http://www.isil.org/resources/philosophy-of-liberty-index.html
of natural living to not pursue greed freedom of life is giving leaving man and woman to govern ourselves and not be governed by societies parameters by for fellow americans to build a natural society based respect love and non violence plus sharing then we will see a decline in homeless ness crime hunger poverty and greed.
Delete
natural living is respect for earth and its inhabitants this is freedom
Delete
Uhuru Imane wrote
to live for each others well being is true freedom and liberty
Delete
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Hey mom its cool to smoke pot here the proof.
International authorities consider another attack on the hydroponic industry, while stakeholders try to eliminate any weedy connections
In 1989, the US Drug Enforcement Agency tried to destroy the indoor gardening industry, asserting it was nothing more than a "sleazy front" for marijuana growers.
If DEA agents had done their homework before they staged the massive raids known as Operation Green Merchant, they would find that people gardened hydroponically a long time before police and mainstream media began cleverly linking the word hydroponics with phrases like "grow op," "marijuana manufacturing," "organized crime," and "drug laboratory."
Hydroponics has history: two millennia ago, Roman-Greek researchers manipulated crop growth using plant nutrition experiments. In Central America before Europeans arrived, the Aztecs grew vegetables, trees, and flowers on artificial hydroponic islands in Lake Tenochitatlan. In the 1650's, European hydroponicists learned how to grow plants in enhanced nutrient solutions.
In 1792, Europeans discovered how plants make oxygen from carbon dioxide, and created the world's first C02 augmentation chambers.
Before 1924, hydroponics was called nutriculture, chemiculture and aquaculture.
In 1924, Dr. William F. Gericke of the University of California, often referred to as "the father of modern hydroponics," created the word 'hydroponics' to describe growing crops in non-soil media and nutrient-enriched water indoors and outdoors.
The green-thumbed professor grew hydroponic fruits, veggies, root crops, ornamentals and flowers. His tomato plants attained heights of 25 feet, producing tomatoes the size of grapefruits!
During World War II, the US and British militaries used hydroponics to grow hundreds of thousands of tons of food for soldiers in remote locations where conventional farming was impossible.
After World War II, the military continued to use this method. For example, the American army grew eight million pounds of fresh hydroponic produce in 1952, most of it in Japan.
By the 1960's, hydroponic agriculture had become a major industry worldwide, especially in parts of the US such as Florida, California, Hawaii, and Arizona, and in Russia, France, South Africa, the Middle East, Holland, Japan, Australia and Germany.
A recent Australian government report estimates that 65,000 acres of high-intensity legal hydroponic production exists worldwide, with a value of six to eight billion US dollars per year.
Analysts cited in the Aussie report say global warming, desertification, water shortages, oil shortages, and globalization are making hydroponics increasingly important. The report notes that the industry has achieved phenomenal financial and technological success in a relatively short time, and that its value has a faster doubling time than almost any other agricultural economy.
Unintended Consequences
The War on Drugs helped make the hydroponics industry, and cannabis, what they are today. The industry, already a diversified agricultural sector earning billion of dollars a year legally, gained a new set of customers beginning about 25 years ago when the drug war forced pot growers to turn to indoor hydroponics.
Before President Richard Nixon created the DEA in the early 1970's, virtually all marijuana consumed in the US was grown outdoors in Mexico, Jamaica, Indonesia, and South America.
Imported marijuana was seedy, bricked, and stemmy. Some of it was kick-ass weed. Most was mediocre, but only cost $20 an ounce.
When the DEA moved aggressively to interdict foreign weed smuggling routes in the late 1970's, marijuana consumers started growing domestic herb, especially in California's Emerald Triangle, in Oregon, Hawaii, and in East Coast states such as Kentucky.
During Jimmy Carter's presidency, the US government encouraged Mexico to spray poison on marijuana destined for the US market. When Americans got sick smoking toxified Mexican weed, the US growing industry took up the slack, producing healthy weed that didn't need to be smuggled across borders.
Stricter law enforcement and increased eradication of outdoor gardens caused growers to move indoors and develop better growing techniques.
Outdoor cannabotanists had already created the sinsemilla method, which increases dry weight yield and overall potency by preventing female flowers from being pollinated and bearing seed. In the Reagan era of the 1980's, the DEA snagged more and more indoor gardens, forcing growers to cultivate stronger pot in smaller spaces.
Their desire to create resinous, quickmaturing marijuana led to innovations in legal hydroponics techniques. In turn, modernization of legal hydroponics led to new methods for marijuana growers.
Cloning, trellising, use of plant hormones, the "sea of green" grow method � all were perfected by adapting techniques found in the legal hydroponic industry.
As eradication efforts and penalties increased, the supply of cannabis decreased while demand went sky high � making growing fabulously profitable. What was once $20 an ounce was now $200!
Today, with more people growing all kinds of plants hydroponically, cultivation information is available via books, magazines and websites. Upscale gardening magazines such as Growing Edge and Maximum Yield are well-presented hydro-zines, but deliberately and totally avoid any inclusion of marijuana, preferring technical articles about growing cucumbers, tomatoes, and other legal crops.
Their tips can be useful to cannabotanists, but most pot growers find the marijuana-specific magazines like Cannabis Culture more practical; they also like the fact that marijuana-based magazines also have pro-pot cultural context.
Cannabis helps grow new brain cells and reduce inflammation
Cannabis helps protect the brain
A daily puff of a compound like marijuana, the plant blamed for ruining potheads' recall, might help maintain memory in old age, researchers who tried it on rats reported today at a neuroscience meeting. Elderly rats remembered their way around a swimming pool and could find hidden resting spots after Yannick Marchalant and his colleagues at Ohio State University gave them a compound that mimics the effect of marijuana on the brain's cannabis receptors.
The marijuana-like drug, known as WIN-55212-2, spurred new brain cell growth and reduced inflammation, the researchers said. Inflammation in the brain may be linked to the development or progression of Alzheimer's, a progressive disease that destroys brain cells, disrupting the memory and cognitive capacity of some 4.5 million Americans, some scientists believe.
Marchalant and his colleagues have been hunting for drugs to reduce inflammation. "We used a low dose because we didn't want to give them a drug that tried to save their memory while we're also causing psychoactive effects," Marchalant said in a telephone interview yesterday. "The dosage of WIN would be like giving one puff a day and not a whole joint."
Marchalant and his team reported their results today at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington, D.C. In the study, they first caused inflammation in the brains of young rats, which they could measure by looking at the activity of anti-inflammatory cells. Then they injected rats with WIN and saw that it reduced the activity of the inflammation-fighting cells.
Old Rats Quicker
With the older rats, they didn't need to induce inflammation because it was already present. They injected some of the old rats with WIN and had them spend time in a swimming tank. It turned out that the rats who got hits of WIN found the hidden resting places much quicker than those who didn't. Later, the researchers dissected the rats' brains and found a reduction in inflammation and evidence that new brain cells had sprouted.
While marijuana might also promote the growth of new brain cells, it doesn't have WIN's ability to block another brain receptor that appears to cause inflammation, a key difference between the two compounds, Marchalant said. Too much pot also would overstimulate the cannabis receptors, he said. "That's what everyone is trying to avoid," Marchalant said. "If you overstimulate, you'll have a detrimental effect on memory."
Heavy Marijuana Use Hurts
The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse says heavy marijuana smoking damages short-term recall and hastens age-related destruction of neurons in the brain's hippocampus responsible for memory, according to the agency's Web site. WIN isn't a perfect compound, Marchalant said. Now that researchers know the effects on the brain they're trying to produce, and the receptors they're trying to influence, they can search for a better compound, he said.
Smoking pot, or taking WIN, once the memory loss of Alzheimer's had already begun, wouldn't help, Marchalant said. "It's too late," he said. "Patients who have been diagnosed have already lost neurons." A preventive strategy would need to start years earlier, he said.
In 1989, the US Drug Enforcement Agency tried to destroy the indoor gardening industry, asserting it was nothing more than a "sleazy front" for marijuana growers.
If DEA agents had done their homework before they staged the massive raids known as Operation Green Merchant, they would find that people gardened hydroponically a long time before police and mainstream media began cleverly linking the word hydroponics with phrases like "grow op," "marijuana manufacturing," "organized crime," and "drug laboratory."
Hydroponics has history: two millennia ago, Roman-Greek researchers manipulated crop growth using plant nutrition experiments. In Central America before Europeans arrived, the Aztecs grew vegetables, trees, and flowers on artificial hydroponic islands in Lake Tenochitatlan. In the 1650's, European hydroponicists learned how to grow plants in enhanced nutrient solutions.
In 1792, Europeans discovered how plants make oxygen from carbon dioxide, and created the world's first C02 augmentation chambers.
Before 1924, hydroponics was called nutriculture, chemiculture and aquaculture.
In 1924, Dr. William F. Gericke of the University of California, often referred to as "the father of modern hydroponics," created the word 'hydroponics' to describe growing crops in non-soil media and nutrient-enriched water indoors and outdoors.
The green-thumbed professor grew hydroponic fruits, veggies, root crops, ornamentals and flowers. His tomato plants attained heights of 25 feet, producing tomatoes the size of grapefruits!
During World War II, the US and British militaries used hydroponics to grow hundreds of thousands of tons of food for soldiers in remote locations where conventional farming was impossible.
After World War II, the military continued to use this method. For example, the American army grew eight million pounds of fresh hydroponic produce in 1952, most of it in Japan.
By the 1960's, hydroponic agriculture had become a major industry worldwide, especially in parts of the US such as Florida, California, Hawaii, and Arizona, and in Russia, France, South Africa, the Middle East, Holland, Japan, Australia and Germany.
A recent Australian government report estimates that 65,000 acres of high-intensity legal hydroponic production exists worldwide, with a value of six to eight billion US dollars per year.
Analysts cited in the Aussie report say global warming, desertification, water shortages, oil shortages, and globalization are making hydroponics increasingly important. The report notes that the industry has achieved phenomenal financial and technological success in a relatively short time, and that its value has a faster doubling time than almost any other agricultural economy.
Unintended Consequences
The War on Drugs helped make the hydroponics industry, and cannabis, what they are today. The industry, already a diversified agricultural sector earning billion of dollars a year legally, gained a new set of customers beginning about 25 years ago when the drug war forced pot growers to turn to indoor hydroponics.
Before President Richard Nixon created the DEA in the early 1970's, virtually all marijuana consumed in the US was grown outdoors in Mexico, Jamaica, Indonesia, and South America.
Imported marijuana was seedy, bricked, and stemmy. Some of it was kick-ass weed. Most was mediocre, but only cost $20 an ounce.
When the DEA moved aggressively to interdict foreign weed smuggling routes in the late 1970's, marijuana consumers started growing domestic herb, especially in California's Emerald Triangle, in Oregon, Hawaii, and in East Coast states such as Kentucky.
During Jimmy Carter's presidency, the US government encouraged Mexico to spray poison on marijuana destined for the US market. When Americans got sick smoking toxified Mexican weed, the US growing industry took up the slack, producing healthy weed that didn't need to be smuggled across borders.
Stricter law enforcement and increased eradication of outdoor gardens caused growers to move indoors and develop better growing techniques.
Outdoor cannabotanists had already created the sinsemilla method, which increases dry weight yield and overall potency by preventing female flowers from being pollinated and bearing seed. In the Reagan era of the 1980's, the DEA snagged more and more indoor gardens, forcing growers to cultivate stronger pot in smaller spaces.
Their desire to create resinous, quickmaturing marijuana led to innovations in legal hydroponics techniques. In turn, modernization of legal hydroponics led to new methods for marijuana growers.
Cloning, trellising, use of plant hormones, the "sea of green" grow method � all were perfected by adapting techniques found in the legal hydroponic industry.
As eradication efforts and penalties increased, the supply of cannabis decreased while demand went sky high � making growing fabulously profitable. What was once $20 an ounce was now $200!
Today, with more people growing all kinds of plants hydroponically, cultivation information is available via books, magazines and websites. Upscale gardening magazines such as Growing Edge and Maximum Yield are well-presented hydro-zines, but deliberately and totally avoid any inclusion of marijuana, preferring technical articles about growing cucumbers, tomatoes, and other legal crops.
Their tips can be useful to cannabotanists, but most pot growers find the marijuana-specific magazines like Cannabis Culture more practical; they also like the fact that marijuana-based magazines also have pro-pot cultural context.
Cannabis helps grow new brain cells and reduce inflammation
Cannabis helps protect the brain
A daily puff of a compound like marijuana, the plant blamed for ruining potheads' recall, might help maintain memory in old age, researchers who tried it on rats reported today at a neuroscience meeting. Elderly rats remembered their way around a swimming pool and could find hidden resting spots after Yannick Marchalant and his colleagues at Ohio State University gave them a compound that mimics the effect of marijuana on the brain's cannabis receptors.
The marijuana-like drug, known as WIN-55212-2, spurred new brain cell growth and reduced inflammation, the researchers said. Inflammation in the brain may be linked to the development or progression of Alzheimer's, a progressive disease that destroys brain cells, disrupting the memory and cognitive capacity of some 4.5 million Americans, some scientists believe.
Marchalant and his colleagues have been hunting for drugs to reduce inflammation. "We used a low dose because we didn't want to give them a drug that tried to save their memory while we're also causing psychoactive effects," Marchalant said in a telephone interview yesterday. "The dosage of WIN would be like giving one puff a day and not a whole joint."
Marchalant and his team reported their results today at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington, D.C. In the study, they first caused inflammation in the brains of young rats, which they could measure by looking at the activity of anti-inflammatory cells. Then they injected rats with WIN and saw that it reduced the activity of the inflammation-fighting cells.
Old Rats Quicker
With the older rats, they didn't need to induce inflammation because it was already present. They injected some of the old rats with WIN and had them spend time in a swimming tank. It turned out that the rats who got hits of WIN found the hidden resting places much quicker than those who didn't. Later, the researchers dissected the rats' brains and found a reduction in inflammation and evidence that new brain cells had sprouted.
While marijuana might also promote the growth of new brain cells, it doesn't have WIN's ability to block another brain receptor that appears to cause inflammation, a key difference between the two compounds, Marchalant said. Too much pot also would overstimulate the cannabis receptors, he said. "That's what everyone is trying to avoid," Marchalant said. "If you overstimulate, you'll have a detrimental effect on memory."
Heavy Marijuana Use Hurts
The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse says heavy marijuana smoking damages short-term recall and hastens age-related destruction of neurons in the brain's hippocampus responsible for memory, according to the agency's Web site. WIN isn't a perfect compound, Marchalant said. Now that researchers know the effects on the brain they're trying to produce, and the receptors they're trying to influence, they can search for a better compound, he said.
Smoking pot, or taking WIN, once the memory loss of Alzheimer's had already begun, wouldn't help, Marchalant said. "It's too late," he said. "Patients who have been diagnosed have already lost neurons." A preventive strategy would need to start years earlier, he said.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Damn, They Cut Her Legs Off!!
Tabith Mullings went to the Fort Greene hospitals emergency room in pain on Sept. 14. Doctors diagnosed it as a kidney stone, gave her painkillers and sent her home, her lawyer said. After the pain intensified the next day, her fiance rushed her to the hospital. Her infection choked off blood flow to her hands and feet and she lapsed into a semicoma for two weeks. When she awoke, doctors told her they had to amputate.
http://www.forbezdvd.com/index.php
Reply by Twiiin 4 hours ago
omg.. this is horrible.... see that is why you can"t fuckin trust no doctors.. i don"t think i would want to live like this.. no hands, no feet?
▶ Reply to This
Permalink Reply by CALI MACK 4 hours ago
dude. reall talk ithat would be the worst way to have to live. what a loss now,
▶ Reply to This
Permalink Reply by Sion 4 hours ago
what the fuck, i wouldnt be able to live that way!! Damn doctors!
▶ Reply to This
Permalink Reply by What you gonna do behind your keyboard stupid???? HAHA YEH YOU NIGGGA! 4 hours ago
Dammn thats just sad makes you think about things.
▶ Reply to This
Permalink Reply by No Mercy | myspace.com/nomercyharlem | #1 INTERNET CELEBRITY | 646-203-9462 (not on right now) 4 hours ago
damn man that shit is fucked up.....thats why i pray everynight...im grateful for my life and i never wanna have to go thru some shit like that
▶ Reply to This
Permalink Reply by What you gonna do behind your keyboard stupid???? HAHA YEH YOU NIGGGA! 4 hours ago
CO-SIGN to the fullest
I Pray and im dammn sure grateful for everything that goin on in my life My Family's wellbeing everything. some people just dont know how lucky they is
▶ Reply to This
Permalink Reply by justinstunin 4 hours ago
YEA REAL TALK
▶ Reply to This
Permalink Reply by da boi italy... 4 hours ago
thats fucked up...
▶ Reply to This
Permalink Reply by EA5ER1 [BORN ALONE, DIE ALONE] 3 hours ago
SMH
▶ Reply to This
Permalink Reply by Laverne Louis 3 hours ago
LMAO!!!! LMAO!!!! LMAO!!!! LMAO!!!! LMAO!!!! LMAO!!!! LMAO!!!!
▶ Reply to This
Permalink Reply by Laverne Louis 17 minutes ago
This is the funniest thing I've seen in a while.
▶ Reply to This
Permalink Reply by Arkan Namangani 3 hours ago
What's so funny mayne? That's some fucked up shit, God forbid that happen to someone else. With the cost of healthcare in this country and all the years that medical school takes up, you'd think these doctors would be more on top of their shit.
http://www.forbezdvd.com/index.php
Reply by Twiiin 4 hours ago
omg.. this is horrible.... see that is why you can"t fuckin trust no doctors.. i don"t think i would want to live like this.. no hands, no feet?
▶ Reply to This
Permalink Reply by CALI MACK 4 hours ago
dude. reall talk ithat would be the worst way to have to live. what a loss now,
▶ Reply to This
Permalink Reply by Sion 4 hours ago
what the fuck, i wouldnt be able to live that way!! Damn doctors!
▶ Reply to This
Permalink Reply by What you gonna do behind your keyboard stupid???? HAHA YEH YOU NIGGGA! 4 hours ago
Dammn thats just sad makes you think about things.
▶ Reply to This
Permalink Reply by No Mercy | myspace.com/nomercyharlem | #1 INTERNET CELEBRITY | 646-203-9462 (not on right now) 4 hours ago
damn man that shit is fucked up.....thats why i pray everynight...im grateful for my life and i never wanna have to go thru some shit like that
▶ Reply to This
Permalink Reply by What you gonna do behind your keyboard stupid???? HAHA YEH YOU NIGGGA! 4 hours ago
CO-SIGN to the fullest
I Pray and im dammn sure grateful for everything that goin on in my life My Family's wellbeing everything. some people just dont know how lucky they is
▶ Reply to This
Permalink Reply by justinstunin 4 hours ago
YEA REAL TALK
▶ Reply to This
Permalink Reply by da boi italy... 4 hours ago
thats fucked up...
▶ Reply to This
Permalink Reply by EA5ER1 [BORN ALONE, DIE ALONE] 3 hours ago
SMH
▶ Reply to This
Permalink Reply by Laverne Louis 3 hours ago
LMAO!!!! LMAO!!!! LMAO!!!! LMAO!!!! LMAO!!!! LMAO!!!! LMAO!!!!
▶ Reply to This
Permalink Reply by Laverne Louis 17 minutes ago
This is the funniest thing I've seen in a while.
▶ Reply to This
Permalink Reply by Arkan Namangani 3 hours ago
What's so funny mayne? That's some fucked up shit, God forbid that happen to someone else. With the cost of healthcare in this country and all the years that medical school takes up, you'd think these doctors would be more on top of their shit.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Not-so-jolly economy brings woe to Santa's lap
Some of the kids crawling onto Santa Joe's lap this year have more than stuffed animals and video games on their most-wanted lists. Several times already this season, Joe Jackson has been asked to get Daddy a job or Mommy money to buy the house back.
"You see things behind the beard that nobody else will ever see or hear. I've had children just literally tear my heart out," said Jackson, who is pulling on his red suit for a 19th season of playing Santa at private parties and festivals in the northern part of the state.
The slumping economy has families across the nation facing one of their toughest Christmases in years. That means
Other Business Photos
Not-so-jolly economy brings woe to Santa's lap
Santa Claus, the jolly confidante for so many under 10, is hearing more than simple requests for a new Nintendo Wii or Elmo Live.
"Children are very trusting of Santa. They are very open with him. They tell him things they normally wouldn't discuss with other people. And they usually ask Santa to fix things. They know he is someone who can grant wishes," said Timothy Connaghan, of Riverside, Calif., who has played Santa for 40 years and trained more than 1,500 other Santas across the country through his "School 4 Santas."
He coaches aspiring Kris Kringles to remember that a good Santa can't promise a new job or money to make everyone's Christmas dreams come true, "but he can tell them things are always going to get better," Connaghan said.
It's not just children who can use some of Santa's optimism. A Gallup poll earlier this month found consumers are going to spend $150 less this Christmas than last year. The $616 per person was the lowest amount since the research company began asking the question a decade ago.
At Columbia Place Mall in South Carolina, retailers already are trying to fight the trend by handing out thousands of coupon books. And while the traditionally harried shopping season had yet to arrive last week, even that mall's Santa, sitting in his plush chair waiting for the occasional child, had noticed fewer people making purchases.
Lakicha Mansfield strolled past the Old Navy, Zales and video game store without buying anything. As 4-year-old daughter Mahoganie Whitaker told Santa her wishes for a Cinderella doll, Hannah Montana bubbles and balloons, Mansfield said Christmas will be tough because she's been looking for work for nine months.
"I'm going to try to get her what she wants, some way, somehow," the 30-year-old said. "I just hope some money comes in soon. I haven't got her anything yet. I hope someone calls soon."
Meanwhile, Mahoganie chatted with Santa, nodding as she explained that, yes, she ate all her vegetables, cleaned up after herself and was always nice to her mother.
"It's nice to see her up there with him," Mansfield said. "She has no idea what I'm going through."
Santa is getting some heart-wrenching letters at the North Pole, too. Denise Griffitts of Lafayette, La., volunteers for Operation Santa Claus, answering about 250 letters a year from children in her area.
"They're not asking for a Wii or an Xbox. They're asking for personal care items, they're asking for school supplies, they're asking for warm clothing," Griffitts
Other Business Photos
Not-so-jolly economy brings woe to Santa's lap
said.
Connaghan, the Santa trainer, said Santas always want kids to leave their laps happier than when they came.
"Children tend to take on a lot of their parents' worries. They don't always understand what those worries are and sometimes they will embellish them," he said. "All Santas can hope is to say a few words that are going to be optimistic and give children a feeling everything is going to get better."
Jackson said his years around children have given him a sense of when children have something depressing on their minds. He said a bellowed "Ho, ho, ho!" a compliment and patter of questions helps get their minds off darker thoughts.
"Every time a child goes away with a smile, I know I've done something good," he said.
Raymond Jemison beamed when his mom brought him to the mall from kindergarten. Laroya Missouri, 25, of Camden, said she's not going to be able to buy the 5-year-old as much as last year, but she is glad she still has a job and can get him some presents.
"He's the most important thing. I want to make sure he has a good Christmas," she said.
"You see things behind the beard that nobody else will ever see or hear. I've had children just literally tear my heart out," said Jackson, who is pulling on his red suit for a 19th season of playing Santa at private parties and festivals in the northern part of the state.
The slumping economy has families across the nation facing one of their toughest Christmases in years. That means
Other Business Photos
Not-so-jolly economy brings woe to Santa's lap
Santa Claus, the jolly confidante for so many under 10, is hearing more than simple requests for a new Nintendo Wii or Elmo Live.
"Children are very trusting of Santa. They are very open with him. They tell him things they normally wouldn't discuss with other people. And they usually ask Santa to fix things. They know he is someone who can grant wishes," said Timothy Connaghan, of Riverside, Calif., who has played Santa for 40 years and trained more than 1,500 other Santas across the country through his "School 4 Santas."
He coaches aspiring Kris Kringles to remember that a good Santa can't promise a new job or money to make everyone's Christmas dreams come true, "but he can tell them things are always going to get better," Connaghan said.
It's not just children who can use some of Santa's optimism. A Gallup poll earlier this month found consumers are going to spend $150 less this Christmas than last year. The $616 per person was the lowest amount since the research company began asking the question a decade ago.
At Columbia Place Mall in South Carolina, retailers already are trying to fight the trend by handing out thousands of coupon books. And while the traditionally harried shopping season had yet to arrive last week, even that mall's Santa, sitting in his plush chair waiting for the occasional child, had noticed fewer people making purchases.
Lakicha Mansfield strolled past the Old Navy, Zales and video game store without buying anything. As 4-year-old daughter Mahoganie Whitaker told Santa her wishes for a Cinderella doll, Hannah Montana bubbles and balloons, Mansfield said Christmas will be tough because she's been looking for work for nine months.
"I'm going to try to get her what she wants, some way, somehow," the 30-year-old said. "I just hope some money comes in soon. I haven't got her anything yet. I hope someone calls soon."
Meanwhile, Mahoganie chatted with Santa, nodding as she explained that, yes, she ate all her vegetables, cleaned up after herself and was always nice to her mother.
"It's nice to see her up there with him," Mansfield said. "She has no idea what I'm going through."
Santa is getting some heart-wrenching letters at the North Pole, too. Denise Griffitts of Lafayette, La., volunteers for Operation Santa Claus, answering about 250 letters a year from children in her area.
"They're not asking for a Wii or an Xbox. They're asking for personal care items, they're asking for school supplies, they're asking for warm clothing," Griffitts
Other Business Photos
Not-so-jolly economy brings woe to Santa's lap
said.
Connaghan, the Santa trainer, said Santas always want kids to leave their laps happier than when they came.
"Children tend to take on a lot of their parents' worries. They don't always understand what those worries are and sometimes they will embellish them," he said. "All Santas can hope is to say a few words that are going to be optimistic and give children a feeling everything is going to get better."
Jackson said his years around children have given him a sense of when children have something depressing on their minds. He said a bellowed "Ho, ho, ho!" a compliment and patter of questions helps get their minds off darker thoughts.
"Every time a child goes away with a smile, I know I've done something good," he said.
Raymond Jemison beamed when his mom brought him to the mall from kindergarten. Laroya Missouri, 25, of Camden, said she's not going to be able to buy the 5-year-old as much as last year, but she is glad she still has a job and can get him some presents.
"He's the most important thing. I want to make sure he has a good Christmas," she said.
Medvedev raises Russia's profile in Latin America
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to help Venezuela start a nuclear energy program on Wednesday as President Hugo Chavez hailed Moscow's deepening ties in Latin America as a reflection of declining U.S. influence.
It was the first visit to Venezuela by a Russian president, and it came as Medvedev's government raises its profile in a region long dominated by Washington. Medvedev arrived from Brazil, where he announced an upcoming summit with China, India and Brazil to create new rules for the global economy.
In Caracas, Russian and Venezuelan officials signed a series of accords, including one pledging cooperation in nuclear
Other World Photos
Mumbai gunmen besiege hotels, kill 119 in 2 days
energy for peaceful uses. Russia also agreed to work with Venezuela in oil projects and building ships.
Chavez, one of Latin America's most outspoken critics of Washington's foreign policy, thanked Medvedev for Russia's role in helping to create a "multipolar" world no longer dominated by the United States.
"Russia is playing the role it must play in today's world," he said.
Medvedev called Venezuela "one of our most important associates in Latin America" and vowed to continue supplying the oil-rich South American nation with weapons. But he said arms sales to Venezuela "are not aimed against any other country."
Sergey Kirienko, head of the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency, said Russia is planning to work out a concrete program of nuclear cooperation with Venezuela by the end of next year.
"We are ready to teach students in nuclear physics and nuclear engineering," he said through an interpreter. "Research and development in the sphere of geology. Looking for uranium in the territory of Venezuela."
Medvedev's visit came as Russian warships, docked in a Venezuelan port, prepared to hold training exercises in Moscow's first major naval deployment in the Caribbean since the Cold War.
The military show of force is widely seen as a demonstration of Kremlin anger over the U.S. decision to send warships to deliver aid to Georgia after its conflict with Russia, and over U.S. plans for a European missile-defense system.
But U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said there is no question the United States retains the "preponderance of power" in the Western hemisphere, despite the Russian warships' presence. Rice told reporters in Washington that "a few Russian ships is not going to change the balance of power" in the region.
Chavez backed Russia in its conflict with Georgia, and views the fellow oil producer as a key player in moving toward a world freed from U.S. dominance. He welcomed Medvedev's visit saying it's one step toward "a new world that's being born."
The two leaders plan a visit on Thursday to the flagship vessel -- the nuclear-powered cruiser Peter the Great, the largest in the Russian fleet. Joint naval exercises are planned off Venezuela next week.
"There's certainly a political message that Moscow wants to send to Washington, and that is: 'If you meddle in Georgia, we are going to come into your territory.'" It's a simplistic view, but nevertheless that's clearly the signal," said Johanna Mendelson Forman, a Latin America analyst at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union sent planes and navy ships to Cuba.
Nowadays,
Other World Photos
Mumbai gunmen besiege hotels, kill 119 in 2 days
however, Moscow's motivations are different. Mendelson Forman noted that Russia has growing economic interests, including energy investments and arms deals -- and she says 80 percent of Moscow's arms sales in the region are going to Venezuela.
Chavez's government has bought more than $4 billion in Russian arms, including Sukhoi fighter jets, helicopters and 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles, and more deals for Russian tanks or other weaponry could be discussed by Medvedev and Chavez.
"Venezuela holds a primarily economic importance for Russia, in terms of being a major military export destination," said analyst Anna Gilmour of Jane's Intelligence Review. But she said "Russia is not keen to align itself with Chavez' Bolivarian ideology and deliberately avoids making statements regarding political links."
Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the Federation Council's foreign affairs committee, denied that Russia's growing presence in Latin America is aimed at challenging Washington.
"Russia is not trying to use its relations with Latin America as a counterbalance to the U.S.," said Margelov, speaking to reporters at the presidential palace. "Russia is back in the region. We don't want to intimidate anybody."
Russia has shown signs of trying to engage President-elect Barack Obama.
Both Russia and Venezuela may also be forced to limit their plans for Latin American investments and aid due to declining oil revenues that have hit their economies during the financial crisis.
In Brazil, Medvedev agreed to host a summit of Brazil, Russia, India and China next year to discuss creating a new global financial structure -- a reflection of how economic power is shifting from the United States and Europe.
It was the first visit to Venezuela by a Russian president, and it came as Medvedev's government raises its profile in a region long dominated by Washington. Medvedev arrived from Brazil, where he announced an upcoming summit with China, India and Brazil to create new rules for the global economy.
In Caracas, Russian and Venezuelan officials signed a series of accords, including one pledging cooperation in nuclear
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Mumbai gunmen besiege hotels, kill 119 in 2 days
energy for peaceful uses. Russia also agreed to work with Venezuela in oil projects and building ships.
Chavez, one of Latin America's most outspoken critics of Washington's foreign policy, thanked Medvedev for Russia's role in helping to create a "multipolar" world no longer dominated by the United States.
"Russia is playing the role it must play in today's world," he said.
Medvedev called Venezuela "one of our most important associates in Latin America" and vowed to continue supplying the oil-rich South American nation with weapons. But he said arms sales to Venezuela "are not aimed against any other country."
Sergey Kirienko, head of the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency, said Russia is planning to work out a concrete program of nuclear cooperation with Venezuela by the end of next year.
"We are ready to teach students in nuclear physics and nuclear engineering," he said through an interpreter. "Research and development in the sphere of geology. Looking for uranium in the territory of Venezuela."
Medvedev's visit came as Russian warships, docked in a Venezuelan port, prepared to hold training exercises in Moscow's first major naval deployment in the Caribbean since the Cold War.
The military show of force is widely seen as a demonstration of Kremlin anger over the U.S. decision to send warships to deliver aid to Georgia after its conflict with Russia, and over U.S. plans for a European missile-defense system.
But U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said there is no question the United States retains the "preponderance of power" in the Western hemisphere, despite the Russian warships' presence. Rice told reporters in Washington that "a few Russian ships is not going to change the balance of power" in the region.
Chavez backed Russia in its conflict with Georgia, and views the fellow oil producer as a key player in moving toward a world freed from U.S. dominance. He welcomed Medvedev's visit saying it's one step toward "a new world that's being born."
The two leaders plan a visit on Thursday to the flagship vessel -- the nuclear-powered cruiser Peter the Great, the largest in the Russian fleet. Joint naval exercises are planned off Venezuela next week.
"There's certainly a political message that Moscow wants to send to Washington, and that is: 'If you meddle in Georgia, we are going to come into your territory.'" It's a simplistic view, but nevertheless that's clearly the signal," said Johanna Mendelson Forman, a Latin America analyst at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union sent planes and navy ships to Cuba.
Nowadays,
Other World Photos
Mumbai gunmen besiege hotels, kill 119 in 2 days
however, Moscow's motivations are different. Mendelson Forman noted that Russia has growing economic interests, including energy investments and arms deals -- and she says 80 percent of Moscow's arms sales in the region are going to Venezuela.
Chavez's government has bought more than $4 billion in Russian arms, including Sukhoi fighter jets, helicopters and 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles, and more deals for Russian tanks or other weaponry could be discussed by Medvedev and Chavez.
"Venezuela holds a primarily economic importance for Russia, in terms of being a major military export destination," said analyst Anna Gilmour of Jane's Intelligence Review. But she said "Russia is not keen to align itself with Chavez' Bolivarian ideology and deliberately avoids making statements regarding political links."
Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the Federation Council's foreign affairs committee, denied that Russia's growing presence in Latin America is aimed at challenging Washington.
"Russia is not trying to use its relations with Latin America as a counterbalance to the U.S.," said Margelov, speaking to reporters at the presidential palace. "Russia is back in the region. We don't want to intimidate anybody."
Russia has shown signs of trying to engage President-elect Barack Obama.
Both Russia and Venezuela may also be forced to limit their plans for Latin American investments and aid due to declining oil revenues that have hit their economies during the financial crisis.
In Brazil, Medvedev agreed to host a summit of Brazil, Russia, India and China next year to discuss creating a new global financial structure -- a reflection of how economic power is shifting from the United States and Europe.
Colombian shoppers' dream built on pyramid scheme
Colombian shoppers' dream built on pyramid scheme
November 23, 2008 11:13:46 AM PST
By DAN KEANE
It was just three easy steps to the ultimate shopper's club reward:
1. Buy a prepaid card.
2. Cash it in for groceries, a flat-screen TV or a even new car.
3. Six months later, get all your cash back.
That fantastic deal enriched legions of working-class Colombians before President Alvaro Uribe shut down DMG Group Holdings, S.A. last week, calling it a pyramid scheme that laundered drug money and raked in $435 million this year alone.
Officials say DMG was the largest in a wave of scams that has swept Colombia, where a well-developed smuggling industry has nurtured some of the world's craftiest swindlers. The
Other World Photos
collapse of one such scheme this month sparked deadly riots by duped investors in more than a dozen southern Colombian towns.
Those riots triggered Uribe's decision to shut down DMG before it could collapse, a move that outraged many of its 200,000 cardholders. They revere the company's founder, a 28-year-old former baker named David Murcia, for giving them a shot at the good life.
"Where does the money come from? Believe me, I don't know," said housewife Lucia Lizca, 38, whose prepaid 5 million peso ($2,100) DMG card is now worthless. "But look, that cake maker showed himself to be smarter than a president. I don't know how he cooked it up, but good or bad, he gave a lot of hope to people who have nothing."
The gangly, ponytailed Murcia was arrested last week in Panama, where he kept a yacht and a fleet of exotic cars. He and six other DMG officials -- including his mother, his wife and his brother-in-law -- face charges of money laundering, bribery and other crimes related to their rapidly expanding finanical empire.
Murcia has long denied any wrongdoing, calling his business an "economic revolution" designed to provide opportunity to Colombia's poor.
"What sin have I committed?" he asked in a message to customers posted on YouTube in June. "Giving people something to eat? Helping people to generate jobs with their additional income? Improving their quality of life?"
At first glance, DMG stores worked much like any other discount shopper's club. Members would buy a prepaid card for any amount after providing the names and phone numbers of three friends who might want to join.
But along with their blue debit card they recieved a matching black card, set to be activated in six months. That one held "points" as a reward for spreading the word about DMG.
The value of the points varied from day to day -- anywhere from 70 percent to 300 percent of the initial investment. They could be redeemed to purchase goods at DMG stores, or simply be cashed in. Many customers took the money and immediately spent it on a new card.
"If you want to buy a motorcycle, you would just buy the motorcycle with your DMG card, and then they'd give you back the same amount of money six months later," explained DMG customer Angel Salamanca. "It's a free motorcycle."
At first, Salamanca used his card to buy beef, tomatoes, and onions for his hamburger stand. But he quickly developed a side business selling the plasma TVs he was getting from DMG for free.
As the profits grew, so did his ambitions. He sold the vacant lot on which he had planned to build a small restaurant, using the 6 million pesos in proceeds to buy more DMG cards.
Salamanca managed a wry chuckle
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as he pulled the cards from his pocket, his dream of becoming a restaurateur now reduced to worthless plastic.
DMG began in 2003 in the town of Orito, deep in Colombia's coca-growing south, where Murcia started out selling motorcycles and electric generators.
He told the newsmagazine Semana this year that he turned to the computerized cards in 2005 to streamline his rapidly growing operation before moving into the Colombian capital of Bogota. When the Semana reporter repeatedly pressed him to explain how he could offer such extravagant rewards, he suggested vaguely that it was a matter of "cash flow."
A healthy slice of Murcia's profits appeared to come from electronics bought cheap in bulk and sold to DMG members at prices significantly higher than other stores.
After moving into Bogota, Murcia took DMG international, opening offices in Ecuador, Venezuela and Panama.
The company's wild success attracted a swarm of imitators. The largest was Proyecciones DRFE -- whose intitials boldly promised "Fast Money, Easy Cash" -- which skipped DMG's deparment-store model and simply offered outlandish interest rates for short-term investments.
Authorities say it too was a pyramid scheme, offering dramatic returns by using money from a rapidly increasing pool of investors to pay off those who signed up first. The schemes collapse when the flow of new investment fails to cover everyone's promised returns.
DRFE attracted many newly flush DMG investors but collapsed this month amid news that its owner had fled the country, leaving $270 million worth of investments in limbo. The ensuing riots left two investors dead.
Colombian officials had been investigating DMG since 2007, when police uncovered $3.2 million in cash packed in cardboard boxes during a routine traffic stop outside Orito. The couriers said the money belonged to Murcia.
Prosecutors said a recorded telephone conversation links Murcia to Carlos Mario Jimenez, a paramilitary leader extradited this year to the United States on drug-smuggling charges.
"The average Colombian, knowing they were doing something wrong, simply cleared their conscience by saying, 'I want to join up with Robin Hood,'" said Ricardo Duran, a Bogota economist. "The only problem is this Robin Hood was as perverse as any drug trafficker."
Some loyal customers still hope their hero will make good on one last investment. But thousands lined up outside the ticket booths of a Bogota soccer stadium, handing over their cards to register
Other World Photos
Mumbai gunmen besiege hotels, kill 119 in 2 days
for a government plan to redistribute the cash seized at the company's offices.
Some grudgingly admit they had qualms about an offer too good to resist -- and ultimately too good to be true.
"I always thought that there was something dark about it all," said Bogota hairdresser Cristina Hinestrosa, 36, who doubled her original DMG investment of 5 million pesos ($2,100) in just 11 months before quiting this year on a hunch.
"You're conscious that something so good can't exist, or can't last," she said. "But since you're not involved in the deal directly, the important thing is to get a profit."
November 23, 2008 11:13:46 AM PST
By DAN KEANE
It was just three easy steps to the ultimate shopper's club reward:
1. Buy a prepaid card.
2. Cash it in for groceries, a flat-screen TV or a even new car.
3. Six months later, get all your cash back.
That fantastic deal enriched legions of working-class Colombians before President Alvaro Uribe shut down DMG Group Holdings, S.A. last week, calling it a pyramid scheme that laundered drug money and raked in $435 million this year alone.
Officials say DMG was the largest in a wave of scams that has swept Colombia, where a well-developed smuggling industry has nurtured some of the world's craftiest swindlers. The
Other World Photos
collapse of one such scheme this month sparked deadly riots by duped investors in more than a dozen southern Colombian towns.
Those riots triggered Uribe's decision to shut down DMG before it could collapse, a move that outraged many of its 200,000 cardholders. They revere the company's founder, a 28-year-old former baker named David Murcia, for giving them a shot at the good life.
"Where does the money come from? Believe me, I don't know," said housewife Lucia Lizca, 38, whose prepaid 5 million peso ($2,100) DMG card is now worthless. "But look, that cake maker showed himself to be smarter than a president. I don't know how he cooked it up, but good or bad, he gave a lot of hope to people who have nothing."
The gangly, ponytailed Murcia was arrested last week in Panama, where he kept a yacht and a fleet of exotic cars. He and six other DMG officials -- including his mother, his wife and his brother-in-law -- face charges of money laundering, bribery and other crimes related to their rapidly expanding finanical empire.
Murcia has long denied any wrongdoing, calling his business an "economic revolution" designed to provide opportunity to Colombia's poor.
"What sin have I committed?" he asked in a message to customers posted on YouTube in June. "Giving people something to eat? Helping people to generate jobs with their additional income? Improving their quality of life?"
At first glance, DMG stores worked much like any other discount shopper's club. Members would buy a prepaid card for any amount after providing the names and phone numbers of three friends who might want to join.
But along with their blue debit card they recieved a matching black card, set to be activated in six months. That one held "points" as a reward for spreading the word about DMG.
The value of the points varied from day to day -- anywhere from 70 percent to 300 percent of the initial investment. They could be redeemed to purchase goods at DMG stores, or simply be cashed in. Many customers took the money and immediately spent it on a new card.
"If you want to buy a motorcycle, you would just buy the motorcycle with your DMG card, and then they'd give you back the same amount of money six months later," explained DMG customer Angel Salamanca. "It's a free motorcycle."
At first, Salamanca used his card to buy beef, tomatoes, and onions for his hamburger stand. But he quickly developed a side business selling the plasma TVs he was getting from DMG for free.
As the profits grew, so did his ambitions. He sold the vacant lot on which he had planned to build a small restaurant, using the 6 million pesos in proceeds to buy more DMG cards.
Salamanca managed a wry chuckle
Other World Photos
as he pulled the cards from his pocket, his dream of becoming a restaurateur now reduced to worthless plastic.
DMG began in 2003 in the town of Orito, deep in Colombia's coca-growing south, where Murcia started out selling motorcycles and electric generators.
He told the newsmagazine Semana this year that he turned to the computerized cards in 2005 to streamline his rapidly growing operation before moving into the Colombian capital of Bogota. When the Semana reporter repeatedly pressed him to explain how he could offer such extravagant rewards, he suggested vaguely that it was a matter of "cash flow."
A healthy slice of Murcia's profits appeared to come from electronics bought cheap in bulk and sold to DMG members at prices significantly higher than other stores.
After moving into Bogota, Murcia took DMG international, opening offices in Ecuador, Venezuela and Panama.
The company's wild success attracted a swarm of imitators. The largest was Proyecciones DRFE -- whose intitials boldly promised "Fast Money, Easy Cash" -- which skipped DMG's deparment-store model and simply offered outlandish interest rates for short-term investments.
Authorities say it too was a pyramid scheme, offering dramatic returns by using money from a rapidly increasing pool of investors to pay off those who signed up first. The schemes collapse when the flow of new investment fails to cover everyone's promised returns.
DRFE attracted many newly flush DMG investors but collapsed this month amid news that its owner had fled the country, leaving $270 million worth of investments in limbo. The ensuing riots left two investors dead.
Colombian officials had been investigating DMG since 2007, when police uncovered $3.2 million in cash packed in cardboard boxes during a routine traffic stop outside Orito. The couriers said the money belonged to Murcia.
Prosecutors said a recorded telephone conversation links Murcia to Carlos Mario Jimenez, a paramilitary leader extradited this year to the United States on drug-smuggling charges.
"The average Colombian, knowing they were doing something wrong, simply cleared their conscience by saying, 'I want to join up with Robin Hood,'" said Ricardo Duran, a Bogota economist. "The only problem is this Robin Hood was as perverse as any drug trafficker."
Some loyal customers still hope their hero will make good on one last investment. But thousands lined up outside the ticket booths of a Bogota soccer stadium, handing over their cards to register
Other World Photos
Mumbai gunmen besiege hotels, kill 119 in 2 days
for a government plan to redistribute the cash seized at the company's offices.
Some grudgingly admit they had qualms about an offer too good to resist -- and ultimately too good to be true.
"I always thought that there was something dark about it all," said Bogota hairdresser Cristina Hinestrosa, 36, who doubled her original DMG investment of 5 million pesos ($2,100) in just 11 months before quiting this year on a hunch.
"You're conscious that something so good can't exist, or can't last," she said. "But since you're not involved in the deal directly, the important thing is to get a profit."
Brazil flood victims wade home, death toll at 99
Brazil flood victims wade home, death toll at 99
November 27, 2008 1:01:07 PM PST
By RICARDO MORAES
Flood victims waded through waist-deep water into mud-filled houses Thursday in a devastated part of southern Brazil where neighbors set up patrols to keep looters away and lined up by the thousands for government food handouts.
As waters from torrential rains receded after causing at least 99 deaths, returning residents hurled soaked furniture and damaged electronic goods into the streets of this coastal city at the mouth of the swollen Itajai-Acu River.
Hunger and thirst were so widespread in the city of 170,000 that police were ordered to let residents take food and water from stores because they were "driven by despair to steal,"
Other World Photos
Mumbai gunmen besiege hotels, kill 119 in 2 days
said state public safety spokesman Joao Carlos Santos.
Officers instead targeted thieves who paddled rickety canoes to loot abandoned homes
The official death toll from the rains in Santa Catarina state rose Thursday to 99 from 97 a day earlier. Mudslides killed most of the victims, and 19 people were officially missing. Authorities said the death toll eventually could climb as high as 150.
"There are still a lot of people buried under tons of mud, which slid down mountainsides like spilled chocolate pudding," said Santa Catarina public security chief Ronaldo Benedeti.
Eight cities that had been isolated since last weekend were relinked to civilization as workers cleared mounds of earth and trees that blocked highways. But nearly 79,000 people remained displaced -- 41,000 of them in Itajai.
Drinking water was scarce in the disaster zone and public health officials feared a possible outbreak of leptospirosis, a sometimes fatal disease spread by exposure to water contaminated with the urine of infected animals. Dozens of chickens roosted on the roofs of flooded homes in Itajai as residents waded below, trying to salvage their belongings.
Officials said there was a risk of more deadly mudslides because the earth is still saturated by a continuing drizzle. Forecasters said the sun may not emerge again until Sunday.
"We're just praying for God to help us soon because it will us take months to get back to normal," said Alexandre de Carvalho as he waited in a line of 400 people to get beans and rice handed out at a local fire station.
Like many in Itajai, the 19-year-old furniture repairman saw his house flooded. After taking refuge for days with relatives who had a home on high ground, de Carvalho returned to his neighborhood to help form a civilian looting watch.
"We're all guarding our houses, because there are a lot of robberies," Carvalho said. "They're breaking in and taking whatever they can grab."
Twenty-three people were arrested for looting and breaking into homes, but police only targeted suspects who took alcohol, plasma TVs and other nonfood items, Santos said.
Local newspapers on Thursday published photos of men up to their waists in debris-filled water gathering goods floating outside flooded supermarkets.
The Brazilian government on Thursday airlifted supplies to hard-hit areas of Santa Catarina while trucks loaded with donated food and clothes began rolling over roads that earlier had been blocked by mud.
Some residents said the aid was overdue.
"We need more medicine, food and clothes," Carvalho said.
Other World Photos
"We're really suffering and there's a lot of people who have nothing."
Floods also affected eight towns and cities in the coastal state of Espirito Santo, prompting local authorities to declare states of emergency and warn poor residents living in hillside slums to abandon their homes or risk being swept away by mudslides.
November 27, 2008 1:01:07 PM PST
By RICARDO MORAES
Flood victims waded through waist-deep water into mud-filled houses Thursday in a devastated part of southern Brazil where neighbors set up patrols to keep looters away and lined up by the thousands for government food handouts.
As waters from torrential rains receded after causing at least 99 deaths, returning residents hurled soaked furniture and damaged electronic goods into the streets of this coastal city at the mouth of the swollen Itajai-Acu River.
Hunger and thirst were so widespread in the city of 170,000 that police were ordered to let residents take food and water from stores because they were "driven by despair to steal,"
Other World Photos
Mumbai gunmen besiege hotels, kill 119 in 2 days
said state public safety spokesman Joao Carlos Santos.
Officers instead targeted thieves who paddled rickety canoes to loot abandoned homes
The official death toll from the rains in Santa Catarina state rose Thursday to 99 from 97 a day earlier. Mudslides killed most of the victims, and 19 people were officially missing. Authorities said the death toll eventually could climb as high as 150.
"There are still a lot of people buried under tons of mud, which slid down mountainsides like spilled chocolate pudding," said Santa Catarina public security chief Ronaldo Benedeti.
Eight cities that had been isolated since last weekend were relinked to civilization as workers cleared mounds of earth and trees that blocked highways. But nearly 79,000 people remained displaced -- 41,000 of them in Itajai.
Drinking water was scarce in the disaster zone and public health officials feared a possible outbreak of leptospirosis, a sometimes fatal disease spread by exposure to water contaminated with the urine of infected animals. Dozens of chickens roosted on the roofs of flooded homes in Itajai as residents waded below, trying to salvage their belongings.
Officials said there was a risk of more deadly mudslides because the earth is still saturated by a continuing drizzle. Forecasters said the sun may not emerge again until Sunday.
"We're just praying for God to help us soon because it will us take months to get back to normal," said Alexandre de Carvalho as he waited in a line of 400 people to get beans and rice handed out at a local fire station.
Like many in Itajai, the 19-year-old furniture repairman saw his house flooded. After taking refuge for days with relatives who had a home on high ground, de Carvalho returned to his neighborhood to help form a civilian looting watch.
"We're all guarding our houses, because there are a lot of robberies," Carvalho said. "They're breaking in and taking whatever they can grab."
Twenty-three people were arrested for looting and breaking into homes, but police only targeted suspects who took alcohol, plasma TVs and other nonfood items, Santos said.
Local newspapers on Thursday published photos of men up to their waists in debris-filled water gathering goods floating outside flooded supermarkets.
The Brazilian government on Thursday airlifted supplies to hard-hit areas of Santa Catarina while trucks loaded with donated food and clothes began rolling over roads that earlier had been blocked by mud.
Some residents said the aid was overdue.
"We need more medicine, food and clothes," Carvalho said.
Other World Photos
"We're really suffering and there's a lot of people who have nothing."
Floods also affected eight towns and cities in the coastal state of Espirito Santo, prompting local authorities to declare states of emergency and warn poor residents living in hillside slums to abandon their homes or risk being swept away by mudslides.
IAEA chief baffled over lack of Syria nuclear info
IAEA chief baffled over lack of Syria nuclear info
November 27, 2008 11:32:48 AM PST
By GEORGE JAHN
The chief U.N. nuclear inspector said Thursday that his agency's Syria probe has been hampered because key satellite images of an alleged nuclear reactor bombed by Israel are inexplicably unavailable on the market.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei did not point any fingers in the "baffling" failure of his agency's efforts to obtain the images of the Syrian site immediately after it was bombed by Israel last year.
But diplomats familiar with the IAEA's Syria investigation said agency officials were considering several scenarios, including the possibility that Syria or other nations with an interest in a
Other World Photos
cover-up had bought the photos and all rights to them from commercial satellite companies.
ElBaradei's comments at the start of a two-day full meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board partially reflected the focus of the gathering -- suspicions about Syria's and Iran's nuclear activities.
On Iran, ElBaradei told the meeting that he "cannot exclude the existence of possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program."
The U.S. and the European Union both expressed alarm at Tehran's defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions meant to curb its suspected nuclear activities. And Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, Iran's IAEA representative, accused Washington and its allies of dragging it before the Security Council as part of a "hidden agenda."
In the case of Syria, ElBaradei noted that his "agency was unable to obtain commercial satellite imagery" of the site immediately after the bombing, adding: "It is regrettable, and indeed baffling, that imagery for this critical period ... was not available."
Syrian nuclear chief Ibrahim Othman was dismissive, telling The Associated Press: "The theory that we bought all the photos is nonsense."
The IAEA often turns to commercial images beyond any spy satellite photos shared by governments.
But the two nations most likely to have satellite intelligence were unlikely to have provided it with immediate information. Israel still has not confirmed it was behind the strike, while the United States waited for more than six months before sharing knowledge with the IAEA.
The possibility that commercial companies simply did not know where to look immediately after the bombing was raised by David Albright, whose Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security closely tracks suspected secret proliferators.
"The United States and Israel went to great lengths to prevent others from finding out where the site was," said Albright, whose institute was the first to publish commercial satellite images of the site more than a year ago and identify it as a likely North-Korean-model nuclear reactor.
"No one knew where the site was immediately after the bombing," said Albright, whose institute published photos taken nearly a month before the Sept. 6, 2007, Israeli strike.
Albright also noted that ElBaradei was initially skeptical of the U.S. assertions, which could have led to Washington and Israel to withhold satellite photos.
"Why would U.S. intelligence give photos to ElBaradei if he was predisposed not to believe" that they showed a secret nuclear reactor, Albright said in an interview.
Meanwhile, a senior diplomat familiar with the Syria probe suggested that the comments by ElBaradei were at least partially out of
Other World Photos
Mumbai gunmen besiege hotels, kill 119 in 2 days
date. He said the agency had "very recently" been able to locate commercial images showing the site after the Israeli strike.
IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said the agency would not comment on the issue.
All of the diplomats asked for anonymity in exchange for speaking to The Associated Press because their information was privileged.
While the agency was unable to find satellite images immediately after the bombing, it acquired photos showing the building at other stages. An IAEA report said those images and other information showed the bombed building had the features of a reactor, adding that agency inspectors had found traces of processed uranium on location. The U.S. says the target was a nearly completed reactor that would have produced plutonium, a possible fissile warhead component.
Syria has signaled it will not permit IAEA inspectors to return to the country after their initial visit to the bombed site in June, or permit initial visits to three other suspicious locations. Such a ban would make satellite images become even more important in the IAEA probe.
November 27, 2008 11:32:48 AM PST
By GEORGE JAHN
The chief U.N. nuclear inspector said Thursday that his agency's Syria probe has been hampered because key satellite images of an alleged nuclear reactor bombed by Israel are inexplicably unavailable on the market.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei did not point any fingers in the "baffling" failure of his agency's efforts to obtain the images of the Syrian site immediately after it was bombed by Israel last year.
But diplomats familiar with the IAEA's Syria investigation said agency officials were considering several scenarios, including the possibility that Syria or other nations with an interest in a
Other World Photos
cover-up had bought the photos and all rights to them from commercial satellite companies.
ElBaradei's comments at the start of a two-day full meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board partially reflected the focus of the gathering -- suspicions about Syria's and Iran's nuclear activities.
On Iran, ElBaradei told the meeting that he "cannot exclude the existence of possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program."
The U.S. and the European Union both expressed alarm at Tehran's defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions meant to curb its suspected nuclear activities. And Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, Iran's IAEA representative, accused Washington and its allies of dragging it before the Security Council as part of a "hidden agenda."
In the case of Syria, ElBaradei noted that his "agency was unable to obtain commercial satellite imagery" of the site immediately after the bombing, adding: "It is regrettable, and indeed baffling, that imagery for this critical period ... was not available."
Syrian nuclear chief Ibrahim Othman was dismissive, telling The Associated Press: "The theory that we bought all the photos is nonsense."
The IAEA often turns to commercial images beyond any spy satellite photos shared by governments.
But the two nations most likely to have satellite intelligence were unlikely to have provided it with immediate information. Israel still has not confirmed it was behind the strike, while the United States waited for more than six months before sharing knowledge with the IAEA.
The possibility that commercial companies simply did not know where to look immediately after the bombing was raised by David Albright, whose Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security closely tracks suspected secret proliferators.
"The United States and Israel went to great lengths to prevent others from finding out where the site was," said Albright, whose institute was the first to publish commercial satellite images of the site more than a year ago and identify it as a likely North-Korean-model nuclear reactor.
"No one knew where the site was immediately after the bombing," said Albright, whose institute published photos taken nearly a month before the Sept. 6, 2007, Israeli strike.
Albright also noted that ElBaradei was initially skeptical of the U.S. assertions, which could have led to Washington and Israel to withhold satellite photos.
"Why would U.S. intelligence give photos to ElBaradei if he was predisposed not to believe" that they showed a secret nuclear reactor, Albright said in an interview.
Meanwhile, a senior diplomat familiar with the Syria probe suggested that the comments by ElBaradei were at least partially out of
Other World Photos
Mumbai gunmen besiege hotels, kill 119 in 2 days
date. He said the agency had "very recently" been able to locate commercial images showing the site after the Israeli strike.
IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said the agency would not comment on the issue.
All of the diplomats asked for anonymity in exchange for speaking to The Associated Press because their information was privileged.
While the agency was unable to find satellite images immediately after the bombing, it acquired photos showing the building at other stages. An IAEA report said those images and other information showed the bombed building had the features of a reactor, adding that agency inspectors had found traces of processed uranium on location. The U.S. says the target was a nearly completed reactor that would have produced plutonium, a possible fissile warhead component.
Syria has signaled it will not permit IAEA inspectors to return to the country after their initial visit to the bombed site in June, or permit initial visits to three other suspicious locations. Such a ban would make satellite images become even more important in the IAEA probe.
Afghan police: 4 dead in blast near US Embassy
Afghan police: 4 dead in blast near US Embassy
November 27, 2008 3:54:45 AM PST
By AMIR SHAH and JASON STRAZIUSO
A suicide car bomber targeting an American convoy exploded about 200 yards (meters) outside the U.S. Embassy in Kabul on Thursday, killing at least four Afghan bystanders as people entered the compound for a Thanksgiving Day race.
Four Afghans at least 18 more people were wounded in the 8:30 a.m. attack, said Abdullah Fahim, a health ministry spokesman.
Police officer Abdul Manan said the explosion was set off by a suicide bomber in a Toyota Corolla.
No U.S. Embassy personnel were killed or injured in the blast, an Embassy statement said.
The blast happened on the last day of a visit by a United Nation's Security Council
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delegation. The U.N. had warned its staff in Afghanistan of possible terrorist attacks coinciding with the visit.
The U.S. Embassy was hosting a Thanksgiving Day fun run beginning at 9 a.m., so Americans and other Westerners were entering the embassy compound when the bomb went off, sending some participants sprinting for the embassy gates.
"I was about 30 or 40 yards inside the gate. There was a large explosion. I felt the shock wave, though it wasn't all that strong," said Danny Cutherell, a 26-year-old aid worker from Virginia. "We were about 200 yards from the blast when it went off, but we were behind the embassy wall and that protected us."
Cutherell said about 20 participants in the run had been locked inside a room with double-locking doors at the embassy's security checkpoint and that guards would neither let them in or out. "We're here for a while," he said.
"It was a bit shocking but it's also not that shocking because it is Thanksgiving and we had heard there was going to be tightened security today," Cutherell said. "It's just scary to be that close to it."
Insurgents attacks in Kabul have been rare this year, although they have launched a few spectacular assaults, including one targeting the Indian Embassy on July 7 that killed 60 people and left over 140 others wounded.
November 27, 2008 3:54:45 AM PST
By AMIR SHAH and JASON STRAZIUSO
A suicide car bomber targeting an American convoy exploded about 200 yards (meters) outside the U.S. Embassy in Kabul on Thursday, killing at least four Afghan bystanders as people entered the compound for a Thanksgiving Day race.
Four Afghans at least 18 more people were wounded in the 8:30 a.m. attack, said Abdullah Fahim, a health ministry spokesman.
Police officer Abdul Manan said the explosion was set off by a suicide bomber in a Toyota Corolla.
No U.S. Embassy personnel were killed or injured in the blast, an Embassy statement said.
The blast happened on the last day of a visit by a United Nation's Security Council
Other World Photos
delegation. The U.N. had warned its staff in Afghanistan of possible terrorist attacks coinciding with the visit.
The U.S. Embassy was hosting a Thanksgiving Day fun run beginning at 9 a.m., so Americans and other Westerners were entering the embassy compound when the bomb went off, sending some participants sprinting for the embassy gates.
"I was about 30 or 40 yards inside the gate. There was a large explosion. I felt the shock wave, though it wasn't all that strong," said Danny Cutherell, a 26-year-old aid worker from Virginia. "We were about 200 yards from the blast when it went off, but we were behind the embassy wall and that protected us."
Cutherell said about 20 participants in the run had been locked inside a room with double-locking doors at the embassy's security checkpoint and that guards would neither let them in or out. "We're here for a while," he said.
"It was a bit shocking but it's also not that shocking because it is Thanksgiving and we had heard there was going to be tightened security today," Cutherell said. "It's just scary to be that close to it."
Insurgents attacks in Kabul have been rare this year, although they have launched a few spectacular assaults, including one targeting the Indian Embassy on July 7 that killed 60 people and left over 140 others wounded.
Congo suspects plead not guilty to war crimes
Congo suspects plead not guilty to war crimes
November 27, 2008 8:33:50 AM PST
By MIKE CORDER
Two Congolese warlords pleaded not guilty Thursday at the International Criminal Court to charges of murder, rape and using child soldiers during a deadly attack on a village in 2003.
Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo entered their pleas to three counts of crimes against humanity and seven war crimes at a pretrial hearing at the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal.
No date was set for their trial to start, but it is expected to get under way next year.
They are accused of leading militia forces who killed more than 200 people in the village of Bogoro in eastern Congo in 2003, hacking many of their victims to death
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Mumbai gunmen besiege hotels, kill 119 in 2 days
with machetes.
Prosecutors allege some survivors were raped and then turned into sex slaves for the fighters.
Katanga and Ngudjolo are the first of the four suspects the court has in its custody to formally enter pleas to charges against them.
Another Congolese warlord, Thomas Lubanga, will not plead until his trial starts on Jan. 26, although his attorney has said he will also plead not guilty to charges of using child soldiers.
All three suspects were involved in ethnic fighting in the province of Ituri in 2002-2003, part of a simmering conflict that most recently has erupted in the nearby North and South Kivu provinces where rebel leader Laurent Nkunda's forces are fighting the government.
U.N. peacekeepers are investigating widespread allegations that both sides are committing war crimes in that conflict.
At a preliminary hearing in June, Carine Bapita, a lawyer for one survivor of the attack on Bogoro, told judges that the woman, identified only as A012, "lost also six of her children, killed with machete blows, and of course all of her cows and property."
The International Criminal Court has filed charges against alleged war criminals in Congo, Central African Republic, Uganda and Sudan since it started work in 2002.
November 27, 2008 8:33:50 AM PST
By MIKE CORDER
Two Congolese warlords pleaded not guilty Thursday at the International Criminal Court to charges of murder, rape and using child soldiers during a deadly attack on a village in 2003.
Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo entered their pleas to three counts of crimes against humanity and seven war crimes at a pretrial hearing at the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal.
No date was set for their trial to start, but it is expected to get under way next year.
They are accused of leading militia forces who killed more than 200 people in the village of Bogoro in eastern Congo in 2003, hacking many of their victims to death
Other World Photos
Mumbai gunmen besiege hotels, kill 119 in 2 days
with machetes.
Prosecutors allege some survivors were raped and then turned into sex slaves for the fighters.
Katanga and Ngudjolo are the first of the four suspects the court has in its custody to formally enter pleas to charges against them.
Another Congolese warlord, Thomas Lubanga, will not plead until his trial starts on Jan. 26, although his attorney has said he will also plead not guilty to charges of using child soldiers.
All three suspects were involved in ethnic fighting in the province of Ituri in 2002-2003, part of a simmering conflict that most recently has erupted in the nearby North and South Kivu provinces where rebel leader Laurent Nkunda's forces are fighting the government.
U.N. peacekeepers are investigating widespread allegations that both sides are committing war crimes in that conflict.
At a preliminary hearing in June, Carine Bapita, a lawyer for one survivor of the attack on Bogoro, told judges that the woman, identified only as A012, "lost also six of her children, killed with machete blows, and of course all of her cows and property."
The International Criminal Court has filed charges against alleged war criminals in Congo, Central African Republic, Uganda and Sudan since it started work in 2002.
Mumbai gunmen besiege hotels, kill 119 in 2 days
Indian commandoes fought Thursday to wrest control of two luxury hotels and a Jewish center from suspected Muslim militants, a day after a chain of attacks across Mumbai left at least 119 people dead and the city shellshocked.
Gunfire and explosions were heard throughout the day and night from the besieged headquarters of the ultra-orthodox Jewish outreach group Chabad Lubavitch and the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels, two of the top gathering spots for the Mumbai elite. Throughout the day, commandoes brought hostages, trapped guests and corpses out of the hotels in small groups while fires erupted periodically and firefighters battled the
Other World Photos
Mumbai gunmen besiege hotels, kill 119 in 2 days
flames.
State officials said 119 people had died and 288 were injured.
The well-planned attacks began Wednesday night and officials said the gunmen were prepared, even carrying large bags of almonds to keep up their energy during the fight. Their main targets appeared to be Americans, Britons and Jews, though most of the dead seemed to be Indians and foreign tourists caught in the random gunfire.
The gunmen -- some of whom strode casually through their targets in khakis and T-shirts -- clearly came ready for a siege.
"They have AK-47s and grenades. They have bags full of grenades and have come fully prepared," said Maj. Gen. R.K. Hooda. Vice-Admiral J.S. Bedi, a top naval officer.
Ratan Tata, who runs the company that owns the elegant Taj Mahal, said they appeared to have scouted their targets in advance.
"They seem to know their way around the back office, the kitchen. There has been a considerable amount of detailed planning," he told a news conference.
Throughout the day, black-clad Indian commandos moved through the two hotels room by room in a bid to free the dozens of trapped people.
The Maharashtra state home ministry said dozens of hostages had been freed from the Oberoi and dozens more were still trapped inside. More than 400 people were brought out of the Taj Mahal, and army forces were still scouring the building for survivors early Friday morning.
Late Thursday night, authorities said they had killed three gunmen at the Taj and were sweeping the Oberoi in search of hostages and trapped people.
It remained unclear just how many people had been taken hostage, how many were hiding inside the hotels and how many dead still lay uncounted.
There were conflicting reports about hostages at the Jewish center. A diplomat closely monitoring the site said people were still being held there, though an Indian state official said earlier eight hostages had been released. Both sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk.
The diplomat said the eight people had likely been hiding in a nearby building.
On Thursday morning, a woman, child and an Indian cook were led out of the building by police, said one witness. The child was identified as Moshe Holtzberg, 2, the son of Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg, the main representative at Chabad house. The child was unharmed, but his clothes were soaked in blood.
Sandra Samuel, 44, the cook who pulled the boy out the building, said she saw Rabbi Holtzberg, his wife Rivka and two other unidentified guests lying on the floor, apparently "unconscious."
India has been shaken repeatedly by terror attacks blamed
Other World Photos
Mumbai gunmen besiege hotels, kill 119 in 2 days
on Muslim militants in recent years, but most of those attacks have been coordinated bombings that struck random crowded places: markets, street corners, parks.
These attacks were far more sophisticated -- and more brazen.
They began at about 9:20 p.m. with the shooters spraying gunfire across the Chhatrapati Shivaji railroad station, one of the world's busiest terminals. For the next two hours, there was an attack roughly every 15 minutes -- the Jewish center, a tourist restaurant, one hotel, then another, and two attacks on hospitals. There were 10 targets in all.
Indian media showed pictures of black and yellow rubber dinghies found by the city's shoreline, apparently used by the gunmen to reach the area. Both of the luxury hotels targeted overlook the Arabian Sea, which surrounds the peninsula of Mumbai.
At the Chhatrapati Shivaji railroad station, a soaring 19th century architectural monument, gunmen fired bullets through the crowded terminal, leaving the floor spattered with blood and corpses.
"They just fired randomly at people and then ran away. In seconds, people fell to the ground," said Nasim Inam, a witness.
Analysts around the world were debating whether the gunmen could have been tied to -- or inspired by -- al-Qaida.
"It's clear that it is al-Qaida style," but probably not carried out by the group's militants, said Rohan Gunaratna, of the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore and author of "Inside Al-Qaida."
"Yesterday's attack is a watershed because for the first time, the terrorists deliberately attacked international targets," he said, noting that symbolic high-profile targets had been chosen, apparently to magnify the effects of the violence.
Indian media reports said a previously unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen claimed responsibility in e-mails to several media outlets. The Deccan is a region in southern India that was traditionally ruled by Muslim kings.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh blamed "external forces" for the violence -- a phrase sometimes used to refer to Pakistani militants, whom Indian authorities often blame attacks on.
"The well-planned and well-orchestrated attacks, probably with external linkages, were intended to create a sense of panic, by choosing high profile targets and indiscriminately killing foreigners," he said in address to the nation.
Survivors of the hotel attacks said the gunmen had specifically targeted Britons and Americans.
Alex Chamberlain, a British citizen dining at the Oberoi, told reporters that a gunman ushered 30 to 40 people from the
Other World Photos
Mumbai gunmen besiege hotels, kill 119 in 2 days
restaurant into a stairway and ordered everyone to put up their hands.
The gunmen "stopped once and asked, 'Where are you from? Any British or American? Show your ID.' My friend said, 'Tell them you're Italian.' And there I was with my hands up basically thinking I was in a lot of trouble."
Chamberlain said he managed to slip away as the patrons were forced to walk upstairs.
One man brought out of the Oberoi, a who identified himself as a Pole but did not give his name, told reporters he had seen many bodies inside, but refused to elaborate, saying he had promised police not to discuss details of the rescue operation.
Among the dead were at least four Australians and a Japanese, said the state home ministry. An Italian, a Briton and a German were also killed, according to their foreign ministries.
At least three top Indian police officers -- including the chief of the anti-terror squad -- were among those killed, said Roy.
Among those foreigners still held captive in all three buildings were Americans, British, Italians, Swedes, Canadians, Yemenis, New Zealanders, Spaniards, Turks, French, a Singaporean and Israelis.
The United States, Pakistan and other countries condemned the attacks.
The motive for the onslaught was not immediately clear, but Mumbai has frequently been targeted in terrorist attacks blamed on Islamic extremists, including a series of bombings in July 2006 that killed 187 people.
Mumbai is one of the most populated cities in the world with some 18 million crammed into shantytowns, high rises and crumbling mansions.
India has been wracked by bomb attacks the past three years, which police blame on Muslim militants intent on destabilizing this largely Hindu country. Nearly 700 people have died.
Since May, a militant group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen has taken credit for a string of blasts that killed more than 130 people. The most recent was in September, when explosions struck a park and crowded shopping areas in the capital, New Delhi, killing 21 people and wounding about 100.
Relations between Hindus, who make up more than 80 percent of India's 1 billion population, and Muslims, who make up about 14 percent, have sporadically erupted into bouts of sectarian violence since British-ruled India was split into independent India and Pakistan in 1947.
------
Gunfire and explosions were heard throughout the day and night from the besieged headquarters of the ultra-orthodox Jewish outreach group Chabad Lubavitch and the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels, two of the top gathering spots for the Mumbai elite. Throughout the day, commandoes brought hostages, trapped guests and corpses out of the hotels in small groups while fires erupted periodically and firefighters battled the
Other World Photos
Mumbai gunmen besiege hotels, kill 119 in 2 days
flames.
State officials said 119 people had died and 288 were injured.
The well-planned attacks began Wednesday night and officials said the gunmen were prepared, even carrying large bags of almonds to keep up their energy during the fight. Their main targets appeared to be Americans, Britons and Jews, though most of the dead seemed to be Indians and foreign tourists caught in the random gunfire.
The gunmen -- some of whom strode casually through their targets in khakis and T-shirts -- clearly came ready for a siege.
"They have AK-47s and grenades. They have bags full of grenades and have come fully prepared," said Maj. Gen. R.K. Hooda. Vice-Admiral J.S. Bedi, a top naval officer.
Ratan Tata, who runs the company that owns the elegant Taj Mahal, said they appeared to have scouted their targets in advance.
"They seem to know their way around the back office, the kitchen. There has been a considerable amount of detailed planning," he told a news conference.
Throughout the day, black-clad Indian commandos moved through the two hotels room by room in a bid to free the dozens of trapped people.
The Maharashtra state home ministry said dozens of hostages had been freed from the Oberoi and dozens more were still trapped inside. More than 400 people were brought out of the Taj Mahal, and army forces were still scouring the building for survivors early Friday morning.
Late Thursday night, authorities said they had killed three gunmen at the Taj and were sweeping the Oberoi in search of hostages and trapped people.
It remained unclear just how many people had been taken hostage, how many were hiding inside the hotels and how many dead still lay uncounted.
There were conflicting reports about hostages at the Jewish center. A diplomat closely monitoring the site said people were still being held there, though an Indian state official said earlier eight hostages had been released. Both sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk.
The diplomat said the eight people had likely been hiding in a nearby building.
On Thursday morning, a woman, child and an Indian cook were led out of the building by police, said one witness. The child was identified as Moshe Holtzberg, 2, the son of Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg, the main representative at Chabad house. The child was unharmed, but his clothes were soaked in blood.
Sandra Samuel, 44, the cook who pulled the boy out the building, said she saw Rabbi Holtzberg, his wife Rivka and two other unidentified guests lying on the floor, apparently "unconscious."
India has been shaken repeatedly by terror attacks blamed
Other World Photos
Mumbai gunmen besiege hotels, kill 119 in 2 days
on Muslim militants in recent years, but most of those attacks have been coordinated bombings that struck random crowded places: markets, street corners, parks.
These attacks were far more sophisticated -- and more brazen.
They began at about 9:20 p.m. with the shooters spraying gunfire across the Chhatrapati Shivaji railroad station, one of the world's busiest terminals. For the next two hours, there was an attack roughly every 15 minutes -- the Jewish center, a tourist restaurant, one hotel, then another, and two attacks on hospitals. There were 10 targets in all.
Indian media showed pictures of black and yellow rubber dinghies found by the city's shoreline, apparently used by the gunmen to reach the area. Both of the luxury hotels targeted overlook the Arabian Sea, which surrounds the peninsula of Mumbai.
At the Chhatrapati Shivaji railroad station, a soaring 19th century architectural monument, gunmen fired bullets through the crowded terminal, leaving the floor spattered with blood and corpses.
"They just fired randomly at people and then ran away. In seconds, people fell to the ground," said Nasim Inam, a witness.
Analysts around the world were debating whether the gunmen could have been tied to -- or inspired by -- al-Qaida.
"It's clear that it is al-Qaida style," but probably not carried out by the group's militants, said Rohan Gunaratna, of the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore and author of "Inside Al-Qaida."
"Yesterday's attack is a watershed because for the first time, the terrorists deliberately attacked international targets," he said, noting that symbolic high-profile targets had been chosen, apparently to magnify the effects of the violence.
Indian media reports said a previously unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen claimed responsibility in e-mails to several media outlets. The Deccan is a region in southern India that was traditionally ruled by Muslim kings.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh blamed "external forces" for the violence -- a phrase sometimes used to refer to Pakistani militants, whom Indian authorities often blame attacks on.
"The well-planned and well-orchestrated attacks, probably with external linkages, were intended to create a sense of panic, by choosing high profile targets and indiscriminately killing foreigners," he said in address to the nation.
Survivors of the hotel attacks said the gunmen had specifically targeted Britons and Americans.
Alex Chamberlain, a British citizen dining at the Oberoi, told reporters that a gunman ushered 30 to 40 people from the
Other World Photos
Mumbai gunmen besiege hotels, kill 119 in 2 days
restaurant into a stairway and ordered everyone to put up their hands.
The gunmen "stopped once and asked, 'Where are you from? Any British or American? Show your ID.' My friend said, 'Tell them you're Italian.' And there I was with my hands up basically thinking I was in a lot of trouble."
Chamberlain said he managed to slip away as the patrons were forced to walk upstairs.
One man brought out of the Oberoi, a who identified himself as a Pole but did not give his name, told reporters he had seen many bodies inside, but refused to elaborate, saying he had promised police not to discuss details of the rescue operation.
Among the dead were at least four Australians and a Japanese, said the state home ministry. An Italian, a Briton and a German were also killed, according to their foreign ministries.
At least three top Indian police officers -- including the chief of the anti-terror squad -- were among those killed, said Roy.
Among those foreigners still held captive in all three buildings were Americans, British, Italians, Swedes, Canadians, Yemenis, New Zealanders, Spaniards, Turks, French, a Singaporean and Israelis.
The United States, Pakistan and other countries condemned the attacks.
The motive for the onslaught was not immediately clear, but Mumbai has frequently been targeted in terrorist attacks blamed on Islamic extremists, including a series of bombings in July 2006 that killed 187 people.
Mumbai is one of the most populated cities in the world with some 18 million crammed into shantytowns, high rises and crumbling mansions.
India has been wracked by bomb attacks the past three years, which police blame on Muslim militants intent on destabilizing this largely Hindu country. Nearly 700 people have died.
Since May, a militant group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen has taken credit for a string of blasts that killed more than 130 people. The most recent was in September, when explosions struck a park and crowded shopping areas in the capital, New Delhi, killing 21 people and wounding about 100.
Relations between Hindus, who make up more than 80 percent of India's 1 billion population, and Muslims, who make up about 14 percent, have sporadically erupted into bouts of sectarian violence since British-ruled India was split into independent India and Pakistan in 1947.
------
Bangkok airport chaos deals blow to tourism
Bangkok airport chaos deals blow to tourism
November 26, 2008 2:09:57 AM PST
By STEPHEN WRIGHT and CHRIS BLAKE
Thousands of bleary-eyed tourists mingled with yellow-clad protesters who brought flights to a halt at Bangkok's international airport Wednesday, dealing a major blow to Thailand's tourism industry during its peak season.
The tourism industry, which makes up 6 percent of the economy and employs about a million people, was already flagging after protesters in late August shut down airports serving popular beach resorts in Thailand's south.
With the latest unrest paralyzing the airport -- which handles about 40 million passengers a year -- during the peak tourist season, and TV networks broadcasting images of the chaos worldwide,
Other World Photos
Mumbai gunmen besiege hotels, kill 119 in 2 days
the damage this time is likely to be more severe.
"Our main concern is to get the first flight home and never come back," said Australian newlywed Robert Grieve, 32, drinking a can of Heineken at 9 a.m. as he leaned against a vacated Thai Airways check-in counter. "I haven't even seen any staff since last night."
Fred Thierry, a Shanghai-based French executive with a printing materials company, had been stranded at the airport since 8 p.m. Tuesday.
"I have some meetings in Shanghai today," he said. "I had a big meeting with big customers."
Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport was shut down Tuesday after thousands of protesters -- dressed in yellow to symbolize loyalty to Thailand's revered king -- stormed the complex. Some of them were masked and carrying metal rods.
The takeover is the latest escalation in a sometimes violent four-month campaign by the People's Alliance for Democracy to topple Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat's government, which they claim is a puppet for ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra. The billionaire businessman turned populist politician was deposed by the military in a 2006 coup following months of street protests against his alleged corruption and abuse of power.
Cathay Pacific Airways, Singapore Airlines Ltd. and dozens of other carriers canceled flights in and out of Bangkok, a major airline hub in Asia.
Inside the airport, exhausted travelers were sleeping everywhere: on their suitcases, on luggage carts, on security conveyer belts and behind vacated check-in counters. Protesters in yellow shirts -- considered the royal color -- walked around distributing food, ham sandwiches and packets of rice.
Airport director Serirat Prasutanont said authorities were trying to negotiate with the protesters to allow some of the 4,000 passengers stranded at the Bangkok airport to fly out.
Singapore's foreign ministry advised citizens to postpone all but urgent travel to Bangkok.
The airport chaos could inflict broader damage on Thailand's economy, which grew at its slowest pace in more than three years in the latest quarter because of the political unrest and the global financial crisis.
"We were thinking of having a new investment here but now we will probably do it in China," said Thierry, a 44-year-old Frenchman, in town to check on his company's Bangkok factory. "The situation is too unstable."
The political protests have already hurt tourism in the country, famous for its beaches and Buddhist temples.
Other World Photos
Mumbai gunmen besiege hotels, kill 119 in 2 days
But the airport shutdown will deter even more visitors from coming, tourism executives said.
Tourist income during the high season -- from late October to February -- could slump to about half the expected 240 billion baht ($6.8 billion), said Kongkrit Hiranyakit, head of the Tourism Council of Thailand.
In late August, when antigovernment protesters shut down the airport on the resort island of Phuket, tourist arrivals at it and nearby resorts plummeted by 17 percent, he said. Fallout from the closure of Bangkok's main airport will likely be worse and could last six months or more, he said.
"We don't know when it will recover," said Kongrit. "The government should be taking steps to solve this problem. Otherwise we can not survive with this situation."
November 26, 2008 2:09:57 AM PST
By STEPHEN WRIGHT and CHRIS BLAKE
Thousands of bleary-eyed tourists mingled with yellow-clad protesters who brought flights to a halt at Bangkok's international airport Wednesday, dealing a major blow to Thailand's tourism industry during its peak season.
The tourism industry, which makes up 6 percent of the economy and employs about a million people, was already flagging after protesters in late August shut down airports serving popular beach resorts in Thailand's south.
With the latest unrest paralyzing the airport -- which handles about 40 million passengers a year -- during the peak tourist season, and TV networks broadcasting images of the chaos worldwide,
Other World Photos
Mumbai gunmen besiege hotels, kill 119 in 2 days
the damage this time is likely to be more severe.
"Our main concern is to get the first flight home and never come back," said Australian newlywed Robert Grieve, 32, drinking a can of Heineken at 9 a.m. as he leaned against a vacated Thai Airways check-in counter. "I haven't even seen any staff since last night."
Fred Thierry, a Shanghai-based French executive with a printing materials company, had been stranded at the airport since 8 p.m. Tuesday.
"I have some meetings in Shanghai today," he said. "I had a big meeting with big customers."
Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport was shut down Tuesday after thousands of protesters -- dressed in yellow to symbolize loyalty to Thailand's revered king -- stormed the complex. Some of them were masked and carrying metal rods.
The takeover is the latest escalation in a sometimes violent four-month campaign by the People's Alliance for Democracy to topple Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat's government, which they claim is a puppet for ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra. The billionaire businessman turned populist politician was deposed by the military in a 2006 coup following months of street protests against his alleged corruption and abuse of power.
Cathay Pacific Airways, Singapore Airlines Ltd. and dozens of other carriers canceled flights in and out of Bangkok, a major airline hub in Asia.
Inside the airport, exhausted travelers were sleeping everywhere: on their suitcases, on luggage carts, on security conveyer belts and behind vacated check-in counters. Protesters in yellow shirts -- considered the royal color -- walked around distributing food, ham sandwiches and packets of rice.
Airport director Serirat Prasutanont said authorities were trying to negotiate with the protesters to allow some of the 4,000 passengers stranded at the Bangkok airport to fly out.
Singapore's foreign ministry advised citizens to postpone all but urgent travel to Bangkok.
The airport chaos could inflict broader damage on Thailand's economy, which grew at its slowest pace in more than three years in the latest quarter because of the political unrest and the global financial crisis.
"We were thinking of having a new investment here but now we will probably do it in China," said Thierry, a 44-year-old Frenchman, in town to check on his company's Bangkok factory. "The situation is too unstable."
The political protests have already hurt tourism in the country, famous for its beaches and Buddhist temples.
Other World Photos
Mumbai gunmen besiege hotels, kill 119 in 2 days
But the airport shutdown will deter even more visitors from coming, tourism executives said.
Tourist income during the high season -- from late October to February -- could slump to about half the expected 240 billion baht ($6.8 billion), said Kongkrit Hiranyakit, head of the Tourism Council of Thailand.
In late August, when antigovernment protesters shut down the airport on the resort island of Phuket, tourist arrivals at it and nearby resorts plummeted by 17 percent, he said. Fallout from the closure of Bangkok's main airport will likely be worse and could last six months or more, he said.
"We don't know when it will recover," said Kongrit. "The government should be taking steps to solve this problem. Otherwise we can not survive with this situation."
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Jury convicts mom of lesser charges in online hoax
A Missouri mother on trial in a landmark cyberbullying case was convicted Wednesday of only three minor offenses for her role in a mean-spirited Internet hoax that apparently drove a 13-year-old girl to suicide. The federal jury could not reach a verdict on the main charge against 49-year-old Lori Drew -- conspiracy -- and rejected three other felony counts of accessing computers without authorization to inflict emotional harm.
Instead, the panel found Drew guilty of three misdemeanor offenses of accessing computers without authorization. Each count is punishable by up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine. Drew could have gotten 20
Other Top Headlines Photos
Jury convicts mom of lesser charges in online hoax
100
years if convicted of the four original charges.
U.S. District Judge George Wu declared a mistrial on the conspiracy count. There was no immediate word on whether prosecutors would retry her.
"I don't have any satisfaction in the jury's decision," said Drew's lawyer, Dean Steward. "I don't think these charges should have ever been brought."
Tina Meier, the mother of the dead girl, said Drew deserves the maximum of three years behind bars.
"For me it's never been about vengeance," she said. "This is about justice."
Prosecutors said Drew and two others created a fictitious 16-year-old boy on MySpace and sent flirtatious messages from him to teenage neighbor Megan Meier. The "boy" then dumped Megan in 2006, saying, "The world would be a better place without you." Megan promptly hanged herself with a belt in her bedroom closet.
Prosecutors said Drew wanted to humiliate Megan for saying mean things about Drew's teenage daughter. They said Drew knew Megan suffered from depression and was emotionally fragile.
"Lori Drew decided to humiliate a child," U.S. Attorney Thomas O'Brien, chief federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, told the jury during closing arguments. "The only way she could harm this pretty little girl was with a computer. She chose to use a computer to hurt a little girl, and for four weeks she enjoyed it."
O'Brien, who pronounced the case the nation's first cyberbullying trial, said the jury's decision sent a worthy message: "If you have children who are on the Internet and you are not watching what they are doing, you better be."
Most members of the six-man, six-woman jury left court without speaking to reporters. One juror, who identified himself by his first name only, Marcilo, indicated jurors were not convinced Drew's actions involved the intent alleged by prosecutors.
"Some of the jurors just felt strongly that it wasn't tortious and everybody needed to stay with their feeling. That was really the balancing point," he said.
The case hinged on an unprecedented -- and, some legal experts say, highly questionable -- application of computer-fraud law.
Drew was not directly charged with causing Megan's death. Instead, prosecutors indicted her under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which in the past has been used in hacking and trademark theft cases.
Among other things, Drew was charged with conspiring to violate the fine print in MySpace's terms-of-service agreement, which prohibits
Other Top Headlines Photos
Jury convicts mom of lesser charges in online hoax
100
the use of phony names and harassment of other MySpace members.
"This was a very aggressive, if not misguided, theory," said Matt Levine, a New York-based defense attorney and former federal prosecutor. "Unfortunately, there's not a law that covers every bad thing in the world. It's a bad idea to use laws that have very different purpose."
Drew's lawyer, Steward, contended his client had little to do with the content of the messages and was not at home when the final one was sent. Steward also argued that nobody reads the fine print on service agreements.
Prosecutors said Drew, her then-13-year-old daughter Sarah and Drew's 18-year-old business assistant Ashley Grills set up the phony MySpace profile for a boy named "Josh Evans," posting a photo of a bare-chested boy with tousled brown hair. "Josh" then told Megan she was "sexi" and assured her, "i love you so much."
Grills allegedly sent the final, insulting message to Megan before she killed herself in the St. Louis suburb of Dardenne Prairie, Mo.
Missouri authorities said there was no state law under which Drew could be charged. But federal prosecutors in California claimed jurisdiction because MySpace is based in Beverly Hills.
Sarah Drew testified she never saw her mother use the MySpace account. But Grills, testifying under immunity from prosecution, said she saw Drew type at least one message under the name Josh Evans.
After the suicide, Missouri passed a law against cyber-harassment. Similar federal legislation has been proposed on Capitol Hill.
The trial's outcome was a victory for prosecutors despite the lack of a felony conviction, said Nick Akerman, a New York lawyer who specializes in cases involving the federal computer act.
"What you learned is that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is an extremely important tool in the federal arsenal against computer crime," he said.
MySpace said in a statement that it "respects the jury's decision and will continue to work with industry experts to raise awareness of cyberbullying and the harm it can potentially cause."
------
Instead, the panel found Drew guilty of three misdemeanor offenses of accessing computers without authorization. Each count is punishable by up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine. Drew could have gotten 20
Other Top Headlines Photos
Jury convicts mom of lesser charges in online hoax
100
years if convicted of the four original charges.
U.S. District Judge George Wu declared a mistrial on the conspiracy count. There was no immediate word on whether prosecutors would retry her.
"I don't have any satisfaction in the jury's decision," said Drew's lawyer, Dean Steward. "I don't think these charges should have ever been brought."
Tina Meier, the mother of the dead girl, said Drew deserves the maximum of three years behind bars.
"For me it's never been about vengeance," she said. "This is about justice."
Prosecutors said Drew and two others created a fictitious 16-year-old boy on MySpace and sent flirtatious messages from him to teenage neighbor Megan Meier. The "boy" then dumped Megan in 2006, saying, "The world would be a better place without you." Megan promptly hanged herself with a belt in her bedroom closet.
Prosecutors said Drew wanted to humiliate Megan for saying mean things about Drew's teenage daughter. They said Drew knew Megan suffered from depression and was emotionally fragile.
"Lori Drew decided to humiliate a child," U.S. Attorney Thomas O'Brien, chief federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, told the jury during closing arguments. "The only way she could harm this pretty little girl was with a computer. She chose to use a computer to hurt a little girl, and for four weeks she enjoyed it."
O'Brien, who pronounced the case the nation's first cyberbullying trial, said the jury's decision sent a worthy message: "If you have children who are on the Internet and you are not watching what they are doing, you better be."
Most members of the six-man, six-woman jury left court without speaking to reporters. One juror, who identified himself by his first name only, Marcilo, indicated jurors were not convinced Drew's actions involved the intent alleged by prosecutors.
"Some of the jurors just felt strongly that it wasn't tortious and everybody needed to stay with their feeling. That was really the balancing point," he said.
The case hinged on an unprecedented -- and, some legal experts say, highly questionable -- application of computer-fraud law.
Drew was not directly charged with causing Megan's death. Instead, prosecutors indicted her under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which in the past has been used in hacking and trademark theft cases.
Among other things, Drew was charged with conspiring to violate the fine print in MySpace's terms-of-service agreement, which prohibits
Other Top Headlines Photos
Jury convicts mom of lesser charges in online hoax
100
the use of phony names and harassment of other MySpace members.
"This was a very aggressive, if not misguided, theory," said Matt Levine, a New York-based defense attorney and former federal prosecutor. "Unfortunately, there's not a law that covers every bad thing in the world. It's a bad idea to use laws that have very different purpose."
Drew's lawyer, Steward, contended his client had little to do with the content of the messages and was not at home when the final one was sent. Steward also argued that nobody reads the fine print on service agreements.
Prosecutors said Drew, her then-13-year-old daughter Sarah and Drew's 18-year-old business assistant Ashley Grills set up the phony MySpace profile for a boy named "Josh Evans," posting a photo of a bare-chested boy with tousled brown hair. "Josh" then told Megan she was "sexi" and assured her, "i love you so much."
Grills allegedly sent the final, insulting message to Megan before she killed herself in the St. Louis suburb of Dardenne Prairie, Mo.
Missouri authorities said there was no state law under which Drew could be charged. But federal prosecutors in California claimed jurisdiction because MySpace is based in Beverly Hills.
Sarah Drew testified she never saw her mother use the MySpace account. But Grills, testifying under immunity from prosecution, said she saw Drew type at least one message under the name Josh Evans.
After the suicide, Missouri passed a law against cyber-harassment. Similar federal legislation has been proposed on Capitol Hill.
The trial's outcome was a victory for prosecutors despite the lack of a felony conviction, said Nick Akerman, a New York lawyer who specializes in cases involving the federal computer act.
"What you learned is that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is an extremely important tool in the federal arsenal against computer crime," he said.
MySpace said in a statement that it "respects the jury's decision and will continue to work with industry experts to raise awareness of cyberbullying and the harm it can potentially cause."
------
Thanksgiving In WashinTon
To link to this comic from any website, use this link:
http://www.naturalnews.com/024920.html
There's certainly one group of people who have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving: The white-collar criminals in Washington who are looting the U.S. Treasury and stealing trillions of dollars from taxpayers.
That's what this financial bailout really is, of course: A grand, desperate swindle that seeks to wring every last cent out of the U.S. dollar before the coming currency collapse. A collapse of the value of the U.S. dollar is coming soon. Just do the math: The end result is obvious. It will either be runaway inflation that leaves dollars virtually worthless or the abandonment of the dollar by the U.S. government and the adoption of a new currency (the Amero?) at confiscatory exchange rates that will wipe out the savings of most Americans.
You are witnessing the downfall of the American empire, and the Federal Reserve -- a private bank that was stupidly handed the power over our nation's money supply -- is heaping new debt onto old de bt, sending the U.S. into a tailspin of bad money from which it will never emerge. Consider this: It took the United States over 230 years to accumulate $5 trillion in debt. That national debt has now roughly tripled in the last 60 days. Officially, the national debt is now about $10 trillion, but with the Fed just announcing another $7 trillion in bailout money, we're talking about a $17 trillion national debt that nobody even has a clue how to pay back.
The very idea that we can pay off bad debt with more bad debt is so utterly stupid in the first place, it could have only been dreamed up by politicians. It makes as much sense as paying off one credit card by taking out a cash advance on another credit card. That's not a financial bailout; it's more like a financial tar pit. But it's exactly what the United States of America has decided to do.
With a failed auto industry, a failed health care system, a failed education system, a failed financial system and two failed wars, the U.S. is looking so much like Rome these days that we should probably all be speaking Greek.
Historically, every national treasury was looted by those in power right before it collapsed. That's exactly what's happening in Washington right now: An organized looting of the U.S. Treasury -- a last-ditch bankruptcy buffet that's handing out trillions to the rich while socking it to the working-class taxpayers.
You're being swindled, friends. And the crooks are getting away with it! The mainstream media does nothing, the FBI does nothing, the lame politicians in Washington do nothing, and the whole mass of brain-dead onlookers just stare at the scene, eyes glazed over, not understanding what they're witnessing right before their very eyes. The mainstream American people have become too complacent and mathematically illiterate to even realize when they're being jacked!
There are two films you desperately need to see on this topic. The first is called I.O.U.S.A, which you can see here: www.IOUSAthemovie.com
The second is called The End of America, which is more about the loss of freedoms and the coming police state: www.EndOfAmericaMovie.com
Both will provide you with a top-notch education in reality. You might also want to check out the Alex Jones show at www.PrisonPlanet.com where you'll learn a whole lot more about what's coming.
If you want to learn how to protect yourself from the coming financial chaos, get my 6-hour audio seminar on financial preparedness and health protection. It's available right now at Truth Publishing: http:/ /www.truthpublishing.com/Health_Ranger_Live_p/live-cat21507.htm
http://www.naturalnews.com/024920.html
There's certainly one group of people who have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving: The white-collar criminals in Washington who are looting the U.S. Treasury and stealing trillions of dollars from taxpayers.
That's what this financial bailout really is, of course: A grand, desperate swindle that seeks to wring every last cent out of the U.S. dollar before the coming currency collapse. A collapse of the value of the U.S. dollar is coming soon. Just do the math: The end result is obvious. It will either be runaway inflation that leaves dollars virtually worthless or the abandonment of the dollar by the U.S. government and the adoption of a new currency (the Amero?) at confiscatory exchange rates that will wipe out the savings of most Americans.
You are witnessing the downfall of the American empire, and the Federal Reserve -- a private bank that was stupidly handed the power over our nation's money supply -- is heaping new debt onto old de bt, sending the U.S. into a tailspin of bad money from which it will never emerge. Consider this: It took the United States over 230 years to accumulate $5 trillion in debt. That national debt has now roughly tripled in the last 60 days. Officially, the national debt is now about $10 trillion, but with the Fed just announcing another $7 trillion in bailout money, we're talking about a $17 trillion national debt that nobody even has a clue how to pay back.
The very idea that we can pay off bad debt with more bad debt is so utterly stupid in the first place, it could have only been dreamed up by politicians. It makes as much sense as paying off one credit card by taking out a cash advance on another credit card. That's not a financial bailout; it's more like a financial tar pit. But it's exactly what the United States of America has decided to do.
With a failed auto industry, a failed health care system, a failed education system, a failed financial system and two failed wars, the U.S. is looking so much like Rome these days that we should probably all be speaking Greek.
Historically, every national treasury was looted by those in power right before it collapsed. That's exactly what's happening in Washington right now: An organized looting of the U.S. Treasury -- a last-ditch bankruptcy buffet that's handing out trillions to the rich while socking it to the working-class taxpayers.
You're being swindled, friends. And the crooks are getting away with it! The mainstream media does nothing, the FBI does nothing, the lame politicians in Washington do nothing, and the whole mass of brain-dead onlookers just stare at the scene, eyes glazed over, not understanding what they're witnessing right before their very eyes. The mainstream American people have become too complacent and mathematically illiterate to even realize when they're being jacked!
There are two films you desperately need to see on this topic. The first is called I.O.U.S.A, which you can see here: www.IOUSAthemovie.com
The second is called The End of America, which is more about the loss of freedoms and the coming police state: www.EndOfAmericaMovie.com
Both will provide you with a top-notch education in reality. You might also want to check out the Alex Jones show at www.PrisonPlanet.com where you'll learn a whole lot more about what's coming.
If you want to learn how to protect yourself from the coming financial chaos, get my 6-hour audio seminar on financial preparedness and health protection. It's available right now at Truth Publishing: http:/ /www.truthpublishing.com/Health_Ranger_Live_p/live-cat21507.htm
Sunday, November 23, 2008
NOTES FROM REAL ALIENZ
Have you ever thought about how you might really save the planet? Any honest answer starts with removing all the humans who keeping screwing over the planet with their chemicals, clear-cutting, CO2 emissions, and the like. At least that's the view of the aliens featured in this cartoon. They've decided to come to Earth and save the planet. NOT the people on the planet, mind you, but just the planet.
For some people, it comes as a shock to realize that humans are, indeed, the No. 1 threat to the health of planet Earth. The way we've treated this planet so far, we don't deserve to live here. Hopefully, we'll learn some lessons and figure out how to live in harmony with nature, but if we don't, our removal from the planet is inevitable (by infectious disease, most likely).
For some people, it comes as a shock to realize that humans are, indeed, the No. 1 threat to the health of planet Earth. The way we've treated this planet so far, we don't deserve to live here. Hopefully, we'll learn some lessons and figure out how to live in harmony with nature, but if we don't, our removal from the planet is inevitable (by infectious disease, most likely).
US ECONOMY VS THE CHINESE ECONMY
This comic illustrates the coming trend in world demand for energy resources (and oil, obviously). The Chinese economy is growing at an accelerated pace, and it's hungry for energy. As such, China is scouring the planet, buying up whatever energy resources it can by landing investment deals with energy producers and owners. This includes natural gas, oil and other energy resources. The net result of all this will be, in the coming years, a massive collision between the energy demands of China and the U.S.
The U.S. economy is mired in debt and disease, but it's still addicted to oil, so the U.S. continues to desperately pump away, trying to "energize" its way out of poor economic planning and outright negligent government spending. But along comes China, tapping the U.S. on the shoulder and saying, "Hey, it's our turn to pump some of this oil." That's what's happening on the world stage today.
I include coverage of energy topics in CounterThink because it's an issue that's just as important as health or the environment. In fact, it's all intertwined. Without energy conservation and the development of renewable, Earth-friendly energy resources, we will never be a healthy nation. And unless we get away from coal-fired power plants and combustion engines (an outdated technology), we'll never be able to protect the planet enough to prevent an environmental disaster.
Any nation that isn't thinking hard about the future of energy -- and doing something about it -- will not easily survive the next hundred years, I predict. And that includes the U.S., a nation whose future is all but written in stone just from the debt burden alone. Hopefully, though, we will witness a breakthrough in solar technology, cold fusion, hot fusion, methane hydrates or fuel cells that will save us from the energy future we probably deserve.
The U.S. economy is mired in debt and disease, but it's still addicted to oil, so the U.S. continues to desperately pump away, trying to "energize" its way out of poor economic planning and outright negligent government spending. But along comes China, tapping the U.S. on the shoulder and saying, "Hey, it's our turn to pump some of this oil." That's what's happening on the world stage today.
I include coverage of energy topics in CounterThink because it's an issue that's just as important as health or the environment. In fact, it's all intertwined. Without energy conservation and the development of renewable, Earth-friendly energy resources, we will never be a healthy nation. And unless we get away from coal-fired power plants and combustion engines (an outdated technology), we'll never be able to protect the planet enough to prevent an environmental disaster.
Any nation that isn't thinking hard about the future of energy -- and doing something about it -- will not easily survive the next hundred years, I predict. And that includes the U.S., a nation whose future is all but written in stone just from the debt burden alone. Hopefully, though, we will witness a breakthrough in solar technology, cold fusion, hot fusion, methane hydrates or fuel cells that will save us from the energy future we probably deserve.
LOOK AT IT THIS WAY YOU CAN DRIVE OR SWIM IN WATER A FEW YEARS FROM NOW WORLDWIDE.
Amidst record summer temperatures and extreme winter weather patterns that are devastating crops in the U.S. and around the world, the business community in the United States continues to argue there's no need to do anything about global warming or CO2 emissions. This attitude of sheer denial, which is supported by chambers of commerce, the Bush Administration and most large corporations, is so blatantly shortsighted and foolhardy that it was just begging for a CounterThink cartoon.
Here, a pro-business pollution defender is testifying before some sort of "official" panel (which was left intentionally vague) about why we all need to pollute MORE, not less. His reasoning? If we keep polluting the air, nobody will be able to notice the climate change. (Because the smog will block out the sky, you see.)
The logic is totally absurd, of course, but that's the point. It's about as goofy as the arguments made by the anti-Earth, pro-business crowd today who argue that they should be allowed to keep on polluting the planet as long as the "emissions density" does not increase. This particular gobbledygook means that as long as the economy continues to grow, pollution can increase while politicians can claim credit for "capping emissions" even while those emissions are still increasing. It's precisely the sort of fuzzy math and consensus delusion that undermines everything in Washington, from the national debt and government spending to the Medicare prescription drug fiasco or fudged housing statistics.
In other words, the pro-business community thinks it can save the planet through wishful thinking and political rhetoric, but not by actually reducing emissions. They think that passing laws with future promises somehow matters today. I say, you can fool the voters, you can fool the banks, you can fool the investors and you can even fool foreign nations, but you can't fool Mother Nature. The Earth doesn't care what campaign promises were made and broken. It doesn't care what future emissions targets might exist on paper, or how much money nations say they'll invest in "clean energy." Mother Nature only notices what's REALLY happening to the planet.
And let's face it. Humans treat the Earth like a giant toilet. We dump chemicals into the water, pesticides onto the land, smog into the air and sewage into the ocean. We have polluted virtually every waterway, valley, peninsula, airstream, river, gulf, water table, mountain range, lake, pond, forest and land mass imaginable, and yet most of us sit back and think we're "green" because we bought a couple of compact fluorescent light bulbs (which contain toxic mercury, by the way) for our homes that remain inefficiently heated and cooled with fossil fuels. People actually think they're living green because they recycle the empty pesticide boxes after emptying the contents of those boxes onto their lawns. (See my story The Recycling Contradiction for more observations about the problems with consumer recycling programs.)
Humans are the worst thing that ever happened to planet Earth, and the modern day business community is determined to drive us all into extinction just as long as they can chisel out a profit each quarter along the way. As the oceans rise and wash away the filth and greed of America's capitalism, Wall Street greaseheads will be seen clutching their hyperinflated greenbacks as they shout through the bubbling water, "We beat earnings expectations!"
Indeed, we will all die someday. But some of us -- the green crowd -- hope we don't take this planet with us when we go. Some of us want to leave behind a planet that still functions for future generations. We used to be in the minority ("You damn tree huggers!"), but now we're almost considered mainstream. And as the hurricanes, earthquakes, tidal waves, freak freezes, tornados and other radical earth changes unfold over the next few years, even the most stubborn, desperate Republican holdouts and diehard polluters will eventually have to face up to the fact that if we don't start saving this planet, there's not going to be much of an economy to bicker about.
When the global food supply is devastated by climate change, we will know exactly who to blame: the evil corporations that run this country and the sellout lawmakers who let them get away with it. And the last time I checked, that included just about every lawmaker in Washington other than Rep. Ron Paul.
I say it's time to take back our country from corporations, and it's time to take back our planet from a government that's not interested in protecting it. These CounterThink cartoons are my own way of marching on Washington, one web viewer at a time, until the people get pissed off enough to demand real change.
The alternative is to maintain the status quo and, by doing so, starve ourselves into near extinction, remembered as a civilization of mechanized idiots who deliberately and knowingly destroying the only thing that ever gave them abundance in the first place: our planet.
Here, a pro-business pollution defender is testifying before some sort of "official" panel (which was left intentionally vague) about why we all need to pollute MORE, not less. His reasoning? If we keep polluting the air, nobody will be able to notice the climate change. (Because the smog will block out the sky, you see.)
The logic is totally absurd, of course, but that's the point. It's about as goofy as the arguments made by the anti-Earth, pro-business crowd today who argue that they should be allowed to keep on polluting the planet as long as the "emissions density" does not increase. This particular gobbledygook means that as long as the economy continues to grow, pollution can increase while politicians can claim credit for "capping emissions" even while those emissions are still increasing. It's precisely the sort of fuzzy math and consensus delusion that undermines everything in Washington, from the national debt and government spending to the Medicare prescription drug fiasco or fudged housing statistics.
In other words, the pro-business community thinks it can save the planet through wishful thinking and political rhetoric, but not by actually reducing emissions. They think that passing laws with future promises somehow matters today. I say, you can fool the voters, you can fool the banks, you can fool the investors and you can even fool foreign nations, but you can't fool Mother Nature. The Earth doesn't care what campaign promises were made and broken. It doesn't care what future emissions targets might exist on paper, or how much money nations say they'll invest in "clean energy." Mother Nature only notices what's REALLY happening to the planet.
And let's face it. Humans treat the Earth like a giant toilet. We dump chemicals into the water, pesticides onto the land, smog into the air and sewage into the ocean. We have polluted virtually every waterway, valley, peninsula, airstream, river, gulf, water table, mountain range, lake, pond, forest and land mass imaginable, and yet most of us sit back and think we're "green" because we bought a couple of compact fluorescent light bulbs (which contain toxic mercury, by the way) for our homes that remain inefficiently heated and cooled with fossil fuels. People actually think they're living green because they recycle the empty pesticide boxes after emptying the contents of those boxes onto their lawns. (See my story The Recycling Contradiction for more observations about the problems with consumer recycling programs.)
Humans are the worst thing that ever happened to planet Earth, and the modern day business community is determined to drive us all into extinction just as long as they can chisel out a profit each quarter along the way. As the oceans rise and wash away the filth and greed of America's capitalism, Wall Street greaseheads will be seen clutching their hyperinflated greenbacks as they shout through the bubbling water, "We beat earnings expectations!"
Indeed, we will all die someday. But some of us -- the green crowd -- hope we don't take this planet with us when we go. Some of us want to leave behind a planet that still functions for future generations. We used to be in the minority ("You damn tree huggers!"), but now we're almost considered mainstream. And as the hurricanes, earthquakes, tidal waves, freak freezes, tornados and other radical earth changes unfold over the next few years, even the most stubborn, desperate Republican holdouts and diehard polluters will eventually have to face up to the fact that if we don't start saving this planet, there's not going to be much of an economy to bicker about.
When the global food supply is devastated by climate change, we will know exactly who to blame: the evil corporations that run this country and the sellout lawmakers who let them get away with it. And the last time I checked, that included just about every lawmaker in Washington other than Rep. Ron Paul.
I say it's time to take back our country from corporations, and it's time to take back our planet from a government that's not interested in protecting it. These CounterThink cartoons are my own way of marching on Washington, one web viewer at a time, until the people get pissed off enough to demand real change.
The alternative is to maintain the status quo and, by doing so, starve ourselves into near extinction, remembered as a civilization of mechanized idiots who deliberately and knowingly destroying the only thing that ever gave them abundance in the first place: our planet.
EASE UP ON THE CHEMO GOT CANCER SMOKE WEED AND FIGHT THE DEA FROM TAKING YOUR MEDICAL WEED AWAY AND SHUTTING DOWN DISPENSARIES.
Chemotherapy is a barbaric medical procedure. It's based on injecting highly toxic chemicals into patients and hoping the chemicals kill the cancer cells before they kill the patient. But even when it's a "success," it only destroys the patient's immune system, leading to further development of cancer in the years ahead, all while utterly ignoring the root cause of the cancer in the first place.
This particular comic came to mind after reading about a news report where a woman was sent home with an incorrectly programmed chemotherapy injection meter. It had been set way too high (like a dose for horses), and it killed the woman. That woman died needlessly, just like countless other chemotherapy patients who have been lied to by their doctors and told that chemotherapy might save their lives. In reality, chemotherapy only steals life by destroying the heart, liver, kidneys and brain, all while doing nothing to address the root cause of cancer in the first place.
Chemotherapy is a cruel scam, but the medical industry loves it because once a patient starts chemotherapy, they become a repeat customer (generating repeat revenues) due to all the other organ damage caused by the procedure. For example, "chemobrain" is now a well document side effect of chemotherapy, proving that chemotherapy actually causes permanent brain damage. Click here to read more.
Medical mistakes are astonishingly common in cancer screening, diagnosis and treatment. Overworked staff, sloppy procedures, poorly calibrated machines and an ever-present profit motive all lead to an alarming number of false positives and unnecessary treatments for cancer. It all leads to a startling statistic revealed in research conducted by the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Denmark. Researchers found that mammogram screening for breast cancer ultimately harms ten women for every one that it helps. Read the full story here.
I have no doubt that today's conventional cancer treatments will someday be outlawed entirely and viewed as both barbaric and medically unjustified.
This particular comic came to mind after reading about a news report where a woman was sent home with an incorrectly programmed chemotherapy injection meter. It had been set way too high (like a dose for horses), and it killed the woman. That woman died needlessly, just like countless other chemotherapy patients who have been lied to by their doctors and told that chemotherapy might save their lives. In reality, chemotherapy only steals life by destroying the heart, liver, kidneys and brain, all while doing nothing to address the root cause of cancer in the first place.
Chemotherapy is a cruel scam, but the medical industry loves it because once a patient starts chemotherapy, they become a repeat customer (generating repeat revenues) due to all the other organ damage caused by the procedure. For example, "chemobrain" is now a well document side effect of chemotherapy, proving that chemotherapy actually causes permanent brain damage. Click here to read more.
Medical mistakes are astonishingly common in cancer screening, diagnosis and treatment. Overworked staff, sloppy procedures, poorly calibrated machines and an ever-present profit motive all lead to an alarming number of false positives and unnecessary treatments for cancer. It all leads to a startling statistic revealed in research conducted by the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Denmark. Researchers found that mammogram screening for breast cancer ultimately harms ten women for every one that it helps. Read the full story here.
I have no doubt that today's conventional cancer treatments will someday be outlawed entirely and viewed as both barbaric and medically unjustified.
whos on top of who?
You know why U.S. companies are going bankrupt and finding themselves unable to compete in the global marketplace? Health care costs. Except you can't really call it health care. It's more like sick care, because the whole system of slash and burn medicine is all about keeping people sick and "managing" their symptoms rather than teaching them how to cure disease and be well.
The American medical system is, essentially, a really expensive hoax. It's a moneymaking scam designed to extract the maximum profits from the U.S. economy, funneling them into the pockets of Big Pharma shareholders and CEOs. The long term cost of this foolhardy approach to public health will be the economic downfall of the United States -- a country that is already mired in unprecedented debt, that has the highest rates of degenerative disease in the world, that's seeing its major industries (like the auto industry) toppled by foreign competitors, that continues to intentionally devalue its own currency and that has decided to invest in wars rather than education and disease prevention.
In order to prop up the profits of drug companies, the U.S. government (and its regulators like the FDA) have also decided to sacrifice the health of the entire population. Even all the current talk about health care reform is nothing more than a "who pays?" shell game designed to distract people from engaging in any meaningful thinking about overthrowing the FDA, boycotting Big Pharma, exposing the AMA and restoring health to the American people through prevention and nutrition.
In this CounterThink cartoon, I'm attempting to show just how precarious this whole situation really is. Based on a fraudulent (and criminal) system of junk science, FDA corruption, drug advertising and industry influence, the public is kept in a state of ongoing disease while employers foot the bill. The net effect is a massive transfer of wealth from workers and companies to Big Pharma. And the cost of playing this dangerous game of "keep the public sick" is the utter loss of competitiveness of U.S. businesses in the global marketplace.
This is why the Bush Administration doesn't want any other nations around the world to develop weapons. Because superior firepower is about the only bargaining chip the U.S. has left in the world. We can't out-compete China, we can't out-educate India, we can't out-manufacture Japan and we can't out-think Canada. But we can sure threaten nations with superior weapons. It's the last, desperate strategy of every failed state.
Where there is no economy based on genuine productivity, perpetual war is adopted to create the illusion of economic activity. We saw it with the Roman Empire, and we see it now with the American empire. Except America has taken it one step further and also adopted perpetual disease as an economic strategy, too.
A sane nation would act to keep its population healthy, educated and productive. But that would require sacrificing the profits of powerful corporations, of course, which hold far too much sway in Washington. And so for the sake of a few rich, fat white men, we continue to live in a nation that intentionally and deliberately keeps its population perpetually diseased. There is no attempt whatsoever to PREVENT disease, not by the American Cancer Society (which has actually fought against cancer prevention initiatives), not by the American Medical Association (which keeps pushing drugs and surgery), not by the FDA (now the marketing department of Big Pharma), not by the American Diabetes Association (which continues to tell diabetics they can eat all the sugar they want) and not even by medical schools and many practicing M.D.s.
As a result of all this, the future of the United States of America is not difficult to predict. It will eventually collapse into financial ruin, from which individual nation states like California will emerge and claim sovereignty. And then, finally, the people will be rid of the tyranny of Washington, the criminality of the FDA and the disease economy which has brought untold harm to the people of this country who, frankly, deserve better.
Of course, people will then have to deal with the tyranny of their own nation state governments, but some states will shrug off Big Pharma's influence and adopt strategies of disease prevention, nutrition education, banning junk food ads, embracing alternative medicine and other health-enhancing strategies. Those nation states will flourish, both in their economies and their health, and their people will be smarter, happier, more productive and longer-lived than anyone else. Meanwhile, the nation states that remain stuck in a drugs-and-surgery approach to medicine will remain stagnant, in perpetual economic decline, due to the enormous costs associated with treating medical symptoms rather than teaching genuine cures.
For any nation, the widespread adoption of Western medicine is a prescription for economic ruin.
The American medical system is, essentially, a really expensive hoax. It's a moneymaking scam designed to extract the maximum profits from the U.S. economy, funneling them into the pockets of Big Pharma shareholders and CEOs. The long term cost of this foolhardy approach to public health will be the economic downfall of the United States -- a country that is already mired in unprecedented debt, that has the highest rates of degenerative disease in the world, that's seeing its major industries (like the auto industry) toppled by foreign competitors, that continues to intentionally devalue its own currency and that has decided to invest in wars rather than education and disease prevention.
In order to prop up the profits of drug companies, the U.S. government (and its regulators like the FDA) have also decided to sacrifice the health of the entire population. Even all the current talk about health care reform is nothing more than a "who pays?" shell game designed to distract people from engaging in any meaningful thinking about overthrowing the FDA, boycotting Big Pharma, exposing the AMA and restoring health to the American people through prevention and nutrition.
In this CounterThink cartoon, I'm attempting to show just how precarious this whole situation really is. Based on a fraudulent (and criminal) system of junk science, FDA corruption, drug advertising and industry influence, the public is kept in a state of ongoing disease while employers foot the bill. The net effect is a massive transfer of wealth from workers and companies to Big Pharma. And the cost of playing this dangerous game of "keep the public sick" is the utter loss of competitiveness of U.S. businesses in the global marketplace.
This is why the Bush Administration doesn't want any other nations around the world to develop weapons. Because superior firepower is about the only bargaining chip the U.S. has left in the world. We can't out-compete China, we can't out-educate India, we can't out-manufacture Japan and we can't out-think Canada. But we can sure threaten nations with superior weapons. It's the last, desperate strategy of every failed state.
Where there is no economy based on genuine productivity, perpetual war is adopted to create the illusion of economic activity. We saw it with the Roman Empire, and we see it now with the American empire. Except America has taken it one step further and also adopted perpetual disease as an economic strategy, too.
A sane nation would act to keep its population healthy, educated and productive. But that would require sacrificing the profits of powerful corporations, of course, which hold far too much sway in Washington. And so for the sake of a few rich, fat white men, we continue to live in a nation that intentionally and deliberately keeps its population perpetually diseased. There is no attempt whatsoever to PREVENT disease, not by the American Cancer Society (which has actually fought against cancer prevention initiatives), not by the American Medical Association (which keeps pushing drugs and surgery), not by the FDA (now the marketing department of Big Pharma), not by the American Diabetes Association (which continues to tell diabetics they can eat all the sugar they want) and not even by medical schools and many practicing M.D.s.
As a result of all this, the future of the United States of America is not difficult to predict. It will eventually collapse into financial ruin, from which individual nation states like California will emerge and claim sovereignty. And then, finally, the people will be rid of the tyranny of Washington, the criminality of the FDA and the disease economy which has brought untold harm to the people of this country who, frankly, deserve better.
Of course, people will then have to deal with the tyranny of their own nation state governments, but some states will shrug off Big Pharma's influence and adopt strategies of disease prevention, nutrition education, banning junk food ads, embracing alternative medicine and other health-enhancing strategies. Those nation states will flourish, both in their economies and their health, and their people will be smarter, happier, more productive and longer-lived than anyone else. Meanwhile, the nation states that remain stuck in a drugs-and-surgery approach to medicine will remain stagnant, in perpetual economic decline, due to the enormous costs associated with treating medical symptoms rather than teaching genuine cures.
For any nation, the widespread adoption of Western medicine is a prescription for economic ruin.
Dont Eat It All
I don't know what things were like when you were growing up, but when I was a kid, I often heard the statement that if you didn't finish the food on your plate, it was some sort of humanitarian crime since there were "children starving in China!"
Fast forward to 2007. Children in China are now adopting western diets by consuming more red meat, more dairy products, more processed sugars and refined white flour. The result? They're not starving anymore; they're suffering from diabetes!
The United States is the world's leading exporter of disease. We not only export sugary sodas that cause diabetes and fast food chains that sell french fries loaded with acrylamides and trans fatty acids, we actually have corporations that continue to export pesticides, pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals that have been BANNED in the United States. They're too toxic for Americans, but perfectly safe to sell to small African nations, it seems. The FDA, by the way, actually allows this practice.
And so America's trading partners around the world are getting clobbered with the same neurological disorders, birth defects, cancer rates and obesity problems that were once largely confined to America and the UK. It is no exaggeration to say that the more any country in the world engages in so-called "free trade" with America, the worse their health gets. In a single generation, smaller nations that once had healthy, sane populations have been reduced to Pepsi-drinking, cookie-chomping, insulin-pumping junkies of western culture.
And that doesn't even include Big Tobacco. When tobacco companies were slammed hard in the United States (after addicting children and destroying the lives of millions of their "best customers" by giving them cancer and heart disease), they masterminded a strategy to export cigarettes to other nations. Countries like Taiwan that tried to ban tobacco advertising in order to save the health of their people were threatened with section 301 trade sanctions. (This was all under the Clinton administration, by the way. Things are even worse now.)
Smart nations around the world are increasingly rejecting America's culture of disease and death. American burgers may seem trendy and cool at first, but when your nation is buried under an epidemic of obesity, diabetes and increasing crime due to mental instability (caused by dietary imbalances), it suddenly doesn't seem so cool to wear American blue jeans. Especially when they no longer fit your rapidly expanding waistline.
I lived in Taiwan for two years, and it was Chinese culture that finally broke me of my atrocious American dietary habits. It was in Taipei that I finally freed myself from a soda addiction and learned to drink unsweetened green tea. (I also learned to use chopsticks in record time -- about two meals. Hunger has a way of motivating you to learn essential skills.)
I also learned to respect the dietary practices of Asian cultures. I can say from direct experience that any self-respecting traditional Chinese mom would never let her kids indulge on American sweets (which are so loaded with sugar that they are actually considered offensive by the older generation of Chinese and Japanese citizens).
The traditional Chinese diet would be a huge step up for most Americans. It contains almost no dairy, very little red meat, and lots (I mean LOTS) of cooked vegetables. There's also very little oil and sugar in real Chinese food, unlike the Chinese restaurant food you get in the United States (which has been all sugared up for American customers who, apparently, even need sugar in their Kung Pao chicken!).
What's lacking in the Chinese diet is a better selection of raw foods. The Chinese diet is also a bit high in carbohydrates for more protein-oriented white folks like me (blood type O, especially). But there's a whole lot of wisdom in the Chinese diet. The traditional beef noodle soup (which I used to eat when I actually ate beef) is made with a special combination of spices containing, believe it or not, the herb used to make the Tamiflu anti-viral drug now being stockpiled against bird flu. Star anise is the name. Most Americans have never tasted it, but it's a mainstay of Chinese cuisine.
Anyway, to get to the comic here, I constructed this in order to contrast the parental dietary advice of Americans ("Eat more!") with the parental dietary advice of Chinese ("Don't be such a glutton!") For some reason, it has become politically incorrect to tell someone in America they're eating like a glutton. We even have huge establishments dedicated to challenging Americans to see just how much of a glutton they can be at one sitting -- they're called all-you-can-eat buffets. The more you eat, the better deal you feel like you got, right?
The official dietary advice of the USDA, by the way, remains stuck in the 1930's when nutritional deficiencies were commonplace and people really did need more food in America. That message continues to this day, where the USDA actually encourages all Americans to guzzle more milk, eat more refined grains, sugars and processed foods.
Welcome to America. EAT MORE! (And you'll look just like us.)
By the way, if you're personally offended by these statements, don't get mad at me, get mad at those monster-sized servings at your local diner. Get mad at your stupid parents for stuffing sweets down your throat as a kid if you want, or get mad at your genes for giving you appetite hormones that never seem to quiet down. But don't get mad at me. I'm just the messenger here. There's nothing wrong with facing yourself in the mirror one day and admitting you're too fat, then finding a way to do something about it. The problem is when people deny it and think being overweight is normal. Obesity in America has become so commonplace that thin people are actually considered diseased!
If you're obese, it may not be entirely your fault, either. The food companies actually load up their products with artificial chemicals that stimulate hunger and fry your appetite control regulation system, causing you to feel hungry ALL the time, even when you shouldn't. Those chemicals include Monosodium Glutamate, Aspartame and Yeast Extract (sometimes labeled as "autolyzed yeast extract"). They're found in snack chips, soups, salad dressings, veggie burgers, breakfast sausage and literally thousands of grocery products. If you're overweight and you can't figure out why, it might be because you've been poisoned by the food companies who have discovered a devious way to sell more food to more people -- make them hungry all the time!
Big Tobacco did something similar by spiking their cigarettes with nicotine. Food companies do it by spiking their foods with hunger-inducing chemicals and refined sugars and carbohydrates that imbalance your blood sugar and actually promote feelings of hunger.
Pretty clever scam, huh? And it's made in America, too. When it comes to exporting disease, nobody beats us. Nobody! Sure, other countries may make better cars, better electronics, better airplanes and even better kitchen appliances, but nobody can compete with U.S. corporations when it comes to spreading disease and death around the world.
We have masterminded the use of free trade as a dietary weapon of mass destruction.
Fast forward to 2007. Children in China are now adopting western diets by consuming more red meat, more dairy products, more processed sugars and refined white flour. The result? They're not starving anymore; they're suffering from diabetes!
The United States is the world's leading exporter of disease. We not only export sugary sodas that cause diabetes and fast food chains that sell french fries loaded with acrylamides and trans fatty acids, we actually have corporations that continue to export pesticides, pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals that have been BANNED in the United States. They're too toxic for Americans, but perfectly safe to sell to small African nations, it seems. The FDA, by the way, actually allows this practice.
And so America's trading partners around the world are getting clobbered with the same neurological disorders, birth defects, cancer rates and obesity problems that were once largely confined to America and the UK. It is no exaggeration to say that the more any country in the world engages in so-called "free trade" with America, the worse their health gets. In a single generation, smaller nations that once had healthy, sane populations have been reduced to Pepsi-drinking, cookie-chomping, insulin-pumping junkies of western culture.
And that doesn't even include Big Tobacco. When tobacco companies were slammed hard in the United States (after addicting children and destroying the lives of millions of their "best customers" by giving them cancer and heart disease), they masterminded a strategy to export cigarettes to other nations. Countries like Taiwan that tried to ban tobacco advertising in order to save the health of their people were threatened with section 301 trade sanctions. (This was all under the Clinton administration, by the way. Things are even worse now.)
Smart nations around the world are increasingly rejecting America's culture of disease and death. American burgers may seem trendy and cool at first, but when your nation is buried under an epidemic of obesity, diabetes and increasing crime due to mental instability (caused by dietary imbalances), it suddenly doesn't seem so cool to wear American blue jeans. Especially when they no longer fit your rapidly expanding waistline.
I lived in Taiwan for two years, and it was Chinese culture that finally broke me of my atrocious American dietary habits. It was in Taipei that I finally freed myself from a soda addiction and learned to drink unsweetened green tea. (I also learned to use chopsticks in record time -- about two meals. Hunger has a way of motivating you to learn essential skills.)
I also learned to respect the dietary practices of Asian cultures. I can say from direct experience that any self-respecting traditional Chinese mom would never let her kids indulge on American sweets (which are so loaded with sugar that they are actually considered offensive by the older generation of Chinese and Japanese citizens).
The traditional Chinese diet would be a huge step up for most Americans. It contains almost no dairy, very little red meat, and lots (I mean LOTS) of cooked vegetables. There's also very little oil and sugar in real Chinese food, unlike the Chinese restaurant food you get in the United States (which has been all sugared up for American customers who, apparently, even need sugar in their Kung Pao chicken!).
What's lacking in the Chinese diet is a better selection of raw foods. The Chinese diet is also a bit high in carbohydrates for more protein-oriented white folks like me (blood type O, especially). But there's a whole lot of wisdom in the Chinese diet. The traditional beef noodle soup (which I used to eat when I actually ate beef) is made with a special combination of spices containing, believe it or not, the herb used to make the Tamiflu anti-viral drug now being stockpiled against bird flu. Star anise is the name. Most Americans have never tasted it, but it's a mainstay of Chinese cuisine.
Anyway, to get to the comic here, I constructed this in order to contrast the parental dietary advice of Americans ("Eat more!") with the parental dietary advice of Chinese ("Don't be such a glutton!") For some reason, it has become politically incorrect to tell someone in America they're eating like a glutton. We even have huge establishments dedicated to challenging Americans to see just how much of a glutton they can be at one sitting -- they're called all-you-can-eat buffets. The more you eat, the better deal you feel like you got, right?
The official dietary advice of the USDA, by the way, remains stuck in the 1930's when nutritional deficiencies were commonplace and people really did need more food in America. That message continues to this day, where the USDA actually encourages all Americans to guzzle more milk, eat more refined grains, sugars and processed foods.
Welcome to America. EAT MORE! (And you'll look just like us.)
By the way, if you're personally offended by these statements, don't get mad at me, get mad at those monster-sized servings at your local diner. Get mad at your stupid parents for stuffing sweets down your throat as a kid if you want, or get mad at your genes for giving you appetite hormones that never seem to quiet down. But don't get mad at me. I'm just the messenger here. There's nothing wrong with facing yourself in the mirror one day and admitting you're too fat, then finding a way to do something about it. The problem is when people deny it and think being overweight is normal. Obesity in America has become so commonplace that thin people are actually considered diseased!
If you're obese, it may not be entirely your fault, either. The food companies actually load up their products with artificial chemicals that stimulate hunger and fry your appetite control regulation system, causing you to feel hungry ALL the time, even when you shouldn't. Those chemicals include Monosodium Glutamate, Aspartame and Yeast Extract (sometimes labeled as "autolyzed yeast extract"). They're found in snack chips, soups, salad dressings, veggie burgers, breakfast sausage and literally thousands of grocery products. If you're overweight and you can't figure out why, it might be because you've been poisoned by the food companies who have discovered a devious way to sell more food to more people -- make them hungry all the time!
Big Tobacco did something similar by spiking their cigarettes with nicotine. Food companies do it by spiking their foods with hunger-inducing chemicals and refined sugars and carbohydrates that imbalance your blood sugar and actually promote feelings of hunger.
Pretty clever scam, huh? And it's made in America, too. When it comes to exporting disease, nobody beats us. Nobody! Sure, other countries may make better cars, better electronics, better airplanes and even better kitchen appliances, but nobody can compete with U.S. corporations when it comes to spreading disease and death around the world.
We have masterminded the use of free trade as a dietary weapon of mass destruction.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
How Many of you love war? how many love peace? how many love lies? How many breathe air thats giving us all diseases?
Tyrants love war. It keeps them in power, it protects the flow of cash to their buddies in the weapons industry, and it keeps the sheeple busy rooting for their soldier boys. And imperialist America never met a war it didn't like, from Korea and Vietnam to present-day Iraq and (soon) Iran. All empires eventually embrace the concept of perpetual war, regardless of whether they are winnable or even justified in the first place.
The current war in Iraq, for example, is based on the ridiculous idea that the people of Iraq would welcome with open arms an army of foreign invaders (that's us, numbskull) who came to take over their cities, their government, their economy and their way of life. It makes about as much sense as thinking that Americans would invite the Chinese military to just walk across the United States and take over our country because we're all just so jealous of China's way of life.
It's a stupid idea, but that's what the Bush Administration sold to the American people: All those Iraqis just love America! They want us to invade their country, kill their leader, take over their economy, install a new puppet government, and then stand around with automatic weapons waiting for everyone to spontaneously thank us for saving them from themselves. The arrogance is astounding.
We should have learned this lesson in Vietnam: Very few foreign occupying forces have ever succeeded in controlling remote territory in the long run. The British tried it with India and the original U.S. colonies. Hitler tried it with Russia and got stomped in Stalingrad. The Japanese tried it in China and Taiwan. The U.S. tried it in Vietnam, and of course, virtually every civilization throughout history tried and failed at the same strategy: the Greeks, Romans, Arabs, and, more recently, Israel. And the result is almost always the same: the locals stage a violent revolt and power returns to the hands of the people who have lived there for ages.
There are a few notable exceptions to this, of course: the U.S. colonials managed to nearly exterminate Native Americans and continue to occupy their lands today (the entire state of New York, for example, technically still belongs to the Native American Indians). Similarly, the Australians (most of which were actually Europeans) pulled the same stunt with Australian aboriginals and gave them free beer, to boot. And, of course, the Hawaiian islands continue to be controlled by an occupying force -- the U.S. military, which maintains control over the islands for their obvious military strategic value.
Students of history could easily give other examples, but the point is the same: Running a country half-way around the world with an occupying military force is a losing proposition. It only gets more complex, not simpler. It only gets more expensive, not cheaper. And it only gets more violent, not more peaceful. Isn't it time the U.S. faced the fact that Iraq is a modern-day Vietnam?
That's the simple point of this particular CounterThink cartoon, which features my favorite Congressman, Rep. Ron Paul. On paper, he's a Republican, but in reality, he's more like a people's Congressman... a Libertarian. He wants the U.S. out of Iraq, and he actually belives in protecting the U.S. Constitution, unlike our current leaders who only seek to destroy it in their endless quest for centralized power. Ron Paul is one of the very few remaining honest elected officials in Washington.
The other fun part about this comic is the idea that Bush wouldn't know how to spell Iraq. It's not a stretch, really, when you consider some of the dopey things he's said in the last six years. If you think about it, most of the people who support Bush have a lower IQ than Bush himself. Do the math. That's a whopper.
Whether you agree or disagree with the initial invasion of Iraq (which was, by all accounts, a blatantly illegal war action that violated both international law and U.S. law), you will no doubt eventually come to the conclusion that escalating our presence in that region is only an invitation for a Vietnam-like quagmire. Only the dullest of the dull remain fooled by the continued war mongering propaganda campaigns engineered by the White House and the mainstream media.
Smart people have figured out that for the amount of money we've spent on bombs, bullets and war machines, we could have funded and built a massive Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) system in the Southwest deserts of the United States that would right now be providing enough electricity to power the entire nation, utterly eliminating the need for oil imports altogether and providing an infrastructure for electric cars and high-speed railway systems.
Or we could have built new schools in every single city and town across the country. Or, if we wished, we could have invested in disease prevention campaigns and slashed the rates of cancer, diabetes and heart disease in America, saving over half a million lives each year.
But of course those are not priorities in Washington. War is far more important than progress, and blowing things up in a foreign land is a lot more fun than building useful things at home, apparently.
When the United States collapses -- an event that is closer than you think -- it will be remembered not for its contributions to the world, but rather for its incessant military bullying that has made the U.S. the No. 1 rogue nation in the eyes of other nations. Americans are now the most hated citizens in the developed world, and if you disagree with that, it's because you've probably never traveled outside the country. (I dare you to travel to Egypt on a U.S. passport. See how far you get...)
Virtually the entire world sees the U.S. as a serious threat to global stability. We are the bullies. We're the ones who violate international law and invade whoever we want, regardless of justification, even without a formal declaration of war at home. We export disease, impoverish the farmers of third world nations with our intellectual property claims over their seeds, devestate the populations of AIDS-sticken nations by refusing to release patents rights on AIDS drugs, poison nations by exporting banned pesticides and pharmaceuticals (which are illegal to sell in the U.S.), take over the banking systems of nations and force them into a system of financial servitude to the World Bank, and generally seek to control, destroy or claim ownership over everything in sight. It's the American way!
But many Americans have been fooled into thinking we're the good guys! We're the ones bringing PEACE to all these nations, right? (At gunpoint.) We're the ones bringing medicines to the world, right? (Pay up for those patent royalties.) We're the ones bringing FREE TRADE to the people of poor nations, right? (Here, buy our cigarettes, junk food and burger joints, and you'll get cancer just like we do. And if you don't buy all our junk, we'll slap trade sanctions on ya...)
And yet, when you look at the historical facts, the United States is the only nation in the world that ever dropped an atomic bomb on civilians. And we did it not once, but twice. We have made a habit of invading foreign nations, kidnapping their leaders, and either exterminating or prosecuting them (Panama, Iraq and others). We continue to act with no regard whatsoever for international law, choosing to distort it in whatever way suits us best at the moment.
The United States was once a great nation, and it once deserved respect. Today, however, it is no longer respected; only feared for its weapons. I hope the U.S. can someday be respected again. But it will never achieve redemption unless it relenquishes its false claims on the lands and resources of other nations around the world and begins to take care of its people at home.
I say, get out of Iraq. Bring the soldiers home. Use that money to build more schools, more parks, and more renewable energy. Spend money on education, infrastucture and genuine health care. Invest in the United States and the people who live here right now! You can only make a nation great by investing in your own people at home, not by killing other people abroad.
The current war in Iraq, for example, is based on the ridiculous idea that the people of Iraq would welcome with open arms an army of foreign invaders (that's us, numbskull) who came to take over their cities, their government, their economy and their way of life. It makes about as much sense as thinking that Americans would invite the Chinese military to just walk across the United States and take over our country because we're all just so jealous of China's way of life.
It's a stupid idea, but that's what the Bush Administration sold to the American people: All those Iraqis just love America! They want us to invade their country, kill their leader, take over their economy, install a new puppet government, and then stand around with automatic weapons waiting for everyone to spontaneously thank us for saving them from themselves. The arrogance is astounding.
We should have learned this lesson in Vietnam: Very few foreign occupying forces have ever succeeded in controlling remote territory in the long run. The British tried it with India and the original U.S. colonies. Hitler tried it with Russia and got stomped in Stalingrad. The Japanese tried it in China and Taiwan. The U.S. tried it in Vietnam, and of course, virtually every civilization throughout history tried and failed at the same strategy: the Greeks, Romans, Arabs, and, more recently, Israel. And the result is almost always the same: the locals stage a violent revolt and power returns to the hands of the people who have lived there for ages.
There are a few notable exceptions to this, of course: the U.S. colonials managed to nearly exterminate Native Americans and continue to occupy their lands today (the entire state of New York, for example, technically still belongs to the Native American Indians). Similarly, the Australians (most of which were actually Europeans) pulled the same stunt with Australian aboriginals and gave them free beer, to boot. And, of course, the Hawaiian islands continue to be controlled by an occupying force -- the U.S. military, which maintains control over the islands for their obvious military strategic value.
Students of history could easily give other examples, but the point is the same: Running a country half-way around the world with an occupying military force is a losing proposition. It only gets more complex, not simpler. It only gets more expensive, not cheaper. And it only gets more violent, not more peaceful. Isn't it time the U.S. faced the fact that Iraq is a modern-day Vietnam?
That's the simple point of this particular CounterThink cartoon, which features my favorite Congressman, Rep. Ron Paul. On paper, he's a Republican, but in reality, he's more like a people's Congressman... a Libertarian. He wants the U.S. out of Iraq, and he actually belives in protecting the U.S. Constitution, unlike our current leaders who only seek to destroy it in their endless quest for centralized power. Ron Paul is one of the very few remaining honest elected officials in Washington.
The other fun part about this comic is the idea that Bush wouldn't know how to spell Iraq. It's not a stretch, really, when you consider some of the dopey things he's said in the last six years. If you think about it, most of the people who support Bush have a lower IQ than Bush himself. Do the math. That's a whopper.
Whether you agree or disagree with the initial invasion of Iraq (which was, by all accounts, a blatantly illegal war action that violated both international law and U.S. law), you will no doubt eventually come to the conclusion that escalating our presence in that region is only an invitation for a Vietnam-like quagmire. Only the dullest of the dull remain fooled by the continued war mongering propaganda campaigns engineered by the White House and the mainstream media.
Smart people have figured out that for the amount of money we've spent on bombs, bullets and war machines, we could have funded and built a massive Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) system in the Southwest deserts of the United States that would right now be providing enough electricity to power the entire nation, utterly eliminating the need for oil imports altogether and providing an infrastructure for electric cars and high-speed railway systems.
Or we could have built new schools in every single city and town across the country. Or, if we wished, we could have invested in disease prevention campaigns and slashed the rates of cancer, diabetes and heart disease in America, saving over half a million lives each year.
But of course those are not priorities in Washington. War is far more important than progress, and blowing things up in a foreign land is a lot more fun than building useful things at home, apparently.
When the United States collapses -- an event that is closer than you think -- it will be remembered not for its contributions to the world, but rather for its incessant military bullying that has made the U.S. the No. 1 rogue nation in the eyes of other nations. Americans are now the most hated citizens in the developed world, and if you disagree with that, it's because you've probably never traveled outside the country. (I dare you to travel to Egypt on a U.S. passport. See how far you get...)
Virtually the entire world sees the U.S. as a serious threat to global stability. We are the bullies. We're the ones who violate international law and invade whoever we want, regardless of justification, even without a formal declaration of war at home. We export disease, impoverish the farmers of third world nations with our intellectual property claims over their seeds, devestate the populations of AIDS-sticken nations by refusing to release patents rights on AIDS drugs, poison nations by exporting banned pesticides and pharmaceuticals (which are illegal to sell in the U.S.), take over the banking systems of nations and force them into a system of financial servitude to the World Bank, and generally seek to control, destroy or claim ownership over everything in sight. It's the American way!
But many Americans have been fooled into thinking we're the good guys! We're the ones bringing PEACE to all these nations, right? (At gunpoint.) We're the ones bringing medicines to the world, right? (Pay up for those patent royalties.) We're the ones bringing FREE TRADE to the people of poor nations, right? (Here, buy our cigarettes, junk food and burger joints, and you'll get cancer just like we do. And if you don't buy all our junk, we'll slap trade sanctions on ya...)
And yet, when you look at the historical facts, the United States is the only nation in the world that ever dropped an atomic bomb on civilians. And we did it not once, but twice. We have made a habit of invading foreign nations, kidnapping their leaders, and either exterminating or prosecuting them (Panama, Iraq and others). We continue to act with no regard whatsoever for international law, choosing to distort it in whatever way suits us best at the moment.
The United States was once a great nation, and it once deserved respect. Today, however, it is no longer respected; only feared for its weapons. I hope the U.S. can someday be respected again. But it will never achieve redemption unless it relenquishes its false claims on the lands and resources of other nations around the world and begins to take care of its people at home.
I say, get out of Iraq. Bring the soldiers home. Use that money to build more schools, more parks, and more renewable energy. Spend money on education, infrastucture and genuine health care. Invest in the United States and the people who live here right now! You can only make a nation great by investing in your own people at home, not by killing other people abroad.
CO2 emission=Global Warming+Stupid Humans= Anyone have the answer very quiet hugh oh
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Comments by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
No matter how much scientific consensus emerges linking human activity to global warming, there always seems to be a bunch of kooky deniers who insist that polluting the atmosphere has absolutely no effect on the planet. In the United States, these kooky deniers happen to be Republican politicians and the businessmen who fund their reelection campaigns.
Their statements about global warming remind me of the Flat Earth Society (people who still insist the Earth is flat), or Holocaust deniers. They just won't acknowledge what's happening right in front of them -- the climate changes, crazy weather patterns, melting ice caps and rising oceans.
In this cartoon, I decided to show a typical Republican global warming denier altering his statements as the water rises around him. First, it's the blatant denial, "There's no such thing as global warming." Then, as the water level reaches his waist, he proclaims, "Global warming was invented by the media!" As the water level reaches his neck, he shouts, "Global warming exists, but it's not our fault!" (Which means global warming isn't caused by human activity. This is the current defense of the Republican kooks.) And finally, in a mad rage, "We have to save the economy, not the planet!"
It takes a special set of skills to be a Republican these days. You have to close your heart, install blinders on your head and have a special knack for denying reality, even as the evidence against your position is obvious to everyone else. These skills have been mastered by many politicians in the United States today, who think that saving the Earth for future generations would be way too expensive to the people living on the planet today. Therefore, they've decided to just throw away the future and keep on polluting beyond all reason, letting future populations deal with the consequences.
We do the same thing with the national debt, chemical pollutants, groundwater supplies and fossil fuels: let our grandchildren worry about it! It's the ultimate bucking of responsibility by a political leadership that demonstrates absolutely no stewardship of natural resources.
There will be a dear price to pay for what we've done to the environment of this planet. It will be a thousand years before the climate stabilizes, and that's if we slash emissions starting right now. Truly, future generations who manage to scratch out a living amid water scarcity, food shortages and devastating weather patterns will curse the modern-day United States and China for blatantly increasing global pollution in a time when the evidence linking CO2 emissions to global warming was undeniable by any sane person.
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Comments by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
No matter how much scientific consensus emerges linking human activity to global warming, there always seems to be a bunch of kooky deniers who insist that polluting the atmosphere has absolutely no effect on the planet. In the United States, these kooky deniers happen to be Republican politicians and the businessmen who fund their reelection campaigns.
Their statements about global warming remind me of the Flat Earth Society (people who still insist the Earth is flat), or Holocaust deniers. They just won't acknowledge what's happening right in front of them -- the climate changes, crazy weather patterns, melting ice caps and rising oceans.
In this cartoon, I decided to show a typical Republican global warming denier altering his statements as the water rises around him. First, it's the blatant denial, "There's no such thing as global warming." Then, as the water level reaches his waist, he proclaims, "Global warming was invented by the media!" As the water level reaches his neck, he shouts, "Global warming exists, but it's not our fault!" (Which means global warming isn't caused by human activity. This is the current defense of the Republican kooks.) And finally, in a mad rage, "We have to save the economy, not the planet!"
It takes a special set of skills to be a Republican these days. You have to close your heart, install blinders on your head and have a special knack for denying reality, even as the evidence against your position is obvious to everyone else. These skills have been mastered by many politicians in the United States today, who think that saving the Earth for future generations would be way too expensive to the people living on the planet today. Therefore, they've decided to just throw away the future and keep on polluting beyond all reason, letting future populations deal with the consequences.
We do the same thing with the national debt, chemical pollutants, groundwater supplies and fossil fuels: let our grandchildren worry about it! It's the ultimate bucking of responsibility by a political leadership that demonstrates absolutely no stewardship of natural resources.
There will be a dear price to pay for what we've done to the environment of this planet. It will be a thousand years before the climate stabilizes, and that's if we slash emissions starting right now. Truly, future generations who manage to scratch out a living amid water scarcity, food shortages and devastating weather patterns will curse the modern-day United States and China for blatantly increasing global pollution in a time when the evidence linking CO2 emissions to global warming was undeniable by any sane person.
Would you rather have riches or sick children you choose?
This comic is just another way to further describe the Big Pharma / psychiatry relationship, using a familiar medical anomaly. Siamese Twins are often joined at the hip, just like drug companies and modern psychiatry.
Of course, separating them (as in, making the bribing of psychiatrists by drug companies illegal) would probably destroy both industries, or at least cause extreme downsizing. These two groups of greedy corporate profiteers depend on each other for commercial success. One group diagnoses fictitious disease, and the other group sells the drugs that "treat" fictitious disease.
It's a brilliant scam, if you think about it. All backed by the fictitious credibility of "psychiatric doctors" who are actually some of the most mentally insane people in society (and who frequently have dangerously inflated egos, to boot). If we really wanted to treat those with mental health disorders in this society, we would start with drug company CEOs and drug-pushing psychiatrists.
Today, genuine patient-centered psychiatric care is almost nonexistent. The industry is now primarily a drug pushing racket that targets adults, senior citizens, children and even infants as "revenue producing entities" who can be diagnosed with disease and pumped up with dangerous chemicals that just happen to make the wealthiest corporations in the world even wealthier.
Did you know that taking antidepressant drugs causes diabetes? It also causes enormous weight gain -- an average of 22 pounds per patient taking them for one year. They should actually be called "weight gain pills" rather than antidepressants. And if there's one thing that makes people even more depressed, it's gaining 22 pounds of body fat.
So you see, the drugs actually create their own repeat revenue. Start taking antidepressants today, and you'll be even more depressed in a year, requiring you to take even more antidepressant drugs -- plus diabetes drugs, perhaps, as well, meaning the drug companies can get you on two drugs instead of one. And then diabetes drugs cause liver damage, meaning you might need another set of drugs for your liver disorders, and so the vicious cycle continues until you're put on eight different medications and left penniless and utterly drained of life.
Without a doubt, psychiatrists are highly effective recruiting hucksters for Big Pharma. They convince people there's something wrong with them, and then offer treatment that guarantees something will go wrong sooner or later.
Want to learn some shocking facts about psychiatry you'll never hear on TV or read in the news? Read my article about Henry Cotton and mad surgical procedures, and you'll never look at the psych industry the same way agiain.
Also be sure to check out the Citizens' Commission on Human Rights to learn even more about the insanity of the psychiatric community.
Of course, separating them (as in, making the bribing of psychiatrists by drug companies illegal) would probably destroy both industries, or at least cause extreme downsizing. These two groups of greedy corporate profiteers depend on each other for commercial success. One group diagnoses fictitious disease, and the other group sells the drugs that "treat" fictitious disease.
It's a brilliant scam, if you think about it. All backed by the fictitious credibility of "psychiatric doctors" who are actually some of the most mentally insane people in society (and who frequently have dangerously inflated egos, to boot). If we really wanted to treat those with mental health disorders in this society, we would start with drug company CEOs and drug-pushing psychiatrists.
Today, genuine patient-centered psychiatric care is almost nonexistent. The industry is now primarily a drug pushing racket that targets adults, senior citizens, children and even infants as "revenue producing entities" who can be diagnosed with disease and pumped up with dangerous chemicals that just happen to make the wealthiest corporations in the world even wealthier.
Did you know that taking antidepressant drugs causes diabetes? It also causes enormous weight gain -- an average of 22 pounds per patient taking them for one year. They should actually be called "weight gain pills" rather than antidepressants. And if there's one thing that makes people even more depressed, it's gaining 22 pounds of body fat.
So you see, the drugs actually create their own repeat revenue. Start taking antidepressants today, and you'll be even more depressed in a year, requiring you to take even more antidepressant drugs -- plus diabetes drugs, perhaps, as well, meaning the drug companies can get you on two drugs instead of one. And then diabetes drugs cause liver damage, meaning you might need another set of drugs for your liver disorders, and so the vicious cycle continues until you're put on eight different medications and left penniless and utterly drained of life.
Without a doubt, psychiatrists are highly effective recruiting hucksters for Big Pharma. They convince people there's something wrong with them, and then offer treatment that guarantees something will go wrong sooner or later.
Want to learn some shocking facts about psychiatry you'll never hear on TV or read in the news? Read my article about Henry Cotton and mad surgical procedures, and you'll never look at the psych industry the same way agiain.
Also be sure to check out the Citizens' Commission on Human Rights to learn even more about the insanity of the psychiatric community.
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