General Eisenhower Warned Us

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Near the end of “Band of Brothers” there is a scene where the American troops are suddenly confronted with a concentration camp.  They are stunned by the sight of the starving people in the camp.

It is a matter of history that when the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found the victims of the death camps, he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and even made to bury the dead.

He did this because he said in words to this effect:

‘Get it all on record now – get the films – get the witnesses – because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened’

 The has UK has debated whether to remove The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it ‘offends’ some in the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. It is not removed as yet.. However, this is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it.

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 It is now almost 70 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This i being posted as a memorial  to the Six Million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians, and 1,900 Catholic priests Who were ‘murdered, raped, burned, starved, beaten, experimented on and humiliated’ while many in the world looked the other way!

Now, more than ever, with Iran , among others, claiming the Holocaust to be ‘a myth,’ it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets.

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 How many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Center ‘NEVER HAPPENED’, Because it offends some Groups???

Posted by David Bancroft

A Real Replay of “Inherit the Wind”

How did the United States become so backward?

Inherit the Wind poster Inherit the Wind is a play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee. The play, which debuted in 1955, is a story that fictionalizes the 1925 Scopes “Monkey” trial. The trial resulted in John T. Scopes‘s conviction for teaching Charles Darwin‘s theory of evolution to a high school science class, contrary to a Tennessee state law.  The movie version starred Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Gene Kelly, and Dick York.

Today the Associated Press reports that TV’s “Science Guy” , Bill Nye and the leader of a Kentucky museum who believes in creationism are debating a question that has nagged humankind: “How did we get here?”

Ken Ham is the head of the Creation Museum. He believes the Earth was created 6,000 years ago by God and is told strictly through the Bible.

Perhaps the world is flat.  Most intellectuals of the Roman Empire took for granted that the Earth was flat.  Many of the great thinkers and philosophers of the 16th century accepted that Earth was flat, since most of them couldn’t conceive of any other shape.  Are the people in Kentucky and Tennessee living on another planet?

All the television networks will have great fun with this nonsense.  It is sad!

Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death calls for attention to Heroin Use

Philip Seymour HoffmanHas the War on Drugs been successful?

February 5, 2104 update: AP sources: Hoffman probe tip leads to 4 arrests/ This is society’s answer to drug addiction.  http://my.earthlink.net/article/us?guid=20140205/fde03f04-8509-4445-854d-892b43efc84a

Federal: On Dec. 31, 2012, there were 196,574 sentenced prisoners under federal jurisdiction. Of these, 99,426 were serving time for drug offenses

State: On Dec. 31, 2011, there were 1,341,797 sentenced prisoners under state jurisdiction. Of these, 222,738 were serving time for drug offenses, of whom 55,013 were merely convicted for possession.

See more at: http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Prisons_and_Drugs#sthash.Ru4trv9a.dpuf

Amount spent annually in the U.S. on the war on drugs: More than $51 Billion

Number of people arrested in 2012 in the U.S. on nonviolent drug charges: 1.55 million

Number of people arrested for a marijuana law violation in 2012: 749,825

  • Number of those charged with marijuana law violations who were arrested for possession only: 658,231 (88 percent)

Number of Americans incarcerated in 2011 in federal, state and local prisons and jails: 2,266,800 or 1 in every 99.1 adults, the highest incarceration rate in the world

See more at: http://www.drugpolicy.org/drug-war-statistics

The Los Angeles Times reports that more than 660,000 people used heroin in 2012.  That is an increase of almost 100% since 2007.  Usage has spread to the suburbs and is no longer an inner city problem.

Americans have not learned from history.  The 18th amndment to the constitution banned manufacture and sale of alcohol in 1920.  It was rescinded by the 21st amendment on December 5, 1933.  During that period gangs prevailed in the big cities.  The name Al Capone is still well-known.

The War on Drugs is a failure!

The magnetism of pooping

From The Week magazine

Dog - which way to goWhy do dogs tend to circle around before getting down to business? Because they like to be aligned with the earth’s magnetic field before they poop. Researchers finally figured out this great mystery after watching 70 dogs engage in 1,893 defections and 5,582 urinations over a two-year period, and recording the time, place, and body orienta­tion for each one. They found that dogs’ preference for the north-south axis was most pronounced during the roughly 20 percent of the day when the magnetic field was calm and steady. When the field was in flux-due to solar flares, solar wind, and sunspot activity-the canines had real trouble finding a suit­able place to go. “We found that dogs are magnetosensitive, and they are pre­dictably disturbed by even small changes of the magnetic field,” zoologist Sabine Begall of the University of Duisburg-Esser in Germany tells HuffingtonPost.com. Previous studies have shown that cattle and deer graze in a north-south direction, and that birds and fish use the magnetic field to guide their seasonal migrations.

Unsinkable Cruise Ship Industry

Most of us know about the original cruise ship disaster, the “unsinkable ship” struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic on its maiden voyage in 1912 and sank into the icy water, killing more than 1,500 of its 2,200 passengers and crew.  That was the Titanic.  Despite that event cruise ship travel has been a booming business.  Statistics show the annual number of cruise ship passengers exceeds 20 million people.

Here is a list of the worst cruise events.  The latest is a Princess ship with almost 200 ill passengers.

Royal Caribbean Explorer of the SeasRoyal Caribbean Explorer of the Seas: The ill-fated Royal Caribbean cruise ship returned home Wednesday with an ignoble mark. Nearly 700 crew and passengers fell ill. This is the highest number of sick people reported on any cruise ship in two decades, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show.

Carnival Triumph: What was supposed to be a four-day jaunt to the Caribbean became an eight-day nightmare when an engine fire left the ship floating in the Gulf of Mexico without power, air-conditioning, or a working septic system.

Carnival Splendor: Carnival’s Splendor suffered a similar fate as Carnival’s Triumph in November 2011. Both were stranded by engine fires, though the Splendor was left floating in the Pacific Ocean. After three days the Splendor and its 4,500 passengers were towed back to the San Diego Bay.

Costa Concordia #1Costa Concordia: This Italian cruise ship ran aground on a reef off the coast of Tuscany, Italy, in January 2012 and toppled onto its side. Of the 4,200 aboard, 32 died and 64 were injured, according to the Associated Press. The half-submerged ship is still being removed.

Seabourn Spirits: In 2005, while 100 miles off the coast of Somalia, pirates in speedboats attacked the small cruise ship. The pirates fired on it with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades before the captain changed course and got away. None of the ship’s 300 passengers were hurt, and the ship made it to the Seychelles where the rocket damage was repaired.

Celebrity Mercury: More than 400 of the 2,600 passengers and crew onboard the Mercury were stricken ill in 2010 in what the Centers for Disease control deemed a norovirus outbreak. The virus caused widespread vomiting and other gastrointestinal ills on the ship, which left from Charleston, S.C.

Norwegian Dawn: At least 62 cabins were flooded when a 70-foot wave smashed into the Dawn, in 2005. About 300 of the ship’s passengers disembarked early, in Charleston, after the storm had passed.

S.S. Eastland: In 1915, just three years after the Titanic sank, the S.S. Eastland passenger tour ship rolled over while in port in downtown Chicago. More than 840 of its 2,500 passengers died in the accident.

Jefferson Statehood Project

Jefferson State

Secession in the United States typically refers to state secession, which is the withdrawal of one or more states from the Union that constitutes the United States—but may refer to cleaving a state or territory to form a separate territory or new state, or to the severing of an area from a city or county within a state.

The people within the California / Oregon border region and surrounding rural counties are joining to form the State of Jefferson.  In a unanimous vote on Tuesday, Glenn County Supervisors began the process of seceding from California and joining the State of Jefferson. Last September, Siskiyou County was the first to pursue withdrawal from California with Modoc County following their lead shortly after.

None of the southern Oregon counties have been reported tp have held similar votes.  The Oregonian has given this idea a boost.

State of the Union January 28, 2014

Barack Obama

President Obama is an outstanding speaker.  His ability to deliver “facts” is outstanding even if there are distortions.

The Associated Press provided an excellent review of some of those facts.  However, careful review will help you realize that the facts are difficult to confirm or deny.

As with all state of nation speeches this one too will be forgotten by next Tuesday.

Marijuana

Marijuana smoking

SHOCKING!!

Suspicious: This image of Brooke Shield’s  allegedly smoking cannabis with hardcore punk artiste H.R was leaked on the  internet

I have been a supporter of legalizing the use of all illegal narcotics for years.  I have never used any of them.  Actually the only thing I ever smoked was a pipe and I gave that up decades ago.

My logic is that all the efforts to discourage the use of marijuana, heroin, and other drugs have been a failure.  Those that want those narcotics have no difficulty obtaining them.  Society has spent millions of dollars jailing people for possession the drugs.  Gangs and cartels have made millions of dollars distributing them and people who challenge the cartels are murdered.  This is not just a Mexican problem.  It is a world wide problem. FBI data reported in U.S. News: American police made a total of 12,196,959 arrests in 2011 for marijuana use.

This past week the issue of marijuana use arrived at my home.  My daughter suffers with serious acid reflux disease.  It has been an ongoing problem for the past 18 months.  Her doctor told her that one way to reduce the nausea and heartburn symptoms is to smoke marijuana.  Medical marijuana is legal in California. Those symptoms had been under control with a variety of medications.  The medications have not been effective the past few weeks.  Finally, out of desperation, I said why not try the marijuana.  Instant relief was the benefit.   Starting this past Tuesday night she has not pleaded with me to take her to the ER.

Here is the ultimate hypocrisy.

Obama is quoted as saying that marijuana is no worse than cigarettes or alcohol.  Still, he remains opposed to a nationwide decriminalization of marijuana.  CNN reports Marijuana is currently classed as a schedule 1 drug, the same category as heroin and ecstasy.  The Denver Post reports “Attorney General Eric Holder says the Obama administration is planning to roll out regulations soon that would allow banks to do business with legal marijuana sellers.”

Is this a great country or what?

Organic Food – It’s all about the Money

From the USDA National Agricultural Library

“Organic farming entails:
• Use of cover crops, green manures, animal manures and crop rotations to fertilize the soil, maximize biological activity and maintain long-term soil health.
• Use of biological control, crop rotations and other techniques to manage weeds, insects and diseases.
• An emphasis on biodiversity of the agricultural system and the surrounding environment.
• Using rotational grazing and mixed forage pastures for livestock operations and alternative health care for animal wellbeing.
• Reduction of external and off-farm inputs and elimination of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers and other materials, such as hormones and antibiotics.
• A focus on renewable resources, soil and water conservation, and management practices that restore, maintain and enhance ecological balance.”

I am sure you understood the meaning of this double talk. I am especially fascinated with the meaning of “Use of biological control, crop rotations and other techniques to manage weeds, insects and diseases.”

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COSTCO has jumped on the band wagon of organic foods. On my last visit they handed me their special offer valid from Jan 13 to Feb 9. It was a catalog of 26 items. All items are marked USDA ORGANIC.

Huffington Post has this headline “Organic Food Is Not Healthier Than Conventional Produce: Study.” The report said “Stanford University doctors dug through reams of research to find out – and concluded there’s little evidence that going organic is much healthier, citing only a few differences involving pesticides and antibiotics.”

“Consumers can pay a lot more for some organic products but demand is rising: Organic foods accounted for $31.4 billion sales last year, according to a recent Obama administration report. That’s up from $3.6 billion in 1997.”

No wonder COSTCO has decided to offer organic foods. It’s the money!