December 5-12, 2005
Whole Body Health
December 19, 2005
December 26, 2005
GENEVA, Switzerland—The tide has clearly turned on the Bush administration's "war on terror." The political and media elites that once supported the unconstitutional and illegal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan are now calling, seemingly in unison, for troop reductions and investigations into how they were misled.
"The war in Iraq was and remains one of the great acts of misleading and deception in American history," Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) recently told a news conference on Capitol Hill.
Kerry, the former Democratic presidential nominee, has changed his tune. During his presidential campaign in 2004, both he and his running mate, former Sen. John Edwards (DN. C.), were among the 29 Democrats in the Senate who voted with 48 Republicans for the Iraq war authorization measure in late 2002.
A sea change in opinion on the war in Iraq is readily apparent in the editorial pages of the big media. The opinion-setting New York Times and its International Herald Tribune, for example, which both actively supported the war by publishing a number of false propaganda articles by Judith Miller about Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction, have done a quick about-face. Now they say that to continue the war in Iraq is "worse than pointless."
In a lead editorial of Nov. 29 by Bob Herbert, responded to comments by Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Pa.), a "traditional war hawk," who has called for a quick withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.
"America needs to cut its losses in Iraq," Herbert wrote. "The folly of the Bush crowd and its apologists is now plain for all to see. Murtha is right: The war is not sustainable. "To continue sending people to their deaths under these circumstances is worse than pointless, worse than irresponsible," Herbert wrote. "It's a crime of the most grievous kind." "It is pointless to dream of long maintaining an American empire for which most Americans will neither pay nor fight," Anatol Lieven wrote in The Financial Times. "The Bush administration deserves to be savagely criticized for the timing and the conduct of the Iraq war."
In Europe, there is also growing anger and consternation about the CIA's practice of kidnaping, and the agency's use of European airports and military bases to facilitate the illegal transport and torture of its victims. The CIA's kidnap victims have reportedly been taken from and through many European nations.
Now a search is under way to discover in which countries the torture sessions have actually been held. In Britain, where the political discussion on Iraq has been more informed and open than in the United States, Sir Menzies Campbell, a MP from Fife and deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, is publicly demanding "an objective examination of the causes of the bloodbath of Iraq."
"In truth, the situation in Iraq could hardly be worse," Campbell wrote. "Yet in Britain, the bloody fallout from Iraq is second-order news. There is no sense of outrage, no call for accountability and no demand for a new strategy. The atmosphere is one of sullen acceptance."
With Iraq in ruins, plundered and occupied, and drug lords firmly in control of Afghanistan, the controlled media is suddenly changing its tune for the mid-term elections in 2006. The face-saving shift on the war in Iraq by The New York Times and Sen. Kerry are, however, neither convincing nor sincere. Kerry and the Times have only become anti-war after supporting a disastrous war for years, a war which American Free Press opposed from its beginning as unwinnable and illegal.
American Free Press is also the only U.S. newspaper to have vigorously challenged—with evidence—the official version of 9-11, the seminal event of the Bush administration's "war on terror."
For these reasons, American Free Press was the only U.S. news outlet invited to participate in the Axis for Peace conference held in Brussels on November 17-18 at the International Press Center at the Résidence Palace.
Sponsored by the Paris-based Voltaire Network for Freedom of Speech, the Axis for Peace conference was chaired by the French author and activist Thierry Meyssan and drew more than 150 participants from 37 nations. The two-day conference brought together political leaders, diplomats, military officers, intellectuals and opinion-makers from both right and left who spoke from their own experiences and facts. The speeches and final declaration, signed by the participants, are online at www.axisforpeace.net.
This writer spoke during a plenary session on the final afternoon, before major television networks from three continents, and addressed the importance of comprehending the lies of the official version of 9-11 in order to understand the motivation behind the fictional "war on terror."*
Showing the high-resolution photographs of the explosive demolitions of the twin towers from Eric Hufschmid's book Painful Questions and citing the recent paper by Prof. Steven Earl Jones of Brigham Young University, I presented the best case I could in 10 minutes that the official version of 9-11 is a massive hoax.
"It is quite plausible that explosives were pre-planted in all three buildings and set off after the two plane crashes—which were actually a diversion tactic," I said, quoting Jones.
"Muslims are probably not to blame for bringing down the World Trade Center building after all."
Understanding how the controlled press has censored discussion of the many unanswered questions about 9/11 while supporting the illegal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan is essential to exposing the complicity of the media oligarchs in the massive hoax known as the "war on terror," I said.
Although my speech was limited by the constraints of time, there was extraordinary interest in the message.
"A criminal gang controls opinion, media and governments," Gen. Leonid Ivashov, former chief of staff of the Russian army, said. "Everywhere, government and opinion leaders are bought. As for the media, it is involved in the intimidation of personalities who might emerge."
Former British intelligence agent David Shayler spoke about the role of the British and U.S. secret services in the creation and use of Islamic terrorism. "I resigned from the British secret services when the MI6 decided to finance Osama bin Laden's associates," he said. "I tried to warn them, but it was I who went to prison.
"This terrorism is coordinated by MI6 and the CIA," Shayler said.
A final declaration, signed by the participants, challenges the "military coalition" that has begun an "unbridled exploitation of the world's resources and energy reserves.
"To justify their thirst for conquest, they form terrorist groups with the aim of manipulating them, create pretexts for military action, propagate theories of an international Muslim plot and fuel conflicts between civilizations. They seize power for themselves and contribute to pushing humanity toward ruin and disorder.
"This coalition continually violates the principles of international law," the declaration reads. It goes on to ask the UN Security Council to "enforce the respect of the sovereignty of nations, which forms the basis of international law."
* For a copy of Christopher Bollyn's speech delivered at the Axis for Peace Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, send $5 to AFP, 645 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100, Washington, D.C. 20003 or call AFP at 1-888-699-NEWS (6397) toll free charge a copy to Visa or MC.
(Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute
- as long as full credit is given to American Free Press - 645
Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003
|Top|
|
Brigham Young University (BYU) issued a public statement
this week, discrediting and distancing itself from Steven Expressing doubt about the government's version of 9-11, he called for an independent investigation concerning the strange collapse of the towers and Building No. 7, something the Bush administration adamantly opposes. However, Jones's notoriety turned out to be short-lived as only days after giving numerous press interviews, including a six-minute spot on MSNBC, BYU officials twisted his arm and convinced him to stop appearing publicly. Critics quickly pointed out that Jones must have been "silenced quickly" after the Bush administration pressured BYU to end any further embarrassment while, at the same time, reminding officials that numerous government grants were swinging in the balance. The paper now openly questioned by BYU officials is entitled ‘Why indeed did the WTC Buildings Collapse?" and has been accepted for academic publication in the book The Hidden History of 9/11-2001, Research in Political Economy, Vol. 23. Finding a way to discredit Jones in a subtle way, BYU issued the following public statement about Jones's controversial 9-11 views: |
 |
| If you are looking for some honest reporting on 9-11 plus articles from actual 9-11 witnesses, survivors and researchers who the government has tried to silence, get a copy of AFP's Debunking 9-11. One copy is $19.95 and comes with 100 pages of exclusive information about the events of Sept. 11, 2001. Call 1-888-699-NEWS to charge a copy to Visa or MasterCard or send Payment to AFP, 645 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100, Washington, D.C. 20003. Add $2 S&H |
Brigham Young University has a policy of academic freedom that supports the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge and ideas. Through the academic process, ideas should be advanced, challenged, and debated by peer review in credible venues. We believe in the integrity of the academic review process and that , when it is followed properly, peer review is valuable for evaluating the validity of ideas and conclusions.
The university is aware that Prof. Steven Jones's hypotheses and interpretations of evidence regarding the collapse of World Trade Center buildings are being questioned by a number of scholars and practitioners, including may of BYU's own faculty members. Prof Jones's department and coollege administrators are not convinced that his analyses and hypotheses have been submitted to relevant scientific venues that would ensure rigorous technical peer review.
Jones was unavailable for comment as he is no longer talking openly with the media, but when he did talk it created a stir that even was addressed on MSNBC by conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson.
Jones made a brief six-minute appearance, saying publicly afterward he was unhappy about the "one-sided presentation" siding with the government as well as Carlson's failure to show the video clip of Building No. 7 freefalling to the ground as requested by Jones during the show.
"I asked three times to play the clip of Building No. 7 falling, but they wouldn't do it" said Jones after the appearance with Carlson, a well-known Bush administration mouthpiece who slanted Jones's story in favor of the government, as expected.
Not only did Carlson refuse to address key visual evidence clearly showing a freefall of the WTC, he also issued a statement telling Jones and others who think the government may have been complicit in 9-11 to leave the country, an "analysis" completely lacking in sensibility and bordering on outright insanity.
Besides the MSNBC appearance, jones previously granted on of his first interviews to The Arctic Beacon and American Free Press, also making one of his only radio appearances before going silent on this reporter's radio show, "The Investigative Journal," on the Republic Broadcasting Network. If you have Internet access, for a replay of the hour-long radio interview go to www.rbnlive.com (archives page) and for a feature article on Jones go to www.arcticbeacon.com.
Before ending his media appearances, Jones tried to explain why he wrote his paper: "I wanted to limit my discussion to my expertise and that is why I talked Mainly about the physics of the freefall of the towers and Building 7," said Jones, adding he did criticize the so-called "pod theory" or the theory that a "drone plane" was used to crash into the towers.
In his paper, Jones stayed away from commenting on most other aspects of 9-11 except for the freefall of the towers and the limited criticism of the "pod theory."
"I did receive emails about why I did that [criticized the pod theory], and I really felt it was important to stick with the issues of 9-11 that are the most obvious and the easiest to prove. That is why I wanted to limit my discussion, but in further papers I plan to address other 9-11 issues. Also, I feel the 9-11 community needs to work together and not be splintered by constantly arguing among ourselves over conflicting theories that may take away from the ones we can conclusively prove."
Jones literally shocked the state of Utah and the conservative world when he released his 19-page paper basically ripping apart the official 9-11 story, limiting his discussion to his expertise in physics and the virtual impossibility of the towers falling from merely jet fuel as the government contends.
Jones earlier said he first presented his explosive conclusions on September 22, to 60 people from the BYU and Utah Valley state College faculties, including professors of engineering, electrical engineering, geology, mathematics and psychology.
After presenting scientific arguments in favor of the controlled demolition theory, Jones said everyone in attendance from all backgrounds, conservative and liberal, were in total agreement further investigation was needed.
Jones added that the contingent of faculty members at the September seminar were all in agreement that the government needed to "come clean" and release more than 6,900 photographs and close to 7,000 segments of video footage, now being withheld from independent investigators by the FBI and other agencies.
In Jones's 9,000-word paper, his conclusions why the towers most likely were brought down by a controlled demolition can be summed up as follows:
* Tthe three buildings collapsed nearly symmetrically, falling
down into their footprints, a phenomenon associated with "controlled
demolition" - and even then it's very difficult, he says.
"Why would terrorists undertake straight-down collapses of
WTC-7 and the towers when ‘toppling over' falls would require
much less work and would do much more damage in downtown Manhattan?"
Jones asks. "And where would they obtain the necessary skills
and access to the buildings for a symmetrical implosion anyway?
The ‘symmetry data' emphasized here, along with other data,
provide strong evidence for an ‘inside' job."
* No steel-frame building, before or after the WTC buildings,
has ever collapsed due to fire. But explosive can effectively
sever steel columns, he says.
*WTC 7, which was not hit by hijacked planes collapsed in 6.6
seconds, just 0.6 seconds longer than it would take an envil dropped
from the roof height to hit the ground. "Where is the delay
that must be expected due to conservation of momentum, one of
the foundational laws of physics?" he asks.
* With non-explosive-caused collapse there would typically be
a piling up of shattering concrete. But most of the material in
the towers was converted to flour-like powder while the building
were falling, he says. "How can we understand this strange
behavior, without explosives?"
*Horizontal puffs of smoke known as squibs, were observed proceeding
up the side of the building, a phenomenon common when pre-positioned
explosives are used to demolish buildings, he says.
* Steel supports were "partly evaporated," but it would
require temperatures near 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit to evaporate
steel - and neither office materials nor diesel fuel can generate
temperatures that high.
* Molten metal found in the debris of the World Trade Center may
have been the result of a high-temperature reaction of a commonly
used explosive such as thermite, he says.
* Multiple, loud, explosion-like bangs, in rapid sequence were
reported by numerous observers in and near the towers, and these
explosions occurred far below the regions where the planes struck,
he says.
|Top|
For a decade before the 9-11 terrorist attacks, New York's World Trade Center has been protected by a "no-fly zone" and at least 1,000 times pursuit aircraft had intercepted planes that had strayed to close, according to a former tenant of the Towers. In all cases, Walter Burien told AFP, the planes violating the no-fly zone had been intercepted within four to five minutes. On Sept. 11, 2001, the terrorists were not intercepted at all and two planes rammed into the WTC.
It was standing operation procedure to launch interceptor planes when the air space was violated, and there had been many practice runs as well as interceptions.
Officials had been on special alert since the 1993 truck bombing at the trade center, he noted.
CNN cameras showed photographs of the official, Middle eastern suspects at the airports promptly, although none were on the passenger lists, which were released almost immediately instead of waiting 72 hours, as is normal, so next-of-kin can be notifies first, he said.
Burien joins a growing list of people involved in the incident and outside experts who argue that the government knew the attacks were coming and deliberately allowed them to succeed, killing 2,941 Americans in New York and in the attack on the Pentagon - more than died at Pearl Harbor on dec. 7, 1941.
He shares the view expressed by engineers and others in AFP in the four years that have followed the attacks that the "pancake collapse" of the towers could not have been the result of the two planes ramming into the buildings. Bombs inside the building were positioned to explode at the time of the airplanes' impact, he said.
There were "no attempts to stop the planes" although the military had been using interceptor planes for 25 years and all previous responses had been within minutes, he said. "It was all on Bush's drawing board," Burien said.
Why would the U.S. government want to allow the terrorist attacks to happen? Could it be to generate popular support for what is now called the "war on terrorism?" Or to justify the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq? Is the attack on Iraq for the benefit of Israel or to corner the world's oil supply, or both?
There is certainly historical precedent. Serious scholars of world War II no longer debate whether President Franklin Roosevelt had advance knowledge of Pearl Harbor and deliberately allowed the "surprise" attack to kill more than 2,390 American fighting men. Roosevelt apologists argue that he had to let it happen because America had to get involved in the European War or Hitler would invade America.
World War II ended the Great Depression as 14 million American men got jobs carrying guns and the American economy revved up to create planes, tanks, and arms. Roosevelt's New Deal had failed to turn the Depression around for eight years, but the war did.
Similarly, Woodrow Wilson used the sinking of the Lusitania to justify entering the European War, making it World War I. The Lusitania was full of illegal arms for Britain in violation of America's Neutrality Act. The German government had warned the ship would be sunk, even buying ads in newspapers to warn Americans when their public announcements were ignored by the press.
It was President Lyndon Johnson's fabrication about the Gulf of Tonkin incident that prompted Congress to pass a resolution giving him license to go to war in Vietnam. There never was a "Gulf of Tonkin incident" - as sailors on the ship acknowledge after being discharged.
There was a common thread: all three were "peace presidents." Wilson was elected because he had "kept the nation out of war." Roosevelt promised American mothers "again, and again, and again" never to send their sons to fight on foreign battlefields. Johnson promised never to "send American boys to fight a war Asian boys ought to fight for themselves."
American presidents seem to love war, no doubt because it give
them power, creates "prosperity" and gratifies the banks
and "the military-industrial complex," to quote Dwight
Eisenhower. Is Bush using the same scenario?
|Top|
Benjamin Bernanke, a former member of the Board of Governors at the Federal Reserve, is all but certain to be confirmed by the Senate as the next Chairman of the Fed. He may find that the adulation given to Mr. Greenspan doesn't carry over into his tenure so easily, especially if he continues to help Congress run up huge deficits.
Mr. Bernanke is a consummate Fed insider, widely seen by the financial press as the logical heir to Alan Greenspan. In fact, judging by his public statements he may be more like Greenspan than Greenspan himself.
What I mean is that Mr. Bernanke appears to have embraced the idea that the Federal reserve can creat prosperity more than Mr. Greenspan ever did. Like his predecessor, Mr. Bernanke views our system of fiat currency as a tool for creating wealth out of thin air by producing more dollars, whether paper or electronic. But he seems to take things further than Greenspan by refusing even to consider the destructive consequences of monetary expansion. In fact, he earned dubious notoriety for this quote in a 2002 speech discussing the supposed threat of deflation in the American economy: "The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press, that allows it to produce as many dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost."
But there is a cost, and it's a heavy one. It's called monetary inflation, which destroys the value of the dollar and punishes those wh save and invest. The money supply, as measured by the Fed's own M3 figure, has increased about five times since 1980. Yet for years officials at the Fed have insisted that inflation is firmly in check.
Inflation is not in check, as anyone who examines the cost of housing, energy, medical care, school tuition and other basics can attest. In one sense the remarkable rise in housing prices over the last decade really just represents a drop in the value of the dollar. The artificial boom in the 1990s equity markets, engineered by Mr. Greenspan's relentless monetary expansion and interest rate cutting, ended badly for millions of Americans holding overinflated stocks. What will happen when the same thing happens with housing?
The fundamental question is whether a central bank can manage the supply of money and credit better than the free market otherwise would. We shouldn't kid ourselves about the true nature of the Fed, which is inherently incompatible with real free market capitalism. Centralized planning of the money supply is a form of economic control that significantly affects prices, wages, and production levels.
Remember how market economists once criticized central planning of prices, wages,, and production levels in the former Soviet Union?
I encourage all Americans to learn more about the federal Reserve
System and what it means for our economic future. An excellent
resource is economist Murray Rothbard's book What Has Government
Done to Our Money, which provides a brief yet devastating
critique of centralized banking and the reckless government spending
it enables. We need to demystify the Federal Reserve to understand
the enormous political and economic impact of a system that allows
government to print money at will to pay its bills.
|Top|
As cold weather approaches, so do sufferings for people afflicted with chronic cough (and rheumatisms). Luckily, however, natural remedies, effective and harmless do exist. Good remedies are at hand. Others have to be purchased (imported ) from far away, but at a cheap price. The near-by remedies include:
(1) Lemon, a remedy for almost all known diseases, because
of its content in citric, a great and harmless antiphogistic (antiseptic)
and containing countless other healing substances.
(2) Watercress, very rich in iodine and vanadium two powerful
trace elements, usually lacking in our everyday nutrition. Coughs
happen to be mainly diseases of attrition due to exposure to cold.
(3) Pineapple, partly because of its content in bromelain, which
digests catarrh.
(4) Onion, which helps us sweat toxic substances in our body accumulated
because of our exposure to cold.
According to personal experience, it is a most effective folk remedy against bad colds used by Breton fishermen. If the head of the family has a bad cold and must go fishing the next morning, he is given strong onion broth. The latter is prepared with two pounds of finely chopped onions placed in a pot, barely covered with water and brought to a boil. After two or three minutes of ebullition, the broth is poured into a dish, the onions are again barely covered with water and foled of some 20 minutes. This broth is also saved and added with fresh parsley, while the spent onions are discarded. This way the patient has no trouble digesting the medicine. He goes to bed warmly covered and has a jug of cider by the bed side. He sweats like pouring rain and in the morning he is weak. He is put to the rudder until noon, when this strength is back and he joins in hauling the net.
The other food plants also involved in this therapy include: thyme, tomato, figs, garlic, celery, fennel, strawberries, horseradishes, oregano, rosemary, walnuts (especially the unripe ones), carrots, tangerines, alfalfa, lettuce and anis.
Chachacoma (Senecio criophyfon) is another remedy, albeit an exotic one. This herbaceous plant grows wild on the high slopes of the Andes Mountains in the Argentine provinces of Mendoza, San Juan, La Rioja and catamarca. It is famous as a remedy against convulsive cough of children and the mucousy cough of the elderly. It is also effective against other chest diseases, such as colds, catarrh, bronchitis, asthma, as well as sleeplessness. President Sarminto of Argentina credited it for extending his life by 20 years.
The 2 percent infusion of roots is taken three times a day at the rate of one cup a time, quite hot and sweetened with honey.
In the Andes region it is also famous as a remedy against mountain dizziness.
Trumpet tree (Cecropia palmata) reaches about 12 feet in height. It grows in the American tropics and semi-tropics, from the Virgin Islands and Mexico, to Brazil, Paraguay and Northern Argentina. Its leaves are also used as a remedy for colds and coughs.
The trumpet tree plant was used by the natives for curative-purposes in the north of Argentina from ancient times and continues to be a popular remedy, especially in diseases of the respiratory tract. Its use yields splendid results in bronchial pneumonia diseases, colds, old catarrhs, asthmatic bronchitis, recurrent coughs. Elderly people suffering from asthma, chronic mucous build-up in the lungs, ftigue, breathign difficulties and heart weakness, find in its use a true remedy for their ailments. It also has notable cardio-tonic properties, that is to say it seems to regulate the heart functions, which causes heart palpitation to become slower and more regular, obtaining in all those cases a lasting relief and an improvement of symptoms.
The trumpet tree is an indicator plant for gold, platinum and
platinoids; other such plants are the birch and horsetail grass.
All of these have many unique medicinal healing properties.
|Top|
Medical people in this country are turning toward natural remedies to fight dread diseases such as thrombosis. It would be helpful if mainstream physicians would take the time to peruse what foreign physicians have already found out about the matter. Preventive and curative remedies against blood clot are many.
One-half a century ago, Prof. Angel Roffo of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Buenos Aires, and his team, working on a project to find simple, easy means to fight cancer, established the fact that cholesterol in the blood acts as a carrier of the malignancy. They also established the fact that artichoke and eggplant have the property of cleansing the liver and getting it to stop producing excessive amounts of cholesterol. Their findings were reposted in the book Botanica Practica by Prof. Antonio Valeta of Montevideo University.
Cholesterol, of course, is the cause of blood clots.
The same information also appeared in the Encyclopedia Larousse of Paris at about the same time in the article "Artichut." Decades have passed without the same information appearing in any encyclopedia published in this country, nor in any medical publication printed here.
Er. Edmundo Escomel, physician-laureate of the French Academy of Medicine, who was resident physician at the spa for nine years. And his colleague, Dr. Angel Maldonado, a chemist, have reported, including in Escomel's Aleunos Balnearios Minero-Medicinales del Peru (Lima, 1934), that the water of El Tigrillo, one of the 11 mineral springs of the famous spa, which had already been used in therapy by the ancient Incans, has the power to dissolve blood clots like no other medicine known in the 1930s and is totally harmless.
There is no law in Peru that would prohibit the export of that spring water to the United states or anywhere else and, since it is a natural product, there is nothing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration could do to prevent hospitals or private individuals from importing it to this country.
Escomel reports only one side effect of El Tigrillo water: the village of Yura, down slope, where the water runs and is used for household needs, swarms with children. As a blood liquefier of course, it is a powerful remedy against female sterility.
That, of course, presents no danger for men fearing stroke or heart attack, and, most probably, many women will also take the risk of using that water to avoid deadly thrombosis.
There are many other excellent remedies against the blood clot,
which Dr. Jean Valnet describes in his books on the basis of the
results obtained in his clinic in Paris. Ten of those books are
in the Library of congress in Washington D.C. - several of them
in English, printed in this country and currently on sale here.
The bookstore around the corner can get them for you.
|Top|
Parsley, the green herb garnish you find with your main course, is actually not only an appetizer, but also a great medicine with numerous therapeutic indication. It is one of the wonders among the food plants with medicinal properties, and well worth having in your daily menu.
This vivacious grassy plant is aromatic and provides its bouquet to the meat and fish dishes and also serves as ornamentation for salads to which it also adds taste. Together with dill, which is another great appetizer for vegetable dishes and fish, and nettles, it tops all other food plants as a provider of bioavailable iron for our bodies, which it helps develop and strengthen.
The decoction of raw roots, 50 grams per 500 grams of water boiled for 10 minutes, is a remedy for kidney stones, hydropsy, jaundice and enteritis. The posology is one cup of that decoction to be taken each day for 15 days.
OTHER USES
The same preparation is effective against yellowing complexion, discolored by overwork, lack of sleep or poor table fare.
Women use the same liquid to wash their face, morning and evening, thus regaining the tonus of the face.
In case of angina, due to cold, use an infusion of five to seven bunched of parsley in a cup of milk mixed with a cup of water and boiled for 10 minutes and sweetened with honey. That treatment helps against the extinction of voice and relieves asthma crises.
Introducing into the nostrils crushed raw parsley stops nosebleed. Washing the face with a 3 percent decoction of parsley leaves is an excellent remedy against skin stains, pimples etc.
The infusion of leaves and stems, taken internally, is a diuretic.
Crushed leaves cure ulcers - and even more effectively if fine
salt is added.
|Top|
Radishes have many medicinal properties largely derived from their nutritional value, due to the presence of vitamins B and C, and especially to the content of essential mineral elements in its root, leaves and flowers. The extremely high content of iodine accounts for most of the medicinal properties of this food plant and its therapeutic indications. Because of the great amount of iodine in this food plant it is an antidote against goiter and Basedow disease.
MANY BENEFICIAL PROPERTIES
Here is a list of the beneficial properties of radishes: Stimulant
of the digestion and of blood circulation; special food and medicine
against scurvy; alkalyzer of the blood, thus being a good medicine
for arthritic diseases, in all their manifestations; good medicine
against gout, rheumatism, and gallstones; and it's a balm for
skin eruptions. Th that end one must eat a quantity of radishes
together with their leaves in salads; eaten cooked with their
leaves and the brew, they help abate colds and fevers; and radishes
are a great remedy against muscular exhaustion. In case of toothache,
due to cavities, the remedy is to chew the radishes and their
leaves, then eat them. Radishes are also rich in phosphorus and
iron. Radishes are also a remedy against cerebral weakness and
stomach ailments. Externally, radish juice mixed with olive oil
is a remedy for poor hearing. To that end the the mixture must
be introduced into the ear with an eyedropper and covered with
cotton.
|Top|
Green tea extract has been shown to help patients combat obesity in a french study, published in the journal Phytomedicine March 2002. It is generally understood that primary obesity is caused by a combination of factors including genetic predisposition, environmental factors, and metabolic or endocrine abnormalities. The bottom line, according to the accepted wisdom, is energy expended is not equal to energy intake; or - eating more than you burn away leads to fat storage.
However, modifying behavior, dieting and exercising strenuously fails often, therefore drug companies have been trying to come up with drugs to help people control weight. So far, side effects make the drug route unpalatable, if not downright dangerous.
The French study on green tea extract suggests that a specific, standardized, high quality extract can serve to inhibit lipases (fat digesting enzymes) and at the same time create a better fat burning environment in the body through a process called thermogenesis.
The story of how it became known that green tea extract might serve to help people metabolize fat more rapidly is worth telling.
It is well known that caffeine seems to stimulate the sympathetic nervous system, and teas as well as coffee are known to contain caffeine. Animal studies showed that caffeine could generate heat (thermogenesis), as did experimental drugs, but via a different enzymatic action.
Over time scientists have come to understand that the combination of chemicals in tea can modify adrenoreceptors and increase noradrenaline, which is a metabolically hot thing to do. Caffeine inhabits phosphodiesterase enzyme activity rather than antigonizing adenosine receptors as drugs do, and catechins, which are found abundantly in green tea, inhibit other enzymes, thereby increasing thermogenesis at the cellular level.
At the same time, scientists learned that other polyphenols, such as tannins and tannic acids, exert an influence on fat metabolism.
Putting it all together, the scientists realized that green tea - is "raw" when compared to black or orange teas. Therefore, it contains high quantities of epicatechin gallate compounds, and it was determined that a careful extract could be pharmacologically powerful, yet not dangerous to the living metabolism.
European standards for herbal extracts are very high, and this high quality material was used for the clinical trial on obese patients.
The researchers noted in their paper:
"Alimentary fat digestion starts in the stomach where gastric lipase hydolyzes 10 percent to 30 percent of dietary triglycerides under acidic conditions. In the small intestine, lipolysis is completed by pancreatic lipase acting with colipase as a cofactor, and absorption of lipolytic products starts.
"In vitro data showed a reduced gastric and intestinal fat digestion by green tea extract (high grade)."
From June through December of 1999 a clinical trial was carried out with a total of 70 patients ranging in age from 20 to 69 years. Body weight and waist circumference were measured every four weeks until the end of the 12-week trial. Additionally, cholesterol and blood cholesterol levels were measured carefully. No exercise regimen was involved.
According to the researchers:
"During the course of the study, there was observed a continuing decrease of body as well as waist circumference. At the end of the study mean body weight was decreased by 4.60 percent and waist circumference by 4.48 percent. No significant differences in plasma cholesterol were observed after three months of treatment."
Additionally, no significant differences in blood pressure were observed and overall the extract was very well tolerated by the subjects with only five minor events reported - stomach pain and diarrhea, which could have been attributed to many combinations of causes. The total daily dosage was 375 mg. Of green tea extract taken in capsule form twice each day.
Statistically speaking, the overall mean weight loss of more
than 4 percent of body weight in 12 weeks was considered significant.
|Top|
The "pasteurized milk sold by the dairies in America is not only pasteurized, it is also "stabilized" with toxic substances, which the dairy industry - and the stores which sell the processed product prefer not to mention and still less to discuss. When pressed, the industry spokesmen explain that it is to cut down on the amount of bacteria in the milk.
In fact, the stabilizer products which are poured into the milk at the dairy do just that by killing enough bacteria to permit the milk they have processed to remain sellable for 20 days, instead of just 10 if the product has not been "stabilized".
The exact composition of the "stabilizer" product varies from one dairy to another and it would be too long to discuss every variety of those toxic substances in this article. Enough to know that the chemical liquid that goes into the milk you buy in your store comes in a bottle that carries the skull and crossbones on it as required by U.S. law.
The reasons the Department of agriculture, and more specifically the Food and Drug Administration, would rather not discuss the matter in public is clear: the dairy industry's profits are much greater this way.
The "stabilized" milk is easy to detect when allowed to stand, it does not become sour, as the pure milk does, but bitter, making plain its poisonous nature.
This has not remained undetected by the medical profession and the side effects of the processed milk coming out of the dairies include: rheumatoid arthritis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease), acne, anemia, gastrointestinal bleeding and atherosclerosis.
Luckily there are simple remedies: use almond mild instead of cow's milk. It is easy to make: disolve in hot water almond paste sliced like hard cheese. It is a delicious beverage, which also happens to be wonderful remedy against hig blood pressure and heart disease. The micronutrients it contains includes: 1) Pangamic acid, which enable the blood to carry several times mor oxygen and 2) vitamin B-13, which liquifies the blood and enables it to tun faster through the blood vessels.
Both phenomena lighten the task of the heart and help one to go to sleep much more quickly, thanks to more oxygen to the brain.
In Spain that beverage is called horchata. It is slightly sweetened with honey and given to children "when they were well-behaved during the day," making them fall asleep almost instantly.
Another remedy, if yo feel you must have milk, is powdered milk like that which you find on ships. When mixed with water and allowed to stand, it turns into delightful sour milk.
From this writer's experience during his sailing days, the
best kind of such milk comes from Norway, where cows graze on
mountain-grown forage, and kelp, rich in rare trace elements,
including gold and other noble metals. Such powdered milk could
be easily obtained by health food stores around this country or
Canada.
|Top|
Food plants which help induce sleep appear to be the best, most harmless remedies for people suffering from frequent insomnia. Recently, one of those has appeared in the better food stores in North America.
It is the juice of the passion fruit, obtained from Passiflor Incarnata or P. Wuadrangularis Linn. It causes a dramatic decrease in blood pressure at the same time it helps the patient to quickly fall asleep. Two prominent medical treatises inform us about that. They are Dr. Alfredo Augusto da Matta's Flora Medica Braziliense (Manaos, 1913) and Guia Medica by Dr. Nilo Cairo (Sao Paulo, 1966).
The juice of the passion fruit has been shown to be a sedative and a calmant for use with anxiety ailments. Passion fruit juice is also claimed to diminish arterial pressure and , activating respiration, it depresses the motive part of the medulla. It is not a narcotic, but a nerve sedative.
Aslo used against insomnia is lettuce seasoned with shallot vinegar and olive oil dressing - an excellent evening dish. So also is onion soup. Non-caffeinated teas made with marjoram, apple peelings and bitter orange flowers are also used against insomnia.
Last but not least, beer. The lupulin it contains comes from the hops which were brought to Europe by the Huns. The Goths who fought them at the Catalaunian Fields captured some of the stuff and brought it to Scandinavia. Lupulin is a very effective remedy against insomnia. Just don't overdo it because alcohol can in itself be an agent for restless sleep due to the body's natural efforts to counter alcohol's depressant qualities.
For young children linden tree flower tea and apple peeling
tea are most recommended. A tiny piece of vanilla between two
teeth makes for good dreams
|Top|
"Does anyone believe Miss Condoleezza Rice?" Germany's leading news magazine Der Spiegel wrote after the U.S. Secretary of State's visit to Berlin on Dec. 7. Revelations of illegal abductions, torture flights and secret U.S.-run gulags in Europe have been the front-page news around the world for weeks.
Shortly before Miss Rice arrived in Berlin, Der Spiegel revealed that at least 437 secret CIA flights had crossed German airspace or landed at German airports.
A study by the law school of New York University has reportedly concluded that a nation is in violation of international law when it allows a torture flight to use its facilities.
Suspects abducted by U.S. agents have been flown to third countries, such as Uzbekistan, Egypt, Jordan and Syria, for interrogation and torture.
In the much-publicized CIA abduction of an Egyptian cleric named Abu Omar in Milan, Italy, in 2003, the "extraordinary rendition," or illegal kidnapping, was carried out via the U.S. military base in Ramstein, Germany. An Italian judge has issued arrest warrants for 22 CIA agents charged with the kidnapping of Omar.
"The kidnapping of Abu Omar was not only a serious crime against Italian sovereignty and human rights, but it also seriously damaged counter-terrorism efforts in Italy and Europe," Armando Spataro, the lead prosecutor in Milan, said.
American Free Press was the first U.S. newspaper to have covered the enforced disappearance in 2001 of two Egyptians who had obtained asylum in Sweden. The two Egyptians, Ahmed Agiza and Mohammed al-Zari, were picked up by Swedish police and turned over to U.S. authorities at a Stockholm airfield where they were stripped, drugged and hooded before being put on a plane bound for Egypt, where they were apparently tortured.
The role of the Swedish authorities in the illegal abduction and rendition of the two Egyptians presents a serious legal problem for the government of Sweden. The Council of Europe has determined that states involved in illegal abductions or torture may lose their voting rights.
While Romania, Poland and NATO-occupied Kosovo are named as the most likely locations of secret gulags, AFP has investigated U.S. military bases in Germany and Hungary as being possible locations of Soviet-style detention centers.
In a recent article in Der Spiegel, the Hungarian connection is noted. On Oct. 10, 2005, "a Gulfstream V, often used by the CIA, was on its way from a U.S. base in Keflavik, Iceland, to Budapest, Hungary, and was presumed to be carrying Islamic terror suspects," Spiegel reported.
A Gulfstream V plane involved in many of the torture flights was registered to a company called Premier Executive Transport Services, Inc. The company was registered in Massachusetts and is described as a "foreign corporation."
The Council of Europe and the European Court of Justice are currently investigating the torture flights as violations of European law.
AFP went to Kaposvar, in southern Hungary, in September 2003 to visit "Camp Freedom," a converted Soviet-era base at Taszar, where the U.S. military reportedly trained a militia known as the "Free Iraqi Forces" and where it planned to train Iraqi policemen. AFP found that the Taszar base resembled a high-security prison about which the local authorities knew nothing.
Few knew what went behind the high walls and razor wire of Taszar, and those who did weren't talking.
"I can't give you any information, because my boss says I can't," Nemeth Zsolt of the office of Somogy County told AFP when asked about the base. "My hands are tied."
A taxi driver, who showed AFP around the perimeter of the base, said: "2,000 Iraqis are here but they never leave the base."
A Kaposvar resident who worked on the base told AFP that anyone who talked about activities on the base would be fired by the contractor, Texas-based Kellogg, Brown and Root, which is a subsidiary of Vice President Dick Cheney's former company Halliburton.
A day after Miss Rice left Germany, the front-page story of the Garmisch-Partenkirchner Tagblatt focused on Khaled Masri, the innocent Lebanese-born German citizen who was kidnapped by the CIA in Macedonia in December 2003 and flown to Afghanistan for interrogation and torture, where he was held for five months.
Otto Schily, the former German interior minister, was reportedly informed of the kidnapping of Masri in May 2004 by the U.S. ambassador to Germany at the time, Daniel R. Coats, and did nothing. The previous German government led by Gerhard Schroeder "was quietly complicit" in the abductions and torture flights, according to Der Spiegel.
Germany has been the hub of the secret torture flights, according to Der Spiegel, with most of the CIA flights passing through U.S. military bases in Frankfurt, Berlin, and Ramstein.
The torture controversy has shed new light on the U.S. military bases on German soil that operate outside the purview of any German authority.
AFP asked Franz Worndle, archivist at the Garmisch-Partenkirchen city hall, if it was possible that detainees could be held at the U.S. base in the town without the knowledge of local authorities.
"Yes," Worndle said. "It is entirely possible."
Asked if local authorities and media were prevented from knowing about any illegal activities that could have occurred at the local U.S. base, Marin Heussler, an editor at the Garmisch-Partenkirchner Tagblatt, said, "totally."
"It's like a foreign country," Heussler said.
Secretary of State Rice has denied that the United States engages in any illegal activity at its detention centers.
"The United States does not use the air space or airport of any country for the purpose of transporting a detainee when we believe he or she will be tortured," Rice said as she left for Europe.
Rice's tortuous denial was the subject of two extremely critical editorials in The International Herald Tribune, owned by The New York Times, on Dec. 8.
The fact that "the secretary of state had to deny that the president condones torture" to reliable European allies "was a sad enough measure of how badly the Bush administration has damaged its moral standing," the paper's lead editorial said.
"It was even worse that she had a hard time sounding credible when she did it," it said.
"Does Rice think anyone is buying her loophole-riddled defense?"
Maureen Dowd of the Times echoed. "Maybe she figures that if she was able to fool people once with doubletalk about weapons of mass destruction, she can fool them again with doubletalk about rendition."
The German press was even more critical: "Rice may have left Berlin, but her visit has left all sorts of bad tastes in the mouths of Germans," Der Spiegel wrote.
Rice had used "a blackmailing tone," the paper said, and threatened that "whoever discloses the work of U.S. intelligence services would have to live with a higher threat of terror."
"The Americans have to finally realize that the long-term existence of camps like Guantanamo is a disgrace for a democracy and they do more harm than good in the fight against terror," the business daily Handelsblatt wrote.
Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute
- as long as full credit is given to American Free Press - 645
Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003
|Top|
|
The Foundation to Defend the First Amendment (FDFA) has contributed $1,000 each to 10 individuals and groups that are fighting for your right to free speech, which is under attack by many organizations on many fronts, announced director and radio talk show host Rick Adams. The FDFA, founded by a group of independent journalists in 1983, makes annual grants (within the limits of its capability) to support freedom of speech. "We appreciate the generosity of Americans who care enough about their precious First amendment rights and make it possible for us to help fund groups on the front lines of the fight for free speech." Adams said. A famous recipient is judge Roy Moore, who was defrocked as Alabama chief justice for refusing to remove the Ten commandments from his courthouse, citing free speech rights. He since formed the foundation for Moral Law to continue the fight. Another recipient of $1,000 is Mordecai Vanunu, who was held in prison for 18 years by Israel for reporting on Israel's nuclear capability. (See his letter on page 18). Also receiving $1,000 is former police Officer Jack McLamb, head of Aid and Abet; 9-11 truth activists Ellen Mariani and Jimmy Walter; anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan; and historical Revisionists Ernst Zuendel, David Irvaing and Germar Rudolf. |
FDF Gearing Up: Above, Rick Adams, radio talk show host and free speech supporter is the new director of The Foundation To Defend The First amendment which has been operationg as a non-profit corporation for 38 years. Although FDFA has maintained a low profile in the past several years, the recent attacks on free speech in america have spurred the orgainzation's leaders to reinvigorate its efforts. |
Another is the American Family association of Pennsylvania, which is championing the cause of Ryan Miner, a college student who was disciplined and threatened with expulsion by Duquesne University for expressing his opinion that homosexuality is wrong.
"So many misinformed citizens in this country wrap themselves in the First Amendment, yet try to gag people who disagree with their clichés." Adams said. ‘The right to free speech includes the right to express unpopular views. Yet Congress keeps trying to legislate speech by calling for ‘hate crimes' legislation that would punish someone's thoughts.
Pin universities, which claim to be ‘free marketplaces of ideas', patriotic students are punished, harassed and sometimes even expelled for expressing their views," Adams said. "This is a fight we must win - losing is not an option."
The total amount of the grants is $10,000. Compared to the multi-billion dollar liberal foundations our grants are small but someone has to do it, says Adams.
The FDFA is recognized as a tax deductible 501©)(3) organization
by the IRS. Its mailing address is 645 Pennsylvania Ave, S.E.,
Suite 100, Washington, D.C. 20003
|Top|
Growth in the illegal and legal immigrant population, as projected by the Census Bureau, is radically changing the face of the United States, as an influx of United States, as an influx of cheap labor undermines the country's work force and reshapes the nation's culture.
This is because of large numbers of immigrants, millions of them here illegally, who cross into the United states every day, according to the Census Bureau. Adding to the damage caused to U.S. working class families is the fact that immigrants produce much larger numbers of children, many of whom rely on taxpayer-funded social programs for medical treatment.
The U.S. population in 2003 was 292 million, up by 89 million from the 203 million counted in 1970. Current trends would put the U.S. population at 420 million by 2050 and 571 million in 2100.
One million legal aliens and 1 million illegal aliens are expected to enter the United States every year with 750,000 annual births to the foreign born. Altogether, 86 million of the population growth will be due to immigration.
The Immigration dam burst in the 1970s after Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) Herded immigration legislation through Congress that made it easy for immigrants from South America to enter but difficult for people to emigrate from Europe. At the time, Kennedy assured Americans that there would be no tidal wave of immigrants from south America.
While official government estimates put the number of illegal aliens at 8.5 million, the actual number is 20 million, according to Bob Justich, a senior managing director for the New York investment firm Bear Stearns.
"If everybody was deported tomorrow, it would be like emptying the equivalent of New Your State," Justich said.
This source of cheap labor has been exploited by many large companies, Justich said. They form an underground economy that generates billions of dollars worth of labor every year.
Illegal aliens hold 12 million to 15 million jobs in the United States, keeping wages for unskilled jobs low. Many of the jobs are off the books, meaning the government loses about $35 billion in income tax collections while illegal aliens utilize taxpayer-funded medical programs and other benefits.
An analysis by Barron's, a major publisher of financial information, estimates the size of the underground economy at $970 billion, or nearly 9 percent of the goods and services produced by the official economy.
"The toleration of illegal immigration undermines all of our labor," said Vernon Briggs, a labor economics professor at Cornell University, "It rips at the social fabric. It's a race to the bottom. It becomes a system that feeds on itself. It just goes on and on and on.
"We're seeing the wage vase in these industries erode simply because there is a glut of low-skill labor flooding the low-skill market," said John Keeley of the Center for Immigration Studies, an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. "The business community has become addicted to it. It's a way for them to keep their business costs down."
Complicating the problem is a drop in enforcement at the federal
level. While Congress has started taking the issue seriously,
bureaucrats have grown lax. The Government Accountability Office
reported that work site arrests were down from 2,849 in 1999 to
445 in 2003. In 1999, a total of 417 civil notices of intent to
fine employers for hiring illegal workers were issued, not counting
civil settlements. In 2003, four were issued.
|Top|
The House is poised to vote on a tough border bill that would require employers to confirm that their workers are legally in this country and punish those who hire illegal aliens. Employers would be required to check documents submitted by new employees against a database to verify their authenticity. The bill, drafted by Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), would also require employers to recheck the credentials of anyone hired in the past six years.
Sensenbrenner, chairman of the committee that drafted the measure, said it is the beginning of "a serious interior enforcement effort."
"This is something you can really do that will really work,' said Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), who has been fighting for such provisions for years. "You're not picking one group of people. All you're doing is checking the validity of a Social Security card - I don't know how anybody could be against that."
There is some concern that this would be another step toward making the Social security card a national ID card - something Americans instinctively oppose. But there are other steps Congress could take to reduce the SS card's role as a national ID.
When Social Security was introduced in 1953, it was illegal for banks to ask for your number, and the Social Security Administration could not share information with the Internal Revenue Service. If congress would abolish the laws that allow banks and the IRS to utilize the information, Americans would have a card that proves their legal residence but makes no other information publicly available.
It is important for congress to punish employers who willfully hire illegal aliens. They do so out of greed, often forcing undocumented immigrants to work long hours at low wages on threat of being reported.
Wal-Mart forced numerous cleaning women to work six days at minimum wage but only paid them for five days.
Hiring illegal aliens also forces down wages of American workers and takes jobs away from hardworking lower- and middle- income citizens.
END' BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP'
It was long thought that a constitutional amendment would be required to end "birthright citizenship." This involves the widespread practice of pregnant women illegally entering the United States, checking into a hospital for free care, and giving birth to a child, who automatically becomes a citizen. The mother, who is now considered a relative of a U.S. citizen, then qualifies for taxpayer programs.
The 14th Amendment proclaims that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, checking into a hospital for free care and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.
Even if Congress and states act as swiftly as possible, it takes at least two or three years for a constitutional amendment to take effect. But now there is a growing feeling among legislators and scholars that Congress can end "birthright citizenship" legislatively.
"Jurisdiction" in the 14th Amendment "means that a person owes something to the state, that he is fully under the state's authority," Rep Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) Wrote in Roll Call, a periodical specializing in Congress.
What "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" means is made clear by Sens. Lymann Trumbull and Jacob Howard, the amendment's architects. In passing the 14th Amendment shortly after the Civil War, Trumbull said U.S. jurisdiction covered only people who did not owe "allegiance to anybody else." Howard said the amendment "will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens who belong to families of ambassadors or foreign ministers.
It has long been settled that children born here of diplomats or other foreign officials are not citizens under the 14th Amendment. Overlooked has been the clear intent that other aliens are also excluded.
It's time for congress to stop overlooking and act.
|Top|
the market price for an ounce of gold rose to over $500 last week, a significant milestone for economists watching precious metals and commodities markets. The last time gold topped $500 was December 1987, in the wake of the "Black Monday" stock market collapse earlier that fall.
Gold prices historically rise when faith in paper currencies erodes, as investors seek the intrinsic value of gold to protect themselves from inflation. It's interesting to note that while the U.S. dollar has regained some of its value relative to other paper currencies like the euro, it continues to lose value relative to gold and other hard assets. This shows the folly of using one fiat currency to value another.
Gold is history's oldest and most stable currency. Central bankers and politicians don't want a gold-backed currency system, because it denies them the power to create money out of thin air. Governments by their very nature want to expand, whether to finance military intervention abroad or a welfare state at home. Expansion costs money, and politicians don't want spending limited to the amounts they can tax or borrow. This is precisely why central banks now manage all of the world's major currencies.
Yet while politicians favor central bank control of money, history and the laws of economics are on the side of gold. Even though central banks try to mask their inflationary policies and suppress the price of gold by surrepititiously selling it, the gold markets always cut through the smokescreen eventually.
Rising gold prices like we see today historically signify trouble for paper currencies, and the dollar is no exception.
President Nixon finally severed the last tenuous links between the dollar and gold in 1971, the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury have employed a pure fiat money system, meaning government can create money whenever it decrees simply by printing more dollars. The "value" of each newly minted dollar is determined by the faith of the public, the money supply and the financial markets. In other words, fiat dollars have no intrinsic value.
What does this mean for you and your family? Since your dollars have no intrinsic value, they are subject to currency market fluctuations and ruinous government policies, especially fed inflationary policies.
Every time new dollars are printed and the money supply increases,
your income and savings are worth less. Even as you save for retirement,
the fed is working against you. Inflation is nothing more than
government counterfeiting by the Fed printing presses.
|Top|
The Oklahoma City bombing seems like light years away, especially after the Sept. 11 attacks cast its ugly shasow over the American landscape. But for survivor Calvin Moser, it seems like yesterday. A long-time HUD employee working on the eight floor of the federal building. Moser was one of the lucky ones who walked away from the 1995 bombing that killed 168.
Moser walked away bruised and battered after being in the right place at the right time when the bombs exploded all around his office at 9:02 a.m.
It seemed like the "endo of the world," Moser told AFP. "It was a matter of seconds, a matter of leterally feet and I wouldn't be here talking today.
BUILDING ROCKED
Moser said he was sitting at his desk when, all of a sudden, he slid his chair across the room to get to the computer right by the window. He said he was only about eight inches from the window when the building was rocked by at least one massive explosion.
"All of a sudden I felt a tremendous explosion all around me, ringing from below and up above," he said. "The windows blew in and threw me across the room, but since it was so close to them, they didn't hit me with any kind of deadly force, which I believe they would have if I was still sitting at my desk.
Although 10 years have passed, Moser recalls the life-changing event like it was yesterday.
"I remember looking over the ledge at the devastation. The windows were blown out, nothing was there and I remember people screaming," recalls the 36-year veteran at HUD.
All too often as the years pass, recollections of tragedies like OKC and 9-11 fade. These seminal events become more like a Hollywood movie. But stories like Moser's bring us back to the painful reality that the importance of finding the truth about what really happened on OKC and 9-11 should be done for the honor and memory of those who paid the ultimate price.
"I was really not happy with the government trial and
I don't think the full truth is known about what really happened
at Oklahoma City,' said Moser. "Besides the emotional scars
that will never heal, we as a group are less tolerant of being
lied to. If you lost your loved one, or in my case my best friend
and many colleagues., it is important to expect the truth, and
nothing but the truth."
|Top|
As the Army struggles to fill its ranks with new enlistments its latest blow is a decline in the number of college students joining the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) to become officers. According to David Axe, a journalist in Charleston, S.C., who is the author of a forthcoming book about the ROTC, titled Army 101, the decline in the program is just on more sign that the Army is heading toward an "imminent train wreck' due to its over commitment to President Bush's war in Iraq.
ROTC programs are on the campuses of colleges in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam and account for nearly 70 percent of the Army's new officers.
Since 2002, enlistment in the ROTC has dipped 21 percent. In 2007, the Army will fail to meet its goal of commissioning new second lieutenants, according to May. Gen. Montague Winfield, who heads the Army Cadet command from Fort Monroe, Va.
"We can't make our 4,600 goal" of new graduates for next spring, and ROTC will produce only 3,900 new officers, Winfield said. This is the smallest group of ROTC graduates in four years. "There are parents out there who don't want their children going to war," Winfield concluded.
This explains why Army enlistment advertising is now geared
to influence parents to support their children who are interested
in joining up.
|Top|
AFP's science and health correspondent Jack Phillips recently took a trip to Greenland, the world's northernmost landmass, to see for himself whether stories about global warming that have been promoted in the mainstream are true or false. His report follows.
SCORESBYSUND, GREENLAND_Mainstream newspaper, Internet and TV reports claim global warming is causing extensive melting of glaciers, icebergs and permafrost, which might lead to drastic increases in sea level and threaten inundation of coastal cities. But there is no evidence that the sea level is actually rising, only forecasts by computer models that have been based on thousands of assumptions.
Photographs of the shore of Greenland show the sea ice surrounding it has been melting. But upon my visit, this reporter was shown evidence that the icecap, where most of the ice is located, is growing significantly.
In Antarctica, temperatures on the icecap are decreasing. Satellite radar surveys of Antarctica and Greenland have shown that the icecaps are getting larger. Reports from the Mohn Sverdrup Center for Global Ocean studies in Norway state that, in the past 11 years, Greenland's icecap has increased over 21 inches.
A recent paper published in Science claims that ice is being deposited at the net rate of 26.8 billion tons a year in Antarctica.
Greenland, a Danish possession, is the largest island in the world, with an area of 1 million square miles. About 5 percent of the world's ice sits in a cap that covers its entire interior. Only 200,000 square miles on the coast is not under the cap.
In some places the cap is almost 10,000 feet thick. Greenland's northern extremity is the closest land to the North Pole. Water from the Arctic Ocean flows southward along the East Coast carrying icebergs from Greenland, which help cool the North Atlantic Ocean.
On my recent visit to Scoresbysund, about halfway up the eastern coast of Greenland, I had an opportunity to observe glaciers and icebergs first hand in the world's largest complex of fjords.
A few hours in this region provided a glimpse of life above the Arctic Circle. This municipality, first settled in 1925, contains about 500 people, whose principal occupations are hunting and fishing. It is about the size of Great Britain and is relatively close to the largest national park in the world, encompassing about a third of the icecap.
This reporter saw firsthand how some glaciers near the mouth of Scoresbysund and the open ocean had melted away, leaving beds of stones at the water's edge.
However, as the ship I was on, the Professor Molchanov, a former Russian Arctic research vessel, sailed deeper into the sound, away from the sea and toward the central icecap, I saw many glaciers that were not melting, and lots of icebergs produced by glaciers, which are clearly growing.
One glacier I saw was said to be six miles wide. One of the largest, I was told, is a 60-mile-wide glacier located some distance away on Greenland.
Inspecting a group of icebergs in a rubber Zodiac boat at close range is awe-inspiring. I saw several bergs that were at least 30 to 50 stories tall. Someone in the group I was traveling with estimated a height of more than 80 yards for one.
As we got close to one of these mammoths I could see its foundation deep under the water. Most of the ice, about 66 percent of the berg, remains submerged as it floats on the surface. These icebergs are part of the Earth's conveyor system, which is responsible for the movement of air and ocean currents that influence weather conditions. As the icebergs from the polar regions melt, the cold water they generate travels toward the equator.
In the equatorial regions, heat from the sun is more intense than elsewhere and it produces both currents of warm water and clouds of water vapor, which travel toward the poles. Some of the water vapor is deposited as snow on the ice caps and subsequently turns into ice. The heat released by the conversion of water vapor into liquid water, snow and ice in the polar regions is mostly radiated into outer space. This process creates very low temperatures in the icecaps. For example, -94 degrees Fahrenheit has been found in Greenland.
Despite what has been reported in the mainstream press, many scientists do not subscribe to the theory of global warming and believe that, overall, objective science is showing that the Earth is cooling, not warming.
The Physics of Glaciers, now in its second edition, by retired Canadian scientist Dr. W.S.B. Patterson, discloses that the maximum temperatures of the Holocene, the epoch in which we live, occurred about 5,000 years ago and that the Earth has been cooling since then.
Of course, superimposed on this long-term trend are shorter-term fluctuations in temperature. For example, in A.D. 1000 it was warmer than it is now and Northern Europe had a "Golden Age" when Vikings farmed Greenland.
However, Nordic settlements quickly disappeared when the Earth cooled from about A.D. 1300 to 1700, in what has been known as "the Little Ice Age," an historical fact. Man's actions did not cause this. It was Mother Nature's work.
Subsequently, the Earth has been warming for the past 300 years. Consequently, it is reasonable to expect some ice to melt after that many years of warming.
However, the fact that temperatures now are lower overall than they were in A.D. 1000 indicates that the long-term trend is still in force. There is no evidence that a mere 300 years of warming has reversed the 4,600-year cooling trend. It is a fact that carbon dioxide increased during the last 100 years as a result of the industrial revolution and increasing population. But what caused temperatures to rise during the first 200 years? Many scientists argue that it was Mother Nature at work again.
The available data do not support the contention that the minuscule increase in carbon dioxide concentration - _from 0.03 percent to 0.04 percent of the atmosphere - _has significantly affected Earth's temperatures.
On the other hand it is easy to find a close connection between cyclical changes in the radiation supplied by the sun and conditions on the Earth. In fact, Serbian scientist Milutin Milankovic, while incarcerated in a jail cell, provided mathematical support for the theory that variations in the orbits of the Earth, sun and moon were responsible for recurrent ice ages without the aid of a computer.
Nature is highly cyclical: night follows day, winter follows summer, global cooling follows global warming, and glaciations follow interglacial periods. All of these cycles can be explained in terms of movements of the Earth-moon system around the sun.
Dr. Willard Libbey carbon dated material connected with the end of the last glaciation and found that it was 11,000 years old. Other scientists have found that, during the past 20 million years, these periods have never lasted longer than 13,500 years. Therefore it is reasonable to believe that we are coming to the end of our present interglacial period and that sometime, within the next 1,700 years, it is likely the Earth will get much colder and less hospitable.
Don't think that there are not doomsday scenarios associated with increased cooling. As heat from the sun diminishes during the end of interglacials, the increasing mass of the growing icecaps stresses the Earth's crust. According to one theory, this increases volcanic activity.
About 80 percent of Earth's volcanoes are underwater. When they erupt ocean temperatures will likely increase. Then air temperatures will increase and temperate zone glaciers will melt. Sea ice and ice on coastal areas will melt.
Evaporation will increase in the tropics, and more water vapor will travel to the poles, where it will deposit as snow. When this volcanic action diminishes, as the crust adjusts, the Earth will cool faster, and the probability of glaciation will likely increase.
Perhaps people should be grateful for the present warmth, disregard the politically modified science promoted by the global warmers, and pray that the warmth continues. Conditions in the Arctic leave a great deal to be desired, in my experience.
Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute
- as long as full credit is given to American Free Press - 645
Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003
|Top|
Congress is poised to consider an immigration reform bill this week, but as usual the devil will be in the details. A sensible bill would bolster enforcement of existing immigration laws, reject any form of amnesty, and address the underlying welfare state that adds to the problem. I fear, however, that congress will bow to the president and accept some sort of amnesty. Even worse, I fear congress may use the immigration bill to create a national employment database that has nothing to do with border control and everything to do with monitoring American citizens and employers.
Most Americans understandably want Congress to do something about illegal immigration, which has become a national embarrassment. One important solution is better enforcement of the laws we've got - which plainly call for illegal immigrants to be arrested and deported. Congress can pass any law it wants, but unless federal agencies enforce those laws they are meaningless.
The ultimate responsible for our immigration mess, therefore, lies squarely with successive presidents, not Congress. For decades our chief executives simply have lacked the political will, the manpower or the desire to police our borders and deport lawbreakers.
It's been nearly impossible politically for president s or candidates to suggest the obvious, namely that illegal immigration mocks the rule of law and creates huge social and economic problems. But the tide is turning, and a majority of Americans will demand real action on immigration by the next administration.
Real immigration reform will be difficult, but it need not be complicated.
First, enforce existing laws by controlling the borders once and for all. We must recognize that true national defense means defending our own borders and coastlines. This is the primary constitutional responsibility of the federal government. This means it's tome to stop spending hundreds of billions of dollars on overseas military adventures and countless alphabet soup domestic agencies. Borders should be the No. 1 national priority, plain and simple. Does the federal government have something better to do?
Second, we must end birthright citizenship - by constitutional amendment, if necessary. House Joint Resolution 46, which I introduced earlier this year, begins the process in Congress. As long as illegal immigrants know that their children born here will be citizens, the perverse incentive to sneak into this country remains strong.
Citizenship involves more that the mere location of one's birth. True citizenship requires cultural connections and an allegiance to the United States. Americans are happy to welcome those who wish to come here and build a better life for themselves, but we rightly expect immigrants to show loyalty and attempt to assimilate themselves culturally. Birthright citizenship sometimes confers the benefits of being American on people who do not truly embrace America.
Finally, we must end welfare state subsidies for illegal immigrants. Some illegal immigrants - certainly not all - receive housing subsidies, food stamps, free medical care and other forms of welfare. This alienates taxpayers and breeds suspicion of immigrants, even though the majority of them are will meaning and work very hard. Without a welfare state, we would know that everyone coming to America wanted to work and support himself.
Immigration admittedly is a difficult issue, and nobody wants
America to become an unwelcoming fortress. On the contrary, we
need to attract the best and brightest people by remaining an
entrepreneurial society that rewards initiative and hard work.
But we must gain control of our borders not only to strengthen
our national security, but also to preserve our national identity.
|Top|
The Border Patrol said a month long mission with U.S. forces
stationed on the border in New Mexico was a success in deterring
people from entering the country illegally. The Stryker brigade
troops from Ft. Lewis helped turn back about 1,000 at the border
and catch 1,922 who had entered illegally. They also seized more
than 1,000 pounds of marijuana, said Rick Moody, the border Patrol's
agent in charge.
|Top|
