Category Archives: Profiteering

Israeli forces uproot trees, level land near Bethlehem | Maan News Agency

Israeli bulldozers leveled large tracts of Palestinian land in the Bethlehem-area village of Nahalin on Monday, locals said.

Head of the village council, Majid Ghayatha, told Ma’an that Israeli bulldozers uprooted dozens of olive and almond trees in the Wad Salem area.

Several grapevines were also destroyed.

Israeli military forces deployed on hilltops above the village to prevent land owners from accessing their fields.

Locals told Ma’an that they believe Israeli forces are clearing land for a new road connecting the Neve Daniel and Beitar Ilit settlements.

via Israeli forces uproot trees, level land near Bethlehem | Maan News Agency.

Stuffed dead polar bears: Another luxury craze for wealthy Chinese: Shanghaiist

The latest accessory of choice and a “must-have” item that has emerged amongst wealthy Chinese for decorating their homes, offices and clubs is none-other than the cuddly, lovable and endangered polar bear. Stuffed.

Shanghai Daily reports:

Sales of legally imported mounted specimens of polar bears and other animals are booming in a Beijing exhibition hall, reported Beijing Youth Daily.

“Business is going well,” a saleswoman at the hall, outside of the capital’s northern Fifth Ring Road, told the newspaper.

“One company boss came and bought a 3.3-meter-tall stuffed polar bear for 600,000 yuan (US$96,238) without any bargaining,” she added.

For those who can’t actually afford a polar bear (or probably fit one in their house), all other things fuzzy and sourced from a blisteringly cold destination will do, with a stuffed arctic fox fetching a humble 80,000 yuan.

Other furry friends such as elk and lions are also high in demand as well as the heads of elephants, deer and zebras.

But don’t worry. “The animals for sale died of natural causes,” the saleswoman said.

Because with the world’s impeccable record with “exotic” animals and the absolute non-existence of animal poaching in history, we can be sure that with statements such as “Prices reflect their endangered status” (as uttered by the saleswoman) will under no circumstance trigger a spike in the black market.

via Stuffed dead polar bears: Another luxury craze for wealthy Chinese: Shanghaiist.

Auto recalls speed up, are on track to break a record – Los Angeles Times

(Ditlow does not get the point – it’s not so much that they are being more aggressive about identifying defects – they all have been putting out shoddy product for years and have not bothered to notify anyone or just send out letters to owners of newer cars to stop on by for a check up and not that they might die because of a defect.)

“It’s not because automakers are turning out more defective vehicles than ever. Rather, Ditlow said, they are being more aggressive about identifying defects, culling through their records and looking at problems with past models in an effort to avoid being the center of the next crisis.”

via Auto recalls speed up, are on track to break a record – Los Angeles Times.

[UPDATED] NY Times Abruptly Replaces Jill Abramson As Top Editor: Gothamist

Paying a woman less – plain and simple sexism by management – ironic and sleazy! 
Update 5:58 p.m.: In a post on the New Yorker’s blog, columnist Ken Auletta says sources tell him that in addition to other tensions with management, Abramson “discovered that her pay and her pension benefits as both executive editor and, before that, as managing editor were considerably less than the pay and pension benefits of Bill Keller, the male editor whom she replaced in both jobs.” She reportedly confronted the paper’s management—”and this may have fed into the management’s narrative that she was ‘pushy,’ a characterization that, for many, has an inescapably gendered aspect.” Auletta reports that Abramson was told she would be terminated last Friday.Update 5:58 p.m.: In a post on the New Yorker’s blog, columnist Ken Auletta says sources tell him that in addition to other tensions with management, Abramson “discovered that her pay and her pension benefits as both executive editor and, before that, as managing editor were considerably less than the pay and pension benefits of Bill Keller, the male editor whom she replaced in both jobs.” She reportedly confronted the paper’s management—”and this may have fed into the management’s narrative that she was ‘pushy,’ a characterization that, for many, has an inescapably gendered aspect.” Auletta reports that Abramson was told she would be terminated last Friday.

via [UPDATED] NY Times Abruptly Replaces Jill Abramson As Top Editor: Gothamist.

Nepalese women torn between slavery in Lebanon and poverty at home | Global development | theguardian.com

When the 39 Nepalese migrant domestic workers spilled out of the arrivals gate at Kathmandu airport last month, many vowed to return to the country in which they had experienced terrible hardship. Some had been beaten and forced to endure slave-like conditions; the majority had been trafficked.

For years, the women lived illegally in Lebanon, with no means to return home after fleeing abusive employers. The country’s stringent kafala system, which binds migrant staff to their boss, meant that when the women escaped, they lost everything: their legal status, passports and wages.

It was only with the help of a local association, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), as well as the Nepali embassy in Egypt (Nepal does not have an embassy in Lebanon), that the women were eventually able to return to home.

via Nepalese women torn between slavery in Lebanon and poverty at home | Global development | theguardian.com.

Retired Army Colonel Plans Militia-Backed ‘Operation American Spring’ to Force Obama Out of Office | Hatewatch

(Sedition, terrorism and rebellion are the words that come to mind, after extreme self-delusion and self-hatred!)

“The militia groups and the others stood up for Bundy and the government thugs stood down,” Riley said.  “I hope people feel the same way about Operation American Spring.”

In fact, Riley said he hopes members of Congress will “come to their senses,” leave their offices and join in the demonstration set to begin in two weeks.

“It’s a sacrificial effort by patriots who believe our nation is in jeopardy,” Riley told Hatewatch today from his home in Crestview, Fla.   “Our government at the federal level is totally lawless.  Our nation is in grave danger right now of internal implosion.”

While the event is attracting interest from various antigovernment and militia groups, those who join Riley will have to leave their guns behind or face arrest in the District of Columbia.

The group will not apply for a U.S. Park Service demonstration permit “because we are just a bunch of individual patriots who plan on visiting Washington, D.C., exercising our constitutional rights, all at the same time,” Riley told Hatewatch.

Operation American Spring already has delivered its “declaration of revision” demand packets to all 535 members of Congress, Riley said.  The packets call for the impeachment or resignations of President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the Senate majority leader; Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the Senate minority leader; House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the House minority leader, and Attorney General Eric Holder.

via Retired Army Colonel Plans Militia-Backed ‘Operation American Spring’ to Force Obama Out of Office | Hatewatch.

Antimicrobial edible films inhibit pathogens in meat — ScienceDaily

Frankenfood

(Impact of eating zinc oxide nanoparticles or silver nanoparticles – your guess is as good as theirs since they did not research that) 

In the study, which was published online in the April issue of the Journal of Food Science, researchers determined survivability of bacterial pathogens after treatment with 2 percent oregano essential oil, 2 percent rosemary essential oil, zinc oxide nanoparticles or silver nanoparticles.

The compounds then were incorporated into edible films made from pullulan, and the researchers determined the antimicrobial activity of these films against bacterial pathogens inoculated onto petri dishes.

Finally, the researchers experimentally inoculated fresh and ready-to-eat meat and poultry products with bacterial pathogens, treated them with the pullulan films containing the essential oils and nanoparticles, vacuum packaged, and then evaluated for bacterial growth following refrigerated storage for up to three weeks.

“The results from this study demonstrated that edible films made from pullulan and incorporated with essential oils or nanoparticles have the potential to improve the safety of refrigerated, fresh or further-processed meat and poultry products,” said Cutter. “The research shows that we can apply these food-grade films and have them do double duty — releasing antimicrobials and imparting characteristics to protect and improve food we eat.”

via Antimicrobial edible films inhibit pathogens in meat — ScienceDaily.

{Bigger Fail Than Thought!} A Defiant Rancher Savors the Audience That Rallied to His Side – NYTimes.com

“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” he said. Mr. Bundy recalled driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, “and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do.

Continue reading the main story

“And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” he asked. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”

via A Defiant Rancher Savors the Audience That Rallied to His Side – NYTimes.com.

Hero Rancher’s Family Has Been On Nevada Land Since Forever Or At Least 1948 -lol

So you remember how Cow Freedom Hero Nevada Rancher Cliven Bundy’s family has been on the land that they stole fair and square from the Indians since the 1870s and therefore all of his rights to graze his cattle predate any dumb “Bureau of Land Management” or “grazing fees” or “federal interference in Our Freedom”? Some bright smartasses at Las Vegas Teevee Station KLAS decided, very unfairly we should add, to go and look in the Clark County records, just to be communist troublemakers, and they discovered that in reality,

Clark County property records show Cliven Bundy’s parents moved from Bundyville, Arizona and bought the 160 acre ranch in 1948 from Raoul and Ruth Leavitt.

Water rights were transferred too, but only to the ranch, not the federally managed land surrounding it. Court records show Bundy family cattle didn’t start grazing on that land until 1954.

There is almost certainly a very good logical explanation for those records that doesn’t involve Cliven Bundy being a goddamned liar, and we can hardly wait for Fox News and Sean Hannity to find it.

Mr. Bundy just happens to know a hell of a lot more about his family’s history than some dumb piece of paper in a file in the Clark County Assessor’s Office, tell you what:

“I’ve lived my lifetime here. My forefathers have been up and down the Virgin Valley here ever since 1877. All these rights that I claim, have been created through pre-emptive rights and beneficial use of the forage and the water and the access and range improvements,” Bundy said …

“My rights are before the BLM even existed, but my rights are created by beneficial use. Beneficial use means we created the forage and the water from the time the very first pioneers come here,” Bundy said.

The snotty little government-teat-suckling liars at KLAS claim that Bundy has his chronology maybe a teensy bit off, seeing as how his family bought the land in 1948 and began grazing it in 1954, while “The Bureau of Land Management was created 1946, the same year Cliven was born.”

Now who are you going to trust, an American Patriot who denies that the U.S. government has any legitimacy, or some lying land records in a government office that say something different?

For any geneaology geeks out there, KLAS also has a second article detailing Bundy’s claims that his family had been ranching in the area since the 1870s — it looks like his maternal grandparents did have a farm in the area, but there’s no indication that they were cattle ranchers doing useful cattle ranching, and their farm was not on the land that Bundy now owns, nor was it adjacent to the federal land for which he refused to pay grazing fees.

Oh, and the 1998 opinion from a U.S. District Court that determined that Bundy had failed to pay grazing fees, and therefore had no further rights to graze on federal land, also found that Bundy’s family had only been ranching in the area since 1954.

Still, what’s a little embellishment about an extra 75 years of ranching that never happened? The main thing is that the Feds have just totally gotten out of control, right?

via Hero Rancher’s Family Has Been On Nevada Land Since Forever Or At Least 1948.

writeaboutwarming: Fungal Forest Fire – food crops under attack

Not just climate warming – if the crops are more non-diversified GMO seeded crops, the fungi would spread even faster and over a larger area.

The following is a list of fungi, pests and diseases that could be potentially exacerbated by climate change.  It is lifted directly from The Independent.

Asian Soybean Rust affects the soya crop in Brazil, the world’s biggest producer.  There are more than 244 confirmed cases this year.  Industry spending on insecticides and fungicides is expected to reach $11 billion.

Cocoa Pod Borer Disease: Cocoa bean production in Indonesia, the world’s third-largest producer, is likely to dip 2 percent to 410,000 metric tons for 2013-2014, according to the International Cocoa Organization.  The fall is in part due to a tiny, mosquito-sized moth which attacks the plant.

Potato Blight is a fungus-like organism that thrives in damp, humid conditions.  The speed with which blight infection occurs and the devastating impact on the crop make it the biggest threat to the six million tons of potatoes produced in the UK each year.

Coffee Leaf Rust is an orange-colored fungus that has swept through coffee fields from Mexico to Panama.  The epidemic is affecting the livelihoods of more than two million people and causing the loss of 500,000 jobs.

Banana Fungus (TR4): This soil-borne disease is threatening banana crops in North America, Europe, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.  The value of traded bananas worldwide totals $8.9 billion.

via writeaboutwarming: Fungal Forest Fire.