Obama signs anti-smoking legislation.

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Obama:"You know, I made some bad decisions that I've actually written about. You know, got into drinking. I experimented with drugs," he said. "There was a whole stretch of time that I didn't really apply myself a lot. It wasn't until I got out of high school and went to college that I started realizing, 'Man, I wasted a lot of time."'

Obama has written about his drug use in his memoir, "Dreams from My Father." "Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final fatal role of the young would be black man," Obama wrote. Mostly he smoked marijuana and drank alcohol, Obama wrote, but occasionally he would snort cocaine when he could afford it.

Photo: Creative Commons/Miserlou

Cocaine is consumed orally, injected, smoked or sniffed. Orally, cocaine is consumed either by chewing the coco leaves or by stuffing the cocaine powder between the gums and the teeth. When cocaine powder is used, it is rubbed along the gums or smoked through a cigarette. It causes a numbing effect on the teeth and gums. Cocaine remaining after snorting is generally used during such methods. If coco leaves are used, then they are chewed in the same way as tobacco leaves. But they are consumed after mixing it with lime and when chewed the acids of the leaves are absorbed by the cheek membranes and gastrointestinal tract which then blends into the blood stream. Snorting is a common form of consuming cocaine wherein the crystalline form of cocaine is inhaled through the nose in an intense manner right through the nasal passages where the cocaine is absorbed in the blood stream through nasal membranes. Addicts use any object available to snort cocaine like plastic straws, rolls made of notes or paper, or tubes. Before the cocaine is snorted it is grinded with a razor blade or a professional grinder to minimize the burning effects of the acid on the nasal membrane.

Drugs, Obama wrote, were a way he "could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory."

"I am against smoking and if I had any willpower I would quit."

Journalist: Mr President don't you think it is unwise for a man who cannot control his impulse to smoke, to be in charge of the armed forces of America, including nuclear weapons?"

Pres. to secret service aide: "Get the name of that man and check him out."

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The man who said he quit cocaine in college, cannot stop smoking. Is he a smoking gun in world politcs?

(Ric)

Is Obama bi-sexual? Video http://yannone.blogspot.com/2009/06/barack-obamas-homosexual-experience.html

What could she do about it?.......................................................................................................

The toll of smoking in the US and around the world

Some teens are not so concerned about the risk of disease later in life. But the fact is, cigarettes cause emphysema, lung cancer and heart disease, and 4 out of every 10 smokers later die from their addiction to tobacco. Nearly all of them got hooked as teens.

According to a US Surgeon General's Report issued in May, 2004, smoking is even worse than previously thought. It damages virtually every organ in the body.

In the US, smoking causes 1 of every 5 deaths. Cigarettes kill 1,200 Americans every day — a tragic death toll of 420,000 Americans each year.

Around the world, smoking now kills five million people every year. In the US, 22.5% of adults, or a bit more than one in five, are addicted to smoking. But because smoking rates in Europe and Asia are so much higher, on average, one in three adults worldwide smoke. And smoking kills 4 out of every 10 smokers.

If we do the math, this means that in coming decades, cigarettes will actually kill 500 million people — and all of them have already been born. That's nine percent of the present world population. It means that almost 1 of every 10 people now alive on earth will die because of tobacco use. These statistics come from the United Nations World Health Organization, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.

Every day in the US, 2,000 teens become newly addicted to smoking. Think about it: most will not be able to quit for 17 years, and over 800 of those teens will later die from cigarettes.No smoking: Historic vote could bring new limits Jun 11, 8:24 PM (ET) By JIM ABRAMS

(AP) Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn, second from left, speaks on the passage of legislation that gives... Full Image

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate struck a historic blow against smoking in America Thursday, voting overwhelmingly to give regulators new power to limit nicotine in the cigarettes that kill nearly a half-million people a year, to drastically curtail ads that glorify tobacco and to ban flavored products aimed at spreading the habit to young people.

President Barack Obama, who has spoken of his own struggle to quit smoking, said he was eager to sign the legislation, and the House planned a vote for Friday. Cigarette foes said the measure would not only cut deaths but reduce the $100 billion in annual health care costs linked to tobacco.

Fierce opposition by the industry and tobacco-state lawmakers had prevented passage for years, along with veto threats by the George W. Bush White House. In the end, the nation's biggest tobacco company supported the measure, though rivals suggested that was because it could lock in Philip Morris' share of the market.

Cigarette smoking kills about 400,000 people in the United States every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 45 million U.S. adults are smokers, though the prevalence has fallen since the U.S. surgeon general's warning 45 years ago that tobacco causes lung cancer.

(AP) An unidentified man walk past a discount cigarette shop Thursday, June 11, in West Columbia, S.C.... Full Image

The legislation, one of the most dramatic anti-smoking initiatives since the surgeon general's report, would give the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate the content, marketing and advertising of cigarettes and other tobacco products

Private prisons make large profit.

http://www.corpwatch.org/

by Erin Rosa, Special to CorpWatch

Cartoon by Khalil Bendib While the nation’s economy flounders, business is booming for The GEO Group Inc., a private prison firm that is paid millions by the U.S. government to detain undocumented immigrants and other federal inmates. In the last year and a half, GEO announced plans to add a total of at least 3,925 new beds to immigration lockups in five locations. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency and the U.S. Marshals Service, which hire the company, will fill the beds with inmates awaiting court and deportation proceedings. GEO reported impressive quarterly earnings of $20 million on February 12, 2009, along with an annual income of $61 million for 2008 – up from $38 million the year before. But the company’s share value is not the only thing that’s growing. Behind the financial success and expansion of the for-profit prison firm, there are increasing charges of negligence, civil rights violations, abuse and even death. Detaining immigrants has become a profitable business, and the niche industry is showing no signs of slowing down. The number of undocumented immigrants the U.S. federal government jails has grown by at least 65 percent in the last six years. In 2002, the average daily population of immigration detainees was 20,838 people, according to ICE records. By 2008, the average daily population had grown to 31,345. Since 2003, more than a million people have been processed through federal immigration lockups, which are part of a network of at least 300 local, state and federal lockups, including seven contracted detention facilities. GEO operates four of those seven for-profit prisons. Numerous investigations and reports have documented problems at GEO’s immigration detention facilities. At the company’s Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, federal prosecutors charged a GEO prison administrator in September 2008 with “knowingly and willfully making materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements to senior special agents” with ICE, according to court filings. A February 2008 audit found that over a period of more than two years ending in November 2005, GEO hired nearly 100 guards without performing the required criminal background checks. The GEO employee responsible, Sylvia Wong, pleaded guilty. In the plea agreement the federal government stated that Wong falsified documents “because of the pressure she felt” while working at the GEO lockup to get security personnel hired at the detention center “as quickly as possible.” Two months before the fraud charges, a study by the Seattle University School of Law and the nonprofit group OneAmerica reported that conditions at the Tacoma facility violated both international and domestic laws that grant detained immigrants the right to food, due process and humane treatment. Federal immigration officials have the authority to incarcerate undocumented immigrants, asylum-seekers, and even lawful permanent residents while they await hearings with immigration judges or appeal decisions. ICE reports the average length of stay is 30 days, but detentions can last years, according to a November 2008 ICE fact sheet. Pramila Jayapal, executive director with OneAmerica, took part in interviewing a random sample of more than 40 immigrants detained at the Northwest Detention Center, which holds approximately 1,000 immigrants at any given time. “It’s a very giant concrete box. It’s just like a jail,” said Jayapal. “You’re only supposed to meet in the client area, which is only a few rooms.” One inmate from Mexico, Hector Pena-Ortiz, told interviewers that guards had interrogated and handcuffed him twice, demanding that he sign immediate deportation papers despite the fact that he had a pending appeal. Under federal law, immigrants cannot be deported from the United States if their immigration legal cases are still pending. During one of the incidents, guards admitted to having a file on the wrong inmate, Pena-Ortiz said. In addition to violations of legal rights, inmates cited food as a major concern. The vast majority of the 40 prisoners interviewed at the facility said rations were inadequate and sometimes rotten. Inmates with financial resources depended on food bought from the lockup’s commissary. Others went hungry. A man identified in the study as “Ricardo” said he had lost 50 pounds of his original 190-pound weight since arriving at the detention center. ICE officially denied the claims in the report, but in 2005, annual agency inspections at the Northwest Detention Center documented problems with the quality and quantity of food and found that some meals were so poor, guards had to collect and replace them.

I would

like to be buried in a cemetery in Australia with gumtrees around, but i suppose I will be burnt up in a crematorium in some Forest Lawn Incorporated in Vancouver. However it doesn't matter, when you are gone nothing matters any more.(Ric.)

Above: natural sandstone cliff overhangs overwhelms the imagination of the Dreamtime. When I lived in a similar cliff overhang, the flames and shadows from my campfire would reflect on the sandstone patterns and send my mind into a supernatural world.

Cronulla Beach, looking south to the point.

	Looking at Garie Beach and the coast from the north below>

Scenes from the Royal national Park where I played as a boy.

Train journey Sydney.(press photo)

http://www.monaropioneers.com/williamsj.htm Williams/Nash family history.

I was born in the same year (1932) the Sydney Harbour Bridge was completed.(Ric)

Friends and family. When I first started this blog three years ago, it was with the intention of contacting members of my family, as well as documenting some family history. It expanded to include a lot of comment and articles about the rest of the world.

Well, I am getting old and tired and there probably is not much purpose continuing. My additions will be rarer in future and I guess will terminate some time. Anyway, it has been fun. Also there is a sum of money to be divided among my children. Please contact me concerning this, giving verifying particulars.(Ric)

Torres Strait wrecks.

Where Queensland, Australia meets Papua, New Guinea. http://www.maplandia.com/australia/queensland/torres/saibai/ Torres Strait Islander dances, North Queensland Dance from the island of Saibai with a typical feather headdress from this northern Torres Staits Island, as performed at the Festival of Pacific Arts in Rarotonga, Cook Islands. Searching for Pearls in Australia

Thursday Island

TORRES STRAIT ISLANDS SHIPWRECKS Enter here to bring up frames page with book codes if not already loaded.

RICH haul ... scenes like this were common in the Torres Strait until the pearling industry collapsed in the 1950s. Picture: Fred

Torres Strait is that stretch of water between the northerntip of Australia, Cape York, and the Papua coastline west of the Fly River, separating the Arafura Sea to the west, the Gulf of Papua to the north-east and the Coral Sea to the east. The islands, reefs and cays within this region are politically part of the state government of Queensland, and extend into the Coral Sea up to the Great Barrier Reef, with Darnley and Murray Islands the most eastern. The largest island is Prince of Wales, with Endeavour Strait separating it from mainland Australia. Thursday Island is the most populated island, the administrative and commercial centre for the islands. Banks and Mulgrave Islands are also significant. Navigation through the Torres Strait is hazardous, with strong tidal currents and a five-metre tidal range on the eastern side. Most of the vessels lost in the strait are small sailing vessels of under 500 tons.

The most significant loss, and indeed the most tragic in terms of life lost, was that of the steamship Quetta, 3481 tons, which struck an uncharted rock near Thursday Island in 1890 with the loss of 133 lives. The American ship Jihn de Costa, 1725 tons, wrecked five years earlier, and the 2485 ton barque Fenstanton, lost a year prior to that, fortunately claimed no lives. The American ship Rosie Welt, 1436 tons, lost 1889, and the 1698 ton sailing ship Volga, lost 1890 are another two large vessels lost in the strait, with, apparently, no loss of life. It should be noted however that a number of shipwrecked seamen were murdered by natives, the loss of the schooner Speweer being notable. Unfortunately, there seems to be little recorded detailed on the loss of most of the vessels in Torres Strait. The largest vessel, to date, to have come close to being a total loss was the 58,000 ton oil tanker Oceanic Grandeur which struck an uncharted rock 20 km from Thursday Island, 3 March 1970. Fortunately the oil was transfered to another tanker and she limped into port for repairs, but the threat of an ecological disaster always exists when large tankers use the strait from south-east Asia to eastern Australian ports. The listing includes vessels listed as having been 'lost off Cape York'.

THIS man was one of the last of his breed - the Torres Strait pearl diver.

Pearling put Thursday Island on the map in the late 1800s once Europeans found out about the riches beneath the sea, known by the Romans as God's frozen tears.

It was an industry organised on racial lines. After legislation in 1898 restricted Asian ownership of pearl luggers, Europeans took control with the labour provided by Japanese, and later, Islander workers.

Despite the glamorous image of the industry, the work was hard, the hours long and the conditions dangerous.

Sharks were just one hazard. Much more feared was the risk of slicing open an air line on a coral outcrop or the sudden feeling of cold, clammy skin - the first sign of the bends.

The graves of about 700 divers, who regularly dived to depths of 35-40 fathoms (70m) for three minutes at a time, now dot the "TI" cemetery.

In those pre-scuba days, divers were equipped with an airline leading from a compressor on the lugger to the weighted helmet they wore. They also had a safety line watched closely by the pearling boat crew.

Disenchantment about their working conditions came to a head in 1936 when Islanders organised the first strike by indigenous Queenslanders, lasting up to nine months on some islands.

There was also the unpredictable weather to contend with, notably an 1899 cyclone and storm surge which sank 55 pearling luggers and killed 300 crew working north of Cooktown.

Still, the rewards for hard workers or lugger owners could be great. Pearlers in the year this photo was taken harvested about 1200 tonnes of mother of pearl, the lustrous inner lining of the shells which was used in everything from pistol grips to buttons.

As overfishing slowly decimated the pearl beds the luggers went further and further afield. Their eventual return to port was the highlight of the year on Thursday Island.

But continued overfishing and the advent of plastic buttons and high-quality fake pearls spelled the end of pearl diving less than a dozen years after this picture was taken.

One of the last of the traditional divers, Alfred "Alfie" Mills, whose siblings included the famous Mills Sisters singers, died in 2005.

The era now lives on in the songs of 2004 ARIA award-winning Thursday Islander Henry Gibson, better known as Seaman Dan, and a small pearl farming industry which started in 1957.

Although nowhere near as big as in Western Australia, farming brings in more than $1 million a year, with up to 100,000 pearls produced for the export market.

Boy from Bamaga
Murray Island dancer	Dance from Saibai
Headdress from Mer	Boy dancers, Bamaga

Australian Lighthorsemen 1st World War.

above :Aussie troops at Gallipoli.

This fine collection is on the website.

http://www.marshall-fine-art.com.au/artists.shtml

The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

YouTube - disney fantasia The Sorcerer's Apprentice with Mickey
	- The Sorcerer's Apprentice tells the story of an apprentice who cannot control the magic that he has tried to use, with Mickey Mouse in the role of the... www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD8HDta7Z_4

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There is a segment in Fantasia I saw about 68 years ago which is the key to America in the Middle East.

Mickey Mouse is the apprentice left to clean up the Sorcerer's Castle while he is away. He takes a broom and starts work but finds it very tiring. So he finds the Sorcerer's book of spells and finds a way to duplicate the broom and make them work unaided.. So two brooms start sweeping and going to the well for water and then they duplicate each other automatically and then again and again until thousands of brooms are marching to the well and back flooding the castle.

Mickey frantically tries more spells from the book but more things start to go wrong...finally the sorcerer comes home and puts a stop to it.

The American invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan and soon Pakistan are bad spells gone crazy.

In this case it is doubtful any Sorcerer can put it right again.(Ric)

Gonad amputation by Catholic church.

1. Gelding a donkey.

http://www.psychohistory.com/htm/p51x64.htm

http://www.thesmartset.com/article/article0806070116.aspx

THE CRUEL SIDE OF RELIGIONS.

BOYS WERE CASTRATED BY FORCE IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST WITH THE POPE'S BLESSING.

Italian boys with promising voices would be taken to a back-street barber-surgeon, drugged with opium, and placed in a hot bath. The expert would snip the ducts leading to the testicles, which would wither over time. By the early 1700s, it is estimated that around 4,000 boys a year were getting the operation; the Santa Maria Nova hospital in Florence, for example, ran a production line under one Antonio Santarelli, gelding eight boys at once.

Overview:

A castrato is a male singer with a soprano, mezzo-soprano,

or alto voice. From about 1550 CE to the late 19th century,

most were created by castrating boys before they reaching

puberty. This prevented their vocal cords from lengthening

and their voice from deepening. With the lung capacity

and muscular strength of an adult male and the vocal range

of a prepubescent boy:

"... his voice develops a range, power and flexibility

quite different from the singing voice of the adult female

, but also markedly different from the higher vocal ranges of

the uncastrated adult male. Some castratos were males who

were born with an endoctrinological condition that prevented

them from sexually maturing."

"The term castrato was often used to indicate the high

register created by the young men who sang the castrato

style. The typical register of a castrato was above that of

a 'normal' soprano or alto voice, resulting in the creation

of a temporary range in Italian music." ₄

In Italy, where most of the castrations occurred,

boys were generally drugged with opium. They

were soaked in a hot tub until barely conscious

before the operation. ₅ One source estimates

that the fatality rate due to the amputation

procedure was about 80%. ₆ Another estimates

a death rate of 10 to 80% depending upon the

skill of the practitioner. ₇ Among the survivors,

the vast majority did not become professional

singers because their voice was not of sufficiently

high quality.

J.S. Jenkins writes:

"Boys were castrated between the ages of 7 and 9 years,

and underwent a long period of voice training. A small

number became international opera stars, of whom the

most famous was Farinelli, whose voice ranged over three

octaves. By the end of the 18th century, fashions in opera

had changed so that the castrati declined except in the

Vatican, where the Sistine Chapel continued to employ

castrati until 1903. The last of the castrati was Alessandro

Moreschi, who died in 1924 and made gramophone

recordings that provide the only direct evidence of a

castrato's singing voice." ₈

Obviously, all of the boys who were castrated were not sufficiently mature to give their informed consent.

"Isn't it incredibly sad and pathetic that the society Alessandro [Moreschi] was born into (and all the castintos) was so male dominated (and female phobic) that it would castrate their own male children rather than allow a naturally occurring female voice breech 'their' domain? Who's to say that his own mature (intact) male voice, with all the training he had, wouldn't have been magnificent. Once the child (and they were children) was castrated, what choice did he have? The society settled for a poor imitation of a woman's voice, when their was no need." Denise D., reviewer on Archive.org referring to a recording by Alessandro Moreschi, a singer at the Sistine Chapel, made in 1904. 1,2

History:

The European practice of employing castrated boys in the

Catholic church's choirs started in the mid 16th century.

Castrati were first used during:

	Late 1550s in the chapel choir of the Duke of Ferrara.
	1574 in the court chapel at Munich, Germany.
	1599 in the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican.
	1610 in Württemberg, Germany.
	1637 in Vienna, Austria.
	1640's in Dresden, Germany. 4

Pope Sixtus V issued a papal Bull in 1589 which approved

the recruitment of castrati for the choir of St. Peter's

Basilica in Rome.

Indian doctors castrating boys to sell as hijra?

---

See http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...-1-2004_pg7_20 "It makes your flesh creep to think that this could have happened in the name of art. Put in context though, with eunuchs, tail docking for dogs and genital mutilation, it shows that we humans have a fairly unique knack for extreme cruelty based simply on tradition. Steve Brereton. ₃ Petition asks for castration investigation LAHORE: Advocate MD Tahir on Tuesday filed a petition to the Lahore High Court asking it to order an inquiry into reports that a group of doctors in Sheikhupura district was castrating young boys.

Reports of forced castration of boys in India to be sold as slaves to the rich and to brothels.

Mr Tahir said in his petition up to 5,000 boys in Jandiala Sher Khan, Karrryaland Tatley Aali, may have been made eunuchs by the doctors. Relying on a press report, the petitioner said the doctors were selling the eunuch to professionals in the business of arranging dance parties for rich people. The petitioner said even the local Family Planning Department could be involved in the practice. He asked the court to direct higher authorities to hold an inquiry into the reports. —Staff R