How the universe works: Clockwork and Creation

How the universe works: Clockwork and Creation
July 31, 2013 | Extinction Protocol

Scientists have discovered that our solar system is very unique. Earth is located in a star system that is by no means the norm in space. As a matter of fact, our solar system appears to be the exception. A stunning exception, in the way it’s laid out to actually foster the very conditions on Earth which makes life possible. In the universe at large, chaos, explosions, and mind-bending collisions between massive celestial bodies appear to be commonplace. After you watch this video, you may never see our little blue planet quite the same again.

Is Our Sun In The Very Early Stages Of Shutting Down?

Is Our Sun In The Very Early Stages Of Shutting Down?
July 29, 2013 | The Truth Wins | Michael Synder

Something is up with the sun.  It has begun to behave very erratically, and scientists don’t know quite what to make of it.  Sunspot activity appears to be slowing down with each new cycle and absolutely gigantic holes have started to appear in the sun.  At the moment, the sun is approaching the peak of its 11 year cycle, and an increasing number of scientists are becoming concerned about what the next cycle will bring.  If sunspot activity continues to diminish, could the sunspot cycle eventually die altogether?  Is it possible that we could be approaching another ice age?  Even worse, could the increasingly erratic behavior of the sun be an indication that the sun is dying?  Traditionally, scientists have taught that the sun won’t die until billions of years from now, but in recent years astronomers have observed stars similar to our own sun suddenly begin to behave very erratically and then rapidly die.  Is it possible that the same thing could happen to our sun?

It is a fact that the current solar cycle has been the weakest in 100 years.  This has many scientists searching for answers…

The Sun is acting weird. It typically puts on a pageant of magnetic activity every 11 years for aurora watchers and sungazers alike, but this time it overslept. When it finally woke up (a year late), it gave the weakest performance in 100 years.

What’s even weirder is that scientists, who aren’t usually shy about tossing hypotheses about, are at a loss for a good explanation.

Of course most scientists insist that everything is going to be okay and that we don’t have a thing to be worried about, but others are not so sure.

For example, Matthew Penn of the National Solar Observatory believes that a new ice age may be on the way…

Penn offered another, more catastrophic option: the sunspot cycle might die altogether. His team uses sunspot spectra to measure their magnetic fields, and his data show a clear trend: the magnetic field strength in sunspots is waning.

“If this trend continues, there will be almost no spots in Cycle 25, and we might be going into another Maunder Minimum,” Penn states. The first Maunder Minimum occurred during the second half of the 17th century. Almost no spots were seen on the Sun during this time, which coincided with Europe’s Little Ice Age.

Another strange phenomenon that astronomers are watching closely is the appearance of absolutely massive holes in the sun.  Just recently, a massive hole that covered nearly a fourth of the entire surface of the sun made headlines all over the globe…

A space telescope aimed at the sun has spotted a gigantic hole in the solar atmosphere — a dark spot that covers nearly a quarter of our closest star, spewing solar material and gas into space.

The so-called coronal hole over the sun’s north pole came into view between July 13 and 18 and was observed by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO. NASA released a video of the sun hole as seen by the SOHO spacecraft, showing the region as a vast dark spot surrounded by solar activity.

This comes on the heels of another giant hole in the sun that was spotted between May 28 and 31.

So is this something to be alarmed about?

Some scientists say yes and others say no.

Meanwhile, the weather here on Earth is becoming very erratic.

Just a few weeks ago, high temperatures in the southwest United States approached 120 degrees, and record temperatures are being set all over Siberia right now.

Summers seem to be getting hotter, winters seem to be getting colder, droughts seem to be getting more intense and we are seeing record setting floods all over the planet.  For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled “22 Signs That Global Weather Patterns Are Going Absolutely Crazy“.

In addition, as I mentioned in a previous article, we seem to be witnessing an increase in the number of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions along “the Ring of Fire” this year.  Recent examples include New Zealand, Peru and Japan.

Does all of this have anything to do with the activity of the sun?

Some people think so.

And what does all of this mean for the future of the United States?  In my new novel, there is a major earthquake along the New Madrid fault line and a major volcanic eruption on the west coast.  I included those disasters in my book for a reason.  Many believe that major earth changes are on the way, and many believe that the sun will play a major role in those earth changes.

Also, could it be possible that the activity of the sun has something to do with the mysterious hum that people are hearing all over the globe?…

It creeps in slowly in the dark of night, and once inside, it almost never goes away.

It’s known as the Hum, a steady, droning sound that’s heard in places as disparate as Taos, N.M.; Bristol, England; and Largs, Scotland.

But what causes the Hum, and why it only affects a small percentage of the population in certain areas, remain a mystery, despite a number of scientific investigations.

And could the activity of the sun have something to do with the strange unexplained sounds in the sky that so many people have been hearing in recent years?

Nobody really knows the answer, but we shouldn’t be afraid to ask these kinds of questions.

The truth is that at some point our sun is going to die.  Virtually everyone agrees on that.  The following is from an article posted on scienceblogs.com…

The fact that the Sun, our Sun, the bringer of warmth, light, energy, and the sustaining force of all life on this planet, isn’t going to shine forever. Quite to the contrary, someday, the Sun will die in a fiery, catastrophic explosion, one which will quite possibly obliterate our entire planet, and then eventually cease to shine at all.

Most scientists believe that we are still “billions of years” away from that happening, but not everyone agrees.  And when our sun does die, it is likely going to look something like this…

Basically, the sun’s chemical make up will cause it to grow twice as bright and twice as big as it is now, thus increasing Earth’s temperature from a mean of 68 degrees Fahrenheit to 167 degrees Fahrenheit and completely obliterating our planet’s oceans. That’s just the start.

Eventually, the sun will increase to a size 166 times larger than it is now, and literally melt Earth’s mountains, creating a planet dominated by flowing lava. As the sun grows bigger, its atmosphere will be shot off into space, pushing everything around it further away. Once that period ends, and once the sun basically runs out of fuel, it’ll approach the end of its cycle, and actually increase even more to 180 times the size it is now while also becoming thousands of times brighter.

Could it be possible that our sun is in the very early stages of shutting down already?  There are some people out there that are absolutely convinced that our sun is using up it’s hydrogen fuel at a much faster rate than previously believed.  And there are some people out there that are absolutely convinced that once the hydrogen gets down to a certain level that it will set off a chain reaction that will ultimately lead to the death of our sun.

So how soon could that happen?  Is it possible that the sun is rapidly running out of time?

Please feel free to share what you think by posting a comment below…

About the author: Michael T. Snyder is a former Washington D.C. attorney who now publishes The Truth.  His new novel entitled “The Beginning Of The End” is now available on Amazon.com.

Bank of America whistleblowers say they were told to lie about mortgages

© Natural News

Bank of America whistleblowers say they were told to lie about mortgages
July 30, 2013 | Natural News | J. D. Heyes

Americans still reeling from the collapse of the U.S. housing market and who lost homes or tens of thousands of dollars in equity are going to be especially upset by news that one of the lenders at the heart of the collapse, Bank of America, is guilty of fleecing borrowers and rewarding foreclosures.

According to BoA employees-turned-whistleblowers who have signed sworn statements attesting to the validity of their accusations, "Bank of America employees regularly lied to homeowners seeking loan modifications, denied their applications for made-up reasons, and were rewarded for sending homeowners to foreclosure," investigative journal ProPublica is reporting.

The statements were filed in mid-June in a Boston federal court as part of a multi-state class-action lawsuit brought by homeowners who attempted to avoid foreclosure via the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), a government program, but say their cases were botched by BoA.

Homeowners denied en masse 

As expected, BoA is officially denying any wrongdoing, with a spokesman telling ProPublica that to a person, the former employees' claims are "rife with factual inaccuracies," adding that the bank planned to address the accusations more fully in July.

The spokesman, who was not identified by name, went on to say that BoA was responsible for modifying more loans than any other U.S. bank, and that the financial institution is continuing to "demonstrate our commitment to assisting customers who are at risk of foreclosure."

A half dozen former employees actually worked for BoA, while one worked for a contractor. "They range from former managers to front-line employees, and all dealt with homeowners seeking to avoid foreclosure through the government's program," ProPublica reported.

When HAMP was launched by the Obama Administration in 2009, the housing collapse was still ravaging the U.S. economy and homeowners. At the time, BoA was, by far, the largest mortgage servicing institution in the program, with twice as many loans eligible as the next largest institution.

According to the former employees, BoA - besieged with a rush of panicked homeowners - the bank would often either mislead them or deny their applications for bogus reasons.

William Wilson, Jr., an underwriter and manager for BoA from 2010 to 2012, said at times large groups of homeowners were denied at once via a procedure called a "blitz." Per Pro Publica:

As part of the modification applications, homeowners were required to send in documents with their financial information. About twice a month, Wilson said, the bank ordered that all files with documentation 60 or more days old simply be denied.

"During a blitz, a single team would decline between 600 and 1,500 modification files at a time," he said in his sworn statement. In order to justify such mass denials, employees devised fictitious reasons for the rejections, such as claiming that the homeowner had not filed the appropriate paperwork when they really had.

Mass denials like these may also have occurred at other financial institutions, the report said.

Chris Wyatt, formerly of Goldman Sachs subsidiary Litton Loan Servicing, told Pro Publica last year that the firm sometimes conducted "denial sweeps" of applicants, to reduce backlogs. At the time, a Goldman Sachs spokesperson denied Wyatt's claims but offered nothing to refute him.

Still 'too big to fail' 

Of the whistleblowers, five said they were encouraged to mislead customers.

"We were told to lie to customers and claim that Bank of America had not received documents it had requested," said Simone Gordon, an senior collector at the bank from 2007 until early 2012. "We were told that admitting that the Bank received documents 'would open a can of worms,'" she added, noting that BoA was required to underwrite applications within 30 days of receiving homeowners' documents, but that the bank did not have adequate staff for the task.

"Wilson said each underwriter commonly had 400 outstanding applications awaiting review," ProPublica reported.

Added Salon.com:

In reality, Bank of America used [the program] as a tool, say these former employees, to squeeze as much money as possible out of struggling borrowers before eventually foreclosing on them.

Despite so-called financial reforms passed in the wake of the housing scandal, BoA and others remain "too big to fail" (http://www.ft.com).

Sources for this article include:

http://www.salon.com

http://www.propublica.org

http://www.ft.com

The Banks' Mafia: Robbing Your Fully Paid Home | Brainwash Update

The Banks' Mafia: Robbing Your Fully Paid Home | Brainwash Update
July 29, 2013 | breakingtheset

Abby Martin goes over the case of Katie Barnett, an Ohio resident who had her home mistaken for one that was foreclosed. Bank thugs robbed and ransacked Barnett's home yet is refusing to pay for the damages. Sadly, her case is far from uncommon.



Related:

You Can’t Handle The Truth - by Tampa Attorney Mark Stopa

Solar Cycle #24: On track to be the weakest in 100 years

© Hathaway/NASA/MSFC
Projected vs observed sunspot numbers
for solar cycles #23 & #24.

Solar Cycle #24: On track to be the weakest in 100 years
July 29, 2013 | David Dickinson | Universe Today

Our nearest star has exhibited some schizophrenic behavior thus far for 2013.

By all rights, we should be in the throes of a solar maximum, an 11-year peak where the Sun is at its most active and dappled with sunspots.

Thus far though, Solar Cycle #24 has been off to a sputtering start, and researchers that attended the meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Solar Physics Division earlier this month are divided as to why."Not only is this the smallest cycle we've seen in the space age, it's the smallest cycle in 100 years," NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center research scientist David Hathaway said during a recent press teleconference conducted by the Marshall Space Flight Center.

Cycle #23 gave way to a profound minimum that saw a spotless Sol on 260 out of 365 days (71%!) in 2009. Then, #Cycle 24 got off to a late start, about a full year overdue - we should have seen a solar maximum in 2012, and now that's on track for the late 2013 to early 2014 time frame. For solar observers, both amateur, professional and automated, its seems as if the Sun exhibits a "split-personality" this year, displaying its active Cycle #24-self one week, only to sink back into a blank despondency the next.

This new cycle has also been asymmetrical as well. One hallmark heralding the start of a new cycle is the appearance of sunspots at higher solar latitudes on the disk of the Sun. These move progressively toward the Sun's equatorial regions as the cycle progresses, and can be mapped out in what's known as a Spörer's Law.

© NASA/MSFC
The sunspot number “butterfly” graph, illustrating Spörer’s Law
that susnpots gradually migrate towards the equator
of the Sun as the solar cycle progresses.

But the northern hemisphere of the Sun has been much more active since 2006, with the southern hemisphere experiencing a lag in activity. "Usually this asymmetry lasts a year or so, and then the hemispheres synchronize," said Giuliana de Toma of the High Altitude Observatory.

So far, several theories have been put forth as to why our tempestuous star seems to be straying from its usual self. Along with the standard 11-year cycle, it's thought that there may be a longer, 100 year trend of activity and subsidence known as the Gleissberg Cycle.

The Sun is a giant ball of gas, rotating faster (25 days) at the equator than at the poles, which rotate once every 34.5 days. This dissonance sets up a massive amount of torsion, causing the magnetic field lines to stretch and snap, releasing massive amounts of energy. The Sun also changes polarity with every sunspot cycle, another indication that a new cycle is underway.



 But predictions have run the gamut for Cycle #24. Recently, solar scientists have projected a twin peaked solar maximum for later this year, and thus far, Sol seems to be following this modified trend. Initial predictions by scientists at the start of Cycle #24 was for the sunspot number to have reached 90 by August 2013; but here it is the end of July, and we're sitting at 68, and it seems that we'll round out the northern hemisphere Summer at a sunspot number of 70 or so.

Some researchers predict that the following sunspot Cycle #25 may even be absent all together.

"If this trend continues, there will be almost no spots in Cycle 25," Noted Matthew Penn of the National Solar Observatory, hinting that we may be on the edge of another Maunder Minimum.

© D. Hathaway/NASA/MSFC
Looking back over solar cycles for the past 500 years.

The Maunder Minimum was a period from 1645 to 1715 where almost no sunspots were seen. This span of time corresponded to a medieval period known as the Little Ice Age. During this era, the Thames River in London froze, making Christmas "Frost Fairs" possible on the ice covered river. Several villages in the Swiss Alps were also consumed by encroaching glaciers, and the Viking colony established in Greenland perished. The name for the period comes from Edward Maunder, who first noted the minimum in papers published in the 1890s. The term came into modern vogue after John Eddy published a paper on the subject in the journal of Science in 1976. Keep in mind, the data from the period covered by the Maunder Minimum is far from complete - Galileo had only started sketching sunspots via projection only a few decades prior to the start of the Maunder Minimum. But tellingly, there was a span of time in the early 18^th century when many researchers supposed that sunspots were a myth! They were really THAT infrequent...

Just what roll a pause in the solar cycle might play in the climate change debate remains to be seen. Perhaps, humanity is getting a brief (and lucky) reprieve, a chance to get serious about controlling our own destiny and doing something about anthropogenic climate-forcing. On a more ominous note, however, an extended cooling phase may give us reason to stall on preparing for the the inevitable, while giving ammunition to deniers, who like to site natural trends exclusively.

© David Dickinson
Down but not out? Sol looking more like its solar
max-self earlier this month on July 8th.

Whatever occurs, we now have an unprecedented fleet of solar monitoring spacecraft on hand to watch the solar drama unfold. STEREO A & B afford us a 360 degree view of the Sun. SOHO has now monitored the Sun for the equivalent of more than one solar cycle, and NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory has joined it in its scrutiny. NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) just launched earlier this year, and has already begun returning views of the solar atmosphere in unprecedented detail. Even spacecraft such as MESSENGER orbiting Mercury can give us vital data from other vantage points in the solar system.

Cycle #24 may be a lackluster performer, but I'll bet the Sun has a few surprises in store. You can always get a freak cloud burst, even in the middle of a drought. Plus, we're headed towards northern hemisphere Fall, a time when aurora activity traditionally picks up.

Be sure to keep a (safely filtered) eye on ol' Sol - it may be the case over these next few years that "no news is big news!"

Japan's China Syndrome: Fukushima radiation levels as high as 2011

AFP Photo / Pool / Toshifumi Kitamura

Japan's China Syndrome: Fukushima radiation levels as high as 2011
July 27, 2013 | RT

Water samples taken at an underground passage below the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant contain alarming levels of radiation which are comparable to those taken immediately after the catastrophe.

According to a Saturday statement by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the tested water contains 2.35 billion becquerels of cesium per liter, and the radioactive water is now seeping into the sea. The findings were also evident from samples taken within a 50-meter radius around the plant.

TEPCO’s specialists have hit a wall trying to solve the problem of the leaking groundwater, which has persisted since 2011. However, unlike then, they cannot tell what the source of the newfound radioactivity is. The current explanation is that the radioactive water that had been left in the underground trench some two years ago is now mixing with the groundwater, which is in turn contaminating the sea.

The current investigation started back in May, when specialists registered a 17-fold hike in radiation levels compared to December 2012. More tests immediately followed.

In July, scientists found high tritium levels – 20 per cent higher than just two months before. At the beginning of the month, cesium levels also went up by an astonishing 22 per cent from the previous day. The legal limit of 90 becquerels per liter was exceeded by around 22,000 becquerels.

On July 10, scientists warned about possible sea contamination, although they had no evidence at the time.  

On Monday, however, TEPCO discovered that radiation levels were rising and falling together with the tide. This has led them to their latest theory - that the leftover trench water from 2011 is indeed mixing with the underground water that flows straight into the Pacific.

The only theoretical solution at this point is to build a wall of liquid glass between the nuclear reactors and the sea, siphoning off contaminated water from the underground trench.

Steam has also been seen emerging from one of the damaged reactors on three occasions, sparking further fears about the state of the wrecked plant.

Meanwhile, TEPCO has had to sustain bad publicity after it was revealed that it delayed publishing the summer study which sparked these newfound fears - which were realized just days after TEPCO reassured the public that the water was safely enclosed. The government has labeled the company’s behavior as “deplorable.”

Related:

Chris Hedges: "Markets and Morals."

Chris Hedges: "Markets and Morals."
July 28, 2013 | Information Clearing House

Chris Hedges argued that American propaganda has done two key things. Through a “bombardment of cultural lies and manipulations,” it has erased every progressive movement from the face of the country.

The system has also created a “psychosis of permanent war,” Hedges said.

Hedges, traced the demise of liberal values in America since World War I and emphasized the importance of social movements in maintaining democracy.


Posted July 24: 2013

Scotland lunar-calendar find sparks Stone Age rethink

Scotland lunar-calendar find sparks Stone Age rethink
July 27, 2013 | Phys.org

Archeologists have discovered a lunar calendar in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, that is nearly ten thousand years old. Their findings show that the calendar makers (1) thought about time and (2) figured out a means to follow it at a period in history that was still in the Stone Age. The discovery is considered both surprising and important because it now places a calendar nearly five thousand years before what was previously considered as the first formal calendar, created in Mesopotamia 5,000 years ago. But here, a discovery has been made of a calendar construct appearing to track the phases of the moon nearly 10,000 years ago.

Scientists are now calling this discovery in Scotland that seems to mimic the phases of the moon to track lunar months the world's oldest known calendar.

"What we are looking at here is a very important step in humanity's earliest formal construction of time, even the start of history itself," said Vincent Gaffney, professor of landscape archaeology at Birmingham University, who led the team who analyzed the pits and their functions.

Also referred to as the "Warren Field calendar," referring to the land area in Aberdeenshire where the calendar was found, the discovery consists of an array of 12 pits and arc. They appear to represent the phases of the moon, going from waxing and waning to central arc, corresponding to the lunar months of the year.

However, said Prof. Gaffney, because the lunar year does not correspond to the natural year, the sequence had to be calibrated annually, and the site seems to align along the midwinter solstice, indicating that each year it was calibrated, and kept good time.

The experts believe the site dates back to around 8000 BC. Gaffney and team in their paper on the subject observed that the site "also aligns on the south east horizon and a prominent topographic point associated with sunrise on the midwinter solstice. In doing so the monument anticipates problems associated with simple lunar calendars by providing an annual astronomic correction in order to maintain the link between the passage of time indicated by the Moon, the asynchronous solar year, and the associated seasons."

Although previously excavated back in 2005, geophysical survey teams from several universities have been working to map the sites again and to look for further features. The Warren Field site was first discovered as unusual crop marks spotted from the air by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS).

The pit-creators are identified as a Mesolithic group, referring to a group of cultures between Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The three "lithics" belong to the Stone Age, and the Mesolithic were a transition group who succeeded in adapting to a collecting and fishing as well as hunting economy The question remains, why did these hunter gatherers track the phases of the moon? For hunting purposes? To explore celestial bodies?

One theory comes from project member, Dr Christopher Gaffney, Archeological Science at the University of Bradford:

"For pre-historic hunter-gatherer communities, knowing what food resources were available at different times of the year was crucial to survival. These communities relied on hunting migrating animals and the consequences of missing these events were potential starvation. They needed to carefully note the seasons to be prepared for when that food resource passed through, so from this perspective, our interpretation of this site as a seasonal calendar makes sense."

Let’s Eat Our Landscaping: Video

Corn Growing in Front of the Todmorden Police Station

Let’s Eat Our Landscaping: Video
July 25, 2013 | Gaia Health Blog

Pam Warhurst tells how she and her community decided to start a revolution by growing food in public spaces. They didn’t consult. They didn’t write reports. They didn’t ask for permission. They just did it. 

In just a short time, their town became a lush garden, full of food-growing plants. Almost everyone can be involved, and after awhile, almost everyone wants to be involved. That’s the power of people doing something for themselves. Nothing can stop us!


Pam Warhurst is thoroughly entertaining as she explains how they did it—and how you can, too! [13:22]

Strangling the City: How ‘Sustainable’ is Boxing in Freedom

Strangling the City: How ‘Sustainable’ is Boxing in Freedom
July 26, 2013 | TruthStream Media / Aaron Dykes

Is the city building up or closing in?

At least in Austin, it is thus: The city is moving in all around us; but look carefully, those amenities are boxing us in, not setting us free.

We made some comments about the Texas capital’s heavy dose of Agenda 21 in this mostly informal video that shows some of the city’s recent development:



So goes the nation, or is this just our local issue? By the appearances of America2050.org (driven by the Regional Plan Association and funded by both the Rockefeller Foundation and Ford Foundation) effort to create densely populated Megaregions across the country, I would wager the answer to be ‘yes.’ The plan would essentially double the population of existing metropolitan areas.

The federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) grants given to local communities, in turn partnered with the Dept. of Traffic and EPA, correspond with this agenda.

“Sustainability” is one of the key phrases used to justify this huge consolidation, not just of populations, but of power. But who elected regional planners to redesign the nation? No one, that’s who.

In Central Texas, vast authority was handed over to an organization called CAPCOG, the Capital Area Council of Governments, which is comprised of appointed leaders and which overseas a number of key development projects related to transportation, housing, zoning, economic re-development and etc. Similar organizations – lacking elected leaders, sufficient accountability or even general public awareness – exist across the nation.

As Melissa Melton previously reported, for Austin, as in other locales, this includes implementation of the “smart grid,” the adoption of international building codes, control over thermostat data, greater emphasis on mixed-use building structures, more multifamily units, and the like.

As a growing metropolitan city, Austin stands out as a prime example, in fact. Not only has Austin received HUD Sustainable Communities grants, but it has been designated by ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability USA (who have been integral since 1992 in the implementation of the United Nations’ Agenda 21 goals) as one of ten STAR Beta Communities across the United States. Emblematic of this is the Mueller Community, which has been developed by regional planners to incorporate the sanitized, vision of a ‘sustainable urban’ Stepford Wives lifestyle in an ‘advanced smart grid’ model.

Unlike the East Coast, Texas is mostly new to super dense population zones. While buses exist, trains are sparse even in Houston and Dallas, and few are accustomed to mass transportation as a way of life. But with the politically shady imposition of toll roads, light rail (a taxpayer funded inner-city rail scheme) and an attempt to link urban living with “emerging Megaregions” like the “Texas Triangle,” that is changing.

For years, I passed by the Plaza Saltillo Metro Rail stop just a few blocks East of the famed 6th Street downtown area vibrant with the city’s night life and plenty of intoxicated patrons who could probably use a lift. But never have I seen anyone waiting at that rail station, day or night. And over the course of years, I never spotted the actual train – not once. Did it even exist?

I never got a direct answer to that rhetorical question floating around in my head, but I was delayed in my (rather despicable) automobile travel activities by a related end just a few weeks ago.

It was rush hour on North Lamar, and things were already busy and stressful on the road. The rail road barriers came down and things came to grinding halt. I assumed a freight train was hauling through and I wondered how many cars it would be and how long it would take. Instead, for a solid two or three minutes nothing at all came by.

Still the barriers impeded the busy flow of traffic. But nothing. It was another minute, maybe even two before the train finally crossed over what is a major road through the city of Austin.

When it finally came, the train was not a freighter hauling industrial products or commercial goods, but a two car metro rail ‘train’. Little had I noticed that over in the corner was a station dubbed Crestview, officially ‘west of Lamar between Justin St. and St. John’s Ave.’ And as surely as I was eager to get moving on those taxpayer roads, I realized that no one – not a soul – was visibly in that train. Not one passenger, yet the metro rail stop had blocked hundreds of cars for a full 4 or maybe even 5 minutes.

Is that outrageous? Or just what Texans can expect to face in coming years, along with higher taxes to cover new infrastructure and a fresh push for more trains and toll roads (encircling cities like Austin and typically built on top of, or taking over, taxpayer-funded roads), alongside the literal rise of dozens of new skyscrapers, and more and more “mixed use” buildings that include trendy shops, overpriced condos short on floor space, and a growing population of metro-minded dupes.

Subways and trains make plenty of sense in New York City and other East Coast metro areas, and quite a few European cities I’ve visited, however briefly. But this kind of transition in Texas and other areas of heartland America will not come without significant growing pains, plenty of cost, and a drastic but understated loss of sovereignty.

It is already being reported that California’s high speed rail is ‘collapsing’ under the strain of corruption. At a minimum, it is burdening West Coast dwellers with the high cost of graft and over-budgeted boondoggles.

Again, all this ‘concentrated growth’ is sold in the name of “sustainability” or protecting the environment. But consider for one moment what would happen in the event of economic collapse, civil unrest, food shortages, natural disasters/terror attacks, or even temporary shortages (for whatever reason). The biggest cities in the country would quickly become the worst possible places to be. Statistically, the average home only holds a few days worth of food before they run out, while grocery stores hold only a three or four days worth of food. Electricity outages or the like could potentially cause panic even quicker than food.

Without going into all the details, that picture should get across one simple concept: an urban zone like this is not “sustainable” in any real sense.

That kind of sustainability is a myth.

Related:

25 Facts About The Fall Of Detroit That Will Leave You Shaking Your Head

Fracking up America | Interview with Tyson Slocum

© RT

Fracking up America | Interview with Tyson Slocum
July 25, 2013 | breakingtheset

Abby Martin talks to Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen's energy program, about the dangerous side effects of fracking, and whether or not supporters of the practice are right about hydraulic fracturing being a good alternative to dirty energy.

Scientists confirm: Pesticides kill America's honey bees

Reuters / Stephane Mahe

Scientists confirm: Pesticides kill America's honey bees
July 25, 2013 | RT

Honey bees are quickly disappearing from the US – a phenomenon that has left scientists baffled. But new research shows that bees exposed to common agricultural chemicals while pollinating US crops are less likely to resist a parasitic infection.

As a result of chemical exposure, honey bees are more likely to succumb to the lethal Nosema ceranae parasite and die from the resulting complications.

Scientists from the University of Maryland and the US Department of Agriculture on Wednesday published a study that linked chemicals, including fungicides, to the mass die-offs. Scientists have long struggled to find the cause behind the Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), in which an estimated 10 million beehives at an average value of $200 each have been lost since 2006.

Last winter, the honey bee population declined by 31.1 percent, with some beekeepers reporting losses of 90 to 100 percent of their bee populations. Scientists are concerned that “Beemageddon” could cause the collapse of the $200 billion agriculture industry, since more than 100 US crops rely on honey bees to pollinate them.

The new findings are key in determining one of the causes of the CCD, but they fail to explain why entire beehives sometimes die at once.

UMD and DOA researchers found that pollen samples in fields ranging from Delaware to Maine contained nine different agricultural chemicals, including fungicides, herbicides, insecticides and miticides. One particular sample even contained 21 different agricultural chemicals. To test their theory, they fed pesticide-ridden pollen samples to healthy bees and then infected them with the parasite. They found that the pesticides hindered the bees’ abilities to resist the infection, thus contributing to their deaths. The fungicide chlorothalonil was particularly damaging, tripling the risks of parasitic infection. 

“We don’t think of fungicides as having a negative effect on bees, because they’re not designed to kill insects,” Dennis vanEngelsdorp, the study’s senior author, said in a news release.

He explained that federal regulations restrict the use of insecticides while pollinators are foraging, but noted that “there are no such restrictions on fungicides, so you’ll often see fungicide applications going on while bees are foraging on the crop. The finding suggests that we have to reconsider that policy.”

Bees are declining at such a fast rate that one bad winter could trigger an agricultural disaster. California’s almond crop would be hit particularly hard, since the state supplies 80 percent of the world’s almonds.

Pollinating California’s 760,000 acres of almond fields requires 1.5 million out-of-state bee colonies, which makes up 60 percent of the country’s beehives. The CCD is a major threat to this $4 billion industry.

Entomologists suspect that a number of other factors also contribute to the CCD, including climate change, habitat destructing and handling practices that expose bees to foreign pathogens. But the effect of agricultural chemicals is particularly alarming, especially since the US does not have laws banning the use of the pesticides that are affecting bee health.

“The pesticide issue in itself is much more complex than we have led to believe,” vanEngelsdorp said. “It’s a lot more complicated than just one product, which means of course the solution does not lie in just banning one class of product.”

ANCIENT PYRAMIDS IN ANTARTIC? JULY 25 2013 (EXPLAINED)

ANCIENT PYRAMIDS IN ANTARTIC? JULY 25 2013 (EXPLAINED)
July 25, 2013 | GabeHashTV


VER VIDEO EN ESPAÑOL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we5iB-...

Link original photo of alleged pyramid
http://www.mountainguides.com/wordpre...

Link Nanutak National Gerographic
http://www.natgeocreative.com/photogr...

PAGINA WEB
http://www.gabehash.com/
YOUTUBE
http://www.youtube.com/Gabehash (Canal Español)
http://www.youtube.com/GabehashTV (English Channel)
TWITTER
https://twitter.com/GABEHASH
FACEBOOK
http://www.facebook.com/losamigosdega...

In conclusion, the location, structure and the references found on the Internet suggest that the alleged pyramids are a natural phenomenon called Nunataks common in glacial areas.

If not why so many climbers who have been there were not aware of the pyramids? Is it because it is a natural phenomenon that are used to seeing?

In the end this is just our opinion of the news and you are those who have the final word. Judge for yourself.
.
.(Read more http://www.gabehash.com/)

Police Defend Bank that Looted Wrong House, Won't Return or Pay

Police Defend Bank that Looted Wrong House, Won't Return or Pay
July 24, 2013 | Activist Post | Miss Prepper Pots

Ohio takes the cake again on Activist Post by being a state that defends bank robbers - that is banks who rob.

Katie Barnett of McArthur came home a few weeks ago to find everything in the house gone. She eventually discovered that First National bank mistakenly foreclosed the wrong house -- but kept her stuff. Not only did they clear everything out like the Grinch, but they changed the locks. Their actual foreclosure target had been the house across the street.

This matters not to the bank president who responded to her $18,000 estimate for wrongfully stolen goods with a firm:

We’re not paying you retail here, that’s just the way it is.

But they make no attempt for remedy and the actual translation is: Oops, nothing we can do now. (Without the Oops)

 Barnett says:

I did not tell them to come in my house and make me an offer. They took my stuff and I want it back.

Now, I’m just angry... It wouldn’t be a big deal if they would step up and say ‘I’m sorry, we will replace your stuff.’ Instead, I’m getting attitude from them. They’re sarcastic when they talk to me. They make it sound like I’m trying to rip the bank off. All I want is my stuff back.

Additionally, the police chief closed the case!

Katie remains without any of her things and no compensation for theft and damages. All they really told her is that they sent someone to possess the correct house and GPS led the person to the wrong address - the lawn hadn't been mowed so they "just assumed" and broke in. All her items were taken, some were sold, given away or trashed! How can this situation be truly remedied; and if she quoted retail prices, what's wrong with that, as the only way to get them back is to buy again? What of irreplaceable items like heirlooms and multi-generational family albums?

10TV News reports that the bank president wishes to come to terms with Barnett, but so far nothing indicates restitution for this blaring offense.

A lot of people prepare for various reasons, even insulating from possible job loss and economic downturns. Imagine working hard, preparing and then having the bank clear your home with the protection of the town's police chief.


 Sources:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/24/1226218/-Ohio-bank-steals-woman-s-possessions-by-mistake-then-refuses-to-pay-up#
http://www.10tv.com/content/stories/2013/07/22/athens-county-woman-wants-possessions-back-after-bank-tried-to-repossess-wrong-house.html

Could fracking finally kill off rural America?

© Gasland 2
If drillers get their way, rural America will have no
escape from fracking. U.S. map showing waterways
(in blue) over shale gas plays (in red).

SOTT: Could fracking finally kill off rural America?
July 23, 2013 | Erik Curren | Transition Voice

Gasland 2, the sequel to Josh Fox's documentary about the dangers of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas, introduces a frightening image.

It's not another money shot of tap water on fire, though the water well hose lit up by the owner of a multimillion dollar home in Parker County, Texas is a wonder.

Nor is the most frightening image an internal gas industry memo labeling residents of small towns in Pennsylvania or New York State an "insurgency" that must be put down with PSYOPS techniques honed by the military in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The most frightening image in Gasland 2 is a map of the United States covered with potential fracking sites.

The United States of Fracking

Look at the map. It's hard to find a state whose water supply doesn't originate in or cross through a place that the industry would like to frack.

So what? The U.S. government says that fracking can be done without harm to groundwater. And the industry claims that no study has ever proven that fracking has contaminated one single water supply.

Don't believe them, says Fox, with plenty of science to back him up. Using that science, the Gasland 2 website gives a clear answer to the question "Is fracking safe?"

No. Fracking, as currently practiced across the United States, poses serious risks to the health and safety of communities and the environment.

Water supplies across the country have been contaminated by fracking. There have been multiple documented cases where natural gas, or methane, has migrated out of wells and into underground aquifers. The fracking process also forces gallons of chemically-treated water into the ground along with numerous byproducts including chemicals, naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORMs), dissolved solids, liquid hydrocarbons including benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene, and heavy metals.

Wanna be a farmer? Fuggedaboutit.

The implications of fracking America go far beyond whether your natural gas bill stays low or some bedraggled folks in flyover states get somewhat more bedgraggled because they have to have their drinking water trucked in.

It's not just Detroit that has gone bankrupt. Today, urban industrialism looks more ready than ever to collapse under the weight of its own staggering financial, ecological and spiritual debt.

Rural areas have had it tough for decades, losing family farms to industrial agriculture, losing Main Street shops to Walmart and losing young people to the allure of the big city. Yet these days, judging by all the back-to-the-landers, homesteaders and greenhorns fleeing corporate cubicles for fields of produce and pigs, you'd think that rural America was on the verge of a renaissance, ready to step up and provide the nation with wholesome food, natural carbon sequestration and a sense of community that our alienated citizenry yearns for.

Then - bam! - enter the frackers to put the kabbash on this happy ending and put rural areas back in their place as sacrifice zones for polluting industries.

By contaminating water supplies from sea to shining sea, the industry's final desperate gambit to keep the fossil fuel party going for a few more years could render much of rural America uninhabitable. As despoiled rural communities shut down, families will have no choice but to seek housing and work in the city. And the cruel joke at the end of it all is that natural gas may turn out to be a bubble, with fracking ruining millions of acres of perfectly good land for only a few years of gas supply. The wells may run dry in five or ten years and the drillers will take the money and run. But the pollution will remain for decades.

Meanwhile, urban escapees will have to forget their dreams of moving to a rural area, buying a little farm and building a self-sufficient homestead. If fracking renders large areas of countryside unfit for sustainable farming, not to mention plain old human habitation, disaffected downtown office workers may have little choice but to stay in their cubicles, shut up and do their work - at least until the next round of layoffs.

Making the world safe for frack-ocracy

An image nearly as scary as the U.S. map is a corresponding map of the world showing shale plays that industry would like to sink its teeth into.

But don't think the Obama Administration, which touts natural gas as a clean fuel that will help reduce climate emissions, is just sitting around waiting for other nations to get into fracking. Fortunately for top U.S. gas drillers such as ExxonMobil, Chesapeake Energy and Anadarko, the administration has recruited the U.S. taxpayer to help pry open reluctant markets like Poland and India through the State Department's Global Shale Gas Initiative (now known as the Unconventional Gas Technical Engagement Program).

Watch the Gasland 2 trailer. Then, find a screening near you or get a copy of the DVD to watch at home.

'Beemageddon' delayed: Bumblebee reemergence puzzles scientists

AFP Photo / Joel Saget

'Beemageddon' delayed: Bumblebee reemergence puzzles scientists
July 23, 2013 | RT

A disappearing North American bumblebee species has reemerged in Washington state, stunning scientists and conservationists who long feared that “Beemageddon” would cause the collapse of the agriculture industry.

The Bombus occidentalis, also known as the Western Bumble Bee, has disappeared from half of its natural range, but was recently spotted among the flowers of a park north of Seattle, Reuters reports.

Multiple sightings of the vanishing bee, including several queens, have instilled new hope that it could make a comeback in the Pacific Northwest.

“It gives us hope that we can do some conservation work, and perhaps the species has a chance at repopulating its range,” Rich Hatfield, a biologist at the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, told Reuters, noting that the sightings are “a pretty big deal.”
 
The Western Bumble Bee vanished from parts of the US more than a decade ago. Since their disappearance, the first sighting in Washington state occurred last year, when an insect enthusiast found such a bee in her garden. Earlier this month, Will Peterman, a 42-year-old freelance writer and photographer, captured photos of the Bombus occidentalis searching for nectar in a park in Brier.

Peterman returned to the park with a group of entomologists on Sunday, and took additional photos of some of the queen bees. He described the scientists’ mood as “almost giddy” and “optimistic”.
 
Scientists have attributed bumblebee declines to parasites, pesticides and habit fragmentation. Hatfield believes a deadly fungus might have contributed to the decline of the Bombus occidentalis. He now wonders whether the species has developed a resistance to this fungus, thereby repopulating the Pacific Northwest. 

Bees are crucial for the agriculture industry, since they pollinate crops such as tomatoes, cranberries, almonds, apples, zucchinis, avocados and plums. More than 100 types of US crops, valued at more than $200 billion each year, rely on bees to pollinate them.

A recent University of California study conducted by Berry J. Brosi, an assistant professor, and Heather M. Briggs, a graduate student, also found that the loss of bees could threaten certain types of plants and flower species that rely on pollination to produce their seeds.

The honey bee population has taken a particularly hard toll. The US is currently home to about 2.5 million honey bee colonies, which is a drastic decrease from the 6 million that existed in 1947 and the 3 million that existed in 1990.

Bumblebees have also faced dwindling populations, and an estimated 50,000 bees died in an Oregon parking lot in June, just days before National Pollinator Week.

“Bees across the country are not in as good a shape as last year,” Eric Mussen, a University of California bee specialist, told the Christian Science Monitor.  But with the reemergence of the Bombus occidentalis in Washington state, “Beemageddon” might be delayed.

Third World America: Paradise or Oblivion?

Third World America: Paradise or Oblivion?
July 23, 2013 | Veterans Today | Johnny Punish

Dignity of Man versus Crude Old Antiquated Failed System of War, Greed, and Power

This week we learned that Detroit is filing for bankruptcy, the largest in US history for any city, and its’ calling into question everything we are doing.


Is American patriotism exaggerated? What is the real state of welfare in the US? Can the country afford its democracy promotion effort? And, is it possible that America is becoming a third world country?

Check out what Peter Lavelle is saying on Cross Talk with George Szamuely and Charles Blair.

To me, nothing wakes up a person more than failure. But can that very human trait wake up a country and a world who is failing to meet the challenge?

As the USA continues its 30 year decline teetering on a 3rd world status whilst its government continues to support global corporations who do not necessarily have the peoples interest at heart, its getting down to crunch time where we are going to be forced to examine everything from the system of government, the economy, the wisdom of capitalism, and even how we structure our communities on main street; namely the failure of suburb planning to bring peoples together.

Check out what Jacque Fresco and The Venus Project says about this issue.

Paradise or Oblivion, by The Venus Project, introduces the viewer to a more appropriate value system that would be required to enable this caring and holistic approach to benefit human civilization. This alternative surpasses the need for a monetary-based, controlled, and scarcity-oriented environment, which we find ourselves in today.

The Real Gloom and Doom: A Pill for Lazy Americans

The Resident: A pill for lazy Americans
July 23, 2013 | RTAmerica

Editor's note: Lisa has hit the nail on the head. Everyone talks about gloom and doom as a form of labeling anyone who doesn't absorb the idiosyncrasy of living the gloomy life of eating synthetic chemicals, and the actual doom that results. Isn't that what this process describes? As we currently understand no one has ever been healed and these are all unnatural processes which feed the brave new world of corporatism. 


RT- Researchers are fervently at work, creating more and more pills to fix a wide variety of issues. Researchers in Florida are working on a pill that could supposedly replace exercise; there is a pill to take so you won't have to remember passwords in the works; there are pills that can be taken instead of using sun screen and bug spray. We are obsessed with taking pills. The Resident (aka Lori Harfenist) discusses.

Follow The Resident at http://www.twitter.com/TheResident

Japan’s Sakurajima volcano shaken by large explosive eruption

Japan’s Sakurajima volcano shaken by large explosive eruption
July 22, 2013 | Extinction Protocol 


JAPAN – A strong vulcanian explosion occurred last night at 11:02 GMT (20:02 local time), following several hours of near complete calm at the volcano. A loud cannon-shot bang accompanied the explosion, which generated a large mushroom cloud that reached 12,000 ft (3.7 km) altitude and engulfed the NE half of the Sakurajima peninsula and was followed by several smaller ones within about half an hour. The volcano and much of the surrounding areas remained under the ash plume for several hours until it started to clear up again. In the hours after the explosion, the Showa crater continued to emit ash plumes in often near-continuous pulses, sometimes reaching several 100 m height, but with no visible incandescence or audible sounds. –Volcano Discovery  

Large explosions at Ecuador volcano: An increase of activity occurred yesterday. IGPEN recorded 3 strong pulses of volcanic tremor since midnight 20-21 July (local time), which were accompanied by strombolian activity and strong explosions that produced loud roars, heavy gunfire sounds, and vibrations that rattled floors, windows and doors of houses in areas nearby. Some were heard even in the Tungurahua Volcano Observatory (OVT), located 14 km north of the volcano. The largest explosion yesterday at 14h18 (local time) generated an eruption column of 5 km height moving east. Although so far there have been no new pyroclastic flows, this could likely happen in the near future. Ash fall occurred in the area of ​​Manzano, Choglontus, Tisaleo, Cevallos and Mapayacu. In between the explosions, constant strombolian activity with the ejection of incandescent bombs, some of which rolled down the slopes could be seen at night. The explosions caused considerable damage to some of the monitoring instruments (solar panels, cameras etc.). –Volcano Discovery

RELATED:

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity: Victims of a Toxic Civilization

Activist Post: Multiple Chemical Sensitivity: Victims of a Toxic Civilization
July 22, 2013 | Organic Prepper | Daisy Luther

Sometimes even worse than having a mysterious illness is the fact that no one in the medical profession believes that you have this illness. Or, still worse than that, they don’t believe that the illness even exists.

Imagine being desperately ill and having your doctor tell you that it’s all in your head. Imagine being so incredibly ill that you are wasting away in front of your family’s eyes, and having your physician prescribe you psychiatric medications. Imagine that in your search for answers, you spend every penny you have and you still don’t have a diagnosis. Imagine being poisoned by your food, your air, your dentist, and the very medications that are supposed to be helping you.

Imagine being a victim of an instant-food, good-smelling, clean-looking toxic society.

A devastating condition called Multiple Chemical Sensitivity is unrecognized by the American Medical Association. Victims suffer from an array of symptoms including nausea, fatigue, dizziness, headaches, mental disorientation, inflammation, skin rashes, joint joint pain, gastrointestinal problems and respiratory problems. Conditions such as “chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, atypical connective tissue disease after silicone breast implants, chronic hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), drug-induced autoantibodies/hepatitis (liver toxicity), illness while living near a toxic waste dump site, dental amalgam disease, … MTBE (methyl-tert-butyl ether, a gasoline additive)-associated symptoms, [and] inflammation of the lungs caused by diesel exhaust particles” are related to, or overlap with MCS. (source)

MCS is the result of such a vast chemical overload that a person’s bodily functions begin to shut down. Because it is not recognized by the medical profession, research is limited. Since the answer is the avoidance of chemicals instead of the introduction of more chemicals (pills) Big Pharma has a vested interest in keeping this a non-diagnosis.

Toxins that we in the “civilized world” are exposed to on a daily basis can cause flare-ups that lead to hospitalization, disability, and death. Many who suffer from this condition become self-isolated in an effort to avoid exposure to substances like smoke, pesticides, plastics, synthetic fabric, scented items, chemical additives in food, preservatives, products made from petroleum, and noxious fumes from paint or cleaning products. Check out the following video to learn more about MCS, an shocking issue that has only arisen in the past few decades as our environment become more and more toxic.



A dubious Wikipedia entry lists the following as alternative names for MCS: toxic injury (TI), chemical sensitivity (CS), chemical injury syndrome (CI), 20th century syndrome, environmental illness (EI), sick building syndrome, idiopathic environmental intolerance (IEI), and toxicant-induced loss of tolerance (TILT). Gulf War Syndrome and Food Intolerance Syndrome are also considered by some to be a form of MCS.

According to Dr. Mercola, many of the chemicals that we are exposed to on a daily basis never leave our bodies, but accumulate in fat and bone marrow. He writes:

The sheer number of toxic chemicals that you are exposed to on a daily basis is truly staggering. With some 100,000 different chemicals being used throughout the world, and 1,500 or so more being added each year – all without any major oversight or testing for safety until after the fact – is it any wonder that you’re not as healthy as you should be? 

The number of toxic chemicals is so large, addressing them all would be an impossible mission, but I believe being an informed and vigilant consumer CAN help you keep your toxic load as low as possible, even if it may be impossible to cut your exposure to zero. 

After all, they’re everywhere; in your air, water, soil, food supply, and in a vast majority of the personal care, household and yard products you use on a regular basis. Today, they’re even in the circuitry boards of the electronics you surround yourself with. Some of the sources of toxins you have control over. Others, you don’t. (Click HERE to read Dr. Mercola’s tips on avoiding chemical overload)

Recently I wrote an article called The Great American Genocide, in which I discussed how the toxins we are exposed to on a daily basis are making us sick, setting up our children for infertility, and inevitably bringing us to an early death. I received an email from a victim of these toxins who has lost everything. I am republishing here (with permission) because it’s time that we, as a society, stop putting our fingers in our ears and singing “Lalalalala” in an effort to drown out the stories from victims like this.

My name is Kim and I have had direct horrible life trauma due to environment and chemical poisoning because of what is being done in this country. 

About 11 years ago I was eating a burger from McDonald and cracked a back molar on a piece of bone in the burger, that tooth had previously been “fixed” with an amalgam (mercury) filling. Well after it broke it didn’t really hurt and I didn’t have insurance so I never got it fixed. About a year later I starting having what I was told was panic attacks and anxiety issues (I much later found out that was not the issue). 

After about 5 years of dealing with progressively worse “anxiety” it got to the point where I would randomly feel so ill I couldn’t even leave the house. Finally in February of 2010 I woke up one day and felt like someone punched me in the stomach. It was so horrible and I just couldn’t shake the pain – I saw my doctor multiple times and they told me it was all anxiety related. 

I realized after about two weeks of being so sick I could barely move with constant “panic attacks” that it would get worse every time I ate. So I immediately switch to something that would not upset my stomach like yogurt and bread. I ate just that for months – all the while my doctors were telling me it was all in my head and there was nothing wrong with my stomach. Over the last 3 years my diet varied slightly but as things got worse I was basically limited to a diet of white rice and chicken noodle soup (without the chicken) for the last two years. I saw 28 doctors in this time period who diagnosed me with all kinds of issues (all of them stemming from the root cause but no one able to tell me what that was)

Not only was I actually having allergic reactions to food, not panic attacks, but I started having them to touching things and smells as well. In January of this year I finally found a doctor that knew a little bit about what was going on with me and put me on many supplements – which have helped a lot. Right before I found that doctor I spent 4 days in the hospital because I couldn’t breathe (especially while trying to have a BM) and after they checked my heart they told me I was fine and to leave the hospital. When I begged the doctor not to make me leave because I knew I would die the doctor told me to go see a psychologist because there was nothing wrong with me.

Just this last Thursday I finally found an alternative medicine doctor/integrated medicine doctor that gave me all the answers I was looking for. After some tests I found out a few things: 

1. I have mercury poisoning – slowly leaking into my body every day for the last 11 years and more recently when I had a child during all this, my nutrition was so depleted that 3 more teeth broke down so I now have 4 fillings leaking into my body daily.
2. Because of the extreme poisoning it has broken down the lining of my stomach to the point where I have “leaky gut syndrome” or permeated stomach lining. All that time they told me I was having panic attacks and trying to put me on drugs it was actually food escaping into my body from my stomach and my body attacking it as a foreign invader. I’m lucky I never went into shock and it killed me.
3. So since my stomach lining was already weak, all the chemicals in our food/environment have caused me to develop Multiple chemical sensitivity, continued to deteriorate my stomach lining so I have a chronic Yeast infection in my stomach, my body is so over loaded by toxins that my liver and lymphatic system can barely push any of them out anymore and that by itself causes a whole host of other issues.
4. Not to mention the mercury that has accumulated in my body/brain is causing symptoms like Alzheimer and I’m only 31 years old.

It will probably take years to rebuild my stomach, fix my teeth, clean all the mercury out of my body, and eliminate all the toxins, etc but at least now I know what is going on and I’m on the right track.

Unfortunately, my out of pocket medical costs have bankrupted my family – literally since we were just evicted and are now living in a hotel with two of our four daughters. With that said I have made it my personal mission to destroy everyone and everything that contributed to this issue – from the bad food we so unknowingly consume, the products we use daily that are filled with cancer causing agents and other harmful products, the western medicine doctors that trying to treat all symptoms with a pill instead of fixing the root cause of the issue, etc.

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences defines MCS: The preferred medical term is Idiopathic Environmental Intolerance (IEI), which can be defined as a “chronic, recurring disease caused by a person’s inability to tolerate an environmental chemical or class of foreign chemicals.” The site lists the following criteria for a diagnosis:

1. Symptoms are reproducible with repeated (chemical) exposures.
2. The condition is chronic.
3. Low levels of exposure (lower than previously or commonly tolerated) result in manifestations of the syndrome (i.e. increased sensitivity).
4. The symptoms improve, or resolve completely, when the triggering chemicals are removed.
5. Responses often occur to multiple chemically-unrelated substances.
6. Symptoms involve multiple-organ symptoms (runny nose, itchy eyes, headache, scratchy throat, ear ache, scalp pain, mental confusion or sleepiness, palpitations of the heart, upset stomach, nausea and/or diarrhea, abdominal cramping, aching joints).

To avoid being poisoned is to be labeled a kook, the one at office parties and family events who brings their own food, the target of sighs and eye rolls. It is being the one who makes her own soap and cleaning products. It is being that person who avoids so many of the things that are part of everyday life in America that she becomes an outcast. We, in the “civilized world”, seem to be intent on being complicit in our own demise, paying our hard-earned money to inhale toxins and pollutants, to consume chemical concoctions instead of food, and to slather poison on our bodies to be introduced into our systems through the pores in our skin.

Whether you believe this is deliberate depopulation or careless disregard in the pursuit of the almighty dollar, there is little question that we are all victims of a toxic civilization.

This is our future, and no amount of cognitive dissonance, no loudly stated refusal to believe it, will make it go away.

Credit: Thank you, Kim, for sharing you story. May God bless you and your family.

Daisy Luther is a freelance writer and editor. Her website, The Organic Prepper, where this article first appeared, offers information on healthy prepping, including premium nutritional choices, general wellness and non-tech solutions. You can follow Daisy on Facebook and Twitter, and you can email her at daisy@theorganicprepper.ca