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Monday, 22 December 2014

The first people?


"Why should we be so arrogant as to assume that we're the first homo-sapiens to walk the earth?" (J.J. Abrams et al., 2010)



Piri Reis

No one remembers one's moment of birth and neither does humanity. The beginning of man is a scientific mystery. This article, however, is not about how man came to be, but about shortly after that; it is about the dawn of humanity, a missing chapter in human history. People, in this forgotten chapter, mapped the earth and sky long before there were ancient Egyptians or Jews. They are not to be confused with Australopithecus, Homo Habilis, or Homo Ergaster. Instead, they are remembered by ancients as 'gods' because it is they who first engineered societies, leaving baffling traces on earth.

The idea of how humanity's progress began is relative. Before the enlightenment, human civilizations throughout history viewed the past as glorious and expected the future to simply resemble and repeat the past. Mankind did not think highly of themselves until after Kant declared the motto "Sapere aude," - dare to think for yourself. But the question remains: what is it in our distant past that made the ancients behold it with such impressiveness?


Scientific and technological progresses do not necessarily take thousands of years. The pace can be exponential, slow, or even regressive - exponential through accidental breakthroughs and inventions, e.g. the 20th century, but slow when impeded by a major force such as the Roman church or the Black Death that prolonged the dark ages for a century. Regression occurs due to a massive loss of knowledge, e.g. the burning of the Alexandria Library in 391 A.D. The idea that scientific and technological development takes millennia is an impression that we get from our assessment of the known history. Progress is inevitable and desirable for any civilization.


The progress of science and technology changes the way we live presently as well as how we see the past and future. Our expectations of the future change based partly on the breakthroughs we make and the pace of the scientific development. Our visions of the past, too, change as we develop new ways of investigating facts. The current worldview of the past is that things were primitive, and that mankind emerged from a state of barbarism to become smarter and more capable. However, emerging evidence suggests otherwise beginning with Plato's account of Atlantis, although, across the past two millennia, his account was considered fictional. In 1882, U.S. Congressman Ignatius Loyola Donnelly published his book Atlantis: The Antediluvian World in which he gathers the then-available evidence in favor of an early mighty civilization that was far more advanced than they had any right to be. He mainly studied ancient myths and believed Plato's account of Atlantis to be historically accurate.


Forty-seven years later, in 1929, a medieval map called Piri Reis was found at the Imperial Palace library in Constantinople (Istanbul). This map inexplicably depicts, with unprecedented fine details, the continents of South America and Antarctica corresponding to present longitude and latitude albeit it dates back to 1513. It was not until after the Piri Reis map discovery that other maps of high precision started emerging, eg: the Ribero maps 1520-30, the Ortelius map 1570, and the Wright-Molyneux map 1599 (McIntosh, 2000:59).


The Piri Reis map was thought to have been based on Columbus' explorations, though he never surveyed South America. Later, Charles Hapgood studied the map intensively and concluded that a remote and advanced civilization had existed and mapped the unexplored parts of the world before Columbus' time (Hapgood, 1966). Hapgood's unorthodox theory of earth crustal displacement also accounts for a preexistent civilized culture in Antarctica. Albert Einstein found that Hapgood's ideas had scientific worth (Einstein, 1953).


Years later in 1978, Brad Steiger's book Worlds Before Our Own rekindled the issue of past advanced societies. Steiger studied the OPA (out-of-place artifacts) to support his theory which challenged the well-accepted idea that if humans were primitive in the past, common sense then says the deeper one digs down into the earth the more un-advanced artifacts one finds. What he actually found was that some advanced human artifacts are located in the lowest primordial geologic strata whereas primitive ones are located in upper strata (thus labeled Out-of-Place Artifacts). He also presented evidence that strongly suggests the cohabitation of dinosaurs and humans. Steiger's unconventional book fueled other subsequent works such as Dead Men's Secrets (1986), Forbidden Archaeology (1993), The Orion Mystery (1993), Fingerprints of the Gods (1995), and Technology of the Gods (1999). But, Steiger's book was also met with a great deal of criticism.


Today, theories such as Steiger's, along with supporting evidence, call into question the current worldview of the first people. When one subscribes to this unconventional and unaccepted theory of history, one is then driven to speculate two possible past events that put an end to these historical societies. Either they were so advanced that they destroyed themselves, or they were destroyed by a global cataclysm from which a few survived. The first case seems less probable than the second although there might be some clues that imply ancient warfare.



"When the first atomic bomb exploded in New Mexico, the desert sand turned to fused green glass. This fact, according to the magazine Free World, has given certain archaeologists a turn. They have been digging in the ancient Euphrates Valley and have uncovered a layer of agrarian culture 8,000 years old, and a layer of herdsman culture much older, and a still older caveman culture. Recently, they reached another layer, a layer of fused green glass" (New York Herald Tribune, 1947)



The assumption of uniformitarianism makes scientists attribute the current features of the earth surface to a slow process that took millions of years. The alternative view however suggests that these features are the result of a worldwide cataclysm that took place mere thousands of years ago. In this regard, three pieces of evidence in favor of the past cataclysm will be discussed.

First, we have the problem of the carbon dating method. Most geologists use carbon dating to determine the age of fossils and geologic strata. The reliability of this method requires a balance between the forming and decaying of radioactive carbon that has been maintaining its equilibrium for millions of years in earth's atmosphere. However, carbon's forming and decaying has not even yet reached equilibrium on earth for the amount of C14 that is being produced is greater than that which is being decayed. As a result, we cannot use today's C14 ratio (0.0000765%) in the atmosphere as a benchmark to measure the presence of C14 in ancient fossils. Plus, it is hopeless to correlate earth's epochs with the geologic column since the latter is based on fiction (Huse, 1983:15; Smith, 2012:242). Vertical petrified trees are the whistleblower that exposes the invalidity of the geologic column. Many petrified trees running across multiple geological strata have been observed in nature which could only suggest that these strata formed in a short period of time, a result of a rapid cataclysmal sedimentation for example, but not millions of years (Harold 1969; 1971, Rupke, N.A, 1970).


Secondly, there is scientific evidence of a past near-extinction event, also known as population bottleneck event. The two researchers William Amos and J.I. Hoffman from University of Cambridge found genetic evidence for a sudden and drastic decline of the world population to a very small number of people thousands of years ago (Amos & Hoffman, 2010:131-7). This is speculated to be caused by a worldwide cataclysm.


Third, there are stunning similarities among several ancient myths and legends of different people across the globe on the event of a past global catastrophe, more specifically a global flood similar to the one mentioned in both Biblical and Qur'anic accounts. Some of these myths are Sumerian creation myth (ca. 1600 B.C.), Ancient Greek flood myths, ancient myths of Kwaya, Mbuti, Maasai, Mandin, and Yoruba people in Africa, Yu the Great (ca. 2200 B.C.) and Nüwa in China, Tiddalik in Australia, Hopi mythology in North America, Unu Pachakuti myth of the Incas in South America and this is not the end of the list for there are more than 500 ancient deluge legends (Cox, 1997:198; Dey, 2012: 112; Wohl, 2000:273; LaViolette, 2005: 235). These myths are traces of a global collective memory referring to an actual event in the distant past.


Myths are fossils of history (Gray, 2004:15). They preserve history in ways that might not make sense to us. The dialogues of Plato regarding Atlantis are the most vivid memory of antediluvian societies we have today. Some myths that still recall some faint memories of the golden age depict these societies with magic and supernatural powers. Take the example of the Sanskrit epic of vimanas about a mythological flying machine. Recently, some researchers have immersed themselves into studying ancient myths from this perspective (ex: Max Igan, 2005), and they have found rather curious results.


Critical to the discussion of ancient advanced societies is concrete evidence to support the current bold claim of highly advanced societies in prehistory. The Nobel medalist and chemist Dr. Melvin Cook concludes that the earth underground oil deposits were formed as a result of a sudden and rapid burial of organic materials just a few thousands years ago (Cook, 1966; 1967). Thus, it could be the case that the oil deposits are ancient buried cities that turned into oil due to the sudden sedimentation and high pressure since the deluge would have had ruined and buried everything. In that sense, we might be burning the evidence simply by running an errand in a car.


The matter of concrete evidence requires speculation. How much do we really know about earth? Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The evidence could be staring us in the face but we are just blinded due to the way we perceive and interpret facts. Due to a lack of perspective, we may not look for or see the evidence that is before us. There are, however, some tantalizing hints that ought to be considered seriously.


First, we must acknowledge that the biggest manmade edifices on earth are concrete evidence and their construction and purpose are still unexplained. For thousands of years, the Great Pyramid of Khufu had been the tallest structure on earth until the Empire State Building skyscraper was completed in 1931, and still is "the most colossal single building ever erected on the planet" (britannica.com). It is aligned to true geodetic North and its location is found to be the center of the earth landmass. This sort of precision entails a comprehensive knowledge of earth geography, e.g. Mercator projection, which is something very unexpected of ancient Egypt (Bauer, 2007:86). In addition to that, engineers and scientists conclude that it is impossible to replicate the great pyramid despite the sophisticated technology we have nowadays given the structure's immensity and staggering precision (Fix, 1984; West, 1993; Hancock, 1995; Rux, 1996: 265; Dunn, 1998; Amato, 2007:4; Atiya & Lamis, 2007:3; Beaudoin & Joseph, 2007:54; Sheldon, 2009:146-147; Cadose, 2012:75).



"Scientists have conceded that modern man cannot build a great pyramid that would retain its shape for thousands of years without sagging under its own weight." (Gray, 2004:172)



The engineer Markus Schulte, however, speculates that if it were possible to replicate the Great Pyramid alone, it would today cost us some $35 billion (Malkowski, 2010:117). Investing such money in such colossal structure, that is not even habitable, and without any expected profit, is something we certainly would not do today. So the question of 'how was it built?' is of less importance to 'why was it built?'

One of the latest theories that seems to explain why the Giza pyramids were built is the Orion Correlation theory (1993) advanced by Robert Bauval. The theory suggests that the three pyramids at Giza mirror the three stars in the Orion constellation, also known as Orion's belt, and the position of the Nile River in relation to the pyramids mirrors the position of the Milky Way galaxy in relation to the Orion constellation. Bauval observes that the shaft within the Great Pyramid was, in the past, oriented towards the middle star of Orion's belt which is the star representing the same pyramid. However, that is not all there is to the theory. Bauval's theory does not make much sense without taking into consideration the astronomical phenomenon called precession of the equinoxes, also called the Great Year or the Platonic Year. This phenomenon is plainly earth's third cycle after the daily and annual ones. The cycle is either caused by the slow wobbling of the earth due to the moon gravitational pull or by the whole solar system moving in a helical orbit. Its implication is that the night sky stars move backward across the eons. As a result, the position of constellations in the night sky for the ancient is not the same as of their position nowadays. Every time the sun rises in the morning of the vernal equinoxes (March 20th and September 22nd), the background constellation on the horizon of that morning is one of the Zodiac constellations. One cycle is completed when the entire Zodiac constellations come to pass. The NASA estimates the cycle to last 25,800 years making each constellation last 2,125 years in the morning of the vernal equinoxes.


So how is that information relevant to the Giza plateau? Well, in the immediate vicinity of the pyramids we have the Sphinx which faces east. The Sphinx shape seems to resemble a lion, and thus Bauval suggests that it symbolizes the Zodiac constellation of Leo. In the morning of the equinoxes, the Sphinx, in the present era, faces the constellation of Pieces and is slightly shifting towards the constellation of Aquarius, but by running a computer backward simulation of the earth precession, we find that the Sphinx at some point in the remote past used to face the constellation of Leo from 10,970 to 8810 B.C. Now the eureka moment is when we line up the shaft inside the Great pyramid with the middle star of Orion's belt in that epoch and at last we have an exact date of around 10,450 B.C. So all of a sudden the pyramids are no longer tombs but a gigantic clock that has a date frozen into its structure.


The first scientific recognition of the precession cycle took place in ancient Greece (129 B.C.) by the astronomer Hipparchus. However, ancient Mesopotamia, Maya and Egypt somehow knew about the cycle and we do not know whether this knowledge was handed down from earlier times or they scientifically discovered it. This cycle tracks time on a large span and it is "extremely difficult to observe, and even harder to measure accurately, without sophisticated instrumentation" (Hancock, 1995:231). Using the cycle as an astronomical clock with the help of an eternal structure that defeats the eons of time and all of that with staggering precision is something very remarkable that presupposes a thorough knowledge of astronomy and engineering.


At this point it is doubtful to think that ancient Egyptians designed and built the Giza Necropolis. We know many aspects of ancient Egyptian daily life with the minutest details. However, there is no single mention of: "Oh, by the way, we also built the pyramids" in their hieroglyphs records or even any hieroglyph inscription inside the three main pyramids. Some evidence even suggests that the site predates the legendary flood. Incrustations of natural salt were found inside the great pyramid when it was opened for the first time (Dinwiddie, 2001:164). Furthermore, in the 1750's, the naval captain and explorer Frederic Norden reported the existence of a great number of oysters and seashells in the vicinity of the pyramids and the Sphinx. In his Histories, Herodotus also reports that he observed in the surrounding area of the pyramids seashells and signs of salt water calcification back then (Herodotus, ca. 450 B.C., Book II:12). All of that evidence seems to suggest that maybe the Giza plateau was once under water. Then what about the strong tie between ancient Egyptians and the Giza plateau? Aside from ancient Egypt, most ancient civilizations exhibit a sort of obsession and admiration for pyramid-like structures which could originally be ascribed to the three pyramids at Giza. Further, the failed attempts to reproduce the pyramids on a small scale, like the case of the three Queen's Pyramids, explain how impressed ancient Egyptians were by the colossal three edifices. It is not so crazy after all to assume that ancient Egyptians founded their entire civilization in the vicinity of the Giza plateau only to be identified with the immensity of the structures.


If one assumes that the correlation theory is valid, then what is special about the remote date at which the Giza plateau hints? In general, 10,000 B.C. is a very significant date in our conventional wisdom. It is the date when the late ice age ended. It marks the first appearance of wooden buildings, human settlements in the Americas and the domestication of animals. Remains of humans in caves and a remarkable transformation marked with the introduction of farming all date back to the same era. All these sudden developments could signify two possible scenarios.


The first scenario suggests that humans were witnessing the most significant step in their long chain of evolution. The second suggests humans were actually recovering from a worldwide cataclysm. Following the line of the second, and less known, scenario, one cannot expect survivors of a cataclysm to build cities right from the start. They would have to spread out over the earth which would eventually result in linguistic deviation. Keeping track of one another would not be possible due to the absence of means of communication. This latter may explain the absence of historical accounts before the city of Uruk made its appearance ca. 4500 B.C. So instead of progressing forward, humans would have to go through a phase of silence characterized by the struggle with nature and the use of archaic tools before they start coming together to build urban centers.


The book Noah to Abram: The Turbulent Years: New Light on Ice Age, Cave Man, Stone Age, the Old Kingdoms by Erich A. Von Fange highlights the striking similarities between the knowledge we have about early archaic human cultures of the Lower Paleolithic period (Oldowan, Acheulean and Mousterian tool cultures) and the case of a post-cataclysm man trying to survive upon the ruins of their ancestors. Given the growing body of evidence, the second view is now becoming more recognized in outer circles. The Roland Emmerich movie 10,000 BC (2008), for example, opted for the cataclysm scenario for which it received sharp criticism from the academic circle and was dubbed archaeologically and historically inaccurate. Going back to the Giza plateau, why would the ancient go to such trouble to build huge monuments that hint at a specific date? Why is 10,000 B.C. an important date for the pyramid builders? What was happening back then?


Just a little while after 10,000 B.C., all cultures seem to have started emerging simultaneously with no substantial signs of preliminary phases. They went from being hunter-gatherers to becoming citizens with rights and responsibilities.



"How does a complex civilization spring full-blown into being? Look at a 1905 automobile and compare it to a modern one. There is no mistaking the process of 'development'. But in Egypt there are no parallels. Everything is right there at the start. The answer to the mystery is of course obvious but, because it is repellent to the prevailing cast of modern thinking, it is seldom considered. Egyptian civilization was not a 'development', it was a legacy." (West, 1979:13)



The sudden appearance of cities is probably backed up by solid knowledge of sophisticated social structure. The presence of a high culture the like of ancient Egypt in such epoch is in itself very enigmatic. Furthermore, the superiority of ancient Egypt over ancient Greece is indisputable although Egypt is older. Herodotus and many other modern historians have pointed out this contradiction (McCants 1975:62). Even earlier than Herodotus, Solon's account embodies a small talk between the two cultures. Solon (d. ca. 559 B.C.) was an Athenian statesman and a distant ancestor to Plato. He had a conversation with an ancient Egyptian priest in which he was told:

" 'O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are never anything but children, and there is not an old man among you.' Solon in return asked him what he meant. 'I mean to say,' he replied, 'that in mind you are all young; there is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is hoary with age. And I will tell you why. There have been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes' " (Plato's Timaeus, ca. 360 B.C.)



The key to this mystery is that it is highly probable that some people may have kept valuable knowledge originating from the first people that allowed them to prosper faster and earlier than others. For example some Egyptologists conclude that ancient Egyptian high priests possessed some powerful secret knowledge to which the triumph of ancient Egypt was attributed (Nuttall, 1839:668; West, 1979 :24; Linke, 2012:28; Hancock, 1995:361; Marks, 2001), like the knowledge of electricity (Childress, 1996:18).

The first people certainly left some remnants of their advanced science that still linger even up to today. In astronomy for instance, the artificial division of the celestial longitude zones into 12 Zodiac constellations of 30 degrees each along with the awareness of the celestial precession seem to be descending from a higher culture. In addition to that, the heliocentric view of the world is not new. Its earliest traces date back to ancient Sanskrit texts (e.g. Yajnavalkya, ca. 900 B.C. and Aryabhata ca. 550 B.C.) and later Aristarchus of Samos (ca. 230 B.C.). In that sense, the Copernican revolution is rather a revival of lost knowledge.



"Contrary to history as we know it, in that remote period we call 'prehistory', there subsisted an embarrassing wealth of astronomical knowledge. And may I suggest that the more one looks into it, the more one feels that a race of scientific giants has preceded us." (Gray, 2004:105)



In medicine, alternative medicine with its unknown origin entails a deep knowledge of human anatomy that made its way to modern day and has been acknowledged by the World Health Organization despite being still not understood.

In physics, knowledge of electricity may also have existed in prehistory. The German archaeologist Wilhelm König found a 2000-year-old ancient battery, known as the Parthian Battery, in the National Museum of Iraq in 1938 (Handorf, 2002:84 - 7). The battery is reported to have been unearthed near Baghdad (the area of Khujut Rabu) during a 1936 excavation. In 1940, König produced a scientific paper on the battery based on which "Willard F. M. Gray, of the General Electric High Voltage Laboratory in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, built and tested several reproductions of the Khujut Rabu finds, all of which produced equivalent electrical input" (Kenyon, 2008:42). Moreover, aluminum is a metal that cannot be generated without electricity, which was not available until 1854. However, many items made of aluminum have been found in archaeological sites, e.g. in the burial site of general Zhou Chu (265-420 A.D.). As a matter of fact, electricity is the very first thing one stumbles upon once one starts studying matter, and it is not a difficult thing to rediscover especially if one has foreknowledge of its existence.


In geography, ancient maps undoubtedly fueled the age of maritime exploration. The Piri Reis map continues to amaze modern man not only for its accuracy but also for its depiction of Antarctica before it was supposedly discovered in 1819. The continent is depicted being free of ice with geological details that irrefutably correspond with the seismic echo sounding profile run by the Swedish-British-Norwegian Antarctic Expedition in 1949 (Ohlmeyer, the USAF Commander, in a letter to Charles Hapgood, 1960). Meanwhile, the Antarctica landmass is thought to have been under the ice cap long before our species even evolved according to Academia. So what are we seriously missing here?



"The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy



Some of the ideas presented in this article may seem at odds but that is the nature of mysteries. They remain mysterious until someone makes sense of them. For example, Giza Pyramids preach for lost science and technology but their astronomical alignment preaches for a post-cataclysm construction which somehow does not make sense. This article is not trying to construct a systematic view of the past. It is rather an invitation to dig deeper into the past. Knowing our past is of great value. The past, the present and the future are all a one chain of events. The more we know about the past, the more we know ourselves and our possible directions.

The evidence to question what we know about the past of humanity is all around us. Some recognize it, some reject it, and some go to extreme views such as associating these perplexing legacies with ancient alien visits. The manner in which people react to evidence or anomaly is conditioned by attitudes towards the past and under the influence of the rampant contemporary philosophies of presentism and scientism or practices like obscurantism. Any anomaly in science could be a twinkling of a new discovery or paradigm shift that may be left unnoticed or even denied for fear of misoneism. A true scientific and intellectual honesty will never be achieved unless we are open to adjust or even reconstruct our theoretical assumptions accordingly until the anomalous, as Kuhn puts it, becomes expected (Kuhn, 1970:52). At a minimum, we show effort of reconciliation instead of burying our heads in sand. It is only a matter of time before man faces the greatest disappointment in science and its grand theories due to the snobbishness of present science. We are in a desperate need not only for a paradigm shift but, most importantly, for a scientific renaissance.


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Condon, C. (2014, July 28). Was There an Ancient Civilization on Antarctica? - LewRockwell.com. Retrieved October 24, 2014, from link


Cook, M. (1966). Prehistory and earth models,. London: Parrish.


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Top uses for apple cider vinegar backed by science


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Apple Cider Vinegar has a plethora of useful and medicinal properties. There have been resources written on all the amazing benefits that Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) has regarding multiple physical ailments as well as cleaning and DIY purposes.

ACV is a cheap and effective multi-purpose cleaner, you can add it to your water, tea and salad dressings for a refreshing zing and capitalize on the multiple health benefits you'll be receiving.


Why all the fuss over apple cider vinegar?


The word vinegar translates to vin aigre, is french for "sour wine". The medicinal uses of vinegar date way back to when it was discovered in 5000 BC by a courtier in Babylonia.


MD's during the 18th century used it as a multi purpose treatment for ailments like dropsy, stomach ache and even for managing diabetes (1).


Columbus had barrels of apple cider vinegar on his ships to prevent scurvy. Apple cider vinegar was used during the civil war to disinfect wounds and Japanese Samurais drank it for strength and power.


Hippocrates used vinegar to treat seventeen different conditions (2) ranging from ulcers to fractures.


Apple Cider Vinegar is loaded with vitamins, minerals, and amino acids, it's various enzymes help with digestion and 1 Tbs equals is just 3 calories.


1. Cleaning


ACV combined with 2 parts water makes an effective natural disinfectant solution for all surfaces (3).


It's amazingly affordable compared to commercial natural cleaning products and the smell is really pleasant, you could add a few drops of thieves oil and have a great antibacterial spray for countertops, bathroom, kitchen and carpet deodorizer.


2. Hair rinse


There's a new hair craze on the rise and it relies on the simple method of using baking soda as a shampoo and ACV as a conditioning hair rinse.


Instead of spending loads on junk free shampoos and conditioners, this "no poo" (short for shampoo, not the other stuff) method of hair care works really well and makes your hair super soft.


Thanks to the pH balancing effects that ACV has, anecdotal reports claim it can add shine, softness and break down build up from other hair products.


3. Dandruff and Thinning Hair


The high acidity and powerful enzyme in ACV kill the bacteria responsible for dandruff and hair loss, bottle bacilli, and stimulates our hair natural oils to secrete more effectively and moisturize our scalps better.


Saturate the scalp with ACV and let it sit for a few hours if you can, use the same treatment for thinning hair and itchy scalp (4).


4. Pets


ACV is a great remedy for repelling fleas from your dogs skin, it's totally safe to use so you don't have to worry about your pet getting sick from licking afterwards.


It works on pets the same way that it works on humans, reestablishing the proper acid mantle of the skin to repel microbes and other pests.


You can also add Apple Cider Vinegar to your pets food to keep a healthy pH balance in their gut and to prevent allergies, deter parasites, ringworm, ticks, fungus and other microbes from invading.


A 50 lb. dog would get about 2 tsp per day with food, and if you wanted to use ACV externally you could mix it 50:50 with water and put it in a spray bottle, saturating the dogs coat once per day (5).


5. Skin toner


Most skin care products are on the alkaline side of the pH scale, some people try everything for their skin problems but nothing seems to work! The issue is most products are harming the acid mantle, a protective layer on our skin.


ACV is great because it's acidity is closer to the natural pH of our skin, which keeps the acid mantle intact to do its job, protecting against germs and foreign bacteria which can be perpetuating the skin problem.


If you want to try ACV as a toner, just combine one part ACV with two to three parts water, you'll want to add more water for very sensitive skin.


Apply this concoction to your face after cleansing and allow it to absorb into your skin.


6. Detoxifying


In a world filled with so many toxins, we should all be taking precautionary measures by incorporating protective foods into our diets. We've discussed many of the sources of toxins in previous articles so we won't be overly redundant in this article.


The unique acids in ACV bind to toxins and allow us to release them more effectively.


You can also utilize the medicine of ACV by adding a cup to a hot bath with some epsom salts, to kickstart your lymphatic system into releasing toxins (6).


7. Allergies and congestion


Not only does ACV help break up mucous, it also has a natural anti-histamine effect.


Whether your suffering from seasonal allergies, environmental or pet related, ACV can lessen the sneezy, wheezy, uncomfortable symptoms (7).


8. Candida


If you aren't familiar with candida overgrowth, consider yourself lucky. Candida is a parasitic bacteria which cause yeast overgrowth leading to low energy, poor digestion, yeast infections, canker sores and other uncomfortable symptoms.


Candida overgrowth occurs often when a person has a poor diet, high in refined sugar and carbohydrates, and it can take over when the gut flora compromised by antibiotic use or birth control.


ACV is an effective tool in the kit of someone trying to rid themselves of draining candida. You can also look at lemon water as a possible solution when treating Candida.


It works by helping promote better digestion and an acid/alkaline balance more aligned with promoting healthy bacteria to once again thrive in the gut (8).


Vinegar has been used since time eternal as a cure for foot fungus and is great for killing molds.


Since yeast is a fungus it makes sense that ACV would help in keeping the parasite at bay, even though to date there hasn't been any specific analysis of ACV directly as a candida killer.


9. Reduces heart burn and acid reflux


One of the most common health complaints people have is heart burn. It's a symptom of the SAD (Standard American Diet) lifestyle because acid reflux only occurs when we're depleted in hydrochloric acid (HcL).


HcL production is low in people who have sub optimal gut flora, meaning the aren't eating enough cultured/fermented foods and have likely taken some sort of antibiotic in the past which has killed off the natural beneficial bacteria.


Stomach acid is the first line of defense against microbes, but when the stomach pH isn't low enough, pathogens may grow around the esophageal sphincter and paralyze the muscle, allowing food to relax back up the esophagus (9).


Taking a Tbs of raw ACV with each meal ensures that the stomach acid will be acidic enough to do it's job in making sure to kill off harmful microbes and start the process of digestion (10).


10. Effective in treating high cholesterol


There has yet to be a study done on effects of ACV on humans with high cholesterol but a study in 2006 found rats fed ACV for 19 days had drastic reduction in total cholesterol and triglyceride levels (11).


There's also an antioxidant called chlorogenic acid present in ACV which has been found to LDL cholesterol particles from becoming oxidized (12).


11. Antiglycemic effect


Plenty of human studies have been done on the effect vinegar has on insulin response and blood glucose levels after a meal (13). I think it's important that everyone understands what insulin is and does in our bodies. Insulin plays a critical role in the way our body uses food. The primary function is decreasing the concentration of glucose (sugar) in your blood stream.


Every time you eat your body begins to break down the food into glucose, which goes into your blood stream. Your pancreas reacts to the surge in glucose by releasing insulin which cleans the the sugar from your blood. A portion of the glucose runs through the liver where it's converted to glycogen to be used by your muscles.


Then insulin converts any left over glucose into fatty acids stored in the form of fat cells as an energy source later. Our bodies crave sugar, and so much of what we buy in the grocery store has added sugar as a result.


Many are developing a resistance to insulin which means that your body has has so much insulin secreted that it starts to ignore it and the sugar stays in the blood stream which is not a good thing. This can develop into diabetes and permanent health damages.


Vinegar also has the effect of suppressing the appetite and increasing feeling of satiety. (14)


ACV may also lower the glycemic response to starchy carbohydrates (15).


With diabetes being as prevalent as it is today it's comforting to know that something as simple as vinegar may perhaps be an effective treatment.


12. Preventative


Cancer is devastating and debilitating, almost all of us have loved ones who have been affected by this heinous disease. There's so much research in the realm of cancer prevention, a healthy diet and lifestyle are of the utmost importance.


The acetic acid present in ACV has been found in a number of cell and animal studies to have anti-tumor properties (16). We are in to way claiming that apple cider vinegar is a cure for cancer or tumors, ongoing research and testing is a step in the right direction.


The amazing thing is that we can incorporate disease preventative foods like this one easily into our daily regime, there are no harmful side effects, and no risk of overdose, so why not?


13. Improves digestion


Apple Cider Vinegar in its raw form is an excellent digestive tonic, it's so rich in living enzymes that help to break food down to its bare components, making it far easier to assimilate.


As I mentioned before it's an important source of acid which enables the first step of digestion to work effectively, stirring up those digestive juices helps immensely with the rest of the digestive processes.


The acetic acid present in ACV has also been shown to help with mineral absorption, enabling us to get the most out of the foods we eat (17).


14. Prevents muscle fatigue after exercise


Muscle fatigue can often be a symptom of mineral and electrolyte depletion. To make sure the body has ample electrolyte stores take a Tbs of ACV with water before a workout. The natural pH of our bodies when it's in balance create an environment where elimination of excess lactic acid in the muscles easily occurs, this stasis also plays a crucial role in oxygenating our bodies during exercise (18).


15. Bad breath


Halitosis, it's embarrassing and can be a sign of a deeper problem but one remedy for bad breath is you guessed it, ACV.


A folk remedy that many people claim has merit is to gargle with 1/2 Tbs raw ACV diluted in water for 30 seconds, twice per day (19). Some say it also helps to whiten teeth and remove stains.


16. Body odor


Again with the pH, ACV helps control excessive body odor by regulating the pH of the skin, something most commercial deodorants and perfumes can't claim (20).


For foot odor as well as fungal problems, even just a 10 minute soak once a week can keep bad smells in check.


To use ACV as a deodorant simply wipe each armpit with a soaked cotton ball daily.


17. Preserving food


Vinegars use as a preservative agent dates back to 5000 BC when it was first discovered. People soon recognized that this magical substance could allow them to store food for longer periods.


The same rules apply today, saving some of the bounty when our favorite foods are in season is a great way to eat organic local food all year long.


Instead of making pickles with white vinegar, try using ACV, it gives them a great flavor as well as the added health benefits (21).


18. Weight loss


A huge problem those of us trying to lose weight face is those ups and downs when blood sugars spike and drop too drastically.


The blood sugar roller coaster causes us to crave "high energy" foods like refined carbohydrates, to give a short term boost but a long term plummet.


ACV has been shown to help regulate blood sugar levels, helping to curb cravings and kick extra calories out.


ACV has become an overnight sensation in the weight loss industry, they even make it in pill form, though most of the experts say it's better to just drink the real unpasteurized stuff.


ACV can also help with weight loss by increasing satiety after a meal, always a good feeling. A study done on obese individuals who consumed 15mL or 30mL of vinegar per day for 12-weeks, showed a reduction in body fat mass and serum triglycerides (22).


19. Prevents bladder stones and UTI


If you've ever had kidney stones, or known someone who has, they are extremely painful, and totally preventable.


Stones typically form when a persons urine is very acidic and concentrated, crystals form out of uric acid, calcium oxalate and struvite and have to be passed through the urinary tract.


ACV works by alkalizing the urine, decreasing the likelihood that this ailment would ever occur, and it's been said that it can even break down the kidney stones (23).


It makes sense seeing as we saw above just how powerful of a substance ACV is when it comes to helping the body absorb minerals.


20. Balanced pH


Dr. Theodore Baroody, in his book "Alkalize or Die," claims ACV to have an alkalizing effect on the blood and urine. Even though ACV is an acidic food, its structure changes to alkaline through the digestive processes.


The idea of eating a diet high in alkaline foods is that disease thrives in an acidic environment (24).


Foods like refined sugar, carbohydrates and meat create an acidic environment in our bodies, it's interesting to note that the pH of a food in its pre-digested state is very different from the chemical processes it will undergo in our bodies. Thus foods like ACV and lemon water are surprisingly alkaline forming.


21. Potassium


Said to be the mineral of youth, potassium is an essential mineral in maintaining the soft tissues of the body, keeping everything flexible and resilient (25, 26). Deficiencies in potassium can cause an array of health problems.


Nobel Scientist Dr.Alexis Carrel "was able to keep the cells of an embryo chicken heart alive and healthy for 35 years by daily monitoring it's complete nutrition, cleansing and elimination. An chicken's average lifespan is 7 years!


Apple Cider Vinegar was given to the chicken embryo daily for it's full quota of potassium." Pretty impressive seeing as Dr.Carrel did this study in 1912, proving that proper nutrition and cleansing can adjust lifespan quite drastically.


22. Corns, callouses and warts


Dr. Scholl was a believer in keeping feet healthy by soaking them in warm water with 1/3 C ACV for 20 minutes and rubbing with a pumice stone.


This treatment for chronic foot ailments helps to correct the pH of the feet and make it impossible for fungus and warts to imbed themselves within the skin (27).


For warts, instead of rubbing with a pumice stone after a soak, simply saturate a cotton ball, apply it to the affected areas and cover overnight.


23. Poison ivy and poison oak


ACV can soothe the irritation caused by these poisonous plants. Combine 50:50 with water in a spray bottle and add a few ice cubes (28).


This cooling spray helps to draw the toxins out of the skin and provide relief from the sting.


Conclusion


An apple a day keeps the doctor away and I think the same goes for a bit of apple cider vinegar a day. There's no reason not to incorporate this healing food into your daily regimen.


If not for any of the reasons stated above, remember that prevention is the best treatment for any disease. Although there could certainly be more research done on the potential for using ACV as a medicine, the research that has been done is promising.


We can see that it holds great potential in treating diabetes and high cholesterol in particular. On a holistic level this amazing whole food is good for every organ system.


Sources and References


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[1] http://ift.tt/124JGOP

[2] http://ift.tt/1zVsnlD

[3], [4] http://ift.tt/124JGOP

[5] http://ift.tt/1yB0FJC

[6] http://ift.tt/1nukDy8

[7] http://ift.tt/1z77ofb

[8] http://ift.tt/1z77nYz

[9] http://ift.tt/1z77q6A

[10] http://ift.tt/1tcPZeH

[11] http://ift.tt/1z77q6C

[12] http://ift.tt/1yB0IVL

[13], [14] http://ift.tt/1jADSq9

[15] http://ift.tt/1zjWpxP

[16] http://ift.tt/1AQ0Zno

[17] http://ift.tt/1zjWmSH

[18] http://ift.tt/1zVsqxQ

[19] http://ift.tt/1zVsoG6

[20] http://ift.tt/1AQ0XM2

[21] http://ift.tt/1zjWmSL

[22] http://ift.tt/127bBf9

[23] http://ift.tt/1gZrbTI

[24] http://ift.tt/13dLJ6y

[25] http://ift.tt/1w41V3F

[26] http://ift.tt/Xn7Hmq

[27] http://ift.tt/1zVsoWB

[28] http://ift.tt/124JGOP


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IMF punishes Cyprus for delaying foreclosures by withholding €88mn bailout tranche

cyprus grafiti

© AFP



The International Monetary Fund has postponed the allocation of €88 million credit assistance to Cyprus over the suspension of a new foreclosure law.

The move came after the Cyprus parliament decided to delay putting the foreclosure law into practice. The new legislation would speed up the procedure of banks seizing property from people unable to pay back loans.


The introduction of the law in September was a condition for further credit assistance to Cyprus. It has been put back to January 30, 2015.


"Following today's suspension of the existing legislation on foreclosure, critical requirements for the completion of the fifth program review are now no longer met," the IMF said in a statement. "We look forward to continued cooperation, and will agree with the authorities on the next steps in the period ahead."


Every quarter representatives of the so-called 'Troika' of lenders (European Union, the European Central Bank, and the IMF) visit the island and give recommendations on receiving the next tranche of aid.


The EU and the IMF agreed in March 2013 to provide €10 billion to Cyprus provided it carried out a number of strict measures on restructuring banks, the public sector, and balancing the budget.


Cyprus has received €5.77 billion of the promised €10 billion.


The country plunged into economic crisis in 2012 as the financial downturn in Greece spread to Cypriot banks and forced large account holders to accept reductions in the value of their deposits.


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Mother who murdered 8 children in Cairns, Australia, "had found God"

Cairns memorial

© Tom Steinfort

Family members arrive at the Manoora shrine in Cairns



The 37-year-old Cairns mother accused of murdering eight children had recently turned to religion and banned technology from her home.

Raina Mersane Ina Thaiday, who remains under police guard in hospital, had taken to giving fiery sermons in the street and had cut the power to her home and threw away the television, neighbours told News Corp.


She warned locals not to use their mobile phones because they were the "work of the Devil" and posted a handwritten sign on a front window of her public housing home that read: "No alcohol, cigarette, and drunken people allowed in this area".


Others said the house, where she is accused of killing seven of her own children and a niece in a frenzied knife attack last Friday, was often the scene of wild all-night parties.


Meanwhile, preliminary autopsy reports are detailing the horrific injuries sustained by some of the eight children in the knife attack.


It is alleged some suffered multiple stab wounds, with one child sustained at least 12 knife wounds to the front and 10 more on the back, according to pathology results.


Senior police yesterday declined to comment on the autopsy findings, pending final reports.


Yesterday Ms Thaiday was formally charged with eight counts of murder at a bedside hearing at Cairns Hospital, where she is being treated for self-inflicted injuries.


Police are investigating whether the accused killer was on the drug ice at the time and suffered a possible psychotic episode.


Her case is expected to be heard in court today, although Ms Thaiday herself will not appear as she is still recovering from stab wounds.


Detective Inspector Bruno Ansicar told reporters yesterday the horrific scene was taking its toll on police.


"It's clearly the most tragic event we've had to deal with (in Cairns)," Insp Ansicar told reporters.


Vigils and memorials for the slain children, who ranged in age from two to 14, were held throughout Queensland on yesterday.


Relatives, including one distraught man believed to be the father of some of the children, were among those at the scene yesterday morning while a service was held at a Cairns school in the evening.


Townsville and the Brisbane suburb of Inala also hosted memorials yesterday.


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Ghost of Christmas Past: 70 years after his execution, 14-year old black boy exonerated for double murder

stinney

© Reuters/South Carolina Department of Archives and History

George Stinney Jr



It took 70 years, but a 14-year-old African American boy from Alcolu, South Carolina who was executed for allegedly killing two white girls has now been exonerated of murder.

In a ruling issued Wednesday by Circuit Judge Carmen Mullen, the murder conviction against George Stinney was vacated over concerns that the young boy's constitutional right to a fair trial was violated to the point that his name should be cleared, WIS TV reported.


Stinney, who was so small at the time of his execution by electric chair that he had to sit on a phone book, is often cited as the youngest American to be put to death by the state in the 20th century.


During his trial in 1944, Stinney's white lawyer did not present witnesses or cross-examine witnesses presented by the prosecution. In 2009, Stinney's sister claimed in an affidavit that her brother could not have killed the two young girls because he was with her at the time their deaths occurred.


"The state, as an entity, has very unclean hands," attorney Miller Shealy argued at a hearing in January, as quoted by the Huffington Post.


According to the prosecution, Stinney admitted to murdering the two girls - Betty June Binnicker, 11, and eight-year-old Mary Emma Thames - by beating them with a railroad spike. The boy's family and other advocates argue this confession was coerced, and little evidence from the trial - including the spike - remains.


The trial was concluded after about three hours, and a jury of 12 white men delivered a verdict against Stinney in 10 minutes.


"By not putting the state's case to the test at all, by not cross examining witnesses, not putting up a defense at all, not giving a closing argument, George was never afforded effective council and as a result his Sixth Amendment rights were violated," said defense attorney Steven McKenzie to WIS.


One relative of Binnicker testified that while the laws were different at the time of Stinney's trial, he was"found guilty by the laws of 1944" and said the decision should stand.




Solicitor Chip Finney also defended the work authorities did in the past.

"They weren't trying to railroad every black person associated with Alcolu and these little girls" he said during the hearing. "They made a determination based on facts we don't have today that George Stinney should be detained."


Judge Mullen disagreed, however, ruling that Stinney's right to due process was violated.


"Given the particularized circumstances of Stinney's case," Mullen wrote, "I find by a preponderance of the evidence standard, that a violation of the Defendant's procedural due process rights tainted his prosecution."


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Earliest known piece of polyphonic music discovered

polyphonic music

© MS Harley 3019. Reproduced with the permission of the British Library Board

The music was written around the year 900, and represents the earliest example of polyphonic music intended for practical use.



New research has uncovered the earliest known practical piece of polyphonic music, an example of the principles that laid the foundations of European musical tradition.

The earliest known practical example of polyphonic music - a piece of choral music written for more than one part - has been found in a British Library manuscript in London.


The inscription is believed to date back to the start of the 10th century and is the setting of a short chant dedicated to Boniface, patron Saint of Germany. It is the earliest practical example of a piece of polyphonic music - the term given to music that combines more than one independent melody - ever discovered.


Written using an early form of notation that predates the invention of the stave, it was inked into the space at the end of a manuscript of the Life of Bishop Maternianus of Reims.


The piece was discovered by Giovanni Varelli, a PhD student from St John's College, University of Cambridge, while he was working on an internship at the British Library. He discovered the manuscript by chance, and was struck by the unusual form of the notation. Varelli specialises in early musical notation, and realised that it consisted of two vocal parts, each complementing the other.


Polyphony defined most European music up until the 20th century, but it is not clear exactly when it emerged. Treatises which lay out the theoretical basis for music with two independent vocal parts survive from the early Middle Ages, but until now the earliest known examples of a practical piece written specifically for more than one voice came from a collection known as The Winchester Troper, which dates back to the year 1000.


Varelli's research suggests that the author of the newly-found piece - a short "antiphon" with a second voice providing a vocal accompaniment - was writing around the year 900.


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As well as its age, the piece is also significant because it deviates from the convention laid out in treatises at the time. This suggests that even at this embryonic stage, composers were experimenting with form and breaking the rules of polyphony almost at the same time as they were being written.

"What's interesting here is that we are looking at the birth of polyphonic music and we are not seeing what we expected," Varelli said.


"Typically, polyphonic music is seen as having developed from a set of fixed rules and almost mechanical practice. This changes how we understand that development precisely because whoever wrote it was breaking those rules. It shows that music at this time was in a state of flux and development, the conventions were less rules to be followed, than a starting point from which one might explore new compositional paths."


The piece is technically known as an "organum", an early type of polyphonic music based on plainsong, in which an accompaniment was sung above or below the melody.


The fact that it was an early example of music for two parts had probably gone unnoticed because the author used a very early form of musical notation for the polyphonic piece, which would have been indecipherable to most modern readers. "When I tried to work out the melody I realised that the music written above was the same as the one outlined by the notation used for the chant and that this sort of 'diagram' was therefore a two-voice piece based on the antiphon for St Boniface", Varelli said. "The chant notation essentially gives the direction of the melody and when it goes up or down, the organum notation consistently agreed, giving us also the exact intervals for the chant."


Who wrote the music, and which monastic house it came from, remains a mystery, but through meticulous detective work Varelli has been able to pin its likely origins down to one of a number of ecclesiastical centres in what is now north-west Germany, somewhere around Paderborn or Düsseldorf.



This is partly because the type of plainchant notation - sometimes known as Eastern Palaeofrankish - was most used in Germany at that time. In addition, however, an unknown scribe had added a Latin inscription at the top of the page which when translated reads: "which is celebrated on December 1".

This odd comment, a reference to the Saint's Day for Maternianus, alludes to the fact that unlike most monastic houses, which celebrated Maternianus on April 30, a handful of communities in north-western Germany did so on December 1. Combined with the notation itself, this makes it likely that whoever wrote the music was based in that region.


"The music was added some time after the main saint's life was written," Varelli added. "The main text was written at the beginning of the 10th century, and on this basis, we can conservatively estimate that this addition was made some time in the very first decades of the same century".


"The rules being applied here laid the foundations for those that developed and governed the majority of western music history for the next thousand years. This discovery shows how they were evolving, and how they existed in a constant state of transformation, around the year 900."


Nicolas Bell, music curator at the British Library, said "This is an exciting discovery. When this manuscript was first catalogued in the eighteenth century, nobody was able to understand these unusual symbols. We are delighted that Giovanni Varelli has been able to decipher them and understand their importance to the history of music."


Provided by University of Cambridge


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Sunday, 21 December 2014

No excuses: We can't 'cover our eyes' to CIA abuses anymore

Seven years ago, I interviewed Moazzam Begg, a British citizen who had been held by the United States in prisons in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay - without charge - for almost three years. His words described brutal torture inflicted by his American captors. But his tone was eerily matter-of-fact, delivered without apparent pain or anger. As I interviewed other former prisoners, it was the same - calm descriptions of horrific abuse. When I remarked on this to one of their attorneys, he told me what I should have figured out myself - this was the only way any of these men could repeatedly describe their torture and also protect their fragile sanity.


[embedded content]




That revelation led to one of the most difficult decisions I made as a documentary filmmaker - to include dramatizations of the so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques," from "stress positions," to "sleep deprivation" and "solitary confinement," even water boarding in Torturing Democracy. Those scenes are the scenes that make you want to cover your eyes.

But now, with the damning conclusions of the Executive Summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation, clearly and repeatedly describing torture, none of us can any longer cover our eyes.


Five days ago, Moazzam Begg was asked if he was surprised at the revelations in the Senate's report. "Every torture technique they described, we've been talking about till we were blue in the face," he said of himself and other former prisoners. "The only thing that surprised me was that they released it."


Investigative journalists, authors, documentary filmmakers - along with many former officials, military officers and interrogators - have been telling versions of what happened in the torture chambers dotted across the globe until they, too, were "blue in the face." Now, from a Senate investigation that relies almost entirely on the CIA's own internal documents - what CIA officers themselves were reporting at the time - we know that the abuses were far more shocking, systematic and widespread than we had reported.


We knew that in the chaotic days after 9/11, the CIA - ordered by President Bush to capture or kill Al Qaeda operatives - had hired outside contractors. We learned that their names were James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen. We knew they had interrogated Abu Zubaydah, considered the first major Al Qaeda prisoner, at a secret CIA black site in Thailand. We did not know that the two, who had no experience in interrogation, would become the prime advocates of harsh methods, fueled with contracts that essentially provided financial incentives to repeatedly use the most brutal techniques. By the time President Obama shut the program down in 2009, Mitchell and Jessen had been paid an astonishing $81 million.


We knew that the harsh interrogation tactics were lifted from those Mitchell and Jessen used as trainers in the military's secret Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) program to prepare Americans at risk of capture by torture regimes. In , Richard Armitage, former deputy Secretary of State and Colonel Stuart Couch, both SERE trainees as Marines, recognized the "enhanced interrogation techniques" for what they were: torture. "I'm ashamed that we're even having this conversation," Armitage told me.



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But the Senate Intelligence Committee did not investigate, and so did not include in its report, how the reverse-engineered SERE methods quickly migrated from the CIA's secret prisons first to Guantanamo and on to Iraq. In September 2002, lawyers from the White House, the Pentagon and the CIA arrived at the Guantanamo prison camp, focused on one "high value" detainee there. Nine days later, the Gitmo commander requested the authority to use the CIA's harsh interrogations. In December, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld signed off on the SERE-based torture tactics.

Eight months later, in August of 2003, the Guantanamo commander in charge of interrogations traveled to Iraq to carry out orders to "gitmo-ize" the interrogations there. Eight days after his visit, "enhanced interrogation techniques" were authorized for Iraq. And eight months after that, the first shocking photos from Abu Ghraib were leaked.


Where did the orders originate? Torture was not only the work of a rogue agency. Vice President Dick Cheney was a powerful sponsor of brutal interrogations. The Department of Justice memos that provided legal cover for torture were demanded by the CIA in the face of unrelenting White House pressure to produce intelligence on the "next attack." The agency wore those legal opinions as its "golden shield" against prosecution.


The torture chambers operated in the dark while Washington gave them cover. Torture was not the work of a few "bad apples" - in the CIA or the military - but the result of official policy set at the government's highest levels.


Torturing Democracy,


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