Friday, April 29, 2011

Supreme Court 5-4 Approves AT&T Phone Contracts No Class Action Suits Allowed

Tags: Corporate Supreme Court Allows AT&T Forbid Class Action Suits from Customers Essentially Eliminates All Class Action Suits Even Deadly New Drugs?

This corrupt Decision by the corporate Supreme Court will have Devastating Consequences for Consumer’s Civil Rights and Consumer Protection. These results should have been anticipated if Senators in the Judiciary Committee and the Senate got enough Democrats to join in the approval of Roberts and Alito, two well known Corporate Judges who unfairly stacked the odds against lawsuits of consumers against Consumers.

Even on the Supreme Court, Justice Alito is still giving the corporate side suggestions to make their arguments stronger as recently heard on a voice transcript on www.C-Span.org The both said under oath that they will not be inclined to change long held Precedents in Supreme Court decisions. They have done this time after time and in the Citizen United case which had 100 years of support by the Supreme Court where money given for elections can be limited.

In a recent program, Rachel Maddow, http://maddowblog.msnbc.com , compared the Democrats verses Republicans money for ads to oppose or support the House bill that is designed to destroy Medicare and Medicaid in five years and increasing the cost to Seniors by $6,000 by providing inadequate vouchers to pay for senior healthcare proposed by the Republicans. I don’t recall the exact numbers, but the secret Republican money used in the ads supporting their bill so far about $700,000 verses about $100,000 for poorer people ads which have to be disclosed.

Now you could go to Google, TV networks, and blogs supporting the Republican proposal. Today Bloomberg had the gall to completely distort what is really happening. Even MSNBC where reporters were forced to say what they did not believe from their expressions when they said that strong support for the Republican budget bill at the meetings.

Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz, and others in the commentary part showed video that shows the opposite where senior are really angry and know the facts! Today I looked up how much propaganda and lies about Rachel Maddow appeared on a Google search. All sorts of websites on the most popular list are lying or distorting how many people are watching Rachel and Ed Schultz. Reliable sources show that record audiences are now being achieved approaching the most popular FOX show. They are also comparing news analysis shows with entertainment shows on CNN. It is sickening.

The consequence of the Supreme Court unconstitutionally stopping the Florida State Supreme Court recount of the extremely close election after Gore’s 5 percent normally very accurate exit poll count which is within one percent or less from the final count.

The crooked court violated the Tenth Amendment which stipulates “The powers not delegated to the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Supreme Court Justice Scalia knew when he ordered the stopping of the recount that it was illegal when he used the equal rights Section I. Fifteenth Amendment which says “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

Every state in the Union runs elections in a similar manner so Justice Scalia said this decision applies only to Florida and we will not put this in print to define a law or apply a decision that applies to any other state!

Gore won the election, but did not become President, and I supported him and a Democratic House member even though I normally always voted Republican in the past. That is how bad Bush was for our country. We should impeach the Supreme Court justices for lying under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee. This includes Roberts and Alito and impeach Scalia for violating the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution. Court rules should make recusal for conflicts of interest mandatory. It’s common sense.

George W. Bush’s previous history in Texas as CEO of failed oil companies and the way he unlawfully acquired land by removing Latino home owners to expand his ball park showed his penchant to use power, legal or not, to do what he wants. This proved to be correct.

Jim Kawakami, April 29, 2011, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

Corporate Supreme Court Justices Approves AT&T Phone Contract Including No Class Action Suits Requirement for Customers, David Arkush, Director Public Citizen Congress Watch Division, Huffington Post, April 28, 2011, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-arkush/us-supreme-court-to-major_b_854714.html On Wednesday the U.S. Supreme Court sided with AT&T in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion -- a decision with devastating consequences for consumer protection and civil rights. In essence, AT&T asked the court to allow it to use the fine print of contracts to eliminate class actions, a practice that flouts the laws of 20 states. In a 5-4 decision, the court granted AT&T's request.

The case's potential impact is breathtaking. Corporations can now prevent consumers and small business owners from exercising what is often their only real option for challenging companies that defraud them by millions or even billions of dollars: banding together to file class action lawsuits. The case could be equally devastating to millions of non-union employees, who need class actions to challenge systemic discrimination by their employers. The Supreme Court has given major corporations the green light to engage in nearly limitless wrongdoing against others, so long as they do it in relatively small dollar amounts, which ensures that no one can afford to challenge the misconduct without a class action.

A sudden demise of class actions will shock the markets and the legal system. It will dramatically increase the market power of major corporations over ordinary Americans and small business owners, who are already outmatched. Innumerable laws that protect the public will become irrelevant because few people can enforce them. …

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Money Why Americans Have So Little? Money Needed Win Elections on Television

Tags: Orwell's Animal Farm Power Money Cocaine Politics Economy Wages Repubs Dems Supreme Court Rachel Ed Krugman High Taxes Fixes Deficits Economy Middleclass Poor Top 20% Think They are In Top One Percent Actually Incomes Over $500,000 and Climbing

Most of you don’t have the time or desire to read about politics even though it influences directly or indirectly a large part of whether you and your future generations will survive economically.


So you might ask, “Is there one very short book I could read to understand our political-economic system of power and greed?” The books 1984 and Animal Farm by George Orwell are perfect, but if you don’t have time to read 300 pages, Animal Farm with only 139 pages would be perfect if you think while you read. It is about high minded and smart pigs who take power away from humans and soon become corrupted with absolute power and become just like many Republican politicians now. Screw the people for their benefit.

That is starting to happen in the power grab in the Midwest and Florida by Republican governors and legislatures. Even the news portion of MSNBC distorted what is happening there.


The only way we can restore a fair economic system where people can go up in class, something that is becoming almost impossible now, is for every American to know and understand what our political system is doing to their family and future generations. It is a fable passed on by politicians, but the numbers show that only one percent of those in the bottom quarter ever get out now. Before the 1980s, poor and lower middle class families such as mine had a chance to get educated or start a company and succeed is becoming close to impossible now. I doubt Obama would have succeeded. Republicans want to eliminate Pell Grants for college.


Why bother to know about politics? If we are ignorant, fear is used very effectively during the election campaign by the Republicans especially skillfully because all of our so-called rational decisions are made with a good dose of emotion. Democrats don’t have a consistent message so they are not so good at the propaganda message. Only when the Republicans steal and change laws that make it obvious that they are screwing us, do Americans revolt.


The Hedge Funds CEOs who had favored Democrats in the past with names like Loeb and Cohen, who previously have donated generously to President Obama’s campaign in 2008, now give huge sums to the Republican Party with the Billionaire Oil Magnets, the Koch Brothers at the top, giving millions of dollars at a clip.


The House Bill by the Republican House getting rid of Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security has upset even Republican seniors as some TV stations such as MSNBC in the commentary and not news section gave us a better understanding of it.


The night sessions (ET) such as Maddow http://maddowblog.msnbc.com or http://rachel.msnbc.com 9 PM EDT and 6 PM PDT and Ed Schultz http://ed.msnbc.com are probably the best for most of you. Keith Olbermann will be staring his program in June on Al Gore’s channel.


The article below shows a strong correlation between tax cuts for the rich without paying for it and our current deficits and slower growing economy and stagnant wages since the 1970s. Adjusted for inflation, the wages of most Americans have not increased since then even though our productivity has increased over ten fold and profits have increased sharply. The Republicans have been very successful in economic growth in other countries but not here. China and India are prime examples.



Money is like Cocaine, It Stimulates Our Brain’s Pleasure Button, the More We Have the More We Want. The more sugar we eat, the more we want. The more we need something, the less likely we will give it away to others. What’s Mine is Mine and What’s Yours is Negotiable? The Midas Complex with gold is such an example.


This is strongly shows that Power Corrupts. The comment, “Power Corrupts and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely,” originated due to the absolute corruption of the Renaissance Popes, now a series on Showtime with the Borgia Family starring. Yes, they had many sex parties including giving dispensations to the rich for “donations.” That is when the Priest Celibacy Laws were first put in place to get the money from rich families who put their kids in the Priesthood such as the Borgia Family.


Democrats cannot do as much damage to us because their voters tend to be less affluent or poorer and more liberal. Unfortunately since Reagan trashed labor union members, by ignoring the Wagner Act passed in the 1930s by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to protect workers.


Republicans are trying to wipe out government unions such as in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan and other states where they have the governorship and the legislature, the only place Democrats can get adequate funding and organized people to help get the vote out.


Rachel Maddow, http://maddowblog.msnbc.com tells us that among the top ten large donors to the parties only 3 government unions are Democrats and 7 top donors for the Republicans are the wealthy individuals and corporations.


I expect the next election due the illegal change by the corporate minded Supreme Court where corporate and religious conservative Chief Justice Roberts, Justices Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, and Alito make up a majority. Why did they reject a fast hearing of anti-Healthcare Virginia bill? No one tells us why, but I can easily guess that Corporate Healthcare and Big Pharma don’t want the whole bill to be destroyed because it will include big profits with many more customers because everyone has to join. Many of these tend to be younger, so less likely to become sick and those with prior illnesses can be charged up to three times more money for coverage.


Some Corporate Democrats along with all Republican Senators approved Roberts and Alito which gave them the power to pass any laws they wanted no matter how much it violated what previous justices ruled for 100 years in the ruling that made corporations people in the 1890s and the one Citizens United ironically named bill that gave power to the rich and ideological. President Obama voted against both Roberts and Alito because he looked into what they did as judges. Both Alito and Roberts lied under oath about how they will conduct the court decisions. Thomas were nominated by the other older Bush and Kennedy and Scalia by Reagan.


Jim Kawakami, April 28, 2011, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com



14 Ways A 90 Percent Top Tax Rate Fixes Our Economy And Our Country

http://www.ourfuture.org/ http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010041625/13-ways-90-percent-top-tax-rate-fixes-economy A return to Eisenhower-era 90% top tax rates helps fix our economy in several ways:

  1. It makes it take longer to end up with a fortune. In fact it makes people build and earn a fortune, instead of shooting for quick windfalls. This forces long-term thinking and planning instead of short-term scheming and scamming. If grabbing everything in sight and running doesn’t pay off anymore, you have to change your strategy.


  1. It gets rid of the quick-buck-scheme business model. Making people take a longer-term approach to building rather than grabbing a fortune will help reattach businesses to communities by reinforcing interdependence between businesses and their surrounding communities. When it takes owners and executives years to build up a fortune they need solid companies that are around for a long time. This requires the surrounding public infrastructure of roads, schools, police, fire, courts, etc., to be in good shape to provide long-term support for the enterprise. You also want your company to build a solid reputation for serving its customers rather than cheapening the product, pursuing quick-buck scams, cutting customer service, etc. The current Wall Street/private equity business model of looting companies, leaving behind an empty shell, unemployed workers and a surrounding community in devastation will no longer be a viable business strategy.


  1. It will lower the executive crime rate. Today it is possible to run scams that let you

pocket huge sums in a single year, and leave behind the mess you make for others to fix. A high top tax rate removes the incentive to lie, cheat and steal to grab every buck you can as fast as you can. This reduces the temptation to be dishonest. If you aren’t going to keep the whole dime, why risk doing the time? When excessive, massive paydays are possible, it opens the door to overwhelming greed and a resulting compromising of principles. Sort of the definition of the decades since Reagan, no?


pastedGraphic.pdf


  1. Combined with badly-needed cuts in military spending – we spend more on military than all other countries on earth combined – taxing the wealthy ends budget deficits and starts paying off the massive Reagan/Bush debt. This reduces and ultimately eliminates the share of the budget that goes to pay interest. The United States now has to pay a huge share of its budget just to cover the interest on the borrowing that tax cuts made necessary. Paying off the debt would remove this huge drag on our economy. (Never mind that Alan Greenspan famously called for Bush’s tax cuts by saying it was dangerous to pay off our debt – now that same Alan Greenspan says we need to cut benefits to retired people because our debt is so high.)


  1. It will bring in revenue to pay for improvements in infrastructure that then cause the economy to explode for the better. Investing in modern transit systems, smart grid, energy efficiency, fast internet and other improvements leads to a huge payoff of increased prosperity for all of us – especially for those at the top income levels. Infrastructure improvement and maintenance is the “seed corn” of economic growth. We have been eating that seed corn since Reagan’s tax cuts.


6) (related) It will bring in revenue for improving our schools, colleges and universities. Not only will this help our competitiveness, but it will improve each of our lives and level of happiness.


pastedGraphic_1.pdf


  1. It will boost economic growth and rebuild a strong middle class. A consumption-based economy does better when consumers have more to spend. Perhaps not cause-and-effect, though I suspect so, but after FDR raised top tax rates the economy grew dramatically. The 90% top rate years under FDR, Truman, Eisenhower and the beginning of the Kennedy years were the years when we built the middle class. And remember, after Clinton raised top tax rates only modestly the economy grew. How's it been doing since Bush's tax cuts for the rich?


A look at economic growth rate charts shows a steady decline in the decades since top tax rates began to fall. Is it just a coincidence that the economy booms after tax increases that provide revenue to invest in new “seed corn,” and that the economy declines as we reduce taxes?


  1. It is good for business because increased revenue will enable increasing government spending for the benefit of regular people. This recirculates money into the economy more productively than the current system of putting huge fortunes into a few hands and hoping for a resulting consumption of high-end goods. The wealthy can only spend so much h so more disposable income in the hands of regular people is good for business. Any business owner will tell you they want customers more than they want tax cuts. (Let’s wait until the top one percent no longer owns most of everything before we talk about whether there is an effect on investment.)


9) It protects working people. Exploiting workers with long hours, low pay or lack of pay increases, lack of worker protections, firing union organizers and schemes that call employees “contractors” will no longer pay off as it does today. The era of extreme union-busting came in at the same time as the tax cuts.


pastedGraphic_2.pdf


Krugman:

The chart shows the share of the richest 10 percent of the American population in total income – an indicator that closely tracks many other measures of economic inequality – over the past 90 years, as estimated by the economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez.


  1. It redistributes income and wealth in ways that help all of us. Currently a few people receive most of the income and own most of everything. A very high top tax rate reduces this concentration of wealth.


  1. It fights the political instability that results from concentration of wealth. Great inequality in a society and the resulting loss of opportunity results in political instability that can lead to extreme ideologies, rebellion, etc. We are seeing all the signs of a resurgence of these problems today.


  1. It will help rebuild our sense of democracy and belief in equality. As we have seen and are seeing, when too much is in the hands of too few, they have too much power and influence and use it to get even more.


  1. It will strengthen the government that We, the People have worked hard to build, and strengthen its ability to enforce the laws and regulations that protect all of us and the resources we hold in common. It will increase its ability to provide all of us equally with the benefits of our joint efforts and our economy.



  1. Finally, for good measure, increasing top tax rates will cause those affected to work harder to make up the difference. The Ayn Randians claim the very rich are the “producers” and all the rest of us are just parasites and slackers who feed off their “work.” So it will be very good for our economy to get them working harder by taxing them at 90%! You may have heard about those 25 hedge fund managers who brought in an average of $1 billion each last year – an amount that would have paid for 658,000 teachers -- while the rest of the country suffered through a terrible economy. If we had a top tax rate of 90% they would “only” take home $100 million or so each – in a single year. And we could have 658,000 more teachers. So it’s a win-win.



Taxes are how we all pitch in to enjoy the benefits and protections of modern society. Those benefits and protections are what enable people to become wealthy, and we ask that they give some back so others can prosper as well.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Discover Magazine: Reasons to Subscribe Well Written Important Current Topics

Tags: Gram Negative Bacteria Transfers Antibiotic Resistant Gene to Different Species in Common Bacterial Illnesses Healthy Gut Microbes Resists Infections

Discover Magazine improved greatly after it was sold by Time Warner to Kalmbach Publishing. Discover Magazine http://discovermagazine.com now has many in-depth articles which are very well written. This science magazine is so good it is well worth subscribing to this monthly magazine. It is clear and easy to understand, a feat not always achieved by the New York Times. You need to be a subscriber to get to the real substance of these monthly articles.

Jim Kawakami, April 12, 2011, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com


Discover Magazine Blog: Gram Negative Bacteria, including 20 common ones for Cholera, Pneumonia, Dysentery, have developed a gene which is resistant to a drug of last resort

Based on an article in Lancet:

April Discover Magazine, 2011. What’s the News: A gene that makes bacteria resistant to up to 14 antibiotics has been discovered in bacteria in drinking water and street puddles in the Indian capital of New Delhi by a research team from the University of Cardiff in Wales. Scientists were already aware that microbes bearing this gene, which produces an enzyme called NDM-1, were infecting people in India, but it had been thought that such bacteria were mainly picked up in hospitals. This study shows that the gene, which is capable of jumping from species to species, is loose in the environment.

What’s the Context:

  1. NDM-1 is in a class of enzymes that are known culprits in the spread of drug-resistance: the beta-lactamases. The first beta-lactamase, penicillinase, was discovered in 1940 ($, pdf). These enzymes give resistance to antibiotics like cephamycins, carbapenems, and penicillin, which have similar chemical structures.
  2. The study is fueling fears that the NDM-1 gene could easily jump into bacteria around the world. Recently, a separate team of scientists showed that Swedish tourists returning from India had bacteria with beta-lactamases in their guts that they hadn’t had before the trip. And as the current study found that the gene for NDM-1 skipped easily among bacterial species, the researchers are calling for greater action to fight drug-resistant bacteria in developing countries.
  3. Indian officials have spoken out against the study, in part over fears that it will damage India’s tourism industry. In an AP article, V.M. Katoch, director-general of the Indian Council of Medical Research, said, “We know that such bacteria with genes are in the atmosphere everywhere. This is a waste of time. The study is creating a scare that India is a dangerous country to visit. We are condemning it.”
  4. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard of NDM-1: the gene has been on scientists’ radar since 2008, when it was first identified in a Swedish tourist returning from India. (For more background on the gene, see Scientific American’s coverage.)



Not So Fast:

  1. The term “superbug” has been racing from media outlet to media outlet. But this is a bit of a misnomer: this isn’t a single new bacteria species endowed with phenomenal resistance, it’s a gene that can bestow it.
  2. The difference is important. Dealing with a gene that can make any number of disease-causing bacteria resistant may be more difficult than focusing on just one species of bug—especially as the team found the gene in 20 types of bacteria, including those that cause dysentery and cholera. But the study’s findings suggest that the gene is much more likely to jump to new bacteria while outside the host (at temperatures typical of India’s climate, transfers were high; at body temperature, they dropped off). It would be interesting to see whether the fact that the gene needs lower temperatures to transfer could used to prevent its spread: if the transfer happens in drinking water, then better water treatment might help delay the formation of new resistant strains.

Reference: Toleman, M. et al. Dissemination of NDM-1 positive bacteria in the New Delhi environment and its implications for human health: an environmental point prevalence study. The Lancet Infectious Diseases, Early Online Publication, 7 April 2011. doi:10.1016/S1473-3099(11)70059-7

April 8th, 2011 9:45 AM Tags: antibiotic resistance, beta-lactamase, India, infectious disease, NDM-1, pharmaceuticals, superbugs, The Lancet
by Veronique Greenwood in Environment, Health & Medicine, Living World | 5 comments | RSS feed | Trackback >


March 2011 Discover Magazine: Why We Need a Healthy Gut Because Antibiotics are Rapidly Becoming Useless Due to Large Use in Animal Farms http://discovermagazine.com/ … Heavy use of antibiotics can lead to antibiotic resistance, but researchers now speculate that antibiotics can also upset the balance of the microbial community, allowing disease to take over rather than fighting it. Michael Cotten, another neonatologist on the Duke project, analyzed the duration of antibiotic therapy given to 4,039 premature babies at 19 treatment centers across the country and found that prolonged use of the drugs is associated with increased risk of necrotizing enterocolitis and death. Anti­biotics probably also prevent beneficial bacterial communities from forming in infants.

Last year, Stanford microbiologist David Relman published a study that illustrated the potentially devastating impact of antibiotics on the microbiome. He gave three healthy adults a five-day course of the antibiotic Cipro, then another course six months later, and monitored the state of the microbiome after each treatment. The gut flora of all three subjects gradually recovered from the impact of the antibiotic treatment but never returned to their original state—they had different compositions and were less diverse. “We don’t know if these differences matter to health,”
Relman says. “But in general, you’d be concerned about a change.” He had chosen Cipro because it has limited effectiveness against most species of bacteria in the gut, but it still affected one-third to one-half of the microbial flora in the subjects. “Knocking out one organism could have a ripple effect on the lives of others,”
Relman says.

This is especially concerning given that the number of different microbial species in the intestines may be important in countering pathogens. “The greater the diversity, the lower the probability that pathogens can invade and persist,” says Richard Ostfeld, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in New York. “If all the niches are taken up in the gut, it might be hard for them to get hold.”

This is especially concerning given that the number of different microbial species in the intestines may be important in countering pathogens. “The greater the diversity, the lower the probability that pathogens can invade and persist,” says Richard Ostfeld, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in New York. “If all the niches are taken up in the gut, it might be hard for them to get hold.” …

Specially packaged mixtures of microbes, known as probiotics, may also prove useful for balancing microbes in the gut (See “Bugs for Breakfast,” page 4). Probiotics are now generally sold as health food supplements, and many of them are promoted as magic bullets that can improve metabolism or bolster immunity. Since they are as yet unregulated by the FDA, though, it is impossible for the consumer to know exactly what is inside; labels on over-the-counter products can be deceptive. Scientists who have tested them have often found something quite different from what the product promises. Nevertheless, carefully regulated probiotics, which introduce nonpathogenic competitors to disease, could be effective at balancing the gut microbiome. …

The Duke group is still puzzling over how to translate their microbiome findings into practical treatments for premature infants. But at least one procedure that allows doctors to manipulate the gut microbiome is already here. A team led by University of Minnesota immunologist and gastroenterologist Alexander Khoruts has recently demonstrated spectacular success with fecal transplants, which introduce healthy stool microbes into a diseased bowel. An obscure and poorly understood procedure, it was first developed in the 1950s, well before anyone grasped the importance of the gut microbiome.

Khoruts and his colleagues reported last summer that they were able to use a fecal transplant to treat and apparently cure a woman with a life-threatening Clostridium difficile infection, which causes severe inflammation of the colon. The patient had an extremely poor prognosis: Suffering from chronic diarrhea, she had lost 60 pounds over eight months. “All antibiotics were failing, and she was in really bad shape,” Khoruts says. In a last-ditch effort to improve her condition, he mixed a small sample of the patient’s husband’s stool with saline solution and injected it into her colon. Within 24 hours her diarrhea had stopped. After a few days, the symptoms were gone.

In studying this patient’s progress, Khoruts was initially surprised to find that there was a nearly complete replacement of the woman’s microbial flora with her husband’s microbes. “By the time these patients get to this desperate treatment point, they’ve taken so many antibiotics that their microbiome has been decimated,” he says. “So when we transplant the new bacteria, they simply move in to occupy the empty space.” Before Khoruts and his team performed the procedure, no research had been done on how fecal transplants work or how they impact the microbiome. “Since then we’ve done another 23 patients,” he reports, “all with dramatic stories.” …


Monday, April 11, 2011

Darwin, Altruism,Taxes, True or Not, Media Whole Truth?, Letter to WSJ

Tags: Darwin, Altruism, Taxes Fair or Not, Media Truth or Not, Supreme Court Popes or Not, Wall Street Values?

Robert Frank who published his book What’s the Matter with Kansas, expressed bewilderment why voters in Kansas always vote Republican even when the Republicans and many Democrats supported sending jobs overseas which changed their lives from well entrenched Middle Class citizens to ones who now depend more on the Church to sustain them.

The simultaneous cuts in taxes for the rich and the downgrading of jobs and income for those below the top one percent led to more borrowing from our federal government and our states having barely enough money to balance the state expenses. So any decrease in the economy had disastrous effects.

I could add that what Frank also did not consider is that the huge inequality in income due to policies started in the 1980s and accelerated with increasing fervor by George W. Bush.

Finally, our Constitution was designed to extend the power of the Oligarchs and designed by the Oligarchs. The difficulty of future Amendments which require the almost impossible two-third votes of both the House and Senate and two-third of the state legislatures where designed to prevent changing the Constitution of the wealthy.

Ben Franklin walked out of the Constitutional Convention after the proposal of having a senate with two to each states to give power to small states well beyond their population passed. Everyone knew this would result in a country run by the rich as we see now.

The Prime Minister system in use in almost all parts of the world gives the people much more voice for change. However, with media control as we see in Italy by the Prime Minister, we see control through the media as we have in our country giving the Oligarchs assured power forever.

Jim Kawakami, April 10, 2011, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

John S. Hege, Letter to the Wall Street Journal: Robert Frank, in his essay "The Price of Taxing the Rich" (Review, March 26), would have you believe that it is high income tax rates that cause the wealthiest individuals to shoulder such a large part of U.S. and various state tax burdens.

I believe he has it exactly backward. Ever since Ronald Reagan began the trend of lower federal taxes on the wealthy, their salaries and bonuses have skyrocketed, while the compensation of middle- and lower-income wage earners has barely stayed even. Of course the wealthiest are paying more taxes; they've garnered all the wealth.

The cure is higher tax rates at the upper-income levels, sufficiently high to discourage multimillion-dollar salaries. It wouldn't make sense to pay an executive or top athlete a multimillion-dollar salary if Uncle Sam was going to take most of it. If paid to the lower-grade workers, they could use that money to buy cars and refrigerators, in addition to paying more in taxes. I suspect the stock markets would decline, but so would the desperate greed that has come to dominate so many lives. John S. Hege

How Do We Know What is True or Not? Andy Carvin is Trying


World's Best Twitter Account? Meet Andy Carvin, verification machine. Craig Silverman reports. http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/is_this_the_worlds_best_twitter_account.php


Mirror, mirror: Journalists are not supposed to merely reflect the public’s misconceptions back to them. They are supposed to correct those misconceptions. Somebody should tell the Daily Caller, Ben Adler says as he skewers the Caller's treatment of a poll. http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/the_problem_with_covering_polls.php


Justice in Supreme Court is Just Another Word for Power than Justice

Op-Ed Justice Kagan http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/opinion/10sun2.html?src=me&ref=general

“When this case was argued last fall, the convolutions of the Arizona program seemed intended to mask its violation of the Constitution. The court’s ruling is another cynical sleight of hand, which will reduce access to federal courts while advancing endorsement of religion.”

How Evolution Explains Altruism, Oren Harman, April 8, 2011, NY Times, “SuperCooperators”, Martin A. Nowak, the director of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics at Harvard (written with Roger Highfield, editor of New Scientist magazine) is an absorbing, accessible book about the power of mathematics.

“Random mutation and natural selection have indeed been powerful motors for change in the natural world — the struggle for existence pitting the fit against the fitter in a hullabaloo of rivalry. But most of the great innovations of life on earth, Nowak argues, from genes to cells to societies, have been due to a third motor, and “master architect,” of evolution: cooperation.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/books/review/book-review-supercooperators-by-martin-a-nowak.html?src=recg

Wall Street at Pinnacle of 5,000 Years of Human Exploitation Including the Founders of America, David Korten of Yes! Magazine and “When Corporations Rule the World”, 1995, Harvard Business School Prof, Ford Foundation in Third World Found Globalization Makes It Worse for Poor.


In an earlier day, our rulers were kings and emperors. Now they are corporate CEOs and hedge fund managers. Wall Street is Empire’s most recent stage. Its reign will mark the end of the tragic drama of a 5,000 year Era of Empire. …


Global expansion beyond U.S. territorial borders followed. The United States converted cooperative dictatorships into client states by giving their ruling classes a choice between aligning themselves with U.S. economic and political interests for a share in the booty or being eliminated by assassination, foreign-financed internal rebellion, or military invasion.


Following World War II, when the classic forms of colonial rule became unacceptable, international debt became a favored instrument for forcing poorer nations to open to foreign corporate ownership and control. … As powerful as Wall Street appears to be, its abuse of power has so eroded the economic, social, and environmental foundations of its own existence that its fate is sealed. We the People have a choice. We can allow Wall Street to maintain its grip until it brings down the whole of human civilization in irrevocable social and environmental collapse.


Or we can take control of our future and replace the Wall Street economy with the values and institutions of a New Economy comprised of locally owned businesses devoted to serving their communities by investing in the use of local resources to produce real goods and services responsive to local needs. … http://www.alternet.org/story/150416/wall_st._stands_at_the_pinnacle_of_5%2C000_years_of_human_exploitation?akid=6807.244053.gE7Ybo&rd=1&t=8


Saturday, April 9, 2011

Alzheimer’s Diabetes Brain New Theory Insulin Lack Toxic to Brain as are Nitrosamine Meats and Very Low LDL

Tags: Alzheimer's Cause Brain Toxins New Theory Diabetes of Brain Low Insulin, Nitrosamine Meats, Very Low Density Lipoproteins, Diabetes, Obesity, Fructose triglycerides into very low LDL, Uric Acid

Alzheimer’s Diabetes Brain New Theory Insulin Lack Toxic to Brain as are Nitrosamine Meats and Very Low LDL

Our brain uses more sugar than any other part of our body. Diabetes of the brain is especially damaging to the neurons.

Bottom Line: Fructose metabolizes in the liver to triglycerides which further metabolizes to Very Low Density Lipoproteins which are toxic to the brain, one cause of Alzheimer's Disease. High source High Fructose Corn Syrup in processed soft drinks, (Sunkist soda equals 6 Breyer Oreo Ice Creams) processed foods, and Fast Foods Including most drinks including Starbucks Mocha (660 calories 95 grams sugar) and McDonalds coffee drinks and shakes enormous amounts of this sugar.

Diabetes off the Brain when insulin resistance results from High Fructose Corn Syrup and sucrose sugar. The difference is that the syrup can be place in much higher amounts in food and drinks without crystallizing out, and High Fructose makes foods more palatable.

Diabetes and Obesity mushroomed when Reagan in the mid-1980s, without FDA testing, subsidized corn to very high levels to make High Fructose Corn Syrup very cheap to help the processed food corporations greatly improve their profits and replaced sucrose as the sweetener of choice. Placement in soft drinks is probably the major cause of the diabetes, Obesity, and Alzheimer's crisis. Americans consume about 150 lbs yearly of this metabolic poison.

Nitrates used in preserving hot dogs, deli meats and some cheeses, turn into deadly nitrosamine which is toxic to our brain.

Very low density lipoproteins are toxic to our brain. Produced from triglycerides in the liver.

Fructose metabolism also produces uric acid from our cells after destroying them by destroying the mitochondria. Uric acid causes inflammation of the blood vessels leading to higher blood pressure and possibly inflamed brain protective membrane. Recent data shows that uric acid range is too high and uric acid levels (test) should be below 4.5 for males and lower for females. Most uric acid comes from the cell metabolism of fructose. Colas and juices, especially apple and grape juice have high amounts of fructose. Almost all processed foods still contain high levels of High Fructose Corn Syrup.
Fructose metabolism in the liver does lead to cirrhosis in a similar manner as sucrose and alcohol metabolism.

Using Round Up weed killer over our genetically modified crops results in residual toxic chemicals left on the food crop. Whether they cause any of our common diseases or bad health is unknown. Corporate producers do not allow academics, unless under contract, to study whether these foods are safe. Clinton and Bush approved their use after being convinced by Monsanto and other lobbyists and placing their top lobbyist in one step to the top in our FDA probably helped with the approval process without testing!

The theme of the Dr. Oz Show, ABC 3:00 PM, daily, was that what we eat can cause Alzheimer’s Disease. Dr. Suzanne DeLaMonte, a neuropathologist at the Rhode Island Hospital, appeared on the Dr. Oz show www.doctoroz.com to explain her new findings on the cause of Alzheimer’s Disease. Before appearing on the show, Dr. Oz discussed it with many brain Scientists at Columbia who have been on the gene kick forever, including a Nobel Prize winner, and they apparently found Dr. DeLaMonte’s work well done.

I expressed my skepticism about so much emphasis on genes causing Alzheimer’s for many years. I explained that both genetic (Body can’t degrade very low density lipoproteins easily) and late onset Alzheimer’s are caused by a similar mechanism. Very low density lipoproteins. The LDL we get from routine blood tests includes it, but does not tell us how much of the deadly very low density lipoproteins are there.

Alzheimer’s and Obesity starting in the mid-1980s when Reagan arbitrarily approved synthetic High Fructose Corn Syrup using an enzymatic process starting from corn sugar developed by Japanese scientists in 1971. However corn was too expensive to make this sugar commercial. Reagan changed that by subsidizing corn in the mid-1980s so greatly that farmers make most of their minor income from just the corn subsidy which taxpayers provide which forces farmers to maximize their production of corn or starve.

The corn to ethanol program was also a partial subsidy for the farmers and high profits for the producers of ethanol. The higher demand increases the price of corn and its production so other food crops are now scarce causing a sharp rise in prices. Corn prices have doubled in the last several years. If we include all use of oil for its production, we really do not lessen the use of oil.

Why High-Fructose Syrup Causes Insulin Resistance: Dr. Mercola’s Comments: According to the latest statistics, new cases of diabetes have increased by 90 percent in the last 10 years, and diabetes or pre-diabetes now strikes one in four Americans. Those are absolutely astounding statistics to say the least.

There’s no doubt in my mind that one of the primary fuels for this epidemic is the excess consumption of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Several studies over the past few years have also come to this conclusion, including this latest study in Cell Metabolism, in which the researchers note:

“Insulin resistance is a common feature of the metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Both have reached epidemic proportions worldwide with the global adoption of the westernized diet along with increased consumption of fructose, stemming from the wide and increasing use of high-fructose corn syrup sweeteners.

It is well established that fructose is more lipogenic than glucose, and high-fructose diets have been linked to hypertriglyceridemia, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), and insulin resistance.” ...

Recently, I briefly discussed the narrowness of thinking about gene being relevant in most Alzheimer's cases about a recent article by Kolata of the NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/04/health/04alzheimer.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Alzheimers%20Gene&st=cse about a large study showing that about ten genes were correlated (note correlated) with Alzheimer’s in a worldwide combining of DNA structure gene data. Sharon Begley, well ahead of we common folks in seeing the forest instead of the trees. Now with Newsweek, now a great news magazine, commented Alzheimer's: Still Barking Up the Wrong Tree? http://www.sharonlbegley.com/alzheimer-s-still-barking-up-the-wrong-tree while at the Wall Street Journal.

Other related articles by Begley: http://www.newsweek.com/2011/02/27/i-can-t-think.html http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/05/the-limits-of-reason.html that researchers think and do research in such a narrow field that they are unable think beyond that. …

Wikipedia Fructose: … Fructose Metabolism By The Brain Increases Food Intake And Obesity, Review Suggests (Mar. 26, 2009) — Scientists have built on the suggested link between the consumption of fructose and increased food intake, which may contribute to a high incidence of obesity and type 2 ... > read more ... See PDF.

Jim Kawakami, April 9, 2011, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com