Oil Set for Biggest Slump Since 2008 as OPEC Battles U.S. Shale
December 31st, 2014Via: Bloomberg:
Oil headed for the biggest annual decline since the 2008 global financial crisis as U.S. producers and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries cede no ground in their battle for market share amid a supply glut.
Futures slid as much as 1.1 percent in New York, bringing losses for 2014 to 46 percent. U.S. guidelines allowing overseas sales of ultralight oil without government approval may boost the country’s export capacity and “throw a monkey wrench” into Saudi Arabia’s plan to curb American output, according to Citigroup Inc. U.S. crude inventories are forecast to rise to the highest level for this time of the year in three decades.
Monsanto’s Roundup and Autism
December 30th, 2014Via: The Complete Patient:
Correlations are not causation, but when they plot out as clearly as Stephanie Seneff has plotted them out with regard to autism and glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer, they are impossible to ignore.
Seneff is a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who has been running around the country showing a fairly dense slide show about the correlations attached to ghyphosate. On Thursday evening, she was in Groton, MA, at a special panel presentation about GMOs, sponsored by Groton Wellness and its founder, food rights activist and holistic dentist Jean Nordin-Evans. I was one of the panelists at the presentation, but as far as the audience was concerned, Seneff was the main act, in large measure because of the correlations she demonstrated, and the discomfort she aroused.
Once she had completed her presentation, all of the 70 or so people in attendance were squirming, likely because they now had serious misgivings about serving their kids, or themselves, anything with corn or soy, which are nearly all genetically modified (GMO) and thus tainted with Roundup and its glyphosate. (These GMO crops are bred to resist damage from Roundup, which destroys the weeds around them.)
If glyphosate is as harmful as Seneff’s correlations suggest, then its poisonous effects extend nearly everywhere–to all soft drinks and candies sweetened with corn syrup and all chips and cereals filled with soy, not to mention cattle and chicken fed soy. But it isn’t just corn and soy, it is wheat as well, since it is nearly all sprayed with Roundup just prior to being harvested, according to Seneff….which means all non-organic bread is tainted.
Not surprisingly, Monsanto argues that glyphosate is safe; it has a page linking to denials and assertions at its web site that glyphosate isn’t harming people.
The key slide in Seneff’s presentation is the one above, showing the uncanny correlation between heavy use of glyphosate (via Roundup), begun in 1990 and increased sharply each year following, and the explosion of autism, such that we have gone from one in 5,000 children being diagnosed back in 1975 to one in 68 today.
“At today’s rate, by 2025, one in two children will be autistic,” Seneff said Thursday. Presumably, if Roundup and glyphosate accelerate their spread in the U.S. and around the world, the predicted one-in-two autism cases could happen even sooner.
Fish Farming in Aquapods
December 30th, 2014Via: Vice:
Whether it’s found on a plate of sushi, grilled in our backyard, or thrown on pasta, seafood is a staple for many diets around the world, and demand is growing. And as the commercial seafood industry booms, fish stocks worldwide face perilous declines.
We’ve surpassed our capacity to sustainably fish wild caught fish, shrimp, and mollusks from the ocean, and so we’ve turned to aquaculture, or fish farming, as a strategy to meet demand for our growing appetites for water-borne critters. The aquaculture industry is growing fast. According to the FAO, per capita production of seafood from aquaculture has increased 6.9 percent annually since 1970.
Unfortunately for us and for our Earth, current methods of fish farming often involve crowded, tethered pens, which can have poor water circulation and contribute to the spread of disease, and put large amounts of environmental stress on the surrounding waterways.
This is where Steve Page of Ocean Farm Technologies comes in. Taking inspiration from naturally-occurring schools of fish and Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes, Page co-designed the Aquapod, a free floating, untethered deep ocean fish habitat which reduces overcrowding, and creates less stress on surrounding environments due to its unique ability to change location with the ocean’s current.
Who Is Watching You?
December 29th, 2014Via: Medium:
We are living in a Dragnet Nation?—?a world of indiscriminate tracking where institutions are stockpiling data about individuals at an unprecedented pace. The rise of indiscriminate tracking is powered by the same forces that have brought us the technology we love so much?—?powerful computing on our desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.
Before computers were commonplace, it was expensive and difficult to track individuals. Governments kept records only of occasions, such as birth, marriage, property ownership, and death. Companies kept records when a customer bought something and filled out a warranty card or joined a loyalty club.
But technology has made it cheap and easy for institutions of all kinds to keep records about almost every moment of our lives.
Related: The Enormous Implications Of Facebook Indexing 1 Trillion Of Our Posts
Google’s Gmail Blocked in China
December 29th, 2014Via: Reuters:
Google Inc’s Gmail was blocked in China after months of disruptions to the world’s biggest email service, with an anti-censorship advocate suggesting the Great Firewall was to blame.
Large numbers of Gmail web addresses were cut off in China on Friday, said GreatFire.org, a China-based freedom of speech advocacy group. Users said the service was still down on Monday.
The Kirsten Dirksen YouTube Channel
December 27th, 2014Inexpensive dwellings. Vehicle living. Small scale food production. Off grid.
Kirsten Dirksen YouTube Channel
The Snowden Avalanche
December 25th, 2014Cryptogon reader Derek Swannson let me know about his new book: The Snowden Avalanche.
NSA Reports It May Have Broken Laws With Decade of Spying on U.S. Citizens
December 25th, 2014Oh sure, it’s just a few bad apples, combined with people making mistakes plus some coincidences.
Nothing to see here. Maintain Christmas stupor. Situation normal.
Via: Bloomberg:
The National Security Agency today released reports on intelligence collection that may have violated the law or U.S. policy over more than a decade, including unauthorized surveillance of Americans’ overseas communications.
The NSA, responding to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union, released a series of required quarterly and annual reports to the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board that cover the period from the fourth quarter of 2001 to the second quarter of 2013.
The heavily-redacted reports include examples of data on Americans being e-mailed to unauthorized recipients, stored in unsecured computers and retained after it was supposed to be destroyed, according to the documents. They were posted on the NSA’s website at around 1:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve.
Story: The CIA Torture Report Is Causing Political Ripples Overseas
In a 2012 case, for example, an NSA analyst “searched her spouse’s personal telephone directory without his knowledge to obtain names and telephone numbers for targeting,” according to one report. The analyst “has been advised to cease her activities,” it said.
Other unauthorized cases were a matter of human error, not intentional misconduct.
Helicopter Drone Makes First Flight from Navy Destroyer
December 25th, 2014Via: Defensetech:
A helicopter drone developed by Northrop Grumman Corp. has made its first flight from a U.S. Navy destroyer, the company announced.
The MQ-8C Fire Scout on Dec. 16 completed 22 autonomous takeoffs and landings aboard the guided-missile destroyer, USS Jason Dunham (DDG 109), off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia, according to a Dec. 23 release from the Falls Church, Virginia-based defense contractor.
“This is the first sea-based flight of the MQ-8C and the first time an unmanned helicopter has operated from a destroyer,” Capt. Jeff Dodge, who manages the program for Naval Air Systems Command, said in the release. The technology offers greater endurance, he added, allowing “ship commanders and pilots to have a longer on station presence.”
CDC Reports Potential Ebola Exposure in Atlanta Lab
December 25th, 2014Via: Washington Post:
Researchers studying Ebola in a highly secure laboratory mistakenly allowed potentially lethal samples of the virus to be handled in a much less secure laboratory at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, agency officials said Wednesday.
One technician in the second laboratory may have been exposed to the virus and about a dozen other people have been assessed after entering the facility unaware that potentially hazardous samples of Ebola had been handled there.
The technician has no symptoms of illness and is being monitored for 21 days. Agency officials said it is unlikely that any of the others who entered the lab face potential exposure. Some entered the lab after it had been decontaminated. Officials said there is no possible exposure outside the secure laboratory at CDC and no exposure or risk to the public.
“At this time, we know of only the one potential exposure,” CDC Director Tom Frieden said in a telephone interview.
