Well kinda- in an adventurous expedition. In one of the more bizzare events surrounding the 2008 Presidential elections, an Ohio farmer named Duke Wheeler is making it possible for people to get inside the head of Republican VP nominee, Sarah Palin. It seems that the farmer had an Idaho artist carve up a sixteen acre field of corn into a maze in the image of Sarah Palin. Oh My, I suppose it will confuse any visiting UFO’s looking for crop circles to guide them to their secret bases.
Monthly Archives: September 2008
Get Inside Sarah Palins Head
Source Leaks Israel Sought US Support To Strike Iran in May
An unnamed source supposedly has confirmed a previous rumor to the British Press, that back in May Israeli PM Olmert had proposed a military strike on Iran’s nuclear project to officials in the US Government. That had been heavily rumored for some time earlier this year. The source also claimed that US President Bush had informed Olmert that he was not ready to support such a move. It was just a few weeks later, in June, when Israel performed a series of in-your-face military exercises in the Mediterranean region–> replicating possible attack maneuvers on critical Iranian locations. Russia has been adding stress to the region by dragging their feet and posturing for increased tentacles in the Iran and the Middle East, by blocking coalition attempts seeking Iran to give up its quest for nuclear weapons. There was some possible good news for the region today. Though no details have yet been released, it was announced that the US and Russia had reached an agreement to seek a new UN resolution involving the building Iran crisis. I will assume it is more Russian foot shuffling until proven otherwise. I will not hold my breath waiting for something real to emerge from this agreement until all sides come out and show me the money. In the meantime I can only assume that Israel is logically waiting, planning and preparing to make a military strike on Iran nuclear facilities if they continue to push for nuclear weapons capability.
Nearly 3000 French Restaurants in Bankruptcy
According to a BBC article France has seen a 20% decline in restaurant sales helping to cause the closure of almost 3000 French eating establishments over the last six months, with almost 1800 of them traditional style restaurants. French experts are partially blaming cultural eating habits that show a trend of the French citizenry becoming Americanized by choosing sandwiches/snacks and fast food selections. Another reason they are laying partial blame on is the ban on smoking in restaurants which has seen a shift away from eating in restaurants and bars where smoking is not allowed and the smokers instead choosing to eat in their homes. They also claim that the high value of the Euro has seen a lot of drop in tourist traffic that would normally eat at the restaurants. But the biggest blame fell on a weak economy that has seen less disposable income as the French people seek to balance their personal finances. When economies are tough, luxuries like eating out in nice restaurants with silverware and tablecloths are often cut back everywhere. Quoting Peter Falk in the movie “All the Marbles” Those frills cost money! Ouch yes they do my friends!
Mr. Potter is Buying Five Billion Dollars of Bargains
Many people in the USA and the World are busy tossing around accusations and starting to panic over the current banking crisis. The crisis is a two headed monster created by greedy banking executives and people overextending themselves in housing and credit purchases. Many of us may or may not suffer financially from the actions of others before this crisis is over. And though you cannot blame anyone for worrying -especially the banking industry and those citizens that have overextended themselves- people with cool heads are already capitalizing on everybody else’s panic. And to steal a quote from the movie classic “It’s A Wonderful Life” : Mr. Potter is not panicking, Mr. Potter is not selling. Mr. Potter is buying –> about five billion dollars worth of bargains.
China – Contaminated Food Export Scandals Continues
It has been since early 2007 since I started blogging that there has been news of contaminated food products exported by China causing health problems. There was dog food/treats that turned up contaminated. There was contaminated gluten that made it into the domesticated fish and livestock feed sold here in the US. There was poisoned toothpaste and cough syrup that was released into several world-wide markets. There was even a shipment of it stopped from entering the US. Most recently there was an infants/milk scare where several children were poisoned with contaminated milk products. These problems were not accidental. The toothpaste and cough syrup contamination occurred when a manufacturer included a poisonous anti-freeze product in the ingredients to cheapen the cost. The other products were all contaminated with a combination of melamine and cyanuric acid, which has proved dangerous to humans and pets. The products are added either directly or indirectly though animal/fish feed to products tested for protein content; they then create a false positive testing score making the product imitate products with higher protein content. In some cases companies had paid of government officials to get their products to market. A recent government official stated that they were solving the problem and the danger was minimal. Hmm that is almost reassuring, except that the melamine/ cyanuric acid contamination problem has been repeated continually, without successful intervention by the Chinese Government. Sadly, these kinds of events are not unique to China. The Chinese Government has expressed remorse over the infant milk scandal, mostly because it also effected mainland China. But it seems evident that either the Chinese Government takes a mostly unresponsive attitude towards the danger presented or that they are way over their heads in product safety checks, even more likely – both.
Update:
Saccharin – Aspartame – Sucralose The Dangerous Battle for Your Sweet Tooth
As long as I have been alive there seems to have been a battle to replace sugar with alternative sweeteners in the human diet. Abusive use of sugar has been painted as the evil behind many of the problems such as obesity and diabetes that plague people’s health and lives. Artificial sweeteners such as Saccharin under many different names, Aspartame aka. Equal® and Sucralose aka. as Splenda® have all sought to replace sugar at our families table as the sweetener of choice. But the new and improved artificial sweeteners are becoming a damned if you do – damned if you don’t proposition. Saccharin products, which has been around a long time was giving the old heave ho by medical experts because it was shown to cause brain tumors in lab rats. Those tests are now in question as to if saccharin would affect humans in the same manner as it did the lab rats. There are still many forms of it around today under many names but when Aspartame made its debut as a better and safer product; the saccharin products saw a huge decline in popularity. But Equals reign, as the artificial sweetener of choice was short. Like saccharin Aspartame was deemed by many in the health industry to have dangerous side effects. Depending on who or what study you choose to believe there have been as high as a possible 92 different dangerous side effects associated with Aspartame. Some of those include psychological, physical and neurological disorders that include epileptic seizures, severe tremors, vision problems including blindness in one or both eyes, loss of control of diabetes, insomnia, phobias, irritability, brain lesions and brain tumors. It has since lost its popularity as the artificial sweetener king to Sucralose though; I believe that Equal/Aspartame still has most of the diet soft drink industry still under it main control. Still Sucralose/Splenda® has not had a lack of detractors in the health industry. It has been associated with claims of health problems including shrunken thymus glands and enlarged livers and kidneys. Now a new study by Duke University, already being questioned about its objectivity, claims the very popular sweetener Sucralose/Splenda® may actually increase obesity chances, destroy the good bacteria in the digestive system and prevent the absorption of your prescription drugs. Of course in all fairness I have read that artificial sweeteners in general may contribute to obesity and diabetes problems. What I have read is that the body expects a carb rush when eating sweetened items and when the body does not get that carb rush it creates a craving to overindulge in other items to get the carb rush. Purpose of not eating the sugar defeated. (Actually in some items I have found by substituting brown sugar in hot foods, like my morning bowl of Oats, for white sugar I do not want as much sugar in what I am eating.) It sounds like it is back to the old drawing board for the artificial sweeteners in their battle for the worlds sweet tooth market.
Russia Benefits from Enabling Iranian-Israeli Conflict
In a speech addressing the UN, Iranian leader/Mullah Puppet, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, vowed to continue with Iran’s current nuclear objectives. What exactly those objectives consist of are controversial and creating an atmosphere where the possibility of violent intervention becomes more and more a real possibility. I know most of the World was and still is hoping that diplomacy will win out and cooler heads will prevail. Russia in its recent posture to display itself as a renewed dominate superpower in the European continent has not helped by lobbying against strict economic and technology sanctions against Iran, which UN peacemakers would use in an attempt to corral in the Ahmadinejad push to become a nuclear weapon power. Considering Iranian leaderships’ overtly hostile posture regarding Israel and its right to exist, I cannot imagine Israel allowing events to progress to the point – Iran actually develops nuclear weapons capability. Factor in the recent Russian attempt at hobbling an unusual allied UN effort to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of the ruling radical Iranian mullahs and their puppet Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; it makes a violent Israeli process of curtailing Iranian nuclear capabilities closer to a reality than an apprehension. And I could not fault Israel if they felt pressured by current Iranian Leaderships anti Israeli rhetoric in to making an attack on Iranian nuclear plans.
No matter the directions taken, this series of events should play well with Russian intentions to increase their power structure. The events will no doubt continue to bring around closer relations between Russia and Iran both countries seem to be working towards. An Israeli attack, or even the threat of an attack, on Iran could also help Russia by creating an expanded market for Russian weaponry. However the best probable influence for Russia is that the more aggressive the conflict, the more it would also drive up the price of oil in the market place making Russian treasuries, from petroleum products, even heavier with golden treasure. If Iran came out of the events unscathed — Russia benefits by lending a helping hand and extending their alliance. If Iran is attacked and was seriously damaged by the process, Russia still wins as they rush in to pick up the pieces and make the country into an oil-rich Russian satellite nation. Russia can just sit in the background shadows benefiting from any and all of the chaos, while raking in the money whatever Israeli/Iranian avenues are taken. As long as Russia manages to sit on the sidelines, helping Iran stay at conflict with Israel by hindering outside attempts at a peaceful intervention, it is a win-win situation for the Russian Bear. The problem with enabling vipers like the current leadership of Iran, is once you pick them up, like the former US-Bin Laden connection, there is always the chance they will turn and bite you in a fit of instinctive anger.
Public Sex Proves a Fatal Choice
Sex in public places seems to be an adventure a lot of amorous couples like to experiment with. Just a few weeks ago I wrote about a European couple caught and arrested having sex in a church. Locally here in the Quad Cities I have ran into people having sex in public places like parking lots, swimming pools and a favorite among the local hotel crowds – elevators. Some people seem to have a huge voyeuristic appetite for others to watch them have sex. Most of them at least have the good sense to put on their show in relative safety. I suppose the South African couple talked about in a BBC article assumed they were having steamy sex in a safe public when they chose a normally unused train track to explore their sexual fantasies. Their choice of public sex destination turned out to be a fatal choice as both were killed by a train that decided to use the tracks.