Eideard

Creil, the Netherlands — Modest farms, 90 acres or less, dot the region here, most of them raising grains and vegetables, some the occasional sheep or cow.

In the midst of this idyllic scene a few years back there appeared what residents now call “the pink invasion,” three huge hog barns each with 10,000 or more pigs in the fields that skirt the dike that protects the region from the Ijsselmeer, once known as the Zuiderzee.

“Some people don’t like the idea,” said Dick van Leeuwen, 65, who walks his dog Thor along the roads leading to the largest of the barns. Local people feared that the pig farms would stink, while bringing an unwanted increase in truck traffic, he said, delivering feed for the thousands of pigs or hauling away manure or grown hogs for slaughter. But their complaints fell mostly on deaf ears.

The Netherlands, a country of almost 17 million people, is home to a pig population of 14 million. Despite its status as one of the smaller countries in the European Union — about half the size of the state of Maine — the Netherlands has long been Europe’s leading exporter of pork and pork products, though that ranking has been contested in recent years by wurst-loving Germany.

Like pork producers everywhere, Dutch farmers are fighting rising costs by resorting to ever bigger herds and barns, a trend that is reinforced by the petite size of the Netherlands…As the big barns become more common, the government has begun to respond to public complaints about industrial farming and cruelty to animals. Officials are now discussing ways to curb the size of barns like those in tiny Creil, with its 1,600 people in trim brick homes, much to the chagrin of the new generation of farmers who see industrial-scale husbandry as their only means to compete…

Critics of the pork industry argue that enormous pig barns damage the environment because of the immense amounts of manure they produce, threaten people’s heath because of the antibiotics used liberally to avoid sickness among the animals and disregard the welfare of the animals by confining them to barns…

Pig farmers like Mr. Vowinkel insist that they can compete only if they keep costs and the price of their pork down. “Some disappear, others get bigger, to lower production prices,” he said. A fellow farmer, Sietse van der Meer, agreed. “You grow bigger, or you stop,” he said.

Politicians feel the pressure of the environmentalists and animal rights groups. In December, Parliament will begin discussing a possible restriction on the size of farms and a ban on antibiotics, two steps the farming region of Noord-Brabant, in the south, has already taken on its own.

RTFA. The arguments of the Pig Farmers Association seem specious to me. They argue that the diminishing number of pig farmers is proof of their inability to compete because of regulation. They sound like Wall Street Republicans. But, the enormous expansion of the size of farms, number of pigs produced at lower prices is as likely to be the cause for small farmers being forced out of business.

They’ll never be able to compete with pork produced in nations with an excess of arable land – from China to Brazil – and their natural market is the citizens of the Netherlands and Europe. The rest – especially reliance on antibiotics – is the same sort of propaganda we get from members of every greed-driven guild in the world.

Black Friday sales increased 6.6 percent to the largest amount ever as many U.S. consumers unleashed pent-up demand and bought for themselves.

Shoppers spent $11.4 billion yesterday, ShopperTrak said in a statement today. Foot traffic rose 5.1 percent, according to the Chicago-based research firm…

The brisk turnout came as retailers from Gap to Wal-Mart Stores to Toys “R” Us opened their doors earlier than ever.

Many shoppers were rookies who had never before participated in the busiest shopping day of the year, dubbed Black Friday because many retailers are said to become profitable then. As many as 152 million people were expected to shop at stores and websites on Black Friday, up 10 percent from last year, according to the National Retail Federation…

Black Friday arrived with consumer sentiment at levels previously reached during recessions, as a record share of households said this is a bad time to spend, according to the Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index. The measure has reached minus 50 or less in nine of the past 10 weeks, an unprecedented performance in its 26-year history.

Even with low confidence, shoppers paid more for goods and unleashed some pent-up demand, said Craig Johnson, president of consulting firm Customer Growth Partners, which is based in New Canaan, Connecticut…

Chains such as Macy’s, Target Corp. and Kohl’s Corp., which all opened at midnight, may have taken revenue from competitors like J.C. Penney that didn’t open until 4 a.m., according Ken Perkins, president of Swampscott, Massachusetts-based Retail Metrics…

The move to turn Black Friday into more than just one day also grew on the Web as online retailers, such as Amazon.com Inc., began advertising “Black Friday” deals well before yesterday. Online sales gained 39 percent on Thanksgiving and 24 percent on Black Friday, according to IBM’s Coremetrics.

Black Friday may illustrate a gap between what consumers tell pollsters and how they actually behave — a trend that has prevailed for much of this year, said Retail Metrics’ Perkins…“A solid Black Friday suggests the rest of the season should be pretty good,” Perkins said. “Those who have jobs have been willing to spend.”

Americans who have jobs have returned to saving in the course of the year. After a couple decades of relying on plastic to close the gap between the quest-for-scarce-goods and declining real income we reached negative savings numbers at the beginning of the recession. Over the course of this year, that number returned to halfway normal – around 5%.

My hopes – not ideological guesswork – is that folks return to increasing those savings amounts once the holiday season is past. We have a ways to go to return to a more traditional 10%. Meanwhile, China’s new middle class sticks to a savings rate around 40%. They even show up to buy a new car with cash instead of credit! You can guess what Wall Street whizbangs think of that?

The nation’s major mobile-phone providers are keeping a treasure trove of sensitive data on their customers, according to newly-released Justice Department internal memo that for the first time reveals the data retention policies of America’s largest telecoms.

The single-page Department of Justice document…is a guide for law enforcement agencies looking to get information — like customer IP addresses, call logs, text messages and web surfing habits – out of U.S. telecom companies, including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon.

The document, marked “Law Enforcement Use Only” and dated August 2010, illustrates there are some significant differences in how long carriers retain your data.

Verizon, for example, keeps a list of everyone you’ve exchanged text messages with for the past year, according to the document. But T-Mobile stores the same data up to five years. It’s 18 months for Sprint, and seven years for AT&T…

The document was unearthed by the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina via a Freedom of Information Act claim. (After the group gave a copy to Wired.com, we also discovered it in two other places on the internet by searching its title.)

“People who are upset that Facebook is storing all their information should be really concerned that their cell phone is tracking them everywhere they’ve been,” said Catherine Crump, an ACLU staff attorney. “The government has this information because it wants to engage in surveillance…”

“I don’t think there there is anything on this list the government would concede requires a warrant,” said Kevin Bankston, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “This brings cellular retention practices out of the shadows, so we can have a rational discussion about how the law needs to be changed when it comes to the privacy of our records.”

Vermont’s Patrick Leahy has introduced legislation to alter the Electronic Privacy Communications Act to protect Americans from intrusions on our privacy. How much chance do you think it has of being passed into law?

Do you think Obama would sign it – if it passed Congress? That’s a tough question for many of us who don’t care to vote for the proto-fascist populists who seem to be the Republican alternative.

Discussing the day’s schedule with his secretary en route

A wealthy Chinese businessman has become so fed up with the snail’s pace of the traffic in the northwestern city of Xianyang that he has taken to riding his horse to get to work.

He Yanqing, a successful property entrepreneur with a fleet of cars in his garage at home worth several hundred thousand pounds, said he’d opted for four legs over four wheels because of the constant snarl up and jams.

Mr He, who can now be seen trotting down the city’s bike lanes most mornings – usually accompanied by his secretary – said his commute had been cut from 40 to 20 minutes since taking to the saddle, with a host of other benefits besides.

“Riding a horse to work has many advantages,” he told Shaanxi Satellite Television, “It keeps me fit, has low carbon dioxide emissions, avoids traffic jams, parking fines, speeding tickets and my horse, unlike the car, has no need for an annual examination…”

Fellow commuters in the city of 5m mostly appeared to approve of the idea, though some worried about who would clear up after the animal or what might happen if the horse got spooked and ran out of control.

“So cool!” enthused one citizen in an online discussion, “Runs only on grass, not oil, but the only question is what to do when it fouls the place?”

After consulting the regulations, a slightly bemused-looking traffic policeman said that China’s traffic rules only governed horse-drawn carriages and cattle-carts, leaving Mr He free to go on his way unimpeded.

Not so unusual in Santa Fe – though local coppers would probably freak out a bit in the heart of the tourist zone downtown. But, it was never unusual in the neighborhood where I lived in town to see a horse waiting outside a convenience store while the owner picked up a sixpack of refreshment.

In fact, it’s not unheard of for someone to be arrested for horseback DUI.

Bharti Arora, the Deputy Commissioner of Police in Gurgaon, has launched a new scheme to let some of the city’s worst drivers know how it feels to try to manage the chaos by forcing them to work as traffic cops.

She told The Daily Telegraph she had adopted a new approach because on the spot fines of a hundred rupees for jumping red lights were not working.

“We were fining them, but it wasn’t really helping, because a fine is just 100 Rupees. The worst of the chaos is six hours of jammed traffic because some vehicle has over-turned, construction is going on, narrowing the lanes.

“We decided to let them see how it is to work as a traffic constable. It’s not an easy job.” she explained.

Offenders at the IFFCO Chowk junction are now pulled to one side, issued an on-the-spot fine, and then told to join the constable in trying to direct the chaos they have helped create.

“They do it for half an hour or longer. Some are hostile, some are willing, and some say it has changed their attitude,” she said.

In a country where roads are choked by elephants, horses, camels, cycle rickshaws, teetering overloaded trucks, and child acrobats, its drivers regularly jump red lights, cut in front of fellow highway users without warning, never keep apart two chevrons, and only very rarely ‘mirror, signal, manoeuvre.’

Sounds like Santa Fe. Except for the elephants and camels, cycle rickshaws.

We also miss other qualities some folks think are necessary: drivers licenses, insurance, safety and smog checks.

Baghdad municipal workers remove US blast walls
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Iraq’s capital wants the United States to apologize and pay $1 billion for the damage done to the city not by bombs but by blast walls and Humvees since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

The city’s government issued its demands in a statement on Wednesday that said Baghdad’s infrastructure and aesthetics have been seriously damaged by the American military. “The U.S. forces changed this beautiful city to a camp in an ugly and destructive way, which reflected deliberate ignorance and carelessness about the simplest forms of public taste,” the statement said.

“Due to the huge damage, leading to a loss the Baghdad municipality cannot afford…we demand the American side apologize to Baghdad’s people and pay back these expenses…”

Baghdad’s neighborhoods have been sealed off by miles of concrete blast walls, transforming the city into a tangled maze that contributes to massive traffic jams. Despite a sharp reduction in overall violence in recent years only 5 percent of the walls have been removed, officials said.

The heavy blast walls have damaged sewer and water systems, pavement and parks, said Hakeem Abdul Zahra, the city spokesman.

If you know the least amount of history you’d already be aware that we helped rebuild cities we destroyed in just about all of our wars since 1941. The big one, of course, being a war where we were attacked.

Staying up-to-date, we should at least declare a special war tax on everyone who voted George W. back into a second term in office.

The TTC bus driver was texting on a BlackBerry-like device while driving around 50 km/h when passenger Mike Schmitz took an iPhone photo of him.

The shot, taken on a 165 Weston Rd. North bus that was “full of people”, shows the driver focused on the device, and the orange needle of the bus speedometer pointing upwards…

The driver would alternate between holding the device with both hands and steering with his forearms, and driving with one hand while holding the device with the other and texting with his thumb, he said.

“This is incredibly serious,” said TTC spokesman Brad Ross, who got a glimpse of the photo on Thursday. “It would appear … that he’s doing at least 50 km/h while texting, and his eyes are not on the road.”

The TTC has “a clear policy” when it comes to prohibiting its drivers from using personal electronic devices — such as cellphones, BlackBerrys and iPhones — while on the job, Ross said. “This is a serious breach of public safety,” he said, adding that drivers are not allowed to talk on cellphones or text even while the vehicle is stopped…

As of Oct. 26, 2009, Ontario drivers have been banned from talking on cellphones, texting or using hand-held electronic devices of any kind while behind the wheel.

A bit more than an oops! No one needs to see bus drivers volunteering for a Darwin Award.

“Vehicle overloaded with goods and passengers”

Delhi – This city is famous for its snarled traffic and infamous for its unruly drivers — aggressive rule-breakers who barrel through red lights, ignore crosswalks and veer into bicycle or bus lanes to find open routes.

Now, the city’s overburdened traffic police officers have enlisted an unexpected weapon in the fight against dangerous driving: Facebook.

The traffic police started a Facebook page two months ago, and almost immediately residents became digital informants, posting photos of their fellow drivers violating traffic laws. As of Sunday more than 17,000 people had become fans of the page and posted almost 3,000 photographs and dozens of videos.

The online rap sheet was impressive. There are photos of people on motorcycles without helmets, cars stopped in crosswalks, drivers on cellphones, drivers in the middle of illegal turns and improperly parked vehicles.

Using the pictures, the Delhi Traffic Police have issued 665 tickets, using the license plate numbers shown in the photos to track vehicle owners, said the city’s joint commissioner of traffic, Satyendra Garg.

Despite some concerns about privacy, and the authenticity of the photos, the public’s response has been overwhelmingly positive, he said…

Mr. Garg acknowledged that it was possible photos could be manipulated to incriminate someone who was not actually breaking the law. But, he said, drivers can contest the tickets if they think they were wrongly issued. The police advise residents not to let personal animosity influence their photo-taking, and not to do anything to compromise their own security, like antagonizing law-breakers while snapping photos.

I love it. American society is so afraid someone’s privacy might be compromised, say, versus catching some SOB who just ran a red light and almost killed six kids – red light cameras are becoming illegal.

Delhi has the equivalent of dozens of photo vans for the cost of a couple of coppers taking a few minutes to check their Facebook page, every day.

For police chief Clayton Leão Chaves it was supposed to be another day at the office. At around 9.40am this morning, he was making his daily journey to the police HQ in Camacari, a small city in Bahia state, and giving an interview to local radio on his mobile phone about the police’s struggle against local drug traffickers.

Then something went badly wrong.

“I heard some bangs,” one of the shows two presenters announced, perplexed, as the police chief’s voice disappeared.

“Something serious has happened to our chief. It can’t be anything else,” said his co-presenter, adding: “The chief was just talking to us. We don’t know what has happened. There is a lady weeping.”

According to local media reports, Chaves had been killed as he spoke to journalists from Bahia’s Lider FM radio station and to thousands of local listeners about attempts to improve security…

According to reports, the police chief’s car was ambushed by gunmen, who then fled in a white VW car…

Stunned, the show’s presenters urged police to rush to the scene. “Attention military police, attention colleagues of the police chief. Get to the Cascalheira Highway urgently. Something serious has just happened.”

Local radio presenter Marco Antonio Ribeiro told the G1 news site: “I was finishing the interview when the crime happened. We were meant to do the interview in the studio but he couldn’t make it. The interview was about his work combating drug trafficking in the region.”

Too real. There are some jobs that require an armored car – and not just for those worrying about political assassination.

This was a promotional photoshopped picture of a SmartFor2 – with a graphic of mayor Michael Bloomberg on the side – as a package offered to the city of New York Police Department.