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Beef prices could rise further with cruel Alberta drought
Herd size expected to shrink as ranchers sell off cattle
The price of steaks, roasts and other cuts of beef are expected to increase further because of drought conditions in Alberta, although it may take about a year before consumers feel the full bite on store shelves.
Retail beef prices hit record highs early this year and have continued to climb since then as the number of cattle in the Canada continues to dwindle. Now, drought in Alberta and Saskatchewan means ranchers struggling to feed their animals are choosing to sell some of their cattle at the auction market.
- Global demand for beef sends steak and hamburger prices sizzling
- Drought forces some Alberta cattle farmers to sell stock
At least nine different counties throughout Alberta have declared states of agricultural disaster due to harsh drought conditions. Many areas received less than 100 mm of rain between the start of April and early July, which is less than 50 per cent of normal rainfall levels. The hardest-hit areas received less than 50 millimetres of precipitation, according to Alberta Agriculture.
If you thought buying beef this summer was already expensive, prices could rise further with dry conditions in Alberta and Saskatchewan. (Dale Molnar/CBC)
Not only are pastures and hay crops in poor condition, but little feed is available for purchase.
In the short term, for consumers, the price of beef may actually fall slightly as ranchers reduce their herd size, but retail prices may jump further next year as the number of cattle in Canada will be even smaller.
“Over the long run, if the drought causes the cow herd to shrink even further, then the supply, of course, gets tighter,” said Greg Bowie, chair of the Alberta Beef Producers. “It is going to drive the price to a different level again.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Mercury levels still rising near Grassy Narrows First Nation, report says
50-year-old contamination that was never cleaned up still polluting water and fish, report says
Fifty years after a Dryden pulp mill dumped its effluent into a northern Ontario watershed, mercury continues to rise in some lakes, according to a study commissioned by the provincial government and the Grassy Narrows First Nation.
The report released Monday also reveals how little is known about the environmental and health consequences of the mercury that flowed freely into the English-Wabigoon water system between 1962 and 1970.
- Grassy Narrows: Why is Japan still studying the mercury poisoning when Canada isn’t?
- Japanese mercury experts push Canada to help Grassy Narrows
- CBC Digital Archives: Residents of Grassy Narrows still ill
The research review of human and ecological health in Grassy Narrows was conducted by fresh water scientist Patricia Sellers. It takes a wide-ranging look at all published research into the contamination and mercury poisoning of people at Grassy Narrows.
“We have bits and pieces, small amounts of data here and there throughout the years of the human health in Grassy Narrows and various health issues and an assessment of initiatives to address those health issues,” Sellers said. “But there hasn’t been anything very comprehensive.”
Fish remains a staple in the diet for the people of Grassy Narrows, despite the contamination. A new report says information about how much is safe to eat must be better communicated and supports put in place for people who can’t afford any other food. (CBC)
People in Grassy Narrows continue to suffer the effects of mercury poisoning, exhibiting symptoms such as loss of motor function, tingling and weakness in limbs, difficulty speaking and swallowing.
“We know little about the effects of low-dose exposure [to mercury] over the long-term,” Sellers wrote in the report.
Residents believe developmental delays and physical abnormalities in children are also related to the contamination, but Sellers says no studies have been conducted in Grassy Narrows on the effects of pre-natal exposure to mercury.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Biometric data collection evolves and expands in Canada
Ottawa wants to collect data from visitors of 150 countries, up from the current 30
The federal government’s plan to increase its collection of biometric data from visitors to Canada has been met with concern, but the practice is already a large part of our day-to-day lives.
Biometrics measure a person’s unique physiological characteristics — including face, iris, retinal veins, fingerprints, voice and hand geometry — to verify identity.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada told CBC News that digital photos and fingerprints are “the only biometrics data applicants will have to provide” under the government’s plan for expanded collection of data. Visitors will have to pay $85 to cover the cost of data collection.
Here are some ways that biometrics already touch our lives.
How it works now
The government currently collects the biometric data of foreign nationals from 29 countries and one territory. For an $85 fee, a visitor’s fingers are scanned on a glass screen and their digital photo is taken. Exemptions include those under 14 or over 80 years of age, as well as diplomats.
New regulations expected by 2018-19 would expand screening to include visitors from about 150 more countries, including those visitors who need visas, work or study permits. Americans are exempt.
Move to biometrics launched in 2008
The government first announced it was moving to biometrics in 2008 because they are more reliable than the use of subjective photo identification.
The 2008 budget said, “Border security remains a priority for Canadians. Criminals are increasingly more sophisticated and well-funded, including those who engage in document fraud to illegally move people or goods across borders.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Western ‘News’ Media as Tyranny’s Propagandists Hiding Reality
Western ‘News’ Media as Tyranny’s Propagandists Hiding Reality
1: The ugly realities are covered up, not covered; here’s an example of what you don’t see in the regime’s media about the people whom Americans’ tax dollars are bombing and killing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgB2bhFfEtM&app=desktop
2: The great investigative journalist John Pilger discusses the systematic truth-suppression:
http://johnpilger.com/articles/war-by-media-and-the-triumph-of-propaganda
3: The great investigative journalist Robert Parry’s latest take-down of America’s press is here:
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/06/02/neocon-fugitive-given-ukraine-province/
4: As usual, a great journalist gets fired for being too honest:
http://yournewswire.com/cnn-journalist-governments-pay-us-to-fake-stories-shocking-expose/
CONCLUSION:
A shared feature of all of those news-reports, about news-suppression in the United States, is: they all concern foreign affairs; not a one of them concerns domestic matters, such as, for example, the Wall Street bailouts — even though those issues are also highly sanitized in the U.S. press. What the U.S. regime is doing abroad is even more horrible than that. As you can see from the above few examples: it’s not reportable (except by a very few of the small American news-media and on some foreign news-media that are independent of U.S. control).
In other words: U.S. ‘news’ media are actually propaganda-media. Because of this, the only poll that was ever published regarding the question of what country is “the greatest threat to peace in the world today,” found that, in all 65 countries surveyed (except the U.S. and a few others), the United States was identified as that, and not just by a small margin, but by an overwhelmingly high margin, which was three times higher a percentage than that of the #2-mentioned nation. The U.S. is famous for invading countries that never threatened it, and for perpetrating coups to overthrow leaders (many of whom were democratically elected) who also never threated the American people. If this doesn’t fit the definition of a “tyranny,” what does?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Why Europe can’t let Greek economy crumble: Don Pittis
EU must find solution that does not propose stripping elderly of pensions
There are vultures in the financial community snapping their beaks and waiting for a Graccident.
If you haven’t heard the term before, Graccident is the latest rhetorical bastardization of the English language after Grexit, wherein you attach the first letters in Greece to something bad.
In this case, Graccident means that despite everyone’s best intentions to patch up a solution to the Mediterranean country’s economic woes, at some point things will go horribly wrong. The Greek financial house of cards will fall and the country will crash out of the eurozone, sending Greece spinning into bankruptcy and a perilous future.
- Greece promises bailout deal by Sunday, EU not so sure
- Greece says it has no plans for capital controls as debt crisis deepens
- Greece raids reserves to make IMF debt payment
While Greece’s leaders will suffer if the country accidentally collapses, the reputational damage for the European Union will be much worse.
And worst of all, the only ones who will benefit if it happens are those financial vultures betting fortunes on bond spreads and other derivatives that will make them a pile if everything goes sour.
“A precarious situation in Greece is getting worse and the probability of an accident in which governments both in Greece and the rest of Europe lose control is high,” said well-known economic commentator Mohamed El-Erian on the business TV network CNBC earlier this month.
Playing chicken
When two sides in a financial negotiation are playing chicken, there is always a possibility that both will think the other will give way at the last minute. Accidents do happen.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Why Would Bloomberg News Completely Disappear the February, 2014 Ukraine Coup?
Why Would Bloomberg News Completely Disappear the February, 2014 Ukraine Coup?
Bloomberg says in a post today that the “confrontation between Russia and the US” over Ukraine was “provok[ed]” by Putin’s annexation of Crimea:
“…Putin annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea last March, provokingthe biggest confrontation between Russia and the U.S. and Europe since the Cold War.”
That’s odd, though, because the reintegration of Crimea into Russia (after a vote in favor – but remember democracy is what we say it is) happened, as Bloomberg says and BBC confirms, in March, 2014, about five months after violent, US-backed protests began in November 2013, and ended in the the elected Ukrainian president, Victor Yanukovych, being driven out of the country by, as BBC put it, “radical groups”, including neo-Nazis: see BBC’s “Neo-Nazi Threat in Ukraine“, Feb. 28, 2014. (“BBC Newsnight’s Gabriel Gatehouse investigates the links between the new Ukrainian government and Neo-nazis.” Later articles covering the topic were published by, among many others, Glenn Greenwald,Robert Parry, and even, albeit 8 or 9 months too late to make a difference, NBC)
It’s also strange that BBC would say the following (even in a piece rife with the British state-run outlet’s typical pro-Western spin):
Pro-Russian forces [ie the Russian troops already stationed in Crimea by agreement] took control of Crimea in February. They moved in after Ukraine’s pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted after street protests.
So, they reacted to the US-backed overthrow of elected Yanukovych. To be precise, Russian troops began the process of, in US political-speak, liberating and securing Crimea on “February 23rd, 2014“.
Yet, again oddly, here is Time on February 22nd, 2014:
“Ukraine protesters seize Kiev as President flees”
“Yanukovych fled to the eastern city of Kharkiv where he traditionally has a more solid base of support…”
It is noted in Wikipedia that Yanukovych had “won election in 2010 with strong support in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and southern and eastern Ukraine.”
The potential bond crisis most people have never heard of
While 007 goes from strength to strength, his financial namesake may be heading for a fall
“The name’s Bond,” goes the famous line. But in this case, it’s not James Bond. While nearly everyone knows every detail about the 007 super spy, his lesser-known financial namesake is many times more important.
The James Bond franchise is expected to continue strongly with the autumn arrival of Daniel Craig speeding through the streets of Rome inSPECTRE, but those in the financial know worry about the spectre of the other kind of bond heading for a crash.
Four out of five bond traders worry the market could collapse in a disorderly sell-off.
- Bank of America forecasts another rate cut for Canada
- Impact of low dollar and oil has yet to feed into Canadian economy: Poloz
And while Bond villains jump right out at you, bond villains are hard to finger.
At their most basic level, bonds are anything but complicated. They are simply a legal arrangement where one person agrees to lend money to someone else for a fixed length of time at a fixed rate of interest.
Popping the bond bubble
In the public imagination, if we think of them at all, bonds are the epitome of safety. Which is why it is strange to read in one of the world’s most reliable business publications, the London Financial Times, that experts are terrified of an imminent crash in bonds that could destabilize the global economy.
The interest rates on Canadian bonds have been falling for decades, meaning existing bonds have risen in value. That could be about to change. (Pete Evans/CBC)
“This market could pop,” leading bond trader Brad Crombietold the FT. “There is more tension and anxiety over valuations than for a long while.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
How Trustworthy Are U.S. & Western ‘News’ Media?
How Trustworthy Are U.S. & Western ‘News’ Media?
During the days of the Soviet Union, and in all dictatorial countries, the ‘news’ media were and are actually propaganda-media, which filter out information that the aristocracy (the people holding the real power, which in the Soviet Union were the Communist Party bosses) don’t want the public to know. Is the United States like that now?
I first came to the conclusion that the U.S. is a dictatorship in 2002, when I found proof that George W. Bush was lying to claim that he possessed proof that Saddam Hussein was rebuilding his WMD (weapons of mass destruction) stockpiles, and when the U.S. and UK ’news’ media hid this crucial fact that their heads-of-state were lying. Bush and British Prime Minster Tony Blair were arguing in 2002 against sending IAEA inspectors back into Iraq in order to verify whether or not Saddam was rebuilding his WMD stockpiles; they alleged that they (Bush-Blair) already possessed proof that he was accumulating WMD.
Here is how I found out that they were lying about that: On Saturday 7 September 2002, the White House issued “Remarks by the President and Prime Minister Tony Blair in Photo Opportunity Camp David” (still googlable at here), with the following exchange between a journalist and Bush-Blair:
THE PRESIDENT: AP lady.
Q Mr. President, can you tell us what conclusive evidence of any nuclear — new evidence you have of nuclear weapons capabilities of Saddam Hussein?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
MEXICO’S JOURNALISTS GRAB A TECH SHIELD AS THEIR FIGHT AGAINST THE ESTABLISHMENT ESCALATES
MEXICO’S JOURNALISTS GRAB A TECH SHIELD AS THEIR FIGHT AGAINST THE ESTABLISHMENT ESCALATES
Mexico, a country where tens of thousands have been killed in drug-related violence, and where government officials have been complicit in corruption, murders, and disappearances, seems like a natural place to launch a safe, anonymous way for sources to get information to journalists.
That’s the idea behind MéxicoLeaks, a platform launched this month by a consortium of news outlets and advocacy groups in Mexico. The site allows whistleblowers to anonymously submit information via the Tor browser, which masks their location.
But MéxicoLeaks has already caused a scandal, culminating in the firing of one of Mexico’s most popular journalists, radio personality Carmen Aristegui, and her staff of reporters. Although MéxicoLeaks promises a secure channel for activists who otherwise face brutal retribution for speaking out, its launch comes at a time when other protections for journalists, including their job security and physical safety, are crumbling.
Aristegui and her reporters say that the radio network that runs their show used their involvement with MéxicoLeaks as a pretext to fire them. The real goal, they believe, was to suppress oppositional journalism. “They seemed so determined to strike us down,” Irving Huerta, a 27-year-old investigative journalist with Aristegui’s unit, told The Intercept in an interview.
Staffers on Aristegui’s program had previously clashed with the network over exposés on the First Lady of Mexico’s real estate dealings, among other critical reports, Huerta says, and he believes powerful people wanted to see the show end.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Facebook Reveals its Master Plan – Control All News Flow
Facebook Reveals its Master Plan – Control All News Flow
In recent months, Facebook has been quietly holding talks with at least half a dozen media companies about hosting their content inside Facebook rather than making users tap a link to go to an external site.
The new proposal by Facebook carries another risk for publishers: the loss of valuable consumer data. When readers click on an article, an array of tracking tools allow the host site to collect valuable information on who they are, how often they visit and what else they have done on the web.
And if Facebook pushes beyond the experimental stage and makes content hosted on the site commonplace, those who do not participate in the program could lose substantial traffic — a factor that has played into the thinking of some publishers. Their articles might load more slowly than their competitors’, and over time readers might avoid those sites.
– From the New York Times article: Facebook May Host News Sites’ Content
Last night, I came across an incredibly important article from the New York Times, which described Facebook’s plan to provide direct access to other websites’ content in exchange for some sort of advertising partnership. The implications of this are so huge that at this point I have far more questions than answers.
Let’s start with a few excerpts from the article:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Russia In The Cross Hairs
Russia In The Cross Hairs
Washington’s attack on Russia has moved beyond the boundary of the absurd into the realm of insanity.
The New Chief of the US Broadcasting Board of Governors, Andrew Lack, has declared the Russian news service, RT, which broadcasts in multiple languages, to be a terrorist organization equivalent to Boko Haram and the Islamic State, and Standard and Poor’s just downgraded Russia’s credit rating to junk status.
Today RT International interviewed me about these insane developments.
In prior days when America was still a sane country, Lack’s charge would have led to him being laughed out of office. He would have had to resign and disappear from public life. Today in the make-believe world that Western propaganda has created, Lack’s statement is taken seriously. Yet another terrorist threat has been identified–RT. (Although both Boko Haram and the Islamic State employ terror, strictly speaking they are political organizations seeking to rule, not terror organizations, but this distinction would be over Lack’s head. Yes, I know. There is a good joke that could be made here about what Lack lacks. Appropriately named and all that.)
Nevertheless, whatever Lack might lack, I doubt he believes his nonsensical statement that RT is a terrorist organization. So what is his game?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Facebook allows users to weed out fake news
Facebook allows users to weed out fake news
Facebook has unveiled a new feature, which allows users to flag news articles deemed “purposefully fake or deceitful news.” The move is said to be aimed at restricting the number of fake stories, hoaxes and scams appearing on the social network.
The new algorithm developed by the internet giant filters out the flagged story’s link from the people’s feeds, based on the number of users who reported the story to be fake.
“A post with a link to an article that many people have reported as a hoax or chose to delete will get reduced distribution in the News Feed,” Facebook said.
The goal is to clean up News Feeds and limit fake information on the 1.35-billion member network. Flagged stories will also come with a warning: “Many people have reported that this story contains false information.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
And That Successfully Concludes “Big Brother 101”
And That Successfully Concludes “Big Brother 101”
Desperate to spin Europe’s deflation, pardon “negative inflation” pardon the lack of impulse to go ahead and spend money you don’t have right here right now, into a good, if only for Keynesians, thing? Don’t worry – we’ve got you covered. Below is a sampling of perfectly contradictory Reuters headlines all posted within a spin of 10 minutes, which should send you well on your way to propaganda nirvana.
And that successfully concludes Big Brother 101.
Source Reuters, Reuters, and… Reuters
h/t @RudyHavenstein
Feds Pay $1.25M For ‘News’ Handouts To Media Editors | Blacklock’s Reporter
Feds Pay $1.25M For ‘News’ Handouts To Media Editors | Blacklock’s Reporter.
Public Works Canada is awarding a $1.25 million contract to a publicist to distribute government-vetted “news” to publishers and radio and TV stations. The budget for handout “news” increased 25 percent from a previous contract. The department said it wanted to “inform and educate Canadians on public issues”.
The publicist, News Canada Ltd., said it gives editors handout stories free of charge bearing a “News Canada” credit – “just like Canadian Press,” said president Shelley Middlebrook. “We help distribute content,” Middlebrook said. “Journalists either pick it up or they don’t”; “Nobody pays to publish this. We follow Canadian Press-style rules of writing, and articles have to be marked as ‘News Canada’ just like CP.”
Handouts include standard 400-word newspaper stories for dailies and weeklies, and prepackaged broadcast items downloaded from the company’s website. Recent articles scripted for the Government of Canada and other clients include, “Supersize Your Tax Refund”; “Farmers Are Interested In The Environment”; “Food & Beverage Industry Raises the Bar On Nutrition”; and “Hey New Graduate, Check Out The Insurance Industry!”
