Animal Testing : Why ? Human Testing: Why Not ?

In a laboratory at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, rhesus monkeys are tested for the propostion that calorie-restricted diets lead to longer lives. Rhesus monkeys have already existed on this planet longer than homo sapiens. Rhesus monkeys are not found in their native habitat either obese or dying prematurely from weight-related diseases like diabetes.

On the other hand, tens of millions humans around the "civilized world" are dying prematurely because of eating too many calories. Why are we using the hapless rhesus monkeys for these experiments? We should be using humans. The humans could still watch their TV. They would be tested in comfortable environments and get paid to do what they do now for nothing. But the poor rhesus monkeys could be left in their forests and jungles and enjoy their succesful genetics. As long as the the human doesn't fell the forest to meet the demands of it's increasingly unsuccessful lifestle.

NASDAQ 5000 And Solar Power

A renaissance is occuring in Silicon Valley . Only this time the silicon is being used for new and cheaper silicon solar panels. The recent landmark California legislation that mandates a 25% reduction in greenhouse gases back to 1990 levels is the catalyst. Also there is the geopolitical backdrop of an unstable Middle East and the resulting high oil prices . Alternative energy, particularly solar energy, is viewed as the response to this challenge. Technology is now in hand to bring solar energy pricing down to be competitive with the $ 1 trillion electric grid and other fossil fuel options.

Wall St. has introduced innovative solar panel partnerships that General Motors, Google and others have signed on. It goes like this. Investment bankers pool capital from investors to purchase solar arrays that are placed on roofs at GM for example. The bankers then get long-term commitments from GM to purchase the power that is generated. What makes it work is the power is offered at below alternative market rates offerd by utilities and the expense of the arrays are payed by someone else. The capital pool gets a return on it's investment and also receives tax credits and all have done something good for the environment. Another bonus are the huge markets that will be developed in trading carbon pollution credits. This is another monetary return to the investment pools.

This is a sea change in the American industrial way of doing business. It's potential is enormous. Just think of it. The retooling of California and the world from a fossil fuel power source to a clean and stable and eco-sensitive power source- the flipping of an 18th century industrial revolution to a 21st century eco-sustainable base. And most of the jobs will not be outsourced.

Incidentally the NASDAQ is the place to take advantage of this budding opportunity. It good easily see it's old high of 5000 within a few years.

Ariel Sharon And Israel : Pull The Plug

Ariel Sharon, the former Prime Minister of Israel, has been in a coma for the past 10 months. His brain is partially dissolved and he's on life-support. Why is he still alive ? Is it because of his pension that the degradation of the " Butcher of Beirut " continues?

Israel is also on life-support. Without the help of the U.S. the rogue state would have long ago disappeared. It's peoples would have taken up their more historically correct role of roaming the globe in search of shelter.

Sharon should be allowed to die. And the U.S. should wean Israel of our help. American aid should not be the basis of the Jewish states tryanny and genocide of the Palestinians.

Iraqi Death Toll Cover-Up

The criminal conduct that is everywhere to be found in the Iraqi War starting with it's planning continues through yesterday. That new criminal move was the Iraqi government's anouncement that it will no longer publish or share death tolls with world human rights organizations including the United Nations. This follows the worldwide shocked reaction to the Johns Hopkins report that puts Iraqi war-related deaths at a mean estimate of 655,000. So now the genocide will be kept under a cloud of silence. No numbers will be reported so as to upset people and put pressure on the killers to stop.

That Johns Hopkins'number together with the spiking U.S. casualties and the increasingly chaotic scence has nailed down Bush's poll numbers and has set-up a Congressional rout for republicans.Bush's response to these negative unfolding events and tallies was to pressure the Iraqi government to stop publishing the troubling facts. Hey if you can't win the game then stop keeping score. Bush is the poorest example of a commander in chief. Don't take your men out of harms way, but only cover-up the hell that you have led them into. The man is the lowest form of human. In fact he's the scum that civilized people would hope were not still part of the scene.

Brown University : Education On Slavery Issues

Brown University's Committee On Slavery made public it's recommendations to the school's president yesterday. The recommendations included, " The construction of a memorial , starting up a center for slavery studies, increasing efforts to recruit foreigners, particularly from Africa and the West Indies. Also Brown should publicly and persistantly acknowledge it's slave ties paticularly in freshman orientation".

The Committee was formed 3 years ago under the direction of the first black Ivy League School's president, Ruth J. Simmons. She is the great-grandaughter of a slave. She is also a probable example of affirmative action and what can go wrong with affirmative action .

Why is Brown looking backwards on issues that aren't important. Slavery at the time was legal. It doesn't make it morally accepatable but to spend valuable and expensive time on non-critical education issues is a luxury and it's very negative. How do Simpson and the Committee reconcile their preoccupation with 17th century slavery and it's negative connotations with their push for more African and West Indies students to come to America and Brown in particular if America's roots are so bad and cannot be forgotten or erased ?Of course it's better not to ask tough questions to people who got their jobs not based on merit.

Presidents And Morons : " Of Mice And Men"

John Steinbeck's " Of Mice and Men" has a line. Lenny ( Lon Chaney Jr. ) asks George ( Burgess Meredith ) , " Tell me about the rabbits George".

But George is Cheney and Lenny is George ( W. ) . And we're all going to hell if we don't stop morons from getting so much power.

Bush Impeachment : Not Adequate For His Crimes

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health recently reported a mean estimate of 655,000 Iraqi deaths that were tied to the American invasion and resulting insurgency. These horrible statistics and the widespread loss of infrastructure eclipes the genocides of Darfur and Rwanda. Also America is poorer in it's image and more than $ 500 billion and still counting.

The Bush/Cheney administration and their criminal associates that enabled the lies and the illegal invasion have much to answer for. Simple impeachment and removal of the moron Bush and the evil Cheney would not be adequate penalty for their crimes. I suggest that our justice system GET A ROPE.

America Is Being Forced Out Of Iraq

Last Wednesday, the Iraqi Parliament approved the effective break up of Iraq into 3 different regions representing the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites. The Sunnis were vehemently opposed because they will lose most of the power and almost all of the oil wealth. That parliamentary action also implies American occupation is now a redundancy. The Kurds and Shiites used the American invasion to their advantage in dislodging Sunni dominance.

Spiking U.S. casualties are making the point that Kurd and Shiites are finished with America. Also the mortar attack on the Forward Operating Base Falcon was another clear sign. The devastating explosion in the huge ammo dump was a first of it's kind. U.S. spokesman said," civilians aligned with militia organizations carried out the attack". Does that mean that someone inside the base was part of the attack? The losses of of all kinds of ordinance at the dump was so great that troops could not carry out their duties. Other troops from other areas had to be called up. That mortar attack could have been carried out anytime in the past 3 years . But the paliamentary partition action together with the accelerating U.S. deaths and the ammo dump devestation point to an Iraqi message to America - GET OUT.

Hedge Funds : Looming Threat To Financial System

Why are hedge funds not regulated? In 1998 the spectacular failure of Long Term Capital Management ( actually in business for a few years ) required the intervention of the Federal Reserve and major Wall St. Firms to avoid collapse and default of catastrophic proportions. LTCM in fact did abide by margin requirements but exceeded prudence by overextending itself in illiquid financial instruments. So when the Russian default on debt occured the fund was trapped and failed. And last month Amaranth Advisors closed up after losing $ 6billion in natural gas futures. They literally bet the company on natural gas . Normally funds in a regulated environment place many diversified financial bets because anyone can be wrong.

In years passed legislation would have been passed to tighten up on margins and oversight particularly in respect to the liquidity and size of positions. I.E. after the '29 Crash, The Glass-Steagall Act of 1932 and The Banking Act of 1933 were passed to seperate banks from the brokerage business. Incidentally Glass-Steagall was removed by Congress about the same time of LTCM collapse.

Without regulation hedge funds have grown exponentially in the past 5 years. Assets under management now total $ 1.2 trillion which is a double in that time period. Hedge fund charters have mutated to include investments into almost any financial vehicle. Lately those financial vehicles include buying sub-Saharan junk bonds, real estate in the Middle East, motion picture financing, commodity momentum investing, etc. Kind of makes LTCM's investments relatively prudent.

With no up-dated regulation and friendly banking relationships, aided by Glass-Steagall's removal, margin and adequate equity are a problem right now. Who's going to watch out for money borrowed on junk African bonds to finance Middle East property speculation to parlay into motion picture production so there will be funds for commodity momentum investments?

Troubles a'coming. It's spelled with a capital H and that stands for hedge fund.

Fencing Tip

My own short experience in fencing has produced an insight. No matter how fast your opponents are , they aren't faster than a blade that is already there.

Israel: Nation of Cowardly Murderers

More murder in Gaza today. Israeli gunships killed 6 more Palestinians. Three were supposed to be militants and the other 3 were civilians . That brings the total Palestinian deaths in the past 3 months to 230. At least 1/2 half were civilians. Airstrikes in the largest and longest -lived refugee camp are equal to murder.

Who still has sympathy for the cowardly Israeli state?

America And The Iraqi Genocide

An estimated 655,000 Iraqi civilians have died since the American invasion in 2003. This tally was published today by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. It is an extrapolation of the sample results from the interviews of 1849 Iraqi families across the country. It's margin of error ranges from a low of 426,369 to a high of 793,66e deaths. It's the same sample method used in the tallies of the genocides in Darfur and the Congo. But Iraq's grim experience eclipses these other two atrocities in number.

The Iraqi government says the number of deaths is much lower. The Iraqi government uses actual body counts at the morgue. But suppose the body or bodies were vaporised by an explosion or incinerated by fire or buried without a trace? How do they count those fatalities?

The American invasion has been usurped by militias of Shia, Sunni and Kurds. Of those 3 the Sunnis are losing the most. America has become the de facto underwriter of this genocide and civil war with it's weapons and logistical support. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle et al should be tried for their part in this crime of the century.

Google, YouTube, eBay & America's Democratic Government

What does a democracy need to sustain itself ? Participation and assets. Without participation a democracy will wither. But there is only participation when there is an incentive. Namely a voter can hope to improve his or her's life by voting for a share of the national assets..

But what will happen when people can improve their lives without voting ? In other words, suppose they can get what they want through more efficient, less costly and more predicticably without the help of government ? Well we all may be on the threshold of finding out.

Google, eBay, YouTube, Blogger and all the other low-cost producers of information and access to the necessities can largely preclude the high-cost of America's government and it's untrustworthy politicians . Want to school yourself on foreign affairs, environmental issues, financial alternatives, get an education etc ? Search Google or any of the search engines. In foreign affairs, get real time videos and news reports and commentary from people on the ground around the world. In personal finance, make a better deal for yourself with Craigs List or eBay. Maybe even barter your needs and assets and completely shut out governments role and take. How about an education that is tailored to your interests and intelligence without the politicians and attorneys interference?

Let's all try to cut out the high-cost and increasingly dangerous government programs.

David Frum & Michael Rubin:Friends Of The Weak And Ignorant

Bush is surely weak and ignorant when the likes of David Frum and Michael Rubin are among his fawning inner circle.

Frum is the 2002 " Axis of Evil" speechwriter. Rubin is another American Enterprise Institute hack that continues to make excuses for Bush's failed forein policy because America isn't trying hard enough. So $ 500 billion in war expenses comes up short? Remeber the members of the "axis'. They were North Korea, Iran and Iraq. Well N. Korea was a red herring. Iran and Iraq were the real targets. They were a threat to Israel's security. And that's the real reason for the " Axis of Evil" foreign policy as per Frum, Rubin and other Zionists in the Pentagon at that time.

But yesterday N. Korea went nuclear and marked yet another failure of the moron president and his parasitic handlers. Rubin reacted to the N. Korean nuclear test by commending Bush's " prescience". Yeh right. Both Frum's and Rubin's motives and actions are much clearer when seen through the eyes of an Israeli -security first American foreign policy. One can see this preoccupation with Israel in the extensive writings of both .

But it looks like Americans are fed up with Bush's ignorant policies. It looks like a change is coming this November. So Frum and Rubin will have to do some fawning on ignorant and weak democrats. I am sure there are many.

Allais Effect : Points To An Active Gravity Based On Motion

In 1954 Maurice Allais, a Nobel Prize winning economist was indulging his hobby of physics. He was observing a pendulum over a period of 30 days. Coincidentally during the observation period a solar eclipse occured. When the moon moved in front of the sun, the pendulum unexpectedly speeded up. He personally confirmed the results again in 1959. He was then joined by NASA and scientists around the world in recreating and confirming the pendulum did in fact speed up during eclipses. Hence the phenomenon was given the name of the " Allais Effect".

Well? According to Einstein's General Relativity Theory, the pendulum should not have speeded up . If any influence was to be predicted, it would have been a slowing influence. An eclipse's influence on the gravitational balance of the earth and sun should not exert an active force to speed up the pendulum. But suppose gravity is a active force based on motion rather than based primarily on mass? Isn't gravity on our own planet a function of a spinning motion? Suppose gravity exerts an active force of leverage created by the spinning of the body or its movement past another body? Then the " Allais Effect" could be explained in terms of resonance- I.E. the sun's spinning motion enhanced and enlarged by the addition of the moon's own spinning and passing motion combining together to speed up the pendulum. Like a breeze passing through the blades of a windmill.