Wednesday, April 10th, 2013
RICHARD OPPEL, JR., - Reader Supported News
Stephan: Here is the measure of our food system's corruption, and the virtually complete abdication of government from its proper role of regulatory oversight. This is all of a piece with the similar legal maneuvers that are designed to suppress whistle blowers. In both instances the desire of the corrupt is to avoid having their corruption and incompetence revealed.
On one covert video, farm workers illegally burn the ankles of Tennessee walking horses with chemicals. Another captures workers in Wyoming punching and kicking pigs and flinging piglets into the air. And at one of the country’s largest egg suppliers, a video shows hens caged alongside rotting bird corpses, while workers burn and snap off the beaks of young chicks.
Each video – all shot in the last two years by undercover animal rights activists – drew a swift response: Federal prosecutors in Tennessee charged the horse trainer and other workers, who have pleaded guilty, with violating the Horse Protection Act. Local authorities in Wyoming charged nine farm employees with cruelty to animals. And the egg supplier, which operates in Iowa and other states, lost one of its biggest customers, McDonald’s, which said the video played a part in its decision.
But a dozen or so state legislatures have had a different reaction: They proposed or enacted bills that would make it illegal to covertly videotape livestock farms, or apply for a job at one without disclosing ties to animal rights groups. They have also drafted measures to require such videos to be given to the authorities almost immediately, which activists say […]
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TEDDY PARTRIDGE, - Firedoglake
Stephan: The thing about history is that in time perhaps not every detail but the major trophes always are revealed. People talk, documents get leaked, legal cases are filed, and the dirty details come out. Here is the latest about the man who is arguably one of the greatest villains in American history, Dick Cheney. Along with his Neocon minions he created the war in Iraq. Because of this, the lives of tens of millions of people around the world were destroyed, either through death, maiming, or the grinding nihilism of war. Anyone who reads SR for long knows that in my view Cheney and the Neocons should have been indicted and tried for crimes against humanity. Here is part of the emerging explanation as to why they did it.
Who made the most money of all the contractors during the War On Iraq?
Houston-based energy-focused engineering and construction firm KBR, Inc. (NYSE:KBR), which was spun off from its parent, oilfield services provider Halliburton Co. (NYSE:HAL), in 2007.
The company was given $39.5 billion in Iraq-related contracts over the past decade, with many of the deals given without any bidding from competing firms, such as a $568-million contract renewal in 2010 to provide housing, meals, water and bathroom services to soldiers, a deal that led to a Justice Department lawsuit over alleged kickbacks, as reported by Bloomberg.
And how did it come to pass that private contractors developed a profit opportunity in American war-making?
In 1992, the Pentagon, then under Cheney’s direction, paid Texas-based Brown & Root Services $3.9 million to produce a classified report detailing how private companies – like itself – could help provide logistics for American troops in potential war zones around the world. BRS specializes in such work; from 1962 to 1972, for instance, the company worked in the former South Vietnam building roads, landing strips, harbors, and military bases. Later in 1992, the Pentagon gave the company […]
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Stephan: More on the power of meditation. Do yourself a favor and develop the daily practice of meditation. It will change your life in only good ways.
Citation: Maria Kozhevnikov, James Elliott, Jennifer Shephard, Klaus Gramann. Neurocognitive and Somatic Components of Temperature Increases during g-Tummo Meditation: Legend and Reality. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (3): e58244 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0058244
A team of researchers led by Associate Professor Maria Kozhevnikov from the Department of Psychology at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences showed, for the first time, that it is possible for core body temperature to be controlled by the brain. The scientists found that core body temperature increases can be achieved using certain meditation techniques (g-tummo) which could help in boosting immunity to fight infectious diseases or immunodeficiency.
Published in science journal PLOS ONE in March 2013, the study documented reliable core body temperature increases for the first time in Tibetan nuns practising g-tummo meditation. Previous studies on g-tummo meditators showed only increases in peripheral body temperature in the fingers and toes. The g-tummo meditative practice controls ‘inner energy’ and is considered by Tibetan practitioners as one of the most sacred spiritual practices in the region. Monasteries maintaining g-tummo traditions are very rare and are mostly located in the remote areas of eastern Tibet.
The researchers collected data during the unique ceremony in Tibet, where nuns were able to raise their core body temperature and dry up wet sheets wrapped around their bodies in the cold Himalayan weather (-25 degree Celsius) while meditating. Using electroencephalography […]
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ALEXANDER REED KELLY, - Truthdig
Stephan: In this report one sees the emerging geopolitical trend of the rise of the Virtual Corporate States. What amazes me is the the mainstream media doesn't seem to notice this is happening -- and one can imagine several reasons why this is so -- and even the alternative media like this source, see the details, but not the broad geopolitical trend.
Much is made over the alleged ceding of U.S. sovereignty to international bodies every time a potential global treaty appears in the news. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, a U.S.-led free trade agreement that would exempt multinational corporations from having to comply with policies governing industry in signatory countries, appears to be the real thing.
In 2008, American leaders gave a $13 trillion bailout to the banks that drove the nation into economic bedlam. Late last month, officials in Cyprus failed in an attempt to confiscate depositor funds in order to qualify for inclusion in a European bailout of their own. And a recently uncovered paper by the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Bank of England written in late 2012 showed that G-20 countries have long been laying the groundwork for similar action within their own borders in the event that another crisis strikes.
Taken together, those three events should eliminate any doubt about the loyalties of many of the world’s major governments when it comes to disbursing public money. They’re with the rich and against everyone else. The average citizen’s earnings-whether they sit in a bank account or in a treasury in the form of taxes-belong to the ruling class if […]
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GINA KOLATA, - The New York Times
Stephan: This article reports on the latest breakthroughs in heart and diet research. You might talk this over with your physician.
It was breakfast time and the people participating in a study of red meat and its consequences had hot, sizzling sirloin steaks plopped down in front of them. The researcher himself bought a George Foreman grill for the occasion, and the nurse assisting him did the cooking.
In a study, meat eaters who ate steak showed a burst of a chemical that increases risk.
For the sake of science, these six men and women ate every last juicy bite of the 8-ounce steaks. Then they waited to have their blood drawn.
Dr. Stanley Hazen of the Cleveland Clinic, who led the study, and his colleagues had accumulated evidence for a surprising new explanation of why red meat may contribute to heart disease. And they were testing it with this early morning experiment.
The researchers had come to believe that what damaged hearts was not just the thick edge of fat on steaks, or the delectable marbling of their tender interiors. In fact, these scientists suspected that saturated fat and cholesterol made only a minor contribution to the increased amount of heart disease seen in red-meat eaters. The real culprit, they proposed, was a little-studied chemical that is burped out by bacteria in the […]
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