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CIA's 'Eyewash' Lies, More Zika Manipulations, Prisoners Rescue Dogs
February 16, 2016

Dear friends,

CIA Eyewash Lies

Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on the CIA practice of including lies that are termed "eyewash" in official communication and records, the finding that increasing rates of the birth defect microcephaly pre-date the latest outbreak of Zika virus in Brazil, the controversy around billboards now appearing in the San Francisco Bay area inviting people to make informed choices about vaccine safety, and more.

Read also wonderfully inspiring articles on the non-profit Karma Rescue that brings dogs into prisons to bond with and be trained by inmates, the volunteer-run program to feed hungry children in India that a restaurant's unsatisfactory meal accidentally inspired, the Global Village Construction Set that makes the tools for developing infrastructure inexpensive and accessible, and more. You can also skip to this section now.

Each excerpt is taken verbatim from the major media website listed at the link provided. If any link fails, see this page. The most important sentences are highlighted. And don't miss the "What you can do" section below the summaries. By educating ourselves and spreading the word, we can and will build a brighter future.

With best wishes for a transformed world,
Mark Bailey and Fred Burks for PEERS and WantToKnow.info

Special note: Read 10 little-known, astonishing facts on the cover-up of dangerous drinking water in Flint, Michigan. Explore this webpage to find out if your doctor receives payments from Big Pharma. Watch an excellent 11-minute video of highly respected biochemist Garth Nicolson present evidence of the danger of Mycoplasma in vaccines. In a longer video Dr. Nicolson discusses biological warfare agents used against the public. Watch former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney tell about a pledge members of Congress must make about Israel.

Quote of the week: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  ~~ Margaret Mead

Video of the week: Watch courageous former Merck representative Brandy Vaughan describe the direct intimidation she faced after came out against vaccines in a big way on this 12-minute video. Then learn more on her website at http://councilforvaccinesafety.org and in this article from San Jose, CA's leading newspaper. You can find another great video of Brandy here. Please consider donating to this worthy cause on her website.


‘Eyewash’: How the CIA deceives its own workforce about operations
January 31, 2015, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/eyewash-how-the-cia-deceives...

Senior CIA officials have for years intentionally deceived parts of the agency workforce by transmitting internal memos that contain false information. The practice is known by the term “eyewash.” Officials said there is no clear mechanism for labeling eyewash cables or distinguishing them from legitimate records being examined by the CIA’s inspector general, turned over to Congress or declassified for historians. Senate investigators uncovered apparent cases of eyewashing as part of a multi-year probe of the CIA’s interrogation program, according to officials who said that the Senate Intelligence Committee found glaring inconsistencies in CIA communications about classified operations, including drone strikes. Former CIA officials ... acknowledged that the internal mechanisms for managing eyewash cables were largely informal. Skeptics described the safeguards as inadequate. “When you introduce falsehoods into the communications stream then you can destabilize the whole system of intelligence oversight and compliance with the law,” said Steven Aftergood, a government secrecy expert at the Federation of American Scientists. “It wasn’t that long ago that we had a CIA executive director who was engaged in criminal activity - you don’t want someone like him preparing eyewash cables,” Aftergood said, referring to Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, the former No. 3 executive at the agency.

Note: Read more about the strange case of Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, the CIA executive convicted of fraud in connection with secret CIA prisons. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing Intelligence agency corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


Microcephaly cases in Brazil predate Zika virus outbreak, study says
February 10, 2016, CBC (Canada's public broadcasting system)
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/microcephaly-brazil-zika-reality-1.3442580

Pediatric cardiologist Dr. Sandra Mattos had been collecting data on 100,000 newborns in the Brazilian state of Paraiba as part of her work. The microcephaly fears linked to the Zika virus drove her team to check back into hospital records for ... more than 1,600 babies born in the state in the last four years. "We were very, very surprised," Mattos said. Babies with mild microcephaly were present in the population dating back to at least 2012. Scientists think the original reports of 4,700 suspected cases were inflated by over-reporting that didn't stand up when specialists examined the babies. Lingering questions remain, including why more than 80 per cent of suspected microcephaly cases are confined to Brazil's northeast region. And why has microcephaly not appeared in other Latin American countries with similar climates, such as among the 2,100 pregnant women infected with Zika in Colombia? In Berlin, epidemiologist Dr. Christoph Zink has been charting publicly available data from the Zika virus outbreak in terms of when cases appeared, the geographic distribution and the continuous microcephaly epidemic. He proposes another potential explanation. "I would ask my toxicological colleagues in Brazil to please look very closely into the practical application of agrochemicals in their country," Zink said. Mattos said pesticides have been raised as a potential factor by her colleagues in Brazil.

Note: Another article describes a doctors group which has stated the increasing microcephaly may be caused by a larvacide. Notice how the media participates in creating fear of Zika around the world. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing health news articles from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Health Information Center.


Bay Area vaccine controversy reignites in time for Super Bowl
February 7, 2016, San Jose Mercury News (Silicon Valley's leading newspaper)
http://www.mercurynews.com/san-mateo-county-times/ci_29487696/bay-area-vaccine...

California may have closed a chapter in its bitter fight over mandatory vaccines for children, but a new billboard campaign by opponents of the state's pro-vaccination law shows the controversy is far from over. Billboards questioning the safety of vaccines have popped up over the past couple of months from Berkeley and San Francisco to North Fair Oaks. More went up in January in the San Jose area to coincide with Super Bowl 50. The billboards, [which] proclaim that vaccines pose serious health risks ... are the brainchild of Brandy Vaughan, founder of the Council for Vaccine Safety [and former] sales representative for Merck. Vaughan was an outspoken opponent of SB 277. The legislation, signed in June by Gov. Jerry Brown ... eliminated personal belief or religious exemptions to mandatory vaccines for school-age children. Though an effort to repeal the law fell apart, [mandatory] vaccinations continue to be a highly charged and divisive issue across the nation. Vaughan has raised $10,000 online for a dozen billboards in the Bay Area. "We're no longer the land of the free if we give up the choice of what we put in our body," said Vaughan. "My goal is to educate the public and encourage people to do their own research and connect the dots." She calls for tighter government regulation of vaccine-makers and suspects that America's growing vaccination regime is responsible for various health conditions.

Note: Vaughan has been severely intimidated, as she explains in this video. Here's another great video of her. To learn more about her courageous work, see this website and consider donating to her worthy cause. And watch an excellent 11-minute video of highly respected biochemist Garth Nicolson present evidence of the danger of Mycoplasma in vaccines. In a longer video Dr. Nicolson discusses biological warfare agents used against the public.


Don't Leave GMOs in the Dark
July 30, 2015, US News & World Report
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/economic-intelligence/2015/07/30/dont-stop-states-from...

The use of GMOs is controversial. There is debate in the scientific community as to whether the consumption of GMO foods hurts people directly. But there is no denying that GMOs result in vastly more herbicide (such as Roundup, a top weed killer) being dumped on food crops, and that glyphosphate (the active ingredient in Roundup) probably causes cancer in the quantities used. Other Roundup ingredients are suspect as well. Those who oppose GMOs don't have the upper hand in Congress and so they ... seek to establish a uniform labeling system so that food producers clearly identify whether their products have GMOs or not. Labeling is very popular among American consumers: In multiple polls conducted over the years by many different firms, about 90 percent of Americans consistently support mandatory labeling. Mandatory labeling initiatives are in play in many states, and have passed in three (Maine, Vermont and Connecticut). But Big Ag is spending heavily to block these efforts. The House and Senate are listening to Big Ag rather than to American consumers. The House recently passed a bill that gives the appearance of supporting GMO disclosure while doing the opposite. The bill, H.R. 1599, carries a brilliantly deceptive name that would make George Orwell proud. Called the "Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2014" the bill would reinforce the current voluntary disclosure system but would prohibit individual states and counties from enacting more stringent legislation. The detractors have branded this bill the "DARK Act" as in "Deny Americans the Right to Know"."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing GMO news articles from reliable major media sources.


Shkreli Was Right: Everyone's Hiking Drug Prices
February 2, 2016, BloombergBusinessweek
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-02/shkreli-not-alone-in-drug-price-spikes...

After Martin Shkreli raised the price of anti-parasitic drug Daraprim more than 50-fold to $750 a pill last year, he said he wasn’t alone in taking big price hikes. The former drug executive was right. A survey of about 3,000 brand-name prescription drugs found that prices more than doubled for 60 and at least quadrupled for 20 since December 2014. Skyrocketing prices are getting increased scrutiny ahead of a U.S. congressional hearing this week: Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings, ranking member on a committee that is probing drug pricing, said Tuesday that pricing “tactics are not limited to a few ‘bad apples,’ but are prominent throughout the industry.” The cost of many drugs [rises] at annual rates of more than 10 percent. Drugmakers raised the prices of products as wide-ranging as erectile dysfunction drug Viagra, heart treatments, dermatology medicine and even brands that long have lost their patents. While specialty companies have had the steepest hikes, giants such as Pfizer Inc. and GlaxoSmithKline Plc kept pushing through smaller rises. About 400 formulations of brand-name drugs went up at least 9.9 percent since early December. Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc., which in recent months has been under fire for its pricing was among the most aggressive, with 13 drugs that doubled or more since December 2014.

Note: For more excellent information on drug prices hikes, read this penetrating article in the Daily Beast. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing big pharma profiteering news articles from reliable major media sources.


No More Exposés in North Carolina
February 1, 2016, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/01/opinion/no-more-exposes-in-north-carolina.html?_r=0

Factory farm operators believe that the less Americans know about what goes on behind their closed doors, the better. That’s because the animals sent through those factories often endure an unimaginable amount of mistreatment and abuse. Nearly always, this treatment comes to light only because courageous employees - or those posing as employees - take undercover video and release it to the public. The industry’s lobbyists have taken the opposite approach, pushing for the passage of so-called “ag-gag” laws, which ban undercover recordings on farms and in slaughterhouses. These measures have ... been enacted in eight [states]. None has gone as far as North Carolina, where a new law that took effect Jan. 1 aims to silence whistle-blowers not just at agricultural facilities, but at all workplaces in the state. That includes, among others, nursing homes, day care centers, and veterans’ facilities. Anyone who violates the law - say, by secretly taping abuses of elderly patients or farm animals and then sharing the recording with the media or an advocacy group - can be sued by business owners for bad publicity and be required to pay a fine of $5,000 for each day that person is gathering information. This is a clear violation of the constitutional freedoms of speech and the press, as ... argued in a federal lawsuit filed in January.

Note: This law was passed following the widely publicised release of video footage showing toxic cesspools around North Carolina farms. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about corruption in government and in the corporate world.


Hollywood beckons for whistleblower who risked jail over Iraq ‘dirty tricks’
January 30, 2016, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/31/katharine-gun-observer-iraq-war-whistleblower...

Before Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, and Edward Snowden, the intelligence whistleblower, there was Katharine Gun. The former GCHQ employee ... was a young Mandarin specialist at the British government’s eavesdropping agency in Cheltenham. In early 2003 she received an email asking her and her colleagues to help the US government spy on UN security council delegations in New York. It was a critical moment, as Washington was seeking UN backing for its invasion of Iraq. Gun decided the world had to know, whatever the cost to her life and career. She leaked the memo to the Observer and was arrested, lost her job and faced trial under the Official Secrets Act. Thirteen years later, as bloodshed continues in Iraq, the almost forgotten story is to be brought to a new audience in Official Secrets, a movie [that] will chart Gun’s unlikely bid – courageous self-sacrifice to supporters, treachery in the view of critics – to block George W Bush and Tony Blair’s march to war. Unlike many whistleblowers who leak thousands of documents after the event, Gun was intervening in an active operation and trying to stop a war. The US National Security Agency memo told employees of GCHQ to gather “the whole gamut of information that could give American policymakers an edge in obtaining results favourable to US goals or to head off surprises”. “I saw the email and my gut reaction was pretty instantaneous, that it was highly explosive information and that it should be out in the public domain,” she recalled.

Note: The US has spent several trillion dollars pursuing a policy of endless war since 9/11. Great Britain did not believe Iraq to be a global security threat, but backed the US-led invasion on this false pretense for political reasons. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing war news articles from reliable major media sources.


A record number of people convicted of crimes were exonerated last year
February 3, 2016, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/02/03/more-people-were-exonerated...

There were 149 people exonerated in the United States last year after being wrongly convicted of crimes. More than a third of the people exonerated were convicted of murder, says a report released Wednesday by the National Registry of Exonerations, a project of the University of Michigan Law School and the Northwestern University School of Law. All of the people exonerated last year ... had served an average of more than 14 years in prison. Five of the people who were exonerated had been sentenced to death. All told, the National Registry says it has logged 1,733 exonerations in the country since 1989. “Not long ago, any exoneration we heard about was major news,” the report stated. “Now it’s a familiar story. We average nearly three exonerations a week, and most get little attention.” There are also more exonerations in cases involving false confessions or guilty pleas than there used to be. In four of 10 exonerations last year, the people had pleaded guilty, largely in cases involving charges of drug possession. About a third of all exonerations last year involved these drug possession cases. A remarkable number of these cases occurred in just one place: Harris County, Tex., home to Houston. The registry’s report described how the Harris County District Attorney’s office had investigated cases after noticing a number of people who pleaded guilty to possessing illegal drugs, only for a crime lab - sometimes months or years later - to reveal that the materials these people had were not drugs after all.

Note: Most false convictions never see the light of the day. A detailed report by forensics expert John Kelly and former FBI chief scientist Dr. Frederick Whitehurst reveals "a drug testing regime of fraudulent forensics used by police, prosecutors, and judges." And recently the FBI was found to have faked an entire branch of forensic science. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing prison system corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


Catholic bishops not obliged to report clerical child abuse, Vatican says
February 10, 2016, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/10/catholic-bishops-not-obliged-report-clerical...

The Catholic church is telling newly appointed bishops that it is “not necessarily” their duty to report accusations of clerical child abuse and that only victims or their families should make the decision to report abuse to police. A document that spells out how senior clergy members ought to deal with allegations of abuse, which was recently released by the Vatican, emphasised that, though they must be aware of local laws, bishops’ only duty was to address such allegations internally. “According to the state of civil laws of each country where reporting is obligatory, it is not necessarily the duty of the bishop to report suspects to authorities, the police or state prosecutors in the moment when they are made aware of crimes or sinful deeds,” the training document states. Details of the Catholic church’s policy were first reported in a column by a veteran Vatican journalist, John Allen. Allen noted that a special commission created by Pope Francis, the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, had appeared to play no role in the training programme, even though it is supposed to be developing “best practices” to prevent and deal with clerical abuse. The news comes just days after the abuse commission forced one of two abuse survivors who had personally been appointed by Pope Francis to leave the committee following a vote of no confidence. Peter Saunders, a British abuse survivor and vocal critic of the church’s alleged lack of action on abuse, said he was blind-sided by the vote.

Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.


What preppers and survivalists tell us about America's apocalyptic readiness
February 10, 2016, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/10/preppers-survivalists-survivalcon-expo...

In the Republican presidential debate last Saturday, Ted Cruz laid out a dark scenario to demonstrate the need for a beefed-up missile defence system – the same one Rick Santorum and Ben Carson had raised before him in earlier debates. He said that North Korea was working on a satellite, which could spell doom for America: “As it would orbit around the Earth, and as it got over the United States, they would detonate that nuclear weapon and set off what’s called an EMP, an electromagnetic pulse which could take down the entire electrical grid on the eastern seaboard, potentially killing millions.” The very day before Cruz spoke, in the tatty, cavernous but crowded Expo Idaho Center in Boise, speaker and entrepreneur Ben Gilmore laid out a much more elaborate version of the same catastrophe. Speaking to a rapt audience at prepper expo SurvivalCon, Gilmore pointed to a projected map showing much of the North American continent swathed in a deep red. “An EMP bomb 300 miles up gets all of the United States ... this is the worst-case scenario, and it is the most probable.” But also – in a stroke of luck – Gilmore’s own company, Techprotect, makes “Faraday bags” in which electronic items can be shielded from electromagnetic pulses. This mixture of End Times thinking, geopolitical speculation and rightwing ideology was repeated not only in the other formal presentations, but in conversations on the floor of the Expo Center. The Idaho show showed continuing strong links persist between prepping, religious fundamentalism and the far right.

Note: The above article fails to mention that fear mongering about a possible "rogue state" or "terrorist" EMP attack against the US has been used to push a pro-war agenda since 2005.


Key Articles From Years Past


Strong Support for Labeling Modified Foods
July 27, 2013, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/science/strong-support-for-labeling-modified-foods...

Americans overwhelmingly support labeling foods that have been genetically modified or engineered, according to a New York Times poll conducted this year, with 93 percent of respondents saying that foods containing such ingredients should be identified. Three-quarters of Americans expressed concern about genetically modified organisms in their food, with most of them worried about the effects on people’s health. Thirty-seven percent of those worried about G.M.O.’s said they feared that such foods cause cancer or allergies. Among those with concerns, 26 percent said these foods are not safe to eat, or are toxic, while 13 percent were worried about environmental problems that they fear might be caused by genetic engineering. Nearly half of Americans said they were aware that a large amount of the processed or packaged foods they now buy at the grocery store contains genetically modified ingredients. Overall concern was higher among women than men, perhaps not surprisingly, as more women identify themselves as the principal grocery shopper in the household. Americans were almost equally divided about eating genetically modified vegetables, fruits and grains, with about half saying they would not eat them. They were even less comfortable about eating meat from genetically engineered animals: three-quarters said they would not eat G.M.O. fish, and about two-thirds said they would not eat meat that had been modified.

Note: Despite overwhelming public support for labelling of GMOs, the GM lobby has spent huge amounts of money to keep US states from enacting labelling laws. Sadly, they have largely been successful. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing GMO news articles from reliable major media sources.


Overt and Covert: ‘The Brothers,’ by Stephen Kinzer
November 8, 2013, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/books/review/the-brothers-by-stephen-kinzer.html?_r=0

The Brothers” is a riveting chronicle of government-sanctioned murder, casual elimination of “inconvenient” regimes, relentless prioritization of American corporate interests and cynical arrogance on the part of two men. John Foster Dulles and his brother, Allen, were ... lawyers, partners in the immensely powerful firm of Sullivan & Cromwell. John Foster Dulles served as secretary of state from 1953 to 1959; his brother ran the C.I.A. from 1953 to 1961. In his detailed, well­constructed and highly readable book, Stephen Kinzer ... shows how the brothers drove America’s interventionist foreign policy. Kinzer highlights John Foster Dulles’s central role in channeling funds from the United States to Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Sullivan & Cromwell floated bonds for Krupp A. G., the arms manufacturer, and also worked for I. G. Farben, the chemicals conglomerate that later manufactured Zyklon B, the gas used to murder millions of Jews. For the Dulles brothers, and for much of the American government, threats to corporate interests were categorized as support for communism. There are also reminders in Kinzer’s book of dark events in the history of American intelligence. Sixty years ago, Frank Olson, a C.I.A. officer, was reported to have jumped to his death during mind-control experiments “in which psychoactive drugs were administered to unknowing victims.” But last year, Kinzer reports, Olson’s family filed suit, claiming he had actually been murdered after visiting secret C.I.A. prisons in Europe.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing intelligence agency corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


Inspiring Articles


Shelter Dogs and Prison Inmates Give Each Other a New 'Leash' on Life
September 3, 2014, Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-patricia-fitzgerald/who-rescued-who-shelter-dogs-and...

August 9, 2014, was one of the most memorable days of my life. On that day I entered a maximum-security prison in Lancaster, Calif. to witness an extraordinary event connecting the lives of some of its inmates with a pack of rescued shelter dogs. Five lucky dogs ... were pulled from a high-kill shelter in Los Angeles and entered this Level 4 prison for a chance at a better life. Earlier this year, Karma Rescue, a nonprofit that saves at-risk dogs from high-kill shelters across Southern California, partnered with the California State Prison Los Angeles County in Lancaster to create "Paws for Life," a program that matches rescued dogs with inmates who train them to boost their odds of adoption. Fourteen inmates were ... selected to train five shelter dogs who stayed at the prison this summer for a 12-week program. From the very beginning, the program struck a chord with everyone involved. Karma Rescue's founder Rande Levine wrote, "Men who had not seen an animal in decades were openly emotional at the sight of the beautiful creatures before them. Just petting our dogs brought many to happy tears. It was a day I will never, ever forget." Several times a week, professional dog trainer Mark Tipton and several dedicated Karma Rescue volunteers drove out to the prison to instruct the inmates on how to train their assigned dogs for 'Canine Good Citizen' certification, a designation that increases the chance that a dog will be successfully adopted.

Note: Don't miss the moving pictures of this inspiring program at the link above. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


How a Disappointing Restaurant Experience Turned Into an Effort That Now Feeds 1200 Kids
February 6, 2016, Daily Good
http://www.dailygood.org/story/1215/how-a-disappointing-restaurant-experience-turned...

What started as a small gesture, of feeding underprivileged children, by 31-year-old Darshan and his friends has turned into a full-blown movement. An email he shot off to a restaurant, after being deeply disappointed with the service he got there, just changed the course of Darshan’s life. When the restaurant management apologised for the poor service and offered to give him free food, Darshan refused the offer and asked them to feed underprivileged children instead. The restaurant went ahead with his suggestion, and after feeding the children, sent pictures to Darshan. “This is the moment that changed me forever. The smile on the faces of those children left me touched. And that is when I decided to do something about it,” he says. Thus, the BhookMitao campaign was born. On June 7, 2015, Darshan and his friends went and fed a couple of children in a slum in Vadodara, Gujarat. Today, the BhookMitao movement provides nutritious lunch to as many as 1,200 children in Vadodara. As the volunteer network grows, Darshan has divided it into groups. Each group takes up a particular spot in the city. They coordinate with those who want to donate, procure the raw materials, and cook the meals in their own kitchens. The programme usually begins ... with some fun activities for the kids. They screen movies on education or make them do some craft work etc., and then ... volunteers and children eat the same food together. The movement ... has spread, [and] the number of volunteers has grown from six to over 600.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


The Civilization Kit
December 30, 2013, The New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/23/the-civilization-kit

Marcin Jakubowski, the owner of a small farm in northwestern Missouri, is an agrarian romantic for high-tech times. He holds a Ph.D. in fusion physics. In 2003, the year that he received his doctorate, Jakubowski started a Web site, Open Source Ecology, or O.S.E., with the aim of collecting the best techniques for creating sustainable communities. In 2009, Jakubowski posted on the O.S.E. blog a list of fifty machines that, in his view, could cheaply provide everything that a small community needed to sustain a comfortable existence. The list became the Global Village Construction Set. It includes mainstays of contemporary life (tractor, bakery oven, wind turbine) and also exotic, and relatively untested, equipment: an aluminum extractor, developed for lunar missions, that wrests the metal from clay; a bioplastic extruder, which converts plant-based plastic into such domestic necessities as window frames and adhesive tape. So far, Jakubowski has built sixteen of the machines - most of them prototypes - and he has also sold a few. The boldness of his dream resonates widely. In 2012, Time called the Global Village Construction Set one of the year’s best inventions, and Jakubowski’s TED talk has been viewed more than 1.2 million times. And, nearly every day, he receives e-mails from strangers who want to help him remake civilization, without the competition, bloodshed, or environmental depredation. To Jakubowski, the antidote to specialization and secrecy [is] obvious: self-sufficiency and a willingness to share information.

Note: Don't miss the great, four-minute TED Talk on this inspiring development.


Hershey dumps sugar beets because of GM concerns
December 27, 2015, Star Tribune (Minneapolis' Leading Newspaper)
http://www.startribune.com/hershey-dumps-sugar-beets-because-of-gm-concerns/363498311/

For decades, the Hershey Co. has used sugar made from both sugar beets and sugar cane, but it decided earlier this year to stop buying beet sugar because it comes from genetically modified, or GM, seeds. Hershey communications director Jeff Beckman confirmed that the kisses and many other products stocked on shelves since Halloween no longer contain beet sugar. The company also is transitioning away from artificial to natural ingredients, he said. About 55 percent of domestic U.S. sugar is produced from sugar beets, and nearly 100 percent of the beet seeds are genetically modified to tolerate the herbicide glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup. Hershey is the only national brand that has dropped beet sugar, although other companies have been asking questions and there has been a lot of chatter about GM sugar on social media. Part of the pressure on Hershey came from a coalition of groups called GMO Inside that began a campaign in 2013 suggesting that consumers tell Hershey and Mars, another large candy manufacturer, to drop all GM ingredients from their products. Elizabeth O’Connell, campaigns director for Green America, one of the groups in the anti-GM coalition ... said consumer groups will continue to pressure companies to remove GM ingredients from food, or at least to label them so consumers know what they’re buying. A current priority is dairy products, she said, because cows are fed mixtures of soy meal, corn and other products from GM seed.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


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