Warning about Diet Pepsi's new artificial sweetener replacing aspartame

Fron Dr. Mercola
Diet Pepsi is getting an image overhaul, and as of August will no longer contain the artificial sweetener aspartame, PepsiCo. has announced.^1,2

The decision came in response to dwindling sales, mirroring consumers' concerns about aspartame's health hazards, which includes research^3,4,5,6,7,8 showing that aspartame is a multipotential carcinogenic agent.

It is clearly a move in the right direction and we have provided much of the impetus as our site comes up number two in Google for aspartame and many publications, like the LA Times,⁹ credit us for the increased awareness.

It's hardly a major victory, however, as the company plans on replacing aspartame with sucralose, aka Splenda.^10,11

The irony of this has not gone unnoticed. On April 26, US Right to Know tweeted the following message: "#DietSodaScam: @PepsiCo switching from aspartame to sucralose is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic."

Indeed, sucralose is associated with many of the same adverse effects as aspartame, including:

Respiratory difficulties	Migraines/headaches12	Seizures
Gastrointestinal problems	Heart palpitations	Weight gain

Animal research¹³ published in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health in 2008 also found that Splenda:

• Reduces beneficial gut bacteria by 50 percent
• Increases the pH level in the intestines
• Affects a glycoprotein that can have crucial health effects, particularly if you're on certain medications as it can cause the rejection of drugs such as chemotherapy, AIDS treatments, and treatments for heart conditions
• Is absorbed by fat (contrary to previous claims)

Pepsi Is Just Switching One Hazardous Sweetener for Another

It's really a toss-up as to which artificial sweetener might be better or worse than the other, but the fact that sucralose can destroy up to half of your beneficial gut microbes is by no means a selling point for aware consumers, as these bacteria are a vital part of your immune system and help support your general health—both physical and mental.

Disrupting your intestinal microflora is also one of the many mechanisms by which artificial sweeteners cause obesity and diabetes, according to recent research.^{14,15,16,17,18} Most importantly, this particular study actually shows causation.

Specifically, they found that the artificial sweeteners saccharin, sucralose, and aspartame cause decreased function in pathways associated with the transport of sugar in your body. They were also found to induce gut dysbiosis and glucose intolerance in otherwise healthy people.

Glucose intolerance is a well-known precursor to type 2 diabetes, but it also plays a role in obesity, because the excess sugar in your blood ends up being stored in your fat cells.According to the authors of this widely publicized study:

"[W]e demonstrate that consumption of commonly used non-caloric artificial sweeteners formulations drives the development of glucose intolerance through induction of compositional and functional alterations to the intestinal microbiota...

Collectively, our results link non-caloric artificial sweeteners (NAS) consumption, dysbiosis, and metabolic abnormalities, thereby calling for a reassessment of massive NAS usage."

Diet Pepsi Will Still Contain Ace-K

Diet Pepsi will also still contain the poorly tested acesulfame potassium^19,20 (ace-K), which has been linked to kidney problems. All in all, I believe ALL artificial sweeteners are bad news for your health, and Diet Pepsi will still contain two of them. Trading aspartame for sucralose in no way makes Diet Pepsi "better."

They're simply trading one hazardous ingredient for another, and it's only a matter of time before consumers realize the ruse. Aspartame may have received far more bad press than any of the other artificial sweeteners because (in my view) it is the worst of the artificial sweeteners, but studies have consistently found harm from other no- or low-calorie sweeteners as well.

This is particularly true when it comes to the effect artificial sweeteners has on your weight. Studies have also shown that artificial sweeteners worsen insulin sensitivity to a greater degree than sugar, and that animals fed artificial sweeteners develop a disrupted metabolic response to real sugar.²¹

Artificial sweeteners also promote other health problems associated with excessive sugar consumption, including heart disease,²² stroke,^23,24,25 and Alzheimer's disease.

Many astroturfers who insist that there's "no scientific basis" for claims of harm conveniently ignore, or try to malign and downplay the many studies that actually do show harm, such as the cancer studies referenced above.

There are a number of industry front groups working to shape and mold public perception of "the facts," which includes which studies to believe and which ones to ignore. 

As I discussed in a previous article, the Calorie Control Council is a front group association that represents manufacturers and suppliers of low-calorie, sugar-free, and reduced sugar foods and beverages. It is, of course, a staunch defender of aspartame's safety and effectiveness for weight management and diabetic control, and is quick to dismiss any research that suggests otherwise.

What many don't realize is that the Calorie Control Council has strong ties to the Kellen Company, which is instrumental in creating and managing industry front groups specifically created to mislead you about the product in question, protect industry profits, and influence regulatory agencies.  

Aspartame defenders also fail to admit that weight gain and insulin resistance are in fact harmful health effects—an ingredient doesn't have to be acutely toxic or outright carcinogenic to be a health hazard.

When it comes to diet soda, this issue is particularly pertinent, as soda companies indeed advertise diet drinks as a means to lose weight, or at the very least to avoid weight gain, even though there's absolutely no solid scientific foundation for that claim at all.

Use of the Word 'Diet' in Weight-Boosting Products Is Deceptive, False, and Misleading

False advertising is prohibited by federal law, and the term "diet" is only permitted on brands or labels when it is not false or misleading. In light of the burgeoning research demonstrating that artificially sweeteners actually increase your chances of gaining weight rather than help you shed it, the consumer group US Right to Know (US RTK) has asked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to investigate Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo. Inc., and other companies for false advertising.²⁶

RTK's letter²⁷ to FTC Director Jessica Rich, dated April 9, 2015, reads in part:

"Their use of the term 'diet' in advertising for these products appears to be deceptive under section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act 2 as interpreted by the Commission in its 'Statement on Deception,'3 because scientific evidence suggests artificial sweeteners contribute to weight gain, not weight loss...

We ask that the Commission conduct this investigation urgently, given the real possibility of consumer harm, in that companies are portraying products as assisting with weight loss, when in fact they may well contribute to weight gain. Such weight gain increases the risk of serious diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and some forms of cancer."

According to Gary Ruskin, executive director of US Right to Know:²⁸

"The jump from aspartame to sucralose is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The bigger problem is that PepsiCo is selling a product as 'diet' that may well cause weight gain. They didn't solve that problem. We have asked the FTC and FDA to shut down what appears to be a consumer fraud. We're hopeful they will stand with consumers and do the right thing."

In its citizen petition to the FDA,²⁹ US RTK requests the agency to issue warning letters to Coca-Cola and Pepsi, concluding that the beverages are misbranded because the use of the term "diet" is false and misleading. RTK is also asking the FDA to investigate the use of the term "diet" in other foods and beverages that contain artificial sweeteners.

Many Studies Refute 'Diet' Claims of Artificial Sweeteners

Preventive Medicine 1986 Mar;15(2):195-20230	This study examined nearly 78,700 women aged 50-69 for one year. Artificial sweetener usage increased with relative weight, and users were significantly more likely to gain weight, compared to those who did not use artificial sweeteners—regardless of their initial weight. According to the researchers, the results "were not explicable by differences in food consumption patterns. The data do not support the hypothesis that long-term artificial sweetener use either helps weight loss or prevents weight gain."
Physiology and Behavior, 198831	In this study, they determined that intense (no- or low-calorie) sweeteners can produce significant changes in appetite. Of the three sweeteners tested, aspartame produced the most pronounced effects.
Physiology and Behavior, 199032	Here, they found that aspartame had a time-dependent effect on appetite, "producing a transient decrease followed by a sustained increase in hunger ratings."
Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 199133	In a study of artificial sweeteners performed on college students, there was no evidence that artificial sweetener use was associated with a decrease in their overall sugar intake either.
International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition, 200334	This study, which looked at 3,111 children, found that diet soda, specifically, was associated with higher BMI.
International Journal of Obesity and Metabolic Disorders, 200435	This Purdue University study found that rats fed artificially sweetened liquids ate more high-calorie food than rats fed high-caloric sweetened liquids. The researchers believe the experience of drinking artificially sweetened liquids disrupted the animals' natural ability to compensate for the calories in the food.
San Antonio Heart Study, 200536	Data gathered from the 25-year long San Antonio Heart Study also showed that drinking diet soft drinks increased the likelihood of serious weight gain – far more so than regular soda.37 On average, for each diet soft drink the participants drank per day, they were 65 percent more likely to become overweight during the next seven to eight years, and 41 percent more likely to become obese.
Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 200538	In this two-year long study, which involved 166 school children, increased diet soda consumption was associated with higher BMI at the end of the trial.
The Journal of Pediatrics, 200639	The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Growth and Health Study included 2,371 girls aged 9-19 for 10 years. Soda consumption in general, both regular and diet, was associated with increase in total daily energy intake.
Journal of Biology and Medicine, 201040	This study delves into the neurobiology of sugar cravings and summarizes the epidemiological and experimental evidence concerning the effect of artificial sweeteners on weight. According to the authors: "[F]indings suggest that the calorie contained in natural sweeteners may trigger a response to keep the overall energy consumption constant. ...Increasing evidence suggests that artificial sweeteners do not activate the food reward pathways in the same fashion as natural sweeteners… [A]rtificial sweeteners, precisely because they are sweet, encourage sugar craving and sugar dependence."
Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine 201041	This review offers a summary of epidemiological and experimental evidence concerning the effects of artificial sweeteners on weight, and explains those effects in light of the neurobiology of food reward. It also shows the correlation between increased usage of artificial sweeteners in food and drinks, and the corresponding rise in obesity. More than 11,650 children aged 9-14 were included in this study. Each daily serving of diet beverage was associated with a BMI increase of 0.16 kg/m.2
Appetite, 201242	Here, researchers showed that saccharin and aspartame both cause greater weight gain than sugar, even when the total caloric intake remains similar.
Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism, 201343	This report highlights the fact that diet soda drinkers suffer the same exact health problems as those who opt for regular soda, such as excessive weight gain, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and stroke.44,45 The researchers speculate that frequent consumption of artificial sweeteners may induce metabolic derangements.
Nature, 201446	This study was able to clearly show causality, revealing there's a direct cause and effect relationship between consuming artificial sweeteners and developing elevated blood sugar levels. People who consumed high amounts of artificial sweeteners were found to have higher levels of HbA1C—a long-term measure of blood sugar—compared to non-users or occasional users of artificial sweeteners. Seven volunteers who did not use artificial sweeteners were then recruited, and asked to consume the equivalent of 10-12 single-dose packets of artificial sweeteners daily for one week. Four of the seven people developed "significant disturbances in their blood glucose," according to the researchers. Some became pre-diabetic within just a few days. The reason for this dramatic shift was traced back to alterations in gut bacteria. Some bacteria were killed off, while others started proliferating.
PLoS One, 201447	This study, which was done on rats, using aspartame, also found an increased risk of glucose intolerance. Animals that consume artificial sweeteners ended up with raised levels of propionate—short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) involved in sugar production. Consumption of artificial sweeteners shifted gut microbiota to produce propionate, which generated higher blood sugar levels.
Journal of the American Geriatrics Society,201548	Seniors aged 65 and over were followed for an average of nine years, and there was a "striking dose-response relationship" between diet soda consumption and waist circumference. This held true even when other factors such as exercise, diabetes, and smoking were taken into account. People who never drank diet soda increased their waist circumference by an average of 0.8 inches during the nine-year observation period. Occasional diet soda drinkers added an average of 1.83 inches to their waist line in that time period. Daily diet soda drinkers gained an average of nearly 3.2 inches—quadruple that of those who abstained from diet soda altogether.

Reclaim Your Health by Switching to Water

Sweetened beverages, whether it's sweetened with sugar, high fructose corn syrup, naturally occurring fructose, or artificial sweeteners, are among the worst culprits causing obesity and related health problems, including diabetes, heart and liver disease, just to name a few. Ditching ALL of these types of beverages can go a long way toward reducing your risk for chronic health problems and weight gain.

Your best, most cost effective choice of beverage is filtered tap water. Besides purification, I also believe it's critical to drink living water. Last year, I interviewed Dr. Gerald Pollack about his book, The Fourth Phase of Water: Beyond Solid, Liquid, and Vapor. This fourth phase of water is referred to as "structured water" and is the type of water found in all of your cells. This water has healing properties, and is naturally created in a variety of ways.

Water from a deep spring is one excellent source of structured water, and there's a great website called FindaSpring.com⁴⁹ where you can find a natural spring in your area. You can also promote structured water through vortexing, i.e. stirring your water, creating a vortex in the glass or pitcher.

Read More

Hypocritical right wing morality--Do as I say, not as I do

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Read More

Sad but true: only article you need to read about the 2016 election

Sad but true: The Only Article You Need to Read About the 2016 Election
By Arun Gupta

If you're progressive or on the left, here's your cheat sheet on how to participate in the 2016 presidential election, which is just 18 months away. If you live in one of the first states in the Democratic primary process, like Iowa, New Hampshire, or South Carolina, vote for Bernie Sanders. You can also sign an online petition for him, if you're into that sort of thing. If you chance upon one of his campaign rallies and have nothing better to do, join the crowd. But don't do anything else. Don't become a campaign volunteer, do phone banking, door knocking, get the vote, and certainly don't send him a dime of your money.

During the general election, if you live in a swing state where polls show a razor-thin margin between Hillary Clinton and whatever crazy the Republicans nominate—and that will be a few states at most—flick a lever for Clinton, if you are inclined. Otherwise, don't do a thing for her campaign or send her a penny as she and Bill will be raking in $2 billion from their network of plutocrats.

Anyone with a shot of winning the presidency knows they have only two interrelated jobs: CEO of the American-led project of capitalist globalization and Commander-in-Chief of its war machine. At the presidential level, the two parties are aligned on the big issues like free trade, monetary policy, deregulation, welfare, education, and entitlement "reform," war, surveillance, and policing, borders, and prisons. There is slight to modest contrasts on actual policies (not rhetoric) concerning immigration, healthcare, LGBT and reproductive rights, climate change, and labor issues.

So I am not of the opinion there is no difference between the two main parties—there is a very big one. When a Democrat is president, it spurs left opposition to the whole system. When a Republican sits in the Oval Office, it results in a partisan movement that splits the left and liberals.

Under both Clinton and Obama, the base realized a Democratic White House pushes the same policies as Republicans, but they offer only breadcrumbs in return like a bump in food stamps, more Pell Grants for low-income students, or weak and conditional immigration reform. This helped create the conditions for independent organizing like the global-justice movement, Occupy Wall Street, and Black Lives Matter. When Reagan and the Bushes were in office, the left poured its energy into campaigns to elect Democratic presidents.

So why not work to get the Democrat elected, like much of the left poured their energies into Obama's 2008 presidential campaign? Because the Democrats don't need the left's support.

In 2004 I participated in strategy meetings about how the peace and social justice movement should respond to the Republican National Convention coming to New York City. In the room were leaders of the antiwar, feminist and labor movements. In one session, they each listed how many canvassers they were devoting to John Kerry's presidential campaign. For most groups it was a handful. One national feminist organization sent a few dozen organizers into the field. When it came to the representative from organized labor, they said unions were going to put thousands of organizers in the field—just in Ohio. It dawned on me that the left can never compete with organizations that have long-standing ties to the Democratic Party.

What the Democrats really want is the left's silence. The left, as disorganized as it is, is the source of ideas, energy and passion for a party that is an empty vessel of corporate sloganeering. The left spawns the movements and ideas—LGBT and reproductive rights, income inequality, national healthcare, climate justice, police and prison reform, antiwar—that both form and motivate the Democratic base. That's where the Democrats draw their votes from, but the party needs money from corporations and plutocrats to run its machinery and to play its part in what is projected to be a $5 billion presidential campaign. More than that, the Democrats are one wing of the party of Wall Street, so they will never fulfill any social-justice demands without a powerful push from below.

In the general election, the Democrats need the left to be silent about how bankrupt and corrupt the party is so it can gloss its rush to the right in a veneer of progressive rhetoric. The role of Progressives for Obama in 2008 was to push as many leftists into the campaign as possible and then attack those disinclined to support a candidate who supported more war, bailouts with no accountability for Wall Street, and wanted to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to pay for the financial catastrophe.

After Sanders tossed his hat in the ring for the Democratic presidential nominee, there was the predictable Sanders-is-the-real-progressive-in-this-race column from the usual quarters. And there is already "The People for Bernie Sanders" working to corral the left into the Democratic Party. It's easy to forecast how this will end.

In July 2016, at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, after Sanders' team meets with Hillary Clinton's senior strategists but not the nominee herself, his campaign manager speaks to the media: "We are proud of all we accomplished, the millions of Americans who cast their votes for the Sanders 2016 campaign, and the issues we raised about economic inequality, the struggling middle class, and an economy rigged for the benefit of a few billionaires. Senator Sanders may not be the nominee in 2016, but the concerns he championed are front and center."

When asked about the closed-door meeting and Clinton's $2 billion in campaign contributions from Wall Street and wealthy donors, Sanders' manager says, "What we got from the Clinton campaign was a commitment to begin the process to talk about reducing income inequality. We've moved. They've moved. It's truly unity in that sense. We are fully behind Hillary Clinton as our party's presidential nominee for 2016, and are our only focus for the next 100 days is to make sure she is elected to that office. Thank you."

I'm not making this up. The above quote is paraphrased from the Dennis Kucinich 2004 campaign. He ran on opposition to the Iraq War, but by the convention Kucinich backed the nominee, John Kerry, whose position was to escalate the war, in exchange for vague promises.

Every time a progressive challenges the mainstream Democratic candidates, such as Kucinich, Jerry Brown in 1992, Jesse Jackson in 1988, Ted Kennedy in 1980, there is a pattern. If the insurgent campaign catches fire, it raises progressive hopes that the Democrats might finally have a presidential nominee more on the level of the party's grassroots than C-suite executives. But the campaign is overwhelmed by money pouring into the coffers of whichever Wall Street Democrat clinches the nomination. Because the progressive standard-bearer ran in a process that is impossible for a real left-wing candidate to win, they were defeated before they ever began.

But the progressive serves an important purpose. They energize the activist base and raise hopes that the Democratic Party is open to progressive ideas, even though the money, use of super-delegates and drawn-out primary limit the victors circle to establishment candidates. Sanders campaign will help divide the left and bind many of them to the Democratic Party. Over the next six months expect articles that either praise Sanders as a populist, progressive, left champion, or attack anyone who thinks his campaign is a waste of time. Pushing liberal ideas branded as socialist to a national audience may open a little ideological space, but it will cost hundreds of millions of dollars and armies of volunteers that could be far better used for independent organizing.

Short of a mile-wide asteroid smacking into the earth, Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic Party nominee. She needs challengers to enliven a primary that is more coronation than contest, and she needs the sparring to keep her in fighting shape for the general election. Plus, having a left-wing candidate allows her to appear as the responsible moderate who stakes out corporate-friendly positions slathered in progressive blather.

By the time the convention is over, those progressives who hopped on board the Sanders train to nowhere will have reconciled themselves with supporting Hillary, whatever their misgivings. It's basic psychology. Like investors who throw good money after bad, it's hard to admit after spending more than a year of your life advocating for a candidate that lost, that maybe it's time to stop investing in the Democratic Party.

But if we step back and take a look at just the last few years, it's non-electoral organizing like Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, climate justice, immigrants' rights, and low-wage worker organizing that is actually making social change and forcing the Democrats to the left.

So go ahead and vote for Sanders and Clinton, but that's all. Spend the rest of your time, energy, and money on building militant grassroots activism. Because while elections are about moving candidates, social movements move the whole system.

Read More

Way too much ignorance in religions: A case in point

Remember that 99.9% of these "Christians" vote Republican. If I were a registered Republican, I'd quit the party rather than be under a tent with voters who practice this kind of religion.  As one reader commented about the pastor's warning that "Hell is a real place":  Uh-huh, & I believe it resides within the 4 walls of this so-called "church."

Residents slam Christian 'hate-mongers' after Florida church tells 'homosexuals' to 'repent or go to hell'

David Edwards, Raw Story
11 May 2015                 

Sign at the First Conservative Baptist Church (WJAX)

A Florida pastor has defended a church sign that offended his community by warning that LGBT people would "go to hell" if they did not repent.

Pastor Gene Youngblood of the First Conservative Baptist Church in Mandarin told WKMG that he was exercising his right to free speech when he recently put up the words "Homosexuals repent or go to hell" on the church's sign.

"Because we love people (yet, as directed in scripture to hate the sin), we therefore want to warn them of the coming judgment of God on the sin of homosexuality (and any other sin that is NOT repented of)," Youngblood explained in a statement. "It is my sincere prayer that perhaps 'ONE' practicing homosexual will have read our sign and will REPENT before it is too late and they are cast into HELL."

Neighbor Cate Dobbins was so angry that she started a petition demanding that Youngblood take down the sign.

"I lived here almost 10 years and I never been offended by anything they ever had on that sign until this week," she recalled to WJAX. "I called the church and left my name and number and no one called me back."

Speaking to WKMG, another resident agreed: "I think it's very sad that people that claim to be Christians are hate-mongers. And why can't people mind their own business and let people live their life the way they want to live it? They're not hurting anyone."

WKMG reported that the words had been removed from the sign as of Sunday night. But Youngblood pointed out that the messages changed frequently, and he said that this message had been similar to many others.

"HELL is a real place and anyone not believing in the reality of HELL will not change the temperature of the FLAMES a single degree," he warned.

Read More

The sky in June: Look for Planets of the Magi

Hi folks, Jupiter and Venus will approach each other to become a tight conjunction reminiscent of the bright "Star of Bethleham" Jupiter-Venus conjunction in 2 BCE. Look for people to start reporting UFOs by mid-June as Jupiter and Venus get close. Closest approach appears to be June 30. Venus is closest to her brightest and Jupiter does not change that much so it will be pretty.

Enjoy.  (Thanks to John the telescope man)

Read More

Fracking causing Texas earthquakes

http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/09/us/texas-earthquakes-fracking-studies/index.html

Both Oklahoma and Texas are experiencing these frequent earthquakes since fracking began in their states -- and let's not even mention the pollution of their water.  And what a "nice" law Texas has -- that you can buy your property (home and land) but the previous owner can retain the mineral rights when the property changes hands -- and can sell them to oil companies.  Surprise! You will soon have drilling and fracking on your parcel.  You only own the surface =-O   Oops.

Read More

Excellent analysis of the Republican field of candidates

The Republican Field of Bad Dreams: A Sane Person's Minimum Daily Requirement of Snark

by Jaime O'Neill | May 8, 2015

---

According to current projections, every American currently registered as a Republican will be a declared presidential candidate by July 4th of this year. As it stands now, in early May, a year and a half before the presidential election of 2016, the pundits have already lost track of just who is on the roster of GOP candidates, what with so many of them jockeying for position as the bull goose loon of the psycho ward that now constitutes the Republican Party.

Every time I think they've found someone who is the nonpareil nut job, they manage to scare up someone even nuttier. There are Republicans so crazy now that some of them are even starting to make Rick Perry do a double take at some of their bullshit. For instance, when Ted Cruz echoes the latest big nightmare scenario for paranoids, the one that warned everyone that the U.S. under Obama was about to invade Texas, and when Governor Abbott of that cuckoo land on the Brazos calls out the Texas National Guard to defend his borders from the invasion of the Americans, even Rick Perry thought that might be a little nuttier than he wanted people to think he was, especially since he himself is about to join that herd of Republican presidential candidates any day now. Oops.

The Republican Party is beginning to seem like the guitar player community, a demographic where there are more players than there are listeners, or like the vast national community of amateur thespians, of which there are more actors than there are people who want to see them act in damn near every town in the country.

Some of these Republican presidential candidates are almost doing it reluctantly, of course. So many of them have heard the voice of God commanding that they go through the awful ordeal of saving the nation from hordes of thugs in hoodies, or vogues of gay men who want to break up straight marriages so they can have those straight men available as potential brides in gay weddings which will, if the Democrats' full agenda is implemented, become mandatory.

Mike Huckabee was among the more recent of those who've appeared before supporters to make his official announcement, though the suspense evaporated months ago when he gave up his sinecure at Fox "News" to engage in that coy dance political candidates all do before finally conceding that they are, in fact, going to do the thing we all have known they were going to do since they started appearing on talk shows to deny they were going to do that thing we knew they were gearing up to tell us they had been planning to do all along, but didn't want to tell us about for certain sure until they were damned good and ready and had cleared it with their families, etc.. They're like brides on their wedding night who don't want to appear too eager, or too experienced lest anyone confuse them with sluts or be reminded of that brief stint when they defrayed college expenses with occasional work as hookers.

Carly Fiorina also declared her insanity (I meant to type "candidacy," but my fingers insisted on the more accurate word), during the same news cycle that gave us Huck the Shuck's spellbinding announcement speech in which he laid down a marker for remaking the U.S. into a theocracy. Like the Huckster, Carly Fiorina is a real piece of work. While echoing notions that homosexuals shouldn't have the same rights as "normal" people, she is a walking advertisement for the notion that maybe being gay wouldn't be the worst alternative for committed heterosexuals if people like her might be the most appealing specimens her gender had to offer. Fortunately, Ms. Fiorina isn't even close to an appealing specimen in any gender, real or imagined. She is good at screwing things up, though, so those anti-government enthusiasts who think the best thing a politician can do is throw a wrench in the works will surely want to get behind her, especially when they remember how effective she'd been at running Hewlett-Packard into the ground while costing tens of thousands of people their jobs. Joblessness is one thing Republicans have shown themselves to be good at creating, so perhaps Carly Fiorina has a resume that will look good to lots of Tea Party feebs.

Bobby Jindal may or may not have officially announced by the time you read this, but he made a bid for media attention and the nut job demographic when he went to bat to maintain preferential tax breaks for the Duck Dynasty yahoos even as he continues to cut school spending to already cash-strapped Louisiana schools because, ya know, if you got better schools, how are you going to create new viewers for dipshit "reality" shows like Duck Dynasty?

Rick Santorum has also declared (what is it with the name "Rick," anyway, and why do do many right wing jerks bear that monicker?) Little needs to be said about Mr. Santorum. He thinks Barack Obama is a "snob" because he'd like to see more Americans get a college education, and he also thinks "smart people" will never be on the same side as people like him, so he's making a bid for the votes of stupid people who rejected higher education. There's a lot of those in the Republican ranks, so he may be a contender.

Then there's that nice young Hispanic candidate, Mario Rubio, the guy who can't make up his mind how he really feels about immigration policy. He's also the guy who doesn't think convicted felons should ever again be eligible to vote, though he does believe they should have their 2nd amendment right to keep and bear arms returned to them once they've served their time because, as anyone with half a brain knows, voting is much more dangerous than firearms, especially in the hands of convicted felons.

And, of course, there's that dependable ol' moderate Republican who always turns up, and then turns out to be anything but moderate. Last time, it was Romney, the "moderate" who thought nearly half of all Americans were just a bunch of lazy shits who wanted something for nothing. Moderate Mitt had a lot of other not-so-moderate notions, but the main deal with him was to carry forth the agenda that protects the loot of the likes of him, all those people who evade taxes, buy multi-million dollar jets, have more houses than they can quite remember, and elevators in their garages for all those cars they never find enough time to drive. This time around the fall-back "moderate" is another Bush, one of that family of "moderates" who couldn't quite fuck up everything entirely the last time one of them was in office, so they're offering another of their tribe to finish the job the dumber brother tried so hard to do, and almost did, what with a nation and a world on the brink of economic collapse, and a botch of things in the Middle East so entangled we probably will never see the last of the mess he left, with the help of his venomous VP, of course. Jeb Bush, this year's moderate model for somewhat less-rabid Republicans with lots of money, is his "own man," though he has a staff that is pretty much the same bunch of neo-cons who engineered the moderate miasma of the Dubya debacle.

The problem for "moderates" like Jeb is that they have a hard time maintaining the charade that they're moderate at all, especially when they have to convince the craziest motherfuckers on the planet that they are just as crazy as the rest of the candidates who are trying to make themselves look crazy enough to win the Crazy Motherfucker wing of the Republican Party, which really only has that one wing, enabled by some rich people willing to spend enough money to make it seem as though such a one-winged dinosaur can really get off the ground.

And thanks to bad election laws, voters who don't vote, and liberals who take their marbles and go home, that one-winged dinosaur manages to flap its way high enough and often enough to ensure there's always a big dark shadow over the land.

Read More

A fascinating 8-minute interview: Quantum physics and spirituality--Fred Alan Wolf

Fred Alan Wolf is a  renowned quantum physicist who, in this 8-minute video clip, is being interviewed about the differences between the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle -- and how quantum physics is proving there is something beyond matter and our objective view of the universe.  Click on the link below to view an intriguing interview -- for anyone who is curious about our origins (what came first, the chicken or the egg? Matter or consciousness?)  It's a good pass-along for your curious-minded friends.  Could start some interesting conversations (~.~).

https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play?p=Fred+Alan+Wolf+spirituality+and+quantum+physics&vid=7749ce0599782a1b1b9dee81853c78e0&l=8%3A28&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts2.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DWN.XbzfpmIdrjvk%252b2hp9PGvkg%26pid%3D15.1&rurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DGUVrvlaPuGE&tit=Fred+Alan+Wolf%3A+The+Spiritual+Univer se+%28excerpt%29+--+A+Thinking+Allowed+DVD+w%2F+Jeffrey+Mishlove&c=8&sigr=11bps4u33&sigt=12uto6ruf&sigi=121tnneo1&ct=p&age=1283224837&fr2=p%3As%2Cv%3Av&hsimp=yhs-001&hspart=mozilla&tt=b

Read More

The Edison Talking Doll -- A creepy flop and no wonder!

OMG!  It would scare the living bejeepers out of an adult, let alone a child.  Just listen to "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.."   The kid who heard even the first line of that would come running as fast as he/she could to Mom and Dad's bed!

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/creepy-edison-dolls/

Read More

Big oil contaminated water being used on California crops - UGH!

Read it and weep:  http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-drought-oil-water-20150503-story.html#page=1

AND one small thing you can do to stop the insanity:

 

Stand with Courage Campaign and tell Governor Brown to protect the health of our communities by immediately halting this practice until rigorous testing can be done.

 

Thank you for having the courage to stand up to Big Oil and protect the health of our communities,

 

Read More

The Illusion of Reality: Quantum Physics and Consciousness

This video is only 10 minutes long, but it is one of the Best EVER in explaining consciousness and quantum theory. Through many scientific voices, it tells how we are creating what we call reality with every thought.  Right now in this world we seem to be living in a fear-based reality...which is being stoked by those to whom we have given power.  Refusal to follow their lead can change the world we observe and seemingly participate in.  Watch the video and be amazed at the scientifically proven truth it offers to those who can hear with open minds and hearts:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRkDicwjRQs

A new paradigm is opening us to higher understanding.  Physicist Michio Kaku says we are on the verge of transitioning from a type zero civilization into a type one civilization.  Watch his short 6-minute video explanation of this at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NPC47qMJVg

I know some who receive this message will resonate with these video presentations.  And some may not. Those who are committed to tradition and conservative attitudes might find it difficult to understand at first.  It appears the time of rigid, static thinking has had its day in our world. New knowledge is making its way into the minds of Earth humans.  But the old fundamentalist ways of thinking (and warring) are mounting last-ditch efforts to continue.   As Michio Kaku points out, as a civilization we are on the brink of a transition that can go one way or another--either backward into self-destruction or forward into self-realization.  I believe we will go forward in understanding, toward a more open-minded view that will see us becoming a type one civilization. 

However, as the first video above tells us, no matter how our world appears, quantum physics has proven it will still be a holographic illusion.  Consciousness, individually and collectively, is creating Everything we see--and is far greater than we can ever imagine.  The God particle we have been searching for is us.

Wonderfully and Astoundingly Amazing, isn't it???

Read More

How to End Militarized Policing

This is a subject we should all inform ourselves about!!!  As we can see around our country, it is just getting worse.  Do we want to live in a militarized police state?????

How to End Militarized Policing Alex S.Vitale August 18, 2014 The Nation   What underlies most of these militarized forms of policing is a cynical politics of race that has perverted criminal justice policies; they are no longer about crime or justice, but instead the management of poor and non-white populations through ever-more-punitive practices. Michelle Alexander, in The New Jim Crow, describes how modern criminal justice policy was driven by a Republican effort to appeal to white voters in the South and then also by Democrats...     A member of the St. Louis County Police Department points his weapon in the direction of a group of protesters in Ferguson, Missouri on Wednesday, August 13, 2014. , AP Photo/ Jeff Roberson,     (This article was written and published in The Nation after the events in Ferguson in August, 2014) In the last week, the ACLU, Color of Change and even libertarian Senator Rand Paul have demanded that militarized policing in the United States be dialed back. While it is essential that major reductions in the high-tech military presence of police be enacted, real changes in the way communities of color are policed require much deeper shifts in the core mission and function of American police. Much of the militarized weaponry seen in Ferguson comes directly from the Pentagon through the 1033 weapons transfer program begun in 1997. This program has resulted in the distribution of $4 billion worth of equipment. Local police departments can get surplus armaments at no cost—and no questions asked about how they will be used. Small and medium-sized communities across the country now have access to armored personnel carriers, assault rifles and a variety of so-called "less lethal" weaponry such as rubber bullets and pepper spray rounds. Compounding the effects of 1033, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has also given out $34 billion in "terrorism grants" that have been a tremendous boon for military contractors trying to expand their reach into civilian policing markets. In response to the events in Ferguson, US Representative Hank Johnson from Georgia has sent a letter to members of Congress expressing his intent to introduce a bill ending the 1033 program. The passage of this bill, as well as the ending of DHS terror grants, needs to be combined with federal restrictions on the use of military equipment in order to prevent the kind of militarized response seen in Ferguson. One of the uses of this new hardware has been specifically in the suppression of dissent. While many big-city departments have resisted this trend, many others, along with hundreds of medium-sized and smaller cities, have invested millions in body armor, riot shields and less lethal weaponry . Some of this technology was on display in several cities during the Occupy movement. An article by Radley Balko, author of The Rise of the Warrior Cop , in last week's Washington Post lays out the danger of such strategies. Departments need to return to less intensive protest policing, which is cheaper, more effective in maintaining order, and better for overall police-community relations. Police need to rely on better communication, flexibility and tolerance rather than ever-more-intensive command-and-control strategies . Federal courts need to expand First Amendment protections to enhance not just the right of speech but also the right of assembly, which has been greatly abridged in recent decades. Since 9/11 there has been a tremendous expansion of the surveillance and intelligence-gathering functions of local police in conjunction with federal authorities. The Department of Homeland Security has funded the creation of dozens of anti-terror fusion centers across the country. Since the actual threat of terrorism in places like Helena, Montana, and Jefferson, Missouri, is so minuscule, they engage instead in broad surveillance activities, partnering in some cases with local businesses to do political threat assessments targeting peace activists, the Occupy movement and many others. In October 2012 the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations issued a report showing that these centers had not generated any information relevant to terrorism and criticized DHS for resisting any effort at oversight. Congress should end this program and enact restrictions on the gathering and sharing of intelligence independent of specific criminal activities. Some of this unrestricted surveillance is carried out by new police drones. Departments across the country are using or exploring this technology with little or no oversight. The possibility of massive invasions of privacy, violations of the Fourth Amendment and even the death or injury of members of the public from armed drones raises major concerns. Federal regulations are needed to restrict the use of this new technology to ensure that their use is narrowly tailored to legitimate law-enforcement purposes, and that constitutional standards are met regarding privacy, intelligence-gathering and use of force. Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) teams have become the primary consumers of militarized weaponry and tactics. Federal incentives and "mission creep" quickly shifted the role of these teams, originally created during the panics about political violence in the 1960s and '70s, to drug enforcement. Peter Kraska, author of Militarizing the American Criminal Justice System , shows that the number of SWAT teams exploded over the last thirty years, and their role has expanded too. Heavily armed teams are almost never used for their original purpose of dealing with hostage situations or barricaded suspects. Instead, their function is now to serve warrants, back up low-level buy-and-bust drug operations and patrol high-crime areas. Much of this expansion was driven by federal policies that funded the equipment for such teams either directly or through asset forfeiture laws. The increased use of paramilitary units has resulted in dozens of incidents in which police have wrongfully killed or injured people. The most horrendous of late was the throwing of a flashbang grenade into the crib of an infant during a Georgia drug raid in May. The toddler was severely burned and entered a coma. No drugs were found and no arrests made. So far none of the officers have been charged with any crime or formally disciplined. In fact, the local prosecutor threatened to charge family members for the child's injuries. This near total lack of accountability for botched raids, excessive use of force and the dehumanization of suspects must be corrected. Local DAs cannot be counted on to hold police accountable because of their close daily cooperation with the police. Independent offices of police prosecution ("blue desks ") need to be established at the state level, and the Department of Justice needs to be more aggressive in intervening in cases where no local action is taken. The expansion in the number of paramilitary police units has been accompanied by an increase in military-style training. Former military personnel have launched a massive market to train normal patrol units in paramilitary combat. Patrol units are often introduced to such training as a way of fostering team identification and military-style camaraderie. These trainings fly in the face of the fundamentally civilian nature of policing. In the UK, the police (who mostly do not carry firearms), rely heavily on the concept of policing by consent, which emerged from the earliest thinking about civilian police in the early nineteenth century. Any policing that loses the support of those policed will not be effective and will lead to an escalation of conflict and the use of force, creating a vicious cycle. This is exactly the cycle we are in now as ever-more-aggressive policing has undermined public support for the police, especially in communities of color, and engendered more resistance and escalation, as seen in the case of Eric Garner, who was killed by police in New York City earlier this summer. One of the most pernicious expressions of this has been the War on Drugs, which opened the floodgates for a massive intensification of policing in the United States. In many parts of the country, low-level drug arrests remain the primary means by which young people of color end up in the criminal justice system. To reverse this trend, we must move to end the War on Drugs by legalizing and regulating not just marijuana but all drugs. Portugal's decriminalization of drugs has both reduced crime and the public health harms associated with drugs. Drug use should be understood as a public health matter and taken out of the realm of policing. Christian Parenti reminds us in Lockdown America and The Soft Cagethat the history of the police in the United States is a history of racism, and the militarization of policing is one expression of that history. While individual officers and police executives may be motivated by the best of intentions, as long as they continue to be the primary tool for managing social discord, poverty and even crime, we will see a continuation of the over-policing of communities of color. It is this dynamic that is the most difficult to address, and the most important. We must invest in social policies that end the criminalization of poverty and attempt instead to deal with problems like drug abuse, homelessness, mental illness and even violent crime as public health and economic justice issues. We need to reinvigorate our mental health systems and rely more on civilian crisis response teams. In many communities homelessness has become a major source of social disorder; the solutions are real investments in affordable housing, wage supports and social services, not "quality of life" policing. Across the country, community-based organizations, sometimes working with local health departments, are addressing youth violence through peer mediation, gang truces and youth development rather than gang databases and mass criminalization. While we may always need some state body to exercise force in the interests of the common good, that use of force should be limited, proportional, and always the last resort, not the first. Alex S. Vitale is associate professor of sociology at Brooklyn College and author of City of Disorder: How the Quality of Life Campaign Transformed New York Politics. He is senior adviser to the Police reform Organizing Project and serves on the New York State Advisory Committee to the US Civil Right Commission. His Twitter handle is @avitale.

Read More

Wow, I think this ballerina was part bird!

A famous Russian ballerina has died at age 85 -- on the following link, you can see her dance in her younger years as the swan.  I've never seen such a remarkable resemblance of arms to wings....her movements are so delicate and graceful, you fully expect to see her sprout feathers and fly away:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/03/living/feat-russian-ballerina-maya-plisetskaya-dies/index.html

Read More

Children around the world sing Don't Worry, Be Happy (~.~)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWXUWepSak4

This one is guaranteed to make everyone smile, sing along -- and dance. (~.~)

Read More

Fwd: Beautiful medley -- street musicians around the world playing together

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-t2ouOLYYw
Click on this link when your heart wants to be soothed, entertained and inspired:
This is the way life on Earth is meant to be....  ENJOY!   (Stay on the link for more songs after you have viewed the first one.... they will play, one after another.)

Read More