3-minute brain exercise improves mental acuity

Sounds like something everyone could use these days...

An unusual exercise to improve mental health and acuity has been going viral on the internet lately. It was featured in a Los Angeles CBS News report (source below, includes video) that has an MD, a Yale neurobiologist, an occupational therapist, educators, and parents endorsing it. It is a simple routine, and it has created positive results for learning disabled and autistic children as well as older Alzheimer`s victims.

And it`s useful for any kind of brain fog or dullness, even emotional instability. It can improve memory and focus, and it`s even made some a little smarter. It seems to work for everyone regardless of mental condition.

How to Do This Simple Exercise

With your feet pointing straight ahead, spread them apart about shoulder width. Grab your right earlobe with the thumb and finger of your left hand. Cross over your left arm and do the same using your right hand on the left earlobe. Then squat as fully as you can, breathing in. That`s a little counter intuitive, but that`s what you do. Breathe in as you squat.

Then breathe out as you stand. So the breathing needs to be synchronized with the squats. Continue this motion repetitively while holding both earlobes for three minutes. That may be too much at first, so start with one minute. One can go up to five minutes, but three is good enough. This can be done by anyone at any age and should be done on a daily basis until the fog lifts!

How It Works

Los Angeles physician Dr. Eric Robins says that the brain cells and neurons are energized with this simple exercise. He prescribes it to his patients and has had excellent results. One example of his is a youngster doing poorly in school. After being introduced to the exercise, that child went on to become an A student.

According to Yale neurobiologist Dr. Eugenius Ang, the earlobes grabbed are acupuncture points that stimulate neural pathways in the brain. The brain`s hemispheres are in opposite sides of the earlobes. Using opposite hands for pinching the earlobes may have something to do with the way our subtle energies are arranged.

Ang showed that the results from EEG (electroencephalography) readings after doing this exercise indicate the right and left hemispheres of the brain had become synchronized. EEG readings measure the neuron firings in the brain via electrodes on the scalp, and are used to determine brain wave normalcies and abnormalities.

As Dr. Ang states, "... in modern terms, the brain is actually lateralized. This is an ideal hemispheric arrangement, which is unusual these days. It is something that pricey brain technology CDs attempt to do by producing subliminal sounds to the brain attached to audible sounds through a headset. Dr. Ang also does this exercise daily.

How It Started

The exercise was introduced by pranic healing Master Koa Chok Sui`s book SuperBrain Yoga and taught by him personally on lecture tours. Of course, there are many other aspects of pranic healing that Master Sui taught.

Prana is another word for Chi, the subtle life force energy that surrounds and permeates the body. It is the stuff of acupuncture and Qi (Chi) Gong. In addition to the subtle energy aspects of prana or Chi, it seems that combining a mildly aerobic exercise also helps flood the brain cells with oxygen.

At any rate, it`s an easy and inexpensive way to improve memory, mental clarity and focus, as well as assist those with debilitating mental disorders. There are those who call it quackery. But you`d be smart to do it daily!

Sources for more information:

Main Source page with CBS News video (Click - See how it is done here)
http://homeopathyplus.com.au/hplus/...

EEG details
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electr...

Site for Master Koa Chok Sui
http://www.superbrainyoga.org/

A bit about neural pathways
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural...

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Credit Card Fees -- Tlhe NEW TRAPS

Important!  Banks are already figuring ways to get around the new credit card regulations imposed on them.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704804204575069374130248754.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wsj%2Fxml%2Frss%2F3_7011+%28WSJ.com%3A+What%27s+News+US%29

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Fantastic performance of Swan Lake

Like you've never seen it before. You have to see it to believe it! Extraordinary talent and control!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sMc-p19FIk

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Bill Moyers spoke on this subject last night

Rampant greed runs our country now. The money changers have taken over the temple. God help us all.

What Are We Bid for American Justice?
by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship

That famous definition of a cynic as someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing has come to define this present moment of American politics.

No wonder people have lost faith in politicians, parties and in our leadership. The power of money drives cynicism deep into the heart of every level of government. Everything -- and everyone -- comes with a price tag attached: from a seat at the table in the White House to a seat in Congress to the fate of health care reform, our environment and efforts to restrain Wall Street's greed and prevent another financial catastrophe.

Our government is not broken; it's been bought out from under us, and on the right and the left and smack across the vast middle more and more Americans doubt representative democracy can survive the corruption of money.

Last month, the Supreme Court carried cynicism to new heights with its decision in the "Citizens United" case. Spun from a legal dispute over the airing on a pay-per-view channel of a right-wing documentary attacking Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential primaries, the decision could have been made very narrowly. Instead, the conservative majority of five judges issued a sweeping opinion that greatly expands corporate power over our politics.

Never mind that in at least two separate polls an overwhelming majority of Americans from both political parties say they want no part of the Court's decision; they want even more limits on the power of money in elections. But candidates and their campaign consultants are gearing up to exploit the court's gift in the fall elections.

Just this week, that indispensable journalistic website Talking Points Memo reported that K&L Gates, an influential Washington lobbying firm, is alerting corporate clients on how to use trade associations like the Chamber of Commerce as passthroughs to dump unlimited amounts of cash directly into elections. They can advocate or oppose a candidate right up to Election Day, while keeping a low profile to prevent "public scrutiny" and bad press coverage. And media outlets already are licking their chops at the prospect of all that extra money to be spent buying airtime -- as much as an additional $300 million. That's not even counting production and post-production costs of campaign ads, which are considerable. A bad situation just got worse.

If you want to know just how much worse, look to the decision's potential impact on our court system, where integrity, independence and fair play count the most when it comes to preserving faith in our system. It's as susceptible to the lure of corporate wealth as the executive and legislative branches are.

Ninety-eight percent of all the lawsuits in this country take place in the state courts. In 39 states, judges have to run for election -- that's more than eighty percent of the state judges in America.

The Citizens United decision makes those judges who are elected even more susceptible to the corrupting influence of cash, for many of their decisions in civil cases directly affect corporate America, and a significant amount of the money judges raise for their campaigns comes from lobbyists and lawyers.

In the words of Charles W. Hall, a spokesman for the nonpartisan, judicial watchdog group Justice at Stake, "Corporate bottom lines are not affected by whether a bank robber gets 10 or 20 years in prison. The bottom lines are affected however by whether a large scale lawsuit is upheld or overturned."

During the 1990's, candidates for high court judgeships in states around the country and the parties that supported them raised $85 million dollars for their campaigns. Since the year 2000, the numbers have more than doubled to over $200 million.

The nine justices currently serving on the Texas Supreme Court have raised nearly $12 million in campaign contributions. The race for a seat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court last year was the most expensive judicial race in the country, with more than four and a half million dollars spent by the Democrats and Republicans. Now, with the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, corporate money's muscle just got a big hypodermic full of steroids.

As Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in his 90-page Citizens United dissent, "At a time when concerns about the conduct of judicial elections have reached a fever pitch... the Court today unleashes the floodgates of corporate and union general treasury spending in these races." States that elect their judges, he said, "after today, may no longer have the ability to place modest limits on corporate electioneering even if they believe such limits to be critical to maintaining the integrity of their judicial systems."

No wonder that legal experts, including former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (the only living current or former Supreme Court member to have been an elected state court judge), have called for states with judicial elections to switch to a system of merit selection. Judges would be appointed but possibly subject to "retention elections" in which voters can simply vote thumbs up or down as to whether jurists are qualified to remain on the bench.

Until such changes are made, the temptations of corporate cash mean that in those states where judicial elections still prevail there hangs a crooked sign on every courthouse reading, "Justice for Sale."

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A MUST-READ by Caroline Myss

In this wake-up article to all Americans, Caroline Myss covers every point about the demise of our nation that many of us have been aware of -- and then some. It is an excellent analysis of what is really going on in our political scene. She blasts both parties, and rightly so! Corporate rule of our country is now complete, and our democratic way of life is going, going, gone. We are going the way of the Roman Empire, our country and its founding principles destroyed by greed and power plays of the elite and betrayal by our Congressional representatives. The Supreme Court recently put the last nail in the coffin with their WORST-EVER decision to give corporate lobbyists even greater power to buy the votes of our so-called "representatives." These representatives, no matter what they say when they run for office, are representing themselves and the corporations.

The Republican Strategy: Covert Destruction At All Costs
by Caroline Myss

It takes awhile to make sense of the entrails of the Republican Party, partly because they are just so toxic, but also because it's actually difficult to comprehend that an American political party can so deliberately sabotage its own government and nation.

But after observing their behavior and their policy of, "Just Say No" -- sometimes to their own suggestions, one can only surmise that they long ago left the business of governing and have instead agreed to a covert game plan of destruction while simultaneously playing an overt game of seduction with the American public. The seductive part of their plan is the one more familiar to the public -- constantly talk about what the people want to hear. No more taxes. Defend the country. Go Conservatives. Minimal government.

Meanwhile, the depth, width, and long range planning of the Republicans' dark strategy should have every American shaking with terror, especially since it is picking up momentum once again.

As I observe the constant aggressive and non-cooperative behavior of the Republican Senators that is so outlandish as to border on choreographed (if not near-treasonous), it's blatantly obvious that the long-term Republican agenda is to sabotage this Democratic administration so successfully as to make it appear responsible for all the failures of the Bush administration while simultaneously preventing this administration from accomplishing anything on its own merit, even to the detriment of the good of this nation.

If their plan succeeds -- and it's certainly gaining ground, unfortunately -- the Republicans have a good chance of returning to the White House. How tragic for this nation to find itself returning to the dark days of "rule by fear". Just picture Cheney and Rove laughing behind the scenes. That one image alone should be enough of a reminder as to why the American people should wake up and recognize these political spell-casters for what they really are -- corporate loyalists with Fascist leanings.

That Republicans honor corporate loyalties over their loyalties to the Constitution are beyond question and these policies became publically official with the passing of the recent Supreme Court ruling last month. With that ruling, Republicans have succeeded in outsourcing our own government, as corporate interests are international as well as national. That ruling alone makes their Tea Party gatherings a real head scratcher, as the last folks in line for any Republican benefits are the common folk, which largely comprise their army of modern day Brown Shirt Tea Party hysterics.

If these people could only see through the real agenda of the Republicans, they would realize that they are merely being used as upstart noisemakers, no more than public distractions to create havoc for the Democrats. They actually believe that the Republicans are on their side, listening to their issues and protests when all the Republicans want them to do is make noise. Listening is not part of the Republican bargain. Don't they get that? Why don't these people remember the Bush/Cheney administration?

Bush and Cheney were the closest Americans ever came to being ruled by dictators. Don't these people get that the Republicans are against health care because they are fundamentally against any and all forms of assistance? If they could take away Social Security and Medicare, in all likelihood, they would. How is it possible that these Tea Party Brown Shirts do not understand that in supporting the Republicans, they are in fact supporting their own demise?

How soon these people forget that they have lost their jobs and homes and are continuing to lose both because of Republican de-regulation policies (among other policies) that the Republican House and Senate could have stopped - but didn't. Why? Because common folk do not and never will matter to the Republican Party any more than the Constitution does. Just review what the Bush/Cheney administration did to our Constitution for proof. They took a weedwacker to it. One more Republican administration and the coup will be complete. Wait until these Tea Party Brown Shirts gather and try protesting if -- God forbid -- the Republicans get back into office. They'll be met with police armed with weapons and the Patriot Act and that will be the end of those little social gatherings, or would they be called "uprisings" then?

Certainly the Clinton administration added to the deregulation debacle but let's face it, the inspiration and fuel behind these policies picked up steam under the Bush/Cheney administration. The Democrats have their own list of sins against the American system, to be sure, which is long and historic, without a doubt. But by comparison to the present agenda of the Republicans, the greatest crime that the Democrats are presently committing is that they are not doing the job that they were sent to Washington to do - which was to represent the Democratic agenda and take on those Republican bullies.

Next, we have Sarah Palin, one of the more covert schemes of the Republican agendas. What makes Sarah part of Republican covert strategy? Simple-Sarah doesn't even realize that she is being used by the Republican brain trust as their Vamp distraction - the poor thing. She actually thinks she has something to offer this country when, in fact, even her own party is probably laughing at her behind the scenes. She is the Republican Court Fool, an idiot mouthpiece who writes notes on her hands in order to get through an appearance and lacks the insight due to an over abundance of vanity and ambition to realize that her own party intends to toss her to the wolves as soon as her usefulness as a Vamp distraction is done. Anyone who doubts this has only to wait and see.

Now that the Republicans have good looking, smooth talking Scott Brown, they are not going to risk their money on Palin again. No way. As soon as they no longer need someone to make outlandish, ridiculous, uneducated, near-illiterate statements that cause controversy, they'll ship her back to the big A. Republicans are known for being ruthless but when it comes to Sarah, ruthless is fine with me.

That the Republican tactics are working is not surprising, though it is unfortunate. Given that the Democrats had the majority in both Houses and the White House, they still have acted like the minority party since Obama's swearing in, bullied by the Republicans, unable to get their policies and agendas passed. Compromise is one thing but the Democrats have turned compromise into an act of apology for winning this past election. As for those so-called Blue-Dog Democrats, why don't they just admit they lack the backbone to be anything at all? Lieberman certainly comes to mind.

One has to wonder if the browbeating the Democrats took under the Bush/Cheney years so battered them that they forgot how to stand up with dignity and represent their party. Or perhaps they are just old, useless cowards, incapable of doing battle any more or are they waiting for their President to end the politics of compromise and repeat the disrespect for Congress that Bush/Cheney turned into an art form? Perhaps it's a mixture of all the above. In the meantime, however, we are left with a blockade in Congress that has gone well past the critical point. How do we proceed?

As much as we Americans have this cultural tendency to want to detach from the past as quickly as possible and get on with a new future - in this case, in the form of a new Presidential administration -- sometimes such detachment lacks all wisdom. I heard a discussion among newscasters just the other day, for example, in which they bantered about whether the war in Afghanistan had "officially" become Obama's war, meaning, of course, that the nation could now shift all blame and anger from Bush for starting this massive debacle to Obama. These half journalists/half pundits decided that, indeed, the time had come to declare Afghanistan "Obama's War". If nothing else, such a decision would certainly get Republican support and fuel their much needed media controversies.

Surely the American public cannot and, in fact, should not be allowed to forget that this nightmare of a war begun under false pretenses by a president obsessed with oil and his ex-president father combined with a paranoid and devious former vice president is not just "one of those problems" another president just inherits and manages to resolve within a year. But that's exactly what suits the Republican agenda: Make this war look like Obama's failure, not ours. And while you're at it, make the economic crisis and the housing crisis look like they started with Obama instead of the truth -- that he inherited more Bush/Cheney crises that need years to resolve -- not one year.

No doubt President Obama has made several decisions in his first year that he would not make again now that he sees the consequences and now that he also realizes many in his own Congress want to see him go down. How tragic if not borderline treasonous is that? If his administration had chosen to investigate all the crimes of the Bush/Cheney administration in public view, perhaps that would have made these Republicans a bit more cooperative. But since that's just a pipe dream, maybe the Democrats should mirror some of the Republican strategy. When the Republicans say, "NO", the Democrats should yell back, "NO WAY". You are not getting the White House back and you are not turning this nation into a complete corporate state in which the Constitution is a thing of the past. The Republican creed of "less government" is in truth one of "corporate government". Their covert destructive policies need to be publically exposed again and again until even their Brown Shirt Tea Party minions can understand that this party is fundamentally dangerous to the future of this nation.

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My favorite scene from my favorite Monty Python movie

From Life of Brian, check out this 3 minute youtube scene video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlBiLNN1NhQ&feature=player_embedded

It is very apt for us in today's world, if you see it as a metaphor for the situation most of us find ourselves in, bailing out banks with our taxpayer money and watching the CEOs and high management give themselves multi-million dollar bonuses while they deny us loans and leave us hanging on the cross, so to speak. When I first saw this movie many years ago, I almost fell out of my theater seat, I was laughing so hard.  If you've never seen the movie, you may want to rent it after viewing this video clip -- or you may not (depending on your religious beliefs. Warning:  If you're a born-again Christian, I'm pretty sure you will want to skip this).  Monty Python spoofs have kept me laughing for years. Their sense of humor is just the kind I love...

Here are the lyrics to the "Bright Side" song, in case you want to sing or play along (chords included) (~.~): 

words and music by Eric Idle

Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best...

And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...

If life seems jolly rotten
There's something you've forgotten
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you're feeling in the dumps
Don't be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle - that's the thing.

And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...

For life is quite absurd
And death's the final word
You must always face the curtain with a bow.
Forget about your sin - give the audience a grin
Enjoy it - it's your last chance anyhow.

So always look on the bright side of death
Just before you draw your terminal breath

Life's a piece of shit
When you look at it
Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true.
You'll see it's all a show
Keep 'em laughing as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you.

And always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the right side of life...
(Come on guys, cheer up!)
Always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the bright side of life...
(Worse things happen at sea, you know.)
Always look on the bright side of life...
(I mean - what have you got to lose?)
(You know, you come from nothing - you're going back to nothing.
What have you lost? Nothing!)
Always look on the right side of life...

KEY Am

verse:
Am G
Am G
Am G E7
A7 D7

chorus:
G E7 Am D7
G E7 A7 D7

Background: This song is from Life of Brian by Monty Python. From what I heard, they were filming the last scene of Life of Brian and were all bored and hot sitting up on their crucifixes. So Eric Idle started singing a little ditty. Everyone (but Eric) liked it so much that they decided to use it. It has sine become one of our most popular songs as well.

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Anyone using the Bible to condemn gays may want to reconsider...

Thanks to Bob for calling this item to my attention. The video is excellent!

Bruce Mulkey's Blog: Local political and religious leaders who use the Bible to justify condemnation of gays may want to reconsider

---

Local political and religious leaders who use the Bible to justify condemnation of gays may want to reconsider

Posted: 12 Feb 2010 07:32 AM PST

Some political and religious leaders in our community have turned to selected passages from the Bible as moral justification for their intolerance of gays, most frequently quoting Leviticus 18:22: “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; such a thing is an abomination.” But if you’re going to take the Good Book literally, doesn’t that mean you have to also condone slavery (Exodus 21:7) and stoning anyone who works on the Sabbath (Exodus 35:2 )?

Watch this clip from the NBC series “West Wing” as President Jed Bartlett asks a homophobic radio talk show host these questions and more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-zhNiGlogQ

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HEADS UP: Aspartame renamed to "AminoSweet"

Beware - Aspartame Has Been Renamed 'AminoSweet' And is now being marketed as a 'natural' sweetener!

See: 

• teakdoor.com/issues/​65277-beware-aspartame-renamed-aminosweet.html
• · Cached page

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Scientists find our world may be a giant hologram

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html?full=true

A holographic universe -- very interesting....(~.~)

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Where in the world are Obama's missing million grass-roots supporters?

Gone...gone....gone.  Due to the Dems' misjudgment and mismanagement!  Read all about it:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/26737

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Republicans and Medicare: Hypocrisy of the highest order

What other proof is needed to convince Americans that Republicans are the party of pure obstructionism?  And where in hell is the Democrat backbone?

Excerpt:

The bottom line, then, is that the crusade against health reform has relied, crucially, on utter hypocrisy: Republicans who hate Medicare, tried to slash Medicare in the past, and still aim to dismantle the program over time, have been scoring political points by denouncing proposals for modest cost savings — savings that are substantially smaller than the spending cuts buried in their own proposals.

And if Democrats don’t get their act together and push the almost-completed reform across the goal line, this breathtaking act of staggering hypocrisy will succeed.

Republicans and Medicare
By Paul Krugman

“Don’t cut Medicare. The reform bills passed by the House and Senate cut Medicare by approximately $500 billion. This is wrong.” So declared Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, in a recent op-ed article written with John Goodman, the president of the National Center for Policy Analysis.

And irony died.

Now, Mr. Gingrich was just repeating the current party line. Furious denunciations of any effort to seek cost savings in Medicare — death panels! — have been central to Republican efforts to demonize health reform. What’s amazing, however, is that they’re getting away with it.

Why is this amazing? It’s not just the fact that Republicans are now posing as staunch defenders of a program they have hated ever since the days when Ronald Reagan warned that Medicare would destroy America’s freedom. Nor is it even the fact that, as House speaker, Mr. Gingrich personally tried to ram through deep cuts in Medicare — and, in 1995, went so far as to shut down the federal government in an attempt to bully Bill Clinton into accepting those cuts.

After all, you could explain this about-face by supposing that Republicans have had a change of heart, that they have finally realized just how much good Medicare does. And if you believe that, I’ve got some mortgage-backed securities you might want to buy.

No, what’s truly mind-boggling is this: Even as Republicans denounce modest proposals to rein in Medicare’s rising costs, they are, themselves, seeking to dismantle the whole program. And the process of dismantling would begin with spending cuts of about $650 billion over the next decade. Math is hard, but I do believe that’s more than the roughly $400 billion (not $500 billion) in Medicare savings projected for the Democratic health bills.

What I’m talking about here is the “Roadmap for America’s Future,” the budget plan recently released by Representative Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican member of the House Budget Committee. Other leading Republicans have been bobbing and weaving on the official status of this proposal, but it’s pretty clear that Mr. Ryan’s vision does, in fact, represent what the G.O.P. would try to do if it returns to power.

The broad picture that emerges from the “roadmap” is of an economic agenda that hasn’t changed one iota in response to the economic failures of the Bush years. In particular, Mr. Ryan offers a plan for Social Security privatization that is basically identical to the Bush proposals of five years ago.

But what’s really worth noting, given the way the G.O.P. has campaigned against health care reform, is what Mr. Ryan proposes doing with and to Medicare.

In the Ryan proposal, nobody currently under the age of 55 would be covered by Medicare as it now exists. Instead, people would receive vouchers and be told to buy their own insurance. And even this new, privatized version of Medicare would erode over time because the value of these vouchers would almost surely lag ever further behind the actual cost of health insurance. By the time Americans now in their 20s or 30s reached the age of eligibility, there wouldn’t be much of a Medicare program left.

But what about those who already are covered by Medicare, or will enter the program over the next decade? You’re safe, says the roadmap; you’ll still be eligible for traditional Medicare. Except, that is, for the fact that the plan “strengthens the current program with changes such as income-relating drug benefit premiums to ensure long-term sustainability.”

If this sounds like deliberately confusing gobbledygook, that’s because it is. Fortunately, the Congressional Budget Office, which has done an evaluation of the roadmap, offers a translation: “Some higher-income enrollees would pay higher premiums, and some program payments would be reduced.” In short, there would be Medicare cuts.

And it’s possible to back out the size of those cuts from the budget office analysis, which compares the Ryan proposal with a “baseline” representing current policy. As I’ve already said, the total over the next decade comes to about $650 billion — substantially bigger than the Medicare savings in the Democratic bills.

The bottom line, then, is that the crusade against health reform has relied, crucially, on utter hypocrisy: Republicans who hate Medicare, tried to slash Medicare in the past, and still aim to dismantle the program over time, have been scoring political points by denouncing proposals for modest cost savings — savings that are substantially smaller than the spending cuts buried in their own proposals.

And if Democrats don’t get their act together and push the almost-completed reform across the goal line, this breathtaking act of staggering hypocrisy will succeed.

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Following in Poland's trail

I agree with Krugman -- we are on our way down....if the Republicans don't stop and the Democrats don't do more than say "Tsk tsk," the Republican Senate obstructionism will could be the last nail in our coffin of greed, hatred and power lust.

America Is Not Yet Lost (but the Senate is working on it)
by Paul Krugman

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/opinion/08krugman.html

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HERE THERE BE MONSTERS

This essay by William Rivers Pitt is heart-touching.  What creates bullies/monsters in our world?  I  have often wondered.  My kids were bullied when we moved from one city to another and they changed schools.  They were not only bullied by the kids but also by the nun teachers.  When I saw that, I took them out of the Catholic school.  Just look at all the bullies in Congress, naysayers and obstructionists whose hatred for Obama leads them to rather see the country go down in tatters than to dig in and help change things for the better.  What a sad state of affairs. 
http://www.truthout.org/here-there-be-monsters56756

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ABOUT TIME! DOING AWAY WITH DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL

SMOKE THE BIGOTS OUT OF THE CLOSET
By Frank Rich

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/opinion/07rich.html?ref=opinion

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UFOs are real: Astronaut Edgard Mitchell

UFO Disclosure from Astronaut Edgar Mitchell

Wednesday July 23, 2008

After giving us some previous tantalizing statements, it seems that Astronaut Edgar Mitchell has finally done it. He has told the world that UFOs are real, and that we are not alone in the universe. In a recent interview on Kerrang Radio, in the United Kingdom, he shocked the host and listeners by making a number of statements that left no doubt that what we study day after day is indeed, a real science, and not just based on the ravings of lunatics.

You can read the entire report, UFO Disclosure from Astronaut Edgar Mitchell, but here are some of the highlights:

There is other life in the universe.

We have been visited, and this has been covered up.

There is a lot of contact going on.

The Roswell Crash was a real event.

Some UFOs are of extraterrestrial sources, some are not.

Alien intent is NOT hostile.

You can listen to and/or download Mitchell's Disclosure, and NASA's response.

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Scientific analysis of how acupuncture lessens pain

Interesting article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7167362/Acupuncture-lessens-pain-in-brain-not-body-scientists-discover.html

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WHY ARE THEY GETTING AWAY WITH THEIR CRIMES?

The old boys' network bands together, no matter which political party is in power...I was disgusted to see John Yoo and Jay Bybee (torture memo authors) cleared by the Justice Dept.  If the entire Bush/Cheney gang escape punishment for their criminal actions, there truly is no justice in this nation.  Washington, Adams, and Jefferson must be spinning in their graves!

BUSH, CHENEY, AND THE GREAT ESCAPE
by William Rivers Pitt

With each passing day, it becomes more and more astonishing to encompass the fact that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and their henchmen from the prior administration have managed thus far to escape any accounting whatsoever for the massive battery of criminal activity committed during their time in office. More than a year has passed since these men had their hands on the levers of power, and evidence of their myriad crimes and frauds is laying all over the countryside, yet nothing has come of it.

The British government has been running a wide-ranging inquiry into the manner in which the UK and United States were led to war in Iraq by then-President Bush and then-Prime Minister Tony Blair. An astonishing amount of damning evidence and information has been uncovered and publicly aired, including the following statements delivered by a senior member of Parliament (MP) on Tuesday:

A senior Welsh MP said last night he knew "for certain" Tony Blair and George Bush struck a deal to invade Iraq at their notorious Crawford Ranch meeting in 2002 - a year before war was declared. Elfyn Llwyd, Plaid Cymru's parliamentary leader, said he had seen a confidential memo to that effect, although he would not divulge its exact contents.

Critics of the military action in Iraq have long suspected Mr Blair and President Bush came to an agreement at the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas in April 2002, a claim Mr Blair denied in evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry last week. Mr Llwyd said he had offered to give evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry himself, in private if necessary.

The Meirionnydd Nant Conwy MP said: "I think other things should have been pursued [at the inquiry], in particular the detailed conversation at the ranch in Crawford in April 2002. I do know that the deal was struck, I know for certain it was struck at that stage so just to pretend months down the road that no deal had been struck I think is unforgivable. I have offered to give evidence and Chilcot has said 'I'll come back to you'. At that stage I will have private discussions with him."

MP Llwyd refers here to the infamous Downing Street Memos, a collection of British government documents that lay out George W. Bush's intent to invade and occupy Iraq whether or not there was any WMD/terrorism evidence to support the action, documents that further demonstrate Prime Minister Tony Blair's willing acquiescence to the plan. Most damning of all is the secret memo dated 23 July 2002, explaining that war in Iraq was coming, and if the facts did not support the action, those facts would be twisted and buried. "There was a perceptible shift in attitude," read the memo [emphasis added]. "Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."

These documents, along with testimony from the likes of MP Llwyd, offer a vivid portrait of a Bush administration far gone in the pursuit of its own militant plans, and more than willing to break laws and deceive the public to achieve the ends they sought. It was a nest of criminals that occupied the White House for those eight long years, proof of this continues to pile up in vast drifts, and nothing comes of it.

Quite the contrary, in fact. A recent report from the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility slapped a big fat "Not Guilty" stamp on the jackets of John Yoo and Jay Bybee, the two central authors of the notorious "torture memos" that argued the legal justifications for the use of torture by the Bush administration. Worse, it appears Obama's DOJ went out of the way to make sure Bybee and Yoo escaped free and clear from any censure for their despicable activities. According to a recent Newsweek report:

An upcoming Justice Department report from its ethics-watchdog unit, the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), clears the Bush administration lawyers who authored the "torture" memos of professional-misconduct allegations.

While the probe is sharply critical of the legal reasoning used to justify waterboarding and other "enhanced" interrogation techniques, NEWSWEEK has learned that a senior Justice official who did the final review of the report softened an earlier OPR finding. Previously, the report concluded that two key authors - Jay Bybee, now a federal appellate court judge, and John Yoo, now a law professor - violated their professional obligations as lawyers when they crafted a crucial 2002 memo approving the use of harsh tactics, say two Justice sources who asked for anonymity discussing an internal matter.

But the reviewer, career veteran David Margolis, downgraded that assessment to say they showed "poor judgment," say the sources. (Under department rules, poor judgment does not constitute professional misconduct.) The shift is significant: the original finding would have triggered a referral to state bar associations for potential disciplinary action - which, in Bybee's case, could have led to an impeachment inquiry.

The truth of the matter is plain enough. Yoo and Bybee are not going to turn themselves in. Neither are any of the other actors in this gruesome play. If any measure of justice is going to be achieved, it will fall upon Congress, President Obama and his Department of Justice to get it done. Subpoenas must be issued, evidence gathered and testimony heard for the truth to be brought forth and for punishment to be meted out.

But this DOJ cannot even accept the judgment of its own OPR on two comparatively minor foot soldiers of the Bush administration without sanding down the conclusions enough to spare Yoo and Bybee the punishment they so richly deserve. Is there any hope at all that the larger players in the Bush-era criminal activities - Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Perle, Feith and Wolfowitz most prominently - will be brought to justice when those two lesser lights are allowed to return to a law school classroom and a seat on the federal bench?

Disgraceful as it is to say, don't hold your breath.

Speaking of evidence, there is this: a bomb in Karbala exploded on Wednesday, killing and wounding dozens of Shiite pilgrims. Another bomb in Karbala was attached to a military vehicle and killed and wounded dozens on Wednesday. Another bomb killed and wounded several other pilgrims outside Baghdad on Wednesday. Gunmen shot and killed a police officer in Kirkuk on Wednesday. The day before, a suicide bomber killed 54 and wounded dozens more in the outskirts of Baghdad. As of Wednesday, almost 5,000 US soldiers had been killed in Iraq, and nearly 50,000 more have been wounded. More than a million Iraqi civilians have likewise been killed and wounded.

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Perle, Feith, Wolfowitz, Rice, and a dozen other members of the Bush administration, including Yoo and Bybee, are directly responsible for this carnage. They lied through their teeth and broke any number of laws to see it done. They are guilty of much more than the war crimes they committed in both Iraq and the United States. They are guilty of bankrupting this nation with two wars begun on false pretenses and perpetuated to enrich the few, while further cementing the stranglehold "defense spending" has on our growth as a civilized nation.

Thanks in no small part to the Iraq debacle, there is no political impetus to lay a finger on the wildly bloated "defense" budget, even as the fabric of our society shreds and shatters under the economic yoke placed upon our necks by the previous administration. Ours is a government staffed from stem to stern with political cowards who refuse to heal these wounds, and with those who are just as culpable as those members of the Bush administration (read: members of Congress who voted to support each and every criminal act that led us to this place).

Justice? When it comes to the Bush administration, the word has no meaning. They have escaped that justice, and we are all less free because of it.

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Kvetcher in the Rye by Greg Palast

Excellent observations by Palast, although not uplifting to read. Just truthful. :  http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/26509

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A POEM from the heart--to the heart

This is a poem that wrote itself this morning, as I contemplated my life's journey:

Many roads were traveled
and mysteries unraveled
To lift the veil that darkened our true sight
Through centuries and ages
The mystics and the sages
Pierced that veil obscuring the clear light.

In words and loving pointers
They were our anointers
Carrying the Truth they would impart
They spoke of the ineffable
Expressed the inexpressible
Until at last we heard it in our heart.

Love impelled them then
And love impels us now
To speak with their incisive words so clear
To share the simple truth
With those of age and youth
Who have desire and willing ears to hear.

There is nothing to practice. To know yourself, be yourself. To be yourself, stop imagining yourself to be this or that. Just be. Let your true nature emerge. Don't disturb your mind with seeking.

"There is only life, there is nobody who lives a life.

When I see I am nothing, that is wisdom. When I see I am everything, that is love. My life is a movement between these two.

--Nisargadatta Maharaj

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WHY DO AMERICANS OFTEN VOTE AGAINST THEIR OWN INTEREST?

Good article:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8474611.stm


EXCERPT:  Thomas Frank says that whatever disadvantaged Americans think they are voting for, they get something quite different:

"You vote to strike a blow against elitism and you receive a social order in which wealth is more concentrated than ever before in our life times, workers have been stripped of power, and CEOs are rewarded in a manner that is beyond imagining.

"It's like a French Revolution in reverse in which the workers come pouring down the street screaming more power to the aristocracy."

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FACTS ABOUT SWINE FLU VIRUS/VACCINES FROM KNOWLEDGEABLE DOCTOR

The following 3 youtube videos give the clearest fact-based information I have heard on the subject of swine flu and the scare tactics put out to the public. This is an interview with a doctor who is intelligent, articulate, and who has done his research.  WELL WORTH WATCHING. Can help you decide whether or not to have the vaccine.  For parents, it's especially important to know for your children's sake.  Upshot: Vitamin D might be the best protection you can get.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6hRNjoJv3E&NR=1                  PART ONE   (10 minutes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUzaGAk3kw0&feature=related   PART TWO  (10 minutes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S17Yoo7hTSc&NR=1                  PART THREE  (8 minutes)

Dr. Saputo has written an excellent book entitled, A Return to Healing, which describes the problems encountered in our medical system today and suggests that integrative medicine is gaining in popularity as more and more of the population realize the allopathic "scientific" approach is not all it was presented to be.  You can read some reviews of this book on amazon.com at:  http://www.amazon.com/Return-Healing-Radical-Health-Medicine/dp/1579830528/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264809482&sr=1-1   All the reviews give the book 5 stars.

More information and Full chapter excerpts can be found at the following links:

http://www.areturntohealing.com/images/Chapter%204.pdf

http://www.areturntohealing.com/images/Chapter9.pdf

http://www.areturntohealing.com/pressroom.html

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Poll on Obama's speech: creative humor that happens to be true

The following comment by satirist Andy Borowitz is meant to be creative humor, but it is also sadly true. Given the present stance of the Republican party, bipartisanship will never be achieved by Obama. Republicans hate him and, unlike Democrats, who will strive for the greater good over political rivalry, Republicans would rather see the entire ship go down than to ever make even one concession. Many have lived with husbands or wives like this. Those who have, recognize well the trademarks (and repercussions) of dig-in-the-heels stubbornness that refuses to discuss or compromise on anything. It's their way or the highway. NO ONE in the family profits from such behavior, and the cracks in relationships are often irreparable.

This analogy applies well to the present political scene in Washington. As Republicans continue to stall on important public issues, no thought is being given to the people they supposedly represent--and their needs. With rising health care costs and job losses, the middle class is disappearing, leaving the corporations and their lobbyists in control of the destiny of the nation. Most Republicans think this is exactly how it should be (the rich get richer and the poor get poorer), but they will come to rue their selfish thinking when the democracy on which our country is based cracks to an irreparable state. We are very close to that state now.

INSTANT POLL SHOWS 90% OF REPUBLICANS WHO DID NOT WATCH OBAMA'S SPEECH HATED IT by Andy Borowitz

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) - President Barack Obama's State of the Union address has already gotten a big thumbs-down from one key group of voters: Republicans who did not see the speech.

According to an instant poll conducted by the University of Minnesota's Opinion Research Institute, 90 percent of Republicans who did not see the President's speech strongly disagreed with it.

Additionally, 95 percent of Republicans polled agreed with the statement, "If I had seen the President's speech, I'll bet I would have hated it even more."

Davis Logsdon, who supervised the poll, said there were certain difficulties in polling Republican voters: "Many of them would not let us finish asking the question before answering 'No.'"

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Strange cloud colors before China earthquake

EVER HEARD OF HAARP? 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKMTSDzU1Z4  ( 30 minutes before earthquake)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzVamNQzfYA&feature=related    (10 minutes before earthquake)

HAARP: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh2gbJA898s    Jesse Ventura show on HAARP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnRPZOUVhJ4&feature=related

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Pope John Paul II whipped himself

See article at: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/International/pope-john-paul-whipped-belt/story?id=9674114
Self-flagellation is why he should now be declared a saint, according to the convoluted, self-promoting thinking of the Catholic Church. No wonder the ultra-conservative, back-to-the-dark-ages Opus Dei group plays such a big part in today's church. It's interesting to contemplate that these old-time conservatives took back the papacy and kept control of the church after the sudden mysterious death of Pope John Paul I (33 days into his reign), who apparently wanted to continue updating the church in the vein begun by Pope John. He wanted to clean up the Vatican Bank and its illegal doings. The conservative Cardinals were having none of that. And "POOF!" just like that, he was gone. Poor fellow passed in the night, alone, of a "heart attack." But no autopsy was permitted. I wrote more about this in a November posting on this site, as follows:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/6632462/Pope-John-Paul-II-whipped-himself-in-remorse-for-sins.html
Some will think this is "holy" -- they are talking about sainthood for him. Opus Dei members think self-flagellation is a "holy" thing to do, too. (Can you see my eyes rolling?) But then, who would know better what his sins were than he himself? The truly good Pope before him, John Paul I, died very mysteriously after only 33 days as Pope -- many think he was murdered because he planned to change things radically in the Vatican and the Church. John Paul I was actually embarking on a revolution. He wanted to set the Church in a new direction that was considered highly undesirable and dangerous by many high-ranking Church officials.

He wanted, first of all, to strip many of the Vatican members of their powers by dismissing them or reassigning them into harmless positions. Six men in particular, stood to lose a great deal if Pope John Paul I remained in power. (These were - Cardinals Marcinkus, Villot, Calvi, Sindona, Cody and Gelli). There was a suspicion of a conspiracy among these men with Villot the instigator and Gelli the executioner. When John Paul II replaced John Paul I, none of the planned edicts of the first John Paul were ever carried out. For more information on this intriguing episode in the Catholic Church, see: http://www.prose-n-poetry.com/display_work/10583/

I've read a well-researched book about this alleged conspiracy entitled In God's Name by David Yallop. It presents a very convincing case against the dark elements of the Church's high-ranking clergy and their illegal banking practices that were about to be exposed and up-ended by John Paul I.

To read some fine reviews of this book, go to: http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Name-Investigation-Into-Murder/dp/0786719842/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259050161&sr=1-1

Here is just one of them:
This is a difficult book to digest for faithful Roman Catholics like myself. It is the story of a wonderful priest who loved the poor and wanted the church to improve the quality of life for Catholics. Pope John Paul the First was a man who would not seek to impose Christian solutions on non-Christians; he was someone who was sensitive to social problems and open to dialogue; with a commitment to the search for unity; a good pastor, a good shepherd in the way that Jesus was; a man who sincerely believed that the church should not be out of date but be a relevant, nurturing factor in the lives of Catholics worldwide.

The press called him the "Smiling Pope." However, in reality Albino Luciani who wished to be called Pope John Paul the First and became the first double name in the history of the papacy was a man of enormous faith. What a shame his 33 days as pope in 1978 was the shortest stint since Pope Medici Leo XI in 1605 who only served 17 days. In all likelihood, he had the inner strength and intelligence to be the greatest pope in the history of the Vatican.

To this end, "In God's Name: An Investigation into the Murder of Pope John Paul I," by highly regarded journalist David A.Yallop is a work of monumental research and importance. The author dares to point a finger at the financial corruption within the Vatican. He names names...Michele Sindona, Roberto Calvi, Lucio Gelli, Cardinal John Patrick Cody of Chicago and Bishop Paul Casimir Marcinkus in Vatican City all conducted illegal activities. And Albino Luciani was determined to put an end to it.

This well-written book is difficult to put down. Quite naturally it is officially condemned by the oligarchy in the Vatican. However, I think it is important for all interested in the pursuit of truth to read this compelling book and drawn one's own conclusion. The evidence is hard to ignore. The conclusion is based on facts. It is truly hard to imagine but I am now convinced that Pope John Paul the First was murdered because he dared to promote positive change and rid the Vatican of corrupt banking practices. Highly recommended.

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Go to the Vatican Bank if you want money laundered

Vatican bank charged with money-laundering

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 10:34:44 GMT

The Bank of the Vatican has been accused of laundering USD 200 million by proxy through an Italian creditor, a report indicates.

The allegation of the Vatican bank's financial corruption has been made by an Italian magazine that pointed to the financial institute's purported involvement in stealth fiscal transactions —via several accounts —with Italy's UniCredit Bank, Russia Today television network quoted the Panorama magazine as reporting.

“This corruption is continuing on a regular basis in the Vatican,” claimed Janathan Levy, a lawyer familiar with the bank.

“Again, there's no reason for a religion to have a bank that does worldwide commercial activities, dealing in gold, dealing in insurance, dealing in property and then hiding behind the Roman Catholic Church," Levy pointed out.

“I had the privilege to walk inside this bank. It's nothing like a bank,” the Russian news channel quoted another lawyer, Massimiliano Gabrieli, as saying.

“If you go there you deposit or withdraw money without limit, without any kind of receipt for the bank and for the client. All you have is a single card with a number,” he stated.

The British London Telegraph, has recently ranked the Bank of the Vatican ahead of the Bahamas, Switzerland and Liechtenstein in banking secrecy.

The Vatican has denied all charges.

November 23, 2001

Vatican Bank Top 10 Money Laundering Destination

According to one global source, the Vatican is the main destination for over $55 billion in illegal Italian money laundering and the number 8 destination worldwide for laundered money, ranked well ahead of such offshore havens as the Bahamas, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein.

In a recent report by the London Telegraph and the Inside Fraud Bulletin, the Vatican was named as a top "cut out" country along with the offshore banking centers of Nauru, Macao, and Mauritius. A "cut out" country is one whose banking secrecy makes it is all but impossible to trace laundered funds back to their source.

The Vatican Bank is desperately resisting a legal action for an accounting of stolen World War II assets in a San Francisco Federal court (Alperin v. Vatican Bank) filed by Serb and Jewish Holocaust survivors. Contrary to the above reports, a declaration filed under penalty of perjury by the Vatican Bank's attorney, Franzo Grande Stevens, states in part that the Vatican Bank's "fundamental purpose is to promote pious acts" and that its depositors "are essentially limited to Vatican state employees, members of the Holy See, religious orders, and persons who deposit money destined, at least in part, for works of piety." Stevens also declared to the court that the Pope controls the Vatican Bank and that bank records are not retained after ten years.

It seems that the Vatican Bank, a major illegal money laundering operation, is hiding behind the benign image of John Paul II. Given the Vatican Bank's alleged involvement with Nazi loot and current links to organized crime, a reckoning cannot be far off. The accumulating evidence points to a more piratical than pietical Vatican Bank

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Confidential documents on mysterious death of Dr. David Kelly to be released

Key sentence in following article:  Dr Kelly, a former UN weapons inspector, was exposed as the source of a BBC report questioning the government claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that could be deployed in 45 minutes.  Hmmm...now, let's think: who would have wanted him done away with? Who had the most to lose if his words were taken seriously? Give up? Here's the answer: The finger points directly at Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush, Blair & Company. They've tried to keep these records from the public, with requests that the secret files should be closed for THIRTY years and the medical reports, including post-mortem photos, be closed for SEVENTY years.

Stay tuned...but don't expect anything like full disclosure. Oh my, no.  We can't have anything like Truth floating around, now, can we?  To see full article, go to: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7003861.ece


From UK TIMES:

Confidential medical evidence about the death of David Kelly, the expert in biological warfare, is to be released.

Lord Hutton, the retired law lord who chaired the inquiry into Dr Kelly’s death, has indicated that he will release to a group of doctors the medical records and results of the post-mortem examination that have to date remained unpublished. His 2004 report, commissioned by Tony Blair, concluded that Dr Kelly killed himself by cutting his wrist with a blunt gardening knife.

It was reported at the weekend that the medical reports including the post-mortem examination findings by Dr Nicholas Hunt, a pathologist, and also photographs of Dr Kelly’s body, are to remain classified for 70 years.

There is also a 30-year ban on publication of records provided to the inquiry but not produced in evidence.

Related Links

• Live: Lord Goldsmith at the Iraq inquiry

• Doctors' bid to open David Kelly inquest

• Goldsmith to face grilling on Iraq U-turn

The restrictions on publication were notified to a group of doctors who are challenging the Hutton verdict, arguing that the evidence does not support suicide.

A letter from a senior official at Oxfordshire Council said that Lord Hutton had requested that records provided to the inquiry that were not produced in evidence should be closed for 30 years and that the medical reports, including the post-mortem reports and photographs, be closed for 70 years.

But last night the doctors heard through their lawyers that the evidence would be released.

Last year they published a medical dossier saying that Lord Hutton’s conclusion that Dr Kelly killed himself by severing the ulnar artery in his left wrist after taking an overdose of prescription painkillers was untenable because the artery is small and hard to access; and severing it would not in any case cause death.

Dr Michael Powers, QC, one of the doctors involved, said last night: “Obviously we welcome this news that Lord Hutton is now going to disclose the medical reports and any post-mortem reports.

“We particularly welcome it if it can be assured that we shall have access to all the material, so that we consider it.

“Obviously as doctors we undertake not to make public anything that is of a personal or distressing nature to the family.”

Dr Kelly, a former UN weapons inspector, was exposed as the source of a BBC report questioning the government claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that could be deployed in 45 minutes.

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The Day Kennedy Died - Riveting article about doctor who was there

The following article might provide a wake up call for all those who trust the government's findings in the Warren Commission and think the matter is resolved.  This doctor's remembrance of treating Kennedy in Parkland Hospital--and the kinds of wounds he really sustained--is proof that there was a gigantic cover up that continues to this day.  Are there still some naive souls out there who believe the government wouldn't lie to us? Who think conspiracies are bunk and that the government couldn't possibly keep secrets like that from the public?  Hmmm.....if you're among the ever-shrinking numbers of that group, you might want to read this article. This doctor's story will hold your interest.
http://www.dmagazine.com/Home/2008/10/24/The_Day_Kennedy_Died.aspx?redirected=1

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Radiation treatment -- can kill...and does Important article

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/health/24radiation.html?ref=health

The government, hospitals and AMA have tried to keep this information from reaching the public...this is a very important article to read and remember.

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HOW TO SWITCH BANKS -- GOOD INFO

HOW TO SWITCH BANKS
http://redtape.msnbc.com/2010/01/the-how-and-why-of-switching-banks.html

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The Great Tea Party Rip-off

Excellent column by Frank Rich. Although many Republicans can't stand Michael Steele, they can't get rid of him, either. Funny how these political machinations sometimes reverse on you....it must have sounded great at the time ("Hey, let's appoint an African-American to be the head of the Republican National Committee" -- "Yeah, what a great idea! We'll get back the black vote!") OOPS!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/opinion/17rich.html?ref=opinion

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Republican Conservative and Dem. Liberal lawyers team up on issue of gay rights

For once, Ted Olson of the political right side is on the moral right side. The so-called "Christian" Tea Party Republican types have too long stood in the way of equal rights for gays. If those self-proclaimed Christ followers actually followed Christian principles, gays would have been afforded equal rights in all ways long ago.

By Maureen Dowd
It has been quite a journey for Ted Olson. He’s gone from being the conservative lawyer who helped crown W. by winning the Bush v. Gore case before the Supreme Court, to being a lesbian.

“Maureen,” he told me in his gravelly voice, “one of the biggest lesbian groups in this country told me I’m already an honorary lesbian.”

Did it make you feel different, I wondered.

“I still like women very much,” he wryly replied, as his biking pal, liberal adversary and now co-counsel David Boies laughed, snacking on a crust of sourdough bread in their temporary office on Mission Street.

In 2000, Olson and Boies sparred with each other in Washington over which candidate would marry the country. Now they have joined forces here to spar with Prop 8 defenders over who can marry.

“Ted Olson and David Boies, so what are they up to?” Olson laughed, summarizing the confusion and conspiracy theories that their union inspired.

As the sun set on the Bay Bridge behind him and the curtain dropped on the first week of the dramatic trial to challenge the constitutionality of the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, Olson reviewed the case: “We’re going to explain why allowing same-sex couples to have that same right that the rest of us have is not going to hurt heterosexual marriages. It has no point at all except some people don’t want to recognize gays and lesbians as normal, as human beings.”

Boies, wearing a flag pin on his lapel, said that the state of California is engaged in “gay bashing.” He spoke intensely about the gay and lesbian plaintiffs, who offered poignant testimony about their loving relationships and about wanting to be liked and accepted: “These people are people you would want your child to grow up and marry. You can be a child molester and get married. You can be a wife beater and get married. You can be a child-support scofflaw and get married. The importance of that emotional relationship is so vital to the pursuit of happiness that even prison felons, who aren’t really procreating, have a right to get married.”

Noting the rabid effort being made to restrict marriage to only those who can protect its sanctity, a chuckling Olson reeled off some names: “Tiger Woods, Eliot Spitzer, Mark Sanford, Kobe Bryant, Bill Clinton.”

I asked Olson if he misted up, as many in the courtroom did, when Jeff Zarrillo, a 36-year-old manager at AMC Entertainment, testified that he loved his partner “probably more than I love myself.”

“Yes,” Olson replied, noting that he finds himself getting weepy a lot, including when a bright lawyer in his Washington law firm approached him in the library to tell him she was a lesbian mother of two and she was grateful to him.

“I think there’s something the matter with you if you don’t care enough to feel the suffering that they’ve been through and if you’re not emotionally upset about the fact that we’re doing an immense amount of harm to people,” he said. “We’re not treating them like Americans. We’re not treating them like citizens.”

Boies said the problem was generational, and they have to try the case before judges their own age who might find it hard to move beyond old prejudices. (Although this judge, a libertarian-tilting George H. W. Bush appointee, Vaughn Walker, who likes to hire magicians for the court’s annual dinner, has been so accommodating to their side that Ed Meese complained he was tilting the case.)

“I’ve got a grandson who’s a senior in college, and he can’t imagine fighting over this issue,” Boies said. “It’s like explaining to my daughter that there was a time when women didn’t have the right to vote and couldn’t own property.”

The anti-gay-marriage proponents whipped up a moral frenzy in 2008, suggesting conjugal parity would harm children, summon the devil, tear down churches and melt civilization. But Olson argued in his opening statement that the discrimination gays experience “weakens our moral fiber in this country.”

While Charles Cooper, the lawyer on the anti-gay-marriage side, cited President Obama’s declaration that marriage should only be between a man and a woman, Olson noted that Obama’s parents could not have married in Virginia before he was born.

I asked the lawyers if they were disappointed that the president who had once raised such hope in the gay community now seemed behind the curve.

“Damned right,” Boies snapped. “I hope my Democratic president will catch up to my conservative Republican co-counsel.”

Olson added: “I’m not talking about Obama, but that’s what’s so bad about politicians. They say, ‘I must hasten to follow them, for I am their leader.’”

Obama sees himself as such a huge change that he can be cautious about other societal changes. But what he doesn’t realize is that legalizing gay marriage is like electing a black president. Before you do it, it seems inconceivable. Once it’s done, you can’t remember what all the fuss was about.

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FANTASTICALLY GREAT ARTICLE -- A MUST-READ

David Michael Green has written a dynamite appraisal of Palin, McCain, and the Republican party as it now stands. Don't miss this one. Am sure he speaks for millions of us as he tells the glaringly obvious truth (obvious to anyone with eyes and a modicum of intelligence). How did these hare-brains (apologies to rabbits everywhere) come so close to the presidency? Oh yes, the way was paved by the first hare brain named Duhmbya.

It's bad enough having an intelligent man like Obama as president, who is having trouble honoring his promises of Change You Can Believe In. Just imagine what could be happening to us now if Sarah Palin and John McCain had gotten into the White House. OMG! No. Don't even go there. It's too scary to contemplate. Yet the Tea Party nutsos are advocating a Sarah Palin/Glenn Beck ticket for 2012. I don't know whether to cheer them on (could there be anything more insane?) -- or run terrified to the hills. How many nutso voters do you think would vote for such an abominable ticket? Looking at the Republican spokesnuts like Limbaugh, Beck, Coulter, O'Reilly, and Malkin, and realizing they have millions of "dittohead" (can there be a more demeaning term?) followers, I'm afraid it could be far too many!!! Read Green's take on this frightening possibility at: http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/26133

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T.R. worse than G.W.Bush? Read on...

Misadventures of America's Worst President
(Surprise--it's NOT G.W. Bush)
by Ed Tant

Though the stone image of President Theodore Roosevelt stares resolutely from the heights of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, a new book strips Teddy bare and cracks the granite face of this nation's 26th president.

"The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War," by James Bradley is a readable and revealing portrait of the racism and warmongering of the youngest man ever to serve as president, exposing flaws of character and policy that have been buried by most historians who have written about Roosevelt, who died 91 years ago this month.

James Bradley's father, John Bradley, was one of the U.S. Marines who raised the American flag on Iwo Jima during one of the most iconic and patriotic scenes of World War II. In "The Imperial Cruise," historian Bradley traces the roots of the American war in the Pacific back to the foreign policy of Teddy Roosevelt and says, "Maybe my father didn't have to suffer through World War II in the Pacific."

"The Imperial Cruise" takes its title from a diplomatic mission orchestrated by Roosevelt in 1905. Embarking from the port of San Francisco, the seagoing diplomats traveled to the newly annexed Hawaii, then on to Japan, Korea, China and the Philippines, where the United States had been fighting a long and brutal war against indigenous tribes that was reminiscent of the Indian wars not so many years before, a war that also had parallels with today's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

William Howard Taft, Roosevelt's secretary of war who would become his handpicked successor in the White House, led the diplomatic delegation, negotiating secret and unconstitutional treaties with Asian leaders while reporters on the cruise were distracted by the wild-child antics and shipboard romance of Roosevelt's daughter Alice, who went along for the trip, keeping the Roosevelt name in the news while Taft made deals for trade and military might.

At Harvard and Columbia, the student Teddy Roosevelt was steeped in doctrines of white supremacy and Aryan myth taught by professors at those universities. Roosevelt carried those doctrines with him all his life, calling blacks "a perfectly stupid race" and comparing Native Americans to "wild beasts." In 1897, just four years before he became president, Roosevelt wrote that "democracy needs no more vindication for its existence than the fact that it has kept for the white race the best portions of the new world's surface."

The now largely forgotten American war in the Philippines was nothing short of a race war waged by America against the Filipino population. Waterboarding was used as torture by U.S. soldiers, who gleefully sang a marching song called "The Water Cure." Filipinos were called "Pacific Negroes" and "brainless monkeys" by American military men.

In 1906, when the U.S. army massacred about 1,000 Muslim men, women and children in the Philippines, the outraged writer and anti-war activist Mark Twain called the carnage the work of "Christian butchers." Teddy Roosevelt called the war crime which predated the My Lai massacre by more than 60 years "a brilliant feat of arms that upheld the honor of the American flag."

When I interviewed historian Howard Zinn in 2004, I asked him to name America's most overrated president. Without hesitation, he said, "Theodore Roosevelt." James Bradley's new book proves that Zinn was right. Bradley is the author of the best-selling books "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Flyboys." His newest book, "The Imperial Cruise," deserves to sail right to the top of the best-seller lists as well.

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The Shameless Heartless Wingnuts Strike Again

LIMBAUGH and ROBERTSON -- Fringe wingnuts show their "compassion" for Haitians in this terrible earthquake
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-01-15/rush-and-robertson-shameless-haiti-wingnuts/?cid=hp:beastoriginalsR2

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EXCELLENT APPRAISAL of BANKERS by Paul Krugman

BANKERS WITHOUT A CLUE
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/opinion/15krugman.html?src=tp

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THEY'RE ALL THE SAME

I've given up on expecting any real change from Obama and Company. Disappointment doesn't even begin to describe how I feel. It's apparent he is marching to the drumbeat of those who really run this country.

THE GEITHNER/AIG SCANDAL
By David Sirota

As a follow up to yesterday's explosive news, check out today's an amazing - and hideous - interchange between CNN reporter Ed Henry and White House press secretary Robert Gibbs about new evidence that Tim Geithner's New York Fed instructed AIG to hide information from SEC regulators (by the way, big kudos to Henry for trying to get some answers):

Q: Robert, Does the White House believe that Secretary Geithner should testify on the Hill, turn over any documents he has, to sort of clear this up?

MR. GIBBS: Ed, I'd point you to the Treasury Department. I'm sure you've already talked to them. Secretary Geithner was not involved in any of these emails. These decisions did not rise to his level at the Fed. These are emails and decisions made by officials at an independent regulatory agency --

Q: But how do you know that he wasn't involved? He was the leader of the New York Fed.

MR. GIBBS: Right, but he wasn't on the emails that have been talked about and wasn't party to the decision that was being made.

Q: Well, Republican Congressman Issa says there are probably thousands of more emails and he may not be on some that some people have looked at. In the interest of transparency would the White House want more -- I mean, you run AIG now, essentially --

MR. GIBBS: I would point you to the Department of Treasury, which I think will tell you that --

Q: But what does the White House believe?

MR. GIBBS: I just gave you what the White House believes.

Q: Well, no, you gave me the Treasury Department -- no, what do you believe? Do you believe that more emails should come out so we can learn --

MR. GIBBS: What I said was I'm -- I don't know what the story is about the emails. I would tell you that there are not emails that involve Secretary Geithner in this instance. This is emails and decisions that are being made by two people. That decision did not rise to his level.

Q: Okay, last thing on this. Various liberals have jumped on this and other stories about Secretary Geithner, to say that he really is not fit to serve as Treasury Secretary. He still has the President's full confidence?

MR. GIBBS: Of course.

Three things here:

1. Notice that the White House is not denying that illegal action may have occurred - the administration is only making the (preposterous) assertion that the regulatory filings of the largest corporation in the New York Fed's receivership somehow "didn't rise" to Geithner's level. That's right, we're expected to believe the decisions to authorize and then hide multi-billion-dollar taxpayer-financed sweetheart deals for Geithner's friends at Goldman Sachs and all the other big banks obviously - obviously! - "didn't rise" to Geithner's level. Hmm...where have we heard this "no controlling legal authority" argument before...hmm...oh, right - from top Enron executives. And I thought the President was telling us that he believed in "buck stops here" accountability for those at the top, right? Guess not.

2. Gibbs insists Geithner "wasn't party to the decision that was being made" to instruct AIG to hide information from the SEC. He offers no proof of this, other than the fact that Geithner himself isn't on the select emails that have been released. But when pressed about whether Geithner may have known, Gibbs later says "I don't know what the story is about the emails." He also refuses to answer whether the White House will instruct the Treasury Department to release all of AIGs emails to clear up the record, as a group of independent former prosecutors have called for, and as the White House has the power to do because AIG is now owned by the taxpayers. I guess those promises to make this administration "the most transparent in history" are out the window.

3. The fact that the White House can learn about this scandal and then blindly insist that the man at the center of it has the absolute confidence of the president is stunning - and sickening. Van Jones name appears on an ancient (and by the way, perfectly legal) letter of opinion (one that he doesn't even remember signing) about something that has nothing to do with his current job, and that's supposedly worthy of being immediately fired. Tim Geithner heads an institution that helps Goldman Sachs steal $12 billion through AIG and then helps AIG hide that fact - not only does he not get fired from his job as the top financial regulator in America, he gets the full confidence of the President of the United States.

UPDATE: A friend emails me with a very smart explanation for the Van Jones/Tim Geithner discrepancy: "Tim Geithner is rich, white, fiscally conservative & connected to many of the wealthy donors of Obama," he says. "Van Jones is not wealthy, Black, and a street organizer to the poor & working class folks whose vast voting support actually put Obama in the White House. What's so amazing about the double standard? It's the basis of our oligarchy." Exactly.

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Interesting article by Dr. Lanza--followup to his last article

Does Death Exist? Life Is Forever, Says Theory
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-lanza/does-death-exist-life-is_b_410306.html

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A short online video of major importance

You won't want to miss this one..it's less than 10 minutes long and includes interviews with Clifford Stone and Bob Dean, two extremely credible former military men (who had high security clearances), in which they talk about UFOs and visitors from other dimensions. See it at: http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/13209/Bob_Dean___The_Cosmic_Top_Secret/

I've met and spoken with Bob Dean many times at UFO conferences. He is very intelligent, an excellent speaker, highly credentialed as a former military man, and one of the most sincere, articulate people I've ever met. He and Clifford Stone have been repeatedly threatened by the military throughout the many years they have been revealing to the public what they have seen and what they know about UFOs and our military. Yet they continue to speak out because of their absolute belief in the moral duty they have to tell the truth to the people, who have a right to know.

I believe all the UFO programs on TV now may well be the government's effort to gradually and slowly inform the public about the presence of UFOs in our midst. You can see these shows almost nightly (for sure weekly) on the History channel, Natl. Geo channel, Discovery channel, etc. There is a new series called UFO Hunters that is on weekly on one of those channels. Often you will see programs about abductions, in which people claim to have been taken and examined/treated/experimented on by thin, large-eyed aliens known as "grays." There were 3 programs of this nature on television within the past couple weeks. I suspect the government thinks it won't be able to contain the truth much longer, no matter how much they stonewall, so they have given the go-ahead to get the word out through the media, but grudgingly and slowly... Just my suspicion, but you may have noticed, as I have, how many programs of this nature can be seen on TV these days. And, of course, the Internet is chock full of information for those who are curious enough to look for it. This is one of the most important (if not THE most important) story of our time in history, yet the major media still snickers when it reports sightings of UFOs. Flor many years, I have been convinced that a good portion of the people are far, far ahead of the media in their understanding of what is really going on in our world.

Watch this short video clip and see what you think.... http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/13209/Bob_Dean___The_Cosmic_Top_Secret/

If this clip interests you, you may want to watch a longer video (which I also recommended several months ago) of Bob Dean's presentation to an interested audience in Europe: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ngvIP0Za9M

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Highly Recommended Viewing!

http://gokill.com/ Gives some good info. on chemtrails, etc.

Jesse Ventura's show Conspiracy Theory is on every Wednesday night from 9:00-11:00 p.m. It is getting over a million viewers and is the most popular show on TruTV. In Santa Cruz, on Comcast cable, it is Channel 66. It is well worth watching. Tonight's episodes were about the Bilderberg Group and their plans for globalization and depopulation, and Government spying on its citizens through Echelon and other modes. Ventura does some in-depth investigation, with credible interviews, and the shows are excellent--and chilling in details.

I don't think Ventura has done a show yet on chemtrails -- but his first show was on HAARP, which you can now see in its entirety on youtube at: http://info-wars.org/2009/12/04/jesse-ventura-on-haarp-videos/. His show on 9/11 can also be seen in its entirety on youtube at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tkio6TF0Ufg

Both are well worth watching!

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Move Your Money to Community Banks

An excellent suggestion for those who still have money. My friendly bank has been swallowed twice--once by Wachovia. which in turn has been swallowed by Wells Fargo. a behemoth that doesn't pay interest on savings (.025 or some such ridiculous amount) and doesn't give a damn about the customers.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/move-your-money-a-new-yea_b_406022.html

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Genius Invents Mind-blowing Technology Sure to Revolutionize the Way You Live

WATCH THIS FASCINATING SHORT VIDEO! It's almost spellbinding what this young Indian man has created in order to merge the digital world with the real world! And he is wanting to make the technology available to everyone, rather than just trying to make his own millions from his genius ideas. My kids and grandkids will soon be living in an entirely different world than the one I grew up in! For instance, taking photos with your fingers--no camera needed. Just frame any scene with your fingers--and take the photo. Writing on walls, tables, etc. anywhere you go, with just your fingers. Capturing data in the daily world with your fingertips and then transferring it from your fingertips onto your computer screen at home. AMAZING stuff...while watching it, I felt like I was in a sci-fi dream world... Actually, I feel like that much of the time these days, anyway (~.~) Everything is moving so fast! Looking at this technology, I am not sure a world where this kind of thing will be possible is actually the kind of world I want to live in, especially with the overall human consciousness at the level it exists today! First of all, peace and brotherhood ...

 Subject: Genius Invents Mind-blowing Technology Sure to  Revolutionize the Way You Live  http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/12/12/Genius-Level-Innovations-in-Computing.aspx    

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