Deep Politics: Environment, Democracy, Health, Privacy — and a Bit of Fun

The Four Legs of Democracy
(Measuring Democracy)
(c) Copyright 1996-2011 David Dilworth

Our Planet has no genuine governmental Democracy as of 2011.

Some places, such as California, come close but we still await – the real thing. Many “leaders” want you to believe that the only criteria necessary for a democracy is allowing people to vote. As we show here, that is far from true, and as you may be aware — even voting can be wholly eclipsed or nullified.

“Political Gap” Means Democracy is Lacking

Democracy is defined as “the Consent of the Governed.” It means shared power or shared governance. It can not reasonably be called consent when the most important political decisions made by government officials vary grossly from the will of most voters, from protection of the politically weak, and from the public good.
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Yes indeed folks.
We both know times are tough.

But, have you ever imagined yourself hired as James Bond?

Have you thought about working for the CIA?

Seriously.

They’re hiring, they pay great, want smart people (who don’t ask questions and don’t have any of that sticky moral baggage), and best of all – criminal laws don’t apply to employees.

Yes, you could get paid to officially “extraordinarily render” (also known as kidnap) people, use “enhanced coercive interrogation techniques” on them, and if you show promise they might even let you “put them down” or “euthanise” them.

Just like being a Mafia hitman, except there’s no threat of going to jail !

They’re recruiting this week, right here in Monterey at Middlebury College’s Monterey Institute of International Studies and its easy – “No reservations are required.”

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Let me try to help understand what this feels like for me.

Returning from Orbit a Space Shuttle Astronaut wisely observed —

 

“The first day we all pointed to our countries.

. . .

“The third or fourth day we were pointing to our continents.

. . .

“By the fifth day we were aware of only one Earth.”

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Brokaw Hall Memorial Bird Feeder for Heritage Society Fundraiser Created by Snick Farkas

Pacific Grove artist Snick Farkas has created a bird feeder entitled “Brokaw Hall Memorial Bird Feeder (Missing Plaque & Footprint)” for the PG Heritage Society’s 7th Annual Heritage Houses for the Birds Contest and Auction. The fundraiser culminates on Sunday, October 2, 2011 at Elmarie Dyke Open Space, when this year’s birdhouses are sold at silent auction.
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A test in India let people judge whether a volunteer was communicating by typing with a human or a software program. This type of test is called a Turing test.

The headline for most media on this was that 59 percent of the people voted mistakenly that the software was actually a human. Quite an achievement for a computer program.

However, almost overlooked was that the hidden humans typing responses were only judged to be human by 63.3 per cent of those voting !
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Ordinary People Locked Out of CraigsList with No Recourse — Is this “Arbitrary and Capricious ?”

“Craigslist locked me out for no apparent reason, with absolutely no warning, absolutely no possible way to get back in and no way to know what I did wrong. At the most, I had placed six ads for very different things – advertising a room for rent and some furniture.”

“Once your craigslist account is placed on hold it is gone forever.”

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Cure for the Common Cancer
Here’s news of some extraordinary research — an experimental drug that seems to be able to make impotent any cells infected by any type of virus without harming healthy neighboring cells.

Dr. Todd Rider: Inventor of DRACO - Virus Killer

New drug could cure nearly any viral infection

“Experimental drug could defeat any virus”

This appears to be as radical an improvement for human health as penicillin was to bacteria.

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“We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the Military-Industrial Complex.”

-President Eisenhower warning about the Cold War and its unjustified military spending proposals.

Not many remember Eisenhower, a 5-star General, was “Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe,” with responsibility for planning and supervising the successful invasion of France and Germany.

His was no trivial warning. He predicted our current multi-Trillion dollar welfare for weapons manufacturers.

See if after you read this – you can dispute that the United States “War Department” is colluding with military corporations to wage — Perpetual War against Peace.

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The daily Herald newspaper has gone so far off the deep end, abandoning their professional responsibility to Monterey Peninsula readers – that we need a whole new newspaper of record. A newspaper that explicitly refuses to hire such horrible anti-public interest staff as the Herald’s letters editor (Calkins) or their news manager (Livernois).

The Herald reporting has gotten so bad, covers so few important local stories (often only 2-4 local stories a day, and they haven’t attended or reported on our Water District meetings in years), and biases those that it does cover — it has ceased to be a newspaper. It has now become the Monterey County Daily Advertiser’s Puppet.

One example: For 9 years the Herald has refused to report so much as a word (let alone a single declarative sentence) on the most important solution to our water problem – our own Water Management District’s “Right-sized” desalination solution.

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In 2003 after a significant amount of research, I wrote about 3 extremely promising potential cures for skin cancer / melanoma.

Based on those research results, I predicted that within 10 years no one should die of skin cancer – the same as no one need die of starvation.

Well, its not quite ten years yet, but this week two drugs were approved which solidly cure some skin cancers :
Vemurafenib and the combination of Dacarbazine with Ipilimumab. An article explaining the breakthroughs is “Skin cancer treatment: Biggest breakthrough in 30 years” in NewScientist.
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Final (Monday July 17, 2011): We got it right. (I don’t know if anyone else was predicting “Carmageddon” would be a bust, but we nailed it.) This outcome would be no surprise to any well trained traffic engineer.

Friday July 15, 2011: You’ve heard the hype that California’s Freeway 405 closing will cause “Carmageddon” – gigantic gridlock.

What’s wrong with this?

1. Predictor of Distaster Cant Lose:
If gigantic gridlock occurs – they were clever.
If no gridlock occurs – their efforts to get people to do alternate transportation worked.

Thats extremely misleading because I predict – traffic will DECLINE !
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While the local Chamber of Commerce doesn’t really tout this feature, Pacific Grove, California is the world leader for a town or city with the most number of people killed by Great White sharks.

1952: December 7
Swimmer Barry Wilson was savagely bitten by a Great White shark less than 100 feet from Lover’s Point beach, a protected cove and popular family attraction. The shark was estimated at some 15 feet long. This is also California’s first recorded white shark fatality. Notably, Barry was inside the kelp forest.
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Here is a list of the most important articles and Documents about the Collins Scandal.

Who’s Culpable? (Overview of who did what – when, or “Culpable Characters in Collins’ Corruption”)

Ed Mitchell Report – listing who Collins billed, met with and when – starting in January 2010.

Monterey County Report on Collins Conflict of Financial Interest. (Summary of Preliminary Findings Regarding Director Stephen Collins’ Business Relationship with RMC Water and Environment and Marina Coast Water District)

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This is the full text of Ed Mitchell’s News Conference: July 1, 2011 at the Monterey County Courthouse Steps.

(For the complete original document – click here.)

News Conference 1 July 2010
(c) Copyright 2011 Ed Mitchell

My name is Ed Mitchell co-founder of the Prunedale Neighbors Group. The majority of county employees are honest and work hard each day to deliver excellent service to the public. Many are union members who have voluntarily taken pay cuts yet still worry whether they will be fired during this recession.

Unfortunately disturbing facts have caused the media to raised serious questions about the conduct of Mr. Steve Collins. AS a Director of the Monterey County Water Resources Agency did he break State law for personal gain while he lobbied county and state decision makers to approve the half-billion dollar Regional Desalination Water Project?
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“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

– William Shakespeare (Hamlet)

Marina Coast Water District got caught with their hands in the cookie jar, potentially with some people going to jail, so they hired a lawyer to write a report diverting attention by blaming the County.

The Herald article “Probe finds Marina Coast Water District followed law Marina Coast didn’t violate law, report says” raises a few questions.
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In the several decades I’ve been helping out protecting our environment, I have yet to hear a single person who genuinely obtains significant environmental protection (not just talks about it or merely works to do so) call themselves an “Environmentalist.”

The real heroes doing the heavy lifting year after year like Tim Hermach, Kieran Suckling and Peter Galvin, and Jim Bensman and their myriad colleagues never say anything like that (and I’ve certainly never claimed to be one.)

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Lets review those who had a serious role in Monterey County’s Collins Scandal about the Regional Desalination Project.

This does not necessarily mean they are guilty of a crime, but each benefited from and were getting paid as either a government official or a contractor.

1. Steve Collins, Director MCWRA – Billed, and was paid by, a benefiting private company (RMC) for his time acting as government official. This violated California Law: Government Code Sec. 1090. Formed a business entity called “CollinsWeeks Consulting LLC” on January 4, 2010 intending to get a contract to manage the regional desalination project. (Paid some $160,000 so far)

2. Lyndel Melton, RMC, Principal (Consulting) – $28 million dollar financial windfall from and fore-knowledge of Collins’ Violations of Law. Obtained contract to Manage Regional Desalination project. (Billed for ~ half a million dollars, but hasn’t been paid yet.)

3. Robert MacLean, President Cal-Am Water Company – financial benefit of potentially hundreds of millions of dollars from; and knew, or should have known of Collins‘ Violations of Law.

4. Lou Calcagno, County Supervisor – Cited as one of the two “prime movers for bringing Collins into his integral role on the water project.” Calcagno called Collins in early January 2010 to close the Regional Water Project deal.Began meeting with Collins in January 2010. Collins said he took directions from Supervisors Lou Calcagno and Dave Potter and that Calcagno was the “main handler.” Collins claims Calcagno repeatedly assured him that his simultaneous for-profit and government roles on the same subject were legal.

5. Dave Potter, County Supervisor– Began meeting with Collins in February 2010. Cited as one of the two “prime movers for bringing Collins into his integral role on the water project.” Called in January 2010 urging Collins “to work on the water project.”
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Reading a Herald headline today I’m not the only one who couldn’t help laughing — “Monterey County Supervisor Dave Potter named desal ‘watchdog.'”

My my my – that is uhhh . . . “interesting.”

Or to put it accurately “The Fox has Been Voted into ChickenHouse.” The only person less appropriate than Potter would be Collins himself, but he’s um… under a bit of a cloud lately (had to hire a criminal defense lawyer).
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Its the 21rst century and greedy, avaricious logging beasts still insist on destroying California’s few remaining forests for money.

You can help stop this fundamental harm – click here

http://www.pelicannetwork.net/stopclearcut.htm
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