Summer and Fall Qtr. Schedules 07 (CSUSB)

Summer 07
SOC 339 Socialization MW 1:00-4:50

Fall 07
TA 233 Costume Construction MWF 9:20-10:30
TA 345 Advanced Voice and Movement TR 2:00-3:50
TA 457 Theatre of Avant Garde MW 4:00-5:50
KINE 114F Yoga TR 12:00-1:50
MUS 392 Jazz Choir MWF 1:20-2:30

Winter Qtr. 07 Schedule (CSUSB)

MWF- Mon, Wed, Friday MW- Mon/Wednes.

MUS 385 Concert Choir MWF 2:40-3:50

TA 353 Acting V: Stylized MWF 12-1:50

TA 362 Theatre History II MW 4:00-5:50

SOC 309 Social Research II MWF 9:20-10:30

and 309L Social Research lab Hrs./Dates arr.

Fall Quarter 06 Schedule (CSUSB)

T-Tues R-Thurs MWF- Mon, Wed, Friday

MUS 385 Concert Choir MWF 2:40-3:50

TA 351 Acting III: Scene Study MWF 12-1:50

TA 361 Theatre History I MW 4:00-5:50

SOC 307 Social Research I MWF 9:20-10:30

and 307L Social Research lab Hrs./Dates arr.

*Chamber Singers will be added to schedule if I ace the auditions*

Spring Quarter 06 Schedule (CSUSB)

T-Tues R-Thurs L-Lab

TA 481 Creative Drama in the Classroom TR 2:00-3:50
HUM 375 World of Islam TR 12:00-1:50
HSCI 120 Health: SOC/Eco Approach MWF 12:00-1:10
and HSCI 120L Tues. 6:00-8:50

14 Worst Corporations (yes, Mal-Mart's on the list)

The 14 Worst Corporations (yep, wal-mart's in there...)

The 14 Worst Corporatations
By A Global Exchange Report
Posted on December 12, 2005
www.alternet.org/story/29337/
www.assatashakur.org/forum/s...read.php

Corporations carry out some of the most horrific human rights abuses of modern times, but it is increasingly difficult to hold them to account. Economic globalization and the rise of transnational corporate power have created a favorable climate for corporate human rights abusers, which are governed principally by the codes of supply and demand and show genuine loyalty only to their stockholders.

Several of the companies below are being sued under the Alien Tort Claims Act, a law that allows citizens of any nationality to sue in US federal courts for violations of international rights or treaties. When corporations act like criminals, we have the right and the power to stop them, holding leaders and multinational corporations alike to the accords they have signed. Around the world--in Venezuela, Argentina, India, and right here in the United States--citizens are stepping up to create democracy and hold corporations accountable to international law.

Caterpillar

For years, the Caterpillar Company has provided Israel with the bulldozers used to destroy Palestinian homes. Despite worldwide condemnation, Caterpillar has refused to end its corporate participation house demolition by cutting off sales of specially modified D9 and D10 bulldozers to the Israeli military.

In a letter to Caterpillar CEO James Owens, The Office of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights said: "allowing the delivery of your ... bulldozers to the Israeli army ... in the certain knowledge that they are being used for such action, might involve complicity or acceptance on the part of your company to actual and potential violations of human rights..."

Peace activist Rachel Corrie was killed by a Caterpillar D-9, military bulldozer in 2003. She was run over while attempting to block the destruction a family's home in Gaza. Her family filed suit against Caterpillar in March 2005 charging that Caterpillar knowingly sold machines used to violate human rights. Since Corrie's death at least three more Palestinians have been killed in their homes by Israeli bulldozer demolitions.

Chevron

The petrochemical company Chevron is guilty of some of the worst environmental and human rights abuses in the world. From 1964 to 1992, Texaco (which transferred operations to Chevron after being bought out in 2001) unleashed a toxic "Rainforest Chernobyl" in Ecuador by leaving over 600 unlined oil pits in pristine northern Amazon rainforest and dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic production water into rivers used for bathing water. Llocal communities have suffered severe health effects, including cancer, skin lesions, birth defects, and spontaneous abortions.

Chevron is also responsible for the violent repression of peaceful opposition to oil extraction. In Nigeria, Chevron has hired private military personnel to open fire on peaceful protestors who oppose oil extraction in the Niger Delta.

Additionally Chevron is responsible for widespread health problems in Richmond, California, where one of Chevron's largest refineries is located. Processing 350,000 barrels of oil a day, the Richmond refinery produces oil flares and toxic waste in the Richmond area. As a result, local residents suffer from high rates of lupus, skin rashes, rheumatic fever, liver problems, kidney problems, tumors, cancer, asthma, and eye problems.

The Unocal Corporation, which recently became a subsidiary of Chevron, is an oil and gas company based in California with operations around the world. In December 2004, the company settled a lawsuit filed by 15 Burmese villagers, in which the villagers alleged Unocal's complicity in a range of human rights violations in Burma, including rape, summary execution, torture, forced labor and forced migration.

Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola Company is perhaps the most widely recognized corporate symbol on the planet. The company also leads in the abuse of workers' rights, assassinations, water privatization, and worker discrimination. Between 1989 and 2002, eight union leaders from Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia were killed after protesting the company's labor practices. Hundreds of other Coca-Cola workers who have joined or considered joining the Colombian union SINALTRAINAL have been kidnapped, tortured, and detained by paramilitaries who are hired to intimidate workers to prevent them from unionizing.

In India, Coca-Cola destroys local agriculture by privatizing the country's water resources. In Plachimada, Kerala, Coca-Cola extracted 1.5 million liters of deep well water, which they bottled and sold under the names Dasani and BonAqua. The groundwater was severely depleted, affecting thousands of communities with water shortages and destroying agricultural activity. As a result, the remaining water became contaminated with high chloride and bacteria levels, leading to scabs, eye problems, and stomach aches in the local population.

Coca-Cola is also one of the most discriminatory employers in the world. In the year 2000, 2,000 African-American employees in the U.S. sued the company for race-based disparities in pay and promotions.

Dow Chemical

Dow Chemical has been destroying lives and poisoning the planet for decades. The company is best known for the ravages and health disaster for millions of Vietnamese and U.S. Veterans caused by its lethal Vietnam War defoliant, Agent Orange. Dow also developed and perfected Napalm, a brutal chemical weapon that burned many innocents to death in Vietnam and other wars. In 1988, Dow provided pesticides to Saddam Hussein despite warnings that they could be used to produce chemical weapons.

In 2001, Dow inherited the toxic legacy of the worst peacetime chemical disaster in history when it acquired Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) and its outstanding liabilities in Bhopal, India. On Dec. 3, 1984, a chemical leak from a UCC pesticide plant in Bhopal gassed thousands of people to death and left more than 150,000 disabled or dying. Dow still refuses to address its liabilities in Bhopal.

Dow Chemical's impact is felt globally from its Midland, Michigan headquarters to New Plymouth, New Zealand. In Midland, Dow has been producing chlorinated chemicals and burning and burying its waste including chemicals that make up Agent Orange. In New Plymouth, 500,000 gallons of Agent Orange were produced and thousands of tons of dioxin-laced waste was dumped in agricultural fields.

DynCorp

Private security contractors have become the fastest-growing sector of the global economy during the last decade--a $100-billion-a-year, nearly unregulated industry. DynCorp, one of the providers of these mercenary services, demonstrates the industry's power and potential to abuse human rights. While guarding Afghan statesmen and African oil fields, training Iraqi police forces, eradicating Colombian coca plants, and protecting business interests in hurricane-devastated New Orleans, these hired guns bolster the security of governments and organizations at the expense of many people's human rights.

DynCorp's fumigation of coca crops along the Colombian-Ecuadorian border led Ecuadorian peasants to sue DynCorp in 2001. Plaintiffs argued that DynCorp knew--or should have known--that the herbicides were highly toxic.

In 2001, a mechanic with DynCorp blew the whistle on DynCorp employees in Bosnia for rape and trading girls as young as 12 into sex slavery. According to a lawsuit filed by the mechanic, "employees and supervisors were engaging in perverse, illegal and inhumane behavior were purchasing illegal weapons, women, forged passports." DynCorp fired the whistleblower and transferred the employees accused of sex trading out of the country, eventually firing some. None were prosecuted.

Ford Motor Company

Among automakers, Ford Motor Company is the worst. Every year since 1999, the US Environmental Protection Agency has ranked Ford cars, trucks and SUVs as having the worst overall fuel economy of any American automaker. Ford's current car and truck fleet has a lower average fuel efficiency than the original Ford Model-T.

Ford is also in last place when it comes to vehicle greenhouse gas emissions. According to a recent report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, Ford has "the absolute worst heat-trapping gas emissions performance of all the Big Six automakers."

Despite the company's recent greenwashing PR campaign, its record has actually worsened. According to Ford's own sustainability report, between 2003 and 2004, the company's US fleet-wide fuel economy decreased and its CO2 emissions went up. Ford has also lobbied against lawmakers' efforts to increase fuel economy standards at the national level and is also involved in a lawsuit against California's fuel economy standards.

KBR (Kellogg, Brown and Root): A Subsidiary of Halliburton Corporation

KBR is a private company that provides military support services. Notorious for its questionable bookkeeping, dishonest billing practices with US taxpayer dollars and no-bid contracts, KBR has violated human rights on the U.S. dollar.

KBR's dubious accounting in Iraq came to light in December 2003 when Pentagon auditors questioned possible overcharges for imported gasoline. In June 2005, a previously secret Pentagon audit criticized $1.4 billion in "questioned" and "unsupported" expenditures. In 2002 the company paid $2 million to settle a Justice Department lawsuit that accused KBR of inflating contract prices at Fort Ord, California.

Many third-country national (TCN) laborers have been hired by KBR to "rebuild" Iraq. Generally hailing from impoverished Asian countries, they have unexpectedly become part of the largest civilian workforce ever hired in support of a U.S. war. Once abroad, the workers find themselves with few protections and uncertain legal status. TCNs often sleep in crowded trailers and wait outside in scorching heat for food rations. Many lack adequate medical care and put in hard labor seven days a week, 10 hours or more a day.

Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin is the world's largest military contractor. Providing satellites, planes, missiles and other lethal high-tech items to the Pentagon keeps the profits rolling in. Since 2000, the year Bush was elected, the company's stock value has tripled.

As the Center for Corporate Policy (www.corporatepolicy.org) notes, it is no coincidence that Lockheed VP Bruce Jackson--who helped draft the Republican foreign policy platform in 2000--is a key player at the Project for a New American Century, the intellectual incubator of the Iraq war.

Lockheed Martin is not the only defense contractor that goes behind the scenes to influence public policy, but it is one of the worst. Stephen J. Hadley, who now has Condoleeza Rice's old job as Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, was formerly a partner in a DC law firm representing Lockheed Martin. He is only one of the beneficiaries of the so-called revolving door between the military industries and the "civilian" national security apparatus. These war profiteers have a profound and illegitimate influence on our country's international policy decisions.

Monsanto

Monsanto is, by far, the largest producer of genetically engineered seeds in the world, dominating 70% to 100% of the market for crops such as soy, cotton, wheat and corn.

Monsanto is the world's leading producer of the herbicide glyphosate, marketed as Roundup. Roundup is sold to small farmers as a pesticide, yet harms crops in the long run as the toxins accumulate in the soil. Plants eventually become infertile, forcing farmers to purchase genetically modified Roundup Ready Seed, a seed that resists the herbicide. This creates a cycle of dependency on Monsanto for both the weed killer and the only seed that can resist it. Both products are patented, and sold at inflated prices. Exposure to the pesticide Roundup Ultra is documented to cause cancers, skin disorders, spontaneous abortions, premature births, and damage to the gastrointestinal and nervous systems.

According to the India Committee of the Netherlands and the International Labor Rights Fund, Monsanto also employs child labor. In India, an estimated 12,375 children work in cottonseed production for farmers paid by Indian and multinational seed companies, including Monsanto.

Nestle USA

The problem of illegal and forced child labor is rampant in the chocolate industry, because more than 40% of the world's cocoa supply comes from the Ivory Coast, a country that the US State Department estimates had approximately 109,000 child laborers working in hazardous conditions on cocoa farms. In 2001, Save the Children Canada reported that 15,000 children between 9 and 12 years old, many from impoverished Mali, had been tricked or sold into slavery on West African cocoa farms, many for just $30 each.

Nestle, the third largest buyer of cocoa from the Ivory Coast, is well aware of the tragically unjust labor practices taking place on the farms with which it continues to do business. Nestle and other chocolate manufacturers agreed to end the use of abusive and forced child labor on cocoa farms by July 1, 2005, but they failed to do so.

Nestle is also notorious for its aggressive marketing of infant formula in poor countries in the 1980s. Because of this practice, Nestle is still one of the most boycotted corporations in the world, and its infant formula is still controversial. In Italy in 2005, police seized more than two million liters of Nestle infant formula that was contaminated with the chemical isopropylthioxanthone (ITX).

Additionally, violations of labor rights are reported from Nestle factories in numerous countries. In Colombia, Nestle replaced the entire factory staff with lower-wage workers and did not renew the collective employment contract.

Philip Morris USA and Philip Morris International (a.k.a. The Altria Group Inc.)

Among tobacco companies, Philip Morris is notorious. Now called Altria, it is the world's largest and most profitable cigarette corporation and maker of Marlboro, Virginia Slims, Parliament, Basic and many other brands of cigarettes.

Documents uncovered in a lawsuit filed against the tobacco industry by the state of Minnesota showed that Philip Morris and other leading tobacco corporations knew very well of the dangers of tobacco products and the addictiveness of nicotine. To this day, Philip Morris deceives consumers about the harm of its products by offering light, mild and low-tar cigarettes that give consumers the illusion these brands are "healthier" than traditional cigarettes.

Although the company says it doesn't want kids to smoke, it spends millions of dollars every day marketing and promoting cigarettes to youth. Overseas, it has even hired underage "Marlboro girls" to distribute free cigarettes to other children and sponsored concerts where cigarettes were handed out to minors.

As anti-tobacco campaigns and government regulations are slowing tobacco use in Western countries, Philip Morris has aggressively moved into developing country markets, where smoking and smoking-related deaths are on the rise. Preliminary numbers released by the World Health Organization predict global deaths due to smoking-related illnesses will nearly double by 2020, with more than three-quarters of those deaths in the developing world.

Pfizer

Pfizer is the largest pharmaceutical company in the world; it is also one of the worst abusers of the human right of universal access to HIV/AIDS medicine.

In addition to Viagra, Zoloft, Zithromax and Norvasc, Pfizer produces the HIV/AIDS-related drugs Rescriptor, Viracept and Diflucan (fluconazole). Like other drug companies, they sell these drugs at prices poor people cannot afford and aggressively fight efforts to make it easier for generic drugs to enter the market.

Pfizer also values shareholder profits over safety standards. In Europe in 2005, it withdrew from scientific studies of a new class of AIDS drugs called CCR5 inhibitors, choosing instead to rush its own untested CCR5 inhibitor onto the European market without full information about the drug's side effects.

Suez-Lyonnaise Des Eaux (SLDE)

The privatization of water has had a disastrous impact on the human right to clean water, and the French company Suez is the worst perpetrator of this abuse. The company's billions of dollars in profit come at the expense of poor people living in countries where thousands lack access to potable water, and, because of private water contracts, are also facing skyrocketing water prices.

Suez goes by many names around the world--Ondeo, SITA and others--to mask its worldwide net of controversial activities. In Manila, Philippines, after seven years of water privatization under a Suez company (Maynilad Water) contract, studies showed that water rates increased in some neighborhoods by 400 to 700 percent. These studies also showed that the negligence of the company resulted in cholera and gastroenteritis outbreaks that killed six people and severely sickened 725 in Manila's Tondo district.

In Bolivia, a Suez company (Aguas de Illimani) left 200,000 people without access to water and caused a revolt when it tried to charge between $335 and $445 to connect a private home to the water supply. Countless people were unable to afford this charge in a country whose yearly per capita GDP is $915.

Unfortunately, the IMF and World Bank are playing a key role in pushing water privatization all over the world. Many countries have been required to open up their water supply to private companies as a condition for receiving IMF loans, and the World Bank has approved millions of dollars in loans for the privatization of water systems.

Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart is the biggest corporation in the world. It owns 5,100 stores worldwide and employs 1.3 million workers in the United States and 400,000 abroad, as well as millions more in the factories of its suppliers.

Many people have heard of the way that Wal-Mart steamrolls its way into every possible town, destroying local supermarkets and countless small businesses. We have also heard about Wal-Mart's long track record of worker abuse, from forced overtime to sex discrimination to illegal child labor to relentless union busting. Wal-Mart also notoriously fails to provide health insurance to over half of its employees, who are then left to rely on themselves or taxpayers, who provide for a portion of their healthcare needs through government Medicaid.

Less well known is the fact that Wal-Mart maintains its low price level by allowing substandard labor conditions at the overseas factories producing most of its goods. The company continually demands lower prices from its suppliers, who, in turn, make more outrageous and abusive demands on their workers in order to meet Wal-Mart's requirements.

In September 2005, the International Labor Rights Fund filed a lawsuit on behalf of Wal-Mart supplier sweatshop workers in China, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nicaragua and Swaziland. The workers were denied minimum wages, forced to work overtime without compensation, and were denied legally mandated health care. Other worker rights violations that have been found in foreign factories that produce goods for Wal-Mart include locked bathrooms, starvation wages, pregnancy tests, denial of access to health care, and workers being fired and blacklisted if they try to defend their rights.

Visit Global Exchange to read the full report of the Most Wanted Corporate Human Rights Violators of 2005, and find out how to connect with groups that are doing something about corporate abuses.

2005 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: www.alternet.org/story/29337/

SENDER'S NOTES:
*Ford is also one of, if not the biggest, suppliers/supporters to drug dealers who order bulletproofed and customized trucks.

*Dutch-Shell Gas Company also does the same abuses as Chevron in Nigeria

*DuPont Polluted of America's Blood for 18 Years
www.assatashakur.org/forum/s...read.php

*Private Assassins
www.assatashakur.org/forum/s...read.php

*Visit Global Exchange to read the full report of the Most Wanted Corporate Human Rights Violators of 2005
www.globalexchange.org/getInv...orporat eHRviolators.html

*Afrikan Holistic Health: Discussions of Worship, Nutrition, The Body, The Spirit, Healing.
www.assatashakur.org/forum/f...play.php

Acceptance, Tolerance and Equality

The weakest, most misunderstood words of the Civil rights movement have been acceptance, tolerance and equality. Oh how I hate these words!!!! They miss the mark, the element of individualism that our society values so much. They try to make invisible that which is visible. I did some investigation on these misunderstood terms and I found the following to be true....

Acceptance, Tolerance, Equality?

Acceptance,
Acceptance indicates approval
I do not want your approval to subsist harmoniously
My existence is validation enough
Tolerance
Tolerance means to tolerate, to allow
To look past, to look through, to overlook
I want to be seen as me
For whom I am
For whom I can or will become
Equality
I am not the same as you,
I am unique
Do not claim blindness to my uniqueness
Instead embrace and learn about my differences
The knowledge you will gain from such awareness
will open your mind and heart
I think that the terms Recognition, acknowledgement, and egalitarianism would be better choices...Instead try we should try

Recognition
Remember my history
Respect me for where I began
Appreciate my differences
Acknowledgement
Recognize me as real
Allow me my uniqueness
Grant me my rights, the same ones you take for granted
Egalitarianism
Social equality for unity
Classlessness
Equivalence

News that will shock and astound

This just in from the Rancho Cucamonga DMV: I finally passed the written part of the drivers test after several failed attempts and extensive preparation.

Winter Qtr. 06 Schedule (CSUSB)

T-Tues R-Thurs GBLTQ-Gay, Lesbian, Bi, and Trans

MUS 385 Concert Choir MWF 2:40-3:50

TA 231 Stage and Screen Sound TR 2:00-3:50

TA 235 Fundamentals of Stage Design TR 10:00-11:50

WSTD 103 Intro to GBLT Studies Internet class Hrs/Dates Arr.

ID and Evolution revisted

INTELLIGENT DESIGN (from New Yorker)
by PAUL RUDNICK
Issue of 2005-09-26
Posted 2005-09-19


Day No. 1:

And the Lord God said, “Let there be light,” and lo, there was light. But then the Lord God said, “Wait, what if I make it a sort of rosy, sunset-at-the-beach, filtered half-light, so that everything else I design will look younger?”

“I’m loving that,” said Buddha. “It’s new.”

“You should design a restaurant,” added Allah.



Day No. 2:

“Today,” the Lord God said, “let’s do land.” And lo, there was land.

“Well, it’s really not just land,” noted Vishnu. “You’ve got mountains and valleys and—is that lava?”

“It’s not a single statement,” said the Lord God. “I want it to say, ‘Yes, this is land, but it’s not afraid to ooze.’ ”

“It’s really a backdrop, a sort of blank canvas,” put in Apollo. “It’s, like, minimalism, only with scale.”

“But—brown?” Buddha asked.

“Brown with infinite variations,” said the Lord God. “Taupe, ochre, burnt umber—they’re called earth tones.”

“I wasn’t criticizing,” said Buddha. “I was just noticing.”



Day No. 3:

“Just to make everyone happy,” said the Lord God, “today I’m thinking oceans, for contrast.”

“It’s wet, it’s deep, yet it’s frothy; it’s design without dogma,” said Buddha, approvingly.

“Now, there’s movement,” agreed Allah. “It’s not just ‘Hi, I’m a planet—no splashing.’ ”

“But are those ice caps?” inquired Thor. “Is this a coherent vision, or a highball?”

“I can do ice caps if I want to,” sniffed the Lord God.

“It’s about a mood,” said the Angel Moroni, supportively.

“Thank you,” said the Lord God.



Day No. 4:

“One word,” said the Lord God. “Landscaping. But I want it to look natural, as if it all somehow just happened.”

“Do rain forests,” suggested a primitive tribal god, who was known only as a clicking noise.

“Rain forests here,” decreed the Lord God. “And deserts there. For a spa feeling.”

“Which is fresh, but let’s give it glow,” said Buddha. “Polished stones and bamboo, with a soothing trickle of something.”

“I know where you’re going,” said the Lord God. “But why am I seeing scented candles and a signature body wash?”

“Shut up,” said Buddha.

“You shut up,” said the Lord God.

“It’s all about the mix,” Allah declared in a calming voice. “Now let’s look at some swatches.”



Day No. 5:

“I’d like to design some creatures of the sea,” the Lord God said. “Sleek but not slick.”

“Yes, yes, and more yes—it’s a total gills moment,” said Apollo. “But what if you added wings?”

“Fussy,” whispered Buddha to Zeus. “Why not epaulets and a sash?”

“Legs,” said Allah. “Now let’s do legs.”

“Are we already doing dining-room tables?” asked the Lord God, confused.

“No, design some creatures with legs,” said Allah. So the Lord God, nodding, designed an ostrich.

“First draft,” everyone agreed, and so the Lord God designed an alligator.

“There’s gonna be a waiting list,” Zeus murmured appreciatively.

“Now do puppies!” pleaded Vishnu. “And kitties!”

“Ooooo!” all the gods cooed. Then, feeling a bit embarrassed, Zeus ventured, “Design something more practical, like a horse or a mule.”

“What about a koala?” asked the Lord God.

“Much better,” Zeus declared, cuddling the furry little animal. “I’m going to call him Buttons.”



Day No. 6:

“Today I’m really going out there,” said the Lord God. “And I know it won’t be popular at first, and you’re all gonna be saying, ‘Earth to Lord God,’ but in a few million years it’s going to be timeless. I’m going to design a man.”

And everyone looked upon the man that the Lord God designed.

“It has your eyes,” Zeus told the Lord God.

“Does it stack?” inquired Allah.

“It has a na?ve, folk-artsy, I-made-it-myself vibe,” said Buddha. The Inca sun god, however, only scoffed. “Been there. Evolution,” he said. “It’s called a shaved monkey.”

“I like it,” protested Buddha. “But it can’t work a strapless dress.” Everyone agreed on this point, so the Lord God announced, “Well, what if I give it nice round breasts and lose the penis?”

“Yes,” the gods said immediately.

“Now it’s intelligent,” said Aphrodite.

“But what if I made it blond?” giggled the Lord God.

“And what if I made you a booming offscreen voice in a lot of bad movies?” asked Aphrodite.



Day No. 7:

“You know, I’m really feeling good about this whole intelligent-design deal,” said the Lord God. “But do you think that I could redo it, keeping the quality but making it at a price point we could all live with?”

“I’m not sure,” said Buddha. “You mean, what if you designed a really basic, no-frills planet? Like, do the man and the woman really need all those toes?”

“Hello!” said the Lord God. “Clean lines, no moving parts, functional but fun. Three bright, happy, wash ’n’ go colors.”

“Swedish meets Japanese, with maybe a Platinum Collector’s Edition for the geeks,” Buddha decided.

“Done,” said the Lord God. “Now let’s start thinking about Pluto. What if everything on Pluto was brushed aluminum?”

“You mean, let’s do Neptune again?” said Buddha.

Escaping the Matrix

Drinking milk helps people lose weight.
FALSE. The milk / weight loss myth is a clever marketing gimmick dreamed up by the dairy industry to sell more milk by exploiting the desperate desire of Americans to lose weight. Not only does milk not cause weight loss, it contains pus, rocket fuel chemicals and actually promotes heart disease, asthma, constipation and various allergic reactions. To learn more, visit the NewsTarget dairy products page.

Silver fillings are safe to put in your teeth. Otherwise, dentists wouldn't use them.
FALSE. Silver fillings are nearly 40% mercury -- one of the most toxic heavy metals known to man. A single drop on your skin can literally kill you. A single drop in a lake poisons the entire lake. Silver fillings (actually "mercury fillings") generate mercury vapor in your mouth, which you repeatedly inhale or swallow. This puts mercury directly into your bloodstream where it causes birth defects (if you're pregnant) and nervous system disorders like Alzheimer's disease and dementia. To learn the proper way to have mercury fillings removed, see the NewsTarget mercury page.

Cattle in the U.S. beef industry are routinely fed chicken poop, animal blood, expired household pets and other undesirable food sources.
TRUE. The feeding of chicken litter (feces + feathers + other unknowns) to U.S. cattle is a USDA-approved feeding practice that is necessary, says the USDA, to reclaim the valuable nitrogen in chicken poop produced by chicken farms. People who eat non-organic beef are often eating secondhand chicken feces. Don't believe it? Try this Google search and read for yourself.

People who watch television are not persuaded by television advertising.
FALSE. Everyone who watches advertising is persuaded by it, but no one thinks they are. Consumers believe they are rational decision makers when, in fact, they act on emotional associations embedded in their minds by clever advertising. That's because television advertising is designed to bypass the rational mind and install positive associations with brands, companies and products that later translate into measurable, consistent behavior modification in consumers. This system of influence works very well. If television advertising didn't work, advertisers would have stopped using it long ago. Discover how consumers are easily manipulated by reading Health Seduction.

Food manufacturers offer coupons because they want to help people save money.
FALSE. Food companies offer coupons because they want to sell more of their products, and they know that consumers incorrectly believe that using coupons saves them money. In reality, nearly all coupon-promoted foods are priced at very high markups to begin with. Unprocessed foods (vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes, etc.) almost never have coupons, yet they represent the best value in food for your dollar. People who use coupons are getting ripped off even as they think they're getting a bargain.

The history taught to American children in public school is true and accurate.
FALSE. American history, as taught to American schoolchildren, is more a collection of lies and distortions than actual history. From Columbus to the Vietnam War, politically correct American history consistently paints Americans in a glorious light while ignoring shocking accounts of actual historical events. Read, "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn to learn real, uncensored American history.

Many common grocery products (including yogurt, fruit drinks and candy) are colored with an ingredient called "carmine" that is actually made from insects: dead, ground up husks of female cochineal beetles.
TRUE. Just about every container of strawberry yogurt, for example, uses this insect-derived food coloring. Aside from the gross factor, carmine also poses the threat of causing a rare but fatal allergic reaction known as anaphylactic shock. See the CSPI warning on carmine to learn more.

My government would never knowingly lie to me.
FALSE. All governments lie. They lie about war, the economy, the money supply, and even medical experiments on humans. The question is not whether governments lie, but why they lie. The answer remains consistent: to maintain control. To keep its population in line, every government must shape the information its population receives. In countries like China, this is done by directly owning and controlling the media. In freer countries like the United States, this is achieved through indirect influence over the media. To learn alternative information the U.S. media usually censors, visit Truthout.org or The Memory Hole.

Pharmaceuticals cost so much only because drug companies need more money to invest in finding cures for disease.
FALSE. Drug companies spend far more money on marketing and advertising than on R&D. The "we need money for R&D" plea is a marketing gimmick used by drug companies to make consumers feel better about buying drugs at monopoly prices. That's why Americans pay more for prescription drugs than any country in the world: sometimes 30,000% or more over the actual cost of drug ingredients. And what about drug R&D costs? Much of the research used by drug companies is actually paid by taxpayer dollars via the National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants to research universities. Learn more by reading the drug racket page at NewsTarget.com.

The Federal Reserve is a branch of the U.S. government.
FALSE. The Federal Reserve is a private organization, owned by member banks who are, in turn, owned primarily by wealthy investors. The Fed is neither owned by the U.S. government, nor answers to it. Most Americans, of course, mistakenly believe their own government is in control of the U.S. dollar and national fiscal policy. To learn more, visit The Reality Zone with G. Edward Griffin.

Banks offer to finance home loans because they want to help people own their homes.
FALSE. Banks are in business to make money, just like any other business. They loan people money solely to make a profit. That's why they only loan money to people who seem like a safe bet. If banks were in business just to hand out money for the public good, loan officers would never reject a loan application. Most homeowners, by the way, end up paying for their house three times over by the time their loan is finally paid off with the bank.

The fluoride added to drinking water is sourced from naturally-occurring fluoride mineral deposits.
FALSE. The vast majority of the fluoride added to drinking water is fluorosilicic acid, a toxic byproduct of coal plants. This fluorosilicic acid is collected from pollution scrubbers inside coal plant smokestacks, filtered, liquefied, then sold to cities as fluoride treatment. It contains no naturally-occurring mineral fluoride whatsoever. Most cities and water municipalities lie to their residents and say they're using "naturally-occurring fluoride," when, in fact, they are buying toxic waste fluorosilicic acid because it's much less expensive. To learn more, visit NoFluoride.com.

Surgical procedures must be proven safe and effective before being practiced on patients.
FALSE. There is absolutely no requirement that surgical procedures be proven safe or effective before being performed on any number of patients. Unlike drugs, surgical procedures are not "approved" by any centralized safety agency. As a result, literally millions of unnecessary (and dangerous) surgical procedures are performed on Americans each year. Learn more at the NewsTarget surgery page.

Private gambling and internet gambling has been outlawed because the government wants to protect people from the evils associated with this activity.
FALSE. Gambling is only outlawed when the government doesn't get a cut from the activity. That's why sports betting in New York is illegal, but the New York Lottery is perfectly legal. Where casinos are allowed in the United States, they always pay a cut of profits to the cities and states that allow them to set up shop. It's nothing more than a classic "protection fee" that promises casinos legal safety as long as they keep sending money to the State. The legality of gambling has nothing to do with right or wrong, and everything to do with dollars and cents.

Inflation is a natural side effect of a healthy, growing economy.
FALSE. Monetary inflation, which saps the buying power of your dollars, is intentionally caused by the expansion of the money supply which is, in turn, controlled by the Federal Reserve. The net effect is a hidden tax on Americans' income and savings (a tax most people never notice). In an honest economy, the money supply would remain constant, and the annual inflation rate would be zero. Inflation is not natural, it's a manipulation that acts as hidden taxation.

Prescription drugs approved as safe by the FDA are safe to consume on a long-term basis.
FALSE. FDA-approved drugs have killed more Americans than the entire Vietnam War, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and all murders over the last twenty years combined. Even the American Medical Association openly admits nearly 100,000 deaths each year due to approved prescription drugs. New drugs are approved primarily for profit reasons (to hype a new patented drug), not safety reasons (many times, the older drugs are far safer). In reality, most new drugs are simply medical experiments, and American consumers are guinea pigs. Even the drug side effect reporting system at the FDA is entirely voluntary. Learn more about prescription drugs at NewsTarget.com

The U.S. is the most technologically advanced nation in the world.
FALSE. Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and many European countries easily eclipse the U.S. in terms of bandwidth, wi-fi and overall connectivity. Japan leads the world in hybrid vehicle technology and robotics research. Canada is a world leader in fuel cell technology, far surpassing the United States. India now graduates ten times as many engineers as the U.S., and China is fast becoming a major technical contender as well. The U.S. has fundamentally lost its manufacturing technology base, and its universities no longer dominate the world's technical learning institutions. Although the U.S. is still a technology player in the global marketplace, it is clearly no longer the most technologically advanced nation in the world.

Processed and packaged meat products (hot dogs, bacon, sausage, etc.) are preserved with an ingredient that both the food industry and the USDA absolutely know causes cancer.
TRUE. The ingredient's name is sodium nitrite, and it's found in practically all packaged meats at any grocery store in America. Both the food industry and the USDA have known for decades that this ingredient, when consumed, creates a class of chemical compounds known as nitrosamines which are highly carcinogenic (cancer-causing). The USDA actually tried to ban sodium nitrite in the 1970's, but was overruled by the food industry, which wanted to keep using the ingredient because it turns meats bright red, making them look fresh. Learn more shocking information at the sodium nitrite page on NewsTarget.com.

Buying a home is one of the best financial investments you can make, and home prices will always continue to rise.
FALSE. This lie is promoted by banks and proponents of the real estate industry. Much like the dot-com boom (and bust) of 1996 - 2001, the current housing market in the U.S. is a bubble just begging for a correction. How do we know? There are several ways, but some no-brainer signals include the sharp increase in no-down-payment home loans, the increasing reliance on "interest-only" payment schemes, and the increasing glut in homes for rent (purchased as rental property by people who are betting on price appreciation alone to earn them a tidy profit). When the big housing correction comes, hindsight will be 20/20, but right now, the U.S. population is in a real estate investment frenzy.

Medical schools give doctors a solid education in nutrition, disease prevention and healthy lifestyle habits.
FALSE. Med schools primarily teach disease pathology and the treatment of symptoms of disease. Very little time (if any) is spent teaching doctors about nutrition and healthy lifestyles. This is why Dr. Andrew Weil, an M.D., describes his own colleagues as "nutritionally illiterate." It's also why doctors are, themselves, both terribly unhealthy and generally incapable of teaching patients how to make healthy choices. They are, however, fantastic technicians and very knowledgeable about the physiological and biochemical markers of disease. Overall, doctors are great at diagnosing symptoms, but terrible at knowing how to address the root causes of those symptoms. Learn more at the physicians page at NewsTarget.com

The mainstream news outlets (cable news, national newspapers, network news) in America accurately report war events in Iraq.
FALSE. The first casualty of war is, of course, the truth. The U.S. media, both liberal and conservative, deeply distort war news by primarily relying on Pentagon reports that use a variety of distortions and linguistic tricks to keep Americans misinformed about actual events in Iraq. Solders wounded in Iraq who later die in European hospitals, for example, are never counted as Iraq war casualties. U.S. helicopters are never "shot down," they are always reported as merely crashing. U.S. missiles never kill innocent women and children, they merely cause "collateral damage." Iraqi men defending their homes are not described as freedom fighters defending themselves against occupying invaders, they are called terrorists and insurgents who engage in cowardly suicide bombings. To read the real story of what's happening in Iraq, visit sites like RawStory.com

The United States of America is a Democracy.
FALSE. Actually, the United States of America is a Republic, not a Democracy. A true Democracy (direct Democracy) would allow individuals to directly vote on legislation and do away with Senators and Congresspeople. To learn more, read, "A Republic, If You Can Keep It" - a statement by Congressman Ron Paul.

Anything that hasn't been scientifically proven isn't true.
FALSE. There exists an entire universe of knowledge science has yet to discover. Truth is truth, even before science recognizes it. Gravity worked just fine even before scientists studied it, for example. And just a few decades ago, scientists thought there were only four vitamins. There is much that is true, even though it is currently questioned or even discredited by mainstream science. The one thing about science that's 100% predictable is that the definition of "scientific truth" will evolve and expand, often contradicting past truths.

Vitamin E is dangerous.
FALSE. The recent headlines about the dangers of vitamin E all result from an organized assault on vitamins that used blatantly distorted science to produce a false conclusion. The vitamin E studies used for this assault relied on a variety of dishonest tactics to assure a negative outcome. These tactics include using synthetic vitamin E instead of natural vitamin E, relying on extremely low doses, conducting studies on elderly heart attack patients who were near death to begin with, and excluding studies that used healthy people. Learn more at the Vitamin E page.

When you deposit money in a savings account at a bank, that bank holds your money for you until you ask for it back.
FALSE. Banks do not hold your money, they use your money as a reserve and then lend out ten times as much money to other customers. The entire U.S. banking system is a fractional reserve system, meaning only a fraction of your money is held in reserve. Banks are counting on the fact that only a small percentage of their customers will ever ask for their reserves on any given day. Most of the time, that assumption is entirely true, but when national currencies run into trouble and people demand their savings, this fractional reserve system magnifies both the single-bank risk and the systemic effect of bank runs.

All the clean hydrogen we need to power the world is already contained in crystals at the bottom of the ocean called gas hydrates.
TRUE. The mainstream U.S. press doesn't talk about it much, but the world's hydrogen problems have a ready solution. Frozen ice crystals found off the shores of Canada, Japan, Russia, Iceland and other nations with Northern shores contain vast quantities of clean, frozen hydrogen -- enough to power the entire world far beyond the limits of petroleum reserves. The U.S. press doesn't talk much about gas hydrates, preferring to focus on hydrogen derived from either natural gas or petroleum (resources the U.S. tends to own or control).

In 1945, the U.S. dropped two atomic bombs on civilian populations in Japan in order to force Japan's surrender and "save a million lives."
FALSE. Although this was the "official" history taught to U.S. schoolchildren, we now know that the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on an essentially defeated Japan. Japan was, in fact, attempting to initiate surrender negotiations even before the bombs were dropped. The primary purpose of bombing Japan was to demonstrate to the Soviet Union that the United States not only had nuclear weapons, but was willing to use them, thus cementing America's nuclear stance during the ramp-up to the Cold War. This explanation, of course, remains highly debatable, but the fact remains that even U.S. military leaders estimated no more than 50,000 Americans would be lost in a D-Day style assault on Japan. It's a huge number of lives, yes, but nowhere near one million. The two nuclear bombs, by the way, killed at least 200,000 Japanese civilians.

Having a baby is a patent violation because the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office routinely grants patents on human gene sequences found in all humans.
TRUE. Patents are now routinely awarded for human gene sequences, animals and even seeds found in nature. One U.S. company was awarded a patent on Basmati rice, a grain that has been grown in India for generations. Monsanto recently applied to patent a pig. Hundreds of individuals and companies now own patents on human genes, meaning they have been granted the right to charge royalties on all gene replication (i.e. making babies). This practice of stealing intellectual property from nature and claiming human ownership is called Biopiracy. See this Wikipedia entry to learn more.

People should avoid all exposure to the sun (or use sunscreen) in order to protect their health.
FALSE. Exposure to the sun actually prevents breast cancer, prostate cancer, cervical cancer and a long list of other diseases, including osteoporosis and depression. Exposure to sunlight results in the creation of vitamin D in your skin. It is this vitamin D that controls the growth of cancer tumors and enables the absorption of essential minerals like calcium. The myth that sunlight is bad for you is promoted primarily by the sunscreen industry and its professional allies (dermatologists). See The Healing Power of Sunlight and Vitamin D to learn the truth about ultraviolet radiation and your health.

There is no cure for cancer.
FALSE. There are, in fact, many proven cures for cancer used all around the world with excellent results. Nearly every indigenous culture has at least one cure for cancer, including the American Indians, Australian Aboriginees, Peruvian natives, and so on. The U.S. cancer industry simply doesn't want anyone to know cures exist because it profits from the management of cancer (i.e. dependence on drugs, chemo, radiation, etc.). Promotion of alternative cures would deprive the U.S. cancer establishment of its power and profits. This is also why today's cancer industry virtually ignores genuine cancer prevention and, instead, focuses on treatment (drugs and surgery). To learn the real story, read Dr. Samuel Epstein's new book Cancer-Gate, or visit the cancer page on NewsTarget.com.

All foods and beverages are safe to consume in moderation and can be part of a balanced diet.
FALSE. This is a marketing lie promoted by companies that manufacture disease-promoting foods and beverages (like soft drinks). This distortion claims that all foods are essentially equal, and therefore it really doesn't matter what you eat. In reality, some foods (like soft drinks, white bread, etc.) promote diabetes. Other foods (margarine and any food containing hydrogenated oils) promote heart disease. There are yet more foods (processed meats) that cause cancer. These foods cannot be part of a balanced diet because they imbalance the diet and promote disease. For a complete listing of these dangerous foods and ingredients, read Grocery Warning.

Most common diseases (cancer, heart disease, diabetes) are caused by bad genes and bad luck.
FALSE. This myth is promoted by organized medicine as a way to disempower patients and make them think there's nothing they can do to prevent disease. Diabetes, for example, was exceedingly rare just a hundred years ago. Doctors often had to travel hundreds of miles to find a patient with the disease. Cancer and heart disease were similarly rare. Since our gene pool hasn't changed in a hundred years, the explanation for these disease must be found somewhere else -- namely, in our processed foods, lack of exercise and exposure to modern environmental toxins. Disease is not a matter of bad luck, it's a matter of simply cause and effect. To learn how to really prevent disease, read the NewsTarget.com disease prevention page.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a genuine brain chemistry disorder that must be treated with drugs to help children.
FALSE. This so-called disease is entirely fictitious and has no measurable physiological basis whatsoever. Hyperactivity in children is actually caused primarily by poor nutritional habits (consumption of refined sugars and food coloring) and can be easily corrected in less than two weeks by taking children off all refined carbohydrates and food additives. The ADHD "disease" was invented to sell drugs and boost the power of the highly corrupt psychiatric community, which increasingly "discovers" fictitious diseases and treats them with mind-altering narcotics. To learn more, visit the Citizens Commission on Human Rights.