George Merritt, reporting for The Associated Press, writes: "With the presidential race in full swing, Colorado and other states have found critical flaws in the accuracy and security of their electronic voting machines, forcing officials to scramble to return to the paper ballots they abandoned after the Florida debacle of 2000. In December alone, top election officials in Ohio and Colorado declared that widely used voting equipment is unfit for elections."
Truthout's Environmental Editor Kelpie Wilson describes how a small town in the state of Oregon, desperate to raise much needed funding is "casting their lot with the Bush administration by supporting what locals call 'the Whopper.' The 'Whopper' goes back to 2003, when the Bush administration decided not to fight a timber industry case against the Northwest Forest Plan. Even though the timber industry's case was seen as weak and headed for defeat in court, the federal government settled it by agreeing to a new forest plan for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands in Oregon. The new plan is called the Western Oregon Plan Revisions (WOPR), aka, 'the Whopper.'"
Cultural Dwarfs and Junk Journalism is yet another book triumph for award winning investigative writer Martin J Walker. Nowhere are Goldacre's sock puppet bad science morés more clearly displayed than in his close professional association with psychiatrist Professor Simon Wessely. Dr Charles Shepherd of the moribund ME Association charity quackbuster eviscerated. The Guardian UK national newspaper that has deliberately attempted to suppress the ethics and morality of science on a substantial scale to be held directly accountable for the Dr Ben Goldacre fiasco.
Free e-book launched exploring anti-nutritional lobby groups
Have you ever wondered why there is so much opposition to nutritional approaches for today's major health issues? Is it really because the science is weak, or is it more to do with politics and money? I was fascinated to read the free e-book, published this month on the internet, by Martin Walker entitled Cultural Dwarfs and Junk Journalism - Ben Goldacre, Quackbusting and Corporate Science. It explores the associations Guardian columnist Ben Goldacre, and other 'quackbusters' have with an organised anti-nutritional medicine agenda and organisations funded by the pharmaceutical industry.
Those familiar with Ben Goldacre's inability to expose the 'bad science' of drugs and antipathy towards nutritional medicine will not be surprised. Martin Walker, author of Dirty Medicine and Brave New World of Zero Risk, looks at the quackbusting work of Ben Goldacre and others, placing them in the context of the global lobby groups that support the chemical, pharmaceutical, medical and processed food industries. It's an intriguing read. For the first time Walker's work focuses on this lobby's attacks on independent nutritionists, including myself, and traces the history of quackbuster campaigns against vitamin and food supplements.
Walker is giving away this publication as an e-book, in the hope that it will help people organise in defence of nutritional medicine. Like all of Walker's work it is an erudite and detailed read that will certainly enlighten you to the darker side of those organising against non-pharmaceutically based medicine in general, and nutritional medicine in particular.
The e-book can be downloaded for free from https://www.slingshotpublications.com and Walker hopes that many will place it on their web sites to be accessed and downloaded.
I hope you do take the time to read this and let others know about it because literally tens of thousands of people die every year from prescription drugs when better alternatives already exist and millions more suffer unnecessarily and die prematurely from ignorance, some scared off from trying effective, safe, nutritional approaches by individuals like Ben Goldacre and his fellow quackbusters.
If this makes you angry do something about it - let others know about this book and, if you're concerned with the Guardian's one-sided view on medicine why not write to the editor of the Guardian at home@guardian.co.uk. Here's my letter. https://www.patrickholford.com/content.asp?id_Content=2183
You can also see excerpts of the book at https://www.holfordmyths.com , our new site for countering false allegations. Martin J. Walker, Cultural Dwarfs and Junk Journalism: Ben Goldacre, quackbusting and corporate science. Slingshot Publications. January 2008. Available free from https://www.slingshotpublications.com
Quackbusting and WiFi
Long article by Martin Walker on UK media and corporate propaganda. Phone masts and WiFi are included.
McClatchy Newspapers' Saeed Shah reports that on the "day she was assassinated, last Thursday, Benazir Bhutto had planned to reveal new evidence alleging the involvement of Pakistan's intelligence agencies in rigging the country's upcoming elections, an aide said Monday."
from Reason to Freedom
by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster
12/27/07
Future historians will debate the point. Historians being what they are there will doubtless be as many opinions as there are historians. ‘If the Ron Paul Campaign had been competent would we still have taken back America?’ They may hold conferences to consider the points, assay the individuals involved; there will be no disagreement that it was through the candidacy of Ron Paul that the world of political campaigns changed forever, moving into networking, as opposed to hierarchy; The real question will be the motives of those in charge of the official campaign. That is natural; the Ron Paul Campaign overturned that political hierarchy first...
According to The Associated Press, "Rogue loggers have long preyed on private properties from coast to coast, taking advantage of the elderly and the absent. And they traditionally had little to fear from law enforcement officials hesitant to pursue criminal charges, instead chalking up most complaints to property disputes. But as timber values have risen, so have the stakes for landowners - and the attitude of law enforcement is adjusting."
Noaki Schwartz, The Associated Press, reports: "California is defined by its scenery, from the mountains that enchanted John Muir to the wine country and beaches that define its culture around the world."
U.S. stocks fell and were poised for their first fourth-quarter decline since 2000 after government reports on durable goods and unemployment reinforced speculation the housing-market collapse will push the economy into recession.
Private schmooze sessions such as the gathering in Utah pose a particular dilemma for McCain, who has spent a long career decrying "special interests" and politicians who offer special access to them in order to raise money.
It must be a candidate for the worst job in Iraq. It falls to Baghdad's street sweepers, who use their bare hands, to pick up the fingertips and scraps of flesh spattered around every bomb site in the Iraqi capital. They do it without gloves, in all but the coldest weeks of winter.
We are today so ensnared in the process of selling and buying things in the market place, that we cannot imagine human life being otherwise. Even our notion of well-being and of despair are wedded to the flow and ebb of the markets. Why is this so much a part of our lives?
In order to understand anything about American political affairs, it is necessary to have some understanding of who it is that really makes the decisions behind the scenes, and what their interests are. In this way we have some hope of identifying the hidden agendas being served by government actions and programs, and some hope of identifying the longer-term strategies that are in play.
The number of people hungry and homeless in US cities rose dramatically again in 2007, according to the annual report on hunger and homelessness from the US Conference of Mayors.
Putting the Justice Department on the job may head off calls for an independent counsel who could, potentially, pursue an investigation further up the political food chain than the White House might like. That might allow the Bush administration to throw a few intelligence agents to the wolves before the political season occupies everybody’s attention and the scandal over torture and destroyed tapes simply fades from the public consciousness. But will the CIA play ball?
The Republican War on...
https://info.commondreams.org/acton/ct/33231/s-0fbd-2106/Bct/q-003a/l-sf-lead-0014:208ed/ct13_0/1/lu?sid=TV2%3ALcjACotbo
rudkla - 12. Jun, 05:44
With FBI Reportedly Investigating...
https://info.commondreams.org/acton/ct/33231/s-0fa0-2106/Bct/q-003a/l-sf-lead-0014:208ed/ct10_0/1/lu?sid=TV2%3AsishW7bVI
