1,000,000 post thread

[tiremonkey2000]

Having said that, I would probably be like you ATM - I think it is a male thing
True very true but at least i'm am feeling better

[riscy]

But that is the dangerous time, cos then you push yourself and end up 3 steps back

[riscy]

You feel better, but you are NOT 100% yet and you think you are

[riscy]

So you push yourself to do "normal" hours etc - bad move - ease yoursef back into it gently!

[mathmission]

yeah, I do that all the time

[riscy]

.. as the bishop ...

ask MM

[riscy]

Very cool online "comic" here (http://shootingwar.com/index.php)

[riscy]

or rather "graphic novel" as they call it nowadays

[riscy]

I am out of here now - absolutely cream crackered

[riscy]

see you later - have a good one

[mathmission]

Iabsolutely cream crackered
As the actress said...


not sure that one fits properly...

[riscy]

yes it does : cream crackered=knackered=exhausted so it is very appropriate for the two characters involved :)

[riscy]

Coming up on lunchtime for you, MM

[tiremonkey2000]

Don't worry i promise i wont over do it, that's why i'm leaving earlier today.

[BakedDon]

Got Price-Fixed Milk?
by Vin Suprynowicz

DIGG THIS

If Republicans passed a new, 20-cent-a-gallon tax on milk, what do you suppose the leadership of the Democratic Party – the party of the working man – would say?

Wait: Take that a step further. Let’s pretend Republicans wanted to charge poor people an extra 20 cents for each gallon for milk ... and hand all the proceeds directly to rich businessmen!

What do you suppose incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., would say about that?

Schoolchildren may still be taught that our government has "anti-trust" laws to protect consumers from price-fixing. But Washington actually spends far more money setting up and protecting monopoly trusts than "busting" them.

Under a 1937 law, for example, most American dairy farmers participate in a complex system of interlocking subsidies and protection measures that have the effect of keeping the free market from forcing the price of milk ... down.

That’s right. A recent study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture acknowledges federal "dairy programs raise the retail price" of milk. The watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste estimates these government-enforced price-rigging programs cost U.S. consumers at least $1.5 billion per year.

Now, an added 20 cents a gallon is chickenfeed to the rich person. But the grocery budget forms a much higher percentage of the spending of a poor family with kids. So here’s a government program that has it all – it subsidizes rich dairy farmers, while placing the bulk of the burden squarely on the shoulders of poor people trying to feed their kids!

Last week, The Washington Post examined the case of Hein Hettinga, an immigrant who started out as a hired hand in the Dutch American dairies of Southern California. He soon figured out he could build his own herd by buying cows with injured hooves, healing them, and selling them at a profit.

By the early 1990s, Hettinga had half a dozen dairies in Arizona and Southern California. His first customers were in Mexico. Then he started selling milk to a chain of Arizona stores that catered to the Hispanic population. By 2002, he and his son were building a second processing plant in Yuma to supply Costco stores in Southern California.

But Hettinga, now 64, never joined the government’s price-fixing program. Because he processed his own milk, a "loophole" in the 1937 law said he didn’t have to.

His competitors admit there was nothing particularly cost-efficient about Hettinga’s operation. He just felt free to sell his milk at what he considered a reasonable profit – with the result that the Costcos in California found they could sell Hettinga’s milk for 20 cents less per gallon than their competitors’ milk.

This did not please the United Dairymen of Arizona, who complained to their congressmen that Hettinga was forcing other dairies to lower their prices in order to compete.

California’s biggest milk provider, Dean Foods, similarly complained to their own congressmen that Hettinga was "unfairly" lowering California milk prices by using a "regulatory loophole."

Hettinga’s operation was "damaging to the marketplace," explains Elvin Hollon of the Dairy Farmers of America. "So the regulations had to change."

Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, who has received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Hettinga’s competitors, went to work ginning up a bill that would require Hettinga to pay all the "extra" money he saved by operating outside the federal pool, right back into the "pool" that regulated his main Arizona competitor, Shamrock Foods Co. – removing any incentive or ability for him to sell his milk at a lower price.

(Fans of "Atlas Shrugged" will be disappointed to learn they don’t actually call this the "Milk Equalization Board." But they could.)

Hettinga fought back, printing 50,000 milk labels that warned Sen. Kyl was trying to "limit competition and raise the cost of milk to the Arizona consumer."

At first, Sen. Kyl’s anti-competitive measure went nowhere. But then, in 2003, Nevada’s own Sen. Harry Reid got involved, co-sponsoring with Sen. Kyl an amendment that would free Nevada from federal milk price-fixing (don’t get too excited – Nevada has its own milk price-fixing board), in exchange for Sen. Reid’s support for cracking down on Hettinga in California and Arizona.

In 2005 and 2006, Dean Foods, with nearly 100 plants around the country, spent more than $600,000 on political contributions, including $5,000 to Sen. Kyl and $5,000 to Sen. Reid, the Washington Post reports. Overall, eight groups with an interest in the legislation reported overall lobbying spending of more than $5 million in 2005 and the first half of 2006.

On Dec. 16, 2005, with the Senate chamber nearly empty, Sen. Reid introduced the proposal that would prevent Hein Hettinga from continuing to hold down the price of milk down by 20 cents a gallon in Arizona and Southern California. It passed by "unanimous consent." The House followed suit in March.

In October, Hein Hettinga filed a federal lawsuit. But he admits he was no match for the dairy lobby. "I had an awakening," he told the Post recently. "It’s not totally free enterprise in the United States."

But hey, is that such a big price to pay – back-stabbing some abstract, theoretical notion like "free enterprise" – when in exchange Sen. Reid and his cohorts managed to achieve the vital goal of seeing to it that struggling families in California and Arizona will now pay an extra 20 cents a gallon to feed their kids milk?

And when they awoke, they found someone had been at work with fresh paint on the barn wall, and the old slogan now read "The party that socks it to the working man."

[BakedDon]

NYC violated Constitution by jailing protesters

Reuters
Tuesday, December 19, 2006

New York City violated the U.S. Constitution for more than two months in 2001 with a policy to detain arrested protesters overnight instead of giving them summonses to appear in court, a U.S. federal jury found on Monday.

The suit stemmed from the city's handling of the mass protests and arrests in New York immediately after the 1999 killing by police of unarmed Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo, who was hit by 19 shots.

An eight-person jury in Manhattan federal court found that the city's police department violated the First Amendment right to free speech and the 14th Amendment right to due process between May 1, 2001, and July 13, 2001, by its policy of locking up protesters overnight in city jails.

However, the same jury ruled that the 350 protester plaintiffs failed to show that in the two years before 2001 the city followed an unwritten policy of locking up protesters.

"It's not the victory we wanted, but certainly it's a victory for the 30 plaintiffs who alleged they were discriminated against by the police department for those more than two months," said Jonathan Moore, a lawyer for the protesters.

Susan Halatyn, a city attorney, said decision was a victory for the city.

"We are very pleased that, after hearing and carefully considering all the evidence, the jury understood that the city never had an unwritten policy to deny demonstrators equal treatment under the law," Halatyn said.

[BakedDon]

When First Amendment hits 'close to home,' teens care
Posted 9/17/2006
By Tracey Wong Briggs, USA TODAY
High school students are much more likely than they were even two years ago to learn about the First Amendment in class, but their opinions about what it says and does present a mixed picture, a study says today.
"There's lots of discussion happening in schools, maybe discussions about should the government have the right to limit freedoms, if that means better protections" in combating terrorism, co-author Kenneth Dautrich says. "Just because there's more discussion doesn't mean there's more favorable attitudes toward freedoms in the First Amendment."

The Constitution was signed Sept. 17, 1787. Starting last year, all schools receiving federal money have to have an educational program pertaining to it on Constitution Day, which this year is today because Sept. 17 fell on a Sunday.

Future of the First Amendment found that the percentage of students who say they have taken a class that dealt with the First Amendment has risen to 72% this year, up 14% from two years before. The study surveyed 14,498 students and 882 teachers at 34 high schools in the spring; it had a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point. It follows up a 2004 study also done for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which finances journalism and free-speech initiatives.

The new survey finds that 45% of students, up from 35%, believe the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees. Yet questions about specific freedoms show that support for some speech and press freedoms is essentially unchanged or up slightly:

• 30% (down from 32%) say the press has too much freedom.

• 69% (down from 70%) say musicians should be allowed to sing songs with lyrics that may be offensive to others.

• 54% (up from 51%) say newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval.

• 64% (up from 58%) say high school student newspapers should be allowed to report controversial subjects without the approval of authorities.

Students tend to know less about the First Amendment than adults do, and they are more likely to take its rights for granted, says Dautrich, who has surveyed adults extensively for the First Amendment Center in Nashville. But when it comes to some issues more important to kids and teens, such as song lyrics and student press freedom, students are more likely to support the rights, he says.

"Our conclusion is that the closer to home the meaning of the First Amendment, the more likely they are, or even adults are, to understand its value and appreciate it."

It's good news but no surprise that more students are learning about the First Amendment, says Melinda Stephani, senior administrator for social studies for Wake County, N.C. There's more emphasis on students' relating subjects to their own lives, she says. "The three R's — reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic — have been replaced by rigor, relevance and relationships."

[tiremonkey2000]

Well i've been home for about an hour now and i feel a whole lot better today then i did yesterday

[tiremonkey2000]

Tomorrow morning i have a dr.'s appt. for blood and urine tests just to make sure i'm doing better

[tiremonkey2000]

Then i go to work late

[tiremonkey2000]

Well i guess i'm done posting for the day

[tiremonkey2000]

I emptied out my email for the last 2 weeks

[tiremonkey2000]

Now i'm going to bed

[tiremonkey2000]

Because i can't eat anything until after my dr.'s appt. tomorrow morning

[tiremonkey2000]

Even tho i ate dinner already i'm still hungry

[tiremonkey2000]

But all i can have is water, this really sucks

[tiremonkey2000]

Well i will see you all tomorrow morning after my appt.

[tiremonkey2000]

Goodnight all cya tomorrow

[Carrie]

Good Luck with the Doctors Apt!

[riscy]

Hope the appt went ok - rest and take it easy!

[tiremonkey2000]

Appt. went goog they just took blood and made me piss in a cup.

[tiremonkey2000]

My appt. on the 27th. is with my surgen, that's the big one.

[BlondeBandit]

Saying hello

[BlondeBandit]

Ok guys you need to check out this game

www.secondlife.com

[BlondeBandit]

Its very addicting so be prepared

[mathmission]

Hey BB

[mathmission]

Hope everything is going well!

[BlondeBandit]

Going ok just busy as hell

[mathmission]

Yeah. I don't really have that too much here. Things are rather quiet, for the most part.

[BlondeBandit]

Must be nice

[BlondeBandit]

Hey where the hell is everyone anyhow????

[BlondeBandit]

I am all alone *Looks around*

[BlondeBandit]

HELLLLOOOOOOO echo echo echo

[tiremonkey2000]

Hi BB Hi MM

[ThumperZ1]

Howdy all

[ThumperZ1]

Carrie... leaving the big metropolis of Abbington?????

[ThumperZ1]

I was just going to tell my neice who lives in that city about you.
:peep:

[ThumperZ1]

Time to update my Grid.org stats as of my post 4339

New:
Total CPU Time (y:d:h:m:s) (Rank) 6:196:01:36:16 (# 10,571)
Points Generated (Rank) 1,830,134 (#4,265)
Results Returned (Rank) 6,566 (#7,477)

Old:
Total CPU Time (y:d:h:m:s) (Rank) 6:193:00:15:37 (# 10,590)
Points Generated (Rank) 1,827,828 (#4,272)
Results Returned (Rank) 6,556 (#7,481)

[ThumperZ1]

Not much going on here. work is very slow so I've been coming home early...

[ThumperZ1]

I should have all my xmas shopping finished by Sunday. :thumup:

[ThumperZ1]

Mr Winamp is playing The Glamorous Life - Sheila E

[ThumperZ1]

Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Relax

[tiremonkey2000]

Hey Thumper how you been

[ThumperZ1]

I get horrible phone reception in my basement apartment.

[ThumperZ1]

I find out people have called when the phone buzzes letting me know that there are messages. :moon:

[ThumperZ1]

Not bad TM... How are you doing today?

[ThumperZ1]

Don't Forget Me When I'm Gone - Glass Tiger

[tiremonkey2000]

I'm doing much better i worked a full day today and feel great

[ThumperZ1]

coool, I just found some more mp3's I haven't tagged... NOT

[tiremonkey2000]

Playing Jane's Addiction - Jane say's Live

[ThumperZ1]

I'm glad to hear that TM. Are you going to be up for the long weekend?

[ThumperZ1]

I'm looking forward to a little kicking back this weekend. Maybe take in a movie.

[ThumperZ1]

I have to work a full day Saturday, only a couple of hours on Sun, and off on Monday.

[tiremonkey2000]

The Firm - Satisfaction Guarenteed

[ThumperZ1]

Good Tune... Jimmy Page and Paul Rodgers...

[tiremonkey2000]

Yea i will be up for it sat,sun, and monday off just spending time with wife and dog

[ThumperZ1]

When I see you Smile - Bad English

[ThumperZ1]

Sounds like a winning combination for the weekend.

[ThumperZ1]

Stray Cat Strut - Stray Cats

[tiremonkey2000]

Playing Deep Purple - Perfect Strangers

What a great song

[ThumperZ1]

Pinellas Park... how close to Tampa is that?

[tiremonkey2000]

Nothing like spending the holiday's with the one's you LOVE

[tiremonkey2000]

Pinellas Park... how close to Tampa is that?
about 15 - 20 minutes depending on how fast you drive lol

[ThumperZ1]

How very true... Are there places that you can rent loved ones?

[ThumperZ1]

My Mom retired in Holiday. I was down there a couple of years ago.

[ThumperZ1]

The Equalizer Busy Equalizing - Stewart Copeland

[ThumperZ1]

You're jammin' to some cool stuff. I'm skimming through some Time Life 80's

[tiremonkey2000]

How very true... Are there places that you can rent loved ones?
lol There are alot of strip clubs around you never know......

[tiremonkey2000]

Billy Idol - Mony Mony

[ThumperZ1]

Hmmm, I may have to check out some rentals.... LOL

[ThumperZ1]

Der Kommissar - After The Fire

[ThumperZ1]

The Motels - Only The Lonely

[tiremonkey2000]

P.O.D. - Youth of the Nation

[ThumperZ1]

Last song and I'm outa here for tonight....

As Long As We Got Each Other - BJ Thomas/Dusty Springfield

BJ alone did this as the theme for Growing Pains.

[ThumperZ1]

G'night TM!

[tiremonkey2000]

Oasis - Champagne Supernova

[tiremonkey2000]

Have a good night Thumper

[tiremonkey2000]

Collective Soul - Gel

[tiremonkey2000]

Crazy Town - Butterfly

[tiremonkey2000]

Blur - Song 2

[tiremonkey2000]

Rise Against - Swing Life Away

[tiremonkey2000]

AC/DC - Hells Bells

[tiremonkey2000]

Foghat - Slow Ride

[tiremonkey2000]

Fall Out Boy - Dance,Dance

[tiremonkey2000]

Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Californication

[tiremonkey2000]

AC/DC - Back in Black

[tiremonkey2000]

Social Distortion - Story of my Life

[tiremonkey2000]

Social Distortion - Ball and Chain

[tiremonkey2000]

Incubus - Megalomaniac

[tiremonkey2000]

Avenged Sevenfold - Bat Country

[tiremonkey2000]

Genesis - Invisible Touch

[tiremonkey2000]

My Chemical Romance and The Used - Under Pressure (Remix-Live)

[tiremonkey2000]

Bush - Glycerine

[tiremonkey2000]

Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun

[tiremonkey2000]

Cracker - Low

[tiremonkey2000]

Nine Inch Nails - Fist Fuck (remix)

[tiremonkey2000]

Led Zeppelin - Dazed and Confused

[tiremonkey2000]

Love and Rockets - So Alive

[tiremonkey2000]

AC/DC - The Jack

[tiremonkey2000]

Linkin Park - Breaking the Habit

[tiremonkey2000]

Seven Mary Three - Cumbersome

[tiremonkey2000]

Bush - Swallowed

[riscy]

But what did he swallow, TM?Bush - Swallowed

[riscy]

Well, looks like i need to get posting as I will not be around much the next few days.

[riscy]

Actually I will be away for about 3 days and will have no internet acces at all

[riscy]

So I will try to get some posts in now

[riscy]

I am really in need of this holiday now

[riscy]

Trying to deal with a lot of stressful stuff at the minute (still)

[riscy]

Emails to lawyers, texts to a colleague to sort something out

[riscy]

But by early January we will know one way or the other

[riscy]

Hopefully it will be a positive outcome

[riscy]

Queen - I want to break free

[riscy]

Great song

[riscy]

Back again

[riscy]

Just for a while

[riscy]

hopefully someone will be online

[riscy]

If not, I will chat to myself

[riscy]

for half an hour or so

[riscy]

Woo hoo - I am on hols!!!

[riscy]

So I can sit up late!!

[riscy]

I HATE getting up at 5.30am!

[riscy]

Well, I hope that everyone is in the festive season - I'm not!

[riscy]

Bah humbug!!

[riscy]

Christmas - just a bloody marketing ploy by Coke.

[riscy]

I will be glad when it is over.

[riscy]

The the - Mind Bomb

[riscy]

Great track with great lyrics ^^

[riscy]

Have a search for it on google

[riscy]

then find the song and listen to it

[tiremonkey2000]

sorry i missed you riscy

[tiremonkey2000]

we were busy at work today

[tiremonkey2000]

at least its quite now

[tiremonkey2000]

and we will be able to leave early

[tiremonkey2000]

we have our christmas party tonight

[tiremonkey2000]

starts at 7:30 tonight and runs until whenever

[tiremonkey2000]

so i will probably be back later tonight

[tiremonkey2000]

well i gotta go now

[tiremonkey2000]

time to work again cya later

[riscy]

Darn - missed you TM

[tiremonkey2000]

Shit happens

[tiremonkey2000]

We had our christmas party tonight for work

[tiremonkey2000]

It was fun but now i can't sleep

[tiremonkey2000]

Well i guess i should lay down again cya all later

[BakedDon]

U.S. President George W. Bush signed into law a $ 38 million grant program to preserve notorious internment camps where Japanese-Americans were kept behind barbed wire during World War II.

[BakedDon]

London Police Chief Warns of Christmas Terror Threat

London Independent | December 23, 2006
Nigel Morris

Islamist terrorists pose the greatest threat to Britain's security since the Second World War, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has warned.

With police and security services on heightened alert for a possible attack over Christmas and the New Year, Sir Ian Blair echoed fears in the intelligence community that the risk of an atrocity has increased substantially in recent months.

He said he had no specific intelligence about a plot to target Britain over the holiday period, but added: "The threat of another terrorist attempt is ever present. Christmas is a period when that might happen. We have no specific intelligence to do [with] that."

He added: "There was a terrorist plot in Germany against one of their Christmas markets in 2002, so it's a possibility."

Sir Ian also said the danger to the public was of an "unparalleled nature and growing".

"It is a far graver threat in terms of civilians than either the Cold War or the Second World War," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "You have to go back to that threat - it's a much graver threat than that posed by Irish Republican terrorism."

The commissioner said the IRA usually did not want to cause mass casualties, did not want its attackers to die, gave warnings and was "heavily penetrated" by intelligence agents. "None of those four applies with al-Qa'ida and its affiliates," he said.

Sir Ian also acknowledged that efforts to infilitrate terrorist cells were at an early stage.

"It took 20 years to penetrate the IRA and I have no doubt the intelligence services will be attempting that now, but it is a more difficult and a much more recent phenomenon. Therefore some of the techniques we just do not have."

Last month, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the MI5 director general, disclosed that the agency was tracking more than 1,600 members of terrorist cells and was monitoring 30 major plots.

John Reid, the Home Secretary, has also repeatedly warned that a terrorist attack in Britain is "highly likely". Sir Ian defended the bungled police raid in Forest Gate, east London, in June when a man was shot and injured by officers who were hunting for terrorist materials.

"We have apologised for the fact we did not find what we were looking for."

The commissioner also said the police had learnt their lesson from Forest Gate when they thwarted an alleged plot in August to blow up transatlantic airliners. He said: "[We made] it clear to the public the scale of the threat we had uncovered, [the threat] we thought we had uncovered, and why we had to move forward."

[BakedDon]

The Sun will be reborn on december 25th it died on the 22nd. Its been cold out there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dnxHmvrrW0

[BakedDon]

Hope you all have your shrooms drying in your stockings over the fire and your pinetree with the red and white presents under the tree to represent the amanita muscaria commonly called fly agaric or less often fly mushroom. You will see thee elves if you do 30 dry grams. http://www.shamana.co.uk/shamana.files/siberian1.jpg
Heres a pic of a siberian shaman

they dress in red with white poka dots just like the shroom

http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&q=fly+agaric++&btnG=Search

It is said that the shaman went around and passed out the shrooms on the winter solstice.

In siberia at this time, they entered and exited the home through the roof.
:xmas:
It is said that raindeer will knock over and attack pickers of the mushroom. They gaurd thier patchs of shrooms. They eat them then run around like they are flying. :xmas2:

[BakedDon]

In astronomy, the solstice is either of the two times a year when the Sun is at its greatest distance from the celestial equator, the great circle on the celestial sphere that is on the same plane as the earth's equator. In the Northern Hemisphere, the winter solstice occurs either December 21 or 22, when the sun shines directly over the tropic of Capricorn; the summer solstice occurs either June 21 or 22, when the sun shines directly over the tropic of Cancer. In the Southern Hemisphere, the winter and summer solstices are reversed.
Reason for the Seasons

The reason for the different seasons at opposite times of the year in the two hemispheres is that while the earth rotates about the sun, it also spins on its axis, which is tilted some 23.5 degrees towards the plane of its rotation. Because of this tilt, the Northern Hemisphere receives less direct sunlight (creating winter) while the Southern Hemisphere receives more direct sunlight (creating summer). As the Earth continues its orbit the hemisphere that is angled closest to the sun changes and the seasons are reversed.
Longest Night of the Year

The winter solstice marks the shortest day and the longest night of the year. The sun appears at its lowest point in the sky, and its noontime elevation appears to be the same for several days before and after the solstice. Hence the origin of the word solstice, which comes from Latin solstitium, from sol, “sun” and -stitium, “a stoppage.” Following the winter solstice, the days begin to grow longer and the nights shorter.

[BakedDon]

16. We should all "give thanks" to the Father for sending us His "Sun". For the peace and tranquillity he brings to our life is even called 'Solace' - from "Solar" = Sun.

17. We now have before us two (2) cosmic brothers - one very good, and one very evil. One brings the "truth to light" with the "light of truth". The other is the opposite, or in opposition to the light - "The Opposer"...
Prince of this World of Darkness-
The "Devil".

18. It is at this point that we come to Egypt. More than 3,000 years before Christianity began, the early morning "Sun/ Saviour" was pictured in Egypt as the "New Born Babe". The infant saviour's name was "HORUS".

19. The early morning Sun or "New Born Babe", was pictured in two ways.
A) The Dove - Bringer of Peace
B) The Hawk - God of War
(who punishes the enemies of God!).

JordanMaxwell.com

[BakedDon]

God's 'Sun' had 12 apostles (or months) that followed Him

[BakedDon]

Horus was born to a virgin, had 12 apostles and was sacrified for our sins.

[BakedDon]

1. Jesus has no History
No historians of the time mention Jesus. Suetonius (65-135) does not. Pliny the Younger only mentions Christians (Paulists) with no comment of Jesus himself. Tacitus mentions a Jesus, but it is likely that after a century of Christian preaching Tacitus was just reacting to these rumours, or probably talking about one of the many other Messiah's of the time. Josephus, a methodical, accurate and dedicated historian of the time mentions John the Baptist, Herod, Pilate and many aspects of Jewish life but does not mention Jesus. (The Testimonium Flavianum has been shown to be a third century Christian fraud). He once mentions a Jesus, but gives no information other than that he is a brother of a James. Jesus was not an unusual name, either. Justus, another Jewish historian who lived in Tiberias (near Kapernaum, a place Jesus frequented) did not mention Jesus nor any of his miracles. It is only in the evidence of later writers, writing about earlier times, that we find a Jesus.

2. Jesus was a Jewish Messianic cult leader
the most reasonable belief
A very common belief, accepted (in part if not in full) by Christian liberals is that someone who claimed to be a prophet and messiah (there were many such people appearing amongst the Jews) is the historical Jesus. His life story has been intermingled with older pagan myths, and it is very hard for us to see his true life or message to the extent that we have little or no information about him, he is effectively without historical basis because the real figure is obscured by the mythical one.

God-Man myths were very popular and pre-dated the God-Man of Jesus by thousands of years. They all shared a common format which (or "vegetation myths") is that the Son of God has 12 disciples, and is betrayed and killed by a traitor. Popular myths such as the virgin birth, miracles, curing the blind and ill are also familiar and common aspects of these myths. As such, such events were assumed to be true of the historical Jesus. These myths became interwoven amongst the stories of someone who might have been real. Many Jewish sayings became attributed to this character, and sayings of John the Baptist too. Stories about the disciples were assumed to be true and not simply symbolic stories as the original gnostic Christians believed. Once people wrote pseudipigraphically under the names of the disciples people accepted them as true too. The rest is history, but initially is based on mistaken pseudo-historical accounts.

3. The Jesus Mysteries hypothesis: Jesus was another Mystery Religion god man

Jesus Mysteries
Buy from amazon.co.uk


More info and quotes



Perhaps the most historically correct of all the theories is the apparently true theory that Christianity started out as much more Gnostic than it became from the 2nd century onwards, and the stories of Jesus and the disciples match those of other Mystery religions and Pagan religions precisely because Christianity was another Mystery Religion. Literalist Christianity as we know it was the Outer Mysteries of this spiritual religion. It explains why the historical centres of Christianity were all gnostic when literalist Christians went back to research the past, and why so many Pagan god-man elements are part of Christianity. It also explains why none of the scholars of the time mention Jesus or the miracles around his life, because even the Christians themselves knew that they were symbolic stories, not actual events.

Only later, and this is something Paul himself complains about, did the masses accept the Outer Mysteries of Christianity without accepting the true, deeper spiritual meanings of the story.

4. History led up to Christianity, it did not appear out of the blue
"Elements that were common in Pagan mystery of religions include much of the religious content of Christianity. All elements of Jesus' life such as the events around his birth and death and ministry were also said of other god-men of the time. Peripheral elements such as there being twelve disciples were similarly present in other more ancient religions and sometimes with an astonishing amount of duplication. First century critics of Christianity voiced these accusations that Christianity was nothing but another copy of common religions, they are not new accusations.
All the actual sayings and teachings of Jesus were also not new, and much of the time speeches attributed to Jesus are more like collections of Jewish and Pagan sayings. Even distinctive texts like the Sermon on the Mount are not unique. If we remove all the content that Jesus could not have heard and repeated himself, there is nothing else left. If we remove the supernatural elements of Christianity that are copies of already existing thought and religion, there is nothing left which is unique! Even much of the sayings of subsequent Christians is not unique; Jesus appears to not have taught anyone anything that was not already present in the common culture of the time. This shows us that not only did Christianity follow on, as expected, from previous thought in history but that we do not even need to believe in God or supernatural events in order to account for the history of Christianity. Stephen Hodge very usefully lists many of the similarities found in the Dead Sea Scrolls to the teachings and organisation of Jewish Christianity. He also concludes that these Jewish documents make the teachings and appearance of Jewish Christianity less revolutionary."

"Progression of literalist Christianity" by Vexen 2003 May 12


Dead Sea Scrolls

"... the collection is really an invaluable cross-section of religious material that reveals for the first time just how rich and varied Jewish spiritual life was at that time. The scrolls offer an intellectual and devotional landscape into which Jesus and his movement can be placed. No longer does Jewish Christianity seem an inexplicable, isolated occurrence. [...]
In other words, the true value of the Dead Sea Scrolls is that they help provide a genuine context for what was to become Christianity."

"All biblical scholars agree that, apart from their intrinsic value, the sectarian scrolls are of tremendous importance as background information to the social and religious conditions in Judaea that led to the rise of Christianity. [...]

[There are] subtle implications that can be derived from the Qumran texts, for they not only provide interesting parallels to Christian concepts and practice but tend to reduce the uniqueness of the Yeshua movement."

"The Dead Sea Scrolls" by Stephen Hodge [More info/quotes], Introduction p3-4 & Conclusion p217-218

"The only pre-Christian man to be buried and resurrected and deified in his own lifetime, that I know of, is the Thracian god Zalmoxis (also called Salmoxis or Gebele'izis), who is described in the mid-5th-century B.C.E. by Herodotus (4.94-96), and also mentioned in Plato's Charmides (156d-158b) in the early-4th-century B.C.E. According to the hostile account of Greek informants, Zalmoxis buried himself alive, telling his followers he would be resurrected in three years, but he merely resided in a hidden dwelling all that time. His inevitable "resurrection" led to his deification, and a religion surrounding him, which preached heavenly immortality for believers, persisted for centuries.

The only case, that I know, of a pre-Christian god actually being crucified and then resurrected is Inanna (also known as Ishtar), a Sumerian goddess whose crucifixion, resurrection and escape from the underworld is told in cuneiform tablets inscribed c. 1500 B.C.E., attesting to a very old tradition."

"Kersey Graves' The World's Sixteen Crucified Savior" criticized by Richard Carrier

5. Jesus and the other God-men are personifications of the Sun
"The reason why all these narratives are so similar, with a godman who is crucified and resurrected, who does miracles and has 12 disciples, is that these stories were based on the movements of the sun through the heavens, an astrotheological development that can be found throughout the planet because the sun and the 12 zodiac signs can be observed around the globe. In other words, Jesus Christ and all the others upon whom this character is predicated are personifications of the sun, and the Gospel fable is merely a rehash of a mythological formula (the "Mythos," as mentioned above) revolving around the movements of the sun through the heavens.
For instance, many of the world's crucified godmen have their traditional birthday on December 25th. This is because the ancients recognized that (from an earthcentric perspective) the sun makes an annual descent southward until December 21st or 22nd, the winter solstice, when it stops moving southerly for three days and then starts to move northward again. During this time, the ancients declared that "God's sun" had "died" for three days and was "born again" on December 25th. The ancients realized quite abundantly that they needed the sun to return every day and that they would be in big trouble if the sun continued to move southward and did not stop and reverse its direction. Thus, these many different cultures celebrated the "sun of God's" birthday on December 25th. The following are the characteristics of the "sun of God":

[BakedDon]

The sun "dies" for three days on December 22nd, the winter solstice, when it stops in its movement south, to be born again or resurrected on December 25th, when it resumes its movement north.
In some areas, the calendar originally began in the constellation of Virgo, and the sun would therefore be "born of a Virgin."
The sun is the "Light of the World."
The sun "cometh on clouds, and every eye shall see him."
The sun rising in the morning is the "Savior of mankind."
The sun wears a corona, "crown of thorns" or halo.
The sun "walks on water."
The sun's "followers," "helpers" or "disciples" are the 12 months and the 12 signs of the zodiac or constellations, through which the sun must pass.
The sun at 12 noon is in the house or temple of the "Most High"; thus, "he" begins "his Father's work" at "age" 12.
The sun enters into each sign of the zodiac at 30°; hence, the "Sun of God" begins his ministry at "age" 30.
The sun is hung on a cross or "crucified," which represents its passing through the equinoxes, the vernal equinox being Easter, at which time it is then resurrected.
"
"Origins of Christianity" by Acharya S

6. Who were the First Christians?
Well whether or not Jesus existed, we know for a fact that Christians exist. By finding out about the earliest forms of Christianity and looking at the earliest Christians, we can see how even if Jesus existed, Christianity as-we-know-it is certainly not how it was meant to be.

“

Ebionite Christians were the true Christians: Aramaic-speakers like Jesus and his apostles, they would have been the Jewish witnesses to Jesus' ministry and preaching. From this starting point, Jesus' teachings spread. They also, however, spread from Saul of Damascus, who renamed himself Paul and who preached an anti-Ebionite version of Christianity for the gentiles, which was much easier to follow and more popular.

[...]

Gnostic Christians: With stories, myths and beliefs that are exactly the same as Christian ones in many of the little details, gnostic beliefs manage to pre-date Christians ones by over 200 years. They understood what the stories of the NT really meant. Jesus didn't really exist, but was a collection of such earlier stories, rewritten in Greek, with Greek names. This is the approach taken by historians such as Freke & Gandy.

Pauline / Roman Christians: When the Roman-backed instance of Christianity went in search of the ancient centres of Christianity, they discovered to their horror that the Ebionites and Gnostics pre-dated them. Their un-Christian answer was to edit verses, burn books, arrest and harass the other poverty-stricken Christians until no opposition was left. The form of Christianity that we have inherited from the Roman Empire is far from what Christianity originally was.

[BakedDon]

Fathers of Christian Gnosticism




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fathers_of_Christian_Gnosticism

[BakedDon]

Mithra: The Pagan Christ

[BakedDon]

Mithra: The Pagan Christ
Mithra or Mitra is even worshipped as Itu (Mitra-Mitu-Itu) in every house of the Hindus in India. Itu (derivative of Mitu or Mitra) is considered as the Vegetation-deity. This Mithra or Mitra (Sun-God) is believed to be a Mediator between God and man, between the Sky and the Earth. It is said that Mithra or [the] Sun took birth in the Cave on December 25th. It is also the belief of the Christian world that Mithra or the Sun-God was born of [a] Virgin. He travelled far and wide. He has twelve satellites, which are taken as the Sun's disciples.... [The Sun's] great festivals are observed in the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox--Christmas and Easter. His symbol is the Lamb....

Swami Prajnanananda

The Persian priests had their legend of the chief of their religion, and they tell us that prodigies announced his birth. He was exposed to all sorts of danger from his infancy, was obliged to fly into Persia, as Christ was obliged to fly into Egypt; he was pursued as him by a king who wished to destroy him; an angel transported him into the skies, from when they said he brought back the book of the law; as Christ, he was tempted by the devil, who made him magnificent promises, if he would but follow him; he was pursued and calumniated, as Christ, by the Pharisees; he performed miracles, in order to confirm his divine mission and the dogmas contained in his book. Such was the history of the god Mithra given by the Persians--squaring exactly with the history of Christ given by his worshippers. Now, Mithra was but a personification of the Sun--and we dare to say, what all intelligent readers will certainly think, that Christ was no more--nay, that the Christian religion is a mere copy of the Persian--a branch of the same allegorical tree.

The Existence of Christ Disproved

Because of its evident relationship to Christianity, special attention needs to be paid to the Persian/Roman religion of Mithraism. The worship of the Indo-Persian god Mithras or Mithra dates back centuries or millennia prior to the common era. The god is found as "Mitra" in the Indian Vedic religion, which is over 3,500 years old, by conservative estimates. When the Iranians separated from their Indian brethren, Mitra became known as "Mithra" or "Mihr," as he is called in Persian. Concerning the ancient unity of the Indian and Iranian peoples, Dr. Haug states (as related by Prasad):

"The relationship of the Avesta language to the most ancient Sanskrit, the so-called Vedic dialect, is as close as that of the different dialects of the Greek language (Aeolic, Ionic, Doric, or Attic) to each other. The languages of the sacred hymns of the Brahmans and of those of the Parsis are only the two dialects of the separate tribes of one and the same nation."

By around 1500 BCE, Mithra worship had made it to the Near East, in the Indian kingdom of the Mitanni, who at that time occupied Assyria. Mithra worship, however, was known also by that time as far west as the Hittite kingdom, only a few hundred miles east of the Mediterranean, as is evidenced by the Hittite-Mitanni tablets found at Bogaz-Ky in what is now Turkey. As Halliday relates:

The history of Mithraism reaches back into the earliest records of the Indo-European language. Documents which belong to the fourteenth century before Christ have been found in the Hittite capital of Boghaz Keui, in which the names of Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and the Heavenly Twins, the Nasatyas, are recorded. Further, the forms, in which the names are given, are not Iranian; and it almost certainly follows that, at the time when they were written, the Iranian and Indian stocks were not yet differentiated.

The Indian Mitra was essentially a sun god, representing the "friendly" aspect of the sun. So too was the Persian derivative Mithra, who was a "benevolent god" and the bestower of health, wealth and food. Mithra also seems to have been looked upon as a sort of Prometheus, for the gift of fire. His worship purified and freed the devotee from sin and disease. Eventually, Mithra became more militant, and he is best known as a warrior. As the Indian scholar Srivastava says:

The militant side of Mithra's personality casually indicated in the Avesta and the Rigveda was fully developed in the later Mithraism.

He is the creator of the world and the sovereign over all. He is the officiating priest.

Like so many gods, Mithra was the light and power behind the sun. In Babylon, Mithra was identified with Shamash, the sun god. Christian authority and biblical commentator Matthew Henry (18th century) stated that "Mithra, the sun," was the god of King Shalmaneser V of Assyria, who in the 8th century BCE conquered Samaria and "carried away the Israelites." Mithra was also the god of Cyrus, conqueror of Babylon, who was considered the Messiah or Christos by Jews during the "Captivity." In fact, Mithra is Bel, the Mesopotamian and Canaanite/ Phoenician sun god, who is likewise Marduk, the Babylonian god who represented both the planet Jupiter and the sun. According to Clement of Alexandria's debate with Appion (Homily VI, ch. X), Mithra is also Apollo.

Mithra's popularity and importance is evident from the prevalence of the name "Mithradates" ("justice of Mithra") among Near Easterners by the seventh century BCE. As Halliday relates:

It is not surprisingto find that Artaxerxes adopted Mithraism as a royal cult. After the downfall of Persia, it remained an important religion in Asia Minor, and the continuous use of the name of the god in the formation of names, like Mithradates, bears testimony to his popularity. The Seleucid successors of Alexander paid worship to the god of light, truth and royalty, whose effulgence was equivalent to the Tuch basilewV, which is but inadequately translated "the Fortune of the King."

This aspect of Mithraism as a royal cult is illustrated by the reliefs from the tomb of King Antiochus [IV] Epiphanes of Commagene, which stood upon a spur of the Taurus overlooking the valley of the Euphrates. Here the king is represented with tiara and sceptre in the act of shaking the right hand of Mithras, whose Persian cap is surrounded by a rayed solar nimbus.

In the 5th century BCE, the Greek historian Herodotus mentioned the "Persian Mitra" (Bk. 1, c. 131):

[BakedDon]

http://www.truthbeknown.com/mithra.htm

[BakedDon]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4555365073003895154&q=pharmacratic&hl=en

[BakedDon]

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=who+wrote+bible&hl=en


http://www.mind-deprogramming.com/


http://www.geocities.com/rmc313/lternativeNews.html
comprehensive review of the strange but true
Oddities and Coincidences

odd; strangeness accidental; planned

Martin Keating, The Final Jihad,and other Coincidences
Devvy kidd

[mathmission]

Hello all. Back from my break. Perhaps I'll find some time to post in here. Nothing much going on this morning. Kind of quiet.

[mathmission]

Lookinf for something to read. Need to get some news papers in here. Maybe I'll check out some news...

[BlondeBandit]

Ok posting because I am bored out of my mind at work.

[BlondeBandit]

Hope everyone had a good Giftmas and got lots of stuff.

[BlondeBandit]

People get so pissy when they dont get their paper.

[BlondeBandit]

Old people suck ass

[BlondeBandit]

Ok back to work I go. Yay for me.

[mathmission]

Hi BB. Good to see you here on the boards!

[mathmission]

Not much going on here with me. Just working the usual day. After this I have a whole bunch of things I might do. Doubt I'll get home any time fast.

[BlondeBandit]

I am going home and taking a nap.

[BlondeBandit]

I hurt my back moving my dresser this weekend to rearange the furniture.

[BlondeBandit]

Stupid fucking me. I think next time I will ask for help

[BlondeBandit]

Bored out of mine but hey at least they gave me good drugs

[BlondeBandit]

Percs good stuff make me loopy

[BlondeBandit]

Don't kill the pain though

[mathmission]

Hmm, Im sorry to hear that!

[mathmission]

this is post number 18,186

[mathmission]

well, my day is going by slowly!

[mathmission]

TODAY'S MYSTERY QUOTE

QUOTE: "Cheerfulness and contentment are great beautifiers
and are famous preservers of youthful looks."

HINT: (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870), pen-name "Boz",
was an English novelist.

[mathmission]

Chanukah, the Festival of Lights, is a celebration of
the victory of the Maccabees and the rededication of the
Jerusalem Temple. It also commemorates the miracle of
the oil that burned for 8 days

[mathmission]

* Chanuka
* Chanukah
* Chanukkah
* Channukah
* Hanukah
* Hannukah
* Hanukkah
* Hanuka
* Hanukka
* Hanaka
* Haneka
* Hanika
* Khanukkah

While in the United States it is most common to use
the spelling "CHANUKAH," rest assured that they are
all the same celebration.

[mathmission]

In addition to the lighting of the menorah, other
traditions include spinning the dreidel, eating oily foods,
and giving gifts and Hanukkah gelt.

[mathmission]

The dreidel, a four-sided top with the Hebrew letters
"nun," "gimel," "hey" and "shin," is spun by family
members to determine how many nuts, raisins, tokens,
or chips are won based on the value assigned to each
letter. Nun is nothing, gimel is all, hey is half, and
shin requires the player to add a token into the pot.

[mathmission]

An important part of the Hannukah celebration is the menorah.
This is a candleholder with eight candles and a shammash
or servant candle. One candle is lit by the shammash for
each of the night of Hannukah.

[mathmission]

Blessing

Recited all eight nights just prior to lighting the candles:

Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, asher
kid'shanu b'mitzvotav v'tzivanu l'hadlik neir (shel)
chanukah.

Translation: "Praised are You, Lord our God, King of the
Universe, Who sanctified us with His commandments and
commanded us to kindle the Hanukkah lights."

[mathmission]

QUOTE: "Cheerfulness and contentment are great beautifiers
and are famous preservers of youthful looks."

ANSWER: Charles Dickens

[mathmission]

TODAY'S MYSTERY QUOTE

QUOTE: "Our friends interpret the world and ourselves to
us, if we take them tenderly and truly."

HINT: Was an American teacher and writer. He is remembered
for founding a short-lived and unconventional school as
well as a utopian community known as "Fruitlands", and for
his association with Transcendentalism.

[mathmission]

Christmas trees have been sold commercially in the
United States since about 1850.

[mathmission]

The best selling trees are Scotch pine, Douglas fir,
Noble fir, Fraser fir, Virginia pine, Balsam fir and
white pine.

[mathmission]

In the United States, there are more than 21, 000
Christmas tree growers.

[mathmission]

In 1979, the National Christmas Tree was not lighted
except for the top ornament. This was done in honor of
the American hostages in Iran.

[mathmission]

In 1963, the National Christmas Tree was not lighted
until December 22nd because of a national 30-day period
of mourning following the assassination of President
Kennedy.

[mathmission]

Every year since 1947, the people of Oslo, Norway have
given a Christmas tree to the city of Westminster,
England. The gift is an expression of good will and
gratitude for Britain's help to Norway during World
War II.

[mathmission]

QUOTE: "Our friends interpret the world and ourselves to
us, if we take them tenderly and truly."

ANSWER: Amos Bronson Alcott

[mathmission]

QUOTE: "Heaven is so far of the mind that were the mind
dissolved -- the site of it by architect could not again
be proved."

HINT: (December 10, 1830 May 15, 1886) Was an American poet.
Though virtually unknown in her lifetime.

[mathmission]

The common abbreviation for Christmas to Xmas is derived
from the Greek alphabet. X is letter Chi, which is the
first letter of Christ's name in the Greek alphabet.

[mathmission]

Oliver Cromwell, in England banned Christmas Carols
between 1649 and 1660. Cromwell thought that Christmas
should be a very solemn day so he banned carols and
parties. The only celebration was by a sermon and a
prayer service.

[mathmission]

In 1836, Alabama is the first state in the USA to declare
Christmas a legal holiday.

[mathmission]

Silent Night was written in 1818, by an Austrian priest
Joseph Mohr. He was told the day before Christmas that
the church organ was broken and would not be prepared in
time for Christmas Eve. He was saddened by this and could
not think of Christmas without music, so he wanted to
write a carol that could be sung by choir to guitar music.
He sat down and wrote three stanzas. Later that night the
people in the little Austrian Church sang "Stille Nacht"
for the first time.

[mathmission]

At midnight on Christmas Eve 1914 firing from the German
trenches suddenly stopped. A German brass band began
playing Christmas carols. Early, Christmas morning, the
German soldiers came out of their trenches, approaching
the allied lines, calling "Merry Christmas". At first the
allied soldiers thought it was a trick, but they soon
climbed out of their trenches and shook hands with the
German soldiers. The truce lasted a few days, and the
men exchanged presents of cigarettes and plum puddings,
sang carols and songs. They even played a game of Soccer.

[mathmission]

The actual gift givers are different in various countries:

Spain and South America: The Three Kings

Italy: La Befana (a kindly old witch)

England: Father Christmas

France: Pere Noel (Father Christmas)

Russia: In some parts - Babouschka (a grandmotherly figure)
Other parts it is Grandfather Frost.

Germany: Christkind (angelic messenger from Jesus)
She is a beautiful fair haired girl with a shining crown
of candles.

Scandinavia: a variety of Christmas gnomes. One is called
Julenisse

Holland: St Nicholas.

[mathmission]

QUOTE: "Heaven is so far of the mind that were the mind
dissolved -- the site of it by architect could not again
be proved."

ANSWER: Emily Dickinson

[tiremonkey2000]

What a boring day at work today

[tiremonkey2000]

Going out for a smoke be back later

[mathmission]

Yeah, not much going on here at all. They've got me working on a presentation at the moment.

[BlondeBandit]

Work is boring here also

[BlondeBandit]

Longggggggggggggg day

[BlondeBandit]

Thank goodness it is almost done

[BlondeBandit]

15 more minutes

[BlondeBandit]

Ok now that I have played my sisters Nintendo Wii I want one

[BlondeBandit]

Ok guys its been grand but I am off to go do some stuff before I leave thsi hell hole i call work

[mathmission]

Take care! Sorry I missed you each time today! Just been back and forth!

[tiremonkey2000]

Well i had to drive my stepsons car home from work today....

[tiremonkey2000]

I usually drive a work truck......

[tiremonkey2000]

But then the transmission developed a problem today.......

[tiremonkey2000]

So i at least had a way home from work, but the only problem is......

[tiremonkey2000]

There's NO HEAT.......

[tiremonkey2000]

Yea i know i live in florida but when the wind picks up and the temp drops you need HEAT

[tiremonkey2000]

Low 47 high 62 to us here thats cold

[tiremonkey2000]

I know, I know i'm a big fat cry baby complaining about the cold....

[tiremonkey2000]

When you guys have 2 feet of snow and ice storms

[tiremonkey2000]

But i can't help it, it feels like i'm still in the hospital, if youve been in the hospital before you know how cold they keep it LOL

[tiremonkey2000]

Well tomorrow morning i go and see my surgeon so he can check out my incision and to generally make sure i'm doing better, and maybe release me to do a little more work like being able to take out the garbage so the wife does'nt have to do it all the time. I will let everyone know how it went when i get back to work and log on.

[BakedDon]

I didnt think you would choke on those sticks still Tiremonkey.

How much you spend on that a week??
Hows that working out for you?

[BakedDon]

Meat and milk from cloning are safe, FDA scientists say
The study, which deems labeling unnecessary, signals the agency's receptiveness to formally approving such food.

LA Times | December 23, 2006

A long-awaited study by federal scientists concludes that meat and milk from cloned animals and their offspring is safe to eat and should be allowed to enter the food supply without any special labeling.

The finding is a strong signal that the Food and Drug Administration will endorse the use of cloning technology for cattle, goats and pigs when it publishes a key safety assessment intended to clear the way for formal approval of the products. That assessment is expected next week.

"All of the studies indicate that the composition of meat and milk from clones is within the compositional ranges of meat and milk consumed in the U.S.," the FDA scientists concluded in a report published in the Jan. 1 issue of the journal Theriogenology, which focuses on animal reproduction.

The study prompted a sharp reaction from some food safety advocates.

The FDA "has been trying to foist this bad science on us for several years," said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Food Safety in Washington. "When there is so much concern among so many Americans, this is really a rush to judgment."

Many ranchers and dairy producers have already cloned animals for meat and milk production, but a voluntary moratorium initiated about five years ago by the FDA has largely kept those animals and their offspring out of grocery stores and restaurants.

However, ranchers say some animals taken to slaughterhouses in the last couple of years have undoubtedly been the offspring of clones. (The clones themselves are too precious to slaughter.)

"There's been lots and lots of them that went into the food chain," said Larry Coleman, who raises Limousin cattle in Charlo, Mont., and has made five clones of his prize bull, named First Down. He estimated that at least 10 of their offspring have wound up on dinner tables.

Since Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1996, agricultural scientists have imagined a time when they could dispense with the uncertainties of conventional breeding and make copies of their best animals.

Cows were cloned in 1998, pigs in 2000.

Consumers greeted the news with a combination of amazement and revulsion. Even experts conceded the technology provoked a certain "yuck" factor.

Cloning involves replacing an egg's nucleus with DNA from a prized animal. A tiny electric shock induces the egg to grow into a genetic copy of the original animal. Scientists often refer to clones as identical twins born at different times.

The FDA sees cloning as a natural extension of livestock reproductive technologies — such as artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization — that have become routine, said spokesman Doug Arbesfeld.

"It's the next step," Arbesfeld said. "We now have the technology to do things in petri dishes and much more inside the cell as opposed to the way breeders have done things for centuries."

Though cloning is expensive — Coleman paid $60,000 to clone First Down — producers have embraced it for the efficiencies it can bring to a farm or ranch. If a particular bull consistently sires strong offspring or a dairy cow is an unusually prolific milk producer, clones can multiply those advantages.

But a study released this month by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology found that 64% of Americans were uncomfortable with animal cloning and 43% believed food from clones was unsafe.

Safety isn't the only concern among consumers. "It's not that they fear if they drink cloned milk, they're going to choke and die," said Carol Tucker Foreman, director of the Food Policy Institute at the Consumer Federation of America in Washington. Foreman said the primary issue was that the food should be labeled so consumers could avoid products derived from clones.

"I should have freedom not to spend my money and not to eat products that offend me," she said. "Some people only drink free-trade coffee. Others only choose organic food. Others choose halal or kosher food. This product, which causes great discomfort to a great number of people, goes on market with no labeling that enables me to make a choice."

The FDA scientists who wrote the paper, Larisa Rudenko and John C. Matheson, concluded there was no basis for labeling the meat and milk products or for treating them differently than other food.

"The U.S. food safety system is designed to screen meat and milk for hazards, regardless of the means by which the animals were derived," they wrote. "There is no science-based reason to apply additional safeguards."

The paper relies on dozens of studies from around the world, many of which examined genetic and health problems in cloned animals and the risks to animals that birth clones.

Though clones are more likely to die in utero or shortly after birth and to have birth defects, animals that are healthy and make it to adolescence face "no additional risk of illness or death," according to the report.

Two of the largest studies were provided by commercial clone producers Cyagra Inc. and ViaGen Inc. They tracked the growth of cloned and conventional animals and found no problems specific to clones. Clones are no more likely to get infections or diseases and "are virtually indistinguishable from their comparators," according to the FDA report.

The scientists also analyzed 13 studies on the composition of meat and milk from clones and their offspring. Vitamins, minerals, proteins, amino acids, fat, water and carbohydrate content were scrutinized, and no "nutritionally or toxicologically important differences" were found, they said.

"It's pretty clear from all of the research that a cloned animal or the offspring of a cloned animal is indistinguishable from an animal that's conventionally bred," said Arbesfeld, the FDA spokesman.

Skeptics remain unconvinced.

Kimbrell, of the Center for Food Safety, said too few animals had been cloned to conclude that they were safe to eat. He also called for more independent research provided by companies that are not in the cloning business.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and six other senators sent a letter last week to Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, whose department includes the FDA, asking that he require a more thorough review of the available scientific data. Given consumer wariness about clones, the senators said, they were particularly concerned that allowing the sale of milk from cloned cows could "result in a 15% drop in purchase of U.S. dairy products."

Others insist there has been plenty of study and are eager for the FDA to proceed with the release of its draft risk assessment. An executive summary was released in 2003, but the full report has been stalled.

"I don't think every cloned animal and the offspring that have been produced are standing in a feedlot someplace waiting for the government to release this risk assessment analysis," said Don Coover, a veterinarian and rancher in Galesburg, Kan. "The industry has moved on."

Coover himself has sold about 30 offspring from a cloned bull. He has even eaten meat from a few of them.

"They taste like every other normal animal out there," he said, "because that's what they are."

[tiremonkey2000]

I didnt think you would choke on those sticks still Tiremonkey.

How much you spend on that a week??
Hows that working out for you?
Lol everything is going good and my insurance covers most everything i spend $30 for every visit unless they do other stuff then it costs me nothing.

[BakedDon]

that isnt bad


thee only friends of mine who choke at 4:20 are on the cancer sticks.
Have you seen Thank you for smoking??

[BakedDon]

Stan Meyer

http://easygrowhouseplants.blogspot.com/2006/12/inventor-of-water-powered-car-murdered.html

This was an amazing video that was just released today on Google Video. This man Stan Meyer's built a car than runs entirely on water. The car gets 100 miles to the gallon, which is just astonishing. Well, what do you think happened to this earth changing inventor.... hmm the man was poisoned and died in 1998. Later that week all of his equipment and the car that he created has stolen and never recovered. Stan Meyer's had spoken repeatedly about how he was being threatened by oil companies, but refused to bow to their wishes of abandoning the project.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2358637173689658380&sourceid=docidfeed&hl=en

[BakedDon]

You can learn more about Stan here or you can just google his name. Please show this video to as many people as you can before it is pulled from google video. It is really sad that the technology is already here in our world we just can't use it, because of our government and oil companies do everything in their power to keep it off of the market. Wake up people before it is too late...

You can check out how oil companies and The White House deceive us right now here, or learn about who killed the electric car here or watch the video below.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6923835633598627078&sourceid=docidfeed&hl=en

[BakedDon]

Sorry we're not in Kansas anymore, these secret societies challenge us in unacustom ways. We have to keep track of these Crooks and Liars (http://www.crooksandliars.com/)

[mathmission]

So, how is everyone doing today?

[riscy]

Fine today - but I have a long dental appointment tomorrow :(

[riscy]

I hate the dentist

[riscy]

or rather I hate going to the dentist

[riscy]

my dentist is great - she is so sweet

[riscy]

but I still hate going to her - she called me tonight to make sure we were on for tomorrow morning

[riscy]

so I might be grumpy tomorrow

[riscy]

Jsut a few more posts

[riscy]

to make my next ton

[riscy]

had a quiet Xmas

[riscy]

and have nothing planned for New Year