The Babylon Resistance Movement

Good Point

2012-02-09T21:28:00.001-05:00

The War on Black Youth Continues in NYC

2012-02-09T15:47:00.004-05:00

The NYPD have slain another unarmed black teenager by shooting him point blank in his home, under the "justification" that he "may have had more pot on him than they found."

When will we start holding the police accountable? The US Justice System never will. It's up to us...

Stop and Frisk is an unacceptable, racist, gestapo practice that is in dire need of dissolve

Obama and Empire

2012-02-04T19:48:00.003-05:00

"Within 3 days of his inauguration, Obama was ordering the deaths of people in far away countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan..."

"President Obama says one thing, and BRAND OBAMA gets you to believe another thing...This is the essence of successful advertising; you buy or do what the advertiser wants because of the way it makes you feel..."

John Pilger - Obama and Empire from International Socialist on Vimeo.

RON PAUL - Because Universal Truth is Not Measured in Mass Appeal

2012-02-02T23:06:00.010-05:00

Another attempt to characterize Ron Paul as a racist was played out today on the interwebs by those that cannot make intelligent critiques on his philosophies. This time, the source of these claims came from an unknown person using a pseudonym, hiding behind a mask and using voice changing software.

You can read the accusation here: Ron Paul Exposed As White Supremacist By Anonymous

The problem with Anonymous is that it's not a group. It's exactly what the name suggests. ANYONE could do anything and assign it to them because the media are too stupid to understand what it even is. Those who operate in anonymous circles can usually tell themselves when something is fishy but to the rest of the world it seems one and the same.

This "Anonymous" group smells like a front organization posing a phony threat to critical websites TO JUSTIFY lock down over the free internet. No group of real hackers spells out their itinerary all over the place with exact dates and targets and gives the world a roadmap of its illegal agenda. It seems so obvious a Cointel operation. Why else have this group been given so much light in the news? It is helping to pave the way toward Internet Security Policy that will lock the internet down as we know it.

Another key thing to note is that "Anonymous" consistently post videos in support of what Ron Paul does and stands for, i.e. ending the corrupt monetary policy, economic central planning [both done by the Fed Reserve], standing up for people's rights, and wanting to end the military complex's aggressive foreign policy. Also, what immediately struck me as fishy in this thing, is why would Anonymous be meddling with a White Supremacist website when they are supposedly all about advocating free speech rights?

All that being said, I think most Paul supporters (on both sides of the spectrum) are not easily swayed by ad hominem attacks against their candidate. Most supporters of his reject "politics as usual" and let's face it, trying to link a guy to racism through very sketchy means, it quite easily identifiable as lazy campaign tactics on the part of the opposition. Because of Mr. Paul's steadfast reputation, and the fact that he has never flip-flopped or swayed or so obviously taken the agenda of special interest groups like every other candidate in the race - and the fact that 99.5% of criticism against him relies on silly unproven allegations of him being a racist and not about his political views - his supporters are steadfast and on both sides of the two party paradigm. (Particularly because they are open-minded enough to hear him as he has spoken on justice for minorities in the broken judicial system and unfair Drug War policy for OVER 20 YEARS CONSISTENTLY).

It's amazing that in this day and age, pulling the race card to make progress in elections is still attempted. It shouldn't surprise anyone really, I mean its arguably what got Obama elected last term and quite possibly the strongest force that kept his critics at bay for the most part. After all, doesn't criticizing Obama make one a racist to some people? And one can't help but wonder just how much support a guy who has pretty much upheld and worsened most of the "Bush" policy for 4 years if he wasn't given the benefit of the doubt based solely on his race. The money that has been running (and ruining) this country since (even before) the Bush administration simply did what clever marketers have been doing for ages; When people stop buying a product, they change the branding and it enables them to sell the very same product as "new" for many more years to come.

This country really doesn't need clever marketing or more of the same downward spiral we've been riding on for so long now, we need REAL ACTUAL CHANGE and a completely DIFFERENT game plan. But as long as people are still buying "news" stories from anonymous men in masks using pseudonyms and obviously slanted sources like Fox News, MSNBC, NPR or Addicting Info, without filtering it out most thoroughly, slavery and imprisonment are all we get and quite frankly, all that we deserve...

Oh Boyah!

2012-02-01T23:46:00.011-05:00

I request friends supporting candidates who passed NDAA to kindly fuck themselves. We have no commonality. Don't bother coming here to read the posts.

I am so tired of all the campaign ads and facebook love for people with a Nazi agenda to establish concentration camps, thanks. You are an idiot of the lowest form if you believe Obomb'em is any better than G.W. you most likely have no insight into pretty much any of his cabinet, advisers, contributors, or list of "accomplishments" during his first term (and please keep the "Well he got Bin Scapegoat" rhetoric to yourself. This campaign move did NOTHING to make the country any safer even if you buy into it.) Some will say "He eneded the War in Iraq." Yet Iraq is a giant mess that now houses the largest U.S. Embassy in the world of CLOSE TO 20,000 Americans still there! These are P.R. moves, NOT improvements

WAKE UP SHEEPLE YOUR COFFEE IS ON FIRE AND A WOLF IS IN YOUR HEN HOUSE!!!!!

We need to start talking REAL change and REAL alternatives here...

Who's Threatening Who?

2012-02-01T09:20:00.004-05:00

Each Star Marks a U.S. Military Base...

One Issue Democrats Don't Like to Discuss

2012-01-30T19:57:00.004-05:00

Kudos to The Socialist Worker for admitting that democrats seem to be the main group always masking behind the guise of censorship and intellectual property rights to move their agenda (which is of course expanding their greasy grip over anything and everything.)

I'm no Republican or republican sympathizer, but lets face it - Liberals and the like just LOVE blaming the other dipshits across the aisle for every evil in the world while turning a blind cheek to the VERY SAME EVILS that their party commits over and over again. As if special interests only team up on one side of the aisle...

Not according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) or Dick Durbin (D-IL), and hey let's not forget Tipper Gore's attack against reality!

Google Takeover pt2

2012-01-30T00:54:00.003-05:00

Have you taken a moment to read and think about these yet:
https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/

On Zionism

2012-01-29T16:23:00.005-05:00

Lord Balfour addressed the Balfour Declaration to Lord W. Rothschild of the Zionist Federation. If one investigates deeper into who Lord Rothschild was, and the role that The House of Rothschild has maintained in the world throughout history and into current times, one might conclude that converting to Judaism and then stating you now have a right to land promised by God to the Jews seems like a very thinly veiled business plan, and a very underhanded attempt at playing on people's sympathies and emotions to manipulate ownership over a very key location in terms of geopolitics and economics.

On November 1918 a very large group of Palestinian Arab dignitaries and representatives of political associations addressed a petition to the British authorities in which they denounced the declaration. The document stated:

"...we always sympathized profoundly with the persecuted Jews and their misfortunes in other countries... but there is wide difference between such sympathy and the acceptance of such a nation...ruling over us and disposing of our affairs."

As mentioned in the above PowerPoint Presentation, Israel has a VERY strong lobby in the US. It has a powerful influence on American politics, economy, the military-industrial complex ($8.2 MILLION in military aid funnel from America to Israel PER DAY**), foreign policy, and of course The Media. This last element is the most important in terms of keeping the American people passively ignorant to their business in our affairs. After all, if the majority knew what an influence this foreign power has in us, and how much of our money supply is spent on Israel and the manufacture of their weapons (which include nuclear ones) - most would demand a change in policy.

There is a revealing short documentary on the manipulation of the American media by Israel titled "Peace, Propaganda And The Promised Land" and it is viewable free in its entirety here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2165626245072381061

Zionism has always been a topic that greatly interests me, primarily because it is a phenomenal example of the power of propaganda at its most powerful. The state of Israel has engaged in apartheid, colonialism, terrorism, and all types of genocide with the absolute support, protection and blessing of the United States. You and I support and pay for this, through our taxes and through the corporations we blindly hand our money to on a daily basis.

Israel has been successful in using sympathy of the Jewish diaspora and the holocaust in order to strike down critics and label them anti-semitic. But the fact is that Judaism is a religion and Zionism is a political movement. Church and State are important to see separately in the issue of a Zionist state, yet through very careful propaganda tactics this political movement has been successful in obtaining occupations that continuously spread and multiply.

As the journalist and documentarian John Pilger said, "Fascism is a difficult word, because it comes with an iconography that touches the Nazi nerve and is abused as propaganda against America’s official enemies and to promote the West’s foreign adventures with a moral vocabulary written in the struggle against Hitler."

More and more Palestinians are forced off their land over time, particularly in 1948, and again in 1967, but all the while there is less and less land and resources available for Palestinians. They have become refugees in their own land, controlled by Israel in the LONGEST MILITARY OCCUPATION IN MODERN TIMES. And when they rise up against Israel’s huge military regime, they are shown only as "terrorists" by Western media (although they, unlike Israel, have no army, no American tanks, no American planes and gunships or missiles).

Thanks to the United States, Israel is now one of the largest military powers in the entire world. Yet, when we hear about weapons of mass destruction, and "brutal terror regimes," and the "spreading democracy" in the world from our news sources and politicians - how often do they remain silent on Israel? ALWAYS. This is incredibly ironic considering the apartheid in Palestine and the very obvious genocide that is happening everyday. If Iran is a danger because of the development of nuclear weapons, how can the fact that Israel (who continuously ignore UN resolutions time and time again and even have violated several of the Nuremberg Principles,*** as well as the principles of the Geneva Conventions) is constantly receiving funding and support from the United States?

It has been time and time again by many, that there can never exist Peace in the World, until there is Peace in Palestine. By continuous evidence through the UN it seems that while most of the nations in the world wish to see that Peace manifest through a two state solution, the United States wishes to find peace only through the complete annihilation of the Palestinian people and the emergence of one single State of Israel, whose borders will continue to grow across the Middle East, through its steady abundance of American funding and weaponry.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Mandate_of_Palestine

** The source for US military aid to Israel during Fiscal Year 2011 is the Congressional Research Service’s “U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel,” written by Jeremy M. Sharp, Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs, updated September 16, 2010.

*** The source for these violations are outlined in the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/9/factfindingmission.htm

More info here:

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/settlements.html

Norman Finkelstein's documentary:

http://www.americanradicalthefilm.com/

If Americans Knew:

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/about_us/trailerq.html

PLO/Fatah's Nazi training was CIA-sponsored:

http://www.hirhome.com/israel/cia-fatah.htm

Power Moves for 2012

2012-01-17T11:56:00.003-05:00

This is posturing at its finest!
After the "big disaster" the World Bank and Google emerge triumphant rulers of all:
http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2012/01/world-bank-and-google-join-forces-to.html

Republican Values Are NOT Christian (either)

2012-01-09T23:58:00.002-05:00

I came across this graphic at the Tribune of the People blog and thought it was worth sharing:

Goodbye American Resources Hello Totalitarianism

2012-01-09T11:22:00.005-05:00

Remember over the summer, when Obama placed American rural farmlands and suppliers of our resources under complete governmental control, at the request of the UN's agenda 21?

Probably not because that's precisely when the news was being overly saturated with the Anthony Weiner twitter red herring.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/7958-obama-signs-agenda-21-related-executive-order

CLICK ON IMAGES BELOW FOR FULL SIZE TEXT

Here's One for all the Mindless Obama Supporters

2012-01-01T15:10:00.002-05:00

good luck blaming this one on previous presidents:

(NaturalNews) One of the most extraordinary documents in human history -- the Bill of Rights -- has come to an end under President Barack Obama. Derived from sacred principles of natural law, the Bill of Rights has come to a sudden and catastrophic end with the President's signing of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a law that grants the U.S. military the "legal" right to conduct secret kidnappings of U.S. citizens, followed by indefinite detention, interrogation, torture and even murder. This is all conducted completely outside the protection of law, with no jury, no trial, no legal representation and not even any requirement that the government produce evidence against the accused. It is a system of outright government tyranny against the American people, and it effectively nullifies the Bill of Rights.

In what will be remembered as the most traitorous executive signing ever committed against the American people, President Obama signed the bill on New Year's Eve, a time when most Americans were engaged in the consumption of alcohol. It seems appropriate, of course, since no intelligent American could accept the tyranny of this bill if they were sober.

This is the law that will cement Obama's legacy in the history books as the traitor who nullified the Bill of Rights and paved America's pathway down a road of tyranny that will make Nazi Germany's war crimes look like child's play. If Bush had signed a law like this, liberals would have been screaming "impeachment!"

Why the Bill of Rights matters

While the U.S. Constitution already limits the power of federal government, the Bill of Rights is the document that enumerates even more limits of federal government power. In its inception, many argued that a Bill of Rights was completely unnecessary because, they explained, the federal government only has the powers specifically enumerated to it under the U.S. Constitution. There was no need to have a "First Amendment" to protect Free Speech, for example, because there was no power granted to government to diminish Free Speech.

This seems silly today, of course, given the natural tendency of all governments to concentrate power in the hands of the few while destroying the rights and freedoms of their own people. But in the 1780's, whether government could ever become a threat to future freedoms was hotly debated. By 1789, enough revolutionary leaders had agreed on the fundamental principles of a Bill of Rights to sign it into law. Its purpose was to provide additional clarifications on the limitation of government power so that there could be absolutely no question that government could NEVER, under any circumstances, violate these key principles of freedom: Freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, freedom from illegal searches, the right to remain silent, the right to due process under law, and so on.

Of course, today's runaway federal government utterly ignores the limitations placed on it by the founding fathers. It aggressively and criminally seeks to expand its power at all costs, completely ignoring the Bill of Rights and openly violating the limitations of power placed upon it by the United States Constitution. The TSA's illegal searching of air travelers, for example, is a blatant violation of Fourth Amendment rights. The government's hijacking of websites it claims are linking to "copyright infringement" hubs is a blatant violation of First Amendment rights. The government's demand that all Americans be forced to buy private health insurance is a blatant violation of Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution -- the "commerce clause."

Now, with the passage of the NDAA, the federal government has torpedoed the entire Bill of Rights, dismissing it completely and effectively promising to violate those rights at will. As of January 1, 2012, we have all been designated enemies of the state. America is the new battleground, and your "right" to due process is null and void.

Remember, this was all done by the very President who promised to close Guantanamo Bay and end secret military prisons. Not only did Obama break that campaign promise (as he has done with nearly ALL his campaign promises), he did exactly the opposite and has now subjected all Americans to the possibility of government-sponsored kidnapping, detainment and torture, all under the very system of secret military prisons he claimed he would close!

"President Obama’s action today is a blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Obama's signing statement means nothing

Even while committing an act of pure treason in signing the bill, the unindicted criminal President Obama issued a signing statement that reads, in part, "Moving forward, my administration will interpret and implement the provisions described below in a manner that best preserves the flexibility on which our safety depends and upholds the values on which this country was founded..."

Anyone who reads between the lines here realizes the "the flexibility on which our safety depends" means they can interpret the law in any way they want if there is a sufficient amount of fear being created through false flag terror attacks. Astute readers will also notice that Obama's signing statement has no legal binding whatsoever and only refers to Obama's momentary intentions on how he "wishes" to interpret the law. It does not place any limits whatsoever on how a future President might use the law as written.

"The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield," says the ACLU (http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-s...).

What this means is that the next President could use this law to engage in the most horrific holocaust-scale mass round-up of people the world has ever seen. The NDAA legalizes the crimes of Nazi Germany in America, setting the stage for the mass murder of citizens by a rogue government.

United States of America becomes a rogue nation, operating in violation of international law

Furthermore, the NDAA law as written and signed, is a violation of international law as it does not even adhere to the fundamental agreements of how nations treat prisoners of war:

"...the breadth of the NDAA’s detention authority violates international law because it is not limited to people captured in the context of an actual armed conflict as required by the laws of war" says the ACLU (http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-s...).

In 1789, today's NDAA law would have been called "treasonous," and those who voted for it would have been shot dead as traitors. This is not a call for violence, but rather an attempt to provide historical context of just how destructive this law really is. Men and women fought and died for the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. People sacrificed their lives, their safety and risked everything to achieve the freedoms that made America such a great nation. For one President to so callously throw away 222 years of liberty, betraying those great Americans who painstakingly created an extraordinary document limiting the power of government, is equivalent to driving a stake through the heart of the Republic.

In signing this, Obama has proven himself to be the most criminal of all U.S. Presidents, far worse than George W. Bush and a total traitor to the nation and its People. Remember, Obama swore upon a Bible that he would "protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic," and yet he himself has become the enemy of the Constitution by signing a law that overtly and callously nullifies the Bill of Rights.

This is nothing less than an act of war declared on the American people by the executive and legislative branches of government. It remains to be seen whether the judicial branch will go along with it (US Supreme Court).

Origins of the Bill of Rights

The Bill of Rights, signed in 1789 by many of the founding fathers of our nation, was based on the Virginia Declaration of Rights, drafted in 1776 and authored largely by George Mason, one of the least-recognized revolutionaries who gave rise to a nation of freedom and liberty.

Mason was a strong advocate of not just states' rights, but of individual rights, and without his influence in 1789, we might not even have a Bill of Rights today (and our nation would have slipped into total government tyranny all the sooner). In fact, he openly opposed ratification of the U.S. Constitution unless it contained a series of amendments now known as the Bill of Rights (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George...)

SECTION ONE of this Virginia declaration of rights states:

"That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety." (http://www.constitution.org/bcp/vir...)

Section Three of the declaration speaks to the duty of the Citizens to abolish abusive government:

"That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community; of all the various modes and forms of government, that is best which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety and is most effectually secured against the danger of maladministration; and that, when any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal."

By any honest measure, today's U.S. government, of course, has overstepped the bounds of its original intent. As Mason wrote over 200 years ago, the People of America now have not merely a right but a duty to "reform, alter or abolish it," to bring government back into alignment with its original purpose -- to protect the rights of the People.

Obama violates his Presidential Oath, sworn before God

Article II, Section I of the United States Constitution spells out the oath of office that every President must take during their swearing in:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

In signing the NDAA law into office, Obama has blatantly and unambiguously violated this sacred oath, meaning that his betrayal is not merely against the American people, but also against the Divine Creator.

Given that the Bill of Rights is an extension of Natural Law which establishes a direct heritage of sovereign power from the Creator to the People, a blatant attack upon the Bill of Rights is, by any account, an attack against the Creator and a violation of universal spiritual principles. Those who attempt to undermine the Bill of Rights are attempting to invalidate the relationship between God and Man, and in doing so, they are identifying themselves as enemies of God and agents of Evil.

Today, as 2012 begins, we are now a nation led by evil, and threatened with total destruction by those who would seek to rule as tyrants. This is America's final hour. We either defend the Republic starting right now, or we lose it forever.

Read the language analysis of WHY and HOW the NDAA applies to American citizens

Many people have been fooled by the obfuscated language of the bill, and they wrongfully believe the NDAA does not apply to American citizens. They have been hoodwinked!

In this follow-up article, I parse the language of the NDAA and explain, in plain language, how and why the NDAA does apply to American citizens:
http://www.naturalnews.com/034538_N...

Also, read this explanation by Rep. Justin Amash, who voted against the bill:
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?no...

Make no mistake, folks: The U.S. government has just declared all Americans to be "enemy combatants," and that the USA is now a "battleground" over which the military has total control. We are now a nation living under military dictatorship, whether you realize it or not.

Graham Hancock's "Quest For The Lost Civilization" (1998)

2011-12-29T23:00:00.001-05:00

Heaven's Mirror (50 min.) http://bit.ly/qhxSf8
Forgotten Knowledge (50 min.) http://bit.ly/pINwn8
Ancient Mariners (50 min.) http://bit.ly/nmIcxz

In this set of three videotapes, writer Graham Hancock traverses the world and explains his controversial theory that an ancient civilization, highly intelligent people who sailed the planet as early as 10,500 B.C., spread advanced astronomical knowledge and built ancient observatories.
Skeptics may scoff, but Hancock earnestly points out similarities in giant stone structures in the Egyptian desert and Cambodian jungles, and on Easter Island and in Micronesia, he points out what he considers evidence of an ancient society of seafarers. His ideas may seem utterly bizarre at first, but Hancock presents them in an understated and good-natured manner, and he also makes clever use of computer graphics and aerial photography to illustrate the startling similarities in ancient structures found from the North Atlantic to the South Pacific.

Hancock raises some puzzling questions, and even if you don't buy his arguments, bolstered though they are by mathematical equations and astronomical diagrams, the Quest for the Lost Civilization is an entertaining mixture of archaeology, astronomy, and speculation.

Get it on VHS: http://amzn.to/qM2Tbg

America's farmlands to be carpet-bombed with Vietnam-era Agent Orange chemical if Dow petition approved Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034500

2011-12-27T12:25:00.005-05:00

(direct re post from NaturalNews) - A key chemical of one of the most horrifying elements of the Vietnam War -- Agent Orange -- may soon be unleashed on America's farmlands. Considered by world nations to be a "Weapon of Mass Destruction" (WMD), Agent Orange was dropped in the millions of gallons on civilian populations during the Vietnam War in order to destroy foliage and poison North Vietnamese soldiers. The former president of the Vietnamese Red Cross, Professor Nhan, described it as, "...a massive violation of human rights of the civilian population, and a weapon of mass destruction."

A key chemical in that weapon -- 2,4-D -- is just months away from being dropped on agricultural land across the United States. Dow AgroSciences, which along with DuPont and Monsanto is heavily invested in genetically engineered crops, has petitioned the U.S. government to deregulate a variety of GE corn that's resistant to 2,4-D, which comprises 50% of the recipe of Agent Orange.

NaturalNews broke this story yesterday and published the details:
http://www.naturalnews.com/034492_D...

If the petition is approved by Washington, it would turn America's corn fields into chemical warfare zones targeted for mass pesticide poisoning with 2,4-D chemicals. The corn, of course, would be immune to 2,4-D, so it would uptake the chemical and transport it right into the structure of the corn kernels, creating "Agent Orange corn bombs" that would be chemically unleashed when consumed by human beings.

This is just the latest example of how industrial chemical giants and GMO companies of the world are committing acts of genocide against innocents. The introduction of 2,4-D-resistant GE corn is, essentially, an act of war against humanity.

Food crops sprayed with chemical weapons

Agent Orange, which contains roughly 50% 2,4-D, is also cited in numerous war crimes lawsuits. Even the BBC has reported on it:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3...

The use of such chemicals on civilian targets is a violation of the 1907 Hague Convention, the 1927 Geneva Convention, and the 1949 Geneva Convention (http://www.iadllaw.org/en/node/353).

The International Tribunal of Conscience in Support of the Vietnamese Victims of Agent Orange has published a document briefly describing the war crimes committed by the U.S. government in its use of Agent Orange: http://www.iadllaw.org/files/charge...

That document states:

The chemical warfare waged by the United States against Vietnam though the use of Agent Orange and other dioxin laced chemicals from 1961 to 1971 has caused severe, massive and prolonged consequences for the environment, ecology and health of the people of Vietnam.

See the photos of Agent Orange victims

Shocking pictures of Agent Orange victims can be seen at the following pages (WARNING, extremely graphic):
http://oraclesyndicate.twoday.net/s...

http://www.spingola.com/power_elite...

http://antiwar.com/orig/austin.php?...

http://legacy.bhopal.net/opinions/a...

http://vietnamartwork.wordpress.com...

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/0...

http://thetheologianscafe.xanga.com...

http://www.commondreams.org/headlin...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3...

Watch the video of children affected by Agent Orange:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zay...

Hear the Agent Orange song by Country Joe. Visit: http://countryjoe.com/jukebox.htm and click on "Agent Orange Song" on the top left. You'll be able to hear the full song.

First Vietnam, now America

Even walking around America today, many Americans are born as mutants thanks to the chemicals used in foods, medicines, lawn care and personal care products. That crime against humanity is about to be made far, far worse with the unleashing of 2,4-D on America's farmlands.

The gross deformities, birth defects, neurological disorders and physical retardation we have seen in Vietnamese children affected by Agent Orange could soon arrive at America's doorstep thanks to 2,4-D.

Dow, of course, is widely regarded as one of the most evil corporations on the planet, having already poisoned countless victims with toxic chemicals. Remember the Bhopal pesticide factory explosion in India? That was Union Carbide, owned by Dow. It killed thousands of people, maimed tens of thousands and injured over half a million (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal...).

Read more about Bhopal: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/...

And learn more about Dow here:
http://www.thetruthaboutdow.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dow_Ch...

Remember: If chemical weapons are used to produce food, then those who consume such foods become casualties of war.

Food production was once an honorable art, but at the hands of greed-driven globalists, it quickly became a system of profit seeking and then a tool for corporate domination over the People. Now it has become a weapon of mass destruction, and it is being used to decimate the health of both the population and the farmland.

Urgent Action Item: Comment on this Dow petition

The U.S. government claims to be accepting public comments on this petition request. We have no way of knowing whether all such comments are merely chucked into the "round file" or whether they are actually considered, but if you want to submit comments about this petition, YOU CAN'T do it online anyway!

The government's online comment submit system doesn't recognize this document -- at least it didn't at the time this story went to press. Try the following link yourself to see if it works:
http://www.regulations.gov/#!docume...

So your only remaining option is to submit comments by mail:
• Postal Mail/Commercial Delivery: Send your comment to Docket No. APHIS-2010-0103, Regulatory Analysis and Development, PPD, APHIS, Station 3A-03.8, 4700 River Road Unit 118, Riverdale, MD 20737-1238.

From the Federal Register website:
Supporting documents and any comments we receive on this docket may be viewed at http://www.regulations.gov/#!docket... or in our reading room, which is located in room 1141 of the USDA South Building, 14th Street and Independence Avenue SW., Washington, DC. Normal reading room hours are 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, except holidays. To be sure someone is there to help you, please call (202) 690-2817 before coming.

Share this NaturalNews story! Let people know that America's corn fields are about to be treated with the same chemical weapons our nation once dropped on Vietnam.

What else you can do

Get involved with the Cornucopia Institute. They are working every day to fight exactly this kind of thing (and to protect America's farmers). Join their email list and please consider making a year-end donation to them, as they're doing fantastic work:
www.Cornucopia.org

Subscribe to their free email newsletter (highly recommended) at:
http://www.cornucopia.org/subsrcrib...

Also, check out Jeffrey Smith and the Institute for Responsible Technology, which is fighting against genetically engineered foods and crops:
www.ResponsibleTechnology.org

She's Alive... Beautiful... Finite... Hurting... Worth Dying for

2011-12-23T12:05:00.001-05:00

Doug Stanhope on Liberty

2011-12-22T14:07:00.001-05:00

Why Not Separation of Corp and State

2011-12-21T22:43:00.003-05:00

I don't get why Separation of Church and State was so important yet Separation of Corporations and State is no big deal:

double click here to enlarge

The Surveillance Catalog - Where governments get their tools

2011-12-04T21:48:00.003-05:00

Read The Surveillance Catalog- Where governments get their tools, published in the Wall St Journal. Many very interesting links.

Indeed

2011-11-28T12:49:00.000-05:00

Let's Be Conscious and Usher in the New Age With Some Common Sense

2011-11-22T13:44:00.009-05:00

Columbus the Terrible, Women Burning Englishmen, and yes even your founders - ALL Illegal Immigrants. They didn't come here to work, they came to conquer and escape paying taxes. Just some things to think about while you stuff your jowls with genetically modified animal bi-product later this week.

Be "thankful" EVERYDAY that you have learned better and can do away with "tradition" steeped in evil. Instead of cooking more than you need, bring some food to a shelter. And cancel the X-mas obligatory material swapping that the television is forcing you to take part it.

2012- New World Order can be OURS for the taking, but we must defy the laws of tradition and replace automatic participation with active defiance.

Where are all the new crusaders?

Occupy Some Knowledge

2011-11-10T15:59:00.000-05:00

It Certainly Couldn't Hurt

2011-11-02T12:10:00.002-04:00

"If you leave your money with the big banks, they will use it to pay lobbyists to keep Congress from fixing the system."

The Move Your Money project is a nonprofit campaign that encourages individuals and institutions to divest from the nation's largest Wall Street banks and move to local financial institutions. Little has changed to prevent another financial crisis or to end 'Too Big To Fail,' and with Congress unwilling to act, we are encouraging individuals to take power into their own hands by voting with their dollars and no longer contributing to a financial system that has led our country astray. We are a campaign that gives people real, concrete actions they can take to create a more sane, stable and localized banking system

More info here:
http://moveyourmoneyproject.org/

May be the more honest way to dress for work...

2011-11-01T15:41:00.000-04:00

OCCUPYING WALL STREET IS NOT ENOUGH

2011-10-28T20:06:00.000-04:00

Intellistreets is Radiation and Surveillance Ingenuity At Its Worst

2011-10-27T14:48:00.005-04:00

The Intellistreets system comprises of a wireless digital infrastructure that allows street lights to be controlled remotely by means of a ubiquitous wi-fi link and a miniature computer housed inside each street light, allowing for “security, energy management, data harvesting and digital media,” according to the Illuminating Concepts website.

Pay close attention - especially around 2:10

AND JUST SO YOU KNOW:

Due to an overwhelming negative reaction on YouTube and in the general blogoshere, Illuminating Concepts (the front company behind this Intellistreets product) nervously pulled down some of its early promotional videos. This action was widely noticed and propelled further negative speculation on the internet.

In an attempt to save face (while inadvertently offering more peculiarities within the philosophy behind this product) The Illuminating Concepts PR machine published a really bad public explanation in which Illuminating Concepts declares their mission objective is to "simply make our streets safer, more energy efficient and smarter, while being informative and entertaining."

[Click to Enlarge]

Illuminating Concepts goes on to boast "everywhere we have showcased the potential of Intellistreets, we have had the philosophical support of nearly every person with which we've had discussions, including business people, utility leaders, municipal officials and local and national politicians. They, like us, want and need to protect not only our country, but our families and friends."

Beware of suckers in your local government who may try to help funnel tax dollars towards this police state effort...

Fascist Theocracy

2011-10-27T14:39:00.001-04:00

World Collapse Explained in 3 Minutes

2011-10-23T23:12:00.000-04:00

Honest Abe

2011-10-22T10:57:00.000-04:00

Blending Pop Culture

2011-10-20T22:58:00.000-04:00

Muammar Gaddafi Taken Out

2011-10-20T22:56:00.000-04:00

The Only "iPhone App" Work Looking At

2011-10-13T23:42:00.002-04:00

Why Ron English Rules

2011-10-13T21:22:00.004-04:00

This is the highest form of art and exactly what we need more of:
http://www.delish.com/food/recalls-reviews/The comments on the original post are disappointing as many people seem to blame parents for the obesity problem and poor choice of diet -

Of course parents have to live up to their responsibility, that is true - however anyone who is an actual parent knows that you are up against a tremendous marketing machine carefully constructed by years of psychological testing that has resulted in an extremely effective mechanism for reeling in kids and creating life long users of pure trash junk food.

Defending these marketers means you side with the likes of Joe Camel and the type of advertising tactics proven to undermine youth into poor decisions. Those that make the point that "they ate it when they were kids" are naive to not only ingredient changes, but to the alarming fact that our generation is the first of all time to have a shorter life expectancy than the generation before it!

Marketing to children is a form of brainwashing that we can do without. Statistics speak for themselves here, let alone the ethical implications.

No matter how great a parent is, they are ONE or TWO up against an incredible force of ads littered all over the television, internet, in school, and from peers. Most children today are lucky to even have both parents around and those that do most likely only get to see them for a few hours a day due to work and school. Furthermore, to the folks with the "I did it and lived, so it must be okay philosophy" - the mere fact that your parents were ignorant enough to feed it to you just proves the point further.

The bottom line is that these cereals are not nutritious and harmful to people - PARTICULARLY children who will form life-long habits if hooked young enough (that is the admitted goal of the marketing and exactly why the boxes look like cartoons). That being said, this artist has done a great job at making a statement that makes you think twice before you mindlessly toss the box into your cart in sheep mode.

Ron English never disappoints!

Here are two great pieces on the subject:

Killer at Large
http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/killer_at_large

Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World
http://www.amazon.com/Fat-Land-Americans-Became-Fattest/dp/0618380604/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318554511&sr=8-1

Making Cents

2011-10-13T11:27:00.002-04:00

Nice to see some articulation here:

Hypocrisy Reigns

2011-10-13T11:23:00.003-04:00

http://videosift.com/video/I-Am-Not-Moving-Occupy-Wall-Street

Pertinent Discussion for the "Occupy" Protesters

2011-10-11T18:06:00.001-04:00

Hijacking Wall Street

2011-10-07T18:10:00.003-04:00

Mainstream media is subtly propagating the idea that The Obama Marketing Machine ( vis-à-vis the democRATic party) is trying to get its greasy hands on the Occupy Wall Street movement.

It would be an overload of irony worthy of amazement if the Obama marketing machine was actually able to transform the Occupy Wall St movement into its very campaign. Can the wool be pulled over the public's eyes twice in a row? History proves YES

Maybe instead of hijacking, co-opting, simplifying and ridiculing the movement, the way the republicant's did the Tea Party, the democRat demagogues are gonna play it a bit more subtle and stylishly.....

stay tuned

State Sovereignty (Only as long as it doesn't interfere with Pharmaceutical Lobbyists, the IRS and the Black Market Drug Racket)

2011-10-07T00:28:00.003-04:00

If the people of each state choose to decriminalize marijuana in some circumstances, the Constitution plainly reserves to them the power to do so.......but not in today's e-Merica

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44806723/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/calif-pot-dispensaries-told-feds-shut-down?gt1=43001#.To5-f7K8CCg

Damn Blasted Liar

2011-10-06T21:10:00.001-04:00

http://www.disinfo.com/2010/01/you-are-still-being-lied-to-howard-zinns-columbus-and-western-civilization/

The American Form of Government

2011-10-06T20:31:00.002-04:00

Something to share with the children...

Naomi Klein: Protesters Are Seeking Change in the Streets Because It Won’t Come From the Ballot Box

2011-10-06T20:08:00.002-04:00

This piece illustrates how mainstream media collusion works to belittle movements, the illusion of scarcity, and more:

5 Facts You Should Know About the Wealthiest One Percent of Americans

2011-10-06T20:01:00.003-04:00

Very interesting statistics here: http://www.alternet.org/economy/152601/5_facts_you_should_know_about_the_wealthiest_one_percent_of_americans/?page=entire

The Occupy Wall Street Message

2011-10-04T01:34:00.002-04:00

Official Statement from Occupy Wall Street - this statement was voted on and approved by the general assembly of protesters at Liberty Square: Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

"As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal. Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

Coming Soon to a Town Near You

2011-10-01T23:26:00.001-04:00

Modern Day Colonialism

2011-10-01T23:19:00.002-04:00

As it crumbles...

2011-10-01T23:15:00.001-04:00

Reality Struck: BBC's 'Goldman Sachs Rules' eye opener

Trader on the BBC says Eurozone Market will crash

Foreshadowing Words

2011-10-01T22:07:00.001-04:00

That Time is Approaching

2011-09-29T23:56:00.001-04:00

If Only

2011-09-28T21:09:00.002-04:00

Just Another Easy Day at the Office

2011-09-27T22:30:00.002-04:00

Video at the GCS (Ground Control Station) of typical UAV military operations showing the 2 person UAV team (Pilot and Sensor Operator) executing a countdown to an enemy target kill. UAVs are launched at actual combat locations but flight control, and weapons operations are done by a mix of military and contract personnel sitting in the USA, often in communication and coordination with on-the-ground units. Control is fully electronic "real time" via satellite uplink/downlink, including computer controlled loiter mode. Missions may be reconnaissance, search/rescue, employing sensors, psychological ops, and/or target identification and/or destruction. Currently only UAVs such as the Predators RQ/MQ-1 and MQ-9 Reapers are used by our military in overseas battle theaters to destroy enemy targets, while new exotic UAVs including gliders, and very small hovering units are operational and being developed and designed with unique functions for the future battlefield.

Huxley Was Right

2011-09-26T12:36:00.013-04:00

No small piece of video has ever fueled the urge to punch someone continuously in the balls as this:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Now they want details of everything you've done in your life to date so that in the click of a button, reports can be generated of all your actions since birth.

Aside from marketing firms and intelligence agencies - Who really needs this?

Have we become this impersonal, voyeuristic and exhibitionist?

One thing I hope many appreciate before they mindlessly segue into virtual reality is LIFE. Real life, not a series of dots in the virtual realm. Facebook is on its way to publishing every moment of our lives automatically. As younger generations (and the yet to be born) grow up with this integrated right into their lives, this is truly a revolution in the destruction of privacy and the future generation's view of privacy.

Human life should be more than a series of inane little stories. It's about real interaction in the REAL world, not quickly running through every event that took place in your neighbor's life.

More info:
Viewing and interacting in things suggested to you by "friends" and search engines based on your "likes" and frequent clicks is the equivalent of friendly censorship.

Facebook Integration with an ever-growing amount of web applications means EVERYTHING YOU DO ONLINE will be publicly monitored.

Logging out of Facebook is not enough as Facebook cookies continue tracking your moves

The Omnivore's Dilemma

2011-09-25T23:53:00.004-04:00

`The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan is by far one of the best books I have read to date on the topic of food, diet, and the evolution of industry as it relates to our health and culture. I highly recommend reading it and passing along a version specifically tailored for young readers along to someone you care about.

The book is packed with insight and I have compiled some of my reading notes here for quick reference and in the hope of sparking your interest in the book.

pg.67
Already in their short history CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) have produced more than their share of environmental and health problems: polluted water and air, toxic wastes, novel and deadly pathogens.

pg.68
The short, unhappy life of a corn-fed feedlot steer represents the ultimate triumph of industrial thinking over the logic of evolution.

pg.76
Lone of the most troubling things about factory farms is how cavalierly they flout these evolutionary rules, forcing animals to overcome deeply ingrained aversions. We make them trade their instinct for antibiotics.

pg. 78
Most of the antibiotics sold in America today end up in animal feed, a practice that, it is now generally acknowledged (except in agriculture), is leading directly to the evolution of new antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

pg. 79
Feedlot wastes also contain heavy metals and hormone residues, persistent chemicals that wind up in waterways downstream, where scientists have found fish and amphibians exhibiting abnormal sex characteristics.

pg. 82
(Cheap Food) doesn't take into account, for example, the cost to the public health of antibiotic resistance or food poisoning by E.coli O157:H7. It doesn't take into account the cost to taxpayers of the farm subsidies that keep Poky's raw materials cheap. And it certainly does not take into account all the many environmental costs incurred by cheap corn.

pg. 83
One-fifth of America's petroleum consumption goes to producing and transporting our food.

pg. 93
Nutrients, vitamins, and minerals are lost in the processing of food.

pg. 94
Food industries call this problem (that consumers can only eat but so much) "fixed stomach." Economists call it "inelastic demand."

pg. 95
Of a dollar spent on a whole food such as eggs, $.40 finds its way back to the farmer. By comparison, industrial farmers will see only $.04 of every dollar spent on corn sweeteners; ADM and Coca-Cola and General Mills capture most of the rest.

pg. 99
When fake sugars and fake fats are joined by fake starches, the food industry will at long last overcome the dilemma of the fixed stomach; whole meals you can eat as often or as much of as you like, since this food will leave no trace. Meet the ultimate - the utterly elastic! - industrial eater.

pg. 102
Three of every five Americans are overweight; one of every five is obese.

Because of all the health problems that accompany obesity, today's children may turn out to be the first generation of Americans whose life expectancy will actually be shorter than that of their parents. The problem is not limited to America: The United Nations reported that in 2000 the number of people suffering from over nutrition - a billion - had officially surpassed the number suffering from malnutrition - 800 million.

You hear plenty of explanations for humanity's expanding waistline, all of them plausible. Changes in lifestyle (we're more sedentary; we eat out more). Affluence (more people can afford a high-fat Western diet). Poverty (healthier whole foods cost more). Technology (fewer of us use are bodies to work). Clever marketing (supersized portions; advertising to children). Changes in diet (more fats; more carbohydrates; more processed foods).

pg. 103
Considering that human animal did not taste this particular food until 1980, for HFCS to have become the leading source of sweetness in our diets stands as a notable achievement on the part of the corn-refining industry.

pg. 104
HFCS was a few cents cheaper than sugar (thanks in part to tariffs on imported sugarcane secured by the corn refiners) and consumers didn't seem to notice the substitution.

pg. 108
Very simply, we subsidize high-fructose corn syrup in this country, but not carrots. While the surgeon general is raising alarms over the epidemic of obesity, the president is signing farm bills designed to keep the river of cheap corn flowing, guaranteeing that the cheapest calories in the supermarket will continue to be the unhealthiest.

pg. 110
These days, 19% of American meals are eaten in the car.

pg. 111
The generic fast-food flavor is one un-erasable smells and tastes of childhood - which makes it a kind of comfort food.

pg. 113
According to the Handbook of Food Additives, dimethylpolysiloxene is a suspected carcinogen and an established mutagen, tumorigen, and a reproductive effector; it's also flammable.

TBHQ ( a form of butane derived from petroleum) is sprayed directly on Chicken McNuggets to "help preserve freshness." TBHQ can cause nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, a sense of suffocation and collapse. Ingesting 5 grams of it can kill.

pg. 119
Of all the species that have figured out how to thrive in a world dominated Homo sapiens, surely no other has succeeded more spectacularly - has colonized more acres and bodies - than Zea mays, the grass that domesticated its domesticator. You have to wonder why we Americans don't worship this plant as fervently as the Aztecs; like they once did, we make extraordinary sacrifices to it.

pg. 132
We're going to have to re-fight the Battle of Little Bighorn to preserve the right to opt out, or your grandchildren and mine will have no choice but to eat amalgamated, irradiated, genetically prostituted, barcoded, adulterated fecal spam from the centralized processing conglomerate."

pg. 200
The ninety-nine cent price of a fast-food hamburger simply does not take account of that meal's true cost - to soil, oil, public health, the public purse, etc., costs which are never charges directly to the consumer but, indirectly and invisibly, to the taxpayer (in the form of subsidies), the health care system (in the form of food-borne illnesses and obesity), and the environment (in the form of pollution), not to mention the welfare of the animals themselves.

pg. 215
(on complexity)
To measure the efficiency of such a complex system you need to count not only all the products it produces (meat, chicken, eggs) but also the costs it eliminates: antibiotics, wormers, parasiticides, and fertilizers.

He takes advantages of each species' natural proclivities in a way that benefits not only that animals but other species as well.

pg. 243
Society is not bearing the cost of water pollution, of antibiotic resistance, of food-borne illnesses, of crop subsidies, of subsidized oil and water - of all the hidden costs to the environment and the taxpayer that make cheap food seem cheap. (blind accounting)

pg. 245
Cheapness and ignorance are mutually reinforcing. And it's a short way for not knowing who's at the other end of your food chain to not caring - to the carelessness of both producers and consumers. Of course, the global economy couldn't very well function without this wall of ignorance and the indifference it breeds.

pg. 254
Reversing the damage done to local economies and the land by the juggernaut of world trade would take nothing less than "a revolt of local small producers and local consumers against the global industrialism of the corporation."

pg. 260
We don't need a law against McDonald's or a law against slaughterhouse abuse - we ask for too much salvation by legislation. All we need to do is empower individuals with the right philosophy and the right information to opt out en masse. - Joel Salatin

pg. 318
A tension has always existed between the capitalist imperative to maximize efficiency at any cost and the moral imperatives of culture, which historically have served as a counterweight to the moral blindness of the market.

pg. 410
(On hunted/gathered food vs. industrial fast/convenient food)
The two meals stand at the far extreme ends of the spectrum of human eating - of the different ways we have to engage the world that sustains us. The pleasures of the one are based on a nearly perfect knowledge ; the pleasures of the other on an equally perfect ignorance. The diversity of the one mirrors the diversity of nature, especially the forest; the variety of the other more accurately reflects the ingenuity of industry, especially its ability to tease a passing resemblance of diversity from a single species growing in a single landscape; a monoculture of corn. The cost of the first meal is steep, yet it is acknowledged and paid for; by comparison the price of the second seems a bargain but fails to cover its true cost, charging it instead to nature, to the public health and purse, and to the future.

Your Enemy's Enemy

2011-09-25T21:54:00.002-04:00

Regardless of your opinion of Ahmadinejad or Iran - there are some very valid points in this speech. Some insight can be found here as per how many outside the US view this country and our foreign policy. Furthermore, the incredibly childish and disrespectful walk-out by many of the U.N. representatives speaks volumes on the close-minded obstinance of many UN member countries.

Also, in viewing how the media handled this speech (the very same media that likes to twist Ahmadinejad's words into a Holocaust denier) - it is quite easy to see how foreign leaders weary of western imperialism are displayed....

The full text of the speech follows, courtesy of the United Nations:

Mr. President,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am grateful to the Almighty Allah who granted me, once more, the opportunity to appear before this world assembly. I have the pleasure to express my sincere thanks to H.E. Joseph Deiss, president of the sixty-fifth session for his tremendous efforts during his tenure. I also would like to congratulate H.E Nassir Abdulaziz AI-Nasser on his election as the president of sixty-sixth session of the General Assembly and wish him all success.

Let me seize the moment to pay tribute to all those who lost their lives in the past year, particularly to the victims of the tragic famine in Somalia and the devastating flood in Pakistan and especially the earthquake and the ensuing explosions in the nuclear power plant in Japan. I urge everyone to intensify their assistance and aid to the affected populations in these countries.

Over the past years, I spoke about different global issues, and the need to introduce fundamental changes in the current international order.

Today, considering the international developments, I will try to analyze the present situation from a different angle. As you all know the dominance and superiority of human beings over other creatures, lie in the very nature and the truth of humankind which is a divine gift and a manifestation of the divine spirit including: faith in God, who is the ever-lasting creator and planner of the entire universe.

Showing compassion to others, generosity, justice-seeking, and having integrity both in words and in deeds.

The quest for dignity to reach the pinnacles of perfection, the aspiration to elevate one's material and spiritual status, and the longing to realize liberty; Defying oppression, corruption, and discrimination in trying to support the oppressed; Seeking happiness, and lasting prosperity and security for all.

These are some of the manifestations of common divine and human attributes which can clearly be seen in the historical aspirations of human beings as reflected in the heritage of our search for art and literary works both in prose and poetry, and in the socio-cultural and political movements of human beings in the course of history.

All divine prophets and social reformers invited human beings to tread on this righteous path. God has given dignity to humankind to elevate his status to assume his successor role on Earth.

It is vividly clear that despite all historical achievements, including creation of the United-Nations, which was a product of untiring struggles and efforts of free-minded and justice-seeking individuals as well as the international cooperation, human societies are yet far from fulfilling their noble desires and aspirations.

Most nations of the world are unhappy with the current international circumstances. And despite the general longing and aspiration to promote peace, progress, and fraternity, wars, mass-murder, widespread poverty, and socioeconomic and political crises continue to infringe upon the rights and sovereignty of nations, leaving behind irreparable damage worldwide.

Approximately, three billion people of the world live on less than 2.5 dollars a day, and over a billion people live without having even one sufficient meal on a daily basis. Forty-percent of the poorest world populations only share five percent of the global income, while twenty percent of the richest people share seventy-five percent of the total global income.

More than twenty thousand innocent and destitute children die every day in the world because of poverty. In the United States, eighty percent of financial resources are controlled by ten percent of its population, while only twenty percent of these resources belong to the ninety percent of the population.

What are the causes and reasons behind these inequalities? How can bone remedy such injustice?

The rulers of the global management circles divide the social life from ethics and spirituality while claiming the situation is the outcome of the pursuit of the path of divine prophets or the vulnerability of nations or the ill performance of a few groups or individuals. They claim that only their views and approaches can save the human society.

Wouldn't you think that the root cause of the problems must be sought in the prevailing international order, or the way the world is governed? I would like to draw your kind attention to the following questions:

Who abducted forcefully tens of millions of people from their homes in Africa and other regions of the world during the dark period of slavery, making them a victim of their materialistic greed?

Who imposed colonialism for over four centuries upon this world?

Who occupied lands and massively plundered resources of other nations, destroyed talents, and alienated languages, cultures and identities of nations?

Who triggered the first and second world wars, that left seventy millions killed and hundreds of millions injured or homeless. Who created the wars in Korean peninsula and in Vietnam?

Who imposed, through deceits and hypocrisy, the Zionism and over sixty years of war, homelessness, terror and mass murder on the Palestinian people and on countries of the region?

Who imposed and supported for decades military dictatorship and totalitarian regimes on Asian, African, and Latin American nations?

Who used nuclear bomb against defenseless people, and stockpiled thousands of warheads in their arsenals?

Whose economies rely on waging wars and selling arms?

Who provoked and encouraged Saddam Hussein to invade and impose an eight-year war on Iran, and who assisted and equipped him to deploy chemical weapons against our cities and our people?

Who used the mysterious September 11 incident as a pretext to attack Afghanistan and Iraq , killing, injuring, and displacing millions in two countries with the ultimate goal of bringing into its domination the Middle East and its oil resources?

Who nullified the Breton Woods system by printing trillions of dollars without the backing of gold reserves or equivalent currency? A move that triggered inflation worldwide and was intended to prey on the economic gains of other nations?

Which country's military spending exceeds annually a thousand billion dollars, more than the military budgets of all countries of the world combined?

Which governments are the most indebted ones in the world?

Who dominates the policy-making establishments of the world economy?

Who are responsible for the world economic recession, and are imposing the consequences on America, Europe and the world in general?

Which governments are always ready to drop thousands of bombs on other countries, but ponder and hesitate to provide aid to famine-stricken people in Somalia or in other places?

Who are the ones dominating the Security Council which is ostensibly responsible for safeguarding the international security?

There exist tens of other similar questions. Of course, the answers are clear.

The majority of nations and governments of the world have had no role in the creation of the current global crises, and as a matter of fact, they were themselves the victims of such policies.

It is as lucid as daylight that the same slave masters and colonial powers that once instigated the two world wars have caused widespread misery and disorder with far-reaching effects across the globe since then.

Dear Colleagues and Friends;

Do these arrogant powers really have the competence and ability to run or govern the world. Is it acceptable that they call themselves the sole defender of freedom, democracy, and human rights, while they militarily attack and occupy other countries?

Can the flower of democracy blossom from NATO's missiles, bombs and guns?

Ladies and Gentlemen;

If some European countries still use the Holocaust, after six decades, as the excuse to pay fine or ransom to the Zionists, should it not be an obligation upon the slave masters or colonial powers to pay reparations to the affected nations?

If the damage and losses of the period of slavery and colonialism were indeed compensated, what would happen to the manipulators and behind-the-scene political powers in the United States and in Europe? Would there remain any gaps between the North and the South?

If only half of military expenditures of the United States and its allies in NATO was shifted to help solve the economic problems in their own countries, would they be witnessing any symptom of the economic crisis?

What would happen, if the same amount was allocated to poor nations?

What is the justification for the presence of hundreds of US military and intelligence bases in different parts of the world, including 268 bases in Germany, 124 in Japan, 87 in South Korea, 83 in Italy, 45 in the United Kingdom, and 21 in Portugal? Does this mean anything other than military occupation?

Don't the bombs deployed in the said bases undermine the security of other nations?

The main question is the quest for the root cause of such attitudes. The prime reason should be sought in the beliefs and tendencies of the establishment. An assembly of people in contradiction with the inner human instincts and disposition who also have no faith in God and in the path of the divine prophets, replace their lust for power and materialistic ends with heavenly values.

To them, only power and wealth prevail, and every attempt must bring into focus these sinister goals.

Oppressed nations have no hope to restore or protect their legitimate rights against these powers. These powers seek their progress, prosperity and dignity through imposing poverty, humiliation and annihilation to others.

They consider themselves superior to others, enjoying special privileges and concessions. They have no respect for others and easily violate the rights of all nations and governments.

They proclaim themselves as the indisputable custodians of all governments and nations through intimidation, recourse to threat and force, and abuse the international mechanisms. They simply break all the internationally recognized regulations.

They insist on imposing their lifestyle and beliefs on others. They officially support racism. They weaken countries through military intervention, and destroy their infrastructures, in order to plunder their resources by making them all the more dependent.

They sow the seeds of hate and hostility among nations and people of different pursuits, in order to prevent them from fulfilling their goals of development and progress.

All cultures, identities, lives, values and wealth of nations, women, youth, families as well as the wealth of nations are sacrificed to their imperialistic tendencies and their inclination to enslave and captivate others.

Hypocrisy and deceit are allowed in order to secure their interests and imperialistic goals. Drug- trafficking and killing of innocent human beings are also allowed in pursuit of such diabolic goals. Despite NATO's presence in the occupied Afghanistan, there has been a dramatic increase in the production of illicit drugs there.

They tolerate no question or criticism, and instead of presenting a reason for their violations, they always put themselves in the position of a claimant. By using their imperialistic media network which is under the influence of colonialism they threaten anyone who questions the Holocaust and the September 11 event with sanctions and military action.

Last year, when the need to form a fact-finding team to undertake a thorough investigation concerning the hidden elements involved in September 11 incident was brought up; an idea also endorsed by all independent governments and nations as well as by the majority in the United States, my country and myself came under pressure and threat by the government of the United States.

Instead of assigning a fact-finding team, they killed the main perpetrator and threw his body into the sea.

Would it not have been reasonable to bring to justice and openly bring to trial the main perpetrator of the incident in order to identify the elements behind the safe space provided for the invading aircraft to attack the twin world trade towers?

Why should it not have been allowed to bring him to trial to help recognize those who launched terrorist groups and brought wars and other miseries into the region?

Is there any classified information that must be kept secret?

They view Zionism as a sacred notion and ideology. Any question concerning its very foundation and history is condemned by them as an unforgivable sin.

However they endorse and allow sacrileges and insult against beliefs of other divine religions.

Dear Colleagues and Friends;

Real freedom, justice" dignity, well being, and lasting security are the rights of all nations. These values can neither be achieved by reliance on the current inefficient system of world governance, nor through the invasion of the world by arrogant powers and the gun barrels of NATO forces.

These values could only be realized through independence and recognition of others' rights and through harmony and cooperation.
Is there any way to address the problems and challenges besetting the world by using the prevailing international mechanisms and tools to help humanity achieve the long-standing aspiration of peace, security and equality?

All those who tried to introduce reforms whilst preserving the existing norms and tendencies have failed. The valuable efforts made by the Non-Aligned movement and Group 77 and GrouplS as well as by some prominent individuals have failed to bring fundamental changes.
Governance and management of the world require fundamental reforms.

What should be done now?

Dear Colleagnes and Friends;

Efforts must be made with a firm resolve and through collective cooperation to map out a new plan, on the basis of principles and the very foundation of universal human values such as Monotheism, justice, freedom, love and the quest for happiness.

The idea of creation of the United Nations remains a great and historical achievement of mankind. Its importance must be appreciated and its capacities must be used to the extent possible for our noble goals.

We should not allow this organization which is the reflection of the collective will and shared aspiration of the community of nations, to deviate from its main course and play into the hands of the world powers.

Conducive ground must be prepared to ensure collective participation and involvement of nations in an effort to promote lasting peace and security.

Shared and collective management of the world must be achieved in its true sense, and based on the underlying principles enshrined in the international law. Justice must serve as the criterion and the basis for all international decisions and actions.

All of us should acknowledge the fact that there is no other way than the shared and collective management of the world in order to put an end to the present disorders, tyranny, and discriminations worldwide.
This is indeed the sole way to prosperity and welfare of human society which is an established and vivid truth.

While acknowledging the above truth, one should note that acknowledgement alone is not enough. We must believe in it and spare no effort toward its realization.

Dear Colleagues and Friends;

Shared and collective management of the world is the legitimate right of all nations, and we as their representatives, have an obligation to defend their rights. Although some powers continuously try to frustrate all international efforts aimed at promoting collective cooperation, we must, however, strengthen our belief in achieving the perceived goal of establishing a shared and collective cooperation to run the world.

The United Nations was created to make effective participation of all nations in international decision-making processes, possible. We all know that this goal has not yet been fulfilled because of the absence of justice in the current management structures and mechanisms of the UN.

The composition of the Security Council is unjust and inequitable. Therefore, changes including the restructuring of the United Nations are considered the basic demands of the nations that must be addressed by the General Assembly.

During last year session, I emphasized the importance of this issue and called for the designation of the current decade as the decade of shared and collective Global Management.

I would like to reiterate again my proposal. I am sure that through international cooperation, diligence and efforts by committed world leaders and governments and through insisting on the realization of justice and the support of all other nations, we can expedite the building of a common bright future.

This movement is certainly on its rightful path of creation, ensuring a promising future for humanity. A future that will be built when humanity initiates to trend the path of the divine prophets and the righteous under the leadership of Imam al-Mahdi, the Ultimate Savior of mankind and the inheritor to all divine messengers and leaders and to the pure generation of our great Prophet.

The creation of a supreme and ideal society with the arrival of a perfect human being who is a true and sincere lover of all human beings, is the guaranteed promise of Allah.

He will come alongside with Jesus Christ to lead the freedom and justice lovers to eradicate tyranny and discrimination, and promote knowledge, peace, justice freedom and love across the world. He will present to every single individual all the beauties of the world and all good things which bring happiness for humankind.

Today nations have been awakened. With the increase in public awareness,they no longer succumb to oppressions and discriminations.

The world is now witnessing more than ever, the widespread awakening in Islamic lands, in Asia, Europe, and America. These movements are ever expanding their spirit everyday and influence the pursuit of the realization of justice, freedom and the creation of a better tomorrow.

Our great nation stands ready to join hands with other nations to march on this beautiful path in harmony and in line with the shared aspirations of mankind.

Let us salute love, freedom, justice, wisdom, and the bright future that awaits humankind.

Thank you.

Third-Party Pres? Never Happen

2011-09-23T21:36:00.004-04:00

Here's some creative use of Photoshop and video editing that made me wish I had thought of this first:

http://blog.cgpgrey.com/

Pretty damn cool.

This one illustrates clearly why we can never have a third party candidate ever win an election.

Combined with this, it is pretty clear just how rigged everything is.

Of course one possible alternative is this:

Above the Law - Some Are More Equal Than Others

2011-09-22T13:40:00.005-04:00

Troy Davis, a very possibly innocent man, is executed for allegedly killing an off-duty police man even though seven witnesses from his trial say otherwise and there is a possible confession of another suspect.

Following the original trial, seven witnesses changed or recanted all or part of their testimony. The limited ability to appeal the guilty conviction was due in part by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996....that, and the completely inane argument by the prosecution that it was too late to present the recantations as evidence.

Meanwhile, SIX police officers team up in the brutal slaying of a homeless man (on camera) and get placed on PAID LEAVE while the incident is ~~slowly buried in the news~~ "investigated".

Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Davis_case
http://www.kabc.com/rssItem.asp?feedid=118&itemid=29728500

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/09/21/california-police-officers-charged-in-death-homeless-man/?test=latestnews

Truth Eventually Infiltrates Even the MTV Youth

2011-09-20T13:36:00.002-04:00

LUPE FIASCO
"Words I Never Said"
(feat. Skylar Grey)

[Skylar Grey]
It’s so loud Inside my head
With words that I should have said!
As I drown in my regrets
I can’t take back the words I never said
I can’t take back the words I never said

[Lupe Fiasco]
I really think the war on terror is a bunch of bullshit
Just a poor excuse for you to use up all your bullets
How much money does it take to really make a full clip
9/11 building 7 did they really pull it
Uhh, And a bunch of other cover ups
Your childs future was the first to go with budget cuts
If you think that hurts then, wait here comes the uppercut
The school was garbage in the first place, that's on the up and up
Keep you at the bottom but tease you with the uppercrust
You get it then they move it so you never keeping up enough
If you turn on TV all you see’s a bunch of “what the fucks”
Dude is dating so and so blabbering bout such and such
And that ain't Jersey Shore, homie that's the news
And these the same people that supposed to be telling us the truth
Limbaugh is a racist, Glenn Beck is a racist
Gaza strip was getting bombed, Obama didn’t say shit
That's why I ain't vote for him, next one either
I’ma part of the problem, my problem is I’m peaceful
And I believe in the people.

[Skylar Grey]
It’s so loud inside my head
With words that I should have said!
As I drown in my regrets
I can’t take back the words I never said
I can’t take back the words I never said

[Lupe Fiasco - Verse 2]
Now you can say it ain't our fault if we never heard it
But if we know better than we probably deserve it
Jihad is not a holy war, wheres that in the worship?
Murdering is not Islam!
And you are not observant
And you are not a muslim
Israel don’t take my side cause look how far you’ve pushed them
Walk with me into the ghetto, this where all the Kush went
Complain about the liquor store but what you drinking liquor for?
Complain about the gloom but when’d you pick a broom up?
Just listening to Pac ain't gone make it stop
A rebel in your thoughts, ain't gon make it halt
If you don’t become an actor you’ll never be a factor
Pills with million side effects
Take em when the pains felt
Wash them down with Diet soda!
Killin off your brain cells
Crooked banks around the World
Would gladly give a loan today
So if you ever miss a payment
They can take your home away!

[Skylar Grey]
It’s so loud inside my head
With words that I should have said!
As I drown in my regrets
I can’t take back the words I never said, never said
I can’t take back the words I never said

[Lupe Fiasco - Verse 3]
I think that all the silence is worse than all the violence
Fear is such a weak emotion that's why I despise it
We scared of almost everything, afraid to even tell the truth
So scared of what you think of me, I’m scared of even telling you
Sometimes I’m like the only person I feel safe to tell it to
I’m locked inside a cell in me, I know that there’s a jail in you
Consider this your bailing out, so take a breath, inhale a few
My screams is finally getting free, my thoughts is finally yelling through

[Skylar Grey]
It’s so loud Inside my head
With words that I should have said!
As I drown in my regrets
I can’t take back the words I never said

Kucinich- The Guy You Never Had a Chance to Hear

2011-09-18T23:57:00.003-04:00

More Evidence That NJ Is The Worst State to Raise a Family

2011-09-17T16:56:00.004-04:00

A new mandate in the Organized Crime Capital of America now in place that will have the children of New Jersey going through undue stress and anxiety twice a month.

Just as in the past, with the Cold War hype, the Cuban Missile Crisis nonsense, etc - today's children are being instilled with the unnecessary fear of terrorizing catastrophes right in the middle of what is shamefully called an education.

PLEASE read this article here:
Monthly Terror Drills Now Required By Law For Students Including Kindergarten And 1st Graders

We have now gotten to the point where we subject children as young as 5 years old to potentially traumatizing drills which present the possibility of living the remainder of his school life deathly afraid that bad men are going to show up at his school to murder and kill him and hundreds of his school mates.

Shame on New Jersey and shame on parents who leave their kids in their school. Don't allow these Two Minutes Hate tactics to happen to your children. Schools should be functioning to develop creativity, problem solving, critical thinking and time-management skills, to contribute to society and the environment through caring for the youth of our society - NOT functioning to indoctrinate our children with hate, fear, and unfounded anxiety.

Seeing From A Plant's View

2011-09-15T22:41:00.002-04:00

Post-9/11, NSA 'enemies' include us by James Bamford

2011-09-12T23:10:00.003-04:00

Post-9/11, NSA 'enemies' include us
Politico - Opinion
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/62999_Page3.html
By: James Bamford
September 8, 2011 09:34 PM EDT

Somewhere between Sept. 11 and today, the enemy morphed from a handful of terrorists to the American population at large, leaving us nowhere to run and no place to hide.

Within weeks of the attacks, the giant ears of the National Security Agency, always pointed outward toward potential enemies, turned inward on the American public itself. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, established 23 years before to ensure that only suspected foreign agents and terrorists were targeted by the NSA, would be bypassed. Telecom companies, required by law to keep the computerized phone records of their customers confidential unless presented with a warrant, would secretly turn them over in bulk to the NSA without ever asking for a warrant.

Around the country, in tall, windowless telecom company buildings known as switches, NSA technicians quietly began installing beam-splitters to redirect duplicate copies of all phone calls and email messages to secret rooms behind electronic cipher locks.

There, NSA software and hardware designed for “deep packet inspection” filtered through the billions of email messages looking for key names, words, phrases and addresses. The equipment also monitored phone conversations and even what pages people view on the Web — the porn sites they visit, the books they buy on Amazon, the social networks they interact with and the text messages they send and receive.

Because the information is collected in real time, attempting to delete history caches from a computer is useless.

At the NSA, thousands of analysts who once eavesdropped on troop movements of enemy soldiers in distant countries were now listening in on the bedroom conversations of innocent Americans in nearby states.

“We were told that we were to listen to all conversations that were intercepted, to include those of Americans,” Adrienne Kinne, a former NSA “voice interceptor,” told me. She was recalled to active duty after Sept. 11.

“Some of those conversations are personal,” she said. “Some even intimate. … I had a real problem with the fact that people were listening to it and that I was listening to it. … When I was on active duty in ’94 to ’98, we would never collect on an American.”

Despite his hollow campaign protests, President Barack Obama has greatly expanded what President George W. Bush began. And through amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Congress largely ratified the secret Bush program.

So much intercepted information is now being collected from “enemies” at home and abroad that, in order to store it all, the agency last year began constructing the ultimate monument to eavesdropping. Rising in a remote corner of Utah, the agency’s gargantuan data storage center will be 1 million square feet, cost nearly $2 billion and likely be capable of eventually holding more than a yottabyte of data — equal to about a septillion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) pages of text.

By Sept. 11, 2011, the words of George Orwell in his novel “1984” will have become prophetic. “Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it,” he wrote in 1949, long before the Internet. “You have to live — did live, from habit that became instinct — in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard.”

On Sept. 10, 2001, however, Winston would have found a radically different society. The NSA, the surveillance equivalent of a nuclear bomb, was allowed to point its massive antennas and satellites only away from the country. Before an American could be targeted, a judge from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court would first have to find a link to terrorism or espionage in order to issue a warrant. And installing permanent taps on all of the country’s major communications links would have been impossible.

More than 35 years earlier, one person warned of such a possibility. On Aug. 17, 1975, as America was enjoying a lazy summer watching “Jaws” and “The Exorcist” at the movies, Idaho Sen. Frank Church took his seat on “Meet the Press.” For months, as the first chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Church had been conducting the first in-depth investigation of America’s growing intelligence community.

When he looked into the NSA, he came away shocked by its potential for abuse. Without mentioning the agency’s name — almost forbidden at the time — he nonetheless offered an unsolicited but grave warning:

“That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such [is] the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter,” Church said. “There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.

“I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”

Church’s warning then has even more resonance today. In 1975, most people communicated only by telephone and the mail. While the NSA had the technical capability back then to intercept the limited telephone calls sent by satellite, it lacked the capability to monitor the millions of calls transmitted around the country over wires, the predominant method used, or anything sent through the mail.

Today, with everyone constantly communicating over cellphones and email, and spending hours on the Internet, the agency has the ability not just to hear and read what someone says but even to understand what and how they think.

America crossed Church’s proverbial bridge not because of the attacks. It’s been clearly shown that Sept. 11 could have easily been prevented with just the technology at hand — it was caused by human failure, not technological failure.

Rather, it was years of fearmongering that sent everyone rushing across the bridge. Without these draconian measures, we were told, we were in imminent danger of death by terrorist. For the Bush administration, the constant drumbeat of fear was necessary to launch and support the war in Iraq since no real danger existed.

From the outside, America began resembling Deputy Barney Fife from “The Andy Griffith Show,” shaking and trembling and constantly pointing a gun in every direction. There was Homeland Security with its rainbow of colors for security alerts; the weekly warnings of dire attacks, with no indication of time or location, none of which ever turned out to be credible; messages plastered on buses and billboards warning members of the public to keep a close eye on their neighbors and even their family; and body frisks at airports by security thugs looking for forbidden tubes of toothpaste.

Church was also right in his warning that once over the abyss, there is no return. Laws put in place stay in place — even if the reason for the fear is gone or never existed in the first place. And technology always moves forward; it never recedes.

A surveillance system capable of monitoring 10 million people simultaneously this year will be able to monitor 100 million the next year — at probably half the cost. And every time new communications technology appears on the market, rest assured that someone at the NSA has already found a way to monitor it. It’s what the NSA does.

What Church likely never anticipated was the rise of the security-industrial complex, a revolving door between those generating the fears and those profiting from them.

When warning the country of the dangers of an unchained NSA, Church may have been thinking of a passage from Friedrich Nietzsche when he spoke of the abyss:

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that

In the process he does not become a monster

And when you look long into the abyss

The abyss also looks into you.”

James Bamford writes frequently on intelligence and produces documentaries for PBS. His latest book is “The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America.”

My Potato Project; The Importance of "Organic"

2011-09-12T23:01:00.001-04:00

Using 9/11 For All Types of Agendas

2011-09-11T13:23:00.010-04:00

Gerald Caplan published an Op_ed on the Globe and Mail website titled, "The world after 9/11: Naomi Klein prevails again"
(view here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/gerald-caplan/the-world-after-911-naomi-klein-prevails-again/article2159689/singlepage/#articlecontent)

The article was written by Gerald Caplan, but the title drops Naomi Klein's name for a reason never mentioned in the article. I suspect the point of the name drop was to gain an audience through search engine news readers. Kind of a shabby thing to do and not very good ethics on the part of the publisher if you ask me.

But assuming these views are shared by Naomi herself, my response would be as follows:

I am a fan if Naomi Klein's work. I loved No Logo. I have The Shock Doctrine on my ever-expanding "to buy" list.

While I see the underlying point of this article, and agree that tax reform for the wealthy is long overdue in this country, I struggle to see the correlation between that fact and the events of 9/11. Using the two topics in juxtaposition seems like more use of emotionally driven propaganda - the kind we have been getting all week long from just about every source under the sun.

Again, I love Naomi's works on globalization and hyper-capitalism and I agree with most of her philosophies, but I am always disappointed when writers and critics with such valid points bring the conservative/liberal, republican/democrat paradigms into the argument because I see these things as basically two sides of the same coin. (Again - this is assuming Ms. Klein has anything to do with this article at all.)

In my own opinion, people who strongly defend or attack specific parts of this "coin" are either products of naiveté (most likely from a long line of brainwashed culture) or just very subtle, cunning party propagandists.

That being said, I disagree with the statement (which has now become popular cliché) in blaming conservatives for the plummet of America in respect to the economy, civil liberties, or anything along those lines.

It states in the article, "conservative politicians have been able to have their way with us – us being the vast majority of the world’s population." It also says, "conservatives intensified the culture wars."

While I was an avid critic and protester of Bush and his circle of tyrants, I always maintained the memory of Bill Clinton as the pied piper who brought us such gems as NAFTA, the fuel for the financial crisis, the repeal of the Glass–Steagall Act, bombings in Yugoslavia, a major terrorist attack of civilians in Afghanistan, etc....

Furthermore, as much as I detested G.W.Bush's horrific arrogance and outright disregard for America (i.e. robbing an election and unconstitutional warfare against Iraq) - there is one thing much too often omitted in the constant blaming of the conservative party for every ailment the country faces - and that is the blatant way that the Obama administration has extended and reinforced just about every atrocity to our civil liberties and horrible foreign policy blamed eternally on the Bush admin. One merely has to look at the men "behind the curtain" in all these administrations to find the same familiar faces throughout any range of presidencies. Upon doing so, it is plain to see that the democrat/republican paradigm is nothing more than clever marketing schemes.

Often Barack Obama does not receive the criticism that is always aimed at Bush for his invasion and occupation of Iraq. America's longest war in Afghanistan, was supported by Obama even before American forces had set foot in Iraq. Why is he not regularly criticized as a war monger or for the drone attacks on civilians in Pakistan, a war criminal? Instead he gets a Nobel Prize.

One theory is that he is protected from such criticism because he is a Democrat or our first black-skinned president?

When a product once bought regularly begins to wobble in the market, re-branding is necessary to get consumers to continue buying. It is disheartening when writers I admire begin to read like such marketers. (again assuming that Naomi Klein even had anything to do with Gerald Caplan's published opinion.)

On similar topics:

On Blackwater:
http://www.thenation.com/blog/36756/blackwaters-new-sugar-daddy-obama-administration

http://thebabylonresistancemovement.blogspot.com/2011/06/jeremy-scahill-obama-blackwater-war.html

On Obama defending Bush
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/09/08/obama

Where's Momar?

2011-09-07T23:20:00.007-04:00

Recordpub.com published an article by Ryan Lucas called, Confusion in Libya over Gadhafi's whereabouts .

"He can't get out...We are just playing games with him" - Anis Sharif, a spokesman for Tripoli's military council, told The Associated Press.

It doesn't seem he's going to the Hague for his war crimes anytime soon! I thought "democratic" societies offer some sort of trial but this may be another one of those, "We went in and assassinated him in front of his family and then dumped the body in the sea before anyone could get any photos...out of respect for his faith," type of democratic processes.....

Maybe they will wait to sacrifice him on the anniversary of G.H.W. Bush's infamous "New World Order" speech (just so happened to be the date America was hijacked 11 years later too) - 9/11? As anyone from Chile can tell ya, it's a great day for a coup d'état.

Censorship by Omission

2011-09-07T11:58:00.003-04:00

Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land U.S. Media & the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict provides much clear evidence that the media game is rigged against Arabs in the United States. This video illustrates how (aside from the vast abundance of financial and military support (by way of weapons) the United States showers onto Israel in aid of the Palestinian genocide) PERHAPS THE MOST CRITICAL AID is the one-sided spin of misrepresentation that American mainstream media dishes out to keep citizens here ignorant and complacent.

After all, if the majority of Americans knew the atrocities and war crimes being committed constantly by Israel onto the Palestinian people, they might have a problem with things - like for example ,the U.S. grants and loan guarantees to Israel for fiscal 1997 was $5,525,800,000.

Shirl McArthur wrote in the May 2003 issue of Washington Report.*

McArthur's article, "A Conservative Tally of Total Direct U.S. Aid to Israel: $97.5 Billion - and Counting" tallies the hidden costs, such as interest lost due to the early disbursement of aid to Israel and funds hidden in other accounts. For example, Israel received $5.45 billion in Defense Department funding of Israeli weapons projects through 2002, McArthur says.

Loans made to Israel by the U.S. government, like the recently awarded $9 billion, invariably wind up being paid by the American taxpayer. A recent Congressional Research Service report indicates that Israel has received $42 billion in waived loans. "Therefore, it is reasonable to consider all government loans to Israel the same as grants," McArthur says.

Support for Israel has cost America dearly - well over than $10,000 per American.*

This seems to play out as a major motive for Israel to manipulate and distorts American public perceptions. The United States has been considered Israel's most powerful and supportive ally and accounts for around 25% of Israel's military occupation (and genocide) of Palestine.

Through the voices of scholars, media critics, peace activists, religious figures, and Middle East experts, Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land carefully analyzes and explains how--through the use of language, framing and context--the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza remains hidden in the news media, and Israeli colonization of the occupied territories appears to be a defensive move rather than an offensive one.

If you don't have time to watch the entire film, at least take a careful look at 48:08 - 50:05 in the film. This is one instance (amongst many others in the film) very clear picture of how Israel's American PR Campaign works their magic in our media and therefore understanding of the situation:
48:08 - 50:05

Further info:
* http://wrmea.org/component/content/article/245-2008-november/3845-congress-watch-a-conservative-estimate-of-total-direct-us-aid-to-israel-almost-114-billion.html

Watch free on Google Videos: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2165626245072381061

Usufruct

2011-09-05T23:14:00.002-04:00

One solution to the "food shortage" hype:

In The Not-So-Distant Past - In The Not So Distant Future

2011-08-16T21:58:00.007-04:00

Many believe Eugenics is a science-fiction concept. Others think it died with Nazi Germany. The truth is, the Nazi's got the concept from England (and America) and it has lived on to current times under many different names and hidden agendas (The founder of planned parenthood (Margaret Sanger) was a eugenicist, for example.)

By the early 20th century, most U.S. states had eugenics programs, and more than 30 enacted laws mandating surgical sterilization for certain individuals. It is estimated that as many as 100,000 people were sterilized in the country before the practice was discredited (moved underground and distributed through "voluntary" mechanisms, like birth-control, abortion, or not voluntarily through side-effects of many common medications and personal "care"products.).

Some recent news on the subject has come to light in North Carolina. Between 1929 and 1974, North Carolina sterilized more than 7,600 individuals in the name of "improving" the state's human stock. By the time the program was halted, the majority of those neutered were young, black, poor women. SOme of them have come forward. Read more here.

It's also amazing to me that in spite of being raped, this woman had her child who went on to be such an important blessing of love and support for her throughout her life. Makes you think...

Blocking Out Paul

2011-08-16T10:41:00.002-04:00

Great example of how mainstream media keeps genuine candidates out of the spotlight and away from the presidential race:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Indecision 2012 - Corn Polled Edition - Ron Paul & the Top Tier

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

The Daily Show on Facebook

Anytime the corporate sponsored media puts this much effort into keeping a candidate out of the news - you KNOW that's the guy you want to spread awareness of...

PLH - Gregg Green World Citizen

2011-08-15T10:45:00.001-04:00

Gems in the content:

Stomping Out That Pesky First Ammendment

2011-08-13T11:43:00.002-04:00

When Egypt did this to it's protesters it was an outrage. When police did this in London it sparked uprising. When it happens in duhmerica it barely makes news....hmmmmmm

PAUL ELIAS of the Associated Press wrote:

Transit officials blocked cellphone reception in San Francisco train stations for three hours to disrupt planned demonstrations over a police shooting.

Officials with the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, better known as BART, said Friday that they turned off electricity to cellular towers in four stations from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday. The move was made after BART learned that protesters planned to use mobile devices to coordinate a demonstration on train platforms.

The tactic drew comparisons to those used by the former president of Egypt to squelch protests demanding an end to his authoritarian rule. Authorities there cut Internet and cellphone services in the country for days earlier this year.

"BART officials are showing themselves to be of a mind with the former president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak," the Electronic Frontier Foundation said on its website.

The American Civil Liberties Union criticized the tactic, saying on its blog that it was the "wrong response to political protests."

BART officials were confident the cellphone disruptions were legal. They said in a statement that it's illegal to demonstrate on the platform or aboard the trains, and that it has set aside special areas for demonstrations.

The demonstration planned Thursday failed to develop. "We had a commute that was safe and without disruption," said BART spokesman Jim Allison.

The demonstrators were protesting the July 3 shooting of Charles Blair Hill by BART police, who claimed Hill came at them with a knife. Several people were arrested when a July 11 demonstration disrupted service during the rush-hour commute and prompted the closing of BART's Civic Center station.

Read more here:

BART admits halting cell service to stop protests
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/12/BAEU1KMS8U.DTL

Mad As Hell

2011-08-13T11:38:00.001-04:00

Our Troops do NOT Protect Our Freedom and We Should Stop Thanking Them for Doing So

2011-08-08T11:41:00.002-04:00

re-post, originally written by Jesse Richard – Founder, TvNewsLIES.org (Be sure to read all the articles associated with the links here for some important insight.)

Let's make one thing crystal clear, no member of the US military contributes in any way whatsoever to protecting the freedoms of the American people. As a matter of fact, they are more likely to turn their weapons on you than they are to defend your Constitutional rights.

The only people on this planet Earth who can affect your freedom are members of Congress, local legislators and the members of enforcement institutions who will blindly follow the rulers who sign their paychecks. And, while your beloved troops are murdering people around the globe, yes, I said murdering, your Congress and local legislators are eliminating your freedoms, en masse, without any intervention by our so-called protectors in the armed forces.

There is no honor in volunteering to go anywhere in the world and kill anybody you are told to, without question, without historical background and without verifying the stated reasons for doing so. In this modern age of information we now know that time and time again our military have been deployed into battle, to kill and be killed, for reasons that in no way shape or form resemble the reasons for which they, or we were told at the time. This is no secret, although many Americans refuse to take off the flag that is wrapped around their eyes and see American history as it really happened. They blindly believe what was told to them by the people who have a vested interest in maintaining myths and misconceptions.

The US military, not once but twice, committed the single largest mass murders in history by dropping nuclear weapons on civilian populations, including of course, on women and children. Say what you want about how it helped end the war....the bottom line is the US could have exploded these devices over uninhabited territory with the same effect of scaring the heck out of the Japanese. But they followed orders that were lies and murdered almost 300,000 people, without question. As a human being I find it hard to honor such “patriotism.”

From the Gulf of Tonkin to the first and second invasions of Iraq, history now teaches us that lies have led our troops to military intervention more often than not. As a matter of fact, it is hard to find an American military intervention in modern history in which the cover story ends up matching the actual events. A little research will show you this. It will also show you how the same people are usually behind funding both sides of military conflict and those doing the funding and instigating have almost always been, how should I say this, the 'good guys.' Yep, westerners on the popular side of conflict are the onese funding the 'bad guys' before they ever are labeled the bad guys.

Prescott Bush, the father and grandfather of George H.W. and George W. respectively, made his fortune by funding the Nazis and Hitler's rise to power. This is the same clan who went after Saddam Hussein in Iraq after they put him in power and armed him in the first place. But why pay attention to details if it interferes with our troop worship and flag waving?

Time and time again we see that the people who make decisions to send troops to war are the very people who profit financially from such wars. Today's troops can see this. It is part of the public record, yet they still do not question their missions. They join the military with a promise never to question orders. Taking history into account, I see no pride in this kind of service.

Recent history provides a very clear lesson for our troops and those who cheer their missions. You have never seen a more clear and egregious example of questionable motivations for military intervention than during the Bush/Cheney administration. A virtual 'who's who' of defense contractors comprised not only the Defense Policy Board, but the office of Vice President. Not to mention that a significant portion of these men signed a document noting that that a 'new Peal Harbor' would be useful in getting public support for their agenda (to increase military spending and activity), and then - just such an attack - the first Pearl Harbor in 60 years took place on 9/11...what a nice coincidence.

Gee, what are the odds of the only 'Pearl Harbor' in 60 years taking place while the men responsible for preventing one (and in positions to create/allow one) were the same men who wrote about benefiting from one. But according to most Americans, it is crazy to suspect them of anything...simply because they are Americans. If Dick Cheney had been a Muslim he would have been hanged 9 years ago.

Unfortunately, the majority of Americans have neither the intellectual curiosity to actually learn about historical events nor the intelligence to actually think about claims made by their leaders or pop-journalism-gate keeping-icons.

For example: Americans have swallowed whole the concept of our troops “protecting our freedom” without ever once asking “how, how does killing foreigners in Iraq or Afghanistan protect our freedom?” Maybe if they asked that question just once and really waited for an answer, a real answer that actually really made sense to them, they would realize there is no answer - because troops killing foreigners have no impact on the freedoms of the American people, and they never will.

Here is another question Americans have not asked, “How can an Iraqi, Pakistani, Afghan or Islamic fundamentalist in other nations take away our freedom?” The answer to this question is of course...by becoming a member of the US Congress.

It is sad that I will be lambasted for speaking the truth about this sensitive subject, but someone has to. The saddest truth however, is that the members of the US military serve today with no honor. They are dangerous and a threat to all free people, here and abroad. In plain terms - they volunteer to kill at the behest of people who have lied to them for generations about why they are being sent to kill. Generations of lies be dammed, they still follow orders, and kill, without question. I repeat - as a human being I see no honor in this.

While it is true that the existence of our military acts to deter nations from invading our shores, credit really should go more to our nuclear arsenal and military technology than to National Guardsman who find themselves shooting at Iraqis in their own homeland. I don't think that it is a deterrent to have private American “security firms” torture, for fun, the “enemies” who are in their own country, in their own neighborhoods, near their own families, and who dare to fight the American military personnel who obliterated their homes, killed their brothers, sisters, children, mothers and fathers, and occupy their soil. The nerve of them!

In the meantime, your freedoms and protections are being systematically eliminated while government protected rights for corporations are expanding beyond your wildest dreams. If this nation had a legitimate mainstream news media you would know this and you would probably take to the streets and revolt because you would realize what some of us already know, your rights, health and wealth have been under assault while you are distracted by bogey men in foreign nations who are supposedly going to take your freedom away!!!

So how free are you and who exactly are the terrorists. Here is how free you are in your own home in your own country. These are just a few examples - off the top of my head. - there are more...but to start...

You are not allowed to drink raw milk, no matter how healthy it is, because under certain rare conditions may cause health issues), but you do have the right to smoke chemically addicting cigarettes that when used as directed WILL KILL YOU!
You don't have the right to stop your food supply from being contaminated and genetically manipulated, leaving you with no alternative.
You don't have the right to collect rain water or grow your own vegetables to feed your family.
You have no right to stop corporations from poisoning your air and water.
You have no right to treat your ailments naturally because your government has declared that the only way to become healthy is by medications and treatments that will produce big profits for corporations. Healthy food can not benefit your health and if it does the FDA will classify it as a drug.
You have no right to raise your child without injecting toxins and dangerous chemicals directly into their blood streams.
During the Bush/Cheney administration you had no right to free speech. Special zones called “free speech” zones were created and kept far from Bush and Cheney where those who wanted to speak as free Americans could gather.
You are not free to exchange goods and services on your own terms. You must use Federal Reserve Notes, which is NOT U.S. CURRENCY. It is a system of money created and maintained, unconstitutionally, by a cadre of private banks.
You are not free to feed homeless people and if you are homeless you are not free to be fed by your fellow citizens.
We are not free to know about or have any say about secret activities in which our rulers partake. For example what terrible weapons they create, what biological or chemical programs that may accidentally or purposely destroy us all, how they set up and instigate wars and conflict as well as events that justify actions for which they want to take but have no legitimate justifications.

America is not yet a totalitarian dictatorship, but it is clearly on the way to becoming one. And our beloved troops are doing nothing at all to stop this. What is worse is that some day they may actually be the ones to stop you from doing anything about it. They are already practicing to do so.

So if you want to thank people for protecting your freedom...thank journalists...real ones, not establishment hacks, who try to inform you about what is taking place while you are distracted by nonsense. Thank civil liberty lawyers and staff who don't use their education to make it rich charging criminally high fees for their services. Thank whistle blowers. Thank people who risk a backlash of threats and worse to finally speak the truth to people who simply don't want to know there is a truth beyond the myths that have comforted them throughout their lives. And while you do this I'll thank you for at least listening to these uncomfortable words. Reality is not pretty, but if we all open our eyes to reality maybe we can stop those who make it so ugly.

I don't know about you, but I want to be proud of my country for real reasons, not mythical ones.

Think about it. Jesse Richard – Founder, TvNewsLIES.org

David Will Beat Goliath

2011-08-01T10:33:00.000-04:00

"...even in the 20th century, with faith, courage and a just cause - David will still beat Goliath.

Ken Robinson on Education

2011-07-27T11:20:00.002-04:00

Their Way Around That Pesky 4th Amendment

2011-07-10T22:45:00.004-04:00

The former CIA Director, Michael Hayden is proposing "what many others federal officials are hopeful for," a separate internet that is not privacy protected under the beloved fourth amendment.

In other words, a separate internet for banking, health related, military, etc - where any government (a.k.a. corporate) bureaucracies have free legal reign to search and seize any or all of your info to use as they see fit.

According to these goons, it is after all, that pesky fourth amendment that is making our present day internet so vulnerable to (make believe)"cyber attacks."

Read the original propaganda here: Former CIA Director: Build a new Internet to improve cybersecurity (notice in the article how folks who value privacy are being called "hobbits.")
(Link: http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20110706_1137.php)

This "4th Amendment Free" internet will start off with financial, transportation and communications infrastructure as indicated in this article, but this will of course be the beginning of the end. Slowly over time we will see more an more sites become 4th Amendment free in the name of cyber-security. This direct attack against privacy is being played very carefully and remember civil liberties erode slowly and legally over time.

NOTHING should fall outside the 4th Amendment- keep a vigilant eye on this one....

What You Need To Know About Sunscreen

2011-07-05T15:27:00.006-04:00

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, Editor of NaturalNews.com

Ask somebody about sunscreen and you're likely to receive an earful of disinformation from a person who has been repeatedly misinformed by health authorities and the mainstream media. Almost nothing you hear about sunscreen from traditional media channels is accurate. So here's a quick guide to the 7 most important things you need to know about sunscreen, sunlight and vitamin D:

#1) The FDA refuses to allow natural sunscreen ingredients to be used in sunblock / sunscreen products

It's true: If you create a truly natural sunscreen product using exotic botanicals with powerful sunscreen properties, you will never be able to market it as a "sunscreen" product. That's because the FDA decides what can be used as sunscreen and what can't, regardless of what really works in the real world. And there are really only two natural ingredients the FDA has allowed to be sold as sunscreen: Zinc oxide and titanium dioxide.

Any other non-chemical sunscreen ingredients, if sold as "sunscreen," would be considered mislabeled by the FDA and result in your products being confiscated... even if they offer fantastic sunscreen protection!

Not surprisingly, this whole monopoly over sunscreen chemicals is designed to protect the profits of the chemical companies while marginalizing the natural product companies which could easily formulate far better solutions. I have personally spoken to the founders of several health product companies who have figured out amazing sunscreen formulations using nothing but natural botanicals, but the FDA won't let them market their products as sunscreen products!

It's just another example of the FDA standing in the way of health innovation.

#2) Nearly all conventional sunscreen products contain cancer-causing chemicals

Read the ingredients list of any sunscreen product sold at Wal-Mart, or Walgreens, or any other mainstream store. I dare ya!

You will not be able to pronounce most of the chemicals found in the ingredients list. That's because most sunscreen products are formulated with cancer-causing fragrance chemicals, parabens, harsh alcohols, toxic chemical solvents and petroleum oils. A typical sunscreen product is actually a chemical assault on your body. That's why research shows that using sunscreen actually causes more cancer than it prevents (http://www.naturalnews.com/023317_s...).

#3) In a nation where over 70% of the population is vitamin D deficiency, sunscreen actually blocks vitamin D production

Vitamin D deficiency is perhaps the most widespread vitamin deficiency in North America. According to the research, 70 percent of whites are deficient in vitamin D, and up to 97 percent of blacks are deficient (http://www.naturalnews.com/030598_v...).

Chronic vitamin D deficiency promotes cancer (http://www.naturalnews.com/031560_v...), winter flu and infections, depression, osteoporosis and hormonal imbalances. Depending on whom you believe, vitamin D alone can prevent anywhere from 50% to nearly 80% of all cancers (http://www.naturalnews.com/021892.html).

By blocking vitamin D production in the skin, sunscreen products actually contribute to cancer-promoting nutritional deficiencies.

This doesn't mean you should never wear a sunscreen product, of course. If your skin is really pale and you're planning a day on the beach in Hawaii, you will obviously benefit from some level of sun protection using a truly natural sunscreen product. But an informed health-conscious person would try to allow their skin to achieve a natural, healthy tan (yes, a tan truly is healthy if it's combined with good nutrition, see below) through sensible exposure levels that activate vitamin D production in the skin.

#4) You can boost your internal sun resistance by changing what you eat

Here's the real secret about sun exposure that no one in conventional medicine is talking about (because, as usual, they are woefully ignorant about nutrition): You can boost your internal sunscreen by eating antioxidant-rich foods and superfoods.

The supplement astaxanthin, for example, is very well known for boosting your skin's natural resistance to sunburn. Its fat-soluble carotenoids are actually transported to skin cells where they protect those cells from UV exposure.

The more natural antioxidants you have in your diet, the more sunlight your skin will be able to handle without burning. Nearly everyone mistakenly believes that a person's sunlight burn response is purely a genetic factor. They're wrong. You can radically improve your resistance to UV exposure through radical dietary changes.

I'm a great example of this, actually, as I used to burn in just 20 - 30 minutes of sunlight when I was on a junk food diet years ago. But now, as someone who eats superfoods and high-end nutritional supplements every day, I can spend hours in the sun and will only turn slightly red (which fades a few hours later and does not result in a burn or skin peeling).

Except for one time on an all-day visit to a water park, I have not worn sunscreen in over 8 years. I spend a large amount of time in the sun, and I have absolutely no concerns whatsoever about skin cancer. My skin, most people tell me, looks significantly younger than my biological age. That's not from sunscreen; it's from nutrition. Sun exposure does not make your skin "age" if you follow a high-nutritional density diet.

#5) UV exposure alone does not cause skin cancer

It is a complete medical myth that "UV exposure causes skin cancer." This false idea is a total fabrication by the ignorant medical community (dermatologists) and the profit-driven sunscreen companies.

The truth is actually more complicated: Skin cancer can only be caused when UV exposure is combined with chronic nutritional deficiencies that create skin vulnerabilities.

To create skin cancer, in other words, you have to eat a junk food diet, avoid protective antioxidants, and then also experience excessive UV exposure. All three of those elements are required. Conventional medicine completely ignores the dietary influences and focuses entirely on just one factor: Sunscreen vs. no sunscreen. This is a one-dimensional approach to the issue that's grossly oversimplified to the point of being misleading.

The medical industry, it seems, does not want people to figure out they can literally eat their way to healthier skin. It's amazing, actually: Your skin is made entirely out of the food you eat, so how could your diet not affect your skin health? Yet no one in conventional medicine -- not the dermatologists, not the doctors and not the health regulators -- has the intellectual honesty to admit that what you eat largely determines how your skin reacts to UV exposure.

#6) Not all "natural" sunscreen products are really natural

Be careful when shopping for so-called "natural" sunscreen products. While there are some good ones out there, many are just examples of greenwashing, where they use terms like "natural" or "organic" but still contain loads of synthetic chemicals anyway.

A good guide for checking on sunscreen products is the Environmental Working Group guide (EWG) at:
http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/

Some of the products that are truly natural include Loving Naturals sunscreen and Badger All Natural Sunscreen. Read the ingredients labels to see for yourself. Don't use any sunscreen product containing ingredients that sound like chemicals:

• Methyl...
• Propyl...
• Butyl...
• Ethyl...
• Trieth...
• Dieth...
etc.

Always buy unscented sunscreen unless for some reason you just enjoy coating your skin with artificial perfume chemicals. A typical sunscreen product is made with over a dozen cancer-causing fragrance chemicals, and they're absorbed right through your skin. Most sunscreens, when applied as directed, are really just toxic chemical baths that heavily burden your liver and can give you cancer.

#7) Many "chemical free" sunscreens are loaded with chemicals

Search Amazon.com for "chemical free natural sunscreen" and you'll see a listing for:

Jason Natural Cosmetics - Earth's Best Sun Block Chemical Free, 4 oz cream

Click on the product and you'll find a listing of its ingredients which includes: C12-15 Alkyl Benzoate, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Sorbitan Isostearate, Sorbitan Sesquioleate, Ethylhexyl Palmitate, Ethyl Macadamiate, Calcium Starch Octenylsuccinate, Stearalkonium Hectorite

So how are those not chemicals? Ethylhexyl Palmitate is NOT a chemical? Who are these people kidding? The Amazon.com description (title) of this product is false and misleading. In all fairness, however, this product title looks like it was added into the Amazon.com system by the vendor and not the Jason company itself. But it's an example of how the information you see from online vendors can often be misleading.

Always read the ingredients of any sunscreen product before using it. Don't poison yourself with sunscreen!

Beware the disinfo minefield surrounding sunscreen products

Perhaps more with sunscreen than any other personal care product, the "official" information distributed through the mainstream media is hopelessly misleading (if not downright false). Remarkably, no one in the media or the government is even willing to admit that fragrance chemicals are bad for your health. Similarly, no one is willing to admit that the chemicals you put on your skin get ABSORBED by your skin.

Without those two truths being acknowledged right up front, the rest of whatever they say about sunscreen is worthless babble. Any honest talk about sunscreen must acknowledge the simple truth that the chemicals you put on your skin get absorbed into your skin, and that most sunscreen products are made out of a chemical cocktail of cancer-causing substances.

This is the truth about sunscreen that both the sunscreen industry and the cancer industry doesn't want you to hear. It's the dirty little secret of sunscreen: The more you use, the more you CAUSE cancer in your body! (And the more money the cancer centers make "treating" your cancer with yet more deadly chemicals known as chemotherapy.)

So buyer beware. Sunscreen products are a minefield of lies, fraud and disinformation designed to keep you ignorant of the importance of sun exposure as well as the health risks associated with using cancer-causing chemicals on your skin.

Stick with truly natural sunscreen products (when needed) and try to build up a healthy tan while consuming large quantities of superfoods and antioxidants in your diet. Consider taking astaxanthin or other fat-soluble nutrients on a regular basis. Engage in daily juicing of fresh fruits and vegetables which are loaded with living nutrients. Time your sun exposure to build up a healthy tan so that you don't need sunscreen at all. Contrary to all the misinformation we've all been fed, a healthy tan is actually a good sign that you're achieving adequate vitamin D synthesis in your own skin.

Learn more about sunlight and vitamin D with these two resources:

FREE report: The truth about sunlight and vitamin D (http://www.naturalnews.com/rr-sunli...).

FREE video: The Truth About Sunlight, Cancer and Vitamin D
http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=5A62F...

Articles Related to This Article:

• FDA officially declares the sun unsafe, urges public to lather toxic sunscreen on skin

• Should you use sunscreen?

• Scientists reverse stance on sun and cancer: Now they admit sunlight can prevent skin cancer

• Spending time in the sun does not constitute dangerous behavior

• Vitamin D and sun exposure work synergistically to prevent breast cancer

• Earth sun changes

Posturing to Attack You

2011-07-05T15:19:00.000-04:00

On Wed, Jun 29, 2011, The Christian Science Monitor published a short article by Howard LaFranchi titled, "US unveils new counter-terrorism strategy: three key parts"

The short article outlines how the new counter-terrorism strategy replaces one from 2006 and calls for pursuing with ‘laser focus’ on potential terrorists living here in the U.S.

The most notable quote I found was, "The new strategy will focus on such adherents inside the US, whom Brennan described as “individuals, sometimes with little or no direct physical contact with Al Qaeda, who have succumbed to its hateful ideology.” "

(Some of the) Clever Names for MSG

2011-07-05T14:26:00.009-04:00

Everyone knows that some people get reactions after eating the food ingredient monosodium glutamate --reactions that include migraine headaches, upset stomach, fuzzy thinking, diarrhea, heart irregularities, asthma, and/or mood swings. What many don’t know, is that more than 40 different ingredients contain the chemical in monosodium glutamate (processed free glutamic acid) that causes these reactions. The following list of ingredients that contain processed free glutamic acid has been compiled over the last 20 years from consumers’ reports of adverse reactions and information provided by manufacturers and food technologists.

Names of ingredients that contain processed free glutamic acid (MSG):

Reminders
Low fat and no fat milk products often contain milk solids that contain MSG and many dairy products contain carrageenan, guar gum, and/or locust bean gum. Low fat and no fat versions of ice cream and cheese may not be as obvious as yogurt, milk, cream, cream cheese, cottage cheese, etc., but they are not exceptions.

Protein powders contain glutamic acid, which, invariably, will be processed free glutamic acid (MSG). Individual amino acids are not always listed on labels of protein powders.

At present there is an FDA requirement to include the protein source when listing hydrolyzed protein products on labels of processed foods. Examples are hydrolyzed soy protein, hydrolyzed wheat protein, hydrolyzed pea protein, hydrolyzed whey protein, hydrolyzed, corn protein. If a tomato, for example, were whole, it would be identified as a tomato. Calling an ingredient tomato protein indicates that the tomato has been hydrolyzed, at least in part, and that processed free glutamic acid (MSG) is present.

Disodium guanylate and disodium inosinate are relatively expensive food additives that work synergistically with inexpensive MSG. Their use suggests that the product has MSG in it. They would probably not be used as food additives if there were no MSG present.

MSG reactions have been reported from soaps, shampoos, hair conditioners, and cosmetics, where MSG is hidden in ingredients with names that include the words "hydrolyzed," "amino acids," and/or "protein." Most sun block creams and insect repellents also contain MSG.

Drinks, candy, and chewing gum are potential sources of hidden MSG and/or aspartame, neotame. and AminoSweet (the new name for aspartame). Aspartic acid, found in neotame, aspartame (NutraSweet), and AminoSweet, ordinarily causes MSG type reactions in MSG sensitive people. (It would appear that calling aspartame "AminoSweet" is industry's method of choice for hiding aspartame.) We have not seen Neotame used widely in the United States.

Aspartame will be found in some medications, including children's medications. For questions about the ingredients in pharmaceuticals, check with your pharmacist and/or read the product inserts for the names of “other” or “inert” ingredients.

Binders and fillers for medications, nutrients, and supplements, both prescription and non-prescription, enteral feeding materials, and some fluids administered intravenously in hospitals, may contain MSG.

According to the manufacturer, Varivax–Merck chicken pox vaccine (Varicella Virus Live), contains L-monosodium glutamate and hydrolyzed gelatin, both of which contain processed free glutamic acid (MSG) which causes brain lesions in young laboratory animals, and causes endocrine disturbances like OBESITY and REPRODUCTIVE disorders later in life. It would appear that most, if not all, live virus vaccines contain some ingredient(s) that contains MSG.

Reactions to MSG are dose related, i.e., some people react to even very small amounts. MSG-induced reactions may occur immediately after ingestion or after as much as 48 hours. The time lapse between ingestion and reaction is typically the same each time for a particular individual who ingests an amount of MSG that exceeds his or her individual tolerance level.

Remember: By food industry definition, all MSG is "naturally occurring." "Natural" doesn't mean "safe." "Natural" only means that the ingredient started out in nature, like arsenic and hydrochloric acid.

FDA: From Corrupt to Fascist - By Tony Albion

2011-06-30T12:31:00.007-04:00

Please note this is not an original posting, but a direct re-posting from: Food Freedom Blog
http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/

FDA: From Corrupt to Fascist

Posted on May 30, 2010

By Tony Albion

The FDA has for some time been seen as one of the most corrupt of government agencies. Whether it is protecting the interests of those making lethal NSAIDS (aspirin, ibuprofen, etc.) by threatening cherry growers not to disclose the science showing that cherries provide the same or more benefits at no risk, or keeping drugs on the market that kill people, while imprisoning those who heal them, the FDA has been an agent for the pharmaceutical industry and far from a friend to the American people.

But it has now gone much further than corruption and bias that leads to deaths. The FDA is now trying to establish a legal standard that Americans do not have the right to their own bodies and health.

In answer to raw milk advocates filing suit against the FDA to protect their right to choose food they desire for themselves and their children, the FDA responded:

“Plaintiffs’ assertion of a ‘fundamental right to their own bodily and physical health, which includes what foods they do and do not choose to consume for themselves and their families’ is similarly unavailing because plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to obtain any food they wish.” [FDA Brief, 4/26/10]

The FDA uses the consumption of raw milk as its basis for promoting this position, an issue that may seem tangential to most people, but what it is asserting goes beyond milk, as well as beyond food. Remove the references to food and the FDA is maintaining that people do not have a ‘fundamental right to their own bodily and physical health ….”

One must assume that it is legally significant that the FDA includes both “bodily” and “physical health.” While they are clearly saying that people do not have a right to their own physical health, the FDA, by phrasing its response as they have, appears to be saying as well that people do not have a right to their own bodies.

In this, the FDA is going far beyond asserting that people do not have a right to choose foods they may wish, to implying that people also may not refuse anything in regard to their bodies. Thus the phrasing would include forced diagnostic tests, forced medical treatments and experiments, forced taking of samples, and forced vaccination.

While this seems unfathomable, one need only read any of the MSEHPA laws put in the place in states across the country to see that they all include forced diagnostic tests, forced medical treatments and experiments, forced taking of samples, forced vaccination, and forced implantation of microchips (which is already being resisted in various states). They have arranged for medical force.

Taken to its fullest meaning – people not owning their own bodies – the FDA position would include slavery itself.

The FDA’s assertion may have been created by Michael Taylor, Monsanto VP famous for developing a white paper for Monsanto showing how to sue farmers for stating truthfully that their milk did not include rBGH.

As multinational corporations attempt to take control of all food and “health” in the world, they need a legal position to undermine democratic objections to leaving people with only toxic industrial food, without nutritional supplements, and subject to mandated (pharmaceutical) products and any medical “usage” the corporations decide.

The Nuremberg Code was created to end for all times the horrendous forced medical experiments conducted by Nazi pharmaceutical companies on concentration camp prisoners during WWII. The Code demands “informed consent” as the means to protect anyone entering into a medical experiment and the right to quit the experiment at any time.

To unlabel GMO labels removes “informed” as well as “consent,” trapping all people in the largest medical experiment in human history with both food and drugs/vaccines. That the biotech/pharmaceutical industry is not accidentally doing this can be most easily seen in India where they have introduced a bill that includes prison terms and large fines for anyone questioning GMOs in food or drugs and vaccines.

So, while the issue is couched around raw milk, the FDA is laying out the broadest possible assertion of control over human beings.

There are two groups currently fighting for their rights around health – raw milk dairy farmers and parents concerned about vaccine harm – both of which have been dismissed as uninformed or even dangerous by the corporate media. The two groups are significant and related – they are defending basic rights to control over their health and bodies.

The FDA statement answers both – undoing the most fundamental democratic and human rights and by its implications, destroying life-sustaining human systems of interaction and self-care, substituting state power and control.

Through S 510, a food safety bill that would set up an immensely powerful FDA, the corporations seek to eliminate farming and all local food production, to end access to nutritional supplements and information on nutrition. They could use it to mandate GMOs as well as ban labeling of them, including of seeds, of GE-meat created in a lab, etc., and bringing back rBGH.

The FDA is asserting that people do not have a right to their own bodies and well-being, that people do not have a right to choose what they want to eat, and that they do not have a right to refuse what they do not want.

While people have been appalled at the removal of fundamental political rights under Bush and now Obama to allow for torture, rendition, permanent detention, and no habeas corpus, the FDA is establishing a parallel and even more broad removal of rights around everyone’s personal survival – access to food and control over one’s own body.

S 510, in the Senate now, includes the most extreme attack on food and health.

“’If accepted [S 510] would preclude the public’s right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature makes. It will become the most offensive authority against the cultivation, trade and consumption of food and agricultural products of one’s choice. It will be unconstitutional and contrary to natural law or, if you like, the will of God.’ ~Dr. Shiv Chopra, Canada Health whistleblower

“It is similar to what India faced with imposition of the salt tax during British rule, only S 510 extends control over all food in the US, violating the fundamental human right to food.” (Steve Green, Food Freedom, 4/24/10)

The FDA was instituted to regulate corporations and protect Americans from harmful additives in food and drugs, but has now taken on itself to undo the most essential constitutional protections for all Americans. By rejecting educating the public and providing democratic options (informed consent), it seeks police state power to remove critical information about health and about corporate products themselves, to mandate those products despite data indicating their dangers, and to force Americans into being ignorant, involuntary subjects in medical experiments with GMO food and with vaccines.

Rather than controlling dangers to people’s health from corporations (whether from food or vaccines or drugs), the FDA is asserting a stunning reversal of its mission and of human rights – that people do not have a right to their bodily or physical health. It has become an openly anti-human agency.

What the the FDA is doing is fascist.

For further information, please watch these videos:

Food Laws – Forcing people to globalize
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia-P4rL2IWc

State Imposed Violence … to snatch resources of ordinary people
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onw_PkVvpts&feature=related

Corporate Rule
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PwqUQ_HIlg&feature=related

Reclaiming Economies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXoJHG-er7A&feature=related

Oak snake image at Alfred B. Maclay Gardens State Park, Florida
http://snipurl.com/vrg6p

Ed. Note: Also see this piece by lawyers: Food Safety: The Worst of Both Bills (HR 2749 and S 510).

I Thought I Was Gay Until I Quit Drinking Poland Springs

2011-06-30T12:06:00.003-04:00

BPA is a very common chemical found in most canned foods and all plastic containers not specifically marked "BPA Free," making it stocked in abundance at every grocery store and most common household pantries. Your Tupperware, canned goods, your bottled water, and even that cute water bottle you bought when you decided to go green.

The European Union and Canada have banned the use of BPA in baby bottles because it is commonly known at this point to affect human development and behavior in adverse ways. America's number one corrupt organization of goons working for the giant chemical companies interests, The FDA have not taken any action save for commenting that they have "some concern" regarding the effects of the industrial chemical that has been widely used in US packaging since the 60s.

However, The National Academy of Sciences conducted a study on the effects of BPA and amongst other things, found interestingly enough that mice fed a diet with levels of BPA that were proportional to the amount the US government considers safe to ingest had a noteworthy reaction.

Yahoo News published a short article on the findings here:

BPA makes male mice act like females
http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110627/hl_afp/healthusanimalchemical_20110627190832

Kurzweil: A Future of Humans Merged With Machines

2011-06-28T19:43:00.003-04:00

Democracy - A Very Very Bad Joke

2011-06-23T01:21:00.002-04:00

So Gaddafi says, "Okay U.S. - you want me gone? We'll have a nice clean, transparent election, and if I lose, I'll step down."

The U.S. says, "ehhh, how about NO."

Democracy in action folks, at $2bil a week. There it is.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/16/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20110616

545 vs. 300,000,000 People

2011-06-23T00:53:00.000-04:00

Charley Reese was a journalist for 49 years at the Orlando Sentinel. Upon retiring, he submitted the following article:

545 vs. 300,000,000 People
by Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The President does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? John Boehner. He is the leader of the majority party. He and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Army & Marines are in Iraq and Afghanistan it's because they want them in Iraq and Afghanistan ...

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees...
We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Remember, as David Icke said, "Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut, that held its ground."

The Tax Poem

2011-06-23T00:47:00.005-04:00

(as circulated via email)

Tax his land,
Tax his bed,
Tax the table,
At which he's fed.

Tax his tractor,
Tax his mule,
Teach him taxes
Are the rule.

Tax his work,
Tax his pay,
He works for
peanuts anyway!

Tax his cow,
Tax his goat,
Tax his pants,
Tax his coat.

Tax his ties,
Tax his shirt,
Tax his work,
Tax his dirt.

Tax his tobacco,
Tax his drink,
Tax him if he
Tries to think.

Tax his cigars,
Tax his beers,
If he cries
Tax his tears.

Tax his car,
Tax his gas,
Find other ways
To tax his ass.

Tax all he has
Then let him know
That you won't be done
Till he has no dough.

When he screams and hollers;
Then tax him some more,
Tax him till
He's good and sore.

Then tax his coffin,
Tax his grave,
Tax the sod in
Which he's laid...

Put these words
Upon his tomb,
'Taxes drove me
to my doom...'

When he's gone,
Do not relax,
Its time to apply
The inheritance tax.

Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Excise Taxes
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax (currently 44.75 cents per gallon)
Gross Receipts Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Personal Property Tax

Big Brother vs Chicago

2011-06-22T22:22:00.000-04:00

Twenty Most Common Chemicals in Thirty-one Fragrance Products

2011-06-20T02:16:00.001-04:00

Twenty Most Common Chemicals in Thirty-one Fragrance Products [based on a] 1991 EPA Study:

1. ACETONE (in: cologne, dishwashing liquid and detergent, nail enamel remover)

On EPA, RCRA, CERCLA Hazardous Waste lists. "Inhalation can cause dryness of the mouth and throat; dizziness, nausea, incoordination, slurred speech, drowsiness, and, in severe exposures, coma." "Acts primarily as a central nervous system (CNS) depressant."

2. BENZALDEHYDE (in: perfume, cologne, hairspray, laundry bleach, deodorants, detergent, vaseline lotion, shaving cream, shampoo, bar soap, dishwasher detergent)

Narcotic. Sensitizer. "Local anesthetic, CNS depressant"... "irritation to the mouth, throat, eyes, skin, lungs, and GI tract, causing nausea and abdominal pain." "May cause kidney damage." "Do not use with contact lenses."

3. BENZYL ACETATE (in: perfume, cologne, shampoo, fabric softener, stickup air freshener, dishwashing liquid and detergent, soap, hairspray, bleach, after shave, deodorants)

Carcinogenic (linked to pancreatic cancer); "From vapors: irritating to eyes and respiratory passages, exciting cough." "In mice: hyperanemia of the lungs." "Can be absorbed through the skin causing systemic effects." "Do not flush to sewer."

4. BENZYL ALCOHOL (in: perfume, cologne, soap, shampoo, nail enamel remover, air freshener, laundry bleach and detergent, vaseline lotion, deodorants, fabric softener)

"irritating to the upper respiratory tract" ..."headache, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, drop in blood pressure, CNS depression, and death in severe cases due to respiratory failure."

5. CAMPHOR (in: perfume, shaving cream, nail enamel, fabric softener, dishwasher detergent, nail color, stickup air freshener)

"local irritant and CNS stimulant" ..."readily absorbed through body tissues" ..."irritation of eyes, nose and throat" ..."dizziness, confusion, nausea, twitching muscles and convulsions" "Avoid inhalation of vapors."

6. ETHANOL (in: perfume, hairspray, shampoo, fabric softener, dishwashing liquid and detergent, laundry detergent, shaving cream, soap, vaseline lotion, air fresheners, nail color and remover, paint and varnish remover)

On EPA Hazardous Waste list; symptoms: "...fatigue; irritating to eyes and upper respiratory tract even in low concentrations..." "Inhalation of ethanol vapors can have effects similar to those characteristic of ingestion. These include an initial stimulatory effect followed by drowsiness, impaired vision, ataxia, stupor..." Causes CNS disorder.

7. ETHYL ACETATE (in: after shave, cologne, perfume, shampoo, nail color, nail enamel remover, fabric softener, dishwashing liquid)

Narcotic. On EPA Hazardous Waste list; "...irritating to the eyes and respiratory tract" ..."may cause headache and narcosis (stupor)" ..."defatting effect on skin and may cause drying and cracking" ..."may cause anemia with leukocytosis and damage to liver and kidneys" "Wash thoroughly after handling."

8. LIMONENE (in: perfume, cologne, disinfectant spray, bar soap, shaving cream, deodorants, nail color and remover, fabric softener, dishwashing liquid, air fresheners, after shave, bleach, paint and varnish remover)

Carcinogenic. "Prevent its contact with skin or eyes because it is an irritant and sensitizer." "Always wash thoroughly after using this material and before eating, drinking, ...applying cosmetics. Do not inhale limonene vapor."

9. LINALOOL (in: perfume, cologne, bar soap, shampoo, hand lotion, nail enamel remover, hairspray, laundry detergent, dishwashing liquid, vaseline lotion, air fresheners, bleach powder, fabric softener, shaving cream, after shave, solid deodorant)

Narcotic. ..."respiratory disturbances" ... "Attracts bees." "In animal tests: ataxic gait, reduced spontaneous motor activity and depression ... development of respiratory disturbances leading to death." ..."depressed frog-heart activity." Causes CNS disorder.

10. METHYLENE CHLORIDE (in: shampoo, cologne, paint and varnish remover)

Banned by the FDA in 1988! No enforcement possible due to trade secret laws protecting chemical fragrance industry. On EPA, RCRA, CERCLA Hazardous Waste lists. "Carcinogenic" ..."Absorbed, stored in body fat, it metabolizes to carbon monoxide, reducing oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood." "Headache, giddiness, stupor, irritability, fatigue, tingling in the limbs." Causes CNS disorder.

11. a-PINENE (in: bar and liquid soap, cologne, perfume, shaving cream, deodorants, dishwashing liquid, air freshener)

Sensitizer (damaging to the immune system).

12. g-TERPINENE (in: cologne, perfume, soap, shaving cream, deodorant, air freshener)

"Causes asthma and CNS disorders."

13. a-TERPINEOL (in: perfume, cologne, laundry detergent, bleach powder, laundry bleach, fabric softener, stickup air freshener, vaseline lotion, cologne, soap, hairspray, after shave, roll-on deodorant)

..."highly irritating to mucous membranes"... "Aspiration into the lungs can produce pneumonitis or even fatal edema." Can also cause "excitement, ataxia (loss of muscular coordination), hypothermia, CNS and respiratory depression, and headache." "Prevent repeated or prolonged skin contact."

http://www.ourlittleplace.com/chemicals.html

Inspiration

2011-06-19T15:14:00.000-04:00

Put Your Bodies Upon the Gears and Make It Stop

2011-06-17T23:33:00.002-04:00

The Drug War Kills the People You Love

2011-06-17T22:55:00.005-04:00

This is a direct re-post from Huffington Post:

Jose Guerena Killed: Arizona Cops Shoot Former Marine In Botched Pot Raid

On May 5 at around 9:30 a.m., several teams of Pima County, Ariz., police officers from at least four different police agencies armed with SWAT gear and an armored personnel carrier raided at least four homes as part of what at the time was described as an investigation into alleged marijuana trafficking. One of those homes belonged to 26-year-old Jose Guerena and his wife, Vanessa Guerena. The couple's 4-year-old son was also in the house at the time. Their 6-year-old son was at school.

As the SWAT team forced its way into his home, Guerena, a former Marine who served two tours of duty in Iraq, armed himself with his AR-15 rifle and told his wife and son to hide in a closet. As the officers entered, Guerena confronted them from the far end of a long, dark hallway. The police opened fire, releasing more than 70 rounds in about 7 seconds, at least 60 of which struck Guerena. He was pronounced dead a little over an hour later.

The Pima County Sheriff's Department initially claimed (PDF) Guerena fired his weapon at the SWAT team. They now acknowledge that not only did he not fire, the safety on his gun was still activated when he was killed. Guerena had no prior criminal record, and the police found nothing illegal in his home. After ushering out his wife and son, the police refused to allow paramedics to access Guerena for more than hour, leaving the young father to bleed to death, alone, in his own home.

I can now report a number of new details that further call into question the police account of what happened that morning. But first some context:

The Pima County Sheriff's Office has now changed its story several times over the last few weeks. They have issued a press release (PDF) scolding the media and critics for questioning the legality of the raid, the department's account of what happened, and the department's ability to fairly investigate its own officers. They have obtained a court order sealing the search warrants and police affidavits that led to the raids, and they're now refusing any further comment on the case at all. When I contacted Public Information Officer Jason Ogan with some questions, he replied via email that the department won't be releasing any more information. On Saturday, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik told Arizona Daily Star columnist Josh Brodesky that he may never release the search warrants and police affidavits. Dupnik rose to national prominence earlier this year after claiming combative political rhetoric contributed to Jared Loughner killing six people and wounding 19 others, including Rep. Gabielle Giffords, last January.

The department's excuses for keeping all of this information under wraps make little sense. In his May 18 press release (PDF), for example, Ogan wrote, "The investigation that lead to the service of the search warrants on May 5 is a complicated one involving multiple people suspected of very serious crimes. Sometimes, law enforcement agencies must choose between the desire of the public to quickly know details, and the very real threat to innocent lives if those details are released prematurely." Dupnik used the same line of reasoning with Brodesky. "Those are the real sensitive parts of why we are having difficulty with trying to put information out publicly--because we don't want somebody getting killed," Dupnik said.

The problem with that explanation is that the search warrants and affidavits weren't sealed until four days after the raids were executed, right at about the time the troubling questions about Jose Guerena's death began to make national headlines. If revealing the details of this investigation -- which remember, was initially described by the Sheriff's Department as a marijuana investigation -- could endanger lives, why weren't the warrants and affidavits sealed from the start? It isn't difficult to understand why some would suspect a cover-up, or at least an attempt to suppress details until the department can come up with a narrative that mitigates the damage. In any case, it's awfully audacious for a police agency to scold the media for not trusting them and for "spreading misinformation" just days after revealing they themselves released bad information.

There are other reasons to doubt the excuse that releasing the search warrants would jeopardize public safety. The raids on the other homes carried out that same morning, all part of the same operation, resulted in no arrests and turned up little if any actual contraband. (When police find illegal substances after these raids -- especially raids that end badly -- they usually quickly release that information.)

Moreover, if this was all about breaking up a dangerous home invasion ring, where are the suspects, and where is the evidence? According to an advocate for the Guerena family I spoke with this week, the police also mistakenly raided another home near Guerena's the same morning, and have since replaced that home's front door. Again, the Pima County Sheriff's Department is refusing comment, so I can't verify this allegation with them. But police officials have admitted that even the Guerena warrant was only for his residence, not for Jose Guerena personally; his name doesn't appear anywhere on the warrants. The police also concede they weren't aware that there was a child in the home at the time of the raid. Given all of this, it seems reasonable to question just how thorough this investigation really was.

I've been reporting on the overuse of SWAT teams and military police tactics for about six years now. You begin to see patterns in how police agencies respond to high-profile incidents like this one. One near-universal tactic is to lock down information once the media begins to grow skeptical. Another, often undertaken simultaneously, is to unofficially leak information that's beneficial to the police department. They're doing both in Tucson.

Michael Storie, the attorney for the Arizona police union, is apparently handling the smear campaign portion of the strategy. Storie points out on the union's website that under his watch, no union police officer "has ever been convicted on charges relating to on-duty conduct." That may be a boastworthy claim when it comes to Storie's lawyering prowess. But it isn't exactly a testament to his trustworthiness. (Police critic William Grigg also points out that the boast isn't entirely true -- Storie represented a cop convicted of a sexual assault and kidnapping committed in 2005, despite Storie's best efforts to blame the victims.)

On Friday, Storie told the Arizona Daily Star that Guerena was "linked" to a "home-invasion crew," and that police found rifles, handguns, body armor, and a "portion of a law-enforcement uniform" in Guerena's house. "Everything they think they're going to find in there, they find," Storie said. "Put it together, and when you have drug rip-offs that occasionally happen where people disguise themselves as law enforcement officers, it all adds up."

I asked Chris Scileppi, the attorney representing Guerena's family, about the "portion of a law enforcement uniform" allegation. "They're trying to imply that he was dressing up as a police officer to force his way into private homes," Scileppi says. But when police serve a search warrant they leave behind a receipt what they've taken from the residence. According to Scileppi, the only item taken from Gurena's home that remotely fits that description was a U.S. Border Control cap -- which you can buy from any number of retail outlets, including Amazon.com.

About the guns and body armor Scileppi says, "Is it really that difficult to believe that a former Marine living in Arizona would have guns and body armor in his home? Nothing they found in the house is illegal to own in Arizona." In fact, Storie himself acknowledged in the Daily Star that had the SWAT team entered Guerena's home peacefully, they wouldn't have made an arrest.

And when you "put it together," to borrow his own terminology, Storie's comments thus far lead to a pretty astonishing conclusion: After violently breaking into Guerena's home, the police found exactly the evidence they were looking for -- yet none of that evidence merited an arrest. Storie is either shamelessly posturing, or he actually believes that the police are justified in violently forcing their way into a private home with their guns drawn, even if they have no expectation that they'll find any evidence of a crime.

At his press conference last week, Storie also defended the SWAT team's refusal to allow paramedics to access Guerena for more than hour. "They still don't know how many shooters are inside, how many guns are inside and they still have to assume that they will be ambushed if they walk in this house," Storie said.

This is absurd. The entire purpose of using SWAT teams, dynamic entry, and like paramilitary-style police tactics is to subdue dangerous suspects and secure the building within seconds. If it took more than an hour to secure the Guerenas' small home, this particular SWAT team was incompetent. By contrast, paramedics were tending to the wounded after the Jared Loughner shootings within 12 minutes, and that was a far more volatile crime scene.

Storie has offered up a number of other questionable allegations and explanations in recent days.

Last week, for example, Storie told the Daily Star that the investigation leading up to the raids was from the start about home invasions and "drug rip-offs" -- not just marijuana distribution, as the Sheriff's Department initially indicated. Storie also says the police vehicles ran their lights and sirens until they were parked in the Guerenas' driveway, and that a police officer knocked on the door and announced himself for a full 45 seconds before the SWAT team forced its way inside. He emphasized that the raid was "in no way" a "no-knock" operation.

Storie is laying groundwork for the argument that Guerena should have known that the men breaking into his home were police. That he still met them with his rifle meant he was intent on killing them, which of course would justify their rash of gunfire. For good measure, Storie added that just before they opened fire, several officers reported hearing Guerena say, "I've got something for you; I've gotten something for you guys."

There are a number of problems here, beginning with the lights, the sirens, and the knocking. If these warrants were, as Storie claims, for suspected dangerous, well-armed members of a home invasion ring, why would they give a violent suspect such ample warning that they're coming? Why wouldn't the police have sought and obtained a no-knock warrant? This is precisely the scenario for which no-knock entry is warranted -- to apprehend suspected dangerous people who may present an immediate threat to police and the public.

This week I also spoke with Ray Epps, a retired Marine sergeant from Mesa, Arizona and president of the Arizona chapter of Oath Keepers, the controversial organization of police and military personnel who have vowed not to enforce laws they believe are unconstitutional. After hearing about Guerena's death, Epps drove to Tucson to investigate.

"We spoke with several of the neighbors," Epps says. "And none of them -- none of them -- heard any sirens that morning. Every one of them told us they didn't hear anything, no knocking, no shouting, until the shooting started. They didn't hear anything until the shooting started." Scileppi, who is conducting his own investigation, wouldn't say if he had spoken to neighbors, but did say of the lights and sirens, "What we've found contradicts what they're saying." Epps added, "What I found disturbing is that none of the neighbors would give us their names. These people are terrified of the police, now. Another thing I found strange, they said the police didn't evacuate them until after the shooting."

If next-door neighbors didn't hear the sirens or police announcement at the door, it's plausible that Guerena, who was sleeping off the graveyard shift he'd worked the night before, didn't hear them either. Of course, the other possibility here is that the police are lying about the sirens and the announcement.

To buy what Storie is pitching, you would have to believe that Guerena -- the father of two young boys, who was working a night job to save money for a new home, who had no criminal record, who served two tours of duty in Iraq and was honorably discharged -- knowingly took on a team of armored, well-armed police officers, himself armed only with his rifle, and with his wife and young child still in the home. You'd also have to believe that the battle-tested former Marine forgot to turn off his weapon's safety before the shooting began.

The alternate explanation -- and I think the more plausible one -- is that Guerena thought the men breaking into his home were criminals, but held his fire until he was sure. (That's also the mark of someone well-trained in gun safety, and a stark contrast to the SWAT team, which despite never receiving hostile fire, unleashed a barrage of bullets that penetrated not only Jose Guerena but, according to sources I spoke with, also the walls of neighboring homes.)

If you're not actually a criminal and you wake up to the sound of armed men breaking into your home, your first thought isn't likely to be that you're being visited by the police. There may also have been something else on Guerena's mind: Last year, two of Vanessa Guerena's relatives were murdered by armed intruders. The intruders also shot the couple's children. What Guerena is alleged to have said -- "I've got something for you; I've gotten something for you guys" -- sounds damning if you assume he knew the men in his home were police, but there's nothing in that sentence indicating Guerena knew he was confronting cops. It also sounds like something a former soldier might shout out to intimidate armed intruders. And let's not forget, the same team of SWAT officers who reported hearing Guerena say those words also reported seeing a muzzle flash from Guerena's gun, which we now know couldn't have happened.

Storie also says police found a photo of Jesus Malverde in Guerena's home. Malverde is an iconic, probably mythical figure often described as the "narco saint". But as my former Reason magazine colleague Tim Cavanaugh points out, while it's true that Malverde has been embraced by drug traffickers, he is also revered by the poor, by immigrants, and by people who feel they've been wronged. "That Guerena had a picture of Jesus Malverde tells us two things," Cavanaugh writes. "He had a family to worry about and he shared the belief of most Americans that a supernatural being or beings can influence earthly circumstances."

When Daily Star columnist Josh Brodesky asked Sheriff Dupnik if Storie's chats with the press about the details of the Guerena raid were hindering the investigation, Dupnik said, simply, "No." So while Dupnik's department is refusing to officially release any information about the raid or surrounding investigation due to "the real threat to innocent lives," he has no problem with the police union lawyer disclosing details that smear Guerena to the benefit of Dupnik and his department.

Perhaps we will at some point see convincing evidence that Dupnik and Storie are right -- that Jose Guerena was in fact a drug dealer and violent criminal who dressed up like a cop to rob rival drug dealers and innocent citizens of Pima County. But at this point, all we have is a dead father and veteran, a violent series of raids that make little sense, and a police agency that over the last three weeks has put out incorrect information, insisted that it would be dangerous to release any further information, and, at the same time, allowed a police representative to release information favorable to the department.

The government of Pima County has killed one of its own citizens. This is the most serious, solemn, and severe action a local government can undertake. It demands complete transparency. The Pima County Sheriff's Department and other agencies involved in the raid ought to be doing anything and everything to make themselves accountable. Instead, they've shown arrogance, defiance, and obstinacy -- all wrapped in an appeal to public safety.

Free Exchange of Info? Not for long

2011-06-16T15:47:00.002-04:00

More and more of this type of prop in the news. Manufacturing consent for net security laws never seemed so obvious

http://technology-science.newsvine.com/_news/2011/06/16/6872590-citigroup-number-of-hacked-accounts-grows#entercomment

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/world/12imf.html?_r=3

http://propaganda-dimitrios.blogspot.com/2011/06/imf-hit-by-very-major-cyber-security.html

http://www.prisonplanet.com/cnn-broadcasts-major-cyber-war-game-propaganda.html

Does anyone else smell the Catch 22 here? On the one hand we are supposed to be freaking out that hackers may be able to get our info, but on the other hand we willingly give up our private info on facebook and other sites that brag about how they are "changing the perceptions we have regarding privacy?"

I guess the bottom line is transparency in government and banking is bad, but exposing all of our private information to marketers for the sake of making money is okay.

Bernanke be Warned

2011-06-16T15:41:00.000-04:00

Monsanto in the Medical Weed Game - Another Reason NOT to Use Medical Marijuana

2011-06-16T00:04:00.006-04:00

Not sure why we would need weed killer and fertilizer for something that grows all over my yard accidentally, but here it is - read "High Hopes at Miracle-Gro in Medical Marijuana Field" as published in the Wall Street Journal...

If medical marijuana does make its way into the mainstream, I hope folks are at least smart enough to grow it themselves WITHOUT chemicals. It takes a special kind of moron to believe any chemicals would be needed to grow "weed."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304665904576383832249741032.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThir

Somebody's Watching You

2011-06-15T00:43:00.006-04:00

There was an interesting story published in the New York Times by Steve Lohr in the New York Times called, Computers That See You and Keep Watch Over You

Here are some of the more interesting quotes from it:

A computer-vision system can analyze a woman’s expressions as she watches a movie trailer or shops online, and help marketers tailor their offerings accordingly. Computer vision can also be used at shopping malls, schoolyards, subway platforms, office complexes and stadiums.

Google has also introduced an application called Goggles, which allows people to take a picture with a smartphone and search the Internet for matching images. The company’s executives decided to exclude a facial-recognition feature, which they feared might be used to find personal information on people who did not know that they were being photographed.

“It’s a world where technology more fundamentally understands you, so you don’t have to understand it,” said Alex Kipman, an engineer on the team that designed Kinect.

The two women are the co-founders of Affectiva, a company in Waltham, Mass., that is beginning to market its facial-expression analysis software to manufacturers of consumer products, retailers, marketers and movie studios. Its mission is to mine consumers’ emotional responses to improve the designs and marketing campaigns of products.

John Ross, chief executive of Shopper Sciences, a marketing research company that is part of the Interpublic Group, said Affectiva’s technology promises to give marketers an impartial reading of the sequence of emotions that leads to a purchase, in a way that focus groups and customer surveys cannot. “You can see and analyze how people are reacting in real time, not what they are saying later, when they are often trying to be polite,” he said. The technology, he added, is more scientific and less costly than having humans look at store surveillance videos, which some retailers do.

At work or school, the technology opens the door to a computerized supervisor that is always watching. Are you paying attention, goofing off or daydreaming? In stores and shopping malls, smart surveillance could bring behavioral tracking into the physical world.

Read the whole article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/science/02see.html?_r=1goglle

The Effect of Color in Our Food

2011-06-15T00:18:00.001-04:00

(*A Direct re-post)
Colorless Food? We Blanch
By GARDINER HARRIS
Published: April 2, 2011
The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Without the artificial coloring FD&C Yellow No. 6, Cheetos Crunchy Cheese Flavored Snacks would look like the shriveled larvae of a large insect. Not surprisingly, in taste tests, people derived little pleasure from eating them.

Their fingers did not turn orange. And their brains did not register much cheese flavor, even though the Cheetos tasted just as they did with food coloring.

“People ranked the taste as bland and said that they weren’t much fun to eat,” said Brian Wansink, a professor at Cornell University and director of the university’s Food and Brand Lab.

Naked Cheetos would not seem to have much commercial future. Nor might some brands of pickles. The pickling process turns them an unappetizing gray. Dye is responsible for their robust green. Gummi worms without artificial coloring would look, like, well, muddily translucent worms. Jell-O would emerge out of the refrigerator a watery tan.

No doubt the world would be a considerably duller place without artificial food coloring. But might it also be a safer place? The Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group, asked the government last week to ban artificial coloring because the dyes that are used in some foods might worsen hyperactivity in some children.

“These dyes have no purpose whatsoever other than to sell junk food,” Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University.

A government advisory panel concluded that there was no proof that dyes caused problems in most children, and that whatever problems they might cause in some children did not warrant a ban or a warning label beyond what is already required — a disclosure on the product label that artificial colors are present.

“Color is such a crucial part of the eating experience that banning dyes would take much of the pleasure out of life,” said Kantha Shelke, a food chemist and spokeswoman for the Institute of Food Technologists. “Would we really want to ban everything when only a small percentage of us are sensitive?” Indeed, color often defines flavor in taste tests. When tasteless yellow coloring is added to vanilla pudding, consumers say it tastes like banana or lemon pudding. And when mango or lemon flavoring is added to white pudding, most consumers say that it tastes like vanilla pudding. Color creates a psychological expectation for a certain flavor that is often impossible to dislodge, Dr. Shelke said.

“Color can actually override the other parts of the eating experience,” she said in an interview.

Even so, some food companies have expanded their processed-product offerings to include foods without artificial colorings. You can now buy Kool-Aid Invisible, for instance, and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Organic White Cheddar. Some grocery chains, including Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe’s, refuse to sell foods with artificial coloring.

As yet, natural colorings have not proven to be a good alternative. They are generally not as bright, cheap or stable as artificial colorings, which can remain vibrant for years. Natural colorings often fade within days.

Todd Miller, the executive pastry chef for Hello Cupcake in Washington, said he was dedicated to simple, natural ingredients. His cakes are made with flour and butter, and his red icing gets its color from strawberry purée.

But the sprinkles that top many of his creations have colorings derived from good old petroleum, the source of artificial colorings. And he has no intention of changing that because the natural stuff just isn’t as colorful.

“I could live without sprinkles, but why would I want to?” he asked. “They’re cupcakes. They’re supposed to be fun.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/weekinreview/03harris.html?ref=gardinerharris
A version of this article appeared in print on April 3, 2011, on page WK3 of the New York edition.

Eat Your Pesticides

2011-06-14T23:59:00.003-04:00

Environmental Working Group analyzed pesticide residue testing data from the US Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration to come up with rankings for these popular fresh produce items.

Lower numbers = more pesticides.

Apples
Celery
Strawberries
Peaches
Spinach
Nectarines - imported
Grapes - imported
Sweet bell peppers
Potatoes
Blueberries - domestic
Lettuce
Kale/collard greens
Cilantro
Cucumbers
Grapes - domestic
Cherries
Pears
Nectarines - domestic
Hot peppers
Green beans - domestic
Carrots
Plums - imported
Blueberries - imported
Raspberries
Green beans - imported
Summer squash
Oranges
Broccoli
Green onions
Bananas
Cantaloupe - imported
Honeydew melon
Cauliflower
Tomatoes
Papaya
Cranberries
Plums - domestic
Winter squash
Mushrooms
Grapefruit
Sweet potatoes
Watermelon
Cabbage
Kiwi
Cantaloupe - domestic
Eggplant
Mango
Sweet peas - frozen
Asparagus
Avocado
Pineapples
Sweet Corn
Onions

Finding Healthier Food
If you choose 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day from EWG's Clean 15 rather than the Dirty Dozen, you can lower the volume of pesticide you consume daily by 92 percent, according to EWG calculations. You'll also eat fewer types of pesticides. Picking 5 servings of fruits and vegetables from the 12 most contaminated would cause you to consume an average of 14 different pesticides a day. If you choose 5 servings from the 15 least contaminated fruits and vegetables, you'll consume fewer than 2 pesticides per day.

The Dirty Dozen™
Of the 12 most contaminated foods, 6 are fruits: apples, strawberries, peaches, domestic nectarines, imported grapes and domestic blueberries. Notable findings:

Every sample of imported nectarines tested positive for pesticides, followed by apples (97.8 percent) and imported plums (97.2 percent).
92 percent of apples contained 2 or more pesticide residues‚ followed by imported nectarines (90.8 percent) and peaches (85.6 percent).
Imported grapes had 14 pesticides detected on a single sample. Strawberries, domestic grapes both had 13 different pesticides detected on a single sample.
As a category. peaches have been treated with more pesticides than any other produce, registering combinations of up to 57 different chemicals. Apples were next, with 56 pesticides and raspberries with 51.

Celery, spinach, sweet bell peppers, potatoes, lettuce and greens (kale and collards) are the vegetables most likely to retain pesticide contamination:

Some 96 percent all celery samples tested positive for pesticides, followed by cilantro (92.9 percent) and potatoes (91.4 percent).
Nearly 90 percent of celery samples contained multiple pesticides, followed by cilantro (70.1 percent) and sweet bell peppers (69.4 percent).
A single celery sample was contaminated with 13 different chemicals, followed by a single sample of sweet bell peppers (11), and greens (10).
Hot peppers had been treated with as many as 97 pesticides, followed by cucumbers (68) and greens (66).

The Clean Fifteen™
The vegetables least likely to test positive for pesticides are onions, sweet corn, asparagus, sweet peas, eggplant, cabbage, sweet potatoes and mushrooms.

Asparagus, sweet corn and onions had no detectable pesticide residues on 90 percent or more of samples.
More than four-fifths of cabbage samples (81.8 percent) had no detectible pesticides, followed by sweet peas (77.1 percent) and eggplant (75.4 percent).
Multiple pesticide residues are extremely rare on vegetables low in overall contamination. No samples of onions and corn had more than one pesticide. Less than 6 percent of sweet potato samples had multiple pesticides.
Of the low-pesticide vegetables, no single sample had more than 5 different chemicals.

The fruits least likely to test positive for pesticide residues are pineapples, avocados, mangoes, domestic cantaloupe, kiwi, watermelon and grapefruit.

Fewer than 10 percent of pineapple, mango, and avocado samples showed detectable pesticides, and fewer than one percent of samples had more than one pesticide residue.
Nearly 55 percent of grapefruit had detectable pesticides but only 17.5 percent of samples contained more than one residue. Watermelon had residues on 28.1 percent of samples, and 9.6 percent had multiple pesticide residues.

Methodology
The Shopper's Guide to Pesticides (http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/) ranks pesticide contamination for 53 popular fruits and vegetables based on an analysis of 51,000 tests for pesticides on these foods, conducted from 2000 to 2009 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the federal Food and Drug Administration. Nearly all the studies on which the guide is based tested produce after it had been rinsed or peeled.

Contamination was measured in 6 different ways:

Percent of samples tested with detectable pesticides
Percent of samples with two or more pesticides
Average number of pesticides found on a single sample
Average amount (level in parts per million) of all pesticides found
Maximum number of pesticides found on a single sample
Total number of pesticides found on the commodity

For each metric, we ranked all of the foods based on their individual USDA test results, then normalized the scores on a 1-100 scale (with 100 being the highest). To get a commodity's final score, we added up the six normalized scores from each metric. The full Shopper's Guide list shows the fruits and vegetables in order of these final scores.

The goal is to include a range of different measures of pesticide contamination to account for uncertainties in the science. All categories were treated equally; for example, a pesticide linked to cancer is counted the same as a pesticide linked to brain and nervous system toxicity, and the likelihood of eating multiple pesticides on a single food is given the same weight as the amounts of the pesticide detected or the percent of the crop on which pesticides were found.

The EWG’s Shopper’s Guide is not built on a complex assessment of pesticide risks but instead reflects the overall pesticide loads of common fruits and vegetables. This approach best captures the uncertainties of the risks of pesticide exposure and gives shoppers confidence that when they follow the guide they are buying foods with consistently lower overall levels of pesticide contamination.

RFID + BioMetrics

2011-06-14T01:00:00.000-04:00

The Truth is Free

2011-06-11T16:27:00.003-04:00

http://www.freedocumentaries.org/

Quantitative Easing Explained

2011-06-09T12:44:00.001-04:00

The Myth of Overpopulation

2011-06-08T15:36:00.000-04:00