“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.” ~ unknown
Benjamin Franklin Quote
“If a man empties his purse into his head no one can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.” ~ Benjamin Franklin
Tell GeoPark Oil Company: Stay Out of Achuar Territory!
The Achuar of Peru’s Pastaza River in the northern Amazon have sent many oil companies packing. Now GeoPark, a company based in Chile, thinks it can succeed where Talisman, Oxy, and ARCO failed.
The Achuar remain as committed as ever to resisting extractive industries in their ancestral territory, helping defend its biodiversity and the global climate. Now they’ve asked international civil society to stand with them as they defend their sacred rainforests from an attack on their ancestral way of life.
https://amazonwatch.org/take-action/tell-geopark-stay-out-of-achuar-territory
https://amazonwatch.org/take-action/tell-geopark-stay-out-of-achuar-territory
Joan Shenton, Investigative Journalist, explains why everyone should watch the documentary film, Sacrificial Virgins
Joan Shenton said: “Sacrificial Virgins shows there’s no evidence that vaccines used in immunisation programs to guard against HPV will also prevent future onsets of cervical cancer – because there’s no scientific evidence that HPV actually causes such cancers. However, the film provides plenty of evidence that, after vaccination, countless young women worldwide have experienced life-changing neurological damage.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjU04avv6X4&feature=youtu.be
Your Australian eHealth Record
In a rather unfortunate coincidence the name and some health data of 1.5 million Singaporeans was hacked the same month Australians started to be allowed to opt out of our national health database. Apparently 20,000 of us opted out on day one of the 90 day opt out period!
If you want to opt out, here is the link: www.myhealthrecord.gov.au/
Singapore govt health database hacked
A major cyberattack on Singapore’s government health database resulted in the personal information of about 1.5 million people – including Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong – being stolen.
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/singapore-govt-health-database-hacked-498782
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/singapore-govt-health-database-hacked-498782
Ex-DTO chief slams “significantly flawed” My Health Record
Former Digital Transformation Office chief Paul Shetler has labelled the rollout of the My Health Record “significantly flawed”, citing issues with its security model and design as barriers to take-up. Said if he were an Australian hewould probably opt out.
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/ex-dto-chief-slams-significantly-flawed-my-health-record-498576
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/ex-dto-chief-slams-significantly-flawed-my-health-record-498576
The Invasion of Afghanistan, October 7, 2001: Did 9/11 Justify the War in Afghanistan?
The Invasion of Afghanistan, October 7, 2001: Did 9/11 Justify the War in Afghanistan?
This article by award winning author Professor David Ray Griffin was first published by Global research in June 2010
There are many questions to ask about the war in Afghanistan. One that has been widely asked is whether it will turn out to be “Obama’s Vietnam.”1 This question implies another: Is this war winnable, or is it destined to be a quagmire, like Vietnam? These questions are motivated in part by the widespread agreement that the Afghan government, under Hamid Karzai, is at least as corrupt and incompetent as the government the United States tried to prop up in South Vietnam for 20 years.
Although there are many similarities between these two wars, there is also a big difference: This time, there is no draft. If there were a draft, so that college students and their friends back home were being sent to Afghanistan, there would be huge demonstrations against this war on campuses all across this country. If the sons and daughters of wealthy and middle-class parents were coming home in boxes, or with permanent injuries or post-traumatic stress syndrome, this war would have surely been stopped long ago. People have often asked: Did we learn any of the “lessons of Vietnam”? The US government learned one: If you’re going to fight unpopular wars, don’t have a draft – hire mercenaries!
There are many other questions that have been, and should be, asked about this war, but in this essay, I focus on only one: Did the 9/11 attacks justify the war in Afghanistan?
This question has thus far been considered off-limits, not to be raised in polite company, and certainly not in the mainstream media. It has been permissible, to be sure, to ask whether the war during the past several years has been justified by those attacks so many years ago. But one has not been allowed to ask whether the original invasion was justified by the 9/11 attacks.
However, what can be designated the “McChrystal Moment” – the probably brief period during which the media are again focused on the war in Afghanistan in the wake of the Rolling Stone story about General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, which led to his resignation – provides the best opportunity for some time to raise fundamental questions about this war. Various commentators have already been asking some pretty basic questions: about the effectiveness and affordability of the present “counterinsurgency strategy” and even whether American fighting forces should remain in Afghanistan at all. But I am interested in an even more fundamental question: Whether this war was ever really justified by the publicly given reason: the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
This question has two parts: First, did these attacks provide a legal justification for the invasion of Afghanistan? Second, if not, did they at least provide a moral justification?
https://australiannationalreview.com/2018/07/12/the-invasion-of-afghanistan-october-7-2001-did-9-11-justify-the-war-in-afghanistan/
Backlash against “war on cash” reaches Washington & China
The electronic-payments industry, which gets a cut from every electronic transaction, wants to kill cash. But wait…
Not so long ago, it seemed that the death of cash was both inevitable and imminent. The war against physical money was advancing on all fronts. Cash, already with technological and generational trends stacked against it, faced an imposing array of enemies, including private banks, fintech firms, telecom behemoths, credit card giants, assorted NGOs, tech magnates like Bill Gates and Tim Cook, a bewildering alphabet soup of UN agencies and many national governments. All wanted (and to a great extent still want) to accelerate the demise of physical money, for their own disparate motives.
But a study released in June by UK-based online payments company Paysafe confirmed that consumers on both sides of the Atlantic continue to cling to physical lucre: 87% of consumers surveyed in the UK, Canada, the US, Germany, and Austria said they had used cash to make purchases in the last month, 83% visited ATMs, and 41% said they are not interested in even hearing about cash alternatives.
Now, even certain branches of government are pushing back against the cashless trend. In Washington D.C., city councilors have introduced a new bill that would make it illegal for restaurants and retailers not to accept cash or charge a different price to customers depending on the type of payment they use. The bill is in response to efforts by retailers in the city and around the country – like the salad chain Sweetgreen – to go 100% cashless.
https://www.nexusnewsfeed.com/article/geopolitics/backlash-against-war-on-cash-reaches-washington-china/
Intelligent Assistants Have Poor Usability: A User Study of Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri
Summary: Usability testing finds that both voice-only and screen-based intelligent assistants work well only for very limited, simple queries that have fairly simple, short answers. Users have difficulty with anything else.
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/intelligent-assistant-usability/
How Betaine with Pepsin Can Help with Hashimoto’s
Dr Izabella Wentz writes:
If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll likely have heard of betaine with pepsin. Betaine with pepsin was one of the most helpful supplements I came across during my health journey. I often tell the story about how this supplement changed my life. Excessive fatigue was my most challenging symptom.
I was chronically exhausted and needed to sleep for 11 to 12 hours to feel human. Things didn’t get much better, despite starting thyroid medications in 2010, and even going gluten and dairy free in 2011.
I didn’t think the fatigue would ever leave.
Quite honestly, I accepted it as part of who I was. But then I started taking betaine with pepsin on Friday, February 10, 2012 — one capsule with each meal containing protein. I was surprised to wake up the following morning at 8 am without an alarm. I had been dragging myself out of bed after 10 most mornings when I did not have to work. Strangely, I continued to feel energetic all day. I even stayed awake when my usually much more energetic husband took a nap. Things became easier, and all of a sudden, I felt that I had a surplus of time. I felt more at ease going to bed and even had time to meditate, which was something that I had wanted to do for years!
In this updated article, you’ll learn:
How common low stomach acid is in those with Hashimoto’s
How betaine with pepsin can help Hashimoto’s
Who should not take betaine with pepsin
How to determine the dose that’s right for you
Recommended betaine with pepsin supplements
Alternate ways to support low stomach acid
https://thyroidpharmacist.com/articles/hashimotos-and-low-stomach-acid/
The Four Legged Stool
A few weeks ago I met a really nice guy week battling the debilitating after effects of some medication he was prescribed. As a result I was lying in bed thinking about the state of our “health care” system that is leaving so many people incapacitated.
One of the lessons I have been taught is that it is really effective to determine what the product is that you are going for in any situation. It is also a good way to evaluate other persons or groups. What is their product?
For instance their are two possible products that could be obtained by a primary health care practitioner.
The first and more optimum product of a health care professional is a person returned to full health, symptom free. If you have a health care provider who is one of those, cherish them and broadly promote them! They deserve it and your family and friends do too!
The second, and more common product, is a person whose disease state is “managed or under control”, usually with medication.
One problem with this disease management scenario is that because each drug has an average of 75 side-effects, one of which is death, most people end up on three or more medications, many of them to combat the symptoms of earlier prescribed drugs.
The result of this is a monthly or quarterly recurring income for the prescribing pill pusher and drug company and a life of paying and pill popping and degenerating health for the patient.
I looked over this scene and concluded it was like a four legged stool that would fall over if one leg was removed.
The Four Legs
1. The uneducated, misinformed general public who are only after a “quick fix” to their symptoms, unaware that those symptoms are merely a manifestion of an underlying cause. A cause that unless addressed, will result in more symptoms.
2. Those medicos only after a quick buck, sometimes unaware that they should, sometimes unaware of how to educate the public to change their diet and lifestyle choices to reverse the underlying cause of their symptoms.
3. The profit driven pharmaceutical companies who are marketing their drugs to doctors, the public, the government and government agencies. These companies are not reward for cures, only for perpetual customers.
4. The legislative and administrative arms of the government. The former are supposed to legislate for the best interests of the public but are heavily lobbied with incomplete and false information and campaign funded by the drug companies so establish laws and policies that benefit those drug companies.
The solution is to do what we can to kick one or more legs out from underneath this stool! This will not happen overnight and neither you not I can do it alone. But there are already plenty of people doing something about it and we can do a lot worse than forward their messages.
Step one is to do the best for yourself with regards to diet and lifestyle and thereby set a good example to your family and friends and others you meet.
Step two is to tell those who will listen what you are doing and why you are doing it. Do what you can to forward solutions on your comm lines. If a friend raves about a good naturopath, pass it on! If you read a good article on Facebook, click the Like and Share buttons. If you get a newsletter from some else or me that resonates with you, forward it.
Step three is to ask your GP or whomever you need to consult for your health, “What is our product here, what are we trying to accomplish?” If they are of the “Nothing can be cured” camp, don’t walk, run for the door and ask your friends who they know who had the same condition as you who was returned to health and find the health care practitioner who they consulted.
Step four is to continue to educate yourself on those things that work and don’t to improve your health and then implement what you learn!
This article did not start as a plug for my book but I would be remiss if I did not point out that you can seriously shortcut your learning curve by starting with it: www.howtolivethehealthiestlife.com
There are many more things that can be done to kick a leg out from under that stool but if you complete those four steps above you will know more than most and you will know what you need to do further.