Posted at 09:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: contrarian, gregory sams, sideways thinker
Sunlight – a dangerous drug for humans or a life-prolonging blessing? Different scientists claim both.
Sun’s rays make us feel so good that they are addictive, which is a serious health problem, according to doctors in Massachusetts. Meanwhile, scientists in Sweden have found that women who avoid sunbathing during the summer are twice as likely to die as those who sunbathe every day.
Which is right?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-27866407
The scientists in Massachusetts worked indoors with shaved mice and UV light, followed by injections of opiate-blocking drugs to block the endorphins. Mice are nocturnal.
The epidemiological study in Sweden followed 30,000 women for over 20 years and “showed that mortality was about double in women who avoided sun exposure compared to the highest exposure group.”
Shedding light on our life-giving star: Sun of gOd, by Gregory Sams
Posted at 08:23 PM in health and well-being, Science, Sun of gOd | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
This
current cover of “The Week” is very apt. And now, with an intended attack on
Syria looking foiled, it makes sense that a Russian gangster should be
the one to out maneuver a US president reading from his autocue.
Unlike the shadowy puppet-masters of Western governments, even gangsters
spare a thought for the world their children will inherit, knowing that
unnecessary wars are both dangerous and damaging. The banking,
military, and arms establishment take a different viewpoint. Their industry
would grind to a halt if armaments were never put to use, prompting
replacements bought with bank loans by both sides.
With Putin at least, the nature of the beast is clear; the man is a ruthless boss who brooks no opposition, and twists the justice system as he plays the autocrat. Yet he is able to exercise his own thoughts and appears to be in control, rather than under control. That increases the likelihood of rational actions reflecting the old-fashioned notion that a military is there to protect us from external aggressors. This boldly challenges the existing paradigm that wars of aggression are there to protect the profits of the Military Industrial Complex.
We live in interesting times.
From “A Terminal Toolbag” Chapter 10
The world’s military powers were distraught when the Cold War ended, a situation helpfully resolved by invading Iraq and Afghanistan to fight terrorism and gift democracy. Consequently, terrorism is breaking out all over, serving to renew the fear and convince us to accept more shackles to feel safe. It’s straight out of George Orwell’s seminal book, 1984, with vague undefined enemies whose allegiances are always shifting. Our constantly cooked up fear of terrorists has provided the excuse to move the “cameras” inside our homes too, as the state gives itself the right to snoop through our phone calls, emails, and digital trails.
Posted at 06:58 PM in Current Affairs, Violence, crime, war | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Did you ever realize that the one-child policy that China has been strictly enforcing for the last 35 years means that the current generation has grown up without brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, or cousins? When their parents die, there will be no relatives at the funeral.
Venezuela has been suffering from a severe shortage of toilet paper. Public upset turned to rage when a senior government official declared that the problem was people eating too much. This comes at a time when Venezuelans are also suffering a shortage of many staple foods. That’s government for you!
America is publicly puzzled over the surge in suicides, up 30% in the last decade within the 35-64 age group (two thirds of the 85 gun-deaths per day in the US are suicides). I’ve read many of the mainstream stories and they all seem to be missing the elephant in the room: Most Americans over 30 are on medication, and the most commonly prescribed medications are anti-depressants.
It’s kicking off big-time in Turkey just now. It was triggered by a local tree-protecting incident but exploded into discontent over the increasingly authoritarian state. The Islamic party in power promised to be secular, but people doubt this after it mandated which shade of red is acceptable for airline hostesses, and required that images of glasses or bottled of alcohol be blurred out on TV or movies. Inside story here: from Turkey
Turn your wheelchair into an earner! Wealthy Americans now bring a special aid when visiting crowded Disney World. They rent out a cripple at the going rate of $130 an hour and thus their party jumps all the queues. As a wheelchair user myself, I rarely use the “C” word, but this abuse of a thoughtful privilege makes me fume.
The current benefits system in the UK has 51 different categories of payment, accompanied by 10,000 pages explaining how to use them. I wonder (not really) how effectively the new trimmed down and fully computerized system will fare.
Posted at 08:31 PM in Current Affairs, health and well-being | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Last week's New Scientist featured a cover story on the Multiverse, a curious concept born out of the head-scratching improbability of this Universe accidentally having the exact and precise parameters needed for matter and stars to exist, let alone things like us.
This is my Letter to the Editor:
Perhaps in centuries to come we will look back on physicists’ estimates of a multiverse (26 November, p.42) containing 10^500 universes in the same light as we see early theologians arguing over angel counts per pinhead. It was those theologians who set the template for the physicists' dilemma by sweeping away a common assumption of the ancient world and its scientists – the assumption that other aspects of this world also experienced consciousness. It was the Church that decreed only humans enjoyed this special experience, together with God, angels and the devil, replacing the notion of a living world with that of a dead unconscious place created by some imaginary external Character.
Science still clings to this unfounded religious restriction on consciousness, though it may have removed the devil, angels and God from the club. In your following article on consciousness and anaesthesia (p.49) you state that "Consciousness has long been one of the great mysteries of life, the universe and everything…yet we cannot agree on how to define it." Most would agree, though, that it is not a physical thing but an invisible energetic phenomenon. How can we know enough about consciousness to be sure that only we are equipped to experience it?
If consciousness is energetic, then our Universe's most common occupant has all the qualifications for being able to experience it. This appeared obvious to all pre-monotheistic cultures and their scientists, though they knew nothing of the complex activities powering the Sun and other stars. They knew nothing of stars' invisible energetic coronas, or of the enormous electro-magnetic fields linking stars and even galaxies together.
Perhaps if we embraced what was once a universal concept, instead of remaining in thrall to religious taboo, we would be equipped to arrive at a far simpler solution to this special Universe's fine tuning.
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Find a full expansion of this concept and its implications in my book titled Sun of gOd - discover the self-organizing consciousness that underlies everything.
Posted at 02:48 PM in Astrology, Consciousness, Science, Sun of gOd | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: angels on pinhead, consciousness, multiverse
This whole Murdoch business is such a trivial drama. Sure, he's an excellent candidate for the "Most Hated Magnate" prize but should we really give a flying fu*k about phone hacking by newspapers? It's primarily prompted by OUR insatiable appetite for bullshit, whether it's about the private lives of personalities or that of famous victims like Millie, the murdered schoolgirl. And now it will stop (in the private sector, at least) and it hasn’t exactly scarred the progress of civilization. Nice to see the Murdocks sweating though, it must be said.
Meanwhile:
The baseless concocted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan proceed with little public or media concern beyond reporting every death of 'one of ours.' The Afghans had nothing to do with the Twin Towers and Saddam Hussein was an enemy of Al-Qaeda.
Recent calculation show that drone strikes in Pakistan kill over 100 civilians for every targeted
combatant. In WWI one civilian died for every ten soldiers. In WWII it was one to one. Vietnam was seven to three. In Iraq it is ten of us killed for every one soldier. This is not good. And why is it that targeted domestic homes are always called "compounds?"
Depleted uranium weapons are at use in Libya, as they were in Iraq, where the consequence is a 10-15 fold increase in birth defects and a growing cancer rate from soil that will remain contaminated for over 100,000 years. Occupying an entire nation on false premises represents quite a high level of bad behaviour.
European and American economies are imploding as a result of borrowing by states that stake our future productivity as collateral against the loans. US Debt is 15 trillion dollars. Amongst much else, that borrowing provides funds for fighting unnecessary wars in foreign countries.
Thousand of us are dying every year as a result of continued inclusion of trans fats (hydrogenated oils) in our foodstuffs. It is acknowledged that there is no safe dose of these dangerous additives but they are still legally in use, and widely.
Three nuclear reactors are in an uncontained meltdown in Japan, continuing to release radioactive materials into the environment. They may stop the releases in ten years or so, maybe never. Much of northern Japan will remain uninhabitable for generations. Many millions throughout the world will suffer cancer for generations to come as a result of this catastrophe.
We are being denied the right to take responsibility for our own health by the suppression of our right to freely choose what route we take to healing.
Posted at 05:53 PM in Current Affairs, Violence, crime, war | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Afghanistan, American debt, drone attacks, fukushima, herbal medicine, Iraq war, meltdown, Murdock, phone hacking, trans fats
What is a meltdown?
Meltdown is hot news right now but what exactly is one, other than an event to be avoided at all costs? Some will remember the immense relief the world experienced when full meltdown was averted at Chernobyl and 3-Mile Island.
There has never been a full large-scale meltdown but this is the unknown situation that it describes: The overheated reactor fuel rods melt together and become as hot as the Sun's surface – enough to boil iron into steam. The hot metal melts down through
the concrete base of its containment vessel and then continues sinking into the earth below. Very little can stop the reaction at this point.
It doesn't sink downwards forever, because when the hot molten fuel reaches the natural water table it will quickly turn the underground water to steam. We don't know exactly what will happen then, having never experienced a meltdown or been crazy enough to test the idea out. But it is probable that the expansive steam would vent upwards with explosive force, carrying much of the radioactivity with it.
How high and far the radioactivity would disperse depends on the force of the blast from underground. It may settle in the surrounding area, or be carried by jet streams. Large amounts of radioactivity landing in the sea will eventually be carried by ocean currents throughout the world. If oceanic contamination continues through unchecked meltdown, it does not bode well for the world's oceans, harbouring most of the life on planet Earth. On the plus side, fish may become too radioactive to harvest and find their numbers rebounding, albeit with more mutants.
The averted meltdown at Chernobyl involved one reactor. Four reactors are currently in danger at Fukushima and two more could become involved. This is a potential disaster such as we have never faced before.
Nuclear power is an answer to nothing.
Posted at 05:20 PM in Current Affairs, Environment, Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Fukushima, meltdown, nuclear accident
I saw a movie last week that both shocked and surprised me. It's called Our Generation and catalogues the Australian government's ongoing effort to extinguish the last remnants of the 60,000 year old culture of Australia's first peoples. It is a shocking tale of racist suppression that is taking place here and now in cool, laid-back Australia. Many will remember Kevin Rudd's moving apology to the aborigines back in 2008. Well, it's since become worse and the world stands by, ignorant of blatant land-seizure for mining interests and removals to concentrated housing. While white Australians wantonly rape the land, it is stolen from its rightful owners under falsely righteous accusations of pedophilia.
Surely we should not be playing cricket in such places, nor traveling to holiday while this iniquity continues.
OUR GENERATION - revealing new documentary on Aboriginal rights in Australia
Posted at 04:18 PM in Current Affairs, Environment, Violence, crime, war | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: aborigines, australia, indiginous peoples, intervention
War is getting worse, not better.
Used to mainly be soldiers killing soldiers.
Now it's mainly soldiers killing innocent civilians.
In WW I civilian casualties were 10% of the total
In WW II civilian casualties were 50% of the total
In Vietnam civilian casualties were 70% of the total
In Iraq civilian casualties are 90% of the total
Why why why?
Perhaps the traditional 'objectives' of war have become less relevant. Used to be you fought a war to steal territory, plunder resources, impose religion, bring an ideology, or any combination thereof. The objective was to win the war and satisfy the objective. This usually involved trained militants in combat with each other, one eventually overcoming the other and doing/taking their thing. The war ends. William conquered and the fighting stopped.
Today, it looks like the prime objective of war is to maintain a 'healthy' Military Industrial Complex by expending weaponry. This is achieved through a state of perpetual war.
With an undefined and loosely knit enemy, and no large bases or troop concentrations to aim for it is inevitable that civilians will be the main victims when ordinance is exploded. Nobody bombs and attacks empty unpopulated space, except for once-off destruction of infrastructure.
Division was created between Muslims, and the resistance, trained by the USA to fight Russians, is more successful at killing civilians than armour-clad American fighting machines.
With some 750 - 1000 military bases located in over 150 countries worldwide, we can appreciate the USA's investment in conflict. Between them, the members of NATO account for another 200 bases worldwide. Russia keeps six bases in former Soviet states. China, the world's largest nation has, by contrast, no military bases located in other countries. India, the world's second largest population, has one base in Tajikistan. The Arab nations, the South, Central American and Canadian nations, the Africans, Far Eastern, and Antipodean nations have next to no bases and less combined military power than Israel.
The illegal Iraqi invasion could not have happened without that network of US and NATO bases. The bases serve to proliferate weapons, increase violence and undermine international instability. It's obvious really, as it is during war that soldiers rise through the ranks, and that personnel and weapons systems are tested by fire.
Yet is it any surprise that those economies 'investing' in military bases are the same ones sinking into economic collapse, whilst those who do not flush their wealth down the military toilet begin to boom? I dive right into this subject in the online chapter titled "The Arms Industry Toilet," from my first book Uncommon Sense, the State is Out of Date.
What to do? First and foremost, do not let them thrive on our fear. That is their power. Then get the book.
Posted at 06:33 PM in Current Affairs, Economy, Violence, crime, war | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: arms industry, civilian casualties, military industrial complex, war
Now that we see the looming likelihood of collapse of the Euro, perhaps it is time to take a longer view. I was very happy, at the time, when Britain alone chose to stay outside the Eurozone. After witnessing first hand the appalling effect of the Common Agricultural Policy upon the diet and landscape of Europe (see below), it was scary to think that the same idiots were going to run the monetary system.
Now that the entire edifice of a 'united' Europe is threatened by collapse of the Euro, I am reminded of my realization many years ago when Britain joined the community. This was that the European Union has finally managed to create that to which Napoleon and Hitler aspired. They have united us all under the rule of a group of unelected Commissioners who seem intent upon grinding us down under their bureaucracy.
One must wonder just how much irreparable economic damage will result from desperate and doomed attempts by the Commissioners to prop up their ill-planned currency?
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""I wished to found a European system, a European Code of Laws, a European judiciary: there would be but one people in Europe." Napoleon in 1810, his dream now achieved.
In my first book, Uncommon Sense - the State is Out of Date, I list some of our harvest from the Common Agricultural Policy:
* It counters our evolutionary change to a healthier diet, by interfering with the essential and effective feedback loop supplying information from the consumer to the producer. Subsidizing farmers and producing according to central decision-making badly interferes with the natural information exchange. The Soviets tried to do it.
* It encourages the introduction of toxic chemicals to our ecosystem through supporting and subsidising food production beyond society's demands. Much of the use of toxic chemicals and treatments is, when not mandated, certainly encouraged by the state's guarantee to purchase, or subsidize the sale. This lowers the quality of our food.
* It is responsible for the surplus of cattle that were fed back to themselves, as a means of reducing the "beef mountain." This created the conditions for the growth and spread of BSE (mad cow disease). The original cause of this modern tragedy is the intervention of the state in our food chain. The main alternative theory, put forward by organic farmer Mark Purdey, points to the effects of a state-imposed painting of all British cattle with a highly toxic organo-chloride potion covering the head and spinal column.
* It has been cited by regular studies as unworkable, corruption-prone and grossly inefficient since the early 1980's. Literally billions of pounds, our pounds, are scammed and lost every year as this out-of-control creation of Brussels gets on with its regular job - which itself has little merit.
Posted at 05:55 PM in Current Affairs, Economy, Environment | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Euro collapse, European Union, Eurozone, Hitler, Napoleon
Watched a fascinating programme recently on the Oracle at Delphi – Ancient Worlds presented by Dr Michael Scott. The Oracle pulled in visitors from across the Mediterranean world for over a thousand years, finally falling silent with the spread of the new Roman Church during the fourth century.
Considering the lack of trains, planes and automobiles in the ancient world, we must be impressed by the pull of Delphi for ten centuries. Go that far back in British history and William the Conqueror was still known as William the Bastard. Can you think of any facility in Britain that has enjoyed uninterrupted public support for such a period? I can't.
I have one underlying complaint to make about Michael Scott's presentation, however. Though he has clearly studied the amazing history of the Oracle in great depth, never at any point during this programme does he even consider that perhaps, just perhaps, there was something genuinely oracular about the place. Could a thousand years of patronage by the good and the great indicate that valid advice and prediction was dispensed at Delhpi?
Today we just dismiss all this as stuff and nonsense and superstition…we know so much better now. Or so the Church and science tell us. Are we being arrogant in our dismissal? The ancients, after all, were not a bunch of stupid dunces living in caves. They had great civilizations, even twin water conduits, with one for drinking and one for washing (no bottled water for the Romans or Aztecs). They built pyramids and temples; developed mathematics and astronomy; fostered agriculture and commerce. Perhaps, just perhaps, they knew some things that we do not.
In the course of writing my last book, Sun of gOd, it became apparent to me that the so-called "ancients" were in many areas advanced to us today. Whilst they lacked our level of technology, they understood more of the vibrational world of spirit, understanding the nature of metals and other fields of knowledge that have simply disappeared from our cultural heritage.
The pyramid-builders did not only have the ability to build monumental precision devices and align them to the heavens, they also recognized that the stones, the stars, and themselves were all part of the same interconnected system. It was a different way of looking at things.
Posted at 10:24 PM in Occult and paranormal, Religion, Sun of gOd | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: delphi, oracle, oracle at delphi