High Fructose Corn Syrup By Any Other Name Would Still Be Too Sweet

I've been eating a healthier diet lately, becoming more vigilant about what I put in my body. You can often find me at the grocery store, reading labels of processed foods, trying to avoid additives and sweeteners that aren't good for my body. One of the most dangerous of these is high fructose corn syrup, which your body processes in different ways than regular cane or beet sugar, which in turn alters the way metabolic-regulating hormones function. It also feeds cancer cells.
So, being a prudent shopper, I should have the right to decide what I ingest, right? Not if the high fructose corn syrup industry has it's way.
Now they want to change the food label for high fructose corn syrup to the more pleasing 'corn sugar'. Why? because consumption of high fructose corn syrup in the US market has fallen 21 percent in the last ten years as more and more consumers are avoiding it in the diet. Even First Lady Michelle Obama says she doesn't want her daughters eating food with it in it's ingredients. Meanwhile, the industry has opened up new markets in Mexico and other emerging economies.

Feeding Your Cancer Sweet!

Are our food companies trying to kill us? It almost seems that way, when you consider that they put high fructose corn syrup in almost everything these days. Already linked to hyper-obesity, HFCS can be found in almost everything out there, from some diet soda drinks and light salad dressings, to even croutons for stuffing chicken. No wonder more than a quarter of Americans are obese.The body processes the fructose in high fructose corn syrup differently than it does old-fashioned cane or beet sugar, which in turn alters the way metabolic-regulating hormones function. It also forces the liver to kick more fat out into the bloodstream. MMMM, more fat in the bloodstream.
Obesity can lead to more health issues, such as cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes.
Now HFCS has been found to be the sweet stuff that cancer cells love to eat. In other words, just eating a diet of regularly prepared food increases chances of any cancer cells you may already have to proliferate, especially in your pancreas.
So why is it in everything? Well, one reason is it's cheaper to use than other sugars. Two, the government (those bastards!)policies that aimed to stabilize food prices and support corn production in the 1970s led to a glut of corn and then to high fructose corn syrup. With a cheaper way to sweeten food, producers pumped up the size and amount of sweet snacks and drinks on the market and increased profits. So there you go, making you unhealthy makes some one else richer, and you can probably guess that it's not you. So if you think that the federal government and the FDA are doing their job protecting us safe and coddled in our Nanny Ninny State, guess again. Politics play more of a role than actual food safety. And remember, the FDA are the same people who gave us aspatame!

You Can't Judge A Book B y It's Cover, But You Can Judge A Judge By The Way He Covers His Books

Given the unmitigated disaster that the the leak at BP's Deepwater Horizon has become, one would think that a temporary ban on drilling might not be a bad idea. The Obama administration had hoped the ban would allow time to ensure that other wells are operating safely. That ban has blocked by a federal judge, ruling in favor of drilling companies.
Well, guess what? That's right, the judge who ruled in favor of the drilling companies, US District Judge Martin "Marty" Feldman, owns $15,000 worth of stock in offshore drilling companies. Can you say conflict of interest?
It's a good thing that Americans have guardians of justice such as Judge Feldman, who will put public and environmental safety over their own personal gain. Judges who would recuse themselves from cases where a conflict of interest may appear, just to insure there is no appearance of impropriety.
The truth is, our justice system, much the same as our legislature, is bought and paid for, and unless you happen to have enough money to buy into it, you are seriously fucked.

They Get Laid, We Get Screwed

With millions of people with out health care, (including now, myself), or unable to afford it, do you ever wonder what it takes to get the attention of our politicians? Well, if you're CA State Assemblymen Mike Duvall, all you need is a vagina.
Duvall, a married Republican from Orange County, was caught on tape bragging about a graphic sexual encounter with a female lobbyist for energy company, Sempra Energy. Duvall is vice chair of the Committee on Utilities & Commerce. No word on whether or not their arrangement was quid pro quo, but their relationship was "the worst-kept secret in Sacramento". The revelation has caused Duvall to resign his position, but now has back pedaled and said that he was only involved in "inappropriate storytelling." way to man up, Mikey.
It need not be said that Duvall is a family values Republican, who opposes gay marriage, and is a hypocrite, any combination of the two is merely a redundancy. In my previous post, I mentioned an unnamed still-sitting Democratic congresswoman, videotaped in a same-sex tryst being blackmailed by a foreign government, so piggish behavior is not limited by gender and/or party. The only thing they have in common is they happen to be politicians and that leads me to my point.
For years, before my health insurance ran out, I was paying into a fund, and not using it, because I am somewhat healthy. Now that I no longer have this carrier, does that mean I get a refund? No, of course not. I just wonder if maybe that money, when not going to CEO bonuses or to bureaucrats trying to find a reason to deny other people's claims, was being paid to a lobbyist to fuck some fat-assed gray haired dickwad family values Republican hypocrite, who then graphically describes his encounter to anyone in earshot because that's the kind of uncouth lobbyistfucker he is, to oppose any health care reform at all. That seems to be the way our system works these days. Giant corporations take our hard earned money and buy politicians who enact laws that benefit these large corporations at our expense. And if you don't like it, move to Canada.
At least you'd have health insurance.

PT Barnum Was Right

Organizers held a fortieth anniversary concert of the original Woodstock concert this weekend. It was a chance for aging boomers to dress like hippies, wear peace symbols and love beads, and take part in something they totally missed out on the first time around. And thereby, missing the whole point of what made the original experience so iconic.
It was anarchy.
It was mud, brown acid, and skinny dipping. It was the explosion of a youth culture facing being shipped to an early death fighting an unwinnable war in southeast Asia for reasons never fully understood.
Now it's all about reliving memories of something they never took part in, flashing the peace sign, and tailgating in the parking lot, with, I'm sure, lots of bottles of chardonnay passed around the parking lot. That's right, it was like a fucking sporting event. Organized, and calm, it belies and betrays the spirit of the original.
A lot of the original acts that played at the original returned to play this one. Big Brother and the Holding Company returned, for instance, missing, of course, the iconic lead singer that made them a festival attraction in the first place. Canned Heat played as well, sans founding members Bob "the Bear" Hite and Alan Wilson, both of whom are now dead.
The whole purpose of the concert seems to have been promoters and musicians loosely tied to the original stars exploiting hippie poseurs looking to have a memory of something they wished they could have been at and now are desperately seeking ways to connect to so they can say, I wasn't at the original , but I was at the fortieth anniversary.
So they didn't get to see the Who, or Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young, Crosby Stills and Nash, or Creedence Clearwater Revival, but they did get to sit in lawn chairs and cheer along with Country Joe McDonald. They still think that by voting for Obama, they are "hip" and "with-it", even though Obama has shown his reluctance for the "peace" the original concert was set up to exploit and promote. And such is the definition of pathetic.

We All Just Became Peasants

Our country is broken, and I don't just mean economically. We have a congress willing to spend $50 million, borrowed from our children's future on utter nonsense that benefits the agenda of a few evil rich men while millions go wanting for health care. But that's not even the root of the problem.
No, the problem is we have people so lock stepped with political parties so out of touch with reality that Nancy Pelosi can declare $350,000 the new middle class. This makes the president slightly upper middle class now, but he doesn't have to pay taxes on his free health care, (or his free security,his free lodging, or his free public transportation), but his plan wants you to consider your health insurance (if provided by your employer) as " taxable income".
But if $350K is the new middle class, is $175K lower middle class? That would explain why there has been so much credit default lately, somehow, while we were busting our asses, paying our bills, and providing for our families, we all became poor. Someone moved the goal line while we were still on our own 30 yard line.
But you can't blame Pelosi, or the rest of congress, for taking advantage of people stupid enough to keep voting against their own interests-that's capitalism.
As insane and out of touch as Pelosi's statement is, it is more in touch with the Republicans, who last year were ready to vote for a guy who thought $3 million was middle class. The reality is that as long as we keep playing the corpocracy's game of Democrats vs. Republicans, we will all remian what they want us to be: peasants.

Two Wars We're Not Fighting

Does anybody remember the war on drugs? You know, the multi-billion dollar enterprise started during the Reagan administration to rid the world of the scourge of drug use. We passed tougher laws, suspended suspects rights, all in the name of protecting our children from the very evil and nefarious type who would push their dope upon them. Same with the war on terror. How's that working out?
Not too good. It seems that Hamid Karzai, US puppet "president" of Afghanistan pardoned five heroin traffickers, and his brother has been linked by the US military to Afghan drug lords. Meanwhile, prisons here in the US are filled with pot smokers, who might buy Grateful Dead recordings, tie dye perfectly good white tee shirts, and grow hideously unsanitary dread locks. Why are they locked away? Well, we're told that some of that drug money goes to fund terrorism.
And what exactly is terrorism? The calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious. So when Newt Gingrich proposes US sabotage against Iran's oil and gas infrastructure, that qualifies as terrorism. Except that the money for this proposed act isn't filtered through pot smokers. No, this comes directly from the US taxpayer.
Imagine you're working at one of Iran's many gas and/or oil structures, not really liking your job, or your government for that matter, but hey, that's capitalism. Suddenly, through no fault of your own, your body and limbs are rendered from each other and you find that the promise of paradise wasn't for real. Americans got real pissed when Neda was shot on camera, this is the same thing, except, we're killing in the name of Jesus based capitalism, so that makes it OK.