100% Pure? New Zealand’s Deteriorating Water Raises a Stink
January 18th, 2019Via: Reuters:
New Zealand’s clean, green image took a beating this summer as tourists traveling through the countryside posted pictures of lakes and rivers off limits due to contamination by farm effluent, garbage and human faeces.
A booming dairy farming industry, along with a surge in tourists seeking unspoiled natural attractions, has taken its toll on the country’s environment, heavily marketed as ‘100% Pure’.
Particularly affected is its vast network of once pristine rivers and lakes, which are now some of the most polluted among OECD countries, according to some experts. About 60 percent of them are unfit for swimming, the Environment Ministry said in a report in 2014. Experts say water quality has deteriorated further since.
In a Colmar Brunton survey conducted last month, 82 percent of respondents said they were “extremely or very” concerned about the pollution of rivers and lakes, more than any other issue including living costs, child poverty and climate change.
“(New Zealanders) are extremely worried that they are losing their ability to swim, fish and gather food from their rivers, lakes and streams,” said Martin Taylor, the chief executive of Fish & Game New Zealand, a non-government agency that commissioned the survey.
“People see those activities as their birthright, but over the last 20 years, that right is being lost because the level of pollution in waterways has increased as farming intensifies.”
Does Society Realize It Is Being Initiated?
January 17th, 2019Via: Truthstream Media:
Hackers Broke Into an SEC Database and Made Millions from Inside Information
January 16th, 2019Background:
Insider Crimes, Funny Money and Options Rackets
They Made a Killing: The Use of Knowledge of Covert Operations in the Stock Market
I’m practically positive that there are roomfulls of traders with TS/SCI clearances who do this on a level that is unthinkable to even the most sophisticated crooks on the outside.
My guess is that there would be so much inside information available that the spooks would need additional roomfulls of MBAs to sift through this “pre-news” to determine which trades would provide the biggest bang for the buck.
$4.1 million…
*pfft*
Via: CNBC:
Federal prosecutors unveiled charges in an international stock-trading scheme that involved hacking into the Securities and Exchange Commission’s EDGAR corporate filing system.
The scheme allegedly netted $4.1 million for fraudsters from the U.S., Russia and Ukraine. Using 157 corporate earnings announcements, the group was able to execute trades on material nonpublic information. Most of those filings were “test filings,” which corporations upload to the SEC’s website.
The charges were announced Tuesday by Craig Carpenito, U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, alongside the SEC, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Secret Service, which investigates financial crimes.
Ford Planning Pure Electric and Hybrid F-Series Trucks
January 16th, 2019With Ford, who wants to increasingly focus on milking truck profits, it could get ugly over there in a couple of years when Rivian and Tesla enter the pickup truck market. Ford only has a hybrid F-150 planned for 2020.
—Rivian R1T All-Electric Pickup Truck
Thanks, Elon.
Via: Detroit Free Press:
Ford Motor Co. confirmed plans to build a fully electric F-Series pickup, which industry observers called an unexpected move that protects the truck franchise against Tesla and other competitors.
“We’re going to be electrifying the F-Series — battery electric and hybrid,” Jim Farley, Ford president of global markets, said Wednesday during a presentation at the Deutsche Bank Global Automotive Conference in the MGM Grand in Detroit.
In framing the company’s redesign, Farley said a move toward all-electric and hybrid would “futureproof” the billion-dollar F-Series franchise, which he called a “global juggernaut.”
John McElroy, a longtime industry observer and host of “Autoline This Week,” said, “When he says ‘battery electric,’ what I’m taking that to mean is a battery electric vehicle. Pure electric. They’ve said they would have a hybrid plug-in version of the F-150. But this is different than what they’ve talked about in the past.”
Creating an alternative to the combustion engine is crucial if Ford plans to protect its pickup franchise.
“Tesla is talking about coming out with an electric pickup. And look what Tesla has done in the luxury segment. They’ve clobbered just about everybody,” McElroy said. “You can’t pooh-pooh that people won’t be interested in an electric pickup. Rivian Automotive is coming out with an all-electric pickup. These are the crown jewels for Ford Motor Co., the F-Series. Ford has got to react to competitive threats.”
Large Releases of Chaff Over Several States Seen on Radar
January 16th, 2019Motors feed chaff from rolls of about 40 pounds through cutters carried on some aircraft to produce either bursts or a continuous stream. The continuous stream technique, called saturation chaff, may be used by aircraft to cover a large area. By 2005 or 2006, the Army also planned to use saturation chaff to mask vehicle and troop movements. Using a cutter, 360 pounds of chaff from nine 40-pound rolls can be deployed in 10 minutes. Depending on the method and the number of aircraft, such releases could disperse billions of fibers. The B-52 can carry about 750 seven-ounce boxes of chaff; each box contains up to 11 million fibers that can be expelled continuously or in bursts.
Via: WarZone:
Two days after a huge cloud of chaff lit up weather radar covering portions Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky, as well as social media, more plumes have now appeared over Maine and Florida. We have no official confirmation as of yet, but the formations look very similar in composition to the one that developed in the Midwest.
The first reports of the apparent chaff plumes in Maine began to appear on social media around 5:30 PM EST on Dec. 12, 2018. Early on, four distinct clouds were visible, but these had blended together into a larger blob with a peak length of more than 100 miles by 7:45 PM. The huge cloud was moving southwest and looked like it could easily drift into New Hampshire and beyond.
Joe Lieberman Listening to U.S. National Security Concerns for Chinese Telecom Giant ZTE
January 16th, 2019Via: Open Secrets:
Former Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) has officially filed as a lobbyist for Chinese telecom company ZTE, registration forms released Wednesday confirmed.
ZTE has long been under fire from U.S. officials and members of Congress who say the company could endanger national security by providing espionage opportunities for the Chinese government.
Though the well-connected Lieberman was thought to be hired to help take pressure off of the embattled ZTE, his firm Kasowitz Benson Torres (KBT) — the law firm of President Donald Trump’s longtime personal attorney Marc Kasowitz — tells a different story.
Clarine Nardi Riddle, chair of the firm’s Government Affairs and Strategic Counsel Practice Group and Lieberman’s former chief of staff in the Senate who also registered as a lobbyist for ZTE, said Lieberman is not actually “lobbying” for ZTE but rather is gathering concerns about the company from lawmakers and officials.
“Senator Lieberman is conducting a national security assessment investigation, where he will listen to congressional, executive branch, and customer national security concerns, but will not be attempting to influence them nor advocate on ZTE’s behalf,” Nardi Riddle told the Center for Responsive Politics in an email.
“His mission is to listen, assess and then make recommendations to ZTE on how to address U.S. national security concerns. While these activities are not associated with the common understanding of “lobbying,” the Lobbying and Disclosure Act can be interpreted to require registration because he is meeting with “covered officials” under the statute. Out of an abundance of caution, Senator Lieberman will register under the LDA so that there will be no question about his and ZTE’s transparency and compliance.”
The LDA disclosure reiterates the refrain that Lieberman and KBT are not advocating for ZTE but have decided to register under the LDA “in the interest of transparency and caution.”
After collecting his findings, Lieberman and his firm claim he will submit a report to ZTE including the concerns of executive branch officials and members of Congress.
“These sound like the kinds of activities that would come close to triggering FARA registration,” said Brendan Fischer, director of federal reform at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center.
Tesla’s Pwn2Own Program
January 16th, 2019Via: Electrek:
Tesla has been working closely with white hat hackers for years in order to make its vehicle software safer and now it’s taking an unprecedented step: it’s going to be giving away a Model 3 to a hacker who can crack the vehicle.
China Turns to Driverless Tractors, Combines to Overhaul Agriculture
January 16th, 2019Via: Reuters:
A brand new combine harvester buzzes up and down a field in eastern China without a driver on board, chopping golden rice stalks and offering a glimpse of what authorities say is the automated future of the nation’s mammoth agricultural sector.
The bright green prototype was operating last autumn during a trial of driverless farm equipment as the government pushes firms to develop within 7 years fully-automated machinery capable of planting, fertilizing and harvesting each of China’s staple crops – rice, wheat and corn.
That shift to automation is key to the farming sector in the world’s No.2 economy as it grapples with an ageing rural workforce and a dearth of young people willing to endure the hardships many associate with toiling on the land.
U.S. Classrooms Are Starting to Resemble Arcades
January 15th, 2019Screens In Schools Are a $60 Billion Hoax:
The screen revolution has seen pedagogy undergo a seismic shift as technology now dominates the educational landscape. In almost every classroom in America today, you will find some type of screen—smartboards, Chromebooks, tablets, smartphones. From inner-city schools to those in rural and remote towns, we have accepted tech in the classroom as a necessary and beneficial evolution in education.
This is a lie.
Tech in the classroom not only leads to worse educational outcomes for kids, which I will explain shortly, it can also clinically hurt them. I’ve worked with over a thousand teens in the past 15 years and have observed that students who have been raised on a high-tech diet not only appear to struggle more with attention and focus, but also seem to suffer from an adolescent malaise that appears to be a direct byproduct of their digital immersion. Indeed, over two hundred peer-reviewed studies point to screen time correlating to increased ADHD, screen addiction, increased aggression, depression, anxiety and even psychosis.
Via: AP:
Peek inside your average classroom these days, and you’re likely to see teachers using apps, websites and software that borrow elements from video games to connect with students living technology-infused lives. By all accounts, they’re fun to use, and studies have found that some can be effective. But there is also skepticism about how often students who use them are better educated, or just better entertained.
Dag Hammarskjold consumer sciences teacher Gianna Gurga said she had been looking for a way to get more out of her students. Students have been more motivated and performed better in her classes since she began using Classcraft in spring 2017, she said, and she has signed up a handful of other teachers in the school.
“My kids are so addicted to it in the best way possible,” Gurga said.
U.S. Trade Deficit with China Worst Ever
January 14th, 2019Via: CNBC:
China announced Monday that its 2018 trade surplus with the United States was its largest in more than a decade, despite the tariff war initiated by President Donald Trump against Beijing.
China’s surplus with the U.S. grew 17 percent from a year ago to hit $323.32 billion in 2018, according to government data. It was the highest on record dating to 2006, according to Reuters. The deficit that the U.S. has with China is likely even bigger than these figures indicate since China calculates the numbers using different methods, sometimes excluding goods that end up in the U.S. via other countries.
Exports to the United States rose 11.3 percent year on year in 2018, while imports from the U.S. to China rose a meager 0.7 percent during that period.
