Tuesday, December 26, 2017
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Global warming
For at least three decades scientists and environmental activists have
been warning that the world is on the verge of a global warming “apocalypse”
that will flood coastal cities, tear up roads and bridges with mega-storms and
bring widespread famine and misery to much of the world.
The only solution, they say, is to rid the world of fossil fuels — coal,
natural gas and oil — that serve as the pillars of modern society. Only quick,
decisive global action can avert the worst effects of manmade climate change,
warn international bodies like the United Nations, who say we only have decades
left — or even less!
Of course, human civilization has not collapsed, despite decades of
predictions that we only have years left to avert disaster. Ten years ago, the
U.N. predicted we only had “as little as eight years left to avoid a
dangerous global average rise of 2C or more.”
This failed prediction, however, has not stopped the U.N. and others
from issuing more apocalyptic statements.
To celebrate nearly three decades of dire predictions, The Daily Caller
News Foundation put together this list of some of the most severe doomsday
prophecies made by scientists, activists and politicians:
1. Apocalyptic warnings on repeat
A group of 1,700 scientists and experts signed a letter 25 years ago
warning of massive ecological and societal collapse if nothing was done to curb
overpopulation, pollution and, ultimately, the capitalist society in which we
live today.
The Union of Concerned Scientists put out a second letter earlier
this year, once again warning of the dire consequences of global warming and
other alleged ecological ills. Now numbering 15,000, the group warns “soon it
will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory, and time is
running out.”
“We must recognize, in our day-to-day lives and in our governing
institutions, that Earth with all its life is our only home,” the scientists
and experts warned.
It’s a terrifying warning — if you ignore the fact that none of their
1992 warning has come to fruition.
2. The planet will be “uninhabitable” by the end of the century
New York Magazine writer David Wallace-Wells published a
7,000-word article claiming global warming could make Earth “uninhabitable” by
“the end of this century.”
Wallace-Wells’s article warned of terrors, like “Heat Death,” “Climate
Plagues,” “Permanent Economic Collapse” and “Poisoned Oceans.”
“Indeed, absent a significant adjustment to how billions of humans
conduct their lives, parts of the Earth will likely become close to
uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable, as soon as the end of
this century,” Wallace-Wells wrote.
3. Prince Charles’s global warming deadline passed…and nothing happened
Prince Charles famously warned in July 2009 that humanity had only 96
months to save the world from “irretrievable climate and ecosystem collapse,
and all that goes with it.” That deadline has passed, and the prince has
not issued an update to when the world needs to be saved.
Though the recently-released “Paradise Papers” show Charles
lobbied U.K. lawmakers to enact policies that benefited his estate’s investment
in a Bermuda company that does sustainable forestry. So, there’s that.
4. ‘Ice Apocalypse’ Now
Liberal writer and climate scientist Eric Holthaus claimed manmade
global warming would set off the “ice apocalypse” at a pace “too quickly for
humanity to adapt.”
Holthaus warned the wholesale collapse of two Antarctic glaciers — Pine
Island and Thwaites — could happen sooner than previously believed, resulting
in “flooding coastal cities and creating hundreds of millions of climate
refugees.” Sounds terrible, but his conclusions aren’t really backed up by the
science.
“I think his article is too pessimistic: that it overstates the
possibility of disaster. Too soon, too certain,” Tamsin Edwards, a scientist
who’s studied Antarctica, wrote in The Guardian about Holthaus’s
article.
5. 2015 is the ‘last effective opportunity’ to stop catastrophic
warming
World leaders meeting at the Vatican issued a statement saying
that 2015 was the “last effective opportunity to negotiate arrangements that
keep human-induced warming below 2-degrees [Celsius].”
Pope Francis wants to weigh in on global warming, and is expected to
issue an encyclical saying basically the same thing. Francis reiterated that
2015 is the last chance to stop massive warming.
But what he should really say is that the U.N. conference is the “last”
chance to cut a deal to stem global warming…since last year when the U.N. said
basically the same thing about 2014’s climate summit.
6. France’s foreign minister said we only have “500 days” to stop
“climate chaos”
When Laurent Fabius met with Secretary of State John Kerry on May
13, 2014 to talk about world issues he said “we have 500 days to avoid
climate chaos.”
Ironically at the time of Fabius’ comments, the U.N. had scheduled a
climate summit to meet in Paris in December 2015 — some 565 days after his
remarks. Looks like the U.N. is 65 days too late to save the world.
7. Former President Barack Obama is the last chance to stop global
warming
When Obama made the campaign promise to “slow the rise of the oceans,”
some environmentalists may have taken him quite literally.
The United Nations Foundation President Tim Wirth told Climatewire
in 2012 that Obama’s second term was “the last window of opportunity” to impose
policies to restrict fossil fuel use. Wirth said it’s “the last chance we have
to get anything approaching 2 degrees Centigrade,” adding that if “we don’t do
it now, we are committing the world to a drastically different place.”
Even before that, then-National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Goddard Space Flight Center head James Hansen warned in 2009 that
Obama only “has four years to save Earth.”
8. Remember when we had “hours” to stop global warming?
World leaders met in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2009 to potentially hash out
another climate treaty. That same year, the head of Canada’s Green Party wrote
that there was only “hours” left to stop global warming.
“We have hours to act to avert a slow-motion tsunami that could destroy
civilization as we know it,” Elizabeth May, leader of the Greens in
Canada, wrote in 2009. “Earth has a long time. Humanity does not. We need
to act urgently. We no longer have decades; we have hours. We mark that in
Earth Hour on Saturday.”
9. United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown said there was only 50
days left to save Earth
The year 2009 was a bad time for global warming predictions. That year
Brown warned there was only “50 days to save the world from global warming,”
the BBC reported. According to Brown there was “no plan B.”
Brown has been booted out of office since then.
10. The U.N.’s top climate scientist said in 2007 we only had four years
to save the world
Rajendra Pachauri, the former head of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change said in 2007 that if “there’s no action before 2012,
that’s too late.”
“What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future.
This is the defining moment,” he said.
Well, it’s 2017 and no new U.N. climate treaty has been presented. The
only thing that’s changed since then is that Pachauri was forced to resign earlier
this year amid accusations he sexually harassed multiple female coworkers.
11. Environmentalists warned in 2002 the world had a decade to go green
Environmentalist write George Monbiot wrote in the UK Guardian that
within “as little as 10 years, the world will be faced with a choice: arable
farming either continues to feed the world’s animals or it continues to feed
the world’s people. It cannot do both.”
About 930 million people around the world were undernourished in 2002,
according to U.N. data. By 2014, that number shrank to 805 million. Sorry,
Monbiot.
12. Global warming apocalypse 1980s edition
The U.N. was already claiming in the late 1980s that the world had only
a decade to solve global warming or face the consequences.
The San Jose Mercury News reported June 30, 1989 that a “senior
environmental official at the United Nations, Noel Brown, says entire nations
could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if global warming
is not reversed by the year 2000.”
That prediction didn’t come true 17 years ago, and the U.N. is sounding
the same alarm today.
Thursday, April 7, 2016
BEAR EFFICIENCY
These pictures are said to have been taken by a
guy from Grande Cache, Alberta, 1.5 hours south of Grande Prairie, by the
Bareland River on Highway 40.
Take a look at the time frame in the bottom right-hand corner of
each picture ... notice the time stamp.
It took him just ten minutes to pick
her up, take her to dinner, feed her a terrific meal and then get laid.
Is this guy good or what?
Monday, March 7, 2016
PEMEX overweight
Imagine a chubby guy in love
with hot dogs, hamburgers and pizzas that is fed up with his rashers and determined,
he shares his personal diet to lose a few pounds.
Starting today, I’ll
drink diet coke only, I’ll sleep eight hours, I'll be 4 hours a day in front of
the TV only and I’ll think about only in healthy things.
As the kid in the TV adds,
you sure would ask the chubby guy, hey and the hotdogs, the hamburgers and the pizzas,
dad?
I thought that when
listening on the radio to new named Pemex director Jose Antonio Gonzalez,
talking about the savings plan of the under a lot of problems oil company:
"What we are talking
about, is not setting staff itself. Certainly it will be part of the process. I
do not discard it, but we have not defined it yet, either in what place or in
what amount. But we will always work hand to hand with the union and respecting
the worker’s rights."
No, wow, I just have only
one question, Mr. González: and the hotdogs, the hamburgers and the pizzas, dad?
If the obese Pemex want
to lose weight there’s no turning back, you have to cut staff and benefits.
Regarding the overstaffing,
Sergio Sarmiento has recently made an excellent comparison between Pemex and
Statoil. While the Norwegian company has a sixth part of Pemex workers, in 2014
it sold only 26% less than the Mexican fatty.
Another example: Chevron.
The American giant produced a daily average of 3 million barrels in 2014, 25%
more than Pemex; and what about its employees? At the end of 2014 Chevron had
less than half of our fatty did (47%, in fact).
Due to the oil crisis
during 2015 Chevron’s revenue plummeted 35%, and of course, it already has cut 12%
of its workforce (7,500 workers). Now it employs only 42% of the employees Pemex
has.
Let me tell you this,
between January and September 2015, the accumulated income of Pemex has fallen
almost 38% compared to 2014 (in dollars) and although it has announced that the
goal is to cut just over 10,000 workers, many of these “savings” are only in retirements.
Here comes another big
problem of our Mexican fatty: the union benefits of Pemex. I’ll just highlight
some beauties. It’s crazy:
a) Vacation Days: From day
one and up to 10 years, 21 paid days. After 10 years, 30 days, and of course, I
have to mention the vacation bonus: 186%, you and I receive 25%.
b) Yearly bonus: 60 days.
For you and me: only 15.
c) Settlement: 5 months
40 days per year worked.
d) Waiver: If the
employee has worked for more than 15 years, 40 days per year worked! Really? I
cannot believe it...
e) Retirements:
· 25 years or 55 years of
age: 80% of salary.
· 30 years or 60 years of
ag: 90% of salary.
· 35 years without age
limit: 100% of salary.
· All retirees receive
medical care, inflation adjustments and yearly bonus of 60 days.
· After dying there are
four types of postmortem pensions: starting from 3 years with 100% of salary
retirement to lifetime. In addition, 15 years of medical care for dependents.
f) Up to two loans. The
first at an annual rate of 1% and of 5% second. Oh and a single aid for
remodeling and other items up to $ 125.513.40.
And I am leaving the most
incredible fact for last. Each worker is entitled, on average, to receive the
equivalent of $300.00 pesos per day of gasoline if they show a commercial
invoice of a vehicle. If this provision were to apply to the 135,000 workers of
Pemex, the spending would be $40.5 million pesos every day, $14.782 million
pesos per year!
Oh, they also receive a
daily average of $70.00 pesos as a small help for gas, about $9.5 million pesos
per day, or $3.450 million pesos per year!
These are the rashers of
Pemex: an excess of workers and their irrational benefits. No private company
would survive this way.
Pemex has done it due to
the economic boom of oil prices that we have had for decades. The consequence
of its fatness was noted in its inefficiency and ineffectiveness to explore and
thus sustain or grow its production volume, as all the other oil companies in
the world do.
But there is no doubt
that, in the lean times you and I we'll have to maintain PEMEX. That is why the
Government is already creating its "Fobaproa" (Banking Fund for the
Protection of Savings) for Pemex in order to rescue its pension crisis. And who
will pay the bill?
José Antonio González is preceded
by a reputation for being rational and efficient. We better. There is no other
way: In order for Pemex to lose weight it has to leave the hotdogs, the hamburgers
and the pizzas. PEMEX must cut its workforce in a minimum of 50 % and it has to
use large scissors to cut down its benefits, or not?
In a few words...
"My doctor told me,
stop having intimate dinners for four if you are to eat dinner by yourself."
Orson Welles
Thursday, November 26, 2015
The Origin of Thanksgiving's Turkey Dinner
Even though this tradition is merely from the
Unites States, its gastronomic origin goes way back to the ancient Aztec
Culture.
Although this animal is from the American
Continent, it was re-introduced into the United States through England.
The most representative dish of the Thanksgiving
dinner in the United States, without a doubt is the turkey; however, this food is original
from Mexico, where, in Pre-Hispanic times, it was consumed by the Aztecs.
Even though it is a completely American tradition,
the reason for eating turkey during Thanksgiving has its origins in the trading
originated after the discovery of America.
It is well know that several foods “invaded” the
world after Christopher Columbus arrived to the “New World”, among them, corn,
tobacco, chocolate and of course turkeys; in Mexico they are also known as “Guajolotes”
(waholotes could be its closest pronunciation in English).
But how did this bird became the central dish for
the Americans in one of the most important celebrations?
According to an article published in The Collegian,
a publication belonging to California State University, Campus Fresno, the
Pre-Hispanic bird, called “hueholoti” (pronounced in English weholoti), was
transported from Mexico to Spain in order to motivate its commercialization in
Europe.
Then it arrived to what was the Ottoman Empire, nowadays
a great part of what we know as Turkey, where the animal became chubbier and
meatier, thanks to their farming practices the people from that region had
developed.
Later, in 1540 the “Turkish turkey” arrived to Western
Europe and to England and around 70 years after that, it was brought to America
again, says the article which had the collaboration of the Historian Brad
Jones.
It was precisely in 1614 when the bird arrived to
Jamestown, Virginia and where the first group of Englishmen settled in the US
in 1607.
A Century Old Tradition.
The first Thanksgiving dinner in the United States
was held in 1621, when the Pilgrims, British Citizens, held a celebration with
the Wampanoag Tribe Indians, in Plymouth,
Massachusetts.
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
When a fighter trains to face the best and the best trains for another fight...
There’s a difference, of course, with this latest redirect in fighting history.
The thing about Georges St-Pierre’s loss to Matt Serra back in the day was that he didn’t appear on Good Morning America to announce the fight to begin with. Nor was he the first male to hold a UFC title, nor the catalyst for the very existence of the 170-pound division. It wasn’t him who gave Serra the platform. He wasn’t undefeated, nor considered by the wider world at large as novelistic and invincible. He didn’t have Beyoncé quoting his inspirational utterances during concerts, or host SportsCenter. There was no Jimmy Kimmel, or WWE cameos, or New York Times best-selling books. His words didn’t send a ripple effect through pop culture. He didn’t alter thinking on body image and sexuality, nor did he crash through gender barriers. He wasn’t a pioneer or a savior of the sport. People (outside of Canada) didn’t cry in hysteria when he entered a room.
No, when Matt Serra caught him, it just went to show that anything is possible in a fight.
When Ronda Rousey got knocked out by Holly Holm on Saturday night in Melbourne, it was possibility itself that took the blow. This was the brightest star in the game being dimmed before our very eyes. It was profoundly different. All the falsehoods of immortality came crashing back down not just on Rousey as she fell to the canvas, but on the mesmerized public. The collective shock was not just in the historical aspect of what was playing out, but in the sheer gullibility of having let ourselves get so carried away. Greatness will never stand for long in perfect conditions. We know this. Yet it was fun to ignore!
And of course, sports are at their best when they reach such levels. When the narratives bend reality, and people share in an illusion for as long as it lasts.
Everybody knows there’s no such thing as invincibility, especially in prize fighting, but with Ronda we were willing to play dumb. This was a different kind of star, leagues ahead of her contemporaries. She’s been nothing other than intoxicating since she inherited the UFC title after the Strike-force buy out. Joe Rogan said she wasn’t a once in a generation fighter, but once in an ever fighter. He almost cried when she appeared on his podcast when he got to actualizing her historical value.
The spell extended to his partner, Mike Goldberg, who right in the middle of Holm’s dismantling of Rousey, cried out awkwardly, "it takes a lot of energy to be a rock star!" Such was the blissful oblivion of those six minutes before Rousey fell. It must have been a long, long flight back to the States for UFC executives and staff. You have to suspect the profound nature of all that was lost was a slow dawning, showing up in nauseating wave upon wave. There goes this, there goes that. Holy sh*t. Rousey is no longer the perfect storm. She can never be marketed the same way again.
The spell extended to his partner, Mike Goldberg, who right in the middle of Holm’s dismantling of Rousey, cried out awkwardly, "it takes a lot of energy to be a rock star!" Such was the blissful oblivion of those six minutes before Rousey fell. It must have been a long, long flight back to the States for UFC executives and staff. You have to suspect the profound nature of all that was lost was a slow dawning, showing up in nauseating wave upon wave. There goes this, there goes that. Holy sh*t. Rousey is no longer the perfect storm. She can never be marketed the same way again.
A perfectly executed game plan was all it took to humanize Rousey, who was on the cusp of entering the pantheon of all-time sports greats. If she has already crossed over, time will tell. But Holm now holds the belt, which was an idea that was unthinkable in the lead up. She stayed mobile and punished Rousey’s aggression, of which there was plenty. When the time came to unload, she did. Holm was brilliant. She was everything people thought she was not poised, opportunistic, superior. That head kick will last forever.
And the devastation of that head kick changed everything. The women’s bantamweight division is now open for business again. The warden is out. There was rejoicing from everybody from Cristiane Justino to Miesha Tate to Amanda Nunes afterwards. The small picture took on a bunch of color.
UFC 200, a foregone conclusion for Rousey’s next title defense in July, is now hanging out there as her date of redemption. Even when she gets her next crack at it, the life-blood of her transcendence — that she is the fight game’s nonpareil — is no longer in play. How does she respond? That’s the new drama, but it’s going to be different. The diehards will care more about her response than the casuals, who’ve now seen the unthinkable become thinkable. The essence of her big picture allure now belongs to Melbourne. It can’t be the same again. Things will narrow.
Not that there wasn’t plenty of poetry at UFC 193. There is inspiration in seeing an underdog like Holm show up in her best form at the exact moment when everything is heightened beyond measure. If Rousey inspires young girls to be like her, Holm inspires the ones who’ve been daydreaming of beating her.
And it’s hard not to appreciate the UFC’s matchmaking model in all of this. Sean Shelby and Joe Silva book challengers that they believe can beat the champion. They don’t protect anybody, at least not for long. This isn’t boxing. The UFC makes its champions vulnerable at all times. It’s in that gamble that the essence of those letters stands out. The UFC sells vulnerability as much as it does invincibility. Holm was booked to face Rousey.
Not that there wasn’t plenty of poetry at UFC 193. There is inspiration in seeing an underdog like Holm show up in her best form at the exact moment when everything is heightened beyond measure. If Rousey inspires young girls to be like her, Holm inspires the ones who’ve been daydreaming of beating her.
And it’s hard not to appreciate the UFC’s matchmaking model in all of this. Sean Shelby and Joe Silva book challengers that they believe can beat the champion. They don’t protect anybody, at least not for long. This isn’t boxing. The UFC makes its champions vulnerable at all times. It’s in that gamble that the essence of those letters stands out. The UFC sells vulnerability as much as it does invincibility. Holm was booked to face Rousey.
Sunday, November 1, 2015
The herd of pigs that control Mexico
In this poor Mexico, so full
of corrupt politicians, thieves dressed in nice suits and vested with public
office; partners with the most dangerous drug traffickers and kidnappers of
Mexico and of the world; each and every one of them come out of a corrupted "caste";
they arise from the deepest sewers of society and they are proud to show their
shit adorned with jewelry and first class clothing.
They have never known
what it means to work; they spend their lives "doing business"
through family contacts also covered with shit.
They study in the best
universities in Mexico and abroad, they affiliate to parties by
"tradition" not by conviction, they do it to the sewer to which their
father belong; to the same sewer they plunge unceremoniously, not because they
"feel their ideology" as theirs but because they know that within
this cesspool the "best" businesses are hatched!!!
They care neither for the
country nor its people, what catches their attention is walking around showing all
the shit that covers them, "adorning" it in excesses; of alcohol,
drugs, parties, trips, properties, relationships with drug dealers, cars and superfluous
things!!!
They are a herd of pigs
emerged from the sewers, which are disguised as a pack of hungry dogs to take
everything, no matter how or where, what matters is to share what they find!!!
They participate in different
sewers (political parties) and they do it following the footsteps of their herds
of predecessors, not by conviction but by "opportunity"; they move
into the manure easily, because is in the sewers where they have grown.
When they "grow up"
and depending on the thickness of the layer of shit around their parents, they climb
different "positions" within politics; there are even some of them who
reach the Presidency of the Republic and they are not interested in the
country, nor in Mexican citizens, or anything other than getting rich out of
the labor of the citizens!!!
Their businesses, only
privilege those who emerge from the sewers; sewers where they smeared large
layers of excrement that covers them and that serves them as identification!!!
These slags covered with
excrement, become Congress members, Senators, Secretaries of State, political
leaders, union leaders, Governors, Mayors, Trustees, Aldermen, "social
representatives" and all kinds of parasites who are only looking forward
to do dirty businesses, to raise their hands when it is convenient to them, to negotiate
with criminals and to plunder the country !!!
Their intention is to reach
to the top of the mountain of shit, and from there, to distribute everything that
can be stolen; their goal is to do business with another large herd of pigs
dressed up with layers and layers of manure like they do, but that they live in
the corporate sector, where they handle and cover all the dirty businesses they
do, covering their manure "partners"; both sides are concerned only in
continuing doing business with their peers, regardless of Mexico’s continue
sinking into shit!!!
Sadly, most of the society,
is more concerned about receiving the “alms” that these pigs give them
disguised as social programs; the citizens are more concerned about finding out
the outcome of the soap opera, the results of the All Stars Soccer Team; they
are concerned in watching what is going on in Big Brother and many more stupid
TV Shows than into finishing this corruption chain!!!
It's sad, really sad,
that Mexico is sinking more and more and nobody cares...
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