Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Genetically Engineered Salmon: Coming to a Plate Near You?

http://soapbox411.blogspot.com/

by Paula Crossfield

The genetically modified salmon called AquAdvantage was discussed on Monday in front of the Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee, which will help the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decide whether or not to approve the fish for commercial production. The meeting comes after an unusually short 14-day period of public comment on the “new animal drug.”

That’s right: the first potentially approved genetically engineered animal is being considered just like a pharmaceutical, instead of as a precedent with significant implications for the environment, other species, and human health, which would usually require a 60-90-day comment period to enable the public to go over the 255-pages of recently released technical information from the FDA.

Unlike clones, which are copies of an animal and which the FDA has already ruled safe to eat (and are also being sold without a label), genetically modified animals are those which have had their genetic code altered. The AquAdvantage salmon, for example, mixes a gene for producing a growth hormone from the Chinook salmon and a gene that encourages over-production of that hormone from an eel-like fish called the ocean pout.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Elizabeth Warren In Office - But Not In Power

http://www.soapbox411.blogger.com


Banksters Cheer Tepid Rules on Anniversary of Lehman's Fall

by Danny Schechter

Hooray, Elizabeth Warren is to become a Special Assistant to President Obama in charge of setting up the Consumer Protection Bureau that she conceived. Alas, it is not to be the independent agency she wanted but a bureau within the Federal Reserve Bank, a branch of government that is really run by big banks which and did virtually nothing to protect consumers when they needed help the most.

For the Obamacrats, this is a good move in political terms because the White House had been battered by the Democratic base to appoint the outspoken Warren to the job. Asked about the issue at his recent press conference, he was his usual coy and cautious self. He said he hadn't decided.

Now he has-but not to appoint her to the job she deserves but to a post in the Executive Branch under his control and with oversight by Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, and Rahm Emanuel et al. (The White House worries that they could not win a protracted confirmation battle.)

So she's in, but hardly in charge, or able to be an independent force. Remember that quote from the Godfather taken from Chinese military strategist Sun Tsu: "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer."

The usually on-target blog, Naked Capitalism, suggests that the Warren appointment was just a way to sideline her, not put her in a position of real power. In any event, the new Bureau's rules will not be in effect until 2012, if then. So much for urgency!

Bush'd again? New Orleans, Mr. O and Mr. Go

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What really flooded New Orleans
Bush'd again? New Orleans, Mr. O and Mr. Go

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Subliminal Sex Messages and Pornography in Advertising & Cartoons - BlackListed News

Subliminal Sex Messages and Pornography in Advertising & Cartoons - BlackListed News

Something Controversial ( 9/11 )

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

A Germans view of Islam

http://soapbox411.blogspot.com/

This is a great explanation of the Muslim terrorist situation. His references to past history are accurate and clear. Not long, easy to understand, and well worth the read. The author of this email is said to be Dr. Emanuel Tanay, a well-known and well-respected psychiatrist. I don't know if it changes anything for me or not but it certainly makes you think. And that is always a good thing.
BB

A German's View on Islam

A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. 'Very few people were true Nazis,' he said, 'but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.'

We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.

The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history; it is the fanatics who march...it is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers..

The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the 'silent majority,' is cowed and extraneous.

Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China 's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.



The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across Southeast Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.

And who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were 'peace loving'?

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:



Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.



Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.



Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts--the fanatics who threaten our way of life.