There are a lot of physical issues that can be making their way to the surface today. When they do, it is time to take a look at them and work with where they came from, the real roots of the discomfort you are feeling at this time. Perhaps it is something you took on from the past, something from your parents, some issue that you tried to resolve for another. …Stuff. Stuff that is not yours. Today is a day for knowing what belongs to you and what does not. You are not responsible for what others choose not to look at about themselves. Let it go!
Horizon “Organic” Factory Farm Accused of Improprieties, Again
February 14th, 2014
Selective Enforcement by USDA Alleged — Kid Glove Treatment for Dean Foods/WhiteWave
In an open letter published today and addressed to USDA National Organic Program chief Miles McEvoy, The Cornucopia Institute accused the regulatory agency of abdicating its enforcement responsibilities. Cornucopia, an organic industry watchdog, charged that the USDA had allowed Dean Foods and its WhiteWave subsidiary to, allegedly, operate a giant factory farm dairy that has been illegally disadvantaging the nation’s family-scale dairy producers.
The Cornucopia Institute also filed, on February 11, its third formal legal complaint alleging Dean/WhiteWave’s giant industrial dairy, located in Paul, Idaho has continued to operate illegally.
“We’re hoping that third time’s a charm,” said Cornucopia’s Senior Farm Policy Analyst, Mark Kastel.
Prior complaints by The Cornucopia Institute have resulted in the decertification and/or downsizing of a number of other certified organic Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) in the organic dairy sector, milking up to 10,000 cows each. Cornucopia has suggested that Dean Foods, with its heavy investment in federal election financing and strong lobbying presence in Washington, has “indemnified” the agribusiness giant from judicious enforcement.
“Just as we have banks that have become ‘too big to fail,’ in organics we see Dean Foods and WhiteWave (recently spun-off in 2013 through an IPO on Wall Street), one of the largest industry participants and the kingpin in the powerful Organic Trade Association, repeatedly and successfully flashing their ‘get out of jail free card’ purchased by influence peddlers in Washington,” Kastel explained.
Originally managing over 8,000 head of cattle and thousands of acres of land in an arid region of Southern Idaho, Dean/WhiteWave’s dairy — providing milk for the Horizon Organic label — was accused by Cornucopia, starting in 2005, of confining cattle in pens and buildings instead of providing access to pasture and grazing as federal organic law requires.
Cornucopia claims that their use of these allegedly illegal techniques resulted in millions of dollars of “ill-gotten gains” by catapulting the Horizon label into not only the largest brand in the organic dairy sector, but the largest brand, by dollar volume, in the entire organic industry.
Although the dairy in recent years reduced the number of cows it was managing, and added, for the first time, some amount of pasture, it also increased the number of times the cows were being milked from twice a day to three and even four times a day.
“Properly managing an organic dairy farm by moving the herd to fresh pasture after each twice-per-day milking becomes more and more difficult as herd size gets larger,” said Kevin Engelbert, a certified organic dairy farmer from Nichols, New York. “If a farm gets to the point of milking thousands of cows, 24 hours a day, the logistics of getting the herd from the milking facility to fresh grass, legitimately grazing – as required by law – becomes impossible.”
Recent interviews with dairy staff by Cornucopia investigators suggest that, to promote extremely high levels of milk production, the Horizon farm management prevented the cows from being put out on pasture between some of the milkings, and when they were out, made sure their bellies were already full of high-production rations (TMR feed) eaten in the barn.
Meanwhile, a select group of “fresh, high producing cows,” being milked four times a day, were being entirely confined until their production levels dropped.
The reported level of milk production from the herd supplying Horizon Organics is seen on conventional CAFO dairies, but is very uncharacteristic of legitimate family-scale organic dairies.
“The cows were either prevented from going out and grazing, or if they did go out on pasture they probably didn’t eat much fresh grass but instead lay down and chewed their cud, digesting the ration already eaten in the barn,” Kastel surmised.
The federal regulations explicitly require all livestock to have access to the outdoors and, specifically, ruminants (including dairy and beef cattle, sheep and goats) to have access to high quality pasture.
Cornucopia’s Kastel explained: “There are regulatory provisions allowing a farmer to ‘temporarily’ confine animals if letting them out on pasture would jeopardize their health or cause environmental problems. But nowhere in the standards do they allow confinement because moving thousands of cows back and forth to fresh grass would cut into milk production.”
This past December, after WhiteWave announced to its shareholders a $7.4 million write-down of the asset, it sold its corporate-owned industrial dairy to private investors in Idaho, although its Horizon brand continues to purchase its milk output.
“There is no statute of limitations in terms of enforcing federal organic standards,” said Kastel. “We are asking the USDA to reopen our original complaints and fully investigate our new allegations that the cows on this dairy produced unreasonable amounts of milk based on skirting the requirement that they be fully grazed.”
In 2008 the dairy publication The Milkweed published test results comparing brands of organic milk for nutritional compounds that make the milk healthier and are indicative of the amount of grazing time cattle are provided. The top-rated brand was Cedar Summit, distributing milk in Wisconsin and Minnesota. The lowest was Aurora Organic Dairy, an organization based in Colorado depending exclusively on factory farms and supplying private-label organic milk to Walmart, Costco, Target and other chains. One notch up from the bottom was the Horizon brand.
“WhiteWave continues to purchase milk from giant factory dairies in addition to many family farmers. WhiteWave’s family farm suppliers are, we believe, just as ethical as the farmers supplying other brands,” Kastel affirmed. “But the Horizon brand depends on giant CAFOs, milking thousands of cows each, for a large percentage of their production and that impacts the quality and nutritional value of all their products.”
“Small organic dairies nationwide have struggled with drought, flooding and oppressive heat. Still, we have pastured our cattle as required by the National Organic Program (NOP),” said Jim Goodman, who milks 45 cows near Wonewoc, Wisconsin. ”We have provided a product that consumers expect when they buy organic and we make it work economically – without cutting corners.”
“If factory farm organic dairies are unwilling or unable to meet the NOP’s pasture provisions,” Goodman said, “then perhaps it is time they are notified that their continued noncompliance to the National Organic Standards has gone on too long and they should seek a non-organic market for their milk.”
On January 11 of this year I turned 65. This is the part where you’re supposed to say or think, “Wow! He doesn’t look that old.” Sure don’t feel that old. At least most of the time! The “I” that I am feels ageless-that part of me that will ultimately dance into eternity once my physical body meets its expiration date.
However, a few weeks before my actual birthday, I got into a funk about that number. I kept getting announcements in the mail about Medicare and supplemental insurance, which I knew nothing about. Yet with every piece of mail I got, it threw the reality of it right in my face. The number itself and the encroaching birthday became specters lurking nearby, haunting and taunting me, ready to jump out at me around every corner. In spite of knowing that I was very healthy, loved, and had a great life-and I didn’t feel old at all-I realized there was something about that number that touched on a belief deeply ingrained in me. After all, weren’t people supposed to retire at that age?
After pondering this major life transition for a couple of weeks and hearing my guides tell me loud and clear that my work here isn’t finished and won’t be for at least another 20 years or more, I had to make some choices as to how I viewed myself in relation to this passage. With the help of a men’s group with which I’m involved, it came down to one thing. I can metaphorically commit to death, and be morose for the rest of my life. Or I can surrender mind, heart, and body to the reality of my age and commit to life.
I shared this with the group, and with their love and support, deeply affirmed this commitment. Stating it out loud and being very clear lifted my spirits immediately and the phrase I used, “I commit to life” continues to be a guiding mantra for this new era I’ve now entered. What it means to me is to be as fully present as possible, to continue to allow myself to evolve, and most importantly listen to and heed the voice of Spirit in whatever way it shows up.
Okay, so on Saturday January 4, I went with my stepfather Richard to get his daughter Victoria from Disneyland. We were gone for a couple hours and when we got home, I opened the door and there was Serena, our nine year old, eyes as wide as a bug’s! Glancing just past her there were quite a few people that I knew sitting in the living room. Then I saw the balloons and the decorations. It quickly sank in. This was a surprise party for me! And thank God we came back earlier than expected and Jesseca’s father had forgotten to let her know that we were on the way so that there was nobody jumping out from behind couches and doors to yell, “surprise!” Very grateful for that!
Most of my extended family was there as were two couples that were close to both Jesseca and myself. It was a very warm feeling and I felt very appreciative of everyone taking the day to share with me. After singing Happy Birthday to me, the gifts were presented. I had asked three of my nieces, all sisters, to sing for me on my birthday (which of course I thought was a week away). Jordan, Sydney, and Paris, ages 16,13, and 11, all sang one of my all time favorites “In My Life,” then Sydney did a solo of another favorite, “Hallelujah.” My heart melted with my love for these girls and their expression of their love for me. I went to my office in back of the house to get something and when I walked in, my eyes were drawn to a walking stick sitting in the corner. It was my Irish great-great grandfather’s shillelagh (She-lay-lee). This unassuming oak walking stick, waist high, with black and reddened mottling covered with a smooth veneer of polish, the luster still glowing in spite of its age, called to me with the voices of my ancestors. I was inspired to bring it into the house and a ceremony emerged.
I described the shillelagh as a representation of the ancestors of my lineage, and since most of the people there were also my blood relatives, they too shared the lineage. Everyone was already in a circle in the living room. I described how I would pass the shillelagh around and requested that each person while holding this sacred piece of wood give me a blessing as a birthday gift. In turn, I would offer them a blessing in exchange. It was a heart-filled ceremony and the blessings filled the air with love and gratitude that was palpable. Food for the heart and soul.
Following the ceremony as I sat quietly in the corner rocking chair I surveyed the room, looking at all these incredible people to whom I was related, either by blood or by a different kind of kinship. The world was right and I was glad to be alive and be sixty-five. I am committed to Life, I am committed to Live.
Almost forty years ago, Fritjof Capra’s book The Tao of Physics set out to explore the parallels between the worldviews of modern physics and Eastern mysticism. The author’s conclusion was that the two were, not just consistent, but in perfect harmony with each other.
Physics has advanced in many ways in forty years and so has mysticism and its understanding of the universe. In particular, many insights into the mysteries of the universe have emerged from the spiritual revolution in the West.
From the mystic perspective, the universe was created by Original Consciousness, Tao, or Infinite Being, focusing through an active Creator aspect of itself. The mystic asks, “How did God create this?” while hoping for a glimpse into the cosmic manufacturer’s mind. One thing’s for sure with such a mystical approach: You find a lot more answers when you open up to the idea of higher energies than by insisting that nothing exists beyond physical matter.
To the materialist, thoughts are just electrical signals firing somewhere inside the brain. If that were true, then you’d be like an electronic computer with pre-programmed thoughts, no self-awareness, no free will, and no feelings! Your mind is not your brain and mind energy is not electrical. Mind energy is one of those higher energies that the Creator saw fit to create.
One of the mysteries facing physics is a type of experiment which reveals that related energy particles can communicate with each other much faster than the speed of light. How could this be possible, they ask, when the speed of light is supposed to limit all action in the universe? In the view of physics today, all energies can travel at the speed of light and no faster. That’s because of the assumption that all energies must be down-to-earth, material, electromagnetic energies. Well, how about those higher energies?
In the broader picture, we don’t just live in a conscious universe, the universe IS conscious! All things are composed of consciousness because the universe was created from the only available material – consciousness.
We know that physical matter is composed of energy, but from what is energy made?
Energy is compressed consciousness.
There is not just one level of energy in existence. The next higher energy above electric energy is etheric, or vital life, energy. Electric energy is a compressed form of the higher, etheric energy.
What’s above etheric energy? All levels of mind energy, from the lowest to the most inspired. Feeling and thought are the yin and yang of mind energy. Both varieties intertwine all the way up into the realms of spirit, of soul consciousness, and beyond into the cosmic realms.
So, how do those two energy particles communicate with each other faster than the speed of light? The answer is easy to appreciate once your worldview is expanded…
Mind energy travels at millions of times the speed of light.
The two particles communicate at the speed of thought, and the speed of light has no bearing upon the situation. Like everything in the universe, those particles contain awareness. In a universe comprised of consciousness, nothing can exist without consciousness. As particles of a fundamental nature, their awareness may be rudimentary, but their display of feeling is quite obvious to the observer. As related particles, they have developed a connection with each other and their willingness to communicate demonstrates this bond. Thought and feeling are the materials from which this conscious universe is made.
Mind energy exists on a scale that rises into the higher realms of awareness like a stairway to heaven. Higher consciousness is very real and it can be yours by turning your attention within, spending time daily in reflection or meditation, and opening up to the intuitive knowingness which resides within your own soul level of consciousness.
Expanded awareness isn’t just for mystics. It opens the doors of perception where you can understand far more about the nature of reality. It brings you closer to the eternal fountain of joy and wisdom which lies within the soul consciousness of each and every one of us.
The opening salvo of the eruption at Poás in Costa Rica, captured on the crater webcam. Image: OVSICORI webcam capture.
Costa Rica
Earlier this week, Poás in Costa Rica had a small eruption likely related to water flashing to steam in the heating crater lake area. This eruption ended up being the largest so far in 2014, but these types of explosion are fairly common at the Costa Rican volcano. That being said, María Martínez Cruz (OVSICORI) said that the size of this eruption, with a plume that reached 300-meters, is not too common at Poás. This could suggest that more heat is being fed into the upper reaches of the volcano. The webcam at Poás captured the eruption as it occurred, spreading ash mainly within the crater area. If check out the webcam at night, you can see some intense incandesce that betrays the magma just beneath the surface at the volcano. Not surprisingly, the volcano is off-limits to tourists.
By Michael Forrester, Spirit Science and Metaphysics – February 2014
http://tinyurl.com/k6qwxea
The fascinating and recent discovery of a new, second DNA code last December (2013) further lends credence to what metaphysical scientists have been saying for millennia — the body speaks two different languages.
Since the genetic code was deciphered in the 1960s, researchers have assumed that it was used exclusively to write information about proteins.
But biologists have suspected for years that some kind of epigenetic inheritance occurs at the cellular level. The different kinds of cells in our bodies provide an example. Skin cells and brain cells have different forms and functions, despite having exactly the same DNA.
NO SUCH THING AS JUNK DNA
The human genome is packed with at least four million gene switches that reside in bits of DNA that once were dismissed as “junk” but it turns out that so-called junk DNA plays critical roles in controlling how cells, organs and other tissues behave. The discovery, considered a major medical and scientific breakthrough, has enormous implications for human health and consciousness because many complex diseases appear to be caused by tiny changes in hundreds of gene switches.
As scientists delved into the “junk” — parts of the DNA that are not actual genes containing instructions for proteins — they discovered a complex system that controls genes. At least 80 percent of this DNA is active and needed. Another 15-17 percent has higher functions scientists are still decoding.
Recent findings in the journal Science may have big implications for how medical experts use the genomes of patients to interpret and diagnose diseases, researchers said.
The genetic code uses a 64-letter alphabet called codons. Dr Stamatoyannopoulos with co-authors were stunned to discover that some codons, which they called duons, can have two meanings. One describes how proteins are made, and the other instructs the cell on how genes are controlled.
The newfound genetic code within deoxyribonucleic acid, the hereditary material that exists in nearly every cell of the body, was written right on top of the DNA code scientists had already cracked.
CONTROLS GENES
Rather than concerning itself with proteins, this one instructs the cells on how genes are controlled.
Its discovery means DNA changes, or mutations that come with age or in response to vibrational changes within the DNA, may be doing more than what scientists previously thought.
“For over 40 years we have assumed that DNA changes affecting the genetic code solely impact how proteins are made,” said lead author John Stamatoyannopoulos, University of Washington associate professor of genome sciences and of medicine.
“Now we know that this basic assumption about reading the human genome missed half of the picture,” he said.
“Many DNA changes that appear to alter protein sequences may actually cause disease by disrupting gene control programs or even both mechanisms simultaneously.”
These two meanings seem to have evolved in concert with each other. The gene control instructions appear to help stabilize certain beneficial features of proteins and how they are made.
The discovery was made as part of the international collaboration of research groups known as the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements Project, or ENCODE.
DNA RESPONDS TO FREQUENCY
The Russian biophysicist and molecular biologist Pjotr Garjajev and his colleagues explored the vibrational behavior of the DNA. The bottom line was: “Living chromosomes function just like solitonic/holographic computers using the endogenous DNA laser radiation.” This means that they managed for example to modulate certain frequency patterns onto a laser ray and with it influenced the DNA frequency and thus the genetic information itself. Since the basic structure of DNA-alkaline pairs and of language (as explained earlier) are of the same structure, no DNA decoding is necessary.
This finally and scientifically explains why affirmations, autogenous training, hypnosis and the like can have such strong effects on humans and their bodies. It is entirely normal and natural for our DNA to react to frequency. While western researchers cut single genes from the DNA strands and insert them elsewhere, the Russians enthusiastically worked on devices that can influence the cellular metabolism through suitable modulated radio and light frequencies and thus repair genetic defects.
Garjajev’s research group succeeded in proving that with this method chromosomes damaged by x-rays for example can be repaired. Garjajev’s research group They even captured information patterns of a particular DNA and transmitted it onto another, thus reprogramming cells to another genome. So they successfully transformed, for example, frog embryos to salamander embryos simply by transmitting the DNA information patterns! This way the entire information was transmitted without any of the side effects or disharmonies encountered when cutting out and re-introducing single genes from the DNA. This represents an unbelievable, world-transforming revolution and sensation!
All this by simply applying vibration instead of the archaic cutting-out procedure! This experiment points to the immense power of wave genetics, which obviously has a greater influence on the formation of organisms than the biochemical processes of alkaline sequences.
As Edward Frenkel sees it, the way we teach math in schools today is about as exciting as watching paint dry. So it’s not surprising that when he brings up the fact that he’s a mathematician at dinner parties, eyes quickly glaze over. “Most people, unfortunately, have a very bad experience with mathematics,” Frenkel says. And no wonder: The math we learn in school is as far from what Frenkel believes is the soul of mathematics as a painted fence is from “The Starry Night” by Van Gogh, Frenkel’s favorite painter.
The Russian born University of California-Berkeley mathematician, whose day job involves probing the connections between math and quantum physics, wants to change that. Rather than alienating drudgery, Frenkel views math as an “archipelago of knowledge” that’s universally available to all of us, and he’s been everywhere of late spreading the word. In particular, Frenkel is intent on warning us about how people are constantly using (or misusing) math to get our personal data, to hack our emails, to game our stock markets. “The powers that be sort of exploit our ignorance, and manipulate us more when we are less aware of mathematics,” said Frenkel on the latest episode of the Inquiring Minds podcast. If you hated math in high school, maybe that will catch your attention.
Frenkel’s paean to math begins with an emphasis on its unifying nature. To him, math—not religion—is the one shared body of firm, unchanging knowledge that we all possess and that nobody can ever take away from us. “You meet someone, you don’t know where they come from, what language they speak, what is their background,” he says. “But you already know that there is so much you have in common, because all the mathematical ideas that have ever been discovered, we all share them.” If you met an alien intelligence, the same would be true. Math never changes. It sometimes has discoverers, but never authors or owners. “It’s a great equalizer,” Frenkel says.
The implications of math’s universality, incidentally, are downright spooky. Take this New York Times essay by Frenkel, contemplating whether the fact that math works so perfectly and without fail suggests we might be living in a Matrix-like simulation. For a while, it was the most viewed article on the paper’s website. The question of why math works to describe the universe, even as we also just happen to have brains that can understand it, is a pretty momentous one. Or as Galileo put it:
Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one wanders about in a dark labyrinth.
Such contemplations have driven more than one scientist to God. But then, hey, it could just be Agent Smith.
Deep philosophical dives aren’t Frenkel’s only approach to math popularization: His leading approach is egalitarian. Liberal. He argues that today, and often to our peril, we leave the tough math to experts—whether they are working on quantum physics, stock market trajectories, or encryption systems that are supposed to protect our data.
But our mathematical illiteracy can have disastrous consequences. Case in point: Frenkel blames the global economic crisis of 2008-09 on inadequate mathematical models used by bankers and traders to predict the financial markets. “We should all have access to the mathematical knowledge and tools needed to protect us from arbitrary decisions made by the powerful few in an increasingly math-driven world,” writes Frenkel in his book, Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality. “Where there is no mathematics, there is no freedom.”
Or take another example: Last year in Slate, Frenkel explained how the NSA manipulated math in order to install secret “backdoors” in the encryption systems that are supposed to protect our data. That’s what allows the agency to hack into our emails and personal information. The math is very high level, involving a field called “elliptic curve cryptography,” but in this highly watched YouTube video Frenkel explains it pretty simply:
Or take yet another example of people using math to take advantage of us. Frenkel has also explored how attempted changes to the formula for calculating the consumer price index, or CPI—a measure of inflation that is crucial to any number of economic policies and decisions—in effect represent a stealth way to raise our taxes and cut Social Security benefits. But we just shrug because it’s math, says Frenkel. “I’m not even going to try to understand what this formula is,” he says, summing up the typical thought process. “If they’re telling me it should be replaced, it should be replaced.”
In other words, you might call it the politically progressive, look-out-for-the-little-guy case for math literacy. “Mathematics equals rigor plus intellectual integrity times reliance on facts,” adds Frenkel in his book.
Certainly, Frenkel makes a strong case that going through the world in a math-illiterate state is equivalent to having your defenses down. You won’t understand the algorithms that Facebook, Amazon, and Google are using to populate your screen with stuff they want you to buy. You won’t know how safe you are on the internet. And you won’t see the next big economic shenanigan coming until it’s too late.
But the question is, is such understanding really possible or plausible for most people? Most of us think that in order to truly appreciate the mysterious beauty of mathematics, we need to study it intensely for a long period of time. Not so, insists Frenkel. While most of us learn the basics of biology in school and have at least a rudimentary understanding of fundamental concepts like genetics and evolution, we generally don’t even know what the fundamental concepts of high-level mathematics are. But Frenkel insists that we need not suffer through years of math study to grasp the key mathematical ideas. Rather, we can learn “a few chords,” he says, just as we can on the guitar.
So here comes one of those chords: Frenkel thinks that rather than learning something ancient and dry like Euclidean geometry, we should all understand the principle of symmetry. It’s a very simple idea, but also a concept that is “incredibly powerful,” says Frenkel, and one that is relevant across geometry, algebra, and other aspects of math. An object is symmetrical insofar as it is the same no matter what you do to it; it is invariant despite transformations. Like a round glass: “If I turn away, and you rotate it, and I look back, I will not know the difference,” says Frenkel.
Symmetry may seem like a simple idea. But the mathematics of symmetry quickly grow elaborate, and thinking about symmetry actually played an important role in the discovery of quarks, the elementary particles that comprise protons and neutrons.
Certainly, symmetry is not the kind of thing that you learned in your boring high school math classes; and for Frenkel, that’s the problem. “What most people talk about when they say the word ‘math’ is not really math—it is painting fences,” says Frenkel. Not only is that a tragedy, it’s a disadvantage.
And that’s why you should care about math. Forget the idea that it’s alienating and hard. According to Frenkel, life is hard without it.
To listen to the full podcast interview with Edward Frenkel, you can stream below:
(Check out link for podcast)
This episode of Inquiring Minds, a podcast hosted by neuroscientist and musician Indre Viskontas and best-selling author Chris Mooney, also features a discussion about whether offshore wind farms can protect our coasts from hurricanes, and new insights on the possible physical location of memory within the brain.
1 of 2. Highly contaminated water leaked from a large storage tank is seen at the H6 area of the contaminated water storage tanks, at Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO)’s tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture in this February 20, 2014 handout photo released by TEPCO.
Credit: Reuters/Tokyo Electric Power Co/Handout via Reuters
(Reuters) – The operator of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant said on Thursday that 100 metric tons of highly contaminated water had leaked out of a tank, the worst incident since last August, when a series of radioactive water leaks sparked international alarm.
Tokyo Electric Power Co told reporters the latest leak was unlikely to have reached the ocean. But news of the leak at the site, devastated by a 2011 earthquake and tsunami, further undercut public trust in a utility rocked by a string of mishaps and disclosure issues.
“We are taking various measures, but we apologize for worrying the public with such a leak,” said Masayuki Ono, a spokesman for the utility, also known as Tepco.
“Water is unlikely to have reached the ocean as there is no drainage in that tank area.”
Tepco said water overflowed from a large storage tank at the site late on Wednesday after a valve had remained open by mistake and sent too much contaminated water into a separate holding area.
A worker patrolling the area, around 700 meters from the ocean, spotted drips of water leaking through a drain attached to the side of the tank.
The utility has been harshly criticized for its response to the three nuclear meltdowns following the quake and tsunami at the plant, 220 km (130 miles) north of Tokyo.
A nuclear regulatory official last week said Tepco delayed release of record-high measurements of strontium-90 in groundwater despite repeated requests by the regulator.
Initial measurements of the latest incident showed the leaked water had a reading of 230 million becquerels per liter of beta-emitting radioactive isotopes, including strontium 90.
That level is almost equal to that recorded in last year’s leak of 300 metric tons of contaminated water, deemed a “serious incident”, or level three, on the seven-point international scale for radiological releases.
The legal limit for releasing strontium 90 into the ocean is 30 becquerels per liter.
The bitcoin infrastructure is subject to the whims of just one person running MTGox who can arbitrarily decide to shut it down whenever he thinks the market needs a “cooling period.” This is nearly equivalent to a financial dictatorship where one person calls the shots.
Just two days ago, the largest bitcoin exchange MTGox suddenly and without warning shuttered its doors, blocking all customers from accessing their accounts which are collectively worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
The entire MTGox website now reads:
Dear MtGox Customers,
In light of recent news reports and the potential repercussions on MtGox’s operations and the market, a decision was taken to close all transactions for the time being in order to protect the site and our users. We will be closely monitoring the situation and will react accordingly.
Best regards,
MtGox Team
Here’s the screen shot of the message:
Health Ranger calls Bitcoin crash… again!
I’m on the record as the one person who accurately and publicly predicted the massive 2013 bitcoin crash just 24 hours before it happened. That story is covered in detail in this Natural News article.
After predicting this crash which saw a billion-dollar drop in bitcoin values, I was of course attacked by a full complement of bitcoin pushers who are just as deluded about bitcoin as the average American is about federal reserve notes.
According to bitcoin enthusiasts, some of whom have long abandoned any attachment to actual reality, bitcoin will save human economies from collapse, bitcoin can always be trusted because it’s anonymous, bitcoin is going to rise to $100,000 per bitcoin, and so on ad nauseum.
That’s why on April 11, 2013, I wrote:
Keep in mind that MtGox makes money off bitcoin transactions, meaning the organization has every reason to spin bad news (just like Wall Street) and keep the market “churning” so that more transactions are taking place. Listening to bitcoin advice from people who are making money off bitcoin transactions is a lot like listening to Obama promise you how he’ll protect your liberty.
You are a fool if you believe anything now coming out of the “bitcoin cult.”
MtGox crash makes total fools – again! – out of bitcoin apologists
As is now obvious from recent events, my foreboding words were right on the money. Or in this case, the loss of money. When MtGox decided to close its doors and disappear over the weekend, hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of accounts vanished with it.
For all we know, the very founders of MtGox simply swiped everybody’s bitcoins and fled to Japan en route to the Cayman Islands where they will now enjoy a life of luxury, laughing it up at all the gullible suckers who bought into the bitcoin Ponzi scheme in the first place.
And yes, bitcoin looks a whole lot more like a Ponzi scheme than a legitimate currency at this point. The only reason bitcoin valuation rose over the last year is because more and more fools were suckered into spending “real” money to buy a virtual currency protected by absolutely nothing. They were baited and reeled in by a deceptive MtGox which tried to spin every major red flag failure as yet another “success.” As I wrote about MtGox a year ago:
Every piece of bad news will be “spun” by exchanges like MtGox into good-sounding news. As bitcoin was crashing yesterday by 60% in value in mere hours, MtGox announced it was a “victim of our own success!” So while bitcoin holders watched $1 billion in market valuation evaporate, MtGox called it a success. Gee, then what would you call it when bitcoin loses 99%? A “raging” success?
How to avoid being victimized by bitcoin schemes
Tempted by greed, nearly every human being will predictably abandon all rationality and dive headfirst into almost any scheme that looks likely to produce financial gain without effort.
Honestly stated, most people got into bitcoin for the simple, raw reason that it was a “get rich quick” opportunity. Buy low, sell high. It’s the same scam repeated throughout the history of financial markets and made famous by people like Ponzi and Bernie Madoff.
As much as I try to warn people here on Natural News about financial schemes, inexperienced minds are nonetheless easily influenced by seductive promises of riches without effort. It’s the oldest investment scheme in the book: “Buy now and you’ll be rich! You’re smart to buy now!”
The hype that propelled bitcoin’s initial rise was of course chock full of seductive messages and tempting promises. But in retrospect, nearly all the bitcoin buzz was generated entirely by the very people who stood to benefit from a rise in bitcoin’s value.
Bitcoin was, essentially, a multi-level marketing currency Ponzi scheme where every person who bought in wanted to convince yet more people to buy in so that their own buy-ins would rise in value as heightened demand collided with limited supply. In this greed-driven quest, true believers shamelessly attacked anyone who asked intelligent questions or exhibited even the least bit of skepticism about the long-term stability of the bitcoin currency. Rationality was entirely abandoned, largely by people who technically should know better, because “bitcoin-type” people tend to be among the highest IQ people in society. Yet even they lose massive IQ points when tempted by greed.
My best advice? Buy a farm with a water supply and grow your own food
So once again, I implore all Natural News readers and fans to get out of bitcoin and don’t get suckered by it. But don’t dump your money into greenbacks, either, because that’s just another scheme of a different type: a global debt scheme structured on deliberate currency debasement engineered by the Fed: a slow, deliberate theft of economic productivity by those who control the world’s money supply.
You want to invest in something of real value? Buy an actual farm with good soil and a sustainable water supply. That’s worth more than all the bitcoins in the world, if you ask me. Bitcoins are fleeting. They can — and do — disappear in the blink of an eye. But if you own farm land with clean water and good soil, you’re sitting on a gold mine of food production, and a piece of land is significantly more difficult to take away from someone than a bunch of encrypted digital files.
It’s food that’s going to soon become the new currency for a society in collapse, after all. Mark my words on this prediction: A food apocalypse is coming. Those who cannot produce their own food in a decentralized, secure manner — which curiously reflects some of the properties of a virtual currency — will sooner or later find themselves subjugated and powerless.
Personally, I’d rather have a secure farm, a locker full of heirloom seeds and a working aquaponics food production system than a hard drive full of bitcoins. Long after both bitcoins and federal reserve notes have crashed into oblivion, I’ll have living fruit, vegetables, medicinal herbs and clean fish protein to barter with. The question for you is: What will you have of value to barter in exchange? A pathetic thumb drive that “used to have a million dollars worth of bitcoins on it?”
Reconsider that strategy while you still have time.
A higher trust in your intuition and emotions may result in more accurate predictions about a variety of future events says a forthcoming article in the Journal of Consumer Research.
“All great men are gifted with intuition. They know without reasoning or analysis, what they need to know.”
-Alexis Carrel
The research was also featured in Columbia Business School’s Ideas at Work in late February 2012. In the research, the researchers conducted a series of eight studies in which their participants were asked to predict various future outcomes, including presidential nominees, the box-office success of different movies, the winner of American Idol, movements of the Dow Jones Index, the winner of a college football championship game, and even the weather.
Despite the range of events and prediction horizons (in terms of when the future outcome would be determined), the results across all studies consistently revealed that people with higher trust in their feelings were more likely to correctly predict the final outcome than those with lower trust in their feelings. The researchers call this phenomenon the emotional oracle effect.
In previous studies, researchers have suggested that early childhood education should focus on building behavioral, social and emotional skills just as much as building academic skills. Freed from distraction, your intuition will step in and guide you effortlessly through life.
Across studies, the researchers used two different methods to manipulate or measure how much individuals relied on their feelings to make their predictions. In some studies, the researchers used an increasingly standard trust-in-feelings manipulatio. In other studies, the researchers simply measured how much participants typically relied on their feelings in general when making predictions.
Due to the nature of our emotions and how they emerge from our unconscious mind, from our internal supercomputer, they tend to reflect more information than our rational mind. Buying a car or getting married are just the kind of decisions that seem to benefit the most from a more emotional, intuitive thought process.
Regardless of the method used, participants who trusted their feelings in general or were induced to trust their feelings experimentally were more accurate in their predictions compared to participants with lower trust in their in their feelings and participants in a control group.
Those who trusted their feelings were 25 percent more accurate than those who trusted their feelings less.
The researchers explain their findings through a “privileged window” hypothesis. Professor Michel Pham elaborates on the hypothesis. “When we rely on our feelings, what feels ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ summarizes all the knowledge and information that we have acquired consciously and unconsciously about the world around us.
It is this cumulative knowledge, which our feelings summarize for us, that allows us make better predictions. In a sense, our feelings give us access to a privileged window of knowledge and information – a window that a more analytical form of reasoning blocks us from.”
In accordance with the privileged window hypothesis, the researchers caution that some amount of relevant knowledge appears to be required to more accurately forecast the future. For example, in one study participants were asked to predict the weather. While participants who trusted their feelings were again better able to predict the weather, they were only able to do so for the weather in their own zip codes, not for the weather in Beijing or Melbourne. Professor Leonard Lee explains this is because “…they don’t possess a knowledge base that would help them to make those predictions.” As another example, only participants who had some background knowledge about the current football season benefited from trust in feelings in predicting the winner of the national college football BCS game.
Thus, if we have a proper knowledge base, the future need not be totally indecipherable if we simply learn to trust our feelings.
“Just as we have banks that have become ‘too big to fail,’ in organics we see Dean Foods and WhiteWave (recently spun-off in 2013 through an IPO on Wall Street), one of the largest industry participants and the kingpin in the powerful Organic Trade Association, repeatedly and successfully flashing their ‘get out of jail free card’ purchased by influence peddlers in Washington,” Kastel explained.
Although the dairy in recent years reduced the number of cows it was managing, and added, for the first time, some amount of pasture, it also increased the number of times the cows were being milked from twice a day to three and even four times a day.
November 26th, 2013 
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Edward Frenkel. Elizabeth Lippman
