Society's ChildS


House

Precipitous rents in ski country push workers to edges

Jack Healy
The New York Times
Sun, 24 Jan 2016 04:10 UTC
housing
© Nick Cote / The New York TimesSoaring home prices and a shift toward weekend vacation rentals have created a housing crisis in ski country towns like Vail, Colo., above.
On nights when she could not crash on a friend's couch or unroll a sleeping mat on an attic floor, Chelsea Lilly tucked her silver Subaru into a supermarket parking lot or a dark spot along a mountain pass, wrapped herself in a green Army blanket and watched movies on her phone until she fell asleep.

Getting work at a day spa in this bustling ski town had been easy, but finding an affordable apartment this winter proved almost impossible. So Ms. Lilly, 34, bounced along an itinerant path of couches and borrowed bedrooms that has become a fact of life for workers in jewel-box tourist towns across the country. Nights in the Subaru got so cold that she shivered awake every few hours and ran the engine to thaw out.

"I didn't know it was going to be like this," she said.

The miners who once pried gold and silver from the heart of the Rocky Mountains would attest that living in paradise has never been easy. These days, soaring home prices and a shift toward weekend vacation rentals have created a housing crisis in ski country, one that has people piling into apartments, camping in the woods and living out of their trailers and pickup trucks.
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Treasure Chest

DEA offers TSA agent a cut of passengers' cash

Jacob Sullum
Blacklisted News
Thu, 21 Jan 2016 08:50 UTC
2 TSAs
© www.travelerstoday.comTwo TSA agents check passenger's bag. What are they really looking for?
An "investigative summary" posted this month by the Justice Department's inspector general criticizes the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for hiring a federal airport security screener to help find seizable cash in passengers' luggage. Under the arrangement, the DEA designated the screener a "confidential source" and promised him a cut of any money he found while rummaging through people's bags.

Was that wrong? Yes, according to the DOJ's Office of the Inspector General (OIG). The OIG concluded that paying employees of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to report evidence of criminal activity was inappropriate, since they are supposed to do that anyway. The OIG noted that DEA policy "precludes registering as a CS [confidential source] 'employees of U.S. law enforcement agencies who are working solely in their official capacity with DEA.'" It also worried that "asking the TSA Security Screener to notify the DEA of passengers carrying large sums of money in exchange for a reward based on money seized by the DEA violated the DEA's interdiction manual" and "could have violated individuals' protection against unreasonable searches and seizures if it led to a subsequent DEA enforcement action."

As Institute for Justice attorney Robert Everett Johnson observes, that last concern applies to civil forfeiture generally, since the DEA and other law enforcement agencies get to keep a share of the property they seize. That encourages cops to target people based on the stuff they have rather than the threat they pose.

Comment: Theft under the guise of authority. Seizure without proving a crime. All it takes is suspicion. What ever happened to getting a warrant? Passengers are not personal nor agency ATMs. Money should be seized only after arrest and a conviction, and no one should be expecting a finder's fee! Travelers, beware!

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Arrow Down

New GM frankenfoods in the pipeline: Scientist produces swine-fever resistant pigs

Christina Sarich
Natural Society
Mon, 25 Jan 2016 00:00 UTC
GMO pigs
The US Food and Drug Administration approved the nation's first genetically modified animal in 2015 - GMO salmon - and scientists can't wait to add more to the batch. Head of development biology at the University of Edinburgh's Roslin Institute, Professor Bruce Whitelaw has produced swine fever-resistant pigs through a new gene-editing technique. Yeah, he wants to see them also approved by the FDA. [1]

Whitelaw says that much more work is required to refine what he calls a 'precise' process.
"It's a swap of sequence. It's a .00000001 percent change, which is a tiny portion," he adds. "The technology has allowed us to add in and create very precise breeding."
Though these are the claims of many in the biotech industry, gene-editing and other 'cutting-edge' genetic modification techniques don't always work out as they plan. With GM plants bred to resist pests in the field, the industry inadvertently (some argue purposefully) created super bugs, requiring more and more toxic chemicals to be sprayed.

Comment: What could possibly go wrong?
"Anyone that says, 'Oh, we know that this is perfectly safe,' I say is either unbelievably stupid, or deliberately lying. The reality is, we don't know. The experiments simply haven't been done, and now we have become the guinea pigs." ~ David Suzuki, geneticist

What we do know is that the unintended consequences of the recombinant DNA process employed to create genetically engineering organisms are beyond the ability of present-day science to comprehend. This is largely due to the post-Human Genome Project revelation that the holy grail of molecular biology, the overly-simplified 'one gene > one trait' model, is absolutely false.

Only recently, for instance, a previously unidentified viral gene fragment was discovered to be present in most of the GM crops commercialized to date; a finding which calls into question the safety of 54 commercialized crops already commercialized and being used in both food and feed. There could be hundreds of viral-gene altered proteins within these foods, whose complex interactions with DNA and toxicity have never been characterized.


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Attention

The dirty racial politics of pollution: 7 toxic assaults on communities of color besides Flint

David J. Krajicek
Alternet
Sat, 23 Jan 2016 19:57 UTC
Environmental racism
© environmentalstudiesblog.wordpress.com
The lead poisoning of children in Flint is only the latest example of environmental racism in the U.S.

Don't try to tell Dr. Robert D. Bullard that the noxious water disaster in Flint, Mich., is anything but business as usual in the United States.

"My first take was that this is déjà vu all over again," Bullard says. "When will this madness stop?"

For 30 years, Bullard, dean of the school of public affairs at Texas Southern University in Houston, has been writing books and journal articles about environmental racism, the fact that sewage treatment plants, municipal landfills and illegal dumps, garbage transfer stations, incinerators, smelters and other hazardous waste sites inevitably are sited in the backyard of the poor.
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Bad Guys

Fear Inc: Poll shows that hyping the threat of ISIS may make nuclear weapons more popular


RT
Mon, 25 Jan 2016 19:07 UTC
nuclear sub
© Danny Lawson / Reuters
Maintaining Britain's arsenal of nuclear weapons has won greater public support in the last year in response to the rise of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), pollster Orb International claims.

In a study commissioned by the Independent newspaper and published on Monday, researchers claim "the rise of ISIS and an increase in the security threat back home may well have turned the tide a little."

The poll also shows a Britain narrowly split on the issue of Trident nuclear missiles, with a 1 percent majority backing full renewal. The majority of Scots, meanwhile, are firmly against such a move.
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Quenelle - Golden

Muslim women take to Twitter in response to David Cameron's anti-Muslim remarks


RT
Mon, 25 Jan 2016 18:47 UTC
Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron
© Kacper Pempel / ReutersBritain's Prime Minister David Cameron
Muslim women have been tweeting Prime Minister David Cameron to highlight their professional achievements after he suggested the demographic suffered from a traditional submissiveness, which could be resolved by language training.

The irate tweeters were up in arms about what he is alleged to have termed the "traditional submissiveness of Muslim women," suggesting it was a factor in radicalization.

His view was reported on January 17 shortly before he called for Muslim women to learn English so they could act as a brake on extremism.

Comment: Cameron's submission to the US' anti-Muslim propaganda is nauseating. He tells Muslim women to learn English in order to put a 'brake' on extremism, even as British soldiers are caught waving the ISIS flag and fighting for the Islamic State. Lunatics like Cameron are at the wheel, blaming their victims for not applying the brakes!

Also see: Who is hunting Angela Merkel with 'rapefugee' hysteria? US network war against the German government

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Stock Down

One-third of US oil industry faces bankruptcy as oil prices fall to near $20

Bradley Olson & Erin Ailworth
Contra Corner
Mon, 25 Jan 2016 19:16 UTC
industry
© Unknown
Crude-oil prices plunged more than 5% on Monday to trade near $30 a barrel, making the spectre of bankruptcy ever more likely for a significant chunk of the U.S. oil industry.

Three major investment banks— Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc.—now expect the price of oil to crash through the $30 threshold and into $20 territory in short order as a result of China's slowdown, the U.S. dollar's appreciation and the fact that drillers from Houston to Riyadh won't quit pumping despite the oil glut.

As many as a third of American oil-and-gas producers could tip toward bankruptcy and restructuring by mid-2017, according to Wolfe Research. Survival, for some, would be possible if oil rebounded to at least $50, according to analysts. The benchmark price of U.S. crude settled at $31.41 a barrel, setting a 12-year low.

More than 30 small companies that collectively owe in excess of $13 billion have already filed for bankruptcy protection so far during this downturn, according to law firm Haynes & Boone.

Comment: Also see: The U.S. is at the epicenter of a worldwide economic meltdown

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Arrow Down

Russian economy contracted 3.7% in 2015 due to collapse in oil prices


RT
Mon, 25 Jan 2016 18:57 UTC
Moscow Russia
© Maxim Shemetov / ReutersMoscow, Russia
Russia's Federal Statistics Service says the country's economy contracted 3.7 percent last year. This corresponds to the prediction from the Economic Development Ministry.

Unemployment in Russia grew to 7.4 percent last year or 4.2 million jobless.

Retail trade turnover fell by 10 percent compared to the previous year at 27.6 trillion rubles (or $452.5 billion at 61 rubles per dollar, average exchange rate in 2015). Capital investment decreased by 8.4 percent to $230 billion.

Comment: And yet: Russians remain calm throughout financial difficulties because their economy is 'unsinkable'

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Evil Rays

Adelson newspaper rewrites history to make the case that Swedish foreign minister deserves assassination for questioning Israeli policy

Jonathan Ofir
Mondoweiss
Sat, 23 Jan 2016 00:00 UTC
Margot Wallström of Sweden
Margot Wallström of Sweden
Today on my Facebook wall, I posted the following headline:
SWEDISH FOREIGN MINISTER WALLSTRÖM MAY BE ASSASSINATED, SUGGESTS ISRAELI FORMER CHAIRMAN OF THE PEDAGOGIC SECRETARIAT OF THE EDUCATION MINISTRY.
The article by Zvi Zameret was posted as an op-ed in the rightist Sheldon Adelson-sponsored paper Makor Rishon ('First Source'), under the title, "Margot Wallström's source of inspiration," referring to the Swedish Foreign Minister. As it is in Hebrew, I shall try to make some mention of its salient contents, without translating the whole due to time constraints.

The matter was now brought to my attention via a tweet by journalist Barak Ravid (Haaretz) and via post of journalist David Sheen and forwarded by PS Arihant.

Comment: Once again we see how willing Israel's establishment is to rewrite history, 'blame the Mufti style', and pathologically threaten any powerful voices that would dare level legitimate and overdue criticism of its murderous policies. And If all else fails, just scream "antisemite!!"

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Heart - Black

Guards lock schizophrenic inmate in scalding shower; his death is ruled an accident

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Mon, 25 Jan 2016 16:49 UTC
Darren Rainey
© Florida Dept. of Corrections
In 2012, a 50-year-old mentally ill prison inmate named Darren Rainey died while locked in a scalding hot shower, rigged to inflict retribution on prisoners, by guards at Dade Correctional Institution.

Guards put the schizophrenic man in the shower as punishment for defecating in his cell. Instead of getting Rainey the help that he obviously needed, guards took it upon themselves to inflict torturous punishment for hours.

When guards finally checked on prisoner 060954, he was on his back and dead. According to the original documents involving his death, investigators noted that he'd been left in the hot steam for so long that his skin had shriveled from his body, a condition referred to as slippage.
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