Day: April 4, 2014

Time To Replace MSM

An Op-Ed from the desk of IST’s managing editor…..

For many years I have been bitching about the Mainstream Media (MSM)……it lost all its objectivity when in became an arm of a corporation’s entertainment division…..it is NO longer about informing the viewer more like up the ratings at any cost…….

We all have our news sources….for me it is a site of Breaking News which is updated every 5 minutes or so with news from many different sources…..the on air media has become an arm of the propaganda machine of political parties and ideologies……

Let’s look at a recent news item….missing flight from Malaysia…….there has been NO new information since the original report of it disappearing……and yet a month in and we are still getting updates of NOTHING!

Then some of the pressure was taken off the channels when the mountain slid down on the tiny town of Oso, Washington….and we set off reporting the none news items……endless reporting of NO news…….

Finally that story got a break when a guy went on a shooting spree at Ft. Hood Texas……and now we are talking to everyone that ever saw this guy….even the pizza delivery guy from two nights before….it is not news now…once the breaking news was reported it was over….then the media set about sensationalizing the act…….It will be relentless until another “breaking news” pushes it off the radar…….

This newest story is making me sick……okay the newest guy bought his gun from the same store that the previous Ft. Hood shooter got his…….full disclosure….I admit that I once walked past this store and looked in…..according to the media that makes me a ticking time bomb…….oh well……

The media has missed many worthy stories in the blind pursuit of the sensational……,and because they determine what is important….the American people are becoming less and less informed……..and because they are less informed our society is suffering….but then that is the key to what the media is actually doing……..

An ignorant society is easy to manipulate………and YOU are letting them get away with it…….

CSA And CWs

College of Political Knowledge

Subject:  American History

Today is learn your American history day…….a few little known facts and events than most of our textbooks teach…….

Back about a year go Syria used WMDs, chemical weapons, against its people and the rebels…….and of course the world went crazy screaming all sorts of one lners and calling for the Assad admin to be charged with genocide or something equally horrendous…..

Chemical weapons (CWs) have been used in recent history….WW1 comes to  mind with its Muster gas….Saddam gassing the Kurds as a punishment for the rebellion against his authority…

Let me step back for a moment….I live in the South and they are still proud of their actions in the American Civil war…..to many the South did NO wrong…..the South was just standing up for its rights….so on and so on………

I know….just what the Hell does that have to do with the use of CWs, right?

Bear with me and I will connect the dots for you………..

The US Civil War foreshadowed World War I in important ways—like trench warfare, new technologies, and violence against civilians—but few of us know about its forays into chemical warfare, the New York Times reports. For one thing, leaders on both sides saw the importance of disease before scientists fully knew how germs worked. Union leaders blockaded Southern ports, cutting off medical supplies and widening the spread of malaria. Meanwhile, Southerners planned to send clothing from yellow-fever patients to Union units, or ship dead patients to Union-occupied New Orleans. Neither plan went into action, but other innovations arose:

  • A Southern sympathizer in Kentucky planned to lace clothing with smallpox and sell it to Union men in Washington; one Union lieutenant may have gotten sick that way.
  • Confederate troops retreating from Vicksburg drove animals into ponds and shot them, apparently to contaminate drinking water.
  • Union troops employed various kinds of Greek fire—incendiary mixes that gave off noxious fumes and sometimes floated on water. Long-range shells with incendiary compounds were used to limited effect.
  • Confederates had various chemical-weapon plans, such as raiding the Monitor ironclad with chloroform, or firing a shell with chemical agents, but neither were used.

For more on the Civil War, Business & Heritage Clarksville reports on a new documentary series, Civil War: The Untold Story, which looks at the Western theater and little-known roles played by African Americans.

There are always events and facts that are left out of the story……personally, I want to know it all……I do not care whether it is good or bad….all the facts need to be presented and in doing so….taught.

I hope I have given you a new insight into history……for…THAT IS WHY I AM HERE!

 

 

What Dunnit?

College of Political Knowledge

Subject”  American History

Let us step into IST’s version of the “way Back” machine…….if you remember your American history from your school days…..you will recall that our 9th president William Henry Harrison…..he is most noted for the president that spent the least amount of time as president……he took office in March of 1841 and died in April 1841….he was president of the United States for one month.

The story goes that he gave a very long speech in very cold weather and was not dressed warmly….he caught pneumonia and died a month later……does that ring a bell?

There has been a new revelation on the cause of death for our 9th president……

The history books tell us that William Henry Harrison died just a month after taking office in 1841 because he caught pneumonia while delivering a too-long inaugural address in lousy weather. Now, modern epidemiology is revising the diagnosis. In the New York Times, Jane McHugh and Philip Mackowiak write that Harrison’s real killer seems to be a gastrointestinal illness called enteric fever. And instead of blaming the inauguration ceremony, we can instead blame a marshy area of raw sewage near the White House.

In the days before DC had a sewer system, sewage stagnated near the White House, just blocks from its water supply. Harrison likely picked up an infection, which was worsened by the standard treatments of the day, they explain. While Harrison’s doctor didn’t bleed the president, he did administer opium, which would have made it difficult for Harrison’s intestine to rid itself of pathogens. Harrison probably got an enema, too, which could have helped the bacteria spread to the bloodstream. “As he lay dying, Harrison had a sinking pulse and cold, blue extremities, two classic manifestations of septic shock,” write McHugh and Mackowiak in diagnosing enteric fever. The pneumonia played a secondary role. Click for their full post.

See there is always another side to the story…..now that makes me wonder about John Wilkes Booth……there is a conspiracy that he did not die in that barn at the hands of the Union army……but that is for another day…

Class dismissed……read chapters 12 through 15 for next session…..

Will US Ever Have A Gay President?

College of Political Knowledge

Subject:  American History

I have caught my readers up on the international situations that need to be watched and now I would like to educate them with some historical events……..Almost every American knows the Constitution, well the parts that interest them, but what do they know about our presidents especially some of the earlier ones?

America has elected its first black president and to some he is a non-American citizen, a Muslim and even gay…….beyond that does anyone think that this country will ever elect a gay person as president?

That may be a trick question.  There is a possibility that we have already done so……and his name was James Buchanan.

Some historians believe that he was gay….he was never married and shared an apartment with another man…….an Alabama senator named William Rufus King……………several historians who believe that James Buchanan, who served from 1857 to 1861, was in fact our first gay president. He is the only president to have remained a bachelor throughout his life. (His niece, Harriet Lane, handled the duties of First Lady during his term in office.) He shared a home with William Rufus King, an Alabama Senator and Vice President under Buchanan’s predecessor, Franklin Pierce. Their relationship was reportedly so close that Andrew Jackson and other contemporaries referred to them as ”Miss Nancy” and “Aunt Fancy”.

King was assigned to Paris in 1844 and after his departure Buchanan wrote a letter to a friend about how he felt without King near by…….

“I am now ‘solitary and alone,’ having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection.”

Was Buchanan gay?  There are report that he was engaged at one point and that he wooed several ladies but none ever corralled him in wedlock…….we may never know for sure…that is until someone learns how to use a time machine…….it will be almost impossible to be certain for Buchanan had all his correspondence destroyed at his death…..losing all that info to the flames of time……..