A crop circle at Cow Down. Very windy indeed so a little bit shaky on the video footage sorry. Shouldnt spoil your enjoyment though.
Sometimes, dogs get impatient with our mixed signals. Don’t you want to do better? (Photo: Hannamariah/Shutterstock)
The spread of Ebola is the big news now. And the news media “hysteria machine” (not to mention the end-of-the-world crowd on the internet grapevine) is running full force with scare stories about Ebola’s potential spread — particularly since it’s been announced that several American victims of Ebola in West Africa are going to be evacuated to the U.S. for treatment.
But do we really have a lot to fear from Ebola here in the U.S.? I contend we have a lot less to fear from Ebola than we have to fear from the federal government using the Ebola hysteria to rob us of more of our freedoms and liberties under the guise of “protecting” us from a largely manufactured “national health crisis.”
That’s the bad news. The potentially good news is this: Way back in 2008 the federal government itself demonstrated the fact that antimicrobial silver is, under certain conditions which I’ll explain below, extremely effective against Ebola and other hemorrhagic fever viruses.
In fact, two years ago I was able to obtain from the U.S. Department of Defense formerly classified documents they probably now wish they’d never de-classified. These documents explain the positive results achieved by the DOD when testing antimicrobial silver against these deadly viruses.
So with all of that said, here’s my somewhat contrarian view regarding the current Ebola “crisis,” as well as what I’ve discovered so far about the potential for colloidal silver’s effectiveness against this deadly virus…
How soon we forget how shrewdly the federal government used the overblown anthrax scare directly after 9-11 to rob us of many of our precious Constitutional rights
After the anthrax scare we witnessed the institution of illegal spying on America citizens, unconstitutional search and seizures, and severely diminished due process of law.
We also forget how the news media later whipped up the so-called “Bird flu” hysteria, followed by the “Swine flu” hysteria
Through these manufactured crises, various departments of the federal government were able to pass new “guidelines” and regulations on the detention and quarantine of U.S. citizens
These can now be used by the federal government to restrict travel at a moment’s notice, arrest and detain individuals, and even quarantine entire cities during a declared “national health emergency.”
That’s why I’m extremely skeptical of the current so-called “Ebola crisis.”
Yes, I understand how virulent and deadly Ebola and other hemorrhagic fever viruses are.
And yes, I also understand that the federal government is now said to be bringing Ebola victims to the U.S. for treatment. And I understand what a threat that could pose should the virus ultimately get loose and go rogue in this country.
Psy-Ops Campaign
But I also understand how psychological operations (psy-ops) campaigns work, and what the federal government stands to gain from them
The federal government absolutely loves it whenever they can whip up enough public hysteria that the resulting public outcry to “protect us” allows them to step in as “saviors” and implement more laws that violate our fundamental rights and liberties under the guise of “keeping us safe.
And folks, this current “Ebola crisis” is indeed a massive psy-ops campaign. In other words, the threat is largely being manufactured and planted into the minds of the American public, through the federal government/news media axis.
Real v/s Realistic\
That doesn’t mean the danger from Ebola isn’t real. Quite the contrary. It’s very real, if you’re exposed to it.
But what’s your actual likelihood of exposure? It’s virtually nil. Which means while the threat may be “real,” it’s not very realistic.
Let me explain with an example you can probably relate to: The deadly, drug-resistant super-pathogen MRSA is also very real. In fact, it’s just as “real” as Ebola.
But the difference between MRSA and Ebola is that MRSA is a far more realistic threat to the population of the U.S. than Ebola.
We know that, because the FDA’s own testing has demonstrated that 61% of all meat in supermarkets is already contaminated with the deadly MRSA pathogen (up from 50% only last year). And independent testing backs those numbers up.
Largely because of this, some 39,000 Americans now get infected by the flesh-eating MRSA pathogen every single year, and a full 20% of those infected end up dying – constituting more deaths annually than those caused by AIDS.
Now that’s a news story, right?
After all, you have a proven, deadly, antibiotic-resistant super-pathogen like MRSA contaminating 61% of all meats in supermarkets. And you buy that meat on a regular basis and bring it home to your family. Wouldn’t you want to know about that?
Yet there’s not so much as a peep about it in the mainstream news media. Listen carefully. The only sound you’ll hear on this issue is crickets
On the other hand you have a virus like Ebola, which is largely endemic to West Africa, and which hasn’t caused a single death anywhere in the United States…ever. Nor has there been a single infection in the U.S.
Yet the mainstream news media drumbeat about the so-called “Ebola threat” is absolutely relentless. And as a result, people are quite literally going out of their minds with fear over it.
If you listen carefully, you can almost hear the mainstream news media and the end-of-the-world internet fear-mongers chanting, Ebo-la…Ebo-la…Ebo-la…Ebo-la…as if they’re actually cheering it on.
Why the dichotomy?
Why is there zero fear-mongering over the deadly MRSA super-pathogen, even though it represents an immediate, dire, realistic and already-proven threat to the American populace…
…while in direct contrast, there’s incessant fear-mongering over the Ebola virus, which has not so much as even been detected in this country?
And Now for the Other Side of the Story
Here’s the reality:
Dealing with the very real threat of MRSA would cost Big Agriculture billions of dollars a year in sales.
So if the USDA and the FDA publicly acknowledged the growing MRSA crisis, people would stop buying meat out of fear, and foreign markets for our beef, chicken, turkey, lamb, pork and other meat products would also dry up overnight.
The entire U.S. agriculture industry would crumble. Billions of dollars would be lost.
So while community-acquired MRSA infections are now absolutely skyrocketing, we don’t hear so much as a squawk about it from the news media.
Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Pitch black silence.
There are no talking heads from the FDA, CDC, WHO, or other alphabet soup health agencies making appearances on national TV news to warn the populace about the growing spread of MRSA.
This is spite of the fact that, for example, some 30,000-plus hospitalizations of children for this deadly disease have taken place over the past few years alone here in the U.S. (which is double the annual rate of child MRSA infections since the year 2000).
Why is there no outcry from the health authorities?
It’s because the health and regulatory authorities have weighed the astonishing number of annual deaths being caused each year in this nation by MRSA, against the economic havoc that would be caused to the agriculture industry if they went public with this information each night on the national news.
And the regulators say, “This is an acceptable loss of life. Let’s keep quiet about it. We’ll save as many MRSA victims as we can. And those who die, die. We can’t risk destroying one of our nation’s largest industries over this.”
But hyperventilating over Ebola, on the other hand, poses no serious direct economic risk to anyone.
The feds and their news media lackeys can rile the population up, scare the living bejabbers out of them, and convince everybody they’re our saviors if we’ll just let them “protect us” from the threat, which of course, is largely non-existent.
The Real Question:
What Will Obama Do?
So the real question is this: How far is the federal government willing to go with this charade?
Would they, for example, allow a few controlled Ebola infections to take place in the U.S., as a means of convincing the population that the so-called “Ebola threat” is “real” so new restrictions to our freedoms and new laws for detaining people could be implemented?
With the anthrax scare of 2001, the Bird flu scare of 2005, and the Swine Flu scare of 2009, the powers-that-be accomplished much of their mission of convincing Americans of the supposed reality of a huge and deadly medical apocalypse directly on the horizon.
“It’s not a matter of if, but when,” goes the relentless drumbeat from the talking head “medical experts” (most of them being paid, government shills) who have appeared on the nightly news for the past decade and a half to assure us our future is bleak.
That’s now embedded in the collective psyche of the entire nation.
So with the vast majority of Americans now convinced of a coming medical apocalypse, what next? What exactly do the powers-that-be have in mind with the latest threat-du-jour known as Ebola?
I find it quite telling that Obama has already used the so-called Ebola crisis to sign a new amendment to an executive order that would allow him to mandate the apprehension and detention of Americans who merely show signs of ‘respiratory illness.’
According to an article on InfoWars.com:
“Obama’s amendment allows for the detention of Americans who display, ‘Severe acute respiratory syndromes, which are diseases that are associated with fever and signs and symptoms of pneumonia or other respiratory illness, are capable of being transmitted from person to person, and that either are causing, or have the potential to cause, a pandemic, or, upon infection, are highly likely to cause mortality or serious morbidity if not properly controlled’.”
The InfoWars.com article goes on to explain exactly how ominous this new executive order amendment is:
“Although Ebola was listed on the original executive order signed by Bush, Obama’s amendment ensures that Americans who merely show signs of respiratory illness, with the exception of influenza, can be forcibly detained by medical authorities.
Although the quarantining of people suspected of being infected with the Ebola virus seems like a perfectly logical move, the actual preconditions for this to happen aren’t restricted to just those suffering from the disease.
As we highlighted earlier this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has measures in place for dealing with an outbreak of a communicable disease which allow for the quarantine of “well persons” who “do not show symptoms” of the disease.
In addition, under the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, public health authorities and governors would be given expanded police powers to seize control of communications devices, public and private property, as well as a host of other draconian measures in the event of a public health emergency.
When the legislation was introduced, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons warned that it ‘could turn governors into dictators’.”
The $64,000 Question
So why does the government/news media axis downplay a very realistic medical threat like MRSA, with very real deaths, and very real impacts on literally thousands of American families every single year, yet relentlessly hype an unrealistic “medical crisis” like Ebola that’s virtually non-existent in this country?
I don’t ask that question to start arguments or to inspire conspiracy theories. I ask it only to bring some semblance of sanity to the table in regards to the supposed “Ebola crisis” and the panic and mass hysteria now evolving around it.
At this point, the so-called “Ebola crisis” is a fabricated one. And the sooner we realize it, the lower the chances are that the federal government can take further advantage of it by reducing our freedoms under the guise of “saving” us.
Why So Fearful?
If you absolutely need to be fearful, you’d have far more reason to be fearful of a deadly MRSA superbug infection striking your household than you would an Ebola infection.
You can come into contact with the MRSA superbug just about any day of the week – right now — especially when you shop for meat at your local supermarket.
What’s more, with MRSA all you need is a small cut or scratch on your body for it to go internal, induce sepsis, cause organ failure and other calamities, giving you a one-in-five chance of living through the infection.
(But thankfully, colloidal silver cures MRSA with relative ease. See the clinical and anecdotal evidence presented on the Colloidal Silver Cures MRSA website, and in my article “Does Colloidal Silver Really Cure MRSA?”)
So your likelihood of coming into contact with the deadly MRSA pathogen is quite high. But your likelihood of being anywhere near the vicinity of an Ebola victim is just about zero.
So please think about it
My advice is this: If you’ve got to panic over something, then panic over something that represents a realistic threat, rather than a sensationalistic threat.
Ebola may be a “real” threat, but it’s not a very realistic threat here in the U.S. At least, not yet.
The true threat at this point is the federal government and the new regulations being implemented to give the federal government the power to detain anybody they want, at any time, under the guise of a “national health crisis.”
Colloidal Silver and Ebola:
What We Know So Far
Which, finally, brings us to the topic of colloidal silver and Ebola. Here’s the good news:
Back in 2008, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) in conjunction with several other federal agencies quietly conducted clinical research into the use of silver nanoparticles against Ebola and other hemorrhagic fever viruses.
What they found was astonishing. They discovered that silver nanoparticles were highly effective against these deadly viruses, including the Ebola virus.
They later presented their findings to federal health regulators and other national health authorities. But it was all kept top secret. The presentation was called “Silver Nanoparticles Neutralize Hemorrhagic Fever Viruses.”
And the gist of the presentation was that silver nanoparticles displayed “powerful neutralizing effects against hemorrhagic fever viruses,” including Arenavirus and Filovirus (i.e., Ebola).
This clinical presentation was conducted under the auspices of the DOD’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and the U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) Center for Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction.
And the presentation was given by researchers from the Applied Biotechnology Branch, 711th Human Performance Wing of the Air Force Research Laboratory.
In other words, those are the big guns, folks! Which is to say, those are the very people responsible for keeping this nation safe from outside threats like bioterrorism
That clinical presentation, made to federal regulators and national health authorities, was later summarized in a printed document, de-classified, and cleared for public release.
But there was no news media hoopla surrounding the release of this information. Not a peep.
And to this very day, to my knowledge, there still hasn’t been a single report in the mainstream news media on the release of this important information, in spite of the fact that Department of Defense researchers found antimicrobial silver to be profoundly effective against Ebola and other hemorrhagic fever viruses, under certain circumstances which we’ll discuss below.
Before we get into the results of this research, as documented in the published version of the DOD presentation, it’s important to note that one of the main tasks of the DOD’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency is to “anticipate and mitigate future threats long before they have a chance to harm the United States and our allies.”
In other words, the researchers were specifically looking for ways to stop Ebola or other hemorrhagic fever viruses from damaging our national security.
And the results they found when using silver nanoparticles for that precise purpose were strikingly positive — enough so to warrant not just the presentation to health and regulatory authorities, but its later publication and public release.
What Researchers Discovered
The researchers tested silver nanoparticles of several different sizes and concentrations on infected cells in vitro (meaning, in the test tube).
And they concluded that silver nanoparticles were able to neutralize hemorrhagic fever viruses inside the cells by “decreasing S segment gene expression and concomitantly decreasing progeny virus production.”
Translation: Silver stops the Ebola virus and related hemorrhagic fever viruses from replicating inside the cells. And when there’s no viral replication inside the cells, there’s no spread of infection!
The researchers had discovered the holy grail Ebola treatments. But they also discovered that neutralization of the virus by silver occurs during the early phases of viral replication.
Therefore, they pointed out that for antimicrobial silver to be effective against Ebola and other hemorrhagic fever viruses, the treatment would have to be administered PRIOR to viral infection or at least within the first few hours after initial exposure to the virus.
In other words, for antimicrobial silver to be effective, an exposed person would need to have already been taking it, or at the very least would have to start taking it within a few short hours of exposure to an infected individual.
Another interesting thing the researchers discovered is that while an enzymatic protein called Cathepsin B has been shown to play an essential role in Ebola virus replication, silver nanoparticles work to decrease cathepsin activity, thus further limiting viral replication in the cell and subsequent spread of the virus to other cells.
And by far the most interesting thing the researchers discovered (at least, to me) is that only very low concentrations of silver nanoparticles were necessary to prevent replication of the virus.
Indeed, low concentrations of 10 ppm nanosilver appears to have worked better than higher concentrations of 25 ppm or 50 ppm nanosilver. This means there’s no need for overly high silver concentrations.
What’s more, the smallest silver particles tested by the researchers worked far better than the larger silver particles tested.
This demonstrates once more that the use of very small silver particles is far more important than the “ppm” or concentration of the colloidal silver solution one is using.
Simply put, smaller silver particles penetrate cells and tissues easier, and are therefore better able to get to the point of infection before the virus spreads.
Here’s a link to the printed version of the DOD clinical presentation, so you can scroll through it and read it for yourself. It’s technical. But if you take your time it’s relatively understandable.
People have written to ask me, “Steve, how much colloidal silver would you have to take in order to protect yourself from an Ebola infection?
And of course, the answer is, no one knows for sure. As I mentioned, the DOD research discussed above was in vitro (i.e., laboratory test tube) reseaRCH. NowI know that’s probably not what you want to hear. But just as I refuse to join in with all of the doom-and-gloom hype about the supposed coming worldwide Ebola apocalypse, in like manner I also refuse to join in with those making blanket statements that colloidal silver is the sure-fire “cure” for Ebola.
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| HitchBOT is making his way across Canada on the kindness of strangers. Credit  : hitchBOT | http://www.hitchbot.me
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If you’re driving along Canada’s highways, you may encounter a hitchhiking robot with his right thumb out, Wellington boots on and a charming personality — not to mention the ability to tweet, Instagram and update his Facebook profile. Meet hitchBOT.
The little robot, the brainchild of Canadian researchers, is making his way across Canada, relying on strangers to give him a ride. The journey is part of an experiment in both the culture of human kindness and the current state of artificial intelligence technology.
The collaborative art and robotics project aims to explore two diverse issues: the growing utility for social or companion robots, and a growing aversion toward risk and adventure (in Canada at least), said David Harris Smith, a professor of communications at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and one of hitchBOT’s founding fathers. [See photos of the hitchhiking robot on his journey]
Though statistically safer, Canadians have become much more cautious and worried, evident in the shrinking amount of unsupervised playtime they allow their children,” Smith told Live Science in an email. “HitchBOT combines these issues by sending a robot to explore cultural life in Canada, taking the someway risky, but adventurous, approach of hitchhiking across the country.”
HitchBOT left Nova Scotia, on the East Coast of Canada, on July 27, and the researchers hope he’ll reach British Columbia, on the West Coast, by the end of the summer. Some of the robot’s features include one hitchhiking arm that can raise itself, the ability to converse with traveling companions and comfy rain boots for those long hours camped on the side of the road. The bot also boasts an LED screen for a face, a 3G and Wi-Fi network, an audio and visual camera, speech-recognition processing and the ability to share bits of trivia from a Wikipedia database.
HitchBOT has been described as “hardware-store chic,” with pool noodle arms, a garbage can hat and a torso made out of a beer pail. HitchBOT also has a “personality” designed by Smith and Frauke Zeller, a professor at Ryerson University in Toronto. The robot’s persona includes a “family” of researchers and artists, hobbies (horseback riding, trivia and baking) and a favorite movie, “Wall-E.”
HitchBOT has limited speech abilities, but can engage in small talk, apologize that he might be kind of weird and even tell you if he doesn’t understand something you said.
“HitchBOT chatters, asking about your favorite music, or what book you are reading — these are strategies to get people talking, so hitchBOT can listen for some key words that it might recognize,” Smith said.
As he travels, hitchBOT asks drivers to charge his battery in the cigarette lighters of their cars, and takes 60-second images or videos that are then uploaded to his social media accounts. This way, the robot’s “family” in Toronto can track what he encounters on his cross-country journey.
“From a cultural and sociological perspective, hitchBOT might be used to fathom differences in cultural attitudes toward social robotics,” Smith said. “We have seen some of this in the social media feeds, which [have] an international audience of over 20,000 followers.”
But the project is doing more than simply documenting the kindness of Canadians. Smith said the researchers are also aiming to design low-cost robots that are intuitive in their interactions with humans, have flexible power-supply options, can be integrated with social media and are able to geo-locate, among other features. HitchBOT may also be useful in calibrating the number of wireless services it encounters over the course of the cross-country expedition, since the robot posts its GPS location every 15 minutes.
So far, the response to hitchBOT has been positive, the researchers said.
“Although we planned to create a robot that would be ‘approachable’ and appealing, we have been deeply impressed by how hitchBOT has been embraced by people of all ages,” Smith said. “HitchBOT is receiving artworks and affectionate notes from children.”
So, what’s next for hitchBOT? The robo traveler is currently outside of Toronto, according to a map on the project’s website. Likely, hitchBOT is standing on the side of a road, arm out, awaiting his next ride.
from: http://www.livescience.com/47206-robot-hitchhikes-across-canada.html
Yellowstone National Park has been hastily evacuated as fear of the Yellowstone Caldera’s eruption is deemed to be approaching sooner than previously expected. Researchers on-site claim that the 640,000 year-old super volcano has exhibited a sudden spike of activity which indicates that it could erupt in as little as two weeks. The explosion caused by the volcano would very well throw all of United States into a 200 year long volcanic winter, with ash blotting out the sun, and pyroclastic flow irreparably damaging the surrounding ecosystem.
Two weeks ago several roads through yellow stone were closed down after the pavement began to crack and bubble due to the extreme temperatures rising beneath the earth’s surface. No one has yet been able to pinpoint what has spurned this sudden surge of action. Officials monitoring the volcano are primarily concerned with keeping the curious out of the park, as well as safely vacating surrounding areas to prevent any potential casualties.
The scientific community is split on when exactly the volcano will erupt. Some say weeks, while other camps suggest that it could be several months. One thing they all agree on, however, is that it will happen very, very soon. Senior Volcanologist Richard Dunn gave the following report in regards to the volcano’s alarming activity. “This is something which could have never been accurately determined ahead of time. This unpredictable flux of activity is quite concerning, and flies in the face of all our previous studies in regards to this particular volcano. Our chief concern at this point is getting people to safety.”
from: http://civictribune.com/yellowstone-evacuated-experts-claim-super-volcano-erupt-within-weeks/
July 22nd, 2014
Commentary by Mark Kastel
As Yogi Berra said, “It seems like déjà vu all over again.” In 2006 The Cornucopia Institute released a report accusing Walmart of cheapening the value of the organic label by sourcing products from industrial-scale factory farms and developing countries, including China.
At the time, Walmart announced that they would greatly increase the number of organic products they offered and price them at a target of 10% above the cost for conventional food. They failed miserably at that first attempt, eventually removing many of the organic items from their stores.
This past May, Walmart announced they will once again enter the organic arena, in earnest, with the goal of eliminating the premium price for organic food.
Since the announcement, Cornucopia has received numerous press inquiries asking if Walmart’s organic expansion is “good news or bad news” for the industry. My stock answer has been, as it was in 2006: If Walmart lends their logistical prowess to organic food, both farmers and consumers will be big winners by virtue of a more competitive marketplace. However, if the company applies their standard business model, and in essence Walmarts organics, then everyone will lose.
Organic family farmers in this country could see their livelihoods disintegrate the same way so many industrial workers saw their family-supporting wages evaporate as Walmart, Target and other big-box retailers put the screws to manufacturers—forcing a production shift to China and other low-wage countries.
Walmart became the nation’s largest organic milk retailer by partnering with the dairy giant Dean Foods/WhiteWave (Horizon Organic). They then introduced their own private-label organic milk packaged by Aurora Organic Dairy. Aurora, based in Boulder, Colorado, has faced a maelstrom of organic industry criticism and negative press for operating a number of industrial-scale dairies with thousands of cows confined in feedlot-like conditions. They were the subject of a USDA investigation that found the giant dairy had “willfully” violated 14 tenets of the federal organic standards.
This time around Walmart is keeping the sourcing of their organic products a secret by using a private-label supplier and marketing products under the Wild Oats brand, a former natural foods grocery chain briefly owned by Whole Foods before, in 2009, an antitrust rule forced it to divest its holdings (resulting in the eventual shutdown of the Wild Oats chain).
Walmart claims that each item in the line, to consist of about 100 packaged products including pasta, peanut butter, dried spices, and olive oil, will cost at least 25 percent less than other organic goods sold at their store, according to Consumer Reports.
I’ve always said that “private-label, store-brand organics” is an oxymoron. By its very nature the practice is secretive. Grocery chains want to pit supplier against supplier. They want the companies manufacturing their products to feel insecure knowing they could lose the business for a few pennies to a rival competitor. For that reason retailers don’t want their customers to become loyal to a specific brand-name supplier.
In contrast, most organic consumers are label readers. We want to know where our food is coming from, how it is produced and, if livestock are involved, how respectfully they are treated. None of that is possible with private-label products.
Target has taken a different approach. Although they have plenty of private-label brands (Archer Farms, Market Pantry, and Simply Balanced in their grocery aisles), they are also presenting a “curated” product line including many name brands owned by large agribusinesses that have invested in organics.
It should be noted that the product lines at Walmart and Target include both organic and conventional (“natural”) products under the same private-label brands.
Cornucopia’s 2006 report documenting the Walmart/factory-farm connection also highlighted the company’s decision to lower the per unit cost basis on organic products by collaborating with its long-time trading partner China.
Even if the organic certification process in China were not cause for serious concern—coupled with the fact that the USDA has provided little if any regulatory oversight there—food shipped around the world, burning fossil fuels and undercutting our domestic farmers, does not meet the consumer’s traditional definition of what is truly organic.
Meanwhile, Whole Foods Market announced that they are cutting many prices to meet increasing competition from mainstream retailers like Kroger, Safeway and now Walmart, and their stock plunged nearly 19% this past May.
“I don’t think consumers have any idea just how industrialized [mainstream organics] is becoming,” said best-selling food movement author Michael Pollan in an interview with the St. Paul Pioneer Press. “There are some real downsides to organic farming scaling up to this extent,” he added.
Both Pollan and I worry that the expansion of “Big Organic” will lower food quality, weaken standards and hurt small family farms.
There’s a reason that organic food costs more. It costs more to produce, and paying farmers a fair price has always been part of the deal. The claim that Walmart will be able to provide organic food that truly adheres to federal organic standards, without a premium price, seems questionable at best.
The last time Walmart rolled out organic foods on a large scale, The Cornucopia Institute caught them labeling “natural” food as organic. After an investigation by the USDA and making the commitment to take down fraudulent signage, the company was not prosecuted. Walmart obviously did not have the expertise, at the store level, to manage organics.
The gold standard in organic retailing remains the hundreds of member-owned food co-ops and independent natural foods grocery stores across the country. Many of them are like a farmers market seven days a week where you can also find reputable national brands. They also act as a portal for accessing the local food movement. Your community’s farmers market, or joining a CSA, can also provide your family with the highest quality organic food.
When Walmart and Target complete their product roll-out, you can be sure The Cornucopia Institute will publish a new report for our members, the public and the media. We will provide discussion and analysis as to whether these massive corporations have learned from their past failures relating to organics and are now offering a true competitive alternative in the marketplace.
This story originally appeared in The Cultivator, The Cornucopia Institute’s quarterly print publication available to members and online.
The suppression of the Native Americans and the decimation of their culture is a black page in the history of the United States. The discrimination and injustices towards this ancient race, which had lived on the American continent long before the European conquerors came to this land, are still present to this day despite the efforts of different groups and organizations trying to restore the justice.
The destruction of their culture is one of the most shameful aspects of our history, the extent of the damage that was done is still being down-played and denied entry into textbooks and history-lessons to this day.
The origin and history of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas have been studied for years by researchers from different countries, and a recent DNA study showed that the genealogy of the western aboriginals is one of the most unique in the world.
The question of whether Native Americans derived from a single Asian population or from a number of different populations has been a subject of research for decades. Now, having compared the DNA samples from people of modern Native American and Eurasian groups, an international team of researchers concluded on the validity of the single ancestral population theory.
The study follows up on earlier research that found a unique variant of a genetic marker in the DNA of modern descendants of Native Americans. “While earlier studies have already supported this conclusion, what’s different about our work is that it provides the first solid data that simply cannot be reconciled with multiple ancestral populations,” said Kari Britt Schroeder of the University of California, one of the authors of the study.
As a result of the previous research, the so-called “9-repeat allele” (or variant) was found in all of the 41 Native American and Asian (from the western side of the Bering Strait) populations that were sampled. At the same time, the allele was absent in all 54 of the Eurasian, African and Oceanian groups that were also sampled in the study.
The researchers supposed that the distribution of the allele was due to the fact that all these ethnic groups (modern Native Americans, Greenlanders and western Beringians) derived from a common founder population, which had been isolated from the rest of the Asian continent thousands of years prior to their migration to the Americas.
This explanation was persuasive enough; however, there was no strong evidence to support it. There were two other plausible versions to explain the distribution of the 9-repeat allele among the modern descendants of Native Americans.
If the 9-repeat allele had originated as a multiple mutation, its presence in the Americas would not suggest common ancestry. Thus, if there had been more than one ancestral founder population and the 9-repeat allele had been present only in one of them, it could possibly have passed to the other ethnic groups and spread among them. If there also had been a second, beneficial allele located very close to the 9-repeat allele, it would certainly have been carried into new populations. At the same time, long stretches of DNA surrounding the 9-repeat allele would be carried along with the beneficial allele due to the mechanisms of natural selection.
In order to check the validity of this hypothesis, researchers led by Noah Rosenberg of the University of Michigan analyzed DNA samples from people from Asian, Native American, Greenlandic and two western Beringian populations, and found that all the samples with the 9-repeat allele had a distinct pattern of base pairs in short stretches of DNA.
As Schroeder noted, “If natural selection had promoted the spread of a neighboring advantageous allele, we would expect to see longer stretches of DNA than this with a similarly distinct pattern. And we would also have expected to see the pattern in a high frequency even among people who do not carry the 9-repeat allele. So we can now consider the positive selection possibility unlikely.”
These findings also excluded the multiple mutations theory, because in this case there would have been myriad DNA patterns surrounding the 9-repeat allele.
“Our work provides strong evidence that, in general, Native Americans are more closely related to each other than to any other existing Asian populations, except those that live at the very edge of the Bering Strait,” concluded Schroeder.
The results of the study were published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.
Anna LeMind is the owner and lead editor of the website Learning-mind.com, and a staff writer for The Mind Unleashed.
Featured image credits: BBCNews
from: http://themindunleashed.org/2014/08/dna-analysis-shows-native-american-genealogy-one-unique-world.html
The claims about genetically engineered foods have been quite lofty. Monsanto and other proponents of biotechnology are fond of saying that genetic engineering is necessary if the world’s food supply is to keep up with seven billion people and counting. They claim GE crops produce higher yields, solve pest and weed problems, are safe for humans and the environment, and are the cure for world hunger.
As John Robbins writes, if Monsanto’s true goal is addressing hunger, then their seeds would be designed to fix the core problems that underlie the hunger issue, such as:[1]
-Able to grow on substandard or marginal soils
-Able to produce more high-quality protein with increased per-acre yield, without the need for expensive machinery, chemicals, fertilizers or water
-Engineered to favor small farms over larger farms
-Cheap and freely available without restrictive licensing
-Designed for crops that feed people, not livestock
If GE foods were really a viable way to eliminate world hunger, then meeting these challenges would be a powerful argument in their favor, would it not? So, what does the science say?
Monsanto gets a failing grade across the board.
With nearly 100 million acres of GE food now planted worldwide, Monsanto’s crops have yet to do one thing to alleviate hunger, particularly for the world’s less fortunate. In fact, most of that acreage is devoted to growing corn and transgenic soybeans for livestock feed.
No—their yield is actually lower. Overall, research has shown a 5 to 10 percent reduction in yield for GE soybeans versus the conventional variety. Other GE crops are performing equally poorly.[2] These plants are weak, malnourished and fail with the slightest environmental stress or drought. Agronomists and plant scientists have made far greater advances in yields with conventional breeding methods than with GE crops.
The yields of GE cotton have been particularly abysmal. Scientists have determined that growing GE cotton in the US can result in a 40 percent drop in income. In India, the situation is much worse with up to 100 percent failure rates for Bt cotton, leaving farmers in total financial ruin. According to the National Crime Records Bureau of India, more than 182,900 Indian farmers took their own lives between 1997 and 2007 as a result of GE crop failures—a staggering 46 farmer suicides each and every day.[3]
It turns out that GE crops fail miserably in this respect too. GE crops actually need more toxic chemicals, not less. Eighty-five percent of all GE seeds are engineered for herbicide tolerance—specifically, Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” cotton, corn, soy, and canola seeds. As a result, pesticide use has increased dramatically. Since the introduction of GE crops, more than 120 million pounds of additional pesticides have been used in the US.[4]
Sixty percent of GE crops are resistant to weed killers, fueling a dramatic rise in herbicide use—especially Monsanto’s Roundup, which contains the extremely toxic chemical glyphosate. Roundup is now used in more than 80 percent of all GE crops worldwide, and the only one who benefits from THIS is Monsanto. They produce the seeds that require a massive application of an herbicide that they just happen to produce. How convenient for them!
Not only are these toxic chemicals being used far too heavily, but they are killing our bees and butterflies, polluting our waterways, destroying our soil, and creating resistant super-weeds and mutant pesticide-resistant insects that we have no way to control.[5]
Studies comparing large mechanized farms to small farms have shown that small farms doing multiple and succession plantings are significantly more productive than the monoculture plantings used in large mechanized farms. A report compiled by about 400 of the world’s top scientists concluded our current agricultural system is unsustainable. We need farming methods that rebuild our ecological systems rather than demolish them. Organic farms consistently produce 80 to 90 percent higher yields than monoculture operations.[6] Genetic “bio-invasion” is the biggest risk organic farmers face today.[7]
Biodiversity is key to a healthy ecosystem—and therefore a healthy food supply. In a diverse population, some plants will have natural resistance and will fare better than others, saving the group as a whole from catastrophe. Poor soil quality is a serious problem for farmers across the globe. Our soil is depleting at more than 13 percent the rate it can be replaced due to our chemical-based agriculture system. Massive monoculture has also resulted in the extinction of 75 percent of the world’s crop varieties over the last century.[8]
It can be safely said, then, that GE crops were not developed for the purpose of solving world hunger, but to ensure that everything we eat is owned by them. Their goal is maximum profit.
History has proven that artificially inserted genes can have unintended and disastrous consequences. The reality is that GE farming practices are not the solution to world hunger, but rather the very heart of the problem, virtually guaranteeing future crop collapses and subsequent famine. Sustainable, biodynamic agriculture is the real solution!
http://themindunleashed.org/2014/08/can-gmos-help-feed-world.html
A total of 175 chemicals known to be harmful for health are used in food packaging on both sides of the Atlantic, in the European Union countries and the United States, according to a study published by a Swiss non-governmental organization.
As the study authors point out, the use of many of these substances, which are linked to cancer, hormonal disorders or infertility in other products has already been limited or is to be prohibited. However, these regulations do not concern food packaging due to gaps in legislation.
Researchers of the Food Packaging Forum, a non-governmental organization in Switzerland, compared two lists of hazardous chemicals – the so-called ‘Substitute it now!‘ list, also known as Sin, and the TEDX list of endocrine disruptors – with three official lists of substances allowed to be used in the manufacture of food packaging, in particular, the ESCO Working Group list of non-plastic food contact substances by European Food Safety Authority, Annex I of EC 10/2011 which includes the allowed plastic food contact substances and the so-called Pew list of food additives authorized in the United States.
As noted, about 175 chemicals contained in the Sin and the TEDX lists (such as phthalates, organotins and benzophenones) were identified in at least one, or even in all of the official lists of substances allowed to be used for food packaging.
The majority of these chemicals meet, as stated, the criteria set by the European regulation concerning the registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemicals (REACH) to be qualified as “Substances of Very High Concern” (SVHC). 21 of them have even been officially recognized as substances of very high concern by the European Chemicals Agency, while six are to be gradually restricted by EU under REACH.
In their study, published in the journal ‘Food Additives and Contaminants: Part A’, the researchers point out that the process of the gradual restriction of the substances of very high concern under REACH will not be directly connected with the chemicals used in food packaging, as they are regulated by separate legislation. “As a consequence, chemicals with highly toxic properties may legally be used in the production of food contact materials, but not in other consumer products such as computers, textiles and paints even though exposure through food contact materials may be far more relevant,” note the researchers.
Lead researcher of the study and managing director of the Food Packaging Forum Dr Jane Muncke said that the role of this study is not to analyze the ways in which the loopholes in legislation can be avoided, but to highlight the issue. “That is one thing we are highlighting, that currently these regulations don’t cover food packaging,” she said.
Since it is difficult to restrict the substances that are already authorized, the researchers recommend food manufacturers to refrain from using hazardous substances in their products and replace them with safer alternatives. “From a consumer perspective, it is certainly unexpected and undesirable to find chemicals of concern being intentionally used in FCMs, and thus it seems appropriate to replace substances case-by-case with inherently safer alternatives,” said Dr Muncke.
The best way to ensure that you avoid these chemicals ending up in your body would be to steer clear of packaged food all together. The alternative? Trusting the government and the food producers to protect you.
from: http://themindunleashed.org/2014/08/study-finds-175-dangerous-chemicals-food-packaging-usa-europe.html
Melissa Melton
Activist Post
A short two-minute video Bloomberg News uploaded to YouTube attempts to explain why the world doesn’t already have a widely available Ebola vaccine.
(Trusting the ingredients of such a thing and whether or not you would personally take it is another matter entirely, but hold on a second.)
What’s fascinating about this clip is what Dr. Ben Neuman, University of Reading, says towards the end.
Neuman explains that because viruses easily mutate, “It’s not just one drug we need for Ebola. We need a cocktail of drugs and perhaps a nice vaccine that could be used.”
Hm. Sounds like a Big Pharma hay day pay day, does it not?
But Dr. Ben also goes on to explain why the major pharmaceutical companies haven’t been all that eager to produce this cocktail of drugs and vaccines — which would surely translate to big bucks — just yet.
These all take a lot of money and right now in the history of what we know at least, there have been fewer than 5,000 people who have been infected with Ebola. It sounds scary, but I don’t know that there’s enough…uh…panic or enough people who are potential customers for these drugs to warrant a company — a private company anyway — putting the money it would take to develop this. [emphasis added]
Did you catch that? (Yeah, I know you did, that’s why I added the emphasis.)
Watch the video. The good doctor even struggles to find his words before he says he isn’t sure there is enough panic and customers to warrant developing a vaccine.
This is despite the fact that articles were coming out in scientific circles back in 2008 that Ebola vaccines had been successfully used in animal trials and even on one human patient, a lab worker who accidentally pricked her finger with an Ebola-laced syringe.
There’s not enough panic to go any further with it, though? Well, gee Ben, where can we get some panic from?
This video reveals two fundamental truths.
One: pharmaceuticals and vaccines really aren’t about saving lives…oh no, first and foremost, they’re about making money.
Two: there has to be enough panic to stir up potential customers to necessitate the creation of said pharmaceuticals and vaccines and there just simply was not enough Ebola panic to go around to make it worth it.
Well…there certainly is enough pricey panic now, isn’t there?
It’s a concerted effort. As I wrote earlier in an article questioning this sudden media zoo surrounding Ebola and why, in an unprecedented move, we’re suddenly shipping people infected with Ebola here for the first time ever, a lot of people in the military-medical-media industrial complex stand to make a lot of money off of this virus.
And, right on time, Reuters is reporting that they’re going to fast track a new Ebola vaccine and start testing on human patients as early as next month. Was that quick or what?
The Hegelian Dialectic is such a timeless strategy. Why? Because it works. So they just keep using it over and over and over.
Problem: not enough panic to make the big bucks off Ebola.
Reaction: create a panic to make the big bucks off Ebola.
Solution: problem solved.
It’s basically the same strategy they used to pawn off fast tracked, experimental H1N1 vaccines on people just a few years ago, only this time they’re playing with a much scarier virus to induce even more fear. In fact, next time you see a headline like, ‘Ebola fear going viral’ feel free to keep this in mind.
Melissa Melton is a writer, researcher, and analyst for The Daily Sheeple, where this first appeared, and a co-creator of Truthstream Media with Aaron Dykes, a site that offers teleprompter-free, unscripted analysis of The Matrix we find ourselves living in. Melissa also co-founded Nutritional Anarchy with Daisy Luther of The Organic Prepper, a site focused on resistance through food self-sufficiency. Wake the flock up!
from: http://www.activistpost.com/2014/08/doctor-theres-not-enough-panic-and.html#!bxnJoD