AMTV News, Friday July 6th 2012

Topher Morrison

PurpleSerf.com

This is my new morning news show AMTV News in association with Christopher Greene from GreeneWave.com and creator of AMTV.  Make sure to visit the You Tube channel, subscribe, like and of course - share!

Serf Report BETA Test

Topher Morrison

PurpleSerf.com

The following is a pilot of our upcoming news series at Greene Wave TV part of the AMTV Network.  It will be live on You Tube at cgreene34 Monday - Friday by 10a mountain standard starting Thursday July, 5 2012.  Enjoy.

Goodbye NASA, Hello Space Age! To Infinity and Beyond!

Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com


Warp speed to lunar mining, moon bases, heavenly hotels, missions to Mars, leisure, adventure and exploration!

Image Credit: Small Art Works 

The National Aeronautical Space Administration (NASA) has a very special place in the hearts of many Americans, but its time has ended.  Granted, the end of the space shuttle program is by no means the end of NASA itself, like all government agencies it will find a way to persist regardless of deep budget cuts.  From Apollo 11 to the disasters of Challenger and Columbia NASA has had its ups and downs as will the future of private space exploration, however, unlike under NASA the burden of finance, risk and reward will no longer rest so heavily on the shoulders of the American taxpayer.


NASA by any argument enjoyed its fiscal zenith in 1965 (4.4% of federal budget) during the Space Race between the US and the former Soviet Union.  Amidst the Cold War the two superpowers were in a literal boat race for years until Neil Armstrong in the summer of 1969 set foot on the moon famously proclaiming the feat as: "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."  NASA at this time was useful above all for one reason, its ability to demonstrate American political, economic, technological, and ideological superiority.


After the stellar success of Apollo 11 and the corresponding prestige it bestowed on America, NASA was relegated to the very unsexy task of hauling space antennas and assembling the constellation of satellites necessary to power our modern economy.  Recently, instead of an elite cadre of space exploring super scientists NASA has been used as a political football as much as ever and has been referred to as a "$18.9 billion self-esteem program" for its awkward foray into scientific ambassadorship rather than serious space travel.  


It has taken decades for the NASA model and the legion of scientists and private contractors it supports to come to grips with the inevitable walk into obsolescense.  NASA may maintain its mission statement to "pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery, and aeronautics research", but these are responsibilities which have traditionally found more fruition in the private sector.


While there are compelling arguments to keep NASA as the tip of the spear a la Christopher Columbus who "discovered" the new world for Europe on Queen Isabella's dime, others point to the example set by British and Dutch joint-stock companies of the early 17th century which succeeded in actual colonization and famously advancing commercial interests.  These early models of the modern corporation upon hearing of potential riches in the New World garnered the support of many private citizens through the selling of stock on the promise of potentially large dividends versus merely relying on the fickle largesse of kings and queens.


Today many companies are stepping up to the plate in hopes of providing private persons with the same opportunities provided by the Virginia and Plymouth Companies of the early colonial period.  Albeit, nobody is seriously considering colonizing the moon any time soon some may in the near future find themselves on our first satellite longer than the 21 hours and 31 minutes of Apollo 11.  From $200k low earth orbit adventures envisioned by Virgin Galactic and SpaceShipOne to celestial semi trucks designed by Orbital Sciences Corp. and SpaceX to service the International Space Station (ISS) near space is already if not well on its way to being domesticated.

Image Credit: Reported by Gizmodo.com in '08

There are companies entirely self funded by the fortunes of internet moguls to titans of hospitality as in the case of Bigelow Aerospace of North Las Vegas, Nevada.  Already tasting the success of currently orbiting modules and industry accolades this 1998 stellar startup aims to develop space habitats as well as the vehicles necessary to transport their crews and residents.  For a surprising list of private space companies just look here and see what marvels they are coming up with.


Low Earth orbit is just the beginning!  While there may be some who cover this uncertain period as the abdication of US hegemony in space or that the US will be consigned to heavenly hitchhiking relying on the Russians and Chinese I would submit we are embarking on an unbridled adventure.  For those alarmists out there still beating the benighted drum of "peak oil" and "renewable fuels" look no further than our own solar system laden with hydrocrabons and other sources of abundant fuel.

Image Credit: Richard Kurbis and National Space Society

Take the moon for example, lunar strip mining may not be the stuff of science fiction much longer.  The isotope Helium-3 is an amazing substance able to aid in nuclear fusion which cleanly releases vast amounts of energy.  Helium-3 is not only abundant in the atmosphere of Jupiter, but there is purportedly millions if not hundreds of millions of tons lying on the surface of the moon and companies like Shackelton Energy Co., a subsidiary of Stone Aerospace aims at raising billions of dollars in order to extract and deliver this precious possibility to Earth.  Other fuels such as plutonium-238 while rare on earth are also abundant on the moon and will be able to power everything from space stations to lunar rovers.


According to Jill Stuart, fellow in global politics of the London School of Economics' Department of Government, since 'the international community sort of insists that [space travel] be tied to a state', and given the fact that 'governments control most access to space through their ownership of most launch pads' the US government will continue to be able to assert a measurable authority over its citizens' access to space.  NASA therefore will no doubt be here for posterity, but it will most likely transform into something a kin to the FAA of space, a bureaucracy that will manage, certify, and license America's appetite for the cosmos.


Regardless, let the real Space Race begin!

Breitbart: Scandal Invites Corruption

Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com

While attending the progressive Netroots Nation event Andrew Breitbart was the non-victim in an obvious attempt at a gotcha moment to be spread all over the internet.  Breitbart counters impressively, but not as you would think.  In a rare incidence the conservative attack dog actually offers a sound opinion instead of merely reacting to liberal bias evidenced in the fact he blatantly quells this ostensible progressive vlogger.



Breitbart brings up a wonderful point thereby adding a more interesting and teachable dimension to what would otherwise be just another standard political sex scandal.  What if other potential scandals were able to be hijacked before they were exposed by the media and then used against a politician for a nefarious, if not, merely contemptible reasons?  Do you think for a moment this has no potential or doesn't happen at all in American politics?

This is a tangible reason why our elected representatives need to meet the highest moral standard, at least while they're in office, in order to secure our national business.  Sure, Anthony Weiner broke no laws (as far as we know) and he technically doesn't have to leave office, but his lavishness and disregard for basic standards leaves him and others who engage in similar actions vulnerable.  Anthony Weiner did the best thing for himself, his family, his party, and the American Republic by leaving.  This subject has sucked enough air out of a room better dedicated to other matters.

Medical Marijuana, Big Pharma Style

Daily Kos
Gr33ner Pastures
June 6th, 2011

The federal government does support the marijuana industry, just not the one you think.

The East Bay Express reported last week that the DEA has been quietly giving out licenses for large-scale marijuana growing operations to a number of unnamed companies. But these actions have nothing to do with the real medical marijuana industry, which is still a favorite target for DEA persecution; instead they are designed to enable a total coup by the pharmaceutical industry. Until now, the belief was that there was only one DEA licensed and operated marijuana farm which existed mainly to provide research material. However, in a letter to the East Bay Express, the DEA revealed that:

“there are 64 active DEA registrations (reflecting 55 companies) for manufacturers that have listed drug code 7370 (THC, Delta-8 THC, Delta-9 THC, dronabinol and others) and drug code 7371 (TETRAHYDROCANNABINOL, ORGANIC) on their DEA record.”

In other words, 55 companies have active licenses for producing organic THC; which means growing marijuana.

Whether these companies have already began growing marijuana or not is irrelevant; the mere fact that the DEA can hand out growing licenses while continuing to raid state-approved growers and dispensaries is a testament to the government’s unlimited capacity for hypocrisy. It is also a sign of how the pharmaceutical industry has co-opted the DEA and the FDA, turning government agencies into its lackeys. Even as the Department of Justice intensifies its attacks on legitimate medical marijuana, the pharmaceutical industry demands to be given a way to profit from cannabis. Now that the patent for the (reportedly mediocre) THC pill Marinol has expired and GW Pharmaceuticals’ Sativex, a cannabis-based oral spray, is on track for U.S. approval, pharmaceutical companies are getting ready to cash in, and they are using the government to keep the competition at bay.

With the rapidly growing list of medical conditions treatable with marijuana making the plant’s medicinal properties almost impossible to deny (unless you are the DEA of course) the pharmaceutical industry figured it needed to get in on the action. This presented a conundrum: to make halfway decent pills, organic cannabinoids are needed, and for that marijuana would have to be federally rescheduled. However, if that happened, how could the drug companies maintain a ruthless monopoly on this plant? The result is a plan so devoid of logic or consistency it would get laughed out of Wonderland: to expand the less restrictive Schedule III category of drugs so that that it can include what the DEA calls “naturally derived or synthetically produced dronabinol.” Dronabinol is Marinol, which is synthetic THC.

Thus under this system a marijuana plant is illegal, but commercial organic THC is officially just a dronabinol analogue. Never mind that both are the same thing, and that such “dronabinol analogues” can be gathered from the still illegal marijuana plant; the alchemy of Big Pharma turns the illegal into business gold. Ironically enough, actual synthetic marijuana that the industry doesn’t have much of a use for, such as the JWH-018 or JWH-073 used in herbal blends like Spice or K2, has been aggressively pursued and banned by the DEA. There really is no overstating the depth of lunacy required for this to make sense to anyone; luckily for the pharmaceutical industry, our government can always be counted on to toss sanity out the window for the right price.

The Pharmaceutical lobby is the biggest lobby in America, spending over 240 million dollars in 2010 alone. With that kind of money going towards supporting politicians on both sides of the aisle, the industry has reached the point where it can get government agencies to carry water for it in even the most outrageous of situations. Only last year, GlaxoSmithKline used the FDA to keep a diabetes drug, Avandia, on the market despite a Senate committee report showing that not only was it dangerous, but that GSX knew this and had colluded with the FDA to hide it. Even the revelation that a member of the FDA advisory panel making the decision was a paid speaker for GSX failed to have any effect.

The government has also been proactive in its service to the pharmaceutical industry, most recently laying the groundwork for a federal center for drug research: The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. The center will be operated under the National Institutes of Health, an agency with a history of conflict of interest issues, whose head recently resigned to join the board of directors at a pharmaceutical company. Drugs developed by this institution will be turned over to private drug companies, effectively turning it into a taxpayer funded R&D arm for the pharmaceutical Industry.

Given this very special relationship, is it any wonder that the government is willing to bend over backwards to take medical marijuana away from patients and hand it over to the drug companies wholesale? The key to winning this battle is the growth of the legitimate medical marijuana industry made up of dispensaries, doctors, growers, etc. As more states, businesses and patients put their weight and wealth on the side of real medical marijuana, they are building a wall to keep out the big drug companies. Economic and political power can stall the government and give the issue more time to mature into a powerful civil rights movement that will ultimately win the day in court.

Ex CIA Officer Outlines Libya Fraud on CNN

The American Dream
April 4, 2011

Every once in a while, establishment control of the mainstream media cracks for a moment.  In an effort to achieve higher ratings, mainstream news programs will invite guests on that promise to be “interesting”, but then they will say something that is not part of the script and the entire system will go into a state of chaos for a moment. One example of this happened recently when two CNN “infobabes” interviewed former CIA officer Michael Scheuer about the situation on the ground in Libya. They asked Scheuer some questions regarding the role of the CIA in Libya, but the interview rapidly moved in some directions that the “infobabes” were not anticipating.  Instead of sticking to the “Republican” or the “Democrat” script, Scheuer ripped both parties and he detailed many of the reasons why we should have never gone into Libya at all.

The “infobabes” grew increasingly uncomfortable as Scheuer described how large numbers of the resistance fighters in Libya have fought against U.S. troops in the Balkans, in Afghanistan and in Iraq.  They did not seem pleased at all when Scheuer declared that the civil war in Libya is “none of our business” and that to the rest of the world this conflict looks like “Americans killing Muslims for oil” all over again.

The funniest part of the interview was when Scheuer accused one of the “infobabes” of “carrying the water for Mr. Obama”.  After that statement, the female anchor that Scheuer was addressing was visibly flustered and quickly went to a commercial.

Video of this CNN interview with Michael Scheuer is posted below.  This is a video that should be shared with everyone you know….

Wasn’t that hilarious?

When a big time establishment news network such as CNN goes “off script” it can be a beautiful thing to watch.

Of course Scheuer was exactly right.  We never should have gotten involved in the civil war in Libya.  It was none of our business.  When the rebels picked up arms and started shooting at government forces, they should not have been surprised when Gadhafi’s forces started shooting back.

Over the past few decades, there have been some very real genocides happening all over Africa, but the U.S. never seemed to care about any of those.

But now the mainstream media has been trying really hard to spin the civil war in Libya into a “great humanitarian crisis”.

Well, that might fool some of the American people, but as Scheuer aptly pointed out, the rest of the world sees this as just another U.S. war in the Middle East for oil (and banking).

But instead of getting a balanced view of the war in Libya, most of the time the corporate media has focused on an endless parade of establishment Republicans and establishment Democrats that fully endorse the war.  Of course the Republicans all try to score some political points by questioning how Obama is going about doing things, but in the end most Republicans and most Democrats are fully on board with what is going on in Libya.

Nearly everyone in the mainstream media seems to be fully on board with this war as well.

Why?

Well, because virtually all of the major media outlets are owned by the establishment, and the establishment wants this war.

Have you ever noticed that the news seems to have the same “flavor” no matter what channel you turn to?

There is a very good reason for that.

In an article that I previously authoried entitled “Who Owns The Media?“, I explained that six incredibly dominant corporations control most of the news that we see today….

Back in 1983, approximately 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the United States.  Today, ownership of the news media has been concentrated in the hands of just six incredibly powerful media corporations.  These corporate behemoths control most of what we watch, hear and read every single day.  They own television networks, cable channels, movie studios, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, music labels and even many of our favorite websites. Sadly, most Americans don’t even stop to think about who is feeding them the endless hours of news and entertainment that they constantly ingest.  Most Americans don’t really seem to care about who owns the media.  But they should.  The truth is that each of us is deeply influenced by the messages that are constantly being pounded into our heads by the mainstream media.  The average American watches 153 hours of television a month.  In fact, most Americans begin to feel physically uncomfortable if they go too long without watching or listening to something.  Sadly, most Americans have become absolutely addicted to news and entertainment and the ownership of all that news and entertainment that we crave is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands each year.  The six corporations that collectively control U.S. media today are Time Warner, Walt Disney, Viacom, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., CBS Corporation and NBC Universal.  Together, the “big six” absolutely dominate news and entertainment in the United States.

Read the full article posted at End of the American Dream.