Archives for 2015

We live on a complex world. The things we do in one part can have unintended repercussions elsewhere. Easy to find examples abound everywhere. The Treaty of Versailles, for example, was created to keep the allied nations safe from German aggression after World War I. Unfortunately it was so onerous that it led directly to the formation of the Nazi Party. And we all know how well that went. When looked at in retrospect it was a lousy party. No DJ, boring food and a lot of silly uniforms. Not my kind of party at all. Another fun one is the implementation of those whimsical “3 Strike Laws.” If you missed the memo here’s how they work. Commit three felonies and get a Class X Felony sentence (think 25 to life). Good idea you say. Keep those heinous bastards off the streets, you say. So what’s the problem? Criminals figured that, as long as they were facing life anyway they may as well hedge their bets and eliminate any witnesses. The publication Criminology and Public Policy found that murder rates increased dramatically in areas where three strike laws were in place. Why not? If the victim can’t ID you then you might stand a better chance of getting away. And, sadly, that’s not a bad bet for a criminal to take. In Illinois alone almost half of all murder cases go unsolved.

All of this helps set the stage where I can tell you that bees are a leading cause of pollution on farms. No, I’m not insane. You see, bees, those buzzy little suckers, pollinate flowers that have pesticides on them and then they drag those pesticides over to flowers that did not have pesticides on them. Bees really don’t know which is which so you can’t blame them. But the result is that organic farms are losing their certification due to the fact that those pesticides are showing up on their foods.

Let’s look at some other fun bee facts.

Fact: If all the bees disappeared humanity would die within four years. That’s how long it would take for all the food to disappear from lack of pollenization and for us to starve.

Fact: Bees are disappearing at an alarming rate due to pollution infesting their pollen.

Fact: Zombie bees have been discovered in Washington state.

It is the second fact that we will be taking a harder look at today. While circumstantial evidence is good enough for the Internet, science demands a bit more proof. Science does, people do not.

John Entine over at Forbes first takes a gander at the political fallout of the second fact above.

Last December, the European Commission banned the use of neonicotinoids, often called neonics, for two years. The moratorium, support for which was channeled by the precautionary politics that now dominate science-based regulation in Europe, took effect just as numerous new studies–including one released this past week–shed increasing doubt on the belief that neonics play a central role in bee health.

Now the focus is on Canada. Farmers in the United States are worried about a domino effect if regulatory officials there buckle under pressure from anti-pesticide campaigners to ‘do something,’ which could result in copycat moratoriums.Bee_pollen

The “crisis” prompting this hand-wringing is an age-old problem in the bee world: unpredictable bee deaths. They’ve occurred periodically for more than a century, but reemerged with a vengeance in 2004 in the California almond fields, where casualty rates briefly approached 60 percent. Beekeepers called it the ‘vampire mite scare’ because of its likely link to varroa mites—parasites that feed on the bodily fluid of bees—and on miticides used to combat them.

So the miticides kill the parasites and the bees?

No, they don’t. Well, they do kill the parasites. Just not the bees.

Right now the bee population is averaging a 35% die-off per year. That is up from a normal 15% that occurs naturally each winter. Bees live for just a few weeks. Even if a hive were decimated it could completely restock in less than three months. So something else is happening.

The villain du jour is neonics, artificial pesticides that do exactly what they’re supposed to do. But when Scientific American looked at all the data related to neonics and bees they came up with a flat line. In other words, no discernible effect. Not that there was no effect on bees, there was and is, but that it’s so negligible that regular restocking solves the problem.

And bee keepers restock regularly. See the short life span as reason #1.

As John noted, the facts do not support the fear.

But Canadian officials seem resistant to the emerging research trends. After the European Commission voted to ban neonics, anti-GMO, green and farm groups turned their focus on Canada, pressuring Ottawa to follow suit. The responsible agency, Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA), aware that the evidence fingering neonics was spotty, vacillated, issuing an ambiguous assessment of reported bee deaths in Ontario and Quebec and a vague “notice of intent” order to regulate neonics, without providing details.

It’s not as if PMRA does not have comprehensive research on neonics to rely upon. If bee health problems were critical in Canada, they would certainly have surfaced in the country’s 19 million acres of canola farms, which are mostly in the west. Beekeepers who forage their bees in the canola fields, where neonics are used far more heavily than on Ontario and Quebec farms, say their hives are generally thriving. Apart from a single, ambiguous case, there have been no reports of bee kills attributable to neonics in all of western Canada in recent years.

Another problem with banning neonics is that farmers are forced to replace them with government mandated pesticides that are more, not less, deadly to bees and humans. That is called stupid in case you missed the memo.

One reason that bees seem to be having a hard time has to do with the world’s love of almonds.

There are not enough bees in California to pollinate all the almond plants so farmers import millions of them each season. That means that bees are rounded up, smoked for travel, stuffed in trucks and shipped across the country. That results in millions of stressed out bees. And a large percentage of those stressed out buzzers die. So they need to ship more to cover the losses.

You can see where this is headed.

If all you’re doing is substituting fatally stressed out bees with more fatally stressed out bees you’re not really helping.

Now add in neonics, GM foods and climate issues and you start getting somewhere. While, on their own, none of those issues could have a major impact, stressed out bees, just like stressed out humans, are more prone to contracting illnesses.

The good news is that I’m not the first person to figure this out and there are solutions. The most obvious is to increase the bee population in California. The second is to reduce, not necessarily eliminate, the amount of chemicals they, and eventually we, are subjected to.

And in places where sane policies like that exist bees are now thriving.

Another thing that stresses out bees is honey harvesting. And now, two dudes in Australia, have put an end to that.

Jenni Byall at Mashable has the whole story.

Two Aussie inventors have enticed investors like bees to a honeypot with their new beehive creation.

Father and son duo Stuart and Cedar Anderson have created a contraption that allows for honey on tap straight from the backyard hive.

The Flow Hive is billed as “a revolution” — because it allows for beekeepers to extract honey without opening the hive or disturbing the bees.

See also: First ever public jetpack company zooms onto Australian Stock Exchange

The Flow Hive has already received more than $2 million in funding from more than 5,000 investors on crowdsourcing platform Indiegogo since the project listed on Feb. 22. The men were hoping to raise $70,000 by April, a goal they have exceeded by 3,135%.

“This really is a revolution. You can see into the hive, see when the honey is ready and take it away in such a gentle way,” the pair wrote on the campaign’s site.

In regular beekeeping, the beekeeper would have to dress in protective gear, use a smoker to sedate the bees, then crack the hive open before manually processing the honey. It was a dangerous and time-consuming process.

The Flow Hive’s frames consist of partly-formed honeycomb cells, allowing the bees to complete the comb with their wax before filling the cells with honey. To retrieve the honey from the cells, you turn a handle that causes the cells to spit vertically, creating a channel where the honey can drip down to the base of the frame and out of the hive.

The Flow frames can be used instead of existing frames; they can even replace the entire hive. The Flow Hive is clear so that you can watch the bees at work, turning nectar into honey.

The Andersons, from Byron Bay in northern New South Wales, who have spent 10 years developing the design, have been blown away by the response. “It’s gone nuts, I can’t keep up,” Stuart told Good Food. “Clearly we underestimated the interest.”

For $600 you can get the complete Flow Hive, which comes with everything you need other than the actual bees. The frames alone will set you back between $230 and $460.

The pair are thrilled that their invention has generated so much buzz.

“We hoped it would work, our tests showed it should work and we turned the handle and waited,” Stuart told the ABC about their first success with the product.

“When the first pour of fresh honey came out filling the jar, that was a moment.”

CLICK HERE if you want to invest or purchase a hive.

By the way, natural honey, not the crap you buy at Wal-Mart, has many healing properties and is excellent for your health. It contains sugars that the body can easily use, it heals wounds and so on. The stuff you buy at the store …. does none of those things.

Lisa Winter at I fucking Love Science explains.

Honey that is sold commercially has typically been exposed to heat, pasteurization, and processing in order to kill any yeast and prevent fermentation. While this treatment that makes the honey safer and more shelf-stable, it also gets rid of the honey’s benefits, including antimicrobial and antihistamine properties. Raw, unrefined honey that has the most benefits will come directly from beekeepers, though some specialty shops may have it available.

In other words, summing this all up, there’s hope if the problem is dealt with rationally.

Yeah. You’re right. We’re fucked.

Yourstru.ly Presents: Warpaint "Bees" from Yours Truly on Vimeo.

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There’s so much stuff coming out in the comic book universe it’s easy to get whelmed. Overwhelmed is redundant. Kind of like “from whence.” If someone graces your ears with that one please feel free to point out that the word Whence means From. So they’re actually saying from from. Sorry. Rant over. Back to fun stuff. The worst kept secret in Hollywood is the fact that the new Batman Versus Superman will have a Robin in it. That pic’s just to whet your appetite. The Robin in the new film will be the Carrie Kelly character from the Dark Knight Returns and not the Dick Grayson one most people know. She’ll be portrayed by Jenna Malone. When I talked to my buddy, who’s working on the film, to try and get a grip on who was really going to appear in the movie and who would just be alluded to for now she said this; “At this point I think it’s more a matter of who isn’t cast in this thing. While this deep a cast usually gets lots of short shrift, these dudes are giving everyone some room. This is going to be cool as hell when it’s cut.”

One character that appears to be headed for landfall in this movie is Aquaman. He looks a little something like this now.

The nice folks over at Slash Film doe com had this to say about that.

Jason Momoa is likely to first appear as Aquaman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which opens in March of 2016. After that, he’ll be in Justice League Part One in November 2017, the solo Aquaman movie on July 27, 2018, and then Justice League Part Two in June 2019. So we’re going to get very used to this face.

As to the eagerly anticipated Suicide Squad, it appears they’re setting up a sequel already. The nice folks at Comic Book dot com enlighten us.

Friday Night Lights star Jay Hernandez is playing El Diablo aka Chato Santana in David Ayer’s Suicide Squad. He describes Hernandez’s role as small. It will be just a cameo in the film. When we meet him he will be a “prisoner being held in the super-powered criminal part of the prison.”

But that’s not all! When we see that part of the prison El Diablo will be confined with other supervillains, like Killer Frost, Block Buster, King Shark and Live Wire.

Jared Leto, who lost a ton of weight to be in the Dallas Buyer’s Club, is now working very hard to put it back on so he can play The Joker. Of course he’s trying to do that by eating vegetarian tacos, so who knows how that will go.

Not to be out-Jokered, the TV show Gotham has started a story thread with the “Red Hood Gang” which, as comic book fans know, is the gang that spawns the Joker.

Meanwhile, Supergirl is also headed to TV. Jesse Liebman just posted two videos online of line runs and his audition. This looks to be far more interesting than I’d originally hoped.

In the first video, Wynn chats with his neighbor Kara Danvers, aka Supergirl. Wynn has a crush on Kara, and does a pretty poor job of hiding it. Although, Supergirl doesn’t seem to notice Wynn’s interest, yet she has no problem seeing his deviated septum.

In the breakdown it said Wynn wasn’t aware of Kara’s secret, but in the second video he is very much aware of it as Kara will use him as her go-to-guy for advice on how to be a superhero. He even makes her costume.

Supergirl: Thanks, Wynn.

Wynn: Sorry I fell asleep during our face time last night. Maybe sometime we could watch a movie together. You know, in the same room.

Supergirl: I had fun watching you snore. Your septum is slightly deviated in your left nostril. I’d get that checked.

Wynn: How did … Nevermind. Hey, maybe we could go for one in real-life?

Supergirl: Sorry, I would, but I have a date.

Wynn: A date? Really? Cool. Awesome. Great. Dating is fun. Who with?

Supergirl: Match.com’ guy. We’re 82% compatible, so I think it should be good. He likes, Soul Cycle.

Wynn: You, hate Soul Cycle.

Supergirl: That must be part of the other 18%.

Wynn: You know, you can’t quantify emotion based on an algorithm.

Supergirl: You’re I.T., isn’t your whole life based on algorithms?

Wynn: Yes, so if there was an algorithm for love I would know about it. Just like you’ll know it when it hits you. It’ll be like, POW!

———————————————-

Wynn: I can’t believe I’m actually in your apartment.

Supergirl: Wynn, if we’re going to use our lunch half-half to help me with my super-hearing we need to work fast.

Wynn: I’m still not sure how all this is happening. Maybe the brownie I ate belonged to my roommate.

Supergirl: My abilities come from your Sun. The planet I was born on…

Wynn: Woah! Wait! Hold on, you’re from another planet?

Supergirl: Krypton. Yeah, so is my cousin.

Wynn: You and him? You’re related?

Supergirl: Our dad’s were brothers. I’m going to need you to focus. I want your help. I told you, I don’t a thing about fighting crime.

Wynn: Please, you got the hard part down. First, you need…

Supergirl: A costume.

Wynn: It’s called a suit.

————————————-

Supergirl: How do you know how to sew?

Wynn: I’m a social experiment, my moms were trying to create a post-modern man. I can also swing dance and I do a fantastic curry.

You look very pretty … For a crime-fighting alien. Not that you look like an alien.

Supergirl: I got it!

Wynn: Maybe there are entire planets inhabited solely by gorgeous people. So, second thing stopping you from being a crime-fighter is a crime. Hacked into the [cop’s] frequency. Think the I.T. would’ve built better firewalls by now. I suggest we start with something basic. There’s a car chase on the 1-12 freeway in progress.

Supergirl: I could do a car chase.

————————————–

Wynn: I always thought a cape was a little presentational and over-the-top, but it aids with aerodynamics. I should’ve thought of that.

Supergirl: National City Bank is reporting a 4-3-2, 6th and Spring. Suspects are armed and dangerous.

Wynn: Are you sure you are bullet-proof?

Supergirl: I hope so. I’ve never been shot.

I think that’s enough for today.

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I get it. Sometimes you’ve got some “me time” and you want to make it worth your while. So, a little soft music, a nice dinner for one, maybe a rose (For me? You shouldn’t have!), a couple of adult libations, some jiffy lube and off you go for an evening of one handed romance. You let your imagination run wild. Your brain, the most erotic organ you have in any case, starts firing. Finally, after however long it takes you, your synapses collapse into a heap of protoplasmic ecstasy. Later, after you’ve toweled yourself off, you bask in the glow of self love. That’s all well and good. In fact it’s pretty damn healthy actually. Science has proven that masturbation has many health benefits too. Masturbation helps you sleep, relieves cramps, helps prevent prostate cancer, alleviates urinary tract infections, can help relieve Restless Leg Syndrome symptoms, helps boost your immunity and it just, plain old, makes sex better. If that last one seems counterintuitive just think about it. You’ve made sure all your parts work. You’ve proved to yourself that you have an imagination. Those two things that make you happy also happen to be the exact same things that will make your partner happy. So have at it and enjoy.

Just not in public.

I was talking to a friend of mine and I mentioned that there seemed to be a growing trend of American’s rocking the one eyed wonder weasel, or feeding the bearded clam as the case may be, in places that aren’t usually on anyone’s go to list when it comes to personal pleasuring. He told me to quit exaggerating. Look, if I’ve told him once I’ve told him a billion time, I don’t exaggerate.

But, after being called out like that I feel it’s my duty to prove me right.

Let’s start in Florida because ….. well, Florida.

Meet Amie Carter. This lovely young lady was walking around the outskirts of Orlando, Florida (the greatest place on Earth!). So far so normal. Then she started walking in the middle of the street. Not smart but .. oh, wait. Yes, buck naked in the middle of the road she started commando diddling in front of police. When they tried to arrest her she resisted, did over a grand’s worth of damage to a Nissan (I’d kill to hear that call to an insurance agency) and kicked her legs in the air at the cops. While her path to stardom as a Rockette may be closed the nice police were kind enough to offer a new path to jail. Drugs may have been involved.

Meet Frederick Tennyson Davis. No, you really, really want to. Freddy boy showed up at a library in Toronto not once, but twice, with a cucumber in one hand and his love muscle in another. How he managed to elude police the first time has got to be the saddest tale one cop can tell another. Still, the terror of the tomes has been incarcerated so it’s safe to read again.

Or not.

Meet Tyree Carter. The 20 year old Racine, Wisconsin resident has been banned for being a bibliophile of epic, and disturbing, proportions. He would go into an aisle, pick out a book he loved and then share his love of literature by flogging his frog in front of anyone who happened by. He’s been banned from any library in the world for life.

So what do you do if the cops bust for you a little self loving?

Not this.

Meet Mike Eiskant. Mike was a cop in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was videotaped sitting in his car, demanding that someone on his cell phone show him her tits while he was rubbing one off. And that was the least of his problems. Check this out.

… he entered a plea of no contest before Bernalillo County District Court Judge Reed Sheppard to two counts of attempt to commit a felony (false imprisonment), one count of stalking, two counts of harassment and other charges including larceny and possession of marijuana, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican.

Seven of the charges occurred in 2011 and the counts of false imprisonment, stalking and harassment relate to traffic stops involving female drivers, according to the criminal complaint.

In return for pleading no contest, Eiskant agreed he “will never again become a law enforcement officer anywhere in the United States,” according to a statement from Attorney General Gary King’s office.

On the other hand, meet this guy. Again, we’re back in Florida. A woman had called the cops because she saw someone masturbating in the CVS parking lot (oh, you know you want to do it too). When the cops tracked him down inside the store he claimed it was because he had a rash and not because he liked himself. And, again this is Florida, to prove it he whipped out his balls and showed them to the cop. And they were horrid. No charges were filed.

In Omaha, Nebraska, Darryl Moore, not to be confused with Dennis Moore, tried a similar tactic. He told the cops he’d witnessed a murder. When they asked for details he dropped trough and started flogging his frog. Fortunately for the citizens of Omaha the police didn’t have to take him very far. The good news for Darryl, and the bad news for the janitor, is that he completed the process before they could stop him.

Speaking of people janitor’s hate, meet Anthony Bruce Berry. The Lantana Florida native, I’m seeing a theme developing here, was having trouble using a door knob, yes, you read that right, so he fucked it. He has also faced charges of indecent exposure two times before, and has had 32 other arrests for charges such as robbery, sexual assault and cocaine possession since 1979.

Really? A door knob?

Let’s try and wrap this up, as it were.

Scott Smith, from Penn Township, Pennsylvania, claimed his pants were too big and that’s why his penis kept popping out. No, the cops didn’t believe him either.

William Blakely, the vice-mayor (man is that post aptly named) of Mt. Carmel Tennessee, was arrested for masturbating out of the window of his car while he drove. I don’t even want to know how or why he developed that skill.

Not enough?

Meet Nick Gonzales (in a firehouse?), Gregory Matthew Bruni (pooped & masturbated in Tony Lands’ Florida Home), Steven Young (at a parade no less), Elijah Slocumb (incorrectly named according to witnesses), Jared Weston (the master of hair don’ts), and the man, the myth, the legend, Edwin Tobregta.

Here’s a little sumptin sumptin about Eddie.

Edwin Tobergta, 35, was arrested in Hamilton, Ohio on Wednesday for allegedly having sex with an inflatable pool raft by the side of the road, Fox 19 reports. This is the fourth time Tobergta has been arrested for this kind of offense.

In 2011, Tobergta was caught with his pants down in an alley with his neighbor’s pink, inflatable raft.

He went to jail, but was arrested again in 2013 for having sex with the EXACT SAME RAFT, which had inexplicably not been thrown out. The 2013 offense occurred at Tobergta’s own home, but he was charged with — and pleaded guilty to — public indecency because it happened within the view of children during the day.

It is unclear if Tobergta’s most recent alleged offense took place with the same pool raft.

In 2002, Tobergta was arrested for publicly pleasuring himself with an inflatable pumpkin. That object wasn’t a pool toy, though, because come on, a man needs a little variety.

In his newest mugshot, Tobergta is wearing a T-shirt that reads, “I’m out of my mind. Please leave a message.”

POOL PARTY!

Or not.

I limited my research to the last two years and to those that were actually charged. Well, except for rash-man. That was just too fun not to share.

Had I not done so you would have thought that War and Peace was a pocket book.

So what have we learned today boys and girls? You only share with CONSENTING partners. Got it?

Good.

Now have fun out there.

tsurufoto presents… Give Me A Reason To Love You starring Sheila Savage (NSFW) from tsurufoto. on Vimeo.

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