The Raw Story

Monday, 26 January 2015

The healing power of sound

The Healing Power of Sound", actively uses sound in his integrative oncology practice. This interview was reprinted with permission from Mr. Bill Thompson. It should be noted here that singing bowls are horizontal gongs. More information about sound healing can be found

NT: How did you discover Tibetan "singing" bowls and their usefulness in healing?

Gaynor: Well, I took care of a Tibetan monk in 1991. I'm a cancer specialist and also a hematologist and I had been working with guided imagery and meditation with my patients since the mid-1980's. I was actually asked to see this Tibetan monk at Cornell Medical Center for a routine medical problem which was anemia. But he was suffering from a very severe disease that was destroying his heart muscle called cardiomyopathy. I talked with him about what we could do for his anemia and what diagnostic work-up we'd do.

I always talk with my patients on an in-depth level about what's going on in their lives and I noticed a tremendous sense of sadness and resignation in his eyes. So I asked him to tell me about his life and he recalled a time when he was 3-years old and was living as a Tibetan refugee in India. His parents were very poor and could no longer afford to feed him and his brother, so they had to take them to an orphanage run by Tibetan Buddhist monks. He recalled watching his parents walk away; he reached out through the fence and was asking them not to leave and you could really feel his sense of anguish. I didn't think it was any coincidence that on an emotional level he had a broken heart and on a physical level he was suffering, literally, from a broken heart.

He left the hospital about 2 weeks later and he gave me as a gift a metal Tibetan singing bowl. I had never heard one before. I didn't even know they existed. But I was taken with the tones and the over-tones and I could literally feel them going through every cell in my body. I could not only hear it with my ears, but I felt it through-out my body. So, I figured that would be an excellent thing for patients who were dealing with serious illnesses.

I started working with the bowls with my patients and the results were phenomenal. People who were dealing with a lot of fear and a lot of worry were able to go into their own inner harmony. That's something all of us have, but most of us don't know exists. That's a harmony deep inside of us that when we learn to live from that and create from that...everything in our life begins to transform. I've seen it work with marital problems, job related stress or illness. Everything begins to look completely different. Sound effects us in so many ways. Sound effects us on a physiological level. The scientist in me wanted to understand how people were having such miraculous turnarounds in their whole perspective about life! People who were living in fear every day were suddenly able to really live in the moment. That's when I started looking into studies on how sound can heal and transform. I found out Gregorian chants or classical music can change our brain waves to alpha and theta waves that are very relaxed.

Sound can change our immune function. After either chanting or listening to certain forms of music, your Interluken-1 level, an index of your immune system, goes up between 12 and a half and 15 percent. Not only that, about 20 minutes after listening to this meditative type music, your immunoglobin levels in your blood are significantly increased. There's no part of our body not effected. Even our heart rate and blood pressure are lowered with certain forms of music. So, it effects not only our soul and our spirit, but it effects us on literally a cellular and sub-cellular level.

NT: Are the metal singing bowls the ones you usually use?

Gaynor: I also use quartz crystal bowls. These are made out of the same quartz crystals that microchips are made out of. They can be tuned to any note and they're incredible. When you play them, it brings out all sorts of tones, overtones and harmonics in your own voice. That can also be very healing. I think it's very important for us to bring back some of the ancient wisdom. When I started looking into sound and healing I found that every culture on earth has used sound, voice and music as part of their healing rituals.

Whether it's the Sufis and their chants, or the Tibetan Buddhist chants, or the mantras used in yoga or the Gregorian chants sung at Vespers, or prayers from the Jewish Kabbalah....where they believe that every vowel sound is a divine sound... all of these...even the African ritual chants and Native American songs and chants use virtually identical tones and sounds to elicit a deep meditative state. So, it doesn't require believing in any dogma. These sounds effect us on a physiological, spiritual and emotional level.

NT: What other instruments have traditionally worked well in healing?

Gaynor: Drumming can also be very effective and there's a resource section in my book on different forms of music. You really have to find what you resonate to. Whenever you're stressed you have stress hormones that go up in your body called "cortizol" and ACTH which mediate a lot of the negative effects of stress on your body.

For instance, it'll cause your blood pressure to go up and depress your immune system. It's been found if people are allowed to listen to any music of their choosing during medical procedures it will markedly lower the amount of stress hormones that are being released.

We can look at ourselves as vibration, and so tone and voice and music effects us on every level. It's important to know you're exposed to disharmony every day. Cars honking at you in a traffic jam, a jackhammer when you're walking along the street, or somebody yelling at you. But all these things can be retuned. We need to take time to retune our bodies, like we would a fine instrument. The way to do that is to take 15 or 20 minutes in the morning and another few minutes before you go to sleep at night to focus on your inner harmony.

NT: So you're saying the disruption of harmony leaves us open to disease?

Gaynor: Absolutely. In fact, disease is a form of disharmony. I think it's a little naive of the medical profession to think that you can allow people to go on with stress and depression and pessimism and frustration every day of their lives and not believe that eventually it's going to manifest in some form. But, if you want harmony in your life, harmony in your body and in your world, you have to find your own inner harmony. That exists in each of us, and when you learn to access it your whole life begins to miraculously transform. That's how all of us were meant to live each day of our lives.

Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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Since the "Disneyland Outbreak" of measles in California, there's been a mass hysteria and calls for quarantine and forced injection scarcely seen since...that brief break we got from Ebola.

So when a medical doctor boldly stands up and flies against the face of the narrative, the mainstream press cannot help but capture his "shocking statement."

What they won't heavily highlight about Dr. Jack Wolfson is that he is a respected integrative cardiologist who does not use medicine to help his heart patients, but instead a whole body view of nutritional and lifestyle changes.

Of course, they bring two opposing views to the broadcast, but in the end: "...both doctors agree that the measles infection, once caught, is not likely to turn deadly."

Dr. Wolfson does not believe that injecting chemicals and heavy metals into the bloodstream is the way to help the immune system stave off disease.

Did you know that Merck, the only company licensed to sell the Mumps vaccine is in legal hot water for completely falsifying effectiveness test results? Mumps is included in the Measles Mumps Rubella shot.

Furthermore, some of the side-effects listed on the vaccine insert could be life-threatening conditions.

Side-effects also include: atypical measles and measles-like rash. Isn't that convenient? Actually, it's not. A complication from atypical measles is pneumonia. That - is something to ponder. Medicinenet says that it only occurs in people who received a killed measles virus vaccine in the late 1960s and people should vaccinate with newer, live-virus vaccines. Yet, Merck's own vaccine insert lists atypical measles.

Additionally, multiple vaccines have been shown to lead to virus-shedding leading to asymptomatic spread of disease. Dr. Gil Chavez, the California state epidemiologist said, "it is absolutely safe for you to go to Disneyland if you're vaccinated." Yet, seven people who contracted measles had been fully vaccinated.

Thomas Jefferson’s views on crime and punishment

The whipping post was a common punishment for lawbreakers.

In 1778, Thomas Jefferson began working with a committee to reform the criminal code in the Commonwealth of Virginia. What the committee proposed may come as a surprise to modern observers. Below are some of the notable excerpts of the proposal, known as the “Bill Proportioning Crimes and Punishments”, or Bill 64.

* * * * *

EYE FOR AN EYE

Adopting a lex talionis approach to justice — better known as “eye-for-an-eye” punishment — committee the proposed poisoning as a punishment for people convicted of poisoning:

Whosoever committeth murder by poisoning shall suffer death by poison. [1]

Similarly, the proposed punishment for disfigurement was disfigurement:

Whosoever on purpose and of malice forethought shall maim another, or shall disfigure him, by cutting out or disabling the tongue, slitting or cutting off a nose, lip or ear, branding, or otherwise, shall be maimed or disfigured in like sort: or if that cannot be for want of the same part, then as nearly as may be in some other part of at least equal value and estimation in the opinion of a jury and moreover shall forfiet one half of his lands and goods to the sufferer. [1]

SEX CRIMES

Castration and mutilation was proposed as the penalty for certain prohibited sex acts, such as having multiple spouses or committing the act of sodomy.

Whosoever shall be guilty of Rape, Polygamy, or Sodomy with man or woman shall be punished, if a man, by castration, if a woman, by cutting thro’ the cartilage of her nose a hole of one half inch diameter at the least. [1]

It is relevant to note that sodomy is broadly defined as any sex act that does not involve one penis and one vagina. Any other sexual activity — regardless of consent — was prohibited. This might have condemned even straight, married couples engaged in oral sex.

RESTRICTIONS ON SPEECH AND RELIGION

Controversial speech and religious practices, such as witchcraft, were prohibited. Witches — or those labeled as such by the courts — were to suffer public whippings and/or the punishment of “ducking.”

All attempts to delude the people, or to abuse their understanding by exercise of the pretended arts of witchcraft, conjuration, inchantment, or sorcery or by pretended prophecies, shall be punished by ducking and whipping at the discretion of a jury, not exceeding 15. stripes. [1]

An early sketch of a colonial “ducking chair.”

“Ducking” involved strapping the guilty party — typically a woman — to a so-called “ducking stool.” This was a seat connected to a long arm of a large wooden contraption. Once bound to the seat, the victim would be wheeled around town, suspended over water, and dunked repeatedly to a jeering crowd.

Ducking was derived from an earlier punishment for witches in which the accused were bound and thrown into water to see if they floated — the supposed test of establishing whether a woman was a witch. However, by the 1770s, ducking was primarily an act of public humiliation and censure, used in an era when public reputation mattered much.

ALL SENTENCES FINAL

When a death penalty was imposed, there was no appeals process. The sentence was quickly executed. There was no opportunity to be granted a retrial based on new, exculpatory evidence.

Whenever sentence of death shall have been pronounced against any person for treason or murder, execution shall be done on the next day but one after such sentence, unless it be Sunday, and then on the Monday following. [1]

After a death penalty was imposed, the corpse was to be displayed in a gibbet. It would be a crime to take away the body.

Whosoever committeth murder by way of duel, shall suffer death by hanging; and if he were the challenger, his body, after death, shall be gibbeted. He who removeth it from the gibbet shall be guilty of a misdemeanor; and the officer shall see that it be replaced. [1]

Captain William Kidd’s body displayed in a gibbet. (Source: The Pirates Own Book, 1837)

According to Wikipedia, “A gibbet is any instrument of public execution, but gibbeting refers to the use of a gallows-type structure from which the dead or dying bodies of executed criminals were hanged on public display to deter other existing or potential criminals. In earlier times, up to the late 17th century, live gibbeting also took place, in which the condemned was placed alive in a metal cage and left to die of thirst. As well as referring to the gibbet as a device, the term gibbet may also be used to refer to the practice of placing a criminal on display within one. This practice is also called ‘hanging in chains.’”

The article continued, “Gibbeting was a common law punishment, which a judge could impose in addition to execution. This practice was regularised in England by the Murder Act 1751, which empowered judges to impose this for murder. It was most often used for traitors, murderers, highwaymen, pirates, and sheep stealers and was intended to discourage others from committing similar offences. The structures were therefore often placed next to public highways (frequently at crossroads) and waterways.”

* * * * *

POLITICS AND COMPROMISE

These punishments likely come as a shock to modern readers and would certainly have been excluded by the yet-to-be-written U.S. Constitution, which was amended to forbid “cruel and unusual punishments.”

It is relevant to note that the existing code of laws in Virginia — which James Madison described as the “bloody code” — included generous application of the death penalty. Reducing certain crimes to whipping, castration, and public humiliation was actually a liberal reformation; a reduction of punishment.

The use of the death penalty for sodomy was a carryover from British law imposed in the colonies. Yet in the 1770s, the culture had not changed much in that regard, and it was still acceptable and preferred to punish sodomy and many other crimes by death.

Jefferson’s objection to the overuse of the death penalty was noted in his writings:

“On the subject of the Criminal Law, all were agreed that the punishment of death should be abolished, except for treason and murder; and that, for other felonies should be substituted hard labor in the public works, and in some cases, the Lex talionis. How this last revolting principle came to obtain our approbation, I do not remember…It was the English law in the time of the Anglo-Saxons, copied probably from the Hebrew law of ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,’ and it was the law of several ancient people. But the modern mind had left it far in the rear of it’s advances.” [2]

Though Jefferson played a central role in the committee, he was unsettled with some of the results. As he opined about the Crime and Punishment bill to fellow committee member George Wythe:

“I have strictly observed the scale of punishments settled by the Committee, without being entirely satisfied with it. The lex talionis, altho’ a restitution of the Common law,…will be revolting to the humanised feelings of modern times. An eye for an eye, and a hand for a hand will exhibit spectacles in execution whose moral effect would be questionable…This needs reconsideration.” [3]

Ironically, the bill’s ultimate failure was because it was too liberal. The proposal was rejected before the General Assembly on June 18, 1779, because its punishments were viewed as too lenient.

Jefferson’s friend and political colleague, James Madison, later wrote to him in 1787 regarding the outcome of Bill 64, saying, “A rejection of the Bill on crimes and punishments…was lost by a single vote. The rage against Horse stealers had a great influence on the fate of the Bill. Our old bloody code is by this event fully restored…” [4] (The penalty for horse stealing was proposed to be reduced from death down to three years’ hard labor.)

The failure of Virginia’s Bill 64 paved the way for a new Revised Code to be enacted, and on December 10, 1792, sodomy and other crimes were codified as capital offenses. In 1800, a second reformation effort succeeded and the punishment for sodomy was reduced to imprisonment for a period of “not less than one nor more than ten years.” [5]

While Virginia’s Bill 64 appears to be draconian by modern standards — and it is draconian — it is important to relate it in the context of the prevailing laws and views the 1770s. It would also be disingenuous to make the assumption that the resulting committee proposal was an ideal creation in Jefferson’s eyes. Realistically, it was a product of compromise and politics, something which was endorsed as a way to spare the lives of people who would otherwise be put to death for certain crimes.

This article is not meant to be a condemnation of Jefferson, as his motivations were undoubtedly more freedom-oriented and just than most of his contemporaries. What can be deduced is that personal freedom was heavily infringed before, during, and after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. When modern folks pine for the “good old days” in post-colonial America, which supposedly embraced uninfringed liberties, some historical context is sorely needed.

{ SUPPORT POLICE STATE USA }

SOURCES

1. Jefferson, Thomas. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (J. P. Boyd, Ed., Vol. 2). Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950. 2:492-504. [http://bit.ly/1D0lgar]

2. Jefferson, Thomas. Writings (Merrill D. Peterson, Ed.). New York : Viking Press, 1984.

3. Jefferson, Thomas. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (J. P. Boyd, Ed., Vol. 2). Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950. 2:230.

4. James Madison to Jefferson, February 15, 1787, in ibid., 11:152.

5. Crompton, Louis. “Homosexuals and the Death Penalty in Colonial America.” University of Nebraska, Lincoln, 1976. [http://bit.ly/1zQIvpT]

Following comments from the US overseas broadcasting chief listing RT as a challenge alongside the Islamic State and Boko Haram, critics said the outlet was singled out for "daring to advocate a point of view," as well as for "competing for viewership."

On Wednesday, the new chief of the US Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), Andrew Lack, told the that RT posed a significant challenge - putting the broadcaster in a list alongside the Islamic State and Boko Haram terror groups.

The comments have since been denounced on social networks and across the media spectrum. Speaking to RT, legal analyst and media commentator Lionel said the channel was being outrageously singled out and equated to the Islamic State for "daring to advocate a point of view."

"In the history of incoherent statements, this might be the granddaddy of them all. In reading this, he alleges that Russia Today pushes... 'a point of view,'" he told RT's Ameera David.

Georgetown University journalism professor Chris Chambers added that Lack's words were "supremely silly and careless," especially considering his media background. Lack previously worked for NBC, Bloomberg, and Sony Music.

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"This is a guy who has some media savvy, supposedly, even though he's moved around a lot - maybe this is one reason he's moved around," Chambers told RT. "But this was a very careless and silly thing to say considering the prevalence of corporate media here in the United States, and the purpose of BBG's constitutes like Voice of America, who are supposed to put out all kinds of views."

Nothing makes me want to watch @RT_com more than to have a US propaganda minister tell me not to watch it. #NewsIsNotTerror

- Lionel (@LionelMedia) January 23, 2015

While Lack's comments were roundly criticized, Steven Ellis of the International Press Institute said he was right in one way. "Mr. Lack could have phrased his comments more carefully: RT does indeed pose a challenge to US international broadcasting in terms of competing for viewership," he said.

Asked about the issue on Friday, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki distanced the US government from Lack's comments, saying it doesn't agree with the statement.

"Would the US government put those three in the same category? No, we wouldn't," Psaki said. However, she said there are "concerns" the US does agree with, stating that Russia's independent media is under pressure and that BBG's ability to broadcast in the country has become more difficult.

RT's editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan condemned the comparison and demanded clarification.

"We are extremely outraged that the new head of the BBG mentions RT in the same breath as the world's number one terrorist army," she said. "We see this as an international scandal and demand an explanation."

We all need propaganda free news but the banksters have other ideas. My take just now on@RT_com #NewsIsNotTerror http://bit.ly/1zkHd6S

- Tony Gosling ✈ (@TonyGosling) January 23, 2015

To Lionel, the comparison was also troubling because Lack began his tenure on questionable footing by targeting another media outlet instead of expressing a commitment to spreading the truth.

"Instead, you pull one organization out and align, and impugn, and suggest - through some strange kind of juxtaposition - that RT is somehow - what? An agent of ISIS and Boko Haram? On day one? I can't wait for day two!"

Still, Lionel pointed to the reaction on social media, which spread under several hashtags including #NEWSISNOTTERROR, and from other outlets as a sign of optimism.

"We have resoundingly said that this is absurd," he said. "So the best thing to do is always to disseminate truth."

When the former Goldman Sachs executive who runs the European Central Bank (ECB) announced that he was going to print 720 billion euros annually with which to purchase bad debts from the politically connected big banks, the euro sank and the stock market and Swiss franc shot up. As in the US, quantitative easing (QE) serves to enrich the already rich. It has no other purpose.

The well-heeled financial institutions that bought up the troubled sovereign debt of Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain at low prices will now sell the bonds to the ECB for high prices. And despite depression level unemployment in most of Europe and austerity imposed on citizens, the stock market rose in anticipation that much of the 60 billion new euros that will be created each month will find its way into equity prices. Liquidity fuels the stock market.

Where else can the money to go? Some will go into Swiss francs and some into gold while gold is still available, but for the most part the ECB is running the printing press in order to boost the wealth of the stock-owning One Percent. The Federal Reserve and the ECB have taken the West back to the days when a handful of aristocrats owned everything.

The stock markets are bubbles blown by central bank money creation. On the basis of traditional reasoning there is no sound reason to be in equities, and sound investors have avoided them.

But there is no return anywhere else, and as the central banks are run by the rich for the rich, sound reasoning has proved to be a mistake for the past six years. This shows that corruption can prevail for an indeterminable period over fundamentals.

As I demonstrated in my book, , first Goldman Sachs deceived lenders into over-lending to the Greek government. Then Goldman Sachs former executives took over Greece's financial affairs and forced austerity upon the population in order to prevent losses to the foreign lenders.

This established a new principle in Europe, one that the IMF has relentlessly applied to Latin American and Third World debtors. The principle is that when foreign lenders make mistakes and over-lend to foreign governments, loading them up with debt, the bankers' mistakes are rectified by robbing the poor populations. Pensions, social services, and public employment are cut, valuable resources are sold off to foreigners for pennies on the dollar, and the government is forced to support US foreign policy. John Perkins' describes the process perfectly. If you haven't read Perkins book, you have little idea how corrupt and vicious the United States is. Indeed, Perkins shows that over-lending is intentional in order to set up the country for looting.

This is what Goldman Sachs did to Greece, intentionally or unintentionally.

It took the Greeks a long time to realize it. Apparently, 36.5 percent of the population was awoken by rising poverty, unemployment, and suicide rates. That figure, a little over one-third of the vote, was enough to put Syriza in power in the just concluded Greek election, throwing out the corrupt New Democracy party that has consistently sold out the Greek people to the foreign banks. Nevertheless, 27.7 percent of the Greeks, if the vote reporting is correct, voted for the party that has sacrificed the Greek people to the banksters. Even in Greece, a country accustomed to outpourings of people into the streets, a significant percentage of the population is sufficiently brainwashed to vote against their own interests.

Can Syriza do anything? It remains to be seen, but probably not. If the political party had received 55% or 65% or 75% of the vote, yes. But the largest vote at 36.5% does not show a unified country aware of its plight and its looting at the hands of rich banksters. The vote shows that a significant percentage of the Greek population supports foreign looting of Greece.

Moreover, Syriza is up against the heavies: the German and Netherlands banks who hold Greece's loans and the governments that back the banks, the European Union which is using the sovereign debt crisis to destroy the sovereignty of the individual countries that comprise the European Union, Washington which backs EU sovereign power over the individual countries as it is easier to control one government than a couple of dozen.

Already the Western financial presstitutes are warning Syriza not to endanger its membership in the common currency by diverting from the austerity model imposed from abroad on Greek citizens with the complicity of New Democracy.

Apparently, there is a lack of formal means of exiting the EU and the euro, but nevertheless Greece can be threatened with being thrown out. Greece should welcome being thrown out.

Exiting the EU and the euro is the best thing that can happen to Greece. A country without its own currency is not a sovereign country. It is a vassal state of another power. A country without its own currency cannot finance its own needs. Although the UK is a member of the EU, the UK kept its own currency and is not subject to control by the ECB. A country without its own money is powerless. It is a non-entity.

If the US did not have its own dollar, the US would be of no consequence whatsoever on the world scene.

The EU and the euro were deception and trickery. Countries lost their sovereignty. So much for Western "self-rule," "freedom," "democracy," all slogans without content. In the entire West there is nothing but the looting of people by the One Percent who control the governments.

In America, the looting does not rely on indebtedness, because the US dollar is the reserve currency and the US can print all the money needed in order to pay its bills and redeem its debt. In America the looting of labor has been through jobs offshoring.

American corporations discovered, and if they did not they were informed by Wall Street to move offshore or be taken over, that they could raise profits by moving their manufacturing operations abroad. The lower labor cost resulted in higher profits, higher share prices, huge managerial bonuses based on "performance," and shareholder capital gains. Offshoring greatly increased the inequality in income and wealth in the US. Capital succeeded in looting labor.

The displaced well-paid manufacturing workers, if they were able to find replacement jobs, worked part-time minimum wage jobs at Walmart and Home Depot.

Economists, if they are entitled to the designation, such as Michael Porter and Matthew Slaughter, promised Americans that the fictional "New Economy" would produce better, higher-paying, and cleaner jobs for Americans than the "dirty fingernail" jobs that we were fortunate our corporations were moving offshore.

Years later, as I have proven conclusively, there is no sign of these "New Economy" jobs. What we have instead is a sharp decline in the labor force participation rate as the unemployed cannot find jobs. The replacement jobs for the manufacturing jobs are mainly part-time domestic service jobs. People have to hold 2 or 3 of these jobs to make ends meet. These part time jobs offer no medical or pension benefits.

Now that this fact, once controversial believe it or not, has proven completely true, the same bought-and-paid-for spokespersons for robbing labor and destroying unions claim, without a shred of evidence, that the offshored jobs are coming home.

According to these propagandists, we now have what is called "reshoring." A "reshoring" propagandist claims that the growth of "reshoring" over the past four years is 1,775 percent, an 18 times increase.

There is no sign whatsoever of these alleged "reshoring" jobs in the monthly BLS payroll jobs statistics.

What reshoring is all about is propaganda to counteract the belated realization that "free trade" agreements and job offshoring were not beneficial to the American economy or its work force, but were beneficial only to the super-rich.

Like people throughout history, the American people are being turned into serfs and slaves because the fools believe the lies that are fed to them. They sit in front of Fox News, CNN, and whatever. They read the New York Times. If you want to learn how badly Americans have been served by the so-called media, read Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States and Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick's The Untold History of the United States.

The media helps the government, and the private interests that profit from their control of government, control the brainwashed public. We have to invade Afghanistan because a faction there fighting for political control of the country is protecting Osama bin Laden, whom the US accuses without any proof of embarrassing the mighty US with the 9/11 attack. We have to invade Iraq because Saddam has "weapons of mass destruction" that he surely has despite the reports to the contrary by the weapons inspectors. We have to overthrow Gaddafi because of a slate of lies that have best been forgotten. We have to overthrow Assad because he used chemical weapons even though all evidence is to the contrary. Russia is responsible for Ukraine problems, not because the US overthrew the elected democratic government but because Russia accepted a 97.6% vote of Crimeans to rejoin Russia where the province had resided for hundreds of years before a Ukrainian Soviet leader, Khrushchev, stuck Crimea into Ukraine, at the time a part of the Soviet Union along with Russia.

War, War, War, that is all Washington wants. It enriches the military/security complex, the largest component of the US GNP and the largest contributor, along with Wall Street and the Israel Lobby, to US political campaigns.

Anyone or any organization that offers truth to the lies is demonized. Last week the new chief of the US Broadcasting Board of Governors, Andrew Lack, listed the Russian TV Internet service Russia Today as the equivalent of Boko Haram and the Islamic State terrorist groups. This absurd accusation is a prelude to closing down RT in the US just as Washington's puppet UK government closed down Iran's Press TV.

In other words, Anglo-Americans are not permitted any different news than what is served to them by "their" governments.

That is the state of "freedom" in the West today.

Pointing to climate change and the rise of tropical diseases, British researchers hope to sell their idea of releasing millions of genetically modified mosquitoes in the Florida Keys. Almost 140,000 people have signed a petition against the plan.

For many years, the neighborhoods of the Florida Keys have been sprayed with insecticides to ward off a host of bugs, including perhaps the mother of all pests, the mosquito. Over time, however, Aedes aegypti, a mosquito that can spread the dengue fever, chikungunya, and yellow fever viruses has built up resistance to many of the insecticides used to kill them.

The rising risk of a mosquito infestation and disease outbreak presents an opportunity for one British firm, Oxitec, which has developed a method for breeding Aedes aegypti that kills mosquito larvae, AP reported.

According to Oxitec's website, the process involves injecting a "lethal gene" into either the male sperm or female egg that eventually kills the offspring.

Change.org, the world's largest petition platform, presented some of the unintended consequences of releasing millions of mutant mosquitos into the Florida Keys. For example, would the more virulent Asian tiger mosquito, which is also a carrier of dengue, "fill the void" left by a drop in Aedes aegypti populations? Or will the dengue virus mutate and become even more deadly?

The group calls efforts to introduce genetically modified mosquitos a "radical approach" since dengue fever has been absent from Key West since 2010. The group says this "indicates the current methods of control and public education are working."

Oxitec says only non-biting male mosquitoes would be released, while attempting to assure the public that no genetically modified DNA would enter the bloodstream in the event of a bite from an overlooked female specimen.

Experts, however, question the claims.

"I think the science is fine, they definitely can kill mosquitoes, but the GMO issue still sticks as something of a thorny issue for the general public," Phil Lounibos, a researcher at the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory, told AP.

"I'm on their side, in that consequences are highly unlikely. But to say that there's no genetically modified DNA that might get into a human, that's kind of a gray matter."

Oxitec spokeswoman Chris Creese said the experiment will be similar in size to one held in 2012 in the Cayman Islands, where 3.3 million genetically modified mosquitoes were set loose over a six- month period, resulting in the elimination of 96 percent of the targeted insects, AP quoted.

Critics say the British firm failed to notify residents about the possibility of being bitten by a few females overlooked by the researchers.

As more people question anything genetically modified, especially something that has the potential to suck their blood, resistance to the idea is growing. Already, almost 140,000 people have signed a Change.org petition to halt the experiment.

FDA spokeswoman Theresa Eisenman said no experiments with the modified bugs will be permitted until the agency has "thoroughly reviewed all the necessary information."

Marilyn Smith, a Florida Keys resident, wasn't sold on the plan following Oxitec's presentation at a public meeting. Smith asked "why are we being used as the experiment, the guinea pigs, just to see what happens," AP quoted her as saying.

Oxitec has a laboratory in Marathon, a Key West town of just over 10,000 people, and hopes to start releasing mosquitoes in the Key West region this spring

Australia has witnessed the largest number of butterflies in 40 years with a combination of rain and heat providing perfect breeding conditions for the insects, an expert has said.

According to Queensland Museum's director of entomology, Christine Lambkin, the combination of rain and heat has provided perfect breeding conditions for the insects which can been seen fluttering through the skies.

"We have had a long extended dry period that has been broken by good rains at the right time of the year. So we have got the warmth as well as the rain and that is what has caused the adults to break the aestivation (insect hibernation) and emerge in numbers.

"Some of them will be trying to mate and lay eggs so that the caterpillars are going to come up on that flush new growth from the rain," Lambkin said.

"We have seen large number of butterflies in south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales, mainly because we've got migrations but we have also got emergence. So we have got large numbers of all sorts of insects but particularly noticeable are the butterflies," she said.

The director noted that rain along with the heat, had produced the bumper numbers with caterpillars gorging on plant growth before transforming into butterflies.

Brisbane resident Ross Kendall who breeds butterflies for weddings and funerals said it was the biggest migration of the butterfly known as the blue tiger.

"They are literally flying in their millions and this is because of our good wet season. The plants that they breed on have shot up vigorously and females have busily laid lots of eggs, and the caterpillars have survived and gone through to butterflies," he said.

A small white, gold nd black butterfly known as the 'caper gull' had also been seen in bigger numbers.

"You often see small numbers of them but this year they are around in their tens of thousands. It is good to see the ecosystem thriving courtesy the rain," Kendall said.

The Raw Story

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