Tag: local

Cave dweller menus were limited by what’s available – from Woolly rhino to mushrooms

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❝ Eating like a caveman meant chowing down on woolly rhinos and sheep in Belgium, but munching on mushrooms, pine nuts and moss in Spain. It all depended on where they lived, new research shows.

❝ Scientists got a sneak peek into the kitchen of three Neanderthals by scraping off the plaque stuck on their teeth and examining the DNA. What they found smashes a common public misconception that the caveman diet was mostly meat. They also found hints that one sickly teen used primitive versions of penicillin and aspirin to help ease his pain.

❝ The dental plaque provides a lifelong record of what went in the Neanderthals’ mouths and the bacteria that lived in their guts, said study co-author Alan Cooper, director of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA in Adelaide.

“It’s like a fossil,” he said.

❝ While past studies showed varied Neanderthal diets, genetic testing allowed researchers to say what kind of meat or mushrooms they ate, Cooper said. The 42,000-year-old Belgian Neanderthal’s menu of sheep and woolly rhino reflected what roamed in the plains around the Neanderthal’s home, he said. The research is in Wednesday’s journal Nature…

There were no signs of meat in the diet of the two 50,000-year-old Spanish Neanderthals, but calling them vegetarians would be a stretch, Cooper said. Their own bones showed that they were eaten by cannibals.

I don’t doubt that the politicians, priests and pundits of the time provided believable reasons for every part of life – from diet to ritual – even if they were crap. Part of the job description that hasn’t changed.

Hacker snooping — think it’s just the Feds we have to watch?

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No – he’s not leaving his badge number

❝ …Many members of the public first became aware of the FBI’s interest in hacking in February, when the bureau and Apple battled over a locked iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino, California, shooters. That spat ended abruptly when the FBI announced it had hacked into the iPhone without Apple’s assistance…

❝ The present debate around law enforcement hacking is, for good reason, focused mostly on the FBI. At present, the most sophisticated law enforcement hacking capabilities belong to the federal government and remain classified. And although state and local police certainly investigate some serious crimes within their jurisdictions, the FBI routinely handles serious crimes — child pornography, human trafficking, financial crime resulting in the loss of millions of dollars. By many measures, the gravity of the crimes the FBI investigates makes it understandable that when we consider extraordinary hacking measures used by law enforcement, we would start with the FBI.

❝ But law enforcement hacking is not just a matter for the feds, thanks to two trends in particular.

First, just like law-abiding citizens, criminals have access to legal services that allow them to encrypt communications, browse privately, and otherwise minimize their digital footprints. Smartphone encryption frequently prevents crime, but as these tools become easier to use and the commercial default, it isn’t difficult to imagine that criminals—even those who aren’t technologically sophisticated — will use them, too.

Second, state and local police departments are very interested in hacking capabilities that could, as they see it, improve their ability to fight crime. Leaked emails from the past several years show that law enforcement agencies around the country have received demonstrations of spyware being sold by the controversial Italian-based company Hacking Team, whose mission is to “provide effective, easy-to-use offensive technology to the worldwide law enforcement and intelligence communities.” Hacking Team boasts of software that helps law enforcement “hack into [their] targets with the most advanced infection vectors available.”

❝ The federal government is also sharing cybercrime-related knowledge with state and local police departments. The National Computer Forensics Institute, a federally funded center, is “committed to training state and local officials in cyber crime investigations” and offers tuition-free education on many elements of policing in a high-tech crime era. And after unlocking the San Bernardino iPhone, the FBI hastened to assure its local partners that it would share technical assistance whenever possible.

RTFA for details. Reflect upon your local coppers being as likely – more likely? – than the Feds to consider Free Speech a crime. They can expect the range of political fools from Trumpkins to FuzzyWhigs to back them up. Many of America’s conservatives look at the Bill of Rights as a failed experiment.

Lightning strikes kill 40 in 24 hours in Bangladesh

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❝ At least 40 people have been killed by lightning strikes in Bangladesh within 24 hours as violent thunderstorms rumbled across the country.

The Bangladesh Meteorological Department said the storms caused disruption across 14 districts including Dhaka. Their spokesman told DPA news agency that most of the fatalities occurred due to a lack of awareness…

Two 20-year-old students were killed during a football match in Dhaka’s Jatrabari neighboughhood. Eight others were injured as the lightning bolt struck the ground.

The Hindu, a daily newspaper, reported that the casualties included a number of children who were playing in open grounds during the rain, but most of the victims were farmers working in their fields.

❝ The rains do help to break the intense heat experienced ahead of the monsoon rains. However, the downpours are often accompanied by thunder and lightning.

❝ Bangladesh’s Disaster Management Department has now launched a campaign to create awareness among people so that they remain inside during thunderstorms. Lightning kills around 300 people each year across the country.

Government responses to disasters like this often seem bogus. There is little in Bangladesh approximating a modern communications network – excepting cellphones, mobiles. Most cellphones in my neck of the prairie come with emergency warning systems turned-on by default. Local or state government can send me a warning on a moments notice. Probably the least expensive implementation of a warning system there can be.

Lucky iron fish fights anemia

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In Cambodia, a considerable proportion of the population is iron deficient. This preventable condition can lead to anemia, weakness, impaired cognitive ability, compromised physical development in children, and increased risk of illness. It can even lead to death.

But one little fish can change all that.

The Solution – fashion the small piece of iron into the shape of a fish, a cultural symbol of hope and good fortune in Cambodia.

One Lucky Iron Fish can provide an entire family with up to 75% of their daily iron intake for up to 5 years. All you have to do is cook with it.

It’s a simple, affordable, and effective solution anyone can use.

After just 9 months of using the Lucky Iron Fish every day, we saw a 50% decrease in the incidence of clinical iron deficiency anemia, and an increase in users’ iron levels. And people are feeling the difference. That’s why the Lucky Iron Fish has become an integral part of their lives.

And this is just the beginning…

Visit the LuckyIronFish website. Check out the various levels of support you’re able to provide to the project. They’re moving out to other cultures with iron deficiency anemia – ready and willing to appreciate the value of the Lucky Iron Fish.

Thanks, Ursarodinia

The race to block a Pacific oil route with a real estate development

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oil terminal site
Click to enlarge — David Kasnic

Environmental passions, which run hot in the Northwest over everything from salmon to recycling, generally get couched in the negative: Don’t fish too much, don’t put those chemicals up the smokestack, don’t build in that sensitive area.

But here in southern Washington, some environmental groups are quietly pushing a builder to move even faster with a $1.3 billion real estate project along the Columbia River that includes office buildings, shops and towers with 3,300 apartments.

The reason is oil.

Two miles west of the 32-acre project, called the Waterfront, one of the biggest proposed oil terminals in the country is going through an environmental review, with plans to transfer North Dakota crude from rail cars to barges. Up to four trains, carrying 360,000 barrels of oil, would pass every day through this city’s downtown, only a few hundred feet from the Waterfront’s towers, westbound from the Bakken shale oil fields…

The result is a sort of race to the crossing: If the Waterfront can get its bricks and mortar in the ground before the terminal is approved — possibly late next year, with litigation likely to follow — more people would be living and working near the oil-train line. Compounding what opponents, led by the city, say are the dangers of spills or derailments, would make the terminal’s path to approval steeper…

The Waterfront project, Brett VandenHeuvel said, makes the threats from the oil trains “more tangible and more real.” At least 10 large crude oil spills have been reported since early 2013 because of train accidents in the United States and Canada, including one in Quebec that caused a fire and explosion and killed 47 people…

The Vancouver city manager, Eric J. Holmes, said every advance at the Waterfront potentially changed the final arguments on the terminal, which he thinks could be years away, perhaps ending up before the State Supreme Court.

If the city itself changes in the meantime, he said, those final arguments about oil and rail and safety will change, too. “If it adds to the argument about our community’s safety, we’ll certainly invoke it,” he said.

Go for it, folks. The history of American courts ruling on behalf of NIMBYs is pretty strong. That the sum of struggle benefits the whole region – excepting folks profiting from the fossil fuel economy – ain’t a difficult motivator.

Oklahoma Republican politics means you don’t have to obey the president – but, you do have to obey the governor!

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Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin signed a bill into law Monday that passes a statewide ban on raising the minimum wage and prohibits cities from legislating to establish mandatory employee benefits like vacations or sick leave…Opponents view the law as retaliation against grass roots organizers gathering signatures in the capital to raise the city’s minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10.

After Fallin signed the bill, her office released a statement claiming that “most minimum-wage workers are young, single people working part-time or entry-level jobs.”

Fallen said, “Mandating an increase in the minimum wage would require businesses to fire many of those part-time workers. It would create a hardship for small business owners, stifle job creation and increase costs for consumers.”

You decide if she’s ignorant or a liar. The average minimum wage earner is a single mom in her 30’s.

A major paper published last year covered by the Washington Post found that economists agree that raising the minimum wage actually reduces poverty.

Reducing poverty is one of those goals that you never hear addressed by Republicans except as some kind of supposed inevitability from their favorite dribble-down economics. Which hasn’t worked anywhere on Earth, yet.

They will get righteous about protecting profits, though.

Introducing Americans to a real TV news channel

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If you’ve been a news junkie long enough the easiest comparison for you to understand about Al Jazeera America is to remember the old CNN. Dedicated to news sourced by solid journalists on the spot, absolutely the opposite of TV talking heads dedicated to news-as-entertainment.

My best example of the loss of CNN happened the night Aaron Brown said goodbye – and he was replaced by some 5th Avenue fluff, Anderson Cooper.

My best example of the strength of AJAM – most folks’ shorthand for Al Jazeera America – is Tony Harris. One of my favorite news anchors at CNN till he finally left – as did so many others like Ali Velshi, now running their own shows at AJAM. This past week I got a pleasant surprise when someone showed up I haven’t seen since he was part of the Freedom Train down to MLK’s March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom – Randall Pinkston. That was BITD when he worked for the CBS Local in Hartford, Connecticut.

Many more quality journalists than you will find remaining at any of the networks or cable stations now staff AJAM. It’s started in standard definition only – a bummer for TV geeks like me; but, I’m hopeful that will be remedied once the owners see what kind of reception good solid journalism is getting in the USA.

You needn’t take my word for it, though. Watch it yourself. It’s on channel 358 on DirecTV and they have a local finder at their website. News can be so much more than the sawdust imitation we’re limited to on the networks. I think you’ll find it a pleasant surprise. I can’t wait till Joie Chen gets to anchor her evening show in HD.

Deadly drug compounder ignored contamination warnings

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The company at the center of a deadly meningitis outbreak was warned by its own environmental monitors of bacterial contamination of its facility months before the first cases were reported…

Mold, and in some cases, an overgrowth of bacteria was detected in different areas of the New England Compounding Center’s two “clean rooms” nearly 90 times since January, a Food and Drug Administration report said…

Despite the warnings from its own monitors…the compounding center did not investigate the reports of the contamination nor is there documented evidence it worked to decontaminate the affected areas.

Tainted medications from the compounding center have been blamed for the outbreak of fungal meningitis that has caused 25 deaths and 338 illnesses.

The FDA’s preliminary findings were released following an inspection of the compounding center this month. In addition to documented reports of bacterial contamination, FDA investigators observed “greenish black foreign matter” and “white filamentous material” in vials of methylprednisolone acetate — the steroid linked to the meningitis outbreak…

The FDA report comes the same week that the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Pharmacy voted to revoke permanently the compounding center’s license to operate in the state as well as the licenses of the company’s three principal pharmacists.

Compounding centers like this get their exemption from federal oversight on the grounds of serving local and regional communities. The standard “states right” exemption from responsibility that conservative politicians roll in – like hogs in their own shite.

Meanwhile, these thugs have been selling their crap all over the United States and no one in the FDA noticed? No one in Congress noticed? We have elected officials who sit on their dead butts all day getting paid to examine so-called security risks of buying cellphone parts from China – but the health security risk from deadly drugs rolled out domestically to cut-price profiteers doesn’t raise an eyebrow in Washington, DC.

The profits of crime breed corruption. Same as it ever was.

Feel represented by the Democrats or Republicans — or would you rather have a 3rd Party?

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Americans are divided as to whether a third major party is needed in U.S. politics today, after having given majority support to the concept in 2011 and 2010. Americans’ views today are remarkably similar to what they were in September 2008, before that year’s presidential election…

Support for a third party has varied substantially since Gallup first asked this question in 2003. It was highest in 2007 and 2010, at 58%. In between those peaks, however, support dropped to less than the majority level two months before the 2008 election, as it has in the current survey, conducted Sept. 6-9 — two months before this year’s election. Thus, it may be that in election years — particularly shortly after the parties’ conventions, as was the case for the 2008 and the 2012 surveys — Americans look more favorably upon the two dominant political parties.

As would be expected, Americans who have the weakest ties to either of the two major parties — independents — are consistently more likely to favor having a third party. The current 58% support level among independents, however, is the second lowest on record.

Republicans’ and Democrats’ support for a third party has fluctuated over the past nine years, but the two groups now have similar views, as they did a year ago. Now, 40% of Democrats support the concept of a third party, compared with 36% of Republicans…

The biggest problem – perfectly consistent with American politics – is that 3rd Party campaigns may represent a portion of grassroots identity; but, they pretty much always start at the top. It was essentially true of the Progressive Party and more recently, the Greens. It was even more so the case with Ross Perot and George Wallace.

Between impatience and self-importance, the idea of building in the style of the civil rights movement seems to require more patience than the not-so-oppressed minority of political independents can muster. In the United States that is.