January 30, 2016

UK Telegraph: Antidepressant risks to adults and under 18's may have been seriously underestimated

Antidepressants can raise the risk of suicide, biggest ever review finds

Antidepressant use doubles the risk of suicide in under 18s and the risks to adults may have been seriously underestimated, researchers found

UK Telegraph Sarah Knapton, Science Editor 27 Jan 2016



Antidepressants can raise the risk of suicide, the biggest ever review has found, as pharmaceutical companies were accused of failing to report side-effects and even deaths linked to the drugs.

An analysis of 70 trials of the most common antidepressants - involving more than 18,000 people - found they doubled the risk of suicide and aggressive behaviour in under 18s. Although a similarly stark link was not seen in adults, the authors said misreporting of trial data could have led to a ‘serious under-estimation of the harms.



For years families have claimed that antidepressant medication drove their loved ones to commit suicide, but have been continually dismissed by medical companies and doctors who claimed a link was unproven.

The review - the biggest oif its kind into the effects of the drugs - was carried out by the Nordic Cochrane Centre and analysed by University College London (UCL) who today endorse the findings in an editorial in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

After comparing clinical trial information to actual patient reports the scientists found pharmaceutical companies had regularly misclassified deaths and suicidal events in people taking anti-depressants to "favour their products"...snip


Read More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/12126146/Antidepressants-can-raise-the-risk-of-suicide-biggest-ever-review-finds.html

Mandatory warning label:


When these white collar criminals can't "misclassify" deaths and studies, they resort to bribes. But we are all supposed to trust them anyway. F that. TRUST NO ONE

Big Pharma's Pathetic Medical Bribes are Quite Profitable
Pharmaceutical companies are low-balling how much they pay doctors by misspelling the names of their drugs in their reports to the federal government.
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/big-pharma-simple-trick-obscuring-medical-bribes

GlaxoSmithKline fined $490m by China for bribery
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29274822

What's driving Pharma's international bribery scandals?
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/healthcare/Whats-driving-Pharmas-international-bribery-scandals.html

Drug Company Accused of Bribing Doctors
Eleven current or former sales executives from TAP Pharmaceutical Products are going on trial, accused of paying kickbacks to doctors and hospitals to get them to buy the company's medications...
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=131602

January 29, 2016

Guardian: Japan begins work on 'world's largest' floating solar farm

The Guardian | Adam Vaughan | 27 January 2016

The Japanese electronics multinational Kyocera has begun work on what it says will be the world’s biggest floating solar farm. The power plant is being built on a reservoir in Japan’s Chiba prefecture and is anticipated to supply enough electricity for nearly 5,000 households when it is completed in early 2018.

Space-starved Japan has already seen several floating solar farms built as part of the country’s drive to exploit more renewable energy in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster. The shutdown of nuclear plants has seen Japan increasingly reliant on fossil fuel imports that have hit its emissions-cutting ambitions.



The Yamakura dam power plant will see more than 50,000 solar photovoltaic panels cover a 180,000 m sq area, but compared to other land-based plants it is relatively small. At 13.7MW when finished, it would not make the top 100 of the world’s largest solar photovoltaic farms...snip

Kyocera has already built three floating solar farms, which are much smaller than the new one, which was first announced in October 2014...snip
Read More: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/27/japan-begins-work-on-worlds-largest-floating-solar-farm

KYOCERA TCL Solar Begins Construction on 13.7MW Floating Solar Power Plant
Company’s fourth floating solar project, world’s largest, will be built on Japan’s Yamakura Dam reservoir

01/21/16
In a joint venture, Kyocera Corporation and Century Tokyo Leasing Corporation announced today that Kyocera TCL Solar LLC has started construction of the world’s largest*1 13.7 megawatt (MW) floating solar power plant on the Yamakura Dam reservoir, managed by the Public Enterprises Agency of Chiba Prefecture in Japan for industrial water services.

Scheduled for launch in FY2018 (fiscal year ending March 31, 2018), the plant will be comprised of approximately 51,000 Kyocera modules installed over a fresh water surface area of 180,000m2. The project will generate an estimated 16,170 megawatt hours (MWh) per year — enough electricity to power approximately 4,970 typical households*2 — while offsetting about 8,170 tons*3 of CO2 emissions annually. This is equal to 19,000 barrels of oil consumed*4.
http://www.kyocerasolar.com/about-kyocera/kyocera-solar/news/?id=197

(no audio)

Kyocera TCL Solar Inaugurates Floating Mega Solar Power Plants in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan

Apr 16, 2015: Kyocera Corporation and Century Tokyo Leasing Corporation announced today that Kyocera TCL Solar LLC, a joint venture established by the two companies, has completed construction of two floating mega-solar power plants at Nishihira Pond and Higashihira Pond in Kato City, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. The plants, inaugurated in late March, will generate an estimated 3,300 megawatt hours (MWh) per year in total— enough electricity to power approximately 920 typical households*.

Features

1. Floating solar power generating systems typically generate more electricity than ground-mount and rooftop systems due to the cooling effect of the water.
2. They reduce reservoir water evaporation and algae growth by shading the water.
3. Floating platforms are 100% recyclable, utilizing high-density polyethylene, which can withstand ultraviolet rays and resists corrosion.
4. The floating platforms are designed and engineered to withstand extreme physical stress, including typhoon conditions.

* Based on average annual use of 3,600kWh per household. Source: Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan



Existing Kyocera Floating Solar plant in Kagoshima




Kyocera Solar
http://www.kyocerasolar.com/

January 25, 2016

The GOP did not have single payer doctors and nurses arrested at a hearing

This will not be forgotten or forgiven. All the Democrats in the world can pretend it didn't happen but it did and every chance I get I will remind people. If Youtube takes this down there are backups. And there are backups to the backups. We will never forget. Ever. It was a disgrace and instead of dealing with it it's going down the rathole of history with some. Here's a reminder

Here's another one



DEMOCRATS DID NOT ALLOW SINGLE PAYER ON THE TABLE----- IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH ANY REPUBLICAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! REMEMBER THIS or, don't, some of us will keep on with the facts. It's a f&cking lonely road, but someone has to walk it.



People had better start to realize that it's not an R vs D thing. If it's possible.

The health insurance mandate in Obamacare is an idea hatched in 1989 by Stuart M. Butler at The Heritage Foundation in a publication titled "Assuring Affordable Health Care for All Americans". This was also the model for Mitt Romney's health care plan in Massachusetts. http://www.heritage.org/research/lecture/assuring-affordable-health-care-for-all-americans

January 23, 2016

Thousands gather in Malaysia for anti-TPP rally

Many demonstrators fear that the Southeast Asian country could lose control of its economy if it enters the Trans-Pacific Partnership with the United States.

By Melissa Goh, Malaysia Bureau Chief, Channel NewsAsia
Posted 23 Jan 2016

KUALA LUMPUR: Almost 5,000 Malaysians staged a three-hour long protest on Saturday (Jan 23) against plans to join the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), just days before parliament is due to open a debate on the free trade pact.

Led by opposition party Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS), non-governmental organisations and student unions, protesters armed with banners chanted anti-TPP slogans as they gathered in central Kuala Lumpur’s Padang Merbok.

Prime Minister Najib Razak's government has argued that Malaysia, which relies on exports of commodities, minerals and electronics, cannot afford to stay out of a trade zone whose participants account for 40 per cent of the global economy.

However, opponents of the TPP said they fear the pact would compromise national interests and favour foreign multinational companies. A special parliament session will convene from Tuesday to Thursday, to debate and vote on the controversial TPP bill.

Although the bill is likely to pass...snip more:
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/thousands-gather-in/2451410.html

Jan 23, 2016: Around 5,000 activists staged a three-hour protest in Kuala Lumpur, Saturday, to oppose the government’s plan to sign the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA). The protesters demanded that the government hold an open parliamentary debate on the topic this coming week.

********************

How many times did the TPP come up in the last (D) Debate? Would Americans protest like Malaysians if they knew about it? Probably not. Americans don't really protest anything anymore.

January 23, 2016

Salon: Emails expose close ties between Hillary Clinton and accused war criminal Henry Kissinger

Kissinger met regularly with Secretary Clinton, and applauded her hawkish foreign policy in a handwritten message

Salon.com by Ben Norton and Jared Flanery Jan 12, 2016

“I greatly admire the skill and aplomb with which you conduct our foreign policy,” wrote Henry Kissinger in a 2012 letter to “the Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton.” The compliment was included as a handwritten postscript added to the printed letter.

The Feb. 7 letter, which was released in a batch of emails from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is a request that she help declassify documents from Kissinger’s time as secretary of state, which he says constitute “a unique record of a critical period in American foreign policy.”


(A scanned copy of Kissinger’s printed message to Clinton)

Critics say Kissinger helped carry out egregious war crimes in this critical period, during which he served as secretary of state under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

The late journalist Christopher Hitchens devoted an entire book to detailing the war crimes overseen by Kissinger, who infamously declared “The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer.”...snip

...In a June 2009 email titled “Startegy memo,” Clinton mentions an upcoming dinner she will be having with Kissinger — along with Cold War-era statesman and National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, who pushed for the U.S. to arm Islamic extremist mujahideen militants in Afghanistan in order to fight the Soviet Union, giving rise to al-Qaeda and the Taliban....snip more- http://www.salon.com/2016/01/12/emails_expose_close_ties_between_hillary_clinton_and_accused_war_criminal_henry_kissinger/





Related: Hillary Clinton reviews Henry Kissinger’s ‘World Order’
By Hillary Clinton, WaPo

...Kissinger is a friend, and I relied on his counsel when I served as secretary of state. He checked in with me regularly, sharing astute observations about foreign leaders and sending me written reports on his travels. Though we have often seen the world and some of our challenges quite differently, and advocated different responses now and in the past, what comes through clearly in this new book is a conviction that we, and President Obama, share: a belief in the indispensability of continued American leadership in service of a just and liberal order...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/hillary-clinton-reviews-henry-kissingers-world-order/2014/09/04/b280c654-31ea-11e4-8f02-03c644b2d7d0_story.html

January 23, 2016

US Taxpayers paid $43 Million Dollars for this ONE gas station in Afghanistan

Heather Goldin, CNN Tue November 3, 2015

Washington (CNN)—In a new report, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko said that a now-defunct task force spent nearly $43 million building a compressed natural gas filling station in Afghanistan.

The Task Force for Business and Stability Operations, which was created by the Department of Defense and directed towards reviving Afghanistan's economy in 2009, was disbanded in March.


The U.S. spent nearly $43 million to build this gas station in Afghanistan

"Although TFBSO achieved its immediate objective of building the CNG filling station, it apparently did so at an exorbitant cost to U.S. taxpayers," Sopko wrote to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter in a report out in the final days of last month. "In comparison, SIGAR found that a CNG filling station in Pakistan costs no more than $500,000 to construct."

The report stated that the Afghanistan filling station cost 140 times as much as a CNG station in Pakistan.

Most concerning to Sopko was that overhead costs alone for the project reached $30 million...snip
http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/02/politics/afghanistan-compressed-gas-filling-station/

********************************



Every spare (borrowed) cent is spent on the military. It's a disgrace, and it's a disgrace that people aren't in the streets protesting. Congratulations. You watched the biggest ripoff in history. Eisenhower would be so proud.

January 23, 2016

Wasserstoff aus Windkraft

Hydrogen from wind power

How to store and transport renewable energy? One possibility is tested by Vattenfall Europe in the HafenCity Hamburg at a hydrogen station. Here hydrogen is produced on site by electrolyses and distributed to fuel-cell cars and busses -- for a emission free mobility.



Vattenfall

How a Renewable Hydrogen Fueling Station Works

HyGen believes the hydrogen infrastructure is mostly in place. With electricity and water universally available, the missing piece is on-site equipment to extract hydrogen from water using electricity.

Major automobile manufacturers have hydrogen fuel cell vehicles ready for mass production with expected volume sales to begin in 2015. Vehicles need fuel like people need food. It’s a commodity that will always be required and will always be in demand. Supplying that fuel is a profitable business with predictable, very long-term revenues. Long-term revenues attract capital and capital expenditure is all that is required for the hydrogen infrastructure. No need for new pipelines, just the installation of profit-generating equipment. If the business model works in low volume, it will work even better as equipment costs reduce with mass production.

As developer of several Southern California renewable hydrogen fueling stations, including the world’s first in Los Angeles, HyGen has the necessary experience to oversee the planned rollout of hydrogen stations to meet California and the nation’s goals for an alternate solution to fossil fuels...snip
http://www.hygen.com/how-a-renewable-hydrogen-fueling-station-works/



https://twitter.com/HyGenInc

Related: The 43 Million Dollar US Taxpayer funded gas station in Afghanistan
http://www.democraticunderground.com/112795641
"In comparison, SIGAR found that a CNG filling station in Pakistan costs no more than $500,000 to construct."

In Germany- and around the world- H2 is #1

January 21, 2016

Almost Royal- Poppy and Georgie Carlton return to BBC America

Almost Royal on BBC America http://www.bbcamerica.com/almost-royal/

Almost Royal is a faux-reality television series on the BBC America network. It is their first original comedy series. It follows the lives of two clueless British aristocrats—Georgie and Poppy Carlton—visiting the United States for the first time. The series stars Ed Gamble and Amy Hoggart as Georgie and Poppy, respectively. Although Georgie and Poppy are both portrayed by actors, it is unclear whether the Americans with whom they interact in the show are aware of this. It premiered on June 21, 2014. On December 4, 2014, the show was renewed for an eight-episode second season, which started airing on January 18, 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almost_Royal

Georgie and Poppy Carlton make fun of America and Americans



Poppy (Amy Hoggart) has real potential. Her timing is superb.

Poppy Carlton @PoppyCarlton · 12 Jun 2015
Meetings are such fun, people should have more of them! I like the parts where I talk

Poppy Carlton @PoppyCarlton · 9 Jun 2015
The British Empire has gotten too small. It’s time to ask for a few of the United States back. Who will volunteer? #PoliticsWithPoppy

Not quite as funny as Spy but better than the 89th rerun of Star Trek. The narration (by Gemma Whelan) is hilarious.

January 14, 2016

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) reacts to the State of the Union

Published on Jan 12, 2016: Democrat Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii gives her reaction to President Barack Obama's 2016 State of the Union address to PBS NewsHour political director Lisa Desjardin.

Rep. Gabbard was dis-invited by Debbie Wasserman-Shultz to the Las Vegas Democratic Debate last year. Here's what she had to say about it



Extreme Recess: Surfing with Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard Sep 24, 2015



Official House Page: http://gabbard.house.gov/
More videos https://www.youtube.com/user/tulsipress
More info https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsi_Gabbard
Website: https://www.votetulsi.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/tulsigabbard

January 11, 2016

Wired.com: How GM Beat Tesla to the First True Mass-Market Electric Car

Alex Davies | Wired.com | February 2016

Ten years ago, the room where I’m standing would have been filled with a deafening roar. The air would have pealed with the sound of a dozen V-8 engines, each one trembling atop its own laboratory pedestal as engineers in white shop coats used joysticks to adjust its throttle and load. Today, though, this former engine testing facility at General Motors’ Warren Technical Center, outside Detroit, is almost dead silent. From one end to the other—across a space roughly the size of two soccer fields—the room is blanketed with the low-frequency hum of cooling fans, interrupted only by the occasional clack of a keyboard and, on this particular morning, the chatter of Larry Nitz’s voice. “Let’s take a walk,” he says after we’ve lingered in the doorway a moment. A voluble guy with a head of gray curls, Nitz is chief of electrification at General Motors, and this facility—the largest automotive battery lab in North America—is his domain...snip


2016 Chevy Bolt

...ELECTRIC VEHICLES have been available to American consumers for the better part of two decades. The first EVs looked like science projects only a Sierra Club member could love, while today an all-electric luxury sedan—the Tesla Model S—is routinely described as the coolest car on the planet. Early electric cars had a maximum range of 50 miles; today’s highest-rated EV—again, the Model S—can go as many as 300 miles before it needs to plug in. And yet, for all that progress, fully electric vehicles still make up less than 1 percent of US auto sales. There’s a straightforward reason for this: The only one that goes far enough costs far too much...snip


...For GM, the Bolt stands to offer a head start in a new kind of market for electric cars. But for the rest of us, there’s a broader significance to this news. It’s not just that Chevy will likely be first. It’s that a car company as lumbering and gigantic as GM, with infrastructure and manufacturing capacity on an epic scale, has gotten there first—and is there now. Tesla is nimble, innovative, and fun to watch, as companies go. But the Bolt is far more significant than any offering from Tesla ever could be. Why? Think of the old saw about how long it takes to turn an aircraft carrier around: It’s slow, and there’s not much to see at any given moment. But the thing about people who actually manage to turn one around is: They’ve got a freaking aircraft carrier...

...All of that pissed off Bob Lutz, GM’s vice chair for product development at the time. A cigar-chomping veteran of the car industry with a penchant for irascible quotes—he once panned GM’s cars for looking like “angry kitchen appliances”—Lutz was especially attuned to the big narratives that drive public perception of the auto industry (while under the surface, most of the real action is driven by recondite stuff like regulation, industrial and trade policy, labor economics, and logistics). Lutz hated how the Prius had put a saintly halo on Toyota, which sold plenty of SUVs and pickups, while hapless GM was mocked for making the Hummer. He also took notice when Silicon Valley upstart Tesla made a major splash with its public debut, announcing it planned to make a lithium-ion-battery-powered luxury sports car...snip
Full Article: http://www.wired.com/2016/01/gm-electric-car-chevy-bolt-mary-barra/

Driving the Chevy Bolt: An affordable electric car for everyone — CES 2016

Jan 6, 2016: This time last year, no one even knew that GM was working on an affordable, high-range electric car. Now, they're introducing the Chevy Bolt an electric car with a price point for the masses. The Verge's Chris Ziegler got behind the wheel to try the Bolt out.

Related: Wall Street is somewhat less than impressed with Elon's latest tweets
http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:TSLA