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FDA Approves Irradiated Food Again
By my.dragons.lady (August 23, 2008)
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As if too many problems aren't already resulting from soil deficiencies, the FDA has given its blessing to kill the remainder of nutrients in certain foods so we can pay for more garbage, eat more garbage and be thankful for the business opportunities that presents.
What business opportunities? How about splitting wheat germ for example. The best part goes to supplements and another good part goes to animal feed. What's left over goes to humans who then spend extra $ for whole wheat or, prompted by illness or common sense, a wheat germ supplement. So while most of us pay for part of a product, a relative handful of consumers pay a lot more to get back what was removed.
This is in addition to being stressed with health problems missing nutrients lead to, particularly metabolic disorders like diabetes and thyroiditis for which the symptoms are currently passing in media advertisements as mental illness. Most people with medical insurance suffer in the form of increasing medical premiums and decreasing benefits. All taxpayers foot the bill for many who don't have insurance.
What a scam! It has been common knowledge for decades among orthomolecular scientists and doctors and their patients as well, that a lot of mental illness is treated with thyroid medication and an appropriate combination of B vitamins because mental illness is most often traced back to deficiencies of minerals, vitamins, sun and polluted environments. I am one.
The most mentally ill thing going right now is us allowing businesses to feed us crap and we continue to eat it. There's a VERY good reason why organic foods are in most baby food sections now. That is because baby vitamins don't cut it anymore.
Now what's coming back around because it didn't pass scrutiny in the past, is the FDA helping to expand business opportunities from even more poor nutrition. Comparatively, irradiating foods is like using Round Up to kill a few errant weeds. Minimal research shows how nearly anything humans handle have a certain amount of ecoli in or on them because of how we are. Not just food, but everything we touch. Should everything be irradiated then and how feasible or even sensible is that? Or maybe we can just wash hands well, practice better personal hygiene and coexist with ecoli as we have been.
Ecoli would also be less a concern if our soil was better fed, so it could offer more nutrients in our food, so by the time we eat it we're really getting what nature intended us to have which naturally fights off things like ecoli.
And, if something's going to be added or done to the food we eat, ecoli bacteria can be dealt with effectively without damaging nutrients in food. Why not H202 for example?
Succumbing to eating garbage throughout our lives really does become a garbage-in- garbage-out cycle. We can't feign surprise anymore.
FDA approves zapping spinach, lettuce to kill E.coli
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By Mike Hughlett | Tribune reporter 6:46 PM CDT, August 21, 2008
Food safety experts generally say that zapping spinach and lettuce with a tiny shot of radiation is the best way to vanquish deadly outbreaks of E.coli. It's safe, too, they say and the federal government officially agreed Thursday, allowing so-called irradiation of our leading leafy greens.
But whether irradiation takes hold is in the hands of consumers, and they've shown resistance to a process whose very name has a glow-in-the-dark ring to it. Federal regulators years ago declared irradiation of red meat as safe, but beef producers have hardly flocked to the technology.
Irradiation can require food producers to sink several million dollars into new equipment, or pay others to zap their wares. Those investments will produce little return if consumers won't buy food they know is irradiated.
"There is still a big consumer concern about irradiated products and I think that is the single biggest issue," said Martin Cole, head of the National Center for Food Safety and Technology at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
However, "the scientific community looks at it safety wise as that there's nothing wrong with it at all."
The Food and Drug Administration's irradiation action is aimed at forestalling outbreaks of E.coli in fresh produce like the one that swept through spinach in 2006, killing three people and sickening nearly 200. And irradiation technology has now advanced enough that it won't leave greens limp, food safety experts say.
The FDA ruling is based on a petition in the late 1990s from the Grocery Manufacturers Association, a trade group. Robert Brackett, an association senior vice president, heralded the decision for advancing food safety.
But Brackett acknowledged irradiation should increase production costs, adding up to 5 cents per pound of bagged salad. "It's going to be a business decision as to whether [producers] use it or not."
Irradiation will be used primarily for bagged spinach and lettuce. Those bags must sport labels denoting irradiation and display the "radura," the international symbol for radiation.
In the case of spinach and lettuce, irradiation is aimed at destroying the DNA of E.coli and salmonella, two well-known instigators of food-borne illness. To be irradiated, food is packed into containers and moved by a conveyor belt into a shielded room. There, it's hit by gamma rays or electron beams.
Either method is the safety equivalent of a person walking through an X-Ray detector at an airport, said Michael Doyle, head of the University of Georgia's Center for Food Safety. "It is a safe process. You are not going to glow in the dark." The problem is, people often perceive the latter.
Taking a lunch break Thursday at the Sweet Tomatoes salad buffet in Schaumburg, Krista Evans' eyes widened at the thought of irradiated lettuce. "That doesn't sound safe," said Evans, 27, of Lake Zurich. Her friend, Dandy Tomczyk, of West Chicago agreed: "I think of radiation and I think of cancer," she said.
Acceptance of irradiated food would get a boost if it didn't have to be labeled as such, Doyle said. There's a food industry proposal before the FDA to do just that, allowing processors to use the broad term "pasteurized" for several processes that kill pathogens, including irradiation.
The idea is "to get people to focus on what a [pasteurization] process does, rather than how it does it," said Brackett.
But Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said changing irradiation labeling rules would confuse consumers. "We really think the manufacturers just want to hide the process from the public."
The Center for Science in the Public Interest is often at loggerheads with the FDA, but it agrees with the agency's findings on irradiation safety. Smith DeWaal, though, said irradiation is not a "silver bullet" for produce, since it doesn't kill virus-borne food illnesses.
And she said she thinks the produce industry won't adopt it en masse. "It hasn't been a commercial success in the beef industry, and I don't expect that it will be anymore so here."
Irradiation of beef has been allowed since 2000. Yet only about 15 million pounds of the roughly 8 billion pounds of beef processed annually is irradiated, said Dennis Olson, an Iowa State University meat scientist and irradiation expert.
The beef industry liked the concept but didn't want to promote irradiation because of consumer concerns, he said. Olson's old employer and one of the biggest irradiation providers, SureBeam, did much of the marketing to grocery stores.
But SureBeam couldn't generate sales to cover its investment and went bankrupt in 2004. Since then, beef producers have developed other methods to fend off pathogens, largely leaving irradiation behind, Olson said.
Tribune reporter Vikki Ortiz contributed to this story.
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Obama picks Biden
By Sytrohs87 (August 23, 2008)
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WHY GOD, WHY??? *weeps silently*
(CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama has picked Delaware Sen. Joe Biden to be his running mate, two Democratic sources tell CNN.
News of Biden's selection came after word that three Democrats who had been considered contenders, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, had been ruled out. The two Democratic sources who told CNN that Obama had chosen Biden spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The Obama campaign says it plans to announce his vice presidential running mate in a text message Saturday morning. Obama was then expected to appear with his vice-presidential choice at an afternoon rally in Springfield, Illinois.
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Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, brings years of experience that could help counter GOP arguments that an Obama administration would be inexperienced on foreign policy.
Sen. John McCain's campaign quickly reacted to word that Biden would be Obama's running mate with a dig at Obama's foreign policy credentials.
"There has been no harsher critic of Barack Obama's lack of experience than Joe Biden," McCain campaign spokesman Ben Porritt said in a written statement.
"Biden has denounced Barack Obama's poor foreign policy judgment and has strongly argued in his own words what Americans are quickly realizing -- that Barack Obama is not ready to be president."
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Biden will make his first big speech as the vice-presidential candidate on Wednesday, August 27 -- the third night of the Democratic convention.
Article
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Biden? Seriously? Who picks Biden?.. though I guess the dems do have a history when it comes to picking questionable running mates...
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They caught big foot!!!
By Drogdar (August 14, 2008)
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I just saw it on the news, they caught a real "big foot".
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(CNN) -- A policeman and a former corrections officer say that on Friday, they will unveil evidence of what they claim is their biggest capture ever: the body of Bigfoot.
The thawed body of a creature reputed to be Bigfoot reportedly weighs more than 500 pounds.
Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, a pair of Bigfoot-hunting hobbyists from north Georgia, say they found the creature's body in a wooded area and spotted several similar creatures that were still alive.
The carcass of the furry half-man, half-ape is 7 feet, 7 inches tall and weighs more than 500 pounds, they say. However, the two are not disclosing the exact location of their discovery in order to protect the remaining creatures.
Tom Nelson, chairman of the biology department at North Georgia College and State University in Dahlonega, said he's "pretty skeptical" the world will feast its eyes on a new species Friday.
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Link here:http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/08/14/big...ody/index.html
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Invisibility Cloak? Not yet, but close.
By foxyphoenix (August 10, 2008)
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http://www.livescience.com/technolog...ng-device.html
NEW MATERIAL COULD MAKE OBJECTS INVISIBLE
By Robert Roy Britt LiveScience Managing Editor
posted: 10 August 2008 02:19 pm ET
Scientists have taken another step toward the goal of rendering objects invisible using high-tech cloaks that redirect light.
Researchers for the first time demonstrated that a new material can bend visible light the wrong way in three dimensional tests. It builds on research that cloaks objects in the microwave wavelength.
The research, announced today, will be detailed later this week in the journals Nature and Science.
The metamaterial, as it is called, produces what's known as negative refraction of visible light. That means light is made to travel in the opposite direction from how it normally should bend when passing through a material. A common example is how a pencil will appear to bend upward when half-submerged in a glass of water. In the new work, researchers make the light appear to bend the other way.
Metamaterials are artificially engineered structures that have "extraordinary optical properties that do not exist in nature," the researchers write in Science. "They can alter the propagation of electromagnetic waves, resulting in negative refraction, subwavelength imaging and cloaking."
Visible light is just one type of electromagnetic radiation, a spectrum that includes everything from radio waves to X-rays and more.
Until now, the effectiveness of the cloaking has been demonstrated only in thin, two-dimensional materials.
Now at a National Science Foundation lab at the University of California, Berkeley, Jason Valentine, Jie Yao, Xiang Zhang and others have create a multilayered, "fishnet structure" that "unambiguously exhibits negative refractive index," they write.
"This straightforward and elegant demonstration enhances our ability to mould and harness light at will," according to a statement from the journal Nature.
Other research has looked into using plasmons — tiny electronic excitations on the surfaces of some metals — to cancel out the visible light or other radiation coming from an object and effectively cloak it.
Sci-fi fans know that cloaking technology made Romulan spaceships disappear in Star Trek. Among the real applications pondered for the future of real-world cloaking technology: stealth military devices and new medical techniques.
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ISSAC HAYES DIES
By Bamcubz (August 10, 2008)
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Singer, songwriter Isaac Hayes dies at age 65
Isaac Hayes, the pioneering singer, songwriter and musician whose relentless "Theme From Shaft" won Academy and Grammy awards, died Sunday afternoon, the Shelby County Sheriff's Office said. He was 65.
A family member found him unresponsive near a treadmill and he was pronounced dead an hour later at Baptist East Hospital in Memphis, according to the sheriff's office. The cause of death was not immediately known.
In the early 1970s, Hayes laid the groundwork for disco, for what became known as urban-contemporary music and for romantic crooners like Barry White. And he was rapping before there was rap.
His career hit another high in 1997 when he became the voice of Chef, the sensible school cook and devoted ladies man on the animated TV show "South Park."
Steve Shular, a spokesman for the sheriff's office, said authorities received a 911 call after Hayes' wife and young son and his wife's cousin returned home from the grocery store and found him collapsed in a downstairs bedroom. A sheriff's deputy administered CPR until paramedics arrived.
"The treadmill was running but he was unresponsive lying on the floor," Shular said.
The album "Hot Buttered Soul" made Hayes a star in 1969. His shaven head, gold chains and sunglasses gave him a compelling visual image.
"Hot Buttered Soul" was groundbreaking in several ways: He sang in a "cool" style unlike the usual histrionics of big-time soul singers. He prefaced the song with "raps," and the numbers ran longer than three minutes with lush arrangements.
"Jocks would play it at night," Hayes recalled in a 1999 Associated Press interview. "They could go to the bathroom, they could get a sandwich, or whatever."
Next came "Theme From Shaft," a No. 1 hit in 1971 from the film "Shaft" starring Richard Roundtree.
"That was like the shot heard round the world," Hayes said in the 1999 interview.
At the Oscar ceremony in 1972, Hayes performed the song wearing an eye-popping amount of gold and received a standing ovation. TV Guide later chose it as No. 18 in its list of television's 25 most memorable moments. He won an Academy Award for the song and was nominated for another one for the score. The song and score also won him two Grammys.
"The rappers have gone in and created a lot of hit music based upon my influence," he said. "And they'll tell you if you ask."
Hayes was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.
"I knew nothing about the business, or trends and things like that," he said. "I think it was a matter of timing. I didn't know what was unfolding."
A self-taught musician, he was hired in 1964 by Stax Records of Memphis as a backup pianist, working as a session musician for Otis Redding and others. He also played saxophone.
He began writing songs, establishing a songwriting partnership with David Porter, and in the 1960s they wrote such hits for Sam and Dave as "Hold On, I'm Coming" and "Soul Man."
All this led to his recording contract.
In 1972, he won another Grammy for his album "Black Moses" and earned a nickname he reluctantly embraced. Hayes composed film scores for "Tough Guys" and "Truck Turner" besides "Shaft." He also did the song "Two Cool Guys" on the "Beavis and Butt-Head Do America" movie soundtrack in 1996.
Additionally, he was the voice of Nickelodeon's "Nick at Nite" and had radio shows in New York City (1996 to 2002) and then in Memphis.
He was in several movies, including "It Could Happen to You" with Nicolas Cage, "Ninth Street" with Martin Sheen, "Reindeer Games" starring Ben Affleck and the blaxploitation parody "I'm Gonna Git You, Sucka."
In the 1999 interview, Hayes described the South Park cook as "a person that speaks his mind; he's sensitive enough to care for children; he's wise enough to not be put into the 'whack' category like everybody else in town — and he l-o-o-o-o-ves the ladies."
But Hayes angrily quit the show in 2006 after an episode mocked his Scientology religion. "There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins," he said.
Co-creator creators Matt Stone responded that Hayes "has no problem — and he's cashed plenty of checks — with our show making fun of Christians." A subsequent episode of the show seemingly killed off the Chef character.
Hayes was born in 1942 in a tin shack in Covington, Tenn., about 40 miles north of Memphis. He was raised by his maternal grandparents after his mother died and his father took off when he was 1 1/2. The family moved to Memphis when he was 6.
Hayes wanted to be a doctor, but got redirected when he won a talent contest in ninth grade by singing Nat King Cole's "Looking Back."
He held down various low-paying jobs, including shining shoes on the legendary Beale Street in Memphis. He also played gigs in rural Southern juke joints where at times he had to hit the floor because someone began shooting.
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Huge explosions in Toronto
By ablethevoice (August 10, 2008)
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No, it's not a terrorist attack; a propane storage facility exploded. Hope any ASer's in that city are well clear of the chaos.
Quote:
Thousands evacated, traffic halted after massive Toronto explosion
29 minutes ago
TORONTO — Vivid orange balls of fire lit up the early morning sky Sunday as a series of massive explosions at a north Toronto propane facility set off a chaotic scene with terrified residents running from homes damaged by fire and shattered glass.
Police ordered the immediate evacuation of thousands of residents, many of them elderly, within a 1.6-kilometre radius of the Sunrise Propane Industrial Gases in the Keele and Wilson area of northwest Toronto following the 3:50 a.m. blast.
A no-fly zone was ordered above the site of the explosion and the city's busiest highways were ordered shut, snarling traffic for thousands of travellers unable to exit Highways 401 and 400 for kilometres.
Emergency crews were fearful of another explosion as two propane tanks continued to burn more than five hours after the explosion.
Air testing showed initial concern that the fiery blast had turned the air toxic was unfounded, a fire official said.
Witnesses said they were awakened by a thunderous explosion and saw the sky light up in the glow of an enormous fireball before it turned black with billowing smoke.
"It was just a tremendous explosion and blew all the windows out of the house, just blew the house up, and I just managed to get out of there in time," said Robert Helman, who was covered in cuts and bruises as he fled his home.
Some residents said the blast was so forceful they felt their homes rock as though they had been struck by an earthquake. Windows were blown out and flash fires continued to put homes at risk.
Helman said he saw a "huge fireball" and heard "multiple explosions."
As he ran out of his house, a "wave of a heat" followed him.
Ricardo Oliveira, 24, was on the third floor of his house when he received a call from his girlfriend who heard the explosion and was frightened. He told her it was probably just a thunder storm, but then came an unmistakable blast.
"My windows just cracked and they blew out," Oliveira said.
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continued HERE
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Beijing Olympics
By foxyphoenix (August 9, 2008)
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I don't know how we don't have a thread about this yet. I know China is blah blah blah but the games are about the athletes, not the host country.
Current Medals:
U.S. - 102
China - 89
Russia - 57
Great Britain - 44
Australia - 42
Germany - 36
France - 34
Korea - 28
Japan - 25
Ukraine - 21
Cuba - 19
Canada - 17
Belarus - 16
Italy - 16
Netherlands - 16
Brazil - 12
Spain - 12
Kazakhstan - 11
Jamaica - 10
New Zealand - 9
Kenya - 8
Hungary - 8
Poland - 8
Romania - 8
Turkey - 8
Azerbaijan - 7
Denmark - 7
Norway - 7
Armenia - 6
Czech Republic - 6
DPR Korea - 6
Georgia - 6
Slovakia - 6
Uzbekistan - 6
Bulgaria - 5
Ethiopia - 5
Indonesia - 5
Lithuania - 5
Slovenia - 5
Sweden - 5
Switzerland - 5
Argentina - 4
Chinese Taipei - 4
Croatia - 4
Zimbabwe - 4
Austria - 3
Finland - 3
Greece - 3
India - 3
Algeria - 2
Colombia - 2
Estonia - 2
Iran - 2
Ireland - 2
Kyrgyzstan - 2
Latvia - 2
Mexico - 2
Mongolia - 2
Nigeria - 2
Portugal - 2
Serbia - 2
Tajikistan - 2
Thailand - 2
Trinidad and Tobago - 2
Afghanistan - 1
Bahamas - 1
Bahrain - 1
Belgium - 1
Cameroon - 1
Chile - 1
Dominican Republic - 1
Ecuador - 1
Egypt - 1
Israel - 1
Malaysia - 1
Mauritius - 1
Morocco - 1
Panama - 1
Republic of Moldova - 1
Singapore - 1
South Africa - 1
Togo - 1
Tunisia - 1
Vietnam - 1
Venezuela - 1
Total: 836
For detailed results: http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/EN...L0000000.shtml
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US, Iraq close to deal on troop withdrawal
By my.dragons.lady (August 7, 2008)
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From:
Quote:
By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA and ANNE GEARAN, Associated Press Writers
Iraq and the U.S. are near an agreement on all American combat troops leaving Iraq by October 2010, with the last soldiers out three years after that, two Iraqi officials told The Associated Press on Thursday. U.S. officials, however, insisted no dates had been agreed.
The proposed agreement calls for Americans to hand over parts of Baghdad's Green Zone — where the U.S. Embassy is located — to the Iraqis by the end of 2008. It would also remove U.S. forces from Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009, according to the two senior officials, both close to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and familiar with the negotiations.
The officials, who spoke separately on condition of anonymity because the talks are ongoing, said all U.S. combat troops would leave Iraq by October 2010, with the remaining support personnel gone "around 2013." The schedule could be amended if both sides agree — a face-saving escape clause that would extend the presence of U.S. forces if security conditions warrant it.
U.S. acceptance — even tentatively — of a specific timeline would represent a dramatic reversal of American policy in place since the war began in March 2003.
Both Iraqi and American officials agreed that the deal is not final and that a major unresolved issue is the U.S. demand for immunity for U.S. soldiers from prosecution under Iraqi law.
Throughout the conflict, President Bush steadfastly refused to accept any timetable for bringing U.S. troops home. Last month, however, Bush and al-Maliki agreed to set a "general time horizon" for ending the U.S. mission.
Bush's shift to a timeline was seen as a move to speed agreement on a security pact governing the U.S. military presence in Iraq after the U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year.
Iraq's Shiite-led government has been holding firm for some sort of withdrawal schedule — a move the Iraqis said was essential to win parliamentary approval.
The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad declined to comment on details of the talks. Embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo said the negotiations were taking place "in a constructive spirit" based on respect for Iraqi sovereignty.
In Washington, U.S. officials acknowledged that some progress has been made on the timelines for troop withdrawals but that the immunity issue remained a huge problem. One senior U.S. official close to the discussion said no dates have been agreed upon.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations have not been finished.
But the Iraqis insisted the dates had been settled preliminarily between the two sides, although they acknowledged that nothing is final until the entire negotiations have been completed.
One Iraqi official said persuading the Americans to accept a timetable was a "key achievement" of the talks and that the government would seek parliamentary ratification as soon as the deal is signed.
But differences over immunity could scuttle the whole deal, the Iraqis said. One of the officials described immunity as a "minefield" and said each side was sticking by its position.
One official said U.S. negotiator David Satterfield told him that immunity for soldiers was a "red line" for the United States. The official said he replied that issue was "a red line for us too."
The official said the Iraqis were willing to grant immunity for actions committed on American bases and during combat operations — but not a blanket exemption from Iraqi law.
The Iraqis also want American forces hand over any Iraqi they detain. The U.S. insists that detainees must be "ready" for handover, which the Iraqi officials assume means the Americans want to interrogate them first.
As the talks drag on, American officials said the Bush administration is losing patience with the Iraqis over the negotiations, which both sides had hoped to wrap up by the end of July.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and al-Maliki had a long and "very difficult" phone conversation about the situation on Wednesday during which she pressed the Iraqi leader for more flexibility particularly on immunity, one U.S. senior official said.
"The sovereignty issue is very big for the Iraqis and we understand that. But we are losing patience," the official said. "The process needs to get moving and get moving quickly."
The official could not say how long the call lasted but said it was "not brief" and "tense at times."
In London, Britain's defense ministry said it is also in talks with Iraq's government over the role of British troops after the U.N. mandate runs out. Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently said that early next year Britain will reduce its troops in Iraq, now at about 4,100, and that Britain's role in the country will change fundamentally.
Iraq's position in the U.S. talks hardened after a series of Iraqi military successes against Shiite and Sunni extremists in Basra, Baghdad, Mosul and other major cities and after the rise in world oil prices flooded the country with petrodollars.
As the government's confidence rose, Iraqi officials believed they were in a strong negotiating position — especially with the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, pledging to remove all combat forces within his first 16 months in office if security conditions allow.
Standing firm against the Americans also enhances al-Maliki's nationalist credentials, enabling him to appeal for support from Iraqis long opposed to the U.S. presence.
On Thursday, a spokesman for Muqtada al-Sadr said the Shiite cleric will call on his fighters to maintain a cease-fire against American troops — but may lift the order if the security agreement fails to contain a timetable for a U.S. withdrawal.
The statement by Sheik Salah al-Obeidi came as al-Sadr planned to spell out details of a formula to reorganize his Mahdi Army militia by separating it into an unarmed cultural organization and elite fighting cells.
The announcement is expected during weekly Islamic prayer services on Friday.
"This move is meant to offer an incentive for the foreign forces to withdraw," al-Obeidi said. "The special cells of fighters will not strike against foreign forces until the situation becomes clear vis-a-vis the Iraq-U.S. agreement on the presence of American forces here."
Several cease-fires by al-Sadr have been key to a sharp decline in violence over the past year. But American officials still consider his militiamen a threat and have backed the Iraqi military in operations to try to oust them from their power bases in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq.
___
Gearan and Matthew Lee contributed to this report from Washington, Robert H. Reid from Baghdad. (This version CORRECTS Corrects spelling of US Embassy spokeswoman from Nangtongo to Nantongo.)
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This is too little too late, in my opinion and here's why I say so. From:
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Why I Oppose the US War on Terror:
an ex-Marine Sergeant Speaks Out
by CHRIS WHITE
The more I juxtapose logical world opinion with the Bush administration's actions in the war on terror, I realize one overwhelming theme: hypocrisy. No one in any of the branches of government runs a physical risk to themselves by entering a war with Iraq, and we can bet that none of their family members are at risk, either. That is, until the next "terrorist" attack. I put "terrorist" in quotes because its definition is subjective, and I myself used to be in the Marine Corps, part of the most powerful "terrorist" organization on the planet: the U.S. government. Of course, we never call our operations "terrorism" because every operation is considered legitimate to us. When found guilty by the World Court for violence in Nicaragua, we ignore the decision. Too bad the nations we hurt can't just ignore what we do to them. When the planet condemns us for killing between 2,500-4,000 people in Panama, we're too busy planning the next invasion of a country that can't fight back.
I oppose this war as a U.S. citizen, a veteran, and a doctoral student in history. While my military experience is what first made me skeptical about our government's motives in the developing world, it wasn't until I went to college and began reading hundreds of books and thousands of articles that I was able to truly grasp the profundity of our leadership's contempt for the freedoms they claim to protect. As a rule, we have worked hard to prevent the rise of democracy in the developing world, all the while claiming legitimacy as "the world's police force" because of our so-called "democratic" values. The hypocrisy is astounding. When one investigates our complicity in death squads, torture, massacres, rape, and mass destruction, one realizes that freedom often threatens the current power structure in this country.
I used to consider those incidents as anomalistic in comparison to the "protection" we offered the planet at seemingly no charge. But then I joined the Marines, and I realized why I had believed in the government: they were experts in manipulation. Barely out of high school, the Corps broke us down and built us up in order to shape us into machines, willing to defend the ideals of the power elites in Washington and corporate America. Just look at the companies, which are funding political campaigns, and benefiting from war: weapons producers, technologies, food, clothing, munitions, oil, pharmaceuticals, etc U.S. interventions since WWII have not been done in the name of the world's people (although that is always the claim), but for the preservation of concentrated power. The fact that they have been carried out against the tenets of international law (i.e. the rights of non-intervention and self-determination), in itself deflates their validity. If the U.S. government were held to the FBI's official definition of terrorism ("the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives"), their list of victims since WWII alone would include:Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama, Mexico, Chile, Granada, Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela, Uruguay, Paraguay, Ecuador, Zaire, Namibia, Lebanon, Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, Bangladesh, Iran, South Africa, the Philippines, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Iraq, Cambodia, Libya, Israel, Palestine, China, Afghanistan, Sudan, Indonesia, East Timor, Turkey, Angola, and Somalia. In boot camp, deceit and manipulation accompany the necessity to motivate troops to murder on command. You can't take civilians from the street, give them machine guns, and expect them to kill without question in a democratic society; therefore people must be indoctrinated to do so. This fact alone should sound off alarms in our collective American brain. If the cause of war is justified, then why do we have to be put through boot camp? If you answer that we have to be trained in killing skills, well, then why is most of boot camp not focused on combat training? Why are privates shown videos of U.S. military massacres while playing Metallica in the background, thus causing us to scream with the joy of the killer instinct as brown bodies are obliterated? Why do privates answer every command with an enthusiastic, "kill!!" instead of, "yes, sir!!" like it is in the movies? Why do we sing cadences like these?:
"Throw some candy in the school yard, watch the children gather round. Load a belt in your M-60, mow them little bastards down!!" and "We're gonna rape, kill, pillage and burn, gonna rape, kill, pillage and burn!!"
These chants are meant to motivate the troops; they enjoy it, salivate from it, and get off on it. If one repeats these hundreds of times, one eventually begins to accept them as paradigmatically valid.
The demonization of the enemy is crucial to wartime planners, and the above examples of motivation techniques are relevant to the present. Before carrying out a security exercise in Qatar, my unit went through Muslim "indoctrination" classes. The level of racism was unbelievable. Muslims were referred to as "Ahmed," "towlheads," "ragheads," and "terrorists." We were told that most Muslim males were homosexual, and that their hygiene was so primitive that we shouldn't even shake their hands. The object was demonization through feminization and dehumanization, so as to make it easier for us to pull the trigger when ordered to. But Qatar is our ally, so imagine the language being used today in these indoctrination courses about Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Iraqi population has suffered countless U.S. supported atrocities over the past eleven years. Not only were between 100 and 200 thousand people killed in 1991, but the bombing has continued ever since then, and sanctions have led to the deaths of possibly 1 million people, in a nation of 17 million. Former UNSCOM execs assert that they destroyed 95-98 percent of Saddam's weapons by 1998, and that a nuclear weapons capability is extremely unlikely due to their devastated economy. According to this morning's New York Times, the U.S. reasons that Saddam's gassing of his own people and his hatred of the U.S. are what warrant our harder stance toward Iraq in comparison to North Korea. While we pursue diplomacy with North Korea (which has admitted to having nukes), we prefer to invade Iraq, who we claim is only looking for nukes. Have we forgotten the 1994 Congressional report revealing that we supplied Saddam with biological and chemical weapons during the 1980s? Although U.S. casualties will be lower than that of Iraq, let's not forget the danger we are placing squarely on the shoulders of U.S. troops, who have been indoctrinated as I was. Funny how the people who are least likely to go to war are the ones working the hardest to convince others to fight it for them.
Chris White is an ex-Marine and current doctoral student in history at the University of Kansas, Lawrence.
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Where's Caylee?
By Demonica (August 7, 2008)
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Source
Caylee Anthony
I'm surprised no one has posted this yet. This story has been in the headlines for a few weeks now.
The story itself is just shocking. Caylee Anthony was reported missing July 15, 31 days after she was last seen. Surprisingly, it was not the mother who reported her missing, rather her grandparents.
Casey Anthony (the mother) was turned in by her own mother. Casey Anthony failed to cooperate with her parents, and on several occasions made excuses as to why the grandparents could not see their grandchild.
Several people in the Orlando area (as the article says) are frustrated because the child hasn't been found, and infuriated that the mother has presented herself in a nonchalant light.
Not only are the Orlando natives infuriated, I'm upset about this as well. After giving birth to my daughter, I just couldn't imagine life without her. The second she disappeared, I would call the cops!
What's wrong with people?
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14 Comments Last:
Last comment was by Demonica
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 Graffiti
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:: churn baby churn
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:: i make my own butter
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:: double butter on mine plz
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:: oh okay, i'll get the popcorn
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:: teh movie!
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:: what's starting ?
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:: sshh, it's starting
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:: i'd like a regular margarita please
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:: fail
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:: hell yes and i'll bring the bottle of coke
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:: and a bottle of rum
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:: hohohoho
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:: hohohoho
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:: lol 36 dd
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:: goddessdivine has large boobs
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:: erf
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:: boobs are better than balls
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:: you're right but either way he is a sorry excuse
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:: not having balls shouldn't be held against a person. i have no balls.
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:: you have no balls sorry excuse for a male
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:: mah g/f cleans mah balls. unless you want to? but you hafta do a good job,
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:: said the chicken
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:: cluck cluck
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:: you are a chicken
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:: you sure are pre-occupied with your balls - no g/f i guess
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:: baaaaallllsssss
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:: okay guys im tired of that - stop being so childish
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:: please suckle on mah balls
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:: ...eunuch.
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:: lovely singing voice...eunich.
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:: make u a eunuchs and you wont have that problem
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:: it's hot and my balls are sweaty...cleaning time for you know who
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:: its hot down here
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:: booptee, booptee, booptee!
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:: enough already
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:: shut up already, cartman
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:: right. no-one give a damn about your balls, what a poor excuse for a male you ar
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:: why do you need to be so nasty on here, grow up already
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:: amersand, why dont you clean my balls?
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:: all hail ampersand &&&
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