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The Madhouse

The Madhouse

The Madhouse
In the late 17th century, we British decided that, as a humanitarian effort and public service, we’d collect up all the people from the towns and countryside who were bonkers and confine them in institutions, so that society could be protected from them.

As so often proves the case, the idea of a collective solution to an individual problem is doomed to failure from the start.

There are many problems with madhouses. First, they need funding and, of course, the entity that receives the funding is likely to prefer skimming off whatever they can, rather than spending it on the inmates. Second, the sort of people who apply to become staff are often not the most desirable, and in fact are often dangerous. Third, one madman might be a social problem, but what happens when you throw them all in together? Are conditions likely to make them less mad or more mad? (I would suggest the latter.)

When I was a teenager, I had the dubious pleasure of visiting a state-run madhouse—the maximum-security ward, where all the most violent inmates were kept.

I’d been asked to visit a short-term inmate named Billy, who’d been committed to the mental institution for a month as punishment for a petty crime. My purpose was to hopefully raise his spirits, but my one visit there provided me with insight that I couldn’t have gained otherwise and has stayed with me for life.

I was taken through several layers of security before being led through a series of heavy steel doors into a large room. There were tables and chairs in the middle and beds along the walls. About fifteen men were talking congenially in small groupings.

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The “News” Is Content-Free

The “News” Is Content-Free

We’re “your” trustworthy news source, even though we’re all owned by six corporations or billionaires with political agendas.
The “news” has loomed large in The News–a classic self-referential loop in which the media itself becomes its own content. While the controversy over what constitutes “fake news” and “real news” has itself become “the news,” the cold reality is all “news,” “real” or otherwise, is content-free.
The “news” is so devoid of content that a simple software program could assemble a semi-random daily selection of headlines, scrolling banners, and radio/TV “news” reports from a pool of typical “news” stories and insert a bit of context (local highways that are congested, rough neighborhoods where shootings occur, names of local authorities, etc.), and the consumer of “news” would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between the randomly generated “news” and the “real news.”
Here’s a taste of the Random Content-Free News Generator Application that would produce “news” that was virtually indistinguishable from the “real” news.
Traffic is backed up near the (insert the usual congestion point) on the I-XX (local Interstate/highway). (TV/video: show randomly selected video clip of slow-moving traffic).
A serious accident occurred on I-XX (TV newscasters look somber if the wreck resulted in fatalities.)
Local Authorities held a news conference to Say What People Want to Hear about (insert hot-button topic): this concern is being addressed by authorities. We’ve got top people working on this–top people. (Newscasters look serious.)
A horrific terrorist attack occurred somewhere in the world–insert semi-randomly selected city, with preference given to Mideast and Central Asian war zones and Western capitals.
Bad weather of some kind is threatening us, or could threaten us shortly. (Insert video clip of flooding, heavy rain, or scorching heat in desert climes, etc.)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.”

“I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”   –Alice in Wonderland

We live in an age when the level of deceit and propaganda is at an all-time high. Joseph Goebbels, Vladimir Lenin, and others did their best to force-feed propaganda to the masses, but they were rank amateurs compared to the spin doctors employed by the political leaders of today. They’re masters at convincing people of impossible things.

Whenever I listen to Americans discuss their country, I find people that are eager for more news and information, yet most, without even knowing it, accept much of the dogma they’ve been fed on a daily basis by their government and the media, even if, to outsiders, the assumptions are preposterous. Only those who make a concerted, ongoing effort to see through the smokescreen seem to keep clear.

Here are six impossible things that many seem to have little trouble accepting as reality.

Yes, the country’s in a mess, but that’s because of opposition-party meddling. If the party I favour could get a majority, they’d sort things out.

This seems to have been a popular belief for decades. It’s believed by Democrats and Republicans alike. But, in 2001, the Republicans held both houses of Congress, plus the presidency, yet even then they failed to deliver on what they claimed were their party’s fundamental goals. Between 2009 and 2011, the Democrats controlled all three, yet they, too, failed to deliver.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Phone Baloney: The 9 Fakest Fake-News Checkers

Trump-media-TWSince President Donald Trump won the presidential election in November, there’s been an explosion of “fake-news” checker sites, some cloaked behind a veil of anonymity.

trustIn some cases, Americans really have fallen for “fake news.” Just days ago, 20th Century Fox apologized for creating “fake news” sites – such as as the Houston Leader, the Salt Lake City Guardian, Sacramento Dispatch, the New York Morning Post and Indianapolis Gazette – as part of a promotional campaign for its psychological thriller, “A Cure for Wellness.”But on the heels of media hysteria over the trend, now it seems everyone claims to be a foremost expert on the topic of spotting “fake news.”

“Trust us,” they say.

“We’ll help you navigate Facebook and filter out the fake news stories,” they promise.

But just who are these self-appointed gatekeepers who claim to be the ultimate arbiters of what is or is not “fake news”?

WND found “fact-checker” sites run by:

  • A gamer.
  • A leftist, Trump-hating, feminist professor who specializes in “fat studies.”
  • A sex-and-fetish blogger.
  • A health-industry worker.
  • Organizations with billionaire Democratic Party activists and donors.
  • And another guy who went to extreme lengths to conceal his identity.

But most of the self-appointed “fact-checker” sites had one thing in common: President Trump – and the news sites that dare to give him a fair shake – are overwhelmingly their favorite targets.

Like the reporting you see here? Sign up for free news alerts from WND.com, America’s independent news network.

The websites often show an obvious bias against conservative-leaning outlets. And many fail to include clear explanations of the criteria they use for determining whether a news site is legitimate. Other “experts” offer little or no biographical information establishing their qualifications for making judgments about journalism quality.

WND has compiled the following list of the Top 9 “fakest ‘fake-news’ checkers.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

There’s a Difference: Fake News and Junk News

There’s a Difference: Fake News and Junk News

Media junkies on the tragic path to extinction believe the junk news, non-junkies see through the manipulation.

The mainstream media continues peddling its “fake news” narrative like a desperate pusher whose junkies are dying from his toxic dope. It’s slowly dawning on the media-consuming public that the MSM is the primary purveyor of “fake news”– self-referential narratives that support a blatantly slanted agenda with unsupported accusations and suitably anonymous sources.

Many of these Fake News Narratives are laughably, painfully bogus: that President Trump is a Russian tool, to take a current example. (That President Obama was a tool of the neocon Deep State–no mention of that. According to the MSM, America doesn’t even have a Deep State–har-har…the joke’s on you if you are credulous enough to swallow this risible absurdity.)

But the real danger isn’t fake news–it’s junk news. Junk News (the title of a 2009 book by an Emmy Award–winning journalist– Junk News: The Failure of the Media in the 21st Century) —is related to Junk Science and Junk Food.

Junk science is presented as “science” but cherry-picks data to support a specific but unstated agenda–an agenda that requires downplaying or overlooking conflicting data.

One common example of junk science is the approval of new medications by the FDA. If you actually dig into Phase III data, you may well find that the “benefits” of the new wonder-drug are barely above statistical chance, and the potential interactions with commonly prescribed (or imbibed) drugs are ignored.

This is how we end up with medications with an unfortunate side-effect: deathfrom misadventure, addiction, in combination with other commonly prescribed meds, etc.

(For more junk science, check out how meds going off-patent magically get FDA approval for additional –and immensely profitable– patent protection.)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Information or Disinformation? Only 32 Percent of Americans Trust the Media

Information or Disinformation? Only 32 Percent of Americans Trust the Media 

The News Leaders / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

A Gallup Poll released this week shows the largest decline in trust in the media since the organization started asking the public’s opinion on the subject in 1972. Conducted with people over 18, across 50 states, only 32 percent of those surveyed said they trust the media “to report the news fully, accurately and fairly.”

Only 14 percent of Republicans trust the media, down from 32 percent in 2015. According to the poll, the steep decline in trust among Republicans has been influenced by Republican leaders, conservative pundits and GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, who continually claims the media is biased toward his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

Democrats (at 51 percent, compared to 55 percent in 2015) and independents (30 percent vs. 33 percent last year) have a little more faith in the Fourth Estate than Republicans.

Young and old alike are distrustful. For 18 to 49 age group, only 26 percent say they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media, down 10 percent from 2015. For those 50 and older, it’s 38 percent, down 7 percent from 2015.

Gallup reports:

The divisive presidential election this year may be corroding Americans’ trust and confidence in the media, particularly among Republicans who may believe the “mainstream media” are too hyperfocused on every controversial statement or policy proposal from Trump while devoting far less attention to controversies surrounding the Clinton campaign. However, the slide in media trust has been happening for the past decade. Before 2004, it was common for a majority of Americans to profess at least some trust in the mass media, but since then, less than half of Americans feel that way. Now, only about a third of the U.S. has any trust in the Fourth Estate, a stunning development for an institution designed to inform the public.

With the explosion of the mass media in recent years, especially the prevalence of blogs, vlogs and social media, perhaps Americans decry lower standards for journalism. When opinion-driven writing becomes something like the norm, Americans may be wary of placing trust on the work of media institutions that have less rigorous reporting criteria than in the past. On the other hand, as blogs and social media “mature,” they may improve in the American public’s eyes. This could, in turn, elevate Americans’ trust and confidence in the mass media as a whole.

Since 1972, the apex of trust in media by the general public was 76 percent in 1976.

6 Giant Corporations Control The Media, And Americans Consume 10 Hours Of ‘Programming’ A Day

6 Giant Corporations Control The Media, And Americans Consume 10 Hours Of ‘Programming’ A Day

Faces - Public DomainIf you allow someone to pump hours of “programming” into your mind every single day, it is inevitable that it is eventually going to have a major impact on how you view the world.  In America today, the average person consumes approximately 10 hours of information, news and entertainment a day, and there are 6 giant media corporations that overwhelmingly dominate that market.  In fact, it has been estimated that somewhere around 90 percent of the “programming” that we constantly feed our minds comes from them, and of course they are ultimately controlled by the elite of the world.  So is there any hope for our country as long as the vast majority of the population is continually plugging themselves into this enormous “propaganda matrix”?

Just think about your own behavior.  Even as you are reading this article the television might be playing in the background or you may have some music on.  Many of us have gotten to the point where we are literally addicted to media.  In fact, there are people out there that become physically uncomfortable if everything is turned off and they have to deal with complete silence.

It has been said that if you put garbage in, you are going to get garbage out.  It is the things that we do consistently that define who we are, and so if you are feeding your mind with hours of “programming” from the big media corporations each day, that is going to have a dramatic affect on who you eventually become.

These monolithic corporations really do set the agenda for what society focuses on.  For example, when you engage in conversation with your family, friends or co-workers, what do you talk about?  If you are like most people, you might talk about something currently in the news, a television show that you watched last night or some major sporting event that is taking place.

Virtually all of that news and entertainment is controlled by the elite by virtue of their ownership of these giant media corporations.

I want to share some numbers with you that may be hard to believe.  They come directly out of Nielsen’s “Total Audience Report“, and they show how much news and entertainment the average American consumes through various methods each day…

When Newspapers Die and Reporters Go Bad

When Newspapers Die and Reporters Go Bad

No. And we shouldn’t expect there to be. Journalism is one of those bedrock institutions that are critical to a democratic society. Reporters are supposed to inform citizens of things they need to know, to help them navigate the world confidently, effectively, to live well and prosper. Such a noble calling reporters have. From the outside journalism looks like public service. Sometimes it is. But from the inside, the news business is like making sausage or politics. The average person really wouldn’t like to watch how the news is actually made. It’s a pretty dirty and disgusting business even if people like the news product they consume every day.

Reporters are supposed to be fair and thorough but they are often fatuous and sloppy. In order to make their deadlines they take short cuts, make deals, trade information, manipulate gate-keepers, misrepresent themselves, snivel, dissemble and act disingenuously or even dishonestly. Some are quite vindictive and write just enough of the truth to tell a lie or support one. Judith Miller’s shameless reporting about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction when he didn’t have any comes to mind. Not exactly the kind of people who follow the golden rule in their work life. But theirs is such a noble calling.

There is a kind of catechism you learn when you go to J-School: get the facts, get the story, get if first, but get it right.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

How They Brainwash Us

How They Brainwash Us

Anyone who pays attention to American “news” can see how “news” is used to control our perceptions in order to ensure public acceptance of the Oligarchy’s agendas.

For example, Bernie Sanders just won six of seven primaries, in some cases by as much as 70 and 82 percent of the vote, but Sanders’ victories went largely unreported. The reason is obvious. The Oligarchy doesn’t want any sign of Sanders gaining momentum that could threaten Hillary’s lead for the Democratic nomination. Here is FAIR’s take on the media’s ignoring of Sanders’ victories: http://fair.org/home/as-sanders-surges-cable-news-runs-prison-reality-show-jesus-documentary/ 

We can observe the same media non-performance in the foreign affairs arena. The Syrian army adided by the Russian air force just liberated Palmyra from ISIS troops that Washington sent to overthrow the Syrian government. Although pretending to be fighting ISIS, Washington and London are silent about this victory on what is supposed to be a common front against the terror group.

It has been left to the Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/why-is-david-cameron-so-silent-on-the-recapture-of-palmyra-from-the-clutches-of-isis-a6955406.html), RT (http://www.globalresearch.ca/russia-questions-the-wests-silence-on-syrias-strategic-victory-against-isis-in-palmyra/5517194) and the Mayor of London to break the silence.

What the Washington/London silence on the victory tells me is that Washington still intends to unseat Assad. The most likely reason for Secretary of State Kerry’s trips to Moscow is to try to work out a deal in which Washington accepts the defeat of ISIS in exchange for Moscow’s acceptance of Assad’s removal. The neoconservatives have not lost control of the Obama regime, and they remain committed to removing Assad for the benfit of Israel. Moscow wants to get along with Washington, and if Moscow is not careful about trusting Washington, Moscow will lose in diplomacy the war it has won.

Yesterday I was stuck in front of Fox “News” for some minutes on both sides of 1:00 PM US East Coast time. It was one of the blonds and some character presented as a terrorism or ISIS expert.

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DIY Antibiotics

Garlic Tower Planter

DIY ANTBIOTICS

Watch this short 2:31 video by backyard food production expert and author Marjory Wildcraft on DIY antibiotics.

Most people will want to do this in their backyards, on a patio, or rooftop. No, you won’t need a laboratory or chemistry set. No, you won’t need microscopes or chemicals. Nope, you won’t even need a spectrum analyzer or centrifuge. You won’t even need a degree in biochemistry or organic formulations.

This particular antibiotic not only helps boost your immune system for any time you have an infection, but it is also good for when you have a cold, it’s known to help lower cholesterol and high blood pressure, it’s been known to help balance blood sugar, fight cancer, and fungus. Yet it is completely natural.

Marjory will host a free online event from March 7th – 13th, which features 30 backyard farming experts who will reveal secrets to growing your own gorgeous organic fruit, vegetables, herbs, wildflowers, livestock, even bees all in your own backyard!

6 Positive Signs That Mainstream Media is Collapsing

6 Positive Signs That Mainstream Media is Collapsing

Off-Air Mainstream Media TVThere is an information awakening taking place right now, and mainstream media is being outed for what it really is: corporate and government controlled propaganda. People are turning to alternative news sources more swiftly than ever now, and as a result, the old guard of media is collapsing at free-fall speeds.

Here are 6 positive signs of the collapse of mainstream media:

1. Mainstream Media is Owned by a Handful of Corporations and the People Know It

It’s no secret anymore that nearly everything we see, read, and hear comes from just a handful of mega-corporations. Thanks to the alternative media, it has become a widely known fact that just six corporations control 90% of the media we consume. These big six have the ability to make key decisions and delegate the news to their lower subsidiary companies by cutting out important stories or alternative points of view. People recognize this and are moving over to the indy media as a result.

2. Fox Stops Disclosing Live Viewership Ratings

Fox News, a subsidiary company owned by Rupert Murdoch of News Corp and top mainstream media outlet has just announced that it will stop disclosing its ratings for live TV viewership. They argue that these statistics are no longer relevant because of how many record their television shows, but it is also being seen as a way to hide a decaying audience. Fox will now be repackaging statistics on a weekly basis to make even the most modest results appear positive.

3. 98% of Young Adults Do Not Trust Mainstream Media

A recent poll shows that only 2% of young adults trust the mainstream media to do the “right thing” on a regular basis. This poll, which was conducted at the Harvard Institute of Politics on over 3,000 18-29 year olds, shows that only 2% of young adults trust the media to “do the right thing” “all of the time.” 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Shining a Light

The just-released movie Spotlight is about a Boston Globe investigative reporting team circa 2001-02 that uncovered and documented a vast network of child sex abuse by priests in the Catholic Church that had been on-going for decades. More to the point, Spotlight revealed the institutional rot at the very top of the Boston Catholic Church hierarchy, led by then-Cardinal Bernard Law — which marinated church personnel in a code of secret atrocious behavior enabled by systematic lying and deception. In effect, the church gave permission to its foot-soldiers, the parish priests, to engage in whatever sexual antics they wished to, with a tacit promise to shield them from the reach of the courts. The civil authorities of Boston, heavily Catholic due to Boston’s demographics, assisted the church by throwing up every legal obstacle they could to deter the victims and their advocates in the search for justice — and to put an end to the predation of children by priests.

That was the story that Spotlight told, and it did that very economically, without grandstanding. But the movie had another message for me, as someone who has been involved in the media going back more than forty years when I was an investigative newspaper reporter myself. The message was that the institutional support for great journalism that allowed the Globe’s Spotlight reporting team to do its job is now gone-baby-gone. All the newspapers in the USA, and even the TV and radio news networks, are running these days on skeleton crews. At least that is true of the old flagship organizations such as the Boston Globe and CNN. They just don’t have the reporters out in the field. The front-page or flatscreen interface that the public sees conceals ghost organizations that barely have the reporting resources and the reach to discover what is actually going on in the world.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

We created Islamic extremism: Those blaming Islam for ISIS would have supported Osama bin Laden in the ’80s

We created Islamic extremism: Those blaming Islam for ISIS would have supported Osama bin Laden in the ’80s 

Jingoists conveniently forget the West’s Cold War strategy was to arm the Islamic extremists that became al-Qaida

We created Islamic extremism: Those blaming Islam for ISIS would have supported Osama bin Laden in the '80s(Credit: AP/Dennis Cook)

History takes no prisoners. It shows, with absolute lucidity, that the Islamic extremism ravaging the world today was borne out of the Western foreign policy of yesteryear.

Gore Vidal famously referred to the USA as the United States of Amnesia. The late Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai put it a little more delicately, quipping, “One of the delightful things about Americans is that they have absolutely no historical memory.”
In order to understand the rise of militant Salafi groups like ISIS and al-Qaida; in order to wrap our minds around their heinous, abominable attacks on civilians in the U.S., France, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Nigeria, Turkey, Yemen, Afghanistan and many, many more countries, we must rekindle this historical memory.

Where did violent Islamic extremism come from? In the wake of the horrific Paris attacks on Friday, November the 13, this is the question no one is asking — yet it is the most important one of all. If one doesn’t know why a problem emerged, if one cannot find its root, one will never be able to solve and uproot it.

Where did militant Salafi groups like ISIS and al-Qaida come from? The answer is not as complicated as many make it out to be — but, to understand, we must delve into the history of the Cold War, the historical period lied about in the West perhaps more than any other.

How the West cultivated Osama bin Laden

We needn’t reach back far into history, just a few decades.

A much-circulated photo of an article published in British newspaper the Independent in 1993 exemplifies the West’s twisted hypocrisy. Titled “Anti-Soviet warrior puts his army on the road to peace,” it features a large photo of Osama bin Laden, who, at the time, was a Western ally.

Osama bin Laden, reported on favorably in the U.K.'s The Independent in 1993 (Credit: Imgur)

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America’s News Is Heavily Censored

America’s News Is Heavily Censored

On 7 September 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush blatantly lied to concoct a “new report” by the IAEA about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction program, and the U.S. news-media reported the statement but hid that it was a lie.

He said (and CNN and others quoted it): “a report came out of the Atomic — the IAEA that they were six months away from developing a weapon. I don’t know what more evidence we need,” when he was asked at a press conference, “Mr. President, can you tell us what conclusive evidence of any nuclear — new evidence you have of nuclear weapons capabilities of Saddam Hussein?” Immediately, the IAEA said then that there was no such “new report,” and that the last they were able to find, there was nothing left of WMD in Iraq.

The American news-media simply ignored the IAEA’s denial, and we invaded Iraq, almost six months after that boldfaced lie, a lie the press refused to expose, at all — ever. They still haven’t exposed it, even to the present day; and instead there remains a ‘debate’ as to whether George W. Bush lied or was instead merely misled by “defective U.S. intelligence.” In this particular instance, he wasn’t even citing U.S. intelligence, but instead the IAEA, and they immediately denied it, but the press failed to report that; so, really, the President was simply lying, and the press just continue to lie by saying he had only “been misled by the CIA” (which he actually controlled; but he didn’t control the IAEA). The American press hide the fact that the American President lied his nation into invading Iraq. The press lie that it was only “bad intelligence,” no lying President.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

 

Burdened by debt and slipping behind, survey respondents say

Burdened by debt and slipping behind, survey respondents say

48% said they might be in trouble if a single paycheque was delayed

Many working Canadians feel overwhelmed by debt and more than half of them say they would have difficulty if they missed a paycheque.

They also are losing confidence in the economy, with only 33 per cent of respondents to a survey saying they expect things to get better next year.

That sense of slipping behind comes from a survey of 3,605 working Canadians who completed a poll given to them by members of the Canadian Payroll Association with whom they work. The survey was administered between June 29 and Aug. 7 and designed by Framework Partners using a sample adjusted geographically to mirror a representative sample of working Canadians.

It has been performed annually by the CPA for the past seven years. The CPA says a definitive margin of error cannot be expressed.

Across the country, 48 per cent responded that it would be somewhat difficult or very difficult to meet their financial obligations if a paycheque was delayed by a single week.

Just 24 per cent thought they could come up with $2,000 to cover an emergency, such as critical home or car repairs.

Overwhelmed with debt

About 16 per cent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed they were overwhelmed with debt. The average debt balance for a Canadian consumer, excluding mortgages, was $21,028 in the second quarter of 2015, according to credit monitoring agency TransUnion.

Consumer debt includes car loans, credit cards and lines of credit. In the CPA survey, 19 per cent admitted they had credit card debt and 16 per cent said they have debt on a line of credit.

The money worries are playing havoc with their savings.

About 47 per cent of those surveyed said they save less than five per cent of their pay.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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