Tag Archives: climate

| 100 Reasons to Reinvestigate 911! [14:29]

Posted on by
1

| 100 Reasons to Reinvestigate 911! [14:29] ~ Doc Truth, YouTube. 

* 400+ Professors Question the 9/11 Commission Report:

Many well known and respected professors have expressed significant criticism of the 9/11 Commission Report. Several even allege government complicity in the terrible acts of 9/11. This page of the website is a collection of their statements. The website does not represent any organization and it should be made clear that none of these individuals are affiliated with this website.

Listed below are statements by more than 400 professors that contradict or are critical of the 9/11 Commission Report. Their collective voices give credibility to the claim that the 9/11 Commission Report is tragically flawed.

These individuals cannot be simply dismissed as irresponsible believers in some 9/11 conspiracy theory. Their sincere concern, backed by their dedication to researching and teaching the truth about a wide variety of subjects, demonstrates that criticism of the Commission Report is not inherently irresponsible or illogical, and that, in fact, it can be just the opposite.

_______________________________________________________________________

91101tributeA

Related articles

| Student Rights group claims media ‘Mistakes’, conflation with extremism ‘Not the Fault’ of its gender segregation report!

Posted on by
1

Student Rights Group Claims Media ‘Mistakes’, Conflation with Extremism ‘Not the Fault’ of its Gender Segregation Report ~ , Freelance writer and researcher; doctoral candidate at the University of Bath researching the pro-Israel lobby, 

  • HuffPost Education.

 

Student Rights, a two-man group with a history of pressuring British universities to prevent certain individuals that it deems to be ‘extremists’ – frequently Muslims – from speaking to students on campus, has issued a statement in response to widespread criticism of its activities, including its most recent report on gender segregation. It contains several easily refutable arguments.

First, Student Rights claims that the fact that their study manufactured an impressive-sounding 25% figure by selecting a biased sample is ”rendered irrelevant by the fact that we made no attempt to extrapolate our data”. This is simply not true, as the conclusion to their report clearly asserts: “The fact that such a large percentage of the events logged by Student Rights during this time period either explicitly advertised events as segregated by gender or implied that this would be the case underlines claims that events highlighted are not ‘isolated incidents’ but rather form a part of a wider, discriminatory trend on UK university campuses” (p.17). If that’s not an attempt to extrapolate, what is?

Secondly, Student Rights makes the frankly bizarre claim that “at no point do we conflate the two issues” of gender segregation and extremism, elsewhere repeating this by saying “gender segregation and violent extremism are not something that we would link”. Strange, then, that when the Huffington Post asked Raheem Kassam, the director of Student Rights, how he responded to concerns that the group’s activities served only to demonise Muslim students, he said: “This report neither aims to, nor does it, demonise Muslim students, it seeks to protect them from extremism, in this case in the form of segregation.” Which sounds a lot like drawing a link between segregation and extremism, doesn’t it?

And stranger still the fact that each of the numerous media outlets who featured the reportdid so in stories with the word ‘extremists’ in the headline (except The Sun which went for ‘radical’ but nonetheless focused on the fact that supposedly ‘extremist speakers’ had spoken at universities). Because of its erroneous claim that it does not conflate segregation and extremism, Student Rights has been forced to blame the media for the coverage resulting from its report which the organisation admits contained “mistakes” and “inaccurate headlines”. They attempt to absolve themselves of responsibility though, saying: “those…who have an issue with inaccurate headlines should remember that for many media outlets the temptation to round up to the nearest exaggeration is often difficult to resist. This is not the fault of Student Rights”.

Firstly, excuse our pedantry. Perhaps we should lighten up. Student Rights clearly does not “have an issue” with inaccuracy since instead of seeking corrections or clarifications, they instead simply posted on their website about how much media coverage they had receivedand even their subsequent statement again brags about the report featuring on the front page of The Times. Secondly, it beggars belief that the conflation of this ‘research’ on segregation with the narrative of ‘extremism on campus’ was not invited by Student Rights. The sample for their study was 180 events featuring “speakers with a history of extreme or intolerant views, as well as those events which explicitly promote gender segregation” – an inexplicable choice unless some connection is being implied. Based on the relatively minor role that the segregation issue plays in much of the ‘extremism’-focused press coverage, and on Kassam’s clear characterisation of segregation as a ‘form of extremism’, belying the organisation’s denial that it conflates the two issues, it seems reasonable to ask whether the segregation report was in fact explicitly pitched as an ‘extremism story’.

This is not, however, to absolve the media outlets who ran these stories of their share of the blame. Nico Hines, the journalist who penned the front page story in The Times (‘Extremists preaching to students in Britain’, Monday 13 May 2013) to his credit at least responded to requests to comment via Twitter. However, initially he claimed that The Times did not misinterpret the report. This is not what Student Rights’ new statement implies. And, quite apart from the conflation of segregation and extremism, the second paragraph of Hines’ original article did falsely state: “Segregated seating for male and female students is understood to have been implemented for at least a quarter of the public meetings held by the Islamic societies at 21 universities.”

When this was pointed out, Hines acknowledged the error and said it had been “a typo” that was corrected in the second edition of the paper. The main correction appears to have been replacing the word ‘the’ with ‘those’ – arguably still open to misinterpretation. Sadly, Hines declined to say that the paper would print a correction or clarification, despite the fact that the error in the first edition will have grossly misled thousands on this highly sensitive issue and even though the second edition still lends that ‘one quarter’ figure a meaning and significance it does not deserve given the methodological flaws previously exposed. One wonders whether, without the “typo” in the original version, the story would have been front page news at all.

Finally, it is interesting to note that Student Rights say in their statement that they ‘have no problem with students choosing to self-segregate’. There was of course, no mention of this in their report which, critically, made no attempt to ascertain how many of the events they counted were in fact voluntarily segregated due to the mutually held religious convictions of all those present. They cite the wording of one Islamic society that apparently says it practices “a strict policy of segregated seating between males and females” and say that here “the issue of choice appears moot”. But a number of the other events in their report are said to have promised that “segregation will be provided to the best of our abilities”, implying that there may be a demand for this practice from members.

The point is that with the vast majority of these events we just do not know either way and Student Rights’ report did not bother to find out by asking students themselves – it simply condemned the practice outright. NUS Vice President for Welfare, Pete Mercer, has told the BBC that the National Union of Students is not aware of a single complaint made by a student to a university or students’ unions about gender segregation. So aside from the one anonymous quote Student Rights gives, it appears they may have manufactured a problem where none exists. Justifying their approach by reference to “rules that may not be codified but exist due to social pressure” is paternalistic in the extreme and denies that the women whose rights the group presents itself as defending can make up their own minds.

The real story here is that a right wing pressure group – a side-project of the neoconservative Henry Jackson Society - has found a ready market in the mainstream media for trumped up stories contributing to a climate of fear and suspicion concerning the UK’s 100,000 Muslim students. And the real story of students needing protection from extremism is buried in a passing mention on page 16 of Student Rights’ report, namely, the fact that some student Islamic societies have had to call off events for their own safety after “threats from far-right activists”. As the Institute of Race Relations has noted, the racist street movement Casuals United have picked up on some of Student Rights alerts about ‘extremist’ speakers and threatened to ‘disrupt’ student events at the universities of Exeter, Nottingham and Reading, causing events to be cancelled. At Reading, members of the English Defence League even came onto campus. Kassam’s organisation did at least issue a clear statement condemning the threat of violence from the far right. Nonetheless, it seems likely that many students would, ironically, celebrate to see ‘Student Rights’ throw in the towel while few would shed a tear to see them gone.

__________________________________________________________________

Mushroom 3 

StudentRightsBS

Propaganda Dummies1

| Health Myths: 7 Medical Misconceptions Exposed!

Posted on by
Reply

Health Myths: 7 Medical Misconceptions Exposed ~ Corrie Pikul, 

These are the myths and misconceptions that drive doctors crazy (and could affect your health). Let’s clear them up — once and for all.

1. Makeup with SPF is just as good as sunscreen.

Women tend to be (justifiably) wary of caking on makeup, but this means they rarely put on the amount of sunscreen-enhanced foundation, tinted-moisturizer or lipstick required to protect their skin from the sun, explains Justin Piasecki, MD, a plastic surgeon and the founder of the Skin Cancer Center in Gig Harbor, Washington. They also neglect to reapply the products every two to three hours, which is the amount of time Piasecki says it takes for any sunscreen to wear or rub off, and for the sun’s UV rays to deactivate its protective ability. This is why makeup with SPF can be 14 times less effective than sunscreen. Piasecki says that at least one-third of skin cancers occur above the neck, so he recommends wearing sunscreen with UVA/UVB protection under your makeup every day and carrying a travel-size sunscreen in your purse so you can reapply it when you’re outside.

2. Drinking milk will make your runny nose worse.

“I have patients who swear that milk makes them produce more mucous,” saysJennifer Collins, MD, an assistant professor and a physician specializing in allergy, asthma and immunology at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary. However, she hasn’t been able to find any good research to support that — and neither have other doctors. In fact, when Australian researchers went so far as to collect and weigh the nasal secretions of 60 volunteers inoculated with the common-cold virus, they foundno association between milk intake and mucous production. Scientists think that drinking milk may remind some people of the consistency of mucous or may coat their throat in a way that makes them think they’re feeling more phlegm. Collins notes that drinking milk fortified with vitamin D can help boost your energy, spur cell growth and help keep your immune system working optimally. Those who are firmly anti-milk (for whatever reason) can get their vitamin D from fish like swordfish, salmon and tuna, or from fortified orange juice or cereal.

3. A sprinkle of talcum powder a day will keep moisture away.

Baby powder (or scented talcum powder) can be easily inhaled into the lungs and, worse, has been linked to cancer. Harvard researchers recently found that postmenopausal women who use talcum powder in their genital area just once a week increase their risk of developing endometrial cancerby 24 percent. Another Harvard study found a strong link between talcum powder use and ovarian cancer (it can increase the risk of developing the cancer by up to 40 percent). In general, family doctors have stopped recommending that women use talcum powder to absorb wetness. Stick to preventative measures like wearing breathable cotton underwear and rinsing regularly with warm water.

4. Topical antibiotics should be your go-to for minor cuts and wounds.

Many of us automatically reach for neomycin (one of the active ingredients in ointments like Neosporin) whenever we have a cut or scrape. But constantly exposing the skin to neomycin can lead to an allergic reaction over time, says Reid Blackwelder, MD, a professor of family medicine at East Tennessee State University who sits on the board of directors of the American Academy of Family Physicians. “People will then use the ointment and assume the resulting redness comes from the wound, when it’s actually the neomycin affecting their skin.” Some studies have also suggested the widespread use of OTC ointments with neomycin, polymyxin or bacitracin may contribute to the development of resistant bacteria, says Blackwelder. For minor wounds like hangnails, shaving cuts and paring-knife nicks, he suggests using soap and water to clean and disinfect the area. If you think the area is infected, talk to your doctor.

5. Vaccines can cause developmental disorders in children.

This remains a hotly debated issue, despite being debunked in multiple large studies. And now the United Kingdom is dealing with a serious outbreak of measles partly as a result of the large number of children who were not inoculated against the diseaseduring the MMR vaccine scare of the early 2000s. Measles, mumps and rubella are still relatively uncommon in the United States, but there has been an uptick in recent years. The United Kingdom has launched a massive, expensive catch-up campaign to quickly vaccinate as many children as possible, and our Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to stress the importance of making sure that you and the children in your life are vaccinated.

6. Eating a lot of carrots can save your failing vision.

Vitamin A is essential for good vision – no one’s refuting that — but you only need a small amount. One half-cup of raw carrots will provide you with 184 percent of the recommended daily value. An excessive amount of beta carotene, the compound in carrots that’s converted to vitamin A, can not only make your skin turn orange, but studies show it has also been associated with an increased risk of lung cancer in some people. So enjoy the crudité, but if you worry that your eyesight is failing, make an appointment with an optometrist or an eye doctor.

7. You can catch a cold from not bundling up in cold weather.

Not necessarily, Collins says. Viruses do tend to be more active in cold weather, but a down coat won’t protect you if you’re run-down and haven’t been taking care of yourself. She says that you can catch a cold from staying inside in cold weather, especially if there are lots of other people around. Here’s why: When it gets chilly outside, we tend to crowd indoors and crank up the heat. Collins explains that this causes the mucous membranes inside our nose to become dry and cracked, making us even more vulnerable to germs being passed around by family members, friends and coworkers. Collins adds that regularly exercising outdoors has a protective effect on our immunity, even when the weather outside is frightful. Just be sure to wear the right layers: Dress as if it’s 10 degrees warmer than it is (you’ll feel chilly to start, and comfortable after about five to ten minutes of moderate intensity).

As a reminder, always consult your doctor for medical advice and treatment before starting any program.

____________________________________________________________________

sheepo11

 

Related articles

| Russia’s Mediterranean Task Force to include Nuclear Subs – Navy Chief!

Posted on by
2

Russia’s Mediterranean Task Force to Include Nuclear Subs – Navy Chief ~ RIA Novosti.

MOSCOW, May 12 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s Mediterranean task force will comprise 5-6 warships and may be enlarged to include nuclear submarines, Navy Commander Adm. Viktor Chirkov said on Sunday.

“Overall, already from this year, we plan to have 5-6 warships and support vessels [in the Mediterranean Sea], which will be replaced on a rotating basis from each of the fleets – the Black Sea, Baltic, Northern and, in some cases, even thePacific Fleet. Depending on the scope of assignments and their complexity, the number of warships in the task force may be increased,” Chirkov told RIA Novosti.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu earlier said a decision to deploy a permanent task force in the Mediterranean to defend Russia’s interests in the area had been made.

The Russian navy commander also said nuclear submarines could be deployed in the Mediterranean, if necessary.

“Possibly. In a perspective. They [submarines] were present there during the existence of the 5th squadron. There were both nuclear and diesel submarines there. Everything will depend on the situation,” he said.

The Soviet Union maintained its 5th Mediterranean Squadron in that sea from 1967 until 1992. It was formed to counter the US Navy 6th Fleet during the Cold War, and consisted of 30-50 warships and auxiliary vessels at different times.

Russia also plans to use its Mediterranean task force for missions in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, the country’s Navy chief said.

“No doubt, if necessary, when some tasks arise in other nearby regions, in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, the task force may be used,” Chirkov said.

Russian Subs

Now the Russian Navy is training officers who will perform their duties at sea on a permanent basis, he said.

“These persons must be comprehensively trained to solve tasks not only in the Mediterranean but also in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans,” he said.

The headquarters of Russia’s Mediterranean taskforce will be set up already in the summer of 2013, he said.

“The headquarters will be established in the summer of this year and its officers will stay aboard one of the flagships in the Mediterranean Sea,” he said.

Related News

 

Multimedia

Russian missile cruiser Varyag

Russian missile cruiser Varyag

_________________________________________________________________________

Related articles

| We’ve hit the Carbon Level we were warned about. Here’s what that means!

Posted on by
Reply

We’ve Hit the Carbon Level We Were Warned About. Here’s What That Means. ~ Text by James West and Tim McDonnell; Interactive by Duncan Clark, Mother Jones.

A monitor in Hawaii registered 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere, higher than ever above the “safe” 350 ppm level.

This interactive explainer originally appeared on the Guardian website and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Over the last couple weeks, scientists and environmentalists have been keeping a particularly close eye on the Hawaii-based monitoring station that tracks how much carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere, as the count tiptoed closer to a record-smashing 400 parts per million. Thursday, we finally got there: The daily mean concentration was higher than at any time in human history, NOAA reported Friday.

Don’t worry: The earth is not about to go up in a ball of flame. The 400 ppm mark is only a milestone, 50 ppm over what legendary NASA scientist James Hansen has since 1988 called the safe zone for avoiding the worst impacts of climate change, and yet only halfway to what the IPCC predicts we’ll reach by the end of the century.

“Somehow in the last 50 ppm we melted the Arctic,” said environmentalist and founder of activist group 350.org Bill McKibben, who called today’s news a “grim but predictable milestone” and has long used the symbolic number as a rallying call for climate action. “We’ll see what happens in the next 50.”

We could find out soon enough: With the East Coast still recovering from Superstorm Sandy and the West gearing up for what promises to be a nasty fire season, University of California ecologist Max Moritz says milestones like these are “an excuse for us to take a good hard look at where we are,” especially as the carbon concentration shows no signs of reversing course.

Scientists first saw the carbon scale tip past 400 ppm last summer, but only briefly; the record reported today by NOAA is the first time a daily average has surpassed that point. For the last several years concentrations have hovered in the 390s, and we’re still not to the point where the carbon concentration will stay above the 400 ppm threshold permanently. But that’s just around the corner, said J. Marshall Shepherd, president of the American Meteorological Society.

“It’s clear that sometime next year we’ll see 400 consistently,” he said. “Avoiding the future warming will require a large and rapid reduction in greenhouse gases.”

Most scientists, environmentalists, and climate-conscious policymakers agree this will require, at a minimum, slashing the use of fossil fuels, and in the meantime, taking steps to adapt for a world with higher temperatures, higher seas, and more extreme weather. For example, according to Hansen, the world will need to completely stop burning coal by 2030 if returning to 350 ppm is to remain possible. What’s the holdup? Texas Tech climatologist Katherine Hayhoe blames “the inertia of our economic system, and the inertia of our political system.” But she, like most of her peers, believe it can—and must—be done: “We have to change how we get our energy and how we use our energy.”

This interactive explainer originally appeared on the Guardian website and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

________________________________________________________________

CO2-variations hg

CO2-variations hg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Related articles
The Keeling Curve of atmospheric CO 2 concentr...

The Keeling Curve of atmospheric CO 2 concentrations measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

| Gore is Romney – Rich with $200 Million after Bush Defeat!

Posted on by
Reply

Gore Is Romney-Rich With $200 Million After Bush Defeat ~ Ken Wells & Ari Levy, BLOOMBERG.

In 1999, Al Gore, then U.S. vice president and a Democratic candidate for president, sold $6,000 worth of cows.

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore speaks during an interview at the annual Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills on April 30, 2013. Photographer: Jonathan Alcorn/Bloomberg

Al Gore on U.S. Democracy, Climate Change, Clinton

April 30 (Bloomberg) — Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore talks about the state of American democracy, global climate change and the likelihood that Hillary Clinton will run for president in 2016. He speaks with Willow Bay at the Milken Institute 2013 Global Conference in Los Angeles on Bloomberg Television’s “Taking Stock.” (Source: Bloomberg)

In January, the Current TV network, which Al Gore helped to start in 2004, was sold to Qatari-owned Al Jazeera Satellite Network for about $500 million. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

The former senator, who spent most of his working life in Congress, had a net worth of about $1.7 million and assets that included pasture rents from a family farm and royalties from a zinc mine, remnants of his rural roots in Carthage, Tennessee. Funds from the cattle sale went to three of his kids, according to federal disclosure forms filed as part of his presidential run.

Fourteen years later, he made an estimated $100 million in a single month. In January, the Current TV network, which he helped to start in 2004, was sold to Qatari-owned Al JazeeraSatellite Network for about $500 million. After debt, he grossed an estimated $70 million for his 20 percent stake, according to people familiar with the transaction.

Two weeks later, Gore exercised options, at $7.48 a share, on 59,000 shares of Apple Inc. stock that he’d been granted for serving on the Cupertino, California-based company’s board since 2003. On paper, it was about a $30 million payday based on the company’s share price on the day he claimed the options.

That’s a pretty good January for a guy who couldn’t yet call himself a multimillionaire when he briefly slipped from public life after his bitterly contested presidential election loss to George W. Bush in late 2000, based on 1999 and 2000 disclosure forms.

Gore isn’t finished exercising his Apple stock grants. Those 59,000 are part of 101,358 Apple options and shares of restricted stock Gore has amassed, according to company filings, giving his total holdings a gross value of more than $45.6 million today.

Nobel Prize

Albert Arnold Gore Jr., 65, is a lot of things to a lot of people. Among friends and fans, he’s the progressive Democrat who should have been president, visionary author and Internet prophet, the man who more than anyone drove climate changeto the center of public consciousness.

Detractors see Gore as a limousine liberal, tiresome pedant and climate alarmist who lives a jet-setting, carbon-profligate lifestyle while preaching asceticism for everyone else.

His work and writing on global warming have earned him a share of a Nobel Prize as well as a South Park cartoon parody in which he tries to scare school kids to his beliefs with a fictitious global-warming surrogate monster known as ManBearPig.

Whatever you think of Gore, one thing is indisputable: leveraging his aura as a technology seer and his political and climate work connections, Gore has remade himself into a wealthy businessman, amassing a fortune that may exceed $200 million.

Romney Wealth

That’s close to the $250 million net worth of 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, whom President Barack Obama and Democrats targeted in ads and speeches as being out of touch with most Americans.

Gore declined to be interviewed for this story. Estimates of his wealth are based on company filings, government records, public pronouncements he or his associates have made about past business dealings and interviews with people in a position to know of and evaluate Gore’s holdings.

How Gore achieved this is as much about timing and luck as it is about business skills. His Apple board tenure has coincided with a 5,900 percent increase in its stock price. Current TV was a moribund “fixer-upper” when Al Jazeera stepped in to buy it at “a huge valuation,” said Derek Baine, an SNL Kagan cable analyst in Monterey, California.

Gore also had his share of flubs, most of them in his efforts at green-tech investing. An investment firm he helped to start took stakes in two carbon-trading firms that fizzled and also racked up tens of millions in losses in a solar-module maker.

Diving In

The wealth accumulation attests to Gore’s ability, particularly among technology companies and rich political progressives, to attract moneyed and skilled people to do deals with him or seek his paid counsel.

This may be in part because Gore, by reputation, shuns figurehead appointments for real ones. One example: At Apple’s request, he dove into an options backdating scandal, which predated his arrival, chairing a 2006 committee that recommended revisions to company policies.

“It doesn’t surprise me,” Reed Hundt, a Gore high-school friend, said of his business success.

Hundt, whom Gore helped get appointed to run Bill Clinton’s Federal Communications Commission in 1993, didn’t detect a business gene in young Al back in their days at Washington’s private St. Albans School.

Gore went on to graduate with a degree in government from Harvard University, dabble in journalism and study but never graduate from law school at Vanderbilt University. Instead, he quit to run for public office.

‘Going Places’

Still, says Hundt, “it was clear that Al was smart and was going places.”

Gore hasn’t tried to hide his prosperity. Back in 2000, about $750,000 of his net worth was tied to two homes he and his then-wife Tipper owned in Virginia and Tennessee.

Most of the rest had been recently inherited, including an undisclosed number of shares of Occidental Petroleum Corp. left to him by his late father, Senator Albert Gore Sr., and valued at between $500,000 and $1 million, according to disclosure forms.

He’s moved up the housing ladder since then. He owns a 20-room, 10,000-square-foot antebellum mansion in Nashville’s wealthy Belle Meade neighborhood that’s mostly shrouded from view by a thicket of Southern foliage and a massive iron gate. In 2010 — weeks before the Gores announced they were dissolving their 40-year marriage — he purchased an oceanfront six-bedroom, $8.9 million villa in Montecito, California, where Oprah Winfrey and Kirk Douglas have lived.

Utility Bill

It isn’t clear how the divorce affects Gore’s net worth. No settlement has ever been published and Betsy McManus, Al Gore’s director of communications, declined to comment on it.

Such lavish living isn’t lost on Gore’s critics. In 2007, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, using a public records request, published Gore’s Nashville home utility bill, showing it used almost 221,000 kilowatt-hours in 2006 — 20 times the national average household consumption. Gore’s people dismissed the revelation.

His ascent into America’s 1 percent happened quickly. After losing to Bush, he had enough wealth by March 2008 to put $35 million into hedge funds and private partnerships through Capricorn Investment Group, a Palo Alto, California-based company, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission documents.

The investment company was founded by his buddy, Canadian billionaire Jeffrey Skoll, who amassed a large part of his fortune in shares he was awarded as the first president of EBay Inc.

Book Profits

His best-selling climate books, “Earth in the Balance,” “An Inconvenient Truth” and “The Assault on Reason,” haven’t contributed to his wealth. Gore has long pledged any book and film money to his nonprofit, the Climate Reality Project, created in 2011 from two advocacy groups Gore founded a year earlier.

By the time of the Capricorn investment, he was already starting to rake in cash from Generation Investment Management – - a fund that incorporates “sustainability” into its investment approach. Gore co-founded GIM in 2004 with former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Managing Director David W. Blood.

Public filings show that in 2008 through 2011 London-based GIM racked up almost 140 million pounds ($218 million) in profits to be split among its 26 partners.

Gore and Blood as founders are thought to have the largest equity stakes. GIM doesn’t disclose partnership equity or how the partners split profits, said Richard Campbell, a spokesman.

Prosperous Enterprises

Gore had a string of connections and invitations to join what would turn out to be prosperous enterprises. Skoll’s Participant Media produced the 2006 Oscar-winning documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” based on Gore’s climate work. The movie was pivotal in helping him win his share of the 2007 Nobel and claim speaker fees at $175,000 a pop.

Prior to being invited to join Apple’s board, Gore was tapped as a senior adviser to Google Inc. (GOOG) before its 2004 initial public offering and at a time when it was not yet a household word. Google won’t discuss his duties or compensation though some in Silicon Valley believe his pay there may be as rich as his Apple remuneration, which that company is required to disclose because he’s a director.

Kleiner Perkins

Blood joined with Gore after he was among the original 221 Goldman partners who got shares in that company’s 1999 IPO. Blood’s 0.66 percent stake, based on valuations at the time, was thought to be worth about $100 million.

Blood lived with his family in Brazil as a youngster and has said he was distressed by the extreme poverty there. Gore’s notion of “sustainable capitalism” appealed to Blood, who also declined to be interviewed for this story.

In November 2007, GIM announced a partnership with Silicon Valley venture capital companyKleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, to join its green-investing efforts. The goal, according to a joint press release at the time, was to create “a global collaboration to find, fund and accelerate green business, technology and policy solutions with the greatest potential to help solve the current climate crisis.”

Gore was made a partner at Kleiner Perkins and John Doerr, an early investor in Amazon.com Inc., Intuit Inc. and Google, joined GIM’s advisory board. At Kleiner Perkins, Gore helps with investment strategies and selectively advises companies but doesn’t lead deals or take board seats on startups the firm invests in. Kleiner Perkins declined to discuss his compensation.

Green Blemishes

Investing on behalf of its clients, GIM has put $50 million to $100 million in KPCB’s $1 billion green growth fund, according to two people with knowledge of the amount who asked not to be identified because they aren’t authorized to speak about it.

While Kleiner Perkins doesn’t publish fund results, its green fund hasn’t had unblemished success.

Along with potential winners like Bloom Energy, a fuel-cell maker, and Nest Labs Inc., a thermostat company, Kleiner Perkins also backed Miasole Inc., a solar-panel maker that was bought for a reported $30 million after raising at least $494 million from investors, and Fisker Automotive Inc., the electric-car maker that fired three-quarters of its staff last month.

Well Versed

Gore earns his keep in Silicon Valley beyond simply attending the annual holiday party. He’s made himself available to a number of technology companies that got startup help from Kleiner Perkins. Andrew Fisher, chairman of Shazam Entertainment Ltd., a mobile music app maker backed by Kleiner Perkins, said Gore flew to London two years ago and agreed to be interviewed on stage in front of about 200 company employees and business partners.

Gore’s preparation was first rate and it was clear that “he’s tremendously well-versed” in Kleiner Perkins’s investments, Fisher said. At the presentation, “he talked about his work around the environment, leadership in small companies, decision making, sitting on the board of Apple. People were fascinated with his insight.”

Gore paid a similar visit last year to a recycling plant in Vancouver run by Harvest Power Inc., one of Kleiner Perkins’s clean-tech companies.

Shopkick Visit

Eric Feng, former Hulu LLC chief technology officer and ex-Kleiner Perkins employee, described Gore as an energized and active participant in investment decisions who is “very well-respected among the partners.” He’s regularly asked for feedback on investments and is considered “a very valuable resource,” Feng said.

Shopkick Inc. Chief Executive Officer and co-founder Cyriac Roeding met Gore about two years ago at Kleiner Perkins. As a guru on climate change, Roeding figured Gore was unlikely to have much interest in Shopkick’s technology, which helps retailers target customers with discounts.

“I took a photo with him because I thought I’d never see him again,” Roeding says.

He was wrong. In February 2012, Gore joined Roeding at the Village Pub in Silicon Valley — the same place where Mark Zuckerberg was famously courted by Accel Partners’ Jim Breyer – for an intimate event with about 35 executives from top retailers like Macy’s Inc., Crate & Barrel and Target Corp. In a fireside chat, Gore answered every question Roeding threw his way and showed a deep knowledge of Shopkick’s market.

Internet Invention

“I had not planned on talking about Shopkick, but he just kept coming back to it,” Roeding says. “He talked about how the future of the physical world is converging with the digital world.”

They love Al Gore in Silicon Valley and why shouldn’t they? Gore never claimed, as some conservative critics have asserted, to have invented the Internet.

Still, as a Tennessee congressman and senator, he was the first national politician to see how personal computers connected to a system he popularized as the “information superhighway” would radically change the social and commercial landscape of the U.S. and the world.

He drafted the Performance Computing Act of 1991, often called the Gore Bill, which led to funding to build the system that later became the Internet.

Luck and Timing

None of this was lost on Apple when, in March 2003, Steve Jobs personally asked Gore to join the board. An Apple press release about the appointment was a techie love fest. “Al is an avid Mac user and does his own video editing in Final Cut Pro,” Jobs said.

Apple was trading at about $7.50 a share when Gore accepted the Apple board seat. The company’s stock closed at $449.98 on May 3 in New York. The escalation of his options alone would have made him rich.

Gore’s profiting from the Al Jazeera sale is another example of luck, timing or both. Gore and partners that included Los Angeles billionaire Ron Burkle, Hyatt Legal Services founder Joel Hyatt and San Francisco money manager Richard Blum bought the predecessor company for $70 million in 2004.

Re-launched as Current TV, Gore said at the time he wanted to create a “transformational” network. It would, like YouTube, thrive on youthful viewer input, be an antidote to Fox News and a liberal competitor to MSNBC.

Olbermann Suit

Instead, Current failed to make much of an impact at all while Gore was paying himself $1.2 million a year in salary and bonuses, according to 2008 SEC documents filed as part of a proposed public offering that was later withdrawn. Meanwhile, Time Warner Cable Inc., which carried the network and accounted for about 9 million of its subscribers, made noises about dropping Current from its listings along with other “low-rated” networks.

In 2011, Current attempted to remake itself by bringing in Keith Olbermann, the former anchor of MSNBC’s Countdown program. The relationship quickly devolved into a public relations disaster. Olbermann, who had signed what was reported to be a five-year, $50 million contract, was fired in March 2012. Accusations and lawsuits flew.

Current, in an April 6, 2012, breach-of-contract suit in Los Angeles County Superior Court, accused Olbermann of waging a campaign to “undermine” the network by, among other things, taking unauthorized days off, leaking the terms of his contract to the media and failing to lead Current’s 2012 primary election coverage as he was asked to do.

‘Immediate Interest’

Olbermann, in his own lawsuit, painted an ugly picture of the Gore-anointed management team. Current, while promising to deliver “a high-caliber political commentary show,” turned out to be amateur hour with Gore and co-founder Hyatt “no more than dilettantes portraying entertainment industry executives.”

Olbermann had asked the court to award him as much as $70 million. The two parties reached a settlement in March for terms that weren’t disclosed.

The sale to Al Jazeera drew a lawsuit from media consultant John Terenzio who said putting the two networks in touch was his idea and he’s owed money.

Terenzio said he sent an intermediary to see Current investor Richard Blum under a supposition that “in light of Current’s well-publicized financial woes, its principals might be interested in selling the struggling network.”

Blum, according to the lawsuit, “expressed immediate interest” in hearing Terenzio’s proposal, explaining that “he and other Current investors were concerned about the prospect of losing their shirt in financially troubled Current.” Blum, Al Jazeera and Current declined to comment on the lawsuit.

‘Mogul Al’

The transaction also raised eyebrows because Gore, who has for years inveighed against fossil fuels and their role in climate change, sold the network to a company funded in part by oil-rich Qatar. Jon Stewart, host of the Daily Show television program, asked in January, “Can mogul Al Gore coexist with activist Al Gore?”

Gore defended the sale on the grounds that, among other things, Al Jazeera has “the highest quality, most extensive, best climate coverage of any network in the world.” It’s a position Gore’s been forced to defend repeatedly along the tour for his latest book “The Future: the Six Drivers of Global Change.”

Cable TV analysts, meanwhile, were abuzz over the $500 million payout. Current had been seeking buyers for a while, aware that Time Warner might soon pull the plug, but had not found any takers until Al Jazeera stepped forward.

‘High Price’

“It seems like a really high price to me,” SNL’s Baine said. “It’s hard to sell a fixer-upper. From the beginning Current had a programming strategy that hadn’t worked and they changed it over and over and it still didn’t work. Honestly, not a lot of people had ever heard of it.”

Al Jazeera might have been desperate enough to get into the U.S. market to pay that kind of a premium since it’s still cheaper to buy a network than it is to build one from scratch, he said.

“To be locked out of one of the world’s biggest markets is a problem for them,” Blaine said. Al Jazeera, while declining to comment on the price, has said it intends to hire about 100 journalists in New York and Washington for its rebranded channel.

The deal had no sooner been announced than Time Warner Cable said it was in fact pulling the plug on Current “as quickly as possible” and wouldn’t carry the rebranded Al Jazeera channel over its U.S. distribution system.

Meanwhile, Gore’s “sustainable” GIM investing company has seen its philosophy of buying stocks and holding for the long term tested at times.

Blood and Gore

Blood and Gore, as the company is sometimes known, eschews “the dominance of short-termism in the market” which “fosters general market instability and undermines the efforts of executives seeking long-term value creation,” the two men wrote in an 2011 op-end in the Wall Street Journal.

GIM’s roster of publicly traded U.S. holdings include successful, albeit not particularly green, companies like Amazon, EBay, Procter & Gamble Co. and Colgate-Palmolive Co. A few of the others would count in GIM parlance as green or at least sustainable investments, such as Solarcity Corp., a rooftop solar installer, and Blackbaud Inc., a software maker that helps nonprofits raise money.

Green Investing

GIM has assets under management of about $8.5 billion. Its investment strategy and returns have been impressive enough that Britain’s Environment Agency asked it to manage 7.2 percent of its 1.6 billion-pound investment portfolio through 2014. That’s up from 4.8 percent in 2009, according to documents filed with Britain’s securities regulator.

At times the company’s green investing approach hasn’t worked. In 2008, with optimism that a Democrat-controlled Congress would establish carbon controls and an international climate treaty would be extended, GIM bought a 9.6 percent stake, in Camco International Ltd., a manager of projects that reduce greenhouse gases.

By early 2010, GIM had upped its stake in the company now known as Camco Clean Energy Plc to 18.6 percent, according to documents. By October of that year, with Republicans in the House saying no to climate legislation and Kyoto Protocol talks stalled, shares in Camco were taking a beating. GIM dumped its stake. Neither company would comment on GIM’s actions.

Climate Exchange

In another instance, GIM took a 10 percent stake in the Chicago Climate Exchange, set up in 2003 by former derivatives guru Richard Sandor to take advantage of what the exchange’s founders hoped would be a government-mandated price on carbon. The exchange ran into the same headwinds as Camco and was sold to Atlanta-based IntercontinentalExchange Inc. in May 2010 for $581 million. It was later shut as carbon prices fell to all-time lows.

GIM would only say that neither Camco nor Chicago Climate Exchange were profitable investments.

If emissions limits had been approved by Congress, both Camco and the exchange stood to rake in huge profits, said Dan Kish, vice president for policy with the Washington-based Institute for Energy Research, which gets funding from oil and natural gas companies.

“Al Gore is like the preacher touting his moral purity and superiority,” Kish said. “Yet it turns out that heeding his preachings is directly linked to his financial interests.”

Besides its losing investments in Camco and Chicago Climate Exchange, GIM also bailed out of First Solar Inc., a solar-panel maker that, like bankrupt Solyndra LLC, got squeezed when cheap Chinese supplies began hitting the market in late 2010.

Democracy ‘Hacked’

According to SEC filings, GIM first began buying First Solar at $113 a share in the third quarter of 2010. GIM continued its buying for several more quarters even as the shares lost luster. When it was clear First Solar was truly tanking, GIM dumped its last lot in the second quarter of 2012.

It’s accumulated loss was $165.9 million, according to a Bloomberg calculation based on SEC filings.

Gore said in a May 1 interview with Bloomberg Television that American democracy has been “hacked” by the influence of money in politics and that he hopes activist investors will continue to exert influence on corporations globally to act in a responsible way.

During a 2009 House hearing, Tennessee Republican Representative Marsha Blackburn tackled Gore on the issue of whether he had become a “climate profiteer” by betting on companies that might hugely benefit from his advocacy. Gore’s response: “Congresswoman, if you believe that the reason I have been working on this issue for 30 years is because of greed, you don’t know me.”

_____________________________________________________________________

QuestionMarkA

Related articles

Brainless3

| Multiple waves of migration revealed in first detailed genetic history of Europe!

Posted on by
1

Modern Europe’s Genetic History Starts in Stone Age ~ Ker Than, for National Geographic News.

Scientists create the first detailed genetic history of modern Europe.

Young men in Breisgau, Germany, in the 1920s.

A group of men from the German-based Breisgau corps pose for a picture in the 1920s. Photograph by Hans Hildenbrand, National Geographic

Europeans as a people are younger than we thought, a new study suggests.

DNA recovered from ancient skeletons reveals that the genetic makeup of modern Europe was established around 4,500 B.C. in the mid-Neolithic—or 6,500 years ago—and not by the first farmers who arrived in the area around 7,500 years ago or by earlier hunter-gatherer groups. (Read about Europe‘s oldest known town.)

“The genetics show that something around that point caused the genetic signatures of previous populations to disappear,” said Alan Cooper, director of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA at the University of Adelaide, where the research was performed.

“However, we don’t know what happened or why, and [the mid-Neolithic] has not been previously identified as [a time] of major change,” he said.

Furthermore, the origins of the mid-Neolithic populations that did form the basis of modern Europe are also unknown.

“This population moves in around 4,000 to 5,000 [B.C.], but where it came from remains a mystery, as we can’t see anything like it in the areas surrounding Europe,” Cooper said.

The surprising findings are part of a new study, published in this week’s issue of the journal Nature Communications, that provides the first detailed genetic history of modern Europe.

The study shows that “relatively recent migrations seem to have had a significant genetic impact on the population of Central Europe,” said study co-author Spencer Wells, who leads National Geographic‘s Genographic Project. (Read about Europe’s “Wild Men” in National Geographic magazine.)

Genetic Signature

In the study, Cooper and his colleagues extracted mitochondrial DNA—which children inherit only from their mothers—from the teeth and bones of 39 skeletons found in central Germany. The skeletons ranged in age from about 7,500 to 2,500 years old.

The team focused on a group of closely related mitochondrial lineages—mutations in mitochondrial DNA that are similar to one another—known as haplogroup H, which is carried by up to 45 percent of modern Europeans.

Cooper and his colleagues focused on haplogroup H because previous studies have indicated the mutations might have been present in Europeans’ genetic makeup for several thousand years.

It’s unclear how this haplogroup became dominant in Europe. Some scientists have proposed that it spread across the continent following a population boom after the end of the last ice age about 12,000 years ago.

But the new data paint a different picture of the genetic foundation of modern Europe: Rather than a single or a few migration events, Europe was occupied several times, in waves, by different groups, from different directions and at different times.

The first modern humans to reach Europe arrived from Africa 35,000 to 40,000 years ago. By about 30,000 years ago, they were widespread throughout the area while their close cousins, the Neanderthals, disappeared. Hardly any of these early hunter-gatherers carried the H haplogroup in their DNA.

About 7,500 years ago during the early Neolithic period, another wave of humans expanded into Europe, this time from the Middle East. They carried in their genes a variant of the H haplogroup, and in their minds knowledge of how to grow and raise crops. (Related: “Egypt‘s Earliest Farming Village Found.“)

Archeologists call these first Central European farmers the linear pottery culture (LBK)—so named because their pottery often had linear decorations.

The genetic evidence shows that the appearance of the LBK farmers and their unique H haplogroups coincided with a dramatic reduction of the U haplogroup—the dominant haplogroup among the hunter-gatherers living in Europe at that time.

Farmers Move In

The findings settle a longstanding debate among archaeologists, said Wells, who is also a National Geographic explorer-in-residence.

Archaeology alone can’t determine whether cultural movements—such as a new style of pottery or, in this case, farming—were accompanied by the movements of people, Wells said in an email.

“In this study we show that changes in the European archaeological record are accompanied by genetic changes, suggesting that cultural shifts were accompanied by the migration of people and their DNA.”

The LBK group and its descendants were very successful and spread quickly across Europe. “They became the first pan-European culture, if you like,” Cooper said.

Given their success, it would be natural to assume that members of the LBK culture were significant genetic ancestors of many modern Europeans.

But the team’s genetic analysis revealed a surprise: About 6,500 years ago in the mid-Neolithic, the LBK culture was itself displaced. Their haplogroup H types suddenly became very rare, and they were subsequently replaced by populations bearing a different set of haplogroup H variations.

Mysterious Turnover

The details of this “genetic turnover” event are murky. Scientists don’t know what prompted it, or even where the new colonizers came from.

“The extent or nature of this genetic turnover are not clear, and we don’t know how widespread it is,” Cooper said.

If this turnover were widespread, it could have been prompted by climate change or disease, he said.

“All we know is that the descendants of the LBK farmers disappeared from Central Europe about 4,500 [B.C.], clearing the way for the rise of populations from elsewhere, with their own unique H signatures.”

Peter Bogucki, an archeologist at Princeton University who has studied early farming societies in Europe, called the finding “really interesting” and noted the timing of the genetic turnover is curious.

“At the end of the fifth millennium—[about] 4,000 B.C.—there are a lot of changes in the archeological record,” said Bogucki, who was not involved in the study.

For example, the long houses that LBK farmers and their descendants favored became less common. Also, the settlement patterns of people living in Central Europe began changing, as did their stone tools.

“There are major transformations during this time that haven’t really been all that well explained in interior Central Europe,” Bogucki said.

“It looks like the whole system of agricultural settlement that got established with the LBK ran its course through the fifth millennium and something caused people to change.”

Of Unknown Origins

Bogucki agrees that climate change might have been a trigger for the change in Europe’s genetic makeup, but he thinks it was only a factor and not the sole cause.

One thing that is clear from the genetic data is that nearly half of modern Europeans can trace their origins back to this mysterious group.

“About [4,500 B.C.], you start seeing a diversity and composition of genetic signatures that are beginning to look like modern [Central] Europe,” Cooper said. “This composition is then modified by subsequent cultures moving in, but it’s the first point at which you see something like the modern European genetic makeup in place.”

Whatever prompted the replacement of genetic signatures from the first pan-European culture, Cooper is clearly intrigued. ”Something major happened,” he said in a statement, “and the hunt is now on to find out what that was.”

Correction: The original version of this article stated that the genetic makeup of modern Europeans emerged 4,500 years ago. The text has been updated to reflect the correct timing as 4,500 B.C., or 6,500 years ago.

_________________________________________________________________

anti-racismA

Related articles

Racism Wrong

| Concordia: Watching the Final Sunset Before the 3-Month Antarctic Night!

Posted on by
Reply

Watching the Final Sunset Before the 3-Month Antarctic Night ~ , The Atlantic.

On Sunday, the crew at Antarctica‘s Concordia bid adieu to the sun, which they won’t see again until August.

Last_Sun.jpg

The last sunlight until August (ESA)

When the sun dipped below the horizon on Sunday at the Concordia research station in Antarctica, the 15 crew members who live there were ready for a long night — nearly four months long. Until 3:13 in the afternoon of August 10, the sun won’t shine on their remote home again.

For the three months until then, the scientists will work under artificial lights, and they’ll have round-the-clock views of the magnificent Antarctic night sky. “The night brings darkness, promising a blackness to put fear in us, but also supplying a great spectacle — the stars, the Milky Way and something even more amazing” — the Aurora Australis, crewmember Antonio Litterio wrote on the expedition’s blog.

DSC_0156.jpg

The research station in the dark (ESA)

Screen Shot 2013-05-08 at 10.47.47 AM.jpg

They are the only humans for nearly 400 miles. (Google Earth)

DSC_0158-1024x679.jpg

“A green, living, moving thing … my first Aurora.” (ESA/A. Litterio)

The European Space Agency supports one doctor to live at the station during the winter months. “Living in isolation without sunlight in small quarters is similar in many ways to a long voyage on a spacecraft,” it explains. And so now, with the sun sunk low beyond the horizon, our astronauts at the bottom of the planet have launched into their night, one small piece of research that propels our manned spaceflight endeavors, and may someday bring humans into that night sky that hangs above the icy continent.

__________________________________________________________________

 

Related articles

| 9/11 in Context: The importance of the growing contradictory evidence!

Posted on by
3

9/11 in Context: The Importance of the Growing Contradictory Evidence ~ Elizabeth Woodworth, Global Research.

Nearly 12 years after the event, the official account of 9/11 continues to be actively studied by academics around the world. The idea of 9/11 as a false-flag operation to build support for an aggressive foreign policy in the Middle East is steadily gaining ground, suggesting that a policy change is overdue.

This essay provides a brief overview of recent academic evidence, high-level conferences, and media documentaries that raise fresh questions regarding the official account of 9/11. It then describes the 9/11 Consensus Panel as an up-to-date source of evidence-based research for any investigation that may be undertaken to settle 9/11′s unanswered questions.

Finally, this essay argues that mortality from all terror events combined lags far behind annual mortality from preventable common causes such as obesity, smoking, and impaired driving. More importantly, all these causes together will be dwarfed by the mortality from predicted “business as usual” global warming events — which cry out for a unified emergency response.

Today is the second anniversary of the day the United States announced the destruction and disposal of Osama bin Laden during a special military operation.

In spite of this announcement, worldwide skepticism and research continue to dog the official account of 9/11.

Had the United States Government called an immediate investigation (it did not form the 9/11 Commission until late 2002) and provided consistent and transparent proof of its claims against Osama bin Laden and the 19 alleged hijackers, things might have been different.

In the wake of the officially failed evidence, NGO’s continue to dig into the disturbing and unanswered questions that haunt this world-changing event. Year by year, these research bodies have been delving ever more deeply into new photographic, FOIA, and witness evidence.

Recent high-level conferences in Kuala Lumpur,[1] Bremen, Germany,[2] and Toronto, Canada,[3] have raised public awareness of the urgent need to revisit the watershed event behind the global war on terror.

An issue of the international magazine Nexus, which sold on news-stands across France in March and April this year, devoted 12 pages to the work of the 9/11 Consensus Panel (www.consensus911.org) and its 28 peer-reviewed Consensus Points of evidence against elements of the official story.[4]

In late 2012, PBS aired one of its most-watched documentaries, “Experts Speak Out,” in which 40 architects and engineers demonstrate that the structural collapses of the Twin Towers and WTC 7 could only have been caused by controlled demolition.[5]

Indeed many serious investigations have been undertaken by the major media, including Canada’s flagship CBC program, The Fifth Estate.[6] These explorations were summarized in my 2010 essay reporting that “eight countries – Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Russia – have allowed their publicly-owned broadcasting stations to air the full spectrum of evidence challenging the truth of the official account of 9/11.[7]

In February, 2010, the American Behavioral Scientist published six articles introducing the concept of “State Crimes Against Democracy” (SCADS), including “Beyond Conspiracy Theory: Patterns of High Crimes in American Government.”[8]

Why has all this effort to establish the truth about 9/11 persisted for nearly 12 years?

1. First, because many high officials have cast doubt on the official story. To name just one, a dismayed General Wesley Clark reported in a 2007 interview with Amy Goodman that on September 20, 2001, and again later in November, his former Pentagon staff told him that the US was going to “take out” seven Middle East countries in the next five years, beginning with Iraq; then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan.[9]

2. In carrying out these operations, the “global war on terror” spawned by 9/11 has maintained an unprecedented degree of fear and divisiveness in the world;

3. This war has been justified by a pervasive, shadowy enemy that can only be countered by flawless surveillance, suspension of civil rights, and unlimited military spending;

4. This “forever war” has redefined world relationships (Muslim and Christian) and given the West a new kind of entitlement to occupy lands that might foster terror against it;

5. It has virtually bankrupted the West through trillions spent in Afghanistan and Iraq that are roughly equivalent to the bank bailouts;

6. September 11th and its offspring terror war have wrecked our confidence in the first principles of democracy. Ever-reminded that terror lurks all around, we must cower and surrender freedoms to contain it.

7. Worst of all, preoccupation with terror has taken our attention off the vital need to address global warming and planetary survival. War-on-terror hawks have done quite the opposite, having manufactured public consent to occupy the very lands that house the cheap oil that is cooking the planet as it approaches 400 ppm of atmospheric CO2.[10]

How do we get back to first principles and return to global, survival-oriented priorities?

The central question is: “Do we choose to act from what we want our world to be, or from what we fear it might become?”

Do we design a harmonious world fit for all humanity, or do we stifle our vision and hopes for peace behind fear, prisons, martial law, and infinite military spending?

All great periods of history – the golden ages of optimism, learning, culture and prosperity — have been inspired by the creative, expansive human imagination. This imagination is inspired by the belief that a civilized world is possible because we can make it so. It is inspired by a vision of human beings as a world family whose spirits embrace justice, order, and decency.

As President John F. Kennedy said in his famous speech of 1963:

“If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures. And we are all mortal.”[11]

Because of 9/11, however, our new century has been dominated by an obsessive fear of Muslim peoples. This fear, fueled daily by the Western media, has persuaded America to compromise its fundamental democratic rights and principles in favor of a “security” that has not yet become evident.

Thus it is crucial to know whether 9/11 transpired as we have been told — and for this we need the means to identify the best evidence possible.

The 9/11 Consensus Panel and its Approach to Evidence

The 9/11 Consensus Panel was formed in May, 2011. Its purpose and procedures are briefly outlined below:

· The media has claimed for a decade that it is unable to evaluate the technical evidence being presented against the official story of 9/11.

· A parallel problem existed in medicine during the years when there were contradictory, unranked approaches to evaluating the 22 million articles in the biomedical literature databases.

· This problem was greatly reduced by the introduction of “evidence-based” medicine, which applied formal rules of evidence in evaluating the clinical literature.

· Using widely accepted tools such as the Delphi Method, medicine has now developed hundreds of standard Consensus Statements to guide physicians in diagnosis and treatment.
· Similarly, 20 expert members[12] of the new 9/11 Consensus Panel have now developed Consensus Points of “best evidence” opposing the official account of 9/11.

· The Panel Members, who remain blind to one another throughout the process, provide three rounds of review and feedback that are refined into 28 Points (thus far) of “best evidence”.

· This scientific process has yielded an unprecedented degree of credibility for points of evidence relating to 9/11 that can be trusted by the media and the public.

· The 9/11 Consensus Points provide a ready source of evidence-based research to any investigation that may be undertaken by the public, the media, academia, or any other investigative body or institution.

Conclusion:

We have seen that the evidence supporting the official story of 9/11 has become increasingly open to question. We have also seen that preoccupation with 9/11 has continued unabated through the ever-present war on terror.

But to keep things in perspective: lives lost to the sum total of terror events are far fewer than those lost annually to preventable deaths from obesity, smoking, and impaired driving.[13]

This should translate into the media giving more time to the prevention of obesity, traffic accidents, and smoking, and less time to preventing terror events.

That would be fine except that all these things taken together pale by comparison with the disease and mortality[14] that will ensue if we continue with “business as usual” in the face of recent evidence that “observed [fossil fuel] emissions continue to track the top end of all scenarios.”[15]

In order to steel ourselves to confront global warming — the most serious challenge ever faced by civilization — we need to reframe our priorities.

We need to wage war on our own behaviour, and it’s time to gear up, impose discipline, and win the planet back.

This means taking our declared “war on global warming” to the front page of every newspaper, to the top of all social media discussions, and to the Number One item in every town hall meeting on Platform Earth.

Notes 

[1]International Conference: “9/11 Revisited — Seeking the Truth,” sponsored by Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia and President of Perdana Global Peace Foundation (http://www.perdana4peace.org/events/conferences/911_revisited/).

[2]“Quo Vadis NATO? — Challenges for Democracy and Law,” University of Bremen, April 26-28, 2013 (http://ialana.de/files/pdf/veranstaltungen/13-Veranstaltungen/IA%20Bremen%20Programm_englisch%2018_4-1.pdf). Presenters included: Dr. Hans-Christof Graf von Sponeck, former United Nations Assistant Secretary General; Prof. Dr. Christopher Weeramantry, former Vice President of the International Court of Justice; Dr. Dieter Deiseroth, Judge at the German Federal Administrative Court; Wolfgang Nescovic, former Judge at the German Federal High Court; Prof. Dr. Reinhard Merkel, Professor for criminal law and philosophy of law, University of Hamburg; Dr. Andreas von Bülow, former German Assistant Secretary of Defense; and Dr. Daniele Ganser, Swiss historian and peace researcher.

[3]The Toronto Hearings, September 2011, chaired by four international judges, including Mr. Ferdinando Imposimato, Honorary President of the Italian Supreme Court (http://torontohearings.org/panelists/). The Proceedings are available at: http://www.amazon.com/The-9-11-Toronto-Report/dp/1478369205/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1367431792&sr=8-2&keywords=toronto+hearings).

[5]“9/11 Explosive Evidence: Experts Speak Out,” produced by Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (ae911truth.org) was the most watched and most shared PBS video nationwide for several weeks, with over a million viewers. (http://video.cpt12.org/video/2270078138/).

[6] CBC. The Fifth Estate. “The Unofficial Story”, November 27, 2009 (http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/2009-2010/the_unofficial_story/ ) The Fifth Estate has won 243 awards, including an Oscar for best documentary, three international Emmy Awards, and 31 Geminis.

[7]Elizabeth Woodworth, “The Media Response to the Growing Influence of the 9/11 Truth Movement. Part II: A Survey of Attitude Change, 2009-2010,” Global Research, February 15, 2010 (http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-media-response-to-the-growing-influence-of-the-9-11-truth-movement/17624).

[8]These are listed at http://abs.sagepub.com/content/vol53/issue6. The print issue is available for $24 from Sage Journals at journals@sagepub.com, telephone 1-800-818-7243.

[9] “The Plan — According to U.S. General Wesley Clark (Ret.),” Interview with General Wesley Clark, Amy Goodman, March 2, 2007 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXS3vW47mOE). For other military leaders who share General Clark’s concern, see http://patriotsquestion911.com/

[10] Global Carbon Project, “Global Carbon Budget, 2012,” December 12, 2012 (http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget/12/files/CarbonBudget2012.pdf).

[11] John F. Kennedy. American University Commencement Address, June 10, 1963 (http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/BWC7I4C9QUmLG9J6I8oy8w.aspx).

[12]The Panel Members’ photos and biographies are available at http://www.consensus911.org/panel-members/.

[13]World Health Organization. “Overweight and obesity are the fifth leading risk for mortality worldwide, accountable for at least 2.8 million deaths each year.” (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs311/en/index.html).

CDC Atlanta. “The adverse health effects from cigarette smoking account for an estimated 443,000 deaths, or nearly one of every five deaths, each year in the United States.” (http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/effects_cig_smoking/).

CDC Atlanta. “In 2010, 10,228 people were killed in alcohol-impaired driving crashes, accounting for nearly one-third (31%) of all traffic-related deaths in the United States.” http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html

[14]Climate Institute, “Human Health,” (http://www.climate.org/topics/health.html). This short summary from 2009 or 2010 estimates the health impacts of global warming.

[15] Global Carbon Project, “Global Carbon Budget, 2012,” December 12, 2012 (http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget/12/files/CarbonBudget2012.pdf).

__________________________________________________________________

91101tributeA

Related articles

9-11RecordA

| Morrissey issues second statement on Thatcher!

Posted on by
Reply

Morrissey issues second statement on Thatcher ~ Art, SUPAJAM.

 

Here’s another statement The Smiths‘ singer Morrissey made about the passing of Margaret Thatcher today, even more cutting than the one he made yesterday:

The difficulty with giving a comment on Margaret Thatcher’s death to the British tabloids is that, no matter how calmly and measured you speak, the comment must be reported as an “outburst” or an ”explosive attack” if your view is not pro-establishment.

If you reference “the Malvinas”, it will be switched to “the Falklands”, and your “Thatcher” will be softened to a “Maggie.” This is generally how things are structured in a non-democratic society. Thatcher’s name must be protected not because of all the wrong that she had done, but because the people around her allowed her to do it, and therefore any criticism of Thatcher throws a dangerously absurd light on the entire machinery of British politics.  

Thatcher was not a strong or formidable leader. She simply did not give a shit about people, and this coarseness has been neatly transformed into bravery by the British press who are attempting to re-write history in order to protect patriotism. As a result, any opposing view is stifled or ridiculed, whereas we must all endure the obligatory praise for Thatcher from David Cameron without any suggestion from the BBC that his praise just might be an outburst of pro-Thatcher extremism  from someone whose praise might possibly protect his own current interests.

The fact that Thatcher ignited the British public into street-riots, violent demonstrations and a social disorder previously unseen in British history is completely ignored by David Cameron in 2013. In truth, of course, no British politician has ever been more despised by the British people than Margaret Thatcher.

Thatcher’s funeral on Wednesday will be heavily policed for fear that the British tax-payer will want to finally express their view of Thatcher. They are certain to be tear-gassed out of sight by the police.

United Kingdom? Syria? China? What’s the difference?”

___________________________________________________________________

honest-mistake1

Related articles