California’s oil and gas industry is estimated (with official data due to be released in coming days) to use more than 2 million gallons of fresh water per day; so it is hardly surprising that, as Reuters reports, Californians are outraged after discovering that these firms are excluded from Governor Jerry Brown’s mandatory water restrictions, “forcing ordinary Californians to shoulder the burden of the drought.”
This is the current state of neonicotinoid regulation in the U.S., and it is rather pathetic. Like DDT even skeptics now have to deal with the research on neonicotinoids, because the evidence for the harm they do is overwhelming. But it is easy to see the hand of special interests in this moratorium. Products already on the market are exempted, so the impact for good will be greatly compromised. Through corruption and greed we are tipping into a real crisis in agriculture, a double whammy: drought in the food basket counties in California, and the demise of the bees, essential agents for pollination. I think it is important to note that this regulation only occurred because of citizen action. Enough people were willing to stand up for the life-affirming option to compel this EPA action. We must continue to exert our intention to create non-toxic agriculture and humane husbandry policies that work with the meta-systems of Earth. This is a first step.
Today's tale of apocalyptic internet near-misses comes from software developer Kamil Hismatullin, who discovered a security flaw in YouTube that allowed him to delete any video he wanted—or all of them, if he so desired. Fortunately, he did not so desire (although he apparently had some thoughts about doing a number on Justin Bieber's channel), and instead he reported the bug to Google and collected a $5000 reward.
I love the Google. I found two unrelated articles interesting for one simple reason: Google is getting ready for its own version of Wrestlemania. Read more.
Phi Beta Iota: Google, like Microsoft and Standard Oil, needs to die. It is only corruption that keep subsidies for fossil fuel and tolerance for the information-era equivalents of fossil fuel, alive.
No developed Christian country has a sustainable birthrate, and just as many White people are freaked out at America becoming a majority minority nation, so the freak out becomes all the greater when they learn that Christians will soon be a smaller group than Muslims, as this report describes. And here is the kicker: As the U.S. has repeatedly injected itself into the Muslim world, often with violence and death as a result, how do you think the people who live in Islamic countries, and who are still offended by the 13th century Crusades will feel about the U.S. in the future?
Unveiling of Parallel Legal System for Foreign Corporations Will Fuel TPP Controversy, Further Complicate Obama’s Push for Fast Track
The Trans-Pacific Partnership’s (TPP) Investment Chapter, leaked today, reveals how the pact would make it easier for U.S. firms to offshore American jobs to low-wage countries while newly empowering thousands of foreign firms to seek cash compensation from U.S. taxpayers by challenging U.S. government actions, laws and court rulings before unaccountable foreign tribunals. After five years of secretive TPP negotiations, the text – leaked by WikiLeaks –proves that growing concerns about the controversial “investor-state dispute settlement” (ISDS) system that the TPP would extend are well justified.
