8 American Humans and Animals who were Preserved after Death

03/20/2013

Many people might find it weird that Venezuelans embalmed Hugo Chávez and put him on public display. However Americans have not been immune from preserving the bodies of the deceased. Here are eight examples: two criminals, a hobo, a baseball player, two horses, an elephant and a gorilla.

1. Elmer McCurdy

Elmer McCurdy was a not particularly competent bank and train robber who was killed during a shootout with a posse in Oklahoma on October 7, 1911. The posse had wanted to take him alive in order to collect a reward for his arrest, and his last words were said to be, “You’ll never take me alive.” They didn’t, but that was not the end of the story of his body. No one claimed McCurdy’s body, so the local undertaker embalmed the corpse and charged visitors a nickel to view it. Five years later, a traveling carnival gained position of McCurdy and, for the next six decades, he was sold on to a series of carnivals, haunted houses and wax museums. Eventually he ended up hanging from a noose at an amusement park in Long Beach, California, although the condition of his corpse had deteriorated to such an extent that visitors thought he was a mannequin. In December 1976, a crew preparing to shoot an episode of the TV series “The Six Million Man” moved what they thought was a wax dummy. When one of its arms fell off, they discovered that it was a real corpse, which turned out to be Elmer McCurdy. He was finally buried in Guthrie, Oklahoma, on April 22, 1977.

2. Joseph Paul Jernigan

In 1993, Joseph Paul Jernigan was executed in Texas for the 1981 murder of a 75-year-old man during a burglary. Because Jernigan donated his body to science, his body was frozen and shipped to the University of Colorado, where it was “sliced” into 1,871 cross-sections. Two years later, a 59-year-old Maryland woman was similarly sliced, but into 5,000 segments. These two became the subjects of the Visible Human Project, the first computerized library of human anatomy, to be made available to medical researchers around the world.

3. Anderson McCrew

In 1913, a one-legged African-American hobo died after falling off a moving freight train in Marlin, Texas. Anderson (also known as Andrew) McCrew was dead, but he did not rest in peace for 60 years. The morning after his death, he was taken to a funeral parlor and embalmed. In a case similar to that of Elmer McCurdy, when no one appeared to claim the body, a traveling carnival purchased it and displayed McCrew as “The Amazing Petrified Man—The Eighth Wonder of the World.” When the troupe disbanded 55 years later, McCrew remained in storage until a Dallas widow, Elgie Pace, discovered him in 1969. She wanted to give him a decent burial because, as she said to her sister, “He’s a human being. You just can’t throw a body in a ditch.” However, she was unable to afford the cost of burial, so she nicknamed him “Sam” and kept him in the basement. Eventually, local black undertakers Frank and Judy Lott volunteered to give McCrew a funeral. Anderson McCrew was finally laid to rest at Dallas’ Lincoln Memorial Cemetery on June 2, 1973. Th following year, folksinger Don McLean wrote a song, “The Legend of Andrew McCrew,” which inspired a radio listener to purchase a gravestone for McCrew, The stone reads: “Andrew McCrew, ‘The Mummified Man,’ Born 1867/Died 1913/Buried 1973.”

4. Ted Williams

One of the most famous baseball players of all-time, Ted Williams is the only person in the last 83 years to bat .400 for a single season (.406 in 1941). After he died at age 83 in 2002, he was taken to the Alcor Life Extension Foundation’s facility in Scottsdale, Arizona, and cryonically frozen. The decision was challenged by Williams’s oldest daughter, Bobby Jo, since his will stated that he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes scattered off the Florida Keys. Williams’ son John Henry produced a note in which he, Ted, and Ted’s daughter Claudia entered into a pact to freeze themselves after death. The handwritten pact, signed by all three, read, “JHW, Claudia and Dad all agree to be put in Bio-stasis after we die. This is what we want, to be able to be together in the future, even if it is only a chance.” The suit was settled in December of 2002, and Ted Williams will remain indefinitely in one of Alcor’s liquid nitrogen-filled cryogenic tanks.

5. Comanche

Comanche, a U.S. Army horse who survived the June 1876 Battle of the Little Big Horn (a.k.a. Custer’s Last Stand), died a national hero on November 7, 1891, and it was decided to preserve and mount him. A University of Kansas naturalist, Professor Lewis Lindsay Dyche, did the job. Comanche’s insides were given a military funeral. His outsides were preserved, shown at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, and then placed in the University of Kansas Museum of Natural History in Lawrence. In 1947, Gen. Jonathan Wainwright tried to get Comanche back to be a U.S. Army exhibit in Fort Riley, but failed. In 1950, to save his hide from expanding and contracting, Comanche was placed in an airtight glass case with humidity control, and set against an artificial “sunbaked” setting of soil and grass. The museum dismantled the exhibit in 2005, restored the mount and moved Comanche to the fourth floor, where he can now be seen.

6. Trigger

The world’s most famous animal actor, Trigger costarred with Roy Rogers in 88 motion pictures and 100 television shows. An unusually intelligent horse, Trigger was able to untie knots with his teeth and count to 20. Upon his death in 1965 at the age of 32, Trigger was stuffed and mounted and put on display at the Roy Rogers Museum in Victorville, Calif., as was Dale Evans’ horse, Buttermilk, and their German shepherd dog, Bullet. The museum and its contents were moved to Branson, Missouri, in 2003. The museum closed down in 2009, and in July 2010 Trigger’s hide was purchased (along with Bullet) at auction by RFD-TV of Nebraska for $266,500.

7. Jumbo

Jumbo was born in Sudan in about 1859, captured by a local elephant hunter and sold to an Italian animal dealer, eventually ending up at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris and then, in 1865, at the London Zoological Gardens. There he lived in relative peace until American circus entrepreneur Phineas T. Barnum, attracted by Jumbo’s large size (10¾ feet tall and weighing 7 tons), purchased him in 1882. Barnum first displayed Jumbo at Madison Square Garden in New York City and then sent him around North America as part of his travelling circus for the next three years. On September 15, 1885, Jumbo was hit by a freight train in St. Thomas, Ontario, in Canada and killed. Barnum, who lost one of his biggest draws, had Jumbo’s carcass stuffed and continued to display him for a couple years. Then he sent Jumbo’s skeleton to the American Museum of Natural History in New York and put his stuffed hide on permanent exhibit in Barnum Hall, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts. In April, 1975, a fire swept Barnum Hall and destroyed Jumbo‘s remains.

8. Bushman

Like Jumbo, Bushman was born in Africa, shipped to the United States and attracted attention because of his large size. In Bushman’s case, he was born in Cameroon in 1928 and grew to be 6 feet 2 inches tall and weigh 547 pounds. He lived in Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo over a period of 20 years from 1930 through 1950. After he died of a heart attack, he was stuffed and mounted. Bushman continues to impress visitors at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, where he glares from a sealed glass case.

Author and Source: David Wallechinsky All Gov.com

CIA Whistleblower Susan Lindauer EXPOSES Everything!

TGE Media

03/20/2013

Former Congressional staffer Susan Lindauer covered Iraq and Libya at UN as a U.S. Intelligence Asset and back door channel on anti-terrorism from 1993-2003.Summer of 2001, her team warned about a major terrorist attack involving airplane hijackings and a strike on the World Trade Center.

Former CIA Asset, Susan Lindauer, provides an extraordinary first-hand account from behind the intelligence curtain that shatters the government’s lies about 9/11 and Iraq, and casts a harsh spotlight on the workings of the Patriot Act as the ideal weapon to bludgeon whistle blowers and dissidents. A terrifying true story of “black budget” betrayals and the Patriot Act, with its arsenal of secret evidence, indefinite detention and threats of forcible drugging,

EXTREME PREJUDICE(Book by Susan Lindauer) reveals one Asset’s desperate struggle to survive the brutal cover ups of 9/11 and Iraq. EXTREME PREJUDICE delivers a high tension expose of the real facts surrounding the CIA’s advance warnings of 9/11 and Iraq’s contributions to the 9/11 investigation.

Creating a Surveillance and DNA Database for Every American

TGE News

03/20/2013

Coming in combination with such recent announcements as the open desire of agencies like DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) to create an Internet server that will house all verbal communications, it can scarcely be debated that the U.S. Government, military, and intelligence apparatus in concert with its Corporate wing, are attempting to develop an all-encompassing database on each and every American citizen.

Indeed, as I wrote in my article, “New Report: ‘Recording Everything’ Details How Governments Can Shape the Dynamics of Dissent,” a 2011 Brookings Institution report actually confirmed what many have suspected for some time – that the United States government (and virtually every other government in the world) has the capability to monitor and record nearly every electronic interaction that occurs within its national borders.

In fact, the ability to do so is extremely cost-effective – even cheap – according to current comparisons of government spending thresholds. For instance, as the Brookings report noted, “The audio for all of the telephone calls made by a single person over the course of one year could be stored using roughly 3.3 gigabytes. On a per capita basis, the cost to store all phone calls will fall from about 17 cents per person per year today to under 2 cents in 2015.” Storing the location data for each of the 300 million American citizens could actually be accomplished for the price of a low-wage job – in the area of $18,000. The cost of creating this database of all video, audio, online, and location information of every person inside the national borders would pale in comparison to spending levels on many other current government projects, as the Brookings Institution report demonstrates.

The growing database, however, is not relegated to mere online communications. Video, audio, and location data are to be combined with biometric data such as fingerprints, vein scans, and iris scans, as well as actual DNA material in order to create a truly all-encompassing database of information on each and every American citizen.

Of course, the creation of the database of such material is not being openly announced in any direct manner, nor are the requirements for submission of much of the material being mandated as a matter of public policy at this time. Yet, regardless, the Total Information Awareness Network is moving forward at an ever-increasing rate.

Indeed, it seems the reason that mandates do not exist in regards to the submission of DNA material or other biometric, video, audio, or location data is the fact that most of that data is being submitted voluntarily. Unfortunately, it appears that the U.S. government gathers vastly larger amounts of data by simply allowing the American people to deliver it to them more neatly packaged than it ever could be obtained by force.

From social networking sites to all other online communications, Americans can be expected to rattle off their personal business, connections, and innermost secrets in the silent presence of multi-national corporations that are themselves just one manifestation of the global intelligence and surveillance network. In addition, with various smartphone apps such as the Google Wallet or the increasing move towards a cashless society, biometric data is also becoming shared information on a much more routine basis.

Easily concealed from a public whose attention span last little longer than five minutes and who has been brainwashed to believe that Corporations and Governments are entirely separate and incapable of sharing information, the source of the data is both volunteered by the vast majority of Americans via various Corporate technologies sold to the consuming masses, data mining operations, cleverly worded collection attempts, and, whenever necessary, mandates.

The reality, however, is that both corporations and many apparently charitable organizations are connected at the hip with government agencies and the Total Information Awareness intelligence gathering apparatus.

With the clear evidence of collaboration between major corporations like Google, Facebook, and the U.S. intelligence community, it should come as no surprise that any and all electronic data processed by these firms goes directly back to agencies such as the NSA, CIA, and other relevant spook organizations. Yet, major corporations like Google are eager to take the absorption of DNA information to the next level.

For instance, in 2008, Google announced that it had invested $4.4 million in 23andMe, a genetic screening company which was actually started by Anne Wojcicki, the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, along with another business partner. Google also invested heavily in another DNA –screening company, Navigenics.

As Marjorie Backman of Bloomberg Businessweek writes,

For a spit of saliva and $2,500, your genetic test results are securely delivered to your computer screen with your genetic likelihood for 18 medical conditions, from Alzheimer’s to rheumatoid arthritis to several types of cancer. Navigenics aims to boost disease prevention by providing customers reports on their DNA that they can share with their doctors. The company addresses privacy concerns by encrypting customer identities, and screens only for conditions it deems to have scientifically sound genetic studies. The company also offers genetic counseling.

Interestingly enough, in what might be considered consumer preparation for individual biometrics-based software in everyday life, Google has also recently unveiled the Mobile Personality Test app, where users scan their fingers in order to have their “mobile personality type” evaluated and read back to them. Although the app actually works by comparing the apps currently installed, the operative (and seemingly needless, unless the app is indeed consumer prep at work) initiation of the technology requires a finger scan for the process to begin.

Yet, for whatever information rendered to the consumer by virtue of the companies mentioned above, if the acquisition of DNA material is in any way involved, one need not only assume but rest assured that the information taken in by the corporation will be vastly higher and more important than any interesting or entertaining information given out.

Of course, Google and the aforementioned DNA screening companies are not the only institutions attempting to gain access to DNA material. In fact, one of the most disturbing groups (outside government itself) that have embarked on a mission to acquire DNA samples is the Grand Lodge of Freemasonry.

Known as MasoniChip, the program is openly administered by the Grand Lodge and is operated with the support of governments in both the United States and Canada. Indeed, MasoniChip has received so much support from the government sector that many have been duped into believing that it is merely a government program being supported by the Masons even though the reality is actually the opposite.

MasoniChip promoters set up fairs, advertise the program through local school districts and enter into partnerships with local law enforcement. In typical form, the mainstream media also promotes the program and the organization, which apparently has possession of its own police dog, Mason.

For those who may be in the dark as to what MasoniChip is, Amy MacPherson of the Huffington Post describes the program is this manner:

It begins on the surface as a child identification project, in case your loved ones are ever to be horrendously abducted. Parents are familiar with at-home kits to record their kids’ vital information, for protection against the greatest of all fears to be inflicted on a family. Normally height, weight, hair and eye colour are recorded, along with a set of fingerprints and hopefully a current photograph. It’s just the good folks at your local Masonic Lodge saw fit to take things further.

With advances in technology, they began to offer digital fingerprints, digital imaging, digital video, dental impressions and DNA mouth swabs. This data processing is managed by their proprietary software that’s designed to be compatible with local and national law enforcement. This is after all, a campaign created by police in the brotherhood regardless of its private funding.

Yet, for all the conflation between the Masonic program with government involvement, the truth is that the program is entirely private – meaning it belongs to the Grand Lodge. The Freemason’s own website clearly states that this is the case by writing,

We the Freemasons are the sole “sponsor” of the Masonic Safety Identification initiatives as developed in our various Masonic Grand Lodge Jurisdictions. As such we schedule the Events and coordinate the equipment, materials and volunteers necessary to conduct events. All groups and individuals are welcome to work alongside, but they are not referred as sponsors but listed and involved as “supporters”, “supporting partners”, “corporate partners”, “in collaboration with”, or “in cooperation with.”

MasoniChip states that, in addition to recording the children’s data themselves, it will provide its own “health care professionals” to collect the DNA samples at whatever event the DNA gathering is scheduled to occur.

As MacPherson writes,

There is no way to guarantee what happens behind closed doors and although they claim to delete sensitive information (the Canadian website states “No information is ever stored by the MasoniChIP program”), any computer savvy person knows that clicking an “x” isn’t permanent unless you format the entire system.

Parents are asked to trust an intriguing, private fraternity; to ensure that quality standards are met and family privacy is legally respected without any kind of oversight. Because Freemasons fund 100 per cent of the initiative, there is no opportunity to discuss issues regarding data ownership or how they feel about those technicalities in the privacy of their meetings.

With somber scrutiny and if further tragedy struck, authorities would match remains with parental samples for definitive confirmation. It is the parents’ DNA that could aid in matching the unnamed, but only accredited laboratories are permitted to conduct the process. Whether a parent or child, collecting DNA cannot occur at an open park event, run by stranger volunteers and become admissible to the national database. The FBI continually quotes the DNA Identification Act of 1994 in establishing these requirements to be included within CODIS.

It is with great sadness for grieving families that we must note the Freemason project is not supported by government DNA databases.

Overall, MacPherson accurately concludes that “the most controversial component of the MasoniChip undertaking is not recognized for the purpose they advertise and state to parents.” Of course, regardless of the stated reasons for acquiring the DNA samples, a massive DNA database is being created. The MasoniChip program itself has registered over 1.5 million children by the end of 2012 and is apparently going to be extended to seniors and the disabled in the near future.

In the conclusion to her article, MacPherson asked the question, “And why is the face of government through public schools or police through public events, being placed on an effort from private organizations to mislead parents?”

The answer, of course, is clear so long as one is not concerned with being labeled a conspiracy theorist. Parents are being mislead by the tacit cooperation of the government because there is an agenda afoot – namely, the massive absorption of all available information (in this particular instance, DNA), for the creation of a Total Information Awareness Network.

In keeping with the upsweep in genetic information, consider the fact that programs such as MasoniChip are perhaps more effective at grabbing a few of the stragglers left out of the initial DNA database efforts than acting as the main method of acquisition.

For instance, as Council For Responsible Genetics points out in its 43-page report, “Newborn Screening In America: Problems and Policies,” “ninety-eight percent of the 4.3 million babies born annually in the United States have a small sample of blood taken from their heels.”

Council For Responsible Genetics continues by stating, “These newborn bloodspots (NBS) are then screened by state agencies for a variety of inherited conditions and may later be stored in state-operated databases with access permitted to researchers.” It also says,

Newborn screening is one of the few forms of genetic testing to which almost everyone is exposed. Yet parental knowledge of newborn screening is almost non-existent. Indeed many parents are unaware that their children have even undergone such testing, let alone that their child’s DNA has been collected and stored by the state.

Thus, a program which began in the 1960s under the auspices of screening newborns for phenylketonuria (PKU) in the state of Massachusetts has now grown to encompass virtually every single newborn in the United States. Aside from the fact that genetic causes for diseases is by no means an exact science and that there is little evidence that there is any “genetic treatment” that is actually effective, the idea of testing children for potential health issues is not, in and of itself, a frightening prospect. What is at issue is that the DNA material of virtually every American newborn is now being collected at birth, placed in a database operated by the government which parents are even largely unaware, and that material is subsequently provided to “researchers.”
As Jon Rappoport writes,

Reliable and trustworthy assurances of citizen-privacy from the government have gone the way of the dinosaur and other extinct species.

Let’s see…DNA samples of nearly every newborn baby in America: surveillance and tracking, anyone? We have here the makings of a universal DNA database for “crime prevention.”

What about technocrats obsessed with re-engineering humans? What about other researchers who want to run comparative DNA studies in thousands of different ways, for any purpose under the sun—who for example are intensely interested in making (or inventing) genetic distinctions between various socioeconomic sectors of society? This newborn database is irresistible.

You can be sure social, medical, and genetic engineers are looking at all this raw data like wild animals look at prey on the plains.

Thus, it is important to note that, while many may fear a top-down decree requiring all adult American citizens to turn over their DNA material to the federal or state governments, the fact is that such a decree is only necessary to acquire material from those individuals whose genetic information was not obtained at birth.

Soon enough, however, as the population ages, there will be very few members of the population whose information has not been extracted at birth. For those few who have managed to avoid the DNA database, there will always be the requirement to submit DNA upon arrest as the result of such programs as those unveiled in Maryland and at least 21 other states.

Although there have been numerous challenges to such laws and programs, with the Supreme Court evaluating a decision by the Maryland Court of Appeals that the individuals arrested have a “weighty and reasonable expectation of privacy against warrantless, suspicionless searches” and that this expectation is not superseded by the state’s “purported interest in assuring proper identification.”

In what would only further the abuse of perceived legal authority in the acquirement of DNA from arrestees and codify the practice by virtue of legal precedent, Chief Justice John Roberts has already stayed the Maryland court decision and has actually indicated that there was a “fair prospect” that the Supreme Court would reverse the decision. Such a ruling, of course, would not be surprising considering the fact that the US courts have not only been derelict in their responsibility to protect the rights of the American people but that they have been outright hostile to them, particularly in recent years.

Any court that rules it constitutional to force individuals to buy private products or to strip search non-violent arrestees with impunity and no probable cause is one that holds very little hope for the survival of privacy, the Constitution, or human rights.

In the end, in a police state such as the United States, it has become almost inevitable that any individual, whether engaged in criminal activity or not, will have some contact with the agents of the ever-increasing totalitarian system. The “DNA upon arrest” requirements will then nab up the occasional straggler that managed to escape the initial program at birth.

Read other articles by Brandon Turbeville here.

Brandon Turbeville is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He has a Bachelor’s Degree from Francis Marion University and is the author of three books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, and Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident. Turbeville has published over 200 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s podcast Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.

Source: Activist Post

UN Prepares to Finalize Global Arms Trade Treaty: Gun Owners to Take it on the Chin?

TGE News

03/20/2013

On Monday, in New York City, the United Nations kicked off its final round of negotiations on its comprehensive global arms trade treaty agreement.

In preparation for the talks, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed his optimism in a statement released last week that all 193 Member State will “overcome their differences and muster the political will needed to agree on this landmark treaty.”

While it’s unclear what the final draft of the ATT will look like, Ban Ki-moon said that he expects it to include regulations on both weapons and ammunition, from “small arms to tanks to combat aircraft.”

“I reiterate my support for an Arms Trade Treaty that regulates international transfers of both weapons and ammunition and provides for common standards for exporting States. These standards are important for assessing the risks that transferred weapons are not used to fuel conflict, arm criminals or abet violations of international humanitarian or human rights law,” said Ban ki-moon.

Ban Ki-moon also noted that this treaty was only the beginning, a launching pad for more expansive regulations down the road.

“Adoption of this treaty will also provide much-needed momentum for wider disarmament and non-proliferation efforts by the international community.”

The renewed push for an ATT certainly has many gun owners and gun rights organizations on edge. On that front, the NRA is leading the charge to defeat the ATT or to ensure that it doesn’t contain any provisions that would subvert the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans.

“What we really object to is the inclusion of civilian firearms within the scope of the ATT,” said Attorney Tom Mason, the NRA’s longtime UN liaison. “This is a treaty that really needs to address the transfer of large numbers of military weapons that leads to human rights abuses. We have submitted language that you can define what a civilian firearm is.”

In other words, it is one thing to regulate bazookas and battle tanks, but keep your hands off commonly owned modern sporting rifles, such as the AR-15.

The NRA also objects to the call for an international registry of gun owners, a notion that was discussed during previous negotiations.

Supporters of the ATT argue that the NRA is off base with their assessment and that they’re only ratcheting up fear to bring in more bucks from members. Additionally, they contend that for an ATT to be impactful, it must regulate all weapons and not just military arms.

“The NRA claim that there is such a thing as ‘civilian weapons’ and that these can and need to be treated differently from military weapons under the Arms Trade Treaty is — to put it politely — the gun lobby’s creativity on full display,” Michelle Ringuette of Amnesty International told the Washington Post.

“There is no such distinction,” she continued. “To try to create one would create a loophole that would render the treaty inoperative, as anyone could claim that he or she was in the business of trading ‘civilian weapons.’”

Prior to the election, the Obama administration only tepidly endorsed the ATT. When talks broke down in July, many cited the November elections as the reason, i.e. Obama refused to put his full weight behind the ATT because he didn’t want to rock the boat too much heading into election season. With the US sending mixed signals, major players like China and Russia backed away from the table.

Now, however, it appears that the White House is more committed to seeing a deal get done. Obama, after all, is not running for re-election in 2016.

In a statement released on Friday, Secretary of State John Kerry said, “The United States is steadfast in its commitment to achieve a strong and effective Arms Trade Treaty that helps address the adverse effects of the international arms trade on global peace and stability.”

He added, “We will not support any treaty that would be inconsistent with U.S. law and the rights of American citizens under our Constitution, including the Second Amendment.”

Though, given the White House’s latest push for gun control reform in the wake of Sandy Hook, one wonders whether the Obama administration would really view an international registry or regulations on civilian arms as being “inconsistent” with the Constitution. In all probability, Obama would likely embrace those measures as being “reasonable” or label them “common-sense.”

Your thoughts?

Source: Guns.com

Double-amputee Marine humiliated by TSA

TGE News

03/20/2013

It’s bad enough that a US Marine lost both his legs in combat. But after TSA agents forced the wheelchair-bound man to stand up, walk and remove his prosthetic legs at an airport in Phoenix, he was publicly humiliated for his disability.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) sent a letter to the Transportation Security Administration this week, condemning TSA officers for mistreating the wounded soldier on March 13. The Marine, who is still on active duty, had lost both of his legs in an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast while deployed. The man is now confined to a wheelchair. He showed up at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport with an escort that helped him get around.

In his complaint addressed to TSA Administrator John Pistole, Hunter said that the agency made the Marine feel “humiliated.”

“The individual escorting this Marine asked the TSA officer which of the two checkpoints to enter and received the response, ‘either one,’ only to be told moments later they should have entered a different way,” Hunter explained in his letter.

Moments later, TSA officers ordered the wounded Marine to get out of his wheelchair and subsequently remove his prosthetic legs, subjecting him to immense pain while he struggled to get out of his wheelchair.

“A TSA officer asked the Marine to stand and walk to an alternate area, despite the fact that he physically could not stand or walk on his own,” Hunter wrote. “With numerous TSA officers sitting and unwilling to assist, an officer then made him remove his legs, then put them back on, only to advance to a secondary screening location where he was asked again to stand, with extraordinary difficult, while his wheelchair was examined for explosives.”

The invasive search occurred while several Marines were returning to San Diego, California from Phoenix, Arizona. The disabled Marine showed his military ID, which didn’t stop the TSA from publicly humiliating him and questioning his injuries.

The Marine’s escort was so enraged by the incident that Hunter’s office was contacted to shed light on the situation. Hunter was particularly struck by the incident, since he himself was a Marine veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The incident is also alarming, considering it took place at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, which is a joint civil-military public airport. The airport facilities are also home to the Sky Harbor Air National Guard Base. With so many military personnel entering and leaving through the airport, TSA officers in charge of security likely encounter many wounded soldiers – and should therefore have received proper training on how to handle passengers with disabilities.

But the case detailed by Hunter demonstrates otherwise: the congressman included two photos of the inspection in his letter, which show a TSA officer patting down the injured Marine and examining the prosthetic leg in search for explosives.

Hunter has asked the TSA to clarify its procedures on how to handle wounded troops and to show “situational awareness” in cases where the passenger is clearly disabled.

“While I recognize the necessity to appropriately screen passengers, I am concerned by the apparent lack of situational awareness and respect among TSA officers – specifically when it comes to the treatment of war wounded,” Hunter wrote. “I am hopeful you will give this situation the attention it deserves.”

Source: RT

A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran

TGE News

03/20/2013

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq.

I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives.

I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries.

I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day.

I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done.I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power.

You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit.

Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States.

I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion.

I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region.

On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love.

I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned.

You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.

Tomas Young, an Army veteran took a bullet in Iraq that confined him to a wheelchair and inspired his vocal opposition to the war.

Source: Veterans Today

MI6 and CIA were told before invasion that Iraq had no active WMD

TGE News

03/19/2013

Fresh evidence has been revealed about how MI6 and the CIA were told through secret channels by Saddam Hussein’s foreign minister and his head of intelligence that Iraq had no active weapons of mass destruction.

Tony Blair told parliament before the war that intelligence showed Iraq’s nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programme was “active”, “growing” and “up and running”.

A special BBC Panorama programme aired on Monday night details how British and US intelligence agencies were informed by top sources months before the invasion that Iraq had no active WMD programme, and that the information was not passed to subsequent inquiries.

It describes how Naji Sabri, Saddam’s foreign minister, told the CIA’s station chief in Paris at the time, Bill Murray, through an intermediary that Iraq had “virtually nothing” in terms of WMD.

Sabri said in a statement that the Panorama story was “totally fabricated”.

However, Panorama confirms that three months before the war an MI6 officer met Iraq’s head of intelligence, Tahir Habbush al-Tikriti, who also said that Saddam had no active WMD. The meeting in the Jordanian capital, Amman, took place days before the British government published its now widely discredited Iraqi weapons dossier in September 2002.

Lord Butler, the former cabinet secretary who led an inquiry into the use of intelligence in the runup to the invasion of Iraq, tells the programme that he was not told about Sabri’s comments, and that he should have been.

Butler says of the use of intelligence: “There were ways in which people were misled or misled themselves at all stages.”

When it was suggested to him that the body that probably felt most misled of all was the British public, Butler replied: “Yes, I think they’re, they’re, they got every reason think that.”

The programme shows how the then chief of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, responded to information from Iraqi sources later acknowledged to be unreliable.

One unidentified MI6 officer has told the Chilcot inquiry that at one stage information was “being torn off the teleprinter and rushed across to Number 10”.

Another said it was “wishful thinking… [that] promised the crock of gold at the end of the rainbow”.

The programme says that MI6 stood by claims that Iraq was buying uranium from Niger, though these were dismissed by other intelligence agencies, including the French.

It also shows how claims by Iraqis were treated seriously by elements in MI6 and the CIA even after they were exposed as fabricated including claims, notably about alleged mobile biological warfare containers, made by Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, a German source codenamed Curveball. He admitted to the Guardian in 2011 that all the information he gave to the west was fabricated.

Panorama says it asked for an interview with Blair but he said he was “too busy”.

Source: the guardian

The damning documents that expose the new Pope

TGE News

03/19/2013

Damning evidence that Pope Francis may have betrayed two priests who were kidnapped and tortured by Argentina’s brutal military junta can be revealed today.

The Mail on Sunday has seen documents which appear to show the new Pope secretly collaborated with the country’s dictatorship when he was head of the Jesuits there – using his real name Jorge Bergoglio – during the Dirty War that started in the Seventies.

One of the documents is a 27-page report by Orlando Yorio, one of the kidnapped priests, in which he accuses the current pontiff of secretly spreading dangerous rumours about him and a colleague while personally promising them support and protection.

A second document is a confidential government memo written in 1979 which appears to reveal Bergoglio informed junta officials that Father Yorio and Father Francisco Jalics were suspected of collaborating with guerrillas and that Jalics was accused of encouraging dissent among a congregation of nuns.

Bergoglio, 76, who was chosen as the new Pope on Wednesday, has been accused of effectively handing the priests over to the regime’s death squads by failing to quash rumours they were dissidents.

Pope Francis strongly denies claims he was in league with the generals who kidnapped and murdered thousands of Argentines, including pregnant women, during their seven-year rule. But the documents unearthed in Buenos Aires suggest he was complicit with the regime both before and after the two priests were seized in 1976.

Yorio wrote his 27-page formal report to the Jesuit hierarchy in Rome in November 1977, a year after he was released from a military prison, addressing it to Father Moura, the chaplain to the Society of Jesus in Rome.

It gives a chilling first-hand account of how the priests were seized by 200 armed troops, drugged, tortured and held for five months then dumped half-naked in a field.

And it describes how Yorio and Jalics became convinced Bergoglio had betrayed them, ignoring their desperate pleas to protect them from the military.

Jesuit Pope Francis

Newly elected: Pope Francis passes a Swiss guard as he arrives for an audience at the Paul VI hall, in Vatican City.

The two men were suspected of collaborating with guerrillas because of their work among the poor in Buenos Aires slums. Shortly before they were seized they were dismissed from the Jesuit order by Bergoglio.

Yorio wrote in his report: ‘Rumours emerged about our participation with the guerrillas. As things were in Argentina, a claim like that coming from important mouths (as the Jesuits are) could, plain and simply, signify our death.

‘The forces of the extreme Right had already machine-gunned a priest in his house and had kidnapped, tortured and left for dead another. Both of them were living in poor towns. We had received various warnings along the lines that we should take care. Father Jalics had personally spoken with several Jesuits to warn them of the situation and make them take note of the danger. He had also spoken about this with Father Bergoglio, making him see above all that my life had been put in serious danger.

‘That month of December [1975], given the continuing rumours about my participation with the guerrillas, Father Jalics spoke seriously again with Father Bergoglio. [He] recognised the seriousness of the situation and promised to put a stop to the rumours and to hurry up and speak to people from the armed forces to testify our innocence.’

Yorio claims Bergoglio not only failed to quash the rumours, he actively spread them among Jesuits. He wrote: ‘We began to suspect his honesty.’

According to Yorio’s account, Bergoglio wrote a letter to Argentinian Archbishop Miguel Raspanti outlining serious accusations against the two priests. It is not clear if Bergoglio was making the allegations himself, or passing on accusations made by others.

Speech: Pope Francis speaks during a meeting with the media. He offered intimate insights Saturday into the moments after his papal election.

Yorio wrote: ‘I went to speak to Father Bergoglio and he totally denied it. He said his report had been completely favourable and that Archbishop Raspanti was elderly and sometimes got confused.’

Yorio then described the horror of being kidnapped on May 23, 1976, tortured and interrogated at a prison in the Navy School of Mechanics in the Argentine capital, where 5,000 people were murdered during the dictatorship.

He wrote: ‘For five months Father Jalics and I were chained by the feet and hands and had our eyes covered. Totally incommunicado.

‘The first four or five days I went without eating, without drinking water, without going to the bathroom. A month and a half later I was able to change my dirty clothes.

‘On the sixth day they put me together with Father Jalics. They started giving me food and I was able to go to the bathroom.’

Yorio said he was drugged and interrogated. He was accused of being a guerrilla and of ‘having sexual relations with a female catechist’. A public outcry over their arrests meant they were eventually freed, dumped semi-naked from a helicopter in a field outside Buenos Aires on October 23. The damning report was handed to The Mail on Sunday by leading Argentine author and human rights activist Horacio Verbitsky, who began investigating Bergoglio shortly after he was named Archbishop of Buenos Aires in February 1998.

Chained: Francisco Jalics’s arrest and torture sparked criticism of Pope Francis.

It was given to him by Yorio’s family after the priest died from natural causes in 2000.

Yorio’s claims are vigorously denied by the Pope. Last week, Vatican spokesman the Reverend Federico Lombardi said: ‘There has never been a credible, concrete accusation against him.

‘There have been many declarations of how much he did for many people to protect them from the military dictatorship.’

Mr Verbitsky has also given The Mail on Sunday a copy of a foreign ministry memo from 1979 which suggests Bergoglio continued to collaborate with the regime even after the two priests were freed.

The typed note, over four paragraphs, appears to outline Bergoglio’s criticisms of Jalics to a government official, and gave reasons why the priest, who was by then living in exile in a German monastery, should be refused a new passport.

Bergoglio told the official that Jalics was suspected of working with guerrillas and of encouraging dissent among a group of nuns. The official wrote: ‘These facts were supplied . . . by Father BERGOGLIO himself, signature to the note with a special recommendation not to grant his request [for a new passport].’

A stamped foreign ministry paper dated December 20, 1979, reveals the passport application was then refused because of Jalics’ ‘previous record’.

The new Pope was last week also accused of links to officials who seized as many as 500 newborn babies from their mothers – to be adopted by supporters of the junta.

Estela de la Cuadra, a woman whose pregnant sister went missing during the dictatorship, produced evidence last week that the Church suggested Bergoglio could help her quest for the truth.

He is alleged to have assigned a priest to investigate the case.

Ms de la Cuadra claims the priest later told her that her sister had given birth to a daughter and that it would be ‘impossible’ to return the child to the family as she had been given to ‘too important a family’.

Evidence: One of the memos given to the Mail on Sunday, suggesting Bergoglio’s collaboration.

The memo suggests Bergoglio continued to collaborate with the regime even after the two priests were freed.

Pope Francis claims he had no knowledge of babies being stolen until after the end of the dictatorship. He also has insisted that he instructed Jalics and Yorio to give up their work in the slums for their own safety, and that he worked behind the scenes for their release. ‘I did what I could with the age and little influence I had,’ he said.

Pope Francis claims he held secret meetings with military chief General Jorge Videla to appeal for their release.

His version of events was backed yesterday by a judge who investigated the atrocities committed at the military prison where the priests were held.

In 2010 Bergoglio testified for four hours as a witness in the investigation. Yesterday judge German Castelli told Argentine newspaper La Nacion: ‘It is totally false to say Jorge Bergoglio handed over the priests. We analysed it, we listened to that version, we saw the evidence and we understood that his actions had no legal implications in these cases.’

On Friday Jalics, who still lives in Germany, said he was ‘unable to comment on the role of Father Bergoglio in this matter’.

He added that he had since met and discussed the events with Bergoglio. ‘We celebrated Mass publicly together and hugged solemnly. I am reconciled and on my part, consider the matter to be closed.

‘I wish Pope Francis God’s rich blessings for his office.’

How I made the chilling discovery that exposed ‘Pope of Dictatorship’

From Horacio Verbitsky

Accused: Jorge Mario Bergoglio

I began my investigation into Jorge Mario Bergoglio a few months after he was named Archbishop of Buenos Aires. When he was appointed in February 1998, his image was that of a humble priest. In a suit that was as worn as his shoes, he was said to spend the night sitting by the bedsides of the sick.

But I had also begun to hear more troubling accounts, from human rights activists who accused him of complicity with the junta that kidnapped, tortured and murdered 30,000 dissidents during the ‘Dirty War’.

The first accusations were made by Emilio Mignone, a former deputy education minister, who claimed that the Pope of the Dictatorship – as I now regard him – was linked to the disappearance of his daughter, Mónica. A Catholic teacher, she did social work in the slums of Buenos Aires, near the neighbourhood where Father Bergoglio grew up.

She was kidnapped in May 1976 and has never been seen again.

According to Mignone, two Left-wing priests who worked with the poor were also abducted the same week. Fathers Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics were Jesuits, whose order was run by Father Bergoglio, one of the youngest leaders in the Argentine Catholic Church’s history.

They were snatched by troops and taken to the same dreaded Navy concentration camp as Mónica, the Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada (ESMA), where they were tortured.

Mignone claimed that Father Bergoglio collaborated with the junta’s commanders in chief – Jorge Videla and Emilio Massera – in their kidnap. The generals were committed, he said, to ‘fulfilling the dirty task of cleaning the courtyard of the Church’ from Left-wing influence, adding: ‘Sometimes the green light was given by the bishops themselves.’

In 1999, I reported on this controversy in an article in the Buenos Aires daily Pagina 12 in which I sympathised with our new Archbishop and cast doubt on the charges against him. One of my best friends, a human rights lawyer, had told me that Father Bergoglio warned the priests of the risk they were running before they were kidnapped. Moreover, after Father Bergoglio learned that they were being held at ESMA, he confronted Admiral Massera, according to my friend, and demanded their freedom.

Controversy: Pope Francis (seen greeting Cardinal Angelo Sodano) was accused of complicity with the junta that kidnapped, tortured and murdered 30,000 dissidents during the ‘Dirty War’.

Five months after their abduction, they were finally drugged, put on a helicopter and dumped in a field on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

Shortly after my article was published, I was contacted by both Father Yorio and an intermediary for the Archbishop. Father Yorio was upset. He denied Bergoglio had warned him and Jalics that they were in danger.

‘I do not have any reason to think he did anything for our release, but much to the contrary,’ he said.
Bergoglio had expelled him from his theology post at a Jesuit school, he said, and spread rumours ‘that I was a Communist, a subversive guerrilla who was after women – rumours that immediately came to the attention of the social sectors that ran the power and repression machinery’.
In an era when the junta was trying to ‘cleanse’ the nation of liberation theology, this was tantamount to a death sentence.

‘Francisco Jalics warned several Jesuits in writing of the danger I was being exposed to by the Company [of Jesus], highlighting Bergoglio as responsible,’ Father Yorio said.
From the Bavarian monastery where he took refuge after being freed, Father Jalics also talked to me, on condition that I did not identify him as a source. He told me that Father Bergoglio identified him and Yorio as Leftist guerrillas.

Archbishop Bergoglio expressed his desire to set the record straight and, through an intermediary, he asked me to meet him in spring 1999 for an ‘off-the-record’ interview.

Horacio Verbitsky originally reported that Father Bergoglio had warned the priests of the risk they were running before they were kidnapped.

He was wearing a simple suit with a dog collar. A lock of grey hair fell over his forehead that made him look younger than 62. He reminded me of Fred Astaire. He said that I couldn’t quote him, but I could report that a priest who was profoundly close to his thinking denied Yorio’s charges.

He said he never accused Yorio or Jalics of conspiring with the guerrillas, and after he learned that the priests were being held at ESMA, he met twice with Videla and Massera to demand their release. He depicted himself as a hero.

I gave his side of the story in my second piece and for a time we had a friendly relationship. He sent me pieces of information, including a reference to a court record that showed that the house where 60 kidnapped political prisoners were hidden from human rights investigators in 1979 was the weekend home of the then Archbishop of Buenos Aires.

His story began to unravel when I began my research for a sequel to a book I had published in 1995, The Flight: Confessions Of An Argentine Dirty Warrior, in which a former Navy officer, Captain Adolfo Scilingo, told how dissidents were killed by being thrown into the sea when still alive. Scilingo said this method had been approved by the Church hierarchy because they considered it a Christian form of death.

When one of the priests was released, he claimed that Bergoglio (pictured) had not warned him of any danger but expelled him from his post at a Jesuit school and spread rumours that he was a Communist.

In 2000, a year after Yorio’s death, his family gave me a 27-page letter in which he accused Bergoglio of collaborating with his kidnappers.

On March 29, 2005, I was at the foreign affairs ministry archives, going through box after box of records. One document contained the final proof that Bergoglio collaborated in surrendering the priests to the regime. It began with a note bearing the letterhead of the Society of Jesus, with the stamp and the signature of Father Bergoglio, dated December 4, 1979.

Father Jalics, who was living in Germany, wanted to renew his passport. To avoid him having to make ‘an expensive trip’ back to Argentina, Bergoglio asked for the renewal to be carried out from Buenos Aires. On a second sheet in the folder, the Director of Catholic Worship of the Foreign Ministry, Anselmo Orcoyen, advised his bosses to reject the request ‘in view of the petitioner’s history.’

He wrote that Father Jalics had been accused of causing a ‘conflict of obedience in female religious congregations’ and that he had been held at ESMA after being ‘accused with Father Yorio of suspected contacts with the guerrillas’.

On a third page, Orcoyen wrote that this information came from Father Bergoglio. The documents close the case, in my opinion, on Bergoglio’s attitude to the junta. He publicly asked for a favour for his priest, Father Jalics, but behind his back accused him of activities that could cause his death.
Everyone can judge for themselves from my investigation about whether Bergoglio is a godly man.

Source: Daily Mail

Kill the Messenger – Sibel Edmonds (Full Documentary)

TGE Media

03/19/2013

It’s a sordid tale of a true American patriot, who, after discovering high-levels of espionage, corruption and bribery of high-level U.S. officials by Turkish nationals, was turned into a pariah by the Bush Administration instead of being congratulated.

In the wake of September 11, 2001, Sibel Edmonds is approached by the FBI. As an American of Iranian and Turkish origin, Edmonds’ linguistic skill-set makes her a valuable asset to the Language Services Unit, where she spends months translating high-security clearance documents. One day shortly after reporting the possible infiltration of her unit by Turkish spies to her supervisors and their supervisors, Edmonds’ world is turned upside-down.

It is the story of someone who refused to give up and continues to fight, basically against all odds. Sibel and these other whistle-blowers need our support- so let’s make sure this movie is shown.
http://justacitizen.com/KillTheMessen…

Visit Sibel’s website BoilingFrogsPost.com

The World According to Monsanto (Full Documentary)

TGE Media

03/19/2013

There’s nothing they are leaving untouched: the mustard, the okra, the bringe oil, the rice, the cauliflower. Once they have established the norm: that seed can be owned as their property, royalties can be collected. We will depend on them for every seed we grow of every crop we grow. If they control seed, they control food, they know it – it’s strategic. It’s more powerful than bombs. It’s more powerful than guns. This is the best way to control the populations of the world. The story starts in the White House, where Monsanto often got its way by exerting disproportionate influence over policymakers via the “revolving door”. One example is Michael Taylor, who worked for Monsanto as an attorney before being appointed as deputy commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1991. While at the FDA, the authority that deals with all US food approvals, Taylor made crucial decisions that led to the approval of GE foods and crops. Then he returned to Monsanto, becoming the company’s vice president for public policy.

Thanks to these intimate links between Monsanto and government agencies, the US adopted GE foods and crops without proper testing, without consumer labeling and in spite of serious questions hanging over their safety. Not coincidentally, Monsanto supplies 90 percent of the GE seeds used by the US market. Monsanto’s long arm stretched so far that, in the early nineties, the US Food and Drugs Agency even ignored warnings of their own scientists, who were cautioning that GE crops could cause negative health effects. Other tactics the company uses to stifle concerns about their products include misleading advertising, bribery and concealing scientific evidence.

Poll: Only 1 in 5 would allow gun confiscation

TGE News

03/19/2013

A new poll indicates only 1 in 5 gun owners would be willing to give up their firearms if the government demanded it.

“In other words, the government has a huge fight on its hands if it tries to implement a gun confiscation program,” said pollster Fritz Wenzel of Wenzel Strategies.

A surprisingly high percentage of those who call themselves “very liberal” also would not allow their guns to be confiscated, the poll shows.

“Given the deteriorating political climate for President Obama and Democrats on Capitol Hill, it is hard to imagine any such effort gaining significant political support,” he said.

Nearly half of the nation’s households have at least one gun, according to a 2011 Gallup Poll. The 2010 U.S. Census counted nearly 115 million households. Since President Obama took office in 2009, more than 65 million background checks have been conducted on gun purchases.

The scientific telephone survey was conducted March 7-12 and has a margin of error of 2.92 percentage points.

“Among gun owners, 64 percent said they would not relinquish their guns, while 20 percent said they would and another 16 percent of gun owners were unsure on the question,” he said.

Meanwhile, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who has sponsored a bill that would ban certain types of weapons, said in Congress last week, “We cannot allow the carnage … to continue.”

She was speaking on behalf of her Assault Weapons Ban of 2013 before the Senate Judiciary Committee. She invited several witnesses to testify, including Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn, who argued “assault weapons are not built for sportsmen.”

Flynn said that type of weapon is “designed for combat” and must be “restricted.”

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, thought it was a silly plan.

“We do not need to target … restricting the rights of law-abiding citizens,” he said.

He cited numerous government reports demonstrating that the original “assault weapons” ban was not effective in curbing gun violence.

He said Congress should target criminals rather than the Second Amendment.

As the debate commences at the federal level on restricting private firearm ownership, the battles have already begun at the state level, where Democrats in Missouri and Oregon have introduced legislation to ban “assault weapons.”

In contrast, states such as Wyoming, Texas and Alaska are moving to pass legislation to protect citizens from any federal gun confiscation laws.

According to the Wenzel poll, 36 percent of Democrats and 10 percent of Republicans would give up their guns if ordered. Independents line up with Republicans on the issue.

The breakdown by political persuasion proved interesting. Among “conservatives,” only 9 percent would relinquish their guns while 65 percent would not. Among moderates, 23 percent would give up their guns and 41 percent would refuse. Among “liberals,” 40 percent would yield to the government and 12 percent would refuse.

But for the “very liberal,” while 38 percent would give up their guns, more than 24 percent would refuse.

Nearly 60 percent of men would refuse, as would 35 percent of women. Regionally, 60 percent of Southerners would refuse. Other regions ranged from 41 percent in the Midwest who would refuse to give up their guns to 42 percent in the East and 45 percent in the West.

Blacks, Hispanics and Asians all would be relatively ready to give up weapons, while among whites, only 14 percent said they would.

The poll question was: “There has been a lot of discussion about guns and possible government action to restrict their availability and regulate their use in the wake of the shooting in Connecticut. If the government demanded you surrender your firearms, would you give them up?”

Feinstein hasn’t been consistent regarding guns:

At a U.S. Senate hearing on terrorism after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, she told “a little anecdote” of how she carried concealed to protect herself after two assassination attempts by the New World Liberation Front, the NWLF.

She explained: “I know the sense of helplessness that people feel. I know the urge to arm yourself because that’s what I did. I was trained in firearms. I walked to the hospital when my husband was sick. I carried a concealed weapon and I made the determination if somebody was going to try and take me out, I was going to take them with me.”

Michael Hammond, legislative counsel for Gun Owners of America, asked in an interview with WND, “Do we need any more proof that she is a hypocrite?”

Hammond said Feinstein “has no problem getting Congress to buy armed guards for Capitol Hill.”

“Does she consider herself more precious and more valuable than our children?” he asked.

Feinstein reportedly no longer has her concealed carry permit.

Keep your gun rights: Sign new petition

She championed her private firearm ownership the same year she called for banning “all” firearm ownership.

In an interview with “60 Minutes” in 1995 she said, “If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States, for an outright ban, picking up every one of them. Mr. and Mrs. America, turn ‘em all in, I would have done it.”

See her comments in the “60 Minutes” interview:

Source: WND

Arms Trade Treaty Could Make Guns as Scarce as Ammo

TGE News

03/19/2013

Contrary to the American Bar Association’s (ABA) contention that the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) “is consistent with the Second Amendment” and “would not require new domestic regulations” to hamper the exercise of the rights therein, the reality is that if ratified, the ATT could make guns as scarce as ammo and the exercise of the Second Amendment difficult indeed.

And here’s how this would happen–the ATT contains ambiguities regarding the application of new firearm regulations and import restrictions. And this means the moment the ATT goes into effect –should it be ratified– the types of guns allowed to enter America would largely depend on each U.S. Presidential administration’s opinion of what is or isn’t appropriate.

In this way, the ATT actually hands the executive branch the power to work with other governments around world to shut down portions of the U.S. import firearms market as they see fit. This will be possible by seizing on ambiguous terms and phrases within the ATT–from claiming certain classes of gun are “inappropriate” to claiming others endanger “women and children“–then barring whole groups of firearms from import.

And since firearm imports make up 35% of the overall new firearm market in America, a significant cut here could lead to an all-out buying / hording frenzy on the part of consumers.

Americans like the Second Amendment because phrases like “the right to keep and bear arms” and “shall not be infringed” are not ambiguous. Rather, the amendment clearly bolsters what Americans already know in their consciences–that we have a natural, God-given right to keep and bear arms. It’s a right which the Founding Fathers did their utmost to protect.

About the Author:

AWR Hawkins writes for all the BIG sites, for Pajamas Media, for RedCounty.com, for Townhall.com and now AmmoLand Shooting Sports News.

His southern drawl is frequently heard discussing his take on current events on radio shows like America’s Morning News, the G. Gordon Liddy Show, the Ken Pittman Show, and the NRA’s Cam & Company, among others. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal (summer 2010), and he holds a PhD in military history from Texas Tech University.

If you have questions or comments, email him at awr@awrhawkins.com. You can find him on facebook at www.facebook.com/awr.hawkins.

Source: AmmoLand

Bush Family Fortunes (Full Documentary)

TGE Media

03/18/2013

This hour long documentary follows the award-winning reporter-sleuth Greg Palast on the trail of the Bush family, from Florida election finagling, to the Saudi connection, to the Bush team’s spiking the FBI investigation of the bin Laden family and the secret State Department plans for post-war Iraq.

These are the hard-hitting reports that have been seen in films like Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, broadcast internationally on BBC Newsnight television, and are found in Palast’s international bestselling book The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.

Read: Bush Family Funded Adolf Hitler

DHS insider update: “It has begun”

TGE News

03/18/2013

Our current financial situation was not bred out of incompetence, but by design.

Much like my high-level source within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security outlined in a series of interviews beginning last year, the orchestrated collapse of the U.S. dollar and the entire world’s economic system has begun. The first shots in a global economic take-over were fired in Cyprus as my esteemed colleague and founding editor of Canada Free Press, Judi McLeod laid out in frank detail in her column yesterday. Please read it and heed her advice, or suffer the consequences of your own normalcy bias that such an event will not happen in the United States, Canada, or from wherever you might be reading this. It will, and the plan appears to be on schedule for a shot across the bow later this spring here in the West, with a more aggressive take-over starting sometime this fall, according to my source.

The Plan

To those needing a quick refresher, the plan is quite simple and can be summarized by the Clinton-era quip attributed to political strategist James Carville, “the economy, stupid” and the June 9, 2010 statement by former Obama czar Van Jones, Socialist extraordinaire, “top down, bottom up, inside out.” It is a plan for a one world Communist economy where the “middle class” will be wiped out through a series of events that will have the same ultimate effect as we are seeing in present day Cyprus.

Based on the events in Cyprus, it should be quite clear to even the most vocal critic of the legitimacy of the information provided to me by my source within the DHS as published on this web site is no longer at issue. The U.S. dollar, the backbone of world currencies and the proverbial firewall preventing the erosion of our national sovereignty, is the ultimate target of a takedown by the global banking interests controlled by a handful of banks and families of the “royal elite.”

The plan for a global currency or a one world economic order is a matter that transcends political parties. Those who continue to argue in the Republican-Democrat meme are doing nothing more than providing entertainment to distract people from the real issue, that of the global elite versus the rest of us. The top of the pyramid in this Ponzi scheme is filled with members of both U.S. political parties who are systematically pillaging us and our future generations into financial debt, bondage and slavery. It is a plan that has been in the works for centuries. The problem, however, is that we have been conditioned not to think that big. Yet, the lie is that big.

The parties

Our current financial situation was not bred out of incompetence, but by design. The occupancy of Barack Hussein Obama as the putative President of the United States was a plan in the making long ago, to usher in this oppressive system where we will be left at the mercy of the global ruling class. It is not by accident that we have been prevented from knowing exactly who this man is, from the controversy of his birth records to his college transcripts and even his social security number. Contrary to what the state-controlled media wants you to believe, these questions have never been answered with any measure of authenticity.

For example, does anyone honestly believe that it is merely a coincidence that Obama’s alleged mother, Stanley Ann Dunham-Soetoro, just happened to work with Timothy Geithner’s father, Peter Geithner, at the Ford Foundation in Indonesia? Is it reasonable to believe that the Republican party had no knowledge of the background of Barack Hussein Obama? Yet not one word from the Republican establishment as they not only watched, but facilitated the takeover of the United States from within. As I’ve written before, our nation is a captured operation.

The plan was set into motion long ago, stemming back to the founding of the United States and the temporary resistance to the central banking system. In 1913, the creation of the Federal Reserve set the countdown clock in motion for the complete subjugation of the United States to the interests of the global bankers and the global elite. The secret supra-governmental cabals such as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission worked behind the scenes, under the cover provided by the complicit media, to bring us to this point in history. Perpetual wars were induced to occupy the masses while the chess pieces were placed into their current positions. We are now about to pay the price for our inability or unwillingness to confront the establishment and incremental advancements leading to our own demise.

DHS source: Everything is not “coming up roses”

According to the most recent information provided to me from my source within the Department of Homeland Security known as “Rosebud,” the final preparations are being made to deploy heavily armed federalized forces onto the streets of America. They will be deployed under the pretext of “restoring and maintaining order from the chaos brought about by the economic collapse,” adding that “many will demand and embrace their deployment on the streets of America. They will get what they ask for, and more.“

Much like the security theater we have seen following the attacks of 9/11, we will be subjected to the jack-booted control of a federal army whose allegiance is not to the American people, but to the very architects of the chaos.

“This is the reason that drones are flying over U.S. cities and farmland, and gun control legislation is on the fast track for complete implementation,” stated this source. “How can people look at the situation in Cyprus and not think it won’t happen here? It will, and the blowback will be unlike this country has ever seen. Surveillance, disarming the public, and conditioning the people to believe it’s for their own safety is and has been part of the plan all along. Anyone owing a gun will be demonized and described as contributing to the problem.”

“What happens when the middle class loses much of their wealth, or it is confiscated, by the stroke of a pen or a keyboard? What will the stores look like when people, unprepared due to the damn lies of the corporate media and the shills for the ruling elite, run to empty out everything they can get their hands on as the world, as they know it, collapses around them?”

It was during my most recent contact with my source yesterday that he admitted that the situation will be blamed not on the bankers and the elected leaders who are raping us of our wealth and buying power, but on “right-wing, gun-toting Conservative ‘militia’ groups who believe that the situation is orchestrated.” And, of course, it is orchestrated.

“There is no Republican-Democrat argument to be made anymore. It’s all political theater to keep the majority of the masses occupied while the true enemy has already captured both parties,” he added. “They are all in on it, either knowingly or unwittingly, the takeover, that is. And it’s getting harder to believe that there are any who are unwitting accomplices at this point.”

“When the curtain is pulled back to reveal the true agenda of a single digital world currency, the people who have been yelling the loudest about such ‘conspiracy theories’ will be specifically singled out and demonized. They will be blamed for causing the panic we will see, and of course, dealt with by the army we asked for, accepted and even tolerated.”

Anyone who still believes that the information provided by this insider is “doom porn” or some self-created fantasy need to look at the events taking place in Cyprus. It’s coming to America. It has already begun.

Source: Homeland Security US

The Pharmacratic Inquisition

TGE Media

03/18/2013

Thousands of years ago, in the pre monarchic era, sacred plants and other entheogenic substances where politically correct and highly respected for their ability to bring forth the divine, Yahweh, God, The Great Spirit, etc., by the many cultures who used them. Often the entire tribe or community would partake in the entheogenic rites and rituals. These rites were often used in initiation into adulthood, for healing, to help guide the community in the decision process, and to bring the direct religious experience to anyone seeking it.

In the pre literate world, the knowledge of psychedelic sacraments, as well as fertility rites and astronomical knowledge surrounding the sun, stars, and zodiac, known as astrotheology, were anthropomorphized into a character or a deity; consequently, their stories and practices could easily be passed down for generations. Weather changes over millenniums caused environmental changes that altered the available foods and plant sacraments available in the local vicinity. If a tribe lost its shamanic El-der (El – God), all of the tribe’s knowledge of their plant sacraments as well as astronomical knowledge would be lost. The Church’s inquisitions extracted this sacred knowledge from the local Shamans who were then exterminated…It is time to recognize the fact that this Pharmacratic Inquisition is still intact and destroy it.

Ignoring Whistleblowers

TGE News

03/18/2013

A government whistleblower, disclosing classified secrets, risks criminal charges. Defining restricted material usually includes a broad scope of information that casts officials or agencies in a compromising embarrassment. The idea that public servants may be engaged in violating laws is no excuse for blowing the whistle on such abuses if it involves “National Security”. This protect the state attitude at all cost argument, is the very definition of institutional cover-up. In war, truth is the first casualty, so said Aeschylus.

So throwing the book at Bradley Manning comes as no surprise. Why should anyone be concerned about the intentional dissemination of raw evidence about war crimes, committed in the name of the War of Terror? Most would fail to be moved by the motivations of a stoic prisoner, who uploaded secured computer files to WikiLeaks. Many would cheer his interminable incarceration for disclosing military records.

Yet, before you slam the jail shut, reflect upon the Secretly Recorded Audio Leaked of Bradley Manning’s Court Statement. Listen to the Full Statement.

Also, view the YouTube video, Bradley Manning Tells Court Public Have the Right to Know About US War Crimes.

A cogent reaction from another renowned whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg of the Pentagon Papers fame, carries the weight of a brave man from another era.

“It’s important to remember through all this that Manning has already pled guilty to ten charges of violating military regulations (few of which, if any would be civilian crimes) and faces twenty years in jail. Yet the prosecutors are still going ahead with the absurd charge of “aiding the enemy,” a capital offense, of which the prosecutors are asking for life in prison.

Nixon could have brought that charge against me too. I was revealing wrongdoing by our government in a public way, and that information could have been read by our enemies in Vietnam. Of course, I never had that intent and Manning didn’t either. We both leaked information to provoke a domestic debate about military force and government secrecy. And to say we did so to aid the enemy is absurd.”

In any political trial, the spirit of the law is sacrificed for the expediency of protecting a debased regime. Balance in prosecution is a concept unknown to a government consumed with punishing any perceived enemy of the state.

Attorney Floyd Abrams and Professor Yochai Benkler provide a thoughtful perspective and legal opinion in The New York Times editorial – Death to Whistle-Blowers?

“Under the prosecution’s theory, because Private Manning knew the materials would be published and that Al Qaeda could read them once published, he indirectly communicated with the enemy. But in this theory, whether publication is by WikiLeaks or The Times is entirely beside the point. Defendants are guilty of “aiding the enemy” for leaking to a publishing medium simply because that publication can be read by anyone with an Internet connection.

Private Manning’s guilty plea gives the prosecution an opportunity to rethink its strategy. The extreme charges remaining in this case create a severe threat to future whistle-blowers, even when their revelations are crystal-clear instances of whistle-blowing. We cannot allow our concerns about terrorism to turn us into a country where communicating with the press can be prosecuted as a capital offense.”

No such mercy from the imperial empire, Manning must suffer the supreme wrath for his transgressions. His admissions acknowledge expected official sanctions, but the sentiment of Daniel Ellsberg reflects the standpoint of many Manning supporters.

“…For the third straight year, Manning has been nominated for the Noble Peace Prize by, among others, Tunisian parliamentarians. Given the role the WikiLeaks cables played in the Arab Spring, and their role in speeding up the end of the Iraq War, I can think of no one more deserving who is deserving of the peace prize.

He’s also deserving of the Congressional Medal of Honor. This medal, awarded by Congress-and not the executive branch-is given to military personnel, who during wartime, do what they should do for their country and their comrades, at the greatest risk to themselves.”

Another target of recrimination, seen in the Sibel Edmonds dismissal is a classic example of punishing the whistleblower. Edmonds took a job as a translator at the FBI shortly after 9-11. Her story, stated in the YouTube interview, The Government Is Raping You: Sibel Edmonds, is compelling.

Sibel Edmonds Finally Wins, documents her observation in the book, “Classified Woman” and offers a disturbing assessment of her fellow workers.

“Edmonds found at the FBI translation unit almost entirely two types of people. The first group was corrupt sociopaths, foreign spies, cheats and schemers indifferent to or working against U.S. national security. The second group was fearful bureaucrats unwilling to make waves. The ordinary competent person with good intentions who risks their job to “say something if you see something” is the rarest commodity. Hence the elite category that Edmonds found herself almost alone in: whistleblowers.”

This characterization of morally challenged federal employees is a direct consequence of a system that protects the cover-ups, while punishing disclosure of conflicting evidence of outright corruption. The silent culture of concealment or the worse incentive system of collusion runs the governing bureaucracies.

The presstitutes in the establishment media enable the warmongering protection racket as a condition of employment. Their lack of investigative reporting is only superseded by their ominous distortion of real patriotic loyalty. Whistleblowers function as detectives doing the job that reporters abdicate. Woefully, so few citizens of conscience are willing to jeopardize their individual circumstance for the courage of genuine national security.

The always insightful, William F. Jasper of the New American writes in Sibel Edmonds’ “Classified Woman”.

“Unfortunately, most of Edmonds’ contributing editors at BoilingFrogs are decidedly left of center, and their anti-globalist, anti-war, anti-police-state arguments and analyses tend to range from the “progressive” to the Marxoid. However, when she went public and came under attack, it wasn’t Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh who came to her defense; it was the anti-Bush Left that rallied to her aid. In fact, the faux conservatives at FOX, National Review, and the radio talk show universe alternately ignored and attacked her; they were busy cheerleading George W. Bush’s unconstitutional wars abroad and his unconstitutional police-state measures at home. Sympathetic coverage for Edmonds from alternative media on the Right has been woefully lacking, with a few exceptions.

In April 2011, Sibel Edmonds submitted her manuscript for Classified Woman to the FBI for review, as required by terms of her employment agreement. Under that agreement, the FBI has 30 days to approve and/or require deletions and revisions. After waiting over 340 days with no response from the bureau, Edmonds took the path that few others have taken; she published anyway. However, with every publisher afraid to touch it, she was forced to publish it on her own. She knows that any day now the Obama administration, which has prosecuted more whistleblowers than all previous administrations combined, may come after her.”

Forget about the false left-right paradigm. The “War of Terror” being waged by the imperium empire is designed to crush whistleblowers, and keep the brain dead in a zombie trance. Just consider the impact on the Afghanistan campaign if the FBI acted upon the evidence unclosed by Sibel Edmonds that cuts to the heart of the 911 myth assumptions.

The military-industrial-security-intelligence complex closes ranks to protect their “Splendid Little Wars“. The whistleblowers that expose the lies out of the War Party establishment are only a minor distraction, as long as the public sleeps in their self-induced coma. The Army Times item, Hagel to order review of drone medal precedence, is one such interlude, while the control and command structure continues to aim their weapons at imaginary threats.

Who would doubt that the Bradley Mannings and Sibel Edmonds, squealers of state secrets, would be prime quarries for the hunt to eliminate enemies of the state? The only good government snitch is a Gitmo captive. So goes the claims of the governance prosecutors.

How many people have actually examined the information in the Manning WikiLeak disclosures or read the Edmonds account of 911-treason complicity? Oh no, the discomfort of confronting the fake reality of the official story of make believe is too disturbing for most people.

Loyalty of country is a very dangerous attitude, when your government sponsors state terrorism as a normal activity. The fear to face up to the horrors of administration deceit is the prime activity of the flag waving drones that cheer for more carnage.

When Edmonds describes the traitors within the national security structure, the fearful bureaucrats facilitate the ongoing treachery that passes for nationalism. When Manning exposes the documents that prove a genocide policy is in effect, the penalty demanded by the bellicose command is his execution.

An honorable whistleblower is a citizen hero. Disobeying dishonest laws is true patriotism. In the end, A Different Philosophy of Civil Disobedience, is needed. Complacency is the countrywide disease of choice. Real patriots oppose jingoistic orders. Stand down . . .

Source: Veterans Today

TSA Kept $531,395 In Passenger Change In 2012

TGE News

03/18/2013

(WASHINGTON TIMES) Chump change, it’s not. The Transportation Security Administration has collected — and kept — more than half-a-million dollars in loose passenger change at security checkpoints in 2012 alone.

TSA figures show agents collected $531,395 in change that was left or lost by passengers last year, according to a report in The Hill. That’s up from 2011 collections, which stood at $487,869, The Hill reports. And it’s up even more from 2010, when the lost-and-found figure stood at $409,085, The Hill said.

Federal law lets TSA keep the money. Florida Republican Rep. Jeff Miller introduced a bill last year that would have put the change in the hands of the pro-military United Service Organization — but it failed to pass.

The TSA said it “makes every effort to reunite passengers with items left at the checkpoint,” The Hill reported. “However, there are instances where loose change or other items are left behind and unclaimed.”

Unclaimed money goes toward TSA’s general operating expenses, The Hill reports.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE

Whistle-blower says VA ignored data that could have helped suicidal, sick veterans

TGE News

03/18/2013

The highest-level whistle-blower ever to come forward at the Department of Veterans Affairs is leveling accusations of serious ethical lapses, claiming an agency intentionally manipulated and suppressed data which resulted in veterans — particularly suicidal veterans — being denied critical care.The whistle-blower, Steven Coughlin, was a senior epidemiologist at the VA and lead author on two of the biggest studies the VA has conducted on veterans of the Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan wars. His claims concern the VA’s Office of Public Health.Among a laundry list of claims that Coughlin told a House oversight committee Wednesday was that he was warned by a superior not to include data in his study that could have helped establish a link between so-called “burn pits” in Iraq and asthma and bronchitis among veterans. Such a link could put the VA on the hook for costly medical treatments.”I was told two or three times in the second half of 2012 by my immediate supervisor not to look at data,” Coughlin told Fox News in an exclusive interview. “And I found that very uncomfortable — very unnerving.”

When Coughlin complained to his supervisor Dr. Aaron Schneiderman about the omission, Coughlin alleges that Schneiederman threatened him.

What particularly distressed Coughlin, though, was the VA’s lack of action regarding veterans who had indicated on study questionnaires that they were considering suicide. Two-thousand respondents said that they felt “they would be better off dead.” According to Coughlin, in 95 percent of those cases, the VA did nothing to follow up. While the VA says it has no evidence that any study participants subsequently committed suicide, Coughlin is certain that people did take their lives.

While planning for a second study, Coughlin attempted to ensure that any similar respondents would receive a follow-up. For his efforts, Coughlin said his supervisors initiated disciplinary action against him.

“Reprisal against whistleblowers, unfortunately, has been commonplace at the department,” Coughlin told Fox News.

Fed up with the situation, Coughlin quit the VA in December.

The VA stressed Wednesday that the department does not tolerate retaliation. In a statement to Fox News, the VA also touted its research standards while pledging an investigation into any alleged wrongdoing.

“The Department of Veterans Affairs has a decades long history of conducting world-class research studies that meet accepted and rigorous scientific standards,” the statement said. “Research on the health of Gulf War Veterans has been and continues to be a priority for VA. The Department depends on this research to inform our decisions and guide our efforts in caring for Gulf War Veterans. All allegations of malfeasance are taken seriously and are investigated fully.”

The chairman of the House subcommittee, Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., himself a veteran of the Gulf and Iraq wars, said he is shocked but not surprised by the latest allegations. Though he has chaired the committee only a few short weeks, he has already investigated a number of ethical lapses at the VA.

“There’s no reason why a Gulf War veteran should ever trust the Veterans Affairs Administration, or unfortunately, this government,” Coffman told Fox News.

If the allegations leveled against the department by Coughlin are true, Coffman said, heads should roll.

“They need to clean house,” Coffman told Fox News. “They need to exercise ethical leadership.”

Coughlin charges that one of the worst offenses is that the VA has sat on a valuable study that would for the first time with the VA’s own research establish strong evidence of a neurological foundation for Gulf War illness. The VA has so far held to the theory that the cause for Gulf War illness — now termed “chronic multi-symptom illness” — is unclear. Coughlin insists the VA will not publish anything that contradicts what he calls the VA’s “unwritten internal policy.”

“You may hold the belief as some people do that Gulf War illness is a psychiatric condition,” said Coughlin. “But if you carry out the research study and the data strongly supports the conclusion that it’s neurological in nature, then you’re supposed to publish that and get it out.”

Gulf War veterans like Paul Sullivan — also a former employee at the VA — are pleased that Coughlin is coming forward.

“Veterans have waited 22 years for answers on treatment,” Sullivan told Fox News. “And now, finally, we have a high level VA official that is going to blow the doors wide open on how VA is blocking research and benefits for Gulf War vets.”

Coughlin is still out of work after leaving the VA. He paid his own way to come to Washington to tell his story. His only interest, he said, is insuring that America’s veterans get the health care they deserve.

“I can tell you that many Gulf War veterans are infuriated by this,” he told Fox News. “It has complicated their lives and made it much more difficult for them to get competent health care from VA providers.”

(Via Fox)

10 Secrets of the Vatican Exposed

TGE News

03/18/2013

Vatican City may have fewer than 1,000 citizens and spans only 110 acres, but it also has a multimillion-dollar budget and an unbelievably complex history. Understanding how it all works requires parsing through centuries of religious texts. Is the Vatican confusing and mysterious? Is the pope Catholic? A look behind the scenes:

Regular exorcise!
Baudelaire once said that “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn’t exist.” But in modern-day Vatican City, the devil is considered alive and well. The late Pope John Paul II personally performed three exorcisms during his reign, and Pope Benedict XVI expanded the ranks of Catholic-sponsored exorcists throughout the world. In fact, Father Gabriele Amorth, the Church’s chief exorcist, claims to expel more than 300 demons a year from the confines of his Vatican office, and there are some 350 exorcists operating on behalf of the Catholic Church in Italy alone. Amorth also teaches bishops how to tell the difference between satanic possession and psychiatric illness, noting that those who suffer from the former seem to be particularly repulsed by the sight of holy water and the cross.

Where thieves go to prey
With 1.5 crimes per citizen, Vatican City has the highest crime rate in the world.
It’s not that the cardinals are donning masks and repeatedly robbing the bank, it’s just that the massive crowds of tourists make Vatican City a pickpocket’s paradise. The situation is complicated by the fact that the Vatican has no working prison and only one judge. So most criminals are simply marched across the border into Italy, as part of a pact between the two countries. (The Vatican’s legal code is based on Italy’s, with some modifications regarding abortion and divorce.) Crimes that the Vatican sees fit to try itself — mainly shoplifting in its duty-free stores — are usually punished by temporarily revoking the troublemaker’s access to those areas. But not every crime involves theft. In 2007, the Vatican issued its first drug conviction after an employee was found with a few ounces of cocaine in his desk.

The worst confessions
Some sins are simply too much for a local bishop to forgive. While priests can absolve a sin as serious as murder (according to the Church), there are five specific sins that require absolution from the Apostolic Penitentiary. This secretive tribunal has met off and on for the past 830 years, but in January 2009, for the first time ever, its members held a press conference to discuss their work.
Three of the five sins they contemplate can only be committed by the clergy. If you’re a priest who breaks the seal of confession, a priest who offers confession to his own sexual partners, or a man who has directly participated in an abortion and wants to become a priest, then your case must go before the tribunal to receive absolution. The other two sins can be committed by anyone. The first, desecrating the Eucharist, is particularly bad because Catholics believe that the bread and wine transubstantiate into the body and blood of Christ. Messing with them is like messing with Jesus. And then, there’s the sin of attempting to assassinate the pope. That one’s pretty self-explanatory.
The meetings of the Apostolic Penitentiary are kept confidential because they’re a different form of confession. The sinner is referred to by a pseudonym, and only the Major Penitentiary, Cardinal Manuel Monteiro de Castro, decides how the sin shall be dealt with. Presumably, a bunch of Hail Marys doesn’t cut it.

You can read the Pope’s mail
The Vatican’s secret archives haven’t been truly secret since Pope Leo XIII first allowed scholars to visit in 1881. Today, it’s even more accessible. Outsiders are free to examine the correspondences of every pope for the past 1,000 years, although there is one catch: Guests have to know exactly what they’re looking for. With 52 miles of shelves in the archives, the librarians prohibit browsing.
The most famous existing letter is probably Henry VIII’s request that his marriage to Catherine of Aragon be annulled, which Pope Clement VII denied. Henry divorced Catherine anyway and married Anne Boleyn (and four other women), leading to Rome’s break with the Church of England. The archives also contain an abundance of red ribbons, which were used to bind 85 petitions from English clergyman and aristocrats.

The Pope liked to text message
During his tenure, Pope Benedict XVI routinely sent text messages of his homilies to mobile subscribers around the world, and in 2009, the Vatican opened up an official YouTube channel to show various papal addresses and ceremonies. The Vatican even released an iPhone application that contains multilingual versions of the Breviary prayer book and the prayers of daily mass. Most recently, Benedict had joined Twitter in December, two months before his resignation. The Vatican’s enthusiasm for technology isn’t limited to cell phones and the internet. It has also added solar panels to the roof of the Pope Paul VI auditorium as part of its commitment to fight climate change.

The Vatican has the finest Swiss bodyguards
Nowadays, the Swiss have a reputation for pacifism, but back in the 1500s, they were considered an unstoppable military force. Swiss armies were renowned for the their mastery of a weapon called the halberd, a deadly combination of a spear and an axe, and their ground troops were famous for routinely demolishing legions of enemies on horseback. After Pope Julius II witnessed their ferocity in battle 500 years ago, he recruited a few soldiers to become his personal bodyguards. Ever since, Swiss Guards have pledged fidelity to the pope, sometimes dying for the cause. During the sacking of Rome in 1527, for instance, three quarters of them were killed while providing cover for Pope Clement VII to escape.
Today, the hundred or so members of the Swiss Guard spend most of their time bedecked in Renaissance garb, twirling their halberds in ceremonies or manning checkpoints around the Vatican. When the Guards are actually protecting the pope, they wear plain clothes and carry distinctly modern weapons.

The Mafia dipped into the collection plate
In The Godfather: Part III, a shady deal between the Mafia and the Vatican leads to the murder of the pope. Was this based on a true story? Possibly. On the morning of September 29, 1978, Pope John Paul I was found dead, sitting up in his bed, after only 33 days in office. Although Vatican officials claimed the 65-year-old pope died of a heart attack, there was never an autopsy, and at the time, the Vatican definitely had ties to organized crime. Sure enough, in 1982, Vatican Bank president Father Paul Marcinkus resigned from his post after a series of scandals exposed the bank’s ties to the Mafia. Eventually, the bank had to repay more than $200 million to its creditors. But Marcinkus was never indicted of a crime, and though he was suspected of being involved in several mysterious deaths, including Pope John Paul I’s, Marcinkus successfully claimed diplomatic immunity in the United States and retired to Arizona in 1990, and died there 16 years later.

There’s no vice pope
Once a cardinal becomes the pope, he’s the designated leader of the Catholic Church and God’s representative on Earth for the rest of his life — which was basically the case until Pope Benedict XVI’s surprise resignation last month. (Up until then, it had been more than 500 years since the last papal resignation.) Further, as modern medicine improves, even seriously ill people tend to stick around longer, meaning that a pope could be alive but unable to perform his duties for years, as was the case with John Paul II. What happens then? Well, no one is really sure. A cardinal can take over the pope’s responsibilities as the Vatican’s head of state, but no one else is allowed to carry out his ceremonial duties. In the end, many masses and benedictions simply go unperformed until the pope either passes away or recovers.

Faith-based economics
The Vatican needs several hundred million dollars per year to operate. Its many financial responsibilities include running international embassies, paying for the pope’s travels around the world, maintaining ancient cathedrals, and donating considerable resources to schools, churches, and health care centers. So where does that money come from? Catholics pay tithes to their local parishes and donate about $100 million every year to the Vatican itself. But collection plates aren’t the Vatican’s only source of money. The city-state also gets cash from books, museums, stamps, and souvenir shops. (Get your limited-edition Vatican euros!)
But that’s not always enough. At the end of 2007, the city-state was $13.5 million in the hole. Part of the problem was the weakened American dollar, which translated into less purchasing power. Another contributing factor was the lackluster performance of the Vatican’s newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano. To boost subscriptions, Pope Benedict asked the editor to spice up the layout with more photos and allowed him to cover world news stories in addition to the traditional religious fare.

Even the ATMS are in Latin
The Vatican Bank is the only bank in the world that allows ATM users to select Latin to perform transactions. That’s just one symbol of the Holy See’s continued devotion to the language. Pope Benedict XVI had been particularly passionate about reviving the language and purportedly held many informal conversations in Latin. (Pope John Paul II generally spoke Polish.)

Source: theweek.com

How Rich Is the Catholic Church?

TGE News

03/18/2013

Nobody really knows, because religious groups don’t need to follow regular accounting and disclosure rules.

Pope Francis is not just the spiritual leader of one of the world’s major religions: He’s also the head of what’s probably the wealthiest institution in the entire world. The Catholic Church’s global spending matches the annual revenues of the planet’s largest firms, and its assets—huge amounts of real estate, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Vatican City, some of the world’s greatest art—surely exceed those of any corporation by an order of magnitude.

But it turns out to be surprisingly difficult to understand exactly how rich the church is. That’s in part because church finances are complicated. But it’s also because, in the United States at least, churches in general are exempted from the financial reporting and disclosure requirements that otherwise apply to nonprofit groups. And it turns out, that exemption may have undesirable consequences.

The main thing we know about Catholic Church finance is that in cash flow terms, the United States is by far the most important branch. America is a rich country with a large population of Catholics. What’s more, America’s Catholic population is a religious minority. That’s meant that, rather than using political clout to influence the shape of mainstream government institutions, as in an overwhelmingly Catholic country such as Brazil, the Catholic Church in the United States has created a parallel state: a vast web of schools, hospitals, universities, and charities that serve millions of clients.

Our best window into the overall financial picture of American Catholicism comes from a 2012 investigation by the Economist, which offered a rough-and-ready estimate of $170 billion in annual spending, of which almost $150 billion is associated with church-affiliated hospitals and institutions of higher education. The operating budget for ordinary parishes, at around $11 billion a year, is a relatively small share, and Catholic Charities is a smaller share still.

Apple and General Motors, by way of comparison, each had revenue of about $150 billion worldwide in Fiscal Year 2012. Legally speaking, there is no such thing as “the Catholic Church,” which is why these finances get so complicated. As far as the law is concerned, each diocese is a separate legal entity, incorporated in the states where it operates. Generally speaking, they are organized as what’s known as a corporation sole—a legal corporation wholly controlled by the individual bishop rather than a board of directors—and not officially part of any larger transnational spiritual organization. This has led to conflicts during the sex abuse scandals. Lawsuits have caused disputes about how deep the church’s pockets go and who should pay.

On several occasions, abuse-related litigation has inspired dioceses to declare bankruptcy, which offers a rare window into the internal financial organization of the institution. Individual parishes, though operating under the umbrella of the relevant bishop, have a fair degree of financial autonomy. They conduct separate fundraising and maintain separate expenses. That way, parish donors can feel they’re bolstering their particular community and not an impersonal bureaucracy. But it’s common for parish investment funds within a single diocese to be pooled. When a diocese declares bankruptcy, this raises the question of whether pooled parish investment funds are available to be seized by the bishop’s creditors or whether they exist separately.

As a fascinating article in American Bankruptcy Institute Journal explains, the status of parish investment funds depends on some very subtle details. Both the Diocese of Milwaukee and the Diocese of Wilmington ran pooled investment funds in which a single account simply noted how much each parish had contributed. The difference is that in Wilmington, Del., operating funds were also mingled into the pooled account, whereas in Milwaukee they were kept separate. That small difference ended up costing Wilmington parishes $74 million in exposure to Episcopal creditors. At the same time, as a matter of Canon Law individual parishes can be wholly “suppressed,” merged into other parishes, or otherwise divided up, essentially at the discretion of the bishop—notwithstanding the existence of separate bank accounts. This authority suggests that the diocese does indeed wholly own and control its parishes, but church officials take advantage of the ambiguity, sometimes claiming to fully control its parishes, sometimes—for legal reasons—arguing that the parishes are wholly independent entities.

Given America’s diverse religious landscape, the Catholic Church is hardly unique in taking advantage of the First Amendment to engage in some opaque accounting. It’s simply the largest player in this game. Lawrence Wright’s recent Scientology exposé, Going Clear, reveals egregious exploitation of religious privileges for the personal financial benefit of church leaders. Or consider the case of the Tennessee pastor arrested on money laundering and drug charges only because a local TV news investigation revealed that he was using donations to pay off what amounted to personal debts.

The legal framework that allows for this funny business has been constructed in the name of religious freedom but hardly seems required by that important principle. America has a robust ecology of secular nonprofit groups that manage to abide by fairly stringent accounting and disclosure standards. These help donors know where their money is going and reassure residual claimants that there’s some consistent theory of whose assets are whose. Religion is big business—the Catholic Church the biggest of all—and it deserves to be treated as such in the relevant ways.

Source: Slate

Finding Your Footing on the Trail for Truth

TGE News

03/18/2013

by Trip Lively

Searching for the Man Behind the Curtain:

Years ago, I first realized that the material world, and all of its societal manipulations, was being rigged by an outside force. And, more importantly, I knew this was not a benevolent force.

I began to question everything.

Was “reality” real?

Suddenly, I found myself taking those very first steps towards seeking truth. Which, at the time, was the road less traveled by my college peers.

Less than a handful of years following the orchestrated events of 9/11, I watched closely as the world around me began changing at a very rapid rate. It was the beginning of the end of our freedoms.

Not to mention, the “American Dream” that was shoved down my throat throughout my entire public school upbringing was crumbling away before my very eyes. Friends with degrees were having trouble finding jobs, and freaking out as they drowned in their enormous amounts of debt.

Even though, due to my age at the time, I did not fully understand what was taking place in society, I was able to see that it was not right.

Before I was even legally old enough to purchase and consume alcohol, I was already reaching my curious fingers towards the veil of reality. I just had to know what lies on the other side.

And who, or what, this force was that was pulling the strings and calling the shots.

This led to the discovery of about a dozen interviews that initially helped me remove the blinders and rose-colored glasses that prevented me from seeing reality for what it was, and not for what I wished it to be.

As you could imagine, cognitive dissonance kicked in pretty quickly. Luckily, due to my fluid nature as a maturing adult, I just went where the truth flowed.

From there, it was as if a floodgate had opened, and the information began pouring in at immense speeds. Suddenly, I realized the importance of what I had stumbled across, as well as the potential it could have in shaping my future.

Luckily, the college years allow you an once-in-a-lifetime window of opportunity to find yourself, without the influence or guidance of parental figures. How people respond, and to whom they become, is up to themselves and the choices they make during this window.

For me, it was a time of great experimentation within and without all the realms of existence.

As I recall, it was a combination of falling down Alice’s rabbit hole, while walking Dorothy’s path along the yellow brick road, with my eyes dilated like I had just left the optometrist.

Document Your Awakening:

Looking back on those early days of truth seeking, I remember I had to learn to become more fluid in order to prevent the be-lie-f system I was indoctrinated into from sabotaging my journey.

You would be surprised at how quickly cognitive dissonance can set in at those early stages of awakening. Don’t let it hinder your path! From experience, I can say that seeing reality for what it truly is was one of my first steps towards gaining sovereignty as a soul. As they say, “Once you are awake, it’s hard to go back to sheep.”

In my early days, these topics hardly came up in casual conversation.

Because of this, I had a period of going on the brink of insanity. It was so hard to have the façade stripped away, and even harder to deny the truth that lay before me. Not to mention how hard it was to find others to even talk about these things with.

So, in order to combat the onset of premature insanity, I began documenting my awakening in various mediums. Being an artist and a writer, I let my passions guide the way to expressing myself, and it turned out to be a lifesaver.

Here is an example of a poem I wrote one evening. I was sitting in the tub, busily scurrying from site to site, digging for more nuggets of truth. Suddenly, I felt a calm within. From there, I paused from the interviews and articles and just breathed.

Clarity.

After a few moments, I found my fingers moving back and forth across the keyboard, as I produced, “Conversations with My Soul.”

Conversations with My Soul:

And I asked myself why I have yet to discover my treasure,
For I have looked high and low, searching endlessly,
For the joy, the love, the answers, and the comfort of knowing.

“Surely God’s secrets are hidden somewhere,” I reminded myself,
Unto which my soul cried out, “You have not searched your heart
And in fact, it is where the happiness of the world resides.
In love, you see, you will peace and peace of mind.”

In disbelief I thought, “How could this be? For I only know happiness
From outside impulses of both my desires and my addictions.
My smile, though genuine, only reflects the love I wish to share.

For though I may find despair to cloud my thoughts at times,
I wish to shine bright for others so they can break free from darkness.
My actions unto others is fueled by my desires,
And my actions unto myself are fueled by my addictions.

“Then your treasure shall never be found,
For it’s contents sink deeper and deeper as you stray from self.
How can one seek to find that which he is running away from?

How can one find happiness when he surrounds himself elsewhere?
How can one know true, blissful joy, if he does not accept it?
These treasures are within you, just as I am within you,
And until the two become one, you will not see the true light.”

In anger, my thoughts began to run wild as I found myself
Battling with what I knew of this life, and what my soul knew of its life.
“How do I accept the life I want while leaving the life I’ve created?”

To which my soul replied, “Fear not the loss of this life,
For are you not living in despair because of it?
Free yourself from your thoughts, your fears, your worries.
You are bound by ego, and ego alone. Do you not hear my cries?”

“Indeed, I have heard your cries, for they awoke me from my slumber.
I have seen the path to glory, yet have strayed.
I have seen the roads to confusion and despair, yet have followed.

I have seen many routes and many roads in my time,
And though my heart knew of the one true calling,
I have abandoned the cries of my soul for the cries of this world.
Now, I only hear the cries of my physical self, begging to be rescued.”

“Then rescued you shall be,” my soul comforted me.
“He who finds light in the void shall be humbled, knowing love
For life is love for all, and love for all starts with love for self.”

As despair melted away and the dark clouds of my thoughts dissipated,
A moment of clarity swept my entire being, and I felt alive.
For the purpose of my pain was to prepare me for the pleasures of my life.
I am finally ready to walk in the light of love.

Traveling the Divine Path is Easier in Numbers:

As a result of seeking truth, and being true to myself, I came to notice something I like to call the “Divine Path.”

It is the path I believe that is naturally available to everyone, and it is the path that is in harmony with that of the Supreme.

I began to realize that the easiest way to judge whether or not I was following harmoniously with the natural path of the Divine, was to tune inward. Not only could I feel it within, upon doing so, I could notice it all around me.

Events, in general, began to take on a high level of synchronicity, which was unlike anything I had ever experienced. However, during those early days, I was still seeking the truth, more-or-less on my own.

But, before I knew it, I was no longer by myself on this quest for truth.

People who became my closest friends, to this day, appeared out of nowhere during these years, through the most random connections and ways. I even met my wife this way, which is a story worth a blog post on its own.

The point I am trying to make though is that no man can discover all there is to know by himself.

Now, more than ever, you need to seek like-minded friends. They need you just as badly. Analyze your acquaintances, and ask yourself who amongst them is awakened.

For those that are still asleep, following the path of their fellow sheeple, ask yourself the best way to help nudge them back to their naturally awakened state. But always remember, you cannot force a snake to shed its skin.

Mankind will awaken at the rate at which it awakens.

It is not our place to impose our beliefs on others. Instead, we should simply strive to act in the manners that someone who is awake acts in. By being natural, we will naturally impact those around us.

A Divine Partnership for the Divine Path:

While like-minded friends are very helpful in your path, a like-minded spouse is a necessity.

Speaking from observations of the state of marriage in today’s society, statistically the likelihood of its success is more-or-less equivalent to that of a coin flip.

Fortunately, both my wife and I grew up in homes that continue to share in the beauty and sanctity of true, unconditional, fully committed love. This love has been a part of ours lives since we were born, and it is this love that we continue to share with our children.

When I met my wife, we came up with the perfect term for our friendship. We were, simply put, Adventure Buddies (for life). We came to learn that we were two sides of the same coin. Always complimenting one another, and always keeping each other balanced and grounded.

Our Divine Path has been a magical one, and I know that this is something I would not have been capable of experiencing with just any girl in the crowd.

That is why, in closing this blog post, I recommend you really seek to know yourself before setting out to find anyone else. Trust me, they are probably doing the same self-work, and your paths will probably cross at the most opportune time.

When walking the Divine Path, trust in the Divine Path.

Live Life Loving,

Trip Lively

The 8 Foods That Will Secretly Help You Reduce Weight Naturally

TGE News

03/18/2013

Weight loss has become a hot topic to many people who aspire to lose weight within a short period of time. This is because of the inconvenience and challenges they undergo on daily basis as a result of massive weights they have accumulated over time. Others have gone to an extent of undergoing weight surgeries but the end results are far much worse. However, many obese individuals are not aware of natural remedies of reducing weight such as eating certain foods known to aid the fight against the accumulated fats in the body. The following foods have been found to be helpful and should be given a priority in the daily diet so as to reduce the weight. Notice that the order here is not related in any way to the effectiveness of the food in terms of burning fat or calories

– Fish: Some fish species such as the salmon contains the omega-3 fatty acids. Many researchers have established that omega-3 fatty acids stimulate weight loss efforts by increasing the muscles and muscles activities. With increased muscles and muscles activities, there is reduction of fats accumulation at the abdominal area that would have otherwise caused the increase in weight. Therefore, it is recommended to eat the wild salmon as opposed to the farm-raised salmon because it contains few contaminants.

– Meat: Consumption of meat been subjected to heated debate among many people that it contributes to the increase in weight. Scientists believe that red meat helps in the weight loss program when included in the daily diet. Research studies have found that an individual who eats red meat frequently is likely lose a lot of weight in the long run as opposed to those who don’t. It is also an added advantage because it aids to prevent a significant loss of muscle mass.

– Oats: Consumption of oats aids in the weight reduction efforts because it makes someone feel fuller for long time without craving for more food. This will means also you will consume less food which can be equally translated to burning of more fats especially in the tummy in the long run

– Vinegar: Vinegar works in the same way as the oats by enabling the stomach to slow down the food passage to the small intestines. This is because it contains the acetic acids which slow down the food flow to the small intestines. This will make a person to feel fuller for a long period of time which allows the burning of fats so as to generate more energy as less food is eaten at ago. Therefore, vinegar is effective for those who crave for foods all the time.

– Olive Oil: It is also possible that olive oil works better to reduce weight especially when it is mixed with skim milk and cream on bread or salad dressing. It is suggested that olive oil generates effective results in women who are in the 50s and 60s to boost the metabolic process and ensure the effective burning of the accumulated fats in the long run. It will be found that weight around the tummy will be cut down drastically.

– Fruits & Vegetables: Fruits and vegetables are the healthiest foods that can be eaten and at the same time boost the weight reduction loss efforts. Blueberries for example, are rich in fiber content and antioxidants. Pomegranates on the other hand are low in calories levels. Their consumption on a continued basis ensures that the accumulated fats in the body are exhausted through metabolism process to generate more energy and at the same time getting rid of high cholesterol levels. Therefore, obese patients will find it comfortable with fruits and vegetables in the long run.

– Grean Tea: Green tea is a slimming ingredient with no caffeine properties. It contains antioxidants called the catechins which aid the body metabolism process and fat burning process. Accumulated fats contribute to the massive weights and as such, green tea mixed with oolong tea boosts the metabolism process and as such it will be an added advantage because it also reduces the cholesterol levels. This will in the long run significantly drop the body mass index.

– Hot Red Pepper: Finally, hot red pepper can be consumed as food flavors regularly as one of the concerted efforts to reduce weight. Recent studies in Japan with 13 women who took hot red pepper during the breakfast were found to have significantly reduced a lot of weight in the long run. These women were also found to have reduced their appetite for more food. This is due to the fact that the red hot pepper contains anti-appetite properties, capsaicin, which suppresses appetite. Therefore, red hot pepper should be included in the diet for those who wish to reduce their weights.

About author:

My name is Jeff Riston and I’m an expert fitness/diet writer. I wrote lots of commercial articles and helped lots of people to succeed in this field.”Oh Anyway“… How about if I told you there is actually 1 secret trick here? Are you going to listen to me? Nice!! If you are really commited then you must take a look at The Best Cheat Ever, Now!!

This article is offered under Creative Commons license. It’s okay to republish it anywhere as long as attribution bio is included and all links remain intact.

10 Corporate Media & Government Hoaxes

TGE News

03/18/2013

The revolution against common sense, truth and reality

“You walk into this room at your own risk, because it leads to the future; not a future that will be, but one that might be. This is not a new world: It is simply an extension of what began in the old one. It has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements, technological advances, and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom. But like every one of the super states that preceded it, it has one iron rule: Logic is an enemy, and truth is a menace.”

Rod Serling’s quote from the Obsolete Man, a much loved 1961 episode of The Twilight Zone, has never been so relevant for today’s society, a world in which common sense has been subverted and reality is frowned upon by an establishment that sustains its own power on a steady diet of universal deceit.

Since its introduction in a 1938 play and subsequent film adaptations, the term ‘gaslighting’ has entered into psychological textbooks as a form of psychological abuse whereby the protagonist seeks to make the victim doubt their own sanity by disorienting them and manipulating their sense of reality.

Psychologist Martha Stout documents how sociopaths will successfully put on an act of being charming and convincing while simultaneously waging war against the common sense of their victims through a constant barrage of lies and abuse, all the time claiming their innocence. This is a perfect description of how the mainstream media and the government operates in the United States today – habitually lying without recourse while denouncing anyone who challenges the lie as a “conspiracy theorist”.

A revolution has been launched against rationality and truth. Those who question authority are instantly derided as “conspiracy theorists” simply for coming to logical conclusions based on the evidence in front of them. The term “conspiracy theory” has been harnessed into a pejorative weapon with which to bludgeon free speech, healthy skepticism and independent thinking.

In reality, today’s “conspiracy theorist” is someone who has managed to retain some remnant of control over their own thought process and one who has successfully resisted becoming another victim of ‘gaslighting’ – an individual who knows when they are being lied to.

We live in an era where the ‘big lie’ has come to dominate virtually every sector of modern society – from news to entertainment, to foreign policy and politics, to the economy and healthcare. Only by refusing to accept that logic is an enemy and truth a menace, only by refusing to become victims of ‘gaslighting’ can we truly remain sane, rational, and not allow our understanding of the world to be shaped by those who see us as obsolete.

Here are the top ten media and government hoaxes in recent history – lies and distortions that underscore how we truly are living in an age of universal deceit.

1. Iraq had weapons of mass destruction

The lie that launched a war, following in the footsteps of numerous others throughout history including the Gulf of Tonkin hoax and the USS Maine. Not long after September 11 and for over a year until the invasion, the mainstream media dutifully repeated the hoax that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. One of the main sources used by the British and US governments to make the claim, Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball, later admitted that he lied about the existence of a WMD program in Iraq and then “watched in shock as it was used to justify the war”.

2. Osama Bin Laden was killed in May 2011

With most top analysts firmly of the opinion that Bin Laden died many years ago, a deluge of evidence suggests the May 2011 raid was a manufactured hoax. From the phony situation room photos, to the ludicrous “burial at sea” narrative, to the eyewitness testimony of those who lived in the same village where the raid supposedly took place, the assassination of Osama had all the hallmarks of a Jessica Lynch-style Hollywood hoax.

3. The drone program doesn’t exist

Even after drone strikes were already being conducted and reported on around the world, former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was told by the Obama administration to act as if there was no such thing as an active US drone program – regurgitating the hoax that the entire project was completely non-existent. “When I went through the process of becoming press secretary, one of the first things they told me was, you’re not even to acknowledge the drone program,” Gibbs said on MSNBC’s “Up With Chris Hayes” last month.

4. The Federal Reserve is federal

The Federal Reserve is no more federal than Federal Express. It is a private bank that poses as a government entity. In 2011, when the New York Times attempted to obtain documents about the Fed’s loans to foreign banks under the Freedom of Information Act, the Fed responded by admitting that it was in fact a privately owned bank and not federal at all, therefore not subject to FOIA requests. As the long-time Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee Charles McFadden said on June 10, 1932: “Some people think that the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are private monopolies.” In 1982, the Ninth Circuit Court ruled that, “Examining the organization and function of the Federal Reserve Banks, and applying the relevant factors, we conclude that the Reserve Banks are not federal instrumentalities for purposes of the FTCA, but are independent, privately-owned and locally controlled corporations.”

5. The unemployment rate is 7.7%

The unemployment rate reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and regurgitated by the media is a hoax. As economist John Williams of the Shadow Government Statistics website exhaustively documents, the real unemployment figure is closer to 23 per cent because the government figure does not include citizens who have stopped looking for work over the course of the previous month. “Since 1994, the long-term discouraged workers, those who have been discouraged for more than one year, have been excluded from all government data,” writes Jerome Corsi.

6. Flu vaccines protect you against flu

Despite all its associated health risks, the flu vaccines does not protect you against the flu. The shots have to be renewed every year and even then recent statistics show that the flu vaccine is, “effective in only 56 percent of people who got the shot, and it largely failed to protect the elderly against an especially deadly strain circulating during flu season.”

7. Fluoride is good for you

In addition to the plethora of existing studies which prove sodium fluoride, which is present in around 66 per cent of US water supplies, is a toxic waste that causes debilitating health problems, a recent Harvard University study found that “The children in high fluoride areas had significantly lower IQ than those who lived in low fluoride areas.” Even the CDC, which advocates the fluoridation of water supplies, admits that 2 in 5 American children show signs of fluoride poisoning.

8. The government is not preparing for civil unrest

The establishment media, aided by a raft of leftist websites, is portraying concern over the Department of Homeland Security’s purchase of some 2 billion rounds of ammunition as a conspiracy theory by regurgitating the glib statement of a single DHS official. Erroneously claiming that the mass bullet buys are merely for training purposes or the government saving money by buying in bulk, the hoax conveniently ignores the fact that most of the bullets purchased are hollow point rounds which are both more and expensive and unsuitable for training purposes. The DHS admits that it is preparing for civil unrest by purchasing riot gear and yet the media still portrays the notion that the DHS is preparing for civil unrest as a “conspiracy theory”.

9. Democrats and Republicans represent two opposing parties

The biggest political hoax ever invented – that the Republicans and the Democrats represent opposing forces – still continues to dominate despite the two parties habitually agreeing on every major issue. As Georgetown University Professor Carroll Quigley (Bill Clinton’s mentor), wrote in his book Tragedy and Hope, “The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to the doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can “throw the rascals out” at any election without leading to any profound or extreme shifts in policy. … Either party in office becomes in time corrupt, tired, unenterprising, and vigorless. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party, which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies.”

10. There is a war on drugs

The notion of a war on drugs, one that continues to ensnare thousands of Americans in the prison-industrial system, is a complete hoax. As Pulitzer Prize winning author Gary Webb exposed before his “suicide,” the Central Intelligence Agency and the Drug Enforcement Agency control and operate the global drugs trade. US soldiers are now guarding the opium fields in Afghanistan as record amounts of heroin leave the country destined for US and European markets. The man who played a crucial role in reinstating Afghanistan’s opium market, Ahmed Wali Karzai, was on the payroll of the CIA for at least eight years. Mexican drug traffickers routinely admit that they work for the CIA and that the agency controls the drugs trade while simultaneously hoaxing the public with claims about a “war on drugs”.

If gun control passes, there will come ‘free speech control’ and the government banning of websites, books and art

TGE News

03/18/2013

Mike Adams | Natural News

The purpose of the Bill of Rights is to establish a line in the sand that cannot be crossed by government. The founders rightly saw government as an eternal threat against freedom and justice, knowing that all governments inevitably grow out of control like a cancer tumor, always seeking more and more power until they kill the host. The answer to this destructive pattern of dangerous government throughout human history was to place limits on government power and stake out fundamental rights and freedoms that can never be infringed.

That’s the Bill of Rights, the original ten amendments to the Constitution. The Bill of Rights says the government can never ban your free speech, take away your firearms, search your house or your person without a warrant, quarter soldiers in your home without permission, force you to testify against yourself, throw you in prison without a fair trial and so on. Nearly every scholar, when it comes down to it, agrees these are fundamental human rights and civil liberties.

Today’s federal government believes the Bill of Rights is optional

But today’s government, under both the Bush and Obama administrations, believes it has the power and the right to violate the Bill of Rights when it wants to. Sen. Feinstein, President Obama and Vice President Biden specifically believe the Bill of Rights is only a suggestion, not the law of the land, and so they can selectively ignore it when they want to.

The problem with this philosophy is that if the Second Amendment can be selectively ignored, then so can the First Amendment. Anyone who supports government gun control restrictions — all of which are illegal under the Constitution — must also support the power of the government to ban selected books and websites which do not agree with the White House view of the world. If Obama can have a “kill list” of Americans to assassinate, which he does, then he must also have the power of a “web site kill list” of which websites to seize or take offline.

Guns first, then books and websites

This is not an article about the merits of private firearms ownership, by the way; it’s an article about what happens next, if the guns are taken away. If we lose our Second Amendment rights, it’s only a matter of time before Obama says something like, “Websites that criticize the government are dangerous and we are going to seize them and shut them down.”

What’s to stop them from doing so? Nothing! The U.S. government has already seized and shut down thousands of websites it claims are involved in “piracy,” shutting them down with no due process, no trial, no jury and not even a search warrant. The government simply invokes some power it has never been granted, then uses that false power to seize entire servers full of websites. This action is blatantly illegal, unconstitutional and tyrannical.

Those who argue in favor of gun control are, in essence, arguing that government has no limits, meaning that government can decide when and where the Bill of Rights applies.

This question was brilliantly asked by U.S. Senator Ted Cruz — a rising star of liberty in the Congress — who leveled the question at Sen. Feinstein, a wicked dictatorial creature of darkness who literally worships enslavement and tyranny. Sen. Cruz asked Feinstein whether she believed the government had the power to selectively ban books it didn’t like, to which Feinstein arrogantly answered that she didn’t “need to be lectured” like a schoolgirl.

And yet apparently she does, because she fails to understand the entire meaning of the Bill of Rights. She does not understand the words, “shall not be infringed,” even though they are written in plain English. Like all other tyrants, Feinstein accepts no limits to her government power, and she plans to expand that power by force, if necessary, to dominate and enslave the people she claims to serve.

Here’s a video of that exchange:

Feinstein = Kim Jong-Un = Mao = Stalin = Hitler

Feinstein is the perfect example of where all government eventually leads: the usurpation of power and the trampling on the rights and liberties of the people. If you extrapolate Feinstein out for a few more decades, you get Kim Jong-Un, the sociopathic cult leader of the nation of North Korea, where government is literally worshipped as God and there are absolutely no individual rights or freedoms remaining. Sen. Feinstein would fit right in with Kim Jong-Un’s administration because she shares the same philosophy of the government holding all power while the people hold none.

This is yet another reason why holding our ground on the Second Amendment is so important. Obama has already taken away our Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights with his blatantly illegal NDAA. Bush also stole rights away from the people with his Patriot Act. Together, Bush and Obama are the two most dangerous presidents in the history of America due to the way they have claimed federal powers that do not exist while systematically crushing the Bill of Rights.

If we allow the federal government to place aggressive new restrictions on our right to keep and bear arms, then we condone the government’s “right” to place restrictions on what books we can read, what websites we can publish and whether we can protest peacefully on a street corner. A government that has no limits respects no freedoms, you see. And if the government can first disarm the population, then what’s to stop it from shutting down all websites and alternative media outlets that are critical of government, too?

See, those who believe in gun control also believe, by definition, that private ownership gun rights are “granted” by the government. Therefore, the government can revoke what it previously granted. They do not understand what the Constitution says, which is that all rights are inherently found in the People, and the People selectively grant certain limited powers to the government for the purpose of administering things like the postal service and national defense against foreign enemies. The government does not have unlimited powers, nor does it have the right to take away powers that the People are born with. Any person who believes government has all the power and the People have none is possessed with a radically distorted misunderstanding of history and law. Such ideas as extremely dangerous to liberty, and yet they have infected the minds of a great many voters and lawmakers.

Gun control is illegal

Speaking of law, thanks to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, gun control is illegal in America. It violates the Bill of Rights and violates the very foundation of America, which is that the People grant certain specific, limited powers to government, and that all government power comes from the People and can be revoked by the People.

Accordingly, any lawmaker engaged in the act of introducing gun control bills or voting for gun control is engaged in a criminal act that violates the highest laws of the land. As such, they should be arrested and prosecuted for acts of sedition — for attempting to “overthrow the People,” as it were. Hilariously, the federal government says anyone who is critical of the government “might be a terrorist,” but in truth, it’s agents of the government who are violating the People who are, by any honest historical accounting, the true danger to a free society.

To be clear, yes, Sen. Dianne Feinsten and every U.S. Senator or member of the House who votes for gun control restrictions that take away the rights of the People is, by definition, a criminal. Under U.S. law, they must be arrested and tried in a court of their peers. If found guilty of attempting to undermine the U.S. Constitution and the rights of the People, they must serve time in prison. Interestingly, the Sheriff of the county in which Dianne Feinstein lives has the power and authority to arrest her right now.

The fact that not one of these criminals has yet been arrested is proof that the criminals run the government. They have now become the enemy of the People, the enemy of the Founding Fathers, and the enemy of America.

This is an important principle to grasp, because every police officer, soldier and even U.S. Senator takes an oath of office in which they swear to “protect America from enemies foreign and domestic.” That language is written into the oaths precisely because it is well known that a nation’s most dangerous enemies may rise from within.

Is there any better example of an “enemy from within” than Sen. Feinstein? Or Joe Biden? Or Barack Obama? These are “enemies from within” in the sense that they systematically attempting to dismantle the very freedoms upon which this nation was founded. Obama has already stripped away your right to a trial by jury, and he now claims the right to selectively assassinate any American, at any time, even on U.S. soil.

If you are disarmed, how will you defend yourself against a government taking away your First Amendment rights?

If the people allow tyrants like Feinstein, Obama and Biden to take away their Second Amendment rights, then it is only a matter of time before they will also lose their First Amendment rights. If they have long since given up their guns, they will have no way to fight back against the march of tyranny. If you don’t stand up for private gun ownership now, then you have no defenses when the government embarks on a runaway criminal takeover the country — a process that is already under way with the DHS purchasing 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition, 7,000+ full-auto assault rifles, and 2,700+ armored assault vehicles, all for use on the streets of America, not in some foreign theater of war.

Those who support Feinstein’s gun restrictions are mistakenly assuming that government will not get any worse than it is right now… that government can be trusted to act with integrity and with the best interests of the people in mind. But once you take away a right from the people, it is never returned to them. Government inevitably grows more dominant, more oppressive, more expensive (taxation) and dangerous. As it does so, it attracts increasingly insane leaders who revel in the raw power they command. And sooner or later, perhaps in just a few administrations, it becomes a genocidal regime that sees itself as God.

So allowing the government to take away the guns irreversibly sets our nation on a course leading to the rise of new American Hitler, or an American Kim Jong-Un, or an American Mao. This outcome is inevitable unless you keep government in its box and learn to say NO to endless government expansion.

The power of NO!

The word most desperately needed in America today is “NO!”

NO! You cannot take my rifle.

NO! You cannot force me to buy health insurance I don’t want.

NO! You cannot limit my right to peacefully protest on a sidewalk near the President.

NO! You cannot arrest our farmers for selling raw milk.

NO! You cannot use your dirty TSA gloves to stick your fingers in my anus at the airport, you f*#king pervert!

NO! NO! NO!

I find it astonishing that so few Americans are willing to utter the word, “NO!” Yet this is the most powerful word in any free nation. Government must learn its limits, and those limits are ultimately enforced by the People. Sen. Rand Paul’s recent filibuster over the President’s claimed power to assassinate Americans on U.S. soil with drone strikes is an excellent example of saying “NO!”

Any population that fails to use the word “NO!” is, by default, telling the government, “YES, you may do anything you want!”

All governments will repeatedly and forcefully try to expand their power just like a cancer tumor. They will endlessly test the limits of their power, if any, and try to fabricate new powers that do not exist (like the power to force you to buy health insurance from a corrupt, failed medical system). If you allow government to assume those new powers, then you effectively consent to that particular expansion of power. In doing so, you give up that power yourself.

The only safe government is small government. The only lawful government is a humble government that respects limits of power and understands it serves the people. Today’s federal government is none of these things: It is arrogant, spiteful, violent and dangerous. And like all government, it seeks the endless expansion of power until it controls everything: the entire economy, the entire medical system, all websites, all media, all institutions of learning and all powers that once belonged to the People. As Lew Rockwell correctly explains, no government is satisfied with its current level of power… it always seeks MORE power, meaning it incessantly seeks to take that power from the people.

Like fire, government is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. That’s a quote from George Washington, the single most important figure in America history. The full quote goes like this:

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

He goes on to say, about firearms:

The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference – they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good.

and:

Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples’ liberty’s teeth.

Washington would have had Feinstein arrested and charged with treason

Washington, who commanded militia forces and fought for liberty against an oppressive, tyrannical government, would be appalled at people like Sen. Feinstein. He would have seen her as a dangerous enemy of America, and would have sought her arrest and imprisonment. That Sen. Feinstein calls herself a “United States Senator” who swore an oath to protect the very nation she now attempts to stab in the heart with the dagger of government usurpation is the ultimate insult to a free people.

She is only one of many betrayers — high-level criminals — who represent the same kind of rise of despotic government power that history has shown time and time again to end in genocidal murder and collapse. If America is to save herself from destruction at the hands of people like Feinstein, the People must arrest and prosecute those who behave like Feinstein. To sit in the office of the U.S. Senate and literally conspire to destroy the rights and freedoms of the American people is to function as a criminal enemy from within. It is a violation of law and of the very principles of a free people. It is the ultimately betrayal of not just the people living today, but of the entire history of America and the graves of all those who fought for freedom and justice from the Revolutionary War onward.

Government does not make you safe; it makes you enslaved

We are living in a time of great betrayal, but that betrayal is presented to us as a way to “make us safer.” This is always the Devil’s offer: Give up your soul, and we’ll take care of you. But it is an offer that’s fraught with treachery and deception. In saying it will make us “safe,” the government will only make us enslaved and defenseless. And it is from this position that the government will then seize upon its monopoly of firepower to claim ALL power over ALL things: books, websites, speech, religion, privacy, health care, biological reproduction, lifespan and more.

Because, by definition a government that respects no limits on its power could decide that the best way to reduce government expenditures and balance the budget is to require all people turn themselves in to be euthanized when they reach the age of 65. That way, all Medicare and social security payments stop, saving the government over a trillion dollars a year. You may think this example sounds ridiculous, but to many Americans, the idea of government taking away their rifles is equally ridiculous. If government has no limits, then what’s to stop them from conducting mass-euthanasia campaigns to balance the budget?

Do you see where this can lead? Gun control is the gateway to a hellish future, and any nation foolish enough to walk through that gateway can fully expect to sooner or later be enslaved by a demonic elite class of control freaks whose very philosophies are anti-human.

Source: Natural News

Aborted Human Fetal Cells for Stimulating Artificial Flavors

TGE News

03/18/2013

Biotech companies have been using aborted human fetal cells for testing the effectiveness of different flavoring agent in their products. Last year the news came out that a biotech company in CA called Senomyx has been using aborted human fetal cells in foods and beverages.

A pro-life watchdog group called Children of God for Life (CGL) has been calling the marketing scheme of the biotech companies deceptive and use of aborted human fetal cells unethical and immoral. Debi Vinnedge, the director of CGL in an interview mentions that why the biotech doesn’t come out clean and tell the public that they are using human embryonic kidney cells (HEK-293) taken from aborted babies to produce human taste receptors?

The HEK 293 is the code for aborted human kidney cells that are used to generate taste receptors that can stimulate a type of protein known as G protein familiar to human’s taste.

Beside Synomyx, PepsiCo also continues to use aborted human fetal cells in their drinks. Last year the shareholders of PepsiCo signed a petition that required the company to adopt ethical ways to enhance the natural flavoring of their drinks and stop using human aborted fetuses. However, the Obama administration shut down the proposal and gave their blessing to PepsiCo to continue the use of aborted babies as flavor enhancer in their drinks which means business as usual.

In an interview Debi Vinnedge, the director of CGL also mentions how the biotech has taken the whole thing into a new level by even exploiting the aborted fetuses for profit.

Based on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) the dead human tissues are also found in flu vaccines beside other substances like aluminum, formaldehyde, monosodium glutamate (MSG), mercury and antibiotics.

According to Right Life of Michigan, at least eleven most common vaccines in the US have aborted human fetal cells and currently there are no requirements for labeling dead human tissue in vaccines and foods.

Vaccines, Abortion & Fetal Tissue

At the same time despite the attempts by the mainstream media and the big pharma to hide the truth, many independent researchers and concerned scientific community like Dr. Andrew Wakefield, have been talking about the correlation between vaccines and autism in children. As clear as it sounds, there have been no scientific studies that show correlation between autism and vaccines.

Autism’s future: Experts say it’s genetics

Pro-life groups call for Pepsi boycott over aborted fetal cell lines

The aborted human fetuses are also used in some makeup and cosmetics including creams and lotions.

Products of companies like PepsiCo, Nestles, Kraft, Cadbury Adams LLC Candies, Senomyx, Neocutis cosmetics and even some vaccines and medications like Pulmozyme and Enbrel have aborted human fetuses in them.

There is no end to this rat race of corporate greed and prioritizing profit even at the expense of destroying the young fresh minds of the future generation by any means even if it’s aborted human fetuses.

(Seattle Organic Restaurants)

Panic Grips Europe as Cyprus, EU, and IMF Confiscate Savings

TGE News

03/18/2013

Panic-stricken bank depositors in Cyprus emptied ATM machines across the nation after the surprise announcement Saturday that, as part of an extremely controversial European Union and International Monetary Fund bailout deal, authorities would seize up to 15 percent of all savings deposited in Cypriot banks. Markets across Europe plunged as fears of contagion or even a large-scale bank run in the region plagued investors, with the single euro currency falling to multi-month lows and gold rising back above $1,600 following news of the $13 billion scheme.

Critics ranging from banks and market analysts to politicians and even establishment media outlets lambasted the EU and IMF plan, saying it creates uncertainty and amounts to brazen wealth confiscation. Citizens and foreigners with money deposited in Cyprus, meanwhile, expressed outrage over the controversial scheme as well, demanding that it be halted immediately. Aside from Cypriots, Russians and Britons are expected to be among the hardest hit.

Despite imposing a $500 limit on withdrawals and a ban on online transfers, most ATM machines in Cyprus were completely drained of funds over the weekend as nervous depositors lined up to save what they could before the confiscation begins. March 18 is a national holiday, meaning financial institutions are closed. However, banks in Cyprus may also face an extended so-called “banking holiday” as national politicians iron out the details of the supposed one-time “stability” tax with EU and IMF policymakers.

The original EU-IMF plan would see accounts with less than $130,000 taxed at almost seven percent, while those above that threshold would have 10 percent confiscated by authorities. Anyone with more than 500,000 euros could lose 15 percent. However, some reports indicate that the initial EU-IMF plan called for seizing up to 40 percent of all savings.

The Parliament of Cyprus delayed a Saturday vote on the plan until March 18, reportedly because supporters of the scheme had not yet lined up enough votes to ram the wealth confiscation through. The vote is currently set for Tuesday. Recent news reports, however, say that vote could now be delayed until as late as Friday, and that changes in the exact confiscation figures could be forthcoming.

Some political leaders are scrambling to restructure the controversial plan, hoping to protect at least very small depositors from the savings grab, perhaps making up for it with a higher “tax” on wealthier individuals and larger accounts. Russian authorities — whose citizens have a significant amount of money deposited in Cypriot banks — are reportedly working to come up with an alternative bailout scheme.

Across the EU, however, the brazen confiscation of hard-earned savings was met with a mixture of seething anger and outright terror — fury over the confiscation of wealth that has already been taxed, and fear that similar plots could be hatched in countries such as Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, or even in Northern Europe. Top officials have declined to say whether the “tax” on deposits could be forced on other nations, too.

On Saturday, euro-area ministers group President Jeroen Dijsselbloem, for example, refused to rule out similar “taxes” — critics are calling it outright theft — in other nations with governments drowning in debt. He did say, however, that such “taxation” schemes were not currently being considered beyond Cyprus, at least not yet.

Still, analysts say once the metaphorical genie has been let out of the bottle, there may be no way to put it back. In other words, bank deposits are no longer safe anywhere — but especially not in the EU and within its more troubled member nations. Remaining trust in the entire system, meanwhile, which was already at a historic low, has all but evaporated, according to experts.

“I believe it could be the beginning of the end for the Eurozone as this is an unbelievable blow to the already challenged trust that might be left among investors,” explained Saxo Bank CEO Lars Seier Christensen on his blog, suggesting the EU may no longer be considered civilized or democratic following the move. “This is a breach of fundamental property rights, dictated to a small country by foreign powers and it must make every bank depositor in Europe shiver.”

Blasting the measure as “full-blown socialism,” Christensen noted that if the EU can do this once, it could most certainly be done again — and the implications are terrifying for anyone with savings. “If you can confiscate 10 percent of a bank customer’s money, you can confiscate 25, 50 or even 100 percent,” he continued, calling the plan a game changer with fallout that will be around for a long time to come — an “own goal” scored by the EU against its own dubious system. “I now believe we will see worse as the panic increases, with politicians desperately trying to keep the EUR alive.”

Even major establishment banks were skeptical of the move. JPMorgan economist Alex White, for example, wondered in a note to clients whether Europe had just “bazookaed itself in the foot.” The short answer: yes. “It is difficult to over-state the extent of popular anger in Cyprus over the bailout deal which was pulled together on Friday evening,” White explained, citing myriad and significant near-term risks after what he called the “flawed” Cypriot deal.

Among the most significant potential effects of the measure could be a run on Cypriot banks, though the EU has apparently promised to shore up the banking sector in Cyprus to prevent that if possible in exchange for approving the confiscation plan. Even more serious, however, is that the panic could spread to other countries in the region as terrified depositors flock to get their savings out of banks from Greece to Portugal before the EU and the IMF move in to seize more wealth.

If that were to happen, the financial sector could implode altogether — regardless of how much currency the increasingly discredited European Central Bank (ECB) conjures into existence, according to some analysts. More than a few economists even warned that the confiscation plan in Cyprus — demanded by the EU, the IMF and especially authorities in Germany — could fatally undermine confidence in the entire banking system, sparking possible bank runs all across the euro-zone.

In Cyprus, citizens reacted with disbelief as protesters gathered in front of the presidential palace while outraged victims of the scheme sought to smash their way into shuttered banks. “They shouldn’t touch the deposits. They’re just killing the people,” an unemployed construction worker named Miltiades Papamiltiades, 58, told the English-language Cyprus Mail. “No-one will ever deposit money again into the banks on the island. It is the end of our economy.”

Countless citizens echoed those remarks in interviews with reporters. Some analysts even suggested the confiscation could run afoul of European human rights treaties. Politicians however — apparently surprised at the boiling rage — are fiendishly working to rework the deal in a way that would decrease the pain felt by small depositors while increasing the amount to be confiscated out of larger bank accounts.

Analysts say a vote on the deal in the Cypriot Parliament may be delayed until later this week — as long as it takes to ensure majority support among lawmakers for the confiscation plan. In the meantime, panic will continue to spread throughout Europe and global markets as citizens in other countries wonder whose wealth will be seized next. Talk of seizing 15 percent of Italians’ savings is already in the press. Even outside of Europe, fear is spreading.

By Monday morning, stocks across Europe and even Asia had taken a severe beating, with experts predicting further downward pressure in the wake of the unprecedented confiscation scheme. Gold and non-EU countries such as Switzerland, meanwhile, are expected to continue benefiting in the interim as investors flock to perceived safety.

Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American, is currently based in Europe. He can be reached at anewman@thenewamerican.com.

Source: The New American

Flow – For Love of Water (Full Documentary)

TGE Media

03/18/2013

Irena Salina’s award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century – The World Water Crisis.

Salina builds a case against the growing privatization of the world’s dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel.

Interviews with scientists and activists intelligently reveal the rapidly building crisis, at both the global and human scale, and the film introduces many of the governmental and corporate culprits behind the water grab, while begging the question “CAN ANYONE REALLY OWN WATER?”

Beyond identifying the problem, FLOW also gives viewers a look at the people and institutions providing practical solutions to the water crisis and those developing new technologies, which are fast becoming blueprints for a successful global and economic turnaround.

Scientology, the CIA, and MIVILUDES: Cults of Abuse

TGE Media

03/18/2013

The following documentary provides compelling evidence of deep and disturbing connections between intelligence agencies, abusive cults, and the failure of government anti-cult organizations like MIVILUDES to investigate the widespread reports of ritual child abuse around the world.

Just as the ‘war on terrorism’ – conducted by the biggest perpetrators of terrorism – has been used to justify the removal of our civil liberties, governments around the world are clamping down on alternative lifestyle choices – irrespective of whether or not they are actually beneficial choices – under the guise of protecting people from ‘cultic deviances’. Meanwhile they have consistently covered up, whether at local or national levels, the most horrific sex crimes, including what can only be described as satanic ritual abuse and truly cultic deviance, committed against children as young as new-born infants by what are clearly organised, powerful and ruthless individuals.

NOTE: This video contains information that many viewers will find extremely disturbing, involving the ritual abuse of children.

Below are links to much of the source material used in this documentary to help you in your own search for the truth.

Ritual Child Abuse in France
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUzQ7a…

Jersey: Island of Secrets
http://video.google.com/videoplay?doc…

Marc Dutroux: Monster of Belgium
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6g5EN…

Les faits Karl Zéro: Zandvoort Child Abuse case
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB18pl…

Conspiracy of Silence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weSzkI…

The Secrets of Scientology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WXzSB…

Is Scientology Above the Law?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-JK3r…

Scientology: Inside the Cult
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD9bCd…

Ex Scientologists speaking out
http://www.youtube.com/user/ScilonTV
http://www.youtube.com/user/AboutScie…

The Truth May Scare You

TGE Media

03/17/2013

This is a Non-profit educational video with the purpose of promoting social, political and economic awareness.

Follow the Money: Transocean and the Gulf Oil Spill

TGE News

03/17/2013

Dave Hodges | The Common Sense Show

“It was a cold, bright day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

George Orwell – “1984,” first sentence.

The previous four parts of this series has demonstrated that the ecology of the Gulf is destroyed. The health and future health of untold numbers of the residents in the Gulf of Mexico is destroyed. The food chain in the Gulf is severely impaired and even crops, as far away as several hundred miles are having poisonous Corexit falling back to earth in the form of toxic rain.

This article will demonstrate that four predatory criminal enterprise corporations consisting of what I have dubbed, The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse (i.e., Transocean, British Petroleum, Halliburton and Goldman Sachs), had demonstrable foreknowledge of the impending explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. Rather than alerting the authorities, the public and the employees stationed on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig of the impending disaster, instead chose to remain silent and to position themselves to profit from this event which resulted in 11 completely avoidable fatalities as well as resulting in the ecological destruction of an entire region with an ongoing and an ever-expanding perimeter of devastation.

Follow the Money

“Follow the money” is a familiar refrain when one is trying to ascertain the motives which underlie predatory criminal actions. Greed was certainly a motivating factor for the collective criminal actions of “The Four Horseman”. However, this incident is not just a case of unrestrained greed as the readers of this series will soon learn. The next several parts of this series will clearly reveal that the ultimate prize of the Gulf oil spill incident consists of acquiring unprecedented and unwarranted levels of power which will culminate in the establishment of a one world currency (i.e., technocracy), the ongoing forfeiture of private land in favor of the biofuel industry which will then be followed by the imposition of a scientific dictatorship which will ruthlessly rule over the planet and the remaining inhabitants. We begin at the bottom of the conspiratorial hierarchy by analyzing the role that Transocean played in this tragedy.

Transocean

On the food chain of Gulf Coast co-conspirators, the evidence demonstrates that Transocean merely played the role of a bottom feeder. Yet, this criminally orientated transnational corporation willingly served as the perfect stooge from which to do the bidding of the global elite (e.g., Goldman Sachs).

Contrary to popular belief, BP did not own the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon oil rig. The owner of the rig was Transocean. To fully understand Transocean’s role, one merely has to examine both the past and the present criminal character of this corporation.

Transocean is indeed a proven criminal enterprise corporation with a long history of significant legal entanglements involving many national governments. Transocean’s legal transgressions include, but are not limited to, the bribery of foreign governmental officials, tax fraud, tax evasion and falsifying records.

It is important to note that Transocean began an intimate relationship with fellow Gulf co-conspirator and orchestrator of this tragedy, Goldman Sachs, in 2007 as Transocean was merged into its current corporate state by the Wall Street giant. It does not take a great deal of imagination to understand why Goldman Sachs took an interest in creating the new look Transocean when one considers the “Stooge” role Transocean would soon play in the Gulf event, three short years later.

Examples of Transocean’s Present Legal Entanglements

Most recently, Transocean has been prosecuted by the governments of Norway and the United States. Transocean is being prosecuted by the Norwegian government for fraud and failing to pay taxes on over 10 billion dollars of profit.

In the case of The United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division, of the United States of America v. Transocean, the American government is prosecuting Transocean on four counts:

COUNT 1 – Conspiracy to Violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (18 U.S.c. § 371

COUNT 2 – Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Violation – Nigeria (15 U.S.C. § 78dd-l(a)).

COUNT 3 – False Books and Records – Nigeria (15 U.S.C. §§ 78rn(b)(2)(A), 78m(b)(5), 78ff(a)).

COUNT 4 – False Books and Records – Nigeria (15 U.S.C. §§ 78m(b)(2)(A), 78m(b)(5), 78ff(a)).

Given Transocean’s propensity for criminal activity, it is easy to ascertain why Goldman Sachs targeted Transocean, for, yet another, criminal enterprise activity involving the Gulf, as this Cayman Island Corporation has repeatedly proven to be undeniably corruptible and would earn their New World Order stripes by becoming a prime candidate in the furtherance of this far reaching conspiracy.

Transocean’s Corruption in the Gulf: Hiding in Plain Sight

What really happened on that fateful night of April 20^th, 2010? We will never know the full truth thanks to a series of amazing “coincidences” and some woefully incomplete investigations by the United States Congress.

Thanks to the expertise of Maritime expert, Captain Kelley Sweeney, it has been determined that Transocean willfully destroyed evidence in an attempt to cover up their crime which resulted in the destruction of the oil rig when Sweeney announced on The Common Sense Show with Dave Hodges, that six hours of tapes from the bridge, which preceded the explosion and destruction of the Deepwater Horizon, mysteriously disappeared. Further, Captain Sweeney told listeners that the black box, required to be operational on every large oil rig, was never recovered following the explosion. When Sweeney was asked how often a black box is not recovered from such an oil rig explosion, he replied, “This is the first time in maritime history that a black box from a destroyed oil rig was not recovered.”

How Many Coincidences Equals a Conspiracy?

If I took out a million dollar life insurance policy and then my wife got pushed off a cliff a week later, does anyone believe that the authorities would put me under investigation? This is the metaphorical equivalent to what Transocean did hours before the Gulf oil spill.

Transocean insured the Deepwater Horizon oil rig with Lloyds of London shortly before the “accident.” Transocean did not just insure their oil rig, they double insured the rig and Transocean unashamedly walked away with a $270 million dollar profit immediately following the explosion.

Shouldn’t the “coincidence” of having a grossly over-inflated insurance policy on the rig acquired in proximity to the explosion have raised the eyebrows of congressional investigators? Well, it did raise the level of concern for many in the legislative branch of the government. In fact, eighteen Democratic senators asked the Justice Department to investigate the operator of the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig after Transocean announced it would pay out $1 billion to shareholders as the leaking oil continued to pour into the Gulf.

The House of Representatives voted 420 to 1 to give the Presidential Commission charged with the duty of investigating the BP oil spill, the power it needed to subpoena witnesses. However, “The Four Horseman” could never allow a real investigation to take place because the damning evidence has always been hiding in plain sight. Bowing to the pressure from these co-conspirators, the Senate promptly blocked any meaningful investigation when the subpoena power, needed by the Commission to properly investigate this conspiracy, was unilaterally denied. A picture is worth a thousand words as you will not doubt agree about the existence of a conspiracy as you watch this clip from the halls of Congress.

The Senate further blocked giving the Presidential Commission the power it needed to compel the oil rig captain to account for the six hours of missing tapes and what efforts were made to recover the rig’s black box. Does anyone else feel like they are reading a replay of the 911 Commission’s investigation into the same black box topic?

If the Commission was armed with subpoena power, Transocean would have had to defend the timing and the excessive amount of insurance coverage taken out on the rig. If the Commission had subpoena power, they could have compelled the testimony of key people like BP’s Bob Kaluza who was assigned to the Transocean-owned oil rig just days before the explosion and then refused to participate in Congressional hearings by invoking his Fifth Amendment Rights.

Another curious event occurred when Goldman Sachs shorted Transocean stock immediately before the explosions sank the rig. This meant that preferred Transocean insiders had their stock values insured against the impending collapse of their stock’s value. I wonder what Americans would say if it was common knowledge that Goldman Sachs also shorted airline stocks prior to 911 then did the same thing again just prior to the collapse of the housing bubble for which they were fined a mere $450,000 by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Yet, there does seem to be honor among thieves as Goldman Sachs did take definitive steps to protect the value of Transocean’s stock hours before the explosion.

Justice Denied

Most of the American public presently views the Gulf “oil spill” as some remote historical event in which the federal government has fully mediated the crisis. Meanwhile, back in the real world, Gulf residents are dying from the continued spraying of Corexit, the food chain has been irreparably damaged and let us not forget the 11 men who perished. Yet, nobody has been brought to justice. Meanwhile, Transocean, with a criminal history longer than my proverbial arm, literally and figuratively has gotten away with and profited from murder.

The police frequently break up illegal drug enterprises by catching the lower level operatives and making deals related to reducing sentencing in exchange for giving up more prominent suspects which are higher up on the criminal pecking order. In this conspiracy, Transocean is that lower level operative. If the government was truly interested in the truth and rewarding the Gulf residents with justice, Transocean would be turned upside down for when a known felon is caught with blood on their hands, the authorities would most assuredly investigate the bloody felon! Why should Transocean be any different than any other common criminal? Why, then is the government hell-bent on letting this crime against humanity go unpunished?

Every American needs to ask themselves, what kind of investigation can be conducted by a governmental organization when the principal investigating body cannot subpoena key, and sometimes, unwilling witnesses? In short, the American people, particularly Gulf Coast residents, have not had the satisfaction of having had a legitimate investigation conducted with regard to this crisis. Parts one through four of this series has clearly documented that the government and “The Four Horseman” have repeatedly lied about the ecological damage done to the Gulf, lied about the damage done to the people and their health, lied about the damage done economic health of the Gulf, and continue to lie about the failure to properly compensate the victims in the Gulf while the continuing and unfolding holocaust which is still growing in scope.

Part Six takes the investigation to another level as the shocking complicity of Goldman Sachs, BP and Halliburton and their minions will be exposed.

Source: The Common Sense Show

10 reasons why we don’t need GM foods

TGE News

03/17/2013

Genetically modified (GM) foods are often promoted as a way to feed the world. But this is little short of a confidence trick. Far from needing more GM foods, there are urgent reasons why we need to ban them altogether.

1. GM foods won’t solve the food crisis

A 2008 World Bank report concluded that increased biofuel production is the major cause of the increase in food prices.[1] Biofuels are crops grown for fuel rather than food. GM giant Monsanto has been at the heart of the lobbying for biofuels – while profiting enormously from the resulting food crisis and using it as a PR opportunity to promote GM foods!

“The climate crisis was used to boost biofuels, helping to create the food crisis; and now the food crisis is being used to revive the fortunes of the GM industry.” – Daniel Howden, Africa correspondent, The Independent (UK)[2]

“The cynic in me thinks that they’re just using the current food crisis and the fuel crisis as a springboard to push GM crops back on to the public agenda. I understand why they’re doing it, but the danger is that if they’re making these claims about GM crops solving the problem of drought or feeding the world, that’s bullshit.” – Prof Denis Murphy, head of biotechnology, University of Glamorgan, Wales[3]

2. GM crops do not increase yield potential

A report that analyzed nearly two decades worth of peer reviewed research on the yield of the primary GM food/feed crops, soybeans and corn (maize), reveals that despite 20 years of research and 13 years of commercialization, genetic engineering has failed to significantly increase US crop yields. The author, former US EPA and US FDA biotech specialist Dr Gurian-Sherman, concludes that when it comes to yield, “Traditional breeding outperforms genetic engineering hands down.”[6]

“Let’s be clear. As of this year [2008], there are no commercialized GM crops that inherently increase yield. Similarly, there are no GM crops on the market that were engineered to resist drought, reduce fertilizer pollution or save soil. Not one.” – Dr Doug Gurian-Sherman[7]

3. GM crops increase pesticide use

US government data shows that in the US, GM crops have produced an overall increase, not decrease, in pesticide use compared to conventional crops.[8]

“The promise was that you could use less chemicals and produce a greater yield. But let me tell you none of this is true.” – Bill Christison, President of the US National Family Farm Coalition[9]

4. There are better ways to feed the world

A major UN/World Bank-sponsored report compiled by 400 scientists and endorsed by 58 countries concluded that GM crops have little to offer global agriculture and the challenges of poverty, hunger, and climate change, because better alternatives are available. In particular, the report championed “agroecological” farming as the sustainable way forward for developing countries.[10]

5. Other farm technologies are more successful

Integrated Pest Management and other innovative low-input or organic methods of controlling pests and boosting yields have proven highly effective, particularly in the developing world.[11] Other plant breeding technologies, such as Marker Assisted Selection (non-GM genetic mapping), are widely expected to boost global agricultural productivity more effectively and safely than GM.[12] [13]

“The quiet revolution is happening in gene mapping, helping us understand crops better. That is up and running and could have a far greater impact on agriculture [than GM].” – Prof John Snape, head of the department of crop genetics, John Innes Centre[14]

6. GM foods have not been shown to be safe to eat

Genetic modification is a crude and imprecise way of incorporating foreign genetic material (e.g. from viruses, bacteria) into crops, with unpredictable consequences. The resulting GM foods have undergone little rigorous and no long-term safety testing. However, animal feeding tests have shown that GM foods have toxic effects, including abnormal changes in organs, immune system disturbances, accelerated ageing, and changes in gene expression.[15] Very few studies have been published on the direct effects on humans of eating a GM food. One such study found unexpected effects on gut bacteria, but was never followed up.[16]

It is claimed that Americans have eaten GM foods for years with no ill effects. But these foods are unlabeled in the US and no one has monitored the consequences. With other novel foods like trans fats, it has taken decades to realize that they have caused millions of premature deaths.[17]

“We are confronted with the most powerful technology the world has ever known, and it is being rapidly deployed with almost no thought whatsoever to its consequences.” – Dr Suzanne Wuerthele, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) toxicologist

7. People don’t want GM foods – so they’re hidden in animal feed

As a spokesperson for Asgrow, a subsidiary of Monsanto, said, “If you put a label on genetically engineered food, you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it.”[18] The GM industry has got around the problem of consumer rejection of GM foods by hiding them in animal feed. Meat, eggs and dairy products from animals raised on the millions of tons of GM feed imported into Europe do not have to be labelled. Some studies show that contrary to GM and food industry claims, animals raised on GM feed ARE different from those raised on non-GM feed.[19] Other studies show that if GM crops are fed to animals, GM material can appear in the resulting products[20] and affect the animals’ health.[21] So eating these “stealth GMOs” may affect the health of consumers.

8. GM crops are a long-term economic disaster for farmers

A 2009 report showed that GM seed prices in America have increased dramatically, compared to non-GM and organic seeds, cutting average farm incomes for US farmers growing GM crops. The report concluded, “At the present time there is a massive disconnect between the sometimes lofty rhetoric from those championing biotechnology as the proven path toward global food security and what is actually happening on farms in the US that have grown dependent on GM seeds and are now dealing with the consequences.”[22]

9. GM and non-GM cannot co-exist

GM contamination of conventional and organic food is increasing. An unapproved GM rice that was grown for only one year in field trials was found to have extensively contaminated the US rice supply and seed stocks.[23] In Canada, the organic oilseed rape industry has been destroyed by contamination from GM rape.[24] In Spain, a study found that GM maize “has caused a drastic reduction in organic cultivations of this grain and is making their coexistence practically impossible”.[25]

The time has come to choose between a GM-based, or a non-GM-based, world food supply.

“If some people are allowed to choose to grow, sell and consume GM foods, soon nobody will be able to choose food, or a biosphere, free of GM. It’s a one way choice, like the introduction of rabbits or cane toads to Australia; once it’s made, it can’t be reversed.” – Roger Levett, specialist in sustainable development[26]

10. We can’t trust GM companies

The big biotech firms pushing their GM foods have a terrible history of toxic contamination and public deception.[27] GM is attractive to them because it gives them patents that allow monopoly control over the world’s food supply. They have taken to harassing and intimidating farmers for the “crime” of saving patented seed or “stealing” patented genes – even if those genes got into the farmer’s fields through accidental contamination by wind or insects.[28]

“Farmers are being sued for having GMOs on their property that they did not buy, do not want, will not use and cannot sell.” – Tom Wiley, North Dakota farmer[29]

Sources:

1. Donald Mitchell, 2008. A Note on Rising Food Prices. World Bank.

2. Daniel Howden, 2008. Hope for Africa lies in political reforms. The Independent, 8 September.

3. Rob Lyons, 2008. GM: it’s safe, but it’s not a saviour. Spiked Online, 7 July.

4. Jorge Fernandez-Cornejo and William D. McBride, 2002. The adoption of bioengineered crops. US Department of Agriculture Report, May.

5. R.W. Elmore et al., 2001. Glyphosate-resistant soyabean cultivar yields compared with sister lines. Agronomy Journal 93, 2001: 408 – 412.

6. Doug Gurian-Sherman, 2009. Failure to Yield: Evaluating the Performance of Genetically Engineered Crops. Union of Concerned Scientists.

7. Doug Gurian-Sherman, 2008. Genetic engineering – A crop of hyperbole. The San Diego Union Tribune, 18 June.

8. Charles Benbrook, Ph.D., 2009. Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use: The First Thirteen Years. The Organic Center, November.

9. Bill Christison, 1998. Family Farmers Warn of Dangers of Genetically Engineered Crops. In Motion magazine, 29 July.

10. N. Beintema et al., 2008. International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development: Global Summary for Decision Makers (IAASTD).

11. N. Beintema et al., 2008. International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development: Global Summary for Decision Makers (IAASTD).

12. B.C.Y. Collard and D.J. Mackill, 2008. Marker-assisted selection: an approach for precision plant breeding in the twenty-first century. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 363: 557 – 572.

13. J.R. Witcombe et al., 2008. Breeding for abiotic stresses for sustainable agriculture. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 363: 703 – 716.

14. John Snape, 2002. Gene mapping the friendly face of GM technology. Farmers Weekly, 1 March: 54.

15. – Memorandum to Linda Kahl on the Flavr Savr tomato (Pathology Review PR – 152; FDA Number FMF – 000526): Pathology Branch’s evaluation of rats with stomach lesions from three four-week oral (gavage) toxicity studies (IRDC Study Nos. 677 – 002, 677 – 004, and 677 – 005) and an Expert Panel’s report. F.A. Hines. US Department of Health & Human Services, 1993.

– Witness Brief – Flavr Savr tomato study in Final Report (IIT Research Institute, Chicago, IL 60616 USA) cited by Dr Arpad Pusztai before the New Zealand Royal Commission on Genetic Modification: New Zealand Royal Commission on Genetic Modification, 2000.

– V.E. Prescott, P.M. Campbell, A. Moore, et al. 2005. Transgenic expression of bean alpha-amylase inhibitor in peas results in altered structure and immunogenicity. J Agric Food Chem 53: 9023 – 9030.

– M. Malatesta, M. Biggiogera, E. Manuali, M.B.L. Rocchi, B. Baldelli, G. Gazzanelli, 2003. Fine structural analyses of pancreatic acinar cell nuclei from mice fed on genetically modified soybean. European Journal of Histochemistry 47: 385 – 388.

– M. Malatesta et al., 2002. Ultrastructural morphometrical and immunocytochemical analyses of hepatocyte nuclei from mice fed on genetically modified soybean. Cell Struct Funct 27: 173-180

– L. Vecchio et al., 2004. Ultrastructural analysis of testes from mice fed on genetically modified soybean. Eur J Histochem 48: 448-454

– M. Malatesta et al., 2008. A long-term study on female mice fed on a genetically modified soybean: effects on liver ageing. Histochem Cell Biol 130: 967-977

– S.W. Ewen and A. Pusztai, 1999. Effects of diets containing genetically modified potatoes expressing Galanthus nivalis lectin on rat small intestine. The Lancet 354: 1353 – 1354

– Séralini, G.-E. et al., 2007. New Analysis of a Rat Feeding Study with a Genetically Modified Maize Reveals Signs of Hepatorenal Toxicity. Arch Environ Contam Toxicol 52: 596 – 602.

– R. Tudisco R, P. Lombardi, F. Bovera et al., 2006. Genetically modified soya bean in rabbit feeding: Detection of DNA fragments and evaluation of metabolic effects by enzymatic analysis. Animal Science 82:193 – 199.

– F.B. Brasil, L.L. Soares, T.S. Faria et al., 2009. The impact of dietary organic and transgenic soy on the reproductive system of female adult rat. Anat Rec (Hoboken) 292: 587 – 594.

– A. Pusztai, S. Bardocz, 2006. GMO in animal nutrition: Potential benefits and risks. In: R. Mosenthin, J. Zentek, T. Zebrowska, eds. 2006. Biology of Nutrition in Growing Animals 4: 513 – 540.

– G.E. Séralini, D. Cellier, J. Spiroux de Vendomois, 2007. New analysis of a rat feeding study with a genetically modified maize reveals signs of hepatorenal toxicity. Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology 52: 596 – 602.

– A. Kilic, M.T. Akay, 2008. A three generation study with genetically modified Bt corn in rats: Biochemical and histopathological investigation. Food Chem Toxicol 46: 1164 – 1170.

– J.S. de Vendomois, F. Roullier, D. Cellier, G.E. Séralini, 2009. A comparison of the effects of three GM corn varieties on mammalian health. Int J Biol Sci 5:706 – 726.

– A. Finamore, M. Roselli, S. Britti S et al., 2008. Intestinal and peripheral immune response to MON810 maize ingestion in weaning and old mice. J Agric Food Chem 56: 11533 – 11539.

– A. Velimirov, C. Binter, J. Zentek, 2008. Biological effects of transgenic maize NK603xMON810 fed in long term reproduction studies in mice. Familie und Jugend Report, Forschungsberichte der Sektion IV Band 3/2008.

– M. Trabalza-Marinucci, G. Brandi, C. Rondini, et al., 2008. A three-year longitudinal study on the effects of a diet containing genetically modified Bt176 maize on the health status and performance of sheep. Livestock Science 113: 178 – 190.

16. T. Netherwood et al., 2004. Assessing the survival of transgenic plant DNA in the human gastrointestinal tract. Nature Biotechnology 22: 204 – 209.

17. Paula Hartman Cohen, 2006. Trans Fats: The story behind the label. Harvard Public Health Review.

18. Anil Netto,2000. Consumer groups for mandatory labelling of GM food. IPS News, 13 March.

19. Jack A. Heinemann, PhD, 2009. Report on animals exposed to GM ingredients in animal feed. Prepared for the Commerce Commission of New Zealand, 24 July. http://bit.ly/4HcJuJ

20. – R. Sharma et al., 2006. Detection of transgenic and endogenous plant DNA in digesta and tissues of sheep and pigs fed Roundup Ready canola meal. J Agric Food Chem 54: 1699 – 1709.

– R. Mazza et al., 2005. Assessing the transfer of genetically modified DNA from feed to animal tissues. Transgenic Res 14: 775 – 784.

– A. Agodi et al., 2006. Detection of genetically modified DNA sequences in milk from the Italian market. Int J Hyg Environ Health 209: 81 – 88.

– T. Ran, L. Mei, W. Lei, L. Aihua, H. Ru, S. Jie, 2009. Detection of transgenic DNA in tilapias (Oreochromis niloticus, GIFT strain) fed genetically modified soybeans (Roundup Ready). Aquaculture Research 40: 1350 – 1357.

21. – R. Tudisco, V. Mastellone, M.I. Cutrignelli, et al., 2010. Fate of transgenic DNA and evaluation of metabolic effects in goats fed genetically modified soybean and in their offsprings. Animal 4: 1662 – 1671.

– Jack A. Heinemann, PhD, 2009. Report on animals exposed to GM ingredients in animal feed. Prepared for the Commerce Commission of New Zealand, 24 July.

22. Charles Benbrook, 2009. The magnitude and impacts of the biotech and organic seed price premium. The Organic Center, December.

23. E. Neal Blue, 2007. Risky business: Economic and regulatory impacts from the unintended release of genetically engineered rice varieties into the rice merchandising system of the US. Report for Greenpeace.

24. Soil Association, 2002. Seeds of doubt: North American farmers’ experience of GM crops.

25. R. Binimelis, 2008. Coexistence of plants and coexistence of farmers: Is an individual choice possible? Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 21: 437 – 457.

26. Roger Levett, 2008. Choice: Less can be more. Food Ethics magazine 3: 11.

27. See, for example, Marie-Monique Robin’s documentary film, Le Monde Selon Monsanto (The World According to Monsanto), ARTE, 2008; and the website of the NGO, Coalition Against Bayer-Dangers, http://www.cbgnetwork.org

28. – BBC News Online 2000. GM firm sues Canadian farmer, 6 June. – Center for Food Safety, 2007. Monsanto vs. US Farmers: November 2007 Update. Washington, DC and San Francisco, CA, November.

29. Stephen Leahy, 2004. Monsanto “seed police” scrutinize farmers. InterPress Service, 15 January.

Source: gmwatch.org

Pepsi replaces sugar with mystery ingredient

TGE News

03/17/2013

So what exactly is this magic ingredient that will be appearing in a new version of Pepsi, and how is it made? Unfortunately, those questions are hard to answer. Senomyx… refers to them only as ‘enhancers’ or ‘ingredients’… The products work by triggering receptors on the tongue and tricking your taste buds into sensing sweetness — or saltiness or coolness, in the case of the company’s other programs…

So are Senomyx’s covert ingredients safe? That, too, is anyone’s guess… many of its enhancers have ‘been granted ‘GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) status, but all that means is that the company did its own assessment and then concluded everything was fine. We don’t know whether Senomyx did any testing since the company isn’t required to submit anything to the FDA.

There’s no reason to think that Senomyx’s products will cause harm, but until or unless Pepsi decides to share details about how exactly it’s achieving a 60 percent reduction in sugar while keeping the taste the same, customers will be drinking their ‘scientifically advantaged’ sodas completely in the dark.”

The lack of labeling requirements is particularly troublesome and will probably become an issue in the future. Since these compounds (whatever they are) are used in such minute quantities, they don’t have to be listed on the label. They’ll simply fall under the generic category of artificial and/or natural flavors. What this means is that the product will appear to be much “healthier” than it might otherwise be, were a flavor enhancer not used.

According to a 2010 CBS report,Senomyx’s flavor enhancers were already being sold outside the US at that time. For example, Nestle was by 2010 using an MSG flavor enhancer in its Maggi brand soups, sauces, condiments and instant noodles, and Ajinomoto was also using a similar ingredient in products for the Chinese market. This means less of the artificial sweetener is needed to create the same sweet taste as before, but while one could argue that this is a good thing, I suspect we will ultimately learn that this flavor enhancement method has multiple unforeseen adverse consequences — metabolically, and biologically.

CONSEQUENCES OF FOOD ALTERATION ARE MORE THE RULE THAN THE EXCEPTION…

There are many reasons why you’re better off choosing natural whole foods in lieu of processed alternatives, but one of the primary ones is that junk foods contain additives that increase your toxic load, which in turn may increase your tendency to develop cancer. As of yet, there is NO medical research to back up the assertion that manipulating your taste buds in the way Senomyx’ products do is safe and healthy in the long term. As an example, I would point to the evidence now available showing that one of the reasons why artificial sweeteners do not work as advertised is because the taste of sweet itself is tied into your metabolic functioning in a way that we still do not fully understand… As a result, artificially sweetened products, oftentimes boasting zero calories, actually result in greater weight gain than sweetened products when used “in the real world.”

It’s easy to forget that the processed, pre-packaged foods and fast food restaurants of today are actually a radical change in terms of the history of food production. Much of what we eat today bears very little resemblance of real food. Many products are loaded with non-nutritive fillers — purposely designed to just “take up space” to make you think you’re getting more than you really are — along with any number of additives. Many additives have been shown to have harmful effects on mood, behavior, metabolic functioning and biochemistry.

Now, with the introduction of untested engineered flavor enhancers, you’re left wondering whether processed foods with “cleaner” labels really are safer and healthier or not… Remember, because Senomyx’ flavor enhancers are used in such low concentrations they are not required to undergo the FDA’s usual safety approval process for food additives.

The disease trends we’re now seeing are only going to get worse as much of the processed foods consumed today are not even food-based. Who knows what kind of genetic mutations and malfunctions we’re creating for ourselves and future generations when a MAJORITY of our diet consists of highly processed and artificial foods that contain substances never before consumed by humans in all of history.

Source: Mercola

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