Peace on Earth

Made me cry.

Winter Solstice Ride...

The tempature was in the mid twenties yesterday with a super stiff westerly wind with some mighty gusts, that felt down right frigid.

Some of the gusts almost separated me from my bike. That has happened on road rides before but never in the woods.

Mandi, John and I were shooting for a four plus hour ride but after I had a mechanical problem and stopped for a bit to long we decided to cut the ride short. We were all chilled to the bone.

We ended up with about three hours saddle time and some nice red wind burnt faces. Now today, Monday, the mercury is topped out at ten with some nice stiff wind. Makes yesterday seem down right balmy.

Starting today the nights get shorter and the days get longer. Not that it matters anyway the sun only shined a couple days this month.

Happy Solstice, JOEY

Sorry more politics. I said I was going to stop with all the political stuff but I just can't, its to important.

Obama’s Agriculture Secretary supports GMO crops, big agra

Stop Vilsack’s Confirmation as Secretary of Agriculture

Organic Consumers Association
December 17, 2008

Despite a massive public outcry, including over 20,000 emails from the Organic Consumers Association, President-Elect Obama has chosen former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack to be the next Secretary of Agriculture.

While Vilsack has promoted respectable policies with respect to restraining livestock monopolies, his overall record is one of aiding and abetting Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) or factory farms and promoting genetically engineered crops and animal cloning. Equally troubling is Vilsack’s support for unsustainable industrial ethanol production, which has already caused global corn and grain prices to skyrocket, literally taking food off the table for a billion people in the developing world.

The Organic Consumers Association is calling on organic consumers and all concerned citizens to join our call to action and block Vilsack’s confirmation as the next Secretary of Agriculture. Please help us reach our goal of 100,000 petition signatures against Vilsack’ nomination. Sign today! Your email will be sent to your Senators and the President-Elect’s office.

CLICK HERE to sign the following petition:

We the undersigned reject President-Elect Obama’s choice for Secretary of
Agriculture, Tom Vilsack.

Over the past month, Organic Consumers Association members have sent over
20,000 emails to President-Elect Obama¹s Transition Team, calling for the
appointment of a Secretary of Agriculture who would develop and implement a
plan that promotes family-scale farming, a safe and nutritious food system
and a sustainable and organic vision for the future.

Vilsack¹s business as usual positions have included the following:

-Vilsack has been a strong supporter of genetically engineered crops,
including bio-pharmaceutical corn:

-The biggest biotechnology industry group, the Biotechnology Industry
Organization, named Vilsack Governor of the Year. He was also the founder
and former chair of the Governor’s Biotechnology Partnership.

-When Vilsack created the Iowa Values Fund, his first poster child of
economic development potential was Trans Ova and their pursuit of cloning
dairy cows.

-The undemocratic and highly unpopular 2005 seed pre-emption bill was
Vilsack’s brainchild. The law strips local government¹s right to regulate
Genetically Engineered seed.

-Vilsack is an ardent support of corn and soy-based biofuels, which use as
much or more fossil energy to produce them as they generate, while driving
up world food prices and literally starving the poor.

We pledge to continue working for a just and sustainable food and farming
system. We urge Congress and the office of the President-Elect to consider
appointing a Secretary of Agriculture that will advance a sustainable and
just future.

Trends Forecaster Celente: Greece-Style Riots Coming To U.S.

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, December 15, 2008

Frighteningly accurate trends forecaster Gerald Celente says that America will see riots similar to those currently ongoing in Greece and that the cause will be a hyper-inflationary depression, leading to the inevitable use of troops and mercenaries to deal with the crisis as Americans are incarcerated in internment camps.

As we have highlighted before, Celente’s accuracy is stunning - he predicted the 1987 crash, the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the “panic of 2008,” and is routinely cited even by mainstream news networks as highly credible.

The cause of the riots would be a hyper-inflationary depression, Celente told interviewer Lew Rockwell, causing Americans to revolt in similar circumstances that we have witnessed recently in Iceland and Greece. The trouble would be sparked off by Obama declaring a “bank holiday” whereby people won’t be able to withdraw their money.

“What’s going on in Greece with these riots has nothing to do with a 15-year-old boy being killed, that was only the spark that ignited the pent up, really hatred and disdain, people have for the scandals and corrupt government and the same thing is going on in this country as well,” said Celente.

Celente reiterated his prediction of a revolution and riots in America, and said that the first signs of it could even emerge before the end of the year.

Celente said that the troops now being brought back to America for “domestic security” would be used to suppress the riots.

“There’s talk of opening all these detention centers and hiring the goon squads, the Blackwaters to run them, so these are realities going on as we speak,” said Celente, adding that the Halliburton subsidiary KBR had been awarded a half a billion dollar contract to build “national emergency” internment camps in the name of detaining illegal immigrants but that they would be used to hold rioting Americans.

“We’re really in a period of ‘off with their heads’ and its going to be the people against the politicians,” said Celente.

Celente said that a breakup of the United States was possible and that the secessionist movement was strong.

“The government owns and runs the largest mortgage company, owns the largest insurance company, they’re going to be owning a piece of the oil industry, so it’s a fight against a totalitarian government…so there’s going to be rebellions and things will change for the better if we break up these criminal governments that are in place now,” said Celente.

The forecaster added that the government was killing people for a false reason in Iraq and robbing people blind with the bailouts at home.

Listen to the interview here.

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

(NaturalNews) Following the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's setting of a "safe" level of melamine in foods, the World Health Organization (WHO) has announced its own safety level of 0.2 mg per kilogram of body weight per day.

In other words, the WHO says that a 150-pound person could safely consume 13.6 mg of melamine per day.

That's a lot of melamine. It's almost like a nutritional supplement dose. And the scary part about all this is that neither the WHO nor the FDA has any science whatsoever to back up this "safe" consumption guideline.

Melamine is an industrial chemical that has sickened hundreds of thousands of children in China and killed babies and pets across the world. It has no place in the food supply whatsoever. For these health agencies that are supposed to be serving the public to now claim that a person can "safely" eat 13.6 mg of melamine per day, every day, is simply outrageous. It is a betrayal of the very public these agencies are supposed to serve and protect.

Without any scientific evidence whatsoever, the world's health agencies are essentially endorsing very high levels of melamine in foods. How high? If a 150-pound person eats just one chocolate bar per day, and that chocolate bar is a 50-gram bar that's contaminated with melamine, the WHO would allow an incredible 272 parts per million of melamine in the bar, which is 272 times the allowable level of melamine contamination that has been put forth by the FDA!

The FDA, you see, is outlining its melamine limits based on how much melamine is in the food. The WHO, on the other hand, is stating a limit of how much a person can consume, and the WHO limit is significantly higher than what the FDA limit would have typically exposed a person to.

What's really astonishing here, though, is not only that both the WHO and FDA think it's "safe" for babies, children and adults to consume melamine every day, but that these agencies support the daily consumption of multiple untested chemicals in combination!

For example, the FDA has declared bisphenol-A to be completely safe and has placed no consumption limit on it whatsoever. There is no limit on acrylamide consumption, either, meaning that a U.S. citizen could be consuming large amounts of melamine, bisphenol-A, acrylamides, phthalates, perchlorates and numerous other chemicals in highly toxic combinations that are all "approved" by the FDA!

I must emphasize there has been no safety testing done on melamine that could scientifically establish a "safe" consumption limit. Thus, the FDA and WHO are just blindly guessing at what a safe level might be. Consumers are guinea pigs, in other words, and if babies start dying or falling ill from all these chemicals at some later date, then they'll deal with it then (by denying they could have known the chemicals were dangerous, of course).

In other words, the health authorities of the world are now setting food safety standards in precisely the same way that a fifth-grade takes a history quiz… by guessing!

I have a radical idea: How about setting a standard that would require no industrial chemicals in the food supply?

And why is that so radical anyway? Shouldn't that just be common sense? Why are the FDA and WHO shoving chemicals down our throats and insisting they're all safe to eat?

Why have our food safety agencies become pushers of industrial chemicals?

So True...

So who is next, oil companies, Wal-Mart, Target. Everybody get in line for your goverment handout.
This bailout is just a bandaid. Its like putting a patch on a hole on an innertube, when you can see that there is giant rip in the sidewall of your tire. You put the tube back in the tire, inflate and cross your fingers, knowing that it is very much likely to fail again.

JOEY

Pine needle tea...

Pine needles are higher in vitamin C than oranges and lemons. It is way cheaper than oranges and lemons since it grows in my yard.

So how does it taste? It tastes like pine needles. Which is not to bad.

How I did it: I have been making some wreathes for Christmas so I have pine tree branches laying all about in the house. So I just snipped off a couple mini branches, put them a jar, and added some almost boiling hot water. I let it steep for about an hour.

I sipped the tea slowly over the course of an hour or two. Did it make me feel good? Sure it did and I am going to have another cup today.

Here's to your health, JOEY

Winter Gardening....

Well I guess it is not officially winter yet but it sure has been feeling like it. I took advantage of the little reprieve from the winter nastiness today and spent some time in the garden. Yep, the garden. Picked some lettuce and finished off the rest of the radishes. The lettuce has been growing, freezing, growing under some windows for a couple months. The radishes have been growing and actually thriving in a little make shift greenhouse Mandi and I through together. Feels great being able to lengthen the growing season and the more Mandi and I learn and practice the better we get at it.

Peace, JOEY.

Swat Team conducts food raid in rural Ohio‏

On Monday, December 1, a SWAT team with semi-automatic rifles entered the private home of the Stowers family in LaGrange, Ohio, herded the family onto the couches in the living room, and kept guns trained on parents, children, infants and toddlers, from approximately 11 AM to 8 PM. The team was aggressive and belligerent. The children were quite traumatized. At some point, the “bad cop” SWAT team was relieved by another team, a “good cop” team that tried to befriend the family. The Stowers family has run a very large, well-known food cooperative called Manna Storehouse on the western side of the greater Cleveland area for many years.
There were agents from the Department of Agriculture present, one of them identified as Bill Lesho. The search warrant is reportedly suspicious-looking. Agents began rifling through all of the family’s possessions, a task that lasted hours and resulted in a complete upheaval of every private area in the home. Many items were taken that were not listed on the search warrant. The family was not permitted a phone call, and they were not told what crime they were being charged with. They were not read their rights. Over ten thousand dollars worth of food was taken, including the family’s personal stock of food for the coming year. All of their computers, and all of their cell phones were taken, as well as phone and contact records. The food cooperative was virtually shut down. There was no rational explanation, nor justification, for this extreme violation of Constitutional rights.
Presumably Manna Storehouse might eventually be charged with running a retail establishment without a license. Why then the Gestapo-type interrogation for a 3rd degree misdemeanor charge? This incident has raised the ominous specter of a restrictive new era in State regulation and enforcement over the nation’s private food supply.
This same type of abusive search and seizure was reported by those innocents who fell victim to oppressive federal drug laws passed in the 1990s. The present circumstance raises the obvious question: is there some rabid new interpretation of an existing drug law that considers food a controlled substance worthy of a nasty SWAT operation? Or worse, is there a previously unrecognized provision(s) pertaining to food in the Homeland Security measures? Some have suggested that it was merely an out-of-control, hot-to-trot ODA agent, and, if so, this would be a best-case scenario. Anything else might spell the beginning of the end for the freedom to eat unregulated and unmonitored food.
One blogger familiar with the Ohio situation has reported that:

“Interestingly, I believe they [Manna Storehouse] said a month or so ago, an undercover ODA official came to their little store and claimed to have a sick father wanting to join the co-op. Both the owner and her daughter-in-law had a horrible feeling about the man, and decided not to allow him into the co-op and notified him by certified mail. He came back to the co-op demanding to be part of it. They refused and gave him names of other businesses and health food stores closer to his home. Not coincidentally, this man was there yesterday as part of the raid.”

The same blog also noted that the Ohio Department of Agriculture has been chastised by the courts in several previous instances for its aggression, including trying to entrap an Amish man in a raw milk “sale,” which backfired when it became known that the Amish believe in a literal interpretation of “give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away” (Matthew 5:42)
The issue appears to be the discovery of a bit of non-institutional beef in an Oberlin College food service freezer a year ago that was tracked down by a county sanitation official to Manna Storehouse. Oberlin College’s student food coop is widely known for its strident ideological stance about eating organic foods. It seems that the Oberlin student food cooperative had joined the Manna Storehouse food cooperative in order to buy organic foods in bulk from the national organic food distributor United, which services buying clubs across the nation. The sanitation official, James Boddy, evidently contacted the Ohio Department of Agriculture. After the first contact by state ODA officials, Manna Storehouse reportedly wrote them a letter requesting assistance and guidelines for complying with the law. This letter was never answered. Rather, the ODA agent tried several times to infiltrate the coop, as described above. When his attempts failed, the SWAT team showed up!
Food cooperatives and buying clubs have been an active part of the American landscape for over a generation. In the 1970s, with the rise of the organic food industry (a direct outgrowth of the hippie back-to-nature movement) food coops started up all over the country. These were groups of people who freely associated for the purpose of combining their buying power so that they could order organic food items in bulk and case lots. Anyone who was part of these coops in the early era will remember the messy breakdown of 35 pounds of peanut butter and 5 gallon drums of honey!
These buying clubs have persisted and flourished over the years due to their ability to purchase high quality organic foods at reduced prices in bulk quantities. Most cooperatives have participated greatly in the local agrarian economies, supporting neighborhood organic farmers with purchases of produce, eggs, chickens, etc. The groups also purchase food from a number of different local, regional and national distributors, many of them family-based businesses who truck the food themselves. Some of these food cooperatives have become large enough to set up mini-storefront operations where members can drop in and purchase items leftover from case lot sales. Manna Storehouse had established itself in such a manner, using a small enclosed breezeway attached to their home. It was a folksy place with old wooden floors where coop members stopped by to chat and snack on bags of organic corn chips.
The state of Ohio boasts the second largest Amish population in the country. Many of the Amish live on acreages where they raise their own food, not unlike Manna Storehouse, and sell off the extras to neighbors and church members. There is a sense of foreboding that this state crackdown on a longstanding, reputable food cooperative operation could adversely impact the peaceful agrarian way of life not only for the Amish, but homeschoolers and those families living off the land on rural acreages. It raises the disturbing possibility that it could become a crime to raise your own food, buy eggs from the farmer down the road, or butcher your own chickens for family and friends – bustling activities that routinely take place in backwater America.
The freedom to purchase food directly form the source is increasingly under attack. For those who have food allergies and chemical intolerances, or who are on special medical diets, this is becoming a serious health issue. Will Americans retain the right to purchase food that is uncontaminated by pesticides, herbicides, allergens, additives, dyes, preservatives, MSG, GMOs, radiation, etc.? The melamine scare from China underscores the increasingly inferior and suspect quality of modern processed institutional foods. One blog, commenting on the bizarre and troubling Manna Storehouse situation, observed that:
“No one is saying exactly why. At the same time the FDA says it is safe to eat the 40% of tainted beef found in Costco’s and Sam’s all over the nation. These farm raids are very common now. Every farmer needs to fully equipped [sic] for the possibility of it happening to them. The Farmer To Consumer Legal Defense Fund was created just for this purpose. The USDA just released their plans to put a law into action that will put all small farmers out of business. Animals for the sale of meat or milk will only be allowed in commercial farms, even the organic ones.” December 3, 2008 7:09 PM

After doing a bit of research I have found that the folks that own Manna Storehouse still have not been charged with any crimes. Yet none of there personal belongings or food have been returned. I wonder how long it will be until growing your own food and raising your own live stock will be completely illegal.

JOEY

-5 with the wind chill...

A couple years ago when bike racing was real important and my sights were always set on the coming race season, I probably would have rode on a day like yesterday. The high yesterday was 18 degrees with windchill factors around 5 below. With no real plans for racing next year Mandi and I have both been branching out a bit more with the cross training. We have been doing more running and hiking when the weather is poor. Also lots of pilates and jump rope, don't laugh jump rope is tuff. So instead of bundling up yesterday and going for a three hour torture ride and freezing the whole time, we went hiking instead. We headed out to South Haddix trail with our friends Joel and Katie.

They are alot of fun to hang out with, as they share many common interests with Mandi and I. They have an awesome little farm over in Bellington. They grow most of what they eat and also sell at the local farmers market (Joel is the coordinator). Joel is turning into a master bread maker and cranks out several loaves a week of some of the best bread I have ever ate. They both are also incredibly gifted runners.

We had a great time trudging through the woods. When I hike I usually just blunder around and normally do not stick to a trail. You can find a lot more interesting things to look at when you are deep in the woods away from the ground that is normally troden upon. So thats what we did most of the day yesterday. It was actually a beautiful day. After a nice burst of snow in the morning the ski cleared up and the sun shone most of the day.

Peace, JOEY

2 Bridges...

Yesterday Mandi and I did the two bridge ride. It is my second favorite dirt road ride in Randolph county. Its a pretty simple ride. Start on Harpertown Road in Elkins. Ride until you get to the river and the first bridge. Cross the bridge and go left. Ride until you find the next bridge across the Shavers Fork. Cross the bridge, go up the hill(three mile climb) . Take a left on top. Ride until you find route 219. Left on 219. Left when you reach the rail trail. Ride to Elkins. Your done. Pretty simple, a nice round ride.

Peace, JOEY

Washington Post: 20,000 More U.S. Troops To Be Deployed For “Domestic Security”

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, December 1, 2008

The Washington Post today reports on plans to station 20,000 more U.S. troops inside America for purposes of “domestic security” from September 2011, an expansion of Northcom’s militarization of the country in preparation for potential civil unrest following a total economic collapse or a mass terror attack.

“The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials,” reports the Post.

“Domestic emergency deployment may be “just the first example of a series of expansions in presidential and military authority,” or even an increase in domestic surveillance, said Anna Christensen of the ACLU’s National Security Project. And Cato Vice President Gene Healy warned of “a creeping militarization” of homeland security.”

As Alex Jones exposed back in the late 1990’s, U.S. troops have been training for this eventuality for a considerable amount of time. During numerous urban warfare drills that Jones attended and reported on, troops were trained to raid, arrest and imprison U.S. citizens in detention camps as well as taking over public buildings and running checkpoints. During role playing exercises, actors playing prisoners would scream “I’m an American citizen, I have rights” as they were being dragged away by troops.

The contention that the troops will merely help “recovery efforts” after a major catastrophe is contradicted by the fact that Northcom itself, in a September 8 Army Times article, said the first wave of the deployment, which was put in place on October 1st at Fort Stewart and at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, would be aimed at tackling “civil unrest and crowd control”.

After a controversy arose surrounding the admissions made in the Army Times article, Northcom retracted the claim but conceded that both lethal and non-lethal weaponry traditionally used in crowd control and riot situations would still be used in the field.

The increasing militarization of America is part of a long term agenda to abolish Constitutional rule and establish a “military form of government,” following a large scale terror attack or similar disaster, as Tommy Franks, the former commander of the military’s Central Command, alluded to in a November 2003 Cigar Aficionado piece.

Franks outlined the scenario by which martial law would be put in place, saying, “It means the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western world – it may be in the United States of America – that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our Constitution. Two steps, very, very important.”

In the short term, the domestic deployment of troops is likely aimed at combating likely civil unrest that will ensue after a complete economic collapse followed by a devastating period of hyperinflation.

This warning was again echoed a few days ago in a leaked internal memo from Citibank.

“The world is not going back to normal after the magnitude of what they have done. When the dust settles this will either work, and the money they have pushed into the system will feed through into an inflation shock,” wrote Tom Fitzpatrick, Citibank’s chief technical strategist.

The memo predicts “depression, civil disorder and possibly wars” as a fallout from an economic collapse that many say is on the horizon.

Naturally, the claim that such troop deployments are merely to aid in disaster relief efforts is a thin veil aimed at distracting from the real goal. Should a real tragedy occur, volunteers and already existing civil aid organizations are fully capable of dealing with such events, as we witnessed on 9/11.

The military are primarily trained to kill people and break things, and their role during the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts was mainly focused on detaining people in sports stadiums, shooting alleged looters and seizing guns from wealthy home owners in the high and dry areas, while real recovery measures were left to volunteers and local state authorities.

The open admission that U.S. troops will be involved in law enforcement operations as well as potentially using non-lethal weapons against American citizens is a complete violation of the Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act, which substantially limit the powers of the federal government to use the military for law enforcement unless under precise and extreme circumstances.

Section 1385 of the Posse Comitatus Act states, “Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”

Under the John Warner Defense Authorization Act, signed by President Bush on October 17, 2006, the law was changed to state, “The President may employ the armed forces to restore public order in any State of the United States the President determines hinders the execution of laws or deprives people of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law or opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws.”

However, these changes were repealed in their entirety by HR 4986: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, reverting back to the original state of the Insurrection Act of 1807. Despite this repeal, President Bush attached a signing statement saying that he did not feel bound by the repeal. It remains to be seen whether President elect Obama will reverse Bush’s signing statement.

The original text of the Insurrection Act severely limits the power of the President to deploy troops within the United States.

For troops to be deployed, a condition has to exist that, “(1) So hinders the execution of the laws of that State, and of the United States within the State, that any part or class of its people is deprived of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law, and the constituted authorities of that State are unable, fail, or refuse to protect that right, privilege, or immunity, or to give that protection; or (2) opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws. In any situation covered by clause (1), the State shall be considered to have denied the equal protection of the laws secured by the Constitution.”

Is the incoming Obama administration and Northcom waiting for such a scenario to unfold, an event that completely overwhelms state authorities, before unleashing the might of the U.S. Army against the American people?

The deployment of National Guard troops to aid law enforcement or for disaster relief purposes is legal under the authority of the governor of a state, but using active duty U.S. Army in law enforcement operations inside America absent the conditions described in the Insurrection Act is completely illegal.

The political left and right need to join forces and denounce this plan for what it is - another unconstitutional step towards the incremental implementation of martial law and the militarization of America.

Do you eat food? Read this...

Obama’s team includes dangerous biotech “Yes Men”
by Jeffery Smith
Huffington Post

Biotech “Yes Men” on Obama’s team threaten to expand the use of dangerous genetically modified (GM) foods in our diets. Instead of giving us change and hope, they may prolong the hypnotic “group think” that has been institutionalized over three previous administrations—where critical analysis was abandoned in favor of irrational devotion to this risky new technology.

Clinton’s agriculture secretary Dan Glickman saw it first hand:
“It was almost immoral to say that [biotechnology] wasn’t good, because it was going to solve the problems of the human race and feed the hungry and clothe the naked. . . . If you’re against it, you’re Luddites, you’re stupid. That, frankly, was the side our government was on. . . . You felt like you were almost an alien, disloyal, by trying to present an open-minded view”
When Glickman dared to question the lax regulations on GM food, he said he “got slapped around a little bit by not only the industry, but also some of the people even in the administration.”

By shutting open-minds and slapping dissent, deceptive myths about genetically modified organisms (GMOs) persist.

-The industry boasts that GMOs reduce herbicide use; USDA data show that the opposite is true.
-We hear that GMOs increase yield and farmer profit; but USDA and independent studies show an average reduction in yield and no improved bottom line for farmers.
-George H. W. Bush fast-tracked GMOs to increase US exports; now the government spends an additional $3-$5 billion per year to prop up prices of the GM crops no one wants.
-Advocates continue to repeat that GMOs are needed to feed the world; now the prestigious International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development has joined a long list of experts who flatly reject GMOs as the answer to hunger.

Food Safety Lies

Of all the myths about GMOs, the most dangerous is that they are safe. This formed the hollow basis of the FDA’s 1992 GMO policy, which stated:

“The agency is not aware of any information showing that foods derived by these new methods differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way.”

The sentence is complete fiction. At the time it was written, there was overwhelming consensus among the FDA’s own scientists that GM foods were substantially different, and could create unpredictable, unsafe, and hard-to-detect allergens, toxins, diseases, and nutritional problems. They had urged the political appointees in charge to require long-term safety studies, including human studies, to protect the public.

Their concerns stayed hidden until 1999, when 44,000 pages of internal FDA memos and reports were made public due to a lawsuit. According to public interest attorney Steven Druker, the documents showed how their warnings and “references to the unintended negative effects” of genetic engineering “were progressively deleted from drafts of the policy statement,” in spite of scientists’ protests.

“What has happened to the scientific elements of this document?” wrote FDA microbiologist Louis Pribyl, after reviewing the latest rewrite of the policy. “It will look like and probably be just a political document. . . . It reads very pro-industry, especially in the area of unintended effects.”

Who flooded the market with dangerous GMOs

Thanks to the FDA’s “promote biotech” policy, perilously few safety studies and investigations have been conducted on GMOs. Those that have, including two government studies from Austria and Italy published just last month, demonstrate that the concerns by FDA scientists should have been heeded. GMOs have been linked to toxic and allergic reactions in humans, sick, sterile, and dead livestock, and damage to virtually every organ studied in lab animals. GMOs are unsafe.

At the highest level, the responsibility for this disregard of science and consumer safety lies with the first Bush White House, which had ordered the FDA to promote the biotechnology industry and get GM foods on the market quickly. To accomplish this White House directive, the FDA created a position for Michael Taylor. As the FDA’s new Deputy Commissioner of Policy, he oversaw the creation of GMO policy.

Taylor was formerly the outside attorney for the biotech giant Monsanto, and later became their vice president. He had also been the counsel for the International Food Biotechnology Council (IFBC), for whom he drafted a model of government policy designed to rush GMOs onto the market with no significant regulations. The final FDA policy that he oversaw, which did not require any safety tests or labeling, closely resembled the model he had drafted for the IFBC.

Michael Taylor is on the Obama transition team.

Genetically engineered bovine growth hormone and unhealthy milk

Taylor was also in charge when the FDA approved Monsanto’s genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rbGH or rbST). Dairy products from treated cows contain more pus, more antibiotics, more growth hormone, and more IGF-1—a powerful hormone linked to cancer and increased incidence of fraternal twins (see www.YourMilkonDrugs.com.) The growth hormone is banned in most industrialized nations, including Canada, the EU, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. But under Michael Taylor, it was approved in the US, without labeling.

As more and more consumers here learn about the health risks of the drug, they shift their purchases to brands that voluntarily label their products as not using rbGH. Consumer rejection of rbGH hit a tipping point a couple of years ago, and since then it has been kicked out of milk from Wal-Mart, Starbucks, Kroger, Subway, and at least 40 of the top 100 dairies. In 2007, Monsanto desperately tried to reverse the trend by asking the FDA and FTC to make it illegal for dairies to label their products as free from rbGH. Both agencies flatly refused the company’s request.

But Monsanto turned to an ally, Dennis Wolff, the Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture. Wolff used his position to single-handedly declare rbGH-free labels illegal in his state. Such a policy would make it impossible for national dairy brands to declare their products rbGH-free, since they couldn’t change packaging just for Pennsylvania. Wolff’s audacious move so infuriated citizens around the nation, the outpouring caused the governor to step in and stop the prohibition before it took effect.

Dennis Wolff, according to unbossed.com, is being considered for Obama’s USDA Secretary.

Although Pennsylvania did not ultimately ban rbGH-free labels, they did decide to require companies who use the labels to also include a disclaimer sentence on the package, stating that the according to the FDA there is no difference between milk from cows treated with rbGH and those not treated. In reality, this sentence contradicts the FDA’s own scientists. (Is this sounding all too familiar?) Even according to Monsanto’s own studies, milk from treated cows has more pus, antibiotics, bovine growth hormone, and IGF-1. Blatantly ignoring the data, a top FDA bureaucrat wrote a “white paper” urging companies that labeled products as rbGH-free to also use that disclaimer on their packaging. The bureaucrat was Michael Taylor.

Betting on biotech is “Bad-idea virus”

For several years, politicians around the US were offering money and tax-breaks to bring biotech companies into their city or state. But according to Joseph Cortright, an Oregon economist who co-wrote a 2004 report on this trend, “This notion that you lure biotech to your community to save its economy is laughable. This is a bad-idea virus that has swept through governors, mayors and economic development officials.” He said it “remains a money-losing, niche industry.”

One politician who caught a bad case of the bad-idea virus was Tom Vilsack, Iowa’s governor from 1998-2006. He was co-creator and chair of the Governors’ Biotechnology Partnership in 2000 and in 2001 the Biotech Industry Organization named him BIO Governor of the Year.
Tom Vilsack was considered a front runner for Obama’s USDA secretary. Perhaps the outcry prompted by Vilsack’s biotech connections was the reason for his name being withdrawn.

Change, Truth, Hope

I don’t know Barack Obama’s position on GMOs. According to a November 23rd Des Moines Register article, Obama, like Bush, may be Ag biotech ally, there are clues that he has not been able to see past the biotech lobbyist’s full court spin.

- His top scientific advisers during the campaign included Sharon Long, a former board member of the biotech giant Monsanto Co., and Harold Varmus, a Nobel laureate who co-chaired a key study of genetically engineered crops by the National Academy of Sciences back in 2000.
- [Obama] said biotech crops “have provided enormous benefits” to farmers and expressed confidence “that we can continue to modify plants safely.”
On the other hand, Obama may have a sense how pathetic US GMO regulations are, since he indicated that he wants “stringent tests for environmental and health effects” and “stronger regulatory oversight guided by the best available scientific advice.”

There is, however, one unambiguous and clear promise that separates Obama from his Bush and Clinton predecessors.

President Obama will require mandatory labeling of GMOs.

Favored by 9 out of 10 Americans, labeling is long overdue and is certainly cause for celebration.

(I am told that now Michael Taylor also favors both mandatory labeling and testing of GMOs. Good going Michael; but your timing is a bit off.)

To sign a petition asking President Obama to make his GMO labeling plan comprehensive and meaningful, click here.

November?

November? Really, are you sure? Looks like January to me. We got a foot + of the white stuff Tuesday. So Mandi and I dusted off the XC skis and headed down to the rail trail. The rail trail is the closest place we can ski without moving the car. It pretty much sucks for skiing because of the unvarying terrain but it is pretty.

We may try to head up to Whitegrass Sunday but I am not getting my hopes up.

Peace, Joey

Giving thanks...

My niece, Cadence Kelley.

The whole family, minus a couple.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving Day. Mandi and I spent the day with my family in Lewis County. We had a great time catching up with family members, eating lots of yummy food and riding our bikes.

I have so much to be thankful for this year. All simple things that I think a lot of folks, particularly Americans take for granted. In no particular order:

I am very thankful for my wife, without her I would probably just be a lazy drooling sloth, she is the ultimate motivator.

I am thankful for my health. I work very hard at maintaining a healthy balanced diet. Work is definitely the proper word because sometimes finding the proper healthy foods to eat can be a real chore.

I am very thankful for my family including my extended mountain biking family. Some of the best friends a boy could ever ask for.

I am thankful for having time. Yep time. Time to do what I want, ride bikes, garden, hike, hang with Mandi. Time is a very precious commodity these days with folks working multiple jobs just to make ends meet. Time is far more precious to me than money. Money is just a means to an end time can never be replaced.

So theres the short list. I could go on and on all day. My life is truley blessed.

Question: Why is it that people become less thankful as there blessings increase? Ask yourself that question next time you feel life is giving you the short end of the stick.

Peace and Love, JOEY

Network -

One of the greatest movie scenes of all times. A glimpse of how this world really works. The elite sociopaths who run this world give us clues every once in while we just need to open our eyes and look for them. Its all about greed, more for them less for us. It can change but it is going to take a giant awakening on the part of all mankind. So WAKE UP.

Peace, JOEY

Turn it OFF or Stop Being a Sucker,,,

Yesterday Chris Hedges wrote: “America the Illiterate,” in which he said:



“There are over 42 million American adults, 20 percent of whom hold high school diplomas, who cannot read, as well as the 50 million who read at a fourth- or fifth-grade level. Nearly a third of the nation’s population is illiterate or barely literate. And their numbers are growing by an estimated 2 million a year. But even those who are supposedly literate retreat in huge numbers into this image-based existence. A third of high school graduates, along with 42 percent of college graduates, never read a book after they finish school. Eighty percent of the families in the United States last year did not buy a book.

The illiterate rarely vote, and when they do vote they do so without the ability to make decisions based on textual information. American political campaigns, which have learned to speak in the comforting epistemology of images, eschew real ideas and policy for cheap slogans and reassuring personal narratives. Political propaganda now masquerades as ideology. Political campaigns have become an experience. They do not require cognitive or self-critical skills. They are designed to ignite pseudo-religious feelings of euphoria, empowerment and collective salvation. Campaigns that succeed are carefully constructed psychological instruments that manipulate fickle public moods, emotions and impulses, many of which are subliminal. They create a public ecstasy that annuls individuality and fosters a state of mindlessness. They thrust us into an eternal present. They cater to a nation that now lives in a state of permanent amnesia. It is style and story, not content or history or reality, which inform our politics and our lives. We prefer happy illusions. And it works because so much of the American electorate, including those who should know better, blindly cast ballots for slogans, smiles, the cheerful family tableaux, narratives and the perceived sincerity and the attractiveness of candidates. We confuse how we feel with knowledge.” (1)

Financial Controlled Demolition just like 911

Top Five Ways to Avoid GMOs foods...

Did you know that 85% of the packaged processed crap that Americans call food have GMOs in them. So what does GMO mean? GMO is an acronym for Genetically Modified Organisms.

Genetic engineering is a radical new technology that forces genetic information across the protective species barrier in an unnatural way.

Why be concerned? One of many good reasons is that these laboratory-created mutations are unlabeled, virtually untested and on grocery shelves everywhere.

Here are five simple and easy ways to avoid GE (genetically engineered) frankenfoods.

1. Buy locally produced food.

For now only large agri-business farms use GMO seeds. Besides its always better to support local farmers.

2. Buy oranically grown food.

No organically grown foods contain GMOs, for now anyway.

3. Avoid the top four GMO crops: corn, soy, canola, and cottonseed.

Most blended oils in America contain either canola oil, cottonseed oil or both. So do your self a favor and next time you are at the grocery store buy only cold pressed olive oil.

4. Avoid artificail additives and sweeteners.

Artifial sweetners should be avoided at all costs especially aspartame. Aspartame causes cancer and promotes weight gain and is also genetically modified. The majority of vitamin c (asorbic acid) and most B vitamins have been created with the use of genetic modification.

5. Look for the Non-GMO label.

If there is no label on the pakage it is safe to assume some of the igredients are genetically modified. That goes for meat to. All factory farmed animals are fed GMO grains.

Want to know more, click here.

Peace, JOEY

Homemade Toothpaste...

Mandi and I will not use toothpaste with fluoride in it. We can't find any fluoride free toothpaste in Elkins for less than eight bucks a tube. So we decided to start making are own. It is the best most effective toothpaste I have ever used.

The Recipe: 6 teaspoons of baking soda
1/2 tsp. of salt
4 tsp. of vegetable glycerin
15 drops of essential oil (tee tree, peppermint, spearmint, etc)

The first batch we made up we used tee tree oil because that was all we had on hand. Tee tree is an awesome antiseptic but it tastes horrible. The most recent batch was made with peppermint and it tastes fabulous.

JOEY.

New bike...

I got new bike, well JOEY'S bike shop got a new bike and I am riding it. I was very reluctant in getting a new geared MTB because I love my Metal Guru so much. It is a KHS XC 604, a four bar linkage full suspension bike . Four inches of travel front and rear. Its been a while since I had a full suspension bike and I have never had a fully active full susser. I have ridden the 604 eight times now and I am completely infatuated. Why have I been riding a hardtail. The 604 climbs great, descends better and carves corners marvelously. Can't wait for the Ultra Series races next year!

Peace, JOEY

ps: Metal Guru ad

No more...

There will be no more politics on this blog. No its not because Obama is going to be are new president(king) and everything is going to be peaches and cream. Its because I can not take any more. I am very much disillusioned with the entire political system. November 4th rolled around who do we the American people have to pick from: Barky Obama, a CFR member, big goverment lover, constitution stomper, puppet of the military industrial complex, FISA voting, bailout supporter. Or John McSame, a CFR member, big goverment lover, constitution stomper, puppet of the military industrial complex, FISA voting, bailout supporter and may I add old and senile. Oh yeah and four very very very good choices on third party tickets that got nary a mention in the mainstream media. Every single one of the third party canidates did not support the banker bailout bill, the FISA wire tapping bill and they all want to bring the troops home NOW.

The system has to change. Every four years there is a presidential election and every four years we are asked to vote for a couple puppets. There are some great leaders out there folks that actually have the best interests of the American people in mind. Do yourselves a favor and when 2012 rolls around and its time to vote for a new king, dig a little deeper than the MSM and I believe you will very surprised by what you find. Actually do it in two years at the midterms and look at all the other wonderful choices there are besides the reds and the blues.

Thanks, JOEY

Obama’s First Appointment Is Son Of Zionist Terrorist

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, November 6, 2008

President elect Barack Obama’s first appointment, Rahm Emanuel, who is set to become chief-of-staff, is the son of a member of the Zionist terrorist group Irgun, which was responsible for bombing hotels, marketplaces as well as the infamous Deir Yassin massacre, in which hundreds of Palestinian villagers were slaughtered.

Revelations about Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers, a Weather Underground domestic terrorist, which dogged him during the final weeks of the campaign trail, pale in significance to his selection of Emanuel, whose father, Rahm Emanuel, was an Irgun member.

Irgun has been labeled a terrorist organization by both The New York Times newspaper and by the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry.

Irgun was closely affiliated with the widely feared hardcore terrorist Stern Gang, an organization that carried out assassinations, train bombings and bombed police stations in an attempt to pave the way for unrestricted immigration of Jews into Palestine. Irgun operated in Palestine between 1931 and 1948.

Following the ideology of right-wing Revisionist Zionism, Irgun’s doctrine was that, “Every Jew had the right to enter Palestine; only active retaliation would deter the Arabs and the British; only Jewish armed force would ensure the Jewish state”.

This manifested itself by way of terror attacks such as the July 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which killed 91 people. In 2006, Israelis including former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former members of Irgun, attended a 60th anniversary celebration of the bombing organized by the Menachem Begin Centre.

Buses and marketplaces were also a target for Irgun, who were widely chastised for favoring attacks against civilian targets.

The widely condemned Deir Yassin massacre, which occurred in April 1948, involved Irgun working in consort with the Stern Gang and going house to house slaughtering Palestinian villagers. Eyewitness accounts of spies working for mainstream Jewish authorities, such as Meir Pa’il, reported Irgun members running around shooting civilians “full of lust for murder”.

“I saw the horrors that the fighters had created. I saw bodies of women and children, who were murdered in their houses in cold blood by gunfire, with no signs of battle and not as the result of blowing up the houses,” said eyewitness Eliahu Arbel.

“[One body was] a woman who must have been eight months pregnant,” noted Jacques de Reynier, a French-Swiss Representative of the International Red Cross, “He hit in the stomach, with powder burns on her dress indicating she’d been shot point-blank.”.

The son of a man who helped carry out this slaughter has now been selected by Obama to be his chief-of-staff. Cries of “sins of the father” lose their gusto when one considers the fact that, after the 1996 re-election of Bill Clinton, Rahm Emanuel “Was so angry at the president’s enemies that he stood up at a celebratory dinner with colleagues from the campaign, grabbed a steak knife and began rattling off a list of betrayers, shouting ‘Dead! … Dead! … Dead!’ and plunging the knife into the table after every name.” Sounds like a nice guy.

Rahm Emanuel is also an enthusiastic supporter of the United States Public Service Academy Act, a lobbying group founded in 2006 in order to promote the foundation of an American public service academy modeled on the military academies - a youth corps whose students would be trained in “civilian internship in the armed forces”.

This rings the alarm bells when we recall Obama’s pledge to create a “civilian national security force” that is “just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as the U.S. military.

A creepy You Tube video of a brown-shirt style Obama youth brigade chanting and marching military style emerged last month, raising fears about where the messianic cult-like status of Obama’s image could eventually lead.

More can also be read HERE

Greenbank, WV

Pluto recently got demoted.

No caption needed.

What a neat geeky place. I really liked it.

They also have several really nice MTB trails and 3000 more acres to build more.


So why were we in Greenbank? Our very gracious and incredibly polite friend Mike Stennes invited us down for a MTB party Sunday evening. So we went down a few hours early and Mike took us on a cool little guided tour of the NROA premisses and then we headed to the trails. The cycling crew at the observatory have been cutting some nice trails, they have 3000 acres to work with and really nice flowing land. After the ride we headed back to Mikes place and partied down. Mandi and I met some very nice and smart locals and we all discused politics around the keg late into the night. We had a great time.

Peace, JOEY.

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, November 4, 2008

The messianic fervor which has preceded Barack Obama’s expected ascension to the White House has alarming implications for freedom and is a painful reminder that most Americans have once again been suckered into believing that the two-party monopoly offers any kind of solution to the crisis that we face.

The messianic complex that has been attached to Obama is truly frightening. Bishops like Cornal Garnett Henning are calling Obama the new “Moses” while his supporters refer to him as “the black Jesus”.

In one You Tube clip, a woman hails Obama’s Godly powers by proclaiming that as soon as he is elected, all her problems will simply disappear, saying that Obama will help her personally almost like Jesus healed the sick and wounded.

The election of a new president should not be a mindless act of idolatry and fanfare, it should be a solemn commitment to find a leader who will follow the Constitution.

But Barack Obama will ride into office with a gigantic approval rating to rival that of Bush after 9/11, along with a complete power monopoly over the executive, the legislative, the judicial as well as widespread media support.

This makes Obama more dangerous than Bush and certainly a damn site more dangerous than a McCain administration, because his policies for at least a year or two will enjoy universal acclaim and voices of dissent will be drowned out by a wave of droning acquiescence.

Obama has all the political capital he needs to implement the terrifying policies that he has already announced and beef the architecture of the police state crafted by Bush.

- The creation of a “civilian national security force” that is “just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as the U.S. military to enforce Obama’s carbon tax scheme and the total regulation and control of the American middle class.

- Obama has talked openly about his intention to bomb Pakistan under the guise of pursuing terrorists, continuing a Bush administration policy of violating the sovereignty of foreign nations.

- The guarantee to “bankrupt” coal power plants, costing millions of American jobs and skyrocketing energy prices.

- Unbridled implementation and expansion of the banker bailout that is hated by the majority of American citizens yet was vigorously promoted by both Obama and McCain. Doling out taxpayer’s money to Wall Street, causing rampant inflation, a lowering in living standards and the destruction of the dollar.

- Obama has rhetorically supported the second amendment and an individual’s right to bear arms, but his actions tell a different story. Obama supports local gun ban laws, including his endorsement of a state ban on the sale and possession of handguns in Illinois.

- Obama grandstands on the notion that he supports environmentalism with his climate change rhetoric, but his intention to extend biofuel subsidies will only accelerate price food costs that have already risen 75 per cent since 2002, causing economic distress and rioting in such countries as Haiti, Egypt, and Somalia, as well as deforestation on a massive scale.

Mark our words - the causes that the liberal left has been fighting for over the last eight years will simply be forgotten just like conservatives were put to sleep when Bush came to power. Obama is the pacifier that the establishment needs to quiet the simmering anger amongst Americans that has been threatening to boil over.

It will no longer be “fashionable” to fight the police state amongst the political left.

Mark our words - there will be no repeal of the Patriot Act, there will be no repeal of the John Warner Defense Authorization Act, there will be no repeal of warrantless secret surveillance of American citizens.

Democratic control of Congress and the Senate since the 2006 elections has achieved nothing in the way of reversing the Bush administration’s assaults on the Constitution, so why should we expect Obama to do anything different?

Obama may eventually withdraw a portion of troops from Iraq but mark our words, they won’t be home long before they are sent off to bomb another broken-backed third world country, this time in the name of a United Nations-backed “humanitarian” war, just as Bill Clinton presided over in Somalia and Serbia with the full support of the establishment political left.

Indeed, Obama’s running mate Joe Biden has already “promised” and “guaranteed” that Obama will be faced with an international crisis that will mandate him to take “unpopular” and “tough” decisions in the context of foreign policy.

Don’t think for a second that our warnings about Obama are an endorsement for John McCain. We have tirelessly attempted to educate Americans about the two party monopoly and the fact that Democrats and Republicans serve the interests of the elite, not the people, and have for at least five decades since Kennedy was killed.

Obama is Coca-Cola and McCain is Pepsi - at the end of the day you’re still drinking the same beverage.

The two-party monopoly offers no solutions for the problems we face, in fact the two-party monopoly that you will be helping to maintain should you vote for either Obama or McCain - is the problem.

Stop falling for the same bait and switch trick again and again every eight years.

When George W. Bush was elected, conservatives were in adulation and awe, confident that after eight years of federal government expansion under Clinton, Bush - complete with slick conservative rhetoric and promises of change - would shrink the size of government and restore dignity to the office of President.

Nearly eight years later and what have we witnessed, a record expansion in the size of government and an almost universal contempt for America around the world.

When Tony Blair swept into power with a landslide in the British general election in 1997, the country breathed a collective sigh of relief that this new young dynamo would put right years of Tory malfeasance and provide the “change” that everyone was crying out for.

When Blair left office in 2007 he had created a Socialist surveillance police state and eliminated a huge popular approval lead the Labour Party had enjoyed over the Tories, leaving most of the public once again to demand Conservative rule.

When are we going to wake up to the fact that voting in the lesser of two evils is not a solution?

When are we going to realize that participating in a rigged system, where our vote means virtually nothing anyway because it is counted by a completely compromised and hackable voting machine, not only fails to address any of our problems, but actually compounds them because of our passive obedience in participating in the phony virtual reality presented to us as “democracy”?

When are we going to realize that by continually electing Democrats and Republicans, we are voting away our own freedom as the march towards a new world order and an American police state proceeds no matter who takes office?