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Yasmin contraceptive pill, most generally known as Yaz, is also calledYasmine, Yas or it’s generic name Ocella. Yaz is the foremost selling contraceptive pill in the U.S.. It has since been learned that the common oral contraceptive can cause serious health dangers. Yaz side effects are responsible for causing gallbladder disease, vein thrombosis, other forms of blood cots, even pulmonary embolism. With misleading claims in their advertisements, Yaz was marketed towards women who had no idea exactly what kind of risks they were taking with their lives. This is why Yaz has since been sanctioned by the Food and Drug Administration and have been asked to make appropriate campaign changes.
In 2008, Yasmin was the top contraceptive pill sold in the United States. Yasmin has many of the same side effects as other oral contraceptives. Even So, the Food and Drug Administration claimed that the Yaz advertisements minimized the possible serious side effects. If you are one of many ladies taking the oral contraceptive known as Yasmin, you should be cognisant of the potential side effects if you aren’t already. These Yasmin side effects by no means address every single feasible illness or injury Yasmin may cause, so if you have suffered from other symptoms, do not dismiss the fact that Yasmin may be liable.
If you are using Yasmin and are having any of the side effects, then you could join millions of women in a suit against the drug maker for lack of expertise in recognizing that some side effects might have occurred. Some notable side effects include blood clots, heart attack and injury to the heart, stroke, stroke-related vision loss, DVT-deep vein thrombosis, cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, injury to the kidneys or even kidney failure, injury or failure to the gall bladder, the liver, and the pancreas. Death also falls in with the possible side effects of this birth control pill.
Drospirenone is just one of the reasons ascribed to the outpouring of Yaz side effects reported regularly in America. Drospirenone is an ingredient allegedly unlike other progestins in the United States and was not used in America before appeared in Yasmin, Yaz and Ocella. Also consider that the FDA released warning letter to the makers of Ocella, Yasmin and Yaz for using low-quality batches of drospirenone from Germany and you have the makings of a cautionary tale involving Big Pharma and its neglect for the people taking its pharmaceuticals.
There are already multiple lawsuits charged in various counties across the United States against the pill manufacturer. This number is expected to reach 1,000. Any of those effected by Yaz, Yasmin, and Ocella can fill out the form at TheLegalAdvocate.com to have an attorney review their information in order to be provided with answers and hopefully representation.
Lesser know birth control side effects such as stroke-related vision loss and seizures have also been reported as a result of using Ocella, Yasmin and Yaz. With the info available on the internet, it is more essential than ever to arm yourself with knowledge before resolving if a pharaceutical is right for you. Something as ever-present as ‘the pill’ can cause serious damage or even kill you if you are not careful.
Alphonse D’Amato, born on August 1, 1937 and raised in Long Island, New York, is renowned as the former senator and representative of New York who personally assisted and met his constituents in conferences. He started his governmental profession in Nassau County that later led to his senatorial title in 1980.
He studied at Chaminade High School, Long Island. In 1959, he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Business at Syracuse University. He proceeded with Law School in the same university and was given his Juris Doctor in 1961. During his college years, he was in the Alpha Chi Rho fraternity.
Within 1965 and 1968, Alphonse D’Amato became Nassau County’s administrator. From 1965 to 1968, he served as the tax assessor in Hempstead, New York and later promoted to town supervisor in 1971-1977. He further acted as supervisor and Nassau County Board of Supervisors’ vice chairman in 1977-1980. Soon after he left his position and ran for the New York Senate.
Alphonse D’Amato was in the Senate from 1980 to 1998. Committees he engaged in include the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, the National Republic Senatorial Committee and the President’s Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism.
After his service, he established Park Strategies, a business consultancy firm. He currently works as a political advisor, campaigner, and Computer Associates’ management director.
The World Bank and the Spread of the American Empire
By Dene McGriff
I must confess to being a “cog” as in the “cog” in a machine. Did I know I was? Nope, but I have gradually come to see that I was a “cog” in the building of the American Global Empire. Please don’t get mad at me for my confessions, for I certainly didn’t realize it at the time. In fact, most of us are oblivious to what is really going on around us. I certainly was, but the more I look into my past, the more I realize my role - as apparently innocent as it appeared to be. I spent most of my life in international work but little did I know what I was really involved in. I was a little cog in a great big machine that was creating the greatest global empire in the history of the world. We didn’t carry guns, just a briefcase and a laptop! We were the new empire builders! Please let me explain.
Background
America has been building a vast global empire for the past century. By the end of WWII, it was the undisputed leader with only Russia and its satellites standing in the way of global hegemony! A couple of quick little wars in Korea and Vietnam showed the futility of winning by conventional means. But a much more serious war was on whose goal was to turn the entire world into client states of America - tied to us by our apparent generosity and good will. How did this process work?
The end of World War II left Europe and Japan in shambles (the developed world). How were they to be rebuilt? What was the strategy? Very simple, we opened our markets to them. We invested in their business and infrastructure. But what of the rest of the undeveloped world? How were we going to bring them into the Twentieth Century? In true American form and efficiency, we launched a multi-pronged attack.
The Peace Corp sent out young people throughout the world to identify and develop projects. These were the best and the brightest. They were bilingual, sensitive cross-culturally and became the source for great expansion of international business, international aid and development and the CIA. The Peace Corp spawned the birth of companies known as “the beltway bandits” - consulting companies eager to help the government spend USAID, World Bank, IMF and other monies. I worked on and off for these consulting companies over a period of 25 years. Christian relief and development agencies also got involved in the act (World Relief, Catholic Relief Services, World Vision, Food for the Hungry, etc.) as well. I worked with two of them as well.
These minions of “do gooders” (myself included) fanned out across the globe developing relationships, identifying needs, writing grants and business plans to bring economic development to the “undeveloped” world. I personally worked all over Central and South America, the Far East (Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines), Africa and the Middle East. All this time, I had no idea I was a part of the machine
Phase I
The back drop of all this is that the developed world - Europe, Japan, America and Canada represented about 20 percent of the world population. Latin America, Africa and the rest of Asia, India, Pakistan and Southeast Asia represented the other 80 percent. They needed infrastructure - water, power, transportation, industry, bridges, dams, technology. How were we to get that to them and where would this all lead? The seductive part is that out goal was so good. Most people were dying from diseases caused by drinking bad water. Cholera, typhoid, malaria - so many diseases could be taken care of just by improving sanitation. Agriculture could be improved, natural resources exploited, industry developed, housing improved, etc.
So the army of volunteers, consultants and corporate executives spread throughout the world looking for opportunity. But who would pay for it? These countries certainly didn’t have excess money to pay for costly infrastructure! The same foundation that was laid to rebuild Europe and Japan was used - the IMF and World Bank, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Inter American Development Bank, the Asia Development Bank, etc. USAID is a part of the State Department and works closely with, if not for the CIA (as I found out the hard way). The “political” and “economic” officers and attaches of our embassies were almost always CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). Reports produced - whether on health care, agricultural development, education, population control (known as “woman and child health”) - all ended up in CIA reports. There was a tremendous amount of overlap between the different agencies and the companies working with them. As development occurred, USAID tended to phase out and World Bank took over and “bilateral relationships” were established with developing country governments.
Here is how it worked. Acquaintances were made, and friendships established especially through the Peace Corps and Christian missionaries who were there as “scouts” for the empire. They were followed by consultants who would be hired by USAID to identify needs, and develop specifications for a project. This would result in an RFP (Request for Proposal) which would go out in formal government digests. Consulting companies or businesses would then develop proposals in response to the RFP. There would usually be a committee consisting of USAID employees and counterparts in the host government that would go through a selection process. Eventually, it would be awarded to a US firm. I personally worked on hundreds of proposals and numerous projects.
Here is an example of how it works. In 1985, I was selected as team leader to evaluate a $27 million health infrastructure project that had been awarded to Westinghouse Health Systems. This was the mid term evaluation of a multi-year project. It was an exciting time - machine gun fire and mortars going off constantly up in the mountains above the Holiday Inn where we stayed. I spent the better part of the summer there. The Salvadoran people were gracious and hard working. The folks staying in the hotel either worked for a consulting company, the CIA, paramilitary or adoption agencies. There were even a couple of Russians. It was quite an eclectic mix.
There were four other people on my team looking at different aspects of the project. Westinghouse was providing training, buying medical supplies, ambulances, etc. Two really important things came out of the study. The first and most important is that only about $2 million was a grant. The rest, about $25 million, was a loan that had to be paid back. I found that this was quite common. Most of our “aid” was really in the form of loans - hundreds of millions in all that had to be paid back!
The other is that the health budget for the country didn’t increase by $27 million. In fact it didn’t increase at all. I asked the Minister of Health why not? They spent it on other things - mainly guns. This aspect of the report became very controversial as the report hit Congress. They tracked me down in Kingston, Jamaica to ask me about it. It turns out that the USAID health and population officer in charge of the project told Congress it was additional money to the budget. He was furious with me and later got caught doing deals under the table and ended up going to jail for a few years.
When you look at the billions of dollars spent in these different countries, you quickly see that 90 or more percent were in the form of loans - loans that had to be paid back! The best thing to happen was a natural disaster, an earthquake, typhoon or flood which led to cooperation and later projects to rebuild. This isn’t to be cynical about the recent tsunami but that is how it worked.
I will come back to the details in later articles but the debt became an unbearable load to these developing countries. The infrastructure projects were sold based on optimistic estimates of GDP growth that never quite happened. A few of the elites in the government and business got wealthy, but there was marginal benefit for the people. A history of default and restructuring of loans followed, but were never paid. Just like our credit card debt, they were lucky to keep up with the interest but never quite got to the principle. They could work off some of the debt by giving concessions to American business, voting with the U.S. in the United Nations or providing other benefits to America. In some cases, the situation was so critical debts were just written off. But generally, this is not the case.
The American global empire spread by enticing the developing world into projects that were extremely high cost. I used to feel guilty knowing that I was making as much in one day as the local professionals working with me made in a month. At one time, my billing rate was over $400 an hour! We knew they would default on the loans. We would just restructure them and time them tighter into our little empire.
Christians played an unknowing role in this first phase of development. The role of Summer Institute of Linguistics or Wycliffe Bible Translators is well known and documented that they were used by the CIA and promoted American business interests. But let’s just talk about my experience. (Please see “Thy Will be Done” by Charlotte Dennett) In 1979, I went to work for World Relief of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). I wrote the first grant funded by USAID to start our development activities (in contrast to relief). I worked for Cleo Shook who had just left the Carter administration as an Under Secretary of State. Cleo, like many missionaries, in the 1950s had gone to Afghanistan but couldn’t stay as a “Christian Missionary.” He became the CIA eyes and ears in Afghanistan and later Iran, started the Peace Corps with Sergeant Shriver, and though a wonderful Christian, was an emissary for the empire.
Phase II
The first phase was to do basic community and infrastructure development. The next phase was the expansion of the global empire by exporting jobs to cheap labor markets. I have been in sweatshops in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Nigeria (back in the mid ’80s) We were trying to convince the plant managers that they would get better work productivity if they provided health and family planning services to the workers. TIPPS, Enterprise and a whole host of other USAID projects were aimed at helping the private sector.
Another aspect of this was privatization. The concept was that the private sector could do a better job (with the profit motive) than the public sector. Whole sectors were being privatized - transportation, health, utilities, etc. Instead of being “privatized” by local business, multinationals would come in and take over resulting in much higher costs than before. But this was the democratic, capitalistic thing to do. I worked on projects like this in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Jamaica and other countries. I helped the Colombian government develop a “managed competition” system in the mid to late ’90s with the idea of privatization and cost control. The result was a disaster for the bankrupt public system - the “safety net” for the poor.
Today we see jobs going overseas by the millions. Our development efforts have been in part successful in that there is a relatively healthy, well fed, educated work force willing to do our jobs for one tenth the wage. Do our elites really care that they are displacing American workers? Not really. Do they care that eventually they may lose their domestic market? Not really. It’s pretty small compared to the rest of the world (we are only 5 percent of the population).
America may have its budget and trade deficits. The average American family may be falling deeper in debt, but so what? Isn’t that the overall strategy of the elites? To bankrupt countries and individuals and make them totally dependent and obedient to the elites. If you have been reading my material for some time, you know that I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist but this seems pretty well organized.
The difficult part with deception is that it is sooo… good. It can really fool you. We act on the information we have. Sure, a lot of well-meaning people have been involved in spreading the empire without even realizing it. What we have done has apparently been done with the best intentions, but the most terrible result. The government, the media and the powerful corporate interests are ready with their own explanation. I doubt that very few connect the dots and see the connections.
One has to ask themselves, why does the world so hate us? People are not as dumb as we may think. I have run into taxi drivers in Buenos Aires who are clearer on the role of America in the world than the average American. Get your passport updated and travel somewhere. Talk to the people and you will see. It got so embarrassing being an American; I would either speak Spanish or say I was Canadian.
Some Call it Conspiracy
There is a worldwide network of elites. Is there a conspiracy or is it all just coincidental? No country in the world has developed a truly global economic and military empire as we have. Is this that great “last days” nation that will dominate the earth? One should not be so quick to predict her demise. It took more than a hundred years to get here and we will not be that easily deposed. The American elites are truly global. Just as they have provided credit to the nations to enslave them, they have supplied ample credit to the American households to consume beyond their means - resulting in our ultimate slavery to the system. It matters not that the billions the GEs, Becthels and Halliburtons make in Iraq - it goes into the elite coffers - not yours and mine. The fact that we are being impoverished by credit debt and continually refinanced mortgages; the fact that our currency is losing value, prices are rising, wages are flat, the economy is stagnating - the elites are doing the same thing to us as they did to the rest of the world. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Just look around at your friends, their parents and their children and you will see what the statistics tell us. We are becoming a third world, debtor society with a few at the top who have “made it.”
Should we be surprised? Not if we read our Bibles. There is a system in place to get us to believe that black is white and white is black, that we are the good guys helping the world, that we have the best system and only mean the best for everyone. If we believe the lies told us on a daily basis, we will surely be deceived.
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About the Author
The author has 30 years international development experience and has worked in 40 plus countries around the world. He holds two Masters Degrees and is a PhD Candidate with specialization in business, and international finance, and is founder of www.the-tribulation-network.com.
The news media will regularly present views from Democratic (liberal), Republican (neoconservative), and independent (moderate) perspectives. However, I rarely, if ever, see my point of view represented in the mainstream media. Let me begin to sum up my politics by saying that I believe our most fundamental right as human beings is the right to not be bothered if we don’t want to be. Supreme Justice Louis D. Brandeis got it right when he said, “The makers of the Constitution conferred the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by all civilized men - the right to be left alone.” I am somewhere in between a Goldwater Republican and a Libertarian. I do not go along with the agenda of the neo-cons who currently control the Republican Party nor do I completely adhere to the Libertarian party line.
I believe in small government whose only functions are to do what we cannot logically do for ourselves as individuals. I don’t believe in a “nanny state” that tells adults they must wear seatbelts. I believe we should fight wars only when our national security is directly threatened and only after all other means of resolution have been exhausted. I believe in pre-emptive strikes in certain cases, but never pre-emptive wars. When we do have to go to war, I believe we should use a take-no-prisoners approach, with the ultimate goal of vaporizing our enemies. I don’t believe a military draft should ever be imposed. I do not believe in nation building. I believe in legal immigration and would increase the quotas for most countries if I could, but I think illegal immigrants should be treated like the criminals they really are - not given special rights or handouts.
I do not believe in attempting to legislate morality (or immorality). I believe people should be allowed to do what they want, as long as their actions do not adversely affect or directly threaten someone else. Just because something is vile is not alone enough to make it illegal. I do not believe in policing thoughts, i.e., I don’t worry about what someone is doing or reading might cause them to think. At the same time, I believe in accepting personal responsibility for one’s own choices and that each individual must bear the natural consequences for his or her actions, e.g., don’t say you didn’t know smoking causes lung cancer and don’t blame the government when you get HIV due to your promiscuous, careless, and/or perverted behavior. I believe tobacco, alcohol, and pot are equally bad for a person’s health, but should be equally unrestricted.
I believe the rights of speech and expression, no matter how offensive or inciting, should be completely unabridged except for direct, explicit threats or speech that directly endangers others, e.g., yelling “fire” in a crowded theater. I believe implied threats should be protected speech for the simple fact the implication could easily be misunderstood. I don’t believe so-called “hate speech” by one person should be blamed for a violent act committed by another. I don’t believe pornography, indecency, or violence in the media should be blamed either. If given the chance, most convicts will blame anything, everything, and everyone but themselves for their own actions. That’s human nature, so I don’t put much credence in studies that say outside forces like that cause people to rob, rape, or murder.
I believe abortion, except in cases of rape, non-consensual incest, or endangerment of the mother’s life or health, is murder. I believe it’s proper to use the death penalty against those who are beyond any doubt guilty of certain types of murder. However, I believe it should be applied fairly and consistently. If not, then it should not be used at all.
I believe punishment for those who deliberately harm others and/or their property should be swift and sure, but not excessive. Punishment should never include torture or humiliation and should be applied by the penal system, not other prisoners. Inmates should not be allowed to set up a “pecking order” or have any control over the conditions at a prison or jail. Any inmate harmed by another inmate should be allowed to sue those responsible for security at the facility in which he or she is detained. No arrestee or inmate should ever be subjected to a strip search unless probable cause can be established that he or she is carrying contraband on their person and is refusing to voluntarily hand it over. Homosexual behavior, both consensual and nonconsensual, should be abolished from our prison systems.
I believe in absolute property rights. People should be allowed to do whatever they want on their own property, regardless of zoning laws, as long as they are not creating a hazard for anyone else. Ugly paint colors or structures do not constitute hazards. The government should not be allowed to forcibly take all or part of someone’s property.
I believe anyone who is mentally sound and has never been convicted of a violent crime should be allowed to own any kind of firearm he or she wants. I believe in capitalism in its purist form. I believe the republican (little ‘r’) form of government, which the United States has, is a much better form of government than a democracy. Democracy is nothing more than mob rule in which the good of the majority always trumps the rights of the minority. I believe in a colorblind society in which everyone is given equal access and opportunity without discrimination or special favors.
I believe in separation of church and state, but I’m not an extremist about it. I see no reason why the government can’t play favorites with the majority religion (in our case, Christianity) when it comes to open displays, as long as those who practice other religions are free to do so without encumbrance. If someone is offended by the open display of the majority religion in our country, then they are free to leave anytime they want. I believe no one has the right not to be offended by another person’s speech, religion, dress, etc. Being offended once in a while is the price we have to pay for living in a free and open society - a small price indeed!
Terry Mitchell is a software engineer, freelance writer, and trivia buff from Virginia, USA. He operates a website - http://www.commenterry.com - on which he posts commentaries on various subjects such as politics, technology, religion, health and well-being, personal finance, and sports. His commentaries offer a unique point of view that is not often found in mainstream media.