The thing is…I did an informal poll of friends and family and they all agree that it seems like a relatively recent thing.  Sure enough, I found an article on this subject that confirms it:

“A large number of girls are reaching puberty before the age of 10, much earlier than their previous generations, reveals a recent study conducted by Danish scientists.”

So what is it about “modern life” that is leading our girls to womanhood before their time?  Well, this University of Bristol study, published in the latest issue of Public Health Nutrition, says the culprit is meat: “girls who ate more meat and protein at the ages of 3 and 7 were more likely to have started menstruating by the age of 12 1/2 years. The early onset of puberty puts women at greater risk of developing diseases including breast cancer, ovarian cancer and heart disease.”

So you can see that this is more serious than having to purchase a bra a few years too early.  Now even though this article chooses not draw any conclusions as to what’s behind this meat connection. I’m going to go ahead and put it out there….ummm, can you say HORMONES?

You don’t have to have seen FOOD INC to have inkling that there are more hormones in our meat than 30 years ago. Every industry is trying to get more ROI, more bang for their buck.  Well, for the meat industry, that means getting animals to mature faster and bigger than can occur naturally. And, unfortunately, it looks like that’s exactly what is happening to our kids.

I’m not trying to use this blog as a soapbox…there’s plenty of that going on without my input.  I’m pointing out that this just adds to the mountain of evidence we have of people looking at their food more critically than ever before.

“You are what you eat” is not just a cutesy phrase these days.  Are you prepared for your labels, ingredients and products to really be scrutinized?

From the Daily Mail:

A new online “game” called Internet Eyes is about to launch, offering players a chance to earn money by spying on people through closed-circuit television cameras and reporting them to the police – for real.

With the risk of sounding a bit paranoid, it should be noted,  that whether we realize it or not, we are surrounded by CCTV cameras nearly every hour of the day. CCTV cameras are everywhere, at the convenience store, the traffic light, at our job and possibly in our own home.  However, most of these cameras go unmonitored. If and when any crime actually takes  place,  the footage is most often viewed after the fact, too late for any intervention. This is exactly what “Internet Eyes” seeks to remedy.

Like a neighborhood watch on steroids, “Internet Eyes” would give players access to millions of private and possibly even public cameras. Cash awards will await vigilant souls who are able to spot crimes through their perpetual virtual stakeout.

“This could turn out to be the best crime prevention weapon there’s ever been,”Inventor Morgan said. “I wanted to combine the serious business of stopping crime with the incentive of winning money.”

Of course this sounds good in concept, but, just how comfortable are we with the idea of thousands of strangers being able to monitor us, our children, our families without any guarantee of their good intentions. Beyond the obvious threat from potential stalkers there is also the very real possibility that criminals could indeed use this very same technology to find blind spots in stores and neighborhoods and give them the ability to track an individual’s daily movements.

Engineers and architects have long known that the walls that protect us are the same walls that confine us. For every measure of security we add we lose a measure of freedom or privacy. In this age of information the notion of public and private is indeed blurred, but we should give long thought to how much privacy we are willing to sacrifice to fill innate need for security. I am not at all certain that Internet Eyes is a wise or even responsible use of said technology. But it does make for an Interesting debate, and a good question to ponder is… at what point does security give way to insecurity? Or,  at what point do we begin to fear the very devices which were constructed to ensure our safety?

It is a scary prospect to think that maybe this Heart Monitor would be used down the road for insurance reasons or a review for qualifications of a high stress job. What if things were like that now? I had a possible heart murmur in Eighth Grade, I can’t possibly be covered for insurance; it’s a pre-existing condition after all.

On the other hand, what if it is simply there for health class? It would definitely make the data gathering simpler for the students. Either way it’s still creepy. I will not be signing my kid up for the Brave-New-Heart-Monitoring-World. Now if they were to introduce a micro-robotics-and-cybernetics-class-for-future-cyberpunks, I would be first in line.

A denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) or distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack) is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users. Although the means to carry out, motives for, and targets of a DoS attack may vary, it generally consists of the concerted efforts of a person or people to prevent an Internet site or service from functioning efficiently or at all, temporarily or indefinitely. Perpetrators of DoS attacks typically target sites or services hosted on high-profile web servers such as banks, credit card payment gateways, and even root nameservers.  *closes wiki page*

I recently saw first hand the hassles a DDoS attack can cause when the Melbourne International Film Festival’s site was attacked by Chinese groups who were angry over the screening of a certain film.

A documentary called “Web Warriors” I just watched “offers an unprecedented glimpse into the world’s newest and most vulnerable frontier: cyberspace. The film takes us into the world of hackers like Mafia Boy – a 15-year-old high school student who rose to infamy by causing millions of dollars in damage after single-handedly shutting down internet giants – including Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, Dell, eTrade, and CNN.” The film also delves into the underground world of “hired gun” hackers who hunt down the source of a computer virus with the hopes of collecting the $250,000 reward being offered by Microsoft.

SOOOOOO, these targets are usually huge corporations -why should you care?  Well, while hacking and cyber terrorism seems like it’s another league to our daily internet use or relatively humble company websites- if you watch the doco or read this thought about Govt. censoring the web (put into Neemee™ by Byron) you might just think again.  Heck, if you’re a Christian, you’ve become a target -according to the latest 4-chan prank.

However, it’s what we don’t know about that is the really spooky stuff…
“Computer viruses now have the ability to control millions of computers unbeknownst to their owners, creating massive illegal computer networks known as ‘Botnets’. These ‘Botnets’ are being put to illicit uses including identity theft and cyber extortion. A massive cyber attack against Estonia in 2007 virtually shut down the country. Web Warriors offers rare interviews with cyber sleuths from the FBI, the Pentagon, NATO, and the American Department of Homeland Security who explain how cyberspace has become the latest battle ground between nation states, and how terrorist groups are already plotting their next move.”

Remember the Shielding™ wave warns us: “It’s not paranoia if something is really out to get you.”™

Blackwater has reportedly created a CIA like intelligence division called, Total Intelligence Solutions, that will sell it’s information to the highest bidder.

Jeremy Schahill, author of the book, “ Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army,” expresses serious concern in light of this new development

“They’re marketing their services to not only foreign governments, but to Fortune 500 corporations,” says Schahill.

It is hard to tell whether this is a scare tactic to drum up publicity for the re-release of his book, or the stuff of an Orwellian nightmare.

After a little investigation we found that this is indeed a new wing of Blackwater worldwide.

Their website boasts of their wealth of CIA and private intelligence expertise:

“Ambassador Black leads an experienced and diverse team of former U.S. Government and private sector professionals that includes prior service in the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, Department of State, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Drug Enforcement Administration, as well as widely-known private-sector leaders in the fields of information security, cyber investigations, and risk management”

Corporate espionage is nothing new, but the marketing of such services could cause major shifts in how business and war is conducted in the 21^st century. There certainly is reason to fear that this type of agency could seriously undermine the security interests of corporate and governmental institutions.

Will Ex CIA operatives and special forces operators be put to work gathering dirt on CEO’s , leaking proprietary information, sabotaging projects, recruiting insiders? It’s possible. Is this just conspiracy theory and paranoia? Maybe, but, as the human truth for the Shielding wave expresses, ”It is not paranoia if it is out to get you,” and soon, it may be.

In the 2004 flick The Day After Tomorrow, Hollywood gave us the worst case scenario of the possible effects of global warming and climate change, showering us with natural disasters to the tune of worldwide hurricanes, tornadoes, below freezing temperatures and floods. Now most of us aren’t worried about that kind of catastrophic scenario occurring, but there’s little doubt that the question of “if” has been overtaken with “how much” and “how soon” (not to mention the myriad of questions regarding the extent of man’s personal impact on the environment and role controlling it).

Artists in Bristol, England are now exploring those questions. Calling it the Watermarks Project,

Flood level marks are projected on to the sides of buildings, showing how high water levels could potentially rise as the sea inundates the central, low lying areas of Bristol. By displaying these levels in real space, the project aims to help us to imagine the depth and extent of this potential future flooding – allowing us to measure them against ourselves in familiar environments. -via

The human truth for Shielding say’s it’s not paranoia if something is really out to get you, highlighting those life evidence pieces that give us a sense of protection from unlikely fears. Exploring how Bristol’s landscape could be transformed by climate change is an unlikely fear for many, but seeking to address those questions is a call for preparation. As humans we prepare for disaster out of mere preservation, the need to survive. Whether it is through art or a physical product that pushes us into that mode, shielding takes us to a place or a call that filters our anxiety for things that may or may not really affect us.

“When researchers analyzed vials of treated wastewater taken from a plant where about 90 Indian drug factories dump their residues, they were shocked. Enough of a single, powerful antibiotic was being spewed into one stream each day to treat every person in a city of 90,000.

And it wasn’t just ciprofloxacin being detected. The supposedly cleaned water was a floating medicine cabinet — a soup of 21 different active pharmaceutical ingredients, used in generics for treatment of hypertension, heart disease, chronic liver ailments, depression, gonorrhea, ulcers and other ailments. Half of the drugs measured at the highest levels of pharmaceuticals ever detected in the environment, researchers say.”

One of the biggest fears that scientists are expressing is that these pharma-polluted waters could give birth to super-strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Not to mention upsetting the delicate balance of local ecosystems.

Although levels of active pharmaceutical drugs are far lower in the US, where regulations are much tighter, this does not mean we are immune from exposure.

said Dr. A. Kishan Rao, a medical doctor and environmental activist;

“People might say, ‘Oh sure, that’s just a dirty river in India,’ but we live on a small planet, everything is connected. The water in a river in India could be the rain coming down in your town in a few weeks,”

A newly released study found that teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely as those who don’t to have pre-marital sex and are less likely to practice safe sex. This is a damning indictment of abstinence programs, which are often favored by parents and schools who profess strong religious convictions.

“While there was no difference in the rate of sexually transmitted diseases in the two groups, the percentage of students who reported condom use was about 10 points lower for those who had taken the pledge, and they were about 6 percentage points less likely to use any form of contraception. For example, about 24 percent of those who had taken a pledge said they always used a condom, compared with about 34 percent of those who had not. “ – Washington Post

There is no denying that abstinence is 100% assured to protect against teenage pregnancy and std’s. There is also little denying that the number of parents that would prefer their children to stay abstinent is pretty close to that number, regardless their of religious beliefs. That being said, as the headline from Reason reads,” Teenagers Lie About sex,” surprise, surprise.

As we all should know, teenagers, and adults for that matter, lie about a lot of things; grades, sex, drinking, drugs, who they are on the phone with, and that is probably not going to change anytime soon.

What probably will change is the nature of sex ed in the coming years. If campaign promises are kept we will soon have universal health coverage and once Uncle Sam starts flipping the bill ( aka you) for medical expenses, public health will become a far greater concern of the government and the individual. If this study holds true, the right wing will be hard pressed to support the 176 million tax payer dollars that are spent each year to support abstinence only programs that produce negative results. In addition, the billions and billions of dollars that are spent each year treating sexual diseases and providing government support to teenage mothers will begin to weigh much heavier on administrators and the already bloated federal budget if universal coverage is passed.

For all the flat-earthers out there who are still saying, what the hey, I don’t work for an American auto company, and I drive a Toyota anyhow, (and I include the Republican Senators from Dixieland who consider their constituents to be the Japanese car assembly plants in their states), this world is too complex for your simplistic responses.

If GM and Chrysler go under, the silly analogy of a hurricane created by a butterfly’s wings on the other side of the world will be small change. The big 3 going down will take with them not only tens of thousands of jobs in their factories, but also many hundreds of thousands of jobs among their suppliers. Many hundreds of thousands of these are in the USA, but many more are in Europe and in Mexico.

The moronic fence being put up on our southern border won’t do squat if a quarter million of their highly paid (by Mexican standards anyway) workers are put out of work by our mess. They are going to prefer their chances here rather than in Mexico of finding decent paying work, and who could blame them?

The Insurance Industry also makes its real money from playing on your fears, by selling you protection you are very unlikely to ever need, such as  earthquake insurance where there has never been an earthquake or simply ‘vaporware’ protection that plays on non-existant fears.

Unitedhealth Group has come up with something new that would be one of those for many people, but is more like gambling than anything else.You buy their insurance insurance to bet that the economy is going to go so far down the tubes that you will lose your job and the  insurance that goes with it, but that it will not get so bad that our enemic-willed government will buck the insurance titans and reform health care to the point that payments of additional hundreds of dollars a year  for such double protection will be of any use.

Under Unitedhealth Continuity, you pay 20% premiums on top of your own insurance for the right to pick up their insurance if you lose yours, but you have to be healthy in the first place and this assumes that you will be able to afford their insurance if you lose your job.

In the current state of national panic, where handing billions of tax dollars to the very pirates who speculated us into this mess without strings attached seems logical to many people, this will seem reasonable too. And maybe, for some, this bet will pay off. I will continue to buy an occasional power ball ticket. I like my odds better.