Category Archives: defense contractors

Senators who voted against GMO labeling

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(**edited to add tryptophan link.)

organic consumers has a post up on pressuring ten senators who voted against the Sanders’ amendment to allow states the right to label GMO food.

All we’re asking for is the right to know what is in our food!  We’re not asking them to ban GMO’s…although that’s certainly a dream of ours…we’re just asking for the right to refuse to eat food that is bad for us.

This is especially an issue for Celiacs, who can be seriously affected by genetically modified food that we cannot digest properly, and will only add to the leaky gut syndrome, possibly causing an emergency situation caused by gut inflammation. 

A debate (sort of) here.  The increase in gut inflammation since the 30s can easily be attributed to our increased use of wheat flour and undiagnosed Celiac / gluten intolerance.  I personally think it has been there, but now is becoming worse because of the GMO’s.  It just makes sense to me.

Here’s a trailer to the video by Dr. Smith : Genetic Roulette.  Glad to see Dr. Huber of Purdue University featured.  He has spoken out about the changes to the bee population.  I’m also glad to see other M.D.’s on board with this.

And then there’s this.  Holy crap, it’s worse than I thought…!  So, even if you stop eating GMO foods, you’re still subjected to this monster via your gut flora.  Holy crap.

The above page had a link to the Japan tryptophan disaster, but the link was dead.  I found it here.

It’s interesting that tryptohpan, which is a natural amino acid, was banned in supplement form…but it’s quite all right for GMO’s to go without scrutiny or restraint.  Many in the natural supplements industry felt that tryptophan was targeted because it was a natural supplement, that competed with Big Pharma.  This just adds more credibility to that claim.  If you’re Big Pharma or Monsanto, you can get away with it.

Here’s another page on GMO which mentions the Showa Denko incident.

What ver you doink Thursday night at 3:46 p.m.?

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Well, if you can’t remember, the NSA might be able to help fill in the memory gap.    (hat tip to fatster at  FDL.)

This quote from the comments brought a smile to my face in an otherwise somber article:

Candide08
I’m going to start calling random doctors and other businesses that have nothing to do with me. A little dis-information goes a long way.
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I don’t know everybody is surprised by this–anyone with half a brain could see the continuing violation of Fourth Amendment right to privacy.   All in the name of safety.  Um-hmmm….there’s no ulterior Nixon-like motive to gain an edge over someone by snooping into their private lives…./snark.  I’ve been saying all along that this whole thing smelled of Watergate–only on steroids.  Nixon sought the information so he could win at all costs.  Fortunately, we had Senator Frank Church to stand up for what was right.  Where’s our Church now?  Oh, right, drummed out of office by what is now the Tea Party.

 

 

Helping ourselves

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commondreams has this up.  Be sure to look at all the videos–well worth the time.

The idea is so simple it’s like “duh!”

I have a quibble, though, with Klein saying that it’s up to the Left to “seize the moment”.  There are those who are NOT in the Tea Party on the Right who also need and want to find a solution to the crashes around us.  I say this because the Left has not been of the same mind — I was shot down on a progressive website when I advocated buying American so we could put people back to work.  I knew that Washington wasn’t going to get off its collective duff and do anything about the job loss.  (NAFTA being a good example of monumental job loss.)

I just don’t think people have been given the skills or knowledge to feel confident enough to take over a business if the owners want to sell out.  I think it may be a case of learned helplessness?  Not believing in yourself can be such a huge obstacle that one stops before even getting started.

Perhaps the “teach-ins” of 2013 should be “Business 101:  how to own a business without going belly-up nor bankrupting the environment on your way to the bank…”

The Native Americans learned this a loooong time ago–nature was not a second thought.  They did not separate their actions from nature.

It’s still so incredibly stupid that business has ignored the laws of nature, as if we could exist without clean water, clean air and chemical free food…

Well…exist is probably a bad word choice…since we are existing right now…perhaps thriving  is the better word.  All one has to do is look at folks’ skin and see that we are not thriving, but existing.  The skin is such a barometer of what’s going on in the insides…not doing too well by that account.

Anyway, Washington isn’t going to help us…most likely profiting off of NAFTA…so, it’s up to us if we want to save ourselves.

 

 

 

 

Rick Ross

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I edited the previous blog on the Webb story.  I can’t stop thinking about it–it is so compelling.  So…

I went looking for more of the story with Rick Ross. 

I wondered about his background.  I started with wiki, but there wasn’t much there.  Next I found the above site and it seems that it was the inability to read that sent him down the drug road.  It must have been devastating to him to have the talent of playing tennis well, especially in the time of doors being opened by Arthur Ashe,  (a side note~ how ironic that there is a picture of Ashe shaking Reagan’s hand, when Reagan’s ignoring the AIDS epidemic unfolding around him could be blamed for Ashe’s demise)  and not be able to see that through.  He is probably an undiagnosed dyslexic…possibly toxic (yeah, I know, some of you are groaning, but seriously…people are more affected by toxins than even they can recognize…and black folk who live in poor sections of town are more likely to be exposed to toxins dumped.  And don’t forget poor whites, too.)

This doesn’t mean that I excuse the behavior, because many who are dyslexic struggle but somehow compensate and overcome it.  ( I know that I had to read something two or three times while in school and college in order to understand and remember it.  )

–Rick Ross could have been affected while in school, and this in turn perhaps affected his ability to read and do well in school Just sayin’

It’s also important to note that without customers, Rick Ross had no busine$$.  It wasn’t just the poor blacks, as this article states, but the wealthy customers, too.  They’re just as guilty.

As I read the article on Ross, I began to think of all the devastation of cocaine.

David Crosby has said that cocaine was responsible for the end of the 60s.  Well, the love and peace and Light of it, anyway…

<sigh>

Enbridge pipeline

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I don’t know why this story wasn’t carried by the mainstream media, leaving Hoosiers in the dark about this monster….on second thought, they did.  Unfortunately, this was in the Indianapolis market, but even with cable TV, was out of range for their broadcast area.

And if anyone needs a little reminder of why the conservatives love Hillary Clinton….(you’re asking what?? You’ll notice, as I have, that they will alternatively trash her and then say “she’s not so bad…”.  )  And why they luvs them some Bill, too.  Teflon. Clinton.  From the president who brought us NAFTA, gutting the financial industry protections that were put into place after the Great Depression, the misspent Haiti disaster funds….and on….

 

When a reporter touches a nerve…

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…and scoops a big newspaper…look out.       (**edited to clarify)

I can’t say that I remember the Gary Webb episode.  And you would think this would have been huge enough to be covered in my journalism classes or any of the communications classes I had at the university I attended.  Nope.  Perhaps it was too new at the time–and the facts were not well known.

The story is so compelling.  Not only for the bullying of Webb, but how crack cocaine was spread through the country.

Webb was vindicated by a 1998 CIA Inspector General report, which revealed that for more than a decade the agency had covered up a business relationship it had with Nicaraguan drug dealers like Blandón.

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If you click on the Dateline video on the fdl website, the reporter asks Rick Ross  if he had any responsibility in what happened (his pushing drugs among African Americans?)   And he answers that it was his responsibility for it.

The question arose about whether Webb thought the CIA wanted to get the African American community hooked on drugs….Yes, it is someone’s responsibility for taking drugs…if you don’t take it, then you can’t get addicted to it.  I don’t do drugs, but from what I have heard, cocaine is highly addictive—so…if the drug pushers know this (and I’m pretty sure if they were selling it in Nicaragua, they knew of its addictive qualities)—then they knew all they had to do is to get someone to take it once, and they had a customer for life…kind of like the tobacco industry trying to get people hooked on cigarettes.

…and why aren’t the “ruthless billionaires” in jail, too??

The  Webb story is a sad commentary on competitiveness, bullying, exposing criminal activity and doing what you think is the right thing…makes one wonder if we truly want to do good in this country?

I just wish Webb could have seen that what he did was important.  But to not get his ego wrapped around his career–that he had much to contribute in whatever path he took.  If he would have held on a couple more years, he would have been amazed at the internet, and perhaps his investigative skills would have been used for internet reporting.  (I’m also wondering why LAWeekly didn’t give him a job after the bullying episode left him unable to secure a position with other papers?)

Manning trial starts today

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(hat tip commondreams)

If they are successful with prosecution, we can kiss our Consitution good-bye.  The First Amendment guarantees one the right to speak out to air one’s grievances against the government.  I don’t believe that this was the only way that Bin Laden could have gotten his information or even if it was paramount to him attacking us.  They attacked us on 9/11 without the help of Manning…but the agencies knew of Osama and their own mistakes allowed the attack.  It’s so much easier to make someone else the fall guy when trying to deflect attention from your own mistakes.  And I don’t believe the charge of “aiding the enemy” is true in this case.  Intention is *everything* in criminal trials and I don’t believe that Manning’s intention was aiding bin Laden, but to highlight what was happening to inform the American public, which was not being informed by the mainstream media.

 

And if you read to the end, you see that the chilling effect is already taking place…whistleblowers are afraid to come forward with information.

Chilling, indeed.

Blackwater, Monsanto, and Gates Foundation

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In keeping up with all the dirty little deeds the Gates Foundation promotes….here is an article on the link between Gates, Monsanto, and Blackwater.   Really disturbing.

The article mentions The Nation with Jeremy Scahill—while looking for the Scahill article, I happened upon this with a scathing reply by the authors:

We agree that it will ultimately be up to farmers to decide what is best for them. Our concern continues, however, to be that the choices farmers face is systematically skewed, with some ideas being amplified over others. Any policies that involve redistribution–such as land reform–are off the Gates agenda, despite being a live concern to many African farmers’ movements. This demonstrates our broader point. Despite the foundation’s best efforts to be accountable once the policy has been laid down, the Gates Foundation’s interventions reflect, at heart, the undemocratic vision of a single very powerful and ultimately unaccountable organization.

Sincerely,

RAJ PATEL
ERIC HOLT-GIMENEZ
ANNIE SHATTUCK
www.foodfirst.org

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(italics are mine.)
Jeremy Scahill’s article here.

One of the most incendiary details in the documents is that Blackwater, through Total Intelligence, sought to become the “intel arm” of Monsanto, offering to provide operatives to infiltrate activist groups organizing against the multinational biotech firm.

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