Society's ChildS


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Oh no!! Chocolate supply endangered by disease, drought and displacement by other crops

chocolate
© Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari/Bloomberg Pursuits

Chocolate has begun a journey from being very loved and very common, like beer, to being very loved and a good deal less common, like Bordeaux
Mark your calendar: January 1, 2020.

As this future year unfolds, the gap between how much cocoa the world wants to consume and how much it can produce will swell to 1 million metric tons, according to Mars Inc. and Barry Callebaut AG (BARN), the world's largest chocolate maker. By 2030, the predicted shortfall will grow to 2 million tons. And so on.

Because of disease, drought, rapacious new markets and the displacement of cacao by more-productive crops such as corn and rubber, demand is expected to outstrip supply by an additional 1 million tons every decade for the foreseeable future. Here, now, as you read these words, the world is running out of chocolate, Bloomberg Pursuits will report in its Holiday 2014 issue.

Last year, we again consumed more cocoa than we were able to produce. This year, despite an unexpected bumper crop, supply barely kept pace with the recent upswing in demand. From 1993 to 2007, the price of cocoa averaged $1,465 a ton; during the subsequent six years, the average was $2,736 -- an 87 percent increase.

Comment: Chocolate has been found to have numerous health benefits, so it is unfortunate to see that supplies have been waning due to climactic affects and disease. As with other crops, it appears that BigAg will continue find ways to genetically modify chocolate, notwithstanding any serious health consequences for humans. One wonders if chocolate supply scare tactics are being used to garner support for genetic engineering?


Ambulance

Doctor with Ebola dies at Nebraska hospital

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© Reuters / Brian C. FrankDr. Martin Salia is placed on a stretcher upon his arrival at the Nebraska Medical Center Biocontainment Unit in Omaha, Nebraska, November 15, 2014.
Dr. Martin Salia, a surgeon who contracted the Ebola virus while working in Sierra Leone, has died at a hospital in Nebraska from the virus.

The 44 year-old was taken to hospital in Omaha on Saturday, but passed away on Monday according to hospital officials.

"We are extremely sorry to announce that the third patient we've cared for with the Ebola virus, Dr. Martin Salia, has passed away as a result of the advanced symptoms of the disease," the hospital said in a statement, which was reported by AFP. The other two patients who were treated at the facility were given clean bills of health.

The 44 year-old, who was a permanent US resident, contracted the virus while working at a hospital in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, according to his relatives. He was already suffering from advanced symptoms, including kidney and respiratory failure when he arrived at the Nebraska Medical Center, which is one of four US hospitals equipped to handle treatment of the disease and has the largest bio-containment unit in the country.

Salia, who was based in the state of Maryland, but spent a significant amount of time in Freetown, had originally been tested for the disease in early November. His test came back negative leading to jubilant celebrations and embraces from worried colleagues, the Washington Post reported. However, his symptoms did not go away and he took another test on November 10, which was positive forcing everyone who had been in physical contact with the 44 year-old into quarantine

"We were celebrating. If the test says you are Ebola-free, we assume you are Ebola-free," said Komba Songu M'Briwa, who cared for Salia at the Hastings Ebola Treatment Center in Freetown, the Washington Post added. "Then everything fell apart."

Salia, who was originally from Sierra Leone, was the tenth patient to be treated on US soil for the virus. He is the second person to have died in the United States from Ebola. In October, a Liberian man, Thomas Eric Duncan, died at a Texas hospital from

Sheeple

Fresno State, California student - 'stressed about midterm exams' - arrested for having sex with sheep

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A sheep that was sexually assaulted by a Fresno State student is now being monitored by a veterinarian.

Students on campus are still talking about what everyone is calling the "sheep incident." This afternoon, that incident has Fresno State police involved, and a computer engineering student is now facing serious charges.

Fresno State Ag students say shock, doesn't even begin to describe what happened on campus. It was late at night, a student heard noises, and found a 23-year-old inside the sheep barn having sex with one of the ewes.

Student Marisa Burkdoll said, "It's just kind of disgusting and revolting and personally makes me angry, I mean why would you do that?"


Stormtrooper

Terrorizing practice: Cops burst into school, weapons drawn, in surprise 'active shooter drill'

shooter drill
© Reuters/Jason Redmond
Teachers and students at a Florida middle school got the shock of their lives as an unannounced 'lockdown active shooter drill' sparked panic as police burst into classrooms with weapons drawn, drawing sharp criticism from the community.

Students at Jewett Middle Academy in Winter Haven, Florida, spoke of the terror they experienced as police officers carried out their 'active shooter drill' inside classrooms - without informing teachers ahead of time about the exercise.

Lauren Marionneaux, a seventh-grader, told WTVT-TV that when the police officers crashed into her classroom with weapons drawn, she immediately imagined the worst.

"A lot of people started getting scared because we thought it was a real drill," Lauren said. "We actually thought that someone was going to come in there and kill us."

Later, school officials sent an email to inform parents about the drill, which was compared to fire drills that schools regularly conduct.

"Parents, students and staff are typically not notified about lockdown drills. For example, we do not give advanced notice of fire drills in order to evaluate how safety procedures work...We regret any concern that parents and students might have experienced in how the drill was conducted," the letter stated.

But for many parents, however, receiving a letter from school officials after the fact was unacceptable.

Stacy Ray, whose daughter texted her during the police exercise, said she believed the school was experiencing a real live shooting.

"I'm panicking because I'm thinking that it's a legitimate shooter coming, that something bad is happening at the school," Ray told Fox 13. The video below shows police officers in an 'active shooter exercise' in the state of Massachusetts.

Magic Hat

Nine of the biggest myths that people believe about the system

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Years ago, an elderly, frail Japanese martial arts master once boasted a 200-0 record against his opponents. He claimed to have a unique power that allowed him to inflict serious injury on people without actually laying a finger on them.

Was it Chi? Magic? None of the above. It was a total scam. But that didn't matter. You see, the legend of the master's powers turned out to be far more powerful than reality. His core following of students believed in the master so much that they would fling themselves across the dojo whenever he raised his pinky finger.

And anyone who saw the display would become transfixed by the perception of the master's extraordinary abilities. It was an incredible case of mass delusion. Everyone believed it, including the master himself. He was so confident in his skills that he put up a $5,000 challenge that he could beat any fighter in the world.

A mixed martial arts champion accepted the wager, and the result wasn't pretty.

Network

State Department computers hacked, email shut down

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© AP
The State Department has taken the unprecedented step of shutting down its entire unclassified email system as technicians repair possible damage from a suspected hacker attack.

A senior department official said Sunday that "activity of concern" was detected in the system around the same time as a previously reported incident that targeted the White House computer network. That incident was made public in late October, but there was no indication then that the State Department had been affected. Since then, a number of agencies, including the U.S. Postal Service and the National Weather Service, have reported attacks.

The official said none of the State Department's classified systems were affected. However, the official said the department shut down its worldwide email late on Friday as part of a scheduled outage of some of its Internet-linked systems to make security improvements to its main unclassified computer network. The official was not authorized to speak about the matter by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official said the department expects that all of its systems will be operating as normal in the near future, but would not discuss who might be responsible for the breach. Earlier attacks have been blamed on Russian or Chinese attackers, although their origin has never been publicly confirmed.

The State Department is expected to address the shutdown once the security improvements have been completed on Monday or Tuesday.

Sherlock

Inspector: No sign of investigation in 1,111 New Orleans sex crime-related calls


The report is full of harrowing details alleging that five New Orleans Police Department detectives in the special victims unit may have failed to investigate sex crimes over a three-year period.

But one case stands out.

According to the seven-page document released Wednesday by the city's Office of Inspector General, a 2-year-old was brought to a hospital emergency room after an alleged sexual assault. Tests would show the toddler had a sexually transmitted disease, the report said.

The detective in the case, who worked in the child abuse unit, wrote in his report that the 2-year-old "did not disclose any information that would warrant a criminal investigation and closed the case," the inspector general's report said.

The detective -- identified as Akron Davis by the New Orleans Police Department after the report was released -- is one of five officers whose reports were examined in the investigation. Only nine detectives worked in the special victims unit during the period that was investigated.

Inspector General Ed Quatrevaux said the five officers are not rookies. Police Superintendent Michael Harrison said the detectives were "seasoned" and later said in a statement that they had been with the department at least 16 years each.

"These people should have known... the right way to do things," Quatrevaux said.

Arrow Down

Hazardous chemical leak kills four at Dupont plant in Texas

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Family members said brothers Robert Tisnado (left) and Gibby Tisnado were two of the four victims who died in the DuPont chemical plant in LaPorte, Texas, Nov. 15, 2014.
Four workers were killed and one was injured Saturday during a hazardous chemical leak at a DuPont industrial plant in suburban Houston, company officials said.

The chemical, methyl mercaptan, began leaking from a valve around 4 a.m. in a unit at the plant in La Porte, about 20 miles east of Houston. Plant officials said the release was contained by 6 a.m.

Methyl mercaptan was used at the plant to create crop-protection products such as insecticides and fungicides, according to DuPont. The cause of the leak was not immediately known.

Five employees were in the unit at the time of the incident and were exposed to the chemical, the company said. Four died at the plant, and one was hospitalized.

Comment: Another tragedy manufactured by the same corporation that manufactures the cancer-causing teflon and tree-killing herbicides.


Stock Down

Jim Rogers on Putin, his suspicions about oil prices, and what history can teach us

Jim rogers
© Joel BenjaminJim Rogers
Few observers are more astute on the markets, modern life, and human nature than investor Jim Rogers. An early internationalist, Rogers has made a fortune over many decades, seeing what others don't. I recently spoke to him about a range of topics, from the latest market turns (and what he calls his "hopeless" timing abilities) to his life growing up.

Still wary of the US stock and bond markets, Rogers says he's not short now, but nor is he a buyer. He believes that sometime in the next year or two, US stocks will fall as interest rates rise, and that will be a turning point. The following has been edited for clarity and length:

Henry Blodget: So, you're bearish.

Jim Rogers: [No. Not yet.] If the stock market goes down - say, you pick the number, 13%, 23%, who knows - everyone will be screaming, and Mrs. Yellen and her friends will say, 'Oh, we're sorry, we didn't mean to hurt you,' and they will loosen up again. One way or the other, the markets will heave a sigh of relief, have a big rally, maybe even turn into a bubble, at which point I hope I'm smart enough to try to short stocks in the US.

HB: We seemed to have a preview of that a few weeks ago where we had a pretty sickening plunge for a few days, and then James Bullard came out and said, 'Hey, we'll do what we need to do.' And suddenly stocks took off again. So you're expecting a bigger version of that?

JR: That's exactly right. Wait until it gets worse and it will, somewhere along the line. At which point, the Fed will panic. It's all they know how to do, Henry, so they will pump huge amounts of money in. It's going to go into shares, and that will cause the top. I have no idea when that will be. That's when I would sell short. By the way, if it happens that way, one should be long, and long big time. I doubt if I will. Either I'm too smart or not smart enough. What we need is a 26-year-old. The 26-year-old will think this is wonderful. She will think she is very smart. She will make a lot of money for a while, and then it will collapse.

HB: You said recently we're going to pay a 'terrible price' for what the Fed doing is doing. What do you mean?

JR: We're going to have economic hard times again. Next time it will be worse because the debt is so much higher and because for the first time in recorded history, all major central banks are printing huge amounts of money. So there's this gigantic artificial ocean of liquidity that's going to dry up some day, and when it does, we're all going to pay a terrible price.

Bizarro Earth

Inexcusable! Waste water from oil fracking injected into clean aquifers

California Dept. of Conservation Deputy Director admits that errors were made

More Newsletters In a time when California faces an historic drought, the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit has uncovered that state officials allowed oil and gas companies to pump billions of gallons of waste water into protected aquifers. Video here.

State officials allowed oil and gas companies to pump nearly three billion gallons of waste water into underground aquifers that could have been used for drinking water or irrigation.

Those aquifers are supposed to be off-limits to that kind of activity, protected by the EPA.

"It's inexcusable," said Hollin Kretzmann, at the Center for Biological Diversity in San Francisco. "At (a) time when California is experiencing one of the worst droughts in history, we're allowing oil companies to contaminate what could otherwise be very useful ground water resources for irrigation and for drinking. It's possible these aquifers are now contaminated irreparably."

California's Department of Conservation's Chief Deputy Director, Jason Marshall, told NBC Bay Area, "In multiple different places of the permitting process an error could have been made."

"There have been past issues where permits were issued to operators that they shouldn't be injecting into those zones and so we're fixing that," Marshall added.

In "fracking" or hydraulic fracturing operations, oil and gas companies use massive amounts of water to force the release of underground fossil fuels. The practice produces large amounts of waste water that must then be disposed of.

Marshall said that often times, oil and gas companies simply re-inject that waste water back deep underground where the oil extraction took place. But other times, Marshall said, the waste water is re-injected into aquifers closer to the surface. Those injections are supposed to go into aquifers that the EPA calls "exempt" - in other words, not clean enough for humans to drink or use.