Fake Meat: Big Food’s Attempt to Further Industrialize What We Eat

Food is not a commodity, it is not “stuff” put together mechanically and artificially in labs and factories. Food is life. Food holds the contributions of all beings that make the food web, and it holds the potential of maintaining and regenerating the web of life. Food also holds the potential for health and disease, depending on how it was grown and processed. Food is therefore the living currency of the web of life.

As an ancient Upanishad reminds us “Everything is food, everything is something else’s food.”

Good food and real food are the basis of health.

Bad food, industrial food, fake food is the basis of disease.

Hippocrates said “Let food be thy medicine.” In Ayurveda, India’s ancient science of life, food is called “sarvausadha” the medicine that cures all disease.

Industrial food systems have reduced food to a commodity, to “stuff” that can then be constituted in the lab. In the process both the planet’s health and our health has been nearly destroyed.

Planetary Impacts

Seventy five percent of the planetary destruction of soil, water, biodiversity, and 50 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from industrial agriculture, which also contributes to 75 percent of food-related chronic diseases. It contributes 50 percent of the greenhouse gases driving climate change. Chemical agriculture does not return organic matter and fertility to the soil. Instead it is contributing to desertification and land degradation. It also demands more water since it destroys the soil’s natural water-holding capacity. Industrial food systems have destroyed the biodiversity of the planet both through the spread of monocultures, and through the use of toxics and poisons which are killing bees, butterflies, insects, birds, leading to the sixth mass extinction.

Biodiversity-intensive and poison-free agriculture, on the other hand, produces more nutrition per acre while rejuvenating the planet. It shows the path to “zero hunger” in times of climate change.

The industrial agriculture and toxic food model has been promoted as the only answer to economic and food security. However, globally, more than 1 billion people are hungry. More than 3 billion suffer from food-related chronic diseases.

It uses 75 percent of the land yet industrial agriculture based on fossil fuel intensive, chemical intensive monocultures produce only 30 percent of the food we eat. Meanwhile, small, biodiverse farms using 25 percent of the land provide 70 percent of the food. At this rate, if the share of industrial agriculture and industrial food in our diet is increased to 45 percent, we will have a dead planet. One with no life and no food.

The mad rush for fake food and fake meat, ignorant of the diversity of our foods and food cultures, and the role of biodiversity in maintaining our health, is a recipe for accelerating the destruction of the planet and our health.

GMO Soya is Unsafe

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/06/21/fake-meat-big-foods-attempt-to-further-industrialize-what-we-eat/

Mystery as pagan altar and symbol unearthed in Edinburgh’s Holyrood Park

Two mysterious pagan objects have been removed from a secluded part of Holyrood Park after they were uncovered by chance, the Evening News can reveal.

Archaeologists were called in after the remains of a concrete “altar” and a pagan metal plaque were discovered on Whinny Hill above St Margaret’s Loch.

The ornate metal plaque, which experts have confirmed to the Evening News as likely to be pagan, was found embedded in the ground within a sod of turf cut in a triangle shape. It depicted two figures – a male figure with horns and a female figure in a surrender pose – set within a pentagram within a circle.

The pentagram is a recognised symbol of paganism and is also used in devil worship.

The second find was a concrete “altar” with display objects found next to the plinth. Both were buried beneath topsoil.

Specialists were called in by park guardians Historic Environment Scotland after the bizarre items were found in May last year.

But, even more curiously, according to a new report compiled by Musselburgh-based firm CFA Archaeology Ltd and seen by the Evening News, both had been removed “by persons unknown” at some point before they investigated the site in April this year, leaving just the concrete plinth and holes in the turf.

Mark Black, president of the UK Pagan Council, said the plaque was mostly likely pagan after the images of the find were shown to him yesterday.

He said the points of the pentagram depict the four elements, earth, fire, air and water.

According to Mr Black, the two figures are the Horned God and the Goddess of Water.

There are also a number of rune stones embedded in the concrete triangle around the plaque, as well as a number of small figures, one apparently of an angel.

However, he said it was strongly against pagan tradition to use concrete in any kind of ritual, as only natural materials such as wood or stone should be used.

“It’s a mystery,” Mr Black said. “No pagan I know of would embed a pentacle in concrete, or leave it behind. As a pagan you’d leave a site in exactly the same state as you found it.”

https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/people/mystery-as-pagan-altar-and-symbol-unearthed-in-edinburgh-s-holyrood-park-1-4952500

Congressional Pay Raise Headed for Senate-House Deadlock

WASHINGTON—Legislation clearing members of Congress to receive a $4,500 Cost-of-Living-Adjustment (COLA) pay raise appears headed for a vote this week in the House of Representatives but the Senate is going in the opposite direction.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) expects the lower chamber to vote on the legislative funding proposal that does not include specific language rejecting the COLA.

Under a 2009 law, senators and representatives—who are currently paid $174,000 or more—automatically get annual COLAs unless they pass legislation explicitly rejecting the increased pay. The $4,500 represents a 2.6 percent pay hike.

The COLA has been rejected every year since 2009, but both Hoyer and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said June 20 they support allowing the increase to take effect in 2020.

Hoyer told Roll Call the legislative funding bill, minus the COLA rejection language, that House leaders pulled from a vote earlier this month will be back on the floor Tuesday or Wednesday.

Asked if he expects the measure to be approved, Hoyer said, “We’ll see. But I feel very strongly that’s the correct policy.” McCarthy told Roll Call the same day that he does not “believe Congress should only be a place for millionaires.”

McCarthy also noted, however, that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell opposes the COLA and “that does complicate the path for this to become law.”

Anti-Pay Raise

Bolstering Senate opposition was a June 19 vote by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs to adopt an anti-pay raise measure co-sponsored by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.).

The Scott-Braun “No Budget, No Pay Act” was approved along with a technical amendment introduced by Sen. Kirsten Simena (D-Ariz.) on a 9-5 roll call vote.

Several Republican members of the panel, including committee chairman Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), voted against the Scott-Braun-Simena measure that would require congressional pay to be placed in escrow and withheld whenever Congress fails to fund the government.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/congressional-pay-raise-headed-for-senate-house-deadlock_2975118.html

Hundreds Of 737 Max Pilots Sue Boeing Over 'Unprecedented Cover-Up"

Over 400 pilots have joined a class-action lawsuit against Boeing, accusing the company of an "unprecedented cover-up" of "known design flaws" on the company's top-selling 737 MAX, according to the Australian Broadcasting Company.

The MAX, first put into service in 2017, was involved in two fatal crashes over the course of a year; the first off the coast of Indonesia in October 2018, killing 189 - and the second in Ethiopia, killing 157.

The lawsuit, filed by a plaintiff who goes by "Pilot X" in court documents out of "fear of reprisal from Boeing and discrimination from Boeing customers," accuses the Chicago-based aviation giant of "an unprecedented cover-up of the known design flaws of the MAX, which predictably resulted in the crashes of two MAX aircraft and subsequent grounding of all MAX aircraft worldwide."

The pilots argue that they "suffer and continue to suffer significant lost wages, among other economic and non-economic damages" since the fleet was grounded across the globe.

The lawsuit focuses on the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) anti-stall system, which Pilot X claims gave the aircraft "inherently dangerous aerodynamic handling defects."

The reason for this handling quirk was by design, as Boeing made the decision to retrofit newer, large fuel-efficient engines onto an existing 737 model's fuselage, in order to create the MAX.

The larger engines caused a change in aerodynamics which made the plane prone to pitching up during flight, so much so, that it risked a crash as a result of an aerodynamic stall.

To stop this from happening, Boeing introduced MCAS software to the MAX, which automatically tilted the plane down if the software detected that the plane's nose was pointing at too steep of an angle, known as a high Angle of Attack (AOA). -ABC

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-23/hundreds-737-max-pilots-sue-boeing-over-unprecedented-cover

Florida City Pays $600,000 Bitcoin Ransom To Hackers After Ransomware Attack

The Florida City of Riviera Beach paid a $600,000 to hackers who took over its computer system in a ransomware extortion operation, paralyzing the city's operations, according to the Palm Beach Post.

Everyone from the city council on down was been left without email and phone service. Paychecks that were supposed to be direct-deposited to employee bank accounts instead had to be hand-printed by finance department staffers working overtime. Police searched their closets to find paper tickets for issuing traffic citations.

…

In a meeting Monday night announced only days before, the board voted 5-0 to authorize the city insurer to pay 65 bitcoins, a hard-to-track cryptocurrency valued at approximately $592,000. An additional $25,000 would come out of the city budget, to cover its policy deductible. Without discussion on the merits, the board tackled the agenda item in two minutes, voted and moved on. -Palm Beach Post

The Riviera Beach City Council unanimously voted last week to meet the hackers' demands, after the Palm Beach suburb's records were encrypted. The counsel had previously voted to spend $1 million on computer upgrades three weeks ago.

According to the Post, the FBI and DHS are investigating the attack, which began after someone in the police department opened an infected email on May 29.

"This whole thing is so new to me and so foreign and it’s almost where I can’t even believe that this happens but I’m learning that it’s not as uncommon as we would think it is," said Council Chairwoman KaShamba Miller-Anderson in a Wednesday statement. "Every day I’m learning how this even operates, because it just sounds so far fetched to me."

According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, ransomware is the fastest growing malware threat, targeting both individuals and organizations. In 2018, the massive "SamSam" virus disrupted the flight information system, baggage displays and email at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, while another attack crippled computers at the Port of San Diego.

City governments in Atlanta, Newark, N.J., and Sarasota, Fla., also have been hit by ransomware schemes. And hackers have taken the information systems of dozens of U.S. hospitals hostage. -CBS

The Atlanta attack cost the city an estimated $17 million, according to VICE, while the Palm Beach County village of Palm Springs paid an undisclosed amount to hackers after being hit in 2018 - yet still lost two years of data according to the Post.

"Ransomware is commonly delivered through phishing emails or via 'drive-by downloads," according to Homeland Security, adding "Phishing emails often appear as though they have been sent from a legitimate organization or someone known to the victim and entice the user to click on a malicious link or open a malicious attachment."

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-22/florida-city-pays-600000-bitcoin-ransom-hackers-amid-ransomware-attack