A soothing cup of hot tea may be just what your body needs to boost phytochemicals and other nutrients. But did you know you may also be drinking 11.6 billion microplastic pieces and 3.1 billion nanoplastics with every cup of tea? Researchers from McGill University recently published the results of a study4 in which they analyzed plastic pollution released from tea bags. They questioned whether plastic tea bags were releasing microplastics or nanoplastics after being submerged in hot water during the brewing process.5 They used four commercial products packaged in plastic tea bags. The tea leaves were removed to ensure any plastic particles in the tea did not contaminate the analysis of the tea bags. The empty bags were then placed in hot water to simulate the brewing process. The water was evaluated using an electron microscope, in which the team found a single bag released billions of particles. The researchers report this contamination is at a level thousands of times greater than has been reported with other foods and beverages. In addition to analyzing the amount of plastic released, the team also sought to determine the effect the particles may have on small aquatic organisms. Using water fleas, which are commonly used to model organisms in environmental studies, the researchers found that when treated with the microparticles and nanoparticles from the tea bags, the organisms survived but demonstrated anatomical and behavioral abnormalities.

     Heres some lighter refreshments;- ie student bloopers

     For over 15 years the global warmists have become progressively more outspoken with their scare stories, and less careful with facts and science. But their latest tactics of promoting Extinction Hellions and exploiting a teenage Swedish Doomsayer represent alarmist over-reach. Ordinary people are becoming suspicious: “If their science is sound, why do they resort to media scare stories, traffic disruption, street rebellions, school truants, religious zealots and academic purging?” We are close to the peak of this global warming madness. Their models and forecasts have failed and consumers suffer soaring electricity cost and blackouts while tenured academics produce Play-School plans for 100% “Green” power. Climate sense is finally starting to ooze through the cracks in the stone wall built to keep Skeptics out of the flimsy marquee that shelters the warming nobility. It is downhill from here for the alarmists and bad news for their academic mercenaries, Hollywood backers, Rebellion puppets, business vested interests and alarmist propaganda machines like Australia’s ABC, UK’s BBC and Guardian, Canada’s CBC and CNN in USA. They are losing their credibility and their thinking audiences just when they will need them for backpedalling, explanations and apologies.

     It is really a delightful turn of events, for feminism itself is on a theoretical, heretical level, that is spilling out into the public domain, as all these insane academic debates do, is being deconstructed. The basics of feminism 101, is a conspiracy theory, of male domination, based upon, well, it can’t be biology, so feminists are vague about how it happens, but it does. Men eternally oppress them. Thus, women are the ultimate victims, and some feminists even define a “woman” based upon such victim qualities. Yet feminism has also now embraced postmodern relativism, that see reality as a social construction. Thus, the concept of womanhood is a social construction, and from a relativist position lacks objective reality. Hence a man who identifies as a woman, and has a beard, and a functional penis, is a woman. Even Hillary Clinton had a bit of trouble with that one:
  https://www.dailywire.com/news/hillary-chelsea-clinton-have-awkward-moment-over-whether-a-person-with-a-beard-and-a-penis-can-identify-as-a-woman

“Hillary, 71, and Chelsea, 39, sat down with a British reporter over the weekend, and the differences in their worldviews were on display. In an interview with The Sunday Times, journalist Decca Aitkenhead asked the pair if a person with a beard and a penis can be a “woman.” Chelsea quickly answered “yes,” but Hillary looked “uneasy,” the Daily Mail reports. “Errr. I’m just learning about this,” Hillary said. “It’s a very big generational discussion, because this is not something I grew up with or ever saw. It’s going to take a lot more time and effort to understand what it means to be defining yourself differently.” In her piece, Aitkenhead tells Hillary that many British feminists of Hillary’s generation “have a problem with the idea that a ‘lesbian who doesn’t want to sleep with someone who has a penis is transphobic.'”

     The Left have not spoken a word about this, but anything challenging open borders is racist, and hell, it makes you fit for being bashed to death, which is the  way of the radical Left, as seen by vicious attacks upon innocent Trump supporters:
  https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/1964152/ugly-bloody-scenes-san-jose-protesters-attack-trump

     Then there is what has been called, “China’s genocide’:
  https://metro.co.uk/2019/10/08/inside-chinas-re-education-camps-women-raped-sterilised-10879874/

     I used to swallow down a tablet of Zantac, 150 mgs of Ranitidine, when heartburn struck, until I read this:
  https://www.9news.com.au/health/medical-news-heartburn-drug-zantac-pulled-from-shelves-over-cancer-concern/89a1e116-faf4-423c-b1e0-217265f2426e

“A popular heartburn drug has been withdrawn from sale after it was found to carry a cancer-causing substance. Zantac – sold over the counter - is among eight types of the heartburn drug ranitidine that have been recalled from pharmacies, supermarkets, online stores and other retail outlets. The products were contaminated with an impurity called N nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA). As well as heartburn, the ranitidine products can be used to treat stomach acid, reflux and ulcers. The move came after concerns long-term exposure to NDMA was found to increase a person's chances of developing cancer. The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) is advising people to consider alternative medicines.’

     Here is bs story the New York Times ran with, I did not find other sources following it up. Look how crazy and racist Trump is, he wants to make a border moat with snakes and crocodiles:
  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/01/us/politics/trump-border-wars.html

“The Oval Office meeting this past March began, as so many had, with President Trump fuming about migrants. But this time he had a solution. As White House advisers listened astonished, he ordered them to shut down the entire 2,000-mile border with Mexico — by noon the next day. The advisers feared the president’s edict would trap American tourists in Mexico, strand children at schools on both sides of the border and create an economic meltdown in two countries. Yet they also knew how much the president’s zeal to stop immigration had sent him lurching for solutions, one more extreme than the next. Privately, the president had often talked about fortifying a border wall with a water-filled trench, stocked with snakes or alligators, prompting aides to seek a cost estimate. He wanted the wall electrified, with spikes on top that could pierce human flesh. After publicly suggesting that soldiers shoot migrants if they threw rocks, the president backed off when his staff told him that was illegal. But later in a meeting, aides recalled, he suggested that they shoot migrants in the legs to slow them down. That’s not allowed either, they told him. “The president was frustrated and I think he took that moment to hit the reset button,” said Thomas D. Homan, who had served as Mr. Trump’s acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, recalling that week in March. “The president wanted it to be fixed quickly.”

     Follow the money trail – that is always good advice about getting to the bottom of things, of who has greased whose palms. The climate zealots, for example, seem to be on a good wicket:
  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7566515/Extinction-Rebellion-files-reveal-climate-zealots-paid-400-week.html
  https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/10/13/extinction-rebellion-members-paid-400-per-week-to-shut-down-britain/

“Extinction Rebellion is paying activists up to £400 a week to lead the protests that have brought chaos to the streets of Britain, documents seen by The Mail on Sunday reveal. Protesters have received payments totalling more than £70,000 in four months alone. But the eco-protest group privately fears it could face a six-figure tax bill if the money, which is given as expenses, is deemed to be payment for work done on XR's behalf. Last night, one Tory MP called on HMRC to launch an immediate investigation into the movement's tax affairs. Most of the thousands of activists who brought chaos to London last week were unpaid volunteers, but a select number are claiming the funds which enable them to dedicate their efforts to the protest group, also known as XR. This newspaper has seen claims for expenses from 168 activists, including Tamsin Omond, a baronet's granddaughter who has appeared in Tatler and rubbed shoulders with Boris Johnson – and who asked for money after ditching some public relations clients to concentrate on protests. A dossier of files from within XR reveals the inner workings of the protest movement and its finances.

     Anti-Trumper, and free trader economic rationalist supremo, Paul Krugman, has now admitted that globalists like him made a bit of a boo-boo with economic globalisation:
  https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-10-10/inequality-globalization-and-the-missteps-of-1990s-economics
  https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/10/13/free-trader-paul-krugman-admits-failure-of-globalization-for-american-workers-major-mistake/

“In a column for Bloomberg titled “What Economists (Including Me) Got Wrong About Globalization,” Krugman admits that the economic consensus for free trade that has prevailed for decades has failed to recognize how globalization has skyrocketed inequality for America’s working and middle class workers.

     For over 15 years the global warmists have become progressively more outspoken with their scare stories, and less careful with facts and science. But their latest tactics of promoting Extinction Hellions and exploiting a teenage Swedish Doomsayer represent alarmist over-reach. Ordinary people are becoming suspicious: “If their science is sound, why do they resort to media scare stories, traffic disruption, street rebellions, school truants, religious zealots and academic purging?” We are close to the peak of this global warming madness. Their models and forecasts have failed and consumers suffer soaring electricity cost and blackouts while tenured academics produce Play-School plans for 100% “Green” power. Climate sense is finally starting to ooze through the cracks in the stone wall built to keep Skeptics out of the flimsy marquee that shelters the warming nobility. It is downhill from here for the alarmists and bad news for their academic mercenaries, Hollywood backers, Rebellion puppets, business vested interests and alarmist propaganda machines like Australia’s ABC, UK’s BBC and Guardian, Canada’s CBC and CNN in USA. They are losing their credibility and their thinking audiences just when they will need them for backpedalling, explanations and apologies.

     President Trump in his election speeches has been using the example of Venezuela as a case study of how socialist societies break down, ultimately collapsing into a modern hellscape. But how bad is Venezuela, actually? Answer: worse than we imagined. Here are some extracts from a persona account of life under socialism by Venezuelan writer, Christian Caruzo:
  https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2019/10/13/my-socialist-hell-20-years-of-decay-in-venezuela/

“This is a personal account of what has my life become after twenty years of Bolivarian Revolution— 20 years that comprise two-thirds of my life. I’ve done so many bread lines that I’ve lost count, I’ve engaged in bartering of food and medicine, I’m actively taking expired meds because it’s simply better than nothing, and I’ve adapted every aspect of my livelihood around the tribulations inherent to living in Socialist Venezuela while taking care of my younger brother who can’t fend for himself given his mental condition. It hasn’t been easy since we’re two socially inept siblings, but we keep going no matter what. … Socialism has slowly eroded the functional existence of every aspect of our lives, from our freedom of speech to our economic liberties, our access to healthcare and personal documents to our water supply. Each of these structural collapses – the absence of healthcare, the worthlessness of our currency, systemic corruption in the government and military, and widespread censorship – have affected me personally. Socialism is a trendy topic in the United States at the moment, which means my story is relevant beyond Venezuela’s borders. Over the course of this series, I hope to inform American readers about the realities of existence – and survival – in a socialist country. And I hope that by reading my stories, Americans will be forewarned enough that they remain distant stories, rather than firsthand experiences. …

     There are some photographs take in in the early part of the 20th century, when the West still believed in itself, and had a more homogeneous population, that have to be seen to be believed.
  http://www.boweryboyshistory.com/2014/10/the-story-of-painters-on-brooklyn.html

     The painters on the Brooklyn Bridge show a number of men hanging onto the steel wires suspended perhaps 40 metres above the ground. That does not seem much until you see the men standing on wires. It is enough to make one dizzy, and fall, even sitting down! The political, or metapolitical point is that this sort of world not longer exists, at least in the West:
  https://gellerreport.com/2019/10/death-of-america.html/

     Here is an interesting one, showing the power of the internet to deflate and deconstruct nonsense put out by the mainstream media:
  https://www.forbes.com/sites/breannawilson/2019/10/11/this-popular-solo-female-travel-vlogger-thinks-pakistan-could-be-the-worlds-1-tourism-destination/?utm_source=TWITTER&utm_medium=social&utm_content=2730307720&utm_campaign=sprinklrForbesMainTwitter#514893612707
  https://twitter.com/Forbes/status/1182996846496702465?s=20

Forbes
@Forbes

Why Pakistan should be on every solo female traveler's bucket list http://on.forbes.com/601911XJW

     There is so little criticism of the sorts of dangerous experiments that high energy physicists engage in, mainly because the ordinary people know so little about elementary particle physics and high energy collisions. However, the potential does exist to destroy not only the Earth, but by a chain reaction, the entire universe.
  https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/meet-mad-scientists-performing-universe-breaking-experiments

“CERN is currently working on a lofty plan to revamp its “flagship accelerator complex” over the course of the next two decades. But a more powerful particle accelerator could be the very last thing the world needs, according to British cosmologist Martin Rees. Rees, a well-respected expert in his field, issued a grave warning to the scientific community about particle accelerator experiments gone awry in his book On The Future: Prospects for Humanity published late last year. These experiments meant to push the boundaries of nature and physics, he writes, “might do something far worse — destroy the Earth or even the entire universe.” As alarmist as it sounds, this is no crackpot notion. Rees writes that, "Maybe a black hole could form, and then suck in everything around it [...] The second scary possibility is that the quarks would reassemble themselves into compressed objects called strangelets. That in itself would be harmless. However, under some hypotheses a strangelet could, by contagion, convert anything else it encounters into a new form of matter, transforming the entire earth in a hyperdense sphere about one hundred metres across."

     This one is from America, which is at the front line in the descent into madness. Thus, while 40 million people, vastly more that the population of all Australia, do not have enough food to eat, the Democrat are championing sex reassignment surgery as a human right. Wow, one would have thought that having enough to eat came way before that:
  https://www.zerohedge.com/health/40-million-americans-already-dont-have-enough-food-eat-and-its-about-get-lot-worse
  https://www.zerohedge.com/political/waffling-warren-confirms-gender-reassignment-surgery-now-right

“At a recent LGBTQ town hall meeting, Warren received thundering applause for stating that the gender reassignment surgery should be provided free of charge to transgender prisoners: “gender-affirming surgery,” she said was “important and the appropriate medical care.” This is a direct about-face from her 2012 statement: “I don’t think it’s a good use of taxpayer dollars.” Fauxcahontas backpaddled and asked forgiveness for the earlier statement, saying it had been a “bad answer.” “I believe that everyone is entitled to medical care and medical care that they need and that includes people who are transgender who – it is the time for them to have gender-affirming surgery.” But is reassignment surgery a medical necessity? Opposers relegate the surgery as akin to aesthetic procedures such as face-lifts or breast augmentation. A female with a small bust may feel inadequate and uncomfortable and may choose to enlarge her breasts. Is this necessary for the continued health of the individual? No, not physically. But it plays a part in mental health, which is what Warren and those who support such nonsense base their logic on. However, this same female, who is satisfied with her birth sex, would not get the equal option to surgically adjust her physical appearance. Although, if she identified as a male, supporters like Warren would be howling at the moon, demanding taxpayers to pay for her change. As a born female, this woman’s insecurities and desire to physically alter her body while in prison would be considered nothing more than cosmetic. And the incarcerated are not there to have their wishes and desires met; they are there for punishment for a crime against society – the same society Warren expects to foot the bill for their physical alterations.”

     Here, at last is an utterly irrefutable reason for impeaching Trump …muh racism:
  https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-policies-racism-may-cause-some-black-womens-weight-problems-professor-says

“Do President Trump’s policies make me look fat? That’s the sort of question some black women may be asking themselves, a Rutgers University professor suggested during a recent appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Network. Although, more accurately, the problem may be the stress and anxiety caused by the policies than the policies themselves, Brittney Cooper, who teaches gender studies at the New Jersey-based university, said on a recent episode of “Black Women OWN the Conversation.” Research shows black women lose weight more slowly than white women, and the Trump presidency may be exacerbating the situation, Cooper said on the program, according to CampusReform.org. “We are living in the Trump era,” she said, “and look, those policies kill our people. You can’t get access to good health care, good insurance.”

     Nothing fills the gut better than a plate of red meat with plenty of vegetables to wash the divine food down. Of course, eating red meat, indeed, any meat, has come under attack in recent times from crazed feral Greenies, furry vegans and other vectors of the modern regime. But despair not, for not all red meat news is bad, or “red.” First, comes methodological problems in meat research, or at least the critique of meat:
  https://apnews.com/968e18606fba4a3c8084d2c83e0ffe56

“A team of international researchers recently rattled the nutrition world by saying there isn’t enough evidence to tell people to cut back on red or processed meat, seemingly contradicting advice from prominent health experts and groups including the American Cancer Society and American Heart Association. …The dispute lays bare problems with nutrition research long acknowledged in the scientific world: Nutrition studies are almost never conclusive, and whatever supposed risk and benefits there are to any food are often oversimplified. “People like bumper sticker guidance,” said Dr. Walter Willett, a professor of nutrition at Harvard who has led studies tying meat to bad health. Now health experts are wrestling with how solid scientific findings should be before guidance is issued, how to address biases that might skew conclusions and whether the pleasure we get from eating should be considered. The scrutiny is likely to spill over to other dietary advice as obesity becomes an ever more critical public health concern, and people become increasingly frustrated with flip-flopping messages.

     We have been fed an enormous amount of bs about the 97 percent of scientists who believe in the global warming, or is it now global climate change, hypothesis. But how objective is this science? Is it value and politically neutral? Well, looked at as an ordinary civilian, I have my doubts:
  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-scientists-idUSKBN1WS01K

“Almost 400 scientists have endorsed a civil disobedience campaign aimed at forcing governments to take rapid action to tackle climate change, warning that failure could inflict “incalculable human suffering.” In a joint declaration, climate scientists, physicists, biologists, engineers and others from at least 20 countries broke with the caution traditionally associated with academia to side with peaceful protesters courting arrest from Amsterdam to Melbourne. Wearing white laboratory coats to symbolize their research credentials, a group of about 20 of the signatories gathered on Saturday to read out the text outside London’s century-old Science Museum in the city’s upmarket Kensington district. “We believe that the continued governmental inaction over the climate and ecological crisis now justifies peaceful and non-violent protest and direct action, even if this goes beyond the bounds of the current law,” said Emily Grossman, a science broadcaster with a PhD in molecular biology. She read the declaration on behalf of the group. “We therefore support those who are rising up peacefully against governments around the world that are failing to act proportionately to the scale of the crisis,” she said. The declaration was coordinated by a group of scientists who support Extinction Rebellion, a civil disobedience campaign that formed in Britain a year ago and has since sparked offshoots in dozens of countries. The group launched a fresh wave of international actions on Monday, aiming to get governments to address an ecological crisis caused by climate change and accelerating extinctions of plant and animal species. A total of 1,307 volunteers had since been arrested at various protests in London by 2030 GMT on Saturday, Extinction Rebellion said. A further 1,463 volunteers have been arrested in the past week in another 20 cities, including Brussels, Amsterdam, New York, Sydney and Toronto, according to the group’s tally. More protests in this latest wave are due in the coming days. While many scientists have shunned overt political debate, fearing that being perceived as activists might undermine their claims to objectivity, the 395 academics who had signed the declaration by 1100 GMT on Sunday chose to defy convention.”

     Here is one of the strongest men in the world, competing against the alleged strongest women in the world, and the woman wins, of course. Not just wins, but thrashes the giant guy, who has deadlifted 500 kg. No, this is a pound for pound contest, and the lighter person always wins, so it was set up from the beginning. I used to watch the antics of big Ed but now he makes me ill. Men can have nothing in this world, not even physical strength. Will, one day, men get angry, and stamp their feet, and maybe kick the can along the road, or write a strongly worded letter to their newspaper?
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGWfRQr0e-E

     Gasp! It is amazing to think that Western Europe still has some sort of existence, and has not yet dissolved like an aspirin in water, but patience, it will happen, and as the world exodus begins, it will not be for long for oblivion, and the final tragedy of the commons.
  https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/10/video-from-bosnia-thousands-of-muslim-migrants-scream-allahu-akbar-as-they-head-to-western-europe
  https://searchlight-germany.blogspot.com/2019/10/bosnia-thousands-of-migrants-shouting.html

     The Left and all matter of progressives need to think through the coming demographics and ask themselves what will ultimately happen to the nuclear weapons, and even the nuclear power reactors, once the entirety of Europe does a Sweden, and beyond.

     In the good old days, I could be sure that anytime I saw an article by Greg Sheridan I would disagree with it, and immediately would have copy, something to write about, someone to refute. But, then one day, maybe I changed, he changed, we both changed, or the world changed, and I could see that it was far too simplistic to view him as an enemy, but rather, he was a complex thinker, always with an interesting point of view, that sometimes was surprising. Take the rise of China for example:
  https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/world/while-unlikely-to-be-realised-soon-chinese-threat-shouldnt-be-ignored/news-story/5d86ace47ef871e37790fa9128671f9b?utm_source=The%20Australian&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_content=TodaySHeadlines

“China’s President Xi Jinping never leaves you in any doubt what he thinks. So his warning is typically stark. Any effort to prise a region away from China will result in “in crushed bodies and shattered bones”. This is a very direct threat to the protesters of Hong Kong, although he has not addressed the Hong Kong disturbances directly by name. Nonetheless, the balance of probability would have to be that the mainland Chinese forces are not likely to undertake a massive 1989 Tiananmen massacre style intervention in Hong Kong, at least not yet. They will intervene if they feel they have to. Although any such intervention will be very tough, it will still likely involve a much more sophisticated and discriminate use of force than Tiananmen did. However, Beijing scored a big victory on Hong Kong recently. Donald Trump in announcing, prematurely, that he and Beijing have come to a trade deal, also remarked that he thought the troubles in Hong Kong were subsiding and the Chinese government would handle them fine. In one way, Trump’s remarks are prudent enough. International leaders should be very careful what they say about Hong Kong, because if Beijing does intervene there, not a single foreigner will go to help the local Hong Kongers. However, Trump was capable of applying some leverage to Beijing, and now he’s chosen not to. He hasn’t, as he did with the Turks, given Beijing a green light for action, but he has said more or less that he isn’t much concerned with what’s happening in Hong Kong.