November 30, 2009

Real Business of Carbon Regulation and Credits: Controlling Our Mobility and Freedom

Copenhagen, Carbon and Control

November 30, 2009

Infowars - From scrapped cars to bloated NGOs, funded by those who aim to profit from carbon, one need only look to the European Union and the UK to see what’s planned for America. It’s no surprise that the US government, and associated institutions, plan to support “low carbon” strategies for a new world. It takes only a few clicks of the mouse to discover the tentacle-like, death hold the green revolutionaries possess throughout the USA and the world...

It’s interesting to note that while American consumers were gladly handing over their “clunkers,” so too, was Canada, the UK, South Africa, Germany, France, Italy, and now China is announcing a similar move. Proponents of this scheme say it will boost sluggish auto sales. So, is this about climate change or another back door bailout? Look a little deeper, however, and we find that scrappage schemes really don’t work to reduce much of anything...

If these programs are found to be questionable, especially without the acquisition of real data, then this futile exercise begs the question: What is this about? The author will hypothesize that this particular program and the implementation thereof, is a piloted demonstration of governments acting as one, single, global entity.

Scrapping vehicles is a hyped sell to consumers to accomplish several things: create a precedent for a united, carbon-guised, global effort; line the pockets of the automakers, shareholders and data makers; bolster the image of environmental concern, securing a healthy, well-indoctrinated voting block. Perhaps most importantly, to set a “carbon budget precedent” as a local and individual control mechanism...

What else should we be expecting in America? How about Smart Meters, Personal Carbon Allowances, and other quite shocking programs designed to thwart our freedoms. The real business of carbon regulation is a matter of global sychronicity while controlling our mobility and freedom without actually have to expose themselves to challenge or debate. After all, the science has been purchased, as have the politicians and the corporations.

Confoundedly, proponents of programs and policies geared toward carbon budgeting are presented as good stewards of this planet, and they may even believe they are. The disarming aspect of “carbon-nation” is that no one seems to notice the evolution of this slow, seemingly painless, asphyxiation which the carbon paradigm presents to our sovereignty as a nation.

Swine Flu & Other Pandemics

70 Heartbreaking Stories From People Who Have Had Their Lives Destroyed By H1N1 Swine Flu Vaccine Side Effects

November 27, 2009

Organic Health Advisor - While a few stories about adverse reactions to the H1N1 swine flu vaccine have gotten into the mainstream media, the reality is that most mainstream media outlets are extremely hesitant to publish such stories.

The general belief in the media seems to be that if they publish a story about a "rare" adverse reaction to the H1N1 vaccine, then the general public may be discouraged from taking the vaccine and more people will get sick. However, this is a totally false assumption by the media.

The truth is that reports of serious adverse reactions to the H1N1 swine flu vaccine are constantly pouring in. In addition, the pharmaceutical companies who produced these vaccines spend millions of dollars to advertise on mainstream media outlets. Do you think that the owners of those mainstream media outlets are going to do anything that will jeopardize that source of income?

The truth is that the mainstream media is not going to tell you the stories of those people who have had their lives destroyed by H1N1 swine flu vaccine side effects. Since the mainstream media will not give these victims a voice, we will.

The personal H1N1 vaccine horror stories that you will read below come from comments on this blog along with stories from the following sources...

China Expert Warns of Pandemic Flu Mutation

November 25, 2009

Reuters - China must be alert to any mutation or changes in the behavior of the H1N1 swine flu virus because the far deadlier H5N1 bird flu virus is endemic in the country, a leading Chinese disease expert said.

Zhong Nanshan, director of the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Diseases in China's southern Guangdong province, said the presence of both viruses in China meant they could mix and become a monstrous hybrid -- a bug packed with strong killing power that can transmit efficiently among people.
"China, as you know, is different from other countries. Inside China, H5N1 has been existing for some time, so if there is really a reassortment between H1N1 and H5N1, it will be a disaster," Zhong said in an interview with Reuters Television.

"This is something we need to monitor, the change, the mutation of the virus. This is why reporting of the death rate must be really transparent."
The World Health Organization warned on Tuesday that H5N1 had erupted in poultry in Egypt, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, posing once again a threat to humans.
"First, it places those in direct contact with birds -- usually rural folk and farm workers -- at risk of catching the often-fatal disease. Second, the virus could undergo a process of "reassortment" with another influenza virus and produce a completely new strain," it said.

"The most obvious risk is of H5N1 combining with the pandemic ... (H1N1) virus, producing a flu virus that is as deadly as the former and as contagious as the latter."
Zhong told the Chinese media last week that China may have had more H1N1 flu deaths than it has reported, with some local governments possibly concealing suspect cases.

The doctor is known for his candor and work in fighting Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in 2003, when nationwide panic and international alarm erupted after it emerged that officials hid or underplayed the spreading epidemic.

Cover-ups by local governments in 2003 during the SARS epidemic led to the sackings of several officials. More than 300 people died in that outbreak.

China, the world's most populous country, has reported around 70,000 cases of H1N1 and 53 death from the virus.

While some regions simply lack the technology to test for H1N1, other areas have been treating deaths as cases of ordinary pneumonia without a question, Zhong said.
"Some local healthcare authorities are reluctant, unwilling to test patients with severe pneumonia because there's some latent rule which says the more H1N1 deaths, the less effective the control and prevention work in your area," Zhong said.
Zhong said China's health minister Chen Zhu rang him up last week and agreed with his views. A notice then appeared on the ministry's website threatening severe punishment for officials caught concealing deaths from H1N1 swine flu.

WHO reported more than 526,060 laboratory confirmed cases of H1N1 worldwide on November 15, with at least 6,770 deaths. However, it has stressed for months now that the figures were only the tip of the iceberg.

It urged countries to place more resources on mitigating the disease rather then on costly prevention measures or testing everyone. All WHO and the U.S. CDC will say is that "millions" have been infected.

Mutated Swine Flu Strains Block Drugs, Worsen Illness

November 20, 2009

Bloomberg - Swine flu infections in which the virus mutated to a form that’s more severe or less sensitive to drug treatment are being investigated by European and U.S. public health officials.

Five patients at a hospital in Wales contracted swine flu that resisted treatment with Roche Holding AG’s Tamiflu, and three more infections are being analyzed, the U.K. Health Protection Agency said today. Four patients had resistance in a North Carolina hospital. A separate mutation that may trigger more severe illness was found in Norway among two patients who died of the flu and one who was severely ill.

While there is little risk posed by the mutations, investigators are monitoring the new clusters closely, according to health officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization. Influenza activity decreased last week in the U.S. and was widespread in 43 states compared with 46 states the week earlier, the CDC’s Anne Schuchat said today in a briefing. Since swine flu was identified in April, there have been 57 U.S. cases of Tamiflu resistance and “sporadic” reports of mutations similar to those in Norway, she said.
“We take this development seriously, but the HPA currently considers that the risk to the general healthy population is low,” the U.K. officials said in a statement about the Wales cases. “The Tamiflu-resistant virus has emerged in a group of particularly vulnerable individuals. These patients are known to be at increased risk of developing resistance to the drug.”
Swine flu, also known as H1N1, infected about 22 million people in the U.S. and killed 3,900 people from April to Oct. 17, according to the CDC’s most recent estimate. Norway has had an estimated 700,000 infections, with 21 reported deaths. The disease has killed at least 6,770 people worldwide, according to an estimate today from the Geneva-based WHO. The agency no longer keeps an up-to-date count of global cases.

In the U.S., patient visits to doctors for flu-like symptoms declined the week of Nov. 8 to Nov. 14 from the week earlier as did the rate of influenza hospitalizations, said Schuchat, head of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
“We are beginning to see some declines in influenza activity,” she said. “But it is still much greater than we would ever see at this time of year” compared with typical seasonal flu that runs from November to March.
The swine flu mutation discovered in Norway is difficult to pass from person to person, said David Mercer, acting head of the communicable diseases unit of the WHO’s European region, and Geir Stene-Larsen, the head of the Oslo-based Institute of Public Health. The mutation was found in 3 of 70 patients tested, the institute said.

The infections in Wales may have passed from a person using Tamiflu to patients who haven’t taken the drug, raising the possibility that a hard-to-treat form of the disease may spread, according to the U.K. health agency. The U.S. cases occurred in October and November, according to the Atlanta-based CDC.

The patients in Wales had blood diseases that weakened their immune systems, either because of the condition itself or the chemotherapy used to treat it, according to the U.K. agency. Resistance to Tamiflu is known to occur in patients with weak immune systems. All the Welsh patients remain sensitive to GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s Relenza, another antiviral treatment, the agency said.

In Norway, the changes seen in the virus may allow it to penetrate deeper into the airways and cause more severe disease.
“It seems that the mutated virus does not circulate in the population but might be a result of spontaneous changes which have occurred in these three patients,” Stene-Larsen said in a statement. “There is no indication that this change in the virus is of any importance for the effect of the vaccine or the effect of antiviral treatment.”
The virus in Norway appears to be sensitive to Tamiflu and the vaccine now being offered in some areas to prevent swine flu infection, said Mercer of the WHO.
“I don’t think it yet has the public health implications that we would wonder about,” said Schuchat of the CDC. Similar mutations have been seen elsewhere and haven’t necessarily led to a more virulent disease, she said.

“It’s most likely that the virus’ capability to mutate is not just specific to Norway, it will occur in other countries as well,” Stene-Larsen said in an interview on broadcaster TV2.

Iowa and North Carolina Reports Raise Fears H1N1 Mutations Have Reached United States

November 25, 2009

Bird Flu Pandemic - New reports from Iowa and North Carolina are raising concerns that the deadly H1N1 swine flu mutations that have been confirmed by the WHO in Ukraine, Norway and elsewhere have already reached the United States.

In Iowa, a report that doctors are seeing “very heavy, wet hemorrhagic lungs, lungs with a lot of blood in them” in H1N1 patients is creating concerns among health experts that the deadly Ukraine H1N1 has already spread there. In addition, a report of Tamiflu-resistant H1N1 swine flu in North Carolina is raising questions about the ability of medical authorities to combat H1N1 if thousands of people do start dying.

If deadly H1N1 swine flu mutations have already reached the United States, what does that mean? Doctors in Ukraine have been reporting that victims of H1N1 there are experiencing violent hemorrhaging in their lungs. As the patients near death, their lungs reportedly become as “black as charcoal” and literally begin to disintegrate. Will this start happening soon inside the U.S.?

The news report causing the most concern today is the one about H1N1 patients in Iowa. Commenting on a dramatic spike in H1N1 deaths in Iowa, Dr. Gregory Schmunk told KCCI news that what doctors there are seeing ”is very heavy, wet hemorrhagic lungs, lungs with a lot of blood in them.”

Hemorrhagic lungs that are filled with blood?

That sounds precisely like what is taking place in Ukraine.

Last week, the WHO confirmed that an H1N1 mutation had been discovered in Ukraine. This H1N1 mutation involved a receptor binding domain change, and it is apparently causing the H1N1 virus to become much more virulent.

Just like the new report in Iowa, many victims of H1N1 in Ukraine have been experiencing violent hemorrhaging in the lungs. Temperatures inside the lungs of patients in Ukraine have been reported to be as high as 135 degrees Fahrenheit. As the patient near death, the lungs turn to mush and literally become as black as charcoal.

In fact, one doctor in Western Ukraine was quoted as saying the following about what is happening to the lungs of these patients…

“We have carried out post mortems on two victims and found their lungs are as black as charcoal. They look like they have been burned. It’s terrifying.”
If that wasn’t bad enough, the WHO has now confirmed that the same H1N1 mutation has shown up in Norway.

Norway’s Institute of Public Health has released a statement in which they announced that this mutation “could possibly…cause more severe disease” because it apparently infects tissue deeper in the airway than usual.

Not only that, but today Hong Kong’s Department of Health has confirmed that it has found the same mutation in a H1N1 flu virus sample as the one detected in Norway recently.

Hong Kong is on the other side of the world from Ukraine and Norway.

What in the world is going on?

Nobody knows for sure, but the truth is that the increasing similarities between the current H1N1 outbreak and the 1918 “Spanish flu” outbreak are becoming too striking to ignore.

Firstly, both the current outbreak and the 1918 Spanish flu are from the H1N1 family.

Secondly, both the current outbreak and the 1918 Spanish flu have the same mutation that is currently being reported in Ukraine, Norway and Hong Kong.

Thirdly, the hemorrhagic deaths that victims are experiencing in Ukraine closely mirror the kind of deaths experienced by victims of the 1918 Spanish flu. Just consider the following description of 1918 Spanish flu deaths from Wikipedia

“One of the most striking of the complications was hemorrhage from mucous membranes, especially from the nose, stomach, and intestine. Bleeding from the ears and petechial hemorrhages in the skin also occurred.” The majority of deaths were from bacterial pneumonia, a secondary infection caused by influenza, but the virus also killed people directly, causing massive hemorrhages and edema in the lung.”
You would think this stunning information would be so important that the mainstream media would be all over it, but sadly that is not the case. Instead they seem intent on covering the opening of the “New Moon” movie and whatever Barack Obama had for breakfast this morning.

But not only is the mutation discussed above a tremendous concern, but now there are confirmed reports that Tamiflu-resistant H1N1 is spreading.

Recently a Tamiflu-resistant strain of the H1N1 swine flu was reported to have been discovered in Wales, and now a Tamiflu-resistant cluster of the H1N1 swine flu has been reported in North Carolina.

However, medical authorities don’t seem overly concerned. Dr. Alicia Frye, epidemiologist in the CDC’s flu division, said in a prepared statement:

“At this time we don’t have any information that should raise concerns for the general population.”
If the best drugs medical authorities have will soon not work against H1N1, perhaps the public should be concerned.

Meanwhile the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention has announced that swine flu deaths in Europe are doubling every two weeks.

Swine flu deaths in Europe are doubling every two weeks?

Perhaps the mainstream media should start paying attention to this.

Posted below is one of the very few mainstream media video reports we have about the “black lung” flu that is ravaging Ukraine…

All of this is happening at a time when environmental extremists are pushing the “overpopulation” myth harder than ever. In fact, the United Nations Population Fund has just released its annual State of the World Population Report in which it openly calls for reducing world population growth as a way to combat climate change. The reality is that if a deadly H1N1 mutation did kill tens of millions, many very sick environmental extremists would actually applaud. Increasingly, many in the environmental community are viewing humanity itself as a “disease” that needs to be eradicated for the good of the earth.

Talk about a dangerous belief system.

Superstar CBS Reporter Blows the Lid Off the Swine Flu Media Hype and Hysteria

November 24, 2009

Dr. Mercola - ...Sharyl Attkisson is the investigative reporter behind the groundbreaking CBS News study that found H1N1 flu cases are NOT as prevalent as feared.

In fact, they’re barely on the radar screen.

How did this startling information come about, and why is the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) painting a different picture entirely? I spoke directly with Sharyl Attkisson to find out...

...“One of my good sources within the government said to me that they’re either trying to, in his opinion, over-represent the swine flu numbers or under-represent by not counting them anymore. He said, “You need to find out which it is.” And so to find out which it might be, I really wanted to see the data that the CDC had at the time it made the decision to quit counting the cases.”
If you listen to most media outlets and even to government agencies, you get the impression that virtually every person who has visited their physician with flu-like symptoms in recent months has H1N1, with no testing necessary because, after all, there's an epidemic.

We are all being led to believe that every case diagnosed as “swine flu” or even as “flu-like illness” is, in fact, swine flu.

But Attkisson’s investigation revealed a very different picture right from her first contact with individual states. She explains:
“Across the country, state by state, they were testing [for H1N1] until CDC told them not to bother. They were testing, in general, the cases most likely to be believed to have been swine flu based on a doctor’s diagnosis of symptoms and risk factors such as travel to Mexico.

These special cases were going to state labs for absolute confirmation with the best test -- not the so-called “rapid testing,” but the real confirmation test.

Of those presumed likely swine flu cases out of approximately every hundred of what was tested, only a small fraction were actually swine flu. In every instance, perhaps the biggest number of cases that were swine flu was something like 30%. The smallest number was something like 2% or 3%.

Maybe there’s one state where it was just 1%.

The point is, of the vast majority of the presumed swine flu cases recognized by trained physicians, the vast majority were not flu at all. They weren’t swine flu or regular flu; they were some other sort of upper respiratory infection.”
And here is the clincher that it seems the CDC just doesn’t want the American public to know …
“The CDC explained that one of the reasons they quit counting was because of all the flu that’s out there, most are swine flu. Well, that’s true. Most of the flu that was out there was indeed swine flu, but they failed to say that most of the suspected flu was nothing at all. And I think that’s the caveat the public just didn’t know,” Attkisson explains.
...It is not easy for journalists to access this type of information, and they often have to wait weeks, months or even years for information from the CDC and the FDA -- information that is readily available and supposed to be clearly public.

...According to Attkisson’s CBS News study, when you come down with chills, fever, cough, runny nose, malaise and all those other "flu-like" symptoms, the illness is likely caused by influenza at most 17 percent of the time and as little as 3 percent! The other 83 to 97 percent of the time it's caused by other viruses or bacteria.

So remember that not every illness that appears to be the flu actually is the flu. In fact, most of the time it's not.

Curiously, the CDC still advises those who were told they had 2009 H1N1 (and therefore should be immune to getting it again) to get vaccinated unless they had lab confirmation.

But because very few people have actually had a lab-confirmed case of H1N1 (and in most cases those people told they had swine flu probably did not), this means nearly everyone is still being advised to get the swine flu vaccine.

Attkisson has been one of the few to speak out against this flawed system and point out the serious ramifications that come when a public health agency is secretive about their health data...

Swine Flu Deception and Disinformation Exposed

November 19, 2009

NaturalNews - There has been a flurry of contradictory swine flu events reported here and from Ukraine this early fall. These coincided with a CBS news program releasing information that very few reported swine cases actually tested positive for H1N1. CBS's state by state survey discovered that less than 5 percent of flu cases reported in most American states were confirmed as H1N1.

In most states less than half the reported cases were not even a flu of any type! The CDC and WHO conveniently canceled the need for laboratory swine flu confirmations in mid-summer 2009. That makes it easier to pump up the statistics, doesn't it?

Back Ground Details

Since the WHO this year changed the criteria for declaring a pandemic from worldwide high mortality rates to infections only, it's easier to claim a pandemic with the Swine Flu. Connect these dots: Swine Flu is actually less severe than a normal seasonal flu. But it is highly contagious!

So why bother with this rule juggling to make it easy to categorize a spreading flu as a pandemic? Once the stage 6 pandemic level is called, and it has been, the WHO via the United Nations becomes a medical dictator by international law to almost 200 member nations.

And over the past few years, laws have been arranged to exclude Big Pharma and governments from being financially liable for vaccine related injuries and deaths during a pandemic. A license to kill?

Remember the Baxter incident a few months ago? Jane Burgermeister reported a fortuitous discovery of 72 kilos of contaminated seasonal flu that were "accidentally" delivered to 18 European countries.

Vaccine industry security systems make it virtually impossible for an accident of that magnitude to occur. Here are some specifics:

* 72 kilos of raw vaccine materials will produce many thousands of jabs.
* The contaminant found in those vaccine materials was Bird Flu, H5N1
* The Bird Flu virus was live and not attenuated.
* H5N1 was reportedly in USA labs as a bioweapon to replicate the 1918 pandemic.
* Though H5N1 virus is highly lethal, its infection rate is extremely low.
* Conclusion - a recombinant strain produced from Bird Flu live viruses and a seasonal or Swine Flu strain can create a virus with morbidity (high widespread death rate).

Last August, an international microbiologist in California, Joseph Moshe, called anti-vaccination activist Dr. A. True Ott, warning him of a bioweapon at Baxter's facilities in Ukraine that could be used to create a pandemic. Dr. Ott divulged this on Deagle's radio show after Moshe was forcefully apprehended.

The Ukrainian Incident

Up until the 29th of October, there were only two non-lethal swine flu cases reported within Ukraine's 46 million population. Very few Ukrainians were getting vaccinations of any kind! Then on the 30th, there were reports of an epidemic! Swine flu hysteria broke out and spread across Europe.

The symptoms resembled a horrible sudden viral pneumonia that causes victims to drown in their own fluids from heavy internal bleeding. These sudden lethal symptoms of hemorrhagic pneumonia are similar to the 1918 flu pandemic. They are not current swine flu symptoms!

Just before Ukraine's pneumonic plague, there were many reports of small aircraft and helicopters spraying unidentified aerosols over populated areas. The aerosols made breathing difficult for those exposed. The government denied this activity. Remember Joseph Moshe's warning?

And now martial law is being enforced in Ukraine, with quarantines and anti vaccination activists being arrested! Mass vaccinations may come soon.

Conclusion

Ukraine could be the launching pad for a man-made pandemic with morbidity. Why? Do your own research!

Hold Off on Calling This Pandemic Overblown or “A Dud” Just Yet

November 22, 2009

Prevent Disease - In the last few weeks, the mainstream media has really started to jump on the alternative media's bandwagon. They've highlighted wasted government investments in pandemic planning, mass vaccinations and even questioned a flu hype that never materialized. Something is going on, and it likely has to do with a strategy for what is coming in the next few weeks or months.

We're hearing it every day now. Major media outlets are starting to say things like "a wasted investment on vaccines," or "a pandemic that was a dud." I have a strong suspicion that the media is now starting to play on both sides of the fence. Why? Because they want to reestablish confidence in a growing skeptical public who has embraced alternative sources.

Most people are not aware of what is going in the Ukraine and Eastern Europe. An engineered or mutated virus has been growing in strength, infecting millions of people and likely killing thousands. However, the public has been left in the dark because the World Health Organization (WHO) has been telling a different story and downplaying fatalities and giving contradictory evidence.

The fatality rate of the virus in the Ukraine has been estimated by infectious disease experts to be between 0.5% to 0.7% and possibly growing. That means there could be well over 10,000 deaths right now in the Ukraine, and they're refusing to disclose these numbers to the rest of the world. They've barely disclosed even 400 deaths.

So the media's strategy right now is to play both sides until they decide it's time for the public to hear the actual numbers. Keep in mind that major media outlets revolve all their programming around a select few decision makers, people at the very top who know exactly what is going on in real-time.

More and more people are becoming conscious to the reality that the H1N1 swine flu has been nothing more than a mild flu across the world. It has "so far" caused a lower mortality rate than even the seasonal flu. So the media must now cater to this mindset until the real pandemic begins. Then they will change their tune and announce that public health officials were right all along. What will happen when the mutated virus reaches other parts of the world? Panic! Since the virus is engineered, the mutated virus may very well have H1N1 components in it, or it may be an entirely new strain. Nobody really knows since all the WHO advisers know how to do is mislead the world.

They will likely begin publicizing more deaths when the virus hits North America and starts infecting thousands at a time. At that point, they'll suddenly state that the number of deaths in Europe are skyrocketing, which will not be the case. The situation will have been contained and the deaths will have already happened, but they will have held back on the public announcements to further strategize, create panic, and sell more vaccines and antivirals, among other motives. The problem is, vaccines will not be functional for the new mutated virus and it will be too late to create another. Will they then try and convince nations that current vaccine stockpiles are effective against this new mutated virus? That would be a new low for the media, but hopefully any persuasion of this type will not be accepted by the public.

It will likely begin with headlines such as "surge of deaths now 100 per day" and they will escalate the tone to create more fear and panic as the weeks pass. We've already started to see this happening. The media will then put public health experts on a pedestal while worshiping their foresight and knowledge on pandemic planning and preparedness, when in reality it was all orchestrated from the beginning.

Aside from all the media hype, the pandemic is not overblown or a dud. It is real. The first phase of their operation was to release a weak form of the virus and play mind games to see how far they could push nations into mass vaccination programs. The second phase was to release a more lethal form of the virus to create panic and justify the first phase regardless of vaccine compliance. The last phase will mean millions of deaths around the world with varying degrees of martial law, more control and further conditioning to complement the first two phases.

Vaccines will not save people from what is coming. The manufacturers have actually designed them to further suppress what little immunity is left in people to fight the lethal virus. This is very obvious from the vaccine ingredients. They don't want us to be prepared and they don't want us to have the facts, because they know that the strongest and most informed will outlast anything they can throw at us. It's a chess game, and the public will need to make their move very soon.

Suspicious Swine Flu Numbers (But the Statists Are Gearing Up for the Next Big One)

November 19, 2009

Kathryn Muratore (LRC Blog) - As the college campuses began to populate, stories began to emerge about the high rate of swine flu among students. However, a little known fact was that most places were not actually testing for swine flu. Any student presenting with flu-like symptoms was presumed to have H1N1 because seasonal flu does not usually hit until much later in the fall.

When I heard this, I was suspicious of whether there really was an outbreak of swine flu on campus, but there was just no data one way or the other. Now there is: the world-renowned Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia routinely tests patients for rhinovirus (the common cold) and H1N1. They found that most of their patients with flu-like symptoms had a cold, not swine flu.

But, there’s more…

Doctors and researchers are now worried that this is a new, more severe strain of rhinovirus (second verse, same as the first). It seems to me that because hospitals and doctors are seeing a rise in the number of patients with respiratory illnesses, and schools are closing due to low attendance, that the experts think this cold is more severe than normal colds.

This, again, is highly suspect reasoning. Schools, doctors, public health bureaucrats, and just about everyone else is recommending that people with a respiratory illness should not go to work or school and, instead, should see a doctor to be treated for the flu. So, while parents may normally send their child to school or choose to save time and money by not taking their little one to the doctor at the first sniffle, they are now petrified of the swine flu and taking all precautions. Thus, the increase in school closings and hospital admissions may simply be an unintended consequence of our leaders’ fearmongering.

Two more points. For anyone who thinks that science is not political, consider this quote:
A fledgling, highly controversial theory suggests that circulating rhinovirus can somehow delay the spread of influenza – one more reason, Mackay [a leading researcher in emerging viruses] said, to increase the testing and study of rhinovirus.
And, consider that many students across the nation have been given Tamiflu for what may very well have been the common cold and, as the article states, “Tamiflu…is useless against rhinovirus.” Good for Roche, bad for everyone else.

Global Governance Based on EU Model; U.S. Troops Wearing UN Colors; North American Union/U.S. Army North Logo

Building Blocks Toward an Asia-Pacific Union

November 30, 2009

Infowars - ...Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd proposed an Asia-Pacific Community by 2020. The regional group would be based on the European Union-style model. It would go beyond APEC and encompass not only economic, but political and security issues.

In October of this year, Republican Senator Richard Lugar announced his intentions to introduce legislation aimed at negotiating a free trade agreement with the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). The first ASEAN-U.S. Leaders meeting was held in Singapore on November 15. In a Joint Statement:

The U.S. “welcomed ASEAN’s plans to achieve an ASEAN Community by 2015 based on the ASEAN Charter, and reaffirmed its commitment to support those plans.”
ASEAN and the U.S. also agreed to hold a second Leaders meeting in 2010.

On his Asian trip, Obama emphasized the need to strengthen old alliances as well as build new partnerships in the region. He said:
“The growth of multilateral organizations can advance the security and prosperity of the region.” He also added, “As an Asia-Pacific nation the United States expects to be involved in the discussions that shape the future of this region and to participate fully in appropriate organizations as they are established and evolve.”
In his article referenced above, Jim Capo noted that:
“The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement is the sister agreement to the Trans-Atlantic Agenda. Together with NAFTA and the North American Leaders Summit (new name for the discredited SPP), these deals are building blocks for an integrated system of global governance managed by Western financial interests and their collaborators around the world.”

WTO Director General: Global Governance Based on the EU Model

November 24, 2009

Old-Thinker News - Herman Van Rompuy, the first President of the European Union, recently announced during his installment that 2009 was the first year of global governance. Indeed, 2009 has seen major steps towards global governance. The establishment has also taken severe blows this year, which will be discussed shortly. Pascal Lamy, Director General of the World Trade Organization and frequent attendee of secret Bilderberg meetings, sees the European Union as a testing ground for the machinery of international governance. In a speech in Italy on November 9th, Lamy stated that the EU model should be used on a global scale.

National sovereignty has no place in Lamy’s ideal globalist vision. Local communities, states and countries’ laws would be superseded by a regional – as is the case with the EU – or international body. Lamy points to the EU, where:
“The fact that Community law takes precedence over national law. The creation of a supranational body such as the European Commission that has been given the monopoly of initiating legislation. A European Court of Justice whose decisions are binding on national judges.”
This governance structure – along with the EU Presidency – is now possible after the recent ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, which, according to the Wall Street Journal, means that “…individual countries will have a harder time blocking EU legislation.”

Pascal Lamy admits that global governance is an abstract and distant idea. Historically, especially with the United States and its libertarian roots, governance is local and familiar with the people and their needs. He states:
“In sum, the specific challenge of legitimacy in global governance is to deal with the perceived too-distant, non-accountable and non-directly challengeable decision-making at the international level.”
Ultimately, Lamy sees the United Nations playing a central role in global governance, with the G20 and other international groups reporting directly to the “parliament” of the UN. This beginning stage, according to Lamy, will eventually condense into a solid world government.

“Menace of a new war”

Global and regional governance faces another problem, specifically the fact that without the perception of an outside threat the coherence of the system falls apart. Lamy states:
“The anthropological dimension of supranationality has probably been underestimated. Once the imminence of the menace of a new war has disappeared from our horizon, it is as if the glue that holds Europe together as a community will also disappear. As if there were no common myths, dreams and aspirations.”
Lamy goes on to admit that:
“…We are witnessing a growing distance between European public opinions and the European project.”
Despite popular resistance, the establishment is continuing its agenda. Outside of war, global warming hysteria is, as the 1991 Club of Rome report The First Global Revolution proposed, a unifying threat – or perhaps more appropriately a unifying myth, as Lamy stated – that the global government needs to maintain any veil of legitimacy. The Club of Rome report states:
“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill…. All these dangers are caused by human intervention… The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.”
Herman Van Rompuy has stated that the upcoming Copenhagen climate change treaty “…is another step towards the global management of our planet.” Additionally, the anthropogenic global warming theory will give the global government a taxing mechanism on a world-wide scale.

Amidst this sobering news, there is hope. Recently, shocking e-mails from the England based Climate Research Unit were hacked. They reveal that leading global warming scientists worked together to actively block “climate deniers” from having papers published. Most shockingly, they show that the science behind global warming was in fact manipulated by these scientists to fit their agenda. These revelations are devastating to the entire push for carbon taxes and global governance to combat the boogey man threat of man-made global warming.

The establishment is moving forward, but not without resistance.

U.S. Troops Wearing UN Colors

November 17, 2009

Chuck Baldwin - According to a report in World Net Daily, “Troops in the United States’ USNORTHCOM ranks appear to have adopted a shoulder patch showing a North American continental design, with an emphasis on United Nations colors, giving evidence of the strength to integrate North America.
“The patch reveals the continent of North America in the orange and blue colors typical to the U.N.

“It also carries the image of a mosque to designate the unit’s service in North Africa in World War II.”
The report also states:
“The design of the patch with the U.S. eagle image superimposed seems to imply a hierarchy in which the U.S. 5th Army exerts its military command under the authority of USNORTHCOM, with its domain defined as all North America, including the U.S., Mexico and Canada, for the United Nations, as implied in the orange and blue motif.”
See the report at: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=115275

As most of my faithful readers know, USNORTHCOM is a combatant command “created to respond to national emergencies in North America.” Readers should also be aware that the US and Canada signed an agreement earlier this year allowing the armed forces from one country to assist the armed forces of the other country during a “domestic civil emergency, EVEN ONE THAT DOES NOT INVOLVE A CROSS-BORDER CRISIS.” (Emphasis added.)

Creation of a North American Union has long been the goal of the elitists at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and sister organizations. This objective is so far along now that anyone who would question it simply isn’t paying attention–or has an ulterior motive for denying it.

In fact, I have chronicled much pertinent information relative to this burgeoning North American Union on my web site. I encourage readers to review (and share) the information I have accumulated on this page. See it at: http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/nau.html

Readers will recall that former President George W. Bush, then-Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, and then-Mexican President Vicente Fox signed the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) on March 23, 2005, in Waco, Texas. The SPP was based upon the CFR’s Task Force report entitled “Creating a North American Community,” which was issued just prior to the Waco gathering. Remember, too, that the SPP was signed without any knowledge, oversight, or consent of the US Congress–or any Canadian or Mexican legislative body either, for that matter.

As the WND report states:
“The unannounced goal of the SPP was to create a North American Union by advancing the trade integration realized in NAFTA into continental political integration through the creation of some 20 trilateral bureaucratic working groups and the North American Competitiveness Council, or NACC, composed of 30 North American business executives–10 each hand-picked by the chambers of commerce in the three countries.”
In this regard, it makes absolutely no difference whether a Republican or Democratic President sits in the Oval Office. President Barack Obama is pushing forward with the same internationalist policies as did his predecessors, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George Herbert Walker Bush. (And, no, Martha, nothing would have changed had John McCain been elected last year.)

For the most part, the leaders of both major parties in Washington, D.C., are globalists. With few exceptions, they have all bought into the CFR’s philosophy of internationalism. The fact that we even have such a military command as USNORTHCOM–and even more, that the unit is wearing insignia with UN colors and a three-nation, North American patch–without the slightest protest from virtually any US congressman or senator, demonstrates the apathy of Washington elitists regarding America’s merger into a multinational governing structure.

Add to the compliance of Washington politicians the US Chamber of Commerce, the US military Joint Chiefs of Staff, the mainstream news media (with the exception of Lou Dobbs, and look what happened to him: CNN reportedly paid him $8 million to leave the network), the National Education Association–along with the vast majority of America’s top educational institutions, and even America’s leading churchmen (for example: mega-church pastor and Pied Piper author, Rick Warren, and Southern Baptist spokesman, Richard Land, are both members of the CFR). In other words, virtually every major institution in America is betraying our country’s sovereignty and independence.

Even Big Labor is, for the most part, silent in its opposition against international unification. Where is the union-led protest of President Obama’s policy reversal to continue President Bush’s plan allowing Mexican trucks to roll down US highways? Where is Big Labor’s opposition to Obama’s decision to continue pushing the goals and objectives of the CFR and Chamber of Commerce via the SPP and related supranational agreements?

Without a doubt, the attempted merger of North America is well underway. But this, too, is part of a much bigger picture. The destruction of the dollar, the formation of a global currency, the development of a new UN army (of which USNORTHCOM is the prototype), perpetual war, state-sponsored fear mongering over super-hyped “pandemics” such as the Swine Flu, the push for universal health care, etc., all serve the purpose of collapsing US sovereignty and independence, and creating global government.

Of course, one thing the elitists driving this global merger are counting on is the continued apathy and indifference of the American people. Obviously, an awakened, energized, and angry populace could seriously jeopardize their pernicious plans. They are somewhat rattled at the success of grassroots Tea Parties, etc., but they are counting on the major news media and establishment churches to keep the sheep asleep.

If America’s pastors would wake up and begin sounding the clarion call for freedom and independence (as did their brave forebears), they could–almost single-handedly–turn the country around. Until they do, it is left to the rest of us to keep Thomas Jefferson’s “spirit of resistance” alive.

As for me and my house, we plan to do our part by pledging no loyalty to the North American Union, the UN, or any other globalist entity.

North American Union/U.S. Army North Logo

November 2, 2009

Infowars - An Infowars reader (R. Marshall) sent a photo and write-up on the United States Army North logo.

From the USANorth website (linked below): “US Army North (USARNORTH), as the Joint Force Land Component Command (JFLCC) and the Army Service Component Command (ASCC) to US Northern Command, conducts Homeland Defense (HD), Civil Support (CS) operations and Theater Security Cooperation (TSC) activities in order to protect the American people and our way of life.”

From the NORTHCOM website:

“U.S. Army North, the Army component of U.S. Northern Command, Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., organized the event as part of its mission to support civil authorities during disaster.

The exercise is designed to fully coordinate the support that active military forces could be asked to provide states and the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the event of a major hurricane, said Maj. Gen. John Basilica, who commands U.S. Army North’s Operational Command Post 1.”

In other words, an in-your-face violation of Posse Comitatus.

logo

As it’s said, a picture says a 1000 words. So I don’t think we need a “memo” to figure this one out.

I was at Ft. Sam Houston this past weekend at the HQ of the 5th Army “Quadrangle” in San Antonio, Texas. Way in the back corner were two brand new, black, mobile command unit RVs. On them I noticed the 5th Army “North” seal is now superimposed over a U.N. ORANGE image of North America (not just the U.S.) and it is surrounded by U.N. BLUE water.

This is alarming as it appears to be further evidence that we are already living in the North American Union. Rather than announce it because they know there would be resistance, they integrate us without our permission or knowledge.

I studied this old design approach in art school. It really became noticeable in Byzantine Christian art. And by applying some basic history knowledge, you can understand “who is in charge” in the artworks and “who the wealthy patrons were that commissioned the pieces (usually in the lower right-hand corner disguised as “saints” and why.

Here is the hierarchy of this new 5th Army seal and what it says in order of lesser to greater:

Starting on TOP

1) 5th Army has military command,

2) by authority of the U.S. (the eagle image),

3) over all of North America; Mexico, United States, Canada,

4) for the United Nations (the orange & blue motif)

In similar fashion, we noticed in the mid-late 90’s how local grocery stores, manufacturers, etc, were already putting in the infrastructure for the merger by using tri-lingual labels on all products; Spanish, French & English. Now we know why and that we’re being set-up.

Check it out: http://www.arnorth.army.mil/ and look at the upper right-hand corner.

November 29, 2009

Climate Bills and a Green Economy

The Rise of the Carbon Fat Cats

The ‘carbon market’ – trading in an invisible gas which cannot be used – has involved the redistribution of resources to unproductive green pursuits and the creation of a vast bureacracy. Let’s bring it down before it gets any bigger.

November 27, 2009

Spiked - Adam Smith and Karl Marx disagreed about many things, but they would surely have concurred that the very idea of a ‘carbon market’ is bonkers. Carbon dioxide is an invisible gas and a naturally occurring substance. When it is produced as a waste product from another process, like burning fossil fuel, it cannot be used for anything else. How on earth could carbon dioxide, as waste product, have a value and be subject to exchange? How could it become the gaseous analogue to money or gold, an atmospheric ‘universal equivalent’ into which other gases can be converted?

The carbon market in 2007 was worth $64billion: how could this be? A market is supposed to be the exchange of products that are the result of somebody’s work, for the satisfaction of somebody else’s needs. Smith stated that the value of the product is proportional to the amount of work expended in it: ‘The real price of everything’, he wrote in the Wealth of Nations, ‘is the toil and trouble of acquiring it’ (1). This goes for markets in bread or tables, iTunes or diamonds, no matter what nature the ‘work’ or how frivolous the ‘need’. But a market in carbon: quoi?

Quietly and without fuss, all the rules of classical economics are being torn up – in a way that could be very foolish indeed. As we approach the deal-making at the UN conference on climate change at Copenhagen, it is worth thinking about exactly what we are doing here.

What is a carbon market?

At present, there are several fragmentary carbon markets. The biggest by far is the European Emissions Trading Scheme, tied to EU-wide carbon targets (worth $50 billion in 2007) (2); then the much smaller Australian New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme, and voluntary Chicago Climate Exchange. What these markets trade is not carbon dioxide itself, but carbon dioxide emissions reductions – either unused carbon credits, or certified ways in which carbon dioxide production has been reduced...

Al Gore, World’s First ‘Carbon Billionaire,’ Raking in Profits from Climate Change

November 4, 2009

Daily Mail - A former American vice-president has been accused of making billions of dollars from championing climate change issues. Al Gore, who left office in 2001, has become an outspoken green campaigner. Yesterday he was forced to defend himself after details of his financial deals with energy-saving companies emerged in the New York Times.

Mr Gore had invested in a small California firm seeking financing for its energy-saving technology last year. His firm invested $75 million in the company, Silver Springs, which produces hardware and software to make the electricity grid more efficient. He was then made an unpaid consultant for the company.

Last week his investment appeared to pay off: The U.S. Energy Department announced $3.4billion in smart grid grants. Of those grants, $560million went to companies with which Silver Springs has contracts.

Now Right-wing critics and global warming sceptics claim Mr Gore is about to become the world’s first ‘carbon billionaire’ in a sleazy scenario that would see him profiting from government policies he supports that would direct billions to the business ventures he is invested in.

Mr Gore – who also makes more than £60,000 a year for speaking engagements – hit back yesterday, saying he was just putting his money where his mouth is.

He launches his latest book Our Choice: A Plan To Solve The Climate Crisis this week, a sequel to an earlier work which was also a popular film, An Inconvenient Truth.

Mr Gore, 61, is a partner in venture-capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers which has interests in alternative energy and energy-efficient technology. He is also co-founder of the London-based Generation Investment Management, which has shares in eco-energy companies.

Speaking on U.S. ABC TV show Good Morning America, Mr Gore defended his business activities and said he believed the U.S. would succeed in making the switch to renewable energy sources.
‘I am proud to have put my money where my mouth is for the past 30 years,’ he said.

‘And though that is not the majority of my business activities, I absolutely believe in investing in accordance with my beliefs and my values.’
The book explores possible solutions to climate change, including forest management, geo-thermal energy and nuclear power generation, which come from a series of ’solutions summits’ held with environmental experts at his Tennessee home.

Mr Gore is a regular visitor to Capitol Hill where he exerts pressure on members of Congress to pass legislation that cuts emissions. In April, he reacted angrily to a question from Republican Marsha Blackburn about a conflict of interest with his business connections. He said:
‘Congresswoman, if you believe that the reason I have been working on this issue for 30 years is because of greed, you don’t know me.’
Mr Gore was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 and served as vice-president to Bill Clinton between 1993 and 2001.

Cap and Trade – Gore’s ‘Gravy Train’

Civil Liberties, Health Care, Food Policies

Mad Science? Growing Meat Without Animals

November 19, 2009

Live Science - Winston Churchill once predicted that it would be possible to grow chicken breasts and wings more efficiently without having to keep an actual chicken. And in fact scientists have since figured out how to grow tiny nuggets of lab meat and say it will one day be possible to produce steaks in vats, sans any livestock.

Pork chops or burgers cultivated in labs could eliminate contamination problems that regularly generate headlines these days, as well as address environmental concerns that come with industrial livestock farms.

However, such research opens up strange and perhaps even disturbing possibilities once considered only the realm of science fiction. After all, who knows what kind of meat people might want to grow to eat?

Increasingly, bioengineers are growing nerve, heart and other tissues in labs. Recently, scientists even reported developing artificial penis tissue in rabbits. Although such research is meant to help treat patients, biomedical engineer Mark Post at Maastricht University in the Netherlands and his colleagues suggest it could also help feed the rising demand for meat worldwide.

The researchers noted that growing skeletal muscle in labs - the kind people typically think of as the meat they eat - could help tackle a number of problems:
  • Avoiding animal suffering by reducing the farming and killing of livestock.

  • Dramatically cutting down on food-borne ailments such as mad cow disease and salmonella or germs such as swine flu, by monitoring the growth of meat in labs.

  • Livestock currently take up 70 percent of all agricultural land, corresponding to 30 percent of the world's land surface, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Labs would presumably require much less space.

  • Livestock generate 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, more than all of the vehicles on Earth, the FAO added. Since the animals themselves are mostly responsible for these gases, reducing livestock numbers could help alleviate global warming.
Stem cells are considered the most promising source for such meat, retaining as they do the capacity to transform into the required tissues, and the scientists pointed to satellite cells, which are the natural muscle stem cells responsible for regeneration and repair in adults. Embryonic stem cells could also be used, but they are obviously plagued by ethical concerns, and they could grow into tissues besides the desired muscles.

To grow meat in labs from satellite cells, the researchers suggested current tissue-engineering techniques, where stem cells are often embedded in synthetic three-dimensional biodegradable matrixes that can present the chemical and physical environments that cells need to develop properly. Other key factors would involve electrically stimulating and mechanically stretching the muscles to exercise them, helping them mature properly, and perhaps growing other cells alongside the satellite cells to provide necessary molecular cues.

So far past scientists have grown only small nuggets of skeletal muscle, about half the size of a thumbnail. Such tidbits could be used in sauces or pizzas, Post and colleagues explained recently in the online edition of the journal Trends in Food Science & Technology, but creating a steak would demand larger-scale production.

The expectation is that if such meat is ever made, scientists will opt for beef, pork, chicken or fish. However, science fiction has long toyed with the darker possibilities that cloned meat presents.

In Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson's epic sci-fi satire "Transmetropolitan," supermarkets and fast food joints sell dolphin, manatee, whale, baby seal, monkey and reindeer, while the Long Pig franchise sells "cloned human meat at prices you like."
"In principle, we could harvest the meat progenitor cells from fresh human cadavers and grow meat from them," Post said. "Once taken out of its disease and animalistic, cannibalistic context - you are not killing fellow citizens for it, they are already dead - there is no reason why not."
Of course, there are many potential objections that people could have to growing beef, chicken or pork in the lab, much less more disturbing meats. Still, Post suggests that marketing could overcome such hurdles.
"If every package of naturally grown meat by law should have the text, 'Beware, animals have been killed for this product,' I can imagine a gradual cultural shift," Post said. "Of course, we still have a long way to go to make a product that is even remotely competitive with current products."

The Banksters Get the Filet Mignon While the "Useless Eaters" Get the Genetically Engineered "Meat" that Looks Like Soggy Pork

November 29, 2009

Telegraph - The move towards artificially engineered foods has taken a step forward after scientists grew a form of meat in a laboratory for the first time.

Researchers in the Netherlands have created what was described as soggy pork and are now investigating ways to improve the muscle tissue in the hope that people will one day want to eat it.

No one has yet tasted the product, but it is believed the artificial meat could be on sale within five years.

Vegetarian groups welcomed the news, saying there was “no ethical objection” if meat was not a piece of a dead animal.

Mark Post, professor of physiology at Eindhoven University, said:
“What we have at the moment is rather like wasted muscle tissue. We need to find ways of improving it by training it and stretching it, but we will get there.

“This product will be good for the environment and will reduce animal suffering. If it feels and tastes like meat, people will buy it.

“You could take the meat from one animal and create the volume of meat previously provided by a million animals.”
The scientists extracted cells from the muscle of a live pig and then put them in a broth of other animal products. The cells then multiplied and created muscle tissue. They believe that it can be turned into something like steak if they can find a way to artificially “exercise” the muscle.

The project is backed by the Dutch government and a sausage maker and comes following the creation of artificial fish fillets from goldfish muscle cells.

Meat produced in a laboratory could reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with real animals.

Meat and dairy consumption is predicted to double by 2050 and methane from livestock is said to currently produce about 18 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gases.

It was supported by animal rights campaigners. A spokesman for Peta said:
“As far as we’re concerned, if meat is no longer a piece of a dead animal there’s no ethical objection.”
However the Vegetarian Society said:
“The big question is how could you guarantee you were eating artificial flesh rather than flesh from an animal that had been slaughtered.

“It would be very difficult to label and identify in a way that people would trust.”
The advent of meat grown for consumers could reduce the billions of tons of greenhouse gases emitted each year by farm animals and help meet the United Nation’s predictions that meat and dairy consumption will double by 2050.

However, the latest breakthrough is certain to cause concern amongst the anti-GM lobby... GM supporters say they are aware of risks associated with “engineered” food but believe it benefits the Third World.

Skeptics of GM Crops are 'Emotional,’ Government Food Watchdog Report Claims



Public opposition to genetically-modified food is based on “emotion” rather than “reason,” claims a Food Standards Agency report which will help shape future Government policy.

November 26, 2009

Telegraph - ...Previous plans to grow GM crops commercially on a large scale in Britain were scrapped after official trials showed that the method of growing could harm the environment. It followed a concerted campaign and a backlash by consumers who refused to eat so-called "Frankenstein foods."

But a recent Government-published report highlighted warnings from manufacturers that it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep GM products out of the food chain.

Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, also said in August that there needed to be a ''radical rethink'' of the way the UK produces and consumes food is needed, to cope with future world shortages.

Under the current rules, products made through GM technology must be labelled but meat and milk from animals which themselves may have eaten genetically-modified feed do not.

Although there is no blanket ban on growing GM crops in Britain, permission has to be sought on a case-by-case basis.

Opponents fear that the year-long consultation, run by the FSA, could lead to recommendations for changes. A committee of experts charged with overseeing the process met on Wednesday for the first time to discuss how it would be organised. Each member was presented with a copy of the study Exploring Attitudes to GM Food, carried out by the National Centre for Social Research, containing the findings of a focus group, involving a sample of only 30 people.

The study, which cost £73,000 sets out to “explore the circumstances in which people change their views.” Just over a third of participants told the researchers at the outset that they thought that the disadvantages of GM technology outweighed the benefits. The study found strong support for all products involving possible GM ingredients (even at the animal feed level) should be labelled while the system was dismissed as “inconsistent and confusing”.

But opponents were described in the report as having “varied and often contradictory” views.
“Research has found that perceived lack of knowledge about the subject area causes the majority of people in a survey situation to give an emotional or affective response to the idea of GM food rather than a reasoned or thought out position,” it says.

“It has been argued that this inclines people to view GM food more negatively.”
The attitudes of those who took a “cynical approach” to GM technology are also “clearly underpinned” by a general scepticism towards science. They were “prone to articulate their views towards scientific development using emotive language.”

By contrast, the report says:
“Pragmatic, as opposed to ideological, concerns played a primary role for participants who took the middle ground or felt more positively towards GM food.”
Peter Riley, campaigns director of GM Freeze, a coalition of groups calling for a halt to GM cultivation, said:
“I think it is extremely patronising to people, most people understand what is going on in the food chain.

“This language suggests that the terms of reference for this study were not necessarily to try to find out what people are thinking but to pigeonhole people.”

He added: “We are really concerned that this GM Dialogue is more to do with trying to persuade the public that the Government’s view is right and that the view of treating GM with caution is wrong.

“The steering group that has been charged with overseeing this process are going to have to be extremely diligent in their work to make sure that the process is open and fair and really captures what people genuinely feel about food production and GM in particular.”
Peter Melchett, policy director of the Soil Association, said:
"This Government-ordered exercise is a huge waste of public money designed to keep the GM industry quiet.”
Emma Hockridge, the group’s policy manager, added:
“The last time the public were consulted on GM, the message was a loud and clear no.

“This research clearly shows that people’s fears over the technology are still there, and for good reason.”

The Fight Over the Future of Food

November 10, 2009

Reuters - ...Mexico issued permits last month for the first time for farmers to grow genetically modified corn.

Considered by many the cradle of corn, Mexico is home to more than 10,000 varieties, used to make the classic tortilla, a staple of the Mexican diet. Corn was first planted in Mexico as many as 9,000 years ago and the grain was adapted by Spanish conquerors in the early 1500s and eventually spread to the rest of the world.

Mexico faces the same dilemmas over GM corn as do many developing countries -- balancing consumer fears with the need to grow more food.
"We see corn as our cultural heritage, our legacy. For us it's not just a question of food, but about conserving our traditions," said Celerino Tlacotempa, who works for an organization of native Nahuatl farmers in the southern mountains of Guerrero state.

"With genetically modified seeds we will lose our varieties of colored corn. There will be no more purple corn, black corn, white corn," Tlacotempa said. "Above all, we will be condemned to buy seeds from companies like Monsanto. It's not sustainable. It's a real risk for the wellbeing of these communities."
At the same time, other Mexican farmers in the north of the country have been cultivating GM seeds smuggled over the border from the United States for some time, attracted by the crops' greater resilience to drought and pests and higher yields.

Tomas Lumpkin, director of CIMMYT, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center that Borlaug started in Mexico, said the country now imports about half of the corn it consumes. With climate change and other pressures, he said, it was vital to raise production using all tools available.
"It is a much more complex and difficult world than Borlaug faced, but we have much more powerful tools than he had, and we need to start testing those and deploying those," he said.

"GMOs are just another set of tools in the toolbox, but we need to be able to use those tools," Lumpkin said. "If we could deploy those varieties so that the farmer in the developing world has the same powerful seed as the farmer in Iowa, why should they be handicapped?"

World Must Use GM Crops, Says UK Science Academy

October 21, 2009

Reuters - The world needs genetically modified crops both to increase food yields and minimize the environmental impact of farming [editor's note: 'Are you serious?!'], Britain's top science academy said on Wednesday.

The Royal Society said in a report the world faced a "grand challenge" to feed another 2.3 billion people by 2050 and at the same time limit the environmental impact of the farm sector.

The world will have to increase food output by 70 percent and invest $83 billion annually in developing countries by mid-century, the U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organization said earlier this month.
"The problem is such an acute one, doing that sustainably without eroding soil, overusing fertilizers is an enormous challenge," said the chair of the Royal Society report, Cambridge University's David Baulcombe.

"There isn't a lot more land to use," he told Reuters. "And from the point of expense and using fossil fuels, we want to use less fertilizer."

"The food supply problem is likely to come to a head 10, 20, 30 years from now," he said, adding this didn't leave much time given the research lead time to develop new crops.
The answer would be a range of approaches from hi-tech genetically modified crops to low-tech management approaches such as sowing grass around maize to divert pests, as well as preserving the diversity of natural, wild crop varieties.

Farming indirectly, including deforestation, accounts for a third of greenhouse gases, say scientists, underlining the problem of increasing production simply by clearing more land or using more fertilizers, the biggest source of a powerful greenhouse gas nitrous oxide.

Britain had to invest an extra 50 ($82.13 million) to 100 million pounds annually in research to boost innovation in a sector which had lost allure following food over-supply in Europe, the report said.

A combination of changing diets, growing population, demand for farmland for biofuels and high energy prices have stoked food prices and renewed interest in agriculture.

Wednesday's report invoked the successes of the Green Revolution of the 1960s, but aimed for a more sustainable approach. That revolution had more than doubled food output over 30 years but had also degraded soils in some cases.

The world must develop over the next 16 years through genetic modification and conventional breeding varieties of crops resistant to disease, drought, salinity, heat and toxic heavy metals, the report said.

Progress in DNA-sequencing had made more plant genes available for engineering, improving the predictability of results in a "second generation" GM approach.
"We're looking at a different base than 10 years ago," said Baulcombe.
A combination of the food crisis and the global economic downturn has pushed more than 1 billion people into hunger in 2009, U.N. agencies said last week, confirming a grim forecast released earlier this year.

The Pressure group Greenpeace said GM crops were a costly distraction from tackling hunger through fighting poverty and helping smallholders in developing countries sell their product.
"Poverty and hunger are the same thing," said Marco Contiero, Greenpeace's European GM policy director, who pointed out that the world already produced enough to feed itself, if that were shared fairly and there was less waste.

November 28, 2009

RFID, GPS Technology and Electronic Surveillance

Intel Wants Brain Implants in Its Customers’ Heads by 2020

November 21, 2009

PopSci - If the idea of turning consumers into true cyborgs sounds creepy, don’t tell Intel researchers. Intel’s Pittsburgh lab aims to develop brain implants that can control all sorts of gadgets directly via brain waves by 2020.

The scientists anticipate that consumers will adapt quickly to the idea, and indeed crave the freedom of not requiring a keyboard, mouse, or remote control for surfing the Web or changing channels. They also predict that people will tire of multi-touch devices such as our precious iPhones, Android smart phones and even Microsoft’s wacky Surface Table.

Turning brain waves into real-world tech action still requires some heavy decoding of brain activity. The Intel team has already made use of fMRI brain scans to match brain patterns with similar thoughts across many test subjects.

Plenty of other researchers have also tinkered in this area. Toyota recently demoed a wheelchair controlled with brainwaves, and University of Utah researchers have created a wireless brain transmitter that allows monkeys to control robotic arms.

There are still more implications to creating a seamless brain interface, besides having more cyborgs running around. If scientists can translate brain waves into specific actions, there’s no reason they could not create a virtual world with a full spectrum of activity tied to those brain waves. That’s right — we’re seeing Matrix creep.

Brain Scanner Could Herald a New Big Brother Era Envisaged in Minority Report

November 1, 2009

The Sunday Times - Scientists have discovered how to “read” minds by scanning brain activity and reproducing images of what people are seeing — or even remembering.

Researchers have been able to convert into crude video footage the brain activity stimulated by what a person is watching or recalling.

The breakthrough raises the prospect of significant benefits, such as allowing people who are unable to move or speak to communicate via visualisation of their thoughts; recording people’s dreams; or allowing police to identify criminals by recalling the memories of a witness.

However, it could also herald a new Big Brother era, similar to that envisaged in the Hollywood film Minority Report, in which an individual’s private thoughts can be readily accessed by the authorities.

Earlier this year, Jack Gallant and Thomas Naselaris, two neurologists from the University of California, Berkeley, managed to 'decode' static images seen by the person from activity in the brain's visual cortex. Last week Gallant and Shinji Nishimoto - another neurologist - went one step further by revealing that it is possible to decode signals generated in the brain by moving scenes.

In an experiment which has yet to be peer reviewed, Gallant and Nishimoto, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology, scanned the brains of two patients as they watched videos.

A computer programme was used to search for links between the configuration of shapes, colours and movements in the videos, and patterns of activity in the patients’ visual cortex.

It was later fed more than 200 days’ worth of YouTube internet clips and asked to predict which areas of the brain the clips would stimulate if people were watching them.

Finally, the software was used to monitor the two patients’ brains as they watched a new film and to reproduce what they were seeing based on their neural activity alone.

Remarkably, the computer programme was able to display continuous footage of the films they were watching — albeit with blurred images.

In one scene which featured the actor Steve Martin wearing a white shirt, the software recreated his rough shape and white torso but missed other details, such as his facial features.

Another scene, showing a plane flying towards the camera against a city skyline, was less successfully reproduced. The computer recreated the image of the skyline but omitted the plane altogether.
“Some scenes decode better than others,” said Gallant. “We can decode talking heads really well. But a camera panning quickly across a scene confuses the algorithm.

“You can use a device like this to do some pretty cool things. At the moment when you see something and want to describe it to someone you have to use words or draw it and it doesn’t work very well.

“You could use this technology to transmit the image to someone. It might be useful for artists or to allow you to recover an eyewitness’s memory of a crime.”
Such technology may not be confined to the here and now. Scientists at University College London have conducted separate tests that detect, with an accuracy of about 50%, memories recalled by patients.

The discoveries come amid a flurry of developments in the field of brain science. Researchers have also used scanning technology to measure academic ability, detect early signs of Alzheimer’s and other degenerative conditions, and even predict the decision a person is about to make before they are conscious of making it.

Such developments may have controversial ramifications. In Britain, fMRI scanning technology has been sold to multinational companies, such as Unilever and McDonald’s, enabling them to see how we subconsciously react to brands.

In America, security agencies are researching the use of brain scanners for interrogating prisoners, and Lockheed Martin, the US defence contractor, is reported to have studied the possibility of scanning brains at a distance.

This would allow an individual’s thoughts and anxieties to be examined without their knowledge in sensitive locations such as airports.

Russell Foster, a neuroscientist at Oxford University, said rapid advances in the field were throwing up ethical dilemmas.
“It’s absolutely critical for scientists to inform the public about what we are doing so they can engage in the debate about how this knowledge should be used,” he said.

“It’s the age-old problem: knowledge is power and it can be used for both good and evil.”

Chicago’s Extensive Big Brother Surveillance System Raises Concerns About Possible Privacy Abuses

November 17, 2009

CBS - A giant web of video-surveillance cameras has spread across Chicago, aiding police in the pursuit of criminals but raising fears that the City of Big Shoulders is becoming the City of Big Brother.

While many police forces are boosting video monitoring, video-surveillance experts believe Chicago has gone further than any other U.S. city in merging computer and video technology to police the streets. The networked system is also unusual because of its scope and the integration of nonpolice cameras.

The city links the 1,500 cameras that police have placed in trouble spots with thousands more—police won’t say how many—that have been installed by other government agencies and the private sector in city buses, businesses, public schools, subway stations, housing projects and elsewhere. Even home owners can contribute camera feeds.

Rajiv Shah, an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago who has studied the issue, estimates that 15,000 cameras have been connected in what the city calls Operation Virtual Shield, its fiber-optic video-network loop.

The system is too vast for real-time monitoring by police staffers. But each time a citizen makes an emergency call, which happens about 15,000 times a day, the system identifies the caller’s location and instantly puts a video feed from the nearest camera up on a screen to the left of the emergency operator’s main terminal. The feeds, including ones that weren’t viewed in real time, can be accessed for possible evidence in criminal cases.

A police spokesman said the system has “aided in thousands of arrests.” Video cameras caught 16-year-old Michael Pace, an alleged Chicago gang member, opening fire with a 40-caliber handgun on a city bus in a 2007 incident that claimed the life of 16-year-old honor student Blair Holt and wounded four others. In July, Mr. Pace pleaded guilty to murder on the eve of his trial, and the video was released during a hearing where a judge sentenced him to 100 years in jail.
The city is “allowing first responders access to real-time visual data,” said Ray Orozco, executive director of the city department responsible for the system. “Chicago understands the importance of networking instead of just hanging cameras,” said Roger Rehayem of International Business Machines Corp., which designed the system. Former U.S. Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff has called Chicago’s use of cameras “a model for the country.”
That worries some Chicagoans. Charles Yohnka, director of communications and public policy for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, said:
“With the unbelievably rapid expansion of these systems, we’d like to know when enough is enough.”
The ACLU has been calling, so far without success, for the city to disclose how many cameras are in the system and what the capabilities of the system are, as well as who is allowed to look at the video feeds and under what circumstances.

Mr. Yohnka said that he isn’t aware of any abuses in the use of the video but that “political surveillance” of opponents could be tempting for office holders. In other cities there have been reports of male police staffers ogling and tracking women for extensive periods though they aren’t doing anything suspicious.

Mr. Orozco dismisses worries about privacy abuse. The department logs in all users and can monitor what they are doing, he said, assuring accountability. He also said access to the command center is tightly controlled. He declined to discuss specifics of who is allowed inside the center.

Chicago said that it only networks video cameras in public areas where people have an expectation they may be seen. None of the cameras record speech, because that would violate wire-tapping laws, although some can detect the sound of gunfire and breaking glass.
“People want these cameras in their neighborhoods,” said Mayor Richard Daley in a prepared statement. “We can’t afford to have a police officer on every corner, but cameras are the next best thing.”
While video-surveillance cameras are ubiquitous in most of the developed world, they’re primarily used to collect evidence that can be examined after a crime has been committed.

The Chicago system is also designed to deal with emergencies as they happen. Besides turning on when people call 911, some are set to sound alerts at command centers if people enter closed areas after hours, and some also issue spoken warnings at the site.

At the Navy Pier amusement area, cameras monitor an inlet that only official boats are allowed to enter. When the system detects recreational boats in the area, a warning to move away is issued over a loudspeaker.

It’s difficult to tell how much Chicago’s system cuts crime. The city’s crime rates have declined steadily over the last 10 years, like those in many other cities.

Chicago police started installing highly visible cameras topped by flashing blue lights back in 2003. Many were placed at locations where residents had complained about drug-dealing, and the city later said that crime decreased up to 30% in areas with cameras. But some critics complained that the cameras just pushed drug dealers to nearby street corners.

Even if cameras don’t prevent crimes, “prosecution is much quicker,” said Fredrik Nilsson, general manager of Axis North America, a unit of a Swedish company that makes the digital cameras used in Chicago. “When people face recorded videos, they don’t go through court trials.”

Big Brother’s Smart Meter Invades Home Privacy

November 18, 2009

The Star - North America's electrical grid is one of the greatest technological achievements of the 20th century. However, at the time of its design, the main goal was to make sure the lights stayed on, with no serious thought to energy efficiency, environmental conservation, alternative energy sources, consumer-tailored choices, or cyber security. But times have changed, and today the grid offers a virtual window into your home – providing granular levels of information such as when you cook or shower, and for how long.

The information and communications technology revolution has changed our society in profound ways, and these new technologies are being used to make the current electrical grid "smarter," commonly referred to as the "smart grid." But this is not the future.

The deployment of smart meters in Ontario homes is already widespread, and the Ontario government has committed to installing this technology in all homes and small businesses by the end of 2010. President Barack Obama's infusion of $3.4 billion (U.S.) to build the smart grid is greatly accelerating the delivery of the program across the U.S.

Smart meters record and report electricity consumption on an hourly basis – even at the appliance level. Consumers can access their meter data and make individual choices about their energy use, benefitting by taking advantage of future rates.

While this technology is clearly beneficial in terms of valuable efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions and reduce consumers' energy bills, it will also give rise to a new challenge – privacy protection.

Privacy is the smart grid's sleeper issue. Whenever technology is utilized that targets individual consumers, there is invariably a dramatic increase in the amount of personally identifiable information that is collected and stored, leading to very real concerns regarding privacy. This is why we need to bake privacy into the smart grid at the design stage – known as "privacy by design" – a concept developed to ensure the protection of privacy by making privacy the default in the design of new technologies and business practices.

We must take great care not to sacrifice consumer privacy amid an atmosphere of unbridled enthusiasm for electricity reform. But we need not forfeit one for the other in a zero-sum manner; we can adopt a positive-sum approach, where both interests may prevail.

Information proliferation, lax controls and insufficient oversight of this information could lead to unprecedented invasions of consumer privacy. Intimate details of individual hydro customers' habits, from when they eat, when they shower, to when they go to bed, plus such security issues as whether they have an alarm system engaged, could all be discerned by the data, automatically fed by appliances and other devices, to the companies providing electric power to our homes.

These concerns, however, are not meant to scare us away from the value of monitoring electrical usage data on the grid – giving consumers more control over their electricity usage and giving electricity providers the ability to manage demand requirements – what we need to embrace is the idea that the dissemination of personal information must be done in a privacy protective and transparent manner.

That is why – along with co-author Christopher Wolf – we are releasing a white paper today, SmartPrivacy for the Smart Grid: Embedding Privacy in the Design of Electricity Conservation, which not only emphasizes the necessity of building privacy into the smart grid, but also provides guidance as to what concrete steps can be taken.

For example, data minimization is key: only the minimal amount of personally identifiable information should be provided, based on the nature of the relevant service, such as the first three digits of a postal code, which may be sufficient for services that allow for comparison of neighbourhood averages and other features such as regional electrical usage.

In addition, when an electrical utility company is sharing data with a third-party service provider, a pseudonym, such as a unique ID number, may be utilized instead of a customer's name or some other piece of information that can identify the individual. Further, third-party service providers should enter into contractual agreements not to correlate consumer data with data obtained from other sources, without the consent of the consumer. These are only a few of the steps that may be taken to ensure privacy protection on the smart grid.

The time for action is now, before the smart grid becomes a fully established part of our infrastructure. We cannot allow privacy to become the Achilles heel of this new method of energy management. The information collected on the smart grid will form a large and complex library of personal information, the mishandling of which could be highly invasive of personal privacy. There will be major concerns if consumer-focused principles of transparency and control are not treated as essential design principles. Both public and private sector organizations responsible for the processing of customers' personal information on the smart grid must ensure that privacy is embedded into the design of the smart grid, from start to finish – end-to-end.

If we give consumers assurances that their privacy is protected, we can then ensure consumer confidence and trust, which will allow for the widespread acceptance of the smart grid, in turn contributing to the overall goal of using energy in more efficient and environmentally friendly ways. We cannot and need not sacrifice privacy for energy efficiency. We can have both privacy and a fully functioning smart grid. A positive sum (win-win) outcome for all – electrical utility providers, consumers, the environment and privacy – is there for the asking.

The paper discussed in this article can be viewed at http://www.ipc.on.ca/.