The Big Bogus

American Scofflaw

This week, the health care lobby scored a cunning propaganda victory by feigning interest in fixing the perennial rip-off we call a health care system.

With much fanfare, Big Health trotted out a six-month old "promise" -- a toothless, non-binding pledge lacking any specifics -- to make various nips and tucks that would slow the rate at which health costs grow to "only" 4.7 percent annually. It was hailed by the Obama administration and many observers as a breakthrough in the battle for reform.

Until recently, the health care industry has been dead-set on preserving a disastrous but profitable status quo (The U.S. spends close to twice as much per person on care than other wealthy countries, and gets consistently poorer results; among residents of 30 rich countries polled by Gallup, Americans came in 18th in terms of satisfaction with their care). But now the "disease care" industry is portraying itself as an agent of change. Fearful of a growing movement towards real, substantive reform, it's trying to co-opt the process under the guise of "getting a seat at the table." That they've given up, for now, their oppositional stance is what has so many tongues wagging about the significance of the proposal.

But it's nothing new -- "voluntary" codes of conduct, self-regulation and industry-driven initiatives for the private sector to address complex policy issues have long been a standard tactic for heading off real regulation and deeper systemic reforms. The Brookings' Institution's Henry Aaron, a former official in the Carter administration told the New York Times that when he heard of the proposal, "I had a Rip van Winkle moment, as if I had fallen asleep in 1977 and woke up again this morning.” According to the Times, Carter's pledge to do something about out-of-control health care costs "prompted the industry to undertake a short-lived 'voluntary effort.'” The growth of health care costs also slowed briefly after Bill Clinton's failed attempt to fix the system.

Only If...

By Gary Fleming

What needs to happen, and won't, is a prosecution of everyone on the Bush/Cheney White House, and every Democrat who signed on to, these pointless wars and the institutionalization of torture as a device for getting confessions to back specific political agendas.

Only then can this country go back to being a country governed by the rules of law, and not the rules of men. And until then, we can no longer talk about being the "land of the free and the home of the brave"; we can no longer talk about how human dignity, human rights, and due process are the

of the moral foundations of this country.

Unless this happens, we will have permanently morphed into something quite different as a country; and that is a pretty terrifying outcome to contemplate.

Pothead Protest

American Scofflaw
Methinks potheads doth protest too much

The Gay Secretary
Cannabis is probably the world’s most popular casual use drug that is illegal in most nations. It has become so widespread that many people wouldn’t think twice about asking to light up at a friend’s or to smoke in public places. It is an ancient drug that has been used throughout history for medical, magical, and pleasurable purposes. Thanks to the scare-tactics of propaganda in the 1960s and 1970s, there are many myths surrounding the drug - this list intends to put things straight once and for all.

1 .Fat Storage

Myth: Cannabis’ active ingredient THC gets stored in body fat and its effects can last days or even weeks

Fact: It is true that cannabis (like many other drugs) enters the body’s fat stores, and it is for this reason that it can be detected long after use, but that is the only part of this myth which is true. The fact is, the psychoactive aspects of the stored cannabis are used up quickly and while the residue of the drug remains, it no longer has any effect on the person. Furthermore, the presence of THC in body fat is not harmful to the fat, the brain, or any other part of the body.

2. Memory Loss

Myth: Cannabis use causes memory loss and a general reduction in logic and intelligence

Fact: This is another myth which has elements of truth to it - no doubt the reason it is believed by so many. Laboratory tests have shown that cannabis diminishes the short term memory - but only when a person is intoxicated with it. A person who has taken cannabis will be able to remember things learned before they took it but may have trouble learning new information during intoxication. There is no scientific evidence whatsoever to suggest that this can become a long-term or permanent problem when sober.

3. Scientific Proof

Myth: Cannabis has been scientifically proven to be harmful

Fact: Let us start with a quote: “the smoking of cannabis, even long term, is not harmful to health.” This quote comes from the peer-reviewed British medical journal The Lancet (founded in 1823). There is certainly no scientific consensus on cannabis use, and certainly no scientific proof that casual use is dangerous to health.

4. Loss of Motivation

Myth: Cannabis use causes apathy and a lack of motivation

Fact: In fact, studies done on test subjects in which they were given a high dose of cannabis regularly over a period of days or weeks found that there was no loss in motivation or ability to perform. Of course, abuse of any intoxicating substance over long periods will reduce a person’s ability to function normally, but cannabis is no better or worse. Furthermore, studies indicate that cannabis users tend to have higher paid jobs than non-users.

5. Crime Statistics

Myth: Cannabis causes crime

Fact: Some people believe that cannabis use leads to violence and aggression, and that this, in turn, leads to crime. But the facts just don’t stack up. Serious research into this area has found that cannabis users are often less likely to commit crimes because of its effect in reducing aggression. Having said that, because of the number of nations that have outlawed cannabis, most users in the world are technically classified as criminals merely for possessing the drug.

6. Braindead

Myth: Cannabis kills brain cells

Fact: Cannabis does not cause any profound changes in a person’s mental ability. It is true that after taking the drug some people can experience panic, paranoia, and fright, these effects pass and certainly don’t become permanent. It is possible for a person to consume so much of the drug that they suffer from toxic psychosis, but again this is not unique to cannabis and is very rare.

7. Gateway to Other Drugs

Myth: Cannabis is a gateway drug - in other words, it leads to abuse of more potent drugs

Fact: For most people, cannabis is a terminus drug, not a gateway drug. Users of high strength drugs such as heroin or LSD are also statistically more likely to have used cannabis in the past, but this is just toying with statistics; when comparing the number of cannabis users with hard-drug users, the numbers are extremely small - suggesting that there is no link at all.

8. Modern Potency

Myth: Cannabis is more potent now than in the past

Fact: The reason that this myth has come about is that samples taken by drug enforcement agencies are used to test for potency but they are a tiny sample of the cannabis on the market. The vast majority of cannabis taken today is the same potency as it has been for decades. In fact, even if the potency were greatly higher, it would make little difference to the user as cannabis of varying potency produces very similar effects. Furthermore, there is statistical data on cannabis potency dating back to the 1980s which is more reliable than present methods of detection, and that shows little or no increase.

9. Lung Damage

Myth: Cannabis is more damaging to the lungs than cigarettes

Fact: First of all, people who smoke cannabis but not cigarettes tend to smoke far less frequently - thereby limiting their exposure to the dangers in the smoke. Furthermore, smokers of cannabis are not inhaling the many additives that go into commercial cigarettes to make them burn down faster or to stay alight. There has even been some evidence that marijuana smoke does not have the same effect on the bronchial tubes as cigarette smoke, so even heavy use may not lead to emphysema.

10. Cannabis and Addiction

Myth: Cannabis is highly addictive

Fact: Less than one percent of Americans smoke cannabis more than once per day. Of the heavy users, a tiny minority develop what appears to be a dependence and rely on the assistance of drug rehabilitation services to stop smoking but there is nothing in cannabis which causes physical dependence and the most likely explanation for those who need assistance is that they are having difficulty breaking the habit - not the “addiction”.

Climate Scofflaws

American Scofflaw

In an unprecedented move Wednesday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee rescinded the Peace Prize it awarded in 2007 to former US vice president Al Gore and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, amid overwhelming evidence that global warming is an elaborate hoax cooked up by Mr. Gore.

A press release from the committee quotes a chagrined Rajendra Pachauri, the UN climate panel’s chair, who claims that he was the victim of a “cunning deception spanning decades”:

“I am deeply ashamed for having unwittingly perpetuated such a massive fraud on the governments of the world,” said Mr. Pachauri.

“It turns out that all that data from satellites and radiosondes, surface temperature readings, borehole analysis, measurements of rising sea levels, melting glaciers and permafrost, phenological data, and proxy reconstructions of paleoclimatic conditions were all fabricated out of thin air by my former friend, Al Gore. Now that I think about it, I suppose that we should have instituting some sort of peer-review process before publishing such alarming conclusions. Once again, I’m very sorry.”

Message Sent

American Scofflaw

Are we missing the BIG picture by focusing on “how they did it’?

25+ years ago JFK was boldly and callously assassinated. The Warren Commission Report, authored by Hitler’s personal historian, began the cover-up in earnest. This was aided by Gerald Ford’s intentional lie regarding the point of entry of the bullet.
[See Prez Ford Admitted Doctoring Warren Rpt.]
[More JFK murder trivia.]

Just like the “official” 9/11 Report, also written by an officially unattributed author. It too began the cover-up in earnest.

And, in years yet to be seen, the Engineered Global Economic Collapse occurring now will be dissected and explained for the masses.

But maybe the real message is the one a former “magic bullet” debunker eventually uncovered.

Philadelphia lawyer Vincent Salandria was one of the earliest and best critics of the Warren Commission. Immediately after its Report was issued, he wrote a highly detailed critique for The Legal Intelligencer analyzing how the trajectories and ballistics were all wrong.

In 1975, as Gaeton Fonzi was preparing for work as a government investigator on the staff of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, he visited Salandria, whom he found dejected about the fruits of a dozen years of research.

Fonzi quotes Salandria in his important book, The Last Investigation:

“I’m afraid we were misled. All the critics, myself included, were misled very early. I see that now.

“We spent too much time and effort microanalyzing the details of the assassination when all the time it was obvious, it was blatantly obvious that it was a conspiracy.

“Don’t you think the men who killed Kennedy had the means to do it in the most sophisticated and subtle way? They chose not to.

“Instead, they picked the shooting gallery that was Dealey Plaza and did it in the most barbarous and openly arrogant manner. The cover story was transparent and designed not to hold, to fall apart at the slightest scrutiny.

“The forces that killed Kennedy wanted the message clear:

“We are in control and no one– not the
President, nor Congress, nor any elected
official — no one can do anything about it.”

Scofflaw Delusion

American Scofflaw

Your tax dollars at work, folks; while American vets sleep in our streets.

The knuckleheads who put together the "plan" for the Afghanistan campaign apparently had not one bit of understanding about the history of the people they were going to fight, and managed to have selective amnesia on that little bit in the military tactical books stating that a country cannot possibly win what is a land war from the air.(something I had hoped we would learn from Viet Nam, but apparently haven't.)

All this, coupled with what can only be kindly described as "magical thinking" has lead us to where we are, 7 years on. We have an insurgency which wants its country back, an Afghani president and government so crooked that the people believe that they have to screw their socks on in the morning, and - oh yes - the opium poppy business is booming!

Obama has vowed to placed 17,000 more troops there (which depends on when we can get many of them out of Iraq,), to add to the 30,000 US troops already there. So, we have around 47,000 troops.

US military planners estimate 500,000 troops, including newly trained Afghan National Army soldiers, are needed to secure the country"

500,000...47,000. Less than 10%, even counting NATO-Contributing forces. So ultimately, we've come up with a manpower figure which most likely cannot, and will not, work to hold this country.d

It isn't for no reason that Afghanistan has been characterized as "The Graveyard of Empires".