Swine flu: Report from Mexico

Monday, April 27, 2009 | 03:35 PM ET

   I was researching political party’s this weekend, because as with most American’s, I am becoming increasingly disenfranchised and disgusted with the so-called ‘status quo’ of politician’s, political process, and two large monopolized Republican and Democrat party system. Both have grown way beyond their original intent and charters, into systems that look out only for their own self interest of maintaining their Party and political power, as the expense of individual liberty and freedom which was the intent behind the American Revolution. 

   I looked at the growing Libertarian Party, but their stance on what are now controlled and illegal drugs goes against my own conscience and common sense.   All one has to do to see the future of ‘legalized’ drugs is to look at the stoners in California who flock to the ‘medical’ marijuana stores.   Alcohol is a drug, it’s legal, and yet, look at the continuing battle people face because of the results of alcohol. At this time in our society’s history, it would not be wise to throw gas on the fire. Maybe in a hundred years, we’ll grow up as a species and it can then be explored once again.

    The Federal Social security system is a platform the LP stands against, but I believe, it is the only modern day system that is viable to withstand the changes that affect private business. If people who worked for Enron, World Com, relied solely on those companies for their ‘retirement’ years, today they would have literally ‘nothing’ to fall back on. Private company’s and individuals are often racked with greed and deception, (Enron, Madoff) and putting all of one’s money into private company’s is not a wise move. Look at giants like GM, once thought to be invincible, but like Goliath, a stone between the eyes took them down.

   I looked at the Constitution Party, which does hold many beliefs that I, and I guess, many Americans retain within us, but their stance on abortion is again, against my conscience and common sense beliefs. Let me explain with a comparison. The Taliban use religion, the Saudi’s use religion, to control their people’s very lives. How can an American, who believes and promotes ‘freedom and individual liberty, tell another person what to do with their body? Much of the Constitution Party’s platform is influenced from the Christian Bible, which conversely, influenced our Fore Fathers and their thoughts. This is a good thing. But, not all Americans are Christian and should not be treated as such nor judged by their actions using the Bible as the standard of law. That is what the Constitution Party stance against abortion comes from. 

   Both of those party’s having failing grades when it comes to our Military. Libertarians believe the U.S. should not be the World’s policeman, a couple million dead people in Cambodia, Rwanda, and elsewhere probably beg to differ. While massive ground forces is not the way to go every time, sometimes a massive amount of aerial firepower could have changed the outcome in several lives.

   The Constitutional Party is against training and sending women into combat, that’s just plain stupid policy in a modern world. The battlefield of the Twenty First Century is ‘everywhere’ and the genetic make-up of human beings in the 21^st Century is such that some females are superior in strength, agility, and inner drive than some ‘males’.  

    On the subject of the U.S. Military, the platform of the Conservative Independence Party would be…the Pentagon wages the war, the politicians wage the peace. No President, nor political party should ever tell the Pentagon ‘how’ to fight. This only – historically proven – has cost the lives of way too many past ‘one’, U.S. Service personnel.   War is not politically correct nor can be fought that way. 

Conservative Independence Party

Motto:

“The government that governs least, governs best.”

    As with the majority of political party’s inside the United States, the Mission Statement is very similar for the Conservative Independence Party. To uphold, promote, and defend the Constitution of the United States and the citizens of the United States of America. To which end, this Party derides it’s power from the People, and only the People, and those powers derived from the original Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights. 

    Another huge problem among the current party system is the ‘party jumpers’. These shallow people jump from party to party, State to State, for the sake of only winning an election, which is a sign of that person’s own self motivation over all others. 

    The Conservative Independence Party would forbid any ‘jumpers’ from joining at last minute to be eligible to run for any office for the period of two years. Even then, the Party leadership at State level would have to vote whether or not to even ‘endorse’ that person as a candidate of the Party, even if that person stated intention to run under the Conservative Independence Party. 

    The C.I.P. shall maintain ‘who’ can remain in the Party as a serving candidate or office holder. A candidate whether running or serving in Office, if found not fit from infractions of the Law and/or public confidence, shall by vote, be allowed to remain or be removed from the C.I.P.    There are numerous examples in both the Republican and Democrat party’s these days, that by graft alone, remain as members of their respective party’s and should by now, be standing before a Court of Law and of their peers for criminal actions.

     States rights are to be held of highest importance to the C.I.P., not a Federally controlling political system which has evolved over the past forty years and which now is a system exerting control over private lives and enterprise in direct confrontation with the Founding Fathers. The C.I.P would strive to reverse this trend and movement to the point that the States and the Individual once again, have self determination over their lives and not a dependent or subservient relation to the Federal Government. 

     Our Fore Fathers gave us the most wonderful opportunity to live our lives, and gave this World, a true model to copy and use for themselves. Unless, we again, seize upon the ideals and freedoms that were bestowed upon us, too soon, they are going to our of our grasp. Under the current political party system, most Americans feel themselves left out or else wise drowned beneath hypocrisy of their current Party’s modus operandi.

    A better political system must come forth in order to save this Nation, one that maintains the base that was built by our Founding Fathers, and yet let’s individuals build upon it for their own prosperity and that of this Nation.    

LONDON (Reuters) - Many prehistoric Australian aboriginals could have outrun world 100 and 200 meters record holder Usain Bolt in modern conditions.

Some Tutsi men in Rwanda exceeded the current world high jump record of 2.45 meters during initiation ceremonies in which they had to jump at least their own height to progress to manhood.

Any Neanderthal woman could have beaten former bodybuilder and current California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in an arm wrestle.

These and other eye-catching claims are detailed in a book by Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister entitled "Manthropology" and provocatively sub-titled "The Science of the Inadequate Modern Male."

McAllister sets out his stall in the opening sentence of the prologue.

"If you're reading this then you -- or the male you have bought it for -- are the worst man in history.

"No ifs, no buts -- the worst man, period...As a class we are in fact the sorriest cohort of masculine Homo sapiens to ever walk the planet."

Delving into a wide range of source material McAllister finds evidence he believes proves that modern man is inferior to his predecessors in, among other fields, the basic Olympic athletics disciplines of running and jumping.

His conclusions about the speed of Australian aboriginals 20,000 years ago are based on a set of footprints, preserved in a fossilized claypan lake bed, of six men chasing prey.

FLEET-FOOTED ABORIGINALS

An analysis of the footsteps of one of the men, dubbed T8, shows he reached speeds of 37 kph on a soft, muddy lake edge. Bolt, by comparison, reached a top speed of 42 kph during his then world 100 meters record of 9.69 seconds at last year's Beijing Olympics.

In an interview in the English university town of Cambridge where he was temporarily resident, McAllister said that, with modern training, spiked shoes and rubberized tracks, aboriginal hunters might have reached speeds of 45 kph.

"We can assume they are running close to their maximum if they are chasing an animal," he said.

"But if they can do that speed of 37 kph on very soft ground I suspect there is a strong chance they would have outdone Usain Bolt if they had all the advantages that he does.

"We can tell that T8 is accelerating toward the end of his tracks."

McAllister said it was probable that any number of T8's contemporaries could have run as fast.

"We have to remember too how incredibly rare these fossilizations are," he said. "What are the odds that you would get the fastest runner in Australia at that particular time in that particular place in such a way that was going to be preserved?"

Turning to the high jump, McAllister said photographs taken by a German anthropologist showed young men jumping heights of up to 2.52 meters in the early years of last century.

STARK DECLINE

"It was an initiation ritual, everybody had to do it. They had to be able to jump their own height to progress to manhood," he said.

"It was something they did all the time and they lived very active lives from a very early age. They developed very phenomenal abilities in jumping. They were jumping from boyhood onwards to prove themselves."

McAllister said a Neanderthal woman had 10 percent more muscle bulk than modern European man. Trained to capacity she would have reached 90 percent of Schwarzenegger's bulk at his peak in the 1970s.

"But because of the quirk of her physiology, with a much shorter lower arm, she would slam him to the table without a problem," he said.

Manthropology abounds with other examples:

* Roman legions completed more than one-and-a-half marathons a day carrying more than half their body weight in equipment.

* Athens employed 30,000 rowers who could all exceed the achievements of modern oarsmen.

* Australian aboriginals threw a hardwood spear 110 meters or more (the current world javelin record is 98.48).

McAllister said it was difficult to equate the ancient spear with the modern javelin but added: "Given other evidence of Aboriginal man's superb athleticism you'd have to wonder whether they couldn't have taken out every modern javelin event they entered."

Why the decline?

"We are so inactive these days and have been since the industrial revolution really kicked into gear," McAllister replied. "These people were much more robust than we were.

"We don't see that because we convert to what things were like about 30 years ago. There's been such a stark improvement in times, technique has improved out of sight, times and heights have all improved vastly since then but if you go back further it's a different story.

"At the start of the industrial revolution there are statistics about how much harder people worked then.

"The human body is very plastic and it responds to stress. We have lost 40 percent of the shafts of our long bones because we have much less of a muscular load placed upon them these days.

"We are simply not exposed to the same loads or challenges that people were in the ancient past and even in the recent past so our bodies haven't developed. Even the level of training that we do, our elite athletes, doesn't come close to replicating that.

"We wouldn't want to go back to the brutality of those days but there are some things we would do well to profit from."

(Editing by Clare Fallon; To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)

© Thomson Reuters 2009. All rights reserved. Users may download and print extracts of content from this website for their own personal and non-commercial use only.

With the current Obama Administration, and the majority of control of the U.S. Congress by members of the DNC, many ‘powerful’ members who are clearly corrupt, inept, incompetent, cowardly, or all of the above.  There are Republicans too that can find themselves easily in that group. 

     This Nation, our Nation, the United States, is dying.  The vultures are circling around the Globe just waiting for the moment to pounce and begin stripping away the meat to the very bone.  What is most sad, is that this Nation has the ability to survive and thrive, but like a bucket of crabs, as someone reaches the top, those at the bottom reach up and pull them back down.  That analogy, sadly often most fits a certain racial make up of our society…and you know it’s true. 

       But now, it fits the political body of this Nation.  Where we could all survive and get out of the bucket by helping each other, those ‘controlling’ the bottom of the bucket reach up and pull everyone back down. 

     We don’t like to talk about another Civil War in the United States, but under the current trend and movement of the Federal Government, and a mollified, complicit ‘main stream media’, it will only become now a matter of time.   As common sense continues to be shoved aside, and fringe elements become more controlling, the goal of common good is being replaced by goals of far winged radical elements, some not of this Nation.

    Seeing large banks and corporations go down the drain without a screaming effort of any kind of self survival, is very telling of our future.  Company CEO’s, who’s fortunes and lives have been stripped away, their company’s and employee’s tossed to the dogs of the streets, have done nothing to stop the grab of power by the pseudo-‘Democrats’. 

    One has to wonder, are those CEO’s at the top, paid off richly with tax payer dollars for their silence and complicity?  Have they fled or prepared homes in other countries to flee the coming maelstrom of chaos that will envelop this Nation and it’s People under the current direction.

Clear and present danger is a term used by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in the unanimous opinion for the case Schenck v. United States,^[1] concerning the ability of the government to regulate speech against the draft during World War I:

“The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that the United States Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree. When a nation is at war, many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight, and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right.”

    We know Al Qaeda is a threat, we know the Taliban are a threat, as is all of radical Islam, and all forms of extreme radicalism.  What the American People are now admitting to themselves, is that the Obama Administration and it’s Congressional supporters, are becoming the Clear and Present Danger to the U.S. Constitution and the meaning of freedom and liberty.  The growing awaking of the American People as demonstrated by the Tea Party movement is clear evidence in this very fact.  Whereas it has been as well, clearly filmed and documented, the Americans of the Tea Party and Town halls, have been law abiding and orderly, but the ‘left’, has become increasingly hostile, criminal, and violent.  A person can be slapped only twice before they have no more cheek to turn. 

    There is the Biblical aspect that often gets bantered about, and I offer only a thought.  Jesus Christ Himself, often used metaphors in order to get his followers and disciples to think.  He didn’t want to just give them the answer and make them blind followers without thought (unlike the DNC – ‘we’re gonna git Obama money’) , He knew that His followers had it in their own judgment and minds to come up with the right answer and course of direction. 

     A lot of people have been throwing it out there that Obama is the anti-Christ, and spinning text and numbers to reflect their summations.  Obama is not the anti-Christ, but he may be the anti-Lincoln.   Metaphorically, a leader will come from the ‘East’ that will ‘unite’ all the masses, bring peace about the land, and then begin to turn on those who still do not ‘worship’ him.  Barack is kind of from the east of our Nation, with a strong connection to Kenya, (insert legitimate birther arguments here)  and in the 2008 election, most people thought and believed that Barack was going to be a great uniter of all people, even among the World.   But as he goes about setting his policies in place, more and more of the average American are rejecting Obama and have begun to pay the price.  The loss of jobs, benefits, home, family, freedom, and even the ‘wealthy’ that deny worshipping him and his plans, are being falsely persecuted.   

     Back to the game trailer in the beginning and biblical references, here is a personal one from me.  While  I was at the back of a Navy supply ship in the middle of the ocean one bright, sunny day, the ships were doing Vert-reps, resupplying other ships using helicopters by transferring supplies.  One of the CH46’s was waiting to starboard, right side of the ship, and the pilot turned his helo and was facing directly at me, this passage of Revelations exploded in my mind:

7The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces. 8Their hair was like women's hair, and their teeth were like lions' teeth. 9They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. 10They had tails and stings like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months.

   Metaphors, truth, reality, the future.   You decide.