How Politicians and the Media Change Our Minds

Paul Murdock
Campaign For Liberty
Friday, July 10, 2009

Unbeknownst to us, our lives are filled with messages that have a profound effect on our emotions, beliefs, values, and behaviors. These messages can be as obvious as a tornado siren in Kansas or as secretive and stealthy as the viruses and bacteria that invade your biological organs. What is guaranteed is that, for good or evil, the message never ends, and its impact is powerful!

Psychologists and advertisers have long known the persuasiveness of words, images, and especially other people. Corporations big and small combine to spend billions in advertising to increase their market share and increase profits. Not only are corporations spending billions, but also nonprofit organizations have significantly increased their time and effort to grow their philosophies and promote social change. Some of these changes are admirable such as reducing overt and covert acts of aggression towards minorities. On the other hand, some political, economic, and philosophical agenda run counter to the Constitution of the United States and the moral and ethical principles that have propelled this country forward. No attempt will be made to highlight specific organizations; rather, the principles of social influence need be surfaced to highlight the hidden attack on the principles and values of political and economic freedom. Specifically, this article will address how individuals defer to authority and look to experts for guidance.

In 1971, basic principles of social psychology were brought to light following the Stanford Prison Experiment conducted by Phil Zimbarbo. This study randomly assigned participants to one of two conditions; prisoner or prison guard. Six days after the experiment started, it was stopped because prison guards became abusive and sadistic, and prisoners showed signs of mood lability and extreme distress. This study has important implications because it reveals how ordinary citizens quickly became domineering and hostile when placed in arbitrary positions of social power. More so, it is fascinating how participants assigned to the role of a prisoner quickly felt helpless and responded to perceived authority with unquestioning obedience. In support of this study, Stanley Milgram explored how individuals would act against their better judgment when pressured by an authoritative figure. Thus, it is vital to know how those in “power” today influence our minds and subsequent behaviors in order to maintain our values and make wise decisions.

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Anthony Pratkanis, a renowned social psychologist, has analyzed and classified a variety of tactics humans use to manipulate and change the beliefs or attitudes of others. A few of these include using associations, controlling the flow of information, setting the agenda, and relying on social rules and taking advantage of our subjective feelings. One principle I would like to highlight is known as “social proof.” Studies have shown that individuals look for guidance by finding out what others think; especially those we perceive are experts or in authority. This principle becomes more influential when there is a perceived consensus and when the individual is faced with uncertainty and ambiguity. As a result, individuals are more likely to follow the “crowd” to maintain social acceptance and reduce our psychological vulnerabilities. Two quick examples that make us susceptible to social influence are global warming and the current economic crisis. First, the issues are complex and ambiguous, and society has largely relied on “experts” and political figures.

In the news, reporters have endlessly cited the United Nations climate panel, the Federal Reserve Chairman, Al Gore, and other world leaders to persuade individuals to support economic bailouts and drastic climate measures. Little information is provided as the basis for their actions and the science and “consensus” is never questioned. Thus, the average individual is left without the knowledge to make an informed decision. This uncertainty and lack of knowledge consistently leads individuals to defer to the group and authority figures such as politicians, professors, and the media. Moreover, in an effort to maintain ideal conditions for social persuasion, an opposing viewpoint is labeled “radical, far-right, and even conservative” to place the individual in the “out” group, thus destroying their potential influence on others.

Although most intelligent individuals recognize bias, the inundating messages unconsciously lead to helplessness, apathy, and eventually acquiescence. In other words, the totality of the messages eventually destroys most individual defenses! Even when we are aware! For example, if individuals are consistently faced with “supposed facts and experts” from the media, professors, politicians, and corporations, values, ideals, and behavior is subtly manipulated like a river that never ceases to erode its banks. It will eventually get deeper and wider.

What then can be done to minimize the persuasiveness of those in control? In the words of George Bernard Shaw, “Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.” Social control is dependent on providing one point of view and limiting knowledge and contrary viewpoints. The U.S. constitution became great because it was “the single greatest effort of national deliberation that the world has ever seen” (John Adams). It is vital to openly debate topics, engage in fruitful discussion, and play devil’s advocate. Practice responding to propaganda, thinking rationally about the issues, attempt to understand the full range of options, avoid being dependent on a single news source, monitor your emotions, and be prepared to challenge the “group.”

So in other words stop being a "joiner", think for yourself, and turn OFF the TV. JOEY

Wednesday #8...

Chicory

Eh goooaaaattt!!!

Amaranth?

Big foot. Probably belongs to the big one I saw up close later in the day.

Big ride Wednesday. Can be viewed here. Check out the climb between mile 17 and 27. That is right 10 miles and 2000 feet right here in Randolph county! Who needs Colorado? Felt good to get in a long one.

Peace, JOEY

Holiday Weekend riding pics...

Former U.S. Congresswoman speaks from jail in Israel

Saturday, 04 July 2009 12:13 Added by PT Editor Pal Tel Admin

Palestine, July 4, 2009 (Pal Telegraph) - This is Cynthia McKinney, I'm speaking from an Israeli prison cellblock in Ramle. [I am one of] the Free Gaza 21, human rights activists currently imprisoned for trying to take medical supplies to Gaza, building supplies and even toys and crayons - I had a suitcase full of crayons for the children.

While we were on our way to Gaza the Israelis threatened to fire on our boat, but we did not turn around. The Israelis high-jacked and arrested us because we wanted to give presents to the children of Gaza. We have been detained, and we want the people of the world to see how we have been treated just because we wanted to deliver humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza.

At the outbreak of Israel's Operation ‘Cast Lead' [in December 2008], I boarded a Free Gaza boat with one day's notice and tried, as the US representative in a multi-national delegation, to deliver 3 tons of medical supplies to an already besieged and ravaged Gaza.

During Operation Cast Lead, U.S.-supplied F-16's rained hellfire on a trapped people. Ethnic cleansing became full scale outright genocide. U.S.-supplied white phosphorus, depleted uranium, robotic technology, DIME weapons, and cluster bombs - new weapons creating injuries never treated before by Jordanian and Norwegian doctors. I was later told by doctors who were there in Gaza during Israel's onslaught that Gaza had become Israel's veritable weapons testing laboratory, people used to test and improve the kill ratio of their weapons.

The world saw Israel's despicable violence thanks to al-Jazeera Arabic and Press TV that broadcast in English. I saw those broadcasts live and around the clock, not from the USA but from Lebanon, where my first attempt to get into Gaza had ended because the Israeli military rammed the boat I was on in international water ... It's a miracle that I'm even here to write about my second encounter with the Israeli military, again a humanitarian mission aborted by the Israeli military.

The Israeli authorities have tried to get us to confess that we committed a crime ... I am now known as Israeli prisoner number 88794. How can I be in prison for collecting crayons to kids?

Zionism has surely run out of its last legitimacy if this is what it does to people who believe so deeply in human rights for all that they put their own lives on the line for someone else's children. Israel is the fullest expression of Zionism, but if Israel fears for its security because Gaza's children have crayons then not only has Israel lost its last shred of legitimacy, but Israel must be declared a failed state.

I am facing deportation from the state that brought me here at gunpoint after commandeering our boat. I was brought to Israel against my will. I am being held in this prison because I had a dream that Gaza's children could color & paint, that Gaza's wounded could be healed, and that Gaza's bombed-out houses could be rebuilt.

But I've learned an interesting thing by being inside this prison. First of all, it's incredibly black: populated mostly by Ethiopians who also had a dream ... like my cellmates, one who is pregnant. They are all are in their twenties. They thought they were coming to the Holy Land. They had a dream that their lives would be better ... The once proud, never colonized Ethiopia [has been thrown into] the back pocket of the United States, and become a place of torture, rendition, and occupation. Ethiopians must free their country because superpower politics [have] become more important than human rights and self-determination.

My cellmates came to the Holy Land so they could be free from the exigencies of superpower politics. They committed no crime except to have a dream. They came to Israel because they thought that Israel held promise for them. Their journey to Israel through Sudan and Egypt was arduous.

I can only imagine what it must have been like for them. And it wasn't cheap. Many of them represent their family's best collective efforts for self-fulfilment. They made their way to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. They got their yellow paper of identification. They got their certificate for police protection. They are refugees from tragedy, and they made it to Israel only after they arrived Israel told them "there is no UN in Israel."

The police here have license to pick them up & suck them into the black hole of a farce for a justice system. These beautiful, industrious and proud women represent the hopes of entire families. The idea of Israel tricked them and the rest of us. In a widely propagandized slick marketing campaign, Israel represented itself as a place of refuge and safety for the world's first Jews and Christian. I too believed that marketing and failed to look deeper.

The truth is that Israel lied to the world. Israel lied to the families of these young women. Israel lied to the women themselves who are now trapped in Ramle's detention facility. And what are we to do? One of my cellmates cried today. She has been here for 6 months. As an American, crying with them is not enough. The policy of the United States must be better, and while we watch President Obama give 12.8 trillion dollars to the financial elite of the United States it ought now be clear that hope, change, and ‘yes we can' were powerfully presented images of dignity and self-fulfilment, individually and nationally, that besieged people everywhere truly believed in.

It was a slick marketing campaign as slickly put to the world and to the voters of America as was Israel's marketing to the world. It tricked all of us but, more tragically, these young women.

We must cast an informed vote about better candidates seeking to represent us. I have read and re-read Dr. Martin Luther King Junior's letter from a Birmingham jail. Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever imagined that I too would one day have to do so. It is clear that taxpayers in Europe and the U.S. have a lot to atone for, for what they've done to others around the world.

What an irony! My son begins his law school program without me because I am in prison, in my own way trying to do my best, again, for other people's children. Forgive me, my son. I guess I'm experiencing the harsh reality which is why people need dreams. [But] I'm lucky. I will leave this place. Has Israel become the place where dreams die?

Ask the people of Palestine. Ask the stream of black and Asian men whom I see being processed at Ramle. Ask the women on my cellblock. [Ask yourself:] what are you willing to do?

Let's change the world together & reclaim what we all need as human beings: Dignity. I appeal to the United Nations to get these women of Ramle, who have done nothing wrong other than to believe in Israel as the guardian of the Holy Land, resettled in safe homes. I appeal to the United State's Department of State to include the plight of detained UNHCR-certified refugees in the Israel country report in its annual human rights report. I appeal once again to President Obama to go to Gaza: send your special envoy, George Mitchell there, and to engage Hamas as the elected choice of the Palestinian people.

I dedicate this message to those who struggle to achieve a free Palestine, and to the women I've met at Ramle. This is Cynthia McKinney, July 2nd 2009, also known as Ramle prisoner number 88794.

---
Cynthia McKinney is a former U.S. Congresswoman, Green Party presidential candidate, and an outspoken advocate for human rights and social justice. The first African-American woman to represent the state of Georgia, McKinney served six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, from 1993-2003, and from 2005-2007. She was arrested and forcibly abducted to Israel while attempting to take humanitarian and reconstruction supplies to Gaza on June 30th. For more information, please see http://www.FreeGaza.org

I bet you have not heard this story on the Mainstream Media but everybody sure knows that a psychotic pedophile died in California. JOEY

Strange Martial Law via Food Control: HR 2749

Not what the American people ordered – HR 2749, martial law and the enslavement of their farmers

By The Writers’ Collective

Source: Food Freedom

HR 2749 is a strange bill in many ways. While the other “food safety” bills have been around since winter, allowing for much public discussion on the internet, HR 2749 has only suddenly appeared. It is a mutant conglomeration of the worst of the other bills, with the addition of one very original part – martial law.

When it was a draft, it was Waxman’s bill. But once given a number, it became Dingel’s who already had a “food safety” bill, HR 759. So Waxman got none and Dingel got two. (Was this because Waxman, being Jewish, was a hideous choice to introduce a bill with Codex in it – designed by the Nazi pharmaceutical companies that funded Hitler, provided the gas for the gas chambers, experimented on prisoners with vaccines – and is expected to kill millions?)

* HR 2749 would give FDA the power to order a quarantine of a geographic area, including “prohibiting or restricting the movement of food or of any vehicle being used or that has been used to transport or hold such food within the geographic area.”

[This - "that has been used to transport or hold such food" - would mean all cars that have ever brought groceries home or any pickup someone has eaten take-out in, so this means ALL TRANSPORTATION can be shut down under this. This is using food as a cover for martial law.]

Under this provision, farmers markets and local food sources could be shut down, even if they are not the source of the contamination. The agency can halt all movement of all food in a geographic area.

[This is also a means of total control over the population under the cover of food, and at any time.] See this DailyKos entry.

The bill is unusual, too, because slow as it was to appear. The little bugger of bill has made up for it since. It got a number on June 10, went to committee on June 17, passed instantly, and is headed for a vote on the floor of the House.

The first Patriot Act was passed using fear of terrorism. This Patriot Act is more coy, hiding under a cloak of “food safety” and but also using fear – fear of food contamination. Evidently, Americans are supposed to be so frightened by the slightest possibility of a terrorist or of E-coli, they would trade away all their precious, hard fought freedoms for the promise of safety. Or at least, that is what the trade-off has become. “Terrorism” and “contamination” are great bugaboos used to open doors to an end to the US Constitution. That is exactly what we are left with after those who wrote HR 2749 are done.

Who did write these bills? It seems Monsanto had not only a hand, but a “defining” influence. http://farmwars.info/?p=594

This redefining of reality is what seems to be underlying all the loss of freedom. Normal and free are disappearing into the maw of corporate definitions of reality. See this Yup Farming piece.

So, we begin with contaminated food from filthy corporate processors and concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). And what do we end up with after that reality is ground up by corporate legal hands? Changes in the definition of risk so that natural things are treated as dangerous and toxic things are untouched, such that:

• Healthy, normal farms are taken over by government as though they were run by criminals and contaminated corporate slaughterhouses are untouched;
• The necessary freedom of individuals to live and grow food and be left alone are somehow suddenly destroyed, though they were never the source of any food contamination issue; and such that
• The profit and control and power of corporations which were absolutely the source of the increasingly terrible food, is somehow suddenly vastly increased.

Thanks to corporate control over reality, our wanting to clean up corporate processors and feedlots and CAFOS and end up with farmers’ markets and local farms and organic food has become the industrialization and potential destruction of every healthy part of the food system and the triumph of the most contaminated and toxic part. And in the non-bargain, we lost all freedoms and they took all control. And “all” is not a hyperbole here, for one need only look at another provision of HR 2749 to feel how insane, how distant from all we ever wanted.

* HR 2749 would empower FDA to regulate how crops are raised and harvested. It puts the federal government right on the farm, dictating to our farmers.

[What is missing in pointing out this astounding control, is that it opens the door to CODEX and WTO "good farming practices" will include the elimination of organic farming by eliminating manure, mandating GMO animal feed, imposing animal drugs, and ordering applications of petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides. Farmers, thus, will be locked not only into the industrialization of once normal and organic farms but into the forced purchase of industry's products. They will be slaves on the land, doing the work they are ordered to do - against their own best wisdom - and paying out to industry against their will. There will be no way to be frugal, to grow one's own grain to feed the animals, to raise healthy animals without GMO grains or drugs, to work with nature at all. Grassfed cattle and poultry and hogs will be finished. So, it needs to be made clear where control will take us. And weren't these the "rumors on the internet" that were dismissed but are clearly the case?] See this DailyKos entry.

When we wanted not to get E-coli in processed meat, did we intend to put our farmers into corporate servitude? Did we plan to have our own lives straight-jacketed by a million new controls over our own gardens, our own desire to grow food, our own plans to start small businesses, our own dreams to have a small piece of land and farm ourselves? Who has the audacity to take our needs and grotesquely bastardize them in these ways, while giving the destruction and totalitarian control the sham name of “food safety”?

We wanted good food. We never wanted to trap our farmers into an industrial prison on their own land, afraid moment to moment of not fulfilling some monstrous set of instructions that never end – rules the farmers loathe, rules that have not only nothing to do with real farming but which are antithetical to it. Why have we ended up with HR 2749, an intense corporate nightmare around the most central and necessary aspects of a free country and of free human beings – farming and food?

American farming needs to be relieved of the burdens it has been under, not finished off by its corporate competition. It needs freedom to flourish again. Obviously – and Congress people who would think to vote for such absurdities, take note – the imposition of surveillance, monitoring, warrantless entry, taking of all records, licensing, fees, Codex and NAIS, in addition to massive penalties and prison terms (all without judicial review over even appropriateness and validity), are not how one thanks American farmers for holding together the only working part of our food system. See Literal Enslavement by Linn Cohen-Cole.

HR 2749 is the most vicious and insane bill one could imagine. Who treats our farmers in this way? Who believes that such police measures can provide for the rebirth of farming and the return of healthy food? Who wrote this bill that trashes the freedom of all our lives? HR 2749 was not what we ordered and it should be sent back the bowels of hell it came from.

HR 2749 is both insane and cruel. And the deceptiveness of hiding a Patriot Act in it and the brutal rush to slip it through Congress are ANTI-democratic.

Go here to tell Congress, “No.” http://www.ftcldf.org/petitions/pnum993.php

Happy 4th...

We still live in one of the freest countries in the world. But if we are not vigilant we will loose all of these freedoms endowed to us by our Creator.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson

Wednesday #7...

Yesterday was a weird Wednesday. Mandi and I went for a ride early before all the rain. We saw a weasel on the rail trail and no I don't mean a politician. A real honest to goodness weasel. First one I have ever seen. I also saw a bear and actually saw one on Tuesday mornings ride to.

In the afternoon we headed up to Sommerset PA to pick up the above pictured car. I "won" it on EBAY Sunday. It was sort of a crazy thing. I put forth a total low ball bid went hiking and then came home to find, that the 1996 Subaru Outback with 2.2 liter motor and 5 speed, was mine. This particular Subaru specimen is somewhat rare, '96 was the only year Subaru made the real Outback with a 2.2. I have been looking hi and lo for one and now it is mine.

Anyone looking to by a cheap truck?

JOEY

Sunday Hike Pics...

Doo berry...

Burdock...

FLASHBACK: Obama Intimately Tied To Carbon Trading Scam

President helped fund profiteers of carbon tax program he is now seeking to implement

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Monday, March 30, 2009

A combination of interesting mainstream and alternative media reports reveal compelling links between president Obama and a privately owned carbon trading group, which also has direct ties with elitist groups such as the Club of Rome and the Trilateral Commission.

Judi McLeod’s excellent article for Canada Free Press highlights how years before he became president, Obama helped directly fund a carbon trading exchange that will likely play a critical role in the proposed cap-and-trade carbon reduction program.

The charity was the Joyce Foundation on whose board of directors Obama served and which gave nearly $1.1 million in two separate grants that were “instrumental in developing and launching the privately-owned Chicago Climate Exchange, which now calls itself “North America’s only cap and trade system for all six greenhouse gases, with global affiliates and projects worldwide.”

Essentially Obama helped fund the profiteers of the carbon taxation program that he is now seeking to steer through Congress.

McLeod also notes that The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) has direct ties to both Al Gore and Maurice Strong, two figures intimately involved with a long standing movement to use the theory of man made global warming as a mechanism for profit and social engineering.

Gore’s investment company, Generation Investment Management, which sells carbon offset opportunities, is the largest shareholder of CCX.

While Maurice Strong, who is regularly credited as founding father of the modern environmental movement, serves on the board of directors of CCX. Strong was a leading initiate of the Earth Summit in the early 90s, where the theory of global warming caused by CO2 generated by human activity was most notably advanced.

Read more here...

How the markets really work

This was a comedy routine performed in the
summer of 2007 - two full years ago - that
not only predicted the financial meltdown,
but also predicted the final outcome (bankers
win/the people loose.)

Question:

If two comedians knew what was coming, why
didn't all the geniuses on Wall Street and the financial news networks have a clue?

Peace, JOEY

ps: I love dry British humor.

Journalist Files Charges against WHO and UN for Bioterrorism and Intent to Commit Mass Murder

(NaturalNews) As the anticipated July release date for Baxter's A/H1N1 flu pandemic vaccine approaches, an Austrian investigative journalist is warning the world that the greatest crime in the history of humanity is underway. Jane Burgermeister has recently filed criminal charges with the FBI against the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations (UN), and several of the highest ranking government and corporate officials concerning bioterrorism and attempts to commit mass murder. She has also prepared an injunction against forced vaccination which is being filed in America. These actions follow her charges filed in April against Baxter AG and Avir Green Hills Biotechnology of Austria for producing contaminated bird flu vaccine, alleging this was a deliberate act to cause and profit from a pandemic.

Summary of claims and allegations filed with FBI in Austria on June 10, 2009

In her charges, Burgermeister presents evidence of acts of bioterrorism that is in violation of U.S. law by a group operating within the U.S. under the direction of international bankers who control the Federal Reserve, as well as WHO, UN and NATO. This bioterrorism is for the purpose of carrying out a mass genocide against the U.S. population by use of a genetically engineered flu pandemic virus with the intent of causing death. This group has annexed high government offices in the U.S.

Specifically, evidence is presented that the defendants, Barack Obama, President of the U.S, David Nabarro, UN System Coordinator for Influenza, Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO, Kathleen Sibelius, Secretary of Department of Health and Human Services, Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Department of Homeland Security, David de Rotschild, banker, David Rockefeller, banker, George Soros, banker, Werner Faymann, Chancellor of Austria, and Alois Stoger, Austrian Health Minister, among others, are part of this international corporate criminal syndicate which has developed, produced, stockpiled and employed biological weapons to eliminate the population of the U.S. and other countries for financial and political gain.

The charges contend that these defendants conspired with each other and others to devise, fund and participate in the final phase of the implementation of a covert international bioweapons program involving the pharmaceutical companies Baxter and Novartis. They did this by bioengineering and then releasing lethal biological agents, specifically the "bird flu" virus and the "swine flu virus" in order to have a pretext to implement a forced mass vaccination program which would be the means of administering a toxic biological agent to cause death and injury to the people of the U.S. This action is in direct violation of the Biological Weapons Anti-terrorism Act.

Burgermeister's charges include evidence that Baxter AG, Austrian subsidiary of Baxter International, deliberately sent out 72 kilos of live bird flu virus, supplied by the WHO in the winter of 2009 to 16 laboratories in four counties. She claims this evidence offers clear proof that the pharmaceutical companies and international government agencies themselves are actively engaged in producing, developing, manufacturing and distributing biological agents classified as the most deadly bioweapons on earth in order to trigger a pandemic and cause mass death.

Read more HERE...

Wednesday #6...

Almost berry time! Probably by weeks end Mandi and I will start are every evening ritual of heading down to the rail trail and picking raspberries.

Thanks you Forest Service! This was a big one.

Fun Guy.

Nap time by the Shavers fork.

Morning ride followed by afternoon gardening followed by a trip to the river followed by evening gardening. I slept well last night.

Peace, JOEY

ps: Disturbing Facts:

• The average child gets 5+ servings of pesticides in their food and water each day.
• The pesticide Atrazine is so toxic it is banned in Europe, but it is used so widely in the U.S., that it is found in 71% of the U.S. drinking water.
• Currently, over 400 pesticides can be legally used in the U.S. For example, apples can be sprayed up to 16 times with 36 different pesticides. None of these chemicals are present in organic foods.
• According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, organophosphate pesticides (OP) are now found in the blood of 95% of Americans tested, and the levels are twice as high in blood samples taken from children. Exposure to OPs is linked to hyperactivity, behavior disorders, learning disabilities, developmental delays and motor dysfunction.

Money Talks: Profits Before Patient Safety

The pharmaceutical industry employees one sales rep for every four doctors.

Research on drug effects has been virtually completely taken over by the drug industry.

The number of deaths caused by specific medications is often withheld by the FDA because it's considered a "trade secret."

Does this sound right to you?

Congressman Ron Paul on Healthcare

A good analogy to explain how medical insurance works:
When you take your car in for a tuneup you do not use car insurance do you?
So if your going in for a cold why should you have to use health insurance?

Why are you going to the hospital for a cold anyway. You should instead head down to your local health food store and then over to the produce department of Krogers.

JOEY

Wednesday #5...

I really like this bike! Whats a hardtail?

The DNR is hard at work on Pheasant mt harassing bears. No bear in this one. I should have shoved it over the hill but there was probably a game camera near by.

Fern Gully!

Doe a dear a female dear.

This Wednesday was a wet, working Wednesday. Got up real early to get a ride in before the trails got to packed (ha) only to be greeted by heavy rain. Mandi and I started our wet and muddy ride mid morning and felt pretty much like poo. So we just took are time, got rained on a couple times, I crashed twice on sticks hiding under 3 foot tall ferns. It is amazingly lush this year out in woods. The underbrush is super green and thick. It is going to be a great summer for fruit foraging.

After riding came the work part. Had to make a house call which is actually a lot of fun then I had to go to the bank and then go pay for insurance which is the opposite of fun. Now its time to go work in the garden. You know what they say "A hobbits work is never done".

Peace, JOEY

Change or More of the Same on GMOs?

Tell Obama & Vilsack: Drop Bush's Pro-GMO Rules

Just before leaving office, the Bush Administration released a proposed rule that would significantly weaken the regulation of genetically engineered crops. The rule would increase contamination of organic and conventional crops and release the USDA from responsibility for taking action to remedy such contamination. Moreover, the rule would continue to allow the dangerous practice of producing drugs and industrial chemicals in food crops grown outdoors. Finally, the proposed rule would give industry the power to decide whether their new genetically engineered crops should be subject to regulation in the first place.

Tell Barky Obama and Dillsack what you think here...

Braileys Pond....

Sunday Mandi, John and myself headed down to Braileys Pond to hit up some awesome Va riding. Braileys is just north of Staunton Va off of rt 250. We did a semi big ride taking in Hankey, Dowels, Bridgehollow and Braileys. The descent down to Braileys Pond ended way to soon and left me craving more of that carvalisious singletrack. The riding in Va is such a huge departure from most of stuff here in WV. Its long, carvy and somewhat smooth by comparison. The ride can be viewed here thanks to my new birthday present to myself.

Pease, JOEY.

Wednesday #5... aka my birthday!

When Mandi asked me what I wanted to do today my response was RIDE. So ride we did. We hit up the home stomping ground of Shingle Tree and South Haddix trail. The USFS has done some work on Shingle tree recently and all the trees that were down are now gone with the exception of one that has fallen recently. It was a climbing extravaganza. The ride was followed by a dip in the river and then a trip to favorite town in WV, Davis. The reason for the trip to Davis was to go to lunch at the best darn burrito shop in the world Hellbenders. After consuming half a burrito, I could not get the whole thing down, we headed over to BWB to hang out with Roger and the gang for a few minutes. On the way home we decided to stop off for a little hike on loop rode to work off some burrito and to spend just a little more time outdoors.

All and all it was wonderful way to spend my b-day, riding my bike with my favorite person in the world.

Peace, JOEY.

Wednesday #4...

Mobile bike repair...

...here.

Followed by an awesome ride.

Anyone know?

I will show you (fatbob29) the bark baskets as soon as I get around to finishing them. Ride, work, gardening, repeat that is all that Mandi and I have been doing.. Oh yea sleep to but not as much as I want though.

Peace, JOEY.

SECRET EXPOSED (RON PAUL)

Unlike many presidential candidates who fade away when they don't win (Kerry, McCain, Dole, Dukakis etc. etc), Ron Paul carries on.

Maybe that's because he actually has a message and a commitment.

You don't have to agree with everything he says to realize this is one of the rarest of people: a US politician who actually cares about the nation's future.

We can't afford the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama program of endless war - and it doesn't do anything to make the country safer. Quite the contrary.

Cybersecurity: Obama’s Promise to Trash the Constitution

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
May 29, 2009

During a speech today on “cybersecurity,” ">Obama told a whopper. He said the government’s effort to protect us from cyber bad guys “will not include monitoring private sector networks or Internet traffic. We will preserve and protect the personal privacy and civil liberties that we cherish as Americans.”

Is it possible Obama has never heard of Mark Klein, the retired AT&T communications technician who said years ago that the company shunted all Internet traffic — including traffic from peering links connecting to other Internet backbone providers — to semantic traffic analyzers, installed in a secret room inside the AT&T central office on Folsom Street in San Francisco? There are similar rooms in Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego, all sucking up internet data.

Whistleblower Mark Klein

Klein explained that the multinational corporation is doing this at the behest of the NSA. It is “vacuum-cleaner surveillance” approach that grabs everything. “Despite what we are hearing, and considering the public track record of [the Bush] administration, I simply do not believe their claims that the NSA’s spying program is really limited to foreign communications or is otherwise consistent with the NSA’s charter or with FISA [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act],” said Klein in 2006.

After the NSA showed up in 2002 at AT&T’s Folsom Street facility, Klein began connecting the dots. “You might recall there was a big blowup in the news about the Total Information Awareness [TIA] program, led by Adm. [John] Poindexter, which caused the big upsetness in Congress, because what Poindexter was proposing to do was draw in databases from everywhere — and this was in The New York Times — draw in Internet data, bank records, travel records, everything into one big conglomeration which could be searchable by the government so they could find out everything about what anybody’s doing at any time of day,” Klein told PBS. “And all this would be done without any warrants. This is how it was presented by Poindexter himself in The New York Times, and that caused a great upset, brouhaha, in Congress.”

On January 16, 2003, Senator Russ Feingold introduced legislation to suspend the activity of the Total Information Awareness program pending a Congressional review of privacy issues involved. In February 2003, Congress passed legislation suspending activities of the IAO (Information Awareness Office) pending a Congressional report of the office’s activities.

Congress acted after William Safire published an article in the New York Times claiming “[TIA] has been given a $200 million budget to create computer dossiers on 300 million Americans” (see You Are a Suspect, November 14, 2002).

Of course, the program didn’t go away. Legislators included a classified annex to the Defense Appropriations Act that preserved funding for TIA’s component technologies, if they were transferred to other government agencies. TIA projects continued to be funded under classified annexes to Defense and Intelligence appropriation bills.

“Total Information Awareness — the all-seeing terrorist spotting algorithm-meets-the-mother-of-all-databases that was ostensibly de-funded by Congress in 2003, never actually died, and was largely rebuilt in secret by the NSA, according to the Wall Street Journal’s Siobhan Gorman,” Ryan Singel wrote for Wired on March 10, 2008. “There’s been no real debate in Congress or in the press about whether the government should be allowed to track every Americans phone calls, emails and web browsing.”

Jon Stokes, writing for Ars Technica, notes that TIA technology is nothing new. “TIA-like efforts are still going on” Stokes wrote in 2005, and “the government has been trying to use new technology, like database tech and voice recognition, for domestic surveillance for a long time. And when I say a long time, I mean well before the current administration came into office.” It really got a boost under Clinton in 1995 when the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) was passed. “CALEA mandated that the telcos aid wiretapping by installing remote wiretap ports onto their digital switches so that the switch traffic would be available for snooping by law enforcement.” In other words, Mark Klein had but scratched the surface.

Truman created the NSA in 1952, supposedly to serve as “America’s ears” abroad, but the agency has long served as a secret Stasi-like organization dedicated to snooping on Americans. The NSA, writes Siobhan Gorman for the Wall Street Journal, “and other intelligence agencies were found to be using their spy tools to monitor Americans for political purposes.”

The NSA’s predecessor, the Armed Forces Security Agency, launched Project SHAMROCK in 1945. It obtained copies of all telegraphic information exiting or entering the United States with the full cooperation of RCA, ITT and Western Union. A sister project known as Project MINARET involved the creation of “watch lists,” by each of the intelligence agencies and the FBI, of those accused of “subversive” domestic activities. The watch lists included such notables as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Jane Fonda, Joan Baez and Dr. Benjamin Spock, according to Patrick S. Poole, writing for Nexus Magazine in 1999. The FBI, the NSA, and other intelligence agencies were actively involved in creating the watch lists.

NSA has attempted to keep up on technology as the secretive agency continues to snoop on “subversives” and others the government considers miscreants. In February, trade publications reported the agency is offering “billions” to any firm able to offer reliable eavesdropping on Skype IM and voice traffic. Skype is particularity troublesome because it utilizes P2P networks, that is to say peer-top-peer (no central server owned and operated by a telecom required). The government and the corporate media may tell you they want to crack down on P2P — for instance, the vastly popular BitTorrent — because of copyright infringement, but a more practical reason is because the government has yet to figure out how to crack the file sharing protocol. Skype and BitTorrent account for a large amount of traffic on the internet.

If you think Obama will roll back the government’s massive and unconstitutional snoop program, think again. On April 3, the Obama Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss one of the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s landmark lawsuits against illegal spying by the NSA. The DOJ demanded that the entire lawsuit be dismissed based on both the Bush administration’s claim that a “state secrets” privilege bars any lawsuits against the executive branch for illegal spying, as well as a novel “sovereign immunity” claim that the Patriot Act bars lawsuits of any kind for illegal government surveillance (see the EFF press release, Obama Administration Embraces Bush Position on Warrantless Wiretapping and Secrecy).

In March, Obama’s coordinator for cybersecurity programs, Rod Beckstrom, a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur, quit because he opposed the role of the NSA in the so-called cybersecurity initiative. Beckstrom said “the threats to our democratic processes are significant if all top level government network security and monitoring are handled by” the NSA.

“Obama’s moves drew praise from key lawmakers on Capitol Hill, who vowed to work with the president to implement new security measures as needed,” CQPolitics reported shortly after his “cybersecurity” speech. “Obama said his cybersecurity adviser — who will be a member of both the National Security Staff and the National Economic Council staff — will head a new office within the White House.”

“We applaud President Obama for highlighting the extraordinarily serious issue of cybersecurity,” Sens. Johns D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.V., and Olympia J. Snowe , R-Maine, said in a joint statement. “No other president in American history has elevated this issue to that level and we think him for his leadership.”

No other president so far has had the power to shut down the internet. The Rockefeller-Snowe bill, S 778, would grant Obama dictatorial power declare a so-called “cyber emergency” and pull the plug, or at least cripple networks deemed a threat. The U.S. government is not seriously worried about Chinese hackers or mischievous kids in Latvia (as Rockefeller cited as a danger) but rather fear free and unfettered speech and activism on the part of its own citizens.

Obama’s promise is merely an effort to string you along with a big fat lie. He has absolutely no respect for you or the Bill of Rights.

Papers Please...

Watching the history of Socialist USA evolve in front of us Letter Written by: Roy Wheeler Date of Letter: 2009-05-27 Subject: Police State My brother in law and I were returning home to San Diego from Phoenix after visiting a friend there, a trip I have made a number of times. And in that I have become accustomed to being stopped at the random checkpoints the Border Patrol has setup, in addition to the fact that I travel through the Pine Valley checkpoint on a regular basis. At these checkpoints I have a few different responses for the questions I get asked, most of those responses do not get good responses from the agents asking the questions. This trip I had decided that trying to get these agents to understand the wrongs they are commiting was futile, and so I was not going to give any of my normal responses. But I also couldn't give into to their claim for authority which they do not have, so I decided to treat the situation as if a person on the street was talking to me at random, and I would give the responses I would for a conversation like that. Because in the end, that is what these agents are as far as I am concerned, a stranger on the street. Going to Phoenix was smooth and uneventful, as was going through the California-Arizona border, however a few miles after the border was a random check point. I pulled and stopped for the stop sign, I do not stop for the agents, I stop because the rules of the road dictate that I obey traffic signs. When I stop an agent approaches the truck, with a man this close to the vehicle I can not proceed without endangering him. I personally think that they should not be standing in the middle of Interstate 8, or any road for that matter. He askes me what my citizenship is, to which I reply "California". You see we are citizens of the state we reside in, not of the fiction "The United States", our state is a member of that union, we are not citizens of it. The agent paused for second as he scrutinized my truck attempting to get a look inside the cab and the bed. He asked a second question," where are you coming from?" I looked back down the road, back up at him, back down the road again, and back up at him, and replied,"Arizona". I said it with a tone to insinuate, where else could I be coming from. He really did not care for that answer, so he asked another question,"where are you going?" I looked up the road in front of me, up at him, back down the road, and back up at him, and said, " California", again with the same indignant tone, to let him know that I did not care for his questions. At this point the agent really didn't like my responses, and he wanted to exert his authority to make me answer the questions the way he wanted them answered. He turns from his truck bed inspection and leans towards the window, and asked," what were you doing in Phoenix". Now up until this point I was being tolerant, as I would any person on the street. But when asked what I was doing, that was too far, and I could not go along with it any longer. I told him that he had no right or authority to ask me what I was doing, or where I am going, or what I am going to do when I get there. He responded by telling me that he did in fact have the authority and that I had to tell him. I told him no he didn't, that with in the United states, I have a right to free passage, and I do not have to report to him what i am doing. He then tells me to pull into "secondary". I asked him " Secondary what?", He replies "secondary inspection". I ask him if I am being detained. He doesn't respond to my question, he just tells me once more to pull into secondary. I ask him if he has a supervisor. He says yes. I reply with " i am going to pull over there (pointing to the secondary area) you go get your supervisor, and lets play." I pull into the secondary area, leaving my engine running, and wait. The agent quickly got his supervisors attention to come over and the agent approached the passengers side of the vehicle. When he was by the extra cab window of my ranger he asks me," do you have your immigration documentation?" I am dumbfounded for a split second, I find it impossible that he asked me that question. In that split second, his supervisor that was only a half step behind him, asks," do you have your travel documents?" At this I am completely blown away, i was never really expecting to hear that in my life time, basically, where are your papers. I said in a loud enough to be heard voice, that I don't have to have documents to travel down the interstate, that I have the freedom of passage granted to me by God, and protected by the constitution, and that I don't have to answer any of their questions. What the supervising agent said next made me want to rip something apart. And I quote agent R. Fink " This is the United States and you do have to show us documents, and you do have to answer all of our questions, and no you don't have the right to go from place to place anytime you want, .. we were bombed." I was floored, at this declaration, given in a loud authorative voice, not only had I been asked where are my papers, I now have been informed that I didn't have any rights, and that I was subject to this mans authority. I replied back in just as loud and authorative voice, " I have those rights sir, and I am not going to submit to your claim of authority." By this time the agent R. Fink was up to the window and looking into the truck. The rest of the conversation was him trying to explain why he had to ask those questions, to catch smugglers, and other law breakers. And me telling him that I don't care why he thinks he has to be able to ask those questions, he doesn't have the right, and I don't have the obligation to tell him anything, especially after inform him that I was a California citizen. In the end, he says," your not going to give an inch on this are you?" And I told him," absolutely not, your doing what you think is your job, and I am doing what is my job as a citizen". he nodded his head, and tells us to go on. i was completely reeling after all that had gone on as I drove towards and through El Centro. As I approached the grade up the mountains into San Diego county, my brother in law saw something for a brief second, and asked if I saw it too. I didn't, but what he thought he saw, and what he told me he thought it said warranted me turning around. It was a 30 minute round trip to go back to the exit before he saw the sign. And after seeing it for myself, I got off the freeway, onto a frontage road, and I parked below the billboard sign. It read,"DO YOU HAVE THE APPROAVED DOCUMENTS TO GET HOME". On the sides of those words were WHTI and the DHS symbol. I have included the sign in this letter. I never wanted to be the generation that has to witness this metamorphisis, when a nation goes from a little bit pushy, to full blown despotism. But after reading that sign, I now knew that those agents have been trained to be ready to be able to ask those questions and demand answers. And that my rebellion to do so angered them, because they looked forward to having more authority, more power in their minds. I looked up the WHTI and getyouhome.gov and the acts and legislation they drew their enforcablility from. I asked local police officers, and they knew of the new enhanced drivers Licenses with the RFID chip in them, and they liked them. And I then knew how ALL the governments of mankind became despotic over time, I understood how the agents, and police, and the servants of the government, made it all possible. It happens as most things do, slowly, and without a firm line in the sand to gauge how freedom is encrouched upon, without something to be able to see how far we have come, you can't even tell your moving in that direction. And the people responsible for doing it, don't even understand what they are doing, all they know is that they want more ability to do what it is that they want to do. And right now it may seem good in their eyes, they may honestly just want to be able to dig into everyones lives to stop some bad thing from happening. And who could blame them for pursuing such a noble thing. But its how an unintentional person gets wrapped up into the tornado that is tyrany. A person who does not intend to purposfully understand and uphold freedom, and liberty, can unintentional destroy them both, and much else too.

The Truth about Facebook!

Wednesday #3...

Farm Country?

Rail Trail Cruising.

Little snapper.

Now thats a swimming hole!

"Chicken of the woods" mushroom (aka sulphur shelf, Laetiporus sulphureus) . I am going back with my panniers tomorrow I am going to bring this delectable treat home.

POOP!

This is why we bought a truck. We may have over done it a bit with this load of manure but we got home and nothing broke on the truck.

Making some bark baskets out of a walnut tree that I cut down this evening.

I will post up the finished baskets tomorrow.

All and all a very productive Wednesday.

Peace, JOEY.

Three day Vacation...

More like a two and a half day vacation. I had to go up to the Cheat Mountain club Saturday to work on bikes. So Mandi and I decided to load up the truck and make a weekend of it. So after tuning up some 20 year old clunkers we headed over to the mountain camp on Dry Fork road.

Saturday evening we did a short little ride up through Grouse Management area just to work up a sweat and loosen up the legs. Sunday we headed up to Spruce K-nob to ride one of the best trails in the state, Huckleberry trail. We rode up from camp and past Seneca Creek trail head. I was astounded by the number of cars parked at the trail head, I have never seen it so packed. Huckleberry is in excellent shape and looks like it is getting lots of use. We only encountered two groups of hikers on Huckleberry which was relief, I thought for sure we would be dodging yuppies form DC all day. Now Seneca Creek was a different story. Judy Springs was packed. Why you would want to carry a back pack full of gear 5 miles out into the woods and then camp just feet from 20 other people is beyond me. At least there out in the woods. After a good a meal and a long nap Mandi andI head out on a good long hike up the knob behind the camper. What a view! The Oceola/Gandy Creek area is by far my favorite place in WV and man is it beautiful.

Monday we packed up camp and headed over to Davis for a planned group ride with that sandbagging clydesdale racer, JR Pestko. We headed out as a group of five, JR, Pete the Wolf, Jason "I can only ride for 5 minutes" Cyr, Mandi and I. On top of Canaan we picked up Paul from Baltimore and headed out on some of that knarly singletrack that Davis is famous for. At 1:30 into the ride JR snapped one of his seat rails, 200+ lbs, hollow ti rail is not a good combination. So he and Pete headed back to Davis. The rest of us continued our ride taking in a few more trails before tucking tail and racing back into town just in time to beat the rain.

What a great weekend! Lots of rest, recreating and food consumption.

Peace, JOEY.

Ron Paul: Is this reality or just a bad dream?

Ron Paul once again and his unwavering dedication to the truth. Revolution is on its way.

Watching Obama Morph Into Dick Cheney

Paul Craig Roberts
Infowars
May 21, 2009

A despairing country elected a president who promised change. Americans arrived from every state to witness in bitter cold Obama’s swearing-in ceremony. The mall was packed in a way that it has never been for any other president.

The people’s good will toward Obama and the expectations they had for him were sufficient for Obama to end the gratuitous wars and enact major reforms. But Obama has deserted the people for the interests. He is relying on his non-threatening demeanor and rhetoric to convince the people that change is underway.

The change that we are witnessing is in Obama, not in policies. Obama is morphing into Dick Cheney.

Obama has not been in office four months and already a book could be written about his broken promises.

Obama said he would close the torture prison, Guantanamo, and abolish the kangaroo courts known as military tribunals. But now he says he is going to reform the tribunals and continue the process, but without confessions obtained with torture. Getting behind Obama’s validation of the Bush/Cheney policy, House Democrats pulled the budget funding that was to be used for closing Guantanamo.

The policy of kidnapping people (usually on the basis of disinformation supplied by their enemies) and whisking them off to Third World prisons to be interrogated is to be continued. Again, Obama has substituted a “reform” for his promise to abolish an illegal policy. Rendition, Obama says, has also been reformed and will no longer involve torture. How would anyone know? Is Obama going to assign a U.S. government agent to watch over the treatment given to disappeared people by Third World thugs? Given the proclivity of American police to brutalize U.S. citizens, nothing can save the victims of rendition from torture.Obama has defended the Bush/Cheney warrantless wiretapping program run by the National Security Agency and broadened the government’s legal argument that “sovereign immunity” protects government officials from prosecution and civil suits when they violate U.S. law and constitutional protections of citizens. Obama’s Justice Department has taken up the defense of Donald Rumsfeld against a case brought by detainees whose rights Rumsfeld violated.

In a signing statement this month, Obama abandoned his promise to protect whistleblowers who give information of executive branch illegality to Congress.

Obama is making even more expansive claims of executive power than Bush. As Bruce Fein puts it: “In principle, President Obama is maintaining that victims of constitutional wrongdoing by the U.S. government should be denied a remedy in order to prevent the American people and the world at large from learning of the lawlessness perpetrated in the name of national security and exacting political and legal accountability.”

Obama, in other words, is committed to covering up the Bush regime’s crimes and to ensuring that his own regime can continue to operate in the same illegal and unconstitutional ways.

Obama is fighting the release of the latest batch of horrific torture photos that have come to light. Obama claims that release of the photos would anger insurgents and cause them to kill our troops. That, of course, is nonsense. Those resisting occupation of their land by U.S. troops and NATO mercenaries are already dedicated to killing our troops, and they know that Americans torture whomever they capture. Obama is fighting the release of the photos because he knows the barbaric image that the photos present of the U.S. military will undermine the public’s support for the wars that enrich the military/security complex, appease the Israel Lobby, and repay the campaign contributions that elect the U.S. government.

As for bringing the troops home from Iraq, this promise, too, has been reformed. To the consternation of his supporters, Obama is leaving 50,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq. The others are being sent to Afghanistan and to Pakistan, where on Obama’s watch war has broken out big time with already one million refugees from the indiscriminate bombing of civilians.

Meanwhile, war with Iran remains a possibility, and at Washington’s insistence, NATO is conducting war games on former Soviet territory, thus laying the groundwork for future enrichment of the U.S. military/security complex. The steeply rising U.S. unemployment rate will provide the needed troops for Obama’s expanding wars.

Obama can give a great speech without mangling the language. He can smile and make people believe his rhetoric. The world, or much of it, seems to be content with the soft words that now drape Dick Cheney’s policies in pursuit of executive supremacy and U.S. hegemony.

Wednesday # 2...

Look closely Mandi has her leg warmers/nettle guards on. Speaking of nettles there delicious! Really. Next time your out in the woods getting stung by those evil little plants pluck a few off, tops only, take them home and prepare them like spinach. They are really good and really good for you.

Wild mint...

Wild mint now in the herb garden.

Peace, JOEY

North Forked...

So this is how it went down. We parked at the trail head to North Fork Mt trail on Smoke Hole road. We headed out the road in search of North Fork Mt and some sweet chunky single track. After loads of ups and downs, including the final 3.5 mile grunt, we arrived at are desired destination. Everything was going smooth. At about 4 miles in John Weber and I decided to stop and regroup and wait for Carothers and Mandi to catch up. Mandi came rolling along shortly after we stopped. She was enjoying North Fork a lot more than in years past thanks to her new dual suspension ride, but she also made a commit about how sketchy the trail is and how it would be a horrible place to get hurt. So we waited and we waited no sign of Carothers. So John decided he better head back and look for are long lost com padre. After a few minutes I got a little anxious and decided I should head back also. I rode back about five minutes to find John and Carothers walking back out the trail and Carothers bike was no were in sight. Carothers had crashed and tore his bicep muscle on his left arm! Once he accessed the situation he abandoned his bike and started walking our direction.

After a little pow-wow we decided the best thing to do would be for John and Carothers to hike out to Redman trail and down off the mountain back to the road. John tossed me his keys. Mandi and I were to rail out the trail to the end and arrive back at the car before they did and drive to meet them. Well that is not exactly what happened. We railed all right, but you can only rail so fast on North Fork trail. We rode steady, conservatively but definitely not tentatively, the last thing you want to do is ride tentatively on North Fork trail. The name of the game is commitment. There are some big moves up there and you do not want to go at them half way. We bombed the last exquisite downhill off the ridge and arrived back at the car about two minutes after the boys got there. Perfect timing. After John and Carothers got back to the pavement Carothers was able to suck it up and ride.

What an event full ride. It was a gorgeous day with some nice cool temps and wonderful cloud formations. Hopefully Carothers bicep tear is not as bad as he thought and his wife does not bitch at him to much.

Peace, JOEY.

Shingletree Shuffling...

Nine brave soles showed up for this years Shingletree Shuffle but only eight made it to the first trail. The weather was great. There was a threat of thunderstorms all day but they held off until after the ride. Everybody had a great time and were thoroughly pooped afterward.

Mandi

Slippers

Bear chewed sign.

Bruce and John

"Old Man" Ashlon

Tailgating.

Zackery

Old man once again.

2009 Shingle Tree Shuffle

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Who Rules America?

Paul Craig Roberts
Infowars
May 14, 2009

What do you suppose it is like to be elected president of the United States only to find that your power is restricted to the service of powerful interest groups?

A president who does a good job for the ruling interest groups is paid off with remunerative corporate directorships, outrageous speaking fees, and a lucrative book contract. If he is young when he assumes office, like Bill Clinton and Obama, it means a long life of luxurious leisure.

Fighting the special interests doesn’t pay and doesn’t succeed. On April 30 the primacy of special over public interests was demonstrated yet again. The Democrats’ bill to prevent 1.7 million mortgage foreclosures and, thus, preserve $300 billion in home equity by permitting homeowners to renegotiate their mortgages, was defeated in the Senate, despite the 60-vote majority of the Democrats. The banksters were able to defeat the bill 51 to 45.

These are the same financial gangsters whose unbridled greed and utter irresponsibility have wiped out half of Americans’ retirement savings, sent the economy into a deep hole, and threatened the US dollar’s reserve currency role. It is difficult to imagine an interest group with a more damaged reputation. Yet, a majority of “the people’s representatives” voted as the discredited banksters instructed.

Hundreds of billions of public dollars have gone to bail out the banksters, but when some Democrats tried to get the Senate to do a mite for homeowners, the US Senate stuck with the banks. The Senate’s motto is: “Hundreds of billions for the banksters, not a dime for homeowners.”

If Obama was naive about well-intentioned change before the vote, he no longer has this political handicap.

Democratic Majority Whip Dick Durbin acknowledged the voters’ defeat by the discredited banksters. The banks, Durbin said, “frankly own the place.”

It is not difficult to understand why. Among those who defeated the homeowners bill are senators Jon Tester (Mont), Max Baucus (Mont), Blanche Lincoln (Ark), Ben Nelson (Neb), Many Landrieu (La), Tim Johnson (SD), and Arlan Specter (Pa). According to reports, the banksters have poured a half million dollars into Tester’s campaign funds. Baucus has received $3.5 million; Lincoln $1.3 million; Nelson $1.4 million; Landrieu $2 million; Johnson $2.5 million; Specter $4.5 million.

The same Congress that can’t find a dime for homeowners or health care appropriates hundreds of billions of dollars for the military/security complex. The week after the Senate foreclosed on American homeowners, the Obama “change” administration asked Congress for an additional $61 billion dollars for the neoconservatives’ war in Iraq and $65 billion more for the neoconservatives’ war in Afghanistan. Congress greeted this request with a rousing “Yes we can!”

The additional $126 billion comes on top of the $533.7 billion “defense” budget for this year. The $660 billion–probably a low-ball number–is ten times the military spending of China, the second most powerful country in the world.

How is it possible that “the world’s only superpower” is threatened by the likes of Iraq and Afghanistan? How can the US be a superpower if it is threatened by countries that have no military capability other than a guerilla capability to resist invaders?

These “wars” are a hoax designed to enrich the US armaments industry and to infuse the “security forces” with police powers over American citizenry.

Not a dime to prevent millions of Americans from losing their homes, but hundreds of billions of dollars to murder Muslim women and children and to create millions of refugees, many of whom will either sign up with insurgents or end up as the next wave of immigrants into America.

This is the way the American government works. And it thinks it is a “city on the hill, a light unto the world.”

Americans elected Obama because he said he would end the gratuitous criminal wars of the Bush brownshirts, wars that have destroyed America’s reputation and financial solvency and serve no public interest. But once in office Obama found that he was ruled by the military/security complex. War is not being ended, merely transferred from the unpopular war in Iraq to the more popular war in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Obama, in violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty, continues to attack “targets” in Pakistan. In place of a war in Iraq, the military/security complex now has two wars going in much more difficult circumstances.

Viewing the promotion gravy train that results from decades of warfare, the US officer corps has responded to the “challenge to American security” from the Taliban. “We have to kill them over there before they come over here.” No member of the US government or its numerous well-paid agents has ever explained how the Taliban, which is focused on Afghanistan, could ever get to America. Yet this hyped fear is sufficient for the public to support the continuing enrichment of the military/security complex, while American homes are foreclosed by the banksters who have destroyed the retirement prospects of the US population..

According to Pentagon budget documents, by next year the cost of the war against Afghanistan will exceed the cost of the war against Iraq. According to a Nobel prize-winning economist and a budget expert at Harvard University, the war against Iraq has cost the American taxpayers $3 trillion, that is, $3,000 billion in out-of-pocket and already incurred future costs, such as caring for veterans.

If the Pentagon is correct, then by next year the US government will have squandered $6 trillion dollars on two wars, the only purpose of which is to enrich the munitions manufacturers and the “security” bureaucracy.

The human and social costs are dramatic as well and not only for the Iraqi, Afghan, and Pakistani populations ravaged by American bombs. Dahr Jamail reports that US Army psychiatrists have concluded that by their third deployment, 30 percent of American troops are mental wrecks. Among the costs that reverberate across generations of Americans are elevated rates of suicide, unemployment, divorce, child and spousal abuse, drug and alcohol addiction, homelessness and incarceration. http://www.truthout.org/051209J?n

In the Afghan “desert of death” the Obama administration is constructing a giant military base. Why? What does the internal politics of Afghanistan have to do with the US?

What is this enormous waste of resources that America does not have accomplishing besides enriching the American munitions industry?

China and to some extent India are the rising powers in the world. Russia, the largest country on earth, is armed with a nuclear arsenal as terrifying as the American one. The US dollar’s role as reserve currency, the most important source of American power, is undermined by the budget deficits that result from the munition corporations’ wars and the bankster bailouts.

Why is the US making itself impotent fighting wars that have nothing whatsoever to do with is security, wars that are, in fact, threatening its security?

The answer is that the military/security lobby, the financial gangsters, and AIPAC rule. The American people be damned.

Wednesday...

Peace, JOEY

Dump...

Black and beautiful.

Steep!

Rattlesnake Run #1.

Rattlesnake Run #2.

Toady.

Friends.

Air!

In the groove.

Smooth.

See ya...

JOEY

Oath Keepers

Men and Women of honor.

Garden Update...

Comfry also known as bone set or bone mend. Comfry is edible but not very palatable. We used it two years on my broken wrists to help them heal 12 weeks early than anticipated.

One of the back yard ramp patches.

Raspberries.

Grapes.

Potato patch! These tires will soon be filled with dirt one at a time. As the potato vine grows you add another tire almost completely covering the vine forcing the potatoes to grow vertically. This what you do when you have limited space.

Sugar snap peas.

Onions, onions everywhere. Over 400 to be exact.

Cabbage.

Bologna lettuce.

Giant garlic.

Mandi working on here new herb garden local.

The back yard. As you can see we have recently added four new raised beds, six more to come soon. The goal is to someday have no grass to mow.

The veggies and herbs patently waiting for the rain to stop so they can be placed in there permanent summer homes.

One of three tomato/garlic beds.

The front yard green bean patch, still waiting for seeds.

Peace, JOEY

Bayer Corporation sent HIV tainted drugs overseas...

Bayer knowingly sold contaminated medicine.

Profits were more important than innocent lives.

This is the level of protection you can inspect from the FDA, the Congress, and the White House.

Another story that came and went and never stuck.

JOEY

1976 Swine Flu Propaganda

There's big money in injections.

Lest we learn from the past we are bound to repeat it.

JOEY

PS: The 4th leading cause of death in the world are adverse reaction to prescription drugs and doctor medical error.

Congressman Paul on the Recent Swine Flu Scare

A voice of reason.

Inspired Bicycles - Danny MacAskill April 2009

Inhuman, extrahuman, uberhuman. WOW.

Hot Shrooms...

The only one we saw and we looked all day. It was right in the middle of the trail. We left it.

JOEY

Swine Flu Is Deadly Mix Of Never-Before-Seen Viruses

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Saturday, April 25, 2009

Swine flu panic is spreading in Mexico and soldiers are patrolling the streets after it was confirmed that human to human transmission is occurring and that the virus is a brand new strain which is seemingly affecting young, healthy people the worst, and that the bug is a never-before-seen intercontinental mixture of human, avian and pig viruses from America, Europe and Asia.

Clues that the virus may be a synthetic creation are already manifesting.

According to reports, the virus is a “never-before-seen form of the flu that combines pig, bird and human viruses” which consists of an intercontinental mix of viruses from North America, Europe and Asia.

“CDC officials detected a virus with a unique combination of gene segments that have not been seen in people or pigs before,” according to an Associated Press report.

“This strain of swine influenza that’s been cultured in a laboratory is something that’s not been seen anywhere actually in the United States and the world, so this is actually a new strain of influenza that’s been identified,” said Dr. John Carlo, Dallas Co. Medical Director (video clip here).

Alarming reports are now filtering in about people catching the illness who have had no contact with pigs whatsoever. These include a man and his daughter in San Diego County, a 41-year-old woman in Imperial County and two teenagers in San Antonio, Texas. In fact, in all U.S. cases, the victims had no contact with any pigs.

Dr. Wilma Wooten, San Diego County’s public health officer, told KPBS “We have had person-to-person spread with the father and the daughter,” says Wooten, “And also with the two teenagers in Texas, they were in the same school. So that also indicates person-to-person transfer.”

“Dr. Wooten says it’s unclear how people were exposed to swine flu. She says none of the patients have had any contact with pigs,” according to the report.

Although the situation in the U.S. looks under control, panic is spreading in Mexico, where 800 cases of pneumonia in the capital alone are suspected to be related to the swine flu and the virus has hit young and healthy people, which is very rare with an flu outbreak. Despite the danger of a pandemic, the U.S. border with Mexico remains open.

“Mexico has shut schools and museums and canceled hundreds of public events in its sprawling, overcrowded capital of 20 million people to try to prevent further infections,” reports Reuters.

“My level of concern is significant,” said Dr. Martin Fenstersheib, the health officer for Santa Clara County. “We have a novel virus, a brand-new strain that’s spreading human to human, and we are also seeing a virulent strain in Mexico that seems to be related. We certainly have concerns for this escalating.”

The WHO insists that the outbreak has “pandemic potential” and has been stockpiling supplies of Tamiflu, known generically as oseltamivir, a pill that can both treat flu and prevent infection, according to officials.

As we previously highlighted, those that have a stake in the Tamiflu vaccine include top globalists and BIlderberg members like George Shultz, Lodewijk J.R. de Vink and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Indeed, Rumsfeld himself played a key role in hyping an outbreak of swine flu back in the 1976 when he urged the entire country to get vaccinated. Many batches of the vaccine were contaminated, resulting in hundreds of sick people and 52 fatalities.

The fact that the properties of the strain are completely new, that the virus is spreading from people to people, and that the young and healthy are being hit worst, has disturbing parallels to the deadly 1918 pandemic that killed millions.

It is unclear as to why, if the virus is a brand new strain, that public health officials are so confident programs of mass vaccination, which are already being prepared, would necessarily be effective.

It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that deadly flu viruses have been concocted in labs and then dispatched with the intention of creating a pandemic.

When the story first broke last month, Czech newspapers questioned if the shocking discovery of vaccines contaminated with the deadly avian flu virus which were distributed to 18 countries by the American company Baxter were part of a conspiracy to provoke a pandemic.

Since the probability of mixing a live virus biological weapon with vaccine material by accident is virtually impossible, this leaves no other explanation than that the contamination was a deliberate attempt to weaponize the H5N1 virus to its most potent extreme and distribute it via conventional flu vaccines to the population who would then infect others to a devastating degree as the disease went airborne.

However, this is not the first time that vaccine companies have been caught distributing vaccines contaminated with deadly viruses.

In 2006 it was revealed that Bayer Corporation had discovered that their injection drug, which was used by hemophiliacs, was contaminated with the HIV virus. Internal documents prove that after they positively knew that the drug was contaminated, they took it off the U.S. market only to dump it on the European, Asian and Latin American markets, knowingly exposing thousands, most of them children, to the live HIV virus. Government officials in France went to prison for allowing the drug to be distributed. The documents show that the FDA colluded with Bayer to cover-up the scandal and allowed the deadly drug to be distributed globally. No Bayer executives ever faced arrest or prosecution in the United States.

In the UK, a 2007 outbreak of foot and mouth disease that put Britain on high alert has been originated from a government laboratory which is shared with an American pharmaceutical company, mirroring the deadly outbreak of 2001, which was also deliberately released.

As we reported yesterday, last time there was a significant outbreak of a new form of swine flu in the U.S. it originated at the army base at Fort Dix, New Jersey.

Federal Authority Over the Internet? The Cybersecurity Act of 2009

Jennifer Granick
The Electronic Frontier Foundation
April 15, 2009

There’s a new bill working its way through Congress that is cause for some alarm: the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 ( PDF summary here), introduced by Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME). The bill as it exists now risks giving the federal government unprecedented power over the Internet without necessarily improving security in the ways that matter most. It should be opposed or radically amended.

Essentially, the Act would federalize critical infrastructure security. Since many of our critical infrastructure systems (banks, telecommunications, energy) are in the hands of the private sector, the bill would create a major shift of power away from users and companies to the federal government. This is a potentially dangerous approach that favors the dramatic over the sober response.

One proposed provision gives the President unfettered authority to shut down Internet traffic in an emergency and disconnect critical infrastructure systems on national security grounds goes too far. Certainly there are times when a network owner must block harmful traffic, but the bill gives no guidance on when or how the President could responsibly pull the kill switch on privately-owned and operated networks.

Furthermore, the bill contains a particularly dangerous provision that could cripple privacy and security in one fell swoop:

The Secretary of Commerce— shall have access to all relevant data concerning (critical infrastructure) networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access…

In other words, the bill would give the Commerce Department absolute, non-emergency access to “all relevant data” without any privacy safeguards like standards or judicial review. The broad scope of this provision could eviscerate statutory protections for private information, such as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Privacy Protection Act, or financial privacy regulations. Even worse, it isn’t clear whether this provision would require systems to be designed to enable access, essentially a back door for the Secretary of Commerce that would also establish a primrose path for any bad guy to merrily skip down as well. If the drafters meant to create a clearinghouse for system vulnerability information along the lines of a US/CERT mailing list, that could be useful, but that’s not what the bill’s current language does.

A privacy threat still in the cocoon is the provision mandating a study of the feasibility of an identity management and authentication program with just a nod to “appropriate civil liberties and privacy protections.” There’s reason to fear that this type of study is just a precursor to proposals to limit online anonymity. But anonymity isn’t inherently a security problem. What’s “secure” depends on the goals of the system. Do you need authentication, accountability, confidentiality, data integrity? Each goal suggests a different security architecture, some totally compatible with anonymity, privacy and civil liberties. In other words, no one “identity management and authentication program” is appropriate for all internet uses.

Whether the bill is amended or rejected, the question remains what kind of actions would help cybersecurity, and what role the federal government has to play. As security expert Bruce Schneier has pointed out, the true causes of government cyber-insecurity are rather mundane:

GAO reports indicate that government problems include insufficient access controls, a lack of encryption where necessary, poor network management, failure to install patches, inadequate audit procedures, and incomplete or ineffective information security programs.

The Cybersecurity Act is an example of the kind of dramatic proposal that doesn’t address the real problems of security, and can actually make matters worse by weakening existing privacy safeguards – as opposed to simpler, practical measures that create real security by encouraging better computer hygiene. We’ll be watching this bill carefully to ensure that it doesn’t pass in its present form.

Penn And Teller Get Hippies To Sign Water Banning Petition

Are you just a joiner?

The same argument made by Pen and Teller in this video can also be applied to Global Warming. How much do you actually know about Global Warming?

Are you sure there is such a thing or are you just repeating the pablum that you are fed by the mainstream?

Do some research and decide for yourself.

Remember an informed public will always be free.

Happy Earth Day.

JOEY

Pics..

Ashlon hating me!

Air

Trilium.

Trilium part two.

Amanda

Another new bike!

Frosty lettuce.

Cabbage.

Chilly morning.

Happy Tax Day!!!

Watch this. Denial will be followed by sadness and then sadness will be followed by anger. Anger should lead to action. Action will lead to change. Real change not the phony change that actors posing as politicians try to sell us.

JOEY

PA Church Ladies Raided by ‘Food Safety’ Cops

Beware homemade pie and a glass of milk?

By Linn Cohen-Cole

Unless one sees what has been happening already and who is behind it, it is difficult to believe that the bills in Congress can cover EVERYTHING, that “they” would do something so … totalitarian. It is exactly because it is so monstrous a grab for all control that it is hard to believe.

So, it matters to see things at a smaller scale and in real life and to realize the ways this is already occurring. As the article below will show, and without ever “saying” they are “criminalizing church events,” the state of Pennsylvania is working for the benefit only of corporations, is not only controlling but terrorizing communities using food in the normal ways they have for generations (and with joy), and in the end, effectively “criminalizing church events,” and one might add “religious celebrations, traditional food, ethnic food, charity bazaars, bake sales, ….”

And this is not an isolated happening.

Bill Chirdon, mentioned below, is the same Bill Chirdon responsible for raids against Mark Nolt, a horse and buggy Mennonite dairy farmer, in Pennsylvania. Chirdon, before he became part of Pennsylvania’s Department of Agriculture’s new policing power over traditional community food, worked for industry - Dean Foods and Hershey’s.

So, in both this attack on a church and on a Mennonite farmer (3 raids against him so far and tens of thousands of dollars in loss of equipment and food), the government, in concert with people from the corporate food industry, is crushing harmless non-corporate competition.

Pennsylvania Governor Rendell is a close friend of the Clintons who put Michael Taylor, a Monsanto lawyer and executive, in charge of our FDA, where he approved Monsanto’s rBGH, recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone, over objections by the medical community and even FDA scientists.

Pennsylvania, a dairy state, attempted under Governor Rendell to push a Monsanto ban on the labeling of rBGH (which Kansas is fighting now) while simultaneously attacking its own dairy farmers, the ones who sell pure milk and have been doing so for generations. The issue has nothing to do with “food safety,” just as it didn’t with the women in the church. The “danger” is that those farmers don’t just sell real milk - they sell non-corporate milk. They are doing pure farm to consumer sales, a rare sector of farming that is growing, and without a dime from the government … or to industry. All monies are spent locally and used locally.

The same Michael Taylor from Monsanto is waiting to get a job in the White House over the entire US food supply and this time with the ability to impose up to million dollar a day penalties and 10 years in prison for non-compliance … no judicial review. He would have the power to mete out such punishment to farmers, to church ladies, and to you. At some point, not jut the insanity but the reality of this will percolate through to the public. Farmers know it well already - they have been living in terror of the USDA and FDA for years.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Pennsylvania has criminalized pies, and raided a church that tried to sell them at its annual fundraiser:

ROCHESTER, Pa. — On the first Friday of Lent, an elderly female parishioner of St. Cecilia Catholic Church began unwrapping pies at the church. That’s when the trouble started. A state inspector, there for an annual checkup on the church’s kitchen, spied the desserts. After it was determined that the pies were home-baked, the inspector decreed they couldn’t be sold.

“Everyone was devastated,” says Josie Reed, a 69-year-old former teacher known for her pumpkin and berry pies. Sold for $1 a slice, homemade pies have always been part of the Lenten fish-fry dinners at St. Cecilia’s, located in this tiny city near Pittsburgh. Similar dinners are held in church basements and other venues across the country this time of year….

The problem is the pies are illegal in Pennsylvania. Under the state’s food-safety code, facilities that provide food at four or more events in a year require at least a temporary eating and drinking license, and food has to be prepared in a state-inspected kitchen. Many churches have six fish fries a year, on Fridays during Lent. St. Cecilia’s has always complied with having its kitchen licensed, so food made there is fine to serve. But homemade goods don’t make the cut. (emphasis added)

read more here

HR 875: The end of the Farmers Market

HR 875 is a bill that is currently being rushed through congress. It is also know as The Food Safety Modernazation Act of 2009 it effectively creates a new agency with extensive powers to enforce federal guidelines taking away the power from individual states. It's reach is seemingly limitless affecting small farmers and producers through its new definition of food production facilities which can be applied to almost anything including your back yard vegetable garden.

By standardizing food production procedures to factory farming methods they will automatically force out smaller organic producers who are not able either financially or morally to comply. This will leave the public no options as to how they choose their meat, dairy, produce etc.

This is a prime example of a Hagalian Dialectic. They create the problem and then provide us with the solution. The problem being that the USA relies to heavily on food imported from third world countries that have poor sanitary practices. The solution standardize all food production and turn it all over to large agri-business corporations and force small organic producers to close there doors.

If you do not think that HR 875 is a good idea write your state represenative and let them know that you do not need the nanny state nosing around in your back yard garden.

Peace, JOEY.

Spring Snow...

View from Bickles

Yes, we got a truck. Anyone looking to buy a Hyundai?

Trail up to Bakers Sods.

Go this way to find ramps or taradactol tracks.

Ramps on ice. We knew were to look and it still took us a half hour to find them.

JOEY

Argentina's Economic Collapse - Part 1 of 12

Want to see what is happening and what it is all going to lead to in the future, WATCH this video. It is about the collapse of the monetary and banking system in Argentina. The collapse of the US economy is orchestrated. It has been done hundreds of time through out the world and now it is happening to us.

Are you ready to take to the streets yet?

JOEY

Ramptastic...

Ramps eye view.

Organic.

Ramp digger, I bet you thought it was a screwdriver.

Big brother.

Beautiful Mandi.

Yep, its that time of year again, Ramp time! We have already dug a couple good messes this year.

One of our favorite places to go "ramping" is up on Bickles Knob. The ground is literally carpeted in places with the pungent green leaks. Yesterday the weather was glorious, so we decided to make a day of it and ride up Bakers Sods trail to Bickles Knob.

On the way up we did a fair bit of exploring, checking out a few of the old log skidding roads that litter the area. Surprise, surprise, they all dead end. One of these days I am going find one that goes some where, I hope.

We stopped just above the sods ate some lunch and went to digging. We got a couple good size bags full and decided we better head home and save some for later. You could probably fill a 15 ton dump truck full with the ramps that grow east of Bickles Knob.

Hopefully the long rides with the foraging intermingled is a continued theme for this year. Mandi is hoping to take a class at Augusta this summer called "Gathering the Woods". There is nothing like going for a long ride and then coming home with sustenance.

Peace, JOEY