Monday, January 28, 2013

Republicans meeting their match --and their karma?

THE GOP CRACKUP: HOW OBAMA IS UNRAVELING REAGAN REPUBLICANISM
By Robert Reich

Soon after President Obama’s second inaugural address, John Boehner said the White House would try “to annihilate the Republican Party” and “shove us into the dustbin of history.”

Actually, the GOP is doing a pretty good job annihilating itself.  As Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal put it, Republicans need to “stop being the stupid party.”

The GOP crackup was probably inevitable.  Inconsistencies and tensions within the GOP have been growing for years – ever since Ronald Reagan put together the coalition that became the modern Republican Party.

All President Obama has done is finally find ways to exploit these inconsistencies.

Republican libertarians have never got along with social conservatives, who want to impose their own morality on everyone else.

Shrink-the-government fanatics in the GOP have never seen eye-to-eye with deficit hawks, who don’t mind raising taxes as long as the extra revenues help reduce the size of the deficit.

The GOP’s big business and Wall Street wing has never been comfortable with the nativists and racists in the Party who want to exclude immigrants and prevent minorities from getting ahead.

And right-wing populists have never got along with big business and Wall Street, which love government as long as it gives them subsidies, tax benefits, and bailouts.

Ronald Reagan papered over these differences with a happy anti-big-government nationalism.  His patriotic imagery inspired the nativists and social conservatives. He gave big business and Wall Street massive military spending. And his anti-government rhetoric delighted the Party’s libertarians and right-wing populists.

But Reagan’s coalition remained fragile. It depended fundamentally on creating a common enemy: communists and terrorists abroad, liberals and people of color at home.

On the surface Reagan’s GOP celebrated Norman Rockwell’s traditional, white middle-class, small-town America. Below the surface it stoked fires of fear and hate of “others” who threatened this idealized portrait.

In his first term Barack Obama seemed the perfect foil: A black man, a big- spending liberal, perhaps (they hissed) not even an American.

Republicans accused him of being insufficiently patriotic. Right-wing TV and radio snarled he secretly wanted to take over America, suspend our rights. Mitch McConnell declared that unseating him was his party’s first priority.

But it didn’t work. The 2012 Republican primaries exposed all the cracks and fissures in the GOP coalition.

The Party offered up a Star Wars barroom of oddball characters, each representing a different faction — Bachmann, Perry, Gingrich, Cain, Santorum. Each rose on the strength of supporters and then promptly fell when the rest of the Party got a good look.

Finally, desperately, the GOP turned to a chameleon — Mitt Romney — who appeared acceptable to every faction because he had no convictions of his own. But Romney couldn’t survive the general election because the public saw him for what he was: synthetic and inauthentic.

The 2012 election exposed something else about the GOP: it’s utter lack of touch with reality, its bizarre incapacity to see and understand what was happening in the country.  Think of Karl Rove’s delirium on Fox election night.

All of which has given Obama the perfect opening — perhaps the opening he’d been waiting for all along.

Obama’s focus in his second inaugural — and, by inference, in his second term — on equal opportunity is hardly a radical agenda. But it aggravates all the tensions inside the GOP. And it leaves the GOP without an overriding target to maintain its fragile coalition.

In hammering home the need for the rich to contribute a fair share in order to ensure equal opportunity, and for anyone in America — be they poor, black, gay, immigrant, women, or average working person — to be able to make the most of themselves, Obama advances the founding ideals of America in such way that the Republican Party is incapable of opposing yet also incapable of uniting behind.

History and demographics are on the side of the Democrats, but history and demography have been on the Democrats’ side for decades. What’s new is the Republican crackup — opening the way for a new Democratic coalition of socially-liberal young people, women, minorities, middle-class professionals, and what’s left of the anti-corporate working class.

If Obama remains as clear and combative as he has been since Election Day, his second term may be noted not only for its accomplishment but also for finally unraveling what Reagan put together. In other words, John Boehner’s fear may be well-founded.

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Sunday, January 27, 2013

No Surprise Here!

Bad pharma: Drug research riddled with half truths, omissions, lies

BY BEN GOLDACRE

Industry-funded trials are too common, can't be trusted -- and bring pills to market that likely don't work

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Sarah Palin has been dropped by FOX

http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/sarah-palin-and-the-end-of-an-era-20130126

The paragraph in this article that best defines Palin's mental prowess (or obvious lack of it) is this one, telling of her most recent interview with Greta VanSustern. It's laugh-out-loud humorous:

The strangest thing Palin said during that interview was her argument as to why Time’s recognition of Obama was irrelevant. Pointing to herself in seeming disbelief, she said that “yours truly” had made the magazine’s list of the most influential people in the nation and world, and “that ought to tell you something right there about the credence that we should give Time magazine and their list of people.” A bemused Van Susteren replied, “All right. Well. That’s an interesting concept.” (~.~)


SARAH PALIN AND THE END OF AN ERA

By Jill Lawrence

The news that Sarah
Palin will no longer be a paid contributor to Fox News puts an exclamation point on the end of an era, or at least a chapter, in U.S. political history. She could land somewhere else, and she still has her Facebook friends, but it’s hard to imagine she’ll find a more visible or influential platform than Fox.

The former Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential nominee has been fading from the scene for some time, as she inadvertently highlighted when she complained on Facebook during the Republican convention in August that the network had canceled her scheduled interviews that night. Her brother, Chuck Heath Jr., told Alan Colmes last week on Fox Radio that his sister is “kind of laying low right now,” though he wouldn’t or couldn’t say when asked why.

Once the face of an energetic and politically potent Tea Party movement, Palin is leaving Fox at a time when polls show the Tea Party at an all-time low in both membership and favorability. Her departure also coincides with calls by some leading Republicans for their party to stop saying things that erode the GOP brand and turn off voters in droves.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said bluntly this week at a Republican National Committee meeting in Charlotte that the GOP needs to stop being “the stupid party,” and former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said he agreed. The two were talking in particular about losing Senate candidates Todd Akin of Missouri and Richard Mourdock of Indiana, both of whom made inflammatory (and in Akin’s case, flagrantly ignorant) comments about rape.

But Palin, with her flamboyant rhetoric, has stoked her own disproportionate share of controversies. This is the woman who, after all, coined the term “death panels” to describe discussions between patients and physicians about end-of-life treatment (killing a bipartisan proposal for Medicare to reimburse doctors for having those talks); who complained of a “blood libel” against her by “journalists and pundits” after the Tucson shooting rampage that injured Gabrielle Giffords (the phrase historically relates to the charge that Jews murder children to use their blood in religious rituals); and who last fall accused Obama of “shuck and jive” in his statements on the killings of U.S. diplomatic personnel in Benghazi (a racist term dating from slavery days).

Former secretary of state Colin Powell ripped Palin, though not by name, for the shucking-and-jiving remark. He said that and a characterization of Obama as "lazy" (by former New Hampshire governor John Sununu, also not cited by name) played into negative stereotypes of blacks and laid bare a “dark vein of intolerance” within some parts of the GOP.

Palin defended herself by noting other political figures have used the phrase, including New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and White House press secretary Jay Carney. That’s true, and it’s also true that outside of conservative media, Carney largely seems to have gotten a pass. But Cuomo was roundly criticized when he said it during the 2008 Democratic primary campaign (he was a Hillary Clinton supporter). In fact, during that bitter nomination contest, the media monitored every word from Clinton, her husband and her staff for evidence of racial politics. And we found a number of examples, some more valid than others.

The problem for Republicans is that Democrats nominated and elected a black president – twice now – while they are still trying to fight perceptions they are hostile to minorities and the policies they support. That makes comments like Palin’s particularly harmful.

The shuck-and-jive incident was one of many signs that Palin has not adapted to a changing political environment. Her Dec. 19 interview on On The Record with Greta Van Susteren, her final appearance on the network, was like a time warp back to 2008. She still makes up words (“electioning”). She still repeats sentences and phrases, padding her answers with filler. She still talks in vague generalities, leaving one to wonder how much she really knows. At a time when some conservatives reportedly have concluded it’s time to challenge liberalism rather than keep trying to stoke hostility toward Obama himself, she still attacks Obama in highly personal terms (“Mr. Nobel-Peace-Prize- winning president of ours”). Her diction is still, shall we say, unusual (“I believe that it’s many, many things that he would say and do being deceptive”).

Palin also still says weirdly inexplicable things.

When she first heard that Obama had been named Time magazine’s 2012 Person of the Year, she said her reaction was “What the heck has he done really? What has he done except drive us over a fiscal cliff? … Other than that, really, what has he done to unify and make our nation a more perfect union? For the life of me I don’t know, Greta.”

Obama of course has done a lot of things, some of them very polarizing. Palin had an opportunity to invoke Obamacare, gays in the military or any number of moves to back up her point about Obama dividing the nation and, in the view of many, making it less rather than more perfect. It was left to Van Susteren to add a little heft to the discussion, noting that Obama would deserve the designation if it had been awarded for winning a very difficult reelection campaign with a broad swath of demographic groups.

The strangest thing Palin said during that interview was her argument as to why Time’s recognition of Obama was irrelevant. Pointing to herself in seeming disbelief, she said that “yours truly” had made the magazine’s list of the most influential people in the nation and world, and “that ought to tell you something right there about the credence that we should give Time magazine and their list of people.” A bemused Van Susteren replied, “All right. Well. That’s an interesting concept.”

Fox hired Palin three years ago – at a reported $1 million a year – because, Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes told The Associated Press, “she was hot and got ratings.” While the terms of her departure are not public, it appears Fox came to the same conclusion as Palin about her diminishing role on the national and world stage.

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Saturday, January 26, 2013

Mysterious Plum Island and its Hidden Dangers to the Public


Was Lyme Disease Created Here?  It certainly looks like that!

In this video, Jesse Ventura storms Congress to find out
if the government is conducting
dangerous experiments at the Plum
Island Animal Research Center off
the coast of Long Island.

The center, which began as a
bio-warfare lab run by former Nazi
scientists, has been blamed for
spreading diseases and viruses
throughout the mainland, including
Lyme disease. Some suspect the
mysterious Montauk Monster escaped
from the facility.

Video (about 44 mins):




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Friday, January 25, 2013

INTERESTING! Water Has Memory -- Scientific Proof

The mysteries of the universe continue to be revealed in scientific studies -- this one is fabulously interesting!  2-minute video --well worth watching!

The Aerospace Institute in Stuttgart has
discovered a relatively easy way to show
how drops of water are greatly modified
by the people making the drops and by
the different kinds of flowers placed in
the water, prior to making drops.

The statement that "Water has memory"
practically changes our whole way of looking
at the world. Water flowing down a river
may be picking up information everywhere
it goes - so that water has more information
at the mouth of the river than it does at the
source. The oceans could be less of something
that separate us than a vast storehouse of
information, which binds us together.

In 2004, when Japanese author, Masaru Emoto
released his first of several bestselling books on
this theme, 'The Hidden Messages in Water,' he
was derided as a "peddler of pseudoscience."

Hopefully these new studies may open up a
greater understanding of the interplay between
consciousness and water.

Video (almost 3 mins):


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Monday, January 21, 2013

Dr. Burzynski -- FINALLY, CASE DISMISSED!

After years of persecution by the FDA, AMA, NCI, NIH, and Big Pharma, Dr. Burzynski has finally been cleared of wrongdoing -- when all along, he has been helping and curing cancer patients who had nowhere else to turn.  The FDA, NCI and Big Pharma were not happy that Dr. Burzynski was funding his research and trying to get federal drug approval on his own -- how were they to get the lion's share of $$$ for his antineoplastin cure if he wouldn't include them? Time and again in the court cases they dragged him into, it didn't matter how many of his cured patients testified for him; the government and Big Pharma were out to get him. Time after time the FDA took him to court and threatened him with imprisonment. Dr. Burzynski was forced to defend himself over and over again, all the while continuing to give help and hope to cancer victims who had been given a death sentence by the medical community.  Burzynski: The Movie is a documentary that was made about the terrible years of government persecution this good doctor had to endure.  Now there is a new documentary out about the case, detailing even more the reasons why doctors and researchers who come up with cures for cancer are targeted, persecuted and prosecuted -- the answer, of course, always comes down to power, control, and $$$.  This is the kind of world we live in, where greed and power lust has taken over our country and its government.  It's not a pretty picture -- but at least one man's search for justice has prevailed through years of government tyranny. 



Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski, a Polish immigrant,
was trained as both a biochemist and a
physician. He's spent the last 35 years
developing and successfully treating cancer
patients suffering with some of the most
lethal forms of cancer at his clinic in Houston,
Texas. The treatment he developed involves
a gene-targeted approach using non-toxic
peptides and amino acids, known as
Antineoplastons.

After a grueling 15-year long battle, the  

Texas Medical Board has officially ended its  

crusade to revoke Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski's  

medical license in an effort to end his use of  

Antineoplastons. The Texas Medical Board's  

case against him was dismissed on November  

19, 2012, just in time for Thanksgiving. 

 

After it was revealed that the FDA had  

pressured the Texas medical board to revoke  

Dr. Burzynski's medical license - despite the  

fact that no laws were broken, and his treatment  

was proven safe and effective - the obvious  

question was "why?" 

 

The answer to this has to do with money. Lots  

and lots of money... See, Dr. Burzynski owns  

the patent for this treatment, and should it  

actually gain FDA approval, not only would it  

threaten conventional chemotherapy and radiation,  

it would also result in billions of dollars of cancer  

research funds being funneled over to the one  

single scientist who has exclusive patent rights  

- Dr. Burzynski.

 

Dr. Burzynski received much-needed publicity  

two years ago with the release of ' Burzynski:   

The Movie', which will run on FKTV at 4:45PM  

Pacific tonight. This documentary is about his  

remarkable cancer discovery, and how he won  

the largest and possibly the most convoluted  

and intriguing legal battle against the Food and  

Drug Administration (FDA) in American history.  

Soon afterward, the Texas Medical Board sued

 

him again - without success. 

 

This year, a second film detailing his continued  

struggles, and victories, is scheduled to be  

released. As announced in the trailer (see below),  

Dr. Burzynski is now doing the unthinkable...  

He is "the first and only scientist in United States  

history to enter the federal drug approval process  

for a proprietary cancer therapy without any  

financial support from the American government,  

the pharmaceutical industry, or the cancer  

establishment."  

 

Video (about 5 mins):  (from Forbidden Knowledge site)


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Saturday, January 19, 2013

U.S. Government sprayed people in the '50s and '60s in covert programs

Watch this short video and learn what the U.S. Govt. did to people in several cities in the '50s and '60s, without their knowledge.  Then look up in our skies at the chemtrails above us (today was a particularly busy day for chemtrail planes in the Monterey Bay area) and wonder what our government is doing to us, without telling us.  If you think this is just another wild "conspiracy theory," think again. This video report is from mainstream media, and the researcher is a credentialed, credible PhD sociologist who has done in-depth investigation on this subject. Her information is all verified by Freedom of Information gathered declassified military documents.  As you watch the video, you may well ask yourself in horror, "What is our government not capable of doing?" (Answer: Working for the good of the people)


Th
rough dozens of Freedom of
Information Act requests, sociologist,
Dr. Lisa Martino-Taylor uncovered
declassified military documents
describing the spraying of zinc
cadmium sulfide with radioactive
particles on a daily basis, for several
years during the 1950s and 1960s.

In St Louis, the sprayers were mounted
on the rooftops of high rise buildings. In
Texas, similar tests were conducted but
the toxins were dispersed by military jets
from the air and by station wagons on
the ground.

These tests were conducted on an unwitting
public. The Cold War cover story was that
the Army was testing "smokescreens to
protect cities from a Russian attack."

The highest concentration of this compound
was sprayed on a low-income Pruitt-Igoe
housing project in St. Louis Missouri that was
home to 10,000 people, of which 70% were
estimated to be under the age of 12.

The stated purpose of relentlessly spraying
the inhabitants of Pruitt-Igoe with radioactive
toxins morning, noon and night was so that
the military could study its effects of their
lungs. However, no follow-up study was ever
done.

In 1972, after years of crime, poverty and
decline, the government demolished the
Pruitt-Igoe housing project, which incidentally,
was designed by Minoru Yamasaki, the same
architect as the World Trade Center towers.

Video (about 4 mins):

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Mea Maxima Culpa -- documentary re. abusive priest and deaf kids

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/11/13/mea_maxima_culpa_new_doc_exposes  -- an interview with the documentary director.  The Catholic Church has much to answer for in the cover-up and continued sexual, physical and emotional abuse of children through the years. This film traces the sexual abuse coverup back to Pope John Paul II and the present pope Ratzinger (Benedict).  The church has much to reveal in its records, which they so far have kept away from the public, but which this film director is demanding. 

This film is coming to HBO next month.  Here is a short article about it: http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/movies/silence_emboldens_i2tfR7NJr4FBB8fWaHVM7H
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Bill Maher's got it right

When the NRA members were paying attention only to the 2nd amendment, all of our rights were being stripped away.  All jokes aside (and he has plenty of them) there's a lot of truth in Maher's  rant this week.  See it at:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/19/bill-maher-gun-rights-privacy_n_2511378.html
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Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Scientology is self-destructing


One can only hope this giant cult is finally crumbling from within.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/alexklein/is-scientology-self-destructing

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Sunday, January 13, 2013

What we do to others, we do to ourselves: Quantum Physics and Non-duality

The following interesting online site points out identical conclusions in science and spiritual philosophy.

http://www.scienceandnonduality.com/nonduality.shtml

Nonduality is the philosophical, spiritual, and scientific understanding of non-separation and fundamental intrinsic oneness.

For thousand of years, through deep inner inquiry, philosophers and sages have came to the realization that there is only one substance and we are therefore all part of it. This substance can be called Awareness, Consciousness, Spirit, Advaita, Brahman, Tao, Nirvana or even God. It is constant, ever present, unchangeable and is the essence of all existence.

In the last century Western scientists are arriving at the same conclusion: The universe does indeed comprise of a single substance, presumably created during the Big Bang, and all sense of being - consciousness - subsequently arises from it. This realization has ontological implications for humanity: fundamentally we are individual expressions of a single entity, inextricably connected to one another, we are all drops of the same ocean.

Science and Nonduality is a journey, an exploration of the nature of awareness, the essence of life from which all arises and subsides.

Welcome on board!

What is nonduality, anyway?

There are many shades of meaning to the word nonduality. As an introduction, we might say that nonduality is the philosophical, spiritual, and scientific understanding of non-separation and fundamental oneness.

Our starting point is the statement “we are all one,” and this is meant not in some abstract sense but at the deepest level of existence. Duality, or separation between the observer and the observed, is an illusion that the Eastern mystics have long recognized and Western science has more recently come to understand through quantum mechanics.

Dualities are usually seen in terms of opposites: Mind/Matter, Self/Other, Conscious/Unconscious, Illusion/Reality, Quantum/Classical, Wave/Particle, Spiritual/Material, Beginning/End, Male/Female, Living/Dead and Good/Evil. Nonduality is the understanding that identification with common dualisms avoids recognition of a deeper reality.

So how can we better understand nonduality?

There are two aspects to this question, and at first glance they appear to be mutually exclusive, although they may be considered two representations of a single underlying reality.

The first aspect is our understanding of external reality, and for this we turn to science. The word science comes from the Latin scientia, which means knowledge. The beauty and usefulness of science is that it seeks to measure and describe reality without personal, religious, or cultural bias. For something to be considered scientifically proven, it has to pass exhaustive scrutiny, and even then is always subject to future revision. Inevitably human biases creep in, but the pursuit of science itself is intrinsically an evolving quest for truth. But then quantum mechanics turned much of this lauded objectivity on its head, as the role of the observer became inseparable from the observed quantum effect. It is as if consciousness itself plays a role in creating reality.  Indeed, the two may be the same thing. As quantum pioneer Niels Bohr once put it: “A physicist is just an atom's way of looking at itself!”

The second aspect is our inner, personal experience of consciousness, our “awareness of awareness.” We have our senses to perceive the world, but “behind” all perception, memory, identification and thought is simply pure awareness itself.  Eastern mystics have described this undifferentiated consciousness for thousands of years as being the ultimate state of bliss, or nirvana. Seekers have attempted to experience it for themselves through countless rituals and practices, although the state itself can be quite simply described. As Indian advaita teacher Nisargadatta Maharaj said: “The trinity: mind, self and spirit, when looked into, becomes unity.”

The central challenge to understanding nonduality may be that it exists beyond language, because once it has been named, by definition -- and paradoxically -- a duality has been created. Even the statement “all things are one” creates a distinction between “one” and “not-one”! Hardly any wonder that nonduality has been misunderstood, particularly in the West.




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Truth about GOP/racism finally admitted by Powell and Wilkerson

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/13/colin-powell-gop_n_2467768.html
What has been apparent to all who live outside of the far right wing bubble is finally being admitted by Republican moderates (there are still a couple of them left).  They are extremely worried (with good cause!) about the direction their party is headed since its takeover by racist factions and out-and-out nutcases.  Unfortunately, the sane voices of the few Colin Powells and Lawrence Wilkersons cannot be heard over the din of idiocy raging from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Donald Trump, etc. -- and the millions of dittoheads who follow them.

DARK VEIN OF INTOLERANCE IN GOP: POWELL

Former Secretary Of State Colin Powell delivered some harsh words for the GOP as a whole on Sunday.

In an appearance on NBC's "Meet The Press," Powell noted that there is a "dark vein of intolerance in some parts of the party."

"What do I mean by that?," he explained. "What I mean by that is they still sort of look down on minorities."

Powell specifically pointed to October 2012 comments by former Alaska Gov. and Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin on the attacks in Benghazi, Libya.

"When I see a former governor say that the president is 'shuckin' and jivin' -- that's a racial-era slave term," Powell said, referring to Palin's words on Obama's response.

Powell added that Republicans had become too preoccupied with the candidate-selection process, losing sight of the group's overall message.

"You've got to think first about what's the party actually going to represent," Powell said. "If it's just going to represent the far right wing of the political spectrum, I think the party is in difficulty. I'm a moderate, but I'm still a Republican."

Powell was the first African American to fill the role of Secretary Of State, serving under President George W. Bush from 2001-05. Despite maintaining his allegiance to the Republican Party, Powell has been an ardent supporter for President Barack Obama, giving him a 2008 vote and a 2012 endorsement.

"I think we ought to keep on the track we are on," said Powell in October 2012, commending Obama on the economy and Iraq War.

Top Mitt Romney surrogate John Sununu turned heads after the announcement, suggesting that Powell's Obama endorsement was motivated by race. That statement prompted former Powell Chief Of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson to make Republican-Party comments similar in nature to Powell's Sunday remarks.

My party, unfortunately, is the bastion of those people -- not all of them, but most of them -- who are still basing their positions on race. Let me just be candid: My party is full of racists, and the real reason a considerable portion of my party wants President Obama out of the White House has nothing to do with the content of his character, nothing to do with his competence as commander-in-chief and president, and everything to do with the color of his skin, and that's despicable.

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Saturday, January 12, 2013

Climate Change Definitely Caused by Human Activity

New Federal Report: Climate Change is Really, Really Scary

| Fri Jan. 11, 2013 2:09 PM PST
\ 

Say what you want about the Obama administration's relative ignoring of climate issues: Many of his top scientists are paying rapt attention, and they think we're about to get our butts kicked—although dumping the news at 4pm on a Friday gives some indication of where it sits in federal priorities.

The National Climate Assessment is produced by the US Global Change Research Program, which is tasked with collating climate research from a wide variety of federal agencies and, every few years, distilling it into one major report. The latest, a first draft, is the third such report (the last was in 2009), product of a 1990 law that requires the White House to produce semi-regular updates on climate science to Congress. Today's report echoes the themes of earlier editions, and paints a picture that is all the more grim for being an unsurprising confirmation of the dangers we've come to know all too well. Here's the top six things for you to worry about this weekend, according to the report:

  1. Climate change is definitely caused by human activities. Always nice to hear government officials acknowledge this essential fact. And the report concedes that our only hope of curbing warming is to kick our addiction to greenhouse-gas spewing fossil fuels.
  2. Extreme weather is increasing, and that's our fault, too.  In particular, searing temperatures, heavy rain, and prolonged drought.
  3. Weather isn't the only threat we have to worry about. The list sounds like the side-effect warnings at the end of a prescription drug commercial: decreased air quality, insect-borne diseases, and "threats to mental health" are all on the docket for the coming decades.
  4. Our infrastructure is getting hammered, and we're not spending enough to save it. Floods are destroying farmland; extreme heat is damaging roads, rail lines, and airports; and military installations are at risk.
  5. Food and water security will be up in the air. Especially in water-scarce regions like the Southwest, decreasing snowpack and shrinking groundwater supplies will spark competition for water between "agricultural, municipal, and environmental" uses. At the same time, heavy floods could put water quality at risk with sediment and chemical contaminates. And by mid-century, efforts to artificially protect agriculture (like expanded irrigation) could be over-ridden by temperature and precipitation extremes.
  6. Climate change is hitting plants and animals just as hard as us. Beaches, forests, wetlands, and other ecosystems could shrink or disappear, especially a problem when they play a role in mitigating the impact from extreme weather. And warming, acidifying seas could slam sea life.

The report is sure to get thoroughly dissected by reporters in the coming week; keep an eye out for more details to come.

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Friday, January 11, 2013

Washington's Endless Civil War by Robert Shrum

If you want to know what is happening in Washington because of right wing obstinacy and obstruction, this is the article to read.  Far right wingers have no concern whatsoever for the fate of the nation that they pretend to support and love. They are interested only in refusing any kind of cooperation with its first black president. Their hattred of him is so great, they will cut off their own nose to spite their face--and if you mention concern or empathy for their fellow Americans, they sneer and turn their heads away.  So much for "compassionate conservatism."  Their way is dark and treacherous, yet they refuse to see themselves as they are.  There is something very sociopathic in this behavior.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/11/washington-s-endless-civil-war.html
  (for entire article)

Right-wing legislators can’t believe Obama is still in the White House—and they’re ready to obstruct him at almost any cost.

EXCERPT: it’s conceivable that the far right in the GOP House could force draconian cuts in everything from education and student loans to health research, transportation, and public safety—and yes, military hardware and personnel. Indeed the sequester would bring layoffs to tens of thousands of federal workers, and then to many more Americans as a depleted economy slides toward recession.

This is what happened in Europe with austerity politics: cutting too sharply, too soon—that is the Republicans’ essential demand. It’s idiotic economics and preposterous politics, but the GOP firebrands, assuming they are safe in their gerrymandered districts, may lemming-like do massive damage to the country while dooming their party to a generation of defeat at the presidential level.

Maybe the Republicans will attempt to decapitate the federal government by leaving it without major Cabinet officials. In the end, they’ll fail—and thanks to the drafters of the Constitution, at least the deranged GOP House has no say in the confirmation process. But what’s happening is more proof that what we have in Washington is not a functioning Congress, but a one-ring circus on the far right.

I hope I’m wrong—that somehow Boehner locates his conscience; that enough Republicans decide to do what’s right rather than far right; that the GOP heeds Chris Christie’s counsel that “compromise [is] not a dirty word.” But it’s more than possible that Christie will become an exile in his own party—and that the greatest nation on earth may become a hobbled, dysfunctional democracy.    If so, Americans will settle the issue at the polls in favor of progress—unless a dwindling, demographically depleted Republican Party succeeds for a while in imposing new Jim Crow-like restrictions on voting. But long-term, that’s a losing game. And today, the GOP is the party that won’t compromise; the party that threatens economic chaos; the anti-Medicare, anti-Social Security, anti-women, anti-Hispanic, anti-gay, anti-young party.  There’s no future in that.


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Largest structure in the universe discovered

This Large Quasar Group is more than 4 billion light years wide!   http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57563482/largest-structure-in-universe-discovered/

Makes our 100,000 light years' wide galaxy look like the size of an invisible-to-the-eye pinhead. 

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Wednesday, January 09, 2013

Dr. Eben Alexander's near death experience

A riveting story -- a neurosurgeon who thought the brain was our identity --- until he had acute bacterial meningitis which almost killed him.  What he experienced during the time he was "out" in a coma has convinced him that we are far more than just a body and a brain.  He now has a much broader view of consciousness.  It's fascinating to listen to him.  Seems similar to Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor's experience during her stroke. You can hear her 18-minute description of her experience at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-jill-bolte-taylor/neuroscience_b_2404554.html  Very uplifting stories!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26bWZaMKDQY  -- short 3-minute video clip from ABC News

54-minute Skeptico audio interview with him --  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYZoX4N5_YQ
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Monday, January 07, 2013

Good video interview with creator of 7 UP series

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50138305n

Also shows footage of several of the participants from age 7 on up...
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Birds of Paradise Project

http://www.cornell.edu/video/?VideoID=2398

Fascinatingly BEAUTIFUL birds -- they can be found ONLY in New Guinea.  They've evolved in extraordinary ways!  See video at: http://www.cornell.edu/video/?VideoID=2398
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CNN has inspirational story on Santa Cruz's James Durbin and bullying

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/07/health/human-factor-james-durbin/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

He tells how he was bullied by kids throughout his school years for his Aspergers and Tourettes sydrome--and how he overcame all obstacles through his music.  His story follows, and you can see a video of James on the site.  He now participates in anti-bullying rallies at schools to talk about how he overcame the bullying and became the man he is today.  We are lucky to have a role model like James in our very own community of Santa Cruz.  He is using his fame wisely, to help others. And now his story is on CNN, being seen all over the country -- and the world.  (~.~)

CNN Editor's note: In the Human Factor, we profile survivors who have overcome the odds. Confronting a life obstacle -- injury, illness or other hardship -- they tapped their inner strength and found resilience they didn't know they possessed. James Durbin became an "American Idol" fan favorite despite his struggles with Tourette syndrome and Asperger's syndrome.

(CNN) -- I believe it was December of '98 when my dad passed away of an overdose. A few weeks later, around my 10th birthday, I was diagnosed with Tourette syndrome and Asperger's syndrome.

It was a really rough time, especially at that age, being told I have a neurological "disease," when I already felt so different.

At that point I was being bullied for being different, having big ears, and now for having no dad AND for making weird faces and noises I couldn't control. I was a walking target.

Then my mom discovered a musical interest in me after my older sister was in musical theater at her high school. I learned all the songs from the show "Damn Yankees" and at the final performance, the director let me go onstage (my first time onstage) and perform with the cast! I was hooked instantly and for some reason it felt right.

Although I felt I had found "my place," I still had to go back to my own school. The bullying just kept getting worse. I didn't know what to do anymore. I remember I even had thoughts of suicide and hurting myself.

When I turned 12, I was given a hand-me-down guitar and a chord book. I studied those basic chords and learned how to play the basic songs. Throughout this process, I figured out that no matter how bad of a day I had at school, I could come home and create my own world within the music. I could make the music as happy or as sad as I wanted it to be. I used the pain from being bullied to transform me into who I was meant to be.

I knew where I was most comfortable -- on stage. But I couldn't always be there, and not everyone respected my happiness.

The bullying didn't end there. It just kept happening. It got so bad that I dropped out of high school. I got to the point where I couldn't even focus in class because of the pestering. I told the school officials about the bullying and they did what they could, but I would rather be sitting on my butt at home than being bullied and beat up at school.

A couple of years later, I met an angel who would turn out to be my beautiful wife, Heidi.

I was a dropout: No job, no license, no car, no aspirations. She had a diploma, three jobs, a car AND goals. Having someone in my life who really believed in me made me believe in myself. We started dating, and I started to progress. I started a band and found a job, got my license, and soon afterward got my GED.

In the midst of it all, we found out that we were expecting our sweet son Hunter. That right there is the proudest moment of my life and no famous game show or extravaganza concert can top that. Ever.

Heidi and Hunter balance me. Through my adventures and heartache on "American Idol," to the adventures and heartache on the road of rock 'n roll, they have always supported me.

And when I'm home, I'm just Daddy.

With whatever "celebrity status" I have thanks to "American Idol," I really want to use it for a good purpose.

I've always been a huge fan of WWE and pro wrestling. I was approached by them after "Idol" to be a part of their anti-bullying campaign B.A. Star. Since then I have participated in several in-school rallies to talk to kids about my experiences being bullied and how I've overcome them to be the man I am today.

Regrets? I've had a few... but then again, too few to mention, haha.


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Famous baseball pitcher has Morgellons


When Oakland "A"s Pitcher, Billy Koch
and his family became afflicted with
Morgellons disease he was forced to
quit sports at 29.

Their doctors avow that strange filaments
emerge from their skin and that their
bouts of muscle twitching can last for weeks.

As of three years ago, when this report
was taken, there were 3,000 families in
the US complaining of this condition, which
is being described as a "highly unusual
newly-emerging infectious disease" and
has been long associated with Chemtrails.

Video (about 5 mins):

Famous Baseball Player Gets Morgellons   Also watch ABC's NIGHTLINE video on Morgellons at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsiJpuARHcE

Most doctors have not believed the people who have Morgellons -- even with the evidence staring them right in the face (blue/red threads emerging from the skin --you can see this online at many sites re. Morgellons. The threads are unidentifiable with any known materials, natural or synthetic). People who are experiencing this painful itching lesions disease have been labeled as delusional.  Remember how Agent Orange patients and Iraq veterans affected by depleted uranium have been labeled in exactly the same way?  I had an e-mail yesterday from a friend who described her own bout with Morgellons in this way:

My doctor
absolutely believes that there is such a thing as Morgellons. He did some research and printed 8 pages of material downloaded from Oklahoma State University where they are doing serious research on the disease. So are UCLA and a CDC affiliate in Maryland. But the last time I saw him, he told me that he really knew nothing more about the disease and I should find a physician who had the time to learn more about it and find a workable treatment for it. Most other doctors who haven't done any research on Morgellons consider it "a delusional disease". My doctor warned me not to argue with such a doctor, but simply to hand them the material from Oklahoma St. Univ. and ask them to read it. I'm still looking for a doctor who is open to even doing that. 

It is a shame that many doctors don't have the time or curiosity to research a heretofore unrecognized disease when it is presented to them--and would rather blame the victim for being "delusional."  These poor people are suffering from symptoms that are clearly visible.  See videos of their skin lesions at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmCf4f0RnSw

Morgellons is a multi-symptom disease that is just now starting to be researched and understood. It has a number of primary symptoms:

  • Physical
    • Spontaneously Erupting Skin lesions
    • Sensation of crawling, biting on and under the skin
    • Appearance of blue, black or red fibers and granules beneath and/or extruding from the skin
    • Fatigue

  • Mental
    • Short-term memory loss
    • Attention Deficit, Bipolar or Obsessive-Compulsive disorders
    • Impaired thought processing (brain fog)
    • Depression and feelings of isolation

It is frequently misdiagnosed as Delusional Parasitosis or an Obsessive Picking Disorder.

Who

  • Adults and Children are equally affected by the disease.
  • Individuals in families can experience symptoms of the disease while other members are unaffected.  So it is not known, at this point, if the disease is contagious or inherited.
  • Multiple members of a family can have symptoms.

Where

  • Most cases in the United States are from specific geographic regions of California, Texas and Florida, though all 50 states have had reported cases. 
  • Oklahoma has reported numerous probable cases.
  • It has been reported worldwide in places such as Europe, South Africa, Japan, The Philippines, Indonesia and Australia

The following is from a site online, whose writer has done a great deal of research into Morgellons:

All of the health professionals who I know personally have been harassed and discredited for even trying to help Morgellons sufferers.  Why would that be?   What evil deed is so protected that they persecute people like my friend Dr. Edward Spencer?

Ed purchased a dermatoscope and offered to looked at the skin of Morgellons patients.  Even worse he saw fibers.  He later learned that vaccines could be a source of health problems to humans. He mentioned these possible problems to other Doctors.

In the end this graduate of Stanford and Yale with 30+ years of medical experience as a neurologist was ostracized and ridiculed by his own profession.  In all those years of practice Dr. Ed Spencer never had a patient who complained.

Personal Note:

In the end, a number of people with Morgellons have died recently.  Included among those was a dear friend of mine named Karen Whitledge.  She is greatly missed by all who knew her.   See her Dark Shurikin page to see the startling nano device removed from her body.

Many others are very ill and suffering.  This includes family pets, and infants.  How do you explain a delusional infant or pet? 


'
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Saturday, January 05, 2013

The Third Rail Topic for Politicians: Climate Change

Climate Change is the topic avoided by all our politicians in Washington, D.C. and by the major media (except for Bill Moyers).  Yet, it is the most important issue the entire planet faces. When will we get real about it?????!!!!!

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/01/05/geographer-tells-moyers-climate-change-does-not-care-if-youre-republican-or-democrat/ 

Bill Moyers returned to the issue of climate change on his show Friday, decrying not only politicians, but a fellow journalist for avoiding the topic at their peril.

“As the clock ticks away and warnings mount, official Washington irresponsibly continues to look the other way,” Moyers said in a commentary.

He then showed a clip of CNN anchor Candy Crowley explaining her decision to ask both President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney economy-related questions instead of addressing climate issues when she moderated the Oct. 16 presidential debate between them.

“And so she veered away, avoiding the issue as if global warming is of concern only to a small clique of elites instead of every one of us,” he said, pointedly. “And so for the first time since 1984 there was no mention of climate change in any of the presidential debates. No mention as that clock ticks away and the warnings mount.”

Those warnings, said his guest, geographer Anthony Leiserowitz, should be heeded and addressed at the national level by Obama, given that the impact of superstorms like Hurricane Sandy are decidedly bipartisan.

“This issue has to stop being a partisan issue,” said Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication. “The earth’s climate does not care whether you are a Democrat or a Republican. It doesn’t care whether you’re liberal or conservative. Sandy did not only destroy the homes of Democrats and not Republicans.”

Ideally, Leiserowitz said, Obama would reaffirm to the nation in a State of the Union address that the findings of groups like the National Academy of Sciences confirm that global warming does in fact exist, and is a man-made phenomenon, while reassuring Americans that the tools are also in hand to solve it.

Watch Moyer’s interview with Leiserowitz at: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/01/05/geographer-tells-moyers-climate-change-does-not-care-if-youre-republican-or-democrat/


Raw Story (http://s.tt/1y0Yv)
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Best TED talk ever! Less than 20 minutes long but its impact lasts forever


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-jill-bolte-taylor/neuroscience_b_2404554.html

At the same time that it educates us about the working of the brain, it also speaks essential truth to the heart of us all. I could watch it over and over and never tire of seeing and hearing this neuroscientist joyfully tell of the most meaningful experience of her life.  I hope this video's message will stay with you for a lifetime. Understood deeply, it could change our world for the better in an instant!  HAPPY NEW YEAR!



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Friday, January 04, 2013

7-Up British documentary series

Passing along an educational entertainment tip:

Did you ever watch the Brit documentary series called "7 Up"?   Starting when the kids were 7 years old, every 7 years the documentarian filmed several kids from different parts of the British social strata -- those kids are now 56 years old and the latest in the series was just released as a DVD, called 56 Up.  Every 7 years the kids would talk about their hopes and dreams....you see them grow up and get married (or not) -- and all the life travails and successes they have experienced each 7 years.

If  you  haven't seen it, I think you might enjoy it.

Much of it can be viewed online at:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8A53AD4228E99928

Read all about the latest in the series at:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2144082/56-Up-7-Up-boy-Peter-Davies-returns-documentary-28-years.html






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