GM Wheat found in Oregon

In case you didn’t click on the link for yet another farm crop contaminated with GMO’s….

I just want to know how many times Monsanto can get away with this before somebody finally lays down the law?

What’s to say that they aren’t doing this in other countries…allegedly releasing GMO seed via unsuspecting farmers who plant the seed, not knowing it’s GMO, and by the time the discovery is made…well, too late…it’s already been released into the environment??

Bopping around on the web, I found this article about products that were thought to be GMO free, but alas…Sweden was, by other articles I read, proactive and was against GMO’s.  So….where did this come from?  I can’t say that I know enough about the timeline with Sweden, but is certainly raises questions.  What is worrisome is how Monsanto has worn down the resistance to GMO’s, if this is any indication.

Here’s a good article on what countries have banned GMO’s.  Note that even though Japan banned GMO products, it *still* got contamination…by importing Canadian GM canola….stunning…absolutely stunning.  Alarms should be going off all over at this news.  Also, the article mentions the India farmers’ suicides…and the water thing.  Why doesn’t anyone bring up that the cotton plants were much more thirsty than the heirloom cotton?  That seems to escape everyone’s notice–we can’t afford to use more of our precious water resources for frankencrops that require more water to survive.

Note also the refusal of a tuna shipment to Greece when it was tested positive for GM.  It had  been packed in genetically modified soybean oil!  So, evidently, one doesn’t have to consume GMO’s to be altered by it–one only has to touch it.  Which brings more worries about breathing in GM corn pollen.  As I have said in previous blogs, my allergies during the summer always get worse after corn pollen has started to enter the atmosphere.  And with my previous post on how GM enters the DNA of gut flora….just scares the crap out of me–even carefully trying to avoid GM food, I could still end up more contaminated.  I say more contaminated because I ate GM food before I was aware of it–as most Americans who are unaware of eating GM food.

Growing unrest in Turkey

Report here.

After the incident, a representative from Turkey’s Socialist Democracy Party (SDP) issued a statement confirming that the individuals seen throwing the Molotov cocktails were not affiliated with the party, despite photographs of them carrying SDP flags.

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This just sickens me…there is just too, too much going on in the Middle East with what seems to be conflicts between those who are more progressive in their thinking who are sick of the austerity/conservative /pro-war gov’ts.  That’s just my take on it, your mileage may vary…

…it’s just my experience that most of the public, be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist,  or whatever, are for peace.  They just want to live their lives and be let alone…

I’m thinking it’s time for a worldwide political party:  the Leave Us the Hell Alone Party.  We don’t *stand* for anything–we just live our lives following the Golden Rule of Doing Unto Others as We Would Have Done Unto Us….”

God Bless Us everyone…

 

 

 

Another day, Another Clinton scandal…

CBS News revealed a possible cover-up in the State Dept….under Secretary Hillary Clinton.

This, if it is true, is criminal.

Isn’t it interesting that Clinton never “knows anything” about stuff going on around her?  I think she could be standing in a foot high pile of sh*t and say she doesn’t “smell anything”.  Aggravating.

And…if she never knows what’s going on around her in the State Dept., or wherever she is, how can she be trusted to be a President who has more than one dept. to keep track of?

Other posts on Clinton here. And here. And let’s not forget that *smile*...

More here. And here.…not someone to admire–Gallup trying to do…what, exactly…?

Think Hillary Clinton will be seeing any criminal charges?  Well, if the past is any indicator…nope.

See, only the “little people” go to jail…

(in reference to Clinton’s assertion that she would refuse a TSA pat-down. )

 

To Clarify

To clarify what I mean with my last post–I don’t have a problem with wiretapping suspected terrorists per se, but I have a big problem with the illegal wiretapping of anyone.  That is, I expect the gov’t agency to go before a judge with evidence that this person is indeed up to no good.  It’s what our Constitution requires.  I expect those in the gov’t who swear to uphold the Constitution to do just that.

Daniel Ellsberg on Snowden

Daniel Ellsberg was on CNN last night, commenting on the NSA and Edward Snowden.  He asked the question…”Can you charge someone with a crime whom  has exposed a crime?  What Snowden did was expose a violation of the Constitution. ”  (paraphrasing). 

“They illegally wiretapped suspected terrorists…but I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t a terrorist….

Now they’re illegally wiretapping me and there’s no one brave enough to speak up….”

 

From this poem.

Senators who voted against GMO labeling

(**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.?

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:

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

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.

 

 

 

 

Caging Birds

I was flipping through the channels and saw that PBS was going to air a Nature spot featuring Hummingbirds.  Ah, I thought, a nice evening’s show.

Nope.

First, the hummers were doing their thing and going from flower to flower to get the nectar.  It showed ones with the ruby throat, ones with super-long beaks, and so on.

Then the show flips to the laboratory where a scientist is studying them.  The camera zooms into a hummer striking the glass “wall” in its confusion.  As the narrator tells the story of the scientist wanting to study the endurance of the hummer, it shows them attaching what looked to be a row of paper clips to the hummer’s feet, as it struggles to fly upward.

Well, that was it for me.

I can’t stand seeing animals caged.  I can’t understand why a scientist feels the need to, in essence, torture this bird that was once free to fly wherever it wanted.

And to those who would say, “hey, it’s getting food and is sheltered from predators…what’s the big deal…?”

To that I would say “Freedom is a big deal.”

That bird losing its ability to roam wherever and whenever and  just being let alone without someone poking at it –well, that’s what Spirit is about.  That’s what feeds the Soul. If that bird could talk, it would tell you the same thing.

Remember Fu Manchu?

The really chilling thing is….we’re not that far behind…

When a reporter touches a nerve…

…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?)