06.08.2013

Links August 2013


Blistering heat still. Every day I have to water the garden early in the morning (from 6 AM to 8 AM), otherwise all the berry bushes, herbs, fruit trees, and other plants will die. The rain water barrels are empty, I have to use costly tab water from the municipality. In the sink and in the shower cabin are buckets now to collect all the wastewater which is not (or only slightly) contaminated with detergents.

Garden work is possible till 11 AM, because the large trees of the forest provide shadow, but then I have to seek rescue in the house. Eating, reading, cleaning, siesta. From 6 PM till sunset I work again in the garden.
Well, it is not difficult to understand that such a heatwave significantly reduces productivity. All the gibberish talk about lazy Africans and Arabs. If we caucasians would live near the equator, we would be probably achieve even less than they do.

Why don’t they use air conditioning?
Because they are poor, they cannot afford one.
They are poor because they are lazy and don’t work hard!
Wrong, they are poor because they are not citizens of the colonial powers who steal and rob the worlds riches since centuries.

I don’t have an air conditioning unit though I could afford it. I moved one computer and one guitar into the basement, where it has 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit). Very pleasant, compared to the 28 degrees Celsius (83 degrees Fahrenheit) in the first floor.

If the heatwave continues, I will setup a bed in the basement.



Imperial news:
http://www.testosteronepit.com/home/2013/7/25/the-worldwide-surveillance-and-privacy-war-which-you-already.html
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/new-nsa-leaks-describe-total-surveillance-system-xkeyscore-a-914244.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/german-intelligence-sends-massive-amounts-of-data-to-the-nsa-a-914821.html
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/08/nsas-internet-taps-can-find-systems-to-hack-track-vpns-and-word-docs/
http://www.storyleak.com/everyone-now-terrorist-us-government/
Who could have had an interest in silencing Michael Hastings and Barnaby Jack? Even if one doesn’t like to indulge in conspiracy speculations, this could be hot!
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/56636
http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/202411/michael-hastings-may-have-been-killed-by-the-us-government/
http://www.infowars.com/eye-witness-to-michael-hastings-murder-says-body-not-charred-beyond-recognition/
http://rt.com/usa/fbi-lawsuit-michael-hastings-753/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2383908/Was-nerd-killed-discovering-murder-pacemaker.html
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jul/29/barnaby-jack-hacker-cause-of-death
http://www.ibtimes.com/barnaby-jack-conspiracy-theories-flood-reddit-twitter-following-death-celebrated-atm-hacker-1363025


Every political leader, who tries to redistribute the wealth of a nation more justly, is vilified by Western media, is denounced, castigated, slandered, characterized as preposterous, a tyrant, a fascist, a “mad man”.

Because the redistribution of wealth sets a dangerous (dangerous for the rich elites) precedent!

So it happened to Robert Mugabe, who enacted in the 1990s one of the few successful land distributions, after the “willing buyer-willing seller” based land reform program failed.

How will history see the achievements of Robert Mugabe, compared to Nelson Mandela, who arranged a change of political representation while letting the economic exploitative system unchanged?

If you don’t like the outcome of a democratic election, dispute it! If you don’t like the leadership of a country, get rid of it (Lumumba, Gaddafi). How do Congolese and Libyans fare compared to the people of Zimbabwe?
http://www.modernghana.com/news/479773/1/afrocentricity-international-co.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-23554443
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-23565126
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/03/zimbabwe-morgan-tsvangirai





Continuous ethnic cleansing (waiting for the Western media outcry….)
http://www.intifada-palestine.com/2013/08/house-demolitions-zionisms-constant-background-noise/

Sweat Wendy is the member of the cat family who suffers most from the heat. She is a long-haired cat, one could even rightfully say, she is an extra long-haired cat. The vet told me, that she has not seen a cat with that much hair for a long time, if ever.

Wendy cannot shed her fur and most of the day she is resting on the couch in the sitting room, waiting for cooler times. She has not discovered the basement yet. Gandhi Jr. has, he is just sleeping on my lap, as I write these few sentences.

Wendy had a difficult youth, because she was very sick and infected with every imaginable parasite and bacteria when we rescued her, a tiny, approximately two week old kitten, from an abandoned farm house. She had to take medicine for the first two month and always had blood in her stool.

I can remember that during this time after waking up I immediately went to the room where Wendy and her companion Cindy (the other kitten which we rescued from the farm) slept, to look if she was still alive. What a relief, when I found her alive and more or less well.

Wendy is now a healthy five year old cat, Cindy disappeared, probably shot by a hunter. I wrote about Cindy in several blog posts, I intend to commemorate her somewhere in the future with one longer text.

As always, at the end of the link list a few cat pictures, this time it is Wendy’s turn.
Wendy windowsill DSCN2303
Wendy and Cindy DSC00591
Wendy DSC00827
Wendy stairs DSCN0073
Wendy book shelf DSCN2759
Wendy guitars DSCN2510
Wendy kitchen DSCN0631
Wendy Mia guitars DSCN2572
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16.07.2013

Links July 2013


After shunning the computer for three weeks — the longest pause I ever made since at least two decades — I finally got time to read and select a few infos from about a thousand emails.

The last week was abnormally dry here and the 12 rain water barrels are nearly empty — if it doesn’t rain soon I will have to use tap water for irrigation. This is a rainy country and there is no danger of a persisting drought but I get an idea now what farmers and gardeners in the drought stricken areas of the world experience — and what the future will have in store for them:
http://www.earth-policy.org/plan_b_updates/2013/update115


This is an interesting piece, because it combines climate change denial with justified environmental concerns. Reasoning and conclusion by the author are questionable, but the article contains useful information:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/co2-and-the-ideology-of-climate-change-the-forces-behind-carbon-centric-environmentalism/5342471




After PRISM came Tempora and Boundless Informant. Anybody surprised still?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/agreements-with-private-companies-protect-us-access-to-cables-data-for-surveillance/2013/07/06/aa5d017a-df77-11e2-b2d4-ea6d8f477a01_story.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-world-communications-nsa
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-mastering-the-internet
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/public-must-fight-against-prism-and-tempora-surveillance-a-907495.html
European politicians hypocritical display outrage. Some of them admittedly are idiots, but most knew, what was going on. They know with whom they are dealing, they know, that you have to pay a price, if you are dealing with the devil.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/nsa-spied-on-european-union-offices-a-908590.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/secret-documents-nsa-targeted-germany-and-eu-buildings-a-908609.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/30/nsa-leaks-us-bugging-european-allies
http://rt.com/news/snowden-us-nightmare-greenwald-064/
http://www.boston.com/news/world/latin-america/2013/07/14/greenwald-snowden-docs-contain-nsa-blueprint/kHTNwWpq2NF3xwys4hBsIL/story.html



Want to amuse yourself with some (well intended though) economists babble?
http://coppolacomment.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/qe-myths-and-expectations-fairy.html



Imperial conquest news — Venezuela:
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_65743.shtml

Imperial conquest news — Syria:
http://www.strategic-culture.org/pview/2013/06/27/syria-the-western-faces-behind-the-terror.html
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2013/06/egypt-brotherhood-breaking-ties-syria-morsi.html
http://www.globalresearch.ca/escalation-of-syria-war-ahmed-al-assir-americas-pawn-in-lebanon/5340734
Russia sends most advanced weapons. Will Jabhat al-Nusra get US most advanced weapons?
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/06/18/doomsday-weapons-to-syria-putin/
http://english.pravda.ru/world/asia/26-06-2013/124953-cia_al_qaeda-0/
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13920410001292
Or will Israel do the dirty work?
http://rt.com/news/israel-strike-syria-turkey-089/
Whatever happens, NATO is prepared:
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2013/07/14/pentagons-central-command-targets-syria-iran/
And they will reap what they sowed:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/07/09/european_fighters_jihadists_syria



A few pictures of the cat family, the obligatory antidote to depressing news. I made them yesterday while we were walking in the forest. Gandhi Jr., the cat boy who will soon celebrate his first birthday, was together with his mother Mia, the urban lady from Munich, and Princess Min Ki, the head of the family. Rosy, Mia’s aunt, was also participating, but she kept distance.

Gandhi Jr. is a picture book example for what an intact family and a harmonious and peaceful upbringing can achieve. He is the most friendly and agreeable cat one can imagine and he tries hard to make everything right. I would not go as far as calling him obedient, because obedience is simply against cat nature, but he comes somewhat close.

Mia was a single mom (as all cat mothers are), but when Gandhi’s siblings left for a new home across the border (where they are reportedly doing very well), she spent all her energy for nursing and educating him. Princess Min Ki helped a little bit with the education, I myself helped too.

It takes a town to raise a child.

Cat mothers normally distance themselves from their children when they don’t have milk anymore and suspend all contacts, often even move away. After a crash course in basic survival skills the kittens suddenly are on their own. I understand now why, because Gandhi desperately wanted to suckle long after Mia had no milk and it took some combined effort to get him used to pet food and natural food.

This transition was not easy and friction free but Mia and Gandhi Jr. are now good friends, though Gandhi’s best friend is Wendy, our long-haired cat girl.

This could be a good start for a joyful and blessed life. Will the little cat boy ever understand, how lucky and privileged he is? Lucky and privileged, because not many cat boys have the privilege to grow up together with their mothers in a largely peaceful family environment.

Many human children are deprived of this privilege too.

Children live in war zones, in destitute ares of inner cities, in slums around the megalopolis of the third world. Children experience poverty, hunger, sickness, the loss of their parents and of other family members. They witness death and destruction, they live in constant fear of criminals, marauding militias, terrorist bombings, drone strikes.

Children in Gaza, the West Bank, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Syria become distressed, traumatized, shell shocked. For a little child life with its complicated social rules is difficult to navigate in the best of circumstances. Avoiding the deadly dangers and the evil predators lurking on every corner of the way is difficult. Growing up and find ones personal niche is difficult even in the affluent areas, in the peace zones of the world.

Growing up in Gaza, the West Bank, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Syria yet is not only difficult, it is painful, torturous, unbearable, unendurable. Children there suffer and experience life as constant grief, as a nightmare, as a series of horrific episodes. Children there are deprived of their childhood, they will crack, will go mad, they will become psychopaths.

They will grow up emotionally crippled, filled up with despair, cynicism, aggression, and hate, to take revenge at the world who failed them so miserably. They will become criminals, militiamen, terrorists, soldiers. They will be cheap pawns and stolid cannon fodder for the ruling elites. They will perpetuate the mayhem, violence, chaos of this world indefinitely.

Right now millions of children grow up to inevitably become psychopathic killers. Is this the master plan?

Evil monsters rule the world.
War is their delight.
Annihilation.
Extinction.
Death.

Back to my little cat boy Gandhi Jr. He doesn’t understand all this. I have lengthy conversations with him, because he is very vocal and it is astonishing and also quite funny, how he can clearly express his deepest feelings, thoughts, and intentions with a million varieties of meow.

I have lengthy and interesting conversations with him, but the scope of our talks is limited. Gandhi’s wold is the garden and the forest, his fellow cats and I. This is enough for a little cat boy, enough to occupy and entertain him, enough to be make him feel content and comfortable. Gandhi Jr. is doing well, he had a happy life until now and I will do everything what I possibly can do to keep it like that.
Gandhi Min Ki Mia forrest DSCN0709
Gandhi Min Ki Mia forrest DSCN0722
Gandhi Min Ki Mia forrest DSCN0752
Gandhi Min Ki Mia forrest DSCN0765
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24.06.2013

Just coming in for a short look


Just coming in from the garden for a short look and trashing 600 emails. I was away from the computer for nine days and I didn’t write anything for three weeks. This is my longest pause since two years.

I read some of the emails before trashing them — how reassuring to see, that the world goes on without me. A few links seem worth publishing:

Agroecelogy in Cuba, another example that the people are often (most times?) smarter than their leaders.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/06/07/cubas-other-revolution/

What else caught my eye:

NSA snooping (yawn). What’s the buzz? Be glad that somebody cares about you!

Be glad, that somebody cares about you. You will never again feel alone and forsaken. In an individualistic, fragmented, atomized society where personal contacts have been replaced by GUI (Graphic User Interface) contacts, where reality is channelled via screens of various sizes (movie, TV, computer, smartphone), where family life and friendships wither away, your social bond to the Big Brother will keep you going.


The only surprising thing in this story is that so many progressive figureheads pretended to be surprised and so many of their followers believed them.
data mining
Revealing open secrets and disclosing what we already knew since a long time will not change anything. This is exasperation and exacerbation, this is virtual turbulence and mayhem, this is another welcome shot for adrenaline junkies. US citizens don’t have to go to horror movies, they don’t have to buy dystopian novels, they are privileged as they are enjoying a reality horror show with a constant stream of revelations sending shivers up and down their spines.

This may be Orwellian, Kafkaesque, surreal, creepy, but it nevertheless only marginally affects the daily routines and the basic perspective of the average western consumer. The doesn’t touch the core of their lives, it only goes skin deep.

This doesn’t strike home, what else would?

Lets try to find something. (….) Could it be for example: Telling the readers and listeners, that they are selfish, irresponsible, ignorant bastards? Telling them that their life style is wasteful and unsustainable? Telling them that their fancy technical toys, their fashion cloth, cosmetics, new furniture, personal cars, holiday travels, are unnecessary? Telling them that they live on the costs of future generations?

If that would be the main content of a concerted media campaign led by Mother Jones, Common Dreams, Democracy Now, Alternet, Huffington Post, Salon, etc. it would strike home indeed.
Bless Us O Lord
Well, let’s get real again. For the alternative press the revelation of government improprieties is a winner, criticizing or even cautiously questioning the readers life style a loser.

For the alternative press the revelation of government improprieties is also by far less risky than discussing the possibility of or making discreet suggestions for:

Dropping out of the consumerism society,
adapting an ecological conscious (= sustainable) lifestyle,
fighting with civil disobedience and sabotage against the various imperial wars and the militarization of US society.

(I didn’t include the complex predicate “boldly calling for” because this would constitute “material support for terrorists”.)

The traditional “liberal press,” in this case represented by the Washington Post and The Guardian, also could score important points in a tight race to publish a leaked PowerPoint presentation about the NSA data mining scheme PRISM. The Gray Lady (the New York Times) was not in the race, because fishing for disgruntled liberals is not anymore their business model.

For a paper that has more and more become the mouthpiece of the establishment and is rather competing with The Wall Street Journal (where New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson learned her trade) and USA Today, investigative journalism only goes that far. It will come out, if resting on the laurels of 112 Pulitzer Prizes (with another four just recently added) and high quality writing about nothing important will be enough to keep the readership and owner Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. happy .

Following the motto “All the News We Fit to Print” (or something like that).
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/new-york-times-turbulence-90544.html

Just mentioning: Big Brother has a little brother in Germany
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/berlin-profits-from-us-spying-program-and-is-planning-its-own-a-906129.html
and surely many other larger or smaller brothers around the world.
George Orwell
What else is worth mentioning from the “leader of the free world,” the “shining city on the hill,” the “land of unlimited opportunities”?


To the valued US readers of the blog: Be glad that somebody cares about you, but don’t feel privileged. The NSA doesn’t only spy on US citizens, its TAO unit gathers information from around the world
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/06/10/inside_the_nsa_s_ultra_secret_china_hacking_group

The main target seems to be China, which is together with Russia the main antipode to the West and the biggest obstacle to NATO’s strategic planning. Full-spectrum dominance is the goal, and China plus Russia are in the way.
China pollution 2
Pepe Escobar wrote an intelligent article about China
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175715/, which correctly concludes that the massive and relentless urbanization will destabilize Chinese society and wreck the environment. The piece only fails to point out that in the end Chinese and US leaders are sitting in the same boat and are united by the common goal to preserve their power.

China and Russia could destroy the global financial system in a few weeks. As mentioned here in several earlier blog posts, the USA is bankrupt and only able to create money out of thin air because the US dollar is the world’s reserve currency. But this is changing. China has already bypassed the US$ in bilateral trade with Russia, India, Iran, Brazil, and Japan. China and Britain have established a currency swap line and France plans to follow.
http://www.capitolhilldaily.com/2013/06/dollar-fiat-currency/

The consequences of a global financial crash will be severe and no stone will be unturned. Chinese and Russian leaders shy back from ditching the US dollar and crashing the global financial system and with it the US economy because consequently their own economic plans would be null and void too.
Putin holds a gold ignot
So everybody is just stumbling and limping along and trying to muddle through with temporary fixes and policies that work for now but are completely unsustainable.

Policies like the mentioned hardcore urbanization in China, which causes the depletion of resources and water supplies, the occupation of wide areas that previously produced food crops, massive environmental pollution, and overwhelming traffic congestion.

About imperial conquest news:


If true, the Telegraph report would also confirm earlier infos that the USA has ditched Qatar for Saudi Arabia which is now the main intermediary to the islamic fighters.

The US government insists on having absolute proof that Syria used chemical weapons against islamic fighters. This is probably only a tactical move to gain points in the ongoing diplomatic battle but it could as well be the pretext for a full scale (humanitarian) intervention.
US soldier Intervention
While there are renewed attempts to start a political process aiming at the installation of a no-fly-zone (meaning a NATO bombing campaign similar to Yugoslavia and Libya), there are also discussions about a “Marshall plan for Syria” to rebuild the country after a possible negotiated settlement.

The currently discussed plan would be just another attempt to subdue Syria by controlling its economy via contracts for rebuilding the country and lending the hoped for post-Assad Syrian government as much as 300 billion US$ to be secured by Syrian assets (which means, that creditors could easily take control of the public sector). The buyers of the debt would be largely US banks together with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf monarchies.

IMF officials estimate that the value of the public sector in Syria exceeds half a trillion US$.
FSA 05 2013 13
According to the SCPR, the losses inflicted on the Syrian economy until the first quarter of this year amount to 84.4 billion US$. The losses include: 8 billion US$ in lost GDP, 13 billion US$ in lost capital and around 7 billion US$ in military expenditures.

The general internal and external debt to GDP ratio increased from 48 percent in 2012 to 65 percent during the first quarter of this year. The external debt constituted around 49 percent of the GDP during the first four months of this year.

The SCPR report, titled “Socioeconomic Roots and Impact of the Syrian Crisis,” estimated that 12 percent of Syrians live under the poverty line, while around 33.6 percent are threatened by poverty. The number of poor people has increased by 3.1 million and poverty is (unsurprisingly) more concentrated in rural areas.
From a business point of view it makes perfect sense to send more and more advanced weapons to the islamic fighters because the more assets they are able to destroy, the more lucrative the rebuilding contracts will be.
destruction Syria 06 2013
The most puzzling news bit came from the Israeli news (and disinformation) agency DEBKAfile. According to DEBKAfile Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan decided to close the corridor through Turkey, that US-NATO used to transfer arms and rebel fighters. Erdogan is reportedly afraid of Russian retribution.
http://www.debka.com/article/23066/US-troop-buildup-in-Jordan-after-Turkey-shuts-US-NATO-arms-corridor-to-Syrian-rebels

If true, this about-turn would be a strategic earthquake, leaving the rebels, who occupy parts of Aleppo, in a hopeless situation. Without the supply lines to the Turkish boarder, which is only 40 km away, they would be crashed within a few weeks.

But why does an Israeli news agency publish this information? Shall it signal increased Israeli involvement in accordance with stepped up US-NATO activities in Jordan? King Abdullah II already allows Israel to use Jordan’s airspace.
http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/04/22/299641/jordan-allows-israel-drone-attack-on-syria/

Rosy computer DSCN0636
What did I personally do in the meantime?

I built a second greenhouse and I’m working like a dog to keep the garden in order: watering, weeding, planting and transplanting, fighting slugs, woodlice, caterpillars, beetles, putting up traps for all these pests, removing fungi infected leaves, and finally: Harvesting.
strawberry harvest DSCN0662
Greenhouses are a wonderful invention, they protect vulnerable plants from bad weather and from pests, they provide a simplified and therefore easier manageable biosphere. I could write a praise of the greenhouse, but other and more qualified people have done that before me, one has only to search-engine.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_advantages_of_greenhouse_technology

I understand now, why IAF pilots are so keen on bombing the greenhouses in Gaza.

My second greenhouse is only half the size of the old one, but it is more stable, easier to clean, maintain, and repair, and I was able set it up without needing any help.
Greenhouse 1 DSCN0643
The greenhouse was a kit packed in three parcels, just compact enough that I could transport them in my car. The kit included aluminum profiles, a steel base, polycarbonate panels and the necessary steel clips to keep them in place, bolts and nuts, and a few other small parts. The dimensions are 193 centimeters (6 feet 4 inch) width and height, 254 centimeters (8 feet 4 inch) length.

This is a clever designed and mature product. Similar kits are sold all over the world with nearly identical dimensions and only slight variations in insignificant details. I don’t know if the design is licensed or if just everybody rushed in to copy a superb product.
Greenhouse 2 DSCN0647
The online store Menards writes that this hobby greenhouse can usually be assembled by two or more people in a single day. I did it alone, so I needed two days, four hours alone to dig the trenches for the steel base profiles and the holes for the anchors of the steel base plus one hour to remove the grass layer.

Everything fitted perfectly, only one panel was 0.7 centimeters too long and I had to cut it with a saw. Applying the steel clips was a bit tricky and I needed to try various methods till I found out how to do it best.

The greenhouse is already populated by 12 tomato plants and I will start various experiments to find out how to use the space best.
Greenhouse 3 DSCN0652
As I wrote at the start, people are often (most times?) smarter than their leaders. Gardening is in and all the hardware shops, DIY stores, even normal supermarkets are full of gardening tools, seed packets, seedlings, potting soil, and other gardening materials. It appears that nearly everybody tries to cultivate the backyard at home or at least convert a part of the lawn to grow her/his own food.

Is this the solution to the menacing ecological disaster? Will permaculture, subsistence farming and gardening, urban gardening, vertical farming and gardening, indoor farms and gardens produce enough food to reduce industrial agriculture to a bearable (bearable for nature) level?

Don’t trust the prophets of a new age of green living, of permaculture, of self sufficiency. They may be well-intentioned, benevolent, altruistic, but they know nothing. They know nothing and they have no idea about what they are talking. A change will come one way or the other, that is for sure, yet it will not be as easy as the cocky prophets and their blue eyed followers want to make us believe.
Greenhouse 4 DSCN0655
I was furious some years ago when I read Lester Brown’s gloating description of Illinois as the worlds bread basket and I considered him since then as just another camouflaged lobbyist for ago business. He changed his position in the meantime and I also have now a better understanding of his reasoning at the time when he made this statement. Of course, he studied agricultural science at Rutgers University, this are his roots.

Nobody can deny that industrial farming (using machines, automated large scale processes, inorganic fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation) has freed millions of people from back-breaking, exhausting work. Nobody can deny that millions of brains were freed from the arduous and strenuous job of growing food, making it possible to use the combined intelligence of many generations for unprecedented scientific and technological advances.

But:

Industrial farming uses up scarce water resources and the runoff pollutes creeks and rivers, lakes and seas. Industrial farming uses gigantic amounts of fossil fuels for powering the machines and for producing the fertilizers and pesticides. Phosphorus and potassium cannot be synthesized and will run out eventually, nitrogen synthesis is energy intensive. Pesticides are poisoning all creatures indiscriminately and the conversion of pristine nature to farm fields destroys the habitat of rare species.

Industrial agriculture worked well for a few generations and it is still working fairly well with some hiccups here and there, but it is an ecological catastrophe, it is destroying the future of all generations to come.
Our descendants (if there are any) will hate us!

If one is addicted to and comfortable with consumerism, if one doesn’t want to leave the party despite the inevitability of a terrible hangover, if one ignores the writing on the wall, if one couldn’t care less about the children’s future: Right on, right on, full speed.

Let the economies grow forever!
BASF plants 1
Lester Brown has changed his position about industrial farming and today he would also not be able to paint Illinois’ agriculture in such a glowing light as he did then: At first farmers in Illinois experienced significant losses due to an unprecedented, statewide heat and drought, now their crops are ruined by torrential rains, devastating floods, and heavy storms. As one farmer reportedly said: “This is the worst spring I can remember in my 30 years of farming,”

The organic lentils from farms in my country that I bought until now are at present not available because of crop failure.

Nature is self-regulating.

A change will come one way or the other, but the transition to a sustainable society will not be as easy as the permaculture prophets want to make us believe. Predictions seldom come true, but one thing is for sure and brazenly evident, if one wakes up, looks around, and uses common sense: The times of plenty, of affluence, of leisure and joyous laziness, of musing and creative reflection, will be over soon — at least for the most of us.

Permaculture works well in theory. But in real life, you could hit a snag soon. In ideal situations, when everything runs smoothly, you will grow your food and have some time to do what you please.
blueberry bush
But there is adverse weather (drought, torrential rains, hail, storms), there are pests, there are fungal and bacterial epidemics.

You will have to work like a dog, you will have to work till every bone aches. Eight hours a day may not be enough, you will have to work twelve hours a day or more. You will live from day to day, from hand to mouth.
Billions of people live like that right now.
Indias poor 1
Billions of people work as hard as they can, only to see their fields dried up by drought or swept away by floods.

A few hundred millions of people in the affluent countries of the Western Hemisphere still have a party. And it is early in the morning.

Waiting for the sunrise and a new day.
sunrise hills

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01.06.2013

Links June 2013

My cat friends would get rid of this in a second (and they are not fashion crazy)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2324997/Do-like-mane-Cat-owners-transform-pets-lions-latest-internet-craze.html

The populace seems to have gotten tired of climate change warnings, yet some brave souls still keep on trying:
http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/alerts-2013/734-the-planet-can-t-keep-doing-us-a-favour.html
Chinese people try to emulate a western life style (whats wrong with that?)
http://drstevebest.wordpress.com/2013/05/30/the-growing-specter-of-chinese-meat-consumption/
Sleepless nights. What the author omits, are the enormous social implications of sleep deficiency (aggressiveness, depression, lack of focus).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v497/n7450_supp/full/497S13a.html

Dear austerity stricken westerners, do you know what real poverty is?
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/05/24/misery-is-like-a-war/
Following are the obligatory pictures from the cat family, just to get a scent of kindness and humaneness (catness).

I photographed the cats thousands of times during the last years and selecting pictures for the blog from this enormous archive is an incredible difficult task, much more difficult than writing the blog texts!

This time it was a bit easier because all the pictures have to be about Princess Min Ki. She once again proved, that she is the rightful and unchallenged leader of the family, when she chased away an intruding foreign tomcat and for the last few days slept on the patio, ready to repel any further attempts of this cat to mark our place as his territory.

Last night at four o clock I heard cats screaming. I jumped out of the bed and ran down from my upstairs bedroom to help her. I found her sitting eye to eye with the foreign cat which ran away when I appeared at the scene. She had a light scratch on the nose but nothing serious.

Princess Min Ki is now seven years old and at the top of her game. Of humble origin and growing up on a farm she decided after one year that farm life was not right for her and that a nearby cat family (which happened to be hosted by me) would be better suited for her. My cat friends initially tried to chase her away just as she is chasing away now the intruding tom cat, but she was persistent and careful enough to slowly and gradually getting acquainted with them.

She slept outside the house in the garden for two weeks and she followed us at a distance, when we made our daily walks. The distance became less and less and suddenly she was part of the pack, and the day after that she was in the house, eating with the other cats, resting and sleeping beside them, not making any noise and not bothering anybody.

She has a superb social instinct, probably developed and honed in her first month of life as she grew up among the farm cats. These farm cats are in fact feral cat colonies who are   accepted by the farmers because they are useful to eliminate mice and rats. The farmers provide neither food nor veterinarian care and the farm cats usually die after four or five years from infectious diseases or parasites. Princess Min Ki’s children and her siblings are probably long dead now.

I called her Princess because after I let her spay she was not a queen anymore. She has forgiven me this severe and life changing mutilation and seems to be rather glad that she doesn’t have to raise kittens twice a year.

The mentioned superb social instinct enabled her to raise in the ranks step by step, finally  and inevitably becoming the head of the family after the untimely dead of Harry (which was another remarkable cat, I truly miss him).

Paul challenged her, but as he was not liked by the other cats (not even by his sister Rosy)he left and moved to another place. Same with Ma Xi, who hopefully has found now a responsible new host. I liked both and I’m sad about losing them but there was no other possibility, they didn’t fit into the family anymore. Nobody forced them to go, not even Princess Min Ki, who never had a fight with them (or with any other family member). They both went by themselves.

I love and respect all my cat friends, they are multifaceted, interesting, distinct personalities with strengths and weaknesses, special admirable talents, and amusing idiosyncrasies, but I really and truly respect and appreciate the Princess. She is not only my friend, she is my pal, she is my buddy, my associate, my aid in the same way as Harry was it.

I hope she will accompany me for many more years to come!
KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA
3 Min Ki 08 2010 DSC00111
KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA
5 Min Ki tree DSCN0663
6 Min Ki forest DSCN0043
KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA
8 Min Ki guitar DSCN0174
9 Min Ki bookshelf DSCN2848
10 Min Ki computer sleeping DSCN0628
11 Min Ki glass cabinett top DSCN2867
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