Sunday, November 30, 2008

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.

Friday, November 28, 2008

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

Friday, November 21, 2008

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.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

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

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

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

Monday, November 10, 2008

Thursday, November 6, 2008

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

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

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?

Obama the new Hope???

Here are some simple thing Obama can do as president to improve things quickly and dramatically for this country.

Let's see how many of these things he does:

1. He can insist that all future elections have voting machines that generate a paper trail that can be audited. He can work to make sure that Americans aren't forced to wait three, four, even seven hours plus on line to cast votes.

2. He can end the illegal, immoral and financially ruinous occupation of Iraq.

3. He can order swift trials for all the prisoners still held in Guantanamo and freedom for those who are being held without charges. He can close Guantanamo.

4. He can outlaw the use of torture and begin the process of dismantling the Patriot Act and other assaults on the Constitution.

5. He can repudiate the policy of first strike and the idea of using nuclear weapons against Iran or any other country.

6. He can order an investigation into the recent multi-trillion dollar Treasury Department giveaway to investment banks and brokerage houses. He can also look into the operations of the Federal Reserve Bank and their role in creating the current financial catastrophe that's overcome the world.

7. He can aggressively roll back all Bush era anti-environment laws and the non-enforcement of existing environmental protection laws.

8. He can properly compensate the people of New Orleans for the failure of the federal levee system there and order an investigation into widespread fraud on the part of the US Army Corps of Engineers in that city and in Iraq.

9. He can break the oil industry's multi-decade collusion with automakers.

10. Repeal PATRIOT ACT one and two.

11. Repeal the James Warner defense authorization bill and restore posse comitatus.

12. Call for a new INVESTIGATION of 911 by a private investigation firm made up of experts with no ties to his or Bush's administration.

I could go on and on but you get the point. I am going to make a check list and after eight years of an Obama administration we will see how many checks there are. I almost guarantee you there will not be a one.

Peace, JOEY