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American Farmland Trust: Order the No Farms No Food Promotional Package to Spread the Word

American Farmland Trust: Order the No Farms No Food Promotional Package to Spread the Word

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Speech of Ron Paul, Introducing the Parental Consent Act

http://www.naturalnews.com/026187.html

(NaturalNews) Rep. Ron Paul has introduced the Parental Consent Act to protect families from mandatory "mental health screening" -- a thinly-veiled attempt by Big Pharma to drug expectant mothers and new moms with dangerous psychiatric drugs.

Here's the full text of the speech given by Ron Paul in the House of Representatives, April 30, 2009:

Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce the Parental Consent Act. This bill forbids Federal funds from being used for any universal or mandatory mental-health screening of students without the express, written, voluntary, informed consent of their parents or legal guardians. This bill protects the fundamental right of parents to direct and control the upbringing and education of their children.

The New Freedom Commission on Mental Health has recommended that the federal and state governments work toward the implementation of a comprehensive system of mental-health screening for all Americans. The commission recommends that universal or mandatory mental-health screening first be implemented in public schools as a prelude to expanding it to the general public. However, neither the commission's report nor any related mental-health screening proposal requires parental consent before a child is subjected to mental-health screening. Federally-funded universal or mandatory mental-health screening in schools without parental consent could lead to labeling more children as "ADD" or "hyperactive" and thus force more children to take psychotropic drugs, such as Ritalin, against their parents' wishes.

Already, too many children are suffering from being prescribed psychotropic drugs for nothing more than children's typical rambunctious behavior. According to Medco Health Solutions, more than 2.2 million children are receiving more than one psychotropic drug at one time. In fact, according to Medico Trends, in 2003, total spending on psychiatric drugs for children exceeded spending on antibiotics or asthma medication.

Many children have suffered harmful side effects from using psychotropic drugs. Some of the possible side effects include mania, violence, dependence, and weight gain. Yet, parents are already being threatened with child abuse charges if they resist efforts to drug their children. Imagine how much easier it will be to drug children against their parents' wishes if a federally-funded mental-health screener makes the recommendation.

Universal or mandatory mental-health screening could also provide a justification for stigmatizing children from families that support traditional values. Even the authors of mental-health diagnosis manuals admit that mental-health diagnoses are subjective and based on social constructions. Therefore, it is all too easy for a psychiatrist to label a person's disagreement with the psychiatrist's political beliefs a mental disorder. For example, a federally-funded school violence prevention program lists "intolerance" as a mental problem that may lead to school violence. Because "intolerance" is often a code word for believing in traditional values, children who share their parents' values could be labeled as having mental problems and a risk of causing violence. If the mandatory mental-health screening program applies to adults, everyone who believes in traditional values could have his or her beliefs stigmatized as a sign of a mental disorder. Taxpayer dollars should not support programs that may label those who adhere to traditional values as having a "mental disorder."

Stop Forced Psychiatric Testing -- "TeenScreen"

Part 4: 04/22/2009 Freedom Watch w/ Napolitano, Shep Smith, Ron Paul, Jim Bovard, and more

RFID - Real ID - National I.D. - Mark Of The Beast

The proliferation of space warfare technology

http://thebulletin.org/web-edition/features/the-proliferation-of-space-warfare-technology


The proliferation of space warfare technology
By Matthew Hoey | 11 December 2008


Article Highlights

* Given how easily information can spread about the globe today, it's inevitable that space warfare technology will proliferate.
* And once one country sets its sights on space domination, other countries are sure to follow, spurring a second arms race of sorts.
* That's why the international community and U.S. policy makers need to begin discussing the ramifications of pursuing military space immediately.


The November 2007 National Nano Engineering conference in Boston on advanced nanotechnology applications for commercial and military space systems included dozens of speakers and presentations on cutting-edge space applications. Hundreds of people attended, with nearly every seat in the hotel's grand ballroom filled for the first session. The list of invited speakers included researchers from the Naval Research Laboratory; the National Institute of Standards and Technology; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; the national laboratories; international universities; and private space systems developers. Each explained in detail the recent advancements made in their respective fields.

Countless opportunities unfolded in all directions--sources for funding, publicity, potential collaborators--and everyone raced around to seize the moment. At the National Reconnaissance Office table there were free pencils and coasters, while nearby, university researchers mingled with officials from the defense industry and foreign nationals on how to best harden satellites against electromagnetic interference using the latest progress in nanomaterials.

When information can be transferred across the globe so easily and instantaneously, one must ask if it's possible for a nation to dominate a given field of technology. And when NASA and U.S. government research laboratories continue to work together with emerging smaller space developers, universities, and researchers throughout the world, can one remain assured that sensitive technologies developed in the United States will remain here?

To answer these questions, we need to look at the impact of the delineation between academic versus military research within a global economy. Examples of the overlap of military and academic research easily can be observed in conferences and invited talks. But in the future, the lines that separate military and civilian technologies will become even more blurred as broad-based collaborations continue to develop multi-use systems with both peaceful commercial and destructive military applications. This would result in the further inability of the arms control community to classify and define space systems into their respective categories and thus, develop meaningful arms control treaties. Furthermore, as peaceful scientific applications progress in a global fashion, private space system developers have the benefits of accessing both domestic and foreign markets, undermining U.S. national space security plans and the pursuit of military space dominance.

U.S. policy makers might respond to these developments by encouraging a climate of secrecy to prevent security vulnerabilities. But if such a policy is pursued, companies developing technologies for commercial applications in the United States will suffocate in isolation, while those developing applications in support of military space dominance will continue to flourish. Rival nations will then likely take reciprocal actions, which would further claims by U.S. war planners that other spacefaring nations are working toward the development of space warfare systems. In this type of scenario--and in the absence of a well-defined arms control treaty--space warfare technology proliferation and espionage would continue to grow globally and the existing military space race would accelerate.

In addition, the realignment of the global economy will continue to shift the international space power balance in the future, as international players such as India and China will continue to effectively challenge U.S. hegemony in space. For nations that possess the wealth, infrastructure, and knowledge to develop space warfare technologies, their ability to succeed will only require the will or the need to do so. The "brain drain" that hindered the space programs of many rival nations in decades past weighs less on them today. Plus, the stagnancy of foreign economies that resulted in a flood of scientific minds to the United States is ebbing; many expatriates are now returning home to profitable jobs in booming domestic defense and space industries.

For its part, the United States continues to strive for technologies that will keep its soldiers safe, support bloodless wars, and allow war to be waged from air-conditioned control rooms--all of which can be achieved only if Washington has a dominant role in the development of advanced technologies that allow for the evolution of current space capabilities. Technologies such as nanotechnology, robotics, and artificial intelligence PDF are seen as the leading candidates for facilitating such an evolution. A new U.S. Air Force television ad campaign that shows young men and women combating cyber warfare from the comfort of a computer terminal makes this evident. Such images serve as a tool to win over public opinion, enabling national consensus in favor of the weaponization of space.

Will a similar sentiment resonate with the international community? Is it possible that in the future we will witness the international community embrace and employ nondestructive methods to disrupt or degrade the space systems of hostile nations in support of peacekeeping and casualty reductions? And once the space warfare threshold is crossed, will a nation on the verge of defeat be left with no choice but to attack the space assets that are decimating its forces or the ground stations that are critical to a space-based weapons functionality and operational integrity?

There is reality to consider. In the coming years, mastery of space systems will be the prerequisite to ensuring victory in warfare, likely forcing even the most reluctant nations to pursue advanced military space applications. Obviously then, significant efforts toward protecting and attacking critical military space systems will be pursued as well. Over time, this also will pertain to commercial systems, as the societal role of commercial space assets and the economic value of the services they provide will increase exponentially. It is this increased economic value of space assets--combined with affordability factors in the space systems industry--that make the cost-benefit ratio of protecting commercial systems a worthwhile investment.

It follows that as reliance on space for economic growth continues, the range of possible deterrents and responses to a space systems attack will become increasingly severe and include the possible use of nuclear weapons. Full-scale attacks on space systems will be capable of delivering catastrophic effects--even limited acts of space warfare could result in rapid conflict and light-speed escalation scenarios.

It is a societal constant spanning the history of warfare that military technology can remain a secret for only so long. From the rocket to the hydrogen bomb, awesome technological power has inevitably proliferated. And it can be expected that a nation in possession of a key technological advantage wouldn't be willing to relinquish its advantage simply for the cause of international peace. Therefore, an international consensus must be reached between the United States and other leaders in nanotechnology, robotics, and artificial intelligence to reduce future tension and potential conflict. We also could begin international discussions to immediately ban or regulate space-warfare enabling technologies.

If meaningful international discussions fail, advanced space warfare systems will be delivered to the war planners of multiple countries and non-state actors with disastrous consequences for future generations. The proliferation processes will continue to accelerate, creating entirely new markets for the defense industry to exploit and further exacerbating an already volatile international security environment. In anticipation of such an outcome, it's important for U.S. policy makers and members of the country's scientific community to begin discussing the societal, ethical, and security ramifications of racing to pursue military space technologies that incorporate these fields.