Category Archives: Big Brother

Failure to prosecute Wall St.

by

…because we’d much rather go after computer wizzes who have legal access to files and download them for the public so that the public knows what their government is doing…

link here.

bgrothus has this link in the comments section.  Remember, folks, the derivatives were the cause of the meltdown.  They were betting on people losing their mortgages….these scumbags were betting on people like me losing their houses. 

…and not only betting on people losing their houses, but on people dying.  It’s amazing how they can make it seem….normal.  Just coldly predict how long someone lives and apply a monetary value to it, i.e., insurance $$.

(crap, I have to go, and I wanted to explore this more….argh)

Aaron Swartz

by

I found this interesting post on Aaron Swartz, which raises more questions than it answers…

I found another post on this site Saturday, but couldn’t find it again looking today.  It mentioned a post by Marcy Wheeler on what was going on with Aaron Swartz and his suicide after being hounded by authorities.  (Be sure to click on the NY Times link, which explains a little better.)  More here.

This chills one to the bone.  And what exactly was he downloading that caused such concern?  The articles dance around it. Anyway, Aaron Swartz believed that the information out there that was paid for by taxpayers deserved to be easily accessed–that is, without paying high $$ to join JSTOR or any other program to gain access.  It was noted that many documents are being electronically copied with limited access to the public.  This is incredibly disturbing, as everyone knows that Information is Power. And knowledge can inform the American citizen what their government is doing. (This is why stuff like Kindle worry me–taking information off of physical books and putting them in electronic gadgets that require a battery and software to view is dangerous in that if either of those fail to work, the information is inaccessible.  One can easily see how this can turn into denial of information–book burning a la the information age.)

The thing is…Swartz had legal access to the information, via Harvard!  He had the legal right to access. He was trying to make a point that the copyright laws protected electronic information that the taxpayers paid for, but were denied access to.  Now, think of the library books one checks out…they are copyrighted materials, but one can still access the information via a library card.  I think Swartz was applying those same principles to his providing this information.  Note that JSTOR refused to prosecute him once they learned he had legal access.

 

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Beyond Vietnam

by

Susie Madrak has a post up on MLK’s birthday celebration.  This is my view, too, on how everybody brings up “I Have a Dream” speech, and then fail to acknowledge his “Beyond Vietnam” speech (which he gave a year to the day before his murder).

He was expanding from the Civil Rights protests towards protesting the condition of the poor and of the terrible consequences of war.  This was more of a threat to the status quo than anything he had done prior.  Indeed, even his friends that had supported him during the Civil Rights era were abandoning him when he started advocating for the poor and protesting against war.  According to those that knew him, he never felt so alone.

He knew that advocating those positions was dangerous.

And he did it anyway….

 

The Flu scare is on….

by

(sigh) Once again the scare tactics are on for the flu vaccine.

News reports have been blasting on every news station I’ve listened to: radio, TV and newspapers.  Local coverage here:  http://www.fortwayne.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130109/NEWS/320139235?mytabsmenu=

On the rightwing radio station here, the head of the health dept. was pushing for everyone to get the vaccine, using a coercive technique of saying that “you may be healthy, and survive the flu, but you may expose someone else to the flu…” (if you don’t get the vaccine).  Of course, the talk show host did not question this line of thinking nor if there were repercussions to getting the vaccine itself.  This is one of the issues I had with the health dept–they don’t tell both sides of the story and reveal the downsides of vaccine to allow people to make their own decisions of whether they want to get the vaccine.

Here’s a blog disputing the numbers the CDC is using to scare the public into getting a vaccine that is not safe nor necessarily effective.  (Keep in mind, folks, that the CDC is now being run by the Dept. of Hysterical Security.)

People have such short memories on the swine flu “pandemic”...and all the hysteria that involved.  The key sentence in this report is this:

Most reports coming from the Southern Hemisphere in late August (the end of winter there) suggested that the swine flu is highly infectious, but not particularly lethal.

~~~~~~

The swine flu was contagious, but not particularly lethal–so the hysteria was just that–being terrorized over something that was not likely to cause severe health problems.

The story does say that whooping cough has been contained by vaccines, but from everything I’ve read, that is not true.  They have been saying that whooping cough is increasing in numbers, even though people have been vaccinated!

Another telling sentence in the above report is this:

Education, lifestyle, income, and many other “confounding” factors can come into play, and as a result, cohort studies are notoriously prone to bias.

~~~~~~

Bias. Bias. Bias.  Scientists have inserted their biases into research to obtain a certain result or support their own prejudices.  This has been demonstrated over and over and over again….and yet reporters and the public don’t question scientists or their research.

For instance, those who don’t see doctors and don’t get the flu (such as myself) are not going to be counted.  I should be getting the flu because of my compromised immune system and exposure to all sorts of germs at the library and my building…so where is the science in that??

(A side note ~ I heard or read somewhere that keyboards were filthier than toilet seats, so I began using the sanitized wipes on the keyboard before I type a letter. And in relation to that, you men need to wash your hands after using the toilet!  I did my own little “survey” when I worked (Gah, I once worked…)–the company’s break room was situated near the bathrooms, and I’d listen for the water to run after someone used the toilet.  All the women washed their hands…half of the men did. Blech.)

Link to the vaccine injury page.  Good info here.  Be sure to click on the link of the unvaccinated children.  There’s a particular statement by a speech pathologist who notes that children have seizures and their development is arrested after receiving the vaccines.  This makes sense to me because of all I know about the immune system (the gut) and the interference with brain function (migraines, seizures, ADD, clumsiness) when one has leaky gut (Celiac).  But you won’t hear this on the radio or TV or newspapers…

Also on the page is a link to the state of health of vaccinated children.  Two-thirds of the parents who had their children vaccinated would not continue.  Link here to the health effects after vaccination.

A good website here on the 1986 law effectively putting the burden of vaccine injury onto the taxpayers and allowing the pharmaceutical industry and doctors to avoid responsibility and accountability for the harm that vaccines cause.  (Note that this is during the Reagan administration.)

From the webpage:

There is a long list of things that are wrong with the VICP. First and foremost, while it is referred to as a court, it simply is not a court. There is no judge, no jury, no right to require the adversary to provide information, and no formal rules of evidence and civil procedure.

~~~~

This illustrates the lack of justice for the victims of vaccine injury.  A pharmaceutical company does not have to show their face in a court of law, to a jury, and most importantly, to the victim whose life has been altered due to their product, as the page states.  The hidden data of the Vaccine Safety Datalink was allowed to be viewed by the Justice Dept, but not the attorneys for the victims.

The page states that they only have a three year statute of limitations to file the case.  They feel, and I agree, that this is too short a time period.  For one, you have so many so-called professionals who will dispute the vaccine injury.  This is parallel  to my mercury injury from the amalgams–even though my migraines started one year after placement, it wasn’t until nearly ten years later that I discovered the link between them and the symptoms I was having.  All the professionals I had seen never considered amalgams as a source of health issues.  They still don’t.

And the biggest empty hole missing from this conversation is: DIET.  Not a word about how diet affects us and our immune systems and how a healthy immune system will successfully fight the flu bug and any other nasty stuff that comes our way.  Folks don’t die from the flu–they die from pneumonia, because of a compromised immune system that can’t fight it off.  Not a word about gluten intolerance and how that can lead to the gut’s inability to effectively kill the flu virus or the pneumonia bacteria.

The next biggest empty hole is: ENVIRONMENTAL TOXINS.  This being another devastating effect on the immune system.

But that would actually take using more than a myopic view, and we just can’t have that. /snark

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PR Watch

by

(I’m sooo far behind, I think I’m ahead…)

Trying to play catch up–here are some highlights of issues sent out by Center for Media and Democracy–

I love that he is holding Whole Foods accountable for the food they are saying is organic….but not quite telling all of the possible ingredients (heavy metals and other contaminants)…

The “Don’t ask, don’t tell” I-see-no-evil, I-hear-no-evil is pretty standard.  They aren’t counting on folks like Mario asking questions, either.  The more people ask questions, the harder it is to come up with evasive answers.

Like I’ve said before, know where your food is from–buy locally if at all possible, because the gossip is at least one other national organic food store is selling conventionally grown (using chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides) food is being marketed as organic.

~~~~~~

Addressing the gun violence issue.  Like in my previous post, you can use other weapons for violence instead of guns–it’s the acceptance of violence in our society (and others) that encourages this.  It’s so much easier to throw a rock than to try to reason with someone and to compromise and to recognize one’s own responsibility towards making peace.  A gun is a  quick way to end whatever problem there is…

And the argument that everyone carrying a gun would stop violence…oy vey…

~~~~~~~~~~

ALEC member Scott nominated to fill Demint vacancy.

IRS audit for ALEC?  The question becomes “are you a charity if you have a political action committee and go from state to state trying to heavily influence legislation?”

Michigan and ALEC’s right to work law.   This is part of the religious right’s assault on fairness, which I’m finding out in the book Holy Terror.  (I’m slowly getting through it, a better report later.)

 

Genetic tests on Lanza?

by

Oh.My.God.

I am just stunned.  Eugenics, anyone??

Nothing in this article about him having amalgams or mercury exposure or diet (if he is gluten intolerant, leading to schizophrenia).

No…we can’t have scientists looking at stuff like that, because that’s too simple an answer and the ways to fix it make us uncomfortable.   It means we have to give up some things that pollute our environment and we have to make more of an effort to understand the diet and immune system and how they affect our brains.

I mean, really, “science” has taught us that amalgams are safe, right??

…and “science” has brought us pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers, and genetically modified organisms.

So, yeah, scientists with biases and prejudices should *absolutely* assign a value to a gene and making sweeping generalizations with those biases. /snark

More here. Be sure to note the Americans funding this garbage.

No way…

by

…that 90% of the Democrats endorse and support Hillary Clinton for president in 2016. (Of all the times to forget my earphones–so I can’t watch this, but I have heard parts of it.)

She actually thinks Henry Kissinger, Tony Blair and Benjamin Netanyahu are upstanding people that speak well of her integrity and leadership skills?

Kissinger quotes that are alarming:

“Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”

“Intelligence is not all that important in the exercise of power, and is often, in point of fact, useless.”

“Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.”

In other words, power turns him on–ego, ego, ego.  Intelligence is not needed when you’re trying to bomb the hell out of another country–you only need bigger bombs than they have.  And lastly, starving people will do wonders at gaining their compliance to do things they would not normally do.  And he who has the gold makes the rules….

Tony Blair and his compliance with invading Iraq.

And, of course, we know of Netanyahu’s connections to Romney and his exaggerating the Iran threat….for twenty years…

Clinton is a war hawk who would love to push that fabled “red button” at the slightest provocation….or none at all.

One of the employees bought a converter for our TV in the main room for the residents, so I get whatever our antenna picks up.  I watched ABC This Week on Sunday morning and was stunned at Carville’s statement that 90% of Dems have already decided that Clinton will be the nominee.

First of all, how dare you make such an assumption of what the voters are thinking??  I am so sick and tired of politicians and pundits using the phrase “the American people believe/want/need…” when they can only speak for themselves.

…and from where this writer sits, I’d vote for Romney before I’d vote for another Clinton in the White House.  I’m sick of Bushes and Clintons in the White House.  We can thank Clinton for NAFTA, and Bush II for No Child Left a Mind, and for getting us into two wars on false claims of weapons of mass destruction…between all of them, they’ve done a bang up job of ruining this country.  And let’s not leave out the Godfather of it all, Ronald Reagan.  I’m ashamed to say that I voted for him the first four years, but thankfully, not the second four…