sábado, abril 26, 2008

Como a ustedes les gusta los trucos de MAGIA

Entonces en el enlace de arriba aparece un VIDEO sobre un truco de cartas que seguramente les va a gustar para hacerlos en una fiesta o en su hogar. Que les aproveche...

jueves, abril 24, 2008

La Enciclopedia Británica y su iniciativa.

La Enciclopedia Británica se abre a los autores de blogs April 23, 2008 11:29 PM -0400:En una maniobra destinada a conquistar nuevos lectores, el sitio web de la Enciclopedia Británica ha creado una nueva sección destinada a los autores de blogs para que agreguen entre sus enlaces links a artículos de este compendio.

La Enciclopedia Británica, que sólo es accesible en la Red a los suscriptores, ha decidido abrir parcialmente sus contenidos a los internautas. Los responsables de un blog o página web podrán inscribirse gratuitamente a un nuevo servicio de la enciclopedia que les permitirá ofrecer a sus lectores enlaces gratuitos a artículos de la enciclopedia.

El servicio se llama Britannica WebShare. Cualquiera que sea eltitular de un blog o un sitio en Internet puede solicitar la suscripción gratuita. La enciclopedia se reserva el derecho de admitirlo o no.

El criterio fundamental, según esplican en su página, es que el sitio sea activo y renueve periódicamente sus contenidos. Esta cautela se hace para evitar una avalancha de suscripciones gratuitas de cualquiera que tenga un blog.

Una vez aceptada la petición, el responsable de la página podrá ofrecer enlaces a determinados artículos de la enciclopedia en función de la materia que trata en su sitio. La consulta del artículo se hace a través de un widget, una ventana flotante.

Competir con Wikipedia

La Enciclopedia Británica ha tenido una política oscilante en Internet. Actualmente se accede a sus artículos por suscripción (70 dólares al año). El paso dado ahora se explica como una reacción a la existencia de Wikipedia, enciclopedia de acceso libre y editada por los propios internautas.

Por cada consulta telemática a la Enciclopedia Británica, Wikipedia recibe 184. Es decir, mientras la primera tiene un promedio de 3,8 millones de visitas en un mes, Wikipedia alcanza 21 millones de lectores en el mismo periodo de tiempo.

Porqué suben los precios de los alimentos ?

WHY FOOD PRICES WILL GO THROUGH
THE ROOF IN COMING MONTHS
by F. William Engdahl
March 31, 2008

A deadly fungus, known as Ug99, which kills wheat, has likely spread to Pakistan from Africa according to reports. If true, that threatens the vital Asian Bread Basket including the Punjab region. The spread of the deadly virus, stem rust, against which an effective fungicide does not exist, comes as world grain stocks reach the lowest in four decades and government subsidized bio-ethanol production, especially in the USA, Brazil and EU are taking land out of food production at alarming rates. The deadly fungus is being used by Monsanto and the US Government to spread patented GMO seeds.

Stem rust is the worst of three rusts that afflict wheat plants. The fungus grows primarily in the stems, plugging the vascular system so carbohydrates can't get from the leaves to the grain, which shrivels. Ug99 is a race of stem rust that blocks the vascular tissues in cereal grains including wheat, oats and barley. Unlike other rusts that may reduce crop yields, Ug99-infected plants may suffer up to 100 percent loss.

In the 1950s, the last major outbreak destroyed 40% of the spring wheat crop in North America. At that time governments started a major effort to breed resistant wheat plants, led by Norman Borlaug of the Rockefeller Foundation. That was the misnamed Green Revolution. The result today is far fewer varieties of wheat that might resist such a new fungus outbreak.

The first strains of Ug99 were detected in 1999 in Uganda. It spread to Kenya by 2001, to Ethiopia by 2003 and to Yemen when the cyclone Gonu spread its spores in 2007. Now the deadly fungus has been found in Iran and according to British scientists may already be as far as Pakistan.

Pakistan and India account for 20 percent of the annual world wheat production. It is possible as the fungus spreads that large movements could take place almost overnight if certain wind conditions prevail at the right time. In 2007 a three-day wind event recorded by Mexico's CIMMYT (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center), had strong wind currents moving from Yemen, where Ug99 is present, across Pakistan and India, going all the way to China. CIMMYT estimates that from two-thirds to three-quarters of the wheat now planted in India and Pakistan are highly susceptible to this new strain of stem rust. One billion people who live in this region and they are highly dependent on wheat for their food supply

These are all areas where the agricultural infrastructure to contain such problems is either extremely weak or non-existent. It threatens to spread into other wheat producing regions of Asia and eventually the entire world if not checked.

FAO World Grain Forecast

The 2007 World Agriculture Forecast of the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome, projects an alarming trend in world food supply even in the absence of any devastation from Ug99. The report states, "countries in the non-OECD region are expected to continue to experience a much stronger increase in consumption of agricultural products than countries in the OECD area. This trend is driven by population and, above all, income growth – underpinned by rural migration to higher income urban areas...OECD countries as a group are projected to lose production and export shares in many commodities…Growth in the use of agricultural commodities as feedstock to a rapidly increasing biofuel industry is one of the main drivers in the outlook and one of the reasons for international commodity prices to attain a significantly higher plateau over the outlook period than has been reported in the previous reports." (my emphasis—w.e.).

The FAO warns that the explosive growth in acreage used to grow fuels and not food in the past three years is dramatically changing the outlook for food supply globally and forcing food prices sharply higher for all foods from cereals to sugar to meat and dairy products. The use of cereals, sugar, oilseeds and vegetable oils to satisfy the needs of a rapidly

increasing bio-fuel industry, is one of the main drivers, most especially the large volumes of maize in the US, wheat and rapeseed in the EU and sugar in Brazil for ethanol and bio-diesel production. This is already causing dramatically higher crop prices, higher feed costs and sharply higher prices for livestock products.

Ironically, the current bio-ethanol industry is being driven by US government subsidies and a scientifically false argument in the EU and USA that bio-ethanol is less harmful to the environment than petroleum fuels and can reduce CO2 emissions. The arguments have been demonstrated in every respect to be false. The huge expansion of global acreage now planted to produce bio-fuels is creating ecological problems and demanding use of far heavier pesticide spraying while use of bio-fuels in autos releases even deadlier emissions than imagined. The political effect, however, has been a catastrophic shift down in world grain stocks at the same time the EU and USA have enacted policies which drastically cut traditional emergency grain reserves. In short, it is a scenario pre-programmed for catastrophe, one which has been clear to policymakers in the EU and USA for several years. That can only suggest that such a dramatic crisis in global food supply is intentional.

A plan to spread GMO?

One of the consequences of the spread of Ug99 is a campaign by Monsanto Corporation and other major producers of genetically manipulated plant seeds to promote wholesale introduction of GMO wheat varieties said to be resistant to the Ug99 fungus. Biologists at Monsanto and at the various GMO laboratories around the world are working to patent such strains.

Norman Borlaug, the former Rockefeller Foundation head of the Green Revolution is active in funding the research to develop a fungus resistant variety against Ug99 working with his former center in Mexico, the CIMMYT and ICARDA in Kenya, where the pathogen is now endemic. So far, about 90% of the 12,000 lines tested are susceptible to Ug99. That includes all the major wheat cultivars of the Middle East and west Asia. At least 80% of the 200 varieties sent from the United States can't cope with infection. The situation is even more dire for Egypt, Iran, and other countries in immediate peril.

Even if a new resistant variety was ready to be released today it would take two or three years' seed increase in order to have just enough wheat seed for 20 percent of the acres planted to wheat in the world.

Work is also being done by the USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS), the same agency which co-developed Monsanto's Terminator seed technology. In my book, Seeds of Destruction I document the insidious role of Borlaug and the Rockefeller Foundation in promoting the misnamed Green Revolution as well as patents on food seeds to ultimately control food supplies as a potential political lever. The spreading alarm over the Ug99 fungus is being used by Monsanto and other GMO agribusiness companies to demand that the current ban on GMO wheat be lifted to allow spread of GMO patented wheat seeds on the argument they are Ug99 stem rust resistant.


© 2008 F. William Engdahl
Editorial Archive

F. William Engdahl is the author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order (Pluto Press) and Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation, www.globalresearch.ca. The present series is adapted from his new book, now in writing, The Rise and Fall of the American Century: Money and Empire in Our Era. He may be contacted through his website, www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net.

Cristovam Buarque se refiere a la estrategia de largo plazo de CATAR

  • CATAR y la Estrategia


  • Vamos a ver que piensan ustedes y si le pueden mandar a Cristovam una sugerencia.

    martes, abril 22, 2008

    Putting Earth Day in Perspective

    Putting Earth Day in Perspective

    By Jeff Siegel

    So here we are, April 22, and all the headlines are screaming green in an effort to spread the Earth Day message.

    There will be Earth Day rallies, festivals and dozens of local television news stories - on location - jumping on that green bandwagon and speaking volumes about something most know nothing about.

    But hey, it's publicity, right?

    And the more folks who go green, the more money we make.

    Though the reality is, no matter how eco-friendly our society becomes, it's really the fundamentals of supply and demand that dictate the success of renewable energy markets.

    Especially when it comes to oil.

    Let's be serious. Do you really believe that every person who owns a hybrid is some kind of outspoken environmentalist?

    No way!

    It's a dollars and cents game, folks.

    Are You Profiting from the Rising Cost Of Emissions?

    All over the globe countries and companies are racing to reduce their emissions. So much so that carbon and other emissions now come with a price. In lieu of paying hefty fines or splurging for carbon credits, many companies are simply finding it more feasible to pony up the money and clean up their operations. And those massive clean-up efforts have stimulated billions--if not trillions--of cleantech spending. We've discovered one small company that is using the clean air to cash out.

    Oil flew past $117 on Monday. Gas is moving closer to $4.00 a gallon. Food prices are skyrocketing because of diesel cost increases. Some truck drivers are actually paying about $1,000 for one fill-up at a service station.

    I'm not saying biofuel prices aren't affecting the cost of food, but don't be so quick to dismiss a $1,000 fill-up. In 2006, that same fill-up was costing about $300!

    Yes, my friends - those high fuel costs are the real culprit.

    And they're not going away either.

    So it's really no surprise that the flow of capital into alternative transportation technologies continues to increase at a record pace.

    Whether its high-performance batteries for Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles or pretreatment technologies for cellulosic ethanol production (a process that won't add to the overall cost of wheat, corn, and soy) - the smart money is staking its claim now.

    Because the next stop is NOT $4.00 a gallon.

    In fact, a year from now we'll be wishing for $4.00 a gallon.

    Mark my words, this is not a trend that's likely to end any time soon...if ever.

    Peak oil is upon us. And investors have two choices: Embrace the future, or fall victim to it.

    To a new way of life, and a new generation of wealth...