THE GREAT SHAKING STATE OF OKLAHOMA

And it’s not stopping. The quakes in the state have been making news lately, especially within the last few days. 
And now just this morning, New Years day, another shake has hit the state. This one a 4.2..

According the U.S. Geological Survey’s website, the quake happened at 5:39 a.m. in an area 3 miles northeast of Edmond and 16 miles north-northeast of Oklahoma City.

There were no immediate reports of injury or damage.

There used to be a few dozen quakes in the state prior to 2012. After fracking took hold, there have been 800 in 2015. 800..
800..

And surely more in 2016 to go.

Not that fracking would EVER do such things…. (Remember, at one time when those against fracking said earthquakes would be a danger, they were called kooks and loons.) Who’s kooky now.

Updated: 17 Oklahoma earthquakes of 2.6 magnitude or greater recorded since Thursday's 4.7

The USGS recorded 17 Oklahoma earthquakes since the 4.7, including a 4.0 magnitude near Crescent, and the 4.1 magnitude near Medford.

The quakes recorded as low as 2.6 magnitude (two Thursday near Cherokee and Medford), but also include six recorded earlier today:

- 2.7 magnitude 6:07 a.m. about 9 miles south-southwest of Cherokee

- 2.8 magnitude 9:42 a.m. about 15 miles north-northwest of Fairview

- 3.1 magnitude 3:11 p.m. about 15 miles east of Cherokee

- 3.2 magnitude 2:06 a.m. about 18 miles  north-northwest of Fairview

- 3.5 magnitude 12:12 a.m. about 9 miles southwest of Cherokee

- 3.5 magnitude 5:22 a.m. about 9 miles southwest of Cherokee.

Remember the good ole’ days when people who said gas well fracking would cause earthquakes were called loons and conspiracy theorists? Environmentalist wackos and alarmists who didn’t deserve press? I remember those days… Happy to have been one of the few who raised alarms.

And now with this many earthquakes in the state that once had so little, this news:

The Oklahoma Corporation Commission announced Friday plans to shut off four disposal wells within 3 miles of the earthquake activity near Crescent on Thursday. Two quakes were recorded, one of which was a magnitude 4.0.

The plan also called for a 50 percent volume reduction at seven Arbuckle disposal wells. Operators at other nearby wells also were put on notice to be prepared for possible changes in operation.

Updated: 17 Oklahoma earthquakes of 2.6 magnitude or greater recorded since Thursday's 4.7

Water wars coming. The next crime wave is predicted

I recall a documentary I saw back in the late 1990s, it was some sort of bad TV special--bad in acting and producing--that predicted what the next fifty or so years of life may be like. Some talked about Nostrodamus, others just predicted based off of scientific research. One particular thing stuck in my mind: The possibility of 'waters wars,' with shortages and droughts people would be forced to fight and become adversaries just for a drop of liquid.

Massive amounts of fresh water, glacial melt pouring into Gulf of Alaska

A feeling of vindication..

I am one of those tin foil hat wearing loons who loudly worried years ago that fracking would cause earthquakes. Like many others, I was laughed at.. now studies are concluding that the fears are true: They have caused earthquakes in Ohio..

Vindication is fine. But I just wish I would have remained ‘wrong’ on this one since fracking takes place within my own state.. a state with pristine waters and nuclear facilities..

Autism Nation: America's Chemical Brain Drain

Americans are exposed to over 83,000 industrial chemicals as part of modern civilization. Virtually all pregnant women are walking chemical repositories.

The linked article is interesting and disturbing.. Why is autism so high? Sure, we’re told that it’s because of ‘better screening.’ I am getting tired of the ‘better screening’ argument.. anyone with common sense knows that there are many more instances of severe autism hitting families across the planet.. especially America and other ‘industrialized nations’…

Counties and states killing weeds with sprays.. Food filled with chemicals.. BPA in plastics.. heavy metals, fluoride in water for babies who still don’t have their first set of teeth..

The article details toxins in food, air, and everything. Every place your child plays.. every place your baby in a womb goes.. 

The money quotes you should consider:

Americans are exposed to over 83,000 industrial chemicals as part of modern civilization. Virtually all pregnant women are walking chemical repositories. Tracking 163 chemicals, 99 percent of pregnant women tested positive for at least 43 different chemicals 

And

Other studies show that the average newborn enters the world on day one “pre-polluted,” harboring hundreds of chemicals and heavy metals acquired during intrauterine life, and many of those undoubtedly reach the brain during critical windows of embryonic development. None of those chemicals enhance the natural process of brain maturation; many of them are known to be toxic to neurons and brain tissue.

And this:

Most pesticides work by causing chemical disruption of the brain and nervous system of insects. In fact, many pesticides are merely derivations of chemical warfare agents of the World War I and World War II era, i.e. nerve gases. It should be no surprise, then, that human nerve cells could also be affected, especially when considering that at the critical embryonic stage, the human fetal brain is no larger than that of many insects. 

How ‘safe’.. 

Often I offer only bad news with no hope.

There may be hope today though, hope that wasn’t here before.

There could game changing positive breakthroughs coming.. 7 SAN DIEGO says this, 

Autistic stem cells are starting respond to experimental drugs in what San Diego researchers are calling a breakthrough in the disorder affecting one in 68 children.

UC San Diego scientists took stem cells from children with autism and reprogrammed them into brain cells.

Amazing times we live in.
But poisonous times, too..

While we work on the ‘cure’ for autism, we should also try to find the trigger. Or triggers. Or chemicals. 

The truth is out there… maybe in the air, water.. or land. But it’s there somewhere..

Autism Nation: America's Chemical Brain Drain

Mass sea star deaths off US west coast puzzle scientists

Boy scientists are ‘puzzled’ a lot these days.

And while my first inclination was to think it has something to do with Fukushima radiation, research has proven to me that it’s been going prior to the Japan nuclear disaster.

If scientists are puzzled, I’m befuddled..

Mass sea star deaths off US west coast puzzle scientists

Arctic Station Evacuated After Ice Melts Underneath It

Research at Russia’s North Pole-40, a station located aboard an ice floe in the Arctic, has ceased following an emergency evacuation of personnel. The ice upon which the station was built had begun to melt at an alarming rate and split into six pieces.

And they say the planet isn’t changing…

Arctic Station Evacuated After Ice Melts Underneath It

The trials and tribulations of parenting.. across the world

Being a parent means you have to keep your guard up.. know what the kids’ lingo of the hour is, know what their every movement is even when they don’t know.. be aware of the total situation of their lives but at the same time let them live it and permit them to think they have freedom to do what they want, even though you know the perfect moment to reign them in.  To borrow a theme from our latest headlines, basically, a parent is the NSA, constantly spying on its citizens..

And now it’s time, for me and my wife, to learn more about asthma. After a medical appointment yesterday, little Ayden was diagnosed with it officially. We somewhat knew it would going to occur sooner or later.. we were warned by pediatricians for a year. But it’s it’s more real to hear the real diagnosis made.

Millions of kids are diagnosed with something every day.. asthma, while awful in its own right, isn’t nearly as severe a condition as what some other children are living through right now. It is hell on earth for so many as I type and as you read this.. 

This did,  however, bring up in my mind an important question for our time. We know autism is skyrocketing.. and allergies.. and asthma.. and other conditions affecting the behavior and health  of children. While all of these specific conditions are completely separete, is there a common lining that ties them together? One that trained researchers have yet to see?

A SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN article from 2011 details the surging asthma rates among kids.. (They have continued surging since 2011 and are doing so to this day) .. And the basic premise of the theory presented in this article: We live in a world too clean and therefore better sanitary conditions deprive the immune system of ‘training’ needed to keep the body healthy. So ragweed, dust, and everything else become bigger threats. 

Ok. I get that. We are pretty clean. Well, most of us. With the exception of some names floating through my head that I’d never publish online.. 

But let’s think outside the box for a moment. This may require a nicely fitted tin foil hat.

Here’s a link that shows asthma rates across the world in 2004:

Here is a map that shows autism rates across the world:

And finally.. here is a map that shows the countries across the world who use genetically modified food and where GMO use is widespread in the food supply.

A few maps and a few links don’t solve mysteries or answer questions. But you see a theme here? You see the same countries shaded darker? Oh sure, maybe some just have ‘more people’ and therefore rates are higher.. and maybe there’s other environmental factors.. and maybe ‘better observations’ and diagnosis.. and maybe ‘better medicine’ that spots these things in our children.. and the beat goes on. There could be a number of things that have nothing in common leading to the maps to look almost roughly exact..

But for as for me? Maybe my tin foil hate is too tight.. but I have no questions. Do you?

mothernaturenetwork:

Nearly 70% of turkey burgers contain fecal bacteria, says Consumer Reports

Overall, 90 percent of the ground turkey that the magazine examined had one or more of the five bacteria they tested for.

SO much for giving up red meat in favor of turkey ground meat. Next time I crave turkey tacos I’ll think twice.

But I have discovered an excellent different way to make tacos: Shrimp. Seriously, it adds to the flavor. Try that if you haven’t. 

Then again, the shrimp I get are most likely radiated from Fukushima and giving me some form of long term ailment not yet discovered.

We are what we eat. And just look at us.

Just when you thought you were getting ahead of the game. . . comes this study

Sure, my pudding expires December 21 2012 and lots of other people think people in general will, too. But we can’t lose hope. Fukushima may have blasted the planet with extreme radiation.. others worry about our online rights being suddenly stripped with the next bill that has too long of an acronym to even understand anymore. And the weather is crazy, isn’t it? Slightly maddening cows hopefully didn’t get into our meat supply, even though South Korea banned our imports. We will still eat them. Beef, it’s what for dinner. 20 years later you may go mad, too.

But all that aside, life isn’t that bad, right?

Enter this study: The planet Earth is ready to face a century of disasters.

That’s right.. not just a few weeks, or a month.. or a year or two. No, this report goes all the way: A whole century. But the time humans make it to the 22nd, if we should be so lucky as a species, generations may look back on us in 2012 and say ‘these poor schmucks didn’t know what was about to hit them!’

The Royal Society seems to know. They say world population needs to be ‘stabalised’ (British spelling) in order to take awayeth from the rich nations and giveth to the poor nations.  Yes, indeed. Agenda 21 anyone? Perhaps conspiracy theories of population control are right after all?

What surprised me was that this report didn’t talk much about the most pressing issue set to face our world in the next 20 or so years: Water. Just peruse your local video rental store…..oh wait they are all shut down… Go to Netflix, you won’t find these in the local RedBox: 5 documentaries that you must see to understand the water crisis that we face—in our lifetime.. 

But instead of worrying about clean water and air… let’s frack. Seriously.. Fracking make it all go away.

But it does seem to cause an increase in manmade earthquakes, doesn’t it? If you care. Most of the fracking in rural areas anyway. And what person REALLY cares about the rural area anyway. 

Besides the Obama administration, which wants to limit what farmhands can do. 

Little House on the Prairie. Now regulated!?

Get me Bill Gates! I need a vaccine.

My rambling Thursday morning whatever. Over and out.

-33-
xxx 

This is London today, along with many other places in the UK, where thick smog has descended on the continent.. Health officials have said those with asthma or breathing problems should avoid the air and stay indoors.. Also:  Don’t exercise outdoors.. This as the thick layer of pre-Easter heat and smog descends on London. 

Something else for us all to worry about: Naked penguins.

Apparently they are now choosing to lose their feathers.