More than 100,000 deaths per year come from drugs

Let’s not have them in parking lots. Let’s move them up to Baghdad, let’s move them up with the 3rd ID or move them over to the Marines, who’ve taken 50 percent of the hits yet have roughly 6 to 7 percent of the" uparmored "Humvees," said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who chairs the House Armed Services Committee.
http://www.columbiatribune.com/2005/Oct/20051023News010.asp

The editor of Haqooq-i-Zan (Women's Rights),  Ali Mohaqiq Nasab (left) was arrested on Oct. 1 after he published articles in two issues of the magazine denouncing the law making stoning to death for leaving the Islamic religion a crime, criticized the practice of punishing adultery with 100 lashes, and argued that men and women should be considered by law to be equals. ("In some cases, the testimony of a female witness is considered to have only half the value of a male," the AP noted.) In other words, saying that men and women should be equal under the law  and that stoning to death is wrong are "blasphemous" statements for which one can be sent to the slammer for years.

Now, do you remember Laura Bush's "crusade" for women's rights in Afghanistan, which was part of the Bush administration's propaganda campaign to convince Americans the U.S. military invasion of the country was justified?
http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2005/10/afghan_womens_m.html


VERMONT TO SECEDE FROM UNITED STATES
http://www.halturnershow.com/VermontToVoteOnSecession.html

With more than 92 percent of the votes counted, 64 percent of Brazilians opposed the ban, while 36 percent backed it, said election officials, giving the 'no' position an insurmountable lead.

The proposal would have prohibited the sale of firearms and ammunition except for police, the military, some security guards, gun collectors and sports shooters. It would complement a 2003 disarmament law that sharply restricts who can legally purchase firearms and carry guns in the street.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1102AP_Brazil_Gun_Referendum.html

Robert Pastor of the Council on Foreign Relations, who is one of the co-architects of the SPP's blueprint, has explained that the vision behind that initiative calls for citizens of the U.S., along with Mexicans and Canadians, to cease thinking of themselves as citizens of their respective countries, and embrace a new identity as "North Americans." This would mean the abolition of the United States , the repudiation of our Declaration of Independence, and the abandonment of our constitutional Republic in favor of a North American version of the socialist European Union.
http://www.stoptheftaa.org/artman/publish/article_626.shtml

[Heaven forbid people’s money should retain its value, or even increase in value. That would be just awful.]
Conclusion
Sustained deflation can be highly destructive to a modern economy and should be strongly resisted. Fortunately, for the foreseeable future, the chances of a serious deflation in the United States appear remote indeed, in large part because of our economy's underlying strengths but also because of the determination of the Federal Reserve and other U.S. policymakers to act preemptively against deflationary pressures. Moreover, as I have discussed today, a variety of policy responses are available should deflation appear to be taking hold. Because some of these alternative policy tools are relatively less familiar, they may raise practical problems of implementation and of calibration of their likely economic effects. For this reason, as I have emphasized, prevention of deflation is preferable to cure. Nevertheless, I hope to have persuaded you that the Federal Reserve and other economic policymakers would be far from helpless in the face of deflation, even should the federal funds rate hit its zero bound
http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2002/20021121/default.htm

Sobering statistics tell his story, too. A few examples:

• More than 100,000 deaths per year come from drugs that are taken as directed by a physician (not through misuse or overdose).

• Almost half of Americans take at least one prescription drug every day; 1 in 6 take three or more daily.

• Drug companies pay for about 90 percent of the continuing-education classes physicians must take.

• Washington has six times as many pharma-industry lobbyists as it does US senators.

• Of the 1,035 new drugs approved by the FDA from 1989 to 2000, more than half offered no significant new benefits over older drugs.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1025/p13s01-bogn.html