It All Began in a Small Store in Arkansas…
March 14th, 2009Via: Guardian:
…in fact, anyone who lives in Bentonville probably shops in Wal-mart for food, clothes, furniture and electronics, banks at Arvest, and, until recently, read a Walton-owned paper. They can drive down Walton Boulevard to watch sport at the Walton Arena. They can wander around the Walton Arts Centre, or go to the Wal-Mart Museum, where old Sam’s office and pick-up are preserved exactly as they were the day he died. They can study at the Sam Walton business school, or fly from the Alice L Walton terminal of the airport.
The concern is, of course, that this approach has been extended to the rest of the world. Wal-Mart has made a speciality of moving into depressed areas where every saving a customer can make is welcome. This undercuts local businesses, and soon, because it sells everything from food to rifles, clothes to furniture, it’s the only game in town. Although they are called “associates”, employees work for little in the way of pay or benefits, and are discouraged from joining unions. The credit crunch means millions more people are dependent on finding the cheapest goods they can. It might have been tailor-made for the Waltons.
The Obama Deception
March 14th, 2009More: Obama Deception
The More Roundup the U.S. Sprays on Colombia, the More Coca is Grown
March 14th, 2009How can this be? Monsanto’s Roundup product should wipe out the coca plans, right?
The Mystery of the Coca Plant That Wouldn’t Die is a fascinating read. I’m going to post the spoiler ending below, but I encourage you to read the whole thing:
Four weeks later, the scientist sends me an email saying that he has completed the DNA analysis and found no evidence of modification. He tested specifically for the presence of CP4 – a telltale indicator of the Roundup Ready modification – as well as for the cauliflower mosaic virus, the gene most commonly used to insert foreign DNA into a plant. It is still possible that the plant has been genetically modified using other genes, but not likely. Discovering new methods of engineering glyphosate resistance would require the best scientific minds and years of organized research. And given that there is already a published methodology, there would be little reason to duplicate the effort.
Which points back to selective breeding. The implication is that the farmers’ decentralized system of disseminating coca cuttings has been amazingly effective – more so than genetic engineering could hope to be. When one plant somewhere in the country demonstrated tolerance to glyphosate, cuttings were made and passed on to dealers and farmers, who could sell them quickly to farmers hoping to withstand the spraying. The best of the next generation was once again used for cuttings and distributed.
This technique – applied over four years – is now the most likely explanation for the arrival of Boliviana negra. By spraying so much territory, the US significantly increased the odds of generating beneficial mutations. There are numerous species of coca, further increasing the diversity of possible mutations. And in the Amazonian region, nature is particularly adaptive and resilient.
“I thought it was unlikely,” says Gressel, the plant scientist at the Weizmann Institute. “But farmers aren’t dumb. They obviously spotted a lucky mutation and propagated the hell out of it.”
The effects of this are far-reaching for American policymakers: A new herbicide would work only for a limited time against such a simple but effective ad hoc network. The coca-growing community is clearly primed to take advantage of any mutations.
A genetic laboratory is not as nimble. A lab is limited by research that is publicly available. In the case of Fusarium, the coca-killing fungus and likely successor to glyphosate, there is no body of work discussing genetically induced resistance. If the government switched to Fusarium, a scientist would have to perform groundbreaking genetic research to fashion a Fusarium-resistant coca plant.
The reality is that a smoothly functioning selective-breeding system is a greater threat to US antidrug efforts. Certainly government agents can switch to Fusarium and enjoy some short-term results. But after a few years – during which legal crops could be devastated – a new strain of Fusarium-resistant coca would likely emerge, one just as robust as the glyphosate-resistant strain.
The drug war in Colombia presupposes that it’s eventually possible to destroy cocaine at its source. But the facts on the ground suggest this is no longer possible. In this war, it’s hard to beat technology developed 10,000 years ago.
If effect, the U.S. is creating a desert in which the herbicide resistant coca plants can thrive, but what remains is an environmental atrocity.
Via: Guardian:
The counter-drugs strategy of the United States is clearly failing. UN figures cited in the Guardian this week show that the cultivation of coca, the plant from which cocaine is derived, has surged in the Andes. The most dramatic rise has been in Colombia, the only country in the region that allows the use of pesticides to eradicate coca leaf – a policy promoted and funded by the US.
I recently received a disturbing email from southern Colombia warning that the fragile Amazonian soil could “soon be turned to desert”. They were the words of a Catholic priest, so I rang a church worker whose parish lies deep in the Amazonian state of Caquetá. Military planes targeting coca farms, funded by the US, had been spraying mists of pesticides over food crops, grazing animals and even areas where children were playing, she said: locals were complaining of breathing problems and rashes; “strips of skin” have been peeling off cows, and chickens have died; and maize, yucca, plantain and cacao crops have wilted and shrivelled. “We fear there will soon be a very serious food shortage in the region,” she said. The local parish has issued an urgent appeal.
The US has been funding the spraying campaign for more than two decades, but 70% of the world’s coca leaf is grown in Colombia. Glyphosate is the most frequently used pesticide; its biggest selling commercial formulation is Roundup, made by Monsanto. The company acknowledges that contact with glyphosate may cause mild eye or skin irritation. But independent studies have suggested a far greater range of symptoms, including facial numbness and swelling, rapid heart rate, raised blood pressure, chest pains, nausea and congestion.
In Colombia, glyphosate is mixed with other chemicals, and because the exact composition has not been made public it has been impossible to test its toxicity. One addition, a surfactant, makes the corrosive liquid stick to the surface – leaf or skin – on which it is sprayed. The pesticide is used at higher concentrations than stipulated in the US, and is sprayed from above the recommended height of 10 metres. Farm workers in the US are advised to keep clear of weedkillers, yet in Colombia aerial spraying takes place with no warning, showering humans and animals with chemicals.
All Colombia’s neighbours – Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela and Brazil – oppose the “fumigation” policy. The Andean and European parliaments have called for its suspension, as have numerous environmentalists, scientists and politicians in Colombia. But spraying has intensified since the launch in 2000 of Plan Colombia, the US-funded counter-narcotics strategy.
Research Credit: ltcolonelnemo
China’s Leader Says He Is ‘Worried’ Over U.S. Treasuries
March 13th, 2009Remember what I said about the “Leader Board of Doom”?
I have a sort of “Leader Board of Doom” that I watch closely. This is the order:
Britain
U.S. Treasuries
Japan
China
California
Mexico
Bond and note auctions continue in an orderly manner.
Via: New York Times:
The Chinese premier Wen Jiabao expressed concern on Friday about the safety of China’s $1 trillion investment in American government debt, the world’s largest such holding, and urged the Obama administration to provide assurances that its investment would keep its value in the face of a global financial crisis.
The Chinese premier Wen Jiabao spoke at a news conference on Thursday at the end of the Chinese parliament’s annual session.
Speaking at a news conference at the end of the Chinese parliament’s annual session, Mr. Wen said he was “worried” about China’s holdings of Treasury bonds and other debt, and that China was watching United States economic developments closely.
“President Obama and his new government have adopted a series of measures to deal with the financial crisis. We have expectations as to the effects of these measures,” Mr. Wen said. “We have lent a huge amount of money to the U.S. Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I am definitely a little worried.”
He called on the United States to “maintain its good credit, to honor its promises and to guarantee the safety of China’s assets.”
Mr. Wen raised the concerns at a session in which he touted China’s comparatively healthy economy and said that his government would take whatever steps were needed to end the country’s economic slump. He also predicted that the world economy would improve in 2010.
Pentagon Dirigible Would Stay Aloft for Ten Years; Constantly Monitor Activity on the Ground
March 13th, 2009Don’t miss the part about the energy source. You’ll love this:
The dirigible will be filled with helium and powered by an innovative system that uses solar panels to recharge hydrogen fuel cells. Military officials said those underlying technologies — plus a very lightweight hull — were critical to making the project work.
“The things we had to do here were not trivial; they were revolutionary,” said Jan Walker, a spokeswoman for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon’s research arm.
Mmm hmm.
Via: Los Angeles Times:
The Pentagon said Thursday that it intends to spend $400 million to develop a giant dirigible that will float 65,000 feet above the Earth for 10 years, providing unblinking and intricate radar surveillance of the vehicles, planes and even people below.
“It is absolutely revolutionary,” Werner J.A. Dahm, chief scientist for the Air Force, said of the proposed unmanned airship — describing it as a cross between a satellite and a spy plane.
The 450-foot-long craft would give the U.S. military a better understanding of an adversary’s movements, habits and tactics, officials said. And the ability to constantly monitor small movements in a wide area — the Afghanistan- Pakistan border, for example — would dramatically improve military intelligence.
“It is constant surveillance, uninterrupted,” Dahm said. “When you only have a short-time view — whether it is a few hours or a few days — that is not enough to put the picture together.”
The project reflects a shift in Pentagon planning and spending priorities under Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who has urged the military services to improve intelligence and surveillance operations while cutting high-tech weaponry costs.
If successful, the dirigible — the brainchild of the Air Force and the Pentagon’s research arm — could pave the way for a fleet of spy airships, military officials said.
However, it marks the return to a form of flight that has stirred anxiety and doubt since the 1937 Hindenburg disaster. Thirty-six people were killed when that airship went up in flames in New Jersey.
The military has used less-sophisticated tethered blimps — called aerostats — to conduct surveillance around military bases in Iraq. But flying at 65,000 feet, the giant airship would be nearly impossible to see, beyond the range of any hand-held missile, and safe from most fighter planes.
And its range would be such that the spy craft could operate at the distant edges of any military theater, probably out of the range of surface-to-air missiles as well.
The Air Force’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance abilities have improved dramatically in the last five years with the expansion of the Predator and other drones. Although such craft can linger over an area for a long time, they do not watch constantly.
The giant airship’s military value would come from its radar system. Giant antenna would allow the military to see farther and with more detail than it can now.
“Being able to observe threats [and] understand what is happening is really the game-changing piece here,” Dahm said.
The dirigible will be filled with helium and powered by an innovative system that uses solar panels to recharge hydrogen fuel cells. Military officials said those underlying technologies — plus a very lightweight hull — were critical to making the project work.
“The things we had to do here were not trivial; they were revolutionary,” said Jan Walker, a spokeswoman for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon’s research arm.
The Air Force has signed an agreement with DARPA to develop a demonstration dirigible by 2014. The prototype will be a third as long as the planned surveillance craft — known as ISIS, for Integrated Sensor Is the Structure, because the radar system will be built into the structure of the ship.
While the military says the craft is closer to a blimp than a zeppelin — which has a rigid external structure — officials usually call the project an airship. Blimps get their shape from helium gas pressure.
The Pentagon has not yet awarded a contractor to build the prototype. Earlier work was done by Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach — as well as Baltimore and other locations — and by Lockheed Martin in Palmdale, Calif.; Akron, Ohio; and Denver.
Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life by Neil Strauss
March 13th, 2009I haven’t read Emergency yet, but HOLY COW, the entertainment value on this one should be worth the purchase price alone.
A previous Neil Strauss book, The Game, was about how to pick up women. So, while I doubt that John ‘lofty’ Wiseman has anything to worry about, Strauss seems pretty determined to learn about and understand baffling topics!
I read a few pages of Emergency online and Strauss is a guy that many of us can probably relate to (whether or not you need to read books about how to find someone to share your bed with you is a different matter). I was raised on a solid diet of bullshit. I was encouraged to spend many years learning things and getting degrees that were supposed to help me find jobs doing work in one cubicle or another. (My parents meant well.)
And now things aren’t looking so hot in cubicle land, or a lot of other places.
What to do?
Learn new skills that apply to the situation on the ground.
From Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life by Neil Strauss:
I can’t tell you the exact date along the way I lost faith in the system, because for me there were five of them, each chronicled in the section that follows. And over the course of this gradual awakening—which perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, covered the span of the Bush administration—I decided to equip myself with the tools necessary to survive whatever politics and history threw at me next.
By the time the Obama administration stepped in with a message of hope and change, it was too late to undo the damage. Because I now know that, even in America, anything can happen.
Preparing myself for hard times has been an incredibly challenging task, because some people were born tough. I wasn’t. My parents live on the forty-second floor of a seventy-two-story building in Chicago. They didn’t camp, hunt, farm, cook, or even fix things themselves.
As for learning skills after leaving home, I spent most of my adult life as a music writer for the New York Times, so I could tell you anything you wanted to know about rock and hip-hop, but nothing about growing food or building fires or defending yourself. In fact, I’d never even been in a fight in my life, though I had been mugged twice.
In short, if the system ever did break down, the only useful skill I really had was the ability to write about it. Perhaps, at best, I could talk someone with practical knowledge into helping me out. Or maybe they’d just mug me.
But that wouldn’t happen anymore. Today I can draw a holstered pistol in 1.5 seconds, aim at a target seven yards away, and shoot it twice in the heart. I can start a fire by rubbing two pieces of wood together. I can identify seven hundred types of foot prints when tracking animals and humans. I can survive in the wild with nothing but a knife and the clothes on my back. I can find water in the desert, extract drinkable fluids from the ocean, deliver a baby, fly a plane, pick locks, hot-wire cars, build homes, set traps, evade bounty hunters, suture a bullet wound, kill a man with my bare hands, and escape across the border with documents identifying me as the citizen of a small island republic.
When the shit hits the fan, you’re going to want to find me. And you’ll want to be doing whatever I’m doing. Because I’ve learned from the best.
You can call me crazy if you want.
Or you can listen to the story of the eight years it took to open my eyes, realize my country can’t protect me, and do something about it.
It just may save your life.
Industrial Pig Farms Breeding MRSA
March 13th, 2009Via: New York Times:
The late Tom Anderson, the family doctor in this little farm town in northwestern Indiana, at first was puzzled, then frightened.
He began seeing strange rashes on his patients, starting more than a year ago. They began as innocuous bumps — “pimples from hell,” he called them — and quickly became lesions as big as saucers, fiery red and agonizing to touch.
They could be anywhere, but were most common on the face, armpits, knees and buttocks. Dr. Anderson took cultures and sent them off to a lab, which reported that they were MRSA, or staph infections that are resistant to antibiotics.
MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) sometimes arouses terrifying headlines as a “superbug” or “flesh-eating bacteria.” The best-known strain is found in hospitals, where it has been seen regularly since the 1990s, but more recently different strains also have been passed among high school and college athletes. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that by 2005, MRSA was killing more than 18,000 Americans a year, more than AIDS.
Dr. Anderson at first couldn’t figure out why he was seeing patient after patient with MRSA in a small Indiana town. And then he began to wonder about all the hog farms outside of town. Could the pigs be incubating and spreading the disease?
“Tom was very concerned with what he was seeing,” recalls his widow, Cindi Anderson. “Tom said he felt the MRSA was at phenomenal levels.”
By last fall, Dr. Anderson was ready to be a whistle-blower, and he agreed to welcome me on a reporting visit and go on the record with his suspicions. That was a bold move, for any insinuation that the hog industry harms public health was sure to outrage many neighbors.
So I made plans to come here and visit Dr. Anderson in his practice. And then, very abruptly, Dr. Anderson died at the age of 54.
There was no autopsy, but a blood test suggested a heart attack or aneurysm. Dr. Anderson had himself suffered at least three bouts of MRSA, and a Dutch journal has linked swine-carried MRSA to dangerous human heart inflammation.
The larger question is whether we as a nation have moved to a model of agriculture that produces cheap bacon but risks the health of all of us. And the evidence, while far from conclusive, is growing that the answer is yes.
…
So what’s going on here, and where do these antibiotic-resistant infections come from? Probably from the routine use — make that the insane overuse — of antibiotics in livestock feed. This is a system that may help breed virulent “superbugs” that pose a public health threat to us all.
Research Credit: ottilie
Secret State Police Report: Ron Paul, Bob Barr, Chuck Baldwin, Libertarians are Terrorists
March 13th, 2009Via: Prison Planet:
Alex Jones has received a secret report distributed by the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) entitled “The Modern Militia Movement” and dated February 20, 2009. A footer on the document indicates it is “unclassified” but “law enforcement sensitive,” in other words not for public consumption. A copy of the report was sent to Jones by an anonymous Missouri police officer.
The MIAC report specifically describes supporters of presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, and Bob Barr as “militia” influenced terrorists and instructs the Missouri police to be on the lookout for supporters displaying bumper stickers and other paraphernalia associated with the Constitutional, Campaign for Liberty, and Libertarian parties.
Research Credit: ltcolonelnemo
Subreddit Switched to Private Mode
March 13th, 2009For months, people on the Cryptogon Subreddit have been submitting good information, only to have it viciously downvoted by the trolls and idiots who target Cryptogon. Or, maybe it’s just the home grown idiots on Reddit. If you’ve ever looked at stories on there and thought, “What sort of tool would downvote this?” you might be surprised by the crushing weight of dumbness on Reddit. The only reason I use that thing is because there is no lite weight solution that I can run on my own server.
Long story short, the Subreddit is private now.
UPDATE
People are asking to be added to this who don’t know what it is.
Please read this, especially the part with the instructions at the bottom. Thank you.
OIL SHARPLY HIGHER
March 12th, 2009Via: AP:
Oil prices spiked 11 percent Thursday as rumors swirled that Russia would join OPEC in slashing crude production.
Benchmark crude for April delivery rose $4.77 to $47.10 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, Brent prices gained $3.13 to $44.53 on the ICE Futures exchange.
Analyst and trader Stephen Schork said investors latched onto reports that Russian officials would join OPEC ministers at its meeting Sunday in Vienna. The move may signal that Russia would join other crude producers in squeezing off production to balance weakening global demand.
