Society's ChildS


Bacon n Eggs

Small stockpiles drive butter prices to all-time high

Image
© Glutendoctors.blogspot.com
Butter futures reached an all-time high in Chicago as Americans' rising appetite for the fatty dairy spread and rising exports erode U.S. inventories.

Domestic consumption is projected to rise 0.8 percent to 788,000 metric tons in 2014, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That would be the second-highest ever in data going back to 1965. Shipments in the first six months of the year were up 42 percent from 2013. Demand is rising as milk production trailed analyst expectations, while fat content, used to make butter, is also dropping, according to Eric Meyer, the president of Chicago-based HighGround Dairy.

Consumers have increased purchases for five straight years, while margarine sales dropped, according to researcher Nielsen NV. The gains left U.S. stockpiles in July 42 percent lower than a year earlier, USDA data show. Tight butter supplies are contributing to higher costs for buyers including Panera Bread Co.

"Ultimately, there's good demand for cream-based products that's tightening up the market," Dave Kurzawski, a Chicago-based senior broker at INTL FCStone Inc., said in a telephone interview. "We haven't had a tremendous amount of milk to deal with either, and the quality of fat in milk has gone down."

Comment:
  • U.S. butter consumption reaches highest level in 40 years



Arrow Down

More versus Enough

This article explores what I think has become just about a mental illness-- the desire for "more" and the corollary "bigger." This is a disorder that has been stoked and encouraged by the media, even by political leaders. But is it really what we want, and is it at all healthy or normal?

There's a new Verizon commercial that claims that everyone wants MORE... like bigger wheels,
Wheels
© Verizon AdMore wheels.
more food, as in a huge cookie
Cookie
© Verizon AdMore-- as in bigger cookie.

Stormtrooper

Masked California cop accused of beating woman with a baseball bat

masked man with baseball bat
© Shutterstock.com
A 30-year veteran of the Walnut Creek, California police force is accused of attacking a woman with a baseball bat while wearing a mask to conceal his identity.

According to KTVU, Richmond, California police arrested 53-year-old Gregory Thompson at around 2:00 A.M. on Aug. 16 after residents called police to report a woman screaming.

"We'd already gone to bed, kept hearing a banging, thumping noise," said Richmond resident Carus Culver.

Neighbor Jason Peneyra said, "Police came knocking on our doors. They were looking for a suspect."

Richmond police said they found Thompson sitting in his car. He identified himself as an officer of the law, but investigators found a mask lying in the floorboard of the vehicle and a baseball bat in the trunk.

"It's alarming for a police officer to do that," said Peneyra to KTVU. "That's weird. That's really weird."

Richmond Police Capt. Bisa French said, "We don't have a motive in this case, but we're looking at the possibility this was mistaken identity, or someone else was supposed to be targeted. We just don't know."

Comment: Goon cops have gone wild all over America


People 2

Sustainable living on a planet faced with cyclic cataclysms


This article is NOT EVEN WRONG! The author is focusing on the need for organized labor to get on-board with environmentalists to help avert climate change. This is so utterly ridiculous as the US economy is in a pathetic state. Poverty and joblessness are at unthinkable levels, with so many industries having been outsourced, that 'climate change' is hardly an issue for the labor movement. Let alone the fact that he is still pushing the tired meme of global warming, when the world has been on a cooling trend for the past 16 years. Yes, the climate is changing, but nothing can be done about that - it is part of a natural cycle and it looks more and more like we may be on the brink of a new ice age! Yes, people do need to be prepared, but the psychopaths in power will never own up to what is really coming our way. For more information on what we may be facing read Earth Changes and the Human Cosmic Connection.


labor environmental movements
© Creative Commons / Creative Action Network)'There have never been more compelling reasons for the labor and environmental movements to work together. Global warming and the resulting climate chaos poses a real and present danger to work and working people. The destinies of these two movements are truly intertwined.' (Image: Creative Commons / Creative Action Network)
On Labor Day 1940, American workers faced the aftermath of the Great Depression, with mass unemployment persisting and a divided labor movement facing a renewed counterattack from corporate America. They were barely becoming aware of an even greater threat, one that would determine the future of their country and their labor movement: the threat of Nazi armies mobilizing for war.

On Labor Day 2014, American workers face the lingering results of the Great Recession, with unemployment still at historic highs, burgeoning inequality, and attacks on the very right to have a union. But, like workers in 1940, we are being pressed by another threat, one that will far overshadow our current problems if we do not take it on.

"The future of labor's growth and vitality will depend on its ability to play a central role in the movement to build a sustainable future for the planet and its people."

Comment: Yes, we do need to build jobs for a sustainable future and to think about the effects of climate change on populations, but unless enough people wake up - and soon - to the possibility that we may be facing cosmic catastrophe and an ice age, we will be knocked back into the stone age!


Arrow Up

Anti-drone protests: LAPD wants to further police militarization by using drones

drone protest LA
Protesters rally at City Hall against LAPD drones. A loud demonstration against LAPD drones was held in downtown Los Angeles Thursday.
Community activists Thursday held a rally at City Hall against the recent acquisition of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) - or drones - by the Los Angeles Police Department.

According to the LAPD, these small aircrafts can only stay in the air for about 20 minutes and would have limited use in certain circumstances, such as hostage situations.

KNX 1070's Pete Demetriou reports about a dozen protesters with the Drone-Free LAPD/No Drones, LA! campaign staged a demonstration across from LAPD Headquarters downtown.


Comment: The US police have already become completely berserk and have enough military equipment as it is - but they won't be happy until they are able to exercise complete control of the population and watch everyone 24/7.


Heart - Black

Father accused of leaving 2-month-old son with 29 bone fractures

Jordan Rittenhouse
© The Day
The father of a 2-month-old boy has been arrested on charges of child abuse.

The baby had 29 bones broken in his body when taken to the hospital for examination by his mother Krishna Rittenhouse.

The father, Jordan Rittenhouse, a Navy sailor, has been charged with first-degree assault and risk of injury to a minor for allegedly causing the injuries to his son, reports The Day.

A doctor treating the baby said it is the "worst case of serious physical injury she has seen in her career."

Doctors discovered the child had multiple rib fractures upon examination. The fractures were in various states of healing, showing abuse over time.

Some of the injuries were consistent with squeezing, while others were not.

Dr. Andrea Asnes told police "she was surprised the victim was alive," according to the police warrant.

Arrow Down

This is child care? Two teens commit suicide at same youth care center in TN

Man alone for suicide article
© Inconnu
After two Tennessee teens died in custody of the Department of Children's Services, an independent review of a facility in found widespread problems.

Mountain View Youth Development Center, which oversees the welfare of 114 teen boys, fired two security officers Tuesday and the security manager resigned the same day.

A report from the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth found widespread delays in children's medication, failure to conduct required checks on kids, poor staff training and several staffing shortages.

Brandon Greene, 16, fatally hung himself at the facility in his room on July 13, The Tennessean reported. The teen had been on suicide watch three times before. Four days after he was taken off suicide watch he hung himself with a T-shirt wrapped around a laundry bag cord and attached to a metal shelf above his bed.

Comment: Firing a few staff members will change nothing - this center needs to lose its license. Putting children on psychotropic drugs is nothing more than a panacea while being a huge boon to Big-Pharma, which is why they are in such wide use. The pathocrats running the child protective services system don't care about the children for the most part anyway.

Pedophiles in Power: Congresswoman Nancy Schaefer says U.S. Child Protective Services is a threat to children everywhere
How the mental health industry creates disease, works with Big Pharma


Airplane

Symbolic?: Ukrainian plane carrying oil equipment crashes in Algeria

crahes ukranian plane
© EPA-PHOTO/EPA/Mohamed Messara
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry confirmed on Saturday that a Ukrainian plane crashed in Algeria.

A cargo An-12 plane of the Ukraine Aero Alliance company with a Ukrainian crew crashed in Algeria on Saturday morning, the ministry cited its embassy in Algeria as saying.

The plane was carrying oil equipment on a flight from Tamanrasset (Algeria) to Malabo (Equatorial Guinea).

According to preliminary reports, all the seven crew members died. Search work was continuing at the site. Experts were working there, the Foreign Ministry said.

Algerian media reported that the An-12 crashed three minutes after the take off. The plane fell 15 km south of the airport in the province of Tamanrasset. It was on a flight to Equatorial Guinea.

Among versions of supposed causes is a technical fault.

Cardboard Box

Shortage of truck drivers hits USA

truck chicago
© Getty ImagesTruck drivers navigate a rain-covered highway on the outskirts of Chicago, in Hinsdale, Ill.
From deliveries of online shopping orders to massive pieces of equipment,the open road and trucking help drive the U.S. economy. Autonomous cars and drones may be on the horizon, but trucks - with drivers - still haul and deliver goods to doorsteps. There's just one problem.

America has more open trucking jobs than available commercial drivers. As older drivers retire in greater numbers, the industry faces a driver shortage.

The years long labor shortfall was masked during the recession as trucking volume plummeted. Consumers bought less, and builders hauled fewer materials with the housing market's collapse. The U.S. economy and trucking volume have since recovered. And the industry has some 30,000 to 35,000 unfilled truck driver jobs, according to the American Trucking Associations, or ATA, which represents the national trucking industry.

"The underlying driver shortage never went away,"said Bob Costello, ATA's chief economist.

The driver shortfall feels more acute this time. "As the economy continues to recover, now we're feeling it again, but worse than ever," said Brian Fielkow, president of Jetco Delivery, a Houston-based company that specializes in regional trucking.

The turnover rate of drivers at large truckload carriers leaving the industry averaged 130 percent in 2005, according to ATA data. While off those levels, the turnover rate was still high for the first quarter of 2014 at an annualized rate of 92 percent. And the trucking industry is trying to avert a more severe driver shortage.

Che Guevara

Archbishop Tutu urges Dutch pension fund to pull out of Israeli banks

Desmond Tutu
© UnknownArchbishop Desmond Tutu
South Africa's archbishop Desmond Tutu has urged civil service pension fund ABP to stop investing in three Israeli banks and 'strike a powerful, non-violent blow for peace in the Middle East'.

The appeal came ahead of ABP's monthly management board meeting and would be discussed, a spokeswoman for the fund - which is one of the biggest in the world - told Reuters. ABP has holdings totaling over €50m in the three banks.

Tutu said in his letter the investments 'enable the expansion of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territories, and profit from the illegal seizure of this land'.

Comment: Desmond Tutu is truly a man of conscience. Whether ABP will take any action remains to be seen.

Also see:

- Desmond Tutu: Suspend Israel from the international architectural body
- Desmond Tutu calls for global boycott of Israel
- Desmond Tutu: US lawmakers must end efforts to curb free speech on Palestine