Destruction

Question?

What being or system in nature grows forever without reaching a steady state? 

Most animals go through a growth phase (in humans we call it childhood) and then cease growing larger in size. 

Immature ecosystems likewise: they rapidly gain in biomass for a while before reaching a steady state. 

In both cases, development continues. 

The ecosystem grows in complexity and interconnectedness. 

The human being continues to grow emotionally and psychologically well after adolescence ends. 

Could the same dynamic apply to humanity as a species?

If so, then it is time for economic growth as we have known it to end. 

Differences amongst different groups are irreconcilable, because.

Policies that foster economic growth harm the environment.

And policies that heal the environment hurt economic growth. 

There are exceptions to this rule, but the essential contradiction is unavoidable. 

To address it, change on a very deep level is needed, change to the very nature of the economy, money, and capitalism. 

It is not to end capitalism.

But to change the nature of capital.

The nature of capital today is aligned with the increasing expropriation of natural resources and the cultural commons. 

There are two reasons for that. 

First, because money is created as interest-bearing debt, there is always systemic growth pressure. 

As soon as growth slows, debt rises faster than income and the intensifying debt pressure fuels increasingly desperate attempts to extract more money from somewhere.

Other people, nature, etc. 

Politically, this translates into the very growth-friendly policies that are destroying the planet. 

Second, the social and environmental costs of this extraction are off the balance sheet, externalized onto other people, nature, and future generations. 

This is how the destruction of a forest to create 100,000 board feet of lumber is, preposterously, counted as an increase in wealth. 

The forest no longer contributes to soil stability.

Oxygen production.

Climate stability.

Biodiversity protection, and so on, but those losses are not included in the price of a plank of lumber. 

Together, these two factors drive the conversion of the natural commons everywhere into money.

And that money is increasingly going to those who already control and have power.

The small number of people who already have great wealth are taking ever more of what is left.

Social unrest and breakdown must follow.

Not any longer any doubt about whether or not social unrest will occur.

It will

The only question is just when

Scoring drugs

Most people would agree that some drugs are worse than others: heroin is probably considered to be more dangerous than marijuana, for instance. 

Because governments formulate criminal and social policies based upon classifications of harm, a new study published by the Lancet on November 1st makes interesting reading. 

Researchers led by Professor David Nutt, a former chief drugs adviser to the British government, asked drug-harm experts to rank 20 drugs (legal and illegal) on 16 measures of harm to the user and to wider society, such as damage to health, drug dependency, economic costs and crime. 

Alcohol is the most harmful drug in Britain, scoring 72 out of a possible 100, far more damaging than heroin (55) or crack cocaine (54). 

It is the most harmful to others by a wide margin, and is ranked fourth behind heroin, crack, and methamphetamine (crystal meth) for harm to the individual. 

The authors point out that the model's weightings, though based on judgment, were analysed and found to be stable as large changes would be needed to change the overall rankings.suggests alcohol is more harmful than heroin or crack

"Drug harms in the UK: a multi-criteria decision analysis", by David Nutt, Leslie King and Lawrence Phillips, on behalf of the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs. 
The Lancet.
And yet and yet discussion of drugs and how to treat them is taboo
No British politician will touch the subject let alone suggest moving away from the current 'drugs are evil lock 'em up approach', which demonstratively has not worked and is not working.

Just another British 'ostrich' subject.

What kind of society?

 ‘celebrity’ Saudi preacher accused of raping, torturing and killing his five-year-old daughter has reportedly been released from custody after agreeing to pay ‘blood money’.

Fayhan al-Ghamdi had been accused of killing his daughter Lama, who suffered multiple injuries including a crushed skull, broken back, broken ribs, a broken left arm and extensive bruising and burns. 

Social workers say she had also been repeatedly raped and burnt.

Fayhan al-Ghamdi admitted using a cane and cables to inflict the injuries after doubting his five-year-old daughter’s virginity and taking her to a doctor, according to the campaign group Women to Drive.

Rather than getting the death penalty or receiving a long prison sentence for the crime, Fayhan al-Ghamdi served only a few months in jail before a judge ruled the prosecution could only seek ‘blood money’.

Albawaba News reported the judge as saying: "Blood money and the time the defendant had served in prison since Lama's death suffices as punishment."

Fayhan al-Ghamdi, who regularly appears on television in Saudi Arabia, is said to have agreed to pay £31,000 to Lama’s mother.

The money is considered compensation under Islamic law, although it is only half the amount that would have been paid had Lama been a boy.

Despite Saudi Arabia’s famously strict legal system, Women to Drive say fathers cannot be executed for murdering their children in the country. 

Equally, husbands cannot be executed for murdering their wives.

Formal objections to the ruling have been raised by three Saudi activists, and the twitter hashtag #AnaLama (which translates as I Am Lama) has been set up.

Local reports say public anger over the settlement is growing across Saudi Arabia, with authorities planning to set up a 24-hour hotline to take calls about child abuse.

What kind of religion accepts this behavior from a preacher?

What country accepts this behavior without comment?

Saudi Arabia.

Hard to just vanish

Wiping away your digital life means getting rid of the traces you've left – the mistakes you made, the embarrassing photos, the unwise comments, the flawed social media profiles where you've left too much visible.

But how easy is that? 

The following steps provide a start to reducing your digital footprint and taking back control of your online life.

1) If you have a Facebook account, change every setting in the Privacytabs to "private" or "not shared" or "off" (there's a special "privacy settings" shortcut in the blue bar near the top).

2) Find out what photos you're tagged in on Facebook. 

These should appear in the Photos tab on the left hand side. 

If you hover over the picture, a star and a pencil appear in the top right. 

Choose "Report/remove tag" and pick "I want to untag myself" from the list.

3) If you have a Google Blogger account, delete your profile there. 

That means that blogposts or comments you've made there will vanish.

4) If you've got a Tumblr or Wordpress blog, delete that too.

Now start using a search engine, and begin searching on your name (put the first name and surname together in quotes; this works in pretty much all search engines to identify that as a phrase you're after). 

Note that some sites, such as newspapers, generally won't agree to removing your name if you've appeared in a news or other story.

5) If you've posted in forums, go back and see if you can delete your posts. 

If you can't, try asking the administrators of the sites (nicely) if they can remove your post.

 Have a very good reason. 

You should always bear in mind the Streisand effect, which can have the reverse effect – spreading what you don't want to draw notice to around the internet, with the equivalent of a klaxon attached to it. 

In 2003 the singer Barbra Streisand tried to remove some aerial pictures of her California beach house from a collection, via a lawsuit. 

The outcry meant the pictures were more widely spread, rather than the reverse.

6) Remove any photos you've added to sites such as Flickr or, of course, Facebook. 

Try searching on your name in Google Images (put quotes around your name) and see what comes up: then visit those sites and ask if they would remove the photos. 

Again, be aware of the Streisand effect.

7) Keep doing searches on your name and finding out what turns up, and getting in touch with the owners of the sites. 

Be prepared to get rebuffed, especially if the site is in the US.

8) Be aware that anything that you've posted outside Facebook, Blogger or Wordpress might still live on in the Internet Archive – which aims to crawl the entire web again and again and store what it finds, for ever. 

The Internet Archive doesn't have an explicit way to remove sites once they're in its index – which is colossal. 

And as it sees itself as a repository of the web, which would otherwise be short-lived. 

It does take a case-by-case approach to requests for removal.

9) Be aware too that even if you remove explicit mentions of your name, a determined searcher may be able to dig up your past through leftover postings and hints of whatever sort. 

Mentions by other people, photos where even though you're not tagged, you're mentioned in related information.

In this, we've not taken the more extensive move of deleting your Google web search history – though if you don't want to be (silently) tracked by Google, then stop using Google's search (there are plenty of other search engines that won't track you, such as DuckDuckGo.com or Blekko.com. 

DuckDuckGo is improving all the time, and saw a big jump in traffic with the change in Google's privacy policies last year.

Expunging yourself from the internet is very, very hard. 

As far as is known, nobody's succeeded – though of course if they had, how would we know.

Charles Arthur

Finally a beginning

Organisers say that two million people marched in protest against seed giant Monsanto in hundreds of rallies across the US and in more than 50 other countries on Saturday.

"March Against Monsanto" protesters say they wanted to call attention to the dangers posed by genetically modified food and the food giants that produce it. 

Founder and organiser Tami Canal said protests were held in 436 cities across 52 countries.

Genetically modified plants are grown from seeds that are engineered to resist insecticides and herbicides, add nutritional benefits, or otherwise improve crop yields and increase the global food supply.

 Most corn, soybean and cotton crops grown in the United States today have been genetically modified. 

But many say genetically modified organisms can lead to serious health conditions and harm the environment.

The use of GMOs has been a growing issue of contention in recent years, with health advocates pushing for mandatory labelling of genetically modified products even though the federal government and many scientists say the technology is safe.

The "March Against Monsanto" movement began just a few months ago, when Canal created a Facebook page on 28 February calling for a rally against the company's practices. 

"If I had gotten 3,000 people to join me, I would have considered that a success," she said Saturday. Instead, she said, two million responded to her message.

Together with Seattle blogger and activist Emilie Rensink and Nick Bernabe of Anti-Media.org, Canal worked with A Revolt.org digital anarchy to promote international awareness of the event. 

She called the turnout "incredible" and credited social media for being a vehicle for furthering opportunities for activism.

Despite the size of the gatherings, Canal said she was grateful that the marches were uniformly peaceful and that no arrests had been reported.

"It was empowering and inspiring to see so many people, from different walks of life, put aside their differences and come together today," she said. 

The group plans to harness the success of the event to continue its anti-GMO cause.

"We will continue until Monsanto complies with consumer demand. 

They are poisoning our children, poisoning our planet," she said. 

"If we don't act, who's going to?"

Monsanto, based in St Louis, said on Saturday that it respects people's rights to express their opinions, but maintained that its seeds improve agriculture by helping farmers produce more from their land while conserving resources such as water and energy.

The US Food and Drug Administration does not require genetically modified foods to carry a label, but organic food companies and some consumer groups have intensified their push for labels, arguing that the modified seeds are floating from field to field and contaminating traditional crops. 

The groups have been bolstered by a growing network of consumers who are wary of processed and modified foods.

The Senate this week overwhelmingly rejected a bill that would allow states to require the labelling of genetically modified foods.

The Biotechnology Industry Organisation, a lobbying group that represents Monsanto, DuPont & Co and other makers of genetically modified seeds, has said that it supports voluntary labelling for people who seek out such products. 

But it says that mandatory labelling would only mislead or confuse consumers into thinking products weren't safe, even though the FDA has said there is no difference between GMO and organic, non-GMO foods.

However, state legislatures in Vermont and Connecticut moved ahead this month with votes to make food companies declare genetically modified ingredients on their packages. 

And supermarket retailer Whole Foods Markets Inc has said that all products in its North American stores containing genetically modified ingredients will be labeled as such by 2018.

Whole Foods says there is growing demand for products that don't use GMOs, with sales of products with a "Non-GMO" verification label spiking between 15% and 30%.

None of this addresses other Monsanto issues such as their sales practices with seeds.

Nor does anyone yet refute Monsanto claims about benefits to farmers, where there is strong evidence of long term damage to fields and the environment.

Evidence showing the greater benefits of crop rotation and biodiversity rather than the use of GM anything.

US Labeling is a scandal whereby consumers cannot know what they are eating

Labeling that again is heavily influenced by Monsanto and others who prevailed upon the FDA to prevent mandatory labeling and disclosure of GMO in foods.

One little step in a long war to introduce fair and clear disclosure of what is in the food we eat.

Violence against women

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a statement calling on all governments to make good on their pledges to end all forms of violence against women and girls in all parts of the world.  

He added that it is the perpetrators of violence who should feel disgraced, not the victims.

The U.N. Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women has announced a new initiative, called COMMIT, which asks governments to make national commitments to come up with new policies to protect women who are victims of violence.

Catherine Ashton, the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, says violence against women is arguably the most widespread human rights violations of our time.  

She pledged the EU's commitment to making the world safe for women.

The United Nations says there are currently 125 countries that have laws penalizing domestic violence.  

However, 603 million women live in countries where domestic violence is not a crime and as many as seven out of 10 women are targeted for physical or sexual violence in their lifetime.

Domestic violence is not a crime?

Imagine societies where the woman is literally the slave of the man

Yes, they exist

Most if not all are seldom if ever named because they have oil

Are considered strategically important

Follow a particular religion

Are you getting the idea?

Well what does it take to name and shame these barbaric countries?

Apparently more than the UN Secretary General can  muster.

What a world. 

Could be useful

According to the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB), an auto theft occurs every 33 seconds in the U.S. 

That’s roughly 1 million vehicles each year that wind up in the hands of thieves at a cost of nearly $6.4 billion.¹ 

Today, 3M is making it easier for drivers to add an extra layer of protection to vulnerable vehicles with the launch of their new 3M™ Scotchshield™ Automotive Security Films.

Skilled car thieves can require as few as three seconds to break into a car. 

3M™ Scotchshield™ Automotive Security Films are designed to keep glass in place upon breakage, and have undergone rigorous testing to confirm that they will hold windows together and slow down a thief attempting to enter one’s vehicle.

“3M™Scotchshield™Automotive Security Films are a great addition to our Automotive Window Film line where customers need theft or damage protection and will also receive the added benefit of solar heat rejection.”

In addition to its security benefits, 3M™ Scotchshield™ Automotive Security Films provide the same outstanding UV protection and other privacy benefits for which 3M films are renowned, including:

Rejection of up to 46% of the total solar energy coming through windows, providing protection from the sun’s heat and harmful ultraviolet rays

Increased privacy by shading windows from the sun and prying eyes.

Non-metallized construction that won’t interfere with mobile phone, GPS or satellite radio reception.

Blockage of 99% of UV light and a total Sun Protection Factor (SPF) of up to 1000.

Significant glare reduction from blinding sunlight, allowing drivers to see better and concentrate more on the road.

A variety of tint levels to meet drivers’ needs (from 5% to clear), allowing 5% to 50% of the visible light into vehicles.

A limited lifetime warranty should they need replacing from bubbling, peeling, or blistering.*

As I said it could be useful........

Karen Martin

Don't look back

There is never any need to worry. 

The good law looks out for all things, and all we have to do is our duty as it comes along from day to day. 

Nothing is gained by worrying about matters and about the way people do not respond. 

In the first place you do not alter people, and in the second, by being anxious as to things, you put an occult obstacle in the way of what you want done. 

It is better to acquire a lot of what is called carelessness by the world.

But is in reality a calm reliance on the law.

And a doing of one's own duty.

Satisfied that the results must be right.

No matter what they may be.

The Past! 

What is it? 

Nothing. 

Gone! 

Dismiss it. 

You are the past of yourself. 

Therefore it concerns you not as such. 

It only concerns you as you now are. 

In you, as now you exist, lies all the past. 

So follow the Hindu maxim: 

"Regret nothing; never be sorry; and cut all doubts with the sword of spiritual knowledge." 

Regret is productive only of error. 

I care not what I was.

Or what any one was. 

I only look for what I am each moment. 

For as each moment is and at once is not.

It must follow that if we think of the past we forget the present.

And while we forget, the moments fly by us.

Making more past. 

Then regret nothing, not even the greatest follies of your life.

For they are gone.

And you are to work in the present which is both past and future at once.

WQJ

Confused or what?

The British people allegedly want to leave the EU

The argument being that EU legislation is a burden and that Britain can better go it alone

These are the same British citizens who regard their politicians as thieving liars

Politicians who the public roundly condemn for ruining the British economy

Who cannot be trusted

Who have monetized everything

Who have ruined what use to be a fair and pleasant land

Into a land of greedy bankers.

A land where only money counts.

And now these same voters want to give their politicians more power

To give these same thieves and liars another chance to steal and lie

Often the only check or balance on British politicians is the EU

British wildlife, sewage, health have all benefited hugely from these checks and balances

Britain does not operate on the European "precautionary principle" whereby you do not approve something for sale until it is proven that it will not cause harm or damage

Britain prefers to support business pretending to operate on "sound science" which is waffle for line my pockets while we can.

The only idea on the economy is growth

Nothing else is being discussed

Britain feels it must continue to spend billions on it's nuclear weapons.

Must continue to ignore discussion of drug issues

Must continue to regard drug use as criminal rather than as a health issue

This means that Britain locks up more of it's young people than most countries except the US  or maybe China.

All these and other issues are kept off the agenda by British politicians, who only engage in discussion when obliged to by the EU.

It does not seem to occur to the British people that over 300 million Europeans would also like the EU to better reflect their interests.

As President Obama said recently why not try to fix it first before talking about leaving?

Answer 

Because those controlling the media and politics want it that way.

Who would trust thieving liars with more power?

Apparently my fellow citizens.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria with the potential to cause untreatable infections pose "a catastrophic threat" to the population, England's chief medical officer warns in a report calling for urgent action worldwide.

If tough measures are not taken to restrict the use of antibiotics and no new ones are discovered, said Dame Sally Davies, "we will find ourselves in a health system not dissimilar to the early 19th century at some point".

While antibiotics are failing, new bacterial diseases are on the rise. 

Although the "superbugs" MRSA and C difficile have been reduced to low numbers in hospitals, there has been an alarming increase in other types of bacteria including new strains of E coli and Klebsiella, which causes pneumonia.

These so-called "gram negative" bacteria, which are found in the gut instead of on the skin, are highly dangerous to older and frailer people and few antibiotics remain effective against drug-resistant strains.

As many as 5,000 patients die each year in the UK of gram negative sepsis – where the bacterium gets into the bloodstream – and in half the cases the bacterium is resistant to drugs.

Antimicrobial resistance poses a catastrophic threat. "

If we don't act now, any one of us could go into hospital in 20 years for minor surgery and ie because of an ordinary infection that can't be treated by antibiotics. and routine operations like hip replacements or organ transplants could be deadly because of the risk of infection.

That's why governments and organisations across the world, including the World Health Organisation and G8, need to take this seriously.

There has been an 85% reduction in MRSA (methicillin-resistantStaphylococcus aureus), which has meant that many large, acute hospitals have no more than two or three cases a year. 

But there are now 50 to 100 cases of gram-negative bacteria infection for every MRSA case, according to Professor Mike Sharland of St George's hospital in London, an adviser to the Department of Health on the use of antimicrobials (antibiotics and antivirals) in children.

This is your own gut bugs turning on you. 

Between 10% and 20% are resistant to drugs. 

We do not yet know why they are on the rise, although some hospital procedures, such as the use of catheters, may be implicated. 

Many are in the very young or older population," he said.

There is a lot of work going on through Public Health England and the Department of Health to try to work out why it has suddenly risen.

In the second volume of her annual report, Davies calls for politicians to treat the threat of the new bugs and the failing antibiotics as seriously as they did MRSA. 

She wants action across government departments – involving the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in particular – because of the use of antibiotics in farming.

She is asking for the threat o be added to the government's strategic risk register, which will make it easier to raise as an issue abroad. 

Drug resistance is a global problem as the resistant strains of bacteria travel the world.

Multi drug-resistant TB and even some cases of extremely drug-resistant TB (only treatable with difficulty and with last-line antibiotics) have come to Britain.

Antibiotics fail because bacteria develop resistance to the drugs over time. 

In the decades after the invention of penicillin it did not seem to be a problem because drug companies developed new versions. 

But no new classes of drugs have been discovered since 1987 and the pipeline has now dried up.

Davies wants to find ways to give the pharmaceutical industry incentives to invest in finding new antibiotics. 

Most companies have given up because the search has become hard and, because resistance always develops, their lifespan is not long, so there is not much profit to be made.

The sort of incentives that could be offered have not yet been decided, but Davies praised the Innovative Medicines Initiative in Europe, a new public/private partnership. 

Other recommendations in the report include more education for medical students and qualified staff on the use of antibiotics and encouragement for women to be vaccinated where appropriate in pregnancy, for instance to protect their baby against whooping cough.

The Department of Health said it would shortly publish a five-year action plan to tackle the issues of antibiotic resistance raised in the report, which will include measures to ensure the drugs are prescribed only when they are needed.

Experts warmly welcomed the report. But Richard James, former director of the centre for healthcare associated infections at the University of Nottingham, pointed out that the UK could not solve the problem on its own and global action in countries where antibiotics are over-used, wrongly used and can sometimes – even in southern Europe – be bought over the counter, was vital.

"Anyone reading the report will realise that there are no magic bullets," he said. "

The majority of the 17 recommendations relate to actions in the UK alone but there is acknowledgment of the requirement for the UK government to campaign for this issue to be given higher priority internationally."

He suggested exploring the use of a tax on antibiotic use and also measures to encourage the developments of alternatives by small biotechnology companies and universities, such as vaccines.

Laura Piddock, professor of microbiology and deputy director of the institute of microbiology and infection at the University of Birmingham and director of Antibiotic Action, said she was glad Davies was drawing political attention to the antibiotic discovery void.

However, there are an increasing number of infections for which there are virtually no therapeutic options, and we desperately need new discovery, research and development; the UK is extremely well-placed to do basic discovery and research for new antibacterial molecules," she said.

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) said Davies was right to raise concern. 

Antimicrobial resistance is a serious and growing problem.

There are, however, pharmaceutical companies actively involved in researching and developing new antimicrobial medicines.

But more still needs to be done and we believe that for there to be a continual supply of effective antibiotics, a comprehensive review of the R&D [research and development] environment and good stewardship are required urgently."

Guardian