It is simple insanity that a drug that can relieve and even halt the symptoms and spread of cancer is still being denied to those who could most benefit from it. The fact that this drug can be grown for free in your own backyard, and can be prepared as easily as making a cup of tea, is still the main reason why this appalling prohibition continues.
In 2007, I reviewed over 150 published preclinical and clinical studies assessing the therapeutic potential of marijuana and several of its active compounds, known as cannabinoids.
Not familiar with this scientific research? Your government is.
In fact, the first experiment documenting pot’s potent anti-cancer effects took place in 1974 at the Medical College of Virginia at the behest federal bureaucrats. The results of that study, reported in an Aug. 18, 1974, Washington Post newspaper feature, were that marijuana’s primary psychoactive component, THC, “slowed the growth of lung cancers, breast cancers and a virus-induced leukemia in laboratory mice, and prolonged their lives by as much as 36 percent.”
Despite these favorable preliminary findings (eventually published the following year in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute), U.S. government officials refused to authorize any follow-up research until conducting a similar — though secret — preclinical trial in the mid-1990s. That study, conducted by the U.S. National Toxicology Program to the tune of $2 million, concluded that mice and rats administered high doses of THC over long periods had greater protection against malignant tumors than untreated controls.
However, rather than publicize their findings, the U.S. government shelved the results, which only became public after a draft copy of its findings were leaked to the medical journal AIDS Treatment News, which in turn forwarded the story to the national media.
In the years since the completion of the National Toxicology trial, the U.S. government has yet to authorize a single additional study examining the drug’s potential anti-cancer properties.
Fortunately, in the past 10 years scientists overseas have generously picked up where U.S. researchers so abruptly left off, reporting that cannabinoids can halt the spread of numerous cancer cells — including prostate cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, and brain cancer. (An excellent paper summarizing much of this research, “Cannabinoids for Cancer Treatment: Progress and Promise,” appears in the January 2008 edition of the journal Cancer Research.) A 2006 patient trial published in the British Journal of Cancer even reported that the intracranial administration of THC was associated with reduced tumor cell proliferation in humans with advanced glioblastoma.
Writing earlier this year in the scientific journal Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics, Italian researchers reiterated, “(C)annabinoids have displayed a great potency in reducing glioma (brain cancer) tumor growth. (They) appear to be selective antitumoral agents as they kill glioma cells without affecting the viability of nontransformed counterparts.” Not one mainstream media outlet reported their findings. Perhaps now they’ll pay better attention.
What possible advancements in the treatment of cancer may have been achieved over the past 34 years had U.S. government officials chosen to advance — rather than suppress — clinical research into the anti-cancer effects of cannabis? It’s a shame we have to speculate…
It’s not a shame, it’s a crime against humanity, and inexpensive health care.
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
A Border Guard officer tasked with a perimeter security assignement during the farewell ceremony for French President Nicolas Sarkozy at Ben-Gurion Airport was killed after apparently shooting himself.
Police officials estimated that the officer committed suicide.
The armored cars of President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert were rushed to the ceremony site, and the two were taken away from the area.
After the gunshot was heard, security forces began searching for the shooter, who was found lying on the ground.
The US government won’t be able to hide the looming disaster of supply-and-poverty related food shortages behind “disaster relief” and bureaucratic bungles for very long. What happened in Milwaukee yesterday seems likely to hit more cities across the US.
The chaos that erupted outside Milwaukee County’s main welfare office Monday over disaster-related food aid had more to do with a weak economy and crushing poverty in parts of this community than the devastating floods that swept through the state earlier this month, local government and food relief officials said.
About 3,000 people turned out for the assistance beginning at 3 a.m. Monday, creating a line that stretched several blocks….
At least one woman said she was trampled when a crowd rushed the doors as they opened around 7:30 a.m., and dozens of Milwaukee police officers and sheriff’s deputies were called to quell the scene.
“The food crisis in Milwaukee and throughout the United States is worse than many of us have realized,” said Milwaukee Common Council President Willie Hines, who with other elected officials called on the community to support local food pantries.
“We expect long lines for free food in Third World countries,” Hines said. “We don’t expect a line of 2,500 people waiting for food vouchers” in Milwaukee. No one was seriously injured, and there were no arrests Monday, but those in line described the scene as chaotic.
“They just went crazy down there, just totally crazy,” said Charline Britt of Milwaukee, who said she was trampled when about 200 people surged forward as the doors opened.
“They kicked me in my back, stepped over my shoes,” said Britt, who’d come to the center about 4:30 a.m. because her basement flooded in the recent rains.
Federal rules do not require applicants to provide proof of either flood damage or income, according to state Department of Health and Family Services Secretary Karen Timberlake.
A lot of things made comedian George Carlin angry - censorship, religion, war, American ‘royalty’, poverty, injustice, racism - but the dumbing down of the country he loved infuriated him more than just about anything else. If you want to really fight back against the rich and powerful who you think are destroying your nation, Carlin once said, then get smart, get educated.
There are now more than 2300 George Carlin videos on YouTube, clocking up more than a million views a minute. Clearly, a lot of people want to know, and remember, what he had to say.
A brilliant mind has been lost.
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
Florida Is Cocaine, if the movies and gangsta rappers are telling us the truth. But the most popular drugs of choice in Florida are proving to be far more dangerous, downright far more deadly, than cocaine, meth or heroin.
An analysis of autopsies in 2007 released this week by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission found that the rate of deaths caused by prescription drugs was three times the rate of deaths caused by all illicit drugs combined.
The report’s findings track with similar studies by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, which has found that roughly seven million Americans are abusing prescription drugs. If accurate, that would be an increase of 80 percent in six years and more than the total abusing cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, Ecstasy and inhalants.
Seems the federal government needs to refocus its War On Drugs to the legal substances that are slaughtering people in near epidemic levels. But going to war on the US-based pharmaceutical drug dealers and makers, who contribute millions to election campaigns, doesn’t provide much opportunity to fund and arm anti-government forces across South America. So that’s out…
The Florida report analyzed 168,900 deaths statewide. Cocaine, heroin and all methamphetamines caused 989 deaths, it found, while legal opioids — strong painkillers in brand-name drugs like Vicodin and OxyContin — caused 2,328.Drugs with benzodiazepine, mainly depressants like Valium and Xanax, led to 743 deaths. Alcohol was the most commonly occurring drug, appearing in the bodies of 4,179 of the dead and judged the cause of death of 466 — fewer than cocaine (843) but more than methamphetamine (25) and marijuana (0).
I had a friend years back who insisted that when he was in his late teens, he once tried to commit suicide by pot overdose. eating and smoking an ounce of sticky hydro buds in three hours. He said he wanted to die, but he loved pot so much he couldn’t stand to die from any other drug.
He didn’t die. He got sleepy, then hungry, stumbled up to the local late night pizza shop and met a girl while he was melting into a table waiting for his favourite family-sized bacon, pineapple and olive pizza ((blech!) to come out of the oven. The girl said his pizza choice was disgusting, so he bet her $10 that if she took one bite she’d want to eat the whole slice. He won the bet and they fell in love. So trying to overdose on cannabis actually saved his life, in a weird and positive way. I digress…
The study also found that while the number of people who died with heroin in their bodies increased 14 percent in 2007, to 110, deaths related to the opioid oxycodone increased 36 percent, to 1,253.
Incredible. Ten times more people die from oxycodone than die from smack. Ten times.
How many of these legal drug overdoses are actually old people euthanizing each other and themselves isn’t detailed.
Florida cops call the plague of legal drugs and the resulting deaths “an epidemic” and “explosive.”
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
Another piece of Hubble magic. This aging ‘red’ star sits 20,000 light years away, on the edge of our galaxy. NASA has the explanation for what’s happening to this star, if you need to know.
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
Gaza has some of the most beautiful beaches in the Middle East, when there aren’t Israeli warships keeping locals out of the water. When a full and lasting peace breaks out between Israel and Hamas, Gaza will eventually become a holiday destination for westerners, as hard as that may be to believe right now. Maybe Americans will stop over in Gaza on their way home from Baghdad Disneyland?
The beaches of Gaza were packed over the weekend, as the above photo shows, thanks to the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that began last Thursday. So far, neither side has broken their truce in any significant way.
A great disaster has suddenly come upon Israel: The cease-fire has gone into effect. Cease-fire, cease-Qassams, cease-assassiations, at least for now. This good, hopeful news was received in Israel dourly, gloomily, even with hostility. As usual, politicians, the military brass and pundits went hand in hand to market the cease-fire as a negative, threatening and disastrous development.
It is hard to believe: The outbreak of war is received here with a great deal more sympathy and understanding, not to say enthusiasm, than a cease-fire. When the warmongers get started, our unified tom-toms drum out only encouraging messages; when the all-clear is sounded, when people in Sderot can sleep soundly, even if only for a short time, we are all worried. That says something about society’s sick face: Quiet is muck, war is the most important thing.
The very thought that has taken root among us, that calm is surrender, should be rethought. Is our strength only in assassinations? Are we headed only toward bloodshed? The opposition to extending the cease-fire to the West Bank also shows, again, that Israel only understands the language of force…
The preaching of untold doom resulting from the ceasefire is not confined to Israeli media, of course. The negativity is across the entire media spectrum. For example, Charles Johnson of the Little Green Footballs website seems to be living in hope the ceasefire will fail :
I give this three days at the outside. But it will probably be a matter of hours.
That was posted on LGF on June 19, four days and many hours ago.
No wonder Johnson’s upset. A fat chunk of LGF content, and a big slab of traffic, comes from mocking Palestinians, particularly when they are dealing with their dead, and preaching doom for Israel if they even begin to think they can live in peace with the democratically elected Hamas government.
Let’s hope the doom-mongers are proven well and truly wrong.
The difference between a soundbite and a full quote is the difference between an outrageous statement and a reasoned, passionate defence of democracy. Why should any American take the mainstream corporate news seriously when the journalists themselves refuse to to do so?
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
Strikes that flatten its nuclear infrastructure could have a demoralizing effect, and could influence Tehran’s assessment of the cost of rebuilding. But the most effective strikes may not necessarily be against nuclear facilities. Iran is extraordinarily vulnerable to attacks on its oil export infrastructure…. The political shock of losing the oil income could cause Iran to rethink its nuclear stance—in ways that attacks on its nuclear infrastructure might not.
Don’t bomb the nuclear energy plants, bomb Iran’s oil infrastructure instead. Brililant! Why didn’t you think of that?
To be sure, in a tight world oil market, attacking Iran’s oil infrastructure carries an obvious risk of causing world oil prices to soar and hurting consumers in the United States and other oil-importing countries….
No, really? You think that might happen?
If the choice is between higher oil prices and a Middle East with several nuclear powers, higher oil prices and reduced economic growth are not clearly the greater evil.
No, NeoCons in general are the greater evil.
…. The challenge, should the United States decide to go that route, would be to conduct military and information campaigns that mitigate a nationalist backlash and that undercut and isolate the regime, while at the same time signaling the Islamic Republic’s leaders that the United States is prepared to make a deal if they abandon their nuclear program.
We just carpet-bombed the absolute shit out of your oil infrastructure and killed thousands of innocent Iranians. So let’s say we make a deal on those alleged nukes now then, hmmm?
Interesting that Russia’s response to either the US or Israel (or anyone else) hitting Iran, where it now has more than $US50-100 billion of investment, is never mentioned by these brutal war-drooling freaks :
Russia’s foreign minister on Friday warned against the use of force on Iran, saying there is no proof it is trying to build nuclear weapons.
“I hope the actual actions would be based on international law,” Lavrov said. “And international law clearly protects Iran’s and anyone else’s territorial integrity.”
Lavrov said Russia had asked both the United States and Israel to provide factual information to back their claims that Iran was working to build atomic weapons. “So far we have seen none, and the same conclusion was made by the International Atomic Energy Agency,” he said.
“It’s absolutely not right to speak matter-of-factly that Iran continues building nuclear weapons,” Lavrov added.
Israel’s military refused to confirm or deny a report Friday that its warplanes staged a major rehearsal this month for a possible attack on Iran.
NeoCons don’t want to destroy Iran. They want to destroy the United States. All that they haven’t destroyed already.
Is this some demented piece of artistic commentary by savagers of corporate marketing?
No. It’s real.
Kellog’s has turned out the ultimate in anti-consumer food products. A fruit flavoured snack food for little kids made of brightly coloured chunks of industrial food ingredients. The special ingredient is wax. It’s called Lego. This snack for kids also happen to look exactly like the brightly coloured chunks of plastic, also called Lego, that can so easily lodge in windpipes of little children.
Kellog’s wants to teach children how to choke themselves to death.
Product watchers predict this bizarre depopulating chewy snack will soon be gone :
I would love to know what sick (person) at Kellogg’s came up with this genius idea. I just spent the first three years of my son’s life trying to get him not to eat blocks, and now you’re telling him they taste like strawberries.
Someone from Kellog’s, or Lego, ignores the obvious criticisms and tries to sell some more :
These are the best gummy candies ever. They stopped carrying them at my grocery so I ordered a case of them. The whole family enjoys them, kids and adults alike. Very natural fruit taste.
Mmm, 18 grams of sugar and salt in every 25 gram serving of Kellog’s ‘Lego Child Chokers’.
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
Cute, and then kind of creepy. It’s more a toy than a helper android, but they will help the young adjust to the idea of eventually buying a life-size robot to look after ultra-old grandpa.
Companion robots, making artificial life forms for millions of lonely old people, will be worth $10 billion in Japan alone, within a decade :
“Strong, tough and battle-ready are some of the words often associated with robots, but we wanted to break that stereotype and provide a robot that’s sweet and interactive,” said Minako Sakanoue, a spokeswoman for the maker, Sega Toys.
“She’s very lovable and though she’s not a human, she can act like a real girlfriend.”
When the little robot wants to smooch, that means its in ‘Love’ mode.
A robot that kisses will be popular, but not as popular as a robot that gives a great sponge bath every time.
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
The Baby was the first machine that had all the components now classically regarded as characteristic of the basic computer. Most importantly it was the first computer that could store not only data but any user program in electronic memory and process it at electronic speed.
This is an every day computer, already a few years out of date and few billion times more powerful than ‘The Baby’, attached to a bicycle :
From That to This in only six decades. As a heavy reader of science fiction in my early teens, I still can’t help but be blown away even now by how far, how fast, how unimaginably creative, even within the science fiction of the 1970s and 1980s, this world re-defining technology has already evolved.
We are now in an age of extensive testing of direct brain-to-computer control. No more keyboards and mouses, even voice-recognition will become obsolete. You think it, the computer does it.
And for those with brain injuries, computer-to-brain control. A computer in some form will soon take control of the bodies of the very sick, and the very old, and make decisions faster and more precisely than a damaged, or meager, human brain can.
But six decades on, B(G)oogle brain chips, liquid nano-memory and wi-fi thought communication will be as retro as solar-powered calculators are today. Six decades on again is a science fiction that few today can even imagine. As the men who worked ‘The Baby’ in 1948, with its 1000 bit memory, could not imagine an age where radio, television, a telephone, a movie studio and a record player could be squeezed into something no bigger than a quarter deck of playing cards.
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
…the twister came near the ground just briefly and then went back up in the clouds. Besides extensive tree and crop damage, no human injuries were reported.
I just want to clarify to all of you who think this is a doctored photo. This picture was taken by my aunt, and while she’s never had any formail training, she’s always had an eye for photography. The storm wasn’t as close to their home as it appears in this picture. I know it isn’t doctored, because I was watching the weather coverage of tornado warnings in their area, and not 20 minutes later I recieved a call from my cousin teliing me to look at the picture she’d sent me on the web. She had several other images, but this one was a beauty shot. Believe what you want, but my aunt Lori is very talented and this picture is legit.
Associated Press, who picked up the image, should push this for a Pulitzer.
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
President Bush doesn’t often get quoted for good lines. Only the bad, the stupid, the misjudged and the downright weird. Or Bushisms, as they are generally known.
Great line. A mostly true generalisation, but usually only when that Freedom is backed up by Heavy Weaponry and a tolerance for six figure civilian casualty body counts.
But where did Bush, or his writers, pick up that so very quotable line?
Or, most likely, from Richard Land, of the United States Commission On International Religious Freedoms, talking about Burma in 2007?
“…if we have learned anything from recent history we know that freedom trumps tyranny.”
Wherever it came, expect to hear more of this phrase. Particularly when NeoCons need a mantra, a catch-all dismissive excuse, for the brutal violence unleashed on the people of Iraq.
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
The CIA wore the blame for not knowing the 9/11 attacks were coming.
But The Agency clearly is not going to let history record it was responsible for the Iraq WMD and bioweapons intelligence and the ‘Saddam Loves Osama’ hype that so primarily fueled BushCo. and the NeoCons hysterical hard-core hyping of the desperate need for a War On Iraq in the second half of 2002.
The Agency wants Americans, and the world, to know that the key sources for Al Qaeda-Iraq links and WMDs were not CIA-cleared sources.
Those sources, including ‘Curveball’ (he of the “Saddam has mobile bioweapons labs!”) belong squarely, solely to the NeoCons.
The CIA knew by August 2002 that ‘Curveball’, like the other key sources promoted by BushCo, were full of shit when it came to Iraq. They weren’t well-informed Saddam insiders. They were torture victims, political puppets and flat-out liars.
The CIA wrote a report in August, 2002, that reached all key Republicans and Democrats. Most ignored the direct warnings from the CIA that claims from sources hyped by NeoCons, BushCo. and the Murdoch world media were not to be trusted.
Still, it’s hard to know whether the fog of fact-surrounded-by-lies has cleared a bit more, or is growing ever more thick :
A previously undisclosed CIA report written in the summer of 2002 questioned the “credibility” and “truthfulness” of an Al Qaeda detainee who became a key source for the Bush administration’s claims about links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
The statements of the detainee–a captured terrorist operative named Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi–were the principal basis for President Bush’s contention in a major pre-Iraq War speech that Saddam’s regime had “trained Al Qaeda members in bombmaking and poisons and deadly gases.” The speech was delivered in Cincinnati on Oct. 7, 2002, just as Congress was taking up the White House-backed resolution authorizing the president to invade Iraq.
But two months before Bush’s dramatic assertion, the CIA had raised serious doubts about whether al-Libi might be inventing some of what he was telling his interrogators, according to a 171-page Senate Intelligence Committee report on pre-war intelligence released last week.
“Questions persist about [al-Libi’s] forthrightness and truthfulness,” the CIA wrote in the still-classified Aug. 7, 2002, report, which was circulated throughout the U.S. intelligence community. “In some instances, however, he seems to have fabricated information.”
The agency found that al-Libi–in an “attempt to exaggerate his importance”–had told interrogators that he was a member of Al Qaeda’s “Shura Council,” or governing body. But that claim was not corroborated by other intelligence reporting, the CIA analysis concluded in its report, which was titled: “Terrorism: Credibility of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi and the Information He has Provided While in Custody.”
…the Defense Intelligence Agency was concerned that a key corroborating source for the claim that Iraq had developed mobile biological weapons labs “was being coached” by Ahmad Chalabi’s controversial Iraqi exile group, the Iraqi National Congress, “to further its political agenda.” In May 2002, the DIA cut off contact with the source, an Iraqi officer identified only as “Major General al-Assaf,” and issued a warning notice about him after determining his information was “assessed as unreliable and, in some instances, [is] pure fabrication.”
…al-Libi was “the principal intelligence source” for assertions by Bush, CIA director George Tenet, national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Powell that Iraq had provided chemical and biological weapons training to Al Qaeda operatives.
The White House doesn’t like talking about Iraqi WMDs anymore. This is all they have to say on the fact they purposely, actively, hysterically promoted false intelligence, even when the CIA told them it was nearly all lies :
“The administration’s statements on Iraq were based on the very same intelligence that was given to Congress, and they came to the same conclusions, as did other countries around the world. The issue about Iraq’s WMD ultimately turned out to be false, and we have fully admitted that. We regret it. And we have also taken steps to make sure that we can correct it for–in the future.”
A Three Trillion Dollar regret, but not for BushCo. For the Americans who will be paying off Iraq War bills for decades to come.
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
The occasion was a farewell dinner for President George W. Bush. The host was UK PM Gordon Brown. The special guest was Rupert Murdoch. A gaggle of historians sat in to capture the mood as two seasoned war pigs reminded the relatively new boy that this age of war cannot end.
Not yet.
Although the crowd of protesters was only a few thousand strong, their chants of derision at Bush could apparently be heard inside the building, where Iran was served as the main meal.
A new war, the start of a bigger war, is good news for Rupert Murdoch.
Not so for Gordon Brown, or Iran. Or American troops in Iraq. Or for those who don’t think Russia and China should be given easy reasons to ferment a deeper military alliance.
With hundreds of newspaper front pages to fill, when the Iraq War is slipping deeper into the middle pages, and with tens of thousands of hours of cable news programs demanding a big issue focus, a War On Iran, in particular a nuclear war on Iran (or with Iran) would generate hundreds of millions of dollars in profit for Rupert ‘Always Wrong On Iraq’ Murdoch. Massive jumps in newspaper sales, bigger cable TV news audiences. Just like the Iraq War did. Fox News never had such big audiences as it did during the ‘Mission Accomplished’ days of 2003.
Any media Murdoch owns will rise in value just before the new war begins. Murdoch knows War On Iran will be good for business. His business anyway. And the war industry.
Pumping War On Iran reality has suddenly become a priority for Murdoch media around the world.
Witness the very recent sudden interest in Iran exhibited by well-used Murdoch war propagandist Andrew “The Iraq War Has Been Won” Bolt, who reaches about 10% to 20% Australians regularly, through standard Murdoch city tabloids, appearances on taxpayer-funded national TV and shouty-I’m-So-Outraged blogs haunted by one theme - Hit Iran Now - commenters.
Bolt was one of the most vicious propagandists against those who opposed the War On Iraq, including generations of war veterans who knew the horrible reality of war that would result from the illegal invasion and occupation of the country. Bolt now stands ready to go in again against those who oppose his boss’s latest crusade.
Under the headline, ‘Watch Iran’, this Murdoch typewriter claims he hasn’t noticed the steady rise in his own media preparing the public for a War On Iran reality :
I haven’t been paying enough attention, despite Bush’s recent visit to Israel, and Olmert’s to the US…
The US and Israel exchanging leader visits means more war?
All these warnings, all these serious talks…
Something is up. And maybe soon. At least before the US elections in November.
Plenty of people are betting real money on the possibility.
Yes, including his own boss, ex-Australian Rupert Murdoch.
Bolt then calls a War On Iran “nuclear disarmament.” Monday, June 16
Under the headline : ‘Tick, Tick, Tick…’, Bolt messages to the Australian masses :
Talk won’t budge Iran…
If unacceptable, and if Iran won’t stop…
Bolt then brands the majority of Americans who think the War On Iraq is a disaster, and only eventuated due to a sustained campaign of lies and deceptions, as simply being “Left” and making arguments that “look weaker by the day”.
But they’re not arguments, they’re facts. The War On Iraq was based on lies and it was a disaster. What moron can’t see than now?
Bolt then lavishly brands those opposed to war, and more war, people who are genuinely motivated by concern for those who are likely next to be killed in more war (innocent people) as not holding objections “to war or invasion, but the real identity of the target - in this case a Muslim tyrant.”
All those opposed to the War On Iraq, you see, were and always will be Saddam lovers.
This was a vile piece of propaganda spouted by Murdoch propagandists across his network of television, newspapers and web sites, in the months before the start of the War On Iraq. And here it is again, about to put back into service, against the two-thirds of so of Americans who shudder at the thought of launching a pre-emptive War On Iran.
In the Rupert Murdoch media reality, War On Iran looms, because the world is against their plans for nuclear energy, and believes they could never be trusted with nuclear weapons, unlike Israel and Pakistan.
In the Rupert Murdoch media reality, it’s only a matter of time before Iran attempt to “wipe Israel off the map”, and soon there will be no choice but to hit the Iranian nuclear plants.
Does Iran have nuclear weapons? Does Iran even want nuclear weapons? It doesn’t matter.
The prime ministers and presidents change, but the Murdoch agenda continue. More war.
The historians at No. 10 Downing Street yesterday surely think they have witnessed history. No doubt they have.
But did Bush and Murdoch ask Gordon Brown what he thought about War On Iran, or did they, as with Tony Blair and the War On Iraq, instead tell him the way it’s going to be?
And what did Murdoch say to Bush? Did Murdoch remind Bush of what he said, back in early 2003, about how history would judge him if he didn’t ‘win’ the War On Iraq?
“He will either go down in history as a very great president or he’ll crash and burn.”
Still crashing, still burning.
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
In Australia, we copped years of sun-hating propaganda campaigns. Don’t let the sun touch your skin, we were warned every ad break, every night, it will kill you deader than dead.
The ‘awareness’ campaigns, mostly run by skin cancer awareness groups, were actually not much more subtle than that.
People who had to spend time in the sun, for work or legitimate reasons of leisure, were told they had to cover their heads, mask their faces in shadows and douse every square millimetre of exposed skin in ultra-sun block. Like anti-drug, anti-alcohol and anti-smoking campaigns, the fear mongering went all the way overboard. With untold fallout.
But it turns out that hiding from the sun wasn’t such a great thing to do after all, just as roasting yourself backpacker-pink is a bad idea, too.
Like most things that feel great, moderation was, and is, the key.
The mind-boggler in all this sun-hating is that sunlight, raw Vitamin D, turns out to be an effective way to fight off cancer. Better late than never, I suppose, to learn such a vital truth :
Medical researchers are homing in on a wonder drug that may significantly reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and many other diseases — sunshine.
A study released today found that men who are deficient in the so-called sunshine vitamin — vitamin D — have more than double the normal risk of suffering a heart attack.
Just last week, another study found that low levels of vitamin D increased the risk of diabetes, and a study last month linked deficiencies to an increased risk of dying from breast cancer.
The findings join a growing body of evidence indicating that an adequate level of the vitamin, which many people can get from 20 minutes in the sun, is crucial to maintaining good health.
Experts attribute the vitamin D deficiency, in part, to modern lifestyles, which have taken people off the farm and into offices and factories. Video games and computers have brought children indoors from the playing field, minimizing their exposure to sunlight. Fear of cancer and increasing use of sunblock may also have contributed.
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
Depending on which news report you read, President Bush has “warned” or “urged” UK PM Gordon Brown not to set a final date to withdraw his forces from Iraq.
So what will happen now to convince Gordon Brown that Bush is right, and that UK forces must stay in Iraq, in an open-ended commitment?
Perhaps ‘Al Qaeda’ will help Bush to get the message through to the Brits?
It wouldn’t be the first time ‘Al Qaeda’ has taken action that directly benefits the NeoCon agenda for Iraq.
UPDATE : Bush “urges” and “warns” often, on a variety of issues.
UPDATE : It’s fascinating, and disturbing, or disturbinating, to see that Bush is trying to convince the Brits to stay in Iraq at the exact same time that the Iraq parliament is exercising its democracy and is rejecting NeoCon plans to finalise the installation of at least 58 American bases across the country. Iraqis, overwhelmingly, want coalition forces to announce withdrawal dates and yet Bush insists that not only is the US not planning to leave, but he wants UK troops to stay where they are.
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
The sun’s surface has been fairly blank for the last couple of years, and that has some worried that it may be entering another Maunder minimum, the sun’s 50-year abstinence from sunspots, which some scientists have linked to the Little Ice Age of the 17th century.
“(The Sun) continues to be dead,” said Saku Tsuneta with the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and program manager for the Hinode solar mission.
“That’s a small concern, a very small concern,” because the period of inactivity seems to be going on longer than normal.
Some scientists think such inactive periods, such as the Maunder minimum, are responsible for cold spells in the past, such as the Little Ice Age.
The sun’s energy drives all climate and weather on Earth. And Hathaway does agree there are good indications that fluctuations in solar output related to sunspot cycles influence the Earth’s climate. And the Maunder minimum isn’t the only evidence — scientists have linked two smaller sunspot minimums (periods of time with very few sunspots) in the early 19th century to cold spells, as well as periods before the Maunder minimum deduced from tree ring records, he said.
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
