Tuesday, July 23, 2019

Avocados

Last week, in "Fake guacamole," I wrote about how some people thinking they were eating guacamole didn't know that there was no avocado in it.  Staying on the topic of avocados, this is from Monday's All Things Considered (NPR):

 MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
What is a Mexican restaurant without guacamole? For that matter, what is a hipster cafe without avocado toast? These are the questions facing a number of restaurateurs this summer, and you will notice the avocado theme here. As NPR's Mandalit del Barco reports, avocados cost nearly double what they did a year ago.

 MANDALIT DEL BARCO, BYLINE: In LA's Boyle Heights neighborhood, El Tepeyac Cafe uses loads of avocados for its delicious homemade guacamole - 50 boxes a week. Operations manager Bernadette Thome says they have no choice but to pay more.

 BERNADETTE THOME: I mean, we're in a Mexican restaurant, and everything pretty much on our plate requires guacamole, so to completely be out of it would not work.

 DEL BARCO: El Tepeyac has been around since 1955, and Thome says the owners are resigned to price spikes. She says they try not to charge customers more, though they sometimes have had to. The higher prices mean they have to shop around.

 THOME: We always buy an avocado somewhere, so if we can get a different quality or different sizes, like, a little bit cheaper and they're a little bit smaller or a different kind of avocado, then we'll do that as well, too, until we can get through it.

 DEL BARCO: There's a simple explanation for expensive avocados, says David Magana, a senior horticulture analyst in Fresno with RaboResearch. People want them.

 DAVID MAGANA: We have the highest, or the strongest, demand for avocados in the U.S. probably ever.

 DEL BARCO: Magana analyzes wholesale prices from Mexico, which supplies most of this country's avocados. He says 24-pound cartons of midsize avocados from Michoacan are selling for $66 each.

 MAGANA: That is 91% higher than what they were a year ago.

 DEL BARCO: A couple of weeks ago, they were even higher. Magana says fruit and vegetable production is always subject to weather conditions. This year, production of California avocados was way down.

 MAGANA: Remember that last year we had a heat wave in California in July, August, so that impacted blooming. It started later than normal. The yields were lower this year.

 DEL BARCO: Mexican farmers had to take up the slack for California, so they sent their best. But now, they're running out.

 (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

 UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Singing in foreign language).

 DEL BARCO: In LA's Silver Lake district, the restaurant Sqirl is known for its gourmet avocado toast, an entire avocado on a thick slice of country bread from a local bread-maker with garlic creme fraiche and topped with hot pickled carrots in a homemade za'atar.

 JESSICA KOSLOW: Kind of wild and quirky - not what you think of when you think of avocado toast.

 DEL BARCO: Jessica Koslow is the chef and owner of Sqirl, where the avocado toast goes for $10 apiece.

 KOSLOW: I do believe that avocados are a luxury item.

 DEL BARCO: Koslow says she only uses avocados from California, which are not always in season.

 KOSLOW: So that's where the challenge comes in. How do you have avocados year-round? We don't, but we're not everyone else.


 DEL BARCO: Koslow says some restaurants substitute avocados with other ingredients, like cheese. But when her local suppliers run out, she simply takes her avocado dishes off the menu. By now, Koslow is used to seeing high prices for avocados everywhere.


This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"


Tuesday, July 23, 2019.  ISIS remains in Iraq and remains active, a grown man pisses his panties over remarks by Donald Trump embarrassing us all, and more.

Yesterday, US President Donald Trump met with Pakistan's prime minister, Imran Khan.  Remarks were made to the press.

The press has filed charged reports with inflammatory headlines.  This is David Knowles (YAHOO JERK OFFS):


President Trump said Monday that he could easily end the war in Afghanistan by destroying the entire country, but it would result in 10 million deaths.
“We’re like policemen. We’re not fighting a war. If we wanted to fight a war in Afghanistan and win it, I could win that war in a week,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office during a meeting with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. “I just don’t want to kill 10 million people.”
The population of Afghanistan is around 35 million.
“I have plans on Afghanistan that if I wanted to win that war, Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the earth. It would be gone, it would be over literally in 10 days.”

These remarks are being condemned by some.  Take this idiot.

Now do you understand why I want us to get the hell out of Iraq and Afghanistan? I don't want soldiers on the ground under Trump's command. He jeopardizes everyone's safety and that means lives in a combat zone.
1:06 PM - 22 Jul 2019
53 replies839 retweets3,414 likes
 
 
Read his words. “I just don’t want to kill 10 million people.” “If I wanted to win that war, Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the earth. It would be over in, literally, 10 days. I don’t want to go that route.” That's not a commander in chief.
25 replies130 retweets638 likes
 
 
  •  16 hours ago
    • First lesson in the military, it's not about you. Stop saying "I". Hundreds of thousands of our brave men and women are going to end up doing your dirty work.
    10 replies124 retweets817 likes
     
     
  •  16 hours ago
    • It's like getting your teeth knocked out because some other guy couldn't keep his mouth shut. That's what going to war under an idiot feels like.
    10 replies107 retweets649 likes
     
     



    "First lesson in the military, it's not about you."  Donald Trump's not in the military, you stupid idiot.

    Is that hard for you to understand?

    We have civilian control over the military.

    "Read his words.  That's not a commander in chief."


    Actually, he is the commander in chief so that is a commander in chief.

    Red T Raccoon wets his panties.  Why?

    Supposedly, he wants US troops out of Afghanistan.   Then why is he bothered by Donald wanting the same?

    What did Donald say?  Donald Trump declared the Afghanistan War could be ended in a week if he was willing to have 10 million killed.  He stated there were plans for such an attack.  I

    How stupid are people?

    Yes, there are such plans.  There are always such plans.  Plans for every possibility are drawn up.  They are reviewed.  They are debated.

    You don't think Donald Trump actually wrote a plan, do you?

    That's not what the president does.

    He is surrounded by War Hawks and I'm not surprised in the least that there are people recommending a deathly option on Afghanistan.  I am glad that he doesn't want to be a person responsible for ten million deaths.

    Trump speaks and then something weird happens.  On the left, we don't really seem to hear what he says a lot of the time.  We go into panic mode.

    "Trump's saying he's going to kill ten million people!!!!"

    That's not what he said at all.

    We are so fear based that we hear the worst from the people we don't like.  We really need to grow the hell up and get the f**k over it.  I'm sick of the Chicken Littles running around screaming "The sky is falling!" endlessly over every little thing.

    There are many big things we need to concern ourselves with.

    To have a panty wetting fit over the fact that Donald Trump says he doesn't want to kill ten million people?

    That's just nuts and you make yourself a joke as you scream and rage.

    How do you not grasp that?  Is your hatred that intense?

    I don't know.  I do know that I don't want ten million people in Afghanistan to die for 'liberation.'

    The stupidity on display of late is disgusting and it's fear based.  I don't do fear based.  I stopped reading THE NATION when they tried to make the 2004 election about fear.  I turned over the TV on 9/12/11 as a horror became a fear-fest.  I don't do fear.

    Donald Trump has said many things to object to.  His remarks on Afghanistan weren't anything to condemn.


    As many as 10,000 people were killed in the operation to 'liberate' Mosul that started in October 2016.  Are people aware of this AP count?  Did it matter to anyone?  It doesn't appear to have.  But ten million people who have not been killed is cause for alarm?

    Those 10,000 people?  They're dead and a question can be asked: Why?

    It's not like the Iraqi government is even attempting to improve things.  Most refugees have not returned to Mosul.  It's not safe for them.  The government has not carried out the needed rebuilding over two years after claiming victory.

    And that claim included that ISIS was defeated, vanquished.  No such thing took place.

    Sunday, Louisa Loveluck and Mustafa Salim (WASHINGTON POST via STARS AND STRIPES) reported:

     Islamic State militants who escaped the defeat of their self-described caliphate in Syria earlier this year have been slipping across the border into Iraq, bolstering a low-level insurgency the group is now waging across the central and northern part of the country, according to security officials.
    About 1,000 fighters have crossed into Iraq during the past eight months, most of them in the aftermath of the caliphate’s collapse in March, said Hisham al-Hashimi, a security analyst who advises Iraq’s government and foreign aid agencies.
    Those fighters, mostly Iraqis who followed ISIS into Syria, are now returning home to join militant cells that have been digging into rugged rural areas, sustained by intimate knowledge of the local terrain, including concealed tunnels and other hiding places.
    The militants move under the cover of darkness to carry out sniper attacks and rudimentary roadside bombings several times per week.
    Their attacks, occurring outside major cities, are often opportunistic and primarily target community leaders and security forces involved in efforts to root them out. An explosion earlier this month in the northern city of Kirkuk killed two motorcyclists. A separate attack in Diyala, in eastern Iraq, targeted militiamen assigned with hunting down militants.




    They did lose control of Mosul.  But controlling territories is really not the goal of a terrorist organization.  They continued to carry out terrorist attacks even after their alleged defeat. 
    And they left Mosul, remember, in part because of the non-stop bombing and in part because they were allowed to go to Syria.  Sort of waived on in by the US government.  Those caravans were not bombed.  Mosul was bombed.  But leaving Mosul was encouraged.  
    Sunday, AP reported:

    Iraq’s military said Saturday its troops in partnership with security agencies and paramilitary forces launched the second phase of an operation aimed at clearing remnants of the Islamic State group from north of Baghdad and surrounding areas.

    This is the second phase of the operation dubbed “Will to Victory,” which started two weeks earlier and targeted the area along the border with Syria. The military said the new target area is north of Baghdad and in the Diyala, Salahuddin and Anbar provinces.


    Nothing has changed.  Nothing is going to change.  ISIS will never be defeated by dropping bombs.  The Iraqi government is going to have to stop being so corrupt and stop persecuting the Iraqi people in order to defeat ISIS.  When the Iraqi people have a government that works for them, ISIS will not have any real power in Iraq.
     Jul 21
    ISIS regrouping even as it is on the run, including in Iraq’s remote western desert around al-Qaim. & went to find out, here’s their great report
    1 reply204 retweets171 likes
     
     



    She's linking to the Sunday report noted above.  But how is ISIS on the run?  She's talking as though it's a military.  It's a terrorist organization and, no, it's not on the run.  I have no idea how she came to that conclusion.


     Jul 18
    The deliberate arming of al-Qaeda to create a Caliphate of Wahhabi Salafi extremists in Sunni areas of Syria and Iraq (i.e. ISIS) was confirmed when Pentagon emails from 2012 were released under FOIA in May 2015 (this news was censored by M$M) John McCain
    1 reply45 retweets43 likes
     
     
    Show this thread


    Did the US government unleash ISIS or help create it?  It's a question that lingers.  It's obvious that they have thought they could manage it and it's also obvious that they cannot.






    The following sites updated:






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    Monday, July 22, 2019

    Green Party calls out the Justice Dept.

    second round of debates

    From Sunday morning, that's Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Next Round of Debates,"  Leaving the Democrats, let me include this press release from the Green Party:
    NEW YORK – The Green Party of New York (GPNY) renewed its call for justice for Eric Garner in response to the Justice Department's announcement that it would not bring federal civil rights charges against the New York City Police Department officer responsible for killing Garner, an unarmed citizen, five years ago today.
    Green Party of New York
    www.gpny.org
    For Immediate Release
    July 17, 2019
    Contact:
    Peter LaVenia, Co-chair, GPNY chair2@gpny.org or 518-495-8001
    Gloria Mattera, Co-chair, GPNY chair@gpny.org or 917-886-4538
    "For five years, justice has been denied to the family of Eric Garner," said GPNY co-chair Gloria Mattera. "For five years, officer Daniel Pantaleo has remained on the NYPD payroll, despite video evidence and conclusions by the city's medical examiner, an independent autopsy, and an NYPD internal affairs inquiry that Pantaleo used a chokehold. We call on Mayor Bill de Blasio to exercise his influence with Police Commissioner James O'Neill to do the right thing and fire officer Pantaleo," said Mattera. O'Neill is currently awaiting a judge's verdict following a departmental trial.
    "The Justice Department announcement comes on the eve of the fifth anniversary of Eric Garner's homicide," said GPNY co-chair Peter LaVenia. "It comes in the aftermath of demonstrations across the country last Friday calling on the Trump Administration to close the ICE concentration camps that are holding immigrants trying to enter the United States. It follows a week that has seen an overtly racist and divisive President Donald Trump continue to find support from white nationalists and fascists for his disturbing comments, and his repeated refusal to disavow them. Viewed together, these events starkly bring into focus the ongoing struggles for black and brown liberation in America, struggles that the Green Party is committed to," said LaVenia.




    This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"


    Monday, July 22, 2019.  The past continues to rebuke Joe Biden.


    Next week, the Democratic Party holds their second round of debates for their presidential candidates (on July 30th and July 31st).  Right now, one of the 20 who made the cut seems determined to embarrass himself.

    Yes, we're talking about War Hawk Joe.  Status quo Joe.  He voted for the Iraq War.  He sold the Iraq War before and after it started.  He wants to talk about Iraq . . . provided he can start the conversation after he's Vice President (2009) and end it at the end of 2011.  Salvador Rizzo (WASHINGTON POST) fact checks Joe on his Iraq withdrawal claims and comments:
    Although Bush set the 2011 withdrawal time frame, the Obama administration had to figure out the logistics and details, and much of that work fell to Biden and his committee. The drawdown proceeded in phases, with U.S. forces dropping from 150,000 to 50,000 to almost zero during Obama’s first term.

    However, the United States kept several thousand military contractors in Iraq throughout this time and after 2011. And although Obama promised to end the Iraq War as a candidate, there were bumps along the road that complicate Biden’s neatly wrapped-up story.
    Before withdrawing forces in 2011, Obama’s administration tried to persuade Iraqi political leaders to allow a residual force of about 3,500 U.S. troops to remain. Some high-level officials in the Obama administration argued that a total withdrawal would open up a power vacuum in Iraq and erase the gains secured by U.S. forces and international allies.
    “It was clear to me — and many others — that withdrawing all our forces would endanger the fragile stability then barely holding Iraq together,” Leon Panetta, who was Obama’s CIA director from 2009 to 2011 and defense secretary from 2011 to 2013, wrote in his memoir, “Worthy Fights.”

    In 2011, the United States was seeking legal immunity for U.S. troops as part of an agreement for a continued military presence in Iraq. But there was no support in the Iraqi parliament for that, Biden’s advisers said.
    [. . .]
    Biden had a big hand in withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq during Obama’s first term. It was a sensitive role and one Biden relished, by many accounts. But he was still the vice president during Obama’s second term, when thousands of U.S. troops returned to the country. It’s puzzling to see him leave that out of his remarks on the campaign trail and in the debate.
    The Biden camp argues that these are two very different conflicts and that the troop levels were much higher pre-2011 and much lower post-2014. However, as top Obama administration officials have said in public, the two conflicts are inextricably linked. The Islamic State gained a foothold in Iraq in large part because U.S. forces had withdrawn.
    Biden told half the story, so he gets Two Pinocchios.


    Two Pinocchios.  Liar, liar pants on fire.  The Iraq War never ended.


    1.  Jul 19
    Joe Biden isn't just wrong on almost every burning contemporary political issue in the United States. He also worked closely with George W. Bush to enthusiastically lead the charge to invade Iraq.
    4 replies27 retweets75 likes


     Jul 19
    Replying to   
    Gotta love centrist dems. You literally attack Bernie unprovoked and when you get the slightest push back on your BS you compare ppl to trump lol. Also whats bidens best legislation? Locking up black ppl? Voting against bussing? Voting for the Iraq war or siding with CC companies


     Jul 19
    Replying to 
    I'm Joe Biden, I pushed a healthcare plan contrived by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank. Vote for me and I'll pass more corporate friendly policies. Iraq War? You got it. NAFTA? Sounds great. Wall Street bailout? No problem! Vote for me, I'm Joe Biden.





    The press told you Joe Biden was inevitable and unbeatable.  Now he's double digit lead is over and, in some polls. he ahead of Senator Elizabeth Warren by 6% or less.  And it's only July.  Meaning?  Joe will tank further when the fall semester begins.  Joe has no youth support.  It's like a Young Republican circa 1968, they really don't exist and the few that are around tend to be pointed to and giggled over.

    Joe is the past.  He offers no vision of the future.  He promises you he'll bring back the Obama Era -- the one that refused to do what was needed on climate change?  I saw that ridiculous interview with that woman who can no longer sing.  She spends 80% of her days in denial, she said, and 20% trying to do something.  And she thinks young people should lead because they know how serious the threat to the environment is.

    That would be the same threat that existed in 2008.  And the singer -- who still had a voice then -- couldn't call out the inaction on climate change from 2009 through the start of 2017.  I'm remembering what Mick Jagger called the woman's autobiography -- AND A C**T TO SING WITH -- and starting to really grasp why.

    That's the hypocrisy the youth will have to push past.  And it doesn't help Joe Biden.

    Nothing does.

    The reality is that Barack had eight years to do something serious about climate change and he offered meaningless and symbolic actions only.

    Joe may have the luxury of returning to that era but neither the US nor the world has that luxury.

    Joe normalized the Iraqi government.  Is anyone going to question him on that?

    This would be the same government that still can't get it together.  Human Rights Watch notes today:

     Iraqi authorities have failed to ensure for almost 30 years that Basra residents have sufficient safe drinking water, resulting in on-going health concerns, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The situation culminated in an acute water crisis that sent at least 118,000 people to hospital in 2018 and led to violent protests. 
    The 128-page report, “Basra is Thirsty: Iraq’s Failure to Manage the Water Crisis,” found that the crisis is a result of complex factors that if left unaddressed will most likely result in future water-borne disease outbreaks and continued economic hardship. The authorities at the local and federal level have done little to address the underlying conditions causing the situation.
    “Shortsighted politicians are citing increased rainfall as the reason they do not need to urgently deal with Basra’s persistent crisis,” said Lama Fakih, acting Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “But Basra will continue to face acute water shortages and pollution crises in the coming years, with serious consequences, if the government doesn’t invest now in targeted, long-term, and badly needed improvements.”
    Human Rights Watch interviewed 58 Basra residents, workers at private and public water facilities, and healthcare professionals, and reviewed water sample tests from the Shatt al-Arab river, treatment plants, and taps in homes. Human Rights Watch also interviewed representatives from Basra’s provincial council, governor’s office, and the Ministries of Water Resources, Municipalities and Public Works’ water and sewage departments, Health and Environment, and Agriculture, and analyzed academic and public health data and over 20 years of scientific and commercial satellite imagery of the region to substantiate many of the findings.
    Basra’s primary water sources are the Shatt al-Arab river and its freshwater canals. Human Rights Watch found that Iraqi authorities have failed to properly manage and regulate Iraq’s water resources, depriving people in southern Iraq’s Basra governorate – four million people – of their right to safe drinking water for decades, including during the period of occupation by the US- and UK-led Coalition Provisional Authority. But multiple government failures since the 1980s, including poor management of upstream water sources, inadequate regulation of pollution and sewage, and chronic neglect and mismanagement of water infrastructure, have caused the quality of these waterways to deteriorate.

    To cope with water pollution and shortages, Basra residents have had to rely on purchasing water. The high cost, especially during the crisis, falls hardest on poorer residents, and makes them particularly vulnerable to exposure to unsafe tap water.


    There is no progress in Iraq.  ISIS is back on the rise as well.


    Joe Biden is a part of that history.  He is not the path to a future the US needs -- or one that the world can afford.


    Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Next Round of Debates" went up yesterday.  New content at THIRD:

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