theDrahos

Californians are experiencing their third year of drought. Headlines read: “Current California Drought Is Driest In State’s History; Scientists Fear ‘Megadroughts’ On Their Way.” “Global Warming Upped Heat Driving California’s Drought.” Then there are scientific claims such as, “There’s a rapidly growing body of scientific research finding that California is in the midst of its worst drought in over a millennium (and) global warming has made the drought worse.” A Stanford University study said, “Human-caused climate change helped fuel the current California drought.” One news outlet summarized the conclusions of a group of environmentalists this way: “California’s severe and ongoing … Continue reading →

I get a lot of e-mail. Some of it not so nice. I received the following e-mail a few weeks ago with the subject line “I’m Sick Of It”: Your misplaced hatred of the military is disgusting. I think we can agree that the mission of the U.S. military has been misused and abused all too often by just about every POTUS, and THAT is where your hostility should voice itself. Not on the individuals, who are UNDER CONTRACT, and are REQUIRED BY LAW  to go wherever they’re sent. You are obviously an otherwise intelligent and educated man. So GROW UP AND BLAME … Continue reading →

Americans take too many prescription medications. In 2014, Americans filled 4.3 billion prescriptions while spending a record amount of $374 billion for their medications. 2014 spending on prescription drugs hit the highest level since 2001 according to data from the IMS Institute of Healthcare Informatics. I would not have a problem with Americans taking so many prescription medications if the drugs were improving our health. But, that is not what is happening. In every category of the World Health Organization’s ranking of health indicators, we finish last or near last when we are compared to all the major Western countries. … Continue reading →

Last month, we are told, the world enjoyed “its hottest March since records began in 1880”. This year, according to “US government scientists”, already bids to outrank 2014 as “the hottest ever”. The figures from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were based, like all the other three official surface temperature records on which the world’s scientists and politicians rely, on data compiled from a network of weather stations by NOAA’s Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN). But here there is a puzzle. These temperature records are not the only ones with official status. The other two, Remote Sensing … Continue reading →

The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.  (Lord Acton) As reported on Zero Hedge over the weekend, a Swiss pension fund manager calculated that he could save his clients a substantial amount of money by withdrawing cash from his fund’s bank account, which was yielding a negative interest return, and depositing the cash in an insured vault.  Exercising his fiduciary responsibility, he notified his bank of an impending large withdrawal of CHF.  The bank rebuffed the fund manager’s request, informing him: We are … Continue reading →

By Dr. Mercola Nearly 40 percent of Americans report overeating or eating unhealthy foods as a result of stress.1 While it may seem tempting to drown your anxiety in a bowl of ice cream or calm your nerves with a bag of chips… eating junk foods while stressed may be particularly dangerous to your health. Among a group of chronically stressed women (those caring for a spouse or parent with dementia), eating foods high in unhealthy fats and sugar lead to concerning health effects, including a larger waistline, increased abdominal fat, more oxidative damage, and more insulin resistance.2 In this … Continue reading →

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.—President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961 A standing army—something that propelled … Continue reading →

One of the great ironies of American politics is that most politicians who talk about helping the middle class support policies that, by expanding the welfare-warfare state, are harmful to middle-class Americans. Eliminating the welfare-warfare state would benefit middle-class Americans by freeing them from exorbitant federal taxes, including the Federal Reserve’s inflation tax. Politicians serious about helping middle-class Americans should allow individuals to opt out of Social Security and Medicare by not having to pay payroll taxes if they agree to never accept federal retirement or health care benefits. Individuals are quite capable of meeting their own unique retirement and … Continue reading →