‘On a scale of China’s food safety issues, pollution-tainted rice might just be the biggest problem of all.’
November 30th, 2011Via: Global Post:
Rice is responsible for feeding half the world, or more than 3.5 billion people. In other words, rice is important. A tweak to how the grain is grown, sold or eaten can send ripples through the world economy. Take Thailand, which supplies 30 percent of the world’s rice. Government subsidies there threaten to raise the price of putting dinner on the table in Mexico. GlobalPost takes a closer look at a tiny grain with a giant footprint.
…
Xu Limin goes out of her way to make sure the rice she buys wasn’t grown in southern China.
“I’m not too picky about every single food item, but rice is the most important thing, so I want the cleanest,” said Xu, a 28-year-old office worker in Beijing, chatting as she shopped for groceries in an organic supermarket.
“Everyone knows rice from the south might be contaminated so I want rice from the north, or even something imported.”
Research Credit: noncompliant
Iranian Students Storm British Embassy in Tehran
November 29th, 2011Via: AP:
Dozens of hard-line Iranian students stormed the British Embassy in Tehran on Tuesday, bringing down the Union Jack flag and throwing documents from windows in scenes reminiscent of the anger against Western powers after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The mob moved into the diplomatic compound two days after Iran’s parliament approved a bill that reduces diplomatic relations with Britain following London’s support of recently upgraded Western sanctions on Tehran over its disputed nuclear program.
The protesters broke through after clashing with anti-riot police and chanting for its takeover. “Death to England,” some cried in the first significant assault of a foreign diplomatic area in Iran in years.
There was no immediate word on casualties or how many embassy employees were inside at the time of the assault, although it occurred after business hours had ended. More protesters poured into the compound as police tried to clear the site.
Smoke rose from some areas of the embassy grounds and the British flag was replaced with a banner in the name of 7th century Shiite saint, Imam Hussein.
The occupier called for the closure of the embassy calling it a “spy den” — the same phrase used after militants stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held 52 hostages for 444 days. Washington and Tehran have no diplomatic relations since then.
The rally outside the British Embassy — on a main street in Tehran downtown — included protesters carrying photographs of nuclear scientist Majid Shahriari, who was killed last year in an attack that Iran blamed on Israeli and British spy services.
Outside the embassy, students from some universities and seminaries burned British flags on fire as clashing with police.
State TV reported that another group of hard-line students gathered at the gate of British ambassador’s residence in northern Tehran, at the same time.
American Airlines Bankrupt
November 29th, 2011Via: AP:
American Airlines’ parent company is seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as it seeks to unload massive debt built up by years of accelerating jet fuel prices and labor struggles.
The nation’s third largest airline also said its CEO Gerard Arpey will step down. He’s being replaced by Thomas Horton, currently the company’s president.
Fort Worth, Texas-based AMR Corp., along with its regional affiliate AMR Eagle Holding Corp. said Tuesday that they filed voluntary petitions to reorganize.
American says it sought protection to reduce its costs and debt to remain competitive.
The airline says it will continue normal flight operations during the reorganization.
American was the only major U.S. airline that didn’t file for bankruptcy protection after the 2001 terrorist attacks. The last major airline to file for bankruptcy protection was Delta in 2005.
Comfortably Numb
November 29th, 2011Fill it to the rim with grim!
Via: The Burning Platform:
The system has been captured by an oligarchy of moneyed interests from the financial industry, mega-corporations, and military industrial complex, protected by their captured puppets in Washington DC and sustained by the propaganda peddling corporate media. The differences in political parties are meaningless as they each advocate big government solutions to all social, economic, foreign relations, and monetary issues.
Research Credit: Pookie, HB
YaCy: Free Software Activists to Take on Google with New Free Search Engine
November 29th, 2011This looks fantastic. It’s too bad that I don’t have bandwidth to share with the swarm.
Via: Network World:
Free software activists have released a peer-to-peer search engine to take on Google, Yahoo, Bing and others.
The free, distributed search engine, YaCy, takes a new approach to search. Rather than using a central server, its search results come from a network of independent “peers,” users who have downloaded the YaCy software. The aim is that no single entity gets to decide what gets listed, or in which order results appear.
More: yacy.net
Sirhan Sirhan Lawyers: ‘Hypno Programming and Memory Implantation Techniques’
November 28th, 2011Via: CNN:
Sirhan Sirhan, convicted of the 1968 assassination of presidential candidate Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, should be freed from prison or granted a new trial based on “formidable evidence” asserting his innocence and “horrendous violations” of his rights, defense attorneys said in federal court papers filed this week.
In a U.S. District Court brief, Sirhan’s lawyers also say that an expert analysis of recently uncovered evidence shows two guns were fired in the assassination and that Sirhan’s revolver was not the gun that shot Kennedy.
Attorneys William F. Pepper and Laurie D. Dusek also allege that fraud was committed in Sirhan’s 1969 trial when the court allowed a substitute bullet to be admitted as evidence for a real bullet removed from Kennedy’s neck.
The attorneys further assert that Sirhan was hypno-programmed to be a diversion for the real assassin and allege that Sirhan would be easily blamed for the assassination because he is an Arab. Sirhan, 67, is a Christian Palestinian born in Jerusalem whose parents brought him and his siblings to America in the 1950s.
Sirhan “was an involuntary participant in the crimes being committed because he was subjected to sophisticated hypno programming and memory implantation techniques which rendered him unable to consciously control his thoughts and actions at the time the crimes were being committed,” court papers said.
U.S. Air Force Wants Gunfire Sensor for Reaper Drones
November 28th, 2011Via: Wired:
Opening fire on American troops could mean an instant death sentence for insurgents, if an ambitious new Air Force plan works out. The flying branch has asked industry to develop a new heat and motion sensor capable of detecting enemy gunfire from 25,000 feet over the battlefield — and then swiftly directing a bomb or missile onto the shooter.
Installed on the Air Force’s existing fleet of Reaper drones, the gunfire-detection system would make attacking U.S. troops a highly risky proposition. The Air Force wants to link the fire-detector with other Wide Field-of-View (WFOV) sensors like the Gorgon Stare, which uses a bundle of cameras to watch over miles at a time. The sensors entered service on Reapers this year. “The goal of this effort is to provide an event (enemy and friendly weapons fire) detection system that can provide real-time notification that can be overlaid on WFOV motion imagery by sensor operators,” the Air Force solicitation reads.
Gunfire-detection systems already exist — though previous versions were acoustic instead of heat- and motion-based. Combining aerial shot-detection with full-motion video poses huge technological challenges. The sensor must be able to tell the difference between a gunshot and, say, a campfire — and between good guys and bad. “The determination of military utility of a hostile-fire sensor will be heavily dependent on its capacity to distinguish between friendly and hostile fire in order to avoid fratricide,” the solicitation cautions.
Secret Fed Loans Gave Banks Undisclosed $13 Billion
November 28th, 2011Via: Bloomberg:
The Federal Reserve and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest bailout in U.S. history a secret. Now, the rest of the world can see what it was missing.
The Fed didn’t tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day. Bankers didn’t mention that they took tens of billions of dollars in emergency loans at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy. And no one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed’s below-market rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue.
Research Credit: ms
Lots of Cops in Riot Gear at Occupy Los Angeles
November 28th, 2011Update: A Few Arrests
Via: Los Angeles Times:
The Los Angeles Police Department arrested several people Monday morning as it worked to deal with a swelling crowd that came to protest the planned eviction of Occupy L.A. campers on the lawn of City Hall.
When the LAPD announced that it wanted the campers out by midnight Sunday, officials hoped many protesters would leave voluntarily. Instead, the deadline prompted hundreds of people to converge on the area.
An estimated 1,000 protesters blocked streets around City Hall, creating a standoff with authorities.
Shortly after 5 a.m., police issued an order to disperse to demonstrators gathered at the intersection of 1st and Main streets. Most people complied, but a few refused to leave.
At one point, some protesters started throwing objects at police. Several people were then arrested; one person was carried away by officers.
Police said that there are still no plans to begin evicting people from the park around City Hall, which was officially closed at midnight. They said their main intention was to clear the streets for morning commuters.
“It is not our intent to clear the park at this time,” an officer said over a loudspeaker. “It is only our intent to clear the street. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.”
“Right now we have no plans to go into the encampment,” said LAPD Cmdr. Andy Smith.
—End Update—
The Occupy Oakland guy with the awesome streaming rig drove down to Los Angeles.
Via: Ustream:
Senate Bill 1867: U.S. Military Would Be Able to Indefinitely Detain American Civilians Without Charge or Trial Anywhere in the World
November 28th, 2011Update: Senate Rejects Effort to Ease Terrorist Detainee Policy in Defense Bill
Via: The Hill:
The Senate rejected an amendment on Tuesday that would have removed a provision from the pending Defense spending bill to toughen U.S. policy towards suspected terrorists captured on the battlefield or on the home front.
—End Update—
Via: ACLU:
The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. Even Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) raised his concerns about the NDAA detention provisions during last night’s Republican debate. The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself.
The worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial provision is in S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill, which will be on the Senate floor on Monday. The bill was drafted in secret by Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and passed in a closed-door committee meeting, without even a single hearing.
