[RT] Biotech giant Monsanto is being accused of hiring, through third parties, an army of Internet trolls to counter negative comments, while citing positive "ghost-written" pseudo-scientific reports which downplay the potential risks of their products.
The documents emerged during pre-trials on 50 lawsuits against Monsanto which were pending in the US District Court in San Francisco. The plaintiffs allege that exposure to the biotech giant’s flagship product, the herbicide Roundup, caused them or their relatives to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma, while Monsanto concealed the potential risks.
In March, a judge ruled, despite Monsanto’s objections, that the documents obtained by the plaintiffs could be released. The court papers are being gathered at the website of food-safety whistleblower organization US Right to Know.
#2
PAKASTANI HAIRCUTS PROTEIN AND MINERALS!VOICE BETWEEN THE SATELLITE TELEVISION STATIONS SOUNDS LIKE CONTROL FREAK PARANOID WANT TO BE HAS BEENS TO ME!
[PJ] Showing a generosity of spirit, Emory University made the exciting announcement that they would fund 100% of financial aid packages for illegal aliens based on need.
No comment from international students in the country legally who have to fund their own education.
Breitbart:
Although international students are expected to pay full tuition, undocumented undergraduate students at Emory will have "100% of demonstrated financial need" covered by the university.
"Emory meets 100% of demonstrated financial need for undergraduate Undocumented Students (with or without DACA) who are admitted as first-year, first-degree-seeking students, and who graduated from a U.S. High school through a combination of grants and scholarships, institutional work study (DACA students only), and institutional loans. Undocumented Students without DACA status may receive an institutional loan in place of the typical work study award," the university’s website states.
Speaking to The College Fix, Megan McRainey, a spokeswoman for Emory, claimed that providing full financial aid relief to undocumented students reflects the university’s commitment to welcoming students from diverse backgrounds.
"Emory accepts undocumented students for admission and financial aid, including those under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) program," McRainey wrote, adding that providing financial aid coverage to undocumented students aligns with Emory’s goal of welcoming "students, faculty, and staff from diverse backgrounds."
International students, who are not afforded the same aid privileges as undocumented students, will be forced to foot a $70,000 per year tuition bill if they wish to attend the prestigious Georgian university.
The solution is simple. If you're a citizen of another country in the U.S. legally on a student visa, drop out of school, sneak back into the U.S. illegally, and reapply at Emory claiming you're "undocumented." Forget all those fuddy-duddies who might say it's not fair that someone who broke the law to get here is entitled to benefits that law-abiding students aren't eligible for. You're behind the times, man. Get with it. Illegals are the new black -- it's so cool to be undocumented.
Of course, there won't be much opposition from international students here on legal student visas. They know to keep their mouths shut lest they arouse the SJWs to single them out for harassment. Illegal aliens are a favored "oppressed" people and saying anything against them marks you as a racist/xenophobe/imperialist.
Face it. You're just not "diverse" enough to rate a freebie at Emory.
[FOXNEWS] Two Massachusetts doctors were found in their luxury Boston condo Friday night with their throats slashed, police said.
Authorities in Boston identified the couple as Richard Field, 49, and Lina Bolanos, 38. They were found dead on the 11th floor of the Macallan Building in their residence, Fox 25 Boston reported.
Police tossed in the clink Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! Bampumin Teixeira, 30, in connection with the murders. The station reported that police responded to a call of a man with a gun in the area. As police arrived, Teixeira began firing at the officers. Police returned fire and hit the man several times, but did not kill him.
Teixeira has a criminal record. He pleaded guilty to two bank robberies ‐ one in 2014 and the other in 2016. In both instances, he passed the bank teller a note saying he had a weapon but never brandished one. Fox 25 Boston reported that he will be arraigned Monday on a long list of charges.
#4
Field was a doctor at North Shore Pain management and served as an anesthesiologist and pain management specialist. Bolanos was a pediatric anesthesiologist at Massachusetts Eye and Ear.
Young doctors with access to drugs living in a luxury penthouse were targeted by a suicidal thief? How did he access the top floor condo if he was not known to them? Not a random act of violence but if their throats were slashed, why did the man with a gun not shoot them?
Enjoy.
An increasing number of Android applications are attempting to track users without their knowledge, according to a new report.
Over recent years, companies have started hiding "beacons", ultrasonic audio signals inaudible to humans, in their adverts, in order to track devices and learn more about their owners.
Electronic devices equipped with microphones can register these sounds, allowing advertisers to uncover their location and work out what kind of ads their owners watch on TV and which other devices they own.
The technique can even be used to de-anonymise Tor users.
"Throughout our empirical study, we confirm that audio beacons can be embedded in sound, such that mobile devices spot them with high accuracy while humans do not perceive the ultrasonic signals consciously," reads the report from researchers at Technische Universität Braunschweig in Germany.
They found that, while six apps were known to be using ultrasound cross-device tracking technology in April 2015, this number grew to 39 by December 2015, and has now increased to 234.
The study hasn’t named any specific programs, but says that several have millions of downloads and "are part of reputable companies", including McDonald’s and Krispy Kreme.
"They embed these beacons in the ultrasonic frequency range between 18 and 20 kHz of audio content and detect them with regular mobile applications using the device’s microphone," the research adds.
Since consumers need to have the apps open in order for advertisers to use them for tracking purposes, the privacy threat isn’t quite as worrying as it could be.
However, the researchers believe it could grow into a serious issue "in the near future".
As ever, users should be selective about the apps they download.
If you can’t work out why an app is asking for certain permissions, such as access to your camera or microphone, think twice about installing it.
[Zero Hedge] In the new story over at Survival Dan called "During The Collapse: Where To Go And What Places To Avoid", he reports that when IT hits the fan, America’s ’population hubs’ will likely explode with violence, looting and the total breakdown of law and order as resources become next to impossible to get and the masses suddenly realize the government isn’t coming to save them.
Whether that be via total collapse, WW3 coming home to roost upon US soil or a ’grid event’ that leaves tens to hundreds of millions either without power or access to the money in their bank accounts, the video directly below from a WalMart in Mexico gives us a very small taste of what that world without law and order can quickly devolve into.
Showing what happens when suddenly ’lawless people’ realize that there aren’t enough security guards in a Wal Mart store to stop them, we witness the kind of all-out ’free for all’ that we’ll likely see in a collapse event, though the smart people would be carrying out food, toilet paper and other necessities instead of flat screen TV’s. And in an all-out SHTF event, we’d expect that the people will likely be fighting with each other for the few remaining resources as they are now in Venezuela where children are literally starving to death.
Following Alt Market’s Brandon Smith warning that ’a full spectrum crisis is about to take place’ a Wal Mart in Mexico gives us a small glimpse of what might happen here once it all comes crashing down amid more signs that what we’re witnessing in Venezuela may be coming to America.
[DallasNews] On a Fort Worth corner, near a freeway offramp, Joe Jasper combines one of the oldest restaurant chains with some of the newest foodservice technology.
Jasper's McDonald's, one of 20 local outlets he owns, was the first in North Texas to install order entry kiosks - eye level, oversized touchscreens - that allow burger lovers to bypass the cashier and order and pay electronically. But it has nothing to do with overpriced order-takers. Read on!
In the kitchen, workers log fewer steps as a conveyor belt silently transports neatly wrapped breakfast sandwiches to a bagger who stands a few paces away. You're next. Mr. Bagger!
In the offing? Mobile ordering via smartphones in which "geofencing" and GPS allow restaurant employees to connect customers who order off site with their correct meal. Better get your tinfoil hat on, because the NSA will be tracking your movements and eating habits and providing the data on burger consumption to the life-insurance folks.
The futuristic focus is part of a broader push at McDonald's, and within the restaurant industry, to court a new crop of diners who want better quality food and an experience that incorporates their gadgets. How about just better food and better service? Like Chick-Fil-A?
Jasper installed four kiosks in his Airport Freeway location in December. Since then, nearly half of the consumers who come into the restaurant use the kiosks. Several said recently they find it easier than sometimes having to repeat the order to the cashier. Too many dialects. "They're always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there's never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex, or race discrimination case," Secretary of Labor Ray Puzder previously said in an interview with Business Insider.
Yet most restaurant operators bristle at the suggestion that the push to automation is really a bid to push workers out the door.
"There is no labor efficiency with the kiosk," said Jasper, as a worker in a neatly pressed uniform helped a customer navigate the new technology. "We changed how we use the resources. The people delivering instead of being cashier - they now are bringing it to the table. You remember the restaurants with the little trains that carried your food to your location? They're coming back!
"We've actually added people," he said. "It doesn't reduce crew [size], what it does is make them faster and more efficient. People say you're doing it to get rid of people. No that's not the case. Table delivery requires more staff."
Puzder has made a connection between the campaign for an increased minimum wage and the lure of technology to restaurant operators.
Officials with the Fight for $15 campaign declined to discuss the implications of increased technology on the workforce.
Instead, they released a statement from Anggie Godoy, a Los Angeles-based McDonald's worker who is a leader in the campaign.
"If fast-food companies could replace us with machines, they would have done it already," she said. It has nothing to do with cost-benefit ratios; it's all about worker oppression.
"The fact is, we are in the service business and fast-food restaurants are always going to need good workers. Just ask McDonald's executives, who have said that machines won't replace employees because we are an important part of the company's success." And if you can't trust management, who would you trust?
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/08/2017 07:57 ||
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When will golden boy C3PO be busing your tables at the Golden Arches?
[An Nahar] Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives secured a strong win Sunday in state polls in northern Germany, early results showed, lending a boost to her bid to retain power in September's national elections.
Voters in the small, northern state of Schleswig-Holstein handed her CDU party 34 percent, while the center-left SPD clinched 27, according to public broadcaster ZDF. Another public broadcaster ARD gave the CDU 33 percent and the SPD 26 percent.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2017 00:00 ||
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Merkel by proxy also won the election in France yesterday.
Posted by: lord garth ||
05/08/2017 10:52 Comments ||
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[ArabNews] It is named after a mythological figure and drills deep into the heart of a volcano: "Thor" is a rig that symbolizes Iceland’s leading-edge efforts to produce powerful clean energy.
If successful, the experimental project could produce up to 10 times more energy than an existing conventional gas or oil well, by generating electricity from the heat stored inside the earth: In this case, volcanic areas.
Launched in August last year, the drilling was completed on Jan. 25, reaching a record-breaking depth of 4,659 meters (nearly 3 miles). At this depth, engineers hope to access hot liquids under extreme pressure and at temperatures of 427 degrees C (800 F), creating steam that turns a turbine to generate clean electricity.
Iceland’s decision to harness geothermal energy dates back to the 1970s and the oil crisis. But the new geothermal well is expected to generate far more energy, as the extreme heat and pressure at that depth make the water take the form of a "supercritical" fluid, which is neither gas nor liquid.
A Nordic island nation, rich in geysers with fountain-like jets of water and steam, hot springs and breathtaking volcanoes, Iceland is currently the only country in the world with 100 percent renewable electricity. Geothermal accounts for 25 percent, while the rest comes from hydroelectric dams. But is Iceland a model for clean energy?
The answer is complex, according to Martin Norman, a Norwegian sustainable finance specialist at Greenpeace. Although geothermal energy is still preferable to gas, coal and oil, it is not "completely renewable and without problems," he said.
"As soon as you start drilling you have issues to it, such as sulfur pollution and CO2 emission and they need to find solutions to deal with it," he added. Not perfect; not good enough for Greenpeace!
Albertsson agreed but said geothermal emissions were only "a fraction" compared to those produced by oil and natural gas. He added that recycling methods are progressing rapidly.
Iceland prides itself on being at the forefront of renewable energy, yet "it is far from meeting the international objectives in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions," Norman said.
The Institute of Economic Studies (IES) at the University of Iceland said in a February report that the country will not be able to abide by the COP21 climate change agreement signed in Paris in 2015. All green, but not green enough? That's not good news!
Greenhouse gas emissions are rising in all sectors of the economy, except in fisheries and agriculture, it said.
And they are predicted to rise by between 53 and 99 percent by 2030 from 1999 levels, a far cry from the island nation’s COP21 summit pledge to slash carbon pollution by 40 percent compared to the same benchmark.
Iceland’s heavy and energy-intensive - aluminum, silicon -- industries and booming tourism are some of the causes.
The land of ice and fire, with a population of 338,000, expects to welcome more than 2 million foreign visitors this year. With the frequent landing of charter planes, coaches weaving through the interior of the country, quads and powerful 4x4 driving over the black lava landscape and hotels sprouting up in the capital, the growing volume of holidaymakers is taking a toll on Iceland’s environment.
Norman, of Greenpeace, fears the capital will turn into "a Costa del Reykjavik" due to the lure of the profits to be made and result in Icelanders giving up the country’s unique nature.
In an interview with AFP, Iceland’s Environment Minister Bjort Olafsdottir said she hopes her nation will find the political will to reach its COP21 goals.
"If we do nothing, if we do not take strong actions, we will not reach the Paris agreement goals. But that is not the plan," she said.
The current government has doubled taxes on CO2 emissions and financial incentives for polluting industries have been removed, she argued. "It is the first step, probably it is not enough. We have to do it with the help of the industry," she said.
Iceland’s long-term goal is to reduce the country’s dependence on hydrocarbons by having all cars run on electric power.
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/08/2017 13:50 ||
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Not perfect; not good enough for Greenpeace!
Greenpeace is not for clean energy - they're against cheap energy.
#4
Since we should all do anything that will reduce CO2 (except nuclear power, of course), we should immediately implement this all over the world. Of course, if we don't happen to have active volcanoes handy, we can just drill into the earth until we reach magma.
/sarcasm
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
05/08/2017 15:49 Comments ||
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Iceland, a fairly big and cold country has the highest per capita energy consumption in the world.
#7
Actually we could run all of North America from the heat of the lava pool under Yellowstone.
Of course it would be a major change of course for the Interior Dept, the National Park Service and all the eco-groups. I don't see it happening even at Armageddon. Too many closed minds!
Went through the geothermal steam plant about 45km SE of Reykjavik about 5 years ago. What a plant! They had high pressure turbines, then they took the exhaust from that and fed a group of low pressure turbines. The place was alive when you went to the well field. It is impressive, and then a 1 meter diameter insulated pipe with hot water flowed to Reykjavic city for district heating. Wotta place!
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/08/2017 21:01 Comments ||
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[Mil.com] U.S. Army weapon officials announced Wednesday that the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) will be the first unit to receive the service's new Modular Handgun System.
The announcement comes as the service waits for the Government Accountability Office to rule on a protest filed by Glock Inc. in February against the Army's selection of the Sig Sauer P320 as the replacement for its current M9 9mm pistol.
The GAO is expected to make a decision in early June, but the service is free to continue work on the effort.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[PJ] Showing a generosity of spirit, Emory University made the exciting announcement that they would fund 100% of financial aid packages for illegal aliens based on need.
"They're always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there's never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex, or race discrimination case," Secretary of Labor Ray Puzder previously said in an interview with Business Insider. 
