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Desertification Iowa Style (Google / Planet 3.0)

DESERTIFICATION

Read at :

http://planet3.org/2013/04/01/desertification-iowa-style-and-the-decline-of-the-monarch/

Desertification Iowa Style and the Decline of the Monarch

by Michael Tobis

What we’re seeing here in the United States is a very precipitous decline of monarchs that’s coincident with the adoption of Roundup-ready corn and soybeans. The first ones were introduced in 1997, soybeans first, then corn. By 2003, 2004, the adoption rate was approaching 50 percent, The use of Roundup ‘has effectively eliminated milkweed from almost all of the habitat monarchs used to use.’ and then we really began to see a decline in monarchs. And the reason is that the most productive habitat for monarch butterflies in the Midwest, in the Corn Belt, was the corn and soybean fields [where milkweed, which monarchs feed on, grew]. Before Roundup-ready crops, weed control was accomplished by running a tiller through those fields and chopping up the weeds and turning over the soil, but not affecting…

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Who turned out to be the April Fools? Those who voted for the current government!

Pride's Purge

(not satire – it’s UK today!)

Here are just a few of the millionaire government ministers who gave themselves a tax cut today (if I missed any let me know in the comments):

Lord Strathclyde worth £10m
Philip Hammond worth £7.5m
George Osborne worth £4.6m
Jeremy Hunt worth £4.5m
David Cameron worth £4m
Dominic Grieve worth £3m
Francis Maude worth £3m
William Hague worth £2.5m
David Laws worth £1m-2m
Nick Clegg worth £1.9m
David Willetts worth £1.9m
Theresa May worth £1.6m
Oliver Letwin worth £1.6m
Owen Paterson worth £1.5m
Kenneth Clarke worth £1m+
Sir George Young £1m+
Iain Duncan Smith worth £1m+
Michael Gove worth £1m+

NB Grant Shapps isn’t on the list because it’s his alter ego Michael Green who’s a millionaire, not him.

No doubt some of these people will be helping the economy by spending some of their £100,000 tax cut on bottles of champagne in celebration this evening.

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Note – a few people have rightly pointed out that ‘worth’ is not the same…

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Don’t turn your back. Because you’re going to be disabled too one day.

Pride's Purge

(not satire – it’s UK today)

This report shows how disabled people in the UK are being hit the hardest by government cuts:

Cuts hitting disabled people hardest

A lot of able-bodied, fully healthy people switch off or turn away at the word ‘disabled’ – because they think the issue is of no concern to them.

And that’s exactly how the government has been able to get away with its vicious attacks on the weakest and most vulnerable members of society for so long. In fact, it’s the worse case of ‘Us‘ versus ‘Them‘ I’ve seen in a long time.

The fact is that disability affects all of us because every single one of us is going to be disabled eventually.

Of course, some people are born with a disability. But many more people have accidents or become sick sometime.

And we all become…

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Diary of Aak, week13: The Kaboos

Nervana

Bassem Youssef

TV host Bassem Youssef arrives at high court on Sunday  (Photo: Ahram)

Main Headlines

Monday

Tuesday

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George Osborne blames pesticides for disappearance of UK’s AAA status

Pride's Purge

(satire – I think)

Scientists say pesticides possible reason for rapid loss of George Osborne’s ability to find new excuses for tanking economy.

Two new studies showthat widely used pesticides – more specifically neoliberalinoids – are damaging the brain of George Osborne, reducing his capability to learn and remember, and thus making him less effective at finding excuses for the badly-tanking economy.

Scientists have found that two types of chemicals called neoliberalinoids and imarightcuntacides are interfering with the chancellor’s ability to find anything else other than his own incompetence to blame for his woeful handling of the economy.

Experiments revealed that exposure to pesticides was also lowering Mr Osborne’s brain activity and reducing the size of his brain, making him even more narrow-minded than usual.

However, some scientists are sceptical about the role of pesticides in the rapid disappearance of the UK’s AAA status. One expert explained the reason for the…

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Sri Lanka censors BBC’s programmes on UN Human Rights Council – Reporters Without Borders

The state-owned Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) has repeatedly censored its FM retransmission of the BBC’s Tamil-language broadcasts since 16 March, a day after the start of the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council’s latest session, which has been looking at the issue of war crimes in Sri Lanka.

“The replacement of the BBC’s coverage of the Human Rights Council’s activities by completely unrelated programming is a direct violation of the Tamil population’s right to information,” Reporters Without Borders and its partner organization, Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS), said.

“Those responsible for this censorship are also directly undermining the national reconciliation process, which has already been weakened by arbitrary control of news and information and by violence targeting journalists who try to cover this process.

via Sri Lanka censors BBC’s programmes on UN Human Rights Council – Reporters Without Borders.

Israeli police accompany rightists entering Aqsa mosque compound | Maan News Agency

What can the government be thinking? Just nuts to enrage people in this way!

Dozens of Israeli Jews on Wednesday entered the courtyards of al-Aqsa Mosque under heavy protection of Israeli forces which prevented Palestinian worshipers from accessing the mosque for prayer.

Police also denied Knesset member Moshe Feiglin access to the compound. Feiglin on Tuesday called upon Israelis to head to the al-Aqsa compound on the occasion of the Jewish Passover festival.

According to Sheikh Azzam al-Khatib, 112 Israeli settlers entered the courtyards of al-Aqsa at 7:30 a.m. via the Moroccan Gate. He pointed out that large numbers of Israeli police officers deployed in the compound.

Al-Khatib added that the Palestinian endowment ministry and the Jordanian embassy to Palestine contacted Israeli police warning of the consequences if Feiglin enters al-Aqsa area. As a result, he said, Israeli police denied Feiglin access.

Israeli soldiers, added al-Khatib, kicked several young worshipers out of the compound while many others were denied access.

via Israeli police accompany rightists entering Aqsa mosque compound | Maan News Agency.