MAY LOVE PREVAIL ON EARTH
December 9, 2005
The Perfect Storm Series #4: Imagine...
Hello everyone!
As millions of people commemorated yesterday John Lennon's death 25 years ago, let us imagine, as he did, the kind of world we would like to live in. But first let us recall through his most famous song how he envisioned it...
Imagine there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try,
No hell below us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people
living for today...
Imagine there's no countries,
It isn't hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace...
Imagine no possessions,
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man,
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.
Now as you read this compilation, imagine, if you will, a world free from oppression, destruction and terror, a world of true peace, love and happiness for all.
Judging from many of the news included below, much remain to be done to achieve a better world for all sentient beings.
I would like to believe we are coming closer to achieving this goal with every passing day...
With a little help from our "friends", we can make it happen!
Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
You are welcomed to network anything from this compilation, but please also include the following:
Free subscription to such compilations by sending a blank email to earthrainbownetwork-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
This compilation is archived at http://www.earthrainbownetwork.com/Archives2005/PerfectStorm4.htm
STATS for this compilation: Over 23,500 words and 121 links provided.
To unsubscribe from the Earth Rainbow Network automated listserver, or change your listing on it when you have a new email address, the simplest way is to do it yourself by sending a blank email at earthrainbownetwork-unsubscribe@lists.riseup.net -- IMPORTANT: You MUST do it from the email account you wish to unsubscribe otherwise the system won't recognize your request.
NOTE FROM JEAN: If you don't have time to read anything else in this compilation, at least take a couple minutes to read these quotes below... You'll quickly see why I specifically suggest this...
"The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be forgiven. Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries. Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn't know it. It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis. (...) The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading – as a last resort – all other justifications having failed to justify themselves – as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people. We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East'. How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice. "
- Harold Pinto - Taken from "Nobel Lecture: Art, Truth & Politics" at http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/2005/pinter-lecture-e.html
(Also available in French, German and Swedish - More on this below in "Pinter uses Nobel talk to accuse West of war crimes")
"We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living."
-- General Omar Bradley
"To put it simply, chocolate companies care more about profits than the fact that slaves are producing our chocolate. Approximately 286,000 children between the ages of nine and twelve have been reported to work on cocoa farms on the Ivory Coast alone with as many as 12,000 likely to have arrived in their situation as a result of child trafficking. These children are often at risk of injury from machetes and exposure to harmful pesticides. With world cocoa prices so low, many farmers maintain their labor force through trafficking; West African parents living in poverty often sell their kids to cocoa farmers for $50-$100 in hopes that the children will make some money on their own. Sadly, although these children work 80 to 100 hours per week, children working on cocoa farms frequently make little or no money and are regularly beaten, starved, and exhausted. Most of these children will never even taste the final product that results from their suffering."
- Taken from "AFRICA: The Dark Side of Chocolate" at http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12754 - and also available in this compilation
"I don’t think we should kill other species. We think we’re so much better; I’m not sure we are. I tell people, “We’ve beaten into submission every animal on the face of the Earth, so we are the clear winners of whatever battle is going on between the species. Couldn’t we be generous?” I really do think it’s time to get nice. No need to keep beating up on them. I think we’ve got to show that we’re kind. (...) If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is just stop eating meat. That’s the single most important thing you could do. It’s staggering when you think about it. Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot: ecology, famine, cruelty. And it’s a spiritual thing for yourself. Let’s do it! Linda was right. Going veggie is the single best new idea for the new century."
- Paul McCartney - Taken from http://www.peta.org/Living/AT-Fall1998/paul.html
Check also http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/fun/Bizarro.asp?date=20051207
"We will call it a "Cosmic Sunrise", for the brilliant light from the Great Central Sun rises to illuminate the planet, which is now poised for the great awakening that will be the beginning of the New Earth or the "Golden Age". In 2006 and 2007, dearest Lightworkers, you will be the Rainbow Bridge that will facilitate many millions of people shifting their consciousness into the Higher Dimensions as they prepare to ground themselves in the Crystalline Grids of the New Earth. You, as the First Wave and pioneers of Ascension, have prepared the way and you are holding the Light Bridge so that others may follow. There will be two focal points in this period - the 12:12:13 stargate and the Solstice. (
- Archangel Michael through Celia Fenn - Taken from The Energies for December 2005 : The Cosmic Sunrise at http://www.starchildascension.org/starchild/december2005.html where it is also mentioned that today, December 8th, Pluto moves into close conjunction with the Great central Sun/Galactic Center and that we should expect an increase in "intensity" that will affect emotions and moods...
Recommended by Birgitta Storjohann b.storjohann@sympatico.ca>
"The 12:12 stargate approaches that will take us into the next level of integrating and anchoring the heavenly energies that descended to earth with the 11:11 activation. All people on the planet will receive gifts of spirit according to their intention and the focus of the path they are walking. Take a moment this coming Monday, December 12 to attune to the ascension flame in the Great Pyramid of Egypt - imagine the flame leaping from one pyramid to the next through space and time across the world. The light flaming on Earth on December 12 will give seekers of truth the biological keys to mastery and freedom. These are the 12:12 http://www.google.ca/search?hl=fr&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=encodements+J.J.+Hurtak&meta=>encodements J.J. Hurtak wrote about in the Keys of Enoch. In observance of the momentousness of this day, I would like to suggest that you tone at the deepest sound you can make, attuning to the creational energies of the universe, holding feelings of gratitude for all that you receive and opening your heart to loving all that is."
- Ariel Ky visionary1@seanet.com>
"I've been a part of ERN for a long time now and I invite anyone who is concerned for the welfare of the earth, concerned for human interests and searching for spiritual direction to be a part of ERN. Also many blessings and thanks to Jean for all the hard work you do in keeping lightworkers connected. Thank you again for sharing this beautiful energy."
- StarStuffs starstuffs@yahoo.com> - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/universalhealing
(Message found in the ERN guestbook)
Worthy of Your Attention
All the news on John Lennon's 25th anniversary commemorations
http://news.google.ca/news?hl=en&ned=ca&q=John+Lennon
Check also http://John-Lennon.com - http://StrawberryFields.net - http://JohnLennonDay.com - http://www.john-lennon.com/lennonlivesforever.php
Many more related news on John Lennon through http://www.lovearth.net/news.php
Who Authorized The Assassination Of John Lennon? By Mark Elsis
(Hearth-wrenching, detailed description of Lennon's death and much much more!)
http://www.john-lennon.net/whoauthorizedtheassassinationofjohnlennon.htm
(...) The assassin was a brainwashed hit man carrying out someone else's contract, writes Bresler, "he is in many ways as much the victim of those who wanted to kill John Lennon, as Lennon himself." The Manchurian MKULTRA candidate assassin dropped the gun and proceeded to take out a copy of J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, and calmly started reading. The Dakota doorman, Jose Perdomo, shouted at the assassin, "Do you know what you've done?" "I just shot John Lennon," he replied, accurately enough. "He walked past me and then I heard in my head, 'Do it, do it, do it,' over and over again, saying 'Do it, do it, do it,' like that," recalled in a BBC documentary several years after going to prison. "I don't remember aiming. I must have done, but I don't remember drawing a bead or whatever you call it. And I just pulled the trigger steady five times." The assassin described his feeling at the time of the shooting as "no emotion, no anger dead silence in the brain." His unnatural tone sounded all-too-familiar for British lawyer and journalist Fenton Bresler, who wrote the book, Who Killed John Lennon? The assassin was a brainwashed hit man carrying out someone else's contract, writes Bresler, "he is in many ways as much the victim of those who wanted to kill John Lennon, as Lennon himself." (...) At nearly three hundred pages, John Lennon's Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) file reveals that he was under "constant surveillance." His apartment was watched, he was followed, and his phone was tapped. The FBI did not keep a particularly low profile around the ex-Beatle, apparently attempting to harass him into silence or at least drive him nuts, similar to the tactic they had used on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., just a few short, but eventful years earlier. In late 1972, when the "surveillance" was at its peak, John Lennon told humorist Paul Krassner, "Listen, if anything happens to Yoko and me, it was not an accident." (...) Placing a person under "constant surveillance" and ordering that person executed are admittedly two very different things. Nevertheless, Bresler's point is that the government did not consider John Lennon a harmless rock 'n' roller. John's political publicity stunts such as in his and Yoko's Montreal "Bed-In" and "War Is Over" were always capable of seizing the spotlight and speaking directly to tens of millions of young people who venerated him. With unfettered access to the world's media, his power truly was immense. Because of this, in some circles he was correctly viewed as the most dangerous radical who needed to be stopped. John Lennon was the most dangerous person in the world, to those whose interest is a world under corporate military rule. (...) The forces that tried desperately to neutralize John Lennon for at least seven years lost power in November of 1976. The Lennon's government dossier ends in that year. In 1980, as those forces were preparing to retake control of the government, "the most dangerous extremist" John Lennon emerged from retirement with the best selling album, Double Fantasy, and was promptly assassinated. CLIP
Google search with "All You Need Is Love" (572,000 results)
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=fr&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22All+you+need+is+love%22&meta= - Beatles lyrics at http://www.allspirit.co.uk/allyouneed.html
Crying For John Lennon
http://john-lennon.com/Crying For John Lennon.mp3
Get Mobilized For December 10th - International Human Rights Day
http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/voiceatwork/d10.cfm
World Peace Experiment
http://www.openheart.com/peace/peace.html
Become a Catalyst for Peace - Join the World Peace Experiment
Imagine (Video) by John Lennon
http://www.gratefulchild.org/projects/gcweb/gc/html/imagine
This Modern World: You're a moonbat!
http://www.workingforchange.com/comic.cfm?itemid=20032
Earth Echo Galleries
http://www.earthecho.com/
CONTENTS
1. GRATITUDE
2. Confessions of a holiday blues sufferer
3. Pre-dawn dream
4. My Fish Story
5. Ten Keys to Active Mastery
6. Military Madness Poisons Planet: Tons of Toxins Fouling World's Oceans
7. Congressman Ron Paul Reiterates Danger Of Foreign Troops Being Used For Martial Law
8. GOP Wants Secretive Government Gov't Agency
9. Pinter uses Nobel talk to accuse West of war crimes
10. Real News from Project Censored
11. AFRICA: The Dark Side of Chocolate
12. Garbage Collection Collapses in Zimbabwe Capital
13. Report Says 2005 Will Be Warmest, Stormiest Year on Record, Likely Due to Global Warming
14. The most destructive crop on earth is no solution to the energy crisis
15. UN climate talks enter key phase
16. U.S. angered by Martin's climate comments
17. TOO LATE FOR CORRECTIVE ACTION
See also:
Miami Bomb Incident Starts to Look Suspicious (Dec 9, 2005)
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2005/091205miamiincident.htm
Eyewitness says Alpizar never mentioned bomb, passengers were more afraid of Air Marshals putting guns to their heads - (...) This evidence trends towards two possible explanations behind this incident.Either the government wanted Alpizar dead for their own reasons and carried out a targeted assassination under the guise of an anti-terror operation or this incident was staged to reinforce the myth that there are real terrorists running around that the government needs to protect us from by taking away our liberties. This event will lead to even more choking airport security measures, reversing more rational trends which began with the announcement that small sharp objects would be allowed on planes again.Whatever the case, this incident has uncanny parallels with the murder of Charles de Menezes by British undercover police one day after the supposed aborted second London bombings on July 22nd. (...) The Miami Police Department >caught a lot of heat recently for their Constitution gutting 'Miami Shield' program, where cops will randomly lay siege to city buildings, ride buses and trains and demand to see ID's.Were the events at the airport a response to that criticism? A message sent that we need to shut up and show obidience to authority because there are terrorist bombers out there that we need to be protected from? The timing of the two stories is at the very least interesting if not sinister.This is a time of universal deceit, and any major event needs to be scrutinized without haste because in nearly every case the evidence points directly to government collusion and cover-up.
Eyewitness: "I Never Heard the Word 'Bomb'"
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1138965,00.html
A passenger on Flight 924 gives his account of the shooting and says Rigoberto Alpizar never claimed to have a bomb.
What Planet Are You On, Mr. Bush? (And Do You Care, Mr. Blair?)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120405Y.shtml
More than 100,000 people took to the streets in more than 30 countries yesterday, in the first worldwide demonstration to press for action to combat global warming.
On Climate Change, a Change of Thinking
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/120505EB.shtml
The cost of battling climate change is too much for the world's governments to swallow. The only real answer at the moment is still far out on the horizon: nonpolluting energy sources. But the amount of money being devoted to research and develop such technologies, much less install them, is nowhere near the scale of the problem.
Chemical in Food Containers Affects Brain Development
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/12/051203123328.htm
Fitzgerald Presents New Information to Grand Jury
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120705Y.shtml
With the new grand jury, Fitzgerald continues to consider charges against White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove, who failed to reveal to the FBI and the grand jury in the early days of the investigation that he had provided information about CIA analyst Valerie Plame to Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper.
The Man Who Sold the War http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/8798997?pageid=rs.Home&pageregion=single7&rnd=1133856617413&has-player=true
Meet John Rendon, Bush's general in the propaganda war
It's Never Enough: Canada's alarming rise in military spending
http://www.ceasefire.ca/site/pp.aspx?c=afLJJWOuHkE&b=1068135
A new report from the Polaris Institute, written by Steven Staples and Bill Robinson. (October 25, 2005)Military spending fuels the integration of the Canadian Forces with the U.S. military. Billions of public dollars are being spent by Paul Martin's government on new weapons to help fight the Pentagon's wars, while Canada has abandoned UN peacekeeping. --- Did you know that Canada is the 7th highest military spender among NATO’s 26 members? And the Liberals’ 2005 budget will increase military spending by $12.8 billion over the next five years? That means that by the end of the decade our budget will have grown from $14.6 billion today to almost $20 billion each year -- higher than at any point since the Second World War. (...) If increasing military spending was about protecting Canada and contributing to UN peacekeeping -- then I suspect Canadians would support it ... but that’s not where the money is going. Canada has abandoned UN peacekeeping -- only 30 cents goes to UN peacekeeping for every 10 dollars we spend on military missions. Instead of peacekeeping, these increases are fuelling Canadian military integration with the United States military forces. Is that what we want -- to adopt American military policy? To adopt George W. Bush’s worldview and his “War on Terrorism” -- waging aggressive and even illegal wars? The Polaris Institute’s latest report, “It's Never Enough: Canada’s alarming rise in military spending,” received national media attention when it was released because it debunks some media myths about Canada's military spending and priorities. It’s time the government updated its decade-old defence policy. And most importantly, it's time to include Canadians in deciding what role our military will play in the world. Until then, military spending should be frozen. That’s a simple, fair and democratic demand to make of our government. Let’s include Canadians in an open and honest debate on the purpose of our military and how we should accomplish those goals.
Pentagon Memo: Prisoners Transferred to Be Tortured
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120805J.shtml
Although Bush administration officials have denied that they transfer terrorism suspects to countries where they are likely to be abused, a classified memorandum described in a court case indicates that the Pentagon has considered sending a captured militant abroad to be interrogated under threat of torture.
Rice Engulfed in Criticism for Torture
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120805K.shtml
Rice has been engulfed by criticism over reports that CIA planes used airports in Europe as stopovers while transporting prisoners to secret interrogation sites.
Condi's Trail of Lies
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120805Z.shtml
Sidney Blumenthal asserts that Condoleezza Rice's contradictory, misleading and outright false statements about the US and torture have taken America's moral standing - and her own - to new depths.
Torture: America Can't Take It Anymore
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120505N.shtml
The Bush administration has embraced torture as a key part of the "war on terror." Finally, members of Congress, the military and the CIA are speaking out against the abuse.
No Exceptions to the Ban on Torture
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120705D.shtml
Louise Arbour writes that the absolute ban on torture, a cornerstone of the international human rights edifice, is under attack. The principle we once believed to be unassailable ˆ the inherent right to physical integrity and dignity of the person ˆ is becoming a casualty of the so-called war on terror.
War Crimes Made Easy
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120705N.shtml
Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith question how the Bush administration has gotten away with such apparently illegal acts as hiding intelligence reports from Congress, creating secret prisons, establishing death squads, kidnapping people and spiriting them across national borders, and planning unprovoked wars.
Rove Running Out of Answers, Time
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120405A.shtml
Jason Leopold analyzes attorney Robert Luskin, who is representing Karl Rove in the federal investigation into the outing of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. According to Leopold, Luskin has made a desperate attempt to ensure Rove avoids becoming the subject of a criminal indictment.
Mr. Bush, Have I Got an Exit Strategy for You
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120605R.shtml
Gus R. Stelzer asserts that in view of his miserable record, his arrogant lack of good judgment and his failure to understand the gravity of his record, President Bush (and Vice President Dick Cheney) should be shown the exit door with a proviso to never darken the Oval Office again.
Historians: Bush, the Worst President Ever!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/donnie-fowler/historians-bush-the-wors_b_11685.html
Well, the historians have gone and done it. Risking the creation of a White House Commission on Historical Quality to refute their findings with real science, an overwhelming 338 of 415 historians polled by George Mason University said Friday that George W. Bush is failing as a president. And fifty of them rated Bush as the worst president ever, ranking him above (below?) any other past president -- even those you've never heard of who were also really awful. Why do these misguided, obviously-socialist, ivy-smoking, and (of course) American-hating intellectuals feel that Bush isn't doing his best?Well, they look at the record ...# He has taken the country into an unwinnable war and alienated friend and foe alike in the process;# He is bankrupting the country with a combination of aggressive military spending and reduced taxation of the rich;# He has deliberately and dangerously attacked separation of church and state;# He has repeatedly "misled," to use a kind word, the American people on affairs domestic and foreign;# He has proved to be incompetent in affairs domestic (New Orleans) and foreign (Iraq and the battle against al-Qaida);# He has sacrificed American employment (including the toleration of pension and benefit elimination) to increase overall productivity;# He is ignorantly hostile to science and technological progress;# He has tolerated or ignored one of the republic's oldest problems, corporate cheating in supplying the military in wartime.Quite an indictment. It is, of course, too early to evaluate a president.
Don't Let It Bring You Down
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120505Z.shtml
William Rivers Pitt is at the end of his rope. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed and maimed during this occupation. 70% of the population is unemployed. Electricity is intermittent. Potable water is hard to come by. Bombs go off every day, slaying civilians, police and soldiers indiscriminately. Iraqis disappear into torture chambers. Religious factions growl at each other like dogs in a fighting pit. Even the children throw rocks.
"Your Papers Please": American Cities on the Verge of Becoming Police States http://www.therealitycheck.org/FeaturedWriters/fmeekins120305.htm
Miami Police have announced plans to conduct what they are calling "high profile ID sweeps" where they intend to check the identification of everyone entering a public building. Officials claim in doing so, no one's rights are being violated; but what if one does not want to show police their driver's license or happened to have forgotten to bring it with them that day? If one refuses to participate by suddenly getting out of line and not entering the building, will that now be deemed enough probable cause to get maced in the face and a billy-club across the back of the knees? And what if authorities deny citizens access to food in supermarkets, to buy and sell as alluded to in Revelation 13, unless they comply with draconian identification measures? CLIP
CIA's Secret Jails Open Up New Transatlantic Rift
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120505J.shtml
During the weekend, there were further revelations about the role of the CIA in kidnapping suspects. According to yesterday's Washington Post, the agency carried out a number of "erroneous renditions" - grabbing suspects off the street who later turned out to be innocent.
Bush's Justice Department - Fixing the Game
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/05/opinion/05mon1.html?ei=5070&en=08a5a3cd78bdf6da&ex=1134018000&pagewanted=print
The rules of American democracy say every president may install his own team of like-minded people in the government - even at a place like the Justice Department, which is at its root a law-enforcement agency and not a campaign branch office. But the Bush administration seems to be losing sight of the fact that the rules also say the majority party of the moment may not use its powers to strip citizens of their rights, politicize the judicial system or rig the election process to keep itself in office. (...) Mr. Bush and his team don't understand that they merely hold the current majority in a system designed to bring periodic changes in the governing party and to protect the rights and values of the minority party. The idea that the winners should trash the system to make sure the democratic process ended with them was discredited back around the time of the Bolsheviks.
Accomplices
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120505H.shtml
The European general public clamors to know: "How can European countries make themselves accomplices of American secret services by allowing these CIA planes to use their airports or by installing bases where the principles of democracy are flouted?"
Ohio Republicans Plan Holiday Burial for American Democracy
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120605D.shtml
A law that will make democracy all but moot in Ohio is about to pass the state legislature and be signed by its Republican governor. Despite massive corruption scandals besieging the Ohio GOP, any hope that the Democratic party could win this most crucial swing state in future presidential elections, or carry its pivotal US senate seat in 2006, are about to end.
Counter-Recruitment Day Sweeps US Colleges
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120605K.shtml
On the street, thousands of students, teachers and peace activists will participate in the National Day of Counter-Recruitment, holding rallies and educational events in almost every major city. The day of protest, organized by Campus Anti-War Network (CAN), and endorsed by Cindy Sheehan, Howard Zinn and Kathy Kelly, is expected to be the largest student counter-recruitment action organized around the Iraq war to date.
CDC Report: Deadly Bacterial Illness Appears to Be Spreading (Dec 1, 2005)
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=1364341
The Associated Press ATLANTA — A deadly bacterial illness commonly seen in people on antibiotics appears to be growing more common even in patients not taking such drugs, according to a report published Thursday in a federal health journal. In another article in the New England Journal of Medicine, health officials said samples of the same bacterium taken from eight U.S. hospitals show it is mutating to become even more resistant to antibiotics. "I don't want to scare people away from using antibiotics. … But it's concerning, and we need to respond," said Dr. L. Clifford McDonald, an author of both articles and an epidemiologist at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Hospitals need to be conducting surveillance and implementing control measures. And all of us need to realize the risk of antibiotic use may be increasing" as the bacteria continue to mutate, McDonald said. The bacterium is Clostridium difficile, also known as C-diff. The germ is becoming a regular menace in hospitals and nursing homes, and last year it was blamed for 100 deaths over 18 months at a hospital in Quebec, Canada. "What exactly has made C-diff act up right now, we don't know," McDonald said. The article published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report focused on cases involving 33 otherwise healthy people that were reported since 2003 in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey and New Hampshire. Most of the 33 hadn't been in a hospital within three months of getting sick, and eight said they hadn't taken any antibiotics in that span. C-diff is found in the colon and can cause diarrhea and a more serious intestinal condition known as colitis. It is spread by spores in feces. The spores are difficult to kill with most conventional household cleaners. Even washing your hands with an antibacterial soap doesn't eliminate all the germs. C-diff has grown resistant to certain antibiotics that work against other colon bacteria. The result: When patients take those antibiotics, particularly clindamycin, competing bacteria die off and C-diff explodes.
You are being tracked - Urgent information for all group members: If you belong to any yahoo Groups this is important... Sharing a tidbit of information:Yahoo is now using something called "Web Beacons" to track Yahoo Group users around the net and see what you're doing and where you are going similar to cookies. Yahoo is recording every website and every group you visit. Take a look at their updated privacy statement: http://privacy.yahoo.com/privacy
About half-way down the page, in the section on cookies, you will see alink that says web beacons. Click on the phrase web beacons. That will bring you to a paragraph entitled "Outside the Yahoo Network."In this section you'll see a little "click here to opt out" link that will let you "opt-out" of their new method of snooping.Once you have clicked that link, you are exempted.Notice the "Success" message on the top of the next page. Be careful because on that page there is a "Cancel Opt-out" button that, if clicked, will *undo** the opt-out. Feel free to forward this to other groups.
Recommended by "Kathleen Roberts" weerkhr@pacbell.net>
US Terror Watchlist 80,000 Names Long
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120805S.shtml
A watchlist of possible terror suspects distributed by the US government to airlines for pre-flight checks is now 80,000 names long, a Swedish newspaper reported, citing European air industry sources. The classified list, which carried just 16 names before the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington, had grown to 1,000 by the end of 2001, to 40,000 a year later, and now stands at 80,000, Svenska Dagbladet reported.
With New Legislation, Ohio Republicans Plan Holiday Burial for American Democracy (Dec 6)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120605D.shtml
A law that will make democracy all but moot in Ohio is about to pass the state legislature and to be signed by its Republican governor. Despite massive corruption scandals besieging the Ohio GOP, any hope that the Democratic party could win this most crucial swing state in future presidential elections, or carry its pivotal US Senate seat in 2006, are about to end. House Bill 3 has already passed the Ohio House of Representatives and is about to be approved by the Republican-dominated Senate, probably before the holiday recess. Republicans dominate the Ohio legislature thanks to a heavily gerrymandered crazy quilt of rigged districts, and to a moribund Ohio Democratic party. The GOP-drafted HB3 is designed to all but obliterate any possible future Democratic revival. Opposition from the Ohio Democratic Party, where it exists at all, is diffuse and ineffectual. HB3's most publicized provision will require positive identification before casting a vote. But it also opens voter registration activists to partisan prosecution, exempts electronic voting machines from public scrutiny, quintuples the cost of citizen-requested statewide recounts and makes it illegal to challenge a presidential vote count or, indeed, any federal election result in Ohio. When added to the recently passed HB1, which allows campaign financing to be dominated by the wealthy and by corporations, and along with a Rovian wish list of GOP attacks on the ballot box, democracy in Ohio could be all but over. The GOP is ramming similar bills through state legislatures around the US, starting with Georgia and Indiana. The ID requirements in particular have provoked widespread opposition from newspapers such as the New York Times. The Times, among others, argues that the ID requirements and the costs associated with them, constitute an unconstitutional discriminatory poll tax. CLIP
Racial Poverty Gaps in U.S. Amount To Human Rights Violation, Says U.N. Expert
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1130-01.htm
Weather Modification a Long-Established, Though Secretive, Reality
http://pesn.com/2005/09/06/9600160_Weather_Modification/
New legislation not designed to foster pleasant or productive weather, but planned as tool of weaponized weather control, already well tested and in use since 1976. Amateur and hostile weather-makers alike likely to lose their technology to the military.
Bad News For UK Energy
http://www.vitaltrivia.co.uk/2005/11/39
On the 27th October the DTI published the following information, thanks to Nick Rouse for bringing it to my attention: For the three months June 2005 to August 2005 compared to the same period a year earlier:- production of petroleum fell by 16.2%; - production of natural gas fell by 17.0%; - production of coal and other solid fuels fell by 24.9%; - electricity produced from nuclear sources rose by 11.8%; - electricity produced from wind and natural flow hydro fell by 4.4%. What I find amazing is why this wasn’t news. Why wasn’t this the talking point of the day with John Humphrys quizzing Malcolm Wicks in the morning, John Snow presenting some scary graphs at 7pm and Jeremy Paxman giving over Newsnight to the emerging crisis, it certainly deserves the coverage.The 17% fall in natural gas is the most concerning in my opinion since there isn’t the import or storage capacity to make up such a huge difference even if the gas was available on the market. CLIP
Let It BP (GRIST SUMMARY)
BP making big boost to clean-energy spending
Oil giant BP plans to invest up to $8 billion of its oil-and-gas profits into clean energy technologies and greenhouse-gas abatement projects over the next 10 years. An $8 billion investment would represent an eightfold increase over the company's clean-energy outlay in the past decade, says CEO John Browne. BP expects an eventual 15 percent return on the funding, and anticipates hiring several hundred staffers for a new business unit, which will consolidate the company's projects in solar, wind, hydrogen, carbon sequestration, and ultra-efficient gas-fired power generation. This will be one of the biggest clean-energy investments yet by a Big Oil firm, though it's just a sliver of BP's yearly $14 billion to $16 billion capital spending program. Environmentalists greeted the announcement with cautious enthusiasm -- the only kind they have left. More details at http://today.reuters.com/business/newsArticle.aspx?type=ousiv&storyID=2005-11-28T180337Z_01_MOL849083_RTRIDST_0_BUSINESSPRO-ENERGY-BP-DC.XML
Breakthrough Chip Delivers Better Digital Pictures For Less Power (December 7, 2005)
http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=2367
The next advance in cameras is becoming a reality at the University of Rochester. Imaging chips revolutionized the photography industry, and now the chips themselves are being revolutionized. A pair of newly patented technologies may soon enable power-hungry imaging chips to use just a fraction of the energy used today and capture better images to boot—all while enabling cameras to shrink to the size of a shirt button and run for years on a single battery. Placed in a home, they could wirelessly provide images to a security company when an alarm is tripped, or even allow mapping software like Google's to zoom in to real-time images at street level. The enormous reduction in power consumption and increase in computing power can also bring cell-phone video calls closer to fruition. CLIP
Tsunami Researchers Find Bigger Seafloor Shifts (December 8, 2005)
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/33918/story.htm
SAN FRANCISCO - Scientists who studied the seafloor near Sumatra with remotely operated vehicles after a tsunami devastated the Indonesian island last year said on Tuesday they found parts displaced by up to 12 meters (39 feet), nearly twice as much as they had expected. The tsunami a year ago killed more than 200,000 people on coastlines along the Indian Ocean. The discovery will help refine tsunami forecasting and improve coastal warning systems for areas with faultlines, including the US Pacific Northwest, said tsunami modeler Stephan Grilli of the University of Rhode Island."Communities in Oregon and Washington have been anticipating waves of only 10 to 12 meters or so, but now they need to be even better prepared," Grilli said, pointing to the potential for much bigger waves. Grilli, at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union, noted that if a 9.2 magnitude earthquake struck off the coasts of Oregon and Washington, the level of the quake that triggered the tsunami, parts of the coastlines of the two states could be hit by waves up to 30 meters (98 feet) high, or three times more than predicted previously.
Saving the rain forests of the ocean
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/12/06/coral/print.html
How greens and villagers, and a bunch of big ceramic snowflakes, are reviving the devastated coral reefs of Indonesia.
World's Seas Rising Twice As Fast: Study
http://tinyurl.com/865nr
Sea Levels Around The World Are Rising Twice As Fast As They Were 150 Years Ago Because Of Human-Induced Global Warming, Say US Scientists.
Bye Catch (GRIST SUMMARY)
Over a fifth of all fish caught are killed and discarded, study finds
The first comprehensive study of "bycatch" -- unwanted fish caught and discarded by commercial fishing operations -- has confirmed the worst fears of conservationists: Over a fifth of all fish caught by U.S. commercial fishers, around 1.1 million tons, are tossed out every year. Commissioned by marine eco-group Oceana, the study analyzed federal data between 1991 and 2002 to find the most and least efficient fisheries. Topping the study's list of bad actors are shrimp operations in the Gulf of Mexico, whose huge trawling nets were responsible for about half of the nation's bycatch in 2002. By contrast, Alaska fisheries have made notable progress in reducing waste. Needless to say, catching and scrapping millions of tons of fish hampers efforts to restore ailing fish stocks. "The scale of the problem here is enormous," says one of the study's authors.
Wasted bycatch detailed in study (December 1, 2005)
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/250412_fish01.html
(...) Most of the fish -- such as skates, monkfish, swordfish, tuna, sharks, salmon and halibut -- are snared by shrimpers' nets in the Gulf of Mexico or in the huge trawling nets that some vessels use to reach the ocean floor. Shrimpers, for example, catch 114,000 tons of shrimp a year but discard four times that weight in snappers, mackerel, croaker, crabs and porgies. CLIP
China Spill Could Threaten Endangered Tiger
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/120605ED.shtml
Along with other endangered animals and plants, Siberian tigers are part of a unique ecosystem that faces a new threat: a toxic benzene slick headed toward the Amur River after an explosion upriver at a chemical factory in China.
Hole in Ozone May Stay Longer Than Expected
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/120705EC.shtml
The ozone hole over Antarctica may persist two decades longer than predicted, until 2065, because ozone-destroying chemicals are still being released by developed nations a decade after their production and importation was banned. About 15 percent of the emissions are coming from the US and Canada.
1.
Found in the ERN guestbook at http://two.guestbook.de/gb.cgi?gid=456912&prot=ccbcsw
Note Nr.: 352 from 2005-12-03 13:03:02
by Gary Toth
email: gary.toth@comcast.net
Jean, I wanted to get this article I wrote Thanksgiving morning about Gratitude. Please use it as you wish.
GRATITUDE
I have much to learn about gratitude. I have heard from souls wiser and much more informed than myself of the glories of living a life filled with gratitude. There is a person in my life whose opinions and insights I’ve learned to pay serious attention to just because he has proven to be correct on this type of issue time after time after time. I’ve heard him say “If you want more blessings in your life, count the ones you have and you will automatically receive more”. I know that he holds with the highest esteem the practice of going within to get in touch with the knowingness of self that lies in various states of dormancy in the hearts of the majority of people on this abused planet. In regards to that, he’s said if you don’t have time to practice, just sit for a few minutes and try to feel gratitude. I’ve also heard him say, in explaining the gifts of gratitude and how it relates to love, “The more gratitude you experience, the more love you will experience and the more love you experience, the more gratitude you will experience and the more gratitude you experience …………. and on and on and on. And further stating that once this cycle gets rolling, there is not a power in the universe that can stop it.
But the greatest gift concerning seeing for myself the glories of gratitude happened for me one sun filled day while on a shamanic journey during the summer of 2002 while sitting on the side of a mountain in Colorado across the road from Echo lake. Echo lake sits at about 10,000 feet between Evergreen and Idaho Springs and is less than 2 hours west of Denver. It’s one of my very favorite places because I’ve many times been able to knowingly reach inward and touch something very special that makes life seem sensible and sane in this insensible and insane world. On this one particular day, I was sitting with my eyes closed and focused inward for a short period and was shown a scene from a slice of life that I assumed to be of a human civilization on a world that was not Earth. Or perhaps it was in the future of the very world I call home. I wasn’t projected totally into it, but in close proximity so I had partial access to the experiences of the very, very human beings I was observing. Kind of like if you’re standing outside a kitchen and the air is carrying to you the aroma’s of the culinary delights being prepared for the enjoyment of some very fortunate, hungry people. You don’t actually taste the food, but do get a very real sense of what’s happening.
The main purpose for the privilege of having this experience recently became clear to me; Understanding gratitude and how it affects my life. And what I saw was gratitude induced love flowing out of these people in the most natural way anyone could possibly imagine. At first I thought it was gratitude itself, but now in retrospect I see that what was flowing was love compelled by gratitude to flow outward. It wasn’t like my “normal” experiences of gratitude which is usually in bits and pieces, it was total and complete. These people had gratitude induced love pouring out of them like light pours out of the sun or like blue pours out of the sky on a cloudless day. It was endless with absolutely nothing in it's way. This was their constant, natural state of being. No form of effort was needed. And even though it was part of the mix, there was no opportunity for being grateful for the gratitude they were feeling because the gratitude was so overwhelming it couldn’t be broken down into meaningless specifics. It just WAS. It did appear to me that my observation was happening while a special event was taking place within their society. The 5 or 6 people I was watching all seemed to be facing a particular direction in an undescribed room in an undescribed building and gazing up at about a 30 degree angle. I could tell that this event I was watching was happening in a similar fashion all over their world. Gratitude was not only an effortless experience for them, it could also have effort applied to it resulting in some type of amplification of the love energy it inspired to gush out in explosion like fashion from their planet to anything fortunate enough to be in it’s path. Which could easily and realistically be described as everything else in existence. And as a bomb going off shows no discrimination and total indifference to it’s annihilation of anything in it’s proximity, this gratitude inspired love energy showed those same qualities with the exception of appearing to break the laws of physics with the elimination of the proximity factor. It maintained a constant intensity no matter how far from it’s originating point it got.
We as human beings experience a flow of energy within our beings. Many years ago it was described to me that we are caught in a backward flow of energy. That is, we try to pull love into us from our external world, while the reality, that the love we are searching for high and low is lying inside us and going largely unrecognized. A better choice to pull toward us from our external world is gratitude. When this is done, it acts as a carrier or instigator for the love within us to flow out into our external world. Then, a very delightful byproduct of that effort is that we experience the love as it flows outward. A useful, but not entirely accurate, image would be to imagine the gratitude energy being pulled in and entering us through the top of our head. Then flowing down to the heart area and compelling the love within to exit from that point and gently touch and influence everything around us. The gratitude energy then loops back around and does the same thing over and over again, catalyzing the love energy to flow outward. Attempting to pull the “Love“ energy into us totally mucks up the established natural flow. Instead, attempting to pull the “Gratitude” energy into us is a conscious way for us to reverse the backward flow of energy that dominates our way of being. Gratitude and Love are opposite sides of the same coin. In our dualistic world, it’s impossible to have one without the other. Each is the only food the other thrives on. In our lives, it is the ultimate expression, the great dance and worthy of our complete, no holds barred involvement.
It just so happens that the day this is being written is Thanksgiving day 2005. And I started writing it at about 1:30am this morning because I couldn’t sleep. Yesterday I started to refer to this day as Gratitude Day. The word “Thanksgiving” has almost lost all meaning. I think of families all over the country stuffing themselves sick with hormone laced butterball turkeys. Then, the men, watching some football game that most have no emotional involvement in while the triptifiene from the turkey takes over and deactivates them into snoring lumps while the game goes on, uninterrupted from any lack of emotion they wouldn’t be putting into it anyway. And while the snoring and blubbering wafts through the house, the women dutifully clean up the kitchen. So from this day forward, this day will be known to me as Gratitude Day. A day to be reminded to practice re-establishing the natural flow of energy as originally intended. It’s been pointed out to me that there are plenty of things to be grateful for and the vast majority are outside myself. It could be the oxygen contained within the air I breathe or the tires on my car that hold that same air, allowing me to travel smoothly. Each and every one can be used to assist me in my goal of establishing the graceful flow of gratitude into my life.
2.
Date: 4 Dec 2005
From: Patty-Lynne Herlevi patriciacrowherlevi@gmail.com>
Subject: Something I wrote yesterday
Bonjour Jean,
I know that I am not alone in suffering from holiday blues so yesterday I wrote this essay. I think that it could be healing for other people in the same boat as I am. The holidays are almost devastating for me due to dark childhood memories of the Christmas holiday, losing a friend around Christmas time of 1995 and losing another friend around the same time in 1996. I have also witnessed other people's grief and losses around the holidays and so my heart goes out to these people and beyond.
In the meantime, I ask your readers to send loving thoughts my way and to all the others who for whatever reason, feel a great deal of grief and not joy during the holiday season.
namaste,
Patty-Lynne Herlevi
patriciacrowherlevi@gmail.com
---
Confessions of a holiday blues sufferer
(This is a healing essay for folks who do not enjoy the holidays. If you enjoy the holidays, skip the essay.)
I do my best to stretch out the days of late summer and early fall hoping to avoid the festive holiday season, which seems like a cruel hoax at times. I suppose I sound like Charles Dickens' Scrooge, but just the opposite is true. Why do people need a holiday season to remind them to be peaceful and compassionate then spend the remainder of the year, wreaking havoc on the planet? At least the pagans honor the earth during the Winter Solstice and remind us that God is in everything. The giving spirit is present 365 days a year. Kindness, gentleness and compassion are always available to those who choose them. So why do we need holidays that remind the homeless, the abandoned, people grieving the loss of loved ones, of all that they are missing from their lives while others traipse around in the latest fashion shouting, "joy to the world!"
The holiday season is often a reminder of the huge gap that exists between the wealthy and the poorest poor and each day, the roster of the poor grows longer and the wallets of the wealthy elite grow fatter. And it doesn't change anything to toss money at the poor in the form of charity. People need sustainable jobs, wealthy corporations must pay their share of taxes and stop enslaving workers, government leaders must take a pay cut so that money can be used to create a more sustainable world, only then, will we truly have something to celebrate. This world is out of balance, has been for centuries. Wise people such as Jesus Christ, Buddha, Saint Francis and Saint Clare of Assisi came to teach people how to live simple lives in which people honored and respected one another. So why is it, that for most people around the world, the wise words of these teachers have fallen on deaf ears? I woke up this morning with a metaphor in my thoughts, "why choose to be lost sheep in search of a leader when you can be a shepherd with a sense of direction?" Why not just connect to God through every creature, every blade of grass, every grain of sand, instead of parading through this holiday season? Why does anyone need religion when their heart is already connected to God?
During the holiday season, so many people light up like those once a year Christmas bulbs? By the time January rolls around, everyone is back to business as usual. The people who had the charitable sentiment during the holiday season are all of a sudden concerned about competition and the market place. And for people who endured emotional wounds from their dysfunctional families over the holidays, spend several months in therapy, that is if they can afford therapy, releasing emotional toxins. For some folks, the holiday season is as devastating as a natural disaster. They're left standing in the wake, but in reality they are barely present. Of course, there are numerous holiday season comedies which could be cathartic for some as long as they don't get sappy at the end and as long as the humor doesn't contain some moral lesson. And for others, who need a remedy for holiday stress, go dance to African or Latin music until your feet are sore. Share your true feelings about the holidays with others, but make sure you are not sharing your darker thoughts with those folks that truly enjoy the holiday season. After all, we can't spread joy in the world if we create misery for others. It's better to find a support group that shares your discomfort. There is nothing as precious as a strong shoulder to cry on. I have often needed that shoulder myself.
It's true humans need to connect with humanity, the whole of humanity as well as, all the other creatures. If the holiday season could be more meditative and if it slowed people down, then this could be achieved. But what usually happens, is people are overburdened with busy-ness. They have parties to attend, parties to plan, elaborate dinners to cook, guests to invite, cards to send out, shopping list a mile a long. In the meantime, credit card debts increase making the corporations extremely happy, especially since CEO's have already chosen which thousands or so people they will layoff come January. So maybe what is most important is sharing the spirit of the holidays in a simple way. Love doesn't come wrapped up in a pretty box with a bow. It comes from the deepest part of your soul. Love doesn't cost anything, but a kind gesture to loved ones and strangers. Help someone in need to help themselves, cook a pot of soup for an ailing friend, adopt an animal from a shelter, donate to your favorite cause and support those folks who are the true stewards of this planet. Pray and meditate, slow your heart rate down and give your adrenaline glands a rest.
Just don't get caught up in consumer hell because no matter what your religion preaches, no religion is about gaining material goods through the exploitation of others or the earth except the religion of me-my-mine. If you truly want to feel joy, all you have to do is open your heart and express your truth even if it goes against the grain of society. Truth is healing and it is loving. This holiday season, share your truth with others and allow them to share their truth with you. Then this New Year, let's join together and create sustainable life on this planet so we can sing "joy to the world." Personally, my idea of a holiday is a sunny beach far away from the maddening crowd and close to The Creator. If it's only in my thoughts that I can visit paradise, then I will seem rather thoughtful this holiday season.
(As it appears on the world music site, Cranky Crow World Music, http://www.geocities.com/pherlevi)
--
This message has been blessed by St. Francis and St. Clare of Assisi.
May your life be filled with kindness, joy and gentleness.
3.
From: "Helen J" houseofdhamma@csloxinfo.com>
Subject: Pre-dawn dream
Date: 5 Dec 2005
Dear Jean,
A higher part of who I am asked me to share this vision with as many as may be open to this message. Please pass it on to those who may see the metaphor expressed through this dream.
Please let me know your reactions. After the dream, I got a vast outflowing of related understandings that I may put into a book form, if people are interested.
Helen J.
houseofdhamma@csloxinfo.com
---
Early morning, December 5, 2005
Pre-dawn and dawn dream
I was having a dream about what seemed to be a combined school and university outing. My role seemed to be mainly observer but also reserve teacher.
People seemed to be having fun. Some were joking together and having silly conversations. Some were diverting themselves with games of various types. I saw card and computer games going on. Some were snoozing. Some were dancing around a grand ballroom or learning how to do that. There was a sense of the last hours of a holiday.
Then the scene changed. It felt as if we were on an aeroplane or some other similar flying vehicle. We were still the same learning group. The people were familiar yet I did not know their names. We were going somewhere. There didn't seem to be anybody in charge. After some time of cruising along to some unspecified destination. Some of the passengers — mostly younger ones — got impatient and started to move forwards in the direction of flight. Not long afterwards, after shifting about in their seats for a while, others started to follow them. [Presumably they thought they could get off or arrive at their destination more quickly that way.] Others did not know what was going on so they bided their time, waiting to find out. Other people charged after the younger ones towards the front of the vehicle/plane. There was a strong vibration set up due to the rush. It began to shake the 'plane' and the extra weight towards the front was making it dip down.
I realized that it could not be an ordinary plane, because we had been dancing in an enormous ballroom. I also noticed that there were no standard plane seats — nor any seats that were anchored to the floor.
I knew that we were in an unstable situation. The shaking and vibration was intense now, similar to what might happen during reentry to the atmosphere.
I 'thought' and I believe others also 'thought' (maybe I also 'announced') that people should move back to their original places to help the weight distribution in the vehicle and make for better balance. Some did. The shaking continued to get more pronounced however and I could feel us going down. There was an understanding that we should lie on the floor and hold onto something solid (like a wall support) and brace for landing.
As many people as could do so moved further towards the back of the 'plane' and grabbed onto something.
I remember feeling sorry for the pilot up front — and then wondering if there WAS a pilot — then thinking that maybe we were all collectively the pilot and we hadn't known it. Despite the shaking and the deceleration, I held onto a wall support as well as I could and focused my mind on a gentle float down. Again I understood that others were doing the same.
Through the violent shaking and shuddering, I held the vision of a safe touchdown. The walls seemed to have disintegrated and I could see jungle landscapes either side, Then, tall and tangled green-leafed trees flashed past as we descended, slowed down and hovered. We passed what seemed to be an abandoned, long low building. It was roofless, the windows were empty of glass and the walls were green-tinged, covered perhaps with moss or mold.
We touched down none too gently, but remained basically intact. I was shaking and my heart was thumping wildly. For a while I was just stunned. Then I thought I should help as best I could.
I got up, testing to see if I was still in one piece and functional. I had been near the back of the vehicle so physically I was only bumped around, bruised and strained but not much else.
I said that the people (I think I said 20) at the back of the plane should move towards the back exits or any other way out at the back of the plane first. When they had gone, I called the next 50 and so on. Gradually people moved out. I asked those who were not injured to help those who were and soon most of the people nearby had left.
Because the vehicle was so vast, I could not see the front section of it clearly. I was afraid of fire breaking out. I could dimly see a terrible crush of bodies at the front of the plane — it could have been 1,000 meters away. I thought of the pilot again, but I realized that there was real and present danger, so I too left.
Looking around, there was some evidence that there had once been a landing strip here but it was semi-overgrown and untended. People were sitting about, dazed and shocked, on the steps of or near the shell of the abandoned building. I was still concerned that the vehicle might explode so I urged them to move away from it.
I too was shaking (and my physical real-life heart was pounding wildly) and I was weak, but I knew we should move away. I pointed down the barely-visible track and started walking along it. People followed. When we had gone as far as we could, exhausted and utterly depleted, we rested.
I found myself speaking out again. I said that none of us could survive this alone but that each of us had a part of the puzzle that would help us survive. If we worked together and shared our knowledge, skills, innate wisdom and love for all beings — we could make it. Some had physical strength and determination; some had learned survival skills from military training and outback adventures; some had first aid and medical knowledge; some could attune with the earth and other-dimensional frequencies to know how we could work together with the land. We were a microcosm of the Oneness.
If we considered and cared for each other and the environment around us, we would not only survive, but would become the pilot project for a new way of being.
There was silence as people contemplated this — and looked around and at each other. Then volunteers came forward and we began to 'pilot' our new beginning.
---
NOTE from Jean: Here is in part what I replied to Helen on this : "Thanks for sharing this dream with me. I too have been having some vivid and powerfully meaningful dreams lately - although I have little detailed recall of most of them but I retained often the sense that key understandings had been accessed. One particularly was about how each individual is a precious divine being just as worthy of love as all others - something which I've known for a long time but which I felt with an acute sense of keen realization - as when you have regained your full consciousness on the other side of the veil. I'm happy to share your dream with all 3000 subscribers in my next compilation and I'm sure you'll get several feedbacks on this."
AND THEN ON DEC 7, HELEN SENT THIS...
Dear Jean,
Thank you so much for your comments on the pre-dawn dream. It was really a dream, a conscious dream.
It was a metaphor for the changes that are happening within the lives of individuals and also on a world scale at the moment.
This year has not been the easiest of rides energetically and sometimes I preferred to 'take a back seat' and just let things go on.
Well, in the dream, the slightly lazy and occasionally fearful side got over-ridden and I just knew what to do and did it. There have been some wonderful responses from people that I know and not necessarily in a spiritual context either. So I shall continue to put pen to paper and write 'The Spaceship Earth Pilot Manual'. Actually some of it already exists and much is coming through whether I want it or not. Your response helped switch on the green light. So it's 'all systems go' as they say in the movies. I will add some comments I got here. I think you can already see what sharing a dream can do.
Since the comments were sent to me personally, I will not include any names here. Thank you for being you, Helen J.
---
Although I do feel also that we will be learning to steer our own plane in whatever events present themselves. Another interpretation is the young ones choose to start steering mass consciousness and it nose dives until we realise that we are all in this together and start to fly the plane together.
So an event such as a crash of the system, economy, govt fall which is being talked about could also trigger an event such as this.
Another thought is that we are being tested at how well we work with others in community.
---
...i know that since mercury went direct whoosh everything has gone from standstill to opening up... today i was so busy in every direction... maybe we are now masters of our own destinies... interesting... and my guidance has opened up hundred fold... amazing!
We keep thinking that someone else is in control, that someone else will save us and take responsibilIty for us, however we fail to realise that we, are responsible for all our thoughts and actions and how we shape our current world and future destiny, yet we sit still and get involved in our distractions to avoid taking action , because some of us are still asleep and not taking any action in unifying the planet and taking care and repairing all the damage.
Mother Earth is really needing some tender global care and preservation. We all have gifts to contribute , each and every one of us. But only when we put all our distractions aside and really connect for the common union and goal to save ourselves, will we only then be able to do something big and substantial and really shift.
We are being given a warning, do we need destruction and devastation again before we unite to survive. We can prevent any more world catastrophes etc.
IF we only wake up and realise the POWER WE HAVE AS ONE WHEN WE UNITE WITH LOVE AND COMPASSION FOR THE SURVIVAL OF EARTH AND OUR SPECIES.
---
What I got from it was that you were on "earthship" a metaphor for the way things are going, with a clear sense of unease, then danger put to you, but maybe not to everyone.
I wondered why all the young ones went up front? Why did they think it was better to be there?
---
Yours seemed to be a lone voice, with all responsibility on you; no-one else willing to take charge. It was asking you to speak out. Why is no-one else speaking?
I am asking because I had a similar dream months ago. And the message of unity and doing together was also very strong.
At that time, I tried to understand it but could not really, except that a plane crash happened on that very same day.
---
On the way to the Internet shop, I realized that when I received your mail yesterday, it was also the day when the plane crashed in Iran!
Seems like there's patience to be learned... And focus, on the next step, rather than 10 steps into the future... The flowing Now.
I think at the moment when you all realised that you were in charge of your own destiny, you were - from then on... (Such is the case in real life, I believe. We can take our own destiny into our own hands when or if we are ready.) The idea that each of you had something to offer to the whole is brilliant - that you are all a part of the oneness is brilliant too, but we are all also entirely the oneness.
What a fantastic dream! I only hope that we (the world) don't have to experience the crash before making plans to make the changes . . . . yes, do put it all into words - it doesn't matter if it gets published or not, but forming the words and the energy field around them will have it happen . . . . . . .
Flourish and Prosper. Together we create that which alone we can only dream of.
---
This was not a response to my letter but it must have been written at virtually the same time. It is from the latest Sheldan Nidle update. - H.J.
"As you move inexorably toward the greater Light of Creation, you need to be aware of how the subtle changes in your known physical universe are impacting you. The science of astrology describes the influence of the changing positions of planets and planetoids in your solar system. To be more correct, you need to add the subtle influences of the entire physical universe to your calculations. Physicality is a vast, connected whole. Each part affects the others. In fact, the overall effect upon you of the patterning or positioning of this physical universe at any one time is far more precise than your present astrology allows. Once this science is updated, it can supply you with a more precise means of knowing how the wonders of the universe truly operate upon you. Then you can begin to comprehend that you are both a spiritual Being of immense potential and a powerful creature capable of manifesting what she or he truly requires. This realization is all part of the amazing procedure that is returning you to your True Self."
4.
From: Ariel Ky visionary1@seanet.com>
Subject: My Fish Story
Date: 3 Dec 2005
l wouldn't have believe the story about the rescue of the catfish with a mini-basketball stuck in its mouth unless I saw the photos.
This story reminds me of the time in early September this year that I came across a large chinook salmon beached in shallow water on my daily walk along Lake Washington. Have I told you that story? There she was, laying on her side in a couple inches of water, about 3 feet long and a couple feet wide at the middle, a huge fish. She looked in agony with her mouth half out of the water and at first I thought she was dead. When I saw that she was still breathing, I started to tone for her and she started to look less agitated. This is my shaman thing; I tone for animals when I encounter them. I've toned for whales, dolphins, and deep sea creatures, but this was the first time I'd done my harmonic overtoning for a fish.
Then the strangest thing happened. As I was toning, we entered into telepathic communication and she asked me to return her to deeper water. I have to confess the thought crossed my mind that she'd make mighty fine eating, but I hastily reassured her that my intentions were not predatory. I was on a seawall about four feet above her and the place where she beached was covered with stones, so I hesitated at first. I quickly decided to help her, though, and jumped in with my sandals and socks on. The water was surprisingly warm.
I continued toning for her and stroked her first to show that my intentions were friendly. She didn't flop or struggle, remaining completely still. I carefully untangled the seaweed wrapped around a fin and turned her around, trying to push her into deeper water. She was so big and round that the water was still too shallow for her to right herself and I wondered if she'd lost her internal balance, but no, she was asking me again to shove her out a little further. I had to wrap my arms around her in order to lift her out of the shallow water. When I did this, she took a powerful plunge and was gone, leaving me with a sense of magic and that I was living in a legend here in the Northwest.
Ariel Ky
visionary1@seanet.com
206.725.7093
5.
From: http://www.geocities.com/MadisonAvenue/Boardroom/4278/tenkeys.htm
Ten Keys to Active Mastery
Deepak Chopra -- Ageless Body, Timeless Mind
1. Listen to your body's wisdom, which expresses itself through signals of comfort and discomfort. When choosing a certain behavior, ask your body, "How do you feel about this?" If your body sends a signal of physical or emotional distress, watch out. If your body sends a signal of comfort or eagerness, proceed.
2. Live in the present, for it is the only moment you have. Keep your attention on what is here and now; look for the fullness in every moment. Accept what comes to you totally and completely so that you can appreciate it, learn from it, and then let it go. The present is as it should be. It reflects infinite laws of Nature that have brought you this exact thought, this exact physical response. This moment is as it is because the universe is as it is. Don't struggle against the infinite scheme of things; instead, be at one with it.
3. Take time to be silent, to meditate, to quiet the internal dialogue. In moments of silence, realize that you are recontacting your source of pure awareness. Pay attention to your inner life so that you can be guided by intuition rather than externally imposed interpretations of what is or isn't good for you.
4. Relinquish your need for external approval. You alone are the judge of your worth, and your goal is to discover infinite worth in yourself, no matter what anyone else thinks. There is great freedom in this realization.
5. When you find yourself reacting with anger or opposition to any person or circumstance, realize that you are only struggling with yourself. Putting up resistance is the response of defenses created by old hurts. When you relinquish this anger, you will be healing yourself and cooperating with the flow of the universe.
6. Know that the world "out there" reflects your reality "in here." The people you react to most strongly, whether with love or hate, are projections of your inner world. What you most hate is what you most deny in yourself. What you most love is what you most wish for in yourself. Use the mirror of relationships to guide your evolution. The goal is total self-knowledge. When you achieve that, what you most want will automatically be there, and what you most dislike will disappear.
7. Shed the burden of judgment --you will feel much lighter. Judgment imposes right and wrong on situations that just are. Everything can be understood and forgiven, but when you judge, you cut off understanding and shut down the process of learning to love. In judging others, you reflect your lack of self-acceptance. Remember that every person you forgive adds to your self-love.
8. Don't contaminate your body with toxins, either through food, drink, or toxic emotions. Your body is more than a life-support system. It is the vehicle that will carry you on the journey of your evolution. The health of every cell directly contributes to your state of well-being, because every cell is a point of awareness within the field of awareness that is you.
9. Replace fear-motivated behavior with love-motivated behavior. Fear is the product of memory, which dwells in the past. Remembering what hurt us before, we direct our energies toward making certain that an old hurt will not repeat itself. But trying to impose the past on the present will never wipe out the threat of being hurt. That happens only when you find the security of your own being, which is love. Motivated by the truth inside you, you can face any threat because your inner strength is invulnerable to fear.
10. Understand that the physical world is just a mirror of a deeper intelligence. Intelligence is the invisible organizer of all matter and energy, and since a portion of this intelligence resides in you, you share in the organizing power of the cosmos. Because you are inseparably linked to everything, you cannot afford to foul the planet's air and water. But at a deeper level, you cannot afford to live with a toxic mind, because every thought makes an impression on the whole field of intelligence. Living in balance and purity is the highest good for you and the Earth.
6.
From: "Kathleen Roberts" weerkhr@pacbell.net>
Subject: Army Dumped Tons of Toxic Weapons In Ocean
Date: 2 Dec 2005
Military Madness Poisons Planet: Tons of Toxins Fouling World's Oceans
by
Alena N. Horowitz Author of The Tlytiettlym Tree
and
Leonard G. Horowitz, D.M.D., M.A., M.P.H. Author of Death in the Air: Globalism, Terrorism and Toxic Warfare
Introduction
Could the views of our children save nature from annihilation? My 13-year-old daughter provides a great example. She seems to grasp what most adults can't or won't. She wrote this article as a homeschooling assignment. Adults may read the following article and weep for our children and the fate of our planet:
"The U.S. Army admitted recently that they dumped tons of toxic waste into our sacred ocean. Our family may live five miles from one of three Hawaiian dumpsites.(1) Who in their right mind would do such a thing?
"International bankers that fund, and profit from, wars are obviously insane for valuing money more than life. Global chemical companies that produce deadly poisons are likewise misdirected by lunatics. Drug companies, evolved from Nazi Germany's chemical combine, I.G. Farben, are also involved. They make money from people getting sick and dying. That's who you can blame for poisoning nature.
Military Madness
"Americans first learned about this dumping problem from clam dredgers off the coast of New Jersey last summer (2004). The men pulled up three World War I artillery shells filled with tar-like black sludge. This turned out to be mustard gas. It injured three bomb disposal technicians called to carefully handle the mess.
"We now know the military dumped at least 64 million pounds of nerve and mustard gas into our oceans. The poisonous bombs and other containers were dropped from Navy warships, and are now rusting, leaking, or about to leak! Add to this toxic tragedy 400,000 chemical bombs and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste dumped into the world's oceans. This is a huge setback for the Malama e Ka Kai (i.e., saving the ocean) and the Malama Ka aina (i.e., saving our land) programs that our community circus performed here on the Big Island over the past two years. No longer pending, this is a current disaster beyond your weirdest nightmare. This affects all of us and every living thing on earth-the place we call "home." Even pigs wouldn't mess up their pens this bad for generations to come!
Commentary and Discussion
"Now if these idiots were stupid enough to do this, do you really think their accounts are accurate and remedial efforts reliable?
"Army officials say they have examined a few of their 26 still known "dumping zones." It may be more because they simply admit lacking intelligence-"See no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil." These monkeys, so-called military experts, can't say where all the weapons were dumped from WWII to 1970 according to the Daily Press.(1-3)
"Does this mean that between 1970 and now the military stopped waging wars? I don't think so. . . . There have been many wars fought between then and now. What makes anyone believe they actually stopped developing and dumping these weapons of mass destruction?
"Investigator John Bull with the Daily Press found, 'These weapons of mass destruction virtually ring the country, concealed off at least 11 states-six on the East Coast, two on the Gulf Coast, California, Hawaii and Alaska. Few, if any, state officials have been informed of their existence.(2)'
"The Army's records of what was dumped where are said to be sketchy, missing, or reportedly destroyed. Military officials haven't even reviewed WWI-era records yet when ocean dumping of chemical weapons was very common.
"A leading Army authority said, 'I don't have a clue where it was all dumped.' Regarding the poisonous threat he also said, 'It can last a very, very long time.' DUH!!!
"A single drop of nerve agent kills within a minute. It lasts up to 6 weeks when in water and kills every living organism in the area.
"Mustard gas forms a gel that rolls around on the sea floor killing and/or contaminating everything in its path. It can continue doing this for 5 years, or encased in an artillery shell, it slowly leaks for up to 90-years as the ocean corrodes the bomb shell. All chemical bomb shells leak from corrosion, and in time will release deadly chemicals, authorities tell us.
"The Army's secret ocean dumping program is now known to have trashed our oceans with 'surplus weapons,' 'hazardous wastes,' and deadly petrochemicals that were too expensive to store, too dangerous to transport, too difficult to destroy, and too risky to bury. So they were just ordered dumped.
"Now think of how dumb these military guys are to have not foreseen all this trouble-for creating something so bad that they can't undo-and worse, they are still making the same weapons for their 'War on Terror!'
"No wonder whales and dolphins are beaching themselves! They are signaling us for help! They want us to wake up!! They've had enough sonar experiments and underwater nuclear detonations. Now we have poisonous ocean time-bombs!!!
"The newspaper reported, 'The Army presumes most of the weapons are in very deep water and are unlikely to jeopardize divers or commercial fishing operations that dredge the ocean bottom.'(2)
"What about everything else that these poisons contact? Are people so stupid that they can't think this thing through? Can't you think for yourself? Do you really believe the lies that military officials tell, and government leaders accept; when it is all so clear right in front of you! Land and sea stands poisoned for posterity thanks to those who make war not love.
Questions and Conclusion
"Why do dolphins, simply with love in their hearts, save people from ocean threats like shark attacks when people poison them and their marine playgrounds? How can they wield such power of love and forgiveness, when humans can't seem to get along with anything or anyone? Dolphins must be far smarter than humans.
Why don't military officials protect innocent civilians from their war-making and ocean dumping if they truly serve freedom in a free world? People believe lying leaders who say they make weapons of war to protect us. Now that I have to worry about mustard gas while swimming with dolphins and sea turtles I don't feel very protected or free. I feel like I'm under attack by military madmen enslaving everything and everyone on a poisoned planet!
"Two congressmen, Senator John Warner of New Jersey, and Senator Ed Case of Hawaii, may push for hearings if the Army won't disclose where the dump sites are, and clean them up.
"'Of course, the Department of Defense has never been known for clearing up messes it creates,' Political Physics reporter Robert Wilkinson wrote. 'This is unbelievable! But for military polluters, it's just another day on toxic Earth.'"
Alena concluded by asking, "What the hell is wrong with the human race?"
---
About the Authors:
Alena N. Horowitz is the 13-year-old author of a children's book, The Tlytiettlym Tree. The tree title is an acronym for "The Love You Take is Equal to the Love You Make." This story teaches children how to live and work together to harvest the fruit-of-all-the-earth growing on a magical tree. The fruit, harvested with love, heals everyone with diseases in the children's village. This book is an ideal holiday gift for your children and grandchildren.
---
See also:
Thousands of Firms Could Stop Reporting Emissions
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/120205EA.shtml
Thousands of companies throughout the nation would no longer have to provide the public with details of toxic chemicals they release into the environment under a Bush administration proposal to streamline the nation's environmental right-to-know law.
Audrey Schulman | A Worried Mother Discovers the Secrets of Pesticide Testing
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/120205HB.shtml
A mother looks into who is testing pesticides and doesn't like what she finds.
7.
From: "Kathleen Roberts" weerkhr@pacbell.net>
Subject: Congressman Ron Paul Reiterates Danger Of Foreign Troops Being Used For Martial Law
Date: 25 Nov 2005
Congressman Ron Paul Reiterates Danger Of Foreign Troops Being Used For Martial Law
Speaks out on phony UN-US dog and pony show, EPA testing pesticides on children
Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones
November 24 2005
Republican Congressman Ron Paul recently appeared on nationally syndicated radio and again reiterated his deep concern that foreign troops are mobilizing outside and inside America to be used as assets in a martial law takeover by the Bush administration.
"It's a horrible precedent and it's all part of the NAFTA scheme and globalization and world government," Paul told the Alex Jones Show.
"Obviously they shouldn't be permitted. What I'd like to see is that we don't have our troops in foreign countries and if we needed a national guard that they were back here at home, that's the bigger problem. Then if there were foreign troops on our soil maybe our state officials could deal with that with their own national guard."
Paul elaborated on his fear that after the next crisis the government, in line with their own public statements, will use military assets to police Americans on a regular basis.
"They're putting their back up against the wall and saying, if need be we're going to have martial law."
"We've heard all these statements by the President, by the administration, why they need more militarism at the federal government to keep people in check so nobody knows how this will turn out but I do know that the only thing we can do about it is try to alert the American people to what's going on so they can be prepared."
Paul offered his take on why the government seemed to be acting in a deranged and reckless manner on every issue.
"It's almost like they're going overboard that they lose their rationality and that's part of the reason why they usually fail too is they get overly bold and I think our government is overly bold thinking they are invincible and they feel invincible with their finances. Our government controls the reserve currency of the world, they literally have the ability to print gold."
In light of recent shocking rulings that authorize the EPA to conduct tests on orphan and mentally disabled children using pesticides, Paul made comparisons with a proposed universal mental screening program that he previously had helped defeat.
"I really thought that mental health testing and drugging was so evil and horrible, but this I think could even be a little bit worse when they talk about testing these kind of chemicals. But that's just confirmation once again that we as a country have been careless and we've allowed our government to act as parents for the children and, in spite of the shortcomings of some parents, parents do a much much better job."
Talking about children being in government care being five times more likely to be abused and Congressmen voting for those kind of measures, Paul stated,
"The results are so horrible you'd think maybe a little bit of logic would cause them to rethink their position but it doesn't seem to happen."
On the subject of his drive to get the US out of the UN, Paul pointed out the staged good cop, bad cop nature of the US-UN relationship.
"The Bush administration started bashing the UN and threatening the UN with cutting some of the funding but it was all a game they were playing because they literally gave the UN more power in the name of a reform."
"Who do we have at the UN, Bolton, the arch Neo-Con warmonger and actually what they've done is taken the Neo-Con position on intervening on the internal affairs of other nations and regime change and they've institutionalized that in the United Nations, now the UN is in the business of regime change."
---
Get Alex Jones and Paul Joseph Watson's books, ALL Alex's documentary films, films by other authors, audio interviews and special reports. Sign up at Prison Planet.tv
http://www.prisonplanet.tv/subscribe.html
http://www.propagandamatrix.com
8.
From: "Kathleen Roberts" weerkhr@pacbell.net>
Subject: GOP Wants Secretive Government Gov't Agency
Date: 2 Dec 2005
http://www.legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news
GOP Wants to Create Secretive Gov't Agency 02 Dec 2005 The proposed Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency, or BARDA, would be exempt from long-standing open records and meetings laws that apply to most government departments, according to legislation approved Oct. 18 by the Senate health committee. Those exemptions would streamline the development process, safeguard 'national security' and protect the proprietary interests of drug companies, say Republican backers of the bill. The legislation also proposes giving manufacturers immunity from liability...
Reporters Committee deplores secret health agency proposal (Press Release) 01 Dec 2005 "The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press deplores the effort of Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) to create a federal agency immune from public oversight and the unfathomable failure of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions to consider Freedom of Information principles in endorsing this bill. Senator Burr introduced the Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act in late October... No federal agency has been given a blanket exclusion from Freedom of Information requirements in the 40-year history of the act. Even routine administrative details such as official travel expenses and costs of office furniture would be withheld under this measure."
From: http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/5759256.html
GOP Wants to Create Secretive Gov't Agency
By ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press Writer
December 2, 2005
WASHINGTON (AP) - By creating a federal agency shielded from public scrutiny, some lawmakers think they can speed the development and testing of new drugs and vaccines needed to respond to a bioterrorist attack or super-flu pandemic.
The proposed Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency, or BARDA, would be exempt from long-standing open records and meetings laws that apply to most government departments, according to legislation approved Oct. 18 by the Senate health committee.
Those exemptions would streamline the development process, safeguard national security and protect the proprietary interests of drug companies, say Republican backers of the bill. The legislation also proposes giving manufacturers immunity from liability in exchange for their participation in the public-private effort.
"We must ensure the federal government acts as a partner with the private sector, providing the incentives and protections necessary to bring more and better drugs and vaccines to market faster,'' Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., said when the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions approved the bill.
The agency would provide the funding for development of treatments and vaccines to protect the United States from natural pandemics as well as chemical, biological and radiological agents.
But it is the secrecy and immunity provisions of the legislation that have alarmed patient rights and open government advocates. The agency would be exempt from the Freedom of Information and Federal Advisory Committee acts, both considered crucial for monitoring government accountability.
"There is no other agency that I am aware of where the agency is totally exempt either from FOIA or FACA,'' said Pete Weitzel, coordinator of the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government. The coalition is an alliance of journalism groups, including the American Society of Newspaper Editors and Associated Press Managing Editors, that wrote to lawmakers seeking amendments to the bill. "That is a cause for major concern and should raise major policy concerns,'' Weitzel said.
Burr spokesman Doug Heye said the provisions would keep competitors from gaining proprietary information through FOIA. However, confidential business information already is exempt from FOIA.
"There's no secrecy involved in BARDA,'' Heye said. "That is absolutely false. This is an agency that will be putting out information daily.''
Some Democrats question whether the public would accept drugs or vaccines developed in conjunction with the agency, citing the abortive 2003 effort to vaccinate 500,000 front-line health care workers against smallpox. Only about 40,000 workers ultimately received the vaccine amid concerns about the vaccine's safety, which health authorities initially downplayed.
"Republican leaders in Congress are now proposing a plan that would make exactly the same mistake,'' Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said in a statement. "Their plan will protect companies that make ineffective or harmful medicines, and because it does not include compensation for those injured by a vaccine or drug, it will discourage first responders and patients from taking medicines to counter a biological attack or disease outbreak.''
The bill does provide for limited compensation. However, another provision would grant drug companies immunity unless "willful misconduct'' can be shown.
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America said it was reviewing the bill. Another industry group, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, declined comment.
The National Vaccine Information Center, an advocacy group, called the legislation "a drug company stockholder's dream and a consumer's worst nightmare.''
The proposed law comes amid growing concern about pandemics and the government's ability to meet such threats. For instance, the United State needs another three to five years to develop the manufacturing capacity to produce 300 million doses of flu vaccine, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press.''
The agency would improve on Project BioShield, a barely two-year-old program also meant to encourage production of vaccines and drugs, Heye said.
"While some progress has been made, we still haven't seen the participation from companies, universities and research institutions in developing vaccines we might need to protect us from the next threat, whatever that might be,'' Heye said. "One of the reasons is (they) don't want to put their very existence on the line.''
Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, said the agency as proposed would represent a setback to decades of progress in opening up to the public the process of testing the safety and efficacy of drugs.
"These provisions are extremely dangerous,'' Wolfe said. "The fact that they are being proposed, really exploiting people's fears about pandemics and epidemics, is outrageous and goes backward on the progress on the use of the Freedom of Information Act and Federal Advisory Committee Act to increase public scrutiny and increase the correctness of decisions that are made.''
Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike agree the drug industry needs some protections to encourage it to produce emergency stocks of vaccines and drugs, but Democrats have balked at providing blanket immunity without first establishing a compensation fund for patients.
Republicans are pushing for liability protections for vaccine manufacturers on other fronts as well. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., is seeking to add such protections to a defense appropriations bill.
Frist spokeswoman Amy Call said drug company concerns about liability are real.
"There's really no financial incentive for them to get into the market, sell to the government at a reduced rate and then open themselves up to losses that could potentially bankrupt them,'' Call said.
The push for liability exemptions may force the Burr bill to the sidelines until the next session of Congress, Republican and Democratic aides said. But Call said Frist intends to pursue the legislation.
---
On the Net:
Information on the bill, S. 1873, can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov/
NOTE from Jean: I've already networked related information on this in a recent compilation. Look for "Mandatory Vaccines: Ingredients may be kept secret and more" at http://www.earthrainbownetwork.com/Archives2005/EmpireDarkness28.htm
You can also take action through http://www.legitgov.org/action_biodefense_pandemic_vaccine_act_201005.html
Check also at http://educate-yourself.org/cn/senatorspushingforcedvaccination02nov05.shtml
9.
From: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1915328,00.html
Pinter uses Nobel talk to accuse West of war crimes
December 08, 2005
By Our Foreign Staff
Go at http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/2005/pinter-lecture-hi.ram to listen to Harold Pinter's Nobel Lecture
Go at http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/2005/pinter-lecture-e.html to read Harold Pinter's Nobel Lecture
HAROLD PINTER, the ailing British playwright, used his Nobel prize lecture yesterday to call the invasion of Iraq “an act of blatant state terrorism” and to demand the prosecution of President Bush and Tony Blair.
In a pre-recorded broadcast in Stockholm by the Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel Prize for Literature, he said: “The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law.
“How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice.”
Forbidden by doctors from going to Stockholm to receive the $1.28 million (£740,000) prize, Pinter, 75, who has been battling cancer for years, sent a video recording showing him in a wheelchair with his legs under a red blanket. His publisher will pick up the prize at a ceremony on Saturday.
He said that there were plenty of examples of Washington exercising “a clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good”. Citing examples from the US-backed Contra rebels in Nicaragua to the detention of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, he said that the US and its ally Britain — “its own bleating little lamb” — had traded in death and “employed language to keep thought at bay”.
“Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries. But you wouldn’t know it. It never happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. There was no interest,” he said.
Even discussing drama, humour and satire he made digs at the US, saying of one play that “torturers become easily bored, they need a bit of a laugh to keep their spirits up” and citing the abuse of prisoners in US custody in Iraq.
Then Pinter expanded his critique to include “the majority of politicians” who, he said, weave “a vast tapestry of lies” to keep themselves in power. He concluded by calling for an “unflinching, unswerving and fierce intellectual determination as citizens to define the real truth of our lives and our societies. If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision, we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us: the dignity of man.”
10.
AMAZING MUST READ INFORMATION HARDLY IF EVER REPORTED IN THE DISINFORMATION MEDIA
Date: 2 Dec 2005
From: Peter Phillips peter.phillips@sonoma.edu>
Subject: Real News from Project Censored
Cheney's Halliburton stock options rose over 3,000 percent last year
Reviewed by Brian Fuchs
The value of Dick Cheney's 433,333 Halliburton stock options has risen from $241,498 in 2004 to $8 million in 2005, as Halliburton continues to rake in billions of dollars from no bid/no audit government contracts.
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Cheneys_stock_options_rose_3281_last_1011.html
Agency charged with spending oversight in Iraq left country in '04
Reviewed by Charlene Jones
The chief Pentagon agency in charge of investigating Defense Department spending in Iraq pulled out of the war zone in October 2004. Therefore the bulk of money spent in Iraq is not receiving public scrutiny.
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/12927316.htm
Detainees murdered while in US custody
Reviewed by Matt Johnson
At least 21 detainees were victims of homicide while being held in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. The detainees died during interrogations conducted by Navy SEALS, Military Intelligence, and the CIA.
http://action.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/102405/
http://www.aclu.org/International/International.cfm?ID=19298&c=36
Reporters Without Borders received funding from NED
Reviewed by Lesley Amberger
Reporters without Borders has received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, an organization created in 1983 by former president Ronald Reagan during a time when military violence replaced traditional diplomacy in resolving international matters.
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/05/1744720.php
The dark side of chocolate
Reviewed by Sarah Randle
The Ivory Coast of Africa is the origin of almost half of the world's cocoa, which is harvested by approximately 286,000 children between the ages of nine and twelve—12,000 are there as a result of child trafficking. Many are sold by their families, work 80 to 100 hours a week, and are often beaten and starved.
http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12754
Barrick Gold to dynamite ice-age glaciers
Reviewed by Michelle Salvail
Chileans are protesting Barrick Gold's proposed Pascua Lama open-pit mine on the border of Chile and Argentina. The powerful multinational mining corporation plans to "relocate" three glaciers, which are the primary water source of Huasco Valley. Cyanide leaching will poison the water supply and create "an environmental and social nightmare."
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12447
US military displaces Sunni populations
Reviewed by Ned Patterson
The US military displaced entire populations of Sunni cities ahead of the constitutional referendum in Iraq. The majority of Sunnis have been threatening to vote against the US-engineered constitution.
http://mambo.agrnews.rack2.purplecat.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1161&Itemid=70
UN accommodates human rights abuse in Haiti
Reviewed by Matt Johnson
Under the eye of UN peacekeepers and armed with US weapons, Haitian police forces have fired on unarmed demonstrators associated with the opposition Lavolas party on several occasions.
http://www.haitiaction.net/News/HIP/5_8_5/5_8_5.html
Mexico defies US and joins International Criminal Court
Reviewed by Bailey Malone
Mexico formally joined the International Criminal Court on October 28 as its one hundredth member, refusing to sign a bilateral agreement with the US to exempt Americans from the court's jurisdiction over war crimes and crimes against humanity.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1102-03.htm
Lockheed Martin becomes big player in prisoner interrogations
Reviewed by Charlene Jones
Lockheed Martin, the world's biggest military company, has acquired Sytex, which provides "personnel and technology solutions to the Pentagon's Northern Command, the Army's Intelligence and Security Command, and the Department of Homeland Security." Consequently, Lockheed Martin has become one of the biggest recruiters of private interrogators-unaccountable to any legal authority or disciplinary procedure.
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12757
Boeing whistleblowers say planes must be grounded
Reviewed by David Abbott
A current whistleblower lawsuit accuses Boeing of using thousands of dangerously defective parts in the construction of airplanes sold to the US government, mostly for military use. A Mother Jones investigation further determines that at least 1,600 Boeing commercial jets-many still flying-are likely to have the same "flight safety critical" defects.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2005/10/flightrisk.html
http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2005/10/flightrisk2.html
11.
AS RECOMMENDED BY PETER PHILLIPS ABOVE... EMPOWERING INFORMATION! ESPECIALLY IF YOU LOVE EATING CHOCOLATE. BUT FROM NOW ON, UNLESS YOU EAT CHOCOLATE THAT IS PROVEN TO COME FROM A FAIR TRADE SOURCE, YOU'LL BE DIRECTLY SUPPORTING SLAVERY AS WELL AS CHILD LABOR AND ABUSE...
From: http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12754
AFRICA: The Dark Side of Chocolate
by Kate McMahon, Alternet, Wiretap
October 28th, 2005
On Halloween night, kids across the neighborhood can be heard howling with delight. Veins spiked with sugar and goody bags overflowing with Peanut Butter Cups and Hershey's bars propel tiny devils, ghouls and goblins from door to door.
Beyond the grinning jack-o-lanterns and just past the haunted house, the true horror of Halloween may be buried beneath the clever disguise of the seemingly sweet candy makers. This July, major chocolate producers such as Mars, Hershey's and Nestle revealed that they were more about tricks than treats.
The truth behind the chocolate is anything but sweet. On the Ivory Coast of Africa, the origin of nearly half of the world's cocoa, hundreds of thousands of children work or are enslaved on cocoa farms. With poverty running rampant and average cocoa revenues ranging from $30-$108 per household member per year, producers have no choice but to utilize child labor for dangerous farming tasks. Some children, seeking to help their poor families, even end up as slaves on cocoa farms far from home. Slavery drags on and we are paying the slaveholder's wages.
In 2001, following an avalanche of negative publicity, the major chocolate companies agreed to a voluntary protocol to eliminate child labor on West African farms rather than face binding legislation from Congress that would have required them to label their products "slave free" -- a label none of the major chocolate companies would have qualified for.
But rather than accept responsibility for the low world cocoa prices which lay at the heart of the problem, the major chocolate manufacturers placed the blame on poor farmers for allowing their children to work, and adopted a plan which even if properly implemented would leave farmers without the income they needed to feed their families and keep their children in school. Under this plan -- to be monitored by the chocolate companies themselves -- consumers would also be denied any independent guarantee that child labor abuses were no longer occurring on West African farms.
When July rolled around, producers had failed to meet their deadline. After four years passed without follow-through on a protocol that they had created, chocolate companies wanted four more years to reach a lesser goal. Instead of eliminating child labor on cocoa farms, they promised to reduce child labor by 50 percent in two West African countries by 2008, and these companies continue to deny not only responsibility for conditions on the farms which supply their cocoa, but to deny producers the only aspect of the production process they most certainly can control -- a fair price. To put it simply, chocolate companies care more about profits than the fact that slaves are producing our chocolate.
Approximately 286,000 children between the ages of nine and twelve have been reported to work on cocoa farms on the Ivory Coast alone with as many as 12,000 likely to have arrived in their situation as a result of child trafficking. These children are often at risk of injury from machetes and exposure to harmful pesticides. With world cocoa prices so low, many farmers maintain their labor force through trafficking; West African parents living in poverty often sell their kids to cocoa farmers for $50-$100 in hopes that the children will make some money on their own.
Sadly, although these children work 80 to 100 hours per week, children working on cocoa farms frequently make little or no money and are regularly beaten, starved, and exhausted. Most of these children will never even taste the final product that results from their suffering.
How can consumers tell whether or not the products they consume are produced by slaves? The $13 billion dollar chocolate industry is dominated by two firms: Hershey's and M&M's/Mars. Both of these companies use mostly Ivory Coast cocoa; their products are almost certainly produced partly by slaves.
Although these companies have publicly condemned and expressed outrage at the use of child slavery, they admit their ongoing purchase of Ivory Coast cocoa.
Another major player in the cocoa industry is Nestle. Nestle recently made waves in the U.K. by introducing the first line of fair trade coffee from a major roaster in that country. But their continued refusal to extend a fair price to cocoa farmers and their children underlines the shallowness of their commitment.
As one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the world and the third largest buyer of cocoa from the Ivory Coast, Nestle bears responsible for eliminating slave and child labor from the chocolate production processes. With processing, storage and export facilities throughout the Ivory Coast, Nestle is well aware of the tragically unjust labor practices taking place on the farms with which it continues to do business. The enormity of Nestle's profits (over $65 billion in annual sales) and its leveraged position in the food industry underline the company's culpability and capability to ensure a fair wage and fair labor practices.
Mars, Hershey's and Nestle argue that it would be impossible for them to control the labor practices of their suppliers, but a number of other large corporations have exemplified this possibility. These companies include Clif Bar, Cloud Nine, Dagoba Organic Chocolate, Denman Island Chocolate, Divine, Gardners Candies, Green and Black's, Kailua Candy Company, Koppers Chocolate, L.A. Burdick Chocolates, Montezuma's Chocolates, Newman's Own Organics, Omanhene Cocoa Bean Company, Rapunzel Pure Organics and The Endangered Species Chocolate Company.
The Ivory Coast does not currently produce any organic cocoa, so organic chocolates are unlikely to be tainted by slavery. A solution to the problem of child labor and slavery in cocoa production is on the rise; fair trade chocolate ensures that farmers receive a fair price for their product and that their labor force is not comprised of children or slaves.
Unlike free trade, fair trade is designed to provide fair exchanges with farmers and artisans. Fair trade ensures better lives by providing suppliers with enough money for health care, education for their children, and sustainable production methods.
The major obstacle to a successful fair trade market is a lack of consumer demand. Fair trade chocolate (Fair Trade Certified and Fair Trade Federation labels) is now available at grocery stores and online, along with other Fair Trade products ranging from coffee to sneakers.
As consumers,our purchasing power can push major corporations to abolish child slavery; we can change the lives of children in West Africa beginning with something as simple as the type of chocolate we buy.
This Halloween, over five hundred households across the country will be offering fair trade Halloween treats. In addition, schools, churches and individuals will be calling and writing in to Nestle to demand a commitment to fair trade and an end to child slavery.
Don't take candy from strangers. Know where your chocolate comes from and ensure that it was produced in a fair way for a fair price. Start by buying fair trade Halloween candy this month.
To end producer poverty and child labor on cocoa farms, call Nestle CEO Joe Weller at 1-800-225-2270 and demand fair trade.
You can also send a handwritten letter to: Nestle USA, Joe Weller, Chairman and CEO, 800 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale, CA 91203.
---
See also:
Tire Giant Firestone Hit with Lawsuit over Slave-Like Conditions
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/120805LB.shtml
Firestone, a multinational rubber manufacturing giant known for its automobile tires, has come under fire from human rights and environmental groups for its alleged use of child labor and slave-like working conditions at a plantation in Liberia.
12.
A TASTE OF WHAT IS TO COME WHEN THE WORLD RUNS OUT OF CHEAPLY AND MASSIVELY AVAILABLE OIL AND GAS
Forwarded by "Mark Graffis" mgraffis@gmail.com>
From: http://www.enn.com/today_PF.html?id=9378
Garbage Collection Collapses in Zimbabwe Capital
December 05, 2005 — By Angus Shaw, Associated Press
MBARE, Zimbabwe — The smell of sewage and rotting garbage wafts into homes. Acrid smoke hangs in the air where families have tried to burn household waste. Dysentery, food poisoning and diarrhea break out.
With no foreign currency for gas and equipment, garbage collection is the latest casualty as Zimbabwe's economy crumbles.
The start of seasonal rains means the effects are becoming unbearable in this poor southwestern Harare township. Trash is piled waist-high in the narrow streets, and reeking water stagnates in potholes, blocked sewers and drains.
"It is symptomatic of general decline and the national crisis as a whole," said Mike Davies, an official of the Combined Harare Ratepayers Association.
Zimbabwe is suffering its worst economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1980, blamed largely on the often-violent seizure of thousands of white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to blacks. Four years of erratic rainfall have also disrupted the agriculture-based economy, leaving up to 4 million people in need of food aid in what was once a regional breadbasket.
Before Zimbabwe's financial crisis began to really bite two years ago, garbage was collected weekly. Spiraling inflation and shortages of hard currency for spare parts have taken a toll on service. A boycott by people refusing to pay their utility bills because of poor service, has added to the problems.
Three waste management firms have withdrawn collection services across half the capital, citing acute shortages of gasoline, spare parts and equipment, and saying they get too little in fees from the city.
Most of the city's own garbage trucks have broken down. The few left service hospitals, shopping centers and areas close to the center, city authorities said in a report Wednesday.
Already, there is concern about disease spreading in the city of 2 million people. Last month, health authorities reported outbreaks of dysentery and food poisoning blamed on frequent water and power outages that cause toilet and sewage blockages.
In Mabvuku township, in eastern Harare, residents scooped water from open drains during a seven-day outage earlier this month.
Hundreds of diarrhea cases have been reported in recent weeks, including at least 12 children who died of dehydration, said a Harare physician, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution in the increasingly autocratic state.
Executives at a Harare food processing factory told staff to filter and boil the water used after tests showed an increase in harmful bacteria. City authorities are believed to be using insufficient purifying chemicals in the drinking water due to shortages of hard currency needed to buy the materials.
Plumbing firms say blockages in the ailing water system have worsened due to the use of sand and soil as household scourers. The price of cleaning materials have increased about six-fold this year.
Last December, the government fired the opposition-dominated Harare city council for alleged mismanagement and appointed a state commission to run municipal services.
Faltering garbage collection is just one of the ways the economic crisis has hit daily life in Zimbabwe,
At public hospitals, families of patients are asked to bring their own drugs. In the maternity wing at the main hospital in Harare, expectant mothers are asked to bring their own umbilical clips. If they can't get them, midwives use string to seal the umbilical cord. The sale of wheelchairs and prosthetics for handicapped Zimbabweans has come to a standstill.
Court cases have been postponed because there is no gasoline to take the accused to court or money to buy food for witnesses.
The long lamented lines to buy fuel at Zimbabwe gas stations have disappeared, however. There has been no fuel at all for at least 10 days, even at hard currency gas stations. The only fuel on sale is on the black market at exorbitant rates.
---
See also:
Oilcast #28: Pemex exclusive 'We are in the middle of Hubbert's curve'
http://www.oilcast.com/article.php?story=20051130145749661
He claims Pemex is in the "doorway of depletion" and "in the middle of the Hubbert curve." Hear this amazing interview online now...
13.
From: http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=9406
Report Says 2005 Will Be Warmest, Stormiest Year on Record, Likely Due to Global Warming
December 07, 2005 — By Phil Couvrette, Associated Press
MONTREAL — This year is likely to go down as the hottest, stormiest and dr