Ron Paul Winning Iowa

November 23, 2011

RT

By RT

“I think everyone is going to be shocked once Ron Paul starts winning this thing.” –KTRN

While the mainstream media begins to set their sights on Newt Gingrich as he surges in the polls in recent weeks, the latest numbers out of Iowa reaffirm that fellow Republican candidate Ron Paul has a real chance in the race.

Results from a poll conducted by Bloomberg News earlier this month placed Paul, a medical doctor and libertarian icon, in a statistical tie for first place among the current GOP candidates for Iowa voters. As sexual harassment scandals continue to plague pizzaman Herman Cain and Rick Perry’s unforgettable flub at the CNBC debate have taken a toll on the candidates, Paul has managed to only increase in popularity among voters.

A recent Iowa State/Gazette/KCRG poll also put Paul towards the top, trailing only Herman Cain with 20 percent of the vote.

As the Iowa caucuses get closer and closer, Paul’s popularity suggests that he could emerge from the Hawkeye State as the victor in what is considered by many to be the crucial first step in securing the Republican nomination for the presidency.

During the Iowa straw poll earlier this summer, Paul placed second behind Michele Bachmann, who has seen a serious slump in the race in the months that followed. “He came very close. Very, very close,” economist Lew Rockwell of the Ludwig Von Mises Institute told RT at the time. “The political establishment is going to have to be torn down — I think Ron Paul can do that.”

Back in August, those in Iowa got to take the first glance at the Republican frontrunners 15 months before Election Day 2012. More important than the state’s straw poll, however, is the upcoming caucuses, that could pave the way for the rest of the race.

And if the hype that Ron Paul has managed to attract in Iowa as of late is any indication of things to come, his campaign is only going to heat up.

“A caucus state like Iowa is tailor-made to maximize the vote for a candidate like Ron Paul,” University of Virginia Center for Politics Director Larry Sabato tells The Daily Caller. “He has a dedicated band of supporters who will show up to vote in three feet of snow.”

It was a grass roots campaign during the months leading up to the 2008 election which managed to garner heavy support for Paul among a rapidly growing fan base of diehard supporters. Paul is finding such luck again in Iowa early in the race, and while the mainstream makes Gingrich and Romney the faces of the frontrunner candidates, the numbers coming in show that Paul has just as good of a chance at taking the GOP nod — if not better.

Click here for the full report.

Typo Leads To Election Of Wrong Candidate

November 23, 2011

NBC News

By Bob Connor

“If you think this couldn’t happen in a national election, think again. The system is flawed.” –KTRN

You wouldn’t think a one-letter typo would make a huge difference, but in an election it apparently does.

In Derby, James J. Butler received 1,526 votes in the race for the Board of Apportionment and Taxation Nov. 8. In fact, he got more votes than anyone else running for election to the 10-member board.

The problem? James J. Butler wasn’t running, but his father, James R. Butler, who campaigned for the position. But because of a typo on the ballot, it’s the younger Butler who was officially elected to the office.

The Democratic Town Committee nominated James R. Butler, and its members are now trying to figure out what to do, with the Dec. 3 swearing-in ceremony quickly approaching.

“I was the one they nominated. My son wants nothing to do with this,” James R. Butler told the Connecticut Post Tuesday. The older Butler noticed the error on the ballot when he voted, the paper reported.

To add to the confusion, both father and son live on Prindle Avenue, and both share the same birthday.

Click here for the full report.

Government Power Undermines Empathy

November 23, 2011

The Daily Bell

By Joel F. Wade

“Wouldn’t it be nice if the government actually cared about you?” –KTRN

The fundamental quality of human relationship is empathy. Empathy enables you to understand another person’s situation, make sense of their behavior, and distance yourself from your own initial self-absorbed reaction to what other people do. It is a supreme expression of consciousness, providing the ability to wait a moment and consider what’s happening before acting.

Freedom and capitalism encourage empathy; government power and administrative nit-picking undermines it.

Before trade, the primary interaction between people of different groups was war. The enemy was not considered human; there was no reason for them to be. There was no benefit to expanding the range of empathy beyond one’s group. Outside people did not exist within the moral circle of another tribe, and did not enjoy the benefits of human empathy.

This all began to change with the beginnings of trade about 80,000 years ago. That’s when we see marine shells painted and strung as necklaces far from the sea in Africa (see Matt Ridley’s book, The Rational Optimist). How did they get there? From people outside of the tribe who had something to trade. These shells were used as a medium of exchange, and it was the beginning of a visible expression of our common humanity.

Free exchange is the form of social interaction that most encourages human empathy. When you want something, and somebody else has that something that you want, you have several choices: You can steal it, you can beg them to give it to you, you can ask to borrow it, or you can exchange with them for something that has an equal or greater value to them.

Begging, borrowing, or stealing all put you in a position that naturally diminishes your empathy. The other person becomes “the thing that possesses something I want.” If I use force to steal, or appeal to the generosity of another to lend or give me what I want, it puts both of us in an adversarial position toward one another, or at the very least into a sort of dominant/submissive relationship.

The free trade of capitalism, on the other hand, encourages empathy. If I trade with somebody, we are equals. We have to consider each other’s interests, likes, desires and dislikes in order to make a good trade.

Free trade encourages very different people to seek to find common ground, to understand different ways of living so that we can understand what one another want and effectively sell things to each other.

In a very real, social sense it is trade that has brought out the very best of humanity.

Trade does not make everybody angels and it does not negate human nature. But it does encourage us to understand and accept human nature, and it gets us to look for what’s true about people as a consistent way of life because by doing so we become more effective and successful. But this is not something that can be forced; free trade requires the ability for individuals to choose to do what motivates them. Free trade requires freedom.

Click here for the full report.

A US-Backed Military Junta in Egypt Was Always The Plan

November 23, 2011

Info Wars

By Patrick Henningsen

“The mainstream media told us that things in Egypt were getting better after the uprising.  It seems it’s getting worse, not better.”  –KTRN

This week has seen round two take place in Egypt between the ruling elite and public reformers, as protests converged once again on Cairo’s central Tahrir Square. But this time, there will be no help on the way from the beacons of democracy in the west.

As thousands of Egyptians camped out on the square, military police were determined to exhibit the same show of force that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has demonstrated his Zuccotti Park, where Occupy Wall Street activists have been intimidated, beaten and pepper sprayed by law enforcement. On state television yesterday Egypt’s military cited heavy US police action against the Occupy Wall Street movement across America in order to justify their own bloody suppression. Rather ironic.

Clearly let down by the broken promises of their Arab Spring, anti-government demonstrators in Egypt are now calling for a ‘million-man march’ after being met with a violent government crack-down which has already claimed 33 lives and over 1,500 injured, with a steady stream of injured being carried out by motorcycle or on the backs of other protesters to field hospitals set up by volunteer doctors near Tahrir Square.

But Egypt’s military junta is not flinching this time – especially after recently receiving the blessing and full backing of President Barack Obama and US Government to carry on and squash any and all domestic unrest. Watch this shocking video of the junta’s violence towards demonstrators:

US investigative journalist Ralph Schoenman explained during his interview with Press TV today the relationship between Egypt’s ruling military junta and Washington DC. Schoenman states, ”The relationship between the US and the SCAF – the Supreme Council Armed Forces – is that of the imperial sponsor and sustainer relying upon the Supreme Council Armed Forces to maintain not merely the dictatorship, but the oligarchy in power; the protection of capitalism in Egypt on the part of the tiny oligarchy that has usurped all financial, economic and political power for itself.”

Exactly 11 months ago, the world watched as a seemingly organic movement arose in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, calling for the downfall of Egypt’s stalwart US puppet, Hosni Mubarek. It succeeded in capturing the imagination of the world. In terms of a real revolution however – or real progress, Egypt’s own Arab Spring was nothing more the a cruel, staged event used as political leverage by the west in order to shatter the prospect of real reform in Egypt, and also to topple a series of US-non-friendly regimes in the wider Middle East region.

Egypt’s transition last spring was no more than a progression of United States and Israeli long-range foreign policies and corporate goals for the region, and for whatever reasons – one which no longer required the services of President Hosni Mubarek.

New moves on the grand chessboard have been happening between Egypt, Israel, and Jordan, as well as regime change projects to the west in Libya – meaning that the US-UK-Israeli axis powers would require a much stronger police state in Egypt, acheivable only through a solid military dictatorship there.

Click here for the full report.

Drugs Used for Psychotics Go to Youths in Foster Care

November 23, 2011

The New York Times

By BENEDICT CAREY

“As if being in a foster home isn’t bad enough, they are now pumping the kids full of drugs they don’t need.” –KTRN

Foster children are being prescribed cocktails of powerful antipsychosis drugs just as frequently as some of the most mentally disabled youngsters on Medicaid, a new study suggests.

The report, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, is the first to investigate how often youngsters in foster care are given two antipsychotic drugs at once, the authors said. The drugs include Risperdal, Seroquel and Zyprexa — among other so-called major tranquilizers — which were developed for schizophrenia but are now used as all-purpose drugs for almost any psychiatric symptoms.

“The kids in foster care may come from bad homes, but they do not have the sort of complex medical issues that those in the disabled population do,” said Susan dosReis, an associate professor in the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and the lead author.

The implication, Dr. dosReis and other experts said: Doctors are treating foster children’s behavioral problems with the same powerful drugs given to people with schizophrenia and severe bipolar disorder. “We simply don’t have evidence to support this kind of use, especially in young children,” Dr. dosReis said.

In recent years, doctors and policy makers have grown concerned about high rates of overall psychiatric drug use in the foster care system, the government-financed program that provides temporary living arrangements for 400,000 to 500,000 children and adolescents. Previous studies have found that children in foster care receive psychiatric medications at about twice the rate among children outside the system.

The new study focused on one of the most powerful classes of drugs, antipsychotics. It found that about 2 percent of foster children took at least one such drug, even though schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, for which the drugs are approved, are extremely rare in young children.

“It’s a significant and important finding, and it should prompt states to improve the quality of care in this area,” said Dr. Mark Olfson, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University who did not contribute to the research.

In the study, mental health researchers analyzed 2003 Medicaid records of 637,924 minors from an unidentified mid-Atlantic state who were either in foster care, getting disability benefits for a diagnosis like severe autism or bipolar disorder, or in a program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. All of these programs draw on Medicaid financing. The investigators found that 16,969, or about 3 percent of the total, had received at least one prescription for an antipsychotic drug.

Click here for the full report.

Acupuncture Can Be A Safe Treatment For Children, New Research Suggests

November 23, 2011

USA Today

By Serena Gordon

“Another alternative treatment that is truly safe and effective.” –KTRN

In an analysis of 37 studies or case reports, Canadian researchers found that in over 1,400 children treated with acupuncture, just 168 experienced a mild adverse reaction, such as crying or pain. The investigators found 25 reports of serious adverse events.

“In trained hands, acupuncture seems safe in children,” said the study’s senior author, Dr. Sunita Vohra, a professor in the department of pediatrics at the University of Alberta in Canada.

Results of the study are published online and in the December issue of Pediatrics.

Acupuncture is a treatment that is said to have originated in China thousands of years ago. In Eastern medicine, acupuncture is believed to open the channels where a person’s Qi (pronounced chee), or life force, is blocked. In Western medicine, it’s more commonly believed that acupuncture works by stimulating the release of the body’s natural painkillers, according to the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

Stimulation of certain areas to release the blocked Qi (called acupoints) can be done through the insertion of very thin needles or with heat, pressure or a laser, the study authors pointed out in background information in the article.

Acupuncture is used for a variety of problems, such as pain, nausea, vomiting, anxiety and muscle spasm, according to Vohra and Dr. Raymond Pitetti, the associate medical director of the emergency department at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. Jeannie Kang, president of the American Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, added that acupuncture is also used for sprains, allergies, asthma, and menstrual cramps and irregularities.

In the United States, recent estimates suggest that as many as 3 million people have tried acupuncture therapy.

Because acupuncture is growing in popularity, and no specific studies have been conducted on the safety of acupuncture in children, Vohra and her colleagues wanted to assess the available evidence to determine whether or not acupuncture is a safe treatment for children.

The researchers reviewed all of the available literature on acupuncture in children. They found 37 studies and case reports that met their inclusion criteria.

The rate of adverse events was significantly lower in children than what has been reported in adults, the results showed.

Click here for the full report.

Why Obese Bodies Resist Leptin

November 23, 2011

Futurity.Org

By Emily Walker-Monash

“An interesting article for anyone suffering from obesity. I know you don’t want to hear this, but all you need to do is eat healthy food and exercise. It’s really not that hard.” –KTRN

Researchers have discovered how a key causal component of obesity—resistance to the hormone leptin—develops.

Tony Tiganis, lead author of a study published in the journal Cell Metabolism, says our bodies produce leptin in response to increasing fat deposits.

“Acting on a part of the brain called the hypothalamus, leptin instructs the body to increase energy expenditure and decrease food intake, and so helps us maintain a healthy body weight,” says Tiganis, a professor in the biochemistry and molecular biology department at Monash University.

“The body’s response to leptin is diminished in overweight and obese individuals, giving rise to the concept of ‘leptin-resistance’. We’ve discovered more about how ‘leptin-resistance’ develops, providing new directions for research into possible treatments.”

Two proteins are already known to inhibit leptin in the brain and Tiganis’ team have discovered a third. In mice, this third protein becomes more abundant with weight-gain, exacerbating leptin-resistance and hastening progression to morbid obesity.

Click here for the full article.

Man Dies After ‘Accidentally’ Receiving Execution Drug; Was Supposed to Get Pepcid for Upset Stomach

November 23, 2011

WSVN-TV

By WXVN

“How can a hospital give someone an execution drug? Why do they even have this drug in the hospital to begin with?” –KTRN

A South Florida family has filed a lawsuit after a nurse allegedly gave their loved one a dose of medicine that eventually took his life.

Seventy-nine-year-old Richard Smith was full of life. Smith and his wife Lula were married for 55 years and raised four kids of their own and raised 10 others who had nowhere to go last year. “We met in college 57 years ago. We were married 55 years,” said his wife Lula.

Smith was feeling a shortness of breath and was admitted to North Shore Hospital on July, 30, 2010. When Smith’s son Marc arrived at the hospital, he said a doctor told him, “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but the nurse gave your dad the wrong medication, and it sent him into respiratory arrest. He grabbed the wrong package,” said Marc.

According to the lawsuit filed by the family, the nurse, instead of giving Smith the antacid Pepcid for an upset stomach, gave Smith Pancuronium, a drug administered to inmates who are put to death.

Family attorney Andrew Yaffa said the nurse should not be working with patients. “But this nurse, as we sit here today, knowing the multiple levels of neglect, is still working in that ICU on patients just like Richard Smith,” said Yaffa.

Smith was resuscitated but died nearly a month later.

North Shore Medical Center released a statement, which read in part: “Our hearts go out to the Smith family for their loss. This was a tragic event that was immediately self-reported to the agency for health care administration. We conducted an internal review and have several new processes in place to ensure a situation like this doesn’t happen again.”

Smith’s daughter Vickie Jackson said they are still searching for answers and say they hope another family will not have to endure the pain of loosing a loved one the way they did. “I’m mad because it seems like you can take a life, and you don’t have to answer for it,” said Jackson.

Click here for the full article.

Dietary Supplements Are Fast Becoming An Endangered Species

November 23, 2001

Natural News

By PF Louis

“This article is an example why the health freedom movement is so important.”  –KTRN

First the powers that be create a problem to get a reaction that gives them the green light to produce a solution to satisfy their ulterior motives. The problem, whether true or not, is presented through the media to also condition the public for accepting their desired solution.

A perfect example of this strategy has occurred as a backdrop for accepting the elimination of vitamins and supplements, which may occur sooner than you think.

The messages put through the media
Big Pharma front groups and FDA press releases are readily accepted by the main stream media (MSM) without investigation. They’re easy content fillers for lazy journalism. Besides, Big Pharma puts a lot of advertising money into the MSM. So what MSM hack is going to fuss over the accuracy of any Big Pharma or FDA press releases?

Most of the MSM’s public is cowed by the medical mafia’s powerful priesthood. So they’ll accept almost anything from the medical mafia as gospel.

If it’s in newspapers, magazines, and on TV; If it’s from the religion of mainstream medicine; If it’s also being repeated often without a whimper registering on the MSM from the other side of the issue, then it must be true. You can fool most of the people all the time.

A recent series of reports and press releases based on twisted studies, lies, and excerpts from reports taken out of context falsely publicized the dangers of vitamins and supplements. Though this negative propaganda campaign reached a boiling point over the last few months, it had been simmering for years.

You can get the shocking details on this latest outrageous assault on supplements from the Health Ranger from his “Media hoax scare campaign.”

Click here for the full report from Natural News.

Taxi Surveillance Cameras and The Continuing Decay of Privacy

November 23, 2011

Disinformation.Org

By Charles Farrier

“Privacy issues are just as heated in the UK.  Why can’t they leave us alone?  Sometimes when I see a security camera, I blow it kisses for fun.” –Chris Davis KTRN

The use of surveillance cameras in taxis that record both sound and images hit the headlines last week, when it emerged that the City Council of the historic English city of Oxford was making them compulsory for all local private hire vehicles [1]. Many commentators were shocked by the depths to which the surveillance society had now stooped but few spotted that this phenomenon has been around for over a decade, and not just in the UK.

CCTV in taxis is a worldwide development. The globalised surveillance industrial complex offers one-solution-fits-all products regardless of regional differences or actual need. Wherever taxi cameras have been introduced the measure has courted controversy and time and time again privacy laws around the world have seemingly been unable to restrain this addition to the surveillance panoply. It is through such incremental steps that societal values have and continue to be eroded.

Driving a taxi undoubtedly has risks, particularly at night with an alcohol fuelled clientèle, but is there actual evidence that cameras can significantly improve driver safety? Even if cameras were effective, are they truly acceptable? Are there not other measures that could be introduced which would have less impact on the freedoms of taxi passengers?
Background

Amazingly the first city to introduce compulsory taxi cameras was not in the UK. That dubious accolade goes to Perth in Australia, where a licensing condition was introduced from mid December 1997, after an 18 month decision making, testing and development process. Other countries with cities that have compulsory taxi cameras include Canada, Norway, China, the United States, Holland and New Zealand.
Bolton’s brave experiment

In the UK cameras were trialled in Bolton in 2001 [2] – cameras, recording images and sound, were fitted to ten taxis for six weeks. The trial was hailed a success because no incidents occurred. No control group was used. No independent study was produced. It was simply hailed a success by Bolton Council, the taxi drivers and the security industry firms behind the trial [3]. One of the reasons given for driver support was the hope that it would lead to cheaper insurance premiums [4].

In 2002 the then MP for Bolton South East, Dr Brian Iddon raised the trial in the House of Commons [5], calling it a “brave experiment” and and asking Home Office Minister John Denham whether he agreed it should be spread throughout the country. And so Bolton became the poster city for taxi CCTV in the UK.

On the back of the Bolton success myth, Chubb, the company whose CabWatch system had been used, touted their wares to Leicester and Cambridge City Councils who ran their own trials. As with Bolton, Chubb’s system relayed sound and images to a remote video response centre. Over the next few years a string of UK councils began considering cameras as a condition of license for taxis and private hire vehicles.

It is now commonplace for taxis to be equipped with CCTV cameras throughout the UK.
Southampton Court Challenge

In the UK Parliament in July 2007 [6] it was reported that the Southampton Safe City Partnership were sponsoring CCTV in taxi cabs.

In November 2010 a driver, Keith May, who runs taxi firm K & K Hire, began legal action in the Southampton Magistrates’ Court against the City Council’s imposition of a condition requiring the installation of a taxi camera in one of his licensed hackney carriages. In April 2011 the court found in May’s favour [7]. Southampton City Council are now appealing that decision [8].

A month after the court decision, taxi drivers held a demo in Southampton [9] to protest against the council’s compulsory camera requirement. But before defenders of passengers’ freedoms get too excited about the Southampton taxi drivers’ stand, it is worth listening to a recent edition of the BBC Radio 4 programme ‘You and Yours’ [10], on which May clarified his position. May said:

I’m not against CCTV, I’m not against CCTV at all. I’m against the conditions that this council, Southampton Council Licensing Office has imposed on us.
[...]
The problem we’ve got in Southampton is that the CCTV operates in a way that it is on 24/7, you can never turn it off, the driver’s got not control of it whatsoever, so every single passenger that gets in a licensed vehicle in Southampton – their conversation’s being recorded no matter whether they’ve done anything wrong or not.
[...]
What about, the taxi drivers in Southampton, private hires and taxis, majority of those vehicles gets used privately as well. The drivers own those vehicles, [?], what happens when they’re taking their children down to the beach with their wife on a weekend. Why should that conversation be getting recorded?

In other words May is saying that in his view surveilling passengers is okay as long as the driver has control over it, but surveilling a taxi driver’s family is wrong. And it is worth mentioning that the court case challenged the cameras as a licensing requirement, not the right or wrong of the cameras themselves. At time of writing the judgment is not publicly available.

Click here for the full article from Disinformation.Org.

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