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 Looking Into Your Future CD
By: Stephan A. Schwartz
At times of great stress, when your relationship is changing, or your job is disappearing, or you are faced with a fateful choice, it can be extraordinarily helpful to get even a glimpse of what lies...
Available Now!! Click here for details and ordering information.
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| Friday, 27 January 2012 |
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Survey Finds Rising Perception of Class Tension
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| It is not good for a democracy to have strong class tensions; it inherently destabilizes society, and degrades the sense we are all in it together. Yet the trend of rising class tensions is clearly getting worse. Conservatives don't like the discussion of this subject because it points out the extreme disparity between the 1% and the 99%, which they would prefer to go unremarked. |
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SABRINA TAVERNISE - The New York Times |
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Conflict between rich and poor now eclipses racial strain and friction between immigrants and the native-born as the greatest source of tension in American society, according to a survey released Wednesday.
About two-thirds of Americans now believe there are 'strong conflicts” between rich and poor in the United States, a survey by the Pew Research Center found, a sign that the message of income inequality brandished by the Occupy Wall Street movement and pressed by Democrats may be seeping into the national consciousness.
The share was the largest since 1992, and represented about a 50 percent increase from the 2009 survey, when immigration was seen as the greatest source of tension. In that survey, 47 percent of those polled said there were strong conflicts between classes.
'Income inequality is no longer just for economists,” said Richard Morin, a senior editor at Pew Social & Demographic Trends, which ... |
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Obama Appoints Monsanto Vice President as Senior Advisor to the Commissioner at the FDA
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While I consider Obama still the only choice for a social progressive in the upcoming election -- each week the Theocratic Right seems to be nastier and more irrational than the week before -- I have no illusions that he is the optimal choice from a compassionate life-affirming perspective. His appointment of Michael Taylor illustrates the point. This report is too polemic, and I almost didn't use it, but could not find another that made the apposite points.
It seems increasingly clear that the fix is in for increased corporate control of the FDA.
Jeffrey M. Smith is the author of Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You're Eating and Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods from Chelsea Green Publishing. Smith worked at a GMO detection laboratory, founded the Institute for Responsible Technology, and currently lives in Iowa-surrounded by genetically modified corn and soybeans. For more information, visit Chelsea Green. |
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JEFFREY M. SMITH - Birth of a New Earth |
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Michael Taylor was just appointed senior advisor to the commissioner of the FDA. This is the same man that was in charge of FDA policy when GMO's were allowed into the US food supply without undergoing a single test to determine their safety. He "had been Monsanto's attorney before becoming policy chief at the FDA [and then] he became Monsanto's Vice President and chief lobbyist. This month [he] became the senior advisor to the commissioner of the FDA. He is now America's food safety czar. This is no joke."
Here's the back story.
When FDA scientists were asked to weigh in on what was to become the most radical and potentially dangerous change in our food supply -- the introduction of genetically modified (GM) foods -- secret documents now reveal that the experts were very concerned. Memo after memo described ... |
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Changing Climate Means More Disasters, Devastation
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| The deniers just keeping spewing their nonsense while scientists, and those who are responsible for carrying out the public response to disasters, are beginning to run around with their hair on fire. If you live on a coast line, or in an area where drought or tornadoes are common, I would begin thinking seriously about your response to the crises your area may face. |
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KATE SPINNER - Herald-Tribune (Sarasoto, FL) |
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NEW ORLEANS -- Last year's extreme weather across the U.S. - 2011 was the most expensive year ever for natural disasters - is raising concern among scientists and policy-makers about the nation's ability to withstand a shifting climate.
Damage from tornadoes, floods, droughts, hurricanes and wildfires caused more than $200 billion in losses and 1,000 deaths across the nation last year. Florida escaped major damage, but saw record high temperatures over the summer, after a much colder than normal winter.
The conversation about climate change has to move beyond debates about greenhouse gases to discussions about making homes and infrastructure more resilient to weather, said Margaret Davidson, director of the Coastal Services Center for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Communities across the nation need to reduce their vulnerability, she said during a forum on adapting to climate change at the American Meteorological Society meeting here.
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For Many Injured Veterans, A Lifetime of Consequences
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| This is the consequence of over a decade of insane wars. It is the effect that will haunt us for generations, affecting not just the men and women who suffer from exposure to the immediate events, but their greater families and, particularly, their children. |
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RICH MORIN - Pew Research Center |
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One out of every ten veterans alive today was seriously injured at some point while serving in the military, and three-quarters of those injuries occurred in combat. For many of these 2.2 million wounded warriors, the physical and emotional consequences of their wounds have endured long after they left the military, according to a Pew Research Center survey of a nationally representative sample of 1,853 veterans conducted from July 18 to Sept. 4, 2011.
Veterans who suffered major service-related injuries are more than twice as likely as their more fortunate comrades to say they had difficulties readjusting to civilian life. They are almost three times as likely as other veterans to report they have suffered from post-traumatic stress (PTS). And they are less likely in later life to be in overall good health or to hold full-time jobs.
Government Not Doing Enough
The survey also finds that injured ... |
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Magic Mushrooms Point to New Depression Drugs
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| I have hung on to this story for several days because other things seemed more important, so you may have seen it elsewhere. However, I did not want to skip it because it may foreshadow a trend in psychiatry. |
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Reuters |
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LONDON -- The brains of people tripping on magic mushrooms have given the best picture yet of how psychedelic drugs work and British scientists say the findings suggest such drugs could be used to treat depression.
Two separate studies into the effects of psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, showed that contrary to scientists' expectations, it does not increase but rather suppresses activity in areas of the brain that are also dampened with other anti-depressant treatments.
"Psychedelics are thought of as 'mind-expanding' drugs so it has commonly been assumed that they work by increasing brain activity," said David Nutt of Imperial College London, who gave a briefing about the studies on Monday. "But, surprisingly, we found that psilocybin actually caused activity to decrease in areas that have the densest connections with other areas."
These so-called "hub" regions of the brain are known to play a role ... |
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| Thursday, 26 January 2012 |
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U.S. Falls 27 Places in Worldwide Freedom of the Press Rankings
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| This is one of the saddest stories I have ever published. When a democracy loses its free press it does not function. We are never going to deal with what we have become until we are willing to put away the myths and deal with reality of who we are. |
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MELISSA BELL - The Washington Post |
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The United States has been downgraded. Reporters Without Borders has released its annual World Press Freedom Index and the United States fell 27 points to No. 47 on the list.
We now tie with Argentina, Romania and Latvia at 'satisfactory” levels of freedom. The reason for the plummet? 'The many arrests of journalists covering Occupy Wall Street protests.”
The United States was not alone in the falling grades: Bahrain fell 29 points because of the crackdown in that country. Egypt and Syria also fell a few points to languish near the bottom of the pack (166) and (176) respectively. Others in the Arab world fared better. Tunisia jumped 30 points thanks to its revolution.
Pakistan was the world’s deadliest country for journalists, and Eritrea came in last in the list of overall press freedom.
See the full report here. ... |
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Roswell Park Launches Landmark Immunotherapy Vaccine Trial
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| This could be a very big deal. I will follow this closely. |
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Roswell Park Cancer Institute |
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The Center for Immunotherapy at Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) has launched a phase I clinical research study of a dendritic cell vaccine designed to both eradicate cancer cells and prevent disease relapse. Developed at RPCI, the NY-ESO-1 dendritic cell vaccine will be manufactured in the Institute’s new Therapeutic Cell Production Facility using a unique FDA-approved process - making RPCI the first research facility in the U.S. to use a custom-made barrier isolator for vaccine cell production, and the first in the world to use this system in an approved, government-regulated study.
Dendritic cells are the gatekeepers of the human immune system, defending against invaders like bacteria, viruses and cancer. The vaccine to be produced at RPCI will be the first to incorporate a particular form of NY-ESO-1, antiDEC205-NY-ESO-1. 'Armed with this specialized protein, the treated cells are then given back to the patient as a vaccine designed to ... |
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Will the Young Rise Up and Fight Their Indentured Servitude to the Student Loan Industry?
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| If you are 18-30, as I have been told over and over, student debt is a major life distorting factor in your life, and it can continue into your 40s. This article is too polemic, but it accurately spells out the issues involved. It isn't clear to me yet whether this will lead to civil strife, but there is no question it is an issue great significance to a very large part of our population, which explains its appearance in the President's State of the Union |
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BRUCE E. LEVINE - AlterNet |
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In October 2011, the White House announced, 'Currently, more than 36 million Americans have federal student loan debt.” By the end of 2011, student loan debt had exceeded $1 trillion. Two-thirds of college seniors graduate with student loans, including over 62 percent of public university graduates. According to the Project on Student Loan Debt, they carried an average of $25,250 in debt in 2010, but many have far greater debt than that average. And nowadays, with high unemployment, even higher underemployment, the inability to pay bills, and accumulating interest and penalties, the lives of student loan debtors can quickly turn into financial nightmares.
Indentured Servitude? I’ll be paying for my student loans for the rest of my life....A large portion of my earnings goes to the Wall Street elites that have commoditized and securitized my loans....I knew at the time I signed the ... |
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Oklahoma Lawmaker Wants To Outlaw Use Of Human Fetuses In Production Of Food
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| This is how absolutely nutty the Theocratic Right has become. This is not an Onion piece, or something from a university humor magazine. There are so many people like this in public office, but this one is sublimely weird. Think about it for a moment, these people make laws we have to live with. Think about the people who voted for this guy, enough to get him elected. This trend of willful ignorance, and allegiance to Theocratic Rightist views is having a powerful effect on the direction of the country. |
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ADAM PECK - ThinkProgress |
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Oklahoma GOP State Senator Ralph Shortey is on a mission to finally put an end to his state’s allegedly rampant cannibalism problem. Alarmed after his own research, which consisted of reading a nameless report stating that companies have used stem cells in the production of food, Shortey introduced a bill that would prohibit the manufacturing and sale of food 'which contains aborted human fetuses.”
Shortey explained his reasoning to local radio station News Talk Radio KRMG in Tulsa:
There is a potential that there are companies that are using aborted human babies in their research and development of basically enhancing flavor for artificial flavors.
Shortey was unable to provide any specific examples of the problem he’s trying to curb, and admits that it’s possible there aren’t any human fetuses in Oklahoma’s food. 'I don’t know if it is happening in Oklahoma, it may ... |
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Whole Foods Official Response to Organic Consumer Assoc. Report
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| Carol Kindschi and Larry Greenberg, read the article on Monsanto published by the Organic Consumers Association, that I ran a few days ago, and wrote Monsanto. Here is their response in its entirety. They sent it to me, for which I thank them, and I pass it on to you. As I have said before, I try to get you the most accurate and complete information possible, and correct things when I think they are justified. This email is filled with simple declarative statements. It is a base line against which to assess the future. |
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Private email |
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-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Whole Foods Market (Customer Service)
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:40:32 -0600
From:
Reply-To:
To:
Hi Carol,
Rumors that Whole Foods Market has surrendered to or entered into an agreement with Monsanto are absolutely not true. Whole Foods Market owns all of its stores and is not affiliated with Monsanto or others in the biotechnology industry.
These rumors began circulating after the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) published a misleading article about our company in January 2011. The original article from the OCA implied that we 'surrendered” to Monsanto, 'cut a deal” for co-existence and that we received compensation. We assure you, nothing could be further from the truth.
Our goal at Whole Foods Market is to provide informed consumer choice with regard to genetically engineered ingredients. We source our entire line of national store brand products (365 Everyday Value and 365 Organic) to avoid GMOs, working closely with our suppliers to ensure that they avoid the intentional use of GMO ingredients. We have also enrolled our entire line of national store brand products in the Non-GMO Project Product Verification Program, a third party program which verifies that food producers follow best practices for GMO avoidance. We’ve also encouraged many of our branded vendors to do the same, and we have thousands of Non-GMO Project Verified items on our shelves. For a shopping list of Non-GMO Project Verified products carried by your local store, please visit the store’s webpage. Visit http://wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/ and select your local store from the menu.
To read more about these issues, we recommend the following stories:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/genetically-modified-crops-get-boost-over-organics-with-recent-usda-rulings/2011/03/10/ABAAWNLB_story.html
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/tribnation/chi-a-qa-on-geneticallymodified-foods-20110525,0,4914034.story |
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| Wednesday, 25 January 2012 |
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Justices Rein In Police on GPS Trackers
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| Read this carefully, and you will get a sense of how the court is split and how many of the Justices are prepared really to allow almost any intrusion. We avoided the worst but are far from obtaining the best. |
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JESS BRAVIN - The Wall Street Journal |
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WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled Monday that police violated the Constitution when they attached a Global Positioning System tracker to a suspect's vehicle without a valid search warrant, voting unanimously in one of the first major cases to test privacy rights in the digital era.
The Supreme Court ruled that police must obtain a warrant before attaching a GPS tracker to a suspect's vehicle, voting unanimously in one of the first major cases to test constitutional privacy rights in the digital age, Jess Bravin reports on digits. Photo: Getty Images.
The decision offered a glimpse of how the court may address the flood of privacy cases expected in coming years over issues such as cellphones, email and online documents. But the justices split 5-4 over the reasoning, suggesting that differences remain over how to apply age-old principles prohibiting "unreasonable searches."
The minority pushed for a more ... |
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How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work
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| This is the fundamental structural shift that is occurring in manufacturing. I don't see millions of American workers in dorms, so that means we must reinvent ourselves in some new way. |
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CHARLES DUHIGG and KEITH BRADSHER - The New York Times |
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When Barack Obama joined Silicon Valley’s top luminaries for dinner in California last February, each guest was asked to come with a question for the president.
But as Steven P. Jobs of Apple spoke, President Obama interrupted with an inquiry of his own: what would it take to make iPhones in the United States?
Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, few are. Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas.
Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked.
Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. 'Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said, according to another dinner guest.
The president’s question touched upon a central conviction at Apple. It isn’t just that workers are cheaper abroad. Rather, Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories ... |
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Cohabitating Valentines Are Happier Than Wedded Couples
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It has always been my view that as a social value we should support loving relationships in whatever form they may come, rather than getting hung up on the form, and whether any particular religious ceremony is involved. Partnership is a civil contract. If people wish to also involve a religious ceremony that should be their choice, whatever it is. But the key is the social support of loving relationships. As this report makes clear that is what works, as the research data shows.
The study was funded in part by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences. |
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SYL KACAPYR - Cornell University |
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ITHACA, N.Y. -- When it comes to the well-being of married versus cohabitating Valentines, wedded couples experience few advantages in psychological well-being and social ties, according to a new study at Cornell University.
The study, 'Reexamining the Case for Marriage: Union Formation and Changes in Well-being,” is being published in the February issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family (available online: http://bit.ly/xL4t9U).
'We found that differences between marriage and cohabitation tend to be small and dissipate after a honeymoon period. Also while married couples experienced health gains – likely linked to the formal benefits of marriage such as shared health care plans – cohabiting couples experienced greater gains in happiness and self-esteem. For some, cohabitation may come with fewer unwanted obligations than marriage and allow for more flexibility, autonomy and personal growth,” said Kelly Musick, associate professor of policy analysis and management at Cornell’s College of Human ... |
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Whole Foods Sells Out to Monsanto
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| The GMO juggernaut steams ahead. Because of this and other practices by Whole Foods Ronlyn and I no longer shop there, nor will we buy Organic Valley or Stonyfield products. Vote with your pocketbook. |
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RONNIE CUMMINS - Organic Consumers Association |
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"The policy set for GE alfalfa will most likely guide policies for other GE crops as well. True coexistence is a must." - Whole Foods Market, Jan. 21, 2011
In the wake of a 12-year battle to keep Monsanto's Genetically Engineered (GE) crops from contaminating the nation's 25,000 organic farms and ranches, America's organic consumers and producers are facing betrayal. A self-appointed cabal of the Organic Elite, spearheaded by Whole Foods Market, Organic Valley, and Stonyfield Farm, has decided it's time to surrender to Monsanto. Top executives from these companies have publicly admitted that they no longer oppose the mass commercialization of GE crops, such as Monsanto's controversial Roundup Ready alfalfa, and are prepared to sit down and cut a deal for "coexistence" with Monsanto and USDA biotech cheerleader Tom Vilsack.
In a cleverly worded, but profoundly misleading email sent to its customers last week, ... |
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Another Zero-emissions Powerplant Emerges - the Dearman Engine Runs On Liquid Air
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| Here is yet another alternative to petroleum. It is fascinating to watch the innovations spring up, and it will be interesting to see where they go. |
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JACK MARTIN - GizMag |
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A new zero-emissions engine capable of competing commercially with hydrogen fuel cells and battery electric systems appeared on the radar yesterday when respected British engineering consultancy Ricardo validated Dearman engine technology and its commercial potential. The Dearman engine operates by injecting cryogenic (liquid) air into ambient heat inside the engine to produce high pressure gas that drives the engine - the exhaust emits cold air. It's cheaper to build than battery electric or fuel cell technology, with excellent energy density, fast refuelling and no range anxiety.
Think of the Dearman engine as an internal combustion engine without a spark plug, with cryogenic liquid air injected instead of petroleum. There is no combustion, but because the air is stored at cryogenic temperatures (sub minus 160 degrees Celsius), ambient temperatures can superheat it and return it to gaseous form, causing a rapid expansion of gases.
When the piston is at ... |
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