NewScientist just published an article stating
“Pathologist Richard Ablin discovered the PSA antigen 40 years ago. He says it should never have been used as a cancer screening tool for all men“
The NewScientist article is ‘Prostate cancer test has been misused for money”
Richard Ablin’s book is “The Great Prostate Hoax: How big medicine hijacked the PSA test and caused a public health disaster”
2,000 Year Old Man Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner
Dear Friends,
Did you ever imagine biology research could help you finish your to-do list?
A team of researchers (including a Noble Prize winner) has found an easy way to make new stem cells from your own organs. This means that just like those Volvos that keep running for millions of miles, doctors could keep replacing your body parts that fail – not just until you make it to 100 years old — seemingly forever !
“If this can be reproduced in humans, it will be a paradigm changer” Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer at Advanced Cell Technology in Marlborough, Massachusetts
I LOVE this story !
Toothless, Girl Dragon
It combines touching-kindness and caring about children, inspiring them with science and engineering !!! – and even includes Dragons. What more could I ask for?
They not only respond, they apologize and before long … well you’ll have to read the story.
Obama Share Everything Plan
“The way in which [the Snowden] disclosures happened has been damaging to the United States and damaging to our intelligence capabilities…”
Yes, exactly how arresting a Bank robber is damaging to his freedom to steal and damaging to his false reputation for honesty.
David Barron – Assassination Legalizer
Infamous Executive Branch “Assassination Legal Memo” author David Barron was nominated to the First Circuit Appeals Court to be a lifetime appointed Judge by Barak Obama yesterday.
David Barron authored the notorious Office of Legal Counsel memos authorizing the assassination of an American citizen with zero due process – no court case was ever decided, no charges were ever even filed.
Wildflower Avalanche, Big Sur by David Dilworth
Have you ever met a guy who just couldn’t care a fig about a richly colored sunset, a Beatles tune, a fragrant flower, a massage or even ice cream ?
A lot of them are elected to official political positions and always vote against, and sometimes harangue against protecting a place because of its beauty or other aesthetic values like silence.
Others are just ordinary people who simply don’t get excited about those sorts of things.
Well, for a few years I’ve been searching for a term to describe such folks without an aesthetic sensibility. I tried out lots of awkward words without any success such as “Dis-thetic,” anti-aesthetic etc.
No one has any sacred or legal right to do anything they want with property they own.
This article is a concise overview of the Constitutional and legal foundations of Community Rights contrasted with Property Rights.
A government can restrict any use of property if it can make a fair argument or “any rational basis” for the public control of that property.
If zoning exists, it can strongly, even severely, restrict the activities one can do. You generally cannot drill an oil well in a residential area (except in Houston – seriously not kidding).
Pollution that travels beyond a property line (sewage, smoke, bullets, light, and even invisible things like radiation and noise) is a trespass, can be a nuisance or strict liability, can be extremely restricted by law, and in many cases is wholly prohibited with large penalties.
Obama Share Everything Plan
The following article is a summary of the Report “Personal Information Privacy Rights Table which outlines the five (plus one) crucial protections needed to insure legal privacy anywhere from any unauthorized collecting or use by governments or corporations.
This Privacy Rights report entitled “Personal Information Privacy Rights Table” was written long before the National Security Agency (NSA) and Britain’s equivalent Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) were exposed as comprehensively spying on their own citizens and citizens of and in other “friendly” countries. It was just updated to include references to these recent disclosures. It is notable that all the principles are identical save one. I have included genuine Whistleblower protection.
Each individual has Un-alienable self-executing Privacy Rights to wholly Control, Protect or Encrypt all personal information about themselves.
You also have the Right to Revoke the ability of anyone to obtain, use or keep any of your personal information. Additionally, you have the right to know who has, or controls, any of your personal information.
Continue reading
Secret FISA Court Judge Roger Vinson Orders ALL Your phone records collected. Photograph by Ben Twingley/AP
“Cockroaches do their best Work in the Dark.”
Years before the existence of the National Security Agency (NSA) was ever acknowledged, many of us read evidence that NSA was out of control. Now thanks to the anti-constitutional “Patriot” Act a FISA Court judge (Roger Vinson) was discovered secretly ordering a major phone company (Verizon) to turn over all of YOUR phone records to NSA.
“All government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery” – Jonathon Swift, “Drapier’s Letters“, 1724
This massively anti-constitutional privacy-invasion program only came into a strong light because of a secret court decision leaked to England’s Guardian newspaper “NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily.“ (This Presidential program to spy on phone calls of millions of Americans was first revealed in a 2006 USA-Today article by Leslie Cauley “NSA has massive database of Americans’ phone calls.“)
“Exclusive: Top secret court order requiring Verizon to hand over all call data shows scale of domestic surveillance under Obama”
Censor Kitty Gets Much Worse – Now Blacklist Kitty
“Because the pension question is now being litigated, I have chosen not to run your letters or your advertisements.”
“Marge Jameson, Editor
[email protected]
Cedar Street Times
306 Grand Ave., Pacific Grove, CA
Voice: 831-324-4742
Fax: 831-324-4745″
(Dated: Tue, Jun 4, 2013 at 11:45 AM)
This was in response to a request by Pacific Grove Taxpayer’s Association President John Moore to place a large advertisement and a letter explaining the side of the citizens fighting to protect the City of Pacific Grove from a 50+ million dollar financial suicide. (1)
Mr. Moore’s letter was also trying to respond to a personal attack on him by the Mayor (Kampe) in a commentary the newspaper had just published.
Cedar Street Times’ Publisher Jameson is clearly not a supporter of freedom of ideas. She earlier declared a Blacklist on letters from a middle of the road Pacific Grove resident. (See “Pacific Grove Newspaper Publisher Admits Deliberate Censorship.”)
– Frederick Douglass
If you and I oppose tyrannical acts – have we reached the limits of our endurance with U.S. Spying on us?
US Attorney General Eric Holder Seized AP Phone Records
Chief executive Gary Pruitt said the Associated Press was told on Friday the Justice department had gathered records of outgoing calls from more than 20 phone lines.
“The Associated Press has described the US government’s secret seizure of its journalists’ telephone records as a “massive and unprecedented intrusion“.
Mr Pruitt said there could be “no possible justification for such an overbroad collection“.
“The justice department has provided no explanation for the seizure.”
(c) Copyright 2013 David Dilworth
Three heart-wrenching tragedies in the past week showed three wildly different responses that are intensely revealing of our culture. (It would be inaccurate to described ours as a “civilization.”)
Boston Marathon Bomb
April 15, 2013Texas Fertilizer Explosion
April 17, 2013Deaths by Doctors & Hospitals
April 15, 2013
Killed 3 14 120-600
See references 1, 2 and 3)
News Coverage Massive, worldwide Widespread None.
Presidential acknowledgement of the deaths. Yes, Attended and Spoke at Memorial Service Yes "A tight-knit community has been shaken, and good, hard-working people have lost their lives," Silent. Zero acknowledgment.
Presidential Visit Yes No No
President On Those Responsible "Yes we will find you, and yes, you will face justice…" Silent about the West Fertilizer Co. plant Owners Silent about the Doctors and Hospitals
Commentary:
Let me point out some notable contrasts.
David Walton, Home in China
Have you been around Monterey long enough to remember the groundbreaking Sancho Panza Bohemian coffee house or Gallatin’s elegant dining ?
The genius behind Sancho Panza, and the grace at Gallatin’s was my friend David Walton who died in China this month.
David’s nephew Todd Walton gave me permission to share his memories, so splendidly illustrated with words — it almost brings David back to life.
__________________________
(c) Copyright Todd Walton 2013
My uncle David Walton died in China on March 8 at the ripe old age of eighty-seven, just a week ago as I write this, yet I have already received an email with photographs from the lovely memorial service that was held for him in Xichang where David lived and taught English for the last several years, his Xichang friends and students in attendance. And that memorial service email was just one of many I have received so far along with several phone calls from a tiny fraction of the hundreds of people who knew and loved David.
Pacific Grove City Clerk receiving the signed petitions with 1,303 signatures
This morning a group of dedicated Pacific Grove citizens turned in more than 1,300 signatures of registered Pacific Grove voters to put on the ballot whether to void an illegal pension increase gift to city employees in 2002.
“I’m disappointed that the city government chose to ignore the need for rescinding this generous “3 at 50” pension and refused to consider it in the negotiations. So we have been left with no alternative but to file our petition.” – Frances Grate
Update April 22, 2013: The County Elections Department certified that sufficient valid signatures have been turned in. While only 950 were needed, apparently some 1,995 were gathered and turned in.
It took the Sierra Club some 8 years to catch on to County Supervisor Dave Potter’s systematic Eco-Fraud.
Bill Kampe – Shark in Otter’s Clothing
How much longer before everyone catches on to Bill Kampe’s harmful intent and acts?
Kampe’s bad acts are now affecting our greater Peninsula community.
On a major water and development issue Kampe just cast a key vote against County Supervisor Jane Parker (by far the most public interest minded Supervisor in the past 30 years) and for Sand City Mayor David Pendergrass (the Peninsula’s most pro-development elected official).
“The board in January split 6-6 between Pendergrass and progressive Supervisor Jane Parker for the important committee. Supervisor Dave Potter, who was absent previously, voted for Pendergrass, and Pacific Grove Mayor Bill Kampe switched his vote to the Sand City mayor.” -Monterey Herald, “FORA lawyer quits, saying job isn’t fun anymore” March 15, 2013
Found this terrific old film of a fun song “Cow Cow Boogie.” Singing Cows, Credit: Tony Hutchings
Fencing – Another Way to Solve Disputes
This is an article about a debate on Logical Fallacies.
On one side is me, describing my Analysis of more than two dozen logical fallacies found in a blog article by Michael Eisen defending Genetically Modified food.
On the other side is an anonymous blogger hiding behind the name “Skeptico” who disputes my Analysis and ends up resorting to name-calling and falsely accusing me of lying. (and No, I don’t suspect Eisen and “Skeptico” are the same person.)
No matter which elements of this debate you end up agreeing with, when you complete this article you should come away with a better understanding of several important, deep and sometimes subtle or confusing logical fallacies. So here we go.
(Spoiler Warning – Apparently, it was obvious to everyone else but me that Skeptico’s intent was not to dispute my logic (as you will see, he loses every point – but then adds more to his growing mountain of irrationality) – but to distract from the debate by making it so complex – no one will want to read or care why Eisen’s irrational arguments were so awful.)
Opposite of Correct Isn’t Wrong – Credit: Non Sequitur Comics
To start, I wrote an introductory article called “New World Record? Six Logical Fallacies with a Single Sentence promoting Genetically Modified Food” to outline an Analysis of the two dozen Logical Fallacies made by Michael Eisen defending Genetically Modified food.
“Skeptico” disputes five of the fallacies I identified. He uses arguments about logical fallacies that superficially appear as though he knows what he is talking about. However, under calm analysis, while he commendably understands some fallacies correctly, Skeptico’s logic is often exposed as mistaken, myopic, tortured, rushed, and sometimes directly self-contradictory.
Skeptico fundamentally misconstrues, confuses or misunderstands highly important fallacies including Self-Contradiction, Burden of Proof Reversal, and Ambiguity Assertion.
Skeptico claims expertise at logical fallacies, so its a mystery why he employs them so often in his rebuttal and subsequent writings – unless he did it deliberately. Fallacies he commits include Contradiction, Straw man, Distraction, Guilt by Association, and Appeal to Hypocrisy / You Too / Tu Quoque. I wonder if he even realizes he does this ? Or . . .
Further damaging his arguments (and credibility), he unreasonably implies that I (as a reader of Eisen’s article) am responsible for defining words used by Eisen; the original author ! Skeptico enigmatically fights for obscuring language / against agreeing on the meaning of key terms, and he refuses to answer respectful clarifying questions.
Jud Vandevere at Ed Leeper’s Costume Party
Our world just lost one its finest people, and the highest quality encyclopedia of natural phenomena he put together in his mind and happily shared with all.
Monterey’s Jud Vandevere passed away on Christmas leaving a legacy of dramatically more insightful and inspired people in his wake.
Drumbeats normally make me smile. They’re an inducement to dance; drumming inspires friendship. There’s a marvelous drum class in my community that inspires thousands when they play in public like last New Years eve. Smiles as far as you can see across the crowd.
There’s another kind of drumbeat that alarms me. It occurs when a country wants to go to war without justification. They “frame” another country for crimes that never happened; they manufacture evidence of crimes by the intended victim.
My own country has done this twice in the recent past. In 2002 George Bush 2nd used false information of “Weapons of Mass Destruction” to get us into a trillion dollar war in Afghanistan and then Iraq. In 1991 George Bush the 1rst used false information from one of the US’s biggest Public Relations firms to get us into Kuwait. (The “Incubator Baby Hoax”).
Now contrary to Obama’s reasoned articulation on why it is a bad idea, it seems the Obama administration is beating the drums to go to war with Iran. Every week you hear another reason why the US should go to war with Iran – or why Israel would be justified in “Pre-emptively” attacking them as the US did to Iraq.
There’s a new campaign mailing advertising Potter for Supervisor with the text “Our Place, our values, our voice. . . “
Potter Fantasy
The photograph is of a place that doesn’t exist – just like Potter’s “friendship with our environment.”
What’s really going on is the photograph is of Big Sur’s Point Sur, but just like Potter’s distorted political ads, the photograph is reversed – side to side.