Wednesday, June 12, 2013
NSA
Obviously the RINO Boehner knew about the monitoring and was OK with it.
I can't believe how so many Republicans are lining up on with the President.
It's almost like someone has their emails etc... and is blackmailing them.
Colorado Senator Claims Democracy Is Racist
Colorado state Senator Angela Giron (D-Pueblo) says that democracy in
our republic is racist. Colorado citizens, angry over her votes to
further restrict their Second Amendment civil liberties, have gathered thousands of signatures to force a recall election.
http://www.redstate.com/dloesch/2013/06/11/colorado-senator-claims-democracy-is-racist/
The group working to recall state Sen. Angela Giron, D-Pueblo, delivered more than 13,000 signatures to the Colorado Secretary of State’s office in Denver on Monday.Colorado Peak Politics revokes Giron’s race card:
Pueblo Freedom and Rights needed 11,285 signatures from registered voters in Senate District 3 to force a recall election. The group said it returned 13,570 signatures. Victor Head, a founder of the group, said the names were all collected by volunteers and were reliable.
Giron said she wasn’t surprised that the group was able to deliver boxes full of petitions. But she said she was surprised at the racial undertones taken by some of the group’s supporters.
“I know it’s partially about me being a Latina and being in this position of authority,” said Giron.
Carefully ignored is the fact that three other Hispanics, both Republican and Democrat, male and female, opposed a number of gun bills this session.According to Giron’s logic, it’s racist then that she wants to disarm these Hispanics.
Republican Latina Clarice Navarro opposed all the gun bills.
Democrat Latinos Ed Vigil and Leroy Garcia opposed the Mag Ban, and Vigil also opposed the background check bill.
No recall campaigns have been initiated against any of those Hispanic politicians.
http://www.redstate.com/dloesch/2013/06/11/colorado-senator-claims-democracy-is-racist/
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
We are on the verge of a very interesting time, a time when the Constitution will be returned to the People
Over he next few weeks and months the NSA and the "law" that supports the unwarranted data gathering in order to keep us safe will be challenged. The ACLU and Two prominent civil rights groups have filed a lawsuit against the National Security Agency over its program that reportedly collects the telephone records of millions of American customers of Verizon.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union say in a lawsuit filed in federal court Tuesday that the program violates First Amendment rights of free speech and association. It also alleges the program violates Fourth Amendment rights to privacy.The National Security Agency (NSA) has come under the spotlight in the last week after The Guardian revealed that the agency is collecting data related to all phone calls — foreign and domestic — made on the Verizon network.
Monday, June 10, 2013
Why Is Monsanto the Most Hated Company in the World?
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/06/08/why-is-monsanto-the-most-hated-company-in-the-worl/
What is GMO?
You probably know something about GMOs, which stands for genetically modified organisms, since it's as closely associated with Monsanto as "IRS" is with taxes. The popular definition of a GMO is (according to Wikipedia) "an organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques." If you want to get pedantic about this definition, humankind has been genetically modifying organisms ever since the first nomads settled down to grow crops, since virtually nothing we eat today is the same exact plant or animal (or Twinkie) it was 10,000 years ago. But that's not why everyone's afraid of Monsanto. Monsanto is scary because -- in the eyes of detractors -- it's compressing 10,000 years of genetic adaptations into 10 years of mad science.
Fear of a mod planet
A quick search of "GMO" will turn up all sorts of scaremonger websites, with all sorts of frightening claims that when you eat a Monsanto-developed crop, you're consigning yourself to a short, sickly life of gastrointestinal (or just general) agony. Cancer, allergic reactions, liver problems, sterility, and even the unnatural modification of your genes -- these are just the claims I found on the website of the Institute for Responsible Technology, which purports to be a leading anti-GMO advocacy group. I won't go into some of the anti-Monsanto conspiracy theories you'll find bandied about on less reputable corners of the Internet.
It may not be easy to debunk all of these claims, but thanks to extensive national medical records, we can at least see how close to the mark they may strike. Since America was the earliest adopter of GMO foodstuffs, and is now the world's predominant grower and consumer of GMO crops, it should be experiencing the worst of the purported GMO health problems.
Are we more cancerous today than we were in 1996? Actually, not by a long shot:
Source: National Cancer Institute, SEER Cancer Statistics Review 1975-2010.
The results are even more pronounced when focusing on cancers of the
stomach, colon, and rectum, which all show a persistent and significant
downtrend throughout the entire tracked period across race and gender
divisions. If we're eating ourselves to death, shouldn't our digestive
systems be the most damaged by these Frankenfoods? Cancer statistics
don't back up anti-GMO claims at all, and with more than 16 years in the
food supply, you'd expect there to be a statistically significant
change. The one statistically significant spike on these graphs,
occurring around 1990, is often blamed
Economic benefits?
There has to be a reason farmers keep using GMOs. The most obvious would be that the end product -- that is, the stuff you eventually eat -- would yield more per planting (that is, per acre), which should result in lower costs at the consumer level. To the extent that this is true, it can't be credited to the adoption of GMO seed, as yield improvements and price declines began long before Monsanto got into the seed business:
Soybean yields haven't grown quite as impressively but have still doubled on a per-acre basis over the same time frame. Cotton yields have also soared over the past several decades. GMO crops had nothing to do with it -- old-fashioned hybridization, improved production techniques and infrastructures, and the spread of these two important developments around the world created a modern agricultural revolution after the Second World War. GMO crops might be in the process of extending that revolution today, but they may not. Few processes are so simple that a simple tweaking of one element can completely explain a change in another.
GMOs can't claim to have reduced crop costs through efficiency gains, either. Since commercial introduction in 1996, two of the three major crops planted have nearly doubled in price:
Ultimately, this is probably good for farmers, but bad for everyone else. Not only are you buying Frankenfoods that will wreck your health, but you're also paying twice as much for the privilege. Agriculture can be so cruel. (Yes, that was tongue-in-cheek.)
Monsanto itself claims that GMOs benefit farmers through increased yield, greater insect and disease protection, and drought and heat resistance. The modified crops also conserve the soil, minimize the use of herbicides, and reduce the energy used in the growing process.
I've already shown that yields have been increasing for decades, so Monsanto is at best merely continuing a long-running trend, and at worst piggybacking on other improvements to make disingenuous claims. Herbicides and fertilizers have shipped in more than 35% greater quantities this year over the volumes seen in 1996. Fertilizer, as you might expect, is one significant part of increasing crop yields. Since fertilizers are quite energy-intensive to make (many are derived from natural gas) and can be damaging to soil quality over time, this one factor tends to disprove a number of Monsanto's claims:
The increased use of herbicide designed to work with GMOs (and vice versa) appears to be creating strains of "superweeds" that actively resist the chemicals. Nature tends not to sit idly by while scientists try to pound it into submission. The long-term consequences of an arms race between chemical-cum-GMO producers and the invasive species they want to push out of farm fields could very possibly result in damages beyond the circumstantial ones I've already highlighted.
The only real claim that I can't disprove (or at least weigh down with caveats) is that of drought and heat resistance, mostly because it's not easy to find data on the claim in either direction. Reducing water use is no small feat in a world quite obviously enduring a period of abnormal heat and drought. However, this alone can't answer for the fact that something should be done about widespread droughts beyond the creation of GMOs that drink just a little bit less water -- particularly if these GMOs result in the indirect use of more water by herbicide-resistant weeds.
How do you solve a problem like Monsanto?
It's tempting to reduce complex issues into outraged sound bites, like "GMOs are killing people!" or "GMOs are feeding the world!" The truth, as always, isn't quite so easy.
The threat of tainted food -- whether by chemicals or through genetic manipulation -- is a cause that arouses outrage at a pitch few other causes will ever muster. The threat of a shadowy corporation with its fingers buried in the heart of our food supply only heightens this outrage, and Monsanto's heavy-handed efforts at control have done nothing to soften its public image. However, the science of GMOs has been carried out in a highly ideological way on both sides, which doesn't help when all you want is the truth.
It seems that GMOs will inevitably become a larger part of our food supply, because the corporate motivator in the United States has proved to be stronger than the citizen motivator in recent years. A few protests won't change that. It will take concerted, long-running national efforts to change diets and attitudes before Monsanto and its peers are forced to loosen their grip on American farmlands. If you choose to be one of the people on the vanguard of that effort, make sure that you understand the science as it is, and not as you'd like it to be.
Are we less healthy today than we were two decades ago? It's possible, even though most of the statistics don't show that. Is it all Monsanto's fault? Probably not.
What is GMO?
You probably know something about GMOs, which stands for genetically modified organisms, since it's as closely associated with Monsanto as "IRS" is with taxes. The popular definition of a GMO is (according to Wikipedia) "an organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques." If you want to get pedantic about this definition, humankind has been genetically modifying organisms ever since the first nomads settled down to grow crops, since virtually nothing we eat today is the same exact plant or animal (or Twinkie) it was 10,000 years ago. But that's not why everyone's afraid of Monsanto. Monsanto is scary because -- in the eyes of detractors -- it's compressing 10,000 years of genetic adaptations into 10 years of mad science.
Fear of a mod planet
A quick search of "GMO" will turn up all sorts of scaremonger websites, with all sorts of frightening claims that when you eat a Monsanto-developed crop, you're consigning yourself to a short, sickly life of gastrointestinal (or just general) agony. Cancer, allergic reactions, liver problems, sterility, and even the unnatural modification of your genes -- these are just the claims I found on the website of the Institute for Responsible Technology, which purports to be a leading anti-GMO advocacy group. I won't go into some of the anti-Monsanto conspiracy theories you'll find bandied about on less reputable corners of the Internet.
It may not be easy to debunk all of these claims, but thanks to extensive national medical records, we can at least see how close to the mark they may strike. Since America was the earliest adopter of GMO foodstuffs, and is now the world's predominant grower and consumer of GMO crops, it should be experiencing the worst of the purported GMO health problems.
Are we more cancerous today than we were in 1996? Actually, not by a long shot:
Source: National Cancer Institute, SEER Cancer Statistics Review 1975-2010.
Economic benefits?
There has to be a reason farmers keep using GMOs. The most obvious would be that the end product -- that is, the stuff you eventually eat -- would yield more per planting (that is, per acre), which should result in lower costs at the consumer level. To the extent that this is true, it can't be credited to the adoption of GMO seed, as yield improvements and price declines began long before Monsanto got into the seed business:
Soybean yields haven't grown quite as impressively but have still doubled on a per-acre basis over the same time frame. Cotton yields have also soared over the past several decades. GMO crops had nothing to do with it -- old-fashioned hybridization, improved production techniques and infrastructures, and the spread of these two important developments around the world created a modern agricultural revolution after the Second World War. GMO crops might be in the process of extending that revolution today, but they may not. Few processes are so simple that a simple tweaking of one element can completely explain a change in another.
GMOs can't claim to have reduced crop costs through efficiency gains, either. Since commercial introduction in 1996, two of the three major crops planted have nearly doubled in price:
Ultimately, this is probably good for farmers, but bad for everyone else. Not only are you buying Frankenfoods that will wreck your health, but you're also paying twice as much for the privilege. Agriculture can be so cruel. (Yes, that was tongue-in-cheek.)
Monsanto itself claims that GMOs benefit farmers through increased yield, greater insect and disease protection, and drought and heat resistance. The modified crops also conserve the soil, minimize the use of herbicides, and reduce the energy used in the growing process.
I've already shown that yields have been increasing for decades, so Monsanto is at best merely continuing a long-running trend, and at worst piggybacking on other improvements to make disingenuous claims. Herbicides and fertilizers have shipped in more than 35% greater quantities this year over the volumes seen in 1996. Fertilizer, as you might expect, is one significant part of increasing crop yields. Since fertilizers are quite energy-intensive to make (many are derived from natural gas) and can be damaging to soil quality over time, this one factor tends to disprove a number of Monsanto's claims:
The increased use of herbicide designed to work with GMOs (and vice versa) appears to be creating strains of "superweeds" that actively resist the chemicals. Nature tends not to sit idly by while scientists try to pound it into submission. The long-term consequences of an arms race between chemical-cum-GMO producers and the invasive species they want to push out of farm fields could very possibly result in damages beyond the circumstantial ones I've already highlighted.
The only real claim that I can't disprove (or at least weigh down with caveats) is that of drought and heat resistance, mostly because it's not easy to find data on the claim in either direction. Reducing water use is no small feat in a world quite obviously enduring a period of abnormal heat and drought. However, this alone can't answer for the fact that something should be done about widespread droughts beyond the creation of GMOs that drink just a little bit less water -- particularly if these GMOs result in the indirect use of more water by herbicide-resistant weeds.
How do you solve a problem like Monsanto?
It's tempting to reduce complex issues into outraged sound bites, like "GMOs are killing people!" or "GMOs are feeding the world!" The truth, as always, isn't quite so easy.
The threat of tainted food -- whether by chemicals or through genetic manipulation -- is a cause that arouses outrage at a pitch few other causes will ever muster. The threat of a shadowy corporation with its fingers buried in the heart of our food supply only heightens this outrage, and Monsanto's heavy-handed efforts at control have done nothing to soften its public image. However, the science of GMOs has been carried out in a highly ideological way on both sides, which doesn't help when all you want is the truth.
It seems that GMOs will inevitably become a larger part of our food supply, because the corporate motivator in the United States has proved to be stronger than the citizen motivator in recent years. A few protests won't change that. It will take concerted, long-running national efforts to change diets and attitudes before Monsanto and its peers are forced to loosen their grip on American farmlands. If you choose to be one of the people on the vanguard of that effort, make sure that you understand the science as it is, and not as you'd like it to be.
Are we less healthy today than we were two decades ago? It's possible, even though most of the statistics don't show that. Is it all Monsanto's fault? Probably not.
Bill Maher: Total Asshole
Bill Maher's Anti-Wounded Warriors Joke
06/04/13
Transcript via NewsBusters:
BILL MAHER: George Bush, over the Memorial Day weekend, held the Wounded Warrior 100K, which was a kind of a celebration for wounded warrior who is came back from Iraq and I guess they walked or ran or something on their prosthetic limbs. And I found this to be nauseating. I mean, first he sends them off to war to get their limbs blown off and then he has them over for a barbecue. This is like the Cleveland guy having a pizza party for those girls he had in his basement.
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Obama Demands Court Uphold His “Right” To Ignore Constitution
Obama’s Department of Justice is demanding a federal judge dismiss the injunction with which she sought to uphold the constitutional rights of the American people.
On May 16th, federal judge Kathleen Forrest granted a preliminary injunction to plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against Barack Obama and the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA), striking down those sections of the Act that provide the president the power to indefinitely detain American citizens without benefit of their 5th and 6th Amendment rights.
Under the terms of the Act, Obama had been given exclusive authority to direct members of the US military to arrest and imprison anyone he believed to have “substantially supported” al Qaeda, the Taliban, or “associated forces.” When pressed by plaintiff’s attorneys about the practical extent of this authority, government lawyers admitted “…the NDAA does give the president the power to lock up people like journalist Chris Hedges and peaceful activists,” admitting that “…even war correspondents could be locked up indefinitely under the NDAA.”
And when asked by the judge what it meant to be an “associated force”, Obama’s lawyers “…claimed the right to refrain from offering any clear definition of [the] term, or clear boundaries of the president’s power under [the] law.” In short, it is the federal government’s scheme that the Act remain so vague that a corrupt and power-hungry Administration may imprison virtually anyone it considers a threat to its pursuit of absolute power.
On July 25th, Administration lawyers filed papers demanding Judge Forrest’s preliminary injunction NOT be made permanent. In the filing, Obama made it clear his Administration would ignore the court and its injunction regardless of what the judge may decide, claiming incorrectly that “…[the] injunction would have ‘nil’ effect, for the government would continue to possess the identical detention authority under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force…” Of course, that is a lie, as the AUMF applies only to known members of al Qaeda or the Taliban.
Most indicative of the Obama Administration’s contempt for Judge Forrest, the law, and the American people was government attorney Benjamin Torrance’s claim that it was “the Obama Administration’s position” NDAA detention provisions do not apply to American citizens living in the US. Judge Forrest responded by quoting Chief Justice Roberts, who wrote in a 2010 case that the Supreme Court “…would not uphold an unconstitutional statute merely because the government promised to use it reasonably.” So much for Judge Forrest’s faith in the validity and value of Obama’s signing statement promise to not employ his Section 1021 authority to indefinitely detain the American public!
Yet incredibly, when pressed on the issue, this Obama mouthpiece suggested to Forrest that concerns about the president’s detention powers were excessive as American citizens would, after all, have the ability to file a writ of habeas corpus should they be illegally or improperly jailed! “How long does [such a] petition take,” asked Forrest? When Torrance refused to answer, the Judge continued, “Several years, right”?
So not only did Obama’s attorney lie about his Marxist boss’s corrupt intentions; he actually claimed that the abuse of American citizens was somehow acceptable because those unconstitutionally imprisoned might ask that the charges against them be produced after ONLY a few years behind bars!
Judge Forrest will soon decide whether to make the injunction permanent. Every citizen must watch very carefully for that ruling, as the “mainstream” media has ignored the story completely. We must all hope the Judge will not be intimidated by this corrupt Regime as so many of her colleagues have been before her.
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Am I supposed to be afraid to post a topic now, is AmPol a target of NSA
Well, it seems that my worst fears have been realized, what say you, Max, The Scott, Mick, Angie, and all that post on this tiny blog, should we be afraid of Big Brother? I am beginning to get a bit concerned, should I protect us from 1984 and close down AmPol?
Did MarketWatch shut down AmPol knowing something we don't know?
Clearly there are insiders with knowledge that we don't know, is the NSA monitoring this blog, I sure hope not, I'd be the one that gets arrested.....
Did MarketWatch shut down AmPol knowing something we don't know?
Clearly there are insiders with knowledge that we don't know, is the NSA monitoring this blog, I sure hope not, I'd be the one that gets arrested.....
|
Friday, June 7, 2013
Something to genuinely be outraged about: PRISM
Well, I was complaining about the roll backs in freedom that occurred after 9/11 and then we have this story breaking today http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html
Turns out, we have yet another freedom stealing program started under a Republican and continued under Obama. Yet, not a peep from the right. THIS, is something to be outraged about and I hope the press takes it to the entirety of the Democratic party for being spineless shitbags who have supported this kind of stuff since 9/11
Turns out, we have yet another freedom stealing program started under a Republican and continued under Obama. Yet, not a peep from the right. THIS, is something to be outraged about and I hope the press takes it to the entirety of the Democratic party for being spineless shitbags who have supported this kind of stuff since 9/11
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Marxist? Communist?
This, http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5767/ is a long read, but I think it is worthwhile. I have to admit. I have never read Marx. At least, when I tried to read some, I could not stay engaged with it. On the other hand, I have read just about everything by Rand, a fair amount of Friedman, and other pro capitalist essays. What most of you don't accept is that I agree that capitalism does a lot of what it says it will. Namely it well rewards those who are successful and provides the needed incentive to encourage risk taking. What it also does, however, is establish very sharp gaps between winners and losers and it creates social problems that many are not happy with. Somewhere in the 80's, the attitude that you did not rub your wealth in the face of others was replaced by an attitude of "Fuck you, you're just jealous that you aren't as smart as me." That attitude persists today.
This link here is to Andrew Carnegie's essay called, "The Gospel of Wealth". Nothing I have ever read more succinctly describes my views then this piece. In general terms, Carnegie "preaches" it is right and just for a very few to have enormous control of vast sums of wealth. Moreover, he says it is a natural consequence of markets, and on that score, I agree with him. However, from here, he begins to steer in a much different direction and preaches that the wealth is not really the property of the wealth holder, rather it is an accumulation of community that the wealth holder needs to reinvest wisely in the community.
In the communist world, control of the economy and everything else is planned by bureaucrats and predictably, this has failed. However, now that we have reached a point in our society where the majority of wealth is again concentrated in a small pool of hands, we see communities collapsing everywhere. I believe that some of the best brains of our day are rightfully wealthy and successful. However, I also believe they are essentially just hoarding the money and sitting back contently while the country around them goes to shit. I've frequently made mention that people of my grandparent's generation did not live so selfishly. After the great depression, they basically told the wealthy that if you won't help manage the community with your money, we will take it and do it for you. I don't quite like that solution, but it I see it as preferable to creating a super race of wealthy who will simply spawn and do nothing but sit back and live off the wealth they gained after others paved the way for them. Obama has been endlessly ridiculed for his, "You didn't build that" comment, but the ridicule is fierce solely to stop people from actually considering what he is really saying.
If I'm a Marxist and agree 100% with what Carnegie is saying here, what does that make him?
This link here is to Andrew Carnegie's essay called, "The Gospel of Wealth". Nothing I have ever read more succinctly describes my views then this piece. In general terms, Carnegie "preaches" it is right and just for a very few to have enormous control of vast sums of wealth. Moreover, he says it is a natural consequence of markets, and on that score, I agree with him. However, from here, he begins to steer in a much different direction and preaches that the wealth is not really the property of the wealth holder, rather it is an accumulation of community that the wealth holder needs to reinvest wisely in the community.
In the communist world, control of the economy and everything else is planned by bureaucrats and predictably, this has failed. However, now that we have reached a point in our society where the majority of wealth is again concentrated in a small pool of hands, we see communities collapsing everywhere. I believe that some of the best brains of our day are rightfully wealthy and successful. However, I also believe they are essentially just hoarding the money and sitting back contently while the country around them goes to shit. I've frequently made mention that people of my grandparent's generation did not live so selfishly. After the great depression, they basically told the wealthy that if you won't help manage the community with your money, we will take it and do it for you. I don't quite like that solution, but it I see it as preferable to creating a super race of wealthy who will simply spawn and do nothing but sit back and live off the wealth they gained after others paved the way for them. Obama has been endlessly ridiculed for his, "You didn't build that" comment, but the ridicule is fierce solely to stop people from actually considering what he is really saying.
If I'm a Marxist and agree 100% with what Carnegie is saying here, what does that make him?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)