Monsanto Lawsuit Blacked out by Media

monsanto media black out

What happens when one courageous attorney and a few citizens try to take down Monsanto? The MSM doesn’t cover it, for starters.

Efforts to publicize a class action lawsuit against Monsanto for false advertising it’s best-selling herbicide Roundup filed in Los Angeles County Court on April 20, 2015 have been rejected by almost every mainstream media outlet.

It’s no different than Fox, NBC, CNN, or ABC refusing to cover the DARK ACT which would give Monsanto legal immunity and disallow states to demand GMO labeling.

You would think that coverage of something the whole world wants to see – the first step toward the successful downfall of Monsanto –would be a hot news item; a newsworthy tidbit that every paper, radio station, and blog would want to spread across their pages with double bold headlines. But wait. . . just six corporations own ALL of the media in America, so there isn’t much luck there.

That’s why you have to go to sites like Russia Insider or Al Jazeera to find real news outside of certain alternative news channels in the US, and even those are white-washed from Facebook pages, and given secondary ratings on Google pages.

Matthew Phillips, the attorney suing Monsanto in California for false advertising on Roundup bottles, has asked the LA Times, New York Times, Huffington Post, CNN, and Reuters, one of the world’s largest news agencies to report on the lawsuit (Case No: BC 578 942), and most enforced a total media blackout.

When I spoke with Phillips over the phone, he said that he has tried posting the suit in Wikipedia’s Monsanto litigation section, but it keeps ‘disappearing.’ He says that he has also noticed posts on Facebook about this lawsuit get removed.

Phillips points out that as long as Monsanto can keep this lawsuit off of most of America’s radar, then his client base would be relegated to just the citizens of California.

If other attorneys were to follow his template-style lawsuit, which he wrote in English, devoid of extraneous legal-speak to encourage others to also take action against Monsanto, then suddenly the plaintiff count could be closer to several million. That is if you were to tally up all the citizens in the US who have purchased a bottle of Roundup from their local DIY store (Lowe’s, Home Depot or Ace Hardware, for example) in the last four years, not suspecting it could demolish their gut health.

Another possibility, according to Phillips, is that Monsanto could try to bump the case up to federal court in order to try to side-step a likely adverse judgment. But in this case the class action suit would also be open to residents other than those of just California. This is surely an idea that Monsanto doesn’t want seeded in the American psyche.

Phillips is extremely confident he has the goods on Monsanto in this case, and barring a sold out judge:

“This is a slam-dunk lawsuit that exposes Monsanto for LYING about Roundup. Contrary to the label, Roundup does indeed target and kill enzymes found in humans — in our gut bacteria — and this explains America’s chronic indigestion!”

His enthusiasm is palpable, as many well-known scientists and professors emeritus have offered to be key witnesses in this suit when it goes to trial. The attorney says he refuses to ‘settle’ the case and hopes that 49 additional attorneys in 49 states use his case as an example. He joked:

“When we allege that Roundup’s targeted enzyme is found in humans, it’s like alleging that the Golden Gate Bridge is found in California.”

The facts of the case really are that obvious.

Phillips also states that ‘false advertising’ and ‘misleading’ are synonyms in California law, so the fact that Monsanto has stated that there are enzymes in its product that don’t target humans – well that’s beyond just misleading. This obvious misjudgment by Monsanto is a well-known secret among many anti-GM scientists. This enzyme is definitely found in humans.

Here is how ‘misleading’ Monsanto’s statement that, “Round Up targets an enzyme only found in plants and not in humans or animals,” truly is:

EPSP synthase, also known as (3-phosphoshikimate 1-carboxyvinyltransferase) is found in the microbiota that reside in our intestinal tracts, and therefore the enzyme is “found in humans and animals.” It is partly responsible for immunity activation and even helps our gut and our brains communicate with one another.

EPSP synthase is among other beneficial microbes that produce neurometabolites that are either neurotransmitters or modulators of neurotransmission.

“These could act directly on nerve terminals in the gut or via ‘transducer’ cells such as enterochromaffin cells present throughout the intestinal tract and are accessible to microbes and in contact with afferent and efferent nerve terminals. Some of these cells may also signal and therefore modulate immune cell activity.”

Furthermore, although this will not be addressed in Phillip’s lawsuit:

“There is increasing evidence that exposure to Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup, may be an underlying cause of autism spectrum disorders (see [19]).  Glyphosate, the active ingredient, acts through inhibition of the 5-enolpyruvylshikimic acid-3-phosphate synthase (EPSPS synthase) enzyme in the shikimate pathway that catalyses the production of aromatic amino acids. This pathway does not exist in animals, but it does exist in bacteria, including those that live in the gut and are now known to be as much a part of our body as our own cells. A widely accepted dogma is that glyphosate is safe due to the lack of the EPSPS enzyme in our body. This however does not hold water now that the importance of our microbiota to our physiology is clear.”

Though Monsanto is only being sued for false advertising in this case, it is an important precedent to set in order to eventually take down one of the biotech giants that is poisoning the planet. It should send a clear message to Dow, Bayer, Cargill, and Syngenta as well.

 

Source:  Globalresearch.ca

US military robots will leave humans defenceless

US military robots

Killer robots which are being developed by the US military ‘will leave humans utterly defenceless‘, an academic has warned.

Two programmes commissioned by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are seeking to create drones which can track and kill targets even when out of contact with their handlers.

Writing in the journal Nature, Stuart Russell, Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkley, said the research could breach the Geneva Convention and leave humanity in the hands of amoral machines.

“Autonomous weapons systems select and engage targets without human intervention; they become lethal when those targets include humans,” he said.

“Existing AI and robotics components can provide physical platforms, perception, motor control, navigation, mapping, tactical decision-making and long-term planning. They just need to be combined.

“In my view, the overriding concern should be the probable endpoint of this technological trajectory.

“Despite the limits imposed by physics, one can expect platforms deployed in the millions, the agility and lethality of which will leave humans utterly defenceless. This is not a desirable future.”

• Killer robots a small step away and must be outlawed, says UN official
• Britain prepared to develop ‘killer robots’, minister says

The robots, called LAWS – lethal autonomous weapons systems – are likely to be armed quadcopters of mini-tanks that can decided without human intervention who should live or die.

DARPA is currently working on two projects which could lead to killer bots. One is Fast Lightweight Autonomy (FLA) which is designing a tiny rotorcraft to manoeuvre unaided at high speed in urban areas and inside buildings. The other and Collaborative Operations in Denied Environment (CODE), is aiming to develop teams of autonomous aerial vehicles carrying out “all steps of a strike mission — find, fix, track, target, engage, assess” in situations in which enemy signal-jamming makes communication with a human commander impossible.

Last year Angela Kane, the UN’s high representative for disarmament, said killer robots were just a ‘small step’ away and called for a worldwide ban. But the Foreign Office has said while the technology had potentially “terrifying” implications, Britain “reserves the right” to develop it to protect troops.

Professor Russell said: “LAWS could violate fundamental principles of human dignity by allowing machines to choose whom to kill — for example, they might be tasked to eliminate anyone exhibiting ‘threatening behaviour’

“Debates should be organized at scientific meetings; arguments studied by ethics committees. Doing nothing is a vote in favour of continued development and deployment.”

• The US army tests a killer robot tank
• Future robots will resemble ostriches or dinosaurs, scientists say

However Dr Sabine Hauert, a lecturer in robotics at the University of Bristol said that the public did not need to fear the developments in artificial intelligence.

“My colleagues and I spend dinner parties explaining that we are not evil but instead have been working for years to develop systems that could help the elderly, improve health care, make jobs safer and more efficient, and allow us to explore space or beneath the ocean,” she said.

 

Source:   telegraph.co.uk

Freelance NSA Spies Private Conversations

NSA Spies

Thanks to Edward Snowden, we know that the National Security Agency collects the phone records of every American in order to keep the country safe from terrorism. But for the past eight months a group of artists claiming to work for the NSA on “a freelance, pro bono basis” have been recording people’s private conversations in popular bars, restaurants, and gyms in Lower Manhattan to ensure that no actionable intelligence falls through the cracks.

“We’re looking for terrorism, we’re looking for signs of plots and schemes that could put the homeland at risk,” one of the group’s “agents” tells us.

The project’s website, We Are Always Listening, includes snippets of actual conversations recorded by tiny, hidden tape recorders placed in The Brindle Room, Café Mogador, and the Crunch Gym in Union Square, among other popular public spaces.

In the recordings, a group of men talk about how a friend is “trying too hard to be one of us,” a woman complains about paying more than $2,000/month in rent, and a man describes a former boyfriend’s fetish: “He wanted me to like, fake double over in pain. Like we’re doing a scene from Batman Returns.”

None of the recordings contain any last names or other forms of information that would allow the people in the recordings to be directly identified, but first names flow freely.

“The reason we broadcast small, small, small, fractions of what we’ve gathered is because we’ve also heard members of the American public say they want a more transparent window into how data is collected,” said the “agent,” who asked to speak anonymously because New York State law requires the consent of at least one party in order to record a conversation (as Governor Cuomo famously discovered).

“Our agents would dispute that having a conversation at a restaurant or a gym is private. There should not be an assumption of privacy.”

The Manhattan DA’s office declined to comment on the group’s activities.

The project is seemingly designed to shake Americans (and, based on the locations the group placed their recorders, the Downtown bourgeoisie) out of their torpor with respect to how the NSA collects data and the federal government’s reliance on millions of independent contractors with security clearances.

“We imagine people are fine with this type of surveillance,” the “agent” said, tongue firmly in cheek. “The general public has mostly spoken in a unified voice saying, well, it’s just what you need to do to keep the country safe.”

For those who believe that posting audio of private conversations online is wrong, or that it surpasses what even the NSA considers appropriate, a button marked “Angry?” on the group’s website directs users to the ACLU’s website that allows you to contact your federal representatives and urge them to kill the portion of the Patriot Act that allows for the NSA’s blanket surveillance (the Senate recently voted to block a bill from the House designed to curtail the government’s collection of phone data).

The “agent” told us that New Yorkers should expect more leaked conversations. If you’ve hung out at 61 Local in Cobble Hill recently, you might want to keep your eye on the group’s website: a tape recorder has been listening there for some time.

 

Source:  gothamist.com

Finland submarine avoids US internet spying

Finland

Finland is aiming to capitalise on Germany’s privacy worries by setting itself up as a haven where online data will be safe from the prying eyes of foreign governments.

Cinia Group, a new state-owned telecoms company, is building a new submarine cable to link the Scandinavian country to German business and digital consumers.

It comes amid growing concern that the EU’s ‘Safe Harbour’ agreement, which allows personal and financial data to be exported to the US, does not protect privacy.

The route of the 685-mile cable has also been carefully planned to avoid waters where it would be more likely to be secretly wire tapped, in an effort to help build German confidence to use Finnish data centres.

The country is bidding to become the “Switzerland of the North”, where sensitive personal and financial data can be safely stored. Cinia has signed up its first customer for the new cable, the data centre provider Hetzner Online, which will pay €10m to use the link from early next year.

German privacy laws are particularly stringent due to its history of secret policing, and public concern about the internet was especially heightened there following the exposure of US spying by the former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

Chris Watson, head of TMT at the City law firm CMS, which advised on the deal, said: “Russia and China keep control of data in government hands – and we saw in the US how personal data was not secure from the spooks. This cable is the fundamental aorta of an entirely secure commercial alternative for keeping data safe.”

Amazon’s data centre business has sought to address German privacy concerns by building a data centre near Frankfurt, guaranteeing that sensitive information will not leave the country. However other internet companies including Facebook have sought to save money by locating data centres in Scandinavia, where cooling for the thousands of server computers they contain is readily available from icy water.

Source:  telegraph.co.uk

WikiLeaks Documents Proves Apollo Program Was Fake

Source:  worldnewsdaily.com

Monsanto’s Dark Connections to the “Military Industrial Complex”

Monsanto’s “Military Industrial Complex”

 

A US peer-reviewed study conducted last year which was published in the scientific journal Entropy, linked Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup – which is the most popular weed killer in the world – to infertility, cancers and Parkinsons Disease amongst other ailments. The authors of the study were Stephanie Seneff, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Anthony Samsel, a retired science consultant from Arthur D. Little, Inc. and a former private environmental government contractor. The main ingredient in Roundup is the “insidious” glyphosate, which the study found to be a deeply harmful chemical:

“Glyphosate enhances the damaging effects of other food borne chemical residues and environmental toxins. Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body […] Consequences are most of the diseases and conditions associated with a Western diet, which include gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease” (Samsel and Seneff, 2013).

The Executive Director of the Institute for Responsible Technology (IRT) Jeffrey M. Smith has discovered a link between gluten disorders and GM foods in a study he conducted last year. Gluten disorders have sharply risen over the past 2 decades, which correlates with GM foods being introduced into the food supply. Smith asserts that GM foods – including soy and corn – are the possible “environmental triggers” that have contributed to the rapid increase of gluten disorders that effect close to 20 million American’s today:

“Bt-toxin, glyphosate, and other components of GMOs, are linked to five conditions that may either initiate or exacerbate gluten-related disorders […] If glyphosate activates retinoic acid, and retinoic acid activates gluten sensitivity, eating GMOs soaked with glyphosate may play a role in the onset of gluten-related disorders” (Smith, 2013).

One of the more damming studies on the safety of GM foods was led by biologist Dr. Gilles-Eric Seralini of the University of Caen, which was the first study to examine the long term affects on rats that had consumed Monsanto’s GM corn and its Roundup herbicide. The study was conducted over a 2 year period – which is the average life-span of a rat – as opposed to Monsanto’s usual period of 90 days. The peer-reviewed study found horrifying effects on the rats health, with a 200% to 300% increase in large tumours, severe organ damage to the kidney and liver and 70% of female participant rats suffered premature death. The first tumours only appeared 4 to 7 months into the research, highlighting the need for longer trials.

Initially the study was published in the September issue of Food and Chemical Toxicology, but was then later retracted after the publisher felt the study was “inconclusive”, although there was no suspicion of fraud or intentional deceit. Dr. Seralini strongly protested the decision and believed “economic interests” were behind the decision as a former Monsanto employee had joined the journal. Monsanto is infamous for employing swaths oflobbyists to control the political, scientific and administrative decisions relating to the organisation, and this incident was a major whitewash by the GM producer to stop the barrage of negative media reports relating to the toxic effects of their products. The study led by Dr. Seralini was later published in a less well renowned journal, the Environmental Sciences Europe, which reignited the fears of GM foods safety.

France has recently implemented a ban on Monsanto produced maize (MON810) – a different variety of the Monsanto GM corn that was discussed in the study above (NK603) – citing environmental concerns as the reason for the ban. France joins a list of countries including Italy and Poland who have imposed bans on GM corn over the past few years. Additionally, Russian MPs have introduced a draft into parliament which could see GM producers punished as terrorists and criminally prosecuted if they are deemed to have harmed the environment or human health. In India, many of the GM seeds sold to Indian farmers under the pretext of greater harvests failed to deliver, which led to an estimated 200,000 Indian farmers committing suicide due to an inability to repay debts.

There is growing evidence to support the theory that bee colonies are collapsing due to GM crops being used in agriculture, with America seeing the largest fall in bee populations in recent years. Resistance to Monsanto and GM foods has been growing in recent years after the launch of the worldwide ‘March Against Monsanto’ in 2012, which organises global protests against the corporation and its toxic products within 52 countries. Monsanto was also voted the ‘most evil corporation’ of 2013 in a poll conducted by the website Natural News, beating the Federal Reserve and British Petroleum to take the top position.

Monsanto Produced and Supplied Toxic Agent Orange

Researching Monsanto’s past reveals a very dark history that has been well documented for years. During the Vietnam War, Monsanto was contracted to produce and supply the US government with a malevolent chemical for military application. Along with other chemical giants at the time such as Dow Chemical, Monsanto produced the military herbicide Agent Orange which contained high quantities of the deadly chemical Dioxin. Between 1961 and 1971, the US Army sprayed between 50 and 80 million litres of Agent Orange across Vietnamese jungles, forests and strategically advantageous positions. It was deployed in order to destroy forests and fertile lands which provided cover and food for the opposing troops. The fallout was devastating, with Vietnam estimating that 400,000 people died or were maimed due to Agent Orange, as well as 500,000 children born with birth defects and up to 2 million people suffer from cancer or other diseases. Millions of US veterans were also exposed and many have developed similar illnesses. The consequences are still felt and are thought to continue for a century as cancer, birth defects and other diseases are exponential due to them being passed down through generations.

Today, deep connections exist between Monsanto, the ‘Military Industrial Complex’ and the US Government which have to be documented to understand the nature of the corporation. On Monsanto’s Board of Directors sits the former Chairman of the Board and CEO of the giant war contractor Lockheed Martin, Robert J. Stevens, who was also appointed in 2012 by Barack Obama to the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations. As well as epitomising the revolving door that exists between the US Government and private trans-national corporations, Stevens is a member of the parallel government in the US, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). A second board member at Monsanto is Gwendolyn S. King, who also sits on the board of Lockheed Martin where she chairs the Orwellian ‘Ethics and Sustainability Committee”. Individuals who are veterans of the corporate war industry should not be allowed control over any populations food supply! Additionally, Monsanto board member Dr. George H. Poste is a former member of the Defense Science Board and the Health Board of the U.S. Department of Defense, as well as a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the CFR.

Bill Gates made headlines in 2010 when The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation bought 500,000 Monsanto shares worth a total of $23 million, raising questions as to why his foundation would invest in such a malign corporation. William H. Gates Sr. – Bill’s father – is the former head of Planned Parenthood and a strong advocate of eugenics– the philosophy that there are superior and inferior types of human beings, with the inferior type often sterilised or culled under the pretext of being a plague on society. During his 2010 TED speech, Bill Gates reveals his desire to reduce the population of the planet by “10 or 15 percent” in the coming years through such technologies as “vaccines”:

“The world today has 6.8 billion people. That’s heading up to about 9 billion. Now if we do a really good job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent” (4.37 into the video).

In 2006, Monsanto acquired a company that has developed – in partnership with the US Department of Agriculture – what is popularly termed terminator seeds, a future major trend in the GM industry. Terminator Seeds or suicide seeds are engineered to become sterile after the first harvest, destroying the ancient practice of saving seeds for future crops. This means farmers are forced to buy new seeds every year from Big-Agri, which produces high debts and a form of servitude for the farmers.

 

Source:  globalresearch.ca

500 Year Old Map Shatters Official Story

Source:  themindunleashed.org

NSA Reveal How To Hide From The NSA

NSA

 

If you want a truly anonymous life, then maybe it’s time you learned about Tor, CSpace and ZRTP.

These three technologies could help people hide their activities from the National Security Agency, according to NSA documents newly obtained from the archive of former contractor Edward Snowden by the German magazine Der Spiegel.

The combination of Tor, CSpace and ZRTP (plus another anonymizing technology for good measure) results in levels of protection that the NSA deems “catastrophic” — meaning the organization has “near-total loss/lack of insight to target communications,” according to Der Spiegel.

“Although the documents are around two years old, experts consider it unlikely the agency’s digital spies have made much progress in cracking these technologies,” Spiegel’s staff wrote.

In comparison, accessing somebody’s Facebook messages is considered a “minor” task for the agency. Similarly, virtual private networks (or VPNs), which are widely used by companies, are easily accessed by the NSA, according to Der Spiegel’s report, as are so-called “HTTPS” connections.

So, what are these services and what do you actually have to do to use them?

Tor is basically a network that offers an easy way for people to mask their location when communicating online. Anyone can download Tor’s web browser — it’s available on Mac, Windows, Linux, and smartphones. It’s not foolproof: When using Tor, you’re advised to sacrifice the convenience of browser plugins, torrent downloads, and websites that don’t use “HTTPS encryption” if you truly want to stay off the grid.

And that’s just if you want to mask your online habits — messaging and phone calls require more steps still, meaning you also have to add CSpace and ZRTP if you want to hide those from the NSA, according to Der Spiegel.

CSpace is a program that lets people text chat and transfer files, while ZRTP is a form of encryption that protects mobile phone calls and texting — it’s used in apps like RedPhone and Signal.

If that all sounds a bit daunting, anonymous living may not be for you. There are plenty of ways to stay relatively private online. But true anonymity is harder to achieve, and so coveted that some people will pay $629 for a special phone that purports to keep a user’s information more secure.

As noted, the Snowden documents are a couple of years old; it’s possible the NSA has found ways around these tools by now. But for the privacy-conscious, they are certain to work better than a tinfoil hat.

 

Source:  huffingtonpost.com

Blogger Threatened for Exposing Global Warming Fraud

Blogger Threatened for Exposing 97% “Consensus” Fraud:

global warming

 

 

In what is nearly a replay of the Climategate e-mail scandal of the University of East Anglia, independent climate blogger Brandon Shollenberger has been threatened with a lawsuit and arrest if he releases data that climate alarmists left online unencrypted showing their claim that 97.1 percent of climate scientists “endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming” is false — and a huge fabrication. The lawsuit threat is the latest development in a drama that began a little over a year ago, when Shollenberger scooped the global establishment media and the world scientific community to expose one of the biggest science frauds of all time.

We’ve all seen and heard reports and statements, too numerous to be counted, that “more than 97 percent” of scientists endorse the proposition that humans are causing catastrophic climate change. Al Gore, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry Brown, et al — have repeated (again and again and again) this climate “consensus” claim. And the New York Times, CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS, et al, parrot these parrotings over and over and over, never bothering to check, let alone challenge, the absolute ludicrousness of the hyperbolic assertion.

The 97-percent myth was launched last year by Australian global-warming activist John Cook and the alarmist website, SkepticalScience.com. Responsible scientists and sensible laymen were properly skeptical of the SkepticalScience claims from the get-go, but it took the investigative digging of independent blogger Brandon Shollenberger to expose how Cook was cooking the data.

 

0.5 percent, Not 97.1 Percent!

Incredibly (but not so surprisingly, considering the fanaticism of some climate zealots), after deconstructing Cook’s data that was publicly available, Shollenberger found that only 65 (yes, 65) of the 12,000+ scientific abstracts Cook and his team of volunteers studied can be said to endorse the position that human activity is responsible for most of the experienced global warming. For a 97.1-percent “consensus” we would expect 11,640+ abstracts to endorse anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming, or AGW — not a mere 65! This was big news, but the silence from Big Media was deafening, which was, again, not so surprising. And this was not the only newsworthy revelation concerning the Cook study, which Cook tellingly referred to as “The Consensus Project” or “TCP.” Clearly, Cook and his band of zealous sous chefs cooked the data recipe to create their consensus pièce de résistance. They were caught pants down, in flagrante delicto; but, again, silence from the mainstream media newshounds who can be counted on to bay and howl unceasingly at the slightest peccadillo, misstep, or blooper by political conservatives.

As we noted, Cook’s “study” was merely an expanded reprise of the earlier, much-quoted, fraudulent “research” of Naomi Oreskes, who first popularized the 97-percent consensus deception in 2004. We wrote:

Cook’s “Introduction” admits that “TCP is basically an update and expansion of Naomi Oreskes’ survey of the peer-reviewed literature with deeper analysis.” That is an interesting admission, since the 2004 Oreskes study — which was the original source for the 97 percent claim — was exposed for the same methodological flaws. Dr. Benny Peiser, a social science professor at John Moores University and visiting fellow at the University of Buckingham, eviscerated the Oreskes study, pointing out that Oreskes had falsified the so-called consensus by her faulty selection criteria in choosing papers to include in her survey.

If You Print the Truth, We’ll Sue You.

But Shollenberger did not rest on his laurels; he kept digging. Last week, on May 15, Shollenberger published his 100th posting, entitled, “MY HUNDREDTH POST CAN’T BE SHOWN.”

He explained:

Dear readers, I wanted to do something special for my hundredth post at this site. I picked out a great topic for discussion. I wrote a post with clever prose, jokes that’d make your stomach ache from laughter and even some insightful commentary. Unfortunately, I can’t post it because I’d get sued.??

You see, I wanted to talk about the Cook et al data I recently came into possession of. I wanted to talk about the reaction by Cook et al to me having this data. I can’t though. The University of Queensland has threatened to sue me if I do.

In fact, the University of Queensland (in Queensland, Australia) threatened to sue Shollenberger if he even published their threatening letter to him! And, for an extra measure of overkill, the university implied that Shollenberger had illegally “hacked” their computer system, and that he might face arrest and criminal charges.

According to Shollenberger, he recently retrieved the raw data of Cook, et al from a “publicly accessible, third-party website,” where it was being stored. Shollenberger says it didn’t require any “hacking” because it was unprotected and unencrypted.

After some consideration and consultation, Shollenberger announced May 18 on his blog that he is challenging the university and “calling their bluff.” He released their letter and said he would release the Cook data, unless the university, SkepticalScience, or Cook would respond to his inquiries for an explanation as to what legal or ethical consideration should compel him not to publish this publicly accessed data. This a replay of the Climategate e-mail scandal of the University of East Anglia, where “scientists” refused to make public their data for peer and public review, so that an honest assessment of the alleged science upon which policies affecting the entire planet (and involving trillions of dollars) might be conducted. They illegally refused Freedom of Information requests, destroyed data, and threatened legal action against those who divulged their e-mail communications concerning their unethical and illegal activities.

Shollenberger wrote:

Nobody has told me what I need to keep confidential. Nobody has explained why I need to keep things like datestamps secret. Nobody has explained how knowing people performed 65 ratings two years ago (to the day) could affect anyone’s contractual obligations. Nobody has explained how disclosing material like that could possibly harm anyone.

So here’s the challenge I want to propose to the Skeptical Science team, to the University of Queensland, and to anyone else who thinks I shouldn’t release the data I possess:

Tell me what material I possess could cause harm if disseminated. Tell me what agreements or contractual obligations would be impinged upon if that material were released to the public.

If you are unable or unwilling to meet such a simple challenge, I’ll release the data and you can bite me. I mean, sue me.

Source:  thenewamerican.com

Space Station Commander Opens Up About His UFO Sighting

International Space Station Commander Opens Up About His UFO Sighting In Space:

 

Leroy Chiao,

 

Leroy Chiao, commander of the International Space Station in 2005 recently opened up about his UFO sighting from space. They were 230 miles above the Earth, and traveling at a speed of 17,000 miles per hour when Chiao spotted a UFO (Unidentified Flying Object).

“I saw some lights that seemed to be in a line and it was almost like an upside-down check mark, and I saw them fly by and thought it was awfully strange. It wasn’t just one, but a line of them strung out along the South American coast” (1)

“I’m skeptical of claims that we’ve been visited by aliens from another planet or other dimensions, but I don’t rule it out 100 percent. I have an open mind and I do believe there’s other life in the universe.”

A growing amount of evidence has emerged, especially within the past few years that has more people asking questions. For example, dozens of governments around the world have recently released previously classified UFO documents. Documents detail how governments have special departments to monitor the UFO phenomenon and obtain information. One example are the UFO files released by the United Kingdom in June 2013.

Documents also reveal that UFOs are constantly tracked on ground radar, air radar, accompanied by visual conformation by military pilots who are scrambled to take a closer look.

Agencies like the NSA have done the same, you can view examples here , here and here. It’s safe to assume that more sensitive documents remain classified, especially with the recent disclosure of the black budget and special access programs by Edward Snowden.

Apart from official documentation proving the reality of UFOs (performing maneuvers that defy our known laws of physics like starting and stopping on a dime), we’ve had incredible statements made by hundreds of very high ranking political and military personnel. Paul Heyller, Canada’s former Minister of National Defence recently said that there are “at least four known alien species that have been visiting Earth for thousands of years.”

This is a very minuscule amount of evidence that I’ve presented regarding the UFO issue. The UFO phenomenon cannot really be denied anymore, for anybody who has looked into this subject,the evidence can be quite overwhelming. Coupled with this evidence are the experiences people have all over the world involving UFOs, as well as purported extraterrestrial beings. It’s definitely an interesting subject and one that is gaining some well deserved attention as we move through 2014 and beyond. This is thanks to the efforts of researchers, whistle-blowers and more.

Source:  collective-evolution.com

Corporations Block Access from Miracle Drugs to Science Research

Corporations Block Access to Everything from Miracle Drugs to Science Research:

Corporations Block Access to Everything from Miracle Drugs to Science Research

Should a company be able to patent a breast cancer gene? What about a species of soybean? How about a tool for basic scientific research? Or even a patent for acquiring patents?

Intellectual property rights are supposed to help inventors bring good things to life, but there’s increasing concern that they may be keeping us from getting the things we need.

In this wild and contested jungle of the law, which concerns things like patents and copyrights, questions about the implications of allowing limited monopolies on ideas are making headlines. Do they stifle innovation? Can they cause the public more harm than good? Trillions of dollars are at stake. Companies known as “patent trolls” are gobbling up patents, then going on lawsuit sprees and extracting fees against infringement. Corporations are using intellectual property law to squash competitors and block our access to things as vital as lifesaving drugs, to place restrictions on things as intimate as parts of the human body. Third World countries are kept from accessing essential public goods related to everything from food security to education.

Surely, the producers of new ideas should be able to profit from their creations. But furious debates over what should be protected and who should profit are calling attention to the many things that are going wrong in this area. For example, a recent front-page story in the New York Times detailed how diabetics are being held hostage in America by companies that follow Apple’s playbook to lock patients into buying expensive, patented products that quickly become obsolete. If you don’t buy the product, you don’t miss getting the new iPhone. You may die.

Source:  alternet.org

$6 billion in unaccounted funds

American State Department Misplaced $6B Under Hillary Clinton:

 

State Department Misplaced $6B Under Hillary Clinton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The State Department misplaced and lost some $6 billion due to the improper filing of contracts during the past six years, mainly during the tenure of former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, according to a newly released Inspector General report.

The $6 billion in unaccounted funds poses a “significant financial risk and demonstrates a lack of internal control over the Department’s contract actions,” according to the report.

The alert, originally sent on March 20 and just released this week, warns that the missing contracting funds “could expose the department to substantial financial losses.”

The report centered on State Department contracts worth “more than $6 billion in which contract files were incomplete or could not be located at all,” according to the alert.

“The failure to maintain contract files adequately creates significant financial risk and demonstrates a lack of internal control over the Department’s contract actions,” the alert states.

 

Source:  blacklistednews.com

22 veterans commit suicide each day

1,892 US Veterans have committed suicide since January 1, 2014:

 

22 veterans kill them self’s each day

On average, 22 veterans commit suicide each day, according to the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA).

To commemorate them and raise awareness, 32 veterans from the group flew to Washington, D.C., to plant 1,892 flags on the National Mall today, one for each of the veterans that the group says took his or her own life in 2014. IAVA extrapolated that number from a 2012 Veterans Administration reportfinding that 22 veterans took their lives each day in 2009 and 2010, only a slight increase from years past, and a number that includes all veterans, not just those who served in America’s more recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The event was part of IAVA’s 2014 Storm the Hill campaign, an annual week of action in which organization vets meet with lawmakers to push a veterans’ agenda picked for that year. In 2013, it was the Veterans Affairs benefits-claim backlog; this year, it’s veteran suicides.

“I know several individuals that have died by suicide,” Sara Poquette of Dallas, a video journalist who served in Iraq, said, adding that she herself considered suicide while experiencing the hardships of reintegrating into civilian life. “For me personally, it was more just getting through until I was really ready to get help, just realizing that my life was going down a path that I never really wanted it to go down.”

In Joining IAVA, Poquette said, she found a “new unit.”

The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America is pushing a bill, the Suicide Prevention for America’s Veterans Act, which Sen. John Walsh, D-Mont., plans to introduce. Walsh commanded a Montana National Guard battalion in Iraq.

“When we returned home, one of my young sergeants died by suicide, so this is very personal to me,” Walsh told reporters on the Mall today, calling veteran suicides “an epidemic we cannot allow to continue.”

The bill would extend eligibility for Veterans Administration health care, create a pilot program for student-loan repayment if health care professionals work for the VA, instigate a review of certain behavioral discharges, and mandate a review of mental health care programs at the VA, IAVA said.

The group is calling on Congress to pass the bill by Memorial Day.

Source:  Newsforage.com

Thai ex-civil servant

Bangkok:

Thai ex-civil servant found very rich

A Thai court has ordered more than $1.4m in assets seized from a former top civil servant whose wealth was revealed when burglars robbed his house.

The Civil Court said on Friday that former Transport Ministry Permanent Secretary Supoj Saplom could not prove his wealth was honestly earned. It said his civil servant’s salary from 1978 until 2002 could not account for it.

Supoj had reported to police that $156 000 was missing after a burglary at his home in 2011. But when the burglars were caught, they confessed to stealing $570 000 in cash and gold. Prosecutors found Supoj had about $2m in assets, $1.4m presumed ill-gotten by the court.

Supoj claimed that part of his fortune was earned before he joined the government and some belonged to relatives.

85 Elites Have As Much Wealth As Half The World’s Population

85 People, a group that could easily fit on a single subway car:

85 Wealthy Elites Have As Much Wealth As Half The World’s Population

The extent to which both global wealth has become cornered by a virtual handful of so-called “global elite” is exposed in a new report by Oxfam on Monday. He warned that the 85 richest people in the world share a combined wealth of £ 1 billion , as much as the poorest 3.5 billion of the world population .

The organization fears that the development of this concentration of economic resources is threatening the political stability and increasing social tensions.

The report found that in recent decades , the rich have successfully managed to skew political influence policies in their favor on issues ranging from financial deregulation , tax havens to reduce tax rates on high incomes and cuts in public services for most. Since the late 1970s , tax rates for the wealthy have declined in 29 of the 30 countries for which data are available , according to the report .

237 Millionaires serving in Congress

There are 237 millionaires serving in Congress , according to 2008 figures:

 

237 Millionaires in Congress

That’s a slight decrease from the previous year , when 239 millionaires in the House and Senate were recorded. But still reflects the fact that the average legislator is much richer than your typical constituent. While about one percent of Americans are millionaires , 44 percent of those serving in Congress they can say the same .

“The biggest takeaway from this is that even thought the collective wealth of members of Congress seem to have diminished , members of Congress are still much richer than the average American – and even richer than many rich Americans, ” spokesman Dave Levinthal told Hotsheet CRP .

Richest member of Congress is Republican Darrell Issa of California congressman, whose net worth is estimated at more than $ 250 million. It is followed by four Democrats : Jane Harman of California ( approx. $ 245 million ) , Herb Kohl of Wisconsin ( approx. $ 215 million ), Mark Warner of Virginia ( approx. U $ S 210 million) and John Kerry of Massachusetts ( approx. $ 209 million).

Among the 25 richest lawmakers – including bold names Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein and Olympia Snowe – there are 14 Democrats and 11 Republicans , suggesting no clear divisions between wealth party.

The net value calculated for legislators is not exact, and CPR offers a wide range of possible net present values ​​for each member. Levinthal, said lawmakers tend to report assets and liabilities, income, grants and loan transactions , as required by law, in very broad ranges , figure in the list , he said, represents an estimate between two possible extremes. (Primary residences and government salaries are not reported , and therefore not included.)

The less wealthy member of Congress , according to the report, Florida Democrat Alcee Hastings, whose net worth is estimated to be negative $ 4,732,002 . (!) Other legislators to the bottom 25 are Max Baucus of Montana and Dennis Kucinich of Ohio . Note, however, that these legislators are likely to have undeclared assets , including their homes .

In the Executive Branch , Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is the second richest , with a net worth of approximately $ 21 million , which is just behind Exchange Commission Chairman Mary L. Schapiro. The figure is less rich administration Vice President Joe Biden, whose net worth is estimated at only $ 27,012 . ( President Obama comes in at $ 3,670,505 . )

The median reportable net worth of senators was reduced from $ 2,270,000 to $ 1,790,000 robust yet between 2007 and 2008. Kerry , Warner, Feinstein and Senator John McCain all experienced two -digit percentage declines in their average , estimated wealth between the two years .

The median reportable net worth for House members in 2008 was $ 622,254 .

Levinthal points out that ” in some cases [ lawmakers ‘] wealth is derived from the same companies that in many cases benefit from the taxpayers. ”

” The main companies in which members of Congress are investing , many of them are TARP recipients that have received billions and billions of dollars from you and me ,” he said .

Among the companies in which members of Congress have assets are Bank of America and Goldman Sachs.

Firm denies accepting bribe from NSA

Firm denies accepting bribe from NSA:

Firm denies accepting bribe from NSA

 

More details came to light of the National Security Agency U.S. to break encryption schemes that protect personal communications and financial transactions on the Internet.

Reuters reported that RSA, a Internet encryption firms , may have accepted $ 10 million to weaken services. Specifically , the report claimed , generator vulnerable to attack by the NSA incorporates random numbers .

NSA ‘s efforts to weaken encryption Internet , either by direct attack or through agreements with several Internet companies apparently began after the September 11, 2001 .

On Sunday , RSA denied any money from the agency to weaken encryption. ” We categorically deny this accusation , ” RSA wrote in a blog. “We worked with the NSA , both as a provider and an active member of the security community . Never have kept this relationship a secret and , in fact, have openly publicized it.”

While RSA not refused to work with the spy agency , said that behind when he apparently went into contract together, ” the NSA had a role of trust in the community -wide effort to strengthen, not weaken , the encryption. ”

In fact , it was only in September 2013 that the New York Times revealed that the NSA had intentionally weakened the random number generator used by some of the tools of RSA . Once the history of time left , RSA agreed that the generator must not be used. ” RSA always acts in the best interest of their clients and in any case the RSA design or enable backdoors into our products,” the firm wrote at the time .

Inequality rising in the average household

The One Percent Is Hogging so Much of Our Income That It’s Holding the Economy Back:

inequality has been rising and the average American household

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We all know that inequality has been rising and the average American household has been suffering. There is a myth that says all this suffering is necessary, that extreme inequality is the by-product of a rapidly growing economy—or worse, that it’s a good thing because it motivates everyone to work hard and climb the long ladder to the One Percent.

Even a brief glance at the historical record reveals just how perverted this hypothesis is.

For one thing, the economy has not been growing rapidly since inequality started climbing. From 1950 to 1980, “real gross domestic product (GDP)”—the output of the economy, adjusted for inflation—grew by 3.8 percent per year. From 1980 to 2010, it grew by 2.7 percent per year. (Since then, it’s been even worse.)

So income inequality hasn’t been “growth-enhancing” at all. In fact, just the opposite.

The United States isn’t alone in this experience. Economists at the International Monetary Fund recently compiled the most comprehensive data set to date: 140 countries over 6 decades. They consistently found that countries with less inequality experienced stronger, more sustained economic growth and fewer, less severe recessions.

It’s been widely publicized, for example, that Europe has suffered from higher unemployment than the United States in recent years. Many Americans falsely believe that Europe is more equal than the U.S., but a new data set compiled by the economist James Galbraith and the University of Texas Inequality Project shows inequality between countries and regions across Europe for the first time—and they find that Europe has had higher inequality than us since the 1970s. It’s only within specific countries that inequality is lower than the U.S., and guess what: Those countries tend to have lower unemployment than us.

The reason is quite simple: Those workers are also consumers. When the 99 Percent earn more, they spend more, and the One Percent can produce more and earn more themselves.

“In this sense,” says the wealthy entrepreneur Nick Hanauer, “an ordinary middle-class consumer is far more of a job creator than a capitalist like me. […] Anyone who’s ever run a business knows that hiring more people is a capitalist’s course of last resort, something we do only when increasing customer demand requires it.”

Or, as the late economist Michal Kalecki used to say, “The workers spend what they get and the capitalists get what they spend.” What he meant by that was that the rich can afford to save more of their income—and, indeed, we find that the One Percent continue to save 15 to 25 percent, while the saving rate of the 99 Percent has plummeted close to zero. If too much money goes to the One Percent and not enough to the 99 Percent, the economy will save more and more and spend less and less, until there isn’t enough consumer demand to justify increasing production and investment. Thus, the economy will slow down.

Government shuts down Bitcoins

US government shuts down production of physical Bitcoins:

US government shuts down production of physical Bitcoins

Back before the recent Bitcoin boom, an enthusiast named Mike Caldwell created a physical representation of the virtual currency — the Casascius coin. The difficult-to-type Casascius Bitcoin derived its name from nowhere of interest (named after Caldwell’s online handle), but the idea is certainly an interesting one. The Casascius Bitcoin is a shiny, physical coin — each one with its own Bitcoin wallet attached. The coins are a clever way to trade Bitcoins without having access to a computer (or even a wallet you know how to access), but perhaps the idea was too clever; the US Department of Treasury shut down Caldwell’s Bitcoin mint.

Just before Thanksgiving, Caldwell received a notice from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN) stating that he must stop producing the coins, as the Treasury Department is classifying the action as transmitting money — something the government would not allow him to do unregulated. Interestingly, Caldwell only accepts a payment in BTC for the coins, which means he isn’t accepting “real,” regulated currency, so it’s odd that the Treasury Department would consider his actions as transmitting “money.”

Amusingly, because Caldwell runs a Bitcoin service, there isn’t an account the government can seize should he incur FINCEN’s wrath. Admittedly, FINCEN’s interest would make a little more sense if Caldwell were trading Bitcoins for cash, but he’s only trading Bitcoins for Bitcoins.

Using the current BTC exchange rate, Caldwell has minted around $82 million worth of Casascius coins — around 90,000. There are other physical Bitcoin (and even Litecoin) products, but perhaps Caldwell’s prolific production and popularity is why FINCEN took notice of his service and not others. Caldwell hasn’t agreed to completely discontinue the Casascius coin, but he obviously has some things to work through before he can begin again, government-willing.

 

China bans Bitcoin

China bans Bitcoin, lowering the ceiling of the currency’s potential:

China bans Bitcoin, lowering the ceiling of the currency’s potential

Bitcoin has been on nothing short of a meteoric rise in recent years — especially in the last few months. After passing an exchange rate of $1,000 per Bitcoin last month, people have been speculating about a big drop. Now it’s possible that China will be the one to pop the Bitcoin bubble. The country’s central bank yesterday banned financial institutions from trading in Bitcoins, or even from processing Bitcoin transactions.

The value of a single Bitcoin began the day at an average of over $1,200, but a sell-off started after the announcement started making the rounds. It was short lived, but the exchange rate did dip briefly below the $1,000 mark and is still down almost 10 percent from the high. Prices remain even lower on Chinese exchanges. So is this the beginning of a justifiable panic, or just a hiccup?

It’s not surprising the Chinese central bank would be wary of letting Bitcoin become more widely used — China is famous for its strict monetary controls. By keeping its currency from increasing in value, it makes exports cheaper and can more easily grow its economy by manufacturing iPhones and other electronic gadgets. Bitcoin, by contrast, has increased in value by orders of magnitude in the last few years.

The government also voiced concerns that the supply of Bitcoins is limited by design, but didn’t expand on why that’s an issue. We can, however, speculate that it could make Bitcoin harder to control as the Chinese central bank is used to doing with the traditional economy. Bitcoin can also be used completely anonymously, which has led to fears of money laundering in many nations — not just in China.

The new restrictions stop short of banning Bitcoin entirely in China, but it will definitely put a damper on adoption of the cryptocurrency. Banks are not permitted to get into the Bitcoin game, but payment processors are also not permitted to take any payments in Bitcoin. Individual people are allowed to use Bitcoins, at least for now, but they take on the risks themselves. However, a separate government posting warned people that many unregulated Bitcoin sites lack sufficient security safeguards, which is definitely not spin or propaganda; Bitcoins are stolen frequently and the victims have little recourse.

Recent events surrounding Bitcoin, like the infiltration of Tor-based Freedom Hosting and the arrest of Silk Road owner Ross Ulbricht, have managed to put short-term dents in the value of the cryptocurrency, but it’s always rebounded. Perhaps the only thing that can actually bring the value down long-term level is regulation, but how do you regulate a completely decentralized system? Even China must be struggling with that one.

Limewire finally agreed to pay $105 million in damages

 

Movie Studios Suddenly Drop Lawsuit Against Limewire:

Limewire finally agreed to pay $105 million in damages to the RIAA

 

 

 

After a long legal battle, Limewire finally agreed to pay $105 million in damages to the RIAA to settle its infringement lawsuit. The RIAA had previously bandied about much higher numbers, including some rhetorical discussion of the upper limits of statutory damages, which would have put the total “damages” in the range of $75 billion, something the presiding judge pointed out would have exceeded the recording industry’s entire combined income since the invention of the phonograph in 1877.

$105 million isn’t as much as the labels wanted, but it was enough. Once that was secured, some indie labels filed suit in an attempt to score a little cash as well. In a move both unsurprising (lawsuits are better than innovating!) and surprising (Limewire’s owner not entirely made of money), major movie studios like Viacom, 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. filed a copyright infringement suit against the shuttered P2P service.

The studios actually moved for summary judgement in this case, stating that the same principles applied in the RIAA’s win could be applied to their claims as well. That was back in October of 2012. Since that point, almost nothing has happened, as is evidenced by the lack of activity on the docket.

Now, with little fanfare and even less explanation, the studios are dismissing with prejudice their suit against Limewire.

And with a signature and a date today, the more than $200 million copyright lawsuit by Hollywood against the file sharing site is over. A NYC-based federal judge today granted final approval to Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Viacom, Disney, Comedy Partners and Warner Bros’ request to dismiss their almost two year case against LimeWire and its founder Mark Gorton. Filed on October 30, the motion for a voluntary dismissal with prejudice was approved by U.S. District Judge Harold Baer Jr on Thursday.

Considering the studios have been more than willing to spend money to make money, it seems unlikely they would have dropped this case simply because Limewire would have put up the same sort of resistance it did in its battle with the RIAA. No matter how much the industry is “hurt” by file sharing, its leaders always seem to have their legal departments fully bankrolled. (This is due to the fact that the labels and studios frequently convert their lawsuit “winnings” directly into more lawsuits. The artists that are getting so screwed by file sharing continue to be screwed by their so-called “representatives,” who rarely kick over any percentage of the settlements unless publicly shamed into doing so.)

Deadline’s theory is that the studios were offered a little something for their time by Limewire itself.

However, sources tell me that the studios received a hefty multimillion-dollar settlement.

That may be, or it could be that a long-defunct service that fell out of public favor years ago may not be the best opponent to waste a largely symbolic victory on. Remember, the studios and labels don’t just want to extract damages from websites and services — they also want to “educate” potential file sharers by exploiting the statutory damages provision to its fullest. Nothing educates better than fear, apparently and reminding people that they could on the hook for up to $150,000 per violation is much more “enlightening” than being bound by any mathematical realities.

Snopes.com Hoax

Snopes misleads the public, and lies to its readers:

snopes .com lie’s to the public

How can something be a half truth?  Well thanks to snopes.com, you have their personal opinion attached to it.  How is this possible you ask?  I just think it’s great when you research some fact, to find out if a rumor is true, that you get some dude’s personal opinion on top of it.  Maybe they’re cofused on the idea no one is interested in them individually, but just the damn information.  Life is complicated, but I thought this was a yes or no question?  Multiple choice style questions cannot have a half truth. Hasn’t this been ingrained in us at an early age that when we draw cute dinosaur pictures instead of answering a series of true or false question, that you’re going to fail? Oh you might get an additional one point for your prehistoric image, but you fail.

I recently contacted Snopes in response to a attack on one of my articles. The title is “Coca Cola Phosphric Acid”, and it is a brief description of the weird alternative uses you can use with coke in a pinch. Nothing in my article is incorrect, but somehow they managed to reference my article as incorrect. Confused, well me too but let’s carry on.

The article:https://frontview.wordpress.com/2012/08/06/coca-cola-phosphoric-acid-cocaine-2/

I had contacted Snopes.com about their winded article on how Coca Cola is safe to drink, and that it indeed contained many types of acids, including Phosphoric Acid.  This is their response:

“Nothing in the Wikipedia article you reference states that ingesting
Phosphoric acid in the small amounts commonly found in soft drinks
such as Coca-Cola is harmful. In fact, the article notes that
Phosphoric acid is a common food additive, which demonstrates that it
Obviously isn’t harmful to ingest in moderate quantities.”

This was my reference to Wikipedia:

Reference:

Food-grade phosphoric acid (additive E338) is used to acidify foods and beverages such as various colas, but not without controversy regarding its health effects.[6] It provides a tangy or sour taste, and being a mass-produced chemical is available cheaply and in large quantities. The low cost and bulk availability is unlike more expensive seasonings that give comparable flavors, such as citric acid which is obtainable from citrus, but usually fermented by Aspergillus niger mold from scrap molasses, waste starch hydrolysates and phosphoric acid.[7]

(wikipedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphoric_acid

You know its funny, even if the article says, ” Food-grade phosphoric acid (additive E338) is used to acidify foods and beverages such as various colas, but not without controversy regarding its health effects.” My question wasn’t about if it was safe to drink but that it only contained Phosphoric Acid.  If they could add this important rumor to their collection of urban lies. They didn’t even answer my question properly. Well, That just simply doesn’t matter.

Snopes is a HOAX

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s it guys, I was totally wrong all these years, time to pack it up.  My doctor, nutritionist, and health professional was all wrong. Its Damn safe, sorry for the confusion. Let alone what my dentist would say about this.  Even with small amounts, these professionals would have a field day. I could go on for hours referencing just about any other profession in the world. Well you see where I am going with this.

Since then, I have attempted to contact them, stick to my guns and ask them to update one little simple fact that Coca Cola does contain these dangerous chemicals. No response! Very typical when you have something to hide. Really suspicious when you do some investigation into their Coke lore section. Very one sided, like they are trying to promote the health benefits of coke, I mean coca cola.  Are you guys being paid to promote cola’s? I mean how can you say Coca Cola used to contain Coke, that it is only a half truth?  Either its true or not, enough with your bullish% opinions!  True or False, or close down your site. No one needs to be more confused after visiting your misleading urban legends. Busted!

SNOPES-GETS-SNOPED

Global Engine of Deceit, Lies and Control Are Ending

Here are 5 signs that the era of deception and duplicity is coming to an end:

5 Big Signs The Global Engine of Deceit, Lies and Control Are Coming To End

Pharmaceutical Industrial Complex Has Been Exposed
Perhaps one of the biggest controlling entities of the world is the pharmaceutical industrial complex who has deceived billions for almost two centuries. Their corruption, fabrications and outright deceit has enveloped almost every nation on Earth. In the last decade alone, millions have outcasted drugs and vaccines from their circle of trust. More people are coming to discover that this powerful group of criminals will stop at nothing to sell their snake oil to the public. Over the last several years, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, and Novartis — and all other pharmaceutical giants, which once seemed unassailable are slowly drowning. Drug discovery jobs have disappeared by the thousands in the United States and by the hundreds in Europe as the industry has cut costs in order to adjust to what is widely perceived as the end of the blockbuster-drug era.

People are getting it. From the H1N1 scandal to HPV….from Lipitor toVioxx, the public is catching on that most modern day diseases are man-made to sell us more poison in a vicious cycle which perpetuates until our death. Research is now showing that natural health products are as effective as man-made drugs and for the first time in history, the natural health industry is aiming to amend legislation to allow physicians to include natural health products in their practice–a change that could revolutionize the allopathic treatment model.

2. The Media Is No Longer Capable of Instilling Trust

Recent polls now show that an overwhelming 80% of the population no longer trusts mainstream newscasts. From the lies and promotion of wars to our health, the mainstream media is incapable of generating any unbiased newsworthy content without corporate or government propaganda. Conan O’Brien easily revealed how mainstream media’s scripted taking points are just a farce. This happens almost everyday on any issue you can imagine, across all networks at any time. The media, as they say “is a joke” branded to program the minds of millions though manipulation and deception. But their dominion and monopoly has been thwarted by the alternative media who are now fully engaged in exposing every lie one at a time….and we are achieving great success.

3. The Conventional Food Industry is Collapsing
By observing the chess match between anti-GMO camps and Monsanto (and their lobbyists), we see a clear indication that big agriculture, biotech and the entire food industry is in turmoil. Trade agreements currently being drafted in developed nations are attempting to secure legislation dictating all GMO labeling as illegal. Resistance against GMOs are being defined as “anti-free trade practices” that governments are attempting to enforce in the form of economic sanctions against nations that attempt to ban GMOs. Labeling initiatives spawned by various groups are being exposed as controlled opposition and the true intentions and transparency of these organizations is inevitable. Food giants are being held accountable for their manufacturing processes, toxic ingredients and lack of credibility.

All of these things are sure signs that the biotech industry is losing control as the entire world is awakening to the dangers of genetically modified foods and the conventional food supply. Technology is coming forward that will soon allow on-the-spot tests for environmental toxins, GMOs, pesticides, food safety and more with their smartphones and other hand-held devices as a defiant public will stop at nothing to regain independence within the food supply.

4. The Freedom Movement Is Gaining Momentum
De facto foreign administrations of unelected industrialists, financiers, academics, military leaders along with representatives from our elected government officials have been very busy the past century implementing changes into nations who were once sovereign and free. However, they have no real authority to restrict public mobility, free trade or limit access to anything. That means that everybody is free to drive without insurance, driver’s license, license plates, free to trade any articles of exchange including vitamins, supplements, healing modalities and free to consume and ingest anything they wish without restriction. This is a right of all people born on any land, and the movement to educate millions on these issues is rising across the globe. Mass populations are starting to see the reality that there is no longer sovereignty within nations. The people of these nations have lost their ability to write their own laws, avoid arrest, injury and damage from corporations which seek to remove all the freedoms from the people.

The elite societies of the world are now petrified of the awakening of these fundamental human rights. This is the fear of every official who deems their opinion can be enforced over others through artificial laws that don’t hold any weight in the highest courts. We are now declaring those rights more than ever and every beneficiary of the corrupt system is sending the police to insist that we are in wrong and they are right. It is about knowing what absolute sovereignty truly is and embracing the power to express that right regardless of anybody else’s interpretation. Police are being held accountable for these injustices and their homes and possessions are being taken from them in the highest courts as the people fight for their rights to be free and will accept no damage by illegal enforcement (the police) in the interim.

5. The Liberation of Nature and Abolishment of All Things Toxic Is Now Inevitable

More than a dozen U.S. states have now completely decriminalized the act of possessing marijuana and both Colorado and Washington have made it legal to possess, sell, transport and cultivate the plant. But soon it may be legalized across the entire country. That is quite the 180 from the federal government’s tune in 2011 when they decreed that marijuana had no accepted medical use and should remain classified as a highly dangerous drug like heroin. Nobody has the right to criminalize or restrict anybody from possessing a plant or smoking it for that matter. The rights of people to interact with nature are being recognized on all levels and cannabis liberation is a amazing step forward.

The restoration of clean drinking water through the removal of toxic fluoride is another example of how governments can no longer contain their lies, in this case the 60-year old deception of fluoride. Almost the entire world is now coming full circle to the health consequences of poisoning the water supply with fluoride. Most developed nations, including all of Japan and 97% of western Europe, do not fluoridate their water. Israel was recently added to that list. Many communities, over the last few years, stopped fluoridation in the US, Canada, New Zealandand Australia. Recently, both Wichita, Kansas and Portland, Oregonrejected fluoridation 60% to 40%. Hamilton, NZ, councilors voted 7-1 to stop 50 years of fluoridation after councilors listened to several days of testimony from those for and against fluoridation. Windsor, Ontario, stopped 51 years of fluoridation. Sixteen regional councils have halted or rejected fluoridation in Queensland since mandatory fluoridation was dropped there in Nov. 2012.

The news is spreading and a renaissance is blooming worldwide. There is no stopping it. The potential war in Syria which has no support from the American public, is a beautiful reminder that people are tuning into their own hearts and wisdom as they come to understand that war will never accomplish anything but create more war.

Conspiracy Fact

16 Conspiracy Theories That Turned Out To Be True:

16 Conspiracy Theories That Turned Out To Be True

Are you a conspiracy theorist?  If not, perhaps you should be.  Yes, there have certainly been a lot of “conspiracy theories” over the years that have turned out not to be accurate.  However, the truth is that a large number of very prominent conspiracy theories have turned out to actually be true.  So the next time that you run into some “tin foil hat wearing lunatics”, you might want to actually listen to what they have to say.  They may actually know some things that you do not.  In fact, one recent study found that “conspiracy theorists” are actually more sane than the general population.  So the next time you are tempted to dismiss someone as a “conspiracy theorist”, just remember that the one that is crazy might actually be you.  The following are 16 popular conspiracy theories that turned out to be true…

1. “They Put Cancer Viruses Into Our Vaccines”

Not all vaccines contain cancer viruses.  But tens of millions of Americans did receive vaccines with cancer viruses in them, and now we have learned that even the CDC has admitted that this is true…

The CDC has quickly removed a page from their website, which is now cached here, admitting that more than 98 million Americans received one or more doses of polio vaccine within an 8-year span when a proportion of the vaccine was contaminated with a cancer causing polyomavirus called SV40. It has been estimated that 10-30 million Americans could have received an SV40 contaminated dose of the vaccine.

SV40 is an abbreviation for Simian vacuolating virus 40 or Simian virus 40, a polyomavirus that is found in both monkeys and humans. Like other polyomaviruses, SV40 is a DNA virus that has been found to cause tumors and cancer.

2. “ATM Machines Will Someday Use Facial Recognition Technology”

According to the Daily Mail, a new generation of ATM machines is being developed that will use cutting edge facial recognition technology…

Cumbersome and slow cash machines with clunky buttons and tiny hard-to-see screens could soon be a thing of the past thanks to a range of next-generation ATMs.

Ohio-based security firm Diebold has created a touchscreen cash machine that works like a tablet computer, uses facial recognition and QR codes to identify and authenticate users, and has built-in safety cameras.

3. “The U.S. Government And Monsanto Are Teaming Up Against Opponents Of Genetically-Modified Food”

The establishment does not like those that are trying to stand in the way of genetically-modified food.  The following is from a recent Activist Post article…

A shocking new investigative report from the largest daily newspaper in Germany alleges that Monsanto, the US Military and the US government have colluded to track and disrupt both anti-GMO activists and independent scientists who study the adverse effects of genetically modified food.

As revealed yesterday by Sustainable Pulse, on July 13th the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung detailed information on how the US Government “advances the interests of their corporations,” focusing on Monsanto as a prime example.

The report titled, “The Sinister Monsanto Group: ‘Agent Orange’ to Genetically Modified Corn,” described a ‘new fangled cyber war’ being waged against both eco-activists and independent scientists by supporters and former employees of Monsanto, who are described as “operationally powerful assistants” and who have taken up sometimes high-ranking posts in the US administration, regulatory authorities, and some of whom have connections deep within the military industrial establishment, including the CIA.

4. “Someday Scientists Will Be Using Millions Of Genetically-Modified Animals In Scientific Experiments”

Did you know that literally millions of genetically-modified animals are being experimented on in labs all over the globe?…

The number of genetically modified (GM) animals used in scientific research in Britain has exceeded the number of ordinary laboratory animals for the first time, according to official statistics that show a 9 per cent overall increase in the use of experimental animals last year.

Some 4,033,310 animals were used in scientific experiments started in 2012, an increase of 322,689, or 9 per cent over the previous year. There were 1.91 million scientific “procedures” used with GM animals in 2012 compared to 1.68.m procedures on normal animals.

5. “Scientists All Over The World Are Creating Extremely Bizarre Human-Animal Hybrids”

Should scientists be creating beings that are part human and part animal?  Well, it is happening all over the planet.  Just check out some of the things that a recent Slate article says is happening in labs around the world…

Not long ago, Chinese scientists embedded genes for human milk proteins into a mouse’s genome and have since created herds of humanized-milk-producing goats. Meanwhile, researchers at the University of Michigan have a method for putting a human anal sphincter into a mouse as a means of finding better treatments for fecal incontinence, and doctors are building animals with humanized immune systems to serve as subjects for new HIV vaccines.

Pretty disgusting eh?

And here are some other ways that scientists are combining humans and animals…

-Rabbit Eggs with Human Cells

-Pigs with Human Blood

-Sheep with Human Livers

-Cow Eggs with Human Cells

-Cat-Human Hybrid Proteins

For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled “Human-Animal Hybrids: Sick And Twisted Chimeras Are Being Created In Labs All Over The Planet“.

6. “Obama Is Making Government Employees Spy On One Another”

Yes, this is actually happening.  In a previous article, I described how Obama is forcing government workers to spy on the “lifestyles, attitudes and behaviors” of their fellow employees…

Federal employees and contractors are asked to pay particular attention to the lifestyles, attitudes and behaviors – like financial troubles, odd working hours or unexplained travel – of co-workers as a way to predict whether they might do “harm to the United States.” Managers of special insider threat offices will have “regular, timely, and, if possible, electronic, access” to employees’ personnel, payroll, disciplinary and “personal contact” files, as well as records of their use of classified and unclassified computer networks, polygraph results, travel reports and financial disclosure forms.

7. “Pro Wrestling Is Fake”

We have all kind of known this for a long time, right?  Well, now someone is actually leaking the results of pro wrestling matches on the Internet before they happen…

A fan has provoked a furor in the world of professional wrestling after leaking the outcomes of 38 WWE matches ahead of the pay-per-view bouts.

The mystery fan, who identifies himself online as Dolphins1925, claims he has obtained the information from a source at Worldwide Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), and is revealing the results to highlight the organisation’s failure to keep its storylines confidential.

Dolphins1925 started posting the results on Reddit’s pro-wrestling forum after another fan launched a “prediction series”, asking users for their picks ahead of the matches. He has since maintained a perfect record, even leaking the results of contests involving wrestling superstars such as John Cena and The Undertaker.

8. “Someday Texas Is Going To Run Out Of Water”

Texas will always have plenty of water, right?

Wrong.

According to CNBC, the water crisis in some areas of Texas is rapidly reaching a breaking point…

Three straight years of blistering drought have strained Texas’ water resources. Some cities like Midland are already steeply raising their water prices. But it’s not just residents of the Lone Star State feeling parched. Texas-based companies are scrambling to reduce their water usage and enact long-term water management plans as a critical business concern.

“As the drought continues, industry’s eyes are opening,” said Jordan Furnans, senior engineer at INTERA, a Texas-based geosciences and engineering firm. Those eyes are opening to discover that more dry years are coming, he said.

There’s a desperate need for water to fuel industrial, chemical and energy operations in some parts of Texas. “If plants shut down, they’re losing millions of dollars per day,” Furnans said.

9. “The IRS Is Specifically Targeting Conservatives”

Only a small percentage of Americans would have believed this particular “conspiracy theory” last year.  But now it is all over the news.  In fact, we have just learned that applications for tax-exempt status from Tea Party groups were ordered to be sent to the only Obama political appointee at the IRS…

IRS employees were ordered by their superiors–including Lois Lerner who pleaded the 5th Amendment against self-incrimination rather than testify in Congress–to send certain Tea Party tax-exemption applications to the office of the IRS’s Chief Counsel, which was headed by William Wilkins, who at that time was the only Obama political appointee at the IRS, according to a letter released today by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

“As a part of this ongoing investigation, the Committees have learned that the IRS Chief Counsel’s office in Washington, D.C. has been closely involved in some of the applications,” reads a letter released today by the House committees on Oversight and Government and Ways and Means.  “Its involvement and demands for information about political activity during the 2010 election cycle appear to have caused systematic delays in the processing of Tea Party applications.”

10. “Fluoride Is Harmful For Your Teeth”

This is a conspiracy theory that was denied for a very long time.  But now even CNN is admitting the truth…

The Department of Health and Human Services and Environmental Protection Agency are proposing the change because of an increase in fluorosis — a condition that causes spotting and streaking on children’s teeth.

11. “Using A Cell Phone Can Cause Cancer”

Can you get cancer from using a cell phone?  Well, an increasing number of studies indicate that this is actually true…

At the highest exposure levels — using a mobile phone half an hour a day over a 10-year period — the study found a 40 percent increased risk of glioma brain tumors.

12. “Prescription Drugs Kill Large Numbers Of Americans”

Every single year, hundreds of thousands of Americans are killed by prescription drugs.  The following is a brief excerpt from a Vanity Fair article entitled “Deadly Medicine“…

Prescription drugs kill some 200,000 Americans every year. Will that number go up, now that most clinical trials are conducted overseas—on sick Russians, homeless Poles, and slum-dwelling Chinese—in places where regulation is virtually nonexistent, the F.D.A. doesn’t reach, and “mistakes” can end up in pauper’s graves?

13. “The Elite Want To Dramatically Reduce The Global Population”

Yes, many among the global elite really do want to substantially reduce the population of the planet.  The following quotes are from one of my previous articles…

–David Rockefeller: “The negative impact of population growth on all of our planetary ecosystems is becoming appallingly evident.”

–CNN Founder Ted Turner: “A total world population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.”

–Paul Ehrlich, a former science adviser to president George W. Bush and the author of “The Population Bomb”: “To our minds, the fundamental cure, reducing the scale of the human enterprise (including the size of the population) to keep its aggregate consumption within the carrying capacity of Earth is obvious but too much neglected or denied”

-Barack Obama’s primary science adviser, John P. Holdren: “The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control. The capsule could be implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births.”

–HBO personality Bill Maher: “I’m pro-choice, I’m for assisted suicide, I’m for regular suicide, I’m for whatever gets the freeway moving – that’s what I’m for. It’s too crowded, the planet is too crowded and we need to promote death.”

14. “Innocent People Are Murdered, Skinned And Dismembered During Satanic Rituals”

Satanists really do exist, and sometimes they do really, really awful things.  The following is one recent example…

Moises Meraz-Espinoza walked into the Huntington Park Police Department two years ago to report a crime: He had killed his mother.

Officers went to the Maywood apartment that the then-18-year-old factory worker shared with his mother, Amelia Espinoza, 42, and found a gruesome scene. A trail of blood led to the bathroom, where plastic covered the walls and floor. There, they found an electrical circular saw with pieces of bone, blood and flesh stuck to the blade. Nearby, in a freezer, police found skin and muscles stored in plastic bags. The woman’s skull, with all her teeth plucked out, her eyes removed and two upside-down crosses carved into the bone, was stashed in a backpack.

Prosecutors say that Meraz-Espinoza strangled his mother and then skinned, filleted and dismembered her body as part of a satanic ritual.

15. “The NSA Is Spying On Our Phone Calls, Internet Searches And Financial Transactions”

Thanks to Edward Snowden, we have learned much more about how the NSA spies on all of us.  And just this week it has come out that the NSA has no problem snooping on you if you are a friend of a friend of a friend of someone that might be a potential terrorist…

Chris Inglis, the agency’s deputy director, was one of several government representatives—including from the FBI and the office of the Director of National Intelligence—testifying before the House Judiciary Committee this morning. Most of the testimony largely echoed previous testimony by the agencies on the topic of the government’s surveillance, including a retread of the same offered examples for how the Patriot Act and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act had stopped terror events.

But Inglis’ statement was new. Analysts look “two or three hops” from terror suspects when evaluating terror activity, Inglis revealed. Previously, the limit of how surveillance was extended had been described as two hops. This meant that if the NSA were following a phone metadata or web trail from a terror suspect, it could also look at the calls from the people that suspect has spoken with—one hop. And then, the calls that second person had also spoken with—two hops. Terror suspect to person two to person three. Two hops. And now: A third hop.

16. “The Federal Reserve Is A Perpetual Debt Machine That Is Designed To Create Inflation”

The Federal Reserve is a private banking cartel that was created by the bankers and that serves the interest of the bankers.  It was designed to perpetually increase the U.S. national debt and to perpetually create inflation.  Unfortunately, it has done a great job on both counts.  Since the Federal Reserve was created back in 1913, the U.S. national debt has gotten more than 5000 times larger, and the value of the U.S. dollar has fallen by more than 96 percent.

News will kill you

News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier:

News is bad for your health. It leads to fear and aggression, and hinders your creativity and ability to think deeply. The solution? Stop consuming it altogether

 

News is bad for your health. It leads to fear and aggression, and hinders your creativity and ability to think deeply. The solution? Stop consuming it altogether. In the past few decades, the fortunate among us have recognised the hazards of living with an overabundance of food (obesity, diabetes) and have started to change our diets. But most of us do not yet understand that news is to the mind what sugar is to the body. News is easy to digest. The media feeds us small bites of trivial matter, tidbits that don’t really concern our lives and don’t require thinking. That’s why we experience almost no saturation. Unlike reading books and long magazine articles (which require thinking), we can swallow limitless quantities of news flashes, which are bright-coloured candies for the mind. Today, we have reached the same point in relation to information that we faced 20 years ago in regard to food. We are beginning to recognise how toxic news can be.

News misleads. Take the following event (borrowed from Nassim Taleb). A car drives over a bridge, and the bridge collapses. What does the news media focus on? The car. The person in the car. Where he came from. Where he planned to go. How he experienced the crash (if he survived). But that is all irrelevant. What’s relevant? The structural stability of the bridge. That’s the underlying risk that has been lurking, and could lurk in other bridges. But the car is flashy, it’s dramatic, it’s a person (non-abstract), and it’s news that’s cheap to produce. News leads us to walk around with the completely wrong risk map in our heads. So terrorism is over-rated. Chronic stress is under-rated. The collapse of Lehman Brothers is overrated. Fiscal irresponsibility is under-rated. Astronauts are over-rated. Nurses are under-rated.

We are not rational enough to be exposed to the press. Watching an airplane crash on television is going to change your attitude toward that risk, regardless of its real probability. If you think you can compensate with the strength of your own inner contemplation, you are wrong. Bankers and economists – who have powerful incentives to compensate for news-borne hazards – have shown that they cannot. The only solution: cut yourself off from news consumption entirely.

News is irrelevant. Out of the approximately 10,000 news stories you have read in the last 12 months, name one that – because you consumed it – allowed you to make a better decision about a serious matter affecting your life, your career or your business. The point is: the consumption of news is irrelevant to you. But people find it very difficult to recognise what’s relevant. It’s much easier to recognise what’s new. The relevant versus the new is the fundamental battle of the current age. Media organisations want you to believe that news offers you some sort of a competitive advantage. Many fall for that. We get anxious when we’re cut off from the flow of news. In reality, news consumption is a competitive disadvantage. The less news you consume, the bigger the advantage you have.

News has no explanatory power. News items are bubbles popping on the surface of a deeper world. Will accumulating facts help you understand the world? Sadly, no. The relationship is inverted. The important stories are non-stories: slow, powerful movements that develop below journalists’ radar but have a transforming effect. The more “news factoids” you digest, the less of the big picture you will understand. If more information leads to higher economic success, we’d expect journalists to be at the top of the pyramid. That’s not the case.

News is toxic to your body. It constantly triggers the limbic system. Panicky stories spur the release of cascades of glucocorticoid (cortisol). This deregulates your immune system and inhibits the release of growth hormones. In other words, your body finds itself in a state of chronic stress. High glucocorticoid levels cause impaired digestion, lack of growth (cell, hair, bone), nervousness and susceptibility to infections. The other potential side-effects include fear, aggression, tunnel-vision and desensitisation.

News increases cognitive errors. News feeds the mother of all cognitive errors: confirmation bias. In the words of Warren Buffett: “What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.” News exacerbates this flaw. We become prone to overconfidence, take stupid risks and misjudge opportunities. It also exacerbates another cognitive error: the story bias. Our brains crave stories that “make sense” – even if they don’t correspond to reality. Any journalist who writes, “The market moved because of X” or “the company went bankrupt because of Y” is an idiot. I am fed up with this cheap way of “explaining” the world.

News inhibits thinking. Thinking requires concentration. Concentration requires uninterrupted time. News pieces are specifically engineered to interrupt you. They are like viruses that steal attention for their own purposes. News makes us shallow thinkers. But it’s worse than that. News severely affects memory. There are two types of memory. Long-range memory’s capacity is nearly infinite, but working memory is limited to a certain amount of slippery data. The path from short-term to long-term memory is a choke-point in the brain, but anything you want to understand must pass through it. If this passageway is disrupted, nothing gets through. Because news disrupts concentration, it weakens comprehension. Online news has an even worse impact. In a 2001 study two scholars in Canada showed that comprehension declines as the number of hyperlinks in a document increases. Why? Because whenever a link appears, your brain has to at least make the choice not to click, which in itself is distracting. News is an intentional interruption system.

News works like a drug. As stories develop, we want to know how they continue. With hundreds of arbitrary storylines in our heads, this craving is increasingly compelling and hard to ignore. Scientists used to think that the dense connections formed among the 100 billion neurons inside our skulls were largely fixed by the time we reached adulthood. Today we know that this is not the case. Nerve cells routinely break old connections and form new ones. The more news we consume, the more we exercise the neural circuits devoted to skimming and multitasking while ignoring those used for reading deeply and thinking with profound focus. Most news consumers – even if they used to be avid book readers – have lost the ability to absorb lengthy articles or books. After four, five pages they get tired, their concentration vanishes, they become restless. It’s not because they got older or their schedules became more onerous. It’s because the physical structure of their brains has changed.

News wastes time. If you read the newspaper for 15 minutes each morning, then check the news for 15 minutes during lunch and 15 minutes before you go to bed, then add five minutes here and there when you’re at work, then count distraction and refocusing time, you will lose at least half a day every week. Information is no longer a scarce commodity. But attention is. You are not that irresponsible with your money, reputation or health. Why give away your mind?

News makes us passive. News stories are overwhelmingly about things you cannot influence. The daily repetition of news about things we can’t act upon makes us passive. It grinds us down until we adopt a worldview that is pessimistic, desensitised, sarcastic and fatalistic. The scientific term is “learned helplessness”. It’s a bit of a stretch, but I would not be surprised if news consumption, at least partially contributes to the widespread disease of depression.

News kills creativity. Finally, things we already know limit our creativity. This is one reason that mathematicians, novelists, composers and entrepreneurs often produce their most creative works at a young age. Their brains enjoy a wide, uninhabited space that emboldens them to come up with and pursue novel ideas. I don’t know a single truly creative mind who is a news junkie – not a writer, not a composer, mathematician, physician, scientist, musician, designer, architect or painter. On the other hand, I know a bunch of viciously uncreative minds who consume news like drugs. If you want to come up with old solutions, read news. If you are looking for new solutions, don’t.

Society needs journalism – but in a different way. Investigative journalism is always relevant. We need reporting that polices our institutions and uncovers truth. But important findings don’t have to arrive in the form of news. Long journal articles and in-depth books are good, too.

I have now gone without news for four years, so I can see, feel and report the effects of this freedom first-hand: less disruption, less anxiety, deeper thinking, more time, more insights. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.

All Wars caused by Jewish Bankers

The Jewish Connection to all wars caused by bankers is directly related to the idea that most banks are majority owned and controlled by Zionist’s Jew’s. It is well known that capitalism is a Jewish stronghold in America.  Banking throughout world history has always included Zionist Jew’s or Jew’s them self’s.  The history of banking and war profiteering is linked to the world of high finance, and is related to the Jewish world of banking. War and revolution are interwoven with International Jewish Finance. Presenting the history of, “All wars are bankers wars”. Taking a look into the untold history of War and Banking…

All Wars Are Bankers’ Wars

All Wars Are Bankers’ Wars

 

// // // // // // // // // // // //

WIKILEAKS: Surveillance Cameras Around Country Used As Huge Spy Network

WIKILEAKS: Surveillance Cameras Around The Country Are Being Used In A Huge Spy Network:

WIKILEAKS: Surveillance Cameras Around The Country Are Being Used In A Huge Spy Network

 

The U.S. cable networks won’t be covering this one tonight (not accurately, anyway), but Trapwire is making the rounds on social media today—it reportedly became a Trending hashtag on Twitter earlier in the day. Trapwire is the name of a program revealed in the latest Wikileaks bonanza—it is the mother of all leaks, by the way. Trapwire would make something like disclosure of UFO contact or imminent failure of a major U.S. bank fairly boring news by comparison. And someone out there seems to be quite disappointed that word is getting out so swiftly; the Wikileaks web site is reportedly sustaining 10GB worth of DDoS attacks each second, which is massive. Anyway, here’s what Trapwire is, according to Russian-state owned media network RT (apologies for citing “foreign media”… if we had a free press, I’d be citing something published here by an American media conglomerate): “Former senior intelligence officials have created a detailed surveillance system more accurate than modern facial recognition technology—and have installed it across the U.S. under the radar of most Americans, according to emails hacked by Anonymous. Every few seconds, data picked up at surveillance points in major cities and landmarks across the United States are recorded digitally on the spot, then encrypted and instantaneously delivered to a fortified central database center at an undisclosed location to be aggregated with other intelligence. It’s part of a program called TrapWire and it’s the brainchild of the Abraxas, a Northern Virginia company staffed with elite from America’s intelligence community. The employee roster at Arbaxas reads like a who’s who of agents once with the Pentagon, CIA and other government entities according to their public LinkedIn profiles, and the corporation’s ties are assumed to go deeper than even documented. The details on Abraxas and, to an even greater extent TrapWire, are scarce, however, and not without reason. For a program touted as a tool to thwart terrorism and monitor activity meant to be under wraps, its understandable that Abraxas would want the program’s public presence to be relatively limited. But thanks to last year’s hack of the Strategic Forecasting intelligence agency, or Stratfor, all of that is quickly changing.” So: those spooky new “circular” dark globe cameras installed in your neighborhood park, town, or city—they aren’t just passively monitoring. They’re plugged into Trapwire and they are potentially monitoring every single person via facial recognition. In related news, the Obama administration is fighting in federal court this week for the ability to imprison American citizens under NDAA’s indefinite detention provisions—and anyone else—without charge or trial, on suspicion alone. So we have a widespread network of surveillance cameras across America monitoring us and reporting suspicious activity back to a centralized analysis center, mixed in with the ability to imprison people via military force on the basis of suspicious activity alone. I don’t see how that could possibly go wrong. Nope, not at all. We all know the government, and algorithmic computer programs, never make mistakes. Here’s what is also so disturbing about this whole NDAA business, according to Tangerine Bolen’s piece in the Guardian: “This past week’s hearing was even more terrifying. Government attorneys again, in this hearing, presented no evidence to support their position and brought forth no witnesses. Most incredibly, Obama’s attorneys refused to assure the court, when questioned, that the NDAA’s section 1021 – the provision that permits reporters and others who have not committed crimes to be detained without trial – has not been applied by the U.S. government anywhere in the world after Judge Forrest’s injunction. In other words, they were telling a U.S. federal judge that they could not, or would not, state whether Obama’s government had complied with the legal injunction that she had laid down before them. To this, Judge Forrest responded that if the provision had indeed been applied, the United States government would be in contempt of court.”