Yes agreed, extreme poverty is equally damaging when combined with industry, but bear in mind its been the giant corporations dropping poison on poor villages not the villagers themselves.. and the basic rules for much of the world are decided ultimately by US senators who are for sale to business for embarassingly low cost.

"In the next few decades"?! More like "a few decades ago".
Perhaps if we had started population control in the 80's with the goal of cutting global population in half by 2000 AND did the rest of what he suggests we might have a chance...we did not.

By the time we understood there was a problem there were less than a few decades left to solve it...that was around 40 years ago, and we've done everything possible to accelerate the damage we do on every front since then.

Ocean acidification is happening today, it's getting worse, it's slow to react to change so will continue to get worse even if humans disappeared tomorrow, it has built in feedback loops that have been triggered like melting methanehydrates and sequestered CO2 that are being released faster every single day, and we are increasing the man made causes every year. There is a point where it reaches critical acidification, the point where diatoms can't form their skeletons, and then the entire ocean system dies. That's far worse than the apocalypse it sounds like, not just because 50-60% of our oxygen comes from the ocean, but also because the rotting biomass creates huge amounts of not just more methane, compounding the greenhouse problem and further acidifying the oceans, but also immense amounts of hydrogen sulfide, which spread as huge poisonous clouds around the globe.
We are on our way to a man made Permian extinction, when >95% of all species went extinct and near 99% of all biomass was lost. We will not survive it as a species....and we don't deserve to.

*doublepromote *quality info, even if it barely scratches the surface of this food web destroyer.
This seems like our backup Armageddon. If the effects of climate change don't wipe us out, the survivors get to die slowly of petroleum poisoning.
I hope those disposable forks were worth it.

I was surprised he didn't mention all the plastics we eat intentionally, like any toothpaste with sparkles for instance....that's just bits of plastic we are fed on purpose.

Wow. Those are astonishingly good numbers and, considering what you eat, are conclusive enough that these foods can be eaten in a heart healthy diet with great results even without excessive exercise.

I'm curious what the numbers are in our Vegan friend's blood, I seriously doubt they would be better than yours.

It's not surprising, but is disappointing to me that he discounted your numbers as inconclusive and/or unique natural anomalies, since they don't support his 'animal products are deadly poison for all people' claims.

I would theorize that the stress caused by worrying incessantly over what you (and others) eat is far more dangerous than the health effects of all but the worst, most highly processed foods....maybe worse than any foods.

Edit: BTW, I'm 48...going on 13, and I had my blood tested last summer....I didn't memorize my numbers, but the doctor said they were all well within the safe/healthy range so I didn't feel a need to keep track. I don't eat eggs, but I make up for it with extra bacon and butter, and meat at nearly every meal (but I only eat one meal a day).

Good for you. At least you're leaving something for the people who really need it. I admire your compassion and contribution.

I've picked up a few people that have put guns to their heads and pulled the trigger because they didn't want to accept "Free Anything" either. Pride is responsible for a few deaths per year also, you know. All of them were men for some reason.

But remember, some of my money is in there in case you ever need it. Whether it's for medical or bullets, I don't discriminate. You know what's best for you. I would recommend however, asking your doctor first if bullets are right for you? Lead poisoning ain't pretty.

As far as fending for yourself, I wish you and your family good health.

And then Putin had them poisoned.

... and then they tripped and fell onto a fist/bullet/some kind of radioactive poisoning.

If you don't want people interrupting your sports events to protest human rights abuses, maybe don't hold your massive sporting event in Putin's Russia.

That being said, I don't think Christians should mix politics with their faith. It mostly breeds hate and the gospel of Jesus Christ is never mentioned. I have moral objections to some things which are legal in the United States, but that isn't my focus. The Israelites when they were taken captive by Babylon were told by God to pray for the prosperity of the nation so they would live peaceful lives there. Babylon was a pagan nation, much worse morally than the United States. I think Christians should do more praying and less talking about the political situation.

I love America, and God has blessed it from its founding. I don't love the moral direction it has been heading and frankly I think it is in big trouble. God will eventually turn America over to its enemies if it continues down this path with no repentance.

As far as left and right, I am independent politically. I agree with some things on both sides, and disagree with much on both sides. The democrat party has become more and more secular so I don't agree with them as much anymore but the republican party worships God with their lips and not with their heart. I don't care for the cutthroat politics of either party, or the goading of their supporters, working them into a constant state of outrage and fervor and hatred of the other. Politics are poisoning this country and choking out civilized discourse. A Christian should never drink from that well but share the living water of Christ and speak the truth with love, sincerely caring about the other person regardless of their political affiliation.

It's not giving up the gun that might save lives, it's giving up the right to own them.
His gun probably wouldn't ever kill someone.
The right of any non restricted person to buy one is what leads to murderers having this tool often used to commit mass murder.
Would that stop all mass murders? Absolutely not, but it would stop SOME...probably most. Other methods people use are harder to assemble without being caught (bombs), are far less lethal (knives, arrows), and/or are harder to procure (tasteless poisons or gas). There's no other legal tool available to the public capable of mass murders with so little effort.

And yes, @BSR, this guy just made a sawed off AR15. He better post the video of him cutting it in half again if he doesn't want a visit from ATF. That gun almost certainly still fires, it's just incredibly more dangerous to the user now, and highly illegal. Not sure what you're saying in your snarky post, he didn't ever say a word otherwise.

Another thing to keep in mind is that different forms of elements and chemicals have very different properties.

Pure elemental liquid mercury is pretty cool stuff. Lots of people (myself included) can remember playing with elemental mercury in their bare hands in chemistry classes, etc., and even that sort of cavalier use basically never resulted in cases of mercury poisoning.

In sheer statistical terms, I gather that it is relatively safe to have pure liquid mercury directly on your skin -- cupped in your hands, say -- for short to medium periods of time. Open wounds, even small ones, can make that significantly worse. Even ingesting elemental mercury generally doesn't result in too much absorption into the body, but it remains a terrible idea. Evaporation of elemental mercury even at room temperature can lead to inhalation of mercury vapor, which is drastically more dangerous. So, ventilation and environmental controls are quite important.

This organic mercury sounds like terribly nasty stuff, but fortunately people are very unlikely to be exposed to it outside of a lab or if you are a scientist who is intentionally synthesizing it.

I think it is kind of a shame that those high school chemistry type sessions of messing around with elemental mercury are pretty much gone today. On the other hand, even though the risks are lower with elemental mercury like that, the rewards aren't really all that high either. I have fun memories of messing around with the stuff, but it wasn't by any means necessary or important outside of pure academic curiosity. Better safe that sorry I guess, particularly when the extreme end of "sorry" results in horror stories like this.

I think her husband poisoned her

I worked at a place that used a chemical that could absorb through your skin and then react with the calcium in your bones; that's always been a disturbing thought for me

Erm... How would making alcohol illegal help, exactly? Amateurs making alcohol are much more dangerous than amateurs growing weed. The stuff can poison you or leave you blind.

Politico has a long piece on Boehner. It includes this little gem:

On Sunday, July 17, it appeared they had a deal. Boehner and Virginia Representative Eric Cantor—whom the speaker had reluctantly brought into the negotiations, knowing the majority leader’s distrust of Obama could poison the talks—worked out some final details that morning at the White House. When the president returned from church, Boehner says, he invited them both into the Oval Office and shook their hands. Some fine-tuning remained, but in Boehner’s mind the so-called grand bargain was done. The framework included reforms to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security; $1.2 trillion in cuts to discretionary spending; and $800 billion in new revenue. “I was one happy son of a bitch,” Boehner tells me.

The next 48 hours changed everything. On Tuesday morning, the so-called Gang of Six—three senators from each party who had been discussing their own sweeping fiscal agreement—announced a briefing for their colleagues at the Capitol. They unveiled a separate framework, totally unaware of what Obama and Boehner had agreed to. This deal included significantly more revenue. Chambliss, by then a senator, was one of the GOP Gang members and had no idea—because Boehner had been negotiating with the president in private—that their announcement would kill the speaker’s deal with the White House. Obama saw that Republican senators were endorsing a deal that included far more revenue, and knew there was no way he could sell the grand bargain to his liberal base. When he came back with a counteroffer, seeking a higher revenue number, it validated Cantor’s warnings about not trusting the president. And by that point Boehner’s members had heard enough about the grand bargain to know they didn’t like it—with the $800 billion revenue figure, much less something higher.

So the deal fell apart, and the two sides peddled their competing versions of events: Boehner’s team said the White House moved the goal posts, while Obama’s allies said the speaker couldn’t sell his own members on the deal.