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Reference Pages
- 2020 Foresight Prophecy Service
- About
- Climate
- Coal Hearted
- Drone Update
- Earthquake Conspiracy
- Guide To Enjoying the End Times
- Invasive Species
- Nukes
- Oil And Gas Pimps
- Pollution
- Toxic Apocalypse
- WTF News
- WTF Files: Week of August 22, 2011 More Oil Under the Bridge
- WTF NEWS ARCHIVE: Week of Sept 4, 2011
- WTF NEWS AUG 29, 2011: Spilling Oil, Trashing Space
- WTF News July 4: Exxon Fouls Another Econsystem
- WTF News: Flood and Tornados Week of May 3, 2011
- WTF News: Week of April 25
- WTF NEWS: Week of July 18 Backward Waterfalls and More Unreported Oil Spills
- WTF Update June 20: If We Can’t Plunder Your Jungle…
- WTF Update June 27: ExxonMobil Fouls the Yellowstone River
- WTF UPDATE Nov 28: LA Land Hurricane
- WTF UPDATE Week of 911: Bigger and Badder Floods
- WTF UPDATE Week of Nov 14, 2011: Disappearing Amphibians and Another Oil Spill
- WTF UPDATE Week of Sept 18: The Ice Goeth, Man
- WTF UPDATE Week of Sept 26: Superweeds from Monsanto
- WTF UPDATE: Aug 9, 2011: Orange Slime, Green Algae
- WTF UPDATE: July 11 More attacks on humans by jelly fish and oil companies
- WTF Update: June 17 Chesapeake Fined for Poisoning Water Supplies
- WTF Update: June 6 Disasters Happening and Waiting to Happen
- WTF UPDATE: Week of July 25, 2011
- WTF News Week of Jan 1, 2012
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iLoveMountains Rolls Out an Interactive Map Documenting Deadly Health Effects of Clean Safe All-American Coal Mining
The 21st Century civil war being waged in Appalachia is a three way battle between coal companies, people who make money from coal companies and those who hate what is happening to their homeland. Although mountaintop removal has already permanently destroyed hundreds of mountains in West Virginia and Kentucky, the battle isn’t just about the lost aesthetics of a once magical land. It’s also about killing the people who live there.
Beyond the alarming decline in quality of life among long time residents with the misfortune to live in blasting zones, the rates of cancer, birth defects and other lethal health effects are killing the residents of the land the coal kings own.
iLoveMountains, a Boone, NC-based activist organization that has long battled the forces of mountaintop removal mining, has developed an interactive map that convincingly documents the effects of mountaintop removal. Among other effects, the map demonstrates that people living near the destruction are 50% more likely to die of cancer and 42% more likely to be born with birth defects compared with other people in Appalachia.
Visit the map at iLoveMountains.org
Visit CatMap for more on clean, safe all american coal
More fun with clean, safe all american coal on our Coal Hearted page
Back in 209 when a batch of e-mails from the University of East Anglia and hacked and published out of context, the professional climate denial swindlers at Heartland Institute applauded. Blown up by FOX News and the petro pimp echo chamber, the story became ClimateGate, and was widely heralded as proof that climate change was a liberal hoax. In response to the online theft of personal e-mails, Heartland characterized the action as: “an opportunity for reporters, academics, politicians to revise their belief in climate change.”
Now the jackboot is on the other foot, and the hard-nosed iconoclasts at the right wing stink tank are whining and squealing like that scene in Deliverance. It seems that internal documents outlining Heartland’s methodology and funding efforts have been exposed to the light of day and they do not smell good. The collection of board meeting notes and confidential memos were apparently turned over to a third party by a gullible staffer, resulting in accusations of theft and unethical behavior on the part of the tough guys at the organization with the name that sounds like country-cookin’ itself.
The documents spell out in unambiguous language an ongoing strategy of pandering to extreme right business interests in order to make some big bucks. On the Heartland website, the powers what is speak of finding the perpetrator and putting him in prison, but shouldn’t they be focusing on incarcerating the dumb staff member who fell for the scam? Can you be arrested for being stupid?
While Heartland has whimpered in self righteous anger, they have only questioned the legitimacy of one document. Characterizing itself as a grass roots think tank specializing in research on climate science, Heartland in reality develops science fiction stories for a compassionate array of humanitarians, including oil, gas drilling and tobacco companies and big pharma.
High among the crank tank’s priorities is generating misinformation to combat “warmist” scientists, defined as any one of the tens of thousands who believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that anthropogenic activities are changing the global climate in at an alarming rate. However, the documents also reveal a Heart felt hope that they can begin pandering to the fracking industry soon.
Included in the key programs for this year is the creation of education curriculum from Kindergarten through High School to counteract the dangerous tendency of teachers to focus on actual facts**. Heartland plans to hire a former US department of energy employee to write the global warming debunking course. Heartland’s notorious anonymous donor has promised $100,000 for the project.
According to its own documents, Heartland expects to continue to raise money from the extreme right interests, “if our focus continues to align with their interests.” This means: we need to continue to turn out the kind of science fiction that corresponds to our clients’ business interests, as opposed to interests of the other residents of the planet.
Among its clients, Heartland serves (or has served) the U.S. Chamber or Commerce**, Koch Industries***, Microsoft, General Motors, Eli Lilly, SmithGlaxoKline, Altria (parent company of Philip Morris) and RJR Tobacco.
* The sound you hear is the Texas Board of Education opening their checkbooks.
**Itself a repository of cash received from companies who take their right to pollute and plunder as embedded in the Constitution as interpreted by Anton Scalia.
*** Koch Industries has apparently cancelled their $200,000 planned sponsorship, opening up the possibility that Heartland is even too slimy for them. And that means everyone at Heartland Institute for Thinking Up Big Lies is going to hell.
Nothing To Worry About As Drones Take to U.S. Skies
End Times Update Week of Feb 13, 2012
Also this week: Plastic Garbage Patch Where Sea Birds Go To Die • Monsanto Nailed By French Court • Alaska Ring Seal Plague • Mystery Epidemic in Central America
If You Aren’t Doing Anything Wrong, You Have Nothing To Worry About
With the help of the drone manufacturer’s lobby, Congress has directed the FAA to allow drones to use civil airspace. This opens up drone usage possibilities for both commercial and law enforcement in ways that have been either illegal or quasi-legal until now.
In our first 2020 Foresight Prophecy Service edition last year, we predicted that drones would be a major factor in 2020 civilization as the planet begins to resemble the scenario made popular in Blade Runner – and about on schedule. But things are moving faster than even our researchers imagined.
Only criminals have anything to fear from the coming drone proliferation. You’re not a criminal, are you? Or a gay adulterous liberal? Or anything like that?
There are lots of legitimate uses for drones, but there are also lots of very nefarious ones. In law enforcement, drones can save lives and bring in the bad guys. An interception of right wing anti-government nuts in South Dakota unquestionably saves lives. But the eternal question is: who are the bad guys and who gets to decide? Consider drones in the hands of the Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Texas, the East Haven, CT police force or any law enforcement in Louisiana.
What if the crime were being Mexican? What if the crime were being a liberal? What if Rick Santorum, Newt Gengrich or a similar screaming right wing fanatic gets elected president. Will gays or adulterers be rounded up? Will the penalties be, like, Old Testament?
Think that’s paranoid? Consider the careers of J. Edgar Hoover or Senator Joseph McCarthy. Hey doesn’t your wife’s tennis instructor have a BMW that looks like that?
Oceans Full of Our Plastic Crap Beginning To Take Their Toll
Several years ago, CatMap covered the giant, Texas-sized* swirling vortices of plastic and chemical sludge that are slowing choking the Ocean to death. These gyres (sometimes known as the Pacific garbage patch) are comprised of consumer crap in the form of BPA plastic bottles, foam cups, plastic bags and household chemicals. It takes decades to decompose, but in the meantime pollutes the seas and kills wildlife in a variety of horrible ways. That’s right macho iconoclasts, we know it’s a big ocean, but Texas is a big state.
 In this photo – not uncommon in the Pacific regions – an albatross has eaten so much plastic that it basically dies of starvation.
Unless the photo was staged by dangerous environmentalists who want to end the American way of life, then this Albatross actually filled its gullet full of plastic junk because it looked like food. If the liberals are doing it, they have a lot of help, because this scenario is all too common among ocean sea birds and other wildlife. The albatross is already endangered.
Chile Runs Out of Water As Worst Drought Ever Drags On
La Nina is at it again as Chile’s two year drought brings water levels in hydroelectric reservoirs to 40% of normal capacity. Not only is this natural disaster threatening grape and avocado crops and humans, it is also threatening output at the copper mines, which need more power to meet increased demand.
 Chile undergoes desertification
Although the drought is attributed to La Nina, the recurring Pacific climate pattern has been with us for tens of thousands of years. Chile is one of the countries most affected by the process of desertification, to a degree matched only by Sub-Saharan Africa. This is the second drought in four years.
Court Experts Establish Links to Nerve Damage From Monsanto Weedkiller
A court in Lyon, France found St. Louis seed engineering and poison manufacturer Monsanto guilty of causing a French farmer’s neurological problems. Grain farmer Paul Francois claims to have suffered memory loss, speech problems and headaches after exposure to Monsanto Lasso weedkiller. The court found there were not enough warnings provided by the company.
Only one of many such claims, it is the first in which Monsanto’s lawyers were unable to suppress evidence of a link between the poison** and illnesses among farmers using the product. Up until now, it was just one of those funny coincidences one finds wherever there are chemicals and pollutants.
Francois, the farmer in question, predicts that he is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of health damages. Forty-seven other cases have been recognized in the past decade. Lasso has now been banned by the EU.
For more on the wonderful world of Monsanto, be sure to visit the CatMap
Mystery Affliction Affecting Alaskan Sea Mammals
Alaskan ring seals are not doing well lately. Since July, large numbers have been washed ashore with unsightly hair loss, bleeding flippers, irritated skin around the nose and eyes. Since no virus has been discovered yet, scientists are seriously speculating that the cause is drifting radiation from the Fukushima nuke plant disaster. The symptoms are standard radiation sickness indicators and the Pt. Barrow coast in the direct path of radiation plume that are making their way around the world. It’s like “On the Beach” for arctic sea mammals.
 Alaskan Ringed Seal with hair loss and red eyes, classic symptoms of radiation poisoning
While U.S. authorities investigate, Japanese officials are preparing statements denying responsibility.
Chronic Kidney Disease Kills Fast
Since 2000, tens of thousands of workers in Nicaragua, El Salvador and elsewhere on the Pacific Coast of South America have died of an unpleasant affliction that attacks the kidneys.
There are two schools of thought regarding the cause. One is that the workers are exposed to environmental toxins such as pesticides and herbicides in their work. The other is that the victims work under horrible conditions and don’t drink enough water. The victims tend to be workers on the cane plantations, as well as some miners.
In February 2011, the United States helped defeat a proposal by El Salvador and other Central American nations to include Chronic Kidney Disease in a World Health Organization / United Nations program to battle chronic diseases in the Americas.
Wonder why they would do that? Seems un-American.
 CDC victim is buried
* We like to use Texas for this sort of metaphor, mostly because Rick Perry is full of crap.
** As one of the manufacturers of Agent Orange, Monsanto has the golden touch when it comes to mixing up poison.
Three Week Arctic Air Blast Kills Hundreds in Europe
End Times Weekend Update Feb 9, 2012
We know that no single extreme weather event proves dangerous climate change is a fact of the future* but there sure has been a lot of it around the globe lately*, don’t you think?
Now, with Europe in the midst of an extended winter cold wave with temperatures reaching -40F, liberal scientists at Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research are suggesting that the significant loss of sea ice that used to blanket the ocean north of Russia is affecting the climate of Europe in a bad way**.
The bitterly cold weather sweeping Britain and the rest of Europe has been linked by scientists with the ice-free seas of the Arctic, where global warming is exerting its greatest influence. The way it works is this: when the ice disappears, the ocean is exposed to the atmosphere, destabilizing the normal wind patterns. This causes an very easterly wind pattern that blows down into Europe, in this case killing people in Poland, Ukraine, Serbia, Bulgaria and other parts of the continent. In general, other scientists have observed that the Arctic Oscillation has been behaving strangely for the last decade.
Another possibility being discussed is the disruption of the Gulf Stream, the warm air current responsible for Europe not having a climate like Siberia (look at a map and note the latitude of Europe). Both of these phenomena have been predicted by earlier computer models.’
The climate science research budget at the Editorial Board international headquarters has been hurt by the economic inconveniences that have been going around, so we can’t absolutely prove our position on climate change. But we are deeply convinced that soon, we won’t have to prove it. You will believe.
* You can’t have “worst ever” droughts, floods, tornado attacks, land hurricanes and heat/cold events every couple of weeks without wondering if maybe something is wrong. The world’s largest insurance companies don’t wonder: they are raising premiums.
** Yes, we already know that it’s ironic that global warming is making it colder, so SHUT UP!
TO: President al-Assad
Syria
Dear Al,
As one president to another, let me assure you I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this. However, it appears that you are still fundamentally opposed to democratic reforms in your nation, to the point that you are willing to murder tens of thousands of your own citizens in order to stay in power. Not only is that un-American, but the fact is, this is starting to look bad for us too. So I’m going to roll the dice and do the right thing. This being an election year, it might even work out in my favor.
In other words, Al, I’m afraid the United States is going to have to make a unilateral move here in spite of the criticism that is probably going to come our way. What I’m saying is: You’re going to have to step down pretty much immediately or we’re going to take you out.
What we’ve done is to contact your rebel forces via private Facebook and Twitter accounts and suggest they leave town for a couple of days. Meantime, you’ll see that our nuclear powered aircraft carrier, the 100,000 ton U.S.S Nimitz is parked off the coast neat Beirut with about 90 F/A-18E/F Superhornets on board with your name on them.
Believe me, I didn’t come to this decision lightly: We need the Nimitz in the Gulf of Ormuz to save Iranian sailors from pirates. But I guess that will have to wait until next week.
By special courier, I’m sending an inventory of weapons, ordnance and aircraft onboard the Nimitz so you can think about how you want to approach this situation. Damascus is about 50 miles from the Mediterranean, Al, which – if my math is right – is roughly a 1 minute and 12 second trip for a cruise missile. So that means this particular boat is in a position to cause some serious discomfort to you and your remaining friends.
I’m going hope you take my suggestion and resign your office within a few seconds of receiving this note. Maybe get on the line with the Russians.
If that doesn’t convince you pretty fast, I’m going to have to send in a team of Navy Seals. You might think we don’t know where you are hiding, but I think we can find out.
Look, a drone! Ha, ha, just kidding (Michelle says I’m a little over the top sometimes).
I promised those guys a couple weeks off after that last mission, so they if they have to come in and get you they might be cranky. This is not to say they aren’t committed to the most professional conduct at all times, because of course they are. But sometimes things go awry in spite of the best laid plans. Look what happened to what’s his name in Pakistan when he stepped in front of those bullets. At least he didn’t end up like Moammar. It’s tragic how hostile your own people can be…
Trust me, I know.
Barak Obama
President of the United States
PS. I know the Russians are going to be pissed off, but as it turns out, those guys are still assholes even after glasnost.
That Bird Virus Is Popping Up All Over Southeast Asia
End Times Update Week of Jan Feb 6, 2012
BirdFlu Mutating As Humans and Chickens Die in Asia
Bird deaths as a result of the H5NI virus are now being reported in Vietnam’s Soc Trang province. The government had previously announced that the epidemic was over. The latest outbreak involves hundreds of chickens in three provinces. Health officials also warned that the new A/H5N1 strain has mutated, and will like continue to be passed to humans until a new vaccine has been developed. Two human fatalities have occurred so far in 2012 in the Mekong Delta.
 Make mine extra crispy
Meanwhile, A Mississippi State University researcher has uncovered the first molecular evidence linking live poultry markets in China to human H5N1 avian influenza. Professor Henry Wan claims to have finally confirmed the direct link between human infection and the H5N1 virus found in live poultry markets.
The bird flu virus is more or less believed to be transmitted only between birds and humans (except for the scary stuff they made in lab last year, but will make sure never gets out) so be circumspect in your relationships with poultry.
There is other good news: A year ago, the Guardian reported scientists have created genetically modified chickens that do not transmit bird flu to other chickens. The researchers inserted a gene into the test chicken that produces a decoy molecule that interrupts the reproduction of the virus. MAKE OURS EXTRA CRISPY!
WTF Update Week of Jan 30, 2012
Irukandji Coming To a Beach Near You • Taylor Energy Get Sued For 7 Year Leak • Mexican Drought Leaves 2 Million Without Water • Trucking Water Into Towns Near Austin • Tons of Toxic Metal Spill Into Chinese River Citizens
Chinese Seeking To Control Population Through Industrial Accidents?
China’s latest pollution scandal is a huge cadmium spill into the Longjiang River near the city of Hechi. After tons of the poisonous substance (found among other places in car batteries) were released, company and environmental officials delayed reporting the disaster for two weeks. The delay allowed citizens downstream to use the water for cooking and drinking, exposing them to a serious poison that causes kidney failure and or bone decay. The area has been the scene of repeated chemical spills, but authorities say that excessive government regulations would cost jobs.
Although it somewhat unfair to characterize billions of people in a single statement, we are nevertheless comfortable stating that the industrial classes of China really don’t give a rats ass who they poison or kill. There are so many others standing by.
 (above) Chinese Workers Fix Contaminated River With Chemicals
Hill Country Texas Towns Out of H20
Even the proximity to Rick Perry’s magical thinking resources in nearby Austin hasn’t helped Spicewood Beach and adjacent towns. The area has run so low on water that it is now trucked in four times a day. The drought – now somewhat alleviated in some parts of the state – was the worst ever, cost the state billions of dollars in livestock and agricultural losses. Spicewood Beach is one of thirteen public water systems across Texas that is are expected to run out of water in less than six months.
A pathetic Travis-ty of a lake
Mexico’s Worst Drought Ever is Killing the Marijuana Harvest – Now Are You Worried?
Yes, we know that weather patterns are cyclical, but stupidity seems to be a steady linear upward march. But how long can the so-called climate skeptics continue to pretend we are experiencing normal cycles when every continent is hosting “worst ever” drought and flood events every year? One of the planets worst current climate events is an extended drought that has virtually wiped out corn and bean harvests and even hurt the marijuana yield. Nearly 2 million cattle have died.
I should not have listened to Senor Perry!
Taylor Energy Finally Sued For Seven Year Leak Coverup
We understand that the oil companies’ new, even better, we’ll never have another leak technology has got things completely under control, and yet we remain confused about the Taylor Energy Co. wells that have been leaking in the Gulf since 2004. Now, they are being sued by Waterkeeper Alliance and other environmental agencies for being lyin’ scumbags.*
Approximately 7 years ago, one of Taylor’s platforms was damaged by Hurricane Ivan, along with 28 wells located 11 miles off the Louisiana Coast. Although not as popular as Katrina, Ivan generated waves up to 100 feet high, which caused an underwater mudslide. The platform was thrown 700 yards away from its original location.
Oil has been bubbling to the surface ever since, as documented by SkyTruth and SouthWings.
Irukandji jellyfish move into Turkish coastal waters and threaten swimmers in Queensland
Ahmet Nuri Tarkan, president of Muğla University’s Fisheries Department, warns that a species of potentially lethal jellyfish is moving into Turkey’s coastal waters. Because he doesn’t watch Fox News or listen to internationally respected climatologists such as John Shimkus, Tarkan attributes the invasion migration to global warming.
Read this story in the Turkish Daily News
And just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, the sometimes deadly Irukandji things are blanketing the seas off Pilbara in Queensland, Australia.
 Swim at your own risk “I’ve never seen anything like it before, it looked like a blanket of jellyfish that kept on going, ” said a local fisherman.
This species is much smaller than your garden variety Portuguese Person-O-War** but their sting is far more dangerous and sometimes deadly.
Irukandji are present in the North West all year round, although they are more predominant from November through to April.
CatMap IS YOUR INTERNATIONAL JELLYFISH INVASION HEADQUARTERS! VISIT OUR JELLYFISH REPORT.
* The actual suit is worded differently.
** Formerly: Man-O-War
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Fun Filled Free Android App Developed by Versaggi Information Systems | Maastricht, Netherlands
Bhopal 1984 Hall of Fame Toxic Disaster Still Isn’t Cleaned Up
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CatastropheMap has contributed its wildly popular Toxic Apocalypse feature to a newly launched FREE Android App. Available at Google Apps, the Disaster Events mobile utility allows you to click on several different icon feeds according to your area of special fascination: Pollution Alerts, Earthquakes, BioHazards and so on. The live feeds let you stay abreast of events – such as oil spills and natural disasters that only affect foreigners – that never or rarely get reported in the American news media.
The Toxic Apocalypse section takes you to some of the most wondrous places on earth: amazing not because of their natural beauty, but because of how toxic and/or otherwise messed up they are. By us.
In addition to classic sites such as Bhopal, Chernobyl and Love Canal, Toxic Apocalypse includes under the radar locations such as the Berkeley Pit in Butte, MT, a mining waste lake so acidic it will eat through aluminum boats. Or places where people no longer live such as Picher, OK, evacuated permanently in 2009 due to epic lead pollution. There’s more…! Incredibly obscure Cold War relics such as Kazakhstan’s Atomic Lake, a radioactive landscape left over from an era when both Americans and Soviets thought nuclear blasts could be used as construction short cuts.
Except for that darn radiation.
Never heard of ‘em? Download the Disaster Events App absolutely free while supplies last!
The Catastrophe News You Somehow Missed: Weekend WTF Update Jan 28, 2012
BP Coverup Exposed • Dimock PA fracked out of drinking water • Climate Report from NASA’s James Hansen • Palm Springs Sinks As Golf Courses Suck Up the Water • Monsanto and Dow Team Up to Profit From the Mutant Lifeforms They Created
Palm Spring Sinks as Golf Courses Suck Up the Aquifers
Oh, Noooooo! Parts of the Coachella Valley have sunk more than a foot in a decade as groundwater was sucked up to feed a thirsty economy. Over a hundred twenty golf courses and rampant development are sucking up the water faster than it replenishes.
Be sure to read the quote from the whiny golf course manager.
Read the Associated Press story.
NASA’s James Hansen and Other Scientists Have More Bad News About Climate Change
The short version: The Hansen and his collaborators conclude that extreme heats waves, such as last summer in Texas and Oklahoma and Moscow in 2010, are becoming much more frequent (we knew that). Although these guys are contradicting prominent climate scientists such as James Inhofe and Rick Perry, they seem pretty confident.
Read the story at New Climate Dice at Columbia.edu
Monsanto and Dow Cement Their Holy Alliance With Pesticide Pact
It’s like Mephistopheles had a twin brother and named him Dow. Having initiated the super weed and super pest nightmare scenario predicted by scientists, Dow and Monsanto have levered the disaster into a way to sell more pesticide. Trust us: these guys make the oil companies look like Mary Poppins.
Read the story at Mother Jones.
Wow! Who Knew? BP Covered Up The Rate of Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
An ongoing lawsuit has exposed an April 2010 e-mail in which BP told a whopper about the amount of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico.*
Story from the Times-Picayune.
Can’t Get Drinking Water in Dimock PA.
 No water today folks We’re not sure if the town is a candidate for a Toxic Apocalypse site yet, but the people of Dimock PA have run out of water due to methane gas extraction activities that contaminated 18 area drinking water wells.** Cabot Oil and Gas Corp was banned from drilling in a 9-square-mile area around the village in 2010. The EPA was going to truck in water, but they changed their mind. Not today, Boy.
Story at Huffington Post
Today’s Quiz: After battling the EPA for decades, the fine citizens whom run First Energy are closing six coal plants that have been spewing mercury and carbon dioxide into the air and water and killing fish by the millions.
Here’s the question: are they taking this step because they see how wrong they have been, or because government regulations finally made it unprofitable to operate the dinosaurs?
* Since BP has now been given permission to drill again, we can assume the government has determined this serial spilling oil outfit has been rehabilitated. We bet they even promised.
** Cabot Oil & Gas Corp says the area was already contaminated. It’s just a coincidence that the problems began after the fracking began. Note in the comments Huffington Post blog comments how several people point out that methane isn’t poisonous. But it is flammable, init?
Slaughterhouse dumping pig blood is exposed by private drone camera
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Red river of blood shown on drone camera images. No problem, it all ends up in the Gulf of Mexico, where it doesn’t hurt anything but shrimp.
While the pollution aspects of this story stand on their own, we also direct your attention to CatMap’s exclusive 2020 Foresight Prophecy Service, which predicts conditions on the planet in the year 2020. In earlier postings, we have focused on drones as a technology that will be a game changer across the board in the near future, but we now note that the pacer is faster than we ever anticipated. |
Any story that combines drones and bio-waste pollution makes our day, but this one is over the top. As reported by Fox affiliate KDFW-TV** Jan 20, a criminal investigation was launched into a bright red river of pig’s blood flowing out of Columbia Packing Company in suburban Dallas. The underground pipe was dumping the blood into Cedar Creek, which in turn empties into the Trinity River.
However, no one seems to have noticed this swine flue*** leakage until a local drone hobbyist launched his UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) and began photographing the landscape below****. Once he reported the blood red ribbon flowing through a quiet south Dallas neighborhood to the Dallas County Health Department, the authorities served a search warrant on the slaughterhouse. There they discovered that there was indeed a secret underground pipe and that it did indeed contain the life fluids of recently deceased swine. It turns out, even Texans get pissed off about toxic bio-waste flowing through the ‘hood. Does it seem like maybe someone might have known about the problem before the drone discovered it?*****
In response to the criminal investigation now underway, Columbia Packing Company issued a statement saying they were “surprised”. Surprised? Some nefarious third party obviously snuck into the facilities and buried that pipe…perhaps a schoolboy prank. However, it is fair to note the company was cited and suspended in 2008 and 2009 for inhumane slaughtering practices. A local alderman thought there might be some issues, but this is Texas land of free market forces so powerful that even J.R. Ewing would take a step back.
The plant remains open while the Dallas County Health Department, the EPA, USDA, Texas Parks and Wildlife and various prosecutors conduct investigations. Where the pig blood is currently being directed has not been reported. Perhaps they will build pig blood impoundments similar to those they use to store coal and aluminum smelting waste.
Speaking of swine, the USDA – under your radar but not ours – is proposing that the poultry industry be given more leeway for self-inspection******. They’ve certainly proven themselves great corporate citizens so far, so let’s allow the Fox to inspect the hen house and save some taxpayer money. Every dollar spent on food safety might be better spent on oil and agriculture subsidies.
We say: If you can’t trust a meat packer, who can you trust?
* A lot of things aren’t kosher in Texas general and Dallas in particular, but we need another website for that. Maybe the presidential candidate Mr. Perry can proclaim a prayer weekend to improve environmental oversight.
** Our original source for this story was Fox News 4 Dallas, a local affiliates. Most local FOX stations are not as evil as the Murdoch Misinformation Monster3.
***Yes, that is a pun.
****Although the drone owner (”droner” among hobbyists) is evidently keeping a low profile, the drone itself seems to be a cross between a military Predator and those RC airplanes the men fly at the forest preserve fields.
*****We predict that drones will discover a lot of problems once they really begin to proliferate.
*****But only until they need glasses. |
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(The satellites don't lie)
Desdemona Despaire
"Blogging the End of the World"
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