'Toontime: All Together Now!

credit: Tim Eagan
Wackydoodle sez: Don' tell em that thar's a RD180!

The West continues to accuse Russia of sending troops across the border to aid separatists holding out in Donetsk and Luhansk while President Putin compares the siege of these two cities to the siege of Leningrad in WWII. The rhetoric is getting very hot, and the German Foreign Minister has warned that the situation is slipping out of control. A direct military confrontation between Ukraine and Russia could occur if border infringements do not stop. EU leaders are meeting on Saturday to consider more sanctions against the Russian economy in response to the presence of Russian soldiers inside Ukraine. NATO released a satellite image that allegedly shows Russian self-propelled artillery inside Ukraine; the Kiev government has applied for membership in the western military alliance. Western observers say the rebels opening another front along the coast of the Sea of Azov and the capture of Novoazovsk was made possible by the arrival of Russian troops. Russia continues to deny it is violating Ukraine's sovereignty.  Around 2500 people have been killed in the fighting in eastern Ukraine, or "Novorossiya" as Putin sees it, according to the BBC.

credit: Luojie, China Daily

BC Idonwanna sez:  White man big as mountain, but little man has strong medicine!

Family of Fukushima Suicide Compensated

TEPCo, the owner of the destroyed nuclear power plant at Fukushima, was ordered by a Japanese district court to pay $472,000 to a family of chicken farmers to compensate for the suicide of Hamako Watanabe [photo credit: Reuters/Kyodo]. She became depressed after the family was forced to move from their farm to escape radioactivity released by plant's multiple meltdowns in July 2011. Mikio doused herself with kerosene and ignited it. Her husband refused to settle with the government-connected power company; the favorable ruling came as a surprise to observers. More than 150,000 residents were forced from their homes and a third of those are still living in temporary shelters. TEPCo is expected to spend $48bn in compensation for the disaster in addition to tens of billions for cleanup, containment and decommissioning. The successful lawsuit opens the way for millions more in damage claims for mental disorders allegedly resulting from the meltdowns. Awards for work-related suicides or deaths linked to overwork have a median of 36 million yen ($347,000) in the past twenty years. More than 50 of the 1500 suicides in the prefecture since April 2011 have been linked to the Fukushima nuclear facility.

1300 Fukushima citizens filed a criminal complaint against three former TEPCo executives for the disaster. Prosecutors have until October to decide if they should proceed; a citizen's judicial panel can then mandate a prosecution. The citizens' complaint came after an independent panel of experts concluded that the Fukushima disaster was preventable. Their report said that the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami was not the sole cause of the plant's destruction, but the inability of the company and the government to respond quickly caused the disaster. The report termed the failure a "lack of governance" and "collusion" between the responsible parties. The report is based on an unprecedented six month investigation involving 900 hours of hearings. ;After the verdict TEPCo issued another apology for the "disruption and concern" caused by the meltdowns. TEPCo shares have already been discounted by the market, so there was little reaction to the award.

An active fault underlies Kansai Electric Power Co's Ohi plant in western Japan. Unit#3 began re-supplying electricity to grid in July. Twenty-one of Japan's oldest reactors were constructed before seismic guidelines were established in 1981.

Chart of the Week: The Parasite Known as USA

source: Clive Maund, marketoracle.co.uk

Only the United States can get away with this much money creation and not experience crippling hyperinflation. This is true because the dollar is the world reserve currency. If that relationship were to be disrupted or destroyed, the "exorbitant privilege" the US enjoys--creating debt instruments out of thin air denominated in dollars that are accepted in worldwide trade for goods and services--its world dominance would end without destroying the rest of the world. Killing the parasite softly with an alternative currency scheme is exactly what China and Russia are doing now. The US has made a strategic mistake by alienating and disrespecting Russia to the point of re-igniting the Cold War. But then that is exactly what the corporate warmongers in the Pentagon and its weapons industry want--the re-establishment of extremely lucrative demand they enjoyed for fifty years after WWII.

No amount of hysterical propaganda about Trojan trucks alters the fact that Russia, in a financial alliance with China, has the means to bring down the dollar. America itself is already crumbling within as greater numbers of its people collect government benefits--whether social security, disability, food stamps or welfare--and do not contribute to GDP. The middle class is being squeezed into indebted poverty [chart above] while economic recovery is flogged by the corporate media shills. In sharp contrast, those relatively few individuals whose wealth is based on financial manipulation, oil & gas or weapons manufacture are thriving. That sad fact does not stop the arrogant US elites from fomenting a crisis, Ukraine, as an excuse to conduct economic warfare against one of its militarily strongest competitors. (Thank you, Zbignew Brezezinski) Team USA cannot bomb the Kremlin into slavishly accepting the dollar corner on world trade without risking its own profitable civilization. So that is why President Putin and his Chinese counterpart are making moves toward an Asian trade sphere in which the dollar will NOT be accepted as legal tender. So it goes while the Current Occupant does a passable imitation of Nero at the golf course. US Person advises: militarized police is no accident, but preparation for what could come.

BRICS leaders at summit

China Faces Extreme Drought

dried up well, Yunnan Province

Think California's drought is bad? It is, with 60% of the state in extreme
drought conditions. However, China is about to eclipse California, the world's eighth largest economy, once again.  The country's ministry of water found that 55% of China's rivers that existed in the 1990's have dried up.  That's right--disappeared. More than 400 cities are short of water supplies with 110 facing serious scarcity. Most of the water supply is in the country's south. Northern cities have had to dig deeper wells, but the underground supply is running out. Beijing residents in one neighborhood (Haidan district) are taking matters into their own hands and digging wells in the street next to their homes. Most surface water is polluted by development and industry. It is nearly redundant to mention that China is the world's most populous country with one-fifth of the globe's human population. Its economy will soon eclipse the United States' as the world's biggest. China only has 7% of the worlds freshwater reserves.

Unlike developing countries facing water shortages, China has the means to do something about it. One way to mitigate the consequences of drought is too reduce the use of domestic water supplies or to achieve the same end outsource water-intensive agriculture. China has been acquiring land across Africa for the last two decades. It is doing the same in South America. Historically, water has been the cause of wars; Sumerians fought over it in the Fertile Crescent. Now, China is poised to commandeer the upper Mekong basin for its use, and upsetting India, Myanmar and poor Bangladesh. Only one of those countries is a nuclear power. 47% of the world's non-polar fresh water is supplied by rivers shared by two or more states simultaneously. Nevermind religion, water is a necessity of life and countries will do what they can to obtain enough supply

The Sixth Extinction Rolls On

More: Influential Harvard biologist, Dr. E.O. Wilson, has made a radical proposal to save wildlife from the Sixth Extinction. Speaking to the Smithsonian Institution journal, Wilson says humans must withdraw from half the planet's area to prevent a "biological holocaust". He envisions a planetary network of wildlife corridors from north to south poles to allow species to move with temperature changes and west to east to allow species to move in accordance with changing rainfall patterns.{14.05.11, Refuge for Ice Bears} This web of life covering Earth is within the realm of the possible. The Yellowstone to Yukon conservation initiative running 2,000 miles from Wyoming to Canada's Yukon territory is a beginning. {19.11.11, Transboundary Conservation} The initiative encompasses an entire mountain ecosystem and allows animals 502,000 square miles of space in which to live naturally. Of course capitalists will oppose mightily any effort to set aside land and the mineral resources it might contain solely for conservation purposes. The fact that no new national parks have been designated in this century indicates Capital's depth of opposition. According to Wilson scale is important to preserving species. Small habitat areas without links to other similar habitats become biological islands. Genetic health and diversity decline; animals become more vulnerable to disease and disasters without the ability to disperse. Even though his theory of island biogeography is regarded as authoritative, the US currently protects only 4% of its land area. Wilson wants to protect half the Earth! Wilson says battles are where most progress is made, and the goal is half the Earth.

only known drawing of an Oceanic parrot, Vava'u 1793

{21.08.14}The Sixth Great Extinction of species in the planet's history and the only one caused by human activity shows no sign of slowing. The ICUN recently updated its Red List adding 361 bird species following a major taxonomic review of non-perching birds. 87 of those added face extinction. The review determined that many formally classified sub-species or races are actually distinct species. For example the Somali ostrich is now considered a separate species of ostrich (Struthio molybdophanes), and it is listed as vulnerable because of egg-stealing and hunting by humans. Two New Caledonia birds were added to the List as possibly extinct: buttonquail and nightjar. The Sinu paraket from Columbia was also listed as possibly extinct. The Guam kingfisher is now listed as extinct in the wild since biologists took the last remaining kingfishers off the island in 1986 because of predation by invasive snake species. 124 Guam kingfishers live in zoos around the world. Since 1500 Earth has lost 140 different birds or 1% of its total bird species. Birds are one of the most studied animal groups on Earth, so the extinction of bird species is a valid indication of the progress of the Sixth Great Extinction {08.05.07, Turtle Island}. Conservation has undoubtably saved some species from annihilation, but biologists warn that without human protection animals could suffer an extinction event that rivals the one that ended the reign of dinosaurs.

True America: The Blacklist and Hollywood Ten

A favorite technique of radical capitalists is the economic boycott. They use it against nations like Russia, and individuals like Hollywood actors and politically active lawyers. As this video from the University of Nebraska documents, the source of the Hollywood black list was the studios' virulent anti-union policy. For decades the studios used cheap non-union labor to produce their films and efforts to unionize the work force were met with accusations of communist activity. Former president Ronald Reagan was a prominent frontman for the Screen Actors Guild and testified against union activity that he maintained was instigated by undercover communist agitators. Extreme conservative and possible Nazi sympathizer Walt Disney added his opinion that communist activity was a serious problem in his industry. One hundred and fifty one people were named in the infamous "Red Channels" pamphlet published by businessman Alfred Kohlberg, an original national council member of the extremist John Birch Society. All of these named individuals were labeled "Red Facists" by implication to avoid libel and eventually denied work in the entertainment industry because of their listing.



People who informed on their fellows--"named names"--were rewarded with work, examples are director Edward Dymytryk, a member of the original "Hollywood Ten" who capitulated during his prison term for contempt, and actor Lee J. Cobb. People who did not cooperate in the red witch hunt were punished; Charlie Chaplin was literally exiled overseas by FBI Director Herbert Hoover. Bartley Crum, a lawyer who represented some of the Hollywood Ten before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was harassed unmercifully by the FBI, which accused him of being a "red symp" or communist sympathizer. As a result of official oppression Crum lost his clients, and unable to cope with the pressure, committed suicide in 1959. Intimidating and dividing the left is now considered to be a central goal of the HUAC hearings. Perhaps not surprisingly HUAC did its dirty work while Congress was under Democratic Party control and Democrat Harry Truman occupied the White House. The other half of the American power duopoly is vulnerable to attacks from the radical right for being "soft" on unionism, progressive socio-economics, and non-imperial foreign policy. US Person agrees with the Ten, "It depends on you:"

Grizzly Habitat Spared Roads

A federal judge blocked a plan to build logging roads into a 36,000 acre state forest in Montana that is designated critical habitat for the grizzly, a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. The ruling came in a suit brought by three conservation groups (including NRDC) against the US Fish & Wildlife Service which issued a "taking" permit to Montana's Department of Natural Resources. To take a protected species under the Act has various meanings depending on the circumstances. In this case habitat destruction caused by road building would drive bears away from their territory and reduce their reproduction rate. The road plan would have eliminated the only undisturbed grizzly habitat left on Montana state land. Judge Donald Molloy found federal officials did not have a rational scientific basis for their decision to approve new road building in his decision issued late Thursday.

hmmm....donut!

More grizzly news: biologists at Washington State University have concluded based on controlled tests administered to Kio and her fellow bears that grizzlies can use tools. Generally credited with being intelligent creatures, until now there has been no controlled testing of the specie's problem-solving capabilities [photo courtesy WSU] Kio, a nine year old female, has manipulated inanimate objects such as a stump or a plastic bin to obtain a goal, in this case a donut treat hung out of reach. That is the scientific definition of tool use. Other bears in her test group are still learning how to get the donut; there is no training involved in the testing. The results are not surprising since bears have been raiding closed garbage containers in parks for decades. Even US Person would stand on a stump for donut!