Coping: With Superbugs Fed by Pesticides

Reader Note:  This morning due to storms and such, we’re on our nifty solar power backup up system.  So this morning’s report will be posted in multiple sections, so please feel free to refresh a couple of times.  Storms or and early test of Jade Helm?  LOL…you tell me…

If you’re ever considering risks of an operation, no doubt one of the biggest ones in these days of refined surgical techniques is not the doctoring so much as the risk of MERSA or similar superbug infection.

To make matters more interesting, the American Society for Microbiology this week has published a paper called “Sublethal Exposure to Commercial Formulations of the Herbicides Dicamba, 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic Acid, and Glyphosate Cause Changes in Antibiotic Susceptibility in Escherichia coli and Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium.”

If nothing else, just go to the site and read their abstract.

No doubt, there will be counter-studies to come (funded by care to guess who?) that will come to other conclusions, but this seems pretty clear to us in terms of what its scientific meaning is.

Unfortunately, there is a terrible balancing at involved because the world has become so dependent on chemical agriculture in order to feed everyone, there are sometimes no options to use of pesticides.

Moreover, with the US border leaking humans like a sieve, we can’t help but believe that agricultural products from other countries – not bound to US regulations – are probably leaking into the US food supply in greater-than-ever volumes.

Jade Helm 15 a/k/a/ The War on Texas

Pardon us if we think portions of Jade Helm have already commenced with nefarious forces blocking UrbanSurvival daily updates at some internet caching locations, but here comes the annual song and dance about how the Army (once upon a time barred from deployment on USA home soil, remember when?) will be conducting a huge “readiness” operation this summer.

The story shows up in the MSM in places like this Houston Chronicle story.

And the Army side is touted by sites like Stripes.com which play it down like t’weren’t no big deal.

DNA sampling for misdemeanors and anything that interferes with people’s daily lives may be defended by some as “training” but we ask “against what?”

The “Personal Mercury Retrograde”

A little early, ain’t it?  Remember back in December when I told you that my “personal retrograde” seems to operate some weeks ahead of the calendar retrograde?

We must be getting close to something because I had a string of luck yesterday that isn’t at all typical of what happens in “life of George” at all.

• First, I was out tractoring the west 12 yesterday and three times the tractors fuel oil filter caused the tractor to quit on me.  I figure I removed somewhere between a quarter and half cup of water out o the damn thing.  Not what you’d expect in the way of simple condensation in a 6-gallon tank that was previously bone dry when used 2-months ago. 
• Then there was the phone line incident:  I was bringing some fill up to put between the house and the shop/office only to have a rock catch a PVC conduit and rip out the phone and data lines.  Brother-in-Law Panama did a stint at a Bell lineman back in the day, so that sent him off to town to fetch wire and such….
• And about then, Elaine mentioned Panama’s water heater just crapped out so now I’m off chasing electrons this morning to figure out where the missing energy went.  Either a bad breaker or GFI gone sour – which I’ve had happen on a couple of occasions since power out at the end of the string is not as pure and well-behaved as city-power.

I’ve been looking at planetary retrograde and direct dates over here, but so far nothing jumps out at me. 

Still, we were going to be flying Wednesday through Friday this week but a close decision on mountain weather out West had be put that on hold for a week or three.  Maybe that has something to do with the string of luck; no telling.

The FTC is Sorry – In a Couple of Ways…

In this headline, they are sorry about the release of information about their anti-trust investigation into Google.

Where it gets really sorry (as in sad commentary on operation of government) is when the staff says they have a case and should go for it, but they get overruled by the political appointees on the FTC board.

According to federal law 15 U.S. Code § 41 , here’s how the game is played:

A commission is created and established, to be known as the Federal Trade Commission (hereinafter referred to as the Commission), which shall be composed of five Commissioners, who shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. Not more than three of the Commissioners shall be members of the same political party.

The joke on everyone is that corporations own the White House and both houses of congress.  So it really doesn’t matter who is on the FTC or any other “regulator” group. 

Because both parties go hat in hand to corporations, corps are only too pleased to give since it helps with the illusion of government by, of, and for the people.

George; The Anti-Socialist

You should push the new book Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World up to the top of your reading list.

A numbers of readers have asked why I don’t post more on Facebook, Twit, Tumblr and + but you know what?  Anyone who does too much of that is a what?  An IDIOT.

Not that I have anything to hide, it’s just that I believe in some separations that used to make America the greatest country on earth.

Gold and silver used to be money.  Cellulose?  Seriously?

Church and State used to be separated, but runaway Money has become a new religion of sorts.  Even ‘science’ is now a religion not to be questioned – and it come complete with a corrupt peer-review process of me-too’ers.

And it used to be government needed probable cause…

Certainly, there are lots of other “olde America” things we could toss in the hopper  –like used to be corporations  didn’t RUN Washington which is the seat of the Checkbook Republic>  then again, you’re presumably bright enough to have figured out that everything you put on any social media is glommed into a profile of you personally on a government server.

If this comes as news to you – and you believe the fairytales  – then perhaps this isn’t your kind of website…no deniers and snoozers around here.

I’m something of a problem when comes to political labels:  Since I’m both a fiscal conservative, like small government, am very pro-civil rights, and I support the ACLU in some of their projects like raising awareness of how government is spying on us all.  From the ACLU Spy Files page:

Today the government is spying on Americans in ways the founders of our country never could have imagined. The FBI, federal intelligence agencies, the military, state and local police, private companies, and even firemen and emergency medical technicians are gathering incredible amounts of personal information about ordinary Americans that can be used to construct vast dossiers that can be widely shared through new institutions like Joint Terrorism Task Forces, fusion centers, and public-private partnerships.

The ACLU’s belief is that rights are seized first from those least able to defend them.  And while it’s true that worked in Nazi Germany, a long discussion over a campfire with Native Americans will be most instructive in how the disease called “government power tripping” works worldwide.

While some conservative bash the ACLU, especially when they support a side of an argument where they are admitted partisans, just remember what they do makes a lot more sense when you frame their actions in the context of “Should government dictate that…[whatever issue]?

Still, I doubt they’ll be very supportive of my idea to charge President Obama with violation of federal law.  But, am I the only one to ever read 8 U.S. Code § 1324 – Bringing in and harboring certain aliens?

We have laws on the books for a reason in this country.  We don’t need any more of ‘em.  But gosh, wouldn’t that be one hell of a court case?

Well ‘nuff rabble-rousing for one morning…time to write up the battle that really matters…will S&P 2,040 fall today???

Write when you break-even…

George   george@ure.net