OB Rag

As the disappearance of honeybees continues, researchers are trying desperately to discover the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). General concensus at this point is that there is more than once cause and the latest culprit may be genetically modified crops. This is one area of research being neglected as mainstream scientists insist GM crops are safe.

For the last 100 years, beekeepers have experienced colony losses from bacteria, (foulbrood), mites (varroa and tracheal) and other pathogens. These problems are dealt with by using antibiotics, miticides and and other methods of pest management. Losses are slow and expected and beekeepers know how to limit the destruction. This new mass die-off is different in that it is virtually instantaneous with no warning of the impending collapse.

Last week the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that the City’s Police Department has decided to purchase a mobile observation tower. Paying the $119,000 price tag with funds from a Homeland Security grant, the SDPD has already tried the tower out out on numerous occasions, and expects delivery of the two-storied platform in February.
Police told the U-T that they had used the tower at the beach over Labor Day, had used it at UTC during the recent holidays and at Qualcomm when the Raiders played the Chargers. “It has assisted us in making arrests, ” police Capt. Shelly Zimmerman told the newspaper, “and has certainly been a huge deterrent.” We’re told that the El Cajon police use a similar tower at Westfield Parkway Plaza shopping mall to “monitor crowds.”

There are two kinds of San Diego City Councilmember’s: “staffers” and “legislators”. The “staffers” are Faulconer, Gloria, Young and Hueso and the “legislators” are Lightner, DeMaio, Frye and Emerald. “Staffers” are easily identifiable by their “institutional” mentality. They demonstrate a natural sympathy with the bureaucratic mind and identify more with city staff who come before them for “Council Action” than with the electorate.

Peace activists in the nation’s capital met for weeks last fall, brainstorming how they’d demonstrate their opposition at the inauguration of John McCain as president. Then Barack Obama won the election. What’s a liberal protester to do? “It was a happy dilemma,” said Barbra Bearden, spokeswoman for Peace Action, which is affiliated with the Activist Coalition of D.C.

Yup- that’s right. For over 12 or more hours now, our host server has been having troubles. We’ll soon have…

As I watch newborn baby lambs playing King of the Hill, bouncing and playing like their legs are springs, my heart fills with both joy and dread. I’m a city girl, a lawyer, who got into farming because I believe passionately that small, sustainable farms are our future ….

Among the wars currently being fought by the American government is one in which there can be no winners. Our prior law enforcement experiences warn us that the “war on terrorism” has spawned an internal “war on dissent” in which everyone loses.

Both Michael Moore, who produced “Sicko”, and Congressional Representative John Conyers are very critical of President-elect Obama’s choice for Surgeon General. Rep. John Conyers has written a letter to Democratic colleagues urging them to join him in publicly opposing the nomination of Dr. Sanjay Gupta for Surgeon General.

Sea bird experts up and down the West Coast are sounding the alarm about hundreds of California brown pelicans dying or becoming injured by bad weather or a mysterious malady. Reports of disoriented, malnourished and dead pelicans have come from Washington state to Baja California in recent weeks.

MARJORIE COHN: Since Israel began its war on Gaza nearly 2 weeks ago, more than 680 Palestinians — about a quarter of them civilians — have been killed. Some three thousand Gazans, including hundreds of children, have been wounded. Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead” marks an escalation of Israel’s two-year blockade of the Gaza Strip which has deprived 1.5 million Palestinians of necessary food, medicine, fuel and other necessities.

Today – Thursday, January 8 – a group of 70 Service Employees International Union (SEIU) officials will join a conference call, set up in Washington, D.C., to decide the fate of 150,000 members of United Healthcare Workers-West, SEIU’s third-largest affiliate. Among the actions the SEIU International Executive Board (IEB) may take is transferring 65,000 long-term care workers in California, against their will, from UHW into a new statewide entity with officers appointed by SEIU President Andy Stern.

What does history tell us about the proper role of American politicians during wartime? Supporters of President Bush like to compare his leadership in pursuing the unpopular Iraqi war to the steadfastness of Abraham Lincoln in his own prosecution of the difficult Civil War. … Trouble is, Lincoln had quite a different attitude toward another war, the little-known Mexican War of 1846-48.