Mind-Blowing Poisoning Of US By American 'Industry' - 24 BILLION Pounds Yearly

Mind-Blowing Poisoning Of US By American 'Industry' - 24 BILLION Pounds Yearly: "A new report release Thursday finds that U.S. industry releases enough neurological and developmental toxins to fill railroad cars stretching from New York City to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Every year, U.S. industry releases about 24 billion pounds of toxic substances that are believed to cause developmental and neurological problems in children.

That amount could fill a string of railroad cars stretching from New York City to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and yet there are no emissions standards for these harmful chemicals.

This alarming finding is one of many in:
Polluting Our Future: Chemical Emissions in the U.S. that Affect Child Development and Learning, a joint report released Thursday by the National Environmental Trust, Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Learning Disabilities Association.

'That is the most startling thing,' said Jeff Wise, policy director for NET. 'The amount and how little we know about the chemicals.

Assemblage Point

Assemblage Point: "I have found my life runs more smoothly when I turn the tables, when I assume that life is constantly providing me with a mirror, a reflected image of my own mind and heart, in everything I encounter. The basic premise is that I attract things in my outer world that are a match to my inner world at the moment. It's a sort of homeopathic spiritual principle, rather than my previous approach which I could compare to an allopathic approach.

In allopathic (traditional western) medicine, the idea is that we must use substances (usually drugs) to suppress the symptoms of the illness, and that is what makes us better. In contrast, homeopathic medicine believes that the symptoms of 'illness' are actually the body's strategy for re-establishing health. In homeopathic wisdom, you take a histimine (rather than an anti-histimine) to support the body's strategy of flooding the sinus cavities with mucus, and take things that induce a fever to support the fever started by your body to maintain stasis. Again, its a reversing of cause and effect, and what we assume about the relationship about correlated events in our experience. "

The Theosophical Society

The Theosophical Society: "A primary idea is the essential oneness of all beings. Life is everywhere throughout the cosmos because all originates from the same unknowable divine source. Consequently, everything from the subatomic to plants, animals, humans, planets, stars, and galaxies is alive and evolving. Each is divine at its root and expresses itself through spiritual, intellectual, psychological, ethereal, and material ranges of consciousness and substance. Evolution reflects this emerging self-expression of faculties which differentiates into material forms; develops spiritual and conscious aspects; and, over cosmic time-periods, returns to the divine source. The life of the individual, of humanity, and of the entire earth is part of this cosmic process.

Exhibiting this fundamental oneness, altruism and compassion are human expressions of cosmic and planetary realities. Humanity is more closely joined inwardly than physically, and our thoughts and feelings have a potent impact on others. By following our highest inner promptings as best we can, we benefit our immediate surroundings and humanity as a whole. The ideal is to put the welfare of humanity and all that lives ahead of one's own progress."

With Drug Studies, Read Between the Lines

With Drug Studies, Read Between The Lines

News flash: When the drug industry pays for research on new drugs, the findings are more likely to be favorable than when the same sorts of studies are funded by those with no financial ties to the industry, such as Cochrane Collaboration reviews. This was the conclusion of a recent "study of studies" (called a meta-analysis) by the British Medical Journal. Researchers compared reviews from the Cochrane Collaboration -- an international, not-for-profit, independent body that critiques health-care outcomes -- with industry-supported studies. It may not be that the findings that were supported by industry were falsified or otherwise tampered with, but rather that critical information on methodology limitations and other aspects of the study design and certain results were less likely to be included in the published report -- and that's a potentially dangerous problem since it is here that knowledgeable experts are likely to see red flags that raise important questions.

HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN?

A meta-analysis of this kind comes along every few years, says Jay S. Cohen, MD (www.medicationsense.com), author of What You Must Know About Statin Drugs & Their Natural Alternatives (Square One) and Over Dose: The Case Against the Drug Companies (Tarcher/Penguin). In his expert view, the results come as no surprise. Always anxious to introduce and sell new drugs, pharmaceutical companies seem to persistently slant the research their way, maximizing the positive aspects of its exciting new products and minimizing those of concern, he says. "It should be called the drug sales industry, not the drug industry," muses Dr. Cohen. We talked more about the inherent conflict of interest, and why it is so important for consumers to know about it.

AN OBVIOUS CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Drug companies clearly have a vested interest -- hundreds of millions of dollars worth -- in developing, receiving approval for and marketing a new drug. As brand-name drugs that drug companies had exclusive rights to market go "off patent" and become available in cheaper generic versions, the ability to develop "new" drugs -- even though many of these drugs differ little from earlier drugs -- enables Big Pharma to continue to pull in the mind-numbing profits that dwarf those of most other industries. Not surprisingly, it is believed there is considerable pressure on drug-company-paid researchers to accentuate the positive results and minimize the negative ones, even though this demonstrates an obvious conflict of interest.

In contrast, the Cochrane Collaboration reviews are conducted without industry support from drug companies, and its reviews and database are considered a gold standard for analyses by the medical establishment. Studies by such independent groups, in general, are more likely than industry-sponsored research to identify and address the issue of bias. Using this more systematic and critical approach, independent reviews are not apt to simply rubberstamp products. (Unfortunately, Big Pharma's tentacles extend into doctors' offices and their affiliated medical schools, with promises of free samples, seminars in exotic locales and academic grants, resulting in a large number of independent doctors with links to drug companies.)

PLAYING DODGEBALL WITH LIFE-THREATENING DRUG RISKS

Dr. Cohen points out that this over-reliance on industry-sponsored studies has already had serious and harmful consequences. There's the case of the arthritis drug, Vioxx (rofecoxib), which was withdrawn from the market in 2004 because of increased risk of heart attack and stroke. In 2005, a New York Times article reported that manufacturer Merck was well aware of increased cardiovascular risks, yet covered them up... documents that emerged during trial revealed that Merck scientists were concerned about increased heart risks as far back as 1997, two years before Vioxx was even approved. However, the drug giant downplayed these negative studies, and one marketing document even advised sales reps to play "Dodgeball" -- that is, dodge questions from doctors concerned about Vioxx's risks. In another egregious instance, Merck funded and approved the design of the study of Vioxx at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital, only to discredit researchers' conclusions (and insist that a Merck employee remove her name from the study) when the research revealed increased heart attack risk. Months later, the company was finally compelled to remove Vioxx from the market due to safety concerns and an increase in cardiovascular events.

Dr. Cohen is also worried about a recent study of a best-selling drug, Lipitor (atorvastatin). Pfizer has significantly raised its profits by aggressively promoting high-dose Lipitor -- which costs one-third more than the low dose -- along with new uses for this cholesterol-lowering statin. A Pfizer-sponsored study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine (August 10, 2006) suggests that Lipitor should be taken by people at risk of a second stroke, or a stroke after a transient ischemic attack (TIA), even if they don't have heart disease. But, notes Dr. Cohen, in this study overall mortality stayed the same, whether they took Lipitor or not. While it's true that cardiovascular deaths dropped in the study, other deaths rose, so despite Pfizer's positive spin on the research -- which earned them front-page headlines across the country -- it didn't really connote success. This raises serious concerns about safety, says Dr. Cohen, since Lipitor -- especially at high doses -- is a potent drug with powerful side effects. Authors of this study had financial ties to Pfizer, and several were Pfizer employees, facts that raise red flags about potential conflicts of interest.

GREATER TRANSPARENCY REQUIRED ACROSS THE BOARD

Interestingly, while I was writing this story, a news report came out on a similar study revealing the same research bias in the food industry. In a review of 24 industry-backed studies of soft drinks, milk and juices, 21 (88%) had results favorable or neutral to food manufacturers. Of 52 independent studies without industry financing, only 32 (62%) were favorable or neutral, and 20 (38%) were unfavorable.

What should you do with all this information? The Cochrane Collaboration recommends that doctors and consumers learn to view industry-supported studies with greater caution. In particular, always examine study author's company affiliations, advises Dr. Cohen. Take into account whether researchers are affiliated with or paid by the manufacturer of the drug being studied. Because of recent concerns, medical journals increasingly require this information of contributors and share it with readers. For greater reliability, Dr. Cohen urges greater transparency overall, including more information on methodology and estimated effects of drugs. And, whenever possible, it is wisest to base health-care decisions on unbiased studies without industry sponsoring.

Note: To read about more practical strategies for safe and effective use of drugs (exercise health skepticism about new drugs, ask about generics, etc.), see the Daily Health News article from February 2, 2006.

How to Save Money on Organic Food

How to Save Money on Organic Food Ronnie Cummins Organic Consumers Association any people who would like to eat organic fruits, vegetables, dairy, meat and poultry are put off by the high prices. Organic foods can cost 25% to 100% more than regular foods -- but if you're willing to do a bit of sleuthing and look beyond traditional grocery stores, you can find organic products for much less. My organization's Web site, www.organicconsumers.org, has links to most of the resources suggested below... Compare prices of conventional and organic foods when shopping at regular grocery stores. Occasionally, the price gap narrows dramatically, or organic foods may even be cheaper. Shop at a farmers market. You can find bargains if you prowl around the stalls of your local farmers market. You'll save even more if you haggle. Farmers may be especially willing to negotiate prices if produce is misshapen or closing time is approaching. Sample savings: Organic apples at a farmers' market often are 25% to 50% cheaper than organic apples at grocery or natural-food stores. Consider purchasing a share in a community-supported agriculture program (CSA). There are more than 1,000 of these programs around the US. Through a CSA, you purchase produce from an organic farmer in a region near you. You'll receive a weekly basket that contains produce, flowers and perhaps even eggs and milk. A share in a CSA typically costs several hundred dollars for one growing season, which could last half a year (prices vary dramatically depending on location). In mild regions, such as California, you can receive just-picked produce year-round. Each week it's fun to discover what goodies are in the basket. Sample savings: In rural Minnesota, where I live, I pay $450 for the season and split my weekly harvest with another family. This is at least 50% cheaper than store prices. Helpful: Most CSAs deliver produce orders to a central location. You may be able to reduce the price of your weekly delivery if you allow your front porch to serve as a delivery spot for your neighborhood. CSAs can be found at the Web site of Local Harvest (www.localharvest.org), as well as on my Web site. Join a food co-op. Co-ops typically offer high-quality organic food and produce at a discount for members. You may be required to volunteer your time for a certain number of hours each month. For a list of co-ops, see my organization's Web site. Buy in bulk. This is a great way to save money on long-lasting and nonperishable organic food, such as dried beans, lentils, pasta, rice, cereals, trail mix, nuts and even peanut butter. Health-food stores, Whole Foods, and even some supermarkets sell bulk items. Cheaper still: Join a wholesale buying club (regular yearly membership fee is between $35 and $50). The minimum order for the club I belong to is $1,000 every three months, so I share a membership with several families in my area. Typical savings: 30% to 50% off retail. There is no national directory of buying clubs. Ask your local natural-food store for the names of its organic-food suppliers and contact them. Eat seasonally. You're sure to overpay if you buy organic fruits and vegetables off-season. That's when you want to buy frozen or canned. When produce is bountiful and cheap, you may want to can, freeze or dry it for the coming months. Bottom Line/Personal interviewed Ronnie Cummins, national director of the Organic Consumers Association, a nonprofit organization that promotes food safety, children's health and environmental sustainability, Finland, Minnesota. www.organicconsumers.org. He is author of Genetically Engineered Food: A Self-Defense Guide for Consumers (Marlowe & Company).

What is New Thought?....Reprinted

What is New Thought?
Reprinted from International New Thought Alliance Bulletin # 4,
December 15, 1916

Many inquiries are received at the headquarters asking the question, "What is New Thought?" New Thought believes in the good. The motto of the old Crusaders was "God with us." The motto of the New Thought is "God in us." The consciousness of the divinity at the heart of things gives life a new meaning. If man is made in the image of God, he partakes of the divine nature. God is love, God is health, God is abundance, God is Joy, God is peace, God is illuminated intelligence, God is from everlasting to everlasting, in the eternal here and now; and man, who is the child of God, made in His image, partakes of all these things. This is the New Thought - the New Thought of God. God is not alien; He is the one life and we are in that one life. All the good belongs to us. It is our divine inheritance.

"New Thought" is not a name or expression used to designate any fixed system of thought, philosophy, or religion, but the term itself conveys the idea of a growing or developing thought. When New Thought is molded and formed into a system, it ceases to be NEW Thought. Truth is not susceptible of monopoly or being made into a system. It can not be encompassed by institution, but its living Spirit is present in every manifested form and object of nature.

The New Thought practices in the twentieth century what Jesus taught and practiced in the first century. He taught healing - it practices healing. He said "Judge not that ye not be judged" - it discourages condemnation and sees the good in others. He admonishes us to take no anxious thought for the morrow - it practices the divine supply. He taught faith - it makes faith the central principle of its theory and practice. He taught love and brotherhood - it is demonstrating unity and cooperation. The New Thought is the Christ thought made new by being applied and proved in every-day affairs.

The New Thought is positive. It would overcome sickness by health, error by truth, anger by love, evil by good. The things of God are all positive, for any negation is lack of God.

The New Thought is constructive. It is a philosophy of optimism. Jesus said, "I come not to destroy, but to fulfill," - not to tear down, but to build up. New Thought is the recognition, realization, and manifestation of God in man.

Life is organic. The life principle is always manifested thru harmonious cooperation of different cells and organs. A movement that is vital must have the same harmonious cooperation between individuals that compose it. True organization is the very opposite of crystallization, for crystallization means death, while organization of the right kind means life and life more abundant.

Organization in no wise limits individuality, but rather supplements and completes it. There are certain things that many, working together, can do better than the same individuals can do working alone. Team-play is the keynote of this age - the most vital and progressive age in history.

An organization does not believe and therefore should not dictate the belief of its members. Only individuals believe. Each man has his own creed. The very word is from "credo" which is a singular verb in the first person, meaning "I believe. " True organization has no right to interfere with this most sacred prerogative of the human soul. It is the divine right of each individual to believe what he pleases. As a man's home is his castle, so his conviction is sacred and belongs to a realm that society has no business to invade. With belief, organization has nothing to do, although the beliefs of its members have everything to do with organization, for they constitute its soul. In the true sense, individuals should have more liberty in cooperation and correlation than when working at divergent and cross purposes, without being rightly related each to the other. For what is liberty but the freedom to fill ones' own part in the divine scheme, and how can we best fulfill this part except as we work in harmony with others who are filling their parts?

Organizations are created to do things which can better be done by working together than by working singly. It is on these lines that the International New Thought Alliance is proceeding. It is merely a band of individual centers and individual teachers and followers working together in freedom for one common purpose, and this purpose is to carry the Truth message and the healing message to all who are ready to receive.

According to the Constitution of the International New Thought Alliance its purpose is:

"To spread the knowledge of the infinitude of the Supreme One, the divinity of man and his infinite possibilities, through the creative power of constructive thinking and in obedience to the edicts of the Indwelling Presence which is our source of inspirational power, health, and prosperity, as taught and demonstrated by Jesus Christ."

The Future of Freedom

An Anti-Democracy Foreign Policy: Guatemala
by Jacob G. Hornberger, February 11, 2005

Unfortunately, the CIA "success" in Iran, which produced the CIA's ouster of Iran's democratically elected prime minister, bred a CIA "success" in another part of the world, Latin America. One year after the 1953 coup in Iran, the CIA did it again, this time in Guatemala, where U.S. officials feared the communist threat even more than they did in Iran.

This time, the target was the democratically elected president of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz, a self-avowed socialist whose domestic policies were in fact modeled after the socialist New Deal policies of U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt.

Arbenz's socialist mindset had driven him to adopt an "agrarian reform plan," a type of land-distribution scheme that unfortunately is all too common in Latin America. The plan entailed the confiscation of a portion of land owned by a major U.S. corporation operating in Guatemala at that time, United Fruit, and its redistribution to Guatemalan peasants. While the plan was an almost perfect embodiment of the socialist concept of taking property from the rich to give to the poor, in actuality it was no different in principle from the wealth-redistributi on revolution that FDR's welfare-state concept brought to America, whereby the primary purpose of the federal government became taxing the income of the rich in order to redistribute the money to the needy (or, in reality, to the politically privileged).

So Arbenz had two strikes against him already as far as the CIA was concerned — his belief in socialism and his confrontation with a major U.S. corporation that had strong allies in the U.S. Congress. His third strike knocked him out — his unwillingness to obey U.S. government orders to rid his government of self-avowed communists.

Consequently, flush with the "success" of its coup in Iran the year before, in 1954 the CIA secretly organized and engineered a military coup in Guatemala that ousted the democratically elected Arbenz from power. Schlesinger and Kinzer write:

The United States organized, financed, and equipped the invasion forces. U.S. personnel flew the rebel aircraft and filled the airways with bogus transmissions suggesting a much larger force had invaded. Unrelenting U.S. diplomatic and political pressure encouraged treason and demoralized supporters. CIA assets in the officer corps and the administration worked actively to undermine President Arbenz's authority and block efforts to move against the rebels.

Unaware that the CIA was orchestrating the military coup against him, throughout the crisis Arbenz turned to the U.S. government for help, innocently placing his faith in a government that was purportedly committed to advancing democracy. On Sunday, June 27, 1954, democratically elected President Jacobo Arbenz was ousted from office and fled Guatemala. The CIA replaced him with an unelected Guatemalan military dictator, Col. Carlos Castillo Armas, whom the CIA designated the "Liberator" of the Guatemalan people.

Canceling the presidential election scheduled for 1955 and continuing "emergency" suspension of civil liberties, including freedom of the press, Castillo Armas retained the unwavering support of the U.S. government. A year after taking office, he visited Washington, where he was warmly greeted by Vice President Richard Nixon and, not surprisingly given that he was a military man, was accorded the privilege of reviewing a U.S. military honor guard with Nixon at his side. Nixon visted Guatemala in 1955, declaring that "this is the first instance in history were a Communist
government has been replaced by a free one."

The CIA's new "free" regime lasted for three years. Plagued by corruption, chaos, dissent, and violence, the Castillo Armas regime came to a violent end in 1957, when the CIA's "Liberator" was assassinated by one of his guards, who supposedly committed suicide immediately after killing the president.

Castillo Armas was then followed by a succession of U.S.-approved Guatemalan military regimes, regimes whose military men, over the years, would be trained in torture, assassination, and counter-insurgency techniques at the Pentagon's infamous School of the Americas. The CIA-induced Guatemalan coup and the four decades of brutal, torturous, U.S.-government- supported military rule that came with it precipitated a civil war in Guatemala that would last some 40 years and ultimately take the lives of more than 200,000 Guatemalan people.

In their book Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala, Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer write,

The [Historical Clarification Commission], which was headed by a German lawyer, Christian Tomuschat, estimated that the conflict had caused more than 200,000 deaths, and blamed the military for 93 percent of them. In a speech presenting the report, Mr. Tomuschat said that while he and his fellow commissioners knew when they began their work more or less what had happened during the conflict, "no one of us could have imagined the dimensions of this tragedy, not even the Guatemalan commissioners who had lived through the experience directly."

"It is with profound sadness that the commission learned of the extreme cruelty with which many of the violations were committed, of the large number of girls and boys who were victims of violent cruelty and murder, and of the special brutality directed against women, especially against Mayan women, who were tortured, raped and murdered," Mr. Tomuschat said. "State security forces blindly pursued the anti-Communist struggle without respect for any legal principles or the most elemental ethical and religious values."

In 1999, President Clinton, visiting Guatemala, candidly admitted, "For the United States, it is important that I state clearly that support for military forces and intelligence units which engaged in violence and widespread repression was wrong, and the United States must not repeat that mistake."

What if the CIA had not intervened in the domestic affairs of Guatemala? What if it hadn't violently ousted its democratically elected president? What if it had not installed a series of brutal U.S.-approved military dictatorships in Guatemala? What if it had simply stayed out of the natural democratic progression in Guatemala, letting regularly scheduled national elections to take place in 1955, one year after the coup? Schlesinger and Kinzer write,

Had Arbenz served out his term, the opposition might well have been strong enough to contest and even win the 1955 elections. Although a distinct minority, the conservative opposition had both money and organized religion on its side.... In short, the democratic option — however uncertain its results — was still open to Guatemalan conservatives in 1954. The U.S. intervention gave them an opportunity to win by opting instead for the security of authoritarian
repression. In taking this path, they condemned their country to four decades of unremitting brutality and violence. The CIA's easy "success" in Iran and Guatemala then drove it to seek
regime change in Cuba, where President Fidel Castro's steadfast refusal to do the bidding of U.S. officials led not only to the Bay of Pigs disaster but also to the U.S. government's 45-year obsession with ousting Castro from power. (While Castro is an unelected communist dictator, it has never been a lack of democracy in Cuba that has driven the U.S. government's obsession with ousting him from power. Instead, the obsession is rooted in Castro's longtime, steadfast commitment to keeping Cuba independent of U.S. government control, unlike other Latin American regimes, both elected and unelected, which consider it an enormous honor and privilege to be well-paid vassals in the U.S. government's vast overseas empire.)

Then, in 1973, faced with the democratic election of another self-avowed socialist in Latin America, Salvador Allende, the CIA supported his violent military ouster and the installation of a military strongman into power, Gen. Augusto Pinochet. I wrote about Pinochet's U.S.-supported 17-year reign of murder, torture, and terror in my recent article "U.S. Regime Change, Torture, and Murder in Chile."

In 1971, after drifting across Europe with his family and then living for a time in Uruguay and Cuba, Jacobo Arbenz died while residing in Mexico. A broken man by that time (his 25-year-old daughter had committed suicide with a revolver in 1965), the official cause of Arbenz's death was that he had died of natural causes (he drowned in his bathtub) but some people had doubts about that explanation.

In 1996, the long Guatemalan civil war, which had its roots in the U.S. government's anti-democracy coup in 1954, finally came to an end with the signing of a peace accord. As Schlesinger and Kinzer put it in the Afterword to the 1999 edition of their book Bitter Fruit, "The longest war in Latin American history had come to an end." But not without a high price, not least of which included the lives of more than 200,000 people and the brutal torture of countless more at the hands of U.S.-supported and Pentagon-trained military regimes.

A deep-seated culture of violence has taken root in Guatemala. Military regimes, army units and police squads have set an awful example, teaching entire generations that terror and murder are appropriate ways to achieve both political and personal ends. For their crimes they have enjoyed nearly complete immunity, as the police and judicial systems exist to serve the unjust ruling order....

[With the signing of the 1996 peace accord] a long and bleak winter has ended in the supposed land of eternal spring, and that is a genuine cause for rejoicing. The terms of public debate have shifted dramatically, with even many conservatives openly accepting the need for change in terms that would have been considered subversive only a few years ago. Now begins the long task of rebuilding a shattered land, not simply politically and economically but also morally. It
will take all the efforts of the long-suffering Guatemalan people, and all the help the outside world can give them, to consolidate the great victory they have won and finally drive a stake through the heart of darkness that terrorized them for so many years.

Since the 9/11 attacks, U.S. officials have consistently maintained that foreigners hate "us" because of our "freedom and values." Rather than accepting that official mantra, Americans would be better served by studying the history of the U.S. government's foreign policy, including its anti-democracy "successes" in Iran, Guatemala, and Chile, to get a grasp on why so many people around the world hate the U.S. government — and to appreciate why the only solution to
America's woes lies in a dismantling of the interventionist empire that currently holds our nation in its grip and in a restoration of a non-interventionist republic that guided the founding of our nation.

Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom
Foundation. Send him email.

Fluoride

Fluoride: "'Disreputable and power-hungry persons in high places have been know to experiment with fluoride to see if it could not be used to subjugate the people of a whole community more quickly than fighting them into submission,' according to William Guy Carr, a retired commander from the Royal Canadian Navy.

Controversial fluoride is one of the basic ingredients in both PROZAC (FLUoxetene Hydrochloride) and Sarin nerve gas (Isopropyl-Methyl-Phosphoryl FLUoride). Sodium fluoride, a hazardous-waste by-product from the manufacture of aluminum and phosphate fertilizer, is a common ingredient in rat and cockroach poisons, anesthetics, hypnotics, psychiatric drugs, and military nerve gas. Historically it has been quite expensive to properly dispose of, until some aluminum industries with an overabundance of the stuff sold the public on the terrifically insane but highly profitable idea of buying it at a 20,000% markup, injecting it into our water supplies, and then DRINKING it. Yes, a 20,000% markup: Fluoride--intended only for human consumption by people under 14 years of age--is injected into our drinking water supply at approx. 1 part-per-million (ppm), but since we only drink 1/2 of one percent of the total water supply, the rest literally goes down the drain as a free hazardous-waste disposal for the chemical industry, where we PAY them so that we can flush their expensive hazardous waste down our toilets."

Fluoridation: Is the force-feeding of fluoride really necessary?<

Fluoridation: Is the force-feeding of fluoride really necessary?: "1. Most fluoride put into municipal water systems is a waste product from the manufacture/processing of iron, steel, aluminum, copper, lead, zinc, uranium, and fertilizer. The companies who end up with the “hot potato” known as fluoride have convinced many people that their trash is another’s treasure. Well, we should be suspicious. It is one of the most toxic waste products around. In the Fifth edition (1984) of Toxicology of Commercial Products, Fluoride is rated “4” (very toxic). For comparison, Lead is rated a “3-4” (moderately toxic). In their effort to convince people of fluoride’s benefits, the aluminum industry paid for a study to determine that it was “good for us.” Before this study, fluoride’s primary uses was for insecticide and rat poison.

2. The FDA has never approved fluoride for human consumption. For more information on this, check out:
http://www.toothwisdom.net/f.absence_of_fda.html
Japan and continental Europe have banned its use for human consumption, citing health concerns and medical ethics.

3. In over 50 years of testing, it has never been conclusively demonstrated that fluoride is effective in preventing tooth decay. The whole fluoride deception is primarily based on two studies conducted in the 1930s: the “Galesburg-Quincy” study and the “21 city” study. Both of these studies were later examined by non-government expert statisticians and found to be statistically flawed, as well as having a significant number of other serious problems, making them worthless (see Fluoride the Aging Factor by Dr. John Yiamouyiannis, p. 119-123. Also: Fluoridation Errors and Omissions in Experimental Trials, by Philip R. N. Sutton, DDSc, LDS, Senior Research Fellow, Dept. of Oral Medicine and Surgery, University of Melbourne, in collaboration with Sir Arthur B. P. Amies, Dean of the Dental School, University of Melbourne).

4. It is easy to get too much of it, and too much can cause many serious health problems. Spiking our water system is not the best way to regulate doses of fluoride (even if the stuff was good for you).

5. Most kids drink soft drinks, juices, and milk. Very few drink water. Adding it to the city water seems like a strange way to get a small dose of fluoride into a child. If they add it to our water, we will have to shower in it, wash our clothes in it, and use it wherever we use water. And where will most of this fluoride end up anyway? The fish in our rivers surely don’t need any more toxic chemicals to deal with.

6. Fluoride is highly corrosive, so much so that even when diluted to 1.0 ppm (part per million), it promotes the leaching of lead and other metals from plumbing. Hood River city’s main water lines still have many lead joints (just ask your local excavator). Studies have shown that after fluoridation, lead levels in municipal water increases.

7. Think about the liability that our city councilors are placing on the City of Hood River (and themselves!). The federal Safe Drinking Water Act states: “No national primary drinking water regulation may require the addition of any substance for preventive health care purposes unrelated to contamination of drinking water.”

8. Experiments have already been done on humans. It has been determined that fluoride increases hip fractures by 41 percent among men and 27 percent among women in Brigham City, Utah, where water is intentionally fluoridated to 1.0 ppm.
(http://www.toothwisdom.net/f.evidence_of_harm.html)

9. In 1992, the New Jersey State Department of Health released the results of a study that found six times more bone cancer cases among males under the age of 20 living in communities with fluoridated water. (http://www.toothwisdom.net/f.evidence_of_harm.html)

10. Fluoride dispensing equipment can malfunction and result in poisoning as happened in Hoopers Bay, Alaska in 1992 (one person died, 296 poisoned).

"

The Battle of Darkness and Light

The Battle of Darkness and Light: "From her personal experience, Dr. Light confirmed not only the revolving door I had described in my paper, but in addition, the corruption within the "government" taking place just on the other side of that door. Here, from an eyewitness, came the truth that individuals representing corporations are not only holding key government positions, they have also been determining which studies are done, who receives grants, and they have been "adjusting" the reports in order to create a false sense of security about their favored products and services.

With the promise of corporate gain and personal profit, the industry "representatives" have been making important decisions affecting all of us profoundly. For the most part, the general public has been unaware of this partnership between private business and our publicly funded federal government.

Of special interest to Luise was what I had presented as the "absurd American food pyramid" - a dietary guide that first came out in the 1980s, and in which our "government" recommended starch as the foundation of our diet. This was of particular interest to Luise because, as I read in awe, it was she and her team of nutrition experts who had created the concept of the food pyramid - but with a very major twist. The real food pyramid, Luise wrote, was completely different from the "adjusted" pyramid that was distributed to an unsuspecting American public.

The true pyramid that Luise and her team developed was not absurd, at all. It did not have starch as the foundation. Instead, it called for a base of a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, with 5 to 9 servings daily. Whole grain cereals and grains were recommended in amounts of 2 to 4 servings daily - with the smaller amount for females and those with less active lifestyles. The real pyramid that Luise and her team created placed baked goods, crackers, sweets and other low-nutrient foods up with the sugars and fats at the top of the pyramid, where they were recommended only as occasional treats.

"But what happened?" Luise wrote, stating that there had been a deliberate, unexplained switch made at the political level that completely distorted the pyramid - which is the subject of her forthcoming book, Ketchup is Not a Vegetable; Sane Eating in a Toxic Food World.

"Instead of fruits and vegetables making up the base of the diet," she wrote, "the cereals and wheat products were made the base of the pyramid, and the recommendation [for starchy foods] was no longer 2 to 4 as we had determined but switched 6 to 11 servings! We couldn't believe it! What possible rationale could there be for such an unprecedented and unjustified switch? In fact the health consequences of encouraging the public to eat so much refined grain, which the body processes like sugar, was frightening! But our exhortations to the political heads of the agency fell on deaf ears. The new food guide, replacing the 'Basic Four,' would be a promotional tool to get the public to buy and consume more calories, sugar and starch." Ultimately, this would result in a poorer quality diet.

Fluoride quotes

Fluoride quotes:

"In point of fact, fluoride causes more human cancer death, and causes it faster than any other chemical."--Dean Burk -- Congressional Record 21 July 1976

"Here in Toronto we've been fluoridating for 36 years. Yet Vancouver - which has never fluoridated - has a cavity rate lower than Toronto's." --Dr. Hardy Limeback, B.Sc., Ph.D., in Biochemistry, D.D.S., head of the Department of Preventive Dentistry for the University of Toronto, and president of the Canadian Association for Dental Research. http://www.apfn.org/apfn/fluoride-expert.htm

Large part of the pharma and chemical industry products
SODIUM FLUORIDE: A 'waste product' of the aluminium industry and used in fluoridation of drinking water, this hazardous intractable garbage has become, by dint of promotion and sly public re-education, the active ingredient in fluorinated pesticides, fungicides, nematodides, rodenticides, anaesthetics, tranquillisers, fluorinated medications (pharmaceuticals), a number of industrial and domestic products, fluorinated dental gels, rinses and toothpastes.
In other words, sodium fluoride is so much a part of multibillion-dollar industrial and pharmaceutical income that any withdrawal for any reason by the promoters, the fluoridationists or by anyone who has supported them for whatever purpose is impossible on a financial basis, embarrassing on a reputation basis, and unthinkable on a legal basis. Fluoridation - Mind Control of the Masses by Ian E. Stephen

A great fraud
"Fluoridation is the greatest case of scientific fraud of this century, if not of all time."--Robert Carton, Ph.D. former US EPA scientist.

A poison (fancy lead enhanced water?)
"Fluoride is more toxic than Lead and only marginally less toxic than Arsenic." ----Clinical Toxicology of Commercial products, 5th Ed. 1984

SODIUM SILICOFLUORIDE: This waste product of the fertiliser industry is used in fluoridation of drinking water. By international law it must be removed from fertiliser so that pastures, crops, sheep and cattle will not be harmed. That it is then sold for disposal through the community kidneys is not a matter of international concern. Until this more profitable use was found, it was used almost exclusively as an insecticide and rodenticide - an exterminator Fluoridation - Mind Control of the Masses by Ian E. Stephen

Mistakes in dosage do happen in water industry
Aluminium poisoning from water supply: "Effectively they said we were either dotty or lying. For 13 years the authorities have said this whole thing is just in our minds."--Elizabeth Sigmund, Camelford resident

Waste product of many industries
"It's a toxic waste product of many types of industry; for instance, glass production, phosphate fertilizer production and many others. They would have no way to dispose of the tons of fluoride waste they produce unless they could find some use for it, so they made up this story about it being good for dental health. Then they can pass it through everyone's bodies and into the sewer." [A novel approach to toxic waste disposal--just feed it to the people and let their bodies "detoxify" it]. "It is a well coordinated effort, to keep it from being declared for what it is--a toxic waste."--Dr Lee

Fluoridation leads to diseases
"In point of fact, fluoride causes more human cancer deaths, and causes it faster, than any other chemical."--Dean Burke, Former Chief Chemist Emeritus, US National Cancer Institute.

"It is concluded that artificial fluoridation appears to cause or induce about 20-30 excess cancer deaths for every 100,000 persons exposed per year after about 15-20 years."--Dean Burke

Dr. John Yiamouyiannis states that from 30,000-50,000 deaths/year are directly traceable to fluoridation; 10,000-20,000 of these deaths being from fluoride induced cancers.

In 1969, the country of Sweden intended to fluoridate their water supply due to the strong advice of Professor Yngve Ericsson, a Swedish dentist who was also the senior representative on the World Health Organization's Expert Committee on Fluoridation. Then it was found that Professor Ericsson coincidentally was the holder of two highly-profitable patents on fluoride toothpaste. (Follow the money.) A subsequent investigation disclosed that the World Health Organization's numerous so-called "objective" comparative studies on mortality and morbidity for fluoridated vs. non-fluoridated areas simply didn't exist! The investigation stated that the World Health Organization's report was unacceptable from a scientific point of view, and that some of the claims set forth in the WHO report actually lack any and every basis in fact. The conclusion was that the details given by WHO on risks and safety margins were grossly defective. Sweden thus remains non-fluoridated, to this day. Tom Swanson

Green Tea, Fluoride & the Thyroid
http://64.177.90.157/pfpc/html/green_tea___.html

A website by a pro-fluoridation infant medical group lists a cup of black tea to contain 7.8 mgs of fluoride (7), which is roughly the same amount as if one were to drink 7.8 litres of water in an area fluoridated at 1ppm. It is well known that fluoride in tea gets absorbed by the body similarly as the fluoride in drinking water (1,8).

Drinking a cup of tea with fluoride content as mentioned above (7.8mg) would mean a fluoride intake much higher(!) than amounts which were actually given as medication to treat hyperthyroidism (-> over-functioning thyroid) for numerous decades - in several countries - specifically to reduce thyroid activity! [(2 -10 mg NaF/day => 0.9mg - 4.5mg F-)] (19,20,21,22)

Other World War II, produced of course by Rome, caused the Nazi experiments on the people in the concentration camps-the Jews, the Gypsies, the Socialists, primarily the Jews. But they experimented with things like fluoride. They experimented with things like EDTA chelation, which is THE treatment of choice for anybody with heart disease. They experimented with poisons. They experimented with surgeries. They experimented with all kinds of things on these people. They also experimented with vaccinations and immunizations.
There's a book called The Nazi Doctors. Everything that was learned by them was integrated into the American Medical Association, after the war. That's why we all have our municipal water supplies fluoridated. That's why they're all chlorinated, because chlorine decreases oxygen, and therefore causes cancer, because cancer grows in an anaerobic state-it's a virus, converting cells into mutants that are anaerobic.
Ok. All of Europe is using ozone to clean their water supplies. Here they use chlorine. They want us with cancer. And how do we get cancer? With the vaccinations and immunizations, where they inject us with live viruses, like the hepatitis vaccine-every one of them has the HIV virus, SV-40.
What they're doing is what they learned in Nazi Germany. They implemented here and they continue their research in the CIA. There's a two-tape set called The CIA And The Virus Makers which show how the CIA helped to create the HIV virus and various other viruses. They get into Robert Gallo, the world's foremost virologist.
Robert Gallo is a Jesuit. He's a Roman Catholic, Italian, the world's foremost virologist-and yet not controlled by the Brotherhood, by the Company? Ridiculous. He's under their control! He's doing all the research, and he doesn't want to be blamed for it-as the WONDERFUL Jew, Len Horowitz, proved. Again, we've got Jews getting in the way-Jews blowing their cover.
Personally, I have my own home where I use ozone oxygen. I use ultraviolet blood irradiation. I can show you how ultraviolet blood irradiation incapacitates Lupus. It destroys Hepatitis. It destroys Meningitis. It destroys HIV.
This is a very simple procedure; I do it every day. It can easily be done by any medical doctor, and they won't do it. Because, when you kill off the virus, you don't have the diseases. You are thwarting what they wanted to do with their vaccinations and immunizations.
That's why they want to make a law. That's why that filthy Ted Kennedy, that Knight of Columbus, wants all these vaccinations and immunizations-when it should be a religious tenet of everyone: 'It's against my religious convictions to put foreign pathogens into my bloodstream. It's going to make me sick by the time I'm 40. It's going to give me plaque build-up and heart-disease. I'm not going to do it.'
In the meantime, they're suppressing all the things that reverse it: soft lasers, hyperbaric chambers, ultraviolet blood irradiation, oxygen ozone, north-pole magnetic therapy. All the things working together that would easily reverse it, they suppress, and consider it a crime. Make sense? The Black Pope: Interview of Eric Jon Phelps

Bill Moyers at NCMR 2007 -- PART 1

Wow too much truth for Prime time... can you watch it all?

THREE THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

THREE THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

1. COWS
2 THE CONSTITUTION
3. THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

ON COWS:
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that our government
can track a cow born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the
stall where she sleeps in the state of Washington ? And, they tracked
her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 11 million
illegal aliens wandering around our country. Maybe we should give them
all a cow.

ON THE CONSTITUTION:
They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq , why don't we
just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it's
worked for over 200 years and we're not using it anymore.

ON THE TEN COMMANDMENTS:
The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments in a
courthouse..

...... You cannot post "Thou Shalt Not Steal," "Thou Shalt
Not Commit Adultery", and "Thou! Shall Not Lie" in a building full of
lawyers, judges and politicians -- it creates a hostile work
environment.

May each day find you safe,healthy and your Heart content.

Are GM Crops Killing Bees

Oh and poison everything else too, not just the children!!!
I bet Monsanto has a patent on a GM Bee to sell after all the real ones are gone!

Are GM Crops Killing Bees: "Albert Einstein quote: 'If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.'

Mysterious events in recent months have suddenly made Einstein's apocalyptic vision seem all the more topical. For unknown reasons, bee populations throughout Germany are disappearing - something that is so far only harming beekeepers. But the situation is different in the United States, where bees are dying in such dramatic numbers that the economic consequences could soon be dire. No one knows what is causing the bees to perish, but some experts believe that the large-scale use of genetically modified plants in the US could be a factor.

Felix Kriechbaum, an official with a regional beekeepers' association in Bavaria, recently reported a decline of almost 12 percent in local bee populations. When 'bee populations disappear without a trace,' says Kriechbaum, it is difficult to investigate the causes, because 'most bees don't die in the beehive.' There are many diseases that can cause bees to lose their sense of orientation so they can no longer find their way back to their hives.

Manfred Hederer, the president of the German Beekeepers Association, almost simultaneously reported a 25 percent drop in bee populations throughout Germany. In isolated cases, says Hederer, declines of up to 80 percent have been reported. He speculates that "a particular toxin, some agent with which we are not familiar," is killing the bees.

Politicians, until now, have shown little concern for such warnings or the woes of beekeepers. Although apiarists have been given a chance to make their case - for example in the run-up to the German cabinet's approval of a genetic engineering policy document by Minister of Agriculture Horst Seehofer in February - their complaints are still largely ignored.

Even when beekeepers actually go to court, as they recently did in a joint effort with the German chapter of the organic farming organization Demeter International and other groups to oppose the use of genetically modified corn plants, they can only dream of the sort of media attention environmental organizations like Greenpeace attract with their protests at test sites.

But that could soon change. Since last November, the US has seen a decline in bee populations so dramatic that it eclipses all previous incidences of mass mortality. Beekeepers on the east coast of the United States complain that they have lost more than 70 percent of their stock since late last year, while the west coast has seen a decline of up to 60 percent. "

On plastic and kids

Yes pollute all our kids from birth so then you can sell us Ritalin and other crap later on .... use one poison to require the next and the next ... great at creating lots of profit!!! I know you want every living soul addicted to some drugs that pay you $100/month for their entire life!!!! The American Profit Machine at work

On plastic and kids | By Umbra Fisk | Grist | Ask Umbra | 02 Apr 2007: "Plastic is a lightweight, reusable material that gained dominance in the kids' consumer-goods market due to its low cost and durability. Today's plastics are manufactured using chemical compounds found in petroleum and natural gas, with other chemicals added to achieve desired properties such as flexibility, color, and solidity. Although plastics are undeniably handy and here to stay as part of modern life, they do have environmental drawbacks. Immediate threats to human health from plastic food containers include phthalate softeners and the resin bisphenol A. Dioxins, which result from the manufacture and disposal of polyvinyl plastic, have been identified as a major long-term threat to the environment and mammal health. Children, as you say, are small and grow rapidly, chewing everything in sight for part of their life, and are hence at a higher risk from plastic food containers than we ginormous adults.

Both phthalates and bisphenol A are considered hormone disruptors. Bisphenol A may be acting as an estrogen substitute within our bodies and those of our children, causing abnormal development of various organs including the brain and reproductive system. Bisphenol A has been in the news recently as regards baby bottles because of a study released by Environment California that found BPA in the five most popular polycarbonate baby bottles. (Reading that report is probably the best way to absorb all the various impacts potentially attributed to bisphenol A in plastics.) Then the National Institutes of Health picked the whole thing up to examine what's happening, and that seems to be ongoing. Phthalates I've discussed before on numerous occasions; they are also chemicals that are added to and leach out of plastics and can then perhaps disrupt our reproductive systems. Bad, the whole thing is bad."

WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future: Time for True Market Reform

Leaving the Gready American Machine .. in the dust!!!!

"China has long rejected the Washington Consensus model and modified it to create its path of a social market economy where markets are seen as 'good servants but bad masters.' Europeans favor the mixed social market economy and now most Latin American countries are rejecting the US formulas in favor of the Chinese and European models. In earlier years, the economies of Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore grew on the Asian model of markets steered and regulated by governments.

Socially–responsible pension fund trustees and mutual fund managers launched the United Nations Principles of Responsible Investing representing over $6 trillion in assets. The Carbon Disclosure Project, representing $31 trillion held by global asset managers demands disclosure of carbon emissions. These financiers are giving new meaning to market reform. (see www.ethicalmarkets.com). They demand that companies in their portfolios also focus on making markets more ethical. They employ the new accounting protocols of the "Triple Bottom Line" that go beyond the traditional single bottom line of profit and also improve their governance, social and environmental performance. This is not surprising since today, bad behavior entails new kinds of risk to companies' stock prices: social, environmental and reputational risk, measured by financial services firms such as Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, Truecost and others.

The Information Age has also morphed in to a new Age of Truth, where a company's reputation, precious brands and stock can be broken in real time by negative postings by global watchdog groups such as Corpwatch.org and Global Exchange. Individual investors, making common cause with labor unions, environmentalists and social justice groups have fueled this new definition of market reform, representing $2.3 trillion in assets in the USA alone. Even the Nobel Committee gave its Peace Prize to Mohammad Yunus, banker to the poor.
....
....

Market reform is coming to mean reforming markets and capitalism itself. Would Adam Smith be surprised? Probably not, since he lauded the dynamism of capitalism. Schumpeter later saw the evolution of markets as "creative destruction," as seen today in the new "disruptive" technologies of cleaner, greener energy and resource-use now challenging coal, oil, and nuclear power. The new values and ethical concerns driving the further evolution of capitalism reflect the new imperatives of the 21st century on our small, endangered planet. Smith's famous "invisible hand" turned out to be our own…not some metaphysical force. Guided by our growing human awareness of what we have wrought on this planet and our potential for further development, all our long-term self-interests are now indivisible . Ethics and morality are becoming the new pragmatism.

HAZEL HENDERSON, futurist,syndicated columnist,author of many books including Ethical Markets: Growing The Green Economy (2007), also co-created the Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators, updated."

Bill Moyers What Free Government

Who knows the History, real History? Morality of what? National Security Act of 1947. Arms sales for oil. What's new? What happened to Senator Frank Church??

Snakes in Suits

In a study of high-performing businesspeople, as many as one of every 30 was found to be a psychopath, a rate several times higher than that of the general population. A psychopath has no conscience and no ability to develop one. We think of psychopaths as serial killers, but in reality, many psychopaths just want money or power. They think nothing of ruining someone else's career if it helps them get ahead.

Example: Frank had a wonderful relationship with his company's CEO until Dave, a recently hired psychopath in his department, started telling the CEO that Frank was criticizing the CEO's leadership behind his back. The CEO believed Dave's lies, fired Frank and gave Dave his job.

IDENTIFYING A PSYCHOPATH

When we first meet psychopaths, we might sense that something isn't quite right, even if they seem friendly. This vague sense of unease could be the primitive part of our brain warning us that we're in the presence of a predator. If at some level you feel there is something wrong with a new coworker, keep an eye out for lies and more subtle deceptions. Psychopaths will...

Find reasons to blame other people whenever anything goes wrong.

Take credit for others' work.

Spread damaging rumors, and try to break down existing friendships.

Quickly deduce coworkers' weaknesses and exploit them.

Bottom Line/Personal interviewed Paul Babiak, PhD, industrial and organizational psychologist and president of HRBackOffice, an executive coaching and consulting firm, Dutchess County, New York. He is coauthor, with Robert D. Hare, PhD, of Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work (ReganBooks).

Fwd: What Happy People Know That You Don't

What Happy People Know That You Don't
I once worked with a woman who vacuumed her house every single morning -- before she left for work. Now I knew this about my colleague only because her young daughter dropped it one day in casual conversation... her attitude being one of "Doesn't everybody?" Well, no, everybody doesn't... but neither does it matter. Still, my colleague considered her cleaning addiction crazy enough that she kept it her little secret. The truth is, every one of us has crazy behaviors and beliefs.

These are what one character in the movie "The Family Stone" referred to as a freak flag. And how much easier it would be, the movie implies, if we all carried around "freak flags" that announced our personal craziness for the world to see.

WHAT IS YOUR FREAK FLAG?
Life coach Lauren Zander of the Handel Group (www.handelgrouppc.com) agrees completely with the concept of flying personal freak flags. Being upfront about our crazy quirks is not only truthful, she says, it also acknowledges that everyone has a variety of them. They belong to and brand us and are the interesting things we do that make us human. She notes that a giant realm of personal craziness includes the category of food and eating -- from chowing down behind closed doors to never co-mingling foods on a plate.

Sexuality is another big area of personal quirks and preferences. Although universal, most people feel too weird about their sexual attitudes and ideas to speak honestly about them. Professional athletes have their crazy secret beliefs about what will help them win a tournament. Children have rituals, objects or imaginary friends they use to help them feel safe. Grown-ups have a wide variety of behaviors or harmless biases they cling to for a bevy of reasons. Example: Ask pack rats why they insist on keeping all that "stuff" with no obvious worth or value.

THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN

As human beings, we are all in the same interesting and weird boat, Lauren observes, trying to grow up and deal with our small vices -- but at the same time wanting to be "normal" and look good to others. Let it go, she says. Claim the joy to be found in admitting to your quirks. Fessing up to the crazy quirks is funny and freeing and endows people with a new sense of control about their behavior.
Accepting your own quirks also provides an opportunity for a whole new understanding of the quirks and freakiness of your spouse, kids, parents and friends. A huge percentage of marital squabbles involve one spouse's intolerance of the other spouse's quirks -- remember the classic toothpaste tube argument? Everyone around you has his/her own set of quirks that you can either learn to love as part of who that person is... or you can let them drive you crazy. I have a friend who never sends thank you notes -- not even for her wedding or baby gifts. I know that she is a loving and generous and devoted friend. So, I accept that she is not wired to send thank you notes. Some people might sever a relationship over not being thanked and sacrifice all the great things that are part of that lifelong relationship.

FINDING YOUR OWN

It is possible that crazy quirks are so well hidden they are hard even for the individual to find. To find yours, Lauren advises looking first for any behavior or attitude you don't want other people to know about. That is certain to be a freak flag candidate. Another place to look: At your grievances and annoyances about other people. If certain things about others really bug you, chances are strong that there is a little personal freak flag in there. As an example, Lauren notes that arrogance in others makes some people furious, but probably they carry around arrogance themselves, just better disguised. Because people are not generally bothered by behaviors that don't exist somewhere in themselves, being upset is a big signal to go looking at that.

Identifying it and accepting that bit of freakiness will loosen the steam you have built about your grievance and annoyance about others, Lauren says.

It may feel scary to fly a freak flag at first, but be brave. It won't take long to start experiencing the rewards. By admitting to your own craziness you bring a fresh openness in your dialog with others. By acknowledging, for example, that my husband is right in telling me that I sometimes forget things if I don't write them down allows us to have fun with my "forgetful-ism" and also creates a structure in our relationship that supports my need to write things down. It's now a big family loving joke about the notes I leave for myself for fear of forgetting.

Being honest about yourself, stripped of spinning and lying, gives people around you permission to put up their flags as well. Flying the flags breaks down the boundaries between you and the barriers to real human nature -- at last, everyone starts to be who they really are.


What Happy People Know That You Don't
* Meredith Haberfeld, co-founder and CEO, and Lauren Zander, principal, Handel Group Private Coaching (www.handelgrouppc.com).

LiveScience.com - Alarming Decline of Sharks Causing Other Species to Vanish

Oh daaa... Damb can people get really STUPID!!!

LiveScience.com - Alarming Decline of Sharks Causing Other Species to Vanish: "The precipitous decline in large predator sharks in the Atlantic Ocean in the past decade has made ecologists worry about a trickle-down effect on the ocean ecosystem.

A new study supports the case. With the large predators gone, their prey—smaller sharks and rays—are free to feast on lower organisms like scallops and clams, depleting valuable commercial stocks.

“Large sharks have been functionally eliminated from the East Coast of the U.S., meaning that they can no longer perform their ecosystem role as top predators,” said study team member Julia Baum of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Disappearing sharks

Shark populations all over the world have plummeted because of intentional fishing for their fins, which are eaten and used for medicines in Asia

For this study, published in the March 30 issue of the journal Science, the researchers looked at surveys of populations of 11 great shark species, conducted between 1970 and 2005. Every species had substantially declined in just those few decades. The smallest observed decline was in sandbar shark populations, which had decreased nonetheless by 87 percent. Other species, including the bull, dusky and smooth hammerhead sharks, may have declined by more than 99 percent.

“They’re all down dramatically,” said study co-leader Charles Peterson of the University of North Carolina."