World's 7 billionth baby -- is this something to celebrate or to mourn?

On an already overcrowded planet, we are now--or soon will be--7 billion strong (weak).... Paul Ehrlich's warnings in his book The Population Explosion have gone unheeded.

World, meet your 7 billionth member. The United Nations has symbolically chosen a Filipina baby, Danica May Camacho, to mark the population milestone. Danica was born just before midnight Sunday, weighing 5.5 pounds. Some groups have disputed whether or not the world population has hit the 7 billion mark, arguing that it is instead more likely to be crossed next year. Nevertheless, the U.N. named Oct. 31 “Seven Billion Day” as a way to highlight the challenges of the world’s growing population.

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Romney -- a master of lies and disguise "'I'll be anything you want me to be"

This man will say anything he thinks his audience wants to hear, regardless of the fact that he said exactly the opposite to another crowd.  Republican candidates reflect the consciousness of their supporters, which is why you see a bunch of idiots, lying their heads off, each one trying to outdo the others in cold, calculated mendacity.  They know their supporters don't care about facts or truth--they only want their candidates to spew out ideology to them, so they can continue to live in their fairy tale bubble world. 

ROMNEY SUDDENLY MORPHS INTO A CLIMATE CHANGE SKEPTIC
By Stephen Webster

Speaking to a crowd in Philadelphia yesterday, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R) suddenly changed his position on whether humans contribute to climate change, insisting that “we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet.”

He added that “the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us.”

Romney’s comments might confuse those who listened in on him in June, when he told an audience in New Hampshire, “I believe that humans have contributed” to climate change.

Then he added: “It’s important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may be significant contributors.”

Despite what candidate Romney says about climate change, the scientific community is virtually unanimous on the issue: it is happening, and human activity is the main driver. Even the arch-conservative industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch know this, and a recent study they funded illustrated that in very clear terms.

In spite of all the efforts to drive down the public’s belief that climate change is real, a recent survey by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 64 percent of respondents believed climate change is happening and humans contribute to it, while just 26 percent said they did not believe it was happening at all.

And strikingly, only 40 percent of the public said that scientists agree on the reality of human-driven climate change, when a scientific survey in June 2010 found that 97 percent of climate scientists say it is “very likely” that human activity is causing a shift in global temperatures and weather.

The United States is the second worst offender when it comes to greenhouse emissions, with China being the first. The U.S., however, has a much higher emissions-per-capita rate: a painful fact that led a key Chinese official to declare this week that if Chinese emissions were to grow as high per person as the U.S., it would be a “disaster for the world.”

Reacting to that potential for disaster, China has rapidly accelerated the growth of their renewable energy sector and consolidated control over the rare earth elements that U.S. companies will need access to if they hope to compete in the coming decades.

Not only does this mean there is a compelling need for the U.S. to take actions against climate change, it also means the U.S. must adopt a national energy strategy that amplifies green technology production, or face being priced out of the future market — not to mention growing pollution intensifying the severity of climate change and ever-climbing rates of inclement health effects on the public.

But try telling that to Mitt Romney.

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Then They Fight You

Welcome home, Marine. Thank you for your service to your country, but since you dared to exercise your First Amendment right to peaceable assembly, here's a cracked head.

Friday 28 October 2011

by: William Rivers Pitt, Truthout | Op-Ed

Occupy Oakland protesters after their camp was destroyed by Oakland police along with ten neighboring police departments. Several hundred protesters regrouped at the intersection of 14th and Broadway where police tried dispersing the crowd with tear gas, flash bang rounds, rubber bullets and bean bag shots. (Photo: ekai)

The national standoff between authorities and protesters in the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement has reached a new and dangerous level of tension and violence.

At first glance, it looked like something out of Pink Floyd's film 'The Wall': menacing images of creatures in gas masks swarming toward the camera under a dark and forbidding sky. This was no dystopian fantasy, however; these were members of the Oakland police department charging into a group of protesters behind a wall of tear gas, flash-bang bombs, rubber bullets and bean-bag projectiles. The police bull-rushed these unarmed protesters with the intention to do violence, and violence is exactly what they did.

As of this writing, one woman is known to have been seriously injured when a flash-bang grenade went off right by her head. She was seen being carried away unconscious from the scene of the police riot by other protesters. Anther known injured protester has a name, and a face, and a record of service to his country. Scott Olsen, a Marine veteran of two Iraq tours, was participating in the Occupy Oakland protest when he was shot in the head by a ‘less-than-lethal’ police projectile, suffered a fractured skull, and was taken to the hospital in critical condition. His condition has since been upgraded to fair.

Welcome home, Marine. Thank you for your service to your country, but since you dared to exercise your First Amendment right to peaceable assembly, here's a cracked head for your trouble. And you thought Iraq was dangerous.

According to Oakland officials, the justification for this eight-hour-long explosion of force was that the area being occupied by protesters had become unsanitary, and that people were being raped within the camp zone. This was news to those who had been peacefully occupying the space in front of Oakland's city hall. It sounded suspiciously familiar to some last-decade claims about weapons of mass destruction being justification for a different burst of violence, and smells just as bad. The extreme nature of this police action might have had more to do with the fact that the protester's camp was unofficially named Oscar Grant Plaza, after the unarmed citizen who was murdered in 2009 by BART transit police, an incident that was caught on camera and broadcast to the world. Maybe the Oakland police did not like the reminder, and so swung their truncheons with an excess of vigor.

This is not the first example of excessive violence being directed at protesters in the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement. A number of incidents directed at unarmed, non-resisting protesters in New York City have been documented in detail, and in one case, an official inquiry into one NYPD officer's use of pepper spray is ongoing. The scene that played out in Oakland could very well have taken place several days ago in New York, had Mayor Bloomberg not made the wise, last-minute decision to back down from his demand that Liberty Park be cleared of protesters so it could be "cleaned." A number of protesters were injured by police in San Francisco and Denver, as well.

What happened in Oakland in the hours between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, however, is a definite escalation of tensions between protesters and authorities, and seems to indicate those authorities are edging closer and closer towards unleashing the dogs of war on people who offer no violence and pose no threat to anyone other than the financial power-brokers who have so thoroughly ravaged this country's future.

It goes without saying that not every person participating in these national actions are docile lambs; every movement, no matter its political denomination, is going to have its share of idiots and adrenaline-junkies. Within the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement, however, these types of people make up so small a fraction of the main as to be negligible...but they do offer authorities a nice excuse to bulldoze the whole movement, and it makes you wonder how many of these so-called agitators are running around causing trouble with a badge in their back pocket. Beyond agitators, there is the simple fact that not everyone is going to react like Gandhi when they get gassed, pepper-sprayed, flash-bombed, clubbed and shot with projectiles for peacefully assembling to point out a grievous wrong.

'Occupy Wall Street' is about saying "No."

"No" to institutionalized greed of such vast width and breadth that it plunders our country even as it smiles around a mouthful of filet mignon.

"No" to the ocean of corporate cash that drowns our democracy.

"No" to rewarding the failure of frauds who proudly carry the banner of capitalism even as they enjoy the galloping socialism of the government bailout.

"No" to those who refuse to hire new employees because they want to screw over the economy and remove a president they don't like. But it is also about so much else.

The ‘Occupy’ movement is as diverse and multifaceted as the cities and towns where it has been happening. More often than not, local issues are at the forefront of the protester’s concerns; Wall Street is local for New York City, but in Oakland, the protest has been geared more toward halting austerity measures and the closures of schools and libraries…and, yes, police violence. Yet even as every ‘Occupy’ community has its own set of priorities, it is all part of a single continuum, as the issues being protested all stem from the same core concerns that crashed the economy, and created the movement, in the first place.

'Occupy Wall Street' is not about getting into a public crunch with cops over whether or not tents should be allowed in a public park. Rather than react with violence to people who are sacrificing themselves to point out what has gone so terribly wrong with the America we all love, these authorities should take a step back and encompass the awesome fact that such a movement has become so very necessary in the first place.

They should remember that violence is the last refuge of the desperate, that violence directed towards these protests will only make them stronger, and will put a big, bloody underscore beneath their efforts. Every punch thrown by a police officer, every protester clubbed or gassed or bombed or shot down with a riot-control projectile, only proves the point of that protester, and invigorates the entire movement.

They should remember that this is the year 2011, and every single person gathered at these protests has a phone with a camera that will make any unnecessary or egregious act of official violence an instant media sensation. These authorities are not working in the dark, not by a long chalk. One protester with a steady hand will make an over-the-top cop famous in all the wrong ways in exactly as much time it takes to read this sentence. Enough footage like that, and matters will escalate quickly indeed. The whole world is, in fact, watching.

Every police officer dealing with these 'Occupy' protests is not a frothing mad dog, any more than every 'Occupy' protester is a brick-throwing terrorist. Police in Albany recently refused an order to clear out a group of 'Occupy' protesters, a decision that was roundly praised. But if the Battle of Oakland shows us anything, it is how quickly this can get out of hand. The protesters are not going anywhere, and if they are met with violence on the order of what took place Tuesday night, there is no telling where we will find ourselves in the end.

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The Real Rick Perry

But don't try to tell the rabid right wingers about his real character and deeds.  The hardened ignorance bubble they live in won't let that kind of information penetrate through to them. As one line in the article puts it, "People are like, 'He wears a red shirt, he must think like I do,'" says Medina, Perry's Tea Party opponent. "It's 'you're Christian, I'm Christian, we must believe the same.'"  For those who do want to know the truth about Rick Perry, the following article by Matt Taibbi gives some reliable facts.  It's encouraging to know that even some of the hard-core Tea Party members in Texas have seen through him...

http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/275-42/8131-rick-perry-best-little-whore-in-texas

RICK PERRY: THE BEST LITTLE WHORE IN TEXAS
By Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone Magazine

EXCERPT:  you have to go pretty far to stand out as a whore and a sellout when you come from a state that has produced such luminaries in the history of political corruption as LBJ, Karl Rove and George W. Bush. But Rick Perry has managed to set a scary new low in the annals of opportunism, turning Texas into a swamp of political incest and backroom dealing on a scale not often seen this side of the Congo or Sierra Leone. In an era when there's exponentially more money in politics than we've ever seen before, Perry is the candidate who is exponentially more willing than we've ever seen before to whore himself out for that money. On the human level he is a nonpersonality, an almost perfect cipher - a man whose only discernible passion is his extreme willingness to be whatever someone will pay him to be, or vote for him to be. Even scarier, the religious community around which he has chosen to pull his human chameleon act features some of the most extreme end-is-nigh nutcases in America, the last people you want influencing the man with the nuclear football. Perry is a human price tag - Being There meets Left Behind.

...Though 94 percent of schools in Texas teach a sex-ed curriculum based on abstinence-only - an approach that led one watchdog group to conclude that "shaming and fear-based instruction are the standard means of teaching students about sexuality" in Texas - Perry nonetheless signed an executive order mandating that those same girls subjected to those abstinence-only classes receive an STD vaccine. You can't talk about STDs to sixth-grade girls, but if it's worth $120 a shot to a pharmaceutical company like Merck, you can jam the birds-and-the-bees lesson right into their arms.

Those in Texas who have followed Perry most closely over the years have all come to the same conclusion about him. "He's a cash-and-carry governor," says Craig McDonald, director of Texans for Public Justice, a group that monitors campaign contributions in the state. "He has an extremely strong stomach for holding his nose and doing really dirty favors."

"He'll be whatever you want him to be," says one longtime political opponent. "He's all about greed."

"There's no line he won't cross," says another.

"This guy doesn't believe in one damn thing," says a third.

...Rick Perry sold the right to tax Texas highway drivers to Spanish billionaires, let a British firm write a law authorizing the sale of virtually all Texas state property to foreign corporations, and tried to literally sell the lives of retired Texas schoolteachers to a Swiss bank. Yet he's somehow built a reputation in the national media as a fist-shaking America-first nativist, with a Tea Partier's passion for small government. How Perry has managed to sell this fictional version of himself is a testament to the extraordinary power of marketing over reality in our modern political system. In fact, his entire career is a profound testament to our nagging collective inability, or perhaps unwillingness, to distinguish between what a politician says and what he actually does.

"People are like, 'He wears a red shirt, he must think like I do,'" says Medina, Perry's Tea Party opponent. "It's 'you're Christian, I'm Christian, we must believe the same.'"

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Thirty years of unleashed greed

A new poll shows 68% of millionaires would like to see taxes raised on millionaires.  They realize their fate is linked to the 99%.  How to convince the hard-nosed far right Repugs of the necessity of the rich paying their fair share of taxes?  How to make the naive, trapped-in-ideology bubble believers realize they vote against their own interests when they vote Republican?  They even think they have some great candidates amid the pathetically pitiful array on the debate platforms. How to talk to people who think Herman Cain or Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann are ready to be President?  

THIRTY YEARS OF UNLEASHED GREED
By Robert Scheer

It is class warfare. But it was begun not by the tear-gassed, rain-soaked protesters asserting their constitutionally guaranteed right of peaceful assembly but rather the financial overlords who control all of the major levers of power in what passes for our democracy. It is they who subverted the American ideal of a nation of stakeholders in control of their economic and political destiny.

Between 1979 and 2007, as the Congressional Budget Office reported this week, the average real income of the top 1 percent grew by an astounding 275 percent. And that is after payment of the taxes that the superrich and their Republican apologists find so onerous.

Those three decades of rampant upper-crust greed unleashed by the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s will be well marked by future historians recording the death of the American dream. In that decisive historical period the middle class began to evaporate and the nation's income gap increased to alarming proportions. "As a result of that uneven growth," the CBO explained, "the distribution of after-tax household income in the United States was substantially more unequal in 2007 than in 1979: The share of income accruing to higher-income households increased, whereas the share accruing to other households declined.... The share of after-tax household income for the 1 percent of the population with the highest income more than doubled...."

That was before the 2008 meltdown that ushered in the massive increase in unemployment and housing foreclosures that further eroded the standard of living of the vast majority of Americans while the superrich rewarded themselves with immense bonuses. To stress the role of the financial industry in this march to greater income inequality as the Occupy Wall Street movement has done is not a matter of ideology or rhetoric, but, as the CBO report details, a matter of discernible fact.

The CBO noted that in comparing top earners, "The [income] share of financial professionals almost doubled from 1979 to 2005" and that "employees in the financial and legal professions made up a larger share of the highest earners than people in those other groups."

No wonder, since it was the bankers and the lawyers serving them who managed to end the sensible government regulations that contained their greed. The undermining of those regulations began during the Reagan presidency, and so it is not surprising that, as the CBO reports, "the compensation differential between the financial sector and the rest of the economy appears inexplicably large from 1990 onward." Citing a major study on the subject, the CBO added, "The authors believe that deregulation and corporate finance activities linked to initial public offerings and credit risks are the primary causes of the higher compensation differential."

So much for the claim that excessive government regulation has discouraged business activity. The CBO report also denies the charge that taxes on the wealthy have placed an undue burden on the economy, documenting that federal revenue sources have become more regressive and that the tax burden on the wealthy has declined since 1979.

In the face of the evidence that class inequality had been rising sharply in the United States even before the banking-induced recession, it would seem that the Occupy Wall Street protests are a quite measured and even timid response to the crisis.

Actually, the rallying cry of that movement was originally enunciated not by the protesters in the streets, but by one of the nation's most respected economists. Last April, Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz wrote an article in Vanity Fair titled "Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%" that should be required reading for those well-paid pundits who question the logic and motives of the Wall Street protesters. "Americans have been watching protests [abroad] against repressive regimes that concentrate massive wealth in the hands of an elite few," Stiglitz wrote. "Yet, in our democracy, 1% of the people take nearly a quarter of the nation's income - an inequality even the wealthy will come to regret."

Maybe justice will prevail despite the suffering that the 1 percent has inflicted on the foreclosed and the jobless. But to date those who have seized 40 percent of the nation's wealth still control the big guns in this war of classes.

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The Shock Doctrine -- an important online video

http://www.forbiddenknowledgetv.com/videos/disaster-capitalism/the-shock-doctrine---full-length-film.html

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Climate Crisis confirmed by Koch-funded study -- OOPS!

But don't expect the rabid right wingers to change their minds, just because the facts are now proven, even by their own once-skeptical scientists. Hell will freeze over before facts can convince the unyielding, unbending ideologists to drop their bubble beliefs.

KOCH-FUNDED STUDY CONFIRMS CLIMATE DATA
By Al Gore

Climate skeptics were hoping this study would debunk data proving the existence of the climate crisis - instead it reaffirmed the science:

Back in 2010, Richard Muller, a Berkeley physicist and self-proclaimed climate skeptic, decided to launch the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project to review the temperature data that underpinned global-warming claims. Remember, this was not long after the Climategate affair had erupted, at a time when skeptics were griping that climatologists had based their claims on faulty temperature data.

Muller's stated aims were simple. He and his team would scour and re-analyze the climate data, putting all their calculations and methods online. Skeptics cheered the effort. "I'm prepared to accept whatever result they produce, even if it proves my premise wrong," wrote Anthony Watts, a blogger who has criticized the quality of the weather stations in the United States that provide temperature data. The Charles G. Koch Foundation even gave Muller's project $150,000 - and the Koch brothers, recall, are hardly fans of mainstream climate science.

So what are the end results? Muller's team appears to have confirmed the basic tenets of climate science.

With the evidence reconfirmed (again), I would hope that skeptics would rethink their position and join me in pushing our government, and governments around the world, to take steps to solve the climate crisis.

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Romney -- a man all over the map who may lose the GOP nomination

My own opinion about Rick Perry and his "birther" remarks are that he is appealing to the far right wingers in his party, speaking their language and pretending to share their "locked-in-the-bubble" beliefs.  His chief of staff yesterday appeared in a TV ad aimed right at the fanatical, rabid right wingers -- when he showed at the end that he was smoking a cigarette. You could almost hear the rednecks cheering, on seeing that ad: "Oh boy, these guys are just like us! Nuts to that lying Mormon!  We're gonna' vote for Perry!"  As for Romney, he thinks he's already the GOP nominee and is trying to appeal to the general population, rather than the Republican base.  His waffling back and forth on every issue, constantly reversing his stance, is going to cost him...and Perry just may end up being the right's nominee.  He speaks the harsh, tone-deaf language the bubble Repugs love to hear. 

Romney's "huge, freaking deal"
By Steve Benen

At this point in the morning yesterday, it looked like the biggest political screw-up of the day would be Rick Perry’s latest Birther flirtations. As it turns out, though as ridiculous as this was, it was eclipsed rather easily.

Mitt Romney visited a Republican campaign headquarters in Ohio, fighting tooth and nail to protect a Republican measure to undermine collective-bargaining right. The GOP presidential frontrunner, however, aware of the polls showing public opposition to the law, refused to endorse the law his party is trying to save.

This one incident reinforced the worst of the perceptions surrounding Romney. After all, what’s the knock on the former governor? He’s an unprincipled flip-flopper, who cares more about polls than convictions, and will say literally anything to advance his political ambitions. And in one swing through Ohio, Romney confirmed that his critics were right.

It wasn’t long before conservatives — some sympathetic to Romney, some not — were expressing their disgust. Here was the Club for Growth’s take, for example:

“The big problem many conservatives have with Mitt Romney is that he’s taken both sides of nearly every issue important to us. He’s against a flat tax, now he’s for it. He says he’s against ObamaCare, but was for the individual mandate and susbidies that are central to ObamaCare. He thinks that collective bargaining issues should be left for states to decide if he’s Ohio, but he took the opposite position when he was in New Hampshire. This is just another statement in a long line of statements that will raise more doubts about what kind of President Mitt Romney would be in the minds of many Republican primary voters.”

Soon after, other prominent far-right voices were equally incensed.

“Certainly if one of the Presidential candidates were to go to the state, show up, and were asked about it, we’d expect them to be supportive of both efforts,” said Brendan Steinhauser, the Federal and State Campaigns Director at FreedomWorks in an interview with TPM. “This is a no brainer for any of the Presidential candidate to get behind. We’re disappointed but not surprised in Romney’s lack of support.” […]

“This is a huge freaking deal,” wrote Red State founder Erick Erickson. “Playing it too safe is finally biting Romney in the rear end. He’s refused to call social security a Ponzi scheme. He’s refused to offer bold economic reform plans. He’s refused to address significant changes in entitlement reforms. His whole campaign has centered around tapioca.”

There were plenty of others offering similar condemnations.

Making matters slightly worse, Politico discovered that Romney actually endorsed the Ohio law in June, only to back off yesterday after seeing the polls. In other words, Romney is now refusing to express support for a key Republican policy that he’s already endorsed.

And as a strategic matter, if Romney reversed course again yesterday in response to the uproar, and re-endorsed the anti-collective-bargaining measure, he’d look even weaker.

I don’t know whose bright idea is was to send Romney to Ohio, have him rally the troops at a call center, and then refuse to support the policy they’re fighting for, but one thing appears certain: this unforced error is going to leave a mark.

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More research about the dangers of statin drugs

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/10/26/think-twice-before-using-statin-drugs.aspx?e_cid=20111026_DNL_art_1
An important article to read.

THE DARK TRUTH ABOUT THE WONDER DRUG MILLIONS SWEAR BY
By Dr. Stephanie Seneff

About the Author:  Dr. Stephanie Seneff is a senior scientist at MIT and has been conducting research there for over three decades. She also has an undergraduate degree in biology from MIT, and a minor in food and nutrition. She's affiliated with the Weston A. Price Foundation.

EXCERPT: The trials that a new drug goes through can only achieve limited testing, and, almost always, the tests used to evaluate the side effects of a drug are too short due to expediency and cost.

It is only once a drug is unleashed upon the real world, and enough time passes, that we learn how its toxic effects can manifest themselves after years of treatment.

Fortunately, the internet holds the key to answers obtained by millions of patients who have unwittingly offered themselves up as guinea pigs in the experiment of living long-term with a given drug.

Statin drugs are particularly problematic because they suppress the synthesis of a biological wonder drug, namely cholesterol.

Repeatedly, retrospective studies have shown an alleged benefit for statins, which is actually a benefit derived from the many years of high cholesterol that preceded statin treatment.

This game has been played out for sepsis, pneumonia, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and Alzheimer's, and these are just the ones I'm aware of.

When the proper placebo-controlled study is done, the effect reverses -- statins make the situation worse.

But these negative results are kept well concealed from the public's eyes. This is how the myth has been kept alive that statins, instead of cholesterol, are the wonder drug.

Below are 13 links to Web sites that contain useful information about statin drugs and cholesterol. Spend some time perusing these links, and then you will be better informed to decide for yourself whether or not to take a statin drug.

To read more and see the 13 Web links, go to: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/10/26/think-twice-before-using-statin-drugs.aspx?e_cid=20111026_DNL_art_1

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Women with high cholesterol live longer, have fewer strokes

(NaturalNews) If the diagnosis of high cholesterol sounds like a death sentence to your ears, you may be the victim of cholesterol propaganda. It's not uncommon to believe that lower is better when it comes to cholesterol, but new research shows otherwise. In fact, a recent study in Norway says women with high cholesterol live longer and suffer from fewer heart attacks and strokes than those with lower cholesterol.

Can High Cholesterol Save Your Life?

Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology looked at 52,087 individuals between the ages of 20 and 74. After adjusting for factors like age, smoking and blood pressure, researchers found women with high cholesterol (more than 270 mg/dl) had a 28 percent lower mortality risk than women with low cholesterol (under 193 mg/dl). Risk for heart disease, cardiac arrest and stroke also declined as cholesterol levels rose.

The researchers involved in the study admit this contradicts commonly accepted beliefs about cholesterol. They say current guideline information is misleading because the role of cholesterol in heart disease is overestimated.

These results fly in the face of what most of us have been told about cholesterol. Our misconceptions about cholesterol may in fact be endangering countless lives. For instance, millions of people are prescribed statin drugs to lower their cholesterol levels, believing that this will save their lives. Not only do statin drugs come with a plethora of dangerous side effects, but now the very premise of their existence is also brought into question.

Our focus on lowering cholesterol to prevent heart disease and mortality is misplaced. It also fails to serve in the best interest of our health and wellness. In fact, the dogmatic belief that cholesterol must be lowered appears to best serve pharmaceutical companies, which profit from cholesterol-lowering drugs.

Better results will be achieved when we develop a more well-rounded focus on other risks for heart disease, which include stress, toxins, a sedentary lifestyle and a poor diet. As an added bonus, these factors aren't treated with dangerous pharmaceutical drugs, but with simple, healthful lifestyle changes.

Sources for this article include:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...

http://anthonycolpo.com/?p=2341

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/...

About the author:
Elizabeth Walling is a freelance writer specializing in health and family nutrition. She is a strong believer in natural living as a way to improve health and prevent modern disease. She enjoys thinking outside of the box and challenging common myths about health and wellness. You can visit her blog to learn more:
www.livingthenourishedlife.com/2009...

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/033975_high_cholesterol_heart_attacks.html#ixzz1bruqmnG2

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The New Republican Boogeyman: Occupy Wall Street

I think Thom Hartmann is one of the most astute analysts on the political scene today.  Read his following comments on the Republicans and Democrats -- and see if you don't agree with me.  We are at a political stalemate in our country, and nothing is allowed to get done to ease the burden of the people.  The ideologists (greed-driven powermongers) have backed us all into a corner--and We, the People are paying the price for allowing them to get away with enriching themselves at our expense. Instead of being the government of the people, for the people, by the people we have become the government of the rich, for the rich, by the rich.  Do you think trading in our democracy for an oligarchy has turned out well?

WHY OWS IS THE NEXT REPUBLICAN BOOGEYMAN
By Thom Hartmann

The Boogeyman is dead, and Santa is dying.

The Republicans have been, since the 1930s, the party of the Boogeyman. They led the fear-based crusades against Communists, first with the Blacklist, then Joe McCarthy's hearings, then the twin fears of Communist Mao and the Communist USSR. With the death of the Soviet Union, and the corporate embrace of still-Communist China, 9/11 let them turn their fears to "radical Islam."

But when President Obama killed Bin Laden, it took the steam out of their movement. And to make matters worse, Obama had earlier gone to Egypt and said, in essence, "Tear down these dictators!" - helping spark the Arab Spring and totally deflating the Republican fear machine, which now sputters along on the fringes trembling about Bachmann's gays, Santorum's fertilized eggs, and Perry's immigrants. The likelihood of Mormon Romney's presidential candidacy means they can't even add "God" to their traditional "Gays, Guns, and God" trinity of GOP fears.

Without something or someone to be afraid of, the Republicans are truly lost, wandering in the wilderness. And no matter how hard they try to gin up fear of the "dreaded deficit bomb," it just doesn't make Americans jump the way the USSR's nukes did two generations ago, or 9/11 did a decade ago. So now they're trying to whip up fear of the Occupy Wall Street folks, but so far OWS has the sympathy of average Americans; it's just not working for the Republicans.

But the Democrats aren't doing much better.

Back in 1976, Republican strategist Jude Wanniski invented the phrase "supply side economics" and then proposed his famous "Two Santa Clauses theory" to sell it.

Democrats, he said, had always been the party of Santa - bearing gifts to the American people like unemployment insurance, Social Security, Medicare, the 40-hour workweek, safe workplaces, clean air and water, and the minimum wage. What the American people needed, they got - and they got it from the Democrats playing the role of Santa.

The Republicans, Wanniski pointed out, had always been the anti-Santa party, saying "No" to virtually every single "Santa gift" Democrats wanted to give to the American people, for over a century.

But, Wanniski reasoned, if the Republicans could become Santas themselves - give the American people an annual gift - and at the same time could force the Democrats to stop being Santas (in Wanniski's words, "force the Democrats to shoot Santa"), then the Democrats would be neutralized and Republicans could win elections.

His strategy was simple, and picked up virtually from Day One by the Reagan administration in 1981: When Republicans are in the White House, cut taxes dramatically (particularly on the rich, but talk about the tax cuts to working people), while also jacking up spending to bubble-stimulate the economy and make it look like the good times are flowing. And when Democrats are in the White House, block all tax increase and spending measures while screaming hysterically about the "debt bomb," forcing austerity and economic pain for everyday Americans.

Reagan dutifully ran up more debt in 8 years than every president from George Washington to Jimmy Carter - combined. And he spent those borrowed trillions, which bubble-pumped the economy and made people think he had some wonder-cure economic patent-medicine.

Herbert Walker Bush followed Reagan's lead, adding trillions more to the debt and throwing in a war for good effort.

When Clinton came in, the "Debt Bomb!" screams began, so Clinton dutifully shot the Santa Claus of "welfare as we know it" and kneecapped "the era of big government."

George W. Bush put Wanniski's program on steroids, giving the most massive Republican Santa tax-cut for billionaires in history, while borrowing almost $6 trillion and spending it all so fast, stretching the bubble so hard, that it actually popped in the last year of his presidency.

For three decades, Wanniski's strategy has worked brilliantly for Republicans and their rich donors, with the added bonus of largely wiping out the once-politically-active and pesky unionized middle class. Three Republican presidents ran the nation's debt up to such incredibly high levels that President Obama is now talking about shooting Santa Claus - this time, cutting Medicare and other benefits.

But Wanniski hadn't figured on the collapse of the USSR when he put forth his theory, so now both parties are politically impotent. Republicans can't convince Americans to be terrified anymore, given that Obama's pretty handily (and cheaply) chopped the head off Al Queda, the Republican's most recent boogeyman. And Democrats can't play Santa Claus any more because the Republicans ran up so much debt, and taxes are so low, there's no way to get enough money to revive Santa.

It's going to make for a fascinating electoral season, as Republicans try to gin back up any fear card they can find because, to their chagrin, nobody's really all that afraid anymore of gays, communists, or Muslims. Democrats, meanwhile, are trying to revive Santa Claus, but Republicans in the House and Senate are successfully blocking their efforts to raise the taxes on rich people and corporations necessary to bring Santa back to life.

So - at least for the moment - it's dueling straw men.

Republicans are telling their base the next boogeyman is "Occupy Wall Street," and using GOP TV (aka "Fox News") and a well-funded punditocracy to push out the message. Democrats are repeatedly - but unsuccessfully - bringing before Congress proposals to revive Santa, with unemployment insurance extensions; jobs for infrastructure, teachers, and cops; and free healthcare for the growing class of the working poor via Medicare. But the American people - at least so far - actually like the OWS movement (even Republicans!), and the last election stripped Obama of the electoral advantage needed to actually pass Santa Claus legislation.

Which is why the electorate seems largely asleep, and political discussions seem vapid.

Barring another attack on America before November 2012, or the OWS movement turning violent, Republicans have lost their boogeyman. And so long as Tea Party control of the House of Representatives remains unbroken, Democrats have lost access to their Santa Claus.

Wanniski and Reagan are dead, but their legacy - and strategy - lives on...

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New movie: MARGIN CALL, should be seen by all

The far-right Republicans who live in a hard encased bubble of their own making won't be able to understand--or even hear--this, but the rest of us can read the handwriting on the wall--strong warnings and predicted disasters, many of which have already come to pass in our world.  Because of the ignorant/naive (take your pick) bubble dwellers and the Wall Street-owned representatives they continue to vote for and cheer on, we will have to endure the economic/environmental cataclysm being brought down on all our heads.  We never seem to learn from history's lessons, and continually have to repeat them.

http://consortiumnews.com/2011/10/24/as-wall-streets-universe-collapses/

As Wall Street's Universe Collapses
By Lisa Pease

EXCERPT: The movie is reminiscent of Jared Diamond’s book Collapse, in which he demonstrates that short-term thinking and, particularly, cultures in which the elite separate themselves too far from the working class, lead inevitably to disaster and collapse of any given society.

The real issue is not how to deal with crises as they arise, but to see them coming and change course early enough to entirely avert them. When the elite are more closely tied to the workers, they feel the pain sooner and make appropriate course corrections. The further, however, the elite get from the workers, the more insulated they are, preventing them from seeing genuine problems until it’s too late to solve them.

I couldn’t help but think of climate change deniers, and the unhelpful choices we, too, will face if we don’t change our ways while there is still time. If we wait until the catastrophe is acknowledged and apparent, as these characters did, it will already be too late.

And the choices are the same at the personal level. By pursuing a certain way- of-life, are we alienating those we’re going to need later? By accumulating money, are we guaranteeing our future happiness? What else should we be pursuing?

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The Real Reason Why We're in Libya and Gaddafi Is Dead

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN0aNsA9ALg

Very interesting if you want truth instead of all the lies we are being fed.  The RT News cable network is not available on my cable system yet.  But this was sent to me by a friend who does receive RT news on his cable system.  This video is only 3 minutes long -- well worth watching.  And certainly easy to believe.  As one man said, "Do you really think we'd be in Iraq (or Libya) if their main export was broccoli?"

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More school budget cuts coming

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/24/schools-fear-worst-budget-cuts_n_1028054.html

This is shameful -- our kids are our best hope for the future of the world--yet, we cut funding for their education.  No wonder the American empire is dying...we have lost the ability to know what is important, and what is not (if we ever knew). 

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Deep Peace choral beautifully done

Wonderful video and music...a treat to view.  Watch it in the morning--gives a good start for a busy day, to keep you focused on the peace within.  Watch it at night--just before going to bed.  Mmmmmm.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6PQRXXn9ko&feature=related

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A most beautiful video and song - DEEP PEACE

I send this to all my friends and to the world at large.  Donovan sings, and the video pictures echo his words.  The sentiments are my fondest wish for all mankind -- what could be more beautiful than the kind of world they envision?  May it one day come to pass:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iEbjwHFw5c&feature=related

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Obama? Never heard of him...

The small-mindedness of the Republican hypocrites is proof of their unfitness for the top leadership position of the country and the world. How much more admirable it would be to have at least one of the Repug candidates acknowledge Obama's role in ridding the world of the most evil men in it (of course, Mr. Evil Himself, Dick Cheney, is till hanging out in the nether regions of our world, seemingly untouchable here -- but his comeuppance will come from the highest authority when he crosses over into the next dimension). 

From crooksandliars.com

Republicans Thank Everyone But Obama For Stopping Qaddafi:

Top Republicans are starting to weigh in on Muammar Qaddafi’s death and one consistent theme is quickly emerging: Barack who?

Mitt Romney, appearing on a radio program in Iowa, said it couldn’t come soon enough.

“I have seen those reports and if accurate I think the response is it’s about time,” he said. “This was a tyrant who has been killing his own people and of course is responsible for the lives of American citizens lost in the Lockerbie attack….I think people across the world recognize that the world is a better place without Muammar Qaddafi.” [...]

Rick Perry hailed Qaddafi’s death, but also left out any mention of the president’s decision to attack the dictator’s forces from his comments.

“The death of Muammar el-Qaddafi is good news for the people of Libya,” he said in a statement. “It should bring the end of conflict there, and help them move closer to elections and a real democracy. The United States should work closely with Libya to ensure the transition is successful, and that a stable, peaceful nation emerges. The U.S. must also take an active role in ensuring the security of any remaining stockpiles of Qaddafi’s weapons. These weapons pose a real danger to the United States and our allies, and we cannot help secure them through simple observation.”

One prominent Republican went out of the way to give Europe credit instead. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told FOX News “Today’s not a day to point fingers” when asked about America’s role in Qaddafi’s death, before saying France and England were really the ones responsible for deposing the dictator. He later issued a statement thanking “American and NATO forces” for the victory.

Update: Ben Smith notes that a surprising number of Republicans aren’t even thanking US troops for the outcome.

As Keith Olbermann reminded us, one of the critics today, John McCain has been all over the charts when it comes to supporting the dictator as recently posted here -- After Sucking Up to Gaddafi, McCain and Lieberman Were Happy to Call for His Head.

And PoliticusUSA has more on the Republican hypocrisy here -- With The Death Of Gaddafi, Obama Again Makes Fools Of His GOP Critics.

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A way for us to get rid of political corporate corruption

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/linn-washington/39104/flushing-out-the-corporate-corruption-occupy-government

Check out: OccupyGovernment.org

FLUSHING OUT CORPORATE CORRUPTION
By Linn Washington

They worked many late night hours since this past spring creating a unique vehicle – part grassroots initiative and part cutting-edge technology – for countering the most corrupting force in American politics today: corporate dominance now controlling too many elected leaders on Capitol Hill.

Months before the Occupy Wall Street movement captured attention, inspiring millions across America while alarming this nation’s political/corporate class, they began fashioning plans to enable honest people to run for elected office.

A problem was how to get those honest, regular people to run for Congressional office without the need for those candidates to seek or accept money from lobbyists in order to be able to afford the purchase of the TV ads traditionally presumed to be necessary for effective campaigning.

Their solution: new open source software that affords candidates opportunities to get their messages to voters with full transparency, in tandem with social media, thereby circumventing the staged manipulation of traditional televised political debates.

Recently they launched OccupyGovernment.org during an informational activity at ground zero of the Occupy Wall Street effort: the former Liberty Plaza Park now known as Zuccotti Park in New York City.

The immediate goal of the non-partisan OccupyGovernment.org is to elect a majority of new corporate-money-free representatives in Congress next year, thus flushing-out those members on both sides of the political isle who are beholden to the interests of corporations and private wealth, including the Tea Party- aligned representatives awash in Koch Brothers cash.

Interestingly, that launch occurred not too far from the kitchen of the Greenwich Village townhouse where planning for this campaign began this past spring under the umbrella entity BeYourGovernment.org.

“Take the buck out of the ballot” was a call to action voiced at the activity by OccupyGovernment.org co-founder Liz Abzug, the director of the Bella Abzug Leadership Institute – the entity furthering the work of late Congresswoman, feminist and social activist Bella Abzug.

“The reason we are creating BeYourGovernment.org is that the corruption of our political system by large corporations, lobbyists and billionaires has grown so extreme that our nation’s democratic process has been transformed,” said Liz Abzug, daughter of the famous Bella.

“As a result, the U.S. has experienced the largest redistribution of wealth upward in modern history, while our nation’s middle class is under assault like never before,”

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How Very True!

Republicans will never have a good word for Obama--even when he accomplishes exactly what they said they wanted to do.  Hypocrites and liars all.  Republicans should be embarrassed and ashamed of the candidates that represent them and portray themselves as ready for the presidency of this country.  They will not win in 2012.

FOREIGN CAMPAIGNS  by David Remnick, The New Yorker

EXCERPT: Romney’s rhetoric is more informed than Michele Bachmann’s, less nutty than Ron Paul’s, and less self-admiring than Newt Gingrich’s, but his line on Obama’s record on national security and foreign policy is a sham. Obama is responsible for an aggressive assault on Al Qaeda, including the killing of bin Laden, in Pakistan, and of Anwar al-Awlaki, in Yemen. Beginning with his 2009 speech in Cairo, the President has walked a deliberate, effective path on the question of Arab uprisings, encouraging forces of liberation in the region without ignoring the complexities of each country or threatening Iraq-style interventions. He has drawn down forces in Iraq and Afghanistan; awakened to the miserable realities of Pakistan and Iran; and, most recently, played a crucial role, without loss of American lives, in the overthrow of the world’s longest-reigning dictator. If a Republican had been responsible for the foreign-policy markers of the past three years, the Party would be commissioning statues. In Tripoli, Benghazi, and Surt, last week, Obama won words of praise; on Republican debate platforms, there was only mindless posturing. In an election year, the world is too little with us.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2011/10/31/111031taco_talk_remnick#ixzz1bULVadYx

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IDIOT!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/19/rick-santorum-contraception-gay-marriage_n_1020679.html

EXCERPT: Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum recently pledged to "die on that hill" fighting against same-sex marriage, and made a similar vow to repeal all federal funding for contraception because it is "a license to do things in a sexual realm."  Idiot. If this man were in my political party, I would exit it immediately out of embarrassment that such a fool could even be considered electable to ANYthing, let alone President.  Santorum lives in a bubble world of his own making, trying to keep those darn sexual thoughts at bay ("man on dog ugh," "bad single mothers ugh..must marry them off," "contraceptives ugh must get rid of," "gays double ugh we must kill them...oh God, maybe I'm gay? Ooh..go away, bad thought, evil thought!" etc., etc.)  He is a walking disaster who appeals only to other idiots (sadly, there are so many of them in our country today, we should all be worried).

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Andy Borowitz: It's humorous but could be true about the conservative element

Pat Robertson: God Let Zoo Animals Escape to Bite Gay People

Televangelist Stirs Controversy With Latest Remarks

ZANESVILLE, OH (The Borowitz Report) – As dozens of escaped exotic animals terrorized the town of Zanesville, Ohio, the Rev. Pat Robertson raised eyebrows today by saying that “God allowed those wild animals to escape because he wanted them to find gay people and bite them.”

Rev. Robertson, who made his remark during a regular broadcast of his 700 Club television program, said that the Book of Revelation made explicit reference to “escaped lions, tigers and bears running around Ohio biting gay people” as a prelude to the Rapture.

The televangelist also contradicted local officials who were had warned Zanesville residents to remain indoors until the all the animals had been accounted for: “Really, those animals won’t bite you unless you’re gay.”

The escaped wild animals immediately became a hot-button issue in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

At a campaign stop in South Carolina, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said, “If the authorities are putting innocent creatures to death, I’m for it.”

And in Iowa, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn) told reporters, “We should ship those animals back either to the Congo or to Africa."

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A real love story -- couple married for 72 years, died holding hands

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44960859/ns/us_news-life/#.Tp8SSrKnJac

An Iowa couple who was married for 72 years died one hour apart last week in the hospital as they held hands.

Family said the story of Gordon and Norma Yeager is a real-life love story.

On the day she graduated from high school, Norma Stock said yes to Gordon Yeager's marriage proposal. The couple got married on May 26, 1939 in State Center.

"They're very old-fashioned. They believed in marriage til death do you part," said son Dennis Yeager.

Dennis Yeager was the youngest of four children born to the couple. His sister Donna was first born.

"Staying together for 72 years is good, I'd say that's exceptional," said Donna Sheets.

The way the kids tell it, dad was the life of the party while mom kept everything together.

"Anybody come over -- she was the hostess with the mostess. She just seriously -- the more she did -- the more she smiled," said Dennis Yeager. "Dad would be the center of attention, like, 'Weee look at me,' and mom was like 'get him away from me!' You know we even got a picture like that."

Norma didn't really want the distance, and family said she hardly left Gordon's side for 72 years.

"They just loved being together. Everybody argues once in awhile, but they were close.  Dad said, 'I have to stick around. I can't go until she does because I have to stay here for her and she would say the same thing,'" said Dennis Yeager.

Dennis Yeager said the couple left home last Wednesday to go into town, but they didn't make it.

At the intersection of Highway 30 and Jessup Avenue just west of Marshalltown, state troopers said Gordon pulled in front of an oncoming car.

"I rushed from Des Moines where I was working and saw them in the hospital," said Dennis Yeager.

In the intensive care unit of Marshalltown's hospital, nurses knew not to separate Gordon and Norma.

"They brought them in the same room in intensive care and put them together -- and they were holding hands in ICU. They were not really responsive," said Dennis Yeager.

Gordon died at 3:38 p.m. holding hands with his wife as the family they built surrounded them.

"It was really strange, they were holding hands, and dad stopped breathing but I couldn't figure out what was going on because the heart monitor was still going," said Dennis Yeager. "But we were like, he isn't breathing. How does he still have a heart beat? The nurse checked and said that's because they were holding hands and it's going through them. Her heart was beating through him and picking it up."

"They were still getting her heartbeat through him," said Donna Sheets.

At 4:48 p.m., exactly one hour after Gordon died, Norma passed too.

"Neither one of them would've wanted to be without each other. I couldn't figure out how it was going to work," said Donna Sheets. "We were very blessed, honestly, that they went this way."

"They just loved being together," said Dennis Yeager.

At their funeral on Tuesday, Norma and Gordon held hands in their casket. Family said they will be cremated and their ashes mixed together.

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Ginger root proven to prevent colon cancer

http://www.naturalnews.com/033913_ginger_root_colon_cancer.html

It's good to always add ginger root to the vegetables or fruit you juice in your juicer.  Gives a little zing to the juice -- and also protects your colon.

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Greed that couldn't be satisfied will bring down the elite--and America

Michael Moore has hit the nail on the head, as usual, pointing out that the elite have ruined it for themselves by their avaricious appetites that could never get enough $$.  No matter how much they got, they wanted more and more and more. Now, because of their unwillingness to put the brakes on their manic acquisitive desires, only the naive (ignorant) far right wingers still support them, believing everything they are told by their elite masters.  The rest of us--the 99%--are fed up with being the serfs to the "nobles."  Too bad the entire empire has to crumble and all of us have to suffer because of the unbridled greed of the few.

Filmmaker Michael Moore said Tuesday night that the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstration in lower Manhattan and other cities continued to grow because Wall Street had ruined the lives of so many people in the middle class.

“I think historians when they look at this time, they’re going to wonder why the wealthy overplayed their hand like this,” he said during an appearance on MSNBC’s PoliticsNation.

“Why would they, when they had it so good? They had the middle class voting for the politicians that the wealthy bought, everything was running just fine, they were posting profits of a billion a year, but that wasn’t enough for them.”

“What they did was they started to ruin the lives of the very people who voted for their politicians and supported them all these years, the middle class,” Moore said.

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Andy Borowitz: Goldman Sachs envisions a new golden opportunity in Occupy Wall Street

October 18, 2011

A Letter from Goldman Sachs

Concerning Occupy Wall Street

NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)– The following is a letter released today by Lloyd Blankfein, the chairman of banking giant Goldman Sachs:

Dear Investor:

Up until now, Goldman Sachs has been silent on the subject of the protest movement known as Occupy Wall Street.  That does not mean, however, that it has not been very much on our minds.  As thousands have gathered in Lower Manhattan, passionately expressing their deep discontent with the status quo, we have taken note of these protests.  And we have asked ourselves this question:

How can we make money off them?

The answer is the newly launched Goldman Sachs Global Rage Fund, whose investment objective is to monetize the Occupy Wall Street protests as they spread around the world.  At Goldman, we recognize that the capitalist system as we know it is circling the drain – but there’s plenty of money to be made on the way down.

The Rage Fund will seek out opportunities to invest in products that are poised to benefit from the spreading protests, from police batons and barricades to stun guns and forehead bandages.  Furthermore, as clashes between police and protesters turn ever more violent, we are making significant bets on companies that manufacture replacements for broken windows and overturned cars, as well as the raw materials necessary for the construction and incineration of effigies.

It would be tempting, at a time like this, to say “Let them eat cake.”  But at Goldman, we are actively seeking to corner the market in cake futures.  We project that through our aggressive market manipulation, the price of a piece of cake will quadruple by the end of 2011.

Please contact your Goldman representative for a full prospectus.  As the world descends into a Darwinian free-for-all, the Goldman Sachs Rage Fund is a great way to tell the protesters, “Occupy this.”  We haven’t felt so good about something we’ve sold since we sold our souls.

Sincerely,

Lloyd Blankfein

Chairman, Goldman Sachs

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The New Yorker's New Cover--the philosophy of the One Percent!

For those wondering if any more demonstrations will come out of the economic downfall, the New Yorker's latest cover provides an image for another group's possible argument: the so-called "one percent" that the Occupy Wall Street movement is battling.

The cover — drawn by Barry Blitt and entitled "Fighting Back" — shows a group of Wall Street fat cats protesting to maintain the status quo. "Keep Things Precisely Where They Are," one sign reads. The cover could be seen as representing what Occupy Wall Street protesters believe are the one percenters' interests and objectives: to make and maintain as much money as possible.

The image also places the Wall Street bankers squarely in the middle of two movements — the Tea Party, which calls for smaller government, and Occupy Wall Street, which wants more government regulation of banks.

PHOTO:

Quick Poll

The New Yorker cover:

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I receive e-mails from far right wingers who champion Wall Street

In their eyes, the more money the corporations (and their CEOs) make, the better. Deregulation is great, and there should never be a raise of taxes on the rich.  If the rest of us are carrying the burden of taxes, that's OK with them.  Wall Street is never at fault.  Ronald Reagan is their all-time hero. They believe we should cut spending but never raise taxes. And so the slashes on education and programs that help the middle class and poor, in their minds, are exactly the remedy the country needs.  So what if poor children starve? Hey, they should never have been born in the first place! What are the poor thinking of, having unprotected sex?! (But these same voters insist on cutting funds for Planned Parenthood, sex education and birth control--and their leading candidate, Herman Cain, has said abortions should never be allowed, even when impregnation has taken place through incest or rape).  They would love to bring the country back to the "good old days" when children worked in factories and the poor and elderly starved on the streets because there was no public assistance.  They think the "churches and neighbors" will step in to help those who are suffering, out of jobs, in poor health, and dying.  In their world, everything was perfect when blacks were slaves -- and women weren't allowed to vote. And homosexuals--well, those "sinners" should just turn themselves around and become heterosexual "like the rest of us." Oh--and on the subject of guns, hey, Everyone should have a gun!  Good grief, where do you start to even have a dialogue with thinking like this?

On the political right in this country, there seems to be complete blindness/denial of the fact that capitalism, like communism, has gone too far in rewarding the rich while penalizing everyone else.  All systems of government are susceptible to mismanagement, greed, and power lust among the "leaders."  Earth humanity has not yet evolved to where Christ was pointing us. So, no matter how lofty the vision when they are begun, until mankind changes, all forms of earth government will eventually fail and fall, victims of unregulated, unbridled avarice -- and ignorance. 

History has shown over and over that whenever greed of the few takes over, a revolution of the many is sure to follow. We watched the Soviet empire dissolve in our time--and now we are watching the dissolution of the American empire. This latest decline and fall of an empire began its final downslide when "Reaganomics" deregulated and lowered taxes on corporations.  Unfortunately, this time no Teddy Roosevelt showed up as a "trustbuster."  And it's been downhill ever since, as the rich ran with that freedom from any restriction or accountability, further increasing their wealth on the backs of the middle class, buying elections and their own representatives (servants) who do the will of their masters.

The naive right-wing voters who believe that, when they champion Wall Street, they are promoting capitalism and "freedom" for themselves, are unwilling to recognize that they are actually courting their own disaster.  They vote for candidates who are bought and paid for by Wall Street -- and who send innocent sons of the poor off to do the unnecessary wars of their bidding, in order to further enrich themselves.  The rich and powerful of today don't realize they are bringing about their own downfall.  The Tea Party far right wingers don't seem to realize that judging and condemning others for the color of their skin or for their sexual orientation comes with a price. There is a cosmic order in the universe that exacts payment for misdeeds ("every jot and tittle" as the Bible instructs. Matt 5:18 "For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.")  Individual karma and national karma do exist...and are playing out as we all watch.  Those who have acquired wealth and power at the expense of others' lives are certain to reap the harvest they have sown -- and probably not the one they were expecting.  "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity"... and what is it worth in the end?  The Cheneys and Bushes have come and gone throughout the centuries, and what have they really gained in all their grasping and acquiring?  As the poet William Wordsworth so perfectly put it, "The world is too much with us, late and soon. Getting and spending, we lay waste our power...we have given our hearts away, a sordid boon...for everything, we are out of tune."  The real power and the real peace we all seek are in what Christ spoke of, and what Paul later reiterated in Corinthians:

1 Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.  For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

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Mainstream media attack on vitamins revealed as total hoax

NaturalNews Insider Alert ( www.NaturalNews.com )

Remember the headlines from last week when the mainstream media declared that vitamins were dangerous and might kill you?

NaturalNews is now revealing this as a total hoax based on a fraudulently-constructed study published in a medical journal that failed to report its massive conflicts of interest.

Click here to read a detailed article completely deconstructing the mainstream media hoax about vitamins:
http://www.naturalnews.com/033883_vitamins_mortality_risk.html

Modern medicine is about nothing more than just corporate profits, and even many doctors and researchers are starting to speak out. Here's a stunning report from Sherry Baker with details:
http://www.naturalnews.com/033881_health_care_profits.html

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