Na, na, na, na … you can’t use it

DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE . . .

Help me understand this … “we” – that’s you and me – voters, taxpayers, citizens of Maricopa County have already PAID for JOE’S new bus … but … the other “kids” (Maricopa County Board of Supervisors) are jealous and mad because JOE didn’t play their game so to get even … our Supervisors keep the new bus parked, collecting dusk and doing nothing…?

WOW … what an absolute stellar example our Supervisors present especially for our CHILDREN … actually in this instance our CHILDREN most likely could teach them a lesson, on second though maybe not, because to educate requires one to be willing to learn and our Supervisors consistently demonstrate an unwillingness to change.

OK … JOE stole the limelight again and bent the rules as … ALL … of you have clearly and consistently demonstrated a similar ability … get over it and let’s move on this game you are playing is stupid.

… I invite “us” to consider not to shame, blame or criticize but rather simply ask … what would it look like when it’s fixed … and own that ONLY we have the power to bring about the change needed to fix it …

PHOENIX CHARITY NONE

DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE . . .

In the bible it is written … “I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least among you, you did not do for me.”

Shakespeare wrote … “The quality of mercy is not strain’d, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes …

Phoenix City government answer to anyone attempting to feed the poor, nourish the sick, comfort those without is to bring down the full weight of the Arizona legal system and … MAKE ILLEGAL … any such action.

As a citizen of Phoenix I am ashamed as you should be too for by the grace of the Almighty … there go I …

… I invite “us” to consider not to shame, blame or criticize but rather simply ask … what would it look like when it’s fixed … and own that ONLY we have the power to bring about the change needed to fix it …

MORE UNFUNDED MANDATES

Governor … might “we” – that’s the voters, taxpayers, citizens of Arizona request of you to provide how you formulated your conclusion the existing mining laws are adequate to protect your state’s principal … water … source from mining pollution…?

DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE . . Sorry, but I do not think Jan Brewer, Republican Governor of Arizona has a clue of the current mining laws affecting any such activity within the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River. It is clear to me, our Governor is taking her marching orders in this current mining debate straight from the mining coalition their attorneys, their stockholders and their suppliers, which aggregated number far less than the 100,000 signatures of Arizona citizens gathered urging government to ban such activity within the Grand Canyon.

You gota love that Jan Brewer, Republican Governor of Arizona uses all the “buzz” words like … “could cripple an industry vital to national energy security” … hello, Governor do you really know what you are saying…? Sorry, but you’ve been duped and now you want to dupe us also, ain’t going to happen.

Is this the advice your ADEQ/Director Grumbles gave you that Arizona current environmental laws, rules, regulations and ENFORCEMENT is sufficient…? If so, then Arizona needs a new director of ADEQ. Hello, Governor, Arizona does NOT have any active ENFORCEMENT of its environmental rules, regulations, bulletins, as that aspect was DELEGATED to most of the 15 separate County Environmental Health Dept, but without any funding … you remember … when you were in the legislature … it was termed an UNFUNDED MANDATE and you now support it…?

… I invite “us” to consider not to shame, blame or criticize but rather simply ask … what would it look like when it’s fixed … and own that ONLY we have the power to bring about the change needed to fix it …

Are we stone stupid

DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE . . .HYPE, HYPE, HYPE … this is all part of the … “dance” … the process necessary to enable all of those “we” elected to serve and protect us to get their respective dance card signed off by their “handlers” (ie in$uranace company loggi$tS) to enable them to prove their loyalty and to $ecure $$$ for the next round of election$.

Bottom line … the only way “we” do not get bona-fide comprehensive health care reform with an honest “public option” is that … “we” … did not have the guts to flat demand it and accept noting less.

Just be aware the game is to attempt to make you afraid, be very afraid that 100% government operated health care is BAD … but … than you might choose to ask, if it is so bad why do the members of Congress past and present fight so hard to have it from cradle to grave … but … deem it not something “we” want…?

If “we” believe that line of crap, we are indeed stone stupid

… I invite “us” to consider not to shame, blame or criticize but rather simply ask … what would it look like when it’s fixed … and own that ONLY we have the power to bring about the change needed to fix it …

NEUROMARKETING

How the Brain Reveals Why We Buy … Advances in neuroscience are changing the way some companies position their products, giving birth to the new field of neuromarketing
Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from … Mindfield: How Brain Science Is Changing Our World … by Lone Frank, to be released in the U.S. November 10.

Say the word: neuromarketing. Doesn’t exactly sound good, does it? It’s an outlandish word that scrapes across the tongue, leaving an aftertaste of thought control, science fiction, and downright creepiness. The press surrounding neuromarketing reflects this as well. The headlines are ominous: soon, the bright boys of the advertising world will get their sticky hands on our inner “buy button.” Soon, marketing experts, with the help of cutting-edge brain research, will get direct access to the inner depths of our brains where, with the right stimulation, they can unleash our buying impulses and get their cash registers ringing.

Neuromarketing is a young and growing field–some won’t even admit that it is a field yet–that is striving to reveal the inner mechanisms of our consumer behavior. You might say that this interest and the issues it raises are a natural extension or offshoot of neuroeconomics and the more general studies of how we make choices and decisions. Every so often, there is also a conspicuous overlap between neuroeconomists and researchers in neuromarketing. The studies in neuromarketing are just more specific and much more directed. And the Holy Grail lies in predicting what the brain wants.

In the advertising industry, you can see neuromarketing as an attempt to make the “art” of advertising into a science. Any marketing expert proposing a multi-million dollar project to a client would like to be able to back it up with something that looks like real data, not just hunches. To answer this need, marketing has already drawn on psychology in developing tests and theories, and ad people have borrowed the idea of the focus group from social scientists. Brain research is the third wave. And neuromarketing has taken on a warm, fuzzy glow in the advertising world, where they convene meetings and conferences about its potential and, every so often, proclaim in their journals that it is the undeniable wave of the future. Such enthusiasm is harder to find in the scientific arena. Marketing is not a science, many say, pointing out that only a small handful of studies have been published in scientific journals.

Still, the whole thing started in academic circles, when in 2003 Clinton Kilts of Atlanta’s Emory University called in a team of volunteers for a series of experiments to throw light on the brain’s role in product preferences. How does activity in brain cells mirror things we are crazy about as opposed to things we absolutely hate or that just don’t speak to us? At that point, Kilts had nothing to do with marketing or advertising in general, but the fundamental question tickled his fancy.

The volunteers came in and, in the first round, were presented with an array of various consumer goods, which they were asked to rank by appeal. Simple answers on a numerical scale. In the next phase, they were taken through the MRI scanner as they were once again shown the same goods, while the apparatus registered the brain activity they aroused. When Kilts later analyzed the reactions of the research subjects, there was a common feature that leapt to his notice at once. Every time one of them–male or female–saw a product they really liked, blood rushed to a little area towards the front of the brain. The medial prefrontal cortex lit up like a beacon in the images.

This result lit a fire under Clinton Kilts, who knew he was onto something interesting. The medial prefrontal cortex is not just any old brain region–it is an area very much involved in our self-identification and the construction of our personality in general. This part of the frontal lobes is involved when we relate to ourselves and to who we are in some way. Kilts was quick to draw his conclusion. The scanning experiments, he believed, indicated that, if you are attracted by a product, it is because you identify with it. That the product fits into the picture you have of yourself.

This was quite exciting–in a nice academic way–but the debut experiment seemed to provide an obvious opportunity to do a new sort of study of the market. Kilts could see a future where researchers didn’t have to go out and ask people what they thought about a product anymore, or rely on their vague answers and poor self-insight. No, potential consumers could just be scanned and the answers could come straight from the brain.

Not long after his breakthrough, Clinton Kilts helped to found a new division for the American marketing consultancy BrightHouse, their Neurostrategies Group. Their focus was not intended to be ordinary market studies of the type that are supposed to tell producers how to put together a commercial for strawberry jam or sports cars to hit a target market. It was claimed in their launch statements that all the studies done would be of a general character–designed to increase our understanding of how consumers think and, in particular, how they develop a relationship to companies and brands.

The discussion quickly came to turn on the concept of branding. The fact that something–be it a product, an institution or a concept, for that matter–is not just immediately recognizable but has a narrative of its own. The product is not just a physical thing but comes with a whole mental universe that penetrates the consumer. Think of Gucci, iPod, Mercedes, and take note of the images the words bring to mind. Branding has been a hot topic for a long time in the advertising world, and it is one with phenomenal force. Most of us know that branding palpably influences our choices and shopping habits, but researchers suspect that branding can also fundamentally change the way we comprehend sense impressions.

At least that is the obvious conclusion to be drawn from the only (so far) classic study in neuromarketing, a fascinating study of what can be called the Pepsi paradox. For decades, it has been known that Pepsi is the preferred cola in blind taste tests, but it is still Coca-Cola that continues to be the absolute bestseller in the U.S. and the rest of the world. However, since 2004, we have been able to see the short-circuit going on in the head of the cola-drinking masses.

The originator of the experiment was Read Montague of Houston’s Baylor College of Medicine, who must be credited with breaking through to the broader public with the experiment, which was essentially a cola-tasting while being subjected to MRI. Just under seventy volunteers were first asked to taste the competing products in a blind tasting and, just as so often before, Pepsi was the big winner. Pepsi also set off greater activity in the so-called ventral putamen than Coca-Cola. The putamen is an area cradled deep in the brain in the striatum, which is, among other things, a component in the reward system. So, the interpretation was straightforward–the activity meant “this feels good.”

In the next series of experiments the subjects tasted colas with visible labels. When the research subjects knew which brown liquid was which, almost all of them suddenly preferred Coca-Cola. They were convinced that the taste of Coca-Cola was far superior to Pepsi. This shift in attitude followed an important change in the brain–this time, the medial prefrontal cortex went into action. The cerebral cortex intervened with its higher cognitive processes and triumphed over the immediate feeling of reward that was evoked by the taste impression. The product that actually tasted worse and provided a poorer physiological reward was viewed as better when the whole identification apparatus and the idea “this is so me” went into action.

The cola experiment, which came out in the journal Neuron, might be said to show that branding is mind over matter. And, of course, this got marketing people to think in a new way. Now they could hope that the methodology of brain research would help to explain how people build up the much sought-after positive branding story. The dream is that researchers with their scanners will discover what has to be done to get the right elements into play to achieve a tenable branding. Storytelling aimed right at the medial prefrontal cortex.

Excerpted from Mindfield: How Brain Science is Changing Our World by Lone Frank. Copyright © 2009 by the author and reprinted by permission of Oneworld, previously published in Danish as Den Femte Revolution by Gyldendal in 2007, English translation by Russell Dees

DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE . . . It is quite disturbing to contemplate that Madison Ave Advertising “gurus” have chosen to delve into this mind control mechanism which appears to operate in each of us. It is quite another thing to contemplate that … “government” … any form of government … is also engaged in this same research.

The salient message is … “we” … that’s you and me … have at all times absolute control over what we allow to reach our minds as “we” are required to give sanction to all information “we” take in. Yea, I know, you don’t want to believe it as it requires you and me to admit to ourselves that we are at all times accountable and responsible and that’s not something we want.

Being made aware that this type of testing is taking place is to be forewarned and therefore forearmed.

… I invite “us” to consider not to shame, blame or criticize but rather simply ask … what would it look like when it’s fixed … and own that ONLY we have the power to bring about the change needed to fix it …

INVIOLATE, sure thing

Believe the 1922 Compact of the River is inviolate..? Guess again … ?
Colorado River operations draw concerns …Compact states wary of National Park Service authority on storage, releases…

By CHRIS WOODKA …THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN …cwoodka@chieftain.com …EXCERPTED … September 08, 2009 12:06 am …

Colorado River water users are concerned about the potential that agreements over the levels in Lake Powell and Lake Mead could be jeopardized by federal policies on release and storage of water.

The issue was brought up last week during Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s water summit in Pueblo. While Salazar primarily discussed Arkansas Valley issues – Fountain Creek, the Arkansas Valley Conduit and Southern Delivery System

“Concerning the Colorado River and the operation of Lake Powell and Lake Mead, many of us would like your thoughts on it,” Hamel told Salazar at the meeting. Salazar remained focused on the Arkansas Valley issues and did not address the agreement reached in 2007 by the seven states in the Colorado River Compact over the operation of the two reservoirs.

The states – Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming – sent a joint letter to Salazar in July asking him to weigh concerns by the National Park Service about operating levels at Lake Mead as well as a web of agreements the states have reached about operations of Mead and Powell.

It refers to agreements negotiated under former Interior secretaries in 2001 and 2007 on how the states would share surpluses and shortages in water supply on the Colorado River. The Parks Service is apparently concerned about the levels at Lake Mead, which is a popular recreation area as well as a source of water supply and electric power for California, Arizona and Nevada. Prolonged drought and increased demand have caused levels to drop and it can cost millions of dollars to move marinas on the lakes. The service has asked for more authority on the operation of Glen Canyon Dam, which releases water from Lake Powell through the Grand Canyon and into Lake Mead.

The states are objecting to broadening the authority under past acts of Congress and Interior policies. “The interim guidelines offer a secure foundation on which to build the important initiatives necessary to achieve greater flexibility in the development and management of the Colorado River water supply,” the states wrote in the letter.

The Arkansas Basin imports an average of about 131,000 acre-feet from the Western Slope each year, or about 18 percent of the supply of water when measured against the high point of flows on the Arkansas River at Avondale.

The Colorado Water Conservation Board is looking at studies both to quantify how much Colorado River water is still available to use within the state and to determine which rights would be curtailed if the state was limited in how much water it could divert.

“We, as a state, need to come to a better understanding of what water is available under what conditions,” Hamel said. “If there is a call on the Colorado River, how do we manage the call?”

Such a call would not be as simple as a traditional river call in Colorado, where junior diverters on one stream are shut off. The Colorado River system is complex, with some reaches that are fully appropriated, reaches where additional water is used to protect endangered species and others that have never been administered under state water laws. …Transmountain diversions are further complicated by the need to maintain certain flows downstream. In some years, not all of the water called for in a decree can be taken, while in some emergency situations the transmountain diverters have been asked to take even more water to prevent flooding on the Western Slope.

DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE . . . Keep in mind … this is just one of a host of man devised documents all purporting to control the Colorado River and each claim to be supreme and inviolate … how can that be … ?

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… People should never be afraid of their government, government should always be afraid of the people …

… “Everyone has the right to clean and accessible water, adequate for the health and well-being of the individual and family, and no one shall be deprived of such access or quality of water due to individual economic circumstances” …

… I am most willing to present and discuss any water issue with any audience in Arizona where open full disclosure and two way dialog is permitted. …

Respectfully submitted,

Biofuels Not So Friendly to Gulf of Mexico

By Robert F. Service …ScienceNOW Daily News …21 September 2009
The push to ramp up biofuel production may reduce oil imports, but it’s likely to come at a high environmental cost: It will boost the size of the Gulf of Mexico’s dead zone, a huge swath so depleted of oxygen that almost nothing can live there, according to a new analysis.

The gulf’s dead zone is already a major environmental problem. First spotted in 1971, it now spans 14,600 square kilometers, or 1,460,000 hectares, a region larger than Connecticut. It is triggered every spring and summer when nutrient-rich water flows from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers into the Gulf of Mexico.

The nutrients, including nitrogen and phosphorus, come primarily from fertilizer washed off of farms throughout the Midwest. They trigger blooms of algae that then die and are eaten by bacteria. The bacteria use up most of the water’s dissolved oxygen, killing fish, shrimp, crabs, and other organisms.

The U.S. federal government and agencies from several states in the Mississippi River Basin have established efforts to reduce nutrient flows into the Gulf of Mexico in hopes of limiting the size of the dead zone to 500,000 hectares, about one-third of its current size.

But in 2007, Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) that aims to reduce oil imports by backing the production of 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022. Of that, 15 billion gallons is slated to come from corn ethanol and the rest from cellulosic ethanol and other “advanced biofuels” that require less energy and fertilizer inputs.

Last year, researchers reported that if 15 billion gallons or more of biofuels per year came from corn ethanol, the result would be a large spike in nutrients hitting the Gulf of Mexico. For the current study, Michael Griffin, a microbiologist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and colleagues asked how the gulf would fare if more fuels came from cellulosic feedstocks, which typically require only about one-fourth of the fertilizer that corn does.

DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE . . . How much longer can we assume the ostrich position on all forms of pollution to our water …?

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… People should never be afraid of their government, government should always be afraid of the people …

… “Everyone has the right to clean and accessible water, adequate for the health and well-being of the individual and family, and no one shall be deprived of such access or quality of water due to individual economic circumstances” …

… I am most willing to present and discuss any water issue with any audience in Arizona where open full disclosure and two way dialog is permitted. …

Respectfully submitted,

Without our 100% buy-in this won’t fly

An assessment of Arizona’s current financial dilemma by Arizona Senator Steve Pierce …

Editor’s Note: Following are excerpts of a speech given by Arizona Senator Steve Pierce to a group of attorneys. His assessment is frank, he pulls no punches. But he does offer potential solutions that can make a start at addressing the serious issues facing the State of Arizona. And if nothing is done, the state is likely to find itself in the worst financial crisis experienced since becoming a State in 1912.

Senator Pierce’s Comments:
http://www.prescottenews.com/features/letters-to-the-editor/senator-steve-pierce-speaks-the-truth-nobody-wants-to-hear.html
From here forward, we have enormous issues.

FIRST, remember this…

1) the State is broke

2) we are going into insolvency

3) Next we will be in bankruptcy
This is the truth. No one wants to hear it or say it but it is the truth.
Here’s Why … We have a $3.6 billion structural deficit. … As of mid October, there is a $2 billion deficit in the 2010 budget alone, and we still have falling revenues. … The first 2 months of the fiscal 2010, revenues are another 16% below last year and $233,000 below our already conservative forecast. Current on-going projections of revenue are $6.4 billion.

If, and it’s a huge and improbable IF… we were to have 4 years of 10% growth, we still would not be where we were in 2007 when we had record revenues of $9.6 b. We spent $10 billion that year and have continued spending $10 billion every year since. It should be obvious, we have a SPENDING problem not a REVENUE problem.

We need cuts in spending and we need to generate revenues. If we had property tax cuts, income tax cuts and could do everything possible to get business to stop in Arizona instead of going to Texas, we could grow our way out of some of this with time. However, We have to find immediate relief by cutting spending and yet the cuts are the hardest. There simply isn’t the will to cut everything like we need to do. Legislators will not cut education or DES or DHS as deeply as it needs to be cut. One excuse being used is called MOE, like Larry, Curley, MOE. MOE is “Maintenance of Effort” and it is a directive or one of the Strings that came attached to the Stimulus money when we accepted it last spring. You can’t cut below spending levels of 2006 or “the MOE”.
If we had the Governor’s dreaded referral, (which, by the way, 46 of 53 Republicans voted for and not a single Democrat voted for it when normally they are the ones wanting more to spend) and it was voted down, then some of the legislators MIGHT be willing to make the cuts.
Sadly, the alternative is this… We follow California and decay so far into financial ruin that we begin to issue warrants to Arizona State employees. When the time comes that they cannot cash them for the full cash value issued, then they will realize what I am saying today is true. We are insolvent and we are slipping into bankruptcy. Many of us have tried to warn of this but so far it falls on deaf ears by members on both sides of the aisle.

My belief (State Senator Steve Pierce) is this: …We must do everything in our power to convince the Governor that she should declare a state of “fiscal emergency” and cut many of the so called voter-mandated spending programs like Prop 203, which is the First Things First Early Childhood Development and Health Fund, consisting of revenues generated by an increase in the state tax on tobacco products, donations and state appropriations.

OR … Address Prop 301 – that’s the K-12 funding creating a funding stream for public education from sales tax. Since sales tax fluctuates, the monies available to school districts will fluctuate annually. The intent of the majority of the Proposition 301 K-12 funding is to 1) increase teachers’ salaries, 2) increase accountability among public educational institutions and 3) reward highly-performing teachers. Let’s find other ways to do this.

These are examples of initiatives that we have passed thru voter initiatives. We could suspend them for 3-5 years so the hands of the legislative branch are no longer tied, use what revenues we have to create a balanced budget that would make the State then live within its means and create the plan to do so with the help of our constitution.

Next I would include restructuring and rebuilding education, AHCCCS, DHS and DES. I would suggest that the Governor form committees of the private sector to do this and their instructions would be this: streamline agencies in their functions, their spending, and their revenues. These committees would report back with an interim report in 45 days and then a complete report in 60 days. Then we put into operation those new guidelines along with what the State’s constitution demands and get our government back to the basics required by law.

We can grow out of this much quicker if we just use some common sense.

• Cuts in CIT, PIT (corporate income tax rates and personal income tax rates) were proposed in the past session and missed being passed by one vote last session. These would grow our economy and be a positive effect to business.

• Repealing property taxes would encourage companies to move here because they would know what was in the future, not guess.

• Easing of mandates, rules and regulations would help make it attractive to relocate here. Again, a positive that would tell businesses to relocate here and we will not create new regulations or new layers of rules to burden you.

We should start new programs like these for example:

• Self Certification system to streamline and save government resources by reducing the requirement for government personnel to inspect or certify simple items like paper work and simple record keeping
.
• Reduce “inspection personnel” by asking small businesses to perform some of these “certification” processes on their own rather than having a government inspector go out to their businesses and perform an inspection where they are just “checking the boxes.”

• Create the Arizona Volunteer Corps under ADOA where state citizens can sign up for 10 to 15% of state government jobs fulfilling a needed position and keep it as a volunteer program, where specific agreed upon wage and other state employment costs (ERE) like retirement, etc. are not born by the state because the “volunteer” is agreeing to the arrangement. Require each agency to identify 5 – 10% of their jobs which might be able to be filled by a “volunteer corps” worker.
Let’s start with ideas like this:

• Creating a business friendly environment that is willing to work with companies to move here.

• We currently have a group working on an energy park that could make Arizona a leader in energy and provide the state with cheaper energy.

• Additional revenue streams like casinos could bring new jobs, new tax bases, new businesses to the State that again will help us grow out of the financial mess we are in. We already have gaming in Arizona, look at the lottery, the Scratch It, go to any Circle K and gamble. Look at all the Indian lands…look at the tax base we are missing with those facilities. Why do we just look past this? Horse racing is a huge business nationwide and it could be brought here with a year round climate.

• We need to investigate this and other potential revenue sources thoroughly.

These are a few of my thoughts about the future… from where we are to where we need to be. We should strive to be the place to go for a business and a tax haven. Many of us in the Senate have used the term, “Safe Haven” and that’s what I want to be a part of…t o make Arizona a place that my grand children can live in and thrive, better than anywhere in the nation, or the world for that matter. … We can do it

DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE . . . I rise to compliment State Senator Steve Pierce’s assessment of the current financial dilemma he sees Arizona facing. Left drifting as it is currently, Senator Pierce’s prognostication could well be realized.

“We” differ, I believe, in that I do not find his solution includes inviting … you and me … to the table, but, rather the financial crisis will be resolved through more governmental directives, rule, regulations, bulletins … oh … but all oversight will per Senator Pierce occur as a result of self-certification…?

With more than 30 years of hands-on-experience in the water and wastewater industry in Arizona I can attest that … self-certification … is nothing more than … “feel-good” pabulum and does absolutely nothing to assure safe water for you, me, our children, grandchildren.

It strikes me that NOW is the time for US to begin an open, honest, timely evaluation of what the environment in Arizona can actually support. I am quite sure few will find the results particularly appealing and will result in what will be depicted by many as requesting draconian changes in how we live in an arid desert environment like Arizona.

How long do “we” continue to play the ostrich game and bury out heads in the sand hoping that if or when we pull our head out things have miraculously changed and for the better.

Together we can provide the change necessary … but … it will NEVER occur as a result of government edict…

We do agree on one thing … “we can do it” … and the reality is only “we” – that’s you and me can do it … without our 100% buy-in it simply won’t fly …

… I invite “us” to consider not to shame, blame or criticize but rather simply ask … what would it look like when it’s fixed … and own that ONLY we have the power to bring about the change needed to fix it …

Another “big” attempts to derail

Chevron Employs Felon and Drug-Trafficker to Derail Trial to Escape Enviro Crimes … by Hans Shan, …AlterNet … posted 30 Oct 09

…It appears that American oil giant Chevron is employing methods — and people — that are as dirty as the toxic waste pits it left scattered across the rainforest floor.

To defend itself in a major environmental lawsuit in Ecuador, it appears that American oil giant Chevron is employing methods — and people — that are as dirty as the toxic waste pits it left scattered across the rainforest floor.

In early September, Hans Shan wrote here about a dramatic last-ditch attempt by Chevron to monkey-wrench legal proceedings in Ecuador over massive oil contamination in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Chevron is facing up to $27 billion dollars in damages to clean up what has become known as the ‘Amazon Chernobyl,’ where tens of thousands of indigenous people and campesinos suffer an epidemic of cancer, miscarriages, birth defects, and other ailments.

On August 31, just weeks before a final judgment had been expected in the case, Chevron posted on YouTube what at first appeared to be a ‘smoking gun‘ spy video, which Chevron said showed the judge in the case ensnared in a bribery scandal.

DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE . . . Are we truly being asked to feign surprise that “big-oil” … CHEVRON … is attempting to “game” the legal justice system by allegedly resorting to “dirty” tricks … WOW … didn’t we learn from the collusion between ExxonMobil and ACADEMIA when they purchased their version of global warming the extent to which big oil will go to promote its agenda…?

This is what happens when “we” choose to allow others to define what constitutes full, open, timely, honest DISCLOSURE & TRANSPARENCY … ?

… I invite “us” to consider not to shame, blame or criticize but rather simply ask … what would it look like when it’s fixed …

TRUST US THIS MEAT IS GOOD FOR YOU

FSIS conducts tests for chemicals—including antibiotics, sulfonamides, and various other drugs, pesticides and environmental chemicals—in meat, poultry and egg products destined for human consumption. FSIS also conducts studies to determine presence of contaminants such as dioxin.

Same Source Supplier – Residue Violator List …This list contains information to help plant owners and operators as well as inspection personnel identify residue history of livestock suppliers. …Week of Oct 29, 2009 …
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Science/Chemistry/index.asp

DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE . . . The list for the week of Oct 29, 2009 is 92 pages long and a name recently associated with 21 violations respecting pesticides repeatedly appears … Cargill … but this time without any punitive action … not even a slap on the wrist … but then USDA is today nothing more than a “feel-good” taxpayer funded oversight agency providing CYA to for-profit-corporate-interest$.

Curious about what these residue violations were … well how about … penicillin, sulfadmethoxine, neomycin, flunixin, tetracycline, oxytetracycline, desfuroycleftiofur for starters …

Look’em up, they don’t exactly contribute our human health when we consume them from animal products.

These products of “big-pharma” are prevalent in organs of slaughtered animals especially in their liver and kidneys … the amount passed on to you and me when we consume these animals is not defined nor tested … hey, we don’t want to adversely affect for-profit-corporate-interest$-profit$ … do we…?

… I invite “us” to consider not to shame, blame or criticize but rather simply ask … what would it look like when it’s fixed … and own that ONLY we have the power to bring about the change needed to fix it …