|
10/25/2003
The End Days Story of the Day: Texas Lake Contains Prozac :.For this type of story, do you guys prefer, "The End Days Story of the Day," or, "This Is One for the I Shit You Not File?" Unfortunately, the fish are only ingesting sub therapeutic levels of Prozac, so they're probably still depressed: What could be more peaceful, more restful or more relaxing than dropping a line into a quiet Texas lake and trying to hook a fish that is on Prozac? According to a study by a Baylor University toxicologist, fluoxetine � the active ingredient in the antidepressant Prozac � is making its way to a lake in the Dallas area and into the tissue of the freshwater blue gill fish.
posted by Kevin at 2:22 AM
10/24/2003
The Underground World of Outlaw Vegetable Growers :.This is practically unbelievable. Isn't it interesting that many activities that are good, true and beautiful are illegal? The Plant Varieties and Seeds Act (1964) makes these tomatoes forbidden fruit - well, at least the seeds from which they are grown. According to the act, anyone wanting to sell the seeds of a fruit or vegetable must first register the variety on a National List. Before registration, it must be tested to ensure it is "distinct, uniform and stable", and a fee must be paid. Sadly for amateur growers, these fees add up to nearly �1,000, in the case of tomatoes, plus an annual renewal fee of �185. There are no exceptions, no grants for amateur growers, and it is illegal for anyone to sell the seeds of unregistered fruit or, by implication, the fruit itself.
Even if they can pass the tests (and the variety 'My Girl' is many things, but its fruits - anything between cherry and avocado-sized - could never be called "uniform") the only people who can afford to register them are huge companies that sell to supermarket chains (the familiar comedy-villain Monsanto being one example); the result is that only mass-market, supermarket-friendly varieties are registered. Varieties of interest only to amateurs are ignored, and it becomes illegal to sell them; so, with no growing plants providing seeds for the future, they're simply becoming extinct.
posted by Kevin at 6:36 PM
NeoCorks and OrgasmatronsI just bought a bottle of 2001 Smoking Loon Cabernet Sauvignon. This was an impulse buy caused by the fact that the old woman in front of me at the market (I didn't cross any picket lines) was having coupon difficulties. My eyes started to wander and they fell upon a stack of the richly colored Smoking Loon bottles near the checkout area. Some primitive, reptilian portion of my brain was sufficiently stimulated and I grabbed a bottle. I was stunned when I proceeded to uncork the thing and saw that the "cork" was actually a NeoCork. In case you don't feel like clicking though, a NeoCork is a synthetic cork that is supposed to be better than the cork technology that has somehow managed to serve humanity well for the previous 8,000 years or so. In case you're wondering, Smoking Loon isn't a bottom grade wine. At around $9, it's at least a couple of rungs up from the bottom. Hell, even Two Buck Chuck (Charles Shaw from Trader Joe's) uses a real cork. Now, I'm not pretending to be some sort of snob, but when I sink my corkscrew into the neck of a bottle of wine, I don't want any surprises! I have generally come to expect the stopper to be made out of something resembling cork. I like the cork. I like how the cork smells. I sometimes save corks from bottles of wine I like. Shit, I'll even take the glass of grape juice if there's cork floating in it. (After all, it's The End, and one shouldn't complain about a couple of bits of cork in one's wine.) But bits of cork are a thing of the past, because now we have NeoCork! HAHAHA! That thing was made out of some kind plastic and high density foam rubber.... yet another item made out of petroleum!!! What's next? What is the next ridiculous technological fix for something that isn't broken? I wasn't going to even post what you just read above. I figured that I was just starting to get old, crusty and set in my ways. But then I read about the Super Craptastical Female Orgasmatron on Wired.... I guess men no longer have what it takes to satisfy women, or they are just too tired from work, or lazy, to fit together the complex puzzle pieces of the female orgasm. But fear not, just hook electrodes up to her ankles, flip the switch and come back in ten minutes when she's ready to pop! While you're waiting, heat up some Cheez Wiz in the microwave and play a DVD to pacify your spawn for the next several thousand milliseconds that you'll need to light off your woman after she's been wound up by this handy contraption!!! Oh yeah. Batteries not included. Your results may vary. Call me old fashioned, but I'll appreciate the cork floaters in my wine, and my girlfriend without the electrodes. More: Interesting Story on Cork :.If you found what I wrote above interesting, you might also enjoy this article on cork. Nope, I'm not kidding, an article on cork. I never knew how much I didn't know about cork: Contrary to some propaganda, not a single tree is cut down to get the cork � cork extraction is one of the most environmentally friendly harvesting processes in the world.
Harvesting cork is a highly skilled job: even the axes are specially designed. Cork cutters make precise incisions into the cork bark and then strip it off the trees � like peeling a skin away from a banana. An experienced worker can gather up to 600kg of cork each day, and Miguel is certainly in this league. After harvest, each tree is painted with a big white number to indicate when it was last stripped. The trees are left for nine years to allow the cork bark to grow back and then the whole process starts again.
The cork industry is vital for the Mediterranean, which supplies more than 99 per cent of the world's cork. Portugal, home to a third of the world's cork trees, is the biggest producer, and in some Portuguese villages, such as Luzianes, 80 per cent of people depend on cork for their income.
The most important part of the cork market is the production of cork stoppers.Research Credit: JH
posted by Kevin at 4:11 PM
RFID to Track High School Students :.In commentary below, I said that RFID chips will wind up in the bodies of U.S. military personnel. That prediction hasn't come true yet, but it only took a few hours before another frightening RFID story broke. Would you believe they want to track kids in schools using RFID? Believe it. I wonder how school principal and chief comandante Stillman would appreciate a crew of 15 year old hackers surveiling his every move, from the morning evacuation maneuver on the can to the awkward moments in bed with his wife after a meal of TV dinners, cheap vodka and Metamucil? Come on you 15 year old hackers! Get to work: Stillman has gone whole-hog for radio-frequency technology, which his year-old Enterprise Charter School started using last month to record the time of day students arrive in the morning. In the next months, he plans to use RFID to track library loans, disciplinary records, cafeteria purchases and visits to the nurse's office. Eventually he'd like to expand the system to track students' punctuality (or lack thereof) for every class and to verify the time they get on and off school buses.
"That way, we could confirm that Johnny Jones got off at Oak and Hurtle at 3:22," Stillman said. "All this relates to safety and keeping track of kids.... Eventually it will become a monitoring tool for us."Man, I wish I was 15 years old again and attending a school that used RFID surveillance. I'd form an insurgency movement and make it my mission in life to drive those idiot administrators into a mental institution!
posted by Kevin at 4:06 PM
10/23/2003
U.S. Military Loves RFID, Planning Massive Roll Out :.Yawn. It will wind up in soldiers. Just wait and see: The US Department of Defense has announced a sweeping policy to slap an electronic tag on every item in its inventory - well, almost every item.
By January 2005, the DoD will require all suppliers to place RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags on their goods. The feds hope this technology will help it keep track of massive inventories and improve transaction speeds. Government officials appear very bullish about the technology, but they do have limits on how far they are willing to take the RFID plan.
posted by Kevin at 11:20 PM
Brill's ID Card :.More stupid technology to reject and refuse, or better yet, smash and destroy: Americans hate to wait. But will they pay - and submit to security screenings and even high-technology fingerprinting - to avoid the long lines snaking behind checkpoints in airports, office buildings and sports arenas?
Steven Brill is betting that the answer is yes. Mr. Brill, a journalist and entrepreneur, will announce today a new company, Verified Identity Card Inc., which will offer customers an electronic card containing data showing that they are not on terrorism watch lists and do not have certain felony convictions on their records.Now here is some high technology that makes sense: EarthBox.
posted by Kevin at 3:48 PM
USS Liberty Investigation a Total Fraud :.A former US Navy lawyer who helped lead the military investigation of the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty that killed 34 servicemen says former president Lyndon Johnson and his defence secretary, Robert McNamara, ordered that the inquiry conclude that it was an accident.
In a signed affidavit released at a Capitol Hill news conference, retired Capt Ward Boston said Johnson and McNamara told those heading the Navy�s inquiry to �conclude that the attack was a case of �mistaken identity� despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary�.
Boston was senior legal counsel to the Navy�s original 1967 review of the attack. He said in the sworn statement that he stayed silent for years because he was a military man, and �when orders come ... I follow them�.
posted by Kevin at 3:51 AM
! ! ! Tokyo Stocks Fall 5%, All Eyes on Sony Results ! ! ! :.Tokyo's Nikkei average fell more than five percent by mid afternoon on Thursday -- on track for its biggest percentage fall since the September 11 attacks -- after Wall Street's biggest drop in a month and a rise in the yen, with jitters ahead of Sony Corp's results also a factor.More: One Day Loss: 16.6 Trillion Yen, Nikkei Marks Biggest Fall Since Sept 11 Aftermath :.The Nikkei average closed down 5.09 percent at 10,335.16, after falling as low as 10,304.29 in late trade.
The broad-based TOPIX index fell 5.28 percent to 1,017.03, with losses heavy across a range of sectors.
Both indexes suffered their biggest percentage losses since September 12, 2001.
Thursday's sharp falls wiped out 16.6 trillion yen ($152 billion) from the value of the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, leaving it at 297.76 trillion yen.More: Sony Profits Drop 25% :.Sony, the beleaguered Japanese electronics and entertainment company, said net profits in its fiscal second quarter declined 25 per cent because of a significant drop in sales from its game business.More: Sony to Lay Off 20,000 :.Sony Corp, the world's second-largest maker of consumer electronics, plans to cut as many as 20,000 jobs, or about 10 percent of its workforce, by March 2006 as it stops making televisions in Japan and reduces administration costs, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said.
posted by Kevin at 1:45 AM
10/22/2003
Dollar vs. Euro :.This is an excellent article: If the oil producers turn their backs on the US dollar, the ramifications for the global economy would be immense. At the very least, demand for euros would surge as oil importers would need to buy euros to buy oil. But this would be just the beginning. As things stand, oil exporters keep the billions of dollars they receive from the sale of their oil in their central bank reserves. Similarly, oil importers are obliged to keep large dollar reserves to pay for their oil. The fear is that if oil were priced in euros, both oil exporters and importers would switch a significant proportion of their reserves into euros, thus triggering a stampede out of the dollar into euros.
Many in the mid-1990s warned that if the euro ever did emerge as a rival reserve currency, it would lead to dangerous volatility in the currency markets. But what makes the current situation so serious is that the US currency is already under siege as never before. Since the end of the second world war, the US dollar has been the undisputed reserve currency of the world. It has been universally regarded as the safest and most reliable store of value available. Any country trying to maintain the value of its own currency has had no option but to hold billions of dollars in its central bank reserves. Two thirds of central bank reserves are dollar-denominated.
But global investors are beginning to lose faith in the greenback. Previous reserve currencies were usually backed by a scarce commodity, usually gold. Countries that ran up trade deficits were obliged to settle their debts in gold. This put a limit on how far into debt a country could sink. But that system came to an end in 1971, when the Nixon administration, faced with the spiralling costs of the Vietnam war, left the Gold Standard. Since the 1970s, Americans have been free to spend as much as the world will lend it. And since the rest of the world needs dollars for its reserves, US debts have spiralled to previously unimaginable levels.
The US current account deficit now stands at some $600 billion a year and America now needs to attract more than $1.5 billion every day from foreign investors to fund its debts. Not surprisingly, foreign investors are beginning to doubt the wisdom of lending America any more of their savings. Over the last year, foreign investors have turned away from America in droves. Instead, the US current account deficit is being financed largely by the intervention of Asian central banks determined to shore up the dollar to maintain the competitive advantage of their own manufacturing industries. In the second quarter of this year, Asian central banks financed more than half the current account deficit. Yet despite this unprecedented intervention, the dollar is still sinking. Research Credit: sunbakedbrains
posted by Kevin at 7:26 PM
The Sound of the End of the World :.Alright you loopers, dub heads and knob twiddlers, queue up the audio from those Cheney speeches and start mixin': ATTN: MUSICIANS, VOCALISTS, SOUND DESIGNERS, BOTH PROFESSIONAL AND AMATEUR
Independent Opposition Music Publishing is seeking short entries for an upcoming sound collage compilation based upon what the ending of this world might sound like.Research Credit: JH
posted by Kevin at 4:08 PM
Bush - Nazi Link Confirmed :.It's finally hitting the mainstream. Yawn... After 60 years of inattention and even denial by the U.S. media, newly-uncovered government documents in The National Archives and Library of Congress reveal that Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, served as a business partner of and U.S. banking operative for the financial architect of the Nazi war machine from 1926 until 1942, when Congress took aggressive action against Bush and his "enemy national" partners.
The documents also show that Bush and his colleagues, according to reports from the U.S. Department of the Treasury and FBI, tried to conceal their financial alliance with German industrialist Fritz Thyssen, a steel and coal baron who, beginning in the mid-1920s, personally funded Adolf Hitler's rise to power by the subversion of democratic principle and German law.
Furthermore, the declassified records demonstrate that Bush and his associates, who included E. Roland Harriman, younger brother of American icon W. Averell Harriman, and George Herbert Walker, President Bush's maternal great-grandfather, continued their dealings with the German industrial baron for nearly eight months after the U.S. entered the war.
posted by Kevin at 2:54 PM
Rare Victory: Monsanto Yields to Pressure on GM Wheat and Barley in Europe :.Keep burning those GM crops and making life difficult (expensive) for these corporations: Monsanto, the huge US company which has pioneered GM crops, issued a statement which announced its "intention to exit from its European cereal seed business". Only two companies - Syngenta and BayerLifeScience - are now involved��?GM crops in Britain.Research Credit: doomhunk
posted by Kevin at 12:56 PM
10/21/2003
Made in America: Israeli Jetfighters Slaughter Ten Palestinians, Wound Dozens, Including Children :.Israeli jetfighters raided Sunday on several parts of Gaza Strip, killing 10 Palestinians and at least one hundred were wounded several of them critically.
At 9:21 PM. Israeli warplanes and helicopters pounded a Palestinian vehicle killing seven Palestinian civilians and wounded dozens, several critically, in the mid-Gaza Strip refugee camp of Nuseirat, Palestinian medical and security sources said.
posted by Kevin at 11:49 PM
Big Sur Double Murder Called Suicide :.I will continue to monitor this one closely. If you believe this was a double suicide, well, say hello to Santa Clause the next time he slides down your chimney: At first, it seemed to have the markings of ritualistic murder, but the deaths of two young Long Beach women at a rustic Big Sur resort turned out to be suicide, authorities said Monday.
Long before they drove up the California coast, Abigail Tapia, 27, and Jacqueline Toves, 26, had planned to kill themselves, Monterey County Sheriff-Coroner Mike Kanalakis said.
They wrote goodbye letters to family members and then completed a long-planned suicide pact late last week in a room with a view of the Pacific Ocean, Kanalakis said. "Both young ladies were feeling despair in their lives and were clearly upset," Kanalakis told reporters Monday afternoon outside his office.
As to why the women were found bound with tape and rope, with garbage bags fastened tightly over their heads, and why Toves was wearing a Kabuki-style mask, Kanalakis said, "It's very, very difficult to understand what goes through someone's mind when they are determined to kill themselves. We are at a loss to explain it."
posted by Kevin at 11:09 PM
European Union: Biometric ID Cards :.The European Union took its first step yesterday towards the creation of an EU-wide health identity card able to store a range of biometric and personal data on a microchip by 2008. Approved by Union ministers in Luxembourg, the plastic disk will slide into the credit-card pouch of a wallet or purse.
The European Health Insurance Card is intended to end the bureaucratic misery of E111 forms currently used by travellers who fall ill in other EU countries. Eventually it will replace a plethora of other complex forms needed for longer stays.
But civil liberties groups said it was the start of a scheme for a harmonised data chip that would quickly evolve into an EU "identity card" containing intrusive information off all kinds that could be read by a computer.
posted by Kevin at 10:44 PM
10/19/2003
Israeli Subs Have Nukes Aimed at Iranian Sites :.It's nearly Miller Time: American-made Harpoon missiles, armed with nuclear warheads, are now aimed by Israel�s fleet of Dolphin-class submarines against Iran�s nuclear facilities.
Following September�s exclusive report in American Free Press about Israel�s submarine nuclear attack capability, over 100 Harpoon cruise missiles have been secretly airlifted to the remote island of Diego Garcia, a joint UK-U.S. base in the Indian Ocean.
The three Israeli submarines that arrived at the base early this month were each loaded with 24 Harpoon missiles.
They then set sail for the Gulf of Oman�bringing Iran�s nuclear facilities all within range of the submarines� payloads.
posted by Kevin at 9:50 AM
|
:. Reading
 Fatal
Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture by Andrew Kimbrell
Readers will come to see
that industrial food production is indeed a "fatal harvest"
- fatal to consumers, as pesticide residues and new disease vectors
such as E. coli and "mad cow disease" find their way
into our food supply; fatal to our landscapes, as chemical runoff
from factory farms poison our rivers and groundwater; fatal to
genetic diversity, as farmers rely increasingly on high-yield
monocultures and genetically engineered crops; and fatal to our
farm communities, which are wiped out by huge corporate
farms.
 Friendly
Fascism: The New Face of Power in America by Bertram Myron Gross
This is a relatively
short but extremely cogent and well-argued treatise on the rise
of a form of fascistic thought and social politics in late 20th
century America. Author Bertram Gross' thesis is quite straightforward;
the power elite that comprises the corporate, governmental and
military superstructure of the country is increasingly inclined
to employ every element in their formidable arsenal of 'friendly
persuasion' to win the hearts and minds of ordinary Americans
through what Gross refers to as friendly fascism.
 The
Good Life
by Scott and Helen Nearing Helen
and Scott Nearing are the great-grandparents of the back-to-the-land
movement, having abandoned the city in 1932 for a rural life based
on self-reliance, good health, and a minimum of cash...Fascinating,
timely, and wholly useful, a mix of the Nearings' challenging
philosophy and expert counsel on practical skills.
 Silent
Theft: The Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth by David Bollierd
In Silent Theft, David Bollier
argues that a great untold story of our time is the staggering
privatization and abuse of our common wealth. Corporations are
engaged in a relentless plunder of dozens of resources that we
collectively own—publicly funded medical breakthroughs,
software innovation, the airwaves, the public domain of creative
works, and even the DNA of plants, animals and humans. Too often,
however, our government turns a blind eye—or sometimes helps
give away our assets. Amazingly,
the silent theft of our shared wealth has gone largely unnoticed
because we have lost our ability to see the commons.
 The
Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It: The Complete Back-To-Basics
Guide by John Seymour The
Self Sufficient Life and How to Live It is the only book that
teaches all the skills needed to live independently in harmony
with the land harnessing natural forms of energy, raising crops
and keeping livestock, preserving foodstuffs, making beer and
wine, basketry, carpentry, weaving, and much more.
 When
Corporations Rule the World by David C. Korten
When Corporations
Rule the World explains how economic globalization has concentrated
the power to govern in global corporations and financial markets
and detached them from accountability to the human interest. It
documents the devastating human and environmental consequences
of the successful efforts of these corporations to reconstruct
values and institutions everywhere on the planet to serve their
own narrow ends.
 The
New Organic Grower: A Master's Manual of Tools and Techniques
for the Home and Market Gardener
This expansion
of a now-classic guide originally published in 1989 is intended
for the serious gardener or small-scale market farmer. It describes
practical and sustainable ways of growing superb organic vegetables,
with detailed coverage of scale and capital, marketing, livestock,
the winter garden, soil fertility, weeds, and many other
topics.
|
