"Randall Neustaedter" - Reduce your exposure to cancer-causing petrochemicals

by Randall Neustaedter OMD

http://www.naturalnews.com/032895_petrochemicals_cancer.html

(NaturalNews) Petrochemicals cause cancer. They are also hormone disruptors, capable of contributing to hormone imbalances and premature puberty in children. We are all exposed to these chemicals every day, but we can also limit our exposure by taking simple measures in our daily lives. Some products, like air pollutants, are not in our control. However, there are many household items including the foods we eat and the fumes we breathe that may include hidden petrochemicals.

Children are especially susceptible to these carcinogens. It is estimated that children have at least three times the risk factor of adults for the development of cancer from these chemicals. Children's relatively undeveloped livers are less effective in the metabolism of toxic chemicals. And small children who play on the floor have more exposure to products that settle from the air.

Foods that are not organic may contain hidden pesticides. Animal products are a primary source. Cows will concentrate petrochemicals in their fat and milk. Buying organic milk and meat will ensure that you are not inadvertently getting pesticides from the grains these animals themselves eat. Similarly, organic chickens are not fed grains treated with pesticides. Eating organic eggs and chicken will decrease your exposure from these sources. Most fish is not safe to eat. Farm raised fish contain high levels of pesticides, large ocean fish contain high levels of the mercury, and fish imported from Japan may be radioactive.

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''J. D. Heyes" - Meditation cuts risk of heart attacks by 50 percent

by J. D. Heyes

http://www.naturalnews.com/032897_meditation_heart_attacks.html

(NaturalNews) There are a number of proven natural alternatives to reducing your risk of heart attack, but one of the most effective to do that, new research has shown, is through meditation.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, meditation through the continuous repetition of a mantra, can reduce high blood pressure, thickening of the arteries and cholesterol. Researchers say it can even help protect against diabetes.

"This is a seminal finding," said Dr. Norman Rosenthal, of the NIMH.

"The prevention of heart attack and stroke and actual lengthening of lifespan by an alternative treatment method is exceedingly rare, if not unprecedented," he said. "If Transcendental Meditation were a drug conferring so many benefits, it would be a billion-dollar blockbuster."

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Ohio State University: Air pollution linked to learning and memory problems, depression

Ohio State University, July 5, 2011

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-07/osu-apl070111.php

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Long-term exposure to air pollution can lead to physical changes in the brain, as well as learning and memory problems and even depression, new research in mice suggests.

While other studies have shown the damaging effects of polluted air on the heart and lungs, this is one of the first long-term studies to show the negative impact on the brain, said Laura Fonken, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in neuroscience at Ohio State University.

"The results suggest prolonged exposure to polluted air can have visible, negative effects on the brain, which can lead to a variety of health problems," Fonken said.

"This could have important and troubling implications for people who live and work in polluted urban areas around the world."

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Greenpeace India, Press release: Monsanto caught red-handed violating rules!

Greenpeace India, Press release, July 4 2011

http://www.greenpeace.org/india/en/news/Monsanto-caught-red-handed-violating-rules/

*Civil society and farmer unions demand action against the company and an immediate ban of GM field trials in India

Bangalore: After Monsanto was caught red-handed violating bio-safety rules in the case of GM corn by Greenpeace and a local TV channel, leading farmers union in the state, Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS) and civil society organisations demanded an immediate ban on all open field experiments of Genetically Modified (GM) crops in the country.

Monsanto, the American multinational seed giant had taken up seed production for two transgenic corn hybrids containing stacked cry2Ab2, cry1A.105 (Event MON 89034) & cp4epsps (Event NK603) genes[1] on the field of one Mr. Amrit Gowda in the village of Banihatti P.A in Sindagi Taluk, Bijapur, Karnataka. It has been found that the company has flouted every required norm or procedure to ensure biosafety from such GM products in experimental & research stages. What is most worrying is the fact that the biosafety assessment of this GM corn has not been completed while such open cultivation leading to seed and transgene leakage have been permitted.

The following are the major violations that Greenpeace has documented in this case:

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Frank Schaeffer: Fundamentalist Religion Will Destroy The World

July 3, 2011

By Frank Schaeffer

Crossposted from Alternet.org (click here)

The deluded religious belief that any people or nation or church is a "chosen" people is the root of almost all our troubles.

The earth bursts with life. Far right exclusionary religion bursts with death. If there is a creator of life He/She/It must hate fundamentalist religion. 

The countries in the world that are the most fundamentalist and religious, and/or those whose identity is most religion-based, are the world's greatest troublemakers. Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the USA, Vatican City and the state of Israel come to mind.

If the rest of the human race could find a time machine to roll back the clock and make a world where these countries/city states had never existed we'd live in a better world.
Just take one example of religion's baleful influence: President Woodrow Wilson's messianic religion-inspired intervention in World War One. "My life would not be worth living" Wilson wrote, "if it were not for the driving power of religion, for faith, pure and simple." (Letter to Nancy Toy, 1915.)
 
Wilson's religious views were the driving force in his political career, informing his quest for world peace. And like all fanatics he decided to achieve this "peace" through war. The devout Woodrow Wilson upset fellow Presbyterians as he moved the nation toward entering World War One, including William Jennings Bryan, who quit as secretary of state in protest.
 
What did Wilson's religious idealism actually achieve? Germany's loss of World War One led to the rise of Hitler, and the Second World War. Wilson picked sides between two equally tarnished nationalistically-inspired colonial contenders and weighed in. So Wilson set the stage for the rise of Hitler and World War Two. With no World War Two there would be no Israel because there would have been no holocaust. Zionism would have simply become a forgotten quirk. And there would have been no Cold War either, maybe not even a Soviet Union.

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"Mitchell J. Rabin" - The Frightful Subject of Fracking

By Mitchell J. Rabin

No matter how many times it happens and no matter how much older I get, I simply do not get used to man's willingness to, en masse, defile the Earth and cause his fellow man such difficulty and harm. I do not get accustomed to man's willingness to lie, cheat, steal and kill to achieve a certain selfish goal. It boggles my mind, breaks my heart and fractures my soul. Perhaps I came into this world too sensitive for these kinds of "grown-up values and means" of operating.

I am painfully aware of my own shortcomings and any I may have missed I don't for long as they are quickly pointed out by those close to me. My call is toward impeccability yes, but I also understand that while that may be the goal, if we can at least attempt it, approximate it, I believe that we'll all be a good deal better off than we are now! But when it comes to injecting toxic, that means poisonous chemicals, known to be toxic, into the ground and knowing that it must eventually reach the ground water and in the NY watershed which provides water to millions of people in NY, PA and NJ, it is just outrageous that these gas companies do not diversify, go into wind and solar, or at least experiment with this highly unproven methodology in places far away from human habitation, but even that I really don't want to see. It's as though the owners of these companies don't drink water themselves, breathe air, and don't have spouses or children who do same. Is it possible that they don't?

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"Mitchell J. Rabin" - Is the Natural Gas Industry Fracking Itself?

By Mitchell J. Rabin, M.A., L.AC.

The number of social, political and economic problems we're facing today are nothing short of daunting. With the momentum of privatization of otherwise public works, and even subordinating elected officials to the whim of corporate profiteers as in Benton Harbor, MI, gives some indication of how powerful the corporatization of these United States of America is.  On last week’s front cover, Time Magazine pictured the Constitution with its ends being frayed with the query “Does it Matter?”

One is thrown to ask, what is becoming of the American Psyche?  Has this robust nation been subterfuged by the torpedoes of reality TV and the myopia of texting?  Are fast food, micro-waved cooking and the fast-paced, cell phone, SUV culture with nary a care in the world grinding to a half, coming home to roost empty-handed?  Thoughtful individuals who really care about our country and its values are giving all of this a lot of thought.  And so interestingly, is one of the most hyped and fast-paced, money-at-any-expense industries in our nation: the natural gas industry.

It wasn’t long ago that natural gas was fairly simply and not costly to extract.  It’s not a sustainable technology but wasn’t unreasonably considered a transition fuel while the more intelligent countries starting fueling, that is funding, renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar and geo-thermal.

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“Patrick Martin” - Alleged Rape Case against Former IMF Managing Director Collapses

By Patrick Martin

Global Research, July 3, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25498

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former head of the International Monetary Fund, was released without bail Friday after a court hearing at which the rape case against him appeared to collapse. Prosecutors admitted that the credibility of the woman who is the complaining witness is now in question.

The prosecutors gave no details at the hearing, but a long article in the New York Times, published Friday morning, included quotes from two unnamed “law enforcement officials” suggesting that the alleged rape victim had been linked to drug dealing and money laundering and had been overheard discussing how she might benefit financially from the charges against Strauss-Kahn.

All three daily newspapers published in New York City—the tabloid Daily News and the Murdoch-owned New York Post—carried exposés Friday based on disclosures from the district attorney’s office and the police. The same set of facts was reported by all three papers.

According to these accounts, the 32-year-old immigrant woman from Guinea who alleged she had been raped by Strauss-Kahn May 14 made a phone call less than a day later to a man in jail on drug charges, discussing how she could “cash in” on the case, as the Daily News put it.

The Times account reads: “The woman had a phone conversation with an incarcerated man within a day of her encounter with Mr. Strauss-Kahn in which she discussed the possible benefits of pursuing the charges against him. The conversation was recorded.”

The Times reported that the jailed man was one of several people who had made cash deposits totaling more than $100,000 into the woman’s bank account over the last two years in Arizona, Georgia, New York and Pennsylvania. She is a low-paid hotel maid with two children who would have been in no position to obtain such sums through her employment at Sofitel in Manhattan, where the encounter with Strauss-Kahn took place.

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"Guardian UK" - Drought in East Africa the Result of Climate Change and Conflict

Published on Monday, July 4, 2011 by The Guardian/UK

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/04/drought-east-africa-climate-change

 
Aid agencies say that weather in the region has become more erratic and years of war leave populations especially vulnerable

The Guardian UK

Prolonged drought in the Horn of Africa is the immediate cause of the severe food crisis already affecting around 10 million people in parts of Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia. Rains have failed over two seasons, with a strong La Niña event having a dramatic impact across the east coast of Africa. Now this year's wet season has officially ended, there is little prospect of rain or relief before September.

How far the current conditions, classified by the UN as "pre-famine" – one step down from "catastrophe" – can be attributed to climate change is not clear. The last intergovernment panel on climate change report suggested that the Horn of Africa would get wetter with climate change, while more recent academic research has concluded that global warming will increase drought in the region. However, according to aid agencies, the weather has become more erratic and extreme in recent years. The same area suffered a drought in 2006 as well as flash floods.

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"Mike Whitney" - Mired in a Colossal Muddle -- US Economy Remains Stuck in Long-Term Slump

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Mired-in-a-Colossal-Muddle-by-Mike-Whitney-110703-31.html

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July 3, 2011

By Mike Whitney

"We have involved ourselves in a colossal muddle, having blundered in the control of a delicate machine, the working of which we do not understand."-- John Maynard Keynes

B lack Tuesday. On October 29, 1929, the stock market crashed triggering the worst economic collapse in history, the Great Depression. Thousands of banks and businesses failed, shanty towns sprung up across the country, and 15 million Americans (25% of the workforce) lost their jobs. 

President Herbert Hoover, who believed the turmoil would be over in a matter of weeks, opposed providing aid to the needy and unemployed. He supported the same policies as his GOP heirs in Congress today who seek to deepen the present crisis by cutting unemployment benefits, slashing fiscal stimulus and balancing the budget on the backs of workers. The Hoover Doctrine was summed up by Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon who famously said, "Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate real estate...purge the rottenness out of the system." Mellon's views prevailed and by July 8, 1932, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had fallen to 41 points (an 89 percent drop from its peak in 1929) while the economy sunk into a decade-long slump.

Before the crash, stock prices had been propped up by massive amounts of margin debt that melted away in a deflationary inferno when the panic selloff began in late October. The calamity took down 4,000 banks and left the broader economy in ruins. John Kenneth Galbraith summed it up like this in his masterpiece "The Great Crash: 1929":

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