US government will soon seize your retirement account

(NaturalNews) – When it comes to your retirement account, you probably keep an eye on Wall Street and the financial markets because when they lose value, your account loses value. Little did you know you are going to have to keep an eye on Uncle Sam as well, because he’s eyeing your retirement too, and he could soon take what he will claim is his fair share of it. If you think that sounds absurd, think again. In fact, it’s a concept that is already being used by some governments , the most recent of which is Ireland. In a bid to finance a “jobs” program, the Irish government, which is heavily in debt, is set to impose a new levy – read “tax” – on private retirement accounts. The accounts of government workers will be exempt. “It’s truly disgusting logic to force private workers to pay for years of political incompetence while absolving government employees,” writes Simon Black, entrepreneur and founder of SovereignMan.com , a Web site about financial and practical independence. Black says the idea of robbing private pension funds by broke governments to pay for existing or expanding government programs is an idea that is catching on. “Pension funds are attractive targets for politicians who have wide eyes and the most carnal thoughts at the site of any large pool of cash,” he says, noting that the French government last year adopted laws “allowing politicians to steal retirement funds from the public in order to pay off other debts.” It’s an idea that is catching on in the United States too, mostly because there are trillions of dollars in private retirement accounts, and the federal government is trillions of dollars in debt – with trillions more promised in benefits like Social Security, Medicare and now a massive new health care law. Black says it’s likely any attempt by the U.S. government to seize private retirement accounts would be preceded by a cataclysmic economic event similar to the 2008 financial crisis, only worse. This time, lawmakers will respond by changing investment law that may force retirement account holders to invest a portion of their savings in, say, 30-year Treasury notes. Some lawmakers are onto this, however. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., has recently criticized such efforts in a letter to the Obama administration warning against attempts to confiscate Americans’ retirement accounts.

Discovery by Israeli scientists may lead to development of ‘green’ pesticides

(NaturalNews) Scientists from Tel Aviv University’s (TAU) Department of Physics and Astronomy have developed a bacterial “Social-IQ score” system that they say paves the way for the development of intelligence-based “green” pesticides. If successfully replicated, the discovery could lead to a viable replacement for the toxic, chemical-based pesticides currently used in conventional agriculture. “Bacteria are our worst enemies, but they can also be our best friends,” said Alexandra Sirota-Madi, a research student at TAU and co-author of the recent study. “To better exploit their capabilities and to outsmart pathogenic bacteria, we must realize their social intelligence.” The way it works, at least in theory, is that if scientists can outsmart the “smartest” bacteria, they can then develop unique, non-chemical methods of deterring crop damage. And though it may seem revolutionary, the process is actually what bacteria do naturally in soil when they are not disrupted by toxic pesticides. Researchers identified both the Vortex and two different Paenibacillus bacterial strains to be the world’s smartest bacteria. And most of the harmful bacteria that currently threatens agriculture is not very intelligent. So by planting the “smart” bacteria along with the “dumb” bacteria, the harmful strains can successfully be mitigated without requiring any other external applications. Soil bacteria is necessary to protect plants from foreign invaders. Much like stomach and gut bacteria, soil bacteria works in harmony with one another to keep the system in proper health. It is only when this balance is upset by things like toxic pesticides that conditions rapidly decline and disease ensues. “Thanks to the special capabilities of our bacteria strain, it can be used by researchers globally to further investigate the social intelligence of bacteria,” added Sirota-Madi. “When we can determine how smart they really are, we can use them as biotechnology factories and apply them optimally in agriculture.” Sources for this story include: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-01/afot-tgo012411.php

Fukushima dumping of radioactive water into Pacific Ocean violates international law

(NaturalNews) The mass dumping of highly radioactive water (measured at 7.5 million times the normal allowed levels) into the Pacific Ocean is not just an environmental disaster; it’s also a violation of international law. The Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter , passed in 1972, forbids nations and companies from dumping toxic wastes into the ocean. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Prevention_of_Marine_Pollution_by_Dumping_of_Wastes_and_Other_Matter) Japan, it turns out, gave the Fukushima complex special permission to release all this radiation, despite the international law. Of course, even Japan’s granting of this “special permission” is, itself, a violation of that same international law. But who’s keeping track, anyway? Those managing this disaster in Japan say that releasing radiation into the ocean is their only remaining option right now. As reported in TIME, “There was no choice but to take this step to prevent (other) highly radioactive water from spreading into the sea,” said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano. “The fact that radioactive water is being deliberately dumped into the sea is very regrettable and one we are very sorry about.” (http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2011/04/05/fukushima-dumping-into-the-sea/) Well, I guess it’s all okay if they feel sorry about it, then. But South Korea isn’t happy about it, that’s for sure: They lodged an official protest with Japan yesterday, complaining about their dumping of radioactive water into the ocean (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/concern-over-dumping-of-water-from-fukushima-plant-s-korea-raises-radioactive-alarm/story-e6frg6so-1226034303711). What South Korea realizes is something the rest of the world won’t dare admit: Fukushima has become the “dirty bomb” of the Pacific , releasing huge quantities of radiation on an ongoing basis, directly into the environment with no end in sight. The global damage this could cause over the next few decades is incalculable. Has anybody stopped to consider how Japan is going to be able to pay for all this damage? There’s no question that the nation is going to have to start selling off U.S. debt holdings in the near future, and that could spell the beginning of the end of the U.S. runaway debt bubble, resulting in an inability for the United States to find any more buyers of its debt. Uh oh, I feel a “hair cut” coming for the U.S. government, which may soon find itself begging for loans from world nations in order to keep itself alive. And that sad scenario won’t last very long, either, because as soon as the American people wake up and realize their social security money has long since been looted and spent by the feds, we’re likely going to see a mass of public protests that could thrust this nation into political chaos. And to think, it all started when planet Earth shrugged off the coast of Japan. Or, you might say, Atlas Shrugged.

The deep psychology behind your health

(NaturalNews) The relationship between psychological health and physical health has long been established. Even most medical doctors today warn against the dangers of mental stress that flows from overwork, chronic family conflict, unhealthy compensating or general maladjustment to the demands of life. This is old news. The intriguing question now is how does this relationship between mental health and physical health function? When you are stressed out, depressed or confused, how does your body react to create a state of less-than-optimal health or even disease? The answer to this question leads us down a slippery slope full of speculation and metaphor. If you’re open minded, however, the ride is not only exhilarating, but enlightening. In a recent conversation with Mike Adams of NaturalNews.com, Mike shocked me with the following: “Cancer is a natural process that gets out of control. When you cut your skin and it begins to heal, those cells are involved in a cancer-like process. They know how to divide, grow and heal. But, they also know when to stop growing. Otherwise, you would end up with a giant growth out of your arm or wherever you cut yourself. The same is true when a woman is pregnant. The cells of the fetus are involved in a cancer-like process, a very rapid division and growth in an organized way.” Here is the fascinating piece: Cancerous tumors, when removed from the body, sometimes contain hair, teeth and organs. They don’t tell people that a cancer cell in the body tries to become a whole person. Think about that for a minute. After conception, you have a single, fertilized egg. If the conditions are right, it develops into a person. That is the way it is supposed to work. But, when you have a cancer tumor in the body, it “decides” it wants to be a whole person, too. It doesn’t want to be a specialized cell, playing a small role in a larger body. It wants to be a whole body and it does not have any plans to stop dividing and spreading. What to do with this information? Consider your life. Do you know who you are and what you stand for? Do you meander through life, confused and afraid to make strong decisions? Do you live in a house divided, with internal conflict eating at you day and night? When you lie down to sleep, are you at peace or are you harangued by stray thoughts that clutter your mind? Good psychological health implies clear values, the ability to access a state of inner calm, healthy personal boundaries (knowing your limits, when to say yes vs. no) and a general, pervasive feeling of well-being and certainty in this uncertain world. These and other essential mental health resources are fundamental. Life requires them at a minimum. Those who do not naturally possess or consciously dev elop these essentials of healthy character are at a distinct disadvantage in the social realm. Are they also exposed to greater health risks? The most compelling logic suggests that, yes, they are. Imagine for a moment that your mind and body, craving the clarity, calm and certainty that comes with solid mental health and a low-stress way of being, is just not getting what it needs. Lacking direction, it lives in a state of chronic confusion, conflict and anxiety. Doesn’t it make sense that some part of you at some point takes matters into its own hands? Might that entail an attempt to develop new parts of you, given the current lack of resources? Witnessing the hair, teeth and partial organs contained in a cancerous tumor validates this logic in a very unsettling way. The moral of the story: Put real effort into your mental health! Learn to be clear, honest and certain. Know who you are and what you stand for. Develop effective communication skills and the capacity for inner peace. Give your mind and body what it needs and it won’t have a reason to rebel.

Better marketing helps urban agriculture programs keep kids off the streets

(NaturalNews) Urban market gardens are a great way for inner-city neighborhoods to unite around a common cause and improve the social fabric of their local community — all while reaping a delicious harvest in the process. And a new study published in the Journal of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Education has found that Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs that build upon this concept can become highly effective and successful, especially when they are driven with proper marketing. Recently, NaturalNews featured a piece about the growth of local food and how community organizers in Detroit are reviving the city’s dying landscape with urban agriculture programs (http://www.naturalnews.com/030071_good_food_agriculture.html). And as part of the new study, researchers highlighted Seattle Youth Garden Works (SYGW), a program of Seattle Tilth that has been working for years to help and provide job training for local homeless and troubled youth through urban agriculture. In its early days, the organization had trouble maintaining the program because it lacked proper marketing outlets, but faculty from Washington State University (WSU) helped the group develop a CSA system that would end up helping it to thrive. Poor, inner-city neighborhoods are typically the most undernourished in terms of access to fresh produce. Many grocery stores that once carried such products have since moved out of these areas, leaving locals with little access to any fresh food. But successful CSA programs have been able to fill that gap, as well as provide hope and new opportunities for the people who live in these communities. But making it all happen requires effective marketing to clients. And part of SYGW’s goal is to utilize its passion for helping homeless and misguided youth to attract more customers to CSAs, which in turn brings in more vendors. According to reports, the popularity of CSAs and local agriculture in general has risen dramatically over the past several decades. Direct-to-consumer agriculture sales more than doubled between 1997 and 2007. So integrating them with inner-city social programs like SYGW is a great way to expand the growth of local food, as well as help provide the least among us with new life opportunities. Sources for this story include: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-10/asoa-gci102510.php

Mobile phones may soon diagnose for STDs

(NaturalNews) Young people already use their mobile phones to share their most personal details with those in their social circles, but a new project out of the U.K could take cell phone “intimacy” to a whole new level. According to a recent Guardian report, researchers are in the process of developing a new technology that allows users to put a urine or saliva sample on a small chip and insert it into their mobile phone to test for sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs). It may sound like a joke — and a highly unsanitary one at that — but it is quite real. A six-and-a-half million dollar research project that is part of the U.K. Clinical Research Collaboration is working on creating the device right now as a way to encourage young people who are otherwise too scared or intimidated to go to a doctor, to get tested for STDs if they think they might have one. “Your mobile phone can be your mobile doctor,” explained Dr. Tariq Sadiq, senior lecturer and consultant physician in sexual health and HIV at St. George’s, University of London, and lead of the project. “It diagnoses whether you’ve got one of a range of STIs (sexually-transmitted infections), such as chlamydia or gonorrhea and tells you where to go next to get treatment.” Interestingly, the technology has the potential to be an even more embarrassing invasion of privacy than seeing a doctor would be, since the results of the tests are tied directly back to the owner of the phone. And what happens to those results after they are determined is unclear from the report. Also, researchers did not address the negative ramifications of putting potentially-contaminated bodily fluids into mobile devices that are handled by more than just personal users. Sources for this story include: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/05/new-test-mobile-phones-diagnose-stds

Quadruple-dose seasonal flu "super" vaccine now being aggressively pushed onto senior citizens

(NaturalNews) The vaccine industry has now decided that injecting senior citizens with the “standard” vaccine dose just isn’t working. (Gee, really?) So now they’ve decided the way to make it work better is to offer a quadruple viral potency vaccine that packs 400% more viral fragments into one toxic shot. The target for this quadruple vaccine injection? Senior citizens, of course — the very people most likely to suffer the most serious side effects from a vaccine overdose. The FDA reportedly approved the new vaccine in April even though no scientific tests have ever been done to show it reduces flu symptoms. Then again, since when did vaccines have anything to do with real science in the first place? Why do people need a quadruple vaccine all of a sudden? What’s especially entertaining about all this is that the FDA’s approval of this quadruple potency vaccine is a blatant admission that single-dose vaccines just don’t work! Obviously, if the single-dose vaccine was working as advertised, then it would be 100% effective and there would be no need for a double, triple or quadruple-dose vaccine. But all of a sudden, now that the quadruple-dose vaccine is available, the regular single-dose vaccine “isn’t good enough.” So all that propaganda about “get a flu shot and you won’t get the flu” just turns out to be marketing quackery, because what you really need is a quadruple shot now! Forget the single dose. It’s no longer strong enough for you. So where does this end? When they realize the quadruple shot isn’t working either (because seasonal flu vaccines just scientifically do not work on at least 99% of the people), are they going to recommend a ten times the potency flu shot? Seriously… at what point do these vaccine pushers ever stop to consider that maybe the vaccine approach just doesn’t work? More money with higher profit flu shots Of course, flu shots have never been about what works in the first place. They’re about what makes the most money . This new quadruple flu shot is being sold at about twice the price of a regular flu shot. Meanwhile, there have been absolutely no scientific studies demonstrating that the new quadruple vaccine is any more effective than the single-dose vaccine. Come to think of it, there aren’t any scientific studies that prove this year’s seasonal flu vaccine is effective in any way whatsoever at preventing the flu. The science has simply never been done. It’s all just based on “wishful thinking” combined with massive flu shot propaganda. (http://www.naturalnews.com/029641_vaccines_junk_science.html) Taking a flu vaccine is a crap shoot, and taking the quadruple super vaccine is just a quadruple crap shoot. People who enjoy playing Russian Roulette with their health will no doubt line up to be injected. Pseudoscientific quackery Check out the derision of those pushing this vaccine. The LA Times reports that Dr Mobeen Rathore, a vaccinologist at the University of Florida, said, “If you’re somebody who has a reaction from the low-dose vaccine, then I would stick with the low-dose. But if you’ve been taking the vaccine for years and have no reaction, get the high-dose vaccine. Or if there’s nothing else available except the high-dose vaccine, get the high dose. The most important thing is: Get the vaccine. It doesn’t matter which one.” And there you have it: They don’t really care which flu shot you take as long as you’re injecting yourself with something . Pay attention to what they’re NOT telling you about the flu: Doctors, FDA officials and CDC quacks will never admit that the best way to prevent the flu is to take vitamin D3 supplements . It has been scientifically shown to be many times more effective than a vaccine shot (http://www.naturalnews.com/029760_vitamin_D_influenza.html). So why isn’t there a big push for quadruple-dose vitamin D supplementation for senior citizens? Because, gee whiz, that might reduce flu shot revenues, cancer clinic profits and hospital visits by seniors — and they’re the bread and butter of sick-care industry profits. The very last thing our modern medical racket wants is for senior citizens to figure out how to protect their own health without relying on chemical interventions. How to reduce government expenditures on senior citizens And why would that be? Do the math, folks: Social Security is bankrupt. Medicare is bleeding cash. The U.S. government is so deep into debt that it’s now in desperation mode trying to keep the government financially solvent. The quickest way to reduce Medicare and Social Security spending is to, of course, knock off all the senior citizens by lining them up to be injected with something I call “vaccine euthanasia.” It doesn’t kill them right away, for the most part, but it accelerates their deaths and thereby saves the U.S. government billions of dollars in entitlement expenditures. Pretty sick, huh? If the government really wanted seniors to live longer, they’d be handing out longevity nutrients like vitamin D and fish oils. But instead, they’re pushing quadruple-dose flu vaccines that will no doubt be toxic at some level to most senior citizens. Sources for this story include: LA Times http://www.latimes.com/health/os-high-dose-flu-vaccine-20101022,0,5321058.story

Bill Gates says vaccines can help reduce world population

(NaturalNews) In a recent TED conference presentation, Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates, who has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to new vaccine efforts, speaks on the issue of CO2 emissions and its effects on climate change. He presents a formula for tracking CO2 emissions as follows: CO2 = P x S x E x C. P = People S = Services per person E = Energy per service C = CO2 per energy unit Then he adds that in order to get CO2 to zero, “probably one of these numbers is going to have to get pretty close to zero.” Following that, Bill Gates begins to describe how the first number — P (for People) — might be reduced. He says: “The world today has 6.8 billion people… that’s headed up to about 9 billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent.” You can watch this yourself at: http://www.naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=A155D113455FAC882A3290536575C723 Reducing the world population through vaccines This statement by Bill Gates was not made with any hesitation, stuttering or other indication that it might have been a mistake. It appears to have been a deliberate, calculated part of a well developed and coherent presentation. So what does it mean when Bill Gates says “if we do a really great job on new vaccines… we could lower [world population] by 10 or 15 percent?” Clearly, this statement implies that vaccines are a method of population reduction . So is “health care,” which all NaturalNews readers already know to be more of a “sick care” system that actually harms more people than it helps. Perhaps that’s the whole point of it. Given that vaccines technology help almost no one from a scientific point of view (http://www.naturalnews.com/029641_vaccines_junk_science.html), it raises the question: For what purpose are vaccines being so heavily pushed in the first place? Bill Gates seems to be saying that one of the primary purposes is to reduce the global population as a mechanism by which we can reduce CO2 emissions. Once again, watch the video yourself to hear him say it in his own words: http://www.naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=A155D113455FAC882A3290536575C723 How can vaccines actually be used to reduce world population? Let’s conduct a mental experiment on this issue. If vaccines are to be used to reduce world population, they obviously need to be accepted by the majority of the people. Otherwise the population reduction effort wouldn’t be very effective. And in order for them to be accepted by the majority of the people, they obviously can’t just kill people outright. If everybody started dropping dead within 24 hours of receiving the flu shot, the danger of vaccines would become obvious rather quickly and the vaccines would be recalled. Thus, if vaccines are to be used as an effective population reduction effort, there are really only three ways in which they might theoretically be “effective” from the point of view of those who wish to reduce world population: #1) They might kill people slowly in a way that’s unnoticeable, taking effect over perhaps 10 – 30 years by accelerating degenerative diseases. #2) They might reduce fertility and therefore dramatically lower birth rates around the world, thereby reducing the world population over successive generations. This “soft kill” method might seem more acceptable to scientists who want to see the world population fall but don’t quite have the stomach to outright kill people with conventional medicine. There is already evidence that vaccines may promote miscarriages (http://www.naturalnews.com/027512_vaccines_miscarriage.html). #3) They might increase the death rate from a future pandemic . Theoretically, widespread vaccination efforts could be followed by a deliberate release of a highly virulent flu strain with a high fatality rate. This “bioweapon” approach could kill millions of people whose immune systems have been weakened by previous vaccine injections. This is a known side effect of some vaccines, by the way. A study documenting this was published in PLoS. Read the story here: http://www.naturalnews.com/028538_seasonal_flu_shot_vaccines.html Here’s the study title and citation: Does Seasonal Influenza Vaccination Increase the Risk of Illness with the 2009 A/H1N1 Pandemic Virus? Viboud C, Simonsen L (2010) Does Seasonal Influenza Vaccination Increase the Risk of Illness with the 2009 A/H1N1 Pandemic Virus? PLoS Med 7(4): e1000259. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000259 The short answer is yes, seasonal flu vaccines do cause increased susceptibility to the H1N1 pandemic virus. In other words, seasonal flu vaccines could set up the population for a “hard kill” pandemic that could wipe out a significant portion of the global population (perhaps 10 to 15 percent, as Bill Gates suggested). Conveniently, their deaths could be blamed on the pandemic, thereby diverting blame from those who were really responsible for the plot. As yet another beneficial side effect for the global population killers, the widespread deaths could be used as a fear tool to urge more people to get vaccinated yet again, and the entire cycle could be repeated until world population was brought down to whatever manageable level was desired… all in the name of health care! The more people around the world are vaccinated before the release of the “hard kill” pandemic virus, the more powerful the effect of this approach. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Perhaps not coincidentally, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into vaccine programs targeting people all over the world. One such program is researching the development of “sweat-triggered vaccines” that could use specially-coated nano-materials to deliver vaccines to people without using injections. More interestingly, his foundation has also invested millions in sterilization technologies that have been called a “temporary castration” solution. (http://www.naturalnews.com/028887_vaccines_Bill_Gates.html) It seems that the actions of the Gates foundation are entirely consistent with the formula for CO2 reduction that Bill Gates eluded to in his TED conference speech: CO2 = P x S x E x C. By reducing birth rates (through sterilization technologies) and increasing vaccine penetration throughout the world population (by using sweat-triggered nano-vaccines), his stated goal of reducing the world population by 10 to 15 percent could be reached within just a few years. Who will be left alive? The smart people The interesting thing about all this is that this campaign to reduce global population through vaccines will obviously not impact people who consciously avoid vaccines. And those people, by and large, tend to be the more intelligent, capable people who actually have an improved ability to move human civilization forward with thoughtful consideration. I can only imagine that those people designing this vaccine-induced population control measure might be sitting around a table chuckling to themselves and saying, “It’s only the stupid people that are going to be killed off anyway, so this is actually helping the future of humankind!” (Their words, not mine.) In a weird world government kind of way, this effort might actually be based on some distorted vision of philanthropy where some of the most powerful people in the world quite literally believe the way to save humanity is to kill off as many of the gullible people as possible . Vaccines are, in effect, an “evil genius” kind of way to conduct an IQ test on the population at large: If you go get vaccinated every flu season, you’re not too bright and probably don’t engage the kind of strong mental faculties that humanity will no doubt need if it is to face a future where it is now all but obvious we are not alone in the universe. If humanity is to save itself from its own destruction and compete as an uplifted species in our universe, killing off the least intelligent members of society (or making them infertile) may appear to the world controllers to be a perfectly reasonable approach. I disagree with that approach, but it may be precisely what they are thinking. In any case, choosing to receive a seasonal flu shot is undoubtedly an admission that you have failed some sort of universal IQ test, whether or not this is the intention of world influencers such as Bill Gates. More importantly, it is also a betrayal of your own biology, because it indicates you don’t believe in the ability of your own immune system to protect you even from mild infections. Perhaps the world vaccine conspirators figure that if people are willing to betray themselves anyway, it’s not much different for governments and institutions to betray them as well. In other words, if you don’t even care enough about your own health to take care of your health, why should any government care about protecting your health, either? As you ponder this, also consider something else: The U.S. is going broke due to sick-care costs which are rising dramatically under the new federal health care reform guidelines. Can you guess the fastest and easiest way to reduce those health care costs? If you guessed, “unleash a hard-kill pandemic that takes out a significant portion of the weak or sick people” then you guessed right. Sadly, killing off those most vulnerable to sickness could save the U.S. government literally billions of dollars in sick-care expenditures. Plus, it would save Social Security yet more billions by avoiding ongoing monthly payouts. (Again, I am completely against such an approach because I value human life, but I also know we live in a world where the people in charge have little or no respect for human life and will readily sacrifice human lives to achieve their aims.) As far as Bill Gates goes, consider his statement in the context of what we’ve discussed here: “The world today has 6.8 billion people… that’s headed up to about 9 billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent.” It suddenly seems to make a lot of sense when you understand that reducing the population reduces CO2 emissions, and using more vaccines on more people increases the death rate of the population. My advice? Try to avoid being among those 10 to 15 percent who get culled through global vaccine programs. You will not only save your life, you’ll also pass the “universal IQ test” which determines whether you’re smart enough to know that injecting your body with chemicals and viral fragments in order to stop “seasonal flu” is a foolish endeavor. Be healthy and wise, and you’ll survive the world depopulation effort that victimizes conventional thinkers who don’t have the intelligence to question what they’re being told to do by their own corrupt governments.

Social networking powerful tool to promote good health

(NaturalNews) The power of social networking to connect friends and help businesses connect with existing and potential clientele continues to be a driving force in today’s world because of its incredible success. But how can social networking work to promote better health? The National Institutes of Health (NIH) believes that if people promote healthy lifestyles within their social networks, public health as a whole will significantly improve. Recent studies have shown that people’s behaviors rub off onto their friends. Bad habits like smoking and overeating are contagious, say many researchers. But so are good behaviors like eating healthy, exercising and getting good rest, which is why NIH is offering funding to scientists willing to work on improving public health through social networking. “We’ve come to realize more and more that how people live and function in social networks is really important to health,” explained Deborah Olster, acting director of the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research at NIH. Several researchers have already come up with creative ideas to promote better health through social networks. Dr. Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School believes that creating artificial social groups around things like losing weight or eating better will help to encourage unhealthy people to improve their lifestyles. Christakis also suggests using social group “leaders” to influence their existing social groups with custom-tailored health messages. People who hold significant influence within their social circles could promote cutting high-fructose corn syrup from their diets, for instance, and many of their friends would follow suit because of the nature of their relationship. Researchers have also tested peer-led programs at local schools in which students encourage their friends towards positive lifestyle behavior. Drug intervention programs, for instance, have been around for a long time, but experts are now coming to grips with the fact that those delivering the message are just as important as the message itself when it comes to effectiveness. And this is where the power of social networking comes into play. “You can’t divorce the content of the program from the people delivering it,” emphasized Thomas Valente, author of a 2003 study that evaluated the power of social networking in an anti-smoking prevention program at a Southern California school. “The message is really the messenger.” Sources for this story include: http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-social-networks-health-20100913,0,7197587.story

Facebook devolves into dark web of anonymous hate speech

(NaturalNews) When broadcast television was first invented in the first half of the 20th century, it was quickly heralded as a technological breakthrough that would inspire, educate and uplift human civilization. Educational programs and useful knowledge could be cheaply and efficiently broadcast to people everywhere, it was thought. The FCC even required television stations to run news programming without commercials as a trade-off for being granted broadcast space in the electromagnetic spectrum. This TV news, it was thought, was the broadcast station’s obligation to the betterment of society. Those were the humble and well-intentioned beginnings of television, a game-changing “disruptive” technology that we now know has actually dumbed-down our population while becoming a cesspool for manipulative corporate advertising and idiotic entertainment. Far from enlightening human civilization, television has arguably enslaved it, seductively luring the population into a downward spiral of runaway consumerism, debt, disease and mainstream stupidity. While educational television programming may still be found through such organizations as Nova, the BBC, The Learning Channel, Discovery and notable others, the bulk of television programming available today is an insult to the potential of human intelligence, and it only contributes to the collapse of meaningful discourse — a fact that becomes grossly obvious during every political election campaign. The age of the internet The internet has often been described as a far more intelligent medium than broadcast television. TV is a one-way street, after all: Program directors and advertisers shout their messages into the minds of passive observers (couch potatoes), none of whom have an opportunity to really participate or respond. The internet is a two-way street, though: People can vote, comment and query. And for this reason, it has long been believed that the internet is healthy for society. Getting people engaged in discussions and participating in creative contribution projects seems a lot smarter than having them sprawled out in front of the old boob tube, mindlessly hypnotized by another episode of some me-too reality TV show. Facebook, of course, has played the role of a key enabler in the online “mass participation” trend. But what has emerged from Facebook and other social network has not been the thoughtful, reasoned discussions and contributions we might idealistically hope to see. Rather, Facebook has, for reasons you’ll soon see, brought out the worst in people , devolving into a tangled web of anonymous hate speech directed to anything and everything within reach. Hence the new nickname for Facebook… Hatebook. How Facebook became a hate engine What could have been a platform for community sharing, idea-gathering and creative problem solving has devolved (with some exceptions) into a juvenile hate-fest of truly idiotic half-thoughts. And the Haters who prowl Facebook looking for something to attack and destroy are not merely a small minority of its population; at times they seem to dominate the conversations there. Yes, there are many thoughtful, positive and intelligent people using Facebook. Quite a few frequent our NaturalNews page, in fact. But far too often their thoughtful ideas are drowned out by what can only be called “mindless hate.” In discussing this, however, let’s differentiate between reasonable criticism and mindless hate . “Reasonable criticism” is a comment or criticism emerging from reasoned consideration of some issue. A lot of what I write, for example, is “reasonable criticism” because it offers criticism and then explains reasons for arriving at that criticism. This article is a good example of reasonable criticism. “Mindless hate,” on the other hand, is a kind of irrational, emotionally-charged hate speech that places no value on facts, reason or logic of any kind. It is merely an emotional discharge, almost a kind of mental vomit that has been splattered across the online world. And it contains some of the most vicious hate speech that has ever been recorded in human history. I once read a post from a person who said, essentially, “I am sending out love to everyone on planet Earth!” From there, one Facebook Hater posted, “That must include the terrorists, too. So you love terrorists!” This was quickly followed by another Hater who chimed in, “I can’t believe she loves terrorists! Terror lover!” From there, if you can believe it, the posts devolved into even more mindless discharges of venomous nonsense against a woman who only sought to post something positive and uplifting. I’ve asked around the natural health community as well as the celebrity community, and I’ve found that nearly every person who gains notoriety is now being victimized by a constant assault of hate speech on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. Fine film actors, esteemed scientists, spiritual teachers and authors are all being assaulted by Hatebook vitriol. No person of noteworthiness escapes being targeted by Facebook Haters because they operate 24 hours a day and, most important of all, they operate with complete anonymity . Haters, you see, are emboldened by their anonymity. If real names were required on Facebook, the density of hate speech would drop sharply. Because a lot of what people say in their hate rants is so bizarre and defamatory that they would never allow their real names to be attached to such verbiage. So they create fake accounts, then post their hate messages under false identities, allowing their inner hate to scream out to the world without any risk that such bizarre behavior would reflect on them as real people in the real world. Which brings me to a curious question: Who, exactly, are these Haters? The Hater next door As it turns out, these are ordinary, everyday people. These are the people who are frustrated with their jobs, frustrated with their marriages, frustrated with their economic situation and frustrated with life. They have no place to vent this frustration in the real world. You can’t tell off your boss and expect to still receive a paycheck. You can’t scream at your husband or wife without risking a divorce. You can’t go around shooting people on the streets without getting arrested and thrown in prison. But you can assassinate people online. Anonymously… and protected by the very structure of Facebook which seems to be designed to actually encourage argument (because conflict results in more posts, more attention and therefore more advertising revenue). Your typical Facebook Hater is often the same guy you think is “a nice neighbor.” He’s quiet, polite in public, and follows the rules of society in the real world. But in the world of online anonymity, he becomes the Dark Lord Sauron, master of his domain of destruction, destroyer of dreams and all that is good. Mua-hah-hah! He becomes, in other words, an entirely different person. And the extremes expressed by those two people might easily result in him being diagnosed as having “multiple personality disorder” if such divergent behavior were expressed in the real physical world. But in the online world, it now seems all too “normal.” Women, of course, are not immune to this. In fact, some women can be just as vicious as men in the world of social networking. Women tend to understand social complexities better than most men, so they often know where to strike to cause the greatest emotional pain. Women dominate Facebook these days, and some of the most bizarre and truly sickening posts I’ve ever read came from people who claimed to be women (but being in the online world, you never really know…). Facebook, by the way, does not give users the ability to effectively and permanently ban haters from posting on their wall, nor does it offer any sort of “hate filters” or other technologies that might ease this situation. As I hinted earlier, Facebook actually seems to encourage hate speech because it engenders conflict, and conflict attracts attention. That attention, in turn, translates into more page views and more ad revenues. To end hate speech on Facebook could mean losing half its traffic (or more). There’s just no financial incentive to stop hate from propagating across social networks like Facebook. Facebook, you might say, feeds on hate . The destruction of good people The upshot of all this is that online hate speech is destroying the lives of many brilliant people . I know several genius-level individuals from the academic world who just couldn’t take the onslaught of Facebook hate speech and ended up closing their accounts, removing all social networking buttons and retreating to the online equivalent of a hermit’s hut in the woods. What’s sad is that these are tremendously intelligent, talented people who have very important gifts of knowledge and insight to offer humanity. They are being systematically shouted off the stage by what can only be called idiotic hate speech vented from anonymous Haters who truly offer nothing to this world. They are, you might say, “useless Haters.” Imagine if Facebook had existed in the time of Einsten or the famed physicist Richard Feynman. These brilliant physicists — whose ideas literally transformed our understanding of the universe — would have been relentlessly attacked as fraudsters and quacks by the prevailing idiocy of the masses. “Time is relative? It’s absurd! What kind of freakin’ idiot would even believe such a stupid idea?” And this would be followed by a few thousand posts of follow-up haters who neither have the intellectual capacity to understand Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity nor the inclination to learn more about it before lashing out in condemnation of it. The tone of devolving thought What’s really happening with Facebook, Twitter and other social networks is that the conversations that dominate society are devolving into mindless hate speech . Bobby hates Sherry. Sherry hates Cindy’s dress. Cindy hates Bobby’s stupid grin… and Bobby slept with Sherry the other night, even though he hates her, just to take a snapshot and embarrass her online. This kind of thing is then followed by the most inane and utterly useless scraps of non-knowledge, such as: “I burned my toast this morning, and it reminded me of what a bitch you are” except, of course, I’ve spelled it all too well here. In the real world of Hatebook, such an insult would appear more like, “i burnt my tost this mrning, and it rimind me of what a bitch u r” followed by “ur pethetic” from someone else who can’t spell, either. And round and round it goes — a chorus of madness based on a kind of mental derangement that seems to have infected an alarming percentage of the online population. Don’t misinterpret me here, though: In no way am I saying that everyone online behaves in this way. What I’m saying is that those intelligent, thoughtful people who have something important to add to a discussion are frequently being drowned out by the haters who can always scream louder than the person they’re attacking. And yet we still need social networks Why does any of this matter? Because Facebook, Twitter and other social networks are now so popular that integrating with them is essential for the success of just about any online business. You either use them or you miss opportunities for reaching people. And if you use them, you automatically subject yourself to the hate speech of the deranged, creating not merely emotional stress but also an administrative task of trying to remove hate posts and counter the false and misleading “hate liars” who intentionally post information they know to be falsified. This is true regardless of which side of the issue you’re on. Whether you’re a Republican or Democrat; whether you’re into natural health or conventional medicine; whether you believe in global warming or think it’s a hoax… no matter what side you take on any issue, you are going to be targeted for idiotic hate speech by the mindless social networking haters who invoke their hate outbursts as a kind of mental masturbation. They “get off” on destroying everyone else while reducing reasoned conversations to linguistic seizures sprinkled with spite. The big-picture result of this is that people who go online feel increasingly negative and stressful about their lives. Society suffers as a whole when anonymous hate speech is allowed to dominate the bits and bytes of the ‘net. These days, there’s almost no room left for reasoned verbal discourse. Common sense, it seems, can’t fit into a 140-character tweet. Forget the TV sound bite — online bites are mere fragments of thought that often contain nothing other than seemingly random words placed in some bizarre sequence interspersed with insults or profanity. This is the best we can do? Really? This is the civilization that sent men to the moon, that built an atomic supercollider, that has unlocked many secrets of biochemistry and that hopes to someday colonize other worlds? Who, exactly, is going to develop the next generation of technological innovations when our teens are too busy texting and cheating on tests to actually learn mathematics? How are democracies going to survive if there’s no tolerance for rational discussions about political candidates and their policies, and the whole contest comes down to who can spew the most lies to the greatest number of voters? Solutions? So how do we shift the tone of online interactions into a more positive, responsible direction? This is a crucial question for our time, and it’s one that is just barely beginning to be considered. A knee-jerk reaction often leads to the idea of, “Well let’s require everybody to have a license to use the internet, and they can only use their real names.” At first, it might sound like a decent idea, but the more you look into this, the more quickly you realize that this would turn the internet into a virtual police state, with governments monitoring, controlling and censoring online discussions. Anyone “caught” arguing against mandatory vaccination policies, for example, might be banned from using the ‘net. For obvious reasons, governments should never control access to speech. Police State nations like China are already putting such requirements in place, and they are very effective at allowing the government to censor and control online conversations. Such draconian rules don’t make sense in a nation like the USA where freedom of speech is still widely respected. But there are other potential solutions available to us. At the very least, social networks like Facebook could do a lot more to improve the situation. They could provide users with better tools to ban Haters or automatically filter out posts with an overtly negative tone. Facebook could introduce a “reputation” system where people are voted into “white hat” or “black hat” status based on what other users think of their comments. Users could then automatically ban any posts from those with low reputation scores. A reputation system, you see, is what could bring back some measure of civility to the internet, even if real people hide behind virtual names. I believe there is a billion-dollar idea here, where some energetic entrepreneur could introduce a reputation monitor system that could offer internet-wide reputation scores for a given user, allowing websites to use that reputation score as part of their content visibility calculations. In fact, I foresaw the need for such a service nearly a decade ago and registered many domain names back then such as ReputationMonitor.com, ReputationGuard.com and ReputationServices.com. If anyone reading this is interested in creating and launching a reputation technology system that could help solve the problem of Hatebook Haters, I’d be very interested in partnering with you and promoting your solution. While a reputation system is one idea for reducing the tone of mindless hate on the ‘net, there may be other ideas that are just as powerful that we haven’t thought of yet. Keyword analysis systems can easily score posts in terms of their positivity or negativity, and sites like Twitter or Facebook could allow users to control their own “hate filters” (sort of like parental filters for children) that would automatically filter out the most negative posts. (Spam filters often work in much the same way.) This could serve as a kind of “hate firewall” that would greatly reduce the amount of mindless hate that gets spewed across the internet. We have firewalls for viruses and hackers… why not for Haters, too? Here’s another interesting idea: Develop a linguistic analysis engine that can sit on top of a corporation’s data stream and filter all incoming and ongoing text for extremely hate-filled emails or text posts. We actually developed a similar technology that already exists underneath our NaturalNews.com content system: It rates stories for their top concepts and then statistically relates those concepts to other stories in order to make intelligent recommendations for readers. Doing the same thing for emails or text posts is a fairly straightforward matter. But in order to get to these solutions, we as an online society must first recognize that the “Hatebook” approach to online communications is simply not acceptable. We must admit that allowing anonymous hate speech to continue online is destroying our collective quality of life while adding nothing of value to society. And yet, if we take action to reduce the anonymity of Haters, we must take care to preserve the freedoms of speech that make the internet, as a whole, a very valuable tool for the sharing of knowledge, creativity and solutions. This is obviously a difficult balancing act, and I don’t claim to have all the answers. I just know that what I’ve seen coming out of Facebook is some of the most dark, hateful and truly devolved “free speech” I’ve ever witnessed. And it is destroying the good will of good people to whom our world owes a debt of gratitude. We can do better than this. We must do better, in fact, if we hope to survive as a civilization. The open sharing of intelligent ideas is crucial, I believe, to us finding solutions for the really big questions that confront us today: How will our planet survive humanity’s destructive domination? How will we colonize other planets to insulate ourselves against future cataclysmic events? How can we preserve and expand the whole of human knowledge so that future generations are wiser than we? How can we explore the causes of happiness? These questions cannot be discussed in an environment that favors mindless hatred and anonymous stupidity over well-formed ideas and reasoned argument.

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