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In a recent op-ed on Real Clear Politics (“Big Oil, Big Profits, Big Tax Breaks”) Daniel Weiss, director of climate strategy at the Center for American Progress, claims that the five largest US oil companies – BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell – receive “special tax breaks.” He then argues that these “special tax breaks” for Big Oil should be eliminated to “make the federal tax code fairer and reduce the deficit.” We hear this all the time from progressives, the media and some politicians that Big Oil receives either unfair “special tax breaks” or “special tax subsidies,” but that is a false narrative that is not supported by the facts.

In a January 2013 article (“Oil & Gas Tax Provisions Are Not Subsidies for ‘Big Oil’”), Forbes contributor David Blackmon carefully addressed the “special tax breaks” and “subsidies” that Big Oil allegedly receives. Here’s part of his report:

1. An example of a specious mischaracterization of these tax treatments is the Manufacturer’s Tax Deduction, more commonly referred to as Section 199.  The Section 199 provision was enacted by congress in 2004 as a means of encouraging manufacturers to relocate overseas jobs to the U.S., and is in no way specific to or limited to the oil and gas industry.  In fact, the oil & gas industry’s ability to take advantage of this provision has already been singled out for limitation – in 2008, Congress reduced the industry’s deduction under this provision to two-thirds of what other manufacturing industries are allowed to deduct.

2. The tax code contains a couple of credits related to the oil and gas industry – the Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) Tax Credit, and the Marginal Well Tax Credit. Far from being “subsidies” to “big oil,” these tax credits are used almost exclusively by small to mid-size independent producers who tend to become the operators of marginal oil and gas fields as they age and are divested by the larger companies.

3. Finally, let’s talk about Intangible Drilling Costs (IDCs), another feature of the federal tax code that enjoyed its 100th birthday in 2013.  Basically, IDCs are the costs incurred by the oil and gas industry in the drilling of its wells. Since drilling wells is the only means of finding oil and natural gas, IDCs essentially amount to what any other industry would be able to deduct as a part of its cost of goods sold, a concept of accounting and tax law as old as the tax code itself.

Independent producers and royalty owners are allowed an election to either: a) expense these costs in the year they are incurred or b) amortize them over a 5-year period. Again, most media reports commonly characterize this as a “subsidy” for “big oil.” The truth is that Big Oil benefits much less from this tax treatment, since it was severely limited to them by Congress in 1986, and again in 1992.

Bottom line:  Despite the Administration’s rhetoric that has been so widely repeated in the press, the tax treatments in question are not “subsidies” that are in any way outside of the mainstream of tax treatments commonly available to all U.S. industries.  Rather than being mostly a benefit to “Big Oil,” the repeal of these and other oil and gas industry-related tax provisions would mainly impact smaller independent producers and royalty owners. Such repeal would serve no legitimate public policy purpose, other than to unfairly discriminate via the tax code against one of the nation’s most productive – albeit easily demonized – manufacturing industries.

MP: In reality, the oil industry really doesn’t receive the “special tax breaks” that Weiss claims – the industry is treated under the federal tax code exactly like every other manufacturing or extractive industry.  And in some cases, the tax code actually already targets Big Oil for “special tax hikes” by limiting the tax deductions that those five companies are allowed to take, relative to the rest of the oil industry. Therefore, to the extent that Congress did eliminate any “special tax breaks” for the oil industry as Weiss proposes, the higher tax burden would fall on the smaller, independent oil producers, and not on Exxon, BP, Shell, ConocoPhillips and Chevron.

Commentators like Weiss are always quick to point out the “big profits” of the five Big Oil companies, which did approach a combined $85 billion in the first three quarters of 2013, according to my calculations. But they almost never report the “big taxes” paid by “Big Oil.” During the first nine months of 2013, the Big Oil companies combined paid $54 billion in income taxes to the US and various foreign governments (see chart above), which works out to almost $200 million in income taxes every day, more than $8 million every hour and $138,000 every minute. And that’s just income taxes. Add up the sales, excise and property taxes, and Big Oil companies routinely pay two to three times more in total taxes than they make in profits.

Instead of demonizing Big Oil and seeking to burden them with higher taxes by eliminating “special tax breaks,” we should be thanking them for the contribution their industry has made to the US economy in recent years. America’s booming oil and gas industry had been the strongest sector of the US economy since the shale revolution started in 2008, and it has delivered a powerful and perfectly-timed economic stimulus to the economy. The Great American Energy Boom has created thousands of shovel-ready, well-paying jobs both directly in oil and gas extraction activities and throughout the long and deep energy supply chain, paid billions of dollars in royalty payments to landowners, and paid so much in state taxes that oil-rich North Dakota and Texas now have large budget surpluses totaling billions of dollars.

The way I see it, it all adds up to this: Big Oil, Big Economic Stimulus, and Big Tax Payments.

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A couple weeks ago, I gave you 17 reasons why you should walk more this year, citing dozens of studies in my attempt to convince you that walking is a healthy, effective endeavor for everyone and anyone. But it’s not the only thing you should be doing if you can help it. If you have the ability, I strongly believe that you should also be sprinting – at least (and maybe at most) once a week. The effects of regular sprinting on your health, your body composition, your fitness, your strength, and your susceptibility to disease are so impressive that it’d be foolish not to. I’ve said it before and even enshrined it in the Primal Laws to accentuate its importance, but here it is again: you should sprint more this year.

Why, though? Let’s hear some specific, science-based reasons to get up and move as fast as possible:

1. It preferentially burns body fat.

Weight loss isn’t just about eliminating any old kind of body mass. It’s about losing body fat while preserving or even gaining muscle and bone. Sprinting appears to be excellent at eliminating body fat without the negative impact on muscle mass commonly seen with excessive endurance training. A recent study found that a single sprint session can increase post-exercise fat oxidation by 75%. Not that this is a surprise, but even in young adults with an intellectual disability, sprinting improves body composition by reducing body fat.

2. It’s anabolic (that means it can increase muscle mass and strength).

An acute bout of sprinting increased dihydrotestosterone in healthy young men, while in overweight young men, a sprinting program increased lean mass in the legs and trunk. (In one study, men and women did three 30 second all-out sprint intervals on the stationary bike with 20 minutes of rest in between each sprint. Muscle biopsies were taken from their quads and analyzed for markers of protein synthesis – how muscle gets laid down.

3. It’s even more anabolic in women than men.

Yeah, yeah, you don’t wanna “get all big and bulky.” I know. But ladies, it won’t happen to you unless you’re somehow using an exogenous source of anabolic hormones to reach supraphysiological levels that you’d otherwise never reach naturally. More lean mass for you means more “tone,” less body fat, and more strength. In the previously mentioned study, female protein synthesis was up by 222%, male by 43%.

4. It makes you better at accessing body fat during other types of exercise.

Sprinting primes the substrate utilization pump, so to speak, for other activities. In one study, a two week program of cycling sprint interval training increased the rate of (body) fat oxidation (and decreased the rate of glycogen utilization) during subsequent lower intensity sessions in women.

5. It builds new mitochondria.

The basic function of our mitochondria is to extract energy from nutrients to produce ATP, the standard energy currency of our body. More mitochondria, more power available to our brain and our body, more fuel burned, more energy produced. It’s a generally good idea to have healthy, numerous mitochondria, and scientists are constantly trying to figure out how to preserve or increase their numbers because so many degenerative diseases are characterized by malfunctioning mitochondria. Well, sprinting is one way to make more. A single bout of 4×30 second all-out cycling sprints activated mitochondrial biogenesis in the skeletal muscle of human subjects in one study. Shorter sprints work, too. In fact, a program consisting of three sets of 5 4-second treadmill sprints with 20 seconds of rest in between each sprint, done three times per week for four weeks up-regulated molecular signaling associated with mitochondrial biogenesis.

6. It even works if you go slowly.

Allow me to expand on that statement: it even works if you go slowly because you’re pushing a heavy weighted sled. If that doesn’t sound like an advantage to you, consider someone who can’t run a flat-out sprint on a flat surface because of prior joint injuries. Pushing a heavy sled (or a car) slows the person down, thus reducing the joint impact, without making the exercise any less intense. Research shows that heavy sled pushing is extremely effective.

7. It’s more efficient than endurance training.

Obviously, sprint training takes less time to do than endurance training. But did you know it’s just as effective in many regards in a fraction of the time? Sprinting three times a week (4-6 times per session) was just as good as spending five days a week cycling for 40-60 minutes at improving whole body insulin sensitivity, arterial elasticity, and muscle microvascular density.

8. It takes way less time than you think.

A 30 second all out sprint is “just” 30 seconds, but it’s a hellish 30 seconds. A single hill sprint isn’t too bad, nor are two or three, but when you hit the eight, nine, ten sprint range, it gets rough. You will feel it after. Still better than slogging it out for an hour and half, mind you. I get the sense that most people think for any training to be effective, it has to hurt – even if only for twenty seconds or so. Actually, when you sprint, extremely brief intervals work very well. In this study, for example, subjects cycle-sprinted for a mere 5 seconds at a time and actively rested for 55 seconds in between sprints (that’s where you’re just casually pedaling on the cycle, equivalent to walking after a running sprint); that was enough to increase the maximum amount of work they were able to perform in 30 seconds. Instead of walking down the beach, I’ll sometimes traverse it in ultra-short sprint intervals: sprint for 5 seconds, walk for 20, sprint for 5, and so on. I don’t really even get winded doing this. Or if there’s a short (<10 meters) but steep hill, I’ll sprint up it, walk down, and repeat about a dozen times.

9. It’s a good excuse to get to the beach.

Doing your sprints on sand makes them more effective (and harder). A recent study found that sprint interval training sessions performed on sand resulted in better performances in subsequent training bouts, beating out grass as a training surface. I’ve also found that beach sprints enable post-training water plunges, regardless of water temperature.

10. It works for overweight people.

Sprinting may be the most daunting exercise of all for overweight people. How can moving that fast be safe or healthy? Well, there’s evidence that sprinting is extremely effective in this population. In a 2012 study (PDF), a group of overweight female students followed a 12-week sprint program consisting of 8-16 200 meter sprints done three days a week. After the program, body fat and body weight had gone down significantly, insulin sensitivity had improved by 100%, and V02max had increased. Another study, this time in overweight/obese men, found that a sprinting program (this time on a cycle) increased fat burning at rest while decreasing carb burning at rest – exactly what an overweight person needs to achieve to start burning body fat and become fat-adapted. The men also lost significant amounts of waist and hip fat.

11. It works for elderly people.

Oldsters needn’t stick with 2.5 pound dumbbells and “stretching workouts.” They can derive great benefit from high intensity interval training. Sure, they might go a bit slower than the rest of us. They might do better on exercise bikes than tracks. But they can still do it.

12. It improves glucose control and insulin sensitivity.

Diabetics, take heed. Sprint training improves insulin sensitivity, improves hyperglycemia in type 2 diabetes, and lowers the postprandial glucose response in diabetics. You gotta start doing it if you’re not already.

13. It lowers high blood pressure.

Okay, while you’re sprinting, you’ll probably have sky-high blood pressure. That’s okay, that’s just an acute spike – it happens with any type of exercise. Overall, sprint training appears to have the most potential of any exercise modality for the long term resolution of hypertension.

14. It’s safe for people with heart disease.

Heart disease patients interested in improving their cardiovascular health are often told to start jogging or something similarly unpleasant. Why not sprinting? We already know it’s more effective against heart disease risk factors, and high intensity interval training has been shown to be safe in heart disease patients, particularly when they keep the intensity high and the duration low (15 seconds or thereabouts). Check with your doctor first, of course, just to be safe (but prepare yourself for the “jogging” lecture).

15. It comes in many forms.

When people hear “sprinting,” they think of 100 meter flat sprints on the track. Those are effective, sure, but they’re not the only way you can reap the benefits of sprint training. You can run hills (easier on the joints and more intense overall). You can cycle (easier on the joints and proven to work in dozens of sprinting studies). You can do it in the pool (either running in water or swimming). You can row or use the elliptical. Heck, if you loathe “cardio” of any kind you can probably get sprint-esque effects from lifting weights really quickly (think doing a set of 20 back squats or something similar). Upper body interval training works for general fitness in elderly hip replacement patients, for example. There’s something for everyone, which means there are almost no excuses not to sprint.

That’s what I’ve got. There are probably more reasons to sprint, but I think the 15 I discussed are a good start. So get to it!

What about you guys? Why do you sprint? What are you hoping to get out of it? What have you already gotten out of it? Let us know in the comment section!

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From Lawrence McQuillian of the Independent Institute:

The poverty rate in the United States fell by half from 1950 to the start of the “War on Poverty.” And it was on track to continue falling. But after the “War on Poverty” programs kicked in, the poverty rate has been stuck in a narrow corridor.

The lesson: Despite good intentions, statist redistribution programs to “help the poor” lead to multigenerational dependency and shrinking opportunities and incentives for low-skill individuals to enter the workforce, increase their skills, and move up the income ladder.

On the other hand, steady private investment in physical and human capital within a secure system of private property rights (which minimizes government corruption and exploitation) results in self-sustaining prosperity, which enables poor people to take advantage of opportunities and permanently lift themselves out of poverty.

Prior to the “War on Poverty,” the post-1950 U.S. economy wasn’t a capitalist nirvana, but it did benefit the poor much more than after The Great Society programs. The numbers speak for themselves.

Francis Scott Key was certainly not a visionary when he penned the famous words “the land of the free and the home of the brave”. But, we can certainly forgive him since it was back in 1814 and things were different maybe then. Two hundred years later, the 2014 Index of Economic Freedom has just been published by the Heritage Foundation think tank and its findings are far from glorious of the country that believes that it is a founding father of both democracy and freedom. We all know that the former went out of the window long ago and not just when the National security Agency finally admitted to eavesdropping on the world. The second went to the wind too decades ago and people are starting to realize it. The USA is no longer the land of the free and certainly not the home of the brave. The land of the foolish and the home of the corrupt, maybe! There’s a thought. Foolish because we have sat like lemmings, sheepled into believing that the wealthy were honest and the state was good; corrupt because everyone at the highest echelons is in on the act.

Thomas Jefferson once said: “ Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence”. How true was it back then and oh how telling is it of today’s society!

The USA

The USA is no longer at the top of the Index of Economic Freedom. It’s no longer in the top ten these days and for the first time ever it is in 12th place in the rankings. The biggest and the best economy in the world is no longer the freest. Since 2013, it has dropped a half point yet again and now stands at 75.5 points on the scale. Why?

• Simply because it has seen deteriorations in property rights, fiscal freedom and business freedom according to the think tank.
• Since 2006, the USA has systematically declined in the ratings and has lost since that dates 6 points on its score.
• The USA is now the only country in the world that has lost points for the past 7 years in a row in the world.
• According to the index the reason behind this is the fundamental rise in the size and status of the government: “Substantial expansion in the size and scope of government, including through new and costly regulations in areas like finance and health care, has contributed significantly to the erosion of U.S. economic freedom. The growth of government has been accompanied by increasing cronyism that has undermined the rule of law and perceptions of fairness.”

The USA is currently losing in the ratings on the index due to the fact that there has been an “expansive use of government regulatory agencies to manage economic activity, particularly in the financial, health care, and energy sectors”.

The order of the day is cronyism, corruption and embezzlement, it would seem.

Taxation is also been accused of reducing freedom in the country. The top individual tax rate has seen a rise to 39.6%. The top corporate tax rate is stuck at 35%. The total tax burden stands at 25.1% of gross domestic income.

Creating a new company has become more expensive and stricter. There have been more than 130 new regulations that have been applied to incorporating a business since 2009. Regulatory requirements have increased the cost of founding a company by up to $60 billion since the same date.

The countries in the top slots are as follows:

1. Hong Kong
2. Singapore
3. Australia
4. Switzerland
5. New Zealand
6. Canada
7. Chile
8. Mauritius
9. Ireland
10. Denmark

This isn’t the land of the free and it certainly isn’t the home of the brave these days. The USA is no longer the liberal, free-economics country that it once was. It’s now all about making the rich richer and the corrupt more corruptible. It has nothing to do with the freedom of making a living and becoming the self-made man that the country was built upon. At one time that wasn’t a myth; these days it’s just laughable. The only men that can make it these days are those that have already been boosted on the road to success by diverting, embezzling, swindling ad money-grabbing at the highest echelons of the state. Nothing wrong with making money. Nothing at all. But, there’s everything wrong with treading on the people down below while you clamber up to the top of the state, hoarding the millions, siphoning off the money that should be going elsewhere.

The USA: the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Heritage Foundation was founded in 1973; a think tank headquartered in Washington D.C.

Its statement of mission is to “formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense”.

Originally posted: USA:The Land of the Not-So-Free

When asked whether he read the 1,528-page,  $1.1 trillion government spending bill before he voted for it yesterday, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) said, “Nobody did!”

On Capitol Hill on Thursday, CNSNews.com asked Blumenauer: “The omnibus bill yesterday, it was 1,582 pages, did you have a chance to read all the pages before voting on it?”

Blumenauer laughed and said: “Nobody did!”

Read the rest of the story at CNSNews.

What used to be known as the Ghettos in the Sky are now the center of Mogadishu on the Mississippi. And the Somali population in Minneapolis has already contributed suicide bombers to Al-Shabab in Somalia as well as mall attackers to the same group in Kenya. So, the mysterious recent explosion in the heart of Somali Minneapolis should be a matter of more than a little concern to Minnesotans, as it indicates that the Somalis are likely to bring their jihad to the Mall of America or some other local target sooner or later.

A big explosion occurs next door to a mosque that has an unabashed affection for the Muslim Brotherhood, in a Somali neighborhood where terrorists are known to hang out — what could possibly be amiss with that? Nothing, except possibly an Islamophobic hate crime, according to CAIR.

Zuhur Ahmed, a board member of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the group was monitoring the situation closely. “So far we don’t have any details,” she said. “But whenever there’s an explosion, fire or anything of that sort by a mosque, there’s a little bit of concern if the motive is a hate crime. We’re just concerned and watching out for that.”

But then, CAIR always believes that the best defense is a good offense. If it were a gas explosion, the normal process would be for gas to accumulate inside the building until a chance ignition detonated it. Under those circumstances, the walls of the building would be blown outwards, causing a sudden, catastrophic collapse of the structure and filling the street and surrounding lots with bricks and rubble.

Nothing of the sort occurred. The earliest photos show an intense and rapidly-spreading fire that looks like it originated on the second floor, immediately above the grocery. This would be consistent with the unexpected detonation of an explosive substance — say, ammonium nitrate, just to pick a random example — which then distributed very flammable material within an enclosed space, creating a flash-fire.

The explosion was subsequently blamed on a gas leak, which is interesting because the Star Tribune has been caught lying about its conversation with the gas company responsible.

I contacted CenterPoint and spoke with Rebecca Virden. I’m glad I did because as you’ll see in a moment, there’s some very bad reporting going on with this story.

"Our distribution system after we checked it — which runs up to the meter, which is the distribution system’s responsibility, to the meter — has no leak on it at all. We tested that system and it holds its test. We even took it apart and tested it to make sure because it had no leakage. It’s fully sound. As for our system, we had no leakage, no leak history, no leak calls into our call centers prior to the incident before, during or after."

Throw in the fact that Homeland Security was spotted on the scene and it points to the probability that the police and media are covering up the explosion of a Somali bomb-making factory in Minneapolis.

In a post last week, I wrote about why I believe most New Year’s resolutions to lose weight fail:  those resolutions are based on the notion that shedding pounds is a matter of character … i.e., if you just have enough discipline to eat less and spend more time on the treadmill, you’ll lose weight.

As someone who tried simply eating less and spent many hours on a treadmill (I even bought one for my apartment) without getting leaner, I don’t believe losing weight is about character.  I believe it’s (mostly) about chemistry, which is why weight-loss plans that rely on changing a fat person’s character are bound to fail.

I’ll have more to say on that later.  For now, I just want to share some bits from an old study (1960) that I apparently downloaded some time ago and then forgot to read.

The handful of subjects in the study fell into three categories:  1) naturally thin people, 2) fat people who had previously demonstrated that they could lose weight by restricting calories, and 3) fat people whom the researchers labeled as the “resistant obese.”  They wrote this about the “resistant obese”:

All had very small appetites, and none of these subjects lost weight even during observation in the hospital for prolonged periods of time.

By contrast, one of the naturally lean subjects was described as:

… a twenty-five year-old woman who is healthy, but literally unable to gain weight despite an excellent appetite.

The question the researchers wanted to answer was whether fat people and thin people release and burn fatty acids at similar rates if they’re fasting.   So they had all the subjects fast from dinner until the next morning, then measured the concentration of free fatty acids in their blood.  Then they extended the fast for a full 24 hours and took the same measurement at various intervals.

Here’s what they found:  in the morning, the fat people generally had higher levels of fatty acids in their blood than the thin people did.  But over the course of fasting for 24 hours, the naturally thin people experienced a sharp rise in the level of fatty acids in their bloodstreams.  The fat people who’d previously demonstrated they could lose weight by restricting calories experienced a milder rise in the level of fatty acids in their bloodstreams.  The “resistant obese” people experienced almost no rise at all in the level of fatty acids in their bloodstreams.

The researchers noted that in an earlier study, naturally thin subjects who were restricted to a high-fat diet of 1,000 calories per day showed a sharp rise in blood ketones over the next week, while obese subjects on the same diet showed a much lower rise in ketones.  Ketones, as you know, are a by-product of burning fat for fuel.

So taken together, here’s what those two studies suggest (at least about the subjects who were studied):  when naturally-thin people eat very little or not at all, they release a lot more fatty acids from their fat cells, and they burn those fatty acids for fuel.  “Resistant obese” people, on the other hand, don’t release extra fatty acids when they eat less or not at all, and therefore don’t make up for the calorie deficit by tapping and burning their body fat — at least not to nearly the degree the thin people do.

Remember that in describing the “resistant obese” subjects, the researchers noted that they had small appetites and failed to lose weight even under observation in a hospital.  In a discussion among several researchers included at the end of the paper, the leader researcher makes this statement:

This phenomenon of people who do not lose weight is really the most tantalizing thing that confronts physicians.  There are these people who can live on 600 calories and not lose any weight. On what are they surviving?  If we measure their basal metabolism in terms of calories, we get figures in excess of 600 calories per twenty-four hours.  It would seem that on this diet they are in a caloric deficit all time, but still are not losing any weight.  I am still an admirer of the laws of thermodynamics, but these people seem to be thermodynamic paradoxes.

Small appetites.  Couldn’t lose weight even while under observation at a hospital.  Didn’t release or burn more fatty acids (not to any significant degree) even while fasting for 24 hours.  Able to live on 600 calories per day without losing weight, causing a researcher who worked with them to label them as “thermodynamic paradoxes.”

Meanwhile, the naturally-lean people released lots of fatty acids and burned them for fuel soon after they stopped eating – including that twenty-five year-old woman who couldn’t gain weight in spite of her “excellent” appetite.

Does anyone believe the fat people in this study just needed more discipline and character in order to become thin?  Or does this sound like a problem rooted in chemistry?

…. is from Henry Hazlitt’s article “Marxism in One Minute“:

The whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence: Hate the man who is better off than you are. Never under any circumstances admit that his success may be due to his own efforts, to the productive contribution he has made to the whole community. Always attribute his success to the exploitation, the cheating, the more or less open robbery of others.

[MP: Or according to our Marxist-in-Chief: "If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen."]

Never under any circumstances admit that your own failure may be owing to your own weakness, or that the failure of anyone else may be due to his own defects — his laziness, incompetence, improvidence or stupidity. Never believe in the honesty or disinterestedness of anyone who disagrees with you.

This basic hatred is the heart of Marxism. This is its animating force. You can throw away the dialectical materialism, the Hegelian framework, the technical jargon, the “scientific” analysis, and millions of pretentious words, and you still have the core: the implacable hatred and envy that are the raison d’etre for all the rest.

HT: Dennis Gartman in today’s The Gartman Letter

Americans want NSA spying reined in.

But a poll from November showed that only 11% of Americans trust Obama to actually do anything to rein in spying.

We were right to be skeptical …

Today, Obama announced his fake “reforms” … and he’s not doing anything but putting lipstick on the same ‘old pig.

The New York Times notes that Obama’s “reform”:

Largely codifies existing practices.

The Times points out that the reform is meant to placate NSA critics, without actually challenging national security agencies:

The emerging approach, described by current and former government officials who insisted on anonymity in advance of Mr. Obama’s widely anticipated speech, suggested a president trying to straddle a difficult line in hopes of placating foreign leaders and advocates of civil liberties without a backlash from national security agencies. The result seems to be a speech that leaves in place many current programs, but embraces the spirit of reform and keeps the door open to changes later.

The Times includes a revealing quote:

“Is it cosmetic or is there a real thumb on the scale in a different direction?” asked one former government official who worked on intelligence issues. “That’s the question.”

The answer should be obvious.

This is – once again – Obama saying “trust me” … without changing anything.

Obama has repeatedly promised to change policies started in the Bush administration. But – instead of reforming them – he’s reaffirmed them … and made them worse than ever.

Obama and the NSA have lied over and over again.  They have told the American people (and Congress) to f@ck off.

The real message they are sending is:

We hold the power …  So we’re going to keep doing what we want, and you can’t do anything to stop us.

And see this.

NSA to Congress: F@ck Off

We’ve shown that the NSA has been spying on Congress for some time.

The NSA has never denied that it’s spying on Congress.  Instead, the NSA first said:

Members of Congress have the same privacy protections as all US persons.

And Friday, NSA chief Keith Alexander wrote a letter to Senator Bernie Sanders saying that the NSA cannot reveal whether the agency has been targeting members of Congress in its metadata collection because doing so would violate privacy provisions accorded to civilians in the program:

The telephone metadata program incorporates extraordinary controls to protect Americans’ privacy interests.    Among those protections is the condition that NSA can query the metadata only based on phone numbers reasonably suspected to be associated with specific foreign terrorist groups.  For that reason, NSA cannot lawfully search to determine if any records NSA has received under the program have included metadata of the phone calls of any member of Congress, other American elected officials, or any other American without that predicate.

Sanders

 

This is the exact same excuse the NSA and other intelligence agencies have previously given for hiding how many Americans they spy on.

As Wired reported last June:

The surveillance experts at the National Security Agency won’t tell two powerful United States Senators how many Americans have had their communications picked up by the agency as part of its sweeping new counterterrorism powers. The reason: it would violate your privacy to say so.

 

That claim comes in a short letter sent Monday to civil libertarian Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall. The two members of the Senate’s intelligence oversight committee asked the NSA a simple question last month: under the broad powers granted in 2008′s expansion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, how many persons inside the United States have been spied upon by the NSA?

 

The query bounced around the intelligence bureaucracy until it reached I. Charles McCullough, the Inspector General of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the nominal head of the 16 U.S. spy agencies. In a letter acquired by Danger Room, McCullough told the senators that the NSA inspector general “and NSA leadership agreed that an IG review of the sort suggested would itself violate the privacy of U.S. persons,” McCullough wrote.

In other words, the NSA is sending the same message to both the American people and their representatives in Congress:  f@ck off.

 

In November, I posted on CD about an investigation by Albuquerque TV station KOB Eyewitness News 4 of several police officers and emergency room doctors in Southern New Mexico, who violated the rights and body of an innocent victim of America’s cruel, expensive and failing War on Drugs Innocent Americas Suspected of Possessing Intoxicants Not Approved by the Government. Law enforcement officers of the city of Deming and the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office, and several doctors at the Gila Regional Medical Center, engaged in a series of unbelievably repulsive and disgusting actions against 63-year old New Mexico man David Eckert, who was wrongly accused of possessing illegal drugs.

In a futile attempt on January 2, 2013 to find drugs inside his body, police and doctors committed medical anal rape on Eckert six times over a 12-hour period: an initial X-ray that found no drugs (why didn’t they stop there?) was followed by two digital rectal probings and then three forced enemas, a second forced X-ray, and then finally forced sedation and a surgical colonoscopy. Result? No drugs. The Gila Regional Medical Center (“Your choice for patient-centered care in a healing environment”), which performed the anal rape on Mr. Eckert, then billed him $6,000 for the “services” they performed on him involuntarily and persistently attempted to collect payment from him.

KOB Eyewitness News 4 is now reporting that Hidalgo County and the City of Deming have settled a federal lawsuit filed by Mr. Eckert in US District Court last November for $1.6 million. According to a public records request filed by the TV station, Hidalgo County will pay Eckert $650,000 and the City of Deming will pay him $950,000. There is no resolution yet with the two medical doctors who performed the anal rape, the Gila Regional Medical Center where the rape occurred, or the assistant district attorney Daniel Dougherty, who authorized the search warrant that led to Eckert’s anal rape.

US News and World Report is also reporting on the $1.6 million settlement here.

Thanks to KOB Eyewitness New 4 for bringing the case to the public’s attention, it’s done a great service helping expose a very disturbing, but yet perfect example of why it’s time to end America’s cruel and immoral War on Drugs. And it would serve justice well if David Eckert receives additional, large financial settlements from the hospital, the medical doctors, and the district attorney.

California Lifeguards make $109,677...


(Second column, 20th story, link)

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New High Security Phone 'Is NSA PROOF'...


(Second column, 9th story, link)

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Tamera Mowry is not alone
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2013

This made my heart ache and my blood pressure spike: Actress Tamera Mowry, who is black, wept in an interview with Oprah Winfrey over the vile bigotry she has encountered because of her marriage to Fox News reporter Adam Housley, who is white. Misogynist haters called Mowry a sellout and a “white man’s whore.” International news outlets labeled the Internet epithets she endured “horrific” and “shocking.”

Horrific? Yes. Shocking? Not at all. What Mowry experienced is just a small taste of what the intolerance mob dishes out against people “of color” who love, think and live the “wrong” way. I’ve grown so used to it that I often forget how hurtful it can be. Mowry’s candor was moving and admirable. It’s also a valuable teachable moment about how dehumanizing it can be to work in the public eye. Have we really sunk to this?

Young actresses in the 21st century forced to defend their love lives because their marital choices are politically incorrect? We’re leaning backward in the regressive Age of Hope and Change.

Let’s face it: Mowry’s sin, in the view of her feckless detractors, is not merely that she married outside her race. It’s also that she is so open about her love for a white man who — gasp! — works for reviled Fox News. Neither of them is political, but the mere association with Bad Things (Fox, conservatives, capitalism, the tea party, Christian activism, traditional values) is an invitation for unabashed hate.

The dirty open secret is that a certain category of public figures has been routinely mocked, savaged and reviled for being partners in interracial marriages or part of loving interracial families (for a refresher, see the video clip of MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry and friends cackling at the holiday photo of Mitt Romney holding his black adopted grandson in his lap).

And the dirty double standard is that selectively compassionate journalists and pundits have routinely looked the other way — or participate directly in heaping on the hate.

Have you forgotten? Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was excoriated by black liberals for being married to wife Virginia, who happens to be white. The critics weren’t anonymous trolls on the Internet. They worked for major media outlets and institutions of higher learning. USA Today columnist Barbara Reynolds slammed Thomas and his wife for their colorblind union: “It may sound bigoted; well, this is a bigoted world and why can’t black people be allowed a little Archie Bunker mentality? … Here’s a man who’s going to decide crucial issues for the country and he has already said no to blacks; he has already said if he can’t paint himself white he’ll think white and marry a white woman.”

Howard University’s Afro-American Studies Chair Russell Adams accused Thomas of racism against all blacks for falling in love with someone outside his race. “His marrying a white woman is a sign of his rejection of the black community,” Adams told The Washington Post. “Great justices have had community roots that served as a basis for understanding the Constitution. Clarence’s lack of a sense of community makes his nomination troubling.”

California state Senate Democrat Diane Watson taunted former University of California regent Ward Connerly after a public hearing, spitting: “He’s married a white woman. He wants to be white. He wants a colorless society. He has no ethnic pride. He doesn’t want to be black.”

Mowry is not alone. The Thomases and the Connerlys are not alone. Poisonous attempts to shame are an old, endless schoolyard game played by bullies who never grow up and can’t stand other people’s happiness or success.

Time doesn’t lessen the vitriol or hostility. Take it from someone who knows. “Oriental Auntie-Tom,” “yellow woman doing the white man’s job,” “white man’s puppet,” “Manila whore” and “Subic Bay bar girl” are just a few of the printable slurs I’ve amassed over the past quarter-century. You wouldn’t believe how many Neanderthals still think they can break you by sneering “me love you long time” or “holla for a dolla.” My IQ, free will, skin color, eye shape, productivity, sincerity, maiden name and integrity have all been ridiculed or questioned because I happen to be a minority conservative woman happily married to a white man and the mother of two interracial children who see Mom and Dad — not Brown Mom and White Dad.

Mowry’s got the right attitude. She wiped away her tears and told Oprah that haters wouldn’t drag her down. Brava. Live, laugh, think and love without regrets. It’s the best revenge and the most effective antidote to crab-in-the-bucket syndrome.

Written by: Kevin Cann

There is nothing more controversial in the nutrition world then carbohydrates.  There are some people/groups that condemn carbohydrates as a terrorist infiltrating our society.  At the other end of the spectrum we have people/groups that condemn fat in the same manner and preach a higher carbohydrate diet for the masses.  There is research that supports both arguments so who are we supposed to believe?  The answer lies in your genome.

Our gene pool began to differentiate between one another when we began to settle in various locations around the globe.  Some hunter-gatherer groups settled in cold climates, some in warm climates, and everything in between.  Each location offered its own challenges and evolutionary pressures, one of them being diet.

For example, colder climates may have relied more heavily on animal meats for food and warmer, wetter climates may have relied more heavily on plant food (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2377015/#R8).   This led to diversity in one specific gene responsible for the breakdown of carbohydrates, alpha-amylase (AMY1).  AMY1 is a salivary enzyme that begins the breakdown of starch in the mouth and makes it taste sweet. 

AMY1 variation exists between different members of the human species.  This may be a major reason why there is so much variation from person to person when it comes to carbohydrate intake.  Some people thrive on a higher carbohydrate diet and others thrive when carbohydrates are kept in check.  This is also a reason why there will never be just one perfect human diet.

The USDA recommends that the entire population consumes 45% to 65% of their daily calories in the form of starch.  Is this a correct recommendation to the part of the population that contains fewer copies of the AMY1 gene?  It is not only unfair, but may be setting them up for a future filled with weight issues and all the diseases that accompany increased weight.

Abigail Manell and Paul Breslin have done some amazing research at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia.  One study in particular looked at starch digestion between differing AMY1 groups.  The experimental group was healthy, non-obese individuals and they were divided into a high amylase group and a low amylase group.  They came into the lab twice, once to ingest starch (experiment) and glucose (control).  The low amylase group had higher blood glucose levels then the high amylase group during starch consumption.  This increase in blood glucose levels lasted for the two hours that the participants remained at the lab!  Interestingly, when the low amylase group consumed the glucose blood sugar levels remained relatively consistent with the high amylase group and the blood sugar did not stay elevated as long as when they ingested the starch (http://jn.nutrition.org/content/142/5/853.abstract).

Recommending a high starch diet to people with low amylase gene copies is setting them up for insulin resistance and diabetes.  Another thing to think about is the diversity within each group.  Humans can contain anywhere between 2 and 15 copies of the AMY1 gene (http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0013352).  This means there is a wide difference from person to person on blood glucose levels following the exact same intake of starch.

The research by Manell and Braslin was published in the Journal of Nutrition in 2012.  This is an extremely new phenomenon when looking at the individuality of carbohydrate digestion.  All we know about this topic is that some people respond to the same meal of starch differently.  We do not know optimal starch intake for each variation yet.  45% to 65% of calories coming from starch may still be too much for even the people that contain 15 copies of AMY1 gene, we do not know the tolerable upper intake level. 

Underlying inflammation is also going to be a variable.  Carbohydrate metabolism gets dysfunctional when inflammation is present.  Someone with 15 copies of the AMY1 gene that exercises, sleeps well, has friends, and manages stress may respond more favorable to the same starch meal that someone with 15 copies that is sedentary.  Also, food quality is still going to play a role.  Just because someone has a higher number of AMY1 copies does not mean eating a high grain diet will be beneficial, remember the inflammation piece. 

Who knows where the future of this information will take us.  It does bring to light a few things.  Everyone is truly their own unique snowflake.  It also brings to light that there is a lot we do not know about the human body.  We need to remain humble and actually listen to our patients/clients.  They know more about their body then science does.   

Sarah Palin's brother said that his father, Chuck Heath, Sr., has been "horribly harassed" by the IRS six times since Palin became the GOP vice presidential nominee in 2008. 

Chuck Heath, Jr. wrote on Facebook that his father had never heard from the IRS before 2008. Since then, he said, the IRS has tried to "dig up something on him but he's always operated above board."

"Coincidence? You decide," he wrote.

He continued:

My father, who worked multiple jobs and faithfully and honestly paid his taxes for fifty years, had never heard a word from the IRS. In 2008, his daughter was tapped to run for vice president of the United States. Since that time, he has been, in his words "horribly harassed" six times by the agency. They've tried to dig up something on him but he's always operated above board.

Government and politics are ugly. Kudos to the few that are trying to clean it up.

Four years ago, the IRS started to target organizations seeking tax-exempt status that also had "Tea Party" or "Patriot" in their names, while approving applications for progressive organizations with names like "Progressive USA" and "Progressive Leadership Alliance." The FBI and Justice Department have indicated that they most likely will not seek criminal charges against anyone involved in the scandal, even though Attorney General Eric Holder has said that those involved in the targeting scandal engaged in actions that were "certainly outrageous and unacceptable... if not criminal." The IRS reportedly also targeted conservative donors. 

The Obama administration chose an Obama campaign donor to head the targeting investigation.

REPORT: NSA Data Has 'No Discernible Impact' on Terrorism...


(Third column, 14th story, link)

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Related stories:

Congress takes first big swipe at snooping...

Back in November on CD, I featured a post of ten examples that illustrate the important economic concept of the Law of Unintended Consequences (the unanticipated or unintended effects of government policies). Here are five more great examples of unintended consequences from an article aptly titled “Five Laws That Made Sense on Paper and Disasters in Reality“:

1. Evidence shows that in the long run, gun buyback programs backfire and result in more, not fewer, guns.

2. When the British governor of Delhi, India addressed a cobra infestation by putting a lucrative bounty on cobras, they got more, not fewer, snakes.

3. After Mexico introduced anti-pollution measures, including banning a certain percentage of the city’s cars from driving each day based on the last digit in a car’s license plate number, pollution went up, not down. Reason? Hint: The policy applied to cars, not people.

4. The European Union imposed fishing quotas in an attempt to prevent over-fishing and increase the supply of fish. Fines and penalties were assessed when fishing boats came to shore with a catch that exceeded their quota. In the long run, the policy may have ended up reducing, not increasing, the overall supply of fish in the ocean.

5. Following an intense lobbying effort by the big banks to address rising loans defaults, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act was enacted in 2005, which made it more costly for people to declare bankruptcy. And yet, that legislation may have led to more, not fewer, loan defaults, especially defaults on home mortgages.   

Testimonial written by: Laura Peck

I was diagnosed with RA in 2002. I am a second generation RA sufferer so I looked to my mother for guidance. She had advanced RA (which means that her joints had twisted) within 4 years of onset and traditional treatment by a Rheumatologist. In desperation she had researched the new internet and found the Minocin treatment. This protocol had finally put her in remission. So following her advice, I started minocin right after my initial diagnosis. I saw moderate success in slowing the progression and controlling the symptoms – and was still considered ’early stage’ (which means some joint erosion apparent in xrays but no twisting) as of the summer of 2009.

Around Thanksgiving of 2009, my pharmacist and the insurance company (via major hiking of copays for name brand meds) convinced me to go generic minocin. By Christmas of that year I was bedridden and unable to even dress myself. 90% of my joints were swollen to twice their size and not even hydrocodones controlled the agony. At this time I finally went to a Rheumatologist.

Although he pressured me to take methotrexate – I refused, knowing in my heart that I just had to make it until the generic minocin prescription ran out and I could get back on name brand. So we agreed on a prednisone treatment plan. I noticed steady improvement again as I took the name brand minocin – but the ’super flare’ had taken out my muscle tone and the continued use of both prednisone and Nexium (I had developed IBS and Acid reflux from all the painkillers) were slowly depleting my bones and causing a massive weight gain.

By the fall of 2012, I was obese and miserable. The RA was controlled to the point I could finally get of prednisone. But the tight tendons and weak muscles made it hard to work 60 hours a week. I knew I had to change!

January 1st, 2013 – I joined the workplace biggest loser contest, started the paleo diet and started walking at night. Within three days I suffered my first (of 3 that year) stress fracture. The doctor recommended to only exercise in a pool. So I joined a small local gym. By Feb 1st, 2013 – I noticed that I had absolutely NO RA pain! I quit taking those meds. By March 1st, 2013 – I realized my Acid reflux and IBS symptoms had disappeared. So the Nexium prescription went unfilled forever more.

I was in 100% natural remission (no drugs) until July 2013. I also lost 10 dress sizes and stabilized at a size 6. I began to re-introduce food groups at that time and began having RA flares again. Through comparing food journals and symptom journals I began to identify the foods that caused my RA. From Chocolate, Cheese, & Bananas causing immediate major flares to Daily wheat consumption causing ’build up’ flares – I’ve learned how to stay in remission by taking control and ownership of what I eat.

This week I have an appointment with an Allergist to pin point specific food allergies. So as an 11 year RA veteran with 3 scientific degrees (earned during my years with RA) – I can tell you what researchers have already studied and published – the source of most RA inflammation begins in the intestines. Furthermore it can be treated and controlled by what you choose to introduce to your intestines.