Harold Ambler
Posted January 3, 2009
Mr. Gore: Apology Accepted
You are probably wondering whether President-elect Obama owes the world an apology for his actions regarding global warming. The answer is, not yet. There is one person, however, who does. You have probably guessed his name: Al Gore.
Mr. Gore has stated, regarding climate change, that "the science is in." Well, he is absolutely right about that, except for one tiny thing. It is the biggest whopper ever sold to the public in the history of humankind.
What is wrong with the statement? A brief list:
1. First, the expression "climate change" itself is a redundancy, and contains a lie. Climate has always changed, and always will. There has been no stable period of climate during the Holocene, our own climatic era, which began with the end of the last ice age 12,000 years ago. During the Holocene there have been numerous sub-periods with dramatically varied climate, such as the warm Holocene Optimum (7,000 B.C. to 3,000 B.C., during which humanity began to flourish, and advance technologically), the warm Roman Optimum (200 B.C. to 400 A.D., a time of abundant crops that promoted the empire), the cold Dark Ages (400 A.D. to 900 A.D., during which the Nile River froze, major cities were abandoned, the Roman Empire fell apart, and pestilence and famine were widespread), the Medieval Warm Period (900 A.D. to 1300 A.D., during which agriculture flourished, wealth increased, and dozens of lavish examples of Gothic architecture were created), the Little Ice Age (1300 to 1850, during much of which plague, crop failures, witch burnings, food riots -- and even revolutions, including the French Revolution -- were the rule of thumb), followed by our own time of relative warmth (1850 to present, during which population has increased, technology and medical advances have been astonishing, and agriculture has flourished).
So, no one needs to say the words "climate" and "change" in the same breath -- it is assumed, by anyone with any level of knowledge, that climate changes. That is the redundancy to which I alluded. The lie is the suggestion that climate has ever been stable. Mr. Gore has used a famously inaccurate graph, known as the "Mann Hockey Stick," created by the scientist Michael Mann, showing that the modern rise in temperatures is unprecedented, and that the dramatic changes in climate just described did not take place. They did. One last thought on the expression "climate change": It is a retreat from the earlier expression used by alarmists, "manmade global warming," which was more easily debunked. There are people in Mr. Gore's camp who now use instances of cold temperatures to prove the existence of "climate change," which is absurd, obscene, even.
2. Mr. Gore has gone so far to discourage debate on climate as to refer to those who question his simplistic view of the atmosphere as "flat-Earthers." This, too, is right on target, except for one tiny detail. It is exactly the opposite of the truth.
Indeed, it is Mr. Gore and his brethren who are flat-Earthers. Mr. Gore states, ad nauseum, that carbon dioxide rules climate in frightening and unpredictable, and new, ways. When he shows the hockey stick graph of temperature and plots it against reconstructed C02 levels in An Inconvenient Truth, he says that the two clearly have an obvious correlation. "Their relationship is actually very complicated," he says, "but there is one relationship that is far more powerful than all the others, and it is this: When there is more carbon dioxide, the temperature gets warmer." The word "complicated" here is among the most significant Mr. Gore has uttered on the subject of climate and is, at best, a deliberate act of obfuscation. Why? Because it turns out that there is an 800-year lag between temperature and carbon dioxide, unlike the sense conveyed by Mr. Gore's graph. You are probably wondering by now -- and if you are not, you should be -- which rises first, carbon dioxide or temperature. The answer? Temperature. In every case, the ice-core data shows that temperature rises precede rises in carbon dioxide by, on average, 800 years. In fact, the relationship is not "complicated." When the ocean-atmosphere system warms, the oceans discharge vast quantities of carbon dioxide in a process known as de-gassing. For this reason, warm and cold years show up on the Mauna Loa C02 measurements even in the short term. For instance, the post-Pinatubo-eruption year of 1993 shows the lowest C02 increase since measurements have been kept. When did the highest C02 increase take place? During the super El Niño year of 1998.
3. What the alarmists now state is that past episodes of warming were not caused by C02 but amplified by it, which is debatable, for many reasons, but, more important, is a far cry from the version of events sold to the public by Mr. Gore.
Meanwhile, the theory that carbon dioxide "drives" climate in any meaningful way is simply wrong and, again, evidence of a "flat-Earth" mentality. Carbon dioxide cannot absorb an unlimited amount of infrared radiation. Why not? Because it only absorbs heat along limited bandwidths, and is already absorbing just about everything it can. That is why plotted on a graph, C02's ability to capture heat follows a logarithmic curve. We are already very near the maximum absorption level. Further, the IPCC Fourth Assessment, like all the ones before it, is based on computer models that presume a positive feedback of atmospheric warming via increased water vapor.
4. This mechanism has never been shown to exist. Indeed, increased temperature leads to increased evaporation of the oceans, which leads to increased cloud cover (one cooling effect) and increased precipitation (a bigger cooling effect). Within certain bounds, in other words, the ocean-atmosphere system has a very effective self-regulating tendency. By the way, water vapor is far more prevalent, and relevant, in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide -- a trace gas. Water vapor's absorption spectrum also overlays that of carbon dioxide. They cannot both absorb the same energy! The relative might of water vapor and relative weakness of carbon dioxide is exemplified by the extraordinary cooling experienced each night in desert regions, where water in the atmosphere is nearly non-existent.
If not carbon dioxide, what does "drive" climate? I am glad you are wondering about that. In the short term, it is ocean cycles, principally the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the "super cycle" of which cooling La Niñas and warming El Niños are parts. Having been in its warm phase, in which El Niños predominate, for the 30 years ending in late 2006, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation switched to its cool phase, in which La Niñas predominate.
Since that time, already, a number of interesting things have taken place. One La Niña lowered temperatures around the globe for about half of the year just ended, and another La Niña shows evidence of beginning in the equatorial Pacific waters. During the last twelve months, many interesting cold-weather events happened to occur: record snow in the European Alps, China, New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, the Rockies, the upper Midwest, Las Vegas, Houston, and New Orleans. There was also, for the first time in at least 100 years, snow in Baghdad.
Concurrent with the switchover of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation to its cool phase the Sun has entered a period of deep slumber. The number of sunspots for 2008 was the second lowest of any year since 1901. That matters less because of fluctuations in the amount of heat generated by the massive star in our near proximity (although there are some fluctuations that may have some measurable effect on global temperatures) and more because of a process best described by the Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark in his complex, but elegant, work The Chilling Stars. In the book, the modern Galileo, for he is nothing less, establishes that cosmic rays from deep space seed clouds over Earth's oceans. Regulating the number of cosmic rays reaching Earth's atmosphere is the solar wind; when it is strong, we get fewer cosmic rays. When it is weak, we get more. As NASA has corroborated, the number of cosmic rays passing through our atmosphere is at the maximum level since measurements have been taken, and show no signs of diminishing. The result: the seeding of what some have taken to calling "Svensmark clouds," low dense clouds, principally over the oceans, that reflect sunlight back to space before it can have its warming effect on whatever is below.
Svensmark has proven, in the minds of most who have given his work a full hearing, that it is this very process that produced the episodes of cooling (and, inversely, warming) of our own era and past eras. The clearest instance of the process, by far, is that of the Maunder Minimum, which refers to a period from 1650 to 1700, during which the Sun had not a single spot on its face. Temperatures around the globe plummeted, with quite adverse effects: crop failures (remember the witch burnings in Europe and Massachusetts?), famine, and societal stress.
Many solar physicists anticipate that the slumbering Sun of early 2009 is likely to continue for at least two solar cycles, or about the next 25 years. Whether the Grand Solar Minimum, if it comes to pass, is as serious as the Maunder Minimum is not knowable, at present. Major solar minima (and maxima, such as the one during the second half of the 20th century) have also been shown to correlate with significant volcanic eruptions. These are likely the result of solar magnetic flux affecting geomagnetic flux, which affects the distribution of magma in Earth's molten iron core and under its thin mantle. So, let us say, just for the sake of argument, that such an eruption takes place over the course of the next two decades. Like all major eruptions, this one will have a temporary cooling effect on global temperatures, perhaps a large one. The larger the eruption, the greater the effect. History shows that periods of cold are far more stressful to humanity than periods of warm.
Would the eruption and consequent cooling be a climate-modifier that exists outside of nature, somehow? Who is the "flat-Earther" now?
What about heat escaping from volcanic vents in the ocean floor? What about the destruction of warming, upper-atmosphere ozone by cosmic rays? I could go on, but space is short.
Again, who is the "flat-Earther" here?
The ocean-atmosphere system is not a simple one that can be "ruled" by a trace atmospheric gas. It is a complex, chaotic system, largely modulated by solar effects (both direct and indirect), as shown by the Little Ice Age.
To be told, as I have been, by Mr. Gore, again and again, that carbon dioxide is a grave threat to humankind is not just annoying, by the way, although it is that! To re-tool our economies in an effort to suppress carbon dioxide and its imaginary effect on climate, when other, graver problems exist is, simply put, wrong. Particulate pollution, such as that causing the Asian brown cloud, is a real problem. Two billion people on Earth living without electricity, in darkened huts and hovels polluted by charcoal smoke, is a real problem.
So, let us indeed start a Manhattan Project-like mission to create alternative sources of energy. And, in the meantime, let us neither cripple our own economy by mislabeling carbon dioxide a pollutant nor discourage development in the Third World, where suffering continues unabated, day after day.
Again, Mr. Gore, I accept your apology.
And, Mr. Obama, though I voted for you for a thousand times a thousand reasons, I hope never to need one from you.
P.S. One of the last, desperate canards proposed by climate alarmists is that of the polar ice caps. Look at the "terrible," "unprecedented" melting in the Arctic in the summer of 2007, they say. Well, the ice in the Arctic basin has always melted and refrozen, and always will. Any researcher who wants to find a single molecule of ice that has been there longer than 30 years is going to have a hard job, because the ice has always been melted from above (by the midnight Sun of summer) and below (by relatively warm ocean currents, possibly amplified by volcanic venting) -- and on the sides, again by warm currents. Scientists in the alarmist camp have taken to referring to "old ice," but, again, this is a misrepresentation of what takes place in the Arctic.
More to the point, 2007 happened also to be the time of maximum historic sea ice in Antarctica.
(There are many credible sources of this information, such as the following website maintained by the University of Illinois-Urbana:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg
Why, I ask, has Mr. Gore not chosen to mention the record growth of sea ice around Antarctica? If the record melting in the Arctic is significant, then the record sea ice growth around Antarctica is, too, I say. If one is insignificant, then the other one is, too.
For failing to mention the 2007 Antarctic maximum sea ice record a single time, I also accept your apology, Mr. Gore. By the way, your contention that the Arctic basin will be "ice free" in summer within five years (which you said last month in Germany), is one of the most demonstrably false comments you have dared to make.
Thank you for that!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harold-ambler/mr-gore-apology-accepted_b_154982.html
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Cable Giants Continue Hoping No One Will Notice
Cable Giants Continue Hoping No One Will Notice Their Attempts to Destroy the Internet
By Tana Ganeva
Last week, a full-on customer revolt forced Time Warner to cease their metered billing program — a system in which Internet users sign up for differently priced broadband plans and pay extra if they exceed their bandwidth limits. The plan was an infuriating inconvenience (e.g. rip—off) premised on the ethical business concept that you can arbitrarily jack up prices on a product if a heavily-monopolized marketplace leaves customers with little in the way of consumer choice.
Seems like a sweet idea. Except that Time Warner customers, media reform groups and tech bloggers inundated both government Representatives and the company with complaints. Soon, members of Congress were winning easy points by vocally criticizing Time Warner. On April 15th, CEO Glenn Britt announced that the company was dropping metered billing.
Anyway, not having learned anything from Time Warner’s epic fail, AT & T continues to maintain metered billing in Reno, Nev., and in Beaumont, Texas., which signals the cable giant's hopes that the infuriating, universally despised program might just work for them. Except that AT&T risks becoming even more hateable than Time Warner.
As Stacey Higginbotham reports on Gigaom,
http://gigaom.com/2009/04/20/the-case-of-atts-incredible-shrinking-broadband-tiers/#more-46382
there is evidence that AT&T doesn’t even bother informing their customers of the usage caps until after they have signed up for service:
The smaller cap for lower speeds is disheartening, but what’s more disturbing is that the customer was able to sign up for broadband service without ever knowing they existed. The ISP makes no mention of caps in its online marketing materials or terms of service (screenshots below), and a sales representative said the carrier had no caps when the customer called in to ask. A week after she ordered her service, the customer said she received a letter from AT&T via express mail detailing the metered broadband limits.
I’ve reached out to AT&T to understand why it was pushing a smaller caps and to also figure out if this particular subscriber’s experience was common.
Update: [AT&T spokesman Seth] Bloom says visitors who get their information from www.att.net can access terms of service information that notes the trial, but we were unable to find the info when visiting from www.att.com.
As Time Warner’s experience has shown, metered broadband isn’t something that the public is happy about. By not informing customers of the trial when they’re signing up for service, and by detailing one plan before the FCC then implementing another, AT&T is pulling a bait and switch with consumers and possibly regulators.
What’s especially galling about metered billing is that the cable giants, who are obviously looking to spike up revenue by charging extra for Internet use (and, in the case of Time Warner, decreasing online viewing of their video content — really, the sinister motives behind metered billing are endless), count on an uninformed populace to buy the following bullshit: that metered billing and pay caps are necessary due to the increase of video and audio content on the web. Beware -- next time you stream too much Lost, you might make the Internet explode.
But many experts point out that the cable giants are being disingenuous in their public assessments of the problem.
As Saul Hansell writes in the New York Times
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/the-cost-of-downloading-all-those-videos/?src=twt&twt=nytimesbits:
Hard numbers are not that easy to come by, but I’ve found a few. I see no evidence that the pace of spending to expand network capacity has increased at all. Indeed there are a lot of areas where new technology is radically cutting the cost of Internet bandwidth.
For those that want to understand more about what drives these costs, here is some of the hard data I’ve found. (As always, Bits readers are a knowledgeable bunch, so if you are in the network business, please share your own experience in the comments.)
I’ve mainly been looking at the costs that will increase as the bandwidth used by customers goes up. So I haven’t looked at overhead, marketing, customer service and so on. All of the discussion of cost is complex because much of the infrastructure at these providers is shared between video, phone and Internet service.
Still, there seem to be two major buckets of expense to consider: the cost of local networks that connect to people’s homes and the cost of the bandwidth that link those networks to the Internet. The local costs are larger, but falling faster with new technology.
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/137801/cable_giants_continue_hoping_no_one_will_notice_their_attempts_to_destroy_the_internet/
By Tana Ganeva
Last week, a full-on customer revolt forced Time Warner to cease their metered billing program — a system in which Internet users sign up for differently priced broadband plans and pay extra if they exceed their bandwidth limits. The plan was an infuriating inconvenience (e.g. rip—off) premised on the ethical business concept that you can arbitrarily jack up prices on a product if a heavily-monopolized marketplace leaves customers with little in the way of consumer choice.
Seems like a sweet idea. Except that Time Warner customers, media reform groups and tech bloggers inundated both government Representatives and the company with complaints. Soon, members of Congress were winning easy points by vocally criticizing Time Warner. On April 15th, CEO Glenn Britt announced that the company was dropping metered billing.
Anyway, not having learned anything from Time Warner’s epic fail, AT & T continues to maintain metered billing in Reno, Nev., and in Beaumont, Texas., which signals the cable giant's hopes that the infuriating, universally despised program might just work for them. Except that AT&T risks becoming even more hateable than Time Warner.
As Stacey Higginbotham reports on Gigaom,
http://gigaom.com/2009/04/20/the-case-of-atts-incredible-shrinking-broadband-tiers/#more-46382
there is evidence that AT&T doesn’t even bother informing their customers of the usage caps until after they have signed up for service:
The smaller cap for lower speeds is disheartening, but what’s more disturbing is that the customer was able to sign up for broadband service without ever knowing they existed. The ISP makes no mention of caps in its online marketing materials or terms of service (screenshots below), and a sales representative said the carrier had no caps when the customer called in to ask. A week after she ordered her service, the customer said she received a letter from AT&T via express mail detailing the metered broadband limits.
I’ve reached out to AT&T to understand why it was pushing a smaller caps and to also figure out if this particular subscriber’s experience was common.
Update: [AT&T spokesman Seth] Bloom says visitors who get their information from www.att.net can access terms of service information that notes the trial, but we were unable to find the info when visiting from www.att.com.
As Time Warner’s experience has shown, metered broadband isn’t something that the public is happy about. By not informing customers of the trial when they’re signing up for service, and by detailing one plan before the FCC then implementing another, AT&T is pulling a bait and switch with consumers and possibly regulators.
What’s especially galling about metered billing is that the cable giants, who are obviously looking to spike up revenue by charging extra for Internet use (and, in the case of Time Warner, decreasing online viewing of their video content — really, the sinister motives behind metered billing are endless), count on an uninformed populace to buy the following bullshit: that metered billing and pay caps are necessary due to the increase of video and audio content on the web. Beware -- next time you stream too much Lost, you might make the Internet explode.
But many experts point out that the cable giants are being disingenuous in their public assessments of the problem.
As Saul Hansell writes in the New York Times
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/the-cost-of-downloading-all-those-videos/?src=twt&twt=nytimesbits:
Hard numbers are not that easy to come by, but I’ve found a few. I see no evidence that the pace of spending to expand network capacity has increased at all. Indeed there are a lot of areas where new technology is radically cutting the cost of Internet bandwidth.
For those that want to understand more about what drives these costs, here is some of the hard data I’ve found. (As always, Bits readers are a knowledgeable bunch, so if you are in the network business, please share your own experience in the comments.)
I’ve mainly been looking at the costs that will increase as the bandwidth used by customers goes up. So I haven’t looked at overhead, marketing, customer service and so on. All of the discussion of cost is complex because much of the infrastructure at these providers is shared between video, phone and Internet service.
Still, there seem to be two major buckets of expense to consider: the cost of local networks that connect to people’s homes and the cost of the bandwidth that link those networks to the Internet. The local costs are larger, but falling faster with new technology.
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/137801/cable_giants_continue_hoping_no_one_will_notice_their_attempts_to_destroy_the_internet/
Do you know anything about this?
SPIES
The National Security Agency, located in Fort Meade Maryland, is the largest spy organization in the world. It's about halfway between Washington and Baltimore. With its 38,000 employees, it is more than twice the size of the CIA, and at least twice as secretive. This NSA complex is surrounded by a ten-foot Cyclone fence crowned with multiple rows of barbed wire. Along the fence are warnings telling you not to take pictures or make sketches of the building. Inside this fence is another, consisting of five thin strands of high-voltage electrified wire attached to wooden posts. After that is ANOTHER Cyclone fence reinforcing the others. This last fence is occasionally patrolled by armed guards with dogs.
Inside they monitor every electronic communication in America, including your phone calls. The governments eavesdropping network is called ECHELON. To avoid the fact that it is illegal for the U.S. government to spy on Americans, all the information is gathered in England. Then it is relayed by satellite to the national security agency's headquaters in Fort Meade. This system is designed to intercept virtually all email and fax traffic in the world and subject it to automated analysis, despite the laws in many nations (including this one) barring such activity. The laws were circumvented by a mutual pact among five nations. It's illegal for the United States to spy on it's citizens. Likewise the same for Great Britain. But under the terms of the UK-USA agreement, Britain spies on Americans and America spies on British citizens and the two groups trade data. Technically, it may be legal, but the intent to evade the spirit of the laws protecting the citizens of those two nations is clear.
ECHELON has been in development since 1947, the result of the UK-USA treaty signed by the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The purpose of the UK-USA agreement was to create a single vast global intelligence organization sharing common goals and a common agenda, spying on the world and sharing the data. The uniformity of operation is such that NSA operatives from Fort Meade could work from Menwith Hill to intercept local communications without either nation having to formally approve or disclose the interception.
They have supercomputers that have what they call dictionaries. This is a long list of what they call red flag phrases. If one of your conversations contains one of these red flag phrases, your communication will be electronically marked. It then goes directly to the N.S.A's computers.
There they have anylists who listen to your phone conversation, or if you have a computer, read your fax or E mail. It is against the law for the CIA or the NSA to spy on American citizens. Obviously the law means very little to these people. These high tech communication monitoring systems, combined with video camera surveiliance, and bio metric facial identification, allow for widespread surveiliance of the population without the need for warrants or formal investigations.
What the KGB and east German security police could only dream about a few years ago, is now a reality here in America. With facial recognition tehnology, if you pass in front of any video camera linked up to this system, they can identify you immediately. If you look around the town or city where you live, You will see cameras in various places. Some are hidden. They will tell you it's for traffic monitoring. But they also use it for crowd surveiliance.
Back in 1989 the Chinese used it in Tianemen square. They took the photograph of every protester with surveiliance camera's, and tracked them down. Many of them were killed. The rest were imprisioned. All they have to do is run the picture through the supercomputer with the stored information, and instantly identify you through the digital recognition system. A national I.D. card is now mandatory. Your drivers license now has a digitalized photograph, and encoded information on a magnetic strip.
Every nation around the world that has enacted these national I.D. cards, without failure, has moved closer to despotism and tyranny. It is also moving people closer toward a cashless society, and a numbering system. A national I.D. card is only the begining of what they have planned to intrude into your privacy. With global positioning satellites, brain scanners, cameras so small they can float on air among other toys, they have an amazing array of methods to spy on you, especially if you are known to have unfriendly attitudes toward their agenda.
The complete transfer of power from local and state governments, to the Federal government, is already in preperation. There is also a plan in the works where the Federal government will takeover private utilities. The forces used to implent this plan will be government trained terrorists. SWAT teams from your local police department, wearing gestapo like black uniforms, will be among these forces. Resistors will be arrested. There are already concentration type camps at the ready, all across America, for just such an event.
Behind all of this there is a shadow government. This shadow government has a rigid control over the major media in this country. If anything at all ever comes out about their illegal activities and lies, it's only to terrify people into submission, or to divert the public's attention from something else they're involved in which is even more illegal or unconstitutional. Using biometric technology, they can, with a sensor, scan a persons physical characteristics, which are unique to them. Then this information is digitized, encripted, and filed away in a data base. This information can then be used in the future, much like a bar code.
The intelligence community works with big business and the major universities to find better ways to spy on you. The U.S. Secret Service paid a private company, called Image Data, 1.5 million dollars to keep a photographic image data base of all Americans on file. The phone monitoring system the NSA employs anylizes every conversation where such words as White House, Jesus, nuclear, charcoal and sulpher are used. Thre are so many words they consider "red flag phrases", that you can be sure that in a recent phone conversation, you used some "red flag" words. That means that someone at the NSA was listening to and anylizing your phone conversation. A hacker once got into the NSA computer system, and in order to crash it, added the words "the" and "is" to their list of red flag phrases. It worked. It took about 1 second to bring down the entire system. To prevent this from happening again, the government opened up a new agency called the National Infrastructure Protection Center.
That should help you sleep better at night.
The National Security Agency, located in Fort Meade Maryland, is the largest spy organization in the world. It's about halfway between Washington and Baltimore. With its 38,000 employees, it is more than twice the size of the CIA, and at least twice as secretive. This NSA complex is surrounded by a ten-foot Cyclone fence crowned with multiple rows of barbed wire. Along the fence are warnings telling you not to take pictures or make sketches of the building. Inside this fence is another, consisting of five thin strands of high-voltage electrified wire attached to wooden posts. After that is ANOTHER Cyclone fence reinforcing the others. This last fence is occasionally patrolled by armed guards with dogs.
Inside they monitor every electronic communication in America, including your phone calls. The governments eavesdropping network is called ECHELON. To avoid the fact that it is illegal for the U.S. government to spy on Americans, all the information is gathered in England. Then it is relayed by satellite to the national security agency's headquaters in Fort Meade. This system is designed to intercept virtually all email and fax traffic in the world and subject it to automated analysis, despite the laws in many nations (including this one) barring such activity. The laws were circumvented by a mutual pact among five nations. It's illegal for the United States to spy on it's citizens. Likewise the same for Great Britain. But under the terms of the UK-USA agreement, Britain spies on Americans and America spies on British citizens and the two groups trade data. Technically, it may be legal, but the intent to evade the spirit of the laws protecting the citizens of those two nations is clear.
ECHELON has been in development since 1947, the result of the UK-USA treaty signed by the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The purpose of the UK-USA agreement was to create a single vast global intelligence organization sharing common goals and a common agenda, spying on the world and sharing the data. The uniformity of operation is such that NSA operatives from Fort Meade could work from Menwith Hill to intercept local communications without either nation having to formally approve or disclose the interception.
They have supercomputers that have what they call dictionaries. This is a long list of what they call red flag phrases. If one of your conversations contains one of these red flag phrases, your communication will be electronically marked. It then goes directly to the N.S.A's computers.
There they have anylists who listen to your phone conversation, or if you have a computer, read your fax or E mail. It is against the law for the CIA or the NSA to spy on American citizens. Obviously the law means very little to these people. These high tech communication monitoring systems, combined with video camera surveiliance, and bio metric facial identification, allow for widespread surveiliance of the population without the need for warrants or formal investigations.
What the KGB and east German security police could only dream about a few years ago, is now a reality here in America. With facial recognition tehnology, if you pass in front of any video camera linked up to this system, they can identify you immediately. If you look around the town or city where you live, You will see cameras in various places. Some are hidden. They will tell you it's for traffic monitoring. But they also use it for crowd surveiliance.
Back in 1989 the Chinese used it in Tianemen square. They took the photograph of every protester with surveiliance camera's, and tracked them down. Many of them were killed. The rest were imprisioned. All they have to do is run the picture through the supercomputer with the stored information, and instantly identify you through the digital recognition system. A national I.D. card is now mandatory. Your drivers license now has a digitalized photograph, and encoded information on a magnetic strip.
Every nation around the world that has enacted these national I.D. cards, without failure, has moved closer to despotism and tyranny. It is also moving people closer toward a cashless society, and a numbering system. A national I.D. card is only the begining of what they have planned to intrude into your privacy. With global positioning satellites, brain scanners, cameras so small they can float on air among other toys, they have an amazing array of methods to spy on you, especially if you are known to have unfriendly attitudes toward their agenda.
The complete transfer of power from local and state governments, to the Federal government, is already in preperation. There is also a plan in the works where the Federal government will takeover private utilities. The forces used to implent this plan will be government trained terrorists. SWAT teams from your local police department, wearing gestapo like black uniforms, will be among these forces. Resistors will be arrested. There are already concentration type camps at the ready, all across America, for just such an event.
Behind all of this there is a shadow government. This shadow government has a rigid control over the major media in this country. If anything at all ever comes out about their illegal activities and lies, it's only to terrify people into submission, or to divert the public's attention from something else they're involved in which is even more illegal or unconstitutional. Using biometric technology, they can, with a sensor, scan a persons physical characteristics, which are unique to them. Then this information is digitized, encripted, and filed away in a data base. This information can then be used in the future, much like a bar code.
The intelligence community works with big business and the major universities to find better ways to spy on you. The U.S. Secret Service paid a private company, called Image Data, 1.5 million dollars to keep a photographic image data base of all Americans on file. The phone monitoring system the NSA employs anylizes every conversation where such words as White House, Jesus, nuclear, charcoal and sulpher are used. Thre are so many words they consider "red flag phrases", that you can be sure that in a recent phone conversation, you used some "red flag" words. That means that someone at the NSA was listening to and anylizing your phone conversation. A hacker once got into the NSA computer system, and in order to crash it, added the words "the" and "is" to their list of red flag phrases. It worked. It took about 1 second to bring down the entire system. To prevent this from happening again, the government opened up a new agency called the National Infrastructure Protection Center.
That should help you sleep better at night.
How NSA access was built into Windows
Duncan Campbell 04.09.1999
Careless mistake reveals subversion of Windows by NSA.
A CARELESS mistake by Microsoft programmers has revealed that special access codes prepared by the US National Security Agency have been secretly built into Windows. The NSA access system is built into every version of the Windows operating system now in use, except early releases of Windows 95 (and its predecessors). The discovery comes close on the heels of the revelations earlier this year that another US software giant, Lotus, had built an NSA "help information" trapdoor into its Notes system, and that security functions on other software systems had been deliberately crippled.
The first discovery of the new NSA access system was made two years ago by British researcher Dr Nicko van Someren. But it was only a few weeks ago when a second researcher rediscovered the access system. With it, he found the evidence linking it to NSA.
Computer security specialists have been aware for two years that unusual features are contained inside a standard Windows software "driver" used for security and encryption functions. The driver, called ADVAPI.DLL, enables and controls a range of security functions. If you use Windows, you will find it in the C:\Windows\system directory of your computer.
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ADVAPI.DLL works closely with Microsoft Internet Explorer, but will only run cryptographic functions that the US governments allows Microsoft to export. That information is bad enough news, from a European point of view. Now, it turns out that ADVAPI will run special programmes inserted and controlled by NSA. As yet, no-one knows what these programmes are, or what they do.
Dr Nicko van Someren reported at last year's Crypto 98 conference that he had disassembled the ADVADPI driver. He found it contained two different keys. One was used by Microsoft to control the cryptographic functions enabled in Windows, in compliance with US export regulations. But the reason for building in a second key, or who owned it, remained a mystery.
A second key
Two weeks ago, a US security company came up with conclusive evidence that the second key belongs to NSA. Like Dr van Someren, Andrew Fernandez, chief scientist with Cryptonym of Morrisville, North Carolina, had been probing the presence and significance of the two keys. Then he checked the latest Service Pack release for Windows NT4, Service Pack 5. He found that Microsoft's developers had failed to remove or "strip" the debugging symbols used to test this software before they released it. Inside the code were the labels for the two keys. One was called "KEY". The other was called "NSAKEY".
Fernandes reported his re-discovery of the two CAPI keys, and their secret meaning, to "Advances in Cryptology, Crypto'99" conference held in Santa Barbara. According to those present at the conference, Windows developers attending the conference did not deny that the "NSA" key was built into their software. But they refused to talk about what the key did, or why it had been put there without users' knowledge.
A third key?!
But according to two witnesses attending the conference, even Microsoft's top crypto programmers were astonished to learn that the version of ADVAPI.DLL shipping with Windows 2000 contains not two, but three keys. Brian LaMachia, head of CAPI development at Microsoft was "stunned" to learn of these discoveries, by outsiders. The latest discovery by Dr van Someren is based on advanced search methods which test and report on the "entropy" of programming code.
Within the Microsoft organisation, access to Windows source code is said to be highly compartmentalized, making it easy for modifications to be inserted without the knowledge of even the respective product managers.
Researchers are divided about whether the NSA key could be intended to let US government users of Windows run classified cryptosystems on their machines or whether it is intended to open up anyone's and everyone's Windows computer to intelligence gathering techniques deployed by NSA's burgeoning corps of "information warriors".
According to Fernandez of Cryptonym, the result of having the secret key inside your Windows operating system "is that it is tremendously easier for the NSA to load unauthorized security services on all copies of Microsoft Windows, and once these security services are loaded, they can effectively compromise your entire operating system". The NSA key is contained inside all versions of Windows from Windows 95 OSR2 onwards.
"For non-American IT managers relying on Windows NT to operate highly secure data centres, this find is worrying", he added. "The US government is currently making it as difficult as possible for "strong" crypto to be used outside of the US. That they have also installed a cryptographic back-door in the world's most abundant operating system should send a strong message to foreign IT managers".
"How is an IT manager to feel when they learn that in every copy of Windows sold, Microsoft has a 'back door' for NSA - making it orders of magnitude easier for the US government to access your computer?" he asked.
Can the loophole be turned round against the snoopers?
Dr van Someren feels that the primary purpose of the NSA key inside Windows may be for legitimate US government use. But he says that there cannot be a legitimate explanation for the third key in Windows 2000 CAPI. "It looks more fishy", he said.
Fernandez believes that NSA's built-in loophole can be turned round against the snoopers. The NSA key inside CAPI can be replaced by your own key, and used to sign cryptographic security modules from overseas or unauthorised third parties, unapproved by Microsoft or the NSA. This is exactly what the US government has been trying to prevent. A demonstration "how to do it" program that replaces the NSA key can be found on Cryptonym's website.
According to one leading US cryptographer, the IT world should be thankful that the subversion of Windows by NSA has come to light before the arrival of CPUs that handles encrypted instruction sets. These would make the type of discoveries made this month impossible. "Had the next-generation CPU's with encrypted instruction sets already been deployed, we would have never found out about NSAKEY."
Artikel-URL: http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/5/5263/1.html
Careless mistake reveals subversion of Windows by NSA.
A CARELESS mistake by Microsoft programmers has revealed that special access codes prepared by the US National Security Agency have been secretly built into Windows. The NSA access system is built into every version of the Windows operating system now in use, except early releases of Windows 95 (and its predecessors). The discovery comes close on the heels of the revelations earlier this year that another US software giant, Lotus, had built an NSA "help information" trapdoor into its Notes system, and that security functions on other software systems had been deliberately crippled.
The first discovery of the new NSA access system was made two years ago by British researcher Dr Nicko van Someren. But it was only a few weeks ago when a second researcher rediscovered the access system. With it, he found the evidence linking it to NSA.
Computer security specialists have been aware for two years that unusual features are contained inside a standard Windows software "driver" used for security and encryption functions. The driver, called ADVAPI.DLL, enables and controls a range of security functions. If you use Windows, you will find it in the C:\Windows\system directory of your computer.
Anzeige
ADVAPI.DLL works closely with Microsoft Internet Explorer, but will only run cryptographic functions that the US governments allows Microsoft to export. That information is bad enough news, from a European point of view. Now, it turns out that ADVAPI will run special programmes inserted and controlled by NSA. As yet, no-one knows what these programmes are, or what they do.
Dr Nicko van Someren reported at last year's Crypto 98 conference that he had disassembled the ADVADPI driver. He found it contained two different keys. One was used by Microsoft to control the cryptographic functions enabled in Windows, in compliance with US export regulations. But the reason for building in a second key, or who owned it, remained a mystery.
A second key
Two weeks ago, a US security company came up with conclusive evidence that the second key belongs to NSA. Like Dr van Someren, Andrew Fernandez, chief scientist with Cryptonym of Morrisville, North Carolina, had been probing the presence and significance of the two keys. Then he checked the latest Service Pack release for Windows NT4, Service Pack 5. He found that Microsoft's developers had failed to remove or "strip" the debugging symbols used to test this software before they released it. Inside the code were the labels for the two keys. One was called "KEY". The other was called "NSAKEY".
Fernandes reported his re-discovery of the two CAPI keys, and their secret meaning, to "Advances in Cryptology, Crypto'99" conference held in Santa Barbara. According to those present at the conference, Windows developers attending the conference did not deny that the "NSA" key was built into their software. But they refused to talk about what the key did, or why it had been put there without users' knowledge.
A third key?!
But according to two witnesses attending the conference, even Microsoft's top crypto programmers were astonished to learn that the version of ADVAPI.DLL shipping with Windows 2000 contains not two, but three keys. Brian LaMachia, head of CAPI development at Microsoft was "stunned" to learn of these discoveries, by outsiders. The latest discovery by Dr van Someren is based on advanced search methods which test and report on the "entropy" of programming code.
Within the Microsoft organisation, access to Windows source code is said to be highly compartmentalized, making it easy for modifications to be inserted without the knowledge of even the respective product managers.
Researchers are divided about whether the NSA key could be intended to let US government users of Windows run classified cryptosystems on their machines or whether it is intended to open up anyone's and everyone's Windows computer to intelligence gathering techniques deployed by NSA's burgeoning corps of "information warriors".
According to Fernandez of Cryptonym, the result of having the secret key inside your Windows operating system "is that it is tremendously easier for the NSA to load unauthorized security services on all copies of Microsoft Windows, and once these security services are loaded, they can effectively compromise your entire operating system". The NSA key is contained inside all versions of Windows from Windows 95 OSR2 onwards.
"For non-American IT managers relying on Windows NT to operate highly secure data centres, this find is worrying", he added. "The US government is currently making it as difficult as possible for "strong" crypto to be used outside of the US. That they have also installed a cryptographic back-door in the world's most abundant operating system should send a strong message to foreign IT managers".
"How is an IT manager to feel when they learn that in every copy of Windows sold, Microsoft has a 'back door' for NSA - making it orders of magnitude easier for the US government to access your computer?" he asked.
Can the loophole be turned round against the snoopers?
Dr van Someren feels that the primary purpose of the NSA key inside Windows may be for legitimate US government use. But he says that there cannot be a legitimate explanation for the third key in Windows 2000 CAPI. "It looks more fishy", he said.
Fernandez believes that NSA's built-in loophole can be turned round against the snoopers. The NSA key inside CAPI can be replaced by your own key, and used to sign cryptographic security modules from overseas or unauthorised third parties, unapproved by Microsoft or the NSA. This is exactly what the US government has been trying to prevent. A demonstration "how to do it" program that replaces the NSA key can be found on Cryptonym's website.
According to one leading US cryptographer, the IT world should be thankful that the subversion of Windows by NSA has come to light before the arrival of CPUs that handles encrypted instruction sets. These would make the type of discoveries made this month impossible. "Had the next-generation CPU's with encrypted instruction sets already been deployed, we would have never found out about NSAKEY."
Artikel-URL: http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/5/5263/1.html
NARLO's SPECIALIZED, LEGALLY INTIMIDATING
We have known from specific incidents involving government code enforcement officers and private property owners, that a strongly-worded, NO TRESPASSING sign will, in most cases, keep code enforcement officers off of your property so that they can't look around and find alleged code infractions to charge you with and then extort money from you by levying huge penalties and fines for trumped up charges. To stop these government types in their tracts, we have researched and have printed a VERY LARGE, highly-visible, copyrighted, legally powerful NO TRESPASSING sign to thwart these folks from coming on your land. The signs are showing up on properties throughout the Western U. S.
Get your NO TRESPASSING signs up ASAP, before you fall victim to government's covert code enforcement. Your property may be your largest asset. These NO TRESPASSING signs are a small price to pay to properly protect it.
Signs should be posted in strategic areas, such as entrances to the property and where roads or trails touch the property. They are printed on 18" x 24" .03 inch (approx. 22 gauge) aluminum with mounting holes centered at top and bottom. Printed in black ink on a white background. (Minimum quantity = 3)
We strongly suggest that when you install your No Trespassing signs, you send a NO TRESPASSING SIGN POSTING NOTICE letter, or similar letter as modified by you, Certified - Return Receipt Requested, to: The county sheriff, each county commissioner, the director of the planning department, if any, the Governor and Attorney General of the State, or other government officials of your choosing.
RESIST! RESIST! RESIST! If government agents do show up, assume they are up to no good. Take pictures of them, record their voices, use a video camera or other device and get them on the record. Don't be shy. Have at-the-ready a Public Servant Questionnaire to log the information of their visit. Be sure to give them a blank copy of your Questionnaire. You fill it out, sign it and send a copy to the agent's office address. A copy of the NO TRESPASSING SIGN POSTING NOTICE letter and the PUBLIC SERVANT QUESTIONNAIRE will be shipped with your No Trespassing sign.
The hard, cold truth is, if you don't protect your property and your rights, make no mistake, government will, with malice, walk all over you because they feel empowered to do so. Why do they feel empowered? Because not enough Americans have challenged them and resisted their unlawful actions, much less their authority.
http://www.narlo.org/sign.html
Get your NO TRESPASSING signs up ASAP, before you fall victim to government's covert code enforcement. Your property may be your largest asset. These NO TRESPASSING signs are a small price to pay to properly protect it.
Signs should be posted in strategic areas, such as entrances to the property and where roads or trails touch the property. They are printed on 18" x 24" .03 inch (approx. 22 gauge) aluminum with mounting holes centered at top and bottom. Printed in black ink on a white background. (Minimum quantity = 3)
We strongly suggest that when you install your No Trespassing signs, you send a NO TRESPASSING SIGN POSTING NOTICE letter, or similar letter as modified by you, Certified - Return Receipt Requested, to: The county sheriff, each county commissioner, the director of the planning department, if any, the Governor and Attorney General of the State, or other government officials of your choosing.
RESIST! RESIST! RESIST! If government agents do show up, assume they are up to no good. Take pictures of them, record their voices, use a video camera or other device and get them on the record. Don't be shy. Have at-the-ready a Public Servant Questionnaire to log the information of their visit. Be sure to give them a blank copy of your Questionnaire. You fill it out, sign it and send a copy to the agent's office address. A copy of the NO TRESPASSING SIGN POSTING NOTICE letter and the PUBLIC SERVANT QUESTIONNAIRE will be shipped with your No Trespassing sign.
The hard, cold truth is, if you don't protect your property and your rights, make no mistake, government will, with malice, walk all over you because they feel empowered to do so. Why do they feel empowered? Because not enough Americans have challenged them and resisted their unlawful actions, much less their authority.
http://www.narlo.org/sign.html
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
To MSM about 'bird flu'--SHUT UP! (Good Info)
about 'bird flu'--SHUT UP!
by Disclosure staff
Disclosure NewsMagazine Monthly
October 19, 2005
The ridiculousness of this past week’s rampant coverage of the “avian flu” (“bird flu,” H5N1, etc.) has finally annoyed the staff of Disclosure to the point that we determined an opinion column about this subject is now imperative.
For some reason, all major mainstream media (MSM), at the end of their incessant coverage of the horrors following hurricanes Katrina and Rita, determined that all of a sudden the subject du jour would become avian flu. One after another, all MSM outlets were spouting about this flu, what everybody should do to “prepare,” and what our president Shrub (Bush minor) was intent upon doing should there be a pandemic in the U.S.
What is NOT being reported are the basic facts about H5N1, what people can really do to prepare, and, generally, what the “flu” basically is.
(Note: Nothing in the following column is meant to be construed as medical advice and should not be taken so, but only as guidelines learned from experience and culled from common-sense sources.)
What is the flu?
An “influenza” is a viral infection that has a relatively short lifespan and causes problems for its victim in the form of several minor effects (chills, high fever, aches and pains, headaches, sore throat, mucosal irritation). These actual “flu” conditions may make someone feel like they want to die, but the influenza virus generally does not kill a person—nor an animal.
What kills are the side-effects that stem from these conditions, if people don’t take care of themselves while suffering from this virus. These are primarily bacterial (and sometimes fungal, other viral and even parasitic) infections that set in during the lowered immune condition a person experiences when suffering a flu.
Ordinarily, these secondary infections are pneumonia and/or a range of gastrointestinal problems (parasites) that cause diarrhea, which, with attendant dehydration, can be fatal.
When animals get a flu, if they die at all, they usually die from parasitic or lung infections. When humans get a flu, if they die at all, it’s usually from pneumonia or dehydration from diarrhea.
Health professionals love to attribute human deaths from “the flu” to the flu, not to the secondary, opportunistic infections; it’s too much work to find out exactly which bacteria or parasite dealt the fatal blow. In other words, it’s easier for them when filling out paperwork.
The flu doesn't kill you
The fact is that “the flu” doesn’t kill.
So what, say you detractors, was all this fuss about the “Spanish flu” epidemic in 1918? Didn’t practically everybody in great-grandpa’s family (with the exception, of course, of great-grandpa) die from that?
No. There are two reasons why the “Spanish flu” (which was misnamed because of the inaccurate premise that it originated in Spain—more on that in a minute) killed so many people, and they are very, very simple—the outbreak of this flu came on the heels of two new treatments: aspirin, and a “flu vaccine.”
Careful research by medical investigators over the years has uncovered that the 1918 flu actually had a “ground zero” of Fort Riley, Kansas (specifically Camp Funston, where quarantined soldiers were eventually kept). This was the military base where the soldiers, having been brought back from duty in Spain and other locales after World War I, were taken and were subject to new inoculations that were being mandated for soldiers before release into the general populace. (Spain was a relatively neutral country in the war, and had no compunction against publishing ongoing information about the spread of this flu, causing it to be cause “Spanish flu” by default and misperception.)
These inoculations were a new practice; previous versions of “the flu” had made the rounds and done their damage; this was the first time a “vaccine” had been developed that would hopefully stave off the spread of the virus.
Taking the 'vaccine' home
These boys took themselves and the germs with which they were inoculated home with them and spread a live (and probably mutated) version of the virus to their friends and family. When people started getting sick, others ran out and received the vaccine in hopes that they wouldn’t be next.
They were.
In fact, records indicate that the people who didn’t get vaccinated (poor people who couldn’t afford it, and then, when vaccinations were being considered “essential” and basically given without cost, those with some intellect who refused to be inoculated) were the ones who survived the “epidemic.”
Aspirin: bad idea
Secondly, the development of salicylic acid (aspirin) came along at the same time. This product was widely available and was recommended by physicians in order to control the fever that came along with the flu. In taking it, peoples’ fevers went down and aches and pains subsided, but they died anyway.
Why?
This is because any influenza virus is naturally attacked by the body’s own defenses. This “attack” is marked by a high fever, a sign that your body is doing what it’s supposed to do when an invading germ is threatening. It slows you down, makes you take it easy, and generally causes you to take the rest you need to get past the harshest stage of the virus.
However, people who took aspirin found their fevers lowered and aches and pains eased, and went on about their business, spreading the virus and weakening their systems as they worked (which was more strenuous activity back then) and opening themselves up to the other opportunistic infections that would eventually kill them.
Mainstream medicine will screech to high heaven that these two factors—vaccinations and aspirin—were not the reason why millions of people worldwide died during the Spanish flu outbreak. But the sad fact is that all the research points to these being exactly why the flu A) spread so rampantly and B) became so lethal—people had no idea what they were doing to themselves.
And now on to H5N1—‘bird flu’
This virus, found in the digestive tracts of certain Asian birds (which, along with pig digestive tracts, is generally where most “flus” originate), was isolated and named in 1997. Read that again: 1997. Eight years ago.
Since H5N1—“bird flu”—has mutated, as most influenza viruses invariably do, to a human form in 2003, it has been contracted by (to date) exactly 116 people. Read that again: 116 people. These are mostly bird farmers (and/or their family members), with not the most sanitary of career choices, in Asian countries.
Since 2003, H5N1—“bird flu”—has killed (to date) exactly 60 people. Read that again: there have been only 60 deaths from bird flu worldwide, most of these isolated to Asian countries where sanitation isn’t exactly first-world quality.
When stretched out over the time period containing it, bird flu, mutated to human form, has, on the average, stricken 58 people per year; it has killed, on the average, 30 people per year.
That’s two-and-a-half people a month, or, if you want to get really specific, .08 people per day.
Incidentally, with 60 of 116 people dying after being infected with it, the avian flu has barely a 52 percent mortality rate. Anthrax did better in 2001.
The infection rate is virtually infinitesimal, since a huge portion of the world’s population lives in Asian countries.
There have been no known cases of human-to-human transmission in any of the countries to which the virus has spread.
So the bottom line: bird flu is hardly at pandemic levels, and is really nothing to worry about. It does not warrant even a second of what MSM has been giving it over the past couple of weeks.
Avoid the flu with no shots
To keep from becoming a victim of the bird flu or any other influenza virus, there are a couple of things to remember.
Immunizations are nothing but a way for drug companies to make money. Annually, “health experts” touting the “flu shots” for everyone explain how they determine what to put in their immunizations: a dead version of whatever virulent strain of flu is anticipated to make the rounds of the globe, generally for the U.S., between November and April.
The sad fact is that while every “virulent strain” generally originates in Asia in the springtime, by the time it gets to the U.S. in the winter, it has mutated so much that the current brand of immunization being given is completely useless. It would take scientists and medical personnel working round the clock and flying in fresh batches at the speed of light to combat a current version of influenza from one country to the next. It’s just not possible to pinpoint and combat every virus per season.
There is NO BIRD FLU vaccine!!
And this point must be emphasized: There is currently NO ‘bird flu’ vaccine available!! In order for there to be a vaccine specific to H5N1, development must start with the human form of the virus—which does not yet exist, except perhaps in military-biomedical-pharmaceutical labs.
According to Leonard G. Horowitz, DMD, MA, MPH, “a human version of H5N1 must be cultured for lengthy periods of time in human cell cultures, then injected into monkey and ultimately humans to see if these experimental subjects get the same feared flu.”
Only then may a vaccine be prepared—maybe—if one can be created at all.
Remember: a vaccine must require specificity to be effective. Unless it’s already surreptitiously being developed, moving at the speed of light is the only way such a vaccine will be available to help against this particular kind of flu and all the mutated forms it may take before spreading to the general populace and becoming an “epidemic.”
Yes, the shot can make you sick
And for people who don’t think a flu shot can make them sick because it’s a “dead virus” and not a live one, well, that’s partly true; the dead version can’t give you that version of the flu.
However, what a lot of people don’t realize is that raw eggs are used in the incubation process to create the virus, and a lot of people are allergic to raw eggs (many people are allergic even to cooked eggs and don’t know it, suffering stomach distress upon eating them and just passing it off as “gas”; comparatively, raw egg products, injected into the body, can create violent illness).
Further, mercury, in the form of thimerasol, is used in every vaccine suspension as a preservative. Thimerasol isn’t good for anyone, but it’s particularly bad for people who are sensitive to heavy metals. For some people, the thimerasol alone in a vaccine can kill them if they don’t know what their sensitivities are.
Bottom line: Getting a flu shot is exceptionally risky and should be avoided. There is no necessity for a “flu shot” whatsoever.
Natural precautions
So how do you keep from getting the flu when whatever mutated version finally comes around? Simple: natural precautions.
It is said that vitamin C is a good prevent-all; that’s not exactly the case. It’s the ascorbic acid in C that helps the body’s defenses. Ascorbic acid can be purchased in powder form and diluted with a baking-soda-and-water drink for fast absorption (find the recipe and ingredients in any health food store.)
The other very important “immune boosters” available are also very simple: colloidal silver, garlic, oil of oregano and olive leaf.
All of these ingredients, taken as directed on packaging, will keep anyone, even an immune-compromised person, healthy enough to fight off not only the flu but the other opportunistic infections that attend it, making it absolutely unnecessary to get a flu shot.
Otherwise, keep your home and possessions very clean. Ensure that you wash your hands and that everyone in your household does the same, several times a day. Avoid crowds and going into and out of hot/cold conditions (in and out of a heated building, as an example. Being cold causes you to shiver, shifting the body’s defense resources toward making you warm. With defenses down, bugs can enter and set up housekeeping in your body more readily. So yes, going in and warming up after playing in the snow, then going right back out to it, can make you sick.)
What if you get the flu?
The answer to this is very simple.
Don’t fight it. Go ahead and run a fever; it’s your body’s way of destroying the virus. (Note: don’t let the fever get above 102; and watch very young, very elderly and chronically ill patients with fever. Tylenol is better to give than aspirin, but do so in low enough doses so that the fever has a chance to destroy the virus.)
Stay away from people who might be carrying another virus, bacteria, fungus or parasite that can strike your weakened immune system in combination with the flu virus.
Drink lots of liquids so that the body, in a fevered state, stays hydrated.
And rest, rest, rest. Do NOT exert yourself at all. Your body is doing the work it’s designed to do—let it.
Very bottom line—bird flu and all the attendant press is just hype. Don’t allow yourself to get pulled in by the crap and the fearmongering. It is minimally infectious and has low mortality, and really poses no risk to anyone in the U.S.—unless, of course, it is brought in on purpose. Even then, it is possible to avoid it. Don’t go mainstream, and you’ll be fine.
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?read=80410
by Disclosure staff
Disclosure NewsMagazine Monthly
October 19, 2005
The ridiculousness of this past week’s rampant coverage of the “avian flu” (“bird flu,” H5N1, etc.) has finally annoyed the staff of Disclosure to the point that we determined an opinion column about this subject is now imperative.
For some reason, all major mainstream media (MSM), at the end of their incessant coverage of the horrors following hurricanes Katrina and Rita, determined that all of a sudden the subject du jour would become avian flu. One after another, all MSM outlets were spouting about this flu, what everybody should do to “prepare,” and what our president Shrub (Bush minor) was intent upon doing should there be a pandemic in the U.S.
What is NOT being reported are the basic facts about H5N1, what people can really do to prepare, and, generally, what the “flu” basically is.
(Note: Nothing in the following column is meant to be construed as medical advice and should not be taken so, but only as guidelines learned from experience and culled from common-sense sources.)
What is the flu?
An “influenza” is a viral infection that has a relatively short lifespan and causes problems for its victim in the form of several minor effects (chills, high fever, aches and pains, headaches, sore throat, mucosal irritation). These actual “flu” conditions may make someone feel like they want to die, but the influenza virus generally does not kill a person—nor an animal.
What kills are the side-effects that stem from these conditions, if people don’t take care of themselves while suffering from this virus. These are primarily bacterial (and sometimes fungal, other viral and even parasitic) infections that set in during the lowered immune condition a person experiences when suffering a flu.
Ordinarily, these secondary infections are pneumonia and/or a range of gastrointestinal problems (parasites) that cause diarrhea, which, with attendant dehydration, can be fatal.
When animals get a flu, if they die at all, they usually die from parasitic or lung infections. When humans get a flu, if they die at all, it’s usually from pneumonia or dehydration from diarrhea.
Health professionals love to attribute human deaths from “the flu” to the flu, not to the secondary, opportunistic infections; it’s too much work to find out exactly which bacteria or parasite dealt the fatal blow. In other words, it’s easier for them when filling out paperwork.
The flu doesn't kill you
The fact is that “the flu” doesn’t kill.
So what, say you detractors, was all this fuss about the “Spanish flu” epidemic in 1918? Didn’t practically everybody in great-grandpa’s family (with the exception, of course, of great-grandpa) die from that?
No. There are two reasons why the “Spanish flu” (which was misnamed because of the inaccurate premise that it originated in Spain—more on that in a minute) killed so many people, and they are very, very simple—the outbreak of this flu came on the heels of two new treatments: aspirin, and a “flu vaccine.”
Careful research by medical investigators over the years has uncovered that the 1918 flu actually had a “ground zero” of Fort Riley, Kansas (specifically Camp Funston, where quarantined soldiers were eventually kept). This was the military base where the soldiers, having been brought back from duty in Spain and other locales after World War I, were taken and were subject to new inoculations that were being mandated for soldiers before release into the general populace. (Spain was a relatively neutral country in the war, and had no compunction against publishing ongoing information about the spread of this flu, causing it to be cause “Spanish flu” by default and misperception.)
These inoculations were a new practice; previous versions of “the flu” had made the rounds and done their damage; this was the first time a “vaccine” had been developed that would hopefully stave off the spread of the virus.
Taking the 'vaccine' home
These boys took themselves and the germs with which they were inoculated home with them and spread a live (and probably mutated) version of the virus to their friends and family. When people started getting sick, others ran out and received the vaccine in hopes that they wouldn’t be next.
They were.
In fact, records indicate that the people who didn’t get vaccinated (poor people who couldn’t afford it, and then, when vaccinations were being considered “essential” and basically given without cost, those with some intellect who refused to be inoculated) were the ones who survived the “epidemic.”
Aspirin: bad idea
Secondly, the development of salicylic acid (aspirin) came along at the same time. This product was widely available and was recommended by physicians in order to control the fever that came along with the flu. In taking it, peoples’ fevers went down and aches and pains subsided, but they died anyway.
Why?
This is because any influenza virus is naturally attacked by the body’s own defenses. This “attack” is marked by a high fever, a sign that your body is doing what it’s supposed to do when an invading germ is threatening. It slows you down, makes you take it easy, and generally causes you to take the rest you need to get past the harshest stage of the virus.
However, people who took aspirin found their fevers lowered and aches and pains eased, and went on about their business, spreading the virus and weakening their systems as they worked (which was more strenuous activity back then) and opening themselves up to the other opportunistic infections that would eventually kill them.
Mainstream medicine will screech to high heaven that these two factors—vaccinations and aspirin—were not the reason why millions of people worldwide died during the Spanish flu outbreak. But the sad fact is that all the research points to these being exactly why the flu A) spread so rampantly and B) became so lethal—people had no idea what they were doing to themselves.
And now on to H5N1—‘bird flu’
This virus, found in the digestive tracts of certain Asian birds (which, along with pig digestive tracts, is generally where most “flus” originate), was isolated and named in 1997. Read that again: 1997. Eight years ago.
Since H5N1—“bird flu”—has mutated, as most influenza viruses invariably do, to a human form in 2003, it has been contracted by (to date) exactly 116 people. Read that again: 116 people. These are mostly bird farmers (and/or their family members), with not the most sanitary of career choices, in Asian countries.
Since 2003, H5N1—“bird flu”—has killed (to date) exactly 60 people. Read that again: there have been only 60 deaths from bird flu worldwide, most of these isolated to Asian countries where sanitation isn’t exactly first-world quality.
When stretched out over the time period containing it, bird flu, mutated to human form, has, on the average, stricken 58 people per year; it has killed, on the average, 30 people per year.
That’s two-and-a-half people a month, or, if you want to get really specific, .08 people per day.
Incidentally, with 60 of 116 people dying after being infected with it, the avian flu has barely a 52 percent mortality rate. Anthrax did better in 2001.
The infection rate is virtually infinitesimal, since a huge portion of the world’s population lives in Asian countries.
There have been no known cases of human-to-human transmission in any of the countries to which the virus has spread.
So the bottom line: bird flu is hardly at pandemic levels, and is really nothing to worry about. It does not warrant even a second of what MSM has been giving it over the past couple of weeks.
Avoid the flu with no shots
To keep from becoming a victim of the bird flu or any other influenza virus, there are a couple of things to remember.
Immunizations are nothing but a way for drug companies to make money. Annually, “health experts” touting the “flu shots” for everyone explain how they determine what to put in their immunizations: a dead version of whatever virulent strain of flu is anticipated to make the rounds of the globe, generally for the U.S., between November and April.
The sad fact is that while every “virulent strain” generally originates in Asia in the springtime, by the time it gets to the U.S. in the winter, it has mutated so much that the current brand of immunization being given is completely useless. It would take scientists and medical personnel working round the clock and flying in fresh batches at the speed of light to combat a current version of influenza from one country to the next. It’s just not possible to pinpoint and combat every virus per season.
There is NO BIRD FLU vaccine!!
And this point must be emphasized: There is currently NO ‘bird flu’ vaccine available!! In order for there to be a vaccine specific to H5N1, development must start with the human form of the virus—which does not yet exist, except perhaps in military-biomedical-pharmaceutical labs.
According to Leonard G. Horowitz, DMD, MA, MPH, “a human version of H5N1 must be cultured for lengthy periods of time in human cell cultures, then injected into monkey and ultimately humans to see if these experimental subjects get the same feared flu.”
Only then may a vaccine be prepared—maybe—if one can be created at all.
Remember: a vaccine must require specificity to be effective. Unless it’s already surreptitiously being developed, moving at the speed of light is the only way such a vaccine will be available to help against this particular kind of flu and all the mutated forms it may take before spreading to the general populace and becoming an “epidemic.”
Yes, the shot can make you sick
And for people who don’t think a flu shot can make them sick because it’s a “dead virus” and not a live one, well, that’s partly true; the dead version can’t give you that version of the flu.
However, what a lot of people don’t realize is that raw eggs are used in the incubation process to create the virus, and a lot of people are allergic to raw eggs (many people are allergic even to cooked eggs and don’t know it, suffering stomach distress upon eating them and just passing it off as “gas”; comparatively, raw egg products, injected into the body, can create violent illness).
Further, mercury, in the form of thimerasol, is used in every vaccine suspension as a preservative. Thimerasol isn’t good for anyone, but it’s particularly bad for people who are sensitive to heavy metals. For some people, the thimerasol alone in a vaccine can kill them if they don’t know what their sensitivities are.
Bottom line: Getting a flu shot is exceptionally risky and should be avoided. There is no necessity for a “flu shot” whatsoever.
Natural precautions
So how do you keep from getting the flu when whatever mutated version finally comes around? Simple: natural precautions.
It is said that vitamin C is a good prevent-all; that’s not exactly the case. It’s the ascorbic acid in C that helps the body’s defenses. Ascorbic acid can be purchased in powder form and diluted with a baking-soda-and-water drink for fast absorption (find the recipe and ingredients in any health food store.)
The other very important “immune boosters” available are also very simple: colloidal silver, garlic, oil of oregano and olive leaf.
All of these ingredients, taken as directed on packaging, will keep anyone, even an immune-compromised person, healthy enough to fight off not only the flu but the other opportunistic infections that attend it, making it absolutely unnecessary to get a flu shot.
Otherwise, keep your home and possessions very clean. Ensure that you wash your hands and that everyone in your household does the same, several times a day. Avoid crowds and going into and out of hot/cold conditions (in and out of a heated building, as an example. Being cold causes you to shiver, shifting the body’s defense resources toward making you warm. With defenses down, bugs can enter and set up housekeeping in your body more readily. So yes, going in and warming up after playing in the snow, then going right back out to it, can make you sick.)
What if you get the flu?
The answer to this is very simple.
Don’t fight it. Go ahead and run a fever; it’s your body’s way of destroying the virus. (Note: don’t let the fever get above 102; and watch very young, very elderly and chronically ill patients with fever. Tylenol is better to give than aspirin, but do so in low enough doses so that the fever has a chance to destroy the virus.)
Stay away from people who might be carrying another virus, bacteria, fungus or parasite that can strike your weakened immune system in combination with the flu virus.
Drink lots of liquids so that the body, in a fevered state, stays hydrated.
And rest, rest, rest. Do NOT exert yourself at all. Your body is doing the work it’s designed to do—let it.
Very bottom line—bird flu and all the attendant press is just hype. Don’t allow yourself to get pulled in by the crap and the fearmongering. It is minimally infectious and has low mortality, and really poses no risk to anyone in the U.S.—unless, of course, it is brought in on purpose. Even then, it is possible to avoid it. Don’t go mainstream, and you’ll be fine.
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?read=80410
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Pirates - THe New Claims About War On Pirates is Propaganda
Who imagined that in 2009, the world's governments would be declaring a new War on Pirates? As you read this, the British Royal Navy – backed by the ships of more than two dozen nations, from the US to China – is sailing into Somalian waters to take on men we still picture as parrot-on-the-shoulder pantomime villains. They will soon be fighting Somalian ships and even chasing the pirates onto land, into one of the most broken countries on earth. But behind the arrr-me-hearties oddness of this tale, there is an untold scandal. The people our governments are labelling as "one of the great menaces of our times" have an extraordinary story to tell – and some justice on their side.
Pirates have never been quite who we think they are. In the "golden age of piracy" – from 1650 to 1730 – the idea of the pirate as the senseless, savage Bluebeard that lingers today was created by the British government in a great propaganda heave. Many ordinary people believed it was false: pirates were often saved from the gallows by supportive crowds. Why? What did they see that we can't? In his book Villains Of All Nations, the historian Marcus Rediker pores through the evidence.
If you became a merchant or navy sailor then – plucked from the docks of London's East End, young and hungry – you ended up in a floating wooden Hell. You worked all hours on a cramped, half-starved ship, and if you slacked off, the all-powerful captain would whip you with the Cat O' Nine Tails. If you slacked often, you could be thrown overboard. And at the end of months or years of this, you were often cheated of your wages.
Pirates were the first people to rebel against this world. They mutinied – and created a different way of working on the seas. Once they had a ship, the pirates elected their captains, and made all their decisions collectively, without torture. They shared their bounty out in what Rediker calls "one of the most egalitarian plans for the disposition of resources to be found anywhere in the eighteenth century".
They even took in escaped African slaves and lived with them as equals. The pirates showed "quite clearly – and subversively – that ships did not have to be run in the brutal and oppressive ways of the merchant service and the Royal Navy." This is why they were romantic heroes, despite being unproductive thieves.
The words of one pirate from that lost age, a young British man called William Scott, should echo into this new age of piracy. Just before he was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina, he said: "What I did was to keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirateing to live.
"
In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since – and the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.
Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died.
Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury – you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Mr Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention.
"
At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish stocks by overexploitation – and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m-worth of tuna, shrimp, and lobster are being stolen every year by illegal trawlers. The local fishermen are now starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters.
"
This is the context in which the "pirates" have emerged. Somalian fishermen took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least levy a "tax" on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia – and ordinary Somalis agree. The independent Somalian news site WardheerNews found 70 per cent "strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence".
No, this doesn't make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are clearly just gangsters – especially those who have held up World Food Programme supplies. But in a telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali: "We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas." William Scott would understand.
Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our toxic waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We won't act on those crimes – the only sane solution to this problem – but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 per cent of the world's oil supply, we swiftly send in the gunboats.
The story of the 2009 war on piracy was best summarised by another pirate, who lived and died in the fourth century BC. He was captured and brought to Alexander the Great, who demanded to know "what he meant by keeping possession of the sea." The pirate smiled, and responded: "What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you, who do it with a great fleet, are called emperor.
" Once again, our great imperial fleets sail – but who is the robber?
j.hari@independent.co.uk
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-you-are-being-lied-to-about-pirates-1225817.html
Pirates have never been quite who we think they are. In the "golden age of piracy" – from 1650 to 1730 – the idea of the pirate as the senseless, savage Bluebeard that lingers today was created by the British government in a great propaganda heave. Many ordinary people believed it was false: pirates were often saved from the gallows by supportive crowds. Why? What did they see that we can't? In his book Villains Of All Nations, the historian Marcus Rediker pores through the evidence.
If you became a merchant or navy sailor then – plucked from the docks of London's East End, young and hungry – you ended up in a floating wooden Hell. You worked all hours on a cramped, half-starved ship, and if you slacked off, the all-powerful captain would whip you with the Cat O' Nine Tails. If you slacked often, you could be thrown overboard. And at the end of months or years of this, you were often cheated of your wages.
Pirates were the first people to rebel against this world. They mutinied – and created a different way of working on the seas. Once they had a ship, the pirates elected their captains, and made all their decisions collectively, without torture. They shared their bounty out in what Rediker calls "one of the most egalitarian plans for the disposition of resources to be found anywhere in the eighteenth century".
They even took in escaped African slaves and lived with them as equals. The pirates showed "quite clearly – and subversively – that ships did not have to be run in the brutal and oppressive ways of the merchant service and the Royal Navy." This is why they were romantic heroes, despite being unproductive thieves.
The words of one pirate from that lost age, a young British man called William Scott, should echo into this new age of piracy. Just before he was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina, he said: "What I did was to keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirateing to live.
"
In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since – and the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.
Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died.
Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury – you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Mr Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention.
"
At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish stocks by overexploitation – and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m-worth of tuna, shrimp, and lobster are being stolen every year by illegal trawlers. The local fishermen are now starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters.
"
This is the context in which the "pirates" have emerged. Somalian fishermen took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least levy a "tax" on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia – and ordinary Somalis agree. The independent Somalian news site WardheerNews found 70 per cent "strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence".
No, this doesn't make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are clearly just gangsters – especially those who have held up World Food Programme supplies. But in a telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali: "We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas." William Scott would understand.
Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our toxic waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We won't act on those crimes – the only sane solution to this problem – but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 per cent of the world's oil supply, we swiftly send in the gunboats.
The story of the 2009 war on piracy was best summarised by another pirate, who lived and died in the fourth century BC. He was captured and brought to Alexander the Great, who demanded to know "what he meant by keeping possession of the sea." The pirate smiled, and responded: "What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you, who do it with a great fleet, are called emperor.
" Once again, our great imperial fleets sail – but who is the robber?
j.hari@independent.co.uk
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-you-are-being-lied-to-about-pirates-1225817.html
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