Wednesday whiffles

Hunting the mysterious hum.

Planting false memories in mice.  Where could this possibly lead?

What teachers make.

Flying Spaghetti Monster statue in front of Tennessee courthouse.

Genetically altering oranges in order to save them.  Not all GMO food is bad.  Chipotle restaurants first ones to try and not serve any GMO food.

Fascism on the rise around the world.

9th Grade Science Project Finds Plants Don’t Grow Near Wi-Fi

China poisons food yet again

Adding to the list I've been keeping on China's indifference to poisoning people's food:

How Lax Regulations Are Turning China Into A Food Safety Nightmare 

It’s been a pretty terrible week for food safety in China. On Monday, Xinhua reported that a factory in the city of Kunming was using pond water to make rice vermicelli — specifically, pond water used for washing feet. That same day, the official state broadcasting group CCTV released the results of an investigation uncovering that ice served at a Beijing KFC location had 13 times more bacteria than toilet water. And on Friday, the New York Times reported on a new trend in China: buying and smuggling baby formula from overseas to avoid potentially tainted Chinese milk, pointing to a increasing distrust of domestic products.

And this is from the post in May 2013:

More than 900 people have been arrested in China for involvement in meat-related crimes, including producing fake beef and mutton from animals such as rats, minks and foxes, authorities reported. 

A total of 382 cases of alleged crimes in food industry were uncovered in a three-month campaign launched by China’s Ministry of Public Security on January 25, the ministry reported. 

In addition to producing falsely-labeled meat, the crimes included using banned chemicals in processing of products, selling meat infected with various diseases and injecting water into meat to pad up its weight, according to Xinhua news agency. 

Security officials seized more than 20,000 tons of illegal meat products during the crackdown. 

The ministry said it will now focus on dairy products, continuing a larger campaign to combat crime and violations in food industry.

Nice to see official attempts to crackdown on this unregulated industry.  But I bet I will be posting yet another article sometime soon about poisonous/ toxic/ polluted/ contaminated products made in China.  Because that's the way it is.

Update:  I do hope the Chinese scientists know what they are doing....
Scientists warn Chinese-made air-transmissible bybrid bird flu puts humanity at risk

From my many posts on this subject:

Fake Medicine from China Threatening Lives in Africa

 *sigh*

Add it to the list:

BEIJING—The discovery of unusual levels of mercury in Chinese-produced infant formula reignited fears about the safety of the country's scandal-ridden dairy industry, and underlined the severe challenges the government faces in improving food safety.

Mercury in baby formula.

Pills for human consumption containing human remains.

China poisons more pets:

November 18, 2011 — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued an important bulletin warning consumers that chicken jerky products (also marketed as chicken tenders, strips or treats) may be associated with serious illness in dogs.
Over the past 12 months, the FDA has observed an increase in the number of complaints regarding canine illnesses associated with consumption of chicken jerky products imported from China.
These complaints have been reported to the government by both dog owners and veterinarians.

And here is the ever-expanding list:

But according to FSN, the biggest reason to avoid ultra-filtered honey is that pollen is the only sure-fire way to trace the source of honey to a geographic location. As a result ultra-filtered honey is often used to mask the shady origins of certain kinds of honey -- especially Chinese honey, which is subject to heavy import tariffs on account of its frequent contamination by heavy metals and illegal antibiotics. Chinese honeymakers ultra-filter their honey, and then ship it through byzantine paths, to sneak their sham product onto American grocery shelves without being hit with a tariff.

Vinegar from China kills 11 people.

"From steroid-spiked pork to glow-in-the-dark meat to recycled cooking oil collected from sewers, a series of illnesses and scandals linked to tainted food has put officials on guard. But tougher measures have had little effect amid an official culture of secrecy."

Watermelons spiked with growth chemicals explode in the fields... so the farmers feed the forchlorfenuron saturated melons to fish and pigs.

Waste water forced into pigs going to market.

Fresh milk tainted with melamine and toxic substances extracted from leather scraps... killed 6 children in China and sickened 300,000.

Rice is contaminated with heavy metals like cadmium.

Fake rice made from plastic, potatoes and resin.

Pulverized lime added to bleaching agents widely used in flour production. Pulverized lime damages the lungs and the entire respiratory system.

Cadmium in children's toys and little girl jewelry. Lead in toys: Thomas the Tank Engine, baby bibs, cub scout badges, wooden blocks. Formaldehyde in candy, in baby clothing. Coma-inducing date rape drug in toys.

Asbestos in toys.

"The rampant use of chemical additives in animal feed can be traced to 1999. According to Gao Yinxiang, the research and development of high-protein feed additives was a hot field among scientists about 10 years ago due to shortage of animal fodder in the country at the time.

From that time, it's hard to define the exact role that scientists played in the evolution of the melamine scandal. Yet scientists certainly contributed to it by developing unsafe protein alternatives. Many Chinese are now calling on scientists to examine their conscience before making profits at the expense of public safety."

Melamine in pet food kills house pets in the US. Melamine is found in wheat, corn and rice gluten.

China says no to inspections and destroys evidence.

Rat poison in breakfast porridge.

Pesticide-laden pea pods, drug-laced catfish, filthy plums and crawfish contaminated with salmonella. Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical. Scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria. Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides.

Toothpaste with diethylene glycol, a toxic chemical used in engine coolants.

Highly toxic puffer fish sold as monk fish.

Fake blood protein.

Wild mice used for meat.

Defective tires.

Use of illegal drift nets.

Fake kosher food.

Insecticide-tainted dumplings.

More than 40 percent of drinking water in rural China is unfit for drinking.

Poisoned chocolate.

Toxic drywall which caused houses to be uninhabitable.

Fake Cisco routers

Misuse and overuse of antibiotics. "Studies in China show a "frightening" increase in antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as staphylococcus aureus bacteria, also know as MRSA."

The list will inevitably be added to. When are we going to learn this is what happens to corporations when there is no regulation?

Saturday Stupidity...

Banks gone wild. Or at least completely bonkers. What's theirs is theirs, what's yours is theirs....

Methane, the new oxygen!

How safe are BPA-free plastics? Who knows?

Does our solar system have a giant gas planet four times bigger than Jupiter hiding out in the Oort Cloud?

Snape and Lily Potter.

Concern over our GMO foods.  And pesticides travel.

Well if the Pacific Ocean is already radioactive, why not let them frack it too?

But I repeat myself.

What's under the veil

Are smart girls and women who dream of a better life.

Oh, by the way. Fukushima has been leaking radiation into the Pacific Ocean for two years.

Have some tuna!

Absolutely nothing about the royal baby....

Republicans are begging please please oh please that there be riots because of George Zimmerman.  Because it will be Obama's fault.  Because he dared talk about race or something.

We already live in a surveillance world.  What can we possibly do about it?

Goldman Sacs playing the aluminium market.

Darrel Issa's manufacturing of the IRS 'scandal'.

Defense contractor employee resigns and says why.

Poison ivy is getting more potent with climate change.

A Hyundai that will help fight off zombies in the next apocalypse.

A pregnant woman needing a life saving abortion is only a 'matter of convenience' to Missouri Republican.

YOLO.

Christianists to Pick Up Artists

Conservatives cite ‘neutrality’ memo as proof of military’s hostility to Christianity

A conservative group claims the United States Air Force violated religious freedom by advising officials not to discriminate against subordinates based on their religion. 

The Family Research Council on Tuesday released a report on religious freedom in the United States Armed Forces, which concluded the Obama administration was cracking down on Christianity. 

The report stated that high-level officers within the Air Force were cooperating with “anti-Christian activists” like attorney Michael Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. As evidence, the report compiled a list of incidence which purportedly showed religious freedoms being violated.

Tasers kill. The police know this and keep on using them.  So I guess they're just letting the lawsuits pile up?

Edward Snowden: US officials are preventing me claiming asylum

Arizona being Arizona... APS seeks higher bills for new solar customers

The Cheney presidency was where the NSA spying started.  Before 9/11.  No surprise there...

We are not Trayvon Martin.

Republican pick up lines to woo women voters....

What the frack?

Fracking leads to earthquakes.  I check the USGS earthquake map every day and yes, Oklahoma and other central US states are getting unusual earthquakes now.  Will Big Oil stop fracking?  Ha.

Merika the Beuuutiful...

WTF Americans?!

The face of guilt.

Militarized police overreach (After the raid, the shooting of the family dogs and the trashing of their house)

Two days later, after the raid had made national and international news, the Prince George’s County Police Department finally cleared Cheye Calvo and his family of any wrongdoing. They did it by way of a press release they put out at 4:30 p.m. on a Friday, the time and day of the week when bad news is typically buried. It also happened to be the night of the opening ceremonies for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. 

Perhaps even more baffling, officials continued to insist that the raid shouldn’t have happened any other way. Even as they acknowledged that Calvo and his family were innocent, in the months and years following the raid they would repeat again and again that not a single officer did anything wrong, and that no one had any reason for remorse.

And when they give up all pretense, you get this: Payday Loans And High-Powered Weaponry: Arizona Businessman Linked To Armed Patrols In Wisconsin Woods and more about it here.

Because they don't really care about children or fetuses, they care about saying no to sex. Your sex. Texas Abortion Bill Author In 2007: No Health Care For Unborn Because 'They're Not Born Yet'  Apparently politicians would back off trying to control women's bodies if we had vaginas that shot bullets...

One reason why I'm really careful about where my seafood comes from:

Japan’s nuclear watchdog said Wednesday the crippled Fukushima reactors are very likely leaking highly radioactive substances into the Pacific Ocean. 

Members of the Nuclear Regulation Authority voiced frustration at Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), which has failed to identify the source and the cause of spiking readings of radioactive materials in groundwater. 

“It is strongly suspected that highly concentrated contaminated waste water has leaked to the ground and has spread to the sea,” the authority said in its written review of TEPCO’s recent announcements.

Resistance to Monsanto's control of seeds.

The international resistance against Monsanto and the genetic manipulation of the food supply has advanced to an all new level, with countless citizens around the world taking the fight online and partaking in the Monsanto Video Revolt grassroots movement. Though scheduled to officially take place on July 24th, we’ve seen thousands of citizens around the world upload their videos exposing Monsanto from as far away as Nigeria and Thailand.

And pesticide sales are skyrocketing even though people are aware of "the declining effectiveness of GMO-seed giant Monsanto's flagship products: crops engineered to resist insects and withstand herbicides."

Making fake food look real by putting in fake imperfections.

A Widow's Mite...

Cops out of control.

Indepth story of Jeff Bauman, one of the many who were wounded in the Boston Marathon bombing.

Ass-hat takes on a whole new meaning..

Oregon bans insecticide after bee deaths.

People talking about wonderful books.  And fun books being made into movies and tv shows. And plays.

Or not to bee

Bees dying by the millions

ELMWOOD - Local beekeepers are finding millions of their bees dead just after corn was planted here in the last few weeks. Dave Schuit, who has a honey operation in Elmwood, lost 600 hives, a total of 37 million bees. 

“Once the corn started to get planted our bees died by the millions,” Schuit said. He and many others, including the European Union, are pointing the finger at a class of insecticides known as neonicotinoids, manufactured by Bayer CropScience Inc. used in planting corn and some other crops. The European Union just recently voted to ban these insecticides for two years, beginning December 1, 2013, to be able to study how it relates to the large bee kill they are experiencing there also. 

Local grower Nathan Carey from the Neustadt, and National Farmers Union Local 344 member, says he noticed this spring the lack of bees and bumblebees on his farm. He believes that there is a strong connection between the insecticide use and the death of pollinators.

Happy Fourth of July

The world according to Americans.



update (stolen from Steve Bates)

 

Flowers, Funerals, and Falderal

Ancient grave shows use of flowers to honor the dead.

 Exactly, what he said.  Horsey captures it in one cartoon.

What men can do to stop the harassment of women online.  One man who supports a woman's right to choose.

Sleepy baby turned into art.

Republicans want to control your lady parts... so how about controlling manly bits as well?

No More Mister Nice Blog thinks the Voting Rights Act will not be saved.  I hope he's wrong.

Kitty parade.

Iain Banks' obit and writing pointers.

From someone who has lived in a communist country:

Truth is, American conservatives have remarkably a lot in common with Russian communists: the same obsession with ideological purity, the same irrational intolerance towards loyal dissent, the same prioritizing of ideology over practicality, the same preparedness to sacrifice liberties, human dignity and lives for the sake of ideological totems, the same clash-of-civilizations thinking, the same pretensions at worldwide cultural and political hegemony. And of course, the modern American conservative and the Russian communist of the bygone era share a deep and abiding dislike of people having unauthorized sex in pursuit of “instant gratification”.

Free To Vote

Because there are people who are trying to silence your voice.

Good grief

The list of states I won't visit because of their retarded laws against women is getting longer and longer....