Well the big day is here, so before I partake in all the goodies and open my new socks, I wanted to share a few things i discovered en route to looking up other things:
So. Do you know the meaning inherent in the well-known carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas"?
What in the world do leaping lords, French hens, swimming swans, and especially the partridge who won't come out of the pear tree have to do with Christmas?
Today, you'll find out.
From 1558 until 1829, Roman Catholics in England were not permitted to practice their faith openly. Someone during that era wrote this carol as a catechism song for young Catholics. It has two levels of meaning: the surface meaning, plus a hidden meaning known only to members of their church. Each element in the carol has a code word for a religious reality that the children could remember.
The partridge in a pear tree was Jesus Christ
Two turtle doves were the Old and New Testaments
Three French hens stood for faith, hope and love
The four calling birds were the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
The five golden rings recalled the Torah or Law, the first five books of the Old Testament
The six geese a-laying stood for the six days of creation
Seven swans a-swimming represented the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit
Prophesy
Serving
Teaching
Exhortation
Contribution
Leadership
Mercy
The eight maids a-milking were the eight beatitudes
Nine ladies dancing were the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit
Love
Joy
Peace
Patience
Kindness
Goodness
Faithfulness
Gentleness
Self Control
The ten lords a-leaping were the ten commandments
The eleven pipers piping stood for the eleven faithful disciples
The twelve drummers drumming symbolized the twelve points of belief in the Apostles'
Creed
Merry Christmas
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Friday, December 5, 2008
The DEA, Civil Rights, and Inneffective On Site Drug Tests
Organic Consumers and Companies Harassed by Drug Agents and Police
When Canadian citizens Nadine Artemis and Ron Obadia took a family vacation, it ended with them being led through Toronto's airport in handcuffs, locked up and separated from their baby.
Police told them they could be facing years in prison for exporting narcotics.
Two and a half pounds of material found in their carry-on bag had tested positive for hashish. But they didn't have drugs. They had chocolate. So far, the couple's legal bills have topped $20,000.
The couple was caught up in what civil libertarians say is a growing problem -- the use of unreliable field drug-test kits as the basis to arrest innocent people on illegal drug charges.
The kits, which are used by most every police department in the U.S., and by federal agents in Customs at the nation’s borders, use powerful acids that react with the substance in a plastic pouch. If the liquid turns a certain color, it is a considered a positive result.
A positive result generally leads to an arrest.
But a number of legal products and plants test positive:
chocolate for hashish
rosemary for marijuana
natural soaps for the "date-rape drug" GHB
With the growth of organic and natural foods and products, experts say arrests are likely to increase.
Sources:
Organic Consumers Association November 1, 2008
>
As a certified DOT workplace drug test evaluator, I have long known that hand held, on site drug screens are grossly inaccurate. I never used them or recommend any institution use them,
let alone police and other law enforcement agencies that often employ those in our society with the lowest IQs, the most corrupt, and ironicly have total power and the ability to cause the most damage to our civil liberties than any other organizations in our country.
As Coroner and physician for our local jail, I have never worked with a more uneducated, ignorant, misguided group of individuals in my life.
Particularly probation officers who rank as the most untrustworthy, corrupt and ignorant individuals on the planet.
To put these inaccurate tools in the hands of these people is a travesty of justice that must be addressed. This is a system with nearly no counterbalances of power.
I personally have seen local adult parole authorities with a 4 hour course on drug testing use these tests to put people in jail on a regular basis, then have them tell me that they are 100% accurate! It smacks of third world justice and is happening all over this country.
As organic products become more popular, the potential for civil rights violations using these inaccurate test kits at borders, and in police patrol cars, is enormous.
This is not the first time innocent people have been jailed and burdened with large legal fees over organic fare like chocolate, herbs, all natural soaps, and even deodorants.
Cornelius Salonis of Shakopee, Minn., spent two nerve racking months in jail after police stopped him for drunk driving. He admitted to the drunk-driving charge, but was “scared witless” over the drug charge that was slapped on top of it when a deodorant in his car tested positive for cocaine. Lab tests ultimately showed it did not contain the drug.
Punk rocker Don Bolles also spent three days in jail in Newport Beach, Calif., in April last year, after his Dr. Bronner"s soap tested positive for GHB during a police traffic stop. Again, further lab tests found no drugs in the soap and the charges were dropped.
According to government officials, there are no records on how many people have been wrongly arrested because of this field test, but it’s probably safe to assume it certainly can, and does happen with some frequency, as people tend to travel with their favorite products. These days, many have switched to organics.
As for Nadine Artemis and Ron Obadia, just two weeks shy of being cleared of their drug charges, the couple, who are founders of Living Libations, a company that makes organic and natural food and beauty products in Haliburton, Ontario, were charged with drug possession again. This time while crossing the border in Lewiston, N.Y., on their way to a natural health festival -- despite the fact that they were traveling with a lawyer, just in case!
Officers ran the drug test on the food and toiletries in their possession, and the chocolate again tested positive for drugs. Ditto for a bottle of tea tree oil (a natural antiseptic and antifungal). Mr. Obadia was subsequently arrested again, and is currently awaiting the lab results that will likely exonerate him a second time.
But is it really reasonable to subject our constitutional rights to a test that is so clearly limited, and will lead to an untold number of arrests simply for carrying an organic treat, or an organic personal care product?
According to Allen Miller of Forensic Source, maker of the NarcoPouch® 928 test kits, the tests are designed to find “families of chemical compounds,” and are not meant to be definitive. “Any arrest should be the result of good investigative police work,” he says.
But following up with a real, valid test, after receiving a fake positive in the field usually means spending time in jail, posting bail, and hiring an attorney – potentially in a foreign country, depending on whether you’re coming or leaving, and where you get “caught” with your organic stash.
According to retired FBI agent and forensics expert Dr. Frederick Whitehurst:
“There is no effort by the National Academies of Science to validate forensic science protocols, and there are no national standards for presumptive field drug tests.
I believe our freedoms are being infringed upon because of fake science.”
NarcoPouch is a Great Natural Soap Test
As it turns out, any true natural soap product -- such as soaps by Dr. Bronner, Tom’s and Pangea -- will test positive with the NarcoPouch test, as demonstrated in this video on Dr. Bronner’s website. As will many all natural deodorants. Says David Bronner,
“Our testing shows that real soaps, which are made using the ecological time-honored process of saponification of vegetable oil, will always test positive for GHB, while complicated synthetic detergent-based so-called ‘liquid soaps’ will test negative.”
My Advice
Does it really take a rocket scientist to figure out, that at the very least, DON'T FILE ANY CHARGES UNTIL RELIABLE CONFIRMATION TESTS ARE RETURNED! DUH!???
Until these narcotic field tests have been re-formulated to give accurate results, and field agents can tell the difference between an organic personal care product and an illegal narcotic, (which given the stupidity and sheep like mentality of government agencies is highly doubtful) I strongly recommend you avoid traveling across the U.S. border with any kind of all natural soap, deodorant, or any other item that may get flagged, such as tea tree oil, or organic chocolate. You may also want to reconsider keeping these items in your car, in case you’re ever stopped and searched for a traffic violation.
It seems unreasonable, yes. But unless you’re willing to deal with that kind of hassle, think twice about what you pack when you travel.
This is the United States of America, where we are about to lose all of our civil liberties and our auto industry.
When Canadian citizens Nadine Artemis and Ron Obadia took a family vacation, it ended with them being led through Toronto's airport in handcuffs, locked up and separated from their baby.
Police told them they could be facing years in prison for exporting narcotics.
Two and a half pounds of material found in their carry-on bag had tested positive for hashish. But they didn't have drugs. They had chocolate. So far, the couple's legal bills have topped $20,000.
The couple was caught up in what civil libertarians say is a growing problem -- the use of unreliable field drug-test kits as the basis to arrest innocent people on illegal drug charges.
The kits, which are used by most every police department in the U.S., and by federal agents in Customs at the nation’s borders, use powerful acids that react with the substance in a plastic pouch. If the liquid turns a certain color, it is a considered a positive result.
A positive result generally leads to an arrest.
But a number of legal products and plants test positive:
chocolate for hashish
rosemary for marijuana
natural soaps for the "date-rape drug" GHB
With the growth of organic and natural foods and products, experts say arrests are likely to increase.
Sources:
Organic Consumers Association November 1, 2008
>
As a certified DOT workplace drug test evaluator, I have long known that hand held, on site drug screens are grossly inaccurate. I never used them or recommend any institution use them,
let alone police and other law enforcement agencies that often employ those in our society with the lowest IQs, the most corrupt, and ironicly have total power and the ability to cause the most damage to our civil liberties than any other organizations in our country.
As Coroner and physician for our local jail, I have never worked with a more uneducated, ignorant, misguided group of individuals in my life.
Particularly probation officers who rank as the most untrustworthy, corrupt and ignorant individuals on the planet.
To put these inaccurate tools in the hands of these people is a travesty of justice that must be addressed. This is a system with nearly no counterbalances of power.
I personally have seen local adult parole authorities with a 4 hour course on drug testing use these tests to put people in jail on a regular basis, then have them tell me that they are 100% accurate! It smacks of third world justice and is happening all over this country.
As organic products become more popular, the potential for civil rights violations using these inaccurate test kits at borders, and in police patrol cars, is enormous.
This is not the first time innocent people have been jailed and burdened with large legal fees over organic fare like chocolate, herbs, all natural soaps, and even deodorants.
Cornelius Salonis of Shakopee, Minn., spent two nerve racking months in jail after police stopped him for drunk driving. He admitted to the drunk-driving charge, but was “scared witless” over the drug charge that was slapped on top of it when a deodorant in his car tested positive for cocaine. Lab tests ultimately showed it did not contain the drug.
Punk rocker Don Bolles also spent three days in jail in Newport Beach, Calif., in April last year, after his Dr. Bronner"s soap tested positive for GHB during a police traffic stop. Again, further lab tests found no drugs in the soap and the charges were dropped.
According to government officials, there are no records on how many people have been wrongly arrested because of this field test, but it’s probably safe to assume it certainly can, and does happen with some frequency, as people tend to travel with their favorite products. These days, many have switched to organics.
As for Nadine Artemis and Ron Obadia, just two weeks shy of being cleared of their drug charges, the couple, who are founders of Living Libations, a company that makes organic and natural food and beauty products in Haliburton, Ontario, were charged with drug possession again. This time while crossing the border in Lewiston, N.Y., on their way to a natural health festival -- despite the fact that they were traveling with a lawyer, just in case!
Officers ran the drug test on the food and toiletries in their possession, and the chocolate again tested positive for drugs. Ditto for a bottle of tea tree oil (a natural antiseptic and antifungal). Mr. Obadia was subsequently arrested again, and is currently awaiting the lab results that will likely exonerate him a second time.
But is it really reasonable to subject our constitutional rights to a test that is so clearly limited, and will lead to an untold number of arrests simply for carrying an organic treat, or an organic personal care product?
According to Allen Miller of Forensic Source, maker of the NarcoPouch® 928 test kits, the tests are designed to find “families of chemical compounds,” and are not meant to be definitive. “Any arrest should be the result of good investigative police work,” he says.
But following up with a real, valid test, after receiving a fake positive in the field usually means spending time in jail, posting bail, and hiring an attorney – potentially in a foreign country, depending on whether you’re coming or leaving, and where you get “caught” with your organic stash.
According to retired FBI agent and forensics expert Dr. Frederick Whitehurst:
“There is no effort by the National Academies of Science to validate forensic science protocols, and there are no national standards for presumptive field drug tests.
I believe our freedoms are being infringed upon because of fake science.”
NarcoPouch is a Great Natural Soap Test
As it turns out, any true natural soap product -- such as soaps by Dr. Bronner, Tom’s and Pangea -- will test positive with the NarcoPouch test, as demonstrated in this video on Dr. Bronner’s website. As will many all natural deodorants. Says David Bronner,
“Our testing shows that real soaps, which are made using the ecological time-honored process of saponification of vegetable oil, will always test positive for GHB, while complicated synthetic detergent-based so-called ‘liquid soaps’ will test negative.”
My Advice
Does it really take a rocket scientist to figure out, that at the very least, DON'T FILE ANY CHARGES UNTIL RELIABLE CONFIRMATION TESTS ARE RETURNED! DUH!???
Until these narcotic field tests have been re-formulated to give accurate results, and field agents can tell the difference between an organic personal care product and an illegal narcotic, (which given the stupidity and sheep like mentality of government agencies is highly doubtful) I strongly recommend you avoid traveling across the U.S. border with any kind of all natural soap, deodorant, or any other item that may get flagged, such as tea tree oil, or organic chocolate. You may also want to reconsider keeping these items in your car, in case you’re ever stopped and searched for a traffic violation.
It seems unreasonable, yes. But unless you’re willing to deal with that kind of hassle, think twice about what you pack when you travel.
This is the United States of America, where we are about to lose all of our civil liberties and our auto industry.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)