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    Archive for January, 2009

    Obama Administration On Wrong Track For Our Food Safety

    Wednesday, January 28th, 2009

    Dr. Miller Available on Tikkun Telephone Conference Oct 26 2009

    Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

    Dr. Conrad Miller M.D. will be available on October 26, 2009 for questions concerning his recent Tikkun magazine articles ‘Energy Generation in the Obama Years (No, Nuclear Power is Not ‘Safe and Clean’)’ and ‘Today’s Synthetic Foods: Shrinking Our Brains, Testicles and Livers?’  The latter was published in the Sept/Oct 2009 issue starting on page 27; the former was published in the July/August 2009 issue and can now be viewed online via http://www.tikkun.org or you may purchase or subscribe to the magazine.

    For participation in this phonecall you may dial 888-346-3950 and then the code 11978#

    It will begin at 9 PM EST or 6 PM PST (Pacific Standard Time) with an interview with Dr. Miller, and then questions will be entertained from call-in participants.

    Recent news that President Obama has nominated two more pro-biotech anti-labelling men for important Dept of Agriculture positions will be discussed.  According to the Organic Consumers Association, President Obama originally had promised to ensure GMO food (Genetically Modified Organisms) and crops would indeed be labelled as these entities are for 40% of the world’s population.  Now the industry is being given the green light to go ahead with its grand plans to have the world’s wheat become GMO and patented.  Problems with the immune system, the gastrointestinal tract, incorporation into human DNA causing unknown changes in DNA function, are just some of the problems being discovered as our world is being changed not responsibly for the better by the process of imprecise gene-gunning of novel alien gene sequences into the DNA of corn and canola and cotton and soy, for beginners….

    That’s October 26, 2009 at 6 PM on the West Coast of the USA and 9 PM on the East Coast.  Everyone is welcome.  Arranged by Tikkun Magazine.

    Captain Abu Raed A Wonderful Inspiring Jordanian Movie

    Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

    I saw the Abu Raed movie last night and it was terrific.  Lovely tale of an older widowed knowledgeable man with 2000 books who finds a Captain’s hat that he sheepishly plucks out of the garbage.  He lives in a poor neighborhood in Amman, Jordan and works at the airport, actually, as a janitor.  But now, when he wears the magical captain’s hat, the neighborhood kids think he is a pilot and want him to tell them tales of his many adventures.  He tries to confess to them that he is not a captain, but then he gets carried away and there is the tale, plus that of his next door neighbor Murad, a young handsome son of a very very abusive father who beats his wife and kids esp when drunkish.  Then there’s the beautiful unmarried independent female pilot who is an important part of the story and all of this interweaves into a very romantic but dire movie that deserves every award it can get.  The lead actor and the female pilot are both splendid, as are all the children, and the cinematography.

    The question of a woman’s role in an environment where woman are not very well protected by society is portrayed here.  No veils.  This must be Jordan in the new millenium, yet they are expected to be subordinate, as is the poor woman who is the next door drunken clothes salesman’s wife.  The female pilot is unmarried, says she doesn’t want to get married (to her father, who keeps finding wealthy enuff young men who are nerds who she has no interested in meeting or marrying), but longs for someone intelligent and interesting.  Like Abu Raed.  Whose wife died five years ago, but has wisdom and vision, tho is stuck on his path after death took his one son and his wife time back.  Abu Raed is a great character, mild, helpful, yearning, tho he has never left the country (of Jordan).  Go see this one.

    Obama Nominates Two Terrible GMO Boosters To Control Food Safety

    Saturday, January 24th, 2009

    President Obama is quietly nominating two of the WORST lobbyists and activists and mercenaries for the cause of genetically modified foods (GMO’s) as potential members of his administration. Here are some brief details and a link for you to easily do something about it: YOU can send President Obama an email.

    Don’t Let Obama Put Two Terrible GMO Boosters in Charge of Food Safety!

    Genetically modified foods are not safe. The only reason they’re in our food supply is because government bureaucrats with ties to industry suppressed or manipulated scientific research and deprived consumers of the information they need to make informed choices about whether or not to eat genetically modified foods. There are no GMO foods on the supermarket shelves in Europe, due to public knowledge of these foods’ and crops’ toxic affects and dangers.

    Now, the Obama Administration is putting two notorious biotech bullies in charge of food safety! Former Monsanto lobbyist Michael Taylor has been appointed as a senior advisor to the Food and Drug Administration Commissioner on food safety. And, rBGH-using (recombinant [genetically altered] Bovine Growth Hormone – used in about 18% of our dairy cows as biweekly injections; milk produced having greatly increased amounts of insulin growth factor-1, linked to breast, prostate and colon cancer; the main reason dairy products lead the organic market in rocketing sales, because our parents do know about this) dairy farmer and Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff is rumored to be President Obama’s choice for Under-Secretary of Agriculture for Food Safety. Wolfe spearheaded anti-consumer legislation in Pennsylvania that would have taken away the rights of consumers to know whether their milk and dairy products were contaminated with Monsanto’s (now Eli Lilly’s) genetically engineered Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH).
    Please use the form below to send a message to President Obama, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (oversees FDA) demanding Michael Taylor’s resignation, and letting them know that you oppose Dennis Wolff’s appointment.
    Highlight and paste (or click onto) this link into your world wide web box to send Mr. Obama a message that you disapprove of another foolish step in the wrong direction concerning our food, and our environment.

    http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/642/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27042

    This is awful! As I said a few months ago, Secretary Vilsack (Agriculture) was the President’s worst nominee for a cabinet post, in my opinion. Now we have these two nightmares being chosen to be a part of our government.

    Americans should be aware of the rejection of GMO alfalfa by our govt (for fear of contaminating all the alfalfa around the country – hay, baby), the quiet approval of GMO-sugar beets, making ~50% of USA sugar thusly GMO without practically anyone even knowing about it, and the new push to GMO our wheat, which had been rejected and protested by major wheat users across the board back in 2004. The American public should be aware of what research scientists have tried to reveal, especially their adverse health effects, well-publicized in Europe. For example, that rats experimentally fed GMO potatoes developed smaller brains, testicles, and livers than did rats fed the unaltered parent line of the very same potatoes. McDonald’s was among those who protested the release of these GMO potatoes into the public environment, and these potatoes indeed were prevented from ever reaching the market.

    There are so many bad effects of genetically altering our crop’s DNA for patenting and profits. Gene-gunning in gene sequences promoted by the Cauliflower Mosaic Virus have caused intestinal problems in experimental animals including increasing the size of the absorbtive villi in their [our] intestines, which amongst other things may lead to cancer. This process can also awaken dormant viruses that have resided in the DNA. The overall dangerous effect is that of opening Pandora’s box to all sorts of unknown possibilities being unleashed into our bodies and our environment.

    Alert anyone and everyone you can about this travesty!
    Stay healthy,
    All the Best,
    Conrad Miller M.D.
    Author of the 2008 released
    The Most Important Issues Americans THINK They Know Enough About – Edition 3
    My book’s largest chapter (# Two – 183 pages) discusses genetically altered foods and crops and their dangers, and the politics behind their use being hailed in the USA lately like the emperor’s new clothes.

    Dr. Miller On Tikkun Magazine Call-In Oct 26 9PM EST

    Friday, January 23rd, 2009

    Dr. Conrad Miller M.D. will be available on October 26, 2009 for questions concerning his recent Tikkun magazine articles ‘Energy Generation in the Obama Years (No, Nuclear Power is Not ‘Safe and Clean’)’ and ‘Today’s Synthetic Foods: Shrinking Our Brains, Testicles and Livers?’  The latter was published in the Sept/Oct 2009 issue starting on page 27; the former was published in the July/August 2009 issue and can now be viewed online via http://www.tikkun.org or you may purchase or subscribe to the magazine.

    For participation in this phonecall you may dial 888-346-3950 and then the code 11978#

    It will begin at 9 PM EST or 6 PM PST (Pacific Standard Time) with an interview with Dr. Miller, and then questions will be entertained from call-in participants.  Jeffrey M. Smith, author of ‘Seeds of Deception,’ will be available during the call-in segment to add to the conversation with his knowledge of the latest occurrences concerning genetically modified organisms (GMO’s) and the stories about their usage from around the world.

    Recent news that President Obama has nominated two more pro-biotech anti-labelling men for important Dept of Agriculture positions will be discussed.  According to the Organic Consumers Association, President Obama originally had promised to ensure GMO food  and crops would indeed be labelled, as these entities are for 40% of the world’s population today.  Now the industry is being given the green light to go ahead with its grand plans to have the world’s wheat become GMO and patented.  Problems with the immune system, the gastrointestinal tract, incorporation into human DNA causing unknown changes in DNA function, are just some of the problems being discovered as our world is being changed not responsibly for the better by the process of imprecise gene-gunning of novel alien gene sequences into the DNA of corn and canola and cotton and soy, for beginners….In addition, Monsanto and the Gene Giants are trying to get control of the planet’s seeds so people can not pass them on to other food raisers around the planet, as mankind has always done.  Contracts have to be signed; people have gone to jail for violating these contracts.  Even seed ‘cleaners,’ like the man depicted in the movie ‘Food, Inc.,’ have been taken to court, their livelihoods demolished, because of this corporatization of our food production system (‘Food, Inc.,’ a MUST-see movie), patenting seeds so free-loaders can’t use them or be given them.

    That’s October 26, 2009 at 6 PM on the West Coast of the USA and 9 PM on the East Coast.  Everyone is welcome.  Arranged by Tikkun Magazine. 

    Running With a Bee on Chairman Mao's Nose, Montaigne, Shiva, Obama Supposes

    Saturday, January 17th, 2009

    I was out running before the rain was supposed to get heavy,
    first checking weather.com’s hour-by-hour prediction for my
    town. I had been reading about China’s 1980′s Premier Zhao
    Ziyang dictating his memoirs while under house arrest,
    recording them over children’s songs tapes, and performances
    of the Beijing Opera. When Tianamen Square was happening
    in May of 1989, Zhao was the Chinese Communist Party chief
    who wanted to pursue dialogue with the students, but when
    he went to the home of patriarch Deng Xiaoping to talk
    about it, martial law had already been decided to be imposed.
    Instead of a cordial meeting, Zhao ‘was purged and placed under house arrest
    until his death in 2005.’

    Interesting. There are supposed to be details about the inner
    sanctum of Chinese rule in what will be a book to be released
    May 19 entitled “Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of
    Premier Zhao Ziyang” via Simon and Schuster – - the book derived
    from the tapes secretly smuggled to other friends and eventually
    compiled into a complete set by ‘Bao Tong, a former close adviser
    to Mr. Zhao who remains under tight surveilance in Beijing.’

    This is major revelatory news, so there I was running in my
    t-shirt of Chairman Mao himself with a beeg bee perched upon
    his nose. I was listening to my music to inspire me and give
    me energy, thinking about our wonderful nuclear industry in
    the background, never quitting on getting some money. Making
    hay while the sun shines. Billions of dollars flying around
    and why not get us some too. Senator Murkowski, following
    in her anti-environmental father’s shoes, has an amendment that
    may be appended to some form of energy bill next week. The
    Nuclear Information and Resource Service [NIRS], ever vigilant,
    had sent out an alert and 3000 angry citizen responses had
    resulted, protesting this amendment to our Congresspeople.

    However, NIRS finally figured out that the ‘clean energy bank’
    idea is the big whale on the horizon where unlimited dollars
    can be garnered for nuclear power. If it can falsely be
    determined to be a form of clean energy, like wind or sun or
    hydropower. Which of course it is far far from ever being.
    So, we must alert our congresspeople to this bigger reality.
    You can do this via going to NIRS’ Daily Kos post at:
    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/5/14/731338/-Could-A-Clean-
    Energy-Bank-Wreck-the-Economy-Well,-yes……
    or directly contact your Representative in the House of
    Representatives via:
    http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5502/t/5846/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=1546
    or Speaker Nanci Pelosi at:

    http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5502/t/5846/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=1550

    See how YOU can effect change in our country, keep our
    21st century course toward clean energy going in the
    right uncorrupted direction, adding your own viewpoints
    to the pre-written letters supplied by NIRS composers.

    OBAMA Not The Brilliant Spectre We Hoped For:

    No he’s not. He was vetted by Zbigniew Brzezinski. Here’s a few paragraphs
    out of an article Bruce Gagnon wrote before the 2008 election, called ‘O-Bummer:’

    “David Rockefeller at the Trilateral Commission sent the executive director
    of that high-brow organization, Zbignew Brzezinski, out to find a fresh face,
    someone who could offer “change” to the public. He recruited Jimmy Carter,
    the unknown Georgia governor and peanut farmer, to run for president. With
    the support of this hidden elite Carter became president. I fell for the
    trap. Brzezinski became Carter’s national security adviser and is the one
    who helped us arm the Taliban in Afghanistan so they could give the former
    Soviet Union their own version of a Vietnam quagmire. The U.S. has now
    built six permanent military bases in Afghanistan.

    Zbignew Brzezinski went on to write a book called The Grand Chessboard: American
    Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives that was published in the late 1980′s
    or early 1990′s. In this book Brzezinski talks about the importance of the
    Middle East and Central Asia because of their vast supplies of oil and natural
    gas. He says, “… But in the meantime, it is imperative that no Eurasian
    challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging
    America. The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geostrategy
    is therefore the purpose of this book.”

    He continues, “In that context, how America ‘manages’ Eurasia is critical.
    Eurasia is the globe’s largest continent and is geopolitically axial. A
    power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world’s three most
    advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map
    also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail
    Africa’s subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania
    geopolitically peripheral to the world’s central continent. About 75%
    of the world’s people live in Eurasia, and most of the world’s physical
    wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil.
    Eurasia accounts for 60% of the world’s GNP and about three-fourths of the
    world’s known energy resources.”

    How though, Brzezinski asks, will we be able to convince the American people
    to expend the enormous amount of money it would take to secure Eurasia on
    behalf of the American corporate empire? How can we talk the American people
    into giving up their favorite social programs (Medicare and Social Security)
    so that permanent bases can be established in this region in order to control
    the extraction of resources?

    He answers the question by saying, “Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly
    multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on
    foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely
    perceived direct external threat.”

    Translation – terrorism. The war on terror. Endless war to protect us from the
    dark, hard to find, cave dwelling forces of evil.

    Today the American people are beginning to suffer from the Iraq and Afghanistan
    syndrome. Since 2001 we have been in a perpetual state of war which has been
    supported by both the Republicans and Democrats. How can we ever convince the
    American people to press on, to keep our feet in “Eurasia” when they have begun
    to show such a proclivity to tire of these foreign entanglements?

    A new fresh face is needed.

    I recently read an interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski that was published in a
    British progressive journal. In the interview Brzezinski, who is now one of
    Obama’s chief foreign policy advisers, brags that he had early on “vetted”
    the potential presidential candidate and was quite certain that he was the
    right man for the job at hand.

    The official definition of the word vetted: to evaluate for possible approval
    or acceptance.

    I told my friend that the fresh face of change was a facade. A false,
    superficial, or artificial appearance. A trick. A lie. A humiliation.”

    So, the Prez is going to close Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, but will not eliminate
    military tribunals, a la GW Bush after all. He is increasing our troopage in
    Afghanistan, which may be a war that cannot be won (as the Russians well know),
    and will step up the spending on military hardware. He has taken on
    individuals who were in favor of warring on Iraq and Afghanistan to council
    and lead the country into more trouble and much less change.

    But then, are human beings, and Americans, so smart anyway? We take animals for
    granted as being part of nature, but they know things we don’t. Have you
    ever read any Montaigne? He provides us with such great information from way
    back a few centuries ago, before there were antibiotics, television, Viagra
    and the cellphone:

    “The philosopher Cleanthes saw some ants leave their anthill bearing the body
    of a dead ant toward another anthill, from which several other ants came
    to meet them as if to speak to them; and after they had been together
    for a time, the second group returned to consult, you may suppose, with
    their fellow citizens, and in this way made two or three trips because
    of the difficulty of coming to terms. Finally the late-comers brought the
    first ones a worm out of their den, as if for the ransom of the dead one,
    which worm the first ones loaded on their back and carried home, leaving to
    the others the body of the deceased. That is the interpretation Cleanthes gave
    to it, testifying thereby that those creatures who have no voice nevertheless
    have mutual intercourse and communication, in which it is our fault that we
    cannot participate, and for this reason we are meddling foolishly by
    expressing our opinion in the matter.”
    - – from pages343-44 of Collected Essays – ‘Apology for Raymond Sebond’

    Then: “As for domestic management, not only do the ants surpass us in their
    foresight in piling up and saving for the time to come, but they
    also possess many parts of the knowledge necessary for it. The ants
    spread their grains and seeds outside their threshing floor to air
    them, freshen them, and dry them, when they see that they are beginning to
    molder and smell rancid, for fear they may spoil and rot. But the caution
    and foresight they use in gnawing the grains of wheat surpasses anything
    imagined by human prudence. Because the wheat does not always remain dry
    and sound, but grows soft and soggy and dissolves as in milk, when it is
    on the way to germinate and produce; for fear it may sprout and lose its
    nature and property as a storehouse for their food, they nibble off the
    end by which it usually sprouts.” – - from page 347 of Sebold, Apology for

    And why not: “Of all the predictions in times past, the most ancient and the most
    certain were those drawn from the flight of birds. We have nothing like
    it and nothing so wonderful. That rule and order in the flapping of
    their wings by which men draw conclusions about things to come, must
    certainly be led by some excellent means to so noble an operation; for
    it is playing with words to go and attribute this great effect to some
    natural ordinance, without the intelligence, consent, and reason of
    the creature that produces it; and this is an opinion evidently false.”
    - – - – page 344 ‘Apology for Raymond Sebond’

    As proof of this, the torpedo [electric ray] has the property, not
    only of putting to sleep the limbs that directly touch her, but of
    transmitting through nets and seines a sort of benumbed heaviness
    to the hands of those who move and handle them. Indeed they say
    further that if you pour water upon her, you feel this sensation
    which climbs uphill to the hand and numbs the touch through the water.
    This power is marvelous, but it is not useless to the torpedo: she
    senses it and uses it in this way, that to catch the prey she seeks,
    you see her hide under the mud, so that the other fish, gliding
    past above, struck and benumbed by this chill of hers, fall into her
    power. – - – next paragraph on page 344 ‘Apology for Raymond Sebond’

    Vandana Shiva talks about calling peoples or animals ‘natural’ in the
    beginning of her terrific ‘Biopiracy’ book thusly:

    “Columbus set a precedent when he treated the license [granted by the Pope]
    to conquer non-European peoples as a natural right of European men. The
    land titles issued by the pope through European kings and queens were the
    first patents. The colonizer’s freedom was built on the slavery and subjugation
    of the people with original rights to the land. This violent takeover was
    rendered “natural” by defining the colonized people as nature, thus
    denying them their humanity and freedom…

    These Eurocentric notions of property and piracy are the bases on which
    ‘Intellectual Property’ laws of the GATT and World Trade Organization
    (WTO) have been framed. When Europeans first colonized the non-European
    world, they felt it was their duty to “discover and conquer,” to “subdue,
    occupy, and possess.” It seems that Western powers are still driven by
    the colonizing impulse to discover, conquer, own, and possess everything,
    every society, every culture. The colonies have now been extended to
    interior spaces, the ‘genetic codes’ of life-forms from microbes and
    plants to animals, including humans.”

    Ms. Shiva is talking about patenting genetically altered plants, crops, and
    yes, even human genomes (doctors and government officials have already
    indeed done this). Her vision of depicting indigenous people as natural
    goes with what Montaigne shows us we humans do concerning animals – -to our own detriment. Columbus came a couple of centuries before Montaigne.

    When I run my miles along beaches and inlets few people see, I think about
    the wisdom of the geese and birds I am so lucky to perceive, relatively
    undisturbed, out of the main heavy flow of human traffic. Bees on his
    nose, Chairman Mao, and Zhao Ziyang himself needed to be tweaked out of their
    complacency to suppress human nature and intelligence. The Ziyang book
    should be an interesting read when it gets into our hands, tho nature waits out there for all of us to enjoy right now, morning, noon or any ole time…

     

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