Friday, May 22, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
South Africa....flip flop of rich & poor
JourneyMan reports "The end of the Apartheid regime saw black South Africans gain from democracy and climb the social ladder. On the other hand white South Africans are learning that now the tables have turned, life isnt so easy. "
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Parasitic flies turn fire ants into zombies
It sounds like something out of science fiction: zombie fire ants. But it's all too real.
Fire ants wander aimlessly away from the mound.
Eventually their heads fall off, and they die.
The strange part is that researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M's AgriLife Extension Service say making "zombies" out of fire ants is a good thing.
"It's a tool — they're not going to completely wipe out the fire ant, but it's a way to control their population," said Scott Ludwig , an integrated pest management specialist with the AgriLife Extension Service in Overton , in East Texas .
The tool is the tiny phorid fly, native to a region of South America where the fire ants in Texas originated. Researchers have learned that there are as many as 23 phorid species along with pathogens that attack fire ants to keep their population and movements under control.
So far, four phorid species have been introduced in Texas .
The flies "dive-bomb" the fire ants and lay eggs. The maggot that hatches inside the ant eats away at the brain, and the ant starts exhibiting what some might say is zombie-like behavior.
"At some point, the ant gets up and starts wandering," said Rob Plowes, a research associate at UT.
The maggot eventually migrates into the ant's head, but Plowes said he "wouldn't use the word 'control' to describe what is happening. There is no brain left in the ant, and the ant just starts wandering aimlessly. This wandering stage goes on for about two weeks."
About a month after the egg is laid, the ant's head falls off and the fly emerges ready to attack any foraging ants away from the mound and lay eggs.
Plowes said fire ants are "very aware" of these tiny flies, and it only takes a few to cause the ants to modify their behavior.
"Just one or two flies can control movement or above-ground activity," Plowes said. "It's kind of like a medieval activity where you're putting a castle under siege."
Researchers began introducing phorid species in Texas in 1999. The first species has traveled all the way from Central and South Texas to the Oklahoma border. This year, UT researchers will add colonies south of the Metroplex at farms and ranches from Stephenville to Overton . It is the fourth species introduced in Texas .
Fire ants cost the Texas economy about $1 billion annually by damaging circuit breakers and other electrical equipment, according to a Texas A&M study. They can also threaten young calves.
Determining whether the phorid flies will work in Texas will take time, perhaps as long as a decade.
"These are very slow acting," Plowes said. "It's more like a cumulative impact measured across a time frame of years. It's not an immediate silver bullet impact."
The flies, which are USDA -approved, do not attack native ants or species and have been introduced in other Gulf Coast states, Plowes said. Despite initial concerns, farmers and ranchers have been willing to let researchers use their property to establish colonies. At the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association in Fort Worth in March, Plowes said they found plenty of volunteers
By Bill Hanna, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Fire ants wander aimlessly away from the mound.
Eventually their heads fall off, and they die.
The strange part is that researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M's AgriLife Extension Service say making "zombies" out of fire ants is a good thing.
"It's a tool — they're not going to completely wipe out the fire ant, but it's a way to control their population," said Scott Ludwig , an integrated pest management specialist with the AgriLife Extension Service in Overton , in East Texas .
The tool is the tiny phorid fly, native to a region of South America where the fire ants in Texas originated. Researchers have learned that there are as many as 23 phorid species along with pathogens that attack fire ants to keep their population and movements under control.
So far, four phorid species have been introduced in Texas .
The flies "dive-bomb" the fire ants and lay eggs. The maggot that hatches inside the ant eats away at the brain, and the ant starts exhibiting what some might say is zombie-like behavior.
"At some point, the ant gets up and starts wandering," said Rob Plowes, a research associate at UT.
The maggot eventually migrates into the ant's head, but Plowes said he "wouldn't use the word 'control' to describe what is happening. There is no brain left in the ant, and the ant just starts wandering aimlessly. This wandering stage goes on for about two weeks."
About a month after the egg is laid, the ant's head falls off and the fly emerges ready to attack any foraging ants away from the mound and lay eggs.
Plowes said fire ants are "very aware" of these tiny flies, and it only takes a few to cause the ants to modify their behavior.
"Just one or two flies can control movement or above-ground activity," Plowes said. "It's kind of like a medieval activity where you're putting a castle under siege."
Researchers began introducing phorid species in Texas in 1999. The first species has traveled all the way from Central and South Texas to the Oklahoma border. This year, UT researchers will add colonies south of the Metroplex at farms and ranches from Stephenville to Overton . It is the fourth species introduced in Texas .
Fire ants cost the Texas economy about $1 billion annually by damaging circuit breakers and other electrical equipment, according to a Texas A&M study. They can also threaten young calves.
Determining whether the phorid flies will work in Texas will take time, perhaps as long as a decade.
"These are very slow acting," Plowes said. "It's more like a cumulative impact measured across a time frame of years. It's not an immediate silver bullet impact."
The flies, which are USDA -approved, do not attack native ants or species and have been introduced in other Gulf Coast states, Plowes said. Despite initial concerns, farmers and ranchers have been willing to let researchers use their property to establish colonies. At the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association in Fort Worth in March, Plowes said they found plenty of volunteers
By Bill Hanna, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Monday, May 11, 2009
Mexican drug hitman.
Soldiers present Jose Carlos Trevino, a suspected drug gang hitman, to the media at a military base on the outskirts of Monterrey, northern Mexico, May 5, 2009
Mexico drug violence rises on border despite army
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) – Killings between rival drug cartels are rising again in Mexico's most violent city despite a massive army deployment that temporarily slashed the murder rate on the U.S. border.
Drug gangsters in Ciudad Juarez who used to chase enemies in flashy black jeeps have lowered their profile but are still killing each other as 10,000 troops and federal police patrol the city, across the border from El Paso, Texas.
"Criminals are taking a different approach, using pistols not assault weapons and driving around in small, old cars to reach their rivals, ditching their SUVs," said army spokesman Enrique Torres.
The government says the army has cut drug murders by up to 80 percent since soldiers arrived in March -- but gangs killed 12 people on May 1 in one of the bloodiest days this year.
The 231 drug murders recorded in Ciudad Juarez in February dropped to 64 in March, the army says. But the number crept up to 81 in April and is already over 30 for the first week of May, according to police and media tallies.
Mexico's most-wanted man Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman is trying to drive out the Juarez cartel from the manufacturing city to control the prized smuggling route into the United States and dominate the lucrative local drug market, officials say.
One drug dealer, who gave his name as X, said the Juarez cartel and its wing of corrupt police known as La Linea (The Line) ordered foot soldiers to lay low so the army would leave.
"They don't want any military taking over their turf and they can see they are not leaving, so they are again fighting (their rivals)," he said in the scruffy downtown.
President Felipe Calderon has staked his presidency on crushing the gangs that killed 6,300 people last year across Mexico. The violence worries Washington, spilling into border cities like Phoenix and Tucson, and U.S. President Barack Obama praised Calderon's drug fight in a visit to Mexico last month.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told the U.S. Senate last week border violence was calming but also questioned how long the reduction would last.
"Some (traffickers) have left (Ciudad Juarez). It is not a comfortable place for them but obviously the criminal infrastructure cannot shift its geography," Mexico's Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora told Reuters in an interview last week in Mexico City.
DEATH TOLL CLIMBS
Mexico's drug war death toll is running at around 2,300 people this year, slightly higher than at the same point in 2008, even as the army makes historic seizures of weapons and cash and arrests top cartel leaders.
As Mexico was distracted with the outbreak of H1N1 swine flu over the past two weeks, violence has continued.
Seven people were tied up in black plastic bags and thrown off a bridge in the southern state of Guerrero this month. Police believe the victims may have been alive when they were tossed because the bodies had no bullet wounds or bruises.
In Tijuana, across from southern California, drug gangs killed seven police officers in less than an hour in coordinated attacks across the city on April 27.
"We're frightened of the lethal (flu) epidemic ... but the power of organized crime is more dangerous and federal forces don't seem to be able to stop or even inhibit it," columnist Miguel Angel Granados wrote in Reforma daily last week.
The government insists it is winning against the well-armed drug gangs and that more violence is a sign of their weakness.
It says it is ridding cities like Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez of corrupt police. "We have broken this relationship of impunity (between police and cartels)," Medina Mora said.
Most Mexicans support Calderon's decision to use the army despite complaints of rights abuses in Ciudad Juarez.
Last month, Monte Alejandro Rubido, who recently joined Calderon's National Security Council as a technical director, told Mexican daily El Universal that Mexico will keep the army on the streets to fight the cartels until at least 2013.
Baja California state police chief Daniel de la Rosa told Reuters he wants more soldiers in Tijuana and its surrounding towns, as 2,000 troops and federal police try to quell a bitter war between factions of the dominant Arellano Felix cartel.
Drug gangsters in Ciudad Juarez who used to chase enemies in flashy black jeeps have lowered their profile but are still killing each other as 10,000 troops and federal police patrol the city, across the border from El Paso, Texas.
"Criminals are taking a different approach, using pistols not assault weapons and driving around in small, old cars to reach their rivals, ditching their SUVs," said army spokesman Enrique Torres.
The government says the army has cut drug murders by up to 80 percent since soldiers arrived in March -- but gangs killed 12 people on May 1 in one of the bloodiest days this year.
The 231 drug murders recorded in Ciudad Juarez in February dropped to 64 in March, the army says. But the number crept up to 81 in April and is already over 30 for the first week of May, according to police and media tallies.
Mexico's most-wanted man Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman is trying to drive out the Juarez cartel from the manufacturing city to control the prized smuggling route into the United States and dominate the lucrative local drug market, officials say.
One drug dealer, who gave his name as X, said the Juarez cartel and its wing of corrupt police known as La Linea (The Line) ordered foot soldiers to lay low so the army would leave.
"They don't want any military taking over their turf and they can see they are not leaving, so they are again fighting (their rivals)," he said in the scruffy downtown.
President Felipe Calderon has staked his presidency on crushing the gangs that killed 6,300 people last year across Mexico. The violence worries Washington, spilling into border cities like Phoenix and Tucson, and U.S. President Barack Obama praised Calderon's drug fight in a visit to Mexico last month.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told the U.S. Senate last week border violence was calming but also questioned how long the reduction would last.
"Some (traffickers) have left (Ciudad Juarez). It is not a comfortable place for them but obviously the criminal infrastructure cannot shift its geography," Mexico's Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora told Reuters in an interview last week in Mexico City.
DEATH TOLL CLIMBS
Mexico's drug war death toll is running at around 2,300 people this year, slightly higher than at the same point in 2008, even as the army makes historic seizures of weapons and cash and arrests top cartel leaders.
As Mexico was distracted with the outbreak of H1N1 swine flu over the past two weeks, violence has continued.
Seven people were tied up in black plastic bags and thrown off a bridge in the southern state of Guerrero this month. Police believe the victims may have been alive when they were tossed because the bodies had no bullet wounds or bruises.
In Tijuana, across from southern California, drug gangs killed seven police officers in less than an hour in coordinated attacks across the city on April 27.
"We're frightened of the lethal (flu) epidemic ... but the power of organized crime is more dangerous and federal forces don't seem to be able to stop or even inhibit it," columnist Miguel Angel Granados wrote in Reforma daily last week.
The government insists it is winning against the well-armed drug gangs and that more violence is a sign of their weakness.
It says it is ridding cities like Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez of corrupt police. "We have broken this relationship of impunity (between police and cartels)," Medina Mora said.
Most Mexicans support Calderon's decision to use the army despite complaints of rights abuses in Ciudad Juarez.
Last month, Monte Alejandro Rubido, who recently joined Calderon's National Security Council as a technical director, told Mexican daily El Universal that Mexico will keep the army on the streets to fight the cartels until at least 2013.
Baja California state police chief Daniel de la Rosa told Reuters he wants more soldiers in Tijuana and its surrounding towns, as 2,000 troops and federal police try to quell a bitter war between factions of the dominant Arellano Felix cartel.
YouKARI CHUNKY y Mi
AGAIN!! With the favorite Japanese rock band & their favorite American clothing line, YouKARI Chunky & Amnimal.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Breakfast of Savages
Yall prolly like don't you mean champions, naw humans, SAVAGES!!!!
Orange juice, blueberry muffin, fruit bowl, bowl of nanners & a yogurt, lets get the working.
Orange juice, blueberry muffin, fruit bowl, bowl of nanners & a yogurt, lets get the working.
SideBar..... BeacHBoy steeze-Zo (C.E.O fLow)
"Brain waves washed up on my mental mind shore, leave a soul sliced, from my mental minds sword. Never gave a bleep about chick or bitch, so fly and high, you a bleep from my blimp. You can chase the ass or money, if you get that money, that ass come running. Marathon hustle, nigga I ain't stopping, buddy I'm boiling, way past poppin."
-Meeh-
-Meeh-
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