Category Archives: planetkillers

CENSORED NEWS: Native America Calling ‘The Great Horse Controversy’ Roundup and Slaughter

Dine’ medicine people passed a resolution opposing the roundup and slaughter.

“The Horse is our medicine and has helped us survive many hardships, they must be given respect and honored for their sacred place within the Creation, as they possess the same fundamental right to Life as we, Five Fingered Ones do,” says the resolution passed with 32 in favor and none opposing on Aug. 26, 2013.

Nohooka Dine’ said the capture, imprisonment and slaughter of horses threatens traditional Dine’ spirituality and culture. Further, the medicine people said that the Navajo Nation government’s support of horse slaughter violates the way of life and being of traditional Dine’, the Ke’.

Navajo medicine people say efforts to exterminate wild horses repeats the pattern of the slaughter of the buffalo and is an indicator of the loss of the sacred and traditional ways as a result of boarding schools and colonization.

Leland Grass said Navajo leaders have lost the meaning of the Horse Song. Grass posed this question to tribal politicians who reflect the BIA mentality: “Why do you carry Horse Song (or even ask for horse song in your trail ride event) and want to kill numerous horses of your land that is sacred to all living.”

via CENSORED NEWS: Native America Calling ‘The Great Horse Controversy’ Roundup and Slaughter.

Monsanto akin to Assad – Denver Holistic Health | Examiner.com

Glyphosate commonly marketed as Roundup and manufactured by Monsanto is the most frequently used herbicide on both cropland and common-use areas of the world since its introduction in the 1970s. For years the chemical industry claimed there were no adverse side effects to the widespread use of glyphosate but more recent studies have found, “[Glyphosate] residues are found in the main foods of the Western diet, comprised primarily of sugar, corn, soy and wheat. Glyphosate inhibition of cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes is an overlooked component of its toxicity to mammals. CYP enzymes play crucial roles in biology, one of which is to detoxify xenobiotics. Thus, glyphosate enhances the damaging effects of other food borne chemical residues and environmental toxins. Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body.” Is the slow, gradual poisoning of a people worse than immediate death?

Perhaps the United States needs reminded of the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam and the horrible effects still being felt by generations of Americans and their offspring.

via Monsanto akin to Assad – Denver Holistic Health | Examiner.com.

Photo of the Day: Eco-Friendly Dairies

Scientists are looking at whether changing the surface of a barnyard from soil to sand or wood chips can help reduce the amount of gases that vaporize after cattle urinate. The information will be used to help farmers make their dairies more environmentally friendly.

via Photo of the Day: Eco-Friendly Dairies.

 

Makes little sense when you are milking and housing 1,000 or more head but looks good for press.

China’s Food Supply Dilemma – Not!

According to Deere & Company CEO, Sam Allen, China’s population is outpacing its food supply. Allen suggests that a strategic combination of increased food imports and increased food production in the country is needed to feed 1.35 billion mouths.

via China’s Food Supply Dilemma.

(People, it seems, will say nearly anything to get in print. If China needs food for its people, all it need do is export less of it outside of the country – or do what we will all be doing in the future – grow more of everything in green houses, organically – using less water and polluting less and using less space. Field farming will give way to replanting forests and letting natural ecology recover where it can to better support itself and us!)

Eat Drink Better | Cooking, healthy food, and sustainable eating!

Even so, U.S. shrimpers look like Boy Scouts compared to Asian and South American “shrimp barons,” who are clearing huge swaths of ecologically sensitive mangrove habitat to create shrimp factory farms. It’s estimated that one-fifth of mangroves worldwide have been lost since 1980, mostly because they have been razed to make way for shrimp farms. Shrimp that comes from cleared mangroves is estimated to have a carbon footprint 10 times higher than beef from cows raised on cleared Amazon rain forest.

What about farmed shrimp?

Overseas shrimp farms are commonly cesspools of antibiotics, fertilizers, banned pesticides, contaminated water, and other waste. According to Canadian journalist Taras Grescoe, “The simple fact is, if you’re eating cheap shrimp today, it almost certainly comes from a turbid, pesticide- and antibiotic-filled, virus-laden pond in the tropical climes of one of the world’s poorest nations.”

If local villagers object to the farms, which have been blamed for polluting or siphoning the water supply and contaminating agricultural land with salt water and waste, their concerns are often ruthlessly quashed—sometimes with violence, including beatings, rapes, arson, shootings, and even murder. In Thailand, Burmese migrants are press-ganged into working on fishing boats that supply feed to shrimp farms, and workers report appalling conditions—and even executions at sea.

Considering the devastating ecological impact of cheap shrimp—in addition to the accompanying human rights abuses—isn’t it time to put an end to “endless shrimp”?

via Eat Drink Better | Cooking, healthy food, and sustainable eating!.

My 30 Years as a Poultry Inspector | Food & Water Watch

(Pogo – the old cartoon opossum – said: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” We vote for people who want to gut government at all costs as a matter of faith and trust in the market to “protect” consumers. I trust the market to look the other way until a hundred or a thousand die quickly from a blatant incident.)

When I was a USDA inspector, we went bird by bird to assure that plants were producing clean, wholesome products. But that won’t be the case if the USDA’s plan to privatize poultry inspection goes forward. I worked with the pilot phase of this plan to privatize the inspection of our poultry, but it could soon be approved for broader use… and it turns the “inspection” of our food into a sham. In plants where they’ve been testing this new process, line speeds have been permitted to run as fast as 200 birds per minute. That’s faster than any human could possibly inspect all those birds.

Privatizing inspection means shifting the actual hands-on inspection of the birds from highly trained, taxpayer-funded, unbiased, Federal employees to plant employees who are not required to have any training at all — and in doing so, the USDA had to change the name of these employees to “sorters” in lieu of inspectors, because what they’re doing is not inspection.

It is a sad state of affairs when our government is more concerned about saving money than it is about people’s health, but that’s what we’ve got here: a money-saving system that makes it impossible to do adequate inspection of our poultry. A properly trained inspector utilizes ALL of their senses to make a decision about the wholesomeness of the bird. I have no idea of how checking carcasses flying by at unregulated speeds of three per second, without any authority to touch the products, turn or do anything else, can be called “inspection.”

via My 30 Years as a Poultry Inspector | Food & Water Watch.

Texas pertussis levels on track to reach highest levels in 50 years | Vaccine News Daily

The cost of self-delusion that vaccinations are not needed or that refusing them for your kids is “freedom” related…

Two pertussis-related deaths occurred this year in Texas in infants too young to be vaccinated.

“This is extremely concerning,” Lisa Cornelius, an infectious diseases medical officer at the DSHS, said. “If cases continue to be diagnosed at the current rate, we will see the most Texas cases since the 1950s. Pertussis is highly infectious and can cause serious complications, especially in babies, so people should take it seriously.”

The DSHS issued a health alert on Tuesday advising doctors on how to diagnose and treat pertussis. The department strongly urged people to ensure their children’s and their own vaccinations are up to date.

The department recommends pregnant women get a dose of pertussis vaccine during each pregnancy, preferably between the 27th and 36th weeks of pregnancy. The vaccine helps protect the baby before he or she can start getting a vaccine series at two months of age. Family members and medical providers who will be around newborns should also be vaccinated.

Pertussis is a bacterial infection that typically starts with cold-like symptoms and a mild cough. After a week or two, severe coughing can start and last for several weeks. The whooping sound that follows the coughing fits gives the disease its other name, whooping cough.

via Texas pertussis levels on track to reach highest levels in 50 years | Vaccine News Daily.

Japan to boost military spending | Asia | DW.DE | 06.09.2013 – Japan remilitarizing and ?

The scenario: The 250 Japanese ground troops were tasked with recapturing a remote island which had been occupied by an “enemy” force. The Ground Self-Defense units were supported by four helicopters and three aircrafts from the Maritime Self-Defense Force. Naval assets that were used in the exercise included the new helicopter-destroyer Hyuga and the guided missile destroyer Atago, as well as a transport ship.

The scenario was unmistakably a demonstration of Japan’s desire and ability to recapture the disputed Senkaku Islands, part of the Okinawa archipelago, which China claims sovereignty over and refers to as the Diaoyu chain. And Beijing clearly picked up on the theme of the exercise as it fired off a diplomatic complaint to Japan over the exercise.

via Japan to boost military spending | Asia | DW.DE | 06.09.2013.

Russia says its evidence points to rebels in Aleppo chemical attack – UPI.com

The statement also warned the United States and its allies against conducting a military strike against Syria until the United Nations completes its investigation into the Aug. 21 chemical attack in Damascus suburbs. The United States said its evidence indicates forces loyal to President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons in the August attack.

The statement also raised the specter of U.S. claims of weapons of mass destruction being hidden in Iraq that later proved false.

“The Russian report is specific,” the ministry statement said. “It is a scientific and technical document.”

U.S. officials did not immediately comment, McClatchy said, which reported that independent chemical weapons experts it had contacted said they had not had time to read the Russian document.

A U.N. team spent four days late last month investigating the Aug. 21 incident. Samples it collected are being examined at OPCW labs in Europe. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has urged the United States to delay any response until results of the U.N. investigation are known.

via Russia says its evidence points to rebels in Aleppo chemical attack – UPI.com.