News from drug-free America

Some of this news is old, but it is still relevant.

Obesity in America: will it get worse before it gets better?

(Excerpt)
Diabetes is the disease most closely linked to being overweight. Since 1990, type 2 diabetes has jumped by 33 percent nationwide. Further, a growing number of persons with type 2 diabetes are adolescents, a disease formerly seen mostly in overweight adults. Other diseases associated with too much weight include high blood pressure, various heart diseases and conditions, stroke, gallbladder disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea and other respiratory problems, and certain cancers.

OVERWEIGHT IN AMERICA - GOT MILK?

(Excerpt)
Milk contains plenty of calories, growth hormones, fat, and cholesterol. The most powerful growth hormone in the human body is identical to the most powerful growth hormone in a cow's body. That hormone instructs every cell in the human body to grow. Children are becoming overweight at an early age. By eating growth hormones in combination with animal fat, the body has a way of listening to the signals of those chemical messengers: GROW!

Monsanto's Genetically Modified Milk Ruled Unsafe by the United Nations
CHICAGO, Aug. 18, 1999 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/

(Excerpt)
It is now 15 years since Monsanto embarked on a series of large scale veterinary trials on rBGH all over the U.S., and sold milk from these trials to an uninformed and unsuspecting public with the full approval of the FDA. Since then, Monsanto and the FDA, strongly supported by a network of indentured university academics, aggressive lobbying by the National Dairy Council and its well organized "hit squads" targeting rBGH opponents, and an overwhelmingly uncritical media, have ignored or trivialized substantial scientific evidence on the hazards of rBGH milk, including a series of publications over the last decade in the International Journal of Health Services, the most prestigious international public health publication. Also ignored by the media have been charges in 1981 by Congressman John Conyers (then Chairman of the House Committee on Government Operations), on the basis of a leaked confidential Monsanto study revealing serious pathology in cows injected with rBGH, that "Monsanto and the FDA have chosen to suppress and manipulate animal health test data in efforts to approve commercial use of rBGH".

Where the term "unnatural" is appropriate

GM industry puts human gene into rice
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor 24 April 2005

(Excerpt)
Scientists have begun putting genes from human beings into food crops in a dramatic extension of genetic modification. The move, which is causing disgust and revulsion among critics, is bound to strengthen accusations that GM technology is creating "Frankenstein foods" and drive the controversy surrounding it to new heights. Even before this development, many people, including Prince Charles, have opposed the technology on the grounds that it is playing God by creating unnatural combinations of living things.

Nervous system manipulation by electromagnetic fields from monitors

Thanks to Lynn in Colorado for this interesting mind tweaker.
Patent #6,506,148
Subliminals are obsolete - the next generation is already here.

You're going to need a television waveform monitor to detect this scheme.


Abstract

Physiological effects have been observed in a human subject in response to stimulation of the skin with weak electromagnetic fields that are pulsed with certain frequencies near 1/2 Hz or 2.4 Hz, such as to excite a sensory resonance. Many computer monitors and TV tubes, when displaying pulsed images, emit pulsed electromagnetic fields of sufficient amplitudes to cause such excitation. It is therefore possible to manipulate the nervous system of a subject by pulsing images displayed on a nearby computer monitor or TV set. For the latter, the image pulsing may be imbedded in the program material, or it may be overlaid by modulating a video stream, either as an RF signal or as a video signal. The image displayed on a computer monitor may be pulsed effectively by a simple computer program. For certain monitors, pulsed electromagnetic fields capable of exciting sensory resonances in nearby subjects may be generated even as the displayed images are pulsed with subliminal intensity.

Right, Left, or just normal?

I started out this morning looking for a local barter site (like Freecycle, which I already belong to, only more for trades), and I ended up browsing through a couple right wing blogs. I am not really sure where I made the transition from one to the other, but it served to remind me that aside from my political beliefs, I am indistinguishable from most Pacific Northwest residents.

I enjoy hunting and fishing, as well as hiking and camping.
I am severely upset about the rules and fees pertaining to access of public lands.
I believe that a man is as good as his word.
I believe my neighbor is a friend unless proven otherwise.
I would rather see a productive small farm than a housing development.
I treat ALL women with respect.
I believe that interaction between consenting adults (any number) is not my concern.
I believe the term “unnatural” refers to corporate farming rather than sex.
I accept no excuse for contaminated water, air or earth at this point in history.

There are many things I could add to “how I think”, but the point I am making is aside from our political differences, we are most likely cut from the same bolt of cloth.

We are proud to work side by side to help a neighbor in distress, to clear roads after a wind storm, to fill sand bags to protect a school or business from rising flood waters, or to make sure the local food bank is prepared for the holidays. With this in mind, it is hard to understand the impact that political labels are having within communities, and the toll they are taking on a Nation’s ability to reflect the character of a shining light designed to guide lost souls safely across the Sea of Wretchedness.

Perhaps we forget that (Republican/Democrat/Conservative/Liberal) labels are like the clothes we put on to go out of the house. Sometimes we look good and think we are a little better than some of the raggedy folks around us, but underneath…we haven’t really changed at all.

Conflict of interest?

I am actually willing to put my thumbprint on my absentee ballot, or allow my vote to be displayed publicly if it will help eliminate the crap and corruption that has taken place in past elections. I know most problems could be solved without a lot of argument, but what about the distribution of power and money?

Black Box Voting has some recently new posts that should be of interest (especially to California voters).

Euro gains on US Dollar

It isn’t much, but it is a direction.

What a week…

I had a serious problem with my blog template about a week ago, and in the midst of trying to figure it out, the weather turned summer nice around here causing my to-do list to explode into more little jobs than even a professional retired person should be faced with.

After a lot of messing around with the blog template, I decided to trade it in for another model, which worked up to a point and after a fashion…but not like it was advertised. I finally deleted the last entry preceding the problem, and everything went back to acting as it should.

As I think about it now, deleting that entry should have been my first action. It would have saved me some hours of frustration and a lot of putzing around. On the upside, however, I am a little more comfortable making minor changes in the template.

I have seriously missed reading (Kate, Karlo and Joe) other writer’s thoughts and perceptions, and look forward to getting back to normal for a while.

One man...one vote

Means, motive, opportunity

Scenario: 2006 mid-term election

By Ernest Partridge
Online Journal Guest Writer

(Excerpt)

Clearly, the Democratic Party and its allies look forward to “victory” in 2006 because they are in denial: they simply cannot bring themselves to face the compelling evidence that in the United States today, the electoral process is rigged, thus the will of the people is irrelevant to the governance of the nation, and thus the United States has ceased to be a democracy.

Neither the 2004 Democratic Party presidential candidate, John Kerry, nor the party’s chairman, Howard Dean, will publicly entertain the very notion that “the fix is in.” The issue of electoral fraud is simply not on the agenda of the Democratic National Committee. Prominent progressives such as Vermont’s Bernie Sanders, Al Franken, Paul Begala, and Arianna Huffington insist that Bush won the election, “fair and square,” and that the “anomalies” in Florida and Ohio were not sufficient to have determined the outcome. As for the media, actor and activist Peter Coyote reports that there is a “lock-down” order throughout the mainstream media that the issue of electoral integrity is simply not to be mentioned. Violation of the order can be a career-ender. And, in fact, with the exception of Keith Olbermanm, one is hard-pressed to identify anyone in the corporate media who has mentioned the issue.

[Snip]

The evidence of massive election fraud in 2004 is compelling, and continues to accumulate, despite the media “lockdown.” Just last week, a group of university statisticians released a report which calculates at a million to one the probability that the discrepancy between the exit polls (indicating a Kerry victory) and the final results was due to random error. Because I have discussed at length the evidence for fraud in the 2004 election, I will not repeat it here. But for those who wish to have yet another look at the evidence, see The Crisis Papers page, ﾓWas Election 2004 a Fraud?ﾔ. Suffice to say that as the evidence accumulates, the media remain mute and the public remains unconcerned.

Clear, contrary evidence that the election returns were accurate and the outcome legitimate is simply nonexistent. This is so, because the election procedure was designed not to provide validation. The software source codes were secret, there was no paper record, and there was no parallel validation procedure for the centralized compilation of voting totals. To the repeated plea for validation, all that the voting machine technicians could say is “trust us”—“us” being partisan Republicans who built, coded, and operated the “black box” voting machines.

Aside from the now-familiar GOP retorts of “get over it!” and “don’t be paranoid,” the crux of the case of electoral legitimacy is “they wouldn’t dare rig the election,” or alternatively, “the Republicans have too much respect for our democracy to do such a thing.”

With much less provocation than this, the citizens of Ukraine and the Republic of Georgia demanded, and got, new elections, which reversed the outcomes of the corrupted elections.
As most “CSI” and “Law and Order” viewers are well aware, in their search for suspects, detectives look first of all for “means, motive and opportunity.”

The “means” for election fraud are so obvious and indisputable that even the Republicans will not dispute them. The “means,” of course, are the machines and secret software of the Diebold and ES&S corporations that recorded more than 30 percent of the votes cast, and 80 percent of the votes centrally compiled, in the 2004 presidential election.

The lack of an independent paper record or any other mode of verification, the minuscule chance of discovery, and the accommodating silence of the media provides the “opportunity.”

There remains the question of motive.

Remember, first of all, that 2004 was not an ordinary presidential election contest whereby the incumbent, should he lose, graciously concedes to the winner and then retires to play golf, give speeches at one-hundred grand a pop, or even do sufficient good deeds to eventually win a Nobel Peace Prize.

In this election, the stakes were much higher. The Republicans gathered and invested a half billion dollars in order to win, and they did so for good reason. In Bush’s first term, billions of dollars were transferred from the poor, the middle class, the federal treasury, and future generations, to the super-wealthy, with many billions more to come in a second Bush term. Many of Bush’s friends and benefactors, possibly including his vice president, have engaged in massive graft and bribery—for example, hundreds of millions of dollars of Iraq reconstruction funds “lost” by Halliburton, and billions of dollars of California utility bills swindled by Enron. Still more crimes: Condi Rice’s perjury before the 9/11 commission, the “outing”of CIA agent Valerie Plame, Tom DeLay’s attempted bribery of Congressman Nick Smith, and the worst crime of all, the theft of the national elections of 2000, 2002, and now 2004. God only knows what else a Democratic attorney general and Democratic congressional investigations might uncover.

The Bush syndicate did not simply wish to stay in office. They had an even greater motive to stay out of the federal slammer.

So it comes down to this: In the 2004 election, the Bush team and the Republican Party had a treasure trove of means and opportunity dropped in their laps. They could, if they chose, “key in” any election result they wanted; for example, they could “swing” a Senate race by nine points or a governor’s race by 15 points (as it appears they did in Georgia in 2002). And, if the 2004 early exit polls were in fact accurate, in the presidential race it now appears that they could drop the Democrat’s percentage by five points, and boost the Republican’s total by the same amount. Thanks to the secret codes and “back-door access” to the voting machines, and thanks in addition to the cooperation of the corporate media, they could do all this without fear of detection.

Mindful of the record of this administration during the past four years, the enormous personal and financial consequences, as above noted, of an election defeat, and the likelihood of that defeat as indicated by the polls, can we really expect them to have said, in effect, “yes, we could steal this election without consequence, but it wouldn’t be right, so we choose to be honest”?

If you believe this, then I have a stack of Enron stock that I’d like to sell you.

Clearly, the Bush syndicate had abundant means, motive and opportunity to commit a crime against the state, in a word treason, and there is compelling evidence that they have done just that. Neither the enforced silence of the media nor the cowardly inaction of the Democrats mitigate this evidence by one iota.

The overarching question, then, is “when will the public wake up to this silent coup d’etat?”

For the issue before us is no longer the protection of American democracy. It’s too late for that. The issue instead is the restoration of American democracy.

And at the moment, that issue is very much in doubt.

Copyright © 2005 Ernest Partridge

Dr. Ernest Partridge is a consultant, writer and lecturer in the field of Environmental Ethics and Public Policy. He publishes the website, The Online Gadfly and co-edits the progressive website, The Crisis Papers. Send comments to: crisispapers@hotmail.com.

When “off the grid” will be the norm.

This entry is much longer than I would normally post, but the topic is one that should be in open daily discussion throughout America and the world. I have excerpted a small portion of the article that should grab some interest, but I recommend reading the entire thing.

The Long Emergency

What's going to happen as we start running out of cheap gas to guzzle?

March 24, 2005
By JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER
Rolling Stone

(Excerpt)

The successful regions in the twenty-first century will be the ones surrounded by viable farming hinterlands that can reconstitute locally sustainable economies on an armature of civic cohesion. Small towns and smaller cities have better prospects than the big cities, which will probably have to contract substantially. The process will be painful and tumultuous. In many American cities, such as Cleveland, Detroit and St. Louis, that process is already well advanced. Others have further to fall. New York and Chicago face extraordinary difficulties, being oversupplied with gigantic buildings out of scale with the reality of declining energy supplies. Their former agricultural hinterlands have long been paved over. They will be encysted in a surrounding fabric of necrotic suburbia that will only amplify and reinforce the cities' problems. Still, our cities occupy important sites. Some kind of urban entities will exist where they are in the future, but probably not the colossi of twentieth-century industrialism.

Some regions of the country will do better than others in the Long Emergency. The Southwest will suffer in proportion to the degree that it prospered during the cheap-oil blowout of the late twentieth century. I predict that Sunbelt states like Arizona and Nevada will become significantly depopulated, since the region will be short of water as well as gasoline and natural gas. Imagine Phoenix without cheap air conditioning.

I'm not optimistic about the Southeast, either, for different reasons. I think it will be subject to substantial levels of violence as the grievances of the formerly middle class boil over and collide with the delusions of Pentecostal Christian extremism. The latent encoded behavior of Southern culture includes an outsized notion of individualism and the belief that firearms ought to be used in the defense of it. This is a poor recipe for civic cohesion.

The Mountain States and Great Plains will face an array of problems, from poor farming potential to water shortages to population loss. The Pacific Northwest, New England and the Upper Midwest have somewhat better prospects. I regard them as less likely to fall into lawlessness, anarchy or despotism and more likely to salvage the bits and pieces of our best social traditions and keep them in operation at some level.

These are daunting and even dreadful prospects. The Long Emergency is going to be a tremendous trauma for the human race. We will not believe that this is happening to us, that 200 years of modernity can be brought to its knees by a world-wide power shortage. The survivors will have to cultivate a religion of hope -- that is, a deep and comprehensive belief that humanity is worth carrying on. If there is any positive side to stark changes coming our way, it may be in the benefits of close communal relations, of having to really work intimately (and physically) with our neighbors, to be part of an enterprise that really matters and to be fully engaged in meaningful social enactments instead of being merely entertained to avoid boredom. Years from now, when we hear singing at all, we will hear ourselves, and we will sing with our whole hearts.

Testimony regarding vote rigging

A gem I picked up through LeftEdgeNorth...Thanks Joe.

Video not likely to be seen on Hannity and Colmes.

Creating a level playing field

The following is a pictorial presentation of (one of) the tools being used by the Bush Administration to level the playing field in countries that inherently hold an advantage in the area of energy.

Please note that you must click on the “next” arrow to view the next picture.

Click here to view the pictorial.


To view other pictorials, click here.

We are starving the wrong beast.

As I think about it, the concept of “taxation for the common good” is necessary for the creation and maintenance of the community foundation. In the hands of politicians, however, it is an ever expanding Golden Egg most often used to barter for power and influence, and an ever increasing burden on the common-folk of this great land.

As America leads the way headlong into an international environment of “might is right because the mighty say so”, we all have to recognize that this attitude is possible “ONLY” because of the revenue stream pouring into the National coffers. It is during a time like the present that we must wonder at the practice of collecting taxes to send to Washington, D.C. to allow the National Congress the ability to create punitive rules which determine whether or not any of that money will be returned to the communities from whence it came (for the common good).

As often as I have heard that the party in power is attempting to alter Government as we know it by “starving the beast”, I have not heard it mentioned in the context that I believe would be beneficial…and that is to eliminate the middle man, and keep the revenue in the communities where it is so desperately needed (and the politicians are close enough to “bitch-slap”).

Trillion-Dollar Hideaway

Offshore accounts. IBCs. Walking trusts. Financial institutions have plenty of names for the places where the wealthy now hide their money from the IRS. They just don't call it cheating.

By Ken Silverstein

(Excerpt) Click here to read the entire Mother Jones article.

Today, the practice of hiding wealth has reached epidemic proportions. Much of the money shipped abroad has its origins in arms dealing and drug trafficking. Another major source is loot plundered by corrupt government leaders, such as former Indonesian president Suharto. A growing portion of offshore money, however, is legal in origin, moved abroad by the super-rich -- often through major U.S. banks -- in order to evade taxes.

Riverside Church Video

If you are not in the habit of attending services at your favorite church, and your soul is in dire need of uplifting words of encouragement to get you through the daily emotional maze… watching this video will move you.

Small windows media file (9.6 MB)

Large windows media file (19.6 MB)

Small Quicktime file (10.6 MB)

Large Quicktime file (22.4 MB)

If you feel (as I do) that this message is important to the future direction of American policy making, please share it with others.

Breaking the silence

When Religious Leaders get together on a common theme, there is a better opportunity for the TRUTH to finally be heard above the din of celebrity trials and the vast mish-mash of non-news the American people are consistently bombarded with.


(Excerpt from drivedemocracy.org)

We urge you to view the video of the Riverside Church event, which celebrated the anniversary of Dr. King's historic 1967 speech, "Beyond Vietnam," at Riverside.

[Snip]

It is urgent that Americans see there is a community of conscience that speaks up for their values while preserving the essential constitutional separation of church and state. This is especially so in the face of growing religious fanaticism and its embrace by right wing politicians like Rep. Tom DeLay.

The text of Martin Luther King’s historic speech. (PDF Document)

GIVE IT BACK, GEORGE

I stumbled across a link to this interesting piece at the first blog I usually read each morning.

Did Wyly Coyotes' Ill-Gotten Loot Buy White House?

Are You Really a Veteran?

This entry is posted for anyone ever serving in the wartime military, or classified with a military disability at any time (and for their Family members).

(My comment) The current Administration, as well as Congress, has become like an ever enlarging boil on the ass of the American People. The irritation (of political conflict and divisiveness) is constant, and the ONLY solution is to lance the boil. Unfortunately, there is no Doctor willing to help you out because of your political beliefs, and the only tool you can find that is long enough to reach the afflicted area is your shotgun. Good Luck. (My comment)

Are You Really a Veteran?
(click here to read the entire article)

(Excerpt)

Buyer is trying to rewrite the definition of "veteran" in a cold and calculated manner that could cost millions of veterans their benefits. Buyer recently won a political tug-of-war and replaced Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) as chairman of HVAC. Smith was known as a true friend of veterans and often broke ranks with his party to forward legislation favorable to the veteran community.

[Snip]

So, what is happening here? Buyer is trying to redefine "veteran," and in so doing, reshape benefit programs to meet his new definition. In short, this means fewer benefits for fewer veterans.

Adam...is that you?

A 2002 discovery of fossilized skull in the African country Chad is now believed to be the oldest remains of human relative ever found.

I am (becoming) an Independent

Liberty Beat
Whitewashing Rumsfeld
Circling the wagons around the defense secretary and his commander in chief

by Nat Hentoff
April 4th, 2005 3:56 PM


(Excerpt) Read the entire Village Voice article

Where the hell is the Democratic leadership—Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean, and that touted veteran sage Joe Lieberman? Where are the Democratic press conferences, the ringing statements against these Republican chieftains circling the wagons around the lawless secretary of defense and the commander in chief who, on June 26, 2003, the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, declared:

"The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading the fight by example." (Emphasis added.)

From Amnesty International's "United States of America: Human Dignity Denied: Torture and Accountability in the 'War on Terror' ":

"An Iraqi detainee has recalled how the U.S. soldiers 'used to beat up a prisoner who was from Syria and strip him all night. We heard him screaming all night.'

"It is not known if this was the Syrian national who was kept incommunicado 'in a totally darkened cell measuring about 2 meters long [a meter is a little over 39 inches] and less than a meter across, devoid of any window, latrine or water tap, or bedding.' On the door of the cell was the inscription 'the Gollum' and a picture of this character from the film Lord of the Rings."

Also in the Amnesty International report, an Iraqi working for Reuters news, held in military detention near Falluja, said: "He asked me to pick up a shoe, took it and beat me on the face with it. . . . He made me put my finger in my anus, then he made me smell my hand and put it in my nose, and keep the shoe in my mouth, with my other hand in the air. . . . Every time I mentioned God they beat me."

All this in furtherance of spreading freedom and democracy throughout the world?

Okay class, let’s have a quick review

The US Dollar is currently at 77.5 cents in comparison to the Euro


Dollar Drops Versus Euro, Yen After U.S. Jobless Claims Rise

(Excerpt)

March 31 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar fell against the euro and yen after government reports showed U.S. jobless claims rose and inflation held steady, a sign the Federal Reserve may not need to raise interest rates as much as some traders expected.
Fewer U.S. rate increases may lower demand for the dollar among investors seeking to benefit from a widening in the gap with Europe. The European Central Bank has kept its main rate at 2 percent since 2003 as the Fed lifted its target seven times, to 2.75 percent. Today's report showed U.S. claims for unemployment benefits rose to the highest since January.

``This jobless claims number took people by surprise,'' a day before the U.S. March employment report, said Chris Melendez, president of currency hedge fund Tempest Asset Management in Newport Beach, California. ``That's making the dollar a little more unattractive.''

Dollar headed for collapse: Mahathir

(Excerpt)

The US dollar is facing an imminent collapse and the global economy will suffer a "catastrophe" when it is rejected as the currency for trade, former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad said in remarks published yesterday. Mahathir, who famously ignored International Monetary Fund (IMF) advice and instead chose to peg his country's ringgit to the US dollar during the Asian financial crisis, said a standard gold currency was now the best alternative for world trade. The dollar was retaining some value because of fears of a global economic catastrophe if it was rejected

Creating a market for seeds and fertilizer

Once-plentiful date trees dwindle in agricultural crisis


(Excerpt)

In al-Dora, a neighborhood about 9 miles south of the capital, vegetable farmer Ahmed Salman, 54, his skin blackened by the sun, has similar complaints. "I don't have enough fertilizer. And I'm seeing many new seeds and fertilizers in the Iraqi market that we're not familiar with. I'm afraid to buy it." He adds, "I stopped going to the Ministry of Agriculture because they do not help us."

At the College of Agriculture in Abu Ghraib, a Baghdad suburb, professors Ma'Ad Yousif and Alaa' al-Jobouri affirm farmers' complaints. "We lack seeds and fertilizer," al-Jobouri says.
He says rats infest the wheat fields in the north. Many palms, already fragile from neglect, have been poisoned by the U.S. bombing campaign, he adds. The fronds rot and fall off, as is evident at Obaidi's plantation. Yousif says Iraqi farmers have not received direction from the new Agriculture Ministry.