Clearing all the forests

just to wipe your ass. With old growth trees, nonetheless. I suppose we all need TP for our bungholes, but not like this. Americans once again leading the need for luxury category.

 The national obsession with soft paper has driven the growth of brands like Cottonelle Ultra, Quilted Northern Ultra and Charmin Ultra — which in 2008 alone increased its sales by 40 percent in some markets, according to Information Resources, Inc., a marketing research firm.

But fluffiness comes at a price: millions of trees harvested in North America and in Latin American countries, including some percentage of trees from rare old-growth forests in Canada. Although toilet tissue can be made at similar cost from recycled material, it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel, and most large manufacturers rely on them.

Customers “demand soft and comfortable,” said James Malone, a spokesman for Georgia Pacific, the maker of Quilted Northern. “Recycled fiber cannot do it.” 

You can't have your meat

and your planet too. Ethical concerns aside, (see the free range chickens above) if people keep eating animal products, seeing as we number nearly seven billion, we won't have a planet on which to debate ethics, morals, or anything else. It will be a dead land. It doesn't matter if it's grass-fed, it doesn't matter how free range it is. There is not enough land to exploit, there are not enough resources to keep supplying enough animals for people to eat like they do.

   Food from animals is so resource intensive. There is no way around it.

Here is an excellent article with all sorts of facts and statistics to back these contentions up:

More and more, people are also realizing the troubling connections between human starvation and eating animal products. It takes approximately 16 pounds of grain and 2,500 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat (thus feeding one or two people on meat versus approximately 16 people on grain). Much of this grain is grown in developing countries, where a large percentage of their land is used for cattle-raising for export to the United States, instead of being used to grow staple crops, which could feed local people directly. In a world where a child starves to death every 2 seconds, it seems impossible to justify such waste...

These farms [organic/free range] are described as ethical because of the fact that they are small, sustainable and have kinder animal-husbandry practices. As many people have pointed out, these farms can individually produce meat in a way that is arguably just as "green" as eating vegan.

However, it is an inherent part of the ethical foundation of these farms that they cannot produce on a massive scale. As we've seen numerous times, the organic farms that do try to do this, very often become virtually no better than factory farms, despite the labels they often still get to keep.

For example, many cage-free or free-range chickens still live in devastating conditions -- they simply aren't technically kept in cages in the first case, or, in the latter case, are kept in huge, crowded and perpetually dark buildings, with a single opening leading to a few square yards of bare earth.

The question of methane pollution may also make it hard to raise animals on a massive scale, regardless of whether the farms could be sustainable in other ways.

The question is not, "are a few people eating local, sustainable, free-range pork worse environmentally than a few people eating vegan?" The question needs to be, "can we feed the world's entire growing population sustainable animal products?"...

Many people within this "new meat movement" argue that it is suffering, not killing, that is unethical. Can unnecessary killing ever be completely separated from suffering? Besides the obvious difficulty in assuring a life and death free from trauma, there are the FDA regulations, which send all larger meat animals to the same slaughterhouses that are used for factory-farmed animals -- facilities notorious for the suffering of both the animals and the employees.

Even if the animals die quickly on their home farm, what justifies this killing? Having foreknowledge of death is not a prerequisite for the right to live, or else killing an infant would not seem unethical. How are we justified in ending a life of happy contentment to satisfy a passing craving?...

Culture and tradition are never sufficient justification to continue unethical practices -- if they were, we would still have slavery and public torture. Traditions have to adapt with our changing values and ethics, although these changes may be uncomfortable and unwelcome.

Report to distort

No analysis provided this time, just headlines and the first few lines of the article. Are you ready? OK. This is yesterday's big news item:

13 civilians killed in Afghanistan: US military

KABUL (AFP) – The US-led coalition in Afghanistan confirmed Saturday that 13 civilians were killed in an operation against insurgents, with such casualties a major source of tension between Kabul and its allies.

The US military at first said that 15 militants were killed in air strikes in the western province of Herat late Monday but local officials said six women and two children were among the dead.

Now, with seemingly no acknowledgment of the previous day's news, here is today's:

14 militants killed in southern Afghanistan

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – A battle just outside southern Afghanistan's largest city has killed at least six Taliban fighters, while an airstrike against militants elsewhere in the south killed eight, officials said Sunday.

Oh, capitalist media, YOU SO FUNNY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

An eye for an eye

will hopefully leave at least one man blind. As CNN reports, Ameneh Bahrami, an Iranian woman was blinded when a relentless stalker, Majid Movahedi, threw acid on her face about four years ago. In a measure of respect for women that surprises me, he has been imprisoned since then, awaiting further punishment. As far as I know, these attacks, which are not uncommon throughout the Muslim world, often go unpunished.

Ms. Bahrami has insisted that her attacker receive the same sentence he gave her - blindness. Supposedly, he will be blinded within a few weeks, his appeal having been recently rejected.

Good.

I do not support capital punishment, but this is different. Men carry this out with impunity. They believe, generally correctly, that they can do whatever they like to women. Here is an example of that in Pakistan. "Because women usually don’t matter in this part of the world, their attackers are rarely prosecuted and acid sales are usually not controlled."

This is a very specific behavior that could be severely curtailed if men thought that they would face the same punishment in return. It needs to stop. By any means necessary.

Fuck every liberal "human rights advocate" who looks at this and makes some blanket declaration about violence being "bad" or "immoral." Fuck every one of them who says that these women are wrong. Fuck their senses of superiority that tell these women what they should do. Fuck their arrogance, fuck their condescending attitudes. Sometimes, violence does work.

You are not in control

Business is. Fact. Below you will find the latest use of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. This FBI press release includes a laundry list of charges. Some of them are factual, some of them are exaggerated, and some of them have no basis in reality. Which ones, I do not know. I do know that the FBI has been intently dedicated to defaming movement after movement throughout its history. Communists, civil rights workers, Black Panthers, civil rights leaders, non-radical liberal environmentalists, feminists, so on and so forth. Just remember, haha, as the press release states way down at the bottom, these four "extremists" are presumed innocent. You can tell from the tone of the release, right?


FBI Press Release:

Four Extremists Arrested for Threats and Violence Against UC Researchers

On February 19 and 20, the Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested four animal rights extremists suspected of terrorizing University of California researchers. A complaint filed in federal court in San Francisco on Thursday alleged Adriana Stumpo, 23, of Long Beach, California; Nathan Pope, 26, of Oceanside, California; Joseph Buddenberg, 25, of Berkeley, California; and Maryam Khajavi, 20, of Pinole, California used force, violence, or threats to interfere with the operation of the University of California in violation of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.

Mr. Pope and Ms. Stumpo were arrested Thursday in Charlotte , North Carolina by the FBI and members of the Charlotte Joint Terrorism Task Force as they returned to the United States from Costa Rica . The two appeared in federal court in Charlotte this morning, and will be extradited to California to face charges.

San Francisco Joint Terrorism Task Force members, University of California Berkeley Police officers, and FBI agents arrested Mr. Buddenberg at the Alameda County Courthouse this morning. Ms. Khajavi was also arrested this morning in Oakland . Both appeared before United States Magistrate Judge Nandor J. Vadas in federal court in San Francisco today.

The arrests stem from a series of threatening incidents beginning in October 2007:

On Sunday, October 21, 2007 a group of approximately twenty people, including Mr. Buddenberg, Mr. Pope, and Ms. Stumpo, demonstrated outside a University of California Berkeley professor’s personal residence in El Cerrito , California . The group, some wearing bandanas to hide their faces, trespassed on his front yard, chanted slogans, and accused him of being a murderer because of his use of animals in research. The professor told police he was afraid, and felt harassed and intimidated by the extremists.

On Sunday, January 27, 2008, a group of approximately eleven individuals, including Mr. Buddenberg, Mr. Pope, Ms. Stumpo, and Ms. Khajavi, demonstrated outside the private residences of several University of California Berkeley researchers over the course of the day. At each residence, extremists dressed generally in all black clothing and wearing bandanas to hide their faces marched, chanted, and chalked defamatory comments on the public sidewalks in front of the residences. One of the researchers informed authorities he had been previously harassed and the incident had caused him to fear for his health and safety.

On February 24, 2008, five to six individuals including Mr. Pope, Ms. Stumpo, and Ms. Khajavi, attempted to forcibly enter the private home of a University of California researcher in Santa Cruz . When her husband opened the door, a struggle ensued and he was hit by an object. As the individuals fled, one yelled, “We’re gonna get you.” The professor and her husband both told the FBI they were terrified by the incident.

On July 29, 2008, a stack of flyers titled "Murderers and torturers alive & well in Santa Cruz July 2008 edition" was found at the Café Pergolesi in Santa Cruz . The fliers listed the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of several University of California researchers and stated “animal abusers everywhere beware we know where you live we know where you work we will never back down until you end your abuse.” The investigation connected Mr. Buddenberg, Mr. Pope, and Ms. Stumpo to the production and distribution of the fliers. Distribution of the fliers preceded two firebomb attacks outside researchers’ Santa Cruz homes, both of which are still under investigation by the FBI.

The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (Title 18 U.S.C. § 43) states that whoever uses or causes to be used any facility of interstate commerce for the purpose of damaging or interfering with the operations of an animal enterprise, and in connection with such purpose, intentionally places a person in reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury to that person or an immediate family member, or conspires or attempts to do so, by a course of conduct involving threats, acts of vandalism, property damage, criminal trespass, harassment, or intimidation, shall be imprisoned for not more than five years.

“With so many legal options to make their voices heard and to effect policy change, it is inexcusable and cowardly for these people to resort to terrorizing the families of those with whom they do not agree,” said Charlene B. Thornton, special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Francisco office. “The FBI intends to pursue those involved in this sort of extremist activity to the full extent of the law.”

“This sends a strong message that our community won’t tolerate this type of senseless violence. You have absolutely no right to attack a family in the sanctity of their home. We are proud of the collaboration with our law enforcement partners on this case and look forward to those involved being held fully accountable for their actions,” said Santa Cruz Police Department Chief of Police Howard Skerry.

"We are very grateful for the efforts of federal law enforcement officials whose persistence has led to these arrests," said Mickey Aluffi, police chief at UC Santa Cruz. "The Santa Cruz Police Department has also worked tirelessly on the cases involving our researchers, and we are very appreciative of that office's commitment and support."

The Santa Cruz Police Department, University of California Santa Cruz Police Department, University of California Berkeley Police Department, Costa Rican Organismo de Investigacion Judicial, Costa Rican Attorney General’s office, United State Department of State Diplomatic Security Service, and the Interpol National Central Bureau in Costa Rica provided invaluable assistance throughout this investigation and contributed to the successful apprehension of these individuals.

Like all defendants, these individuals are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. A complaint contains only allegations and is not proof of guilt. However, each defendant could face up to five years in prison if convicted.

Media inquiries may be directed to Special Agent Joseph M. Schadler or Public Affairs Specialist Patti Hansen at 415-553-7450.

Greece is not quiet

Here's a list of brief news stories about what's going on in Greece. The open rebellion in the streets has subsided, but it seems that day-to-day revolutionary actions are at a fairly high level. Crazy shit.

While all of the actions are noteworthy and remarkable, the last one is quiet creative and a different kind of revolutionary, in that it is a long-term project. The people occupying the building seek to maintain a legitimate base for radical expression, thought and living that is open to the public.


Update On Greek Revolt

Thursday, February 19 2009 @ 03:21 PM CST

Contributed by: Anonymous

A small anarchist group has claimed responsibility for 17 firebombings
carried out last week and threatened further attacks. All but one of the
attacks with makeshift bombs were carried out in Athens on Wednesday and
Thursday, and they targeted people such as a top anti-terrorism
prosecutor, a prominent politician and a judge.

ATHENS, Greece: A small anarchist group has claimed responsibility for 17
firebombings carried out last week and threatened further attacks.

All but one of the attacks with makeshift bombs were carried out in Athens
on Wednesday and Thursday, and they targeted people such as a top
anti-terrorism prosecutor, a prominent politician and a judge.

No injuries or serious damage resulted, but the firebombings were carried
out during the day, making them very unusual for arsonists' attacks in
Greece.

"Our attacks are not symbolic, they are acts of war. ... We will be back
soon," Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei, a self-described "urban guerrilla"
group, said in a statement published on a leftist Web site Saturday.

It said it dedicated its attacks to "authentic revolutionary" Dimitris
Koufodinas, a prominent member of the terrorist organization November 17,
who was arrested in 2002 and is serving multiple life sentences.

The litte-known Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei group only surfaced last year,
and police have said they know little about it but take its threats of
sustained urban guerrilla action seriously.

"This is a new development," Deputy Interior Minister Christos
Markoyiannakis told Greek media Sunday, referring to the claim of
responsibility. "We must be vigilant."

------------------------------

-----------

Friday, February 6, 2009

ATHENS, Greece: Authorities in Greece say a police station and a luxury
car dealership in Athens were targeted in overnight arson attacks, causing
damage but no injuries.

Police say 14 luxury cars burned up in the Halandri area after small
cooking gas canisters were set off at the dealership and started a fire.

In Wednesday's second incident, small gas canisters exploded outside a
police station in the Aegaleo area, causing minor damage.

Greek anarchist groups frequently carry out arson attack in Athens.
Attacks against police have also risen since December riots were triggered
by the police shooting of a teenage boy.

Another police station in Athens was damaged Tuesday by automatic gunfire.
Suspicion fell on a far-left domestic terrorist group.

-------------------------------------------------

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Group Claims Attack on Greek Police Station

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greek authorities said Wednesday a previously
unknown group has claimed responsibility for a gunfire and grenade attack
on an Athens precinct.
The statement was found in a computer disk left on the grave of a teenager
whose shooting by police sparked massive riots last year.

A police statement said a group calling itself Sect of Revolutionaries
claimed it carried out Tuesday's pre-dawn attack, which caused no
injuries.

Police spokesman Panayiotis Stathis said the disk was found on Alexandros
Grigoropoulos's grave in Athens. Officers found it after an anonymous call
to an Athens newspaper.

Stathis said police were taking the claim seriously, and the group seemed
linked to the Revolutionary Struggle extremists who shot a riot policeman
last month.

"It seems to be genuine; it's a group that has not appeared before but the
methodology seems to be the same as that of Revolutionary Struggle," he
told The Associated Press.

Three unknown assailants in hoods and helmets opened fire on the police
station in the suburb of Korydallos. They also threw a hand grenade that
did not explode.

The attack came nearly two months after Grigoropoulos was shot dead in
central Athens after an argument with two policemen, sparking the worst
wave of anti-authoritarian violence Greece had seen in decades.

Although the rioting subsided before Christmas, attacks on police targets
have increased.
Last month, the Revolutionary Struggle claimed responsibility for a Jan. 5
shooting that seriously wounded a 21-year-old riot policeman in central
Athens.
The group is best known for firing a rocket-propelled grenade into the
U.S. Embassy in Athens in 2007.
Stathis said the Sect of Revolutionaries proclamation was "aggressive"
against the police.

"It gives the impression that they have declared war on the police, that
is their term," he said.

--------------------------------------------------

Monday, February 2, 2009 Bank attacked in Athens

A branch of Emporiki Bank in Ambelokipi, central Athens, was seriously
damaged early on Saturday when assailants threw petrol bombs and camping
gas canisters inside the building. Police said that the attack took place
at about 1 a.m. Nobody was hurt.

---------------------------------------------------

Occupation of Greek National Opera House
OO
Last week the National Opera House (Ethniki Lyriki Skini) was occupied by
dancers renaming the historic Athens building "Insurgent People's .
Opera". Since the Opera has been functioning as a free space for
revolutionary workshops and forums in solidarity to K. Kouneva and the
arrested insurgents of December, as well as against the police state and
the culture of the Spectacle.

The occupation of the National Opera House in one of Athens most busy high
street (Akadimias Bulevard) last week by dancers has created yet another
center of resistance and counterinformation in the greek capital,
receiving the active support of the entire range of insurgents including
the Cleaner's Union (PEKOP) who continues to receive death threats from
the OIKOMET bosses behind the murderous attack against K. Kouneva on
December last year. The Opera now renamed "Insurgent People's Opera"
functions on a 24h bases as a space for workshops, film projections,
performances and forums regarding art and the body in relation to the
resistance against the police state and the society of the Spectacle.

What follows is the first Communique of the occupied Opera:

December’s rebellion, while drawing strength from all previous social
struggles, laid the ground for a generalized resistance against everything
that offends us and enslaves our lives. It triggered a fight for life that
is being disparaged on a daily basis. As an answer to those who understand
rebellion as a short lived firecracker, and discard and undermine it by
simply saying “life goes on”, we say that the struggle not only continues
but has already set our lives on a new basis. Nothing is finished; our
rage perseveres. Our agony has not subsided; we are still here.

Rebellion in the streets, in schools and universities, in labour unions,
municipal buildings and parks. Rebellion also in art.

Against art as a spectacle that is consumed by passive viewers.

Against aesthetics that exclude the ‘Different’.

Against a culture that destroys parks and public space in the name of profit.

We unite our voices with all those in struggle.

In solidarity with Konstantina Kouneva and those arrested during the
rebellion.

With our struggle and our own culture, we respond to state oppression,
social exclusion and to the attempts of the mass media to terrorize and
misinform.

With this initiative that originated in the ‘Arts’ (considering
everybody’s life as art), we re-claim a space for the art of living of
each and everyone to unfold and for exploring the reformation of culture.
We aspire to an unmediated art; open and accessible to all.

We liberate the Greek National Opera because by definition it belongs to
all of us.

We feel the need to take things from the beginning and to reinvent the
role of art.

Through self-organized processes, we propose free creative actions by
everyone and for all those who consider culture as a product of collective
creativity.
To recover and reclaim the culture that has been stolen from us.

OPEN GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE LIBERATED OPERA
EVERYDAY AT 9.00 PM

STREETS ARE OUR SCENE
REVOLT IS OUR ART

Free opera-tors

If this photograph is somewhat representative of how you spend your days , you will most likely not like our band . Don't show up at our shows.

Please note: Wearing a leather jacket, a bullet belt and/or eye make up does not make you punk. Thank you for your time.

Yours,
Write Back Soon

22 years in prison for torching a genetic modification seed lab in Michigan

Yesterday, Marie Mason was put away for almost 22 years for torching a lab that was making crops with altered genes, research almost certainly on the behalf of some agribusiness giant like Monsanto. She's an "eco-terrorist" now. Watch out.

It's funny, cause I would say that the people who would unleash this fake food, these doctored seeds unto the world are terrorizing the environment. It scares the fuck out of me. And they get their ways through fear - they say that we're all gonna starve if they don't get to sell their patented superseeds. They tell us that nature's not good enough. They say we need them to live.

As greenisthenewred points out, four white guys who went around Staten Island the evening of November fourth randomly beating black people, or in one case, someone they thought was black, will only be serving up to 10 years, while another gets 12. From the FBI:

At the plea proceeding, Nicoletti admitted that on Nov. 4, 2008, the night of the presidential election, the defendants decided to assault African-Americans in Staten Island after President Obama was declared the winner of the election. The defendants targeted African-Americans believing that they had voted for President Obama. Nicoletti drove the group to the Park Hill section of Staten Island, a predominantly African-American neighborhood, where they came upon an African-American teenager and assaulted him. Nicoletti struck the teenager with a metal pipe and Garaventa hit him with a collapsible police baton.

Nicoletti then drove to the Port Richmond section of Staten Island, where the defendants assaulted an unidentified African-American man. During that assault, Garaventa tripped the victim and pushed him to the ground.

The third assault was against an individual whom the defendants mistakenly believed was African-American. The plan was for Contreras to hit the victim with the police baton as the defendants drove by him. Instead, Nicoletti deliberately drove his car into the victim’s body. The victim was thrown onto the hood of the car and hit the front windshield, smashing it. The victim was seriously injured and remained in a coma for several weeks after the attack...

“The crimes these defendants have now admitted to were violent assaults that in one case nearly killed a man,” said FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Demarest of the New York Field Office...

You can beat the shit out of people for no reason, you can run people over, you can put someone in a coma, and you will maybe get ten years. You can do things that you believe will likely kill people, you can not care if you kill them, and you won't go away for too long.

Get in the way of corporate earnings and you're through. Especially if you've got principles behind it. The two combined are lethal; they'll punish you so severely for putting principles into practice that legitimately impinge on capital.

These sentences were only three days apart. Pretty good for comparison. Same political climate, both federal crimes.

Also, fuck Mason's ex-husband. That dude ruined so many other people to shave a few years off his own sentence. Yeah, they still put him away. For nine fucking years. Way to go.

Animal-human clones don't work, U.S. company finds

Once again, I give to you sick fucks trying to play god.

The best quote:

We got beautiful little hybrid embryos, but it didn't work no matter how hard we tried.

With the most dedicated sense of devotion to progress for its own sake, these scientists would not allow repeated failures to give way to questioning their actions. No, they relentlessly pursued their goals because they had imagined them.

Also, I could have told them before they spent all their money, time, and inflicted unnecessary pain on the animals who once held these eggs that their efforts would most likely be in vain.

They act like this is some kind of fucking revelation. As though, every indication showed otherwise, but for some unknowable reason, human/non-human hybrid clones just don't work.


Animal-human clones don't work, U.S. company finds

Mon Feb 2, 2009 2:47pm EST

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Researchers who tried to use mouse, cow and rabbit eggs to make human clones said on Monday the effort failed to produce workable embryos but added that they showed human cloning should work in principle.

Mixing human and animal cells does not appear to program the egg properly, said Dr. Robert Lanza of Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology.

But using human cells did reprogram the egg cell or oocyte and activate the genes needed to make a viable embryo, Lanza and colleagues reported in the journal Cloning and Stem Cells.

Several teams have tried to make animal-human hybrids as a source of embryonic stem cells, the master cells of the body. Because human eggs are scarce -- it requires a surgical procedure to get them from a woman -- some scientists came up with the idea of using animal egg cells.

The cloning technique is called somatic cell nuclear transfer. The nucleus is removed from an egg cell and replaced with the nucleus from another type of cell from the donor animal or person who is to be cloned.

Done right, the process starts the egg growing and dividing as if it had been fertilized by a sperm, but the resulting embryo carries mostly the DNA of the donor.

"The idea was to simply to plunk a patient's DNA into an empty cow or rabbit egg -- and presto -- you reprogram the DNA back into a stem cell," Lanza said in a telephone interview.

But teams that have tried to do this have always ended up with what looks like a cell dividing over and over to become an embryo, but which eventually fizzles out.

"For the last decade, we've carried out literally hundreds of experiments trying to create patient-specific stem cells using animal eggs," Lanza said.

BEAUTIFUL HYBRIDS

"We got beautiful little hybrid embryos, but it didn't work no matter how hard we tried."

A mouse-human hybrid petered out after just one division. The cow and rabbit human hybrids went further, but stopped at the point when maternal DNA is supposed to kick in and turn the ball of cells into a proper embryo, Lanza said.

Lanza's team used a new method called global gene expression analysis to see which genes were turned on and off as the eggs grew.

"We never had the tools before to actually look inside the cell and see what's going on," Lanza said. It appears that using the egg of another species turns off the genes needed to make an embryo instead of turning them on, he said.

But the human-human clone did turn on the right genes, although it, too stopped dividing before it could produce stem cells, Lanza said.

"We see exactly the same genes turned on in a normal embryo are actually turned on in a human clone," he said.

Ian Wilmut of the University of Edinburgh, one of the scientists who cloned the first mammal, Dolly the sheep, and editor of the journal, called the results disappointing.

"This very important paper suggests that livestock oocytes are extremely unlikely to be suitable as recipients for use in human nuclear transfer," Wilmut said in a statement.

But Lanza said it might be possible to use other methods to create "banks" of stem cells that match the several hundred tissue types found among humans.

This could include cloning humans, using a single cell from growing embryos used for fertility treatment, or a new method called induced pluripotent stem cells, made by taking a sample of skin and reprogramming the cells to act like embryonic stem cells, Lanza said.

Exxon Mobil sets record with $45.2 billion profit

The price of oil went up, the price of human life went down, the price of nature has never been lower. Let the end come.



Exxon Mobil sets record with $45.2 billion profit

By JOHN PORRETTO, AP Energy Writer John Porretto, Ap Energy Writer 1 hr 8 mins ago

HOUSTON – Exxon Mobil Corp. on Friday reported a profit of $45.2 billion for 2008, breaking its own record for a U.S. company, even as its fourth-quarter earnings fell 33 percent from a year ago.

The previous record for annual profit was $40.6 billion, which the world's largest publicly traded oil company set in 2007.

The extraordinary full-year profit wasn't a surprise given crude's triple-digit price for much of 2008, peaking near an unheard of $150 a barrel in July. Since then, however, prices have fallen roughly 70 percent amid a deepening global economic crisis.

In the fourth quarter alone crude tumbled 60 percent, prompting spending and job cuts in an industry that was reporting robust, often record, profits as recently as last summer.

With piles of cash and diversified operations, the majors like Exxon Mobil have fared better than many smaller oil and gas companies, but Friday's results show no one is completely insulated from the ongoing malaise.

Irving, Texas-based Exxon said net income slid sharply to $7.8 billion, or $1.55 a share, in the October-December period. That compared with $11.7 billion, or $2.13 a share, in the same period a year ago, when Exxon set a U.S. record for quarterly profit. It has since topped that mark twice, first in last year's second quarter and then with earnings of $14.83 billion in the third quarter.

Revenue in the most-recent quarter fell 27 percent to $84.7 billion.

Both the per-share and revenue results topped Wall Street forecasts. On average, analysts expected the company to earn $1.45 a share in the latest quarter on revenue of $69.1 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.

Shares rose $1.52, or 2 percent, to $78.52 in early trading.

The nation's second largest oil company, Chevron Corp., reported profits of $4.9 billion for the fourth quarter, though revenues slid 26 percent with oil prices in sharp decline.

It earned $2.44 per share in the three months ended Dec. 31. Like Exxon, Chevron easily beat expectations of analysts, who were looking for profits of $1.81 per share.

The industry went into retrenchment toward the end of the year with demand falling.

As expected, Exxon Mobil's bottom line took a beating from its exploration and production, or upstream, arm, where net income fell 31 percent to $5.6 billion. The culprit: lower crude prices, which the company said decreased earnings by $3.2 billion in the fourth quarter alone.

The company, which produces about 3 percent of the world's oil, said overall output fell 3 percent in the most-recent period, a troubling trend in previous quarters. Exxon, which generates more than two-thirds of its earnings from oil and gas production, said production-sharing contracts and OPEC quotas contributed to its lower output.

Results were better at its refining and marketing unit, where earnings rose 6 percent to $2.4 billion as higher margins overcame costs related to last summer's hurricanes and other factors.

The company's chemical division also took a hit, posting net income of $155 million versus $1.1 billion a year ago. Results were hurt by lower volumes and margins and hurricane-repair costs.

Exxon Mobil said it bought 119 million shares of its common stock in the quarter at a cost of $8.8 billion. Roughly $8 billion of that amount was dedicated to reducing the number of shares outstanding; the balance was used to offset shares issued as part of the company's benefit plans.

Exxon said it spent $26.1 billion on capital and exploration projects last year, up 25 percent from 2007. Its earnings release provided no information about its planned spending for 2009.

For the full year, Exxon Mobil's massive profit amounted to $8.69 a share, versus $7.28 a share a year ago.

Monument to Bush shoe-throwing shines at Iraqi orphanage

This is so fucking political. Jesus. The sculptor, Laith al-Amiri, had orphans help him build it. War orphans. The director of the orphanage opines that

"Those orphans who helped the sculptor in building this monument were the victims of Bush's war," al-Naseri said. "The shoe monument is a gift to the next generation to remember the heroic action by the journalist."

"When the next generation sees the shoe monument, they will ask their parents about it," al-Naseri said.

"Then their parents will start talking about the hero Muntadhir al-Zaidi, who threw his shoe at George W. Bush during his unannounced farewell visit."

Pretty badass.

I suppose that al-Amiri could be accused of using these orphans for ends that they do not fully understand. At the same time, I am sure that these kids have a sense that things are really fucked up where they live and that some people are much more responsible for it than others. And it's not like they're being exploited for sick, selfish gains. They helped a guy with a sculpture.

If a shoe and a sculpture is all Bush gets in retribution, he's a lucky guy.

#44 - still not my president

Yippitee yay, Barack Obama is following some of the more controversial and less desireable lines of his predecessor. Warrantless wiretaps are still in this season, I guess. As well as continuing to support immunity for the telecommunications conglomerates who allowed the NSA and whomever else to listen to us, to watch us and to read us. Fuck. Change has come.

You're being watched

And listened to. And read.

Really, I hate to be the person who's paranoid, and has this ubiquitous feeling that "Big Brother" is omnipresent, but it's true. And it's not an idea, it's not something I heard about from someone who knows someone who saw a person working on the phone pole who they "know" was from the FBI. This guy is from the NSA.

The targets - not "terrorists." Not even Muslims. Everyone is a potential target. Anyone. In this case, we hear about journalists.

This isn't a reform issue. Sure, it needs to stop. But it's an organization issue, not an individual issue. This is not Bush. This is the United States.

Blackwater out of Iraq

Done. Of course, this is not the end of Blackwater and perhaps will provide the impetus to prove that no one can push them around, but all the same, HAHA. Fuck the people who run that company and everyone who works for them.

Two ex-Gitmo detainees join al-Qaida: report

Big surprise. I'd probably join Al Qaeda too if some sadistic fucks locked me up for nothing for about five years.

As with most other Guantánamo returnees, the Saudis did not have evidence of criminal wrongdoing against Shihri. In such cases, Turki says, the men were charged with the minor violation of traveling to Afghanistan, a country Saudi passport holders are barred from visiting.

A peculiar relationship to food

I was sitting in the food science building at school the other day and noticed a display on the wall entitled "Role of Nutraceuticals in Cancer Treatment." There was a picture of some broccoli and another picture of carrots, along with explanations of how nutraceuticals, or extractives of food, combat cancer.

Nutraceuticals. In other words, food? Reterming food as a drug? Rethinking food as a drug? This struck me as very odd.

What's so odd? Well, if people taking "nutraceuticals" had eaten these things in reasonable quantities in the first place, it would have been "food" and they would have been much less likely to develop cancer. Instead, many people in the western world eat copious amounts of things that are not really food. Sure, you can eat them, but they provide no nutrition to your body and often have adverse affects, like raising blood pressure, cholesterol, clogging your arteries, giving you diabetes, making you obese, giving you heart disease, cancer, so on and so forth. You CAN eat a lot of things, but that doesn't make them food. People have eaten bikes and I don't even know what else. Little kids will eat their own shit if you let them.

Our concepts of food, I think, are often defined by those who produce and market food. If it's on a shelf, in a package, then it's fair game. If someone will sell it to us, then it's food. They wouldn't knowingly sell us things that are so bad, right? People will decline to eat things based on taste, but seldom out of some objection to its quality, or whether or not it counts as food. Realistically, much of the food available to us is ridden with bug spray, which they've somehow convinced us is safe to eat, and of course ingredients that make us sick, slowly poisoning us, especially high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oil, and monosodium glutamate. We consume dairy products and flesh rife with hormones, antibiotics and literal disease - see any outbreak of e coli or salmonella.

And that's normal. Those are our diets. That's what we're sold, so that's what we buy. That's what we grew up eating, so that's what we keep eating. No one wants to think that we were raised on shit. No one wants to think that our parents fed us poison. Understandably, we do not want to believe that the society around us, of which we are a part, and especially those in control of it, is so perverse and ignominious.

So nutraceuticals, yeah. Food. You ate shit and didn't take care of yourself, and you have cancer or diabetes. Now you want the benefits of those "healthy foods," but you don't really want to eat them or change your diet all that much. Besides, it couldn't have been related to your diet. It just happens.

It's complicated to parse out responsibility for this mess. In the end, the overarching blame rests with the food industry, no doubt. The proliferation of shit food is absolutely a case of supply creating demand. Were people ever clamoring for twinkies? No. People made these foods in labs, packed them with artificial flavors, colors and scents, and made sure to incorporate ingredients that have physically addictive properties, particularly the sweeteners they use. Sugar is certainly addictive on its own, but much more so when distilled into more potent forms, such as white sugar and the worst, high fructose corn syrup. Then these foods were unleashed on the public and here we are, fat, sick and dying.

Still, we need to take responsibility for ourselves, you know? We need to take a good look at what we eat and what it does to us. We need to listen to our bodies. Getting in tune with your body is so important - what makes you feel good, what you should eat, what your body does not want you to eat. We've all been raised to ignore our bodies and take what we want, trying to fix the problems we make with drugs. Our bodies know best.

Few Israelis Near Gaza Feel War Achieved Much

Says the New York Times today. I bet they are right. Only in sense though, cause they probably achieved a whole lot that doesn't fit so well into military goals - building resentment and furthering what is already an extreme hostility. They'll probably push some more people into supporting Hamas. Killing civilians and children rarely pacifies a population. It usually just pisses them off. In this case, I think it pissed them off.

Here are two huge examples:

Two weeks ago, Israel blew up a Palestinian school and killed 40 civilians. There were some guys firing mortars in the area, they said. Sure. Even if that were so, gotta kill that ant with a sledgehammer, right?

Last week, Israel wiped out a Palestinian doctor's family while he was on the phone with some media. This guy, Izzeldin Abuelaish, is a long-time peace activist who works in both Palestinian and Israeli hospitals.

Death tally from this flare up: 1300 Palestinians, 13 Israelis.

Research ties human acts to harmful rates of species evolution

Shocker. People having an effect on how other species develop. Interference with nature - how, oh how could this happen? I just don't understand. I hardly use plastic bags at all anymore...

Human actions are increasing the rate of evolutionary change in plants and animals in ways that may hurt their long-term prospects for survival, scientists are reporting.

Hunting, commercial fishing and some conservation regulations, like minimum size limits on fish, may all work against species health.

Hunting, yeah, I can see that not benefiting the natural world, with mechanized weapons and all. Probably my favorite hunting was when white people would ride trains in the late 19th century and shoot buffalo for fun. They pretty much killed them all. That was awesome.


Here's buffalo hunting now.

That guy should be proud of himself. I bet that was hard. Look, he was reduced to using an arrow gun. You can tell he needed it. Just skin and bones, he is! Tough work. It looks like it was pretty cold too.

The researchers also noted that the pattern of loss to human predation like hunting or harvesting is opposite to what occurs in nature or even in agriculture.

Predators typically take "the newly born or the nearly dead," Darimont said. For predators, targeting healthy adults can be dangerous, and some predator fish cannot even open their mouths wide enough to eat adult prey. Animals raised as livestock are typically slaughtered relatively young, he said, and farmers and breeders retain the most robust and fertile adults to grow their herds or flocks.

But commercial fishing nets and other gear that comply with conservation regulations typically trap large fish while letting smaller ones escape. Trophy hunters typically seek out the largest animals. And for some fish in some areas, as much as 50, 60 or even 80 percent of the stock may be caught every year.

I'm pretty sure people will only stop taking from nature like this when there is either nothing left or almost nothing left, and most people can't afford what it will cost, for example, when many popular fish species are stolen and killed at such rates that their low populations lead to commercial fishers charging prices several times higher than they are now, in an effort to maintain profitability.

Really though, it shouldn't be news that industrialized hunting, which is more akin to gathering, ironically, as there isn't much of a hunt involved, is having negative consequences on the planet. How could it be otherwise?

Haha

"The departing vice president, Dick Cheney, appeared at the ceremony in a wheelchair after suffering a back injury moving the day before and was also booed."

I wish he were in a wheelchair for other reasons, but that will do.

The war to come

A true invisibility cloak, six months off they say. This is legit a fucking horrible idea. There are no net benefits to this. People might talk about it being fun or making direct action sabotage kind of stuff easier. Sure. But you know what? You know what the overarching uses of this will be? Military and government. Violent fucking oppression. And street crime. 

Like a gun. The gun, hypothetically, could make direct action a lot easier and more effective. But it doesn't. Some people use it for revolutionary purposes, but overwhelmingly, people use it to kill indiscriminately and intimidate.

No one will win with this invention. Fuck.

It also has advantages. Unlike Harry Potter's one-of-a-kind invisibility cloak, a real invisibility cloak will likely be cheap and easily reproducible. It took Smith and his colleagues about nine days to design and implement the experiment.

The scientists used hobby-level circuit boards; Smith's rough estimate was that it took about $1.00 in circuit boards to cloak the one-inch bump on the metamaterial.

"If you were to commercialize this technology it would cost next to nothing," said Smith.

When I wrote "They pushed on because they could, but rarely queried whether they should", this is EXACTLY the kind of shit I was talking about. Fuck.

People just don't understand that some ideas should not be pursued any further. It's like we can't understand that things we do will have undesirable consequences. What a fundamental flaw of humanity - the insatiable quest for knowledge for no other reason than to have it. We always have to check and see if that burner is hot.