Health and Free Trade

For over 250 years, economists – even before they were called economists – have struggled to solve a problem: how to persuade people that trade really is positive and that restrictions on trade really are negative. This is one more attempt.

Let us assume that your physician informs you that you have cancer. The type of cancer that you have is invariably fatal. He utters those words that estate planning lawyers thrive on: “You should get your affairs in order.”

You go home. After thinking about your situation, you go online in search of a solution. You come across an article on a proposed new cure. There is hope. But you find that the cure is experimental. It has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The estimated cost of getting through the FDA's legal hoops is $100 million. It will take seven years.

You do not have seven years.

Do you believe in free trade in proposed cancer cures? Now you do.

What if you could sign a legal waiver taking full responsibility for your actions? What if you are willing to let the discoverer off the hook legally for any negative outcome of the treatment? Sorry, no can do. That would be illegal.

Why would it be illegal?

There is a simple reason: “Because it would reduce the power of the Food and Drug Administration.” If every Tom, Dick, and Harry were willing to sign a waiver, then the FDA could not control drugs. This degree of open entry into the health care field would enable producers of health-care to get together with customers to arrange mutually agreeable solutions.

Read full article.

Dolphin: Cancer Cure in Canada, Big Pharma NOT Interested

Dolphin: Scientists Cure Cancer, But No One Takes Notice

Mini-Me: Is US Government Blocking Natural Cures?

2012/04/282012/04/28

DefDog: Mathematics a Propaganda / Crime Tool

Civil Society, Commerce, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency

Interesting…..as pointed out in the article, most people defer to the eminence of the individual and not to the substance of the message…..and then there is the criminal obfuscation of Wall Street.

Neal Koblitz: “Mathematics as Propaganda”

This is an excerpt from Volume III of Mathematics: People, Problems, Results that had to be shared.

Johnny Carson was in top form, but the show could have bogged down if his guest had delved into subtleties or overly serious discussion. However, Ehrlich had the perfect solution. He took a piece of posterboard and wrote in large letters for the TV audience:

D = N * I

“In this equation,” he explained, “D stands for damage to the environment, N stands for the number of people, and I stands for the impact of each person on the environment. This equation shows that the more people, the more pollution. We cannot control pollution without controlling the number of people.”

Johnny Carson looked at the equation, scratched his head, made a remark about never having been good at math, and commented that it all looked quite impressive.

Continue reading “DefDog: Mathematics a Propaganda / Crime Tool”

2012/04/272012/04/27

Richard Stallman: “FRAND” is a FRAUD Call for Action in UK on Software Patent Study

Commerce, Corruption, Government, IO Impotency

UPDATE: Submission deadline is now June 4th

The UK government is holding a consultation about what sort of patent licenses an “open” standard should require. Anyone that develops free software (free as in freedom, not a matter of price) and would like it to be used in the UK has reason to be concerned with this, along with anyone that uses or distributes free software in the UK.

One option under consideration is to demand the patent holder give everyone a royalty-free patent license for implementing the standard. That at least permits free software to support the standard.

The other option is a criterion called “FRAND”, which claims to mean “Fair, Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory”. What it really means is that the patent holder must publish terms and allow anyone to buy a license on those terms. The terms are often such as to exclude free software entirely from implementing the standard.

For instance, these terms can (and in many cases do) require anyone distributing the software to pay a license fee per copy of the program distributed. If you receive a program with a requirement to pay someone if you redistribute it, you do not have freedom #2, so the program is not free software. In effect, these terms discriminate against free software, which is neither fair nor reasonable.

The term “FRAND” is a FRAUD.

Continue reading “Richard Stallman: “FRAND” is a FRAUD Call for Action in UK on Software Patent Study”

2012/04/272012/04/27

Winslow Wheeler: The Jet That Ate the Pentagon (and the Integrity of Everyone Serving in The Pentagon, in OMB and GAO, in Congress, and in the White House)

Corruption, Government, Military

WinslowWheeler Cropped — Winslow Wheeler

This new commentary on the F-35 appears at the website for Foreign Policy at . It is a short piece that does not need to be summarized by me. The editors at Foreign Policy gave it a wonderfully insightful title:

The Jet That Ate the Pentagon

BY WINSLOW WHEELER | APRIL 26, 2012

The United States is making a gigantic investment in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, billed by its advocates as the next — by their count the fifth — generation of air-to-air and air-to-ground combat aircraft. Claimed to be near invisible to radar and able to dominate any future battlefield, the F-35 will replace most of the air-combat aircraft in the inventories of the U.S. Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and at least nine foreign allies, and it will be in those inventories for the next 55 years. It's no secret, however, that the program — the most expensive in American history — is a calamity.

This month, we learned that the Pentagon has increased the price tag for the F-35 by another $289 million — just the latest in a long string of cost increases — and that the program is expected to account for a whopping 38 percent of Pentagon procurement for defense programs, assuming its cost will grow no more. Its many problems are acknowledged by its listing in proposals for Pentagon spending reductions by leaders from across the political spectrum, including Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), President Barack Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, and budget gurus such as former Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and Alice Rivlin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office and Office of Management and Budget.

How bad is it? A review of the F-35's cost, schedule, and performance — three essential measures of any Pentagon program — shows the problems are fundamental and still growing.

Continue reading “Winslow Wheeler: The Jet That Ate the Pentagon (and the Integrity of Everyone Serving in The Pentagon, in OMB and GAO, in Congress, and in the White House)”

2012/04/272012/04/27

NIGHTWATCH: China Builds Economic-Tourism Bridge to Taiwan, Puts PLA Into a Box – US Will Continue to Demonize China for Unethical Reasons

02 China, 02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 10 Security, 11 Society, Commerce, Ethics, Government, Peace Intelligence

Sixteen years ago, Pingtan Island, just north west of Taiwan, was the center of Chinese military energies to intimidate Taiwanese voters against electing a pro-independence president. Major amphibious operations were staged, some with catastrophic loss of life by military personnel because of bad weather. This also was the first time China attempted to maintain continuous air operations over the Taiwan Strait. That also proved beyond Chinese capabilities.

These complemented the dramatic and sensational Chinese short range ballistic missile shots into Taiwan's two main ports. The missile launches might be compared to the US launching missiles into Pearl Harbor to prevent Hawaii from seceding from the US.

A key difference was that the Chinese missiles were so inaccurate, that no one knew whether they would launch much less whether they would stay on target. The danger was that a ballistic missile might veer off course and strike Taiwan, rather than the ocean. The missiles were so unreliable that the risk of a stray missile was very real. With only luck, they did not hit land or ships in the harbor which would have sparked general war in 1996.

The US sent two aircraft carrier task groups to defend Taiwan in 1996, forcing the Chinese to back down and inflicting a humiliating political defeat on the communist mandarins in Beijing. At one point, during turnover, three carriers were present to defend Taiwan. The Chinese intimidation effort failed on every level. Even the weather was hostile to the Chinese.

This week China published details of its plans for the Pingtan Comprehensive Economic Zone (CEZ) through the approval and promulgation of the General Development Plan for the Pingtan CEZ. Mainland China officials have emphasized the “importance” of the plan and the CEZ.

The Chinese military fiasco during the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis ensured that the communist party leaders would never again allow the People's Liberation Army leaders to have their way in solving any national security problems.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH: China Builds Economic-Tourism Bridge to Taiwan, Puts PLA Into a Box – US Will Continue to Demonize China for Unethical Reasons”

2012/04/26

David Swanson: 1939 Essay Predicted Hitler, Predicts US Dictatorship

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War

The Global War on Terror, in the Original German

By David Swanson

In 1939, Sebastian Haffner sat down and wrote a pre-history of Nazism.

Nazism had not been inevitable. It had not progressed steadily without setbacks. But it had been growing for many years, even before the name for it existed. It had been coming since the end of the Great War.

By the late 1920s, according to Haffner, “Berlin became quite an international city. Admittedly, the sinister Nazi types already lurked in the wings, as ‘we' could not fail to notice with deep disgust. They spoke of ‘Eastern vermin' with murder in their eyes and sneeringly of ‘Americanization.' Whereas ‘we,' a segment of the younger generation difficult to define but instantly and mutually recognizable, were not only friendly toward foreigners, but enthusiastic about them.”

The Stresemann Era, 1924-1929, saw Gustav Stresemann serve as Foreign Minister. He made peace with France, joined the League of Nations, won a Nobel Peace Prize, wandered the streets of Berlin unarmed and unguarded, and his signature is first at the bottom of the Kellogg-Briand Pact. Who studies him today? His spirit is far more powerful in Germany now than Hitler's, so powerful as to go unnoticed.

But Hitler was coming. When Stresemann died in 1929, “we were seized with icy terror. . . . The era of peace was at an end. So long as Stresemann had been there, we had not quite believed it. Now we knew.”

In 1930, Heinrich Bruning became chancellor, ushering in what we would today call “bipartisan austerity” or “fiscal responsibility,” something the United States and its allies helped to impose on Germany, just as the United States and Germany now help to impose it on Greece or Spain. Bruning cut salaries, pensions, social benefits, wages, interest rates, freedom to travel, freedom of the press, and the powers of the parliament. “Yet, paradoxically, his actions were rooted in the conviction that he was defending the republic. Understandably, the republicans began to ask themselves whether there was anything left to defend.”

Haffner makes an interesting observation at this point in his reminiscences: “To my knowledge, the Bruning regime was the first essay and model of a form of government that has since been copied in many European countries: the semi-dictatorship in the name, and in defense, of democracy against fully fledged dictatorship.”

Continue reading “David Swanson: 1939 Essay Predicted Hitler, Predicts US Dictatorship”

2012/04/26

DefDog: NSA Ubber Alles – Resistance is Futile

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military

Outside the normal press field, this is the second article I saw today in
CSO Salted Hash newsletter about Big Brother….

Will Obama preside over the coming of Big Brother?

Privacy advocates and civil libertarians say among the president's broken promises is a failure to restrain the NSA's growing domestic surveillance

By Taylor Armerding

April 25, 2012 — CSO —

If President Barack Obama is going to win a second term, he may have to do it without the support of privacy and civil liberties organizations, including those in information and personal security.

Increasingly the president, who was expected to fulfill the dreams of civil libertarians by creating a more open, transparent and less-intrusive government, is instead being viewed as a nightmare.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota: This is not about Obama — or whoever is in the White House including Romney or Ron Paul or Hillary Clinton. This is about a financial system that is on auto-pilot, that has rotted out the core of the Republic.

The NSA possible domestic interception/collection points have been mapped and include seven AT&T and one Verizon location. Despite NSA Chief Alexander denying domestic spying, NSA whistleblower Binney told Democracy Now that the NSA is lying and has copies of all emails in the United States. Binney added that the Total Information Awareness program was alive and covertly running . . . and may still be.

Read full article, see map of seven known NSA sites focused on domestic US targets.

The Battle for the Soul of the Republic (Reality Sandwich)

Category: Government

Gary North: Cancer Lobby Winning Big — Corrupt Congress is THE Cancer

Health and Free Trade

DefDog: Mathematics a Propaganda / Crime Tool

D = N * I

Richard Stallman: “FRAND” is a FRAUD Call for Action in UK on Software Patent Study

Winslow Wheeler: The Jet That Ate the Pentagon (and the Integrity of Everyone Serving in The Pentagon, in OMB and GAO, in Congress, and in the White House)

NIGHTWATCH: China Builds Economic-Tourism Bridge to Taiwan, Puts PLA Into a Box – US Will Continue to Demonize China for Unethical Reasons

David Swanson: 1939 Essay Predicted Hitler, Predicts US Dictatorship

DefDog: NSA Ubber Alles – Resistance is Futile

By Taylor Armerding