This thread is OPEN, but do check out Chris Floyd‘s latest: “Reality Check: That Long Black Cloud is Coming Down.” Snippet:
This thread is OPEN, but do check out Chris Floyd‘s latest: “Reality Check: That Long Black Cloud is Coming Down.” Snippet:
“With genetic modification (GM) of trees already entering the commercial phase, international cooperation is essential to weigh potential risks, such as plantation failure, against anticipated benefits, such as resistance to diseases, according to a new United Nations global study of biotechnology in forestry released today. “
– GLOBAL COOPERATION VITAL TO WEIGH BENEFITS, RISK OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED TREES – UN
Great UN article – exemplifies everything that is wrong with GM agriculture.
My personal favorite quote:
That’s the cottonwood and poplar family – and around here those are considered “trash trees”. One tree site says this about them:
About the only good thing that’s good about them is that they’re hardy (can stand salty water and air pollution).
Is that a waste or what?
and I use it in parts of my craft work. I don’t know where else it’s used but I’m fairly sure I see poplar groves around Puget Sound. Maybe as raw fiber for paper?
The globalized wood industry seems to have decided that its product is ‘fiber’ in the same way the press industry has decided that its product is minutes-of-emotional-experience. I’ve heard complaints from every kind of traditional wood user from musical instrument makers to boat builders about the implications of this approach.
But then, many if not all the specialty woods are in danger of peaking and depletion because of being slow growing or limited in range, vs. expanding demand.
…A 2004 Business Week study ran the numbers to test Costco’s
business model against that of Wal-Mart. The study confirmed that
Costco’s well-compensated employees are more productive.
The study shows that Costco’s employees sell more: $795 of sales per
square foot, versus only $516 at Sam’s Club, a division of Wal-Mart
(which, like Costco, operates as a members-only warehouse club).
Consequently Costco pulls in more revenue per employee; U.S. operating
profit per hourly employee was $13,647 at Costco versus $11,039 at
Sam’s Club.
Labor Research.org
thanks for that link, really good article on Costco/Wal mart or Sam’s Club.
Wow, with all the talk of screwing, I’ve been posting this one a lot.
Maybe that should be the Wed. logo…as someone said earlier…this being hump day and all.
But circling back to the point about the great race for oil b/w the US and China–doesn’t that just make sense that we should be developing alternative sources of energy–RENEWABLES, anyone?–at a furious pace? Shouldn’t there be a Manhattan Project for renewable energy and technology? Why are we going down this road?
Going off on a tangent, here’s a few words on elephants in historical battles:
Elephants could be very effective against armies that had never encountered them. Massed infantry, even when armed with spears were simply overrun. Cavalry did not do much better, the horses would be frightened by the size, noise and smell of the elephants.
In the Roman era, as few as a dozen elephants could prove decisive in a battle of thousands of cavalry and tens of thousands of infantry.
Before gun powder, one of the simplest ways to defeat these beasts was skirmishers – unarmoured troops, not fighting in formation, using slings and other light missiles. (While they don’t have the same impact of infantry that relies on formations, skirmishers can usually disperse rather than being destroyed, to regroup elsewhere on the battlefield.)
When an elephant is frightened, it will flee in any direction. It is then as much a danger to it’s own side as to the enemy.
(This concludes today’s episodes of “Everything I need to know I learned by playing DBA”)
Jesus Rode A Donkey
Yes, we are! But don’t say anything about it because no one wants to face it much less do anything about it. They don’t want to be upset and besides you know the glass is always half full. Or you could go with it is all God’s will. I don’t know for sure what is going to happen but at this moment in time it isn’t looking very good. Maybe we can dialogue it to death.
that the light from ‘screwed’ will take years to reach us.” –Roseanne
The world has been on the verge of collapse ever sine I can remember.
The Russkies were going to bomb us. Motorcycle gangs would kill us all in our sleep. There would be no more oil (1956 edition). The minorities were going to take over. We were all going to die in Vietnam. We would freeze to death in the dark due to nuclear winter. There would be no more oil (1973 edition). There would be no more oil (1979 edition). Bork as Supreme Court justice would be the end of civilization. Japan would over-run us. NAFTA would cause us all to lose our jobs. Clinton’s shutdown of the welfare system would throw mothers and babies onto the street.
The sky has always been falling…but somehow it stays up there.
Is Air America down?
My outrage meter is beyond peaking. The Guantanamo Bay torture has now been detailed. See my diary here
Watch this a few times — from Milk and Cookies