The Thinker News

2011-12-03T15:54:00.000-08:00

The entire United States is now a war zone: S. 1867 passes the Senate with massive support

Madison Ruppert, Contributing Writer

This is one of the most tragic events I have written about since establishing End the Lie over eight months ago: the horrendous bill that would turn all of America into a battlefield and subject American citizens to indefinite military detention without charge or trial has passed the Senate.

To make matters even worse, only seven of our so-called representatives voted against the bill, proving once and for all (if anyone had any doubt remaining) that our government does not work for us in any way, shape, or form.

S.1867, or the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year of 2012, passed with a resounding 93-7 vote.

That’s right, 93 of our Senators voted to literally eviscerate what little rights were still protected after the PATRIOT Act was hastily pushed in the wake of the tragic events of September 11^th, 2001.

The NDAA cuts Pentagon spending by $43 billion from last year’s budget, a number so insignificant when compared to the $662 billion still (officially) allocated, it is almost laughable.

The bill also contained an amendment which enacts strict new sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank and any entities that do business with it, a move which will likely have brutal repercussions for the Iranian people – just like the sanctions on Iraq did.

Not a single Senator voted against this amendment, which was voted on soon before the entirety of S.1867 was passed, despite the hollow threats of a veto from the Obama White House.

Based simply on historical precedent, I trust Obama’s promises as much as I trust the homeless man who told me he was John F. Kennedy.

I wish that I could believe that the Obama administration would strike down this horrific bill but I would be quite ignorant and naïve if I did so.

Furthermore, the White House’s official statement doesn’t even say that they will veto the bill. In fact, it says, “the President’s senior advisers [will] recommend a veto.”

As Glenn Greenwald points out, the objection isn’t even about opposing the detention of accused terrorists without a trial, instead it is the contention that, “whether an accused Terrorist is put in military detention rather than civilian custody is for the President alone to decide.”

Obama’s opposition has nothing to do with the rule of law or protecting Americans, in fact, Senator Levin disclosed and Dave Kopel reported that, “it was the Obama administration which told Congress to remove the language in the original bill which exempted American citizens and lawful residents from the detention power”.

As I have detailed in two past articles entitled Do not be deceived: S.1867 is the most dangerous bill since the PATRIOT Act and S.1253 will allow indefinite military detention of American civilians without charge or trial, the assurances that this will not be used on American citizens are hollow, evidenced by the fact that the Feinstein amendment to S.1867, amendment number 1126, which, according to the official Senate Democrats page, was an attempt at “prohibiting military authority to indefinitely detain US citizens” was rejected with a 45-55 vote.

Let’s examine some of the attempts to convince the American people that this will not change anything and that we will still be protected under law.

Florida’s Republican Senator Marco Antonio said:

In particular, some folks are concerned about the language in section 1031 that says that this includes ‘any person committing a belligerent act or directly supported such hostilities of such enemy forces.’ This language clearly and unequivocally refers back to al-Qaida, the Taliban, or its affiliates. Thus, not only would any person in question need to be involved with al-Qaida, the Taliban, or its surrogates, but that person must also engage in a deliberate and substantial act that directly supports their efforts against us in the war on terror in order to be detained under this provision.

While this might sound reassuring to some, one must realize that the government can interpret just about anything as engaging “in a deliberate and substantial act that directly supports their efforts against us in the war on terror”.

Consider the fact that the Homeland Security Police Institute’s report published earlier this year partly focused on combating the “spread of the [terrorist] entity’s narrative” which sets the stage for the government being able to declare that spreading the narrative amounts to “a deliberate and substantial act that directly supports their efforts against us in the war on terror”.

At the time I wrote:

Part of these domestic efforts highlighted in the report is combating the 'spread of the [terrorist] entity’s narrative' but never addressed is why exactly extremist groups have the ability to spread their narrative.

A frightening conclusion that can be drawn from the focus on the 'spread of the entity’s narrative' is that such claims could be used to justify limiting the American right to free speech.

It would be very easy to justify eliminating free speech if much of the United States was convinced of the danger of spreading terrorist narrative.

The report doesn’t specifically explain what the narrative is or why it is so dangerous, but one could assume that any anti-government, anti-war, anti-corporatist and pro-human rights speech could be squeezed under this umbrella. Essentially, anything that criticizes or questions the United States could easily be demonized because it is allegedly spreading 'the entity’s narrative'.

This raises an important question: could my work and the work of others devoted to exposing the fraud that is the “war on terror” and the intimate links between our government and the terrorist entities they are supposedly fighting be considered to be supporting these entities?
Unfortunately, the only conclusion I can come to is that it is possible for the following reasons:

1) The Department of Defense actually put a question on an examination saying that protests are an act of “low-level terrorism” (which they later deleted after the ACLU sent a letter demanding it be removed).

2) Anti-war activists and websites are deemed worthy of being treated as terrorists and being listed on terrorist watchlists.

3) We likely will never even be told how exactly the government is interpreting S.1867.

In the case of the PATRIOT Act (which is overwhelmingly used in cases that are unrelated to terrorism in every way), there is in fact a secret interpretation of the PATRIOT Act, as revealed by Senator Ron Wyden back in May.
In October, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit (read the PDF here) in an attempt to force the government to reveal the details of the secret interpretation of the PATRIOT Act.

As of now, we still do not know how the PATRIOT Act is interpreted by the government, meaning that we have no idea how it is actually being used.

I do not believe that it would be reasonable to make the assumption that S.1867 would be interpreted in a straightforward manner, meaning that all of the assurances being made by Senators are worthless.

Glenn Greenwald verifies this in writing the following as an update to the post previously quoted in this article, “Any doubt about whether this bill permits the military detention of U.S. citizens was dispelled entirely today when an amendment offered by Dianne Feinstein — to confine military detention to those apprehended “abroad,” i.e., off U.S. soil — failed by a vote of 45-55.”

Furthermore, as I detailed in my previous coverage of S.1867, Senator Lindsey Graham clearly said, in absolutely no uncertain terms whatsoever, “In summary here, [section] 1032, the military custody provision, which has waivers and a lot of flexibility doesn’t apply to American citizens. [Section] 1031, the statement of authority to detain does apply to American citizens, and it designates the world as the battlefield including the homeland.”

The fact that the establishment media continues to peddle the blatant lie that is the claim that S.1867 will not be used on American citizens is beyond me.

This is especially true when one considers the fact that lawyers for the Obama administration reaffirmed that American citizens “are legitimate military targets when they take up arms with al-Qaida,” although we all know that no proof or trial is required to make that assertion.

As evidenced by the case of Anwar al-Awlaki, no trial is needed for our illegitimate government to assassinate an American citizen.

We can only assume that it is just a matter of time until American citizens are declared to be supporting al Qaeda and killed on American soil without so much as a single court hearing.

CNN claims, “Senators ultimately reached an agreement to amend the bill to make clear it’s not the bill’s intent to allow for the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens and others legally residing in the country.”

Yet, of course, they fail to cite the amendment, and quote Senator Feinstein in saying, “It supports present law,” even though Feinstein’s amendment was not passed.

The Associated Press reported, “Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., repeatedly pointed out that the June 2004 Supreme Court decision in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld said U.S. citizens can be detained indefinitely.”

Yet they still quoted senior legislative counsel for the ACLU Christopher Anders who said, “Since the bill puts military detention authority on steroids and makes it permanent, American citizens and others are at greater risk of being locked away by the military without charge or trial if this bill becomes law.”

The fact that the corporate-controlled establishment media is barely covering this – if at all – is just another piece amongst the mountains of evidence showing that they are complicit in the criminal conspiracy that is dominating our government.

Every single Senator that voted for this amendment is a traitor. It’s that simple. 97 of our so-called representatives, which you can see listed in full here, are actively working against the American people.
They are turning the United States into such a hellish police state that the world’s most infamous dictators would be green with envy.

Unsurprisingly, the top stories on Google News makes no mention of the atrocious attack on everything that America was built upon that is embodied by S.1867.

This legislation is clearly being minimized and marginalized in the press, as if it is some minor bill that will never be invoked in order to detain Americans indefinitely without charge or trial.

That is patently absurd and to assume such would be nothing short of ignorant to an extreme degree, given that the American government utilizes every single possible method to exploit, oppress and assault Americans who stand up for their rights.

Furthermore, the Senators who voted against S.Amdt.1126, the amendment to S.1867 which would have limited “the authority of the Armed Forces to detain citizens of the United States under section 1031” should be considered traitorous criminals of the highest order, not to say that all 97 of those who voted for S.1867 are any better.

These Senators are not only defying their oath of office in waging war on the Constitution, they are also fighting to destroy the most critical rights we have in this country and in doing so are desecrating everything that our forefathers gave up their lives for.

Instead of British troops patrolling the streets in their red coats, it will be American soldiers who have the authority to detain you forever without a shred of evidence if they decide you’re a terrorist or supporting any organization affiliated with al Qaeda.
How they define that is anyone’s guess, but given that the entire interpretation of the PATRIOT Act is regarded as a state secret, we can assume that we will never even get to know.

Moreover, the fact that no charges or trial are needed under S.1867, the government needs no proof of supporting, planning, or committing terrorism whatsoever.

Since no evidence will ever be presented given that no trial or charges will ever be filed, they need not worry about that pesky thing called habeus corpus or anything resembling evidence of any kind.

All they need to do is declare that you’re an enemy combatant and suddenly you’re eligible to be snatched up by military thugs and locked away never to see the light of day again.

As far as I have seen, there are no detailed requirements set forth in the bill which have to be met before the military can indefinitely detain, and torture (or conduct “enhanced interrogation” if you’d prefer the government’s semantic work-around), Americans and people around the world.

What is stopping them from creating accounts for Americans who are actively resisting the fascistic police state corporatocracy which our once free nation has become on some jihadi website and using it has justification to claim these individuals are involved with terrorists?

What is stopping them from manufacturing any flimsy piece of evidence they can point to, even though they never actually have to present it or have it questioned in a court of law, in order to round up American dissidents?

The grim answer to these disturbing questions is: nothing. I regret having to say such a disheartening thing about the United States of America, a country I once thought was the freest nation in the world, but it is true.

I must emphasize once again that our government considers even ideology and protest to be a low-level act of terrorism, so if you’re anti-war, pro-peace, pro-human rights, pro-justice, anti-corruption, or even worse, if you’re like me and expose the criminal government in Washington that supports terrorism while criminalizing American citizens, you very well might be labeled a terrorist.

Keep in mind that the House sister bill, H.R.1540, was passed with a 322-96 vote on May 26^th, now all that is stopping this ludicrous from utterly eliminating the Bill of Rights is resolving the differences which will be done by the following appointed conferees: Levin; Lieberman; Reed; Akaka; Nelson NE; Webb; McCaskill; Udall CO; Hagan; Begich; Manchin; Shaheen; Gillibrand; Blumenthal; McCain; Inhofe; Sessions; Chambliss; Wicker; Brown MA; Portman; Ayotte; Collins; Graham; Cornyn; Vitter.

Unsurprisingly, not a single person who voted against S.1867 is included in that list.

I do not hesitate in saying that what our so-called representatives have done is an act of treason that represents the single most dangerous move ever made by our government.

Every single square inch of the United States is now a war zone and you or I could easily be declared soldiers on the wrong side of the war and treated as such.

No proof, no charges, and no trial are required. They do not even have to draw spurious links to terrorist organizations in order to indefinitely detain you as they could easily declare the evidence critical to national security and thus withhold it for as long as they please.

I will continue to hope that Obama decides to go against every single thing he has done after being sworn in, but I think the chances are so slim that it is almost delusional to believe that he will do this.

After all, the only reason his administration is opposing it is because it doesn’t give the executive enough power, not because it strips away every legal protection we have.

If this is not the most laughably illegitimate reason to oppose the attack on all Americans that is S.1867, I don’t know what is.

The most important question that remains unanswered, for which I am not sure that I have a viable solution, is: how do we stop this? Is there any way we can bring down a criminal government packed to the brim with traitorous co-conspirators in a just, peaceful manner?

After all, if the American people resort to violence, we are no better than those bloodthirsty members of our armed forces and law enforcement who kill and beat human beings around our nation and the world with impunity.

However, if our military and police forces realize that at any moment they too could be deemed enemy combatants and treated like subhuman scum and thus decide to refuse all unlawful orders and arrest the real terrorists in Washington, we might be able to reinstate the rule of law, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights which once defined our nation.

Please do not hesitate to contact me with your ideas, comments and information for future articles on this subject and any other issue for that matter. You can get in touch with me directly at Admin@EndtheLie.com and hopefully I will be able to read and respond if I’m not deemed an enemy combatant and shipped off to a CIA black site to be tortured into confessing to killing the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in 1914.

Madison Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis database End The Lie and has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. He is available for podcast and radio interviews. If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at admin@EndtheLie.com

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COMMENT: This country is a police state and they are just making it "legal."

As to what to do about it, we have been under attack - both physical pollution and psychological warfare - our entire lives. It is our right as humans to defend ourselves when attacked; that right is not granted to us by a gov, and it cannot legitimately be taken away.
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2011-11-25T10:12:00.000-08:00

Health department tyrants raid local 'farm to fork' picnic dinner, orders all food to be destroyed with bleach

Friday, November 11, 2011 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer

(NaturalNews) It is the latest case of extreme government food tyranny, and one that is sure to have you reeling in anger and disgust. Health department officials recently conducted a raid of Quail Hollow Farm, an organic community supported agriculture (CSA) farm in southern Nevada, during its special "farm to fork" picnic dinner put on for guests -- and the agent who arrived on the scene ordered that all the fresh, local produce and pasture-based meat that was intended for the meal be destroyed with bleach.

For about five years now, Quail Hollow Farm has been growing organic produce and raising healthy, pasture-based animals which it provides to members as part of a CSA program. And it recently held its first annual "Farm to Fork Dinner Event," which offered guests an opportunity to tour the farm, meet those responsible for growing and raising the food, and of course partake in sharing a meal composed of the delicious bounty with others.

But when the Southern Nevada Health District (SNHD) got word of the event and decided to get involved, this simple gathering of friends and neighbors around a giant, family-style picnic table quickly became a convenient target for the heavy hand of an out-of-control government agency. And Monte and Laura Bledsoe, the owners and operators of Quail Hollow Farm, were unprepared for what would happen next.

SNHD official Mary Oaks raids picnic without cause or warrant, orders destruction of dinner food

Laura Bledsoe explains in a letter to her guests written after the fact that two days prior to the event, SNHD contacted the farm to say that, because the picnic was technically a "public" event, the couple would have to obtain a "special use permit," or else face a very steep fine. Not wanting to risk having the event disrupted, the Bledsoes agreed to jump through all the demanded legal hoops even though their gathering was really just a backyard picnic.

But the day of the event, an inspector from SNHD, Mary Oaks, showed up and declared that all the food the Bledsoes would be serving was "unfit for consumption," and that it would have to be destroyed. Though there was no logical or lawful reasoning behind this declaration, and the Bledsoes had complied with all the requirements, Oaks insisted that the food be discarded and destroyed using a bleach solution.

One of the so-called reasons for this action included the fact that some of the food packaging did not contain labels, even though labels are not necessary if the food is eaten within 72 hours. Oaks also cited the fact that some of the meat was not US Department of Agriculture (USDA) certified, that the vegetables had already been cut and were thus a "bio-hazard," and that there were no receipts for the food (which was all grown on the farm, not purchased from a grocery store).

You can view pictures of the event, as well as video footage of Inspector Oaks raiding the party, at the following link:
http://www.reallyvegasphoto.com/Eve...

Unaware of their rights, the Bledsoes initially complied with Oaks' unlawful demands and destroyed the food. But shortly thereafter, Laura's husband Monte remembered that they had an emergency contact number for the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF) on their refrigerator.

Shocked that they even had to resort to this desperate measure, the Bledsoes called FTCLDF for advice and spoke with General Counsel Gary Cox, who instructed them to ask Oaks for a search and arrest warrant, which of course she did not have. The Bledsoes then asked Oaks to leave the property, upon which she allegedly stormed off in anger and screamed that she was going to call the police.

Police eventually arrived, but unaware of why they had been called and what the alleged crime was, they, too, left and offered their apologies to the Bledsoes. Fortunately, the Bledsoes were able to improvise with the chef to create a whole new meal for their guests, which ended up turning out to be a type of blessing in disguise, according to Laura.

The entire shocking incident serves as a reminder to know your rights when it comes to food and health freedom. Without a proper search or arrest warrant, so-called health inspectors or law enforcement officials have no business on your property. And if they ever try to pull a stunt like what happened at Quail Hollow Farm at your gathering, you have every right to demand that they vacate your property as well.

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COMMENT: Completely baseless charges, insane claims, unreasonable "solutions", AND SHE was actually in violation of the law. HOWEVER, despite the Libertarian bent of Natural News' description of the reasons why this happened, it is NOT because of "the heavy hand of an out-of-control government agency"; this woman Mary is an obvious half-path.

This horrible evil will continue unless and until most people stop REFUSING to learn the FACTS about the heritability of psychopathy.

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2011-11-23T11:20:00.000-08:00

School murder scandal shocks France

BBC News Europe

22 November 2011 Last updated at 04:35 ET

The French government has condemned the judiciary's handling of a teenager accused of rape who went on to murder a girl from his boarding school.

The boy, identified as Mathieu M, 17, had spent four months in jail for raping a minor in southern France.
He had been under judicial supervision. The school said it had not been fully aware of his past.
Last Friday, the body of Agnes, 13, was found in a forest close to the school. She had been raped and burned.

'Sexual aggression'

Agnes's mother, Paola Marin, said she would not have died "but for a little less negligence" from the school.
The victim's father, Frederic Marin, alleged that the school, Cevenol International in Chambon-sur-Lignon, had been aware of the boy's history and that he had problems involving "acts of sexual aggression".
Head teacher Philippe Bauwens told French radio station RTL that the school was aware the boy had had problems with the judiciary but did not know their nature.
"We had no contact with the judicial authorities," he said.

'Dysfunction'

After an emergency meeting with fellow ministers on Monday, French Interior Minister Claude Gueant told TF1 television that "there had been a dysfunction" in the case and that reform of the justice system for minors would be a priority after elections next spring.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon said that in the most serious cases where a minor was a suspect, they should be "placed in a secure educational centre".
He also asked cabinet colleagues to ensure that it was no longer possible for a pupil to be enrolled in a school without the head teacher being fully informed of serious cases involving judicial supervision.
French media report that Mathieu M was accused of raping a childhood friend and that after four months in custody had been assessed as not posing any danger.
His parents were said to have looked for another school for him to complete his education but had been rejected on several occasions before being given a place at Cevenol International.

Agnes disappeared on Wednesday last week and her body was found two days later. The prosecutor said she had been murdered in an extremely brutal manner.

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COMMENT: A clear case of a double-dose.

This horrible evil will continue unless and until most people stop REFUSING to learn the FACTS about the heritability of psychopathy.
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2011-11-20T12:50:00.000-08:00

The Top 0.1% Of The Nation Earn Half Of All Capital Gains

By Robert Lenzner

Forbes.com

Capital gains are the key ingredient of income disparity in the US-- and the force behind the winner takes all mantra of our economic system. If you want to even out earning power in the U.S, you have to raise the 15% capital gains tax.

Income and wealth disparities become even more absurd if we look at the top 0.1% of the nation's earners-- rather than the more common 1%. The top 0.1%-- about 315,000 individuals out of 315 million-- are making about half of all capital gains on the sale of shares or property after 1 year; and these capital gains make up 60% of the income made by the Forbes 400.

It's crystal clear that the Bush tax reduction on capital gains and dividend income in 2003 was the cutting edge policy that has created the immense increase in net worth of corporate executives, Wall St. professionals and other entrepreneurs.

The reduction in the tax from 20% to 15% continued the step-by-step tradition of cutting this tax to create more wealth. It had first been reduced from 35% in 1978 at a time of stock market and economic stagnation to 28% . Again 1981, at the start of the Reagan era, it was reduced again to 20%-- raised back to 28% in 1987, on the eve of the October 19 232% crash in the market. In 1997 Clinton agreed to reduce it back to 20%, which move was an inducement for the explosion of hedge funds and private equity firms-- the most "rapidly rising cohort within the top 1 per cent."

Make no mistake; the battle that is to be fought over the coming attempt to reverse this reduction in capital gains will be bloody and intense. The facts are clear according to the Congressional Budget Office: more than 80% of the increase in income inequality was the result of an increase in the share of household income from capital gains. In fact, you can go so far as to claim that "Capital Gains income is the most unevenly distributed-- and volatile-- source of household income," according to Laura D'Andrea Tyson, University of California business professor and former chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton.

No wonder the super wealthy plutocrats obtained the largest share of national income-- 25% of the nation's wealth- greater than any other industrial nation in the the period of 1979 to 2005. Make no mistake; after unemployment-- this disparity between the 1%-- 3 million-- or the 0.1%-- the 300,000-- and the other 312 million citizens of the U.S. has become the major theme of the Occupy Wall Street movement-- and an important national debate.

I commend you to the late Justice Louis Brandeis warning to the nation that " We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." We have to make up our minds to restore a higher, fairer capital gains tax to the wealthiest investor class-- or ultimately face increased social unrest.

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COMMENT: This is Capitalism - investors trying to maximize their profits, and they don't care what effect it has on anyone else.

The small business owner is not a Capitalist. Most privately held companies are not started/run by Capitalists.

KILL the U.S. Military Empire by killing its funding.

Let the Bush tax cuts expire forever.

And why are capital gains taxed separately from other income? Why aren't the rich paying 39% on ALL income?

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2011-11-03T12:29:00.000-07:00

Report finds massive fraud at Dutch universities

Investigation claims dozens of social-psychology papers contain faked data.
Ewen Callaway
Published online 1 November 2011 | Nature 479, 15 (2011) | doi:10.1038/479015a

When colleagues called the work of Dutch psychologist Diederik Stapel too good to be true, they meant it as a compliment. But a preliminary investigative report (go.nature.com/tqmp5c) released on 31 October gives literal meaning to the phrase, detailing years of data manipulation and blatant fabrication by the prominent Tilburg University researcher.

"We have some 30 papers in peer-reviewed journals where we are actually sure that they are fake, and there are more to come," says Pim Levelt, chair of the committee that investigated Stapel's work at the university.

Stapel's eye-catching studies on aspects of social behaviour such as power and stereotyping garnered wide press coverage. For example, in a recent Science paper (which the investigation has not identified as fraudulent), Stapel reported that untidy environments encouraged discrimination ( Science 332, 251–253; 2011).

"Somebody used the word 'wunderkind'," says Miles Hewstone, a social psychologist at the University of Oxford, UK. "He was one of the bright thrusting young stars of Dutch social psychology — highly published, highly cited, prize-winning, worked with lots of people, and very well thought of in the field."
In early September, however, Stapel was suspended from his position as dean of the Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences over suspicions of research fraud. In late August, three young researchers under Stapel's supervision had found irregularities in published data and notified the head of the social-psychology department, Marcel Zeelenberg. Levelt's committee joined up with sister committees at the universities of Groningen and Amsterdam, where Stapel has also worked, to produce the report. They are now combing through his publications and their supporting data, and interviewing collaborators, to map out the full extent of the misconduct.

Mistakes made

Stapel initially cooperated with the investigation by identifying fraudulent publications, but stopped because he said he was not physically or emotionally able to continue, says Levelt. In a statement, translated from Dutch, that is appended to the report, Stapel says: "I have made mistakes, but I was and am honestly concerned with the field of social psychology. I therefore regret the pain that I have caused others." Nature was unable to contact Stapel for comment.

The report does not identify specific papers that contain manipulated or fabricated data, pending the completion of the investigations. The investigators conclude, though, that Stapel acted alone. "The co-authors, and in particular the PhD students, were absolutely not involved, they really didn't know what was going on in this data fabrication," Levelt says.

The data were also suspicious, the report says: effects were large; missing data and outliers were rare; and hypotheses were rarely refuted. Journals publishing Stapel's papers did not question the omission of details about where the data came from. "We see that the scientific checks and balances process has failed at several levels," Levelt says.

At a press conference, Tilburg University's rector, Philip Eijlander, said that he would pursue criminal prosecution of Stapel. The committee is also producing a list of tainted papers to guide co-authors and journal publishers in what will probably be a long list of retractions.

Joris Lammers, a psychologist at Tilburg who did his PhD under Stapel's supervision, says he is "shocked" by the findings. Lammers says he worked independently of Stapel and collected all the data in his PhD himself — the report notes that his dissertation is not under suspicion. Several other former collaborators contacted by Nature declined to comment.

Hewstone, who has never worked with Stapel, had initially fretted that Stapel's fraudulent oeuvre would undermine other findings in the field of social psychology. While editing a new edition of a social-psychology textbook, however, Hewstone turned up no references to Stapel's work in 15 chapters, suggesting that Stapel's work was not as influential as he had thought. "I think the impact is going to be particularly devastating for the young people he worked with, but not for the field of social psychology as such," he says.

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COMMENT: Another half-path PRETENDING to be competent, PRETENDING to practice the scientific method.

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2011-11-02T12:38:00.000-07:00

Jon Corzine’s Spectacular Failure Just Got More Spectacular

There's no better argument against the privilege of wealth than Jon Corzine, the clownish former Goldman Sachs CEO who thought his facility for extracting money from a rigged financial game entitled him to run the state of New Jersey. After getting roundly rejected by voters after one term, he got a job from a friend running derivatives firm MF Global. Yesterday it went bankrupt. And today we learned that he's lost $700 million of his clients' money.

That's right—$700 million from client accounts have simply disappeared from MF Global. The missing money first came to light over the weekend as a potential buyer for the struggling firm pored over its books. When it realized that hundreds of millions in client dollars were unaccounted for, it backed out, leaving MF no choice but to file for bankruptcy yesterday.

Now the SEC, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and CME Group—a commodities exchange where MF Global did business—are investigating. According to the New York Times, it appears that the firm used client money to finance its own trades, a big no no. Either way, not being able to answer the question, "Where are you keeping the $700 million these folks gave you?" is a sign that something is very, very wrong.

Jon Corzine, the man responsible for all this, is worth a half a billion dollars.

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COMMENT: Another obvious half-path.

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2011-10-25T12:07:00.000-07:00

Millionaires and corporations are using tax breaks to help sway public opinion

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/17/millionaires-corporations-tax-breaks-sway-opinion

Rightwing thinktanks profess a love of freedom, but their refusal to reveal who funds them is deeply undemocratic

George Monbiot

guardian.co.uk, Monday 17 October 2011 15.30 EDT

Since the late 19th century, the very rich have been paying people to demand less government. The work of Herbert Spencer, for example, was sponsored by Andrew Carnegie, John D Rockefeller and Thomas Edison. Spencer believed that society changed according to evolutionary laws. Humans were evolving towards perfection, but this process was inhibited by interference from the state. By protecting people from the consequences of their own actions (or their own bad luck), it stopped the winnowing process that would otherwise result in the survival of the fittest.

Social security, publicly funded education, compulsory vaccination, laws enforcing safety at work all interrupted social evolution. But a self-regulated free market would swiftly ensure that those who were best adapted would survive and triumph. It's not hard to see why the millionaires loved him. They saw themselves as winners of the evolutionary race, taking their rightful place at the pinnacle of the social order. Any attempt to limit their freedoms would prevent society from achieving perfection.

Today, sponsorship by millionaires and corporations explains why free-market thinktanks outnumber and outspend the thinktanks arguing for public services and the distribution of wealth. Or so I guess. But their absence of accountability means that guesswork is all we've got. As I showed last month, only one of the rightwing thinktanks I contacted was prepared to reveal who funded it. All the others refused on the grounds that they had to respect the privacy of their donors. These organisations exert great influence in public life. But we have no means of discovering on whose behalf they do it.

Revelations about this secret funding network have now brought down a cabinet minister. Liam Fox was enmeshed in a web of corporate influence about which we still know little. The organisation he founded, Atlantic Bridge, was registered with the Charity Commission as a thinktank. Like many others, it looked more like a lobbying outfit, demanding privatisation, deregulation and tax cuts. The key question remains unanswered: who funded it?

As a result of better transparency laws in the US, we know more about Atlantic Bridge's partner organisation, the American Legislative Exchange Council. It claims, like most thinktanks, to stand for limited government and free markets. What this means in practice is lobbying against government action such as regulating tobacco and greenhouse gases. By an astonishing coincidence, it turns out to have been funded by the tobacco companies Altria and Reynolds American, by the oil giant Exxon and by the billionaire Koch brothers, who run a fossil fuel and chemicals empire they call "the biggest company you've never heard of".

Freedom is what all these groups claim to stand for. But the freedom they promote is of a particular kind. They are not campaigning for freedom from hunger or poverty. They are not demanding free access to health and education. They are not lobbying for freedom from industrial injuries, exploitation, pollution or unscrupulous banking. When these libertarians say freedom, they mean freedom from the rules that prevent their sponsors behaving as they wish: mistreating their workers, threatening public health and using the planet as their dustbin.

Like everything else about these lobbyists, the true, unacceptable meaning of the freedom they espouse is hidden behind an acceptable front. Thinktanks and lobby groups are the bane of democratic politics. They are the means by which corporations and the ultra-rich influence public life without having to reveal their hand. Their refusal to reveal who funds them, and the British state's failure to demand it, are deeply undemocratic.

Last week in the Guardian, Michael White wondered why Liam Fox did not make his friend Adam Werrity an officially sanctioned special adviser. Had he done so, Werrity's presence in his department would not have broken civil service rules, and Fox might still be in his post. But it would also have meant that Werrity's activities would have been subject to freedom of information requests, and that could have been fatal to what he was doing.

What this case highlights is the asymmetry of information in public life. The public sector is now so transparent that we have a right to read the private emails of climate scientists working for a state-sponsored university. The private sector is so opaque that we have no idea on whose behalf the people who appear every day on the BBC, using arguments that look suspiciously like corporate propaganda, are speaking.

The Labour government weakened the rules on lobbying transparency. The ministerial code published in 2007 dropped the requirement that meetings between ministers and lobbyists should be recorded. It also rebuffed MPs' demands for a register of lobbyists. You'll be surprised to hear who the villain was: Tom Watson, then a Cabinet Office minister, now a heroic campaigner for corporate accountability. He brushed aside the call for a register with the claim that "we have a pretty good system in the UK". In fact, we have no system at all: the Commons public administration committee has pointed out that "Lobbying activity in the United Kingdom is subject to no specific external regulation."

Thanks to the Fox scandal, the coalition government will now be forced to do something. But unless new legislation also applies to the thinktanks, their funders will keep using them to promote their interests without disclosure. The law should insist that all organisations which seek to influence public opinion should reveal sources of funding greater than £1,000.

The government might also take a look at charity law. It seems remarkable to me that groups such as Policy Exchange, the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Global Warming Policy Foundation have charitable status. The Charity Commission disqualified Atlantic Bridge on the grounds that "it is not permissible for a charity to promote a particular pre-determined point of view". Should this not disqualify all of them? Can you imagine the IEA deciding that private companies should get their noses out of the NHS? Can you picture Lord Lawson's Global Warming Policy Foundation announcing that climate change is an urgent threat and fossil fuel companies need stricter regulation? Is it credible that these organisations do not have "a particular pre-determined point of view"?

And shouldn't it be a basic requirement of charity law that we know who, as taxpayers, we are subsidising? How can an organisation qualify as a charity if we don't even know whose interests it is promoting? I strongly suspect that we are granting tax breaks to multimillionaires and corporations to help them change public opinion. I invite the thinktanks to prove me wrong.

Let's also demand that the BBC reform its editorial guidelines, so that no one working for a group whose purpose is public advocacy can take part in a programme unless it has published a registry of interests. Otherwise the BBC is granting free airtime to corporations without disclosing who they are or what their interest in the question might be.

So come on you free-market libertarians, let's hear your arguments against transparency and accountability. And let's hear how you reconcile them with your professed love of freedom.

© 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

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COMMENT: George Monbiot is an idiot; there is no such thing as a greenhouse gas, and vaccines are an attack on the human race.

Perhaps that is why he stops short of saying what really needs to be done: the end of privacy.

The Lie is like air to the Evil; without the Lie, the Evil dies. The Truth is like air to the Good; without the Truth, the Good dies.

Everyone should be able to find out anything about anyone. No more secrets, no more lies!
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2011-06-08T10:29:00.000-07:00

Random attacks cause concern in Chicago

Mob attacks create a sensitive issue for city officials eager to boost tourism and convention business

By Jason Meisner and Jeremy Gorner, Tribune reporters

10:26 p.m. CDT, June 6, 2011

No one was seriously hurt in the flurry of five random attacks by a mob of young men on Chicago's lakefront over the weekend.

But the feeling among many visitors and residents that the popular Near North Side stretch where the attacks occurred is safe for strolling on a summer night may have taken a hit.

"I think it reflects badly on Chicago," said Dr. Jack Singer, 68, a Seattle oncologist who was one of two victims in town for a convention of cancer specialists at McCormick Place. "I've been coming to the convention every year, and this is the first time I've felt threatened downtown."

The outbreak of random violence along a busy stretch of Chicago Avenue and the lakefront creates a sensitive issue for city officials eager to boost tourism and convention business.

"No matter what, we have to remember this isn't just about downtown residents, but our tourism economy," said Ald. Brendan Reilly, whose 42nd Ward encompasses most of the downtown business district. "Perception is reality in tourism world. There are economic consequences if people think downtown isn't safe."

Reilly said Monday that police need more resources to deal with the influx of "hundreds of thousands" of people flooding downtown and the beaches on weekends.

Five youths were charged Monday in the crimes, and acting police Superintendent Garry McCarthy praised the department's response. He said there is no need for people to be afraid to walk around downtown.

"I think our reaction to it has been quick, it's been swift and it's been very effective," McCarthy said outside his confirmation hearing at City Hall.

The attacks occurred around 8:30 p.m. Saturday. Moments after a group of teens wrestled with Singer over his iPad and BlackBerry, members of the same mob attacked a 42-year-old doctor visiting from Japan. That doctor was beaten and robbed of his iPod Touch while walking in the 700 block of North Lake Shore Drive, authorities said.

"He looked like he had no idea what had happened," Singer said of the Japanese doctor, who rode with him in a squad car while helping police search for the assailants.
Both physicians were in town for the annual convention of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, which entered into a 10-year deal with McCormick Place in 2010. The five-day event typically brings in more than 30,000 doctors, vendors and other specialists from around the world.

Police sources said they have been aware of large groups of teens causing trouble along North Michigan Avenue for at least the last year. One source said the fear is the attacks could become more frequent as the weather gets warmer.

While there have been reports nationwide of shoplifting and other crimes carried out by "flash mobs" coordinating their efforts through text messaging, the attacks Saturday did not appear to be coordinated by any social media, police said.

On Monday, two 16-year-old boys were ordered held in custody on juvenile charges of attempted armed robbery and aggravated battery.

Three other teens were charged with robbery as adults: Dvonte Sykes, 17, of the 7500 block of South Normal Avenue; Trovolus Pickett, 17, of the 8400 block of South Dorchester Avenue; and Derod'te Wright, 18, of the 3500 block of South State Street. They remained in custody Monday night in lieu of bonds ranging from $200,000 to $300,000.

None of the defendants has any adult arrests, according to prosecutors.

The first victim, insurance salesman Krzysztof Wilkowski, 34, said he was sitting on his motor scooter checking his cellphone around 8:30 p.m. when he was hit in the head with a baseball, which knocked his helmet off.

"The next thing I know is I'm being hit by the helmet, then being dragged into the street," Wilkowski said. "I couldn't believe it. It was broad daylight outside, there were people around, and this happened."

Moments later, Singer, who was sitting on a park bench smoking a cigar and typing an email, was attacked by members of the same group. The teens then ran east to Lake Shore Drive, where they allegedly attacked the doctor from Japan and two other people along the bike path just south of Chicago Avenue.

Ryan Dacumos, 20, of the Lakeview neighborhood, said he was riding his mountain bike when the mob approached him and one of them grabbed the headphones to his iPad.

"They were asking for my wallet," Dacumos said. "After I gave it, they punched me in my mouth and in my left ear. I started to run away so fast because I scared."

Tribune reporter Kristen Mack and WGN-TV reporter Pat Curry contributed.

The board for this story has been closed because of excessive violations of the Tribune's comment policies. Details of those policies are described below.

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COMMENT: How much you wanna bet that 100% of the ATTACKERS were BLACK? (Click on the linked title ^ for pictures of three of the "youths.") How much you wanna bet that NONE of the VICTIMS were BLACK?

And just look at the CONTORTIONS, the EFFORT, these piece of shit liar "reporters" have to go through to cover up the truth! Teens, members, youths, they, the assailants, young men; no, BLACK teens, BLACK members of the group, BLACK youths, BLACK assailants.

And this VIOLENCE is NOT RANDOM. The VICTIMS are mostly WHITE. To put it plainly, as the "reporters" seem unable to do, the BLACKS are TARGETING the WHITES (and one Japanese) for these RANDOM attacks.

Oh, "The board for this story has been closed because of EXCESSIVE violations of the Tribune's comment policies." FUCK YOU. The lie is like air to the Evil; without the lie, the Evil dies. The truth is like air to the Good; without the truth, the Good dies.
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2011-06-03T13:04:00.000-07:00

Wall Street Baffled by Slowing Economy, Low Yields: Trader

Published: Wednesday, 1 Jun 2011 | 11:06 AM ET

By: Margo D. Beller
Special to CNBC.com

Wall Street is having a hard time figuring out what to do now that the U.S. economy appears to be sputtering and yields are so low, Peter Yastrow, market strategist for Yastrow Origer, told CNBC.

"What we’ve got right now is almost near panic going on with money managers and people who are responsible for money," he said. "They can not find a yield and you just don’t want to be putting your money into commodities or things that are punts that might work out or they might not depending on what happens with the economy.

"We need to find real yield and real returns on these assets. You see bad data, you see Treasurys rally, you see all bonds and all fixed-income rally and then the people who are betting against the U.S. economy start getting bearish on stocks. That’s a huge mistake."

Stocks extended losses after the manufacturing fell below expectations in May and the private sector added only 38,000 jobs during the month.

"Interest rates are amazingly low and that, thanks to Ben Bernanke, is driving everything," Yastrow said. "We’re on the verge of a great, great depression. The [Federal Reserve] knows it.

"We have many, many homeowners that are totally underwater here and cannot get out from under. The technology frontier is limited right now. We definitely have an innovation slowdown and the economy’s gonna suffer."

However, he said he wouldn’t sell stocks.

"Any bears out there better be careful because the dividend yields on these stocks look awesome relative to all the other investment vehicles out there," Yastrow said. "So bears are going to have to find a new way to express their discontent with the U.S. economy."

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COMMENT: The U.S. economy has hit its natural size. In fact, we hit that point in 2000. ALL the APPARENT growth during the Bush years was FAKE. It was a lie. The U.S. economy will never grow again.

Karl Marx, although seriously wrong about Communism, was seriously right about Capitalism; the ability of Capitalism to deliver benefits to the majority of U.S. citizens has ended. We need Socialism now, and forevermore (this does NOT, however, mean every ridiculous Liberal bullshit).

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2011-05-19T13:02:00.000-07:00

Forgeries in the Bible's New Testament?

Analysis by Rossella Lorenzi
Wed May 18, 2011 04:19 PM ET

Nearly half of the New Testament is a forgery, according to a provocative new book which charges that the Apostle Paul authored only a fraction of letters attributed to him, and the Apostle Peter just wrote nothing. Written by Bart Ehrman, a former evangelical Christian and now agnostic professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, the book claims to unveil "one of the most unsettling ironies of the early Christian tradition:" the use of deception to promote the truth.
"The Bible not only contains untruths of accidental mistakes. It also contains what almost anyone today would call lies," Ehrman writes in "Forged: Writing in the Name of God -- Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are."
According to the biblical scholar, at least 11 of the 27 New Testament books are forgeries, while only seven of the 13 epistles attributed to Paul were probably written by him.
"Virtually all scholars agree that seven of the Pauline letters are authentic: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon," said Ehrman.
Individuals claiming to be Paul wrote 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians and Colossians, he added.
Contradictory views, discrepancies in the language and the choice of words among the books attributed to Paul are all evidence of this forgery, the author asserts..
For example, Ehrman’s analysis of the book of Ephesians shows that the text, filled with long Greek sentences, doesn’t match with Paul’s peculiar Greek writing style, made of short sentences.
Moreover, the content of what the author says "stands at odds with Paul’s own thought, but is in line with the Ephesians," writes Ehrman.
The biblical scholar, who also challenges the authenticity of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and John, disputes the assumption that the Apostle Peter wrote the Epistles of Peter or anything else.
Unlike Paul, Peter, a fisherman raised in rural Palestine, was most certainly illiterate. So was the Apostle John, who could have not written the Gospel bearing his name, said Ehrman.
But why would an author claim to be an Apostle when he wasn’t? The answer is pretty obvious according to the scholar.
In the early centuries of the church, Christians felt under attack from all sides. "They were in conflict with Jews and pagans over the validity of their religion... but the hottest debates were with other Christians, as they argued over the right thing to believe and the rights ways to live," said Ehrman.
Thus Christians aiming at authorizing views they wanted others to accept, wrote in the name of the Apostles, "fabricating, falsifying, and forging documents," said Ehrman.
"If your name was Jehoshaphat and no one had any idea who you were, you could not very well sign your own name to the book," said Ehrman.
"No one would take the Gospel of Jehoshaphat seriously. If you wanted someone to read it, you called yourself Peter. Or Thomas. Or James. In other words, you lied about who you really were," Ehrman concluded.
According to the scholar, the idea that "writing in the name of another" was a common, accepted practice in antiquity is wrong. Forgery was just as deceitful, inappropriate, and wrong as it is today, he said.
As expected, the book has raised a heated debate.
"The book is more provocative than insightful," writes the Catholic Herald.
Conceding that "some New Testament books probably were not written by the people traditionally assigned as authors," the Catholic website remarks that Ehrman "barely mentions the concept of oral tradition."
"So even if a specific letter was not done by Peter or Paul, it could well have been written by someone drawing from the oral tradition passed down by one or the other," wrote the Catholic website.

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COMMENT: FIRST, in science, it doesn't matter who AGREES, or how many AGREE.

SECOND, do these "scholars" who all "agree" know ANYTHING about alchemy, the fourth PHYSICAL dimension, the results of Jacques Vallee's and John Keel's investigations of the UFO "phenomenon", or the great science that's been done on the psychology and heritability of psychopathy? No? Then their "analysis" is BULLSHIT.

THIRD, "Unlike Paul, Peter, a fisherman raised in rural Palestine, was most certainly illiterate. So was the Apostle John, who could have not written the Gospel bearing his name, said Ehrman." is IDIOCY. Why couldn't an illiterate eye-witness tell someone else what he saw and heard, who then wrote it down?

Also, there is NO SUCH THING as "lying in the service of the Good." Indeed, it is "using the truth to lie" that is the hallmark of the psychopathic personality. Maybe what this "former" evangelical christian doesn't want to admit is that "saint" Paul was EVIL.

This book is obviously anything BUT "scholarly."
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2011-05-13T14:20:00.000-07:00

How Perpetual War Became U.S. Ideology

By James Joyner

May 11 2011, 7:00 AM ET

The United States has found itself in a seemingly endless series of wars over the past two decades. Despite frequent opposition by the party not controlling the presidency and often that of the American public, the foreign policy elite operates on a consensus that routinely leads to the use of military power to solve international crises.

Ideological Domination

Neoconservatives of both parties urge war to spread American ideals, seeing it as the duty of a great nation. Liberal interventionists see individuals, not states, as the key global actor and have deemed a Responsibility to Protect those in danger from their own governments, particularly when an international consensus to intervene can be forged. Traditional Realists, meanwhile, initially reject most interventions but are frequently drawn in by arguments that the national interest will be put at risk if the situation spirals out of control.
In a widely discussed March essay, Harvard international relations professor Stephen Walt wrote of a "neocon-liberal alliance" in support of war, contending, "The only important intellectual difference between neoconservatives and liberal interventionists is that the former have disdain for international institutions (which they see as constraints on U.S. power), and the latter see them as a useful way to legitimate American dominance."
The Progressive Policy Institute's Jim Arkedis, who describes himself as a "progressive internationalist," calls this notion of a neocon-liberal alliance "bunk." Neocons, according to Arkedis, "disdain multilateral diplomacy and overestimate the efficacy of military force" in a way that "saps the economic, political, and moral sources of American influence." He adds, "Though our ends are similar, our thresholds for intervention, our military methodology, and our justifications for action could not be more different."
But are neoconservatives and liberal interventionists really so different? Neoconservative bastions like the Weekly Standard, Commentary, and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies are passionate advocates of spreading American values. In Iraq, the toppling of Saddam Hussein and discovery that there was no WMD program to speak of were both accomplished in the first weeks of the war and with a relative handful of American casualties. If these had been our chief concerns we would have left immediately; the apparent U.S. goals in staying on so many years were democracy promotion and nation-building, both ideals the neoconservative White House leadership shared with liberal interventionists.
Further, while neocons are doubtless less patient than liberal interventionists when it comes to exhausting diplomatic options and achieving international consensus, what does it really matter if the end result is the same either way: military action.
Neocons and liberal interventionists may have dominated American foreign policymaking since 1993, but what about the realists? During the Cold War, there was a bipartisan elite consensus against the U.S. involving itself in wars not believed to be directly tied to protecting vital American interests. This included two major hot wars in Korea and Vietnam and more than a dozen quick strikes and proxy conflicts aimed at stopping the spread of Soviet Communism, ranging from Cuba to Afghanistan to El Salvador. And there were a handful of interventions in the Middle East to protect Israel and retaliate for terrorist attacks.
Starting with the 1991 Gulf War, however, despite the end of the Cold War, we've had two decades of non-stop fighting: Somalia in 1992, Haiti in 1994, Bosnia in 1995, Serbia-Kosovo in 1999, Afghanistan starting in 2001, and Iraq again from 2003. With Libya, we've added another U.S. war.
Ideologically, the George H.W. Bush administration should not have been inclined toward military intervention. Bush senior was a reluctant intervener, the National Security Council was guided by eminent realist Brent Scowcroft, and Colin Powell, the author of an eponymous doctrine that urges extreme caution in going to war, headed up the Joint Chiefs. And yet the administration launched three major military operations in its four-year term: the Panama invasion (derided by many as Operation Just 'Cause), the first Gulf War, and the Somalia intervention.
But all three of those missions were at least ostensibly tied to U.S. national interests. As odd as the Panama invasion seems in hindsight, earning the derisive nickname "Operation Just 'Cause," at the time, it was justified within the realist goals of safeguarding U.S. personnel in country, combating drug trafficking, and protecting the Panama Canal. The first Gulf War was, at its heart, about preventing Saddam Hussein from gaining control of more than half the world's oil supply. And Bush envisioned Somalia as a purely humanitarian relief mission; it morphed into warlord hunting and nation building under his successor.
Clinton may well have been the first full-throated liberal interventionist since the days of Woodrow Wilson. During the 1992 campaign, he declared, "The continuing attacks by Serbian elements in Bosnia threaten the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian aid, jeopardize the safety of U.N. personnel and put at risk the lives of thousands of citizens." He added, in what could have been a textbook definition of liberal interventionism, "The United States should take the lead in seeking U.N. Security Council authorization for air strikes against those who are attacking the relief effort. The United States should be prepared to lend appropriate military support to that operation. Air and naval forces adequate to carry out these operations should be visibly in position."
Clinton followed through on these policies as president, committing American forces to military action in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Haiti for reasons almost exclusively framed in humanitarian and international legal terms. More importantly, perhaps, he committed to long-term nation-building operations after each conflict. He also greatly expanded the Somalia operation, turning it into a warlord hunting exercise that led to the infamous Black Hawk down incident.
While most mainstream Republicans in Congress and the commentariat bitterly opposed these interventions, Clinton had strong neoconservative allies in Bob Dole, John McCain, Charles Krauthammer, Bill Kristol, and Robert Kagan. While realist Republicans were criticizing Clinton for the follies of nation-building, a bipartisan neoconservative group calling itself the Project for a New American Century issued a statement of principles in June 1997 calling for significant increases in defense spending in order to promote "a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities." Among the Republican signatories were Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz.
In the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush, leveraging public frustration with Clinton's long string of interventions, declared that he would pursue a more "humble foreign policy" that eschewed "nation-building" and had as its "guiding question, 'Is it in our nation's interests?'" In other words, he pledged to be a realist president.
But, few readers will need reminding, he took us to war in Afghanistan -- a retaliation for a direct attack on the country and supported by virtually everyone -- but almost immediately turned it into the nation-building exercise in which we are still mired. And, of course, there was Iraq, ostensibly a preemptive strike at a rogue regime building weapons of mass destruction that instead became a years-long nation-building mission.
During his own 2008 campaign, President Obama gave every indication of a realist foreign policy, keeping Robert Gates on at Defense, reversing policies favored by our Eastern and Central European allies in order to improve relations with the increasingly important Russian state, and eschewing unhelpfully aggressive rhetoric about Iran. But the arguments of the liberal interventionists on his vaunted team of rivals -- notably Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, and Samantha Power -- ultimately won the day on Libya debate, overwhelming the more realist caution of Gates and the intelligence leadership.

How Did We Get Here?

While neoconservatives and liberal interventionists have led post-Cold War U.S. foreign policymaking, traditional realists continue to dominate the academic study of security policy and even the rank-and-file military and intelligence communities. But their more ideological brethren are better positioned to win the day politically.
The Cold War not only provided a neat national grand strategy, the prospect that superpower competition could lead to global nuclear annihilation greatly restrained the inclination for adventurism. That may be why, for example, no one seriously suggested a Responsibility to Protect Ugandan innocents from the atrocities of military dictator Idi Amin; Uganda was a Soviet client state. Similarly, a U.S. invasion of Libya to affect regime change after Muammar Gaddafi's 1980s terrorist strikes against our citizens would have been unthinkable. There was simply too much risk of escalating U.S.-Soviet tension.
Those days are gone. Bush senior proclaimed a "new world order" after the quick and decisive victory in the 1991 Gulf War, thinking that a permanent international consensus to enforce norms of decency had been forged. Though that grand vision never came to pass, the notion that the United States and its allies were now free to project power to "do good" has remained intact.
This has coincided with a still-ongoing revolution in global communications technology. With the rise of network news channels that can broadcast far-away violence into American living rooms, and more recently of social media technologies that give voice to oppressed peoples in all corners of the globe, this environment has made it much easier for advocates of humanitarian intervention to make their case.
Realist arguments about national interests, unknown risks, and post-conflict reconstruction have proven far less able to sway Americans than are television images of humans being slaughtered. Whereas the victims of Idi Amin were statistics, those dying in the Arab Spring have faces, names, and Facebook accounts.
The passionate zeal of the liberal interventionists and neoconservatives satisfies an emotional hunger that has been a part of our political system since the emotion-laden days of the Cold War, when the public first came to view U.S. foreign policy as a tool of good to be deployed against evil. Both ideologies use the language of morality and appeal to our shared humanity. People want to do something about tragedy and it's easy to persuade them that doing the right thing will be worthwhile. Realists may often be right, but they are rarely convincing.

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COMMENT: What Harvard international relations professor Sthephen Walt calls "neoconservatives" is actually Conservative psychopaths; what he calls "liberal interventionists" are actually Liberal psychopaths.

Every U.S. President since the bullet entered the FRONT of JFK's head has been a psychopath (yes, even Mein Obama). Every other person whose name I bolded above is also a psychopath.
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2011-05-05T08:39:00.000-07:00

Gravity Probe B Confirms Two of Einstein’s Space-Time Theories

by Nancy Atkinson on May 4, 2011

Researchers have confirmed two predictions of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, concluding one of NASA’s longest-running projects. The Gravity Probe B experiment used four ultra-precise gyroscopes housed in an Earth-orbiting satellite to measure two aspects of Einstein’s theory about gravity. The first is the geodetic effect, or the warping of space and time around a gravitational body. The second is frame-dragging, which is the amount a spinning object pulls space and time with it as it rotates.

Gravity Probe-B determined both effects with unprecedented precision by pointing at a single star, IM Pegasi, while in a polar orbit around Earth. If gravity did not affect space and time, GP-B’s gyroscopes would point in the same direction forever while in orbit. But in confirmation of Einstein’s theories, the gyroscopes experienced measurable, minute changes in the direction of their spin, while Earth’s gravity pulled at them.

The project as been in the works for 52 years.

The findings are online in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Read full article...

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COMMENT: From Newton to Faraday to Maxwell to TESLA, humanity was on a path that would long ago have led to the development of extremely efficient - and environmentally clean - energy technology. By now, we would have eliminated both pollution and poverty on the entire planet.

This could not be allowed, so the Forces of Darkness sent in Albert Einstein and the Quantum Mechanics to DERAIL science, and put it on a counterfeit path.

The fact of a fourth spatial dimension makes time the fifth dimension, not the fourth; there is NO SUCH THING as "the fabric of space-time".
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2011-04-21T12:28:00.000-07:00

IOWA: Video cameras now lethal weapons; Republicans launch another attack on your rights

Marti Oakley, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

Iowa is following in Florida’s footsteps and working on passing a bill making it a criminal offense to film or photograph the abuse of animals on farms or in commercial CAFO operations. Apparently it is ok to abuse your animals, to leave them in fetid conditions, or to treat them inhumanely . . . Iowa just doesn’t want you documenting that abuse.

Nine House Democrats joined all of the Republicans present to pass the bill in a 66 to 27 vote on Iowa bill H.R. 589.

Turns out your video camera or camera are now considered lethal weapons…the stuff of terrorism!
In an effort to protect industrialized CAFO operations, and unscrupulous corporate growers, Iowa is standing up to those activist citizens who document the abhorrent conditions on industrialized farms and ranches and also in some privately owned operations, claiming this somehow interferes with, or tampers with the property of another.

11A. “Record” means any printed, inscribed, visual, or audio information that is placed or stored on a tangible medium, and that may be accessed in a perceivable form, including but not limited to any paper or electronic format.

This means anything recorded on your film or camera that would adversely affect the profits of the person committing the abuse. This includes, video’s, stills, pictures captured on your cell phone or any other documentation.

d. Disrupt operations conducted at the animal facility, if the operations directly relate to agricultural production, animal maintenance, educational or scientific purposes, or veterinary care.

IF your pictures highlight the abuse, unsanitary conditions or what is referred to as educational or veterinary…..meaning drug testing, experiments, vivisection research, dissemination of disease for “research” or other inhumane activities under the guise of Education or scientific,……you too could be a unique terrorist with a camera. Animal maintenance is the catch-all phrase that covers abusive treatment, mistreatment, unsanitary conditions and lack of care.

And here is the coup de grace:

Sec. 9. NEW SECTION. 717A.2A Animal facility interference.

1. A person is guilty of animal facility interference, if the person acts without the consent of the owner of an animal facility to willfully do any of the following:

(1) Produce a record which reproduces an image or sound occurring at the animal facility as follows:

(a) The record must be created by the person while at the animal facility.
(b) The record must be a reproduction of a visual or audio experience occurring at the animal facility, including but not limited to a photographic or audio medium.

(2) Possess or distribute a record which produces an image or sound occurring at the animal facility which was produced as provided in subparagraph (1)

(3) Subparagraphs (1) and (2) do not apply to an animal shelter, a boarding kennel, a commercial kennel, a pet shop, or a pound, all as defined in section 162.2.

Wouldn’t the more prudent thing to do here have been to enforce animal cruelty laws? How about all those fake food safety regulations? Would it be too much to ask that a higher, safer standard of animal care be enforced? Rather than criminalizing those who expose the corruption and abuse that occurs routinely in these facilities.

This bill, like so many others we are seeing from the Republicans is a direct assault on your first amendment rights; your right to free speech. They’ve already attacked workers rights, your right to alternative healthcare and now they want to stop you from documenting the corruption and abuse in corporate farming and livestock operations.

This works out really well . . . this way, you are prevented from gathering the evidence, producing the evidence and forcing them to acknowledge the evidence. Perfect scenario: Plausible deniability.

YES! Corporate protectionism is alive and well in Iowa! And why wouldn’t it be? This is Tom Vilsack’s home turf; a man, who if he was any closer to Monsanto and other bio-pirates would most likely have to give them their own key to his place. Apparently they already have the keys to Iowa.

Bill HR 589

http://www.trendtrack.com/texis/walks/ia/billtext.html?bill=HF589

Roll Call on bill vote

http://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/pubs/hjweb/pdf/March%2017,%202011.pdf#page=5

Bill history

http://coolice.legis.state.ia.us/Cool-ICE/default.asp?Category=BillInfo&Service=DspHistory&key=0642C

Bill HR 589

http://www.trendtrack.com/texis/walks/ia/billtext.html?bill=HF589

Roll Call on bill vote

http://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/pubs/hjweb/pdf/March%2017,%202011.pdf#page=5

Bill history

http://coolice.legis.state.ia.us/Cool-ICE/default.asp?Category=BillInfo&Service=DspHistory&key=0642C

Marti Oakley is a political activist and former op-ed columnist for the St Cloud Times in Minnesota. She was a member of the Times Writer’s Group until she resigned in September of 07. She is neither Democrat nor Republican, since neither party is representative of the American people. She says what she thinks, means what she says, and is known for being outspoken. She is hopeful that the American public will wake up to what is happening to our beloved country . . . little of it is left. Her website is The PPJ Gazette

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COMMENT: The truth is like air to the Good; without the truth, the Good dies.

The lie is like air to the Evil; without the lie, the Evil dies.

ALL of the people who voted for this bill made themselves EVIL by that action.
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2011-04-19T16:04:00.000-07:00

Texas rape bill opens door to prior conduct

Judge would decide if jury could hear previous uncharged allegations

By PATRICIA KILDAY HART and BRIAN ROGERS AUSTIN BUREAU

April 18, 2011, 8:45PM

AUSTIN — In what critics say could be a "seismic change" in state criminal law, the Texas Senate tentatively approved a bill that would allow jurors in sexual assault cases to hear testimony about similar allegations against a defendant — even if the previous incident did not result in a conviction or even criminal charges.

The bill by Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, would allow the introduction of testimony about allegations of other sexual assaults to be admitted during the guilt or innocence phase of a trial if a judge — outside the presence of the jury — hears the evidence and deems it relevant.

The bill gives "greater resources to prosecutors and victims of sexual assault," Huffman said Monday. Allowing testimony of similar sex offenses "brings Texas closer in line with federal rules of evidence," she added.

Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, opposed the bill, arguing the measure would bring about "more wrongful convictions" because jurors will be afraid to acquit a defendant against whom they have heard multiple allegations. Jurors who are skeptical of the evidence of the case before them could feel compelled to convict "because he (the defendant) must have done something wrong," West said.

"All of us want to be law and order and the whole nine yards," West said. "But this is carving new ground in criminal jurisprudence. You ought to think long and hard, 'is that fair?' "

Although the Senate gave initial approval to the bill on a 23-8 vote Monday, Huffman retreated on her first attempt to pass the bill last week when it was met with hostile questions.

"This is a hard bill for many to vote against," said Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock. While current rules of procedure "are designed to protect liberty," he said Huffman's measure would allow jurors to hear "allegations that have not even been vetted by a grand jury."

Constitutional issues

In an emotional response, Huffman described watching a 6-year-old girl clutching a teddy bear testify about a sexual assault.

"It would have been very helpful" to hear evidence about similar conduct by the defendant, she said. "Under current law, you can't do that."

Criminal law experts are split over the idea, said University of Houston law professor Adam Gershowitz.

"Defense attorneys believe it makes the trial more about the character of the defendant than whether they committed the act for which he is on trial," he said. "The evidence of prior behavior convinces the jury that he's a bad guy."

On the other hand, he continued, prosecutors find sexual assault cases difficult to prosecute because defendants charged with rape often claim the sex was consensual. Allowing testimony about similar acts would give jurors "evidence that this is not the first time it happened, that the defendant has a pattern of violent behavior."

"That's why it's a very hard issue," Gershowitz said. "I don't know which side is right."

Houston defense lawyer Pat McCann called it a terrible idea.

"With all due respect to Senator Huffman's sincere commitment to protecting victims of violent crime, this is probably one of the worst ideas that any senator has ever come up with," McCann said.

He said the rules of evidence are specifically designed to prevent juries from considering anything other than the facts of the case in front of them. Bringing in allegations that are too weak to garner an indictment or a criminal charge changes, fundamentally, the criminal justice system, he said.

"When you have an uncharged extraneous offense that somehow comes in at that phase, you have just guaranteed a guilty verdict and thrown out the U.S. Constitution," McCann said.

Similar bill in House

He noted that accused sex offenders are convicted every day without that provision.

A past president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association, McCann said he was reminded of the Salem Witch trials.

"It's a dangerous, dangerous thing to convict people on past allegations, not convictions, not even charges," he said. "This is an unnecessary solution to a non-existent problem."

The Senate is expected to vote on final passage of the bill today . Rep. Beverly Woolley, R-Houston, has sponsored a companion bill which is pending in a House committee.

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COMMENT: Pure evil. REAL rape is terrible and should be prosecuted, of course. But a women getting drunk, having sex, then - after the alcohol wears off and her inhibitions return - she regrets it, is NOT rape.

And what is to stop a group of Feminists from targeting a man for a series of ALLEGATIONS?

"In an emotional response, Huffman described watching a 6-year-old girl clutching a teddy bear testify about a sexual assault."
MANIPULATIVE BITCH.

And notice that both introducers of these bills are Republican women.
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2011-04-17T09:54:00.000-07:00

Serotonin: A critical chemical for human intimacy and romance

Contact: Chris J. Pfister
C.Pfister@elsevier.com
215-239-3266
Elsevier

Philadelphia, PA, 14 April 2011 - The judgments we make about the intimacy of other couples' relationships appear to be influenced by the brain chemical serotonin, reports a new study published in Biological Psychiatry.
Healthy adult volunteers, whose levels of serotonin activity had been lowered, rated couples in photos as being less intimate and less romantic than volunteers with normal serotonin activity.
The approach involved giving amino acid drinks to two groups of volunteers in order to manipulate blood concentrations of the amino acid tryptophan, which is a vital ingredient in the synthesis of serotonin. One group received drinks that contained tryptophan. The other group received drinks that did not contain tryptophan. They were then asked to make judgments about sets of photographs of couples. Differences in the judgments made by the two groups reflected changes in their serotonin activity.
"Serotonin is important in social behavior, and also plays a significant role in psychological disorders such as depression," explained Professor Robert Rogers of Oxford University, who led the research. "We wanted to see whether serotonin activity influences the judgments we make about peoples' close personal relationships."
The volunteers who received the drink without tryptophan consistently rated the couples in the photos as being less 'intimate' and 'romantic' than the participants who received the control drink.
This finding is an important reminder that our relationships with other people are influenced by processes beyond our awareness and control. But we should not be surprised by this revelation. Serotonin function drops in association with episodes of depression, where the capacity for intimacy also is often compromised.
Understanding the powerful influence of these chemicals is important as supportive close relationships are known to protect against the development of mental illnesses and to promote recovery in those affected by psychiatric conditions. The opposite is also true: dysfunctional relationships can be triggers for those at risk of these conditions.
The results raise the possibility that lower serotonin activity in people with depression and other psychiatric conditions could contribute to changes in the way they perceive personal relationships, or even in their ability to maintain positive personal relationships.
"Although this is only a small study, the same patterns may well extend to the way we perceive our own relationships," said Professor Rogers.
"The ability to chemically influence the capacity for intimacy could be very important. Reduced capacity for intimacy can be a vexing symptom of many psychiatric disorders and an important target for treatment," noted Dr. John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry. "Drugs that ameliorate the impact of serotonin deficits might play a role in the treatment of this symptom."
Although much more research is necessary before a drug might come to market that can help promote intimacy, it is clear for now that our chemistry has an impact on nearly aspect of our lives, from our most public actions to our most private, as we see here with human intimacy and romantic feelings.

###

Notes to Editors: The article is "Serotonergic Activity Influences the Cognitive Appraisal of Close Intimate Relationships in Healthy Adults" by Amy C. Bilderbeck, Ciara McCabe, Judi Wakeley, Francis McGlone, Tirril Harris, Phillip J. Cowen, and Robert D. Rogers. Bilderbeck, McCabe, Wakeley, Cowen, and Rogers are affiliated with Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom. McGlone is affiliated with University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom. Harris and Cowen are from King's College, London, United Kingdom. The article appears in Biological Psychiatry, Volume 69, Number 8 (April 15, 2011), published by Elsevier.

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THE EPIDEMIC OF STUPID PEOPLE PRETENDING TO BE SMRT: Serotonin is a self-calming brain chemical; i.e., the brain releases it to calm itself in times of stress, to prevent the over-stimulation of neurons. So, chronically high serotonin means you are chronically stressed out. Therefore, to FORCE the brain to have high serotonin all the time would be incredibly STUPID.

See Ray Peat's article on serotonin, tryptophan, stress, body temp, and learned helplessness for more info.

ALSO, "supportive close relationships are known to protect against the development of mental illnesses and to promote recovery in those affected by psychiatric conditions." "Using the truth to lie" is one of the hallmarks of the pyschopathic personality.

ALSO, the Medical BUSINESS Model is the treatment of the symptoms of disease conditions with drugs and surgery. That is NOT health; they do NOT have good intentions.
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2011-04-15T11:38:00.000-07:00

Pentagon warns on big defense cuts

By Missy Ryan and Jim Wolf | Reuters – Wed, 13 Apr, 2011 9:05 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States may have to scrap some military missions and trim troop levels if President Barack Obama sticks with his goal of saving $400 billion on security spending over a 10-year period, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.
Arms makers' shares sold off after Obama made a speech on the budget deficit in which he called, in effect, for holding growth in the Pentagon's core budget, excluding war costs, below inflation through 2023, starting in fiscal 2013.
The squeeze on the Pentagon's budget, which has roughly doubled since 2001, is part of a larger drive to cut the budget deficit by $4 trillion over the 10-year period.
Standard & Poor's aerospace and defense index declined 0.9 percent on Wednesday, underperforming the S & P 500 index, which closed up .02 percent. Lockheed Martin Corp, the Pentagon's No. 1 supplier by sales, dropped 2.6 percent to close at $80.37 on the New York Stock Exchange.
"It's not just a math exercise which is 'cut $400 billion'," said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary. "It's 'let's review our roles and our missions and see what we can forgo, or pare down, in this age of fiscal constraint, where we are all collectively trying to work with the deficit problem.'"
Analysts said a selloff of arms makers' shares was an overreaction.
"We think that a flat defense budget" (excluding overseas contingency operations such as Iraq and Afghanistan) "is what investors and the defense industry already expect," said Rob Stallard of RBC Capital Markets.
"We think the knee-jerk selling in response to today's headlines has created an opportune entry point for our preferred defense names, notably Raytheon Co and General Dynamics Corp," he added in a note to clients.
The Pentagon has been tightening its belt in the hope of warding off deep cuts amid the concern over budget deficits.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates already had eliminated or scaled back more than 20 troubled or "excess" weapons programs since April 2009. Last June he ordered the military to come up with more than $100 billion in overhead savings over five years, which could be reinvested in higher priority programs.
The chairmen of Obama's deficit commission as well as a Bipartisan Policy Center Debt Reduction Task Force each had called for cuts in projected military spending of up to $1 trillion over 10 years, far more than Obama proposed.

OBAMA'S GOAL

The core Pentagon budget is now about $530 billion, roughly $10 billion less than Gates said was critical when the Obama administration sent Congress its spending plan for 2012.
The Defense Department could easily meet Obama's goal -- which amounts to saving an average of about $40 billion a year -- without jeopardizing the U.S. military's global dominance, said Gordon Adams, a senior White House official for national security budgets from 1993 to 1997.
"It's fundamentally trivial," he said. "This is stuff a comptroller can do while playing with his prayer beads." He suggested it would mean shrinking the force "a bit," trimming and deferring some hardware purchases and finding more efficient ways to handle operations and maintenance spending.
But Mackenzie Eaglen, a national security analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the world was not getting any safer and the U.S. bill would come due.
"The need to modernize the inventory of all the services is not going away and that bill will simply grow larger the longer policymakers defer modernization," she said.
The Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, Howard McKeon, said he had "grave concerns" about spending reductions while the U.S. military was involved in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
The Defense Department accounts for roughly 20 percent of federal spending and roughly half of discretionary, non-mandated spending.
Gates said in January the United States planned to cut $78 billion in defense spending over five years, including a reduction of up to 47,000 troops. That came on top of the $100 billion cost-savings drive that Gates kicked off last year.
"My greatest fear is that in economic tough times that people will see the defense budget as the place to solve the nation's deficit problems," Gates said last August.

(Reporting by Missy Ryan, Phil Stewart and Jim Wolf; editing by Christopher Wilson)

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COMMENT: The U.S.A. is a MILITARY EMPIRE: over 1000 military bases on planet Earth, and troops PERMANENTLY stationed in over 100 countries. That is EVIL.

And that is in addition to the THREE wars we are currently fighting.

DISMANTLE THE MILITARY EMPIRE. Complete withdrawal from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. BAN all arms sales to other countries (and no "gifts" either.)
----------------------------------------------------

2011-04-12T13:49:00.000-07:00

Why the United States Is Destroying Its Education System

Posted on Apr 10, 2011

By Chris Hedges

www.truthdig.com

A nation that destroys its systems of education, degrades its public information, guts its public libraries and turns its airwaves into vehicles for cheap, mindless amusement becomes deaf, dumb and blind. It prizes test scores above critical thinking and literacy. It celebrates rote vocational training and the singular, amoral skill of making money. It churns out stunted human products, lacking the capacity and vocabulary to challenge the assumptions and structures of the corporate state. It funnels them into a caste system of drones and systems managers. It transforms a democratic state into a feudal system of corporate masters and serfs.

Teachers, their unions under attack, are becoming as replaceable as minimum-wage employees at Burger King. We spurn real teachers—those with the capacity to inspire children to think, those who help the young discover their gifts and potential—and replace them with instructors who teach to narrow, standardized tests. These instructors obey. They teach children to obey. And that is the point. The No Child Left Behind program, modeled on the “Texas Miracle,” is a fraud. It worked no better than our deregulated financial system. But when you shut out debate these dead ideas are self-perpetuating.
Passing bubble tests celebrates and rewards a peculiar form of analytical intelligence. This kind of intelligence is prized by money managers and corporations. They don’t want employees to ask uncomfortable questions or examine existing structures and assumptions. They want them to serve the system. These tests produce men and women who are just literate and numerate enough to perform basic functions and service jobs. The tests elevate those with the financial means to prepare for them. They reward those who obey the rules, memorize the formulas and pay deference to authority. Rebels, artists, independent thinkers, eccentrics and iconoclasts—those who march to the beat of their own drum—are weeded out.

“Imagine,” said a public school teacher in New York City, who asked that I not use his name, “going to work each day knowing a great deal of what you are doing is fraudulent, knowing in no way are you preparing your students for life in an ever more brutal world, knowing that if you don’t continue along your scripted test prep course and indeed get better at it you will be out of a job. Up until very recently, the principal of a school was something like the conductor of an orchestra: a person who had deep experience and knowledge of the part and place of every member and every instrument. In the past 10 years we’ve had the emergence of both [Mayor] Mike Bloomberg’s Leadership Academy and Eli Broad’s Superintendents Academy, both created exclusively to produce instant principals and superintendents who model themselves after CEOs. How is this kind of thing even legal? How are such ‘academies’ accredited? What quality of leader needs a ‘leadership academy’? What kind of society would allow such people to run their children’s schools? The high-stakes tests may be worthless as pedagogy but they are a brilliant mechanism for undermining the school systems, instilling fear and creating a rationale for corporate takeover. There is something grotesque about the fact the education reform is being led not by educators but by financers and speculators and billionaires.”

Teachers, under assault from every direction, are fleeing the profession. Even before the “reform” blitzkrieg we were losing half of all teachers within five years after they started work—and these were people who spent years in school and many thousands of dollars to become teachers. How does the country expect to retain dignified, trained professionals under the hostility of current conditions? I suspect that the hedge fund managers behind our charter schools system—whose primary concern is certainly not with education—are delighted to replace real teachers with nonunionized, poorly trained instructors. To truly teach is to instill the values and knowledge which promote the common good and protect a society from the folly of historical amnesia. The utilitarian, corporate ideology embraced by the system of standardized tests and leadership academies has no time for the nuances and moral ambiguities inherent in a liberal arts education. Corporatism is about the cult of the self. It is about personal enrichment and profit as the sole aim of human existence. And those who do not conform are pushed aside.
“It is extremely dispiriting to realize that you are in effect lying to these kids by insinuating that this diet of corporate reading programs and standardized tests are preparing them for anything,” said this teacher, who feared he would suffer reprisals from school administrators if they knew he was speaking out. “It is even more dispiriting to know that your livelihood depends increasingly on maintaining this lie. You have to ask yourself why are hedge fund managers suddenly so interested in the education of the urban poor? The main purpose of the testing craze is not to grade the students but to grade the teacher.”

“I cannot say for certain—not with the certainty of a Bill Gates or a Mike Bloomberg who pontificate with utter certainty over a field in which they know absolutely nothing—but more and more I suspect that a major goal of the reform campaign is to make the work of a teacher so degrading and insulting that the dignified and the truly educated teachers will simply leave while they still retain a modicum of self-respect,” he added. “In less than a decade we been stripped of autonomy and are increasingly micromanaged. Students have been given the power to fire us by failing their tests. Teachers have been likened to pigs at a trough and blamed for the economic collapse of the United States. In New York, principals have been given every incentive, both financial and in terms of control, to replace experienced teachers with 22-year-old untenured rookies. They cost less. They know nothing. They are malleable and they are vulnerable to termination.”

The demonizing of teachers is another public relations feint, a way for corporations to deflect attention from the theft of some $17 billion in wages, savings and earnings among American workers and a landscape where one in six workers is without employment. The speculators on Wall Street looted the U.S. Treasury. They stymied any kind of regulation. They have avoided criminal charges. They are stripping basic social services. And now they are demanding to run our schools and universities.

“Not only have the reformers removed poverty as a factor, they’ve removed students’ aptitude and motivation as factors,” said this teacher, who is in a teachers union. “They seem to believe that students are something like plants where you just add water and place them in the sun of your teaching and everything blooms. This is a fantasy that insults both student and teacher. The reformers have come up with a variety of insidious schemes pushed as steps to professionalize the profession of teaching. As they are all businessmen who know nothing of the field, it goes without saying that you do not do this by giving teachers autonomy and respect. They use merit pay in which teachers whose students do well on bubble tests will receive more money and teachers whose students do not do so well on bubble tests will receive less money. Of course, the only way this could conceivably be fair is to have an identical group of students in each class—an impossibility. The real purposes of merit pay are to divide teachers against themselves as they scramble for the brighter and more motivated students and to further institutionalize the idiot notion of standardized tests. There is a certain diabolical intelligence at work in both of these.”

“If the Bloomberg administration can be said to have succeeded in anything,” he said, “they have succeeded in turning schools into stress factories where teachers are running around wondering if it’s possible to please their principals and if their school will be open a year from now, if their union will still be there to offer some kind of protection, if they will still have jobs next year. This is not how you run a school system. It’s how you destroy one. The reformers and their friends in the media have created a Manichean world of bad teachers and effective teachers. In this alternative universe there are no other factors. Or, all other factors—poverty, depraved parents, mental illness and malnutrition—are all excuses of the Bad Teacher that can be overcome by hard work and the Effective Teacher.”

The truly educated become conscious. They become self-aware. They do not lie to themselves. They do not pretend that fraud is moral or that corporate greed is good. They do not claim that the demands of the marketplace can morally justify the hunger of children or denial of medical care to the sick. They do not throw 6 million families from their homes as the cost of doing business. Thought is a dialogue with one’s inner self. Those who think ask questions, questions those in authority do not want asked. They remember who we are, where we come from and where we should go. They remain eternally skeptical and distrustful of power. And they know that this moral independence is the only protection from the radical evil that results from collective unconsciousness. The capacity to think is the only bulwark against any centralized authority that seeks to impose mindless obedience. There is a huge difference, as Socrates understood, between teaching people what to think and teaching them how to think. Those who are endowed with a moral conscience refuse to commit crimes, even those sanctioned by the corporate state, because they do not in the end want to live with criminals—themselves.

“It is better to be at odds with the whole world than, being one, to be at odds with myself,” Socrates said.

Those who can ask the right questions are armed with the capacity to make a moral choice, to defend the good in the face of outside pressure. And this is why the philosopher Immanuel Kant puts the duties we have to ourselves before the duties we have to others. The standard for Kant is not the biblical idea of self-love—love thy neighbor as thyself, do unto others as you would have them do unto you—but self-respect. What brings us meaning and worth as human beings is our ability to stand up and pit ourselves against injustice and the vast, moral indifference of the universe. Once justice perishes, as Kant knew, life loses all meaning. Those who meekly obey laws and rules imposed from the outside—including religious laws—are not moral human beings. The fulfillment of an imposed law is morally neutral. The truly educated make their own wills serve the higher call of justice, empathy and reason. Socrates made the same argument when he said it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong.
“The greatest evil perpetrated,” Hannah Arendt wrote, “is the evil committed by nobodies, that is, by human beings who refuse to be persons.”

As Arendt pointed out, we must trust only those who have this self-awareness. This self-awareness comes only through consciousness. It comes with the ability to look at a crime being committed and say “I can’t.” We must fear, Arendt warned, those whose moral system is built around the flimsy structure of blind obedience. We must fear those who cannot think. Unconscious civilizations become totalitarian wastelands.

“The greatest evildoers are those who don’t remember because they have never given thought to the matter, and, without remembrance, nothing can hold them back,” Arendt writes. “For human beings, thinking of past matters means moving in the dimension of depth, striking roots and thus stabilizing themselves, so as not to be swept away by whatever may occur—the Zeitgeist or History or simple temptation. The greatest evil is not radical, it has no roots, and because it has no roots it has no limitations, it can go to unthinkable extremes and sweep over the whole world.”

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COMMENT: I am a truth-loving visionary genius - exactly what is not wanted in this evil goddamned country, my home. Thinking is not wanted. The truth is not wanted. ESPECIALLY not the truth.

Thinking, challenging, asking questions, trying to create greatness efficiently would only disrupt the FRAUD that the APPARENT business activity is only a cover for.

What job can I get that will pay me enough to be middle-class, will not be serving Evil, and is not de-humanizing? The vast majority of rich and middle-class in this country today are rewarded for their OBEDIENCE. I am a white, heterosexual male of very high ability, and I have worked hard at various jobs. I have always been poor, as punishment for my failure to obey.

What are you risking to resist the evil in real life, my fellow humans? If the answer is "nothing", then you are a worthless piece of shit who should be killed.

MY NAME IS JOHN GALT, AND I DECLARE A STRIKE.
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2011-04-11T10:40:00.000-07:00

For life, liberty and the burqa: Muslim women defy France's ban on full-face veils

By Dheepthi Namasivayam
April 11, 2011 1:05PM

French ban on full-face veils starts today
Risk of fine if women refuse to show faces
Muslims women say they are not oppressed
Libs back minister who called burqa alien

THEY are the women prepared to defy France for the burqa.

From today French police have the power to stop Muslim women wearing full-face veils and to threaten them with fines or prison if they refuse to expose their faces.
All over France posters have been put up reminding veil-clad women that “the Republic lives with its face uncovered”.
Last year, President Nicolas Sarkozy pushed through a controversial law banning Muslim women from wearing burqas or niqabs in public. He said the law was to increase security but claimed it would liberate Muslim women from the oppression of their veil.
Any woman who refuse to lift her veil can be taken to a police station, fined 150 euros ($205) and ordered to attend re-education classes.
Anyone found guilty of forcing a woman to wear face veils in public or in private faces a fine of 30,000 euros and a year in jail.
However, some women have vowed to defy the law.
“I will not obey it,” said Wahiba Mebrek, 25, from the suburb of Villepinte, north of Paris. “I will only respect laws of the French Republic which are not in contradiction with me, my religion and my faith,” she added.
She is angry the Government and media peddled this image of them as being oppressed. For her, it was a conscious decision, made by her and husband when they became devout Muslims eight years ago.

Violent reaction
Hind*, a 31-year-old single mother from the suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois outside Paris, switched from the “miniskirt to the veil” after converting to Islam six years ago.
She said that her wearing of the veil had provoked hostile, even violent reactions in the street. She was recently attacked in front of her daughter by a couple.
“People’s reactions weren’t as violent until this issue was mediatised. Now that the law has passed, they feel that their violent behaviour towards us is justified,” she said.
“People have the impression that we are totally cut off from the world, but we have normal relationships like everyone else, we are accessible."
Hind will not take off her niqab, if asked by police. “Never ever will I apply this law,” she said. “It is not up to the government to meddle in my private life and my beliefs.”
French officials estimate that about 2000 women, from a total Muslim population estimated at between four and six million, wear the full-face veil.
Many Muslims and human rights groups accuse Mr Sarkozy of targeting one of France's most vulnerable and isolated groups to signal to anti-immigration voters that he shares their fear that Islam is a threat to French culture.

Years of abuse
Other critics worry the law may be hard to enforce, since it had to be drawn up without reference to religion to ban any kind of face covering in public and since police officers will not be allowed to remove women's head coverings.
But for other women, wearing the veil was not a choice.
Zeina*, 31, was forced to wear the niqab by her abusive ex-husband. She lived with his abuse until one day, a neighbour saw her bruises and took her to a women’s refuge. She details the ordeal in her autobiography, Sous Mon Niqab (Under my Veil).
“When I wore the niqab, I felt excluded from the world, from society,” she said. “Taking it off was a sort of freedom, a liberty for me.”
But she opposes the law, saying it will further oppress women. Unable to wear their veil in public, Zeina fears their abuse may go unnoticed as they will be confined to their homes.
As for those women who wear their niqab in the street for Friday afternoon prayers at their local mosque, they too risk being fined.
This is what worries Mrs Mebrek.
“The veil is an exterior manifestation of my religion but in a secular country, I am free to do so,” she said. “All this will stop from April 11.”

*Names were suppressed or changed as requested

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COMMENT: No, you are NOT free to do whatever you want.

The PSYCHOPATHS promote "freedom" as the highest value, because THEY want to be free... to continue all their ridiculous and evil bullshit.

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2011-04-10T10:59:00.000-07:00

Brain structure differs in liberals, conservatives: study

(AFP) – 1 day ago

WASHINGTON — Everyone knows that liberals and conservatives butt heads when it comes to world views, but scientists have now shown that their brains are actually built differently.
Liberals have more gray matter in a part of the brain associated with understanding complexity, while the conservative brain is bigger in the section related to processing fear, said the study on Thursday in Current Biology.
"We found that greater liberalism was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, whereas greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala," the study said.
Other research has shown greater brain activity in those areas, according to which political views a person holds, but this is the first study to show a physical difference in size in the same regions.
"Previously, some psychological traits were known to be predictive of an individual's political orientation," said Ryota Kanai of the University College London, where the research took place.
"Our study now links such personality traits with specific brain structure."
The study was based on 90 "healthy young adults" who reported their political views on a scale of one to five from very liberal to very conservative, then agreed to have their brains scanned.
People with a large amygdala are "more sensitive to disgust" and tend to "respond to threatening situations with more aggression than do liberals and are more sensitive to threatening facial expressions," the study said.
Liberals are linked to larger anterior cingulate cortexes, a region that "monitor(s) uncertainty and conflicts," it said.
"Thus, it is conceivable that individuals with a larger ACC have a higher capacity to tolerate uncertainty and conflicts, allowing them to accept more liberal views."
It remains unclear whether the structural differences cause the divergence in political views, or are the effect of them.
But the central issue in determining political views appears to revolve around fear and how it affects a person.
"Our findings are consistent with the proposal that political orientation is associated with psychological processes for managing fear and uncertainty," the study said.

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COMMENT: It is inherited.

Conservatives - SJ - can feel shame, but cannot feel compassion; that is their defining characteristic. We can never allow them to be in charge of anything ever again.

Liberals - SP - can feel compassion, but cannot feel shame; that is their defining characteristic.

We iNtuitive types - NT and NF (inherited a preference for the behaviors that make a person acquire depth) - can feel both shame and compassion. We deserve to rule over the Sensation Types.

[Note: For those who CAN feel compassion, learning to NOT give love to those who do NOT deserve it is a major life lesson.]

Psychopaths cannot feel either shame or compassion.
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2011-04-01T14:19:00.000-07:00

Child-porn discovery not a 'licence to kill': Crown

By QMI Agency

Last Updated: March 29, 2011 11:18am

MONTREAL - A man who beat his neighbour to death after finding child pornography on his computer should serve six years behind bars, says the Crown.
Patrick Belanger, 28, has pleaded guilty to manslaughter for the July 2009 beating death of Leonard Wells, 63, in west-end Montreal.
Prosecutor Thierry Nadon told a Quebec Court judge the sentence would send a clear message to society that vigilante killings are unacceptable and that a man's pedophilic tendencies don't give citizens "a licence to kill."
Belanger will be sentenced on April 21.
He was initially charged with first-degree murder following the attack on July 25, 2009. He had been helping Wells to move and had asked to use his computer while the two were taking a break.
He flew into a rage when he stumbled across images of children being sexually assaulted. Belanger called 911 and warned he would take matters into his own hands unless Wells was arrested immediately. He began punching and kicking the man when police failed to arrive after 20 minutes.
Belanger called 911 a second time as Wells lay in a pool of his own blood. The victim was transported to hospital in a coma and died a month later.
Belanger later told the court the child-porn images triggered memories of his own father's tale of childhood sexual abuse. The defendant also said he was drunk at the time of the beating and he had been an alcoholic for several years.
But the Crown said the "horrific" and "revolting" images did not give Belanger an excuse to kill a man.
"We cannot allow people to mete out their own justice," Nadon told the court.
"(Otherwise) we would be promoting anarchy. Incidents such as this one ... do not give him a licence to kill."
The prosecutor said the fact Belanger waited 20 minutes to administer the beating was evidence the killing was premeditated.
Defence lawyer Julien Archambault countered Belanger had no criminal record and has been in alcohol rehab for two years.
He requested a three-year prison term.
Belanger told judge Louise Bourdeau he's a changed man and was "not thinking rationally" at the time of the deadly attack.
"I'll have to pay for what I did," he added. "I have no hard feelings towards the Crown. Justice must be served."

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COMMENT: Justice WAS served by killing the evil child porn guy; the human who did the justice going to prison is a mis-carriage of justice.

"But the Crown said the "horrific" and "revolting" images did not give Belanger an excuse to kill a man."

Yes, it did.

"We cannot allow people to mete out their own justice," Nadon told the court."

The question "was justice done?" must ALWAYS be asked - and answered - in deciding if a crime has been committed, and if so what punishment is appropriate if any. Mindlessly applying laws without context is evil.

"(Otherwise) we would be promoting anarchy."

No, you IDIOT; "justice" does NOT equal "anarchy." We the people institute a government because it benefits us to do so; what does the gov have to do to be LEGITIMATE?
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2011-03-29T13:26:00.000-07:00

Research shows not only the fittest survive

Contact: Daniel Williams
d.d.williams@exeter.ac.uk
44-013-927-22062
University of Exeter

Darwin's notion that only the fittest survive has been called into question by new research published today (27 March 2011) in Nature.
A collaboration between the Universities of Exeter and Bath in the UK, with a group from San Diego State University in the US, challenges our current understanding of evolution by showing that biodiversity may evolve where previously thought impossible.
The work represents a new approach to studying evolution that may eventually lead to a better understanding of the diversity of bacteria that cause human diseases.
Conventional wisdom has it that for any given niche there should be a best species, the fittest, that will eventually dominate to exclude all others.
This is the principle of survival of the fittest. Ecologists often call this idea the `competitive exclusion principle' and it predicts that complex environments are needed to support complex, diverse populations.
Professor Robert Beardmore, from the University of Exeter, said: "Microbiologists have tested this principle by constructing very simple environments in the lab to see what happens after hundreds of generations of bacterial evolution, about 3,000 years in human terms. It had been believed that the genome of only the fittest bacteria would be left, but that wasn't their finding. The experiments generated lots of unexpected genetic diversity."
This test tube biodiversity proved controversial when first observed and had been explained away with claims that insufficient time had been allowed to pass for a clear winner to emerge.
The new research shows the experiments were not anomalies.
Professor Laurence Hurst, of the University of Bath, said: "Key to the new understanding is the realisation that the amount of energy organisms squeeze out of their food depends on how much food they have. Give them abundant food and they use it inefficiently. When we combine this with the notion that organisms with different food-utilising strategies are also affected in different ways by genetic mutations, then we discover a new principle, one in which both the fit and the unfit coexist indefinitely."
Dr Ivana Gudelj, also from the University of Exeter, said: "The fit use food well but they aren't resilient to mutations, whereas the less efficient, unfit consumers are maintained by their resilience to mutation. If there's a low mutation rate, survival of the fittest rules, but if not, lots of diversity can be maintained.
"Rather nicely, the numbers needed for the principle to work accord with those enigmatic experiments on bacteria. Their mutation rate seems to be high enough for both fit and unfit to be maintained."
Dr. David Lipson of San Diego State University, concluded: "Earlier work showed that opposing food utilisation strategies could coexist in complex environments, but this is the first explanation of how trade-offs, like the one we studied between growth rate and efficiency, can lead to stable diversity in the simplest possible of environments."

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COMMENT: Liberals, motivated by the desire to promote the IDEA of "diversity" (with all its implications for gov policies) PRETENDING to do science.

There are many people on this planet right now who CANNOT understand the Scientific Method, but they just PRETEND they are scientists anyway. In science, you have to be willing to discover what the truth is NO MATTER WHAT it turns out to be. Liberals - like Conservatives - LOVE science whenever it supports what they WANT to be true... or seems to. When it violates their desires, the Liberals say "that's racist/sexist/homophobic/whatever smear is applicable." (The Conservatives say it's "elitist", or lately, "lib-tard".)

Charles Darwin's proposed explanation for the mechanism of evolution - which he called "natural selection", meaning the local environment naturally selects those inherited characteristics which best fit that environment - has been proven correct over and over, etc. You are not free to believe whether it's true or not.

However, Darwinian evolution supports SOME of what the Conservatives have been saying all along about different races and sexes, so the Liberals are utterly DESPERATE to "prove" Darwin wrong.

The Truth is Good, The Lie is Evil. Choose.
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2011-03-21T18:13:00.000-07:00

Book review: ‘Moral Landscape’ examines science behind human values

Saturday, March 19, 2011 10:48 PM CDT

The goal of this book is to begin a conversation about how moral truth can be understood in the context of science. There is an epidemic of scientific ignorance in the United States. This isn’t surprising, as very few scientific truths are self-evident and many are deeply counterintuitive.”

So writes Sam Harris in his latest best-seller, “The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values.” Harris is co-founder and CEO of Project Reason, a nonprofit foundation that advocates for science and secular values; he has degrees in philosophy and neuroscience from Stanford University and UCLA. His previous books include “The End of Faith,” which won the PEN Award for Nonfiction in 2005, and “Letter to a Christian Nation.”

At the heart of “The Moral Landscape” is the notion that all human values have their genesis in the natural order and, as such, we do not need “God” or anything else to define concepts of right and wrong or to otherwise make judgments about the inherent efficacy of different behaviors. To illustrate this point, he examines a number of values that tend to be common to people in most societies. For instance, acting in one’s own self-interest has often been characterized as being beneficial from an evolutionary perspective. Conversely, most religions tend to articulate, in one way or another, that cooperation and empathy for others are higher-order aspirations that allow us to transcend our more primal tendencies.

“Many people imagine that the theory of evolution entails selfishness as a biological imperative,” Harris observes. “This popular misconception has been very harmful to the reputation of science.” He then proceeds to provide several examples of how selfishness has been counterproductive to the evolution of some species, while cooperation has led to a competitive advantage for others.

“We have good reason to believe that much of what we do in the name of ‘morality’ - decrying sexual infidelity, punishing cheaters, valuing cooperation, etc. - is borne of unconscious processes that were shaped by natural selection,” Harris adds.

Harris thinks that scientists should not shy away from passionately extolling the virtues of their particular medium for pursuing new insights into reality that bring us closer to defining the perpetually elusive “absolute truth.” Specifically, he would like to see his colleagues become a lot more vocal in their critique and criticism of the proponents of religion. “The scientific community’s reluctance to take a stand on moral issues has come at a price,” Harris notes. “It has made science appear divorced, in principle, from the most important questions of human life.”

When you dig a little deeper into his thesis, however, it becomes increasingly obvious that Harris has embedded his own self-serving agenda in “The Moral Landscape.” As is the case with so much of what is done in the name of motives that are alleged to be altruistic and pure, the allocation of financial resources - i.e., money - seems to be a driving force behind this book. “Many of our secular critics worry that if we oblige people to choose between reason and faith, they will choose faith and cease to support scientific research,” Harris contends. “Currently, federal funding is only allowed for work on stem cells that have been derived from surplus embryos at fertility clinics.”

The author also seems to understand that the scientific community can sometimes be its own worst enemy. “There is no question that scientists have occasionally demonstrated sexist and racist biases,” Harris concedes. At the same time, he seems in denial when he argues that science is somehow impervious to these deleterious attitudes. After providing several examples of where less than admirable human qualities have arguably distracted from the quest to advance knowledge, he comes to the rather dubious conclusion that “none of these facts, alone or in combination, remotely suggests that our notions of scientific objectivity are vitiated by racism or sexism.”

To his credit, very few books are as extensively researched and referenced as “The Moral Landscape.” There are 43 pages of notes in the back, together with 40 pages of citations. Harris is intimately familiar with both the current and the historical literature that forms the nucleus of his work. When discussing the debate concerning whether creationism should be included in curriculum, he does a reasonably balanced job of providing both sides of the issue, although his personal bias does tend to shine through in various passages.

A primary problem with Harris’ argument is that he assumes the scientific method is the only valid method of inquiry; i.e., the only mechanism through which legitimate knowledge can be satisfactorily derived. Ultimately his belief in science comes down to a matter of faith, and this is the glaring contradiction at the core of “The Moral Landscape.” The scientific method is admittedly very useful for dealing with the empirical world, but it does exhibit rather severe limitations when it veers outside that realm.

“The Moral Landscape” is not a bad book. It is a fairly interesting read that tends to stimulate critical thought and reflection in an area of life that touches us all, although the author’s intolerance and contempt for opposing perspectives is definitely a distraction. It’s one thing to passionately advocate for your position - it’s quite another to claim that your position is the only viable way of understanding and interpreting the world.

— Reviewed by Aaron W. Hughey, Department of Counseling and Student Affairs, Western Kentucky University.

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COMMENT: Sam Harris said

"At its most extreme, liberal denial has found expression in a growing subculture of conspiracy theorists who believe that the atrocities of 9/11 were orchestrated by our own government. A nationwide poll conducted by the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University found that more than a third of Americans suspect that the federal government "assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East;" 16% believe that the twin towers collapsed not because fully-fueled passenger jets smashed into them but because agents of the Bush administration had secretly rigged them to explode.
Such an astonishing eruption of masochistic unreason could well mark the decline of liberalism, if not the decline of Western civilization. There are books, films and conferences organized around this phantasmagoria.. "

and

"In their analyses of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy, liberals can be relied on to overlook the most basic moral distinctions. For instance, they ignore the fact that Muslims intentionally murder noncombatants, while we and the Israelis (as a rule) seek to avoid doing so. Muslims routinely use human shields, and this accounts for much of the collateral damage we and the Israelis cause; the political discourse throughout much of the Muslim world, especially with respect to Jews, is explicitly and unabashedly genocidal.
Given these distinctions, there is no question that the Israelis now hold the moral high ground in their conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah."
http://www.rationalresponders.com/head_in_the_sand_liberals_by_sam_harris

thereby identifying himself as PRETENDING to be rational.

P.S.
Islam, Christianity, and Judaism are all evil.
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2011-03-20T08:44:00.000-07:00

White House wants new copyright law crackdown

March 15, 2011 10:51 AM PDT

by Declan McCullagh

The White House today proposed sweeping revisions to U.S. copyright law, including making "illegal streaming" of audio or video a federal felony and allowing FBI agents to wiretap suspected infringers.
In a 20-page white paper (PDF), the Obama administration called on the U.S. Congress to fix "deficiencies that could hinder enforcement" of intellectual property laws.

The report was prepared by Victoria Espinel, the first Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator who received Senate confirmation in December 2009, and represents a broad tightening of many forms of intellectual property law including ones that deal with counterfeit pharmaceuticals and overseas royalties for copyright holders. (See CNET's report last month previewing today's white paper.)

Some of the highlights:

• The White House is concerned that "illegal streaming of content" may not be covered by criminal law, saying "questions have arisen about whether streaming constitutes the distribution of copyrighted works." To resolve that ambiguity, it wants a new law to "clarify that infringement by streaming, or by means of other similar new technology, is a felony in appropriate circumstances."

• Under federal law, wiretaps may only be conducted in investigations of serious crimes, a list that was expanded by the 2001 Patriot Act to include offenses such as material support of terrorism and use of weapons of mass destruction. The administration is proposing to add copyright and trademark infringement, arguing that move "would assist U.S. law enforcement agencies to effectively investigate those offenses."

• Under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it's generally illegal to distribute hardware or software--such as the DVD-decoding software Handbrake available from a server in France--that can "circumvent" copy protection technology. The administration is proposing that if Homeland Security seizes circumvention devices, it be permitted to "inform rightholders," "provide samples of such devices," and assist "them in bringing civil actions."

The term "fair use" does not appear anywhere in the report. But it does mention Web sites like The Pirate Bay, which is hosted in Sweden, when warning that "foreign-based and foreign-controlled Web sites and Web services raise particular concerns for U.S. enforcement efforts." (See previous coverage of a congressional hearing on overseas sites.)

The usual copyright hawks, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, applauded the paper, which grew out of a so-called joint strategic plan that Vice President Biden and Espinel announced in June 2010.
Rob Calia, a senior director at the Chamber's Global Intellectual Property Center, said we "strongly support the white paper's call for Congress to clarify that criminal copyright infringement through unauthorized streaming, is a felony. We know both the House and Senate are looking at this issue and encourage them to work closely with the administration and other stakeholders to combat this growing threat."

In October 2008, President Bush signed into law the so-called Pro IP ACT, which created Espinel's position and increased penalties for infringement, after expressing its opposition to an earlier version.
Unless legislative proposals--like one nearly a decade ago implanting strict copy controls in digital devices--go too far, digital copyright tends not to be a particularly partisan topic. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, near-universally disliked by programmers and engineers for its anti-circumvention section, was approved unanimously in the U.S. Senate.

At the same time, Democratic politicians tend to be a bit more enthusiastic about the topic. Biden was a close Senate ally of copyright holders, and President Obama picked top copyright industry lawyers for Justice Department posts. Last year, Biden warned that "piracy is theft."

No less than 78 percent of political contributions from Hollywood went to Democrats in 2008, which is broadly consistent with the trend for the last two decades, according to OpenSecrets.org.

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COMMENT: Once again, Obama proves himself evil by carrying on the policies of the Bush 43 admin.

If I steal your car, you don't have your car anymore. If you put a song, movie, book or whatever on the web, and I - and millions of other people - download it, you STILL HAVE it, and now millions of others do too. They are NOT the same thing. The term "intellectual property" is psychological warfare.

AND, by linking this to the Patriot Act, will people be classified as terrorists just for violating copyright?

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2011-03-13T10:32:00.000-07:00

What Kind of Sick Culture Blames an 11-Year-Old for Being Gang-Raped?

By Amanda Marcotte, AlterNet
Posted on March 11, 2011, Printed on March 13, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/150199/

The memories have faded, but still they float to the surface at times: being 12, 13, 14 years old in an insular West Texas town where you could walk from one end of town to the other in half an hour. Most walks home from the store or school were uneventful, but a handful of times, young men in their late teens or early 20s would slow their cars down and lean out the window while you walked. “Hey, why are you walking? Don’t you want a ride?” Faces full of concern they never seemed to have when dealing with young girls in any other setting.
I always said no. I was too young to have any inkling of what could happen if I accepted, but I figured it was not likely to be good.
But one 11-year-old girl in Cleveland, Texas, a rural town in the eastern part of the state, did say yes to the ride. And what allegedly was done to her is the sort of thing that begs for an explanation. She was taken to one house and then to an abandoned trailer. She was threatened with violence if she didn’t comply. She was sexually assaulted by multiple men in their teens and 20s, some of whom recorded the event and posted it online. How could these young men allegedly do this?
The answer to that question lies in large part in attitudes unearthed in recent coverage that quotes accusations that the victim is to blame, and were reported, without comment, context and certainly no criticism, in the New York Times and in the Houston Chronicle.
When the photos and videos of the alleged rape were discovered, the girl---not the accused, some of whom are the golden boys of the community---became such an object of hate and gossip that the authorities removed her from her home to a safe house, and are encouraging her family to relocate permanently. It seems that for many, the person who bears the blame for this alleged gang-rape is a girl still at the age when many are playing with Barbies.
What could an 11-year-old girl do that would be so terrible she somehow deserved to be raped by at least 17 but as many as 28 men? Did she ax-murder a family? Burn down a city? Orchestrate a genocide?
According to some members of the Cleveland, Texas community quoted in the New York Times and Houston Chronicle, she courted gang-rape by being on the verge of adolescence and striving to seem older than she was, a common enough behavior for girls that age. In both papers, much is made of the reputation of the alleged victim wearing makeup, dressing older than her age and currying favor from teenage boys. The Houston Chronicle dwelled extensively on the girl’s bragging about drinking, smoking and sex on her Facebook page, and also takes note of the alleged victim’s defensiveness in the face of so much community disapproval.
Of course, when I was a 12-year-old girl and a man followed me as I was walking home from school, muttering dirty things under his breath and boring holes in me with his eyes, I was wearing my usual uniform of jeans and a sweatshirt, with sneakers and certainly no makeup. I didn’t even shave my legs. I escaped him by ducking into True Value and pretending to buy some tapes. The only “crime” a child who falls into the hands of a rapist has committed is to be unlucky, with no True Value nearby to escape to.
Girls suffer from harassment, violence and rape all the time, but they rarely tell. And the reason is that while girls may not know much about sex or men or the world, they pick up on what this alleged victim is suffering now. They instinctively know that to tell is to invite judgment, to have people ask not, “What kind of man would assault a child?” but “What did she do to invite this abuse?”
Finding angry criticism of the victim for dressing or acting in ways the community deems inappropriate to a girl her age was easy for reporters. Same with finding people willing to blame the mother for allowing her child to roam unsupervised in a small Texas town. But, as someone who grew up in a small Texas town, I can assure you that letting even small children roam free is hardly an unusual choice, in fact, it's quite normal. The reasoning, ironically, is that small towns are safe for children.
Some residents were happy to lay the blame squarely on any man who thinks it’s appropriate to join in a gang-rape, and a couple tried to split the difference, blaming both victim and victimizers. But the New York Times also quoted, without comment, supportive comments for the alleged rapists, with one woman saying, “These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives.” No one was quoted discussing the lifelong impact of being the victim of a gang rape.
One question is on the lips of reasonable people everywhere when they hear that the only reason these arrests are occurring is that the alleged rapists taped and photographed the event, and then shared it widely online. But young men who would do such a thing live in the same world we all do. They notice that it’s the victim and not the rapists who are assailed by the community and the media when a rape is reported. They notice that people blame the victim for what she was wearing or who she had sex with before. They notice that it’s the victim who has to move away, not the alleged perpetrators.
Anyone who took all this in should be forgiven for assuming that when a rape occurs, the crime was being raped, not being a rapist. And we shouldn’t be surprised when some would-be rapists take all these social signals shifting blame from rapists to victims, and decide that if they raped they probably will get away with it. All too often, they do.
Amanda Marcotte co-writes the blog Pandagon. She is the author of It's a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments.

© 2011 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/150199/

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COMMENT: Hey, Amanda, you lying stupid crazy feminist bitch, how about mentioning that the GIRL was a non-black Hispanic, and that the MEN and teen BOYS were all Black? Maybe that's why the NYT coverage is VERY different for this story than for the WHITE Duke Lacrossse players who were FALSELY accused by a Black woman?

The Truth is like air to The Good; without The Truth, The Good dies. No more secrets, no more lies.

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2011-03-12T07:09:00.000-08:00

3 men who discovered bomb say they later lost jobs

– Fri Mar 11, 5:01 pm ET

SPOKANE, Wash. – Three cleanup workers who were hailed as heroes after finding a live bomb along the route of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade said they later lost their temporary jobs after supervisors questioned their handling of the situation.
The men were employed by Labor Ready and doing temporary work for the Spokane Public Facilities District when they found a backpack containing the bomb about an hour before the scheduled start of the Jan. 17 parade.
They alerted police, who were able to defuse the device.
"For the first two days, basically all we did was get chewed out," worker Mark Steiner told Spokane television station KHQ. "We did this wrong. We did that wrong. I don't know what you consider calling 911 wrong after two minutes after we found it."
Steiner, Brandon Klaus and Sherman Welpton had been hired to perform cleanup work during the parade and noticed the backpack on an outdoor bench.
Stacey Burke, a spokeswoman for Labor Ready, said the men were performing contract work for the facilities district and remain eligible to get more work through the temporary employment service when they ask.
"They can still find employment through us," Burke said, adding they had done some work since the bomb was found.
This was the first time that Labor Ready workers had to deal with a live bomb in Spokane, Burke said.
Kevin Twohig, head of the public facilities district, told The Spokesman-Review that the three men "we're messing around with the bomb."
"I think they put themselves at more risk than they needed," Twohig said.
Burke said the men should not have picked up the backpack.
"I would not wish for them to pick up a backpack that has a bomb in it," she said. "I'm sure they didn't know what it was."
The identities of the men were withheld until a suspect, Kevin William Harpham, 36, was arrested Wednesday near Addy.
Steiner told KHQ the three men were not trained to deal with suspicious packages.
"We'd go out, and we'd clean up parking lots," he said. "Who knows what happens when you see a backpack sitting there? The first reaction is to pick it up and that's what we did, and we opened it, saw wires sticking out of it and called police."
Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire and Spokane Mayor Mary Verner have praised the three workers in speeches for being vigilant.

Information from: KHQ-TV, http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3082888/
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COMMENT: Sounds like someone in the gov is PISSED that these three normal humans inadvertently foiled the latest FAKE TERRORISM op.

ALSO, this story came out just hours after the earthquake/tsunami news from Japan. Maybe hoping it would get "lost in the shuffle"?
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2011-03-11T09:24:00.000-08:00

Cave murals in Spain 'show man may have used magic mushrooms 6,000 years ago'

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 8:37 AM on 9th March 2011

For all those who thought hallucinogenic drugs took off in the 1960s, think again: scientists believe they have found evidence of magic mushroom use 6,000 years ago.
Cave murals found in Spain appear to depict them in religious rituals - which would be the oldest evidence of their use in Europe.
The Selva Pascuala cave mural near the town of Villar del Humo has a bull in the centre, but researchers from America and Mexico are focussing on a row of 13 small mushroom-like objects.

Brian Akers at Pasco-Hernando Community College in Florida, and Gaston Guzman at the Ecological Institute of Xalapa in Mexico say they believe the objects are Psilocybe hispanica, a local funghi with hallucinogenic properties.

The mushroom has a bell-shaped cap with a dome and lacks a ring around the stalk, just like the objects in the 6,000 year-old mural, they say.
It also has stalks which vary from straight to sinuous - the same as those drawn thousands of years ago, they add in the latest issue of New Scientist.
But, even though it is several millennia old, it is not thought to be the oldest painting showing hallucinogenic mushrooms.

Messages from another world: The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave signs and paintings cover 25,000 years of prehistory from 35,000 to 10,000 years ago

A mural in Algeria that may show Psilocybe mairei is 7,000 to 9,000 years old, according to NewScientist.com.
Just last month, it was revealed the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave in southern France is to be the subject of a 3D documentary by German filmmaker Werner Herzog, as it is thought to be where man made his first attempts to write.
Since its (re)discovery in 1994, the cave in southern France has offered scientists a veritable treasure trove of perfectly preserved paintings.
Alongside these are evidence of attempts at communication 30,000 to 40,000 years ago.

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COMMENT: The artists painted the pictures on the walls; then the shaman gave everyone mushrooms (or marijuana, or whatev), led them into the cave, and the flickering flame combined with the "trip" to make the images move on the wall in the perceptions of the audience, as the shaman guided their trip with story-telling. It was a combination church/movie theater for them.

These days, use of hallucinogenic plants has been completely separated from spirituality, so spirituality has been lost - replaced with religion - and drug use is now "recreational" - "ooh, look at the pretty colors."
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2011-03-10T18:47:00.000-08:00

Catastrophic Weather Events Are Becoming the New Normal -- Are You Ready for Life on Our Planet Circa 2011?

by Bill McKibben

For two decades now we've been ignoring the impassioned pleas of scientists that our burning of fossil fuels was a bad idea. And now we're paying a heavy price.

February 2, 2011

If you were in the space shuttle looking down yesterday, you would have seen a pair of truly awesome, even fearful, sights.

Much of North America was obscured by a 2,000-mile storm dumping vast quantities of snow from Texas to Maine--between the wind and snow, forecasters described it as "probably the worst snowstorm ever to affect" Chicago, and said waves as high as 25 feet were rocking buoys on Lake Michigan.
Meanwhile, along the shore of Queensland in Australia, the vast cyclone Yasi was sweeping ashore; though the storm hit at low tide, the country's weather service warned that "the impact is likely to be more life threatening than any experienced during recent generations," especially since its torrential rains are now falling on ground already flooded from earlier storms. Here's how Queensland premier Anna Bligh addressed her people before the storm hit: "We know that the long hours ahead of you are going to be the hardest that you face. We will be thinking of you every minute of every hour between now and daylight and we hope that you can feel our thoughts, that you will take strength from the fact that we are keeping you close and in our hearts."

Welcome to our planet, circa 2011--a planet that, like some unruly adolescent, has decided to test the boundaries. For two centuries now we've been burning coal and oil and gas and thus pouring carbon into the atmosphere; for two decades now we've been ignoring the increasingly impassioned pleas of scientists that this is a Bad Idea. And now we're getting pinched.

Oh, there have been snowstorms before, and cyclones--our planet has always produced extreme events. But by definition extreme events are supposed to be rare, and all of a sudden they're not. In 2010 nineteen nations set new all-time temperature records (itself a record!) and when the mercury hit 128 in early June along the Indus, the entire continent of Asia set a new all-time temperature mark. Russia caught on fire; Pakistan drowned. Munich Re, the biggest insurance company on earth, summed up the annus horribilis last month with this clinical phrase: "the high number of weather-related natural catastrophes and record temperatures both globally and in different regions of the world provide further indications of advancing climate change."

You don't need a PhD to understand what's happening. That carbon we've poured into the air traps more of the sun's heat near the planet. And that extra energy expresses itself in a thousand ways, from melting ice to powering storms. Since warm air can hold more water vapor than cold, it's not surprising that the atmosphere is 4% moister than it was 40 years ago. That "4% extra amount, it invigorates the storms, it provides plenty of moisture for these storms," said Kevin Trenberth, head of the climate analysis section at the government's National Center for Atmospheric Research. It loads the dice for record rain and snow. Yesterday the Midwest and Queensland crapped out.

The point I'm trying to make is: chemistry and physics work. We don't just live in a suburb, or in a free-market democracy; we live on an earth that has certain rules. Physics and chemistry don't care what John Boehner thinks, they're unmoved by what will make Barack Obama's re-election easier. More carbon means more heat means more trouble--and the trouble has barely begun. So far we've raised the temperature of the planet about a degree, which has been enough to melt the Arctic. The consensus prediction for the century is that without dramatic action to stem the use of fossil fuel--far more quickly than is politically or economically convenient--we'll see temperatures climb five degrees this century. Given that one degree melts the Arctic, just how lucky are we feeling?

So far, of course, we haven't taken that dramatic action--just the opposite. The president didn't even mention global warming in his State of the Union address. He did promise some research into new technologies, which will help down the line--but we'll only be in a position to make use of it if we get started right now with the technology we've already got. And that requires, above all, putting a serious price on carbon. We use fossil fuel because it's cheap, and it's cheap because Exxon Mobil and Peabody Coal get to use the atmosphere as open sewer to dump their waste for free. And today you can see the results of that particular business model from outer space.
Overcoming that will require a movement--a movement that is slowly beginning to build. In 2008 a few of us started from scratch to build a campaign with an unlikely moniker: we called in 350.org, because a month earlier this particular planet's foremost climatologist, James Hansen, had declared that we now knew how much carbon in the atmosphere was too much. Any value higher than 350 parts per million, he said, was "not compatible with the planet on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted." That's troubling news, because right now the atmosphere above Chicago and Cairns and wherever you happen to be is about 390 ppm co2. In other words, too much.
At the time, some of our environmentalist friends said that science was too complicated for most people to get--that the only way to talk about these issues was to simplify them. But we thought people could understand, just as we understand when a doctor tells us our cholesterol is too high. We may not know everything about the lipid system, but we know what 'too high' means--it means we better change our diet, take our pill, lace up our sneakers. And indeed 350.org has now coordinated almost 15,000 demonstrations in 188 countries, what Foreign Policy magazine called 'the largest ever coordinated global rally" about any issue.
That's just a start, of course, and so far not enough to counter the power of the fossil fuel industry, the most profitable enterprise humans have ever engaged in. So we'll keep building, and hoping others will join us. But the good news is simple: more and more of this planet's inhabitants are remembering that they actually live on a planet.
We've been able to forget that fact for the last ten thousand years, the period of remarkable climatic stability that underwrote the rise of civilization. But we won't be able to forget it much longer. Days like yesterday will keep slapping us upside the head, until we take it in. The third rock from the sun is a very different place than it used to be.

Bill McKibben is founder of 350.org, the Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College, and author most recently of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet.

© 2011 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/149774/

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THE EPIDEMIC OF STUPID PEOPLE PRETENDING TO BE SMRT: Umm... there's no such thing as a "greenhouse gas."

P.S. "Using the truth to lie" is one of the hallmarks of the "psychopathic personality."

P.P.S. Total cholesterol is an utterly meaningless number.

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2011-03-06T11:09:00.000-08:00

Depersonalization Disorder - a Hidden Mental Health Epidemic

By Jeffrey Abugel
Feb 25, 2011 - 3:34:43 PM

(HealthNewsDigest.com) - Petersburg, VA — Did you ever feel unreal and disconnected from your emotions and other people? These are symptoms of a rarely discussed psychiatric condition called Depersonalization Disorder (DPD)—the third most common mental health condition, after depression and anxiety.

According to Jeffrey Abugel, medical journalist, DPD survivor, and patient advocate, up to 70 percent of college students have had symptoms at one time or another (recreational drug use is a common trigger). And many creative people, such as Poe, Sartre, and Deuce Bigelow director Harris Goldberg, have suffered from DPD. For some people, DPD comes and goes. For others it just stays—with troubling consequences for their health, happiness, and success in life.

Abugel explains that human neurology is designed with a protective mechanism that enables us to "leave our bodies" during moments of extreme trauma, such as a car crash or a brutal rape. Our emotions deaden, time stands still, and we feel as if we're in a dream. "DPD sufferers, however, don't just 'snap out of it' after the initial trigger," he says. Instead, they continue to feel as if they are outside of their body and alienated from life.

DPD has long been recognized by psychiatrists and included in the diagnosing bible, the DSM-IV. "Yet many sufferers don't receive the right diagnosis, are told it's all in their head, or are given medications to treat symptoms such as depression—but don't get needed help for the underlying condition," says Abugel.

Why? Because until fairly recently, DPD was considered to be extremely rare. But in the last few decades, due to an increase in the abuse of substances such as marijuana, LSD, Ecstasy, Ketamine, and Salvia—which are known triggers—the number of cases has exploded.
The good news is that there are growing support networks, more information clearinghouses for patients, and hopeful new treatment options as doctors learn more about the condition.

Abugel shares the following 8 symptoms a person with DPD may experience:

A feeling of panic. When DPD first gets triggered, one may feel as if he or she is going mad. Many patients report feeling panic stricken, trapped inside a new world they can't escape.
Loss of emotion. People with DPD describe feeling inhuman, like a robot or a rock. They experience a loss of spirit, no emotions, and no mood changes.

Detachment. DPD patients feel dissociated from others and themselves. Many describe the feeling of watching themselves, as if from above. Once-familiar objects now seem strange.

Obsession. With DPD, sufferers obsessively check and recheck their sanity. They sometimes fixate on the strangeness or foreignness of a single thought or object.

Abstract ruminating. DPD sufferers often dwell on the idea of eternity and infinity. They may become trapped in thoughts of the void, the nature of existence, and the dark mysteries of life.
Lifestyle changes. DPD patients are sometimes afraid to leave their houses or engage in any type of activity that might trigger a panic attack. They stop traveling, watching TV, talking to others, even going to doctors.

Feeling possessed. People with DPD often report feeling as if an evil entity has taken up residence inside their head, watching them and making negative comments.

Acting "as if." DPD causes sufferers to feel as though they are acting. They imitate people's moods and expressions, and try to act "normal" around others. But they continue to feel like outsiders who aren't part of ordinary life.

Jeffrey Abugel runs a nonprofit online community for DPD sufferers at www.depersonalization.com. His previous book, written with Daphne Simeon MD, called Feeling Unreal, is regarded as a seminal work on Depersonalization Disorder. A medical journalist who has written hundreds of articles, Abugel is author of a new book, Stranger to My Self: Inside Depersonalization, the Hidden Epidemic, synthesizing the latest DPD research with data gathered while hosting a depersonalization website for nearly a decade.

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THE EPIDEMIC OF STUPID PEOPLE PRETENDING TO BE SMART: Our society is very de-humanizing. Those have it in them to naturally resist this often self-medicate with drugs that "open the consciousness" to a larger world. Then stupid people say the self-medicating is CAUSING the "DPD"; so, go to the doctor and get MEDICATION. No, you are a MORON.

".. feeling as if an evil entity has taken up residence inside their head, watching them and making negative comments." Yeah, it's called the FOREIGN INSTALLATION.

"Acting 'as if'." This is commonly ADVISED in the self-help/pop-psych literature; then, if you follow that advice, it becomes a SYMPTOM that needs MEDICATION. Oh, I'm so PARANOID.

TAKE YOUR SOMA.
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2011-03-02T10:04:00.000-08:00

Once a Villain, Coconut Oil Charms the Health Food World

By MELISSA CLARK

Published: March 1, 2011

A FEW years ago I noticed something odd at the health food store. There, rubbing elbows with the extra-virgin olive oil and cold-pressed canola oil was virtually the last fat I expected to see in such esteemed company: coconut oil.

The last time I checked, coconut oil was supposed to be the devil himself in liquid form, with more poisonous artery-clogging, cholesterol-raising, heart-attack-causing saturated fat than butter, lard or beef tallow.

Its bad reputation caused a panic at the concession stands back in 1994, when the Center for Science in the Public Interest put out a study claiming that a large movie-theater popcorn, hold the butter, delivered as much saturated fat as six Big Macs. “Theater popcorn ought to be the Snow White of snack foods, but it’s been turned into Godzilla by being popped in highly saturated coconut oil,” Michael Jacobson, the executive director of the center, a consumer group that focuses on food and nutrition, said at the time.

So given all this greasy baggage, what was coconut oil doing in a health food store? In fact, it has recently become the darling of the natural-foods world. Annual sales growth at Whole Foods “has been in the high double digits for the last five years,” said Errol Schweizer, the chain’s global senior grocery coordinator.

Two groups have helped give coconut oil its sparkly new makeover. One is made up of scientists, many of whom are backtracking on the worst accusations against coconut oil. And the other is the growing number of vegans, who rely on it as a sweet vegetable fat that is solid at room temperature and can create flaky pie crusts, crumbly scones and fluffy cupcake icings, all without butter.

My curiosity stirred, I brought some home and experimented. I quickly learned that virgin coconut oil has a haunting, nutty, vanilla flavor. It’s even milder and richer tasting than butter, sweeter and lighter textured than lard, and without any of the bitterness you sometimes get in olive oil.

Its natural sweetness shines in baked goods and sautés, and is particularly wonderful paired with bitter greens, which soften and mellow under the oil’s gentle touch. And the saturated fat in coconut oil makes it a good choice in pastries, whether you avoid animal fats or simply want to pack a little more coconut flavor into that coconut cream pie.

But before I get to the cupcakes, let’s start with the science.

According to Thomas Brenna, a professor of nutritional sciences at Cornell University who has extensively reviewed the literature on coconut oil, a considerable part of its stigma can be traced to one major factor.

“Most of the studies involving coconut oil were done with partially hydrogenated coconut oil, which researchers used because they needed to raise the cholesterol levels of their rabbits in order to collect certain data,” Dr. Brenna said. “Virgin coconut oil, which has not been chemically treated, is a different thing in terms of a health risk perspective. And maybe it isn’t so bad for you after all.”

Partial hydrogenation creates dreaded trans fats. It also destroys many of the good essential fatty acids, antioxidants and other positive components present in virgin coconut oil. And while it’s true that most of the fats in virgin coconut oil are saturated, opinions are changing on whether saturated fats are the arterial villains they were made out to be. “I think we in the nutrition field are beginning to say that saturated fats are not so bad, and the evidence that said they were is not so strong,” Dr. Brenna said.

Plus, it turns out, not all saturated fats are created equal.

Marisa Moore, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, a nonprofit association of nutritionists, said, “Different types of saturated fats behave differently.”

The main saturated fat in coconut oil is lauric acid, a medium chain fatty acid. Lauric acid increases levels of good HDL, or high-density lipoprotein, and bad LDL, or low-density lipoprotein, in the blood, but is not thought to negatively affect the overall ratio of the two.

She went on to say that while it is still uncertain whether coconut oil is actively beneficial the way olive oil is, small amounts probably are not harmful. The new federal Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that no more than 10 percent of total dietary calories a day come from saturated fat. For a 2,000-calorie diet, that’s about 20 grams.

Any number of health claims have been made for lauric acid. According to proponents, it's a wonder substance with possible antibacterial, antimicrobial, antiviral properties that could also, in theory, combat H.I.V., clear up acne and speed up your metabolism. Researchers are skeptical.

"There are a lot of claims that coconut oil may have health benefits, but there is no concrete scientific data yet to support this," said Dr. Daniel Hwang, a research molecular biologist specializing in lauric acid at the Western Human Nutrition Research Center at the University of California, Davis.

But, he added, "Coconut is good food, in moderation."

It seems safe to say that if I eat it just once in a while, coconut oil probably isn't going to give me a heart attack, make me thinner or ward off the flu. What I really wanted to know was, how can I cook with it?

This is where the vegan cupcakes come in. Coconut oil can be whipped into a buttercream-like fluffiness while retaining its gentle vanilla flavor.

Elizabeth Schuler, who writes the blog mycommunaltable.com, started baking with coconut oil after her son's severe allergies to tree nuts, eggs and dairy were diagnosed. She searched out vegan recipes and was surprised by the number that relied on margarine and Crisco, a no-go as far as she was concerned.

"I try to keep a nonprocessed-foods home," she said.

Then she discovered coconut oil at her local Whole Foods. When her own research led her to conclude that eating it in small amounts is O.K., she started baking cakes and whipping up icings with it. She also uses the oil any time she wants to add a mellow coconut flavor to a dish.

Allison Beck, a natural foods enthusiast, and a blogger and editor at thedailymeal.com, fell in love with coconut oil when she saw it used in a Thomas Keller recipe for a chocolate ice cream topping that had a texture nearly identical to that of the commercial product Magic Shell (which also contains coconut oil), but a far richer, more fudgy flavor.

"That sauce is incredible," Ms. Beck said. "You pour it on ice cream and it hardens immediately."

She also mixes virgin coconut oil in oatmeal for creaminess and flavor, uses it to sauté greens, and has successfully played around with it in brownies and banana bread.

"It's amazing in pastry," said Michele Forbes, the chef at Angelica Kitchen, a venerable vegan restaurant in the East Village. In pies, "it gives a nice flaky crust that stays crisp without being bad for you."

In my flurry of experimenting, I found that virgin coconut oil had a deep coconut flavor that persists even after cooking. Refined coconut oil, which has been processed enough to raise the temperature at which it begins to smoke, lacks the same coconut profundity, but supposedly works better for stir- and deep-frying. In my recipe testing, however, the smoke point of virgin coconut oil was not a problem.

Melted and cooled, virgin coconut oil worked beautifully in my favorite olive oil poundcake, yielding a loaf with a tight, golden crumb and gentle coconut fragrance that I enhanced with lime zest, almonds and a grating of fresh nutmeg.

I also like coconut oil for sautéing vegetables and aromatics, especially onions. They absorb the sweetness of the oil and pass that lovely nuance on to the whole dish. In one memorable meal, I sautéed scallions in coconut oil, which managed to perfume an entire pan of plump, juicy shrimp spiked with garlic, ginger and coriander.

And I may never go back to olive oil for roasting sweet potatoes, not when coconut oil enhanced their caramelized flavor while adding a delicate coconut essence.

But my favorite new way to use coconut oil is for popcorn. The oil brings out the nutty sweetness of the corn itself while adding a rich creamy sensation, without having to pour melted butter on the top. Of course, the movie theaters knew it all along.

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THE EPIDEMIC OF STUPID PEOPLE PRETENDING TO BE SMART: “Theater popcorn ought to be the Snow White of snack foods, but it’s been turned into Godzilla by being popped in highly saturated coconut oil,” Michael Jacobson said, thereby identifying himself as a SPPTBS.

ALSO, is coconut oil part of the natural diet of RABBITS, you DUMB FUCKS?

The public should never have been taught to think in terms of "saturated" or "unsaturated" fats; it has only increased confusion. The healthy sources of dietary fat for humans are animal, nut, and fruit.
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2011-03-01T13:22:00.000-08:00

Home temp, sleep loss linked to obesity

ANI, Feb 25, 2011, 02.30pm IST

An Italian study has suggested that living in a cooler home and getting a decent night's sleep could help rein in the obesity epidemic.

A research team, led by Simona Bo at the University of Turin in Italy, found the odds of a person becoming obese declined by 30 per cent for each hour of sleep they managed, reports the Daily Mail.

Meanwhile, those who liked living in a toasty hot house were twice as likely to become obese as those who kept their homes no warmer than 20C.

These findings held true even when factors such as physical activity level and TV watching were taken into account.

The study followed more than a thousand middle-aged adults over six years.

Dr Bo and her colleagues, said: "Relatively unexplored contributors to the obesity and diabetes epidemics may include sleep restriction, increased house temperature, television watching, consumption of restaurant meals, use of air-conditioning and use of anti-depressant drugs."

David Allison at the University of Alabama at Birmingham said a cooler indoor temperature could affect your weight as the body burns more calories when it has to work to maintain a stable temperature.

The study has been published in the International Journal of Obesity.

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THE EPIDEMIC OF STUPID PEOPLE PRETENDING TO BE SMART: Hypothyroidism is at an epidemic level, most people are deficient in iodine, selenium, and other nutrients, and the "standard of care" - synthetic T4 - is proven to not adequately treat most patients.

Of course, one of the main symptoms of hypothyroidism is being COLD, so you turn up the heat in your home in an effort to feel comfortable. The same condition - being hypothyroid - also decreases the rate of fat-burning (and the body may increase the fat sheath in an effort to keep the internal organs warm enough).

So what do "Dr. Bo" and "David Allison" suggest? Turn down the temp and sell more anti-depressant DRUGS (even though they are known not to work), you STUPID GREEDY MONKEYS.
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2011-02-28T14:10:00.000-08:00

Foreclosures helping change color of some suburbs

Cheaper housing costs open suburbs up to lower income Detroit residents, sowing conflict

Corey Williams, Associated Press, On Monday February 28, 2011, 12:02 am EST

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (AP) -- Three years ago, Lamar Grace left Detroit for the suburb of Southfield. He got a good deal -- a 3,000-square-foot colonial that once was worth $220,000. In foreclosure, he paid $109,000.
The neighbors were not pleased.
"They don't want to live next door to ghetto folks," he says.
That his neighbors are black, like Grace, is immaterial. Many in the black middle class moved out of Detroit and settled in the northern suburbs years ago; now, due to foreclosures, it is easy to buy or rent houses on the cheap here. The result has been a new, poorer wave of arrivals from the city, and growing tensions between established residents and the newcomers.
"There's a way in which they look down on people moving in from Detroit into houses they bought for much lower prices," says Grace, a 39-year-old telephone company analyst. "I understand you want to keep out the riffraff, but it's not my fault you paid $250,000 and I paid a buck."
The neighbors say there's more to it than that. People like John Clanton, a retired auto worker, say the new arrivals have brought behavior more common in the inner city -- increased trash, adults and children on the streets at all times of the night, a disregard for others' property.
"During the summer months, I sat in the garage and at 3 o'clock in the morning you see them walking up and the down the streets on their cell phones talking," Clanton says. "They pull up (in cars) in the middle of the street, and they'll hold a conversation. You can't get in your driveway. You blow the horn and they look back at you and keep on talking. That's all Detroit."
The tensions have not gone unnoticed by local officials.
"I've got people of color who don't want people of color to move into the city," says Southfield Police Chief Joseph Thomas, who is himself black. "It's not a black-white thing. This is a black-black thing. My six-figure blacks are very concerned about multiple-family, economically depressed people moving into rental homes and apartments, bringing in their bad behaviors."
For example, "They still think it's OK to play basketball at 3 o'clock in the morning; it's OK to play football in the streets when there's a car coming; it's OK to walk down the streets three abreast. That's unacceptable in this city."
Thomas has seen the desperation of the new arrivals. His officers, handling complaints, have found two or more families living in a single house, pooling their money for rent. They have "no food in the refrigerator and no furniture," Thomas says. "They can't afford the food. They can't afford the furniture." But they were eager to flee the gunfire of their old neighborhoods in Detroit.
The foreclosure crisis made it possible.
"We had a large number of people who have purchased homes from 2005 on, where the banks were very generous with their credit and they've allowed for people without documentation and income verification to borrow 95 to 100 percent of home values," Southfield Treasurer Irv Lowenberg says. "Many purchased homes when they had two jobs in the household and one of the jobs was lost.
"As values began dropping, people were looking around and saying 'Why should I stay and pay my mortgage when other people aren't?' They decided to hand the keys back to the bank."
Many of the foreclosed upon Southfield homes were going for $40,000 to $60,000. The median home value dropped from more than $190,000 to below $130,000 over the same period, according to Census figures.
With so many empty houses available, rents also dipped by hundreds of dollars. Renters increased from about 13,100 in 2006 to 15,400 in 2009.
The lure of low prices to Detroiters was obvious -- as was the likelihood that their arrival would not be without issues.
"Blacks, like all Americans, want good schools and a safe community, and they can find that in the suburbs," says Richard Schragger, who teaches local government and urban law at the University of Virginia.
Now, suburbs closest to big cities are "bedeviled" by the same problems that helped spur urban flight decades ago, Schragger adds. "And you're seeing further flight out. Rising crime levels, some rising levels of disorder."
These were the things that prompted Richard Twiggs to leave Detroit 23 years ago for the safety, quiet and peace of mind Southfield offered.
"The reason suburbs are the way they are is because a certain element can't afford to live in your community," adds Twiggs, a 54-year-old printer. "If you have $300,000, $400,000, $500,000 homes you're relatively secure in the fact that (the homeowners) are people who can afford it.
"But when you have this crash, people who normally couldn't afford to live in Southfield are moving in. When you have a house for $9,900 on the corner over there -- that just destroys my property."
The pride that comes with home ownership and a large financial investment in the property is missing, says Clanton, who lives across the street from Twiggs on Stahelin, about a half-mile north of Detroit. Back yards are deep and mostly tree-shaded. Sidewalks are few.
"I treasure what I bought," Clanton says. "I want to keep it, but I don't need somebody to come in and throw their garbage on mine. Why would they come and make our lives miserable because they don't care?"
Though they acknowledge they would lose money by selling their current homes, Clanton and Twiggs are contemplating moving further north.
Sheryll Cashin, who teaches constitutional law and race and American law at Georgetown University, says it would be a shame if black flight from the city set off black flight from the near suburbs.
Some blacks just don't want to live near other blacks, she says: "There is classism within the black community. The foreclosure crisis may be accelerating it." But she says middle-class blacks, like middle-class whites, are also put off by behavior of impoverished blacks who "have developed their own culture, one that is very different from mainstream America."
Those who contemplate fleeing have fallen into what Cashin calls the "black middle-class dilemma."
"You have a choice of whether you are willing to be around your people or go 180 degrees in the other direction," she says. "To the higher income black people, if you don't want to love and help your lower-income black brethren, why would you expect white people to? If you can't do it, no one in society can do it. You can try to flee or you can be part of the solution."
Southfield officials say one solution to changing neighborhoods is blight enforcement, other ordinances and costly fines. The idea, said the police chief, Thomas, is not to chase people away, but to help them assimilate.
Soon after Grace, the telephone company analyst, moved into his house, he was cited for parking a small trailer on the property and storing interior doors outside. These are things that would have drawn little notice in Detroit amid the crime and failing schools, he said.
He paid $400 in fines, got rid of the doors and put the trailer in paid storage.
Eugene Williams found a foreclosure steal in one of Southfield's many well-kempt and stable neighborhoods. Williams, like Grace, wanted to get away from Detroit.
"The kids are running around without any control," says Williams, a 56-year-old auto plant worker. "They walk down the middle of the street and block traffic. There was gunfire at night. It was a common thing to hear gunfire."
But the transition to life in the suburbs hasn't been easy. As he was making improvements indoors, Southfield ordinance officials were writing citations outside. He was fined $200 for noxious weeds because the grass was too high and dandelions covered much of the front lawn.
"It wouldn't happen in Detroit," he says. "Your property is pretty much your property. I think, here, they are going a little overboard."

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COMMENT: It is common - esp. by Black Americans - to speak of "Black America." This is a lie. There are TWO Black Americas, and it is GENETIC. Most CIVILIZED Blacks in America today either were born poor or their parents were. They were helped by govt programs; those SAME programs produced NO RESULT in other Blacks. "They" feel entitled to all the benefits of civilization without having to BE civilized.

So what are you going to do, BLACK HUMANS? Are you going to help "them" ruin OUR civilization, just because THEIR skin is the same color as yours?

Law professor Cheryll Cashin describes "It was a common thing to hear gunfire." as THE OTHER BLACK AMERICA having "developed their own culture, one that is very different from mainstream America." She then prescribes the EXACT OPPOSITE of what should be done, she prescibes APPEASING THE AGGRESSOR, contrasting "you can flee" with "you can be part of the solution." Of course, that means "to love and help your lower-income black brethren." Why are THEY "lower-income" Cheryll? Remember, THEY were given the same govt programs as the poor Blacks who became civilized.
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2011-02-26T15:35:00.000-08:00

Separate but unequal: Charts show growing rich-poor gap

By Zachary Roth

Wed Feb 23, 5:13 pm ET

The Great Recession and the slump that followed have triggered a jobs crisis that's been making headlines since before President Obama was in office, and that will likely be with us for years. But the American economy is also plagued by a less-noted, but just as serious, problem: Simply put, over the last 30 years, the gap between rich and poor has widened into a chasm.

Gradual developments like this don't typically lend themselves to news coverage. But Mother Jones magazine has crunched the data on inequality, and put together a group of stunning new charts. Taken together, they offer a dramatic visual illustration of who's doing well and who's doing badly in modern America.

Here are three samples:

This chart shows that the poorest 90 percent of Americans make an average of $31,244 a year, while the top 1 percent make over $1.1 million:

• According to this chart, most income groups have barely grown richer since 1979. But the top 1 percent has seen its income nearly quadruple:

• And this chart suggests most Americans have little idea of just how unequal income distribution is. And that they'd like things to be divvied up a lot more equitably:

To see the rest of these fascinating charts, click on over to Mother Jones.

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COMMENT: 50% of U.S. citizens were actually poor before the financial crisis of 2008; because of the financial crisis/mancession, that number is now 90%. The top 1% are "the rich", leaving only 9% of U.S. citizens who have the combination of income and wealth to be "middle-class."
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2011-02-25T15:15:00.000-08:00

Vitamin D conspiracy leads straight to Big Pharma

By Dr. Allan Spreen on 02/19/2011

You've probably heard about the bad rap vitamin D has been getting lately. The argument goes something like this...the vitamin D crisis isn't as bad as we thought. You probably don't need as much of it as we thought. But it's a free country. So go ahead and take 400 IU of it per day, if you want. That's more than enough. Just don't go over 4,000 IU per day. "High doses" like that can increase your risk for "harm"
These new guidelines come from the U.S. Institute of Medicine (or IOM), a powerful non-profit agency that advises the nation of matters of health. But here's the problem: Their report is pure propaganda.
In fact, I believe these low doses of vitamin D are a deliberate attempt to keep the American public needing more drugs until the day they die. (I'll admit, that sounds a tad paranoid. But I'll explain why my paranoia is well-founded a moment.)
First, let's look at the three major problems with the IOM research.

Leave it to the IOM to redefine "majority"

First off, the IOM report states that the "majority" of adults living in the U.S. get enough vitamin D...and that's just nonsense.
As you'll recall, last week I told you about a major CDC study that found almost 80 percent of Americans don't get enough vitamin D. Plus, another major study published late last year by researchers from the University of Tennessee came up with similar results. In fact, this time researchers found that 87 percent of the general population is mildly to severely deficient in vitamin D. Even the most conservative estimates put vitamin D deficiencies at about 50 percent of the population.
So how the IOM can confidently claim the "majority" of Americans get enough vitamin D, I have no idea!

Spend a minute in the sun each day

The IOM report also states that "North Americans need on average 400 International Units (IUs) of vitamin D per day. People age 71 and older may require as much as 800 IUs per day because of potential changes in people's bodies as they age."
Again, this is pure nonsense. But before I go any further, here's a quick biochemistry primer...
The IOM says you only need 400 IU of vitamin D. But they actually mean 400 IU of vitamin D3 (or cholecalciferol). Your skin makes this natural form of vitamin D when exposed to sunlight. In fact, spending just 30 minutes in the sun without sunscreen, your skin will produce anywhere from 10,000 IU to 50,000 IU of D3! Plus, you can also take D3 as a supplement.
Next...
Vitamin D3 passes through your liver and it turns into a pre-hormone called 25-hydroxycholecalciferol. This is abbreviated as 25(OH)D.
When you get a vitamin D blood test, we really want to see how much 25(OH)D is in your blood. We measure 25(OH)D in nanomoles per liter or nmol/l.
Now, stick with me, because here's where it gets interesting...
According to the IOM report, taking just 400 IU of vitamin D3 per day will give 97 percent of us a blood serum level of 50 nmol/l. And that level will protect us from fractures. Sounds okay, I guess. But let me put this another way to show you just how silly the IOM recommendation really is...
Let's assume that your body makes 10,000 IU of D3 for every 30 minutes spent in the sun without sunscreen. (Most experts say you make at least twice that much...but let's not get picky.) So, how long does it take for your body to make 400 IU of D3?
Hurray! Just 1.2 minutes in the sun! That's all you need to keep your bones strong.
Is it me, or does that just sound wrong?
Well, here's the good news. It isn't just me. It is wrong. And there's some solid scientific proof to back me up...

IOM gets their numbers wrong

Two major meta-analysis' from 2009 found that 50 nmol/l of 25(OH)D in your blood isn't enough to protect you from a fracture or a fall. In fact, 28 separate studies found that 50 nmol/l isn't enough!
Plus, the International Osteoporosis Foundation recommends men and women have 75 nmol/l of 25(OH)D. This is what it takes to protect you from accidental falls and fractures. Lastly, numerous studies over the years show that the more 25(0H)D in your blood, the greater your bone density. But to get up to those higher levels of 25(OH)D, you need more D3.
Plus, here's another interesting twist. The authors of the IOM report most likely knew about all this research...they just chose to ignore it.
You see, before publishing the new vitamin D guidelines, the IOM board consulted with Dr. Walter Willet. The board even thanked Dr. Willet at the end of their report.
So who's Dr. Willet?
He's a vitamin D expert and Chair of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard. He also co-wrote one of the 2009 reports on vitamin D I mentioned earlier. The IOM, however, ignored his findings.
But don't feel bad, Dr. Willet. Yours isn't the only research the IOM ignored...
IOM report ignores research on vitamin D and disease
Remember how I told you the IOM said 400 IU of D3 is enough to protect you against osteoporosis? Well, what about everything else...like cancer and heart disease?
In a press conference, IOM chair Dr. Catherine Ross said "We could not find solid evidence that consuming more [vitamin D] would protect the public from chronic disease ranging from cancer to diabetes to improved immune function." And with that simple statement, Dr. Ross lost all credibility.
Here are some of the best studies linking vitamin D and major diseases:
Breast cancer: Women with vitamin D blood serum levels less than 50 nmol/mL are eight times more likely to develop an aggressive form of breast cancer.
Colon cancer: Men and women with the highest vitamin D levels cut their colon cancer risk by 40 percent.
Heart Disease & Stroke: Men and women with low vitamin D double their heart attack or stroke risk.
Cognitive decline: Older women with low vitamin D are twice as likely to suffer cognitive impairment.
Diabetes: A whopping 91 percent of diabetics have low levels of vitamin D in their blood. Plus, the less vitamin D in their blood, the greater their blood sugar problems.
And I'm just scratching the surface here! If you want to look at all the scientific data on vitamin D, the Vitamin D Council is a good place to start. They list the studies by disease, so you can see all the scientific data Dr. Catherine Ross and her colleagues missed.
In closing, there's one last reason why the IOM report has the pungent smell of propaganda...

There's a rat in the house

Glenville Jones, PhD is one of the authors of the IOM report. He's a scientist and also the co-inventor of drug made by a company called Cytochroma. This drug is still in development...but what condition will they treat with their top-secret drug?
You got it.
Vitamin D deficiencies!
(I'm not making this stuff up. You can see the patent for yourself at the U.S. Patent Office website.)
Dr. Jones also sits on the scientific advisory board of a drug company called Receptor Therapeutics. These guys also made a synthetic vitamin D treatment for cancer...in fact THREE synthetic vitamin D treatments for cancer. (Drug companies use synthetic vitamin D because they can patent it and make a huge profit. You can't patent natural vitamin D.)
Well, isn't that so thoughtful...
You don't need to take vitamin D. But if you do happen to get cancer...guess who plans to have a vitamin D drug you can take?
Here's the bottom line for you: Ignore anything published by the IOM. Take up to 5,000 IU of natural vitamin D3 each day. And avoid anything made by Cytochroma and Receptor Therapeutics.

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COMMENT: Yes, the practitioners of the Medical BUSINESS try to scare us away from the amounts and forms of vitamins and minerals we need to be healthy (and they recommend the high-grain, low-fat diet which has been known for 40 years to make most people fat and sick) ; anything cheap, safe, and effective at making humans healthy is a threat to the Medical BUSINESS.
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2011-02-24T19:16:00.000-08:00

Supreme Court rejects vaccine lawsuit

Posted by Jan Crawford

February 22, 2011 12:39 PM

The Supreme Court today gave vaccine manufacturers greater protection from lawsuits by parents who say vaccinations harmed their children, ruling that Congress had blocked those types of claims against drug makers.

In a 6-2 decision, the justices said Congress had effectively shut the courthouse door to these lawsuits in 1986, when it created a special vaccine court designed to compensate victims of vaccine injuries.

The decision immediately was hailed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which said it would safeguard the nation's vaccine supply by protecting vaccine makers from potentially crippling legal liability--which could have driven manufacturers out of the vaccine market.

"Childhood vaccines are among the greatest medical breakthroughs of the last century," said the organization's president, Dr. O. Marion Burton. "Today's Supreme Court decision protects children by strengthening our national immunization system and ensuring that vaccines will continue to prevent the spread of infectious diseases in this country."

But it was a crushing defeat for the parents of Hannah Bruesewitz, who have waged a years-long legal battle after their daughter suffered a series of seizures when she got a routine DPT vaccination at her 6-month checkup.

The seizures caused Hannah severe brain damage. Today, 19 years later, her vocabulary is that of a toddler.

With Hannah facing a lifetime of constant care, the Bruesewitz's first filed a claim for compensation in the special vaccine court, under the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Congress, concerned that runaway jury verdicts would drive vaccine makers out of the market, created that program for families whose children suffer adverse reactions from vaccines.

When their claim was denied, they sued Wyeth, the vaccine manufacturer, arguing the DPT vaccination was defectively designed and that the company could have provided a safer vaccine.

"Someone has to be responsible for this," Robie Bruesewitz, Hannah's mother, said when the Court took up their case.

But courts ruled against them, holding that vaccine compensation program was the sole way to handle those types of lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers. And today, the Supreme Court agreed.

In a decision by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court said the special compensation program preempts lawsuits like the one filed by the Bruesewitz's, which allege vaccines were defectively designed. The program was designed to get those cases out of the courts--making it easier for parents to be compensated, while also protecting drug makers from outsized jury verdicts.

"Vaccine manufacturers fund from their sales an informal, efficient compensation program for vaccine injuries," Scalia said. "In exchange they avoid costly tort litigation and the occasional disproportionate jury verdict."

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, dissented. Justice Elena Kagan did not participate in the case because she worked on it before she joined the Court.

The vaccine protocol Hannah received injured 65 other children. In 1998, it was removed from the market.

But that was too late for Hannah.

"We should have been taking our daughter to college this fall," her mother told CBS News last October. "If she would have been a normally, typically developing child, she'd be going to college."

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COMMENT: The Medical BUSINESS is NOT a "health care system". "Our" govt protects the "right" of companies to profit from poisoning you and your children.

Vaccines are an attack on the human race.
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2011-02-23T09:57:00.000-08:00

Mother's Employment Increases Children's Health Risks

http://teachingyourmiddleschooler.blogspot.com/2011/02/mothers-employment-increases-childrens.html

NCSU economics professor Dr. Melinda Morrill has some bad news for working moms. In her study comparing health statistics of school-aged children with working mothers to those with mothers who stay at home, Morrill found that the children of mothers who worked were 200% more likely to be hospitalized overnight, to suffer an injury or poisoning, or to have a asthma attack.

Morrill’s study looked at 20 years of health statistics involving approximately 89,000 children aged 7-17. Her results differ from previous studies that indicated children of working mothers were healthier, presumably because of higher income, greater access to health insurance, and increased maternal self-esteem. Those studies were flawed, according to Morrill, because they had reversed cause and effect. That is, the stay-at-home mother group had numbers of moms of children with such severe medical problems that they required full-time care or supervision, effectively eliminating the option of the mother to work outside the home. But these children weren’t getting sick because their moms were home; their moms were home because the children were so sick. When Morrill used advanced statistical techniques to account for such issues, she found that the opposite was actually true--that children of stay-at-home moms had highly significant better chances of avoiding injury and poisoning, hospitalization, and asthma attacks.

Morrill clearly wants to avoid setting off another “mommy war.” She states “I don’t think anyone should make sweeping value judgements based on a mother’s decision to work or not work.” “But,” she continues, “it is important that we are aware of the the costs and benefits associated with a mother’s decision to work.” Apparently, one of those costs is increased health risks for the children of working moms.

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COMMENT: The evidence keeps proving that Feminism is evil.

The Capitalists supported Feminism because flooding the market with more job-seekers hid the destruction of the middle-class all through the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

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2011-02-20T10:47:00.000-08:00

Lara Logan, CBS Reporter and Warzone 'It Girl,' Raped Repeatedly Amid Egypt Celebration

By Simone Wilson

Wed., Feb. 16 2011 @ 6:34AM

Breaking news: South African TV journalist Lara Logan, known for her shocking good looks and ballsy knack for pushing her way to the heart of the action, was brutally and repeatedly raped while a crowd of 200 celebrated the February 11 resignation of 30-year Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Logan was in Tahrir Square with her "60 Minutes" news team when Mubarak's announcement broke. Then, in a rush of frenzied excitement, some Egyptian protesters apparently consummated their newfound independence by sexually assaulting the blonde reporter:
CBS News reports that "she and her team and their security were surrounded by a dangerous element amidst the celebration." Then, the horrific assault:

In the crush of the mob, she was separated from her crew. She was surrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers. She reconnected with the CBS team, returned to her hotel and returned to the United States on the first flight the next morning. She is currently in the hospital recovering.

Thirty-nine-year-old Logan has long attacked Hollywood-lite reporters for their dumbing down of overseas violence -- at the same time using her Hollywood good looks and spotlight to push a more hard-hitting agenda.
In this 2008 interview with Comedy Central's Jon Stewart, the gutsy stunner calls America out on its appetite for easy, bite-sized war reporting:
Strangely, Logan had just been detained by the Egyptian government during anti-Mubarak protests the week before her rape, and was reported as having returned to the U.S. momentarily on February 4.
But she went back again, hoping to catch Middle Eastern history in the making -- and fell victim to the chaos of the moment. An Esquire interview with Logan last Friday called her "insane" for making the return trip to Egypt. One chilling excerpt:

But Lara Logan, you see, is not afraid. "There's no doubt in my mind that the situation we were caught in before, we are now arriving into again," she tells The Politics Blog.

Another unsettling discovery for us, in light of Logan's brutal rape, is how viciously she's long been attacked by both right and left bloggers for her no-holds-barred approach. On February 3, Mofo Politics wrote: "OMG if I were her captors and there were no sanctions for doing so? I would totally rape her." The Huffington Post has dealt her a few blows as well.
Logan's sex life famously came under fire in 2008. From the New York Post:

Sexy CBS siren Lara Logan spent her days covering the heat of the Iraq war - but that was nothing compared to the heat of her nights. The "60 Minutes" reporter and former swimsuit model apparently courted two beaus while she was in Baghdad, and has been labeled a home wrecker for allegedly destroying the marriage of a civilian contractor there, sources said.
Passions got so hot in the combat zone that one of her lovers, Joe Burkett, brawled in a Baghdad "safe house" with her other paramour, CNN war reporter Michael Ware, a source said.
The wife of Burkett, a US Embassy worker, claims the sultry 37-year-old correspondent seduced him while bullets flew overhead.

But there are also those who've focused on appreciating her attack approach -- including one Los Angeles Times blogger, who commented on the "Daily Show" cameo:

"I for one was struck by Logan's candor. What she says about the sanitizing of war coverage borders on media sacrilege. You rarely hear that kind of opinion from a major media representative, let alone on a major television station. Impressive."

Impressive, indeed -- but nobody's invincible. For a look back at Logan's break into big journalism, see 2005 New York Times piece "War Zone 'It Girl' Has a Big Future at CBS News."

Update: Well! Never has this girl's inbox been so thoroughly inundated with hatred. Scary stuff, guys.
Just so we're clear: Rape is awful. Logan's rape was not her fault. Nothing she did before or during the February 11 attack could have possibly invited or justified the heinous crime that was committed against her. And, just so we're clear, nowhere in providing links to her highly publicized past did we mean to suggest those facts had somehow led to her assault.
Seriously though. We may be wordy and nosy and over-saturated, but we know our human rights.
True, Salon.com, apparently looking for its own hard-hitting approach to the day's biggest story, did choose to take that angle -- meanwhile reprinting about half our story on its own pages (enough said) -- but that was another blogger's choice.
Fox News, for its part, went after one prestigious New York University fellow and rampant Tweeter in particular, a somewhat public figure who made the mistake of thumbing out some disrespectful blurbs about war mongers and small humor and his own lack of sympathies.
And NPR apparently got so fed up with the hate speech in its comment stream that it resorted to deleting all the nasty ones.
But back to Logan.
We're mostly just glad the "blonde reporter" is alive today, and hopefully recovering, hopefully well on her way back to fighting the good fight for truth, journalism and girls who happen to fall on the gorgeous side of the fight for truthful journalism.
Things are definitely looking up on that front, seeing as she had the guts to go public with the roughest story of all yesterday: her own.
Originally posted February 15 at 1:35 p.m.

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COMMENT: Lara Logan identified herself over and over again with her many 60 Minutes " reports" (i.e., psychological warfare operations) as EVIL. Unfortunately, she will now get much sympathy because of the REPORT of her being " brutally raped."

" the blonde reporter" , " the gutsy stunner" , her " Hollywood good looks" ... Jesus, Simone, you are just desperate to suck Lara's dick, aren't you?

" girls who happen to fall on the gorgeous side" ; yes, this is a factor. TV reporters are chosen for their looks, not for their journalistic integrity.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE:
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The Saga of Lara Logan .. Part ll !

Well folks as you may have imagined, today I grabbed my pick and shovel and went out on the net to see what gems of truth I could find to fill in the holes on this story. What I found out was quite another matter, as it appears that, if not the story, at least the way the story is being handled has been orchestrated without a doubt.

Since the invention of the fax machine (and later the net) those in power have had to change their approach to keeping things quiet. No longer could they suppress, kill and threaten those who know what's going on to keep it all hush hush. When somebody in Moscow, or Cairo or wherever can slip a document or picture into a fax machine, (or email) and have it pop out in New York City it became time to re-formulate their approach to 'security'. Apparently someone suggested the 'Gold Nugget in the bucket of mud' approach to hiding the facts. Since they could no longer hide the truth, they decided to dump tons of BS out there to help cover it up. Today I've been out there slogging through that mud. It's dirty time consuming work, but you would be surprised what you can find out if you have the time (and the stomach) to wade through it.

First of all I wont bore you with all the garbage I read today but suffice to say 98% of the sites were .. 'Oh Boo Hoo ..Poor Lara' .. stuff, mostly including an unbelievable amount of Anti-Arab, Anti-Muslim, Anti-Men, Anti-Egyptian 'clap trap' for lack of a better word. I expected this, I mean we're men right? We don't like to see women beat up or assaulted, it makes us mad and we want to protect women from all that. It's our nature. However .. I didn't quite expect the amount of vitriolic outpouring of hatred, racism, and Anti-Muslim bigotry I ran into.

Secondly, this is the first time I can remember, that I ran into so many websites that had the comments section CLOSED or so heavily moderated that no questioning of the story or comments about Logan herself were tolerated ! Even the 'drone' sites that just carried the straight story from CBS (Complete BullS hit ) mostly fell into this category. So people have to ask themselves what is it about this story that makes it sooo .. important that NO QUESTIONS about the full story and NO COMMENTS running contrary to their piece will be tolerated ! (Most of them shut down the comment section rather then even take a chance that someone might question what they were dishing out.) Getting that many sites to shut down their comment section for this (one) story is quite a feat ! Face it, that fact alone screams orchestrated !!

Third, a few years ago stories of her sexual exploits with the troops etc. were fairly common on the web, but it looks like they've been pretty well vacuumed up with the exception of this one .. In 2008, she became a minor tabloid press sensation – NY Post Page Six, and even the holiest of holies, The National Enquirer – at the center of a Baghdad romantic triangle. One guy was a US Embassy attaché, the other a CNN reporter. from Mallory's Camera

Fourth, as the Committee to Protect Journalists correctly pointed out that 52 journalists were attacked and 76 were imprisoned during the unrest in Egypt that led Mubarak to step down after 30 years in power. All have been released, it said. One journalist, Ahmad Mohamed Mahmoud of the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ta'awun, was killed while filming clashes near Tahrir Square, the CPJ said." .... Reuters ( So with over 100 journalists attacked or arrested Why Lara Logan ? .. What makes this story so 'special' ? )

As I mentioned in my previous article yesterday, "this just don't feel, look, or smell right !" For instance even Susan Milligan from US News (Hardly a Muslim friendly person, had to admit ..) "In Muslim Albania, I found that rebels who stopped to check us for weapons would barely touch me, although they would examine my male colleagues in a way that would make a TSA screener blush. As Muslims, they automatically recoiled at touching a strange woman .. (I’d pull open my field vest to show I had no weapons, which was enough)"

"The Wall Street Journal cited an unnamed source as saying Logan, a married mother, was not raped, however, details regarding the exact nature of the assault remain unclear. ... Neither CBS nor Logan reported the crime to Egyptian authorities " The Post Chronicle

"The difference was Coopers attack and the arrest and assault on journalist at that time, supposedly came from pro Mubarak forces trying to squelch the uprising. Logan 's assault came at a time when .. the Egyptian people were jubilant and celebrating in the streets of Cairo" Yahoo Associated Content

"It is unclear whether Friday's assault against Ms. Logan had political aims." WSJ

I could fill up 3 more pages of these quotes but as Mike Rivero @ Whatreallyhappened.com commented .. "This Logan story is a repeat the Jessica Lynch hoax used to help sell the Iraq war, only it turned out Jessica wasn’t such an innocent lady after all." (Complete with pix of her) and I tend to agree with him.

If this wasn't a 'put up job' to throw mud on the Egyptians, Muslims, and Arabs in general, coming out of Israel through their control of the Media, it would be the first time in history ! So stay tuned folks, If I were a betting man I'd be looking for pix or videos of her with at least a black eye (from her vicious 'assault') to show up in the next few days to two weeks, even if she has to go back over and hire somebody to get one !

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AND check out Matt Taiibi's take down of Lara for her BS back in 2010

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2011-02-17T12:44:00.000-08:00

Tea Party Crashes: The Most UnPatriotic Act

By Susan Lindauer, 9/11 Whistleblower indicted on the Patriot Act
February 15th, 2011

I confess that since November I’ve been holding my breath, watching the clock for how long Tea Party newcomers could hold out against the entrenched Republican elite on Capitol Hill. Collapse was inevitable, however I admit to feeling bitterly surprised at how rapidly they have thrown in the towel.

For the record, most of the Tea Party quit their principles of liberty on February 14, 2011—20 days into the new Congress—when Tea Party leaders abruptly abandoned their opposition to the Patriot Act and voted to extend intrusive domestic surveillance, wire tapping and warrantless searches of American citizens. In so doing, they exposed the fraud of their soaring campaign promises to defend the liberty of ordinary Americans, and fight government intrusions on freedom. All those wide eyed speeches that flowed with such thrilling devotions, all of it proved to be self-aggrandizing lies.

The Tea Party didn’t even put up a fight. Briefly they rejected a sneak attack to renew three surveillance clauses of the Patriot Act on a suspension vote. That filled my heart with hope. One push from the Republican elite, however and they went down with a loud thud.

My disappointment is particularly acute. Rather notoriously, I am distinguished as the second non-Arab American to face indictment on the Patriot Act, after Jose Padilla.

My status was pretty close to an enemy non-combatant. One would presume that I must have joined some terrorist conspiracy? Or engaged in some brutal act of sedition, such as stock piling weapons and munitions to overthrow those crooks in Congress?

You would be wrong. I got indicted for protesting the War in Iraq. My crime was delivering a warm-hearted letter to my second cousin White House Chief of Staff, Andy Card, which correctly outlined the consequences of War. Suspiciously, I had been one of the very few Assets covering the Iraqi Embassy at the United Nations for seven years. Thus, I was personally acquainted with the truth about Pre-War Intelligence, which differs remarkably from the story invented by GOP leaders on Capitol Hill.

More dangerously still, my team gave advance warnings about the 9/11 attack and solicited Iraq’s cooperation after 9/11. In August 2001, at the urging of my CIA handler, I phoned Attorney General John Ashcroft’s private staff and the Office of Counter-Terrorism to ask for an “emergency broadcast alert” across all federal agencies, seeking any fragment of intelligence on airplane hijackings. My warning cited the World Trade Center as the identified target. Highly credible independent sources have confirmed that in August, 2001 I described the strike on the World Trade Center as “imminent,” with the potential for “mass casualties, possibly using a miniature thermonuclear device.”

Thanks to the Patriot Act, Americans have zero knowledge of those truths, though the 9/11 Community has zoomed close for years. Republican leaders invoked the Patriot Act to take me down 30 days after I approached the offices of Senator John McCain and Trent Lott, requesting to testify about Iraq’s cooperation with the 9/11 investigation and a comprehensive peace framework that would have achieved every U.S. and British objective without firing a shot. Ironically, because of the Patriot Act, my conversations with Senator Trent Lott’s staff got captured on wire taps, proving my story.

You see, contrary to rhetoric on Capitol Hill, the Patriot Act is first and foremost a weapon to bludgeon whistleblowers and political dissidents. Indeed, it has been singularly crafted for that purpose.

The American people are not nearly as frightened as they should be. Many Americans expect the Patriot Act to limit its surveillance to overseas communications. Yet while I was under indictment, Maryland State Police invoked the Patriot Act to wire tap activists tied to the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, an environmental group dedicated to wind power, solar energy and recycling. The DC Anti-War Network was targeted as a “white supremacist group.” Amnesty International and anti-death penalty activists got targeted for alleged “civil rights violations.”

All of these are American activists engaged in lawful disputes of government policy. All of them got victimized by the surveillance techniques approved by Tea Party leaders, because they pursued a policy agenda that contradicted current government policies. The Tea Party swore to defend the freedom of independent thinking in Congressional campaigns. One presumes those promises are now forgotten until the next election.

I cannot forget. I cannot forget how I was subjected to secret charges, secret evidence and secret grand jury testimony that denied my right to face my accusers or their accusations in open court, throughout five years of indictment. I cannot forget my imprisonment on a Texas military base for a year without a trial or evidentiary hearing.

I cannot forget how the FBI, the US Attorneys Office, the Bureau of Prisons and the main Justice office in Washington — independently and collectively verified my story— then falsified testimony to Chief Justice Michael Mukasey, denying our 9/11 warnings and my long-time status as a U.S. intelligence Asset, though my witnesses had aggressively confronted them. Apparently the Patriot Act allows the Justice Department to withhold corroborating evidence and testimony from the Court, if it is deemed “classified.”

I cannot forget threats of forcible drugging and indefinite detention up to 10 years, until I could be “cured” of believing what everybody wanted to deny— because it was damn inconvenient to politicians in Washington anxious to hold onto power.

Some things are unforgivable in a democracy. The Patriot Act would be right at the top of that list. Nobody who has supported that wretched law should ever be allowed to brag of defending liberty again. That goes for the Tea Party. By voting to extend surveillance of American citizens, they have abandoned the principles of freedom that brought about their rise to power. They have shown their true face.

It is a face that we, the people, will remember. I, for one, have no intention of allowing them to forget.

Susan Lindauer is the author of EXTREME PREJUDICE: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq.

Intel Hub Note: On a brighter note, Rand Paul is completely against the Patriot Act and sent a letter of opposition to his colleagues.

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COMMENT: Even a cursory investigation of the evidence makes it blindingly obvious that 9/11 could not have happened - the way it actually did happen - without top-level U.S. Government foreknowledge and cooperation. The documentation that proves it has been widely available for many years. It is EASY to find out about. There is no excuse for still believing the official myth.

ALSO, the Tea Party is 100% a movement of Conservative Authoritarians; The Authoritarians by Bob Altemeyer (free PDF) is a must-read for all the rest of us. Basically, those who are both Conservative and Authoritarian (25% of the population) are so desperate to have their beliefs and world-view validated that they will support any leader who just says the right things, no matter what anybody else can prove about that leader.

To paraphrase John Connor from the original Terminator movie: They cannot be bargained with, they cannot be reasoned with..

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2011-02-10T18:27:00.000-08:00

1 killed in Pa. natural gas explosion; 5 missing

Yahoo! News

ALLENTOWN, Pa. – A natural gas explosion rocked a downtown neighborhood overnight, leveling two houses and spawning fires that burned for hours through an entire row of neighboring homes. One person was killed, and at least five others were unaccounted for Thursday.
The victim was found in a two-story row house in a downtown residential neighborhood that blew up about 10:45 p.m. Wednesday, police Chief Roger MacClean said. A couple in their 70s lived in the home, but the condition of the body prevented positive identification, fire Chief Robert Scheirer said.
The cause of the explosion was unclear. The blaze was put out early Thursday, delayed by the difficulty of digging through packed layers of snow and ice to a ruptured underground gas line that was feeding the flames, Scheirer said. About 500 to 600 people who were evacuated were allowed to return home.
Scheirer predicted eight houses would be lost and another 16 damaged.
The blast was so powerful that it sent a flat-screen computer monitor sailing into the back of Antonio Arroyo, whose house was on the opposite end of the row from the explosion.
"I thought we were under attack," he recalled from a shelter where some 250 people took refuge in the hours after the blast.
Arroyo and his wife, Jill, both 43, lost their home in the fire.
Antonio said he ran outside and saw that an entire house had been leveled, a fireball now raging in the spot where it once stood.
"What I saw, I couldn't believe," said Arroyo, a community volunteer.
He and his wife, a nurse, fled their home with only the clothes on their back. They planned to return at daylight to see what they could salvage. Jill Arroyo broke down sobbing when she recalled her son's athletic memorabilia — likely lost in the blaze — including DVDs of his high school football games.
"The DVDs are gone. All his trophies are gone. All gone," she sobbed as her husband comforted her.
Tricia Aleski, who lives a few blocks away, said the explosion jangled her nerves.
"I was reading a book in the living room and it felt like a giant kicked the house. It all shook. Everything shook," she said. "I checked the stove and everything, (to) make sure everything's off."
Jason Soke was watching college basketball when he heard and felt the explosion. It rattled his windows. He went to the third floor and looked out and saw flames and smoke.
"Your senses kind of get stunned," he said. "It puts you on edge."

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COMMENT: Another "gas pipe explosion". Couldn't have been an impactor from space hitting the ground. The explosion, the leveling of the houses, the rupturing of the ancient natural gas pipe - they couldn't all be EFFECTS of a big fuckin rock coming down at a steep angle.

Go back to sleep, America. Nothing to see here. What time is Gladiator's on?
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2011-02-09T18:29:00.000-08:00

Pepsi MAX – 2011 – Love Hurts

February 7, 2011 By dancemonkey

This is easily one of the best from the Crash The Super Bowl contest, which frankly means that we didn’t hold out much hope for it to win. Looks like we were wrong about the collective intelligence of this great nation, which gives us hope for seeing a 2012 Presidential campaign that does not include Ex-Governor Stupid from Alaska. In any case this commercial is funny and multi-racial, which means it’s almost 100% dislike-proof!

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COMMENT: This ad is evil in three ways.

ONE, psychopath-ic finding humor in random violence.
TWO, the man is treated like a stupid child who cannot take care of himself and must be literally kicked.
THREE, yes the race issue. A black woman hits a white woman in the head and then runs off. What if the races had been reversed - would that still be funny?
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2011-02-09T10:46:00.000-08:00

9 Questions That Stump Every Pro-Vaccine Advocate and Their Claims

David Mihalovic, ND

October 28, 2009

Since the flu pandemic was declared, there have been several so-called “vaccine experts” coming out of the wood work attempting to justify the effectiveness of vaccines. All of them parrot the same ridiculous historical and pseudoscientific perspectives of vaccinations which are easily squelched with the following 9 questions.

Claim: The study of vaccines, their historical record of achievements, effectiveness, safety and mechanism in humans are well understood and proven in scientific and medical circles.

Fact: The claim is completely false.

1. What to ask: Could you please provide one double-blind, placebo-controlled study that can prove the safety and effectiveness of vaccines?
2. What to ask: Could you please provide scientific evidence on ANY study which can confirm the long-term safety and effectiveness of vaccines?
3. What to ask: Could you please provide scientific evidence which can prove that disease reduction in any part of the world, at any point in history was attributable to inoculation of populations?
4. What to ask: Could you please explain how the safety and mechanism of vaccines in the human body are scientifically proven if their pharmacokinetics (the study of bodily absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion of ingredients) are never examined or analyzed in any vaccine study?

One of the most critical elements which defines the toxicity potential of any vaccine are its pharmacokinetic properties. Drug companies and health agencies refuse to consider the study, analysis or evaluation of the pharmacokinetic properties of any vaccine.
There is not one double-blind, placebo-controlled study in the history of vaccine development that has ever proven their safety, effectiveness or achievements (unless those achievements have underlined their damage to human health).
There are also no controlled studies completed in any country which have objectively proven that vaccines have had any direct or consequential effect on the reduction of any type of disease in any part of the world.
Every single study that has ever attempted to validate the safety and effectiveness of vaccines has conclusively established carcinogenic, mutagenic, neurotoxic or fertility impairments, but they won’t address those.

Claim: Preservatives and chemical additives used in the manufacture of vaccines are safe and no studies have been linked or proven them unsafe for use in humans.

Fact: The claim is completely false.

5. What to ask: Could you please provide scientific justification as to how injecting a human being with a confirmed neurotoxin is beneficial to human health and prevents disease?
6. What to ask: Can you provide a risk/benefit profile on how the benefits of injecting a known neurotoxin exceeds its risks to human health for the intended goal of preventing disease?

This issue is no longer even open to debate. It is a scientifically established fact in literally hundreds of studies that the preservatives and chemical additives in vaccines damage cells. Neurotoxicity, immune suppression, immune-mediated chronic inflammation and carcinogenic proliferation are just a few of several effects that have been observed on the human body. See a list of chemicals in vaccines
Fortunately, the drug companies still tell us the damage vaccines have on the human body. People just don’t read them. All you have to do is look at the insert for any vaccine, and it will detail the exact ingredients, alerts and potentially lethal effects.
See my latest analysis of the Arepanrix H1N1 vaccine for an example.
Any medical professional who believes that it is justified to inject any type of neurotoxin into any person to prevent any disease is completely misguided, misinformed, deluded and ignorant of any logic regarding human health.

Claim: Once an individual is injected with the foreign antigen in the vaccine, that individual becomes immune to future infections.

Fact: The claim is completely false.

7. What to ask: Could you please provide scientific justification on how bypassing the respiratory tract (or mucous membrane) is advantageous and how directly injecting viruses into the bloodstream enhances immune functioning and prevents future infections?
8. What to ask: Could you please provide scientific justification on how a vaccine would prevent viruses from mutating?
9. What to ask: Could you please provide scientific justification as to how a vaccination can target a virus in an infected individual who does not have the exact viral configuration or strain the vaccine was developed for?

All promoters of vaccination fail to realize that the respiratory tract of humans (actually all mammals) contains antibodies which initiates natural immune responses within the respiratory tract mucosa. Bypassing this mucosal aspect of the immune system by directly injecting viruses into the bloodstream leads to a corruption in the immune system itself. As a result, the pathogenic viruses or bacteria cannot be eliminated by the immune system and remain in the body, where they will further grow and/or mutate as the individual is exposed to ever more antigens and toxins in the environment which continue to assault the immune system.
Despite the injection of any type of vaccine, viruses continue circulating through the body, mutating and transforming into other organisms. The ability of a vaccine manufacturer to target the exact viral strain without knowing its mutagenic properties is equivalent to shooting a gun at a fixed target that has already been moved from its location. You would be shooting at what was, not what is!
Flu viruses, may mutate, change or adapt several times over a period of one flu season, making the seasonal influenza vaccine 100% redundant and ineffective every single flu season. Ironically, the natural immune defenses of the human body can target these changes but the vaccines cannot.
I have never encountered one pro-vaccine advocate, whether medically or scientifically qualified, who could answer even 1 let alone all 9 of these questions. One or all of the following will happen when debating any of the above questions:

- They will concede defeat and admit they are stumped
- They will attempt to discredit unrelated issues that do not pertain to the question.
- They will formulate their response and rebuttal based on historical arguments and scientific studies which have been disproved over and over again. Not one pro-vaccine advocate will ever directly address these questions in an open mainstream venue.

www.preventdisease.com

Dave Mihalovic is a naturopathic medical doctor who specializes in vaccine research, cancer prevention and a natural approach to treatment.

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COMMENT: Vaccines are an attack on the human race.
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2011-02-07T19:07:00.000-08:00

Many get antidepressants for no psychiatric reason

By Frederik Joelving

NEW YORK | Fri Feb 4, 2011 4:20pm EST

(Reuters Health) - More than a quarter of Americans taking antidepressants have never been diagnosed with any of the conditions the drugs are typically used to treat, according to new research.
That means millions could be exposed to side effects from the medicines without proven health benefits, researchers say.
"We cannot be sure that the risks and side effects of antidepressants are worth the benefit of taking them for people who do not meet criteria for major depression," said Jina Pagura, a psychologist and currently a medical student at the University of Manitoba in Canada, who worked on the study.
"These individuals are likely approaching their physicians with concerns that may be related to depression, and could include symptoms like trouble sleeping, poor mood, difficulties in relationships, etc.," she added in an e-mail to Reuters Health. "Although an antidepressant might help with these issues, the problems may also go away on their own with time, or might be more amenable to counseling or psychotherapy."
The researchers tapped into data from the Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiologic Surveys, which include a nationally representative sample of more than 20,000 U.S. adults interviewed between 2001 and 2003.
Roughly one in ten people told interviewers they had been taking antidepressants during the past year. Yet a quarter of those people had never been diagnosed with any of the conditions that doctors usually treat with the medication, such as major depression and anxiety disorder.
According to The National Institute of Mental Health, nearly 15 million American adults suffer from major depression, and 40 million more have anxiety disorders.
Although the survey didn't include all mental illnesses that might have led doctors to prescribe an antidepressant -- say, obsessive-compulsive disorder or to help quit smoking -- other experts said the new findings are not exaggerated.
"Reviews of claims records, which are diagnoses actually given by health care professionals, suggest that only about 50% of patients who are prescribed antidepressants receive a psychiatric diagnosis," said Dr. Mark Olfson, a psychiatrist at Columbia University in New York.
"These findings raise questions about the clinical appropriateness of antidepressant treatment selection for many primary care patients," he added in an e-mail to Reuters Health.
With sales of $9.9 billion in 2009, up three percent since the previous year, antidepressants rank fourth among prescription drugs in the U.S., according to IMS Health, a company that analyzes the pharmaceutical industry.
Popular brand names include Pfizer's Zoloft, Forest Laboratories' Lexapro and Eli Lilly's Prozac.
While studies have shown the drugs may help some people with depression, they come with a price tag -- and not only the $100 or more that a month's supply can cost. Some users experience sexual problems or gain weight, for instance.
"Nearly all medication has side effects, so there are undoubtedly a large number of Americans who are taking antidepressants that may not be effective at treating their conditions, yet they suffer from the side effects," said Jeffrey S. Harman, an expert in health services at the University of Florida in Gainesville, who was not involved in the new study.
"Not to mention inappropriate use of our health care dollars that comes along with inappropriate prescribing," he added in an e-mail.
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COMMENT: Initial Severity and Antidepressant Benefits: A Meta-Analysis of Data Submitted to the Food and Drug Administration

"Meta-analyses of antidepressant medications have reported only modest benefits over placebo treatment, and when unpublished trial data are included, the benefit falls below accepted criteria for clinical significance."

What that means in plain English is: the "anti-depressants" don't work, and the drug companies know it.

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2011-01-28T09:02:00.000-08:00

Doctors eye chemicals for rise in child cancers

By Agence France-Presse
Wednesday, January 26th, 2011 -- 11:03 pm

WASHINGTON — A mom whose four-year-old died after losing a battle to a brain tumor called Wednesday for tougher US regulation of chemicals suspected of being behind a rise in childhood cancers.
"There's growing evidence linking toxic chemicals and carcinogens in the environment with childhood cancer," Christine Brouwer told a telephone news conference as she described losing a child to cancer.
"I'll most likely never know what caused my daughter's cancer, but researchers are finding more and more links between the hazardous substances in our homes and workplaces and cancer and other diseases."
Brouwer's daughter Mira underwent several operations and endured painful and nauseating treatments to try to beat the cancer she was diagnosed with just before her second birthday, on January 27, 2004.
After several rounds of surgery and months of treatment, Mira's cancer went into remission and she seemed to have won her fight against the ailment.
But it came back on her fourth birthday, killing her weeks later.
Her family questioned why the child was struck by such a serious illness so young, and Brouwer's suspicions turned toward the chemicals found in cleaning fluids for the floors that babies crawl on, in the plastic of the bottles they drink from and in some of the foods they and their parents eat.
Boston University professor of environmental health Richard Clapp said the incidence of childhood cancer in the United States has grown about one percent a year for the past two decades.
"It's clear that at least one component of the cause is environmental chemical exposure," he said.
Epidemiologists have linked chlorinated solvents to childhood leukemia and other solvents to brain cancer in children, said Clapp, who served as director of the Massachusetts Cancer Registry for 10 years in the 1980s.
Pediatrician Sean Palfrey said doctors suspect chemicals and other environmental pollutants are behind a rise in everything from cancer to allergies to asthma in children.
"The problem with our current situation is that we are putting so many chemicals out into our environment, and our bodies have no idea how to detoxify them, don't know how to prevent them being absorbed," he said, calling for tougher US laws on chemicals.
Brouwer, Clapp and Palfrey were participating in a news conference organized by the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families advocacy group, which says the 35-year-old Toxic Substances Control Act does not cover the vast majority of chemicals in US consumer products and urgently needs an overhaul.

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COMMENT: YES, "the 35-year-old Toxic Substances Control Act does not cover the vast majority of chemicals in US consumer products and urgently needs an overhaul", AND I am sorry this woman's daughter died.

HOWEVER... how much vit C was she getting? How much vit D? How much iodine? How much (organic) animal fat, nut fat, and fruit fat? Did she go to bed before midnight, sleep in darkness and quiet, and not get up til after dawn?

Conversely, how much grain and sugar was she consuming?
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2011-01-25T14:34:00.000-08:00

The five most powerful heart disease prevention strategies
Dr. William Davis
The Heart Scan Blog
Sunday, January 23, 2011

You've seen such lists before: 5 steps to prevent heart disease or some such thing. These lists usually say things like "cut your saturated fat," eat a "balanced diet" (whatever the heck that means), exercise, and don't smoke.

I would offer a different list. You already know that smoking is a supremely idiotic habit, so I won't repeat that. Here are the 5 most important strategies I know of that help you prevent heart disease and heart attack:

1) Eliminate wheat from the diet--Provided you don't do something stupid, like allow M&M's, Coca Cola, and corn chips to dominate your diet, elimination of wheat is an enormously effective means to reduce small LDL particles, reduce triglycerides, increase HDL, reduce inflammatory measures like c-reactive protein, lose weight (inflammation-driving visceral fat), reduce blood sugar, and reduce blood pressure. I know of no other single dietary strategy that packs as much punch. This has become even more true over the past 20 years, ever since the dwarf variant of modern wheat has come to dominate.

2) Achieve a desirable 25-hydroxy vitamin D level--Contrary to the inane comments of the Institute of Medicine, vitamin D supplementation increases HDL, reduces small LDL, normalizes insulin and reduces blood sugar, reduces blood pressure, and exerts potent anti-inflammatory effects on c-reactive protein, matrix metalloproteinase, and other inflammmatory mediators. While we also have drugs that mimic some of these effects, vitamin D does so without side-effects.

3) Supplement omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil--Omega-3 fatty acids reduce triglycerides, accelerate postprandial (after-meal) clearance of lipoprotein byproducts like chylomicron remnants, and have a physical stabilizing effect on atherosclerotic plaque.

4) Normalize thyroid function--Start with obtaining sufficient iodine. Iodine is not optional; it is an essential trace mineral to maintain normal thyroid function, protect the thyroid from the hundreds of thyroid disrupters in our environment (e.g., perchlorates from fertilizer residues in produce), as well as other functions such as anti-bacterial effects. Thyroid dysfunction is epidemic; correction of subtle degrees of hypothyroidism reduces LDL, reduces triglycerides, reduces small LDL, facilitates weight loss, reduces blood pressure, normalizes endothelial responses, and reduces oxidized LDL particles.

5) Make exercise fun--Not just exercise for the sake of exercise, but physical activity or exercise for the sake of having a good time. It's the difference between resigning yourself to 30 minutes of torture and boredom on the treadmill versus engaging in an activity you enjoy and look forward to: go dancing, walk with a friend, organize a paintball tournament outdoors, Zumba class, plant a new garden, etc. It's a distinction that spells the difference between finding every excuse not to do it, compared to making time for it because you enjoy it.

Note what is not on the list: cut your fat, eat more "healthy whole grains," take a cholesterol drug, take aspirin. That's the list you'd follow if you feel your hospital needs your $100,000 contribution, otherwise known as coronary bypass surgery.

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COMMENT: I think I love Dr. Davis (no homo).

Again, the Medical BUSINESS is NOT a "HEALTH care system."
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2011-01-23T19:12:00.000-08:00

Study: Many college students not learning to think critically

By Sara Rimer, The Hechinger Report | The Hechinger Report

last updated: January 17, 2011 04:52:23 PM

NEW YORK — An unprecedented study that followed several thousand undergraduates through four years of college found that large numbers didn't learn the critical thinking, complex reasoning and written communication skills that are widely assumed to be at the core of a college education.
Many of the students graduated without knowing how to sift fact from opinion, make a clear written argument or objectively review conflicting reports of a situation or event, according to New York University sociologist Richard Arum, lead author of the study. The students, for example, couldn't determine the cause of an increase in neighborhood crime or how best to respond without being swayed by emotional testimony and political spin.

Arum, whose book "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses" (University of Chicago Press) comes out this month, followed 2,322 traditional-age students from the fall of 2005 to the spring of 2009 and examined testing data and student surveys at a broad range of 24 U.S. colleges and universities, from the highly selective to the less selective.

Forty-five percent of students made no significant improvement in their critical thinking, reasoning or writing skills during the first two years of college, according to the study. After four years, 36 percent showed no significant gains in these so-called "higher order" thinking skills.
Combining the hours spent studying and in class, students devoted less than a fifth of their time each week to academic pursuits. By contrast, students spent 51 percent of their time — or 85 hours a week — socializing or in extracurricular activities.

The study also showed that students who studied alone made more significant gains in learning than those who studied in groups.

"I'm not surprised at the results," said Stephen G. Emerson, the president of Haverford College in Pennsylvania. "Our very best students don't study in groups. They might work in groups in lab projects. But when they study, they study by themselves."

The study marks one of the first times a cohort of undergraduates has been followed over four years to examine whether they're learning specific skills. It provides a portrait of the complex set of factors, from the quality of secondary school preparation to the academic demands on campus, which determine learning. It comes amid President Barack Obama's call for more college graduates by 2020 and is likely to shine a spotlight on the quality of the education they receive.

"These findings are extremely valuable for those of us deeply concerned about the state of undergraduate learning and student intellectual engagement," said Brian D. Casey, the president of DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind. "They will surely shape discussions about curriculum and campus life for years to come."

Some educators note that a weakened economy and a need to work while in school may be partly responsible for the reduced focus on academics, while others caution against using the study to blame students for not applying themselves.

Howard Gardner, a professor at Harvard's Graduate School of Education known for his theory of multiple intelligences, said the study underscores the need for higher education to push students harder.
"No one concerned with education can be pleased with the findings of this study," Gardner said. "I think that higher education in general is not demanding enough of students — academics are simply of less importance than they were a generation ago."

But the solution, in Gardner's view, shouldn't be to introduce high-stakes tests to measure learning in college because, "The cure is likely to be worse than the disease."

Arum concluded that while students at highly selective schools made more gains than those at less selective schools, there are even greater disparities within institutions.

"In all these 24 colleges and universities, you have pockets of kids that are working hard and learning at very high rates," Arum said. "There is this variation across colleges, but even greater variation within colleges in how much kids are applying themselves and learning."

For that reason, Arum added, he hopes his data will encourage colleges and universities to look within for ways to improve teaching and learning.

Arum co-authored the book with Josipa Roksa, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Virginia. The study, conducted with Esther Cho, a researcher with the Social Science Research Council, showed that students learned more when asked to do more.

Students who majored in the traditional liberal arts — including the social sciences, humanities, natural sciences and mathematics — showed significantly greater gains over time than other students in critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing skills.
Students majoring in business, education, social work and communications showed the least gains in learning. However, the authors note that their findings don't preclude the possibility that such students "are developing subject-specific or occupationally relevant skills."

Greater gains in liberal arts subjects are at least partly the result of faculty requiring higher levels of reading and writing, as well as students spending more time studying, the study's authors found. Students who took courses heavy on both reading (more than 40 pages a week) and writing (more than 20 pages in a semester) showed higher rates of learning.
That's welcome news to liberal arts advocates.
"We do teach analytical reading and writing," said Ellen Fitzpatrick, a history professor at the University of New Hampshire.

The study used data from the Collegiate Learning Assessment, a 90-minute essay-type test that attempts to measure what liberal arts colleges teach and that more than 400 colleges and universities have used since 2002. The test is voluntary and includes real world problem-solving tasks, such as determining the cause of an airplane crash, that require reading and analyzing documents from newspaper articles to government reports.

The study's authors also found that large numbers of students didn't enroll in courses requiring substantial work. In a typical semester, a third of students took no courses with more than 40 pages of reading per week. Half didn't take a single course in which they wrote more than 20 pages over the semester.
The findings show that colleges need to be acutely aware of how instruction relates to the learning of critical-thinking and related skills, said Daniel J. Bradley, the president of Indiana State University and one of 71 college presidents who recently signed a pledge to improve student learning.

"We haven't spent enough time making sure we are indeed teaching — and students are learning — these skills," Bradley said.

Christine Walker, a senior at DePauw who's also student body president, said the study doesn't reflect her own experience: She studies upwards of 30 hours a week and is confident she's learning plenty. Walker said she and her classmates are juggling multiple non-academic demands, including jobs, to help pay for their education and that in today's economy, top grades aren't enough.

"If you don't have a good resume," Walker said, "the fact that you can say, 'I wrote this really good paper that helped my critical thinking' is going to be irrelevant."

(This article was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education-news outlet affiliated with Teachers College, Columbia University.)

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COMMENT: If one standard was applied for all people, white males and Asians would be over-represented in the best schools, the good jobs, and the positions of power throughout society.
P.S.
Howard Gardner's an idiot.
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2011-01-21T17:03:00.000-08:00

Thirteen catheterizations later

Dr. William Davis
The Heart Scan Blog
Thursday, January 20, 2011

When I first met her, Janet couldn't stop sobbing. She'd just been through her 10th heart catheterization in two years.

It started with chest pains at age 56, prompting her first heart catheterization that uncovered severe atherosclerotic blockages in all three coronary arteries. Her cardiologist advised a bypass operation.

Six months after the bypass operation, Janet was back with more chest pains, just as bad as before. Another heart catherization showed that two of the three bypass grafts had failed. The third bypass graft contained a severe blockage that required a stent, along with multiple stents in the two now unbypassed arteries.

In the ensuing 18 months, Janet returned for 8 additional catheterizations, each time leaving the hospital with one or more stents.

Janet's doctor was puzzled as to why her disease was progressing so aggressively despite Lipitor and the low-fat diet provided by the hospital dietitian. So he had Janet undergo lipoprotein testing (NMR):

LDL particle number: 3363 nmol/L
Small LDL particle number: 2865 nmol/L
HDL cholesterol: 32 mg/dl
Triglycerides: 344 mg/dl
Fasting blood glucose 118 mg/dl
HbA1c 5.8%

Unfortunately, Janet's doctor didn't understand what these values meant. He pretty much threw his arms up in frustration. That's when I met Janet.

From her lipoprotein panel and other values, it was clear to me that Janet was miserably carbohydrate-sensitive and carbohydrate-indulgent, as demonstrated by the extravagant quantity (2865 nmol/L) and proportion (2865/3363, or 85%) of small LDL, the form of LDL particles created by carbohydrate exposure. Janet struggled with depression over the years and had been using carbohydrate foods as "comfort" foods, often resorting to cookies, pies, cakes, breads, and other wheat-containing foods for emotional solace.

It took a bit of persuasion to convince Janet that it was low-fat, "healthy whole grains," as well as comfort foods, that had led her down this path. I also helped Janet correct her severe vitamin D deficiency, mild thyroid dysfunction, and lack of omega-3 fatty acids.

Since meeting Janet and instituting her new prevention program, she has undergone three additional catheterizations (performed by another cardiologist), all performed for chest pain symptoms that struck during periods of emotional stress. All showed . . . no significant blockage. (Apparently, the repeated "need" for stents triggered a Pavlovian response: chest pain = "need" for yet more stents.)

In short, correction of the causes of coronary atherosclerotic plaque--small LDL, vitamin D deficiency, omega-3 fatty acid deficiency, and thyroid dysfunction--and Janet's disease essentially ground to a halt.

Imagine, instead, that Janet had undergone 1) a heart scan to identify hidden coronary plaque 5-10 years before her first heart procedure, then 2) corrected the causes before they triggered symptoms and posed danger. She might have been spared an extraordinary amount of life crises, hospital procedures, expense (nearly $1 million), and emotional suffering.

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COMMENT: The Medical BUSINESS is NOT a "HEALTH care system". Capitalism is parasitism.
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2011-01-16T09:53:00.000-08:00

Night owls may want to dim their lights

Study finds that that night-time lighting reduces hormone associated with sleep and health

By Janet Raloff

Web edition : Wednesday, January 12th, 2011

People who spend their evenings in relatively bright light run the risk of stressing their bodies by ratcheting down the production of melatonin. Produced in the brain's pineal gland, this hormone plays a pivotal role in setting the body’s biological clock – and, potentially, in limiting the development of certain cancers. More than 100 young adults volunteered for a roughly 10-day research trial during which each took turns living in a light-controlled room at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. From midnight until 8 a.m. the room was totally dark. At other times, researchers from Harvard Medical School tinkered with the room’s lighting.
On most evenings, the illumination averaged 200 lux (or roughly the brightness of a normal living room at night); on other evenings, it was no brighter than 3 lux (what might be expected from three candles burning at a distance of 1 meter.)
When their room’s lighting had been bright, the participants made, on average, 71 percent less melatonin in the hours before sleep. Their bodies also commenced production of the hormone substantially later on nights when the lighting was brighter – just 23 minutes before scheduled sleep time (midnight) versus almost 2 hours before bedtime when the lighting had been dim.
What’s more, the body didn’t fully catch up for any late start on melatonin synthesis. The day's production fell short by about 12.5 percent after an evening when the lighting was bright.
And it gets worse if people pull all-nighters, Joshua J. Gooley and his colleagues found. In a second, smaller trial involving just 12 volunteers, they let the participants spend a few days adjusting to a normal day-night lighting routine in the test room. Then came a 40-hour cycle of constant light at the 200 lux level.
Eleven people went through this ordeal once. The twelfth endured it twice. And in 11 of the 13 trials, the recruits sustained a dramatic reduction in melatonin production – of at least 51 percent; in six trials the hormone shortfall ranged from 76.9 to 92.5 percent. This experiment established that “exposure to room light in participants who were kept awake during the usual hours of sleep suppressed melatonin by more than half the amount measured during sleep in darkness,” Gooley’s team reports in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
Their paper, slated to appear in March, has been posted early online.
“Given that chronic light suppression of melatonin has been hypothesized to increase risk for some types of cancer and that melatonin-receptor genes have been linked to type 2 diabetes, our findings could have important health implications for shift workers who are exposed to indoor light at night over the course of many years,” Gooley says.
Richard Stevens of the University of Connecticut Health Center, in Farmington, goes farther. “I think – hope – that this paper will be seen as a turning point.” For what? For the possibility that the typical nighttime illumination to which almost all people in the modern world (not just shift workers) are exposed might actually pose a health risk, especially for breast cancer.”
Until a seminal 1980 paper in Science, “it was thought that humans, unlike other animals, were insensitive to light during the night,” Stevens says. Seven years later, when he published a paper hypothesizing that light at night might foster breast cancer, plenty of people scoffed. Indeed, he recalls, “Nobody thought room light from electric bulbs was adequate to suppress melatonin.”
The JCEM paper, he says, now suggests that indoor lighting at night not only lowers melatonin, but also alters the rhythmic cycles of the body’s clock. And that, he contends, means that light at night “could be a problem for any malady for which [those] circadian rhythms might matter -- like breast cancer.”

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COMMENT: Despite the sometimes valid criticisms of Wikipedia, their article on Phase Response Curve is actually quite good. Basically, dim light two hours before bedtime, sleep in complete darkness, then bright light within the two hours after you get up. The link in that article to light therapy may be helpful.
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2011-01-15T09:10:00.000-08:00

Fox shoots man

– Thu Jan 13, 2:50 pm ET MOSCOW (Reuters) – A wounded fox shot its would be killer in Belarus by pulling the trigger on the hunter's gun as the pair scuffled after the man tried to finish the animal off with the butt of the rifle, media said Thursday.
The unnamed hunter, who had approached the fox after wounding it from a distance, was in hospital with a leg wound, while the fox made its escape, media said, citing prosecutors from the Grodno region.
"The animal fiercely resisted and in the struggle accidentally pulled the trigger with its paw," one prosecutor was quoted as saying.
Fox-hunting is popular in the picturesque farming region of northwestern Belarus which borders Poland.
(Reporting by Amie Ferris-Rotman; Editing by Matthew Jones)

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COMMENT: Humans are predator animals; we have eyes in the front of our heads - giving up wider field of vision for depth perception - and, although we eat some plant food, we definitely need to eat some animal food to be healthy. PREDATORS ARE NOT PREY. Hunting foxes - our fellow predator animals - is COMPLETELY unacceptable.

Those who cannot tell the difference between predators and prey are not fit for existence.

P.S.
Yeah, keep telling yourself it was "accidentally", asshole.
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2011-01-14T20:21:00.000-08:00

Cause of schizophrenia found?

Press Trust Of India
Posted on Jan 12, 2011 at 03:07pm IST

Washington: In what could be a possible cause of schizophrenia, scientists claim to have found a link between the condition and trapped brain cells that are unable to reach the cortex, the brain's outer part.

A new study, led by University of New South Wales, has claimed that brain cells might become "stuck" in their journey during brain development to the outer "thinking" layer of the brain, which could be a cause of schizophrenia.

The scientists have found that in people with schizophrenia, brain cells destined for the cortex - the outer part of the brain associated with thinking and other cognitive abilities - could get trapped in the layer below.

"We think brain cells might be trapped while in the process of migrating to the cortex while the brain develops. This process of neuronal migration to the cortex doesn't stop at birth. It's robust in infants and may continue in teenage

years and beyond.

"We know that brain development is derailed somehow in people with schizophrenia, and this study helps us understand how," said lead scientist Professor Cyndi Shannon Weickert.

The next step is to understand why these neurons are failing to complete their journey to the cortex, according to the scientists.

"Then maybe we can develop a therapy that encourages the neurons to keep moving to the finish line. Our hope is that this would reduce symptoms or even prevent schizophrenia from developing at all," she said.

The findings have been published in the latest edition of the 'Biological Psychiatry' journal.

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COMMENT: Oh, Jesus Christ.

FIRST, Drs. Abram Hoffer and Carl Pfeiffer already found the causeS and cureS of the schizophreniaS back in the 1960's and 1970's. Niacin, vit C, and either a low- or high-copper diet (as appropriate in each case) are proven safe and effective. The Medical BUSINESS is threatened by nutrition, and simply lies about it.

SECOND, some of the people who develop schizophrenia are those who could become shamans; when they show this "developmental potential", the Control System freaks out. Hence, the desperate attempt to prevent it from happening. The U.S.A., for example, is a tribe of over 300 million - and zero shamans; no wonder everyone's going insane.

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2011-01-13T19:09:00.000-08:00

Fla. jogger won't be charged for shooting teen

– Wed Jan 12, 6:39 am ET

TAMPA, Fla. – A pistol-packing jogger in Florida won't be charged for shooting and killing a teenager who attacked him during a midnight run.
Prosecutors said Tuesday they are convinced Thomas Baker acted in self defense when he fired eight shots at 18-year-old Carlos Mustelier near Tampa in November .
Prosecutors say Florida's "stand-your-ground" law was a factor in their decision. The law, passed in 2005, gives people the right to use deadly force as long as they "reasonably believe" it is necessary to stop another person from hurting them.
Baker told police he reached for his gun when the teen punched him in the face. Baker has a concealed weapons permit.
The teen was hit four times in the chest, back and buttocks. He died at the scene.

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COMMENT: Awesome!
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2011-01-12T13:30:00.000-08:00

Loughner's friend: ‘Jared needed help and Jared didn't get help’

Alleged shooter had lately become aggressive, high school pal says

NBC News and news services

Zane Gutierrez, who befriended the alleged Tucson shooter while they attended high school, said he was stunned by the news that his former buddy was the suspect in the bloody attack that left six people dead last weekend.

"It was mortifying, it was horrifying. I ended up sitting in my car for about four hours by myself," he told NBC's TODAY show on Wednesday.
Something about Jared Loughner, identified as the gunman in last weekend’s shootings spree that killed six, including a 9-year-old girl and a federal judge, and gravely wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, began to change recently, Gutierrez said.

"At first Jared was a very receptive person, he was always interested in hearing a new concept, a new idea," Gutierrez said. That changed and lately he had become more aggressive. "He would start yelling, 'No! You're wrong! You're stupid!" Loughner’s friend said.
Anger at Giffords When Loughner, 22, first talked to Gutierrez about his first encounter with Giffords it seemed nothing was amiss. Giffords, 40, continued to recover at the University of Arizona Medical Center five days after being shot in the head.
"He only brought it up once and it never seemed like something that bothered him that much," Gutierrez told TODAY.
But looking back Gutierrez said he sees that the Congresswoman’s inability to answer what even friends thought was a confusing question had troubled the increasingly unbalanced young man.
"For some reason he felt that his representative … had failed him in some way, shape or form and it really let him down on a personal level," Gutierrez said.

In the end, Loughner was mentally unwell and did not receive proper treatment, Gutierrez said.
"Jared needed help and Jared didn't get help," he said. "The difference with the picture that's going around now with the shaved head, that's not Jared Loughner, that's not my friend, that's a monster."

'Blood libel'
Meantime, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has waded into the debate about whether heated political rhetoric was behind the shooting.
The 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate on Wednesday condemned those who blame political rhetoric for the Arizona the attack in a nearly eight-minute video on her Facebook page .

Last spring, Palin targeted Giffords' district as one of 20 that should be taken back. Palin has been criticized for marking each district with the cross hairs of a gun sight.
As a tragedy unfolded, journalists and pundits should not manufacture what she called a "blood libel" that incites hatred and violence.
Palin said she had "listened at first puzzled, then with concern and now with sadness to the irresponsible statements from people attempting to apportion blame for this terrible event."
The horror of the shooting has touched a national nerve, spurring calls for political rhetoric to be toned down and energizing debates about gun ownership. It has also made gun-friendly Arizona, and Tucson in particular, appear to be a battlefield.
...

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COMMENT: FIRST, intelligent, curious, and gentle in HS; then from ages 18-22 he got more and more out of sync with society, to the point that his speech became unintelligible. This appears to be a textbook onset of schizophrenia. Maybe as little as 100 mg of niacin (and perhaps a low- or high-copper diet, whichever was appropriate for him) could have prevented this tragedy; but no, the MEDICAL BUSINESS would rather KILL innocent people than give up some potential profit.

SECOND, Sarah Palin says that some Democrats need to be "taken out" (complete with map on her FB page with crosshairs), then when some people dare to publicize her having done so, SHE accuses THEM of "incit(ing) hatred and violence"... thereby ONCE AGAIN exhibiting one of the hallmarks of the psychopath.
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2011-01-11T14:22:00.000-08:00

Interior Minister Says Wikileaks-case is “Odd and Grave”

In an interview with mbl.is Icelandic Interior Minister Ögmundur Jónasson said that at first sight the case of US authorities against Icelandic MP Birgitta Jónsdóttir seems to be “very odd and grave.” He said that at this stage he can’t express himself on the case but hopes to get information from Jónsdóttir.

Jónasson said: “Of course it is a very serious matter, if a demand has been put forward that she submit personal information to US authrities. She is an Icelandic member of Althingi and furthermore a member of the Foreign Relations committee of Althingi.”
Jónasson continued: “The information from Wikileaks and others have only hurt people who work behind the scenes. I think that if we manage to make government transparent and give all of us some insight into what is happening in countries involved in warfare it can only be for the good.”

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COMMENT: People who are ACTUALLY good don't have to hide what they're REALLY doing.
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2011-01-10T18:08:00.000-08:00

US says too much fluoride causing splotchy teeth

By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer Mike Stobbe, Ap Medical Writer – Fri Jan 7, 6:55 pm ET

ATLANTA – In a remarkable turnabout, federal health officials say many Americans are getting too much fluoride, and it's causing spots on children's teeth and perhaps other, more serious problems.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced plans Friday to lower the recommended level of fluoride in drinking water for the first time in nearly 50 years, based on a fresh review of the science.
The announcement is likely to renew the battle over fluoridation, even though the addition of fluoride to drinking water is considered one of the greatest public health successes of the 20th century. The U.S. prevalence of decay in at least one tooth among teens has declined from about 90 percent to 60 percent.
The government first began urging municipal water systems to add fluoride in the early 1950s. Since then, it has been put in toothpaste and mouthwash. It is also in a lot of bottled water and in soda. Some kids even take fluoride supplements. Now, young children may be getting too much.
"Like anything else, you can have too much of a good thing," said Dr. Howard Pollick, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco's dental school and spokesman for the American Dental Association.
One reason behind the change: About 2 out of 5 adolescents have tooth streaking or spottiness because of too much fluoride, a government study found recently. In extreme cases, teeth can be pitted by the mineral — though many cases are so mild only dentists notice it. The problem is generally considered cosmetic and not a reason for serious concern.
The splotchy tooth condition, fluorosis, is unexpectedly common in youngsters ages 12 through 15 and appears to have grown more common since the 1980s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But there are also growing worries about more serious dangers from fluoride.
The Environmental Protection Agency released two new reviews of research on fluoride Friday. One of the studies found that prolonged, high intake of fluoride can increase the risk of brittle bones, fractures and crippling bone abnormalities.
Critics of fluoridated water seized on the proposed change Friday to renew their attacks on it — a battle that dates back to at least the Cold War 1950s, when it was denounced by some as a step toward Communism. Many activists nowadays don't think fluoride is essential, and they praised the government's new steps.
"Anybody who was anti-fluoride was considered crazy," said Deborah Catrow, who successfully fought a ballot proposal in 2005 that would have added fluoride to drinking water in Springfield, Ohio. "It's amazing that people have been so convinced that this is an OK thing to do."
Dental and medical groups applauded the announcement.
"This change is necessary because Americans have access to more sources of fluoride than they did when water fluoridation was first introduced," Dr. O. Marion Burton, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said in a statement.
The fluoridated water standard since 1962 has been a range of 0.7 parts per million for warmer climates where people used to drink more water to 1.2 parts per million in cooler regions. The new proposal from HHS would set the recommended level at just 0.7. Meanwhile, the EPA said it is reviewing whether to lower the maximum allowable level of fluoride in drinking water from the current 4 parts per million.
"EPA's new analysis will help us make sure that people benefit from tooth decay prevention while at the same time avoiding the unwanted health effects from too much fluoride," said Peter Silva, an EPA assistant administrator.
Fluoride is a mineral that exists in water and soil. About 70 years ago, scientists discovered that people whose supplies naturally had more fluoride also had fewer cavities.
In 1945, Grand Rapids, Mich., became the world's first city to add fluoride to its drinking water. Six years later a study found a dramatic decline in tooth decay among children there, and the surgeon general endorsed water fluoridation.
And in 1955, Procter & Gamble Co. marketed the first fluoride toothpaste, Crest, with the slogan "Look, Mom, no cavities!"
But that same year, The New York Times called fluoridation of public water one of the country's "fiercest controversies." The story said some opponents called the campaign for fluoridation "the work of Communists who want to soften the brains of the American people."
The battles continue for a variety of reasons today.
In New York, the village of Cobleskill outside Albany stopped adding fluoride to its drinking water in 2007 after the longtime water superintendent became convinced the additive was contributing to his knee problems. Two years later, the village reversed the move after dentists and doctors complained.
According to a recent CDC report, nearly 23 percent of children ages 12 to 15 had fluorosis in a study done in 1986-87. That rose to 41 percent in a study that covered 1999 through 2004.
"I think most of the problem is not from the fluoride in water, it's from other sources, children swallowing fluoride toothpaste or eating it," said Susan Jeansonne, oral health program manager for Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.
Toothpaste labels have long recommended that parents supervise children under 6 when they are brushing their teeth; give them only a pea-size amount; and make sure they spit it out — not swallow it. Toddlers under 2 shouldn't use toothpaste with fluoride.
In 2006, the National Academy of Sciences released a report recommending that the EPA lower its maximum allowable level of fluoride in drinking water. The report warned severe fluorosis could occur at 2 parts per million. Also, a majority of the report's authors said a lifetime of drinking water with fluoride at 4 parts per million or higher could raise the risk of broken bones.
In addition, in 2005, the heads of 11 EPA unions, including ones representing the agency's scientists, pleaded with the EPA to reduce the permissible level of fluoride in water to zero, citing research suggesting it can cause cancer.
In Europe, fluoride is rarely added to water supplies. In Britain, only about 10 percent of the population has fluoridated water. It has been a controversial issue there, with critics arguing people shouldn't be forced to have "medical treatment" forced on them.
___
Associated Press writers Dina Capiello in Washington, Maria Cheng in London, John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, David B. Caruso in New York, and Mary Foster in New Orleans contributed to this report, along with AP news researcher Jennifer Farrar in New York.

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COMMENT: Brushing your teeth with fluoride toothpaste - and then spitting it out again - HAS been shown to reduce cavities.

HOWEVER, the INGESTION of ANY amount of fluoride has NEVER been shown to reduce cavities, or have any beneficial effect on humans, and has been known to be toxic for over fifty years. See The Fuoride Deception by Christopher Bryson; comprehensive and incontrovertible.

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2011-01-09T13:41:00.000-08:00

How women suffer 'double-shift' of stress at home AND work

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 9:24 AM on 31st December 2010

Women are locked into a ‘double-shift’ of home and work – both roles leaving them suffering with more symptoms of stress than men.
The double whammy of pressure means that women show the classic symptoms of stress – back and neck pain – far more than men, even when physical causes are removed, research has revealed.
The four-year study focused on two groups of men and women – one students, the other workers – in an effort to isolate possible causes of stress.

A double whammy of pressure means women show the classic symptoms of stress ¿ back and neck pain ¿ far more than men

In both groups, women showed the symptoms of stress more than men.
In the student group, women students showed more neck pain, and amongst the workforce, whose jobs mostly involved work on computers, women showed more of both back and neck pain, experts at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden found.
In both the computer users and the students, neck pain was affected by psychosocial factors, the experts said. Commenting on the findings, Professor Cary Cooper, organisational psychologist at Lancaster University, said: ‘In nearly every developed country women perform what we call the double-shift.
‘They go to work like a man but then also come home and perform the primary role at home, so face double pressure from those two roles.’
One of the academics, Anna Grimby-Ekman, said: ‘The results [in the student group] were a surprise as we had expected roughly the same number of women as men would develop neck pain in a young group like this, where the majority had yet to start a family.’
Professor Cooper said: ‘For female students there is the added pressure of having to compete in a man’s world and be better than men to land top positions in their fields.’

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2011-01-08T10:24:00.000-08:00

Census: Number of poor may be millions higher

By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Hope Yen, Associated Press – Wed Jan 5, 3:12 pm ET

WASHINGTON – The number of poor people in the U.S. is millions higher than previously known, with 1 in 6 Americans — many of them 65 and older — struggling in poverty due to rising medical care and other costs, according to preliminary census figures released Wednesday.
At the same time, government aid programs such as tax credits and food stamps kept many people out of poverty, helping to ensure the poverty rate did not balloon even higher during the recession in 2009, President Barack Obama's first year in office.

Under a new revised census formula, overall poverty in 2009 stood at 15.7 percent, or 47.8 million people. That's compared to the official 2009 rate of 14.3 percent, or 43.6 million, that was reported by the Census Bureau last September.
Across all demographic groups, Americans 65 and older sustained the largest increases in poverty under the revised formula — nearly doubling to 16.1 percent. As a whole, working-age adults 18-64 also saw increases in poverty, as well as whites and Hispanics. Children, blacks and unmarried couples were less likely to be considered poor under the new measure.
Due to new adjustments for geographical variations in costs of living, people residing in the suburbs, the Northeast and West were the regions mostly likely to have poor people â€” nearly 1 in 5 in the West.

The new measure will not replace the official poverty rate but will be published alongside the traditional figure this fall as a "supplement" for federal agencies and state governments to determine anti-poverty policies. Economists have long criticized the official poverty measure as inadequate because it only includes pretax cash income and does not account for medical, transportation and work expenses.
"Under the new measure, we can clearly see the effects of our government policies," said Kathleen Short, a Census Bureau research economist who calculated the revised poverty numbers. "When you're accounting for in-kind benefits and tax credits, you're bringing many people in extreme poverty off the very bottom."
The official measure is based on a 1955 cost of an emergency food diet and does not factor in other living costs. Nor does it consider non-cash government aid when calculating income, which surged higher in 2009 during the recession.
Short's analysis, published Wednesday as part of a series of census working papers on poverty, shows that out-of-pocket medical expenses had a significant impact in affecting the number of poor — without those costs, poverty would have dropped from 15.7 percent to 12.4 percent.

The effect was seen most notably among older Americans. Under the official poverty rate, about 8.9 percent lived in poverty, mostly because they benefit from Social Security cash payments. But when taking into account out-of-pocket medical expenses and other factors, that number rises to 16.1 percent.

The numbers cited for 2009 are preliminary, but census officials say they offer a good representative look at the state of U.S. poverty and where the numbers are headed when new 2010 figures are released this fall.
Among the findings:
_Transportation, commuting and child care costs weigh on working-age Americans. The official poverty rate for those ages 18 to 64 is currently 12.9 percent, the highest since 1960s levels that launched the war on poverty. Under the revised formula, working-age poverty increases even higher, to 14.8 percent.
_Without the earned income tax credit, the poverty rate under the revised formula would jump from 15.7 percent to 17.7 percent. The absence of food stamps separately would increase the poverty rate to 17.2 percent.
_Taking into account millions of uninsured people in the U.S. had little effect in increasing poverty, mostly because those without insurance tend to forgo medical care rather than find ways to pay for it. Those with government-sponsored insurance generally saw decreases in poverty under the new formula, while those with employer-provided coverage saw increases. Still overall poverty for those with public insurance vs. employer insurance was higher, 31.1 percent compared to 7.2 percent.
_Under the revised formula, the West had the most people in poverty at 19.2 percent. It was followed by the South (16.1 percent), the Northeast (14.3 percent) and the Midwest (12.5 percent).
The supplemental figures could take on added significance at a time when many in the government point to an overhaul of Medicare and Social Security as the best hope for reducing the ballooning federal debt. With the potential to add more older Americans to the ranks of the poor, the numbers may underscore a need for continued — if not expanded — old-age benefits as a government safety net.

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COMMENT: This article is what's known as a "limited hang-out" (thanks to Jon Rapoport for the concept). In reality, MORE THAN HALF of U.S. citizens were ACTUALLY poor (note the repeated use of the term "official" poverty rate above) BEFORE the financial crisis (referred to by corporate whore Hope Yen as "the recession in 2009"); that has since jumped to 90%.

Even admitting the disparities in income is misleading. The richest one percent OWN 50% of the nation's WEALTH; the top 10% OWN 90% of the nation's WEALTH. That leaves 10% of all the WEALTH in "the most affluent nation" spread out over the bottom 90%. Human food, reliable transportation, a home in good repair in a safe neighborhood, and the ever-mentioned health care don't cost less just because you don't have enough money. When people who have SOME INCOME but NO WEALTH suddenly lose that income, they IMMEDIATELY move from the "middle class" category to POOR.
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2011-01-07T08:42:00.000-08:00

Privatizing Social Security Again?

By Helen Thomas
Thursday, January 06 2011 08:00:00 AM
This year, 2011, marks the beginning of baby boomers receiving Social Security checks and they should be alerted of past perennial Republican attempts to partially privatize the program. Heaven forbid that plans prevail to invest a certain amount of those checks in the stock market, as many pension plans have taken a bath in the current meltdown. While there have been past GOP plans to partially privatize the program, fortunately they have all failed. So far the Social Security trust fund remains tempting for the gamblers and other risk takers on the market. As a Detroiter, I remember the Great Depression and the stock market crash of 1929 when some of the plutocrats on Wall Street jumped out of windows as a result of their great losses. Those were bleak days when some of the jobless workers also lost hope in the bitterly cold winter as they stood in long lines at the Ford Motor Company, many without overcoats, hoping for a job on the auto assembly lines. The movements for socialism and communism were given some credence as a way out of their misery. The difference between the Great Depression and the current Great Recession is "spirit" - during the 1930s Americans cared about each other. They flocked to Washington - teachers, social workers, doctors and nurses - selflessly offering their services. Next door to us, a family with six children lived on a $13 (equivalent to $163 today) per week welfare check. Somehow they survived and kept their faith. Along came FDR who told the stricken people, "You have nothing to fear but fear itself." The power of hope restored confidence in the country and in its leadership.

We were happy to emerge from the depression, but many Americans at the time believed we rebounded economically because of the looming clouds of World War II. The world by this time was swept up by the "isms." The U.S. was divided between the interventionists in World War II (on the side of the allies) and the non-interventionists - they were the isolationists - who disappeared at the start of the war on Dec. 7, 1941. President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law in 1935 to cover the elderly, and eventually through amendments, widows, orphans and the disabled. Payments are split 50-50 by the employer and the worker. What has been missing in our current society is compassion and creativeness. Think of the bargains the President had to strike to renew the biggest (Bush) tax cut to the richest Americans, this in exchange for an extension of unemployment compensation for the millions who lost their jobs - some deal! That's the compassion part.
As for creativeness, where are the ideas to put people back to work? For Roosevelt, the caring advisors produced a bundle of alphabet agencies. Not the least was the Works Progress Administration which put people to work on rebuilding the broken infrastructure. The program put men on the streets - and even artists painting the walls of great buildings in the Nation's Capital. Ideas and ideals along with great imagination brought our country back. Where are the caring creators now?
Many believe it was World War II and the military needs that brought us back - but recovery was well underway by 1941 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. According to the 2010 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance (OASDI) Trust Funds presented to Congress, 53 million Americans received benefits during 2009, including 36 million retired workers and dependents of retired workers, 6 million survivors of deceased workers, and 10 million disabled workers. During that same year, an estimated 156 million people paid social security taxes through payroll. Total expenditures in 2009 were $686 billion, while revenue totaled $807 billion - including $689 in tax revenue and $118 billion in interest earnings.
Many Republicans believe the Social Security Trust should be at least partly privatized - Bush failed to achieve this in 2005. There is fear as President Obama has claimed that the new Republican leadership will push again to partially privatize social security funds. With the ups and downs of the stock market - and considering the pension plans that were privatized went down the drain - who would lead us down that path again?
Let's not give the newly empowered Republicans - and their blindsided tea party allies - the ability to wipe out or even mitigate the only economic security deprived Americans can count on. Where is their heart?
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COMMENT: The push to privatize Social Security is 100% about DESTROYING the Middle Class in America. It is not about ANYTHING else.
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2010-12-21T08:48:00.000-08:00

Homeless and Alone in the Land of Milk and Honey

S. Paul Forrest
Activist Post

America was once called the Land of Milk and Honey. It was so named for the prosperity and promise associated with what was once available to anyone who, when willing to work, could acquire a piece of the American Dream. Today, the story is much different. Hard work seems to mean little in our current system where the elite control the money, and the associated greed so intrinsic their self service has robbed good, hard working Americans of their right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

After a lifetime of effort in the chase for their piece of the pie, some Americans are finding themselves out in the cold, having lost their jobs and their dreams in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Some have fallen victim not only to Wall Street’s suspect derivative trading and over speculation in a system that could not support such monetary betting, but to a banking system that manipulated loan rates when looked to and trusted by home buyers for professional guidance.

Many of these unfortunate people are quickly finding themselves added to the homeless numbers of America. Many are trying to survive the current economic depression by seeking federal assistance, but have found, much to their dismay, that government programs, one of their only rays of hope during their time of tribulation, are being taken by the same group of people who assisted in their demise: Congress.

Those responsible for the economic plunge are trying to phase out social systems that provide those who are suffering a lifeline in the ocean of betrayal in which they are drowning. Even worse, it seems not to matter to those surviving the current economic disaster. The “Haves” are scrambling to protect their own by supporting a political bureaucracy that has abandoned the "Have Nots." Like prisoners protecting their plate of food, these people are surrendering conscience for three-squares and a warm cot of their own.

In light of the actions taken (or, inaction in some cases) by our governmental representatives, those from rural and suburban areas have had no choice but to abandon their townships and move toward the cities in search of shelter and whatever government aide remains. They have migrated en masse to the urban centers of this nation in search of the remnants of their national security, but in place of the Golden Lamp, they have only found iron bars and cold, impersonal streets. In lieu of allowing the preservation of their survival, cities are beginning to enact anti-homeless initiatives to drive them back to where they came, while those responsible for this treachery receive record bonuses and wallow in ill-gotten gains.

St. Petersburg, Florida is a prime example of such inhuman approaches. The City has enacted new laws toward the criminalization of the homeless. A report by The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty and The National Coalition for the Homeless, tells much about the current war on these unfortunates:

Since early 2007, St. Petersburg has passed 6 new ordinances that target homeless people. These include ordinances that outlaw panhandling throughout most of downtown, prohibit the storage of personal belongings on public property, and make it unlawful to sleep outside at various locations.

In January 2007, the Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender announced that he would no longer represent indigent people arrested for violating municipal ordinances to protest what he called excessive arrests of homeless individuals by the City of St. Petersburg. According to numbers compiled by the public defender’s office, the vast majority of people booked into the Pinellas County Jail on municipal ordinances were homeless individuals from St. Petersburg.

This is not the only American city to turn its back on those in need. Across America, the suffrage of economic victimhood is being called to the forefront as the newest criminal act. Many laws have been put into place to make illegal people living in the streets, thereby dissuading them from coming to their cities at all.

Both sides of the Congressional aisle have argued the semantics of the mortgage crisis and the current economic strife, but the blame for the downfall of this once great nation means nothing when one is huddled beneath a dirty blanket trying to survive the cold or going hungry. The homeless only know that their basic American rights have been denied. Adding insult to injury, those Congressional representatives, who were put into office to ensure the continuation of our American system, are trying to take even more from them.

Many on the Right have argued that the US has become a nanny state. They expound upon the belief that we must no longer allow the expenditure of “American” money to go to those who will not help themselves first. This may have been a valid approach in strong economic times of yesteryear when work was plentiful and the American Dream was alive, but now in the shadow of Bush Era gluttony and growing Tea Party faux-Patriotic oligarchy, it stands as a slap in the face of hard-working Americans waking up to the American nightmare.

Some on the Left, voted into office by an American public that needed to be protected, are making deals to further empower the elite in order to acquire their own earmarks and campaign contributor benefits. They too, seem to have lost sight of what America used to stand for.
The only security this country seems to care for anymore is the one that allows for funds to be taken from social services and used for war, Patriot Act-driven oppression, and corporate welfare entitlement. Those unfortunate souls who have to stand in line for a warm bed in an overcrowded dormitory, or in a food kitchen line to get a modest meal, are painfully finding that many of their lifelines are being denied by the very country they pledged their allegiance to. Instead of solutions, politicians are only delivering rhetoric, excuses, and false promises. In this, our nation’s greatest time of need, they would rather protect their own than fight to provide for the American people.

Many try to ignore these people, as they represent the errors and gluttony of a nation lost, but they are still American citizens and need to be cared for. The Right and their Tea Party counterparts vehemently expound upon the protection of our borders against illegal immigrants, terrorists, foreign influences, and protecting the Constitution for the preservation of America’s citizens, but in the same breath they condemn social services to support Americans in their time of need. The simple reality is this: American governance has become detached from the lives lived by those whom it has been charged the protection and care of.

According to the principles of fascism, the rule of the elite class is inevitable in such a system of Corporatism. Fascists feel that elite rule is natural and desirable, and those with the rare qualities of leadership will rise to the top. This type of leader does not derive power from a constitution, but is the embodiment of the people. Mussolini said a leader is "…the living sum of untold souls striving for a goal." In short, the elite class is desired and needed because they will lead the people to greatness. In the case of this country, however, our leaders are leading us to ruin and are far from the mantle of greatness.

Maybe this nation is not heading toward fascism after all. That leap would take real intelligence and power derived through purpose. I’m sure all American citizens can agree that this is not a danger in our current Congress, and it is especially lacking in our police force. Fascism takes control and intelligence; but, recently, America is quickly losing the control it once had in the world, and our self-labeled leaders are emerging from places like Alaska -- and they are far from intelligent. Still, the elite in this country try tirelessly to impose a fascist state . . . and, tirelessly, we true patriots resist.

In America today, people who have been misguided enough to believe in the American system and have lost their piece of the Dream because of it, are now hoping for a savior. Unfortunately, none is to be found. We as a nation are quickly falling into the realm of the second world. The rise of a real, sincere leader is a pipe dream under the impotent umbrella of our current political system and the economic destruction they have reaped in their own name. The future of this nation indeed looks dim.

Homelessness has in the past been viewed as a state of laziness, but today it is a growing condition that represents a dying world power. The elite persist in the denial of this national illness, for its recognition would admit fault. At the end of the day though, ignoring it will not lessen the inevitability that this, our once great nation, is now a declining Empire. Many are on the brink of bankruptcy in this country where once lay the promise of prosperous times for all. There now exists the reality that we are all only one misfortune away from being homeless and alone in the Land of Milk and Honey.

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COMMENT: "This is America, and anyone who wants to can be successful, all you have to do is work hard." THAT'S EVIL.

You don't have to be a good person, you don't have to have a conscience, you don't have to be able to grow a soul; no, all you have to do is "work hard", and you can be (financially) successful. It is inevitable that under such a system, the soulless monsters would rise to the top. This has long since happened.
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2010-12-16T14:22:00.000-08:00

'Beauty Sleep' May Be Best Beauty Treatment, Study Finds

By Amanda Chan, MyHealthNewsDaily Staff Writer
posted: 15 December 2010 01:32 pm ET

http://www.livescience.com/health/beauty-sleep-best-treatment-101215.html

It looks like Mom's advice was right - to look your best, get a full night's rest, a new study shows.

People who get eight hours of sleep appear healthier, more rested and more attractive than those who stay up all night, said study researcher John Axelsson, of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.
"The study suggests that your sleep, and how you sleep, affects how other people perceive you, and probably how they treat you," Axelsson told MyHealthNewsDaily.

People often resort to beauty treatments to make them look awake and refreshed, and to boost self-confidence. But in the long term, simply getting enough sleep could achieve the same aesthetic results, Axelsson said.

"Sleep is the best beauty treatment that we have," he said.

Researchers asked 23 people, ages 18 to 31, to get eight hours of sleep one night, and then photographed them the next day. The pictures were taken between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. in a well-lit room, with a fixed distance between their faces and the camera.

On another night, those same people got five hours of sleep. Researchers then kept them awake for 31 hours, and took their pictures again at the same time of day.

During both photography sessions, the participants wore no makeup, wore their hair loose and combed back, and groomed themselves the same way. Their expressions in the photographs were required to be relaxed and neutral.

Sixty-five observers were then asked to rate the photographs, without knowing how much sleep the people in the pictures had gotten the night before.

The observers rated the photographs taken when people were sleep-deprived as 6 percent less healthy, 4 percent less attractive and 19 percent more tired-looking on average, than the photographs taken when they were well-rested.

The study shows that the amount of sleep people get affects how others judge their health, Axelsson said.

Past research has shown that the importance of getting enough sleep goes beyond looking pretty. A 2007 study in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood found that people who don't get enough sleep have an increased risk of being obese. Another study that year in the journal Science found sleep is necessary to form memories.

Next, Axelsson and his colleagues hope to see how other sleep disturbances, such as sleeping for four to five hours a few nights in a row, impact how healthy and attractive people look. He is also looking to pinpoint the facial features that make a person think someone looks tired, unhealthy or less attractive.

The study was published online Dec. 14 in the British Medical Journal.

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COMMENT: You should get 8 hours per night in Summer (e.g. 11pm - 7am), 9 hours per night Spring and Fall (e.g. 11pm - 8am), and 10 hours per night in Winter (e.g. 10pm - 8am).
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2010-12-16T13:59:00.000-08:00

'Virus' may be behind obesity epidemic

Yahoo!7 December 13, 2010, 10:54 am

http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/mp/8498425/virus-may-be-behind-obesity-epidemic/

A landmark study has found there may be more to the western world's obesity epidemic than first thought.
The study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, found that weight gain may be linked to a number of issues beyond diet and lifestyle; including the possibility that weight gain is related to chemicals in the human body, or of infectious-origin.
The scientists, from nine research centres around the globe, observed the weight gain trend in feral and domestic animals that were living in close proximity to humans.
The study of more than 20,000 animals found that their body weight was increasing uniformly, despite their different environments, raising the possibility of "several as-of-yet unidentified and/or poorly understood factors" in weight gain.
These factors may include a virus or genetic factors beyond that of changes in the underlying DNA sequence.
The findings appear to contradict the common belief that the obesity epidemic is caused almost entirely by our changing diet and lifestyle factors.
"This finding may eventually enhance the discovery ...of other factors that have contributed to the recent rise in obesity rates", the study claims.

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COMMENT: They are DESPERATE to say it is ANYTHING other than the "hearthealthywholegrains" they have been pushing for 40 years.

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By Amanda Marcotte, AlterNetPosted on March 11, 2011, Printed on March 13, 2011http://www.alternet.org/story/150199/

© 2011 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/150199/

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The Truth is like air to The Good; without The Truth, The Good dies. No more secrets, no more lies.

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© 2011 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/149774/

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THE EPIDEMIC OF STUPID PEOPLE PRETENDING TO BE SMRT: Umm... there's no such thing as a "greenhouse gas."

P.S. "Using the truth to lie" is one of the hallmarks of the "psychopathic personality."

P.P.S. Total cholesterol is an utterly meaningless number.

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By MELISSA CLARK

Published: March 1, 2011

A FEW years ago I noticed something odd at the health food store. There, rubbing elbows with the extra-virgin olive oil and cold-pressed canola oil was virtually the last fat I expected to see in such esteemed company: coconut oil.

The last time I checked, coconut oil was supposed to be the devil himself in liquid form, with more poisonous artery-clogging, cholesterol-raising, heart-attack-causing saturated fat than butter, lard or beef tallow.

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Claim: The study of vaccines, their historical record of achievements, effectiveness, safety and mechanism in humans are well understood and proven in scientific and medical circles.

Claim: Preservatives and chemical additives used in the manufacture of vaccines are safe and no studies have been linked or proven them unsafe for use in humans.

Claim: Once an individual is injected with the foreign antigen in the vaccine, that individual becomes immune to future infections.

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That girl is HOT.

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'Virus' may be behind obesity epidemic

By Amanda Marcotte, AlterNet
Posted on March 11, 2011, Printed on March 13, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/150199/

© 2011 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/150199/

© 2011 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/149774/