Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Sunday 26 May 2013


Daily Headlines

Nonetheless, I WILL be in that number when millions gather this Saturday to STAND UP to Monsanto, and STAND FOR life, nature, and the heart and soul of who we are. To put it bluntly, Monsanto -- in its perverse desire to own and control all the seeds in the world -- is a true evil force that seeks to impose the heartless values of the machine on humanity and nature.

By William Boardman
Endless War Is a Real Scandal
The United States has been in a permanent state of war ever since. And on May 16, 2013, the Obama Administration's Pentagon officials testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that they expected this permanent state of war to last another 10 to 20 years.

The blatant crimes of western governments can only be explained in terms of psychopathic behaviour by the leaders of western governments.

The global March Against Monsanto happens tomorrow! Nearly 300 cities will host what's sure to be hundreds of thousands of protesters and activists around the globe who are taking a stand against Monsanto and GMOs. YOU can join in the activities, too!

When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, he inherited a war machine President George W. Bush had assembled in response to attacks on this nation on September 11, 2001. It was a machine barreling down history's highway powered by fear, patriotism, revenge, and a genuine need to protect the American people. It was not a machine easily slowed down nor turned around.

By Kathy Malloy
Memorial Speech
But the speech may well mark a pivot point. Not shockingly, Obama is attempting to find middle ground, where there is more oversight and more restraint regarding activities that pose serious civil liberties and policy challenges. The McCainiacs of the world are likely to howl about any effort to place the effort to counter terrorism into a more balanced perspective.

It's not entirely coincidental that the Obama Administration never put tough conditions on banks receiving bailout money, never prosecuted a single top Wall Street executive for the excesses that led to the near meltdown, and still refuses to support a tiny tax on financial transactions that would bring in tens of billions of dollars as well as discourage program trading.

While one in three women in the military are raped by fellow servicemen during their service, many civilian women living near US military bases in the United States and in other countries are also raped by US military personnel. This case gives hope for those living in other countries who have never been able to hold the rapist accountable because he has been able to leave the country.

Angelina Jolie, when writing about her preventive double mastectomy, did not discuss how much her surgeries cost, but she did mention that many women would not be able to afford the $3,000 to $4,000 test that led her to make the decision. What she failed to say was why the test costs so much. The reason the test is so expensive is this: In 1998 Myriad Genetics patented two genes: BRCA1 and BRCA2. With its exclusive rights, Myriad developed a test for mutations on those genes trademarked "BRACAnalysis." Because it essentially owns the genes, Myriad is the only company that can conduct the test, so it sets the price.

By Don Ardell, Ph.D.
Pat Robertson's Marital Advice: Pretty Bad But Consider How Surprising That It Was Not So Much Worse
What advice would you offer a woman, someone you don't know, who on the phone asks, ""I've been trying to forgive my husband for cheating on me. We have gone to counseling, but I just can't seem to forgive, nor can I trust. How do you let go of the anger? How do you trust again? God says to forgive, but it's been so hard to do. I want to forgive, so we can get on with our lives."
By Barry Graham
Racism and Classism in the Argument for Fluoridation in Portland's Water
Why Portland, Oregon's campaign for water fluoridation is racist and classist
19-year-old Boyan Slat has unveiled plans to create an Ocean Cleanup Array that could remove 7,250,000 tons of plastic waste from the world's oceans. The device consists of an anchored network of floating booms and processing platforms that could be dispatched to garbage patches around the world. Instead of moving through the ocean, the array would span the radius of a garbage patch, acting as a giant funnel. The angle of the booms would force plastic in the direction of the platforms, where it would be separated from plankton, filtered and stored for recycling.

t is worth noting two things at this point. The first is that the FDA has never approved the use of fluoride as a medical treatment (though it has approved the use of fluoride in bottled water). The second is that fluoride is considered a deadly poison by the CDC. If you swallow even a little more than used for brushing it is suggested you contact a Poison Control Center for help. As an addendum to the latter point it is medically recognized that the area under the tongue is one of the most absorbent areas in the human body (see the application of nitroglycerin for heart attack victims). Fluoride poisoning is especially dangerous in children, leading to decreased IQ, weak bones, poor gastrointestinal function, impaired kidney function, and much more. Read more on water fluoridation and what you can do about it here.

Has the mainstream media, in a very hectic week, overlooked the Robin Hood Tax story?

GOP Congressman Stephen Fincher is on a mission from God. He wants to drastically cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, otherwise known as food stamps, for 47 million of our poorest citizens. He supports a rider on the farm bill that would effectively eliminate 2 million people from the program

By Michelle Devlin
Canada's indigenous peoples join forces, call all Canadians to join 'Solidarity Spring'
Article addresses the rise of the Idle No More movement, it's union with Defenders of the Land, and the call out to all Canadian people by the indigenous First Nations to stand up to the corporate agenda of the Conservative Harper government's assault upon the environment, with Omnibus Bill C-45 which removes environmental protections from almost all of Canada's freshwater lakes
By Franklin Lamb
Why Washington and Tel Aviv Want Hezbollah to Keep Fighting in al-Qusayr
The dangers for Hezbollah are obvious - that it may be drawn ever deeper into a bottomless pit of conflict in Syria that could leave it severely depleted and prey to a hoped for death-blow from Israel.
Our "Hope and Change" guy and the rest of Congress are behaving like a bunch of spoiled aging children playing stupid one-upmanship "gotcha" games with each other instead of doing anything useful. We cruised past the Carbon Dioxide 400 parts per million threshold on May 13. If we continue with business as usual, we will cross the 450 parts per million limit in a couple of decades.

With the Supreme Court about to hear a landmark case on gene patents, Myriad Genetics, the company that owns the patents under scrutiny, is going on the offensive. Thanks to these patents, you can't look at these genes in your own body without paying a fee to Myriad.

Obama gave what the pundits are calling one of his major speeches. And one of America's leading activists interrupted it brilliantly.

Code-Pink founder, Medea Benjamin, took President Barack Obama head-on during a major foreign policy speech the president was giving Thursday on drone policy and related issues. Benjamin demanded that the president close the Guantanamo Bay prison immediately.

Regarding the President's speech yesterday on counterterrorism at the National Defense University; will his rhetoric be of substance & conform to the actual policy and actions he takes? Otherwise it will be just empty hot air. Based on the history of actual policy and actions taken by this president extreme skepticism is in order whether his speech will be anything more than rhetoric.

By earl ofari hutchinson
Why President Obama is the Most Heckled President
Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin's repeated and drug out heckling of President Obama during his drone policy speech is simply the latest in a disgusting and damaging repeat act that has become almost ritual.


Latest Articles

Best News Links from the Web
President Obama should spend his remaining years in office making the United States part of the solution to climate change, not part of the problem. If Congress sticks to its policy of obstruction and willful ignorance, Obama should use his executive powers to the fullest extent. We are out of time. Obama can direct government agencies, including the military, to use more renewable energy. He can direct the EPA to regulate emissions of methane, an even more powerful greenhouse gas. He can continue to fund research into solar energy, despite criticism from Congress. Obama will have to go it alone. Addressing climate change cannot be just a duty. It has to be his mission.

Yesterday Terry McAuliffe, Virginia's Democratic gubernatorial candidate, revealed newfound support for oil and gas exploration off the Commonwealth's coast. The Washington Post reported that he now backs legislation sponsored by Virginia's Democratic U.S. Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine that would open offshore areas to oil and gas exploration. Unfortunately, Congress has so far failed to pass any reforms to reduce the risk of spills or blowouts, meaning the few regulatory reforms made by the Department of the Interior to improve offshore drilling safety in the aftermath of the Gulf spill could be rolled back by a future administration.

The amendment was voted down 71 to 27. Some of the Democratic senators who voted against it included Sherrod Brown, Al Franken, Carl Levin, Amy Klobuchar, Kirsten GIllibrand and Elizabeth Warren.

Beating the entertainment industry in the message control race, Wikileaks leaked the transcript of the new documentary, "We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks," one night ahead of its worldwide release. The leaked transcript includes annotations that allege factual errors, misrepresentations and misguided framing in the film, directed by Academy Award winner Alex Gibney.

Trigger Warning: Examples of Gender Based Hate-Speech on Facebook
It's hard to make clear the outrageousness of Facebook's current policy on such photos, without sharing some of them. This, of course, comes with its own problems. However, that is why the phrase "trigger warning" is used.
Obama's speech Thursday on counterterrorism policies--which follows his administration's acknowledgment yesterday that it had killed four Americans (including Anwar al-Awlaki, an Al Qaeda leader in Yemen)--is a big deal, for with this address, Obama is self-restricting his use of drones and shifting control of them from the CIA to the military. And the president has approved making public the rules governing drone strikes.

More than 99% of women do not have the BRCA1 mutation. Patients with severe abnormalities stand to gain more from intervention than patients with mild ones. Patients with mild abnormalities are more likely to experience net harm from intervention, simply because they have less opportunity to benefit. The good news about Angelina's oped is: This story is not relevant to more than 99% of American women.
Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 08:31