High Fructose Corn Syrup: Does your body know the difference?

The television was set to one of those annoying stations that plays endless advertising with brief interjections of "regular programming".  This was somebody else's doing, and I was prepared to shut it off when a commercial sponsored by the Corn Refiners Association came on.  This caught my interest, as I have recently written a few articles in protest of the Corn Refiner's petition to the Food & Drug Administration to change the name of High-Fructose Corn Syrup [HFCS] to "Corn Sugar".  As criticisms of this sweetener have accrued, and a growing number of consumers declare that they intentionally avoid purchase of products that use the ingredient, I feel a name change can only serve to confuse consumers into thinking they are making purchases that are HFCS-free.  President Audrae Erickson, of the Corn Refiners Association commented on my last article to raise this concern:

The Corn Refiners Association has petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration asking that manufacturers have the option of using “corn sugar” as an alternate ingredient name for high fructose corn syrup on product labels because “corn sugar” more accurately describes the composition of the ingredient.

The High Fructose Corn Syrup deception: how you can speak to the FDA

Recently, I wrote an email to the Food & Drug Administration:

In September, the Corn Refiners Association petitioned the FDA to allow them to re-label High-Fructose Corn Syrup as "Corn Sugar". The Corn Refiners claim that this is a move meant to quell confusion in consumers, but as more-and-more studies have linked HFCS with health problems, it seems more likely that this is a move that is actually meant to confuse consumers into thinking they are ingesting something other from this increasingly unpopular ingredient they have come to learn about.

People know High-Fructose Corn Syrup by that name, and the facts they've learned about that ingredient are attached to that name. If the name isn't the best indication of the ingredient's properties, it is up to the corn refiners to put the word out as to how that is the case. It should not be up to the consumers to figure out which ingredients have benefited from convenient name-changes each time questions regarding the item's health effects have been questioned.  I am deeply disturbed by this ploy by the Corn Refiners Association, and I am hoping to urge the FDA to not allow this name-change to take place [...]

Corn Refiner's Association moves to confuse consumers by re-naming High Fructose Corn Syrup

On March 22, Science Daily reported, "A Princeton University research team has demonstrated that all sweeteners are not equal when it comes to weight gain: Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same."

The Corn Refiners Association disagreed, but by September they were petitioning the Food and Drug Administration to allow them to re-name HFCS something a bit more natural sounding: "corn sugar". While this seems a transparent ploy to confuse consumers back into buying product they've now come to recognize and are increasingly rejecting for health and environmental reasons, a spokesperson for the Washington-based Corn Refiners Association told the New York Times that the opposite is true:


“Clearly the name is confusing consumers,” said Audrae Erickson... "Research shows that ‘corn sugar’ better communicates the amount of calories, the level of fructose and the sweetness in this ingredient.”


The Princeton report, of course, wasn't the first bad press that High Fructose Corn Syrup had received. Ingestion of this disturbingly ubiquitous ingredient has long been a suspected agent in growing US health and obesity problems. According to the Mayo Clinic website:

Research studies have yielded mixed results about the possible adverse effects of consuming high-fructose corn syrup. Although high-fructose corn syrup is chemically similar to table sugar (sucrose), concerns have been raised because of how high-fructose corn syrup is processed. Some believe that your body reacts differently to high-fructose corn syrup than it does to other types of sugar. But research about high-fructose corn syrup is evolving.

Report from the S.M.A.R.T. Ritual Abuse/Mind-Control Conference 2009

by doug  —  August 25, 2009
On the weekend of August 15-16, journalist Douglas Mesner (process.org) attended a conference for alleged victims of Satanic Ritual Abuse and Mind-Control in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. This is the first of his 2-part report:

The crude sales booth at the far end of the conference room marketing a more advanced species of tin-foil hat does nothing to allay the suspicion that this is to be a congregation of raving delusional paranoiacs.  The hats – an aged, slightly hunched, and shifty-eyed woman quietly explains – are made from a type of metallic fiber weave.  They are effective in blocking the transmissions that They use to get inside your mind.

…And the attendees of S.M.A.R.T’s (Stop Mind control And Ritual abuse Today) twelfth annual  Ritual Abuse, Secretive Organizations and Mind Control conference are all too aware of exactly who “They” are.  They may be your neighbors, minister, parents, or co-workers.  They might be known as Freemasons, the Illuminati, or Rosicrucians… but they are all Satanists.  They covertly trade slaves, organize secret sex rings, brainwash victims, and work insidiously toward a one-world Luciferian empire.

The S.M.A.R.T conferences are an opportunity for the victims of the satanic conspiracy to exchange their horrific tales, offer support to one another and, most importantly “just be believed”.   Victims are encouraged to bring an accompanying “support person”, as much of the material covered in the 2-day series of talks is considered to be “triggering” (that is to say, it may cause flashbacks in the similarly traumatized).

The organizer of the conference, Neil Brick, stands about 5′6″ with a greasy dark curly comb-over, large-thick glasses, and a voice that sounds exacly like Elmer Fudd (without the impediment of pronouncing his Rs as Ws).  He describes himself as a “survivor of alleged Masonic Ritual Abuse and MK-ULTRA [the CIA's covert mind-control and chemical interrogation project of 1950s - 60s]“.  The disclaimer of the word “alleged” in his own biographical description indicates a type of half-belief that was conveyed from most speakers at the conference, some of whose lectures were startlingly candid accounts of how and why they came to manufacture their paranoid fictions.

Christine O'Donnell, the Tea Party, and constitutional ignorance

Given the magnitude of ignorance displayed by most Tea-Party candidates and supporters, it is somewhat surprising when relatively minor gaffes -- such as the one seen yesterday when Delaware Republican Senate candidate, Christine O’Donnell revealed her ignorance of the First Amendment -- suddenly cause an indignant stir.  In a debate with Democratic candidate, Chris Coons, O’Donnell was trying to make the point (arguably more offensively ignorant than her obliviousness to Constitutional content) that Intelligent Design, somehow distinguished from Creationism in her mind, is a theory at least on par with that of Evolution, and that it should be within the rights of any public school-board to teach this mythology at the expense of Biology.  To insinuate Science upon our school-boards would be, according to O’Donnell, “imposing your beliefs on the local schools,” which flies in the face of “indispensable principles” established by the Founding Fathers.

Coons interjected, “"One of those indispensable principles is the separation of church and state."

"Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?" O’Donnell shot back.

The crowd laughed in disbelief.  Worse, O’Donnell clearly seemed to feel that they were laughing with her, not at her, as she continued her descent.

 "The First Amendment establishes the separation, the fact that the federal government shall not establish religion," Coons explained.

"The First Amendment does?" O’Donnell pressed incredulously. "You're telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?"

Unfortunately for her, the audience was a collection of legal scholars and law students at Widener University Law School, where the debate was being hosted, thus their laughter at her non-existent grasp of Constitutional Law. (Read the full article here)

Among The Abducted

his is the first report of my experiences with individuals who feel that they have had personal contact with extraterrestrials.  More are forthcoming.  Where appropriate, names have been changed…

out-sized forehead, black almond-shaped eyes

Laughlin, Nevada is the kind of place where vegetarianism is deviant. Even the lentil soup comes served with large chunks of sausage in it… Thick, greasy, lips-and-asshole chorizo sausage. Even when picked out, it befouls the rest of the soup with its putrid flavor.

I have to send it back. “This has sausage in it”, I tell the waitress.

“Yes”, the waitress says, nonplussed, “you ordered the lentil soup”.

The atmosphere has abruptly changed. My effeminate coastal dietary peculiarities have made my presence suddenly unwelcome. I feel a wave of panic fill the room. At surrounding tables, the bloated men in cowboy hats are, I imagine, wishing that they were thirty years younger, so that they might rise up to knock some sense into my goddamn skull. To the people of Laughlin, it appears, there is nothing particularly bizarre about a group of UFO seekers holding a conference in their town, but a man who doesn’t eat meat is truly a freakish thought. Christ, it’s already noon and I don’t even have a beer in my hand. To the generally upper middle-aged, beer-bellied, cigarette-sallowed gamblers of this obscure poor-man’s alternative to Reno, I am an interloper.

I feel more at ease among the ET enthusiasts. My initial impression is that they display nothing of the unwelcoming, bitter homogeneity of the Ritual Abuse crowd. Among them are Science Fiction fans and writers, Fortean chroniclers of anomalous events, students of the paranormal, and the mere curious.

The diversity is an unexpected relief. The two-hour shuttle ride from the Vegas airport to Laughlin gave grim indications that the conference would be strictly populated by elderly New Agers.  (read the full article here)

Omega Unit 197

Duncan O'Finioan thinks you're a pussy.

You doubt his claim -- don't you?-- that "he was taken at a young age by his parents and delivered to a secret government program known as Project Talent, a sub-project of the notorious MK ULTRA Program. The program used severe trauma to split his personality into several alternate personalities, one of whom was trained and enhanced to become a Super Soldier known as Omega Unit 197."

"It was only as an adult," the claim goes on,  "after years of missing time, blackouts, odd experiences, and terrifying nightmares that a car accident restored some of Duncan's memories of involvement in these secret programs. Duncan had also recently learned of the existence of three distinct other personalities in addition to 197."

Skeptical?

Pussy.

O'Finioan knows all about your kind, you internet opinionators with your doubts and alternate scenarios.  (From his blog:)

all you manly men, all you pussy men, who think you’re the toughest internet poster out there. [You're] [m]aking our job and defending the human race just that much tougher.  We would not walk into combat with any of you in our group.  None of you.  So please stay on YouTube, stay on Facebook, stay on your game consoles, and stay the hell out of our way when the shit hits the fan.

 You see, Omega Unit 197 has seen it all, and in the Real World.  The internet is a safe-haven for pussies like you:

[The internet] has allowed people to say vulgarities, inaccuracies, and just blatant lying bullshit that they would never say to an individual face to face.  Gee, I don’t know, but I was always told if you want to say something, be ready to back it up.

 Indeed.  Back-up your claims.  In fact, this is what one internet forum asked of an unprepared O'Finioan in 2006 when he entered their message board stating:

I understand some questions and comments need addresed.
I'm here,ask.

 Just his bad luck, I suppose, that one curious forum contributor knew exactly what to ask:

Beck, Jones, & the Malice of Delusion

Conspiracy Theories -- explanations for events that invoke witting, nefarious designs and elaborate plots directed toward the exact ends achieved when more parsimonious explanations fit the available evidence -- I would argue, are never benign.  In the case of claims of Satanic Ritual Abuse, the immediate consequences of a belief in this conspiracy theory are quite clear: specific individuals are accused of crimes they never committed, families are destroyed, personal liberties are threatened or stolen.

Alien abduction claims may be less obvious in their harmful consequences.  But, as a belief in these ET incursions in human affairs is also dependent on recovered "memories" (or, rather, false memory creation), arguments in defense of Abductee recall of "repressed" memory lend support (if taken seriously) to false memories of the directly accusatory kind.  And both camps are obligated to vehemently reject the science that explores mechanisms and processes of false memory creation, often demonizing the scientists in the field.

Even if the Conspiracy Theorist were to be found to be living his/her optimally fulfilling life deluded by stories of massive underground treachery (and I don't think anybody could reasonably argue in defense of this proposition), this would not excuse the inevitable targetting of individuals felt to belong to the conspiracy's inhuman machine.

Conspiracy Theories always suggest an enemy to be defeated, an evil other whose destruction becomes the highest calling to the true believer. 

Perhaps it was all fun and games when conspiracy-shouting radio host Alex Jones lied to his audience (knowingly) to sell a new bit of "9/11 Truth" lore.  But one would have hoped the amusement would have died back in 2002 when a crazed Jones fan attempted to enter Bohemian Grove "hoping for a shootout".  Jones, of course, is famous for loudly denouncing the old rich man's retreat as a center for elitist conspiracies with a Luciferian bent.

Recently, Jones protested that Glenn Beck has been stealing his ideas.  That Beck's research could have led him to the same place as Jones, you see, is impossible, for these are not positions based on facts.

Not surprisingly, a crazed fan honored Beck in a shoot-out with police when he was intercepted on his way to massacre "progressives".

Given the rhetoric of characters like Beck and Jones, it's somewhat surprising that these things don't happen more often... but they'll surely happen again.   

Turtleboy & Jet The Wonder Pup

The other week I received an email from a friend of mine in Wisconsin who had been mortified by the Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Abuse’s (WCASA, “Wisconsin's only state-wide coalition dedicated to ending sexual violence”) apparent unwillingness to abandon certain artifacts of the long-debunked Satanic Panic of the eighties and nineties.  Until recently, their website listed Satanic holidays that all concerned citizens should be extra wary during, as well as information regarding the mythic diagnosis of Multiple Personality Disorder (from which the recovered “memories” of this disorder’s victims remarkably serves as the only “evidence” – still! – of these homicidal, community-depopulating Satanic cults).  My friend had been asking WCASA to justify their  purveyance of this conspiracy for some time, and we were both pleased to find that such references had suddenly been cleaned from the site.
Upon following-up, though, my friend in WI wrote to me:

I asked WCASA for a look at their resource center material and am saddened to tell you that they have not eliminated some of the most obnoxious stuff imaginable from their library, such as a copy of " Michelle Remembers". They've apparently only scrubbed their website.

On the bright side, one of the titles they have available is " Turtleboy and Jet the Wonderpup: a therapeutic comic for survivors of ritual abuse".

You couldn't make this stuff up.

Nightmare Psychiatry: Delusions of Satan, ET abduction, and the cultivation of false memories

Read the works of Dr. Colin Ross, they were all telling me, He has proven everything! CIA sex-slave producing mind-control programs, international conspiracies to cover-up crimes of Satanic cult activities, all proven beyond any reasonable doubt in the writings of this esteemed psychiatrist specializing in dissociation and trauma.

These served as ill endorsements for the credibility of Dr. Ross coming, as they did, from members, followers, or defenders, of a cult-like conspiracy theory-based collective known as S.M.A.R.T. (Stop Mind-control And Ritual abuse Today) [*]. Previous to these urgent entreaties that I educate myself of the Doctor's works, I had attended - and subsequently wrote a report about - S.M.A.R.T.'s annual conference in August of 2009 where I sat dumb-struck for an entire weekend, listening, as speaker followed speaker to barrage their overly-credulous audience with impossibly absurd scenarios of occult crime, remote mind-control, and even inter-dimensional demon conjuring [1] . It was the expressions of doubt within my conference report that prompted the emails and internet message board comments suggesting that Ross might help to dispel my ignorance.

According to their website, "The purpose of S.M.A.R.T. is to help stop ritual abuse and to help those who have been ritually abused. We work toward this goal by disseminating information on the connections between secretive organizations, ritual abuse, and mind control, by encouraging healing from the damage done by ritual abuse and mind control, and by encouraging survivors to network." As I learned at the conference, they even offer the tools to combat the sinister mind-control of these "secretive organizations": A vendor in the lecture room was selling a slightly more elaborate version of the tin-foil hat in the form of steel mesh-lined baseball caps meant to block electromagnetic cranium-invading frequencies. It was the very stuff of paranoid delusion, the purveyors of which felt certain that Dr. Colin Ross had legitimatized it all.  (Read the full article here)