Thursday, October 28, 2021
Junked food! Toxic compounds used to make industrial tubing and rubber gloves are found in 80% of McDonald's, Burger King and Pizza Hut food: Dangerous chemicals are linked to asthma, infertility and smaller testicles, study finds
Not the old phthalates scare again! This has been thoroughly debunked. The fact is that phthalates have all sorts of bad effects when fed in high doses to rats but have NO ill-effects in humans. See here for details
It's not just the cholesterol, calories and carbohydrates in fast food that people have to worry about: burgers, pizza and burritos are crawling with toxic 'forever chemicals,' according to a new study.
Researchers at George Washington University ordered dozens of items from McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Domino's, Taco Bell and Chipotle.
According to their analysis, they found phthalates, which are used to make plastic pliable, in over 80 percent of the samples.
Phthalates are also known as plasticizers, and are used in hundreds of products, from vinyl flooring and plastic packaging to soaps and shampoos.
In addition, they have been linked to numerous health problems, including cancer, liver damage, infertility, thyroid disease, asthma and even smaller testicles, as well as learning disabilities, behavioral issues and attention-deficit disorders in children.
People are exposed to phthalates by ingesting foods and beverages that have contacted products containing phthalates or by breathing phthalate particles in the air directly, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Exposure is a particular risk for kids, the health agency said, because children crawl around touching things and put them in their mouths.
The researchers chose the restaurants and menu items — hamburgers, fries, chicken nuggets, chicken burritos and cheese pizza — based on market share and best-selling items.
Items made with meat had higher levels of phthalates, while French fries and cheese pizza had the lowest, according to their findings, published in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology.
Of the food they ordered, 81 percent contained a phthalate called DnBP, which has been linked to a heightened risk for asthma, and 70 percent contained DEHP, which has been tied to reduced fertility and other reproductive issues.
As concern over phthalates grows, alternative plasticizers have been developed, and the scientists found one such substitute, called DEHT, in 86 percent of the junk food.
The full health impact of these alternative plasticizers are not yet known, the researchers said.
The burgers, McNuggets and milkshakes could have come into contact with phthalates and replacement plasticizers anywhere along the food-supply chain, the researchers said, from processing and packaging equipment to the plastic gloves worn by employees.
The FDA doesn't set limits for phthalates in food, according to the Post, but the levels detected in the 64 fast-food items purchased from franchises around San Antonio, Texas, were all below the EPA's current acceptable thresholds.
Still, the FDA told the Post that it would review the George Washington study and consider its findings.
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Two thirds of French people believe white Christians are 'threatened with extinction' by Muslim migration, new poll shows
Two thirds of French people think white, European, Christian populations are being 'threatened with extinction' by immigration from Muslim and African countries.
Sixty per cent of French people said such a scenario will 'definitely' or 'probably' play out in the country when asked by pollsters, who published the results last week.
The question was posed ahead of next year's election, where Emmanuel Macron is almost certain to face off against one of two right-wing candidates: Marine Le Pen or Eric Zemmour.
Central to Zemmour's ideology is the idea of 'The Great Replacement', a theory put forward by Renaud Camus that argues Christian civilisation is being intentionally replaced using Muslim immigration from Africa in a plot by global capitalists.
The poll, carried out by Harris Interactive, aimed to test whether or not voters believe in the concept - despite it being widely panned by experts.
The question voters were asked, based on Camus's definition, was: 'Some people speak of the "great replacement": That European, white and Christian populations are being threatened with extinction following Muslim immigration, coming from the Maghreb [northern Africa] and black Africa. Do you see such a phenomenon?'
It found that 61 per cent of French people believe the phenomenon could happen in France, with 27 per cent saying they are 'certain' it will take place. Just 39 per cent of people said it 'probably' or 'definitely' won't happen.
Of those who said it 'definitely' or 'probably' will happen, support for the idea was roughly evenly split across all age groups and across genders.
However, it varied widely depending on political affiliation. More than 90 per cent of supporters of Le Pen's RN party believed it was a likely scenario, while just 30 per cent of Green said the same. Perhaps worryingly for Macron, 52 per cent of his own party's supporters believed it was a likely scenario.
A follow-up question asked whether French people were 'worried' or 'not worried' about the idea of a 'Great Replacement'. This found even more people - 67 per cent - were worried about the idea, compared to just 33 per cent who were not.
Polls have suggested for years that Marine Le Pen will be the one to take on Emmanuel Macron for the French presidency, but Zemmour could now best her
The issue of migration and its impact on French identity is set to become a key theme of the upcoming election, as Zemmour - who has yet to declare his candidacy - threatens to usurp Le Pen for the chance to take on Macron.
Zemmour - a notorious figure in France for his anti-Islam and anti-migration views that he espouses in essays and on his TV new show - is now polling higher than Le Pen in some opinion polls ahead of voting in April next year.
Le Pen appears to be leaking support to Zemmour as she tries to move herself towards the centre-ground in an attempt to paint herself as a serious candidate - having lost out to Macron during the second round of voting last time
By contrast, Zemmour sits openly on the far-right - declaring that suburbs of Paris are being 'colonised' by Muslim migrants with large families that he says will make up the majority of the population by the middle of the century.
Statisticians say this argument is deeply flawed, but polls show that his arguments are cutting through with voters.
He also has two convictions for hate speech, including stating during a broadcast that that France is being 'invaded' by Muslims and must give them an ultimatum: 'Choose between Islam and France.'
France's swing to the political right comes after a string of terror attacks that has seen voters demand politicians take a tougher stance on extremism.
Teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded at a school near Paris last year after showing students a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed to students, just weeks before a second attack in Nice cathedral killed three.
In the wake of Paty's murder, Macron took a noticeably harder line on Islamic extremism - declaring that France would 'neve give up' expressing free speech including drawing Mohammed pictures.
That prompted mass demonstrations in many Muslim-majority nations, led by Turkey's President Erdogan who denounced the comments.
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Chile far-right candidate rides anti-migrant wave in presidential poll
Hopes for a more progressive Chile have been dealt a blow as a far-right candidate surges in opinion polls ahead of the first presidential election since massive demonstrations against inequality erupted in 2019.
A month before the vote, polling shows that the leftwing candidate – former student leader Gabriel Boric – has slipped behind (by one percentage point) José Antonio Kast, a supporter of the dictator Augusto Pinochet, who has suggested digging ditches along the country’s border to stop migrants.
After months of political unrest, voters chose by huge majority to replace the country’s Pinochet-era constitution, and then elected a broadly leftwing convention to complete that task.
But fears over migration, public security and shifting social values have boosted the far right, making the 21 November election a battle between starkly contrasting visions for Chile’s future.
The country has been on edge since September, when anti-migrant violence exploded in Iquique, a port on Chile’s arid northern coast.
After police cleared a camp of homeless Venezuelan families, a xenophobic march culminated with jeering, flag-waving crowds tossing migrants’ belongings on to a bonfire – including children’s toys, nappies and a pram.
“The far right have managed to weaponise migration in the run-up to the election,” says Romina Ramos, a sociologist at Arturo Prat University in Iquique.
“They are playing on fears of a threat to security and Chilean identity – and Kast has been able to present the arrivals as an invasion which must be fought off.”
But other elements are in the mix too: at subsequent demonstrations in Iquique, anti-vaccination banners were brandished alongside others rejecting globalization and the United Nations.
According to government statistics, the number of foreign-born citizens living in Chile more than tripled, to 1.5 million, between 2014 and the end of 2019, while migrants – many fleeing violence and poverty in Haiti and Venezuela – continue to arrive in the country.
Kast’s rise in the polls coincided with the Iquique marches, and he was quick to capitalise on the underlying sentiments with a Trump-like series of provocations.
In a visit to Colchane, a tiny town on the Bolivian border which has become a popular crossing point for migrants, Kast highlighted violence perpetrated by migrants.
He has also proposed creating a body within the investigative police force in the image of the US’s much-criticised Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) to “actively seek out illegal migrants”.
“Fundamentally, Kast defends free markets and traditional values, and favours the image of a monocultural Chile of European descent,” says Gilberto Aranda, an academic at the University of Chile who studies rightwing movements.
“His advance in the polls is a reaction to the simplistic narrative that everything that has happened over the last 30 years has been negative.”
Although he is likened to Jair Bolsonaro, Kast’s similarly vitriolic message is delivered with a more understated tone than that of the Brazilian president.
His programme focuses on conservative family values, moves against corruption and the strengthening of public security. He makes a point of criticising political correctness, inclusive language, identity politics and the perceived “abandonment” of Chilean traditions.
Analysts say that Kast draws support from a continuum of voters reaching to the peripheries of Chile’s far right.
Before the October 2020 referendum on rewriting the constitution, small marches in Santiago’s wealthiest neighbourhoods were adorned with US Confederate flags and “Make Chile Great Again” paraphernalia – as well as a handful of baton-wielding demonstrators clad in military helmets.
The government has been reluctant to condemn other worrying developments. In November last year, the undersecretary in the interior ministry described a cache of weaponry – including an Uzi submachine gun, body armour and Crusader-style shields – amassed by a far-right group as “unimportant utensils”.
Kast, meanwhile, has been positioning himself carefully as a radical alternative to Chile’s traditionally powerful rightwing parties.
In the lead-up to the 2017 election, in which he won nearly 8% of the vote as an independent candidate, he claimed that if Pinochet were alive, the former dictator would have voted for him.
The Pinochet dictatorship seized power in a bloody coup d’état in 1973 and left behind more than 40,000 recorded victims when it relinquished power in 1990 – as well as the neoliberal economic model protesters have rejected.
Some in Chile, including several prominent members of the government, continue to support the economic legacy of the regime. “Although Kast doesn’t openly espouse the dictatorship any more like some of his supporters, his programme embodies the elements that some believe made it a success,” explains Aranda.
In April this year, a candidate for councillor representing Kast’s party in Santiago openly stated her support for Pinochet, using the former dictator’s image in a photoshopped montage alongside the former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Another of the party’s candidates in the coastal city of Viña del Mar used a similar tactic.
Neither was elected.
But a battle for Chile’s identity is afoot, and the debate over national symbols, the place of indigenous peoples and migrants in society, and the legacy of the Pinochet regime is reflected in the contrasting frontrunners.
“This is the most fluid election since the return to democracy,” said Cristóbal Bellolio, a political scientist at Adolfo Ibáñez University in Santiago.
“Chile’s identity is at stake amid one of the most turbulent periods in recent history – and we are set to find out just how much has changed.”
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Conservative senator claims credit for Australia's planned voter ID laws
One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, has claimed credit for the Coalition’s voter integrity bill, saying she made voter identification a condition for her support on another electoral bill.
Hanson told Guardian Australia on Thursday she had “had a gutful” of the Morrison government taking credit for her ideas and the voter ID bill “wouldn’t be happening without me”.
The comments come as the Centre Alliance party offered the Coalition a pathway to pass the controversial laws, with Senator Stirling Griff saying he is “generally supportive” of an ID requirement.
Griff told Guardian Australia that although his party hasn’t decided its position, he “understands the need for ID” but may seek some accommodation for Indigenous Australians and other groups for whom the bill could impose a hurdle to voting.
The voter integrity bill, which passed the Coalition party room on Tuesday, was introduced in the House of Representatives on Thursday.
It prompted fury from Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, who unsuccessfully moved a suspension of standing orders for a motion accusing the government of seeking to “undermine our strong democracy and deny Australians their basic democratic rights”.
Scott Morrison told reporters in Canberra on Thursday voter ID was “not an earth-shattering proposal” and is “standard practice in liberal democracies” around the world.
He noted the electoral committee had recommended it after the 2013, 2016 and 2019 elections. Morrison claimed “not one vote will be lost” due to the ability to cast a declaration vote.
Voter ID laws have been on the Coalition wishlist for the last three terms of parliament, but the government did not introduce a bill to give effect to the recommendation from the joint standing committee on electoral matters (Jscem). Hanson said they had been “bloody lazy”.
The Australian electoral commissioner, Tom Rogers, has said the evidence of multiple voting is “vanishingly small”.
After defeating a Labor motion to delay debate until 2023, the government will have two weeks to pass the proposal in the November sitting period before an election is expected to be called in early 2022.
Labor and the Greens have accused the Coalition of seeking to import US-style voter suppression.
Under the proposed voter integrity bill, a voter unable to produce ID can still vote if their identity can be verified by another voter, or by casting a declaration vote, which requires further details such as date of birth and a signature.
Given One Nation’s support for the laws, the government will need one vote out of the remaining crossbench senators – Griff, Rex Patrick and Jacqui Lambie – to pass the bill.
Griff told Guardian Australia his party had received the bill but is yet to be briefed by Morton or decide its position. “I’m generally supportive of having ID … I understand the need for ID,” he said.
Griff noted Rogers evidence about the rarity of multiple voting but said one “has to wonder” if the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) is detecting all instances of electoral fraud.
Griff cited his personal knowledge of one elderly person with dementia who “voted five times in a row” and received a “please explain” letter but no further action was taken.
He acknowledged that disfranchisement of Indigenous people was a “key issue” for those expressing concern about the bill, suggesting that there “might be issues we need to deal with for certain groups” to ensure a “positive solution for everyone”.
On Tuesday evening the finance minister, Simon Birmingham, defended the government’s proposal as a means to “further enhance integrity” and public confidence.
Birmingham told Senate estimates the bill would help eliminate “actual areas of risk and perceived areas of risk” such as multiple voting or fraudulent voting in the name of deceased people.
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See 
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