Documentary: 'Unacceptable Levels' - The chemicals in our bodies; how they got there and what to do about it

Study after study reveals the negative health impact of the chemical concoction that we encounter daily in our foods, in our environment, and in consumer products.

is a feature-length documentary which examines the results of the chemical revolution of the 1940s through the eyes of affable filmmaker Ed Brown, a father seeking to understand the world in which he and his wife are raising their children.

To create this debut documentary, one man and his camera traveled extensively to find and interview top minds in the fields of science, advocacy, and law. Weaving their testimonies into a compelling narrative, Brown presents us with the story of how the chemical revolution brought us to where we are, and of where, if we're not vigilant, it may take us.

A diverse group of voices are offered, which should spur debate from many sectors of those who have become concerned about everything from pesticides to BPA to GMO to fluoride and any one of the other 80,000 synthetic chemicals known to have been released. Now the question is what do we do about it? The environmental movement and particularly the "sustainable" agenda is a minefield of controlled opposition, infiltrators and everything in between. First, all of us should become as informed as possible on all fronts so that we can properly tackle real solutions to a crisis that only continues to get worse as the fusion between government and corporate interests intensifies.

As stated in the film, "To be healthy requires an effort." This internationally acclaimed documentary is a step toward making that effort and reclaiming health. Please view the trailer below:

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Comment: The great American experiment

These studies recognize that we're all being used as human guinea pigs.

We know darn well that over 1,000 chemicals harm the brains of animals - and animals' bodies are not all that different from ours. About half of the chemicals on this list are chemicals that are in our industrial solvents, pesticides, flame retardants, and other common products.

What's our current approach? Just keep using them. Move along, everyone, until scientists can prove beyond a doubt that a specific chemical made a specific person sick.

Trying to steer clear of dangerous chemicals can drive you crazy. Just try to discover which products in your life contain chemicals that are toxic to you or your kids, and how you can find non-toxic replacements for them. It's hard not to grow exasperated and give up.

And as a society, we should theoretically have more control over the process of identifying and banning toxic chemicals. But the federal law that regulates them, theToxic Substances Control Act of 1976, has no teeth.

Corporations don't even have to test their products for toxicity before putting them on the market. And the government has a very limited ability to prevent toxic chemicals from being sold.

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Animals and insects can predict natural disasters and diseases

Anecdotal evidence has long suggested that certain animals can predict natural disasters, detect disease and more, and now science is proving many of these stories to be correct.

Close observation of such animals could even help people to plan well in advance of coming problems, suggests a new paper in the latest issue of the journal Current Biology.

Henry Streby of the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues discovered that golden-winged warblers take off from their expected locations more than 24 hours before storms hit. In this case, the storm in question produced tornadoes that killed at least 35 people.

"The most curious finding is that the birds left long before the storm arrived," said Streby. "At the same time that meteorologists on The Weather Channel were telling us this storm was headed in our direction, the birds were apparently already packing their bags and evacuating the area."

Dogs can sniff out prostate cancer with 98 percent accuracy, found a study earlier this year that was presented at the 109th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Urological Association.

Dogs have about 200 million olfactory cells in their noses, versus only 5 million in the human nose. Their keen sense of smell helps to explain the cancer-detecting feat.

Yet another study on dogs found that they can smell -- through a person's breath or sweat -- whether or not a diabetic person has high or low blood sugar.

After the 2011 magnitude 9 earthquake in Japan, Hiroyuki Yamauchi of National Tsing Hua University and colleagues conducted a survey on how cats reacted ahead of the quake.

The survey found that six or more days before the devastating earthquake, some cats engaged in unusual behaviors and became more stressed out. Felines began "trembling, being restless and escaping." Still other cats, immediately prior to the quake, became just as agitated.

The researchers believe that cats may sense quakes ahead of time because they have a wider range of hearing than humans. They also might be able to detect changes in atmospheric pressure, gravity and ground deformation.

Yamauchi and colleagues also found that cows behaved differently several days before the magnitude 9 earthquake in Japan. Specifically, cows "showed lowered milk production six days before the earthquake," they reported. The decrease in milk yield continued for another four days.

Owners also reported that their dogs were agitated in the days before the quake. Dogs would howl and bark in ways not typical of their normal behavior.

Have you ever noticed that bees are nowhere in sight before it rains? They sense moisture changes in the atmosphere, causing them to take shelter in their hives before downpours begin.

If you notice ladybugs bunching together, there's a good chance that super hot weather is on the way. They gather to preserve their body moisture, safeguarding against drying out.

So far, the animals on this list have all displayed stress or a desire to run away ahead of natural disasters. Sharks are just the opposite. They seem to be the ultimate storm chasers.

Neil Hammerschlag of The R.J. Dunlap Marine Conservation Program at the University of Miami found this out after tagging sharks, such as tiger sharks. They and other shark species gravitate to rapid temperature changes, which is exactly where storms usually intensify. Monitoring shark movements can help to predict where storms will emerge and develop.

Like dogs, fruit flies can smell cancer even when it affects only a small number of cells. In fact, they can sniff out cancer cells from healthy ones using their sense of smell alone, according to a study conducted earlier this year by Alja Lüdke and colleagues at the University of Konstanz.

The study focused on different types of breast cancer, but it is likely that fruit flies can detect other types of cancer too.

"As not only cancer cells can be distinguished from healthy cells, but also subgroups were discernible within the cancer cells, it seems that even different types of breast cancer cells can be differentiated via the antenna of Drosophila (fruit flies)," Lüdke explained to ScienceDaily.

Clearly medical experts do not plan to have dogs or fruit flies sniffing around in examination rooms. Instead, scientists are hoping to create high tech pre-screening devices inspired by the detection methods of dogs and fruit flies.

Silvertip grizzly bears have an amazing sense of smell, such that they can sniff out a human that is 18 miles away. The same olfactory prowess, combined with other sensory abilities, likely allows them to detect incoming storms and possibly other natural disasters. They could probably smell cancer too, but running studies on these formidable carnivores would pose challenges.

Humans have super sensory detective powers too, such as bat-like echolocation that could be used to predict any number of natural disasters.

Usually such skills are more developed in people who meditate or who have disabilities, such as blindness, which causes the brain to tap into seemingly hidden abilities. A study on the phenomenon was published in the journal .

Mel Goodale, Canada Research Chair in Visual Neuroscience, and Director of the Center for Brain and Mind, said in a press release, "It is clear echolocation enables blind people to do things otherwise thought to be impossible without vision and can provide blind and visually-impaired people with a high degree of independence."

It stands to reason that our senses might also pick up cues given off by earthquakes, storms and other natural disasters before they fully strike.

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Calgary photographer captures fireball over Mount Rundle

© Brett Abernethy / Calgary Herald

Calgary photographer Brett Abernethy captured a shot of an apparent fireball streaking across the night sky in Banff over Mount Rundle on Saturday, December 20, 2014.

Calgary photographer Brett Abernethy was out in Banff shooting aurora over the night sky early Saturday when he captured what appeared to be a fireball zipping over the mountains.

Abernethy said he and a fellow photographer were set up at Johnson Lake taking a shot of Mount Rundle at around 1:22 a.m. when the sky lit up.

"It was like daytime almost. It fragmented into three pieces. We were both in awe. Then I realized my shot was exposing as it was going on," he said, adding he used a 40-second exposure.

When he looked at the photo he snapped with his Canon 5D Mark III, using a Zeiss 21mm f/2.8 lens, he was pleasantly surprised to see he'd captured a bright light streaking over the mountains.

"I got to a whole level of excitement," he said. "When I was a kid, I remember the light, the sky lighting up once. But I didn't see anything like that, that's for sure."

Abernethy says he went online to see if anyone else caught a glimpse of the light show, but couldn't find any chatter about the event, adding it was early in the morning and many Banff residents may have been asleep.

Calgary astronomer Alan Dyer said in an e-mail that by looking at the photo, it appears to be a fireball, "and a bright one at that - a natural meteor entering the atmosphere and burning up."

It's not clear from the photo if fragments might have survived to reach the earth, Dyer added.

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USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.6 - 157km WNW of Tobelo, Indonesia

© USGS

Event Time

2014-12-21 11:34:14 UTC

2014-12-21 19:34:14 UTC+08:00 at epicenter

Location

2.126°N 126.651°E depth=54.6km (34.0mi)

Nearby Cities

157km (98mi) WNW of Tobelo, Indonesia

168km (104mi) NNW of Kota Ternate, Indonesia

168km (104mi) NNW of Ternate, Indonesia

179km (111mi) ENE of Bitung, Indonesia

1042km (647mi) WSW of Koror Town, Palau

Scientific Data

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Private prison corporation with record of inmate abuse given control of immigrant detention center

© Reuters

Two young girls watch a World Cup soccer match on a television from their holding area where hundreds of mostly Central American immigrant children are being processed and held at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Nogales Placement Center in Nogales, Arizona June 18, 2014.

The Department of Homeland Security this week handed the keys to the largest detention center for undocumented immigrant families over to Corrections Corporation of America, a private prison company with a record of disregarding inmate safety and flouting federal laws. The Obama administration announced on Monday that CCA would run a 50-acre compound in Dilley, Texas, that will ultimately hold 2,400 women and children awaiting release or deportation.

In 2012, CCA settled out of court with the American Civil Liberties Union after the ACLU sued on behalf of inmates at the Idaho Correctional Center. Because CCA had not hired enough staff, in 2008, the CCA-run correctional facility experienced four times as many prisoner-on-prisoner assaults as Idaho's seven other prisons combined, the ACLU found. Inmates called the facility "the gladiator school." The 2012 suit also charged CCA with falsifying records and billing the state for 4,800 hours of work at posts that in actuality remained vacant. In 2013, a federal judge held CCA in contempt of court for continuing to understaff the prison, even after it was successfully sued by the ACLU. CCA lost its $30 million contract for the prison with the state, and the FBI launched an investigation into the company in 2014.

CCA's reputation doesn't end with Idaho. In 2013, the Texas Observer called the state's CCA-run Dawson State Jail for nonviolent offenders in Dallas "the worst state jail in Texas ." Seven inmates have died in Dawson since 2004, among them 30-year-old Ashleigh Parker, who died of pneumonia while an inmate. Parker's family claims CCA staff denied her life-saving antibiotics. They filed a lawsuit, but later dropped it. In 2010, 45-year-old Pamela Weatherby died from diabetes-related complications after CCA staff at Dawson replaced her medically prescribed insulin injections with cheaper oral insulin. Weatherby suffered through multiple diabetic comas before her death. Her family is also suing CCA.

Perhaps the most grisly tale out of Dawson is Autumn Miller's. Miller gave birth to a premature baby at 26 weeks after CCA guards refused her cries for medical attention, she claims. She delivered her daughter, Gracie, into a prison toilet. Gracie lived four days. Miller, too, is suing CCA.

Furthermore, in 2012, riots broke out at two CCA-run prisons in Mississippi. In one instance, inmates killed one guard and took CCA employees hostage.

Now, the Obama administration has given CCA the reins of the federal government's largest detention facility for undocumented immigrant families, a group that already faces a higher-than-average risk of assault and sexual abuse in detention centers. The compound, a former oil field worker's camp about 70 miles southwest of San Antonio, will hold 2,400 women and children, who will remain at the facility, run by CCA, until they are released or deported.

A 2011 investigation by Frontline found that few of the more than 170 complaints filed against guards by federal immigration detainees for sexual abuse over the course of four years were even investigated by the Department of Homeland Security.

The Texas facility is not the first immigration detention center run by CCA. In April 2013, two Guatemalan nationals held at the Eloy Detention Center outside Phoenix, Arizona, another CCA-run facility, committed suicide three days apart. At the time, Alessandra Soler, executive director of the ACLU of Arizona, told Prison Legal News, "Suicides are a red flag. They usually signify a much larger problem. Sometimes it's because of ineffective mental health treatment, but often times it's caused by poor staffing issues."

In 2005, a female detainee at a CCA-run immigrant detention facility in Otay Mesa, near San Diego, sued CCA, claiming a correctional officer raped her twice . The guard was fired as a direct result of an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Investigations, but both the U.S. Attorney's Office and the Civil Rights Division declined to prosecute him, according to a report by the DHS's Office of Inspector General. The report also found that, in May, 2005, a detainee at a CCA facility in San Diego alleged a correctional officer "dislodged him from his wheelchair when he tried to enter another area." The detainee suffered no injuries, CCA medical staff found, and the correctional officer was placed on administrative leave.

CCA, the largest for-profit prison company in the country, is worth more than $1 billion. It has long lobbied for stricter laws against illegal immigration, whose enforcement means more detainees for its prisons. Arizona's controversial immigration law, SB 1070, which requires police to detain individuals if there is a "reasonable suspicion" that they are not in the country legally, was in fact initially drafted by a group called ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. Representatives from CCA were part of the committee that drafted the legislation for ALEC, according to an investigation by NPR. And of the 36 legislators who co-sponsored the bill in Arizona's legislature, 30 received campaign donations from CCA. Yet, representatives from CCA deny that the company engages in immigration law lobbying.

A request for comment to CCA by phone was not immediately returned.

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Lukashenko says Belarus is ready to help Ukraine

© Michail Metsel/TASS

Belarus is ready to offer support to Ukraine, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Sunday at a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko.

"I want everything in Ukraine to be well. Many interpret it as some kind of games. I know you are not among them," the Belarusian news agency BELTA quoted Lukashenko as saying. "That is why, and I have told you this before: if you want anything from Belarus, just say it, we will give you anything you might ask in just a day."

"I am telling it openly, we have always done everything the Ukrainian president asked us. And we will continue that way," Lukashenko said.

"This is not a game for us. Not just because of trade but because we are neighbours, we live side by side, we are kinsfolk," he added.

The Ukrainian president, in turn, said he hoped the Minsk talks on the settlement in eastern Ukraine would proceed as energetically as they had started. He said that thanks to "efficient cooperation" with the Belarusian side "such terms as the 'Minsk format,' the 'Minsk memorandum,' the 'Minsk protocol,' and the 'Minsk agreements' are part of the history of diplomacy now."

Belarusian-Ukrainian television channel

A Belarusian-Ukrainian television channel will be launched in Belarus as agreed by the two Presidents, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus and Pyotr Poroshenko of Ukraine, at their meeting on Sunday.

"We already have such experiences. Three or four Russian channels are working jointly with ours," the national news agency BELTA cited Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko as saying. "Why not establishing such a joint channel with Ukraine?".

Belarusian capital Minsk hosted a meeting of the parties to the Ukrainian conflict at OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) - mediated talks on September 5. The meeting yielded a ceasefire agreement and a peace settlement plan.

On September 20 in Minsk, the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine comprising representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE adopted a memorandum outlining the parameters for the implementation of commitments on the ceasefire in Ukraine laid down in the Minsk Protocol of September 5. The document contains nine points, including in particular a ban on the use of all armaments and withdrawal of weapons with the calibres of over 100 millimetres to a distance of 15 kilometres from the contact line from each side. The OSCE was tasked with controlling the implementation of memorandum provisions. The protocol was signed by OSCE envoy Heidi Tagliavini, Ukraine's former president Leonid Kuchma, Russia's Ambassador to Kiev Mikhail Zurabov, DPR Prime Minister Aleksandr Zakharchenko and the head of Lugansk People's Republic (LPR), Igor Plotnitsky.

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CIA 'enhanced interrogation' vs. ISIS torture: See if you can tell the difference

© AP

A file photo of renovated Abu Ghraib prison, now renamed Baghdad Central Prison, Iraq.

It's been a big week for abhorrent torture manifestos.

On Tuesday, the Senate released its much-anticipated report outlining the CIA's brutal post-9/11 torture program. A few days before, the Islamic State (IS) group released what appears to be an "abhorrent" pamphlet to its followers with guidelines on how to capture, keep and sexually abuse female slaves, a reminder of the militant group's vicious tactics. Both document are testaments to the brutality of the war on terror, from the CIA interrogators fighting to "save American lives" to IS waging a bloody war against the West.

What's even more disturbing is how accounts of CIA and Islamic State torture - from the Senate report for the former and months of news reports from the latter - are, at times, virtually indistinguishable from one another. Speaking on the Senate floor after the release of the CIA torture report, Sen. John McCain passionately asserted that "our enemies act without conscience. We must not." As it turns out, that moment is long past.

Read the 13 torture accounts below see for yourself:

1. Prisoners were "routinely beaten and subjected to waterboarding."

2. The waterboarding of one prized prisoner devolved into a "series of near drownings," where the process induced convulsions and vomiting.

3. Prisoners were subjected to "rectal rehydration" or "rectal feeding."

4. Interrogators "chained [a prisoner's] feet to a bar and then hung the bar so that he was upside down from the ceiling. Then they left him there."

5. Prisoners were forcefully kept awake, at times with their hands shackled above their heads.

6. Detainees "were starved and threatened with execution by one group ... only to be handed off to another group that brought them sweets and contemplated freeing them."

7. Prisoners were subjected to extended isolation and experienced "hallucinations, paranoia and attempts at self-harm and self-mutilation."

8. Prisoners were made to stand in "stress positions" on broken bones and prosthetic limbs.

9. Prisoners often spent weeks in complete darkness.

10. One prisoner was forced to watch interrogators beat another prisoner until "the whole cell was covered in blood" ... and then sleep in it.

11. One prisoner "shared a room with a decapitated body for days."

12. One prisoner was locked in what was described as a "dungeon," shackled with "only a bucket to use for human waste."

13. Prisoners were threatened with harm to their children or sexual abuse of their parents, including rape and torture.

BONUS. Prisoners were subjected to mock executions.

1, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, Bonus

CIA interrogators: 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, Bonus

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