July 4th 2007 HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA: Stand and Salute Your New Dictator

George Walker Bush, the man who expressed his desire to be dictator, albeit said in a joking manner, has we think, made his dream, your nightmare, a reality.

The president in his move to commute the sentence of Irwin Lewis "Scooter" Libby has done something extraordinary.
He is described as being disingenuous because he said he'd not depart from his past practices. He said he would not do anything out of the normal for Dick Cheney's former aide.

Here is a list of what he's done with regard to the Libby case:

This is the first time Bush has issued a pardon or commuted a sentence without receiving a request to do so.

It is the first time, though it is not required, he has granted a pardon or commutation of a sentence without going through the routine Department of Justice review.

This is the very first time the president has granted a pardon or issued an order of sentence commutation for someone who has not served a portion of an ordered prison sentence.

The president says he used the following reasoning for his decision:
"I weighed this decision carefully. I thought that the jury verdict should stand." and "I felt the punishment was too severe." Which is it?

We wonder why spend our tax dollars investigating and bringing this friend of the administration to trial, when the whole matter could have been handled more expeditiously by having GWB say, "Scooter's not guilty. I say so, and I'm the president!" If you're gonna be a dictator then do what a dictator does. Dictate, up front. Straightforward. No smoke and mirrors. No horse and pony show necessary.

According to news secretary and presidential spokesman Tony Snow, "A felony conviction has a profound impact on Libby's ability to earn a living as a lawyer because he's not going to be able to practice law."

Who needs to practice law when you can be make lots more money as a high profile public speaker? We predict Libby will be raking in the millions when he publishes his book. A good title might be "How I Beat A Federal Rap With the Help of GWB" (that's not a drug, that's the President of the United States.)

Under the clemency rules of the Justice Department Libby was not eligible to seek commutation. "No petition for commutation of sentence, including remision of fine, should be filed of other firms of judicial or administrative relief are available, except upon a showing of exceptional circumstances."

We wonder if GWB can be impeached for interfering with an attempt to the carry out justice?

Maybe a new slogan for our country should be:

"Who needs God or Justice when you've got GWB?"

Courts have now been declared irrelevant on several fronts.

You can now be imprisoned indefinitely without access to lawyer, court hearings, trial or conviction.

You can now be freed regardless of courts or trial or conviction. We suggest a commercial: A smiling Libby saying: "Thank you GWB"
An inmate from Guantanmo saying: "Thank you GWB".
Various citizens of Iraq dodging bullets, gunfire and bombs, saying "Thank you GWB!"

With a disclaimer that says: "This war was made in the U.S.A. Nothing much is made in the U.S. any more but this was. This war is copyrighted and protected by the United Nations and the Geneva Conventions. Any unauthorized duplication without written permission may lead to investigation by the C.I.A the F.B.I. and extraordinary rendition to extraordinary travel locations you would not want to voluntarily visit."


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July 4th 2007 HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA:Campaign Finance Reform

Clark Dark here. On this the 231st celebration of our nation's birthday and as we begin our 3rd year YouThinkWhat is proud to present a new guest contributor. He's a member of our forum. We think his of him as brilliant, but humble and a heck of clever guy in the way he expresses his opinion. It is my pleasure to present the opinions of Dr. C. von Blum


The American electorate has lost its juice. It has been rendered moot by
the lobbyists of special interests. We have absolutely no patronage in
governments at any level. This may be an unsolvable problem, but there is
clearly no other path than to pursue meaningful campaign finance reform.

Having grown up in Chicago, I have a basic understanding of the patronage
system of government. You pays your way into the game by working for the
party and you gets a job in streets and sanitation or the medical examiner's
office.

At the Federal level you casts your bread upon the waters heavily
to both parties and collects it all back as sandwiches from the legislators.
Ultimately, the money for this patronage is extracted from us, the
consumers in the price of goods and services. Think of it as a tax levied by
campaign contributors.

If we are to have any hope of being the recipients of the patronage, we
will have to be the contributors. We probably have to amend the first amendment
in order to halt private contributions. We must finance all campaigns at
all levels publicly. It is the only way to get them to answer to us.

Submitted by Dr. C. von Blum

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July 4 2007 Happy Independence Day America!

To celebrate America's 231st birthday we present for your patriotic enjoyment and entertainment....we present




The George Walker Bush Drill Team.

Click on the link or the picture above^^^ As you watch them perform, imagine they are symbolic of the progress our troops are making under the command of the "Commander Guy".

As they perambulate down the street, so do our troops wander, amidst bombs, exploding IEDs and enemy fire in Iraq with inadequate direction.

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Irradiated Foods: Before You Put The Meat On the Barbecue Grill Read This!

Four years ago, according to Dr. Urvashi Rangan an environmental health scientist and policy analyst at Consumers Union which is the publisher of Consumer Reports Magazine, examinations by the well known consumer watchdog group were conducted of irradiated meat and over 800 samples of ground meat were tested. It was concluded that, while irradiation lowers the levels of bacteria on meat products, radiation didn't always kill all of the bacteria. This means the products were likely safer; they are not necessarily safe.

Dr. Urvashi Rangan puts it another way, "....from our recent survey in June 2007, 71 percent of consumers don't particularly want to buy irradiated products."

We need to understand why food requires radiation in the first place. Dr. Rangan says it is to control filth.

We know with meat production, it is a very dirty process from the beginning. A googdly amount of farms simply don't have established hygiene standards to follow, nor do they follow the rules they have in place for sanitation. That is where the bacteria start. Cleaning up must start at the beginning. When that is done an assessment can be made to determine what additional measures are really necessary to provide safe edible meat.

As is stands now, even without the proposed regulations, meat that is unfit for sale, meat so contaminated it would be illegal to sell it, can actually be stored, irradiated and then sold to the public after that. The proposals is that if there's no change in taste that then the company could go forth and sell it without an irradiation label. This depends on many factors suchas how much radiation is used, and who is doing the tasting.

There is the potential to mask very serious hygiene problems. Irradiation can mask the fact the food was very dirty in the first place, spoiled even.These products can be sold to and unknowingly bought by consumers. The public could end up buying food previously so contaminated it would have been illegal to be sold.


The fact is right now at the processing plant if meat is so dirty that it doesn't pass USDA inspection standards, the meat can be held by the processor, irradiate it, and then sell it to consumers.

It would be impossible to standardize which foods are labeld radiated and which do not receive a label. We believe all foods that are irradiated should be labeled as such.

The public comment period on these proposed FDA irradiation rules ended on July 3, 2007. Make your opinion known to the regulating agency; contact your federal legislators to let them know how you feel about the proposed changes to protecting our food supply.

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New Regulations Proposed for Irradiation of Meat and Other Foods

You may think it's a new technique used to kill harmful bacteria in foods consumed by humans. It is not. For over 40 years a small portion of the U.S. food supply has been dosed with strong radiation. Irradiation of foods has proven to kill off dangerous microbes, extend the shelf life of foods and reduce spoilage.

Before we go further with this explanation, you must know when foods are irradiated the food does not become radioactive. The maximum dose of irradiation on meat is approximately 4.5 kiloGrays--this is the unit of irradiation. That would be the same as 7 million chest X-rays. That's a lot of energy for one package of meat. These X-rays are used to try to get the bacteria pathogens killed on the meat.

In the case of meat and other irradiated products containing fat, irradiation seems to cause a radiolytic byproduct, that is specific to irradiation. Radiation changes the fat into 2-alkylcyclobutanones, or 2-ACBs; when put into lab rats seem to cause cancer tumors in their colon. More research needs to be done in terms of the safety of irradiation, especially particularly when it comes to irradiating products like meat. In Europe irradiating meat is illegal because of those concerns about irradiated fat. This information comes from an NPR radio interview with Dr. Urvashi Rangan, an environmental health scientist and policy analyst at Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports magazine. Dr.Rangan is also Director of GreenerChoices.ORG

Currently federal regulations require foods that have been treated in this way must be labeled. The demand for food that carries the irradiated label is limited. The public is apprehensive about radiation, especially with regards to its food. Now the Food and Drug Administration is proposing sweeping changes that would relax labeling requirements.

The Food and Drug Administration, FDA, is caving in to the demands of the food industry representatives. Having been relentlessly petitioned in the past decade by people in the industry who want to use irradiation but don't always want to label it, the FDA under the Bush administration would allow for food that has been irradiated not to be labeled as irradiated, especially where there's no change in taste. Another major change would allow companies to provide alternate label claims in place of irradiation notice.

MORE ABOUT IRRADIATED FOODS IN THE NEXT POST

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