Governor McDonnell Announces Winners of Governor’s Bowl Food and Fund Drive

65 Liberty Street (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Competition raised equivalent of more than 1.1 million pounds of food in two years since launch

RICHMOND – Governor McDonnell today announced the winners of the second annual “Governor’s Bowl Food and Fund Drive.”  The governor called each winning Chamber of Commerce and winning state agency this morning to express his gratitude personally. More than 100 Chambers across the Commonwealth and over 60 state government agencies participated in the five week competition that began on Memorial Day and ended on Independence Day. The 2013 competition raised the equivalent of over 400,000 pounds of food to benefit over one million individuals served by Virginia food banks. The summer season includes critical months when pressure on food bank resources is high and shelves need replenishing.

            Over 1.1 million pounds of food were raised in just two years of the Governor’s Bowl competition. The 2013 Governor’s Bowl public-private partnership supports the mission of the Virginia food banks that serve over one million individuals each year.

            Both chambers and state agencies were organized by size with small, medium, and large entities competing with their peer groups. The Greater Augusta Regional Chamber is the 2013 overall winner with the equivalent of over 115,000 pounds raised. All of the 2012 winners were repeat Governor’s Bowl champions. Back-to-back Chamber winners are Buchanan County, Greater Augusta, and Greater Richmond. The Virginia Board of Accountancy also defended its title in 2013.

            Speaking about today’s announcement, Governor McDonnell said, “Earlier this summer I renewed my challenge to Virginia’s business community and state agencies to compete in good fun for a worthwhile cause. We could not do it without our partners at each Virginia Chamber of Commerce, the Federation of Food Banks, and our teams of state employees.  And, I have to say, I’m very pleased to see that the coordinated and focused effort of our summer fellows led to the Office of the Governor winning one of these great awards!”

            Lisa M. Hicks-Thomas, Secretary of Administration, said, “As always, our Virginia communities responded with passion and purpose to lift up those in need. I am grateful for the hard work, service, and commitment Virginians exude each day, and am particularly proud of the thousands of state employees who demonstrate their generosity year after year.”

Leslie Van Horn, Executive Director of the Federation of Virginia Food Banks said, “Our heartfelt thanks to the  Chambers and state government agencies that supported their local food banks during this summertime competition  for truly making a difference in the lives of so many in need.”

Barry DuVal, President & CEO of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, said “On behalf of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce and our 15,000 member businesses I would like to thank the Governor and his staff for their commitment to ensuring that the shelves of Virginia’s Food Banks are stocked during the summer months. We are thrilled to see such a great response from Virginia’s business community to the Governor’s challenge and would like to thank all of the local chambers that participated in this year’s competition.  I especially applaud the Buchanan County Chamber of Commerce, the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce, the Greater Augusta Regional Chamber of Commerce, and the Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce, and all the state agency winners for raising the most food in their respective categories for their regional food banks.”

            The Office of the Governor also earned an award this year for most total pounds for a small agency. The Governor’s Fellows Class of 2013 led the executive staff and Cabinet in its efforts to drive greater donations this year. The Class consisted of 16 talented future leaders from Virginia’s colleges and universities who designed an intra-office competition including bake sales, canned food drives, and special prizes to increase participation. The Fellows Class also led by example, spending their personal time volunteering as a group at FeedMore in Richmond. Special thanks go to our partners in the Department of Planning and Budget for their participation and assistance. 

The 2013 winners are:

Chambers

Buchanan County Chamber of Commerce (small)                            

·         18,995 pounds, exceeding its winning 2012 total of 17,694 pounds, benefiting Feeding America Southwest Virginia

Greater Augusta Regional Chamber of Commerce (medium)    

·         115,529 pounds, exceeding its winning 2012 total of 105,315 pounds. benefiting the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank               

Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce (large)                           

·         17, 296 pounds benefiting FeedMore, Inc. (aka Central Virginia Food Bank)

Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce (large)

·         17 pounds per person

State Agencies

Office of the Governor (small)

·         9, 096 total pounds

Virginia Board of Accountancy (small)                                                                   

·         337 pounds per person

Department of Motor Vehicles (medium)

·         28,560 total pounds

Department of Environmental Quality (medium)

·         21 pounds per person

Department of Corrections (large)

·         19, 698 total pounds and 1.71 pounds per person

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Many Garden Plants Are Treated with Bee-Killing Pesticides

bee eating (Photo credit: acidpix)

By Dr. Mercola

There are about 100 crop species that provide 90 percent of food globally and, of these, 71 are pollinated by bees. In the US alone, a full one-third of the food supply depends on pollination from bees. I mention this to stress the full ramifications of bee die-offs, which continue unabated.

Last winter, beekeepers across the US reported losing anywhere from 40 percent to 90 percent of their hives, and many of the 6,000 almond orchard owners in California could not find enough bees to pollinate their almond trees, at any price, this year.

According to Friends of the Earth,1 50,000 bumblebees were recently found dead in a Target parking lot in Portland, Oregon. The pesticide dinotefuran, a so-called neonicotinoid, was found to have been applied to nearby trees prior to the “massacre.”

In July, tens of millions of dead bees were found on a farm in Ontario, Canada. In this case, the deaths were thought to be linked to the dust coming off neonic-treated corn seeds that were being planted.

A general consensus among beekeepers is that the bee die-offs are most definitely related to toxic chemicals, and nicotine-related compounds called nicotinoids in particular.

Lawsuit Filed and Bill Introduced to Protect Bees...

Nicotinoids were initially introduced as a new form of pesticide in the 1990s, as widespread pest resistance rendered many older pesticides useless. The disappearance of bee colonies began accelerating in the US shortly after the EPA allowed these new pesticides on the market in the mid-2000s.

Today, they are the most widely-used pesticides in the world. In California alone, there are nearly 300 registered neonicotinoid products available. In addition to foliage applications, many seeds are now also pre-treated with neonicotinoids, which are water-soluble and break down slowly in the environment. Virtually allgenetically engineered Bt corn crops grown in the US are treated with neonicotinoids.

In May, American beekeepers and environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its failure to protect bees from these toxic pesticides.

France has already banned imidacloprid for use on corn and sunflowers after large losses of bees were reported as a result of exposure to the pesticide. They also rejected Bayer´s application for clothianidin, and other countries, such as Italy, have banned certain neonicotinoids as well.

The European Commission also recent­ly announced it will suspend the use of three neonicotinoids (clothianidin, imidacloprid, and thiamethoxam) on flowering plants in EU countries as of December 1, 2013. The US, however, has not followed suit... In fact, the EPA has decided to delay action on nicotinoids until 2018!

In July, following the travesty in Oregon, US Representatives Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and John Conyers (D-Mich.) introduced the “Save America’s Pollinators Act” (H.R. 2692).

This bill would suspend the use of neonicotinoids on seeds, soils, and bee-attractive plants until such time that the EPA has reviewed all of the available data. The Oregon Department of Agriculture has already issued a prohibition of cosmetic use of pesticides containing dinotefuran for the remainder of this year, as a precautionary measure.

Tests Tie Bee Die-Offs to Pretreated Plants Sold at Garden Centers

Now, a first-of-its-kind pilot study2, released by Friends of the Earth and its allies, reveals that many homeowners unwittingly contribute to the problem by purchasing so-called “bee friendly” garden plants sold at Home Depot, Lowe’s, and other garden centers —i.e. plants that attract bees—that have been pre-treated with pesticides that could in fact be lethal to the bees.

As it turns out, more than half of the plants tested were found to have these toxic pesticide residues. Contaminated plants included tomatoes, squash, salvia and flowers that would be attractive to pollinators. As reported by Friends of the Earth3:

“The pilot study, co-authored by the Pesticide Research Institute, found that 7 of 13 samples of garden plants purchased at top retailers in Washington D.C., the San Francisco Bay Area and Minneapolis contain neurotoxic pesticides known as neonicotinoids that studies show could harm or kill bees and other pollinators...

'Our investigation is the first to show that so called ‘bee-friendly’ garden plants contain pesticides that can poison bees, with no warning to gardeners,' said Lisa Archer, director of the Food and Technology Program at Friends of the Earth. 'Bees are essential to our food system and they are dying at alarming rates. Neonic pesticides are a key part of the problem we can start to fix right now in our own backyards.'”

What You Can Do to Protect Bees on Your Home Turf

The study makes a number of recommendations for garden retailers, wholesale retailers, home gardeners, as well as cities, counties and states, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Congress. Home gardeners and institutional purchasers such as schools, private companies, and hospitals, for example, can:

• Plant only neonicotinoid-free plants on your property and around your facilities (e.g. land­scaping around parking lots, grounds and gardens).
• Let your local nursery manager know that you will only purchase neonicotinoids-free plants, and ask the manager to forward your request to their corporate headquarters, plant growers and suppliers.
• Ask your landscaping company to avoid all neonico­tinoids and pretreated plants. Also, make sure they are not using the organophosphate pesticide trichlorfon, and avoid using Roundup to control weeds around your home or business.
• Practice bee-safe pest control: Avoid using pesticides that are toxic to bees in your garden. Read the label and avoid using products that contain ac­etamiprid, clothianidin, imidacloprid, and thiamethoxam as active ingredients. Instead, use alternative approaches such as providing habitat to attract beneficial insects that prey on pests. Insecticidal soaps or oils and other eco-friendly pest control products can also be used if need be.
• Check the products you already have, and if they contain any of the nicotinoids mentioned above, please dispose of them properly or take them back to the store where you bought them. The pesticide diazinon (sold under the brand names Diazinon or Spectracide) has been banned from residential use, but there might be some left in your old garden shed, so check for this one as well.

Ecosystem Threatened by 'Gross Underestimate' of Toxicity of Neonicotinoids

While the effects of neonicotinoids pose an immediate threat to our food supply by killing bees, they also pose a grave danger to other animals in the food chain. According to recent research by the American Bird Conservancy (ABC), one of the leading bird conservation organizations in the US, the use of neonicotinoids in seed treatments is also responsible for the death of birds, terrestrial and aquatic invertebrates, and other wildlife.

ABC commissioned the world renowned environmental toxicologist Dr. Pierre Mineau to conduct the research, which resulted in a 100-page report4 titled “The Impact of the Nation’s Most Widely Used Insecticides on Birds.” Mineau’s report reviews 200 studies on neonicotinoids, including industry research obtained through the US Freedom of Information Act. The report concludes that neonicotinoids “are lethal to birds and to the aquatic systems on which they depend.” Even more disturbing, contamination levels in both surface and ground water around the world are already beyond the threshold found to kill many aquatic invertebrates. According to this shocking toxicology assessment:

• A single kernel of corn treated with this type of pesticide can kill a songbird
• A single grain of wheat or canola treated with the neonicotinoids Imidacloprid can be fatal to a bird
• As little as 1/10th of a neonicotinoid-coated corn seed per day during egg-laying season can affect a bird’s reproductive capability

In response to these findings, the American Bird Conservancy is calling for a ban on the use of neonicotinoids as seed treatments, and wants all pending applications for neonicotinoid products to be suspended pending an independent review of the products’ effects on other animals besides bees.

As reported by the ABC5:

“It is clear that these chemicals have the potential to affect entire food chains. The environmental persistence of the neonicotinoids, their propensity for runoff and for groundwater infiltration, and their cumulative and largely irreversible mode of action in invertebrates raise significant environmental concerns... The serious risk to bees should not be understated, as one-third of the US diet depends on these insect pollinators. The ABC assessment makes clear, however, that the potential environmental impacts of neonicotinoids go well beyond bees.”

Four Toxic Pesticides Get EPA Advisory Label

Fortunately, there are some signs that the insistent and dire warnings are finally starting to seep through to the EPA. On August 15, the agency issued a press release6 announcing a new advisory label for four of the most widely used neonicotinoids: imidacloprid, dinotefuran, clothianidin and thiamethoxam. The advisory label states in bold red letters: "This product can kill bees and other insect pollinators." The labels also provide information on exposure routes and spray drift precautions. According to the press release:

“In an ongoing effort to protect bees and other pollinators, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed new pesticide labels that prohibit use of some neonicotinoid pesticide products where bees are present. 'Multiple factors play a role in bee colony declines, including pesticides. The Environmental Protection Agency is taking action to protect bees from pesticide exposure and these label changes will further our efforts,' said Jim Jones, assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.”

Take Action NOW to Help Save the Bees, and Our Food Supply

Pesticides have a dramatic impact on the health of our ecosystem. Neonicotinoids kill insects by attacking their nervous systems, and these pesticides are known to get into pollen and nectar, thereby posing a grave hazard to beneficial insects such as bees. Truly, the stakes couldn’t be any higher, with at least one-third of the US food supply being dependent on these pollinators.

While many pesticides may contribute to the problem, neonicotinoids have been implicated as one of the primary culprits in the mass die-off of bees, and have subsequently been banned in some countries. The United States, however, is not among them. We absolutely need to press Congress and the EPA to get their act together... As stated by Nichelle Harriott, staff scientist at Beyond Pesticides7:

“The bees and beekeepers are telling us they can’t wait until 2018 -- and neither can we. Retailers, EPA and Congress need to step up their efforts to protect pollinators.”

Although the EPA has not yet taken action, there is still much that can be done to pro­tect bees across the nation. The report released by Friends of the Earth and its allies shows that more than half of the “bee-friendly” home garden plants found in garden centers like Home Depot and Lowe’s are in fact toxic to bees, yet sold without any warning to gardeners. Please join us in asking the CEOs of Lowe’s and Home Depot, Robert Niblock and Frank Blake, to pull all bee-killing pesticides from their shelves and stop selling neonicotinoid-treated plants.

“Europe has already banned bee-harming pesticides, and top retailers in the U.K. are refusing to sell them. Now Home Depot's and Lowe’s CEOs need to make the same commitment here,” Friends of the Earth says.

Please, take a moment right now to sign your name to the letter to Home Depot and Lowe’s on Friends of the Earth’s Action page.

 http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/09/03/garden-plants-pesticides.aspx  Link back to Mercola.com site.

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Applied Eugenics

"Eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution": Logo from the Second International Eugenics Congress, 1921 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The science of eugenics consists of a foundation of biology and a superstructure of sociology. Galton, its founder, emphasized both parts in due proportion. Until recently, however, most sociologists have been either indifferent or hostile to eugenics, and the science has been left for the most part in the hands of biologists, who have naturally worked most on the foundations and neglected the superstructure. Although we are not disposed to minimize the importance of the biological part, we think it desirable that the means of applying the biological principles should be more carefully studied. The reader of this book will, consequently, find only a summary explanation of the mechanism of inheritance. Emphasis has rather been laid on the practical means by which society may encourage the reproduction of superior persons and discourage that of inferiors.


We assume that in general, a eugenically superior or desirable person has, to a greater degree than the average, the germinal basis for the following characteristics: to live past maturity, to reproduce adequately, to live happily and to make contributions to the productivity, happiness, and progress of society. It is desirable to discriminate as much as possible between the possession of the germinal basis and the observed achievement, since the latter consists of the former plus or minus environmental influence. But where the amount of modification is too obscure to be detected, it is advantageous to take the demonstrated achievement as a tentative measure of the germinal basis. The problem of eugenics is to make such legal, social and economic adjustments that (1) a larger proportion of superior persons will have children than at present, (2) that the average number of offspring of each superior person will be greater than at present, (3) that the most inferior persons will have no children, and finally that [Pg vi](4) other inferior persons will have fewer children than now. The science of eugenics is still young and much of its program must be tentative and subject to the test of actual experiment. It is more important that the student acquire the habit of looking at society from a biological as well as a sociological point of view, than that he put his faith in the efficacy of any particular mode of procedure.


The essential points of our eugenics program were laid down by Professor Johnson in an article entitled "Human Evolution and its Control" in thePopular Science Monthly for January, 1910. Considerable parts of the material in the present book have appeared in the Journal of Heredity. Helpful suggestions and criticism have been received from several friends, in particular Sewall Wright and O. E. Baker of the United States Department of Agriculture.


PAUL POPENOE.

Applied Eugenics from Chuck Thompson

You can read the entire book here online.  To pop into full screen, left click the icon at the bottom right hand of the SlideShare container, and to escape the full screen view, hit the escape key on your keyboard.  You can download this ebook for free from our SlideShare site.  You will either need to sign in with a Facebook account or a LinkedIn account.  You can also set up a free account on SlideShare to get the free downloads.  This is the first part of a small series on Eugenics and gives the foundation and background of this issue.

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Omelet Soufflé à la Crème - Recipe Of The Day

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Four eggs, two table-spoonfuls of sugar, a speck of salt, half a teaspoonful of vanilla' extract, one cupful of whipped cream. Beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth, and gradually beat the sugar and the flavor into them. When well beaten, add the yolks, and lastly the whipped cream. Have a dish, holding about one quart, slightly buttered. Pour the mixture into this and bake just twelve minutes. Serve the moment it is taken from the oven.

Make something extraordinary.

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