Extreme tuberculosis raises alarms in Canada

Extreme tuberculosis raises alarms in Canada - Health - CBC News:
Last Updated: Jan 30, 2012

Drug-resistant TB

Canadian doctors say that offering more support to physicians in India who are struggling to treat patients with a serious strain of tuberculosis could help protect people here.

"The rich countries should help the resource-poor countries to increase TB control," said Dr. Monica Avendano, a TB specialist at West Park Health Care Centre in Toronto. "It's just a plane ride [away]."

Unless TB is dealt with in Southeast Asia and the former Soviet republics, "we will continue to have this emergency worldwide," she added.

The physicians in Mumbai reported 12 TB patients with a strain that was resistant to a dozen drugs. Three of the patients have since died.

"In TB, we often use this phrase that TB anywhere is TB everywhere given how connected the world is," said Dr. Madhukar Pai of McGill University in Montreal, who has been studying the Indian TB control program.

The infection destroys lung tissue, causing patients to cough up the bacteria that spreads through the air to others in close contact for a prolonged period.

Resistant forms of TB are just a plane ride away from Canada, said Dr. Monica Avendana. (CBC)

Normally, TB is cured by taking antibiotics for six to nine months to kill all of the germs. But if the incorrect treatment is given or patients don't take all of the medicines prescribed, resistance can develop that can take up to two years to treat.

In Canada, most cases of TB occur among immigrants in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. The Public Health Agency of Canada said there have been five cases of extensively resistant TB in this country.

"A case of multidrug-resistant TB, it will be minimum half a million dollars," to treat, Avendano said.

TB control in India

A study by doctors in Mumbai two years ago found only five out of 106 private practitioners in the city who were asked to write prescriptions for multidrug-resistant TB were able to do so correctly. Source: PloS One

The Indian cases are a result of incorrect prescribing and misuse of antibiotics that aren't regulated there, Pai said.

"Every time you mismanage TB, that progressively amplifies drug resistance," Pai said.

One case of tuberculosis that goes undiagnosed and untreated will infect about 14 people a year and of those, one or two will eventually develop the infection, Avendano noted.

Not enough is done to prevent TB in Canada, Avendano said.

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Gayle Tzemach Lemmon: Women entrepreneurs, example not exception | Video on TED.com

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon: Women entrepreneurs, example not exception | Video on TED.com:

Women aren’t micro--so why do they only get micro-loans? At TEDxWomen reporter Gayle Tzemach Lemmon argues that women running all types of firms-- from home businesses to major factories-- are the overlooked key to economic development.

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Humpback Whale Freed From Nets

The whale puts on a splendid show of joy and gratitude at being free from a nylon fishing net that surely would have been the death of her, if not for these courageous people.  At one point a man jumps in the water with his snorkel and mask and a small knife looking to cut the whale loose.  Selfless actions to save a magnificent creature.


Humpback Whale Shows AMAZING Appreciation After Being Freed From Nets - YouTube: "
"


loaded by JoinWakeUpWorld on Jul 16, 2011

*** Wake Up World Viewer Special - http://aquaponics.wakeup-world.com. Take control of your what you eat by creating your own organic aquaponics system at home. Easy step by step guide & cheap to create. ***

Michael Fishbach, co-founder of The Great Whale Conservancy (GWC), narrates his encounter with a young humpback whale entangled in local fishing nets.

At first, the animal appeared to be dead, yet Fishbach investigated and quickly discovered that the poor creature was tangled in a fishing net. The humans had to act fast; what began as a tragedy soon became a thrilling rescue as Fishbach and his crew labored to free the young whale. The entire encounter was caught on videotape and later narrated by Fishbach himself.

This young whale knows how to show appreciation by treating them to a magnificent aerial spectacle after it was finally freed.

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Touched by a Wild Mountain Gorilla (HD Version) - YouTube

Touched by a Wild Mountain Gorilla (HD Version) - YouTube: ""

ded by aleutiandream on Dec 17, 2011

An amazing chance encounter with a troop of wild mountain gorillas near Bwindi National Park, Uganda

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Poster Art

OCCUPY WALL STREET

Uploaded by fooddemocracynow on Dec 24, 2011

The story of the historic Occupy Wall Street Farmers March.

On December 4, 2011, farmers and activists from across the country joined the Occupy Wall Street Farmers March for "a celebration of community power to regain control over the most basic element to human well-being: food." The Farmers March began at La Plaza Cultural Community Gardens where urban and rural farmers addressed an excited crowd about the growing problems in our industrial food system and the promise offered by solutions based in organic, sustainable and community based food and agricultural production. This was followed by a 3 mile march from the East Village to Zuccotti Park, the birthplace of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

We would like to thank Occupy Wall Street, the OWS food justice working group and all the farmers and citizens, urban and rural that participated in the day's events.

Produced by Food Democracy Now!
Directed by Anthony Lappé, INVISIBLE HAND
In association with No Umbrella Media
DP (NY): Dave Ambrose
Additional footage courtesy of Pull-Start Pictures
Music by Libby Kirkpatrick with Daron Murphy
InvisibleHandMedia.net
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Occupy Wall Street #OWS organic family farms Monstanto small farms Farm Bill Karen Washington Jim Gerritsen Mike Callicrate Food Democracy Now!
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cv

GAMBLE

Thinking it over.

Canada's Poorest Postal Code

The young man is this video seems like a one-man-inner-city-re-vitalization project.  He has startede numerous small business ventures and "Save On Meats was his recent acquisition as discussed in the video.   The store was a landmark for years in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver.  It was a horrible place in many ways: dirty, messy, disorganized and smelly.  Just the kind of business that needs an ambitious new owner to transfuse it with new ideas and get it back to financial health.  My prediction is Save On Meats will be a winner for this young entrepreneur.  Good Luck to him.

http://bcove.me/7b91zfl8 Gastown Gamble is a docu-reality series following a group of idealistic Vancouver restaurant owners, lead by Mark Brand and his wife Nico, on their quest to make an impact on the neighbourhood known as “Canada’s poorest postal code”: Vancouver’s downtown east side. By re-opening the neighbourhood icon, a butcher shop known as "Save On Meats", they hope to provide opportunities to the unemployed and disadvantaged members of the community and inspiration to others. It would be a huge undertaking for someone who has experience revitalizing a downtrodden community, but for Mark, Nico and the gang it may be more than they can handle.

Obama administration to reject controversial Keystone pipeline - The Hill's E2-Wire

Obama administration to reject controversial Keystone pipeline - The Hill's E2-Wire:

By Ben Geman and Andrew Restuccia - 01/18/12

The Obama administration will reject the Keystone XL pipeline Wednesday afternoon, according to a source closely following the issue.

The State Department is expected to make an announcement at 3 p.m. Wednesday. While the administration is expected to reject TransCanada Corp.’s permit application, it will allow the company to re-apply, according to the source.

“The result of today’s announcement will be a massive call for both sides to ‘man your battle stations’ through the Sunday talk shows,” said Stephen Brown, a vice president for government affairs with Tesoro, a refining company.

Environmentalists, who have made stopping Keystone a top priority, and many Democrats oppose the proposal due to greenhouse gas emissions from Alberta’s massive oil sands projects and other ecological concerns.

But Republicans are hammering President Obama for failure to approve the project thus far, calling it a missed opportunity to create jobs and improve energy security.

Republicans have cited proposals to transport oil sands from Alberta to Asian markets via the British Columbia Coast in calling for U.S. approval of Keystone.

Bill McKibben, the environmentalist who has helped spearhead opposition to the project, cheered the apparent decision to reject the pipeline.

McKibben, head of the climate advocacy group 350.org. “But here, in the face of a naked political threat from Big Oil to exact 'huge political consequences,' he's stood up strong.”

His comment about the "threat" is a reference to recent remarks by the head of the American Petroleum Institute, the powerful industry trade group that recently warned of political “consequences” if Obama nixed Keystone XL.

They argue the administration could issue a permit for the massive project even as the review of Nebraska-specific issues continues, noting that TransCanada has already reached an agreement with Nebraska state officials to find a way around a sensitive Sand Hills region.

http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/204807-obama-administration-keystone-pipeline-announcement-seen-as-imminent-

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Overpopulation-The Making of a Myth

by Colinpri1

Diana Krall

Mini Biography

 Diana Krall was born in British Columbia, Canada. She was raised in Nanaimo, a small community on Vancouver Island, where she began performing professionally at age 15 as a jazz pianist. In 1981, Diana won a Vancouver Jazz Festival scholarship to study at Berklee College of Music in Boston and, after a year and a half of serious study, she returned to British Columbia.

Renowned bassist Ray Brown heard her playing one night in Nanaimo and convinced Diana to move to Los Angeles where she obtained a Canadian Arts Council grant to study with Jimmy Rowles. Jimmy encouraged Diana to explore her vocals to supplement her already blossoming piano skills. With several successful CDs to her credit, Diana has won numerous awards including Canada's Juno Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album (2000) and a Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Performance (2000). She received the Order of British Columbia in 2000 for being a good-will ambassador for British Columbia and epitomizing Canadian culture.

The greatest talent in the jazz field to come along in a generation, she frequently acknowledges her roots in Nanaimo where she began. She epitomizes Canadian culture and is an outstanding citizen and good-will ambassador for British Columbia.

 IMDb Mini Biography By: arthur-23

Diana Krall - Fly me to the moon

                          

Annual Polar Bear Swim

A group of unidentified people jumps into the icy water of Lake Wissota, Saturday, Dec. 31, 2011 at the Polar Bear Plunge held near Chippewa Falls, Wis. (Eau Claire Leader-Telegram, Steve Kinderman/AP)

 

Rather than pledge to shed unwanted pounds or make more money, Al Peterson decided to be realistic, as usual. He opted to start 2012 with a dip in 7 C ocean water.

For the 34th year in a row, the 58-year-old was down at Vancouver's English Bay with his family for one of the oldest polar bear swims in the country.

"Rather than a New Year's resolution, which we don't keep anyway, we just wash off the old and start with the new," Peterson said, standing on wet sand among hordes of participants.

"And wash off that nasty hangover," joked his 23-year-old son Jason, who took his first dip at the turn of the millennium.

The father and son joined more than 2,100 people on Sunday for the annual dip that has spawned sister events across the country since it began 92 years ago. Many raise money for charity or, in Vancouver, food for the food bank.

Thousands more camera-clicking spectators gathered on the balmy 5 C day under a bright sun to watch the spectacle.

Japanese Tsunami Debris hitting West Coast

The coastal community of Tofino, B.C., spent the Christmas season mentally preparing for the grim task of collecting, sorting and cataloguing debris from the tsunami that devastated parts of coastal Japan early this year.

Mayor Perry Schmunk is certain that items that were washed away in the March 11 disaster in northern Japan have already made it to B.C. shores, in particular at the surfing capital of Long Beach.

"Definitely this stuff is increasing in incidence that is coming ashore," Schmunk said, pointing to some lumber with Japanese export stamps on it.

Although plastic water bottles with Japanese labels began washing ashore near Tofino at the beginning of December, some locals believed them to be typical ocean garbage.

Schmunk said that what has appeared since then is definitely not the normal garbage.

"There [are] some personal items starting to show up, things like a toothbrush, socks — that sort of thing. Again, not the typical bottles," he told CBC News on Monday.

He said it is just the tip of a massive amount of debris predicted to be shifted by ocean currents toward the B.C. coast in 2014.

"We are starting communication with the other government agencies because, potentially, this will be a much bigger problem than us at the municipal level can respond to," Schmunk said.


Website of photos proposed
Volunteers in and around the town of Tofino have so far been collecting debris combed from the beaches, but it isn't a large volume so far.

Schmunk has proposed that photos of the finds could be posted online.

"Some of the residents in town, myself included, have photographed these items and we'll probably create a common website so that people can search through these photos," he said.

"There's definitely the potential for some of the stuff that comes ashore to be of significant personal value."

In October, scientists in Hawaii estimated that as much as 18 million tonnes of material could have been washed into the ocean, and estimated the debris field to be spread out over an area the size of the state of California.

Quotes

"Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

One makes mistakes; that is life. But it is never a mistake to have
loved.
--Romain Rolland


Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home.
--William Ewart Gladstone

One does not ask of one who suffers: What is your country and what is
your religion? One merely says: You suffer, that is enough for me...
--Louis Pasteur


"The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become."
- Charles Du Bos 

Source:
http://en.wikiquote.org 

Al Gore

Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems
and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.
--Isaac Asimov*

In this brand-new slideshow (premiering on TED.com), Al Gore presents evidence that the pace of climate change may be even worse than scientists recently predicted. He challenges us to act.




Al Gore's message has matured from mere fear mongering in his early film, An Inconvenient Truth,  to attempting to develop a plan to save the Planet from Mankind's Carbon fuels addiction.


Gore has been involved with environmental issues since 1976, when as a freshman congressman, he held the "first congressional hearings on the climate change, and co-sponsor[ed] hearings on toxic waste and global warming."   He continued to speak on the topic throughout the 1980s and was known as one of the Atari Democrats, later called the "Democrats' Greens, politicians who see issues like clean air, clean water and global warming as the key to future victories for their party."




In 2004 he co-launched Generation Investment Management, a company for which he serves as Chair. A few years later, Gore also founded The Alliance for Climate Protection, an organization which eventually founded the We Campaign. Gore also became a partner in the venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, heading that firm's climate change solutions group.  He also helped to organize the Live Earth benefit concerts.


Criticism

Gore's involvement in environmental issues has been criticized. For example, he has been labeled a "carbon billionaire" and accused of profiting from his advocacy; a charge which he has denied, by saying, among other things, that he has not been "working on this issue for 30 years... because of greed".

A conservative Washington D.C. think tank, and a Republican member of Congress, among others, have claimed that Gore has a conflict-of-interest for advocating for taxpayer subsidies of green-energy technologies in which he has a personal investment.

Data in An Inconvenient Truth have been questioned. In a 2007 court case, a British judge said that while he had "no doubt ...the film was broadly accurate" and its "four main scientific hypotheses ...are supported by a vast quantity of research,"  he upheld nine of a "long schedule" of alleged errors presented to the court.

He ruled that the film could be shown to schoolchildren in the UK if guidance notes given to teachers were amended to balance out the film's one-sided political views. 

Gore's spokeswoman responded in 2007 that the court had upheld the film's fundamental thesis and its use as an educational tool.  

Organizations including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) criticized Gore for not advocating vegetarianism as a way for individuals to reduce their carbon footprint.   Gore agreed that meat production contributes to increased carbon emissions, but did not want to "go quite as far as ... saying everybody should become a vegetarian". He said that although he is not a vegetarian, he has "cut back sharply" on his consumption of meat.

Bill Clinton recently converted to the Vegan diet.

When asked by Bjørn Lomborg to debate whether spending on health and education should take priority over limiting carbon emissions, Gore responded that he would not debate because the “scientific community has gone through this chapter and verse. We have long since passed the time when we should pretend this is a ‘on the one hand, on the other hand’ issue . . . . It’s not a matter of theory or conjecture."

 T.E.D. Profile:

Al Gore always intended to get something done, and since leaving Washington, DC -- following the tumultuous 2000 election -- he's still at it. In fact, his campaign for alerting the world to the dangers of climate change has only gained momentum. 


His Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth is the third most successful documentary ever released at the box office. Gore's famed Power Point presentation has drawn in a reluctant public, with its meticulously researched content and lucid style.


Meanwhile, Gore himself has found his footing as a communicator. The once "wooden" style has given way to a warmth and humor that reveal the depth of his experience as a soldier, congressman, senator, veep, TV executive, teacher and author. 


Arguably, Gore is better positioned today than he has ever been to affect the future of our environment and world.


He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007, along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."




"The only vice president ever to mock his stiff image by [imitating] a wax-museum figure, Gore turns out to be the best professor you never had -- easygoing, knowledgeable and funny."
- Rolling Stone



http://www.ted.com/speakers/al_gore.html








*http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore_and_information_technology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore_and_the_environment

**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore