Bedbugs Canada MRSA and Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococcus faecium VRE CDC

Tags: Bedbug Blood Carries Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria MRSA Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococcus faecium VRE CDC Report

Canadian bedbugs carry superbug bacteria: study

(AFP) – 1 hour ago

As many as 31 percent of people living in that section of Vancouver, known as Downtown Eastside, have reported bedbug infestations, and both VRE and MSRA infections are commonly seen at the nearby Saint Paul's Hospital, the report said. …

Frosty Wooldridge, a regular blogger, author, and speaker http://www.frostywooldridge.com/ on the dangers of immigration and population increase regarding disease spread to our country. I have attributed the spread of deadly organisms mostly due to Factory Farms Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy, and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment by David Kirby. Kirby worked at these places undercover because inspection is prohibited. HIV patients are a vector for transmitting resistant TB bacteria in Africa and perhaps the case for bedbugs in Vancouver, BC might be similar. So far no proof on whether the bedbugs infected with MRSA and Vancomycin, the antibiotic of last resort, have been transmitted to humans.

Most hospitalization for serious diarrhea is caused by Vancomycin resistant C. Difficile bacteria (one-third) and nonresistant bacteria (two-thirds). It is likely that a gram negative bacteria in 37 states and epidemic in New York hospitals is resistant to all antibiotics. The big scare is that this gene is easily transferred to other bacteria such as e-coli. Pneumonia deaths are increasing fast most likely do this antibiotic resistance.

1. Difficile which forms spores when attacked is extremely hard to get rid of permanently. For example Vancomycin is a bacteriostat which stops it growing, but does not kill the bacteria and the antibiotics that kill the bacteria often do not do it completely so in this infection, it often comes back. So a healthy colon is a requirement to avoid infections.

As I reported earlier, some early studies indicate the feces from a healthy colon spouse has cured 23 patients by one doctor from almost fatal C. Difficile. Nothing worked. Other doctors are getting similar results. I know that babies soon after birth carry some of these deadly bacteria already in a small study. So perhaps the diet of the mother may affect the diet of the baby.

Remember Scientific results are unproven until many other researchers get similar results. That is what was wrong with the child vaccine scare from now revealed fraud. I never believed that study because no one else was able to repeat the work in one of the top Medical journals, Lancet. Although it is not full-proof, go to places such as the Mayo Clinic www.mayoclinic.com . I find it more trustworthy than Harvard. NIH and Cleveland Clinic are several good sources.

Back in the 1980s I logically decided not to use antibacterial soaps because I knew that the good bacteria on our skin keeps the deadly ones low or nonexistent. About ten years later this was proven by a peer reviewed article appearing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, but not reported repeatedly in the media for obvious commercial reasons.

Apparently the soap makes the antibacterial not work well, and the population of deadly e-coli in most meat is not completely washed off. This might be due to sloppy handwashing as is often done with these alcohol based hand cleaners and not enough rubbing. The best way to clean kitchen counters and sink to get rid of bacteria is to use vinegar with gloves. These wipes most likely do not work very well even though the claim is that they do. “You Lie”

I strongly recommend you do not use antibiotics for viral infections or bacterial infections unless recommended by the doctor after a discussion of the seriousness of your infection. The antibiotics destroy the bacteria in our colon which provide great resistance to deadly bacteria provide you eat the lower carbohydrate (sugars especially) diet.

Many seniors have bugs that indicate that they eat a high carbohydrate diet. It will take time to change the bugs in your colon, if you make meat and chicken as flavor condiments instead of your major source of proteins, you decrease your chance for infections. Fresh local yogurt or probiotic pills may help. Fresh yogurt really helped my digestive health greatly.

For the above reasons, I do not take airlines except in emergencies and stay only at the more expensive hotels where they go to more effort to keep bedbugs out, but check them out by removing the bedding (don’t put anything on the floor) and look at the seams for bedbug fecal material. They come out at night.

Jim Kawakami, May 11, 2011, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

Bedbugs Canada MRSA and Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococcus faecium VRE CDC

WASHINGTON — http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jEXDlk9Y1CPIwnBnmc4pmeu7MSnQ?docId=CNG.c09176f483e4d0dbb454a97d8875714a.4e1

Could bloodsucking bedbugs get any creepier? Turns out, the answer is yes.

Bedbugs carrying potent drug-resistant staph bacteria have been found in a poor section of Vancouver, Canada, said a report released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday.

Five bedbugs were plucked off the bodies of three hospitalized patients from a rough section of downtown Vancouver where rates of poverty, HIV and injection drug use are high.

The bugs were tested and found to be infected with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VRE), said the CDC's Emerging Infectious Diseases report.

It was unclear whether the people infected the bugs or the bugs infected the people.

"To our knowledge, no conclusive evidence has demonstrated disease transmission by bedbugs," said the study, which called for further research due to the admittedly small sample of patients.

"Bedbug carriage of MRSA, and the portal of entry provided through feeding, suggests a plausible potential mechanism for passive transmission of bacteria during a blood meal."

In other words, contamination could theoretically happen if a person scratches where a bedbug has attached to the skin, causing an abrasion that allows the bacteria room for entry.

MRSA is a staph infection increasingly seen in hospitals that can turn deadly if it gets into the bloodstream or a surgical wound.

VRE is a type of bacteria that can live on the skin and in the intestines without harming a person, but can cause serious health issues in people who are ill or have weakened immune systems.

Both bacteria have developed resistance to many antibiotics.

As many as 31 percent of people living in that section of Vancouver, known as Downtown Eastside, have reported bedbug infestations, and both VRE and MSRA infections are commonly seen at the nearby Saint Paul's Hospital, the report said.

A boom in bedbug populations has been witnessed across North America and western Europe over the past 10 years. Researchers believe the surge may be fueled by increasing world travel and growing resistance to pesticides.

Corporate Crime Corruption Bribing Congress Hard to Eliminate Need High Capital Gains Needed to Provide Tax Revenue

Tags: CJR Ryan Chittum Revenue Higher Capital Gains Jeffrey Sachs Wealth Pays Little Corporate Crime Corruption Political Power

Economic Crisis, The Audit — May 4, 2011 07:23 PM

Audit Notes: Globalization and Corporate Crime, Capital Gains, Auto Correct

By Ryan Chittum

TAGS: Ahed, Capital Gains, Jeffrey Sachs, The Wall Street Journal, White Collar Crime

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Why Corporate Crime So Hard to Wipe Out

Columbia’s Jeffrey Sachs is riled up these days. He has an interesting piece http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/audit_notes_globalization_and.php on how and why corporate crime has gotten so hard to stamp out. His answer: Globalization and campaign finance:

Hardly a day passes without a new story of malfeasance. Every Wall Street firm has paid significant fines during the past decade for phony accounting, insider trading, securities fraud, Ponzi schemes, or outright embezzlement by CEOs. A massive insider-trading ring is currently on trial in New York, and has implicated some leading financial-industry figures. And it follows a series of fines paid by America’s biggest investment banks to settle charges of various securities violations.

There is, however, scant accountability. Two years after the biggest financial crisis in history, which was fueled by unscrupulous behavior by the biggest banks on Wall Street, not a single financial leader has faced jail. When companies are fined for malfeasance, their shareholders, not their CEOs and managers, pay the price. The fines are always a tiny fraction of the ill-gotten gains, implying to Wall Street that corrupt practices have a solid rate of return. Even today, the banking lobby runs roughshod over regulators and politicians.

Why Corporate Corruption is Out of Control: Two Main Reasons

Corporate corruption is out of control for two main reasons. First, big companies are now multinational, while governments remain national. Big companies are so financially powerful that governments are afraid to take them on.

Second, companies are the major funders of political campaigns in places like the US, while politicians themselves are often part owners, or at least the silent beneficiaries of corporate profits. Roughly one-half of US Congressmen are millionaires, and many have close ties to companies even before they arrive in Congress.

As a result, politicians often look the other way when corporate behavior crosses the line. Even if governments try to enforce the law, companies have armies of lawyers to run circles around them. The result is a culture of impunity, based on the well-proven expectation that corporate crime pays.

Super Rich Pay Low Taxes Due to Low Capital Gains and Dividend Taxes

Gary Rivlin of Newsweek is good to focus on why the super-rich pay far lower tax rates than most people think they do. It’s the capital-gains taxes.

We tax investment income for the richest at less than half the rate we tax work income.

Many of the super-rich see virtually all their income as capital gains, and capital gains are taxed at a much lower rate—15 percent—than ordinary income. When Warren Buffett talks about paying a lower tax rate than his secretary, that’s because she sees most of her pay through a paycheck, while the bulk of his compensation comes in the form of capital gains and dividends. In 2006, for instance, Buffett paid 17.7 percent in taxes on the $46 million he booked that year, while his secretary lost 30 percent of her $60,000 salary to the government…

It wasn’t always this way. Until the 1990s, the capital-gains tax was 28 percent. The rate was lowered to 20 percent during Bill Clinton’s tenure—and, lo and behold, says Johnston, the tax rate paid by the country’s 400 wealthiest souls fell by the same 8 percentage points. When the second President Bush lowered the capital-gains tax another 5 points along with his other tax cuts, the country’s richest citizens saw their tax rate fall another 5.5 percent, Johnston says.

Fracking Well Contamination Earthquakes Tied Gas Production Scientifically

Tags: Fracking Duke University Gas Wells Earthquakes Arkansas Explosions Deaths Contamination Pennsylvania Colorado

Fracking Gas Wells Tied to 1000 Earthquakes in Arkansas, Huffington Post, Sarah Eddington, April 20, 2011, LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Two natural gas exploration companies have agreed to extend the shutdowns of two injection wells in Arkansas as researchers study whether the operations are linked to more than 1,000 unexplained earthquakes in the region, a state commission said Wednesday. … http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/21/fracking-shutdown-earthquakes-arkansas_n_851930.html

Fracking Gas Duke Scientists Found Proof Associating Home Explosions Deaths and Contaminated Flammable Drinking Well Water to Fracking Gas Analysis, Pro-Publica, Abrahm Lustgarten, May 9, 2011, http://www.propublica.org/article/scientific-study-links-flammable-drinking-water-to-fracking

For the first time, a scientific study has linked natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing with a pattern of drinking water contamination so severe that some faucets can be lit on fire.

The peer-reviewed study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, stands to shape the contentious debate over whether drilling is safe and begins to fill an information gap that has made it difficult for lawmakers and the public to understand the risks.

Drilling Regulatory Staffing in Your State

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1. Search for how many wells have been drilled and how many gas regulators are in your state.

Graphics

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1. Anatomy of a Gas Well

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1. The Faces of Dimock

The research was conducted by four scientists at Duke University. They found that levels of flammable methane gas in drinking water wells increased to dangerous levels when those water supplies were close to natural gas wells. They also found that the type of gas detected at high levels in the water was the same type of gas that energy companies were extracting from thousands of feet underground, strongly implying that the gas may be seeping underground through natural or manmade faults and fractures, or coming from cracks in the well structure itself.

“Our results show evidence for methane contamination of shallow drinking water systems in at least three areas of the region and suggest important environmental risks accompanying shale gas exploration worldwide,” the article states.

The group tested 68 drinking water wells in the Marcellus and Utica shale drilling areas in northeastern Pennsylvania and southern New York State. Sixty of those wells were tested for dissolved gas. While most of the wells had some methane, the water samples taken closest to the gas wells had on average 17 times the levels detected in wells further from active drilling. The group defined an active drilling area as within one kilometer, or about six tenths of a mile, from a gas well. … http://www.propublica.org/article/scientific-study-links-flammable-drinking-water-to-fracking

Capitalism 7 Ways to Read 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism Ha-Joon Chang

Tags: Capitalism Understanding Common Sense 23 Things You Are Not Told Ha-Joon Chang, Cambridge U Free Market Construct Based Political Ideology

Capitalism 7 Ways to Read 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism Ha-Joon Chang

Conclusion: How to rebuild the world economy

“Introduction: The global economy lies in tatters. While fiscal and monetary stimulus of unprecedented scale has prevented the financial melt-down of 2008 from turning into a total collapse of the global economy …

In the absence of financial reforms (March 2010), even as some people declare the end of the recession a sustained recovery is by no means certain. In the absence financial reforms, loose monetary and fiscal policies have led to new financial bubbles, while the real economy is starved of money. …

This catastrophe has ultimately been created by the free-market ideology that has ruled the world since the 1980s. …

(Greenspan admits he was wrong. GE’s Welch also admits he was wrong, corporate policies should not be based on Investor interests.

Stop assuming our common sense is inferior to the ideologically persuaded brainy economists. Common sense and some knowledge about what is really happening to us will be enough to understand 95% of economics without the math needed to manipulate economic data. Just look at what makes up our GDP reflecting our economy and who is making the money. Last year 63% of GDP was in the Financial Sector!

Ideology controls what numbers they come out than the truth as we had seen in the Bush 8 Years of disasters for the bottom 90 percent of Americans and Nirvana for the top one percent. Remember Free Markets is a political construct and varies from nation to nation. Our rich believe in the idea of what is yours is mine and what’s mine should not be taxed. The developed countries force their will on less developed ones except for China which requires both a transfer of technology and a 50 percent ownership of a profit center.

Chang points out that cut back of spending in Britain and Ireland has only depressed their economy because the economy comes from the people, not the bankers. Ireland got rid of all the safety nets for her people. Show that if the citizen don’t pay attention to politics, they can get hurt badly.

That is what has happened to America where knowledge comes in inaccurate soundbites and ingrained in our psyche with constant repetition. Yes, they are propagandizing us! Yes, we need to pay attention to politics very carefully because current and future lives of us, our children, and our future generations may grow up in a system of being poor all their lives no matter whether they went to college or not because of huge debts and poor paying jobs. Capitalism Uber Alles similar to the Nazi theme and just as destructive. Jim)

Kindle Edition:

Way 1. If you are not even sure what capitalism is, read: Things 1,2,5,8, 13, 16, 19, 20, 22

Way 2. If you think politics is a waste of time, read: Things 1, 5, 7, 12, 16, 18, 19, 21, and 23

Way 3. If you have been wondering why your life does not seem to get better despite ever-rising income and ever-advancing technologies, read: Things 2,4,6, 8, 9, 10, 17, 18, abd 22

Way 4. If you think some people are richer than others because they are more capable, better educated and more enterprising, read: Things 3, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, and 21

Way 5. If you want to know why poor countries are poor and how they can become richer, read: Things 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 20, and 21

Way 6. If you think the world is an unfair place but there is nothing much you can do about it, read: Things 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 11, 13, 14, 15, 20, and 21

Way 7. Read the whole thing in the following order …

Introduction:

Thing 1 There is no such thing as a free market

Thing 2 Companies should not be run in the interest of their owners

Thing 3 Most people in rich countries are paid more than they should be

Thing 4 The washing machine has changed the world more than the internet has

Thing 5 Assume the worse about people and you get the worst

Thing 6 Greater macroeconomic stability has not made the world economy more stable

Thing 7 Free-market policies rarely make poor countries rich

Thing 8 Capital has a nationality

Thing 9 We do not live in a post-industrial world

Thing 10 The US does not have the highest living standard in the world

Thing 11 Africa is not destined for underdevelopment

Thing 12 Governments can pick winners

Thing 13 Making rich people richer doesn’t make the rest of us richer

Thing 14 US managers are over-priced

Thing 15 People in poor countries are more entrepreneurial than people in rich countries

Thing 16 We are not smart enough to leave things to the market

Thing 17 More education in itself is not going to make a country richer

Thing 18 What is good for General Motors is not necessarily good for the United States

Thing 19 Despite the fall of communism, we are still living in planned economies

Thing 20 Equality of Opportunity may not be fair

Thing 21 Big Government makes people more open to change

Thing 22 Financial markets need to become less, not more, efficient

Thing 23 Good economic policy does not require good economists

Fukuyama Origins of Political Order European Model Better Form of Democracy

Tags: Fukuyama Origins Political Order Governments Power Control China Europe USA Not Democracy Catholic Church Responsible for Killing Nepotism via Celibacy Policy Bishops Priests Reducing Corruption European Model Now Provides More Upward Mobility than USA Are We Becoming Mimics of China with Corporations Now in Power?

As I mentioned in the past a number of times, I try to read every spectrum of serious political thought because each provides information that helps me understand why others think differently than I do now and helps me formulate my current thoughts and actions.

Nicholas Wade, March 7, 2011, the head of the Science Section of the NY Times, has written a particular good review of Francis Fukuyama’s book. His latest book which I have just downloaded for my Kindle, The Origins of Political Order, after his talk at Politics & Prose Book Store on C-Span 2. Marvelous! When I heard his talk at UCLA on his book about biotechnology and his statement that perhaps we should not try to find a way to prolong our lives forever, I became an instant fan spite of his radical view of politics. Since that period he said he has evolved after a few years as a professor at John Hopkins which tends to error on the side of conservative thought. Fukuyama is now at Stanford as a research fellow.

Unlike many neocons educated at Harvard under Huntington, I saw that he had a flexible mind, and has since evolved into a better thinker than he was in the past. Zakaria was also educated under Huntington at Harvard. Keep that in mind when you listen to what he thinks. http://www.booktv.org/search.aspx?For=Fukuyama It is not on video. It will be aired next Saturday.

Francis Fukuyama Origins of Political Order European Model Better Form of Democracy, NY Times, Nicolas Wade, March 7, 2011, ... Dr. Fukuyama, a political scientist, is concerned mostly with the cultural, not biological, aspects of human society. But he explicitly assumes that human social nature is universal and is built around certain evolved behaviors like favoring relatives, reciprocal altruism, creating and following rules, and a propensity for warfare.

Because of this shared human nature, with its biological foundation, “human politics is subject to certain recurring patterns of behavior across time and across cultures,” he writes. It is these worldwide patterns he seeks to describe in an analysis that stretches from prehistoric times to the French Revolution.

Previous attempts to write grand analyses of human development have tended to focus on a single causal explanation, like economics or warfare, or, as with Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs and Steel,” on geography. Dr. Fukuyama’s is unusual in that he considers several factors, including warfare, religion, and in particular human social behaviors like favoring kin.

Few people have yet read the book, but it has created a considerable stir in universities where he has talked about it. “You have to be bowled over by the extraordinary breadth of approach,” said Arthur Melzer, a political scientist at Michigan State University who invited Dr. Fukuyama to give lectures on the book. “It’s definitely a magnum opus.”

Dr. Melzer praised Dr. Fukuyama’s view that societies develop politically in several different ways, followed by selection of the more successful, rather than marching along a single road to political development. “It’s the kind of theory situated between the hyper-theory of Marx or Hegel and the thick description that certain anthropologists and historians aim at,” he said.

Georg Sorensen, a political scientist at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, also called the book a magnum opus, saying that it provides “a new foundation for understanding political development.” It is neither Eurocentric nor monocausal, but provides a complex, multifactor explanation of political development, Dr. Sorensen said. “In terms of discussing political order this will be a new classic,” he said. … http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/science/08fukuyama.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&hpw

Jim Kawakami, May 7, 2011, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

Financial Crisis More than Finance, Staggering Lack of Knowledge by Investors

Tags: Financial Crisis Crucial Facts Hidden from Investors Deregulation Greenspan Ideology 20 Years of Dismantling Safeguards for Investors

Financial Crisis More than Finance, Staggering Lack of Knowledge by Investors

Lies and deceptions by Wall Street Bankers and everyone else in the Financial chain has led to the phenomena of no one trusting anyone else which has essentially stunted long term investments and any loans by many banks. As David Brooks explained why all the brains including himself could not save Russia form its financial crisis and may have actually caused it was due to a lack of trust and information which led to oligarchs to stealing Russia blind of perhaps trillions of dollars sent overseas. In any top down dictatorial system as in the Soviet Union, no independent financial system and its safeguards were developed. Such is the case in China now.

European stocks may be a safer place to bet on the Emerging Markets because they are heavily involved there in a more balanced manner than here.

In the last 20-30 years, these safeguard systems were systematically dismantled in the USA and Europe, especially when President Clinton in the mist of the sex scandals, signed the Republican bills in 1999 and 2000 and specific policies instituted by Bush and lobbying by Paulson of Goldman Sachs and a friendly SEC run by people who hated regulations. The same Paulson as Secretary of Treasury under Bush decided to ignore congress and use to $700 Billion to enrich the banks instead of getting rid of the derivatives which the banks still hold secretly. No one really knows how much each bank has.

So the Federal Reserve printing machine provided unlimited amounts of money for the top banks and wealthy patrons. Yes, they made up all their loses and more!

How about the rest of us? We all have uncertain futures and have no idea whether another financial collapse will occur and when it will occur.

Even a wide majority American bankers did not know the extent these derivatives on derivatives were spread throughout the world financial system without accountability. Only Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase Banks knew!

Both the Clinton administration and especially the Bush Administration with considerable leadership or lack thereof of Alan Greenspan whose Ayn Rand Ideology was so deeply ingrained that given the facts as early as 2001 showed his ideology was wrong and the financial markets must have strong rules to keep it on an even keel. Especially allowing financial institutions and corporations to hide what they were actually doing led to the Enron, and other collapses. Even with that Greenspan's ideology prevented him from acting.

It takes someone with credentials to say something that most investors with common sense figured out a long time ago. Keeping secrets whether by governments or corporations or Wall Street bankers is not the way to go to maintain stability in society or the financial markets.

Sure most of us knew something will go wrong, but i had no idea that these unreported secret derivatives where spread all over the world, but especially in America and Europe. We are still seeing the ramifications in Iceland, Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain, and who knows where else.

Hernando de Soto argues for much stronger regulation that cannot be easily changed from administration to administration.

So far not much has said about President Obama very risky move to kill Bin Laden and getting computer information about Al Qaeda operation, and verifying that Bin Laden was indeed dead. Terrorists often have explosives on their body so when Bin Laden ran toward them although apparently unarmed, he had to be killed to prevent him from activating a possible bomb.

The media does not talk about the whole implications of this brave decision by Obama on his public perception by more conservative voters based on what happened to President Carter and Clinton when helicopter raids became disastrous in rescuing hostages and the Black Hawk Down incident respectively.

The White men who invariably favor Republicans in every election were concerned whether Obama had the cajones to do to brave things. Obama's political compromises made him look weak. If he continues to do bold things, he will perhaps allow the Democrats to take back the House and gain in the Senate in spite of the Republican unlimited corporate and billionaire secret donations in 2012 to saturate the political ads on television.

Obama will not be able raise close to what the Republicans can raise, but it has to be enough so he is not shut out of the television necessary market. Remember both the House and Senate are needed for Obama to be effective, but even a majority does not guarantee success because of rules of the Senate force compromise because even one senator can stop or delay legislation.

Jim Kawakami, May 4, 2011, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

Financial Crisis Wall Street Crucial Facts Hidden to Investors Needed To Access Risk, Bloomberg Business Week, April 28, 2011, http://www.businessweek.com Renounced Economist Hernando de Soto, What was Missing, http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_19/b4227060634112.htm

During the second half of the 19th century, the world's biggest economies endured a series of brutal recessions. At the time, most forms of reliable economic knowledge were organized within feudal, patrimonial, and tribal relationships. If you wanted to know who owned land or owed a debt, it was a fact recorded locally—and most likely shielded from outsiders. At the same time, the world was expanding. Travel between cities and countries became more common and global trade increased. The result was a huge rift between the old, fragmented social order and the needs of a rising, globalizing market economy.

To prevent the breakdown of industrial and commercial progress, hundreds of creative reformers concluded that the world needed a shared set of facts. Knowledge had to be gathered, organized, standardized, recorded, continually updated, and easily accessible—so that all players in the world's widening markets could, in the words of France's free-banking champion Charles Coquelin, "pick up the thousands of filaments that businesses are creating between themselves."

The result was the invention of the first massive "public memory systems" to record and classify—in rule-bound, certified, and publicly accessible registries, titles, balance sheets, and statements of account—all the relevant knowledge available, whether intangible (stocks, commercial paper, deeds, ledgers, contracts, patents, companies, and promissory notes), or tangible (land, buildings, boats, machines, etc.). Knowing who owned and owed, and fixing that information in public records, made it possible for investors to infer value, take risks, and track results. The final product was a revolutionary form of knowledge: "economic facts."

Over the past 20 years, Americans and Europeans have quietly gone about destroying these facts. The very systems that could have provided markets and governments with the means to understand the global financial crisis—and to prevent another one—are being eroded. Governments have allowed shadow markets to develop and reach a size beyond comprehension. Mortgages have been granted and recorded with such inattention that homeowners and banks often don't know and can't prove who owns their homes. In a few short decades the West undercut 150 years of legal reforms that made the global economy possible.

The results are hardly surprising. In the U.S., trust has broken down between banks and subprime mortgage holders; between foreclosing agents and courts; between banks and their investors—even between banks and other banks. Overall, credit (from the Latin for "trust") continues to flow steadily, but closer examination shows that nongovernment credit has contracted. Private lending has dropped 21 percent since 2007. Outstanding loans to small businesses dropped more than 6 percent over the past year, while lending to large businesses, measured in commercial loans of more than $1 million, fell nearly 9 percent. ... For 8 page article, link at top of article.

Sunscreen Oxybenzone Melanoma Statins Your Brain Antioxidants Meat Cancer

Tags: Cancer Less Chinese Vegetarianism Film Antioxidants LDL Heart Disease Alzheimer's Fructose Aging Financial Crisis Climate Change Deniers Nuclear Scientists

Remember anything you do inside your body in excess is likely harmful. That is why I never believed all the myths about antioxidants increasing our lifespans when used in excess. Monkey studies show that supplements, except for vitamin D3, does not improve the health or life of these closely related mammals at the Oregon and Wisconsin Primate study research labs.

We need low density lipoproteins to build cell walls and replace neurons in our brain and likely needed for other brain chemicals inhibited by Statins. Even vitamin D3 produced from sun is based on cholesterol! I am sure many are suffering from dementia from statins, but most do not notice in the Republican Stupidity Century. Creativity has gone down twenty percent according to scientists appearing on Charlie Rose. www.charlierose.com

Excess consumption of all sugars, but especially the widely used high fructose corn syrup in almost all our prepared foods to enhance the flavor of tasteless genetically modified corn and soybeans made in depleted soils. These same type of products are used to feed cows, cattle, pigs, and chickens which are also fed cow waste products. Sugars also accelerates aging by a crosslinking process which also is the same process that alcohol and all sugars have in the cirrhosis of the liver. Alcohol is really a sugar product and acts in a similar manner.

Alcohol can also help our health by reducing the stress encountered in our competitive and frustrating lives which does not reward accomplishments except at the top. Stress produces cortisone type products which is not good for our health in excess.

Although rarely discussed, cows fed milk enhancing hormones caused cows to always be hungry so they were even fed cardboard! Because this type of milk has a hormone similar to growth hormone in mother's baby milk, it may have caused an increase in breast cancer in adults. Now Monsanto is trying to get the FDA to approve GMO breast milk!

Doctor Oz www.doctoroz.com reported on a new film made in China where they looked at Chinese who rarely get cancer because they eat a vegetarian diet. What they found is that meat, chicken, and fish protein caused cancer in people to grow and when eliminated the cancer retreated. The current treatment for cancer is to get as much protein as possible into our cancer patients!

This explains why a physician at the University of Pennsylvania had terminal prostate cancer with cancer already spread to his bones and brain survived by going on a diet avoiding proteins from meat, chicken, and fish. He was dying according to his doctors. One day he got a ride from a young man who told him about a Japanese Diet called Macrobiotics run by a Japanese who the doctor spoke to. He was ordered to stop all proteins from non-vegetable sources. He had trouble eating the food he cooked, so he had volunteers from the Macrobiotic institute cook for him.

His prostate cancer started to recede fairly quickly and in about 3 months he was pain free and in one year they could detect no cancer. Three years later I read his book which was quite convincing, so I stopped eating big steaks. This was 20-25 years ago. I have been almost completely vegetarian except for dairy products the last seven years which really improved my health.

The Dr. Oz film makers said even dairy is bad for us! I drink Costco 1 percent organic milk to keep my uric acid level down which increases my blood pressure and inflames my blood vessels which can increase heart disease due to plaque deposition!

I need to examine how they did their work to see if the effects are real. It is really hard to get the real truth from people in such studies. They tell the researchers what they want to hear often about their diet. It is hard to do a double or triple blind study. Many times other factors may invalidate their results. However, based on my own experience, it sounds reasonable.

Dr. Oz got a group from the audience who tried a vegetarian diet. Some quit the first day and only a few lasted one week. One woman seemed to like the taste lost weight for the first time without being hungry. First step to weight loss. Change your diet, but never go hungry.

My philosophy is that meals are increasingly becoming one of the few sources of pleasure in our corrupt society and people so like most people, when my life depended on it, I changed. I now really enjoy the taste of organic vegetables which are not grown in depleted soil.

I could not watch the show on the Corrupt Popes on Showtime even though it is well done because they were the original Mafia, but without moral restraints. I have not watched one Godfather or related movies.

Sunscreen Oxybenzone

Oxybenzone or benzophenone can block the longer wavelength UVA so even though it has been in sunscreens for a long time, it has been given permission to claim UVA protection. However, it does not protect the lower more powerful UVA skin penetrating radiation from the sun. It has long been thought to cause cancer and only recently have the establishment start to make the case for it.

Similar sounding names such as Avobenzone are apparently safe.

But as I said before the safety issues in many sunscreens are actually not known for long-term effects such as with the newer nano (ultra-microscopic) particles of titanium oxide TiO2 and Zinc Oxide. So when you use the spray on you face, put it on your hands then apply to your face. Breathing when spraying is hazardous and preferably done outdoors.

I have a friend who lives in Miami that had cataracts in both eyes. I was fairly sure that the plastic used in contact lens for a long time does not have good UVA protection compared to polycarbonate used in plastic lens for regular glasses.

If you drive without sunscreen or sunscreens without UVA protection, glass is transparent to UVA and American drivers who drive on the left get melanoma on the left side of the body while Europeans get it on the right. You get tans from UVA even on cloudy days in the summer. The water in clouds absorbs UVB and infrared rays from the sun so we feel cooler.

For white skin in summer high sun, you make 1,000 IU of vitamin D3 per minute. This happens in the summer in Sweden. Dark skin people take 6 minutes to make the same amount. So if we make as much as ten thousand IU of vitamin D3 in ten minutes, why did God or mother nature evolution do this if we did not need lots of vitamin D3?

Dark Somalis in Sweden and Minnesota have a high rate of Autism. Babies from affluent and wealthy families also have a high rate of Autism. Young women from affluent and wealthy families also have a high rate of melanoma too. Make you own decision on whether vitamin D3 is necessary or not.

Do you believe some Dermatologists connected with Big Pharma or do you believe the scientists who are not connected with Big Pharma who make sunscreens? If I knew that UVA caused melanoma in the 1980s, why have all the compromised experts said it does not? Why is Big Pharma so concerned about vitamin D3? It will eliminate the huge osteoporosis business with bone making drugs which I am sure they know will result in the fracture of the spine, hip, or femur because no bone is replaced. It stops bone replacement! It just keeps adding bone! So any defects in our bones is not fixed from all the stresses our bones naturally encounter in daily activities.

Since we are all highly concerned about our looks, using sunscreen with UVB and UVA protection for you face, ears, and neck and beautiful or masculine hats are wise. Although not usually recommended, hands reflect age so why not use it there too. Expose the other parts of your body as much as you can without burn to get enough vitamin D3 from the sun and supplement it with vitamin D3 pills which are now available up to 5,000 IU per pill.

My Springfield, OR Peace Health hospital in its newspaper ads put 45 nanograms/ml as the appropriate level in our blood. That level helps prevent cancer in senior according to a recent study done by the University of California, San Diego on several thousand seniors in Texas. Even there most were deficient in 25 hydroxy vitamin D metabolite. Seniors cannot make as much in the sun, possibly because they are taking statins. Only those in the sun during the day while working had adequate levels to prevent cancer.

As I told a close friend years ago Statins which slow cholesterol formation in the liver which are needed for both your body and your brain, it is best to keep it low dose and use diet to lower your cholesterol levels. The HDL/Triglyceride ratio is a better estimate of your heart and brain health. Triglycerides from sugar, especially high fructose Corn Syrup in all prepared foods. The triglycerides give us low density lipoproteins and the very deadly very low density lipoproteins. Unlike the experts, I have concluded that both early and late onset Alzheimer's is due the same forces causing heart disease. Recent studies seem to start to agree with what I think.

I plan to write about how a small group of ideological famous nuclear physicists who muddied up the Climate Change fact by causing doubt. Most Americans do not know that science does not give us God given power over the truth. All scientists can do is with the evidence available, this is what we think. Science is not absolute, but very useful. Proof is never absolute. That is why scientists tend to talk in a wishy washy manner while the doubters such as Lundberg talk with confidence. His book makes comments that come from the opinion pages and not science.

Remember whenever anyone talks very well such as good salespersons, I put up my skeptic antenna even with Harvard scientists. There is no correlation with gift of gab and believability. The latter contradicted the Minnesota study about Oats lowering cholesterol. The Minnesota study was done much better so I agreed with it. The Harvard study was later retracted. Yes, crooks reside at Harvard too! The financial crisis heavily involved economists at Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Chicago. They largely refused to answer questions by the producer of the documentary such as Feldstein at Harvard. Inside Job! It is a marvelous film you can get at Netflix.

Even the Newton gravity theory and mathematics helped a lot. His theory about the movement of the planets, however, was flawed. Einstein came along centuries later and proved that he was wrong! Without Einstein we could not have explored space.

These corporate/military scientists were also involved in mudding up and created doubt about the toxicity of tobacco.

Even though I have talked about this a number of times, your responses indicate that most of you do not understand how science works. I will try to clear that up in the near future.

I tend to be too verbose so you good writers out there are welcome to offer me suggestions on how i could improve my communication skills. As a scientist I had to be verbose to cover all angles which I know is too much for almost all of you.

Just like what these same guys did to kill millions of Americans and people around the world when they stopped the regulation of tobacco for decades, they are now doing the same to our country and states which will experience unpredictable increasing floods, violent storms, snow, and droughts. Rare storms such as tornadoes are becoming much more common as we saw in the tragic deaths in Alabama. Instead of flying overhead only that Bush did after Katrina, President Obama showed his humanity by going and talking and hugging Alabamans who lost everything and gave them hope even though they did not vote for him.

If any of you have studied climate models, you would know the earth is one system and even very small changes in ocean temperature will greatly change the jet streams, currents, and moisture in the air because so much of earth is made up of ocean waters. So the oceans in Southeast Asia gave our East Coast warmer waters which sucked in the Arctic cold winds and dropped rain and snow. There were a number of explanations, but I found this one the most accurate unlike some of the reports in the opinion page of the New York Times.

For example, when the currents are warm adjacent to the Galapagos Islands off Ecuador, their is drought because of the wind patterns and when the currents are cool, sea life become abundant again, and there is plenty of rain. That is why there is a huge variation in the the population of small beak birds verses long beak ones. One thrives in raining seasons when vegetation and food is greatly available and the other when food is scarce. You can guess which.

How does consensus come about in science. Naomi Oreskes, University of California, San Diego, Provost, Ph.D. Geology, Professor History of Science.

http://climateprogress.org/2010/03/07/naomi-oreskes-book-talk-merchants-of-doubt-how-a-handful-of-scientists-obscure-the-truth-about-climate-change/

The book catalog explains:

The U.S. scientific community has long led the world in research on such areas as public health, environmental science, and issues affecting quality of life. Our scientists have produced landmark studies on the dangers of DDT, tobacco smoke, acid rain, and global warming. But at the same time, a small yet potent subset of this community leads the world in vehement denial of these dangers.

Merchants of Doubt tells the story of how a loose-knit group of high-level scientists and scientific advisers, with deep connections in politics and industry, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades. Remarkably, the same individuals surface repeatedly—some of the same figures who have claimed that the science of global warming is “not settled” denied the truth of studies linking smoking to lung cancer, coal smoke to acid rain, and CFCs to the ozone hole. “Doubt is our product,” wrote one tobacco executive. These “experts” supplied it. ...

Jim Kawakami, May 2, 2011, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

Issue: November 2007

UV - BLOCKING CONTACT LENSES

A Closer Look at UV-Blocking Contact Lenses

Clinicians discuss the different levels of UV protection, the need to create demand for UV-blocking lenses and how to identify the best candidates.

Dr. Cohen: Because doctors commonly prescribe eyeglasses that have built-in ultraviolet (UV) light protection, one would think they'd do the same when it comes to contact lenses. Why is this not the case?

LENS DIFFERENCES

Dr. Nichols: Most ophthalmic and optical materials used for eyeglasses offer significant protection against UV radiation. CR39 has a cut-off at 350 nanometers, completely protecting against UVB and, to some extent, UVA rays.¹ Polycarbonate completely protects the patient from all UV radiation, regardless of whether a tint is used. Contact lenses are different. Some offer little to no UV-radiation protection, while others provide adequate additional protection as a supplement/compliment to sunglasses. Contact lenses that offer protection are labeled as Class 1 and Class 2. The different classes indicate the level of UV protection. However, only three lenses are Class 1 (ACUVUE^® OASYS™, ACUVUE^® ADVANCE™ and ACUVUE^®ADVANCE™ for ASTIGMATISM), and only a handful of others are Class 2. Class 1 lenses block 96% of UVA rays and 100% of UVB rays. Class 2 lenses block 70% of UVA and 95% of UVB radiation. ... http://www.clspectrum.com/article.aspx?article=101123