Australia: Genetically Modified Grass for Dairy Cows Sparks Concern
June 24th, 2014The issue with GM crops polluting neighboring farms in Australia is particularly grim.
See: Steve Marsh:
The future of organic and non GM food in Australia is uncertain after a WA farmer today lost his legal battle with a neighbouring farmer.
Steve Marsh lost organic certification on his Kojonup farm – and most of his livelihood – when his farm was contaminated by GM canola. He sued his neighbour in the WA Supreme Court for his losses, and to protect his farm into the future.
Via: The Age:
A plan to feed Australian dairy cows genetically modified rye grass designed to boost milk production has sparked concerns from both organic and non-organic farmers.
Opponents of the scheme fear that GM grasses could contaminate neighbouring properties and that existing labelling requirements would not allow consumers to identify products made from cows fed on the modified rye.
Greg Paynter, of the Organic Federation of Australia, said the role of GM grasses in the food chain was “a sleeping giant”.
“We’ll have humans consuming milk from cows that have been consuming genetically modified material. We just don’t know what effects we might have to deal with in the future.
“They’re talking about scientific testing but the natural processes and ecosystems have been tested over 3 billion years.”
Ben Copeman, general manager of the National Association for Sustainable Agriculture Australia, said while organic producers had to follow strict labelling requirements, the same rules did not apply to products with GM crops in their food chain, potentially leaving consumers unaware. Mr Copeman also said many of Australia’s important grain customers, such as Japan, China and Korea, did not want GM in their food chains and had zero tolerance to GM contamination.
New Zealand: Peria School’s New Solar Power System
June 24th, 2014Update: The Story Was Finally Broadcast on Television Show Seven Sharp
This finally aired on a show called Seven Sharp on 27 June 2014. Fast forward to about the 15 minute mark.
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Here’s a little slice of life from rural Northland New Zealand, for anyone who’s interested.
Yesterday, I went along to Peria School with my family and my neighbors for the activation of a brand new 10KW solar power system. I recently wrote about how the power companies treat us, and it’s nothing personal—they put it to that little rural school just as badly as the rest of us up here.
Concerned school staff and parents settled on Solar King to help the school build a solar system that will drastically cut their electricity bills, saving them thousands of dollars per year. With the savings, the school wants to create a music program and work out a way to heat the pool. Other projects will follow.
Becky and I are homeschoolers, but we have ties to Peria School. We go to Playcentre there and take our boys to swimming lessons at the school’s pool. The boys have friends from Playcentre who went on to go to the school. The principal, Jason Tane, is an absolutely great guy who would do anything for his students and school. I forgot to mention in my other post that one of the reasons we went with Solar King was that they would take NZ$500 off the cost of Peria School’s system for each system they built in the community. Becky and I were happy and proud that our deal with Solar King would help the school get their system going for less.
Now, this event yesterday was one of the most positive things I’ve ever seen up here. There had to be a hundred adults present, which might not sound like a lot, but for such a small and remote school, it was a very big turnout. Also, Green Party Co-Leader Russel Norman was there to flick the switch on the system, so-to-speak. I met him as he was checking out the inverters and Jon King from Solar King mentioned how much Becky and I are paying for electricity. (Jon installed the inverter at our house so he knew the story.) Mr. Norman was genuinely taken aback by the cost of electricity here.
Anyway, the reason I’m posting this is because I’m surprised (but not that surprised) by how little coverage this story got in the media. Peria School is the first school in Northland to go solar and the only coverage that I’ve been able to find is this little piece on Radio New Zealand:
A small primary school in the Far North school has become the first in the region to switch to solar power.
Peria School, a decile 2 primary with 31 pupils, officially launched its new solar power system on Monday with a community lunch and a ribbon-cutting by the Green Party co-leader Russell Norman.
Principal Jason Tane said the school had been [paying?] power bills of $800 a month to Contact Energy.
Mr Tane said the school was looking for a cheaper rate and a more environmentally-friendly power company but could not get a significantly better deal from any of Contact’s competitors.
After researching alternatives, and getting Ministry of Education approval, the school signed up with a company called Solar King, he said.
Here’s the audio.
* First school in the region to go solar
* After being absolutely screwed by the power companies
* Fights back and wins!
That’s big news, right? I think so.
There was a professional photographer present from one of the Fairfax owned local papers and a television crew, although I didn’t notice which channel.
What happened to this story? No TV or newspaper coverage, even after the reporters were there?
*sigh*
Principal Jason Tane talks about Peria School’s new solar power system
Every new solar power system needs a haka
Green Party Co-Leader Russel Norman and students from Peria School cut the ribbon
Jon King from Solar King shows Green Party Co-Leader Russel Norman Peria School’s new inverters
New Handheld X-Ray Scanner
June 23rd, 2014Via: DefenseOne:
Superman had X-ray vision. Now, so does the United States military, in the form of an X-ray gun that can see through fabric, rubber and aluminum to find drugs, money, explosive liquids and even people. The recently released X-ray gun is the first device of its kind that a soldier or would-be superhero can hold in her hands. It’s about the size of a breadbox and works with the press of a button, allowing the user to actually see the outline of organic material buried behind cloth, leather or even aluminum by running the X-ray gun over the material and zapping it with low-level X-rays.
At a recent demonstration, the device could see through boxes, bags, car seats and airplane wings to reveal various organic compounds — everything from bricks of simulated cocaine to paper, ammonia and other potentially explosive materials. Even a handful of grapes. (Defense One supplied some of the material to ensure the accuracy of the test.)
Representatives from American Science and Engineering, or AS&E would run the X-ray scanner, called the MINI Z, over the item and the image would show up on a Windows powered tablet PC. Organic compounds appeared bright white and distinct from the dark inorganic material.
The same company makes the large, toll-booth like backscatter X-rays scanners you walk through at airports – the ones that have given rise to recent controversy because of the embarrassing amount of detail they reveal about a person’s body.
Syrian Jihadists Now Using American Made Humvees Seized in Iraq
June 23rd, 2014Via: AFP:
Jihadists fighting in Syria’s war put to use for the first time on Sunday American-made Humvees that they seized during a lightning offensive in Iraq this month, a monitor said.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, used the armoured vehicles to capture the villages of Eksar and Maalal in Aleppo province, which borders Turkey, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
It came after heavy fighting against the Islamic Front and its Al-Qaeda-affiliated ally, the Al-Nusra Front, said the Observatory, a Britain-based group that gets its information from a network of sources on the ground.
The two villages are located near the town of Azaz, which ISIL militiamen abandoned at the end of February under attack from rebels fighting to oust Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad.
ISIL, which espouses a radical interpretation of Islam and aims to set up a state stretching across the Syria-Iraq border, is now expected to launch a bid to retake Azaz.
ISIL seized the Humvees and sent them to Syria after Iraqi soldiers abandoned them during a surprise Sunni jihadist offensive that claimed Iraq’s second city of Mosul and swathes of other territory in mid-June.
Iraq Loses Control of Syrian, Jordanian Borders
June 23rd, 2014Via: Reuters:
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met Iraq’s prime minister in Baghdad on Monday to push for more inclusive leadership, as Nuri al-Maliki’s forces abandoned the border with Jordan, leaving the entire Western frontier beyond government control.
Sunni tribes took the Turaibil desert border crossing, the only legal crossing point between Iraq and Jordan, after Iraqi security forces fled, Iraqi and Jordanian security sources said.
Tribal leaders were negotiating to hand the post to Sunni Islamists from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) who took two main crossings with Syria in recent days and have pushed the Shi’ite-led government’s forces back toward Baghdad.
Ethnic Kurdish forces control a third border post with Syria in the north, leaving government troops with no presence along the entire 800-km (500-mile) western frontier which includes some of the most important trade routes in the Middle East.
For the insurgents, capturing the frontier is a dramatic step towards the goal of erasing the modern border altogether and building a caliphate across swathes of Syria and Iraq.
5KW Grid-Tie Solar Power System
June 23rd, 2014Update and Correction, 30 June 2014
The Q-Cells and SMA special mentioned in this post is now over. All of those systems have sold out. Also, Solar King operates in the North Island and the top of the South Island (Nelson).
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We pay NZ$47.7 cents (including GST) per kilowatt hour for electricity. That’s robbery. Year after year, it just keeps going higher. This isn’t to say that electricity is a bargain anywhere in NZ, it’s just unbelievably expensive in the Far North.
It’s a pretty good scam when companies can keep raising prices for electricity while demand remains flat.
As winter closed in this year, Becky and I decided that we weren’t going to take it anymore. After doing a lot of research, we called up SolarKing and had them install a 5KW grid-tie system for us. We went for twenty 250watt Trina Honey panels and the outstanding SMA Sunny Boy 5000 TL inverter.
Although we spent a large chunk of our savings on the system, we’re looking at recovering the cost in about five years, which is incredible. In other parts of NZ, system payoff times will be longer, but still much shorter than just a couple of years ago because panel prices have dropped sharply. If you have money sitting in a savings account, you probably realize that after tax and inflation, that situation isn’t looking so hot. Additionally, we were going to be spending the money on the electricity whether we got the solar system or not—might as well get the solar system.
I’ve wanted a solar energy system for about three decades (since I was a kid, in other words). Yes, I used to pester my parents to install solar panels. It just never made economic sense with system payback times measured in decades. So, move to the rural Far North of New Zealand and feel the boot of that electricity bill on your neck, and it’s amazing how solar power becomes a no brainer!
Here’s what our house looks like now (click for bigger images):
5KW Solar System
5KW Solar System
I was so impressed with what SolarKing did for us that I became a sales representative with them. I was planning on waiting until I collected more performance data from our system to announce all of this, but there has been a time sensitive development.
Yes, readers in NZ, I want to sell you a solar power system.
SolarKing is currently offering 3KW Q-Cells and SMA system packages for NZ$9,995, including GST and installation.
German panels.
German inverter.
NZ$2000 off the normal price.
SolarKing made ten of those available a couple of weeks ago, and they are down to four. That’s why I’m posting this now, so you guys in NZ could consider this deal in case you’ve been looking to get into solar. Want a bigger system? Let’s discuss it.
SolarKing handles everything. You don’t have to mess around with applications to the power companies to get the grid-tie consents. I just paid the administrative fee and the system application was approved. (The fees vary by region and aren’t included in the system price. Mine was NZ$200.)
If you are in New Zealand and have any questions about solar, send me an email. If you do a deal for a SolarKing system through me, I’ll make 6% on it. My manager said that he’ll pay me on any systems I sell around New Zealand. I’m supposed to come out to your house and measure your roof pitch and roof orientation, check for shading issues, take pictures of your breaker panel, your meters, your roof and get copies of your electricity bill etc. etc. If you’re cool with helping me get that info, SolarKing will pay me the commission on your system.
Ok, to sum up my pitch: German panels, German inverter, save thousands, support Cryptogon, lower your power bill. Win!
Finally, I’d just like to say thank you to those of you who have ever supported us over the years. That system wouldn’t be on our house if it wasn’t for you.
Prison Inmates Offer Captive Market for Gadget Makers
June 23rd, 2014Via: NBC:
Even in the cooler, Americans are hot for tech.
U.S. inmates are increasingly buying gizmos from prison commissaries, including MP3 players and flat-screen televisions — spending about $750 million annually on their gadget habits as several companies quietly seize this massive, captive audience and take niche marketing to an entirely different place.
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Appliances built for purchase at most prisons do, however, carry one (literally) clear distinction: They are encased in transparent plastic, allowing guards to routinely inspect them for drugs, weapons or other contraband.
“There are 2 million-plus inmates incarcerated in America at this time. We haven’t tapped every one of them. But we’ve seen more sales every year,” said Ed Michael, general manager of Swintec, a New Jersey company that has, since 2003, offered electronic typewriters to inmates.
Swintec has boosted its manufacturing numbers to as many as 5,000 machines per year and now does business with prisons in 46 states, including Sing Sing Correctional Facility in New York, U.S. Penitentiary Leavenworth in Kansas, and San Quentin Prison in California, Michael said. The company’s highest-end typewriters contain enough memory to store 50 pages of text, turning them into functioning word processors –- without the Internet access. Prices range from $192 to $748.
“We don’t foresee an end to this,” Michael said.
New Leaks Show Germany’s Collusion with NSA
June 22nd, 2014Via: Deutsche Welle:
This week German news magazine Der Spiegel published the largest single set of files leaked by whistleblower and former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. The roughly 50 documents show the depth of the German intelligence agencies’ collusion with the NSA.
They suggest that the German Intelligence Agency (BND), the country’s foreign spy agency, and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), the German domestic spy agency, worked more closely with the NSA than they have admitted – and more than many observers thought.
The documents as published by Der Spiegel offer glimpses, but not a comprehensive view of what is essentially a transatlantic spy alliance. An NSA document from January 2013 shows the spirit of cooperation that existed between the NSA and first the BND and then the BfV, as well as the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI). The documents also show that the BND has been “eager” for closer ties with the NSA on an analytical and operational level since 1962.
WikiLeaks Publishes Secret Draft Text for the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) Financial Services Annex
June 21st, 2014Via: WikiLeaks:
Today, WikiLeaks released the secret draft text for the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) Financial Services Annex, which covers 50 countries and 68.2%1 of world trade in services. The US and the EU are the main proponents of the agreement, and the authors of most joint changes, which also covers cross-border data flow. In a significant anti-transparency manoeuvre by the parties, the draft has been classified to keep it secret not just during the negotiations but for five years after the TISA enters into force.
Despite the failures in financial regulation evident during the 2007-2008 Global Financial Crisis and calls for improvement of relevant regulatory structures2, proponents of TISA aim to further deregulate global financial services markets. The draft Financial Services Annex sets rules which would assist the expansion of financial multi-nationals – mainly headquartered in New York, London, Paris and Frankfurt – into other nations by preventing regulatory barriers. The leaked draft also shows that the US is particularly keen on boosting cross-border data flow, which would allow uninhibited exchange of personal and financial data.
TISA negotiations are currently taking place outside of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) framework. However, the Agreement is being crafted to be compatible with GATS so that a critical mass of participants will be able to pressure remaining WTO members to sign on in the future. Conspicuously absent from the 50 countries covered by the negotiations are the BRICS countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China. The exclusive nature of TISA will weaken their position in future services negotiations.
Thousands of Illegal Immigrants Being Housed in FEMA Facilities and Military Bases; Hundreds of Unaccompanied Children Arriving in U.S. Daily
June 20th, 2014Is the U.S. on the way to becoming a failed state?
Losing control of borders is one of the primary characteristics of failed states.
See the Wikipedia page for failed states and compare the following criteria to what’s happening in the U.S. right now:
Mounting Demographic Pressures [Yes]
Massive Movement of Refugees or Internally Displaced Persons [Yes]
Vengeance Seeking Group Grievance
Chronic and Sustained Human Flight
Uneven Economic Development [Yes]
Poverty, Sharp or Severe Economic Decline [Yes]
Legitimacy of the State
Progressive Deterioration of Public Services [Yes]
Violation of Human Rights and Rule of Law [Yes]
Security Apparatus [Yes]
Rise of Factionalized Elites [Yes]
Intervention of External Actors
Of course, the U.S. isn’t considered a failed state. Yet. I’d suggest that you will want to be far away if it actually gets to that point.
If you click through on the link below and watch the video, it’s actually a playlist of videos. They play one after another. I watched about five clips before I’d seen enough. I’d encourage you to watch some of that. What are we being set up for?
Any portrayal of a flood of refugees over a porous border as being anything other than a dire emergency is ridiculous. This is not a Left Right thing. You can sit in a university classroom and hear bow-tie wearing professors give lectures about things like this happening in Africa, Central America and the Middle East. (Been there, done that, got the t-shirt). This is definitely proto-failed state stuff.
That said, is the state with the most powerful military in the world really not capable of closing its borders to illegal immigration?
Come on.
So what you have here is some sort of scam designed to get Americans to accept a “solution” that wouldn’t be accepted under anything like normal circumstances. The poor immigrants are being used as props.
I have no idea what the “solution” will be, however.
Via: Arizona Republic:
They are part of an unprecedented tsunami of families and children traveling on their own from Central America trying to reach the United States through the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, where the Border Patrol has been overwhelmed by the surge.
On Thursday, about 50 immigrants were living here. Every bed was full.
Many of the migrants were women who had traveled from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala with young children. All of them had run out of money. Now they were stuck at the shelter, within eyesight of the United States.
Hundreds of migrants from Central America are crossing the river daily. They are turning themselves over to the Border Patrol once they reach U.S. soil. At Anzalduas Park in the U.S. border city of Mission, deputies from the Hidalgo County Constable Department Precinct 3 encountered 103 migrants on Wednesday night alone, according to Sgt. Dan Broyles, a spokesman for the agency.
