Advertising Trains People to Behave like Lab Rats

from NewsTarget http://www.psychology-news.org/

 

I promised to share some of the insights I gained by getting all that advertising info, but Mike Adams has already started that ball rolling with this article (reprinted with permission). I’ll share more on how Marketers are brainwashing Americans later.

 

Do you ever read about experiments in which lab rats are used to test a psychological premise? Researchers set up a food dispensing system in which the lab rat presses a lever to get a little piece of food. You can train a lab rat to do all sorts of different things just to have the right to press that lever. It doesn't take rats long to realize that the lever is associated with dispensing food, and food, of course, makes them feel good.

 

Now, imagine a 50-year-old overweight man standing in front of a soft drink vending machine. He's looking over the menu, trying to decide which item to request. He inserts a few quarters, presses a button, and gets a carbonated beverage. He pops it open, guzzles it down, and gets the brain-chemistry-altering effect that soft drinks deliver to the human nervous system.

 

In this society, you can train[1] a human being to do just about anything, as long as you attach it to an alteration in brain chemistry that's either pleasurable or avoids pain. You can train people to press buttons on vending machines or pull levers on blackjack machines. How do you train them? You do it through mass media advertising. The training with the lab rats is a little more personal, but the population at large in the United States or other developed countries is trained through television, cable, magazines and so on. You train them by flashing positive imagery, usually involving sex, and then quickly interweaving images about your own products.

 

Note 1: Whenever this article says, “train,” the word you should be inserting there is “brainwash” or perhaps “program” if you think brainwashing is too harsh.

 

If this is done back and forth quickly enough, it creates an almost subliminal effect. It's sex -- and then, soda. Sex, soda, sex, soda. Soon afterwards, when people think about soda, they get the same feeling as if they were thinking about sex. When they're standing in front of that vending machine, they're not consciously thinking sex, but they're feeling sex and they're pressing the button to get the same brain chemistry effect they were taught to experience by the advertising.

 

That's how advertising really works, and that's what advertisers will almost never admit to you. Why do you think there's so much sex in advertising? Sex sells. Everybody knows that, but few people are willing to admit the process by which sex sells. It's a process of association. It's pure Pavlovian psychology -- the same thing as teaching a dog to drool when he hears a bell or teaching a lab rat to press a lever in exchange for food. You can teach human beings to press buttons, spend money, buy a certain clothing label or wear a certain brand of cosmetics. All you have to do is make sure that it is associated with sex.

 

Of course, the reality is that these messages are pure distortion. The message says, “Here, drink this carbonated beverage (or beer, wine, tequila) and you'll be sexy and popular.” But in reality, if you keep drinking those carbonated beverages, you'll be overweight and probably end up being diabetic. That's the reality, but that's not what advertisers want you to believe. They want you to think that you're going to be popular, thin and maybe even youthful. (Now add to that, you need to buy a sports car – sex – or drive a bigger, tougher 4WD Truck – sex – or live in a certain subdivision – sex – or eat at a certain restaurant – sex – or be a winner at the Silverado slots – sex – or we’ll even teach you Texas Hold’em on your computer for free so you’ll be a skilled gambler – sex – and a huge winner[2] – lots of sex because you’re rich.)

 

Note 2: That item is also a huge lie. The mathematical odds of winning at this form of gambling are worse than being struck by lightning from a clear blue sky. This is a guaranteed form of income for “the house” because gamblers are idiots.

 

This is especially the way it works in the cosmetics industry, which promises to make you young, sexy, or beautiful. In fact, cosmetics, more often than not, just poison your skin with toxic ingredients that don't belong in the human body in the first place.

 

Reader Q&A

 

Q: Many of the studies you cite often talk about placebos being used and they sometimes show a positive result from using placebos, even though that inert pill couldn’t possibly have caused that. Are there any findings that show negative results from placebos?

 

A: Yes, there are also negative placebo effects (called nocebo, Latin for “I will harm”), though they rarely get mentioned. Placebos are substances with no pharmacological properties (assumed to be totally inert, although they are often given the look and/or smell of the drug being tested). Whatever happens to a patient after taking a placebo is generally regarded as being psychological rather than physiological. That is, if a patient expects to get the promised effect of the drug, he will experience that. Likewise, many patients expect to get negative side effects from most drugs and if they have that expectation, they likely will experience it. Typically, those effects are anxiety or depression, but some studies have shown nastier side effects, especially during heart drug studies. Patients getting placebos have actually given themselves attacks because of their belief that this new drug could not fix them. That’s a case of “think sick, be sick.” Mostly, the type of people to experience nocebo effects are those who have a history of vague, difficult-to-diagnose complaints and are usually convinced that whatever therapy that is prescribed will do little to fix their particular problems (hypochondriacs fall in this category – they want to be ill as a means of getting attention). Voodoo (you’ve all seen those movies) and other practices of “magical thinking” are excellent examples of the nocebo effect. Invariably, these require the “victim” to be told they have been “cursed” and, if that person believes it, that is usually the only requirement for successfully doing them harm. In the case of medical studies, the “curse” is the patient’s own belief that s/he will suffer as a result. Whatever you believe is real, you will make real in your own mind.

 

Q: You mentioned, many issues ago, that calories were actually a unit of heat. I was just wondering, does that mean that hot food has more calories than cold food?

 

A: Theoretically, yes. Biological systems, however, cannot utilize heat energy biochemically. An easy analogy is to park your car in the sun and let it get real hot. If the gas tank is empty, it still isn’t going anywhere. You should also note that biological systems are constantly generating waste heat as a result of metabolic processes. That is usually sufficient to maintain your normal body temperature, but in some cases, such as exposure to cold, those processes do not generate sufficient heat and we have to burn calories to bring our body temperature up; this is done by shivering. Likewise, panting or sweating are the body’s ways of using calories to dispose of excess heat by evaporative cooling. So, theoretically, by this logic, drinking a cold sweet drink will be more fattening than a hot sweet drink, even though both contain the same number of food calories. But our bodies have to burn calories to raise the effective temperature of cold foods, so it is also reasonably safe to say cold foods have less overall effective calories than hot foods. This, however, is insignificant to a diet for the purpose of weight loss. Hot food carries kinetic energy into your body, heating your tongue, throat, and stomach (which is why you feel “warm” after a good hot stew). The net result is that eating cold food requires you to use calories to heat it up for digestion, while eating hot food requires you to use calories to eliminate the excess heat, so the difference, in terms of your metabolism, is, if not zero, then ridiculously insignificant.

 

Watchdog

 

1. A new report by the Institute of Medicine recommends easing current restrictions on the use of prisoners in medical experiments to allow inmates to “benefit” from clinical trials. Critics of the plan cite past abuses of prisoners by pharmaceutical companies and medical researchers as reasons to keep rigid restrictions on medical experimentation in place. About 300 former inmates have sued Penn drug researcher Albert Kligman for allegedly experimenting on them in 1964 with infectious agents, dioxin, radioactive isotopes and psychotropic drugs. Inmates were told the chemicals they were testing were harmless. More: http://www.newstarget.com/019637.html Supposedly, commission of a crime in this country does not automatically relegate you to the status of guinea pig. That’s Middle Ages mentality.

 

2. OK, folks, this subject is barely health related (see item 15E); it is more of the Radio Frequency Identification stuff that you might be interested in knowing about: On a busy Saturday night, a good bartender makes a lot of money for the bar's owner, but an overly generous bartender—or one fond of pouring free drinks for friends—can cost the owner even more. A Miami-based 7-year-old beverage-monitoring software company is drinking from the keg of RFID and is selling a tilt switch that attaches to bottles and updates an Internet database every time the bottle is poured. Hilton, Hyatt, Outback Steakhouse, TGI Fridays and others are reportedly testing the system. It's not merely recording how many times the bottle is poured, but it factors in the tilt of the bottle, the duration of the pour and the bartender's pouring style to calculate how much liquid is leaving the bottle. It is not paranoia now; Big Brother is moving in. More RFID stuff later in this column (see items 6 and 15). You can read the rest of this story at:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1986925,00.asp?kc=EWEWEMNL071006EPW1B 

 

3. COLUMBUS, Ohio (AdAge.com) -- Amid its $578 million advertising review, Wal-Mart Stores is kicking off a multi-million dollar campaign focused on its new organic food offerings. The TV, radio, online, print and in-store push, from independent Bernstein-Rein, St. Louis, showcases the first-ever “organics” Wal-Mart logo and the tagline “What do you bring to the table?” More (from an advertising perspective) at: http://adage.com/article?article_id=110482 Think about this a minute, folks: If they are spending that much money on ads, what’s the markup on this food? And, if they are getting it in quantity, what’s the storage situation? And we’e already had the discussion about the lack of pesticides and fungicides in organic produce making them, potentially, a riskier food than “normal” stuff. Do you really want to jump on this bandwagon?

 

4. A federal vaccine advisory panel voted unanimously yesterday to recommend that all girls and women ages 11 to 26 receive a new vaccine that prevents most cases of cervical cancer. The vote all but commits the federal government to spend as much as $2 billion alone on a program to buy the vaccine for the nation's poorest girls from 11 to 18. Gardasil is manufactured by Merck and should be available within days. Girls as young as 9 can receive the vaccine if doctors wish, the panel voted. If the doctor wishes? You know, I am getting damn tired of our government buying poison from drug companies and then dictating that we use it. You can get their story at: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/30/health/30vaccine.html?ex=1153195200&en=4a36e0bfc90950c3&ei=5070

 

5. One recent sun-splashed afternoon, executives who run some of America’s leading nonprofit hospitals met at a stately Colorado resort for an unusual mission: to advise companies confidentially on how best to sell their drugs, medical devices and financial services to hospitals. The hospital executives were rewarded with more than a chance to indulge in a “harmonic” hot stone massage or mountainside golf. They were also paid thousands of dollars for the advice they offered to dozens of companies, like Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup. So hospital doctors push certain drugs because their upper management has sold out. More at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/17/business/17group.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

 

6. More on Big Brother’s RFID plan: SAN FRANCISCO, July 15 — Researchers at Hewlett-Packard are set to introduce a new technology on Monday that they say will allow large amounts of information to be stored on tiny chips attached to objects. An inexpensive handheld electronic reader can access the information by touching the experimental chips, which might be placed on a painting, a photo, a bracelet or virtually anything else. The stored information might include video, sound and text. Company officials were cautious about potential commercial applications, but said the technology might be used to store audio that could be read back from photographs, for example. Or, it could be used to read and modify electronic medical information in a medical patient’s ID bracelet. So now, comrade, we can scan your implanted RFID, which will show us your photograph, social security number, and all the information (medical, financial, police record) that we need to totally control your life. Read the rest of their version at

 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/17/technology/17tag.html?th&emc=th

 

7. There is no cure for Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia (yes there is, but they don’t want to know about it), which affect an estimated 28 million people globally and according to researchers from Sweden and the U.S. more people will be at risk of Alzheimer's as the “baby boom” generation ages. What causes Alzheimer's is unclear (only because they refuse to acknowledge fungi and mycotoxin poisoning) but researchers believe there is a link with diet and exercise, and they have now found clear links with diabetes. Researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden have found that not only does type-2 diabetes up the risk of Alzheimer's but the risk is also there for people who have raised blood sugar levels, but have not yet developed diabetes type 2; and that risk is greater if the person also has severe hypertension (high blood pressure). More at: http://www.news-medical.net/?id=18892

 

8. If your read item 7 above, check this out too: A recent study directed by Mount Sinai School of Medicine identifies a faulty molecule in the brain found in cases of mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Researchers say this faulty molecule may be responsible for the progression of MCI to mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) dementia. The study, which appeared June 10th online in the journal Neurobiology of Aging, may lead to preventative treatments for AD. … one reason for that early increase of beta-amyloid peptides: an enzyme that breaks down beta-amyloid peptides, also referred to as an insulin-degrading enzyme (IDE), is not active in the brain in the cases at high-risk for developing AD. … the current results raise the possibility that a deficit in degradation of amyloid peptides from IDE could raise levels of toxic beta-amyloid peptides even before AD dementia is diagnosed. More at: http://www.news-medical.net/?id=18757 Now, pay attention: faulty molecules… could they be caused by the same cellular invaders that cause our body cells to multiply out of control? Yes, fungi! Why can’t all these otherwise brilliant scientist see the simple answers that are right in front of them? Do the trees block them from noticing they are standing in a forest?

 

9. Researchers at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School observed 76,3128 women who were enrolled in the Nurses' Health Study from 1980 to 2000. Eligible participants were at least 40 years old, did not have POAG (primary open angle glaucoma) at the beginning of the study, and reported receiving eye exams during follow-up. After controlling for age, race, hypertension, body mass index, physical activity, alcohol intake, smoking and family history of glaucoma, they found that type 2 diabetes was positively associated with POAG. However, the relation between type 2 diabetes and POAG did not increase with longer durations of type 2 diabetes. More at: http://www.news-medical.net/?id=18827

 

10. Treatment of high blood sugar may have a scientific connection to memory loss that could, one day, benefit millions of people with Alzheimer's Disease, which affects up to 4.5 million older Americans, bringing with it impaired thinking and memory. More at: http://www.news-medical.net/?id=18888 Med News seems to be concentrating on Alzheimer’s this week, but note all the articles on AD here mention either type-2 diabetes or high blood sugar. Remember what we told you about sugar? It is the preferred primary food of fungi. You want to lower your blood sugar and get rid of diabetes? Stop eating all that damn junk food and processed crap from the grocery stores, all of which is either loaded with sugar or corn syrup! If you don’t want to die, get that crap out of your diet right now!

 

11. This article is trying to tell us the reason why wealthy people live longer than poor people: Another explanation is that healthier people simply make more money. But one vocal group of researchers says the problem has nothing to do with material comfort at all. Instead, it is the mental stress of being less wealthy than our peers that kills us. I think they have it all wrong. It is not the stress of being poor, but the type of food that poor people eat versus that of rich folks. Those with little money eat lots of corn-based products, cheap junk food, etc. Rich folks dine on finer fresher cuisine and far less processed prepackaged crap. Of course, if you really want to check out their explanation, go to: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13830254/

 

12. Dr. Mercola had a hot button this week about cancer being the primary cause of death in this country (I still think it is doctors themselves) and Harvard researchers have confirmed that sugar is a major reason why. I scurried off to read both of his sources: Science Daily: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060630094933.htm and Science Direct: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WWK-4K5HMRH-4&_coverDate=06%2F13%2F2006&_alid=425942185&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_qd=1&_cdi=7133&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=48ccd4c6bc760260c9664f959149967d and I am convinced these wonderful scientists have found the right answer for the wrong reason. Cancer is caused by fungi and sugar feeds fungi. It really is that simple. Their explanation (the second of the two websites listed being, by far, the more technical) was more directed at the cancer cells being starved by eliminating the glycemic pathways that feed them. I contend that if you don’t feed the fungi in the first place, they cannot break open your body’s cells and create cancerous cells because they won’t survive inside of you long enough to do so. But, that method requires you to not consume any refined sugars or corn syrup sweeteners. And you’re not going to do that are you? Sigh…

 

13. BATON ROUGE, La., July 18 — A doctor and two nurses were arrested Tuesday after the Louisiana attorney general accused them of using lethal injections to kill four elderly patients in a New Orleans hospital last year in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. … Quoting other hospital staff members, a state affidavit portrayed the doctor, Anna M. Pou, as methodically ordering up a list of patients remaining at the flooded Memorial Medical Center, three days after the storm. … “A decision had been made to administer lethal doses,” Dr. Pou told a witness … He said the doctor and two nurses had decided who would live and who would die. More at: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/19/us/19patients.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin If it isn’t bad enough that we get prescribed bad drugs on a regular basis, now hospital staff members are deliberately murdering those who are simply too much trouble to care for.

 

14. Now for some pharmaceutical things hidden inside the Department of Homeland Security: With lavish Project Bioshield funding, state and local agencies have been drilling for the day when citizens are commanded to line up for the bio-terrorism counter measures being brewed for them by large pharmaceutical companies under lucrative federal contracts. Absolute liability protection for those companies was inserted into The Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act passed in December, 2005. According to outraged congressional witnesses, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House speaker Dennis Hastert used devious chicanery to sneak this provision into the language without approval of the House-Senate conference committee responsible for the final draft.(Hastert, Frist Said to Rig Bill for Drug Firms, B. Theobald, The Gannett News Service 2-09-06.) Now if citizens are sickened or killed by Homeland's compulsory bio-warfare drugs and vaccines, they can neither sue the manufacturer nor seek compensation from the government. This safety net for the pharmas is vital because the new recombinant vaccines contain deadly squalene adjuvants like MF59, or other lipid-based additives such as MPL. These non-soluble lipids cause extreme inflammation as they gradually go rancid in the body. Test animals injected with lipid-based adjuvants always develop incurable auto-immune conditions symptomatic of multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus (Vaccine A-The Covert Government Experiment That's Killing Our Soldiers and Why GI's are Only the First Victims, Gary Matsumoto, Basic Books, 2004). Hundreds of military personnel injected with experimental lots of squalene-contaminated anthrax vaccines have also developed painful, incurable chronic illnesses (Vaccine A-The Covert Government Experiment That's Killing Our Soldiers and Why GI's are Only the First Victims, Gary Matsumoto, Basic Books, 2004). When Homeland needle Nazis start forcibly whacking the population with the new lipid-laced vaccines, Americans will truly understand the meaning of “bioterrorism.”

 

15A. More RFID, this time from Homeland Security: The Real ID Act passed by Congress in December 2005 establishes a massive, centrally-coordinated federal ID database. It forces all 50 states to spend millions of dollars to update their equipment so that by 2008, all holders of U.S. drivers licenses and state licensed ID cards will have their biometric data and other personal information fed directly into the national data base. Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) says the new ID cards could eventually contain radio frequency identification tracking technology, allowing the governments of U.S., Canada and Mexico to quickly locate any card-bearing American (Rep. Ron Paul's Freedom Report, June 2005 “National ID Cards Won't Stop Terrorism or Illegal Immigration”). Once again, where is the Land of the Free I was born into? Gone away with government and corporate greed and the desire of absolute power and control. “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” - Lord Acton, in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 1887.

 

15B: National ID cards are only the beginning. America's federal government is demonstrably anxious to ensure that each citizen have his identification number permanently attached to his body. (Number of the Beast?) For many years, U.S. intelligence agencies have been working with private corporations and covens of scientists from Princeton University and other enclaves to develop subdermal radio frequency devices that can be injected under the skin of humans for identification purposes. Syringe implantable ID transponders were readied years ago, as illustrated by the prototype fully developed in 1995 by CIA-connected Hughes Aircraft Company (Policy Analysis, A National ID System, Cato Institute, Stephen Moore, 9-7-95). ADS (Applied Digital Solutions) and its web of subsidiaries are now unleashing upon the world a vast variety of injectable ID chips, plus the sensors and scanners needed to read them (“Implantable Chip Offers Medical Information, Privacy Worries,” Associated Press, Spokesman Review, 10-14-04) A leading ADS backer is IBM, which promotes a global identity system (“IBM Calls for Global Identity System,” V. Yeo, ZDNet Asia 11-10-05. To review IBM financial support of ADS, see “Applied Digital Gets Reprieve From Creditor,” World Net Daily, 3-28-03.). Didn’t I already tell you this was coming? Remember the bird flu vaccine articles?

 

15C. ADS and its subsidiaries, including VeriChip Corporation, have developed several kinds of implantable subdermal chips. One type is the FDA-approved VeriChip, that spits out the implantee's ID number when it is scanned by a chip reader. Another is the VeriPay device which carries financial information and is scanned like a debit card. People in Europe are now being implanted with VeriPay chips in order to enter bars and nightclubs (“Paying for Drinks with Wave of the Hand,” S. Gossett, World Net Daily 4-14-04.).

 

15D. The first step to inducing public acceptance of these ID chips, said San Francisco Gate columnist Mark Morford, is getting the public to accept chip implants as beneficial for health. The next step is to make it fun and commercial and convenient. The third step is “whatever the hell they want.” (“Big Brother Under Your Skin,” M. Morford, sfgate,com, 10-20-04)

 

15E. Next, we have to boost the power, so you can be found by satellite: Powerful web-enabled tracking chips which send and receive information at long distances are ultra radiation-intensive. Satellites communicate in microwave frequencies. Big Brother's most cool tool will be ”hotter than the hinges of Hell.” Bodies bearing these chips will be continuously bombarded with incoming and outgoing microwave radiation, most likely in the megahertz or gigahertz range, the same frequencies employed by cell phones. Last October, Time Magazine gave a plug to implantable ID and bio chips, stating they could save lives (“Biochips for Everyone!” D. Fonda, Time Magazine, www.time.com, 10-16-05). But people who have active chips imbedded in their bodies will be dead men walking. The human body is not compatible with microwave radiation and bodies subjected to it 24-7 will ultimately be destroyed. Obviously this subject is health related.

 

16. The FDA has once again been caught red-handed ignoring the dangers of a widely-prescribed drug and compromising the health of millions. Internal email messages have now surfaced about how the FDA pushed the antibiotic drug Ketek despite urgent warnings from its senior drug safety scientists. The details of this scandal further highlight the dubious operations of the Food and Drug Administration, which consistently places the profits of drug companies as a higher priority than public health. More at: http://www.newstarget.com/019698.html

 

17. Just days after announcing a crackdown on researchers who do not disclose drug company ties, the editor of a prestigious medical journal says she was misled again — this time by the authors of a study linking severe migraines to heart attacks in women. All six study authors have done consulting work or received research funding from makers of treatments for migraines or heart-related problems. Their research appears in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, a week after the crackdown was announced. The authors said they did not report their financial ties because they did not believe they were relevant to the study. Read the rest of that story at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13923444/ What can we say? Follow the money trail. It appears to me that, these days, in most capitalist countries, very little is ever done for pure humanitarian reasons. Things are only pushed if you can make a profit from them (or, as in item 15 above, exert power over the masses, which has the ultimate goal, of course, of acquiring more money).

 

18A. A hit at both advertising and health: America's Fast Food Giants Perfect the Art of Selling Junk Food to Children: McDonald's has taken over Coca Cola's long lead in spending more on advertising than any other company on the planet. In a survey of over 10,000 children, Ronald McDonald was found to be the second most identifiable fictional character (the first being Santa Claus). In order to further entice young consumers, McDonald's also operates more playgrounds than any other American private corporation, all while being the leading seller of children's clothes in the U.S. with its "McKids" line of clothing. In related news, a new study in the Annals of Internal Medicine indicates that obese children run a three-fold greater risk of premature death when they reach middle-age. More at: http://www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_1092.cfm Now maybe McBarf burgers don’t entice you sufficiently, but they know that by aiming their ads at your kids, your kids will pressure you to stop at Ronald’s house instead of somewhere else. And, as children, they cannot even begin to understand that Uncle Ronnie is feeding them poison. He wouldn’t do anything bad to them becaue he’s a nice guy. Even if you do understand, you’ll stop there anyway, just to shut up your nagging children. And the real problem here is that it really isn’t the McPoison they want, but the “free” toy in the Happy Meal.

 

18B: Another way to get your kids to beg you for certain foods (e.g., Hershey’s chocloate, M&Ms) is “free” online gaming: The report, "It's Child's Play: Advergaming and the Online Marketing of Food to Children," details growing advergaming, webisodes and viral marketing to target those under 13. In one of the more controversial details, the report said 38% of those food-oriented websites encourage children to purchasing [sic] products: If children want to play games or participate in activities on the site, they have to first enter product codes. The report also said that only 18% of websites include information clearly explaining the site is advertising. More at: http://adage.com/article?article_id=110610

 

19. This might not seem health related, but at one point I was really excited about E85 (ethanol) as a gasoline substitute. Not only is it cheaper at the pump, but it uses up a lot of corn so you will stop eating that poison and all those subsidized farmers can still grow their nasty crops. But I have discovered a few things to make me say, “This is not good for America.” According to the Earth Policy Institute:

 

·        The grain required to fill a 25-gallon gas tank with ethanol would feed one person for a year.

·        The grain to fill that same gas tank every two weeks over a year would feed 26 people.

·        U.S. taxpayers now subsidize the ethanol industry at a rate of 51¢ per gallon (a law in effect until 2010). Maybe that’s the reason it is 50¢ per gallon cheaper at the pump.

 

On top of this, I also discovered that to create 100,000 barrels of ethanol, they have to use 75,000 barrels of regular oil and 300,000 gallons of water. Excuse me, but who is it that has to suffer from the loss of water availability? You, if you live in the same water district as an ethanol plant.

 

20. Here’s one to really torque your nads: In September, CBS plans to start using a new place to advertise its fall television lineup: your breakfast. Ads for CBS’s shows will be etched on eggs sold at some grocery stores. More:

 http://www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_1112.cfm

 

 

Now this presents a ton of questions related to the health of people who eat these. Laser etching is a very high temperature, albeit an extremely short duration. But that must have some effect on the content. Will this require a warning label? I doubt it. And how long will the egg be in the etching process and unrefrigerated? The say less than 73 milliseconds, so it would be no big deal, but will the process remain that fast as this intrusive advertising idea gets bigger? Another source suggest that, depending on the success of the campaign, marketers hope to expand the technique to the edible portions of food products, wherein consumers would literally ingest the advertisement Do you really want to be forced to read advertisements on your food while you eat it? This race for more money is just going too far. I want to move to a different planet.

 

21. Mike Adams seems to think a lot of people are awakening to all this BS: Many people recognize what's really happening in the world of health and medicine today: Increasing disease, unabated disease mongering, corporate exploitation of the people, environmental destruction, a decline in honest health journalism, skyrocketing health care costs, tens of millions of uninsured people and continued assaults on health freedom by the FDA and conventional medicine. These are just a few of the many challenges that concern the lucid, thinking people who now populate Internet blogs, chat rooms, and websites. More at:

 http://www.newstarget.com/019702.html Personally, I think the percentage is way too small for the profit mongers to worry about, and, as is human nature, it is one thing to complain and something else entirely to get off your fat butt and do something about it. The pen is supposed to be mightier than the sword, but the pen never won a war, and this is a war.

 

22. WASHINGTON - More than 1.5 million Americans are injured every year by drug errors in hospitals, nursing homes and doctor’s offices, a count that doesn’t even estimate patients’ own medication mix-ups, says a report that calls for major steps to increase patient safety. … Perhaps the most stunning finding of the report was that, on average, a hospitalized patient is subject to at least one medication error per day, despite intense efforts to improve hospital care in the six years since the institute began focusing attention on medical mistakes of all kinds. Read more at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13954142/ Interestingly, they conveniently sidestep the actual number of deaths caused by drug errors, and I suspect their “estimate” is way too low.