Privatized Water: The Writing is on the Wall
Italy's Chamber of Deputies in Rome passed into law this week (by a vote of 302 to 263) this asinine deal which allows private investment in public utilities, including water. The Minister of European Affairs, Andrea Ronchi, who wrote the bill, assured the public that water rates wouldn't rise, that privatization would help utilities afford repairs to leaking pipelines and that the government would monitor the water sector. What most people don't realize is that the buffoon PM, Silvio Berlusconi, received a vote of confidence called to facilitate the passage of a bill allowing private firms to buy stakes in public utilities. Berlusconi's ruling majority won by 320 votes to 270 (i

Pot Luck
Pot Luck is an open thread...

Woman In Labor Won't Leave Food Line
Just another reminder of the tragic state of hunger in America these days - Anchorage -  On a day when hundreds of people flocked to Central Lutheran Church in Anchorage for all the Thanksgiving fixings, one woman in line stood out: She was pregnant, in labor and wasn't leaving without her turkey. [...] Budahl told him to bring the pregnant woman inside. She was breathing through contractions, he said. "Shouldn't you be in the hospital?" Budahl asked. "She said, 'I need this Thanksgiving basket. I do. I do. I do. If you don't get it today, you don'

Must Read Book: Hoodwinked
In Hoodwinked, John Perkins exposes the rotten core of a system that we here on this blog have been chipping away at around the edges. The manifestations of the problem come in our lack of a health care system, our unjust, pollution-based food system and its failure to nourish us, the wars we are fighting, the terrorism we've experienced, the recent coup in Honduras and the U.S.'s failure to take decisive action to restore the democratically elected ruler to power there, the fact that the U.S. spends half of its budget on defense (more than every other country on earth combined), and more. What's at the heart of this? Corporatocracy. Rule of, by, and for multinational c

Would You Like Some Frankenrice With Your Chinese Takeout?
China just approved genetically modified rice. That brings them up to a number of approved GMOs: rice, corn, cotton, tomatoes, and papaya. Here are the facts on the new rice: It is Bt rice, meaning that it produces its own pesticide While the Chinese claim the rice will reduce pesticide use by 80%, that projection fails to consider that the rice will be producing its own pesticide. There will most likely be a reduction in additional pesticides sprayed on the rice, but that does not necessarily translate to a reduction in pesticides once you add in the Bt produced by the rice itself. Chi