From the Desk of Michael Ross

Here you'll find my thoughts on business, marketing, psychology, government intrusion, freedom of thought and person, all from a commonsense point of view. I also house all my products here too.

March 10, 2005

Govt Grows By Failure

It's funny. At least it would be if it wasn't true.

I'm talking about how govt grows and works. And it goes something like this...

Govt has some hair-brain idea about something. This idea costs us money by way of some tax/levy/fee. It turns out the idea is useless. And instead of canning the idea, the govt response is... we need more money and THEN it will be okay. With that more money being a higher tax of some kind, and still the "problem" remains.

If business worked this way it would go like this...

I cleaner comes to clean your house. They do a half-assed job and when you complain they say... to do a better job you need to pay more. And so you pay more. And they only do a marginally better job. And when you complain they say, you need to pay more to get the better job. And when you pay more, you don't get the better job. And when you complain they say...

You get the idea.

When a govt initiative fails - as they always do - instead of admitting to it being wrong, people willingly throw more money to govt to "fix" their failure.

A business would last two seconds in the market place if it operated like govt does.

It's a coincidence, that govt in my state is guilty of this very thing right now.

The city of Brisbane supposedly has a security problem. With Friday night party-goers not feeling safe. And the govt has just announced their solution is... a Security Levy imposed on businesses within the city to help protect the citizens.

No one mentions that this protection should have been in place already. And that it wasn't is a clear reflection on the govt failure. Instead, the govt justifies taking more money off of business to throw at the problem. And their solution will be to employ security at taxi ranks and a few other lame ass ideas.

The govt already charges business money for "promotion" of the city. And it is set to increase the charge by 20%! And they will implement the dreaded of dreaded things... a trial of it.

Of course, all the 9-5 businesses will be up in arms at being forced to pay a levy because some people want to frequent nightclubs. They will wonder why they need to pay for protecting people who are not doing business with them during normal business hours. And they'll have a good point. But they'll be wasting their breathe. Because govt grows by failure. And this is a classic example. Failure to use the existing cops effectively, and having them do mundane revenue-raising tasks instead of protecting the public. Their solution is more money is needed for...

Taxi Marshals and late night bus services. In other words. More govt employees.

Of course, when hit with more taxes a businesses response is to increase business to compensate. And that could mean offering cheaper drinks. And we are back to what is claimed to be the heart of the problem... too cheap drinks which encourages drinking, and drunk people are violent people.

My solution is simple. A user pays system. I had already mentioned it previously but this city is slightly different and so it would be worked differently. And in this case... A $1 flag fall fee for the taxis picking up at taxi ranks in the city, between the hours of 12.00am and 6.00am. This way, those who party are the ones who pay for the increased security at the taxi ranks.

And for the buses, the same rules can apply. A higher bus fair for bus rides between the same hours.

If it was all private enterprise, this is how it would be - user pays, and higher rates for additional services - so I see no reason why it cannot be run the same way.

Of course, the govt would never do this because it would be an admission that they are fallible. And that they make mistakes. And can't handle simple measures like keeping a city free of bashings on Friday and Saturday nights.

But security isn't the only area the govt uses this ploy. They use it in all areas. Such as schools. They are forever clamoring for more money for schools. And yet, the results the schools pump out are not going up accordingly. If anything, things are getting worse! With the cry for more money to fix the problem. It's a never ending cycle.

Imagine a private enterprise school that failed to teach children the basic skills of reading and writing. Parents would leave in droves and the school would go out of business. The school would not be able to say... give us more money and we will do better. They would be out of business.

Not with govt schools. The more their fail, the more money they are able to get.

We tend to do what we are rewarded for doing. If you keep getting rewarded for failing, then fail is what will happen. And that is exactly how the govt operates. One failure after another, with increased taxes and levies to make it right. Only to see more failures and more taxes. In a vicious circle. And the public, being the docile sheep they are who still believe a group of people calling themselves govt and ruling over them is a good thing, let the increased taxes take place without so much as a whimper. Something they would be jumping up and down about if a private enterprise tried to do the same thing.

One of the tricks the govt uses to help this along is the summit. That is, a group of them get together, with a supposed-representative or two of those effected, and talk about it. This way, if a decision turns out bad, no single person can be blamed because it was decided at a summit.

Summits, invariably always end up going ahead with what the govt wanted in the first place. So they are a trick designed to shirk responsibility as well as make a show that the govt is listening to the people.

If people treated govt like they treat business and held the govt to the same performance expectations and accountability, govt would be out on its ear in no time.

March 09, 2005

Could THIS Be The Cause Of Aging Prematurely?

Like all animals on this planet, we are governed by hormones. They control a woman's fertility cycle, enable a man to produce sperm, make us grow, give men deep voices, square jaws and bald heads, give women soft voices and rounder faces, and all manner of things.

One thing they do not do is make us younger - reverse the clock, so to speak. In fact, they do not reverse the clock in any animal. They are one function chemicals. Which means, while present, their effect occurs, when not present their effect does not happen.

Take estrogen, for example. It is a cell growth promoter. While present it encourages cell growth. Which is needed for the woman's uterine lining to grow during her cycle. When ovulation takes place, estrogen production stops and progesterone begins. With progesterone helping to raise the woman's body temperature (raised temperature is needed for increased cell division as a growing baby would need) and helps prepare the uterine lining for implantation. If progesterone is not in the system, or is being overwhelmed by estrogen from an outside source, the uterine lining will not be able to accept a fertilized egg. And a period will occur after the lining gets too big to support itself.

At certain times, a child is born whose growth hormone does not switch off. Those people keep growing and usually die in their twenties. A sign of how powerful growth hormone is, and what would happen to us all if we had such levels of growth hormone in us. Thankfully, we do not and our body regulates it and switches it off accordingly.

What this means is, hormones age us. Faster than we would otherwise.

Logic would thus suggest, to slow down aging we should reduce the level of age-promoting hormones in our system.

Now. I am NOT advocating messing with nature and trying to control our hormones with drugs - as so many women have been conned into doing of late, what with human growth hormone and hormone replacement therapy.

But I am advocating to stop overloading our system with hormones that age us quicker than we otherwise would. So we must first identify WHERE the excess hormones are coming from. And the main culprit is... animal products - meat and dairy.

To help the animals grow quicker - and larger - they are injected with growth hormones as well as getting hormones in their food. When they are slaughtered and fed to us, we ingest those hormones. Hormones which act on us as they were designed to act on the animals.

As the animals are all young, they have an increased level of hormone in them any way (young animals, including us, grow quicker due to increased hormones). So the artificial hormones make the amount of growth hormone even more.

It makes sense, therefore, that when we eat meat loaded with hormones, those hormones will act on us. And that means, make us grow in some way. If we have finished our "growth" then the hormones may help our cells grow (age). Specially those cells which are being used a lot. And even reproductive system cells. Brain cells. Etc.

As I am not a scientist with access to advanced equipment to test this, this is conjecture at the moment. But it does fit based on anecdotal evidence.

Take Asians, for example. They are generally shorter in stature and less physically developed. Which is to say, they do not look like body builders - the men - or have large breasts - the women.

However, when you see Asians born and raised in western countries with western diets, they are taller, have larger breasts, and are fatter too.

With the main difference being diet. Our western diet is high in meat. Slabs of meat. Like a steak and two veg meal. While the Asian meal might have meat in it, it is extremely thinly sliced - and - what meat there is, is combined with loads of vegetables and rice.

In other words, meat is not the main ingredient of a traditional Asian meal, while it is the main ingredient of western meals.

Now lets look at the northern Europeans... such as Polish, Checzoslovakian, Russian, etc. In their native lands eating native diets they are shorter and stockier (exactly what you'd expect for the climate). Yet, when those same people are born in western countries and are fed western diets from birth, they grow tall and are generally not as stocky.

This is evident in my relatives. With one side of the family being short, while ALL their offspring are over 6ft - towering over their parents. Obviously, this height was NOT in the family tree and MUST be attributed to something else. And, while some would say the ancestors didn't have enough nutrients to grow tall (as if our western diet with vegetables that have had all the goodness boiled out of them and then the cooking water poured down the sink before the cardboard vegetables are served, or eating fully process foods devoid of any nutrition at all, has any usable nutrients) I say it was their largely meat-less diet that kept them shorter. And, younger looking and living longer too. After all, supposedly, Asians tend to look younger and live longer. Avoiding the sun and eating not much meat are obvious reasons behind this.

And some of the oldest living peoples are those living in Tibet and Russia. With growing to be 100+ as a norm. And those peoples eat a diet much devoided of meat.

Now let's turn our gaze to the hunting tribes. And they are mainly African. Such as Zulu's. They are TALL and do not live to be 100. They eat high amounts of meat.

Another factor to consider, besides meat, is cow's milk. It is HIGH in protein compared to human milk. And is meant to be drunk by baby cows.

But besides the protein content - which I'll return to in a moment - it is loaded with hormones. The milk cow is basically pregnant and the milk is designed to help a calf grow - and FAST. And drinking cow's milk will see you ingest hormones designed to help a baby cow grow.

So whether you drink animal products or eat them, you will be getting hormones into your system that will promote cell growth (aging) at a faster-than-your-body-wants-to-happen rate. Because you will be ingesting hormones your body did not expect to be there. You will have a level of hormones higher than your body would ever produce of its own accord.

For instance, a newborn human baby might double its birth weight in 180 days - a rat 5 days, a cow 47 days. Obviously, milk which helps a cow double its weight in 47 days and which helps is go from 80 pounds to 1,200 pounds in a little over a year should not be consumed by humans due to high hormone and protein levels. (Human milk has about 2.5% protein, rat milk 8-11% protein and cow milk 15% protein.)

I don't expect you, or anyone, to believe a word I say. But I do ask you to think about it yourself. To see if, it makes sense that ingesting animal products loaded with growth hormones is likely to make us age prematurely. And to get us back to how our body would like us to age is more a matter of stopping the ingestion of growth hormones from other animals. Which is done by avoiding all animal products; ingesting mature animal flesh only which has been caught in the wild (including fully grown fish); or drastically cutting down on meat consumption and considering it as only a garnish on food and not the main ingredient. (In that order.)

Two research scientists, Osborne and Mendel, did research with rats. They discovered the rat's rate of growth INCREASED when their diets contained mostly animal proteins such as milk, beef, and fish. And the rate of growth was slower when their diets included mostly vegetable proteins. The high-protein rats also died sooner.

And while they might assume it is animal proteins.. and they may well be right... it is erroneous to ignore the part growth hormones present in animal products plays in growing/aging.

The most glaringly obvious sign that we are aging sooner than should be is the onset of puberty. From around 15/17 years ago to as early as 10/12 now a days. And it correlates with increased eating of meat.

March 08, 2005

The Big Brother Future Here And Now And Coming To A Train Near You

When we think of big brother and the future, we imagine televisions in trains on and buses. TVs tuned to what big brother wants us to see - which is the usual big brother authorized propaganda. So we can never escape its brainwashing influences.

Well, that imagined future is here and now, in Atlanta.

The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (why do they put the word "authority" in their name?) will put TVs in their rail cars. Initially, 115 of its cars will EACH have 5 TVs. And eventually ALL of the authority's 300 cars will have 5 TVs in each of them. With every single TV tuned to the Atlanta ABC news affiliate WSB-TV. And the system will be able to convey emergency information. Though whether this emergency information is both ways is not mentioned in the information I have.

Currently, to listen to the TV is to be done with headphones and an FM radio tuned in to the correct frequency. But seeing as emergency information can be broadcast on it, my bet is the volume can be controlled in case all passengers need to hear something. Which makes it only a short step to leaving the volume up all the time.

With TVs accepted in the trains, buses will be next.

And as some road cars have TVs in them, it is only a stroke of the pen to force manufacturers to enable "emergency broadcast" onto those TVs, or to force the manufacturer to have a set news station as the only available station.

Many classrooms already have TVs in them, for educational purposes in case there is a educational show on, and for emergency broadcast reasons. And it's not a great step to have those TVs be on all the time. So students would get big brother sanctioned news on the way to school, at school and on the way home from school. Effectively, subjecting them to propaganda most of their waking hours. And hopefully, according to big brother, turning them into good little workers for the state.

But this is in the future. For the now it means something else. It means a leftist barrage. That's because the media elite are almost all left leaning.

And over time, the constant "republicans are bad" message that comes from the elite media, will have an effect on the voting public. And come next election, the subtle propaganda will have had an effect, and an increase in Democrat votes will be likely.

Of course, those who are staunch Republican voters will seethe at the news they are forced to see. As their CHOICE of what to watch has been removed.

I see a point a few years from now, where children will be in wonder when you tell them trains never used to have TVs in them. 1984 here we come.

March 06, 2005

More Wrong Research Deductions

Research comparing MS in adults who had younger siblings, seems to show, "Adults who had the most contact with younger siblings were found to have the lowest risk of MS... the change is thought to be linked to immune reactions formed in childhood."

Ok. I'm going out on a limb here and saying, their results might be correct but their reasons are wrong.

My take is that MS is the result of exposure to chemicals - at work or in the home. And because we all have different chemical sensitivities, what might cause MS in one person might not cause it in another.

There is evidence from Hulda Clark (and others) that many people from the same work environment developed MS. Obviously, something in that work environment is having an effect. Sometimes quicker than other times, but an effect nonetheless.

Speaking with a 70+ year old client last week, she made a comment after performing some task many 70+ year olds cannot do... "Not bad for someone who supposedly has MS, hey?"

So I asked her a bit about it. She said, she USED to work in a place that used a lot of chemicals. And she was exposed to those chemicals. It was while she was there that she began to show signs of MS and was diagnosed as having it.

She left that work environment... and where she lived... got a different job working in a chemical free environment and lived on a house boat!

Her MS cleared up and went away. And she put the MS down to her exposure to chemicals. And the clearing up of it to her lack of exposure when she changed jobs and living in a fresh air environment on the house boat, instead of the restricted airflow chemicalized house she had been living in. Then she made another comment how chemicals effect our health, before talking about something else.

Anyway. My medically untrained opinion is this: MS is the result of chemical exposure... usually over time... and MS can be cured by avoiding the chemicals that created it in the first place.

Sure my opinion goes against conventional wisdom. But conventional wisdom is almost always wrong. And to blindly believe something when there is no evidence to support it, while there is evidence to support something else, is insane.

Anyway. How does this relate to MS being higher in people without younger siblings?

Well, first, this was research aimed at ADULTS with younger siblings. Those adults lived a different kind of lifestyle when they were young, than do our youngsters of today.

Imagine a 50 year old. Imagine what kind of life they lived when they were young... 5, 10, 15 years old. And the chances are they were playing OUTSIDE with their siblings. Not inside playing X-Box or Play Station. They were outside away from chemicals. Not inside breathing stale air full of chemical fumes from our chemicalized carpets, drapes, laminated furniture and so on.

So that reduced time spent inside, could have helped create a habit. And a person who spent more time outside than inside. Because if they had been only children, they probably would have spent time playing in their room, and developed the inside habit through to adulthood. Being inside thus exposing them to continued chemicals.

This makes a lot of sense to me. And I would also like to see research examining the lifestyles of those people... inside people vs outside people.

Obviously inside vs outside is not a definitive answer (as some outside people get MS. And I would guess that even though they spent time outside, they constantly exposed themselves to certain chemicals - detergents, solvents, etc.), but it would be a step in the right direction.

I'd also like to see the results of similar research in many years time. Where the current inside X-Box playing youth of today have their MS rates compared to less inside-staying youth. I think we will find, those who stay inside and are breathing in more chemical fumes will have higher incidents of MS and other ailments.

The insidious nature of the chemicals is that their effect is gradual and cumulative. Meaning, a few breaths of air with slight chemical fume will not kill you, but over time it wears down the liver's ability to deal with it, is stored in places it shouldn't be, harming those places, and we develop illnesses as a result.

If you imagine filling up a bathtub one teaspoon at a time. You won't notice anything is wrong until it overflows.

Our bodies are like that. Storing all kinds of chemicals out of the blood until the liver can deal with it. Over time, the chemical stores will overflow. At which point we notice it and then try to do something about it. With the simple answer being... stop ingesting the chemical that made you ill in the first place.

Which is easier said than done as we are exposed to so many chemicals. From make up and mascara, to fluoride and chlorine in our water. All kind of hideous artificial yuck in man-made foods stuffs. Any one of which could have a detrimental health effect over time.

But I digress. This is about the research, and how wrong conclusions can easily be drawn when ignoring basic biology and biological functioning.