For the Greater GOOD!

For the greater Good.  This is a concept that has been around long before Harry Potter.  Remember this little quote?   "Yes, we have been given power and yes, that power gives us the right to rule, but it also gives us responsibilities over the ruled. We must stress this point, it will be the foundation stone upon which we build. Where we are opposed, as we surely will be, this must be the basis of all our counterarguments. We seize control FOR THE GREATER GOOD." 

Seems right somehow.  Same thing should apply to all of life, not just the pretend heroes of fiction.  People, well, politicians, don't seem to have that concept firmly grasped.  They are tasked with making decisions that can and do, alter the future of millions of people.  The question that I am asking now, are those decisions made for the greater good, or for the good of the few.  The powerful elite.  Rulers, those that believe themselves to be somewhat like gods, are benefiting from the actions of the congress of the United States, all to the detriment of the populace.  I don't think that is news to anyone.  It is pretty much a foregone conclusion to nearly every thinking cognizant citizen.  

Are politicians criminally liable for errors in judgement when the actions that they take by placing the needs of the major business communities above the good of the people and resulting in widespread disasters?  That will be the question that will be asked a lot in the very near future.  Who will be held responsible for the impending economic collapse in AmeriKa?  The agricultural community cannot survive the loss of wheat exports to other countries.  Without the exports, the prices for wheat will drop like a stone and in a business where small to medium farmers barely survives to begin with, it will be a disaster.  Thousands of farms will go bankrupt and the housing crisis of just a few short years ago will be even bigger than that.  The problem is that the farms have value, and therefore the government will not bail anyone out of trouble like they did to help the wall street elite in the mortgage crisis.  Those farms will go on the auction block to be sold to the really big agribusinesses and mechanized industrial farming will become bigger than ever, at a fraction of the value.  Production of wheat will resume, and the destruction of the environment will accelerate with the increased use of agrichemicals, and a way of life for thousands of family owned farms will die.  

Genetically Modified wheat.  The rest of the world doe not want the stuff.  We don't even know if it is in fact safe, as there have never been any long term feeding studies done on the stuff.  We sort of know what happens when rats eat Genetically Modified soy and corn over their short lifetimes, they pretty much all get cancer.  (GMO Cancers)  How do we find out what happens when humans, or let's start with mice, rats, and other test subjects, when they eat GM wheat for more than 90 days.  Who should pay for the testing?  If the leaders in congress were in fact interested at all in the greater good, they would force Monsanto to pay for the testing to be done by independent researchers.  It is the fault of Monsanto that GM wheat is now loose in the environment and commercial wheat fields are contaminated with unproven, untested and UNAPPROVED Genetically Modified wheat.  Monsanto should NOT be allowed to skate by on this disaster that they have unleashed on AmeriKa.  And the big one, they CANNOT be allowed to sue farmers for growing their patented genetic property WHEN THEY DID NOT WANT IT!  As they have done countless times in the past with the genetic pollution that we are finding cannot be contained and is spreading ever wider and greater across the world.  

the greater good.  just words........ not even an ideal in the minds of our leaders

Total economic collapse next year. Not a prediction, a reality.

I used to think that those people out in the wilds of Montana and other places that stockpiled food and weapons were a little on the whacko side.  Not so much anymore.  I am starting to see things a little differently now.  I have Monsanto colored glasses, and they are opening my eyes to a whole world of hurt.  And it starts with wheat.  (USDA APHIS)   and (Farm Futures)  The USDA has reported that Genetically Modified wheat has been detected in fields in Oregon.  Monsanto did field testing of Genetically Modified wheat in sixteen states back in 98 to 05.  It is pretty safe to say that if the contamination happened in Oregon, then it is there in the other fifteen states where the testing was done.  The US government has never approved GM wheat to be released for production.   This is in fact proof positive that genetic contamination happens.  And very scary proof that once the GM cat is out of the bag and into the environment, WE will not be able to contain it.

That is a bad thing indeed.  First, Monsanto stopped development of GM wheat several years ago because they conceded that "the time is not right for genetically engineered wheat"  What that statement meant was the simple fact that the 27 countries that are the major buyers of US wheat exports have banned Genetically Modified crops in their countries.  I guess that means that although the rulers of Monsanto and the ag world have no scruples, they do have enough smarts to realize that they might make a product, but if no one will buy it, there is no reason to do so.  (Kind of why they fight so hard to keep GM labeling out of the US, no one would buy it if they knew)  When this year's wheat crop is harvested, there is going to be a lot of testing done on it to determine if it is contaminated.  That which is, can't be exported.  Cheap wheat for all of us AmeriKans means that fewer farmers will be planting wheat next year having been driven out of business by their inability to make a profit on the 2013 crop.  Fewer farmers growing wheat will mean shortages in future years and long term economic difficulties.  Eventually starvation in foreign countries will lead to acceptance of contaminated wheat products and all the bankrupt farms will be bought up by the big agribusinesses and production will begin again.  Or alternatively there is the possibility that before production begins, war will devastate the planet.

There is no reason to be concerned for your health though as the FDA has assured us that Monsanto told them the wheat is harmless and that there is no difference in this Genetically Modified wheat and traditional wheat.  That's what they are telling us.  That's what they told us about corn, soy, canola, cotton, squash, beets, and papaya.  Oh, and that's what they told us about Bovine Growth Hormone, DDT, Agent Orange, glyphosate, Dioxin, PCB.  Turns out they were wrong about all of those.  And we are getting the evidence now of the long term harm from consuming GM foods with independent studies being done all over the world.  The results of which continue to be disputed and ridiculed by Monsanto.  The problem is that even though we are blasted with GM foods everyday in the form of corn, soy and canola being the most common and present in high quantities in processed foods; wheat is even more common than any of the other GM crops.  When consumers begin to consume GM wheat products every single day, and those products are less altered than any of the other GM crops; the long term consumption problems will appear more rapidly than they have been for the GM crops we consume now.  

All this presents a sort of unique dilemma  for the court system here in Monsanto controlled AmeriKa.  And here is the conundrum, there has been a clear violation of the Plant Protection Act and Monsanto could be fined up to one million dollars for contaminating the crops of AmeriKan farmers.  Doesn't seem like much does it?  But, because Monsanto holds the patent rights to the Genetically Modified wheat, even though it was never approved for use in AmeriKa, and the contamination makes Monsanto guilty of violations of the PPA, they can sue the farmers for capturing the patented genetic material and growing it on their farms.  Even though they won't be able to sell it, can't get rid of it, they can be held liable for genetic patent infringement.  You have got to love this country where the government is fed the offal from big business.  Oh sorry, I mean money.  And they feed them a lot of money.  And offal as well. 

Update on Friday Morning May 31 -----  (Reuters) Just read that the Japanese canceled all of their orders for wheat from the US because of the GM contamination.  And thus it begins.............

the needs of the few supersede the livelihood of the masses, only in AmeriKa

Do you know what you want?  I'm certain of what I want for me, my family, and ultimately for the population at large.  I want healthy food, food that is not contaminated with toxic pesticides and herbicides, has the genetic makeup of crops that are consistent with crops grown for thousands of years and of which there are no questionable genetically engineered mutations.  And of course I believe that it is possible to provide all of this, it just will be somewhat more expensive than the food we have presented to us now.  Organic and sustainable farming techniques work, they work on large scale farms all over the world.  And they can, and do, provide what I want for people all over this world.

So why don't we have this availability of clean safe food everywhere?  Pretty simple, because there are those that firmly and completely believe that their personal needs supersede those of the many. Does everyone remember back in grade school when in history class we learned about monopolies?  When one person acquires a monopoly on the production of a product or a service, that was a bad thing.  Or so we were told.  Remember the giants of the past, Rockefeller, Getty, Carnegie, men that made fortunes by stomping all over the competition.  Men that for the most part, were incredibly generous with their fortunes and funded arts and projects for the underprivileged.  And then the government went in and made the accumulation of wealth and monopolies illegal.  So what happened?  Why did the government allow agriculture to become a monopoly?  Believe me, it is in fact a monopoly controlled by Monsanto.

Back when the poison glyphosate was first patented, Monsanto became king of agricultural chemical production.  Sort of a long line of products that has helped to make the company a giant.  PCB's, Agent Orange, Dioxin, DDT, Bovine Growth Hormone, you know, all the normal stuff that Monsanto claims to be harmless when they first begin to make MONEY on the stuff and then time reveals the truth.  And of course the government has pretty much allowed Monsanto to escape paying for the cleanup of each of the disasters that their products caused.  But back to glyphosate, as the patent holder, Monsanto made billions.  And as a cash rich corporation with no scruples at all, they began to look toward the future when the patent rights ran out.  How do they get farmers to pay them money and buy their glyphosate instead of other manufacturers when they get the right to make it.  The answer was pretty simple, the Canadians gave them that answer.  Gene technology.  Canola was such a success and the BIGGEST COVERUP LIE EVER as well.  The Canadian Canola Council to THIS DAY claim that canola was produced with traditional plant breeding techniques.  However the scientists that MADE canola wrote a book detailing the new science of gene splicing and all the new techniques they developed in the production of canola.  And today, for the  companies that make canola, the market is in the billions.

Monsanto had the path to monetary success, gene technology.  Once they created a plant, and held the patent, then they could require that whatever farmer planted that crop would have to buy their agricultural chemicals, pesticides, and herbicides and whatever else.  It would be in an unbreakable contract.  Personally I have no idea why ANY farmer would sign such a thing, why pay more for chemicals when other manufacturers have the same thing at cheaper costs.  Aaaaaah, now comes that monopoly thing.  Back when Monsanto was making huge profits as the only patent holder of glyphosate, the cash rich corporation went out and bought all the companies that produce seed for farmers.  ALL OF THEM.  So when the farmers went to buy seed to plant, they did not have a choice, is was sign the spend more money contract or not plant anything.  And the only seed that they produced for sale was the new patented GM crops that made for unbreakable contracts with farmers that caused them to spend more money that went directly into the coffers of the corporation with no scruples, Monsanto.

I thought monopolies were illegal?

Apparently not in AmeriKa.  If you have enough money, and give a lot of that money to politicians, you can have anything that your heart desires.  Aaaaah, Monsanto doesn't really give money to politicians now do they?  Seventy one senators last week voted the Monsanto line and showed AmeriKans just where they stand on individual rights, states' rights, and just how much they bend under pressure from the Ag King Monsanto.  The company makes Frankenfood, and in the process, they have created Frankenpolitics.

In an ever increasing effort to protect themselves Monsanto added a rider to a farm bill that will effectively stop any state from passing laws requiring labeling of GM foods.  That was bad enough, scary to think how much money Monsanto paid to get that rider added.  But the big one was the bill introduced by the senator from Vermont, Amendment 965 that would ensure that states kept their rights as defined in the BILL OF RIGHTS in the Tenth Amendment and allow states to pass laws to require labeling of GM foods so that consumers have a choice as to what they eat.  That was, unfortunately, defeated.  How much money did that cost Monsanto?  We will never know, their profit and loss statements don't list bribes and payoffs.

Tell your senator that you don't want them to take anymore money from and do the bidding of a company that has proven itself to put their desire to dominate the world over the well being of the populace.
Tell senate 

I don't think it is just me, but I am uncertain how this rider was defeated.  Or for that matter, why it was even necessary to have this vote.  According to the Tenth Ammendment Congress shall not pass any law that interferes with the right of each State to protect its population.
And see where each senator stood on this issue.  How each voted   I think it is a humorous side note here that Senator Al Franken voted in support of his master Monsanto.  Hey, there is humor everywhere if you look.  

When Livestock die, ......Cover it up!

Well this kind of information is all over the internet.  I did not realize that there were so many websites like mine out there blasting our hatred of the big biotech businesses, but there are hundreds.  When I heard about this particular story, I tried to find the original news article so I could verify it.  Hey, I have Google translate so it should not be hard.  I scrolled through thousands of websites with stories about Syngenta being charged in a criminal court in Germany for covering up the deaths of cows fed GM corn back in 2000 thru 2002.  It's on the internet, it must be true, right.

I can't find any mainstream media business report of the event.  That doesn't mean it isn't there, it just means that I am unable to dredge through all of the fringe news sites (sorry, but I feel the Christian Monitor is a big fringe one) to arrive at the promised land.  But this is so big, I am thinking that it must be for real, so here we go.

Syngenta, a Swiss based Biotech Agriculture Chemical Manufacturing company with worldwide reach has been charged with criminal malfeasance in a coverup of information relating to the deaths of cows.  German dairy farmer Gottfreid Gloeckner back in 2000 was feeding his cows Syngenta Bt 176 Genetically Engineered corn that he grew on his farm at the request of Syngenta as part of a test of the new corn.  A number of his cows began to exhibit signs of a strange malady when he ceased all other feeds and began to feed them exclusively on the GM corn.  A bunch of them croaked.  Good ol Gottfreid stopped feeding the corn to his cows, but most of them continued to keel over and bloat up.  In 2007 Gottfreid sued Syngenta to have them pay for the cows, Syngenta claims that there was no proof the corn killed the cows, so the case was dismissed by the court.  Now, here is the interesting part and gives us some idea of the thought processes of a company that has invested millions into the development of a GM crop and wants desperately to be able to sell it.  Syngenta autopsied only one of the 23 cows that died, and refused to release the findings of the results.  What has prompted the criminal charges is internal Syngenta documents that show that testing of Bt 176 corn was stopped after the company's own tests showed that cows were dying after being fed the GM corn.  In some instances just two days after eating it. 

Ah!

Now comes the nitty gritty.  Of course these guys would not admit the project was flawed.  If you read my blog entry from yesterday, it describes just how much work is involved into making a Genetically Modified Organism.  It takes MILLIONS of dollars to make one.  You have these big laboratories and pressure controlled greenhouses to contain any errant pollens.  You have lead scientists, who have the knowledge about how DNA works.  (They make buttloads of money)  Well, they like to THINK they know how DNA works, we are sort of finding out they don't really.  Then you have all these lab techs that do the actual gene splicing.  Then you have peons that water the plants and measure and label and try hard to make themselves look good for promotion.  Then you have all of the actual equipment that is all new and custom made.  You can't just look in the Grainger catalogue and buy a gene splicing machine.  And it all cost money. Every single day, money money money.  And Hans-Theo Jahmann, the head of Syngenta, looks at the pictures on the walls of his incredibly spacious office there in Switzerland and sees the fields of grains pictured there.  And all he can think about is that farmers all over the world are growing corn that they grew for years, and their fathers grew before them and their fathers too.  And Hans wants a piece of that action.  He starts to think,

It's ridiculous!  Those farmers are NOT paying royalties on the corn they grow!  I can change that!

Genetically Modified crops will change all of that.  Instead of a farmer growing corn from seed that he saved from crops that have been grown in the same area and have micro adapted to that region over generations of use; Hans wants all farmers everywhere to plant his corn that HE created in His own image and to grow that corn everywhere, in every conceivable micro climate and micro condition.  The fact that cows die from eating it should not in any way stop Syngenta from making money.  And of course as we now know, if yeilds drop, nutritive values drop, toxic pesticide and herbicide residues go up, so what.  Syngenta can make money.  Lots of money, every year, royalties. 

It shouldn't be a surprise that I don't like GM crops.  I talk about it here nearly everyday.  I also understand how the world works, and I am pretty sure that old Hans is going to escape criminal prosecution for his actions.  Maybe.  I know that in Germany the population is a lot more attunded to the GM problem and that it is possible that this court case may get some huge press there and that money won't buy his way out.  I hope so, I think that if just one head of an agribusiness goes to actual jail and not house arrest, then maybe we might see some changes in our food supply.

Well, I didn't win the 600 million dollar lottery last week, if I had, I would be out hiring private detectives all over the country to follow all the heads of biotech companies as well as all of congress and the senate.  Shadow them, find out where they eat, and what kinds of foods they and their families eat.  I'm pretty sure it isn't the food that we commoners are stuck with.  I would also offer a reward, make a millionaire out of anyone that works in a gene tech company that comes forth with internal documents showing that the companies themselves are in possession of data that proves their products are harmful, but continue to push them on farmers because they are making money.  And to give lots of money to anyone that can prove that money was given to and received by any politician in exchange for actions that better the position of any gene tech or agribusiness.

We need a few heads of state and heads of big business in jail to stop the destruction of our food supply.

Frankenfood, FrankenWeeds, FrankenInsects, FrankenWorld

This stuff is kind of scary.  It is like the people at Monsanto that want so desperately to be Gods and to create life, just never gave a thought to what their creations would ever do.  Yep, just like Frankenstein.  The good doctor created life, but had no control over what his monster did.  Might have saved the little girl, but it destroyed the villagers.  Now, we have some more scientific studies showing what is really going on with the creations coming out of the labs at Monsanto and other Gene-Tech companies. A new report is out showing the transfer of inserted genes for the production of Bt Toxin into crop plants has now transferred to weeds.  This is not from HGT, or Horizontal Gene Transfer, which is the process in which the inserted genes migrate from the cells of the crop into the mitochondria of bacteria in close proximity.  As in when humans eat GM foods and their gut bacteria pick up the inserted genes to make Bt toxin.  This study is just about simple cross contamination.  How the pollen of one crop migrates to similar species to other members of that group, to others, to others then to weeds that we don't want and now are becoming super weeds, resistant to Roundup via the never before thought of process known as "Natural Selection", and now to insect attacks as well.  At least in areas where the insects haven't developed resistance to Bt toxin.  And those areas are getting smaller as insects evolve through the same process of "Natural Selection" and develop that immunity. 

Isn't that just like a basic concept when trying to decide what to create?  Well, it SHOULD be a basic consideration, for non-Godlike mortals.  Just one more in the long list of flaws that are showing up in the reality that we mortals now have to live with in the world designed by those that play God, but don't have the training to do so.

1. One Gene, One Protein concept - just not the way it turned out.  When Monsanto started on their divine journey the human genome project was not finished.  We now know that the human genome consists of about 25K genes, making about 100K proteins.  Oops, it sure seems that the genes interact to make the proteins needed for life, and one extraneous gene in there is going to cause a bit of trouble.  I'm pretty sure that it is not just humans, but every living thing.
2. Natural Selection concept - well, it is not the way the world evolved according to my holy roller brother, but it does have a place in science, especially when we can actually SEE the results occurring right before our eyes.  Insects eat the Bt toxin crops, most die.  Those that don't, breed more insects with resistance.  Same with weeds sprayed with glyphosate, some die, those that don't, produce resistant offspring.  Oops, is that part of God's plan, or just an accident.  THAT is a bit of philosophical debate that is beyond my desire to participate in.
3. Pollen Contamination concept- yup, insects, wind, mechanized farming, all transfer pollen from one field, to another, and from one species, to similar ones.  Soon, there will not be any non-GM crops in the world, they will all be Genetically Modified.  And as Monsanto has done in the past, when they find those fields of what are supposed to be non-GM crops and can test the crops and find that they are contaminated, then they can sue the farmers for patent infringement.  Soon the whole world will owe Monsanto because their divine concept is turning out to be a divine money machine.  
4. Horizontal Gene Transfer concept- I ate corn chips on Memorial Day.  Pretty sure they were GM corn, they would have to be as GM corn is pretty much everywhere.  The scary part here is that we have scientific evidence that the genes inserted into the corn to produce Bt toxin and resistance to glyphosate can and do migrate into the genetic material of the bacteria living in my intestinal tract.  Oops, God plays God a whole lot better than Monsanto does.  You would think that those wanting to be God would at least look at this aspect of their work before attempting it. If mere mortals wanting to play God can insert genes into other species, doesn't it stand to reason that so can God?
5. Long Term Feeding Studies concept - no GM crop was ever required to undergo the scrutiny of testing before being approved for mere mortal consumption.  Oops, seems that lately a few very prominent and well respected scientists and organizations have begun to do that very thing.  And the results are not too favorable for Monsanto.  Rats fed GM corn and soy develop cancers at an alarming rate.  Mice and hamsters that make it to the third generation become sterile.  Humans, well, we don't really know now do we.  Hmmm, playing God doesn't give Monsanto omnipotence.
6. Substantial Equivalence concept - Monsanto somehow got the Senate of the United States to buy into the concept that GM foods are exactly the same in every way as their non-GM counterparts.  Oops, that just isn't so.  Testing shows just how far off they are with GM corn having over 430 times LESS calcium as non-GM corn, 113 times LESS Magnesium and 7 times less Manganese.  All very important elements needed for human growth.  All lacking dramatically in just one GM crop tested.
7. Substantial Equivalence and Allergenicity concept - the thinking behind the one gene one protein concept gave rise to the belief that when the Monsanto Gods created new plants, those plants could not in anyway be different from regular plants because they only inserted selected genes.  There could not ever be any other mutations to the plant other than what was desired.  Oops, that one was the biggest and most obvious flaw in their thinking.  The actual process of making GM plants involves the injecting of select genes into split seed embryos and attempting to grow them into plants.  For every 10,000 attempts, they get 4 to grow.  For every 1,000 that grow, 2 might RESEMBLE the original plant.  For every 10,000 that resemble the original, only 2 or 3 make it to the testing to see if odd toxins are being grown in their along with their desired traits.  And even if they are present, only the really nasty ones are found, the chronic ones are not tested for in long term studies.  See number 5.

So,what's the answer.  Well, after the dismal recognition that the March on Monsanto garnered from national media, getting the gene-tech giant and farmers to stop planting GM crops probably won't happen for a while.  More scientific studies might help in the long run.  But there is a lot of money made and the general consensus of opinion in the ag world is that what is happening now, is here to stay.  But this is interesting (ROBOTS) NPR reports that new studies are underway to make robots that will go through fields and destroy weeds as needed, physically.  Personally, it would be a good way to put welfare recipients to work, pulling weeds.

Infant Mortality, SIDS, Vaccines, and the BILLIONS of dollars made killing and sickening infants in AmeriKa

First off, this report is the basis of a lot of this entry. (Report)   It is long, dull, tedious and boring.  But packed with scientific based research and the conclusions, are what matters.  This article has absolutely nothing to do with Autism, which I believe, and other researchers do as well, has a very similar causative relationship with vaccines.  Although truthfully, I believe it to not be just vaccines, but a combination of the horrific amounts of toxins in our food supply coupled with the vaccination process that causes autism.  Yuck, it is scary that all major brands of infant formula are over 90% high fructose corn syrup.  That is NOT what infants need in the way of nutrition.  However, let us for now just look at infant mortality.

There has always been a belief from a sociological standpoint that infant mortality is directly related to socio-economic and public health conditions of a country.  When looking at the statistics, with AmeriKan children, receiving more vaccinations in their first year of life than any other country on earth, AmeriKa rates number 34 in infant mortality.  That means 33 countries, all of whom mandate way way way fewer vaccinations for infants, have significantly LOWER rates of infant mortality.   Sure, the really high on the list countries are expected to be there, the countries with socialized medicine, that mandate way fewer vaccines, and countries that have high economic development like Singapore, Japan, Sweden, Slovenia, South Korea, Cuba.  Huh, Cuba?  Yeah, the country with the FEWEST vaccines, the worst economic conditions and the poorest health care, has lower rates of infant mortality than AmeriKa.

Makes me think.

It is just weird that an industry whose sole purpose is to protect and enhance the health of the public, has been given complete and total exemption from any and all liability for harm that the products they manufacture might cause.  It's true, vaccines are totally exempt from liability.  Criminy if you buy Mcdonalds coffee and spill it in your lap at the drive thru you can sue and make tons of money.  If you buy a bag of salad at the grocery store and it is contaminated with e.coli, and you get sick, you can sue them.  If you take a medication that causes harm to you, Plavix, is one example, then you can sue the maker.  But if your child dies suddenly for no explainable reason, SIDS, and the autopsy is inconclusive, (even though NO coroner would EVER link high heavy metal concentrations in brain tissue to vaccines) ((or for that matter even order that particular test)) you have no recourse.  Statistical evidence is not acceptable in a court of law as a causative entity for ANY malady.  Just because we can show the link between infants getting vaccines and infants dying in greater numbers (or becoming autistic) is not proof that it occurred in any specific instance.

Sales of vaccines for big pharma companies is expected to reach 50 billion dollars this year.  A huge percentage of that is in the government enforced subsidized program for vaccinating infants.  Because the all-knowing, all-seeing totally independent directors of health organizations whom have never taken a penny from big pharma, believe that all infants need to be vaccinated; then insurance companies are thus responsible for paying for those vaccines.  At huge profits to the pediatricians, and to the manufacturers.  Let's look at that number again, and just imagine that much money pouring into the coffers of, well, let's just say the top ten pharma companies that make more money than the entire Fortune 500, COMBINED.  They don't gross more in sales, they make more in PROFIT than the rest.  And vaccines alone account for 50 billion dollars of that.  Just one line of products in their already glutted line of drugs that do more harm than good.  That's FIFTY BILLION.  And not one penny of it goes to product liability insurance.  Because they don't have to.  (My other post on vaccine)

There are a lot of things wrong with our country.  This is not the only thing.  Not by a long shot.  But I don't want to ever get a vaccine, nor do I ever want any one in my family to get one either.  At least not until the manufacturers again take responsibility for their product, remove the mercury, the aluminum, the formaldehyde, and make them safe.

March against Monsanto hopeful for some, dud for most

I, like so many thousands, am very pleased with the turnout of devoted people that attended March Against Monsanto rallies throughout the world on Saturday.  It shows that there are many out there that firmly believe that Genetically Modified crops along with the associated increases in uses of pesticide and herbicides, are bad for AmeriKans, and for the world.  The Rallies held all over the world were the perfect opportunity to get basic information out to the public at large, because as we know, the vast majority of people have no idea how GM crops are destroying not only their lives, but the environment.  The PERFECT opportunity.  However, not much happened.  The mainstream media, had very little coverage.  Here in Phoenix, well the local news channels only had stories on the local independent and the Fox channel.  Well, the websites had the stories.  Local News Phoenix First  Second  The others, CBS, ABC and NBC affiliates, nothing, not one word about it.  The bad part about the two that did carry the news, had the exact same quotes about how Monsanto says they are fine with people having peaceful demonstrations and that GM crops are good for the world.  ABCNEWS.com and NBCNEWS.com had the exact same quotes, and no more. 

Wouldn't it have been spectacular if just one news media organization were to take the initiative and to just mention the Seralini Report and state that new research shows how GM crops are showing the propensity to cause cancer when eaten over a lifetime.  Or the Princeton research about the mutated genes migrating into the bacteria living in the host that ate the crap.  Or how the world now has 26 species of "SUPER" weeds that are resistant to the herbicide Roundup that is sprayed all over farmlands in ever increasing amounts because the crops are resistant, and now farmers spray ever more of the stuff.  And the research about how Roundup is causing non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma and other cancers.  And, ......, well, just read any of my other blog entries listing how bad GM crops are. 

Man, anything about WHY thousands of people were out protesting would have been nice.  ANYTHING!

And yet......

CBS News website, had absolutely nothing about the rally.  However this one page on CBS (Page) did give readers a load of crap about Monsanto and other Gene Tech companies bleating about how great their playing god is, well with the possible exception of this fantastic quote, "But it's not that simple. There's another factor that may trump enviros' worry about health risks and damage to native species that grow near the altered crops. Expensive GM crops simply haven't had much impact in boosting global food supply."

Finally, for me, vindication.  A mainstream media biz printed something that doesn't toe the Monsanto line of never say anything bad.  

The ERS of the FDA part of the USA and WOW let's waste money!!!!

I don't know, maybe I'm just being a bit snarky, but it sure seems that when I look over the website and see what it is that they spend time and money doing; it scares me.  They did a study to determine that Americans prefer to eat nuts over nut containing foods.  Hispanics eat more oranges than any other racial/ethnic group.  The populations in the Eastern United States eat more carrots per capita than populations anywhere else.  More ground beef is eaten from fast food places than is purchased for consumption at homes.  And the big one, if you don't do things to justify your free money stolen from taxpayers, then you will have to find a real job.  Oh, sorry, that one was me giving my opinion about what a waste this organization is. 

Anyway, these guys just published a study that compares what consumers are spending at grocery stores with what the USDA guidelines are for what the government feels consumers should spend in order to have a healthy diet.  The data was gathered from grocery store purchase and consumers from 1998 to 2006.  I personally am impressed with the timeliness of the report.  

 So as we can see from the figures in the graph above, the only categories in which typical average AmeriKan consumers spend what is believed to be a good and healthy diet would be potatoes.  Spending for stuff not considered healthy, is very high for, you guessed it, refined grains, red meat, cheese, beverages, frozen refrigerated or preprepared entrees, sugar and candy, and weirdest of all, soup.  That one is hard for me to figure, soup is really easy to make, I mean, really really easy. 

The thing is, does this report surprise anyone?  All you have to do is walk into any grocery store in AmeriKa and look at the crap on the shelves and the crap that people are tossing into their shopping carts.  It isn't an easy problem to fix, there is no way to stop people from killing themselves by buying and eating foods that are devoid of nutrition and packed with toxins. 

Back in 2006, some other people with lots of money to spend, came out with this report (Report) that has some interesting info in it, sort of like how when in '06 Americans on average spent 46% of their food budget on "away from home foods" but that back in 1970 they spent only 26%.  And food prepared away from home constitutes 27% of the food consumed providing 34% of the caloric intake.  In the whole 134 page report that I found in of all places, the NASA website, those two factoids are about the most interesting.  I spent about a half hour trying to track down how much was spent on this report, and it eluded me. 

I don't have much more to say about all of this, it is just too depressing. 

Ode to a Cheerio, once again

About 8pm my time here in Arizona, an ad for General Mills Cheerios appeared on my FaceBook page, and it seems, a lot of other peoples.  Last December GM came up with a great propaganda gimmick for FB and had this posting that had to be taken down within a day because of the hundred thousand negative posts.  Seems someone forgot all about that.  With eleven hours on the GM helping the reading campaign for school kids, there are over 6 thousand negative comments.  over a hundred and sixty thousand like the page, but the negative stuff should start hitting it pretty soon as the country wakes up to their day with FB and see this abomination.  Last time, (Cheerios)

C

Cheerios Ingredients

1. WHOLE GRAIN OATS. This is important because when the “whole grain” bandwagon started, people lost site of what “whole grain” really is supposed to be. Whole grains ground down to flour, do not offer you the same health benefits as whole grains period.
2. The second ingredient is CORN STARCH. Not only is this offering us little in terms of high quality nutrition, but there is a SUPER high chance that this is coming from genetically modified sources, as today corn is one of the top 3 genetically modified crops grown.
3. The third ingredient is – SUGAR. Famous nutrition / dietitian, Jeff Novick , teaches audiences world wide, to make a quality food, sugar and salt should not be in the top five ingredients.
4. The fourth ingredient – SALT. Cheerios is not a healthy option for people at risk for cardiovascular problems.
5. The next ingredient, trisodium phosphate (TSP), on the Cheerios list. So what is that? A common, strong cleaning compound.

According to Wikipedia,  trisodium phosphate is a cleaning agent, food additive, stain remover and degreaser. And also according to Wikipedia, “It is generally considered to be a bad idea to ingest compounds that are sufficiently caustic to dissolve cell membranes.” You think? So what is this substance doing in your food?

In food, TSP is used as an acidity regulator (buffering agent), emulsifier, thickening agent, nutrition enlargement agent and sequestrant (metal-chelating agent). Although naturally according to the FDA, the TSP is GRAS (generally recognized as safe), I think common sense tells us chemicals like this should not be in our food period. It is one thing having adults eat this, but the common parent gives Cheerios with these chemicals, as a treat to their babies.

6. The calcium carbonate, is a common dietary source of calcium, which makes it sound fine, but more so it is used as a food preservative, color retainer, emulsifier, firming or bleaching agent.

7. Monoglycerides are single fatty acids attached to a glycerol molecule. Basically, they are modified fats, which are used to blend together certain ingredients, such as oil and water. According to VGR.org, the commercial source may be either animal (cow- or hog-derived) or vegetable, and they may be synthetically made as well.

8. Tocopherols are a series of organic compounds  consisting of various methylated phenols. They usually have vitamin E activity, and are mainly used to preserve food, especially oils from going rancid.

There is not much to say about wheat starch, so we will skip on to the last ingredient – annatto. This is a color additive, and is generally considered to be a natural one. Despite this, it is known in many cases as a food allergen.

Many people also think Cheerios are a healthy option because they are low in calories. However, the calories, should really not be our main concern unless we are on some strict diet.

The bigger issues to focus on are: is there any trans fat, saturated fat and sugar? How much? What is the sodium amount? If it is higher than the number of calories per serving, than it is a high sodium food, and should definitely not be eaten by someone with high blood pressure or at risk for it.

Some GMO info from a Canadian Gene Tech Guy

I was reading on the internet again, seems that I spend a rather inordinate amount of time on this modern miracle lately.  I mean it does contain a lot of extremely interesting information, and I just can't keep up with all of it, but I do try.  Also a lot of jokes, and no where near enough time or desire to view all of that.  But, I did find this interesting article in the newspaper "Canada" and thought I would show it to anyone that follows my blog.  I did edit it some, and just to let you know, he mentions this very cool site, nice to view if you have a half an hour.   (GMO Myths)

Genetic Engineering technology was first invented in 1973, it is 40 years old, and it relies on a hypothesis established 70 years ago, the one gene one protein hypothesis.
Each gene codes for one protein. So if you insert a gene, you expect one protein to be produced. This hypothesis was blown out of the water in 2002 when the Human Genome Project was completed, and we discovered that our genome has just under 25,000 genes, while our bodies function with approximately 100,000 proteins. It does not add up. A genome, we learned, is a complex ecosystem under much influence from the environment.
We now know that each gene of a genome makes many proteins according to environmental cues. And since the Human Genome Project we know that genetic engineering creates rogue proteins, and some of them can be allergenic or toxic. Inserting a transgene into a genome and expecting only a single protein and nothing else, is corporate fallacy.
Genetic pollution is so prevalent in North and South America where GM crops are grown that the fields of conventional and organic grower are regularly contaminated with engineered pollen and losing certification.
The canola and flax export markets from Canada to Europe (a few hundreds of millions of dollars) were lost because of genetic pollution. Did I mention superweeds? That's when RoundUp crops pass their genes on to RoundUp Resistant weeds.
Apparently over 50% of fields planted to GMOs in the USA are now infested and the growers have to use other toxic herbicides such as 2-4 D. For those of you too young to remember, that was Agent Orange in the Vietnam war. The transgenes are also transferred to soil bacteria. A Chinese study published last year shows that an ampicillin resistance transgene was transferred from local engineered crops to soil bacteria, that eventually found their way into the rivers. The transgenes are also transferred to humans. Volunteers who ate engineered soybeans had undigested DNA in their intestine and their bacterial flora was expressing the transgenes. This is genetic pollution to the extreme, particularly when antibiotic resistance genes are spread that way.
In 2009 the American Academy of Environmental Medicine called for a moratorium of GM foods, safety testing and label-ing. Their review of the available literature at the time noted that animals fed GMOs showed serious health risks including infertility, immune dysregulation, accelerated aging, dysregulation of genes associated with cholesterol synthesis, insulin regulation, cell signaling, and protein formation, and changes in the liver, kidney, spleen and gastrointestinal system.
The US Food and Drug Administration waived all levels of safety testing in 1996 before approving the commercialization of these crops. Nothing more than voluntary research is necessary, and the FDA does not even want to see the results. And there is certainly no need to publish any of it. If you remember 1996, the year that the first crops were commercialized, the research scientists of the US FDA all predicted that transgenic crops would have unpredictable hard to detect side effects, allergens, toxins, nutritional effects, new diseases. That was published in 2004 in Biotechnology. I know well that Canada does not perform long term feeding studies as they do in Europe. The only study I am aware of from Canada is from the Sherbrooke Hospital in 2011, when doctors found that 93% of pregnant women and 82% of the unborn tested had the protein pesticide in their blood. This is a protein recognized in its many forms as mildly to severely allergenic.
One argument I hear repeatedly is that nobody has ever been sick after a meal or a trillion meals of GM food. Nobody gets ill from smocking a pack of cigarette either. But it sure adds up, and we did not know that in the 1950s before we started our wave of epidemics of cancer. Except this time it is not about a bit of smoke, it's the whole food system that is of concern. The corporate interest must be subordinated to the public interest, and the policy of substantial equivalence must be scrapped as it is clearly untrue.
Dr. Thierry Vrain Courtenay
 http://www.canada.com/entire+food+system+under+threat/8215403/story.html

Tough world for babies - vaccines - a revisit to this info

This is my brand new grand niece, Molly Robinson
This info from a previous posting is very relevant and timely now with this new addition to my neighboring extended family.  So, without further ado, info on
vaccines.








There seems to be a whole lot of stuff going on for infants these days.  Back in 1954 when I was born, it was out into the bright lights to view a staff of doctors dressed in green wearing masks, then into mom's arms and life began.  Nowadays, they pop the baby out, then wash him, weigh him, soothe him a bit, then stick needles into him and inject weakened Hepatitis B viruses in a matrix of mercury, msg and formaldehyde.  Tough thing for a newly arrived infant to have to handle being injected into him.  I mean that most newborns already have a huge disadvantage with over 237 toxic chemicals being detected in their blood, all having been consumed by the mother, most inadvertently.  Products of modern industrial society.

But really, Hepatitis B?  This is a disease that is transmitted through the exchange of bodily fluids, either through sex or the use of needles shared during intravenous drug use. An infant, what is the logic behind the vaccination for Hep B?  The worst part is that now, teenage kids that were given the government recommended dosing of this particular vaccine are now showing the ineffectiveness of the vaccine by coming down with the disease in their teen years.  Makes one wonder about the reasoning behind requiring this particular vaccine to be administered to infants and to require the vaccine before being allowed admittance to preschools and kindergartens.  Remember, this disease, Hepatitis B, is ONLY transmitted through the exchange of bodily fluids or blood as in IV drug use or the exchange of fluids via oral or vaginal sex.  Yeah, Preschoolers maybe, in a sick world, but babies.

Try to remember that AmeriKans have the highest rate of infant vaccinations in the world.  On average, 49 vaccines are recommended before a child is the age of 2.  One child in 88 will become autistic.  In 1954 when I was born, and there were no vaccines, one child in 25,000 was autistic.
The chances of a child in third world countries developing polio, rotavirus, diptheria, tetanus, mennengitus, pneumonia, or influenza and becoming totally debilitated or dying, one in 14,000.

A child in AmeriKa has a GREATER risk of becoming autistic, and possibly totally dependent on their parents for a LIFETIME of intensive home care than they have for contracting ANY of the diseases that the vaccines are supposed to protect them from.

And yet the big drug companies take your money and get bigger and badder.

The decision to vaccinate a child for a disease for which there is little to NO chance of the child contracting becomes even more ridiculous when you consider the side effects possible when injecting this vaccine into a newborn baby.  The NVIC, the National Vaccine Information Center states,

“As of March 2012, there was a total of 66,654 hepatitis B vaccine-related adverse events reported to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), including reports of headache, irritability, extreme fatigue, brain inflammation, convulsions, rheumatoid arthritis, optic neuritis, multiple sclerosis, lupus, Guillain Barre Syndrome (GBS) and neuropathy.

There have been more than 1,500 hepatitis B vaccine-related deaths reported, including deaths classified as sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).”

 The CDC recommends infants receive the Hepatitis B vaccine because "Infants and children who will travel internationally should receive 3 doses of HBV vaccine before traveling:"   (CDC website)  So how did this recommendation, that in reality MAY have some root causative response that is in line with reality for infants that will be partaking of international travel to third world countries become the government MANDATE that all newborn infants receive this deadly Hep B vaccine?

And the coffers of the big drug companies flow with milk and honey.

If you are about to have a baby, think hard about what you want for your baby's health.  Waiting until your infant is 2 years of age reduces the risk of contraction of autism by over 6,000 per cent.  When getting vaccines for yourself or for your child, ask the medical professional what is in the vaccine.  Refuse any vaccine that contains Thimerisol or formaldehyde.

If you decide to get a vaccine yourself, or worse, if you decide to vaccinate your children, here are some tips from The National Vaccine Help Center. (NVHC)

1. Am I or my child sick right now?
2. Have I or my child had a bad reaction to a vaccination before?
3. Do I or my child have a personal or family history of vaccine reactions, neurological disorders, severe allergies or immune system problems?
4. Do I know the disease and vaccine risks for myself or my child?
5. Do I have full information about the vaccine’s side effects?
6. Do I know how to identify and report a vaccine reaction?
7. Do I know I need to keep a written record, including the vaccine manufacturer’s name and lot number, for all vaccinations?
8. Do I know I have the right to make an informed choice?

If any of these side effects are seen in yourself or your child, then please report them to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)

• Pronounced swelling, redness, heat or hardness at the site of the injection;
• Body rash or hives;
• Shock/collapse;
• High pitched screaming or persistent crying for hours;
• Extreme sleepiness or long periods of unresponsiveness;
• High fever (over 103 F)
• Twitching or jerking of the body, arm, leg or head;
• Crossing of eyes;
• Weakness or paralysis of any part of the body;
• Loss of eye contact or awareness or social withdrawal;
• Loss of ability to roll over, sit up or stand up;
• Vision or hearing loss;
• Restlessness, hyperactivity or inability to concentrate;
• Sleep disturbances that change wake/sleep pattern;
• Head banging or onset of repetitive movements (flapping, rubbing, rocking, spinning);
• Joint pain;
• Muscle weakness;
• Disabling fatigue;
• Loss of memory;
• Onset of chronic ear or respiratory infections;
• Violent or persistent diarrhea or chronic constipation;
• Breathing problems (asthma);
• Excessive bleeding (thrombocytopenia) or anemia.

I guess it is just me, but I would not want to put myself or my child through any of these problems and the scary part is that this list was drawn up from REPORTED side effects from people that have been vaccinated.

I will tell this story again here.  In 1993 I was having problems with asthma.  I was living in an area surrounded with cotton fields and every fall when they sprayed Agent Orange on the cotton then picked the cotton with the huge vacuum cleaners I got sick, and came down with pneumonia.  My doctor suggested a pneumonia vaccine.  I got it, and within 5 days I could barely move my arms and legs they tingled with this painful numbness that made walking, sitting, sleeping, or anything impossible. This was the first signs of Guillian-Barre Syndrome, a neurological problem that we now know is caused by vaccinations.  I went to three neurologists during the six weeks I was off work.  None helped.  And now that I think about it, none of them asked any of the pertinent questions or took blood to test for heavy metal contamination.  But the GBS was new at that time.  But look at the list of side effects you should be looking out for in your children if you get them ANY vaccination.

Did you know that the Feds have set up the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program where they have established a superfund of cash to help out parents of children whose lives have been destroyed by vaccinations?  Yep.  Even the Feds know that they are bad, but they make sooooooo much fucking money selling them that the companies again, payoff federal agencies to allow them to continue to destroy American lives.  America vaccinates children with on the average, 49 vaccines before a child is age 2.  America has the HIGHEST rate of vaccination of children in the world.  America has the HIGHEST rate of autism in the world.  There is a DIRECT correlation between the numbers of vaccines received and the rate of autism.  And yet no one does anything to stop it.  Click this link to go to see the ingredients of the various vaccines, it is something to look over and make decisions from (Link)

               In America, money is the root of all evil! 

GMO Report Card. Failed Failed Failed

If I was in school and my performance matched the dismal results that Genetically Modified crops have returned, I would have gotten my ass beaten and had my nose forced into books every single minute of every day that I wasn't asleep, eating, pooping or walking to school. And yes, in my day we walked to school, my parents never had to worry whether or not we would go, we went because we knew we had to.  And if the bigger kids beat us up, we had to deal with it.  This sort of applies to today's world, and the creators of GM crops, they have beaten the little peons of consumers and actually the farmers as well, and now we are uniting to fight back, and now they have to suffer the consequences.

So, first off, I discovered in my research, another branch of the USDA, the ERS, or Economic Research Service.  Their job, is to make sure that the figures presented to the world show the lies and half truths that Monsanto and other Gene Tech firms and chemical producers want us to see.  Oops, that's not the real mandate, it just seems to be when you look closely at the data and conclusions they present.  (ERS info)  Their conclusions about how wonderful and healthful as well as productive and cost saving seem to be in direct conflict with the findings of, you got it, their parent organization, the USDA. 

Now, I don't know everything, as I have said before, if I did, I would be a woman, a really ugly woman.  But I know how to get information that I want, or need, so that I can be perceived as though I know a lot more than I actually do.  And thus comes the Internet.  And I began to look up info on crop yields for most GM crops to find out how they compare to conventional, and of course, organic, crops in similar environments and growing conditions.  I found this paper by the Union of Concerned Scientists - (Failure to yield)  One of the things that is discussed in this paper is that yields for most crops are rising across the board, but that those increases are attributable to non-genetic modifications such as improvements in farming techniques like satellite tillage, water and drainage management and other basic but high tech farming techniques.  the catch is that the increases are greater for non-GM crops than for GM crops.  So I wanted to verify this info, and found  (Cotton Yields)  (Corn Yields)  (Soy Yields)  and I even found one article on the differences in harvest in Tobacco Mosiac Virus Resistant Genetically Modified Squash.  It was really long and boring and showed that as an abstract that yields were slightly higher for GM but it was attributable to other factors. 

The true report card comes with grades in other subjects, not just yield per acre.  Those grades are for the tremendous use of pesticides on plants that are supposed to be toxic to insects if they eat them.  Ouch, we now have Bt resistant insects, and farmers are spraying ever greater quantities of traditional pesticides on their crops that are damaging beneficial insect populations and dramatically increasing the resistance of the populations of damaging insects that are targeted.  Plus the bonus of the Bt toxin being actually in every bite of the GM foods that we consume and with research just now finding out that those toxins are harmful to humans, are chronic and cumulative, and that the genes that cause the manufacture of the Bt toxin in the crops are passed into the bacteria living in the intestinal tracts of humans and animals that consume the crops.  Ouch, another failure.

Use of the toxin glyphosate has reached 1.3 billion pounds annually.  Contrary to what Monsanto would like us as consumers to believe, it is NOT harmless.  New research is proving that the stuff causes cancer, destroys the environment, and does not degrade for several years.  Humans in Germany have unbelievably high amounts of glyphosate in their urine.  If I win the lottery, I will set up a lab and start to test for that kind of stuff here in the US.  Sad to say, it costs a lot of money, and Monsanto will not pay for it.  And no governmental agency will pay for it either since big business runs the government.  The overall effect of spraying ever greater quantities of glyphosate on crops is that the stuff is pretty much everywhere, and yet the weeds it is supposed to eradicate just develop resistance to the weed killer in much the same manner that the crops have.  Ouch, another FAILURE.

 It is possible to farm quite effectively and profitably using non-GM crops and using organic methods.  In fact, the FDA itself has a complete section on their website about how to do it.  (AFICS) Alternative Farming 'Systems Information Center.  The number of organic farms in the US has increased over 70% since 2007.  And that is just the ones registered, many farms use sustainable practices but are just too small to justify the cost of the organic certification.  Or they just don't want to, like the Amish.  Who by the way, have been very successful at what they do for quite some time now.  It is possible, if we as consumers demand it, it will happen. 

Overall, things are just like the title states.  The GMO experiment now just some 17 years old, (well for the poison Canola, about 27) and the report card is a big resounding FAILURE.  The FDA has their own propaganda dissemination organisation, the ERS and it is telling us all how great and wonderful the experiment  is doing here in our life in "Animal Farm" world.  Thank you Snowball, our lives are all the better as we live with all the degenerative ills and cancers forming in our bodies from this horrific experiment known as "Monsanto Makes Billions as Humans Die!"

I just want to leave you with this thought, in 1998, 24 African scientists at a United Nations conference wrote an angry rebuke of Monsanto's advertising, which used photos of starving African children under the headline, "Let the Harvest Begin." In

their statement the delegates wrote:  We...strongly object that the image of the poor and hungry from 

our countries is being used by giant multinational corporations to push technology that is neither safe,

environmentally friendly, nor economically beneficial to use. We do not believe that such companies 

or gene technologies will help our farmers to produce food that is needed in the 21st century. On the contrary, we think it will destroy the diversity, the local knowledge and the sustainable agricultural 

systems that our farmers have developed for millennia and that it will thus undermine our capacity 

to feed ourselves"

Number one cause of Deaths in AmeriKa today.

Most of this info I wrote about back last October, but thought about printing it again as my little niece is in the Banner system delivering her little baby girl this morning.  I shouldn't go see her since my sinus infection is blooming again and I do have MRSA up there that I contracted while in a different hospital, none the less, I want this info to get out again

Life is scary.   We all like to get a little scared now and then.  Amusement parks sell us fear and getting scared, and it is a lot of fun.  But I wish the fear that I feel only came with the price of admission to Disneyland.  However, it doesn't, it comes every single day of the year and it scares the bejesus out of me.  These facts are all found on legitimate organization's sites on the internet, I am not making them up in any way.  So get ready to get the crap scared out of you.
One million seven hundred thousand people each and every year will acquire a nosocomial infection.  This is a bacterial or fungal infection that a person gets while in the hospital.  Approximately 115,000 people will die from these infections.  This is an annual estimate for the US by the CDC.  These infections affect the urinary system, cause pneumonia, destroy the broncho/nasal systems and a whole host of other systems.  And the worst part is now the prevelance of MRSA, and other antibiotic resistant bacteria.  Hospitals are the PRIMARY cause of the transmission of these new and incredibly dangerous new strains of bacteria.  I personally am just one case of having contracted MRSA during a hospital stay.  Good luck asking them to fix it.  It has no cure and they will only try if you have really good insurance.
Next on the list of Frightening Happenings that cause death in the night is drug interactions and mis-prescribed drugs.  2.2 million people have severe adverse reactions to drugs, and over 105,00 die annually.  When in hospitals.  This has nothing to do with drug recalls or adverse side effects of drugs that drug companies and the FDA only find out about AFTER they are approved to be sold to the American public.  Again, this is something that happened to me, when in the hospital for my second pulmonary embolism, I was given 2 different drugs and developed pancreatitis.  A nurse told me they should not have prescribed that combination as it could do such.  I went ahead and looked it up on Drug.com and sure enough, that was the one thing that the site said could happen if you took those two.  Hmmm.  Oh well.
I want to take a moment here to talk a bit about Plavix.  This is a drug that is used to prevent strokes and now pulmonary embolisms.  Something that I survived four episodes of.  The standard treatment for this has been coumadin.  An actual compound that was used as a rat poison as it tasted good, the rats ate it and then they died a slow death by bleeding internally.  So some one thought that would be a good thing to save lives.  I took it for three years, most of my hair fell out, I still have scars on my arms and legs from the CONTINUOUS bruising that occurred just from simple light bumps.  When I found out that Plavix would replace Coumadin, I was happy.  Then I found out about all the deaths from it.  With a little further research, I discovered that Plavix reduced the risk of stroke in patients down to 6.78 per 100,000 people.  Then, I found that taking one baby aspirin a day would drop the risk of stroke to 6.97 per 100,000 people.  And a very low possibility of death, unlike Plavix.  And at about 1 cent an aspirin, 600 times cheaper.   I no longer take Coumadin, and I certainly don't take Plavix, I take an aspirin every day.
Next scary death knell, Iatrogenic Events.  Fancy word for just plain accidental deaths due to medical intervention.  About 2 million reported events resulting in an annual death rate of about 230,000.
So, what does all this mean.  Well, first off, this is only part of the list.  There are lots of other minor things causing deaths in hospitals.  But the whole thing boils down to this one thing.  And it is pretty important:  THE NUMBER ONE CAUSE OF DEATH IN AMERICA TODAY IS MODERN MEDICAL PRACTICES.   Sends a shiver down my spine.  And you know, I really really am lucky to have survived my treatments by modern medicine, I am lucky to wake up every morning.
Take precautions everyone, ask questions of your doctor, look up your meds online to verify they won't cause more harm than any possible good they MAY do for you.  And ask, ask, ask, ask, and ask again.  If they think you are taking an interest in your care, they might not practice on you

  But for me, I worry about this information about how modern medical practices are the number one cause of death in America today.  And so when I go to the doctor, I try to get the doctor as much information as possible so that the particular practitioner I am seeing has all the facts about my case, and hopefully they will do more than a precursory exam with the info about me.  I don't want that medical professional to come in, see me, a big overweight guy, look at the chart and see that my blood pressure is 112 over 62 and think that I forgot to list the blood pressure meds on my list of medication.  They all seem to have preconceived ideas for what they want to diagnose for patients.  Every doc in an ER, (and I have been to ER's a LOT) all want to know what diuretic I take or other blood pressure med.  I don't take any.  Of all those in my family, I am the only one, but that is a dietary thing.  When I try to give doctors my COMPLETE medical history, sure they are shocked that I survived four incidents of pulmonary embolisms, understand the black mold and the need for HIGH doses of steroids, and the subsequent onset of Avascular Necrosis and hip replacement.  But when I start on telling them about my 95% vegetarian diet, avoidance of white flour, high fructose corn poison, any and all GM food products, salt, soda, distilled spirits, and all processed foods; they really don't listen.  When I list all the supplements that I take, (about 20) they half hearted  listen, and only one, my oncologist, asked me why I take Saw Palmetto as that is a natural anti male hormone drug.  Her advice, don't take it.  My response, I take it to keep my prostate from swelling to the size of an apple and to help stop male pattern baldness.  Of course she looks at my head and tells me it isn't working.  But then we both laugh about the coumadin propensity to make people's hair fall out in huge clumps.  (mine is growing back in areas devastated by the blood thinner poison)  ((YAAAAY))    But for the most part, these "Doctors" listen to me prattle on and I believe that for the most part, could care less.  I truly believe that most doctors have no concept that nutrition is at the root of MOST medical problems.  The AMA direction is to prescribe drugs whose manufacturers fund their organization and treat symptoms, rather than diseases. 

My very good friend, and about the best sexual partner I have ever had in my life, Key, has been going to a Chinese holistic doctor and they ask those kinds of questions about diet and lifestyle.  Chinese medicine looks at the whole body and environment and goes from there.  Their problem lies in an inability to utilize some, and there are a few, of the advancements in medicines that have been discovered.  Osteopathic doctors look at your skeletal structure and think that points to the root of problems, not exactly correct, but certainly a starting place that the AMA should look at a little bit at least.  So how do we combine all of these differing viewpoints?  Well, I personally don't think it is possible.  They each are adamantly opposed to the other, and like my ex-wife, they each want to be the dominant person in their own little universe.  So, it is up to the individual to choose, drug based treatment, holistic herb based diagnosis and treatment, or skeletal reasoning.  And then go from there.  Will it work?  Well, all I know is that when I get a few bucks ahead, I am going out for Chinese.

What will it take to BAN all GM foods?

Oohhh, I've talked about this before, and now it is hitting the mainstream media.  Pretty soon it will be on all the talk shows, and all the TV "Doctors" shows.  I found this article about a month ago and wrote about it.  (GMO Bad).  It is a very technical article done by actual scientists that did not take ANY money from Monsanto or any other GeneTech company to do pseudoresearch and give results showing how wonderful the world is with GM foods in it now.  Basically if you look at the article and skim thru it, you will get the same conclusions I am going to cut and paste for you here --

"evaluations of toxicity and pathogenicity of microbiological control agents such as Bt toxins, given that little is known about their toxicological potential in non-target organisms, including humans.

While Bacillus Thurigensis spore-crystals have been used since the late 1960's in agriculture as a foliar insecticide, it was only after the advent of recombinant DNA biotechnology that these toxin-producing genes (known as delta endotoxins) were first inserted into the plants themselves and released into commercial production in the mid-90's, making their presence in the US food supply and the bodies of exposed populations ubiquitous.

What the new study revealed is that various binary combinations and doses of Bt toxins are capable of targeting mammalian cells, particularly the erythroid (red blood cell) lineage, resulting in red blood cell changes indicative of significant damage, such as anemia. In addition, the study found that Bt toxins suppressed bone marrow proliferation creating abnormal lymphocyte patterns consistent with some types of leukemia."   


Yes sir, bad information indeed.  If we also look at the Princeton study that found that genes inserted into Soy and Corn that was then fed to human being test subject volunteers, were subsequently found to have transferred all on their own, into the genetic makeup of the bacteria that live inside the intestinal tracts of the subjects.  What that means, is that our own bodies become Bt Toxin factories, pumping ever more quantities of Bt toxin into our systems every minute of every hour, every hour of every day, and every day of every year for as long as ye shall live.  And now we have more research showing the harmful effects of consuming GM foods.


This is not the first study to show the link between GM foods as a causative agent in degenerative diseases.  This is just the first to be taken seriously by mainstream media.  Most magazines, TV stations, news businesses, radio station conglomerates, newspapers or any kind of news or business that reports the news has not EVER said one bad thing about Monsanto, GM foods, or any of the toxic chemicals that our food supply harbors.  EVER.  The reason is simple, they exist because of advertising revenue, and most of the advertisers use GM products.  The mandate at news medias everywhere is simple, don't bite, or report on, the hand that feeds you.  Well, there are a huge number of real scientific studies that have been done reporting the same information.  I don't know why this one has hit the wires, but maybe, just maybe, it will start an avalanche of info getting out to the population.

The question is, will it be enough to cause a backlash of support for ridding the marketplace of GM foods?  I hope so.  That would mean that a large enough number of people in this country have begun to be cognizant of what they ingest.  Yeah, a lot of us already are, but look on every major corner in AmeriKa and see the fast food fat inducing dispensers of degenerative disease places selling slow death wrapped in paper.  When people really start to recognize how important nutrition is, most all of those joints will go bankrupt.  Or alternatively, the smart ones will prepare and serve real food devoid of toxic additives and HFCS. 

Good luck to everyone, remember I didn't make this up, but you are what you eat.

"Now Play fair", was the admonishment from mom

My mom, probably every body's mom, would always warn us with that bit of advice.  The big kids need to watch out for the smaller ones, don't let them get hurt, don't let them run off and get lost, don't smash them in the face when they say things that are true about their lack of intelligence and need to hurt others.  Yeah, that's why my nose points to the left.  I was six, and a lot more cognizant of the world around me than most.  Even today, I see things, and tell the truth about what I see.  So far, I haven't gotten smashed in the face again, but then I believe that those out there that are of similar personality as those buffoons of yesteryear are desperately doing whatever they have to do to avoid getting caught with their pants down, so to speak. And the truth is that people like me, and there are becoming more of us all the time, are morphing into a force to be feared by those that lead the businesses that have no qualms about making money with the absolute knowledge that AmeriKan Consumers for the most part don't give a crap about what they stick into their mouths.  Yeah yeah yeah, not talking about the juniors on the pep squad in high school, I'm talking about the majority of AmeriKans.  Most people just don't care about the food they eat.  Look at the proliferation of fast food places, certainly the most obvious example.  I really don't believe that anyone out there thinks that fast food is healthy food.  It's more than the movie "Super Size Me"; it's the entire concept of make money by making products as cheaply as possible and the path to that IDEAL involves using as many toxic and/or artificial ingredients and as much High Fructose Corn Syrup and other addictive ingredients as they legally can.  Those guys are not playing fair.  Not any more it seems, and others may put it differently, but you can't argue with the fact that many many many of us that got our faces smashed in as kids are looking toward those that feel superior to us lowly peons and have begun to speak out and attempt to get the masses to look at themselves, and the food they eat.  And we give them someone to blame for their problems, their poor health, their inability to conceive children, the degeneration of their systems, and the preponderance of cancers amongst themselves and their friends and families. 

Yeah, those guys aren't playing fair at all.  And they haven't for some time now.  Ever since some one some where figured out that by giving money to a politician, that politico would then pretty much do whatever you wanted.  Is that fair?  The abstract view of that question comes down to whether we believe that the person that has the money to do such a thing and to alter existence in favor of his or hers desire or needs may in fact have the right to do so based on the fact that whatever they did to acquire the funds to purchase the favors of politicos gives them more rights than persons that don't have such funds.  Oooh, such a concept, if we live in a free society based on free enterprise and where one individual is able to through his own efforts and actions, accumulate great wealth, then does not the very basis of that free enterprising society allow for that person to spend his acquired wealth as they see fit to and if that choice involves the purchasing of political favoritism, then that should be construed by all as a just means and ultimate expression of the basics of society?  Whew, basically that means who decides what is fair?

I'd like to.

I think that soon, every voter in the country will get to decide what is fair.  Having figured out that attempting to get anything done on a federal level is just not possible, that we, the little people, the ones that got our faces smashed in as kids, just don't have the monetary means to purchase fairness in the same arena with big businesses.  But we can do it on a state level.  There are five states with mandatory GM labeling laws being debated at the state level.  Forty-five to go.  And with the grass roots efforts of people like me, people that want FAIR, we just may get them.  Yeah, we caught some of them with their pants down, and because they don't want to, and have never had to play fair, some of them are blasting out money like crazy to every Senator that will take it and they are trying to get a rider added to the Farm Bill that will disallow ANY state's rights to pass local legislation that will mandate GM labeling.  That is actually unconstitutional.  However they don't see it that way.  They are not playing fair now are they.

We just need to get some labeling laws in every state, then we can begin to work on state legislation limiting the use of glyphosate and other toxins that are destroying the environment, and killing us slowly.  It is a hope, a dream, a way to force those that don't want to and have never had to, to play fair.  

The World of SWEET

New products on the market coming out all the time. The beverage industry is becoming more sophisticated all the time, they need to be, it is an industry worth billions and billions.  And this comes to us from the industry magazine, Food Business News. "... formulators are working with a variety of sweeteners in an effort to better pair flavor with perceived health attributes."  PERCEIVED is the key word here, not that there is any health attributes to 10 calorie soda at all, but with the pictures of fruit on the can, the fancy ads, the hype, the insistence that the chemically produced "NATURAL" high potency sweeteners are good for you, then you may perceive that the can of 10 calorie 7up is healthy.  Especially when at the local convenience market the price of bottled water is 50% more than soda.  It's Healthy!

If you have read my blog before, you know I love stevia. (Stevia)  It is a miracle, a sweet plant that has no known harmful properties.  It is 150 to 200 times sweeter than sugar.  Sometimes, it does have a sort of licorice or anise type aftertaste.  To me, I don't mind it, it is way better than sucking down sugar all day.  The thing is though the great and all powerful FDA for decades would not allow the use of stevia to be an ingredient in food or beverages.  It was not approved.  It was cheap, sweet and easy to use.  The sugar guys were scared, so were the aspartame makers.  So it was outlawed.  Potassium Bromate and 700 other CLASS II CARCINOGENS were approved for use in our food, but stevia was not allowed.  Well, that is up until big business decided that they could play god and make stevia better.  By the addition of chemical solvents and harsh alkaloids, Coke made stevia "BETTER".  And so the FDA approved it.  (Stevia)  Again, look at that bit of info.  The thing is, if you look at the GRAS list from the FDA, there are about 28 different stevia compounds on it that are approved for use in food and beverages.  But the FDA still does not allow plain old common unadulterated stevia, it's not on the GRAS.  Gee, haven't I talked about how business makes the decisions for our government entities based on business needs and not consumer needs?  Yeah, I think I have. 

Many companies making stevia extracts use a host of solvents to extract the main sweetening constituent of stevia,  rebaudioside A (Reb A).  Everyone's favorite beverage bandidos Coca cola in fact has over 35 patents on the process.  (Coke)   Take 5 hours like I did and read through the patents, it is scary.  They use a lot of toxic chemicals to make their stevia "better".  (small list of processors)  Wisdom Naturals, from right here in Arizona, uses water to extract the Reb A.  It seems a lot better process, more costly to be sure, but proof that there are people out there that try to do the right thing.  (Wisdom Naturals)  To go to their site, I'm not an affiliate of anything, I don't make money if you click on the link, but I highly recommend that if you want stevia extract then go with a company that has integrity, and not the crap in the grocery store like Truvia, which is packed with very little chemically processed stevia and instead has mostly erythritol.

Let's go back to the mega giant coke.  According to News, the biggest beverage bandido in the world introduced over 500 new products in 2012.  Five Hundred NEW Products.  Water, and sugar, and now chemically treated stevia are pretty much the basis for their empire.  Well, the truth is, marketing is the backbone of the empire. 

I see people everyday carrying around their PLASTIC bottles of flavored waters in a rainbow of flavors and listen to them complain about how crappy they feel and how hard it is to get old.  And how they have no money anymore.  A buck for water.  In plastic.  

My friends at the cigar store like to make fun of me all the time because I bring in a mason jar with my mint tea in it.  Filtered water, mint, real plain old stevia leaves.  And a glass jar that has no BPA or BPB or any other toxic stuff in it.  It won't find its way into the environment and litter the roadsides, or wash out to sea and become part of the floating pile of plastic garbage in the Pacific Ocean that is larger than the state of Texas.  I wash it, refill it, head over to the cigar store, smoke my cigar, (thanks Mark and Grady for the very nice cigars you have given me) and feel good.  I wish the whole world did the same. 

Is it time for a review of this democracy we live under?

Yes

Who controls the US government?

Big businesses, people with money, any person that has no morals or scruples and wishes to alter the course of human events to meet their own expectations and has the money to purchase the favor and voting rights of any politician here in AmeriKa can and do, control the US government.  I am pretty sure that they all don't work in concert, they are all acting independently of each other, and who knows, they all may in fact believe that they are the only ones capable of buying the favors.  Whoa there Chef Roy, aren't you setting yourself up for libelous actions?  No, not in the least.  Let me explain -

We all know that politicians become politicians because they have that something, that spark of magnetism that sets them apart from the masses.  And that little bit of attraction is what makes for a good politician.  The unfortunate thing is, that in the modern world, those with that spark may not be in the financial position to further their ambitions.  And that is why big businesses and rich people have taken these chosen ones, and groomed them with money and the spotlight of the media to become their personal representatives.  And they do it with money.  It takes a lot of money to get elected to office.  A LOT of money in today's world.  And any person out there that thinks that rich citizens and big businesses give political hopefuls LOTS of money with no expectations is pretty foolish indeed.  For just one quick moment let's look back a ways to Charles Keating pounding on the door to the home of Dennis Deconcini and giving him and four other Senators a measly 1.3 million to stop the Feds from looking into the actions of Lincoln Savings.  Good ol' Dennis and four of his Senate buddies did just that and the investigation was delayed a full two years.  Dennis baby got an official Senate censure, Charles got to keep millions in offshore accounts that were never found.  Dennis got to keep his share of the mil as well.  Politicians do things for money, make no mistake about it. 

The wise and wonderful leaders of our country actually don't like the process, not a single one of them wants to ever get caught taking money from their saviors in exchange for their assistance in elections.  And the truth is, although EVERY single person in the country knows that this stuff is what happens, we can't prove it.  At least not in a court of law in this big business controlled country.  However, the leaders want to distance themselves from their sources of control, money, as much as possible and so they all came up with the most interesting concept for doing that.  They created political action committees.  PAC's.  WOW, a coupe, a brainstorm, a miracle for every single politician out there.  With a PAC, rich people and rich businesses can provide money to their chosen politico.  And with the changes in the laws in 2010 that those money hungry politicians made regarding PAC's then they can now purchase media time and say anything they want to assist their chosen political hopeful, and not have to actually report the money spent as a donation to that politician.  Their money went to a non-entity, a committee, not into the pockets of the chosen few.  Aaaahhhh, but wouldst that these no-restriction PACs were here in 1972 and McGovern had the unlimited money that Nixon seemed to have access to, then perhaps the election might have gone a bit differently.  Sigh, some things are nice to think about.  Not that Nixon was a bad president or anything, I mean he did end the war like he said he would.  Oh well, not something that matters in this discussion.  It's just fun to speculate on an alternate reality.  Hmmmm, makes me wonder where I would be in life if I had never met my second wife.

So, now we come down to the nitty gritty of it all; the EPA is going to RAISE the acceptable limits of residual glyphosate on most of the foods that humans consume.  Yes, it's true, despite the overwhelming evidence that glyphosate is WAY WAY WAY more toxic to the human system than ever thought possible.  Dr Swanson, shows specific evidence of toxicity.  (Swanson)  And Scientific American has this article about how toxic Roundup is to human cells  (Scientific American)  And the consumer hero Seralini tells us that Roundup and GMO's themselves need to be BANNED (Seralini)   Roundup is conclusively shown to cause non Hodgkins Lymphoma and leukemia (Glyphosate)  And of course the big one is the study shown that large scale usage of herbicides like Roundup are unsafe for the environment and is causing irreparable damage (Roundup Environment)    A billion pounds of Roundup are applied to farms every year in the US alone.  And the problem of course is that nature does what it does, and those weeds that are not killed by the outright application of glyphosate live and breed weeds that have resistance to the chemical, just the same way that bacteria have developed resistance to antibiotics.  It is called natural selection, and it is taught to EVERY single student in the US and most countries of the world.  It is a pretty simple and basic concept of science, yet all of the scientists and corporate bigwigs at Monsanto and other genetech agribusiness companies want us to believe is not happening in the environment.  Yet, they have pressured the EPA to raise the levels of glyphosate toxin in our foods so that farmers can spray ever greater quantities of the poison onto their farmlands in an attempt to combat the growing resistance of weeds to that very chemical.  And the EPA is completely ignoring the evidence that the runoff from farm usage of glyphosate is poisoning the local environments by destroying aquatic systems all over the country as well as causing huge increases in cancers and other health problems to AmeriKans.

We know who controls the EPA now don't we.

The Environmental Protection Agency I thought was established to insure that we citizens could live in a country that was protected from poisons and toxins added to our environment.  It does not seem to be that easy though now does it.  Normal US citizens don't have the resources, money, or method to get those resources, money, into the hands of those that make decisions, nor do they even understand that they NEED to do such a thing.  Most AmeriKans actually believe that the EPA is there to protect their interests as citizens, not protect and further the interests of big businesses.  Mushroom people, that is exactly how the populace is treated by the industrial agribusiness controlled political system in AmeriKa.  Mushrooms, kept in the dark and fed shit.  Lies, shit.  The EPA is basing the decision to increase glyphosate residues on foods for human consumption on research from Monsanto, one of the largest manufacturers of glyphosate in the world.  The research from Monsanto is in direct controversy to research from independent labs and researchers all over the world.  Research that has no direct connection to the money made from the manufacture and sale of the poisonous chemical that Monsanto wants, no, NEEDS to sell more of to further the lies that they tell farmers all over the world about how Genetically Modified crops are the only things standing between profit and world starvation.

If you go to the EPA website, (HERE)  they give a huge list of things that you, as a citizen, can do to help in the fight against pollution in your community.  A HUGE list.  How do we, as citizens, fight the actions of the EPA to protect ourselves?  That is not on the list.

It should be.