Category Archives: Fail!

Where is My European Union?

Last winter, I stood outside the Opera House in the centre of Athens looking at the posters in the window. I was approached by a well-dressed and immaculately groomed elderly lady. I moved to the side. I thought she wanted to pass. She didn’t. She asked me for a few euros because she was hungry. I took her to dinner and, in generous and unsolicited exchange, she told me her story.

Her name was Magda and she was in her mid-seventies. She had worked as a teacher all her life. Her husband had been a college professor and died “mercifully long before we were reduced to this state”, as she put it. They paid their tax, national insurance and pension contributions straight out of the salary, like most people. They never cheated the state. They never took risks. They saved. They lived modestly in a two bedroom flat.

In the first year of the crisis her widow’s pension top-up stopped. In the second and third her own pension was slashed in half. Downsizing was not an option – house prices had collapsed and there were no buyers. In the third year things got worse. “First, I sold my jewellery. Except this ring”, she said, stroking her wedding ring with her thumb. “Then, I sold the pictures and rugs. Then the good crockery and silver. Then most of the furniture. Now there is nothing left that anyone wants. Last month the super came and removed the radiators from my flat, because I hadn’t paid for communal fuel in so long. I feel so ashamed.”

via Where is My European Union?.

MRSA epidemic increases antibiotic resistance | Vaccine News

CA-MRSA infections have steadily risen. More than 50 percent of skin infections within the U.S. are caused by MRSA. There has not been surveillance or reporting of CA-MRSA, and MRSA continues to be an epidemic.

“The ongoing MRSA epidemic is fueling antibiotic resistance globally as antibiotics are used indiscriminately in humans and in livestock,” Jeanine Thomas, founder of MRSA Survivors Network, said. “Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a current and dangerous public health crisis.”

via MRSA epidemic increases antibiotic resistance | Vaccine News.

Dear MTV Lebanon, Lebanese ARE Racist | A Separate State of Mind | A Lebanese Blog

A few months ago, my hometown decided to enforce a curfew on Syrians. Because that wasn’t enough, some men decided they wanted to form night guard duties, weapons and all, against those Syrians. It wasn’t even a hidden thing. It was a Ebrine normality. In between their “guard” duties, some of those men physically assaulted many Syrians simply because they existed outside of their rooms beyond their forced curfew. A pregnant Syrian woman had to take permission to go out of her house to the hospital to give birth. And the examples are ever-flowing.

via Dear MTV Lebanon, Lebanese ARE Racist | A Separate State of Mind | A Lebanese Blog.

CENSORED NEWS: Agent Orange: Toxin in Genocide of Indigenous Peoples

Agent Orange latest in toxic genocide of Indigenous Peoples

In Canada, Agent Orange was sprayed in British Columbia during the 1980s. At Kapuskasing, Ontario, Agent Orange was sprayed about 20 kilometers from a First Nations community.

The spraying at Kapuskasing reveals the pattern of the US and Canada of targeting areas with Indian communities. Kapuskasing was not only the site of Agent Orange spraying, but was also the site of a WWI prisoner of war camp and later a power plant.

In a pattern of toxic genocide, areas near and on Indian communities have been used as prisoner of war camps, power plant sites and toxic waste dumps.

In Arizona, the WWII prisoner of war camps included sites on Gila River Indian Community and Colorado River Indian Nations. Coal-fired power plants are now on and around many Indian Nations, including the Navajo Nation. The Western Shoshone in Nevada and Goshute in Utah continue to be targeted with toxic and nuclear waste dumps.

Navajos in New Mexico, Havasupai in Arizona and Lakotas in Nebraska and the Dakotas are targeted with new uranium mining that could contaminate their drinking water. During the Cold War, Navajos, Acomas and Laguna Pueblos worked in uranium mines without protective clothing and many died of cancer and respiratory diseases. Today, radioactive tailings are strewn on the Navajo Nation.

Dene in Canada, like the Dine’ in Arizona, were never told of the dangers of uranium mining during the Cold War, and worked in the uranium mines without protective clothing. In the Pueblos, the radioactive dust blew on their foods as they ate.

In the case of the Goshute in Utah, their neighbor continues to be a biological and chemical warfare testing site, the US military’s Dugway Proving Ground.

via CENSORED NEWS: Agent Orange: Toxin in Genocide of Indigenous Peoples.

Total of Indiana residents testing positive for TB rises to 85 | Vaccine News

A spike in HIV and Heroine; now TB – what’s going on Indiana? The Indiana State Department of Health said on Friday that the number of positive tuberculosis (TB) skin-tested individuals has increased from 54 to 85.

As of Friday, all of these patients have been tied to a student recently diagnosed with TB. The student is now quarantined and receiving treatment.

In addition, a second TB patient, who reported having TB symptoms, as well as abnormal chest X-rays, has been identified. A third person without symptoms, but with an abnormal chest X-ray, also has been identified.

via Total of Indiana residents testing positive for TB rises to 85 | Vaccine News.

Goose Exterminator of the Netherlands Enrages Animal Rights Activists – NYTimes.com

{Because, we think our needs come before “nature,” we justify nearly any type of cruelty and foolishness} The entire oper

ation, however, takes hours. To make sure the geese do not just fly away, Mr. Den Hertog limits his activities to their molting period, the few weeks each year when they shed old feathers on their wings to make way for new ones. Unable to fly, they gather in water for protection from predators.

In small boats, Mr. Den Hertog and Mr. Spitzen, the ranger, approached geese relaxing in a canal off the Lower Rhine from opposite sides, a pincer operation intended to drive them toward the river bank, where Mr. Den Hertog, his son and other helpers had set up a kind of chute to funnel the geese to the gas chamber.

A few, as if sensing doom, appeared to be suddenly gripped by wild panic and somehow found a will to fly, fleeing before it was too late on their sparsely feathered wings.

“I love geese. They are very smart,” Mr. Den Hertog said, saying he had been fascinated as a boy with catching animals in the countryside and had spent years perfecting his goose extermination system.

via Goose Exterminator of the Netherlands Enrages Animal Rights Activists – NYTimes.com.