Debt Enslavement!!!

We love celebrating Independence Day and yet we are deeply enslaved to debt.  We like to think of ourselves as “free” and yet we have rolled up the biggest pile of debt the world has ever seen.  The people that we have borrowed all of this money from expect to be paid.  Sadly, instead of addressing the problem, we have been loading more debt on to the backs of future generations with each passing year.  What we are doing to our kids and our grandkids is so immoral that is almost defies description. 

At the heart of this debt-based system stands the Federal Reserve.  It is a perpetual debt machine that was designed to trap the U.S. government  and the whole World in a spiral of debt permanently.  Today, the U.S. national debt is 4700 times larger than it was when the Federal Reserve was created back in 1913.  This year alone, we will add more to the national debt than we did from the presidency of George Washington to the beginning of the presidency of Ronald Reagan.  So yes, enjoy the hotdogs and the fireworks, but also remember that we will never be free as long as this constantly expanding debt problem is hanging over our heads.

So is there any solution to this problem?

Not under the current system.

The debt-based Federal Reserve system is designed to expand government debt indefinitely.  But of course all debt bubbles burst eventually and we are rapidly reaching that point.

So what should we do?

We need to abandon our current debt-based financial system.  The way that our current system normally works, whenever more money is created more debt is also created. Such a system is inevitably doomed to fail.

We need to transition to an entirely new system that has nothing to do with the Federal Reserve or Federal Reserve notes.  We need an entirely new system where the money is not based on debt.

But even though more North Americans than ever are awake to the flaws in our monetary system, the truth is that neither major political party is remotely ready to even consider an end to the current financial system.

Many political parties believe that if we can just cut government spending enough we can solve the problem.  Many others believe that if we can just “raise enough revenue” we can solve the problem.

Neither of those solutions will work.

Many conservatives are so frustrated with the whole thing that they just want Congress to refuse to raise the debt ceiling. If interest rates were to start rising as a result of a debt default, interest on the national debt would likely double or even triple.

Look, if we want to come anywhere close to balancing the budget under our current system, it will be a whole lot easier to do if we are spending 400 billion dollars on interest on the national debt rather than 1.2 trillion dollars.

The reality is that we have “government debt problems” from coast to coast.

How can we claim that our country is free when we are enslaved to such horrible debt burdens?

The borrower is always a servant of the lender.  As a nation, we are becoming a little bit less independent every single day.

So enjoy celebrating Independence Day while you still can.

If we continue on the path that we are currently on, nobody is going to be celebrating much of anything in the future.

Internet Re-Wiring Our Brains??

Like any technology, the Internet is a double-edged sword, but is the World Wide Web literally re-wiring our brains, dumbing us down by destroying our ability to think analytically and infantilizing our minds in the process?

Are we becoming a world of wireheads as the constant onslaught of new information reduces our attention span to nothing – eviscerating our ability to concentrate?

Some neuroscientists say the Internet is re-moulding brain to rely on associative thinking, which leaves us incapable of reading or writing at length. But Oxford University’s Susan Greenfield goes further – warning that the likes of Facebook and Twitter are giving people what amounts to a lobotomy of empathy.

“We know how small babies need constant reassurance that they exist.”

These technologies are infantilizing the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights; who have a small attention span and who live for the moment.

There are Facebook and Twitter obsessives who can barely visit the bathroom without posting a status update about it. To these people, privacy, individualism and merely the nagging voice of their own conscience are terrifying prospects. They constantly need to fill their environment with sound and fury, signifying nothing. To them, silence is torture – considered thought and peace of mind is anathema.

How do we reach out to people with often-complex information when their brains have been frazzled to the point where they can barely maintain a conversation?

Remember these facts?? 40 per cent of North Americans read one or less over the course of a whole year. A quarter of North Americans don’t read any books at all. A lot of our young people only read books because they are forced to do so for school and college. Too many words, not enough pictures, definitely no videos of dancing penguins.

American technologist Nicholas Carr fears that someone, or something, has been tinkering with his brain, remapping the neural-circuitry, reprogramming the memory. His friends tell him how they find it impossible to absorb the information contained in a longer article.

One of the questions arise -- is Google Making us Stupid?

Now we’ve had to adapt our message to still be relevant in this brave new world of superficial sound bites – if I’d have written all this up in a three page article a lot of people would have simply ignored it.

What do you think? Are social networking websites and the Internet general destroying our ability to think analytically and in any significant depth? How can we craft our message to compete in this world of information overload and 21st century wireheads?

Leave your comments!!

Cell Phone Surveillance

Do you own a cell phone?  Do you think that it is private and secure?  You might want to think again. The truth is that there is virtually no privacy when it comes to cell phones.  In fact, the amount of cell phone surveillance that goes on is absolutely staggering.  For example, one German politician named Malte Spitz recently went to court to force Deutsche Telekom to reveal how often his cell phone was being tracked.  What he found out was absolutely amazing. 

It turns out that in just one 6 months period, Deutsche Telekom recorded the longitude and latitude coordinates of his cell phone 35,000 Times. Not only that, in the United States cell phone companies are actually required by law to be able to pinpoint the locations of their customers to within 100 meters.  Most cell phone carriers are able to track their customers far more accurately than that.  The truth is that your location will never again be truly "private" as long as you are carrying a cell phone.

And your conversations will not be private either.  A whole host of people could be listening in on your cell phone calls.  In fact, your cell phone can be used to spy on you even when you don't have it on.  For example, as one CNET article noted, if law enforcement authorities are investigating you they can remotely activate the microphone on your cell phone and listen in on your conversations....

“The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone's microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations.

The technique is called a "roving bug," and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice officials for use against members of a New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing a suspect or wiretapping him.”

Not only that, but also all phone calls (whether made with a cell phone or not) are monitored by the U.S. government in the name of national security. For years this was kind of an open secret, but now even mainstream news outlets such as USA TODAY have reported on the NSA's goal "to create a database of every call ever made"....

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of North Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

However, perhaps even more frightening is the rapidly rising number of stalkers and criminals that are exploiting the advanced capabilities of cell phone surveillance software.

If a stalker or a criminal is able to get spy software on to your cell phone, that person will be able to listen to all of your calls, read all of your text messages and track your movements 24 hours a day and you might not ever find out.

In addition, there is even cell phone spy software out there that will allow someone to use your cell phone microphone to listen to what is going on around you even when your cell phone is turned off.

Do you doubt any of this? Are you frightened yet?

Kevin Bankston, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, recently told the New York Times that it has basically gotten to the point where "you have to hand over your personal privacy to be part of the 21st century".

Sadly, part of the reason why cell phones can track us so well is because the U.S. government requires it.

The FCC's E911 initiative actually mandates that all cell phone companies must be able to pinpoint the locations of all of their customers to within 100 meters.

The rationale for this requirement is so that emergency responders will be able to find you if something happens.

But this is just another example of how all of our privacy is being systematically stripped away in the name of security.

Today most North Americans seem to have bought into the notion that life is better and more secure when the government tracks, traces and watches virtually everything that we do.

These were some of the examples of how we are giving up privacy in the name of security. Think and research on it.

Facebook Facial Recognition Technology is ON!!!

The days when you could be “anonymous” on the Internet are long gone.  Social media networks like Facebook are a lot of fun, but you should expect to have absolutely zero privacy while using them.  If you still believe that anything you say or do on Facebook is private than you are being delusional. 

Now, Facebook has even enabled facial recognition technology across its entire site.  Facebook can now instantly identify your face out of its half a billion users worldwide.  Facebook is using this technology for its new “Tag Suggestions” feature.  The idea is that facial recognition technology will speed up the process of tagging friends and family in photos that have been posted on Facebook.

That sounds harmless enough, but the problem is that facial recognition technology has been automatically enabled for millions upon millions of Facebook users but they were never even told that the new technology would be automatically enabled on their accounts.

Oops!

The following excerpt is from the blog post where Facebook officially announced this change…..

“Because photos are such an important part of Facebook, we want to be sure you know exactly how tag suggestions work: When you or a friend upload new photos, we use face recognition software—similar to that found in many photo editing tools—to match your new photos to other photos you’re tagged in. We group similar photos together and, whenever possible, suggest the name of the friend in the photos.”

So exactly how does this new technology function?

A recent Computerworld article explained exactly how this is going to work….

“Facebook noted that starting in just a few weeks, its system will scan all photos posted to Facebook and will offer up the names of the people who appear in the frame. All of Facebook’s users are automatically being added to the database.

The facial recognition feature is automatically turned on. Users who don’t want the service must go in and manually opt out of it.”

So if anyone has ever posted a picture of you to Facebook, the company can now instantly identify you through the use of facial recognition technology.

That sounds a little creepy, doesn’t it?

Sadly, Facebook doesn’t seem to have much regard for our privacy these days.  Senior technology consultant Graham Cluley had the following to say about this recent change

“Yet again, it feels like Facebook is eroding the online privacy of its users by stealth”

So what if you don’t want facial recognition technology enabled for your Facebook account?

Well, you have to manually go in and disable it.

But let’s not dump all of the blame on Facebook here.  The truth is that Google’s Picasa and Apple’s iPhoto also use facial recognition technology. These kinds of “Big Brother” technologies are spreading and are becoming a part of the very fabric of the world in which we live.

Every single day a few more shreds of our privacy are stripped away.

Sometimes it is the government that is doing it.  Other times it is corporations that are doing it. Either way, we are becoming more exposed all the time. Increasingly, nearly everything that we do is being watched, tracked, traced, monitored, surveilled or controlled in some way. For much more on how our world is slowly but surely being transformed into a “control grid”,

If we do not stand up for privacy now, eventually we will have none left.

If we continue on the road that we are currently on, a day will come when everything we buy, everything we sell and everywhere we go will be very tightly tracked and controlled.

At some point we may have very few decisions left that are truly are own.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to end up living in some bizarre, futuristic version of George Orwell’s “1984″.

The facial recognition technology being used by Facebook is not going to change the world, but it is another small step towards a world where none of us have any privacy left.

So what do all of you think about this change by Facebook?  Please feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts below….

Sunscreen on Skin is Unsafe!!!

The absurdity of many government recommendations would be humorous if not for the millions of North Americans that take them seriously. The latest pseudo-scientific nonsense being peddled by Big Brother is the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) ignorant claim that sunlight is dangerous, and that only “broad spectrum” sunscreens that block basically every type of sun ray from penetrating the skin are capable of preventing skin cancer and other alleged sun-induced diseases.

The FDA’s recent announcement deals primarily with a significant change in sunscreen labeling, but the devil is in the details as the agency purports in its press release that the sun is dangerous and must be avoided. The agency would rather have every North American lather on a coating of toxic, chemical-laden sunscreen than risk the chance that even a single ray of “damaging’ sunshine penetrate their skin.

Such nonsense, of course, has been debunked by a host of scientific studies in recent years. Not only is sunlight exposure absolutely vital for maintaining healthy levels of vitamin D in the body, but a lack of it can lead to serious illnesses like multiple sclerosis, cognitive decline, bone loss, and even cancer. But the FDA has never let the facts get in the way of its agendas, which in this case is to promote the myth that sunlight exposure causes cancer and has no legitimate health benefit, and that the only way to effectively avoid it is to wear lots of sunscreen.

“The population of the world has been brainwashed by the American Academy of Dermatology and the sunscreen industry for thirty years, with the unrelenting message that you should never be exposed to direct sunlight because it is going to cause serious skin cancer and death,” says Dr. Michael Holick, professor of Medicine, Physiology, and Biophysics at Boston University School of Medicine. “People are really quite surprised by the new message that sensible sun exposure, in moderation, is very important for good health. We should appreciate the sun for its benefits, and not abuse it.”

And yet nowhere in the recent FDA announcement does the agency even hint that moderate sunlight exposure could be beneficial to health. Instead, Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, states that people should “regularly apply and reapply (approved) sunscreens,” as well as “limit sun exposure.” Besides blocking beneficial sunlight rays that produce vitamin D in the skin, the sunscreens the FDA promotes are loaded with untested nanoparticles, as well as known toxins like retinyl palmitate and oxybenzone. The agency denies, of course, that nanoparticles and other sunscreen chemicals penetrate the skin, even though numerous scientific studies say otherwise.

“Sunscreens facilitate the skin’s absorption of pesticides,” says Dr. Tatiana Cannell from the Vitamin D Council. So if you want pesticides to be readily absorbed through your skin, circulate in your blood, go to your internal organs, and be excreted in your urine, wear sunscreens.

Global Food Crisis???

If you do much grocery shopping, you have probably noticed that the cost of food has been rising at a very brisk pace over the past year.  So why are food prices rising so fast?  According to officials, inflation is still very low and the economy is improving.  So what is going on here?  When I go to the grocery store these days, there are very few things that I will buy unless they are on sale.  In fact, I have noticed that many of the new “sale prices” are the old regular prices.  Other items have had their packages reduced in size in order to hide the price increases.  But with millions of North American families just barely scraping by as it is, what is going to happen if food prices keep rising this rapidly?

The food prices are especially painful if you are trying to eat healthy.  Most of the low price stuff in the grocery stores is garbage.  Eating the “typical North American diet” is a highway to cancer, heart disease and diabetes. But if you try to stick to food that is “healthy” or “organic” you can blow through hundreds of dollars in a heartbeat.  In fact, the reality is that tens of millions of North American families have now essentially been priced out of a healthy diet.

Soon there will be millions more North American families that will not even be able to afford an unhealthy diet. Some recent statistics compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics are absolutely staggering.  According to a recent CNBC article, over the past year many of the most popular foods in North America have absolutely soared in price….

Coffee, for instance, is up 40 percent. Celery is 28 percent higher while butter prices rose 26.4 percent. Rounding out the top five are bacon, at 23.5 percent, and cabbage, at 23.3 percent.

Unfortunately, it looks like the trend of rising food prices is accelerating.  Just look at what the CNBC article says happened in the month of April alone….

“Just in April—the most recent month for which data is available—grapes went up nearly 30 percent, cabbage jumped about 17 percent and orange juice surged more than 5 percent.”

Meat is becoming more expensive as well.  Since March 2009, livestock prices have risen by 138%. So when officials tells us that inflation is very low, that really is a lie.  On the stuff that people spend money on every day (like food and gas), prices have gone up dramatically.

Sadly, this is not just a phenomenon that is happening in North America.  The truth is that the entire planet is rapidly approaching a horrific global food crisis. Over the past year, the global price of food has risen by 37 percent and this has pushed approximately 44 million more people around the world into poverty.

When food prices rise in the U.S. it may be painful for millions of North American families, but around the world a rise in food prices can mean the difference between surviving and not surviving. That is why it has been so alarming that the global price of wheat has approximately doubled over the past year.

But it is not just wheat that has been soaring.  Check out what a recent Btoomberg article had to say about what has been happening to many key agricultural commodities over the past year….

“Corn futures advanced 77 percent in the past 12 months in Chicago trading, a global benchmark, rice gained 39 percent and sugar jumped 64 percent. There will be shortages in corn, wheat, soybeans, coffee and cocoa this year or next, according to Utrecht, Netherlands-based Rabobank Groep. Prices also rose after droughts and floods from Australia to Canada ruined crops last year. European farmers are now contending with their driest growing season in more than three decades.”

Even before this recent spike in food prices the world was struggling to get enough food to everybody.  It has been estimated that somewhere in the world someone starves to death every 3.6 seconds, and 75 percent of those are children under the age of five.

So what is going to happen if food prices keep on rising at the current pace?

That is a very good question.

We really are starting to move into unprecedented territory.  Nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next.

So why is all of this happening?

Well, a lot of people are blaming the Federal Reserve  All of the “quantitative easing” that the Fed has done has flooded the financial markets with money.  All of that money had to go somewhere.  Much of it has pumped up the prices of hard assets such as oil, gold and agricultural commodities.

But it is not just the Fed that is to blame.  The truth is that central banks all over the world have been recklessly printing money. When the amount of money in an economy goes up, the purchasing value of all existing money goes down.

I hope we all are prepared for such times.