Bananas Flambé - Gary Null Picture

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Sayer Ji -- Mammograms Linked To An Epidemic of Misdiagnosed Cancers

For most of the twentieth century, mastectomy was the first line treatment for Ductal Carcinoma In Situ(DCIS), and younger patients were more likely to undergo the procedure. Even after lumpectomy andradiotherapy were shown to be at least as effective for invasive cancer as mastectomy, still in 2002, 26% of DCIS patients were still receiving mastectomy.¹

The most common scenario today following diagnosis of DCIS is for the oncologist to recommend lumpectomy, followed by radiation and hormone suppressive therapies such as Arimidex and Tamoxifen. The problem here is that women are not being educated about the nature of DCIS or the concept of "non-progressive" breast cancers. There is still the black and white perception out there that you either have cancer, or do not have cancer.

In a poll on DCIS awareness published in 2000, 94% of women studied doubted even the possibility of non-progressive breast cancers.²  In other words, these women had no understanding of the nature of DCIS. And why would they? Major authorities frame DCIS as "pre-cancerous," implying its inevitable transformation into cancer. When the standard of care for DCIS is to suggest the same types of treatment used to treat invasive cancer, very few women are provided with the information needed to make an informed decision.

Early detection through x-ray mammography has been the clarion call of Breast Cancer Awareness campaigns for a quarter of a century now.  However, very little progress has been made in making the public aware about the crucial differences between non-malignant lesions/tumors and invasive or non-invasive cancers detected through this technology. When all forms of breast pathology are looked at in the aggregate, irrespective of their relative risk for harm, disease of the breast takes on the appearance of a monolithic entity that you either have, or don't have; they call it breast cancer.

The concept of a breast cancer that has no symptoms, which can not be diagnosed through manual palpation of the breast and does not become invasive in the vast majority of cases, might sound unbelievable to most women. However, there does exist a rather mysterious clinical anomaly known as Ductal Carcinoma In Situ (DCIS), which is, in fact, one of the most commonly diagnosed and unnecessarily treated forms of "breast cancer" today.

What women fail to understand—because their physicians do not know better or have not taken care to explain to them—is that they have a choice when diagnosed with DCIS. Rather than succumb to aggressive treatment with surgery, radiation and chemo-drugs, women can choose watchful waiting. Better yet, a radical lifestyle change can be focused on eliminating exposure to chemicals and radiation, as well as improved exercise and nutrition. This choice is not being made in most cases because the medical community is not informing their patients that there is such.  

Ductal Carcinoma In Situ (DCIS): Cancer or Benign Lesion?

Between 30-50% of new breast cancer diagnoses obtained through x-ray mammography screenings are classified as Ductal Carcinoma In Situ (DCIS).³  DCIS refers to the abnormal growth of cells within the milk ducts of the breast forming a calcified lesion commonly between 1-1.5 cm in diameter, and is considered non-invasive or "stage zero breast cancer," with some experts arguing for its complete re-classification as a non-cancerous condition.

Because DCIS is almost invariably asymptomatic and has no palpable lesions, it would not be known as a clinically relevant entity were it not for the use of x-ray diagnostic technology. Indeed, it was not until the development and widespread application of mammography in the early 1980s as the central push behind National Breast Cancer Awareness campaigns that rates of DCIS diagnosis began to expand to their present day epidemic proportions.^4,5 It is no wonder, therefore, that the United States, which has one of the highest x-ray mammography rates, also has the highest level of DCIS in the world. As of January 2005, an estimated one-half million U.S. women were living with a diagnosis of DCIS.⁶

Proponents of breast screenings claim they are saving lives through the early detection and treatment of DCIS, regarding it as a potentially life-threatening condition, indistinct from invasive cancers. They view DCIS a priori as  "pre-cancerous" and argue that, because it could cause harm if left untreated it should be treated in the same aggressive manner as invasive cancer. The problem with this approach is that while the rate at which DCIS progresses to invasive cancer is still largely unknown, the weight of evidence indicates that it is significantly less than 50%—perhaps as low as 2-4%. 

Indeed, the 10-year survival rates of patients with DCIS (96%-98%) post-treatment speaks volumes to the relatively benign nature of the condition.^7,8  Another study found that at the 40-year follow-up period 40% of DCIS lesions still had no signs of invasiveness.⁹  Adding even more uncertainty, another study showed that coexisting DCIS independently predicts lower tumor aggressiveness in node-positive luminal breast cancer, indicating its possibly protective role. ¹⁰

Watchful Waiting (Around Doing Nothing of Use)

A solid argument can be made that watchful waiting is the most appropriate response to the diagnosis of DCIS, and that in many cases DCIS would be better left over-diagnosed and under-treated. As one paper discusses:

"The central harm of screening is over-diagnosis—the detection of abnormalities that meet the pathologic definition of cancer but will never progress to cause symptoms." ¹¹

A solid body of evidence has emerged suggesting that when DCIS is left undiagnosed and untreated rarely will it become malignant. DCIS was in fact poorly named from the outset, as it is does not behave like most carcinomas (cancers).  Cancer, like the constellation named after it, derives from the Greek word for Crab, indicating the manner in which is expands outward in uncontrolled growth. In situ means exactly the opposite, "in place." An unmoving cancer is therefore a contradiction in terms. These problems with classification have not gone unnoticed in the medical journals: 

"Despite the presence of the word carcinoma, ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is the poster child for this problem (a senior pathologist involved in developing classification systems confided to one of us that he regretted the use of the term carcinoma in DCIS). No one believes that DCIS always progresses to invasive cancer, and no one believes it never does. Although no one is sure what the probability of progression is, studies of DCIS that were missed at biopsy (1,2) and the autopsy reservoir (3) suggest that the lifetime risk of progression must be considerably less than 50%." ¹²

The true irony here is that while participation in x-ray mammography is considered by the public a form of breast cancer prevention and "watchful waiting," it has become—whether by design or accident—a very effective way of manufacturing breast cancer diagnoses and justifying unnecessary treatment. This is not unlike what has been seen with prostate cancer screenings that track Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA); the aggressive treatment of lesions/tumors identified through PSA markers may actually increase patient mortality relative to doing nothing at all. 

Women diagnosed with DCIS are simply not given the option to decline treatment. The problem is illustrated below:

"Because the 'best guess' is that most DCIS won't progress to invasive cancer, the risk of over-diagnosis would be expected to be greater than 50%. The problem with over-diagnosis is that it leads to overtreatment. Because it is impossible to determine which individuals are over-diagnosed, almost everyone gets treated as if they had invasive cancer." ¹³  

Over-diagnosis is a huge problem, discussed in greater depth here:

"Over-diagnosis plays havoc with our understanding of cancer statistics. Because over-diagnosis effectively changes a healthy person into a diseased one, it causes overestimations of the sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictive value of screening tests and the incidence of disease (13). As the MLP and a recent analysis of Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)1 data illustrate (14), over-diagnosis also markedly increases the length of survival, regardless of whether screening or associated treatments are actually effective. However, over-diagnosis does not reduce disease-specific mortality because treating subjects with pseudo-disease does not help those who have real disease. Consequently, disease-specific mortality is the most valid end point for the evaluation of screening effectiveness." ¹⁴  

Ultimately DCIS over-diagnoses contribute to the appearance that conventional breast cancer screenings and treatments are more successful and less harmful than they actually are, while at the same time making the industry far more profitable than otherwise would be the case.  ∆

Sayer Ji is the founder of GreenMedInfo.com, the world's largest, open source and evidence-based natural medicine and toxicology database, with close to 20,000 indexed across 2500 Diseases and 1500 Substances. He can be reached at Sayerji@greenmedinfo.com

References

^{1, 10} Overdiagnosis and overtreatment of breast cancer: Rates of ductal carcinoma in situ: a US perspective. Breast Cancer Res. 2005 Nov. 11. PMID: 1657703

² US women's attitudes to false positive mammography results and detection of ductal carcinoma in situ: cross sectional survey. BMJ 320 : 1635 doi: 10.1136/bmj.320.7250.1635 (Published 17 June 2000)

^3.  The management of ductal carcinoma in situ of the breast. Endocrine-Related Cancer. 2011 8 33-45.

^4,6 NIH State-of-the-Science Conference. Diagnosis and Management of Ductal Carcinoma in Situ (DCIS), Sept. 2009 Source: http://consensus.nih.gov/2009/dcisstatement.htm

⁵ The Dark Side of Breast Cancer Awareness Month  GreenMedInfo.com. 2011 Oct 1.

⁷ Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS): are we overdetecting it? http://breast-cancer-research.com/content/6/S1/P23

⁸ Mortality among women with ductal carcinoma in situ of the breast in the population-based surveillance, epidemiology and end results program. Arch Intern Med. 2000 Apr 10;160(7):953-8. PMID: 1761960

⁹ Coexisting ductal carcinoma in situ independently predicts lower tumor aggressiveness in node-positive luminal breast cancer.  Med Oncol. 2011 Oct 8. Epub 2011 Oct 8. PMID: 21983862

^{11, 12, 13}  The Sea of Uncertainty Surrounding Ductal Carcinoma In Situ – The Price of Screening Mammmography. Journal of The National Cancer Institute  2008 Feb. 12. PMID: 18270336

¹⁴  Overdiagnosis: An Underrecognized Cause of Confusion and Harm in Cancer Screening. Journal of The National Cancer Institute  2000 PMID: 10944539

Read more.. http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/mammograms-linked-epidemic-misdiagnosed-cancers

A Farm Bill Only Monsanto Could Love

Hidden among the cluttered news cycle of this election season is a crucial debate about genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

September 30 marked the expiration of the 2007 Farm Bill, and the 2012 replacement is now sitting in the House of Representatives. It is unlikely that Congress will vote on the bill until after the elections, so food-safety advocates are ramping up their outreach efforts around this issue in advance of any decision.

What’s the big deal with the new bill? Most importantly, the House version of the 2012 Farm Bill contains three industry-friendly provisions, numbered 10011, 10013, and 10014. Collectively, they have come to be known as the “Monsanto Rider,” and the name is entirely appropriate. If passed, this bill would make it more difficult to stem the tide of GMO foods hitting store shelves.

These three provisions in the 2012 Farm Bill would grant regulatory powers solely to the United States Department of Agriculture, preventing other federal agencies from reviewing GMO applications and preventing the USDA from accepting outside money for further study. The bill would also shorten the deadline for approval to one year, with an optional 180-day extension.

And here’s the kicker: the approval time bomb. If the USDA misses the truncated review deadline, the GMO in question is granted automatic approval.

Though the average time for approval of GMO applications is now three years, the USDA has never denied a single one. Environmental activists currently have the ability to delay introduction of an iffy crop by keeping approval held up for months at a time pending further review. If the 2012 Farm Bill is approved with the Monsanto Rider, this tool is removed from the arsenal.

Food-safety advocates like the Organic Consumer Association point to polling that shows nine out of ten American consumers want GMO labeling, and to the strength of the organizing in favor of GMO labeling through California’s Proposition 37 ballot initiative. The Organic Consumers Association and allied organizations like the Center for Food Safety are calling upon their membership base to let their elected officials know where they stand on this issue, through phone calls, letter writing, and protest.

“People understand that the GMO foods entering our food supply have not been safety tested,” said Alexis Baden-Mayer, Political Director at the Organic Consumers Association. “There isn’t enough science backing them, and people want to know when food is genetically engineered. That opinion is very strong, and hopefully members of congress will be paying attention to the widespread opposition, and they’ll connect with voters. Hopefully, they’ll understand that [voters] matter more than the campaign donors.”

Hidden among the cluttered news cycle of this election season is a crucial debate about genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
September 30 marked the expiration of the 2007 Farm Bill, and the 2012 replacement is now sitting in the House of Representatives. It is unlikely that Congress will vote on the bill until after the elections, so food-safety advocates are ramping up their outreach efforts around this issue in advance of any decision.
What’s the big deal with the new bill? Most importantly, the House version of the 2012 Farm Bill contains three industry-friendly provisions, numbered 10011, 10013, and 10014. Collectively, they have come to be known as the “Monsanto Rider,” and the name is entirely appropriate. If passed, this bill would make it more difficult to stem the tide of GMO foods hitting store shelves.
These three provisions in the 2012 Farm Bill would grant regulatory powers solely to the United States Department of Agriculture, preventing other federal agencies from reviewing GMO applications and preventing the USDA from accepting outside money for further study. The bill would also shorten the deadline for approval to one year, with an optional 180-day extension.
And here’s the kicker: the approval time bomb. If the USDA misses the truncated review deadline, the GMO in question is granted automatic approval.
Though the average time for approval of GMO applications is now three years, the USDA has never denied a single one. Environmental activists currently have the ability to delay introduction of an iffy crop by keeping approval held up for months at a time pending further review. If the 2012 Farm Bill is approved with the Monsanto Rider, this tool is removed from the arsenal.
Food-safety advocates like the Organic Consumer Association point to polling that shows nine out of ten American consumers want GMO labeling, and to the strength of the organizing in favor of GMO labeling through California’s Proposition 37 ballot initiative. The Organic Consumers Association and allied organizations like the Center for Food Safety are calling upon their membership base to let their elected officials know where they stand on this issue, through phone calls, letter writing, and protest.
“People understand that the GMO foods entering our food supply have not been safety tested,” said Alexis Baden-Mayer, Political Director at the Organic Consumers Association. “There isn’t enough science backing them, and people want to know when food is genetically engineered. That opinion is very strong, and hopefully members of congress will be paying attention to the widespread opposition, and they’ll connect with voters. Hopefully, they’ll understand that [voters] matter more than the campaign donors.”

Read more.. http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/a-farm-bill-only-monsanto-could-love?utm_source=wkly20121005&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=titleHill

10 Simple Steps Toward Self-Sufficiency

In a utopian world, we would be 100% self-sufficient. We would have enough food, enough water, enough power, and enough fuel, and perhaps most important, enough money to live a well-rounded, healthy and comfortable life. We would have to work hard, yes, but at the end of the day we would have the satisfaction of being able to take care of ourselves without selling out to greedsters or taking a handout from the government.

Alas, everywhere you look there are roadblocks to achieving this state. Not the least of these roadblocks is our dependency on transportation systems and the power infrastructure to deliver goods and energy products to our homes and homesteads. And then there are the entitlements such as social security and Medicare for the older members of our population and disability and Medicaid for the disabled and the sick. Over the years, these systems have been set up – for better or for worse – to create dependencies rather than self-sufficiency’s.  (And by the way, the names may be different but these dependencies exist in all Western countries, not just the United States.)

Luckily, though, self-sufficiency is not an all or nothing proposition. At one end of the spectrum is a total, off grid, agrarian lifestyle and at the other is a moderately self-sufficient lifestyle where steps are taken to move toward 10% or 20% self sufficiency. Not a lot. But something.

Today I will share some easy steps you can take to to start moving toward that 10 or 20% percent mark. These are steps that do not require a farm, do not require acreage and do not require a lot of money to begin with. They are practical steps that you can start with and that you can select from and embrace as you needs and desire for independence change and grow over time.

Some are easy and others take a bit of skill and practice.  Some can be done for little or no cost and others will require in investment in time, labor, money or all three. The good news is that there are lots of choices and the journey toward self sufficiency does not have to be done is a day, a month, a year or even a decade.

10 Baby Steps Toward a Self Sufficient Lifestyle

1.  Grow a vegetable garden

 This is a great first step to take toward taking care of yourself and some of your food needs. There are some books to help you such as The Edible Garden, All New Square Foot Gardening, The Backyard Homestead and Seed to Seed.  You can also get tons of help from seed suppliers, Master Gardeners and friendly neighbors that will be glad to give you some regionally appropriate advice.

Growing a vegetable garden is also fun.

2.  Build a compost pile

 Something many gardeners do not think about is that to be successful, they are going to need fertilizer for their crops. Instead of creating a dependency on the garden center and chemical fertilizers (which also cost money), create your own fertilizer from food scraps and yard waste. The end result will be a nutrient rich fertilizer that is not only free, but a form of “black gold” for your garden vegetables.

3.  Grow fruit trees and berries

Imagine growing hundreds of pounds of fruit each year literally for free and for very little work? This can be done if you take the time, by asking around, to seek out native fruit trees that are natural to your area. Once established, these trees will not require fertilizer or water (but if you want to feed them some of that compost, they will love it).

4.  Learn to preserve your bounty

Canning, freezing, drying and smoking are some of the ways your can preserve your bounty so that you will have it to feed your family during the off-season. It does take time, yes, but the results in terms of food-saving costs are worth it. As with gardening, once you get the hang of it, preserving your food can be fun as well.

5.  Start an emergency fund

It is a fact of life that emergencies happen. I know people who have the means (and high paying jobs) that still live paycheck to paycheck. These are the people that scramble when their automobile needs major repairs or a family member gets sick and incurs a large medical bill. Start an emergency fund and pay yourself each week. Whether you put $5 or $50 a week into the fund, put something in the fund, even if it means you each beans and rice two nights a week so that you have the money to do so.

And by the way, beans and rice, well prepared, is delicious!

6.  Learn to barter

Bartering your skills or excess goods is an easy way to become less dependent on others. Need help? Go back and read 40 Items to Barter in a Post-Collapse World and get yourself a copy of the book “Bartering With Desperate People”.

7.  Make your own cleaning supplies

This is one of my favorites. All of my own cleaning supplies are the DIY type. Get yourself some vinegar, baking soda, castile soap, alcohol, pine cleaner and possibly some borax and you will have this covered.  Not only will this bring out the inner chemist in you, but imagine paying 50 cents for a bottle of effective and planet-friendly household cleaner instead of $3.00 or more. A bit outdated (with an update coming), the article “So what is in your cleaning bucket?” will give you some ideas to get started.

8.  Bake your own bread

This is also one of those fun things that will not only save you money, but will provide you delicious and wholesome results. A loaf of homemade bread will cost you 50 cents versus upwards of $4.00 or more at the supermarket.  Plus, the basic ingredients of flour, year, salt and water are all things you can pronounce and spell. No chemicals, no preservatives. See Baking bread and why you should do it and just for kicks The Secret Art of Making Pizza At Home.

9.  Be your own handyman and fix-it yourself

Simple plumbing and electrical repairs can easily be learned (or bartered – see above). Painting, deck building and other handyman activities will save you a ton of money and give you the satisfaction of knowing that you can, indeed, do it yourself.

10.  Become self-entertaining

Learn to play cards, work crosswords, or become an expert at Scrabble. Learn to dance or play the harmonica. Volunteer as an actor or singer at your local community the theater. The point here is to become self-entertaining which means being able to relax and enjoy yourself without the computer, the television, the DVD player or other amusements that rely on electronic gizmos. You just might find that you don’t need that boob-tube after all.

The Final Word

My own experience tells me that there is a special inner peace that comes from being self-sufficient. I experienced that myself last year when our power went out for an extended period. Others that I talk to also tell me that they too find great joy in the simple things in life that do not rely on excessive consumerism.

Taking baby steps toward self sufficiency while doing thing that you enjoy will help you get closer to and independent lifestyle more quickly than you can imagine.

Read more.. http://wakeup-world.com/2012/10/07/10-simple-steps-toward-self-sufficiency/

A Jobs Report Conspiracy?

Well, isn't that convenient?  The Obama campaign desperately needed the last employment report to be released before the election to show that the unemployment rate had fallen below 8 percent, and somehow it magically happened.  Even though non-farm payroll employment only increased by 114,000 last month (not enough to even keep up with population growth), the official unemployment rate fell from 8.1 percent to 7.8 percent.  So how did that happen?  Well, the unemployment number is not based on the survey of employers that showed that 114,000 jobs were added to the economy last month.  Rather it is based on a survey of households.  And that survey showed that the total number of Americans employed last month increased by a whopping 873,000 - almost eight times the number that the employer survey showed.  That figure for September (873,000) was the biggest one month increase in 29 years.  And it just happened to come at the exact perfect time for Barack Obama.  So was there a jobs report conspiracy?  Examine the evidence and decide for yourself.

The number of Americans with a job fell by 195,000 in July.

Then it fell by another 119,000 in August.

But somehow in September it miraculously exploded in the other direction and 873,000 jobs were added to the economy?

If you believe that, I have a bridge that I want to sell you.

Somehow, the largest increase in jobs in 29 years happened just when Barack Obama needed it the most.

Nah, that doesn't sound fishy to me at all.

We are being told that a big reason for the huge increase was the number of Americans working part-time for "economic reasons".  That number surged from 8.0 million in August to 8.6 million in September.

Why the sudden jump?

Nobody can really explain it.

And if you look at the U6 unemployment rate, nothing has really changed at all.  U6 is still at 14.7 percent just like it was last month.

But the media is not going to talk about the U6 rate.  Instead, all of the headlines are going to be about "7.8 percent".

According to the survey of employers, the U.S. economy added fewer jobs in September than it did in August, and it added fewer jobs in August than it did in July.

So according to the survey of employers, the employment situation in the United States is getting worse.

But according to the household survey, we just had the greatest month of job creation since the first term of Ronald Reagan.

Something does not add up.

And as I have written about previously, the unemployment rate would actually be up around 11 percent instead of 7.8 percent if not for the millions of workers that the government claims "dropped out of the labor force" over the past few years because they became too discouraged to look for work.

So unemployment in America is still a massive crisis, but the media is boldly proclaiming that things are getting better and that we are on the road to recovery.

Of course Obama looks like the cat who ate the canary today.  He is just thrilled with the "7.8 percent" number.

But the truth is that according to the employer survey, job growth in the United States is actually slower than last year.  The following is from the Calculated Risk blog....

All that said, the economy has only added 1.3 million payroll jobs over the first nine months of the year. At this pace, the economy would only add around 1.8 million private sector jobs in 2012; less than the 2.1 million added in 2011.

Are you starting to see why people are so skeptical of this jobs report?

When the "7.8 percent" figure was released, there was immediately a wave of shock and unbelief throughout the financial world and all over the Internet.

The following is a sampling of skeptical quotes about this jobs report....

Former GE chief Jack Welch

Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do anything..can't debate so change numbers

Chapwood Capital Investment Management Managing Partner Ed Butowsky

I feel like I’m watching a movie. There is no way in the world these numbers are accurate.

Neil Irwin of the Washington Post

"Weird that payrolls are exactly on forecast but household survey is far better."

Conn Carroll, senior editorial writer for the Washington Examiner

While it is highly improbable that BLS conspired to cook the books, there is still a huge 756,000 job gap between the number of jobs employers told the Labor Department they created in September (114k), and the number of Americans who told the labor department that they got new jobs (873k).

U.S. Representative Allen West

I agree with former GE CEO Jack Welch, Chicago style politics is at work here. Somehow by manipulation of data we are all of a sudden below 8 percent unemployment, a month from the Presidential election. This is Orwellian to say the least and representative of Saul Alinsky tactics from the book "Rules for Radicals"- a must read for all who want to know how the left strategize . Trust the Obama administration? Sure, and the spontaneous reaction to a video caused the death of our Ambassador......and pigs fly.

Gluskin Sheff's David Rosenberg

That the 7.8 percent jobless rate takes it to the level that prevailed when the President took office in January 2009 has raised many an eyebrow. I don't believe in conspiracy theories. But I don't believe in the Household Survey either. 

This notoriously volatile indicator has become even more so in recent months. It showed a 195K slide in July and a 119K decline in August, to only then reveal a massive 873K surge in September.

Radio host Laura Ingraham

"Jobs #s from Labor Secretary Hilda Solis are total pro-Obama propaganda--labor force participation rate at 30-yr low. Abysmal!"

Americans for Limited Government

"Either the Federal Reserve, which has its fingers on the pulse of every element of the economy, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics manufacturing survey report are grievously wrong or the number used to calculate the unemployment rate are wrong, or worse manipulated. Given that these numbers conveniently meet Obama's campaign promises one month before the election, the conclusions are obvious."

Rick Santelli of CNBC

"I told you they'd get it under 8 percent — they did! You can let America decide how they got there!"

Of course the backlash in the media against skepticism of the jobs report has been very forceful.

Already, those that are doubtful of the legitimacy of the jobs report are being called "truthers" - as if there is something wrong with wanting to know the truth.

Sadly, that is how things work these days.  If you don't like the viewpoint that some people are expressing, you just label them "conspiracy theorists".

And when someone is labeled a "conspiracy theorist", that is code for "that person is so crazy that you should not listen to anything they say".

But the truth is that we live in a world where often people do things that they are not supposed to be doing.

When something rather strange happens, it is not wrong to investigate and try to figure out what is going on.

And this jobs report seems very, very odd.

It sure does seem rather strange that the household survey is showing almost 8 times as many jobs created as the employer survey does.

It sure does seem rather strange that 873,000 more Americans were working in September (the largest increase in 29 years) after decreases in both July and August.

It sure does seem rather strange that the unemployment rate dropped under 8 percent at the exact moment when Barack Obama needed it the most.

But perhaps all of this is just a coincidence.

Read more.. http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/a-jobs-report-conspiracy

Tony Cartalucci -- Western Propagandists Attempt to Trigger Catastrophic Turkish-Syrian War

Bloomberg, Guardian, Ynet, and others are all posting in their headlines an identical unconfirmed report that Turkey and Syria have “agreed” to establish a 6 mile wide “buffer zone” running the length of the Turkish-Syrian border.

The report states specifically (emphasis added):

The Syrian government has told its military to keep aircraft at least six miles (10 kilometers) from Turkey’s borders after a deadly shelling incident left five Turks dead, according to the Turkish news website Today’s Zaman.

The news site cited Turkey’s ntvmsnbc.com, which quoted “reliable sources” yesterday as saying that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has ordered its warplanes and helicopters to honor the buffer. Neither Turkey’s government nor Syrian officials confirmed the report.

Accompanying this report are stories such as Reuters’ “UN: Syria buffer zone plan raises questions,” which states:

The United Nations said on Thursday proposals to set up secure safe zones in Syria to help end the 17-month conflict raised “serious questions” and would need to be studied carefully.
Ahead of a meeting on the humanitarian situation in Syria, France and Britain warned Syria’s President Bashar Assad that military action to secure buffer zones for civilians inside the country was an option.

Reuters goes on to “warn:”

Creating a buffer zone for displaced Syrians would be difficult because a U.N. Security Council resolution would be needed to set up a no-fly zone to protect the area, and Russia and China would not approve such a move, diplomats said.

It is not the first time Russia has posed difficulties for the United States and its allies on the Security Council. In the 1990s, Moscow strongly supported Serbia in the Balkan Wars and acted as Belgrade’s protector on the council.

After an ineffectual UN presence failed to stop genocide in the 1992-1995 Bosnian War, the United States and its European allies infuriated Russia by bypassing the deadlocked Security Council and turning to NATO to halt the Serbian onslaught in Kosovo with a bombing campaign against Serbia in 1999.

While the idea of a buffer zone is meant to look like a knee-jerk reaction to a still unjustified exchange of fire on the Turkish-Syrian border, with lingering conflicting reports over who was responsible for initially targeting the Turkish town of Akcacle, in reality this has been planned since at least March of this year, where the idea was proposed by the corporate-financier funded Brookings Institution in their “Middle East Memo #21″ “Assessing Options for Regime Change” where it stated specifically (emphasis added):

“An alternative is for diplomatic efforts to focus first on how to end the violence and how to gain humanitarian access, as is being done under Annan’s leadership. This may lead to the creation of safe-havens and humanitarian corridors, which would have to be backed by limited military power. This would, of course, fall short of U.S. goals for Syria and could preserve Asad in power. From that starting point, however, it is possible that a broad coalition with the appropriate international mandate could add further coercive action to its efforts.” -

….

Brookings continues by describing how Turkey’s aligning of vast amounts of weapons and troops along its border in coordination with Israeli efforts in the south of Syria, could help effect violent regime change in Syria:

In addition, Israel’s intelligence services have a strong knowledge of Syria, as well as assets within the Syrian regime that could be used to subvert the regime’s power base and press for Asad’s removal. Israel could posture forces on or near the Golan Heights and, in so doing, might divert regime forces from suppressing the opposition. This posture may conjure fears in the Asad regime of a multi-front war, particularly if Turkey is willing to do the same on its border and if the Syrian opposition is being fed a steady diet of arms and training. Such a mobilization could perhaps persuade Syria’s military leadership to oust Asad in order to preserve itself. Advocates argue this additional pressure could tip the balance against Asad inside Syria, if other forces were aligned properly. -page 6, Assessing Options for Regime Change, Brookings Institution.

Clearly,  a “buffer zone” is the next step for Western designs aimed at exacting regime change in Syria and would be a move the Syrian government would not readily agree to. It was also a step that merely needed a pretext to move forward. It appears that the West has found (or manufactured) their pretext. The unconfirmed reports floated by allegedly “reputable” news agencies, citing “high placed sources” in the Turkish media reeks of propaganda, public perception management, and psychological warfare.

….

Additionally, it should be noted that this policy of seeking a “buffer zone” IS NOT A TURKISH POLICY. It was imagined, planned, and is being ceaselessly promoted by corporate-financier interests emanating from the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, and is merely being parroted by increasingly unpopular elements within Turkish politics, specifically the government of Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Protests erupted in Turkey’s capital of Ankara, not in support of Erdogan’s government, but to protest against it and attempts to use the nebulous border incident to initiate a wider conflict. The Turkish parliament has recently passed a bill authorizing the type of cross-border military operations needed to establish and protect Wall Street think-tank Brooking’s prescribed “buffer zone.”

It appears that the West, faced with reluctant proxies along all of Syria’s borders, has begun both pressuring it’s own allies with increasingly belligerent moves, while attempting to stoke increased cross-border tensions between Turkey and Syria. If the unconfirmed reports of a “buffer zone” agreement turn out to be false, it would confirm that the West is engaged in a concerted propaganda campaign to stoke a mutually destructive conflict that would destroy both Turkey and Syria, while benefiting only itself. If the “buffer zone” agreement has been made, Syria will have taken the first step in opening itself up further destabilization at the hands of terrorist proxies wielded now for over a year from Turkish territory, with wider US, British, French, and NATO backing.

….

For people on both sides of the border, it would be wise to unite against the self-serving, destructive Western policies that endanger not only Syria, but Turkey as well. Like Iraq in the 1980′s, when President Saddam Hussein was encouraged to begin the destructive 8 year failed invasion of Iran, costing over a million lives and leaving his nation permanently weakened – even setting the stage for eventual Western invasion, occupation, and decimation, Turkish PM Erdogan is likewise jeopardizing not only the security and safety of his nation by allowing it to serve host to terrorist forces invading a neighboring nation, but jeopardizes Turkey’s entire existence, should he continue forward with the “Saddam option.”

Read more.. http://www.globalresearch.ca/western-propagandists-attempt-to-trigger-catastrophic-turkish-syrian-war/

Chris Hedges -- The Maimed

Chris Hedges gave this talk Sunday night in New York City at a protest denouncing the 11th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan. The event, at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, was led by Veterans for Peace.

Many of us who are here carry within us death. The smell of decayed and bloated corpses. The cries of the wounded. The shrieks of children. The sound of gunfire. The deafening blasts. The fear. The stench of cordite. The humiliation that comes when you surrender to terror and beg for life. The loss of comrades and friends. And then the aftermath. The long alienation. The numbness. The nightmares. The lack of sleep. The inability to connect to all living things, even to those we love the most. The regret. The repugnant lies mouthed around us about honor and heroism and glory. The absurdity. The waste. The futility.

It is only the maimed that finally know war. And we are the maimed. We are the broken and the lame. We ask for forgiveness. We seek redemption. We carry on our backs this awful cross of death, for the essence of war is death, and the weight of it digs into our shoulders and eats away at our souls. We drag it through life, up hills and down hills, along the roads, into the most intimate recesses of our lives. It never leaves us. Those who know us best know that there is something unspeakable and evil many of us harbor within us. This evil is intimate. It is personal. We do not speak its name. It is the evil of things done and things left undone. It is the evil of war.

We do not speak of war. War is captured only in the long, vacant stares, in the silences, in the trembling fingers, in the memories most of us keep buried deep within us, in the tears.

It is impossible to portray war. Narratives, even anti-war narratives, make the irrational rational. They make the incomprehensible comprehensible. They make the illogical logical. They make the despicable beautiful. All words and images, all discussions, all films, all evocations of war, good or bad, are an obscenity. There is nothing to say. There are only the scars and wounds. These we carry within us. These we cannot articulate. The horror. The horror.

War gives to its killers a God-like power to take life. And there are those here tonight that have felt and exercised that power. They turned other human beings into objects. And in that process of killing they became objects, machines, instruments of death, war’s victimizers and war’s victims. And they do not want to be machines again.

We wander through life with the deadness of war within us. There is no escape. There is no peace. We know an awful truth, an existential truth. War exposed the lies of patriotism and collective virtue of the nation that our churches, our schools, our press, our movies, our books, our government told us about ourselves, about who we were. And we see through these illusions. But those who speak this truth are cast out. Ghosts. Strangers in a strange land.

Who are our brothers and sisters? Who is our family? Whom have we become? We have become those whom we once despised and killed. We have become the enemy. Our mother is the mother grieving over her murdered child, and we murdered this child, in a mud-walled village of Afghanistan or a sand-filled cemetery in Fallujah. Our father is the father lying on a pallet in a hut, paralyzed by the blast from an iron fragmentation bomb. Our sister lives in poverty in a refugee camp outside Kabul, widowed, desperately poor, raising her children alone. Our brother, yes, our brother, is in the Taliban and the Iraqi insurgency and al-Qaida. And he has an automatic rifle. And he kills. And he is becoming us. War is always the same plague. It imparts the same deadly virus. It teaches us to deny another’s humanity, worth, being, and to kill and be killed.

There are days we wish we were whole. We wish we could put down this cross. We envy those who, in their innocence, believe in the innate goodness of America and the righteousness of war and celebrate what we know is despicable. And sometimes it makes us wish for death, for the peace of it. But we know too the awful truth, as James Baldwin wrote, that “people who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.” And we would rather be maimed and broken and in pain than be a monster, and some of us, once, were monsters.

I cannot heal you. You will never be healed. I cannot take away your wounds, visible and invisible. I cannot promise that it will be better. I cannot impart to you the cheerful and childish optimism that is the curse of America. I can only tell you to stand up, to pick up your cross, to keep moving. I can only tell you that you must always defy the forces that eat away at you, at the nation—this plague of war.

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child?
A long ways from home
A long ways from home

Towering about us are banks and other financial institutions that profit from war. War, for some, is a business. And across this country lies a labyrinth of military industries that produce nothing but instruments of death. And some of us once served these forces. It is death we defy, not our own death, but the vast enterprise of death. The dark, primeval lusts for power and personal wealth, the hypermasculine language of war and patriotism, are used to justify the slaughter of the weak and the innocent and mock justice. ... And we will not use these words of war.

We cannot flee from evil. Some of us have tried through drink and drugs and self-destructiveness. Evil is always with us. It is because we know evil, our own evil, that we do not let go, do not surrender. It is because we know evil that we resist. It is because we know violence that we are nonviolent. And we know that it is not about us; war taught us that. It is about the other, lying by the side of the road. It is about reaching down in defiance of creeds and oaths, in defiance of religion and nationality, and lifting our enemy up. All acts of healing and love—and the defiance of war is an affirmation of love—allow us to shout out to the vast powers of the universe that, however broken we are, we are not yet helpless, however much we despair we are not yet without hope, however weak we may feel, we will always, always, always resist. And it is in this act of resistance that we find our salvation.

Read more.. http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_maimed_20121007/

World Food Crisis, Impact of US Drought

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) announced on Thursday that world food prices rose in September. After experiencing the most widespread drought in 50 years, corn and soybean prices in the US soared to record highs over the summer. Compounded with the droughts in Europe and central Asia, there has been concern about possible food shortages, raising fears of renewed crisis.

An ear of corn from a Missouri farm from 2011, left, compared to one from this year. Photo by Dilip Vishwanat for The New York Times The FAO's price index—a measure of the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities—rose 1.4 percent to an average of 216 points in September after remaining stable at 213 points in August. FAO's index remains below February 2011's peak of 238 points, when high food prices fueled the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, but, according to Reuters, "current levels are very close to those seen in 2008 which sparked riots in poor countries."

"Prices are remaining high... prices are sustained, it's highly unlikely we will see a normalization of prices anytime soon," FAO senior economist Abdolreza Abbassian toldReuters. "Volatility is not going to go away, if anything it may even intensify further in coming months," he said.

The FAO also predicts a decline in global cereal production this year. According to the government, drought in the US has left half of the nation's corn in "poor to very poor condition."

A government survey (pdf) last month estimated a national average yields of 122.8 bushels of corn per acre, the lowest in more than 15 years, and a 15 percent drop in soybeans yields.

In addition to the global impact on food prices, rural farmers in the US have been devastated. The waning supply means higher prices, which benefits grain farmers for the short term. However, it is not such good news for livestock farmers who depend on those crops to feed their animals.

The New York Times reports on some of the individuals who have had to sell off significant numbers of livestock in anticipation of the diminished returns next year. Missourians Theresa and Carl Bettles—whose 130 cows and crops produced a quarter of their average annual yields—are anticipating a $40,000 drop in earnings. The drought has forced them to dip into a retirement fund to pay their daughter’s college expenses.

“If it’s doing this for the next two years, I can’t see us being able to keep going,” Theresa said.

According to Abbassian of the FAO, there is a ministerial meeting that goes beyond the G20 Summit to be held on October16 to discuss food prices.