Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 1192
April 18, 2017
As global groundwater disappears, rice, wheat and other international crops may start to vanish
BY Dave Berndtson April 17, 2017
Humans are depleting vital groundwater resources across the globe, creating a significant threat to the international trade of food. Photo by Jenny E. Ross/via Getty Images
We already know that humans are depleting vital groundwater resources across the globe. But a new study shows one of the biggest causes of disappearing groundwater is the international food trade.
About 70 percent of freshwater around the globe goes toward irrigation. Researchers from the University College London and NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies now say that a third of that freshwater is drawn from the world’s aquifers — nonrenewable underground pockets of groundwater — and 11 percent of that nonrenewable groundwater is used to irrigate internationally-traded crops.
That means in time, “the current type of food that’s grown will not be able to be produced,” said Carole Dalin, an environmental engineer at the University College London who led the study published in Nature. “Or we’ll not have the same productivity, so it means prices will increase.”
When water is used to grow crops, it’s no longer visible to the consumer. This study keeps track of where this ‘hidden’ water is embedded and where it ends up.
To measure how irrigation drains global aquifers, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis hydrologist and study co-author Yoshihide Wada used an in-house model that essentially places a computerized grid over the Earth and then measures soil moisture, along with water exchange between the atmosphere, soil layers and the underlying groundwater reservoirs, to see where water was going and why. He validated his calculations by comparing them with satellite measurements that track water flow and underground water storage. . .
Source: As global groundwater disappears, rice, wheat and other international crops may start to vanish
Trump Organization Wins Contract To Rebuild Syrian Airport Trump Bombed
Image credit: adapted from ‘Donald Trump Jr.’ by Flickr user Gage Skidmore license CC BY-SA 2.0.
Donald Trump Jr, eldest son of the President and trustee of his business empire, has announced that the Trump Organization has won a lucrative contract to refurbish an airport in the Middle East. He was quick to emphasize this was done without the involvement of the White House.
“I can state with one-hundred percent certainty that my father played no role in the negotiation of this contract which was conducted solely by me over the past 24 hours.”
The airport, called the Shayrat airbase near the Syrian city of Homs, primarily plays host to a domestic carrier called the 50th Air Brigade. Though still a functioning airport, a number of buildings had fallen into disrepair over the course of the past 72 hours.
Donald Trump Jr. said there were a number of other developers bidding on the project, but he managed to persuade client Bashar al-Assad to pick him by promising to stand behind his work
“I told him if I rebuild it I can guarantee it will be quality that will stand the test of time. But if it’s someone other than the Trump Organization, who knows? I couldn’t say what might happen to it.”
Though building airports is a new departure for the Trump Organization – which is more known for hotels and casinos – fellow Trustee Eric Trump sees a lot more variety in the company’s future.
“I see us rebuilding many more airports, as well as heavy manufacturing facilities, power stations, and maybe even ship-building yards. The possibilities are literally endless.”
Source: Trump Organization Wins Lucrative Contract To Rebuild Syrian Airport
Putin: ‘95% of World Terrorist Attacks are Orchestrated By The CIA’*
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I would have put it at 97-98%.
Putin: ‘95% of World Terrorist Attacks are Orchestrated By The CIA’*
By Baxter Dmitry
Shockwaves are reverberating around the Kremlin after an extraordinary meeting called by Vladimir Putin yesterday during which the Russian president said that “95% of the world’s terrorist attacks are orchestrated by the CIA,” and the St. Petersburg metro bombing must be investigated “with this in mind.“
Speaking at a behind closed doors forum for the highest echelons of government and staff in his home city of St. Petersburg, Putin responded to questions about the metro blast by pointing out who is responsible for the vast majority of world terror attacks: the U.S. deep state, and the radical Islamic groups they sponsor to destabilize key regions in the world.
Putin slammed his fist on the table and exclaimed,
“If the CIA have Russian blood on their hands, they will forever regret stirring the Russian bear from its peaceful slumber,” according to…
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April 17, 2017
refuse, reduce, and save
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A zero waste lifestyle doesn’t have to be expensive – to the contrary, practicing zero waste can save families thousands of dollars a year.
Once I read somewhere that zero waste is expensive and only achievable by folks with dollars to spend on shiny stainless steel containers, bamboo furniture, top end reusable bottles, and other fancy non-plastic gadgets. Now, I suppose it depends just what you are trying to achieve. Trend? Doing right by the world? Or are there obstacles?
The thing is, it does not have to be expensive. For me, it has been a way to reflect on what I have and to make what I have last longer, and to consistently be looking for alternatives. There is always more than one way of doing things. Simplifying and getting creative can save you money in the long run. Here is an example of Kathryn at Going Zero Waste keeping track of her savings while cutting down and cutting out.
There are a lot of things I don’t feel the need to buy…
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Degrowth=Genuine Economic Progress
April 18, 2017 by Samuel Alexander
What does genuine economic progress look like? The orthodox answer is that a bigger economy is always better, but this idea is increasingly strained by the knowledge that, on a finite planet, the economy can’t grow for ever.
But what is a steady-state economy? Why it is it desirable or necessary? And what would it be like to live in?
The global predicament
We used to live on a planet that was relatively empty of humans; today it is full to overflowing, with more people consuming more resources. We would need one and a half Earths to sustain the existing economy into the future. Every year this ecological overshoot continues, the foundations of our existence, and that of other species, are undermined.
At the same time, there are great multitudes around the world who are, by any humane standard, under-consuming, and the humanitarian challenge of eliminating global poverty is likely to increase the burden on ecosystems still further.
Meanwhile the population is set to hit 11 billion this century. Despite this, the richest nations still seek to grow their economies without apparent limit.
Like a snake eating its own tail, our growth-orientated civilization suffers from the delusion that there are no environmental limits to growth. But rethinking growth in an age of limits cannot be avoided. The only question is whether it will be by design or disaster.
Degrowth to a steady-state economy
The idea of the steady-state economy presents us with an alternative. This term is somewhat misleading, however, because it suggests that we simply need to maintain the size of the existing economy and stop seeking further growth.
But given the extent of ecological overshoot – and bearing in mind that the poorest nations still need some room to develop their economies and allow the poorest billions to attain a dignified level of existence – the transition will require the richest nations to downscale radically their resource and energy demands.
This realization has given rise to calls for economic “degrowth”. To be distinguished from recession, degrowth means a phase of planned and equitable economic contraction in the richest nations, eventually reaching a steady state that operates within Earth’s biophysical limits. . .
via Life in a ‘degrowth’ economy, and why you might actually enjoy it — Local Futures
George Seldes: Fighting the Corporate Takeover of the Press
Tell the Truth and Run: George Seldes and the American Press
Directed by Rick Goldsmith (1996)
Film Review
Tell the Truth and Run is a tribute to muckraking* journalist George Seldes, released shortly after his death at 104. It takes its title from a book Seldes published in 1952. It includes an extensive interview with Seldes at age 98, detailed biographical sketches and commentary by prominent activists, whistleblowers and media reformers (including Ralph Nader, Daniel Ellsberg and Ben Badikian, Victor Navksy and Jeff Cohen) who were influenced by his work.
Born in 1890, Seldes first became a reporter at 18, just as all major dailies were starting to rely on advertisers (instead of readers) for their funding base. As this occurred, investigative journalists seeking to expose government and corporate corruption began writing for the monthly magazines instead. Bankster JP Morgan and other industrial robber barons put an end to this by buying up all the monthly magazines.
Seldes quit his first job at the Pittsburgh Leader after the publisher spiked a story he wrote about the son of a department store magnate who raped a female staff member.
Following an eye opening stint in the US military press corps during World War I, Seldes became a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. He first ran into difficulty at that paper for exposing the violent and corrupt nature of Mussolini’s fascist regime – at a time when the US government and all the major newspapers were pro-Mussolini (owing to banker JP Morgan’s desire to refinance Italy’s World War I debt).
Seldes quit the Tribune in 1927 and published the first two of a series best selling books (You Can’t Print That and Can These Things Be?) based on all his material the Tribune refused to publish between 1918 and 1928.
Between 1940-1950 he put out the weekly newsletter In Fact: An Antidote to Falsehoods in the Daily Press. He would use the newsletter to expose the FBI role in spying on labor unions and corporate media’s failure to report on 1940s research documenting health problems associated with smoking. He was also the first investigative journalist to expose the role of major Wall Street corporations in supporting Hitler’s rise to power.
* A term applied to American investigative reporters, novelists and critics of the Progressive Era (1890-1930)
April 16, 2017
Newly Released Documents Show Black Lives Matter Infiltrated by NYPD*
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Documents uncovered via a Freedom of Information Act request reveal the NYPD infiltrated Black Lives Matter so successfully that cops participated and ran planning meetings.
Newly Released Documents Show Black Lives Matter Infiltrated by NYPD*
By Alek Hidell
Documents uncovered as part of a Freedom of Information Act request have revealed that the NYPD’s surveillance of the Black Lives Matter movement went much farther than anyone could have anticipated. The records uncovered by a New York law firm have painted a picture of overreach and mass surveillance directed toward the BLM movement
Most of the documents uncovered were emails. The emails showed that not only had the NYPD been on a mission to infiltrate the BLM movement, but it had in fact succeeded. The emails also revealed that undercover officers had gained enough trust in the organization to be actively included in planning meetings, and even took part in demonstrations.
Many of the communications documented the activities of members to include times and places of planned demonstrations. According to Elsa Waithe, a Black Lives Matter…
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Uber Confirms Horrendous Loss in 2016
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Cementing its place as the most heavily-lossmaking private company in the history of Silicon Valley – couldn’t happen to a more deserving company (in view of their barbaric treatment of employees – see https://stuartjeannebramhall.com/2016/10/28/tribunal-rules-uber-drivers-are-employees-not-slaves/
From Wolf Street, by Wolf Richter
“Cementing its place as the most heavily-lossmaking private company in the history of Silicon Valley.”
On Good Friday, when markets were closed and when the entire financial world was tuned out, and when certainly no one was supposed to pay attention, Uber, the most highly valued – at $62.5 billion – and the most scandal plagued tech startup in the world, took the until now unprecedented step of disclosing its audited revenues and losses for the fourth quarter and for the full year of 2016.
Rumors of ballooning losses for 2016 had been swirling since last summer. Bloomberg reported in August that Uber had lost “at least $1.2 billion” in the first half. In December, Uber’s loss in Q3 was said to “exceed $800 million,” according to Bloomberg, and its annual loss “may hit $3 billion.” Others chimed in as some of…
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Vaccine Induced Chronic Fatigue Syndrome*
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According to Dr. Sears, the levels of aluminum included in childhood vaccinations are as follows:
DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis): 170–625 mcg, depending on
manufacturer
hepatitis A: 250 mcg
hepatitis B: 250 mcg
Hib (for meningitis; PedVaxHib brand only): 225 mcg
HPV: 225 mcg
Pediarix (DTaP–hepatitis B–polio combination): 850 mcg
Pentacel (DTaP–Hib–polio combination): 330 mcg
pneumococcus: 125 mcg (emphasis added)
These levels far exceed the safe levels recommended by ASPEN (American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition), especially when you consider that a newborn baby is vaccinated with the hepatitis B vaccine, containing 250 mcg of aluminum, at birth.
Vaccine Induced Chronic Fatigue Syndrome*
By Christina England
Every two years, for the past twenty years, a group of approximately 70 scientists have met at different locations around the world to discuss the effects that aluminum has had on living things.
In March 2017, they met in Vancouver, Canada, for this year’s meeting, titled The 12th Annual Keele Meeting on Aluminum, which was sponsored by the Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute (CMRSI).
One of the scientists who spoke at the conference this year was keynote speaker Dr. Romain Gherardi, from the Neuromuscular Pathology Expert Centre at Paris-Est Créteil University (UPEC).
According to Ms. Celeste McGovern, who reported on the conference and the presentations, Dr. Gherardi had given an extremely frightening overview of the most novel and profound aluminum research related to vaccination.
She wrote:
“Aluminum oxyhydroxide (Alhydrogel) and aluminium hydroxyphosphate (Adjuphos), are nano-materials widely used as immune stimulants or “adjuvants” of vaccines…
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April 15, 2017
#BlackLivesMatter Introduces New Visa Debit Card, Reviving Toxic Old Myths of Black Capitalism
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photo credit: gigionthat.com
BlackLivesMatter was “spiritually” advised by the ANSWER coalition, which in turn is directed by the CPUSA, both groups riven with FBI infiltrators.
Dixon’s piece is spot on.
Decapitate and subvert, an old strategy. Buy off the irresolute; kill off the incorruptible (Darren Seals shot and then set ablaze, gee, ya think they wanted him dead?); and then divert the rest with inane, fruitless reforms.
BlackLivesMatter was “spiritually” advised by the ANSWER coalition, which in turn is directed by the CPUSA, both groups riven with FBI. And the latter, lest we forget, originated the counterinsurgency strategy of “purposeful stupidity.” Which, apparently, still works just fine.
The plutocrats who implemented and enforce racism, and who continue to benefit from it, are still in power. So long as that is the case, racism will prevail.
https://www.blackagendareport.com/BlackLivesMatter-revives-toxic-black-capitalisim-myths
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