Full Frontal Nudity Doesn’t Make Us Safer: Abolish the TSA
November 17th, 2010
Forbes.com
By: Art Carden
The Republicans control the House of Representatives and are bracing for a long battle over the President’s health care proposal. In the spirit of bipartisanship and sanity, I propose that the first thing on the chopping block should be an ineffective organization that wastes money, violates our rights, and encourages us to make decisions that imperil our safety. I’m talking about the Transportation Security Administration.
Bipartisan support should be immediate. For fiscal conservatives, it’s hard to come up with a more wasteful agency than the TSA. For privacy advocates, eliminating an organization that requires you to choose between a nude body scan or genital groping in order to board a plane should be a no-brainer.
But won’t that compromise safety? I doubt it. The airlines have enormous sums of money riding on passenger safety, and the notion that a government bureaucracy has better incentives to provide safe travels than airlines with billions of dollars worth of capital and goodwill on the line strains credibility. This might be beside the point: in 2003, William Anderson incisively argued that some of the steps that airlines (and passengers) would have needed to take to prevent the 9/11 disaster probably would have been illegal.
The odds of dying from a terrorist attack are much lower than the odds of dying from doing any of a number of incredibly mundane things we do every day. You are almost certainly more likely to die or be injured driving to the airport than you are to be injured by a terrorist once you’re in the air, even without a TSA. Indeed, once you have successfully made it to the airport, the most dangerous part of your trip is over. Until it’s time to drive home, that is.
Last week, I picked up a “TSA Customer Comment Card.” First, it’s important that we get one thing straight: I am not the TSA’s “customer.” The term “customer” denotes an honorable relationship in which I and a seller voluntarily trade value for value. There’s nothing voluntary about my relationship with the TSA.
A much more appropriate term for our relationship is “subject.” The TSA stands between me and those with whom I would like to trade, and I am not allowed to without their blessing.
Second, the TSA doesn’t provide security. It provides security theater, as Jeffrey Goldberg argues. The kid with the slushie in Tucson before the three-ounce-rule? The little girl in the princess costume at an airport I don’t remember? The countless grandmothers? I’m more likely to be killed tripping over my own two feet while I’m distracted by the lunacy of it all than I am to be killed by one of them in a terrorist attack. The moral cost of all this is considerable, as James Otteson and Bradley Birzer argue.
For even more theater of the absurd, consider that the TSA screens pilots. If a pilot wants to bring a plane down, he or she can probably do it with bare hands, and certainly without weapons. It’s also not entirely crazy to think that an airline will take measures to keep their pilots from turning their multi-million dollar planes into flying bombs. Through the index funds in my retirement portfolio, I’m pretty sure I own stock in at least one airline, and I’m pretty sure airline managers know that cutting corners on security isn’t in my best interests as a shareholder.
And the items being confiscated? Are nailclippers and aftershave the tools of terrorists? What about the plastic cup of water I was told to dispose of because “it could be acid” (I quote the TSA screener) in New Orleans before the three-ounce rule? What about the can of Coke I was relieved of after a flight from Copenhagen to Atlanta a few months ago? I would be more scared of someone giving a can of Coke to a child and contributing to the onset of juvenile diabetes than of using it to hide something that could compromise the safety of an aircraft.
And finally, most screening devices are ineffective because anyone who is serious about getting contraband on an airplane can smuggle it in a body cavity or a surgical implant. The scanners the TSA uses aren’t going to stop them.
Over the next few years, we’re headed for a bitter, partisan clash over legislative priorities. Before the battle starts, let’s reach for that low-hanging, bipartisan fruit. Let’s abolish the TSA.
Click here for the full report from Forbes
The TSA is Out of Control
The Kevin Trudeau Show: 11-16-10
Today, Kevin gives you the vital information that can help improve your health and fill your wallet!
Self Help:
Natural Cures
Uncontaminated Meat
The Fountain of Youth
Feed Your Brain
Water Filters For Every Budget
Keep Your Body Safe
Health:
Drug Vending Machines
FDA To Halt Avandia Safety Study
USDA Admits Meat Supply Routinely Contaminated
Study Shows Fluoride May Not Help Teeth At All
U.S. Water Supply Widely Contaminated by Weed Killer
Even Bayer Admits GMO Contamination Is Out Of Control
Artificial Sweeteners Alter How Body Handles Real Sugar
3-D TVs May Cause Health Problems
Man Dies After Medics Misses Disease 6 Times
Brain Games Do Nothing For The Brain
School Lunches Are A Threat To National Security
Government:
Arizona Voters Support Immigration Bill
NWO:
Brain Scan Can Read Your Thoughts
Everything Kevin:
Become An Insider!
Kevin is on YouTube!
Sign Up For Kevin’s FREE Podcast
Follow Kevin on Twitter
Become Kevin’s Friend on Facebook
Kevin’s Film Club
Kevin’s Book Club
Take Trudeau on the Go! Click here to download this show to your iPod, mp3 player, or PC through iTunes!
Click below to watch the Kevin Trudeau Show LIVE!
Blacks Have More Serious Cancer Due to Vitamin D Deficiency
November 15th, 2010
Natural News
By: David Gutierrez
Women of African ancestry are more likely to develop a more aggressive form of breast cancer known as “triple negative,” researchers have found, but the explanation for this correlation may have more to do with vitamin levels than with genetic predisposition.
Breast tumors may carry any combination of a variety of receptors, including estrogen receptors, progesterone receptors and HER-2/neu receptors. Because modern treatments have focused on targeting these three receptors, cancers that carry none of them — that are triple negative — are significantly harder to treat.
“Outcome disparities are therefore likely to increase, because fewer black women are candidates for these newer treatments,” said researcher Lisa A. Newman of the University of Michigan.
To conduct the study, which was published in the journal Cancer, researchers compared the types of breast cancer diagnosed in white and black women at the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit and African women at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Ghana. They found that while only 16 percent of white and 26 percent of black participants had triple negative cancer, the rate was 82 percent among African women.
The researchers immediately proposed a genetic explanation for their findings, suggesting that African ancestry predisposes women to develop triple negative breast cancers. As evidence, they cited studies showing that while breast cancer rates are lower among black women in the United States than among white women, black women tend to develop cancers at a younger age, and those cancers are more aggressive and more likely to be fatal.
The data may be interpreted another way, however. For example, a number of studies have identified traits including obesity, excess weight gain since childhood, failure to breastfeed after pregnancy and use of lactation suppressants as risk factors for basal-type breast cancers, of which triple negative cancers are a subcategory.
Meanwhile, cancer researcher Sarah Gehlert of the University of Chicago is conducting research into the effect community factors on breast cancer risk.
“Women who live in areas with … a lot of violent crime, and who live in unsafe housing, without a lot of community support … will be more likely to have sporadic mutations and will have [worse outcomes] with breast cancer,” Gehlert said.
If women in Ghana and black women in Michigan live in more stressful, toxic environments than white Michigan women, this could partially explain the study’s findings. Notably, Ghanian women in the study were also likely to develop cancer younger and to have larger, more advanced tumors. Similarly, a higher rate of triple negative cancer has also been found among Hispanic women in the United States, whose genetic ancestry is quite different than African American women.
One factor shared by black and Hispanic women is darker skin color and a corresponding predisposition to vitamin D deficiency.
“We produce vitamin D from UV sunlight, but melanin — which gives dark skin its color — blocks UV light,” said Dr Helen Cooper of Birmingham University.
Vitamin D helps to regulate the immune system and has been associated with a lower risk of certain cancers. Researchers believe this is why rates of cancer are so much lower closer to the equator, where the sun is strongest.
In addition to helping prevent cancers in general, vitamin D may also help reverse the course of breast cancer.
“There is some evidence that Vitamin D can help transform breast cancer cells into healthy cells,” writes Phyllis A. Balch in her book Prescription for Herbal Healing.
“Vitamin D supplements are not necessary; all that is needed for the body to manufacture adequate amounts of Vitamin D for fighting cancer is to expose your hands and face to sunlight for twenty minutes each day. Do not use sunscreen during this twenty-minute period, since sunblocks screen out the kind of ultraviolet light that stimulates the natural production of the vitamin.”
Click here for the full report from Natural News
Smiling Helps Prevent Aging, Wrinkles
November 15th, 2010
Natural News
By: Jonathan Benson
The old adage that it takes more muscle power to frown than to smile may finally be put to rest, at least in terms of how using those muscles affects the aging process. According to Heike Hoefler, a German fitness trainer, actively working facial muscles by smiling helps to reduce wrinkles, lines, and other appearances of aging.
“Active facial gymnastics is super effective,” Hoefler is quoted as saying in China Daily. “It can reduce expression lines.”
And that is exactly what she helps her class participants achieve. By teaching them how to smile more through the use of various smiling exercises, Hoefler is helping her students to avoid things like “anger lines” between the eyebrows, wrinkles around the mouth, and horizontal forehead lines.
Facial skin is composed of a tapestry of elastic and collagen fibers that bind with water to give it a firm, toned appearance. But as a person ages, these fibers become increasingly less able to bind with water, resulting in sagging skin, wrinkles, and other undesirable appearances.
While there are numerous skin creams available that help to slow this process, Hoefler says it is helpful to practice smiling exercises as well. In the same way that working arms and legs in the weight room tightens and builds muscles, smiling helps to improve firmness in the cheeks, chin, and skin around the eyes.
One exercise Hoefler recommends is holding a strong smile for six seconds, followed by a ten-second break. When performing this exercise, she says it is best to press your thumb and a finger from each hand on the corners of both your eyes and mouth to hold the skin in place. Doing this will prevent wrinkles from forming in those spots as a result of the exercise.
Another useful exercise is pushing air in your mouth from one cheek to the other using your mouth muscles, holding it on each side for a few seconds before switching. And sticking out your tongue, she says, will work your chin muscles and help prevent saggy skin from forming.
Click here for the full report from Natural News
High Fructose Beverages Linked to Gout
November 15th, 2010
Natural News
By: Jonathan Benson
New research derived from the larger Nurses’ Health Study has found a new connection between drinking fructose-rich beverages like soda and developing joint arthritis. According to Dr. Hyon Choi and colleagues from Boston University, drinking high fructose beverages increases uric acid levels in the blood, which eventually deposits into the joints where it causes gout.
Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the report claims that people who drink one fructose-rich beverage a day are 74 percent more likely than those who drink less than one per month to develop gout. And those who drink two or more fructose-rich beverages a day are 97 percent more prone to the disease than minimal drinkers.
Strangely enough, even orange juice appears linked to gout. Once-a-day orange juice consumption raised risk levels by 41 percent, while drinking two servings a day resulted in a 142 percent risk increase. However, other kinds of juices did not appear to exhibit the same effects.
“Physicians should be aware of the potential effect of these beverages on the risk of gout,” explained Choi and colleagues in their report.
The team also noted that women with a body mass index (BMI) above 30, as well as those who drink alcohol, are at an even higher risk. And even though only one percent of women who participated in the study ended up developing gout, excess fructose consumption is never a good idea because the sugar component in its processed form can aggravate proper insulin function, induce type-2 diabetes, and lead to obesity.
Click here for the full report from Natural News
Woman Finds Cancer Cure in Dairy-Free Diet
November 15th, 2010
Natural News
By: David Gutierrez
Eminent geologist Jane Plant is now promoting a dietary program for the treatment of cancer, saying that going dairy-free and eating cancer-protective foods helped cure her breast cancer where conventional Western medicine had failed.
Plant was first diagnosed with cancer at age 42. Over the next five years, the cancer recurred four times “despite a radical mastectomy, three further operations, 35 radiotherapy treatments, several chemotherapy treatments and irradiation of my ovaries to induce the menopause,” she writes in her book Your Life in Your Hands.
After the discovery of a cancerous lump in her neck, Plant came across statistics detailing the low rates of breast and prostate cancer in China. Since dairy is almost never consumed in China, she cut it out of her diet entirely and limited her intake of foods containing high levels of chemicals and hormones. She built her diet around foods that have been shown to protect against cancer.
The idea of a connection between diet and cancer is not new.
“The American Cancer Society estimates that of the 500,000 cancer deaths that occur in the United States, about one-third can be attributed to dietary factors, with another third being caused by cigarette smoking,” writes Phyllis A. Balch in her book Prescription for Nutritional Healing, 4th Edition.
Yet while the idea of preventing cancer with diet is widely accepted, the idea of treating it that way is more unconventional.
“Hence, the Plant Program (www.JanePlant.com) was born and, using it alongside conventional medicine, Jane has helped innumerable women and men to combat breast and prostate cancers – often not just stopping the cancer but reversing the disease’s path into secondaries and preventing it from returning,” writes Judith Potts in The Telegraph.
Click here for the full report from Natural News
Your Mattress is Loaded with Chemicals
November 15th, 2010
Natural News
By: David Gutierrez
The average mattress is a cocktail of toxic substances, warns Barry Cik of Naturepedic, in an article published on www.GreenBiz.com.
“My rude awakening came when my wife sent me to buy a crib mattress for our first grandchild,” Cik writes. “I was appalled by what I found; the crib mattresses were full of industrial chemicals. Because of my environmental engineering background, I knew how harmful these chemicals could be to a developing child.”
Cik describes how one bad manufacturing decision leads to another to produce a toxic nightmare. For example, most mattresses are covered with polyvinyl chloride (PVC) to keep water out. Because PVC is naturally hard, however, it is combined with phthalates to make it softer.
“One short-sighted decision leads to another and, before you know it, you’ve got a very unhealthy baby mattress,” Cik writes.
Phthalates, however, are estrogen mimics that have been linked to asthma, cancer and reproductive disorders. They have been proven to leach from mattresses and into the surrounding environment.
“Phthalates … aren’t quite identical to the natural hormone molecules in men’s or women’s bodies, but they come close enough that they occupy the same receptors on estrogen-sensitive tissues and exert their own unique effects on human health,” writes David Steinman in his book Safe Trip to Eden.
Cik draws attention to the fact that the safety of most chemicals used in mattresses — or any other consumer product — is simply unknown, because the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 considers all new chemicals safe until proven otherwise, and does not require companies to do any testing of their products. This means that companies such as Naturepedic, which markets non-toxic mattresses, are forced to pay to individually test nearly any component they want to include in a product. This drives up the prices of their products, making a healthy mattress a luxury only the wealthy can afford.
“Our … challenge is to turn frustrated consumers into vocal citizens who will support Congress in making non-toxic the norm, not a market niche,” Cik concludes.
Click here for the full report from Natural News
Researchers Blame Nose For Body Weight
November 15th, 2010
BBC News
People who are overweight have a greater sense of smell for food, a study has found.
Researchers from the University of Portsmouth say their early findings may go towards explaining why some people struggle to stay slim.
Experts already know that part of the brain that processes information about odour is also connected to the feeding centres of the brain.
The latest research is published in the journal Chemical Senses.
In the UK, a quarter of adults are obese and doctors fear that the incidence will only rise in the future as more and more people continue to pile on excess weight.
While too much food and too little exercise may be largely to blame, scientists have been searching for the underlying causes driving the obesity epidemic.
To this end, Dr Lorenzo Stafford and his team set out to study if a skewed sense of smell could be partly to blame.
Heightened sense
His team asked 64 volunteers to take part in a series of experiments that tested their smelling ability.
Their study found that people appear to be slightly better at smelling food odours after they have eaten rather than when they are hungry.
Scientists do not yet know why this is, but Dr Stafford suspects that it could be the body’s way of detecting and rejecting foods no longer needed in order to maintain the right energy balance and stop a person eating too much.
His team found that people who are overweight – those with a higher body mass index or BMI – have a far heightened sense of smell for food compared to slim people, particularly after they have eaten a full meal.
Dr Stafford believes this keener sense of smell might compel the individual to carry on eating, even when they are full.
He said: “It could be speculated that for those with a propensity to gain weight, their higher sense of smell for food related odours might actually play a more active role in food intake.
“Hopefully this research will stimulate more work in this area with the potential to help those who struggle with their weight and those who treat people with weight problems.”
Click here for the full report from BBC News
Job Strain Raises Health Problems In Women
November 15th, 2010
BBC
Women with high job strain have a 40% increased risk of cardiovascular disease compared with those in less demanding posts, a US study suggests.
They have an 88% raised risk of a heart attack, and more chance of strokes and damage requiring coronary artery bypass surgery, researchers said.
Researchers from Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital followed 17,415 healthy women for more than 10 years.
The study was presented to the American Heart Association.
Job strain, a form of psychological stress, is defined as having a demanding job that provides limited opportunity for decision making or to use one’s creative or individual skills.
The researchers also found job insecurity was also associated with risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as high blood pressure and obesity – but not directly with poor cardiovascular health.
Stress can trigger the release of hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol, which at persistently high levels are thought to damage the cardiovascular system.
It can also raise inflammation levels which are thought to destabilise the fatty plaques which build up in the blood vessels and can cause circulatory problems.
Experts are concerned that heart disease can be overlooked in women, as it is often mistakenly thought of as a male problem.
Women may have less common symptoms, such as back pain, burning in the chest, abdominal discomfort, nausea, or fatigue, which makes diagnosis more difficult.
They are also less likely to seek medical help, and tend to present late in the process of their disease.
Researcher Dr Michelle Albert said the study suggested job stress had both a short and long-term effect on cardiovascular health.
She also said it was crucial for employers to monitor job stress, and take action to try to alleviate it.
“Job stress results in absenteeism, sickness, and disability, which can reduce productivity and competitiveness,” she said.
Previous research has tended to focus on the impact of job stress on men.
Some critics believe it is not stress that causes heart problems – but the unhealthy behaviour, such as smoking and drinking, that some people adopt to try to cope with stress.
Ellen Mason, a senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said the exact mechanism by which stress could change the body’s chemistry to raise the risk of heart disease had still to be pinned down.
But she said there was a growing body of research to suggest that it did have a damaging effect on the lining of the arteries.
Click here for the full report from BBC News
