borne chemical residues and environmental toxins,' and is a 'textbook example' of 'the disruption of homeostasis by environmental toxins.' "
-->The NY Times has long been in Monsanto's pocket. Our newspaper of record would never print a study like this, and didn't even mentioned it in one of their environmental blogs.
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Common Dreams:
"As the new immigration reform bill moving through the US Senate puts aerial drones at the center of a beefed-up militarized approach to border security, a new report shows that the existing drone-border program has proved an 'inefficient, costly and absurd approach' to monitoring the border or enforcing current immigration laws.
The new report—Drones over the Homeland—produced by the Center for International Policy, 'reveals how the military-industrial complex and the emergence of the homeland security apparatus have put border drones at the forefront of the intensifying public debate about the proper role of drones domestically.'
Specifically, the report challenges what it discovered were 'dubious assertions and myths that DHS wields in presentations to the public and Congress' to justify the border-drone program, which it called 'poorly conceived, grossly ineffective and entirely nonstrategic.' "
-->The NY Times didn't print this story. Could the new immigration bill be more about corporate pork than real reform? You will never get that question in the pages of The NY Times.
