Tidbits From The Web #105

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”    -- Benjamin Franklin, 1775

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”    -- Benjamin Franklin, 1775
Read more at http://eaglerising.com/2530/obama-pushes-nsa-police-state-will-america-resist/#LdyMrtx3foW3KZX3.99

"Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present." - Jim Rohn, American entrepreneur, author, and motivational speaker

"It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong." - Thomas Sowell, American economist, social theorist, political philosopher, and author 

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”    -- Benjamin Franklin, 1775
Read more at http://eaglerising.com/2530/obama-pushes-nsa-police-state-will-america-resist/#LdyMrtx3foW3KZX3.99

The Centrifuge Brain Project...




Ancient Knowledge Part II...

Amazing trick shots!
Prepping 101...
Detoxify yourself from chemtrails...
The eye optical illusion...
Be a happy prepper part I...
Underwater airplane?
The science of being happy...
Masturbation is surprisingly good (for you)...
The eyes have it...complexity that is...
Food combining to optimize your health...
Awesome coffee house prank...
Eat these vegetables to stay healthy during the "flu" season...
Why do Americans pay up the wazoo for health care...
Nikola Tesla...
Sweetly disguised foods...
Marvelphabet...
Your own personal helicopter...
Be a happy prepper part II...
Sex is surprisingly good (for you)...
Think before dropping that piece of trash out of the car window!
These girls are not what they seem...
Currency wars...
12 toxic chemicals to remove from your home...
Latest touch screen technology...
FBI wants ISPs to install their software to get your metadata...
Consider it Google for animated GIFs...
Modern methods of mind control...
Be a happy prepper part III...
Printable organs?
Get your ass to Mars...
Boost your lymphatic system...
19 clicks of separation...
The biggest company you've never heard of..
Be a happy prepper part IV...


The Quantum Apocalypse of the Holographic Universe...

Virtual Reality and Motion Capture with 3-Space Sensors from YEI Technology

Paul Yost, Chief of R&D at YEI Technology, showcases the capabilities of their 3-Space Sensors, a series of highly accurate, low-cost Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) and Attitude and Heading Reference Systems (AHRS). YEI Technology has their sights set on a wide variety of applications, from unmanned aircraft navigation to motion capture systems. In fact, they recently launched a Kickstarter campaign for their PrioVR, an affordable body-tracking virtual reality system.

WATCH VIDEO

320 MPH in an Electric Vehicle

From NAIAS 2011, Lee Teschler of Machine Design magazine talks with Roger Schroer of the Transportation Research Center about the Venturi, "Buckeye Bullet," an electric vehicle land rocket that broke 320 mph at Bonneville Salt Flats.

 WATCH VIDEO

Global Elitism: The Character Traits Of Truly Evil People

by Brandon Smith

The first dangerous mistake the average person makes is the assumption that “evil” is a kind of subjective or “gray” concept.  We would love to believe that all destructive and malicious behavior is merely a product of bad environment, bad upbringing, or mental psychosis.  Deviance in the name of misguided “profit” or “status” is often more acceptable to the public; as long as there is a reason we can easily understand and grasp.  What frightens the average American today is not the abhorrent action of criminality; rather, it is criminality without easily definable reason.  What frightens the common citizen is the possibility that some people hurt others not because mommy and daddy “mistreated” them, or because they have a psychological deficiency that clouds their judgment, but because they fully and consciously ENJOY doing what they do.  Our society is desperate to make excuses for the monsters of our era, perhaps because we would rather not entertain the possibility that there is a dark side to humanity as a whole, that if left unchecked, could take control in a deliberate and calculated way.

This is why the greatest crimes of our time often go ignored by the public.  The idea, for instance, that international financiers and political elites would purposely create economic disparity, social chaos, and global war out of a desire for centralized power and a disturbed sense of superiority is simply too much for many to handle.  Surely, these terrible events throughout our modern history are merely the result of random coincidence and human error…right?

Unfortunately, this is not the case.   In fact, the majority of catastrophic cultural policies and tragedies can be traced directly back to a particular subset of people, who use their positions of influence for ill purpose, and knowingly engineer calamity not just for personal gain, but the gain of their “social class”. 

In the Liberty Movement, we often refer to this group as “Globalists” or “Elitists”.  They permeate the upper echelons of our nation, and they do indeed have a culture that is entirely separate and disparate from our own.  If one studies their literature, their initiatives, and their motives, he would discover another world, driven by outlandish goals and an even more outlandish brand of religious fervor.  Here are some of the character traits and beliefs that make these people easy to identify…

Xeno-Fascism

Global Elitists tend to see themselves as a separate breed of human being; a superior class with superior faculties, and thus, born to “rule” over the rest of us.  In their writings they often espouse the teachings of Plato’s Republic, and the concept of the “Philosopher Kings”.  They believe that some men and women are endowed with a genetic predisposition to leadership, and that the average person does not have the intelligence to determine his own destiny.  They see the rest of humanity as a blank canvas, and themselves as the artists.  We are to be “molded” and our social dichotomies are to be manipulated.  

In reality, they are no smarter than the rest of us.  Rather, they inherent positions of wealth and influence, and automatically assume this makes them superior.  Their ability to mold society is derived entirely from their extensive capital and their complete lack of morality.  If they were not in the top .1% of the worlds rich, they would be treated like common criminals for their behavior, but sadly, in our day and age money often buys undue respect.  Imagine a private club of John Wayne Gacys or Charles Mansons, except with 80% of the world’s wealth at their disposal and the means to purchase good publicity and legal immunity.  That is essentially what we are dealing with…

"Gradually, by selective breeding, the congenital differences between rulers and ruled will increase until they become almost different species. A revolt of the plebs would become as unthinkable as an organized insurrection of sheep against the practice of eating mutton."
- Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society (1953) pgs. 49-50

"Speaking of a future at most only decades away, an experimenter in intelligence control asserted, 'I foresee a time when we shall have the means and therefore, inevitably, the temptation to manipulate the behavior and intellectual functioning of all the people through environmental and biochemical manipulation of the brain.'"
- Zbigniew Brezinski, Between Two Ages, America's Role in the Technotronic Era 1970

Pursuit Of Zero Conscience

Elitists believe that conscience is a hindrance to success, instead of a worthwhile virtue.  They knowingly and deliberately abandon their moral compass because they see it as an unnatural restriction, an obstacle that makes getting what they want more difficult.  Conscience, however, never quite disappears in anyone.  In order to reconcile their wretched mindset with that distant nagging sensation of guilt, they claim that their actions are “for the greater good of the greater number”.  They desperately want to believe that they are serving the future of mankind, and that we should “appreciate” their guiding hand, even though the things they do seem far more hateful than helpful.  They would condescend to call this “tough love”.

They further attempt to avoid the fact of their own dysfunction by trying to elicit criminality in others.  If they can convince the masses that morality is “relative” and that right and wrong are subject to “interpretation”, if they can convince us to ignore our own inner voices which are inborn, then their monstrosity could eventually be considered normal, even preferable.  For in a world of moral relativists, the man with a conscience becomes the criminal, the outcast, and the elites become the heroes they always wanted to believe themselves to be.

In the meantime, they will often resort to costume and theater, wrapping themselves in a particular belief system and playing the role of the “saint”.  The mask rarely comes off until they think their position of power is assured.

"I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so."
- Adolf Hitler

“Do you really believe the masses will be Christian again?  Nonsense!  Never again.  That tale is finished.  No one will listen to it again.  But we can hasten matters.  The parsons will dig their own graves.  They will betray their God to us.  They will betray anything for the sake of their miserable jobs and incomes…”
- Adolf Hitler

“The tenth rule of the ethics of rules and means is that you do what you can with what you have and clothe it in moral arguments. …the essence of Lenin’s speeches during this period was “They have the guns and therefore we are for peace and for reformation through the ballot. When we have the guns then it will be through the bullet.” And it was.”
- Saul Alinsky (Barack Obama taught the amoral philosophies of Alinsky as an organizer in Chicago.  Hillary Clinton made Alinsky the topic of her undergraduate thesis)  

Promote Collectivism

Top globalists are not necessarily collectivists themselves.  In fact, they often swing far to the other end of the spectrum into an aberrant form of individualism.  As discussed above, they even see conscience as a restriction on their personal freedom, and rebel against it as if rebelling against enslavement.  What they do not grasp is that the inherent nature of conscience is a gift, one which has so far kept humanity away from the brink of total self-destruction, at least to this point.  It is not a prison.  Rather, it is protection from ourselves. 

The elitist’s insane ideal of “pure individualism” without self discipline is a private matter they rarely discuss.  In public, they constantly promote the collectivist lifestyle and admonish individualism in common people as “selfish” or “narcissistic”. 

People often confuse “collectivism” with “community”.  This is caused by a lack of understanding as well as a lack of experience.  Community is a voluntary gathering of individuals for the purpose of mutual aid.  Collectivism is the gathering of people by threat of force or loss, for the purpose of consolidating power into the hands of a few.  It is the act of destroying individualism in the name of “protecting the group”.  In America today, we have a disappearing sense of real community, while the “advantages” of collectivism are being sung to the rooftops by global elites.

If the population can be convinced that they are devoid of inherent qualities and characteristics, and that their environment is the totality of their existence, then they will hand over all power to anyone who promises them the best possible surroundings.  That is to say, when we have no faith in our own individualism and self-responsibility, we will automatically seek protection, usually from a nanny government or dictatorship.  This process of wrenching self determination from the populace has an ultimate end goal:  World Governance and total dominance.

The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the systems was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank...sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world.
- Carroll Quigley, CFR member, mentor to Bill Clinton, from 'Tragedy And Hope'

"In the next century, nations as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority. National sovereignty wasn't such a great idea after all."
- Strobe Talbot, President Clinton's Deputy Secretary of State, as quoted in Time, July 20th, 1992.

The "Noble Lie"

Elitists are very adamant about the idea of the “noble lie”; the use of a lie to attain a “positive goal”.  In their view, average citizens lack the capacity to understand the bigger political and social picture, and so, we must be lied to in order to make us do what is best for ourselves.  Of course, their version of what is best for our culture always seems to include first and foremost what is best for them. 

The noble lie is a logical fallacy of epic proportions, and I often wonder if global elitists secretly doubt its legitimacy, or if they really buy into their own tripe.  If you need to lie to people in order to get them to accept your ideas, then there must be something terribly wrong with your ideas.  Ideas with vitality and honesty do not need to be “sold” to the public through chicanery; the truth takes on a life of its own.  Only destructive philosophies need a foundation of lies in order to take root.

"We are at present working discreetly with all our might to wrest this mysterious force called sovereignty out of the clutches of the local nation states of the world. All the time we are denying with our lips what we are doing with our hands."
- Professor Arnold Toynbee, in a June 1931 speech before the Institute for the Study of International Affairs in Copenhagen.

"Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have."
- Richard Salent, former president, CBS News, Bill Clinton: Friend or Foe

Population Reduction

One of the centerpieces of the globalist religion is the concept of population reduction.  They not only see themselves as a separate species with superior genetic makeup and a propensity for rulership, they also see the rest of us as cockroaches and “useless eaters”; a herd that needs to be “culled”.  The funny thing about population reductionists is that they always want OTHER people to die in order to save the planet.  They never offer their own lives as a sacrifice for the “greater good”.  This is because they assume they are “too important” (ostensibly because they think they are intelligent), while many of us are “expendable”. 

Of course, overpopulation today is an oversold myth that has been debunked in many scientific circles.  Population expansion is also not necessarily a bad thing.  Greater population means more minds working on more problems.  It drives technological advancement and forces us through the survival imperative to invent more efficient methods of production.  There are indeed advantages to growth.

In the end, though, global elites do not care about the Earth.  They do not believe in population reduction because they want to reduce pollution, our so-called “carbon footprint”, save the poor endangered animals, or even to protect finite resources.  They want population reduction because first, they are Eugenicists who see some people as genetically inferior to others, and second, because a culled population is easier to dominate.  Again, less minds working means less problems solved, and less individuals to rock the boat when the state abuses its power.

"A total world population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal."
- Audubon magazine, interview with Ted Turner, 1996

"A program of sterilizing women after their second or third child, despite the relatively greater difficulty of the operation than vasectomy, might be easier to implement than trying to sterilize men...........The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control. The capsule could be implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births."
- John P. Holdren (Top Science Adviser To Barack Obama)

"Out of the full spectrum of human personality, one-fourth is electing to transcend…One-fourth is ready to so choose, given the example of one other…One-fourth is resistant to election. They are unattracted by life ever-evolving. One-fourth is destructive. They are born angry with God…They are defective seeds…There have always been defective seeds. In the past they were permitted to die a ‘natural death’…We, the elders, have been patiently waiting until the very last moment before the quantum transformation, to take action to cut out this corrupted and corrupting element in the body of humanity. It is like watching a cancer grow…Now, as we approach the quantum shift from creature-human to co-creative human—the human who is an inheritor of god-like powers—the destructive one-fourth must be eliminated from the social body. We have no choice, dearly beloveds. Fortunately you, dearly beloveds, are not responsible for this act. We are. We are in charge of God’s selection process for planet Earth. He selects, we destroy. We are the riders of the pale horse, Death. We come to bring death to those who are unable to know God…The riders of the pale horse are about to pass among you. Grim reapers, they will separate the wheat from the chaff. This is the most painful period in the history of humanity…"
- Futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard (featured in the film ‘THRIVE’, a collectivist propaganda piece falsely presented as an attack on the elitist establishment…in other words, controlled opposition)                         

The Source Of Our Pain

Now, globalists are not the only source of our social pain.  We bear some responsibility.  When we are not vigilant, when we deny our own ignorance and refuse to learn, when we lie to ourselves, when we cater to personal superficial desires rather than taking the future into account, we open the door for the devil, as it were.  Evil, like conscience, resides in us all.

That said, globalists are not just terrible people in a random sense.  They have constructed an entire culture of deviance.  They are organized evil, and this is a problem that we must deal with soon.  Good men are defined not only by their adherence to the inner voice of truth, but also their willingness to act when the truth is threatened.  We must educate others, and when the time comes, put ourselves in harms way to remove the globalist ilk, before they destroy everything in a raging elitist fervor…


Peace, love, and happiness...until next time...

Tidbits From The Web #104

“Conspiracy theorists concentrate their time on transmuting the "base matter" of current events, official stories, propaganda and public relations into the gleaming golden truth buried within. They do this through the very right-brained activity of uncovering and inventing connections between disparate elements.

They create story-systems to understand and explain events - essentially a religious activity. For whatever reason, it’s much easier for us to deal with our internal contents by projecting them into the world around us. These outward signs inevitably become carriers of the archetypal content and psychodrama latent in the seeker.

Conspiracy theory also overcomes the strictures of literalism and the problems of simplistic thinking by experimenting with multiplicity of meaning. Ordinary events, people and signs become symbols bristling with complex, malleable, even contradictory meanings. Mystery is revived and idealized. Facts become more than the sum of their parts. Theory becomes poetry and even theology.”


Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around us in awareness. - James Thurber

The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself. - Archibald MacLeish

None of us are responsible for our birth. Our responsibility is the use we make of life. - Joshua Henry Jones

Visualizing a Plenitude Economy: The Secret To Creating Jobs...




Renaissance 2.0: Understanding the Financial Empire...

Bike to the Future!
Cannabis revealed...
Introducing artist Drew Morrison...
Extreme tech log cabin...
2 dogs dining in a restaurant...
What most schools don't teach...
Give me liberty...and give it in a classroom!
Monsanto gets owned by an 11 year old...
Mega canyon found beneath Greenland...
Rise of the super bugs...
Why Tesla was a brilliant geek...
Does Iran have free energy technology?
The riskiest places in the world...
You are now entering the Big Internet Museum...
Photocarver...
Below the boat...
From box to boat in 10 minutes...
10 signs that you're fully awake...
A vampire walks into a bar and asks the bartend for a glass of hot water...
Robotic animals...
Tearing down a building without your knowledge...
Life isn't unfair...
Protect your 2nd amendment!
LED pixel art...
Pregnancy is beautiful...
10 facts about the Earth you may not have known...
Using LinkedIn to your advantage...
14 martial arts movies every guy (and gal) should see...
Grand Theft Iron Man...
General Motors is becoming China Motors...
Bang your coworkers...
Make your outdoor parties epic...
Detoxify yourself from mercury...
Basics of beneficial weeds...
Rings over Guatemala...
The mighty Wurlitzer organ...
Magic stair trick...
What could the massacre of 40,000 elephants tell us?
North Pole moving towards Russia!
Magnetic silly putty power...
Got chemtrail flu?
Russia is preparing to attack the US...



Are you ready for the Tri-bul-ation?




Third Reich -- Operation UFO...




The Nephilim Agenda...

10 Facts About Fluoride You Need to Know
If you drink water from a municipal supply in the US, you're probably drinking fluoridated water; here are 10 eye-opening fluoride facts that are imperative to understand...

One of Your Body's Best Early Warning Signals - Yet Ignored by Nearly Everyone
Almost everyone makes the mistake of rushing past these red flags in their haste to "get back to" what they were just doing. Be smarter, and get on the fast track back to health at the first hint of trouble...

Health Science Institute eAlerts

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The muck and the mire
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A little girl sits at a kitchen table. In front of her is a glass of fresh, cold milk.

Scenes of Americana don't get much more wholesome than that.

But it's an illusion. Because that glass of milk is far from wholesome. In fact, it isn't even healthy.

Oh the irony...

What makes that milk so unhealthy is exactly what we've been brainwashed into believing is the only thing that makes it safe enough to drink: pasteurization.

In fact, pasteurized milk should never pass that child's lips. Or your lips. Or anyone's. That's because it's fresh, cold junk.

Now, for years, we've all heard just the opposite. "Pasteurization kills bacteria." "It is what makes milk safe and wholesome."

Don't believe a word of it.

Let's start with the "wholesome" lie...

Pasteurization strips away nutrients like CLA, an essential fatty acid that boosts metabolism. Milk, straight from a healthy cow, contains FIVE TIMES more CLA than it does after it's pasteurized.

Other valuable nutrients are also depleted. They include...

* Vitamin C
* Amino acids
* Key enzymes
* Magnesium
* Calcium

That's right -- calcium! And the missing magnesium makes it harder for your body to absorb what little calcium survives.

Also missing: bacteria. The whole point of pasteurization is to kill bacteria. But that includes beneficial bacteria that your digestive tract needs to function smoothly.

So everything that would actually make milk a healthy choice gets destroyed during the process of pasteurization.

And it doesn't stop there. Because dairy farmers who pasteurize their milk also do much, much worse.

Factory farms are filthy places, which tends to make the cows unhealthy. So farm workers dump antibiotics in the animal feed. And, of course, traces of the drugs end up in the milk.

I wish I could tell you that antibiotics are the only junk that gets into the milk. But we've barely gotten started. And fair warning -- some of these items might turn your stomach...

* Growth hormones
* Painkillers
* Pesticides
* Herbicides
* Blood
* Pus
* E. coli
* Fecal matter

Could it get any worse? Yes it could. Here's the final insult...

Cows would naturally graze on grass if allowed. But factory farm cows never see a pasture. Workers feed them genetically modified corn and soy. But some farmers have found an even cheaper, lower-quality feed... Candy.

Seriously. They feed their cows candy and sugar-rich kids' cereals. The very same things you're trying to get off your child's plate!

So to start, after its pasteurized, that milk is pretty much nothing but low-quality fat and sugar -- and then we add the lovely list of ingredients above.

Suddenly that kitchen-table scene seems much more Amityville horror than pure Americana...


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It's a killer
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Forget about trans fats, sugars or allergen warnings.

The FDA is ignoring the greatest threat to your health when it comes to what they require on food labeling.

If they weren't busy signing loyalty pledges to their big business benefactors, boxes of cereal and loaves of bread would come with the following warning:...

"May cause heart disease, depression, Alzheimer's, cancer, or gastrointestinal disorders."

Does the word "glyphosate" ring a bell? If not, I'll bet you're probably familiar with glyphosate's brand name.

Glyphosate is the killer ingredient in RoundUp weed killer. And RoundUp is everywhere. Your neighbors spray it in their yards and gardens. It's used in parks, golf courses, and other public areas.

And, of course, farmers spray millions of acres with glyphosate in the U.S. and around the world. After all, it's a very effective weed killer.

Just one problem. One huge and very serious problem...

Because of its pervasive nature, traces of glyphosate creep into our food. And if you eat packaged foods that include soy, sugar, corn, wheat, or canola, you're essentially eating RoundUp.

A new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows us why this glyphosate exposure is devastating.

Glyphosate inhibits an enzyme that helps us detox. When glyphosate undoes the action of this enzyme, food chemicals and environmental toxins become more active in our bodies.

And the damage takes a terrible toll.

Brace yourself. Here's a quote from the study... "Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body." (Emphasis added.)

Researchers believe ingesting glyphosate plays a role in gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility, cancer and Alzheimer's disease.

And virtually every one of us may be picking up traces of glyphosate every day. Don't count on the FDA to change the labeling requirements any time soon. Monsanto won't have it!

But with a little diligence, you can dramatically reduce your exposure. Read more about simple ways to avoid RoundUp-laced foods here.


Scientists on Unparticle Hunt Give Earth a Spin

	It may be under our feet, buried deep within the Earth's surface: A previously undiscovered force of nature that could send a generation of physicists back to the chalkboard. A team led by an Amherst professor is searching for such a force -- and it's using the Earth's mantle as its laboratory. [See Full Story]

Pulling a Mob Job on America

by Chris Mayer

You know the routine. Mobsters shake down, say, a restaurant owner. They drink all the booze and eat all they want and pay nothing. They rob the cash register. They even go out  and borrow money against the place and spend it. When they've finally bled the thing dry and the business is about to collapse, they burn the place down and collect the insurance money. That's pretty much what Goldman Sachs did to AIG. The taxpayer footed the bill. We are fast approaching the fifth anniversary of the day the U.S. government stepped in to bail out AIG, the insurance giant. It happened over the weekend of Sept. 14, 2008. And even though I feel like I know the story, I keep learning new wrinkles about the whole debacle. It really was a mob job on the U.S. taxpayer — and just one of many during that whole crisis. I'll explain and show how this is still going on… I was in Pompano Beach, Fla., this week with the family, visiting my 91-year-old grandmother. And I picked up a copy of Matt Taibbi's Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History. It's great beach reading. Taibbi is a Rolling Stone correspondent and wrote the now immortal description of Goldman Sachs as a "vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." Hunter S. Thompson, probably the greatest writer ever to write for Rolling Stone, would be proud. Taibbi is a worthy heir. The book, published in 2010, is mostly a collection of pieces that appeared in Rolling Stone from 2008-2010 reworked and updatedwith new material. Taibbi has style, and I like his prose. He has a gift with metaphor and simile. He calls the crazy tactics of one hedge fund "the financial equivalent of performing open-heart surgery with unwashed hands, using a Super 8 motel bedspread as an operating table." He says Bernanke's claim that a weak dollar only really affects Americans going abroad "is a bit like saying a forest fire only really sucks if you're a woodpecker." Some people are turned off by his style, which involves occasional profanity. (His chapter on former Fed chief Alan Greenspan is titled "The Biggest Asshole in the Universe.") But I like it because it has the effect of unmasking these criminals so we can see them for what they really are. Most of the government officials and corporate bigwigs under analysis are just high- class thieves. Besides that, Taibbi does a lot of terrific investigative reporting. He's more than a stylist. And I think his perspective is spot on. He fully appreciates that what we live in is an economy that is fast becoming a Kafkaesque nightmare. Here is Taibbi: "Your average working American looks around and sees evidence of government power over his life everywhere. Hepays high taxes and can't sell a house or a car without paying all sorts of fees. If he owns a business, inspectors come to his workplace once a year to gouge him for something whether he's in compliance or not. If he wants to build a shed in his backyard, he needs a permit from some local thief in the clerk's office." For most people, a run-in with government officialdom is something to be avoided. It means you are in for a costly experience, if not outright financial ruin -- even when you've done nothing wrong. But then there is what Taibbi calls the grifter class. These people use the government as a way of making money. This is a large and sweeping cast that includes people at the top of the financial/power pyramid -- such as the senators, representatives and upper-level officialdom and the sharks at gangster firms like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and the like. But it also includes lowlife crooks snookering everyday folks, bribing people, falsifying appraisals and generally acting like scum. More from Taibbi: "The new America… is fast becoming a vast ghetto in which all of us, conservative and progressives, are being bled dry by a relatively tiny oligarchy of extremely clever financial criminals and their castrato henchmen in government… This stuff is difficult to unravel, often fiendishly so. But those invisible processes, those unseen labyrinths of the Grifter Archipelago that are indifferent to party affiliation, are our real politics. Which make sense, if you think about it. It should always have been obvious that a country as rich and powerful as the America should be governed by an immensely complex, labyrinthine political system, one that requires almost unspeakable cunning and wolfish ruthlessness to navigate with any success." If you can play the game, you can make a lot of money and take almost no risk. The taxpayer will pick up the tab. One example Taibbi spends a good bit of time on is the whole housing bubble. I enjoyed reading some of the craziness of that era. The home in Fort Myers, Fla., that sold for $399,600 on Dec. 29, 2005, sold again the next day for $589,900 and was in foreclosure a month later. Or the $615,000 house sold to a glasscutter where the mortgage was 96% of his take-home pay. And then the Wall Street magic that turned this huge pile of

mortgage garbage into AAA-rated securities. Taibbi details the inner workings of it all in an accessible and fascinating way. He describes it as a "financial sewage system designed to stick us all with the raw waste and pump clean water back to Wall Street." The amount of fraud and greed and thievery involved by all parties is still breathtaking to read about, even though I lived through it. And this brings us to AIG. The chapter on this episode is called "Hot Potato." In a sense, AIG was the firm that got stuck with the hot potato. It is a riveting story, actually, and I can't do justice to it  here. But it encapsulates the mafia-style economy we find ourselves in. Essentially, at the end of the tale, AIG owed Goldman Sachs tens of billions of dollars. AIG couldn't pay it. So… Well, here's Taibbi describing the showdown: "When the CEO of Goldman Sachs stood up in the conference room of the New York Federal Reserve Bank and demanded his money, he did so knowing that it was more profitable to put AIG to the torch than it was to try to work things out. In the end, [CEO Lloyd] Blankfein and Goldman literally did a mob job on AIG, burning it to the ground to for the 'insurance' of a government bailout they knew they would get…" And they got it. Now, you might claim the taxpayer made money on the deal, as was widely been reported late last year. The idea is ridiculous, because AIG was clearly a heist in which AIG had no choice and the price offered was a fire sale price. (Not that we should feel sorry for AIG, which was a gangster firm with its own crooks). Besides, where is the check for the taxpayer? I never got it. The truth is the government used our money for free and taxpayers will never see it. The whole perspective this book offers is important. Because if you  think of the economy as this vast thing where success or failure is a matter of serving customers well, then you are deceiving yourself. (I've written about this before, about how America's largest companies are basically products of state privilege.) This perspective is good too because the reality of the thing shatters many illusions. Think Obamacare is a socialist redistribution scheme? Take another look. What it really amounts to is the largest corporate giveaway and pork-filled legislation in the history of the country. The book also pops a lot of inflated reputations, like Warren Buffett's. My view of Warren Buffett as a person has basically plummeted in the  last half-decade or so. Buffett and his firm Berkshire Hathaway benefited immensely from government bailout money. Wells Fargo, of which Buffett is a major shareholder, got $50 billion in bailout money. In fact, many Berkshire holdings were direct beneficiaries of bailout money. And Buffett himself used his influence to make sweetheart deals with the government. It makes you want to throw up, then, when Buffett's vice chairman, Charlie Munger, said of struggling Americans during the housing bust  that they should "suck it in and cope." Yeah. Buffett lobbied hard for taxpayer bailouts. He is, today, just another grifter -- like Goldman Sachs -- using taxpayer money and his influence over those in power to enrich himself and his corrupt firm. (As an aside, the  hero worship around Buffett is sickening and sophomoric and really should end. Buffett was a great investor, perhaps the greatest that ever lived. But that doesn't make him a good person, or a wise person, or even a great investor today. I know he's giving his money to charity. Maybe he should start by giving it back to the people he stole it from.) Honore de Balzac, the French novelist, once said that behind every great fortune there is a crime. Sadly, in the U.S., this is more and more often the case. (By the way, Taibbi's latest Rolling Stone piece is called "Ripping off Young America: The College Loan Scandal." It shows again the same grifter dynamics at work. You can find it easily online.) Anyway, Griftopia is a great book. I enjoyed it immensely and recommend it to anyone who wants to get a better understanding about how things work.

Introducing Frank Karsten's... Democracy is Inherently Broken

Frank Karsten

Like the U.S., many democratic nations are suffering from permanently high unemployment, staggering public debts and budget deficits, and a deep economic recession. Although many people blame politicians for their problems, virtually no one ever considers blaming the democratic system for our woes. If you think about it, however, it's clear that it's the collectivist nature of democracy that has led us into this hole.

Over the last 150 years, government debts have grown inexorably. During that period, average government spending increased from 12% of GDP to a hefty 47% among major Western countries.
At the same time, the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations ballooned from one to a whopping 200 books. This shows that government interference into the private lives of individuals has mushroomed and that democracy is a danger to liberty.

These trends are not a coincidence. They are the logical result of the principles and dynamics of the democratic system. In a democracy, politicians experience a strong incentive to make debts and raise taxes. After all, they are in power for a short period of time and, therefore, tend to behave more like shortsighted tenants than responsible, future-oriented owners.

When they overspend, over borrow, or overprint money, their successors will have to deal with the negative consequences, and in their turn feel the same perverse impulse. Despite austerity rhetoric, government debts keep rising in most democratic countries. "Austerity" is a code word for "spending less than we had wanted, but more than in the past." In the end, they wind up raising taxes, rather than lowering expenditures to cut deficits.

Democracy is like going out to dinner with a group of people and deciding in advance to split the bill equally. If you order a nice $10 dessert, you pay only a fraction of the cost and the others pay the rest. So everyone will eat and drink more than they would have done if they had paid their own bill.
The result is a much higher total bill -- and no one will be in a position to do anything about it.

In a democracy, voters have the chance to put their personal desires on the collective tab. Welfare recipients demand higher welfare payments, parents want "free" education, farmers lobby for higher subsidies, and so on. Everyone tries to live at the expense of others. But in the end, almost everyone loses, just like the dinner companions in the example above.
The politician that promises the most, no matter how unrealistic, usually wins the elections.

If democracy has built-in perverse incentives, what would be the alternative? People tend to think that the only alternative to democracy is dictatorship. They're used to equating democracy with freedom. But this is nonsense.
Democracy is rule by "the people", i.e., the majority. The logical alternative to majority rule is self-rule. In other words, personal liberty. Instead of the government spending tax money and making decisions for people, individuals should spend their own money and make their own decisions.

Democracy is a form of collectivism in which the individual is subordinate to the wishes of the collective. It's a one-size-fits-none system in which billions of free individual choices are reduced to a small number of coercive decisions by politicians.
A much better alternative to such a centralized system would be to have many decentralized systems. This would create a market for governance where new types of government could be tried and tested, e.g., startup "countries" like Shenzhen and Dubai.

Getting back to the example of the dinner table: If people could split up into many different tables, the diners at each table would feel the negative effects of their spending much more strongly. Then the feedback mechanism would work far better. In addition, the tables would compete with each other, so tables spending irresponsibly would be quickly deserted. Thus, decentralization and competition would foster responsible behavior.

In the U.S. democratic system, one state or group can live at the expense of the other. In the European Union, one country can burden the other countries with their debts and the more frugal countries can't escape.
But Switzerland, geographically positioned in the center of the EU, was never part of this collective folly and suffers little from the economic crisis (their current unemployment rate is a modest 3.1%). The country must live within its own means, and others cannot spend at the expense of the Swiss.

The Swiss democracy itself is a very decentralized one. It consists of 26 regions known as cantons, or provinces, that on average have 300,000 inhabitants. These cantons enjoy remarkable autonomy, and they compete on matters like taxes, regulation, health care, and education. Because of that competition, people and businesses can not only vote with their pencils, but also with their feet. That fosters sensible governance, which has led to the prosperity and social stability the country is famous for.

Switzerland has a direct democracy at the federal, cantonal, and municipal level. One could, therefore, counter that this Alpine country offers an argument for more democracy. But its success seems to stem from its decentralized structure with relatively small units.
In governance, "small is beautiful." Of the 20 most prosperous regions in the world, many have fewer than 8 million inhabitants. A number of those, like Singapore, Hong Kong, Liechtenstein, and Monaco, are not typical liberal democracies.

The current economic crisis cannot be solved by more democracy, centralization, and government interference. There are currently only about 200 countries for 7 billion people. That is far too few. We need a better market for governance in which more countries compete for companies and people. This will drive down taxes and foster economic growth and social stability.

Democracy is broken because it's a collectivist system, like socialism and fascism. We have to break it up in order to fix it.


Peace, love and happiness...until next time!

Tidbits From The Web #103

“The U.S. government clearly sees the writing on the wall. What lays ahead for America is a day of unbearable reckoning. The financial collapse will wipe out savings accounts, pensions, investment funds and equities of the working class, all across the nation. Imagine bank accounts being reset to zero, “bank holidays” enforced at gunpoint. That will unleash a wave of violent protests, social chaos and even talk of revolution. The government will almost certainly respond with a declaration of Martial Law, the rolling out of highway checkpoints, and before long, the use of live ammo on unruly protesters.” 


"Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values."

- Ayn Rand in "Atlas Shrugged"

“The greatest single distinguishing feature of the omnipotence of God is that our imagination gets lost thinking about it.”

- Blaise Pascal  

 “Is there a greater tragedy imaginable than that, in our endeavour consciously to shape our future in accordance with high ideals, we should in fact unwittingly produce the very opposite of what we have been striving for?”

- Friedrich Hayek


“Gold was not selected arbitrarily by governments to be the monetary standard. Gold had developed for many centuries on the free market as the best money; as the commodity providing the most stable and desirable monetary medium.”

- Murray N. Rothbard


“I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting system though which God speaks to us every hour; if we still only tune in.”

- George Washington Carver

The Crossroads of Humanity...




Secret history of the Freemasons...




World War III is coming...




MYTH: Gun control reduces crime...

Human dubstep beatbox...
Square foot garden tour...
Gravity...  [NSFW]
Use your brain eat wisely...
Bill Cooper explains it all...
Living like a Hobbit...
Does death exist?
A friendly reminder...the Pope is probably the Anti-Christ...
Sandy Hook official story is full of question marks part III...
Dogs love baby bath time...
History of Nintendo...
I wanna be a billionaire so frickin' bad...
Why professional athletes go broke...
Things that you (and your doctors) should be asking...
Why are health care costs so absurdly high?
10 most awesome video game fan films...
The extraordinary science of junk food...
Healthy food is key...
How to fix Obamacare...
30 of history's greatest "conspiracy theories"...
Sandy Hook official story is full of question marks part IV...
Ommmmmmm...
Ergothioneine...a new vitamin?
Here comes the sun...doo doo doo doo...
Superfoods to have in your pantry...
Cat-friend vs. Dog-friend...
Willow glass...you are great!
Understanding pole shifts past and present...
Phi physics...
What gun control looks like...
8 animal misconceptions...
Police state...
Sandy Hook official story is full of question marks part V...
Why the DHS bought billions of ammo rounds...
Some cool birds you have ever seen...
Is the US becoming like Nazi Germany?
One of the greatest mysteries...the Ark of the Covenant...
Beware years ending in 13...
Thunder god vine wipes out cancer...
You say you want a revolution?
BP oil spill conspiracy...
Remove foods with additives to stave off disease...
Ancient Atlantic mariners?
What Big Pharma doesn't want you to know about natural healing...
10 online documentaries you can watch for FREE...
Ancient acoustic generator found in Peru...
It's beneficial when you have minimal dentistry involved...
Giant obelisk discovered in the Atlantic?
Combining your food for optimum health...
One World Government...
Sandy Hook official story is full of question marks part VI...
Going over The Deep End...



Physics interview that goes deep...

An ultra-light camper you can set up in an hour

A great alternative for anyone without a vehicle hefty enough to tow a traditional trailer, the Tail Feather's a sub-500lb modular camper that fits in the bed of a small pickup or on a modest utility trailer, and can be fully assembled in less than an hour using just a screwdriver, though presumably longer should you be doing so after a brunch full of them.

Find out what they've got going on inside right here...

 

A Spiritual Catch-22

Facing Reality

I’ve always known that we are spiritual beings having a human experience, yet I’ve never heard it described in such a thought provoking way.

Having a title like the one above opens the flood gates for a discussion of ‘What is Reality?’ There seems to be a consensus these days that reality is what you make of it. You, alone, determine how you are going to react to or view a situation. This is true, but there is a catch…a Catch-22 to be exact. If you have never read Heller’s book, Catch-22 was an air force rule that stated only insane pilots could not fly on bombing missions that not only put their lives in jeopardy but killed as many if not more civilians than strategic enemy targets and men. If a pilot refused to fly, which was proof the pilot was sane because he understood the situation and therefore could not be excused from the mission. If a pilot kept quiet and did not express his views about bombing missions, he was sent on them because he was not objecting to going. Either way the pilots were, to be polite, between a rock and a hard place.

Much the same can be said of life in the third dimension. We are souls having a human experience and to make this experience worthwhile we souls are given a human body and an ego in order to understand polarity and all things that we are not. How can we truly know what love is if we have never experienced hate? What light is without dark? Inside our 3-D selves is a blending of light and dark and we must to face that darkness within if we are to grow. Our souls have to sit back (no doubt often in horror) as they watch their human half struggle to overcome polarity in all forms without committing egregious acts.

One of the hardest things for a person to do once they have embarked on their spiritual path, is to admit they have a dark side. Their refusal amounts to hoping that, by ignoring their dark side, it will go away. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Our dark side is there to teach us who we are. This does not give us permission to go out and hurt others or commit horrendous acts. Rather it shows us the wide range of reactions we can have to different situations, reactions that run the gamut from breathtakingly beautiful to disgustingly bad. What must be remembered is that we should not be judged because we have such a wide range of reactions; they are part and parcel of life. These reactions occur inside us and are not made real until we act upon one of them. It is our choosing of how to act in relation to any given situation that determines our reality. If we choose to act from the heart and not from the darkness within then we will have much more enjoyable experience and, thereby, a much more enjoyable life, as will those with whom we interact.

Let this robot fix you a drink

Quite possibly the coolest robovention since the KURATAS, Bartendro's a party-friendly, counter-sized "precision cocktail-dispensing robot" that lets you select one of a number of boozy concoctions from a menu on your smartphone or tablet, before it automatically "mixes" and pours it directly into a cup via a series of booze-pumping tubes, which you may know more colloquially as "veins".

Keep reading to watch it do its thing...

Wearable artificial lung being developed to be a ‘PAAL’

With the support of a $3.4 million National Institutes of Health grant, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh are developing an artificial lung to serve as a bridge to transplant or recovery in patients with acute and chronic lung failure.

Each year, nearly 350,000 Americans die of some form of lung disease, with another 150,000 patients needing short- and long-term care. Unfortunately, current breathing-support technologies are cumbersome, often requiring patients to be bedridden and sedated.

FULL ARTICLE

Strange but True: Weird Home Remedies
That Really Work!

Dear Reader,


Today's newsletter has two purposes. First, during my more than 20 years as a practicing physician, I've collected many wonderful suggestions for home remedies from patients, other doctors, and friends. Today, I'd like to share several of them with you. Some of these remedies are simple, inexpensive fixes for things like the common cold that conventional medicine often cannot solve. Others are alternatives to commonly recommended medical treatments — such as the potentially harmful medication for toenail fungus — that can have toxic side effects that just aren't worth the risk.

My second goal today is to introduce you to the redesigned Newport Natural Health website. Not only does the site feature an improved search function to help you find information from earlier newsletters, but it also includes an area for comments by readers. I do hope you'll take advantage of that. You might want to tell others about a home remedy of your own or discuss how a supplement or other treatment worked for you. I would love to see the website become a forum where readers can exchange information, ask questions, and connect with one another. If enough people participate, we can develop a community where ideas and encouragement are freely exchanged for everyone's benefit.

Now, without further ado, let's take a look at some unusual — but effective — ways to deal with everyday complaints.

Blisters

My patient Alicia shared this unusual blister treatment, which several other people have also mentioned. Pour a small amount of Listerine on a cotton ball, and apply it to the blister 3 or 4 times a day. Doing this will kill germs and dry out the blistered area, helping ease the pain.

Bug Bites and Stings

This category has several interesting solutions.

•	Rub the inside of a banana peel on an itchy bug bite or painful sting to soothe itchiness and inflammation.
•	Treat fire-ant bites and/or stings (fire ants do both!) by rubbing the area with any antiperspirant that leaves a white, chalk-like residue on the skin. It prevents the painful sensation of being on fire.
•	Use an aluminum-containing roll-on deodorant on mosquito bites to relieve itching and swelling.
•	For a bee sting, remove the stinger quickly, either by pulling it out with a pair of tweezers or scraping it loose with a credit card or similar hard object. Then mix 1 teaspoon of meat tenderizer with just enough water to create a paste. Slather the paste on the sting, leave it there for 15 minutes, and rinse it off with plain water. If the sting is still red, place an ice pack on the skin for about 15 minutes.

Burns

We all get minor burns from time to time. Here are a couple home remedies to try.

•	Instead of using a special burn cream, apply a thin layer of ordinary toothpaste to the burned area. Bandage as you normally would. Clean the skin daily when you bathe, reapply toothpaste if necessary, and keep the burn covered while the skin heals.
•	Apply a thin layer of mustard to the burned skin. It may sting a bit at first, but the mustard eases pain and reduces the likelihood of blistering and scarring.

Chapped Lips

Treat dry, cracked lips with a layer of raw organic honey. The antibacterial properties of the honey help with healing.

Common Cold

Here's a method to help reduce the likelihood of getting a cold, and another helpful remedy for those who already have one.

•	To avoid getting a cold, simply gargle with plain water 3 times every day. This is one remedy that has science on its side. In 2005, researchers in Japan found that the 3 daily water gargles reduced colds by close to 40 percent!
•	If you have a cold, homemade chicken soup can boost your body's own immunity and combat inflammation. Adding a pinch of cayenne pepper can ease congestion.

Constipation and/or Diarrhea

Whether you'd like your bowel movements to be more (or less) frequent, here's one simple solution: apples or applesauce. Apples contain pectin, which softens stools. But apples can also help counteract diarrhea. If raw apples are not your favorite fruit, applesauce is a good substitute.

Coughs

Coughs are always annoying, especially when they keep you awake all night. Here are two things that can help.

•	Before going to bed, spread a thin layer of Vicks VapoRub on the soles of your feet, and then put on a pair of socks. I know it sounds strange, but everyone to whom I've recommended this has reported sleeping cough-free through the night.
•	For an effective homemade cough syrup, mix together the following ingredients:
	o 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper o 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger o 1 tablespoon honey o 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar o 2 tablespoons water
	Adults can take 1 to 3 teaspoons, as needed, to control coughing. Keep leftover cough syrup in a closed container.

Craving for Sweets

Stir 1 teaspoon of baking soda into 8 ounces of warm water. Rinse your mouth with the solution, but do not swallow. Your cravings will disappear for hours.

Excessive Perspiration

Here's an easy, nonchemical way to reduce heavy underarm sweating. Cut an ordinary potato (any type) in half and rub the cut side on your armpits. I'm not sure why this works, but many people report success with it.

Halitosis (Bad Breath)

Here are three easy ways to improve bad breath without using breath mints and sprays that often contain sugar, alcohol, or unhealthy sugar substitutes.

•	Bad breath is often due to excessive dryness in your mouth. Makecertain you're drinking lots of water, not only to moisten the tissue inside your mouth but also to remove any small bits of food that may be lodged between your teeth.
•	One of the easiest remedies for bad breath is eating a little plain yogurt, but be sure it does not contain sugar. The live bacteria in yogurt counteract the bacteria responsible for bad breath.
•	Keep a bunch of ordinary or Italian parsley on hand. Chewing parsley after eating can naturally freshen your breath and serve as a mini-toothbrush.

Headaches

I've received a lot of positive feedback on these three interesting ways to stop a garden-variety headache.

•	Tension headaches often occur from unconsciously clenching the jaw. Try holding a pencil gently between your teeth. This forces your jaw muscles to relax and eases the headache.
•	Another way to relieve headache pain is by pinching the spot between your thumb and index finger for up to a minute. You may have to pinch fairly hard, according to people who tell me this works.
•	Similarly, pinching the area between your upper lip and nose for 5 seconds can relieve a headache. It may take several pinches to get the full effect, but this method is reportedly very effective for stress or tension headaches.

Indigestion

If you're troubled by indigestion, try one of these home remedies.

•	Combine 1 teaspoon of lemon juice, 1 teaspoon of ginger juice, and 2 teaspoons of raw organic honey. Mix well, and drink it after a meal.
•	Or you can add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice to 1 cup of warm water, and drink it before a meal.
•	Combine 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda and 4 ounces of water for instant relief from heartburn, especially if it's due to eating a high-fat meal.

Intestinal Gas

Get rid of gas with one of these simple tricks.

•	Chew chopped-up bits of ginger root. If that's too spicy, try drinking a cup of ginger tea or taking 500 mg of a ginger supplement. Ginger is an excellent anti-inflammatory that's loaded with healing properties, so you'll be doing your overall health a favor, too.
•	Another solution is to take activated charcoal tablets, which absorb intestinal gas. You can find these supplements at most health-food stores. They can also help after you've eaten something iffy and aren't feeling well. Just follow the dosage instructions on the product you choose.

Leg Cramps

If you've ever been awakened by leg cramps during the night, you know how painful these can be. My patient Carl shared a simple remedy with me. It's a bit odd, but he and several others say it works well.

•	Place a bar of soap — wrapped or unwrapped — under the sheets near your legs, and say good-bye to leg cramps.
•	Another solution that some people find helpful is taking a potassium supplement (99 mg) before bed.

Lower Back or Foot Pain

A tennis ball is all you need to relieve lower back or foot pain. Use the tennis ball to massage and relax muscles that are deep and hard to reach or require a lot of pressure to loosen up. Just sit in a comfortable chair, put the tennis ball on the floor, and roll your foot or lower back over it, using as much pressure as feels good. You can also lean up against a wall or lie on the bed, put the tennis ball between your lower back and the wall or mattress, and roll around on it to relax those muscles. It's like a getting a massage without leaving home.

Splinters

My patient Jenny shared this clever trick for getting splinters to come out when they're deeply embedded and difficult to latch onto. "When I was little, I would run around on the back porch without wearing shoes, and I would get a lot of splinters," she explained. "When they were too deep to get with tweezers, my mom would tease them out with hydrogen peroxide. Just pour peroxide on the area where the splinter is located, and let the bubbles lift it toward the surface so that it's easier to pull out."

Sties

Sties are common and painful eye problems that trouble some people regularly. If you're one of them, try this: Warm a slice of raw potato, and hold it against the affected eye for a few minutes. Like a warm compress, it will draw out infection and ease inflammation and pain.

Stuffy Nose

Sinus infections and seasonal allergies are common this time of year. If you are suffering from a stuffy nose due to either one, try one of these remedies.

•

Irrigate your nasal passages with saltwater. You can buy premade saltwater nasal rinses at most pharmacies.

•

As an alternative, make your own saline rinse, using 1 teaspoon of non-iodized salt and a pint of lukewarm distilled or filtered water. Mix well to dissolve the salt. For inserting the solution into your nose, you will need to purchase a bulb syringe, usually found in the baby-products section of the store. To apply, fill the bulb syringe with solution, lean forward over the sink while tilting your head slightly backward, and gently squeeze the bulb to release the solution into your nose. Some experts recommend tilting your head to the side, but I find it easiest to tilt it backward — the choice is up to you. It may come out the other nostril or your mouth, which is perfectly normal. You can repeat the process several times daily. Some patients report that adding a teaspoon of baking soda or a few drops of baby shampoo to the saltwater makes it more effective. If you choose one of these options, be sure to mix the solution thoroughly before use.

Toenail Fungus

If you've ever had toenail fungus, you know how difficult it can be to treat. Many physicians prescribe oral medications, such as Lamisil or Sporanox, but those remedies can have very serious side effects, including liver damage and life-threatening allergic reactions. Here are two much safer ways to eliminate toenail fungus. Just remember that it can take months to heal infected toenails, so be consistent and persistent.

•	Apply a liberal layer of Vicks VapoRub to the infected toenails after bathing and before going to bed at night. You may want to wear a pair of thin socks to protect your sheets.
•	Alternatively, use tea tree oil, a natural antiseptic, in the same way as Vicks VapoRub, by applying it directly to the infected toenails. Tea tree oil, which can be purchased at most health-food stores, is fairly strong smelling, but it is effective if used twice daily.

Urinary Tract Infection

If you read my earlier newsletter on urinary tract infections, you know that I recommend treating them with a supplement called D-mannose rather than with overprescribed antibiotics. If you're uncomfortable while waiting for the D-mannose to provide relief, try drinking 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda mixed in 8 ounces of water. This will make your bladder less acidic, and it will also inhibit bacterial growth responsible for the infection. 

Home remedies can be highly effective, but like most things, what works for another person may not help you. So I encourage you to try various approaches to find one that fits.

This is a topic we'll be revisiting in the months ahead. If there's a remedy you'd like to share, please join me on Facebook, where you can leave a comment or just say "Hello!" I would love to hear from all my readers, including you.


Thrive in Health & Wellness,

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D.

The Daily Reckoning Presents

Zombie Nation By Bill Bonner

Creating and sustaining a nation of zombies is expensive. Large sections of the US population have been turned into zombies. Retirees. Medicare dependents. Food stamp recipients. Disabled people. They are not necessarily bad people. They are not necessarily dishonest or lazy. But rather than add to wealth, they consume it. And when you have too many of them, your society consumes more wealth than it produces and you are on the road to The Downside. But the feds are not only creating individual zombies, they are also creating corporate zombies. An obvious example: “green” energy. Without subsidies, loan guarantees, tax benefits and direct giveaways, the industry as we know it would not exist. Nor would the ethanol industry in the Midwest. Nor the security industry in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC. The financial industry too, as we know it, would not exist either. Much of it would have been swept away in the financial storm of 2008-09. That story is well-known, but not well understood. Most people believe the authorities acted heroically, saving the nation from a depression. But what the authorities really did was to take the public’s money and give it to cronies on Wall Street in order to prevent them from suffering the losses they deserved. The government transferred nearly $2 trillion in various forms from the public purse to the pockets of the financial industry. With that kind of backing, most of the old investment firms survived. The new ones that might have replaced them never saw the light of day. Industries need to be sustained by the government when they cannot sustain themselves. This is practically the definition of “malinvestment” — putting capital and energy into investments that don’t pay off. When an industry is only profitable with government backing it means that the industry uses resources — labor, energy, raw materials — and turns them into finished products that are worth less than the inputs required to make them. The more of these zombie industries the government supports, the poorer the society becomes. “Rentier” is a French word that has leaked into English. It doesn’t mean zombie literally, but it describes people who have found a way to exploit the system for their own benefit — people who have legal entitlements to income streams. In other words, “rentier” describes a class of folks who contribute absolutely nothing to national prosperity — zombies. Before the French Revolution, favored groups were able to secure special privileges and monopolies giving them the right to income. For example, the people from whom we bought our first house in France had a monopoly on the importation of tobacco from the New World. I don’t know who granted this monopoly, but typically it was the monarchy. And typically, such monopolies were given away either to appease a potential adversary or simply to raise cash for the crown by selling off a stream of future income. The French crown was always short of funds. It found it could raise substantial sums by selling the right to earn a “rent.” It might sell the right to collect tolls on a highway or a river, for example. Or it might sell the right to collect taxes (thereby getting its own tax revenue up-front and letting the rentier deal with the hazards of collection). Any official document needed an official stamp. Naturally, the crown sold off the right to stamp documents. If you wanted to make a business deal, buy or sell land, or get married, you had to pay the person with the stamp. Over time, the rentier class grew larger and harder to support. More and more of the kingdom’s energy went to support what was essentially a group of parasites who produced nothing. This is part of the explanation for the French Revolution. The system became so inefficient and was made so fragile by waste that a relatively minor setback — a couple years of bad harvests — caused widespread hunger and revolt. In modern, developed societies “rents” come in many forms. They are often granted to favored groups in exchange for political support. Old people vote, for example. Political parties seek their votes by promising ever-larger health and retirement benefits. Rich people make campaign contributions. Politicians typically grant them favors too. By the close of 2012, there were zombies everywhere. Throw a cream pie from almost any street-corner and you were almost certain to hit one in the face. If the street-corner were in Washington, DC, you’d probably hit two or three of them. A recent report in The Wall Street Journal confirmed that zombies don’t work very hard. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has been compiling detailed data on how people use their time. Researchers tracked how many hours people slept, ate, watched TV and worked. And guess what? They found that federal government employees put in 3.8 fewer 40-hour weeks than employees in the private sector. Here, the cost of zombification is clear: if the zombies were forced to work the same hours as people in the private sector, the government would save $130 billion a year. Meanwhile, over in the pentagon, R. Jeffrey Smith had his eye on the zombies too: Of the many facts that have come to light in the scandal involving former CIA director David H. Petraeus, among the most curious was that during his days as a four-star general, he was once escorted by 28 police motorcycles as he traveled from his Central Command headquarters in Tampa to socialite Jill Kelley’s mansion. Although most of his trips did not involve a presidential-size convoy, the scandal has prompted new scrutiny of the imperial trappings that come with a senior general’s lifestyle. The commanders who lead the nation’s military services and those who oversee troops around the world enjoy an array of perquisites befitting a billionaire, including executive jets, palatial homes, drivers, security guards and aides to carry their bags, press their uniforms and track their schedules in 10-minute increments. Their food is prepared by gourmet chefs. If they want music with their dinner parties, their staff can summon a string quartet or a choir. The elite regional commanders who preside over large swaths of the planet don’t have to settle for Gulfstream V jets. They each have a C-40, the military equivalent of a Boeing 737, some of which are configured with beds. And then, even after they retire...the zombies keep feeding off the productive sector: Updating a 2010 Boston Globe report that documented the practice, CREW found that over the last three years, 70 percent of the 108 three-and-four star generals and admirals who retired “took jobs with defense contractors or consultants.” As Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., put it during a 2009 hearing on Obama’s nomination of former Raytheon executive William Lynn to become the deputy secretary of defense, “it’s an incestuous business, what’s going on in terms of the defense contractors and the Pentagon and the highest levels of our military.” During the Presidential campaign, Mitt Romney mentioned that 47% of American households now receive some form of support from the government. In a better democracy, none of those people should vote. They all have a conflict of interest. They should admit that they find it difficult to separate their own personal interests from those of the nation and abstain from casting a ballot. Instead, they “vote their own pocketbooks” — usually coming down on the side of diverting more resources from the productive sector to their own personal consumption. The zombies corrupt the system. The march to Stalingrad continues. And the Downside takes over.

Peace, love and happiness...until next time...

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
	- George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright