GMO Dangers…
By: James Burge
March 22nd, 2012
In a sad attempt to sway public opinion, Monsanto, with help from DOW as I understand it, has just released an activity book for children praising the benefits of Genetically Modified Organisms or GMOs,. One claim is as follows:
“Hi Kids! Welcome to the Biotechnology Basics Activity Book. This is an activity book for young people like you about biotechnology — a really neat topic…. You will see that biotechnology is being used to figure out how to: [1] grow more food; [2] help the environment; and [3] grow more nutritious food that improves our health. As you work through the puzzles in this book, you will learn more about biotechnology and all of the wonderful ways it can help people live better lives in a healthier world. Have fun!”
Okay so there are a few claims above lets look at them and the validity of each one:
Biotechnology is a really neat topic… lol just kidding…
GMOs (1)grow more food, (2)help the environment and (3)grow more nutritious food which improves health. GMOs also apparently help people live better lives and create a healthier world.
I think one of the easiest ones above to debunk is the claim to help the environment. Studies are now showing that Monsanto’s Roundup Ready corn is actually contaminating the soil with Glyphosate which are actually part of the toxin which kills ‘pests’. The key here however is that the Glyphosate is not toxic to roundup ready plants, meaning if you grow round up ready corn once, you will not be able to grow anything else not roundup ready, for many years; although more study is obviously required, but not likely.
“[G]lyphosate stimulates the growth of fungi and enhances the virulence of pathogens such as Fusarium, and “can have serious consequences for sustainable production of a wide range of susceptible crops.” They warn that “Ignoring potential non-target detrimental side effects of any chemical, especially used as heavily as glyphosate, may have dire consequences for agriculture such as rendering soils infertile, crops non-productive, and plants less nutritious.”
When asked if glyphosate is “environmentally benign” as claimed by proponents, he answered “Absolutely not. That’s an outright mistaken notion. Glyphosate is the single most important agronomic factor predisposing some plants to both disease and toxins. These toxins can produce a serious impact on the health of animals and humans.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/glyphosatePoisonsCrops.php
The Mississippi Rice Council (MRC) has sounded a national alarm over damage caused by aerial drift of glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup, calling for severely restricted aerial application.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24775
The claim that GMO plants are more nutritious is bunk as well:
One way in which glyphosate can affect human health is that “micronutrients such as manganese, copper, potassium, iron, magnesium, calcium, and zinc are essential to humans. All of them can be reduced in availability by glyphosate; so glyphosate treated GT plants as well as other plants exposed to glyphosate have less mineral nutrients. “We are seeing a reduction in nutrient quality [in our food].”
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/glyphosatePoisonsCrops.php
This is such a big issue, some are finding that GMOs are not only not as nutritious as non-GMOs, the features that are being engineered into organisms may themselves increase toxicity:
Monsanto’s pipeline of upcoming […] (GMOs) includes several new varieties specifically engineered with “stacked traits,” which means they contain multiple genetic modifications and built-in resistance traits as opposed to just one. […] these new multi-trait GMOs appear to be exponentially more harmful to humans than single-trait GMOs because of their synergistic toxicity.
http://www.naturalnews.com/035093_GMO_genetic_traits_toxicity.html
But the real kicker in the new research is the combined toxicity from exposure to both Roundup and Bt toxin which, according to the study, is tremendous. In their conclusion, researchers noted that “modified Bt toxins are not inert on nontarget human cells, and that they can present combined side-effects with other residues of pesticides specific to GM plants” (http://www.greenmedinfo.com).
It is even a lie that they grow more food, most farmers are seeing significantly lower yield on GMOs:
In 2010, Louisiana Rice Man noted that the pressure from bacterial panicle blight, leaf scald and leaf smut “was about the worst I have ever seen.” Though he attributes it to abnormally high temperatures, most likely the cause is glyphosate and/or glufosinate, which destroy soil microflora that assist in plant defense.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24775
Although, what research is being done paints a much bleaker picture than the misinformation found in the Brainwashing Childrens activity book.
Another scientist warning about glyphosate and featured in the film is Andres Carrasco. In 2010, he released a summary of scientific evidence on genetically modified soy and the herbicide glyphosate, and its impact on humans. In Science Under Attack, Carrasco reports that glyphosate causes brain, intestinal and heart defects in fetuses.
The summary includes a “study on human cells [which] found that all four Roundup formulations tested caused total cell death within 24 hours. These effects were found at dilution levels far below those recommended for agricultural use and corresponding to low levels of residues found in food or feed.”
Of note, “The adjuvants in Roundup increase the toxicity of glyphosate because they enable the herbicide to penetrate human cells more readily.”
But don’t expect research to be picking up any time soon, look away nothing to see here:
“Unfortunately, most researchers are forbidden to do work in the area. They don’t have access to isogenic lines [conventional and Roundup Ready plant lines that are otherwise genetically identical], the materials are denied to researchers.”
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/glyphosatePoisonsCrops.php
Furthermore, Monsanto claims that its injection of foreign DNA into its GM crops is also automatically safe because, get this, DNA is present in natural crops as well. Never mind that the injected DNA is foreign and unnatural, and is used to alter the entire genetic structure of GM crops — according to Monsanto, its unnatural DNA is automatically non-toxic because every other plant also has DNA. Case closed.
Using this same absurd illogic, injecting foreign animal DNA into a developing human baby, for instance, must also be safe because that baby contains DNA, right? Or how about drinking antifreeze, which is made of atoms, because your body is also made of atoms? Based on Monsanto’s pseudoscientific nonsense, everything can be considered non-toxic and safe because it is all made of atoms, just like our bodies!
http://www.naturalnews.com/034745_Monsanto_GM_foods_safety_testing.html
For more on the dangers of GMOS click on these links:
Anthropogenic Global warming Rant…
By: James Burge
February 10th, 2012
I just came across an interesting article that does a good job to walk you through the issues raised by anthropogenic global warming (AGW). My biggest problem is that some of the science just doesn’t seem to add up. From what I know of our Earth, she has survived long before we came along, so to think that we could ‘break’ the climate cycle is a bit arrogant IMO.
The biggest thing is the supposed link between global temperatures and CO2, which we are told is causal, that CO2 causes warming, however the data I’ve seen suggests otherwise. The first issue, is that when you look at the data, CO2 levels tend to be behind warming trends by about 5 – 10 years, this is the biggest lie I have seen from the Al Gore crowd, they put the graphs up and say, look they are nearly identical, other than the lag of CO2 levels which are then sold to you as the cause of the warming.
So what happens is that the Earth warms likely due to normal solar cycles and as the Earth warms, plant matter that has been trapped in Northern glaciers decays releasing CO2, one of likely many natural causes leading to the increased CO2 levels we are seeing.
In Bio you learned about buffers right? They are chemicals which remain in the body with little to no effect on the basic process of for example digestion, until there is a significant change in pH then these chemicals kick in to regulate the pH back to normal levels. IMO there are many parallels between the way in which our body regulates conditions for various biological processes, and the Earth which has similar tools.
One very interesting one (google plant grown in high CO2) is the fact that increased levels of CO2 actually stimulate plant growth, and as a result, the amount of conversion to oxygen. This means that if levels of CO2 get too high from the perspective of the Earth, she will handle this herself, bring CO2 down and increase O2. Now the problem is, since so much time has been wasted on CO2, we really don’t understand the other side of the buffers for temperature. One of the few we do understand comes from the most abundant greenhouse gas on the planet, know what it is? Steam. As temperatures increase, the water cycle will increase the amount of cloud cover, which will deflect sunlight which will eventually lead to global cooling. Although this gas works like other greenhouse gases which (we are told) traps heat in, the effect of reflecting sunlight is more significant. Sources of heat loose energy as they heat the planet, so trapped heat provides slightly less energy on its ‘second pass’ then what is reflected and never enters our atmosphere.
Now the problem here is that people with my views have been painted as somehow anti-environment and as a strong environmentalist I take offence to this. The fact is, elements within governments around the world see AGW as a cash cow, if they can make us afraid of our own planet, and we take the blame for it, they will also be able to convince us to pay to save us from the warming. Personally I am against ignorance and the fact that leaders use our own ignorance, usually a direct result of the information we are fed by those same individuals to pull the wool over our eyes. It is amazing to me that governments who are trying to regulate how much CO2 each of us contributes (no person is carbon neutral, carbon dioxide is human exhaust) turn a blind eye to the numerous chemicals which are constantly dumped into our environment. No need to worry about big corporations and what they pollute the world with, carbon dioxide is the culprit the only way to stop introducing CO2 as a human being is to stop breathing. Studies have shown that in the last few decades, since the increase in use of anti-depressants and other pharmaceuticals, the water table has been increasingly contaminated with these chemicals. Mostly because we don’t think to test to see what the levels are. As a human being, when you take a drug like Prozac, you will expel, through urine, any of the chemical your body does not process. This ends up in the water we flush down the toilet, and municipal water treatment does not treat for pharmaceuticals such as Prozac. I just read an article yesterday about sea life that are not only dieing at an increased rate, there is evidence they are actually committing suicide. So it seems to me that AGW is used as a distraction, to try to get environmentalists up in arms against CO2 emitters with little to no attention paid to other polluters. Want to know who one of the biggest polluters in the world is??? The US Military, mostly because they consider themselves outside the rule of law so you cant think that environmental regulations mean anything to them. Just think about all of the pollution from a nuclear powers ship/sub which is sunk. Just think as it begins to decay there are forms of oil, solvents, and of course nuclear waste. The fact is, it is much cheaper for the US to sink a ship, then to decommission it. Just saying…
I think a campaign need to be started in order to break environmentalism away from anthropogenic global warming since the fraud of GW scientists (Michael Mann’s Hockey stick graph anyone??) will give environmentalists a black eye and these scientists will take the environmentalists down with them destroying their credibility. We have been focused for far too long on this issue and what evidence they thought they had is loosing credibility faster than they could build it. I mean they have been shouting global warming from the rooftops for years and if the warming doesn’t happen as they are telling us it will, people sure as hell wont believe them when they start talking about the coming ice age but that, my friends is a topic for another rant.
Canada now Accepts Info. Gained Through Torture…
By: James Burge
February 8th, 2012
So I just came across an article today, and wouldn’t you know it I have an opinion, although I will concede it is in a bit of a grey area.
So the article talks about how CSIS, Canada’s CIA basically, is allowed to use information extracted from suspects through torture which goes against earlier claims that they never use such information.
I have to say, unfortunately, this is a tough one, it seems cut and dry at first but it is very easy to talk yourself into accepting this practice under the guise that it may make us more secure. (Which in my experience tends not to be true, no security is gained through torture only the mirage of security)
First off, Canada should NOT torture under any circumstances, in my opinion this is not up for debate, this is the easy part. There is no credible excuse for such behaviour and since most information gained out of such techniques tends to be unreliable, there is little value added with such interrogation techniques and both our countries integrity and the safety of our armed forces to loose. Canadian soldiers will be in great danger of themselves being tortured abroad if Canada adopts torture. Period.
That being said, the issue here is of the use of information received from regimes around the world where torture is an excepted practice. I think first of all, I would assume it can be tough to get foreign countries to admit that torture was used to get the information, so in the case where CSIS is unaware that information was gained through torture, we will give them a proverbial pass on this although I think it would be in their best interest to discern if this is the case or not due only to its relation to the reliability of the information.
I’ve been over this a few times in my head, and I keep going back and forth. So maybe a quick thought experiment will help.
Okay so CSIS receives information from a foreign country, and after some consideration determines that the information was obtained through torture, oh wait enhanced interrogation techniques, there more PC right. Anyway, so we have information, we know was gained through torture, should CSIS be using that information? Some would say if they use the info they are only encouraging countries to torture and as the article puts it:
this directive is sending the wrong message to dictatorial regimes; you torture and we will return the favour by accepting and using your information.
Personally I think that information gained through torture requires a grain of salt (maybe two). I don’t think we can afford not to at least entertain the possibility that the information is true, but we have to treat any action taken as a result of such information is likely to be a dead end and a waste of resources. Publicly, we must refuse to use information such as this, due mostly to the fact Canadians consider ourselves civilized (whether we are or not remains to be seen) and no person deserves to be tortured by their government. Think about it the other way for a second. Canada decides you may have information seen as valuable to another country, for this example I will use the US. If they arrest you and torture you based solely on the charges against you from the US, I see this as equal to the US encouraging torture by proxy. However, if Canada arrests me for local crimes and through their locally approved interrogation, however much it resembles torture and they uncover a plot that has effects in the US, I think the US should be free to use that info as they see fit, although treating it as possibly suspect.
Letting it be known to the world that we accept information gained through torture we are not only embracing such techniques we are giving our approval of such techniques.Canada should take a public stand, saying we will not accept information gained through torture, but I think they will still need to at least hear the allegations raised by such information if for no other reason to be able to say its BS.
Although, I also want to say, after all that, I am amazed that I am able to convince myself that there are any cases where torture is accepted. A big part of me keeps saying “torture is not okay, no matter what” but then there is this other side that says, if some country says, hey this guy committed a crime in your country but he only told us when we tortured him, this would still require an investigation as torture wont hold up in court, which it shouldn’t but if you say that they can’t use the info at all, they would have to ignore the accusations of a foreign nation that it has evidence of a crime in Canada. I just can’t imagine a group, tasked with enforcing the rule of law would just ignore allegations just because they came through torture. Its like the idiot in the corner with fingers in his ears going “LA LA Can’t hear you!!” But that being said, if the country is uilty of crimes in Canada as a result of the torture, they should not be immune to indictments just because they gave us the info obtained.
So in the end, here is my stance:
“Torture is NOT okay, and there is never a reasonable justification for such actions. However, allegations from foreign nations, weather gained through torture or not, deserve an investigation to try to determine if we can confirm or deny those allegations. Military action should never be the result of information gained through torture alone, but can be justified by an independent confirmation of the allegations.
Clear as mud?? Thought so.
I would be interested to hear your views? Should we be accepting information gained from torture? is it a slippery slope? or should Canada grow a pair and start these ‘enhanced techniques’ at home?
Scientists are baffled; therefore it must be a delusion…
By: James Burge
February 7th, 2012
This isn’t really a new story. We saw this exact same thing happen when people started reporting symptoms of Morgellons, they called it pseudo–parasitosis, meaning that people were delusional, yet it explicitly talks of a parasite. Morgellons had numerous symptoms (many mental) and multiple cases, from all walks of life, mostly around the southern states concentrated near the coastlines. All report the same symptoms; the most obvious includes the body expelling what appear to be coloured fibers. Many have postulated that his is because of a parasite which lives in these individuals, most of which test positive for lyme disease, which of course comes from ticks, a parasite. But pay no attention they are delusional.
Now on to another story, with completely different symptoms, same explanation, although this time it’s “conversion disorder”, or mass hysteria.
Okay so 16 students in NewYork come down with an illness similar to Tourettes syndrome, most of which are female (although there are reports of a male who has started showing symptoms). As the numbers suffering continues to rise, medical authorities have come to the conclusion that all those suffering, may feel they have a legitimate illness, but it’s all in their head.
One expert from the University of Buffalo blames social networking sites like Facebook.
Give me an effing break, even if that is true, can you describe the way in which looking at Facebook leads to these symptoms, ohh they see it online and they mimic the behaviours, that makes sense, wait why doesn’t this happen more often with other things?? The only thing I can think of is yawning, although research has been done into why you yawn when you see someone else yawn (its actually quite interesting google it). You know that used to be what doctors did study symptoms and come up with a cause and treatment. But theUSis trying so hard to put legitimate doctors out of work, so this doesn’t really surprise me. Locals wonder if this has something to do with exposure, and the fact that there are six natural gas wells on the school campus. Local police recently denied (if you can believe it) representatives of environmental activist Erin Brockovich access to the site to collect soil samples. Has anyone heard about an Erin Brockovich sequel… anyone??
Govt permission required to work; a slippery slope IMO…
By: James Burge
February 7th, 2012
As the US devolves further into tyranny, those of us watching see small clues along the way that illustrate how bad things have become. I came across one today that seems to be just the tip of the iceberg when you think about how far reaching such a tool could be to a tyrannical government. We have seen this before in the former Soviet Union andChinaalthough I’m sure there are more historical examples.
In a new attempt to marginalize those Americans it sees as a threat, the US department of homeland security is implementing a No Work List, meaning of course if you are on the list, you will not be able to find a (good) job. For now they are using it under the guise of security saying that you wouldn’t be unable to work in a secure construction site, but if this program goes unopposed or even embraced it is only a matter of time before people with anti-government views who make them known to the public, wont be unable to find an employer due to the pressures of government.
That is one way to strike fear into the hearts of bloggers the internet over and a great way to kill the alternative news revolution. One wonders if this could get far enough to include comments on blogs, and I guess, in some ways it would only be a matter of time and the level of public acceptance. If people don’t rise up to a government as it becomes tyrannical through small creeps like this, they are doomed once it gets to its destination.
Now I know how well the government has dealt with illegal workers in the southern states so I’m not sure how well such a program will work. But it is quite amazing to me that the land of the free, limits travel with a no fly list, (which is amazing in itself since air travel is a private industry yet the government tells them who they can and can’t transport), has the highest prison population in history (I heard the other day even the Russian Gulags didn’t get this bad) and now wants to limit ones ability to provide for themselves and their family, sickening. American Dream My Ass, more like the American Daze.
I know that people in support of this ‘directive’ cry for the need for increased security, which in exchange for liberty is a high price to pay.
Gardasil now recommended in Canada to prevent Cervical Cancer in Gay Males… wait what??
By: James Burge
February 2nd, 2012
Okay so I just read an article that said that Gardisil has now been approved for boys aged 9 – 26 inCanada. And I felt it important to inform my roommate who has a 6-year-old boy, to refuse such a vaccination (assuming of course they even let her know, there are many stories where they are forcibly vaccinating children without informing their parents), due to the fact that all the anecdotal stories I’ve heard talk about the side-effects. Here are just a few:
“seizures, strokes, dizziness, fatigue, weakness, headaches, stomach pains, vomiting, muscle pain and weakness, joint pain, auto-immune problems, chest pains, hair loss, appetite loss, personality changes, insomnia, hand/leg tremors, arm/leg weakness, shortness of breath, heart problems, paralysis, itching, rashes, swelling, aching muscles, pelvic pain, nerve pain, menstrual cycle changes, fainting, swollen lymph nodes, night sweats, nausea, temporary vision/hearing loss just to name some of them!”
http://truthaboutgardasil.org/
There have been over 100 deaths related to Gardisil and over 25,000 serious complications like those listed above. I know I heard one story about a girl who developed severe narcolepsy in the days after her vaccination. She was a straight A student, now she is only awake a little over an hour a day and requires 24 hour care. (http://www.patientsville.com/vaccines/hpv4/narcolepsy-hpv-gardasil-2010.htm)
So as I was doing a bit of research, as I tend to do when I see stories like this and I came across the Public Health Agency of Canada’s Website on Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Prevention and HPV Vaccines: Questions and Answers page and was greeted with information that blows this whole charade out of the water in my opinion. (http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/std-mts/hpv-vph/hpv-vph-vaccine-eng.php#a3)
When I click on the question, “Who should get the vaccine?” after trying to sell me on the same old HPV cervical cancer BS I found this:
“Gardasil® is also recommended in males between 9 and 26 years of age, and in men ? 9 years of age who have sex with men.”
So let me get this straight (pun anyone?), you are trying to sell the story that boys need to be vaccinated against HPV because they might pass it on to girls, as it has allegedly been shown to increase the risk of cervical cancer, but then you say gay males would benefit?? I guess one thing we may need to point out to the drug companies, is that one requires a cervix to get cervical cancer. So unless gay men everywhere have started spontaneously sprouting a cervix (if so lets patent it and get transsexuals in on this). Vaccinating a man who will likely never sleep with a woman seems at best to be a waste of taxpayer money (because Health Canada will offer to pay, for the good of the people I’m sure) and at worst, clarification that the true intent of these vaccines is to pump this shit into anyone stupid enough (or young enough not to have a choice) to sit through the process. What ever happened to the idea of informed consent?? One may wrongly conclude that requires people to be adequately informed.
An Interesting parallel between LSD and 9/11 truth…
By: James Burge
February 1st, 2012
I was just reading an article that, interestingly enough, compares the process in which psychedelic drugs such as LSD and psilocybin, which are known to open the mind to previously unimaginable realities, compares with the process which occurs as one awakens to the breakdown of the official 9/11 narrative, in favour of what is referred to as 9/11 truth. So much occurs as your mind begins to accept this new reality and it has far reaching effects in our view of the world, how it works, and the various paradigms which we subscribe. This tends to destroy the hopelessly naïve view, which we are taught in school, that the government has the peoples best interest in mind and is here to help.
You will eventually come to the realization that governments are tragically self serving and will combat anything which they see as an obstacle to power, and will, if allowed to grow in size and influence, eventually become parasitic to the very citizens which originally gave the government their mandate. Then governments go through a period in which they attempt to marginalize citizens, starting first with minority groups, through incarceration, those citizens that society will accept as dangerous. The most common today being minor drug crimes with mandatory minimum sentences usually in great excess to crimes such as pedophilia or sexual assault which have terrible effects on the victims. Drug crimes only victims are those who become hopelessly dependent on these illicit substances which the government would prefer to lock up, only because the public has accepted this practice over time. (why else would elements in the government import drugs? see Iran contra, can you say entrapment)
I can only imagine how future generations will look at the punitive damages inflicted on minor drug offenders, as an obvious preference to drug counselling and attempting to deal with the ‘crime’ of substance abuse, which again has no external victims. This, in my opinion, is akin to locking up mentally challenged individuals in an attempt to ‘protect the public’ from what they might be capable of. To me this is a classic case of conflict of interest, where the government creates laws, which do not require a victim for the sole purpose of stripping a section of society of their right to vote through incarceration, and then flood the market to encourage sales, and throw anyone who gets in the way away for life.
There is a very interesting paradigm alive today where society looks to governments to provide them with the rights they are due and to save them from themselves. America’s founding fathers saw it the other way around, that society will demand their rights and government will abide or be replaced. This is the main reason why they didn’t worry about things like same-sex marriage in the constitution, because they couldn’t envision a government so far reaching that citizens will look to government to allow them to exert certain freedoms, like freedom of the press, and freedom of speech. The idea being, as in the case of same-sex marriage, if the government denied you a marriage certificate you would get married anyway and the government would just have to deal with it. Unfortunately, our generation and those after us will grow up learning that governments allow us certain freedoms, as opposed to those freedoms being universal, and inalienable as explicitly stated in the US constitution.
Thyroid cancer on the rise… Duh…
By: James Burge
January 20th, 2012
Just stumbled across an article which admits that there has been a recent increase in Thyroid cancers. Which seems like a no shit sort of thing to me and anyone following what is happening in Japan, but the article says that this has happened over the last decade we have seen this increase. Well I can see the increase at least in the last year since the Fukashima disaster following Japan’s recent quake and tsunami, but it would be interesting to look at the data to compare the rate of increase over the 10 years, because the 10 year number could be a distraction. (I mean if you have an increase of lets say 5% every year for 8 years and then a 20% increase for the last two, we could say there was an increase of 80% over 10 years (we assume this is averaged to 8% a year), but the increase of 40% over two years would be more statistically significant)
During this crisis, we have seen large releases of radioactive substances such as radioactive strontium, caesium, plutonium, and iodine to name a few of the more common substances.
And now for a quick health lesson. The thyroid gland is sometimes referred to as the pharmacy of the body which is the source of chemicals and enzymes used to regulate the body’s energy and metabolism. One of the key ingredients required to create some of these compounds is Iodine. So if your body finds any iodine in the food you eat it will go straight to the thyroid gland.
The issue here is the unknown ingestion of radioactive Iodine-131 which, since the body still thinks it is benign iodine, it will also begin to concentrate in the thyroid gland. Thyroid cancers increased in the areas surrounding Chernobyl after the incident there due to the releases of Iodine-131. Many survivors of Chernobyl required the removal of their thyroid gland, and of course spent the rest of their lives supplementing the chemicals usually produced in the gland. (the large scar left on an individuals throat after thyroid removal became known as a Chernobyl necklace).
An interesting side fact, plutonium is not found naturally on earth. All of the plutonium that exists is as nuclear waste since the beginning of nuclear experimentation in the 40′s. Plutonium is also considered the most toxic substance to life on earth (levels of 0.1 micrograms or 1×10^-7 grams is enought for an overdose, to put that in perspective a release of just 1 gram of plutonium would be enough to kill 10 million people if widely dispersed)). This is mostly because we have evolved for aeon’s without developing any defences from radioactive substances. The human body is amazing at overcoming issues such as this; although it will take many generations, people would have developed immunity to radioactive substances if they were more common during our early evolution. One could theorize that our future relatives may develop radioactive immunities as exposure to these substances increase.
Of course the article goes on to try and confuse the issue, blaming the increase on better screening techniques, obesity and diet, although radiation exposure is mentioned as well.
The strangest thing to me though is that the treatment for thyroid cancer involves introducing more radioactive iodine. This of course comes from the concept of chemotherapy where radioactive substances are used because they kill cells that divide rapidly. Although cancerous cells fall into this category there are a lot of cells that also apply. Things like skin cells, which leads to the loss of hair, cells in the stomach, which leads to nausea, or cells in bone marrow which I believe plays a role in immune health. So radioactive iodine collects in the thyroid, causing cell mutations, requiring more radioactive iodine, sounds logical to me, right??
I’ve said it before and I’m gonna say it again, in the future I feel that Chemotherapy will be looked upon as we look at electro shock therapy (EST) today. At the time that shock therapy was big, health practitioners actually felt the procedure had benefits and I’m not sure we can blame them as that it tended to be the only therapy available for some conditions. But you don’t hear of many people getting EST that much anymore, although horror stories still exist as some physicians hold on to the past.
Newer cancer therapies target abnormal proteins in cancer cells called targeted therapy which does not involve the use of radioactive substances.
Eugenics may be on its way back…
By: James Burge
January 20th, 2012
This is a crazy story, but unfortunately I am not surprised by the ‘system’’s inhumanity and the fact that bureaucrats tend to wash their hands of these sorts of practices.
I read a story yesterday and couldn’t get it out of my head because it seems to me to be a hint at how far our society has come since I was a kid, and not in a good way. I admit, chances are I had a naively romantic view of society but when I was younger it seemed that people in power making decisions tended to ask themselves “Is this the right thing to do?” Some call this morality, and of course Catholics and Christians tend to feel they have dibs on morality. Yet you see people that are devout or in some cases evangelical yet don’t seem to have the values I thought were taught by such religions, such as morality and acceptance. It amazes me when people say, you can’t be a moral person if you aren’t religious, yet you find those that are extremely religious who don’t seem to have a moral bone in their body, but I digress.
The story I am talking about is one of the first instances I have heard of Death panels in the US. According to Wikipedia, this was ‘proven’ a myth after Sarah Palin mentioned it in a 2009 debate referring to her daughter with Downs Syndrome possibly being denied healthcare. However, as little as I like this woman as a world leader, she was right. Especially with the newly passed ObamaCare bill which forces citizens to buy private health insurance, or face consequences. But I guess the one thing they don’t mention is that even if you do buy insurance as your government now requires, you may require medical attention that some panel decides is either too expensive, or wont have an effect on your quality of life so the procedure is denied.
This story is about a 3 year old girl named Amelia. She was denied a kidney transplant (at 3?? It’s not like she has her whole life ahead of her or anything) because she is considered to be “mentally retarded”. Her doctor used the fact that he felt that Amelia wouldn’t have a good enough “quality of life” after surgery to justify the cost of the procedure in order to deny it.
There are so many things wrong with this. First being that a Dr. who is supposed to take an oath to practice medicine ethically feels it best to just let this girl slowly die of renal failure.
The second issue comes from the fact that Medicare is slowly putting American Doctors out of work. What happens is that since most Dr’s do whatever necessary to help patients, but Medicare doesn’t tend to fully cover costs, the doctors are taking losses on treating patients, which is not a good business model. Therefore doctors are forced to choose between Medicare patients, or going out of business. If you think ObamaCare will be different, you haven’t been paying attention, if there is one thing governments know how to do it’s mismanage federal programs until they break the system. (Social security anyone??)
So what may be happening is that the doctor can’t afford to loose money on the kidney transplant so he tried to justify no doing the surgery by calling the girl retarded (sorry) so that he can sleep at night.
There is also rumour I heard from a Neurosurgeon the other day which has not yet been made public that ObamaCare will introduce panels of bureaucrats not doctors, to decide what procedures are justified for patients because a federal system like this can’t provide everything for everyone. Think about that for a moment, you aren’t feeling well, you go to a doctor, he finds out you require an expensive procedure which he has to get approved before he can do it. Now your health is in the hands of bureaucrats who want nothing more than to reduce the costs to healthcare.
Instead of putting a limit on profits from essential medications cutting into the big drug companies profits (which considering how much they spend on lobbying wont happen, maybe if Dr. Paul becomes president but I doubt that will be allowed to happen either) or trying to cut costs in other more innovative ways, it is cheaper (and easier) to just let people die. And they wonder why they have such a bad healthcare system (I just found something where they are 37th worldwide, which for a country like the US is not only unacceptable, its borderline criminal IMO, although Canada is 30th)
What we are seeing here is called Eugenics. It is an old philosophy that advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population. It was started (in California I believe) in the early 1900s by (to name a few) Leonard Darwin (Charles Darwin’s son), Winston Churchill, and Alexander Graham Bell. The problem is that the views of Eugenics seems to have been used to justify atrocities ever since. Hitler and his ideas of the purification of the Arian Race he borrowed directly from eugenics. One of the first challenges to eugenics was a study which found a family of fruit flies, all with red eyes for many generations can still have offspring with white eyes, considered a mild genetic mutation that occurs outside of the inherited traits of the parents. What this showed was that even the most “pure” of parents can still have offspring with traits seen as detrimental, weather something like a predisposition to a heart condition, or even something like reduced mental capacity. Meaning the idea that you can bread the negative traits out of humans is a bit of a fallacy. Especially in an age where Mothers are bombarded with chemicals which studies have found actually concentrates in breast milk.
On an interesting side note, since I am an Albertan I found this interesting. In 1928 Alberta enacted the Sexual Sterilization Act focusing the movement of eugenics on the sterilization of the mentally deficient as determined by the Alberta Eugenics Board. Individuals were assessed using IQ tests which of course caused a big problem for new immigrants arriving in Canada. So many of those sterilized by the government were immigrants unfairly categorized as having impaired intellectual functions. BC apparently enacted its own version of the law in 1933 around the start of the great depression.
I think it is worth mentioning that the great depression played a big role in the acceptance of eugenics in Canada as it was widely seen as a way of relieving society of the financial burdens imposed by defective individuals. These laws were finally repealed in 1972, amazing right. But since some are predicting another depression, the question of weather eugenics will see another upswing in popularity remains to be seen.
Halliburton Destroyed Gulf Spill Evidence… interesting…
By: James Burge
December 6th, 2011
Was just reading an article where BP accused Halliburton of intentionally destroying evidence to conceal its role in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico Oil Rig Disaster.
For those of you that don’t know in the days before the well blew up, Halliburton were involved with setting a cement plug which would have temporarily sealed BP’s Moncondo exploration well. According to another article as early as February Halliburton knew there were problems with their recipe for the cement. They then kept this information from BP notifying them by email about only one of the tests, leaving out the tests with “unstable” results.
And get this:
Chevron recently carried out independent lab tests of a cement slurry that Halliburton said was the same as that used in the Macondo well. The commission staff said Chevron reported that “its lab personnel were unable to generate stable foam cement in the laboratory using the materials provided by Halliburton.
Not only that it seems like Halliburton lied about the unstable tests. Apparently to an inquiry on the explosion, Tomas Roth, Halliburton’s Vice President for Cementing said their results showed the cement mixture was stable, which of course seems to question the unstable results but apparently they didn’t make this issue known to BP, although they claim they shared the data in an email to BP, but apparently they never used the words “unstable” in that email.
Now that is has come out that they have destroyed evidence, I would bet money the lost documents also include these unstable test results in the days preceding the explosion. Which would be tough if they gave them to BP through email.
Now Halliburton is blaming BP because they only used 6 of the 21 centralizers, a device that ensures the drill pipe is properly centered.
And then this:
Robert Bea, a professor and oil industry expert at the University of California at Berkeley, said that drillers will often run one test on a cement mixture, then a second test as a backup. He called four tests “unusual.”
“Given that they are running four, that’s telling me they were having trouble getting to a stable design,” Bea said. “And so they continued to work with this witches’ brew until they got on to something they thought was workable.”
But I came across another article where Halliburton admits it never performed a test of the mixture, but that BP ordered them to change the mixture last minute meaning it could not perform the needed tests. Either way, sounds like negligence to me.
