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Friday, July 26. 2019

The horrific consequences of rubber's toxic past

“Zombie Eating’: 88% Of Adults Dine While Staring At A Screen, Survey Finds

Snow is now just a thing of the past...

... where can you get actual information on world energy consumption of each type, and of how it is changing over time?

Bummer: We Now Only Have 18 Months To Save The Planet From Hotcoldwetdry

Sony is crowdfunding a project called the Reon Pocket, a wearable AC/heater unit compatible with both iPhones and Android devices.

Why Is a Top Australian University Supporting Indigenous Creationism?

The condescension is stunning

Facebook co-founder working with government officials to build anti-trust case against site: report

Meet The Former Epstein 'Sex Slave' Who Helped Recruit Underage Girls For The 'Lolita Express'

Not slaves, really. More like courtesans. Rich and powerful people sometimes like to live out their fantasies.

Yale Psychiatrist Bandy Lee Returns to Diagnose Trump as a Racist

Wow. An expert mind-reader

Trump lashes out at Sweden: 'Give A$AP Rocky his freedom'

Proof he's a racist Hitler

In the long run, thinking about politics is a deflection from living life.

A fine rant but, as a commenter observes, You might not be interested in politics but politics is interested in you.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib Wants a $20 Minimum Wage for Tipped Workers. That Would Likely Destroy the Restaurant Industry. The Democratic congresswoman said that people cannot live off tips. People who live off tips beg to differ.

Powerline: DESCENT TO THE MUELLER MIASMA

Mr. Mueller surreally responded: “As I said earlier, with regard to Steele, that is beyond my purview.” What a farce.

Mueller: Russians Also Tried to Help Hillary

Meddlers will meddle. I am more worried about Google's meddling than the silly Russians

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 07:23 | Comments (22) | Trackbacks (4)

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Boy, Zerohedge really dropped the ball when it came to Nadia Marcinko. There's a lot more to that story. Wired has is: https://www.wired.com/story/global-girl-jeffrey-epstein-and-the-lolita-express/

#1 snopercod on 2019-07-26 08:32 (Reply)

I think Australian aborigines have about the lowest IQ there is, in the 50s. So a lot of pretending to take seriously has to go on in a liberal society.

The only way to get them to fit in is to teach good character instead. They're not going that way.

#2 rhhardin on 2019-07-26 08:33 (Reply)

Mueller Report:
They blew through something like $25M-$35M just making stuff up. Impressive, even by Chicago standards.
How much of that was payroll and perks? There was no incentive to bring it to a close.

#3 Exasperated on 2019-07-26 10:01 (Reply)

I thought it was more like $50 million, and l have been wondering the same thing in regards to salary and perks. Shouldn’t they be held accountable for their expenses? Don’t the tax payers have a right to know how their money was spent? Or would that all get redacted by a three judge panel?

#3.1 B. Hammer on 2019-07-26 11:06 (Reply)

Taxpayers have no "rights". If we did, we would know how much we paid for Obama to attend college, but those records are SEALED so us peon taxpayers don't have a clue to follow.

#3.1.1 Mike Fuller (Link) on 2019-07-27 07:26 (Reply)

In all fairness to Mueller most of what should have been investigated was indeed beyond his purview. His purview was limited to getting something, anything on Trump. It sure as hell wasn't to find out what happened in the 2016 election because if he did Hillary and her minions would be in jail and Obama and half his cabinet would be fighting to stay out of jail,

#4 Anon on 2019-07-26 10:56 (Reply)

QUOTE:

"A retarded goldfish would've been more convincing."

https://www.captiongenerator.com/1467792/Hitler-Discovers-Robert-Mueller-Knows-Nothing

#4.1 Zachingoff on 2019-07-26 17:35 (Reply)

So I am just barely old enough to have sat down with the morning paper, get caught up on the news, while eating my breakfast, usually read the sports at lunch. Was I a zombie then?

#5 B. Hammer on 2019-07-26 10:58 (Reply)

That was sort of my reaction.

I'm typing this as I'm eating my breakfast.

Usually look at MF first thing every morning.

#5.1 Jim on 2019-07-26 14:25 (Reply)

It's not so bad if you're absorbing information, but I don't get the kids these days who watch YouTube videos of people playing video games. Who the heck wants to watch videos of somebody else playing a game? It's just so stup....hang on, the Braves/Phillies game is about to start so I got to go.

#5.1.1 Jerryskids on 2019-07-26 18:50 (Reply)

The horrific consequences of rubber's toxic past.
So much for "organic" being better than "synthetic." There is a similar story of brutality in the Amazon basin.
A Brief History of Rubber.

QUOTE:

The opulence of the rubber barons could only be exceeded by their brutality. Wild Hevea trees, like all primary rainforest trees, are widely dispersed, an adaptation that protects species from the South American leaf blight which easily spreads through and decimates plantations. Thus, to make a profit, the barons had to acquire control over huge tracts of land....

As the Indians died, production soared: in the 12 years that Arana operated on the Putumayo River in Colombia, the native population fell from over 30,000 to less than 8,000 while he exported over 4,000 tons of rubber earning over $75 million. The only thing that stopped the holocaust was the downfall of the Brazilian rubber market.

A further point is that British development of rubber plantations in Malaya and other places, which resulted in higher productivity due to both plant breeding and different tapping methods, resulted in less use of wild rubber plants. Result: less exploitation of local labor. Workers on plantations were better treated.

QUOTE:

Finally in 1895, Henry Ridley, head of Singapore's botanical garden, persuaded two coffee growers to plant two acres (.8 ha) of Hevea trees. Twelve years later more than 300,000 ha of rubber grew in plantations in Ceylon and Malaya. New innovations increased efficiency, and production doubled every two years. Rubber could be produced at only a fraction of the cost of collecting wild rubber in Brazil. By 1910, Brazilian production had fallen 50 percent. In 1914, Brazil's market share was down to around 30 percent, in 1918, to 20 percent, and in 1940 to 1.3 percent.

However, synthetic rubber has a lower proportion of the market than it did 50 years ago.

QUOTE:

By 1964 synthetic rubber made up 75 percent of the market. ...

The radial tire replaced the simple bias tires (which had made up 90 percent of the market only five years earlier) and within a few years virtually all cars were rolling on radials. Synthetic rubber did not have the strength for radials; only natural rubber could provide the required sturdiness. By 1993 natural rubber had recaptured 39 percent of the domestic market. Today nearly 50 percent of every auto tire and 100 percent of all aircraft tires are made of natural rubber.

No simple answers.

#6 Gringo on 2019-07-26 11:22 (Reply)

There is literally no large industry that has existed for over 200 years that doesn't have a similar story. The Welsh died in large numbers in coal mines. The poor in Great Britain were worked to death for centuries. These things are will known but of little interest because they are white. Simple as that. The Rubber story is race baiting.

#6.1 Anon on 2019-07-26 13:49 (Reply)

It's all good. See Wikipedia for Potosi' about how Native Americans were just living their culture by dying in Incan "contributed labor". We're suppose to respect other cultures, right?

QUOTE:

Native-American laborers were conscripted and forced to work in Potosí's silver mines through the traditional Incan mita system of contributed labor. Many of them died due to the harsh conditions of the mine life and natural gases.

#6.2 JK Brown on 2019-07-26 19:49 (Reply)

Jim Goad:In the long run, thinking about politics is a deflection from living life...

Gee, all that…….and I want my boss to pay me twice as much for doing nothing, too!

One giant sentence-paragraph full of crap; the time for that kind of EMO-wishing (thought-free content) went by almost 200 years ago. You can no longer pull up stakes and move to “wilderness!” If you agree with a word of that drivel, it’s merely evidence that you’re down to a half-dozen working brain synapses.

And as was pointed out: You may not be interested in politics, but politics sure as heck, is interested in You!

#7 Turret Gunner on 2019-07-26 11:54 (Reply)

Snow and HotColdWetDry: Eez zee poop of zee Bool. MegaPOOP.

#8 Sam L. on 2019-07-26 12:06 (Reply)

Re: Indigenous Creationism

When we are told the date when an island was 'discovered' we are actually being told the date that it was the last time it was discovered.

#9 oolioo on 2019-07-26 12:17 (Reply)

"Sony is crowdfunding a project called the Reon Pocket," The Peltier device used in this Reon has been around since 1834. No wonder Sony wants someone else pay for its development.

#10 Billy W. on 2019-07-26 13:02 (Reply)

I wear a sun shirt. It has a vent in the back between the shoulders. The material is light and cool. It is long sleeve but still feels cooler than wearing a tee shirt. I wear it because I have had skin cancers. Buy I find it much cooler when walking even in hot weather in direct sunlight. That and a wide brim hat actually helps me stay a little cooler.

#10.1 Anon on 2019-07-26 17:20 (Reply)

Living on tips is difficult, yes. Some do it very well.

Perhaps Rashida Tlaib would be more accurate if she observed that rude people who don't provide good service for their constituents, uh, I mean customers can't live off tips. She might know about that firsthand, which is why she took this congress gig instead.

#11 Assistant Village Idiot on 2019-07-26 16:48 (Reply)

Regarding snow being a thing of the past--

Just got back from doing about 100 miles of the Colorado trail. In mid July. Sections 26-29 were listed as impassable. Due to the snow. We made it through of course. Ignorance is bliss.

Heading to Rainier next month. Bringing plenty of winter clothing. Due to the snow.

Personally, I love global warming. Except when it's cold.

#12 Jon in Illinois on 2019-07-26 21:31 (Reply)

I'll buy "courtesan" for the procuress, but not for the underage girls. "Slaves" fits them better.

As for hotcoldwetdry, we just had three days of gloriously cool weather on the Texas Gulf Coast--in JULY. It's been about 20 years since the last such cool spell in midsummer. Rare, most welcome, and not a convincing prognosticator of anything in particular climate-wise.

#13 Texan99 on 2019-07-27 08:02 (Reply)

Really? 14 and 15 year old ‘courtesans’?

#14 Jm01 on 2019-07-27 13:39 (Reply)

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Friday, July 26. 2019

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