Folks should be demonstrating against Monsanto. Why nobody gives one s*** it beyond my comprehension The lawsuits cost Monsanto nothing because they have lawyers on staff and on salary. It's like when a burgler breaks into your house, shoots you, and then sues you for "stealing" his bullet. I find it interesting that an American citizen could even sue campesinos in Mexico
That reminds me of a situation a few years back. As the production engineer I was one of the people selected to mix up solution for one of our cleaning vats. The chemical was in powder form and I would mix it with water. I'm wearing: a paper suit, gloves to my elbows, a respirator, and googles. I looked like one of the haz-mat guys on TV. A co-workers walks right up to me, sticks his head in the barrel and asks, "What yah mixing up here?" I just look at him, look at the barrel, look back at him and say? "If I'm wearing all of this, should you really be standing next to me? He looks confused, then terrified and runs off. Some people just aren't the brightest.
Trees suck!! I had an oak fall on Dec 26th. Across my front yard, across the road and into the neighbor across the streets front yard. Everybody's a tree hugger but try to find someone with a chain say the day after xmass and the pickin's are slim.
Apparently this gets posted on YouTube periodically and then pulled, but this link seems to be working at the moment. It's also available at some video stores, at least in the socialist country I live in. The World According to Monsanto. Warning: May cause nightmares.
The globalization of patent rights. And in a court of law, it makes no difference who is right or wrong, guilty or innocent. It matters only who has the more skilled and better-prepared lawyer. Mexican campesinos are known for not having good legal representation. It always angers and saddens me when people imagine that our prions are full of bad guys. Our prisons are full of people who had bad lawyers. Some are bad guys, some are ordinary people. Just like outside, there are bad guys and ordinary people. Prisons don't keep us safe. They just make money for the prison industry.
That Monsanto video is mostly factual. I find it interesting that people aren't marching in the streets over it
Interesting, indeed. Also profoundly sad and maddening. Why is it we'd rather be entertained than informed?
My folks swore by that, decades ago. I also firmly believe it. We live in a world where the "truth" depends on who has the highest paid, most outrageous lawyer. For the most part, these lawyers are the scum of the earth, complete lying pieces of s*** My folks knew somebody who got rail-roaded by an over-zealous police investigation "just tell us you did it, and we promise we'll tell the judge to go easy on you" This individual was also quite poor, and the lawyer he got was the most incompetent, useless, waste of skin and air to ever walk the earth. Purely by coincidence, the real guilty person was picked up on another charge, and the facts established Police automatically assume you're guilty, and will use any means (Lie, intimidate, etc) to get a case closed. They quite frankly could give a s*** they have the correct person. For example, police rely on informants. Most informants are druggies who need the quick cash for a quick fix, and the police know this. Would you trust the word of a druggie? I sure wouldn't! In 2003 the police acted on a "tip" which turned out to be a fantasy. They swooped down on an innocent family, something we'd expect in a Banana Republic, not here in Canada Winnipeg police officers penalized for botched raid on woman's house Winnipeg woman scores legal victory against police I find it very interesting that during the search, an officer "accidentally" discharged his weapon inside the home. This is a common intimidation tactic "next time it will be you, not the wall" This has happened elsewhere in Canada Saanich police raid wrong house; family wants more than apology However, the police are very quick to circle the wagons to protect one of their own. If it wasn't so tragic, the death of Crystal Taman in 2005 would have made a good comedy of errors Home - Taman Inquiry into the Investigation and Prosecution of Derek Harvey-Zenk Mike on Crime Mike on Crime An off duty East St. Paul police officer, Derek Harvey-Zenk, got shitfaced at a cop party. He then drove drunk, rear ended Crystal Taman's car, killing her. Now, you'd think the cop would be an ex-cop, sitting in jail for causing a drunk driving death. Right? WRONG! The other cops purposely botched the traffic investigation, all suddenly developing amnesia and dyslexia. The do-gooder socialist NDP provincial government didn't push the matter. The police investigation did nothing Even better, the absolute scum lawyer retained to represent the police had a few cheap shots at the family. These cheap shots were immediately admonished, but so what? That's the opinion of cops and lawyers: absolute contempt for victims BTW: the ex cop didn't spend one moment in jail. The poor soul was allowed to spend his entire conditional sentence at home Naturally, cops claim this sort of event is rare. It should be impossible. Why should we - as a society - expect to be disarmed, have zero right to self defense, and entrust somebody else with a badge and a gun? Would we entrust nuclear launch codes with a missilier who is also a crack dealer? No, we dig into every little aspect of a missiliers life, their life is no longer private if they are to be entrusted with hundreds of megatons of thermonuclear power. But a guy with a badge and a gun? What the hell, let him get shitfaced and kill somebody. It's an appropriate price to pay
Because thanks to the boob tube and the internet, our collective intelligence is barely a two digit number
Personally, we buy non GMO and organic whenever possible, and we are in the process of getting our own organic garden space ready for this year. I vote NO on Monsanto with my grocery money. I do the best I can.
Here in the U.S. the "wrong house" raid far more often (than in Canada) results in a black person being shot. And as you say, the cops back each other up. Here's another tidbit, well known among the under-class, but far less among the upper class: It is surprisingly common in drug busts for half the evidence to disappear, and the defendant to be charged with possession of only the remaining amount. One can only suppose that the other half winds up back on the street while the proceeds go into the arresting cop's pocket. This makes the police force the number-one drug cartel. A year or two ago there was a regular poster here on Prius Chat who was a cop. (He stopped posting when he retired.) He learned that I am an ex-con (I'm very open about that) before learning what I was in prison for. He assumed that I was in for drugs (most of our prison population is) and with no other evidence than that statistic, he accused me of being a druggie. Then (and this is the telling part) he said that he would lie to gain a conviction of a person he believed to be guilty of a crime. Police are actually allowed to lie and encouraged to lie in their interactions with citizens who they think might possibly be involved in crime. But the cop in the above paragraph seemed to be saying that he would lie under oath as well. But what we have to keep in mind is that police forces were not formed to serve the general public. They were formed to protect the interests of the ruling classes against the poor. They need to try to keep up appearances, so they will sometimes help out an ordinary person, or arrest a common criminal. But the bottom line is that their real job is to intimidate the poor to prevent the poor from rising up and taking back what the rich have stolen from them via the capitalist system. Once you realize that, it all makes sense. TV is nefarious on many different levels: It destroys community because people who used to sit on their porch and talk to their neighbors now stay indoors watching the tv. Thus they do not know their neighbors and feel no connection to them. It frightens people by focusing on sensationalist news, so they believe the outside world will hurt them if they venture out. It makes them value material things over human relationships by bombarding them with scientifically-crafted advertising. It distorts the news it does present, so they are ill-equipped to respond in their own best interest. It lowers their IQ because it does not require the brain to work (as reading does). People who have lost all sense of community, who are frightened of the world, and who covet more and more personal possessions, will be docile in the face of the government and the government's cops. Eliminate television and there's a chance that in a generation or two we might become a nation worthy of respect.
There are a few people doing this. Education is key. Most people are totally unaware that GMO crops are so heavily laced with chemicals. They trust agribusiness because they think agriculture is Farmer John with his half-dozen milk cows grazing on grass in the meadow and Lassie bringing them in to be milked; and his little red tractor with its spring-metal seat, farming his 40 acres of wheat, and his wife Betty bringing him his lunch in a pail every day at noon. Earth-based religions are so much more healthy than hell-fire religions. (All religion is bull, but at least witches and Wiccans and neo-pagans feel that poisoning the Earth and ourselves is not a good idea. Hey, maybe we should repeal freedom of religion and require everyone to be a pagan!)
My folks, both raised during the Great Depression, always knew that. They always warned me to be *very* careful around law enforcement, as especially during the Great Depression, a cop would roll you for a few bucks. Unless a person it truly Simple, they have no choice but to accept it Consider this: in an era of sophisticated software that can readily perform metabase entity analytics, non obvious relational awareness, combined with hardware that can reliably perform keyhole <50cm resolution from orbit, and public officials claim they have no f***ing idea where the drugs are coming from, who is moving them, and how to stop them? I'm sure you're also aware that, thanks to numerous expensive ARPA and MURI funded projects, we have reliable portable gas-chromo devices that can literally sniff out a substance from a mile away When I was much younger, we rented a house in a very rough neighborhood. My dad had/has exceptional face recognition ability. It really opened his eyes one night, on the way back from his job, when a person he recognized was chummily talking with the neighborhood drug dealer. Turns out this guy was off duty. During the daytime, he'd walk the beat looking all serious and tough. Off duty, he partied with the druggies. At least in Mexico, Columbia, and Brasil, the cops are honest about this. I strongly recommend the Director's Cut of Cidade de Deus (City of God). They have an interview with the police chief of Rio de Janario. This man quite bluntly states that the police work both sides. The primary goal is to ensure the favela's - slums - fight among each other, and not try to take over the city. Organizations like the DEA, CIA, with the full support of the police, are as you correctly indicated, the biggest drug cartel on the planet. Much like all the whining about illegals crossing the border, gang violence along the border. Think that happens by accident? In this day in age nobody has a f***ing clue how to stop it? Please ... Again, anybody who believes our society is "fair" or "honest" is a fool. That may sound harsh, and I apologize in advance, but it's the truth. I know who you are referring to I also recall he was a real bible-thumping zealot. Somehow, that all made sense to me Yes I recall getting into a nice online rant with him about that. Quite frankly, I'm surprised I didn't receive a lifetime PriusChat ban over some of the things I brought up. Never trust a cop If for any reason you fall under their glare, shut your trap. Do not say one word. Demand to speak with an attorney. I very much distrust lawyers too, but at least this buys you some time Again, considering the fact this guy is a bible-thumping zealot, it's even more amazing. Isn't it? How easy it is to find easy "out" once you apply a fictional book to justify your *real* crime Please consider "Cidade de Deus" as I mentioned above. I'm sure the average person's jaw would hit the floor. My dad nodded in agreement when he watched it. If my mom were still alive, she would also nod in agreement We're on the same page here. No need to comment
LOL! um, yeah no. However, it would be nice if the 'book-based' religions would stop treating 'creation' like it is totally disposable! Oh, I do also spend a considerable amount of time doing petitions, activist type things, and working with the local political party, constantly pushing for environmental, non-corporate, non-pharmaceutical company, free and fair trade, and other similar aims. Do check out organicconsumers.org
Because: - You have a nice cleavage I wanted to It was fun You were looking. I'd do it again even if I had nothing to drink but tea, that's just how I am when I get to know a person, but I wouldn't if I didn't think it was acceptable to the other party. I can act like a total wally without booze. I was sober when I was writing in the snow.
Joining the rant about law enforcement, obviously individuals differ, but it's been my experience that many of the people going into law enforcement were the troublemakers in school. Cops and criminals may be on opposite ends of the spectrum, but it's my contention that the spectrum is circular, with the two ends joined at the top. The ends are opposite, but very close together. Tom
It's the desire for the power to control others. It makes you a bully in school. And can lead to either crime or law enforcement as an adult, depending on which side of the tracks you were born on, but it's the same character. The two groups fight each other as they act out their historical animosity towards one another and compete with each other for control over normal folks. At the highest levels both can become quite wealthy, though at the lowest levels both just squeak by.
