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Long term, the goons sitting in the lofty cream layer will notice more and more that their branches are getting thin.
Richard Wolff has some good facts how this come together - or not, as it stands right now.

http://www.alternativeradio.org/products/wolr002
The MP3 dl is $ 2, I am not affiliated with them.

"Oh stop it. 90% of food at the grocery store does not have high-fructose corn syrup in it."

Assuming a grocery store is a supermarket and not a greegrocer's, then you are wrong.

I apologise for the payment gate, but there's an hour long lecture on corn in the US food system available here:
http://www.alternativeradio.org/programs/POLM001.shtml

Amongst other things, the speaker details the scientific testing done trying to find processed food with no corn in it. USians should listen to this talk.

If you're referring to a real greengrocer, then you need to check the availability and price of these stores and goods compared with processed foods. I don't think most people can afford a fresh fruit-and-veg diet in the US, or so I've been told.

As for the liver, apparently every cell in the body can metabolize glucose. However, all fructose must be metabolized in the liver. The livers of rats on high fructose diet look like the livers of alcoholics, plugged with fat and cirrhotic. (from http://www.westonaprice.org/motherlinda/cornsyrup.html)

This is probably what the previous poster was referring to.

A tarrif is not the same as a subsidy. However, they have roughly the same effect. Ignoring tarrifs, it remains true that the corn industry, and the oil industry upon which it depends so heavily, are both subsidised by the US taxpayer.

Between 1995 and 2003, federal corn subsidies totaled $37.3 billion. Ethanol makes this even worse.

http://www.slate.com/id/2122961/

There are very big problems with corn in the USA and you should do your own homework; it took me 5 mins to glue some links together.

Oh, and read "fast food nation".

This companion talk by Barbara Ehrenreich, the author of Nickel and Dimed, is excellent and could possibly drive you to activism. I was practically balling after hearing it.: Alternative Radio Unfortunately it is not available for download, only CD or cassette.

> 1. It might work, and we would have a defense against missile attacks.

The Reagan-era Star Wars program was not about defence. It involves satellites that would be easy for anyone with the tech to build an ICBM to disable before launching the ballistic missle, and planes with lasers that would be similarly easy to take out in preparation for an attack. That kind of Star Wars is an offensive weapon, useful for suprise attacks when the enemy doesn't have time to work around your defenses. BTW, the G.W. Bush's current plans fall into that category as well. For more info, check out Robert Bowman, a retired Air Force dude who was on the Star Wars program before it was called that, when it was secret and was about defence, not offence.

Salon isn't that liberal or progressive. They claimed/tried to be progressive, even eclectic, which the Utne Reader has always done so much better, both print & online www.utne.com FREE. Salon painted MIT Prof Noam Chomsky as a lunatic or the anti-Christ because he describes US foreign & domestic policy as it is, and in plain language, so you don't need degrees in history, politics, or economics to understand. He's universally reviled by right wing conservatives because he tells the truth and backs it up with evidence (footnotes in his books are quite numerous). Even mentioning his name is taboo for commercial broadcast media (really!), for reasons you can infer. Salon's persistent attacks on Chomsky show they are run by nuts. The attacks are full of so much shit it becomes humorous when you start counting, except for the fact that a lot of people actually believe it, because it's on Salon. Therefore it is tragic.

The Utne Reader is the Anti-Reader's Digest--including extreme positions in every direction (not "both" sides which assumes only 2 sides exist), it is eclectic, & the selections aren't sanitized crap for retired people who miss the good old days. I use Chomsky & Utne as examples because I'm an authority on them.

Salon simply wasted a ton of money, had plenty of "liberal" stories, but are right wing (a la Rush Limbaugh*) on a few of the more esoteric (important) topics. They do that particularly on topics of which most readers have little prior knowledge (or depth of understanding), therefore don't notice the profound bias (and reversal from "being liberal"). The Chomsky attacks are just one example. Chomsky's not interested in fame, fortune, or power, just truth & justice.
I cite them because they were so viciously construed that they simply could NOT be an accident, or a difference of opinion. The managers of Salon are greedy turds, the liquid kind. You can't polish a turd. You have to wait, then use spray paint.

Omission is the predominant error (tactic) of the generally conservative media in America. They constantly call themselves & each other liberal, but if they really were liberal, why would they do that? They're too conservative to ever even mention proportional representation (USA is strictly geographic representation.) It's called Public Relations, an industry which is far bigger (even per capita) in the USA, than any other country. One book, co-authored by Prof Chomsky, studied the "liberal bias theory" and concluded that most media, especially broadcast, are very conservative (the First Amendment does not apply unless you OWN a broadcast license). Inclusion of the occasional naked breast or being less conservative that the prez on a couple of issues, or allowing Howard Stern & Love Line on the radio does NOT make it liberal. All the porn in the world does not make a medium liberal. The only consistently "liberal & progressive" programs are Alternative Radio www.AlternativeRadio.org & www.NewDimensions.org, found on most public radio stations. PBS (TV) has a few programs that are often or usually progressive &/or liberal, but not consistently (I may be wrong--haven't done a comprehensive evaluation for 2 years now). Any progressive/liberal news outlet would at least occasionally remind us that 32,000 people starve to death each day, 60,000 die from bad water, plus 74 species go extinct. And while >20% of US adults are functional illiterates, millions are homeless, etc, we need a whole fucking war to stop Hussein (erh, I mean distract Americans from their obesity) while a single missile would get rid of him, most of his chiefs, and maybe a thousand civilians. We spent a fortune (most of it borrowed from our children by Reagan) on GPS satellites so we can hit any particular window or door, anywhere on the planet, and now we can't use them? Have a nice day (sucker).

I get Canadian TV news, which makes US TV news look like Mickey mouse with a suit & tie. They actually deal with real news every day (what a concept!). They have less weather, sports, what the president "said", etc. thereby more time for actual news. The FCC banned all cable TV companies from adding Canadian channels a few years ago unless they pay 5 percent of their GROSS income as a "fee". So much for diversity. Freedom of speech is not right to hear or watch. 200 channels of shit is not progress. A free alternative to Salon is www.alternet.org

* Rush (the fat rat bastard) Limbaugh's main demographic is undereducated, underemployed 20-40 year old white males, who appreciate placing the blame on women, affirmative actions, "the" government, etc., as long as it's not them.

Beware of republicans posing as humans. Party Naked in the church of your Choice. If god wanted you to be naked she'd make you born that way. Self-indulgence is not a virtue. Pollution is not a theory. Recycling is not a fad. It's not cool to be fat, stupid, & arrogant.

And the reason the cockpit doors weren't closed & locked, as the FAA repeatedly recommended: "that would be an unnecessary financial burden on the industry" (in other words, FAA recommendations can't conflict with short term profits, & market forces will solve almost everything).

"Judged in terms of the power, range, novelty and influence of his thought, Noam Chomsky is arguably the most important intellectual alive today." --NY Times book review/

See also Revoking Corporate Charters.

It is almost as if this IM business is a diversion from the real issue that you have the largest ISP in the USA (AOL in the USA has as many customers as all other USA ISP's combined) joining one of the largest mass-media forces in the USA. AOL is a content provider... Liars meet liars!! And don't get me started on all the problems with mass media. I don't see how this provides ANY advantage to users, consumers. The more this type of power is collected into smaller administrative spaces, the more control and power these people assume.