Pollution ‘hampers bees’ foraging’ BBC
Here’s Where You Can Legally Own a Wolf Slate. Ferrets are banned in New York City along with pretty much everything else (but I do know someone who has pythons in his office, and I don’t mean the kind in suits).
Neat video map of WWII in Europe, day by day over the course of the war AmericaBlog
Walking ‘cuts breast cancer risk’ BBC
New York City Opera Files Bankruptcy as Fundraising Fails Bloomberg
The 9 Ways That Twitter Could Fail, According to Twitter Atlantic
Coal Use Falling, Proof of Progress to Low-Carbon Future Oil Price
IMF sees epic change in world economy Financial Times
How a Banking Scandal Is Bolstering Britain’s Economy WSJ MoneyBeat. Richard Smith: “Oh, the irony.”
The Hostage-Taker: Berlusconi Pushes Italy to Brink Der Spiegel
Spain Suffers from Hundreds of Earthquakes Caused by Offshore Drilling; Largest Quake is Magnitude 4.2; Citizens Complain of Cracks and Tremors Whipping Their Homes Michael Shedlock (furzy mouse)
Young Scots trapped in low paying jobs with poor prospects Real News (Carol B)
Syria: New Constellations Emerge Moon of Alabama
Chief of Iran’s cyber warfare program found shot dead near Tehran Digital Journal (Deontos)
Shutdown Showdown:
The government shutdown could end today. All it would cost is John Boehner’s speakership. Washington Post
Banks stock up cash on default fears Financial Times
Government shutdown: Why many Republicans have no reason to deal Politico
The Shutdown Game Glen Ford (Carol B)
Most Americans Disapprove Of Shutting Down The Government Over Obamacare: Poll Huffington Post
Obama cancels Asia trip because of shutdown Associated Press
Economists fear debt ceiling fight may bring recession CNN
10 Cities Most At Risk To A Government Shutdown Forbes
Now the Government Shutdown Is Stopping Blood Drives Mother Jones
Report on Macroeconomic Effect of Debt Ceiling Brinkmanship US Treasury. Notice despite the effort to make this seem scary and terrible, all they can point to from 2011 is some adverse impact in the financial markets. No evidence of real economy damage.
How the Shutdown Is Devastating Biomedical Scientists and Killing Their Research Wired. However, read comments. This sort of thing looks to be happening solely to projects at NIH facilities.
ObamaCare Launch:
10 things Obamacare won’t tell you MarketWatch
That Thing About Congress Being ‘Exempted’ from Obamacare? Huge Whopper Lie. Daily Banter
Big Brother is Watching You Watch:
Ex-NSA/CIA chief Hayden jokes of putting Snowden on kill list RT
Adobe warns 2.9 million customers of data breach after cyber-attack Guardian
Edward Snowden’s E-Mail Provider Defied FBI Demands to Turn Over Crypto Keys, Documents Show Wired (Deontos)
The Snowden files: why the British public should be worried about GCHQ Guardian
Dark Web Rising: McAfee Founder To Launch New “NSA Killer” Privacy Device RINF
Recent Filings in Case Challenging NSA metadata program (ACLU v. Clapper) Just Security
NSA director admits to misleading public on terror plots Salon
U.S. Capitol Police Lock Down Building, Shots Fired Outside Bloomberg. The reports I got from my sources on the Hill was the shots were all fired by the police, who said this was a car chase and the police response was “paramilitary” and seemed excessive based on the way the police were dealing with people who weren’t even in eyeshot of the action.
Police suspect dental hygienist Miriam Carey was behind the wheel of Capitol chase Washington Post. This is all pretty weird and sad. All I can guess is she hit the barrier by mistake (some folks at the Post site say this is not hard to do) and panicked (Did she have something in the car she didn’t want found?)
Time’s Stengel latest in long line of reporters who jumped to jobs in Obama administration Washington Post
Petition: Drop the Charges Against CUNY Protesters FDL Action (furzy mouse). Please sign!
Gensler’s last stand on derivatives Financial Times
REMIC Tax Enforcement as Financial-Market Regulator – Reiss & Borden StopForeclosureFraud (Deontos)
Don’t ignore rate rise risk to banks Gillian Tett, Financial Times
Antidote du jour (Amolife):
116 comments
Comments are closed.
Here’s the correct link to the “Edward Snowden’s E-Mail Provider Defied FBI Demands to Turn Over Crypto Keys, Documents Show” Wired article.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/10/lavabit_unsealed/
Fixed, thanks!
From the CNN article on the Capital Hill car chase:
Authorities lauded the action of police — some of whom aren’t being paid — who responded to the incident.
Because of the government shutdown, U.S. Capitol Police aren’t receiving a paycheck, although they will receive checks once appropriations are restored.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/04/politics/u-s-capitol-shooting/
Skippy… massive barf~
This disgusts me so much I’ll repost my comment from last night.
SO add depressed Mom to my list of possible reasons for summary execution.
Optimader says:
October 4, 2013 at 12:12 am
Who wants to speculate on why a young woman in a Hyundai w/ a 1 yo in the back seat was speeding, probably on a cell phone, then irrationally reacted to a progressive horizon of flashing lights?
Im guessing
Maybe a suspended license, no insurance, late from daycare late for her shity job, illegal alien–suspended visa blah blah blah any combination that should result in an arrest and dcfs child custody. Clearly any combination of the above requires summary execution rather than just disabling the vehicle
The SS and police spokeswoman, a well tanned cow Had a soviet generals quota of quasi military service ribbon bars on her shirt.
Made me throw up in my throat. Our Empire’s Capital is a very dangerous place indeed.
Chicago would be a warzone if they shot every idiot driver that blows red lights. Is it just me or do other question why the Pretorian guard cant disable a Hyundai with the military firepower they carry now? I certainly could.
Reply
Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/10/links-10313.html#KW8zstlehwiVBf0L.99
make should =would
Same emotion here, Optimader. I do believe that no man worthy of the title “hero,” as all police officers are, would shoot an unarmed mother in front of her child. We have a problem with mindless security detail behaving as if the man is merely an extension of his expensive weaponry, rather than a rational human being. The word Nazi seems appropriate, something I never thought would occur in America, but it is happening in my lifetime.
African Americans have always known the Nazi treatment from the police state–Arthur McDuffie, Amadou Diallo, Abner Louima, among countless.
The Nazism appears to be more equal opportunity now a days.
Maybe they activated the seize-control of the vehicle and ‘made’ the lady panic.
Alternatively, they could have activated that seize-control on all late model cars and calmed her, preventing her from panicking.
Dear optimader;
I think we’re underestimating the power of stupidity here. A stupid ideology sets up an even more moronic ‘system’ to be run by generally average people, who are given very little opportunity for self actuation.
Reminds me perfectly of the cartoon which came out just after 911. Two heads wearing vaguely oriental headgear are seen from behind. They are sitting in the cockpit of an airliner. Out the windscreen in front of them is a large building. One of the heads is saying to the other: “..and let Allah sort them out.”
What I see as the root of this tragedy is a system that discourages independent thinking. When people are given ‘permission’ to disengage their critical faculties and avoid responsibility for their actions, evil comes to the fore. “Shoot first and ask questions later.” That seems to be the new way of doing business.
Ambrit
A good friend of mine is frmr federal law enforcement (white collar fraud in an industry where fraud is a for keeps disaster, not just money). Smarter than the average bear and a pragmatic observer.
In federal law enforcement weapon training they are taught to shoot to kill as an undocumented rule if they draw a weapon. Now this IS NOT written down on the laminated fliptab page of course. They are told orally to “shoot to incapacitate” avoiding the kill word at all cost. Of course then they are scored on head and chest shots.
Just disabling a vehicle is not even on the radar it would seem. Im sure any video will show them aiming directly at the deer in the headlights woman, not drilling holes in the tires and engine.
My perhaps darker observation, when I heard the breathlessly compliant “reporter” on NPR World, he was relating that he was herded into a senate chamber “where usually only elected officials are allowed!”.. because, he was told, Washington DC was “in a state of lockdown” quote- unquote.
I am presuming no discussion today in media about the new normal of the Paramilitary Police having the discretion to “lock down a city”??
Incredibly dangerous stuff with no apparent pushback.
Form an orderly line and get into the boxcar. For your safety and security, no talking –your luggage will be at the destination.
Wait D.C. is now in lockdown and shutdown at the same time? Ok my head just exploded. Divide by zero error.
lockdown, and again this instruction to “shelter in place” evocative of a war or major catastrophe–following the boston bombing playbook it seems. they’ve rehearsed it all and can’t wait till their opening performance.
what can you expect from a warrior culture that has risen to world hegemony via ingenious weaponry and ingenious trickery–starting with hiroshima and nagasaki post ww2 when we surged to the top and our spies were sent out into the world to make the whole scenario safe for our dreams of our specialness and our profits.
gives new meaning to that old term that was not so benign when it first emerged decades ago: overkill.
in other news heard npr talking today about the besieged citizens in the damascus suburb where the poison gas was released–‘what are they eating?’ the show host asks, ‘grape leaves’ etc.; i can still be horrified, not by the hunger of these poor syrians but by WHY do we never hear in such detail of the starvation of all the poor people in all the villages we’ve destroyed and innocent people we’ve rendered homeless, hungry, childless, family-less, etc. in our empire wars? rhetorical question
“Shelter in place” sounds like we’re waiting for the nukes to drop (it’s why one built a bomb shelter, and the height of the cold war may have been the last time the world “shelter” was so widely used).
Shelter is also the bare minimum of housing to meet one’s absolute minimum needs in poverty. Shelter IN PLACE, don’t dare move, like one would play dead for a predator.
A more hopeless, helpless, disempowering phrase could hardly be invented. And so unless there was an immediate danger a few feet away from me, if someone tells me to “shelter in place” I am liable to turn violent on whoever the heck tells me that.
Incidentally the Chinese news http://www.mhznetworks.org/about/press/china%E2%80%99s-english-language-news-channel-expands-production-dc-bureau
had the hot footage of the obligatory HLS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRAP_(armored_vehicle)
rumbling down the street after the fact.
Expect one of these showing up in a community near you as the give away program starts on the ones still in the delivery pipeline to the Pentagon –as they are simultaneously furiously shredding them in Afghanistan because there is no practical (economic) way to ship them back to a desert parking lot in AZ. (Sure they will ship a few back just so to fulfill the claim: yes we shipped serviceable ones back home, they weren’t all shredded, we won the “war” afterall”)
One of the people I work alongside at the Boxxstore served in Afghanistan and told eyewitness stories of exactly that. In one case, the ‘sensitive’ parts from a half dozen vehicles were removed and the rest of the carcases were towed off to be used as targets for training exercises.
Even as DOD is shredding $7 billion of MRAPs and other “scrap” in Afghanistan, they’re buying $887 million more of MSFVs (this year’s model).
http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/08/02/why-spend-887-million-on-armored-vehicles-for-afghan-army-when-thousands-sit-idle/
Its been so long, (6 months or so) people forget the 2 unarmed latina women shot in southern California in a different vehicle than the large black male suspect drove.
Of course, because the suspect imperiled the police, shooting first and asking questions later was justification
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/07/lapd-shooting-at-innocent-people_n_2638701.html
Of course, police abuse, whether stop and frisk, or “impoundment” in Texas, is so common that it would be like noting the sunrise.
What does a police state look like?
USA October 4, 2013…
strange bedfellows.
This is obviously a right wing site, where anything and everything is Obama’s fault, but it was the first I found that showed me the actual car being chased
http://conservativebyte.com/2013/10/capitol-police-overreact/
Just a couple of questions:
Front end of car sure does not appear to have RAMMED a barricade….
bumped a barricade??? touched a barricade???
Uh, if it did RAM a barricade, is there any evidence that the airbags went off? Why wouldn’t they go off in a ramming event?
Funny how she was said to have been firing a weapon initially….but it turns out she didn’t….
I assume (dangerous with our press corps) that the information about her firing a gun came from the police. Do the police guess, or do they know if a weapon is/was being fired???
Makes us cynical paranoiacs wonder if this hadn’t occurred in downtown DC with a million videos around that a gun would have been found…
The Dorner case, I don’t forget. Not only were two innocent women who looked nothing like the suspect (weren’t even the same sex) killed. They burned Dorner himself alive as well and likely deliberately so (rather than you know take him to trial – not that he’d get a fair one, but they don’t even bother). Burning people alive without trial is how we punish things around here, and killing a few completely innocent people along the way.
They were wounded, not killed.
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Christopher-Dorner-Manhunt-Newspaper-Women-Shot-Margie-Carranza-Emma-Hernandez-216664021.html
The times are truly interesting: even Yves is being sceptical regarding the Capitol Hill incident. Scares requiring paramilitary response seem to be popping up like mushrooms in autumn woods. I wonder what is the moisture that calls these incidents to life? I’m reminded of that novel by DeLillo: White Noise. So many versions of reality are flying around that all are starting to look surreal.
When the first breathless reports quickly tailed off I knew that some pour soul in crisis had met our police state head on. These first reports said there was a young child in the back seat of the car. Seeing her picture this morning added another piece of evidence. Now it seems that the justification is “well, she was mentally ill”.
In 21st century America violence is seen as a solution for every problem, and it is rhetorically applied all over the place. Yesterday I was scrolling down the headlines of our local paper. There was a thumbnail of a smiling young teenage girl holding a certificate. She had won an award . . . “Animal Warrior”. The article stated “the winner also represents compassion toward people and animals.” Warrior equals compassion.
I think you’re going to see happen in the US what has happened here in Mexico, and that is that large segments of the population fear the police more than they do the drug cartels, not that there’s that much difference between the two.
I think it has already happened. 8 years ago, I had no hesitation carrying $8000 in cash to buy a car without any worry of being robbed by criminals. Today, I would never carry that amount of cash on me, not for fear of the everyday criminal, but for fear I will be stopped by cops and my cash confiscated.
Here in Mexico the corrupt and incompetent state, as well as the drug cartels, are kept propped up by an external force: the incessant intervention of the United States into the internal affairs of Mexico. Without this protection, they would have succumbed to popular correctives a long time ago.
Since the US is the biggest kid on the block, however, I wonder what Big Brother the corrupt and incompentent politicians of the US believe is going to save them.
The video clearly shows that she merely bumped the barrier and did not ram it. This was clearly a very minor offense. Her attempting to “breach the White House barriers” was cop terminology to justify the killing of an unarmed woman in a car with a kid.
Bump Barack’s barriers and then run away and you will be killed.
Cue the liberals and their calls for more “mental health screening”. Ignore the mental health of our sick society.
true that
Sr. Mexico;
That reminds me of Frank Herberts famous quote about his experiences on and around the set in Mexico during the making of the deLaurentis version of Dune. “..in at least some of the major cities, Mexican police are the criminal syndicate, and corruption goes very high in the government.”
Coming soon to, uh, no, make that, now available in a Norteno city near you!
Very much agreed. I subscribe to a news alert on “police shooting” and there is a regular drip feed of people calling 911 to deal with a disoriented relative, for example, and then police shooting somebody — and I’m filtering out stories where violence has even a semi-plausible justification. And that’s before you get to tasers. I’m a tall white guy who can still pass for middle class, so I might call them — but I think anybody else would have to be nuts, no matter how bourgeois. How could calling a paramilitary force into one’s home or neighborhood ever be appropriate? Of course, the flip side is that we then evolve into “neighborhood defense forces” so everything isn’t ponies and rainbows.
Here’s a poignant example of a woman whose son committed suicide because he got caught up in the United States’ “kids for cash” incarceration scheme:
http://newsroom.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/20/a-crooked-judge-a-sons-suicide-a-mothers-unrequited-grief/#comments
And she’s a white middle class woman.
People on both sides of the border like to talk about how corrupt Mexico’s criminal justice system is.
But when it comes to corruption in the criminal justice system, I’m not convinced that it’s any worse here than in the US. The corruption is different, in that in Mexico it’s the old blatant kind of corruption, whereas what you have in the US is corruption made legal.
not to belabor a point…Well, actually TO BELABOR A POINT, this link shows many pictures of the car
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2442703/Capitol-Hill-lockdown-Miriam-Carey-thought-Obama-stalking-taking-schizophrenia-medication.html
Not a broken headlight, not a broken turn signal….damn, they make those Japanese cars tough…..Not a paint chip, or a scratch….
Maybe they can start advertising that their cars are RAM BARRICADE PROOF….
African Americans to a large extent for years and latinos.
What would you do if your car was suddenly surrounded by armed men in civilian clothes?
Perhaps today is a good time to talk about gun control – for all, including paramilitary police.
Just ignore the dead woman with over 15 bullet holes and the newly orphaned child and concentrate on the marvelous security perimeters that saved our beloved Federal workers from the dental hygenist gone wilding.
Actually, you’re right, this just proves the need for gun confiscation, specifically the guns of the D.C. police force.
Well said, Cynthia. MSM POV and twitter-gushing police-troop worship was retch-inducing.
It doesn’t make one feel safer to see police gun violence like this.
It would seem to me that this kind of killing is the result of the state’s emphasis on “security” which leads to the complete destruction of “individual freedom.”
I’m sorry to say that more and more US police look like a cowardly combination of the Red Army and the Keystone Cops. Grim days.
In 21st century America violence is seen as a solution for every problem, and it is rhetorically applied all over the place.
I wrote a comment on this blog few months back.My point was police state DOES NOT DISTINGUISH between men and women.
When extreme feminist laws like VAWA were passed and many men were killed,threatened with AR15,evicted from houses,removed from jobs,sent to jail-Women and MSM cheered…I didn’t read a single rational analysis why married men should be singled out and killed…Mere comment on liberal media outlets invites instant ban…forget about real solution to problems…i know my comment will cause severe heartburn among feminists but who cares now,ladies?
You wanted to be equal to men and you got full equality in police state..
Now about the killing of young woman,it is sad thing but incidents like are going to happen in future and nothing can be done to stop it…
I think the cop who shot the woman might even get promotion for shooting a deadly woman terrorist
File under: Feature, not bug
I’m not sure I agree with that.
I think these ontological and epistemological crises are what happens when, as John Gray puts its, the “ruling mythology hits the wall,” which certainly cannot be good for the rulers.
Take An Anatonomy of the World written by John Donne in 1611 when the ruling mythology of that day — Medieval Christianity and Feudalism — had been layed asunder:
We see these same sentiments expressed 300 years later in 1919 by Yeats when Modernism was experienceing its first major crisis:
You have cut and pasted Donne and Yeats together in the last quote. You might want to fix that.
No, that’s from Stephen Toulmin’s Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity and he did it that way in order to, as he puts it, show that “Their sentiments are so close that we could even telescope the two texts.”
just going by what i’ve seen here, toulmin’s paste-in is not very convincing of the point he is trying to make, at least not for me.
Re damage to science at NIH. The bigger story is the sequester, which is causing a further serious tightening around all medical research (on top of steady cuts accumulating over recent years) and eventually will push junior researchers out of the field entirely. This will cause long-term damage to the nation’s scientific capabilities because these mid-career types have spent long years of toil to get their PhDs and put in their journeyman labors that are required before they can compete for major awards. Now that they have spent 10-20 years getting the credentials, the government is shutting them out of the rewards they had been told to expect, and many will leave their respective fields for the more lucrative private sector.
OR to drive taxi cabs. Recall 1973 in America.
MOAR “creative destruction” – more despair – don’t you see?
Pollution ‘hampers bees’ foraging’ BBC
It is a condemnation of so-called Human Intelligence that we run an economic system that does not factor in the contribution of other species such as bees. Or the consequences of damaging such species. Now that’s hubris!
And what about worms…….
You’re quite right, this is a serious problem which the powers-that-be (powers that bee?) have been ignoring for years. For more information, read The Forgotten Pollinators, by Buchmann and Nabhan. The book is 15 years old, and could possibly benefit from a new edition, but it’s still valuable. From the same publisher,The Work of Nature, by Yvonne Baskin, shows many of the surprising ways that plants and animals support us.
On the Greenwald interview – this seems to me to be fairly typical BBC interviewing. They tend to try to ask questions that put the interviewee on the spot – see Jeremy Paxman in action with anyone from a Prime Minister to an Archbishop ( http://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/apr/08/jeremy-paxman-gordon-brown-david-cameron) . Greenwald comes out of it well – I guess he was prepared for what he was going to face. The Guardian people will have warned him, if he hadn’t already worked it out for himself.
1. what is the point in asking questions that have been asked & answered so many times over already? There was no digging, pretty much all of the questions were about character, Kirsty showed no interest whatsoever in pursuing any questions that his answers should have raised in her, and she seemed singularly incapable of harboring any critical thoughts about the government’s actions. Why is it in the British public’s interests to understand the motivations of the journalist, which is what Kirsty can’t get enough of talking about? Because really, I don’t care, so long as the reporting is rigorous. Why does she assume the British public does?
2. If you watch the rest of the video as well, you’ll see that interview was followed by some similarly cringe-inducing analysis offered by some nobody Baroness who was invited as an expert but who has no expertise to go on except a talent to sow FUD, which consists mostly of riffs on the ‘oh Glenn is so naive for thinking that the evil commie bastards won’t have gotten access to Snowden’s files’ theme. Why focus on data security to the point of pretty much everything else, unless the purpose is to throw up red herrings?
It may be that this is commonplace for British journalism, but the only thing I can say after having watched this is that I am irritated that Kirsty wasted my and GG’s time by asking all these questions the answer to which she didn’t care about anyway, except in a point-scoring fashion. Journalism shouldn’t be turned into debating, even if it is handy for the BBC when it is, because it makes their reporting and investigative journalism seem intrepid and challenging, when it is merely insipid and pointless. And even if asking asked&answered questions is standard fare, then there is still the question of how to explain Wark’s some times authoritarian, at other times condescending attitude, which shine through at multiple points throughout the interview and the discussion, at the start, but also at e.g. 17:11.
It’s been reported that the BBC and other British media outlets received a D-notice (now called a Defence Advisory Notice) from the UK Government concerning discussions related to PRISM, GCHQ, etc. The BBC, as far as I know, has said very little about the Snowden files as they relate to GCHQ, PRISM and related topics.
Keywords: Defence Advisory Notice June 7 2013
It used to be said that the last refuge of a scoundrel was patriotism. I am begging to think it would be more correct to say that of the hybrid journalist/”patriots”
Jouridiots I think would be a good word (pronounced Jou ri di ots).
@ “IMF sees epic change in world economy”
That’s a great story, not the sublime pronouncements of the IMF chief, but the video that explains some of the dire straits we’re in.
@ “Young Scots trapped in low paying jobs with poor prospects”
That’s a SUPER! video that brings home in a very poingnant and understandable way what 30+ years of neoliberalism has wrought.
Bob Cesca, from the Daily Banter article:
Well, it’s a little more complicated than what young Bob is letting on. From The Hill:
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/326409-obamacare-requires-congress-staff-to-buy-gold-level-insurance-plan#ixzz2gks7YSab
If I recall correctly, for ordinary citizens it’s only the silver plans that are eligible for subsidies. But for the Kongressional Nomenklatura, special rule! — only gold plans.
*sigh*
What my Kongress Klown needs is a shot in the arm … of truth serum.
Our NIH grant submission deadline was supposed to be Monday. Because of the shutdown we are unable to even submit it. No grant submission, no grant, we may lose our jobs depending on how long this thing goes on. As for the sequester, it is doing major long-term damage. Folks are leaving the field and won’t be back. These days, there is a lot of talk that pursuing a science career was just not worth it, and that people would have gone in a different direction. It’s sad.
Just wondering if I will be allowed to post today.
Just checking to see if I will be allowed to post today.
We’ve told you moderation list has key word tripwires and the spam service sometimes generates false positives. We get around to the mod list when we have time and the amount of spam we get in a day is so ginormous (1200+ messages) that we can miss approving false positives. We are working hard to come up with better compromises, but there does not seem to be a perfect solution absent 24/7 paid comment oversight. That would cost over $130,000 at the $15 an hour we pay interns. No one has been willing to write even a $10 check to help address this problem, let alone anything approaching a perfect remedy.
I can understand that this is frustrating, but cluttering up comment with junk test messages earns you troll points with us. This is tantamount to spam. Keep it up and you are asking to be treated accordingly. I’ve appreciated your comments in the past, but I have low tolerance for this sort of thing.
Ran across this minutes ago. An amusing thought:
And I didn’t think it was possible to do any worse than Bush II.
Is Obama worse or are we just on the flat part of the hysteresis curve?
Yup, it’s darkest before it turns pitch black, and finance will soon follow suit. My hunch: the current Kabuki crisis is political cover for derivative debt collapse and the Shock Doctrine end game.
I’ve said this to you before Doug, but you over-estimate the guy. He’s just not that smart, as Putin points out.
Now that IS funny.
There is/was a saying something like “Russia plays chess, America plays checkers”
I guess it should now be “Russia plays chess, America plays shitters”
http://biology.clc.uc.edu/Fankhauser/Cheese/Cheese.html
RE: Here’s Where You Can Legally Own a Wolf
You don’t own a wolf, a wolf owns you. Not a good choice.
Better choice:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Russian_Terrier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czechoslovakian_Wolfdog
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schipperke
these little guys are very cool
The Snowden files: why the British public should be worried about GCHQ
Guardian
This is a lengthy article from a fiction writer who was invited to review the Snowden files so as to provide a new and independent perspective.
The writer makes a lengthy comment on the vast scale and scope of the surveillance and the surprising lack of much public response (especially in the UK). But he does a disservice to his readers and the public at large by not describing how this information can be used to undermine democratic institutions.
He also fails to point out that human intelligence and good policing are much more important in combating terror than wholesale spying. In fact, just in the last day or two we learned that Gen. Alexander admitted under questioning (from Senator Leahy, I think) that most of the fifty or so examples of NSA success were trumped up.
We simply need better commentary than this. A fiction writer should have the imagination and descriptive capability to relate how this kind of surveillance can be used to undermine democracy. And people need such a description or they just won’t care.
===
PS I am no fiction writer yet I described how pervasive surveillance can be used to influence policy in NC comments back in June-July shortly after the Snowden revelations came out!?
He could’ve also talked about the failure of oversight. His failure to do so is especially worrisome because part of his prescription to address surveillance overreach is to improve oversight.
And, he describes spy agency preference for UK jurisdiction (akin to forum shopping and regulatory arbitrage) but doesn’t mention other troubling measures to reduce or eliminate oversight like:
A) the deliberate propaganda campaign to quell public concerns (e.g. ‘every congressman has been briefed'(!)), and
B) attacks on journalistic integrity and a free press.
We have learned that many Congressman had no idea of the scale and scope of the surveillance, and much information is provided only to intel committees and/or only for brief periods of time.
It’s been alleged that a case-management software called PROMIS had a backdoor installed by Michael Riconosciuto that allowed the trojanized software seller to follow what the buyer was doing (a Trojan horse). The PROMIS software was developped by the company Inslaw, and was then mis-appropriated by Reagan-era figures, including some then in the Department of Justice. Danny Casolaro investigated this alleged theft and was found “suicided” in August 1991. Any software with a backdoor is a potential problem, I think. With massive surveillance, it’s a bit like the problem of policing the police. Russel Tice, formerly of the NSA, spoke to Sibel Edmonds of Boiling Frogs, and mentioned the NSA’s “Q Group”; some security people have the power to grant and revoke security clearances. For the highest level clearances, they accumulate in the “Q group”. I’m not sure how the “Q group” polices/manages itself, but according to Wayne Madsen on Alex Jones, they work with psychiatrists and probably polygraph testers. So, I think lots of oversight, audit trails and lots more accountability and explaining would help spread sunshine.
LOL!
I went to high school with Michael Riconosciuto………
I guess I haven’t kept up.
Is he still alive?
Last I heard, yes alive and in jail on drug-making charges: 30-year sentence starting around 1990; that would end in 2020. Riconosciuto was one of Danny Casolaro’s main sources on the Inslaw/PROMIS affair.
Is it sufficient to reference the novel 1984 as an example of the dystopia of pervasive surveillance? I think conceptual scenarios of how surveillance information can be misused helps to make the danger more real and understandable to the public. (this is a case where it is irresponsible NOT to speculate)
We’ve already seen concrete examples of how spying has been misused:
* Analysts spying on girlfriends and ex’s
* illicitly obtained (no wiretap approval) evidence used against people
These have been excused as limited occurances, rule-breakers, targeting ‘bad’ people, etc. But…
= = = = =
Why should society risk such a dystopia when good policing is much more important in keeping us safe? As Rep. Grayson has pointed out: If the public demanded absolute security then we would have a highway speed limit of 30 miles per hour (and it would be strictly enforced).
Some possible ways that pervasive spying can be misused:
* silent black-listing/white-listing
* info arbitrage – e.g. big money for being on the ‘right side’ of a mergers & acquisitions trade
* set-up for conviction or murder – via ability to place damaging info on your computer and knowledge of location and habits
* bribery/blackmail – using the above-mentioned capabilities – or the threat that such capabilities could be employed – to influence politicians and others (for most, the calculation is as follows: its better to comply than take a chance)
As a random aside, I liked Randy Wray’s discussion of a liquidity trap. He describes it from a somewhat different angle and in terms of what he thinks was the essence of Keynes thinking on the matter.
He describes it as ‘marginal efficiency of capital’ or easiest for me to understand ‘profit expectations’ which can actually turn negative making producers not want to invest in production as there are not enough people to buy their product (demand) so they would lose their money. (negative profit). The variable is not interest rates but profit expectations.
I like this reframing of a ‘liquidity trap’ as a ‘demand trap’. Even if several million dollars are available at low interest producers aren’t going to put that money into production unless there are enough employed people to buy the product. And this takes fiscal policy. (and we have a Congress that is out to lunch)
He also sees the commodity bubble as not being due to QE but due to a large amount of this money that isn’t being spent on production instead chasing a limited amount of commodities.
Some companies are starting to understand that federal deficits can correlate positively with company profits. The key is for these deficits to stimulate real demand rather than try and stimulate borrowing using the confidence fairy.
http://ec.libsyn.com/p/f/2/4/f2401393fdd5ef47/Podcast_with_Randy_Wray_Sept_23.mp3?d13a76d516d9dec20c3d276ce028ed5089ab1ce3dae902ea1d01c0873fd8c95f4918&c_id=6180483
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2013/09/stephanie-kelton-interviews-l-randall-wray-monetary-policy-economics-retirement-security.html
He also sees this productive capacity as the most useful thing for retirement security. The three legs of retirement can be seen as private savings, pensions and social security.
As pensions have moved from defined benefit to defined contribution they have become much less reliable. They depend on proper management and there is no guarantee that any money will actually be there when you retire. Private savings are subject to very disruptive boom/bust cycles.
As a society, just saving money doesn’t really do the trick as that money has to be able to buy something. Reflecting Keynes, Wray thinks the best method for retirement security as a nation is investing in plant and equipment and a skilled, trained and educated workforce. This produces a healthy functioning economy rather than a financialized one where there is no there there.
On Scotland’s shite jobs picture — its really fascinating to see how a nation that actually cares for those who labor, and its young people, as human beings instead of cogs or widgets. They are actually bemoaning the fact that many employers no longer feel any need to contribute training and advancement opportunity, interesting work, or any job guarantee to their employees. I don’t remember a time in the US it was any other way, though I do think there was a brief window in the mid-20th before I was born. I read this great piece in Jacobin the other day with a wonderful quote:
“The socialist tradition, however — whether in its Marxist or Polanyian form — holds that there is and should be something special about labor, because labor is people, and the freedom and welfare of the people is the proper subject of political economy.”
-http://jacobinmag.com/2013/10/the-ethic-of-marginal-value/
Its time for Scotland to devolve from the UK, or these problems are only going to fester. I’m not saying total devolution wouldn’t have its challenges but for Scotland, which is at heart a socialist state, to maintain its culture and identity it needs to reclaim itself from the grasping and gaping maw of the neoliberal English dehumanization.
Neoliberalism as a propaganda expression of kleptocracy splits off the economy from its social purposes. The economy is treated as a natural process external to us but having effects on us like fusion in the sun. This is deliberate because once we cease to regard the economy as the servant of society, there to create and maintain the kind of society we want for everyone, any amount of looting and inequality as well as the death and misery they produce, can be justified as impersonal acts of nature, unfortunate events to be sure, but what can the rich and elites do about it, etc. etc.
I think that Peter Frase (of the Jacobin) is eventually going to have to shed that marxist framework given that he seems to have chosen to champion the interests of those Marx charmingly called “the lumpenproletariat” (heavens, what a sound!), as where Frase states, at the end, that all people should be able to attain a decent standard of living irrespective of their status as wage slaves.
Given the way things are going, I don’t necessarily think he’s made a bad choice of constituency. I’m just not sure his chosen ideological framework– which is historically producerist at its core– actually supports his humanizing endeavor, despite his assertions to the contrary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumpenproletariat
Thanks for the link about the Shutdown Game from the Black Agenda Report. What they say is very important. The real issue is not Obamacare. That’s just a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. The real issue is to sell a new Grand Bargain between Democrats and Republicans to cut entitlements, especially Social Security. They’ve already quietly extended the sequester, while protecting military spending. This is huge, but no one mentions this.
Yes, and chained cpi is in this budget.
Indeed, we do perceive the web they weave. The devious trap is backlit by the sunlight on a dewey dawn—Naked Capitalism.
Another interesting aspect of this is, and I get this nugget of information from my co-worker who was in Afrganistan and deals regularly with still serving people, is that the DoD exemptions are not blanket. A kind of “essential/nonessential” triage is going on within the MIC. My big interest is about the NSA and Homeland Security budgets. X% of a black hole is what exactly? That “need to know” event horizon messes everything up.
And let’s not forget another goal–throwing medicare to the for profit insurance wolves.
Obamacare will be the model for that, as it already is for the privatization of medicaid.
NSA director admits to misleading public on terror plots Salon
“The Vermont Democrat then asked the NSA chief to admit that only 13 out of a previously cited 54 cases of foiled plots were genuinely the fruits of the government’s vast dragnet surveillance systems:
“These weren’t all plots, and they weren’t all foiled,” Leahy said, asking Alexander, “Would you agree with that, yes or no?”
“Yes,” replied Alexander.”
The problem with the article is use of terms like “misleading” and “fudging”
NO, IT IS LYING.
It is a good example that electing a “good” or “right” man is no solution.
Those who will give up freedom for a little security will have neither security nor freedom. If you equate the word “freedom” with right wing politics, try substituting “accountable government.”
You could also rephrase the above and say that those willing to give up a little government truthiness will soon have no government truthiness at all.
Funny how the NSA director is not prosecuted for perjury (No, its not. Its sad to see the end of self government).
Its not just misleading its propaganda. They know that MSM will dutifully blast the messages that they want to convey:
“Congress has been briefed on these programs(!)”
“The NSA has foiled 50+ terror plots(!)”
Tempest in a teapot…nothing to worry about…your government loves you…hey look over there…because Obama!
===
To any one paying attention, however, the need for officials to mislead the public and the lack of any accountability for doing so is very disturbing.
What the hell are they protecting, anyway? For a smidgen of added physical security we must all become completely transparent to government goons!?! That’s not likely to end well.
And now nsa spying has become big business (tens of thousands of employees, numerous contractors) and an entrenched bureaucracy all its own. It will take years to roll back, if it is even possible to do so at this point.
Another FAIL by the best government money can buy.
Oh, how could I forget:
“no one’s listening to your calls”
and,
it’s only meta-data.
I try to imagine the best government money can buy being allowed to spending into existence money…so that more money in the hands of the ‘right people’ can buy more of that best government money can buy.
I try to imagine the best government money can buy being allowed to spending into existence money…so that more money in the hands of the ‘right people’ can buy more of that best government money can buy.
A thousand apologies – very strange and sensitive keyboard and touch pad.
As I was saying, that is a sustainable virtuous cycle. No wonder people are for it!
Only baseball players lie to Congress…
Re: Congressional Staffers and Obamacare
From the comment section, this quote from Congresscritter Vitter:
So they’re not exempted, they just get a bigger and better subsidy than the rest of us…that seems fair…
And why the F should congress members be getting subsidies when their base salary is $174,000/yr? Does anyone else making in that kind of money also get a subsidy? Seems like that’s the real story (or is Vitter just lying about this?)…
Everyone seems surprised to see the stock market responding to the current crisis with nary a blink. What they don’t get is that the market could care less about a government shutdown or even a default. The ONLY thing that will move this market downward would be an announcement from Bernanke initializing the Great Taper. The market is no longer being driven by fundamentals, it’s being driven by that QE induced bubble. What is it, 85 billion a month?
And by the way where is that money coming from. If the govt. defaults will Bernanke still be able to implement QE. Anyone with any thoughts on that?
Because as long as QE continues at its present rate, the market will continue to soar, default or not. Is my opinion. So there!
Love the WWII map. Reading the history books gives the whole proceedings an air of inevitability, as Germany was crushed by the geography of Europe, the material of America and the blood of Russians. As I watched the clip, though, I was impressed that it didn’t just HAPPEN, it was DONE.
As I was looking at that map, I paid particular attention to the areas where the unfortunate populations in and around Poland were invaded first by the Germans and then by the Russians. I recently read a book by Timothy Snyder called “Bloodlands” which describes the fate of these people who were thus serially invaded. The soil there was fertilized with the blood of millions of victims and many of these deaths were ignored by the West.
See: http://www.amazon.com/Bloodlands-Europe-Between-Hitler-Stalin/dp/0465031471
“A Corporate Trojan Horse”:
The TPP is often referred to by critics as “NAFTA on steroids,” and would establishing a free-trade zone that would stretch from Vietnam to Chile, encompass 800 million people — about a third of world trade and nearly 40 percent of the global economy. While the text of the treaty has been largely negotiated behind closed doors and until June, kept secret from Congress, more than 600 corporate advisors reportedly have access to the measure, including employees of Halliburton, and Monsanto. “This is not mainly about trade,” says Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. “It is a corporate trojan horse. The agreement has 29 chapters, and only five of them have to do with trade. The other 24 chapters either handcuff our domestic governments — limiting food safety, environmental standards, financial regulation, energy and climate policy — or establishing new powers for corporations.”
http://youtu.be/CS-x5SlcPPM
Why would Chile not take this opportunity to revolt against *Great Satan* — with a TPP Kiss-off?
There’s a reason the Obots are yammering about hit counts and not signups: There aren’t any. Wonkbook (and when you’ve lost Wonkbook):
Nobody could have predicted….
* * *
Also too, the site sucks. But then you knew that. The source code looks like it was thrown together hastily by an ill-paid body shop. But then you knew that too.
* * *
Of course, the Republicans have totally given Obama a reacharound on this: Right now, the story is the government shutdown over ObamaCare*, rather than ObamaCare.
Well done, all. Kayfabe at its finest.
NOTE * Soon to morph into a rebranded Grand Bargain.
Sounds like hilarious Onion fodder, a media circus descending on the one person on the planet to actually sign up for. ObamneyCare. More tragic than funny really.
the bureaucracy of helping an injured cat-
there’s a cat that roams around the neighborhood which we see occasionally on the grounds of the apartment complex where we live. lately, it has been holding its leg up and is obviously injured. day by day, the cat looks more disheveled and we are concerned it will die if it doesn’t get the care it needs.
we have no idea if the cat is totally wild, belongs to a neighbor in the area or what. we’d like to catch the cat and bring it in for medical treatment. it has looked healthy (well fed, good coat) up to now, so wherever it is living, it is doing just fine.
all the animal control type places in the area will catch it and most likely, if it is wild, put it to death (non-adoptable). most of the private “rescue” organizations only want adoptable cats as well.
one local “small animal facility” will repair the cat if we bring it in with a letter from our property owner/manager, on official letterhead, stating they have the right to take and care for the cat, and give photo ID, and one imagines sign over all rights to the shelter.
it isn’t my cat, I don’t have rights over it to sign over to any official or semi-official outfit. we’d just like to catch it, have it treated, and re-release it so that it can take up doing what it was (owned or not) before. the only reason i’m hesitant about taking it in to my vet is because I don’t know if he treats wild animals. he might not, simply due to the risks involved and struggling with a wild animal, even while trying to “help” it, is not what most domestic pet vets have signed on for.
we haven’t managed to catch that cat yet, so the problems of paperwork may never arise. it just upsets me that a simple thing has to be made so complicated.
hi ‘mouse,
cat person here. i share your concern.
i’ve fed outdoor cats in my ‘hood and occasionally trapped them (for adoption or trap neuter and release w/help from a wonderful neighborhood vet we were fortunate to have here for awhile). an outdoor cat isn’t necessarily a ‘wild animal’. you didn’t mention if you’d asked if your vet could see the little guy. It’s worth a try.
I would not get animal control involved – just a no-kill rescue group if your vet isn’t amenable. you can find them in your area through petfinder if you don’t know of any.
i wish you luck with this.
yes, sorry. for “wild” in cats, read “feral”. we have an Audubon society that will treat real wild native species, which handily excludes cats unfortunately.
thank you for this lead. the big part is catching it. if I have to, i’ll lie and say it’s my cat, and he just hates people and wants to bite them anyway.
PhDs working for years to get their degrees and then finding nothing there at the other end, except maybe a lot of debt, may be new to some areas of the hard sciences but it has been a commonplace in the humanities and some fields like theoretical physics for 20 years.
We need to come to understand that we are all enmeshed in the vast economic and historical process that is kleptocracy. None of us is exempt. None of us is or will be left unaffected.
The GCHQ story is one part in the British version of the construction of the surveillance state. What I think is important is that the GCHQ programs did not just happen. They required the broad support of all parties and British political leaders, both Labor and Conservative. It is hard not to look at this in class terms. Why should controversial and highly intrusive programs that might conceivably spark opposition from one or both parties, in fact, enjoy their quiet but solid support, other than it benefits the class interests of the British rich and elites?
For those who don’t care to read the rather long essay in the Guardian, the writer admits that his fundamental belief is that surveillance is necessary but acknowledges that NSA and GCHQ have gone too far. His solution is to make some changes in oversight.
This writer was invited to review the Snowden material by the Guardian but his analysis seems deficient (to me). See my comments above for more.
To me, this is a complex issue but deciding how surveillance capabilities should be used in our society comes down to a few simple questions:
1) how much does pervasive surveillance help/protect a free and democratic society?
2) what are the risks to a free and democratic society?
3) to what extent is oversight possible? what does real oversight entail? what are the costs of strict oversight?
As far as I can determine, the answer to (1) is: not much (good policing is far more important), and the answer to (2) is: substantial. The answer to (3) is unknown but I think that real oversight would involve some public, independent body that that has authority to see everything and reviews the work of Congress, the Courts, etc as well as real accountability for withholding and lying. The cost of real oversight is likely to be substantial.
We know that there has NOT been real oversight thus far because it took DAYS for NSA to put together a list of attacks that they claim to have prevented and most items on that list have just been acknowledged to be bullsh!t by the head of NSA, Gen. Alexander. Furthermore, what we now know is that Congress has NOT been informed and that even the President either doesn’t know what is going on or has chosen to mislead us (“no one is reading your emails”, etc.). And the “investigation” that the President has initiated is almost certainly a whitewash given who he has appointed to the investigative committee (who does he think he’s fooling?). I can already guess the outcome: beating of chest, wringing of hands, teaking of oversight.
The one useful bit from the essay is an explanation of why the public is even more apathetic in the UK: They don’t have Constitutionally guaranteed rights so absent an aggrieved party who brings a case, there is no formal process for objection.
===
And Hugh’s point is a good one. Its likely that those at or near the top of society erroneously believe that pervasive spying brings a safer and more stable society. History teaches us that power is corrupting – and no one is safe if one person or a small group weld that power for their own ends.
So some lady bumped into a barrier and the police executed her as she was backing away? Three points:
1) This is what Alex Jones had on his site yesterday. In otherwords, Alex Jones is now provably more credible than the MSM.
2) I’m not at all surprised that this happened. That’s exactly how I’d expect police to behave in America. And yet there are still people bizarelly insisting on increasting the relative power disparity between police and citizens.
3) This again was in “gun free” DC, right? Amazing, how recently so many horrific crimes with guns are being committed in such an expansive gun-free zone as the DC area. Crimes all committed by government contractors/police incidentally.
GM Corn Farmers Lose Lands, Increase Debts Says New Research
A vicious cycle of poverty” may sound clichéd, but in the case of Filipino farmers planting genetically modified corn, no statement is more apt and true. Small-holder farmers who were lured by promises of good yields and sure markets pay as much as 20-40% interest per cropping season to financers and traders who also buy the produce at a much cheaper price. But as the promised resistance to pests and tolerance to herbicides have decreased over time — as well as natural disasters and calamities – farmers found themselves with poor harvest and incomes. Thinking that they could probably recover by the next cropping season, they borrow loans once again, incurring compounded interests to their unpaid debts.
These are uncovered by a new research “Socio-economic Impacts of Genetically Modified Corn in the Philippines” by MASIPAG which was formally launched on Monday, September 16. MASIPAG is a nework of farmers’ groups, scientist and non‐government organizations in the Philippines seeking to improve the farmers’ quality of life through their control over genetic resources, agricultural technology and associated knowledge.
“Promoters of GM crops always recite a litany of benefits including better yield, use of less pesticides and less labor-intensive, and improved income of farmers despite lack of sufficient evidence. In other times, the benefits are drum-beaten in isolation with other important socio-economic factors,” Dr. Chito Medina, MASIPAG national coordinator writes in the book’s foreword. “While evidences on the health and environmental effects of GMS are accumulating, the data on socio-economic impacts of GMOs are very few.”
The book discusses the effects of GM Corn production on farmers’ incomes, health and environment. The research also sheds light on the exploitation of local corn traders among the poor farmers, as well their role in the proliferation of GMOs and changes in the structures of ownership and control over land, natural and genetic resources as a result of GM corn adoption. A section of the book also discusses how agrochemical transnational corporations are reaping huge profits off GM seeds and chemical inputs.
Evidence of Failure
In the early 2000s, farmers were attracted to the introductory price of GM corn which was almost the same as the conventional hybrid corn. In Cuartero, Capiz for example, the Roundup Ready GM corn (RR corn) used to cost only Php2,800.00 per 18‐kilo bag which is good for a hectare. In 2008, the cost increased to Php 4,600.00 for every 9‐kilo bag and hence corn farmers have to spend Php 9,200.00 for two bags of the RR Corn seeds alone. Prices of other production inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides have also gone up.
Because of the expensive inputs, farmers turn to traders or financiers to avail of loans. In the study, farmers would incur loan interest ranging from 20% to 40% during the four months of cropping season. They are also bound to sell their produce to the traders at a price usually lower than the prevailing market price.
In all, external inputs (seeds, fertilizers and pesticides) eat about 40‐48% of the total expenses that a farmer spend per season, and all of these goes to the corn traders/financiers and agrochemical companies. “They say that with GM corn such as the herbicide‐tolerant variety, farmers can cut cost from weeding. But on the contrary, farmers are now spending more in order to use the technology,” said Medina.
Self-financed small‐holder farmers earn from Php 1,225.00 to Php 19,160.00, but loses can amount to as much as Php 6,611.00. Though farmers may earn as much as Php19,160.00 per season, they said that in reality, nothing really comes back because almost all of their production needs are financed by the traders/financiers including their food, tuition and other expenses. According to one farmer in Bayambang, Pangasinan – “nakain mo na di mo pa naaani” (we’ve already consumed what we have yet to harvest). Far worse, the small‐holder farmers that borrowed from traders ended up with negative incomes.
For farmers who are not able to pay, they usually end up losing control over their lands – what crops to plant, decision making over which crop or variety to plant because traders would not lend to farmers unless they use GM corn. In some cases, farmers are forced to leave, lease or give up their land in order to evade legal actions such as arrests from not paying their debts. – snip
http://masipag.org/2013/09/gm-corn-farmers-lose-lands-increase-debts-says-new-research/
skippy… Mon Dieu, merci pour ce repas que nous allons recevoir…
“GM Corn Farmers Lose Lands, Increase Debts.” And your point?
Makes more room for fracking…
As federal policy makers decide on rules for fracking on public lands, a new report calculates the toll of this dirty drilling on our environment, including 280 billion gallons of toxic wastewater generated by fracking in 2012—enough to flood all of Washington, DC, in a 22-foot deep toxic lagoon. The Environment America Research & Policy Center report, Fracking by the Numbers, is the first to measure the damaging footprint of fracking to date.
“The numbers don’t lie—fracking has taken a dirty and destructive toll on our environment,” said John Rumpler, senior attorney for Environment America. “If this dirty drilling continues unchecked, these numbers will only get worse.”
“At health clinics, we’re seeing nearby residents experiencing nausea, headaches and other symptoms linked to fracking pollution,” said David Brown, a toxicologist who has reviewed health data from Pennsylvania. “With billions of gallons of toxic waste coming each year, we’re just seeing the ‘tip of the iceberg’ in terms of health risks.”
The report measured key indicators of fracking threats across the country, including:
280 billion gallons of toxic wastewater generated in 2012—enough to flood all of Washington, DC, in a 22-foot deep toxic lagoon
450,000 tons of air pollution produced in one year
250 billion gallons of fresh water used since 2005
360,000 acres of land degraded since 2005
100 million metric tons of global warming pollution since 2005
Fracking also inflicts other damage not quantified in the report—ranging from contamination of residential wells to ruined roads to earthquakes at disposal sites.
Screen Shot 2013-10-03 at 9.00.39 AM
Reviewing the totality of this fracking damage, the report’s authors conclude:
Given the scale and severity of fracking’s myriad impacts, constructing a regulatory regime sufficient to protect the environment and public health from dirty drilling—much less enforcing such safeguards at more than 80,000 wells, plus processing and waste disposal sites across the country—seems implausible. In states where fracking is already underway, an immediate moratorium is in order. In all other states, banning fracking is the prudent and necessary course to protect the environment and public health.
At the federal level, the report’s data on land destroyed by fracking operations comes as the Obama Administration considers a rule for fracking on public lands, and as the oil and gas industry is seeking to expand fracking to several places which help provide drinking water for millions of Americans—including the White River National Forest in Colorado and the Delaware River basin, which provides drinking water for more than 15 million Americans.
http://ecowatch.com/2013/report-calculates-damage-by-fracking/
skippy… fracking is the sweetest part… like sucking the marrow out of a kill… does that answer you question mate?
Because fracking is like sucking the sweet marrow out of ones kill… the final act… after all the courses… have been consumed.
http://ecowatch.com/2013/report-calculates-damage-by-fracking/
Groundbreaking Report Calculates Damage Done by Fracking
As federal policy makers decide on rules for fracking on public lands, a new report calculates the toll of this dirty drilling on our environment, including 280 billion gallons of toxic wastewater generated by fracking in 2012—enough to flood all of Washington, DC, in a 22-foot deep toxic lagoon. The Environment America Research & Policy Center report, Fracking by the Numbers, is the first to measure the damaging footprint of fracking to date.
“The numbers don’t lie—fracking has taken a dirty and destructive toll on our environment,” said John Rumpler, senior attorney for Environment America. “If this dirty drilling continues unchecked, these numbers will only get worse.”
“At health clinics, we’re seeing nearby residents experiencing nausea, headaches and other symptoms linked to fracking pollution,” said David Brown, a toxicologist who has reviewed health data from Pennsylvania. “With billions of gallons of toxic waste coming each year, we’re just seeing the ‘tip of the iceberg’ in terms of health risks.”
The report measured key indicators of fracking threats across the country, including:
280 billion gallons of toxic wastewater generated in 2012—enough to flood all of Washington, DC, in a 22-foot deep toxic lagoon
450,000 tons of air pollution produced in one year
250 billion gallons of fresh water used since 2005
360,000 acres of land degraded since 2005
100 million metric tons of global warming pollution since 2005
Fracking also inflicts other damage not quantified in the report—ranging from contamination of residential wells to ruined roads to earthquakes at disposal sites.
Screen Shot 2013-10-03 at 9.00.39 AM
Reviewing the totality of this fracking damage, the report’s authors conclude:
Given the scale and severity of fracking’s myriad impacts, constructing a regulatory regime sufficient to protect the environment and public health from dirty drilling—much less enforcing such safeguards at more than 80,000 wells, plus processing and waste disposal sites across the country—seems implausible. In states where fracking is already underway, an immediate moratorium is in order. In all other states, banning fracking is the prudent and necessary course to protect the environment and public health.
At the federal level, the report’s data on land destroyed by fracking operations comes as the Obama Administration considers a rule for fracking on public lands, and as the oil and gas industry is seeking to expand fracking to several places which help provide drinking water for millions of Americans—including the White River National Forest in Colorado and the Delaware River basin, which provides drinking water for more than 15 million Americans.
http://ecowatch.com/2013/report-calculates-damage-by-fracking/
skippy…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56u6g0POvo0
Today Washington’s blog published a good summary and linkfest about NSA spying
and, you may also be interested in watching
NSA whistle-blower Thomas Drake’s Sept 30th 2013 testimony to the EU Parlement’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice, and Home Affairs.
Glitch-ridden Obamacare website going down for maintenance over weekend. Nobody could have predicted….
* * *
And when is the announcement made? Why, Friday evening, of course!
Clever of the Republicans to totally take the spotlight off this so they could do something nobody wants. Unless it’s all kayfabe to a level I never dreamed of….
it just keeps getting weirder out there in D.C.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/04/20822251-man-believed-to-have-set-himself-on-fire-on-the-mall-in-washington?lite=