Archive for the 'Collapse' Category
China’s Food Safety Woes Now a Global Concern
April 16th, 2007Via: MSNBC: The list of Chinese food exports rejected at American ports reads like a chef’s nightmare: pesticide-laden pea pods, drug-laced catfish, filthy plums and crawfish contaminated with salmonella. Yet, it took a much more obscure item, contaminated wheat gluten, to focus U.S. public attention on a very real and frightening fact: China’s chronic food […]
‘Water Police’ Crack Down in an Ever-Drier Australia
April 12th, 2007Via: Christian Science Monitor: At first glance it looks like a police car – a white vehicle with a black-and-yellow checkerboard stripe running along its flanks. But as the patrol vehicle turns a corner in the leafy district of Paddington, in central Sydney, its true purpose becomes clear from the bold black lettering across its […]
Advice on Being an Expat in Belize
April 10th, 2007There’s some great general information about Belize here, but I found the parts about how he’s helping to improve the situation in the village to be most interesting. Via: Joe Bagent: Well, Tom, I hate like hell to give advice about settling in Belize. After all, though I’ve been there several times and now have […]
Failed States in General, and Then a Look at Zimbabwe
April 8th, 2007For most people, preparing for collapse is impossible because they have absolutely no idea what collapse would be like, and no framework within which events may be assessed. Dmitry Orlov writes, “Collapse will not be televised, you will not know that it has happened. You will only know that it has happened to you.” Learning […]
Sanitizing Gels and Latex Gloves: Plying the Librarian’s Trade
April 3rd, 2007If this one doesn’t belong in the Collapse category, I don’t know what does. I selected a passage to quote that will not turn your stomach, but be warned, if you click through, that this is an extremely grim account. Via: Tom Dispatch: Although the public may not have caught on, ask any urban library […]
As Bee Colonies Disappear Across the Nation, Experts Are Wondering Why
April 2nd, 2007Via: Jacksonville Daily News: Louie Foy has been charming Mother Nature’s pollinators for more than 40 years. Foy, who keeps bees at his home in Verona, makes honey from his tiny pets and knows everything about them — when they breed, what makes them angry, when they die. But for the past three weeks, Foy […]
Uninsured Patient Billed More than $12,000 for Broken Rib
March 31st, 2007Via: San Francisco Chronicle: There are 47 million people in this country without health insurance. Richmond resident Joey Palmer is one of them. He learned how costly this can be after fracturing a rib in a relatively minor motorcycle accident and subsequently being hit with a bill for more than $12,000 from San Francisco General […]
Money: Going Tactical
March 30th, 2007WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy sell or hold any financial instrument. UPDATE 6 April 2007: Bank of America Delays BullionValut Deposits In the post below, I discussed how I wanted to immediately move some of our money into gold using the BullionVault system. I did, indeed, try to move some money to […]
Mortgage Crisis Hits Million-Dollar Homes
March 30th, 2007Pop. Via: Reuters: Sheriff Leo McGuire presides over foreclosure auctions in Bergen County, New Jersey, where the bidding for a home reached $1.2 million last June — a record for one of the wealthiest counties in the nation. Homes sold on the auction block for as much as $852,000 this month — more than quadruple […]
Income Gap Widening, Wealth Concentration at Pre Great Depression Levels
March 30th, 2007Via: New York Times: Income inequality grew significantly in 2005, with the top 1 percent of Americans — those with incomes that year of more than $348,000 — receiving their largest share of national income since 1928, analysis of newly released tax data shows. The top 10 percent, roughly those earning more than $100,000, also […]
