Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Threats to children

Here it is Halloween, and, once again, the warnings go out about razor blades in apples, and other threats to our children. Yearly, the mass media propagates the fear, even though it has been debunked multiple times. There has never been a child hurt by a razor blade in an apple. It doesn't matter, the drums of fear beat on.

Look out for razor blades in apples!, but ignore the pesticides, heavy metals, and additives you give them everyday, because there are powerful companies profiting from everyday poisoning. Don't eat unwrapped candy, but stuff them with wrapped junk food and fatty fast food.

We tell our children not to get into cars with strangers. Really, we should tell them not to get into cars, period. The number one killer of children, from birth to age 44, is automobiles.

That's right, if a stranger kills your child, it'll be with a car. If you kill your child, it'll be with a car.

If you really love your children, you should be lobbying your town to stop the road building and start sidewalk building. Stop the urban sprawl, and make compact, walkable towns that get the true killers off the streets.

Monday, October 29, 2007

Biological Warfare

Remember a few years ago, when we were daily warned of the coming "bird flu"? Well, it appears they are still working on it.

WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL: "Flu lab nears completion"

Every year the CDC tries to figure out what this year's flu will be, so they can prepare vaccines. Usually, they guess right, but sometimes they get it wrong. So, if they have trouble forecasting this year's flu, from the strains that are already here, how can they be so sure that a disease of chickens in the far East will mutate and migrate here?

Perhaps because they are busily creating it in laboratories in America, such as this one in Austin, TX: Hybrid flu virus in near-miss escape - bird-flu.

They claim, of course, that this is for "defensive" purposes. Yeah, you dig up a corpse who died from the 1918 flu, and recreate that virus for "defense". How stupid do they think we are? Defense from what? From spontaneous regeneration of that flu from buried corpses?

People who don't believe in evolution are announcing that they know that a virus on the other side of the planet is going to evolve into a lethal virus and spread east to west to attack us. What birds migrate east to west? How do birds sick with a deadly flu manage to fly that far, even if they did migrate west? Anyone who thinks knows that this is ridiculous.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Evacuations in California and New Orleans

500,000 people have been evacuated in California, due to fires threatening to destroy their homes.

Coincidentally, that's the number that evacuated from New Orleans in 2005, due to flooding threatening to destroy their homes.

I saw pictures on the TV of the rich San Diego evacuees, in their stadium. It looked like a party, complete with buffet, set with overwhelming amounts of food. Too bad the poor New Orleans evacuees didn't get buffets. Actually, the Red Cross was told that they couldn't go in and feed the people in that stadium, because then they wouldn't leave. At that time, of course, the idea of totally depopulating a city because of a disaster was unheard of, but after 3 days of hunger, the people in the stadium lined up for the buses out.

Yes, people shouldn't live in a flood zone, and probably New Orleans should be rebuilt on higher ground, not back in the flood plain, but people shouldn't live up in dry mountains, either. Global warming makes hurricanes with floods, and drought with high winds and fire, more likely, and people are going to have to adjust.

But, how much do you want to bet that the rich will be allowed to rebuild in the mountains of California? They always have been. I grew up in LA, and the rich have had fires and mudslides as long as I can remember, and they always rebuilt, with help from the taxpayers. In other words, we poor people who lived down in the smog choked valley paid so the rich could go up into the cleaner air and dry brush of the mountains.

I say ship the rich evacuees of San Diego to a stadium in Houston, and then spread them out around the country, or stick them in trailer parks. Give them a $2,000 credit card, but then prosecute them for using it in 2 years. Fair is fair.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Stealing Social Security

My 401-K holder, Vanguard, sent me a cheery newsletter last week. They had an interview with an "expert" on Social Security. It was a question-answer format.

So, someone asked, what about the money that baby boomers have put into Social Security? Oh, she replied, causally, that is almost $2,000,000,000,000. But it's gone. The government spent it. She had some helpful suggestions for us- 1) Work until we're 70 or 75. 2) Stay healthy, so we don't need medical care. 3) Put lots of money in our 401-Ks. (How self serving is that?)

Two trillion dollars stolen, and we're supposed to say say, oh well? When the evil Reagan was president and started the tax cuts for the rich, coupled with massive deficit spending, that has been carried on and topped by the evil Bush, we baby boomers, then young whippersnappers, were told that there were too many of us, that our children wouldn't be able to pay for us when our time came. Up until then Social Security was paid to each retired generation by the generation then working. No problem. Reagan and Greenspan told us that we were too many to do that, that our generation would have to prepay our retirement. And our generation only.

So, since 1984, we have paid trillions more than was needed for our parents. This was supposed to go into a "trust fund". Then we would use it for our retirement, and when we were gone, it would go back to each generation paying for the previous generation.

Now they tell us that there isn't enough money to last past 2041. So? Most baby boomers will be dead by then. So they tell us that we can't have any of our money because it might run out? That's what it was supposed to do!

And just announcing that it was spent? (i.e. stolen). And that we have no right to it, because it was stolen? What kind of statement is that? If you borrowed a million dollars from a bank, and then when it came time to pay it back, announced that you had spent it, and you suggest that the bank make up for it by staying open on Sundays and holidays, because you didn't have it anymore, what do you think would happen?

Only the working poor pay full Social Security. If you make more than $75,000, you don't pay Social Security on any amount above that. That's ridiculous. Originally, only the rich paid income taxes. Now, the rich pay very little, and only the poor pay full Social Security. And then they want us to take what's left of our paycheck and give it to the stockbrokers who run our 401Ks. Vanguard sends me a letter every year recommending that I give a higher percent of my income to them. They recommend 20% or more. That's worse than churches.

I wonder if anyone actually falls for that. Probably. Won't they be surprised when the economy collapses and their retirement funds are gone. But Vanguard said that it would be a million dollars by the time I retired! You mean they lied? What a shock.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Sen. Mike Gravel: Hillary, War with Iran is No Laughing Matter - Politics on The Huffington Post

Sen. Mike Gravel: Hillary, War with Iran is No Laughing Matter - Politics on The Huffington Post: "Hillary, I'm glad to see you got a good laugh when I confronted you during last week's debate over your vote calling the Iranian Revolutionary Guard"

This is a great video. I am impressed with Mike Gravel and his outrage at the corporate favorite candidate-Hilary. All Democrats should be equally outraged, and unwilling to let the media tell us who our candidates will be in 14 months.

Gravel, Kucinich (and Ron Paul, on the Republican side) are considered "unviable" candidates. Why? The corporate media implies that it is because they don't have corporate backing. What does this mean in our so-called democracy? That even though Americans complain about the corporate domination of our country they must accept it without question? Sickeningly enough, they seem to. I went door to door for Kucinich in 2004, and it was disgusting how many people told me he was their favorite candidate, but they wouldn't vote for him (and this was the primary, not the general election), because he couldn't win, since he didn't have enough money. Where is the cognitive dissonance in this?

Now the Democrats have two truth tellers, and the Republicans have one. This is upsetting to the powers-that-be, and they are busily ignoring, and/or, trashing them. Have you seen accounts of the debates in the mainstream media? The Chicago Tribune had a picture of the Republicans in the last debate, somehow missing Ron Paul. And the news account they printed had no quotes from him. He was "disappeared" from history-the day after!

Perhaps this experience will wake people up to the farce that is American electoral politics. Candidate selection is rigged, media coverage is rigged, and the voting machines are rigged.

God bless our freedom! Let's go kill some poor children somewhere to celebrate democracy!

Monday, October 1, 2007

bombing Iran

Quit letting the Bushites create reality!! All the talk about bombing Iran or not is letting the Bushits set the agenda.
There are the crazies who insist that Iran's quest for the bomb deserves an attack by the only country that has ever actually used the atomic bomb, because we are morally superior. How twisted is that?
But the opposition insists that we need "diplomatic pressure". This is bullshit again. We go through this every time! The inspectors have announced that there is no evidence that Iran is working on a nuclear weapon. This is ignored by the mainstream anti-war establishment, the self-proclaimed "reality-based community". In real reality, there should be no argument about how to deal with Iran, because there is no threat from Iran. The threats are, in reality, coming from the USA.
And, of course, no one asks the obvious question, why does the USA get to choose who can posess the nuclear bomb? The US has more bombs than any other country, by far, it refuses inspections, it has announced that it will break the treaties it has signed by developing new nuclear weapons, AND, as mentioned, it is the only country that has actually used them. On civilians, yet. Why is it just accepted by "both sides" in the corporate media that the US is in any way qualified to pass judgement on other countries?