Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Better airport scanners delayed by privacy fears
Many adults to not mind exposing their naked body to strangers, and thats fine. But parents, at least think of your children before mindlessly sending them through some Tube without asking questions. If it takes a 360 degree naked picture of you, it will also being doing the same with your child.
You do not know who the TSA officer is in the other room who is viewing your childs naked picture. You dont know if they are a sexual predator or not. You do not know if they molest children or even get off on kiddie porn.
This is a tough subject to bring up. But parents need to think about the tough subjects if they are going to protect their children, from all forms of abuse.
And as for adults, our only options for flying should not be limited to porno pictures or being sexually assaulted by a TSA agent.
You do not know who the TSA officer is in the other room who is viewing your childs naked picture. You dont know if they are a sexual predator or not. You do not know if they molest children or even get off on kiddie porn.
This is a tough subject to bring up. But parents need to think about the tough subjects if they are going to protect their children, from all forms of abuse.
And as for adults, our only options for flying should not be limited to porno pictures or being sexually assaulted by a TSA agent.
...But the technology has raised significant concerns among privacy watchdogs because it can show the body's contours with embarrassing clarity. Those fears have slowed the introduction of the machines.
Jay Stanley, public education director for the American Civil Liberties Union's Technology and Liberty Program, said the machines essentially perform "virtual strip searches that see through your clothing and reveal the size and shape of your body."...
Monday, December 28, 2009
Pharmaceuticals are more dangerous to your health than terrorists' exploding underwear (satire)
Source: Natural News
(NaturalNews) As all of North America now seems to be focused on the issue of one terrorist wearing a pair of exploding underwear, I might as well comment on this latest bit of security theater that seems to have transfixed the nation. Pictures of the exploding underwear "bomb" have now surfaced on the 'net. You can view them at ABC News: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/north...
Here is exactly what the text on this page says (I'm not making this up, this is seriously true): (warning: Some of the content here is graphic, read at your own risk...)
"The first photo, to the left, shows the slightly charred and singed underpants with the bomb packet still in place."
I don't know what you think, but if you did an underwear search of all the passengers flying these days, you'd probably find half of them are wearing underwear that's slightly charred and singed with the "bomb packet" still in place.
The gastrointestinal health of the general population is atrocious! And by the time you add in some airport food and in-flight processed food snacks, pretty much everyone on the airplane is setting off a little bomb packet by the time they get off the plane. (Why do you think everybody can't wait to get off in such a hurry?)
Processed food has turned us all into in-flight terrorists!
Frankly, I'm not sure what's more of a threat to public health: Lousy airport security or the digestive effects of in-flight meals. But they both have one thing in common: Underwear...
How to explode your rectum without harming anyone nearby
The ABC News story mentioned above goes on to state that this terrorist's underwear was packing 80 grams of an explosive powder called PETN, which government tests have revealed can blow a (tiny) hole in the wall of an airplane.
This is all brilliant stuff, of course. Truly brilliant. This whole idea that underwear explosives might destroy an airplane all makes sense except for the fact that the terrorist's butt cheeks are in the way!
Had this explosive packet actually been set off, I can tell you exactly what would have happened: There would have been a really loud pop, immediately followed by in-flight pieces of exploding butt cheeks.
I'm not trying to be funny here. This is a true description of the way bombs work. They explode outward, destroying whatever is closest to them first. And this guy actually had this bomb wedged in between his butt cheeks. A sort of "wedgie bomb", if you will. A wedgie with a bang.
This is a serious discussion. There was an attempted assassination of a Middle Eastern prince that happened not long ago. It was even reported in the press. The assassin had somehow managed to shove explosives into his rectum -- I swear I'm not making this up -- and waltzed right through security with it. He then shuffled toward his target, fired off the bomb and subsequently blew his butt cheeks all over the room... without harming anyone else.
Brilliant, huh?
Think about it. In World War II films, you know how you always see brave soldiers throwing themselves on an enemy grenade to protect their squad buddies? That actually works because whoever is on top of the grenade absorbs the explosion. It's basic physics.
In the case of super wedgie terrorist, he's sitting right on top of the explosive powder! Who do you think is going to absorb the full force of the explosion? It's going to be the guy sitting on it.
This is physics 101. A small bomb in somebody's underwear is really only a threat to the idiot wearing the underwear.
The first rule of making bombs is that you probably should not be sitting on top of them when they go off.
Please remove your shoes and your underwear...
Predictably, U.S. authorities have now talked this up into a huge security threat. And sooner or later, it's all bound to lead up to mandatory underwear searches!
I can see it now: A row of air passengers stands nervously at the gate, nearly ready to board the plane when TSA enforcers approach and suddenly demand that everybody bend over and pull down their underwear for a quick search for "explosives."
Sadly, most Americans are so brain-numbed by security propaganda, they would probably go along with it!
So why not just go all the way with this and pass a new TSA rule requiring all Americans to fly with no underwear!
The captain comes on the intercom, saying, "Visibility is 80 miles, we're climbing to 29,000 feet, and we're expecting this flight to be a little breezy..."
Yep, it's undies off when boarding planes from now on. As you pass through security, you can toss your water bottles in one bin, your underwear and panties in another bin, and your self respect in a third. Essentially, if these security searches get any more personal, they're going to undress us from head to toe and make us wear medical gowns, chained to our seats like convicts in a prisoner transport plane. Once we land, we can reclaim our underwear and, if we're lucky, a bit of our lost pride.
Your bra just might contain a bomb...
Don't you just love how air travel authorities keep coming up with new stuff that you have to throw away because it might be a bomb? Remember when we could bring actual water on airplanes? Those were the good old days.
Then one day they declare "Your water might be a bomb!" So millions of passengers now ditch their water at the security gate, throwing it all to waste.
Then they came up with the idea that terrorists could "mix binary liquids" to make liquid bombs in the airplane toilet, and they used that to ban all liquids. So much for your toothpaste, contact lens solution, herbal tinctures and superfood beverage. Toss it in the trash if you want to get on this plane, buddy!
Now they're going after your underwear. And it won't be long before you have to strip down to your birthday suit and hand over your undies for an "inspection" -- right before they send you through the low-frequency X-ray machine that scans your body parts and displays them on a screen as if you were butt naked.
Just wait for a female terrorist who hides some explosives in her bra one day. Following that, a new TSA security rule will be initiated and all flights will become bra-less. No underwear, no bras, no water... what the heck is happening here? Are airlines going to shave our heads and tattoo barcodes on our arms, too, just in case they lose track of which person was handcuffed to which seat?
Absurd security
This is all getting beyond the point of absurdity. If a terrorist wants to pack a little explosive powder and stuff it down their pants, or up their rectum, or have it surgically sewn into their abdomen, there's nothing we can do to stop that short of strip-searching every single passenger.
And that's not security: That's just a demeaning police state that treats its own people like criminals. If we all have to fly without underwear and bras, the terrorists win!
Besides, all this ridiculous security isn't about saving lives. If U.S. authorities wanted to save lives, they would ban aspartame, or outlaw chemotherapy, or arrest the crooks at the drug companies who are killing over a hundred thousand people every single year -- a far greater number than those killed by in-flight acts of terror (even including 2001 and 9/11).
Even if there were no airport security at all, the risk of being killed by an in-flight act of terror would be a fraction of the risk of being killed by pharmaceuticals in any given year. So why are U.S. authorities going crazy about airport security when so many Americans are dying from pharmaceutical toxicity every single day? Statistically speaking, the number of people killed by dangerous prescription medications is equivalent to one jumbo air liner falling out of the sky and crashing to the ground every single day.
Yet that threat to health and safety goes entirely unmentioned. Un-investigated. Un-noticed.
So while over 100,000 Americans are dying each year from dangerous medications, the mainstream media has us all fixated on a pair of exploding underwear? Are you kidding me?
The whole thing has become a complete circus. Real threats to your safety are ignored while miniscule threats are hyped up as if they were life-and-death to everyone.
And yet, amazingly, most air travelers still go along with it!
This just goes to show you how easily the population can be controlled by fear. I never thought that a photo of a pair of singed underwear would scare a hundred million adults into giving up their freedoms, but this is what has apparently taken place.
How about zero-security flights?
Here's an idea: Airlines should offer optional zero-security flights. On those flights, there are no security checks. Anyone with a valid concealed-carry permit could bring any weapons they want, and the pilot and co-pilot can be armed, too. You can pass right through security with no X-rays, no checks, no delays. You simply sign a disclaimer and go right from the check-in counter to your boarding gate with zero hassles.
I would gladly fly on these zero-security flights. You know why? Because 99.99% of the people flying on those planes would be cops packing heat, ex-military people packing heat and concealed-carry citizens packing heat. Any terrorist stupid enough to try something on such a flight would find himself facing a citizen's army of vigilant passengers.
Zero-security flights would be the safest airplanes in the sky, because no terrorist, hijacker or violent criminal would dare board one.
Plus, we all get to keep our underwear on.
(NaturalNews) As all of North America now seems to be focused on the issue of one terrorist wearing a pair of exploding underwear, I might as well comment on this latest bit of security theater that seems to have transfixed the nation. Pictures of the exploding underwear "bomb" have now surfaced on the 'net. You can view them at ABC News: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/north...
Here is exactly what the text on this page says (I'm not making this up, this is seriously true): (warning: Some of the content here is graphic, read at your own risk...)
"The first photo, to the left, shows the slightly charred and singed underpants with the bomb packet still in place."
I don't know what you think, but if you did an underwear search of all the passengers flying these days, you'd probably find half of them are wearing underwear that's slightly charred and singed with the "bomb packet" still in place.
The gastrointestinal health of the general population is atrocious! And by the time you add in some airport food and in-flight processed food snacks, pretty much everyone on the airplane is setting off a little bomb packet by the time they get off the plane. (Why do you think everybody can't wait to get off in such a hurry?)
Processed food has turned us all into in-flight terrorists!
Frankly, I'm not sure what's more of a threat to public health: Lousy airport security or the digestive effects of in-flight meals. But they both have one thing in common: Underwear...
How to explode your rectum without harming anyone nearby
The ABC News story mentioned above goes on to state that this terrorist's underwear was packing 80 grams of an explosive powder called PETN, which government tests have revealed can blow a (tiny) hole in the wall of an airplane.
This is all brilliant stuff, of course. Truly brilliant. This whole idea that underwear explosives might destroy an airplane all makes sense except for the fact that the terrorist's butt cheeks are in the way!
Had this explosive packet actually been set off, I can tell you exactly what would have happened: There would have been a really loud pop, immediately followed by in-flight pieces of exploding butt cheeks.
I'm not trying to be funny here. This is a true description of the way bombs work. They explode outward, destroying whatever is closest to them first. And this guy actually had this bomb wedged in between his butt cheeks. A sort of "wedgie bomb", if you will. A wedgie with a bang.
This is a serious discussion. There was an attempted assassination of a Middle Eastern prince that happened not long ago. It was even reported in the press. The assassin had somehow managed to shove explosives into his rectum -- I swear I'm not making this up -- and waltzed right through security with it. He then shuffled toward his target, fired off the bomb and subsequently blew his butt cheeks all over the room... without harming anyone else.
Brilliant, huh?
Think about it. In World War II films, you know how you always see brave soldiers throwing themselves on an enemy grenade to protect their squad buddies? That actually works because whoever is on top of the grenade absorbs the explosion. It's basic physics.
In the case of super wedgie terrorist, he's sitting right on top of the explosive powder! Who do you think is going to absorb the full force of the explosion? It's going to be the guy sitting on it.
This is physics 101. A small bomb in somebody's underwear is really only a threat to the idiot wearing the underwear.
The first rule of making bombs is that you probably should not be sitting on top of them when they go off.
Please remove your shoes and your underwear...
Predictably, U.S. authorities have now talked this up into a huge security threat. And sooner or later, it's all bound to lead up to mandatory underwear searches!
I can see it now: A row of air passengers stands nervously at the gate, nearly ready to board the plane when TSA enforcers approach and suddenly demand that everybody bend over and pull down their underwear for a quick search for "explosives."
Sadly, most Americans are so brain-numbed by security propaganda, they would probably go along with it!
So why not just go all the way with this and pass a new TSA rule requiring all Americans to fly with no underwear!
The captain comes on the intercom, saying, "Visibility is 80 miles, we're climbing to 29,000 feet, and we're expecting this flight to be a little breezy..."
Yep, it's undies off when boarding planes from now on. As you pass through security, you can toss your water bottles in one bin, your underwear and panties in another bin, and your self respect in a third. Essentially, if these security searches get any more personal, they're going to undress us from head to toe and make us wear medical gowns, chained to our seats like convicts in a prisoner transport plane. Once we land, we can reclaim our underwear and, if we're lucky, a bit of our lost pride.
Your bra just might contain a bomb...
Don't you just love how air travel authorities keep coming up with new stuff that you have to throw away because it might be a bomb? Remember when we could bring actual water on airplanes? Those were the good old days.
Then one day they declare "Your water might be a bomb!" So millions of passengers now ditch their water at the security gate, throwing it all to waste.
Then they came up with the idea that terrorists could "mix binary liquids" to make liquid bombs in the airplane toilet, and they used that to ban all liquids. So much for your toothpaste, contact lens solution, herbal tinctures and superfood beverage. Toss it in the trash if you want to get on this plane, buddy!
Now they're going after your underwear. And it won't be long before you have to strip down to your birthday suit and hand over your undies for an "inspection" -- right before they send you through the low-frequency X-ray machine that scans your body parts and displays them on a screen as if you were butt naked.
Just wait for a female terrorist who hides some explosives in her bra one day. Following that, a new TSA security rule will be initiated and all flights will become bra-less. No underwear, no bras, no water... what the heck is happening here? Are airlines going to shave our heads and tattoo barcodes on our arms, too, just in case they lose track of which person was handcuffed to which seat?
Absurd security
This is all getting beyond the point of absurdity. If a terrorist wants to pack a little explosive powder and stuff it down their pants, or up their rectum, or have it surgically sewn into their abdomen, there's nothing we can do to stop that short of strip-searching every single passenger.
And that's not security: That's just a demeaning police state that treats its own people like criminals. If we all have to fly without underwear and bras, the terrorists win!
Besides, all this ridiculous security isn't about saving lives. If U.S. authorities wanted to save lives, they would ban aspartame, or outlaw chemotherapy, or arrest the crooks at the drug companies who are killing over a hundred thousand people every single year -- a far greater number than those killed by in-flight acts of terror (even including 2001 and 9/11).
Even if there were no airport security at all, the risk of being killed by an in-flight act of terror would be a fraction of the risk of being killed by pharmaceuticals in any given year. So why are U.S. authorities going crazy about airport security when so many Americans are dying from pharmaceutical toxicity every single day? Statistically speaking, the number of people killed by dangerous prescription medications is equivalent to one jumbo air liner falling out of the sky and crashing to the ground every single day.
Yet that threat to health and safety goes entirely unmentioned. Un-investigated. Un-noticed.
So while over 100,000 Americans are dying each year from dangerous medications, the mainstream media has us all fixated on a pair of exploding underwear? Are you kidding me?
The whole thing has become a complete circus. Real threats to your safety are ignored while miniscule threats are hyped up as if they were life-and-death to everyone.
And yet, amazingly, most air travelers still go along with it!
This just goes to show you how easily the population can be controlled by fear. I never thought that a photo of a pair of singed underwear would scare a hundred million adults into giving up their freedoms, but this is what has apparently taken place.
How about zero-security flights?
Here's an idea: Airlines should offer optional zero-security flights. On those flights, there are no security checks. Anyone with a valid concealed-carry permit could bring any weapons they want, and the pilot and co-pilot can be armed, too. You can pass right through security with no X-rays, no checks, no delays. You simply sign a disclaimer and go right from the check-in counter to your boarding gate with zero hassles.
I would gladly fly on these zero-security flights. You know why? Because 99.99% of the people flying on those planes would be cops packing heat, ex-military people packing heat and concealed-carry citizens packing heat. Any terrorist stupid enough to try something on such a flight would find himself facing a citizen's army of vigilant passengers.
Zero-security flights would be the safest airplanes in the sky, because no terrorist, hijacker or violent criminal would dare board one.
Plus, we all get to keep our underwear on.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
TEXANS IN WASHINGTON: Paul goes from ridicule to respect
Source: Chron.com
Ron Paul is a white-haired, soft-voiced, 74-year-old doctor who has twice failed in presidential campaigns and is frequently derided by his Republican colleagues as an ideologue from the party's libertarian fringe.
No one would have been surprised if the Lake Jackson congressman had slipped off the political radar after his 2008 quixotic bid for the presidency, his ambitions for higher office thwarted.
But Paul has refused to go out to the political pasture to live in comfortable irrelevance. As odd as it may seem, he has become one of the most influential Republicans in a capital city dominated by liberal Democrats.
The subject that has brought him to prominence is the same issue that subjected him to ridicule from establishment Republicans for years: his long-standing opposition to the nation's monetary system and the Federal Reserve Board that prints money and controls its supply.
“On economic matters, he was seen as a way outside the mainstream,” University of Houston political scientist Richard Murray said. “His views were somewhat 19th century in the view of a lot of economists.”
Well, they say history repeats itself, and suddenly Paul's “19th-century” thinking seems appealing to those suffering through the first economic meltdown of the 21st century.
No longer ignored
Paul's proposal to audit the Federal Reserve — first introduced by the Texas congressman more than 20 years ago — recently sailed through the House Financial Services Committee.
His bill has an astonishing 317 co-sponsors in the House, three-quarters of the chamber's members.
In the Senate, where Paul asked Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont socialist, to introduce a similar bill, the measure already has 30 co-sponsors.
And while he was once ignored by his political antagonists at the Federal Reserve, Paul is now engaged in a very public policy debate with Fed Chair Ben Bernanke, who has criticized the Texan's legislation in speeches, interviews and an op-ed last month in the Washington Post. Asked about Paul's proposal, the chairman declared it would be “bad for markets, bad for the Fed's credibility, bad for inflation expectations and bad for the dollar.”
But not bad for Paul. The lawmaker has been booked solid with media interviews and college speeches; indeed, the Don Quixote of congressional Republicans has had more success in 2009 than any time in his three-decade legislative career.
“I never had so many calls as I had last week,” Paul said.
It's a sweet moment for someone who has long been on the margins of Washington politics. Paul attracted his share of attention during his presidential campaign, but even then, he was painted as a fringe candidate zealously supported by libertarian ideologues.
In the House, Paul was ignored by Democrats and marginalized by Republicans. He was punished for the very views that earn him so much adulation today.
According to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., in 2003, when Paul was set to assume the chairmanship of the Financial Services subcommittee, Republican higher-ups eliminated the panel because they didn't want Paul in charge.
“He told me, ‘I won't get anywhere until you become the chairman,' ” Frank said.
Paul may have been kidding at the time, but his words were prophetic.
With the Democrats in control and Frank as chairman, the committee voted 43-26 in favor of Paul's amendment that would give Congress more power latitude in auditing the Fed.
“I'm very proud to have been involved in bringing his amendment to a vote,” said Frank, who still voted against it.
Going mainstream
In Texas, analysts see Paul's renaissance as a reflection of the changing political landscape of America.
“Ron Paul's got a hell of a lot more political support now than just fringe nuts,” Murray said. “It's gone mainstream now.”
But it's not that Paul has gone mainstream. Rather, the mainstream has gone Paul-ite, with popular anger at Wall Street and the Federal Reserve crystallizing into support for policies Paul has long advocated.
“What happened was the Fed got itself in trouble and he's the one who was there to take advantage of it,” Frank said.
Paul says concerns about American monetary policy — specifically President Richard Nixon taking the country off the gold standard in 1971 — drove him into politics, and he's spent most of his career wondering whether people would ever care. The answer, suddenly, is yes, something the congressman admits “seems strange after all these years.”
He's also noticed that his colleagues are treating him differently, too.
“It was like, there he goes on his way, nice guy, but he's not in the ballgame,” Paul said.
“But today, I think they're paying a little more attention.”
Ron Paul is a white-haired, soft-voiced, 74-year-old doctor who has twice failed in presidential campaigns and is frequently derided by his Republican colleagues as an ideologue from the party's libertarian fringe.
No one would have been surprised if the Lake Jackson congressman had slipped off the political radar after his 2008 quixotic bid for the presidency, his ambitions for higher office thwarted.
But Paul has refused to go out to the political pasture to live in comfortable irrelevance. As odd as it may seem, he has become one of the most influential Republicans in a capital city dominated by liberal Democrats.
The subject that has brought him to prominence is the same issue that subjected him to ridicule from establishment Republicans for years: his long-standing opposition to the nation's monetary system and the Federal Reserve Board that prints money and controls its supply.
“On economic matters, he was seen as a way outside the mainstream,” University of Houston political scientist Richard Murray said. “His views were somewhat 19th century in the view of a lot of economists.”
Well, they say history repeats itself, and suddenly Paul's “19th-century” thinking seems appealing to those suffering through the first economic meltdown of the 21st century.
No longer ignored
Paul's proposal to audit the Federal Reserve — first introduced by the Texas congressman more than 20 years ago — recently sailed through the House Financial Services Committee.
His bill has an astonishing 317 co-sponsors in the House, three-quarters of the chamber's members.
In the Senate, where Paul asked Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont socialist, to introduce a similar bill, the measure already has 30 co-sponsors.
And while he was once ignored by his political antagonists at the Federal Reserve, Paul is now engaged in a very public policy debate with Fed Chair Ben Bernanke, who has criticized the Texan's legislation in speeches, interviews and an op-ed last month in the Washington Post. Asked about Paul's proposal, the chairman declared it would be “bad for markets, bad for the Fed's credibility, bad for inflation expectations and bad for the dollar.”
But not bad for Paul. The lawmaker has been booked solid with media interviews and college speeches; indeed, the Don Quixote of congressional Republicans has had more success in 2009 than any time in his three-decade legislative career.
“I never had so many calls as I had last week,” Paul said.
It's a sweet moment for someone who has long been on the margins of Washington politics. Paul attracted his share of attention during his presidential campaign, but even then, he was painted as a fringe candidate zealously supported by libertarian ideologues.
In the House, Paul was ignored by Democrats and marginalized by Republicans. He was punished for the very views that earn him so much adulation today.
According to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., in 2003, when Paul was set to assume the chairmanship of the Financial Services subcommittee, Republican higher-ups eliminated the panel because they didn't want Paul in charge.
“He told me, ‘I won't get anywhere until you become the chairman,' ” Frank said.
Paul may have been kidding at the time, but his words were prophetic.
With the Democrats in control and Frank as chairman, the committee voted 43-26 in favor of Paul's amendment that would give Congress more power latitude in auditing the Fed.
“I'm very proud to have been involved in bringing his amendment to a vote,” said Frank, who still voted against it.
Going mainstream
In Texas, analysts see Paul's renaissance as a reflection of the changing political landscape of America.
“Ron Paul's got a hell of a lot more political support now than just fringe nuts,” Murray said. “It's gone mainstream now.”
But it's not that Paul has gone mainstream. Rather, the mainstream has gone Paul-ite, with popular anger at Wall Street and the Federal Reserve crystallizing into support for policies Paul has long advocated.
“What happened was the Fed got itself in trouble and he's the one who was there to take advantage of it,” Frank said.
Paul says concerns about American monetary policy — specifically President Richard Nixon taking the country off the gold standard in 1971 — drove him into politics, and he's spent most of his career wondering whether people would ever care. The answer, suddenly, is yes, something the congressman admits “seems strange after all these years.”
He's also noticed that his colleagues are treating him differently, too.
“It was like, there he goes on his way, nice guy, but he's not in the ballgame,” Paul said.
“But today, I think they're paying a little more attention.”
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Former head of CDC lands lucrative job as president of Merck vaccine division
Source: Natural News
You've heard it before, how the pharmaceutical industry has a giant "revolving door" through which corporations and government agencies frequently exchange key employees. That reality was driven home in a huge way today when news broke that Dr. Julie Gerberding, who headed the CDC from 2002 through 2009, landed a top job with Merck, one of the largest drug companies in the world. Her job there? She's the new president of the vaccine division.
How convenient. That means the former head of the CDC was very likely cultivating a relationship with Merck all these years, and now comes the big payoff: Heading up a $5 billion division that sells cervical cancer vaccines (like Gardasil), chickenpox vaccines and of course H1N1 swine flu vaccines, too.
So what's the problem with all this? The problem is that private industry and government health offices such as the CDC or FDA should never be so cozy. When they are, it creates an environment of collusion between Big Government and Big Pharma. We've already seen this with the government-led push for swine flu vaccines that are manufactured (and sold) by drug companies like Merck.
You might even say that the CDC already functions as the marketing division of the pharmaceutical industry. It was the CDC that pushed so hard for swine flu vaccines, even amid the obvious realization that swine flu was no more dangerous than seasonal flu. To this day, the CDC still hasn't bothered to recommend vitamin D for the prevention of either seasonal flu or swine flu. It remains heavily invested in the lucrative vaccine approach -- an approach that just happens to financially benefit the very corporations that are hiring ex-CDC employees like Dr. Gerberding.
How to triple your salary by selling out to industry
Getting a job offer from Big Pharma, by the way, is one of the most-desired career paths for many CDC employees (and FDA workers, for that matter). It's easy to accomplish it, too: Just operate in your government position as if you were a Big Pharma lackey. If you produce enough good business for the drug industry, sooner or later they'll offer you a lucrative position that doubles or triples your government salary (or even better).
Now, I don't want to lump all CDC employees in this same pathetic group, because there are indeed a great many bright, honest scientists working at the CDC who do excellent work tracking pandemics and trying to save lives. They are overshadowed, however, by those ambitious profit seekers who see their CDC job as merely a stepping stone for a far better-paying job at a major drug companies. And by any measure, Dr. Gerberding just cashed in big.
Her actual salary at Merck hasn't been publicly released yet, but given that she's heading up a $5 billion vaccine industry, it's probably not chump change. I'd bet she's now making at least ten times the salary of the President of the United States (and probably a lot more).
So now, Dr. Gerberding's new job involves the incessant promotion of yet more vaccines -- a job not very different from the one she held at the CDC, come to think of it. More vaccines for more diseases afflicting more people... it's just another day at Merck, where the world is never so healthy that it doesn't need one more mandatory vaccine.
As a special bonus to Merck in all this, Dr. Gerberding has a wealth of contacts not merely throughout the CDC, but also at the World Health Organization. When you're the former head of the CDC, the top public health officials of the world are literally just one call away. But starting today, that call is a commercial, corporate-sponsored call, not a public health call. There's a huge difference.
Does Dr. Gerberding suffer from an "ethics deficiency?"
My question in all this is whether Dr. Gerberding has any real ethics when it comes to issues like vaccines and public health. If she does have such ethics, why would she accept a job with a company that has been engaged in outright scientific fraud? (http://www.naturalnews.com/027582_M...)
Why would she go to work for a company that maintained a "hit list" of doctors to attack and "neutralize?" This is true -- it came out in recent court documents (http://www.naturalnews.com/027116_M...).
Why would she take a job with a company that has a pattern of threatening doctors who speak out against its drugs? (http://www.naturalnews.com/026420_M...)
Why would she be okay with the idea of working for a company that commits scientific fraud by hiding documents showing its drugs to be dangerous? (http://www.naturalnews.com/024072_Z...)
Why would she feel okay about working for a company that dumps chemicals and vaccine waste products into the public water system? (http://www.naturalnews.com/023124_w...)
Why would she want to collect a paycheck from a company that has been caught hiring ghost writers to pen "independent" science papers submitted to science journals, when they were actually crafted by Merck? (http://www.naturalnews.com/023052_M...)
Why would she feel comfortable representing a company that committed blatant scientific fraud with its Vytorin cholesterol drug study? (http://www.naturalnews.com/022485_s...)
Maybe Dr. Gerberding is fine with all this. Maybe she has really "flexible" ethics. Or maybe she suffers from an "ethics deficiency" -- an epidemic disease for which Merck apparently has no vaccine at all.
In any case, she's now allied herself with a company engaged in so many repeated acts of fraud that in my opinion all its executives should be arrested and prosecuted for crimes against humanity. Those executives will now include Dr. Gerberding, it seems.
Did the CDC cover Merck's back?
You might say, though, that she hasn't done anything yet for Merck. But check this out: As a previous NaturalNews story explains, when a fourteen-year-old girl named Jessica died following a cervical cancer vaccine injection (made by Merck), the CDC covered for Merck and pointed the finger at the girl's birth control pills.
Care to guess who was heading the CDC at the time of this maneuver? Dr. Julie Gerberding, now a top Merck executive.
You pat my back and I'll pat yours.
For years, under the lead of Dr. Gerberding, the CDC has maintained a rather bizarre position that Merck's vaccines are so safe that all side effects should be dismissed outright. This is explained in a Dallas Morning News article (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon...), among other places.
The CDC, in other words, has been running defense for Merck for many years, downplaying vaccine side effects and insisting that Merck's vaccines are safe. Now that the president of Merck's vaccine division and the former chief of the CDC are one and the same, it brings up obvious questions of whether there was some level of ongoing collusion between the CDC and Merck and how deeply Dr. Gerberding might have been involved.
Some of the word games played by Dr. Gerberding demonstrate amazing Clintonian-like speech patterns designed to deflect blame from Merck's vaccines. Listen to this exchange where Dr. Gerberding indirectly admits that vaccines can cause autism (or as she says, "Autism-like symptoms," which is exactly the same thing, as the symptoms define the disease in the first place). Watch it yourself in this segment on YouTube -- this is a must see video segment on the link between vaccines and autism:
Who else is on the Merck team at the CDC?
That the CDC's chief would be offered one of the very top jobs at Merck now makes me wonder just how deep the culture of collusion between Merck and the CDC really goes. How many other CDC employees are in line for future job offers from Merck -- and what might they do in order to win those jobs?
There's a solution to all this, of course: Pass a law that bans employees of the CDC, FDA, FTC, EPA or USDA from ever working for pharmaceutical companies. The people who run the regulatory agencies and public health offices should never be allowed to leap into employment at the very same companies they were once regulating. There's just too much risk of cross-contamination of influence, which is why we have the corruption and collusion problems we're seeing today with the FDA, FTC and CDC, all of which seem to be operating as marketing extensions of the pharmaceutical industry.
As long as the revolving door remains wide open between Big Pharma and Big Government, there will be a strong tendency towards corporate collusion that betrays the people whom government is supposed to serve. Instead of our government serving the People, in other words, it increasingly exists to serve the interests of Big Business. And big business doesn't get much bigger than Big Pharma.
After all, inventing fictitious disease, creating pandemic panics, then selling questionable patented drugs to gullible consumers is a lucrative business model. And now the official job of the former head of the CDC is to make sure it all stays that way. So roll up your sleeves, folks: There's a vaccine with your name on it, and Dr. Gerberding is here to make sure Merck sticks it to ya.
You've heard it before, how the pharmaceutical industry has a giant "revolving door" through which corporations and government agencies frequently exchange key employees. That reality was driven home in a huge way today when news broke that Dr. Julie Gerberding, who headed the CDC from 2002 through 2009, landed a top job with Merck, one of the largest drug companies in the world. Her job there? She's the new president of the vaccine division.
How convenient. That means the former head of the CDC was very likely cultivating a relationship with Merck all these years, and now comes the big payoff: Heading up a $5 billion division that sells cervical cancer vaccines (like Gardasil), chickenpox vaccines and of course H1N1 swine flu vaccines, too.
So what's the problem with all this? The problem is that private industry and government health offices such as the CDC or FDA should never be so cozy. When they are, it creates an environment of collusion between Big Government and Big Pharma. We've already seen this with the government-led push for swine flu vaccines that are manufactured (and sold) by drug companies like Merck.
You might even say that the CDC already functions as the marketing division of the pharmaceutical industry. It was the CDC that pushed so hard for swine flu vaccines, even amid the obvious realization that swine flu was no more dangerous than seasonal flu. To this day, the CDC still hasn't bothered to recommend vitamin D for the prevention of either seasonal flu or swine flu. It remains heavily invested in the lucrative vaccine approach -- an approach that just happens to financially benefit the very corporations that are hiring ex-CDC employees like Dr. Gerberding.
How to triple your salary by selling out to industry
Getting a job offer from Big Pharma, by the way, is one of the most-desired career paths for many CDC employees (and FDA workers, for that matter). It's easy to accomplish it, too: Just operate in your government position as if you were a Big Pharma lackey. If you produce enough good business for the drug industry, sooner or later they'll offer you a lucrative position that doubles or triples your government salary (or even better).
Now, I don't want to lump all CDC employees in this same pathetic group, because there are indeed a great many bright, honest scientists working at the CDC who do excellent work tracking pandemics and trying to save lives. They are overshadowed, however, by those ambitious profit seekers who see their CDC job as merely a stepping stone for a far better-paying job at a major drug companies. And by any measure, Dr. Gerberding just cashed in big.
Her actual salary at Merck hasn't been publicly released yet, but given that she's heading up a $5 billion vaccine industry, it's probably not chump change. I'd bet she's now making at least ten times the salary of the President of the United States (and probably a lot more).
So now, Dr. Gerberding's new job involves the incessant promotion of yet more vaccines -- a job not very different from the one she held at the CDC, come to think of it. More vaccines for more diseases afflicting more people... it's just another day at Merck, where the world is never so healthy that it doesn't need one more mandatory vaccine.
As a special bonus to Merck in all this, Dr. Gerberding has a wealth of contacts not merely throughout the CDC, but also at the World Health Organization. When you're the former head of the CDC, the top public health officials of the world are literally just one call away. But starting today, that call is a commercial, corporate-sponsored call, not a public health call. There's a huge difference.
Does Dr. Gerberding suffer from an "ethics deficiency?"
My question in all this is whether Dr. Gerberding has any real ethics when it comes to issues like vaccines and public health. If she does have such ethics, why would she accept a job with a company that has been engaged in outright scientific fraud? (http://www.naturalnews.com/027582_M...)
Why would she go to work for a company that maintained a "hit list" of doctors to attack and "neutralize?" This is true -- it came out in recent court documents (http://www.naturalnews.com/027116_M...).
Why would she take a job with a company that has a pattern of threatening doctors who speak out against its drugs? (http://www.naturalnews.com/026420_M...)
Why would she be okay with the idea of working for a company that commits scientific fraud by hiding documents showing its drugs to be dangerous? (http://www.naturalnews.com/024072_Z...)
Why would she feel okay about working for a company that dumps chemicals and vaccine waste products into the public water system? (http://www.naturalnews.com/023124_w...)
Why would she want to collect a paycheck from a company that has been caught hiring ghost writers to pen "independent" science papers submitted to science journals, when they were actually crafted by Merck? (http://www.naturalnews.com/023052_M...)
Why would she feel comfortable representing a company that committed blatant scientific fraud with its Vytorin cholesterol drug study? (http://www.naturalnews.com/022485_s...)
Maybe Dr. Gerberding is fine with all this. Maybe she has really "flexible" ethics. Or maybe she suffers from an "ethics deficiency" -- an epidemic disease for which Merck apparently has no vaccine at all.
In any case, she's now allied herself with a company engaged in so many repeated acts of fraud that in my opinion all its executives should be arrested and prosecuted for crimes against humanity. Those executives will now include Dr. Gerberding, it seems.
Did the CDC cover Merck's back?
You might say, though, that she hasn't done anything yet for Merck. But check this out: As a previous NaturalNews story explains, when a fourteen-year-old girl named Jessica died following a cervical cancer vaccine injection (made by Merck), the CDC covered for Merck and pointed the finger at the girl's birth control pills.
Care to guess who was heading the CDC at the time of this maneuver? Dr. Julie Gerberding, now a top Merck executive.
You pat my back and I'll pat yours.
For years, under the lead of Dr. Gerberding, the CDC has maintained a rather bizarre position that Merck's vaccines are so safe that all side effects should be dismissed outright. This is explained in a Dallas Morning News article (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon...), among other places.
The CDC, in other words, has been running defense for Merck for many years, downplaying vaccine side effects and insisting that Merck's vaccines are safe. Now that the president of Merck's vaccine division and the former chief of the CDC are one and the same, it brings up obvious questions of whether there was some level of ongoing collusion between the CDC and Merck and how deeply Dr. Gerberding might have been involved.
Some of the word games played by Dr. Gerberding demonstrate amazing Clintonian-like speech patterns designed to deflect blame from Merck's vaccines. Listen to this exchange where Dr. Gerberding indirectly admits that vaccines can cause autism (or as she says, "Autism-like symptoms," which is exactly the same thing, as the symptoms define the disease in the first place). Watch it yourself in this segment on YouTube -- this is a must see video segment on the link between vaccines and autism:
Who else is on the Merck team at the CDC?
That the CDC's chief would be offered one of the very top jobs at Merck now makes me wonder just how deep the culture of collusion between Merck and the CDC really goes. How many other CDC employees are in line for future job offers from Merck -- and what might they do in order to win those jobs?
There's a solution to all this, of course: Pass a law that bans employees of the CDC, FDA, FTC, EPA or USDA from ever working for pharmaceutical companies. The people who run the regulatory agencies and public health offices should never be allowed to leap into employment at the very same companies they were once regulating. There's just too much risk of cross-contamination of influence, which is why we have the corruption and collusion problems we're seeing today with the FDA, FTC and CDC, all of which seem to be operating as marketing extensions of the pharmaceutical industry.
As long as the revolving door remains wide open between Big Pharma and Big Government, there will be a strong tendency towards corporate collusion that betrays the people whom government is supposed to serve. Instead of our government serving the People, in other words, it increasingly exists to serve the interests of Big Business. And big business doesn't get much bigger than Big Pharma.
After all, inventing fictitious disease, creating pandemic panics, then selling questionable patented drugs to gullible consumers is a lucrative business model. And now the official job of the former head of the CDC is to make sure it all stays that way. So roll up your sleeves, folks: There's a vaccine with your name on it, and Dr. Gerberding is here to make sure Merck sticks it to ya.
Treasury removes cap for Fannie and Freddie aid
Source: CNBC
The government has handed its ATM card to beleaguered mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The Treasury Department said Thursday it removed the $400 billion financial cap on the money it will provide to keep the companies afloat. Already, taxpayers have shelled out $111 billion to the pair, and a senior Treasury official said losses are not expected to exceed the government's estimate this summer of $170 billion over 10 years.
Treasury Department officials said it will now use a flexible formula to ensure the two agencies can stand behind the billions of dollars in mortgage-backed securities they sell to investors. Under the formula, financial support would increase according to how much each firm loses in a quarter. The cap in place at the end of 2012 would apply thereafter.
By making the change before year-end, Treasury sidestepped the need for an OK from a bailout-weary Congress.
While most analysts say the companies are unlikely to use the full $400 billion, Treasury officials said they decided to lift the caps to eliminate any uncertainty among investors about the government's commitments. But the timing of the announcement on a traditionally slow news day raised eyebrows.
"The companies are nowhere close to using the $400 billion they had before, so why do this now?" said Bert Ely, a banking consultant in Alexandria, Va. "It's possible we may see some horrendous numbers for the fourth quarter and, thus 2009, and Treasury wants to calm the markets."
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac provide vital liquidity to the mortgage industry by purchasing home loans from lenders and selling them to investors. Together, they own or guarantee almost 31 million home loans worth about $5.5 trillion, or about half of all mortgages. Without government aid, the firms would have gone broke, leaving millions of people unable to get a mortgage.
The biggest headwind facing the housing recovery has been the rise in foreclosures as unemployment remains high. The two companies, facing mounting losses from mortgage defaults, were taken over by the government in September 2008 under the authority of a law Congress passed in the summer of 2008.
So far the government has provided $60 billion to Fannie Mae and $51 billion to Freddie Mac. The assistance is being provided in exchange for preferred stock paying a 10 percent dividend. The Bush administration first pledged up to $100 billion in support for each company, an amount that was doubled to $200 billion for each by the Obama administration in February.
Treasury officials will provide an updated estimate for Fannie and Freddie losses in February when President Barack Obama sends his 2011 budget to Congress. Though the administration has yet to disclose its long-term plans for the two companies, they are unlikely to return to their former power and influence.
The news followed an announcement Thursday that the CEOs of Fannie and Freddie could get paid as much as $6 million for 2009, despite the companies' dismal performances this year.
Fannie's CEO, Michael Williams, and Freddie CEO Charles "Ed" Haldeman Jr. each will receive $900,000 in salary, $3.1 million in deferred payments next year and another $2 million if they meet certain performance goals, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The pay packages were approved by the Treasury Department and the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie and Freddie.
That pay is far less than what their predecessors earned. Former Fannie CEO Daniel Mudd received $10.2 million in 2008 and former Freddie CEO Richard Syron pocketed $13.1 million. Both execs were ousted when federal regulators seized the companies in September 2008. The federal government blocked exit packages for the pair worth up to $24 million.
The chief executives' pay could spark new criticism about the government's numerous bailouts, but that may be unfounded, said Mark Borges, principal with management consulting firm Compensia.
Haldeman and Williams each could command between $5 million and $10 million in a similar position in the private sector, Borges estimated, and without the notable challenges and public scrutiny they face at these companies.
"I doubt too many people would look at these jobs and say, 'Gosh, I would love to go there for my next career move,'" Borges said. "The government is getting top notch executives to solve problems that are not easy to solve."
The bulk of their pay is also not guaranteed, Borges said, so these executives can't pocket and run and must meet certain long-term goals or risk giving some of it back.
Freddie Mac's board sets the performance goals for the chief executive, which won't be disclosed until next year. Fannie Mae's filing outlined its corporate goals including "being a recognized leader in the housing recovery," "protecting taxpayers," and "managing risk more effectively."
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac declined to offer further details on CEO performance goals.
Public anger over Wall Street pay boiled over earlier this year. In response, the Obama administration imposed pay curbs on banks that received government bailouts. All the major banks have since repaid their federal money, largely to escape caps on executive pay.
Former Bank of America Corp. CEO Ken Lewis, for example, agreed to forgo his salary and bonus this year under pressure from the government. Last year, he pocketed more than $9 million in total compensation. Bank of America received $45 billion in government assistance, which it has since repaid.
Freddie Mac hired Haldeman, a former mutual fund executive, in July. At the time, the company disclosed his annual salary of $900,000 but did not disclose other incentive payments. In September, the company hired a new chief financial officer, Ross Kari, and said his pay package would be worth up to $5.5 million.
Williams, formerly Fannie Mae's chief operating officer, took over as CEO in April after the first government-appointed CEO, Herbert Allison, took a job at the Treasury Department. Williams earned a base salary of $676,000 last year, plus a retention award of $260,000.
Washington-based Fannie Mae was created in 1938 in the aftermath of the Great Depression. It was privatized 30 years later to limit budget deficits during the Vietnam War. In 1970, the government formed its sibling and competitor McLean, Va.-based Freddie Mac.
The government has handed its ATM card to beleaguered mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The Treasury Department said Thursday it removed the $400 billion financial cap on the money it will provide to keep the companies afloat. Already, taxpayers have shelled out $111 billion to the pair, and a senior Treasury official said losses are not expected to exceed the government's estimate this summer of $170 billion over 10 years.
Treasury Department officials said it will now use a flexible formula to ensure the two agencies can stand behind the billions of dollars in mortgage-backed securities they sell to investors. Under the formula, financial support would increase according to how much each firm loses in a quarter. The cap in place at the end of 2012 would apply thereafter.
By making the change before year-end, Treasury sidestepped the need for an OK from a bailout-weary Congress.
While most analysts say the companies are unlikely to use the full $400 billion, Treasury officials said they decided to lift the caps to eliminate any uncertainty among investors about the government's commitments. But the timing of the announcement on a traditionally slow news day raised eyebrows.
"The companies are nowhere close to using the $400 billion they had before, so why do this now?" said Bert Ely, a banking consultant in Alexandria, Va. "It's possible we may see some horrendous numbers for the fourth quarter and, thus 2009, and Treasury wants to calm the markets."
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac provide vital liquidity to the mortgage industry by purchasing home loans from lenders and selling them to investors. Together, they own or guarantee almost 31 million home loans worth about $5.5 trillion, or about half of all mortgages. Without government aid, the firms would have gone broke, leaving millions of people unable to get a mortgage.
The biggest headwind facing the housing recovery has been the rise in foreclosures as unemployment remains high. The two companies, facing mounting losses from mortgage defaults, were taken over by the government in September 2008 under the authority of a law Congress passed in the summer of 2008.
So far the government has provided $60 billion to Fannie Mae and $51 billion to Freddie Mac. The assistance is being provided in exchange for preferred stock paying a 10 percent dividend. The Bush administration first pledged up to $100 billion in support for each company, an amount that was doubled to $200 billion for each by the Obama administration in February.
Treasury officials will provide an updated estimate for Fannie and Freddie losses in February when President Barack Obama sends his 2011 budget to Congress. Though the administration has yet to disclose its long-term plans for the two companies, they are unlikely to return to their former power and influence.
The news followed an announcement Thursday that the CEOs of Fannie and Freddie could get paid as much as $6 million for 2009, despite the companies' dismal performances this year.
Fannie's CEO, Michael Williams, and Freddie CEO Charles "Ed" Haldeman Jr. each will receive $900,000 in salary, $3.1 million in deferred payments next year and another $2 million if they meet certain performance goals, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The pay packages were approved by the Treasury Department and the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie and Freddie.
That pay is far less than what their predecessors earned. Former Fannie CEO Daniel Mudd received $10.2 million in 2008 and former Freddie CEO Richard Syron pocketed $13.1 million. Both execs were ousted when federal regulators seized the companies in September 2008. The federal government blocked exit packages for the pair worth up to $24 million.
The chief executives' pay could spark new criticism about the government's numerous bailouts, but that may be unfounded, said Mark Borges, principal with management consulting firm Compensia.
Haldeman and Williams each could command between $5 million and $10 million in a similar position in the private sector, Borges estimated, and without the notable challenges and public scrutiny they face at these companies.
"I doubt too many people would look at these jobs and say, 'Gosh, I would love to go there for my next career move,'" Borges said. "The government is getting top notch executives to solve problems that are not easy to solve."
The bulk of their pay is also not guaranteed, Borges said, so these executives can't pocket and run and must meet certain long-term goals or risk giving some of it back.
Freddie Mac's board sets the performance goals for the chief executive, which won't be disclosed until next year. Fannie Mae's filing outlined its corporate goals including "being a recognized leader in the housing recovery," "protecting taxpayers," and "managing risk more effectively."
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac declined to offer further details on CEO performance goals.
Public anger over Wall Street pay boiled over earlier this year. In response, the Obama administration imposed pay curbs on banks that received government bailouts. All the major banks have since repaid their federal money, largely to escape caps on executive pay.
Former Bank of America Corp. CEO Ken Lewis, for example, agreed to forgo his salary and bonus this year under pressure from the government. Last year, he pocketed more than $9 million in total compensation. Bank of America received $45 billion in government assistance, which it has since repaid.
Freddie Mac hired Haldeman, a former mutual fund executive, in July. At the time, the company disclosed his annual salary of $900,000 but did not disclose other incentive payments. In September, the company hired a new chief financial officer, Ross Kari, and said his pay package would be worth up to $5.5 million.
Williams, formerly Fannie Mae's chief operating officer, took over as CEO in April after the first government-appointed CEO, Herbert Allison, took a job at the Treasury Department. Williams earned a base salary of $676,000 last year, plus a retention award of $260,000.
Washington-based Fannie Mae was created in 1938 in the aftermath of the Great Depression. It was privatized 30 years later to limit budget deficits during the Vietnam War. In 1970, the government formed its sibling and competitor McLean, Va.-based Freddie Mac.
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