Macro vs. Micro: "Vioxx suxx... do you believe it? Do you believe anything? No? Wow. How much does that suck?"

It's amazing how people will easily believe the macro...

...but find it incredibly hard to believe the micro.


(...)


Most people believe the world is obviously getting worse...

...but few believe the information that supports that "fact".


(...)


Macro vs. Micro = Belief vs. Believers


(...)


Millions upon millions of human beings are providing the information that supports everyone's theory: the world is getting worse. And yet, "people of faith" don't seem to be able to put their faith in people.

What sort of corrosive effect does this have on our collective psyche?

When one stops believing in honest and hard-working people who passionately believe in a cause they found has inspired passionate belief, something nearly all of us lack and desire, then are they not worth taking seriously?

Furthermore, with all the evidence of corruption available, is it not reasonable to believe that parallel institutions are capable of the same?


(...)


I spoke with a woman who is investigating chemtrails, a sample picture is above.

They are mysterious chemical trails that hang in the sky, sometimes in a grid-pattern, sometimes dripping, and sometimes floating there for a hours. They could be jet-exhaust fumes, except that jet-exhaust fumes usually dissipate within 30 seconds. Go see an airshow, or hell, go to an airport, and you'll see how long they last. Or, how long they don't, since the skies above airports generally aren't covered with hundreds of them.

She spoke at an event of how touchy a subject this is even within the activist community, where people are afraid to bring it up, afaid of being scorned or not taken seriously, and how many notable scientists won't touch this with a 10-foot test tube. The chemtrails phenomena is about 7 years old, relatively new, though certainly long enough to spark a natural interest in concerned skywatchers worldwide.

A woman in the audience seemed skeptical, and asked if she had proof of what they were. The chemtrail activist squirmed, and said no, she didn't have proof of what they were, only that they did in fact exist. The woman in the audience was unsatisfied and still skeptical, and seemed to default to a belief that they were nothing. The chemtrail activist said she and other groups didn't have the resources to travel 30,000 feet in the air to get a sample, but soil samples taken after chemtrails have lingered do indicate some truly bizarre toxins and pollutants had landed that had no other discernible reason for being there. The woman in the audience seemed non-plussed, and settled into uncomfortable willful ignorance.

The subject is still touchy, but I think it relates to everything else in the world.

After all, if someone had said that the U.S. military was torturing naked men, women and children using dogs, electrodes, menstrual blood, simulated homosexual acts, vicious beatings, and dozens of other demeaning and painful techniques for what appears to be no valuable reason since the war(s) are still going terribly and appear to be getting worse, then we wouldn't have believed them.

In fact, those hard-working kidnaped Christian peacemakers did, and so did Amnesty International, and don't even start with the Iraqi's and others on the ground...

...but, until we saw the photos, as journalist Sy Hersh said, how do you write about it?

The bottom line: everyone who said something really, really, really, really, really bad was happening, was right.

And the rest of us were wrong.

Even if we didn't know, we were wrong on principle to disbelieve those willing to have the courage to speak the most uncomfortable truths to power.

And we're still wrong now.


(...)


Google Search: "chemtrails"

http://www.google.ca/search?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official_s&q=chemtrails&btnG=Search&sa=N&tab=iw


(...)


I walked up the the chemtrail woman after she had spoken and was sitting with her chemtrail friends, and told her flat-out that I believed her.

She seemed surprised, and asked why.

I said she'd never lied to me before, so I thought I'd believe her.

She said she had some issues with my logic, which surprised me.

So...

...I told her that because she didn't have the history of lying to me that other sources of information like the mainstream-media have; because it wasn't costing me anything to believe her; because I appreciated that she was looking into something that we really should have an answer for; because she she seemed to be working selflessly and tirelessly on something that wasn't paying her any money and seemed fairly difficult to pursue and proselytize due to widespread cynicism and derision even within her extended social circles...

...I may as well believe her.

I also wished her group best of luck while offering to help out in generally supportive ways, believing she's on to something being the first.

She appreciated my developed logic and support.

I'm sure her group will keep in touch with updates on what they find, and frankly I also hope that other activists like her don't get discouraged by the idea that they need to be paranoid about getting something wrong.

I don't care.

A mistake is a mistake.

And until it's been made and admitted, it hasn't been.

And until they make one, I believe them, and feel much better for it.

When willful acts of deception perpetuated by larger and more respected institutions like governments and corporations are regularily forgiven, when even after Fahrenheit 9/11 and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart we still believe in the mainstream-media that hid so much important information from us that Dubya got re-elected and now 70% of the country is disappointed with how badly he does his job...

...we can see how putting our faith in the wrong people and ignoring the right ones is woefully dangerous.

Besides, it's not only our future that's at stake, it's our present.

After all, oh good people of faith, if you can't have faith in good people, then what good is the world your God created?

And how much worse do you feel right now?

Offices of the Merck & Co. plant in Rahway, N.J. are seen Friday, July 19, 2002. The company is cutting 250 jobs at Rahway, Merck's oldest plant. Merck & Co.'s announcement this week that it is slashing its work force by 11 percent and shuttering several plants is as much a reflection of pharmaceutical industry belt- tightening as it is Merck's financial and Vioxx-related legal woes. (AP Photo/Mike Derer)

Yahoo! News

New England Journal: Merck Concealed Data

By LINDA A. JOHNSON, AP Business Writer 1 hour, 27 minutes ago

TRENTON, N.J. - Vioxx maker Merck & Co. concealed heart attacks suffered by three patients during a clinical study of the now-withdrawn painkiller in a report on the study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2000, the journal wrote in an editorial released Thursday.

The editorial, written by the journal's editor in chief, Dr. Jeffrey M. Drazen, executive editor Dr. Gregory D. Curfman and a third doctor, also alleges the study's authors deleted other relevant data before submitting their article for publication.

"Taken together, these inaccuracies and deletions call into question the integrity of the data on adverse cardiovascular events in this article," the doctors wrote.

Adverse cardiovascular events include heart attacks, strokes and deaths.

Findings of the study in question have been a key part of testimony in the three product liability trials to date over the withdrawn drug, including one being deliberated Thursday by a federal jury in Texas.

Merck spokesman Chris Loder said the Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based company would issue a statement in response to the editorial Thursday.

Excluding the three heart attacks "made certain calculations and conclusions in the article incorrect," the doctors wrote, adding that they have asked the report's authors to submit a correction to the journal.

One of the study's authors was Dr. Alise Reicin, Merck's vice president for clinical research. Reicin on Wednesday testified in the Houston trial that the company never misled doctors and the public about studies linking heart attacks to Vioxx.

Merck withdrew Vioxx, once one of its top-selling drugs, from the market on Sept. 30, 2004 after other research showed the popular arthritis drug doubled risks of heart attacks and stroke with long-term use. The company now faces at least 7,000 lawsuits over Vioxx and legal liability some analysts have estimated at up to $50 billion. Those problems were part of the reason Merck last week announced plans to cut 7,000 jobs and close eight manufacturing and research facilities around the world as the first step in a sweeping reorganization.

___

On the Net: http://www.nejm.org

http://www.merck.com

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SOURCE - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051208/ap_on_he_me/vioxx_heart_attacks_1;_ylt=Ak0mL2MpGjJRI4KUGXOZ6T6QNI4v;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl


(...)


BONUS: Charity is good for the sole purpose of bragging about it...


Charity Navigator, America's premier independent charity evaluator, works to advance a more efficient and responsive philanthropic marketplace by evaluating the financial health of America's largest charities.

SOURCE - http://www.charitynavigator.org/







Trent Stamp's Take

The semi-regular bloggings of Trent Stamp, President of Charity Navigator, America's largest charity evaluator.


Thursday, December 08, 2005

Tonight's TV Listings

I'll be on PrimeTime on ABC, tonight at 10 PM, sometime in the first half-hour, discussing why charitable giving overall is up, but giving to the poor is actually down. It's a strange phenomena, with too many reasons to enumerate here, but it's a very disturbing trend. Quite simply, our richest citizens aren't particularly interested in helping our most vulnerable, at least not at the same rates they want to help our churches, universities, and cultural organizations.

Tune in tonight to get my take on why this is so.

Or I guess you could just watch ER. I suspect it'll be an "unforgettable and very special episode."

SOURCE - http://trentstamp.blogspot.com/


(...)


BONUS VIDEO: Can you believe this segment was on a local FOX News affiliate? I'm glad the good folks at prisonplanet.com taped it, I hope they get a chance to show Part Two of this two-part special...

Dylan Avery, 9/11 Film Featured On Local Fox News

Fox News | December 3 2005

Loose Change by Dylan Avery

This amazing new 9/11 documentary analyses the physical evidence of the attacks and asks whether a Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon, if controlled demolition brought down the trade towers, and if there were any hijackers at all. Supplemented by a great soundtrack

Watch this entire film right now by subscribing at Prison Planet.tv.

Click here to watch a preview clip.

REAL SOURCE - http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2005/031205dylanavery.htm


(...)


BONUS VIDEO: And this is just friggin' hilarious...


Still Standing

The new world order terrorists that blew the WTC certainly didn't make this mistake on 9/11. This video proves that even with well co-ordinated demolitions, mistakes happen. Just imagine how much precision planning would have gone into bringing down the towers.

REAL SOURCE - http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2005/061205stillstanding.htm


(...)

R.I.P. John...

Born John Winston Lennon, October 9, 1940.

Died John Ono Lennon, December 8, 1980.

Imagine there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try,
No hell below us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries,
It isn't hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

Imagine no possesions,
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man,
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer,
But I'm not the only one,
I hope some day you will join us,
And the world will live as one.