The Hidden History Of Halloween

The Hidden History Of Halloween -Pt.1

The Hidden History Of Halloween -Pt.2

There are many plays on the words within Halloween. Hallow also comes from the sun HAL but it also is a play on hollow. "Een" is the old English for EYE. The eye of the sun the S-U-N. It’s also the hollow eye which you would see in the skull. Everything has many meanings. The elite are taught them. You are not.

Ten ways to thwart Big Brother

We’ve never been under such intense scrutiny as we are today. So how do we evade the snoopers? Here, an ‘off-grid’ expert offers an insider’s guide

By Nick Rosen

We live in the most watched-over society in Europe. Exposure, especially in The Observer, has done little to hold the state and private sector in check. Phone records have become police records, as Henry Porter pointed out in this paper last week, and CCTV camera records are now fed into the automatic registration number computer. Credit and store-card records have become marketing records and our email addresses are points of entry for all sorts of crime and spam.

It’s time to fight back using all the legal means at our disposal. We need to duck under the radar of government surveillance, credit-checking agencies, internet and mobile phone companies or the DVLA. I have been learning how to keep the info-snoopers at bay. My research has led me into a world of middle-aged hoodies, who cover up in shopping centres to avoid the CCTV cameras; of young computer users who keep their names off spam lists and out of reach of the megacorps; and people who live off-grid, out of sight of the system and unplugged from the utility companies. So, here’s is a survival checklist for the information age.

1 Buy an untraceable mobile phone

Travel to a town you have never visited before, to an area with no CCTV cameras and ask a homeless person to buy a pay-as-you-go mobile phone for you. That way no shop will have your image on its CCTV. You will also have an anonymous mobile.

In order to keep your anonymity, top it up in a shop with no CCTV outside. Or dispense with the phone altogether and return to the humble payphone, now the preserve of tourists and the super-poor.

Even if you stick to your traceable phone, leave it switched off whenever possible to avoid having your movements tracked. Many phones are still traceable, so you need to take the battery out to be certain. If you have a Bluetooth phone, keep the service switched off because this is now being tested for advertising and other marketing activities.

2 Safeguard your email

If you use one of the free, web-based services like Gmail, your communications are being stored to build up a picture of your interests. Instead, you can use a service called Hushmail to send encrypted emails. Or work out a private code with friends you want to communicate with.

You do not need an email address of your own. One hacker I spoke to sends emails from cybercafes via The Observer website, using the service which allows anyone to send any article to a friend. He embeds his message into the covering note which goes with the article.

Others with their own computer use the free XeroBank browser (in preference to Explorer or Firefox), which includes several privacy-enhancing add-ons and sends all data through a network ‘cloud’ which hides most of the data you normally give away as you use a computer, but at the cost of reduced speed (http://xerobank.com/xB_browser.html).

3 Safeguard your computer and your files

There is sophisticated software that deletes all traces of your activities from your computer. Assuming you don’t have access to this, it is still worth remembering the data about you contained inside each file. Many digital photos, for example, contain within them the serial number of the camera that took them. Word documents contain the name of the author as well as traces of previous drafts.

4 Be invisible to CCTV cameras

Steve is a middle-aged IT consultant who lives in a bungalow on a smart private estate in south west London. He has never committed a criminal act. When he goes to business meetings, he wears a suit and tie, but when he walks around his local high street, he dons a hoodie. He does it on principle.

‘I don’t disapprove of the technology in its rightful place,’ Steve told me, ‘but we have an unregulated mess. It hasn’t reduced crime in any real sense - it’s displaced it in some cases.’ Media reports always say there are 4.2 million CCTV cameras in the UK, but they have been using that figure for the past two years. So it’s a safe bet we have at least six million by now, and there is no central register. You can use the Data Protection Act to request a copy of your own image from any particular camera, but that is simply a way of harassing CCTV owners, not safeguarding your identity.

5 Stay off spam mailing lists

Each time you submit your email address to register for a new website, create a special address, either on a free webmail service or on your own email server so you have control over it. Then, if the company later sells your email address or loses it through poor security, you will know exactly who to blame. And you will be able to close the account or block all email to that particular address. Again, Hushmail is useful for this. You can set it up to create these aliases for you.

6 Prevent supermarkets knowing your shopping habits

Swap your supermarket loyalty card with a friend or acquaintance every few months, after having cashed in any points you have accumulated (treat Oyster and other local transport cards the same way). You lose no benefits and it prevents tracking of specific purchasing patterns (or journeys) tied to your name and address. Use cash more often - save your credit card for emergencies.

7 Avoid utility companies’ marketing departments

Live off-grid, unplugged from the system with solar panels and rainwater harvesting. There are tens of thousands of people living without mains power, water or sewerage, in isolated cottages, behind hedgerows in caravans or in groups of yurts in country fields. And this is not just a movement for tree huggers and climate campers. Many live on boats in towns and cities, and if you live in a flat or house, you can still unplug.

8 Keep your car off the automatic number recognition system

The simplest way is to leave the car at home and use a bicycle. But if you must drive, don’t go into a congestion zone at any time. There are other legal ways to hide your registration number from the cameras - swap the light above the rear numberplate for an infrared bulb and that will flood the video-camera which operates at near infrared frequency.

9 Safeguard your NHS data

If you are born in this country, then your NHS records are inescapable. But you can choose to store them with your GP to keep them off the central computer, and this should reduce the chances of the medical records being sold (legally) to drugs companies or (illegally) to private detectives or being snooped on by the 300,000 ‘authorised users’ of the system, without affecting medical care.

There is no need to worry about, for example, records of your blood group not being available to medical staff after an accident - doctors no longer rely on paper or computer records. The automated diagnostic blood group tests are done by the ambulance crew on the way to hospital. You can get a form letter to send to the NHS from nhsconfidentiality.org.

10 Shop outside the system

The website Freecycle (freecycle.org) could provide many of your needs. It consists of hundreds of short announcements from people trying to give away stuff they no longer need: beds, TVs, bookcases, the whole of human life is there in return for the cost of picking it up from the donor. There are local Freecycle groups all over the country (and the world), each with their own local web address. Some people make a decent living gathering things from Freecycle and selling them at car boot sales.

There are full-time scavengers living off food retrieved from supermarket bins, because vast amounts of produce are simply thrown away on the eve of their sell-by date.

Another way to avoid buying food is to barter for it. The car park of the pub in the centre of Longframlington village in Northumberland has been a barter centre for decades. On any Friday night between April and October, locals arrive and flip down the backs of their 4×4s laden with the week’s produce, whether its chanterelles, venison, pheasant, line-caught salmon or the latest crop of beetroots and lettuces.

Technically, this innocent activity is tax evasion. ‘It’s all very rustic and encourages a paper-free environment, but this can underpin what can only amount to potential income tax, corporation tax or VAT non-disclosure, or even fraud,’ said accountant Julie Butler. But does Alistair Darling really want to take another bash at the delicate fabric of the countryside?

It may seem almost comical to go to these lengths, but the ways companies and the public sector can misuse data isn’t a joke. We cannot trust them to safeguard our data or use it ethically, so we must provide our own safeguards.

· Nick Rosen is editor of the Off-Grid website: off-grid.net

Schwarzenegger: ‘Marijuana is not a drug, it’s a leaf’

By Ciar Byrne

Already facing enough problems with the wild fires that have swept California, the state’s governor Arnold Schwarzenegger may have stepped into a new row by claiming that marijuana is not a drug. In an interview with GQ magazine, the Hollywood star turned governor of California insisted: “I didn’t take any drugs.”

The interviewer, former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan, put it to the star that he had admitted smoking marijuana in the past. In Pumping Iron, the bodybuilding documentary which launched his career 30 years ago, he was shown taking a drag on a spliff.

“That is not a drug. It’s a leaf,” said Austrian-born Mr Schwarzenegger, 60. “My drug was pumping iron, trust me,” he added.

When George Butler’s critically acclaimed 1977 documentary Pumping Iron was re-released in 2002, before Mr Schwarzenegger ran for governor of California, he was unconcerned by the scene showing him smoking marijuana, saying – in a pointed reference to former US president Bill Clinton who claimed never to have inhaled: “I did smoke a joint and I did inhale. The bottom line is that’s what it was in the Seventies, that’s what I did. I have never touched it since.” Mr Schwarzenegger said that it was not necessarily a matter of public interest whether politicians had taken class-A drugs.

He said: “What would you rather have? A politician taking the stuff and not saying, but making the best decisions and improving things? Or a politician who names the drugs he or she has taken but makes lousy decisions for the country?”

The Republican governor, renowned for his green policies, said Washington had not done enough on the environment. “So we pick up the slack and show the rest of the world America is not just Washington. There are 600 mayors in America who have joined the Kyoto treaty. For us, it is very important that America gets back the great reputation it once had.”

He said: “I think we have to do everything we can as a country to get out of the Iraq war, and to take a lead on the environment.”

Despite his insistence that the US must finish the war in Iraq, Mr Schwarzenegger included Tony Blair in a list of the greatest leaders in history, alongside Nelson Mandela, John F Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.

Health Section has more related reports

All in the (Crime) Family: Bush & Blackwater

Like a cancer, private mercenary firm spreads influence in local communities. When the private military company Blackwater USA, a firm tied to the Bush family through marriage and to right-wing extremist and racist groups through politics and money, established its headquarters in Moyock, North Carolina in an former military reservation in the Great Dismal Swamp, just south of the Virginia border, practically no one noticed.

Blackwater was founded in 1997 by Erik Prince, a former US Navy SEAL and right-wing fundamentalist Christian from Michigan. Prince’s father is Edgard Prince, who founded the Family Research Council with Gary Bauer. Erik Prince’s sister is Betty DeVos, who is married to Dick DeVos, the son of Amway co-founder and Mormon bigwig Richard DeVos. The General Counsel for Erik Prince’s Blackwater parent company, the Prince Group, is Joseph Schmitz, the Pentagon’s former Inspector General. Schmitz’s brother, John Schmitz, Jr. deputy counsel to George H. W. Bush and who is married to the sister of Columba Bush, Jeb Bush’s wife.

The father of John and Joseph was extreme right-wing Republican Congressman John Schmitz, Sr. Their sister is Mary Kay Letourneau, a former Washington State schoolteacher jailed for having sex with a thirteen year old American Samoan student who she later married.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Kay_Letourneau

Safely ensconced in North Carolina and flush with money as a result of Pentagon contracts ensured by Joseph Schmitz and the Bush family, Blackwater began to expand nationally. Using stealth and guile, the company targeted small communities in order to establish regional military training centers.

http://www.oregontruthalliance.org/?q=node/344

Bush Section has more related reports

Super Size Me

Super Size Me is an Academy Award-nominated 2004 documentary film, directed by and starring Morgan Spurlock, an American independent filmmaker. It follows a 30-day time period (February 2003) during which Spurlock subsists exclusively on McDonald's fast food and stops exercising regularly. The film documents this lifestyle's drastic effects on Spurlock's physical and psychological well-being and explores the fast food industry's corporate influence, including how it encourages poor nutrition for its own profit. During the filming, Spurlock dined at McDonald's restaurants three times per day, sampling every item on the chain's menu at least once. He consumed an average of 5,000 calories (the equivalent of 9.26 Big Macs) per day during the experiment.

Governor Schwarzenegger Backs Aerial Biochemical Spraying That Harms Children

Rami Nagel
NewsTarget
October 28, 2007

On September 9^th, 2007 several planes hired by the State of California Food and Agricultural Department (CDFA) flying at an altitude of approximately 500ft sprayed the untested biochemical, CheckMate®OLR-F, on over 30,000 citizens in Monterey and other surrounding cities in California. This occurred without the permission of the citizens. The spraying continued for three nights from approximately 8pm to 5am. About 1,500 pounds of biochemical were dumped on the cities. Many citizens did not even know what was happening when the planes were buzzing overhead.

An 11 month old child nearly died from breathing difficulties. A six year old child developed asthma as a result of the aerial spraying. Over one hundred people signed affidavits stating that they got sick from the spraying. Hundreds of people had symptoms like; shortness of breath, headaches, dizziness, burning lungs, nausea, and muscle aches.

The excuse for aerial spraying is not a deadly disease carrying mosquito, but a moth whose larva may eat some leaves of some plants; called the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM). The CDFA considers the moth an invasive species since it is from Australia. Yet, evidence suggests that the moth has been in California for many years, living peacefully. In response to the moth, the CDFA set up relatively harmless sticky traps, which have captured nearly every Light Brown Apple Moth in the Northern California region.

Governor Schwarzenegger is a strong supporter of the declared emergency; the need to spray untested biochemicals on humans to stop the LBAM from destroying crops.

This aerial spraying violates several state, federal and international laws. It violates the right to personal safety given by the California State Constitution, the very document that creates the California government. It violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, which protects people with chemical sensitivities and other disabilities from discrimination. It violates the Federal constitutional right to personal liberty. It violates the EPA's laws against spraying pesticides on people. It violates human rights laws that say that human experimentation without consent is unethical and immoral. It violates criminal laws that claim it is a crime to poison children, or anyone else. It violates pollution laws to spray a toxic substance over plants, animals, and waterways. It violates laws against organized crime and it violates the very tenants of our democracy; a system of government designed to represent the people, not to poison the people to represent private agri-business interests.

Recently, in a series of rapid fire events, the CDFA declared a state of emergency relating to the LBAM claiming that the moths are about to destroy a huge portion of the state's agricultural crops. The claim is that the LBAM will cause hundreds of millions of dollars of crop damage. Due to this supposed "emergency," the CDFA claims it must immediately spray an untested biochemical to eliminate this threat as soon as possible despite the reported harms. Mind you, these moth's only travel within a 20-30 yard diameter of their birth place during their entire life.

The state of emergency is a false declaration because the CDFA cannot produce any meaningful evidence that the LBAM can or would destroy crops and the sticky traps are effective at containing the moths. In Hawaii, the LBAM has been a help to the ecosystem by destroying invasive species and there's no evidence of crop harm for the last 100 years.

The only emergency seems to be that the State of California, under Governor Schwarzenegger's helm, has an urgent need to spray as many humans; men, women, children, pregnant women, people with allergies, the elderly, and the sick, with chemicals. There is no sensible explanation as to why they want to do this, nor is there any explanation as to why they think that spraying pesticides on people is a good thing to do.

Spraying chemicals, safe or not safe, on humans against their will is illegal. It is a crime! The Nuremberg Code, established after the horrors of World War II, prohibits human experimentation without the consent of the person who is being experimented upon.

The state does not care about the over 200 health complaints, nor the laws they are violating, but rather cares about the commercial agricultural business. Trade partners with the US may not accept shipments of plants or produce that may have the LBAM. The CDFA has given various figures of the estimated crop damage that the LBAM will cause. Their estimates range from 100 million to 2.7 billion dollars. Now, these estimates are not based on any scientific survey but rather on their opinion and fears.

Even if the harmless moth could cause such damage, it is a dangerous precedent to place the health and safety of United States citizens, especially infants and children, secondary to money. So the CDFA and Governor Schwarzenegger has determined that 100 million dollars of possible damage gives them justification to poison children with chemicals. In this case, economic factors have been given priority over liberty and human value.

And the question I have been asking myself is - who is going to protect the children who will be sprayed?

So what chemicals make up Checkmate OLR-F and LBAM-F Products?

This has been the technical question many people have been asking. The specific details of the chemicals seem to be of less importance than the simple fact that these are chemicals. Synthetic chemicals do not have a place on our bodies without our permission. And they do not have a place in our children's bodies who have a much lower tolerance to environmental toxins!

My understanding is that approximately 15-20% of the main biochemical is made up of a synthetically derived moth pheromone. This pheromone supposedly confuses the moths and disrupts their mating cycles. I am unaware of any scientific evidence to prove that the pheromone is effective at controlling the LBAM population. I supposed the CDFA's plan is to see how it works after a year or more of spraying. This is essentially biochemical testing. And the problem is that they are doing it on the public on a large scale, against the people's will. Due to the declaration of an emergency, the CDFA allow themselves to bypass the normal environmental review process meant to examine such questions.

The concern with the Checkmate chemicals is not so much about the pheromone, but rather the pheromone distribution system. The pheromone is encapsulated in a micro-capsule (like a miniature pill) which the CDFA brags is biodegradable. What they do not tell you is that the capsule needs to dry out to biodegrade. In water environments (like your body), the pheromone stays encapsulated. The micro-capsule takes approximately 30 days to degrade. The full degradation occurring within 30 days is unlikely because Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties experience frequent rain and dampness from the Pacific Ocean. Thus, the people in the areas that are sprayed will be inhaling and touching miniature pills. Once in their bodies, the capsule will likely slowly degrade causing moth pheromone to be released directly into people's bloodstream.

The micro-capsule is made out of what are falsely called "inert" ingredients. Again, the EPA brags that these "inert" ingredients are mostly ionized water. However, they forget to tell you that there are also two known dangerous toxic substances in the inerts - tricaprylyl methyl ammonium chloride (TMAC) and polymethylene polyphenyl isocyanate (PPI).

The breathing problems and asthma-like conditions are known side effects of PPI. So how is the state legally able to spray it on people?

The way they illegally avoid the law and lie to people, so that people will be lulled into a stupor, is by saying that PPI, along with other ingredients, are actually not in the pesticide. Well, this is about 5% true and 95% a lie. Say you are baking a cake; you use flour, sugar, some eggs and other ingredients, and you bake it. One could argue that, in the final cake product, there is no flour but rather a new chemical compound called cake. In the same way, when PPI and other ingredients are processed, they meld and bind together and change their chemical form. They no longer resemble exactly their original substances, just like cake does not look much like the flour it was made of. When you examine the final biochemical, you will see no PPI but rather some new toxic substance.

Since there is no independently verifiable evidence that these new chemical compounds are toxic or not, other than 117 signed affidavits of people who got sick, and since there is a so-called "emergency", no thorough testing needs to be done. It is a devious way to avoid the law. The end result is that we must "trust" the EPA to say the chemicals are safe. It's hard to trust the EPA because, for example, with water fluoridation the entire employee's union at the EPA came out to say that water fluoridation is dangerous and harmful while the official position of the EPA is that water fluoridation is a good thing. It also becomes more difficult to win a court case against the aerial spraying when you cannot get any evidence that the chemicals are dangerous because you are not allowed to independently verify anything that the EPA alleges.

Strangely, the CDFA came out with precautions for this "non-toxic" chemical. Recommendations such as; to close all your windows during the spray, to stay inside, to hose everything off in the morning before you touch it, and to not touch anything that is covered with the chemical residue (anything outside) were encouraged. These warnings are good ideas since the micro-capsule can easily be inhaled, stays stuck on things, or remains in the air. I recently checked the CDFA website looking to quote this document and they had removed all warnings about the chemical, claiming now that it is totally safe. Perhaps this was spurred by the CDFA Secretary of Agriculture A.G. Kawamura's concern that citizens would waste too much water following the CDFA's instructions to wash the chemical off of things before touching them. It is eerie how A.G. Kawamura is concerned about saving water and our environment, but is totally oblivious to the fact that hundreds of people have been poisoned due to his aerial spraying efforts.

Another concern is the Checkmate OLR-F and LBAM-F warning label from the manufacturer:

"Keep Out of Reach of Children"

"Caution: Harmful if absorbed through the skin. Causes moderate eye irritation. Avoid contact with skin, eyes, or clothing. Harmful if inhaled. Avoid breathing vapor or spray mist." The criminals at the CDFA claim we should not worry about this warning label. According to the CDFA's toxicity theory, since the biochemical is going to be inhaled and touched in smaller doses, this warning is no longer necessary as it refers only to those who handle the chemicals."

Due to this premise, the CDFA insists that the 117 documented complaints of illnesses are psychosomatic and are not caused by the Checkmate. They continue to spray without thoroughly investigating these health claims. Infants cannot get psychosomatic illnesses because they are too young to make things up like that. The CDFA are hypocrites because when a doctor reports that someone is sick to the CDFA, and if that person had recently ingested certified raw milk, they automatically shut down the milk business even without evidence that the milk caused the illness. (The milk, in this case, is never the source of illness because the cows are healthy.) On one hand, they overly penalize raw milk producers for things that might cause illness and on the other hand they ignore cases which definitely cause illness by their own hands.

Spraying chemicals on people is a crime, safe or not.

This is an outrage and this is sickening.

It used to be easy to turn a blind eye to government corruption because we could avoid it. You can avoid vaccinations by claiming an exemption. You can avoid polluted soaps and shampoos by buying natural ones, and you can avoid pesticide ridden foods by choosing organic. (In case you are wondering, strawberries and other produce sprayed with Checkmate will still be certified organic by the State, so you won't know you are eating pesticide ridden produce.) But the citizens of Monterey, Santa Cruz, Seaside, Los Lomas and other communities consisting of over 100,000 people who are scheduled to be spray bombed, some beginning today for up to six nights in a row, do not have the choice. Their personal boundaries have been violently violated by the CDFA.

Now, you cannot turn a blind eye anymore to what the government does. We need to acknowledge that these things are wrong, whether we can avoid them or not. When we do not stand up against evil, we affirm it. When we say what is happening is smart, we affirm that the evil doer is good because we do nothing to stop them.

I encourage you, in every way possible, to not sit back here. When you see someone doing wrong, whether it is a relative, a neighbor, or the local government, speak up. We need to stop this juggernaut. It is truly a terrifying experience because I have a pregnant partner and a young child and I have to move away from here to avoid being sprayed, to avoid being force vaccinated with synthetic moth hormone. The last bastion of hope is that the Santa Cruz City Council narrowly voted to sue the criminals doing this. It is unclear whether their lawsuit will be effective.

Checkmate.

The name for the biochemical Checkmate has two meanings. First, to check (stop) mating. Although there is no reliable evidence that it will check mating, for all we know, it could cause the moths to mutate and mate more. The second meaning of checkmate is a position in the game of Chess. This is a position when you have your opponent trapped no matter what move they do. They cannot win so they must resign and lose the game. Ironically, it is not the moths who are in the position of checkmate, but rather the citizens of Monterey, Marina, Pacific Grove, Sand City and Seaside (cities near Carmel and the famous Pebble Beach Golf course). These citizens must literally run, and escape, for the sake of their children from their own homes because a toxic cloud of government corruption is about to rain down upon them. It is these citizens who are in the position of checkmate. The difference here is that losing can mean a chronic disease, illness, and perhaps worse.

What you can do is call your state and federal representatives and encourage them to push through laws that prohibit aerial spraying. Encourage California State Senators and Federal Representatives to engage in a criminal investigation because poisoning people, children, and the elderly is a crime. Just because the people engaged in this work for the government, it doesn't make them immune to our laws. Support 1hope.org, and the City of Santa Cruz, to fight back.

Tell everyone!

Spread this news. Let's tell the whole world the truth about civil rights in the good ole' US of A.

If enough people know, this cause will be greatly advanced. Also, process your feelings about this, the anger, the rage, the terror, and the hatred it brings up. Feel how you want to protect those in the aerial spray path, that inner voice speaking within you saying, "NO! this is wrong, it must stop".

May the criminals face the real consequences of their crimes and be brought to justice. And may the people of Northern California be protected from untested synthetic chemicals forced upon them.

See below for more information, action items, and pesticide ingredients.

More information:

See 1hope.org, www.lbamspray.info, and www.stopthespray.org (You can sign the petition)

Also California State Senator Laird has written an excellent letter, opposing the spraying, citing dozens of unawsererd questions about the CDFA's shameful behavior. This can help you understand the issue better. (democrats.assembly.ca.gov/MEMBERS/A27/moth.htm)

Published Pesticide Ingredients Scheduled For Human Experimentation beginning Wednesday 10/24/07 (There may be other unpublished ones)

polymethylene polyphenyl isocyanate (Pesticide manufacturer Suterra acknowledges this ingredient is used to make Checkmate, but EPA claims ingredient is not in final product)

(E)-11-Tetradecen-1-yl Acetate
(E,E) -9,11 Tetradecadien-1-yl Acetate
Crosslinked polyurea polymer
Butylated Hydroxytoluene
Polyvinyl Alcohol
Tricaprylyl Methyl Ammonium Chloride
Sodium Phosphate
Ammonium Phosphate
1,2-benzisothiozoli-3-one
2-hydroxy-4-n-octyloxybenzophenone

Action List:

The best thing you can do is contact Governor Schwarzenegger, even if you are not a California citizen. Governor Schwarzenegger has the power to stop this. Right now, he clearly supports the program claiming such aerial spraying is necessary. Tell him you are opposed to his need to spray toxic chemicals on children to stop a harmless moth.

GOVERNOR ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER
General information: (916) 445-2841 2841 (press 1, 5, 0)
Fax: (916) 445-4633
Email governor@govmail.ca.gov
Chief of Staff is Susan Kennedy

CA DEPARTMENT OF FOOD AND AGRICULTURE
Public Affairs Officer: (916) 654-0462 or
(800) 491-1899 (press 1, 6)
cdfapublicaffairs@cdfa.ca.gov
Secretary A.G. Kawamura (he makes the final decision on spraying):
akawamura@cdfa.ca.gov
John Connell, the state's expert in insect eradication: jconnell@cdfa.ca.gov
Steve Lyle (public affairs) in charge of public communication: slyle@cdfa.ca.gov
Nancy Lungren (spokesperson for Kawamura): nlungren@cdfa.ca.gov

CA DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH
General Information: (916) 558-1784
Director, Mark B. Horton, MD, MSPH: (916) 558-1700, mark.horton@cdph.ca.gov
Kevin Reilly, Deputy Director: Kevin.Reilly@cdph.ca.gov
Online feedback/email:
http://www.cdph.ca.gov/programservices/contact/Pages/default.aspx

ASSEMBLYMAN JOHN LAIRD (strongly opposes current spray plans)
(831) 649-2832 or (916) 319-2127
Assemblymember.Laird@assembly.ca.gov

SENATOR ABEL MALDONADO
(831) 657-6315 or (916) 651-4015 or go to his web page to send him an email

REPRESENTATIVE SAM FARR
c/o Alec.Arago@mail.house.gov

DIANE FEINSTEIN
c/o daniel_chen@feinstein.senate.gov

About the author

Rami Nagel is a father who cares about the way we affect each other, our children, and our planet through our lifestyle choices. His health background is in hands-on energy healing, Hatha & Bhakti yoga and the Pathwork.
Rami is author of several health resources, http://www.healingourchildren.net,http://www.preconceptionhealth.org, http://www.curetoothdecay.com, and http://www.yourreturn.org.

In The Know: Is The Government Spying On Paranoid Schizophrenics Enough?

In The Know: Is The Government Spying On Paranoid Schizophrenics Enough?
Panelists discuss ways to care for the nation's paranoid schizophrenics, such as hiding cameras in their homes or audio transmitters in their ears.

Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters

Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters
For a majority of likely voters, meaningless bullshit will be the most important factor in deciding who they will vote for in 2008.

Groups Tie Rumsfeld to Torture in Complaint

By DOREEN CARVAJAL
Published: October 27, 2007
PARIS, Oct. 26 — Several human rights organizations based in the United States and Europe have filed a complaint in a Paris court accusing former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld of responsibility for torture.
The group, which includes the International Federation for Human Rights, the French League for Human Rights, and the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, made the complaint late Thursday and unsuccessfully sought to confront Mr. Rumsfeld as he left a breakfast meeting in central Paris on Friday.
Jeanne Sulzer, one of the lawyers working on the issue for the human rights groups, said the complaint had been filed with a state prosecutor, Jean-Claude Marin, saying he would have the power to pursue the case because of Mr. Rumsfeld’s presence in France.
Similar legal complaints against Mr. Rumsfeld have been filed in other countries, including Sweden and Argentina. German prosecutors dismissed a case in April, saying it was up to the United States to investigate the accusations.
The French complaint accuses Mr. Rumsfeld of authorizing torture at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and says it violated the Convention Against Torture, which came into force in 1987.
As part of their complaint, the groups submitted 11 pages of written testimony from Janis Karpinski, the highest-ranking officer to be punished in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. She was demoted to colonel from brigadier general and lost command of her military police unit. She contended that the abuses at the prison had started after the appearance of Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who was sent by Mr. Rumsfeld to assist military intelligence interrogators.
Michael Ratner, the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said in a statement that the aim of this latest legal complaint was to demonstrate “that we will not rest until those U.S. officials involved in the torture program are brought to justice. Rumsfeld must understand that he has no place to hide.”
While he was secretary of defense, Mr. Rumsfeld denied many times that torture was a policy of the American government. One occasion was in 2005 when an interviewer on Fox News asked about charges of abuse, and Mr. Rumsfeld replied that American policy required that all prisoners be treated humanely. When there was abuse, he said, “people have been punished and convicted in a court-martial. So the idea that there’s any policy of abuse or policy of torture is false. Flat false.”

Reasons to Believe: Why Americans Have Swallowed an Official Conspiracy Theory More Full of Holes Than Swiss Cheese

by Len Hart

Bill Maher drank the Kool-aid --to be expected from a jester for whom there are limits to his license to offend the court. The rest of us, it is hoped, can still think for ourselves but haven't!

There are several reasons Americans simply refuse to believe anything other than Bushco's official conspiracy theory of 911.

1. The official lie relieves Americans of all responsibility for the attacks. In other words, we don't have to feel guilty about being a greedy, militaristic empire. We don't have to feel guilty about the fact that the CIA --in our name --routinely commits heinous crimes against innocent people everyday. We don't have to feel guilty about having threatened the world with nuclear annihilation for a period of some fifty years.
2. For similar reasons, Americans find it impossible to believe that their own government could be involved in anything so heinous. The very idea strikes at an individual's self-esteem. Only the irredeemably evil enjoy thinking of themselves in those terms. Normal folk like to think themselves good even when they are not. These folk prefer to believe that the US is always morally beyond reproach though it most certainly is not and perhaps never was. Get reall!
3. Many Americans, perhaps most, are typically incurious. There is not a lot to be said about or for these folk. They are most at ease with themselves when plonked down on the sofa swilling beer, stuffing pretzels and pork rinds, watching the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders or Fox swill ie, Bill O'Really?
4. The 911 Truth Movement is an easy target of demagoguery. Popular Science got away with every version of the classic strawman fallacy because the 911 Truth Movement is, in fact, not centralized or top down. Some alternative theories are, indeed, pure bunkum but no more so than Bush's "official conspiracy theory". The movement, meanwhile, makes an easy target of demogogues, GOP liars, and Fox blow hards like balding Billo.

It doesn't matter that there is absolutely no admissible evidence in support of Bush's ongoing, ever revised lie. The official conspiracy theorists will delude themselves, believing that the official narrative is not a "conspiracy theory" when, in fact, it is the least believable of all conspiracy theories, shot through with demonstrable lies, falsehoods and fallacy.

Bush's official conspiracy fails the litmus test of any good theory. That is, it fails to "explain" a given set of observable facts.

• Bush's official conspiracy theory does not explain how arab hijackers got on board airplanes without showing up on flight manifests.
• Bush's official theory does not explain the collapse of the twin towers of WTC. No version of the official narrative has explained the towers' fall. In fact, the "official" narrative on that score has been changed several times under criticism by the 911 truth movement. The first establishment version, aired in a PBS documentary, used the term "pancaking". The animation used conveniently omitted the existence of a heavily reinforced core which would have remained standing had the outer floors simply pancaked. Newer versions of the animation now show a core though it is still unaffected by the pancaking around it. The unexplained fact is simply this: the core did not remain standing. Just one of many facts not explained by the official theory.
• The official line does not explain a "punch out hole" in the Pentagon's inner ring, a hole considerably smaller than the fuselage of a 757. Only in Alice in Wonderland does something so large disappear into holes so small --a diameter about the height of human being. Perhaps it was a portal and the 757 got sucked into a black hole. Perhaps it popped into a parallel universe. Perhaps it got whisked away by Dr. Who!
• The official conspiracy theory espoused by GWB does not explain nor does the 911 Commission report address the collapse of Building 7. The building's owner --Larry Silverstein explains it very simply. He is on record stating unambiguously that Building 7 was "pulled" (controlled demolition) down that day. It is a fact that a controlled demolition of that magnitude requires weeks, perhaps months of engineering and/or architectural studies, careful placement of explosives, a regimen of safeguards. Someone, therefore, had planned to pull down Building 7.

Interesting thing about theories, they are not a Chinese menu from which you choose one from column "A", one from column "B". A theory is a package. If the theory fails to explain any part of a related set of facts it must be discarded. That's how science works. As Johnny Cochran said of a glove, we say of theories: if it does not fit, you must acquit!

Now --superstition and propaganda will never live up to that high standard and neither does Bush's official conspiracy theory. As propaganda, the official conspiracy theory more nearly resembles superstition. People will believe superstition and myths because much claptrap makes one feel good about him/herself.

The administration of Ronald Reagan sold his absurd tax cuts benefiting only a tiny upper class because he promised wealth would trickle back down to them. People believed it. They wanted to believe it. They chose to believe it. It made them feel better about themselves and about the world despite the cold, hard fact that Reagan's economic policy would make only the rich even richer and the poorer even poorer.

That is, in fact, what happened; I have the facts from the US Census Bureau to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt. I most certainly do not believe it because it makes me feel better about being me. It doesn't. The truth is often almost too much to bear but it is still the truth and wishful thinking never changed a thing. I believe the cold, hard facts from the CB. The picture painted by those numbers is a demonstrable, statistical truth for which there is no spin, no refutation, no escape into GOP fantasy-land.

Yet --people would simply not believe any thing "bad" about Uncle Ronnie about whom many opined at the GOP National Convention in Houston in 1993 that Reagan "...made us feel good about ourselves". Masturbation makes one feel good but the effect is temporary. Nevertheless, it has more to recommend it than indulging GOP ideology --the bad effects of which last for a long, long time.

Michael Shermer listed 25 fallacies that lead us to believe weird things:

(1) Theory influences observation. Heisenberg wrote, "What we observe is not nature itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning." Our perception of reality is influenced by the theories framing our examination of it.

(2) The observer changes the observed. The act of studying an event can change it, an effect particularly profound in the social sciences, which is why psychologists use blind and double-blind controls.

(3) Equipment constructs results. How we make and understand measurements is highly influenced by the equipment we use.

(4) Anecdotes do not make science. Stories recounted in support of a claim are not scientific without corroborative evidence from other sources or physical proof of some sort.

(5) Scientific language does not make a science. Dressing up a belief in jargon, often with no precise or operational definitions, means nothing without evidence, experimental testing, and corroboration.

(6) Bold statements do not make claims true. The more extraordinary the claim, the more extraordinarily well-tested the evidence must be.

(7) Heresy does not equal correctness. Being laughed at by the mainstream does not mean one is right. The scientific community cannot be expected to test every fantastic claim that comes along, especially when so many are logically inconsistent. If you want to do science, you have to learn to play the game of science. This involves exchanging data and ideas with colleagues informally, and formally presenting results in conference papers, peer-reviewed journals, books, and the like.

(8.) Burden of proof. It is the person who makes the extraordinary claim who has the burden of proving the validity of the evidence.

(9) Rumors do not equal reality. Repeated tales are not of necessity true.

(10) Unexplained is not inexplicable. Many people think that if they themselves cannot explain something that it must be inexplicable and therefore a true mystery of the paranormal.

(11) Failures are rationalized. In science, the value of negative findings is high, and honest scientists will readily admit their mistakes. Pseudoscientists ignore or rationalize failures.

(12) After-the-fact reasoning. Also known as "post hoc, ergo propter hoc," literally "after this, therefore because of this." At its basest level, this is a form of superstition. As Hume taught us, the fact that two events follow each other in sequence does not mean they are connected causally. Correlation does not mean causation.

(13) Coincidence. In the paranormal world, coincidences are often seen as deeply significant. As the behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner proved in the laboratory, the human mind seeks relationships between events and often finds them even when they are not present.

(14) Representiveness. As Aristotle said, "The sum of the coincidences equals certainty." We forget most of the insignificant coincidences and remember the meaningful ones. We must always remember the larger context in which a seemingly unusual event occurs, and we must always analyze unusual events for their representiveness of their class of phenomena.

(15) Emotive words and false analogies. Emotive words are used to provoke emotion and sometimes to obscure rationality. Likewise, metaphors and analogies can cloud thinking with emotion and steer us onto a side path. Like anecdotes, analogies and metaphors do not constitute proof. They are merely tools of rhetoric.

(16) Ad ignoratum. This is an appeal to ignorance or lack of knowledge, where someone claims that if you cannot disprove a claim it must be true. In science, belief should come from positive evidence, not a lack of evidence for or against a claim.

(17) Ad hominem and tu quoque. Literally "to the man" and "you also," these fallacies redirect the focus from thinking about the idea to thinking about the person holding the idea. The goal of an ad hominem attack is to discredit the claimant in hopes that it will discredit the claim. Similarly for tu quoque. As a defense, the critic is accused of making the same mistakes attributed to the criticized, and nothing is proved one way or the other.

(18.) Hasty generalization. In logic, the hasty generalization is a form of improper induction. In life it is called prejudice. In either case, conclusions are drawn before the facts warrant it.

(19) Overreliance on authorities. We tend to rely heavily on authorities in our culture, especially if the authority is considered to be highly intelligent. Authorities, by virtue of their expertise in a field, may have a better chance of being right in that field, but correctness is certainly not guaranteed, and their expertise does not necessarily qualify them to draw conclusions in other areas.

(20) Either-or. Also known as the fallacy of negation or the false dilemma, this is the tendency to dichotomize the world so that if you discredit one position, the observed is forced to accept the other. A new theory needs evidence in favor of it, not just against the opposition.

(21) Circular reasoning. Also known as fallacy of redundancy, begging the question, or tautology, this occurs when the conclusion or claim is merely a restatement of one of the premises.

(22) Reductio ad absurdum and the slippery slope. Reductio ad absurdum is the refutation of an argument by carrying the argument to its logical end and so reducing it to an absurd conclusion. Surely, if an argument's consequences are absurd, it must be false. This is not necessarily so, though sometimes pushing an argument to its limits is a useful exercise in critical thinking; often this is a way to discover whether a claim has validity, especially when an experiment testing the actual reduction can be run. Similarly, the slippery slope fallacy involves constructing a scenario in which one thing leads ultimately to an end so extreme that the first step should never be taken.

(23) Effort inadequacies and the need for certainty, control, and simplicity. Most of us, most of the time, want certainty, want to control our environment, and want nice, neat, simple explanations. Scientific and critical thinking does not come naturally. it takes training, experience, and effort. We must always work to suppress our need to be absolutely certain and in total control ands our tendency to seek the simple and effortless solution to a problem.

(24) Problem-solving inadequacies. All critical and scientific thinking is, in a fashion, problem solving. There are numerous psychological disruptions that cause inadequacies in problem solving. We must all make the effort to overcome them.

(25) Ideological immunity, or the Planck Problem. In day-to-day life, as in science, we all resist fundamental paradigm change. Social scientist Jay Stuart Snelson calls this resistance an ideological immune system: "educated, intelligent, and successful adults rarely change their most fundamental presuppositions." As individuals accumulate more knowledge, theories become more well-founded, and confidence in ideologies is strengthened. The consequence of this, however, is that we build up an "immunity" against new ideas that do not corroborate previous ones. Historians of science call this the Planck Problem, after physicist Max Planck, who made this observation on what must happen for innovation to occur in science: "An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out and that the growing generation is familiarized with the idea from the beginning."

In the meantime, Bill Maher has joined Bushco in labeling critics kooks or, to use Maher's terminology: nut jobs! I have a message for Maher: people who have a case, make it. Those who don't call other people names.

As we have said, many people believe whatever makes them feel good about themselves. I would like to believe that if you played Bush's 2003 State of the Union address backward, you hear him confess to lying about everything, including 911. But, unlike Bushheads and Reaganites, I don't have to indulge an absurd fantasy in order to feel good about myself. There is enough evidence in the public record to bring capital charges against George W. Bush right now. This evidence and probable cause meets the high standard required of a court at law. No mumbo jumbo, no supply-side hokum, no GOP sloganeering or meaningless platitudes required.

Top Ten Conspiracy Theories

Courtesy of Indymedia New York Mike Ward of PopMatters lists the most outrageous top ten officially spun conspiracy theories of the year - Scoop Editor's Note: If you feel like a laugh then read this!

He forgot to mention the most outlandish conspiracy of them all (and the most widely accepted): 19 hijackers from a third world terrorist group armed with boxcutters forced 3 planes into 3 of the the nation's most important and symbolic structures with no assistance from US government/intelligence insiders. ...

As we have proposed for your consideration, people tend to believe whatever makes them feel good about themselves. I wonder how good Maher manages to feel about himself after selling out to superstition and corporate financed ideology --however well-financed and packaged! I am not curious enough to sell out to the establish just to find how how it makes me feel. I will settle for Maher's report and I suspect that he is, rather, the authority on that subject right now.

Does it matter what is believed? Indeed, those who don't believe in the existence of cliffs may one day walk off one. Unless the US awakens to George W. Bush, it will have soon walked off a cliff.

http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2007/10/reasons-to-believe-why-americans-have.html