Obama Executive ‘Order’: US can seize any person, any resource, any time

“A mere demarcation on parchment of the constitutional limits (of government) is not a sufficient guard against those encroachments which lead to a tyrannical concentration of all the powers of government in the same hands.” - James Madison, Federalist Paper #48, 1788.

(Carl Herman) President Obama signed an Executive Order for “National Defense” yesterday that claims executive authority to seize all US resources and persons, including during peacetime, for self-declared “national defense.”

The EO claims power to place any American into military or “allocated” labor use (analysis here and here).

“American exceptionalism” is the belief that a 200+ year-old parchment in the National Archives has magical powers to somehow guarantee limited government from 1% tyranny, despite the specific and clear warnings of the US Founders, despite world history of repeated oligarchic/1% tyranny claiming to be for the “good of the people,” and despite US history’s descent into vicious psychopathy (short version here: US war history in 2 minutes) hidden in plain view with paper-thin corporate media propaganda.

I don’t know about you, but both my grandfathers were in the US military during the gruesome WW1. My father, father-in-law, and only uncle were in a brutal WW2. Both wars were functions of colonialism; a 1%’s vicious and rapacious greed.

Now, we’re all looking at WW3 that includes official policy and dark rhetoric for US first-strike use of nuclear weapons on Iran. This, after multiple current lie-started and treaty-violating wars surrounding Iran, increased US military preparations, multiple war-propagandizing US political “leaders,” and recent history of US overthrowing Iran’s democracy and 35 consecutive years of US war on Iran that killed over one million Iranians.

I don’t know about you, but I’m teaching the obvious crimes in war and money, destruction of Constitutional Rights rights (see specific links below), and asking students (of all ages) what they see to do about these clear facts. The first answer people see is to help people get over their “American exceptionalism” to recognize these massive crimes, and demand arrests of the obvious criminal “leadership.”

I don’t know about you, but I refuse to be silent in face of lying and criminal government policies that annually murder millions, harm billions, and loot trillions of the 99%’s dollars.

What will you do?

Here is the US government claiming it can Constitutionally assassinate Americans upon the non-reviewable dictate of the leader, as these criminals take psychopathic steps to murder Americans who expose their crimes.

Here is NDAA 2012 where US government claims it can Constitutionally disappear Americans and then appoint a tribunal with death sentence authority (unless unlimited detention is their choice). Here is the 2006 Military Commissions Act that says the same. This is fascist terrorism to silence Americans from communicating that the 1% are War Criminals to arrest NOW.

Here is US government claiming it can Constitutionally control-drown (waterboard) anyone they declare a “terrorist” as a 1% terror-tactic to silence Americans.

Again, what will you do?

Posted on Monday, March 19, 2012 / 0 comments / Read More

Denying chemtrails is dangerous for your health

(NaturalNews) Statistical evidence shows that lung issues such as asthma and COPD have risen considerably over the past two decades. While there may be a few factors behind this, hardly anyone includes chemtrails as one of them.

Scientists and governments have allowed some "limited hangouts" (partial disclosures) on chemtrails or stratospheric geo-engineering, framing it as "experimental." They openly discuss geo-engineering as "potential" solutions for weather control and protection against global warming.

Apparently, they've been doing a lot of open "experimenting" since the early 1990s. They don't really have to deny much. There's plenty of denial from those on the ground who don't look up to see anything different. Or upon noticing chemtrails, they will argue that they are contrails.

There are even internet pages devoted to "scientifically" debunking chemtrails as erroneous conspiracy theories, similar to "Quackwatch" sites that go after medical practitioners who successfully treat disease without drugs.

The obvious differences between chemtrails and contrailsContrails appear from aircraft propulsion systems of all types at stratospheric altitudes, 30,000 to 40,000 feet up. They are exhaust vapors that become ice crystals in high altitude, low pressure frigid air.

Contrails are harmless and dissipate quickly. They don't linger. They usually extend from 20 to 50 plane lengths behind the aircraft. They are very white and somewhat thinly textured. Sometimes high altitude planes can be seen as silver specks without any trail at all. Chemtrails, however, are very different.

Chemtrails often extend from one horizon to the other. They tend to be thicker and wider than contrails, and their white plumes can be tainted with slight discolorations.Chemtrails linger for hours or whole days.

They tend to fan out and mingle with themselves or actual clouds, forming larger clouds or a haze that covers the sky. At higher ground levels, they can be observed drifting downward to earth.

Their paths do not correspond with normal commercial airline flight paths. They often turn around and continue their smoky plumes. Sometimes they will create grid patterns or Xs. See examples here (http://youtu.be/eEFITGpXwZk).

Do you recall meeting other aircraft while on a commercial flight, and deviating from the prescribed route to doodle in the sky with the other planes? Of course not. Chemtrails are usually emitted by non-commercial planes.

Continue reading here.

Posted on Monday, March 19, 2012 / 0 comments / Read More

Olympics 2012 security: welcome to lockdown London

London 2012 will see the UK's biggest mobilisation of military and security forces since the second world war and the effects will linger long after the athletes have left.

As a metaphor for the London Olympics, it could hardly be more stark. The much-derided "Wenlock" Olympic mascot is now available in London Olympic stores dressed as a Metropolitan police officer. For £10.25 you, too, can own the ultimate symbol of the Games: a member of by far the biggest and most expensive security operation in recent British history packaged as tourist commodity. Eerily, his single panoptic-style eye, peering out from beneath the police helmet, is reminiscent of the all-seeing eye of God so commonly depicted at the top of Enlightenment paintings. In these, God's eye maintained a custodial and omniscient surveillance on His unruly subjects far below on terra firma.

The imminent Olympics will take place in a city still recovering from riots that the Guardian-LSE Reading the Riots project showed were partly fuelled by resentment at their lavish cost. Last week, the UK spending watchdog warned that the overall costs of the Games were set to be at least £11bn – £2 bn over even recently inflated budgets. When major infrastructure projects such as Crossrail, speeded up for the Games, are factored in, the figure may be as high as £24bn, according to Sky News. The estimated cost put forward only seven years ago when the Games were won was £2.37 bn.

With the required numbers of security staff more than doubling in the last year, estimates of the Games' immediate security costs have doubled from £282m to £553m. Even these figures are likely to end up as dramatic underestimates: the final security budget of the 2004 Athens Olympics were around £1bn.

All this in a city convulsed by massive welfare, housing benefit and legal aid cuts, spiralling unemployment and rising social protests. It is darkly ironic, indeed, that large swaths of London and the UK are being thrown into ever deeper insecurity while being asked to pay for a massive security operation, of unprecedented scale, largely to protect wealthy and powerful people and corporations.

Critics of the Olympics have not been slow to point out the dark ironies surrounding the police Wenlock figure. "Water cannon and steel cordon sold separately," mocks Dan Hancox on the influential Games Monitorwebsite. "Baton rounds may be unsuitable for small children."

In addition to the concentration of sporting talent and global media, the London Olympics will host the biggest mobilisation of military and security forces seen in the UK since the second world war. More troops – around 13,500 – will be deployed than are currently at war in Afghanistan. The growing security force is being estimated at anything between 24,000 and 49,000 in total. Such is the secrecy that no one seems to know for sure.

During the Games an aircraft carrier will dock on the Thames. Surface-to-air missile systems will scan the skies. Unmanned drones, thankfully without lethal missiles, will loiter above the gleaming stadiums and opening and closing ceremonies. RAF Typhoon Eurofighters will fly from RAF Northolt. A thousand armed US diplomatic and FBI agents and 55 dog teams will patrol an Olympic zone partitioned off from the wider city by an 11-mile, £80m, 5,000-volt electric fence.

Beyond these security spectaculars, more stealthy changes are underway. New, punitive and potentially invasive laws such as the London Olympic Games Act 2006 are in force. These legitimise the use of force, potentially by private security companies, to proscribe Occupy-style protests. They also allow Olympic security personnel to deal forcibly with the display of any commercial material that is deemed to challenge the complete management of London as a "clean city" to be branded for the global TV audience wholly by prime corporate sponsors (including McDonald's, Visa and Dow Chemical).

Full article here.

Posted on Tuesday, March 13, 2012 / 0 comments / Read More

Shocking report says water bills to triple across USA

(NaturalNews) With wages stagnant or declining, gasoline and electricity prices on the rise and food prices steadily increasing, the last thing American families need is another increase in a basic necessity. Yet, a new report says that's exactly what you're going to get: Water bills that will likely double ortripleover the next few years, thanks to the nation's crumbling water system infrastructure.

A new study and report by the American Water Works Association (AWWA) entitled,Buried No Longer: Confronting America's Water Infrastructure Challenge, improving and expanding the nation's underground water systems will cost upwards of $1 trillion over the next 25 years. And, as is always the case, water system users are going to getsoakedwith the bill.

What does that mean in real dollars and cents? Right now the average family household pays about $400 a year. The fixes that are needed over the next quarter century mean that bills could rise anywhere from $300-$550 a year, meaning water bills could skyrocket to $900 a year or more.

Crumbling infrastructure

Experts will tell you that investing now, rather than later, is a good idea and cheaper in the long run. But that's hard to swallow for wage earners whose incomes have been stuck in neutral or worse, declining for the past decade. Add to that a raft of new tax hikes and cuts in benefits, and hard-hit Americans are in no mood to fork out even more money in new fees and rate increases.

But that doesn't change the fact that, without improvements, the nation's supply and delivery of fresh drinking water is in peril. In fact, the AWWA believes spending to fix the pipes and other infrastructure is likely to rise from $13 billion a year today to $30 billion in 2040.

"Delaying the investment can result in degrading water service, increasing water service disruptions, and increasing expenditures for emergency repairs. Ultimately we will have to face the need to "catch up" with past deferred investments, and the more we delay the harder the job will be when the day of reckoning comes," said the report.

Not all of the expense of this upgrade will come from higher water bills, though much of it will. Some communities, the report said, will be double-tapped, so to speak.

"Other communities will need to collect significant "impact" or development fees to meet the needs of a growing population. Numerous communities will need to invest for replacement and raise funds to accommodate growth at the same time. Investments that may be required to meet new standards for drinking water quality will add even more to the bill," it said.

Read more here.

Posted on Monday, March 05, 2012 / 0 comments / Read More

Secret CIA interrogation prison discovered in Bucharest

The jail was housed in the basement of the National Registry Office for Classified Information...

The hitherto secret location of what is said to have been one of the CIA's notorious interrogation prisons in Eastern Europe has been traced to a government building in the Romanian capital, Bucharest.

The prison, code-named "Bright Light", was allegedly housed until 2006 in the basement of Romania's National Registry Office for Classified Information, which lies in a busy residential district. Detainees, who included al-Qa'ida figures who masterminded the 9/11 attacks, were held in cells set on springs to keep them off balance, repeatedly slapped, doused with water and forced to stand for hours in painful positions.

The prison – which belonged to a string of so-called CIA "black sites" in Thailand, Lithuania, and Poland – was discovered during a joint investigation by the Associated Press and the German television channel ARD, which aired a documentary on the subject last night. The programme-makers said the CIA selected a government building in what had been one of the East Bloc's infamous police states to minimise the possibility of being detected.

The existence of a CIA prison in Romania has been widely reported, but although the CIA ended its detention and interrogation programme in 2009, its whereabouts had never been established.

Romania has denied providing prison facilities for the CIA and government officials interviewed in the documentary claim that the idea is "impossible". But the film-makers were tipped off about the prison by former US intelligence officials.

Prisoners were flown into Bucharest, picked up from the airport in windowless vans and entered the tree-lined compound via a rear gate. Inside, the detainees were held in six prefabricated cells. Officials insisted the technique of waterboarding was never used at the facility and that after the initial harsh interrogation the prisoners were provided with full medical treatment and special food to meet the requirements of their religion. The prisoners were later transferred to Guantanamo Bay.

The Romanian government continues to deny it provided such facilities. Dick Marty, a Swiss MP who led an investigation into the prisons for the Council of Europe, said: "We are at last beginning to learn what really happened."

Read more.

Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2011 / 0 comments / Read More

Sterilization: Peru's Darkest Secret

An investigation into whether Alberto Fujimori's government carried out mass forced sterilisations in the 1990s has been reopened...

Victoria Vigo shows no flicker of emotion as she recounts how she discovered – by chance – that she had been surgically sterilised against her will. Heavily pregnant, she was admitted to a public hospital in the city of Piura, on Peru's northern coast, in April 1996 to undergo a Caesarian section. Within hours of the procedure, her ailing new-born child had died and Ms Vigo, 32 at the time, was being consoled by two doctors.

"I was exhausted and just wanted to go home," Ms Vigo says. "The doctors were trying to comfort me and one told me I was still very young and could have more children. But then, afterwards, I overheard them talking and the other said that it would not be possible for me to conceive as he had sterilised me."

Not only had Ms Vigo never given her permission for the procedure. The doctor had omitted it from her clinical records and failed to inform her. "I felt totally violated and brutalised. I still cannot understand what motivated him," Ms Vigo says. "He sterilised me and then hid the evidence. I could have tried for years to have another child without even knowing I could never conceive."

Doubly traumatised, Ms Vigo went home without confronting the doctor. But she eventually sued him and, in 2003, won damages of approximately £2,000. During the trial, Ms Vigo says, the doctor claimed that he had been following instructions and that the practice of sterilising patients – with or without their knowledge or consent – was standard among Peru's public healthcare providers.

That allegation may now finally be tested in court, after Peru's Attorney General last month reopened an investigation into the alleged forced sterilisations during the government of Alberto Fujimori, President from 1990 to 2000, who is currently serving a 25-year prison term for embezzlement and directing death squads during the crackdown against the Maoist Shining Path.

The investigation will look at the entire issue of forced sterilisations while focusing on one sample case, of Mamerita Mestanza, a 33-year-old, Quechua-speaking mother-of-seven, from the Andean region of Cajamarca. She died in 1998 from complications from sterilisation surgery that health officials allegedly harassed her into accepting.

According to human rights groups, there may have been as many as 300,000 victims, overwhelmingly women, the majority of them poor and often indigenous, Quechua-speakers with limited Spanish. "They were the weakest and most vulnerable," says Ms Vigo, whose case remains the only one to have reached the courts in Peru.

According to the New York-based Centre for Reproductive Rights, Fujimori's Peru is one of only two instances of forced sterilisations being adopted as state policy since the Third Reich.

The case had previously been shelved in 2009 after it was deemed to have lapsed under the statute of limitations. However, prosecutors have now reclassified the sterilisations as a crime against humanity, meaning there is no time limit for perpetrators to be brought to justice.

That could pave the way for high-profile trials of Fujimori and his three health ministers Eduardo Yong Motta, Alejandro Aguinaga and Marino Costa Bauer.

Although they have conceded there were problems in individual cases, all four have denied ordering forced sterilisations. Silvia Romero, a lawyer representing the Association of Women Affected by Forced Sterilisations, which has approximately 2,000 members, mainly from the Cusco region, retorts: "This was a state policy that came from the highest spheres of power."

But Ms Vigo also wants to see the doctors who carried out the sterilisations in the dock. She believes recent allegations by Peru's medical association, that its members were pressured into carrying out sterilisations, including with the threat of losing their jobs, is too little, too late. "They had a choice," she says. "If more of the doctors had spoken out at the time, the sterilisations might never have taken place."

Fujimori first unveiled the policy of providing free sterilisations for men and women in 1995 as a way of tackling Peru's entrenched poverty and rising population. It initially received a warm reception, including from the United Nations, which provided financial support. The United States' international aid agency, USAid, donated $35m (£22m).

But word quickly spread about doctors being pressured to meet sterilisation targets, and patients being tricked or bullied into undergoing the procedure. Human rights groups even reported alleged cases of medical personnel and members of the armed forces being ordered to undergo sterilisations simply to allow clinics to make up the numbers. As the scandal mushroomed out of the Fujimori administration's control, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights stepped in and oversaw a settlement in 2001 between the Peruvian state and the family of Ms Mestanza, including a compensation payment of $100,000. The Commission also instructed Peruvian authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice and provide reparations to all the victims – a ruling yet to be fulfilled.

Read more.

Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2011 / 0 comments / Read More

Bondholders Desire Inflation as Austerity Antidote: Euro Credit

Dec. 7 (Bloomberg) -- The biggest investors in European sovereign debt say they will tolerate inflation over austerity, and that Greece's exit from the euro would spark a recession.

"I want growth," said Kathleen Gaffney, co-manager of the $19.3 billion Boston-based Loomis Sayles Bond Fund, the biggest non-bank holder of Greek debt. "Without Europe holding together, we're looking at, not just a severe recession, but a freezing up of the global financial system, which would be a depression."

Governments from Italy to Spain are cutting spending to reduce bond yields that reached euro-area records of more than 7 percent last month. The cost of insuring euro zone government bonds against default also rose to a record on Nov. 25 on concern a member of the single currency would default. The Markit Itraxx Sovx Western Europe index of credit-default swaps on 15 governments was at 326 basis points in London yesterday, down from its peak of 385, according to Markit prices.

While the austerity measures announced by governments in Italy and France have reduced 10-year yields to 5.80 percent and 3.21 percent, respectively, from as high as 7.48 percent and 3.82 percent in November, investors say that without growth the relief may only be temporary. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on Nov. 28 slashed its euro zone growth forecast for 2012 to 0.2 percent from 2 percent, saying the region "represents the key risk to the world economy."

'Debt Mess'

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy are pushing for new rules to tighten euro-area economic cooperation before a Dec. 8-9 summit of European Union leaders. Standard & Poor's said on Dec. 5 that it may downgrade the two countries' AAA credit ratings along with the grades of 13 of their neighbors.

"The danger in Europe is that austerity, feeding on itself, makes the economic environment worse and exacerbates the fiscal problem rather than solving it," said John Stopford, head of fixed income at Investec Plc in London, who helps manage $90 billion. "Ultimately, to get out of the debt mess, we need to see growth across Europe." Stopford holds French, Dutch and Finnish debt, and no peripheral bonds.

The only way for Europe to solve the crisis to allow inflation to accelerate, eroding the value of fixed-income securities, and for investors to write down some of their holdings of government debt, according to Komal Sri-kumar, chief global strategist at Los Angeles-based TCW Group Inc., which manages $120 billion.

"My examination of indebted countries for decades suggested the way they get out of debt in a big way is through inflation," he said in an interview, citing the Latin American defaults of the 1980s. "If you find austerity is not the way out, then you should do it through inflation and debt reduction through haircuts."

Read more.

Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2011 / 0 comments / Read More

Black Friday Violence Worse Than Ever As American Consumers Fight Over Deals Like Crazed Animals

     We all knew that this was coming, didn't we? Each year Black Friday violence just seems to get worse and worse. What does it say about American consumers when they are willing to fight like crazed animals just to save a few bucks on cheap plastic crap made in China? Not that retailers are innocent in any of this. It certainly seems as though many of them purposely create wild situations on Black Friday where customers will rush like crazy people into their stores and nearly riot as they fight over discounted merchandise. The more Black Friday madness there is, the more of an "event" it becomes, and the higher the profits of the retailers go. This year there was more Black Friday hype than ever and there was also more Black Friday violence than ever. It is being projected that this year a record-setting 152 million Americans will go shopping between Thanksgiving and Sunday night. That may be good news for the big corporate retailers, but the shocking lack of character being displayed by American consumers all over the country this weekend is very bad news for the future of this nation.

Most Americans would agree that there is a tremendous amount of selfishness and greed on Wall Street, but as the videos posted below demonstrate, there is also a tremendous amount of selfishness and greed on "Main Street" as well.

This year, Black Friday violence included robberies, gunfire and shootings, but the most shocking incidents actually happened inside the big retail stores.

For example, as merchandise was being unveiled on Black Friday night at a Wal-Mart in the Los Angeles area, one woman actualy pulled out pepper spray and sprayed it at other customers that were gathered around her.

Did she do this because she felt threatened?

No, according to the Los Angeles Times, authorities say that the woman was just seeking a "competitive" edge.

It is being reported that at least 20 people were affected by the pepper spray.

The pepper spray incident just added to the wild and frenzied atmosphere inside that Wal-Mart last night.

The following is how the Los Angeles Times described the scene....

Employees attempted to hold back the scrum of shoppers and pick up merchandise even as customers trampled the video games and DVDs strewn on the floor.

"It was absolutely crazy," he said.

Another customer said screams erupted after about 100 people waiting in line to snag Xbox gaming consoles and Wii video games got into a shoving match.

Alejandra Seminario, 24, said she was waiting in line to grab some toys at the store around 9:55 p.m. when people the next aisle over started shouting and ripping at the plastic wrap encasing gaming consoles, which was supposed to be opened at 10 p.m.

"People started screaming, pulling and pushing each other, and then the whole area filled up with pepper spray," the Sylmar resident said.

Pepper spray was used at a Wal-Mart on the other side of the country as well. Over in Kinston, North Carolina an off-duty police officer used pepper spray as an unruly shopper was being subdued. Approximately 20 people (including some children) were affected by the pepper spray.

Most Americans are not really concerned over the fact that this country is rapidly heading into the toilet, but they sure will get worked up into a frenzy over some good deals. Just check out the following video that was filmed in California. In the video, a huge crowd can be seen storming the entrance of Urban Outfitters in the Thousand Oaks Mall on Black Friday night....

There are lots of other crazy videos of Black Friday madness on YouTube today as well. Just check out some of the following examples....

*In Fresno, California law enforcement authorities were barely able to keep a stampede at the entrance of one store from turning into a riot.

*In this next video, you can see people going absolutely crazy over memory cards at about the 1:20 mark.

*On Black Friday night, American consumers will riot over just about anything. For example, there was a huge panic over Tupperware at one Wall-Mart last night.

*Of course electronics is probably the hottest category in most stores on Black Friday night. In some areas, the fighting over video games became incredibly intense.

*Some of the worst Black Friday rioting goes on inside Wal-Marts. Just check out this shocking video of what happens inside a Wal-Mart on Black Friday night.

*Also, what happened last night at a Wal-mart Supercenter in Greenville, North Carolina, was nothing short of idiotic.

If this is how the American people will act just to save a few bucks on cheap plastic crap made in foreign countries, how are they going to act when the economy collapses?

If Americans will literally fight each other over saving 20 bucks, what is going to happen someday when millions of them don't know where their next meal is going to come from?

Thankfully the economy is still in good enough shape that most Americans can participate in these orgies of consumerism. But the reality is that the global financial system is in a massive amount of trouble, and it looks like we could be on the verge of another global financial collapse.

Do the American people have enough character to be able to deal with a full-blown economic depression?

Read more here.

Posted on Saturday, November 26, 2011 / 0 comments / Read More

Study: Taking Just a Little Too Much Tylenol Each Time Can Be Deadly

From Time: Taking just a little bit too much acetaminophen (Tylenol) over the course of days or weeks is more likely to be fatal than taking a single, massive overdose, according to a new study. In part, that's because when people take such a "staggered overdose," physicians aren't always able to identify the problem in time to help.

Acetaminophen is one of the most commonly used drugs in the world, with 28 billion doses purchased in the U.S. in 2005 alone. But its very familiarity can obscure the fact that it is a powerful drug, and that taking only slightly higher than recommended doses can cause potentially fatal liver damage. Tylenol overdose is the leading cause of acute liver failure in the U.S., leading to 26,000 hospitalizations and nearly 500 deaths annually, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

The new study, led by Dr. Kenneth Simpson of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, followed 663 hospital patients who had suffered from acetaminophen overdose between 1992 and 2008. Of these patients, 161 had taken a staggered overdose, increasingly escalating their use of painkillers containing acetaminophen to treat common pain like toothache, headache and muscle pain.

"They haven't taken the sort of single-moment, one-off massive overdoses taken by people who try to commit suicide, but over time the damage builds up, and the effect can be fatal," said Simpson in a statement. About 37% of people who took a staggered overdose died from it, compared with 28% of those who took a single overdose.


Read more here.

Posted on Saturday, November 26, 2011 / 0 comments / Read More

Medical industry admits current flu shots are useless

(NaturalNews) The medical community is in the process of unveiling a "universal" influenza vaccine that it claims will prevent all flu strains with a single jab. The only problem is that, in the process, the system has inadvertently admitted that current flu shots are medically useless because they fail to target the correct flu strain in many cases, and they do not stimulate a natural flu-fighting immune response even when the strain is a match.

A recent report by CBS 11 News in Dallas / Fort Worth explains that researchers from the University of Texas (UT) Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas have identified a compound they say spurs the growth of a key protein known as REDD-1, which prevents cells from becoming infected. By injecting this compound into patients, REDD-1 will increase, say the researchers, and thus effectively prevent any strain of flu from taking hold.

But what about current flu vaccines? Dr. Beatrice Fontoura, one of the head researchers involved with the new universal flu shot, explained to CBS 11 that it works differently than current flu shots because it "stimulates our own (immune) response which is already there and boost[s] it to fight an infection."

In other words, flu shots being sold today at pharmacies across the country do not actually promote natural immunity at all, which begs an important question. If current flu shots do not boost the immune response, then what, exactly, are they good for?

Not much, according to a recent study published inThe Lancet. Though the mainstream media widely reported that the study's findings showed an effectiveness rate of 60 percent for flu shots, actual data in the study reveal that flu shots help about 1.5 out of every 100 adults. This, of course, translates into a measly 1.5 percent effectiveness rate (http://www.naturalnews.com/033998_i...).

And yet, for years, medical professionals everywhere have been hounding the public to get their flu shots or else face horrific sickness and even death. And those who continue to avoid the flu shot based on concerns about its safety and effectiveness have been routinely dubbed "anti-science," or worse.

Ironically, the CBS 11 piece about the universal flu shot also contains an interview with a woman who admits that she stopped getting the flu shot becauseit made her sick every single year. Once she stopped getting flu shots, she stopped getting the flu. So why, again, do we even need a universal flu shot?

Read more.

Posted on Monday, November 07, 2011 / 0 comments / Read More

Hundreds of brave dentists speak out against water fluoridation

(NaturalNews) It takes a special kind of humility for a medical professional to admit that something he or she was taught in medical school, and has long since clung to as fact, is actually false. But a growing number of dentists from around the world, many of whom formerly supported water fluoridation, are now boldly speaking out against it as a long-held, unsubstantiated medical dogma purported to prevent tooth decay, but that actually damages health and provides no legitimate oral health benefits.

Recently, there has been intense pressure in many communities to remove fluoride chemicals from water supplies. Particularly in the US where fluoridation is quite common, many local residents have been sending information about fluoride's dangers to their city council members, and even attending and speaking at meetings.

But what is often missing from reports about anti-fluoridation efforts is the fact that many medical professionals, including dentists, are also in agreement that fluoride ingestion is dangerous. In other words, these are not just concerned citizens without medical degrees that are raising an issue, but they are people that have been extensively educated in oral health.

"When I graduated from University, we weren't given any information about where [fluoride] came from," says Dentist Caree Alexander, a former Navy practitioner who also had a private dental practice for 20 years, in the documentaryFIRE WATER: Australia's Industrial Fluoridation Disgrace. "We all assumed it was [pharmaceutical-grade] calcium fluoride."

Read full article here.

Posted on Wednesday, October 12, 2011 / 2 comments / Read More

Slovakia rejects European bailout plan

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Lawmakers in Slovakia rejected a plan late Tuesday to expand the powers of a bailout fund for banks and troubled European governments.

The development, which was tied to a vote of confidence in the government of Slovakian Prime Minister Iveta Radicova, is a bit of a setback for European leaders that are struggling to deal with the continent's growing debt crisis.

Slovakia is the only member of the 17 nation euro currency bloc that has not approved the plan to overhaul the bailout fund, known as the European Financial Stability Facility, or EFSF.

Tuesday's "no" vote does not necessarily mean that the plan to expand the EFSF is dead. But the vote means Radicova will resign. The incoming government could hold a second vote on Thursday or Friday, according to a spokeswoman for the Slovakian Parliament.

Increasing the power of the EFSF is viewed as a crucial first step towards strengthen the banking system in Europe and addressing a long-running sovereign debt crisis in Greece and several other euro zone nations.

Under an agreement reached in July, the €440 billion fund will have greater powers to intervene in sovereign debt markets and provide funding for banks that need to raise capital.

Portugal and Ireland have already tapped the fund and officials have proposed using it to back a second €109 billion bailout for Greece.

The revamped fund could also be used to buy government bonds issued by Italy, Spain and other nations struggling to pay down debt.

That would take some pressure off of the European Central Bank, which has been reluctantly intervening in the sovereign debt market for months.

The EFSF is also viewed as a potential lender of last resort for European banks.

The European banking system has been under increasing pressure as worries about exposure to bad sovereign debt has led to a pull-back in interbank lending.

But overhauling the EFSF has been a contentious issue in many European capitals, where taxpayers have resisted backing further bailouts.

In Slovakia, one of the euro area's smallest economies, the issue has been particularly unpopular.

Richard Sulik, chairman of Slovakia's Freedom and Solidarity party, said rejecting the EFSF overhaul will save European taxpayers more than €300 billion, according to the Slovak news agency.

Continue reading here.

Posted on Tuesday, October 11, 2011 / 0 comments / Read More

TransCanada Is Illegally Clearing The Way For Keystone XL Pipeline

Although Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama have not yet given the necessary approval for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, construction has already begun. Environmental organizations are filing suit against the U.S. State Department, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to block TransCanada from continuing its illegal preparations, which include clear-cutting a path through Nebraska:

The plaintiffs — the Center for Biological Diversity, the Western Nebraska Resources Council and Friends of the Earth — say TransCanada has cleared a 100-mile pipeline corridor through the Nebraska Sandhills, despite a federal law that prevents the launch of projects before they receive approval.

“The State Department has further confirmed that it is running a corrupt review process by giving TransCanada a green light to begin construction,” Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth, said in prepared remarks. “It makes a mockery of the public and sends a message to Nebraska that their concerns don’t matter. If the State Department was truly doing its job, this lawsuit wouldn’t be necessary.”

Activists are planning to occupy the State Department‘s front steps overnight before the public hearing on the Keystone XL pipeline being held there on Friday.

By Brad Johnson on Oct 5, 2011

Posted on Tuesday, October 11, 2011 / 0 comments / Read More

OccupySF march in downtown San Francisco, 10/5/2011

Here are a few photos and a video from the OccupySF march today in downtown San Francisco. It was a great day for a walk through the city... END THE FED!

Posted on Wednesday, October 05, 2011 / 0 comments / Read More

China warns of trade war if U.S. bill passes

By David Stanway and Aileen Wang

BEIJING, Oct 4 (Reuters) - An angry China warned Washington on Tuesday that passage of a bill aimed at forcing Beijing to let its currency rise could lead to a trade war between the world's top two economies.

China's central bank and the ministries of commerce and foreign affairs accused Washington of "politicising" currency issues and putting the global economy at risk after U.S. senators voted on Monday to start a week of debate on the bill.

The response suggested China sees a greater risk from the proposed bill than it has in the past when U.S. lawmakers attempted to put forward similar legislation to speed up the pace of appreciation in the yuan, or renminbi.

Beijing made similar remarks last year after the House of Representatives passed a currency bill that later failed to make any further progress in Congress.

Tuesday's coordinated salvo and the central bank's warning of a trade war and a slowdown in China's exchange rate reforms indicated Beijing was taking the latest currency bill more seriously.

"It is very rare for three different ministries of the country to refute something so quickly and strongly, showing how deeply the Chinese government is concerned about the yuan bill," said Wang Zihong, a researcher at the China Academy of Social Sciences, a top government think tank.

"The strong responses made by the Chinese government may also suggest that the possibility would be quite high this time that the United States will pass the final bill in the end and that Beijing is worried about the possible negative impact on China's exports resulting from the legislation," he said.

U.S. Senate vote opened a week of debate on the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2011, which would allow the U.S. government to slap countervailing duties on products from countries found to be subsidising their exports by undervaluing their currencies.

U.S. lawmakers, eyeing 2012 elections, said keeping China's currency undervalued had cost American jobs and that a fairer exchange rate would help cut an annual trade gap Washington puts at more than $250 billion.

"By using the excuse of a so-called 'currency imbalance', this will escalate the exchange rate issue, adopting a protectionist measure that gravely violates WTO rules and seriously upsets Sino-U.S. trade and economic relations," foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a statement posted on China's official government website (www.gov.cn) on Tuesday.

Continue reading here.

Posted on Tuesday, October 04, 2011 / 0 comments / Read More

Texas city puts an end to water fluoridation

(NaturalNews) A city of roughly 100,000 people and home of Texas A&M University, College Station, Tex., is definitely no backwoods town. In fact, Moneymagazine named the city, which is located in a metropolitan area populated with more than 200,000 people, the 11th most educated city in the US. And now that city officials have decided to axe fluoride from the water supply, people everywhere are taking notice.

One by one they are falling like dominoes -- the cities across America that have decided to stop injecting a toxic, endocrine-disrupting halogen into their water supplies, that is. According to a recent announcement by WTAW NewsTalk 1620, six of the seven city council members in "Aggieland" voted to end artificial water fluoridation, a practice that has been taking place there for more than two decades.

The decision will not only save College Station more than $40,000 a year, which is what it costs to purchase fluoride chemicals from industrial waste producers, but it also means that, officially, there will be no more cities in the Bryan - College Station metropolitan area that fluoridate their water supplies.

College Station joins a host of other towns and cities across the US that are ending the practice as well, including Spring Hill, Tenn. (http://www.naturalnews.com/033479_f...), Pottstown, Penn. (http://www.naturalnews.com/033496_P...), and potentially even New York City (http://www.foodconsumer.org/newsite...).
With momentum building, now is the time for concerned citizens everywhere who live in fluoridated communities to bombard their city officials with information about the dangers of fluoride, and about why removing it is in the best interests of public health. Together, we can put an end to this archaic and barbaric practice.

Read more here.

Posted on Monday, October 03, 2011 / 0 comments / Read More