Devastating Poultry Factories in the South

Factory farming should be made illegal within 20 years, or so predicts the Whole Foods owner. All that is needed is to make known what these things are, and I think people's disgust will propel such legislation before too long. There will be "economic downsides" to such legislation, but these CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) are:

1. A breeding ground for Avian Flu and who knows what other types of diseases. Too many organisms, too concentrated.


2. Destructive to the people who work and live there. They earn relatively little, are exposed to arsenic and other serious hazards. This is cruel and unusual.


3. Devastating to our earth- the earth that gives us food and sustains our lives. ALL of our lives. Runoff from waste and carcasses, chemicals and additives that have passed through the chickens, fouling of rivers... the list goes on and on

All that so our chicken prices can be a bit lower. Come on, let's pay twice as much for real chicken rather than stoop to this immoral and unconscionable activity. To advance such a system for one's own profit, while harming people directly and indirectly, as well as the earth and creating possilities for disease outbreaks-- what else could this be but treason?

More from Grist here

And people actually ask us why we only buy free range eggs!

Unsafe in Europe, probably OK here

There's an interesting trend in what's healthy and what's not, when it comes to geography. If it's unsafe in Europe, just bring it across the Atlantic to the US and it'll be just fine.

I've known for a while that Europeans have rules against certain hormones (called rBGH or recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone) being given to cattle for increasing milk production, as they are cancinogenic and can cause infected udders and lots of pain for the animals. Ben and Jerry's opposes it use. Canada also bans the substance, but the US Dairy industry assures Americans that it's safe. Safe for profits is more like it. With our economy the way it is, a slight price advantage is the difference between succeeding along with competition and going bankrupt, so you can't find milk in the US without this hormone (at least not easily- labels aren't required apparently). Fox News (of all people) had 2 reporters working on this story. A large company urged the brass there to cancel the story, and it was...

Now, I find that the FDA is allowing Carbon monoxide to be added to meat in the US, which prevents it from turning brown, even if the meat has spoiled. And no labelling is required there, either. This is the same molecule that is odorless and deadly when in the air- we even had a detector in our basement growing up to warn us if it was present in any significant quality. Hmmm, the Europeans have deemed this unsafe too.

Maybe Americans are just OK with the idea of getting cancer, as long as it means profits.

Ahh, the price of cheap energy: coal

The full story here

Apparently, the cheapest way to get coal out of mountains is to remove the top of the mountain, and dump everything that you don't want, including boulders, rocks, and carcinogenic coal compounds, into the surrounding valleys.

The solution to summer time auto-greenhouse effect

Problem #1: Energy shortage, and pollution from "traditional" energy sources.

Problem #2: Exposed cars get too hot in the sun in the summer time.

Neato solution: The picture above, which in case it's been removed, is a parking lot with a solar-energy (PV) roof. It's owned by the USPS in San Francisco, and they predict it will pay for itself in 7 years. Full Story

Minor problem #1: People say solar cells are ugly.
Solution: Put them over things that are uglier (Parking lots).

Cool stuff.

---

I was going to stop there, but a more elegant, simpler solution is this:


WALKING

Pollution free, solar powered (yes, you are solar powered, because you eat stuff which gets its energy from the sun (plants), or from things that get eat those things (herbivores), or rarely from things that eat the things which eat the other things that get their energy from the sun (carnivores)), and also keeps you in shape, which helps lead to a better life.

phishing - detect it!

There has been a lot about phishing lately in the news, but I haven't seen much teaching folks how to detect and prevent it. Here are some ideas.

1. Sceptism. Most phishing promises things that are really unlikely.

Dear BancorpSouth Client,

This is your official notification from BancorpSouth that the service(s) listed below will be deactivated and deleted if not renewed immediately. Previous notifications have been sent to the Billing Contact assigned to this account. As the Primary Contact, you must renew the service(s) listed below or it will be deactivated and deleted.

Renew Now your BancorpSouth Bill Pay and Services.

If you are not enrolled at Web Banking, please enter your SSN as Username, and account number as Password.

SERVICE : BancorpSouth with Bill Pay.

Thank you, sincerely,

Tricia Doyle
Customer Service

Would this company (even if I banked with them) really cancel my account? Why do they need all this info that they already have? Suspect emails as being phony and you'll catch more of them as phony.

2. Never follow links from emails to any place where you enter any personal information. Type the URL manually in the address bar of your Firefox browser (or some other browser, if you must). They are ususally short URLs, but make sure you type them correctly. Better, bookmark them, and use the bookmarks. Some phishers try to get similar domains so that when you type "mycerditcard.com" you see a site that looks the same as "mycreditcard.com". Links in your email can say Get an IBM but take you somewhere different (click the link). Even worse, they often say things like www.ibm.com which looks like it would take you to IBM's web site, but it doesn't. Also, they will take similar sounding URLs to try to trick you, too. URLs like www.ibmcomputers.com sounds ok, but it is NOT IBM- who knows who it is. Don't click on the email links. The previous example sends people to:
http://???.nctu.edu.tw/bancorpsouthonline.com/CheckSession.php

The address is clearly bogus, can you see that? The .tw at the end of the first bit signals the country code, which is here Taiwan. It is in no case the bank's real website.

3. Emails are not necessarily FROM who they say they are from. There should be a way to look at the full email headers in your email. I can do this with GMail, as well as my UNC email. You can do this with hotmail, but it's clunky (surprise!!). Go to Options (upper right corner of the screen with your emails), then choose "Mail Display Settings" then set message headers to "full" then click OK. Now you'll see lots of weird headers with your email:

X-Sieve: cmu-sieve 1.3
Return-Path: 
Received: from email.unc.edu (mgate2.isis.unc.edu [152.2.1.95])
    by mailserv0.isis.unc.edu (8.12.2/8.12.1) with ESMTP id k1114G0a000372
    for ; Tue, 31 Jan 2006 20:04:16 -0500 (EST)
>>>>>Received: from gs0.media3.net ([63.74.122.251])<<<<<<
    by email.unc.edu (8.13.5/8.13.5) with ESMTP id k11141w4014944
    for <[MyEmailAddress]@email.unc.edu>; Tue, 31 Jan 2006 20:04:12 -0500 (EST)
Received: by gs0.media3.net (8.9.3/8.9.2) id UAA12769;
    Tue, 31 Jan 2006 20:00:03 -0500 (EST)
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 20:00:03 -0500 (EST)
Message-Id: <20060203310100.UAA12769@gs0.media3.net>
To: [MyEmailAddress]@email.unc.edu
From: BancorpSouth Online Banking <customercare@bancorpsouthonline.com>
Subject: New message from BancorpSouth
Reply-To: BancorpSouth Online Banking <customercare@bancorpsouthonline.com>
Content-type: text/html

Note that the "from" says "bancorpsouthonline.com" but there is nothing about that in the rest of the header. Instead, the header says it comes from "Received: from gs0.media3.net ([63.74.122.251])" (I added the pointers there) which is not the bank. This may be a bit of overkill, but it is helpful in describing why you shouldn't click on links from you email, nor trust the "from:" line in email. This is stuff not a lot of people know.

"Renewables" vs. Exxon

In Pres. Bush's State of the Union, he gleamed that:

Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. And here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world.

The best way to break this addiction is through technology. Since 2001, we have spent nearly $10 billion to develop cleaner, cheaper and more reliable alternative energy sources. And we are on the threshold of incredible advances.

[my emphasis - who knows if that money includes nuclear, which is not alternative energy, not clean, not safe, not cheap if you include all the costs related to keeping the nuclear waste well handed for 10,000 years.]

$10 billion over 5 years stacks up... not so well against what Exxon earned (one company) in one year on just oil: $36 billion in one year [stockholder's and CEO's emphasis]. Exxon doesn't attempt other types of energy, and is trying to get out of obligations related to the Exxon Valdez too.

All this while most scientists are pointing to horrible consequences about climate change, that the U.S. won't deal with. Or will deal with it "on a voluntary basis." Because it's not possible/bad for the economy to mandate CO2 limits. But the UK has cut its emissions, and without adding nuclear plants. And what about the consequences of global warming on the economy, since that seems to be all some people care about?? Florida floods, more hurricanes (do those cost money?), more erratic weather, weed plant species increasing...

This is nothing new, however. Psalm 37 warns about not getting too angry over such evil, for that anger only leads to evil. "But the righteous will inherit the land forever..." but there will be a lot of work to do to fix the wounded land.