Category Archives: Profiteering

Timber Company Tells California Town, Go Find Your Own Water – The New York Times – People to Company – “your time will come (end)!

Watching the water dispute warily are members of the Winnemem Wintu, a small Native American tribe that considers the slopes of Mount Shasta sacred.According to tribal beliefs, one of the springs on the mountain is the place where animals and mankind emerged into the world. Six years ago, for the first time in the oral history of the tribe, that spring dried up, according to Luisa Navejas, a tribe member.The water around Mount Shasta is not limitless, she said.“This mountain is calling us now, and we need to listen,” Ms. Navejas said of the inactive volcano.“This mountain will talk,” she said. “The time will come.”

Source: Timber Company Tells California Town, Go Find Your Own Water – The New York Times

By ‘saying nothing’ on his birther lie, Donald Trump re-embraces the deplorables: Brent Larkin | cleveland.com

And by saying nothing, Donald Trump said everything.By saying nothing, he confirmed what any thoughtful person has known for months — that his campaign for president is really about racism.Unfair trade deals, tax cuts, job creation, phony chants of change? They’re all accessories.The real message of Trump’s campaign — the one that appeals to all the extremists and haters who help fill his gigantic basket of deplorables — is raw racism.There’s nothing the least bit complicated about Trump’s message, an unmentioned promise so powerful it’s capable of moving his supporters to violence. It goes like this: I’ll keep the blacks in their place and kick the Mexicans and Muslims out. Together, we’ll make America white again.But he won’t.Because he can’t.Top elected officials in Ohio, from Sen. Rob Portman on down, should be ashamed of themselves for openly supporting such a repugnant human being.It is profoundly disappointing that Republican members of Congress and four holders of Ohio statewide offices silently condone Trump’s unique brand of hate and racism. History will treat only Gov. John Kasich kindly on this issue.

Source: By ‘saying nothing’ on his birther lie, Donald Trump re-embraces the deplorables: Brent Larkin | cleveland.com

Dr. Bob Sears, critic of vaccine laws, could lose license after exempting toddler – LA Times Cashing in on pimping for profit on parents’ fears catches up to to him.

Sears, 47, whose “The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child” has sold more than 250,000 copies and made him a celebrity among parents who see peril in the mandatory vaccination regime, could not be reached for comment late Thursday. The Dana Point resident opened his practice in 1998 and offered patients a delayed vaccination schedule. In “The Vaccine Book,” Sears offered his alternatives, such as delaying the start of the varicella vaccination for chickenpox from age 1 until 2 and pushing back the polio vaccination from 2 months to 9 months.His stance has been criticized by fellow pediatricians for misinforming parents about the in-depth testing of vaccines and downplaying the dangers of vaccine-preventable diseases.

Source: Dr. Bob Sears, critic of vaccine laws, could lose license after exempting toddler – LA Times

Japan and South Africa Try to Block Proposed Ban on Domestic Ivory Trade | Inter Press Service – “About money and greed”

The Great Elephant Census, an aerial survey that took almost three years and tracked 350,000 square miles, showed that savanna elephant populations in 15 countries had declined by 30 percent – equal to some 144,000 elephants – between 2007 and 2014. The rate of decline is accelerating and is currently running at an annual 8 percent primarily due to poaching, meaning that some 27,000 elephants a year in those countries are being slaughtered for their ivory. Comparative data did not exist for three countries. The sharpest declines were seen in Tanzania and northern Mozambique.

Source: Japan and South Africa Try to Block Proposed Ban on Domestic Ivory Trade | Inter Press Service

The Lonely Path – sister-hood magazine. A Fuuse production by Deeyah Khan.

Early next morning I heard quite a commotion. I could see faintly through the fabric placed over the small window. Someone was trying to come in through the door at the other end of the courtyard. Someone was speaking in English!‘Yes, but I’d like to check all the same…’‘Help! In here – behind the green cloth on the window!’ I howled.A few tense moments passed; the door opened, and in came a tall English man, and a Pakistani woman.My father and mother, and various relatives all followed.‘Are you Leyla Ali?’I nodded, my body trembling profusely.‘I’m Roger Ellis, from the British High Commission, and this is my assistant. We’re here to help, if that’s what you want.’I looked at my father’s face, dark with indignation, his nostrils flaring. My mother stood behind him, fear casting a gloomy shadow all around her.I nodded again.My father spoke coldly, but steadily, ensuring I heard every single word. ‘If you leave now, you’re dead to us. You’ll never see your family again. Think carefully before you take this huge step. It can never be undone.’Why did it have to be like this?If I chose my family, I chose a marriage I didn’t want with a man I didn’t love.If I chose not to marry him, I had to leave, and be a stranger to my family forever.That was a choice? Some choice!‘I love you both, but I can’t sacrifice my whole life to a marriage I don’t want, just so you can please your biradari, over and above me, your child. Am I so insignificant? Do I matter so little? Abbu you can’t really love me if you’re prepared to do that. I won’t stay.’I turned to Mr Ellis.‘I am ready.’On the drive to Islamabad, I was told what would happen next; where I would stay, where I would be housed when I got to the UK, what support I would get – but it didn’t help me feel any better. I was petrified of how I would survive alone. The last twenty-one years with my family was all I had known.A spasm of painful sombreness jolted through my body.I didn’t ask to be born. I didn’t ask to be treated so unjustly, yet I had to live with the consequences. I had taken the lonely path; and it was loneliness I feared most.

Source: The Lonely Path – sister-hood magazine. A Fuuse production by Deeyah Khan.

“Of course, we can trust profit motive to protect us against crooks and genetic engineers?” Three Spaniards on Mexico flight arrested with 260 reptiles in luggage | In English | EL PAÍS

The Netherlands NVWA Food Safety Authority said the animals were worth an estimated €88,000. Among the reptiles were 14 Chuckwalla lizards from Mexico’s San Esteban island, which are similar in appearance to chameleons and are protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Source: Three Spaniards on Mexico flight arrested with 260 reptiles in luggage | In English | EL PAÍS

Air Force, Running Low on Drone Pilots, Turns to Contractors in Terror Fight – The New York Times – Using mercenaries is just so wrong – Remember the Hessians? 

Over the next two years, the Pentagon plans to add six more operated by contractors, the officials said. The number and identities of contractors working on the drone flights are considered classified information, the Air Force said. But Pentagon officials said there at least several hundred contractors, many of them former drone or fighter pilots who are making double or triple their military salaries.

“This is opening up a whole new can of worms — we have seen problems with security contractors on the battlefield since 9/11, and there’s been an improvement in oversight in that area, but that came after a decade of problems,” said Laura A. Dickinson, a law professor at George Washington University, who has written extensively about the United States’ use of military contractors. “With drones, this is a new area where we already do not have a lot of transparency and with contractors operating drones there’s no clearly defined regime of oversight and accountability.”

Source: Air Force, Running Low on Drone Pilots, Turns to Contractors in Terror Fight – The New York Times

North Dakota pipeline protest turns violent after cultural sites destroyed | US news | The Guardian

Tribe spokesman Steve Sitting Bear said protesters reported that six people had been bitten by security dogs, including a young child. At least 30 people were pepper-sprayed, he said. Preskey said law enforcement authorities had no reports of protesters being injured.There were no law enforcement personnel at the site when the incident occurred, Preskey said. The crowd dispersed when officers arrived and no one was arrested, she said.The incident occurred within half a mile of an encampment where hundreds of people have gathered to join the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s protest of the oil pipeline that is slated to cross the Missouri River nearby.The tribe is challenging the army corps of engineers’ decision to grant permits for Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners’ Dakota Access pipeline, which crosses the Dakotas and Iowa to Illinois, including near the reservation in southern North Dakota. A federal judge will rule before 9 September whether construction can be halted on the Dakota Access pipeline.Energy Transfer Partners did not return phone calls and emails seeking comment.The tribe fears the project will disturb sacred sites and impact drinking water for thousands of tribal members on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation and millions farther downstream.

Source: North Dakota pipeline protest turns violent after cultural sites destroyed | US news | The Guardian

Lebanese MP Hadi Hobeish Destroys A Forest In Akkar To Build His Villa | A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares

The Ministry of Agriculture allowed the MP to cut down: 295 pine trees, 578 Oak trees and 55 Pistacia trees. All of the trees that he was allowed to cut down were thousands of years old. The fact of the matter is, however, that he didn’t only cut down those but he destroyed thousands more in order to build his mansion and make the road as efficient as possible.The end result is a Lebanese MP getting what he wants, destroying an entire forest in doing so, and the Lebanese government not only letting him do that but almost rolling down the red carpet for such an atrocity to take place.Hadi Hobeish pretends to want what’s best for his hometown, which is why he throws around annual summer festivals bringing in Lebanese singers who wouldn’t visit that area otherwise. When the attention cools down, however, he proceeds to do what everyone else does and bend the laws at his will, destroy whatever he can destroy in order for him to have his way.Not only did MP Hobeish destroy the forest, but he did it using governmental money because the decree stipulated that the road needed to be done for “public reasons.”The road only leads to his house.Welcome to the jungle.

Source: Lebanese MP Hadi Hobeish Destroys A Forest In Akkar To Build His Villa | A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares