Militarization of the Saffron Cloth and Killing Theravada Buddhism while upsurging Mahayana Hegemony

Militarization of the Saffron Cloth and Killing Theravada Buddhism while upsurging Mahayana Hegemony

It is pretty obvious novice monks or saffron clothed guys are militarized for the political advantage, while election is already declared.

This is fundamental violation of other faiths at a critical time.

This is what happened in Myanmar with military help and genocide in the name of religious propaganda.

According to Words of Buddha using any tool for cultivation is prohibited for monks even novice.

Read the followings.

Vulgar Deeds of Monks

One should read this in tandem with “Vulgar Talks for Monks”.
I never thought that I might have to use this phrase to describe some of the deeds of Monks with political power.
This has nothing to do with Vinaya (Set of rules passed down by oral tradition) which outlines 300 odd major and 1000 odd minor strictures.
I will list a few below.
1. Possession of more than two robes.
2. Possession of money more than what is required of travel (this was a concession when public transport came into existence).
They are meant to be walking spreading Dhamma and no two monks should take the same path having come to a four way intersection.
3. Possession of vehicle for transport.
4. Possession of land.
5. Possession of books other than Thripitaka, which is colossal.
6. Possession of Televisions.
7. Possession of Elephants.
The sole purpose of this is to highlight the number 7.
I think very soon our monks will ascend to Nibbana on the back of a poor elephant.
I am sure once they ascend there the poor animal is dispensed for good to rot probably in hell.
I am not sure how the modern articles like mobiles, laptops, digital texts and multimedia applications would apply in the context of Vinaya.
A modern Sangayana is necessary to validate them in posterity as essential items ‘On the road to Nibbana’.
I am also not sure of Television Displays in the trend of TV stars.
I sometime incline to think when the Thripitaka is fully digitalized and translated to many languages as possible (this is not happening now) the existence of Monks may become redundant except for the SOLE practice of meditation for ultimate goal SEEKING of TRUE salvation or Nibbana.
The way the things are developing there may be monasteries dishing out Nibbana certificates at four levels.
Sovan,
Sukrudhagami,
Anagami, and
Arhath.

I hope, I should kick the bucket before that eventuality of having to register for salvation and is open for all, in the World Wide Web.

I am ambivalent about the right of the monks to become politicians and a member of the parliament.

As a true democrat, I say YES for an individual’s right to exercise political right, if not the Wisdom or the better judgment.

Having said that I am uneasy if they continue to done the robe after being duly elected.

I am ambivalent about the right of the monks to become politicians and a member of the parliament.

As a true democrat, I say YES for an individual’s right to exercise political right, if not the Wisdom or the better judgment.

Having said that I am uneasy if they continue to done the robe after being duly elected.

The point is conflict of interest, priesthood or the legislative functions (law of the land).

Suppose the legislature agrees for capital punishment would they vote YES or NO.

I feel very uneasy to see any person (whatever the religion that does not matter) in official capacity especially in the parliament (sometimes in civil capacity, too) display their identity in dress code, hair style, facial hair decoration or by any other mean.

It is a hindrance in the name of fair judgment and a Universal dress code for the assembly is mandatory.

I hope this fact is taken into consideration when drafting the new constitution.

I have no problem with any form of national dress (in the form of kilt in Scotland) however ugly and cumbersome for it to be worn.

I prefer the loin cloth for those without any educational qualifications and the dress should indicate their educational level but not their professional status (Army, Navy, Air Force, Doctor, Lawyer, Accountant, Professor or University cloak).

The NEW dress, with neutral colour (not the party colour) should be very simple and no civilian should be permitted to wear this dress for any civilian function.

It should be smart and should not look like a school UNIFORM or Police, Army or Navy.

The idea is, the moment they wear this dress they are in a different mold and feel proud (whether in power or in opposition).

This stricture like VINAYA for monks is only inside the assembly to discipline the present unruly Guys / Girls trained by Ma Ra and the CLAN in our legislature.

In other words if a monk wears a particular robe they are expected to behave as such upholding the VINAYA and not like The BBS THUGS.

Under Ma Ra their status was steamrolled like RATS and this new TREND would harbinger good behavior in parliament and uplift their status in the legislature as TRUE DEMOCRATS (listen to the alternative views).

Equally, the politician should not wear this dress for civilian functions other than the official duties in the assembly.

They are free to wear any other dress including PARTY dress and colour in public so that they can freely mix with their electorate or supporters.

If the speaker wears a particular dress why not MPs?

I never EXPECT this proposal could see the day light.

It is only a wishful thinking.

Vulgar talk to Monks

So I delve into Dhamma in that sense to Samutta Nikaya (56:10) to repeat a verse told to monks would suffice to convince myself why I should not be a journalist.

This can be rephrased why a Buddhist monk should be a conveyor of Dhamma message sans journalistic endeavour.

Buddha states 28 of his qualifications of vulgar talk to monks.
Numerically in order as was said by the Lord Buddha are as follows.
Manifold vulgar talks are

1. Talk about Kings (Presidents, Prime Ministers and Tyrants)

2. Talk about Robbers (Robber barons, the multinational businessmen)

3. Talk about Ministers

4. Talk about Armies

5. Talk about dangers

6. Talk about wars

7. Talk about food

8. Talk about drink

9. Talk about cloths

10. Talk about dwellings

11. Talk about garlands

12. Talk about perfumes
13. Talk about relations

14. Talk about conveyances (transfer of property)

15. Talk about villages

16. Talk about hamlets

17. Talk about towns

18. Talk about countries

19. Talk about women

20. Talk about heroes

21. Talk about street talk

22. Talk about ghosts

23. Talk about ancestors

24. Talk about gossip

25. Talk about land

26. Talk about sea

27. Talk about gain (credit market)

28. Talk about loss (stock exchange)

To this another four are added in another verse

1. Eternity (unending)

2. Annihilation (reduced to nothing)

3. Sensual gratification

4. Self mortification
What a Buddhist monk as a journalist should talk about are about greedlessness, (opposite of Lobha)
hatelessness (opposite of Dhosha) and
undeludedness (opposite of Moha)(wisdom) and any other talk is senseless and does not lead to liberation or salvation.

Monty Python and Python Programming Protocol (P.P.P.)

Reproduction

Monty Python and Python Programming Protocol (P.P.P.)

Python

Monty Python and Python Programming Protocol (P.P.P.)

I never thought Linux has any relationship to Monty Python’s playacting and his scripts.

Now I discover python language’s name comes from his acting skills and not due to any programming language as long as the reptile called python.

In my case any programming language is a python to me whether it is C or C++ or Java or Beans (they never spell or spill the beans or code in anyway comprehensible to human mind but to computers only) and sometimes with cobra venom installed in them and any sane guy start hating them.
All these changed when I discovered Linux. 

Whether you like or not one needs to know few starting scripts and rooting responses, booting and Grubbing files, if one wants to embrace Linux.
So I did.
Now I hear suddenly from nowhere ‘A’ Level students are made to learn python in schools and they act like Monty Python of BBC.
BBC Basic was the first language I started learning before Sinclair’s Basic and long time before I discovered there is something called C and later Unix.
By the way, the language is named after the BBC show “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” and has nothing to do with reptiles. 

Making references to Monty Python and acting skills are actively encouraged by the Linux community.
 

Some of Python’s notable features:  

Uses an elegant syntax, making the programs you write easier to read.
Is an easy-to-use language that makes it simple to get your program working. This makes Python ideal for prototype development and other ad-hoc programming tasks, without compromising maintainability.
Comes with a large standard library that supports many common programming tasks such as connecting to web servers, searching text with regular expressions, reading and modifying files.
Python’s interactive mode makes it easy to test short snippets of code. There’s also a bundled development environment called IDLE.
Is easily extended by adding new modules implemented in a compiled language such as C or C++.
Can also be embedded into an application to provide a programmable interface.
Runs on many different computers and operating systems: Windows, MacOS, many brands of Unix, OS/2.
 

Is free software in two senses. 

It doesn’t cost anything to download or use Python, or to include it in your application. Python can also be freely modified and re-distributed, because while the language is copyrighted it’s available under, an open source license.
Python is an easy and powerful object-oriented programming language. It was originally created back in the 1980’s, but saw it’s first public release in 1991. 

After the release of Python 1.0 in 1994, it quickly became one of the preferred programming language for the creation of web applications in the Internet, alongside with Perl and PHP.
It’s creator, Guido van Rossum has played a major part in the Python development from it’s first release and has a central role in deciding the direction of the Python development.
Python is often used as a scripting language for web applications in combination with the “mod python” module for the Apache web server. Python’s easiness of use and ability to integrate with different SDKs allows the creation of many different programs for Windows, Linux, Маc ОS and other operational systems.
This is what Eric Raymond gas to say about Python
I had already heard just enough about Python to know that it is what is nowadays called a “scripting language”, an interpretive language with its own built-in memory management and good facilities for calling and cooperating with other programs.
So I dived into Programming Python with one question uppermost in my mind: what has this got that Perl does not?
Perl, of course, is the 800-pound gorilla of modern scripting languages.
It has largely replaced shell as the scripting language of choice for system administrators, thanks partly to its comprehensive set of UNIX library and system calls, and partly to the huge collection of Perl modules built by a very active Perl community. The language is commonly estimated to be the CGI language behind about 85% of the “live” content on the Net.
Larry Wall, its creator, is rightly considered one of the most important leaders in the Open Source community, and often ranks third behind Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman in the current pantheon of hacker demigods.
 

To say I was astonished would have been positively wallowing in understatement.
It’s remarkable enough when implementations of simple techniques work exactly as expected the first time; but my first metaclass hack in a new language, six days from a cold standing start?  

Even if we stipulate that I am a fairly talented hacker, this is an amazing testament to Python’s clarity and elegance of design.
There was simply no way I could have pulled off a coup like this in Perl, even with my vastly greater experience level in that language. It was at this point I realized I was probably leaving Perl behind.
Now Guido van Rossum who has a major role in development in Python will join the elite three mentioned above.(Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman and Larry Wall).
It is not easy to master a computer language but one who has background knowledge and basic understanding of several language would benefit from it.
Jumping into it straight away may not be the best way.
Learning C and Unix, Linux and how scripting done and modules used to take advantage of Linux kernels is necessary before embarking on this adventure.
In any case Linux is the winner.
It is an object oriented interpretive language with graphic capability may be better than Visual Basic but if one needs to advance in programming language one need to know the code and syntax behind the graphic interphase.
There are lot of language wrapped behind the Linux kernel and scripting. It is far better to master Linux and simple commands and scripts before delving.into an advanced language with powerful capabilities.
I still prefer to call it a python with reptilian image because it is a very very long language behind the big modules.
Enjoy Linux and one will enjoy Python too but do not let it wrap round your neck and squeeze your wind pipe and suffocate you.
Better learn few piping tricks in Linux and put the python inside a pipe and tame it.

Killing the Constitution of Ceylon

  Coronavirus Episode

Reproduction
The Coronavirus brings the stark reality of human predicament and vulnerability and political wheeler dealer mentality of the immature politicians in power.

Killing the Constitution of Ceylon

It is the preparation for militarization of Ceylon.

Turning the "Wasangathaya" into his / their own "Wasanthaya" or sunshine!
 

ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්‍ෂ මහතාත් ඔහුගේ ආණ්ඩුවත් මේ දිනවල පාලනය ගෙනයන්නේ ආණ්ඩුක‍්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාව කුණුකූඩයට දමාය. රාජපක්‍ෂ ජනාධිපතිවරයා විසින් කැඳවුණු උපදේශක සංඝයා, ‘ආණ්ඩුක‍්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවට පිටින් නම් කිසිම දෙයක් කරන්නට එපා ජනාධිපතිතුමා’යැයි උපදෙස් දෙද්දීත්, ජනාධිපතිවරයා දැන් පාලනය ගෙනයන්නේ එම ‘යතිවර අවවාදයට’ද නිගා කරමින්, ව්‍යවස්ථාවට පිටතිනි.
අපේ‍්‍රල් 30 වැනිදායින් පසු ගතවන මේ දිනවල, කොරෝනා වසංගතය මැඬලීම වෙනුවෙන් රාජ්‍ය මුදල් සතයක්වත් වැය කරන්නට ජනාධිපතිවරයාට කිසිම බලයක් නීතියෙන් නැත.
2020 වසරේ මුල් කාර්තුව සඳහා පරණ ආණ්ඩුව විසින් සම්මත කරගන්නා ලද අතුරු සම්මත ගිණුමේ කාලය අපේ‍්‍රල් 30 වැනිදායින් අවසන් විය. ඉන්පසු නීත්‍යනුකූලව මුදල් වියදම් කරන්නට රජයට නොහැකිය.
මේ අවස්ථාවේදී ආණ්ඩුවේ පැත්තෙන්  සමහරුන් කියන්නේ ආණ්ඩුක‍්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 150(3) යටතේ අවශ්‍ය මුදල් වියදම් කිරීමට ජනාධිපතිවරයාට සම්පූර්ණ බලය හා අභිමතය තිබෙන බවයි.
‘සමහරුන් කියන්නේ’ යැයි කීවේ ආණ්ඩුවේ සමහර ‘නීති විශාරදයන්’ම මේ ගැන අපහැදිලි අදහස් පළකරන නිසාය. මෙතැන අවුලක් ඇති බව ඔවුන්ට පෙනී ගොස් ඇතිවා විය යුතුය. ඒ අවුල වසන්නට, ‘අවශ්‍යතාවේ නියමය’ යන්න පාවිච්චි කරමින් ජනාධිපතිවරයාට  ඕනෑම දෙයක් කළ හැකි බව ඔවුහුම අනෙක් අතට කියති.
අවශ්‍යතාවේ නියමය,  ඕනෑ අවස්ථාවකට යොදාගත හැකි නොවේ. එහි මූලික අදහස, ජනතාවගේ යහපත වෙනුවෙන් නීතියක් නැතිව වැඩ කළ හැකි බවයි. ඉතිහාසය පුරා වැඩිහරියක් මේ නියමය යොදාගෙන ඇත්තේ අධිකාරවාදී ආඥාදායක පාලකයන්, රටේ නීතිය නොසලකා තමන්ට හිතුමතේ මර්දනීය පාලනයක් ගෙනයාමටය. ‘රටේ නීතිවලට වඩා මහජනතාව සුපිරිය’ යන්න, බිහිසුණු පාලකයන්ට, විලි වසා ගැනීමට හැම කල්හිම හොඳ කඩතුරාවකි.
අනෙක් අතට අවශ්‍යතාවේ මූලධර්මය යෙදිය හැක්කේ, රටේ පවතින කිසිම නීතියකින් අවශ්‍යතාව සම්පූර්ණ කරගත නොහැකි විටදීය. එනම්, යම් කාරණයක් සම්බන්ධයෙන් ව්‍යවස්ථාවෙන් හෝ වෙනත් නීතිවලින් කිසිම විධිවිධානයක් නැති තැන පමණක් අවශ්‍යතාවේ මූලධර්මය ඉදිරියට ගත හැකිය. ලංකාවේ උද්ගතවී ඇති අර්බුදය එසේ නොවේ. එය විසඳීමට අපේ ව්‍යවස්ථාවෙන්ම දක්වන මඟපෙන්වීම් කිහිපයක් තිබේ.
ආණ්ඩුවේ සමහරුන් උපුටා දක්වන ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 150(3) වගන්තිය, ජනාධිපතිවරයාට මේ මොහොතේ මුදල් වැය කිරීමට ඉඩ දෙන්නේ නැත. ඒ වගන්තිය මෙසේය.

‘යම්කිසි වර්ෂයක විසර්ජන පනත් කෙටුම්පත නීතිය බවට පත්වීමට පෙර ජනාධිපතිවරයා විසින් පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවා හරිනු ලැබූ අවස්ථාවක පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසින් රජයේ සේවාවන් සඳහා මුදල් වෙන් කර නොමැත්තේ නම් අභිනව පාර්ලිමේන්තුව රැස්වීමට නියමිත දින සිට මාස තුනක් ඉකුත් වන තෙක් රජයේ සේවාවන් සඳහා යම්කිසි මුදලක් අවශ්‍ය වෙතැයි ජනාධිපතිවරයා සලකයි නම් ඒ මුදල ඒකාබද්ධ අරමුදලෙන් නිකුත් කිරීමටත්, වැය කිරීමටත් නියම කිරීමට ජනාධිපතිවරයාට බලය ඇත්තේ ය.’

ඉංග‍්‍රීසි පරිවර්තනයේ එය මෙසේ සඳහන් වේ.

‘Where the President dissolves Parliament before the Appropriation Bill for the financial year has passed into law, he may, unless Parliament shall have already made provision, authorize the issue from the Consolidated Fund and the expenditure of such sums as he may consider necessary for the public services until the expiry of a period of three months from the date on which the new Parliament is summoned to meet.’

මෙහි වැදගත් සීමාවන් තිබේ.

එකක් නම්, ‘විසර්ජන පනත් කෙටුම්පත (හෙවත් අයවැය පනත් කෙටුම්පත), නීතියක් බවට පත් වීමට පෙර විසුරුවා හැරියහොත්’ යන්නය. එහි තේරුම විසර්ජන ‘පනත් කෙටුම්පත’ පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට ඉදිරිපත් කර ඇති නමුත්, ‘නීතිය බවට පත්වීමට’ පෙර හෙවත් ‘පනතක් වීමට’ පෙර යන්නයි. පනත් කෙටුම්පතක් (Bill), පනතක් (Act) වන්නේ පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ විවාද කර මන්ත‍්‍රීවරුන්ගේ සාමාන්‍ය බහුතර ඡන්දයෙන් සම්මත කර, කතානායක අත්සන් කළ පසුවය. කෙටුම්පතක් පනතක් වීමට (මෙතැනදී අයවැය කෙටුම්පත), පළමුවැනි වර කියවීම, දෙවැනි වර කියවීම, කාරක සභා අවස්ථාව හා මන්ත‍්‍රීවරුන්ගේ ඡන්දයෙන් සම්මත වීම, කතානායක සටහන (අත්සන) යෙදීම යන පියවර පසුකළ යුතුය. අප හොඳින්ම දන්නා පරිදි ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්‍ෂ මහතා පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවන විට, පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ විසර්ජන පනත් කෙටුම්පතක් ඉදිරිපත් වී, සම්මත නොවී පවතින අවස්ථාවේ තිබුණේ නැත. එසේ වන විට, 150(3) යොදාගත නොහැකිය. (මේ කරුණ, මීට පෙර අනිද්දා වෙබ් අඩවියෙන් ලසන්ත රුහුණගේ පෙන්වා දී තිබේ. ‘ජනතාව ගොනාට අන්දවන්නේ පීබීද? ගෝඨාභයද?’)

හොඳයි, එසේ තිබියදීත් 150(3) යොදාගන්නවායැ’යි සිතමු.

එවිට අනෙක් සීමාවක් මතුවී එයි. එනම්, ‘රජයේ සේවාවන් සඳහා යම්කිසි මුදලක්’ අවශ්‍ය වෙතැයි ජනාධිපතිවරයා සලකයි නම්’ යන්නයි. මෙහි රජයේ සේවාවන් යනු එදිනෙදා රජයේ කටයුතු පවත්වාගෙන යන්නට අවශ්‍ය වන පුනරාවර්තන වියදම් වෙයි. එයින් අවධාරණය කරන්නේ, අයවැයක් සම්මත කර නැති තත්වයක් යටතේ, පාර්ලිමේන්තුවද විසුරුවා හැර ඇති තත්වයක් යටතේ, ජනාධිපතිවරයාට  ඕනෑ  ඕනෑ වියදම් කරන්නට නොහැකි බවයි. වගන්තියෙන් විධායකයට හෙවත් ජනාධිපතිවරයාට අවසර දී ඇත්තේ, ඊළඟ ආණ්ඩුවෙන් (පාර්ලිමේන්තුවෙන්) අයවැයක් එන තුරු, එදිනෙදා රජයේ සේවාවන් පවත්වාගෙන යන්නට අවශ්‍ය මූලික වියදම් කිරීමට පමණි. 

මේ වගන්තියෙන්, රාජ්‍ය මූල්‍යය සම්බන්ධයෙන් පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ බලය නැවතත් තහවුරු කොට තිබේ. එනම්, අතිරේක යම් වියදමක් කරන්නට ජනාධිපතිට අවශ්‍ය නම් එයට පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ අවසරය ලබාගත යුතු බවයි.

ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ වගන්ති පුළුල් අර්ථයෙන් ගතයුතු යැයිද මතයක් තිබේ. එසේ ගත් විට, එනම් මුලින් කී ‘පනත් කෙටුම්පත හා පනත’ පිළිබඳ කතාව අතහැර දමා, ‘අයවැයක් ඉදිරිපත් කර නැති අවස්ථාවකදී’ ලෙස එය තේරුම් ගත්තත්, ජනාධිපතිට රජයේ සේවාවන්ට වඩා දෙයකට මුදල් වියදම් කළ නොහැකිය.

මේ මොහොතට එය අදාළ කරගත හොත්, අපේ‍්‍රල් 30න් පසු ජනාධිපතිට ඇත්තේ එදිනෙදා රජයේ වියදම් සඳහා ඒකාබද්ධ අරමුදලෙන් වියදම් කිරීමේ බලය පමණි. වසංගතයක් මැඞීමට හෝ  ඕනෑම අතිරේක වියදමක් සඳහා නම් ඔහු පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ අවසරය ගත යුතුය.

වගන්තියේ තවත් සීමාවක් තිබේ. එනම්, ‘අභිනව පාර්ලිමේන්තුව රැස්වීමට නියමිත දින සිට මාස තුනක් ඉකුත් වන තෙක්’ යන්නයි. මේ අනුව, ජනාධිපතිවරයාට මුදල් වියදම් කළ හැක්කේ, අලූත් පාර්ලිමේන්තුව රැස්වීමට ‘නියමිත දින සිට ඉදිරියට මාස තුනක් සඳහා’ පමණි.

අප හොඳින්ම දන්නා පරිදි, ජුනි 20ට මැතිවරණයට නියම කර ඇති අතර, පාර්ලිමේන්තුව රැස්වීමට ජනාධිපති දිනයක් නියම කර නැත. මාර්තු 2 ගැසට් පත‍්‍රය පරිදි ජනාධිපතිවරයා නියම කළ මැයි 14 පාර්ලිමේන්තුව පළමුව රැස්වේ නම්, එතැන් සිට මාස තුනකට, එනම් අගෝස්තු 13 දක්වා ඒකාබද්ධ අරමුදලෙන් මුදල් වියදම් කිරීමට ජනාධිපතිට හැකිය. එහෙත්, ජනාධිපතිවරයා නියම කළ දිනය දැන් වලංගු නොවේ. පාර්ලිමේන්තු රැස්වීමට අලූත් දිනයක් නියම කර ද නැත. එවැනි තත්ත්වයක් යටතේ, ‘දින නියමයක් නැති කාල වකවානුවක් සඳහා’ සිත් සේ මුදල් වියදම් කිරීමට අභිමතයක් නම් ජනාධිපතිට කිසිසේත් ලැබෙන්නේ නැත. මැතිවරණය ජුනි 20න් පස්සට ගියොත් තවත් තත්වය බැරෑරුම් වේ.
දැන් ජනාධිපතිවරයා වැඩ කරන්නේ. ‘ජනාධිපතිගේ අභිමතය පරිදි  ඕනෑම දෙයක් කළ හැ18’යි ඔහුට උපදෙස් දෙන උපදේශක වහලූන්ගේ සර්වබලධාරී න්‍යායානුකූල මගපෙන්වීම් මත බව පෙනේ. එහෙත්, ජනාධිපතිට  ඕනෑම දෙයක් කළ නොහැකිය.
ජනාධිපති උපදේශකයන් කියන්නේ ජනාධිපතිගේ පියවරවල කිසිම වරදක් නැති බවයි. 2018 ඔක්තෝබරයේදීද මේ සමහරු මේ විදියටම ජනාධිපති මෛත‍්‍රීපාල සිරිසේනගේ ව්‍යවස්ථා උල්ලංඝනය සුද්ද කළෝය. එහෙත් ප‍්‍රතිඵල කනගාටුදායක විය.
රාජපක්‍ෂ ජනාධිපතිවරයාගේ පියවර ව්‍යවස්ථානුකූලව වැරදි බව අනෙක් මතයයි.
එය විසඳාගැනීමට එක්කෝ පාර්ලිමේන්තුව කැඳවිය යුතුය. නැතිනම්, ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයෙන් මතය විමසිය යුතුය. ඒ බලය ඇත්තේ ජනාධිපතිවරයාටය. පාර්ලිමේන්තුව කැඳවීමත් ප‍්‍රතික්‍ෂෙප කර, අහංකාරබවෙන් රට ලොකු අවුලකට ඇද නොදමා, ප්‍රශ්නය ගොඩින් බේරාගැනීමේ වගකීම දරන ඔහු එය නොසලකා කටයුතු කරයි නම් එවැනි රටකට කෝවිඞ් වසංගතයටත් වඩා වසංගතකාරී අනාගතයක් හිමිවෙයි. 

Author: කේ ඩබ්ලිව් ජනරන්ජන

 

Tools for Human Survival 

What are they?

We are at a critical juncture where dogmas overrule the human sanity.

When wisdom is necessary, the religion of various shades and shapes take precedence over prudence.

Human history is inundated with examples and Wars.

Bible war is an example and we are playing the same wars digitally now.

The technique of Recruitment is Brain Washing on the line of MK-Ultra, which was designed to train assassins.

Unfortunately we do not learn lessons from the past but continue to repeat them.

We are now more closer to a Nuclear War than 50 years ago.

India, Pakistan, China, Israel, USA (UK alliance), Russia and France has nuclear capability.

Iran is aspiring to be among them.

They say having a weapon is a deterrent.

What way?

A madman or mad women from any of those countries can press the button of nuclear war.

We only have one planet and we cannot escape in a rush. 

Leave alone penetrating the Van Allen Belt.

Currently we are unable to get established in another planet or on our moon.

We are beings who can sustain one atmospheric pressure.

We cannot survive in Himalaya range more than few weeks.

Under water in high pressure range unthinkable.

Tools of survival are only a few.

Think if we are invades by an alien beings and become slaves under them.

Then we will shed all religions, black or white supremacy and all the types of races and unite.

Ceylon is a good example.

Two warring races (human) and four or five religions and numerous political parties vying for power.

No unity in diversity.

Drop the race.

Drop the religion.

Drop the language.

Drop the power of money.

Speak as one Human Species. 

We are long way off this target.

Then only we can speak of saving our planet.

Tools of Wisdom

I found a book named “Words of Wisdom” and bought it without glancing through its pages.

Human error and no wisdom at all, on my part, at the time of the purchase.

I read it on my way home and could NOT find a single phrase, that exited creative part of my brain.

It was trapped in a single dogma that suggested that only the divinity has the wisdom and man is devoid of any (? sanity).

It was an appalling misjudgment of mind and its working.

I thought of writing something.

This is what I could come up with.

Mind never minds its own business but always mine its inner mysteries without proper tools of distinction.

If one can find the proper tools, not only one would open the mind to wisdom door but also free the mind from rigid dogmas that hinder its progress through transition.

From dogma to wisdom!

Tools of Religion

Tools of Religion are based on few exclusive dogmatic interpretations, as far as the so called God is concerned.

The concept of God is the foolish creation of mankind and there was never an old god or an existing god.

I have a theory (plausible) that if ever Alien Beings visited this planet (God means coming from the sky) they were venerated as goods, by Aztecs, Mayans or in this part of the world Hindu Gods.

Our concept of Yakku, Deva and Naga in prehistory was either the variation of the above Hindu Gods or more likely the prehistoric man (exterminated by the visitors from India) who were sent into oblivion by the visitors.

Religion was created to allay fear for the unknown, leave alone the fear of death.

 

It is strange that religion itself creates fear among its followers.

A strange PARADOX of all.

Coming to the tools of religion please note the following expressions.

1. Fear for the unknown and the need for a universal protector gave way to the origin of faith and an almighty!

2.Intolerance (of other gods or religions even by killing)

3. Exclusiveness (either forced conscription like terrorists or cruel punishment to the outsiders)

4. Cruelty (sword at the beginning, now bombs including Nuclear)

5. Punishment (Stoning to begin with and later by laws of extremes)

6. Blind Allegiance (one cannot apply the 13 or so qualifications of Kalama Sutta)

7. Dogmatism (scripts are always sacred be that it is Bible or Quran)

8. Faulty analysis of what is not real or existing (God is the very good example)

9. No religion provides a life line for the subjects presently living or born in the future.

 

The Coronavirus brings the stark reality of human predicament and vulnerability.

10. All the religions promise to provide solace Only in future tense or afterlife.

11. I do not need a religion that does not provide enlightenment, emancipation or real freedom NOW in this life.

12. All religions are really cruel on mankind’s present predicament (escape from all dogmas of self made -man-made- creations) of any resolve, redemption or real escape from the bondage to dogmas.

Postscript; 

 The percentages cited below may vary according to the faith.

About 60% is indifferent to any form of religion.

Another 20% is ambivalent.

Currently about 20%, the rest is rigid adherent to the respective faith and this percentage is steadily falling.

They are the ones who want the rest of the 80% to be converted by force or any means.

When this is about 10% or below 10% the crisis sets in and the active terrorist breeds come into operation.

This is the period when there is lot of pain and suffering for the average man on the street.

We are fast approaching this point and it takes about another 50 to 60 years for the religions to become extinct (my prediction) from this planet and a long period of stability for the human race.

I am gone by then!

Training my Virtual Medical Assistants (V.M.A) Secretaries

Training my Virtual Medical Assistants (V.M.A) Secretaries

Training my Virtual Medical Assistants (V.M.A) Secretaries

Posted on December 4, 2011  

I love the idea of using a Virtual Medical Assistant (V.M.A for short).

Thank god I am in my twilight years and listening to birds singing is one of my natural pastimes and trying to figure out which bird is calling and which bird is answering is not an easy task.

But the idea of voice activated cellphone is a welcome addition to an armory of medically offensive gadgets that are springing by numbers.

Dictaphone was in my armory when I was working abroad. 

I could do a very good dictation without punctuation marks and my secretaries never bothered to phone back and ask me for any clarifications. That was a very positive effort on my part and my superiors very much like my approach except a few, since I did not try to show off any accent but pure and simple Queen’s English, I dictated.

Mind you I was talking to a voice machine and not a person.

The idiot, the Dictaphone does not have any emotions and only records my voice.

I tell them that putting fullstops, commas, semicolons and apostrophes are her job and not mine.

When things were very difficult unlike S.M.S. I wrote down the specific stuff clearly to save their time.

I hope and pray that smart-phone becoming intelligent and telling me back you are creepy and some sort of a sob.

Advantages.

1. After some time smart-phone will instantly know what you are trying to do.

 

2. Unlike human secretaries who make the same mistakes over, over again smart-phone would never repeat mistakes.

 

3. One can take home the Virtual Secretary unlike the human with bizarre consequence at home boundary.

 

4. One can switch off the VMA with just a push of a button unlike a jabbering soul with money / home problems.

 

5. At worse I can thrash it on the floor.

 

I have to think of the 6 to 10 as and when my lateral thinking makes me to do so.

 

For me it is a smart innovation.

 

6. If I see a guy/girl I hate (on my war path) to meet or talk or exchange any greetings I can pretend I am very busy talking to it (of cause switched off and with so many adversaries including politicians. I do not want to run dry the battery life) and escape harmlessly. 

I see this happening every day of my life since I do not still carry a smart phone.

 

Footnote 1

It is now known that disappearance of bees and their migration pattern is affected by cellphones and microwave activity.

Like the climate-gate scientists who are still hiding behind huge amount of distorted facts by agents and their companies.

 

Footnote 2

We have a few answers. Last May, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC, a branch of the World Health Organization), in Lyon, France, issued a statement that the electromagnetic frequencies from cell phones would henceforth be classified as “possibly carcinogenic to humans.” The determination was based in part on data from a 13-country study, called Interphone, which reported in 2008 that after a decade of cell phone use, the risk of getting a brain tumor — specifically on the side of the head where the phone is placed — goes up as much as 40 percent for adults. Israeli researchers, using study methods similar to the Interphone investigation, have found that heavy cell phone users were more likely to suffer malignant tumors of the salivary gland in the cheek, while an independent study by scientists in Sweden concluded that people who started using a cell phone before the age of 20 were five times as likely to develop a brain tumor. According to a study published in the International Journal of Cancer Prevention, people living for more than a decade within 350 meters of a cell phone tower experience a four-fold increase in cancer rates.

Plant Watching And Pineapple

Plant Watching

Posted on January 11, 2011

I have decided that I will not write anything on Politics and Cricket (Ceylonese Cricket) and mind you even cricket is politics in Ceylon. If those topics are excluded how I am going to write over 300 odd pieces of writing one piece a day or one piece a week as requested by the wordpress.  

But real reason is for me to get an extension of the post of equation developer for Apaya (Hell) as per Apaya Web Master (AWM) General’s demand. 

Mind you Apaya does not have trees like on this planet earth.   

It is now highly developed into a computer farm like Google’s and no different from Dubai and is very hot indeed. There are lot of ex-Google employers working there full time now. 

Those who passed away before the Google Chrome, Androids and Cloud Computing came into existence.

I thought of reminding them how beautiful is the earth without humans especially ex-Microsoft workers and I found a good alibi.That is the plants, the species vanishing by the day. 

Before I could talk about rare plants I should talk about few unknown facts about known plants.

The plant or the fruit toady is pineapples or the annasee. 

The leaves of the pineapple can be used to weave a fine thread that is used in a fine fabric better than silk.

What I did not know is when the fruit is removed what happens to the plant afterward. 

I asked a few biology students but they were not helpful. They gave various answers and interpretations to the extent that I became more confused. Look at few books no mention of what happens to the old stem. What usually happens in commercial practice is one takes the top comb and plant it and remove the old plant stem. 

Nobody bothered to think about it except me. So what I did was to water it daily (in a pot ) so that it won’t dry up. After about two months I saw a side shot coming up. It was very slow to grow having consumed all the rich soil underneath. I was expecting it to come lower down near the roots but it did come higher up and that was my observation. 

Now after about 6 months I am waiting to see whether it will flower and bear a fruit. This one took over one year to bear fruit. 

So the experiment continues. 

Interestingly the stem after plucking off the ripe fruit is shriveled up now and the leaves below it integrated into a nice whorl around the new shot. Nothing was wasted in its reorganization.

Mind you pineapple has a beautiful flower and that is the flower seen in one of my web pages.

Ten or more things I did not know about the Pineapple Plant.

Posted on October 31, 2011

Story of My Pineapple Plant
After about two years the stem of the original plant is flowering now.
It almost died due to competition of a robust weed.
I took the weed with diffuse roots away and the stem of the pineapple plant was rotten due to competition for nutrition.
I thought it might die and just placed it between other plants and put plenty of water.


Below is things I did not know but discovered during the last two years.

1. Even though I knew that the crown of the fruit can be used to grow it, I did not know what happens to the mother plant when the fruit is separated.

2. I did not know it leaves can be used to make a fine silk like thread (it is in fact finer than the silk thread) and prepare fabrics.


3. It grows very slow and one can have only one fruit for year.

4. It has a very beautiful flower.

5. Its roots do not go deep.


6. I did not know from which part of the tropics it originated. Now I know it is from south America.

7. Mother plant produce shoots called suckers once the fruit is removed. They can be used to grow new plants.

8. I do not know how many shoots / suckers it make certainly more than one.

9. I did not know other plants with diffuse root system compete with its growth and lot of chemical are used in commercial growing.

10. I did not know it is rich in manganese.

11. Given the opportunity it can live up to 100 years!

Pclinuxos64-KDE5-Magnum-2020.05

Pclinuxos64-KDE5-Magnum-2020.05 
This is like the old time PCLinux FullMonty

KDE Desktop Mega version (Magnum) available.

PCLinuxOS64 KDE5.

The PCLinuxOS KDE ISO May 2020 Editions have been updated and are now on the mirrors.

Mega Version (Magnum) is available.

This ISO image is fully updated and is being provided with new installation support. 

It will not require a large update to get updated to current levels.

Features:
This Magnum version ISO comes with the standard compliment of KDE applications plus LibreOffice and much more.
Some additional applications include:

– Timeshift – backup and restore utility.
– Darktable – photo manipulation software.
– Krita – image editing software.
– Megasync – store your files in the cloud.
– Anydesk – control another computer from yours.
– Kodi – a multimedia center.
– Kazam – a screen capture utility.
– Calibre – the one stop solution for all your e-book needs.
– Skrooge – banking software.
– Spotify – music client.

Plus much much more like Firefox, Thunderbird, Strawberry music player and VLC video player.

My live CD received a major updates. Creating a new iso image is faster due to a new compression scheme. The iso image will boot faster due to changes in the hardware detection code, run faster from the Live media and install in a flash.

KDE64 features:
=====================
* basic uefi/gpt/nvme installation support.
* systemd free.
* grub2 by default.

KDE Hardware requirements:
Processor
64bit Modern Intel or AMD processor.

Memory & storage
RAM : 2 GB, or more (recommended 4 GB+).

Hard disk : 20-40 GB or more (for this mega version) recommended if you plan to install additional software from our repository.

Video card
nVidia, ATI HD 4000 or better, Intel.
3D desktop support requires a 3D instructions set compatible card.

Sound card
Any Sound Blaster, AC97 or HDA compatible card.

Other
CD/DVD drive required for burned liveCD/DVD image, or USB flash drive larger than 4 GB for liveUSB image conversion.

Copy to USB stick:
dd bs=4M if=pclinuxos64-kde5-2020.03.iso of=/dev/sdX status=progress && sync or use ddcopy.

Special device – pendrive – /dev/sdX – without any number.

Disclaimer 

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY BILL REYNOLDS AND CONTRIBUTORS “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. 

Rice and Arsenic

Rice and Arsenic

I have reproduced below an article from Scientific American in entirety, because of its Public Health Implication to US (Ceylon, India and China).
  
Copyright 2014 The Center for Public Integrity

It is happening right under our nose, in Ceylon and our politicians also like to hide the true scientific facts.
 
Unfortunately it takes years for the clinical effects to manifest.
 
Farmers are the first to be affected and then later the consumers, (rice included).

This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C. 
It is part of a collaboration among the Center for Public Integrity, Center for Investigative Reporting and Michigan Radio. 
It was featured on Reveal, a new program from the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX.

MOUNT VERNON, Maine—Living in the lush, wooded countryside with fresh New England air, Wendy Brennan never imagined her family might be consuming poison every day. But when she signed up for a research study offering a free T-shirt and a water-quality test, she was stunned to discover that her private well contained arsenic.
“My eldest daughter said...‘You’re feeding us rat poison.’ I said, ‘Not really,’ but I guess essentially...that is what you’re doing. You’re poisoning your kids,” Brennan lamented in her thick Maine accent. “I felt bad for not knowing it.”
Brennan is not alone. Urine samples collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from volunteers reveal that most Americans regularly consume small amounts of arsenic. 
It’s not just in water; it’s also in some of the foods we eat and beverages we drink, such as rice, fruit juice, beer and wine.
Under orders from a Republican-controlled Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency in 2001 established a new drinking-water standard to try to limit people’s exposure to arsenic. But a growing body of research since then has raised questions about whether the standard is adequate.
The EPA has been prepared to say since 2008, based on its review of independent science, that arsenic is 17 times more potent as a carcinogen than the agency now reports. Women are especially vulnerable. Agency scientists calculated that if 100,000 women consumed the legal limit of arsenic every day, 730 of them would eventually get bladder or lung cancer from it.
After years of research and delays, the EPA was on the verge of making its findings official by 2012. Once the science was complete, the agency could review the drinking water standard. But an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity found that one member of Congress effectively blocked the release of the EPA findings and any new regulations for years.
It is a battle between politics and science. Mining companies and rice producers, which could be hurt by the EPA’s findings, lobbied against them. But some of the most aggressive lobbying came from two pesticide companies that sell a weed killer containing arsenic.
The EPA had reached an agreement with those companies to ban most uses of their herbicide by the end of last year. But the agreement was conditioned on the EPA’s completing its scientific review. The delay by Congress caused the EPA to suspend its ban. The weed killer, called MSMA, remains on the market.
Turning to a powerful lawmaker for help is one tactic in an arsenal used by industry to virtually paralyze EPA scientists who evaluate toxic chemicals. In 2009, President Obama signed an executive memorandum to try to stop political interference with science. That same year, the EPA unveiled an ambitious plan to evaluate far more chemicals each year than had been done in either the Bush or Clinton administrations.
But in 2012 and 2013, the EPA has managed to complete only six scientific evaluations of toxic chemicals, creating a backlog of 47 ongoing assessments. It’s a track record no better than past administrations. The Center found that a key reason for this is the intervention by a single member of Congress.
The story of arsenic shows how easily industry thwarted the Obama’s administration’s effort to prevent interference with science.

A ubiquitous poison
Arsenic is virtually synonymous with poison. But it’s also everywhere, found naturally in the Earth’s crust. Even if the toxin were eliminated from drinking water, people would still consume it in food, a more vexing problem to address.
Scientists are debating whether there is such a thing as a safe level of arsenic. New research has raised questions whether even low levels of arsenic can be harmful, especially to children and fetuses.
The findings of the study Wendy Brennan enrolled in were published in April. Researchers from Columbia University gave IQ tests to about 270 grade-school children in Maine. They also checked to see if there was arsenic in their tap water at home. Maine is known as a hot spot for arsenic in groundwater.
The researchers found that children who drank water with arsenic—even at levels below the current EPA drinking water standard—had an average IQ deficit of six points compared to children who drank water with virtually no arsenic.
The findings are eerily similar to studies of lead, a toxin considered so dangerous to children that it was removed from paint and gasoline decades ago. Other studies have linked arsenic to a wide variety of other ailments, including cancer, heart disease, strokes and diabetes.
“I jokingly say that arsenic makes lead look like a vitamin,” said Joseph Graziano, a Columbia professor who headed the Maine research. “Because the lead effects are limited to just a couple of organ systems—brain, blood, kidney. The arsenic effects just sweep across the body and impact everything that’s going on, every organ system.”
For 15 years, Brennan and her family drank water with arsenic levels five times greater than the current drinking-water standard. She has no way of knowing what effect this has had on her two daughters.
Carrington Brennan, now 14, says it bothers her to think that drinking water may have affected her intelligence. “It shocked and scared me, I guess,” she said. “I think it should be prevented in future cases.”
Chemical reviews lag
It’s the job of the EPA to protect the public from toxic chemicals. To do that, the agency must first review the scientific literature to determine which chemicals are harmful and at what doses. This duty falls on an obscure program with a drab bureaucratic name, the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS).
There are tens of thousands of chemicals on the market and by one estimate, 700 new chemicals are introduced every year. Yet since 1987, IRIS has completed evaluations on only 557 of them.
The last time IRIS analyzed arsenic was in 1988, just a year before the Safe Drinking Water Act called for the EPA to set a new drinking-water standard for the toxin. The EPA missed that deadline, so in 1996, a Republican-controlled Congress gave the agency five more years to comply. The EPA turned to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences for help. Scientists there reviewed the EPA’s 1988 analysis. They said it was badly out of date and underestimated the risk of arsenic.
After the EPA set a new drinking-water standard in 2001, the IRIS program moved to update its analysis of arsenic. EPA scientists spent five years reviewing hundred of studies before sending a draft report to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget in October 2008.
EPA scientists concluded that arsenic was 17 times more potent as a carcinogen than the agency currently reports. Put another way, the risk of someone eventually getting cancer from drinking the legal limit of arsenic every day is 60 times greater than any other toxin regulated by drinking-water laws.
The White House at that point had become a nemesis of EPA scientists, requiring them to clear their science through OMB starting in 2004. Scientific assessments were often sent to OMB only to die, seemingly the victim of political influence. A stinging report by the Government Accountability Office in 2008 said that IRIS was at serious risk of becoming obsolete, unable to keep up with the workload or the science. The GAO noted that in 2007 the EPA sent 16 assessments to OMB, where they got held up. That year, the agency managed to complete only two assessments.
Within five months of Obama taking office, the EPA wrested back control of the process. The agency also set up an ambitious timetable to complete toxic-chemical assessments within two years. By that point, the arsenic assessment had already been in the works for six. The arsenic draft had to go through an external peer-review before being considered valid. But IRIS officials were optimistic about completing it by the end of 2011.
Meanwhile, in an entirely different office within the EPA, negotiations were under way that would ultimately prevent IRIS from finishing its work.

Groundwater fears
Veterans Community Park is one of the busiest parks in Naples, Fla., with softball fields, basketball and tennis courts and a playground. In early 2004, Collier County began spraying the herbicide MSMA on the fields to control weeds. But soon, tests detected high levels of arsenic in the groundwater.
It wasn’t the first time alarms had sounded about MSMA. Tests at nine golf courses using the weed killer had detected significant levels of arsenic in shallow groundwater and ponds, a concern because 90 percent of all drinking water in Florida comes from wells. The EPA had already banned all pesticides containing inorganic arsenic, considered to be the most toxic form of the metal. But evidence showed that the organic arsenic in MSMA converts to inorganic in soil. EPA scientists feared that MSMA could be contaminating drinking water.
In 2006, the EPA’s Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances announced plans to ban all uses of herbicides containing arsenic and began negotiating with the few companies still selling them. Within three years, they had reached an agreement. The pesticide companies would phase out all uses of MSMA, except on cotton fields, by the end of 2013.
But the agreement included a condition. It required the EPA to complete a scientific review of arsenic before the ban could take effect. The pesticide office apparently assumed that the IRIS assessment, then six years in the making, would be done by then.
In all likelihood, IRIS would have met the deadline. But two pesticide companies and their lobbyist turned to Congress.
The two companies are Drexel Chemical Co. of Memphis, Tenn., and Luxembourg-Pamol, whose parent, Luxembourg Industries, is based in Tel Aviv, Israel. Both are family-owned. Luxembourg-Pamol doesn’t release sales figures; Drexel Chemical says its sales exceed $100 million a year.
Though anyone can buy MSMA, the label cautions that it should be sprayed only on cotton fields, sod farms, highway shoulders and golf courses. The market for MSMA is likely worth several million dollars for these companies. The EPA estimated in 2006 that about 3 million pounds of MSMA and another similar compound were sold each year in the United States. The weed killer retails for about $5 a pound.
The companies joined forces to hire Charlie Grizzle, a lobbyist who worked as an EPA assistant administrator during the President George H. W. Bush era. When the EPA released a public draft of its arsenic assessment in February 2010, the pesticide companies countered with a unique argument.
Michal Eldan, a vice president at Luxembourg-Pamol, said her company had the scientific literature scoured and found 300 studies published since 2007 that the EPA had not included in the draft.
“If the report is not up to date, a risk assessment cannot be based on that,” Eldan said in an interview. “We mentioned that because this is the one inarguable detail. You can argue about toxicity. You can argue about risk assessment. You can’t argue about 300 publications that are missing from the list of references.”
Grizzle added, “I think it’s safe to say that the missing 300 studies, if you will
In August 2010, 15 Republicans in the House and Senate made that very argument in a letter to then-EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson: “We are informed that there are nearly 300 studies in the scientific literature on arsenic published since 2007 that were not included in the agency’s evaluation. We find that troubling and are concerned that this could allow critics to conclude that the agency is ‘cherry-picking’ data to support its conclusions."
After reading the letter, Michael Hansen, a senior scientist at Consumers Union who has followed the arsenic review closely, said, “This is a really dishonest couple of sentences ... That’s because the [EPA] document was written in early 2008, and the only reason the public is seeing it [in 2010] is because OMB sat on it.”
“It’s not cherry-picking the data. When the document was written, those studies hadn’t been published yet,” he said.
Yet the missing publications ultimately became the rationale for Congress to derail the EPA’s assessment. In July 2011, language appeared in a House Appropriations Committee report ordering the EPA to take no action on its arsenic assessment and turn the job over to the National Academy of Sciences. The report instructed the academy to include “the 300 studies in the published scientific literature EPA failed to review for its 2010 draft assessment.”
Committee reports explain how to implement a bill. Government agencies could ignore them, but they seldom do, for fear of angering congressional leaders who control funding. Burying language in a report — as opposed to the bill itself—was the same technique once used for earmarks. Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonprofit group that closely monitors the Appropriations Committee, said rank-and-file members of the House cannot strike or amend language in a report. In fact, he said, only a couple of lawmakers in leadership would likely know who put the language in the report.
Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Maine Democrat on the subcommittee that oversees EPA funding, said she has no way of knowing who is responsible for trying to kill the arsenic assessment. “It’s happening more and more in this Congress that we see less and less of what goes on behind the scenes, that members aren’t informed until the last minute,” she said. “So things like this, major policy changes like this, can happen somewhat in the dark of the night with very little information to the public.”
So, who did it? All the evidence from the Center’s investigation pointed to one congressman: Mike Simpson of Idaho.
Simpson was one of the Republicans who signed the letter to the EPA administrator complaining about the missing 300 studies. He was the chairman of the subcommittee that controlled funding for the EPA, where the language first appeared. He was also a member of another committee where the language surfaced again in a different report. He even asked the EPA administrator about arsenic at a subcommittee hearing.
Simpson, who worked as a dentist and state legislator before entering Congress, is a frequent critic of the EPA. But in the 2012 and 2014 election campaigns, he has been portrayed as too liberal by Tea Party candidates funded by the right-wing Club for Growth.
In a brief interview outside his Capitol Hill office, Simpson accepted credit for instructing the EPA to stop work on its arsenic assessment. “I’m worried about drinking water and small communities trying to meet standards that they can’t meet,” he said. “So we want the Academy of Science to look at how they come up with their science.”
Simpson said he didn’t know that his actions kept a weed killer containing arsenic on the market. He denied that the pesticide companies lobbied him for the delay. But lobbyist Grizzle offered a different account. “I was part of a group that met with the congressman and his staff a number of years ago on our concerns,” Grizzle said, adding that there were four or five other lobbyists in that meeting but he couldn’t remember who they were.
Other organizations that disclosed lobbying the EPA and Congress on the agency’s arsenic evaluation were the U.S. Rice Federation; the Mulch and Soil Council; the Association of California Water Agencies; and the National Mining Association, including the mining companies Arch Coal and Rio Tinto.
Grizzle began making donations to Simpson’s re-election campaign in January 2011, a few months before Simpson took action to delay the arsenic assessment. Since then, Grizzle has given a total of $7,500. That’s more than he’s given in that time to any other candidate. Asked if the contributions were made in exchange for the delay, Grizzle said, “I don’t see a connection. I’ve been a friend and supporter of Congressman Simpson for a long time.” When Simpson was asked if he was aware of the donations, he terminated the interview, saying, “I have no idea. But I’ve got a hearing.”
Industry playbook
The National Academy of Sciences was created during the Civil War to provide objective advice from the nation’s most highly regarded scientists. In 1999 and 2001, the academy twice reviewed the EPA’s analysis of arsenic and concluded it badly underestimated the risk. The EPA’s draft that has been delayed was built in part off the academy’s critique.
Taking scientific assessments out of the hands of the EPA and giving them to the academy has become a tactic to delay regulations, said Charles Fox, a former EPA assistant administrator who oversaw the development of a new drinking water standard for arsenic. “The standard playbook that industry uses first begins with questioning the science, and they can question the science in any one of a number of different forms,” he said. “There is a scientific advisory board at EPA. There’s the National Academy of Sciences.”
But endless delays to perfect the science can jeopardize public health, Fox said. “We always as regulators had to do our best to make decisions based on the best available science we had at the time. Science will always improve and you can always revisit that decision down the road, but fundamentally we have an obligation to protect public health in the environment, and that decision needs to be made on the best science that you have today.”
In a letter last October telling buyers that the EPA had lifted its ban for at least three years, the MSMA manufacturers said in a joint statement that they “fully expect the NAS review to result in a less stringent risk value for human exposure to inorganic arsenic.” If so, the companies said, they are confident the threat of a ban will be lifted permanently and the EPA may even allow other uses of MSMA.
The two manufacturers of the herbicide are still trying to influence the scientific assessment. The National Academy held a meeting in April 2013 to review the science on arsenic. It invited 14 scientists to give presentations. Two of those scientists are funded by Drexel and Luxembourg-Pamol, which lobbied Simpson to delay the EPA.
The academy doesn’t require presenters to disclose their financial ties; some choose to do so and some don’t. Neither of the scientists funded by the pesticide companies disclosed their ties at the meeting.
Dr. Samuel Cohen, a professor at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine, told the panel that inorganic arsenic doesn't cause cancer or any other diseases in people below a certain threshold dose, which he suggests is substantially higher than the current drinking water standard. Cohen has been funded by the MSMA manufacturers for more than a decade, according to disclosures in published articles.
Barbara Beck, who works for Gradient, a scientific consulting firm often hired by industry, also gave a presentation without disclosing her ties.
Eldan, with Luxembourg-Pamol, acknowledged that both scientists are paid by her company. Beck prepared a 32-page report on the EPA’s arsenic assessment. Eldan said that Beck and Cohen disclose their ties in published articles in scientific journals. In some cases, Eldan, a scientist herself, is listed as a co-author.
Cohen said in an email that he disclosed his funding in published articles that he provided to the academy. Records show that Cohen sent the academy three articles that listed funding only from the “Arsenic Science Task Force,” with no further explanation about the task force.
Beck said, “Although I have done work for the Organic Arsenical Products Task Force [composed of the two pesticide companies], my presence and presentation at the April 2013 meeting were funded wholly by Gradient …. At both meetings, I am solely responsible for my comments.”
Joseph Graziano, who chairs the National Academy of Sciences panel on arsenic, said he hadn’t realized that Beck and Cohen were being funded by the pesticide companies when they spoke at the workshop. “I was not aware of that,” he said, “and I don’t think the committee was aware of it.”

Congress rescues the formaldehyde industry
This is not the first time Congress has pressured the EPA to hand over science on toxic chemicals to the National Academy. In 2009, Sen. David Vitter, a Republican from Louisiana, held up the nomination of a top EPA official as leverage to force the agency to have the academy review the risks of formaldehyde.
The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer and the National Institute of Health’s National Toxicology Program both say that formaldehyde can cause cancer. The EPA was preparing to say the same.
Yet the agency ultimately relented to Vitter’s demand. After months of review, the academy criticized the IRIS draft on formaldehyde for being repetitive, poorly organized and failing to clearly present all the evidence of its findings. The panel recommended the EPA redo the draft to be more clear and concise. Recognizing that the EPA was having a problem in completing assessments, the academy said it wasn’t calling for a delay.
Soon, however, the formaldehyde industry was turning to Congress to help it delay the assessment. Right next to Simpson’s language in the committee report about delaying the arsenic assessment was another set of instructions to the EPA. This time, IRIS was told to apply the academy’s recommendations on formaldehyde to all ongoing and future assessments. When asked if he requested the language, Grizzle acknowledged only that he was one of the lobbyists for the Formaldehyde Council, an arm of the industry.
The EPA said in a report to Congress it won’t start all its assessments over from scratch, but it will try to incorporate the academy’s recommendations. As a result, the 47 pending reviews have been further delayed.
IRIS Director Vincent Cogliano said the changes will lead to more rigorous assessments that should have an easier time getting through peer review. When asked how IRIS responds to political pressure, he said he had little control over that. “We’re doing our best to keep our assessments focused on the science,” he said. “What happens after that is not part of the IRIS process.”

‘It’s not their right’
Eldan said people shouldn’t be worried about her company’s weed killer. “To be honest, we believe that this is a good product, that it does not pose a concern to health and the environment,” she said. Clearing weeds from the sides of highways can be a safety issue, she said, because tall plants can block vision. Even on golf courses, there are safety concerns, she said. “The weeds have a tendency to spread. If you don’t use herbicides, it’s not only one weed. They can cover the golf course,” Eldan said. “The players can stumble on them.”
Meanwhile, in Maine, Wendy Brennan worries about all the years her family was drinking arsenic-tainted water. “I know a lot of people around the area that have had cancer, and so you always think, ‘Jesus, that's going to be my kids. It’s going to be me or my husband,’ ” Brennan said.
Her congresswoman, Pingree, also worries about her constituents. “When you have a toxic chemical in the environment that could be affecting child development or people who could eventually be contracting cancer from their exposure to this, we shouldn’t be delaying,” Pingree said.
She fears that after the National Academy of Sciences completes its review, the pesticide companies will find another delaying tactic. “That’s the sad part; there’s nothing to stop Congress from finding another roadblock to delay,” Pingree said. “Congress can say, ‘Well, here’s another 200 studies, you better review them.’ ”
Brennan doesn’t understand why there’s a need to wait. “If they’ve already got some proof that it’s 17 times more potent, you’d think they’d want to get the information they had out and then continue to explore scientifically more,” she said. “We need to know what’s going on with our drinking water. If somebody wants to not let us know because they want to keep some pesticides making money for five more years…it's not their right. It’s not their body. It’s not their decision.”
 Copyright 2014 The Center for Public Integrity