Sunday, June 12, 2011

As It Stands: Food conspiracy of government and chemical companies grows every year

monsanto1

By Dave Stancliff/For the Times-Standard

Posted: 06/12/2011 02:40:43 AM PDT

Who would have ever guessed a food fight would bring together the alternative health left and the Tea Party right in opposition against anything? But the Food Safety Modernization Act (S510) accomplished that feat when President Obama signed it into law on January 4th.

Basically, the act precludes the public's right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature makes.

This strange alliance of ideological enemies is not that surprising because both sides fear the total control and power government can achieve by regulating our food supply and taking away our ability to feed ourselves.

When the White House ordered the FDA to promote biotechnology in 1991, a step was taken toward an unholy alliance between government and the chemical companies that continues to this day.

Instead of watching out for us, they are poisoning our food supply for profit. Call me a conspiracy nut, or whatever, but read on for the reasons I believe that. The first warning sign was when a new position was created: Deputy Commissioner for Policy to supervise government policy on genetically modified foods (GMOs).

Who do you think the Clinton White House wanted for the new position? Someone who had no “irons in the fire,” so to speak? Sorry. The White House recruited attorney Michael Taylor, a lawyer who represented Monsanto and other members of the biotech industry, to head up the formation of GMO policy.

Talk about selling the people out. Our government allowed this incestuous relationship to affect our food chain by hiring biotech industries employees to carry out their agenda.

All the independent testing around the world reveals that GMO foods contain bacteria, toxins and/or viruses that are transmitted to humans within the foods' DNA. Every independent test reveals a negative secret about genetically modified organisms despite Monsanto's efforts to quash their opposition.

The result is the U.S. is the only developed nation to allow milk or other dairy products from cows given artificial growth hormone. With the exception of items labeled “organic,” GMOs are in almost every dairy product sold in our stores. The hormones are also fed to livestock to fatten them faster for market.

The FDA and USDA will continue to misrepresent facts about the safety of our food products to support food and drug industries' goals. History proves that.

What bothers me is that one man's actions have such a huge impact on the food you and I eat. Taylor was the one who declared all GMOs, including rBGH/rBST, to be essentially identical to the natural product and therefore safe for human consumption, even though no safety studies were done. Sure, others are also responsible, but he's the poster boy for introducing GMOs into our food chain.

So what happens? To my utter disgust, President Obama appointed Taylor to the position of FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods in 2010, despite his clear conflict of interest with Monsanto. Call it cronyism. I call it a conspiracy.

Their complicity was never more obvious than when Wikileaks released documents on how Monsanto and the U.S. government teamed up to compel Spain to lift their ban on GMO products. At one point, Monsanto and the U.S. government used the World Bank to threaten Ireland. Irish ministers were told that if they did not permit GMO foods to be sold in Ireland, they would not be eligible to receive loans.

When some of our farmers decided the health of their cows was not worth the increased profits and began to market products as not containing milk from rBGH- or rBST-treated cows, the FDA moved fast (with Monsanto's insistence) and made them re-label their products.

The new label now has to say, “No significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rBST- and non-rBST-treated cows.” This, despite the preponderance of evidence that shows otherwise, is just another example of the control they have over our food.

Something to keep in mind: when ideological opposites unite on the same issue, such as the safety of our food chain, it's no longer about politics. It's about survival.

As It Stands, if this arrangement between the chemical companies and our government isn't a conspiracy, then what is it?

Websites carrying this column:

Food Safety News Feed

Product Lawyer Reviews

Investigating the New Imperialism12 June page

NewsBlogged12 June page

Alternative Medicine and Holistic Health12 June page

Accountability-Central.com12 June page

Silobreaker - NEWS SEARCH -- ANALYSIS -  INSIGHT

 

 

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Mark your calendar: Very long total lunar eclipse coming Wednesday

Image: 1007 lunar eclipse

This month's full moon will pass almost directly through the center of Earth's shadow on Wednesday in what will be an unusually long total eclipse of the moon.

The lunar eclipse will occur just two weeks after a June 1 partial solar eclipse, when the moon blocked part of the sun as viewed from Arctic regions.

The eclipse won't be visible from North America due to its timing, which places the event in the daylight hours when the moon is behind the local horizon.

Story Here

Too much coffee makes you hear voices, study suggests

Good Morning Humboldt County!

Join me for a quick cup of Joe and go this morning. While we’re enjoying it there’s something you should know:

If you're hearing voices in your head, you may want to cut back on the caffeine. A recent Australian study showed a link between heavy coffee consumption, stress -- and auditory hallucinations.

Here's what happened: The volunteers listened to white noise played through a computer's headphones for three minutes. Every time they heard even a snippet of Bing Crosby's White Christmas, they were told to press a hand tally counter. (They weren't aware of the real point of the study -- they were told it was about auditory perception.)

The song was never played. But the participants who said they were very stressed, and very caffeinated -- those who regularly drank five or more cups per day, at 200 milligrams of caffeine each -- were more likely to imagine they'd heard it.

"We believe that high stress, in addition to taking high levels of caffeine, makes people yet more stressed and thus makes them more likely to 'overreact' to the environment -- i.e., to hear things that just aren’t there," explains Simon Crowe, the lead author of the study and a neuroscientist at Australia's La Trobe University, located in Bundoora, Victoria. The report was published in the April issue of the journal Personality and Individual Differences

It's worth noting here that there are some limitations to the study: The levels of stress and caffeine consumption were both self-reported by the 92 volunteers who participated in the experiment. And what if, somehow, the caffeine-stressball combo made participants more eager to try to please the researchers -- yes, of course we heard the song! It's lovely, isn't it?!

Then again, maybe that's just what the voices in my head are telling me.

How much caffeine do you consume each day?

story source

Friday, June 10, 2011

Who Would You Say is the Fifth Face of Mount Rushmore?

If you observe Mount Rushmore from certain point, you can see that four former US presidents aren’t the only ones present.

Turning the photo for 90 degrees (as seen below) can help you visualize the fifth persona even better! Who would you say it represents? Think this was by accident or intentionally planned?

I almost see Tricky Dick Nixon (the sagging cheeks). If it wasn’t for the broken nose, he would be my guess.

Anyway, here’s an interesting fact about Mount Rushmore: did you know that the four presidents carved into the granite were initially planned to be depicted from head to waist?

Unfortunately, lack of funding forced construction to its end. Either way, the memorial still attracts approximately two million people annually.

You can see Gutzon Borglum’s (the man behind the sculptures) original plans by visiting wikipedia.

The truth may never be known: new photos of spy plane launch Area 51 intrigue

Few things capture the public's curiosity like Area 51. The top-secret military base (which doesn't officially exist) has been the subject of conspiracy theories for decades. What actually went on there? Something tells us we'll never know for sure. However, a recently revealed series of photographs provides some tantalizing new clues.

The photos, which were published by National Geographic, show a titanium A-12 spy plane. In one image, the satisfyingly sci-fi-looking plane hangs upside down while it is prepared for radar testing. In another shot, a group of officials with heavy equipment "remove all traces of the A-12 spy plane" after it went down in the Utah desert in 1963.

See some previously unreleased photos of Area 51 See more Area 51 photos at National Geographic

Of course, the photos don't prove that alien life exists--but they do go a long way toward proving the government wasn't exactly forthcoming with what was going on at Area 51. Cue the "X-Files" theme song.

story source

Unseen pictures capture outbreak of Beatlemania

An autographed photo of The Beatles is displayed at an exhibition in Buenos Aires

Good Morning Humboldt County!

It’s time for a cup of Joe and go. I find it interesting when someone turns up with unseen historical photos. A few years back it was some Marilyn Monroe photos.

This introductory period for the Beatles didn’t impress me. As a matter of fact I thought they were a bunch of“Bubble Gummers” and ignored them. As the years went by I grew to like their material as they matured.

‘They have been gathering dust in a basement for more than 40 years, but now U.S. photographer Mike Mitchell has decided to auction a group of pictures which capture the moment the Beatles became a worldwide phenomenon.” Story Here

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Thursday, June 9, 2011

107 Americans killed last year: time to say adios to Mexico travel?

You couldn’t get me to go to Mexico if you offered an all expense paid vacation and a case of Jack Daniels.

Here’s why:

Mexico's drug war has claimed more than 34,000 lives in the past four years. Despite the increasingly bleak headlines that often mention shootouts, beheading and mass graves, Americans have continued to visit the troubled country -- until now.

The Wall Street Journal wrote that several tour operators and hotel chains have seen a decline in the number of Americans visiting Mexico. Rest of story here.

Multimillionaire pooch dies at age 12 (84 in dog years)

Image: Leona Helmsley and her dog Trouble

I have been channeling "Trouble" for quite some time. Trouble wants the estate to give me the balance of the inheritance so that Trouble can live and communicate thru me. Trouble has the answers to many of the world's problems and will only be too happy to share --- for a price.

From MSNBC’s Pet’s and Animals this afternoon:

Trouble, the beloved Maltese of billionaire Leona Helmsley who became an international celebrity when Helmsley died and left him $12 million, has died. The pampered pooch was 12 — 84 in dog years.

Interestingly enough, Trouble wasn’t the richest dog in the world when he died. That honor belongs to Gunther IV, a German dog left $372 million by his owner, reports Business Insider. Other mogul mutts include Miss Charlie Brown, an English cocker spaniel in South Dakota who stands to inherit $130 million from her mineral magnate owners. 

Oprah Winfrey’s will is rumored to have earmarked $30 million for the care of her pups.” Rest of the story here.

Popular Science picks top 10 inventions for 2011

Image: This crime-fighting armored glove has a wrist-mounted stunner and a video camera built in.

Good Morning Humboldt County!

It’s time for a cup of Joe and go. This morning let’s look at a little good old fashioned American know-how. Here’s some interesting inventions for 2011:

Read the rest here.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Nationwide Trend: Seniors' medical pot collective stirs up trouble

Joe Schwartz is a 90-year-old great-grandfather of three who enjoys a few puffs of pot each night before he crawls into bed in the Southern California retirement community he calls home.

The World War II veteran smokes the drug to alleviate debilitating nausea and is one of about 150 senior citizens on this sprawling, 18,000-person gated campus who belongs to a thriving — and controversial — medical marijuana collective operating here, in the middle of one of the largest retirement communities in the United States.

The fledgling collective mirrors a nationwide trend as more and more senior citizens turn to marijuana, legal or not, to ease the aches and pains of aging. But in Laguna Woods Village, tucked in the heart of one of the most conservative and wealthiest counties in California, these ganja-smoking grandparents have stirred up a heated debate with their collective, attracting a crackdown from within the self-governed community.

PHOTO - Lonnie Painter, 65, who uses marijuana for medicinal purposes and is the director of a group known as Laguna Woods for Medical Cannabis, medicates at his home in Laguna Woods, California.

Read More Here

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