Category: Science

Black holes of corruption

I am reading an extremely difficult book from 1984, Order out of Chaos, Man’s New Dialogue with Nature, by the late Ilya Prigogine (1917-2003) and Isabelle Stengers (1949-). I was tuned to the book by Eric J. Lerner in his book The Big Bang Never Happened, with a warning that the Prigogine/Stengers work was over the public’s head. I am part of the public, and yes, he is right. It is over my head.

The Lerner book was more accessible to me, a history of science and how it works, really. I see it all around me in my delving into AIDS, the PSA test and climate change. It is laboriously explained in a paragraph from the Order out of Chaos, page 308:

Continue reading “Black holes of corruption” →

It’s all about the Green.

Lance Olsen has a new article over at Counterpunch. https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/03/why-all-the-uproar-over-the-green-new-deal/

Now that the Green New Deal has reached Congress there is only the money to worry about. Capitalist vs. Capitalist is the only game being played in Washington, D.C., regardless of the title of the legislation being debated. It’s where the spending is authorized. It’s where appropriations are decided. Who’s ox gets gored, and who’s pockets are stuffed with cash. Nothing new, nothing unusual. But, as always, those decisions impact real lives.

We are now down to two choices, both bad. Sorry, folks, that’s all you’re ever going to get. More than two would confuse people into thinking that any thinking might be required. I hope some might find some useful information in Lance’s article.

Time marches forward

I have been reading, only slowly and without much absorption, about the electric universe. I don’t plunge into such projects expecting immediate comprehension. The subject matter is complex, and only slowly does any of it begin to penetrate the thick hide of the accountant.

Still, it is a joy to read very difficult material, even if most of it is bouncing off that hard outer surface. (As the late Tom Magliozzi of Car Talk fame said, he was a member of Densa, not Mensa.)

Continue reading “Time marches forward” →

The Great Tylenol Scare and Coverup (1955- 2019)

Liver and Onions

By annspinwall and Steve Kelly

The (Extra Strength) Tylenol murders of September,1982 remains one of the great unsolved crimes in U.S. history.  The story we are supposed to believe is that 7 random individuals died after purchasing and consuming Tylenol deliberately dosed with cyanide.  Store shelves were not safe.  Panic in the marketplace led to a massive, nationwide (31 million bottles of capsules) recall by Tylenol manufacturer, Johnson & Johnson.  New, federal legislation initiated mandatory “anti-tampering” packaging, which magically gained J&J even greater market share in a few short weeks after the incident.  Excellent crisis management, or premeditated PR stunt? Was J&J in on it? We’ll never know for sure.

Here’s what we do know.  Tylenol has long been promoted as a “safe” alternative to aspirin and/or ibuprofen and other NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs).  Johnson & Johnson says so on the tv, and in magazines piled high at MDs’ offices throughout the world, so it must be true. 

Propaganda!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iksji1yZjoA   It works. 

Continue reading “The Great Tylenol Scare and Coverup (1955- 2019)” →

When Worlds Collide

 

by Patrick Jordan and Steve Kelly

A newsfeed came across our inboxes that promoted a notion that China was somehow misbehaving regarding the use of CRISPR to create edited humans.  The dialectic was a non-sequitur because earlier press releases on the efficiency of CRISPR read like a high school newspaper writing about the success of its stageplay being a success because it was over, yet was a total train wreck of a production.  CRISPR can indeed edit a genome for the target mutations, however there can be a hundred downstream changes that were neither intended or predicted or controllable.  That used to be called: The Operation Was A Success But The Patient Died.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0734975016301586

What is CRISPR?  CRISPR (/ˈkrɪspər/) (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) is a family of DNA sequences found within the genomes of prokaryotic organisms such as bacteria and archaea.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnYppmstxIs

WE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT WE ARE DOING BUT WE ARE DOING IT WITH GUSTO

Continue reading “When Worlds Collide” →

Bees die, we die

Honeybee populations have been dying off at an alarming rate for over a decade now. As researchers look for answers, it is becoming more likely that whatever “effective strategy” emerges to save bees, may in turn save man (man and woman) from extinction too. 

Over 30% of the national bee population has disappeared and nearly a third of all bee colonies in the U.S. have perished in less than a decade.  At the current annual rate of decline, the estimated financial loss is somewhere North of 30 billion dollars a year. I have seen no figures yet for the 2018 Farm Bill, but in 2014 the USDA responded with a paltry $3 million “investment” in farmer aid, which won’t scratch the surface of the breadth and seriousness of this largely man-caused pandemic. Continue reading “Bees die, we die” →

Toxic

Since WWII, exposure to man‐made chemical substances have reached every nook and cranny on earth.  The European Chemicals Agency has recorded around 150,000 chemical substances in its database.  Most chemicals intended for commercial uses require little or no regulation before entering the market. Pharmaceuticals undergo what appears to be “rigorous” research and regulatory control, however, we know all too well how often the cover story distorts reality. Only when these multi-billion-dollar drugs chemical mixtures begin to exhibit their deadly “side-effects” out on the street do regulatory agencies scurry about for a quick fix.  There’s rarely a ban or recall.

Few chemicals are thoroughly tested for toxicity.  It is estimated that less than 20% of the many chemicals on the market receive a proper assessment of risks to public health and the environment. Chemicals are one of the three primary known causes of cancer – along with radiation and viruses. Continue reading “Toxic” →

Protecting lies from the light of day

Our friend Annette linked me to a pdf called Gould Velikovsky, a collection of essays on the continuing Velikovsky affair. I have read now just about everything I can get my hands on regarding this man and his treatment by the scientific community, and have come to regard him as a personal hero. He suffered scorn and ridicule, most notably at the hands of Carl Sagan.

Charles Ginenthal exposes Sagan in his book Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky, and I have come to regard Sagan as a charlatan. I have also come to suspect that men like Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Stephen Hawking are/were used to be the public face of science to protect dark and dirty secrets. Each would know, for example, that the moon landings were a hoax, and yet each, reputed to be among the smartest men around, affirm that they really happened. It is a confidence game. The public does not read or think well, and runs to authority figures, “experts” provided at every turn. In the Velikovsky affair, Sagan was uncritically accepted as an authoritative source, and thereby got away with dirty tricks and character assassination.

Continue reading “Protecting lies from the light of day” →

A Good Clean Kill, And Other Beauty Secrets

I’m sure many of our “baby boomer” friends will remember the soap ads from the 1950s and 60s.  Clean was big business then, clean was beautiful, and nobody wanted to stink.  B.O. (body odor) was a hot topic thanks to decades of marketing.

Dial wasn’t the first “deodorant” soap, but it was the first one that didn’t smell like turpentine or paint thinner – oh, I’m talkin’ “Lifebuoy.” Lifebuoy, originally made by Lever Bros. (now Unilever) in England, has been around since 1895.  The smell was phenol, a compound made with carbolic acid extracted from coal tar.  To fight B.O. you could instead smell like an auto body repair shop.

Dial, named for its “round-the-clock” anti-B.O. protection (from perspiration), was introduced in 1948 by Armour Co. (yes, the meat-packers) in Chicago. Armour had made tallow-based laundry soap since 1888.  With the help of some clever chemists, Armour added hexachlorophene, or G-11 or AT-7.  How about those numbers?  Continue reading “A Good Clean Kill, And Other Beauty Secrets” →

Some Call it Forest Management, I Call it Racketeering.

When government agencies like the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management produce the danger, the propaganda hyping the danger, and the protection against it at a price, that’s racketeering.  The definition of a racketeer is someone who creates a threat and then charges for its reduction.

“War is just a racket. A racket is best described I believe, as something that is not what it seems  to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.”  – Smedley Butler

Government land management agencies commonly simulate, fabricate and exaggerate threats in ways common to all other racketeers.  Constantly at war with the forces of nature and the land they manage, this pattern of immoral extractive commerce targeting public land is a microcosm of a vast universe of Government Sponsored Enterprise (GSE).  GSEs generate huge profits for private companies and government, in partnership Continue reading “Some Call it Forest Management, I Call it Racketeering.” →