ADA study confirms dangers of fluoridated water, especially for babies
dvocates of fluoridated water insist that the chemical additive is good for teeth, but actual science routinely shows otherwise, including a new study published in the Journal of the American Dental Association confirming fluoride as a toxic substance that actually destroys teeth, particularly those of developing young children and babies.
When people are exposed to excessive levels of fluoride through sources like drinking water, foods and beverages and even swallowed toothpaste, it often results in a condition known as dental fluorosis. The internal uptake of fluoride into teeth over time causes their enamel to become mottled and discolored, the end result being damaged teeth that have essentially rotted from the inside out.
Dr. Steven Levy, D.D.S., and his team found during their study that “fluoride intakes during each of the first four years (of a child’s life) were individually significantly related to fluorosis on maxillary central incisors, with the first year more important.” They went on to warn that “infant formulas reconstituted with higher fluoride water can provide 100 to 200 times more fluoride than breast milk, or cow’s milk.”
(Read more from naturalnews.com)
Can the Government Require You to Eat Asparagus?
While hearing oral arguments about the constitutionality of the new health care law yesterday, a Virginia judge suggested that the legal logic underlying the law’s individual mandate, which requires everyone to purchase health insurance, could give the federal government “boundless” power over U.S. citizens. From The Wall Street Journal’s report on yesterday’s hearing:
Allowing [the individual mandate], Judge Hudson said, could open the door for the federal government to require residents to buy a car, join a gym and “eat asparagus,” he said. “It’s boundless.” (Read more from poorrichards-blog.blogspot.com)
This is what I said.
Scandal Coming to White House?
Part 1:
And I take no pleasure in saying Obama should not be re-elected in 2012.
That is a very strong statement – anything recent that causes you to now say you will not support Obama in 2012? (Long pause – question is repeated) There is much I have been told, some I know, some more that will probably develop in the coming weeks and months. But you want specifics, right? I understand that…I’ll give you an example of why President Obama is not right for America. He sure as hell has not been right for the party. Not long ago, the president took a meeting. He’s late, which apparently is becoming more and more common with him. The meeting was almost cancelled. In strolls the president, joking with an aide. He plops down on a sofa, leans over and claps another guy on the back asking how he’s been. Apologizes for being late, says he was “held up”. He laughs some more. The meeting begins. After just ten minutes, during which time the president appears to almost totally withdraw into himself, an aide walks in and whispers something to the president, who then nods and quickly stands up, shakes a few hands and tells another aide to update him later on the rest of the meeting. As the president is walking out he is laughing at something yet again. He asked no questions of those at the meeting – not one. He left after just ten minutes, coming in laughing and leaving laughing. His behavior during that brief time he was there was described as “borderline manic”.
Ok, you have already stated previously that the president doesn’t show much interest in the day to day business of being president – why is this example so bad, or different? Care to know what that particular meeting was about on that day?
Certainly. Afghanistan. That meeting was an update on Afghanistan, and the President of the United States, the Commander in Chief, could give a -expletive-.
Were you actually there to witness this? No, I was long gone from the White House by then. It was told to me though by someone who was. They were there. First hand. They were also left to apologize to the ones left in the room after the president left. Some of these were military. They were not happy. No…that is not accurate. They were pissed. They didn’t say much at the time, but word got back. They were in shock at the president’s behavior. The country had just lost a number of soldiers the week prior, the public opinion on the war was falling…and the president didn’t seem to care. He arrives late, leaves early, appears to emotionally shut down during the actual discussion, and to then start laughing once again as he is leaving…how does someone reconcile with that kind of behavior? I can’t. It turns my stomach. I didn’t want to believe what I was being told, but I had seen similar kinds of behavior from the president myself, and I can’t dispute the credibility of the source. They have no reason to lie.
. . . .
So is that one example the real tipping point for you in no longer being willing to support Obama in 2012? Or do you have any others you wish to share? Oh, I have others, though I cannot share all of them at this point because they involve some still in range of potential White House retribution. Then again, I suppose I am still in range of such retribution myself.
What do you mean by retribution? Punishment. Political punishment, and even personal punishment. The powers of a president extend far beyond the Oval Office – you know that. I make my living, and it has been a very good living, working within the system of politics. A president can create considerable…pressure if you will, to limit or even destroy my place in that system. Working with a president is an extraordinary and terrifying thing. In regards to my experience with Obama, it became far less extraordinary and far more terrifying. And it’s getting worse.
Terrifying? Yes, terrifying. To see one’s expectations so disappointed. To see a figure who wields such great power and influence fall so short of the responsibilities of that power and influence…that is terrifying to witness. Initially I developed great fear for my party – for the Democrats whose political careers were being destroyed by this administration and party leadership. Now I sincerely fear for my country.
. . . .
I do not know if the country can survive another four years of Barack Obama, and frankly, I want nothing to do with helping us find out. The man is an incompetent. The man is a tool of the extreme far left that has utterly corrupted the Democratic Party. The man and those now closest to him in the administration appear to abhor America’s history. They detest anyone who does not fully subscribe to their positions. They are corrupt, they are increasingly paranoid, and they are taking this country down a path by which we may never recover.
You sound like Rush Limbaugh. -Expletive- you…(pause) I apologize for that, but no, I am not some right winger. You know that. I have spent decades helping to build the Democratic Party up.
. . . .
My primary goal now is to help as many good Democrats survive the disaster that will be the November elections, and from there, provide a far more capable and competent candidate to be the Democratic Party nominee for 2012.
Here’s your headline for today – there is a movement within the Democratic Party to make Hillary the nominee in 2012 – not Obama. I’m not talking a small group of “what ifs” here, I’m talking about significant members of the party, significant financial backers…a legitimate and serious move to make Hillary Clinton our nominee. It is not quite fully initiated yet, but it’s getting there.
Part 2:
Ok then – I’ll point your nose in the right direction. Enough people are sniffing in the same garbage pile anyways, including the Times. Though I suspect they are burying it at the moment, or trying to. They are still heavily invested in Obama, but that may change soon… Go back to Chicago. That is the key. There is other crap around the White House, other things that could trip them up, but Chicago is where the real heavy deal is that could bring the administration down. Go back and review Blagojevich. Go back and review Rezko, Barton, Stern, Giordano, Carothers, Jarret. It’s one and the same. It’s all connected, and it’s big. And people know. The White House is -expletive- itself over this stuff. Pelosi has it. Clintons have it – more of it than they had in 2008.
(Interrupts) What do you mean “have it”? The information – the story. At least some of it, enough of it. It’s all a chess match you know. A series of moves. Right now the White House is scrambling, and they don’t know enemies from friends anymore. The party is attempting to localize the damage so it doesn’t spread. Make it just about Chicago, and worst case, Obama – but not the party. And so you look back to Chicago, you look at the Justice Department, connect the dots. One investigation will potentially reveal the other. And it’s all setting up to happen now if the November elections go down with a Republican landslide. Obama will be left without protection. His inner circle is scared to death. I mean truly frightened by the prospects of what could be coming at them in the coming months. They have enemies both in the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. President Obama is lost. Absolutely lost.”
. . . .
Look at the Democrats who are now openly challenging the president. Every day another one rebukes the president. That is an incredibly dangerous thing to do politically – it can destroy a career. Ask yourself why they would be so willing to do that. Are they just stupid, too bold – or is it something else?
I don’t know… (shakes head) The word is out there – President Obama is in real trouble. They may not have the specifics, but the story of a big scandal coming is circulating now within the party – both parties. So why put your own political career on the line supporting a president who is facing such a fiasco? Simple – they won’t. (Read more from newsflavor.com)
The widening income gap?
Why Can’t Chuck Get His Business Off the Ground?
Another fantastic video from the Institute for Justice:
The lawless Wild West attacks WikiLeaks
From Salon:
WikiLeaks has never been charged with a crime, let alone indicted for one or convicted of one. A consensus of legal experts agree that prosecuting the organization or Julian Assange for any of its leaks would be difficult in the extreme. Despite those facts, look at just some of the punishment that has been doled out to them and what has been threatened:
[There is a better list on Salon, with links and pics.]
-Paypal freezes WikiLeaks Account
-Australia cancels Assange’s passport
-Swiss bank freezes WikiLeaks founder’s legal defense fund
-Amazon cuts off WikiLeaks
-Seattle-based software company, Tableau removed charts links to by Wikileaks in response to Sen. Joe Lieberman’s statement.
– former Canada adviser claims Julian Assange should be assassinated
– WikiLeaks should be designated a ‘foreign terrorist organization,’ Rep. Peter King fumes
Just look at what the U.S. Government and its friends are willing to do and capable of doing to someone who challenges or defies them — all without any charges being filed or a shred of legal authority. They’ve blocked access to their assets, tried to remove them from the Internet, bullied most everyone out of doing any business with them, froze the funds marked for Assange’s legal defense at exactly the time that they prepare a strange international arrest warrant to be executed, repeatedly threatened him with murder, had their Australian vassals openly threaten to revoke his passport, and declared them “Terrorists” even though — unlike the authorities who are doing all of these things — neither Assange nor WikiLeaks ever engaged in violence, advocated violence, or caused the slaughter of civilians.
This is all grounded in the toxic mindset expressed yesterday on Meet the Press (without challenge, naturally) by GOP Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said of Assange: “I think the man is a high-tech terrorist. He’s done an enormous damage to our country, and I think he needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And if that becomes a problem, we need to change the law.” As usual, when wielded by American authorities, the term “terrorist” means nothing more than: “those who impede or defy the will of the U.S. Government with any degree of efficacy.” Anyone who does that is, by definition, a Terrorist. And note McConnell’s typical, highly representative view that if someone he wants to punish isn’t a criminal under the law, then you just “change the law” to make him one.
But that sort of legal scheming isn’t even necessary. The U.S. and its “friends” in the Western and business worlds are more than able and happy to severely punish anyone they want without the slightest basis in “law.” That’s what the lawless, Wild Western World is: political leaders punishing whomever they want without any limits, certainly without regard to bothersome concepts of “law.”
. . . .
People often have a hard time believing that the terms “authoritarian” and “tyranny” apply to their own government, but that’s because those who meekly stay in line and remain unthreatening are never targeted by such forces. The face of authoritarianism and tyranny reveals itself with how it responds to those who meaningfully dissent from and effectively challenge its authority: do they act within the law or solely through the use of unconstrained force?
. . . .
Yahoo News!’ Michael Calderone has a very good article documenting how major American media outlets — as always — snapped into line with the authorities they serve by ceasing to use the term “whistle-blower” to describe WikiLeaks. (Read more from salon.com)
Bloomberg’s Organ Snatchers
New York City may soon be a very dangerous place to die — and not only because of high estate taxes.
If Mayor Mike Bloomberg has his way, anyone suffering a heart attack will get responses from Emergency Medical Technicians…and special organ donation teams ready and waiting to take your organs should you conveniently not survive.
Equally barbaric and depravingly insensitive — nearly criminally indifferent — is the proposal to have doctors ready to swoop in on the deceased’s loved ones within minutes to ask for the organs.
And there’s little difference in practical terms between the government letting you die and pressuring your relatives to give you the organs, and a private third party brokering a sale of organs like one rabbi in New Jersey whose commerce in kidneys got him indicted by federal prosecutors who consider selling organs to be a federal crime. (Please – no New Jersey jokes — at least in New Jersey the organ brokers are candid enough to sell kidneys and do not pretend to be doing a public good.)
Such insensitivity was more the hallmark of truly barbaric cultures like the Aztecs, who would play sports involving kicking around the head of a vanquished opponent. This proposal shames those of us who treasure our commitment to human life — and to fundamental equality under both the eyes of a Supreme Being, and the Fourteenth Amendment. So much for America as an advanced nation.
All of this is under the guise of “helping” people…and if you are in cardiac distress you would be providing the help the most!
This dangerous proposal puts ordinary suffering City residents at the peril of having to trust that their paramedic is there to save them, not to go shopping for organs for a friend or family member. No regulation can prevent a paramedic from making his own warped triage assessment of you — oh, this one will die anyway, let’s see if his pancreas works because Uncle George has pancreatic cancer and needs a transplant.
The simple saying used by investigators and prosecutors — “motive and opportunity” — is also true here. Self-proclaimed saviors will have both the motive and opportunity to let you die in order to give your organs to someone else they prefer.
This warped and dangerous mentality was on display earlier this year, when New York State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky (who ran unsuccessfully for Attorney General) proposed an “opt-out” requirement for New York drivers, who under his proposal would become subject to automatic organ harvesting upon death unless they opted out by checking off a box on their driver’s license. Thankfully, Brodsky’s bill languishes in Albany. (Read more from ericdixonlaw.com)
CIA kidnaps, tortures German citizen, tries to keep him prisoner they discover he’s innocent
I hate the James Bond image of the CIA. I think any violent organization with the power to conceal its mistakes will be reckless, barbaric, and grossly incompetent.
Despite El-Masri’s protests that he was not al-Masri, he was beaten, stripped naked, shot full of drugs, given an enema and a diaper, and flown first to Baghdad and then to the notorious “salt pit,” the CIA’s secret interrogation facility in Afghanistan. At the salt pit, he was repeatedly beaten, drugged, and subjected to a strange food regime that he supposed was part of an experiment that his captors were performing on him. Throughout this time, El-Masri insisted that he had been falsely imprisoned, and the CIA slowly established that he was who he claimed to be. Over many further weeks of bickering over what to do, a number of CIA figures apparently argued that, though innocent, the best course was to continue to hold him incommunicado because he “knew too much.” Dana Priest furnished the core of this account in an excellent 2005 Washington Post story. Other aspects have been slowly confirmed by German criminal investigators. By studying El-Masri’s hair and skin samples, for instance, they were able to confirm allegations that he was drugged and subjected to a bizarre starvation regimen. Throughout this process, El-Masri’s account of what transpired, part of which he wrote up as an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, has consistently been vindicated. (Read more from harpers.org)
In Quest for ‘Legal High,’ Chemists Outfox Law
ANTWERP, Belgium—When the housing market crashed in 2008, David Llewellyn’s construction business went with it. Casting around for a new gig, he decided to commercialize something he’d long done as a hobby: making drugs.
But the 49-year-old Scotsman didn’t go into the illegal drug trade. Instead, he entered the so-called “legal high” business—a burgeoning industry producing new psychoactive powders and pills that are marketed as “not for human consumption.”
Mr. Llewellyn, a self-described former crack addict, started out making mephedrone, a stimulant also known as Meow Meow that was already popular with the European clubbing set. Once governments began banning it earlier this year, Mr. Llewellyn and a chemistry-savvy partner started selling something they dubbed Nopaine—a stimulant they concocted by tweaking the molecular structure of the attention-deficit drug Ritalin. (Read more from online.wsj.com)
According to my friend, esoteridactyl, this wouldn’t fly in the U.S. because substances are banned based on their effect, instead of on their chemical composition.
Argentina recognizes Palestine
Argentina has recognised Palestine as a “free and independent state,” just days after neighbouring Brazil announced that it would “legitimate aspiration of the Palestinian people for a secure, united, democratic and economically viable state co-existing peacefully with Israel”.
Hector Timerman, Argentina’s foreign minister, said on Monday that the Latin American nation officially recognised Palestine according to its 1967 borders and hopes for peaceful solution to Palestinian-Israeli conflict. (Read more from english.aljazeera.net)
Wikileaks Fallout Continues
Joe Lieberman emulates Chinese dictators
Talking Points Memo — in an article headlined: “How Lieberman Got Amazon To Drop Wikileaks” — detailed that Lieberman’s “staffers . . . called Amazon to ask about it, and left questions with a press secretary including, ‘Are there plans to take the site down?'” Shortly thereafter, “Amazon called them back . . . to say they had kicked Wikileaks off.” Lieberman’s spokeswoman said: “Sen. Lieberman hopes that the Amazon case will send the message to other companies that might host Wikileaks that it would be irresponsible to host the site.” (Read more from salon.com)
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Wikileaks skepticism:
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Lots of categorized information on wikipedia.
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hundreds of mirrors of WikiLeaks
“Even if you take down the server in Sweden, it’s too late,” Swiss Pirate Party Vice President Pascal Gloor told The Associated Press on Sunday.
“There are hundreds of mirrors of WikiLeaks now,” he said. “It’s a test for Internet censorship. Can governments take something off the net? I think not. There are copies of the website everywhere.”
In a high-tech media building in Bienne, Switzerland, the party convened an impromptu news conference late Friday to say it had no special knowledge of Assange’s whereabouts or ability to contact him, but had spoken with him weeks ago to help seek asylum in Switzerland. That was during Assange’s visit to Geneva last month when he spoke to reporters at the United Nations. (Read more from commondreams.org)
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Wikileaks cables reveal that the US wrote Spain’s proposed copyright law
Spain’s Congress is about to vote on a new and extremely harsh copyright/Internet law. It’s an open secret that the law was essentially drafted by American industry groups working with the US trade representative.
But it gets gets more interesting: 115 of the Wikileaks cables intercepted from the US embassy in Madrid were tagged with “KIPR” — that is, relating to “intellectual property,” The big question has been: will El Pais, the Spanish newspaper that has the complete trove of Wikileaks cables, release them in time to affect the vote on the new law?
Well, now they’ve started. The first 35 of the 115 cables have been released, and they confirm the widespread suspicion: the Spanish government and the opposition party were led around by the nose by the US representatives who are the real legislative authority in Spain. (Read more from boingboing.net)
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US Spying on UN Personnel
Assange told El Pais, “The whole chain of command who was aware of this order, and approved it, must resign if the US is to be seen to be a credible nation that obeys the rule of law. The order is so serious it may well have been put to the president for approval.”
Assange has also called on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to resign her post.
The State Department directive sent in July 2009 asked diplomats to collect basic contact information about U.N. officials, including Internet passwords, credit card numbers and frequent flyer numbers.
WikiLeaks documents reveal that the CIA was behind the State Department’s directive to gather information on U.N. officials. (Read more from cbsnews.com)
U.S.S.A. Internet Warning
US Government Censors 70 Websites
The US is really ramping up its war on intellectual property infringement, a war which I’m sure will be just as successful, cheap and supported by the people as the wars on drugs and terrorism. The US has started seizing the domain names of various websites through ICANN – not because owners of these sites were convicted of anything, but merely because complaints have been filed against them. Anyone want to take a guess how long it will be before the US government blocks WikiLeaks? Update: The blocks function outside of the US too. In other words, the US is forcing its views upon the rest of the world once again.
The current seizures of domains did not even use the proposed bill which recently passed the US Senate Judiciary Committee. The seizures come from the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, and cover about 70 websites relating to potential copyright infringement and counterfeit goods, among which is Torrent-Finder.com, a mere torrent search engine which does not host or even link to torrents; it displays content hosted elsewhere through embedded iframes.
“My domain has been seized without any previous complaint or notice from any court!” the owner of Torrent-Finder explained TorrentFreak, “I firstly had DNS downtime. While I was contacting GoDaddy I noticed the DNS had changed. Godaddy had no idea what was going on and until now they do not understand the situation and they say it was totally from ICANN.”
This is equivalent to having your house seized for pointing out to someone you can buy weed in the college district. (Read more from osnews.com)
On Voting
Personally, I’m still torn between Hoppe’s view of Democracy, the argument that we should simply turn our backs on government to the best of our ability, and my desire to support Ron Paul.
Ambivalence aside, I love Stefan Molyneux’s rant:
Here are his thoughts on Ron Paul. His argument is analogous to the Hoppian anarcho-capitalist argument that a minimal state is impossible.