Bob Morris @ Jul 12th 2007 08:18 - Category: Unfiled ;
VeruTEK Technologies has developed an innovative method to destroy industrial pollution in soil without having to excavate.
They inject a biodegradable “soap” into the soil. Within a few weeks, it breaks down the contaminant into molecules which are then infused with oxygen. The result is carbon dioxide and oxygen, and the soil no longer polluted. Independent tests show that it works.
Bob Morris @ Jul 12th 2007 00:23 - Category: Unfiled ;
Subtopia, which concerns itself with the militarization of cities, has a fascinating interview with Neil Smith. A few quotes to whet your interest.
While the Iraq war is all about the “endgame of globalization,” part of this equation is the massive state funding of Halliburton and Blackwater and other multinationals to orchestrate a reconstruction. That this reconstruction has proven an utter failure is of only secondary concern – indeed, as long as the state keeps funding accumulation through multi-billion dollar contracts to these and other corporations, failure simply establishes the conditions for further investment.
The scary truth is that the US increasingly runs on a war economy. The faster things get used up, the faster they need to be replaced.
China’s cities today seem to me to be militarized very much in support of capital accumulation. The militarization of New York since the Giuliani era may seem softer but it is very much aimed at pacifying the city for sake of attracting business and tourists even as the lurching economy creates more and more poor people, even homeless people, who have to be “pacified.”
Business centers in large cities are now heavily fortified with lots of Orwellian monitoring and security. Poor people need not enter.
That Blackwater and Halliburton were so quickly into New Orleans, as we now know, alongside – and in some cases in charge of the military (National Guard) – simply confirms the breadth of the connections between militarization and economic opportunity. The reconstruction of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast is being used, in fact, as an opportunity to reconstruct a social geography without many of the working class poor who had been ghettoized there in the past.
Get rid of the NoLa poor and build pricey condos where their homes had been.
Bob Morris @ Jul 12th 2007 00:15 - Category: Climate change ;
(Click to view image full sized, then read the small print at the bottom!)
Link to the events at Climatecamp.co.uk
Bob Morris @ Jul 12th 2007 00:07 - Category: Unfiled ;
Urushiol oil [the toxin in poison ivy] stays active on any surface, including dead plants, for up to 5 years.
This includes on clothing too. Like the hunter who gets it again the next year and can’t figure out how. It was on his jacket. Or like me. After getting reinfected three times in the same place, I finally decided the evil demon urushiol was on my jeans and tossed out three pair (yes, they’d been washed, several times too.)
How bad can a poison ivy rash get? This bad. (Viewer discretion advised, seriously…)
Evolutionary theory says that nasty effects like these have survival value and increase the ability of the species to survive. Yet only a few mammals get a nasty reaction to poison ivy. Most animals are not affected at all by it. So, how does being toxic to humans help poison ivy survive when other animals can presumably eat it?
My theory is that poison ivy is just freaking evil…
Subscribe
