Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Beautiful a capella version of Little Drummer Boy

http://thestir.cafemom.com/entertainment/164770/a_capella_version_of_little

I'll bet  you've never heard it sung like this before.  Simply beautiful. A keeper.

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Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Pope Francis's new proclamation

Finally, a Pope who sees clearly, speaks truth about the state of the world, and points to ruthless runaway capitalism as a BIG problem:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/11/26/pope-francis-rips-capitalism-and-trickle-down-economics-to-shreds-in-new-policy-statement/

EXCERPT:  Pope Francis said that inequality was the root of social ills, and prayed for world leaders with more empathy and sense of social justice.

“I beg the Lord to grant us more politicians who are genuinely disturbed by the state of society, the people, the lives of the poor!” Pope Francis wrote. “It is vital that government leaders and financial leaders take heed and broaden their horizons, working to ensure that all citizens have dignified work, education and healthcare.”

Pope Francis rips capitalism and trickle-down economics to shreds in new policy statement

By Travis Gettys
Tuesday, November 26, 2013 11:48 EST
Topics:
 
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In case there was any doubt left, Pope Francis made it clear that he shares little in common with U.S. conservatives.

The pontiff released his Evangelii Gadium, or Joy of the Gospel, attacking capitalism as a form of tyranny and calling on church and political leaders to address the needs of the poor.

“As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems,” the pope said in the 84-page document that essentially serves as his official platform.

Pope Francis said that inequality was the root of social ills, and prayed for world leaders with more empathy and sense of social justice.

“I beg the Lord to grant us more politicians who are genuinely disturbed by the state of society, the people, the lives of the poor!” Pope Francis wrote. “It is vital that government leaders and financial leaders take heed and broaden their horizons, working to ensure that all citizens have dignified work, education and healthcare.”

The pope has already drawn the ire of some conservative Catholics, particularly in the U.S., for his open-minded comments on social issues such as homosexuality, abortion and contraception, and he’s also previously criticized capitalism for promoting greed.

But his latest statements put those concerns into sharper focus – and puts him in sharp contrast to American conservative leaders who prize the unfettered free market and promote the Randian theory of objectivism, or rational self-interest.

“I am interested only in helping those who are in thrall to an individualistic, indifferent and self-centered mentality to be freed from those unworthy chains and to attain a way of living and thinking which is more humane, noble and fruitful, and which will bring dignity to their presence on this earth,” the pope wrote.

He also launched a broadside against former President Ronald Reagan’s signature economic theory, which continues to serve as conservative Republican dogma.

“Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world,” Pope Francis wrote. “This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system.”

The pope lamented that people had “calmly accepted (the) dominion” of money over themselves and society, which he said was expressed in the recent financial crisis and the continuing promotion of consumer-based economies.

“We have created new idols,” the pope wrote. “The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real concern for human beings; man is reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption.”

The pope decried the growing gap between rich and poor as a social and political problem.

“This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation,” Pope Francis wrote. “Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control. A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules.”

The pope noted that corporations and individuals were failing to pay taxes in nations around the world, depriving governments of funding needed to serve all their citizens, and banks and loan organizations had crippled emerging economies with staggering interest obligations.

“The thirst for power and possessions knows no limits,” Pope Francis wrote. “In this system, which tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule.”

Pope Francis said this political and economic system was inherently sinful because it violated the biblical prohibition against killing.

“Such an economy kills,” he wrote. “How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.”

The pope said that human beings themselves are used and discarded as mere consumer goods in this “disposable culture.”

“It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new,” Pope Francis wrote. “Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the ‘exploited’ but the outcast, the ‘leftovers.’

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Monday, November 25, 2013

Scared to Death in America -- all-encompassing essay

EXCERPT:
we’re living in a country that my parents would barely recognize. It has a frozen, riven, shutdown-driven Congress, professionally gerrymandered into incumbency, endlessly lobbied, and seemingly incapable of actually governing. It has a leader whose presidency appears to be imploding before our eyes and whose single accomplishment (according to most pundits), like the website that goes with it, has been unraveling as we watch. Its 1% elections, with their multi-billion dollar campaign seasons and staggering infusions of money from the upper reaches of wealth and corporate life, are less and less anybody’s definition of “democratic.”
...
tell me the truth: Doesn’t the direction we're heading in leave you with the urge to jump out of your skin?

Scared to Death: My Safety 'Tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Security
By Tom Englehardt

From the time I was little, I went to the movies. They were my escape, with one exception from which I invariably had to escape. I couldn’t sit through any movie where something or someone threatened to jump out at me with the intent to harm. In such situations, I was incapable of enjoying being scared and there seemed to be no remedy for it. When Jaws came out in 1975, I decided that, at age 31, having avoided such movies for years, I was old enough to take it. One tag line in ads for that film was: “Don’t go in the water.” Of the millions who watched Jaws and outlasted the voracious great white shark until the lights came back on, I was that rarity: I didn’t. I really couldn’t go back in the ocean -- not for several years.

I don’t want you to think for a second that this represents some kind of elevated moral position on violence or horror; it’s a visceral reaction. I actually wanted to see the baby monster in Alien burst out of that human stomach. I just knew I couldn’t take it. In all my years of viewing (and avoidance), only once did I find a solution to the problem. In the early 1990s, a period when I wrote on children’s culture, Michael Crichton’s novel Jurassic Park sparked a dinosaur fad. I had been a dino-nerd of the 1950s and so promised Harper’s Magazine a piece on the craze and the then-being-remodeled dino-wing of New York’s American Museum of Natural History. (Don’t ask me why that essay never appeared. I took scads of notes, interviewed copious scientists at the museum, spent time alone with an Allosaurus skull, did just about everything a writer should do to produce such a piece -- except write it. Call it my one memorable case of writer’s block.)

My problem was never scaring myself to death on the page. I read Crichton’s novel without a blink. The question was how to see it when, in 1993, it arrived onscreen. My solution was to let my kids go first, then take them back with me. That way, my son could lean over and whisper, “Dad, in maybe 30 seconds the Velociraptor is going to leap out of the grass.” My heart would already be pounding, my eyes half shut, but somehow, cued that way, I became a Crichton vet.

Of course, gazillions of movie viewers have seen similar films with the usual array of sharks, dinosaurs, anacondas, axe murderers, mutants, zombies, vampires, aliens, or serial killers, and done so with remarkable pleasure. They didn’t bolt. They didn’t imagine having heart attacks on the spot. They didn’t find it unbearable. In some way, they liked it, ensuring that such films remain pots of gold for Hollywood to this day. Which means that they -- you -- are an alien race to me.

The Sharks, Aliens, and Snakes of Our World

This came to mind recently because I started wondering why, when we step out of those movie theaters, our American world doesn’t scare us more. Why doesn’t it make more of us want to jump out of our skins? These days, our screen lives seem an apocalyptic tinge to them, with all those zombie war movies and the like. I'm curious, though: Does what should be deeply disturbing, even apocalyptically terrifying, in the present moment strike many of us as the equivalent of so many movie-made terrors -- shivers and fears produced in a world so far beyond us that we can do nothing about them?

I’m not talking, of course, about the things that reach directly for your throat and, in their immediacy, scare the hell out of you -- not the sharks who took millions of homes in the foreclosure crisis or the aliens who ate so many jobs in recent years or even the snakes who snatched food stamps from needy Americans. It’s the overarching dystopian picture I’m wondering about. The question is: Are most Americans still in that movie house just waiting for the lights to come back on?

I mean, we’re living in a country that my parents would barely recognize. It has a frozen, riven, shutdown-driven Congress, professionally gerrymandered into incumbency, endlessly lobbied, and seemingly incapable of actually governing. It has a leader whose presidency appears to be imploding before our eyes and whose single accomplishment (according to most pundits), like the website that goes with it, has been unraveling as we watch. Its 1% elections, with their multi-billion dollar campaign seasons and staggering infusions of money from the upper reaches of wealth and corporate life, are less and less anybody’s definition of “democratic.”

And while Washington fiddles, inequality is on the rise, with so much money floating around in the 1% world that millions of dollars are left over to drive the prices of pieces of art into the stratosphere, even as poverty grows and the army of the poor multiplies. And don’t forget that the national infrastructure -- all those highways, bridges, sewer systems, and tunnels that were once the unspoken pride of the country -- is visibly fraying.

Up-Armoring America

Meanwhile, to the tune of a trillion dollars or more a year, our national treasure has been squandered on the maintenance of a war state, the garrisoning of the planet, and the eternal upgrading of “homeland security.” Think about it: so far in the twenty-first century, the U.S. is the only nation to invade a country not on its border. In fact, it invaded two such countries, launching failed wars in which, when all the costs are in, trillions of dollars will have gone down the drain and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans, as well as thousands of Americans, will have died. This country has also led the way in creating the rules of the road for global drone assassination campaigns (no small thing now that up to 87 countries are into drone technology); it has turned significant parts of the planet into free-fire zones and, whenever it seemed convenient, obliterated the idea that other countries have something called “national sovereignty”; it has built up its Special Operations forces, tens of thousands of highly trained troops that constitute a secret military within the U.S. military, which are now operational in more than 100 countries and sent into action whenever the White House desires, again with little regard for the sovereignty of other states; it has launched the first set of cyber wars in history (against Iran and its nuclear program), has specialized in kidnapping terror suspects off city streets and in rural backlands globally, and has a near-monopolistic grip on the world arms trade (a 78% market share according to the latest figures available); its military expenditures are greater than the next 13 nations combined; and it continues to build military bases across the planet in a historically unprecedented way.

In the twenty-first century, the power to make war has gravitated ever more decisively into the White House, where the president has a private air force of drones, and two private armies of his own -- those special operations types and CIA paramilitaries -- to order into battle just about anywhere on the planet. Meanwhile, the real power center in Washington has increasingly come to be located in the national security state (and the allied corporate “complexes” linked to it by that famed “revolving door” somewhere in the nation’s capital). That state within a state has gone through boom times even as many Americans busted. It has experienced a multi-billion-dollar construction bonanza, including the raising of elaborate new headquarters, scores of building complexes, massive storage facilities, and the like, while the private housing market went to hell. With its share of that trillion-dollar national security budget, its many agencies and outfits have been bolstered even as the general economy descended into a seemingly permanent slump.

As everyone is now aware, the security state’s intelligence wing has embedded eyes and ears almost everywhere, online and off, here and around the world. The NSA, the CIA, and other agencies are scooping up just about every imaginable form of human communication, no matter where or in what form it takes place. In the process, American intelligence has “weaponized” the Internet and functionally banished the idea of privacy to some other planet.

Meanwhile, the “Defense” Department has grown ever larger as Washington morphed into a war capital for an unending planetary conflict originally labeled the Global War on Terror. In these years, the “all-volunteer” military has been transformed into something like a foreign legion, another 1% separated from the rest of society. At the same time, the American way of war has been turned into a profit center for a range of warrior corporations and rent-a-gun outfits that enter combat zones with the military, building bases, delivering the mail, and providing food and guard services, among other things.

Domestically, the U.S. has grown more militarized as “security” concerns have been woven into every form of travel, terror fears and alerts have become part and parcel of daily life, and everything around us has up-armored. Police forces across the land, heavily invested in highly militarized SWAT teams, have donned more military-style uniforms, and acquired armored cars, tanks, MRAPS, drones, helicopters, drone submarines, and other military-style weaponry (often surplus equipment donated by the Pentagon). Even campus cops have up-armored.

In a parallel development, Americans have themselves become more heavily armed and in a more military style. Among the 300,000,000 firearms of all sorts estimated to be floating around the U.S., there are now reportedly three to four million AR-15 military-style assault rifles. And with all of this has gone a certain unhinged quality, both for those SWAT teams that seem to have a nasty habit of breaking into homes armed to the teeth and wounding or killing people accused of nonviolent crimes, and for ordinary citizens who have made random or mass killings regular news events.

On August 1, 1966, a former Marine sniper took to the 28th floor of a tower on the campus of the University of Texas with an M-1 carbine and an automatic shotgun, killing 17, while wounding 32. It was an act that staggered the American imagination, shook the media, led to a commission being formed, and put those SWAT teams in our future. But no one then could have guessed how, from Columbine high school (13 dead, 24 wounded) and Virginia Tech university (32 dead, 17 wounded) to Sandy Hook Elementary School (26 dead, 20 of them children), the unhinged of our heavily armed nation would make slaughters, as well as random killings even by children, all-too-common in schools, workplaces, movie theaters, supermarket parking lots, airports, houses of worship, navy yards, and so on.

And don’t even get me started on imprisonment, a category in which we qualify as the world’s leader with 2.2 million people behind bars, a 500% increase over the last three decades, or the rise of the punitive spirit in this country. That would include the handcuffing of remarkably young children at their schools for minor infractions and a fierce government war on whistleblowers -- those, that is, who want to tell us something about what’s going on inside the increasingly secret state that runs our American world and that, in 2011, considered 92 million of the documents it generated so potentially dangerous to outside eyes that it classified them.

A Nameless State (of Mind)

Still, don’t call this America a “police state,” not given what that came to mean in the previous century, nor a “totalitarian” state, given what that meant back then. The truth is that we have no appropriate name, label, or descriptive term for ourselves. Consider that a small sign of just how little we’ve come to grips with what we’re becoming. But you don’t really need a name, do you, not if you’re living it? However nameless it may be, tell me the truth: Doesn’t the direction we're heading in leave you with the urge to jump out of your skin?

And by the way, what I’ve been describing so far isn’t the apocalyptic part of the story, just the everyday framework for American life in 2013. For your basic apocalypse, you need to turn to a subject that, on the whole, doesn’t much interest Washington or the mainstream media. I’m talking, of course, about climate change or what the nightly news loves to call “extreme weather,” a subject we generally prefer to put on the back burner while we’re hailing the “good news” that the U.S. may prove to be the Saudi Arabia of the twenty-first century -- that is, hopped up on fossil fuels for the next 50 years; or that green energy really isn’t worth an Apollo-style program of investment and R&D; or that Arctic waters should be opened to drilling; or that it’s reasonable to bury on the inside pages of the paper with confusing headlines the latest figures on the record levels of carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere and the way the use of coal, the dirtiest of the major fossil fuels, is actually expanding globally; or... but you get the idea. Rising sea levels (see ya, Florida; so long, Boston), spreading disease, intense droughts, wild floods, extreme storms, record fire seasons -- I mean, you already know the tune.

You still wanna be scared? Imagine that someone offered you a wager, and let’s be conservative here: continue on your present path and there will be a 10%-20% chance that this planet becomes virtually uninhabitable a century or two from now. Not bad odds, right? Still, I think just about anyone would admit that only a maniac would take such a bet, no matter the odds. Actually, let me amend that: only a maniac or the people who run the planet’s major energy companies, and the governments (our own included) that help fund and advance their activities, and those governments like Russia and Saudi Arabia that are essentially giant energy companies.

Because, hey, realistically speaking, that’s the bet that all of us on planet Earth have taken on.

And just in case you were wondering whether you were still at the movies, you’re not, and the lights aren’t coming back on either.

Now, if that isn’t scary, what is?

Boo!

Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project and author of The United States of Fear as well as a history of the Cold War, The End of Victory Culture (now also in a Kindle edition), runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. His latest book, co-authored with Nick Turse, is Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050.

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A little poem for Seniors

Just received the following humorous/poignant poem in an e-mail.  It certainly does apply if one identifies with their body!  Bodies do age, but here's something to contemplate:  isn't it interesting that the " I" that we call ourselves never changes?  It's the same  "I" that we were when we were kids, adolescents, young adults, and are right now.  Though the body ages, declines and finally dies, the "I" always stays the same.  Our own experience verifies this.

Wise men and sages throughout the centuries have told us the "I" never dies...it is the purest essence of Life Itself.  And that is who we really are -- not the body, not the mind, but the essence of eternal Life.  Suffering (aging, sickness, death) comes from identifying with the body and mind -- and forgetting the "I" that is always there, always the same, steadily shining as the changeless presence throughout all the changes of body and mind.  The source of "I" can't be seen with the senses, but it is the background of all the senses.  Near-death experiencers have told us they were still the same "I" after leaving the physical body and that they were then identified with another body, lighter and more ethereal.  The "I" of themselves stayed exactly the same, even through the change we call "death." 

With that little bit of uninvited philosophy (can't help myself, it occurred to me! (~.~)), you can read the following little poem (truthful from the standpoint of the body) and, even while ruefully laughing with its easy-to-identify-with descriptions, have a more expanded perspective as well, which might take the edge off the harshness of aging.  (~.~)  The advice at the end is good except for the part that says you pass this way only once.  It's true you pass this way only once as the "person" you are now, but who knows how many "personal" lifetimes the eternal "I" has had--and will have -- in all dimensions?  No matter what your religion or beliefs, it's something to consider from your own undeniable experience as the changeless "I": 
 
     HOW TRUE IT IS 

Another year has passed 
And we're all a little older.

 
Last summer felt hotter 
And winter seems much colder.


I rack my brain for happy thoughts, 
To put down on my pad, 


But lots of things, That come to mind
Just make me kind of sad.


There was a time not long ago 
When life was quite a blast.


Now I fully understand
About 'Living in the Past'. 


We used to go to friends homes,
Football games and lunches.


Now we go to therapy, to hospitals,
And after-funeral brunches.


We used to have hangovers,
From parties that were gay.   


Now we suffer body aches 
And sleep the night away. 


We used to go out dining, 
And couldn't get our fill. 


Now we ask for doggie bags, 
Come home and take a pill.


We used to travel often
To places near and far. 


Now we get backaches
From riding in the car. 


We used to go out shopping
For new clothing at the Mall 


But, now we never bother...
All the sizes are too small. 


That, my friend is how life is, 
And now my tale is told. 

So, enjoy each day and live it up...
Before you're too damn old!!
 

You pass this way only once so enjoy it while you can; Live A Lot, Laugh A Lot and Love A Lot!



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Sunday, November 24, 2013

Good to see some truth about "ObamaCare" finally come out from SOMEWHERE!!

"Obama"Care is really Romney Care, which was foisted off on us by the right wing, who now don't want to be associated with it because it got passed by Obama.  Single payer was the right way to go for decent health coverage for all, but No, the Repuglicans would have none of it.  So our spineless pantywaist president Obama backed down and backed down and finally accepted the Republican proposal--the one the right wing had been touting all along.  BUT THE MOMENT OBAMA ACCEPTED IT, the Repugs turned against it!  "My God, we can't be seen or heard agreeing with him on ANYthing! QUICK, Get out there and condemn him and the RomneyCare we foisted on him--and make sure you call it ObamaCare!"  And so it came to pass.  That's the Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the TRUTH.

I am SO glad to finally hear SOMEone in the media bring this up!  Thank you, Dan Savage, for bringing truth to a world of lies.  At last!  Watch the video to hear REAL truth:

From crooksandliars.com

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If you're a fan of HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher, you're probably already familiar with the Overtime segment they run on the web immediately following each show every Friday. This week, it was actually a lot more interesting than most of the panel segment during the show, with guests Dan Savage and Paul Begala laying into their Republican cohort on the show, Bob Ehrlich for complaining about the Affordable Care Act, when the law came straight out of Republican think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation along with being modeled after Mitt Romney's health care law in Massachusetts.

It was nice to see that shoved right back at them for once, as opposed to what generally happens when these guys appear on our cable "news" networks, where they're allowed to complain about the law while pretending it's not what their side has been proposing for decades on end now.

The only reason Republicans don't like the law is because the Democratic, Kenyan (Black) , Muslim, Socialist, Communist, Marxist usurper proposed it and managed to get it passed. If a Republican managed to do the same thing, they'd be wanting to put their head on Mount Rushmore.  AMEN to THAT!


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Saturday, November 23, 2013

Incredible Graphene...a new technological discovery


Just received the following report about Graphene from a friend.  It's something for stock investors to invest in, that's for sure.  (See article on this at: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/20/applied-graphene-materials-agm-shares-market-debut).  Just plug in the word Graphene on Google and see what comes up!

I am including additional information that I have learned through years of curiosity, study, reading, meeting military and government people at seminars, etc.  The full story comes together neatly, like a jigsaw puzzle, when you have collected enough informational pieces:

Graphene sounds just like the thin, strong, bendable material that was found in the debris of the 1947 UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico.  Since then (as anyone who has paid attention to military and government informants trying so hard to tell their stories but being ignored by mainstream media), aliens are now working on our planet and are no doubt helping us to technologically evolve (as told by Philip Corso in his book The Day After Roswell).  As an Army Lt. Colonel, Corso was given the job of bringing new technology of alien origin to our industries where they were reverse-engineered.  The following is taken from Wikipedia re. Corso (who told his story as he was dying from cancer--and desperately wanted to get the information out before his death):

In his book The Day After Roswell  Corso claims he stewarded extraterrestrial artifacts recovered from a crash near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.

Corso says a covert government group was assembled under the leadership of the first Director of Central Intelligence, Adm. Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter (see Majestic 12). Among its tasks was to collect all information on off-planet technology. The US administration simultaneously discounted the existence of flying saucers in the eyes of the public, Corso says.

According to Corso, the reverse engineering of these artifacts indirectly led to the development of accelerated particle beam devices, fiber optics, lasers, integrated circuit chips and Kevlar material.

In the book, Corso claims the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), or "Star Wars", was meant to achieve the destructive capacity of electronic guidance systems in incoming enemy warheads, as well as the disabling of enemy spacecraft, including those of extraterrestrial origin.

Other military people since Corso have not only verified the information he gave, but tell us that in underground bases all over the world,  Earth humans are working with aliens who are far beyond us technologically.  The leaps and bounds being made in the development of advanced technology in computers and Star Wars weaponry can no doubt be linked to this cooperative (coerced? we can only guess...) endeavor.  Graphene sounds exactly like the material  Major Jesse Marcel   brought home to show his wife and son from the debris field of the Roswell crash.  Apparently, decisions have been made that it is time to introduce this material to the Earth human public and incorporate it into our technology.  God only knows where we will be going from here...

So much to learn....so much being kept from us...  And now, here is the intriguing information sent by my friend re. Graphene:


Incredible Graphene

The following are the five 'Great Ages' of human progress and their approximate duration:

  • Stone Age — 3.4 million years
  • Bronze Age — 2,500 years
  • Iron Age — 500 years
  • Industrial Revolution — 140 years
  • Information Revolution — 30 years

Notice the length of each 'age' diminishes as technology improves. 

The computer industry calls this trend 'Moore's Law'.  It dictates that computer processing power doubles every 18 months. 
 
Graphene = 200 times stronger than steel...150,000 times thinner than a human hair...more flexible than a sheet of paper
 
You may have heard about Graphene.  If you haven't, it's a newly discovered, very special refined form of graphite.

It's a one-atom-thick sheet of densely packed carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice. 

Take a look:


Put simply, it's a sheet of carbon atoms 150,000 times thinner than a human hair. 

Under an electron microscope, it looks like chicken wire.  What's so special about it? 

Everything!

For starters, it's 200 times stronger than structural steel...

It's so strong you could suspend an elephant from a single strand of Graphene...and the strand would not break.

It's extremely lightweight too... 

Soon, everything from bicycles and boats to aeroplanes and cars could be made out of graphene composites.

And when they are, their energy efficiency and durability could skyrocket.

But that's just the beginning of what this new 'smart material' can do...

Not only is it the strongest material researchers have ever tested — it's also one of the best conductors man has ever found.

IBM has already created a graphene-based processor capable of executing 100 billion cycles per second. 

Researchers believe that in the future, a graphene credit card could store as much information as today's computers.

Be clear...

This one material alone could prove more
revolutionary than — and soon REPLACE — 
plastic, Kevlar and the silicon chip
 
Kiss goodbye to shattered screens!
In fact, it's such a breakthrough that the first two scientists to successfully produce single-atom-thick crystals of graphene were awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics.

And for good reason...

In just two years, over 200 companies from a wide array of industries have researched the magical potential of graphene...

  • Scientists in the US and China are already using tiny graphene-based probes to target and identify tumours in live mice. They hope similar graphene-based particles could shuttle cancer drugs to tumours...or even kill tumour cells directly!
  • Engineers at Northwest University, Seattle, found that specially crafted graphene electrodes could allow a lithium-ion battery — like those found in your smartphone or Toyota Prius — to charge 10 times faster and hold 10 times more power.
  • And in 2011, chemists at Rice University, Houston, created graphene-based thin films — unlocking the secret to incredibly flexible, super-durable touch screens and solar cells that can wrap around just about anything...
The Smallest Revolution
in History...

Down at the molecular level there's a lot of friction. Particles can stick together really easily. This means new and complicated structures can be formed. 

Today scientists are experimenting with different conditions to see what sorts of new molecular structures they can create.

The results are astonishing. Some look like thin wires...


Some look like pancakes...


Others look like flowers...


All these different molecular structures have different properties.

And soon they'll change the way we live...

From solar panels you can spray onto your roof...to computers and batteries so small they are invisible. From mobile phones that you can stretch, twist and even imbed into your clothing...they'll make stronger houses...tougher cars...and even make us healthier!

Medical researchers are already looking at using nano-particles to deliver drugs or hunt down cancerous tumours. 

Just imagine 'nano medicines' patrolling your body, hunting down diseases and zapping problems as soon as they arise...


Samsung have already said its flexible displays should enter full-scale production later this year — and it expects to have a dozen more graphene-based products on the market within the next five.

IBM, Nokia and Apple are hot on their heels too.

Touch screens...processor chips...casings...and batteries in everything from PCs and HD TVs to tablets, mobile phones and hybrids could be all made with graphene.

It could change entire industries...economies...and our lives. 

Imagine...

HD TVs as thin as wallpaper...

Smart phones so skinny and flexible you can roll them up and put them behind your ear...and so durable you can beat them with a hammer!

It's mind-blowing. 

Imagine how our world — and your life — would change if the batteries that run your iPhone...your Kindle...and your laptop held 10 TIMES more power and charged 10 TIMES faster than they do now...

If you could eliminate breast cancer or prostate tumours with a simple injection...or by swallowing a graphene-charged pill... 

If your house were strong enough to withstand a bush fire — and your windows processed enough solar energy to heat your home in winter and cool it in the summer...

If the car you drove were six times lighter and 20 times stronger...

The effects would be staggering!

Fuel-efficiency would shoot through the roof. 

People would live longer, healthier lives. 

Cars and aeroplanes would be lighter, faster and safer than ever before. 

And electronics of every type would be launched into an era of unprecedented growth and evolution.

This is just a taste of the cutting-edge innovations coming in the Molecular Age...

...innovations that will reshape the future in the months and years ahead...and it's starting now.

You're looking at a simultaneous eruption of
new-age technologies that will alter our lives on a scale not seen for 100 years

All this technological change and innovation will transform the world...

  • 'Nano batteries' will charge your mobile in seconds...and even power whole cities...
  • 'Smartphones' will carry the computing power of IBM's Watson Supercomputer...
  • A new era of computing mobility — none of the solid rectangular things we carry now butflexible, wearable devices...
  • Handheld 'breathalysers' will diagnose disease in seconds...
  • Bionic limbs with human fluidity and dexterity, but thestrength of Superman!
  • Spacecraft with the capacity to take us beyond our solar system into places and worlds never explored...
 








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