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the letter written by the embassy verifying your benefits if they are under SSD makes no reference whatsoever to the fact that it is a disability payment vs regular SSA. so there is no way for la migra to know anything about the review process.
the review process has no bearing on whether your SSD qualifies you for residency. but costaricafinca is right — better check to make sure you can get treatment and/or the meds you need here. not everything is avilable in the caja system and if you have to go outside the system to get certain meds, they can be quite expensive.
there are some scientists who protest the niggling of studies to favor the corporation. there was a guy at the chemical company that produced the BGH that they knew caused breast cancer who refused to drink any milk that wasn’t organic, and even took it a step further and bought his own cow. of course, there are ethical scientists who refuse to be bought, and i applaud those people for standing up to the money machines.
i don’t know anyone who HASN’T had problems with the on-demand gizmos. i have a 30 gallon hot water heater with the timer on top. it runs two hours in the a.m. and two in the p.m. and i have never had a problem. i think it was about the same cost as an on-demand, but i haven’t yet had to replace it or have it repaired.
i don’t think any of us painted all scientists with the same tar bush, but is there corruption in science? absolutely, and it’s not just in big pharma or big tobacco. it is probably less so in your area of expertise unlike other areas where billions upon billions in profits are at stake. The book I mentioned — The Ascendancy of the Scientific Dictationship — is a scholarly attempt to uncover the areas in which science is dictated by dollars. I didn’t write the book, so don’t shoot the messenger. There should be science for the sake of science; it should be pure and not influenced by an agenda, but alas, that is not always the case. you can say it isn’t so, but you can also say a cow is a pig, but that doesn’t change what it really is.
no no not the minsterio de salud — the municipality. not having a septic tank is a building violation. they pay more attention to those things than health issues.
no septic tank? how is that possible? where is all that, uh, um, “stuff” going? one of my tico neighbors had a young couple who built a tin shack on his property on the road going into our development. not only was it an eyesore, but we discovered that their toilet was simply a hole in the ground. someone went to the Muni and reported it, and they came out and gave them 30 days to tear down the shack. my husband told the young man to put lye in the hole and i think they also set it on fire (can’t remember all the ways they tried to mitigate that pollution). so if you have something like that going on, then i would go to the muni and file a complaint. tossing around the words “cholera” and “hepatitis” might get their attention.
There is no more science for the sake of science. Anyone who thinks that might want to read the Ascendency of The Scientific Dictatorship. Science is bought and sold to whoever can afford to get the results they want or need. Data are routinely withheld; clinical trials are skewed and manipulated to produce whatever result they want. And that is what has happened with GMOs, but it is backfiring like crazy. Instead of the Bt toxin crops doing what they were intended to do they have spawned superweeds and superbugs that can only be managed by obscene amounts of — guess what — ROUND-UP! Surely there has to be a special hell for the mad scientists at Monsanto who sold the public a complete and utter lie.
The French study DID check how Round-up and a diet of GMOs affected those rats. Did you see the tumors? Do we have an increase in cancer? Do we have a lot of very sick people who have gastro problems that were never seen before? Selective breeding and genetic engineering are two entirely different things. They are not even close and it is a complete and utter myth that GMO crops will feed the world. It’s actually quite the opposite, but some people cannot be convinced no matter what evidence is put to them. A friend of mine just wrote this article. Maybe it will elucidate certain areas that have been misunderstood.
http://cms.herbalgram.org/heg/volume9/10October/Prop37GMOeditorial.html?t=1349287977
any time i have had to wait in a line, i usually wind up knowing everybody by the time i get to the window. yesterday we waited an hour at ICE — it was like a social scene by the time we chatted up the people on either side of us. there is never a dull moment in any line in costa rica. good opp to get to know your neighbors and practice your spanish.
This article appeared in AM Costa Rica this morning. I hope we go the way of other countries who have absolutely banned the introduction of GM crops into our food system.
Cultivated corn was domesticated from teosinte more than 6,000 years ago. During the process, corn lost the ability to survive in the wild, but gained valuable agricultural traits. The suppression of branching from the stalk resulted in a lower number of ears per plant but allows each ear to grow larger. The hard case around the kernel disappeared over time.
Origin of corn
Nicolle Rager Fuller, National Science FoundationNew group seeks to protect native corn from modified species
By the A.M. Costa Rica staffCosta Rican individuals and organizations have joined to ask the government to declare maize a cultural heritage.
The effort is related to one by the Red por Una América Libre de Transgénicos to seek the same designation from the U.N Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
The efforts seek to prevent the importation of hybrid or genetically-modified corn that may crossbreed with species here.
The local organization, which calls itself Semillas, Sabores y Saberes, cites a controversial French study that found that rats fed genetically-modified corn and others who ingested water laced with Roundup suffered from a disproportionate number of tumors. Roundup is a weed killer made by Monsanto Co., a U.S.-based firm. The genetically modified corn, NK603, is unaffected by Roundup, so farmers can use the chemical to kill weeds in the corn fields.
The study is controversial because Gilles-Eric Seralini of the University of Caen, who conducted the study, is an outspoken opponent of genetically modified foods.
The local group is made up of individuals from The Universidad de Costa Rica, the Universidad Estatal a Distancia, the Instituto Nacional de Aprendizaje and the Asociación Cultural Sol de Vida in Santa Cruz, according to an announcement.
The local organization said they wanted not only the corn but all the rituals, recipes and traditions that stem from it recognized as cultural heritage. The group did not identify the type of maize they wish to be protected except as native maize.
The corn plant itself is a product of thousands of years of selective breeding. Scientists think the modern plant came from a grass called teosinte, which has a similar genetic structure as
corn, “A teosinte ear is only two to three inches long with five to 12 kernels. Compare that to corn’s 12-inch ear that boasts 500 or more kernels, said the University of California at Irving in a 2005 press release reporting the genetic discoveries. The valley of México is considered the origin of corn. The grain was and still is a major component of Central American food.The local organization also appears to oppose hybrid corn, too. Most U.S. corn comes from hybrid seed that does not breed true in the subsequent generations. Farmers have to buy seed each year, something they are prepared to do because of the higher yield of hybrids.
Genetically modified plants are different than those created by selective breeding. Monsanto said it has been producing plants that are tolerant to herbicides like Roundup since 1996. The first were soybeans and canola.
The company said that the only difference between genetically modified and other crops is a different protein introduced into the DNA. Says the company, using the term GM for genetically modified:
“When a new protein (not normally found in that plant or in other commonly consumed foods) is introduced into a plant, the safety of that protein does need to be addressed. It is standard practice to use animals to test any introduced proteins. Animal testing requires very high doses of the test substance to be given. These levels are, by design, many times higher than those which people would actually consume. In GM crops and foods derived from them, introduced proteins are usually present only in minute amounts. Because the levels of protein are so low, it is impossible to test high doses by feeding crops directly to animals. Instead, a purified version of the introduced protein is used in animal studies.”
The local organization notes that because corn is openly pollenated, a field of genetically modified corn can spread its DNA far and wide into other corn varieties.
all the experts agree that genetics is really a small part of nearly all illnesses — lifestyle is the most important factor. the obesity epidemic started with the introduction of certain chemicals and GMOs in mainstream food in the 80’s. bloomberg taxes cigarettes so now a pack costs something like $12 a pack, and whole milk is actually better for you than low fat milk. esp if you can get it raw. during the 8 years i’ve lived here, i’ve seen an increase in obesity and now all the news reports talk about how diabetes, heart disease, and obesity are the main health concerns not only among adults but children, too. it’s a global crisis. and i blame the food industry for most of it. all they care about is profits. they are not held accountable for the crap they make that people can’t stop eating because of the addictive chemicals they put into packaged food. what a sad and very fat and unhealthy world we have become. ugh enjoy the videos. you will be shocked at what you learn.
that’s funny, elinder. yep, lazy is what they are. i’ve met some people who live here now who can only croak out a phrase or two in spanish, but these are the same people who complain about immigrants moving to the US who don’t speak English. at least here they tolerate you. try going to france and living there without the language. the french HATE people who don’t speak French — they can be some of the rudest and nastiest people ever to an American who is garbling their beloved language. and don’t kid yourself about the Ticos — they are too polite and nonconfrontational to tell you they think you’re a wanker for not speaking spanish, but i hear it all the time when they ask me how come i can speak it and most of the other gringos can’t.
there is a lot of speculation that gmo’s which were not always in the food supply are in fact responsible for the obesity epidemic — at least in part. of course, it all boils down to personal choice and responsibility, but when cheap, fast, and unhealthy food is cheaper than an apple what do you think poor people are going to buy? on top of that, HFCS is made from gmo corn — we don’t even know what the long term effects of consuming these products are going to be but since their introduction, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease have risen exponentially. when i was growing up i never saw a fat person. there were no fat kids in my school, my mother had no fat friends, nor did my grandmother. now look around — it’s just amazing to me what has happened to society — more than 2/3 of the entire population of the US is either overweight or obese. they didn’t get that way eating healthy food. these two documentaries are all about the manmade epidemic and the worldwide consequences it is wreaking on healthcare systems.
http://documentarystorm.com/the-weight-of-the-world/
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/weight-nation-consequences/
There’s another really good doc called Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. I can’t find the link now, but you start to see how the additives and bastardized ingredients in our food-like products (basically anything in a box or can or package that has been processed and is something other than whole, real food) contain gmo’s with questionable value. and yes, Bloomberg was right to ban those drinks. if i were him i’d expel all those fast food restaurants, too. ugh
