TGIF...

Strong Solar Eruptions

Hope the grid holds up! If it didn't, do you have a means of getting clean drinking water? A few week's worth of non-perishables? What if there were no power for a week or longer? Might be something to think about - a Carrington Event, such as was experienced in the 1800s, would be devastating to the global power grid and portable electronics if it happened now. Being at least somewhat prepared doesn't hurt. It's not being all crazy-paranoid, it's being smart. If nothing happens, you have some extra goods on hand. If something does happen, well, maybe your efforts will save you and your loved ones. Don't forget the critter supplies.

From Spaceweather.com:
Solar activity is high.  During a 24 hour period straddling May 13th and 14th, the sun unleashed three X-class solar flares.  These are the strongest flares of the year so far, and they signal a significant increase in solar activity.  The source of the flares, a large sunspot on the sun's eastern limb, appears poised to erupt again as it turns toward Earth.  Check http://spaceweather.com for more information. NOAA forecasters estimate a 40% chance of more X-flares during the next 24 hours.

Sh*t that GMO Companies Say...

Thanks to Farm Wars!

Never Again

Let's stop fueling the corporations that create this! Here are the fruits of "Free Trade": Workers in deathtraps, toiling for pennies with no protections or safety standards. The wet dream of the investor class, and the corporations that control the government. It's time for people who are not sociopaths to step up and say, "no, I will not allow this to keep happening to the world's most vulnerable and desperate people..."



Photographer Shahidul Alam:
“This image, while deeply disturbing, is also hauntingly beautiful. An embrace in death, its tenderness rises above the rubble to touch us where we are most vulnerable. By making it personal, it refuses to let go. This is a photograph that will torment us in our dreams. Quietly it tells us. Never again.” 

 Better Safety in Bangladesh Could Raise Clothing Prices by About 25 Cents
Olga Khazan, The Atlantic

There was some rare happy news out of Bangladesh today as Reshma Akhter, an 18-year-old seamstress, was dug out and rescued after 17 days of being trapped in the wreckage of a collapsed eight-story garment factory building where 1,045 other people have perished. The Rena Plaza incident is officially the worst disaster in the history of the global clothing industry, and it renewed calls for improved safety protections and building code standards in Bangladesh -- a country that owes much of its recent economic growth largely to low-wage clothing work.

The dangerous conditions have been partly blamed on price-conscious businesses, some of whom go with the cheapest and often least-safe local suppliers at the expense of protections for workers. After a November fire that killed 112 workers, brands like Wal-Mart, Gap, and H&M refused to sign a new union-proposed safety plan, which would have introduced more rigorous safety inspections, saying it was "not financially feasible."..... More here.

Was Syria Nuked?

Israel's aggressive attacks on Syria are likely bigger than most people have been led to believe by corporate media. Gordon Duff of Veteran's Today and Press TV assesses the situation there:

Analysis shows Syria came under attack by Israel using, not just nuclear weapons, but an American nuclear bunker buster bomb, one of several supplied to Israel to use against Iran, one of the last acts of the Bush/Cheney administration.

Striking evidence of the use of American EPW (Earth Penetrating Weapons) nuclear weapons in Syria has come to light. Experts say the proof is irrefutable.

Dramatic video footage from Syria has revealed startling evidence that counters Israel’s claims of “surgical strikes” on weapons headed to Lebanon. What were said to be air strikes is now proven to have actually been artillery, something easily discernible to even an untrained observer.   More here.

Bits, pieces and body parts

"...The average wage for a two year community college grad is now higher than that of four year college diploma or higher. Not unexpected since fully half of all 'real college' grads either have no job or are working at Best Buy. Most new jobs that should be done by US college grads like engineering, medical research and even corporate law are now done in China or India. Youth unemployment in the US is now higher than in austerity ridden Europe..."

Are All Telephone Calls Recorded and Accessible to the US Government?

This is something that some of us have long suspected, but now it seems evident that this is actually the case.  Which makes people who cherish authentic freedom and privacy (as opposed to the token facsimiles) very uncomfortable - this is creepy as hell. What does this tell you about the mindset of the people who are running this country? Still think you live in a "democracy"?

By Glenn Greenwald, Guardian UK

The real capabilities and behavior of the US surveillance state are almost entirely unknown to the American public because, like most things of significance done by the US government, it operates behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy. But a seemingly spontaneous admission this week by a former FBI counterterrorism agent provides a rather startling acknowledgment of just how vast and invasive these surveillance activities are.

Over the past couple days, cable news tabloid shows such as CNN's Out Front with Erin Burnett have been excitingly focused on the possible involvement in the Boston Marathon attack of Katherine Russell, the 24-year-old American widow of the deceased suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. As part of their relentless stream of leaks uncritically disseminated by our Adversarial Press Corps, anonymous government officials are claiming that they are now focused on telephone calls between Russell and Tsarnaev that took place both before and after the attack to determine if she had prior knowledge of the plot or participated in any way.

On Wednesday night, Burnett interviewed Tim Clemente, a former FBI counterterrorism agent, about whether the FBI would be able to discover the contents of past telephone conversations between the two. He quite clearly insisted that they could:

BURNETT: Tim, is there any way, obviously, there is a voice mail they can try to get the phone companies to give that up at this point. It's not a voice mail. It's just a conversation. There's no way they actually can find out what happened, right, unless she tells them?

CLEMENTE: "No, there is a way. We certainly have ways in national security investigations to find out exactly what was said in that conversation. It's not necessarily something that the FBI is going to want to present in court, but it may help lead the investigation and/or lead to questioning of her. We certainly can find that out.

BURNETT: "So they can actually get that? People are saying, look, that is incredible.

CLEMENTE: "No, welcome to America. All of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not."

"All of that stuff" - meaning every telephone conversation Americans have with one another on US soil, with or without a search warrant - "is being captured as we speak".

On Thursday night, Clemente again appeared on CNN, this time with host Carol Costello, and she asked him about those remarks. He reiterated what he said the night before but added expressly that "all digital communications in the past" are recorded and stored... More here.

Cinco de Mayo??

Well, it sure doesn't feel like it! Seems more like Cinco de March. At 9am this morning, it was 47 degrees and pouring. I can't recall a chillier southern spring. By May, we're usually spending as much time as possible on porches and patios. Not this year! The best day I can recall lately was last Tuesday, April 30th, the day of the Dylan concert in Asheville. It was a perfect, warm day and a mild evening.

I've been really down, struggling to function. I keep hearing how this "job numbers are up", but I sure don't see it. There are plenty of CNA and restaurant jobs, but that's about all I'm seeing. And the usual glut of truck driver jobs. Which I would be happy to do if I were qualified which I'm not, and can't afford the training or the time needed to be trained. As for other jobs that pay above minimum wage, I read that last month ZERO manufacturing jobs were added to the economy. Zip.

This is clearly by design. If the PTB really wanted to rebuild the middle class, there are many things they could be doing about creating jobs that pay something. Quite a few things, actually. Notice that none of those things are happening - especially not reducing the exporting of jobs by removing corporate tax breaks and subsidies for the companies which continue to profit at our expense. And for those O-bots who keep deluding themselves that Obama would do something if the repugs would "let him", dream on. The fix is in, and Obummer's been in on it from the beginning.

He can't wait to further cripple the middle class by gutting Social Security and Medicare, setting the scene for its eventual transfer to Wall Street. Look at the people he picks, for gawd's sake, and has since day one. What does that tell you?

Ooops!

"There was a flaw in the “sequester” — it hit some people who are not poor. The sequester budget cuts caused delays for business travelers (and members of Congress) and the Congress acted in hours. Meanwhile the elderly, poor, homeless, disabled, hungry and unemployed experience dramatic cutbacks. And 750,000 layoffs in 2013 will result...."

Obama's Assault on Civil Liberties

Turns out it goes way beyond what you may already know. Read this discussion between Noam Chomsky and Mike Stivers. While nothing about Obummer surprises me at this point, it is very disturbing, and this is information everyone should hear about. "Under Obama's administration, if you meet with someone in a terrorist group and advise them to turn to nonviolent means, then that's material assistance to terrorism..."

From Alternet:
Mike Stivers: Anyone following issues of civil liberties under Obama knows that his administration's policies have been disastrous. The signing of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which effectively legalizes indefinite detention of US citizens, the prosecution of more whistleblowers than any previous president, the refusal to close Guantanamo, and the adoption of ruthless positions in trials such as Hedges vs. Obama and Holder vs. Humanitarian Law Project don't even encapsulate the full extent of the flagrant violations of civil, political and constitutional rights. One basic question that a lot of people seem to be asking is, why? What's the rationale?

Noam Chomsky: That's a very interesting question. I personally never expected anything of Obama, and wrote about it before the 2008 primaries. I thought it was smoke and mirrors. The one thing that did surprise me is his attack on civil liberties. They go well beyond anything I would have anticipated, and they don't seem easy to explain. In many ways the worst is what you mention,  Holder vs. Humanitarian Law Project. That's an Obama initiative and it's a very serious attack on civil liberties. He doesn't gain anything from it – he doesn't get any political mileage out of it. In fact, most people don't even know about it, but what it does is extend the concept of "material assistance to terror" to speech.

The case in question was a law group that was giving legal advice to groups on the terrorist list, which in itself has no moral or legal justification; it's an abomination. But if you look at the way it's been used, it becomes even more abhorrent ( Nelson Mandela was on it until a couple of years ago.) And the wording of the colloquy is broad enough that it could very well mean that if, say, you meet with someone in a terrorist group and advise them to turn to nonviolent means, then that's material assistance to terrorism. I've met with people who are on the list and will continue to do so, and Obama wants to criminalize that, which is a plain attack on freedom of speech. I just don't understand why he's doing it.

The NDAA suit, of which I'm a plaintiff - it mostly codifies existing practice. While there has been some protest over the indefinite detention clause, there's one aspect of it that I'm not entirely happy with. The only protest that's being raised is in response to detention of American citizens, but I don't see why we should have the right to detain anyone without trial. The provision of the NDAA that allows for this should not be tolerated. It was banned almost eight centuries ago in the Magna Carta.

It's the same with the drone killings. There was some protest over the Anwar Al-Awlaki killing because he was an American citizen. But what about someone who isn't an American citizen? Do we have a right to murder them if the president feels like it?

 On Obama's 2012 election campaign web site,  it clearly states that Obama has prosecuted six whistleblowers under the Espionage Act. Does he think he's appealing to some constituency with that affirmation?

I don't know what base he's appealing to. If he thinks he's appealing to the nationalist base, well, they're not going to vote for him anyway. That's why I don't understand it. I don't think he's doing anything besides alienating his own natural base. So it's something else.

What it is is the same kind of commitment to expanding executive power that Cheney and Rumsfeld had. He kind of puts it in mellifluous terms and there's a little difference in his tone. It's not as crude and brutal as they were, but it's pretty hard to see much of a difference.

 It also extends to other developments, most of which we don't really know about, like the surveillance state that's being built and the capacity to pick up electronic communication. It's an enormous attack on personal space and privacy. There's essentially nothing left. And that will get worse with the new drone technologies that are being developed and given to local police forces.... More here.

WTF??!! American Media Fawns Over War Criminal Who Should Be INDICTED

If you've been unlucky enough to catch snippets of the MSM these last few days, you've already noticed the new, sanitized, whitewashed version of recent history being trotted out in earnest by the PTB. You know, to coincide with the Bush Lie-bury dedication in Dallas. Big wingnut money is undoubtedly behind the effort to rewrite the utterly disastrous Bush legacy of death, decay, and financial ruin for millions. The public is being subjected to a blitz of all things BushCo - cozy media interviews with George and Laura, and Dubya himself declaring that he's "comfortable with the actions I took." Comfortable? Comfortable??

Well, Georgie boy, let me tell you who is NOT comfortable: The million+ dead people you and your psychopathic handler Cheney killed due to your illegal, and utterly bogus invasion of Iraq. Formerly a modern country, now a third-world hellhole, thanks to you and your alleged liberation (read: resource grab). Iraq is now so destabilized that the violence that occurs there each day is comparable to a day during the war, with no end in sight.

You lied, manipulated/manufactured "evidence", tortured, killed, and borrowed money this country didn't have to pay for your plundering. You used 9/11, which happened on your watch, to justify invading a country that had nothing to do with it. And that's aside from your probable foreknowledge (at the least) of the event. Then you and your freakshow cohorts in Congress used the same 9/11 to gut American civil liberties. Permanently. Because after all, the "war on terra" goes on forever and ever, doesn't it? At least as long as it's profitable for the MIC and pleasing to Israel, anyway.

Then there are the thousands of dead American soldiers and their families, and the thousands more who have been hideously maimed and disabled - they're not so comfortable, numb-nuts. And of course, we're still in Afghanistan, with absolutely zero good being accomplished for the American public, although it's the public paying billions each week for the pointless quagmire there. But hey, your Halliburton buddies and the other big important defense contractors are making a fucking fortune, so it's all good, right?

Other people who are not comfortable include 97% of Americans, many of whom lost most or all of their savings and retirement in the 2008 meltdown which your administration (read: vipers nest) presided over and helped cause. Or lost their employment. Of course you and your ilk have recovered nicely, due to taxpayer-funded bailouts of those too-big-to-fail monstrosities your cohorts worship so ardently. The rest of us, who continue to get screwed over by your protege Obummer, not so much. And of course Bronco Bama, being the dutiful neo-con tool that he is, will be on hand to lend an air of legitimacy to the shameful spectacle.

 Are you kidding me?? How stupid does the MSM think we are? How can they do this dog-and-pony show with straight faces? How can people listen to this shameful, manipulative garbage without throwing things at the television? Does this crap make you as disgusted as it makes me?

Roots Action says: "We don't need vengeance, but deterrence.  Warrantless spying, imprisonment without trial, secret prisons, assassinations, and illegal wars didn't end with Bush's presidency -- because he's only been rewarded, never punished." They would like you to send a message to Eric Holder, demanding that BushCo be prosecuted as the criminal that he is. If you agree, please add your name here.

 Postscript: See also 50 Reasons You Despised the Bush Presidency from Alternet.

From the RealFoodChannel: TED Fellow Christina Warinner is an expert on ancient diets. So how much of the diet fad the "Paleo Diet" is based on an actual Paleolithic diet? The answer is not really any of it.

Dr. Christina Warinner has excavated around the world, from the Maya jungles of Belize to the Himalayan mountains of Nepal, and she is pioneering the biomolecular investigation of archaeological dental calculus (tartar) to study long-term trends in human health and diet. She is a 2012 TED Fellow, and her work has been featured in Wired UK, the Observer, CNN.com, Der Freitag, and Sveriges TV. She obtained her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2010, specializing in ancient DNA analysis and paleodietary reconstruction.

What is YOUR Threshold for Resistance?

This Earth Day, each of us needs to ask ourselves that question: How much has to disappear before we take action?

What Will Inspire You to Take Action?
By Tara Lohan, Alternet

 Since 2011, when I first read Deep Green Resistance by Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith and Aric McBay I’ve been haunted by a question Jensen posed in the book’s preface.

He asks, “Where is your threshold for resistance?”

He goes on to write that 90 percent of the large fish in our oceans are gone. At what point do you get angry and fight back? “Is it 91 percent? 92? 93? 94? Would you wait till they killed off 95 percent? 96? 97? 98? 99?” he writes. “How about 100 percent? Would you fight back then?”

The question doesn’t just pertain to fish. “There is 10 times as much plastic as phytoplankton in the oceans, 97 percent of native forests are destroyed, 98 percent of native grasslands are destroyed, amphibian populations are collapsing, and so on,” he writes. “Two hundred species are driven extinct each and every day.”

The dark cloud of climate change hangs over us, each new report bringing worse news. And the political climate is no better -- anyone not concerned with oil industry profits is branded anti-American or anti-jobs, and our elected officials have run from any meaningful action, straight into the arms of industry. Add to this a slurry of articles that have either declared environmentalism dead or the movement itself a failure, and it would seem we’re in a pretty tough spot.

“We're not breaking records anymore; we're breaking the planet,” Bill McKibben wrote this month in Rolling Stone. “In 50 years, no one will care about the fiscal cliff or the Euro crisis. They'll just ask, ‘So the Arctic melted, and then what did you do?’”   More here.

A Federally Mandated Internet Sales Tax??

Yep - that's the plan the dims are trying to ram through this week. Harry Reid even skipped the committee process to bring it to the floor. While it may seem to some (obtuse) folks like a good plan to raise revenue, I'm against it and here's why: First of all, how DARE they?! How dare they pile on additional taxes for average consumers when they have steadfastly refused to even consider a Wall Street Transaction Tax? Furthermore, why should there be a federal sales tax imposed on everything sold online, when some states have chosen to not impose a sales tax?

This state, NC, not only has a high sales tax, they tax pretty much everything: Food, animal feed, personal vehicles, which we already paid sales tax on when we bought them (they tax these every year), and so on. Fortunately, NC lost its case to make Amazon reveal its NC customers and their purchases, which the state was chomping at the bit to tax. But of course, they won't cut any corporate welfare/tax breaks!  Look, this is bullshit! Most of us already can't keep up with inflation, and shop online to get the best deals we can. And naturally, they can't wait to wreck that.

Gov-Corp is bound and determined that average working folks pay more for online goods, but they can't be bothered to tax the grifters whose reckless actions caused the 2008 global financial crash - not to mention the fact that Wall Street is engaging in the exact same recklessness which caused the last crash! And they clearly can't be bothered to stop the corporate elite and the investor class from hiding resources and income in offshore accounts, which costs our country (and others) trillions of dollars a year. No, instead they go after us and our measley purchases. Are you kidding me?!

Here's another thing to consider: The door would be opened for governments to access and keep records of our Internet purchases - everything you buy. Which of course Gov-Corp has been dying to do for some time. Personally, I believe that they're looking for new ways to trace, track, and register all Americans' online activity, and this would be the perfect segue. 

So if you feel like I do, please get a hold of your wretched C-critters this week and tell them HELL NO to the National Internet Tax! The vote will happen this week, so contact both representatives and senators. You could even contact Bronco Bomber, but I doubt it will do much good.