Saturday, February 11, 2017

None of the 20 mammograms caught my disease…

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Popular breast cancer screening method is dangerous and ineffective. This proven and safe method can save thousands of lives.Breast cancer rates have remained high in recent years; as of today, a woman has a 1 in 8 chance of developing breast cancer in her lifetime. While environmental toxins play a big role in this epidemic, a large majority of cases are due to ‘overdiagnosis,’ which happens most often because of mammograms.In the mainstream medicine, mammograms are considered the main method ...

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Friday, February 10, 2017

CDC cronyism exposed: Scientists with integrity call out the agency’s corrupt industry ties

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by Daniel Barker, Natural News:

According to its mission statement, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “conducts critical science” to protect Americans against health threats. But can an agency with deep ties to various industries really conduct research and formulate policy in a critical, unbiased manner?

The Alliance for Natural Health USA (ANH-USA) says no.

In fact, the ANH-USA has repeatedly uncovered evidence of industry influence on the agency – for example, that of food corporation giant Coca-Cola. Barbara Bowman, director of the Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention, recently resigned her post at the CDC after her long-term connection with Coca-Cola was made public. Bowman was once a senior nutritionist at Coca-Cola, and has been accused of granting favors to a lobby group backed by the beverage maker.

According to ANH-USA, Coca-Cola was able

– with Bowman’s help – to influence the setting of WHO sugar limits.

Now, the ANH-USA reports that a group of ethically-minded scientists within the CDC have sent a letter to the CDC chief of staff voicing their concerns regarding rampant corporate influence over the agency. (RELATED: Find more news about government corruption at Corruption.news)

CDC SPIDER exposes influence from ‘outside parties and rogue interests’

The group calls itself CDC Scientists Preserving Integrity, Diligence, and Ethics in Research (CDC SPIDER), and the introduction of their letter reads as follows:

“We are a group of scientists at CDC that are very concerned about the current state of ethics at our agency. It appears that our mission is being influenced and shaped by outside parties and rogue interests. It seems that our mission and Congressional intent for our agency is being circumvented by some of our leaders. What concerns us most is that it is becoming the norm and not the rare exception.”

Read More @ NaturalNews.com



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Human ancestors were nearly all vegetarians

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Paleolithic diets have become all the rage, but are they getting our ancestral diet all wrong? Right now, one half of all Americans are on a diet. The other half just gave up on their diets and are on a binge. Collectively, we are overweight, sick and struggling. Our modern choices about what and how much to eat have gone terribly wrong. The time has come to return to a more sensible way of eating and living, but which way? One group of self-help books suggests we give up carbohydrates, another that we give...

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Questions Remain As Shifting Narrative, Conflicting Testimony Indicates Cover Up in Quebec Terror Incident

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by William Craddick, Disobedient Media:

quebec-mosque-shooting.jpg.size_.custom.

Witness statements and reports which conflict with the Canadian government’s account of what occurred during the tragic January 29th, 2017 Quebec terror attack at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City raise questions about what actually happened the night of the tragedy. The evidence indicates that contrary to the official narrative, there was more than one gunman and multiple weapons were captured in the possession of arrestees. Media outlets also were so eager to claim the incident was caused by white supremacists that they were fooled into reporting false information from parody news accounts on twitter.

I. Multiple Media Sources Cited Witness Statements Claiming There Were Multiple Gunmen, Number Of Weapons Seized Inconsistent With “Lone Wolf” Narrative

The Canadian government’s claims that the Quebec shooting was a “lone wolf” incident is not consistent with multiple media reports and witness statements that there were at least two gunmen participating in the incident. Canadian news source Le Soleil reported that “at least one gunman” participated in the attack. A witness told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that they saw two masked gunmen enter the building, shout the Takbir (Islamic phrase “Allahu akbar” which means “God is great” in Arabic) and open fire on worshippers. The Sun also ran a statement from a 22 year old student named Abdi, who was reading the Koran with his friends at the time of the attack. Abdi similarly said he was convinced he had seen two attackers and that they shouted the Takbir before opening fire. Reuters also ran an additional report citing another witness statement which said that three attackers had taken part in the incident.

Additionally, the number of weapons reported as having been captured indicates that there was likely more than one attacker. Daily Mail mentioned that weapons captured included an AK-47 assault rifle and two other rifles of unidentified make. The Telegraph also listed two rifles and a handgun as having been confiscated. Both accounts indicate that the number of arms captured are more than could be used by one attacker. Additionally, the multitude of weapons are strange when considered in the context of witness statements which specifically mention that the attackers reloaded several times. This would have been unnecessary in a situation where a lone gunman was using multiple weapons.

The witness statements which established that two or more attackers participated in the Quebec mosque shooting and the accounts about the large number of weapons captured are not consistent with the Canadian government’s position that the attack was perpetrated by one single attacker.

Le Journal De Québec has reported that six cameras inside the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City may have captured footage of the incident. It is strange that the Canadian government has not released footage or images from the cameras to confirm their belief that the terror attack was a “lone wolf” incident.

II. The Canadian Government Censored News Outlets Amid Confusion Over Second Suspect’s Identity

There was immediate confusion online over the true identities of the attackers. An unverified post to Reddit claimed that citizens listening to police scanners picked up chatter indicating that two of the suspects were Syrian refugees who had entered the country last week. That report was not corroborated by any official news sources. Fox News also ran a report stating that one of the suspects arrested was of Moroccan origin. The Moroccan suspect was confirmed by the Toronto Metro as being a local university student by the name of Mohamed el-Khadir.

In the aftermath of the report by Fox, Justin Trudeau‘s office personally intervened and pressured Fox News to retract their statement about the ethnicity of the Mohamed el-Khadir. While official denials of false information by government offices are standard, it is not common to actively intervene and raises questions about the motives behind Trudeau’s desire to limit public access to this information. The Canadian authorities now insist that el-Khadir was a witness and not a suspect. Information that the shooters were Islamic would have been a major embarrassment to Trudeau, who had only days before stated on Twitterthat Canada would accept immigrants fleeing “persecution, terror & war.”

III. Media Outlets Published False Information Indicating The Attackers Were White Supremacists

Media outlets were so eager to paint the incident as a terror attack by white supremacists that troll accounts on Twitter were able to fool them into running false information. The Daily Beast ran a story stating that two “white supremacists” named David M. J. Aurine and Mathieu Fornier had been arrested in connection with the attack. That information was immediately revealed to be false, and had come from a blatantly obviousReuters parody account on Twitter. The Daily Best retracted the information and issued an apology.

Other news organizations were quick to note that the mosque had been the victim of an apparent hate incident where a pig’s head was left outside the door of the facility. No attention was given to the apparent efforts of the Canadian government to contradict the testimony of witnesses or push a “lone wolf” explanation for the incident.

Read More @ Disobedientmedia.com



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6 Reasons Why Many People Think Chemotherapy & The Cancer Industry Is A Giant Scam

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In 2016, approximately 1,685,210 new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in the United States alone, and approximately 600,000 people will die from the disease. The number of new cancer cases is 454.8 per 100,000 men and women per year, based on cases from 2008-2010.

Men have almost a 50 percent chance of contracting the disease at some point within their lifetime, and women have a 1/3 chance. Pretty crazy isn’t it? (source)

In a time where so much information is coming to light, challenging the belief systems of so many, it’s important to keep an open mind to new information to help us see through what’s really been happening on our planet. It’s no secret that a small group of corporations dominate almost every aspect of our lives, from energy to education, all the way to modern day healthcare.

The Cancer Industry

One aspect of healthcare is the cancer industry, and while people still scoff at the idea that there could be a suppression of cures and a lack of funding for proven alternative treatments, this is a fact that continues to come to light and is necessary for people to acknowledge if we are going to move forward and save millions of lives.

It’s important to accept the fact that, as Linus Pauling, Ph.D, and two time Nobel Prize winner in chemistry told us, that “most cancer research is largely a fraud, and that the major cancer research organisations are derelict in their duties to the people who support them.” (source)

Pauling’s ‘anger’ with regards to cancer research is well documented, especially in his book, How To Live Longer and Feel Better

Dr. John Bailer, who spent 20 years on the staff of the National Cancer Institute and is also a former editor of its journal, publicly stated in a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that:

“My overall assessment is that the national cancer program must be judged a qualified failure. Our whole cancer research in the past 20 years has been a total failure.” (source)

These few quotes won’t tell you everything about what is going on, but the documentary below will. It’s a 2 hour segment from the film, The Truth About Cancer

The segment below features interviews with renowned health professionals from around the world, so you can hear it directly from the horses mouth.

Most health professionals who are skeptical of the information below, often haven’t done the research for themselves to stay updated with what is going on. Real medical education goes well beyond medical school. As illustrated in the video below, medical school is largely a brainwashing tool for pharmaceutical medicines. This is becoming more evident as information keeps emerging that the average health professional has no idea about.

We got, hours and hours and hours on how to use, basically patented medicines, which as you know, are what usually goes on a prescription pad as a molecule that can be patented which means that it’s not found in nature….And that’s what we get educated in.

– Dr. Jonathan V. Wright, M.D. Medical Director and Founder

The doctor is brainwashed when he/she gets out of medical school because the medical school has too much subsidization of the professors who are being paid by the drug company, so the professor never teachers any student in medical school, why don’t you try vitamin C, they’re going to tell them the latest drug.

– Dr. Gary F. Gordon

Quotes taken from video below.

Unfortunately, doctors today are simply taught how to prescribe drugs. Although their knowledge of the human body and how it operates is fairly good, and they often have the best intentions at heart, they are often being used to push an agenda, and it’s one of the primary causes for the rise of disease in the past few decades. In fact, medical error is now the third leading cause of death in the US.

Doctors get paid to write prescriptions. Over a century ago, the Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations started to engineer the curriculum. They put their money into drug-based research and made that the main focus of “healthcare”.

Since then, the Rockefeller’s and banking elite have been able to control and profit from the drug industry. The AMA – which is the largest association of physicians in the U.S. – enforces the drug-treatment paradigm by heavily lobbying Congress and publishing one of the most influential journals, JAMA, which is largely funded by pharmaceutical advertisers. It is also engaged in suppressing alternative health treatments, such as the Royal Rife cancer cure.

“The medical profession is being bought by the pharmaceutical industry, not only in terms of the practice of medicine, but also in terms of teaching and research. The academic institutions of this country are allowing themselves to be the paid agents of the pharmaceutical industry. I think it’s disgraceful.”  – (source)(source) Arnold Seymour Relman (1923-2014), Harvard Professor of Medicine and Former Editor-in-Chief of the New England Medical Journal

There is a problem that’s well known in the medical community, which is why John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at Stanford University School of Medicine published the most widely accessed article in the history of the Public Library of Science (PLoS) entitled Why Most Published Research Findings Are False. In the report, he stated that most current published research findings are false.

This was more than 10 years ago, fast forward to today where a more recent ‘cry’ to the public masses came from Dr. Richard Horton, current editor-in-chief of The Lancet. He stated that half of all the published literature could be false. (source)

Check out the Truth About Cancer series for more.

It’s hard to believe that approximately one in every two people will develop some form of cancer within their lifetime. As a result, cancer awareness has skyrocketed. Millions of people around the globe are helping to raise money and awareness for cancer and cancer treatment. This overwhelming support from the public just goes to show how many good hearts are out there, and in no way should we dismiss that generous spirit. There are, however, some important facts relating to this disease about which many people are still unaware.

While it is of course disturbing that cancer rates are at all time time high, the prevalence of this disease is causing people to take notice and to question, which is always a good thing. People are becoming more aware of the disease, looking into alternative treatment options and trying to determine the cause of this illness. People are starting to wonder why so many of us are so sick. So despite how gloomy it may appear, there is hope for all of us.

The 5 facts about cancer below are indeed disturbing, but what’s even more disturbing is the fact hat nobody even talks about them. If we want to get to the root of this disease, ignorance is not the answer. Hopefully this article helps you learn some important information about cancer that you probably won’t hear much about in the mainstream. If you want to find out what your personal cancer risk is, you can find out here: www.collective-evolution.com/a/cancer-truth

Questionable Cancer Research/Fraud

Linus Pauling, Ph.D, and two time Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, has revealed: “Everyone should know that most cancer research is largely a fraud, and that the major cancer research organizations are derelict in their duties to the people who support them.” (source)(source)

He is considered one of the most important scientists in history. He is one of the founders of quantum chemistry and molecular biology, and was also a well known peace activist. He was invited to be in charge of the Chemistry Division of the Manhattan Project, but refused. He has also done a lot of work on military applications, and has pretty much done and seen it all in the scientific field, so his words are not to be taken lightly.

And it’s not just Pauling making these kinds of statements. Many other well respected scientists, who are definitely in a position to know about this type of thing, have made similar statements. For example, Dr. Marcia Angell, a physician and longtime Editor in Chief of the New England Medical Journal (NEMJ), which is considered to be one of the most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals in the world, said that:

It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgement of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the New England Journal Of Medicine. (source)

Dr. Richard Horton, Editor in Chief of another one of the world’s most best known medical journals, The Lancet, recently published a statement expressing that a large quantity of published peer-reviewed science is actually completely false. He revealed:

The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness.  (source)

A lot of the ‘credible’ research out there has been supported and funded by the pharmaceutical companies themselves, and much of it conflicts with the work of independent scientists from all over the world.

The field of U.S. cancer care is organized around a medical monopoly that ensures a continuous flow of money to the pharmaceutical companies, medical technology firms, research institutes, and government agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and quasi-public organizations such as the American Cancer Society (ACS). – Ralph Moss, Ph.D., quoted by John Diamond, M.D., & Lee Cowden, M.D. in Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide to Cancer

People Are Actually Having Success With Alternative Treatments

A growing trend amongst people who have been diagnosed with cancer is to seek out alternative treatment, and this is largely because so many people have reported solid success rates. We can also attribute this shift to the vast amount of published scientific literature pointing people in this direction. For example, here is a quick video clip of Dr. Christina Sanchez, a molecular biologist who explains the power of THC. Other ingredients within cannabis have also been shown to annihilate cancer tumours.Here is an older article with just a few out of hundreds of studies sourced, just to give you an idea. It’s worrying that no human clinical trials have been conducted on the use of cannabis to treat cancer, despite the fact that scientists have known for decades that it is effective.

Mykala Comstock is a wonderful example of cannabis’ efficacy; she had T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, a very rare and aggressive form of childhood leukaemia. In July of 2012, doctors discovered a basketball-sized mass of lymphoblasts in her chest. Her mass was so large that she was not able to be sedated for risk of death from the pressure on her esophagus and heart.

More people are to turning to other herbal remedies as well. Research has shown that artemisinin, found in various plants, can also kill cancer cells.

Dietary changes are also taking a more prominent role in alternative cancer treatment. Chris Wark, a man who had stage 3 colon cancer, credits his recovery to a vegan diet.

The point is, these stories are out there, and so is the science to back them up. It makes you wonder why these aren’t considered mainstream treatment suggestions? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that these treatments cannot be patented?

There are only two approved treatments for cancer — radiation and chemotherapy.

Here is a clip from the Thrive documentary that gives us all something to think about.

Our Toxic Environment

“How could we have ever believed that it was a good idea to grow our food with poisons?” – Jane Goodall

Billions of pounds of toxic chemicals are sprayed on our food and in the environment every single year. We’re talking about organophosphates, chemicals that were used to kill people in warfare during WW2. After decades of spraying, a number of alarming studies have been published which lead to many of these chemicals being completely banned.

Children today are sicker than they were a generation ago. From childhood cancers to autism, birth defects and asthma, a wide range of childhood diseases and disorders are on the rise. Our assessment of the latest science leaves little room for doubt; pesticides are one key driver of this sobering trend. – October 2012 report by Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) (source)(source)

Yet only recently did the World Health Organization admit that glyphosate, the most active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, can cause cancer. (source) A number of countries around the world have also banned glyphosate. Sri Lanka, for example, decided to completely ban it after their scientists discovered that it was linked to chronic kidney disease. (source)(source) It has also been completely banned in various countries across Europe.

As far as pesticide accumulation in the body goes, a recent study conducted by researchers from RMIT university, published in the journal Environmental Research, found that an organic diet for just one week significantly reduced pesticide exposure in adults by 90 percent.  (source)

Cynthia Curl, an assistant professor in the School of Allied Health Sciences Department of Community and Environmental Health at Boise State University, recently published a pesticide exposure study in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. Results of her research indicated that among individuals eating similar amounts of vegetables and fruits, the ones who reported eating organic produce had significantly lower OP pesticide exposure than those who normally consume conventionally grown produce.

These studies are important because the pesticides sprayed on our food are also very toxic and have been linked to a number of diseases, like cancer. Why are we consuming chemicals that were used to kill people in warfare? How can we possibly justify such irresponsible behaviour?

And the problem extends further than simply what is being put on our food. Our food itself has been genetically modified by biotech companies, to the point where it bears little resemblance to its natural form, and is equally unrecognizable by our bodies. These companies incorporate genes from one species into a completely unrelated species. (source) This, according to many, is bad science.

The problem is this, geneticists follow the inheritance of genes in what we call a vertical fashion … within a species. What biotechnology allows us to do is to take genes from this organism and move it in what we call horizontally into a totally unrelated species…. What biotechnology allows us to do is to switch genes from one to the other without regard for the biological constraints…. It’s very very bad science. We assume that the principles governing the inheritance of genes vertically applies when you move genes laterally or horizontally. There’s absolutely no reason to make that conclusion. – David Suzuki, geneticist, activist, and environmentalist (source

Furthermore, no studies have been cited by global health authorities which prove the longterm safety of GMOs on our health. This is not good science, and we know for a fact that GMOs are harmful to other animals which we have tested them on. For example, the chronic toxicity study examined the health impacts of eating commercialized genetically modified (GM) maize, alongside Monsanto’s NK603 glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup, on rats.The study found severe liver and kidney damage as well as hormonal disturbances in rats fed with GM maize in conjunction with low levels of Roundup — levels which were below those permitted in most drinking water across Europe. Results also indicated high rates of large tumors and mortality in most treatment groups. (source)

You can read more about that here.

Other studies have found issues with GM foods and pesticides appearing in maternal and fetal blood.

As part of the process, they portrayed the various concerns as merely the ignorant opinions of misinformed individuals – and derided them as not only unscientific, but anti-science. They then set to work to convince the public and government officials, through the dissemination of false information, that there was an overwhelming expert consensus, based on solid evidence, that GMOs were safe. – Jane Goodall (source)

These examples barely even scratch the surface of carcinogens we are exposed to. Cosmetics, flame retardants, everyday household products — these are all a concern. It’s not a mystery why cancer rates are so high, but we never really talk about the issue in this way. Waster fluoridation is another example. Fluoride was recently categorized officially as a neurotoxin.

In point of fact, fluoride causes more human cancer deaths than any other chemical. When you have power you don’t have to tell the truth. That’s a rule that’s been working in this world for generations. There are a great many people who don’t tell the truth when they are in power in administrative positions. This amounts to public murder on a grand scale, it is a public crime. … It is some of the most conclusive bits of scientific and biological evidence that I have come across in my 50 years in the field of cancer research. (source)  – Dr. Dean Burk, Biochemist, Founder of Biotin, and Former Chief Chemist at the National Cancer Institute of Heal

Cancer Charity Fraud

The Brooklyn-based National Children’s Leukemia Foundation has been shut down. This comes years after they raised millions of dollars through professionally run fundraisers. They lured people in, claiming that the funds would be used to conduct cancer research and locate bone marrow donors, while they ran their “Make a Dream Come True” campaign. (source)(source)

This is disturbing information, but it’s not the first time that a major cancer charity has been called into question, not by a long shot. For example, a complaint filed by the Federal Trade Commission describes four connected groups, all with cancer in their name, as “sham charities,” saying they instead “operated as personal fiefdoms characterized by rampant nepotism, flagrant conflicts of interest, and excessive insider compensation.” One of those names was the Cancer Fund of America Inc. These groups stand accused of taking in almost 200 million dollars. (source)

You can read more about that here .

Cancer Prevention

It’s remarkable how much time we spend raising money for cancer treatment without ever speaking about cancer prevention. With out toxic environment, there are a number of things you can do to minimize your risk of developing cancer.

So what can you do? Stop buying household cleaning products with toxic, carcinogenic chemicals. Do your research, ask around. Stop eating foods that are sprayed with pesticides, or at least properly soak and clean your fruits and vegetables for a decent amount of time before consuming them. Indeed, eat more fruits and vegetables to begin with. Exercise more, engage in activities/experiences that make you feel good and bring you joy — these are all simple steps we can take to show our bodies the love they deserve.

Again, I would emphasize diet, as a lot of what we are put into our bodies on a weekly basis isn’t healthy at all.

For example…

“Studies are confirming the health benefits of meat-free eating. Nowadays, plant-based eating is recognized as not only nutritionally sufficient but also as a way to reduce the risk for many chronic illnesses.” – Harvard Medical School (source)



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Thursday, February 9, 2017

Burt’s Bees Founder’s Cabin

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Burt's Bees founder next to his Cabin in the woods

Burt loved the land – and ithe Bees

Burt’s Bees founder Burt Shavitz was a modern day Thoreau. He loved nature and lived in a cabin much of his life.  For him, as he said before he died: “the old ways are the best ways” and “the land is everything”.

The company he founded unveiled Mr Shavitz’s  iconic, low-key cabin in January. Sadly, the company moved the rustic cabin from rural Maine to its headquarters on the American Tobacco Campus on in Durham, NC. The cabin displays Burt’s personal artefacts. The 300sq ft converted turkey coop originally had no electricity or running water.

“Burt was a living embodiment of our purpose to connect people to the wisdom, power and beauty of nature. A year after his passing, Burt’s life is a potent reminder for all of us that we can’t lose sight of our relationship with nature”, said Jim Geikie, General Manager of Burt’s Bees.

An observation bee hive was also installed to help educate the 1.5 million annual ATC visitors on bees and their importance to environment and humans. At its seasonal peak, the observation serves as a home to over 15,000 bees and is the largest of its kind in North Carolina.

Geikie spoke of his former boss’s habit of not using any electronics and instead choosing to embrace nature.”Burt used to say ‘I wake up when the sun comes in my window and go to bed when it’s too dark to read…Each day we come to work, we’ll be able to fondly remember the man who didn’t use an alarm clock and applaud his way of life as a beacon of inspiration in our hurried times”, said Geikie.

The post Burt’s Bees Founder’s Cabin appeared first on Living Off the Grid: Free Yourself.



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You are now the gatekeeper of news

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reading-news.jpg

News on digital tablet. Contents are all made up

(Credit: Getty/grinvalds)

News consumers today face a flood of fake news and information. Distinguishing between fact and fiction has become increasingly challenging.

In the past, news organizations sifted through information to try to determine its validity and veracity. Being trusted for what they reported became an important part of journalists’ reputations.

But that was then.

You are part of the problem

Now the gatekeeping role that the legacy media newspapers and network television news once played falls to all of us. Today, everyone assumes the position of publisher. Technology has democratized the process of making, or making up, news.

Journalists no longer decide what goes public. Information flows unimpeded and unchecked through the internet, filling a multitude of websites, blogs and tweets.

All of it flows through social media streams and into our laptops, tablets and smartphones. Everyone who posts, or reshares, a news story on Facebook or retweets a link takes on a role once held by only a powerful few media executives. The problem that emerges today stems from the fact that most social media “publishers” fail to consider the responsibility for what they post.

It’s not that fake news is new. Thomas Jefferson complained in 1807, “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper.” Jefferson’s comment represents just one of many views regarding news not only in the U.S. but in Europe. Fake news can be traced back Italy in 1475 when a priest made a false claim about a child’s disappearance. Even the political battle between Marc Antony and Octavian to succeed the murdered Julius Caesar engaged the use of fake news. Octavian’s use of fake news enabled him to succeed Caesar.

And it’s not that the old gatekeepers were infallible or consistently apolitical. But in today’s technological world, we’re in the midst of an informational perfect storm. The equation I might offer would be: Velocity + Volume = Volatility. All the news on the internet moves so fast, and assaults us with so much, that the outcome becomes unpredictably dangerous.

Some people who use social media check what they publish. Others repost or retweet information without reading it carefully, much less doing any due diligence for accuracy. That plays into what those who produce fake news hope to accomplish. While some believe they hope to deceive people, press critic Tom Rosenstiel asserts, “The goal of fake news is not to make people believe the lie. It is to make them doubt all news.”

Some may think that young people, with their social media savvy, might be better able to assess the information they consume.

A Stanford University study found it shocking that many of them couldn’t “evaluate the credibility of that information.” The study noted that more than 80 percent of middle schoolers saw “sponsored content” as actual news. High school students didn’t verify photos. Most college students failed to suspect potential bias in an activist group’s tweet.

Step up your game

So what are news consumers to do? How can they act as their own gatekeepers, intent on vigilance and verification like the best journalists and publishers of old?

Here’s how to begin.

No. 1. Check out the source. This may seem basic, but it’s easy to read headlines without paying attention to who wrote it. Writers and websites operate with their own perspective. Some want to offer a balanced view. Some advocate a point of view. Others hope to deceive you.

Know the “who” or the “what” of the source. Is the source, website, Twitter handle or blog familiar to you? Have you read them before? Read other work they have done. See if writers you trust link to them.

Read the “About” section of the writer/website. Use search engines to track the name. Sometimes such sites as Linkedin or Facebook turn up basic background information. The key is to know where they are coming from.

No. 2. Check out the information. Do other sources corroborate what you’re reading, viewing or hearing? Have you used verification sites such as Snopes, Politifact and FactCheck.org?

Snopes, for example, reported that some of the “2017 inauguration photos” tweeted out of Trump’s inauguration were taken weeks or years earlier. One was a photo of the Kansas Royals baseball team rally. Politifact pointed out President Donald Trump’s press secretary’s assertion the inauguration had the largest audience – period – was disputed by other measurements. And FactCheck.org noted that former President Barack Obama “falsely claimed that a treaty he signed with Russia in 2011 ‘has substantially reduced our nuclear stockpiles, both Russia and the United States.‘”

Dick Grefe, a senior reference librarian at Washington and Lee University, alerted me that two professors at the University of Washington have proposed teaching a course “Calling Bullshit: In the Age of Big Data.” The course would “focus on bullshit that comes clad in the trappings of scholarly discourse.” What’s fake isn’t limited to news.

No. 3. Be aware of your biases. Remember that we tend to read, listen to and watch news with our own built-in prejudices. We evaluate information based on whether it supports what we already believe. It can be easy to discount that which upsets or challenges our worldview. Reports about “confirmation bias” abound. As studies and writers have noted, we basically believe what we want to believe.

The concern journalists feel about how misleading and confusing the news can be has prompted a number of them to offer their own guides to approaching biases and fake news. Journalist and media expert Alicia Shepard offers her suggestions on how to avoid being duped. Alan Miller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who founded the News Literacy Project, grapples with confirmation bias head on. Steve Inskeep at NPR provides a guide to facts.

Battle your own confirmation bias by expanding the sources of information you seek. Be open to thinking about different points of view. Read widely. Read counterpoints. Watch for innovations from the media. For example, one recent study published on MarketWatch placed different news sources on the “truthiness” scale. Another, older piece on businessinsider.com could help you identify the ideology underlining your favorite source of news.

There’s no need to close the gate, but be sure you know what’s flowing in. It matters.

The Conversation

Aly Colón, Knight Professor of Journalism Ethics, Washington and Lee University



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Trump's EU Ambassador Says Greece Likely To "Sever Ties With Germany & Exit The Euro"

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Amid a more prolonged economic doldrums than The Great Depression, Greece is heading towards its 4th bailout/deal with creditors. Adding to Grexit fears (voiced by many in and out of Greece), Ted Malloch, President Trump's proposed US ambassador to the EU, casts doubt on survival of eurozone and says Athens should return to drachma.

As we noted previously, for the umpteenth time, the IMF has warned that Greece cannot meet fiscal targets set by its creditors. And once again, the IMF insists that it will not be a part of the “Troika” unless the goals on Greece are realistic. History suggests the IMF will cave in to Germany and agree to some half-baked plan (make that 1/8th baked plan) that will supposedly put Greece back on track. Such nonsense has been going on for years. Mercy, Please!

[It's worse than the Great Depression...]

20170207_greece.jpg

A view President Trump's proposed ambassador to EU holds...

Days after being accused of “outrageous malevolence” towards the EU for publicly declaring that it “needs a little taming”, The Guardian reports that Trump's nominee, Ted Malloch, said on Wednesday that the euro currency area in its present form was unlikely to last longer than 18 months.

“Whether the eurozone survives I think is very much a question that is on the agenda,” he told Greek Skai TV’s late-night chat show Istories. “We have had the exit of the UK, there are elections in other European countries, so I think it is something that will be determined over the course of the next year, year-and-a half.

 

“Why is Greece again on the brink? It seems like a deja vu, will it ever end? I think this time I would have to say that the odds are higher that Greece itself will break out of the euro.”

The stridently Brexit-supporting businessman, who has yet to be confirmed as the US president’s EU ambassador, said he wholeheartedly agreed with Trump’s tweet from 2012 saying Greece should return to the drachma, its former currency.

Greece should get out of the euro & go back to their own currency--they are just wasting time.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 9, 2012

"I personally think [Trump] was right. I would also say that this probably should have been instigated four years ago, and probably it would have been easier or simpler to do,” Malloch said in the interview with the show’s chief anchor, Alexis Papahelas.

Malloch said: “I have travelled to Greece, met lots of Greek people, I have academic friends in Greece and they say that these austerity plans are really deeply hurting the Greek people, and that the situation is simply unsustainable. So you might have to ask the question if what comes next could possibly be worse than what’s happening now.”

The biggest unknown was not a euro exit, but the chaos it would likely engender as Greece moved to a new currency, he said.

 

“If the [IMF] will not participate in a new bailout that does not include substantial debt relief, and that’s what they are saying, then that, more or less, ensures a collision course with eurozone creditors,” Malloch added, saying it was imperative that EU member states forgave a substantial part of Greece’s mountainous public debt.

 

“Now we all know that primarily [puts pressure on] Germany, which remains opposed to any such actions, so I think it suggests that Greece might have to sever ties and do Grexit and exit the euro,” he said.



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Sunday, February 5, 2017

Duped into investing billions on manipulated climate data

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(DAILYMAIL) — The Mail on Sunday today reveals astonishing evidence that the organisation that is the world’s leading source of climate data rushed to publish a landmark paper that exaggerated global warming and was timed to influence the historic Paris Agreement on climate change.

A high-level whistleblower has told this newspaper that America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) breached its own rules on scientific integrity when it published the sensational but flawed report, aimed at making the maximum possible impact on world leaders including Barack Obama and David Cameron at the UN climate conference in Paris in 2015.

The report claimed that the ‘pause’ or ‘slowdown’ in global warming in the period since 1998 – revealed by UN scientists in 2013 – never existed, and that world temperatures had been rising faster than scientists expected. Launched by NOAA with a public relations fanfare, it was splashed across the world’s media, and cited repeatedly by politicians and policy makers.



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“The Only Ones Who Don’t Seem To Understand Are The Economists,” Said The Economist

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Presenting the latest weekly anecdote from Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

“The only ones who don’t seem to understand are the economists,” said the economist, a Nobel Laureate.

 

He was discussing the importance of narrative in society. “Economists talk about interest rates, price-to-earnings ratios, and obscure formulas as if we’ve arrived from a different planet. These things don’t drive people. Stories drive people.” Of course, economists may not know how to tell a good bedtime story, but they sure can put a room filled with middle-aged nerds to sleep.

 

Which may explain why sociologists, anthropologists, linguists and just about every other scientific group studies the importance of narrative, but not economists.

 

“I’m particularly intrigued by something coming out of the medical field called Mathematical Epidemiology,” he said, using a really complex term to describe the spread of infectious disease. “Scientists are becoming aware of the spread of thought viruses, memes, idea-microbes. It turns out they’re contagious just like diseases.”

 

The reason that ‘going viral’ is creeping into our language is that it’s become our reality. It’s how fake news spreads, infecting us all.

 

“The models have two inputs; contagion rate and recovery rate. Epidemics burn themselves out because people recover and become immune.”

 

Idea-epidemics follow a similar path. “Populism in the 1930s was an idea-epidemic that led to Fascism. The horrors of WWII sparked the spread of globalism, multi-nationalism, multi-culturalism. And these ideas appear now to have expended themselves,” he said, pivoting to The Donald.

 

Trump is a story teller. He’s an example of narrative economics, the personification of a story.” And the economist paused, examining both hands.

 

“He might be bad or he might be good. He has no political experience. He talks openly, rejects political correctness. And he throws out theories that might even be right – we really just don’t know – because we’ve never heard them before.”

Which is today’s narrative.

* * *

And, as an added bonus, two fables:

Fables: “Trump embodies the spirit of Mandeville,” said the economic historian, reciting his 18th century poem - The Fable of the Bees - which argued that successful societies spend lavishly. “Keynes said the same thing when he described the paradox of thrift. Perhaps Trump can convince people to spend again,” he continued.

 

“Roosevelt told us that the only thing to fear is fear itself,” he said, reciting FDR’s 1933 inaugural address, set in the midst of a profound banking crisis.

 

“But then again, that didn’t really work, America remained mired in depression.”  

 

Fables II: “Then there’s Calvin Coolidge, who presided over the 1923-29 boom. He said the chief business of the American people is business,” continued the same economist.

 

“Coolidge cut taxes on the rich. Adopted policies broadly similar to Trump. Worked beautifully for him.” He left office just in time, the market crashed.

 

“There was Joe McCarthy,” he said. “A charismatic figure in the 1950s. The public found him amusing. They enjoyed his prosecution of Congress.”

 

But Joe drank his own Cool-Aide. “The public eventually turned sharply against him.”



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As Media Labels Fukushima A “Conspiracy Theory,” Radiation Soars To Record Level

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by Claire Bernish, Activist Post:

Radiation levels inside Fukushima Number 2 have reached astronomical levels — experts describe the 530 sieverts per hour as “unimaginable” — yet the political establishment and its corporate media mouthpiece insist on deeming those concerned about the catastrophe ‘conspiracy theorists.’

March 11, 2011, saw a massive undersea earthquake spawn an equally formidable tsunami, and — as the world watched in horror — the wall of water slammed into the Japanese coast, knocking Tokyo Electric Power Company-operated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant offline.

Anyone who watched the cataclysmic situation unfold on live TV surmised the dire consequences of having situated a nuclear facility in one of the world’s most active fault zones — and on the Pacific coast — but the cost in radioactive impact of the disaster has yet to be fully assessed.


That, for one, concerns Tepco’s notorious penchant for underreporting and misrepresenting the fiasco that has been the cleanup effort; and, for another, the unrelenting campaign to label anyone rightly concerned about the extent of damage a tinfoil hat-wearing lunatic.

Both of those conditions must be resolved — particularly with the discovery of astonishing radiation levels present in the Number 2 reactor — because the world deserves the truth about the catastrophe and to not be denounced when expressing fears information about Fukushima might not be as innocuous as we’ve been told.

Officials at the nuclear plant had been preparing to dismantle the paralyzed facility when they found levels of radioactivity inside the reactor’s containment vessel — where fuel rods originally generated power — to be more than seven times a previous high of 73 sieverts per hour, recorded by Tepco shortly after the fateful day. Gizmodo explains,

Read More @ ActivistPost.com



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