New York Health Officials Ignore Own Fluoride Report, Continue To Lie About Fluoride Dangers
April 19th, 2011
Natural News
By: Ethan A. Huff
Twelve million New Yorkers, 8.4 million of which live in New York City (NYC), continue to involuntarily consume fluoridated water regularly, despite a report issued from the New York State Department of Health (DoH) back in 1990 which warned that the chemical additive is toxic. To this day, many officials not only deny this report, but also falsely insist that “water fluoridated at the optimum level poses no known health risks.”
The original report, entitled Fluoride: Benefits and Risks of Exposure, provided a sharp warning to officials that fluoride chemicals are especially harmful to kidney disease patients, diabetics, and those who are hyper-sensitive to the chemical. It also warned that because fluoride puts incredible toxic pressure on the kidneys, those with weaker kidneys are at an increased risk of developing skeletal fluorosis, a severe bone disease marked by symptoms of pain, tenderness and bone fractures.
The toxicity of fluoride is so great that in 2007, the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) withdrew its endorsement for fluoride as a beneficial water additive. The group has stated that “individuals with chronic kidney disease (CKD) should be notified of the potential risk of fluoride exposure.”
In 2006, the National Research Council issued a now-famous report that explains how the initial studies used to promote water fluoridation in the first place did not properly assess how fluoride would affect renal (kidney) function. According to that report, those with impaired renal function, or those on hemodialysis, “tend to accumulate fluoride much more quickly than normal.” Further investigation into the matter was urged, but was never completed.
“We know almost half of US kids are fluoride-overdosed as evidenced by their fluoride-discolored teeth, or dental fluorosis,” said attorney Paul Beeber, President of the NYS Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc. “What has fluoride done to their bones, glands and organs known to collect fluoride? Are they fluoride-hypersensitive? Without such critical studies, claims that fluoridation is safe for everyone are unproven and groundless.”
Legislation currently before the NY City Council would amend the administrative code of NYC to remove fluoride from water. The legislation currently has seven cosponsors, and if passed could spark a much-needed nationwide backlash against water fluoridation.
Click here for the full report from Natural News
Computer Programmer Under Oath Admits Computers Rig Elections
April 19, 2011 by Andrew
Filed under Government
Secret Memos Expose Link Between Oil Firms and Invasion of Iraq
April 19, 2011 by Andrew
Filed under Government
April 19th, 2011
The Independent
By: Paul Bignell
Plans to exploit Iraq’s oil reserves were discussed by government ministers and the world’s largest oil companies the year before Britain took a leading role in invading Iraq, government documents show.
The papers, revealed here for the first time, raise new questions over Britain’s involvement in the war, which had divided Tony Blair’s cabinet and was voted through only after his claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
The minutes of a series of meetings between ministers and senior oil executives are at odds with the public denials of self-interest from oil companies and Western governments at the time.
The documents were not offered as evidence in the ongoing Chilcot Inquiry into the UK’s involvement in the Iraq war. In March 2003, just before Britain went to war, Shell denounced reports that it had held talks with Downing Street about Iraqi oil as “highly inaccurate”. BP denied that it had any “strategic interest” in Iraq, while Tony Blair described “the oil conspiracy theory” as “the most absurd”.
But documents from October and November the previous year paint a very different picture.
Five months before the March 2003 invasion, Baroness Symons, then the Trade Minister, told BP that the Government believed British energy firms should be given a share of Iraq’s enormous oil and gas reserves as a reward for Tony Blair’s military commitment to US plans for regime change.
The papers show that Lady Symons agreed to lobby the Bush administration on BP’s behalf because the oil giant feared it was being “locked out” of deals that Washington was quietly striking with US, French and Russian governments and their energy firms.
Minutes of a meeting with BP, Shell and BG (formerly British Gas) on 31 October 2002 read: “Baroness Symons agreed that it would be difficult to justify British companies losing out in Iraq in that way if the UK had itself been a conspicuous supporter of the US government throughout the crisis.”
The minister then promised to “report back to the companies before Christmas” on her lobbying efforts.
The Foreign Office invited BP in on 6 November 2002 to talk about opportunities in Iraq “post regime change”. Its minutes state: “Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP is desperate to get in there and anxious that political deals should not deny them the opportunity.”
After another meeting, this one in October 2002, the Foreign Office’s Middle East director at the time, Edward Chaplin, noted: “Shell and BP could not afford not to have a stake in [Iraq] for the sake of their long-term future… We were determined to get a fair slice of the action for UK companies in a post-Saddam Iraq.”
Whereas BP was insisting in public that it had “no strategic interest” in Iraq, in private it told the Foreign Office that Iraq was “more important than anything we’ve seen for a long time”.
BP was concerned that if Washington allowed TotalFinaElf’s existing contact with Saddam Hussein to stand after the invasion it would make the French conglomerate the world’s leading oil company. BP told the Government it was willing to take “big risks” to get a share of the Iraqi reserves, the second largest in the world.
Over 1,000 documents were obtained under Freedom of Information over five years by the oil campaigner Greg Muttitt. They reveal that at least five meetings were held between civil servants, ministers and BP and Shell in late 2002.
The 20-year contracts signed in the wake of the invasion were the largest in the history of the oil industry. They covered half of Iraq’s reserves – 60 billion barrels of oil, bought up by companies such as BP and CNPC (China National Petroleum Company), whose joint consortium alone stands to make £403m ($658m) profit per year from the Rumaila field in southern Iraq.
Last week, Iraq raised its oil output to the highest level for almost decade, 2.7 million barrels a day – seen as especially important at the moment given the regional volatility and loss of Libyan output. Many opponents of the war suspected that one of Washington’s main ambitions in invading Iraq was to secure a cheap and plentiful source of oil.
Mr Muttitt, whose book Fuel on Fire is published next week, said: “Before the war, the Government went to great lengths to insist it had no interest in Iraq’s oil. These documents provide the evidence that give the lie to those claims.
“We see that oil was in fact one of the Government’s most important strategic considerations, and it secretly colluded with oil companies to give them access to that huge prize.”
Lady Symons, 59, later took up an advisory post with a UK merchant bank that cashed in on post-war Iraq reconstruction contracts. Last month she severed links as an unpaid adviser to Libya’s National Economic Development Board after Colonel Gaddafi started firing on protesters. Last night, BP and Shell declined to comment.
Click here for the full report from The Independent
The Scam Behind The Rise In Oil, Food Prices
April 19, 2011 by Andrew
Filed under Government
April 19th, 2011
Al-Jazeera
By: Danny Schecter
The global economy and its recovery, and the living standards of millions of plain folks, are now at risk from the sudden rise in oil and commodity prices.
Gas at the pump is up, and going higher. Food prices are following.
The consequences are catastrophic for the global poor as their costs go up while their income doesn’t. It’s menacing American workers too, who in large part have not seen a meaningful raise since the days of Reagan (keeping it this way is clearly behind the current flurry of attacks on unions).
Already, unrest in the Middle East and many African countries is being blamed for these dramatic increases. It seems as if this threat to global stability is being largely ignored in our media, one that treats the oil business as just another mystical world of free market trading.
Why is it happening? Why all the volatility? Is oil getting scarcer, leading to price increases? Is the cost of food, similarly, a reflection of naturally increasing commodity prices?
Oil speculating
While it’s true that natural disasters and droughts play some role in this unchecked price inflation, it also seems apparent that something else is attracting increasing attention, even if most of our media fails to explore what is a political time bomb, while most political leaders shrug their shoulder and ignore it.
President Obama recently said there is nothing he can do about the hike in oil and food prices.
Critics say the problem is that government and media outlets alike refuse to recognise what’s really going on: unchecked speculation!
Not everyone buys into this suspicion. In fact, it is one of more intense subjects of debate in economics.
Princeton University economist Paul Krugman pooh-poohs the impact of speculation counter-posing the traditional argument that oil prices are set by supply and demand.
The Economist agrees, summing up its views with a pithy phrase, “Speculation does not drive the oil price. Driving does.”
Others, like oil industry analyst Michael Klare of Hampshire College in the US, sees demand outdistancing supply:
Consider the recent rise in the price of oil just a faint and early tremor heralding the oilquake to come. Oil won’t disappear from international markets, but in the coming decades it will never reach the volumes needed to satisfy projected world demand, which means that, sooner rather than later, scarcity will become the dominant market condition.
Usually you hear this debate in scholarly circles or read it in political tracts where orthodox views collide with more alarmist projections about the oil supply “peaking”.
But officials in the Third World don’t see the subject as academic. Reserve Bank of India Governor Duvvuri Subbarao charges that: “Speculative movements in commodity derivative markets are also causing volatility in prices”.
The World Bank has held meetings on the issue, because it is seen as a matter of “utmost urgency”.
“The price of food is a matter of life and death for the very poorest people in the world,” said Tom Arnold, CEO of Concern Worldwide, the international humanitarian agency, ahead of his participation at The Open Forum on Food at World Bank headquarters.
“With many families spending up to 80 per cent of their income on basic foods to survive, even the slightest increase in price can have devastating effects and become a crises for the poorest,” he said.
Journalist Josh Clark argues on the website “How Stuff Works” that much of the oil speculation is rooted in the financial crisis:
The next time you drive to the gas station, only to find prices are still sky high compared to just a few years ago, take notice of the rows of foreclosed houses you’ll pass along the way. They may seem like two parts of a spell of economic bad luck, but high gas prices and home foreclosures are actually very much inter-related. Before most people were even aware there was an economic crisis, investment managers abandoned failing mortgage-backed securities and looked for other lucrative investments. What they settled on was oil futures.
Whistleblowers on oil speculation
The debate within the industry is more subdued, perhaps to avoid a public fight between suppliers and distributors who don’t want to rock the boat.
But some officials like Dan Gilligan, president of the Petroleum Marketers Association, representing 8,000 retail and wholesale suppliers has spoken out.
“Approximately 60 to 70 percent of the oil contracts in the futures markets are now held by speculative entities,” he argues. “Not by companies that need oil, not by the airlines, not by the oil companies. But by investors who profit money from their speculative positions.”
Now, a prominent and popular market analyst is throwing caution to the wind by blowing the whistle on speculators.
Finance expert Phil Davis runs a website and widely read newsletter to monitor stocks and options trades. He’s a professional’s professional, whose grandfather taught him to buy stocks when he was just ten years old.
His website is Phil’s Stock World, and stocks are his world. He’s subtitled the site: “High Finance for Real People.”
He is usually a sober and calm analyst, not known as maverick or dissenter.
When I met Phil the other night, he was on fire, enraged by what he believes is the scam of the century that no one wants to talk about, because so many powerful people armed with legions of lawyers want unquestioning allegiance, and will sue you into silence.
He studies the oil/food issue carefully and has concluded:
It’s a scam folks, it’s nothing but a huge scam and it’s destroying the US economy as well as the entire global economy but no one complains because they are ‘only’ stealing about $1.50 per gallon from each individual person in the industrialised world.
It’s the top 0.01 per cent robbing the next 39.99 per cent – the bottom 60 per cent can’t afford cars anyway (they just starve quietly to death, as food prices climb on fuel costs). If someone breaks into your car and steals a $500 stereo, you go to the police, but if someone charges you an extra $30 every time you fill up your tank 50 times a year ($1,500) you shut up and pay your bill. Great system, right?
Click here for the full report from Al-Jazeera
‘Am I Going to Have to Kill You?’: The Horrific Ways Abusive Debt Collectors Threaten and Harass Their Victims
April 19, 2011 by Andrew
Filed under Government
April 19th, 2011
AlterNet.org
By: Alex Henderson
Bart Bryant remembers all too well the day a very nasty and confrontational debt collector called to speak to his wife. By the time Bryant decided to take legal action, the Connecticut-based blues-rock musician had been subjected to everything from racial and anti-Semitic slurs and sexually degrading comments about his wife to taunts urging him to commit suicide.
It started when an employee of a debt collection agency based in New York State pretended to be an attorney and asked to speak to Bryant’s wife about a small gas card debt his son owed. Bryant offered to take a message, but the collector had no interest in having a polite conversation. Bryant recalled: “The guy says to me, ‘Why don’t you mind your own fucking business and put your wife on the phone?’ I said, ‘I don’t know who you think you’re talking to, buddy.’ It turns into a shouting match between me and him. He hangs up. I get the caller ID. I call the number back.”
Things only went downhill from there. Said Bryant: “They said things like, ‘We know your father has been molesting you. Why don’t you have him take his cock out of your ass and stick it in your mouth? You know you like it. Why don’t you have your wife come over here and give us blow jobs? You’re a loser. Why don’t you jump in front of a train and kill yourself?’ I recorded all of it and sent it to my attorney, Joseph Mauro.”
Hoping that Bryant might be African American, the debt collector called him the n-word; hoping he might be Jewish, the collector said, “Shalom, motherfucker.” Bryant, a white male who was raised Christian, is neither African American nor Jewish. But the debt collector who made those remarks was looking for anything that might intimidate Bryant, and all he succeeded in doing was inspiring Bryant to fight back. With Mauro representing him, Bryant took the collection agency to court; a settlement was reached.
“These guys are sick and twisted and will do anything to make a buck,” Bryant said. “And when they made the comment about my wife, that’s when I had to call the police.”
Mauro, a Long Island-based attorney who specializes in consumer rights and has represented many victims of abusive debt collectors, said, “Bart’s case is fairly extreme. Unfortunately, it’s not isolated.”
From racial epithets to impersonating police officers to trying to collect debts from the wrong people, some debt collectors have become increasingly abusive in recent years—and in the economic downturn of the late 2000s and early 2010s, those abuses are only becoming worse. In March, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that next to identity theft, complaints about debt collectors were the most common complaints it received in 2010; last year, the FTC said, it received over 144,000 complaints about debt collectors, which was a 17 percent increase from the 119,609 debt collector-related complaints it received in 2009. The FTC said more than 4,100 of the complaints it received about debt collectors in 2010 involved threats of physical violence.
“The level of abuse and harassment in the debt collection industry is reaching epic proportions,” said Ira J. Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates (NACA) in Washington, DC. “For example, calling people at work inappropriately, calling neighbors inappropriately, people on the phone being particularly abusive—we’re seeing more of that type of abuse than we ever have before.”
In the United States, debt collection is governed at the federal level by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act of 1977 (FDCPA), which is very specific about what debt collectors are and aren’t allowed to do in pursuit of a debt. Profane, abusive, insulting or threatening language is strictly prohibited, as are deceitful communications such as debt collectors pretending to be attorneys or law enforcement agents. The FDCPA also governs the communications that debt collectors may have with third parties; the FDCPA permits debt collectors to contact third parties (neighbors or co-workers, for example) to obtain information about one’s whereabouts, although they aren’t allowed to discuss the specifics of a debt with third parties.
Click here for the full report from AlterNet.org
A Gadget That Tracks Your Brainwaves As You Watch TV
April 19th, 2011
DailyMail.co.uk
Would you feel comfortable if market researchers could know your every thought?
A headband designed by San Francisco firm EmSense can sense your brainwaves as you have reactions to watching something and then record the data for researchers.
The process of measuring your reaction to something is known as ‘quantitative neurometrics’ and it can be carried out as you watch a computer or television screen.
The firm is launching its ‘in-home’ research panel employing the EmBand monitoring technology in an attempt to get better feedback on emotional responses.
The EmBand can also measure how much attention you are paying, or your ‘cognitive engagement’, by measuring brainwave activity, reported technology site Venture Beat.
The firm does studies by asking respondents to voluntarily share their information.
This has been compared to the controversial 1971 film A Clockwork Orange, where authorities try to psychologically modify the behaviour of a teenage thug.
But the big difference with EmSense is that the test subjects are volunteers.
It says market research firms want to measure emotional responses more accurately to get better reactions to advertising, creative concepts, packaging and shopping.
EmSense ships the user a kit with an EmBand wireless headset and a wireless receiver for use with his or her PC computer, directing them to a specific web page.
The firm, which has 80 employees, was founded by technologists from Hewlett-Packard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2004.
It has tested more than 100,000 respondents in 25 countries, reported Venture Beat.
Click here for the full report from DailyMail.co.uk
The Health Risks Behind Drop-Dead Gorgeous Hair
April 19th, 2011
CBSNews.com
By: Michelle Miller
At salons everywhere, women swear by the “Brazilian keratins” – treatments that deliver a drop-dead gorgeous “do,” CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller reports.
Mary Ann Dodge, a client at Ziba Salon, said she did it “because with this humid weather, I turned into a Chia pet.”
The smooth, straight, celebrity look costs a few hundred but lasts for months.
But some of the hair-smoothing products contain formaldehyde – a chemical the Environmental Protection Agency considers a carcinogen. This week, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, recommended stylists stop using products with formaldehyde, which goes by a number of different names.
Stylist George Allen Patricio offers a gas mask to clients worried about the fumes.
Patricio said he doesn’t have a problem using the products knowing they have formaldehyde.
“Well, if they say they’re formaldehyde-free, and I believe them,” Patricio said.
But regulators found the toxin even in some products labeled formaldehyde-free.
The Trio Salon in Chicago is now switching brands. OSHA’s been in twice to measure formaldehyde levels in the store’s air.
“Most of these treatments contain a small amount of formaldehyde, and it’s important that OSHA finds it safe,” said Trio Salon owner Alex Ioannou.
It’s the second warning this week to women about the price of so-called perfect hair. A study by the Cleveland Clinic found that hair weaves that are too tight are a culprit in causing baldness and scarring in nearly 30 percent of African-American women.
Dr. Jeanine Downie, a dermatologist, said when patients come to her with balding and scarring, she hands over a box of tissues and talks to them about different wigs they can get.
“It’s done,” Downie said.
In the documentary “Good Hair,” comedian Chris Rock put the $8 billion black beauty-care business under the microscope, watching chemicals used in hair products dissolve metal.
Maybe the hottest new trend in hair care will be one that comes warning free.
Professional smoothing treatment brand Brazilian Blowout wrote CBS News the following response on their product:
Thank you for your time today and for your understanding that Brazilian Blowout is a brand and not a category.
We are currently attempting to contact Federal OSHA as we have never been contacted by them regarding their research of Brazilian Blowout. To date all state OSHA testing that has been made available to us clearly demonstrates that our product is safely below all OSHA defined air monitoring levels.
In the meantime, Brazilian Blowout has launched “Brazilian Blowout ZERO” for anyone concerned about the hair smoothing category. ZERO utilizes a new plant derived system that delivers exceptional results without any controversial ingredients.
Click here for the full report from CBSNews.com
The Kevin Trudeau Show: 4-18-11
Today, broadcasting LIVE from the beautiful Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville, Tennessee, Kevin puts on a show of a lifetime! Get the success stories from some of Kevin’s closest friends and find out how Kevin has touched their lives!
Self Help:
Become A Success Story
Change The Way You Think
Special Guests:
Troy McClain of the first season of The Apprentice
Mike Sigel, 10 time world champion pool player
Chris McGarahan, direct sales consultant and speaker
Ron Ball, bestselling author and public speaker
Dr. Tom Morter of Morter HealthSystem
Dr. Ted Morter of Morter HealthSystem
Dr. Leonard Coldwell, author of The Only Answer To Becoming A Sales Campion
Everything Kevin:
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The Kevin Trudeau Show: 4-16-11
Today, Kevin explains how chemicals from everyday products can contaminate a woman’s body and even more so, an unborn child. And cancer expert, Dr. Leonard Coldwell, gives you the truth behind curing cancer. Don’t let chemotherapy kill someone you love. Click here to order his revolutionary book, The Only Answer to Cancer.
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The Kevin Trudeau Show: 4-15-11
Today, the water doctor, Fred Van Liew, stops by the show to give you the inside details of what is really lurking in your water and what you can do to bring it back to life! Plus, find out how your cell phone may be hurting your health and what small step you need to take to protect you and your family!
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