Better late than never, but more Americans finally seem to be getting the message they’ve been consuming far too much soda and as such, sales of pop have been falling.

In reality, soda sales have been falling for about seven years, but they really dropped off in 2011 as consumers made other choices about what sort of refreshments to put in their bodies.

The beverage market actually grew last year by about 0.9 percent, but according to sales data, consumers chose more coffee and teas, sports and energy drinks and bottled water over soda and fruit juices.

Beverage Marketing, a research, consulting and financial-services firm that tracks the beverage industry, said 2011 was the second year of growth for the beverage industry after two consecutive declines in 2008 and 2009.

Costs are up, sure, but choices are healthier

One of the reasons why sales were down, according to Beverage Digest, an industry newsletter, is cost: Prices for carbonated soft drinks climbed about 3 percent last year, making them harder to afford. Drink makers passed on higher prices for the cost of sweeteners, such as corn syrup and other raw materials, to consumers.

According to an analysis of sales data by Beverage Digest, all three big soda-makers — Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Dr. Pepper Snapple — showed slower sales of popular brands like Coke, Diet Coke, Pepsi-Cola, and Mountain Dew.

Coke and Pepsi market shares shrank while Dr. Pepper’s share was mostly flat. And though sales of some soda brands rose, sales of Dasani — a bottled water sold by Coca-Cola — was the fastest-growing beverage brand, rising 11 percent, according to Beverage Digest. It was followed by Arizona iced tea (9.3 percent) and Pepsi’s Gatorade (8 percent).

Carbonated drinks, by comparison, grew about 3 percent a year through the 1990s, but sales have been declining steadily since 2005, as more health-conscious consumers increasingly turn to better choices of drink.

Sales of Gatorade, meanwhile, are ballooning as well, topping the one billon-gallon mark last year for the first time. In fact, Beverage Marketing says Gatorade, coupled with G2 and other brand variations, is the fifth-largest beverage trademark.

Niche drinks and water sales increasing

According to Beverage Marketing, other niche drinks are making headway.

“As the proliferation of ‘beverages with benefits’ continues with the introduction of a variety of drinks marketed as delivering specific functional results,” Beverage Marketing has begun to focus “on a niche within a niche: relaxation beverages,” says the summary of a new report by the analytical firm, which calls such beverages an “emerging sub-segment of the wellness and functional beverage marketplace.”

But clearly growth in sales of bottled water continues unabated, according to industry figures. In 2008 and 2009, the poor economy led to a decline in sales but they rebounded again in 2010, as growth really accelerated last year. Bottled water sales volume was up 4.1 percent in 2011, faster than the 3.5 percent growth in 2010.

“The strong showing by high-end and functional products shows that consumers — at least the more affluent ones — are not concerned exclusively with economic consideration when making their beverage selections,” Michael C. Bellas, chairman and CEO of Beverage Marketing, said.

The ill-health effects of drinking sugar-laden soda are well-known. Soda consumption is a major cause of obesity, which can lead to a range of health problems including heart disease, stroke and, of course, diabetes.

In fact, recent research has found that just drinking one soda per day increases heart risk in men, even if it is not contributing to overall weight gain.

“Continually subjecting our bodies to high amounts of glucose, to high blood sugar levels that trigger large secretions of insulin results in stresses that in the long run show up as high risk of heart disease and diabetes,” the study’s co-author, Dr. Walter Willett, told CBS News.

THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON NATURALNEWS.COM.

Daniel H. Gervich, M.D. recently wrote in the Des Moines Register that mothers who feed their babies fresh milk constitutes “child endangerment.”

Gervich’s article was in response to natural health advocates, particularly Eileen Dannemann, who are pushing for House Study Bill 585 that would legalize the sale of unpasteurized milk in Iowa, which he opposes.

Gervich quotes a CDC study and uses alarmist language to make his case:

The risk of serious food-borne illness from unpasteurized milk is 150 times greater than from pasteurized products. The risk of illness requiring hospitalization for dehydrating dysentery, hemorrhagic colitis, renal failure, ascending paralysis, Listeria meningitis, septic shock and death is substantial, and the risks are far higher in infants, children and pregnant women than in others.

The problem is that the CDC study that makes these claims of raw milk being 150 times more likely to cause “serious food-borne illness” has been proven to be a cherry-picked fraud.

“What consumers need to realize, first of all,” said Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, “is that the incidence of foodborne illnesses from dairy products, whether pasteurized or not, is extremely low. For the 14-year period that the authors examined, there was an average of 315 illnesses a year from all dairy products for which the pasteurization status was known. Of those, there was an average of 112 illnesses each year attributed to all raw dairy products and 203 associated with pasteurized dairy products.

“In comparison, there are almost 24,000 foodborne illnesses reported each year on average. Whether pasteurized or not, dairy products are simply not a high risk product.”

According to Gervich, 112 cases of illness per year nationwide represents a “substantial” risk enough to constitute keeping the consumption of fresh milk illegal and branding those who give it to their children as unfit parents.

Eileen Dannemann, director of National Coalition of Organized Women, wrote a scathing response to Dr. Gervich which can be read in its entirety below:

Using the term ‘child endangerment’ is a loathsome low blow! Dr. Gervich’s overused soundbite simply serves as a perfect example of the establishment attempting to wreak fear in the hearts of all parents that their children might be removed from their home if they do not agree with the prevailing medical or nutritional model consistent with medical, industry, government, stakeholder made up standards or if God-forbid they should dare break the prevailing Iowa law and access a neighbors farm fresh milk on the farm.

Does the Doctor, unschooled in nutrition, plan on calling Child Protective Services for ‘child endangerment’ on those mothers who seek unadulterated, un-homogenized, un-pasteurized farm fresh milk from a sister species as a substantially equivalent substitute? Does he also call the CPS when a mother refuses to vaccinate their child or when independent (emphasis added) researchers show concern over the 41-fold increase in spontaneous abortions and stillbirth reports after the administration of the H1N1 vaccine in the pandemic season?

Oh…Dr. Gervich…you don’t know about that. Well the CDC didn’t tell you and… you didn’t check the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting system either. Just like you have your statistics wrong on the milk issue, you don’t even know or care about parent’s concern about giving their child 45 vaccine doses by the time the child is six years old or injecting them in-utero.

So the educated doctor doesn’t see much difference in the loss of ‘enzymes’ in pasteurized milk?

I suppose he doesn’t see the value in tonsils either which was the standard establishment opinion in my day. God knows why He put enzymes in the milk. Who should we listen to God or Dr. Gervich? Gervich says enyzmes don’t make a difference.

And what about homogenization? The dairy doesn’t want to bother with cleaning their spigots when the fat accumulates. So, they process the milk. In layman’s language, in homogenizing milk the fat molecules and the protein molecules are merged, as it were. So what happens, and why so many children are allergic to milk is that the protein receptors which are distinct from the fat receptors in the body are confused as the fat molecules which are inherently larger are now reduced to merging with the protein molecules and are pushed into the protein receptions causing havoc. That is the layman’s version. And that is what Dr. Gervich recommends for our children.

When goats are born, Dr. Gervich, the kid is as tiny as a newborn. Therefore the milk molecules are more digestible to the human infant than cows milk whose calves are born at the size of adult humans.

So, Dr. Gervich, certified infectious disease specialist, educated in part no doubt by the opinions of quasi-military Epidemic Intelligent Service arm of the CDC — what about the huge numbers of women who have been put on psych drugs such as Effexor, Concerta, Paxil, Prozac, etc? Would you think it is wise to urge these women to breast feed? Or do you think that clean, safe, farm fresh milk, substantially equivalent goat’s milk could be a better substituted than genetically modified (GM)) infant soy formula or milk formula derived from dairy cows fed with GMO waste product (Distillers Grain) of the Ethanol industry, a feed that was banned in New York because the milk produced was ‘swill’?

Perhaps since you have put yourself as a nutritional authority and are against House Study Bill 585 that next year you might consider giving us (stupid Iowa women) — those of us who are blatantly endangering our children — a prescription for raw milk. We promise we will be careful to label it in our refrigerator, as suggested by Iowa City representative Vicky Lensing so that, God forbid, Grandma doesn’t drink it by accident. With your help, we can put farm fresh milk and cannabis in the same category.

THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON ACTIVISTPOST.COM.

The human race learned long ago that cooking meat before eating it would protect them from certain diseases. Since then this practice of cooking has grown to include all types of foods and is now considered an art. Very few meals are eaten which include raw elements, except for the leafy green salad.

One advantage of eating raw is that it brings Nature’s intentions into focus. When I speak of eating raw I am referring to fruit, nuts, and vegetables, which taste good to the majority of humankind in their basic simplicity direct from tree, bush or vine.

I realize it isn’t easy to simply abandon thousands of years of tradition and revert back to 100% raw food. Margaret Mead once said, “It is easier to change a man’s religion than to change his diet.” So to the point, there are 10 advantages to a diet of fresh, whole raw fruits, vegetables, and nuts, which may lead you to find a greater place for them in your diet.

Watch this video on YouTube.

1. Raw foods are better quality, therefore you eat less to satisfy your nutritional needs. The heat of cooking depletes vitamins, damages proteins and fats, and destroys enzymes which benefit digestion. As your percentage of raw foods increases you feel satisfied and have more energy on smaller meals because raw food has the best balance of water, nutrients, and fiber to meet your body’s needs.

2. Raw foods have more flavor than cooked foods so there is no need to add salt, sugar, spices, or other condiments that can irritate your digestion system or over stimulate other organs.

3. Raw foods take very little preparation so you spend less time in the kitchen. Even a child of 5 or 6 can prepare most items for breakfast, lunch or dinner. This gives children a sense of self-esteem and independence, not to mention the break it gives Mom or Dad.

4. When you are eating raw there’s little chance of burns, unless you’re in the middle of a forest fire or out in the sun too long. Just think! No burns to tongues, the roof of your mouth, or fingers, and many fewer house fires.

5. Cleaning up after a raw meal is a snap. No baked-on oils or crusty messes. And any inedible parts go directly to the compost pile.

6. Eating a diet of raw foods can reverse or stop the advance of many chronic diseases, including heart disease and cancer. Remember, cooking creates free radicals, which are the major cause of cancer. When you lower the number of free radicals your cells are bombarded with, you lower your risk of cancer.

7. A raw food diet can protect you from acute diseases such as colds, flu, measles, etc. Raw foods maintain a healthy body and a healthy body will not become diseased.

8. As long as you combine raw food properly according to the rules of Natural Hygiene, you will soon reach a level where you no longer suffer from heartburn, gas, indigestion or constipation.

9. It is environmentally sound. With humanity on a diet of raw foods, the food industry would close up shop and take up organic gardening. This would save us enormous amounts of natural resources used to produce power for these industries. Nuclear power would be clearly unnecessary. And think of how many trees and oil reserves could be saved without the need for the paper and plastics used in packaging our processed foods. There would also be less carbon dioxide released in to the atmosphere when all the cooking stopped and more oxygen produced from all the new orchards and gardens, thus helping to reverse the Greenhouse Effect.

10. Eating raw saves you money on food, vitamins, pots and pans, appliances, doctor bills, drugs, and health insurance.

So don’t waste your food, yourself, and our planet by cooking what you eat. Fruits, nuts, and vegetables which are whole, fresh and raw are brimming with life and have the ability to transmit their life force directly to you.

THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON RAWFOODS.COM.

Senator Jeff Sessions, ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee has pointed out that our per capita government debt is already larger than Greece’s. Per person, our government owes over $49,000 compared to $38,937 per Greek citizen. Our debt has just reached 101% of our Gross Domestic Product. Our creditors see this and have quietly slowed down or stopped their lending to us. As a result, the Federal Reserve has been outright monetizing debt as a way to patch things together and keep the economy on life support a little longer. There is rapidly shrinking demand for our debt, and confidence in the dollar is falling. This phenomenon is hidden only by the fact that confidence in all other fiat currencies is falling faster.

None of this seems to really alarm the administration, obviously, as they have just released a budget that accelerates spending and borrowing. The reason the debt and deficits plague the economy, according to this administration, is that the American economy is not taxed enough. Therefore, hidden in the fine print of the budget is a provision that ramps up the corporate dividends tax rate from its current 15% to 39.6%. In addition, certain deductions and exemptions will be phased out; an additional 3.8% Obamacare investment tax surcharge will be tacked on, bringing the effective dividend tax rate to 44.8% in 2013. Keep in mind, this is not just a tax on big business, this is a tax on anyone who depends on dividend income to live – retirees will be hit hard by these changes and dividend yielding stock prices will adjust downward rapidly to reflect their decreased value.

Not only this, but the Obama administration is worsening the uniquely American policy of taxing income of US based companies earned overseas. No other country presumes to tax globally in this manner, so it amounts to a huge penalty for basing a company in the US. Companies have been able to manage this penalty by deferring taxation until it is repatriated or by paying dividends. What will happen to US based businesses with strong international ties if these allowances are abolished as the Obama administration proposes? A massive wave of permanent capital flight will undoubtedly cause the already high levels of unemployment to rise.

Businesses are struggling and failing in this economy. The government ultimately depends on a healthy business climate to provide jobs and a tax base. It is penny wise and pound foolish to add to business tax burden in a misguided attempt to close the colossal gap between our government’s revenue and spending. Rather than crippling and absorbing more of our shrinking economy, government needs to be drastically cut – not in 10 years, but immediately.

Those who understand the underpinnings of the dollar and how the Federal Reserve works have known for some time that we are on an unsustainable course, that major chaos is in store if nothing is done quickly to reform things. Politicians pay lip-service to reforms that never materialize or turn out to be at best small and meaningless, or at worst actively harmful. It seems more and more inevitable that because the necessary changes would be too inconvenient for the elites to enact now, we will get them later Greek-style, through collapse and chaos.

THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON PAUL.HOUSE.GOV.

After it was exposed that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the philanthropic brainchild of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, purchased 500,000 shares in Monsanto back in 2010 valued at more than $23 million, it became abundantly clear that this so-called benevolent charity is up to something other than eradicating disease and feeding the world’s poor (http://www.guardian.co.uk). It turns out that the Gates family legacy has long been one of trying to dominate and control the world’s systems, including in the areas of technology, medicine, and now agriculture.

The Gates Foundation, aka the tax-exempt Gates Family Trust, is currently in the process of spending billions of dollars in the name of humanitarianism to establish a global food monopoly dominated by genetically-modified (GM) crops and seeds. And based on the Gates family’s history of involvement in world affairs, it appears that one of its main goals besides simply establishing corporate control of the world’s food supply is to reduce the world’s population by a significant amount in the process.

William H. Gates Sr., former head of eugenics group Planned Parenthood

Bill Gates’ father, William H. Gates Sr., has long been involved with the eugenics group Planned Parenthood, a rebranded organization birthed out of the American Eugenics Society. In a 2003 interview with PBS’ Bill Moyers, Bill Gates admitted that his father used to be the head of Planned Parenthood, which was founded on the concept that most human beings are just “reckless breeders” and “human weeds” in need of culling (http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_gates.html).

Gates also admitted during the interview that his family’s involvement in reproductive issues throughout the years has been extensive, referencing his own prior adherence to the beliefs of eugenicist Thomas Robert Malthus, who believed that populations of the world need to be controlled through reproductive restrictions. Though Gates claims he now holds a different view, it appears as though his foundation’s initiatives are just a modified Malthusian approach that much more discreetly reduces populations through vaccines and GMOs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus).

Gates Foundation has invested heavily in converting Asian, African agricultural systems to GMOs

William Gates Sr.’s association with Planned Parenthood and continued influence in the realm of “population and reproductive health” is significant because Gates Sr. is co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (http://www.gatesfoundation.org/leadership/Pages/william-gates-sr.aspx). This long-time eugenicist “guides the vision and strategic direction” of the Gates Foundation, which is currently heavily focused on forcing GMOs on Africa via its financing of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).

The Gates Foundation has admittedly given at least $264.5 million in grant commitments to AGRA (www.gatesfoundation.org/about/Documents/BMGFFactSheet.pdf), and also reportedly hired Dr. Robert Horsch, a former Monsanto executive for 25 years who developed Roundup, to head up AGRA back in 2006. According to a report published in La Via Campesina back in 2010, 70 percent of AGRA’s grantees in Kenya work directly with Monsanto, and nearly 80 percent of the Gates Foundation funding is devoted to biotechnology (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_21606.cfm).

The same report explains that the Gates Foundation pledged $880 million in April 2010 to create the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), which is a heavy promoter of GMOs. GAFSP, of course, was responsible for providing $35 million in “aid” to earthquake-shattered Haiti to be used for implementing GMO agricultural systems and technologies.

Back in 2003, the Gates Foundation invested $25 million in “GM (genetically modified) research to develop vitamin and protein-enriched seeds for the world’s poor,” a move that many international charities and farmers groups vehemently opposed (http://healthfreedoms.org). And in 2008, the Gates Foundation awarded $26.8 million to Cornell University to research GM wheat, which is the next major food crop in the crosshairs of Monsanto’s GM food crop pipeline (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_21606.cfm).

If you control agriculture, you control the populations of the world

The Gates Foundation’s ties with Monsanto and corporate agriculture in general speak volumes about its real agenda, which is to create a monopolistic system of world control in every area of human life. Vaccines, pharmaceuticals, GMOs, reproductive control, weather manipulation, global warming — these and many other points of entry are the means by which the Gates Foundation is making great strides to control the world by pretending to help improve and save it.

Rather than promote real food sovereignty and address the underlying political and economic issues that breed poverty, Gates and Co. has instead embraced the promotion of corporately-owned and controlled agriculture and medicine paradigms that will only further enslave the world’s most impoverished. It is abundantly evident that GMOs have ravished already-impoverished people groups by destroying their native agricultural systems, as has been seen in India (http://www.naturalnews.com/030913_Monsanto_suicides.html).

Some may say Gates’ endeavors are all about the money, while others may say they are about power and control. Perhaps it is a combination of both, where Gates is still in the business of promoting his own commercial investments, which includes buying shares in Monsanto while simultaneously investing in programs to promote Monsanto.

Whatever the case may be, there is simply no denying that Gates now has a direct interest in seeing Monsanto succeed in spreading GMOs around the world. And since Gates is openly facilitating Monsanto’s growth into new markets through his “humanitarian” efforts, it is clear that the Gates family is in bed with Monsanto.

“Although Bill Gates might try to say that the Foundation is not linked to his business, all it proves is the opposite: most of their donations end up favoring the commercial investments of the tycoon, not really “donating” anything, but instead of paying taxes to state coffers, he invests his profits in where it is favorable to him economically, including propaganda from their supposed good intentions,” wrote Silvia Ribeiro in the Mexican news source La Jornada back in 2010.

“On the contrary, their ‘donations’ finance projects as destructive as geoengineering or replacement of natural community medicines for high-tech patented medicines in the poorest areas of the world … Gates is also engaged in trying to destroy rural farming worldwide, mainly through the ‘Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa’ (AGRA). It works as a Trojan horse to deprive poor African farmers of their traditional seeds, replacing them with the seeds of their companies first, finally by genetically modified (GM).”

THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON NATURALNEWS.COM.

The mind is powerful – much more powerful than many individuals recognize. If you were to harness the potential of this energy transmitter in your head, then great feats could be reached far beyond what can currently be conceived. Scientists have already proven that your thoughts are powerful determining factors in your overall health, and that your mindset can ultimately create — or delay — self-healing. Whether it be thinking your way to wellness, or simply coming to a realization that you are fully capable of being healthy, the road to such successes is not a difficult one to travel. In fact, even the key to powerful fat loss can also be found in the way you think.

Watch this video on YouTube.

Changing the Way You Think is Fundamental in Attaining Great Health

Attaining superb health does not start with diet or exercise, but rather a mere thought. Consciously noticing how you think and what patterns are embedded in your mind is the absolute first and most fundamental step in reaching a 10 on the health scale. Having been exposed to 10′s of thousands of food advertisements while growing up as a child, it is easy to see how easily the mind, conscious, and subconscious can be affected. The fact of the matter is that living an unhealthy lifestyle and eating unhealthy foods is quite standard thanks to this marketing assault by the food industry.

After being subject to the advertisements, negative influences, identity issues, and consistent doubts about the strength of your willpower for so long, anyone’s way of thinking would be deeply altered. To already healthy-thinking individuals and those who have endured the hardships while reaching for that state of healthy-thinking, living a healthy lifestyle is not only done with the utmost simplicity, but they love it. As for individuals who grew up around unhealthy-thinkers, trying to be healthy is a prodigious challenge.

If you are struggling to accelerate your quest to optimum health, then you can be sure that a change in thinking is the first step to fulfilling this mission. Altering diet or engaging in exercise can improve your health dramatically, but the improvement will not be everlasting if you’re struggling to keep the momentum. You need to ask yourself: do I want this, or do I want to want this? In other words, you need to ensure you really want to embark on the necessary path to health revolution, ultimately experiencing the beneficial end result of the health transformation. Truly wanting great health will result in all of the activity leading to your goal being enjoyable, while only longing for the end result leaves you feeling with a sense of struggle.

To truly desire great health, try visualizing what your life and body would be like once you have it. Think about how you would look and feel after having achieved your short-term goal, and then think about it again after having achieved a long-term goal. Want to kick it up and notch and really amplify progress? Imagine you are incredibly healthy and have the perfect body in the present. Feel the feelings that would be running through you if you had exactly what you wanted right now. By visualizing and imagining you have the health you want right now on a daily basis, you are training yourself to achieve that goal consciously and subconsciously.

If you want things in your life to change, you have to actually change things in your life. Change starts with a single thought which leads to a single life-changing decision.

THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON NATURALSOCIETY.COM.

The Feds have been forced to release their social network monitoring manual, which contains the list of words the government watches on social media and news sites.

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Homeland Security Manual Lists Government Key Words For Monitoring Social Media, News

Ever complain on Facebook that you were feeling “sick?” Told your friends to “watch” a certain TV show? Left a comment on a media website about government “pork?”

If you did any of those things, or tweeted about your recent vacation in “Mexico” or a shopping trip to “Target,” the Department of Homeland Security may have noticed.

In the latest revelation of how the federal government is monitoring social media and online news outlets, the Electronic Privacy Information Center has posted online a 2011 Department of Homeland Security manual that includes hundreds of key words (such as those above) and search terms used to detect possible terrorism, unfolding natural disasters and public health threats. The center, a privacy watchdog group, filed a Freedom of Information Act request and then sued to obtain the release of the documents.

The 39-page “Analyst’s Desktop Binder” used by the department’s National Operations Center includes no-brainer words like “”attack,” “epidemic” and “Al Qaeda” (with various spellings). But the list also includes words that can be interpreted as either menacing or innocent depending on the context, such as “exercise,” “drill,” “wave,” “initiative,” “relief” and “organization.” (To see the full list, go to page 20-23 in the Analyst’s Desktop Binder).

These terms and others are “broad, vague and ambiguous” and include “vast amounts of First Amendment protected speech that is entirely unrelated to the Department of Homeland Security mission to protect the public against terrorism and disasters,” stated the Electronic Privacy Information Center in letter to the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence.

The manual was released by the center a week after Homeland Security officials were grilled at a House hearing over other documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that revealed analysts were scrutinizing online comments that “reflect adversely” on the federal government. Mary Ellen Callahan, the chief privacy officer for the Department of Homeland Security, and Richard Chavez, director for the National Operations Center, testified that the released documents were outdated and that social media was monitored strictly to provide situational awareness and not to police disparaging opinions about the federal government. On Friday, Homeland Security officials stuck by that testimony.

A senior Homeland Security official who spoke to The Huffington Post on Friday on condition of anonymity said the testimony of agency officials last week remains “accurate” and the manual “is a starting point, not the endgame” in maintaining situational awareness of natural and man-made threats. The official denied Electronic Privacy Information Center’s charge that the government is monitoring dissent. The manual’s instruction that analysts should identify “media reports that reflect adversely on DHS and response activities” was not aimed at silencing criticism but at spotting and addressing problems, she added.

THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON ACTIVISTPOST.COM.

What if it was possible to eliminate much of the world’s otherwise very-slowly-biodegrading plastic waste using a natural Amazonian fungus? Well, it just might be, thanks to research conducted by Jonathan Russell and colleagues from Yale University’s Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, who recently discovered that Pestalotiopsis microspora effectively eats away polyurethane (PUR) plastics, and is capable of using plastic as its sole food source in both aerobic and anaerobic environments.

Entitled Biodegradation of Polyester Polyurethane by Endophytic Fungi, the study aimed to find new potential plant sources of bioremediation, also known as the use of microorganisms to biodegrade and eliminate pollutants that otherwise persist in the environment. Several students attending Yale’s annual Rainforest Expedition and Laboratory course collected various samples from the Yasuni National Forest in the Amazon basin, and took them home for testing.

Of all the microorganisms tested, nine of the most active came from the Pestalotiopsis genus, which represents the first time endophytic fungi have been identified as having bioremediation properties. It was discovered that a key enzyme in this fungal genus known as taxol is responsible for eating away PUR, and that this “extracellular, secreted and diffusible” substance diffuses to “a significant distance,” which means it has huge potential for large-scale PUR cleanup efforts.

“This is the first study that demonstrates PUR degradation by endophytic fungi,” wrote the authors in their discussion. “The broad distribution of activity suggests that endophytes might be a promising source of biodiversity in which to test for activities important for bioremediation.”

Taxol, which is also derived from the bark of Pacific Yew trees, happens to be the same enzyme used in conventional medicine to treat cancer patients. Though it is now administered to patients in synthetic, patented forms created by drug companies that now produce it using genetically-modified (GM) bacterium, taxol in its natural form has demonstrable anti-cancer properties, and has been used in native cultures by herbalists to treat disease naturally.

As interesting as this new discovery about taxol’s PUR bioremediation properties may be, it is more than likely that, should this substance ever be used to eat plastics on an industrial scale, it will likely be derived from synthetic, patented sources rather than from natural sources. But as it currently stands, the Pestalotiopsis genus of endophytic fungi appear to be nature’s built-in remedy for helping to keep the environment clean and toxin-free, as it already appears to be performing this function in rainforests around the world.

THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON NATURALNEWS.COM.

Organic gardening avoids the use of chemicals to make plants grow or protect them from insects, relying instead on natural gardening principles used for thousands of years. Permaculture organic gardening goes a step further and also emphasizes growing plants sustainably, working with rather than against the grain of the natural environment. Permaculture organic gardening is growing in popularity as more people realize that it offers an inexpensive and relatively low-maintenance way to grow their own fruits, vegetables, herbs and flowers.

Choosing a location

Observe your property at different times of day. Consider which areas receive the most sun, which are in shade for much of the day. Depending on where you live, if sunshine is a scarce commodity, you will want to expose plants to receive as much as possible. On the other hand, in desert regions, you will not want your plants to be in the area most likely to be parched by sun exposure. Also think protecting your garden from the paths where strong winds tend to blow through your property. Even a small property will have microclimates — notice these and plant accordingly to give different plants either more sun or more shade according to their preference.

Selecting plants

Avoid disease-prone plants which require time-consuming chores such as spraying and pruning by the gardener. Select plants which will thrive in your area rather than those which will require extra labor on your part to protect them from the environment. As far as possible, select plants which serve multiple purposes, such as fruit trees which will put forth blossoms in one season, fruit to pick in another, and provide shade for when you want to sit and enjoy your garden’s natural beauty. Native plants are also more likely to attract local pollinators such as bees, and to draw butterflies so that your garden contains even more natural beauty.

Making a home for your plants

Raised beds require less physical effort on the part of the gardener and also benefit plants, providing better air circulation, more protection from spring chills and improved usage of water. Raised beds also mean a small permaculture garden is an option even for apartment dwellers and others with little available space since you can rely on containers and vertical gardening principles.

Feeding your plants

One of the key concepts of permaculture organic gardening is to avoid waste. Having a garden gives you a means of re-using natural waste such as eggshells, apple cores, coffee grinds as well as yard waste which many people throw away. You can either purchase or make a compost bin to turn this organic material into gardening gold which can be used to help your plants grow.

Watering your plants

Modern gardeners who do not follow sustainability principles tend to draw heavily on piped-in water resources, often using hoses and sprinklers to make plants which require abundant water grow in a desert climate. Permaculture organic gardening tries to use natural water as much as possible, maximizing the use of groundwater and rainwater. Rain barrels allow you to collect rainfall and extend its use over longer periods of time.

Protecting plants from pests

Eschewing the use of chemicals does not have to mean a garden full of pests. You can use companion gardening principles, growing plants which deter pests near those which attract them. There is also a natural synergy between some plants which means planting them near each other increases your yield. Also, just as some herbs have a medicinal effect on human health, they also offer benefits to plants which grow near them. For more information about companion planting, visit http://www.appropedia.org/CCAT_companion_planting and http://www.gardeningknowhow.com.

If you have space and live in an area where it is permissible to keep poultry, chickens can make a wonderful addition to a permaculture garden. If they are permitted free-range for most of the day, they will consume many pests. Chicken manure also contributes beneficial nitrogen to the soil of your garden.

THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON NATURALNEWS.COM.

In the highlands of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, people look at life differently. Upon entering the local Buddhist monastery, there is a spectacular sculpture the size of a large oak. The intricate carving of clouds and patterns are painted in powerful colors. But as soon as winter gives way, this magnificent work will melt to nothing. The sculpture, in fact, is made of butter, and it is one of the highland people’s symbols of the transient nature of life.

And life here is not easy. Villagers bicycle to work before dawn and return home long after sunset. Many live with nothing more than dirt floors and rickety outhouses. Upon entering these modest mud-brick homes, you’ll find no tables or chairs—just a long platform bed, which sleeps a family of eight. However, when the people invite you in for tea, their smiles are wide and welcoming. How do they possess such inner calm in conditions we would call less than ideal?

When villagers cook, sew or plow the fields, they do so in a tranquil state. As an approach to life, weaving meditation seamlessly into almost every action throughout the day seems unfamiliar to Western cultures. Is there something we can glean from this way of life that will improve our own? The romantic notion of quitting everything and joining Tibetan monks on a mountaintop is not the only way to meditate. You don’t need to quit your job, give up your possessions and spend 30 years chanting. Recent research indicates that meditating brings about dramatic effects in as little as a 10-minute session. Several studies have demonstrated that subjects who meditated for a short time showed increased alpha waves (the relaxed brain waves) and decreased anxiety and depression.

To explore exactly what part of the brain meditation acts on, researchers at Harvard Medical School used MRI technology on participants to monitor brain activity while they meditated. They found that it activates the sections of the brain in charge of the autonomic nervous system, which governs the functions in our bodies that we can’t control, such as digestion and blood pressure. These are also the functions that are often compromised by stress. It makes sense, then, that modulating these functions would help to ward off stress-related conditions such as heart disease, digestive problems and infertility.

Meditation: What is It?

Aside from determining its physiological effects, defining the actual act of meditation can be as elusive as imagining the sound of one hand clapping. In his book, “What is Meditation?” (Shambhala Publications, 1999), Rob Nairn talks about it as a state of “bare attention.” He explains, “It is a highly alert and skillful state of mind because it requires one to remain psychologically present and ‘with’ whatever happens in and around one without adding to or subtracting from it in any way.”

The physical act of meditation generally consists of simply sitting quietly, focusing on one’s breath, a word or phrase. However, a meditator may also be walking or standing. It isn’t unusual, in fact, to see a meditating monk in the highlands walking a few steps and then lying prostrate over and over again until he reaches his destination many miles away.

There are many traditions and countless ways to practice meditation, and perhaps because of its polymorphous nature new meditators wonder whether they are doing it correctly. According to Roger Thomson, Ph.D., a psychologist in private practice in Chicago and a Zen meditator, there is one way to know for sure: “If you’re feeling better at the end, you are probably doing it right.”

Thomson makes it sound easy, but many people can’t seem to get the hang of it, no matter how often they try. “It can be difficult,” says Steven Hendlin, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist in Irvine, California. “It may be a struggle to overcome the internal chatter that we all experience.”

Seeking methods for quieting that internal chatter and reducing stress are what initially attract many people to meditation. “It is a very effective stress-reducer, which is a way into the practice for many people,” says Thomson, who sometimes refers clients to meditation. “If someone is struggling with feelings of anxiety, he or she may benefit from its calming aspects. And it’s absolutely facilitative of mental health because it brings about a higher level of self-acceptance and insight about oneself.”

But greater awareness about oneself can be a double-edged sword. Mark Epstein, M.D., a New York City psychiatrist in private practice and a meditation practitioner, extends a caution about one of the ironies of meditating. “It could actually raise your level of anxiety if there are certain feelings you are not owning.” In other words, there’s nowhere to hide when you’re practicing “bare attention.” And this, for some people, is both the good and the bad news.

That’s why some experts suggest marrying meditation to psychotherapy. “Both allow the person to be present for the moment, open and nondefensive,” says Thomson, who explores the complementary nature of the two in a paper published in the American Journal of Psychotherapy. “In both meditation and psychotherapy, we are trying not to get caught up in internal preoccupation, but to be intimately present with what is happening here and now.”

To explain his thoughts on the connection, Thomson compares Zen to relational psychoanalytical theories. He writes that it “encourages its practitioners to become aware of the fundamentally distorted aspects of an overly individualistic view of human experience. Recognizing that the true nature of all individuals is emphatically non-individual, neither lasting nor separate, is the wisdom of Zen.”

Silence and Science

Certainly anything that helps us fight stress is a welcome tool. But what else might meditation be doing for us? Since researchers like Herbert Benson, M.D. began amassing data, many studies have shown that indeed meditation has not only a mental but a profound physiological effect on the body. Studies have shown that, among other benefits, meditation can help reverse heart disease, the number-one killer in the U.S. It can reduce pain and enhance the body’s immune system, enabling it to better fight disease.

More new research offers additional encouragement. In a study published last year in the journal Stroke, 60 African-Americans with atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, practiced meditation for six to nine months. (African-Americans are twice as likely to die from cardiovascular disease as are whites.) The meditators showed a marked decrease in the thickness of their artery walls, while the nonmeditators actually showed an increase. The change for the meditation group could potentially bring about an 11 percent decrease in the risk of heart attack and an 8 percent to 15 percent decrease in the risk of stroke.

A second study, published last year in Psychosomatic Medicine, taught a randomized group of 90 cancer patients mindful meditation (another type of practice). After seven weeks, those who had meditated reported that they were significantly less depressed, anxious, angry and confused than the control group, which hadn’t practiced meditation. The meditators also had more energy and fewer heart and gastrointestinal problems than did the other group.

Other recent research has looked at precisely what happens during meditation that allows it to cause these positive physical changes. Researchers at the Maharishi School of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, found that meditation has a pervasive effect on stress. They looked at a group of people who had meditated for four months and found that they produced less of the stress hormone cortisol. They were therefore better able to adapt to stress in their lives, no matter what their circumstances were.

Diana Adile Kirschner, Ph.D., a Philadelphia-area clinical psychologist, sometimes refers her clients to learn meditation and has seen firsthand how helpful it can be. “Not only is meditation an absolutely marvelous destressor, it helps people better relate to one another,” she says. “I can tell when clients are following through with meditation. For instance, I had a couple who consistently bickered. After they started meditating, they came in less angry, more self-reflective and more loving.”

So why aren’t more people taking up the practice? “Because it puts us in the middle of ourselves, which is not always where we want to be,” suggests Thomson. “Often, we want to fix things rather than accept them the way they are. Many of us feel as though we can’t afford the time and energy to meditate, when in fact we can’t afford not to.”

Epstein and several other experts feel that meditation’s effectiveness has to do with putting aside attachment to one’s ego. As he says, “When you look directly at a star at night, it’s difficult to see. But when you look away slightly, it comes into focus. I find it to be the same way with the ego and meditating. When one zeroes in on a sense of self through a practice of meditation, the self-important ego paradoxically becomes elusive. You become more aware that you are interconnected with other beings, and you can better put your own worries into their proper perspective.”

A group of elderly Chinese maintain their connection by meeting every daybreak in the village common in Monterey Park, California. They swoop their arms and stretch their torsos in graceful harmony, and then stand absolutely still, simply meditating. Only puffs of warm air flow from their nostrils. All of them look vibrant and relatively young, when in fact they are well into their years.

While western scientists are still exploring exactly how and why meditation works, we already know that it has both physiological and psychological benefits. And many therapists consider it a valid complement to more traditional therapies. So perhaps we should simply take Thomson’s advice—and the Tibetans’ lead—and do what makes us feel better in the end.

THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON PSYCHOLOGYTODAY.COM.

What is Biodynamic agriculture? In seeking an answer let us pose the further question: Can the Earth heal itself, or has the waning of the Earths vitality gone too far for this? No matter where our land is located, if we are observant we will see sure signs of illness in trees, in our cultivated plants, in the water, even in the weather.

Organic agriculture rightly wants to halt the devastation caused by humans; however, organic agriculture has no cure for the ailing Earth. From this the following question arises: What was the original source of vitality, and is it available now?

Biodynamics is a science of life-forces, a recognition of the basic principles at work in nature, and an approach to agriculture which takes these principles into account to bring about balance and healing. In a very real way, then, Biodynamics is an ongoing path of knowledge rather than an assemblage of methods and techniques.

Biodynamics is part of the work of Rudolf Steiner, known as anthroposophy – a new approach to science which integrates precise observation of natural phenomena, clear thinking, and knowledge of the spirit. It offers an account of the spiritual history of the Earth as a living being, and describes the evolution of the constitution of humanity and the kingdoms of nature.

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BASIC PRINCIPLES OF BIODYNAMICS

Broaden Our Perspective

Just as we need to look at the magnetic field of the whole earth to comprehend the compass, to understand plant life we must expand our view to include all that affects plant growth. No narrow microscopic view will suffice. Plants are utterly open to and formed by influences from the depths of the earth to the heights of the heavens. Therefore our considerations in agriculture must range more broadly than is generally assumed to be relevant.

Reading the Book of Nature

Everything in nature reveals something of its essential character in its form and gesture. Careful observations of nature – in shade and full sun, in wet and dry areas, on different soils, will yield a more fluid grasp of the elements. So eventually one learns to read the language of nature. And then one can be creative, bringing new emphasis and balance through specific actions. Practitioners and experimenters over the last seventy years have added tremendously to the body of knowledge known as Biodynamics.

Cosmic Rhythms

The light of the sun, moon, planets and stars reaches the plants in regular rhythms. Each contributes to the life, growth and form of the plant. By understanding the gesture and effect of each rhythm, we can time our ground preparation, sowing, cultivating and harvesting to the advantage of the crops we are raising. The Stella Natura calendar which is featured in this catalog offers an introduction to this new study.

Plant Life Is Intimately Bound Up with the Life of the Soil

Biodynamics recognizes that soil itself can be alive, and this vitality supports and affects the quality and health of the plants that grow in it. Therefore, one of Biodynamics fundamental efforts is to build up stable humus in our soil through composting.

A New View of Nutrition

We gain our physical strength from the process of breaking down the food we eat. The more vital our food, the more it stimulates our own activity. Thus, Biodynamic farmers and gardeners aim for quality, and not only quantity.

Chemical agriculture has developed short-cuts to quantity by adding soluble minerals to the soil. The plants take these up via water, thus by-passing their natural ability to seek from the soil what is needed for health, vitality and growth. The result is a deadened soil and artificially stimulated growth.

Biodynamics grows food with a strong connection to a healthy, living soil.

Medicine for the Earth: Biodynamic Preparations

Rudolf Steiner pointed out that a new science of cosmic influences would have to replace old, instinctive wisdom and superstition. Out of his own insight, he introduced what are known as biodynamic preparations.

Naturally occurring plant and animal materials are combined in specific recipes in certain seasons of the year and then placed in compost piles. These preparations bear concentrated forces within them and are used to organize the chaotic elements within the compost piles. When the process is complete, the resulting preparations are medicines for the Earth which draw new life forces from the cosmos.

Two of the preparations are used directly in the field, one on the earth before planting, to stimulate soil life, and one on the leaves of growing plants to enhance their capacity to receive the light. Effects of the preparations have been verified scientifically.

The Farm as the Basic Unit of Agriculture

In his Agriculture course, Rudolf Steiner posed the ideal of the self-contained farm – that there should be just the right number of animals to provide manure for fertility, and these animals should, in turn, be fed from the farm.

We can seek the essential gesture of such a farm also under other circumstances. It has to do with the preservation and recycling of the life-forces with which we are working. Vegetable waste, manure, leaves, food scraps, all contain precious vitality which can be held and put to use for building up the soil if they are handled wisely. Thus, composting is a key activity in Biodynamic work.

The farm is also a teacher, and provides the educational opportunity to imitate natures wise self-sufficiency within a limited area. Some have also successfully created farms through the association of several parcels of non-contiguous land.

Economics Based on Knowledge of the Job

Steiner emphasized the absurdity of agricultural economics determined by people who have never actually raised crops or managed a farm.

A new approach to this situation has been developed which brings about the association of producers and consumers for their mutual benefit. The Community Supported Agriculture movement was born in the Biodynamic movement and is spreading rapidly. Gardens or farms gather around them a circle of supporters who agree in advance to meet the financial needs of the enterprise and its workers, and these supporters each receive a share of the produce as the season progresses. Thus consumers become connected with the real needs of the Earth, the farm and the Community; they rejoice in rich harvests, and remain faithful under adverse circumstances.

Based on An Introduction to Biodynamic Agriculture, originally published in Stella Natura 1995.

THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON ORGANICCONSUMERS.ORG.

Did you know that electroshock therapy is still a common practice? It’s true that electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) nearly died out after Jack Nicholson’s performance in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and the major influx of psychotropic drugs beginning around the ’60s.

But just as ECT was going extinct its use picked up in the ’90s and continued to grow exponentially. As of 1998, the ECT treatments numbered 100,000, approximately twice the number of tonsillectomies that year, and continues at that rate.

The Judge Rotenburg Institute is under fire once again for its improper use of aversive shock therapy; the use of shock to dissuade certain behaviors.

Young disabled Andre was called into a room after hitting one of the staff members. He was shocked once for punishment, then tied down to a restraint board and left in the room for seven hours with no food, water, or bathroom breaks. The shocks were set to zap whenever he yelled out or tensed up — he was shocked 31 times. He was responsive enough to beg his mother for help when she arrived, but went into a comatose state for three days until requiring immediate hospitalization. Rotenburg holds that this is therapy.

Andre’s mother is imploring that the video be allowed for public view so that people can see that this particular incident, and other electroshock treatments, are an act of torture. Rotenburg sought a court order to keep the video hidden during investigation. Last year, they were caught erasing crucial video evidence during another investigation. They are also responsible for the deaths of five children and numerous lawsuits.

More details from this disturbing story can be found in the video below.

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Proponents of ECT call it a safe therapy and life-saving measure — there are ECT patients who have reported good results. Memory loss, however, in varying degrees, is the most commonly reported side effect whether the jolts work or not.

Little-known fact: Ernest Hemingway did not shoot himself due to alcoholism, although it may have been a contributing factor. His suicide followed ECT after it erased a major portion of his memory. He said the memory loss was “ruining his head” and “putting himself out of business.”

Other information:

- Rotenburg procedures mimic the Skinner Behavior Modification model.

- Created by psychologist Ugo Cerletti in 1938 when he noted effects of electroshock used to make pigs docile for slaughter.

- Upwards of 220 volts administered — the average amount of electricity used to run a home.

- Heavy use in the US began in the ’40s with no sedatives, painkillers, or relaxants, which led to broken bones and vertebrae.

- Today a GED is strapped to the legs, arms, and torso, and drugs are often administered.

- Used today on toddlers & pregnant women.

- FDA reports miscarriages and lifelong developmental damages to the unborn.

- Consent not required in many cases.

- No one knows why it might work; brain damage is cited by opponents.

- Most opponents (and many survivors) of the practice simply call it torture — even the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment agrees!

THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON ACTIVISTPOST.COM.

Ayurveda is a Sanskrit word, derived from two roots: ayur, which means life, and veda, knowledge. Knowledge arranged systematically with logic becomes science. During the due course of time, Ayurveda became the science of life. It has its root in ancient vedic literature and encompasses our entire life, the body, mind and spirit.

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Purusha/Prakruti

According to Ayurveda, every human being is a creation of the cosmos, the pure cosmic consciousness, as two energies: male energy, called Purusha and female energy, Prakruti. Purusha is choiceless passive awareness, while Prakruti is choiceful active consciousness. Prakruti is the divine creative will. Purusha doesn’t take part in creation, but Prakruti does the divine dance of creation called leela. In creation, Prakruti is first evolved or manifested as supreme intelligence, called mahat. Mahat is the buddhi principal (individual intellect) which further manifests as self identity, called ahamkara, which is ego. Ahamkara is influenced by three basic universal qualities: satva, rajas and tamas. Satva is responsible for clarity of perception. Rajas causes movement, sensations, feelings and emotions. Tamas is the tendency towards inertia, darkness, heaviness, and is responsible for periods of confusion and deep sleep.

Manifestation of Creation

From the essence of satva the five senses are created: the ears to hear, skin to perceive touch, eyes to see, the tongue to taste, and the nose, to smell. The essence of rajas is manifested as the five motor organs: speech, hands, feet, genitals and the organs of excretion. The mind is derived from satva, while rajas is manifested as prana, the life force. The tamasic quality is also responsible for the creation of tan matra, the subtle elements, and from whom the five basic elements are manifested. They are space, air, fire, water and earth. It is from pure consciousness that space is manifested.

Space

Expansion of consciousness is space and space is all enclosive. We need space to live, and our bodily cells contain spaces. The synaptic, cellular and visceral spaces give freedom to the tissues to perform their normal physiological functions. (A change in tissue space, however, may lead to pathological conditions.) The space in between two conjunctive nerve cells aids communication, while the space in the mind encompasses love and compassion.

Air

The movement of consciousness determines the direction along which change of position in space takes place. This course of action causes subtle activities and movements within space. According to the Ayurvedic perspective, this is the air principle. There is a cosmic magnetic field responsible for the movement of the earth, wind and water. Its representative in the body is the biological air, responsible for movement of afferent and efferent, sensory and motor-neuron impulses. When someone touches the skin, that tactile skin sensation is carried to the brain by the principal of movement, which is the sensory impulse. Then there is a reaction to the impulse, which is the motor response, which is carried from the brain to the periphery. This is a very important function of air. Our breathing is due to the movement of the diaphragm. Movements of the intestines and subtle cell movements are also governed by the biological principal of air. The movement of thought, desire and will are also governed by the air principal.

Fire

Where there is movement, there is friction, which creates heat, so the third manifestation of consciousness is fire, the principal of heat. There are many different representations of fire in the body. The solar plexus is the seat of fire, and this fire principle regulates body temperature. Fire is also responsible for digestion, absorption and assimilation. It is present in the eyes, therefore we perceive light, and the luster in the eyes is a result of the fire principal. There is a fire in the brain as the grey matter, which governs understanding, comprehension and appreciation. Fire is necessary for transformation, comprehension, appreciation, recognition and total understanding. In our small universe, the sun is a burning ball of consciousness and the sun gives us light and heat. In the body, the representative of the sun is the biological fire: the solar plexus which gives us heat, digestion, and liver function.

Water

Because of the heat of the fire, consciousness melts into water. According to chemistry, water is H2O, but according to Ayurveda water is liquefaction of consciousness. Water exists in the body in many different forms, such as: plasma, cytoplasm, serum, saliva, nasal secretion, orbital secretion and cerebrospinal fluid. Excess water, which we eliminate in the form of urine and sweat is water. Water is necessary for nutrition and to maintain the water/electrolyte balance in the body. Without water, the cells cannot live.

Earth

The next manifestation of consciousness is the earth element. Because of the heat of the fire and water, there is crystallization. According to Ayurveda, earth molecules are nothing but crystallization of consciousness. In the human body, all solid structures, hard, firm and compact tissues are derived from the earth element (e.g. bones, cartilage, nails, hair, teeth and skin). Even in a single cell, the cell membrane is earth, cellular vacuoles are space, cytoplasm is water, nucleic acid and all chemical components of the cell are fire, and movement of the cell is air. All of these five elements are present in every human cell. According to Ayurveda, man is a creation of universal consciousness. What is present in the cosmos, the macrocosm, the same thing is present in the body, the microcosm. Man is a miniature of nature.

Mental Constitution

Vedic philosophy classifies human temperaments into three basic qualities: satvic, rajasic and tamasic. These individual differences in psychological and moral dispositions and their reactions to socio-cultural and physical environments are described in all the classic texts of Ayurveda. Satvic qualities imply essence, reality, consciousness, purity and clarity of perception which are responsible for goodness and happiness. All movements and activities are due to rajas. It leads to the life of sensual enjoyment, pleasure and pain, effort and restlessness. Tamas is darkness, inertia, heaviness and materialistic attitudes. There is a constant interplay of these three gunas (qualities) in the individual consciousness, but the relative predominance of either satva, rajas, or tamas is responsible for individual psychological constitution.

Satvic Mental Constitutions

The people in whom satvic qualities predominate are religious, loving, compassionate and pure minded. Following truth and righteousness, they have good manners, behavior and conduct. They do not get easily upset or angry. Although they work hard mentally, they do not get mental fatigue, so they need only several hours of sleep each night. They look fresh, alert, aware, full of luster, wisdom, joy and happiness. They are creative, humble and respectful of their teachers. Worshipping God and humanity, they love all. They care for people, animals, trees, and are respectful of all life and existence. They have balanced intuition and intelligence.

Rajasic Mental Constitutions

The people in whom rajasic qualities predominate are egoistic, ambitious, aggressive, proud, competitive, and have a tendency to control others. They like power, prestige, position, and are perfectionists. They are hard working people, but are lacking in proper planning and direction. They are ungrounded, active and restless. Emotionally, they are angry, jealous, ambitious, and have few moments of joy due to success. They have a fear of failure, are subject to stress, and soon lose their mental energy. They require about eight hours of sleep. They are loving, calm and patient only as long as their self interests are served. They are good, loving, friendly and faithful only to those who are helpful to them. They are not honest to their inner consciousness. Their activities are self- centered and egotistical.

Tamasic Mental Constitutions

The people in whom tamasic qualities predominate are less intelligent. They tend towards depression, laziness, and excess sleep, even during the day. A little mental work tires them easily. They like jobs of less responsibility, and they love to eat, drink, sleep and have sex. They are greedy, possessive, attached, irritable, and do not care for others. They may harm others through their own self interest. It is difficult for them to focus their minds during meditation.

Vata, Pitta and Kapha: the Three Doshas

The structural aspect of the body is made up of five elements, but the functional aspect of the body is governed by three biological humors. Ether and air together constitute vata; fire and water, pitta; and water and earth, kapha. Vata, pitta and kapha are the three biological humors that are the three biological components of the organism. They govern psycho-biological changes in the body and physio-pathological changes too. Vata-pitta-kapha are present in every cell, tissue and organ. In every person they differ in permutations and combinations.

The sperm is the male seed, and the ovum is the female egg. They also contain vata-pitta-kapha (VPK). Bodily vata-pitta-kapha changes according to diet, life style and emotions. The sperm gets influenced by the father’s lifestyle, diet and emotions, and the ovum by the mother’s. At the time of fertilization, when a single sperm enters a single ovum, individual constitution is determined.

According to Ayurveda, there are seven body types: mono-types (vata, pitta or kapha predominant), dual types (vata-pitta, pitta-kapha or, kapha-vata), and equal types, (vata, pitta and kapha in equal proportions). Every individual has a unique combination of these three doshas. To understand individuality is the foundation of healing according to Ayurveda, “The Science of Life”.

Vata Qualities

Vata, pitta and kapha are distinctly present in every individual and express in each human being differently according to the predominance of the different qualities (gunas). For example vata is dry, light, cold, mobile, active, clear, astringent, and it is dispersing. All of these qualities can manifest in an individual. For example, if a person has excess vata in his or her constitution, because of the dry quality, he or she will have dry hair, dry skin, dry colon and a tendency towards constipation. Because of the light quality, which is opposite of heavy, the vata person will have a light body frame, light muscles, and light fat, and so will be thin and underweight, or “skinny-minny”. Because of the cold quality, the vata person will have cold hands, cold feet and poor circulation. They hate the cold season and love summer. Because of the mobile quality, vata people are very active. They like jogging and jumping and don’t like sitting in one place. Vata is subtle, and this subtle quality is responsible for the emotions of fear, anxiety, insecurity and nervousness. Vata is clear, therefore vata people can be clairvoyant; they have clear understanding and perception. They understand things immediately, but forget things immediately. Vata is astringent, which is a drying and choking quality of taste, therefore the vata person, while eating feels a drying choking sensation in the throat. These qualities are all expressed in a vata individual to some degree.

Pitta Qualities

Pitta is a biological combination of fire and water elements. It has hot, sharp, light, liquid, sour, oily and spreading qualities. Pitta has a strong smell, like a fleshy smell, and has a sour or bitter taste. If an individual has excess pitta in the body, these qualities will be manifested. Because of the hot quality, the pitta person has a strong appetite and warm skin. The body temperature is a little higher than the vata person. The pitta person can perspire at a fifty degree temperature, but the vata person cannot perspire even at a much higher temperature. This difference is very important. Pitta is hot, therefore the pitta person has a strong appetite. If hungry, he has to eat otherwise he will become irritable and hypoglycemic.

The second quality of pitta is sharp, therefore the pitta person has a sharp nose, teeth, eyes, mind and while talking uses sharp words. They also have very sharp memory. Because of the oily quality, they have soft warm oily skin, straight oily hair, and the feces are oily and liquid. Because of the hot, sharp, and oily qualities, pitta people have a tendency to grey prematurely, a sign of early maturity. Pitta girls get earlier menstruation and reach puberty earlier. They can even start their menstruation at the age of ten. Pitta is light, which is the opposite of both heaviness and darkness. Because of this light quality, pitta people are moderate in body frame, and they do not like bright light. They like to read before they go to bed, and sometimes the pitta person sleeps with a book on the chest. Because of too much heat in the body, the pitta person tends to loose his hair in the full bloom of youth. The pitta person can get a receding hair line, or a big, beautiful, bald head.

The next quality of pitta is strong smell. When the pitta person perspires, under the arm pit there is a typical sulphur smell, and if he doesn’t wash his socks, they will have a strong smell. That’s why a pitta person loves perfumes. Pitta people are lovers of knowledge and have a great capacity of organization and leadership. They are often wise, brilliant people, but can have a controlling, dominating personality. Pitta people have a tendency towards comparison, competition, ambition, and they have a quality of aggressiveness, so naturally they criticize. If there is no one to criticize, pitta people will criticize themselves. They are perfectionists. Pitta people tend to get pittagenic inflammatory diseases, while vata predominant people tend to get neurological, muscular and rheumatic problems.

Kapha Qualities

The next dosha is kapha. Subjects having more kapha in their body, will have heavy, slow, cool, oily, liquid, dense, thick, static and cloudy qualities. These are the important qualities of kapha, and kapha is sweet and salty. Because of the heavy quality, kapha people have heavy bones, muscles and fat. They will have a tendency to put on weight. A kapha person may even do a water fast and will put on weight. Kapha is slow, therefore a kapha person has slow metabolism and digestion. The kapha person can work without food, while it is very difficult for a pitta person to concentrate without food. Kapha is cool hence kapha people have cool, clammy skin. The skin is cool, but within the G.I. tract the digestive fire is high therefore they have a strong appetite.

Kapha people have other qualities, thick wavy hair, and big, attractive eyes. They have slow but prolonged, steady memory. Kapha people are forgiving, loving and compassionate. Because of the slow quality, kapha people walk slowly and talk slowly. They don’t like jogging and jumping. They love eating, sitting and doing nothing.

Because of the cloudy quality, their mind is heavy and foggy and after a full meal they feel lethargic and sleepy. Unless they have a cup of coffee or strong stimulant in the morning they cannot move. Finally, the kapha person has a sweet tooth and loves candy, cookies and chocolate.

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THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON HEALTHY.NET.

As a featured guest on The Power Hour with Joyce Riley, Anthony Gucciardi discusses the true severity of the Fukushima disaster and how it affects you and your family. Fukushima has had 5 major meltdowns now, in a disaster that is making experts say that it is larger than Chernobyl. Aljazeera reported in September that the radiation emitted from Fukushima would rival or surpass Chernobyl in only the weeks following the disaster.

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According to Aljazeera:

Experts say that the total radiation leaked will eventually exceed the amounts released from the Chernobyl disaster that the Ukraine in April 1986. This amount would make Fukushima the worst nuclear disaster in history.

This news was from 2011, but the current news isn’t much better. After officials said they were going to perform a ‘cold shutdown’ to prevent any further issues, its now come out that the Fukushima reactor temperature now surpasses 752 degrees — whereas 100 degrees celsius was required for the cold shutdown.

Tepco, the operators of the plant, say the thermometer is conveniently broken, but they have been known to conceal the truth from the public in the past. It took a report months after the initiail Fukushima disaster to state that the amount of radiation released exceeds twice what experts claimed, and that report is actually very concervative.

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Researchers stated:

Significantly more radioactive caesium was released into the atmosphere as a result of the Fukushima explosion than many experts previously stated. A new study challenges the official explanations of the Fukushima explosion, stating that the amount of radioactive isotope caesium-137 released at the height of the crisis was equivalent to 42% of that from Chernobyl.

The researchers also explain how the plant operating company completely covered it up.

In fact, this statement came with a big delay. The operating company deliberately concealed this information. The explanation is simple – the company is afraid that any checking by competent experts would reveal its inability to save the situation. Only recently, foreign experts founded a consultative body for the clean-up of the accident’s consequences. Moreover, the company is concealing the information about the amount of pollution of the environment.

Dr. Chris Busby, who is a known authority on the Fukushima disaster, actually said that the disaster could lead to 200,000 deaths. Amazingly, reports have already shown that the disaster is killing thousands of individuals. One peer-reviewed study found that radioactive fallout from Fukushima has already killed an estimated 14,000 individuals in the United States — most under age one.

Watch this video on YouTube.

It was also found that radioactive cesium was contaminating san francisco-area milk with 150% of the EPA’s maximum contamination limit.

Beyond that, you’re also being exposed to a number of other sources of radiation throughout your day that increase the total percentage. What’s more is that some reports have also tied Fukushima radiation to an increase in heart disease. And it’s not going anywhere fast, as cesium-137 has a 30-year half-life. In fact, the land seriously contaminated by the Fukushima disaster will remain dangerously radioactive for up to 300 years.

The University of Missouri-Columbia said:

Food grown in these regions is contaminated with cesium-137, and sadly most of the children living there who eat this food have become unhealthy. The Belrad Institute, after nine years of research and hundreds of autopsies, found that cesium-137 concentrates in the vital organs, particularly the heart and endocrine system. Professor Yuri Bandazhevsky discovered that children contaminated with cesium-137 that produced 50 atomic disintegrations per second (beck-rells) per kilogram of body weight caused irreversible heart damage in a child.

Watch this video on YouTube.

So it’s causing irreversible heart damage. And this is not an isolated issue, either. While radiation is certainly spiking throughout Tokyo, it is really affecting the entire globe. United States researchers are have revealed that radioactive cesium has been detected in US soil in levels that indicate a severe threat to human health.

In a video about the coming effects of Fukushima radiation on US health, one part of the transcript reads:

It is a public health issue and not a personal health issue. What that means is that we will never know who is the individual who got cancer from Fukushima. But we can be sure that the radiation did reach here and that there will be an increase in cancers, especially on the West Coast where the Rocky Mountains stopped most of the radiation and deposited it on the ground.

Luckily there are natural methods of combatting this radiation, particularly in the form of food and supplements. While it’s certainly beneficial for virtually everyone to consume these foods and nutritional supplements, it may be particularly vital when fighting radiation that could be damaging the health of you and your family.

Sea vegetables: theyre nutritious, taste great, and protect against radiation with high iodine content. Kelp is a great choice here. You just have to watch out for contamination like mercury and othet toxic ingredients — make sure you buy high quality organic when possible.

• Chlorella: Chlorella is full of chlorophyll, which may ward off radiation and is an overall immune booster.
• Spirulina: Spirulina has been been shown to not only enhance the immune system and reduce cholesterol, but also protect the body from radiation. If you’re interested in trying a unique spirulina product, called “Spirulina Crunchies,” click here.
• Apple pectin: Beginning to gain a powerful reputation as an anti-radiation substance.
• Turmeric: this substance is really becoming the next vitamin D — it’s so powerful in boosting your immunity and recent studies show it can protect your skin from radiation. More importantly, it posesses anti-radiation and toxicity effects that can actually interfere with chemotherapy, which just shows how powerful it is. You’ll want to be taking this in a liquid form as a lot of the dry capsules don’t work very well, or perhaps in a food source. The food source is also of concern as it needs to be 100% organic and unprocessed.

Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/exposing-the-severity-of-the-fukushima-disaster-video/#ixzz1mg3NnzTR

THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON NATURALSOCIETY.COM.

It is with much sadness that we report the two-year war waged by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) against Pennsylvania Amish farmer Dan Allgyer has been a success. The Washington Times and others are now reporting that, following a ruling last month by Judge Lawrence F. Stengel that Allgyer could no longer ship raw milk across state lines, he is officially shutting down his entire Rainbow Acres Farm.

Provoking Allgyer to shut down his farm appears to have been the goal of the FDA all along, which back on February 4, 2010, conducted a gestapo-style raid on Allgyer’s Kinzers, Penn., property to search for evidence that he was shipping raw milk across state lines. After illegally trespassing on the man’s property, the agents proceeded to harass Allgyer about his supposed involvement in interstate commerce (http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com).

Just a few months later on April 20, 2010, the FDA again sent its Nazi-sympathizing thugs back to Rainbow Acres Farm, this time at 4:30 a.m. while Allgyer was still asleep, to conduct another raid. Violating the provisions of their so-called warrant, which specified that any inspection must be conducted during “reasonable times during ordinary business hours,” the agents proceeded to once again ransack the farm in search of evidence to back their claims that Allgyer was engaged in illegal interstate commerce (http://www.naturalnews.com/029322_raw_milk_Amish.html).

Following this second sting, the FDA claims to have discovered the evidence it needed, and immediately sent Allgyer a warning letter notifying him that he was in violation of interstate commerce laws, according to their view (http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/aa/aa-26april2010.htm). The agency also filed a civil complaint against Allgyer around the same time.

With hundreds of happy and satisfied out-of-state customers that relied on him for fresh supplies of raw milk, Allgyer attempted to satisfy the FDA’s demands by restructuring his farm’s distribution process into private cow share agreements with customers. Such agreements allow individuals to directly purchase shares in the cows from which they get milk, which means they personally own them, and they are not subject to FDA jurisdiction.

Rogue judge essentially declares FDA has jurisdiction over private property use, in this case cows

But on February 3, 2012, Judge Stengel decided that Allgyer was still in violation of interstate commerce laws, even with the restructured cow sharing arrangements, and ordered him to stop distributing raw milk altogether. Private cow share agreements do not constitute interstate commerce, of course, but Judge Stengel apparently pays no regard to individual liberty, having declared that the FDA basically now has jurisdiction over private property use.

Likely worn down from the perpetual and never-ending harassment, Allgyer appears to have decided to simply give up trying to fight this unprecedented tyranny, and simply shut down his farm. Hundreds of families that relied on Allgyer for fresh milk, butter, cheese, eggs, and other nutritious goods will now have to find a new source for clean food, at least until the FDA shuts them down, too.

“I can’t believe in 2012 the federal government is raiding Amish farmers at gunpoint all over a basic human right to eat natural food,” said one of the farm’s former customers, who wished to remain anonymous, to The Washington Times. “In Maryland, they force taxpayers to pay for abortions, but God forbid we want the same milk our grandparents drank.”

Sources for this article include:

http://www.washingtontimes.com

http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/aa/aa-26april2010.htm

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/035000_Amish_farmers_raw_milk_feds.html#ixzz1mfmw2600

THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON NATURALNEWS.COM.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft has confirmed the discovery of its first alien world in its host star’s habitable zone — that just-right range of distances that could allow liquid water to exist — and found more than 1,000 new explanet candidates, researchers announced today (Dec. 5).

The new finds bring the Kepler space telescope’s total haul to 2,326 potential planets in its first 16 months of operation.These discoveries, if confirmed, would quadruple the current tally of worlds known to exist beyond our solar system, which recently topped 700.

The potentially habitable alien world, a first for Kepler, orbits a star very much like our own sun. The discovery brings scientists one step closer to finding a planet like our own — one which could conceivably harbor life, scientists said.

“We’re getting closer and closer to discovering the so-called ‘Goldilocks planet,’” Pete Worden, director of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., said during a press conference today. [Gallery: The Strangest Alien Planets]

The newfound planet in the habitable zone is called Kepler-22b. It is located about 600 light-years away, orbiting a sun-like star.

Kepler-22b’s radius is 2.4 times that of Earth, and the two planets have roughly similar temperatures. If the greenhouse effect operates there similarly to how it does on Earth, the average surface temperature on Kepler-22b would be 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 degrees Celsius).

Hunting down alien planets

The $600 million Kepler observatory launched in March 2009 to hunt for Earth-size alien planets in the habitable zone of their parent stars, where liquid water, and perhaps even life, might be able to exist.

Kepler detects alien planets using what’s called the “transit method.” It searches for tiny, telltale dips in a star’s brightness caused when a planet transits — or crosses in front of — the star from Earth’s perspective, blocking a fraction of the star’s light.

The finds graduate from “candidates” to full-fledged planets after follow-up observations confirm that they’re not false alarms. This process, which is usually done with large, ground-based telescopes, can take about a year.

The Kepler team released data from its first 13 months of operation back in February, announcing that the instrument had detected 1,235 planet candidates, including 54 in the habitable zone and 68 that are roughly Earth-size.

Of the total 2,326 candidate planets that Kepler has found to date, 207 are approximately Earth-size. More of them, 680, are a bit larger than our planet, falling into the “super-Earth” category. The total number of candidate planets in the habitable zones of their stars is now 48.

To date, just over two dozen of these potential exoplanets have been confirmed, but Kepler scientists have estimated that at least 80 percent of the instrument’s discoveries should end up being the real deal.

More discoveries to come

The newfound 1,094 planet candidates are the fruit of Kepler’s labors during its first 16 months of science work, from May 2009 to September 2010. And they won’t be the last of the prolific instrument’s discoveries.

“This is a major milestone on the road to finding Earth’s twin,” Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., said in a statement.

Mission scientists still need to analyze data from the last two years and on into the future. Kepler will be making observations for a while yet to come; its nominal mission is set to end in November 2012, but the Kepler team is preparing a proposal to extend the instrument’s operations for another year or more.

Kepler’s finds should only get more exciting as time goes on, researchers say.

“We’re pushing down to smaller planets and longer orbital periods,” said Natalie Batalha, Kepler deputy science team lead at Ames.

To flag a potential planet, the instrument generally needs to witness three transits. Planets that make three transits in just a few months must be pretty close to their parent stars; as a result, many of the alien worlds Kepler spotted early on have been blisteringly hot places that aren’t great candidates for harboring life as we know it.

Given more time, however, a wealth of more distantly orbiting — and perhaps more Earth-like — exoplanets should open up to Kepler. If intelligent aliens were studying our solar system with their own version of Kepler, after all, it would take them three years to detect our home planet.

“We are getting very close,” Batalha said. “We are homing in on the truly Earth-size, habitable planets.”

By Mike Wall, SPACE.com Senior Writer

Yesterday’s crowd-pleaser from MRC TV was just an appetizer. Here’s the main course via Reason — almost 19 minutes of Schiff taking on all comers at Zuccotti Park like some sort of Austrian-school ninja. Watch for the part where he breaks out the rhetorical nunchucks against regulation on grounds that everyone wants to pay lower prices for goods and is duly informed by a guy in a Guy Fawkes mask and keffiyeh that … no, not everyone does. There’s your “Obama 2012″ campaign slogan, I guess.

Elsewhere in the park, the revolution might not be televised but apparently it will be catered. With one caveat: You only get to eat if you’re doing something productive for the cause, like drumming 15 hours a day. You see, the people’s mess hall doesn’t have time for … freeloaders.

The Occupy Wall Street volunteer kitchen staff launched a “counter” revolution yesterday — because they’re angry about working 18-hour days to provide food for “professional homeless” people and ex-cons masquerading as protesters.

For three days beginning tomorrow, the cooks will serve only brown rice and other spartan grub instead of the usual menu of organic chicken and vegetables, spaghetti bolognese, and roasted beet and sheep’s-milk-cheese salad.

They will also provide directions to local soup kitchens for the vagrants, criminals and other freeloaders who have been descending on Zuccotti Park in increasing numbers every day…

Today, a limited menu of sandwiches, chips and some hot food will be doled out — so legitimate protesters will have a day to make arrangements for more upscale weekend meals.

In other words, a guy with no job who’s been sleeping in the park for a month and prone to saying things like “power to the people” is entitled to feast on sheep’s-milk-cheese salad, but a guy with no job who’s been sleeping in the park for years and prone to saying things like “I’m hungry” has to make do with whatever the local soup kitchen is shoveling. Some occupiers really are more equal than others.

Be sure to read to the end of the Post’s article for details on the confrontation between OWS’s self-appointed security team and the “trouble-prone southwest section of Zuccotti Park,” which is troublesome enough that some women have reportedly abandoned the protest in fear for their own safety. (No one knows how bad it is inside because there’s an informal “stop snitching” policy that’s intimidating people into not reporting crimes.) Zuccotti Park isn’t that big so some of this must be going on right under the NYPD’s nose, yet for political reasons, Bloomberg and the landlord are apparently content to let the movement’s own “security volunteers” handle it rather than risk a confrontation by intervening themselves. Disgraceful, and needless to say, the outrage it would inspire if the protesters’ politics were different would be apocalyptic. As it is, if someone does get seriously hurt in there, they should sue every city official and agency in sight — Bloomberg, Ray Kelly, straight down the line. They might not win but the shame alone will be worth it.

THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON HOTAIR.COM (CLICK HERE)

Unfortunately, Michael Franti doesn’t fully connect he dots yet about man made global warming and Al Gore. Somebody please have him watch The Great Global Warming Swindle, he’s already awake to so much, he just needs to be brought up to speed with how global warming and carbon taxes tie into the financial parasite that is eating away at our country.

For the Record: Global Warming may exist, but there is not enough evidence yet, that we have seen, to prove that it is man made. In fact just the opposite, as evidence from NASA suggests that every planet in the solar system is heating up as well. Last I checked there weren’t SUVs on Mars or Venus yet.

The argument Al Gore gives in The Inconvenient Truth is a complete fraud and the parlor trick of a magician. He flips the cause and effect. The real data shows the planet heats up and then 30 years later the CO2 levels go up. The real data shows that in fact the natural heating of the planet by the sun causes the the plants and the oceans to off gas CO2 which has been known for a very long time. This is not new information and Al Gore did not invent that data point either, anymore than he invented the internet.

By the way, we love Michael Franti, and this is not a diss on Michale Franti in any way whatsoever, we truly want him to be brought up to speed about the truth and fraud of man made global warming as espoused by the 3rd largest homeowner in America, Al Gore.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Friday declared an end to the Iraq war, one of the longest and most divisive conflicts in U.S. history, announcing that all U.S. troops would be withdrawn from the country by year’s end.

“As promised the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year. After nearly nine years, America’s war in Iraq will be over,” Obama said.
Live vote: Was Iraq war worth the human, financial costs?

“Today I can say that troops in Iraq will be home for the holidays.”

The president made the announcement at a White House briefing following a private video conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Obama said the two were in full agreement about how to move forward.

The withdrawal of American troops marks a major milestone in the war that started in 2003 and resulted in the removal of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. More than 4,400 American military members have been killed, and another 2,000 wounded since the U.S. invasion.

“Over the next two months, our troops in Iraq, tens of thousands of them, will pack up their gear and board convoys for the journey home,” Obama said.
Obama keeps campaign promise with Iraq

“The last American soldier will cross the border out of Iraq with their heads held high, proud of their success, and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops,” Obama said. “That is how America’s military efforts in Iraq will end.”

The U.S. military role in Iraq has been mostly reduced to advising the security forces in a country where levels of violence had declined sharply from a peak of sectarian strife in 2006-2007, but attacks remain a daily occurrence.

The U.S. has been withdrawing about 520 military personnel every day in accordance with the mission set by Obama in early 2009, sources told NBC News.

Denis McDonough, the White House’s deputy national security adviser, said that in addition to the standard Marine security detail, the U.S. will also have 4,000 to 5,000 contractors to provide security for U.S. diplomats, including at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad and U.S. consulates in Basra and Erbil.

The American withdrawal by the end of 2011 was sealed in a deal between the two countries when George W. Bush was president. Obama declared the end of the combat mission earlier this year. The main sticking point has been legal immunity for any U.S. forces that remain.

CLICK HERE TO READ REST OF THE ARTICLE FROM MSNBC.COM

This amazing video shows how United States Marine Corps. Sgt. Shamar Thomas from Roosevelt, NY went toe to toe with the New York Piolice Department. An activist in the Occupy Wall Street movement, Thomas voiced his opinions of the NYPD police brutality that had and has been plaguing the #OWS movement.

Thomas is a 24-year-old Marine Veteran (2 tours in Iraq), he currently plays amateur football and is in college.

Thomas comes from a long line of people who sacrifice for their country: Mother, Army Veteran (Iraq), Step father, Army, active duty (Afghanistan), Grand father, Air Force veteran (Vietnam), Great Grand Father Navy veteran (World War II).

ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON YOUTUBE (CLICK HERE)

Kirlian Photography Shows Organic and Uncooked Food To Have Stronger Energy Fields

It’s fairly easy to assume that organic food or raw food are more beneficial than chemically-laced or cooked food. Most of us find it to be common sense that organic raw food is the most nutrient-dense type of food that we can eat. However, not many consider the measurable energy field of these foods. Below is an interesting video showing the difference in their energy fields done with Kirlian photography.

Kirlian photography refers to a form of photogram made with voltage. It is named after Semyon Kirlian, who in 1939 accidentally discovered that if an object on a photographic plate is connected to a source of voltage an image is produced on the photographic plate (Wiki).

The uncooked food shows a vibrant even flow of energy, while cooked food showed a clear reduction and imbalance in its field. A fresh organic apple was compared to a commercial apple. Although both showed strong energy fields, the organic apple’s field was more uniform and complete.

Article Content Retrieved From: Activist Post

Smartphone pictures pose privacy risks

Pictures you’ve e-mailed or uploaded from your smartphone could leak information that can threaten your safety or that of your children.

Article Content From: YouTube

At CIA, Climate Change is a Secret

When the Central Intelligence Agency established a Center on Climate Change and National Security in 2009, it drew fierce opposition from congressional Republicans who disputed the need for an intelligence initiative on this topic. But now there is a different, and possibly better, reason to doubt the value of the Center: It has adopted an extreme view of classification policy which holds that everything the Center does is a national security secret.

Last week, the CIA categorically denied (pdf) a request under the Freedom of Information Act for a copy of any Center studies or reports concerning the impacts of global warming.

“We completed a thorough search for records responsive to your request and located material that we determined is currently and properly classified and must be denied in its entirety…,” wrote CIA’s Susan Viscuso to requester Jeffrey Richelson, an intelligence historian affiliated with the National Security Archive.

With some effort, one can imagine records related to climate change that would be properly classified. Such records might, for example, include information that was derived from classified collection methods or sources that could be compromised by their disclosure. Or perhaps such records might present analysis reflecting imminent threats to national security that would be exacerbated rather than corrected by publicizing them.

But that’s not what CIA said. Rather, it said that all of the Center’s work is classified and there is not even a single study, or a single passage in a single study, that could be released without damage to national security. That’s a familiar song, and it became tiresome long ago.

But in this case, it is more than an annoyance. The CIA response indicates a fundamental lack of discernment that calls into question the integrity of the Center on Climate Change, if not the Agency as a whole. If the CIA really thinks (or pretends to think) that every document produced by the Center constitutes a potential threat to national security, who can expect the Center to say anything intelligent or useful about climate change? Security robots cannot help us navigate the environmental challenges ahead. Better to allocate the scarce resources to others who can.

Meanwhile, access by scientists to classified military intelligence data on the environment has actually been improving lately, reports Geoff Brumfiel in the latest edition of Nature (“Military surveillance data: Shared intelligence,” 21 September 2011, sub. req’d). Among other things, the Clinton-Gore era group of cleared scientists known as MEDEA (Measurements of Earth Data for Environmental Analysis) was reconvened in 2008 at congressional request.

A Federation of American Scientists proposal to expand public access to unclassified open source intelligence products (“Open Up Open Source Intelligence,” Secrecy News, August 24) did not find favor with the White House. Nothing like it was included in the new U.S. National Action Plan (pdf) for the Open Government Partnership, which mostly elaborates and restates previous commitments.

Update: The National Intelligence Council has published a collection of commissioned papers on “The Impact of Climate Change to 2030″ which do not, however, “reflect official U.S. Government positions.”

Steven Aftergood

Article Content From: Secrecy News

Activist Post Deleted! Google Erases Popular Alternative News Source

It appears that one of my newest favorite websites, Activist Post (www.activistpost.com) has been taken down by its host, Blogger.com. Activist Post posts original articles and articles from other websites that highlight the news items of what various government agencies and the military are up to, and investigative reporting on the latest injustices, corruption and crimes, that we don’t hear about from mainstream news sources.

I am suspicious of this, especially given that Blogger.com is owned by Google. And we know about the cozy relationship between Google and the Obama Administration. It’s very suspicious. TPTB do not like their corruption and crimes being exposed, and they have been very happy lately with the complicity and cover-ups of the mainstream media, the subservient, obedient stenographers of the so-called “free press.” It would not surprise me that Blogger shut down Activist Post for political reasons, not particularly from the web people and managers of Blogger.com, but from pressure from TPTB.

Does this mean that they are going to shut down MY website, too? Or LewRockwell.com, Infowars,Future of Freedom Foundation, Antiwar.com, Strike the Root, The Daily Bell, Washington’s Blog,Economic Collapse Blog, the SHTF Plan, The Burning Platform, Glenn Greenwald, the Tenth Amendment Center, and many other “challenging the status quo” websites and blogs? These websites and blogs are openly critical of the status quo of statism and centralism, and have been trying to expose how governments in America, federal, state and local, have been removing our liberty and our rights, from the left and from the right, and the people who cherish freedom DON’T LIKE THAT!

I can see why those people in power don’t like being exposed for what they are. But they do have power, that’s for sure.

In fact, just recently, the other major blogging website (in competition with Blogger.com), WordPress.com, had threatened to suspend Rick Rozoff’s website, Stop NATO, but it is still up. The message from WordPress was: “Warning: We have a concern about some of the content on your blog.

Do you think the same kind of thing happened to Activist Post? But this time, they’ve been taken down without warning, without the chance to copy their material to transfer to a different blog? (Jeepers, I hope it doesn’t happen to me, after two years of a lot of writing and hard work that I put into this website.)

Article Content From: Prison Planet

At mid-day on Friday, September 23, 2011, the popular alternative news blog, ActivistPost.com, was taken offline. Activist Post receives over one million views per month and has been hosted by Google’s Blogger since its founding in June 2010.

“We remain puzzled as to why Activist Post was erased completely by Google,” said chief editor and co-founder Michael Edwards. “When we tried to load our back-up file into our secondary Blogger account, that was blocked as well,” he added.

It remains unclear whether Google has acted to censor ActivistPost.com for their controversial reporting. Google is becoming somewhat notorious for clamping down on truth and liberty activists, of which Activist Post is known for.

“Clearly, this is a huge set back for us and the work we do,” said co-founder Eric Blair. “Our entire crew is working on resolving the issue and restoring the website. We certainly look forward to an explanation from Google.”

Activist Post will file an appeal with Google to restore the site in full, and asks their loyal supporters to make their voices heard as well. However, they also are seeking other hosting services to avoid these types of censorship issues in the future.

“We want to thank our loyal readers, contributors, and advertisers for being patient while we work this out. We plan to come on even stronger in face of this adversity,” Edwards said

Until Activist Post is back in action, you can find their work at BeforeItsNews.com

Zen Gardner

Article Content From: Infowars

Things Happy People Do Differently

“I’d always believed that a life of quality, enjoyment, and wisdom were my human birthright and would be automatically bestowed upon me as time passed. I never suspected that I would have to learn how to live – that there were specific disciplines and ways of seeing the world I had to master before I could awaken to a simple, happy, uncomplicated life.”– Dan Millman

Studies conducted by positivity psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky point to 12 things happy people do differently to increase their levels of happiness. These are things that we can start doing today to feel the effects of more happiness in our lives. (Check out her book The How of Happiness.)

I want to honor and discuss each of these 12 points, because no matter what part of life’s path we’re currently traveling on, these ‘happiness habits’ will always be applicable.

Express gratitude. – When you appreciate what you have, what you have appreciates in value. Kinda cool right? So basically, being grateful for the goodness that is already evident in your life will bring you a deeper sense of happiness. And that’s without having to go out and buy anything. It makes sense. We’re gonna have a hard time ever being happy if we aren’t thankful for what we already have.

Cultivate optimism. – Winners have the ability to manufacture their own optimism. No matter what the situation, the successful diva is the chick who will always find a way to put an optimistic spin on it. She knows failure only as an opportunity to grow and learn a new lesson from life. People who think optimistically see the world as a place packed with endless opportunities, especially in trying times.

Avoid over-thinking and social comparison. – Comparing yourself to someone else can be poisonous. If we’re somehow ‘better’ than the person that we’re comparing ourselves to, it gives us an unhealthy sense of superiority. Our ego inflates – KABOOM – our inner Kanye West comes out! If we’re ‘worse’ than the person that we’re comparing ourselves to, we usually discredit the hard work that we’ve done and dismiss all the progress that we’ve made. What I’ve found is that the majority of the time this type of social comparison doesn’t stem from a healthy place. If you feel called to compare yourself to something, compare yourself to an older version of yourself.

Practice acts of kindness. – Performing an act of kindness releases serotonin in your brain. (Serotonin is a substance that has TREMENDOUS health benefits, including making us feel more blissful.) Selflessly helping someone is a super powerful way to feel good inside. What’s even cooler about this kindness kick is that not only will you feel better, but so will people watching the act of kindness. How extraordinary is that? Bystanders will be blessed with a release of serotonin just by watching what’s going on. A side note is that the job of most anti-depressants is to release more serotonin. Move over Pfizer, kindness is kicking ass and taking names.

Nurture social relationships. – The happiest people on the planet are the ones who have deep, meaningful relationships. Did you know studies show that people’s mortality rates are DOUBLED when they’re lonely? WHOA! There’s a warm fuzzy feeling that comes from having an active circle of good friends who you can share your experiences with. We feel connected and a part of something more meaningful than our lonesome existence.

Jacob Sokol

Article Content From: Sensophy

Even BPA-Free Plastics Leach Harmful Chemicals

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a known endocrine-disrupting hormone mimicker, present in a large majority of plastic products and even canned goods. But what about plastics that don’t contain BPA? A new study has found that even products that claim to be BPA-free oftentimes still leach endocrine-disrupting chemicals. In fact, the study found that 70% of common plastic products were tested positive for estrogenic activity, and the number skyrocketed to 95% when the products were put through real world conditions such as microwaving or dishwashing.

The study shows that even products labeled “BPA-free” still pose a threat to human health, and many contain phthalates, also known as “plasticizers.”

Phthalates are a group of industrial chemicals used in the production of plastics such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Used to make the plastics more flexible and resilient, phthalates are also found in many cosmetic products and plastic containers. Two studies published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives in 2003 found that pregnant women exposed to phthalates were at an increased risk of pregnancy complications, as the chemicals negatively affect the development of the fetus in unknown ways.

Phthalates have even been found to reduce masculinity in men, according to a study published in the International Journal of Andrology. The researchers found that elevated levels of in pregnant women’s urine are linked to more feminine play behavior in young males.

Phthalates are found in, among other things:

* Processed food packaging
* Hoses
* Raincoats
* Shower curtains
* Vinyl flooring and wall coverings
* Lubricant and adhesives
* Detergents
* Beauty products like nail polish, hair spray, shampoo, deodorants, and fragrances
* Toys

Please contact plastic product makers to let them know that you are aware of the dangers of industrial chemicals and prompt them about their plans to reduce or eliminate the dangers. Please also visit NaturalSociety for the latest health information and vaccine research.

Anthony Gucciardi

Article Content From: Activist Post

Smart Meters Can Reveal Your Personal Habits in The Worldwide Energy Web

The Solution? Getting Off The Grid NOW!

The dark horse of the New World Order is not Communism, Socialism or Fascism. It is Technocracy. — Patrick Wood

Smart Meters are showing up across the U.S. despite pockets of fierce resistance. These meters are part of the SmartGrid system which relays real-time, wireless data in order to monitor and distribute energy use down to the tiniest detail. The professed purpose of this grid system — to reduce carbon emissions — is ringing more hollow than ever, as both health and privacy concerns are taking center stage for an increasing number of people who are aware of the dangers on both levels.

Smart Meters use radio frequency microwaves, which have produced a documented list of negative health effects, as shown in the video below.

Now, a German study highlights the precision with which these devices can also monitor personal habits such as TV viewing. This lends credence to those who have asserted from the beginning that Smart Meters are nothing more than the latest attempt to ratchet up the all-seeing eye of the surveillance and data collection network.

These devices are more appropriately viewed as a two-way data collection web with the user as the centerpoint. It now has been revealed that the information being transmitted outward goes beyond merely which appliances of yours are contributing to supposed Global Warming:

“The group’s experiments used data from a standard EasyMeter smart meter installed in a normal home. The meter sends electricity usage data to a server every two seconds. The customer profile on the supplier’s web server shows the household’s total consumption, from which it is possible to extract and analyse TV viewing data…

Second by second data transfer makes it possible to carry out much finer analysis”

This analysis is so fine, potentially, that it can target not only the source of the data (TV, DVD, etc.), but through an analysis of the light and dark spectrum even specific programming can be identified.

The Solution? Getting Off The Grid NOW!

Patrick Wood gave an excellent presentation recently about the history of technocratic control, and the nature of the elites such as David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski who have shepherded Smart Meter technology. The grid they are putting in place aims to reduce individuals to their representative zeros and ones in the digital world to commodify the production and consumption of the human race toward a “new economic order” run by scientists and technicians. The data collection and surveillance component is merely an added bonus for technocrats and those with aspirations of global control.

The good news is that the SmartGrid initiative is Federal and global, so you can work on the local level to resist Smart Meters in your community, as many already have. The range of Smart Meter violations has crossed economic, privacy, and health boundaries, making this an easy issue to discuss with your neighbors. You can educate people about the history of technocracy and the central role Smart Meters play in the new Worldwide Energy Web, and form a local coalition to pressure your municipality.

Please drop a note in the comments section if Smart Meters are in your community, what the response has been and what actions are being taken to remove them. Please also visit refusesmartmeters.com for more information about how you can take action.

Article Content From: Activist Post

The true history of the tragedy called “morality.”

This is the true history of what is commonly called “morality.”

If you were the only thief in the world, imagine how easy your job would be! There would be no locks, no security systems, no passwords, no police. You could just take stuff, and people would probably just assume they lost it.

On the other hand, if everyone in the world was a thief, everyone would half starve. No one would create more than they consumed in the moment, because it would just be stolen.

So — if you want to be a great thief — the greatest, perhaps — your best strategy would be to convince everyone else to stop stealing — not because you think theft is wrong — you are, after all, a thief — but because you don’t want the competition!

Thus the most brilliant thieves invent “property rights” to make theft easier and more profitable.

If everyone is a counterfeiter, money is worthless. If you want to be a great counterfeiter — the greatest, perhaps — your first step is to convince everyone else that counterfeiting is immoral, wrong, evil, and must be punished.

Then, you must convince everyone that your own counterfeiting is moral, good, virtuous, and must be rewarded.

This is what George Orwell called, “doublethink.”

In order for us to accept such madness, the wheels of our minds must first be broken by indoctrination. By government schools.

Ethics, virtue, morality — these were not invented and inflicted from any desire to spread goodness, but rather to disarm and enslave others. To disarm and enslave you.

The sequence is always the same — invent a universal standard of good behavior, and then create an invisible exception for yourself and your friends, by calling it something else.

“THOU SHALT NOT STEAL!” — Ok, all right, theft is wrong! Thus those in power have to call their theft “taxation.”

“THOU SHALT NOT KILL!” — Ok, all right, murder is wrong! Thus those in power have to call their murders “wars.”

“NO KIDNAPPING!” — Ok, all right, kidnapping is wrong! Thus those in power have to call their kidnappings “incarceration.”

“VIOLENCE IS WRONG!” — Ok, all right, using violence to get what you want is wrong! Thus those in power have to call their violence “spanking” or “laws.”

Do you see the pattern? Create a universal moral rule, and then create an exception for yourself, and your friends.

It’s very easy to test this theory. Walk-up to an average citizen and ask him if using violence to solve problems is good. He will say, “no.” Point out that the State initiates force all the time in the pretense of solving problems. He will immediately start to defend the State.

It is inevitable. People defend moral rules, and then defend the most blatant violations of these same moral rules.

This how we are controlled. This is how we are propagandized. This is how money dies. This is how freedom dies.

This is how we die.

If someone gives you a moral rule, the first thing to do is to examine not the rule, but the exception. Who is not bound by that rule? Who gets to do the exact opposite? It will always be those in power — that is why moral rules exist.

Any thinker who actually tries to apply universal moral rules universally is considered insane, bizarre, ridiculous — because the purpose of universal morality is the exception, the violation.

Governments disarm citizens by denying them weapons, while retaining monstrous weapons in the hands of the state.

It is the same with “morality.”

Open your mind. Open your eyes.

We can only avoid the traps we can see.

Article Content from: YouTube

Kids Drinking Raw Milk Have 40% Less Asthma and Allergies: New Large Study

Reuters, Fox and other media outlets reported September 13 about a large European raw milk study published at the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, online August 29, 2011, showing kids who drink raw milk are 41% less likely to suffer from asthma and allergies. The study included 8334 school-aged children, and 7606 of them provided serum samples to assess specific immunoglobulin E (IgE) levels. Over 800 cow’s milk samples were collected at the participants’ homes. Reuter’s article stated:

Compared with kids who only drank store-bought milk, those who drank raw milk had a 41-percent reduction in their odds of developing asthma. They were also only about half as likely to develop hay fever — even after accounting for other factors that might be relevant. On the other hand, those who drank boiled farm milk had no less asthma than those who drank store milk. The protective effect was linked to so-called whey proteins in the milk, such as BSA and alpha-lactalbumin. Pasteurization remains an effective tool to inactivate harmful microorganisms but may simultaneously destroy whey proteins.

The results of this study brings up two other very serious questions rarely posed: 1) What other diseases and disorders are caused by regular pasteurized, homogenized milk with synthetic chemical additives? and 2) What other health benefits can be realized from including raw milk as part of a well-rounded diet of whole, fresh foods?

1) What other diseases and disorders are caused by regular pasteurized, homogenized milk with synthetic chemical additives?

First, twenty percent of Americans get sick immediately upon drinking regular milk and this has been growing every year. An informal survey by The Weston A. Price Foundation found that ninety percent of those lacto-intolerant can drink raw milk. What is it doing to the health of the other 80 percent? This study names just asthma and allergies. But there are a host of other auto-immune disorders caused or made worse by drinking regular milk. These symptoms are either corrected or lessened when regular milk is stopped or when substituting regular milk with raw milk. . It is only logical to assume many people do not know the symptoms they suffer are regular-milk-induced. Face it, regular milk today is not what grandma drank. Our article Skim Milk may be making you fat and sick is already the No. 1 post of the year. It tells how skim milk can help make you fat and raise bad cholesterol

In a December 2009 survey by the Journal, 877 raw milk drinkers had this to say:

Health Benefits (of 877 raw milk drinkers)

74% have much health benefit

24% some

2% none

What all responders said about pasteurized milk:

62% believe it has long-term health consequences

15% say it makes them very sick

40% say it tastes terrible

30% say it upsets their stomach

16% say it gives them diarrhea

2) What other health benefits can be realized from including raw milk as part of a well-rounded diet of whole, fresh foods?

From my experience, I will state that children and adults who drink raw milk are significantly healthier and have fewer diseases and disorders than those who drink regular pasteurized, homogenized milk. One reason may be those essential natural animal fats and healthy cholesterols. A whole set of studies substantiate the health benefits and safety of properly produced raw milk.

Humorously, the subject study goes as far as not to recommend raw milk because of its “dangers”. Be assured the FDA and USDA will continue to bust Amish farmers and other dairies producing raw milk intended and fit for human consumption, even though no deaths have been recorded from raw milk consumption in the last ten years. In fact, of 42 raw milk illnesses per year on average reported, using government figures, you are about 35,000 times more likely to become ill from other foods than you are from raw milk, especially if you are careful to select a clean, safe raw dairy. Yet the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have targeted a ban on access to raw milk, included in the top 10 health crises to be addressed in their Healthy People 2020 campaign

Do not expect the milk industry or their marketing partners at USDA, FDA or CDC to fund a study in overall health outcomes of raw versus regular milk drinkers. The milk industry is already losing market share as the underground secret message of natural milk is overcoming television milk mustaches on celebrities. But if a study were ever conducted, the healthier outcomes would not be from raw milk or healthier diets alone. Of the hundreds of raw milk drinkers I know also have children who are not overly vaccinated nor do they drink fluoridated water.

David Michael Augenstein

Article Content From: Living Food Journal

Earth Groans Or HAARP Warfare? – The Strange Sound Phenomenon

This strange sound phenomenon is being reported more and more frequently from diverse places on the globe, and sometimes just preceding earthquakes. And not just by a few individuals, but by stadiums of people and even whole cities.

The day before the big Northeast quake in the US the weird sound was heard during a baseball game and caught on TV. (see below). It’s also been reported in Russia, Canada, also preceding an earthquake, and other locations.

What Is It?

Let’s do a little dot connecting. And by the way, if you’re one of those waiting for some government scientist or official to come out with the real story on this and the whole gamut of weird stuff going on you’re living in a dream world.

It ain’t gonna happen.

What we can do is look at the events themselves, compile what information we can, and put some ideas out there for discussion. I don’t pretend to fully understand anything, but I’m very eager to point out what appear to be “anomalies” and patterns happening in our world that seem to have serious significance.

And as many have found out, when you’re sincere and open and are passionate about your research and finding real truth, it usually paints a pretty clear picture!

(BTW, this is a bit of a video fest which I rarely do, but they’re all very short except the first one, but it’s a compilation and sets the stage quite well IMO.)

The HAARP Discussion

As a little aside to start, I’m a little concerned at what’s becoming a knee-jerk reaction by the so-called alternative community at the mention of HAARP anymore — that it’s overkill and bordering paranoid to always bring it up. Obviously not everything is attributable to HAARP technology, but can you blame anyone for not first looking at how some event was possibly caused or exacerbated by these evil elite PTBs or whomever?

That’s completely healthy and understandable. I say let people react as they will and if you must, answer with facts and with respect. When we start broad-brushing or judging and excluding each other based on one point, article or post it’s not a good sign.

Are we becoming our own truth Gestapo? Beware of anyone trying to stir things up and turn us on each other.

Call it HAARP or whatever…

We don’t even KNOW all the stuff these megalomaniacs have.

But I’m more inclined to believe this strange sound phenomenon is artificially induced by the world’s mad scientists at these HAARP type facilities or some such vibrational tool, and that it’s these insane boys playing with their toys and seeing what they can produce. And it’s definitely not healthy.

But who knows what dastardly advances they’ve made that we have absolutely no knowledge of?

The monstrous CERN particle accelerator in Switzerland is enough to freak anyone out with its capability to literally implode the planet or open a portal to another dimension allowing who knows what to enter ours. These facts have been stated openly by their head researchers!…yet no one gets the significance and goes back to watching the ball game. Surreal.

The Woodpecker Phenomenon

We know as far back as the 70′s Russian electromagnetic pulse technology was causing a woodpecker type effect that was broadcast to the United States.

And they were even then concerned about the effect on the human brain. Imagine now, folks.

You can only imagine what this now super advanced ionospheric heating device and other technologies are capable of doing.

Examples of the “Strange Sound”

We do know it is very strange, and thanks to youtube it’s very well documented.

Here’s one compilation of a few events:

(Below) In the US this event recently took place…of course explained away as PA system feedback. As you’ll see it’s the same sound you just heard above…where there was no stadium, and no PA system…AND on the eve of the Northeast Earthquake!

Another example, this time a little different high-pitched sound following a heavy chemtrail day with chemtrail rainbow–and 11 hours later the area was also hit with a 5.0 earthquake!

Conclusion

The fact is, at this point we don’t seem to know what’s causing this phenomenon for sure. That it’s in keeping with the potential of HAARP or EISCAT and similar Orwellian technologies is a fact. This we know just from the amount of disclosed information on the potential of these facilities admitted in the public domain and available via amassed amounts of patent documents.

That it can be the earth going through deep tectonic shifts as the magma moves according to the changes in our magnetosphere, or from the gravitational effects of changes in our solar system and beyond?

Very possible.

by Zen Gardner

Article Content From: Before It’s News

Self-training for Activists

The majority of people are moral cowards who tell themselves that “we have to just get through this and things will eventually get better,” or are contented by telling themselves that “we have to go along in order to get along”. Native peoples shared this philosophy at the beginning. The government went back on hundreds of established agreements with the Natives. What makes you think they haven’t already reigned on their promise to the Constitution? It would be a logical fallacy to think otherwise. Political activism will undoubtedly continue in America, but the rules have changed. No longer will the government pretend to restrain itself with the Constitution. Freedom of speech is on paper, but it is not honored by the system. Therefore, I urge all activists to take the time to watch this video, as it is the last semblance of legal protection we have left.

Rick Gedeon

An law school professor and former criminal defense attorney tells you why you should never agree to be interviewed by the police.

Article Content From: Activist Post & YouTube

League of United Latin American Citizens Condemns Fluoridation as a Civil Rights Violation

In an action with far-reaching national ramifications, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the oldest Hispanic civil rights organization in the United States, has adopted a resolution opposing the practice of water fluoridation.

The resolution was passed on July 1st at the 2011 LULAC national convention in Cincinnati.

The news adds Hispanic leaders to a growing list of groups and prominent individuals now speaking out against the controversial practice of fluoridation, including former Atlanta mayor and U.N. ambassador Andrew Young, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter and niece Dr. Bernice A. King and Dr. Alveda King, Coalition of African American Pastors President Rev. William Owens, and civil rights leader and minister Dr. Gerald Durley.

“The Hispanic community is no longer going to be silent on this issue,” says Henry Rodriguez, LULAC’s Texas civil rights chairman. “This is about forcing us to be medicated through our drinking water without our consent or full disclosure of the risks.”

“Fluoridation is a civil rights violation,” he says. “Opposition to fluoridation is going to continue building and there is no stopping it. There are millions of Hispanics and other minorities in the U.S. who don’t have the funds to avoid fluoridated water for making their babies’ milk formula. And millions of families don’t know they’re being medicated in their drinking water, or about possible risks for kidney patients and diabetics.”

Human rights advocate Dr. Bernice A. King states, “Water fluoridation needs to end. It is good that organizations are lending their support to help push this outdated and harmful practice of fluoridation toward collapse. This is wonderful news.”

Babies, diabetics, kidney patients, and other groups are listed by the National Research Council as susceptible groups especially vulnerable to harm from ingested fluorides.

Water utilities add fluoride chemicals to drinking water to help prevent cavities. They are the only chemicals specifically added to treat or prevent a health condition in the body, rather than to treat the water itself.

“Fluorides are listed in the ‘Drug Facts’ information on boxes of fluoridated toothpaste sold to help prevent cavities,” says Daniel G. Stockin of The Lillie Center Inc., a firm working to end water fluoridation. “But water utilities haven’t been acknowledging fluorides as a medication when they are added to drinking water for the same purpose.”

The Gerber company now sells an unfluoridated bottled water so parents of young babies can avoid using fluoridated water when mixing milk formula. Major toothpaste manufacturers are also nowselling unfluoridated toothpaste for toddlers marked “Fluoride-free. Safe if swallowed.”

After decades of water fluoridation, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control indicates thatHispanics have significantly higher levels of untreated cavities than whites, and that Hispanics have disproportionate amounts of “fluorosis” stains disfiguring their teeth.

“Fluoridation certainly hasn’t been very effective at preventing cavities in Hispanics,” states Stockin. “Oral health education and access to dental care for disadvantaged families, this is what Hispanic families need.”

The LULAC resolution notes the National Research Council’s 2006 acknowledgement of large gaps in research on fluoride’s effects on the body, and that these gaps contradict assurances made by public health officials that fluorides and fluoridation have been exhaustively researched.

The resolution also demands to know why health agencies are “more protective of the public policy of fluoridation than they are of public health.”

“Watch what develops now as members of the Hispanic legal community are awakening to this issue,” Stockin says. “This issue of disproportionate fluoride harm to minorities is gaining attention because it is real and we have science supporting it. The train has left the station. Fluoridation is ending. You can look for a quickening cascade of cities, water utilities, health officials and others distancing themselves from fluoridation.”

Dan Stockin

Article Content From: Fluoride Action Network

Survival Preparedness for $100 Dollars

I was holding a hundred dollar bill the other day and I really started to think about just how much of certain survival items that this thin piece of cloth could still buy (that is until the dollar falls into a cesspit). I used the companies on MSB and all over the internet, the local sporting goods stores, markets, and other places to come up with just how much you can still get of what you will definitely use in and out of disasters.

I searched for the best prices and the best quality merchandize and kind of married them together.

People are just not cognitive of what can still be purchased, many think that survival is out of financial reach, which it is certainly not.

With one thin $100 bill, where I live now, someone can purchase one of the following 100 listed survival items at local stores or online.

There is currently no sales tax on food in this state, which was factored into the costs. Just look at how much and the really neat survival things that a thin piece of cloth that is a little over 6 inches wide and a little over 2 and 1/2 inches tall can still buy of each thing that will be a lot of value to most everyone.

The following list is meant to illustrate that to start prepping does not have to take lots of money. For $100 you may be surprised what you can get.

Prices and quantity will vary a little bit in other areas, but not much as of the date of this post.

* 200 cans of vegetables.
* 150 cans of fruit.
* 100 cans of soup.
* 101 jars of peanut butter at 99 cents each.
* 144 cans of light tuna (12 cases) at 69 cents each.
* 50 cans of chicken or other meats, or stew.
* 126 protein bars at 79 cents each.
* 169 cans of beans at 59 cents each.
* 80 pounds of dry beans, one variety, or 50 packages of a mixture of 15 different types of dry beans.
* 40 pounds of honey.
* 170 pounds of rice.
* 60 cans or bottles of fruit juices 48 oz. can or 64 oz. bottle.
* 115 pounds of quick cooking oats for oatmeal or oat flour ground up.
* 40 boxes of cereal, 14 oz. size.
* 31 cans of red salmon, one month supply.
* 175 pounds of whole wheat flour.
* 183 pounds of white sugar.
* 20 gallons of safflower cooking oil.
* 12 boxes of powdered dry milk.
* 149 cans of tomato sauce at 67 cents each.
* 30 pounds of nuts.
* 45 pounds of dried fruit, such as raisins, dates, apricots.
* 60 pounds of iodized salt.
* 200 pounds of pasta.
* 67 jars of spaghetti sauce.
* Case of MRE (meals ready to eat) packs.

# 4 bottles (180 count) “Survival Food Tablets” emergency food rations.
# 28 cases of bottled water, 24 pack at $3.49 a case.
# 30-50 excellent quality seed packets or Survival Seed Vault minus shipping.
# Garden tools (weeder, shovels both small and larger, hoe, metal rake) and a mini greenhouse seed starter.
# 5 or 6 fruit trees, wonderful investment, years later pays back ten folds.
# 2 Earth Boxes, soil, plant food for those with limited growing space or a limited growing season, take in to warm garage when freezes at night.
# Precision Garden Seeder for easy seed spreading.
# Large pressure cooker.
# 50 jars for canning.
# 1 and 1/2 gallon fermentation crock pot for pickling of vegetables.
# Bread machine (dough maker), many people don’t have this for bread making.
# A smaller manual grain mill.
# Food dehydrator.
# Manual 10 and 1/2 inch meat grinder.
# Home alert, carbon monoxide detector,fire detectors, and fire extinguishers.
# Dead bolt locks that prevent key bumping for doors to the outside.
# Light activated motion detectors for added home security.
# Fire safe for important documents and other valuables.
# Cheap .22 caliber rifle or a good used .22 caliber rifle.
# High velocity air pellet or BB rifle.
# Ultra high voltage stun gun or stun baton.
# 2 canisters of bear pepper spray and one smaller personal pepper spray.
# Extra ammunition such as 6 boxes of 500 .22 caliber bullets.
# 2 LED lanterns and 2 LED flashlights.
# 303 candles at 33 cents each that burn about 6 hours each.
# Hepa air cleaner for the home.
# Potassium iodide tablets for 10 days for whole family, friends, neighbors- about 18 people total.
# Deluxe advanced first aid kit, triage type.
# 9 (25 gram) packets Quikclot hemostat agent to stop severe bleeding.
# 10 (5oz.) bottles deet free insect spray- 8 hour protection, can’t have enough if stuck in the great outdoors.
# 100 N95 protective masks, or 10 N100 (100% of air filtered) disposable respiratory masks.
# 4-6 months worth of vitamins and minerals at discount health food outlet.
# Good quality rain jacket or coat.
# Sturdy hiking boots.
# 6 pairs of thermal underwear, one pair possibly for each family member.
# Uberlight drysacks, waterproof ultralight storage. 2 of the 1100 cubic inch size, or 3 of the 425 cubic inch size.
# Hand clothes wringer when there is no washing machine to use.
# Portable flushable (loo) toilet with extra chemical breakdown waste bottle.
# 200 rolls of toilet paper.
# 150 rolls of paper towels.
# 30 bath towels.
# Deluxe 4 person emergency kit “honey bucket” in which the bucket doubles as an emergency toilet with toilet seat included.
# Very good durable sleeping bag, rated many degrees below zero.
# 4 good warm military blankets.
# 450 pound capacity and extra wide camping cot to sleep off the ground.
# 4 comfortable lightweight but strong fold up outdoor camping chairs.
# A nice size bug out backpack and enough left over for a bug out tool bag.
# 15-20 plastic storage boxes with lids, depending on size and color.
# 2000 feet paracord and 24 piece bungee cords.
# A couple of 20 gallon heavy duty food storage vaults.
# 2 portable water containers with wheels, 16 gallons together.
# 2 (30 gallon) barrels for catching rainwater from drain pipes or other sources and a barrel pump to get water towards the bottom of the barrel.
# Water filter, purification device, marginal quality.
# Shallow manual well water pump, to 22 feet down.
# An excellent quality emergency compact portable jump starter and combination 12 volt power supply.
# Solar battery charger for AAA. AA. D, C, 9 volt rechargeable batteries.
# 2 Pocket Socket hand crank generators (up to 10 watts), or a pedal power generator for more power. Wonderful for smaller devices such as cell phones.
# 20 gallons of gasoline with four 5 gallon plastic containers to hold gas.
# Portable Buddy Heater with 8 disposable fuel containers.
# Propane camp cooker with 20 pound filled up propane tank.
# Multi-fuel lantern, will give light with many different kinds of fuel.
# Multi-fuel stove.
# Jet boil flash heating, 2 cups of water to boil in 2 minutes.
# 3 piece, with lids, various sized outdoor cookware and a dutch oven.
# 250 pounds of charcoal for emergency cooking.
# 2 five gallon buckets of Insta Fire Starter, works well in wet conditions.
# Chopping and digging tools; ax, hatchet, flat and spade shovels.
# Cutting tools; 2 kinds of survival knives one folding and one straight and a larger size machete.
# One of the best Leatherman multi survival tool on the market.
# 3 or 4 prime instructional survival and food storage and preparation books.
# Binoculars, 10X50, see what is going on at a distance.
# A decent shortwave radio to monitor world news.
# A really nice emergency alert weather radio.
# Pro Eclipse compass, measures declinations, graduations, has inclinometer.

Anyone with an extra $100 bill could spend it on something that they will have nothing to show for it, or, they could spend it on something that someone could really use and help them better survive someday or even now.

Article Content From: Modern Survival Blog

David Icke – The Lion Sleeps No More – Full Presentation

I am not David Icke

Moon Control

The Global Agenda

Truth Vibrations

Article Content From: YouTube

Gold is a Good Investment in a Corrupt Matrix, But Self-Sufficiency is Real Wealth

The great rush to find a safe haven financial investment has led many supposedly savvy citizens to put their money into gold. This has caused the value of the precious metal to soar, reaching over $1,800 per ounce, giving investors a sense of security that their money is safe and likely to hold its value.

However, in a world undergoing seismic social, economic, and environmental convulsions that are growing by the day, gold may not prove to be the solution to our future security that many are hoping for.

If one stands back from the spinning vortex of speculative financial roulette that preoccupies the world’s media and many of her better-off citizens, one will observe that unfortunately gold is inedible (some will say ‘fortunately’) and is less easy to turn into plough shears than other base metals. A fact that has not gone unnoticed by globally oriented financial investors. These speculators have recently started pouring money into agricultural land holdings as a hedge against higher food prices, set against a guaranteed demand for world staples like wheat, rice, maize and sorghum. Unfortunately the objective of such investment policies are not benign, but rather are symptomatic of the same convulsive profit driven motives that have catalysed the wild economic swings of the past decade.

So, where to turn when turmoil is encompassed by inflated egos, unashamed greed and rabid exploitation?

The answer to this starts by firstly recommending careful consideration of the circumstances that have brought us to this point. Then, a plan of action which offers a longer term commitment to a saner and perhaps ‘simpler’ model of everyday living – one which shifts decisively away from the present day crony capitalist and consumerist ethos that has brought our planet to the brink of asset stripped ecocide and unchecked human inequality.

In seeking to raise our awareness of the background to this unprecedented upheaval, it soon becomes apparent that there is some other force operating behind the front line villains picked out as being responsible for the rising and falling fortunes of the global economy. Those ‘in the news’ are often simply puppets of this unseen regime which appears to be intent upon a far-reaching domination of global events for its own ends. The regime appears to be composed of a rather small group of very wealthy individuals and corporations that have established a controlling influence over both national governments and the international financial institutions that form the lynch pin of the global economy. It is a mostly shadowy cartel whose field of influence includes such institutions as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation. Its leaders are also strategically placed to control events within the European Union, the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA) and the Pacific Rim economic zone.

Banking empires, weapons cartels, pharmaceutical giants, oil magnates and food and seed monopolies are well represented within this club, which exercises decisive control over all our lives without us ever really noticing it. At their behest, moral codes and human values are flaunted and dispensed with with reckless abandon, and brutal wars are started in foreign countries with almost complete impunity.

One soon becomes aware that the fascist regime of the last Great War did not end with the Nuremburg trials, but re-established a formidable foothold within Western and North American society – performing this stealthy manoeuvre right under our half-closed sleep-filled eyes.

The fact that this state of play is successfully disguised as ‘democracy’, is proof of their cleverness and our stupidity.

Recognising this state of affairs for the first time can be a shock, especially if one has pinned their faith in the status quo to see us through these “troubled times”. However, reality it is, and once we have absorbed the truth there can be no turning back. Which brings us once again to the question: Where does one turn when all around is turmoil?

The answer is – firstly we have to turn to ourselves; to recognise that we are complicit in allowing such a dark agenda to have become adopted right in our midst. After all, we live in what citizens of Europe and North America like to refer to as a “modern democracy”. Yet it is we, ourselves, who have repeatedly put our faith in autocratic charlatans who freely exercise the levers of despotic power. It is we who have handed responsibility to run our affairs to those who are masters of spin, deception and propaganda. It is we who have filled the role that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain filled on the cusp of World War II when he held up a scrap of paper and declared it to contain Hitler’s promise that Nazi Germany would never invade the United Kingdom. We too, like Chamberlain, have appeased ourselves in submitting our destinies to the diktats of the corporate vandals and the smiling politicians in their pay.

We have freely allowed ourselves to be duped into a state of virtual paralysis by a corporate-backed media whose agenda has nothing to do with “raising awareness” but a great deal to do with keeping us busy with the trappings of superficial consumerism and mindless entertainment. The vast propaganda machine that pumps out the relentless message that we should strive ceaselessly to acquire the means to purchase our pleasures from the glittering shelves of the global market place.

However, these shelves are now beginning to lose their luster, and we are beginning to lose the scales from our eyes. We can begin to see that we confused this ‘virtual reality’ with actual reality. The world turns out not to be a hypermarket after all, but a sentient being in an advanced stage of severe fever; poisoned, polluted and exploited almost beyond recognition – by us – the trolley pushing, brand seeking puppets of the global corporate elite. That small cartel marching on its robotic way to the grand take over of every last bankable asset on planet earth, as well as all those who, consciously or unconsciously, submit to becoming pawns in its sinister master plan.

But now its time to take back our power and to take firm control of our destinies. We can still make this choice – its not too late. Nobody with the means of survival needs to be a slave – and nobody with some land needs to go without food. We are fast becoming aware that ‘money in the bank’ is no guarantee of our future security. As dying state and private financial institutions increasingly empower themselves to reach ever deeper into our pockets, we struggle to grasp the fact that much of what they steal goes straight into the pay cheque of the brightest scavengers and the bonuses of already bloated bosses. We barely seem to notice when our revenue payments are utilised to further crank up the deadly imperialist war machine so it can bludgeon its way through yet more oil and mineral rich countries in order to fulfill insatiable material addictions and barely disguised neo-colonial ambitions.

However, behind all events is a law of karma which states “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” And just as the despotic forces of imperialism appear to be wresting decisive control over mankind, strong voices of reason and truth are rising to challenge its dominion. Among the genocidal acts of nefarious despots, we are witnessing the dawning of fresh visions of another way mankind can look after itself and this sentient planet upon which we all reside.

In fact we have arrived at something of a watershed; one where it will no longer be possible to sit on the fence and not commit to a resolution of this age old conflict, one way or another.

Thus, those now fretting about how and where to securely invest their financial savings, just might find that cosmic Lila has brought them to an auspicious karmic fork in the road of life. Pointing to the left – a signpost saying “Financial Security” and to the right a sign saying “Voluntary Simplicity.”

Those whose priority is to preserve their wealth will take the left fork and they will put their money into gold. Those who seek to deepen their awareness and move beyond material dependency will choose the right fork. Those who turn left may find themselves still in familiar territory with no lack of advisers on how to put up barriers against uncertainty and change. However this will merely ensure an extended contract with the dark ways of the old regime. For those who turn right will be a challenge of a very different nature: how to shift away from old material dependencies and towards a simpler and more harmonious relationship with the non material values of existence; the universal energies that are held back by materialistic indulgence. Those who take this path may wish to consider investing whatever funds they possess (individually or collectively) in some fertile land capable of producing good quality, ecological food, fuel and fibre for their daily needs. Thus taking control of their destinies and ultimately achieving independence from the clawing centralised control system which feeds upon the compliant serfdom of its participants.

The more we can free ourselves from this unholy contract, the less power it will have over us and our World, and the more realised we will become in the fulfilment of our deeper needs and creative aspirations. Once the collapsing institutions of the status quo have dragged all that has value into the cauldron of its hastening demise – where we find our next meal, how we generate our energy and where we acquire pure water – will become of paramount importance. The skills of the land will be at a premium, whereas the skills of money making will become a useless impediment.

We can start right now. We can take our money out of the mainstream banks which fund the oppressive institutions of this planet, and put it instead into ethical investment institutions, local ecological food and farming ventures, local human scale renewable energy initiatives and/or the thousands of localised land-based and artisan ventures now springing up all over the planet. We can, right now, begin to end years of energy sapping compromise and finally put our money where our hearts are. Because when the corporate gods are toppled and the lights go out, we will need to be prepared.

This preparation process can catalyse a new and positive interaction at the community level. One where we start purchasing the basic necessities of life from those who are already operating humane, responsible and environmentally benign enterprises; and not those who are exploiting the last seams of planetary wealth for their personal profit and power.

So to those who think they will find their salvation in precious metals, I would countenance them to think again. One cannot eat gold.

Julian Rose

Article Content From: Activist Post

Yoga is Revolution

As the world situation degrades further into oppression, war and wanton environmental destruction, we need as many tools as possible to protect our physical and spiritual health and well-being. Rather than being in poor shape, in a lousy mood and frightened by every uncertainty, one can use the time we have now to strengthen and purify the body, balance the emotions, and sharpen the mind for more effective decision making. After all, what good is it to be alive if you cannot enjoy your days, even amidst such chaos and uncertainty?

Yoga is an excellent physical practice of exercise that involves stretching and relaxing the body while emphasizing deep, rhythmic breathing. Originally a Hindu practice for attaining deep levels of spiritual awareness, Yoga has become very accessible to Westerners; Yoga studios can be found in nearly every town, big or small, in America. Many people practice it solely for physical benefit, but over time, most people begin to realize the potential of Yoga as a means of becoming a more positive and satisfied person who is more likely to laugh at adversity and thrive where other find frustration and agitation.

Yoga can be practiced by anyone, young or old, big or small, fit or not, as it can be performed as a gentle restorative physical therapy, or as an intense and challenging form of exercise. Incorporating the practice of Yoga into your life is an excellent means of improving your likelihood of finding happiness, motivation and inspiration while developing immunity to the myriad negative things occurring in our world today.

Firstly, Yoga improves the condition of the whole body. Being in good physical shape positively affects every area of your life, and a body in atrophy is a recipe for disease, depression and anxiety. Through movement and stretching while focusing on deep, rhythmic breathing, Yoga engages not only the muscular system of the body, but also massages and refreshes the internal organs, dramatically enhancing your ability to purge the many toxic wastes found in our polluted environment. The lungs become very powerful by circulating large quantities of oxygen during Yoga practice, helping you to eliminate smog and other harmful garbage.

An improved body means greater immunity to disease, and less dependence on pharmaceuticals to manage chronic conditions such as diabetes and depression. In fact, Yoga can actually help you kick anti-depressants or even street drug addictions as it refines and balances the hormones and nervous system while creating a deeper awareness of the body and its needs. Yoga is also an excellent compliment to other exercise programs like weight lifting or martial arts because it acts as a very thorough means of stretching and rehabilitating stressed out tissues, complimenting more physically rigorous exercise practices. Having more energy, more confidence in your abilities, and feeling light and limber will put you in a position to be able to help others during a crisis rather than being dependent on the help of others.

Secondly, as a compliment to improved physical performance, Yoga improves the capacity of the intellect for making better decisions in frightening times. Sound decision making in difficult situations is critical, and one must be able to forgo emotional extremes and keep a cool head when faced with difficulty. Yoga brings the mind closer to its full potential by deeply engaging the mind in total concentration during practice.

The meditative quality of a Yoga practice acts as restoration and rehabilitation for the brain, and through this process an enhanced understanding of situations and purpose arises, allowing one to find more creative options and solutions. Through Yoga, one develops a keen sense of awareness of how the body is functioning and encourages better choices to support our natural drive for optimal health.

As an example, one’s diet tends to naturally evolve with regular Yoga practice and one’s inherent desire to eat more natural and higher quality foods in more appropriate proportions is awakened. This is especially important as a simple natural diet can be more affordable and is more easily reproduced at the local level should a disruption arise in our complex food system. Yoga will help you to make better decisions while supporting the mind’s ability to learn new concepts and skills in a time when old paradigms are changing and creative solutions are needed.

Finally, Yoga brings with it the ever-unfolding gift of greater spiritual awareness, inner strength and peace. Through this meditative practice one quickly finds a source of calm tranquility deep within that provides the strength to overcome the negative emotions of anger, violence, fear, and sexual compulsion. Our modern world is increasingly dominated by this negative energy and fear, and it seems we are told more and more to look at people and situations as ‘threats’ rather than challenges or opportunities. This cultural travesty leads people to view violence as a solution to problems. Yoga embodies non-violence and it offers a means to remedy this sad worldly condition by awakening the sense of mystery and awe within one’s heart and re-igniting one’s sense of self-respect, which in turn leads one to treat oneself and others with greater compassion.

Yoga requires that the body release physical tension and stress, which has a psychological counterpart as well, making it easier for one to let go of issues and states of the mind that are of no value to happiness or livelihood. Emotional attachments to physical things begin to loosen, the ego releases dated beliefs and ideas, and the sense of competition with our fellow man is replaced by a sense of universal abundance wherein survival becomes not something we fight for, but rather something that we love for. Being unattached to ideas, things and emotions is critical to living a fulfilling life in these complex times where everything is changing around us and none of our comforts can be taken for granted.

Having the peace and inner strength to let go willfully in frightening circumstance also gives us the courage and personal power to say ‘no’ in accordance with our conscience when the demands of society ask us to participate in warfare, our own oppression and group think. Yoga is a powerful means of elevating our consciousness at a time when great changes are needed to improve the condition of our world.

The joys and benefits of practicing Yoga are immeasurable and profoundly beautiful. One should consider this ancient practice as a powerful means of self-improvement and transformation at time when old ideas and institutions are demonstrating their monstrous failure in providing for the security and well-being of mankind. Yoga is peaceful personal revolution is the age of industrialized self-destruction.

Dylan Hunt

Article Content From: Activist Post

California Bans Unvaccinated Children from Class

If your child hasn’t received the whooping cough vaccine, he or she is now banned from attending class at many California schools. Despite legitimate religious or personal health reasons for rejecting the whooping cough vaccine, your child simply cannot attend class. Due to a law that requires all students entering grades seven through 12 be vaccinated, the San Francisco school district has begun sending home children who do not have proof of receiving the whooping cough vaccination.

Proof of vaccine ineffectiveness

Why are schools afraid of unvaccinated children spreading the disease to vaccinated children if the whooping cough vaccine is truly effective? How could an unvaccinated child spread the disease to someone who has already received the whooping cough vaccine?

Interestingly enough, scientists have found that vaccinating against the whooping cough is actually an ineffective waste of money. In fact, widespread vaccination of adults against whooping cough (pertussis) would do almost nothing to reduce infection rates among unvaccinated children according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Michigan and published in the journal Science.

The IB Times reports:

The law, which requires that all students entering grades seven through 12 be vaccinated, took effect for the 2011-2012 school year. The state legislature passed a 30-day extension over the summer to give students more time to comply, but thousands of students still have not gotten the vaccine — and, depending on the school district they’re in, some of them can’t attend class until they do.

Starting on Thursday, the San Francisco school district sent home students who came to school without proof of vaccination or a signed “parental personal belief exemption,” in which parents can certify that they have chosen not to vaccinate their child because of personal opposition to vaccinations.

Please begin your research into the dangers of vaccines with 100 Compiled Studies on Vaccine Dangers showing them to be ineffective, or outright dangerous, and use this to educate those around you. Please also visit Natural Society for additional info. about vaccine dangers, alternative medicine, and natural health.

Article Content From: Activist Post

Irish Public Outrage Over Illegal U.S Renditions Through Shannon Airport

The Irish Government are coming under intensified pressure to introduce new measures which would conclusively guarantee that Ireland will no longer facilitate illegal U.S rendition flights.

Newly released American courtroom documents have revealed that US authorities contracted out their illegal rendition flights to a host of private American corporations. The documents show that many such renditions en route to Guantanamo Bay and various secret CIA-run prisons and torture camps operated through Ireland’s Shannon Airport over the past decade.

The revelations came as Richmor Aviation and SportsFlight Air, which acted for US government contractor DynCorp, are locked in dispute over unpaid costs from rendition flights.

Richmor Aviation operated the rendition plane N85VM/N227SV, which we now know beyond doubt passed through Shannon Airport regularly between 2001 and 2005, and was responsible for the rendition of an Egyptian cleric, Abu Omar.

The Seattle Times reports that:

On Nov. 8, 2002, a Richmor Gulfstream, Tail No. N85VM, took off for Shannon Airport in Ireland, then to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, on a flight that paralleled the arrest that month of USS Cole bombing suspect Abd al-Nashiri.

It was the first of a run of secret long-distance flights by the Gulfstream between 2002 and 2005 that paralleled the suspected movements of captured al-Qaida and other terrorist leaders who vanished into CIA-run black prisons after their arrests following the Sept. 11 attacks.

Recently released cables from the U.S. embassy in Dublin have also highlighted the complete disregard both the Irish and U.S governments have shown for national and international laws, Irish sovereignty and human rights. The cables show that protecting U.S. interests has been the primary concern for politicians on both sides of the Atlantic. Cables from former U.S Ambassador to Ireland, James C. Kenny, state that the Irish Government have consistently acted “to ensure continued U.S. military transits at Shannon” and that “the Irish Government has repeatedly defended U.S. interests in the face of public criticism”.

Such statements are of deep concern to Irish citizens.

The same cables also reveal that Ambassador Kenny sought U.S Department guidance “on any next steps regarding the Shannon Five”. This is despite the Shannon Five having been acquitted on all charges by a jury in an Irish Court. Ambassador Kenny’s comments come dangerously close to suggesting U.S interference in the affairs of the justice system of a sovereign state.

Unfortunately, the courtroom files and the recent cables only confirm what many people in Ireland have long known or suspected, but which the Irish Government has repeatedly refused to address. The Government has in the past claimed that it had relied on reassurances by the US that it had not operated such flights through Irish airports or airspace. However, in light of this recent evidence this argument can no longer be reasonably sustained. If such assurances were in fact given to the Irish Government by U.S authorities, we now know that the U.S was supplying false information to the Irish Government. If such assurances were in fact not given to the Irish Government, we now know that the Irish Government was providing false information to the Irish public. Either way, it does not bode well.

Those responsible must now be meaningfully held to account, and the Irish Government must take immediate action to ensure that Ireland will no longer be complicit in illegal U.S renditions, kidnap and torture.

Ruaidhrí O’ Conghaile, Contributing Writer

Article Content From: Activist Post

“Banks Got Bailed Out; We Got Sold Out” — Day of Rage Protest Builds on Wall Street

As corporate media continues to ignore the building presence in Manhattan to protest against the corrupt banking system, activists have gathered to document this Tahrir-square style gathering. Below are videos that illustrate the growing unrest, as well as a link to the current livestream of the area. The nature of the protests also has laid bare the absolute police state that has become entrenched in America. In the first video we hear the reporter conclude by saying, “As of now it’s still unclear if the police will allow protesters to stay here…” As if that is a normal response to peaceful assembly for a redress of grievances in a free society.

Madison Ruppert has detailed this oppression in his intro article to the Day of Rage entitled: No right to protest in America: Occupation of Wall Street thwarted thanks to ignorant police. Additionally, we have received comments about social networks and e-mail programs blocking discussions centered on the term “Occupy Wall Street.” If you are encountering this type of censorship, please drop us a note in the comments section.

One of the first signs of unrest began back in April, 2010 as RT states: As the big banks such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase come under even more scrutiny, even allegedly breaking laws, they continue to conduct business as usual.

The citizens of America have had enough, say the thousands who marched in New York protesting the banks and their greed. Will the lobbyists the banks hired persuade Washington to do nothing? Or will the people be heard?

From Global Revolution, Day #2: Banks Got Bailed Out, We Got Sold Out! A Call For All Americans: Unity in NYC, Let Your Voice Be Heard! Speak Loud, Speak Without Fear! Silence will get us nowhere!

“Occupy Wall Street, All Day All Week” protest led by Anonymous

Luke Rudkowski of We Are Change was recently at the Occupy Wall Street event and noticed Lupe Fiasco hanging out with the crowd of protesters.

Please send us your latest video links at activistpost@gmail.com, and check back for updates of The Occupy Wall Street Protest.

In solidarity…

Article Content From: Activist Post

Article Content From: SENTIENTMIND

What on Earth Will it Take?

THRIVE is an unconventional documentary that lifts the veil on what’s REALLY going on in our world by following the money upstream — uncovering the global consolidation of power in nearly every aspect of our lives. Weaving together breakthroughs in science, consciousness and activism, THRIVE offers real solutions, empowering us with unprecedented and bold strategies for reclaiming our lives and our future.

Article Content From: Thrive Movement

A Permaculture Farm: The Perennial Revolution of Oikos Tree Crops

A Michigan permaculture farm defies the agricultural status quo by growing in harmony with nature.

Hidden within the rolling forested hills and vineyard-covered valleys of southwest Michigan, on the outskirts of a town that embodies rural Midwest culture, is a tiny farm that, if not for the few sturdy hoop-houses, most people would likely not even recognize as a farm.

The property of Oikos Tree Crops, which consists of less than 20 acres, produces a greater diversity of food than any farm I have ever seen, yet from a glance the mostly wooded landscape appears to fit right into its surroundings. The farm is in itself a fully mature food-producing ecosystem.

For a long while, I have wondered what permaculture would look like on a larger scale. After spending a long spring working at Oikos, I finally understand — large-scale permaculture is what native peoples of this land would have called, well, everything. Nature has the potential to produce food in abundance. And humans are capable of working with nature in order to make a particular ecosystem easily harvestable — what modern farmers would call “managed.” This is especially true in today’s world where most nature-based farms are started from scratch, using former cornfields or otherwise cleared land.

Such was the case with the land that plant guru Ken Asmus bought in 1980. After moving from his home in Saginaw to attend school in Kalamazoo, Ken decided to buy a small piece of land where he could experiment with planting all kinds of different trees, and start a plant nursery business. Little did he realize that every time he went out to walk the grassy field — shovel in one hand, tree sapling in the other — he was initiating something entirely revolutionary: a new form of agriculture.

I have just completed my first four months of working at Oikos Tree Crops, though it feels like much longer. I got this job because I really wanted it, which I take as a very encouraging sign, given that most of the other things I really want have to do with saving the Earth. In fact, everything about my life this spring has been encouraging — a truly remarkable achievement in a society such as ours, with its constant reminders of things to be depressed about. I mostly attribute this success to the remarkable uniqueness of working with Ken at Oikos.

When I arrived at Oikos, I felt like I was arriving home; fitting, since the word “oikos” translates from Greek to “home.” And now that I am not only an Oikos customer, but also an employee, I can confidently say that my previous suspicions of this being a special place were accurate. The project I was hired to lead has to do mostly with perennial vegetables, or annual fruits and vegetables whose seeds are primarily sourced from wild ancestral varieties: basically, plants that not many people grow, and pretty much no one grows on a large scale.

Eran Rhodes

Article Content From: Mother Earth News

States’ Rights vs. the Supreme Court

Tom Woods explains that States can nullify (invalidate) unconstitutional federal laws, even if they are endorsed by the Supreme Court. In 2005, one State made a law that the federal government opposed and it went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court predictably ruled that the state law was subordinate to “superior” federal law. But this State simply ignored the Supreme Court edict because there was so much public support in favor of the State law. Public opinion and support make it easier to resist federal tyranny.

Article Content From: MorphCity

Law Would Encourage Americans To Report On Each Other with Impunity

‘See Something, Say Something’ Act protects snitches from prosecution

A new piece of legislation being backed by the National Association of Security Companies (NASCO) would encourage Americans to frivolously snitch on each other by providing legal protection for people who report “suspicious behavior” to the authorities.

“The National Association of Security Companies (NASCO) today endorsed the See Something, Say Something Act (H.R. 963), by Congressman Lamar Smith (R—21st District Texas), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, calling it sensible policy that expands protections against lawsuits for individuals who provide good faith reports of suspicious terrorist-related activity to an authorized official. The legislation will further encourage citizens to take an active role in reporting suspicious activity without fear of legal retribution,” reports PR Newswire.

The bill seems designed to do little else than encourage Americans to frivolously report each other to the authorities for any reason. If someone was certain that they were witnessing suspicious behavior that was likely related to the commission of a terrorist attack, the knowledge that they would have legal protection for reporting the incident would be the last thing on their mind.

In addition, since the threat of being killed by terrorists is less common than being killed by accident-causing deer, intestinal illness or peanut allergies, the government’s aggressive promotion of the See Something, Say Something campaign has no basis in reality.

The campaign is designed to manufacture the myth that terrorists are everywhere and that any kind of mundane behavior could be characterized as suspicious. This is why the federal government constantly needs to reinforce the hoax through enlisting the general public as the eyes and ears of the Homeland Security surveillance state.

The law would provide immunity for anyone who reports “any suspicious transaction, activity, or occurrence indicating that an individual may be engaging, or preparing to engage, in a violation of law relating to an act of terrorism,” which judging by DHS standards and those set down by federal agencies and law enforcement bodies over the last decade, could be classified as almost any behavior whatsoever, including political activism, owning gold, being a Ron Paul supporter, or displaying a political bumper sticker.

So-called “suspicious behavior” as defined by the Department of Homeland Security includes talking to police officers, using cell phones and a myriad of other normal activities. Moreover, the DHS has gone to great lengths to portray white, middle class Americans as the primary terror threat.

By encouraging Americans to frivolously report anything as “suspicious behavior,” the federal government is mimicking the policy of some of the darkest dictatorships in history.

One common misconception about Nazi Germany was that the police state was solely a creation of the authorities and that the citizens were merely victims. On the contrary, Gestapo files show that 80% of all Gestapo investigations were started in response to information provided by denunciations by “ordinary” Germans.

“There were relatively few secret police, and most were just processing the information coming in. I had found a shocking fact. It wasn’t the secret police who were doing this wide-scale surveillance and hiding on every street corner. It was the ordinary German people who were informing on their neighbors,” wrote Robert Gellately of Florida State University.

Gellately discovered that the people who informed on their neighbors were motivated primarily by banal factors – “greed, jealousy, and petty differences,” and not by a genuine concern about crime or insecurity. This is precisely the kind of environment the ‘See Something, Say Something’ law, and the campaign itself, is designed to create.

Paul Joseph Watson

Article Content From: Prison Planet

Seeds hold the key to a GMO-free food future

Want to get GMOs out of our food? Start with the seed. It sounds simple, but non-GM seed breeders and farmers face many challenges in their efforts to provide organic food.

A single food seed can be as tiny as a grain of sand. Yet many say the fate of the entire organic industry rests upon our efforts to protect the integrity of these small, but vital agricultural inputs.

“Seed is the first resource in our food production chain, so its integrity is vital to the success of organic farmers. Yet little has been done to address the issue of genetic contamination,” says Kristina Hubbard, director of advocacy for the Organic Seed Alliance. “I don’t think seed is getting enough attention.”

As the natural foods industry gears up for an unprecedented assault on genetically modified organisms (GMOs), much emphasis has been placed on convincing government to label foods containing GMOs and on swaying grocers and manufacturers to rid them from the retail shelf. But Hubbard and others say those actions will mean little if farmers can’t find clean, GMO-free seed to plant in the first place.

Thanks to floating pollen, stowaway seeds on delivery trucks, and the fact that even organic farmers must turn to conventional seed due to a shortage of organic varieties, seed experts say the vast majority of corn growing in the United States already contains some degree of genetically modified (GM) material. Soy, canola and alfalfa are also high on the list for possible contamination.

Even non-GM seed breeders—forced to buy their genetic material from biotech companies in an age of increased seed company consolidation—can’t guarantee that their seeds are genetically pure anymore, says OSA founder and consultant Matt Dillon. Furthermore, because funding for university research into natural, non-GM alternatives is a fraction of what it once was, Dillon says that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find innovative solutions to protect the non-GM seed that still exists.

Meanwhile, organic consumers are growing outraged that even when they buy “organic” or “non-GMO” products, they may still be eating genetically altered food.

So what’s the answer?

“We have to create our own seed system,” says Dillon, who will join stakeholders from industry and nonprofits to roll out a host of seed-preservation initiatives in the coming months. “If we just say ‘stop GMOs’ and we don’t protect and develop the seeds we really need, we haven’t succeeded at anything.”

How did GMOs alter the seed landscape?

Dillon points to the 1980 Diamond v. Chakrabarty Supreme Court ruling as the beginning of the end of seed purity. In that case, the court ruled that “a live, human-made micro-organism is patentable,” and by the mid-1990s, it was evident that this applied to plants too. Soon a handful of agrichemical companies including DuPont, Syngenta and Monsanto—which previously had showed no interest in seeds—owned more than 65 percent of the world’s proprietary seed.

“It was kind of like a land grab, only it was genes they were interested in,” says Dillon. Today, according to the Independent Professional Seed Association, only 100 independent seed companies remain (compared to 300, 13 years ago), serving an organic industry that has grown exponentially. The result: Many organic farmers are forced to use conventional seed that originates from the very companies that spawned the GM revolution. In fact, according to the OSA’s 2011 State of Organic Seed Report, just 20 percent of organic farmers surveyed used strictly organic seed over the past three years.

“There simply isn’t enough certified organic seed to meet the demands of the growing organic food industry,” says Hubbard.

Although organic seed is a good start, there’s no guarantee that it’s GMO-free either.

Even organic seed companies trying in good faith to develop non-GMO varieties are often forced to turn to biotech, rather than the universities they once relied on, for their genetic material. Over the last 16 years, just $9.4 million federal dollars have been spent on sustainable plant breeding and education at land grant universities, Dillon says.

“If I am an organic seed company and I lease those lines from one of the big GM companies, that parent line is very likely contaminated to some degree already,” Dillon explains. “From the start, at the foundation level, the seed may already be contaminated.”

GMOs proliferate in seed supply

In recent years, dozens of highly publicized cases have spotlighted the problem of contamination.

For instance, in 2007, Straus Family Creamery made Time magazine under a damning headline that read, “When Organic Isn’t Really Organic,” after Albert Straus discovered that 6 percent of the organic corn feed he was dishing up for his cattle was contaminated with GMOs.

That same year, Nevada Soy Products, a producer of organic soybean oil and meal, lost $100,000 in revenues and had to shut down for a month after discovering organic soybeans it had received were as much as 20 percent contaminated. Fedco Seeds has dropped corn seed offerings twice after realizing they contained GMOs.

The frightening thing about contamination is that it can occur even when growers do everything they can to prevent it. For example, Wisconsin dairy and soy farmer Keith Wilson appeared to do everything right at his farm: He used only organic seed from a trusted source, and he created crop buffer zones to minimize pollen drift. Still in June, Wilson ended up taking a $4,500 hit after one of his loads of soybeans tested positive for genetically engineered material.

“This thing is just out of hand,” he says. “We are known and trusted here as one of the top organic producers. It hit me hard.”

Taking back clean seed

Organic Valley Co-Operative CEO George Siemon says that, although he has no hard numbers, he estimates that roughly 80 percent to 90 percent of the crop contamination his farmers see is not from pollen-drift (as many assume), but rather from the seed the farmers plant themselves.

“It is becoming a bigger and bigger problem,” Siemon says. To address it, Organic Valley will roll out an initiative next spring that will ultimately require all of its 1,600 farms in 33 states to use organic seed and test it for GMO contamination. “We need to provide an economic incentive for clean seed,” Siemon adds. “If we don’t start working on it, we will lose the opportunity forever.”

Other companies are stepping up as well. The Clif Bar Family Foundation, through its Seed Matters program, has donated $1 million to the Organic Farming Research Foundation, the OSA and the Center for Food Safety to promote clean seed preservation.

The OSA is already at work on the problem. The nonprofit has launched a “seeds and breeds initiative” aiming at inserting language into the next Farm Bill to increase funding for public, sustainable plant breeding initiatives. The OSA is also putting pressure on the U.S. Department of Justice to take a closer look at what it sees as anti-competitive conduct in the seed industry. In addition, it launched a new working group this year focused on helping farmers earn compensation when their crops are contaminated.

“We will have three or four more major initiatives coming out this fall,” says Dillon, who plans to make an announcement on those new initiatives at Natural Products Expo East in Baltimore, Md., in September.

In the meantime, Dillon says he’ll be busy rallying support for an issue that he believes has been under the radar too long.

“People tend to forget that the reason we are in the bad place we are in is because we have lost control of what was once an important public resource,” he says. “Just like we have a responsibility to invest in healthy management of water or soil, we have a responsibility to invest in the healthy management of seed.”

Lisa Marshall

Article Content From: New Hope 360

Vote For Peace – Ron Paul 2012

Article Content From: YouTube

US report spreads blame for BP oil spill

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A key US government report spreads the blame for the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico Wednesday, citing a bad cement job, poor management by BP and its subcontractors and risky shortcuts. The findings by the agency that regulates offshore drilling are largely in line with other investigations into the 2010 disaster, but offer the most detailed analysis to date.

The report is expected to influence a criminal investigation being conducted by the US Justice Department and impact fines imposed upon the British energy giant. Regulators said they planned to issue seven new citations based upon the report’s conclusions.

It could also strengthen BP’s legal case for recovering some of the massive multi-billion dollar costs of the spill from Halliburton, which performed the cement job, rig owner Transocean and parts manufacturer Cameron, which supplied the faulty blowout preventer.

Wednesday’s 500-page report wraps up a 17-month investigation by the US Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, and concluded that a “central cause of the blowout was failure of a cement barrier.”

The loss of 11 lives aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig and the subsequent pollution were “the result of poor risk management, last-minute changes to plans, failure to observe and respond to critical indicators, inadequate well control response, and insufficient emergency bridge response training.”

While the report cited numerous failures by Halliburton and Transocean, it noted that BP was “ultimately responsible” for operations and concluded that “BP’s failure to have full supervision and accountability over the activities associated with the Deepwater Horizon was a contributing cause.”

It also cited “BP’s cost- or time-saving decisions without considering contingencies and mitigation as “contributing causes.”

The Coast Guard slammed drilling rig operator Transocean’s “poor safety culture” in its initial analysis which was released in April.

A presidential commission tasked with investigating the spill also blamed the disaster on management failures by BP, Halliburton and Transocean.

BP has spent $40.7 billion on the biggest maritime oil spill in history and could still be liable for billions in fines, compensation and restoration costs.

It is currently embroiled in a series of lawsuits over apportioning the costs and said in a statement that it agrees with the report’s “core conclusion” that the accident was “the result of multiple causes, involving multiple parties, including Transocean and Halliburton.”

“From the outset, BP acknowledged its role in the accident and has taken concrete steps to further enhance safety and risk management throughout its global operations,” the BP statement said.

“We continue to encourage other parties to acknowledge their roles in the accident and make changes to help prevent similar accidents in the future.”

A top lawmaker said the report should eliminate any “excuses” for passing critical reforms and called for congressional hearings.

“The facts are now in, and now it is time to take action and implement comprehensive reforms to ensure this kind of accident never occurs again in US waters,” said Representative Ed Markey, the lead Democrat on the congressional natural resources committee.

Transocean took “strong exception” to the report’s criticism of the rig’s drill crew, but said the report “rightly concludes” that the primary cause was the failure of the cement in the well and that the magnitude of the blowout made the onboard explosion “unavoidable.”

Halliburton did not immediately return a request for comment.

The BP-leased Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20, 2010 some 50 miles (80 kilometers) off the coast of Louisiana.

By the time the well was capped 87 days later, 4.9 million barrels (206 million gallons) of oil had gushed out of the runaway well 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico.

Article Content From: ©AFP-Activist Post

Supreme Court To Rule On Age Of “Big Brother” Surveillance

This November the Supreme Court is gearing up to hear a landmark case which will decide how far law enforcement agencies can pry into an individual’s private life; federal judges argue that the use of GPS surveillance by law enforcement is an “Orwellian intrusion” into private life and violate the Fourth Amendment; meanwhile police say GPS tracking is simply a more efficient way to tail a suspect’s car or track their movements, things they can currently do without a warrant

This November the Supreme Court is gearing up to hear a landmark case which will decide how far law enforcement agencies can pry into an individual’s private life.

In recent years GPS enabled phones and devices have proven to be a treasure trove of personal data, beaming constant round the clock updates on an individual’s activity. With the increasing ubiquity of these devices, their legality has become the center of a hot debate that has divided the nation’s lower courts. In several recent rulings, judges have called the devices “Orwellian” or Big Brother-esque and worried that they violate the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure.

For instance in April, Judge Diane P. Wood of the federal appeals court in Chicago wrote that using GPS surveillance would “make the system that George Orwell depicted in his famous novel, ‘1984,’ seem clumsy.”

More recently, Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn refused a government request for 113 days’ worth of location data from cell phone towers. Garaufis called the request an “Orwellian intrusion” and that courts must first “begin to address whether revolutionary changes in technology require changes to existing Fourth Amendment doctrine.”

In United States v. Jones, which the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear in November, the nation’s top judges will address whether law enforcement officials are legally able to attach a GPS device to a suspect’s car and track their movements for weeks at a time.

More broadly, the Supreme Court’s decision will ultimately decide the limits of the Fourth Amendment in a technological age populated with devices that continuously record an individual’s location whether it is in with a cell phone, toll plaza, or transit system.

“The Jones case requires the Supreme Court to decide whether modern technology has turned law enforcement into Big Brother, able to monitor and record every move we make outside our homes,” said Susan Freiwald, a law professor at the University of San Francisco.

Echoing Frewald’s sentiments, Magistrate Judge James Orenstein of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn wrote in an opinion last year, “Technology has progressed to the point where a person who wishes to partake in the social, cultural, and political affairs of our society has no realistic choice but to expose to others, if not to the public as a whole, a broad range of conduct and communications that would previously have been deemed unquestionably private.”

the Jones case is if using a GPS device without a warrant qualifies as a search or if it is considered intrusive and reaches beyond traditional surveillance tactics used by law enforcement like stake outs and tailing cars.

Law enforcement officials maintain that using the devices is simply a more efficient way to track a suspect and is no different than assigning officers to stalk an individual’s car or follow their movements, which police can do without warrants. Federal appeals courts in Chicago and San Francisco have approved the use of GPS tracking devices without warrants.

In further defense of GPS technology, a government brief argued, “Law enforcement has not abused GPS technology. No evidence exists of widespread, suspicionless GPS monitoring.”

In addition, the brief added that requiring a warrant to attach a GPS device to a suspect’s car “would seriously impede the government’s ability to investigate leads and tips on drug trafficking, terrorism and other crimes.”

But Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg, a federal judge with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit who originally ruled on the Jones case, argues that GPS surveillance provides law enforcement information with more information than existing methods.

“Repeated visits to a church, a gym, a bar, or a bookie tell a story not told by any single visit, as does one’s not visiting any of those places in the course of a month,” Judge Ginsburg wrote. “A person who knows all of another’s travel can deduce whether he is a weekly churchgoer, a heavy drinker, a regular at the gym, an unfaithful husband, an outpatient receiving medical treatment, an associate of particular individuals or political groups — and not just one such fact about a person, but all such facts.”

The case about to be heard by the Supreme Court stems from the investigation of Washington, DC nightclub owner Antoine Jones, who was suspected of selling cocaine. Police sought to place a GPS device on Jones’s car and due to the uncertain nature of existing laws surrounding their use, prosecutors obtained a warrant.

The warrant required police to install the device within ten days and within the District of Columbia, but the police did not do it until eleven days later and in Maryland. Police then said no warrant was required and tracked Jones’s movements for a month, eventually using the evidence gathered to convict him of conspiring to sell cocaine. Jones was sentenced to life in prison.

Article Content From: Homeland Security News Wire

Dr. Mercola Discusses the FDA

Natural health physician and Mercola.com founder Dr. Joseph Mercola discusses about FDA and what they are doing.

Article Content From: YouTube

Lawyer: Cop scanner ‘crosses line’

Civil libertarians are raising the alarm over the state’s plans to create a Big Brother database that could map drivers’ whereabouts with police cruiser-mounted scanners that capture thousands of license plates per hour — storing that information indefinitely where local cops, staties, feds and prosecutors could access it as they choose.

“What kind of a society are we creating here?” asked civil rights lawyer Harvey Silverglate, who along with the ACLU fears police abuse. “There comes a point where the surveillance is so pervasive and total that it’s a misnomer to call a society free any longer.”

The computerized scanners, known as Automatic License Plate Recognition devices, instantly check for police alerts, warrants, traffic violations and parking tickets, which cops say could be an invaluable tool in thwarting crime. The Executive Office of Public Safety has approved 27 grants totaling $500,000 to buy scanners for state police and 26 local departments. The purchases are on hold while state lawyers develop a policy for the use of a common state database all the scanners would feed.

Some ALPR scanners already are deployed on Massachusetts roads. State police have two. Several cities use them for parking enforcement. Chelsea has four scanner-mounted cruisers.

“It’s great for canvassing an area, say after a homicide if you are looking for a particular plate,” said Chelsea police Capt. Keith Houghton. “You can plug it in, and drive up and down side streets. It sounds an alarm if you get a hit.”

He said Chelsea’s information is overwritten after 30 days and is not shared with the state.

EOPS spokesman Terrell Harris said the state wants the scanner information fed into the Public Safety Data Center, where local, state and federal authorities could access it.

“We’re currently working to develop a policy that balances the effective use of this powerful law enforcement tool with the privacy concerns we’re keenly aware of,” Harris said.

The ACLU’s Kade Crockford said the technology, which just allows a faster version of what police do now in running plates, is less of a concern than the state’s plans to store information on average, law-abiding citizens.

“People who aren’t wanted for a crime, all of their information is stored in a database that is shared with another government agency,” Crawford said. “The potential for abuse is very big. We don’t think people who haven’t committed a crime should be tracked by law enforcement.”

The two state police cruisers equipped with scanners patrol the metro Boston area, state police spokesman David Procopio said. He defended police use of the new technology.

“What about the rights of someone who is already a victim to have their assailant brought to justice?” Procopio asked. “There’s a freedom to being able to live your life not worried about being the victim of crime that’s also a freedom worth protecting.”

Silverglate countered, “If you have cameras everywhere, of course you’re going to reduce the crime rate, but you’re not going to have a society worth preserving. To the American people, freedom means something. There is a line to draw in the sand, beyond which you don’t want the government poking its nose. This crosses the line.”

O’Ryan Johnson

Article Content From: Boston Herald

As debt-riddled nations impose austerity measures and technical automation replaces human labor, joblessness continues to worsen around the world. In the United States, yet another “stimulus” package of $447 billion in government spending has been proposed to create jobs. Economist Paul Krugman even proposed manufacturing an extraterrestrial threat to create a surge in unified defense spending, which he claims will pull the world economy out of recession in 18 months. Clearly, these are desperate attempts to keep a failing paradigm alive.

Already, Western economies are propped up by jobs that are nonproductive and, in many cases, are destructive. For example, the war on drugs employs countless people in positions that have proven to be very harmful to society, far more damaging than the drugs themselves. And yes, ending the foreign wars will save trillions in government spending, but it will also bring millions of unemployed vets and contractors back into the workforce. Furthermore, if all of the complicated games were halted on Wall Street, we’d likely face an extinction level event for “traditional’ jobs. The system is destructive and it’s time to question the paradigm of employment for the sake of employment.

Douglas Rushkoff, author of Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age, recently asked if jobs are becoming obsolete? Rushkoff uses the financial woes of the US Post Office as an example of a sector in decline. He points out that 600,000 jobs and 400,000 pensioners are in danger. Rushkoff correctly dismisses the political blame for the post office downfall and blames it on Internet communication; “People are sending 22% fewer pieces of mail than they did four years ago, opting for electronic bill payment and other net-enabled means of communication over envelopes and stamps.”

Rushkoff goes on to cite other examples where technology is replacing human labor like EZ-Passes and self-driving cars. I recently pondered the impact of 3-D printers in every home, printing a cup, bowl, wrench, or toys when they are desired. Imagine the jobs lost when this becomes a reality among countless other technical advances. What would happen to jobs if you had a printer like the one in the video below?

Foxconn, an electronics manufacturer from Taiwan with about 40 percent of the global electronics market by creating things like iPhones and computer components, announced it will be replacing much of its staff with one million robots. So it’s not just Western jobs being lost in the high-tech revolution. Video of robots that will replace these assembly line workers can be seen below.

Rushkoff astutely questions the current paradigm of “jobs”:

I am afraid to even ask this, but since when is unemployment really a problem? I understand we all want paychecks — or at least money. We want food, shelter, clothing, and all the things that money buys us. But do we all really want jobs?

We’re living in an economy where productivity is no longer the goal, employment is. That’s because, on a very fundamental level, we have pretty much everything we need. America is productive enough that it could probably shelter, feed, educate, and even provide health care for its entire population with just a fraction of us actually working.

Rushkoff stops short of advocating an acceptable welfare state. However, he bravely questions the current paradigm where unemployment is unlikely to get better given advances in technology and the expendable nature of most tasks. With nearly one quarter of Americans unemployed or under-employed, and countless more prisoners to occupations they detest, we must begin to ask if this is how we want society to be shaped.

Employment for the sake of employment instead of innovation or production has infested our system for too long and is now clearly unsustainable. No one should feel useless because a corporation or the government won’t give them a job. Similarly, no one should be forced to waste their lives flipping burgers or working at a retail box store if that is not their desire. It seems no better than slavery and we must begin to acknowledge that.

What if we simply allowed people to follow their passion no matter what it is? It couldn’t cost more than maintaining the current warfare/welfare state, could it? Given the broad knowledge available on the Internet of nearly every subject, the cost of allowing someone to self-educate in pursuit of their dreams would be minimal compared to the current paradigm of the college bubble.

It’s clear that traditional jobs will never return and, in fact, a large majority more could be done away with. Society wouldn’t skip a beat as long as the people had food, shelter, and the freedom to follow their dreams. It’s time to rationally discuss how to develop a new system that benefits everyone who wishes to participate.

Eric Blair

Article Content From: Activist Post

Dangerous New Phase

The head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Largarde, said Friday the world economy is entering a “dangerous new phase.” Lagarde is referring to a debt bubble, the likes of which the planet has never seen before, and the possibility that it could all unravel at any moment. Uncertainty over the debt crisis in Europe is what caused the Dow to crash more than 300 points at the end of last week. What is Lagarde going to do about the debt problem?

A CNBC story reported, “She warned that both advanced and emerging economies faced key economic challenges, and that governments must ‘act now’ to stop further contagion. ‘Policymakers should stand ready, as needed, to take more action to support the recovery, including through unconventional measures,’ Lagarde said.” (Click here to read the complete CNBC story.) Lagarde is surely talking about revving up the global printing presses for more bailouts.

Meanwhile, the Germans are talking about letting countries like Greece go bankrupt. Another CNBC story yesterday said, “Even senior figures in Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) are leaving open the possibility of default. ‘The way things are looking, you can no longer rule out a possible Greek restructuring,’ CDU budget expert Norbert Barthle told Reuters, when asked about a default or euro zone exit.” (Click here for more on this CNBC story.) So which is it? Will it be bailout or default? Who knows, maybe a little of both before it is all over.

A post on Zerohedge.com Friday may give the answer. It reported, “Wondering what is next for Europe? Don’t be. With Jurgen Stark, aka the last real hawk at the ECB, gone, here comes “the printing.” SocGen’s (Societe Generale) Dylan Grice explains. From SocGen: Suppose that Italy or Spain get caught up in the whirlwind like Greece, Ireland and Portugal, as threatened to happen last month. Maybe the Italian political situation deteriorates, maybe Ireland defaults, maybe Greece will go revolutionary, or maybe an ill-advised wayward comment from an influential European politician will spook markets and send them into renewed tailspin. We don’t know which of these will happen, if any. All we know is that these are some of the many plausible triggers for a further deterioration in this fragile situation.” (Click here for the complete post from Zerohedge.com.)

That “fragile situation” would mean a panic set off by an impending debt implosion, but SocGen’s Grice says the powers will not allow it to happen. In the end, there will be a burst of money printing to stave off insolvency that has already infected many European banks.

Greg Hunter

Article Content From: USA Watchdog

Iraqi Orphan With No Hands Wows X Factor Audience Singing Imagine

There are many sad, and tragic stories on the X Factor, but this story really tugs on your heart strings. Emmanuel Kelly was brought to an Iraqi orphanage with no hands, and not even a birth certificate when he was still a baby. He and his brother was adopted by a wonderful Australian woman who brought them to Australia and gave them a new life.

Emmanuel may be missing a hand and a birthday, but he was blessed with a strong heart and beautiful voice. He worked up the courage to try for the X Factor, and sang Imagine by John Lennon. The moment he begins to sing, the crowd goes wild.

THIS ARTICLE APPEARED ON CARBONATED.TV (CLICK HERE TO SEE ORIGINAL ARTICLE)

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3979/iraqi-orphan-with-no-hands-wows-x-factor-australia-judges-at-audition-video/feed 1 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3934/the-irs-will-do-your-taxes-for-you http://greenplanetparadise.com/3934/the-irs-will-do-your-taxes-for-you#comments Fri, 09 Sep 2011 23:04:47 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3934

Coming soon: The IRS will do your taxes for you

Imagine this scenario: The IRS may soon just do your taxes for you — and send you the bill. If this sounds farfetched, it’s not.

With a new congressional “super committee” tasked with finding $1.5 trillion in cuts by November, creative ways to find additional revenue are in high demand. And allowing the IRS to prepare you taxes could be one solution.

The idea has been around for a while. In 2006, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) argued it would close a $345 billion annual difference between what the government believes taxpayers owe them and what the IRS actually collects, which he calls the “tax gap.”

“I think the solution [to the tax gap problem] is to get rid of the middle-man and no fees required,” he said.

Obama’s former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Austan Goolsbee made a strong case for it in a 2006 New York Times op-ed, explaining, “… the revenue service could send you a tax form already filled out with the information it has for you — a Simple Return — rather than a blank tax form. You would simply check the numbers against your W-2 and 1099 and then sign it.”

But this isn’t just an idea floated by senators and presidential advisers. While running for president, then-Sen. Barack Obama touted it during a 2007 speech at the Tax Policy Institute: “The government already collects wage and bank account information,” he said, “so there’s no reason the IRS can’t send Americans pre-filled tax forms to verify.”

While the notion of allowing government to encroach on yet another aspect of our lives might sound like a hard sell, members of the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) believe this is a very real threat.

“There is a fundamental conflict of interest if the tax collectors also become the tax preparer,” said CCIA President and CEO Ed Black. “If you don’t trust the fox to guard your hen house, why trust the IRS to do your taxes. It’s the same exact thing. They make it sound so convenient, but it’s really just a convenient way to kiss your deductions and tax credits goodbye.”

Black is among the increasing number of voices who worry the “super committee” might see this as a quick way to raise taxes by $345 billion per year – the amount of the “tax gap” – without a single member of Congress ever having to vote for a tax increase.

“Most members of Congress, especially the Republicans, do not want to vote for a tax increase,” Black said. “But if the super committee calls having the IRS do people’s taxes an ‘accounting change’ or a ‘convenience to the taxpayer,’ they raise taxes by hundreds of billions of dollars per year and no one even knows about it.”

Advocates argue that allowing the IRS to prepare tax returns is a creative solution that simplifies the tax code, provides convenience to the taxpayer, and helps America balance its budget. As then-Senator Obama said during that same 2007 campaign speech: “Making this change would save Americans more than two billion dollars in tax preparer fees, more than 200 million hours of work, and an incalculable amount of headache and heartburn.”

“This mean’s no more worry. No more wasted time. No more extra expenses for a tax preparer,” he said.

“It’s brilliantly Machiavellian,” says CCIA’s Black.

So how would letting the IRS do your taxes actually close a $345 billion annual “tax gap”?

First, it’s important to note that your accountant or storefront tax prep company like H&R Block or electronic-filing software — whoever helps you do your taxes — all work for you. Sure, they must comply with the law, but it is in their best financial interest to help you pay as little as legally appropriate. If they do this well, you will continue to use them. In a sense, they have an adversarial relationship with the IRS.But there’s another systemic problem. Goolsbee is correct in noting that the government already knows how much money you earn (via W2 forms and 1099′s). But what they do not necessarily know (unless you assume they know all) is which tax credits and deductions you might be legally entitled to.

“The IRS can do your taxes only if it has all your financial information,” explains Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. “The demands for more information about your economic life will increase.”

For example, if you get married or have a baby, getting a deduction would be contingent on informing the IRS of your change of life status. The same goes for buying or selling a house, caring for a sick relative, giving to charity, or any of the other ‘life events’ that might lower the amount of taxes you owe the government or entitle you to a bigger refund.

“If the IRS does the preparation,” says Club for Growth executive director David Keating, “people will wind up paying too much because the IRS won’t be on the lookout for loopholes that could cut your taxes now, or next year.”

But the fact that citizens would likely pay too much is a feature, not a bug.In March, Congressman Jim Cooper (D-TN-05) introduced the Simple Return Act (H.R. 1069). The congressman’s press release called it, “a bill that would get the IRS to do your taxes for you.” He also noted that the Simple Return would allow the IRS to fill out a basic tax return for every American with the financial information it already receives from each taxpayer’s employer and financial institution: W-2 and 1099.

Cooper estimated that 40 million Americans would be eligible for the service, but some suspect this would just be the beginning. To combat the push, Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Tex.) has authored H.R. 2528, the Taxpayer Freedom Protection Act, “to rescind the authority of the Secretary of the Treasury to develop a return-free tax system.”

It is unclear whether or not the “super committee” will actually propose this “solution,” but anti-tax activists, as well as those who represent the interests of tax preparers, are taking it seriously. Still, for something that has been openly discussed by everyone from Barack Obama to senators and congressmen, the idea is receiving remarkably little press coverage.

Article Content From: The Daily Caller

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3934/the-irs-will-do-your-taxes-for-you/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3917/american-peace-and-the-fbi-harassment-video http://greenplanetparadise.com/3917/american-peace-and-the-fbi-harassment-video#comments Sat, 10 Sep 2011 05:16:44 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3917

American Peace Activist Speaks About FBI Harassment

The FBI’s infamous COINTELPRO operation that primarily targeted civil rights leaders and activists in the 1950s and ’60s probably never fully ended as advertised. But, clearly, the War on Terror has enabled a full renewal of their infiltration and abuse of activists and justice movements across the spectrum.

Tom Burke is one example among a growing number of documented cases of FBI harassment of peaceful activists. What makes him suspicious and dangerous, apparently, is his involvement with trying to right the injustices brought to the Third World from the First through such corporations as Coca-Cola. He successfully launched a boycott against Coke, and launched a campaign to free political prisoner Ricardo Palmera held in solitary confinement within the United States.

Tom traveled to Colombia in December 2003 to lend support to Colombian trade unionists who were being murdered by government-sponsored death squads at the rate of 3 per week. The brutal tactics seen in Colombia, he found, had echoes (and support) in America. Tom and his family, as well as other activists were subsequently subjected to surveillance, intimidation, raids and investigation at the hands of the FBI and the corrupt and rigged criminal justice system which supports them. In the video below, Tom addresses a panel discussion from the Committee to Stop FBI Repression on “Resisting Profiling, Preemptive Prosecution and Prisoner Abuse — A citizens hearing to confront repression of human rights and civil liberties by the criminal justice system.”

Article Content From: Activist Post

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3917/american-peace-and-the-fbi-harassment-video/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3946/community-solar-gardens-on-the-rise http://greenplanetparadise.com/3946/community-solar-gardens-on-the-rise#comments Fri, 09 Sep 2011 19:36:25 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3946

Would You Pay for Solar on Someone Else’s Land? Community Solar Gardens on the Rise

With even mainstream home builders offering solar options, and some tantalizing hints that solar could be as cheap as coal by 2015, interest in solar for homeowners looks set to rise in coming years. But what about renters, or those who live in the woods? Now there’s also an increasing interest in “solar gardens” that allow energy users to invest in solar on someone else’s property and still reap the economic rewards. In fact, this may even make sense for folks who could put solar on their own roof if they wanted to.

Matthew reported early last year on a Colorado bill to legalize community solar gardens. At the time, the bill was seen largely as a way for renters and condo-owners to get in on the solar game. The bill became law, and Clean Energy Authority reported back in June on the opening of an 858-kilowatt community solar garden that opened at Garfield Community Airport in Colorado.

Now, according to GigaOm, interest in community solar gardens is spreading beyond Colorado, with California looking very seriously at creating a similar bill:

Cheney used his talk at Intersolar to tout the California Senate bill, SB 843, that would make community solar gardens possible. The bill has made its way to the state Assembly and is waiting for its first hearing. One of the discussions about the bill deals with how much community solar development owners or subscribers would get from selling electricity to their utilities, said Peter Olmsted, a policy advocate for Vote Solar, an advocacy group in San Francisco. Currently, the bill wouldn’t provide retail rates for the electricity sale, Olmsted said. The idea is that if you aren’t paying for the full distribution cost of bringing electricity to your home, then you aren’t entitled to get paid to offset that cost.

Still, much of the focus seems to be on benefits for renters, or those who can’t install solar on their own roofs. But I’m wondering if there would also be benefits for those who could. For example, it’s fairly common sense to assume that economies of scale mean the installation of an 800kw array is going to cost less per panel to install than a smaller, residential array. But there are other advantages too. Community solar gardens can be set up for a lower cost of entry than a full installation, allowing folks to buy just a few panels and even to consider them as gifts—as Matt Cheney of CleanPath Ventures explained to GigaOm:

“You can sell that on Craigslist,” Cheney said. “You can give your friends a wedding gift of 250-kilowatt of solar capacity.”

And then there are the well-known benefits of community-owned renewables in creating a collective identity around clean energy, and overcoming NIMBY concerns too.

There are, of course, disadvantages too compared to a traditional rooftop installation. As I argued in my post on 5 reasons why going solar is about more than just money, rooftop solar also gives you a sense of ownership in the power you produce, it can increase your personal household resilience (especially with battery back up), and even encourage conservation as you become more aware of what you generate and what you use.

As community solar gardens develop, it would be interesting to explore ways that these advantages can be carried over to these installations too—what if investers in solar gardens were also issued with smart energy meters? What if those meters were hooked up remotely to the solar garden too—allowing a real-time comparison between your panels’ production and your household’s consumption. That’s where the concept of remote installations of solar starts to become really interesting.

Article Content From: TreeHugger

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3946/community-solar-gardens-on-the-rise/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3784/water-fuel http://greenplanetparadise.com/3784/water-fuel#comments Thu, 08 Sep 2011 22:27:35 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3784

New alloy could split water to make fuel

A team of Kentucky scientists has found a way to ‘tweak’ an inexpensive semiconductor to generate hydrogen from water using sunlight.

Through theoretical computations, they’ve demonstrated that an alloy formed by a two percent substitution of antimony in gallium nitride has the right electrical properties to enable solar light energy to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen, a process known as photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting.

When the alloy is immersed in water and exposed to sunlight, the chemical bond between the hydrogen and oxygen molecules in water is broken, allowing the hydrogen to be collected.

“Previous research on PEC has focused on complex materials. We decided to go against the conventional wisdom and start with some easy-to-produce materials, even if they lacked the right arrangement of electrons to meet PEC criteria,” says Professor Madhu Menon of the University of Kentucky.

“Our goal was to see if a minimal ‘tweaking’ of the electronic arrangement in these materials would accomplish the desired results.”

The GaN-Sb alloy is the first easy-to-produce candidate for PEC water splitting, claims the team. It functions as a catalyst in the PEC reaction, meaning it’s not consumed, and can be reused indefinitely.

Because pure hydrogen gas isn’t found widely in nature, it must be manufactured by unlocking it from other compounds. Currently, it takes a lot of electricity to generate hydrogen by water splitting, which is why most of the hydrogen manufactured today is derived from non-renewable sources such as coal and natural gas.

Sunkara says the GaN-Sb alloy has the potential to convert solar energy into an economical, carbon-free source for hydrogen.

“Hydrogen production now involves a large amount of CO2 emissions,” Sunkara said. “Once this alloy material is widely available, it could conceivably be used to make zero-emissions fuel for powering homes and cars and to heat homes.”

The researchers are now working to produce the alloy and test its ability to convert solar energy to hydrogen.

Kate Taylor

Article Content From: TG Daily

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3784/water-fuel/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3952/perry-vs-paul-what-do-you-think-he-said http://greenplanetparadise.com/3952/perry-vs-paul-what-do-you-think-he-said#comments Thu, 08 Sep 2011 20:47:24 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3952

What did Rick Perry Tell Ron Paul After the Debate? (Image Worth 1000 Words)

Rick Perry appears to threaten Ron Paul shortly after last night’s debate. This picture is very telling. He is clearly using very aggressive body language in a seeming attempt to intimidate Paul. What do you think he said? Use the comment section to fill out the what you imagine as the dialogue. We’ll start below…

PERRY: “Listen Paul, I’m only going to tell you this once. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out, and get out now. I know people at Lockheed, Merck and the Fed that don’t like your ideas. This is your final warning.”

CARTOON THOUGHT BUBBLE OVER PAUL: “My ideas are invincible because they are the truth, you sad, sad puppet. I fear not anything because I stand for peace and freedom, but maybe you can intimidate some of these other fools off the stage so I can have more time to crush you in the next debate.”

Article Content From: Activist Post

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3952/perry-vs-paul-what-do-you-think-he-said/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3923/euro-collapse-could-lead-to-martial-law http://greenplanetparadise.com/3923/euro-collapse-could-lead-to-martial-law#comments Thu, 08 Sep 2011 00:51:37 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3923

UBS: Euro Collapse Could Lead To Martial Law, Civil War

In a similar vein to how Hank Paulson threatened martial law on the streets of America if the bailout failed to pass, top banks like UBS are now warning of “authoritarian or military government” and “civil war” in a bid to frighten away member states from leaving the euro.

It’s a transparent ploy designed to create the pretext for empowering the EU to enforce a common economic policy across all member states, something that British Prime Minister David Cameron is now openly backing.

In a UBS Investment Research release, the Swiss bank warns that should member states begin to desert the euro, precipitating a collapse of the single currency, “some form of authoritarian or military government, or civil war,” would likely ensue.

The tone of UBS’ advisory sounds very sobering and authoritative, but we’ve seen this type of financial fearmongering before, during the 2008 bailout debate, which was eventually rammed through on the back of bellicose threats about martial law and economic armageddon.

As Senator James Inhofe revealed, then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson told members of Congress the crisis would be “far worse than the great depression” if Congress didn’t authorize the bill to buy out toxic debt, a proposal “which he abandoned the day after he got the money,” added Inhofe, referring to how immediately after it was approved, Paulson announced that the bailout money would not be used to buy up toxic debt but would instead be injected directly into banks like Goldman Sachs, at which he was a former CEO.

Lawmakers at the time were threatened with “martial law” and “troops on the streets” if they failed to vote for the bill, identical rhetoric we’re now hearing from UBS and others.

The Obama administration also used economic terrorism to get an agreement pushed through on the debt hike. While telling Americans that a new great depression could be just days away if a compromise wasn’t reached, Obama was privately telling big banks not to worry, assuring them that “such an event won’t happen.”

Billionaire investor George Soros has now joined the chorus, warning that the “crisis has the potential to be a lot worse than Lehman Brothers,” unless the European Union is handed more power to create a central economic authority.

Of course, the populations of Greece, Italy, Portugal and others would most likely not resort to mass rioting and civil war if the euro was to disappear. Most of them would welcome the return of their old traditional currencies and the value of goods and services would simply be re-valued accordingly.

There would be no mass panic, no civil unrest and no need for martial law, but the banking establishment has to make it appear that way in order to preserve the euro and keep the continent on track for a future amalgamation into a 4th Reich-style federal superstate, which was the agenda from the very beginning.

Paul Joseph Watson
Article Content From: Prison Planet

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3923/euro-collapse-could-lead-to-martial-law/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3909/the-future-of-food-documentary http://greenplanetparadise.com/3909/the-future-of-food-documentary#comments Thu, 08 Sep 2011 04:40:05 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3909

The Future of Food

There is a food revolution happening in America today. People are seeking out farmers’ markets, organic produce and good restaurants. At the same time, our food supply is increasingly controlled by multi-national corporations. Over the past 10 years, with the advent of genetic engineering and the massive expansion of pesticide companies, like Monsanto, into the seed business, the very nature of our food system has radically changed with potentially disastrous effects on our food security. Patenting of life is now permitted, no labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMO’s) in food is required, research is conducted on these issues by universities beholden to the “agri-corps” who fund them, and the major regulatory agencies are run by former execs from these very companies. All the while, the average citizens remain blissfully unaware that they are eating GMO food and supporting the aggressive “corporatization’ of their food sources. In fascinating and accessible terms, ‘The Future of Food’ illuminates the major issues ultimately affecting us all — some surreal, some futuristic, many frightening. Yet, ‘The Future of Food’ is a hopeful film, featuring insightful and moving interviews with farmers, agriculture and business experts and policymakers. It sees a future in which an informed consumer can join the revolution by demanding natural, healthy food sources that insure environmental integrity.

Article Content From: YouTube

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3909/the-future-of-food-documentary/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3708/medicinal-plant-cannabis-video http://greenplanetparadise.com/3708/medicinal-plant-cannabis-video#comments Wed, 07 Sep 2011 10:12:22 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3708

PBS: Cannabis is Effective at Treating Multiple Conditions

Watch the full episode. See more PBS NewsHour.

Article Content From: YouTube & PBS

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3708/medicinal-plant-cannabis-video/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3894/911-truth-hollywood-speaks-out-movie http://greenplanetparadise.com/3894/911-truth-hollywood-speaks-out-movie#comments Wed, 07 Sep 2011 02:00:54 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3894

9/11 Truth: Hollywood Speaks Out

Original Film Credited to: WakeUpToTheNWO

DISCLAIMER:

This film should be viewed as a whole body of work, as it is NOT about the life, career or CREDIBILTY of any one perticular Hollywood Celebrity.

Celebrities do have the right to FREEDOM OF SPEECH and are free to verbally express their own opinion (so long as it doesn’t cause personal injury to others). If I wanted RESPECTABILTY, I would have made a boring film about the dozen or so ACADEMICALLY ACCREDITED scientests who have actually tested the World Trade Center dust and found UN-EXPLODED military grade NANO-THERMITE.

This film is about Hollywood’s GUT FEELING that something is just not right, and the dozens of UNANSWERED QUESTIONS they have.

Article Content From: EuroCon

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3894/911-truth-hollywood-speaks-out-movie/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3878/usps-might-shut-down-this-winter http://greenplanetparadise.com/3878/usps-might-shut-down-this-winter#comments Wed, 07 Sep 2011 01:03:39 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3878

USPS boss warns of ‘extremely serious’ cash woes: report

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US Postal Service will be unable make a $5.5 billion payment this month and deliveries could shut down entirely this winter if the government does not step in, The New York Times reported Monday.

“Our situation is extremely serious,” Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe told the newspaper in an interview. “If Congress doesn’t act, we will default.”

The service, a public employer that claims to handle nearly 40 percent of global mail, has been piling up losses since early 2008 due to rising costs and a decline in volumes caused by rising Internet use and e-commerce.

In July, the service unveiled a plan to close more than 10 percent of its post offices throughout the United States. It had already slashed 110,000 jobs — 16 percent of its workforce — in the past four years to cut its wage bill.

The $5.5 billion payment due at the end of this month is meant to finance retirees’ future health care. A Senate committee will meet on Tuesday to discuss the postal service’s financial difficulties.

Donahoe has in recent weeks been considering the elimination of Saturday deliveries, the closure of 3,700 postal locations and the laying off of 120,000 workers to help close a $9.2 billion financial hole, the Times report said.

Further job cuts would be considered extremely difficult to implement because of a new no-layoffs clause in contracts negotiated with postal unions in May.

“We’re going to fight this and we’re going to fight this hard,” Cliff Guffey, president of the American Postal Workers Union, was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

“It’s illegal for them to abrogate our contract,” he added.

Article Content From: ©AFP

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3878/usps-might-shut-down-this-winter/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3870/ron-paul-rick-perry-is-the-globalist-choice-for-2012 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3870/ron-paul-rick-perry-is-the-globalist-choice-for-2012#comments Wed, 07 Sep 2011 07:41:41 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3870

Alex talks with presidential front-runner Ron Paul about the economy, wars and all-out campaign to control 2012 election cycle with phony candidates and media blackout on real issues.

Article Content From: Infowars

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3870/ron-paul-rick-perry-is-the-globalist-choice-for-2012/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3778/obama-v-s-ron-paul http://greenplanetparadise.com/3778/obama-v-s-ron-paul#comments Mon, 05 Sep 2011 23:05:02 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3778

I Voted for Obama, Now I’m Voting for Ron Paul

I truly believe that I speak for so many young progressives that would be proponents for peace, clean food and water, and a government that actually helps and cares for its citizens.

After 8 years of GWB and the lies about WMDs, 9-11, Monsanto, Iraq…etc…anyone coming from the other party looked like a better choice. I was somehow still under the illusion that the Democratic Party would work for the people and not corporate/banking/defense industry interests.

I cried when Obama won. I really thought it was a new dawn for the US and the world as a whole. I was so ashamed of the Bush administration… all the violence and greed just made me ashamed to be from the US. Somehow though I still thought that there was a difference between the two parties.

I have to thank Mr. Obama for waking me up to this truth. When he showed support for Monsanto and big agribusiness, the continued (and escalated) warmongering, and even the continued selling-out of the American taxpayer to the Federal Reserve, the lightbulb went off in my head — they are all simply employees.

On the other hand, Dr. Ron Paul seems to be the only candidate that is talking about the big pink elephant in the room. The money wasted on war, the fact that our nation has been sold to international banks, and that the federal government is becoming a monster overtaking state autonomy.

I never would have thought that the day would come where I would actually consider voting for someone else than a democrat. I want the world to be clean and healthy paradise planet for the next generations and for those that are living here now. I want the freedom to be able to buy clean food and drink unfluoridated water. I feel that its not asking too much, but the current administration continues to take away these rights.

Ron Paul seems to be the only option, and the furthered bashing of him by the mainstream media shows that they see him as a threat. I seriously hope that his time will come in 2012.

Peace and Prosperity to the US and EVERY person on the planet! Here is to sanity in 2012.

Anthony Anderson

Article Content From: Huffington Post

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3778/obama-v-s-ron-paul/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3832/citizens-can-videotape-police http://greenplanetparadise.com/3832/citizens-can-videotape-police#comments Mon, 05 Sep 2011 22:11:16 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3832

First Circuit Court of Appeals Rules that Citizens Can Videotape Police

The filming of government officials while on duty is protected by the First Amendment, said the Court.

The First Circuit Court of Appeals reached a crucial decision last Friday allowing the public to videotape police officers while they’re on the clock.

The decision comes after a string of incidents where individuals have videotaped police officers and were arrested. Police officers across the United States believed citizens didn’t have the right to videotape them as they conducted official duties, but issues like police brutality put the issue up for debate.

One instance where a citizen was arrested for videotaping an officer was when Khaliah Fitchette, a law-abiding teenager from New Jersey, boarded a bus in Newark. Two police officers boarded the bus as well to remove a drunken man. Fitchette began taping the police officers because of how they were handling the man, and a police officer instructed her to stop recording them. When Fitchette refused, she was arrested and placed in the back of a cop car for two hours while the officers took her phone to delete the video. Fitchette was then released, but she and her mother then filed suit against the Newark Police Department with the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Another example involves Simon Glik, a passerby on the Boston Common. He used his cell phone to tape police officers when the Boston police were punching a man. Citizens surrounding the scene were saying, “You’re hurting him.” Glik never interfered with the police officers’ actions, but recorded the entire incident. The police officers ended up charging Glik with violating a wiretap statute that prohibits secret recording, even though the police officers admitted that they knew Glik was recording them. He was also charged with disturbing the peace and aiding the escape of a prisoner.

While all charges against Glik were dropped due to lack of merit, he still decided to join forces with the ACLU and file a civil rights suit to prevent a similar incident from occurring with others.

On Friday, August 26, 2011, the First Circuit Court of Appeals, which is New England’s highest federal court just below the U.S. Supreme Court, ruled that citizens are allowed to videotape law officials while they conduct official duties.

The city’s attorneys made the argument that police officers should have been exempt from a civil rights lawsuit in the first place in this case because the law is unclear as to whether there’s a “constitutionally protected right to videotape police” conducting their daily duties in public.

“The filming of government officials engaged in their duties in a public place, including police officers performing their responsibilities, fits comfortably within these principles [of protected First Amendment activity].,” said the Court. “Gathering information about government officials in a form that can readily be disseminated to others serves a cardinal First Amendment interest in protecting and promoting the free discussion of governmental affairs.”

The Court added that the police officers should have understood this all along, and that videotaping public officials is not limited to the press.

“Moreover, changes in technology and society have made the lines between private citizen and journalist exceedingly difficult to draw,” the Court continued. “The proliferation of electronic devices with video-recording capability means that many of our images of current events come from bystanders with a ready cell phone or digital camera rather than a traditional film crew, and news stories are now just as likely to be broken by a blogger at her computer as a reporter at a major newspaper. Such developments make clear why the news-gathering protections of the First Amendment cannot turn on professional credentials or status.”

The Court concluded that police officers are to expect to deal with certain “burdens” as citizens practice First Amendment rights, but that there needs to be a healthy balance between police officers being videotaped while acting irresponsibly and the harassment of officers with recording devices while they’re conducting their duties responsibly.

Tiffany Kaiser

Article Content From: Daily Tech

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3832/citizens-can-videotape-police/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3773/wake-up-in-8-minutes-video http://greenplanetparadise.com/3773/wake-up-in-8-minutes-video#comments Mon, 05 Sep 2011 13:36:29 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3773

Wake Up to Reality in Under 8 Minutes – MUST SEE

Article Content From: YouTube

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3773/wake-up-in-8-minutes-video/feed 1 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3781/nashville-ends-water-fluoridation http://greenplanetparadise.com/3781/nashville-ends-water-fluoridation#comments Fri, 02 Sep 2011 16:13:22 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3781

Nashville suburb officially ends water fluoridation

A few weeks ago NaturalNews reported that officials from Spring Hill, Tenn., a fast-growing suburb of Nashville, were considering ending the city’s water fluoridation program. We are excited to report that, according to a recent report in The Tennessean, these same city leaders have officially and unanimously decided to stop fluoridating the city’s public water supply beginning on November 1, a move that will save taxpayers more than $21,000 a year.

It all began when various individuals, including Spring Hill’s water superintendent Caryl Giles, began questioning the city’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen about the need to fluoridate water. This sparked Alderman Amy Wurth, along with several others, to help lead the charge in removing fluoride from Spring Hill’s water supply, contending that because not everybody reacts the same way to its ingestion, forcing it on the entire population is wrong.

“I think we have to be responsible as parents and look at other options for fluoridation, but not put it in the water where it’s not needed,” said Alderman Keith Hudson, who supports Wurth and the others contentions that water fluoridation is outdated, expensive, and not even necessarily backed by sound science.

Reports indicate that fluoridation of Spring Hill’s water will officially end on September 30, 2011, which is several months shy of officials’ earlier estimates for its potential removal. Spring Hill’s water department will also send out a public notice within 30 days of this date to its nearly 30,000 residents, notifying them of the change.

This historic move by a large metropolitan suburb to end water fluoridation is a significant one that could snowball into many other communities following its lead, particularly those in states like Tennessee that do not have statewide mandated fluoridation laws.

Jonathan Benson

Article Content From: Natural News

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3781/nashville-ends-water-fluoridation/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3752/the-truth-about-libya-video http://greenplanetparadise.com/3752/the-truth-about-libya-video#comments Fri, 02 Sep 2011 11:20:59 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3752

The Truth About Libya

Some of what we have found out about Libya & Muammar Al Qaddafi since the brutal, illegal invasion of Libya by Rothschild owned NATO forces.

We ask all reading this to do whatever they can to oppose the New World Order, NATO, the UN & our corrupt politicians.

Please read Qaddafi’s Green Book. Download PDF link: Qaddafi’s Green Book

The draft UN report on human rights in Libya before the NATO bombings & invasion. PDF File: Human Rights Council

Thank you to all people seeking the truth.

Article Content From:YouTube

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3752/the-truth-about-libya-video/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3744/ron-pauls-take-on-fema-the-fed-and-libya-video http://greenplanetparadise.com/3744/ron-pauls-take-on-fema-the-fed-and-libya-video#comments Fri, 02 Sep 2011 17:21:49 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3744

Ron Paul Explains His Stance on FEMA, The Fed, and Libya

Article Content From: RonPaulFriends

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3744/ron-pauls-take-on-fema-the-fed-and-libya-video/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3732/tectonic-weaponry http://greenplanetparadise.com/3732/tectonic-weaponry#comments Thu, 01 Sep 2011 15:45:42 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3732

Pentagon Quake Nightmare: Fukushima on the Mississippi

In May, the federal government simulated an earthquake so massive, it killed 100,000 Midwesterners instantly, and forced more than 7 million people out of their homes. At the time, National Level Exercise 11 went largely unnoticed; the scenario seemed too far-fetched — states like Illinois and Missouri are in the middle of a tectonic plate, not at the edge of one. A major quake happens there once every several generations.

But Tuesday’s earthquake along the East Coast is a reminder that disasters can hit where they’re least expected. And if the nightmare scenario comes, government officials worry that state and federal authorities won’t be able to handle the “cascading failures” that follow. The results of May’s disaster exercise won’t be released to the public. But privately, these government officials say they’re glad that this earthquake was just a drill — and not the big one. Especially because there are so many nuclear power plants in the fault zone.

“A couple of things keep me up at night,” Paul Stockton, the Defense Department’s senior homeland security official, told the Aspen Security Forum last month. A quake, like the one simulated in National Level Exercise 11, is chief among the sleep-takers. “It’s so much bigger than anything we’ve faced — way beyond Hurricane Katrina.”

National Level Exercise 11, or NLE 11, was, in essence, a replay of a disaster that happened 200 years earlier. On Dec. 16, 1811, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake hit the New Madrid fault line, which lies on the border region of Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi. It’s by far the largest earthquake ever to strike the United States east of the Rockies. Up to 129,000 square kilometers [50,000 square miles] were hit with “raised or sunken lands, fissures, sinks, sand blows, and large landslides,” according to the U.S. Geological Service. “Huge waves on the Mississippi River overwhelmed many boats and washed others high onto the shore. High banks caved and collapsed into the river; sand bars and points of islands gave way; whole islands disappeared.” People as far away as New York City were awakened by the shaking.

More quakes, of a similar size, followed. But the loss of life was minimal: Not too many people lived in the area at the time. Today, there are more than 15 million people living in the quake zone. If a similar quake hit, “7.2 million people could be displaced, with 2 million seeking temporary shelter” in the first three days, FEMA Associate Adminsitrator William Carwile told a Congressional panel in 2010 (.pdf). “Direct economic losses for the eight states could total nearly $300 billion, while indirect losses at least twice that amount.”

During NLE 11, more than 9,000 National Guardsmen were dispatched to 50 sites around Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee for mock disaster relief. They were joined by workers from the Food and Drug Administration, state agencies, and charity groups like the American Red Cross. It was a truly massive undertaking — especially considering there were all-too-real tornadoes assaulting the region at the same time.

Still, it was only a fraction of what would be required, if there’s an actual catastrophe along the New Madrid fault line. Carwille estimated that 42,000 search and rescue personnel would be required, in the event of a real quake.

Those responders would be severely inhibited in the aid they could provide, noted Stockton, the Pentagon official.

“Electric power would go out, not for days, but for weeks and months in the four state region,” he said. “Municipal water systems, they all run on electricity, don’t they? Well, people are gonna get thirsty. You need water for firefighting, don’t you? Second, all gasoline pumps run on electric power. Same with diesel fuel. So in terms of road mobility, of getting the relief forces in, and evacuating people out — no gasoline? The cascading failures go on and on.”

Including, potentially, a Fukushima on the Mississippi. 15 nuclear power plants are in the New Madrid seismic zone.

Following the Japan disaster, a task force assembled by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission “recommended sweeping changes to the agency’s regulatory approach to safety issues… [and] order utilities to conduct reviews of seismic safety using the latest research, and, potentially, agree to costly upgrades,” the Wall Street Journal reported last month. “A major area of concern, federal officials say, is the New Madrid seismic zone.”

Will another 1811-style earthquake hit the midwest again? At the Aspen forum, Stockton insisted that “we’re overdue.” That’s overblown, if an independent panel (.pdf) convened by the National Earthquake Prediction Evaluation Council is to be believed. There’s a one-in-50 chance of a mega-quake every 50 years. Before 1811, the big ones happened in approximately the years 1450 and 900. Still, this is all a game of percentages. No one can say for sure when the next disaster will strike. And it’s worth noting that New Madrid is considered the most active earthquake region east of the Rockies.

Federal officials say the government is in a better position to respond to catastrophes today than it was in the Katrina era; and that FEMA administrator Craig Fugate is a quantum improvement over his predecessor, Michael (“Heckuva Job”) Brown. Coordination and communication between agencies, and with aid groups, has skyrocketed.

“We’re in terrific shape in the Department of Defense to support FEMA and DHS for what I call normal disasters — the kind of disasters that happen every year or every couple of years,” Stockton said.

But despite all the drills, if there’s a New Madrid II, any government response will be incomplete.

“Is Kentucky ready for a 7.7 earthquake?” said John Heltzel, director for Kentucky Emergency Management. “No. Are we more prepared than we once were? Absolutely.”

Tectonic Weaponry: How to Make an Earthquake

TECTONIC WEAPONS Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, quoted as saying at a conference in April 1997, “Others are engaging even in an eco type of terrorism, whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes or volcanos remotely, through the use of electromagnetic waves.”

Bill 107th CONGRESS, 1st Session, H. R. 2977 To preserve the cooperative, peaceful uses of space for the benefit of all humankind by permanently prohibiting the basing of weapons in space by the United States, and to require the President to take action to adopt and implement a world treaty banning space-based weapons

(i) electronic, psychotronic, or information weapons;
(ii) chemtrails;
(iii) high altitude ultra low frequency weapons systems;
(iv) plasma, electromagnetic, sonic, or ultrasonic weapons;
(v) laser weapons systems;
(vi) strategic, theater, tactical, or extraterrestrial weapons; and
(vii) chemical, biological, environmental, climate, or tectonic weapons.

Russia, carried out an extensive “tectonic weapon” research program, a deliberate attempt to create earthquakes using underground nuclear weapons. Russian newspaper Moscow News has obtained papers showing that the program, first known as “Mercury” and later as “Volcano,” was launched in 1987 and ended in 1992(?)

ISTC Project 1545 MHD Induced Seismicity The objective of this Project is to determine physical nature of the induced seismicity under electromagnetic impact caused by the MHD generator and to develop a technology of the controlled electromagnetic impact (EMI) on the Earth crust aimed at the seismic hazard reduction. Seismicity is a process that is highly sensitive to external impacts, both natural and technogenic.

The induced seismicity is caused mainly by human technological activity. Changes in the seismicity regime are observed during water-storage reservoir flooding; in the regions where intensive oil & gas extraction takes place; during deep-well disposal of wastes, etc. Also stated is the fact that underground nuclear explosions may effect spatio-temporal seismicity distribution and initiate its increase at separations up to 200-2,000 km.

Recently, principally new results are obtained concerning the seismicity regime variation under the EMI caused by the MHD generator. The preliminary analysis of the EMI results shows the following principal features of such induced seismicity: Significant spatio-temporal variations of the seismicity regime are revealed: the seismic activity after the MHD runs is pronouncedly higher than before the runs. Sharp activation of local earthquakes takes place on 2th-7th day after the MHD runs, its duration being within several days. The increment of the total energy release after the MHD runs is 5 to 6 orders of magnitude higher than total energy inserted into the load from the MHD generator.

Also noted is a tendency to spatial coincidence of the induced seismicity zones with the active areas of seismogenerating zones. The analysis seismicity variation with depth shows that the highest response takes place in the upper 5-km layer of the earth crust. The external impact is assumed to initiate release of seismic energy accumulated in the media during the tectonic processes in the form of relatively weak earthquakes thus lowering the threshold level of strong catastrophic earthquakes.

Article Content From: WIRED & Forbidden Knowledge TV

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3732/tectonic-weaponry/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3718/a-light-bulb-that-transmits-wireless-data-video http://greenplanetparadise.com/3718/a-light-bulb-that-transmits-wireless-data-video#comments Thu, 01 Sep 2011 15:27:38 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3718

Wireless Data From Every Light Bulb

Article Content From: TED Talks

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3718/a-light-bulb-that-transmits-wireless-data-video/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3682/mds-only-to-treat-cancer-with-chemo-radiation-or-surgery http://greenplanetparadise.com/3682/mds-only-to-treat-cancer-with-chemo-radiation-or-surgery#comments Thu, 01 Sep 2011 15:16:48 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3682

California to make it a felony for MDs to treat cancer without chemo, radiation or surgery

There are more than enough cancer patients in need of treatment, but there aren’t anywhere near enough treatments that get the job done! Medical doctors and CAM practitioners should be working together to pool resources and bring as many options for treatment as possible to the table as consideration for treatment. It is the moral and scientific responsibility of every health care practitioner who treats cancer to have, or have access to, broad knowledge of all treatments that treat cancer before rushing to any specific treatment, especially if the treatment has potentially serious side effects. This is just simple commonsense. So why, then, doesn’t this happen in the real world? Why do patients feel forced to create their own cancer treatment programs that merges mainstream and CAM treatments and then withhold this information from their practitioners?

Can we let arrogance take precedence over wisdom when choosing a patient’s treatment program, especially when life is at stake? Is it necessary to only accept peer reviewed literature from major medical journals when it comes to recommending treatment. On the other hand, is there any possible value to using time tested treatments that have not been studied from the perspective of western medical research?

Should treatment options be limited by the particular health care discipline the practitioner is trained, whether mainstream or CAM? We must demand that our practitioner state things accurately. If there is no further realistic treatment in the opinion of the treating practitioner, it should be stated that the practitioner is unaware of further treatment benefits, but it might still be a good idea to continue searching for additional treatments. All too commonly, oncologists make the arrogant assumption that because there are no additional medical treatments that there is nothing more that should be sought after. How would they know when they are not trained in CAM therapies? It is presumptive and inhuman for any health care practitioner to tell a patient to go home and get his or her affairs in order because no further treatment is possible and death is on the horizon?

There is a huge ongoing turf war between mainstream and CAM practitioners when it comes to treating cancer. What is keeping these well-meaning health care practitioners from coming together and synergizing new treatment strategies? Is it about money or just simple arrogance? Mainstream doctors are taught that research is the basis for using certain drugs and that without it there is no science and therefore no basis for additional treatment approaches.

However, there are two flaws in this thinking. First, what is published in mainstream medical journals is hardly good science. This has been studied numerous times and is it now firmly established that most of the studies published that are funded by Big Pharma are seriously flawed because of conflicts of interest. Secondly, just because there are no studies on a treatment does not mean it doesn’t work. It simply means that we have no studies showing that it either works or does not work. If the treatment being considered is non-toxic, cheap, available, and possibly helpful to treat cancer, why not consider using it, especially as a last resort? The minimum possible benefit will be the placebo effect. We must remember that the major effect of most drugs is the placebo effect!

Another important aspect that explains why oncologists focus on chemotherapy is that it is highly beneficial to them financially. Big Pharma allows oncologists to sell their cancer drugs directly to patients. This accounts on the average for 33% of oncologists’ annual income. Do these conflicts of interest of between Big Pharma and oncologists cause you to raise your eyebrows? There is data showing that oncologists tend to prescribe higher priced new drugs that are still on patent than older drugs that will bring them less income. Wow!

Making matters even worse, there is a Public Health law in the State of California making it a felony for MDs to treat cancer with any modality other than chemo, radiation or surgery? Do Big Pharma’s tentacles stretch farther than you thought?

Thank God that California Citizens for Health Freedom headed by Frank Cuny has devoted its interest to repealing this outrageous law and protect forward-thinking MDs and NDs from these harsh legal consequences for using CAM approaches for treatment of cancer. You can go to www.citizenshealth.org if you want to help with this legislation. For more information about what you can do to allow your doctor to treat cancer integratively go to: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=2301FBF0572A35BAB2BBDBF32697047D

It is time that “we the people” wake up to how the cancer treatment industry works and take action by passing legislation that makes it legal for MDs, NDs, and other cancer treating disciplines to use both mainstream and CAM therapies. Bringing more options to the table and removing conflicts of interest interfering with integrative cancer treatments is essential if we’re going begin developing new integrative strategies.

Dr. Len Saputo

Article Content From: Natural News

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3682/mds-only-to-treat-cancer-with-chemo-radiation-or-surgery/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3763/anonymous-lulz-sec-respond-to-f-b-i-raids http://greenplanetparadise.com/3763/anonymous-lulz-sec-respond-to-f-b-i-raids#comments Thu, 01 Sep 2011 15:10:29 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3763

In recent news you may have heard about hacker groups “anonymous” & Lulz Sec members being raided for there hacking assaults on websites like PayPal, Sony and even the F.B.I. Below is there response to the recent arrests:

 

Hello thar FBI and international law authorities,

We recently stumbled across the following article with amazement and a certain amount of amusement:

    http://www.npr.org/2011/07/20/138555799/fbi-arrests-alleged-anonymous-hackers

The statements made by deputy assistant FBI director Steve Chabinsky in this
article clearly seem to be directed at Anonymous and Lulz Security, and we are
happy to provide you with a response.

You state:

“We want to send a message that chaos on the Internet is unacceptable,
[even if] hackers can be believed to have social causes, it’s entirely
unacceptable to break into websites and commit unlawful acts.”

Now let us be clear here, Mr. Chabinsky, while we understand that you and
your colleagues may find breaking into websites unacceptable, let us tell
you what WE find unacceptable:

* Governments lying to their citizens and inducing fear and terror to keep
them in control by dismantling their freedom piece by piece.

* Corporations aiding and conspiring with said governments while taking
advantage at the same time by collecting billions of funds for
federal contracts we all know they can’t fulfil.

* Lobby conglomerates who only follow their agenda to push the profits
higher, while at the same time being deeply involved in governments around
the world with the only goal to infiltrate and corrupt them enough
so the status quo will never change.

These governments and corporations are our enemy. And we will continue to
fight them, with all methods we have at our disposal, and that certainly
includes breaking into their websites and exposing their lies.

We are not scared any more. Your threats to arrest us are meaningless to
us as you cannot arrest an idea. Any attempt to do so will make your
citizens more angry until they will roar in one gigantic choir. It is our
mission to help these people and there is nothing – absolutely nothing – you
can possibly to do make us stop.

“The Internet has become so important to so many people that we have to
ensure that the World Wide Web does not become the Wild Wild West.”

Let me ask you, good sir, when was the Internet not the Wild Wild West? Do
you really believe you were in control of it at any point? You were not.

That does not mean that everyone behaves like an outlaw. You see, most
people do not behave like bandits if they have no reason to. We become bandits
on the Internet because you have forced our hand. The Anonymous bitchslap rings
through your ears like hacktivism movements of the 90s. We’re back – and we’re
not going anywhere. Expect us.

Article Source: http://pastebin.com/RA15ix7S

Photo Source: http://digitalsspyeye.info

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3763/anonymous-lulz-sec-respond-to-f-b-i-raids/feed 2 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3700/cnn-and-the-stimulus-protest-video http://greenplanetparadise.com/3700/cnn-and-the-stimulus-protest-video#comments Tue, 30 Aug 2011 03:56:44 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3700

What CNN Didn’t Air During Stimulus Protest

CNN Wants This Video Banned (SEE WHY)

Article Content From: Founding Bloggers

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3700/cnn-and-the-stimulus-protest-video/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3675/world-war-%e2%85%a2 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3675/world-war-%e2%85%a2#comments Mon, 29 Aug 2011 19:41:35 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3675

Federal Reserve Policy + Extreme Weather = Revolution + World War III

Federal Reserve Policy Mixed With Extreme Weather Has Put The World On A Fast Track To Revolution And War.

There are many factors that clearly demonstrate why it would be disastrous for the Federal Reserve to repeat their vicious Quantitative Easing (QE) policy. If you want to know a significant reason why they cannot get away with another round of QE, here is an equation for you:

(Quantitative Easing + Extreme Weather = Revolution + World War III)

From the very beginning we knew that the Federal Reserve’s QE program was going to cause the cost of food to rise and the dollar to decline in value, and that these intended results would lead to an increase in poverty and civil unrest. Now there is a new study that gives us some more proof of this obvious fact:

Are food prices approaching a violent tipping point?

A provocative new study suggests the timing of the Arab uprisings is linked to global food price spikes, and that prices will soon permanently be above the level which sparks conflicts….

… there is a specific food price level above which riots and unrest become far more likely. That figure is 210 on the UN FAO’s price index: the index is currently at 234, due to the most recent spike in prices which started in the middle of 2010 [coinciding with QE2].

Lastly, the researchers argue that current underlying food price trends – excluding the spikes – mean the index will be permanently over the 210 threshold within a year or two. The paper concludes: “The current [food price] problem transcends the specific national political crises to represent a global concern about vulnerable populations and social order.” Big trouble, in other words….

The next part of the study identifies that the serious unrest in North Africa and the Middle East also correlates very closely with [the QE2] food price spike. Bar-Yam also notes: “Several of the initial riots in North Africa were identified in news stories as food riots.” From there, the researchers make their prediction of permanently passing the 210 threshold in 12-24 months.

In other words, if the Fed engages in another round of QE, the global unrest that they have already ignited will go hyperbolic.

Before getting into the details on how the Fed deliberately made these food prices spike, let’s look at another new study, which also helps demonstrate the obvious, extreme weather is linked to war:

Climate cycles linked to civil war, analysis shows

Changes in the global climate that cut food production triggered one-fifth of civil conflicts between 1950 and 2004

Cyclical climatic changes double the risk of civil wars, with analysis showing that 50 of 250 conflicts between 1950 and 2004 were triggered by the El Niño cycle, according to scientists.

Researchers connected the climate phenomenon known as El Niño, which brings hot and dry conditions to tropical nations and cuts food production, to outbreaks of violence in countries from southern Sudan to Indonesia and Peru.

Solomon Hsiang, who led the research at Columbia University, New York, said: “We can speculate that a long-ago Egyptian dynasty was overthrown during a drought. This study shows a systematic pattern of global climate affecting conflict right now. We are still dependent on climate to a very large extent.”…

Mark Cane, a member of the team, said global warming would have greater climatic impacts than El Niño, making it “hard to imagine” it would not provoke conflicts.

Put all these factors together and you have, “The Road Through 2012: Revolution [and/or] World War III.”

In summation, Ben Bernanke and the Fed’s economic central planners were clearly aware of the hostile climate and weather patterns when they engaged in QE2. The Fed’s infamous policy, as I said before, “deliberately threw gasoline all over those brush fires. QE2 was another economic napalm bomb from the global banking cartel.” They knew that they were deliberately attacking (sacrificing) tens of millions of people, but that was secondary to keeping their global Ponzi scheme going by pumping another $2.1 trillion into their fraudulent, insolvent banking system through both QE programs. This is why Ben Bernanke is guilty of crimes against humanity.

Now, let’s revisit what I’ve been reporting on for the past year:

I: Centrally Planned Economic Repression

The IMF has a well-worn strategy that they use to conquer national economies. As I warned four months ago, we have now progressed into Step 3.5: World Wide IMF Riots. Back in October, in a TV interview with Max Keiser, we discussed leaked World Bank documents that revealed the IMF’s strategy. I stated the following:

“They have a four-step strategy for destroying national economies…. We are about to enter what they would call Step Three. Step Three is when you’ve looted the economy and now food and basic necessities all of a sudden become more expensive, harder to get to. And then, Step 3.5 is when you get the riots. We are fastly approaching that….

We are headed to, as the IMF said, and as they plan, Step 3.5: IMF Riots. That’s what’s coming…”

Fast-forward four months to today, and now we see country after country rebelling against high food prices. Since our October interview, food prices have spiked 15%. According to new World Bank data, since June 2010, “Rising food have pushed about 44 million people into poverty in developing countries.”

As Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced another round of Quantitative Easing (QE2), those of us paying attention knew that the trigger had been pulled and Step Three had been executed. It was a declaration of economic war, an economic death sentence for tens of millions of people – deliberately devaluing the dollar and sparking inflation in commodities/basic necessities. It was a vicious policy that would impact people from Boston to Cairo.

When QE2 was announced, I warned: “Food and Gas Prices Will Skyrocket, The Federal Reserve Just Dropped An Economic Nuclear Bomb On Us.” I also wrote: “The Federal Reserve is deliberately devaluing the dollar to enrich a small group of a global bankers, which will cause significant harm to the people of the United States and severe ramifications throughout the world…. The Federal Reserve’s actions are already causing the price of food and gas to increase and will cause hyperinflation on most basic necessities.”

To be clear, there are several significant factors contributing to rising food prices, such as extreme weather conditions, biofuel production and Wall Street speculation; but the Federal Reserve’s policies deliberately threw gasoline all over those brush fires. QE2 was another economic napalm bomb from the global banking cartel.

In a recent McClathy news article entitled, “Egypt’s unrest may have roots in food prices, US Fed policy,” Kevin Hall reports:

“‘The truth of the matter is that when the Federal Reserve moved on the quantitative easing, it did export inflation to a lot of these emerging markets…. There’s no doubt that one of the side effects of the weak dollar and quantitative easing has been rising commodity prices. It helped create this bullish environment for commodities. This is a very delicate balancing act.’

It’s a view shared by Ed Yardeni, a veteran financial market analyst, who reached a similar conclusion in a research note to investors…. He joked that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke should be added to a list of revolutionaries, since his quantitative easing policy, unveiled last year in Wyoming, has provoked unrest and change in the developing world.

‘Since he first indicated his support for such a revolutionary monetary change… the prices of corn, soybeans and wheat have risen 53 percent, 37 percent and 24.4 percent through Friday’s close,’ Yardeni noted. ‘The price of crude oil rose 19.8 percent over this period from $75.17 to $90.09 this (Monday) morning. Soaring food and fuel prices are compounding anger attributable to widespread unemployment in the countries currently experiencing riots.’”

The people throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa, on the fringe of the Neo-Liberal economic empire and most vulnerable to the Fed’s inflationary policies, are the first to rebel.

The conclusion that we reach, the unfortunate reality of our current crisis: the Federal Reserve and global economic central planners have declared war on us. We are under attack.

We must remove Ben Bernanke from power and hold him and the rest of the global banking cartel accountable. We must also break up the “too big to fail” banks. This a message I, along with many others who have analyzed our economic situation, have been repeating over and over for the past three years.

Hopefully, a critical mass of people will soon understand this reality and back it up with non-violent civil disobedience before riots and violence rip our society apart. For these reasons, let’s all go to Wall Street on September 17th and show these tyrants that we’ve had enough.

David DeGraw

Article Content From: Amped Status

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3675/world-war-%e2%85%a2/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3657/the-founding-fathers-and-corporations http://greenplanetparadise.com/3657/the-founding-fathers-and-corporations#comments Sat, 27 Aug 2011 04:49:05 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3657

What The Founding Fathers Thought About Corporations

Citizens United. This is the 2010 Supreme Court case that shocked America, influenced an election, and reversed over 100 years of campaign finance laws. In this case, corporations were declared as people and as such declared to have the same rights as people do. It also opened the doors for corporations to pour unprecedented amounts of campaign donations into elections, and what’s more, these donations can be totally secret. Corporations can now literally and legally buy elections and shape the government like never before in our nation’s history.

The economic world we live in today is dominated by corporations. Huge corporations that boast massive profits and span continents. But corporations also wield political power and are lobbying heavily to be free from any and all government regulations that would make them responsible and liable. Republicans have been defending corporations since the late 1800′s and have literally gone on a history revising crusade to show that even the founding fathers supported corporations. But is this the case? What did the founders really think about corporations?

The origin of modern corporations can be traced all the way back to 17th century England when Queen Elizabeth I created the East India Trading Company. At first, corporations were small, quasi government institutions that were chartered by the crown for a specific purpose. If corporations stepped out of line, the crown did not hesitate to revoke their charters. Corporations generated so much revenue that they even began taking on increased political power. Corporations were also organized to finance large projects such as exploration, which leads us to the American colonies.

To say that the founding fathers supported corporations is very absurd. Its quite the opposite in fact. Corporations like the East India Trading Company were despised by the founders and they were just one reason why they chose to revolt against England. Corporations represented the moneyed interests much like they do today and they often wielded political power, sometimes to the point of governing a colony all by themselves like the Massachusetts Bay Company did.

But there is more evidence that the Revolutionary generation despised corporations. The East India Company was the largest corporation of its day and its dominance of trade angered the colonists so much, that they dumped the tea products it had on a ship into Boston Harbor which today is universally known as the Boston Tea Party. At the time, in Britain, large corporations funded elections generously and its stock was owned by nearly everyone in parliament. The founding fathers did not think much of these corporations that had great wealth and great influence in government. And that is precisely why they put restrictions upon them after the government was organized under the Constitution.

After the nation’s founding, corporations were granted charters by the state as they are today. Unlike today, however, corporations were only permitted to exist 20 or 30 years and could only deal in one commodity, could not hold stock in other companies, and their property holdings were limited to what they needed to accomplish their business goals. And perhaps the most important facet of all this is that most states in the early days of the nation had laws on the books that made any political contribution by corporations a criminal offense. When you think about it, the regulations imposed on corporations in the early days of America were far harsher than they are now. That is hardly proof that the founders supported corporations. In fact its quite the opposite. The corporate entity was so restrictive that many of America’s corporate giants set up their entities to avoid the corporate restrictions. For example, Andrew Carnegie set up his steel company as a limited partnership and John D. Rockefeller set up his Standard Oil company as a trust which would later be rightfully busted up into smaller companies by Theodore Roosevelt.

For those who need more evidence, how about statements from the founders themselves. As we all know, big banks are also considered corporations and here is what Thomas Jefferson thought about them. In an 1802 letter to Secretary of State Albert Gallatin, Jefferson said,

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”

Thomas Jefferson also said this in 1816,

“I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

Jefferson wasn’t the only founding father to make statements about corporations. John Adams also had an opinion.

“Banks have done more injury to the religion, morality, tranquility, prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or ever will do good.”

These statements make it pretty clear that corporations were not trusted by the founders. The founders knew that huge corporations only preyed upon the people. But as the founding generation began to fade away, corporations began using their power to gain political favor and eventually that political favor would turn into political power. And corporations would take advantage of a war to do it. As the Civil War raged across the land, corporations made an effort to take advantage of the situation, selling products at high prices, especially to the government. Corporations even sold to both sides throughout the war. Basically, corporations proved even then that they had no allegiance to any country when great profits were at stake. Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican to be President also had plenty to say about corporations…

“The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace and conspire against it in times of adversity. The banking powers are more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. They denounce as public enemies all who question their methods or throw light upon their crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe.”

And in a November 21, 1864 letter to Col. William F. Elkins, Lincoln wrote,

“We may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing its end. It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood … It has indeed been a trying hour for the Republic; but I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless.”

Unfortunately, Lincoln’s suspicions were anything but groundless. They were in fact, prophetic. After the Civil War, corporations began aligning themselves with Republican politicians, who proved themselves to be up to the task of helping corporations gain more power. Corporations had free reign and total power over its workforce and could sell virtually anything they wanted even if the product was a bad one. Corporations treated workers like slaves. Wages were extremely low. Workers received no benefits, no vacation days, no health insurance, no workers compensation. President Grover Cleveland witnessed how corporations treated its labor force and had this to say in 1888,

“As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen is struggling far in the rear, or is trampled beneath an iron heel. Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people’s masters.”

To put it bluntly, corporations didn’t care about its workers or the people who bought their products. The only rule of the game was to make as much profit as possible, no matter what. As the 19th century ended and the 20th century began, corporations were getting bigger and bigger. Many began buying up smaller companies, becoming monopolies that controlled whole industries. This practice eliminated competition and as a result, prices had skyrocketed and no one could challenge them. That was, until Theodore Roosevelt became the President. Theodore Roosevelt did not hate corporations. He simply wanted them to treat workers how they deserved to be treated and to serve the public faithfully and honestly. He believed in honest competition and fair prices. Roosevelt believed that government had not only a duty, but a right to regulate corporations just as the founding generation had done, stating that,

“The great corporations which we have grown to speak of rather loosely as trusts are the creatures of the State, and the State not only has the right to control them, but it is duty bound to control them wherever the need of such control is shown.”

And in his State of The Union Address in 1902, Roosevelt stated his intentions toward corporations.

“Our aim is not to do away with corporations; on the contrary, these big aggregations are an inevitable development of modern industrialism, and the effort to destroy them would be futile unless accomplished in ways that would work the utmost mischief to the entire body politic. We can do nothing of good in the way of regulating and supervising these corporations until we fix clearly in our minds that we are not attacking the corporations, but endeavoring to do away with any evil in them. We are not hostile to them; we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as to serve the public good. We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth.”

To that end he fought for corporate regulation, he fought for fair wages for workers, he fought for safe and healthy work environments, and he fought to protect consumers. And the people loved him for it. Roosevelt’s policies toward corporations were immensely popular. He busted up so many giant corporations that he became known as a “trust buster”. The busting up of these corporations created a lot more competition for customers and for employees, resulting in higher wages and lower prices and more jobs. And you know what? Corporate profits did just fine.

Teddy never stopped fighting for workers and consumers even after his presidency when he said this as the Progressive Party candidate for President in 1912,

“We wish to control big business so as to secure among other things good wages for the wage-workers and reasonable prices for the consumers. Wherever in any business the prosperity of the businessman is obtained by lowering the wages of his workmen and charging an excessive price to the consumers we wish to interfere and stop such practices. We will not submit to that kind of prosperity any more than we will submit to prosperity obtained by swindling investors or getting unfair advantages over business rivals.”

Roosevelt didn’t win the presidency in 1912, although he most certainly would have if the Republican ticket hadn’t been split. But Woodrow Wilson would continue the fight for workers and consumers. As America entered the 1920′s, corporations began to gain political favors once again as business minded Republicans controlled the White House and Congress. Regulations were being stripped away and banks as large entities were on the rise. These banks and corporations abused the stock market which would lead to the crash of 1929 and the Great Depression. Corporate profits had surged throughout the decade and unfair speculation had caused economic bubbles that had to burst.
Corporate bosses also flexed their muscles over America’s legal system, spending great deals of money to get away with nearly anything. In a statement of sarcasm that speaks to this despicable practice, Senator George Norris, after an industrialist was acquitted of charges of corruption, said that “We ought to pass a law that no man worth $100,000,000 should be tried for a crime.”

The Franklin Roosevelt era would bring new calls for corporate regulation and corporate tax hikes. These new regulations once again kept corporations honest and protected consumers. Workers also benefited from these new regulations, getting fair wages, pensions, and safe working conditions. Corporations were taxed at a rate of 91% and even with all of that, corporations still made huge profits. Life changed dramatically for the middle class. People had jobs with livable wages and promise for the future. Corporations once again served a purpose as consumers were treated fairly and the economy soared. Unemployment was also very low. But these trends did not last long as corporate greed would once again fuel another grab for political power. Corporations began aligning themselves more and more with the Republican Party, and as this relationship grew, corporations found a way to make record profits. Throughout the 1980′s up to today, corporations have outsourced millions of American jobs to cheap labor overseas. As a result of this, corporate profits have broke record after record, while the unemployment rate has jumped higher and higher. Corporate tax rates began getting lower and lower, while more tax loopholes were created to help corporations evade most of them altogether. When the Republican Party took control of government in 2001, they went on a crusade on behalf of corporations (how could they refuse, they were on the payroll), to blame workers for economic downturns and outsourcing. Corporations also decided to take advantage of a national tragedy. After 9/11, there was an understandable push to go to war against terrorists hiding in Afghanistan. But corporations, as in other times of war and tragedy, began pushing for a war against Iraq. And they got their wish. Corporations have since made billions in war profits off of the War in Iraq and have proven once again that profit is far more important than the lives of soldiers. Lincoln was right. This is yet another reason why corporations need to be put in their place. As Henry Ford once said, “Do you want to know the cause of war? It is capitalism, greed, the dirty hunger for dollars. Take away the capitalist and you will sweep war from the earth.”

Republicans are now on the verge of stripping away all corporate regulations and worker’s rights. But it was the 2010 Citizens United decision that really made corporations into political powers. Not only were corporations declared to be people but corporations also now have the power to buy elections at will. The problem with this Supreme Court decision is that it goes against everything the founding fathers believed in. In the Constitution, it says “We the people…”, not “We the corporations…”. The founding fathers never addressed corporations in the Constitution because it never occurred to them that corporations would be perceived as people. And why would they have? Corporations don’t eat, they don’t breathe, they don’t vote, they don’t fight battles in wars. Remember all the limitations the founders placed on corporations mentioned earlier? In the Constitution, the founders speak only of the people. The founders did not limit lifetimes of people, nor did they outlaw a persons right to donate to political campaigns. They also did not limit people to specific life goals like they did with corporations. This should make it absolutely clear that the founders never intended for corporations to be people. The decision by the clearly activist, conservative majority of the court is an abomination that can never be Constitutionally justified. Now it is our duty to call on Congress to bring forward a Constitutional Amendment that bans corporate personhood and bans corporations from interfering with government and legal elections that only real people have the right to donate to and vote in. Because whatever these greedy, arrogant CEO’s and Republicans think, its the opinion of the founding generation that matters most. Corporations are not people. People are people.

Article Content From: Addicting Info

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3657/the-founding-fathers-and-corporations/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3651/dont-panic-go-organic http://greenplanetparadise.com/3651/dont-panic-go-organic#comments Sat, 27 Aug 2011 04:06:17 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3651

Approaching the Collapse: Don’t Panic, Go Organic

So-called “business as usual” is neither sustainable, nor even possible, for much longer. Out-of-control energy corporations, Wall Street, the Pentagon, agribusiness/biotech corporations, and indentured politicians have driven us to the brink. They tell us: don’t worry; trust the experts, things will soon return to “normal.” But reality and common sense tell a different story.

Extreme weather, crop failures, commodities speculation, land grabs, escalating prices, soil degradation, depleted aquifers, routine contamination, food-related disease, and mass hunger represent the “new norm” for food and farming. The global agricultural system, with the exception of the rapidly growing organic sector, rests upon a shaky foundation. Patented seeds, genetically engineered crops, expensive and destructive chemical and energy-intensive inputs, factory farms, monoculture production, eroding soils, unsustainable water use, taxpayer subsidies, and long-distance hauling and distribution, including massive imports that amount to 15% of the U.S. food supply amount to a recipe for disaster.

A “perfect storm” or “ultimate recession” as described by Lester Brown in his new book, World on the Edge, could develop at any time, precipitated by extreme weather and crop failures on a massive scale. A growing number of nations, including the oil giants and China, are now scrambling to secure overseas farmland to feed their domestic populations. World grocers and supermarkets, including the U.S., have, on the average, only a four-day supply of food on hand. An oil shock, global disease pandemic, prolonged drought in the American heartland, or nuclear meltdown could set off a global food panic. Supermarket shelves and grain silos would be stripped bare within a short period of time. Have you thought about this? Are you and those in your local community ready for this?

Peak Food, Peak Oil, Peak Water, Peak Soil

World grain reserves amount to less than 75 days of supply. Harvests of strategic food grains and cereals have basically leveled off or even decreased, with enormous amounts of acreage now providing fuel for cars instead of food for people. At the same time, affordable fossil fuel energy supplies have peaked (Peak Oil), with the world increasingly dependent on “extreme” oil and natural gas extraction (deep sea and Arctic drilling, tar sands, and fracking), accelerating the prices of petroleum-based farm inputs, as well as food distribution and processing costs. Billions of people in the Global South are now spending 50-70% of their household income on food (although in the U.S. it is only 11%). Hydrologists and agronomists warn that Peak Water is fast approaching, when the already limited availability of water from underground aquifers for crop irrigation exponentially decreases. Peak Soil is also fast approaching, with soil erosion and desertification already degrading 25% of the earth’s land. Peak Soil is directly related to unsustainable farming and forestry practices, including heavy pesticide use, chemical fertilizers, genetically engineered mono-crops, and non-sustainable grazing and clear-cutting. Meanwhile global population numbers (in direct relation to poverty and lack of education for women) and demand for food (especially meat and animal products) are accelerating.

Of course, we could go on and on, citing the ever more disturbing information we read every day in the mainstream media and on the Internet. But the life or death question is: what are we going to do about it?

Crash-Resistant and Climate-Friendly: The Organic Revolution

Fortunately, over the past 40 years, a new generation of organic farmers and ranchers have proliferated, building upon the wisdom and practices of indigenous and traditional farmers over the past 10,000 years. A growing corps of organic farmers and gardeners are producing increasing amounts of healthy, nutritious foods without the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, genetically engineered seeds, or animal drugs. At the same time, these 21st Century organic stewards of the land are consuming far less (50% or more) fossil fuels and water. Study after study has demonstrated that organic small farms in the developing world out-produce chemical and genetically engineered farms by a factor of two to one; while in the industrialized nations, sustainable organic yields are comparable in “normal” weather to industrial farms; but far superior (up to 50-70% higher) in times of drought or torrential rain, the types of extreme weather that have become the “new norm.” In other words, not only can organic farming feed the world, but it is in fact the only way that we are going to be able to feed the world in this 21st Century era of energy, water, and climate crisis.

The burning question then becomes how do we build up a stronger Movement that can promote and scale up organic, local and regional-based systems of food and farming (while complimentary green Movements do the same in the energy, housing, and transportation sectors)? How can we, as quickly as possible, build up a critical mass of organic farms, gardens, seed banks, farm schools, and distribution networks in all the local regions of North America and world? We don’t have room in this essay to go into all the details, but here are a few things that millions of us are already starting to do, that are moving us forward and preparing us for survival in the likely eventuality of economic collapse.

(1) Step-up public education and consciousness-raising.

We have now crossed a major threshold of raising public awareness: the majority of Americans say they prefer organic food, for a variety of health, environmental, and ethical reasons. After forty years of public education and campaigning, organic foods and products are the fastest growing items in America’s grocery carts. Thirty million households, comprising 75 million people, are now buying organic foods and other products on a regular basis. Fifty-six percent of U.S. consumers say they prefer organic foods, citing a wide variety of reasons that we and the Organic Movement have taught them. Millions of young people and urban residents are starting to learn organic farming and gardening techniques.

(2) Step-up the campaign against industrial agriculture and genetic engineering.

The more we educate people about the hazards of chemical and energy-intensive food and farming and genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the greater the demand for organic foods and products, and the greater the number of new organic farmers, young organic farm apprentices, and urban organic gardeners (now 12 million-strong). The Achilles heel or weakest link of industrial agriculture is truthful labeling: consumers right to know. If toxic pesticides, chemicals and genetically engineered ingredients are labeled, consumers will not buy them, retailers will not sell them, and farmers will not grow them. Even though Washington has fallen under the control of Monsanto and corporate agribusiness, we can still change public policies at the state and local level, with grassroots-powered ballot initiatives and state legislation. Even though we live in Monsanto Nation, we can still bring down Goliath.

(3) Link up with other Movements, local to global.

Reducing global poverty, eliminating war and stabilizing the climate go hand-in-hand. The best way to reduce global rural poverty and conflict and eliminate war is through land reform and sustainable organic farming practices. With land reform and technical assistance, millions of organic farms in the Global South can develop and prosper, helping the world’s poorest people, especially women, to produce far more food with less or no fossil fuel or chemical inputs. This organic revolution will enable several billion peasants and rural villagers to rise up from poverty and reduce the unsustainable population growth that accompanies abject poverty. At the same time, one of the best ways to reduce fossil fuel use and naturally sequester climate-destabilizing greenhouse gases is to change our current land use practices, to go organic. For 10,000 years indigenous people and traditional farmers fed the world with organic farming and animal husbandry practices. By converting the world’s 12 billion acres of farmland and pasture land back to organic soil management we will be creating, instead of destroying, soil fertility, as well as restoring the soil food web’s amazing ability to permanently sequester enormous amounts of climate destabilizing CO2 through increased plant photosynthesis. With organic soil management spreading across the world’s 12 billion acres of farmland and pastureland, and a global mobilization to replant the 10 billion acres of forest that industry and agribusiness have destroyed, we can literally reverse global warming, bringing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 back down to a safe level of 350 parts per million from the current dangerous level of 390 ppm.

The hour is late, but there is still time to prepare ourselves and our communities before the economy collapses. Educate yourself and get active. Start to make preparations for an end to “business as usual.” Step up your efforts. Help link the issues and different constituencies in the body politic. Don’t panic. Go organic.

Ronnie Cummins 


Article Content From: Organic Consumers Association 


]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3651/dont-panic-go-organic/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3640/accelerated-education http://greenplanetparadise.com/3640/accelerated-education#comments Fri, 26 Aug 2011 20:43:21 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3640

New Answer to ADD and ADHD: Accelerated Education


Hyperdrive or Hyperactivity?

Many children who are medicated for ADD (attention deficit disorder) and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) are actually geniuses who are completely bored with an education system that is just too slow and antiquated to stimulate their fast-moving brains. Who can blame them? Remember how bored and easily distracted you were back when you were in school? And there was hardly anything that interesting to distract you – maybe a bird landing on the window sill, kids passing love-notes back and forth, or the class clown pulling some girl’s pigtails or throwing paper airplanes behind the teacher’s back.

Can you imagine being a kid today with iphones, ipods, mp3 players, computers, the internet, Facebook, Twitter, computer games, texting, email and thousands of cable channels? How could some old fashioned teacher who keeps everyone stagnating at the same slow pace, reading the same old theoretical text books, hold a candle to the exciting cutting edge of technology that constantly stimulates the brain and soul hungry for change, growth and knowledge?

When you get right down to it, children are antsy in school because they’re anxious to make a quantum leap while they’re being forced to stay seated in a chair and look at a blackboard as someone drones on and on about stuff they will never need or use in their lifetime. Why not steer them in the right direction since they’re amped up to go into hyperdrive instead of cutting off their life force by “curing” their “hyperactivity?”

Education needs to be revamped and fast so it can catch up to the 21st century and the needs of our rapidly evolving children. The last thing we should be doing is putting kids to sleep with medication so they’re on par with an education system that is asleep and lagging behind the technological revolution sweeping the planet. Instead we should be waking them up, along with the teachers, by using exciting accelerated learning techniques that peak their interest, speak to their soul and use the myriad of exciting new technology and social media now at our fingertips.

I recommend that you explore accelerated learning and use it to teach yourself and your children until the education system catches up. It is multi-faceted, employs all the senses, uses creative teaching methods and actively involves students so that they resonate with the subject matter and enjoy the process. It not only enhances retention and performance, but gives students an opportunity to experience life-changing transformation rather than just receiving useless information. When used correctly and geared at the whole person, accelerated learning helps individuals tap into their unique infinite power, creativity and soul purpose.

Beth Rosen

Recommended Video: Changing Education Paradigms

This is a fascinating video and extremely well-done. I have never seen someone capture the essence of this problem so dynamically and eloquently while being so entertaining. I highly recommend it.

Article Content From: Activist Post

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3640/accelerated-education/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3634/battle-for-the-california-desert-video http://greenplanetparadise.com/3634/battle-for-the-california-desert-video#comments Sat, 27 Aug 2011 02:57:41 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3634

Battle for the California Desert: Why is the Government Driving Folks off Their Land?

The Antelope Valley is a vast patch of desert on the outskirts of Los Angeles County, and a segment of the few rugged individualists who live out there increasingly are finding themselves the targets of armed raids from local code enforcement agents, who’ve assembled into task forces called Nuisance Abatement Teams (NATs).

The plight of the Valley’s desert dwellers made regional headlines when county officials ordered the destruction of Phonehenge: a towering, colorful castle constructed out of telephone poles by retired phone technician Kim Fahey. Fahey was imprisoned and charged with several misdemeanors.

But Fahey is just one of many who’ve been targeted by the NATs, which were assembled at the request of County Supervisor Mike Antonovich in 2006. LA Weekly reporter Mars Melnicoff wrote an in-depth article in which she exposed the county’s tactic of badgering residents with minor, but costly, code violations until they face little choice but to vacate the land altogether.

“They’re picking on the the people who are the most defenseless and have the least resources,” says Melnicoff.

Reason.tv collaborated with Melnicoff to talk with some of the NAT’s targets, such as retired veteran Joey Gallo, who might face homelessness if he’s forced to leave his house, and local pastor Oscar Castaneda, who says he’s already given up the fight and is in the process of moving off the land he and his wife have lived on for 22 years. And, while Antonovich declined an interview, we did catch up with him at a public meeting in order to ask the big question at the center of all this: Why the sudden enforcement of these codes against people living in the middle of the desert, who seemingly are affecting no one?

Article Content From: ReasonTV

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3634/battle-for-the-california-desert-video/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3628/the-government-says-vaccines-have-dangerous-side-effects http://greenplanetparadise.com/3628/the-government-says-vaccines-have-dangerous-side-effects#comments Fri, 26 Aug 2011 19:38:34 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3628

Vaccines Are Dangerous — The Government Says So!

Finally! The mainstream admits that vaccines are dangerous and cause certain side effects, sometimes serious ones! AP writer Lauran Neergaard did not have the nerve to put in print that the rare but really serious side effects include death but we can rest assured and trust (not really—I am being sarcastic here) the Institute of Medicine’s assertion that there is no link between vaccines and with autism and type-1 diabetes.

According to the first comprehensive safety review in 17 years (required by law) the side effects that doctors long have known about, such as fever-caused seizures and occasional brain inflammation are risks parents take every time they take their kids in for shots.

“All health care interventions, however, carry the possibility of risk and vaccines are no exception,” said pediatrician and bioethicist Dr. Ellen Wright Clayton of Vanderbilt University, who chaired the institute panel.

The Institute of Medicine found convincing evidence of 14 side effects:

– Fever-triggered seizures, which seldom cause long-term consequences, from the measles-mumps-rubella, or MMR, vaccine.

– MMR also can cause a rare form of brain inflammation in some people with immune problems.

– The varicella vaccine against chickenpox sometimes triggers that viral infection, resulting in widespread chickenpox or a painful relative called shingles. It can also occasionally lead to pneumonia, hepatitis or meningitis.

– Six vaccines—MMR and the chickenpox, hepatitis B, meningococcal and tetanus-containing vaccines—can cause severe allergic reactions known as anaphylaxis.

– Vaccines in general sometimes trigger fainting or a type of shoulder inflammation.

There’s suggestive evidence but not proof of a few other side effects, including anaphylaxis from the human papillomavirus, or HPV, vaccine and short-term joint pain in some women and children from the MMR vaccine.

The AP report and the government’s review mentioned a hundred other possible side effects that they just couldn’t find enough evidence to decide about.

On Monday I will publish a very important essay on infectious control. The age of antibiotics is about to end; we have come close to compromising our biological existence with the reckless overuse of these pharmaceuticals. Now we have antibiotic-resistant strains of pathogens encroaching on our biospheres and it is getting increasingly dangerous to set foot anywhere near a hospital.

Many people, including children, who die in the hospital after surgery die not from the surgery itself but from infections that get out of control. Infections cause 68 percent of child deaths even after our mighty white-coated pediatricians have vaccinated over 90 percent of them.

Please read the AP essay from which the information for this essay comes. You will find it an exercise in being able to see the power of a writer to skew information in any direction desired. Through the adding and deleting of a few commentarial words one can shift the perceptions of the readers greatly.

Vaccines were the earliest exercise in one-world government and they succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. The pharmaceutical terror masters who sit in their plush boardrooms are monsters targeting children everywhere. Vaccines, like antibiotics, have dragged children’s health into the gutter—into chronic diseases and a life of dependency on doctors who have no idea of how they’ve been hoodwinked by really bad people.

Dr. Mark Sircus, Contributing Writer

Article Content From: Activist Post

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3628/the-government-says-vaccines-have-dangerous-side-effects/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3622/libya-wants-a-change-to-gold-video http://greenplanetparadise.com/3622/libya-wants-a-change-to-gold-video#comments Sat, 27 Aug 2011 02:06:13 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3622

Libya invaded by NATO for the Gold Dinar connection?

The invasion of Libya by NATO has been many years in the making. The fake “Libyan Rebels” are a CIA creation. Their billions of dollars of funding from the west, shiny new weapons, “rebel t-shirts and hats” and mass amount of tanks make it very obvious this isn’t a rag-tag group of “freedom fighters”.

Article Content From: San Luis Skywatch

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3622/libya-wants-a-change-to-gold-video/feed 1 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3616/what-is-the-image-we-portray-to-our-children http://greenplanetparadise.com/3616/what-is-the-image-we-portray-to-our-children#comments Fri, 26 Aug 2011 01:52:38 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3616

Are You a Clear Mirror for Your Children?


There is a missing piece (PEACE) in our world today that few desire to look at head-on. It is not a religious piece, an educational piece, a political piece, an economic piece or a healthcare piece. It is a spiritual piece, and the acknowledgement and subsequent activation of that piece begins in the home. As parents, few of us understand who we really are as intuitive, creative, powerful, spiritual beings, and therefore, do not reflect the truth of our magnificent identity back to our children. In other words, despite well-meaning and loving intentions, instead of children observing, and more importantly, feeling wholeness, authenticity, self-love, truth, transparency and well-being reflected back to them from parents, they often see a diminished version of what is possible for the parent, and therefore, a diminished version of what is possible for them.

The most important step in elevating the reality of any family is the parents consciously moving down a path self-realization to heal old wounds, uncover hidden beliefs, release denied emotions, and allow greater joy so that they can become a clear mirror for their children. As parents begin to become more comfortable within their own skin and follow the inner linings of their own heart more courageously, they simultaneously give their children permission to do the same. There is no greater gift that parents can offer their children. A deeper intimacy with our own soul – the largest perspective of who we are – will change our world beyond the current, more surface “band-aids” that we continually attempt to reapply in all corners of society, often with disappointing results. It is up to parents to feel a greater responsibility to model soul intimacy, as well as encourage the same in their children. This is front-end work rather than back-end that will make a huge difference in the level of dysfunction, anxiety, stress, and despair found in so many families today.

The call right now in 2011 is for parents from all religious, economic and cultural backgrounds to begin to consciously integrate a new perspective, a universal SOUL perspective, into their beloved family while simultaneously raising consciousness in our world. Below are ten suggestions for parents to consider as they seek to offer their children the fruits of their own spiritual journey.

* Utilize everyday life, such as friendships, nature, mealtimes, music, movies, and much more, as the perfect curriculum and forum to teach your children powerful, universal principles such as connectedness, self-love, presence, and forgiveness.

* Teach your children to allow multiple perspectives in all life situations and relationships by turning challenges into positive, learning opportunities.

* Train your children to be more conscious of thoughts, words, deeds, priorities, beliefs and choices so that they can assume greater responsibility for the creation of their own reality.

* Encourage compassion, empathy and gratitude in your children on a daily basis by making them the most-used words in your home.

* Turn the JOY in family life way up by singing, dancing, smiling, humming, laughing, and relaxing rigid perspectives as often as possible through openness and gratitude.

* Model authenticity through speaking and living your truth thereby giving your children permission to do the same.

* Show your spirit daily so that your children can witness multiple aspects of you, and in turn, see multiple aspects in themselves.

* Teach your children that they are intuitive, creative, eternal spiritual beings, much larger than simply their physical form, and filled with infinite possibility and the capacity for direct divine connection.

* Assist your children in understanding that an appreciation for life in the present moment, coupled with enthusiasm for their future, plants the necessary seeds for manifesting their true heart’s desires.

* Provide the space and opportunity for your children to focus on their interior world as much as the exterior world, allowing greater intimacy with the voice of their own soul to feel what resonates as truth for them.

Annie Burnside, MEd

Article Content From: All Things Healing

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3616/what-is-the-image-we-portray-to-our-children/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3607/new-clothing-tests-on-global-brands-that-are-afecting-our-health http://greenplanetparadise.com/3607/new-clothing-tests-on-global-brands-that-are-afecting-our-health#comments Fri, 26 Aug 2011 01:24:25 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3607

New clothing tests show hormone-disrupting chemicals in global brands

Beijing – Manila, 23 August 2011 – The latest research into toxic water pollution released today by Greenpeace International reveals the presence of nonylphenol ethoxylates (1) in clothing items bearing the logos of 14 global brands (2), including Adidas, H&M and Abercrombie & Fitch.

The chemicals, which break down to form nonylphenol – which has toxic, persistent and hormone-disrupting properties – were detected in clothes bought and manufactured in locations all over the world, demonstrating that the use and release of hazardous chemicals is a widespread and pervasive problem with serious, long-term and far-reaching consequences for people and wildlife.

“Our research shows that global clothing brands are responsible for the discharge of hazardous chemicals into waterways in China and across the world, as part of their manufacturing processes,” said Yifang Li, Toxic Water Campaigner at Greenpeace East Asia. “People have a right to know about the chemicals that are present in the very fabric of their clothing and the harmful effects these chemicals have when released into the environment.”

Launched today in Beijing and Manila, Greenpeace’s second “Dirty Laundry” report (3) presents the results of analysis of clothing and fabric-based shoes sold internationally by major clothing brands. Of the 78 articles tested, 52 were found to contain nonylphenol ethoxylates, chemicals which breaks down into the hormone-disrupting nonylphenol. The findings provide a snapshot of the kind of toxic chemicals that are being released by the textile industry into waterways all over the world and are indicative of a much wider problem. To highlight this problem and the need for urgent solutions, activists in the Philippines today hung out t-shirt shaped banners exposing the 14 brands ‘Dirty Laundry’ over the Marikina River, challenging them to “Cut the chemicals and Detox our water “.

Released six weeks ago, the first Greenpeace Dirty “Laundry” report detailed the results of a year-long study linking many of the same clothing brands (4) to suppliers in China who were found to be releasing a cocktail of chemicals into the Pearl and Yangtze River deltas (5). As a result of the global “Detox” campaign, which has included a global striptease (6) and “re-branding activities” (7) at the companies’ stores, both Nike and Puma have publicly committed (8) to the elimination of all discharges of hazardous chemicals from their supply chains and products.

“Now that Nike and Puma have committed to cleaning up their supply chains, and are using their power as brand owners to influence the environmental impacts of their production, Adidas and other leading clothing brands can no longer avoid the responsibility of ensuring that the environment, their customers and people across the world are no longer threatened by the release of hazardous chemicals”, said Li.

“By failing to take action to eliminate these chemicals, global brands like Adidas are expecting customers to do their dirty laundry for them – every time clothes containing these chemicals are washed, hazardous substances are released into waterways across the world. Brands must remove these chemicals from their products, and the best way to do this is to eliminate them from their production processes and to come clean about what chemicals their factories are using and discharging”, concluded Li (9).

Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning organisation that acts to change attitudes and behaviour, to protect and conserve the environment and to promote peace. Greenpeace is campaigning to stop industrial pollution of our water with hazardous, persistent and hormone-disrupting chemicals by demanding that companies and governments take action to “Detox” our future.

Article Content From: GreenPeace

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3607/new-clothing-tests-on-global-brands-that-are-afecting-our-health/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3589/homeland-security-steps-on-the-4th-amendment-video http://greenplanetparadise.com/3589/homeland-security-steps-on-the-4th-amendment-video#comments Fri, 26 Aug 2011 08:04:35 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3589

Arrested By Homeland Security For Not Giving Up 4th Amendment

On 08/24/11, Sheree was stopped at the post office by a FEMA agent who wrote down her license plate. We returned to the scene with our camera and DHS shows up and the rest ensues.

Here is a link to the Homeland Security Documents on how to handle people who are filming federal buildings.

Article Content From: Truth Frequency

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3589/homeland-security-steps-on-the-4th-amendment-video/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3580/permaculture-a-quiet-revolution%e2%80%a8 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3580/permaculture-a-quiet-revolution%e2%80%a8#comments Fri, 26 Aug 2011 07:05:12 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3580

Permaculture: A Quiet Revolution
— An Interview with Bill Mollison

Bill Mollison calls himself a field biologist and itinerant teacher. But it would be more accurate to describe him as an instigator. When he published Permaculture One in 1978, he launched an international land-use movement many regard as subversive, even revolutionary.

Permaculture — from permanent and agriculture — is an integrated design philosophy that encompasses gardening, architecture, horticulture, ecology, even money management and community design. The basic approach is to create sustainable systems that provide for their own needs and recycle their waste.

Mollison developed permaculture after spending decades in the rainforests and deserts of Australia studying ecosystems. He observed that plants naturally group themselves in mutually beneficial communities. He used this idea to develop a different approach to agriculture and community design, one that seeks to place the right elements together so they sustain and support each other.

Today his ideas have spread and taken root in almost every country on the globe. Permaculture is now being practiced in the rainforests of South America, in the Kalahari desert, in the arctic north of Scandinavia, and in communities all over North America. In New Mexico, for example, farmers have used permaculture to transform hard-packed dirt lots into lush gardens and tree orchards without using any heavy machinery. In Davis, California, one community uses bath and laundry water to flush toilets and irrigate gardens. In Toronto, a team of architects has created a design for an urban infill house that doesn’t tap into city water or sewage infrastructure and that costs only a few hundred dollars a year to operate.

While Mollison is still unknown to most Americans, he is a national icon down under. He has been named Australia’s “Man of the Year” and in 1981 he received the prestigious Right Livelihood Award, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize, for his work developing and promoting permaculture.

I sat down with him to discuss his innovative design philosophy. We met over the course of two afternoons in Santa Barbara in conjunction with an intensive two-week course he teaches each year in Ojai. A short, round man with a white beard and a big smile, he is one of the most affable and good-natured people I’ve met. An inveterate raconteur, he seems to have a story — or a bad joke — for every occasion. His comments are often rounded out by a hearty and infectious laugh.

Scott London: A reviewer once described your teachings as “seditious.”

Bill Mollison: Yes, it was very perceptive. I teach self-reliance, the world’s most subversive practice. I teach people how to grow their own food, which is shockingly subversive. So, yes, it’s seditious. But it’s peaceful sedition.

London: When did you begin teaching permaculture?

Mollison: In the early 1970s, it dawned on me that no one had ever applied design to agriculture. When I realized it, the hairs went up on the back of my neck. It was so strange. We’d had agriculture for 7,000 years, and we’d been losing for 7,000 years — everything was turning into desert. So I wondered, can we build systems that obey ecological principles? We know what they are, we just never apply them. Ecologists never apply good ecology to their gardens. Architects never understand the transmission of heat in buildings. And physicists live in houses with demented energy systems. It’s curious that we never apply what we know to how we actually live.

London: It tells us something about our current environmental problems.

Mollison: It does. I remember the Club of Rome report in 1967 which said that the deterioration of the environment was inevitable due to population growth and overconsumption of resources. After reading that, I thought, “People are so stupid and so destructive — we can do nothing for them.” So I withdrew from society. I thought I would leave and just sit on a hill and watch it collapse.

The ethics are simple: care of the earth, care of people, and reinvestment in those ends.

It took me about three weeks before I realized that I had to get back and fight. [Laughs] You know, you have to get out in order to want to get back in.

London: Is that when the idea of permaculture was born?

Mollison: It actually goes back to 1959. I was in the Tasmanian rain forest studying the interaction between browsing marsupials and forest regeneration. We weren’t having a lot of success regenerating forests with a big marsupial population. So I created a simple system with 23 woody plant species, of which only four were dominant, and only two real browsing marsupials. It was a very flexible system based on the interactions of components, not types of species. It occurred to me one evening that we could build systems that worked better than that one.

That was a remarkable revelation. Ever so often in your life — perhaps once a decade — you have a revelation. If you are an aborigine, that defines your age. You only have a revelation once every age, no matter what your chronological age. If you’re lucky, you have three good revelations in a lifetime.

Because I was an educator, I realized that if I didn’t teach it, it wouldn’t go anywhere. So I started to develop design instructions based on passive knowledge and I wrote a book about it called Permaculture One. To my horror, everybody was interested in it. [Laughs] I got thousands of letters saying, “You’ve articulated something that I’ve had in my mind for years,” and “You’ve put something into my hands which I can use.”

London: Permaculture is based on scientific principles and research. But it seems to me that it also draws on traditional and indigenous folk wisdom.

Mollison: Well, if I go to an old Greek lady sitting in a vineyard and ask, “Why have you planted roses among your grapes?” she will say to me, “Because the rose is the doctor of the grape. If you don’t plant roses, the grapes get ill.” That doesn’t do me a lot of good. But if I can find out that the rose exudes a certain root chemical that is taken up by the grape root which in turn repels the white fly (which is the scientific way of saying the same thing), then I have something very useful.

Traditional knowledge is always of that nature. I know a Filipino man who always plants a chili and four beans in the same hole as the banana root. I asked him, “Why do you plant a chili with the banana?” And he said, “Don’t you know that you must always plant these things together.” Well, I worked out that the beans fix the nitrogen and the chili prevents beetles from attacking the banana root. And that works very well.

London: You have introduced permaculture in places that still rely on traditional farming practices. Have they been receptive to your ideas?

Mollison: I have a terribly tricky way of approaching indigenous tribal people. For example, I’ll go to the Central Desert, where everyone is half-starved, and say, “I wonder if I can help you.” And I’ll lie and say, “I don’t know how to do this?” And they say, “Oh, come on, we’ll make it work.” By the time it’s done, they have done it themselves.

I remember going back to a school we started in Zimbabwe. It’s green and surrounded by food. The temperature in the classroom is controlled. I asked them, “Who did this?” They said, “We did!” When people do it for themselves, they are proud of it.

London: For some people — particularly indigenous tribes — the notion that you can grow your own food is revolutionary.

Mollison: When you grow up in a world where you have a very minor effect on the land, you don’t think of creating resources for yourself. What falls on the ground you eat. And your numbers are governed by what falls on the ground. Permaculture allows you to think differently because you can grow everything that you need very easily.

For example, the bushmen of the Kalahari have a native bean called the morama bean. It is a perennial that grows underground and spreads out when it rains. They used to go out and collect it. But after they were pushed off their lands to make room for game and natural parks the morama bean was hard to find. I asked them, “Why don’t you plant them here?” They said, “Do you think we could?” So we planted the bean in their gardens. Up to that point, they never actually thought of planting something. It stunned them that they could actually do that.

The same thing happened with the mongongo tree which grows on the top of sand dunes. They had never actually moved the tree from one dune to another. But I went and cut a branch off the mother tree and stuck it in the sand. The thing started to sprout leaves and produce mongongo nuts. Now they grow the trees wherever they want.

London: You once described modern technological agriculture as a form of “witchcraft.”

Mollison: Well, it is a sort of witchcraft. Today we have more soil scientists than at any other time in history. If you plot the rise of soil scientists against the loss of soil, you see that the more of them you have, the more soil you lose.

I remember seeing soldiers returning from the War in 1947. They had these little steel canisters with a snap-off top. When they snapped the tops off, they sprayed DDT all over the room so you never saw any more flies or mosquitoes — or cats. [Laughs] After the war, they started to use those chemicals in agriculture. The gases used by the Nazis were now developed for agriculture. Tanks were made into plows. Part of the reason for the huge surge in artificial fertilizer was that the industry was geared up to produce nitrates for explosives. Then they suddenly discovered you could put it on your crops and get great results.

London: So the green revolution was a kind of war against the land, in a manner of speaking.

Mollison: That’s right. Governments still support this kind of agriculture to the tune of about $40 billion each year. None of that goes to supporting alternative systems like organic or soil-creating agriculture. Even China is adopting modern chemical agriculture now.

London: I remember the late economist Robert Theobald saying to me that if China decides to go the way of the West, the environmental ballgame is over.

Mollison: I overheard two “Eurocrats” in Vienna talking about the environment. One said, “How long do you think we’ve got?” The other said, “Ten years.” And the first one said, “You’re an optimist.” So I said to them, “If China begins to develop motor vehicles, we’ve got two years.”

London: What kind of overconsumption bothers you the most?

Mollison: I hate lawns. Subconsciously I think we all hate them because we’re their slaves. Imagine the millions of people who get on their lawn-mowers and ride around in circles every Saturday and Sunday.

They have all these new subdivisions in Australia which are between one and five acres. You see people coming home from work on Friday, getting on their little ride-on mowers, and mowing all weekend. On Monday morning you can drive through these areas and see all these mowers halfway across the five acres, waiting for the next Friday. Like idiots, we spend all our spare time driving these crazy machines, cutting grass which is only going to grow back again next week.

London: Permaculture teaches us how to use the minimum amount of energy needed to get a job done.

Mollison: That’s right. Every house should be over-producing its energy and selling to the grid. We have built entire villages that do that — where one or two buildings hold the solar panels for all sixty homes and sell the surplus to the grid. In seven years, you can pay off all your expenses and run free. They use this same idea in Denmark. Every village there has a windmill that can fuel up to 800 homes.

London: The same principle probably applies to human energy as well. I noticed that you discourage digging in gardens because it requires energy that can be better used for other things.

Mollison: Well, some people like digging. It’s a bit like having an exercise bike in your bedroom. But I prefer to leave it to the worms. They do a great job. I’ve created fantastic soil just from mulching.

London: Does permaculture apply to those of us who live in cities?

Mollison: Yes, there is a whole section in the manual about urban permaculture. When I first went to New York, I helped start a little herb-farm in the South Bronx. The land was very cheap there because there was no power, no water, no police, and there were tons of drugs. This little farm grew to supply eight percent of New York’s herbs. There are now 1,100 city farms in New York.

London: Short of starting a farm, what can we do to make our cities more sustainable?

Mollison: Catch the water off your roof. Grow your own food. Make your own energy. It’s insanely easy to do all that. It takes you less time to grow your food than to walk down to the supermarket to buy it. Ask any good organic gardener who mulches how much time he spends on his garden and he’ll say, “Oh, a few minutes every week.” By the time you have taken your car and driven to the supermarket, taken your foraging-trolley and collected your wild greens, and driven back home again, you’ve spent a good hour or two — plus you’ve spent a lot of money.

London: Even though permaculture is based on scientific principles, it seems to have a very strong philosophical or ethical dimension.

Mollison: There is an ethical dimension because I think science without ethics is sociopathology. To say, “I’ll apply what I know regardless of the outcome” is to take absolutely no responsibility for your actions. I don’t want to be associated with that sort of science.

London: What do you think you’ve started?

Mollison: Well, it’s a revolution. But it’s the sort of revolution that no one will notice. It might get a little shadier. Buildings might function better. You might have less money to earn because your food is all around you and you don’t have any energy costs. Giant amounts of money might be freed up in society so that we can provide for ourselves better.

So it’s a revolution. But permaculture is anti-political. There is no room for politicians or administrators or priests. And there are no laws either. The only ethics we obey are: care of the earth, care of people, and reinvestment in those ends.

Article Content From: Scott London

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3580/permaculture-a-quiet-revolution%e2%80%a8/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3566/earthquake-shakes-washington-dc http://greenplanetparadise.com/3566/earthquake-shakes-washington-dc#comments Thu, 25 Aug 2011 00:12:50 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3566

East coast quake cracks Washington landmark

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The surprise earthquake that rattled the US east coast opened a small crack near the top of the iconic Washington Monument, prompting officials on Wednesday to indefinitely close the building, one of the city’s major tourist draws.

The giant stone obelisk, Washington’s tallest edifice at 555 feet (169 meters), each day draws hundreds of tourists who ascend the structure for breathtaking views of the city and its surroundings.

But Tuesday’s quake opened a four-inch (10 centimeter)-long fissure in the building, raising fears of more serious structural damage not visible to the naked eye.

“The Washington Monument, because of its structural complexities, will remain closed until further notice,” read a statement from US National Park Service, the agency that administers many popular attractions around Washington’s National Mall area.

“The NPS will continue to inspect the interior of the monument before any decisions are made about reopening it to the public,” the statement said.

The shuttered monument was but one of many disappointments met by visitors to Washington, who learned that damage from Tuesday’s 5.8 magnitude temblor also forced temporary closure of the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, the city’s Old Post Office Tower and other tourist sights.

Schools around the region, which had only just re-opened this week after a two-month-long summer break, were also closed, as officials assessed when it might be safe for students to return.

The quake struck at 1:51 pm (1751 GMT), with an epicenter 3.7 miles (six kilometers) under the central Virginia town of Mineral, 134 kilometers (84 miles) southwest of the US capital, the National Earthquake Information Center reported.

It was felt as far south as Alabama and as far north as Boston, although President Barack Obama, on vacation in nearby Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, said he did not notice any rumbling while on the golf course.

The quake lasted less than half a minute, setting buildings swaying and sending tens of thousands of people scurrying into the streets, but causing no reported deaths or serious injuries.

Evidence of the temblor was literally strewn across the city.

Washington’s National Cathedral lost part of its towering neo-Gothic spires and suffered cracks in its flying buttresses.

Chunks of masonry and tile also fell from the domed roof of the US Capitol building where Congress convenes, officials said.

And the Pentagon, the world’s biggest office building, ordered a brief evacuation of its employees.

David McIntyre, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Washington, said the agency was closely monitoring the situation at two atomic power plants Louisa County not far from Mineral, which reported an “alert” after the quake struck.

But tongues in Washington were wagging most on Wednesday about the damage to the hulking stone monument a few blocks from the White House, built between 1848 and 1884 as a tribute to George Washington’s military leadership during the American Revolution.

Residents here have a love-hate relationship with the Washington Monument, visible from almost everywhere in the city, but derided by many as unattractive and unremarkable-looking.

“Too bad the pillar did not come down,” read one commentary posted under the name “nowthetruth” on the Washington Post’s website.

“It should be replaced with something more meaningful, something more pretty,” the commentary said.

“We took our grandmother from overseas to see the monument, and upon arriving she yelled, thats it? That pillar is what we came to see?

“We all burst into laughter as it just looked so silly after that,” the commentator wrote.

Article Content From: ©AFP

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3566/earthquake-shakes-washington-dc/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3557/crystalline-water http://greenplanetparadise.com/3557/crystalline-water#comments Thu, 25 Aug 2011 02:35:56 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3557

“What we call life is the natural result of the accumulation of liquid water.” -Daniel Vitalis

Are you ready to understand water and life itself in a completely new fascinating way? Then keep reading…

This Crystalline Water article is inspired by the research of Daniel Vitalis a wild raw food enthusiast and elixir master who has used his passion and brilliance to help people understand the best food for our bodies as well as the best water for our lives. What he proposes about food is that humans have unfortunately gotten far away from eating wild food and instead munch mainly on hybridized overly processed things that barely pass for digestable food.

Daniel then quite brilliantly illustrates how, by no longer eating wild food, we no longer get the medicine that is in wild food that we used to eat. Now it only makes sense that the pharmaceutical industry has both flourished as it is an attempt to extract this same medicine from plants and deliver it back to us. Only they usually do it synthetically and at really high prices. Many people use street drugs these days which also usually come from plants. But street drugs are dangerous.

When is the last time you saw garden food on a hike in nature? Probably never because even the food we grow in our garden is usually not wild food. This can be very challenging for most people to accept because it’s already hard enough to eat healthy without getting into wild food. So lets now turn to something that can actually be more complicated but at the same time much more simple to add back to our lives and that is living crystalline water.

Why is it complicated? Because it not only involves chemistry but physics as well which most of us aren’t taught about in school growing up. So lets take it one step at a time:

After molecular hydrogen and carbon monoxide, water is the most abundant molecule in the universe and it is also the most abundant solid substance in space. This is pretty amazing because you might think it was planets or solid matter but it’s not. Water is actually burned hydrogen gas. And Hydrogen is the most abundant element of the universe. 90% of the atoms in the whole universe is hydrogen. Its the most known element in the Universe and the most abundant solid is water which is actually hydrogen. Now 70% of the Sun is hydrogen and 60% of the Earth is made of oxygen. So looking at it through the ancient lens of male and female dynamics, if the Sun is made of hydrogen and the Earth is made of oxygen then what does the union of the Sun and the Earth make?

(This photo may be subject to copyright laws. If you are or know the owner of this photo please let us know so we can compensate them for its use)

The Sun is plasma state hydrogen and its solar winds are hitting the Earth which is a magnet that protects us as the hydrogen ions push and wraps itself around the oxygen ozone wall. So its possible that the child of this union of opposites is water. This could be why so much water accumulates at the poles as huge crystalline ice structures because the water that is being formed is raining down at the poles.

What is hydrogen?

Hydro = Water
Genes = Producing

So Hydrogen means “produces water.” It is the ashes of hydrogen.

What is water?

Water is a strange and anomalous transparent liquid mineral that defies the generally accepted laws of physics. It’s one of the only substances that we see in all phases of energy (matter), solid, liquid, and gas. It has an unusually high “Specific Heat Capacity”. It is able to store heat with less molecular agitation or rearrangement than almost any other substance. It resists temperature change which actually makes it possible for us to have life on Earth. It contracts to 4 degrees centigrade, then expands again as it cools. In other words, from this “anomaly point” it expands upon heating or cooling! This allows the waters of Earth to freeze from the top down, rather than the bottom up.

It is the Universal Solvent as well as the Solvent of Life. All life on Earth is in some part made up of living liquid crystalline water. It has an unusually high surface tension. It is the only inorganic liquid we encounter in the natural world at the biological temperatures and pressures of Earth. There is no other liquid in nature that is not somehow made of water. Everything else is a solid or a gas.

Daniel Vitalis wonderfully illustrates that the best water is spring water which he also calls wild water. He also teaches us that bottled water might claim it is spring water but most likely it isn’t. Many of the artesian water companies actually don’t get their water from an artesian spring but from an artesian well. These companies have also lobbied to pass legislation that allows them to call it spring water since it’s close to it but it is not actual spring water. So the best way to get spring water is to find it yourself which you can do by going to www.findaspring.com.

Now why do we want to drink spring water?

Because it is living liquid crystalline water. It’s also stored under the earth and has not been inundated with toxins from our industrial society. Plus it holds a healthy living memory for life.

Does water have memory?

Just like a computer holds memory so does water. But aren’t computers and water completely different? Not completely and to understand this lets talk about crystals.

What is a crystal?

A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituent atoms, molecules, or ions are arranged in an orderly repeating pattern extending in all three spatial dimensions. We call this orderly repeating pattern a “crystal lattice”. Essentially these molecules are arranged in an orderly formation. In other words a crystal is in-formation.

Computers store and transmit information on silicone crystals. Crystals which are basically sand in formation and so can hold memory. Well crystalline water or structured water is in-formation and so can also store and transmit information. Glass on the other hand has no formation and so it can not hold information.

Now the thing about tap water is that it’s either dead water, and lacks the vibrant message of life that spring water contains, or it holds the memory of harmful imprints from a toxic environment from being in a polluted city and going through a chemical processing plant. But what if you have a filter? Well even if you filter out all the toxins which is very hard to do, the memory of the toxins are still in the water.

So this is where chemistry and physics take a turn. Up till now we have mostly studied water through a chemistry lens. Which is not all bad. But we need to add a physics view to it because we are living in a world that is apart of and also beyond chemistry. If you were to take a computer chip and analyze it in a lab you would find that it is mostly made of transistors (e.g. germanium and silicon) and superconductive silicon. But you still wouldn’t know what information is stored on that material without having a way to actually translate the 1′s and 0′s and viewing the information electronically and digitally.

So how could we go beyond chemistry to view the stored information on water? The only tools to date are biological entities like a human being. Yes we can use a GDV (Gaseous Discharge Visualization) to view the biophoton energy in water which goes beyond chemistry and gives us a glimpse at the memory potential but we still don’t know what is on that water chip unless we drink it or feed it to our animals or plants and observe them for ourselves. So the best way by far is to drink the water ourselves and see how it hydrates us and makes us feel.

This means that our best way to understanding water on a level of physics is still qualitative which is a bit frustrating to chemistry minded folks who want quantitative data, but that’s just where we are at this moment.

So if I can’t get spring water what should I do?

Since water has the potential to hold memory then it only makes sense that you would want to have a device that can clean harmful memory and bring dynamic harmony back to its structure. That’s why the Wu Wei Structured Water Unit is an excellent choice when you are needing to drink and use water in your home. It uses vortex technology to create dynamically harmonized water. In Alick Bartholomew’s book Hidden Nature: The Startling Insights of Viktor Schauberger he writes, “Water, when it is alive, creates this spiralling, convoluting motion to retain its coolness and maintain its vital inner energies and health. It is thus able to convey the necessary minerals, trace elements and other subtle energies to the surrounding environment (p. 113).”

Even if you can drink fresh spring water every day it only makes sense that you would still want the water running through the pipes (arteries) of your home to be encoded with dynamic harmony which you can do with one of our Whole Home Units and then your pets, plants, garden, pipes and appliances can also benefit from the vibrant memory of harmonious living liquid crystalline water.

Wes Whittaker

Article Content From:Structured Water Unit

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3557/crystalline-water/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3549/german-village-produces-321-more-energy-than-it-needs http://greenplanetparadise.com/3549/german-village-produces-321-more-energy-than-it-needs#comments Wed, 24 Aug 2011 04:46:36 +0000 Wentzel GREEN http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3549 It’s no surprise that the country that has kicked butt at the Solar Decathlon competition (to produce energy positive solar houses) year after year is the home to such a productive energy-efficient village. The village’s green initiative first started in 1997 when the village council decided that it should build new industries, keep initiatives local, bring in new revenue, and create no debt. Over the past 14 years, the community has equipped nine new community buildings with solar panels, built four biogas digesters (with a fifth in construction now) and installed seven windmills with two more on the way. In the village itself, 190 private households have solar panels while the district also benefits from three small hydro power plants, ecological flood control, and a natural waste water system.

All of these green systems means that despite only having a population of 2,600, Wildpoldsried produces 321 percent more energy than it needs – and it’s generating 4.0 million Euro (US $5.7 million) in annual revenue by selling it back to the national grid. It is no surprise to learn that small businesses have developed in the village specifically to provide services to the renewable energy installations.

Over the years the village’s green goals have been so successful that they have even crafted a mission statement — WIR–2020, Wildpoldsried Innovativ Richtungsweisend (Wildpoldsried Innovative Leadership). The village council hopes that it will inspire citizens to do their part for the environment and create green jobs and businesses for the local area.

As a result of the village’s success, Wildpoldsried has received numerous national and international awards for its conservation and renewable energy initiatives known as Klimaschutz (climate protection). The council even hosts tours for other village councils on how to start their own Klimaschutz program. The Mayor has even been doing global tours ever since the Fukushima disaster.

Mayor Zengerle has gone to Romania, Berlin and the Black Sea Region to speak about how these places can transform their communities and make money in the process. Speaking to Biocycle, Mayor Zengerle said, “The mitigation of climate change in practice can only be implemented with the citizens and with the Village Council behind them 100 percent of the way. This model cannot be forced from only one side. We often spend a lot of time talking to our visitors about how to motivate the village council (and Mayor) to start thinking differently. We show them a best practices model in motion and many see the benefits immediately. From the tour we give, our guests understand how well things can operate when you have the enthusiasm and conviction of the people.”

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3549/german-village-produces-321-more-energy-than-it-needs/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3535/what-is-the-plan-video http://greenplanetparadise.com/3535/what-is-the-plan-video#comments Wed, 24 Aug 2011 05:16:47 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3535

What is Anonymous? What is the Plan? (Video)

Article Content From:What is the Plan?

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3535/what-is-the-plan-video/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3529/academics-who-lend-their-names-to-big-pharma-should-be-charged-with-fraud-say-university-professors http://greenplanetparadise.com/3529/academics-who-lend-their-names-to-big-pharma-should-be-charged-with-fraud-say-university-professors#comments Tue, 23 Aug 2011 06:33:24 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3529

A college student who pays his friend to write a paper for him is guilty of plagiarism — and if he is caught, he could receive a failing grade or even be expelled from school. But when drug companies secretly pay doctors or academics to pretend as though they wrote journal-published studies actually written by Big Pharma ghostwriters, it is considered a mere “marketing strategy.” But two university professors are working to change this injustice by pushing for such cheats to be prosecuted for fraud.

“It’s a prostitution of their academic standing, and it undermines the integrity of the entire academic publication system” said Professor Trudo Lemmens, a Faculty of Law professor at the University of Toronto (UT). He and Professor Simon Stern, also from UT, rightly believe that taking credit for a journal article written by someone else constitutes criminal activity, and should be considered fraud under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).

“Guest authorship is a disturbing violation of academic integrity standards, which form the basis of scientific reliability,” said the two in a recent article published in the journal PLoS Medicine. “Pharmaceutical sponsors borrow the names of academic experts precisely because of the value and prestige attached to the presumed integrity and independence of academic researchers.”

Back in 2008, for instance, it was revealed that Wyeth Pharmaceuticals (now part of Pfizer) paid ghostwriters to compose articles hyping the supposed benefits of its hormone replacement therapy (HRT) drug Prempro, and solicited academics to then stamp their names on them claiming authorship. The forged articles then appeared in prestigious journals where thousands of doctors ended up reading and absorbing the information as if it was independent, evidence-based medicine (http://www.naturalnews.com/News_000…).

If academics who participate in ghostwriting fraud were held accountable in the way Lemmens and Stern are suggesting, it would have the potential to revolutionize the way drugs are approved, as well as the way drug litigation is handled in court. No longer would drug companies be able to use fraudulent medical research to convince the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve a drug, and Big Pharma lawyers would no longer be able to use ghostwritten studies as court evidence to defend the safety of harmful drugs.

“[Ghostwritten studies] are often used in litigation to support the manufacturer’s arguments about a drug’s efficacy and safety, or to establish a record of scientific acceptance for Daubert purposes, or to credentialize an expert witness,” added Lemmens and Stern. “Each of those uses, if attempted by a party that had helped to create the article, could risk sanction.”

Sources for this story include:

RawStory.com

Article Source: NaturalNews.com

]]> http://greenplanetparadise.com/3529/academics-who-lend-their-names-to-big-pharma-should-be-charged-with-fraud-say-university-professors/feed 0 http://greenplanetparadise.com/3522/gardening-make-your-own-black-gold-by-creating-compost http://greenplanetparadise.com/3522/gardening-make-your-own-black-gold-by-creating-compost#comments Tue, 23 Aug 2011 06:14:37 +0000 Green Planet Paradise http://greenplanetparadise.com/?p=3522

Growing up we used to have a dessert which combined dried fruits and sweetened wine that was called “compote.” Being that I had three brothers and a sister with me at the dining table, you can imagine that we quickly renamed it “compost” and I can’t ever think of one without thinking of the other.

Actually a couple of my brothers would probably swear that the “compost” tastes better. (In reality compote tastes pretty good if put on top of lots of vanilla ice cream.)

Once August is upon us, everything that’s getting planted at my house is in the ground and it’s time to spend a little time working on the compost pile to get it back in working order after a year of neglect.

Lots of gardeners try to have a compost pile and most say they have one, but dumping your grass clippings behind the stone wall does not a compost pile make. For starters, I never put grass clippings in the compost pile as they may have pesticides and animal pathogens and with my mulching-mower I have very little left to use.

The goal of a compost pile is to recycle your everyday vegetative wastes to create that rich, dark soil that anything will grow in. Compost is made by combining tiny “microbes” (fungi, bacteria, etc.) with yard and kitchen wastes that you provide for them to eat.

All this digesting gives off heat as a byproduct and if your pile is cool enough, worms, insects, and their relatives will help out the microbes. This combination will slowly make compost out of your yard and kitchen wastes under any conditions, but you can get it to work faster if you help the process along by balancing the food, air and water and mixing the whole mess up a few times.

The mixture needs air, as the best microbes are aerobic. If your pile smells like a wet dog shaking behind a transfer station, you’ve probably got anaerobic microbes at work (they don’t need air). They work a little slower but will get the job done.

The second important ingredient is water, but too much water is not a good thing. The microbes use the water to grow and spread through the mass, so you need to have it about as wet as a wrung-out sponge.

For food, use kitchen wastes (also called “green” stuff) and garden wastes (also called “brown” stuff).

For the green stuff, any waste vegetables or fruits, peels or seeds go onto the pile. Eggshells and coffee grounds, including the paper filters are great for the earthworms. Stale cereal, breads and cooking grains are also great, but they have to be wet with water first before dumping into the pile.

For the brown stuff, any clippings, deadheads, and other cast-offs from the garden goes straight into the pile. I usually throw in some dried leaves but only after running them through the chipper/shredder so they don’t mat down into a slimy mess and remove all the air.

Animal products, bones or fats do not ever go in the pile, as they tend to take a really long time to decompose and they also attract varmints which we’d rather not encourage.

Here is a “Dummies Guide to How to Build a Compost Pile” video:

A few tips when you’re starting the pile for the first time:

• Mix in some good garden soil as a “starter” with the microbes in it to begin the process (don’t use potting soil as it’s been sterilized).
• An ideal size is about 9 cubic feet (1 cubic yard) as a good pile requires enough mass to generate the heat required for good digestion.
• Add 2 cups of high-nitrogen fertilizer and 1 cup of lime in the spring to kick it up a notch.
• Don’t put waste from “spite” plants or really vigorous plants into the pile, they may root before they decompose and take over your compost pile.

You can purchase designer compost systems of rotating tubs and although I’ve never used one I’ve been told they work very well. My pile is made of some old metal posts and 3-foot high chicken wire in a 3-foot diameter circle, and works very well.

The secret is to turn the pile ideally once a week or at least once every month. With the rotating tubs you just give them a few cranks and you’re done. With my system I take a pitchfork and dig into the pile and turn it over until it looks right. My pile usually settles and needs more brown stuff, so I always coordinate the turning of the pile with pruning and weeding chores.

Although there are no hard and fast rules your compost is ready to use when it looks and smells like dark brown dirt that crumbles through your fingers.

Some garden trivia for today

• From The Garden Diary and Country Home Guide published in 1908: “An old rule is to plant sweet corn in the spring when the leaves of the white oak tree are as large as a mouse’s ear or when the soil feels warm to your bare bottom.” (Just make sure the neighbors aren’t watching if you try this!)
• During the 17th century, the radish was used for a variety of “so called” medicinal purposes. It was used as a general antidote for poisoning, a cure for snake bites, to alleviate the pain of child birth and to remove freckles. When mashed, and then mixed with honey and dried sheep’s blood,  it was reported to cure baldness.
• The herb Valerian was used during World War I and World War II to treat shell shock and nervous stress.
• While pumpkins and winter squash have been popular in the United States since the time of the Pilgrims, the most common squash grown today has only been popular in the United States for the last 60 years. The zucchini was introduced to this country in the 1950s by the Italians and is now grown by more gardeners than any other squash.
• In the 1970′s, more than 70 percent of the corn acreage grown in the U.S.A. was planted with just six varieties of corn. When a new strain of southern leaf blight fungus appeared that year, corn fields across the country were wiped out.  Such are the dangers of specialization, when it comes to agriculture.

Article Source: Weston.Patch.com
Author: Mike Hunter

Over the next 18 months, the Environmental Protection Agency will finalize a flurry of new rules to curb pollution from coal-fired power plants. Mercury, smog, ozone, greenhouse gases, water intake, coal ash—it’s all getting regulated. And, not surprisingly, some lawmakers are grumbling.

Industry groups such the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities, and the American Legislative Exchange Council have dubbed the coming rules “EPA’s Regulatory Train Wreck.” The regulations, they say, will cost utilities up to $129 billion and force them to retire one-fifth of coal capacity. Given that coal provides 45 percent of the country’s power, that means higher electric bills, more blackouts and fewer jobs. The doomsday scenario has alarmed Republicans in the House, who have been scrambling to block the measures. Environmental groups retort that the rules will bring sizeable public health benefits, and that industry groups have been exaggerating the costs of environmental regulations since they were first created.

So, who’s right? This month, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, which conducts policy research for members of Congress, has been circulating a paper that tries to calmly sort through the shouting match. Thanks to The Hill’s Andrew Restuccia, it’s now available (PDF) for all to read. And the upshot is that CRS is awfully skeptical of the “train wreck” predictions.

First, the report agrees that the new rules will likely force the closure of many coal plants between now and 2017, although it’s difficult to know precisely how many. For green groups, that’s a feature, not a bug: Many of these will be the oldest and dirtiest plants around. About 110 gigawatts, or one-third of all coal capacity in the United States, came online between 1940 and 1969. Many of these plants were grandfathered in under the Clean Air Act, and about two-thirds of them don’t have scrubbers:

(FGD = Flue Gas Desulfurization, SCR = Selective Catalytic Reduction)

CRS notes that many of the plants most affected by the new EPA rules were facing extinction anyway: “Many of these plants are inefficient and are being replaced by more efficient combined cycle natural gas plants, a development likely to be encouraged if the price of competing fuel—natural gas—continues to be low, almost regardless of EPA rules.”

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Still, that’s a lot of plants. Won’t this wreak havoc on the grid? Not necessarily, the CRS report says, although the transition won’t be simple. For one, most of these plants don’t provide as much baseload power as it appears on first glance—pre-1970 coal plants operating without emissions controls are in use, on average, only about 41 percent of the time. Second, the report notes that “there is a substantial amount of excess generation capacity at present,” caused by the recession and the boom in natural gas plants. Many of those plants can pitch in to satisfy peak demand. Third, electric utilities can add capacity fairly quickly if needed — from 2000 to 2003, utilities added more than 200 gigawatts of new capacity, far, far more than the amount that will be lost between now and 2017.

Granted, those upgrades and changes won’t be free. The CRS report doesn’t try to independently evaluate the costs of the new rules, noting that they will depend on site-specific factors and will vary by utility and state. (Matthew Wald recently wrote a helpful piece in The New York Times looking at how utilities might cope.) But, the report says, industry group estimates are almost certainly overstated. For one, they were analyzing early EPA draft proposals, and in many cases, the agency has tweaked its rules to allay industry concerns. And many of the EPA’s rules are almost certain to get bogged down in court or delayed for years, which means that utilities will have more time to adapt than they fear.

The CRS report also agrees with green groups that the benefits of these new rules shouldn’t be downplayed. Those can be tricky to quantify, however. In one example, the EPA estimates that an air-transport rule to clamp down on smog-causing sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide would help prevent 21,000 cases of bronchitis and 23,000 heart attacks, and save 36,000 lives. That’s, at the high end, $290 billion in health benefits, compared with $2.8 billion per year in costs (according to the EPA) by 2014. “In most cases,” CRS concludes, “the benefits are larger.”

Granted, few would expect this report to change many minds in Congress. Just 10 days ago, Michele Bachmann was on the campaign trail promising that if she becomes president, “I guarantee you the EPA will have doors locked and lights turned off, and they will only be about conservation.” That doesn’t sound like someone who’s waiting for a little more data before assessing the impact of the new regulations.

Article Source: Washington Post
Author: Ezra Klein

Ron Paul got a great birthday present Saturday, as the 76-year-old defeated 11 other Republicans in Saturday’s New Hampshire Young Republicans Straw Poll

Paul, a congressman from Texas, won a commanding 45 percent of the vote and bested runner-up Mitt Romney by 35 percent despite not attending the event, which was held in New Castle and also included a lobster bake.

There were 302 ballots cast Saturday, and the full vote results are as follows, in the order the candidates were listed on the ballot: Jon Huntsman – 3 percent ; Herman Cain – 5 percent; Rick Perry – 8 percent; Fred Karger – 0 percent ; Paul – 45 percent; Mitt Romney – 10 percent; Thaddeus McCotter – 8 percent; Rick Santorum – 3 percent; Michele Bachmann – 5 percent; Buddy Roemer – 3 percent; Gary Johnson – 6 percent; and Newt Gingrich – 1 percent.

Rudy Giuliani and Paul Ryan each received 1 percent of the vote as write-in candidates, while another 1 percent was comprised of candidates who received less than 1 percent, according to event officials.

Gingrich, Perry, Romney and Santorum all were unrepresented at Saturday’s event, as no one spoke on their behalf and none had a table at the event.

State Sen. Jim Forsythe spoke on behalf of Paul.

Saturday’s event, which drew roughly 350 people, also featured a vote for New Hampshire governor.

Article Source: amherst.patch.com
Author: Kyle Stucker
Date: August 20, 2011

One of the most common question I’m asked these days is also one of the easiest to answer: Is Alex Jones for real? In a word, yes.

But there’s more to it than that, of course. The whole story doesn’t become fully apparent until you’re hanging around Alex Jones in person, at his studios in Austin, and talking with the entire crew of mission-driven people who produce the InfoWars / PrisonPlanet material that has grown into a global media giant (and a force of truth to be reckoned with).

As someone who is a regular in-studio guest on the Alex Jones Show — and an occasional fill-in host on the few days when Alex isn’t hosting the show himself — I’ve had the opportunity to spend some time with Alex Jones behind the scenes. Off the air.

And that’s where this story begins to get even more interesting. Because Alex Jones is the same authentic person off-air as he is on-air. Alex isn’t an act, in other words. He’s the real deal, and the authenticity of who he is and what he believes comes through 100 percent whether he’s speaking to an audience of millions or just chatting with you in the hallway.

Perhaps that’s why we get along so well. I have zero tolerance for B.S. in the people I choose to support or spend time with, and spending time around Alex makes it apparent that he feels exactly the same way. That’s probably why so many of our heroes are the same people — people who aren’t afraid to tell the truth and don’t pull any punches: Gov. Jesse Ventura, Rep. Ron Paul, Paul Craig Roberts, Gerald Celente and so on.

It’s also probably why neither one of us wears makeup on camera, and we don’t dress up with a special on-camera wardrobe (I usually show up at his studio with my blue jean ranch shirt). Alex doesn’t wear a bunch of bling, and he doesn’t drive some fancy car to try to impress people on the road. He’s here to share his analysis on what’s really happening with the world, and he doesn’t try to sugar coat it or spice up the ratings by hiring some supermodel to mindlessly read a teleprompter (CNN, anyone?).

Authenticity in every sentence

With Alex, whether it’s on the air or off, you don’t get a teleprompter-reading, focus-group researching, makeup artist pretender. You get a live, authentic human being with all his passions, strengths, flaws and quirks all rolled into one. A real person, in other words. Not some pretender who modifies his position based on what the polls say. Alex tells you what he truly believes, not what he thinks you want to hear.

And that’s the core trait of Alex, when you get right down to it. This man speaks from his heart in every word he says. In those words, if you listen carefully, you’ll find Alex’s deep-rooted compassion for all humankind. He cares deeply for the future of the human race. In fact, he’s one of the most caring and generous people I’ve ever met. He cares so much that he’s willing to put his life on the line to help protect freedom for YOUR children.

He also understands human civilization. He’s an avid reader of history and can cite the year and the people involved in nearly every major event throughout world history, from modern times all the way to the Roman Empire. Because he understands human history, he also knows just how fragile complex societies really are, and he’s fully aware of how quickly and easily “good government” devolves into police state tyranny. It has happened countless times throughout history, and through his radio show and websites, Alex is simply reminding us all to wake up and pay attention… because it’s happening again!

Is Alex Jones a government agent?

Hilariously, this is one of the repeated bizarre accusations leveled against Alex Jones — no doubt by people who themselves are government agents trying to spew disinfo. The accusation goes like this: Alex Jones must be a government agent because no one achieves success at the level Alex has achieved unless they’re working for the globalists in some way.

Except there’s one problem with that piece of fiction: Only LAZY (and corrupt) people make it to the top with the help of the globalists (people like George Bush, get it?). In great contrast to that, Alex Jones is the hardest working person I’ve ever met. He’s earned every ounce of his radio and internet success through 16+ years of blood and sweat. He works three times as hard as any mainstream news reporter or TV news personality you’ve ever seen, and he’s sacrificed time with his family in order to put more time into InfoWars coverage of important global events.

He sacrifices the quality of his own life, in other words, to bring you more videos, special reports, documentaries and ongoing coverage of things that truly impact not just your life today, but our collective future. He technically deserves something like the Congressional Medal of Honor, but of course the President would never award such a high honor to an actual patriot who exposes the lies and corruption of Big Government.

I have no doubt that Alex has a pivotal role to play in what is soon to become American history: Virtually everything he’s telling you right now — the coming financial collapse, the FEMA camps, the police state crackdowns — is about to become a documented fact of history. Read this story again in three years and you’ll see what I mean.

How does Alex see the future? It’s not voodoo…

Alex has been right on so many things for so long that people often forget he’s actually one of the best current events analysts on the planet. When he says something that’s two or three years ahead of the curve, it often sounds to mainstream people like he’s nuts or something, but if you just wait to see what unfolds, you’ll realize oh my God, Alex was right!

For one, he told the world that Rick Perry would run for President two years ago (if not sooner). He called the 2006 / 2007 housing bubble crash. He call the government 9/11 a hoax long before the thousands of architects and engineers proved him right. He has accurately called every major event in the world — the Oslo “terrorist” hoax, the distortions on the war in Libya, the FBI staging fake terror events in the USA, Obama’s plot to destroy America’s economy with the help of the global banksters, and so much more. Going back through the archives of Alex Jones’ shows (www.PrisonPlanet.TV) is like reading the works of a prophet of some kind who saw visions of what was coming and simply told people what he saw.

Except Alex will be the first to tell you don’t call him a prophet. He doesn’t ask for any special recognition or credit, and his analysis of world events comes through hard work and razor-sharp intelligence, not through some spooky crystal ball. He’s just GOOD at seeing through the veil of government lies. He’s so good that at times it seems like he’s psychic. But he isn’t. He’s just really, really good at reading between the headlines and understand the real plots, motivations and schemes behind Big Government’s propaganda campaigns.

If you want to see a good example of Alex breaking down the truth behind some corporate propaganda, watch this recent interview he did with RT America about Monsanto and why it’s such an evil corporation: http://www.prisonplanet.com/alex-jo…

Not just courage, but brains, too

On top of all that, Alex is just plain smart. This throws some people, because I’ve seen more than a few high-brow Ivy-League snobs leap to the conclusion that Alex isn’t very bright because he doesn’t talk like a Harvard smarty pants. But underneath that Texas tone, and behind the occasional growl or on-air scream, Alex Jones is nothing less than a research genius. His ability to remember a vast array of events, dates, sources and names, and then tie them all together in sweeping explanation of what’s really going on is deservedly legendary. There aren’t very many people on our planet who have the ability to assemble hundreds of related facts and then immediately see the plot behind those facts.

He’s so good at this that if the U.S. government actually had any brains, it would try to hire Alex as an intelligence analyst. He would never accept the job, of course. He’d rather analyze intelligence data for the people — We the People — instead of working for any government.

That’s because he’s authentically dedicated to protecting freedom in America. With Alex, it’s not just some casual talk. It isn’t a spin line. It’s his life. He lives it, and defends it, and would die for it if necessary.

Very few people alive today understand their role in history, but Alex knows his very well: He’s going to keep sounding the alarm bells until enough people wake up to take back their freedom or we’re all overrun by government tyrants and end up facing a firing squad. Either way, Alex knows he did his duty, and that’s more than I can say for nearly every member of the U.S. Congress and most of power-hungry bureaucrats running government today.

Too much fear?

Does Alex focus too much on the fear and the problems of the world? That’s one of the most common criticisms leveled against him (and leveled against myself, too). To answer this, first realize that somebody has to sound the alarm. If we are to all wake up and realize what’s being done to us (by the Fed, with vaccines, fluoride, chemtrails, etc.) then somebody needs to raise the red flags. That’s what Alex does, and he’s the best there is at getting it done.

In fact, I dare say that if you listen to Alex Jones and read Jim Marrs, you will have one of the best-informed views of real world events of anybody on the planet. (You might want to read NaturalNews, too, if you’re interested in health freedom.)

To those who criticize Alex Jones for sounding the alarm, I ask, “What have YOU done for the Republic lately?”

For most people, the answer is nothing. Most people sit around and do absolutely nothing while their freedoms are stripped away, their savings are stolen and their health is ruined by a criminal medical establishment. Taking action, you see, takes courage, and courage is hard to come by these days. That’s where Alex really shines: He’s never afraid to raise the big issues, ask the big questions and put his own life and reputation on the line to find answers that ultimately benefit us all.

Alex is the warrior who stands guard at the village entrance, protecting us from marauding dragons (and the King’s tax collectors). He puts his own life on the line to protect others — even when most of those other people have no idea they’re being protected in the first place.

People of principle

Personally, I feel honored to know Alex and to be a guest on his show from time to time. That’s why I fill in as a host whenever he asks me to. I never ask for compensation, and I never exploit his show for any kind of personal gain. I fill in for Alex because it’s an honor to work with the InfoWars team and be part of this ever-expanding freedom movement that’s already shaping the future of our world. There aren’t too many people in the information industry I would volunteer to help, but Alex has earned my respect.

Far from being a publicity seeker, Alex is a principled individual. He believes in liberty, justice, the Constitution and fundamental human rights (such as the right to grow our own food). He rightly believes that the grave injustices being carried out today by corporations and governments really are something to scream about. And he’s already decided that no matter what personal risks he might be taking in spearheading the release of this information, living a life with purpose is far more meaningful than just sitting back and accepting the status quo like the mainstream zombies who take their vaccine shots, eat their processed foods and allow themselves to be hypnotized by television news.

We need more people like Alex Jones in the world, I believe. He’s a defender of justice and a protector of society. He’s earned every inch of success that he has achieved, and if our world were more just, people like Alex would be heralded as sacred truth tellers who wake us from our sleepwalking lives and bring us back to our senses. If anything, Alex is a de-hypnotist whose words can break the spells of Big Government propaganda and give us back our reason — and our senses — at a time when clarity of mind seems to be in short supply.

I’m happy to know Alex, because before I met him, I was beginning to wonder if I would ever meet anyone who shared my passion for the truth, my desire to expose government fraud and my sense of duty to the People. Alex represents all that and more, and he’s a Great American — a true patriot — along the lines of Paul Revere.

What have YOU done for the Republic lately?

To those who would question or criticize Alex, I dare ask: What have YOU done for the Republic lately?

Most people live their lives obsessed with their own selfishness; chasing tail, coveting bling, puffing up their own egos, achieving “personal success” but not even making a dent on the big issues that really matter: Freedom, truth, justice, exposing fraud, protecting the innocent…

I know LOTS of people who are “successful” in terms of how much money they’ve collected for themselves. They mistakenly think they’re successful because they’ve collected more “stuff” even while the world around them is crumbling. But few people care enough to do anything about it. Most people are cowards who refuse to take a stand against the FDA, against government tyranny, or even against their local city council’s water fluoridation schemes. Only the brave few are willing to step forward and challenge tyranny in the name of freedom and justice.

Alex Jones is one of those people — and perhaps the most effective of them all. Alex and I don’t agree on every single thing (we famously had very different views on the movie Avatar, and I’ve been meaning to buy Alex some little Avatar action figures as a joke…), but I find that on the big issues that really matter, Alex Jones is spot-on accurate. He even taught me a thing or two about the fraud behind the climate change scare mongering: Those polar bears aren’t drowning, folks. They’re swimming! (Polar bears are perhaps the best-swimming land animals on the planet.) (http://www.naturalnews.com/033370_p…)

Serbia’s Nikola Aleksic to President Tadic: Stop GMO, Stop Chemtrails, Or I Will Call the People of Serbia to the Streets

In this remarkable video from Serbia (English transcript is below), Nikola Aleksic, Director of the Ecological Movement of Novi Sad, issues a stern warning to the president Boris Tadic to stop importing food based upon GMO and stop the chemtrail spraying, or he will call and personally lead the people of Serbia to the streets. He concludes his speech by saying: “You can be sure that, I, Nikola Aleksic, will keep my word – even at the cost of my own life.”

Aleksic also implores the Serbian army to “defend your people and sky over Serbia”, and tells the people of Serbia that now is no time to be cowards – they need to stand up for their rights for themselves and their children.

Here’s the transcript of Nikola Aleksic’s amazing speech:

“National Assembly and the Government of Serbia, The recent events surrounding the intentions for legalizing the growing genetically modified organisms (GMO) have shown that these GMO plans must be put under public supervision and control since they betray the national interests of the Serbian people.

They must not play with the state and our lives, no matter who wants them.

The legalization of the growing GMO in Serbia would mean that we would have to open our borders to import such food and products.

Import of such hazardous foods would start the biggest genocide over the Serbian people.

To those swashbucklers in charge, it was too little or they are really in a hurry, so they came up with a new technique in which they began treating us like insects.

See our sky Serbian citizens!

You can see it for yourself! See the traces of poison that comes from unmarked planes daily. From the moment when our own government signed the so-called Partnership for Peace (on December 14, 2006), the sky over Serbia is completely under the network of poison trails, which felonious planes pour daily like we are insects and not people.

Above us are implemented “vivo” experiments as in concentration camps during World War II.

Above is us is open genocide! Our traitorous government allowed it.

They have sold their own people in order to remain in a position where they were brought by criminal representative of foreign agencies.

Do you have a right to be a coward?

Can you be a coward when you and your children are constantly sprayed with poisons, of which nobody in our government will tell you what toxins we are being bombarded with?

Can you be a coward when you know that this traitorous team sold you and surrendered you to the mercy and disfavor of the most felonious organization in the world?

I, Nikola Aleksic, the director of the Ecology Movement of Novi Sad, in Serbia, which is the only organization that is advocating and fighting for the protection of the health and life of the population, CAN NOT AND WILL NOT BE SILENT!

Publicly, I demand that the army of Serbia constitutionally defend its people and its skies over Serbia.

They should take down unmarked planes and the criminals who are carrying out genocide over our population.

If the Serbian Army, back I 1991, had an excuse for betraying the people and the state, explaining that it was a political group army, I ask them today with open heart: Whose army are you now since you allow complete and public poisoning of your own people by spraying from the sky with unmarked planes of the most felonious organization in the world.

Are you aware of the consequences of your betrayal?

Do you think that your children will not breathe the sprayed poisons? That your children will be exempted from the genocide?

To soldiers: defend you people and sky over Serbia.

Do NOT wait for the command of traitorous management, because when they give the command, we are no more.

You’ve sworn to the people of Serbia and not some foreign leaders who trample the Constitution of Serbia and betray their own people.

I, Nikola Aleksic, demand from the Public Prosecutor of Serbia to start doing his job or we will consider him an accomplice to the treachery and poisoning of his own people. You must initiate proceedings against those responsible for betrayal – even against the president of the Republic of Serbia.

Somebody sold us to the felons. Somebody sold the sky over Serbia to those felons so that they could poison us. Somebody in

Serbia gave permission to those criminals so that they could use unmarked planes for poisoning as a beginning of genocide of the Serbian population. The crime of genocide never expires.

If the Public Prosecutor doesn’t start doing his job today, the people will do it themselves because it is over our heads.

We can NOT and will NOT remain silent.

Serbia has to wake up or she is no more. Serbia is facing death! She has been robbed, humiliated, with an endangered future.

And above all, now they have also stared to poison our environment, our people, and future generations.

None of us know the extent of the damage from the felonious spraying from the unmarked planes that can take place in the future.

None of us know in which generation may happen already planned sterility of our scion. In which generation will they wipe us out from the geopolitical map of the world?

This poisoning must be stopped! One way or another… so that we will not experience fatal consequences.

Now, this is a question for the Serbian people. Therefore, I say to Boris Tadic personally: if you don’t stop the poisoning of people from planes, or if you don’t stop importing food based upon GMO, then I, Nikola Aleksic, will call the people of Serbia to get on the streets, and I will be the first.

But, not to crush the system, but to defend the constitution and the current applicable laws and rights for our future.

People of Serbia, I call upon you to defend our natural and constitutional right with all available resources, our right to health lives: our sacred right to the future and the future of your children’s children.

To defend our natural and the constitutional right to exist.

About the time and place for going out into the streets, I will promptly notify you in public.

You can be sure that, I, Nikola Aleksic, will keep my word – even at the cost of my own life.

Article Content From:Aircrap

13-Year-Old Makes Solar Power Breakthrough by Harnessing the Fibonacci Sequence

While most 13-year-olds spend their free time playing video games or cruising Facebook, one 7th grader was trekking through the woods uncovering a mystery of science. After studying how trees branch in a very specific way, Aidan Dwyer created a solar cell tree that produces 20-50% more power than a uniform array of photovoltaic panels. His impressive results show that using a specific formula for distributing solar cells can drastically improve energy generation. The study earned Aidan a provisional U.S patent – it’s a rare find in the field of technology and a fantastic example of how biomimicry can drastically improve design.

Aidan Dwyer took a hike through the trees last winter and took notice of patterns in the mangle of branches. His studies into how they branch in very specific ways lead him to a central guiding formula, the Fibonacci sequence. Take a number, add it to the number before it in a sequence like 1+1=2 then 2+1=3 then 3+2=5, 8, 13, 21 and so on a very specific pattern emerges. Turns out the pattern and its corresponding ratios are reflected in nature all the time, and Aidan’s keen observation of how trees branch according to the formula lead him to test the theory. First he measured tree branches by how often they branch and at what degree from each other.

To see why they branch this way he built a small solar array using the Fibonacci formula, stepping cells at specific intervals and heights. He then compared the energy output with identical cells set in a row. Aidan reports the results: “The Fibonacci tree design performed better than the flat-panel model. The tree design made 20% more electricity and collected 2 1/2 more hours of sunlight during the day. But the most interesting results were in December, when the Sun was at its lowest point in the sky. The tree design made 50% more electricity, and the collection time of sunlight was up to 50% longer!”

His work is certainly piquing the interest of the solar industry, and even more impressively he is demonstrating the power of biomimicry — a concept that many see as the pinnacle of good design, but one that thus far has been exceptionally difficult to achieve. Way to go!

Article Content From:Inhabitat

Obama Is Asked To Defend His Administration’s Opposition To Medical Cannabis — He Can’t

Regardless of one’s opinion of President Obama as a political figure, it is hard to deny his skill as an eloquent orator. So it is notable, even newsworthy, when the Commander-in-Chief is publicly at a loss for words.

Such was the case yesterday at a Presidential Town hall in Cannon Falls, Minnesota when a flustered, tongue-tied Obama attempted in vain to explain why his administration continues to oppose efforts to allow for the legal use of cannabis as a doctor-recommended medicine.

Confused? Perhaps this transcript will help to better articulate the President’s position:

Audience member: “If you can’t legalize marijuana, why can’t we just legalize medical marijuana, to help the people that need it?”

Obama: “Well, you know, a lot of states are making decisions about medical marijuana. As a controlled substance, the issue then is, you know, is it being prescribed by a doctor, as opposed to, you know — well — – I’ll — I’ll — I’ll — I’ll leave it at that.”

It is curious that President Obama — someone who is use to speaking extemporaneously in public — could not articulate one single legitimate reason (nor could his former Press Secretary) why his administration believes in continuing the federal ban on marijuana, including the use of medical marijuana for ill patients. Obama’s failure to communicate becomes even more surprising when one considers that within just the past few weeks, high-profile members of the Obama administration have publicly put forward several alleged ‘justifications’ for why the federal government ought to be in the business of denying medical marijuana to sick people.

For instance, the White House’s 2011 National Drug Control Strategy, released in July, devoted an entire section to rebuffing the notion of cannabis’ use as a legitimate therapy, stating:

Marijuana and other drugs are addictive and unsafe, especially for use by young people. Unfortunately, efforts to “medicalize” marijuana have widened the public acceptance and availability of the drug.

There is no substitute for the scientific approval process employed by the FDA. For a drug to be made available to the public as medicine, the FDA requires rigorous research followed by tests for safety and efficacy. Only then can a substance be classified as medicine and prescribed by qualified health care professionals to patients.

In the wake of state and local laws that permit distribution of “medical” marijuana, dozens of localities have been left to grapple with poorly written laws that bypass the FDA process and allow marijuana to be used as a so-called medicine. … Outside the context of federally approved research, the use and distribution of marijuana is prohibited in the United States.

In addition, less than one-month ago, Obama’s hand-picked DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart formally denied a nine-year-old petition calling on the agency to initiate hearings to reassess the present classification of marijuana as a schedule I controlled substance without any ‘accepted medical use in treatment.’ Leonhart’s justification, as stated in in the July 8, 2011 edition of the Federal Register:

[Cannabis possesses] a high potential for abuse; … no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States; … [and] lacks accepted safety for use under medical supervision. … [T]here are no adequate and well-controlled studies proving its efficacy; the drug is not accepted by qualified experts. … At this time, the known risks of marijuana use have not been shown to be outweighed by specific benefits in well-controlled clinical trials that scientifically evaluate safety and efficacy.

So if the Obama administration is willing to make such allegations in writing, then why is the President afraid to own up to and repeat these claims in public? Likely because he, like a majority of Americans, are aware that there isn’t a shred of scientific support for the administration’s ‘Flat Earth’ position.

So if the President of the United States can’t publicly articulate why we continue to arrest over one-half million Americans each year for possessing marijuana, then why are we as a nation continuing to engage in this destructive and illogical policy?

Paul Armentano, Deputy Director

Article Content From:NORML

Nano Gold Rush: Researchers use tiny gold particles to boost organic solar cell efficiency

In the world of solar energy, organic photovoltaic solar cells have a wide range of potential applications, but they are still considered an upstart. While these carbon-based cells, which use organic polymers or small molecules as semiconductors, are much thinner and less expensive to produce than conventional solar cells made with inorganic silicon wafers, they still lag behind in their ability to efficiently convert sunlight into electricity.

Now, UCLA researchers and their colleagues from China and Japan have shown that by incorporating gold nanoparticles into these organic photovoltaics — taking advantage of the plasmonic effect, by which metal helps to enhance the absorption of sunlight — they can significantly improve the cells’ power conversion.

In a paper recently published in ACS Nano, the team of researchers, led by Yang Yang, a professor of materials science and engineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and director of the Nano Renewable Energy Center at UCLA’s California NanoSystems Institute, demonstrate how they sandwiched a layer of gold nanoparticles between two light-absorbing subcells in a tandem polymer solar cell in order to harvest a greater fraction of the solar spectrum.

They found that by employing the interconnecting gold-nanoparticle layer, they were able to enhance power conversion by as much as 20 percent. The gold nanoparticles create a strong electromagnetic field inside the thin organic photovoltaic layers by a plasmonic effect, which concentrates light so that much more of it can be absorbed by the subcells.

The team is the first to report a plasmonic-enhanced polymer tandem solar cell, having overcome the difficulties involved in incorporating metal nanostructures into the overall device structure.

“We have successfully demonstrated a highly efficient plasmonic polymer tandem solar cell by simply incorporating gold nanoparticles layer between two subcells,” Yang said. “The plasmonic effect happening in the middle of the interconnecting layer can enhance both the top and bottom subcells simultaneously — a ‘sweet spot’ — leading to an improvement in the power conversion efficiency of the tandem solar cell from 5.22 percent to 6.24 percent. The enhancement ratio is as high as 20 percent.”

The research team included Xing Wang Zhang from the Key Lab of Semiconductor Materials Science at the Institute of Semiconductors at Beijing’s Chinese Academy of Science and Ziruo Hong from the Graduate School of Science and Engineering at Japan’s Yamagata University.

Experimental and theoretical results demonstrate that the enhancement effect was attained from local near-field enhancement of the gold nanoparticles. The results show that the plasmonic effect has great potential for the future development of polymer solar cells. The team’s proposed interlayer structures as an open platform can be applied to various polymer materials, opening up opportunities for highly efficient, multi-stacked tandem solar cells.

The research was financially supported by grants from the U.S. Office of Naval Research and the National Science Foundation.

The team also included Jun Yang, Jingbi You, Chun-Chao Chen, and Wan-Ching Hsu of the UCLA Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the California NanoSystems Institute.

Yang was recently named the holder of the Carol and Lawrence E. Tannas Jr. Endowed Chair in Engineering. This chair is the first in the world dedicated to the area of electronic information displays.

Article Content From:UCLA