A Canadian police observer filmed a Toronto officer, not beating a person senseless or violating his or her rights, but rather committing a courageous act of kindness.
In the video, a Toronto officer is telling a homeless woman she needs to leave her current location, but instead of threatening her with arrest, the officer engages in genuinely nice guy behavior and gives her money.
The user that sent us the video says the policeman caught on film is actually his father and had this to say:
“I’m sure the person filming was waiting to get a police brutality video to post on YouTube, but instead he got what needs to be seen more. People should not hate the police, there are some good ones. I believe this video should be seen to show exactly that.”
As police officers often get a bad rap for the misdeeds of their more ego maniacal, sexually deviant, profit-driven partners, it is always a breath of fresh air to report on the instances we come across where a cop actually treats a citizen like a fellow human being.
TSA Harasses And Shames Yet Another Disabled Veteran. Medal adorned soldier was wearing “too much metal” for security officers.
A Purple Heart Marine was groped and swabbed by TSA agents recently at a California airport while on his way to a ceremony to honor him as veteran of the year in his district.
Cpl. Nathan Kemnitz sustained severe injuries from a IED detonation while on duty in Fallujah, Iraq in 2004. While traveling to Sacramento, to receive the award, TSA agents at Sacramento International Airport pulled Kemnitz aside for additional screening.
When the screeners ordered him to lift up his arms for a full body scan, the decorated veteran told the TSA goons that because of his injuries, he cannot lift up his right arm.
‘My right arm doesn’t work. It’s a lot of hassle for me to do that,’ Kemnitz told The Military Times.
The screeners then proceeded to probe underneath Kemnitz’s medals, while feeling under the Marine’s waistband and swabbing his shoes for explosives.
Disgusted with his treatment, Kemnitz’s escort Patricia Martin snapped photos of the search and made them public.
“At some places I’m treated like royalty and at some like a terrorist. There’s got to be something in the middle,” Kemnitz told reporters.
In the following video, taken from a 2012 speech, Kemnitz explains how he was injured:
The TSA issued a standard response yesterday denying any wrongdoing:
“As is standard procedure for all passengers, if travelers alarm when passing through a metal detector or an advanced imaging technology (AIT) unit, additional screening is required in order to resolve that anomaly.” said TSA spokesman Ross Feinstein.
To make matters even worse, when Kemnitz arrived for the ceremony at the state capitol building in Sacramento, he received even worse treatment at the hands of security guards.
Unhappy with the fact that Kemnitz was dressed in full uniform, the guards told him that he was wearing “too much metal” and ordered him to remove his dress blue blouse.
Kemnitz refused to do so and an argument broke out, leading Kemnitz to describe the security personnel as “rude and unapologetic”.
California state capitol officials are yet to respond to the incident.
“What does a uniform and heroism represent if our own citizens — in this case employees of the TSA and security personnel — have no regard for them?” wrote Kemnitz’s escort, Patricia Martin, to Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki following the incidents.
“I feel so strongly that you need to know just how shamefully even a Purple Heart recipient/disabled veteran can be treated by some TSA and security employees,” she said.
The TSA has been routinely flagged up for harassing disabled travelers, including veterans. Back in March, a wounded Marine’s account of mistreatment at the hands of the TSA, led the agency to deny any wrong doing, with agents claiming that the wheelchair bound veteran made his own decision to attempt to get up and walk through a body scanner, and then to take off his prosthetic legs.
Eventually, following involvement from Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., the TSA announced that in response to the incident it had changed its rules to eliminate a requirement that injured troops remove their shoes, jackets or hats. However, in order to qualify for such treatment, the agency says that wounded veterans must forewarn officials before traveling.
Should selective breeding be used to improve the human race? Should we genetically screen embryos shortly after conception and choose only those that are the most genetically pure?
This may sound like science fiction, but as you will read about below, the technology for this is already operational.
On the 18th of May, a couple in Philadelphia gave birth to a baby that came from an embryo that was selected thanks to a cutting edge procedure known as “next-generation sequencing”. This procedure allows scientists to read every letter of the human genome very rapidly and very cheaply. So will millions of parents soon be lining up to check their potential offspring for “genetic abnormalities”? Has the era of genetically pure “Gattaca babies” now begun?
This new technology is being heralded as a great “breakthrough” in the field of human fertility.
According to the Guardian, the scientists that helped develop this new procedure are promoting it as a way to help couples produce a much higher percentage of “healthy” babies…
The first IVF baby to be screened using a procedure that can read every letter of the human genome has been born in the US.
Connor Levy was born on 18 May after a Philadelphia couple had cells from their IVF embryos sent to specialists in Oxford, who checked them for genetic abnormalities. The process helped doctors at the couple’s fertility clinic in the US select embryos with the right number of chromosomes. These have a much higher chance of leading to a healthy baby.
The birth demonstrates how next-generation sequencing (NGS), which was developed to read whole genomes quickly and cheaply, is poised to transform the selection of embryos in IVF clinics.
And aren’t healthy babies a good thing?
Of course they are.
But what about all of the babies that are “discarded” in the process?
Dagan Wells, a fertility specialist at Oxford University, screened 13 different embryos for the couple from Philadelphia. His testing helped them select the “best” one…
After standard treatment at the US clinic, the couple had 13 IVF embryos to choose from. The doctors cultured the embryos for five days, took a few cells from each and sent them to Wells in Oxford for genetic screening. Tests showed that while most of the embryos looked healthy, only three had the right number of chromosomes.
“It can’t make embryos better than they were in the beginning, but it can guide us to the best ones,” said Wells.
So what happened to the less desirable embryos?
That is a very good question.
Unfortunately, this is just the beginning. A second baby that came from an embryo that went through the same kind of screening process will be born in the United States next month.
Of course fertility clinics have been helping parents select the “best embryo” for years. But now this new screening process is being hailed as a much more “scientific” way of improving the chances of producing a “desirable” baby…
Embryo screening involves separating embryos with the best chance of producing a pregnancy from those with chromosomal abnormalities.
Traditionally it has involved a “beauty contest” in which technicians pick out the best-looking embryos for transfer to the womb.
But this technique is highly unreliable, since even an embryo that appears “textbook perfect” under a microscope can harbour hidden defects.
And parents certainly don’t want any “hidden defects”, do they?
A lot of scientists involved in this field of research truly believe that they are doing a wonderful thing for parents. They are fully convinced that helping parents transform the process of fertility from “a game of craps” into a process that they can control is a worthwhile endeavor…
Lee Silver, a professor of molecular biology and public policy at Princeton University, urged the audience members to look at someone sitting next to them.
“That person and you differ at over 1 million locations in your DNA [deoxyribonucleic acid]. Most [of these variations] don’t do anything,” Silver said. “[But] even if you are a healthy adult, 100 [of these] can cause deadly childhood disease in your children or grandchildren.”
“Mother Nature is a metaphor,” he continued. “And it is a bad metaphor, because in reality inheritance is a game of craps … It won’t have to be that way in the future.”
But where does this end?
At first, they may just weed out babies that have a high chance of getting sick or being deformed.
Next, parents may start selecting babies based on hair color, eye color, etc.
And eventually, “defective” embryos may be banned entirely because they would be “too much of a burden on society”.
Can you see where this is going?
Back in 1997, a movie entitled Gattaca came out that envisioned a world where those that are not “genetically pure” are greatly discriminated against. The following is a summary of the plot for the movie…
Vincent is one of the last “natural” babies born into a sterile, genetically-enhanced world, where life expectancy and disease likelihood are ascertained at birth. Myopic and due to die at 30, he has no chance of a career in a society that now discriminates against your genes, instead of your gender, race or religion. Going underground, he assumes the identity of Jerome, crippled in an accident, and achieves prominence in the Gattaca Corporation, where he is selected for his lifelong desire: a manned mission to Saturn’s 14th moon (titan). Constantly passing gene tests by diligently using samples of Jerome’s hair, skin, blood and urine, his now-perfect world is thrown into increasing desperation, his dream within reach, when the mission director is killed – and he carelessly loses an eyelash at the scene! Certain that they know the murderer’s ID, but unable to track down the former Vincent, the police start to close in, with extra searches, and new gene tests. With the once-in-a-lifetime launch only days away, Vincent must avoid arousing suspicion, while passing the tests, evading the police, and not knowing whom he can trust…
At the time, nobody ever dreamed that we would actually see such a thing in the real world.
But these days technology is moving at a pace that is absolutely mind blowing.
And now, it is reportedly even possible to create babies that have DNA from more than two parents. In fact, scientists in the UK have just been given the okay to start creating embryos with DNA from three parents…
A technique to implant donor DNA from a third party into in vitro embryos has been approved by the British Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). The technique is a form of “germline” alteration that involves modification of the person’s mitochondrial DNA (MDNA) to create genetic changes that will be carried on throughout subsequent generations.
The recommendation to allow the technique follows a public consultation ordered by the government in which the HFEA said they found “broad support”. The report said that the potential benefits outweighed the risks and that there is no evidence that the procedure is unsafe.
The HFEA report said that it should only be used to avoid “serious diseases” and that clinics offering the technique must be licensed. It also recommended that the children created using this genetic alteration technique be monitored.
As technology continues to advance, will their be any limits on what is possible?
One Harvard professor is even trying to recruit someone to give birth to a Neanderthal baby.
Seriously.
The following is how the Daily Mail described this very strange story…
Professor George Church of Harvard Medical School believes he can reconstruct Neanderthal DNA and resurrect the species which became extinct 33,000 years ago.
His scheme is reminiscent of Jurassic Park but, while in the film dinosaurs were created in a laboratory, Professor Church’s ambitious plan requires a human volunteer.
He said his analysis of Neanderthal genetic code using samples from bones is complete enough to reconstruct their DNA.
He said: ‘Now I need an adventurous female human. It depends on a hell of a lot of things, but I think it can be done.’
We are moving into a time when genetic manipulation of the human race is going to become commonplace. Scientists are assuring us that there is absolutely nothing to be concerned about.
Unfortunately, they have no idea what they are messing around with.
The human race is right in the midst of a worldwide global awakening, and our food industry is a large part of it. As we move forward, our food sector has become increasingly transparent.
From Monsanto, to pesticides and genetically modified organisms (GMOs), a large amount of evidence has surfaced to show us that some ingredients we are ingesting into our body’s can be harmful and hazardous. It is completely unnatural and is something that the human body doesn’t require nor benefits from. If you’re looking for evidence, we provide a multitude of it. Feel free to browse through our health, science/tech, multimedia, and alternative news sections for more information on GMOs, Monsanto, and pesticides. We provide sources and links to studies at the bottom of each article. You can even use the search bar.
What about infant formula? Why is Cupric Sulfate in infant formula? Cupric Sulfate is classified as harmful, irritant and dangerous for the environment. It’s used as a herbicide, fungicide and pesticide. It’s also known as Copper sulfate, and it’s produced industrially by treating copper metal with hot concentrated sulfuric acid. Cupric sulfate is not even hidden, it’s displayed on product labels without any type of warning or information about it. It’s there for us to see, we just never question it, look it up and bring it to the attention of the masses.
It’s used to kill fungus, aquatic plants and roots of plants, parasitic infections in aquarium fish, it hardly sounds fit for human consumption, and these are infants we are talking about.
If we assess formula by its results, rather than by whether its ingredients matched a specific list, we would have to conclude that there has never been an infant formula that would “satisfy,” by itself, the nutritional requirements of infants during the first months of life (1).
NPIC report on Cupric Sulfate (read full report HERE (2))
Humans:
A group of 179 adults from Ireland, Chile, and the U.S. were exposed once weekly to a solution of copper sulfate for 5 weeks. Acute LOAEL and NOAEL were determined at 6 and 4 mg Cu/L. Nausea within 15 minutes after exposure was the most common observed effect. Vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal pain were also reported. These results were confirmed in two additional independent experiments involving a total of 1634 people from around the world.
Researchers administered copper sulfate dissolved in tap water at doeses of 0, 1, 3, and 5 mg Cu/L for 2 weeks to groups of 15 healthy adult women. Subjects drank an average of 1.64 L per day. Reported symptoms include nausea, abdominal pain, and vomiting at exposure > 3 mg Cu/L.
“Vineyard sprayer’s lung” is a condition reported after chronic inhalation of Bordeaux mixture by agricultural workers who may be exposed seasonally. It is characterized by particular lung tissue changes including lesions, blue coloration, scarring and nodules. Symptoms include lesions, blue
Animals:
Twelve rabbits inhaled sprayed Bordeaux mixture for 10 minutes, 3 times daily for 4 months. The concentration was increased gradually from 1% to 3%. All animals developed inflammation, copper deposits, and degenerative changes in the lung tissue. In contrast to other studies with longer exposure times, this research did not find granulomas or fibrosis in the lung tissue.
Rats were fed ad libitum a diet containing 0, 500, 1000, 2000 or 4000 ppm of copper as copper sulfate for one month. Copper content increased in the blood, spleen, and liver for all groups. Growth and food intake decreased with higher concentrations. At the highest dose, rats died after the first week.
Male rats were given 100 mg/kg/day of copper sulfate by gavage for 20 days. Signs included change of paw color from pink to white and reduced body weight. Further analysis showed destruction of red blood cells and copper deposition and necrosis in liver and kidney tissue.
Pigs were fed copper sulfate pentahydrate at copper concentrations of 0, 250 and 425 ppm Cu for 48 to 79 days. Gastrointestinal hemorrhage, cirrhosis of the liver, and jaundice were observed at the highest dose
Sixteen lambs ate a diet containing copper sulfate pentahydrate at a concentration of 15 ppm Cu for 88 days. Two lambs died due to jaundice. The livers of the surviving lambs contained high concentrations of copper.
Sheep fed mixtures containing 5.3-9.9% copper sulfate pentahydrate ingested 0.645-1.660 g copper sulfate daily for 28 to 113 days. Signs included lethargy, jaundice, hemoglobinuria, bloody nasal discharge, fast pulse, fast breathing, greenishblack stools, and recumbency before death.
Laying hens were fed copper sulfate at concentrations of 78 ppm Cu and 1437 ppm Cu for 2 weeks. At the highest concentration, hens produced fewer eggs, consumed less feed, and developed ulcers in the gizzard and oral cavity. Other studies of chickens that were fed copper sulfate reported oral lesions proportional to the dose of copper, and conflicting effects on feeding rate and weight gain.
Rats exposed by inhalation to copper sulfate for 1 hour/day for 10 days at a concentration of 330 g/L spray had increased concentrations of copper in the liver and plasma. Copper did not accumulate in the lung tissue
It’s very clear that cupric sulfate should not be in infant formula, and everything else it’s put into. It’s classified as harmful and dangerous for the environment by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Even the material safety data sheet lists the following health effects:
Potential Acute Health Effects: Hazardous in case of skin contact (irritant), of eye contact (irritant), of ingetion, of inhalation. Potential Chronic Health Effects: Carcinogenic Effects: Not available. Mutagenic Effects: Mutagenic for mammalian somatic cells. Teratrogenic Effects: Not available. The substance may be toxic to kidneys and liver. Repeated prolonged exposure to the substance can produce target organ damage.
You can read that entire report HERE(3)
The USDA organic label is supposed to protect the consumer against GMOs and avoidable chemical exposures, but the sobering fact is that USDA-certified infant formula manufacturers are not only being allowed to use a pesticide in their formulas, but are advertising it as a ‘healthy’ mineral to unsuspecting consumers (4)
Below are the ingredients for Similac Sensitive forumla, Cupric Sulfate is present in other major baby formula’s,like Nestle. You can view their ingredient list here, it’s pretty much the exact same. It makes absolutely no sense at all for this pesticide to be put into infant formula, as you can see above it is clearly dangerous to consume!
A year ago on, July 7, 2012, a prominent international group of cognitive neuroscientists,
neuropharmacologists, neurophysiologists, neuroanatomists and computational neuroscientists
gathered at The University of Cambridge to reassess the neurobiological substrates of conscious experience and related behaviors in human and non-human animals.
While comparative research on this topic is naturally hampered by the inability of non-human animals, and often humans, to clearly and readily communicate about their internal states, the following observations can be stated unequivocally:
The field of Consciousness research is rapidly evolving. Abundant new techniques and strategies for human and non-human animal research have been developed. Consequently, more data is becoming readily available, and this calls for a periodic reevaluation of previously held preconceptions in this field. Studies of non-human animals have shown that homologous brain circuits correlated with conscious experience and perception can be selectively facilitated and disrupted to assess whether they are in fact necessary for those experiences. Moreover, in
humans, new non-invasive techniques are readily available to survey the correlates of
consciousness.
The neural substrates of emotions do not appear to be confined to cortical structures. In fact,
subcortical neural networks aroused during affective states in humans are also critically
important for generating emotional behaviors in animals. Artificial arousal of the same brain
regions generates corresponding behavior and feeling states in both humans and non-human
animals. Wherever in the brain one evokes instinctual emotional behaviors in non-human
animals, many of the ensuing behaviors are consistent with experienced feeling states, including those internal states that are rewarding and punishing.
Deep brain stimulation of these systems in humans can also generate similar affective states. Systems associated with affect are concentrated in subcortical regions where neural homologies abound. Young human and nonhuman animals without neocortices retain these brain-mind functions. Furthermore, neural circuits supporting behavioral/electrophysiological states of attentiveness, sleep and decision making appear to have arisen in evolution as early as the invertebrate radiation, being evident in insects and cephalopod mollusks (e.g., octopus).
Birds appear to offer, in their behavior, neurophysiology, and neuroanatomy a striking case of parallel evolution of consciousness. Evidence of near human-like levels of consciousness has been most dramatically observed in African grey parrots. Mammalian and avian emotional networks and cognitive microcircuitries appear to be far more homologous than previously thought. Moreover, certain species of birds have been found to exhibit neural sleep patterns similar to those of mammals, including REM sleep and, as was demonstrated in zebra finches,
neurophysiological patterns, previously thought to require a mammalian neocortex. Magpies in particular have been shown to exhibit striking similarities to humans, great apes, dolphins, and
elephants in studies of mirror self-recognition.
In humans, the effect of certain hallucinogens appears to be associated with a disruption in
cortical feedforward and feedback processing. Pharmacological interventions in non-human
animals with compounds known to affect conscious behavior in humans can lead to similar
perturbations in behavior in non-human animals. In humans, there is evidence to suggest that
awareness is correlated with cortical activity, which does not exclude possible contributions by
subcortical or early cortical processing, as in visual awareness. Evidence that human and nonhuman animal emotional feelings arise from homologous subcortical brain networks provide compelling evidence for evolutionarily shared primal affective qualia.
We declare the following: “The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Nonhuman animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates.”
*The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness was written by Philip Low and edited by Jaak Panksepp, Diana Reiss, David Edelman, Bruno Van Swinderen, Philip Low and Christof Koch. The Declaration was publicly proclaimed in Cambridge, UK, on July 7, 2012, at the Francis Crick Memorial Conference on Consciousness in Human and non-Human Animals, at Churchill College, University of Cambridge, by Low, Edelman and Koch. The Declaration was signed by the conference participants that very evening, in the presence of Stephen Hawking, in the Balfour Room at the Hotel du Vin in Cambridge, UK. The signing ceremony was memorialized by CBS 60 Minutes
Discover safe and natural skin protective solutions this summer
With summer in full force, many are embracing commercial sunscreens in a misguided effort to minimize burning and reduce skin cancer risk. Unfortunately, most sun care creams, sprays and gels are filled with photocarcinogenic ingredients and other harmful chemicals that actually encourage DNA damage. Yet protecting the skin need not involve exposure to these noxious products - a host of natural substitutes are available that nourish and shield without dangerous side effects.
Deadly sun care
According to author Ethan A. Huff in the NaturalNews article, "Study: Many sunscreens increase skin cancer risk, FDA has known for a decade but done nothing," commercial sunscreens create more harm than good by escalating the incidence of skin cancer. Photocarcinogenic ingredients like the vitamin A derivatives retinol and retinal palmitate turn toxic when exposed to sunlight - causing a 21 percent increase in the development and spread of cancerous skin tumors and lesions.
"Not to be confused with the vitamin A found in food and supplements that is absolutely essential for good health, vitamin A additives in sunscreen are different - their interactions with ultraviolet sun rays actually produce carcinogens in the skin," clarifies Huff. He continues:
"Vitamin A derivatives, of course, are not the only toxic ingredients in sunscreens either. According to the EWG report, hormone-disrupting chemicals like oxybenzone are prominent in many popular sunscreen brands. These same sunscreens also contain a slew of other mystery chemicals, many of which have never been proven safe or effective for use, and are likely carcinogenic as well."
In light of this information, it's understandable that alternatives to these poisonous concoctions are sought once we are aware of the dangers.
Simple and beneficial sunscreen created by nature
For those on a quest to locate naturally derived sun protection, Frugally Sustainable offers a few suggestions and tips. Basics include wearing protective clothing, avoiding direct sun exposure during midday hours and consuming a high caliber diet - one that is rich in vegetables, fruits and whole foods. Also, skin is protected from the inside out when the body receives adequate vitamin A. Bastyr Center for Natural Health affirms:
"Vitamin A, an antioxidant nutrient found in foods such as eggs and fish, has been shown in many studies to prevent and reverse cancerous changes in cells in some parts of the body, including the skin. One previous study found that people taking 25,000 IU of vitamin A per day for up to five years had a 32 percent reduction in risk of developing a common form of skin cancer."
Additionally, specific oils provide sun shielding properties when applied topically, including:
For further protection, remember to consume enough vitamin C and E. The Linus Pauling Institute in Oregon notes:
"... multiple studies have found that the combination of vitamin C and vitamin E protects the skin against UV damage. Human subjects orally co-supplemented with vitamins C and E show increased Minimal Erythemal Dose (MED), a measure of photoprotection from UV light in skin. The combination of the two vitamins was associated with lower amounts of DNA damage after UV exposure. Results of another study suggest a mixture of tocopherols and tocotrienols may be superior to alpha-tocopherol alone, as the mixture showed reduced sunburn reactions and tumor incidence after UV exposure in mice."
In three years, Russia will have the world’s first floating nuclear power plant, capable of providing energy and heat to hard-to-get areas as well as drinking water to arid regions.
The unique vessel should be operational by 2016, the general director of Russia’s biggest shipbuilders, the Baltic Plant, Aleksandr Voznesensky told reporters at the 6th International Naval Show in St. Petersburg.
The Akademik Lomonosov is to become the spearhead of a series of floating nuclear power plants, which Russia plans to put into mass-production.
The floating power-generating unit, aimed at providing energy to large industrial enterprises, port cities and offshore gas and oil-extracting platforms, was designed on the basis of nuclear reactors which are equipped on the icebreakers ships. The technology has proved itself for over 50 years of successful operation in extreme Arctic conditions.
The floating power plant is a vessel with a displacement of 21,500 tons and a crew of 69 people. It’s non-self-propelled and therefore has to be towed to the desired destination.
Each ship will have two modified KLT-40 naval propulsion reactors together providing up to 70 MW of electricity or 300 MW of heat, which is enough for a city with a population of 200,000 people.
The floating nuclear power plants are expected to be used in remote regions of Russia’s high north and Far East, which currently see economic growth suffering from a lack of energy.
For export purposes, the floating power plant can also be modified as a desalination plant able to produce 240,000 cubic meters of fresh water on a daily basis.
15 countries, including China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Algeria, Namibia, Cape Verde and Argentina, have previously expressed interest in acquiring such power stations.
The manufacturer stresses that the process of fuel enrichment on the vessels complies with the regulations of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) dealing with nonproliferation of nuclear arms.
Like every atomic station the floating power plant is designed with a safety margin, exceeding any possible threats, which makes the reactors invulnerable to tsunami waves or crashes with other ships or on-land structures.
The power-generating unit is to be replaced by a new one after 40 years, with the used reactor returned to a specialized facility for re-utilization.
The vessels are said to be safe for the environment as they don’t release any hazardous substances during operation.
The construction of the maiden floating nuclear power station, Akademik Lomonosov, began in 2007 at the Sevmash Submarine-Building Plant in Severodvinsk.
A year later it was transferred to the Baltic Plant, but was stalled for the last two years due to a lack of financing.
The new deal to finalize the construction of a floating power unit for the floating nuclear power plant was signed between the Baltic plant and the Russiam state Rosenergoatom company in December 2012.
Did you know that the U.S. government considers the U.S. border to be a “constitution-free zone”?
Did you know that customs officials can take your computer away from you, keep it for 30 days or more, and make a copy of everything that is on your hard drive? Sadly, this is actually true. According to the government, when you choose to cross the U.S. border you temporarily give up your constitutional rights. They can look at anything on your computer that they want to, and if they find anything that violates any law, they can use it against you in court. You may think twice about taking your computer out of the country after you read the rest of this article.
A lot of people think that it is the TSA that is doing this, but they are not supposed to be doing these kinds of searches. According to the official TSA blog, only customs officials are authorized to search laptops and other electronic devices… Our officers might visually inspect your laptop and perform an explosives trace detection test, but that’s it. Our officers don’t even turn computers on during inspection.
So where are the reports coming from? They’re coming from people who have had their laptops searched by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
According to the Fourth Amendment, U.S. citizens are never supposed to be searched without probable cause. But the U.S. government has decided to throw out the Fourth Amendment, and the courts have gone along with it. So now customs officials can search anything that you bring across the border – including your computer. The following is from Wikipedia…
The United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP), ICE-HSI Special Agents, and Coast Guard officers (E4 grade and above) who are all customs officers (those tasked with enforcing Title 19 of the United States Code) with the United States Department of Homeland Security, are permitted to search travelers and their belongings at the American border without probable cause or a warrant. Pursuant to this authority, customs officers may generally stop and search the property of any traveler entering or exiting the United States at random, or even based largely on ethnic profiles.
If you get “flagged” for some reason, you are much more likely to have your computer searched.
Of course this is going to make people much more hesitant to speak out against the government and it is going to have an incredibly chilling affect on our First Amendment rights, but that is probably what they want anyway.
One example of an individual that was “flagged” for special treatment was described in an article by Lisa Vaas…
According to a report in Sunday’s Boston Globe, the consultant – a former MIT researcher, David House – was returning from rest and relaxation in Mexico when federal agents seized his laptop. According to the Globe, the government wanted to know more about House’s connections to Bradley Manning, the US Army private accused of leaking classified information to WikiLeaks. The seizure comes as no surprise. As Globe writer Katie Johnston notes, United States ports of entry are dubbed “Constitution-free zones” by civil liberties advocates. Barring invasive techniques such as strip seizures, government agents are free to disregard Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure. They don’t need reasonable suspicion or probable cause, and they can take what they like, be it laptops or smart phones.
It has been estimated that 5,000 laptops, cell phones, iPods and cameras are searched each year, but nobody really knows.
And if they do take your computer, you might not get it back for a very long time…
Two years ago The Constitution Project issued a report on the issue, “Suspicionless Border Searches of Electronic Devices: Legal and Privacy Concerns with the Department of Homeland Security’s Policy.”
The group explained: Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement “officers may detain electronic devices for significant periods of time. For CBP, detentions can be extended well beyond the minimum five-day guideline with supervisory approval. If the device is detained by ICE, the detention can last for ‘a reasonable time,’ which according to its Directive can last 30 days or more.” Neither agency sets any firm time limit.
Does this upset you?
It should.
When I first heard about this, I was hesitant to believe it.
It just seemed too crazy to me.
But we live in a crazy world that is rapidly getting crazier.
The U.S. government has decided that any American citizen that chooses to cross the border temporarily gives up their constitutional rights, and the courts are going along with it.
So what should we do?
Well, number one, you might want to avoid going across the border if you can.
Secondly, you might want to consider not taking any computer with you when you do travel internationally. Any little thing that they find can be used to put you away behind bars.
We are very quickly being transformed into a “Big Brother” society, and our rights are constantly being eroded. Hopefully the American people will begin to stand up and say something about these issues, because if they don’t eventually we won’t have any privacy left at all.
Nine serial blasts in a coordinated terror attack rocked the Mahabodhi temple complex in south central Bihar's Buddhist pilgrimage town of Bodh Gaya early on Sunday, injuring two monks.
A number of explosions have rocked the Mahabodhi temple complex, south of Gaya in northeastern India. The Buddhist pilgrimage site his home to a towering Buddha statue and a holy tree where Buddha is believed to have reached enlightenment.
"It is a terror attack," Union minister of state for home RPN Singh said about the blasts that took place between 5:30 and 5:58am.
Indian police reported eight blasts at the Bodh Gaya temple between 5:30 am and 6:00 am on Sunday morning. Four exploded inside the complex and 2 outside, but the temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was untouched. A seventh bomb was found near the 24 meter tall Buddha and defused.
Indian President Prenab Mukherjee condemned it as a ‘senseless act of violence’.
Two people, believed to be Tibetan monks according to local sources, were reportedly injured.
Security has been beefed up at major temples in the Jharkhand area.
“It’s disturbing that such an important temple site was attacked. This temple is an important site for the whole nation,” Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said.
The site is sacred to Buddhists, who travel from all corners of the world to visit. It is where its believed Buddha reached enlightenment in 531 BC, a divine state of nirvana central to the practice of Buddhism. There is no damage to the ‘Buddha tree’, local police reported.
The Sri Lankan President, who often visits the popular tourist destination was ‘shocked and dismayed’ by the attack.
A National Security Guard (NSG) team was dispatched to the area, as the explosions have raised the question of whether or not the attack was motivated by terrorism.
Investigators on site said the attack looked ‘sophisticated’ and the bombs were detonated with remote timers.
The NSG says the bombs were likely made from ammonium nitrate or potassium permanganate, both of which are readily available on the market and are commonly used in bomb making.
The incident could be linked to poor security and surveillance, and so far, no record has been obtained of the security tapes.
Experts from the Indian NSG will study the bomb residue in the coming days to discover how they were denominated.
“It’s very unfortunate, actually there should be no need for security in a religious place,” a Dalai Lama aide said in an interview with Times Now. “But this kind of incident in a religious place happening means that these places need to be secured. There is a lot of concern for tourists and visitors who come to Bodhgaya. Whoever carried out this will hopefully shun this kind of activity,” the aid said.
Bodh Gaya is the holiest site for the Buddhists world over. It was bombed early this morning in a series of Islamic terror attacks. Their most holy site. The Muslims prohibit the Jews from praying at their most holy site (the Temple Mount), not to mention their false religious claims to Jerusalem. The Muslims are converting one of the most important monuments of Christianity, the 6th-century Church of Hagia Sophia, into a mosque. Tens of thousands of Hindu temples have been destroyed by Muslims.
But Robert Spencer and I are banned from Britian because we discuss such things. Such is poison fruit of a world held hostage by savages.
Buddhists rarely finds themselves targets of violent attacks. There has been an increase in jihadist activity in Indian, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh.
Violence in Myanmar has heated up in the last year, creating schisms with local Muslim leaders and Buddhists.
In July 2012, al-Qaeda linked Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan threatened to launch attacks against Buddhists in response to clashes between Muslims and Buddhists in Myanmar.
The draft law to ban advertising of medications on television and radio, as well as in all non-specialized print media was submitted to the State Duma.
The bill was authored by State Duma deputy Andrei Belyakov.
Belyakov believes that the advertising medical devices and drugs should be possible only in specialized publications, as well as in the places where medical and pharmaceutical activities are held, such as exhibitions, conferences, seminars, etc.
According to the author of the bill, the proposed initiative should become the next step, designed to ensure the protection of Russian people's health. Citizens prefer to follow colorful advertising, rather than medical recommendations. The bill is to regulate the uncontrolled and dangerous use of drugs and to ensure the accuracy of provided information about medicines.
The French external intelligence agency spies on French citizen’s phone calls, emails and social media activity and web use, the Le Monde newspaper has reported.
France’s external intelligence agency the DGSE, intercepts signals from computers and telephones in France and between France and other countries in order to get a pictures of who is talking to whom, although, apparently, they do not randomly spy on the content of phone calls, the daily revealed on Thursday.
Emails, text messages, telephone records, access to Facebook and Twitter are stored for years. “All of our communications are spied on,” read the article quoting unnamed sources in the intelligence services as well as remarks made publicly by intelligence officials.
The DGSE allegedly stores the metadata from private communications in a basement under its Paris headquarters. All of France’s seven other intelligence services have access to the data and can tap into it freely as a means to spot people's suspicious communications. Individuals can then be targeted by more intrusive techniques such as phone-tapping, it was reported.
Le Monde pointed out the activities were illegal, but the French national security commission whose job it is to authorize targeted spying, and the parliamentary intelligence committee, challenged the papers report. It said that it works within the law and that the only body in France that collected communication information was a government agency controlled by the Prime Minister’s office to monitor for security breaches.
The report comes after revelations that America’s NSA regularly spies on its own people as well as on European citizens and embassies.
The allegations were leaked by Edward Snowden and published in the German magazine Der Spiegel, and have sparked a furious response from European governments just as a major US-EU trade talks are about to get underway.
The Guardian newspaper reported last month that Britain has a similar spying program and shares vast quantities of information with the NSA through its Prism program.
An image of the hidden microphone used to bug an office in Ecuador’s London embassy, where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been living for over a year, was revealed by Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino during a press conference Wednesday.
Patino told reporters the recording device was found beneath a desk in the office belonging to Ana Alban, the Ecuadorean Ambassador to the United Kingdom, according to Reuters. Patino said the microphone was discovered on June 16 before he visited the embassy to meet with Assange, who lives and works in a different room of the office. The British Foreign Office refused to comment on the matter.
“I didn’t denounce this at the time because we didn’t want the theme of our visit to London to be confused with this matter,” Patino said in a press conference Wednesday. “Furthermore, we first wanted to ascertain with precision what could be the origin of this interception device in the office of our ambassador.
“We are sorry to say so, but this is another instance of a loss of ethics at the international level in relations between governments.”
WikiLeaks tweeted a close-up image of the device, which Patino said held a SIM card and was designed to transmit private conversations from inside the embassy. The microphone is thought to have been in place for weeks.
The British Foreign Office refused to comment and a spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron said he could not speak on security issues.
Patino met with British Foreign Secretary William Hague on June 17 to discuss Ecuador’s decision to shelter Assange. The WikiLeaks leader is facing an extradition request to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning in relation to allegations by two women of sexual assault and rape.
If Assange travels outside the embassy he could also be extradited to the United States, where he would likely be charged in connection with releasing thousands of State Department cables and documents regarding military activity in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bradley Manning, who admitted disclosing the information to WikiLeaks, is currently on trial and could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.
Patino was careful to note during the press conference that he was not accusing the UK of placing the recording device, saying Ecuador “is infiltrated from all sides.” It is not illegal for one country to bug another, according to The Guardian.
Asked for the UK’s help in identifying the source, Patino said Ecuadorean authorities “have reason to believe that the bugging was carried out by the company, the Surveillance Group Limited…one of the biggest private investigation and undercover surveillance companies in the United Kingdom.”
The Foreign Minister added that Ecuador was still considering Edward Snowden’s request for political asylum. United States law enforcement is pursuing Snowden, and Vice President Joe Biden previously asked Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa to deny Snowden’s request.
A wave of anger is sweeping the cities of the world. Politicians beware
A familiar face appeared in many of the protests taking place in scores of cities on three continents this week: a Guy Fawkes mask with a roguish smile and a pencil-thin moustache. The mask belongs to “V”, a character in a graphic novel from the 1980s who became the symbol for a group of computer hackers called Anonymous. His contempt for government resonates with people all over the world.
The protests have many different origins. In Brazil people rose up against bus fares, in Turkey against a building project. Indonesians have rejected higher fuel prices, Bulgarians the government’s cronyism. In the euro zone they march against austerity, and the Arab spring has become a perma-protest against pretty much everything. Each angry demonstration is angry in its own way.
Yet just as in 1848, 1968 and 1989, when people also found a collective voice, the demonstrators have much in common. Over the past few weeks, in one country after another, protesters have risen up with bewildering speed. They have been more active in democracies than dictatorships. They tend to be ordinary, middle-class people, not lobbies with lists of demands. Their mix of revelry and rage condemns the corruption, inefficiency and arrogance of the folk in charge.
Nobody can know how 2013 will change the world—if at all. In 1989 the Soviet empire teetered and fell. But Marx’s belief that 1848 was the first wave of a proletarian revolution was confounded by decades of flourishing capitalism and 1968, which felt so pleasurably radical at the time, did more to change sex than politics. Even now, though, the inchoate significance of 2013 is discernible. And for politicians who want to peddle the same old stuff, the news is not good.
Online and into the streets
The rhythm of protests has been accelerated by technology. V’s face turns up in both São Paulo and Istanbul because protest is organised through social networks, which spread information, encourage imitation and make causes fashionable (see article). Everyone with a smartphone spreads stories, though not always reliable ones. When the police set fire to the encampment in Gezi Park in Istanbul on May 31st, the event appeared instantly on Twitter. After Turks took to the streets to express their outrage, the flames were fanned by stories that protesters had died because of the police’s brutal treatment. Even though those first stories turned out to be wrong, it had already become the popular thing to demonstrate.
Protests are no longer organised by unions or other lobbies, as they once were. Some are initiated by small groups of purposeful people—like those who stood against the fare increases in São Paulo—but news gets about so fast that the organising core tends to get swamped. Spontaneity gives the protests an intoxicating sense of possibility. But, inevitably, the absence of organisation also blurs the agenda. Brazil’s fare protest became a condemnation of everything from corruption to public services (see article). In Bulgaria the government gave in to the crowd’s demand to ditch the newly appointed head of state security. But by then the crowd had stopped listening.
This ready supply of broad, fair-weather activism may vanish as fast as it appeared. That was the fate of the Occupy protesters, who pitched camp in Western cities in 2011. This time, however, the protests are fed by deep discontent. Egypt is suffering from the disastrous failure of government at every level. Protest there has become a substitute for opposition. In Europe the fight is over how to shrink the state. Each time the cuts reach a new target—most recently, Greece’s national broadcaster—they trigger another protest. Sometimes, as in the riots of young immigrants in Sweden’s suburbs in May and of British youths in 2011, entire groups feel excluded from the prosperity around them. Sweden has the highest ratio of youth unemployment to general unemployment in the OECD. Too many young Britons suffer from poor education and have prospects to match. In the emerging economies rapid real growth has led people to expect continuing improvements in their standard of living. This prosperity has paid for services and, in an unequal society like Brazil, narrowed the gap between rich and poor. But it is under threat. In Brazil GDP growth slowed from 7.5% in 2010 to only 0.9% last year. In Indonesia, where GDP is still below $5,000 a head, ordinary families will keenly feel the loss of fuel subsidies.
More potent still in the emerging world are the political expectations of a rapidly growing middle class (see article). At the end of last year young educated Indians took to the streets of several cities after the gang rape of a 23-year-old medical student, to protest at the lack of protection that the state affords women. Even bigger protests had swept the country in 2011, as the middle class rose up against the corruption that infests almost every encounter with government officials. In Turkey the number of students graduating from university has increased by 8% a year since 1995. The young middle class this has created chafes against the religious conservatism of the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who wants large families and controls on alcohol. The 40m Brazilians who clambered out of poverty in the past eight years are able for the first time to scrutinise the society that their taxes finance. They want decent public services, and get overpriced sports stadiums instead.
Trouble in Brussels and Beijing
How will this year of protest unfold? One dark conclusion is that democracy has become harder: allocating resources between competing interest groups is tougher if millions can turn out on the streets in days. That implies that the euro zone’s summer will surely get hotter. The continent’s politicians have got off lightly so far (the biggest demonstrations in Paris, for instance, were when “Frigide Barjot” led French Catholics in a bid to stop gay marriage). Yet social instability is twice as common when public spending falls by at least 5% of GDP as when it is growing. At some point European leaders must curb the chronic overspending on social welfare and grapple with the euro’s institutional weakness—and unrest will follow.
Happily, democracies are good at adapting. When politicians accept that the people expect better—and that votes lie in satisfying them—things can change. India’s anti-corruption protests did not lead to immediate change, but they raised graft up the national agenda, with the promise of gradual reform (see article). To her credit, Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, wants a national debate on renewing politics. This will be neither easy nor quick. But protest could yet improve democracy in emerging countries—and even eventually the EU.
Democrats may envy the ability of dictators to shut down demonstrations. China has succeeded in preventing its many local protests from cohering into a national movement. Saudi Arabia has bribed its dissidents to be quiet; Russia has bullied them with the threats of fines and prison. But in the long run, the autocrats may pay a higher price. Using force to drive people off the streets can weaken governments fatally, as Sultan Erdogan may yet find (see article); and as the Arab governments discovered two years ago, dictatorships lack the institutions through which to channel protesters’ anger. As they watch democracies struggle in 2013, the leaders in Beijing, Moscow and Riyadh should be feeling uncomfortable.
If there is one thing you need to remember at all times in the Electronic Age, it is that privacy no longer exists.
Every electronic device, every electronic communication, every electronic anything betrays your sense of privacy in every imaginable way, and that is also true of a seemingly innocuous item - the photo.
If taken with a smartphone - as many photos these days certainly are - then the government, as well as ordinary folk (including those who mean you harm) can use metadata embedded in that photo you just tweeted or posted on Facebook to find out your exact coordinates. That includes where you live, if that's where you sent or posted the photo from, according to a new investigative report by McClatchy Newspapers:
The GPS location information embedded in a digital photo is an example of so-called metadata, a once-obscure technical term that's become one of Washington's hottest new buzzwords.
The word first sprang from the lips of pundits and politicians earlier this month, after reports disclosed that the government has been secretly accessing the telephone metadata of Verizon customers, as well as online videos, emails, photos and other data collected by nine Internet companies.
In the wake of revelations that the NSA has been collecting all of that metadata, President Obama has sought to assure us that "nobody is listening to your phone calls." Other government officials compared the collection of such data to - no kidding - "reading information on the outside of an envelope, which doesn't require a warrant," McClatchy reported.
Sure. But privacy experts say these are not reassurances at all. They say that anyone who knows how to mine metadata understand it can reveal so much more about us and how we live our daily lives than other forms of communication.
Metadata is, essentially, all your information
What is metadata, exactly? McClatchy explains:
Simply put, it's data about data. An early example is the Dewey Decimal System card catalogs that libraries use to organize books by title, author, genre and other information. In the digital age, metadata is coded into our electronic transmissions.
"Metadata is information about what communications you send and receive, who you talk to, where you are when you talk to them, the lengths of your conversations, what kind of device you were using and potentially other information, like the subject line of your emails," Peter Eckersley, the director of technology projects at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital civil liberties group, told the newspaper group.
He went onto say that powerful computer algorithms are capable of analyzing metadata to profile individuals and learn their patterns.
"Metadata is the perfect place to start if you want to troll through millions of people's communications to find patterns and to single out smaller groups for closer scrutiny," he told the newspaper group. "It will tell you which groups of people go to political meetings together, which groups of people go to church together, which groups of people go to nightclubs together or sleep with each other."
How's that for breaching your privacy? So government doesn't have to listen to your conversations; it can learn pretty much all it wants to learn from the pics you post, tweet or otherwise send out over the invisible wireless networks.
"That's certainly enough to know if you're pregnant or not, what diseases you have, whether you're looking for a new job, whether you're trying to figure out if the NSA is watching you or not," said Eckersley, the latter a reference to the NSA. That kind of info provides "a deeply intimate window into a person's psyche," he noted.
So, the more we rely on our smartphones, the more metadata we make available to build our profiles.
Metadata can identify gun owners too
Here's another constitutional concern.
Karen Reilly, the director of development for The Tor Project, an American non-profit group that makes technology designed to provide online anonymity and skirt censorship, said metadata can even identify you as a gun owner.
"Never mind background checks, if you bring your cellphone to the gun range you probably have a gun," she said.
"People don't realize all the information that they're giving out," she added. "You can try to secure it - you can use some tech tools, you can try to be a black hole online - but if you try to live your life the way people are expecting it, it's really difficult to control the amount of data that you're leaking all over the place."
Think about this the next time you snap a pic with the iPhone or other smart device and send it out to a friend. You're actually sending it out to a world of metadata thieves, a group that includes, as we now know for certain, the federal government.
What is your first feeling with these thoughts?
Anger?
Regret?
Forgiving?
Or even Wishing deeply you had more time to enjoy the expierence of life on Earth and share that with others around you?
These opportunities...
You could have, should have...
What do you really want now? Think of it...
You know you're longing for a serious, deep & profound love in your life.
After searching for that feeling for many years you finally realize that feeling can not come from outside of you.
One of the best hidden secrets in our past is that that feeling is something you already know & even actualy have felt before.
Its that feeling from the past of truely & deeply being in love with someone. Remember that?
Now look at yourself and be honest: Who do you love now?
It was you, searching for you...
Can you feel it?
Women in the US are dying from prescription drug overdose at record rates: a new study found that this death rate has increased five-fold in the last decade, and the CDC now calls this a growing public health epidemic.
“Mothers, wives, sisters and daughters are dying at rates that we have never seen before,” said Centers of Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Thomas Frieden, who led a study analyzing the extent of prescription drug overdose.
The study found that men are still more likely to die of overdoses than women, but the number of female deaths spiked drastically. Eighteen women currently die from prescription drug overdose each day. From 1999 to 2010, the rate of overdose fatalities among women increased by 400 percent, leading to 15,300 deaths in 2010. Among men the rate increased by 250 percent.
By 2010, 40 percent of all overdose deaths were women, most of them middle-aged who took prescription painkillers. The CDC found that women ages 45 to 54 were most likely to ingest a fatal dose of prescription drugs, followed closely by women ages 55 to 64.
“Unfortunately, women are catching up in this regard,” Frieden told reporters during a conference call. Researchers believe that 70 percent of overdose deaths were unintentional. About 12 percent of overdose deaths were labeled as suicides.
The study’s authors hypothesized that women are more likely than men to be prescribed painkillers, use them chronically, and acquire prescriptions for higher doses – in part because women are more susceptible to chronic pain such as fibromyalgia, a condition of widespread pain throughout the body.
Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told the New York Times that women are also more likely to be given psychotherapeutic drugs to treat depression and anxiety, which could interfere with other medications and sometimes lead to death.
Women typically also have smaller body masses than men, making them more susceptible to overdose. They are also more likely to “doctor shop” and acquire pain pills from multiple physicians, CDC officials told AP. The CDC report particularly focused on prescription opioids like Vicodin, OxyContin, and Opana.
“These are dangerous medications and they should be reserved for situations like severe cancer pain,” Frieden said. “In many other situations, the risks far outweigh the benefits. Prescribing an opiate may be condemning a patient to lifelong addiction and life-threatening complications.”
Drug overdoses now kill more US women than car accidents, cervical cancer or homicide, and Frieden believes doctors should consider the possibility of addiction and think of alternative treatments for chronic pain before prescribing opioids.
“Stopping this epidemic in women – and men – is everyone’s business,” Frieden said in a statement. “Doctors need to be cautious about prescribing and patients about using these drugs.”
