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| © Last Messages |
Nov 30, 2013 | LAST MESSAGES
Editor's note: Subscribe to this channel, I did about a month or two ago, and find this series outstanding, and the artist keeps improving as in this example.
Saturday, November 30, 2013
2013 IS STRANGE: Series of the Most Amazing Photography and Video Ever Captured
Nov 30, 2013 | LAST MESSAGES
Editor's note: Subscribe to this channel, I did about a month or two ago, and find this series outstanding, and the artist keeps improving as in this example.
Friday, November 29, 2013
Best of the Web: C/2012 S1 COMET ISON Survives Perihelion
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| © NASA |
Nov 28, 2013 | SolarWatcher
COMET ISON Survived Perihelion after losing brightness and apparent size just before its nearest approach of the Sun, a small portion of the comet appearing to have survived the round trip.
http://cometison.gsfc.nasa.gov/#
http://isontracker.com/index.php/live...
Free SolarWatcher November Newsletter Link:
http://www.solarwatcher.net/index.php...
More links..
RELATED:
Calling the Climate-Change Bluff
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| image |
Nov 28, 2013 | Ice Age Now | By Dr. Klaus L.E. Kaiser
“The facts are more than a wee bit different from the proclamations, computer models, dire predictions, and related assertions by much of the green-blinkered media.”The city of Warsaw, Poland, recently hosted the 19th Conference of the Parties (COP-19) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Conference host countries normally “play game,” but not in this case. Both the citizens of Poland and their government revolted.
Essentially, Poland CALLED the global-warming agenda, AKA the climate-change BLUFF.
Poland’s government sacked its Minister of the Environment (and host/chief of COP-19) half way through the conference and the people of Poland decided to give NGO’s like Greenpeace, Sierra Club and 350.org a clear “thumb down. ” Japan was equally clear and announced a change from their previous Kyoto Protocol based commitment of a 25% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020 to a mere 3.8%.
Of course, the facts have been in favor of calling the climate bluff for quite some time already. From the revelations of shady scientists and shoddy science to nature’s failure to adhere to the fictitious predictions made by every single climate model created over the last decade, quite simply, the facts could no longer be hidden.
The Facts
The facts are more than a wee bit different from the proclamations, computer models, dire predictions, and related assertions by much of the green-blinkered media:
- Carbon dioxide (CO2) could not possibly provide a warming “blanket” to the earth’s atmosphere. The (relative low) frequency IR radiation emitted by the earth’s surface is entirely taken up by the CO2 below an elevation of 200 m (~500 foot). Therefore, any additional CO2 in the atmosphere above that level is of no consequence.
- Most of the CO2 in the atmosphere comes from volcanic emissions. Prior to mankind’s large-scale use of fossil fuels, ALL the CO2 in the atmosphere came from volcanic emissions.
- In the Arctic, contrary to common belief, the summer sea-ice extent has been quite stable or growing in recent summers. The observed “anomalies” (brief periods of faster decline or slower growth) were due to ice-breakers plowing the area.
- In the Arctic, polar bears are thriving. Today, their numbers are much higher than decades ago.
- In the Antarctic, the ice mass has been strongly expanding in recent years.
- Penguin colonies in the Antarctic are thriving. Previously unknown colonies have been discovered and others have increased in numbers.
- Typhoons (in the Pacific) and hurricanes (in the Atlantic) have been decreasing in recent years. The loss of life and property associated with them is due to increased populations in flood-prone areas.
- Typhoon Haiyan was one of many typhoons hitting the Philippines every year. While Haiyan was very strong, it was less of a calamity than predicted and not due to “climate change.”
- Globally, temperatures have been declining over nearly two decades. Previous assertions to the contrary were largely based on thermometers influenced by man-made structures.
- The earth’s climate is largely controlled by the sun’s radiation. The current and anticipated sun (-spot) activity, i.e. energy received by earth from the sun, will be below normal for the next decades.
Dr. Klaus L.E. Kaiser is author of CONVENIENT MYTHS, the green revolution – perceptions, politics, and facts
convenientmyths.com
Dr. Kaiser can be reached at: mail@convenientmyths.com
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Fracking to blame? Texas rocked by 16 earthquakes in last 3 weeks
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| A rig contracted by Apache Corp drills a horizontal well in a search for oil and natural gas in the Wolfcamp shale located in the Permian Basin in West Texas (Reuters / Terry Wade) |
Nov 28, 2013 | RT
Northern Texas towns are experiencing an intense string of earthquakes – the last of which was one of the most powerful in 5 years. As unusual tremors have been going on for over 3 weeks now, many suspect fracking might be to blame.
On Thursday, the region experienced two tremors, with one of them registering 3.6 magnitude, 55 km west of the town of Azle at 07:58:36 GMT, as recorded by the US Geological Service, and the other 2.8 at 08:41:07 GMT, with the epicenter not far from the first one. USGS records show that the 3.6 tremor was one of the strongest earthquakes to hit the region in 5 years.
“It sounded like a sonic boom, and then the house started shaking,” Keith Krayer, a local resident who felt the effects of the quake, told RT.
Krayer said he had no doubt the quake was sparked by fracking. “When they frack, they inject all that water and chemicals into the ground, then they pump it back up and separate the gas from the water, then they have to dispose of that water 13,000 feet down. It causes the plates to slip, the lubrication from the water.”
Residents like Krayer are having their nerves put to the test as the region chalked up its 16th this month. In the last four days, there have been six recorded quakes.
Between 1970 and 2007, the area around the Texas town of Azle (pop. 10,000) experienced just two earthquakes. The peace and quiet began to change, however, at the start of 2008, when 74 minor quakes were reported in the region.
Now an increasing number of people, including scientists, are speculating that natural gas production by fracking - a process that forces high pressure water and chemicals into rock in order to extract natural gas reserves - is the culprit. The problem, however, is proving the claims.
Cliff Frolich, earthquake researcher at the University of Texas, said waste water injection wells from fracking could be responsible for the recent spate of earthquake activity.
"I'd say it certainly looks very possible that the earthquakes are related to injection wells," he said in an interview with KHOU television.
Frolich left room for doubt when he said thousands of such wells have operated in Texas for decades with no quakes anywhere near them.
Frolich co-authored a 2009 study on earthquake activity near Cleburne, just south of Azle, which concluded: "The possibility exists that earthquakes may be related to fluid injection."
A recent government study lent credence to Frolich’s findings.
The use of underground storage wells to get rid of waste water produced by fracking is “almost certainly” to blame for the jump in earthquakes in Midwestern states in recent years, a recent Geological Survey study has found.
The report said the number of magnitude-3 earthquakes or greater occurring in the mid-region of North America surged from 29 in 2008 to 134 last year.
The USGS study pointed to an unusual surge in tremors near wastewater wells in many US states, including Arkansas, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma and Ohio.
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| Earthquakes in Texas in last 3 weeks (image from http://earthquake.usgs.gov) |
However, the USGS stopped short of linking the process of fracking to earthquakes directly, mostly blaming methods used to dispose of fracking by-products.
In January 2012, following a rash of earthquakes, including a 4.0-magnitude tremor, Ohio legislators placed a temporary ban on fracking after experts said the controversial process for storing waste water in deep underground wells was to blame for the outbreak of tremors.
Meanwhile, the mayor of Azle, Alan Brundrett, said it's crucial to determine whether the latest series of quakes are man-made.
"What could it cause down the road?" he asked. "What if a 5.0 happens and people's houses start falling in on them?"
"Enough is enough!" Keith Krayer, a resident of Briar, just north of Azle was quoted by the station as saying. "My wife, she's having panic attacks because of it."
Thus far, the rattling has just produced a lot of anxiety. The Parker County Sheriff's Office has no reports of damage or injuries from any of Thursday’s earthquakes.
As of March 2012, Texas had listed nearly 6,000 oil and gas fracking wells on FracFocus, an industry fracking disclosure site, SourceWatch.org reports.
The first instance of hydraulic fracturing – creating fractures from a wellbore drilled into reservoir rock formations – was reportedly performed in 1947, the organization notes. Fracking on a commercial scale, however, was first used in the Barnett Shale – a geological formation which underlies the city of Fort Worth and at least 17 counties.
The first Barnett Shale well was completed in 1981 in Wise County, Texas. Subsequent drilling expanded greatly in the early 2000s due to a hike in natural gas prices and the use of horizontal wells to increase production.
Fracking and horizontal drilling technology have been heralded as an economic boon by the oil industry, though the techniques have contributed to nationwide concern about air pollution, groundwater contamination and broader environmental degradation.
Where Are All the Butterflies?
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| A monarch on milkweed. (Photo: George Bott/cc/flickr) |
Nov 27, 2013 | Common Dreams | Andrea Germanos
The iconic monarch is disappearing
The monarch butterfly is in trouble.
Each year, the monarchs head south for the winter, some making an epic journey as much as 3,000 miles long, with those in the eastern U.S. and Canada heading to forests in Mexico.
Last year, monarch reseves in Mexico saw a plummet in the number of butterflies arriving—59 percent less than the year before, marking the lowest level in 20 years.
And exerts say 2013 is even worse. Gloria Tavera Alonso, director of a monarch reserve in the Mexican stae of Michoacán, told Spanish news agency EFE this week that she estimates there is a 50 percent reduction this year.
This year's loss is captured in a piece by Jim Robbins in the Sunday New York Times, The Year the Monarch Didn’t Appear:
On the first of November, when Mexicans celebrate a holiday called the Day of the Dead, some also celebrate the millions of monarch butterflies that, without fail, fly to the mountainous fir forests of central Mexico on that day. They are believed to be souls of the dead, returned.Months before, clues were in.
This year, for or the first time in memory, the monarch butterflies didn’t come, at least not on the Day of the Dead. They began to straggle in a week later than usual, in record-low numbers. Last year’s low of 60 million now seems great compared with the fewer than three million that have shown up so far this year. Some experts fear that the spectacular migration could be near collapse.
“It does not look good,” said Lincoln P. Brower, a monarch expert at Sweet Briar College.
Asking Where Are Migratory Monarchs This Fall? Laura Tangley of the National Wildlife Federation wrote:
Each fall at about this time, I try to spend a weekend at the Black Walnut Point Inn on Maryland’s Tilghman Island in the Chesapeake Bay. Located on the southern tip of the island, the inn is a perfect place to spot large numbers of monarch butterflies stopping to feed and rest before heading across open water on their journey south to Mexico—some traveling thousands of miles from the northern United States and Canada. I time the trip according to a chart produced by Monarch Watch showing the insects’ predicted arrival dates by latitude—and I’ve not been disappointed.
Until this year, that is. Rather than the dozens of monarchs I typically see feeding by day on the inn’s asters, goldenrods and other fall-blooming plants—and the hundreds clustering for warmth on yew, holly and hackberry branches once the sun starts to go down—I spotted just a handful of monarchs in total and never more than one individual at a time.
Like all migratory animals, monarchs, of course, are influenced by weather, and one cannot draw conclusions from a two-day visit to a single spot. Yet according to the citizen-science-fueled monitoring organization Journey North, the number of overnight monarch roosts recorded east of the Rockies this fall has been low, and roosts host fewer butterflies than in previous years. “Overall the monarch numbers in this migration are far below normal, and they are late,” says Monarch Watch founder and director Chip Taylor. “The migration in the Midwest this fall has been the lowest we have seen since the start of Monarch Watch in 1992.”
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| Monarchs at a reserve in Michoacan. (Photo: Pablo Leautaud/cc/flickr) |
The loss of milkweed, Tangley writes, "is particularly acute in the U.S. Midwest, where genetically engineered, herbicide-tolerant corn and soybeans now allow farmers to apply the chemicals broadly, wiping out milkweed that once thrived between crop rows and in fallow fields on millions of acres of agricultural land."
Robbins also points to the notorious but widely used herbicice Roundup, "a herbicide that kills virtually all plants except crops that are genetically modified to survive it."
Climate change is also a contributing factor. ThinkProgress reported that a
study found climate change could affect the migration of monarch butterflies, which migrate from Mexico to the southern U.S. when weather gets warm, where they lay their eggs. The study found that monarchs needed a cold trigger in order to continue migrating south to Mexico in the fall — without those cold conditions, monarchs in the midst of migrating south can actually reorient themselves and fly north.For Taylor, the outlook for the iconic monarch isn't good.
“How many days of the low temperature are needed or the actual temperatures themselves are just not known. All we know is that for 24 days, day and night, if we mimic temperatures in Mexico, on top of the mountains there, the butterflies then start traveling north,” author Steven Reppert said.
Extreme weather could also pose a major threat to monarchs. in 2002, a severe storm in Mexico killed nearly 80 percent of the monarch butterfly population there.
“That was a very extreme and unusual weather event. It’s usually the dry season; there aren’t big storms there, but they just had a lot of precipitation. That was followed by cold temperatures, so that juxtaposition of precipitation and cold just killed all the butterflies,” Karen Oberhauser, a professor in the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology at the University of Minnesota told ClimateWire. “Clearly, that kind of storm is predicted to be more common under climate change scenarios.”
“We had some really robust Monarch butterfly populations in the 90s,” he said. “But we’re never going to see those again.”
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Chris Hedges on the Role of Art in Rebellion
Chris Hedges on the Role of Art in Rebellion
Nov 27, 2013 | truthdig
After a talk on the collapse of complex societies, Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges answers an audience question: "Will it take [literature, music and art] to waken us to the empathy of other suffering or hardship?"
Nov 27, 2013 | truthdig
After a talk on the collapse of complex societies, Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges answers an audience question: "Will it take [literature, music and art] to waken us to the empathy of other suffering or hardship?"
Weird Black Hole's Incredible Brightness Perplexes Scientists
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| Artist's conception of an ultraluminous X-ray source consisting of a small black hole and a nearby companion star. Credit: Jingchuan Yu |
Nov 27, 2013 | Live Science | Mike Wall
A black-hole system in a neighboring galaxy is twice as bright as astronomers had thought possible, a new study reports.
The incredible luminosity of the system in question, which resides about 22 million light-years from Earth in the Pinwheel Galaxy, may force a rethink of the theories that explain how some black holes radiate energy, researchers said.
"As if black holes weren’t extreme enough, this is a really extreme one that is shining as brightly as it possibly can," study co-author Joel Bregman of the University of Michigan said in a statement. "It’s figured out a way to be more luminous than we thought possible." [Images: Black Holes of the Universe]
The astronomers studied a system called ULX-1, which consists of a black hole and a companion star that orbit each other. As its name suggests — ULX is short for "ultraluminous X-ray source" — ULX-1 generates prodigious amounts of high-energy X-ray light, which is emitted by material spiraling down into the black hole's maw.
This light is so intense, in fact, that astronomers had suspected that ULX-1 contains an intermediate-mass black hole — one that harbors between 100 and 1,000 times the mass of the sun. But the new study suggests that the black hole is actually on the small side.
The research team, led by Jifeng Liu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, studied ULX-1 using the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii and two NASA spacecraft, the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Spectroscopic analysis revealed that the companion star in ULX-1 is a big, hot type known as a Wolf-Rayet star. With this information in hand, the team could then infer the star's mass from its brightness, pegging it at 19 times the mass of the sun.
The researchers also found that the star and the black hole orbit each other once every 8.2 days. This allowed them to estimate the black hole's mass at between 20 to 30 times the mass of the sun.
ULX-1 thus apparently contains not an intermediate-mass black hole, but a stellar one — an object that forms after a star dies and collapses on itself. So astronomers have still not definitively found a middleweight black hole, which some researchers think may be the seeds of the supermassive monsters that lurk at the heart of most, if not all, galaxies.
"Our findings may turn the trend of taking ultraluminous X-ray sources as promising intermediate black hole candidates," Liu said in a statement.
The study team isn't sure how the ULX-1 system manages to emit so much light. It's possible, researchers said, that the black hole may be feeding off the companion's stellar wind — the stream of charged particles flowing from its atmosphere.
This mechanism had previously been regarded as too inefficient to power an ultraluminous X-ray source, but ULX-1 may send theorists back to the drawing board.
"Our work shows, based on our conclusion of a stellar mass black hole, that our understanding of the black hole radiation mechanism is incomplete and needs revision," Liu told SPACE.com via email.
The new study appears online today (Nov. 27) in the journal Nature.
Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on SPACE.com.
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Canadian Approval Puts 'Frankenfish' One Step Closer to Dinner Plate
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| The
experimental lab-created Atlantic salmon eggs have been produced by AquaBounty, an American company, at a remote facility in Bay Fortune, PEI for more than a decade while it tries to convince the U.S. government to allow the mutant fish into grocery stores, says the local PEI group, the Islanders Say No to Frankenfish. (From their Facebook page) |
Nov 26, 2013 | Common Dreams | Jon Queally
Facility on Prince Edward Island can now begin commercial production of genetically-modified salmon eggs
The government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has moved 'Frankenfish' one step closer to the plates of consumers by approving the commercial production of genetically-engineered (or -modified GE/GM) salmon eggs in Canada.
AquaBounty, the U.S.-based company behind the drive to commercialize the freakishly fast-growing salmon, now has permission to transform its research facility on Prince Edward Island, well-known as a seafood mecca on the north Atlantic coast, into a production facility where salmon eggs spliced with genes from a seal eel can be produced on a mass scale.
Food safety were quick to criticize the move.
“We are alarmed and disappointed by the short-sightedness of this decision," said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director for the Center for Food Safety, in a statement. "GE salmon production, in Canada or anywhere else, threatens native salmon survival around the world."
As the Guardian reports:
The decision marked the first time any government had given the go-ahead to commercial scale production involving a GM food animal.Kimbrell was adamant that FDA approval would be mistake, saying his group "has spearheaded U.S. opposition to approval of this experimental GE fish for over a decade because of its inherent irreversible harms. Yet FDA has thus far refused to rigorously analyze the impacts of GE salmon. It must do so before even considering any approval.”
The move clears the way for AquaBounty to scale up production of the salmon at its sites in PEI and Panama in anticipation of eventual approval by American authorities.
The Food and Drug Administration is expected to render a decision in the near future on the sale of GM salmon, and in due course some 30 other species of GM fish currently under development, campaigners and industry figures said.
Though the eggs in Canada would not yet be allowed to grow into fish, the decision by country's regulatory body, Environment Canada, was startling to those concerned about the safety of the "AquAdvantage Salmon™" (yes, its trademarked) who cite concerns about what would happen if these fish escape their hatcheries or commingle with native Atlantic salmon.
“This is one concrete step closer to the reality of GM fish on our plates, and unfortunately it is a really dramatic step,” said Lucy Sharratt of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network to the Guardian. “It's a global first, and it has a significant global potential impact for our environment. It starts a chain of decisions that could be just disastrous for our aquatic ecosystems.”
And Sharon Labchuk, of the P.E.I. group “Islanders Say No to Frankenfish,” told the local Prince Edward Island Guardian that the idea of genetically altering fish is "very experimental and the risks of anything going wrong are disastrous. They can wipe out the wild salmon population if these fish ever escape and their eggs end up in the wild rivers.”
And Pratap Chatterjee, editor of CorpWatch, adds:Environment Canada’s decision is a little unusual given that AquaBounty has come under fire for failing to meet Panamanian environmental regulations. Last week AquaBounty was the subject of a complaint from the Environmental Advocacy Center of Panama to Panama’s National Environmental Authority after a 2012 investigation showed that the company had failed to submit regular monitoring or obtain permits for wastewater discharge.
“These allegations suggest a dangerous pattern of non-compliance and mismanagement by AquaBounty, raising the likelihood of an environmentally damaging escape of these fish,” George Kimbrell, senior attorney for Center for Food Safety, wrote in a press release last week. “This news further undermines the empty assurances that AquaBounty and the Food and Drug Administration have given the public and suggests that Panama’s environmental laws may have also been broken.”
AquaBounty has been conducting research and running tests on genetically modified fish for some 20 years in the hope that it will eventually win approval to market its products in the estimated $100 billion global fish market. The company is also testing modifications of other fish like tilapia and trout.
Monsanto, the TPP, and Global Food Dominance
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| © N/A |
Nov 26, 2013 | Web of Debt Blog | Ellen Brown
“Control oil and you control nations,” said US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. ”Control food and you control the people.”
Global food control has nearly been
achieved, by reducing seed diversity with GMO (genetically modified)
seeds that are distributed by only a few transnational corporations. But
this agenda has been implemented at grave cost to our health; and if
the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) passes, control over not just our
food but our health, our environment and our financial system will be in
the hands of transnational corporations.
Profits Before Populations
Glyphosate-based herbicides are now the most commonly used herbicides in the world. Glyphosate is an essential partner to the GMOs that are the principal business of the burgeoning biotech industry. Glyphosate is a “broad-spectrum” herbicide that destroys indiscriminately, not by killing unwanted plants directly but by tying up access to critical nutrients.
Because of the insidious way in which it works, it has been sold as a relatively benign replacement for the devastating earlier dioxin-based herbicides. But a barrage of experimental data has now shown glyphosate and the GMO foods incorporating it to pose serious dangers to health. Compounding the risk is the toxicity of “inert” ingredients used to make glyphosate more potent. Researchers have found, for example, that the surfactant POEA can kill human cells, particularly embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells. But these risks have been conveniently ignored.
The widespread use of GMO foods and glyphosate herbicides helps explain the anomaly that the US spends over twice as much per capita on healthcare as the average developed country, yet it is rated far down the scale of the world’s healthiest populations. The World Health Organization has ranked the US LAST out of 17 developed nations for overall health.
Sixty to seventy percent of the foods in US supermarkets are now genetically modified. By contrast, in at least 26 other countries—including Switzerland, Australia, Austria, China, India, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Greece, Bulgaria, Poland, Italy, Mexico and Russia—GMOs are totally or partially banned; and significant restrictions on GMOs exist in about sixty other countries.
A ban on GMO and glyphosate use might go far toward improving the health of Americans. But the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a global trade agreement for which the Obama Administration has sought Fast Track status, would block that sort of cause-focused approach to the healthcare crisis.
Roundup’s Insidious Effects
Human enzymes are affected by glyphosate just as plant enzymes are: the chemical blocks the uptake of manganese and other essential minerals. Without those minerals, we cannot properly metabolize our food. That helps explain the rampant epidemic of obesity in the United States. People eat and eat in an attempt to acquire the nutrients that are simply not available in their food.
According to researchers Samsell and Seneff in Biosemiotic Entropy: Disorder, Disease, and Mortality (April 2013):
Glyphosate’s inhibition of cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes is an overlooked component of its toxicity to mammals. CYP enzymes play crucial roles in biology . . . . 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.
More than 40 diseases have been linked to glyphosate use, and more keep appearing. In September 2013, the National University of Rio Cuarto, Argentina, published research finding that glyphosate enhances the growth of fungi that produce aflatoxin B1, one of the most carcinogenic of substances. A doctor from Chaco, Argentina, told Associated Press, “We’ve gone from a pretty healthy population to one with a high rate of cancer, birth defects and illnesses seldom seen before.” Fungi growths have increased significantly in US corn crops.
Glyphosate has also done serious damage to the environment. According to an October 2012 report by the Institute of Science in Society:
Agribusiness claims that glyphosate and glyphosate-tolerant crops will improve crop yields, increase farmers’ profits and benefit the environment by reducing pesticide use. Exactly the opposite is the case. . . . [T]he evidence indicates that glyphosate herbicides and glyphosate-tolerant crops have had wide-ranging detrimental effects, including glyphosate resistant super weeds, virulent plant (and new livestock) pathogens, reduced crop health and yield, harm to off-target species from insects to amphibians and livestock, as well as reduced soil fertility.
Politics Trumps Science
In the ground-breaking 2007 book Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation, William Engdahl states that global food control and depopulation became US strategic policy under Rockefeller protégé Henry Kissinger. Along with oil geopolitics, they were to be the new “solution” to the threats to US global power and continued US access to cheap raw materials from the developing world. In line with that agenda, the government has shown extreme partisanship in favor of the biotech agribusiness industry, opting for a system in which the industry “voluntarily” polices itself. Bio-engineered foods are treated as “natural food additives,” not needing any special testing.
Jeffrey M. Smith, Executive Director of the Institute for Responsible Technology, confirms that US Food and Drug Administration policy allows biotech companies to determine if their own foods are safe. Submission of data is completely voluntary. He concludes:
In the critical arena of food safety research, the biotech industry is without accountability, standards, or peer-review. They’ve got bad science down to a science.Whether or not depopulation is an intentional part of the agenda, widespread use of GMO and glyphosate is having that result. The endocrine-disrupting properties of glyphosate have been linked to infertility, miscarriage, birth defects and arrested sexual development. In Russian experiments, animals fed GM soy were sterile by the third generation. Vast amounts of farmland soil are also being systematically ruined by the killing of beneficial microorganisms that allow plant roots to uptake soil nutrients.
In Gary Null’s eye-opening documentary Seeds of Death: Unveiling the Lies of GMOs, Dr. Bruce Lipton warns, “We are leading the world into the sixth mass extinction of life on this planet. . . . Human behavior is undermining the web of life.”
The TPP and International Corporate Control
The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) has the potential to become the biggest regional Free Trade Agreement in history. . . .Food safety is only one of many rights and protections liable to fall to this super-weapon of international corporate control. In an April 2013 interview on The Real News Network, Kevin Zeese called the TPP “NAFTA on steroids” and “a global corporate coup.” He warned:
The chief agricultural negotiator for the US is the former Monsanto lobbyist, Islam Siddique. If ratified the TPP would impose punishing regulations that give multinational corporations unprecedented right to demand taxpayer compensation for policies that corporations deem a barrier to their profits.
. . . They are carefully crafting the TPP to insure that citizens of the involved countries have no control over food safety, what they will be eating, where it is grown, the conditions under which food is grown and the use of herbicides and pesticides.
No matter what issue you care about—whether its wages, jobs, protecting the environment . . . this issue is going to adversely affect it . . . .
If a country takes a step to try to regulate the financial industry or set up a public bank to represent the public interest, it can be sued . . . .
Return to Nature: Not Too Late
Essentially, what Russian gardeners do is demonstrate that gardeners can feed the world – and you do not need any GMOs, industrial farms, or any other technological gimmicks to guarantee everybody’s got enough food to eat. Bear in mind that Russia only has 110 days of growing season per year – so in the US, for example, gardeners’ output could be substantially greater. Today, however, the area taken up by lawns in the US is two times greater than that of Russia’s gardens – and it produces nothing but a multi-billion-dollar lawn care industry.
In the US, only about 0.6 percent of the total agricultural area is devoted to organic farming. This area needs to be vastly expanded if we are to avoid “the sixth mass extinction.” But first, we need to urge our representatives to stop Fast Track, vote no on the TPP, and pursue a global phase-out of glyphosate-based herbicides and GMO foods. Our health, our finances and our environment are at stake.
____________________________
Ellen Brown is an attorney, president of the Public Banking Institute, and author of twelve books, including the best-selling Web of Debt. In The Public Bank Solution, her latest book, she explores successful public banking models historically and globally. Her blog articles are at EllenBrown.com.
Monday, November 25, 2013
Why Have 10 Major Volcanoes Along The Ring Of Fire Suddenly Roared To Life?
Nov 24, 2013 | The Truth | Michael Synder
Ten major volcanoes have erupted along the Ring of Fire during the past few months, and the mainstream media in the United States has been strangely silent about this. But this is a very big deal. We are seeing eruptions at some volcanoes that have been dormant for decades. Yes, it is certainly not unusual for two or three major volcanoes along the Ring of Fire to be active at the same time, but what we are witnessing right now is highly unusual. And if the U.S. media is not concerned about this yet, the truth is that they should be. Approximately 90 percent of all earthquakes and approximately 80 percent of all volcanic eruptions occur along the Ring of Fire, and it runs directly up the west coast of the United States. Perhaps if Mt. Rainier in Washington state suddenly exploded or a massive earthquake flattened Los Angeles the mainstream media would wake up. Most Americans have grown very complacent about these things, but right now we are witnessing volcanic activity almost everywhere else along the Ring of Fire. It is only a matter of time before it happens here too.
Sadly, most Americans cannot even tell you what the Ring of Fire is. The following is how Wikipedia defines the “Ring of Fire”…
The Ring of Fire is an area where a large number of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur in the basin of the Pacific Ocean. In a 40,000 km (25,000 mi) horseshoe shape, it is associated with a nearly continuous series of oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs, and volcanic belts and/or plate movements. It has 452 volcanoes and is home to over 75% of the world’s active and dormant volcanoes.An easy way to think about the Ring of Fire is to imagine a giant red band stretching along the perimeter of the Pacific Ocean.
And yes, that includes the entire west coast of the United States and the entire southern coast of Alaska.
10 major volcanoes along the Ring of Fire have suddenly roared to life in recent months. The following are short excerpts from news reports about those eruptions…
Volcano creates new island off the coast of Japan: A dramatic volcanic eruption in the Pacific Ocean has created a tiny new islet in Japan’s territorial waters, officials said Thursday, the first time in decades the nation has seen the phenomenon.
The navy spotted smoke about 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) south of Tokyo on Wednesday and Japan’s coastguard later verified the birth of the islet around the Ogasawara island chain.
Video footage showed plumes of smoke and ash billowing from the 200-metre island, and Japan’s coastguard said it was warning vessels to use caution in the area until the eruption cools off.
Mount Sinabung in Indonesia: A volcano in western Indonesia has erupted eight times in just a few hours, “raining down rocks” over a large area and forcing thousands to flee their homes, officials said Sunday.
Mount Sinabung has been erupting on and off since September, but went into overdrive late Saturday and early Sunday, repeatedly spewing out red-hot ash and rocks up to eight kilometres (five miles) into the air.
Colima in Mexico: On Monday night and Tuesday morning, the Colima volcano showed two strong exhalations; ejecting lava down its slopes and ash skyward, that has reached several villages. Since last Sunday, the Volcan de Fuego de Colima was reactivated after several weeks of apparent calm and until Tuesday registered between 30 and 35 puffs per day, spewing lava down its slopes and ash that reached the people of Cheese, municipality of Cuauhtémoc, Colima, and some towns in the state of Jalisco.
Sakurajima in Japan: After a short phase of weaker activity, the volcano began to erupt more violently yesterday with a series of powerful explosions that sent ash plumes up to 15,000 ft (4,5 km). Near-constant ash emissions have been taking place from the Showa crater.
Fuego in Guatemala: Two lava flows are active on the upper slopes of the volcano at the moment, to the Taniluya (south) and Ceniza canyon (SE). The effusive activity started on 11 Nov and increased on 18 November, reaching a length of 600 m. Constant avalanches detach from the flow fronts. At the same time, explosive activity at the summit crater remained at low to moderate levels, with strombolian explosions that produce ash plumes of up to 800 m height and incandescent jets visible from distance.
Santa María/Santiaguito in Guatemala: A phreatomagmatic (water-magma interaction driven) explosion yesterday morning produced a plume of fine ash rising to 3.2 km altitude (700 m above the lava dome) and drifted SE, causing ash fall in Finca La Florida.
Yaser in Vanuatu: Geohazards reports that the volcano continues to produce near-continuous ash emissions while explosions are relatively weak. This phase of ash emissions began on 3 November and are likely to continue into the coming days and weeks.
Popocatepetl in Mexico: The Popocatepetl volcano showcased with a layer of snow was observed throughout the morning and mid-day from the city of Puebla and columns generated by medium-intensity exhalations. According to the monitoring system of the National Center for Disaster Prevention (Cenapred) in the last 24 hours, the colossus presented 57 exhalations of low intensity, probably accompanied by emissions of steam and gas.
Mount Marapi in Indonesia: Mount Merapi, the most active volcano in Indonesia, erupted earlier Monday, shooting a cloud of black ash about 2,000 meter high, officials said.
Kliuchevskoi on the Kamchatka Peninsula: Kliuchevskoi on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia had a busy weekend after its busy week — and a lot of the action was caught on the webcams pointed at the volcano or by satellite. For much of Friday and into Saturday (October 18-19), the volcano continued to produce some vigorous lava fountains and lava flows, mixed in with Strombolian explosions that sent bombs down the slopes of the volcano. This activity was significant enough to cause some aviation alerts even over the western Aleutian Islands.
So why is this happening?
Why is the Ring of Fire suddenly roaring to life?
And what could this mean for the United States?
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 thriller entitled “The Beginning Of The End” is now available on Amazon.com.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Flashback: Tokyo Soil Contamination
Flashback: Tokyo Soil Contamination
Nov 24, 2013 | organicslant
Published on Mar 26, 2012
Tokyo Soil Samples Would Be Considered Nuclear Waste In The US.
Nov 24, 2013 | organicslant
Published on Mar 26, 2012
Tokyo Soil Samples Would Be Considered Nuclear Waste In The US.
Art is dangerous to authorities
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| © Courtesy Thunderbolt.info |
Nov 20, 2013 | No More Fake News | Jon Rappoport
Art is dangerous. It makes people move out of standard-response channels.
They don’t see what they’re supposed to see anymore. They see what they’re not supposed to see.
That’s why colleges teach brain-deadening courses in art history. Every attempt is made to codify the students’ reactions.
I’m not just talking about political art. I mean anything that truly comes out of reliance on imagination.
Those who run things—and their willing dupes—want reality to look a certain way and be experienced and felt in certain ways. These limited spectra form a shared lowest common denominator.
Even so-called spiritual experience is codified. It’s called organized religion. I call it “give money to the ceiling.” You give your money and they tell you high how the ceiling of your experience is and what you’ll find when you get there.
Art has none of these limitations. It’s created by people who’ve gone beyond the shrunken catalog of emotions, thoughts, and perceptions listed by authorities.
Art, by which I mean imagination, throws caution to the winds. It invents realities that engender new reactions, never before experienced. It blows apart old rigid perception.
The hammer blows and the soft propaganda of the common culture install layers of mind control: “See things, experience things in these prescribed ways.”
Over the years, I’ve encouraged a number of people to become artists. Aside from the work they then invented, I noticed their whole approach to, and perception of, life altered radically.
Their sense of vitality, their courage, their adventurous spirit came to the foreground.
Mind control, externally applied and self-induced, is all about putting a lid on creative power. That is its real target.
The one trap an artist—which is to say anyone who lives through and by imagination—has to avoid is thinking of himself as a victim because he is “an outsider.”
Outside is good. Outside has great strength.
When an artist invents himself as a victim, he then goes on to lash out at people who have nothing to do with the fate to which he’s consigned himself.
Authorities in any society, no matter what they call themselves, are invested in systems that will maintain a status quo of perception. They are constantly producing new systems for that purpose.
Technocrats would like you to believe that hooking your brain up to some super-brain computer will fulfill your needs and desires. They seek to prove that all invention, all creation, all art, all imagination is merely a set of calculations within a closed system.
This effort betrays their own despair. They see no way they can truly create.
It is the vacuum in which all elites live. They build up a frozen dead consciousness of models and algorithms and “solutions,” and they seek to impose it, as reality, on the minds of populations.
Essentially, they’re saying, “If we have a soul-sickness, you have to have it, too.”
It’s called hatred of life.
On the other hand, individual creative power launches from a platform of freedom and rises through layer after layer of greater freedom.
From that perspective, authoritarian power looks like a sick-unto-dying charade.
Jon Rappoport
The author of two explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED and EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com
Saturday, November 23, 2013
What's behind 'Grain Brain': Are gluten and carbs wrecking our brains and our health?
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| © Alternet |
Nov 20, 2013 | Alternet | Ari LeVaux
"Barely two months after publication, Grain Brain is already a bestseller, and many people are wondering if they should take drastic dietary action in order to save their brains."Celiac disease is widely known to cause digestive problems. That's just the tip of the iceberg, according to the book Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar--Your Brain's Silent Killers, by David Perlmutter. The intestinal difficulties associated with celiac disease are caused by an immunological response triggered by gluten, similar to an allergic reaction but less violent. This response, which leads to inflammation in the gut, can happen elsewhere in the body, too. Inflammation is at the root of many diseases and complications, including, Perlmutter argues, brain decay. Gluten can lead to inflammation in the brain, which Perlmutter believes leads to conditions like dementia and Alzheimer's.
A practicing neurologist, Dr. Perlmutter's experiences with patients, along with medical research he's studied, have led him to piece together a theory behind brain degeneration that's based on a foundation of gluten and high blood sugar. He also argues for the importance of cholesterol to maintaining brain health, and makes a compelling case that cholesterol-lowering statin drugs are bad for the brain.
Grain Brain frequently veers from the brain to other parts of the body that Perlmutter says are damaged by gluten and carbohydrates and of the general dangers of fat avoidance. You may have heard some of these ideas elsewhere; Perlmutter is clearly aligned with the likes of Robert Lustig, a pediatrician who writes of the ills of sugar, and Gary Taubes, one of the first to demolish the idea that dietary fat and cholesterol are responsible for heart disease.
Read more..
Fracking Profits: Oil lobby pushes for bill to deregulate shale industry
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| "Propaganda Film" © RT |
Nov 22, 2013 | RT
Protesting could soon become a thing of luxury at any drill site in the United States - courtesy of new laws co-crafted by the oil lobby.
Aside from forcing demonstrators to shell out 5 thousand dollars for a rally permit... the bill would also excuse the federal government from regulating the fracking industry. Gayane Chichakyan reports.
Agenda 21 “Plan Bay Area” & “Wildlife Corridors” Explained
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| © Steve Kemp Channel |
Agenda 21 “Plan Bay Area” & “Wildlife Corridors” Explained
Nov 21, 2013 | Farm Wars | Heather Gass
Editor's note: Heather Gass outlines how our UN and aristocracy have taken words such as "sustainability," and are using this deceptive language to hide both austerity and the manner of bailouts that are actually in process. This attributes the movement of wealth from that of the people, into the hands of those who have no conscience or humanitarian values. This is a form of psychological warfare and awareness is beyond critical, as partnerships are already being employed world wide with the monolithic powerful.
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'Wise chisels': Art, craftsmanship, and power tools (w/ Video)
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| A carving tool designed
by MIT Media Lab postdoc Amit Zoran, called FreeD, allows the user to control the carving process while aided by a computer guidance system that is preprogrammed with the desired three-dimensional shape. Credit: MIT |
Nov 22, 2013 | Phys.org | David L. Chandler
It's often easy to tell at a glance the difference between a mass-produced object and one that has been handcrafted: The handmade item is likely to have distinctive imperfections and clear signs of an individual's technique and style.
Now, some researchers at MIT are finding ways to blur those distinctions, making it possible, for example, to sculpt items with those distinctive signs of handicraft, while controlling the outcome so that the object doesn't stray too far from the desired form. They described their work at the recent Association for Computing Machinery Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology.
Amit Zoran, a postdoc at the MIT Media Lab who did much of this work as part of his doctoral thesis research, is the lead author of the reports. He says that, in an age of increasing standardization and mass-production, he has been "searching for this human quality, for ways to translate the long heritage of craft and creativity" into the digital age.
For example, in work with graduate student Roy Shilkrot, Zoran has designed a handheld carving tool that can be programmed with a desired three-dimensional shape. When the user begins to carve a block of material, anytime his motions would extend into the region of the desired final form, the device provides physical feedback that slows the motion.
If the carving alters the shape so much that it would compromise the structural integrity of the object, the computerized system can adjust the shape accordingly, in real time. For example, if in sculpting a giraffe the user carved too far into the neck, the computer can adjust the shape, introducing a bend in the neck that maintains its strength.
Watch video
The basic principles Zoran and his colleagues are pursuing could also extend into physical safety. For example, by recognizing when they might be about to inflict damage, these "smart tools" could sense that a sharp blade is getting too close to a user's fingers, for example, and automatically deflect its path to avoid injury.
"We're developing tools that don't have a direct physical, craft heritage, but are entirely new," Zoran says of a project conducted with graduate student Pragun Goyal. "Creativity is all about error. … We're looking for creativity, for something that surprises us."
To demonstrate the inherent flexibility and creativity of these computer-assisted tools, Zoran had several different people make carvings based on the same programmed shape—in this case, a cat. As expected, each piece had a unique appearance, with distinctive textures, forms, and styles.
Goyal and his advisor, Joseph Paradiso, an associate professor of media arts and sciences, have also developed a handheld inkjet printer head. The device can be programmed to print a specific image, but instead of moving across a fixed track as in a conventional printer, it can be guided by hand across any surface. This would allow, for example, a highly detailed image to be printed onto a complex 3-D shape—something no conventional printer can do.
This combination of digital capabilities and human control could permit a new kind of tool for measurement or testing, explains Goyal. For example, a handheld probe could be used to test an electronic circuit board—but unlike ordinary probes, it could be preprogrammed with details of the circuit. So instead of having to manually set parameters, such as the expected voltage range at a given point, the device would know what range to set, and do so instantly. It would also record the reading and automatically associate each result with the exact location where it was taken.
Zoran, Goyal, and Shilkrot carried out this research with Paradiso and Pattie Maes as part of the Media Lab's groups on Responsive Environment and Fluid Interfaces.
Friday, November 22, 2013
Matt Damon on the need for Disobedience to the State
Matt Damon on the need for Disobedience to the State
Nov 22, 2013 | Sott.net | Matt Damon
Matt Damon speaks for just 5 minutes, but packs in a lot of truth, truth that so many people around the world, and especially in the 'Western world' need to hear NOW.
Nov 22, 2013 | Sott.net | Matt Damon
Matt Damon speaks for just 5 minutes, but packs in a lot of truth, truth that so many people around the world, and especially in the 'Western world' need to hear NOW.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Walmart: The High Cost Of Low Prices FULL MOVIE
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| © Brave New Foundation |
May 6, 2012 | Krazyjesus
WAL-MART: THE HIGH COST OF LOW PRICE is a feature length documentary that uncovers a retail giant's assault on families and American values.
The film dives into the deeply personal stories and everyday lives of families and communities struggling to fight a goliath. A working mother is forced to turn to public assistance to provide healthcare for her two small children. A Missouri family loses its business after Wal-Mart is given over $2 million to open its doors down the road. A mayor struggles to equip his first responders after Wal-Mart pulls out and relocates just outside the city limits. A community in California unites, takes on the giant, and wins!
Producer/Director Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films take you on an extraordinary journey that will change the way you think, feel -- and shop.
BP Pays PR Trolls to Threaten Online Critics | Interview with Dahr Jamail
BP Pays PR Trolls to Threaten Online Critics | Interview with Dahr Jamail
Nov 20, 2013 | breakingtheset
Abby Martin speaks with investigative journalist Dahr Jamail, who has uncovered BP's online scheme to silence critics of their Gulf of Mexico clean-up, with methods such as bribery and death threats.
Nov 20, 2013 | breakingtheset
Abby Martin speaks with investigative journalist Dahr Jamail, who has uncovered BP's online scheme to silence critics of their Gulf of Mexico clean-up, with methods such as bribery and death threats.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
How About Some Carbon Monoxide in Your Meat?
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| © TruthStream Media |
Nov 19, 2013 | TRUTHstreammedia
(Truthstream Media.com)
On top of all the other troubling ingredients, chemicals and known toxins found in foods and/or used in its production and cultivation, there is apparently also carbon monoxide to be concerned about.
Yes, the silent but deadly gas carbon monoxide.
Apparently the FDA – our loving watchdogs – have ok’d its use as a color preservative in meats, as it evidently helps keep us appearances for as much as 20 days. The carbon monoxide (known for its deadly tail pipe exhaust and as a carcinogen in cigarette smoke) is used to give fish and meat a fresh “red” look to appeal to buyers. However, some have warned this can also give spoiled or less-than-fresh foods the same glossy red-appearance – that is, until consumers come home to a rotten surprise.
Consumer groups and a natural flavor, color and extract company named Kalsec (are there competing interests here?) have challenged the use of carbon monoxide as a food preservative, arguing that while it can keep meat appealing for nearly three weeks while unwrapped meat is remains attractive for only a few, it poses a problem, claiming that consumers might be ‘fooled into buying spoiled or old meat.’
“The gas not only keeps meat red while on the shelf but after it’s spoiled.”
Carbon Monoxide… Yummy!
When breathed in, carbon monoxide can – infamously – cause acute and immediate death. However, breathing less than deadly levels can also cause or are associated with many severe chronic health affects, particularly on the brain and neurological system.
“Up to forty percent of those poisoned can suffer problems that range from amnesia, headaches and memory loss to personality and behavioural changes, loss of muscle and bladder control and impairment of co-ordination and vision.”So are there any ill effects from ingesting carbon monoxide in small quantities over long periods of time?
At least one scientific study claimed it was highly unlikely to cause toxic effects in human health, instead praising the “cherry red color” it gave to meat:
ABSTRACT: Retail meat can be packaged in gas mixtures containing 60–70% carbon dioxide (CO2), 30–40% nitrogen (N2) and <0.5% carbon monoxide (CO). This gas mixture with CO provides a unique combination of a long microbiological shelf life and a stable, cherry red colour of the meat. The shelf life of meat packaged in the CO mixture is longer than that of meat packaged in the commonly used atmospheres with high oxygen (O2), that is, approximately 70% O2 and 30% CO2. The consumption of meat that has been packaged in a CO mixture will result in only negligible levels of carboxyhaemoglobin in the blood. It is highly improbable that the use of CO in the packaging of meat will present a toxic threat to consumers.Not completely sure over here what the long-term effects might be, but one claim that any harm is “highly improbable” is hardly enough to keep people from being just a little freaked out that this is one known toxin being added to the food supply.
Have there been any long term studies, or was just this another gross G.R.A.S. assumption (Yes, there is one for carbon monoxide in food) that the public is fine with being treated as a waste disposal bin?
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