Archive for July 2010
Monsanto: the corporate scheme to control our food supply
Monsanto: The evil corporation in your refrigerator
When we consider the rogue’s gallery of devilish, over-sized, greedy and disproportionately powerful corporations, we generally come up with outfits like Microsoft, Bechtel, AIG, Halliburton, Goldman-Sachs, Exxon-Mobil and the United States Senate. Yet somehow, Monsanto, arguably (WalletPop) – The most devilish, over-sized, greedy and disproportionately powerful corporation in the world has been able to more or less skulk between the raindrops — only a household name in households where documentaries like Food Inc. are regarded as light Friday evening entertainment. My house, for example. But for the most part, if you were to ask an average American for their list of sinister corporations, Monsanto probably wouldn’t make the cut.
It should. Read More Here
(NaturalNews) –
Monsanto: The world’s poster child for corporate manipulation and deceit
At a biotech industry conference in January 1999, a representative from Arthur Anderson, LLP explained how they had helped Monsanto design their strategic plan. First, his team asked Monsanto executives what their ideal future looked like in 15 to 20 years. The executives described a world with 100 percent of all commercial seeds genetically modified and patented. Anderson consultants then worked backwards from that goal, and developed the strategy and tactics to achieve it. They presented Monsanto with the steps and procedures needed to obtain a place of industry dominance in a world in which natural seeds were virtually extinct. Read More Here
Also: (GardenState) – Cannabinoids Kill Cancer and Our Government Has Known for 36 Years – Read More Here
Also: (NYTimes) – What Do You Lack? Probably Vitamin D – Read More Here
Five Ways to Profit BIG from Global Collapse
You Can be a BILLIONAIRE Without Even Trying!
Jul 26, 2010 by Richard Heinberg
Post Carbon Institute
(Author’s note: This is the Introduction to an inspirational / financial-advice / environmental / diet / dating / self-help / survivalist / humor book that I started to write—and quickly decided should never be finished. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken it even this far. You be the judge.)
What can you do to optimize your chances in the case of hyperinflation, a deflationary economic Depression, an oil crisis, a famine, or a series of horrendous environmental disasters? If you don’t already know, you’d better wise up fast—because some or all of these exciting opportunities are on their way to a neighborhood near you! In fact, one or two may already be tapping you on the shoulder and asking to make your acquaintance.
Pointy-headed intellectuals have been warning us about this stuff for years. Decades. Who cares? Who’s had the time for depressing, worrisome, gloomy, hard-to-understand statistics and graphs? There’s been work to do, money to be made, kids to put through college, new episodes of American Idol to watch.
Until now. We have finally arrived at the fabulous convergence of two Earth-shattering developments: First, real environmental and economic catastrophes are starting to happen and are tugging on our Comfy Cushion of Consumer Complacency, requiring us to actually Do Something. Second, someone (guess who?) has figured out how to frame these mega-scary events in such inviting, entertaining, and potentially profitable terms that the irresistible win/win euphoria of it all can make you almost completely forget just how abysmally awful our situation actually is.
Welcome to my book, YOU can Be a BILLIONAIRE Without Even Trying! In it, you will learn why the U.S. economy is now the butt of jokes in Chad; why the stuff that makes your car go is about to become as rare and valuable as . . . as . . . as something actually rare and valuable; why the global food system is making more and more people watch their waistlines (as they shrivel); and why Mother Nature seems to be puzzlingly mean-tempered lately—almost as if we had done something to annoy her.
Toxic Retail: BPA exposure everywhere
Retailers aren’t just insulting us by forcing us to make photocopies of receipts we need to save (or watch them fade away), they’re actually poisoning us at the register! And the next time you fill a prescription, ask your Pharmacist about those presciption labels too….
Here’s Your Change, Have a Nice BPA Day
PRWatch July, 2010
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) performed laboratory tests on cash register receipts from major U.S. businesses and found bisphenol A (BPA) present on 40% of them, some at levels higher than those found in canned foods, baby bottles and infant formula. BPA is an estrogen-like, plastic-hardening chemical added to many everyday items and that has been linked to breast cancer, heart disease, diabetes and other illnesses. It reacts with dye to form the black or colored print on heat-sensitive paper receipts that millions of people are handed every day while doing business at retail stores. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration had previously declared BPA safe, but announced in January, 2010 that in light of new studies it now has “concerns” about the chemical’s potential effects on brain development of fetuses, infants and children. It stopped short of saying BPA is unsafe. The receipts EWG tested came from businesses in seven states and the District of Columbia, including Safeway, CVS, Whole Foods, Walmart, Chevron, McDonald’s, the U.S. Postal Service and cafeterias in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. The American Chemistry Council, which represents the chemical industry, maintains the concerns about exposure to BPA are overblown.
Source: U.S. News and World Report, Science News, July 28, 2010
Unbridled Science for Profit Will Reap Catastrophe
Science took a seriously wrong turn some years ago when academia/gov’t oversight defaulted and corporations triumphed. Since then many areas of development have ignored safety concerns and proceeded full throttle in search of profits damn what may. The chemical industry may have been the first to go completely haywire, flooding our bodies and environment with toxics. Now we have GMO, nanotech and geoengineering all racing to see who can cause global catastrophe first.
It’s not that hard to find credible sources of concern. But it is very hard to get anyone to take them seriously. In fact we’re over the cliff rushing headlong down a precipitous slope barely keeping our feet. It’s probably too much to expect people to be considered and rational in such a condition. –Claudia
An evil atmosphere is forming around geoengineering
…a powerful group of scientists, venture capitalists and conservative think tanks is coalescing around the idea of reproducing this cooling effect by injecting sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere to counter climate change. Despite the enormity of what is being proposed – nothing less than seizing control of the climate – the public has been almost entirely excluded from the planning.
Chemtrails
video- you believe your own eyes don’t you?
New study shows possibilities and dangers of nanotechnology
Researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico found that exposure to a certain type of fullerene known as the “tris” configuration, referring to a certain configuration of molecular branches on the nanoparticle, produced a toxic reaction in human tissue. Iyer said that cells from skin and lungs were among those studied, since those would be likely points of exposure to nanoparticles. Cells exposed to the tris fullerenes went into a state that could be described as suspended animation, she said. Cells’ normal life cycle halted, meaning that they stopped growing, dividing and dying.
US Consumers Have Been Given a False Sense of Security About the Safety of Our Food Supply
Many consumers in the US mistakenly believe that the FDA approves GM foods through rigorous, in-depth, long-term studies. In reality, the agency has absolutely no safety testing requirements. Instead the agency relies on research from companies like Monsanto, research that is meticulously designed to avoid finding problems.
It’s easy to understand the FDA’s industry-friendly policy on regulation of GMOs when you see the revolving door between agency regulators and the companies they regulate. The White House mandate to the FDA (under the first George Bush) was to promote biotechnology and the person in charge of developing the agency’s policy at that time was a former Monsanto attorney, who later returned to Monsanto as their vice president.
Florida Dengue Fever Outbreak Leads Back to CIA & Army Experiments
Unknown to most Americans is that dengue fever has been the intense focus of US Army and CIA biological warfare researchers for over 50 years. Ed Regis notes in his excellent history of Fort Detrick, “The Biology of Doom,” that as early as 1942 leading biochemists at the installation placed dengue fever on a long list for serious consideration as a possible weapon.
by Hank P. Albarelli Jr.*, Zoe Martell* Voltairenet July 17, 2010
With little fanfare on July 13, Florida officials released the findings of a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study conducted recently in the Key West area revealing that about 10 percent, or 1,000 people, of the coastal town’s population are infected with the dengue fever virus.
While the July 13 release made little mention of it, the CDC study was provoked by an earlier 2009 report that a woman in New York State, who had returned from a Florida Keys’ visit, had contracted dengue fever. Within a few weeks of this initial report, two additional cases were discovered in people who had returned from Key West. Over the next three months of 2009, an additional 26 cases were identified, all tied to visits to the town.
Because of these reported cases, the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District conducted greatly increased aerial spraying to control mosquitoes. Following the spraying, a small amount of other cases were reported, including that of a 41-year-old Key West man who found blood in his urine and had severely aching joints. Following these additional reports, the CDC launched its study of antibodies in Key West residents and found that 5 percent of the town’s residents have been exposed to the dengue virus. Said CDC dengue expert, Dr. Christopher J. Gregory, “The best estimate from the survey is that about 5 percent of [residents] was infected in 2009 with dengue.” Gregory also stated, “We have known for a while it is a possible risk, but this outbreak shows it is more than possible: It is something that did happen and could happen again.”
Despite the low-key nature of the Florida release, the Homeland Security Administration immediately issued a “terror alert” concerning the findings and Monroe County, within which Key West is located, also issued its own health advisory warning “effective immediately.”
Economic Know-Nothingism: Punish the Poor, Protect the Wealthy
Their wars and tax cuts created the deficit. Now they want to profit from it and make scapesgoats of the poor.
Steve Benen 7/14/10 Washington Monthy
THE POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF ECONOMIC KNOW-NOTHINGISM…. Four months before the midterm elections, “virtually every Republican” in Congress agrees that the country can’t afford $30 billion in extended unemployment benefits, but it can afford $678 billion in tax cuts for the wealthy. Rep. Joe Barton’s (R-Texas) apology to BP instantly became a key moment in this cycle, as did Rep. John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) dismissal of the importance of the crash of 2008.
But this new issue is a development to build an entire campaign around.
This week, the Senate Republican leadership made one of the single dumbest policy arguments imaginable: policymakers shouldn’t even try to pay for massive tax cuts for the wealthy, because they pay for themselves. GOP officials see the overwhelming evidence that Bush’s tax policies helped produce a massive deficit, but they reject it, preferring to believe a ridiculous fantasy.
Weed killer kills human cells: Study intensifies debate over ‘inert’ ingredients.
By Crystal Gammon
Environmental Health News June 22, 2009
Used in yards, farms and parks throughout the world, Roundup has long been a top-selling weed killer. But now researchers have found that one of Roundup’s inert ingredients can kill human cells, particularly embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells.
The new findings intensify a debate about so-called “inerts” — the solvents, preservatives, surfactants and other substances that manufacturers add to pesticides. Nearly 4,000 inert ingredients are approved for use by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Glyphosate, Roundup’s active ingredient, is the most widely used herbicide in the United States. About 100 million pounds are applied to U.S. farms and lawns every year, according to the EPA.
Until now, most health studies have focused on the safety of glyphosate, rather than the mixture of ingredients found in Roundup. But in the new study, scientists found that Roundup’s inert ingredients amplified the toxic effect on human cells—even at concentrations much more diluted than those used on farms and lawns.
One specific inert ingredient, polyethoxylated tallowamine, or POEA, was more deadly to human embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells than the herbicide itself – a finding the researchers call “astonishing.”
“This clearly confirms that the [inert ingredients] in Roundup formulations are not inert,” wrote the study authors from France’s University of Caen. “Moreover, the proprietary mixtures available on the market could cause cell damage and even death [at the] residual levels” found on Roundup-treated crops, such as soybeans, alfalfa and corn, or lawns and gardens.
The research team suspects that Roundup might cause pregnancy problems by interfering with hormone production, possibly leading to abnormal fetal development, low birth weights or miscarriages.
Lobbyists making legislators obsolete?
It happens just like this in Congress too!
Jul. 10, 2010 By Karen de Sa / San Jose Mercury News
SACRAMENTO — Imagine: At a time when California is lurching from crisis to crisis, a legislator has an idea to make life better. He puts together a bill, gathers support and shepherds it into law.
If only Sacramento worked like that. Instead, it often works like this: A lobbyist has an idea to make life better — but only for his client. The lobbyist writes the bill, shops for a willing lawmaker to introduce it and lines up the support. The legislator? He has to do little more than show up and vote.
This is the path of the “sponsored bill,” a method of lawmaking little noticed outside California’s capital but long favored on the inside. In many states lobbyists influence legislators; in California, they have — quite baldly — taken center stage in lawmaking.
Although lawmakers in recent years have routinely failed to grapple with health care, the state budget and other matters of public interest, they’ve managed to do the bidding of the private interests who tout sponsored bills at an impressive clip.
A Mercury News analysis found that in 2007-08, the most recent complete two-year legislative session, more than 1,800 bills — about 39% of the total — were sponsored by outside interests. And those sponsored bills made up 60% of legislation passed into law.
Iraq: Neocon Festival of Slaughter
Number Of Iraqis Slaughtered Since The U.S. Invaded Iraq “1,366,350”
“Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators. Your wealth has been stripped of you by unjust men… The people of Baghdad shall flourish under institutions which are in consonance with their sacred laws.”
— General F.S. Maude, commander of British forces in Iraq, 1917
US And Britain ‘Did Not Believe Iraq’s Weapons Programme Was A Real Threat’
By The Telegraph
Former UK diplomat Carne Ross claimed that the Government ”intentionally and substantially” exaggerated its assessment of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in public documents.
On Being Led By the Nose
The Unchallenged Power of the Israel Lobby
By James Abourezk
The idea that George W. Bush’s neocon advisers–Perle included–convinced him that the U.S. should invade Iraq received some attention after the Iraqi war started. But to my knowledge, no one, either in politics or the media, pressed the case too hard, lest they discover that those who wanted to invade Iraq had, not America’s interest, but Israel’s interest in mind.
Iraq postpones second session of new parliament:
Iraq’s new parliament has postponed its second session amid a failure by lawmakers to agree on forming a new government following the March election in which no one party won a majority
Welcome to the Zoo
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American public discourse has degenerated rapidly over the last half century. Rationality and logical thinking have been replaced with magical thinking and fallacious appeals to authority, encouraged by the cult of celebrity.
Democracy is not possible with such citizens. The destruction of our educational system has been orchestrated with this goal at the same time as our treadmill culture has sped up to minimize opportunities for reflection. We are treated like domesticated animals, and in many ways people have adapted to become such. Welcome to the zoo.
–Claudia
Sunday, July 11, 2010
BOSTON GLOBE COMMENTARY
How facts backfire
By JOE KEOHANE
It’s one of the great assumptions underlying modern democracy that an informed citizenry is preferable to an uninformed one. “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1789. This notion, carried down through the years, underlies everything from humble political pamphlets to presidential debates to the very notion of a free press. Mankind may be crooked timber, as Kant put it, uniquely susceptible to ignorance and misinformation, but it’s an article of faith that knowledge is the best remedy. If people are furnished with the facts, they will be clearer thinkers and better citizens. If they are ignorant, facts will enlighten them. If they are mistaken, facts will set them straight.
In the end, truth will out. Won’t it?
Maybe not. Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger…..
read the rest of this commentary
then put your hands together and consider the obvious:
Wake-up Call 