Category Archives: big oil

More on Education

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…wow, there’s something going on when there are so many education posts in 24 hours.

Link here and here .

I should mention the connection between the Bushes and the McGraw-Hill publishing house that publishes education texts and materials.

I picked up my college history book to look at the reference to Ronald Reagan again.  It was a glowing report on him without much critical analysis of his actions nor was it all inclusive of his destruction of the Fairness Doctrine, unions, consolidation of the media markets, etc. I looked at the publisher: McGraw-Hill .

More on the profiteering by the Bushes here.

Yep, where there’s money to be made and destruction of society…you’ll find the Bushes and Cheneys….

Freedom town

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Jon Stewart takes a look at the Freedom Towns being promoted by the fundamentalist/conservatives.  Wow.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-january-29-2013/america-2–now-with-more-freedom—a-glenn-beck-holiday

In the beginning of this segment, when they are just outlining what it is about, I’m thinking….they’re talking Communes?

Well, okay, not exactly communes, where everybody is supposed to share food and chores and stuff, but yeah, this comes pretty close to it, by demanding residents adopt the same narrow view.

The thing is…it’s not that far from Communism, which requires everyone be the same—by discouraging independent thought and creativity and action.  (And I wonder what they do with someone who loses their job and becomes homeless in this Utopia? Or *gasp* someone who develops an independent thought and starts expressing liberal ideals…?)

And to link into the previous post on the Fourth Amendment–it along with the First Amendment are parts of the Constitution that kept us from becoming Communist China, Communist Russia, and Nazi Germany.  Without them, we’re toast.

So…..you would think that the conservatives would be fighting like the despised liberals to preserve them.

Why aren’t they??

Inquiry into Swartz case

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Two members of Congress have asked what reasons the DOJ had for so zealously going after Aaron Swartz.  (Be sure to click on the link to Wired).  I hope this isn’t just a we’ll pretend to be interested in fairness and justice...

I checked at Marcy Wheeler’s site, but nothing up about this.

There’s no climate change…

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Well, I shouldn’t be surprised, but yet, I still am about the gushing by the nooz broadcasters on the spring weather…

They were just all over the “nice” weather we’ve had the past few days—-50-and 60-degree days.  They even went out “on the street” to ask the public their opinion about the great weather we’re having….and they were all positive comments on how great it was to wear a light jacket or no jacket at all in January in Indiana…and they even mentioned that all the comments were positive, except one…guess which one didn’t make it to the broadcast?  This was a deliberate choice, folks.  Newsroom editors wield huge power in what gets on the air and what doesn’t.  And what does get on the air has an enormous impact–they know this.

So…I was a little beside myself with this broadcast.  I mean, are people really that dense?  Do they not know what is happening?  Do they even think about how this summer is going to be if we’re having 60-degree weather in January?  Good Grief, how soon they forget when we had 90 degree heat throughout the summer, with a drought, last year, and how dangerously low the rivers were.  Thankfully, we’ve had some good rain and that good snow in December, and the rivers are now up to level.  A small victory, but it won’t last if we start having 80-degree heat in March like we did last year.

But there’s no Climate Change.  These people will just go on their merry way until the last drop of water comes out of the tap…

I mean, seriously, doesn’t anyone think beyond their nose?

What about the too warm water that is a threat to nuclear power plant ability to cool the nuclear core?  If the warming trends continue, we will lose the ability to cool the core….can anyone say meltdown?  I hate to even think of a worse case scenario of a plant in a scramble that cannot be cooled because the water is too warm to cool it.

Another scenario is this.  Discharging hotter water into the already warm water, leading to fish kills and other destruction of the carefully constructed eco system is not a good, well thought out plan.

Speaking of the effects of the warmer weather, the plants are also being affected, as my Sedum Autumn Joy is starting to pop up from the soil.  (I brought it here with me–it’s a plant that I’ve had since my son was a baby.  I dug it up when I lost my house.)

This weather is not normal and not something to be celebrated.

Earth will survive.  We won’t.

Cornel West

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(Oh, how I miss CSPAN…even though it is slowly becoming mostly conservative views.)

Speaks his mind on President Obama using MLK’s bible to be sworn in.  He has strong words about “using King’s fire”  and not following up with actions, such as putting Wall St bankers in jail, putting Bush torturers in jail, getting rid of the drones, doing something about poverty...etc.

 

Exploring the link between diet and health

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I wanted to explore the health factors that indicate heavy metal poisoning and the African Americans.

I found this link on BET.  Diabetes can be caused by heavy metal poisoning, and high blood pressure is linked to the adrenals and kidneys which can be severely affected by heavy metal toxicity, therefore, affecting blood pressure. And, of course, heavy metal poisoning is closely associated with autistic symptoms.  I say “symptoms” because I’m not sure that the poisoning causes autism, but it most definitely causes autistic symptoms, as has been my experience.

Here’s another site.  I’ve come across a couple of websites geared towards the African American link to autism, but they are exploring the issue of comparison between whites and blacks being diagnosed later.  I’m trying to get away from that because it’s not helpful.  It is not going towards the issue itself of autism and the possible causes behind it.  It’s upsetting to me because the blanket statement that whites get diagnosed sooner than blacks is not my experience, nor others who also diagnosed themselves.   I, a white person, was not diagnosed by any damn doctor, after years of low thyroid, adrenal issues, chronic fatigue, migraines, and the symptoms of autism of wanting to be left alone, wanting to stay in my house and never leave it, diminishing communication skills, memory loss, hyperfocusing, exaggerated startle response, etc.

When I searched for a link with African Americans and heavy metal poisoning, I again came up empty.

I searched “chronic fatigue and African Americans and found this.  As I read the paragraph:

Psychosocial variables may influence the experience of chronic fatigue, especially in individuals of color. Overarching psychosocial realities such as the endemic nature of ethnic/racial discrimination and the complexity of the acculturation process may bear on the experience of fatigue. This study evaluated whether the acculturation process was related to chronic fatigue and racism among African Americans and Latinos. While associations among the predicted variables were not statistically significant, distinct divisions among levels of acculturation appeared between African Americans and Latinos. Membership in a community of color likely increases the complexity of the experience of chronic fatigue in a manner that requires further investigation.

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Okay, what I’m reading from this is that the psychobabble is stating that chronic fatigue is a psychological problem.  Pfft.  Yep, they’ve been telling women that for decades…didn’t even acknowledge that it was a true physical condition until very recently.  These women were just lazy and hypochrondriacs who needed to get a life, when in reality they were the first to suffer the effects of low thyroid and adrenal fatigue from a toxic environment.

Reading this website, the symptom onset after a traumatic event, either physical or emotional, with the compromised immune system is a red flag for an inflamed gut from Celiac or gluten intolerance.  It’s the final straw that breaks the body. I have issues with the link to the psychological, although stress does affect the immune system, I don’t think it’s the cause of it.  It’s too convenient to blame psychological stress than to explore things such as heavy metal toxicity and/or leaky gut. It’s been proven that gluten intolerance can cause psychological symptoms, and this has been known since before WWII.  Therefore, the psychological stuff comes *after* the leaky gut or whatever physical issue is beleaguering the body, not necessarily the other way around.

As a side note, I found this link.  I had forgotten about the Gulf War syndrome being the first serious acknowledgement that chronic fatigue was an actual physical ailment and not psychological.  And the link between Gulf War syndrome and vaccines should not be ignored.

From the website:

“Despite these agreements between FDA and DoD, and DoD’s official subsequent decision to administer the vaccine voluntarily, many PGW veterans claim that they were not told what vaccine they were being given, or what the risks were, either orally or in writing. Many report that they were told not to tell medical personnel that they had received a vaccination, even if the vaccination caused pain or swelling. No record of the vaccine was available in medical records; as a result, physicians who were concerned about any local or systemic reactions were uninformed about the possible causes. Veterans who claim they were harmed by the vaccine or pyridostigmine frequently have no proof that they were vaccinated or took the pills, or that they had an adverse reaction. Moreover, virtually none of the soldiers received more than two of the botulism vaccinations, even though DoD informed FDA they would administer the three shots necessary for protection…

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So, folks…you should run right out and get that flu vaccine.  Run! NOW!

 

North Haven, Connecticut

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I came back to look at the Cluster link…and North Haven, Connecticut caught my eye.  I wondered how close it was to Newtown.

From the Cluster website:

Researchers have doubled the scope of their investigation into brain cancer cases at a jet-engine manufacturing company and are requesting another two years and an additional $4 million to complete the work. This study was prompted by the deaths of at least several dozen workers from the same rare, very fast-growing form of brain cancer. The study initially had been expected to look at the medical and work records of about 100,000 current and former workers. But that number increased to 200,000 during routine searches of company records, said a biostatistician at the University of Pittsburgh who is conducting a portion of the research. The due-date for the study is 2008, but researchers now want to push back the completion deadline to 2010.

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I looked at the distance between the two cities: about 42 miles…close enough to possibly affect them?

When I looked up Newtown contamination, I found this. <sigh>

These piles are contaminated with high levels of metals including cadmium, lead, tin, chromium, copper, zinc, and nickel, as well as PCBs.

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…the only one missing is mercury, but the article does mention that it was a site of aluminum smelting.

So…you have poisons giving people brain cancer and 40 miles away, you have the toxic soup further messing with brain function, if they were lucky enough not to become sick (at least noticeably sick, i.e., cancer).  But many others will likely suffer from chronic fatigue, low thyroid/adrenal function, ADD, memory loss, and on…and they won’t likely be counted.  It’s sooo much easier to ignore a problem when you only count those most severely affected, and not the overall decline of health of many others….and if someone commits a horrible crime because of those toxins…

The susceptibility to disease

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I was thinking about my post here over the weekend, and thought I should expand on it.  I write what I know (which is what they tell you), but perhaps I was being myopic.

I did a search on susceptibility and African Americans, but had very few articles to choose from.  I found this. 

Here are some of the issues I have with this article–

One is that pollution stays in one place, so it affects just the nearest geographical area.   It spreads all over.  Articles on it here and here and here.

Air pollution in FW is particularly bad–there were many, many ozone days last summer where I could not go outside for any length of time.  I thought I could at least jog in the morning of an ozone day, but was sadly mistaken when I started wheezing as I climbed the stairs to my apartment afterward.

The lung disease thing I am confused about because in my building, the only folks with oxygen tanks are whites–several of them.  And nearly all the ones in wheelchairs are white.  At one time, there have been seven whites in wheelchairs, several more using walkers  but only one black gentleman in a wheelchair.  Just my own little world….

I suspect that heavy metals are affecting African Americans, but like whites, are not being noticed or investigated.  The information may be out there, but I didn’t see it in my research.  I would love to explore this more.

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And no, I don’t think that nuclear energy is the answer (if one wants to reduce coal production to lessen the impact of lead, arsenic and mercury in the environment).  Nuclear has many, many problems, one of which is thyroid cancer levels go up around nuclear power plants.  I think one of the first things that has to occur is for Americans to stop wasting so much energy and going off grid would be the first step–one has to be more conscious of the energy they use if they are responsible for that energy. Another step would be to build sustainable housing, like earth ships. Gotta love that name.  And I love the design on this page—Isn’t that cool? Who would think such an artsy design is also sustainable?

A paper here by Joseph Mangano on the rising thyroid cancer rates and nuclear energy. (PDF)

A map on disease clusters here.

Yep, the evidence is out there that we are killing ourselves with the toxic environment.  I’d rather sacrifice a little and be able to breathe than have the conveniences of modern life that are killing us, slowly.

No way…

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…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…