My thanks to Frank Madarasz, who alerted me to this article on the Investor’s Business Daily website.

A suppressed EPA study says old U.N. data ignore the decline in global temperatures and other inconvenient truths. Was the report kept under wraps to influence the vote on the cap-and-trade bill?

This was supposed to be the most transparent administration ever. Yet as the House of Representatives prepared to vote on the Waxman-Markey bill, the largest tax increase in U.S. history on 100% of Americans, an attempt was made to suppress a study shredding supporters’ arguments.

The sham of global warming plays no real part in Democrat/Socialists’ rational designs. We are confronting an example of destructive religious fundamentalism, a fundamentalism of the same materialistic type that permitted liberals in the 1920s and 1930s to applaud Lenin and Stalin when they liquidated tens of millions of Russians in the name of progress toward social justice.

As in the Soviet Union, Democrat/Socialists’ motivation is to restructure the economy of the United States in conformity with the social-justice designs of liberal-progressive-socialist planners and social engineers. Democrat/Socialists want to have the power to decide which industries survive and which will be driven into oblivion.

In the simplest terms, Democrat/Socialists wish to impose tyranny far more severe than that of Parliament and George III in 1776.

Their goal is the power to dictate to you the kind of automobile you must buy, the way your home must be built, how hot or cold you may be, and what kinds of jobs you will be permitted to hold….after, of course, much increased Federal taxes and rampant inflation will have taken away your retirement savings and any estate assets you may have intended to withhold from the political state for your heirs.

Thomas E. Brewton is a staff writer for the New Media Alliance, Inc. The New Media Alliance is a non-profit (501c3) national coalition of writers, journalists and grass-roots media outlets.

His weblog is THE VIEW FROM 1776
http://www.thomasbrewton.com/

Email comments to viewfrom1776@thomasbrewton.com

“Given that men and women are equal in one sense, and that as far as this sense goes, the woman indwelt by Christ can represent him as well as the man, there are excellent reasons for the persistence of males in the offices of authority: Despite what may be said about the theoretical possibility of women representing Christ as pastors, the fact remains that the Fatherhood of God and the male headship of the cosmos are best expressed in the Church by–male headship! The presence of women in offices of authority has the powerful tendency to give a wrong impression on what Christians believe about the nature of God and creation. It is a necessary part of our teaching to retain the male in these places, for he reflects the being of Christ in a way that no woman can, however godly she may be. Christians are not dualists, believing God is composed of masculine and feminine coprinciples–and while we do understand that men and women can in a sense represent him equally well, in another sense we hold they cannot, for the man, simply because of his sex, is a symbol of Christ, re-presenting his being in a way a woman cannot. (Those who mock “genital theology” are scorning dignities, as if the things that make men and women different from each other are trivial or meaningless, as though they do not point beyond themselves to the greater things upon which they are based.) We must be careful that those who observe our doings from me outside do not misunderstand the witness to Christ in our corporate life–something which concerned St. Paul and should concern us too. The placement of women in the offices of authority, especially in a society that is increasingly coming to see such things as concessions to feminism, is in fact a way of speaking unintelligibly to the world we are supposed to be giving the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God the Father.”

Unfortunately, this relative safety inherent in American life eventually led to ignorance and complacency, which made it inevitable that eventually a leader would emerge who held the nation’s founding principles, along with the entire concept of limited government, in total contempt. If one were to ignore the lies and fraud perpetrated by the Obama Administration over the past year, and only consider the evidence of this past week, it would still be impossible to escape the conclusion that Barack Obama hates everything good about America, its former standing in the world, and the ideals of morality and freedom for which it once stood.

His propaganda arm, known as the “mainstream media” can chant its platitudinous accolades with all the shrillness it can muster. Yet the reality remains. The policy decisions of Barack Obama are in complete harmony with the bile and venom of the anti-American left, and his sinister intentions for the country are increasingly being brought to bear, with no quarter given to his opposition.

Was this what the country rallied to last November? Did average Americans really want to see their great engines of freedom and capitalism swallowed up by a federal leviathan, or their daily excursions and exchanges brought under the dispassionate scrutiny of the state?

While many on the right and in the middle were understandably fed up with the lackluster campaign of Senator John McCain, and his willingness to accept far too much of the Democrat political philosophy, it is absurd to contend that the nation had intentionally lurched so far to the left that it knowingly embraced the radicalism of the Obama machine. Yet such is the liberal monster that has since been unleashed. Its actions are deliberate and malignant. And in every area that it intrudes, grave damage is done, not only to the national fabric, but also to the delicate structure of international politics.

Within only the last few days, a crushing tax bill offered under the discredited premise of “saving the environment,” has passed its initial vote in the House. If enacted, it would devastate manufacturing and business enterprises across America. It would ensure a mad dash of otherwise viable corporations to offshore locations. And it would drive the price of new homes off the charts, sending that market into an abyss.

Yet Obama, exuding all of the allure of a snake charmer, stands in front of the cameras and extols the House vote as a great boon to the people of the country. Meanwhile, global temperatures will take their cue not from the exorbitant levels of taxation intended to crush a once-great people, but from the activity of the sun, just as it has been throughout history. Meanwhile, a credible report from the Environmental Protection Agency, disputing the whole concept of man-made global warming, is suppressed. Hard evidence is systematically censored if it does not advance the interests of the liberal state.

Nevertheless, even an onerous tax, built on this obvious hoax, could be rescinded with relative ease, if the nation awakens from its stupor, recognizes the fraud that has been foisted on it, and cleans house inside the Beltway. But among other nations of the world, such mindless damage as is being projected from Washington may take decades to correct, if ever.

Iran is a striking, and increasingly tragic example of just this. It was through the inane and unfounded arrogance of Jimmy Carter, the interminably lame-duck president from 1977 to 1981, that Iran morphed into its current malignant condition. After thirty years of being a menace to every civilized nation, its downtrodden people have attempted to raise themselves against the flagrant tyranny under which they suffered for so long. In response, Obama’s America offered callous indifference, inarguably giving a green light to Iran’s murderous Ayatollahs who have since used brute force to crush the popular uprising.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the ruling madman, remains in power with Obama’s help. The despotism continues, and the entirety of western civilization, exhibits complete impotence in response. Clearly, Obama regards Ahmadinejad and his fellow Islamists as kindred. Yet the picture gets worse still.

In Honduras, the people rejected the obsessive ambitions of their president Manuel Zelaya, who had hoped to establish himself as an unaccountable monarch for life. So they ousted the wayward leader and installed a successor who promises to return the government to its constitutional operation. Joining such noted luminaries of liberty and justice as Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, and Hugo Chavez, Barack Obama has condemned this popular uprising of the people. Unlike his response to Iran, he has no problem interfering in this situation in an effort to restore the Marxist Zelaya as that nation’s uncontested ruler.

On the other hand, it is necessary to consider the magnitude of what is being accomplished in Honduras. A tinhorn Marxist dictator is being thrown out, and a nation is restoring the primacy of its constitution, thus reclaiming the right to determine its future. It is wholly understandable why Chavez, Castro, and even Obama would recoil at the ramifications of such a prospect.

Few could have conceived that an American “leader” might ever be found in such a mix., or that this nation could sink this far, and this fast. Communist banana-republic thugs and Islamist kooks are embraced and supported by this administration. Huddled masses yearning to breathe free on their own soil are ignored and oppressed. And increasingly, the laws and institutions of the United States are remolded to enforce “right thinking” according to those in power. This is not the America we knew.

Christopher G. Adamo is a freelance writer and staff writer for the New Media Alliance. He lives in southeastern Wyoming. He has been active in local and state politics for many years and is a managing partner in Best American Buy (www.bestamericanbuy.com), an e-commerce business that markets products exclusively made in America. His contact information and archives can be found at www.chrisadamo.com

Dear Mr. Obama

We are the heads of a few of your largest constituents, including Dow, GE and DuPont. This letter represents our sentiments in wishing to express our gratitude for your and Ms. Pelosi’s efforts on our behalf. We thank you, our shareholders thank you, and certainly all of us look forward to contributing to your Presidential Library, once you leave office, if we did not sufficiently contribute already prior to the election.

We can appreciate that neither yourself nor your dear friends in Congress have had time to read the new Bill that opens: “A BILL – To create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming pollution and transition to a clean energy economy.” This Bill is very, very, very long and boring. It is also very complex. We conceived it and structured it in such way that the fewer the readers, the less editing would take place. We therefore anticipate that its passage will be swift. The sooner that train leaves the station, the more impossible its progress will be to reverse. It would also not be advantageous if the irrationality, and fear surrounding humanity’s hand in the process of global warming were to subside. Now, is an opportune time to strike.

Attaching the name “Cap and Trade” to this whole business has been a stroke of genius. No one really understands what it all means, and the media believes everything you tell them, so keep plugging it, and keep promoting the “reduction in CO2” stuff. That works really well in LA. Have you seen the air out there? Terrible. Terrible, or turbull as Charles Barkley would say. We are all thrilled that you have successfully reconstructed the original intent of CO2 reduction, into an energy consumption reduction program. We knew you could do it.

The impact on consumption reduction will, in our view, be minimal, and fortunately, that is not our objective. We wish you much luck in managing this monster, and in building an administration capable of verifying such things as the veracity of corporately claimed offsets. This Bill is so complex that it will provide endless possibilities for abuse and excesses, and we can smell the fraud stinking up the air already. As you know, a transparent system such as a simple graduated carbon tax, paralleled with targeted caps on emissions, would not have been as financially beneficial for us. Not even close.

We are well aware that most of our smaller brethren in the business will get put out to pasture as a result of their inability to move off-shore quickly enough, or by the fact that they will not be able to afford the carbon pollution permits. We, on the other hand, already have unregulated facilities around the world to which we can reallocate resources at a moment’s notice. Our competitors will also not have our advantage of receiving significant Cap and Trade credits based on our being able to provide all necessary products supporting this bill, from solar panels to wind mills in the sky. Our smaller competitors will also be unable to sustain the sheer costs of managing the government’s bureaucratic intrusion into their affairs, as it deploys armies of newly hired climate science experts to distribute and oversee capping and trading of carbon dioxide emissions.

We anticipate much higher costs in the manufacture of many alternate energy sources, such as solar energy absorption cells, and this will impact the expansion of solar cell farms, but well, we have no choice.

The Bill will be very effective in rendering the cost of any carbon-based energy unaffordable through overwhelming taxation. That should help you refill the government coffers somewhat, although the hole you are digging for American taxpayers is becoming rather considerable. Households across the country will bear the brunt of the costs, through higher product prices and a heavier tax burden, but most people seem very accepting of a “price” for reducing climate change. Even if most don’t believe that they impact climate, they still feel that the air needs cleaning. We are unsure, however, how taxpayers will feel about being mandated into financing the adoption of efficient technologies overseas. They will probably not be thrilled with paying to prevent the clear-cutting of the Amazon, for example, at a time when many households are barely paying their food bills. We, on the other hand, will not be affected, whatever reactions surface on that front, although a couple of us feel bad for our buddies running operations like aluminum, or steel mills. They are in for some tough times.

We note that some of our other friends on Wall Street are very preoccupied, as we write this letter, coming up with new and extremely creative financial tools which they expect to launch upon the Bill’s passing. Those boys have amazing ways of getting in on any game with the potential of throwing off billions in cash. They look forward to a whole new set of opportunities opening up for them, replacing the ones eclipsed by the recent devastating financial compression. Listening to some of them, one might conclude that they have been holding séances with Jeffrey Skilling of Enron fame.

We are anxious to be in receipt of our free Trade Allowances, but most of all, we are excited with the anticipation of enjoying astronomical growth for many years. In passing, we should thank you for having allowed, and fuelled with cash, firms like Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley to become even bigger, and more powerful than they were before the financial down-turn. This action set a tremendous precedent we look forward to duplicating in our industries. If you thought “too big to fail” applied to these giants before the crash, wait until you see how big a few of us get in the next five years.

We have one last request if we can be so bold. Could you repeat as often as possible to the Nation that this Bill will not cost over $3,000 per household each year, and that much like the national objective of being carbon neutral, so too the cost will be, … “neutral.” Explain to America that it is just a methodology for keeping track of excessive energy consumers, and polluters. Perfect, don’t you think? They’ll all buy it. The media will promote that theme for you.

We will continue to postulate assertively on the need for battling global warming, and look forward to your persistent oratory on getting this momentous Bill passed into law.

Sincerely.

Your Friendly Benefactors

James Raider writes The Pacific Gate Post

So I heard back from the great Christina Hoff Sommers yesterday regarding the two videos I made last weekend on her article. In the time since she’s wrote something equally good called “Persistent Myths in Feminist Scholarship.” Magnifique! Enjoy, LINK.

“One reason that feminist scholarship contains hard-to-kill falsehoods is that reasonable, evidence-backed criticism is regarded as a personal attack. Lemon’s Domestic Violence Law is organized as a conventional law-school casebook–a collection of judicial opinions, statutes, and articles selected, edited, and commented upon by the author. The first selection, written by Cheryl Ward Smith (no institutional affiliation is given), offers students a historical perspective on domestic-violence law. According to Ward:

“The history of women’s abuse began over 2,700 years ago in the year 753 BC. It was during the reign of Romulus of Rome that wife abuse was accepted and condoned under the Laws of Chastisement. . . . The laws permitted a man to beat his wife with a rod or switch so long as its circumference was no greater than the girth of the base of the man’s right thumb. The law became commonly know as ‘The Rule of Thumb.’ These laws established a tradition which was perpetuated in English Common Law in most of Europe.”

Where to begin? How about with the fact that Romulus of Rome never existed. He is a figure in Roman mythology–the son of Mars, nursed by a wolf. Problem 2: The phrase “rule of thumb” did not originate with any law about wife beating, nor has anyone ever been able to locate any such law. It is now widely regarded as a myth, even among feminist professors.
A few pages later, in a selection by Joan Zorza, a domestic-violence expert, students read, “The March of Dimes found that women battered during pregnancy have more than twice the rate of miscarriages and give birth to more babies with more defects than women who may suffer from any immunizable illness or disease.” Not true. When I recently read Zorza’s assertion to Richard P. Leavitt, director of science information at the March of Dimes, he replied, “That is a total error on the part of the author. There was no such study.” The myth started in the early 1990s, he explained, and resurfaces every few years.

Zorza also informs readers that “between 20 and 35 percent of women seeking medical care in emergency rooms in America are there because of domestic violence.” Studies by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Bureau of Justice Statistics, an agency of the U.S. Department of Justice, indicate that the figure is closer to 1 percent. Few students would guess that the Lemon book is anything less than reliable. The University of California at Berkeley’s online faculty profile of Lemon hails it as the “premiere” text of the genre. It is part of a leading casebook series, published by Thomson/West, whose board of academic advisers, prominently listed next to the title page, includes many eminent law professors.”

“On June 15, I went to bed with a pang of melancholy, Father Time having slipped another year out of my back pocket while my attention was elsewhere. Thirty-nine years earlier, I’d been brought into this world the same way that I suspect I’ll depart it: naked and crying for my mom. It’s not that I mind getting older. I actually prefer it to dying young. But the rude shock comes when doing the math; the actuarial tables suggest that I’ve started playing the second half. It’s a strange realization, since I still feel like a 19-year-old, even if friends now scowl when I try to do the things I regularly did then, such as driving 95 miles an hour with my knees or hanging out with 19-year-old girls.

But on this day, I went to bed feeling that I’d lost something other than my youth. Watching that night’s news, I learned that I’d missed the chance to celebrate National Man Day. With all the phony observances now littering the calendar–it fell on the same week as Husband Caregiver Day, Sneak a Kiss Day, and World Sauntering Day–I’d completely forgotten. Dreamed up by two Indiana brothers, Joel and Aaron Longanecker, the day was hyped for months on their Facebook page, and they rallied a quarter of a million co-conspirators. The battle cry, according to the Longaneckers, was to take the day to “stand up and say, ‘Yes, I am a Man.’?”

It was a day, they declared, to eat a steak, to “blow something up, shoot some animal, punch your buddy in the face for no reason” and watch Rocky movies all day, never minding that a real man would never enjoy Rocky III. That scene with Rocky and Apollo Creed skipping around in the ocean, holding each other in their short-shorts after a particularly rigorous workout–that’s about as manly as being a groupie at a John Mayer concert.

Their supporters, however, were not deterred. Testimonials poured in of a day well spent. Men boasted of not bathing, of scratching unholy areas, of showing a pressure washer who’s boss, of firing automatic weapons, blowing up prairie dogs, eating large quantities of meat without utensils, and greeting friends “with firm handshakes, or rather, MANdshakes.”

It made me feel sorry for them. It’s not that I don’t celebrate my own Man Day every day by tending to my desires, instead of to those of the women and children. Nor do I consider myself some paragon of manhood–though by today’s effeminized-man standards, I might actually qualify: I can drive a stick shift, work a chainsaw, enjoy relieving myself outside, and would never think of getting a vasectomy. (It’s not that I wouldn’t do anything for my wife–I love her more than life itself. But I don’t want to be unfair to my future trophy wife. What if she wants kids?) [classic!] The reason I feel sorry for these mantards is the same reason I feel sorry for men’s magazine writers, who on glossy pages filled with androgynous models and which smell like the inside of the Neiman Marcus perfume counter, write self-conscious manly-man articles giving man-tips to even less manly men under titles such as “The 75 Skills Every Man Should Master.” It’s hard to imagine real men, like Jack Dempsey or Genghis Khan, reading up on how much cuff to show or how to “argue with a European without getting xenophobic or insulting soccer.”

“• Michael Jackson hasn’t been this stiff since Macaullay Culkin spent the night at Neverland Ranch.

• Because Jackson’s body was 95% plastic, he will be melted down and turned into legos, this way kids can play with him for a change.

•Micheal jackson will always be with us… he is not biodegradable.

•Farrah Fawcett arrived at the Pearly Gates and God asked her what he could do for her having led such an honest life. Farrah asked God to simply make sure the children of the world were safe. Five minutes later, Michael Jackson died.”

Pop! A stream of yellow goop spurted out. I put astringent on a cotton ball and applied it to the area.

Then I thought no more of it, expecting it to heal.

But it did not heal.

A scab formed but seemed to grow instead of shrink. I rubbed on it with Vaseline. It would not rub off.

I made an appointment with a dermatologist who did a biopsy.

“There is a cancer,” I was informed.

I was stunned. And scared.

However, I was soon assured that the type of cancer was unlikely to be fatal. It was a skin cancer but not a melanoma. It was a skin cancer called squamous cell carcinoma. Approximately 2,500 people die from it every year in the United States but mine was caught early and in a place that is unlikely to lead to death.

It was removed in an outpatient surgery. The doctor told me I should consider myself cancer-free and that the chief concern at this point is to avoid disfigurement.

Any kind of severe stress can trigger an increase in the symptoms associated with my disability. The cancer diagnosis did. The expense associated with treatment also adversely affected my already precarious financial situation so I am even more deeply in debt than I was before it.

However, I have my life. Bar something unforeseen, I should make it to turn 52 on August 10.

I also have a renewed appreciation for life.

When Pizzey wrote a book revealing this sordid truth, she encountered a firestorm of protest. “Abusive telephone calls to my home, death threats, and bomb scares, became a way of living for me and for my family. Finally, the bomb squad asked me to have all my mail delivered to their head quarters,” she would later reveal.

According a recent report, the domestic violence industry continues to engage in information control tactics, spewing a dizzying series of half-truths, white lies, and outright prevarications. The report, “Fifty Domestic Violence Myths,” is published by RADAR, Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting: http://www.mediaradar.org/docs/RADARreport-50-DV-Myths.pdf

How often have you heard the mantra-like claim, “domestic violence is all about power and control”? That’s code for the feminist dogma that domestic violence is rooted in men’s insatiable need to dominate and oppress the women in their lives.

And the obvious solution to partner abuse? Eliminate the patriarchy!

I know it all sounds far-fetched, but that’s what the gender ideologues who get their funding from the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) believe. And no surprise these programs have been an abject failure. As Dr. Angela Parmley of the Department of Justice once admitted, “We have no evidence to date that VAWA has led to a decrease in the overall levels of violence against women.”

Once you blame the whole problem of partner abuse on patriarchal dominance, the women who proudly call themselves the “VAWA Mafia” find themselves compelled to dress up the fable with a series of corollary myths.

Here are some examples: When a woman attacks her boyfriend, claim she was only acting in self-defense. Shrug off her assault with the “He had it coming” line. Aver her short stature prevents her from ever hurting her man. Or assert she grew up in an abusive household, as if that somehow lets her off the hook.

Above all, the ideologues will never admit that partner violence is more common among lesbians than heterosexual couples. Just consider the case of Jessica Kalish, the 56-year-old Florida woman who was stabbed 222 times last October with a Phillips screwdriver wielded by ex-girlfriend Carol Anne Burger. But no one dared call it “domestic violence.”

Once you begin to play tricks with the truth, you need to invent ever grander prevarications. So sit back and get ready for a good chuckle, because there’s not a shred of truth to any of these claims regularly put forth by the domestic abuse industry:

1. A marriage license is a hitting license. (Truth is, an intact marriage is the safest place for men and women alike.)

2. Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women. (The leading causes of female injury are unintentional falls, motor vehicle accidents, and over-exertion. Domestic violence is not even on the list.)

3. The March of Dimes reports that battering is the leading cause of birth defects. (The March of Dimes has never done such a study.)

4. Women never make false allegations of domestic violence. (That’s the biggest whopper of all.)

5. Super Bowl Sunday is the biggest day of the year for violence against women. (Will the abuse industry never tire of its demagoguery?)

These are just five of the 50 domestic violence myths documented in the RADAR report. As former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once deadpanned, “You’re entitled to your own opinions; you’re not entitled to your own facts.” Hopefully the $4 billion partner abuse industry will begin to pay attention.

In seeking the roots of fascism we once again find a high correlation between homosexuality and a mode of thinking which we identify with Nazism.

The chapter then traces the roots of German fascism from Plato, through Frederick the Great, and Friedrich Nietzsche – all gay by the author’s reckoning. At this point, I will not contest this, even though I could.  For instance, historians and philosophers are divided about Nietzsche’s sexuality, although only very few think he might have homosexual inclinations. Rather, my point here is to propose a problem for the thesis of The Pink Swastika that homosexuality and fascism have a necessary causal link of some kind.

In chapter three, Lively and Abrams guess at the sexuality of many Nazi and related people but with the following figure – Thomas Mann – they are probably accurate in their assessment. About Mann, they write:

Thomas Mann’s identification with Nietzsche may also have had some thing to do with the latter’s homosexuality. Among other works, Mann is famous for a 1912 novella called Der Tod in Venedig (”Death in Venice”), in which “an aging writer risks life and reputation in his attempts to gaze on the Apollonian beauty of the 14-year-old Tadzio” (Reiter in Grolier). Homosexualist historian A.L. Rowse called this novella “the most publicized homosexual story of the century” (Rowse:212). A recently published biography, Thomas Mann: A Life, by Donald Prater, establishes the novelist’s homosexuality. A review of this book in The San Francisco Examiner (December 23, 1995) states that the book is based in part on Mann’s private diaries, which reveal a “secret homoerotic life.”

Mann was married and had six children for whom he was “a remote and some times terrifying figure.” The article reveals that two of these children, Klaus and Michael, committed suicide. Two of his children became homosexuals (Rowse:212). Mann confesses in his diary that the character Tadzio, the 14-year-old boy in “A Death in Venice,” was actually modeled after a boy on whom Mann “developed a crush while holidaying in Venice.”

Now just as the uninformed reader might think that Lively and Abrams are about to suggest Mann’s positive influence on Hitler and fascism, the authors write:

We must be clear, however, that Mann’s contribution to Nazism, his role in popularizing Nietzsche, was unintended. Mann was personally anti-Nazi, and was persona non grata with Hitler’s government.

Lively and Abrams vastly understate the case. Mann was openly anti-fascist as was Nietzsche. A contemporary of Hitler, Mann actively opposed the Third Reich. He used his considerable popularity with the German people in a series of radio broadcasts designed to cause common Germans to question and oppose the regime. Here is an excerpt of one of Mann’s speeches to the German people, broadcast in July, 1942:

I know well that I don’t have to warn you against exuberance now that Hitler is once again winning and has conquered Rostov, the city on the Don, which he had conquered once before. It is well known that such things do not plunge you into exuberance, that the blare of radio trumpets which accompanies the announcement is odious to you, that you are by no means overjoyed. It is not necessary to dampen your enthusiasm; rather, you have to be consoled. Not we, out here, are in need of consolation when the war looks as it does at present. If you only knew how sure we are of our cause, which to begin with, and as premise for all that is to come, is the cause of destroying Hitler! His destruction is sealed, believe me and don’t be afraid! It is a world necessity, wholly inevitable, and will be accomplished one way or another; and because it is decided, the victories of that wretch are merely bloody nonsense. You are bewildered and depressed. You are thinking: “Will he triumph after all? And shall we never get rid of him? And will the world be German, in that desperate fashion in which we are now German?” Be of good cheer! Hitler’s victory is an empty word: there is no such thing – it is not within the realm of the acceptable, permissible, thinkable. It will be prevented; rather, he himself will always prevent it, the sorry scoundrel, because of himself, simply because of his nature, because of his impossible and hopelessly deranged disposition, which does not permit him to think, want, or do anything which is not false, mendacious, condemned beforehand. One speaks of the betrayed devil. But nobody betrays the devil; he is betrayed, because of himself and to begin with. Not with Faust’s soul, the soul of humanity, will this stupid Satan go down to hell, but alone.

–From Thomas Mann, Listen Germany! Twenty-five Radio Messages to the German People Over BBC by Thomas Mann. New York, 1943, pp. 102-07.

Please read the entire address on the German Documents website.

First, it is worth noting how Lively and Abrams’ devotion to their thesis leads them to treat Thomas Mann. Apparently the primary reason Mann is mentioned at all is to make a feeble attempt to pin Nietzsche with the label homosexual. Mann was a great writer, one of the best fiction writers in modern history. He was a resolute opponent of Hitler and the Nazis. He left his homeland in service of his convictions and used his fame and gifts to try to bring down Hitler. However, one would not get any sense of this perspective by reading Lively and Abrams. In The Pink Swastika, Mann’s personal life is disparaged, he is discounted as an apologist for Nietzsche and thus an unwitting contributor to Nazism.

Lively and Abrams thesis collapses into absurdity when one considers the vigor of Mann’s opposition to Hitler’s fascism. People of all orientations and worldviews supported and opposed Hitler. The Nazis used anyone, gay or straight, religious or not, to get to power. And once they attained power, they systematically crushed opposition both gay and straight, religious and not.

To close this article, read the closing argument offered by Mann to the German people in his July, 1942 broadcast. Note his utter contempt for the intellectual foundations of Nazism. And then recall that the speaker was attracted to the same sex.

The end is near, Germans, believe me, and be of good cheer! Just at this moment I tell it to you when once again it looks like success and victory and conquest for you. The end is near – not yours, not Germany’s. The so-called destruction of Germany is as empty a word, as non-existent a thing, as the victory of Hitler. But the end is approaching; in fact, it will come soon – the end of the repulsive system, the robber, murder, and liar state of National Socialism. An end will be put to its trashy and disgraceful philosophy and all the acts of trash and disgrace which have sprung from it. Accounts will be settled, disastrously settled, with its bigwigs, its leaders and helpers, servants and beneficiaries, its generals, diplomats, and Gestapo hyenas. Accounts will also be settled with its intellectual trail-blazers and shield-bearers, the journalists and pseudo-philosophers who licked its boots, the geopoliticians, war geographers, teachers of “Wehrwissenschaft” and race professors. Germany will be cleansed of all that ever had anything to do with the filth of Hitlerism and all that made it possible. And a freedom will be established in Germany and in the world which believes in itself, respects itself, knows how to defend itself, and which takes not only the deed but, before that, the thoughts into the control of those ideas which connect man with God.

Those inclined to accept the thesis in The Pink Swastika might complain that one bisexual opponent to Hitler is not disruptive to Lively’s proposed link between fascism and homosexuality. However, I submit that Mann’s experience is one relevant rebuttal to the notion that being same-sex attracted necessarily leads to fascist beliefs and tactics. Throughout The Pink Swastika, Lively and Abrams play fast and loose with the historical record in order to invent a causal link between homosexuality and fascism.

…………..
Warren Throckmorton, PhD is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Fellow for Public Policy at Grove City College (PA). He blogs at www.wthrockmorton.com.

The differences between the manager of a Ponzi scheme and a model citizen are almost imperceptible, which is not surprising. Those who would perpetrate a Ponzi scheme are usually not the demons everyone makes them out to be. And they are obsessed with appearing successful.

This fixation on appearances, however, is the red flag. If you are the millionaire next door, you know that frugality is one of the marks of an effective financial advisor.

But you may have to train your eye to recognize an immoderate lifestyle. If someone in business is worth $300 an hour, some apparent extravagances may in reality be productivity gains.

For example, if you hire a chauffeur to drive you to and from work each day so you can be productive, society gains. If you hire a gardener so you can continue contributing in your area of expertise, society gains. And if you hire a butler or a chef, so long as you employ someone else for less than $300 an hour, society gains.

Productivity gains are not synonymous with a lavish lifestyle, and with some careful observation you can learn to discern the difference. Productivity gains are all about function, and if you discover them you will find out accidentally. In contrast, the whole purpose of an extravagant lifestyle is to be noticed.

Consider Bernie Madoff. He and his wife lived in a $7M penthouse apartment in New York City and a house worth $3 million in the Hamptons. They also owned a $9.3 million Palm Beach mansion. Plus they maintained a $1M million chalet and two boats on the French Riviera.

They spent an average of $100,000 monthly on the corporate credit card on chartered jets, limousines, top hotels, fine wines, world travel and shopping. When they drove themselves, they rode in style in a BMW and or one of two Mercedes. Madoff bought a vintage Aston-Martin for his brother as a company car. The couple owned a Steinway concert grand piano worth $39,000. Madoff purchased tickets at the Mets Citi Field at $40,000 a season.

Madoff was also a prominent philanthropist, but his interests were anything but altruistic. He started the Madoff Family Foundation and gave to charities, which in turn invited him to serve on their boards. Madoff then invited them to invest their endowments.

He and his wife also gave more than $200,000 to the Democratic Party. He gained high-level connections to those in Congress who write the laws and are supposed to provide regulatory oversight. Madoff was one of the first to exploit kickbacks for brokerage order flows. He argued they should remain legal and not alter the price that customers received. His connections prevailed.

The Madoffs themselves owned $62 million in securities and $45 million in municipal bonds. They loaned their sons $22 million and $9 million, respectively. Oddly enough, having siphoned billions, the couple only has a net worth of about $823 million.

Wealth is what you save, not what you spend. That’s why an ostentatious and excessive lifestyle is a red flag for an investment advisor. The middle class buys liabilities like boats and cars. The rich buy investments. If Bernie Madoff had bought businesses and investments, he would be able to make restitution of those initial investments. He might even be able to pay a fraction of the gains he claimed to have.

We all wonder what happened to the $65 billion. Much of it was phantom gains, and a lot of it was simply spent a million here and a million there. Excessive spending is a warning sign that your advisor doesn’t understand wealth building personally.

In April this year, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Shawn Merriman of Aurora, Colorado, of collecting $20 million in a Ponzi scheme “to support his lavish lifestyle.” He lied to investors, reporting “impressive and consistent annual returns” as high as 20%.

Merriman was known for showcasing his high-end art collection. U.S. marshals seized hundreds of works of art including some by Rembrandt and Picasso from his sprawling three-story home. Also seized were a silver Aston Martin, 1932 and 1936 Auburns and a 1932 Ford Highboy.

This spring the SEC also filed charges against Pennsylvania advisor Tony Young for allegedly stealing $23 million from investors to “support a lavish lifestyle for his family, including payments for expenses related to horse ownership and racing, construction, boats, limousines, chartered aircraft and other luxuries.” That lifestyle included an opulent vacation home in Palm Beach, Florida, near the Madoffs’ vacation home. Young also lied to accountants who prepared statements and claimed his losses in 2008 were only 5.8%.

Ponzi schemes are often discovered after market downturns when investors make the mistake of fleeing to safety. They want to take their stellar returns and put the money someplace safe while the storm blows over, only to find that no money is really there.

Additionally, the news cycle runs in themes. After the Madoff scandal, every Ponzi scheme became national news. The theme, played over and over, is that all financial services, from Fannie Mae to AIG, are rife with corruption and mismanagement and need more government regulation.

But more control won’t protect you from dishonesty. More law can’t protect you from an unethical person. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had direct congressional oversight. Madoff was good friends with the regulators. Regulation is more likely to be used politically than responsibly.

Your best defense is to engage an advisor whose daily practices reflect ways to safeguard the money under his or her fiduciary care. As part of identifying such an advisor, make sure there is a mutual understanding that an ostentatious lifestyle is not a valid financial goal.

from http://www.emarotta.com/article.php?ID=343

Vice President Joe Biden [yeah, he's always been the bureaucratic ringleader for these freaks along with Uncle Keg Kennedy], who wrote the Violence Against Women Act when a U.S. senator, said Rosenthal is the right choice for the newly created post because of her years working in the domestic violence arena.

“Ms. Rosenthal is one of the nation’s foremost experts in domestic violence policy, and has worked at the local, state and national levels to create an environment where violence against women is not ignored and perpetrators are held accountable,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House announcing her appointment. “Lynn is passionate about these issues and knows them backward and forward. And as a former director of a shelter, she’s also seen the human face of this tragic problem. She will be a leader in this White House in stopping the violence and sexual assault of women and will be an integral part of this administration.”

Rosenthal most recently was executive director of the New Mexico Coalition Against Domestic Violence. She served in a similar role at the National Network to End Domestic Violence from 2000-06.”

It’s all quite a bit of fun, and neither commentators nor readers need any understanding of science and technology to participate. So what if the fictional robot Bender on the animated sci-fi comedy Futurama provides a more realistic presentation of issues in robotics than modern journalism and bloggistry? What possible motive could I have for interfering with a good time?

I’ve seen it all before. AI was a hot topic back in the 1980s. Speculation ran rampant. Commentators reached for more exciting things to say. The future would be fantastic. By the end of the decade, it was clear that no one was actually achieving the goals established by enthusiastic non-participants. Everyone was disappointed. Investment collapsed.

Machine-learning is an area particularly close to my heart. It has been the basis for a variety of new commercial technologies within the past decade; providing more powerful Internet search and analysis tools, Internet forms, adaptive games and financial analysis, speeding up robot development while increasing the scope of their effective use, and has become part of advanced video and image processing, among other things. As useful and interesting as these present day technologies are, one isn’t surprised when mention of machine-learning is met with a question about the potential for super-intelligent machines surpassing and perhaps subjugating humans. Should mankind be investing in these technologies at all?

“Kill all humans,” Bender repeats in his sleep. “Hey baby, wanna kill all humans?” is a pick-up line. Advances in military application of semi-autonomous systems are a far cry from what you’ll see in a Terminator film. How worried should we be that reality will one day collide with the tendency of movie robots to take over the world? It’s actually an interesting question, in my opinion. But as quickly as possible, I have to add that computer scientists and engineers are much better at thinking about these things than science fiction writers and futurists (I mean, as far as the real-world is concerned). Designing machines has a lot to do with designing the control of the machine. If you’re interested in creating an out-of-control killing machine, just roll a big rock down a hill. There’s no need for sophisticated engineering.

The future provides a great play-space for the imagination. Predictive capabilities are limited. Almost anything could happen. It’s fun. I love it. I personally enjoy sci-fi so much that I’d almost call it a hobby. Thank you, science fiction writers (except for those involved in the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still and the science fiction film in documentary style, An Inconvenient Truth – more sinister than a killer robot). But as in any other area of serious discussion, what we really need are clear distinctions between fiction and reality. There is a lot going on in the real-world right now that is pretty darn exciting and worth thinking about.

The original 1951 version is regarded as one of the best sci-fi movies ever made – a classic. That explains why the remake did better at the box office in 2008 than Assignment and Kronos combined (besides the fact that neither of the other two movies played in theaters last year). In the original movie, an alien with advanced technology arrived in a flying saucer with an ultimate message of peace. Their interest did not lie in the internal affairs of earth. They were concerned that conflict and destructive technology would eventually spread to effect them, because earthlings had powerful weapons and were on the verge of mastering space flight. A demonstration of the alien’s power came in the form of stopping all electrical and mechanical power on earth for half an hour – without effecting critical operations such as hospital intensive care wards, airplanes in flight, etc.

Reviewers of the remake had a list of complaints. The one that calls for a sequel is the destruction of the story – and not in a good way. Unless you’re a brain-washed greenie, the story line in the remake makes little sense. But I will try to summarize, being as open-minded as possible in an effort to make sense of it. The alien claims his race has prior claim on the earth. It’s some kind of nature reserve – a large park. Things were fine until uppity humans started building things and making sophisticated use of energy. The things humans do for their own survival – like constructing homes and heating them – growing and cooking food and all that – have made the place less than pristine. So, I’m sure you’ll understand (apparently), he decided to kill all humans. In the end, he decided not to – because, we’re sort of an interesting biology experiment or something. Anyway, we apologize, claiming that survival of our species was just a big mistake, and promise not to do it again. So, he just turned off all the power on his way out – sending modern people back into a prehistoric existence. Anyone who can survive like rats and spiders – ok. That’s the deal.

If this isn’t a problem for SG-1, what is? Star Gate or not, humans need to find a way to battle this new foe. The comparison isn’t superficial either. The alien did present a rather god-like aire; easily inheriting the role of the Goa’uld. The first thing we need to do is get the power back on. Since the aliens are not all-seeing gods, it will take many years for them to realize it was done. Then we need technology to begin the fight. Perhaps discovery of some alien communication device, left by another race, will bring an ally into the battle. Such arrogant jerks must have other enemies in the universe.

For me, the need for this sequel has a lot to do with preserving the memory of the original film, stolen for this sham of a remake. Some good must ultimately come of it. And in my opinion, the timing for the type of sequel I’m suggesting couldn’t be better. It would be a reflection on the same battle presently taking place in the real world. Human survival verses a bunch of arrogant jerks who want to force the masses into a stone-age existence with the hope of expanding their options for pleasant vacation spots.

“It’s full-on wedding season, but anyone about to pledge to have and to hold should pay closer attention to the bit about “in sickness and in health.” New research shows that within a few short years of getting hitched, married individuals are twice as likely to become obese as are people who are merely dating.

The study, published in the July issue of Obesity, set out to determine how romantic relationships affect the tell-no-lies number on the scale. Researchers tracked changes over a handful of years in the weight and relationship status of 6,949 individuals, and their findings don’t bode well for commitment. Not only are married people more likely to become obese than those who are just dating, but young people who move in with a boyfriend or girlfriend tend to pack on the pounds too. (See pictures of the busiest wedding day in history.)

And in a twist sure to tick off all the ladies in the house, the study notes that unmarried women who have been living with their sweeties for five years or less run a 63% increased risk of obesity. What about unmarried men? On average, they have no increased risk during cohabitation.

“With women, we saw incremental risk after one year,” says Penny Gordon-Larsen, one of the two nutrition epidemiologists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) who conducted the study. “The longer she lived with a romantic partner, the more likely she was to keep putting on weight.” Meanwhile, the risk of obesity among guys — married and unmarried — spikes only between the first and second years of living together.

What’s behind the weight gain? Gordon-Larsen and the paper’s lead author, Natalie The, have their theories after questioning 1,293 couples for a separate part of the study. Mealtime may become more important than it was when the people were living alone. Gym memberships may not get the same workouts they did before nuptials. And maybe, after months of prepping to squeeze into crinolined and cummerbunded finery, couples just let themselves go. (Watch TIME’s video “How to Lose Hundreds of Pounds.”)

Scientists have known for a while that having a close relationship with an obese person, whether a friend or a spouse, makes you more likely to become obese. So how to break the cycle? Perhaps by drawing inspiration from the same person who helped get you into this mess: your better half. Amy Gorin, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Connecticut, published a study last year that showed if one spouse participates in a weight-loss program, the unenrolled spouse tends to lose about 5 lb. Now Gorin is exploring whether enlisting the support of spouses can help both partners shed more pounds. In June she wrapped up a 16-week pilot study of 20 couples, in one of which, the support person lost more weight than the main participant in the study.

Couples don’t have to live chubbily ever after. And studies show that marriage conveys some health benefits, like living longer and being more likely to quit smoking, notes UNC’s The, who lives with her boyfriend but insists her obesity findings haven’t scared her away from the idea of marriage. “This is an interesting paradox,” she says, “but it certainly wouldn’t stop me.”" [Well, no miss, why would it?]

“Call it residual puritanism or an overdose of religion if you want, but most Americans think wedding vows are not to be disdained. In recent decades, sexual mores have gotten considerably more relaxed, with one major exception: extramarital affairs. A 2009 Gallup poll found that 92 percent of us think adultery is “morally wrong”—which presumably means there are a lot more people who commit it than defend it. Only 40 percent of Americans think premarital sex is morally wrong, and only 47 percent say that of homosexual relations.
So Barney Frank’s career survived his romp with a male prostitute, while John Edwards’ fling with a campaign aide made him politically radioactive. Sex without marriage is OK. Sex in violation of marriage is not. Why not? Because adultery, unlike a frisky bachelor lifestyle, connotes a reckless dishonesty at odds with our basic notions of integrity. Because it shows a lack of respect for the most important commitment that most of us will ever make. Because it indicates that the adulterer will always place his selfish desires above those who depend on him. There is a cost to this approach, obviously. It disqualifies some smart, dedicated, and able people merely because they suffer a single flaw—and one that apparently is pretty common among the politically ambitious.”

How ironic, then, that voices in Russia and China are mocking our current Big Government policies. Those whose countries took the tragic, impoverishing detour through Big Government hell now react with scorn and derision as we Americans charge headlong down that same path. What an amazing spectacle it must be for them to see the victor of the Cold War borrow many pages from the losers’ playbook.

To read a startling indictment of the American predicament, Google the words “American capitalism gone with a whimper,” the title of an article by Stanislav Mishin. The author writes, “the American descent into Marxism is happening with breath-taking speed.”

This decline has happened because, according to Mishin, “the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education” that produced millions of Americans who “know more about their favorite TV dramas than the drama in D.C. that directly affects their lives.” Mishin also faults the widespread abandonment of Christ’s religion in America, our loss of faith. This is the cultural backdrop for a political system that has culminated in Barack Obama’s unprecedented “spending and money printing.” Mishin believes that, under Obamanomics, “America at best will resemble the Weimar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.”

Earlier this year, reports Mishin, “Prime Minister Putin … warned Obama and UK’s Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster.” Mishin has concluded that we are ignoring Putin’s warning—based on 70 years of suffering during the nightmarish Soviet experiment in central planning—and he concludes, “The proud American will go down into his slavery without a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world how free he really is. The world will only snicker.”

When I first read this astounding diatribe, I thought perhaps it had been written as a satire, almost as a spoof of what some libertarian writers in the United States have written. After consulting with a Russian friend, I have concluded that Mishin wrote in complete earnestness. Either way—satire or grim analysis—what Mishin wrote is no laughing matter. Mishin’s is one of many voices, foreign and domestic, warning us of the dangers of faith that government can be omnicompetent and can meet all our economic needs.

Adding to the irony of a Russian warning the United States about the dangers of Marxism is the fact that this article appeared in the online publication Pravda.ru—the contemporary version of the Soviet-era newspaper Pravda that served as the official Communist Party channel for pro-communist, anti-American propaganda.

Another harsh indictment of our ill-advised embrace of Big Government occurred on June 1, during Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s official visit to China. Speaking at the University of Beijing, Geithner assured a large audience of students that China’s large holdings of U.S. Treasury securities were “very safe.” The students laughed out loud. This reaction might have been unusually rude, but it was brutally honest. They didn’t believe Geithner for one second.

When the ability of the United States government to repay its debts (or at least, without doing so in significantly depreciated dollars) is perceived as a joke, it is anything but a laughing matter for our country. The Chinese gave us a wakeup call, although we appear not to have heeded it.

The Chinese students see what is plain for anyone with eyes to see. For years, fiscal discipline has been eroding in Washington, but President Obama has increased government spending with reckless abandon as the leviathan government absorbs more and more of the private sector. As I wrote in “Into the Fiscal Abyss,” with Uncle Sam’s total financial obligations totaling approximately five times our GDP, there is no way those debts and promises can be honored. The most likely outcome will be Uncle Sam—the largest debtor in human history—paying off those debts in greatly depreciated dollars. Indeed, our one-trick Federal Reserve (Motto: When there’s a bump in the economic road, inflate) already has begun to create vast sums of new dollars through the mechanism of “quantitative easing”—the direct purchase of the bonds that the government issues to finance its massive spending agenda.

The Chinese students laughing at Geithner told us implicitly what Stanislav Mishin told us explicitly: It is runaway government spending, stemming from the socialistic error that the government can be all things to all people, which threatens us all with financial cataclysm, national bankruptcy, and the loss of our prosperity and our freedoms. From the perspective of the Russians and the Chinese, the joke is on us. But for all of us, America’s plunge into the Big Government trap is no laughing matter.

Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson is an adjunct faculty member, economist, and contributing scholar with The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College.

 

Last Updated: 06/28/2009

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The information in this column is intended for informational purposes only, and does not constitute medical advice or recommendations by the author. Please consult with your physician before making any lifestyle or medication changes, or if you have any other concerns regarding your health.

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AIR POLLUTION & THE RISK OF DEEP VENOUS THROMBOSIS (DVT)  

 

As I’ve mentioned in previous columns, venous thromboembolic (VTE) disorders are a major cause of disability and death throughout the world. Deep venous thrombosis (DVT) results when blood clots form within the deep veins of the body (most commonly within the large veins of the legs and pelvis).  A variety of conditions and circumstances can lead to DVT formation.  These include decreased blood flow, or “stasis,” involving the body’s deep veins, injury or inflammation of the internal surfaces (endothelium) of these veins, and any underlying health condition that increases the blood’s tendency to form blood clots (hypercoagulable state).  Pulmonary embolism (PE) is a potentially life-threatening condition, and most commonly arises in patients who have already developed DVT (PE occurs when chunks of DVT-associated clots break away and travel to the lungs).  When the lungs’ circulation becomes clogged-up with these itinerant clots (emboli), patients may experience shortness of breath, chest pain, or in severe cases of PE, complete cardiovascular collapse and death.  

 

 

VTE remains an underappreciated cause of serious illness, disability, and death.  Patients with severe or repeated cases of DVT often develop chronic swelling, pain, and skin damage of the affected extremities, due to the progressive destruction of the one-way valves in the large veins of the lower body that help to prevent pooling of blood in these dependent areas (post-thrombotic syndrome).  Patients who survive significant PEs may also go on to develop permanent damage to the venous circulation of the lungs, leaving them with decreased blood flow to the lungs (pulmonary hypertension) and, in severe cases, chronic shortness of breath, lung injury, and heart damage (PE also remains the most common cause of unexpected death in hospitalized patients).  An estimated 900,000 new cases of VTE occur in the United States each year, and as many as one-third of these cases of VTE are fatal, which makes VTE a more common cause of death than either heart attacks or strokes!  As these statistics suggest, VTE remains a very serious public health problem in the United States, and throughout much of the world, as well.

While exposure to particulate air pollution from diesel and gasoline engines has previously been linked to an increased risk of coronary artery disease, the effects of these environmental pollutants on the body’s venous system, if any, are less clear.   Now, an innovative new study from Italy suggests that chronic exposure to automobile and truck exhaust may actually increase the risk of VTE.  In this study, which has just been published in the journal Circulation, 663 patients who were diagnosed with DVT were compared with 859 age-matched “control” patients without any history of DVT.  All patients who were included in this study lived in cities with a population of more than 15,000 inhabitants in the Lombardia region of Italy.  In this study, the researchers calculated the distance that each study volunteer lived from major highways and high-traffic streets.  The researchers also factored other DVT risk factors, for each of the patient volunteers, into their analysis of the data collected in this study.  Among those patient volunteers who lived between 0 feet and 2,400 feet from major highways and high-traffic streets, the risk of developing DVT was more or less linearly proportional to the distance between these patients’ homes and the site of increased automobile and truck traffic.  When comparing the patients who lived approximately 10 feet from major streets and highways with patients who lived 800 feet away from major thoroughfares, and after adjusting for other risk factors for DVT among these 1,522 patient volunteers, the researchers noted a 47 percent greater risk of DVT among the patient volunteers who lived closer to high-traffic highways and streets.

 

 

Therefore, the findings of this study strongly suggest that chronic exposure to particulate air pollution from vehicle exhaust significantly increases the risk of developing DVT.  Other well established risk factors for DVT include prolonged immobility (e.g., sitting for long periods on a plane or in a car; or prolonged bed rest), cancer, recent major injury or surgery, pregnancy, birth control pills or other forms of hormonal therapy, heart failure, obesity, smoking, severe infections, older age, high blood pressure, chronic lung disease, inherited clotting abnormalities, and a family history of DVT or other forms of VTE.

 

 

As many of the known risk factors for DVT, and other forms of VTE, are preventable, it is possible to reduce the risk of developing potentially life-threatening blood clots by taking steps to avoid as many of these risks as possible.  For example, if you must take a long plane or automobile ride, you should take frequent walking breaks, and remember to also frequently exercise your legs while you are seated.  Drinking plenty of caffeine-free and alcohol-free drinks will also reduce the risk of DVT during long trips.  If you also have one or more non-modifiable risk factors for VTE and you must take a long trip, you might also want to talk with your doctor about taking aspirin or/and anticoagulant medications before and during your trip, as well as wearing compression stockings on your legs during your long trip.  As for the risk of DVT associated with increased exposure to gasoline and diesel engine exhaust (in addition to an increased risk of lung disease and heart disease), this new clinical research study suggests that it is best to avoid living close to busy highways and high-traffic streets, if at all possible.     

 

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Disclaimer: As always, my advice to readers is to seek the advice of your physician before making any significant changes in medications, diet, or level of physical activity

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Dr. Wascher is an oncologic surgeon, a professor of surgery, a widely published author, and the Physician-in-Chief for Surgical Oncology at the Kaiser Permanente healthcare system in Orange County, California  

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(Anticipated Publication Date: March 2010)

(Click above image for TV36 interview of Dr. Wascher)

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Dr. Wascher’s Biography

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Copyright 2009.

Robert A. Wascher, MD, FACS.

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12-28-2008: Stress & Your Risk of Heart Attack; Vitamin D & the Prevention of Colon & Rectal Polyps
 
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6-2-2008: Acute Coronary Syndrome- Do You Know the Symptoms?; Green Tea & Lung Cancer; Episiotomy & Subsequent Deliveries- An Unkind Cut

5-25-2008: Early Childhood Screening Predicts Later Behavioral Problems; Psychiatric Disorders Among Parents of Autistic Children; Social & Psychiatric Profiles of Young Adults Born Prematurely

5-18-2008: Can Statins Reverse Coronary Artery Disease?; Does Breast Ultrasound Improve Breast Cancer Detection?; Preventive Care Services at Veterans Administration (VA) Medical Centers

5-11-2008: Smoking Cessation & Risk of Death; Childhood Traumas & Adult Suicide Risk; “White Coat Hypertension” & Risk of Cardiovascular Disease

5-4-2008: Super-Size Me: Fast Food’s Effects on Your Liver; Exercise, Weight & Coronary Artery Disease; Contamination of Surgical Instruments in the Operating Room

4-27-2008: Stents vs. Bypass Surgery for Coronary Artery Disease; The “DASH” Hypertension Diet & Cardiovascular Disease Prevention; Testosterone Therapy for Women with Decreased Sexual Desire & Function

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4-6-2008: Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), Pap Smear Results & Cervical Cancer; Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) Infection & Oral Cancer; Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) & the Risk of Gastroesophageal Reflux Disorder (GERD)

3-30-2008: Abdominal Obesity & the Risk of Death in Women; Folic Acid Pretreatment & Heart Attacks; Pancreatic Cancer Regression after Injections of Bacteria

3-23-2008: Age of Transfused Blood & Risk of Complications after Surgery; Obesity, Blood Pressure & Heart Size in Children

3-16-2008: Benefits of a Full Drug Coverage Plan for Medicare Patients?; Parent-Teen Conversations about Sex; Soy (Genistein) & Prostate Cancer

3-9-2008: Flat Colorectal Adenomas & Cancer; Health Risks after Stopping Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT); Television, Children & Obesity

3-2-2008: Medication & Risk of Death After Heart Attack; Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) & Mammogram Results; Selenium: Cancer, Heart Disease & Death

2-23-2008: Universal Healthcare Insurance Study; Glucosamine & Arthritis

2-17-2008: Exceptional Longevity in Men; Testosterone & Risk of Prostate Cancer; Smoking & Pre-malignant Colorectal Polyps

2-10-2008: Thrombus Aspiration from Coronary Arteries; Intensive Management of Diabetes & Death; Possible Cure for Down’s Syndrome?

2-3-2008: Vitamin D & Cardiovascular Health; Vitamin D & Breast Cancer; Green Tea & Colorectal Cancer

1-27-2008: Colorectal Cancer, Esophageal Cancer & Pancreatic Cancer: Update from the 2008 American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium

1-20-2008: Testosterone Levels & Risk of Fractures in Elderly Men; Air Pollution & DNA Damage in Sperm; Statins & Trauma Survival in the Elderly

1-12-2008: Statins, Diabetes & Stroke and Obesity; GERD & Esophageal Cancer

1-7-2008: Testosterone Supplements in Elderly Men; Colorectal Cancer– Reasons for Poor Compliance with Screening Recommendations

12-31-2007: Minority Women, Hormone Replacement Therapy & Breast Cancer; Does Health Insurance Improve Health?

12-23-2007: Is Coffee Safe After a Heart Attack?; Impact of Divorce on the Environment; Hypertension & the Risk of Dementia; Emotional Vitality & the Risk of Heart Disease

12-16-2007: Honey vs. Dextromethorphan vs. No Treatment for Kids with Night-Time Cough, Acupuncture & Hot Flashes in Women with Breast Cancer, Physical Activity & the Risk of Death, Mediterranean Diet & Mortality

12-11-2007: Bias in Medical Research; Carbon Nanotubes & Radiofrequency: A New Weapon Against Cancer?; Childhood Obesity & Risk of Adult Heart Disease

12-2-2007: Obesity & Risk of Cancer; Testosterone Level & Risk of Death; Drug Company Funding of Research & Results; Smoking & the Risk of Colon & Rectal Cancer

http://doctorwascher.com

My freedom is yours.

You won’t be free unless you help me to get my freedom. Don’t remain silent while in the dark of night you hear screams of mothers for the lives of their kids. Don’t cover your ears when you hear the cries of the children for their mothers and fathers who have been shot by hooligans. They’re trying to silence them and me and take away the thirst for freedom when they are done with us they will look for you.

Yes, my friend, my freedom is your freedom. Therefore, I beg you, to please post on this site any media that can show injustices to freedom fighters. – Jabi, on Facebook

For the Iranian people everything begins on June 12, 2009, with their 10th presidential election since the 1979 Islamic Revolution: the challenge was between the outgoing president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the opposition’s leader, Hossein Moussavi. Their decision today is largely whether to keep hard-line president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power for four more years, or to replace him with a reformist more open to loosening the country’s Islamic restrictions and improving ties with the United States. Another candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, is more closely associated with the core causes of the Iranian reformist movement, including the freeing of political prisoners and women’s rights, but, as a former prime minister in the 1980s, Mr. Moussavi is given great credit for having managed Iran’s economy effectively during the war with Iraq.

We are hearing reports from Iran that text-messaging has been blocked all over the country. Independent observers are not allowed to be present at the voting. Results are expected to come in early on Saturday in Tehran. Mr. Moussavi’s supporters say they remain concerned about the possibility of fraud, but a determined campaign, led by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a two-term former president and one of Iran’s richest and most powerful men, has kept that issue in the public eye. In an extraordinary public letter on Tuesday, Mr. Rafsanjani urged Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, to prevent any fraud, and on Thursday he met with the ayatollah for three hours. “If the system cannot or does not want to confront such ugly and sin-infected phenomena as insults, lies, and false allegations made in that debate, how can we consider ourselves followers of the sacred Islamic system?” Mr. Rafsanjani wrote.

On June 13th, the Interior Ministry, controlled by Ahmadinejad, announces that he has been elected in the first round with 62.6 percent of the vote, compared with less than 34 percent for Moussavi. Turnout is an extraordinary record: 86 percent of the 46.2 million eligible voters. But the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran reports that, according to the Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, officials from Iran’s Interior Ministry would have contacted Mr. Moussavi after the polls closed on Friday night, saying that he would have won the election, and asking him not to make any announcement.

As vote-rigging often leaves traces in the results, let have a look at some interesting items:

After a legal and controlled investigation, Iran’s senior panel of election monitors says that, in 50 cities, the number of votes cast exceeded the actual number of voters;
Even if candidates usually win in their home districts, especially where their ethnicity should help them, Moussavi, an Azeri, lost in Azerbaijan and Karrubi won only 5 percent into his native district, with a 10th part of his 2005 votes;
With paper ballots, a speed count is suspicious, but for this election the Interior Ministry declared victory for Ahmadinejad only two hours after polls have been closed and results were immediately authorized.

The disbelief on the part of the international community is shared by many Iranian citizens. And while the defeated candidate launches a legal appeal, what ensued on the streets of Tehran,is the largest public demonstrations in the Islamic republic’s 30-year history. There are now hundreds of thousands of people protesting in the centre of Tehran. Security forces — who vastly outnumbered the small group of demonstrators — beat the protesters gathered on Tehran’s Baharestan Square with batons and fired tear gas canisters and rounds of ammunition into the air.

All three Ahmadinejad’s challengers in the election have made public allegations of fraud after results showed the president winning by a 2-to-1 margin, so, on June 16th, the Guardian Council, made up of clerics and experts in Islamic law and closely allied to Mr. Khamenei, having the apparent authority to nullify an election, is called to certify the results. Meanwhile, Reporters Without Borders, a media rights group, is urging nations not to recognize the results of Iran’s presidential election, citing censorship and a crackdown on journalists.

Some days later, the Guardian Council announces – in a rare acknowledgment – that there have been voting irregularities in 50 districts, including local vote counts that exceeded the number of eligible voters, but that, however, these discrepancies are not widespread enough to affect the result.

The Guardian Council warned that some material on the web is ”creating tension” and must be removed to avoid ”legal consequences.” After confining foreign journalists to their hotels, bloggers are the new target of the regime. The Guardians of the Revolution consider the web as a threat and to keep images and stories on events in the country from being published on the Internet, the regime has threatened those who use social networks to spread information. Blogs and social networks have been and are crucial for the Iranian opposition to let the world know what is happening. Facebook and YouTube have been playing an important role in this too, with the former hosting longer manifestos and idea exchanges, and the latter hosting grainy film of protests and police attacks captured on cell phone cameras. But for “front line” news bulletins, Twitter has emerged as the preferred mode of clandestine communication.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday Ahmadinejad visits Russia – which has long-time political and economic ties with Iran, where it is building a nuclear power site at Bushehr. The Foreign Ministry in Moscow declares he respects the election result: disputes about the vote “should be settled in strict compliance with Iran’s Constitution and law” and are “exclusively an internal matter.”

In New York, UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon urges an “immediate stop to the arrests, threats and use of force.”

On June 19th, the U.S. House of Representatives passes 405 to 1 the following bipartisan resolution, introduced by Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.6) and Rep. Howard Berman (D-Cal.28), to support Iranian dissidents and

(1) expresses its support for all Iranian citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and rule of law;
(2) condemns the ongoing violence against demonstrators by the Government of Iran and pro-government militias, as well as the ongoing government suppression of independent electronic communication through interference with the Internet and cell phones; and
(3) affirms the universality of individual rights and the importance of democratic and fair elections

Lastly and most importantly, the resolution expresses Americans’ unqualified support for all Iranian citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties and the rule of law.

America is freedom and in this cause the American people will not be silent. There is no intention here to pick sides in the Iranian election, but to simply stand by those who stand up for freedom.

Monday June 22nd will go down on history for Neda Agha Soltan’s death, whose video circulated worldwide, with her proud wonderful eyes. What we have seen through her last glance is a powerful desire on the part of the Iranian people to be free.

Caspian Makan, her boyfriend, said the 26-year-old woman had not been deterred by the risk of joining protests. She was a philosophy student and loved poetry: Iran’s Rumi and America’s Robert Frost were her favorites.

He told an Associated Press reporter during a telephone call that “she only ever said to want one thing: democracy and freedom for the people of Iran.” Iran state radio blamed civilians’ murder like Soltan’s on “saboteurs” – not the pro-regime Basij militiamen who have been beating the protesters. To verify reports on demonstrations, clashes and casualties is quite impossible: Iran has ordered reporters to stay in their offices, barring them from reporting on the streets. Reporters Without Borders put at 34 the figure of reporters detained since the protests began. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said 13 are still in custody. State radio reported today that Iranian authorities arrested at least 457 people after post-election clashes that left 10 people dead, as the nation’s clerical leaders battled to contain the worst crisis since the Islamic revolution.

Perhaps detaining journalists for reporting news and commentary indicates the government has something to hide?

Only on June 23rd, eventually, in response to critical comments from Sen. John McCain of Arizona and other Republicans, President Obama condemns the Iranian government for its crackdown against election protesters and accuses Iran’s leaders of fabricating charges against the United States. If only he would have read the new nationwide public opinion survey of Iran conducted by Terror Free Tomorrow – The Center for Public Opinion (“TFT”), the New America Foundation, and KA Europe SPRL (“KA”), he would know that Iran has been deprived of the benefits of globalization such as the import of new ideas, technologies and practices. Inside their houses, the lifestyle of Iranians suggests that they are following almost every contemporary trend, from fashion to the use of technology, above all in Teheran, but, as a student wrote on Facebook, Iranians don’t want to have to worry about too many rules: “We want the rest of the world to be open to us too. Ahmadinejad doesn’t think bigger than Iran, he thinks that Iranians will be happy if he gives us a bag of potatoes. But we want more.”

More than 70 percent of Iranians also favor Iran providing full inspections and a guarantee not to develop or possess nuclear weapons in return for outside aid and investment. In another consistent trend over the past two years, 77 percent of Iranians back normal relations and trade with the United States. Sixty-eight percent also favor Iran working with the United States to help resolve the Iraq war, while 60 percent back unconditional negotiations with the U.S. The Iranian people have proven that they desire a free, democratic society and due to social sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Youtube the world can no longer ignore them.

Slater Bakhtavar is president and founder of Republican Youth of America, a frequent commentator and respected analyst on foreign policy issues, an attorney with a post-doctoral degree in International law, General Counsel of a national corporation and Attorney at Bakhtavar & Associates, PLLC.

Sunday’s sermon by Pastor Dan Gardner at the Cohocton Assembly of God Church was on the message of Matthew 17:14-21:

14 When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. 15 “Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. 16 I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.”

17 “O unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” 18 Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed from that moment.

19 Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”

20 He replied, “Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

21 But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.

Why are we, like the disciples who were unable to heal the young epileptic, unable to place full faith and trust in God? Why is there so little evidence in our lives of the power of God? How are we to be ambassadors to the world for the Gospel?

18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. (2 Corinthians 5: 18-20)

Jesus, in the passage from Matthew, shows us the way.

First, we must have faith, the tangible evidence that God is consistent with His Word.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1 KJV)

Faith is not about abstractions. To bolster your faith, as young David did when Goliath confronted the Israelites, look around you and search your memory for the specific things that God has done to bless you in your own life.

32 David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.”

33 Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth.”

34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, 35 I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. 36 Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. 37 The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”
?Saul said to David, “Go, and the LORD be with you. (1 Samuel 17:32-37)

Second, our prayers must become an ongoing communion with God that establishes a relationship. Prayer must be more than mechanical recitation. We must pray continually for God’s guidance and the opening of our hearts to the impulses of the Holy Spirit, telling us what we ought to do to lead good lives and to help others in their times of need.

That sort of relationship with God is what shines through to others when we deal fairly with them. It’s not a matter of education or worldly prominence, as Jesus’s disciples demonstrated:

1 The priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. 2 They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. 3 They seized Peter and John, and because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day. 4 But many who heard the message believed, and the number of men grew to about five thousand.

5 The next day the rulers, elders and teachers of the law met in Jerusalem. 6 Annas the high priest was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander and the other men of the high priest’s family. 7 They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them: “By what power or what name did you do this?”

8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people! 9 If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, 10 then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. 11 He is ” ‘the stone you builders rejected,  which has become the capstone. 12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”

13 When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:1-13)

If we are to be Christ’s ambassadors, we need to be seen in the same way by others with whom we deal everyday.

Finally, fasting, the most neglected of the spiritual sacraments, is the starving of the flesh for the feeding of the spirit. Fasting means literally doing without food for a prescribed period. It may not be possible for everyone; for example, those whose poor health or medication needs require them to eat regular meals.

When you fast, however, don’t be like the hypocritical pharisees, who too often made a great public show of their piety.

Fasting is a form of self-discipline. Knowing that we can resist the bodily pangs of hunger strengthens us to resist other sensual temptations.

11 And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. 12 The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. 14 Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature. (Romans 13:11-14)

Thomas E. Brewton is a staff writer for the New Media Alliance, Inc. The New Media Alliance is a non-profit (501c3) national coalition of writers, journalists and grass-roots media outlets.

His weblog is THE VIEW FROM 1776
http://www.thomasbrewton.com/

Email comments to viewfrom1776@thomasbrewton.com

 It is a world in the not so distant future where the forces of the Left have saddled professional sports with quadriplegic referees, transgendered concessionaires and stuttering sportscasters. Now the festering forces of radical feminism have decided to launch a direct assault upon the blatantly oppressive, misogynist and patriarchal world of “maleness” that is professional football.

 The 2020 Super Bowl is chosen as the stage to debut the first female professional football player and to announce a major revision in American politics. Both end in dramatic failure and set the stage for place-kicker Jayesh Blackstone, born in London of Indian heritage, to be involved in a high stakes game of intrigue as he discovers the courage to fight to be a free American. Blackstone is selected to be used and manipulated by the administration as a symbol to attack European imperialism and to establish a National Electoral Fairness Commission. Monitored by the United Nations Special Advisory Institute on National Expropriation, it is the final blow against “religious fanatics, stolen elections, the last vestiges of sexist domination, the exploiters of developing nations, and all those whose goal has been to exclude women, minorities, and newly-arrived Americans.” All steps are taken to ensure the most progressive norms of political conduct in the world today.

 In addition to the political conspiracy and intrigue, the character of Jayesh Blackstone is taken on an internal journey to discover the draw of his own heritage and native country. He also experiences the love of two women, the struggle to choose between them, and the sacrifices and dedication that embodies true friendship along the way.

 The Kicker of St. John’s Wood is definitely one of Gary Wolf’s best novels to date, and a frightening reminder of the fast track of idiocy this country has decided to follow that increasingly defines humanity exclusively in terms of race and gender. I found it to be a page- turner filled with twists, turns, and unexpected surprises throughout the story. It is also an eye -opening book that helps to remind that each and everyone of us will eventually have to decide if we have the personal fortitude, character and courage to choose to do the right thing and oppose the whirling forces of Progressivism, Multiculturalism, Diversity, Political Correctness and “Tolerance” that increasingly dominates every aspect of education, business and even your daily life. Will you be like Jayesh Blackstone and be willing to risk professional and personal attacks, slander, and even worse for what is right and true?

 This book is the story of one man’s struggle with that question and the series of choices he must face as he discovers the difference between being a serf to the system and a free citizen. Not all know the difference but the choice is one that all will soon have to face. The end result of the agenda and catalogue of “isms” of the modern-day Left is lunacy and few do as fine a job as Gary Wolf at pointing that out through the medium of speculative fiction.

 The Kicker of St. John’s Wood is available for sale at Amazon and all other major online publishers. You may also visit the author’s website at http://awolcivilization.com/ for direct links to the book’s page at the various online stores and the opportunity to read the first chapter online. Gary Wolf was formerly an analyst and commentator on international and strategic affairs. He was raised in New York and London, lived for six years in Paris, and currently resides in the state of New Mexico. Wolf is also the author of The Embracer, Shaya, Alternating Worlds and Workshop of the Second Self.

A few months ago a friend was approached by a vendor who had a large walnut -sized transparent stone. The vendor didn’t want to say where he’d got the stone from but claimed it was a diamond and he was trying to sell it. The stone had a sharp edge which made a deep scratch in a steel drill bit without damagaing the stone.Was it a diamond? Who knows but there are plenty of stories like this doing the rounds. People in Mutare tell of deals going down all the time, men in dark glasses, cars with tinted windows and little bundles changing hands. Some talk of clear stones, others are grey or cloudy but whatever the colour we are all wondering just who died while digging for these stones.

A chilling report has just been released by Human Rights Watch implicating Zimbabwe’s military in horrific abuses at the newly discovered diamond fields in Chiadzwa. Human Rights Watch collected evidence of violence, murder and forced child labour at the diamond deposits in Marange. The report talks of military helicopters gunning people down, of teargas being thrown into shafts and of people buried alive. It says that at least 214 people were killed during a three week military operation in October 2008 and of people buried in mass graves. Press reports quote Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch as saying: “The police and army have turned this peaceful area into a nightmare of lawlessness and horrific violence.”

Human Rights Watch says that: “Zimbabwe’s new government should get the army out of the fields, put a stop to the abuse, and prosecute those responsible.”

It is incomprehensible that this is going on even now as Prime Minister Tsvangirai tries to persuade the west that we have changed and are deserving of their money.

The Human Rights Watch report could not be more damning, or more to the point when it notes:

“The government could generate significant amounts of revenue from the diamonds, perhaps as much as $200million US dollars per month, if Marange and other mining centres were managed in a transparent and accountable manner. This revenue could fund a significant portion of the new government’s economic recovery programme.”

There remains little doubt in anyone’s mind just exactly why Zanu PF refused to concede defeat in the 2008 elections: from farms and wildlife to gold and diamonds.

Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy.

Copyright cathy buckle 27th June 2009.

http://www.cathybuckle.com

This letter is published with kind permission of the author