The Kingdom News Network - KNN

Photo Gallery - Shades of Blue Affair - Dimona Israel - Part 1

2012-01-29T07:11:00.000-08:00

Shades of Blue Affair - January 18, 2012
Photos by Taahmenyah eshet Sar Elyahshuv

DIMONA. Red and Black is out. Shades of Blue is in. Celebrated for the first time under its new name, the Shades of Blue Affair was a night to remember.

Created by The Brothers on the Move (BOM) as an appreciation to the Sisters on the Move (SOM), the Shades of Blue Affair, formerly known as The Red & Black Affair, demonstrates the ability to have a classy, enjoyable evening while "keeping our minds in a heavenly state" as cited by BOM Chairman Brother Kadmiel as the motivation for the name change.

This event featured dancing, delicious vegan dining (of course), and live performances from talent artists within the Community.

The Brothers and Sisters on the Move, an organization within the Hebrew Israelite Community (Kingdom of Yah), serves as a "stepping stone to leadership." These members are recognized for their diligent efforts to further enhance the growth and development of a better world.

Photo Gallery - Shades of Blue Affair - Dimona Israel - Part 2

2012-01-29T06:39:00.000-08:00

Photo Gallery - Shades of Blue Affair - Dimona Israel - Part 3

2012-01-29T06:15:00.001-08:00

Photo Gallery - Shades of Blue Affair - Dimona Israel - Part 4

2012-01-29T05:16:00.000-08:00

Four Generations Run the Tiberias Marathon 10k

2012-01-21T05:29:00.000-08:00

The Winning Team
By Ahkote Ahmahlyah E. Sar Elyahshuv - Dimona, Israel

On Yom Riviee, Wednesday, 11.1.2012, in the Northern Light city of Tiberias, Israel, the “Winning Team” (phrase coined by Ben Ammi the Spiritual Leader to denote the combined effort of four generations), members of the Hebrew Israelite Community successfully ran the 10k (6.2 miles).

Four females and seven males ages 14-83 represented the Kingdom of Yah in this annual event. Overall some 400 civilians and 1,000 Israeli Defense Forces began the run at 2:30pm in drizzling rain. Before the event was over there was a gush of steady flowing rain to encourage the runners to move faster. We counted our success once we crossed that finish line!

Participation in the 10k began previously with one, Abba Yaacov, father of Ahk Zockriel, Ahkote Kamudah Matanah and Ahkote Amnonah E. Shariel. He has now reimaged himself by bringing along ten others! None of this could have been done without the constant inspiration, encouragement and coaching of Sar Yadiel, Minister of Divine Agriculture, who was unable to participate in the race because he is on assignment in Kenya.

The runners also want to mention that this could not have been done without the steam room crew: our families and supporters, Nasik Rockameem (Father of Ministry of Sports and Recreation and our Divine Driver!), Nasik Elkannann, Rockameem Textiles, the Brotherhood and Sisterhood Fund Committees, Saints of the Northern Light and the onlookers.

TODAH RABAH ABBAH FOR YOUR CONSTANT SUPPORT, HALLELUYAH!

The runners are: Abba Yacove, Ahkote Ahnavah (Sojourner), Ahk Acaziah Gadol, Ahkote Zakah e. Hecumliel Ha Cohane, Ahk Elirahm Ha Cohane, Ahkote Yavnielah E. Nasik Rockameem, Ahk Beniyah Ben Nasik Gavriel Ha Gadol, Ahkote Ahmahlyah E. Sar Elyahshuv, Matitiyahu Ben Elirahm HC, Amram Ben Gumliel, Asaf Ben Tsadeek

Photographs by: Ahkote Earelah E. Kadishiel HC and Ahkote Ahmahlyah

Physical Immortality - The Formula Revealed - Webcast - Jan 15, 2012

2011-12-27T15:16:00.000-08:00

Diabetes forecast to hit one in 10 adults by 2030

2011-11-15T16:24:00.000-08:00

One in 10 adults will have diabetes by 2030
Reuters News Service

One in 10 adults will have diabetes by 2030, posing a huge challenge to healthcare systems around the world, according to a report on Monday.

The number of people living with the disease is expected to soar to 552 million by 2030 -- equating to three new cases every 10 seconds -- up from 366 million in 2011, unless urgent action is taken, the International Diabetes Federation said.

The vast majority of diabetics have Type 2 disease -- the kind linked to poor diet, obesity and lack of exercise -- and the problem is spreading as people in the developing world adopt more Western lifestyles.

Diabetics have inadequate blood sugar control, which can lead to serious complications like heart disease and stroke, damage to the kidneys or nerves, and to blindness. Worldwide deaths from the disease are now running at 4.6 million a year.

"In every country and in every community worldwide, we are losing the battle against this cruel and deadly disease," said Jean Claude Mbanya, president of the federation, which represents over 200 national associations.

Global sales of diabetes medicines totaled $35 billion last year and could rise to as much as $48 billion by 2015, according to research firm IMS Health, driven by increased prevalence and treatment, especially in countries such as China, India, Mexico and Brazil.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter)

Breaking News: Ben Ammi - Webcast

2011-09-22T17:03:00.000-07:00

“The Breath of Life for the Ascension Age – PHYSICAL IMMORTALITY: THE REVELATION”

Please be advised that Ben Ammi is preparing for a live webcast (Internet Broadcast) of a message of utmost historical and prophetic importance, during which he will share a revelation that promises to be the most significant since his earth-changing vision of 1966.

The broadcast is scheduled to air via the yahkhai.com internet site on Sunday, Oct. 9, 2011 at 3:00PM EST (for North America, Caribbean and South America) and 1500GMT (for Africa and Europe).

Access to the broadcast is being arranged as a pay-per-view, with the cost being $10 (proceeds to benefit the Restoration Village projects in Eden-Africa).

For further information, contact Minister of Information Elyahshuv at elyahshuv@hotmail.com or 972-8-655-9601.

Unity Day Run 2011

2011-07-24T06:07:00.000-07:00

Sacred Remarks by the Holy Father, Ben Ammi HaMasheahk at the conclusion of the Unity Day Run 2011
Dimona, Israel – Northeast Africa

To all of the Saints of the Holy One of Israel, Yahwah Qadosh Israel, Kagh Samayahk!

To reiterate in brevity, as Sar Elyahshuv has stated, we, the Saints of the Kingdom of Yah, are witnesses to the Truth of the words of Yah. I want all of you to remember that you are the ones that Yah has chosen to be His witnesses and we have to have a testimony. The world that is in opposition to Yah Yisrael is depending and leaning on their scientists with all of their heart soul and might to research the Holy creations so that they can invent and formulate a pill in order to circumvent the Holy creations, the sacred lifestyle and the sacred instructions of Yah Yisrael. Their eternal objective is to prove that they can create everything that Yah, the Creator of heaven and earth and all things therein, has made, without being obedient to His will.

Let it be known now and forever that we are on the "other" team. We have surrendered and have submitted ourselves to Yah’s Holy instructions. We believe and know, with all of our heart, soul and might, if we are obedient to those instructions and maintain the sacred lifestyle, we will achieve all of the things that Yah has promised.

At the appointed time, as stated, everyone will have to call their witnesses. We come forth every year, answering that sacred calling to be Yah’s witnesses, and are getting stronger and stronger. Every year that we come forth we show Yah Yisrael that we are not surrendering and we are not waiting on the "miracle" pill.

We have accepted the will of Yah Yisrael and the requirement of being obedient to His instructions. By following the instructions of the sacred lifestyle given to us, we know that we will achieve all of the things that have been promised by Yah.

In these, the latter days, everyone has to "put up" (present their witnesses/testimonies) as to who has the best "team"…or shut up. The stakes are high!: deliverance of Yah’s Holy creation and its sovereignty back into the hands of Yah, or eternal damnation (hell).

We are so happy! We, the Saints of the Most High have chosen the sacred way and have surrendered unto the will of Yah Yisrael and have vowed to be obedient to His instructions. The Kingdom of Yah on earth is the showcase for His sacred lifestyle and we are His witnesses that Unity Day 2011 – we were here!

I have perfect faith that by Unity Day 2012 and ascending to Unity Day 3011 we will still be here! But, all of those who are waiting on that pill you have got to "put up".

We, the Saints of the Most High, are on the other team…and what is that team called? THE WINNING TEAM!!

Halleluyah! Halleluyah! Halleluyah!

Ministry of Divine Information at Jerusalem
Acote Taahmenyah eshet Sar Elyahshuv, Administration

2011 Unity Day Run - Dimona Israel

2011-07-24T05:20:00.001-07:00

KNN Offers - Best Maple Syrup Prices in town!!!!!

2011-07-24T05:16:00.000-07:00

Maple Syrup can be sweet for your health and pocketby Ahtur KeymahKNN-Cleveland

Maple syrup is one of the many wonders of the world. It is an excellent source of manganese and a good source of zinc. Maple syrup can also be sweet for your health as it is an excellent source of manganese and zinc.

The trace mineral manganese is an essential cofactor in a number of enzymes important in energy production and antioxidant defenses. For example, the key oxidative enzyme superoxide dismutase, which disarms free radicals produced within the mitochondria (the energy production factories within our cells), requires manganese. One ounce of maple syrup supplies 22.0% of the daily value for this very important trace mineral.

Maple syrup is also a good sweetener to use if you are trying to protect the health of your heart. The zinc supplied by maple syrup, in addition to acting as an antioxidant, has other functions that can decrease the progression of arteriosclerosis. Zinc is needed for the proper function of endothelial cells and helps to prevent the endothelial damage caused by oxidized LDL cholesterol and other oxidized fats. Additionally, studies have found that in adults deficient in manganese, the other trace mineral amply supplied in maple syrup, the level of HDL (the "good" cholesterol) is decreased.

Zinc and manganese are important allies in the immune system. Many types of immune cells appear to depend upon zinc for optimal function. Particularly in children, researchers have studied the effects of zinc deficiency (and zinc supplementation) on their immune response and their number of white blood cells.

Maple syrup may help to support reproductive health and provides special benefits for men. Zinc is concentrated more highly in the prostate than in any other human tissue, and low levels of zinc in this gland relate to a higher risk for prostate cancer.

In fact, zinc is a mineral used therapeutically by healthcare practitioners to help reduce prostate size. Manganese may also play a role in supporting men's health since, as a catalyst in the synthesis of fatty acids and cholesterol, it also participates in the production of sex hormones, thus helping to maintain reproductive health.

For more info and to place your orders for maple syrup and granulated maple sugar, contact Ahtur Keymah today at keymah777@aol.com.

Recalling their show of strength

2011-04-25T15:47:00.000-07:00

I was like, 'Why do you have your gun on my daughter?'
By David Sheen
Haaretz Newspaper

"Dimona's African Hebrews enjoy widespread support, but 25 years ago they had to stand down Israel's full might to avoid deportation of some of their members."

It was 25 years ago today that 200 Border police officers, armed with guns, tear gas grenade launchers, helicopters and tanks descended on the communal village of African Hebrew Israelites.

Wearing all white and heeding their leader's call to "stay in your places" the community, known more commonly as Black Hebrews, stood its ground, a day it memorializes as the Day of the Show of Strength.

The soldiers were sent to prevent a peaceful march on Jerusalem to demand the release of 50 members of the Hebrew community that had been taken out of their beds for deportation, under the orders of then-Interior Minister Shimon Peres.

The African Hebrew Israelites have recently achieved a modicum of respect in Israeli society. Members of the community have represented Israel in international competitions, most notably the Eurovision song contest. Many of their children serve in the Israel Defense Forces. A few dozen members have even received full Israeli citizenship.

In 2008, President Peres celebrated his 85th birthday in Dimona with the Hebrews, and told them, "Your community is beloved in Israel." But 25 years ago, the situation couldn't have been more different.

Click here to see complete article: http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/anglo-file/recalling-their-show-of-strength-1.357513

After Tucson shooting, several congressmen vow to carry guns more often

2011-01-13T04:55:00.001-08:00

He thinks it might be a good idea to bring his Glock 23
By Sandhya Somashekhar
Washington Post Staff Writer

When he's traveling to meet constituents, bumping along the back roads of central Utah in his Ford F-150 truck, it's not unusual for Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R) to have a handgun strapped to his hip.

A longtime gun owner, Chaffetz said that in light of the attempt last weekend on the life of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), he thinks it might be a good idea to bring his Glock 23 even more often when he heads out into the country.

"It's just that you never know when you might find yourself in a most unfortunate situation," he said Wednesday. "I'd hate to be in a situation where I don't have the tool to do what needs to be done, and I hope and pray I'm never in such a situation."

Chaffetz is among several lawmakers who have stated publicly that the Arizona incident persuaded them that they need to keep their guns at the ready more regularly, even when meeting with constituents.

Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.), a vice-chairman of the House sportsmen's caucus, told Politico that he would be carrying his gun more often in light of the incident.

Tucson Shooting

2011-01-13T04:38:00.000-08:00

The shock of the news spread across the country
The Spectrum.org

Americans routinely seek answers as to why certain events take place. That's particularly true when tragedy strikes. We want to know what we can do to prevent such things from transpiring again.

Sometimes that search for answers leads to a jump to conclusions. Such may be the case in the horrific shooting that took place Saturday in Tucson, Ariz.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., remains in intensive care continuing her recovery after suffering a gunshot wound to the head from close range during an event near a supermarket meant to allow the congresswoman to meet one-on-one with constituents. In all, 14 people were shot, with six people being killed, including a judge and a 9-year-old girl.

As the shock of the news spread across the country, people started to ask why such an event took place. Some analysts started to speculate that the suspected gunman, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, targeted Giffords for political reasons and that the nation's rising angst and rhetoric on any number of conservative-vs.-liberal issues prompted the action.

Indeed, the rhetoric is high in the nation. It has been for some time. And critics have seized on that point by tying political speech to this horrible act. Some blame conservative voices such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. Others blame liberal members of the media, including the editorial pages of the New York Times for fostering such discontent.

While many Americans would agree that the vitriol should be toned down in an effort to unify the country, these critics are missing an important point: No motive for the shooting has been identified as of yet.

Fees for US Passports Increased

2011-01-12T22:05:00.000-08:00

KNN Staff
Dimona, Israel-The Village of Peace

Effective July 13, 2010, the U.S State Department has augmented the fees for US Passport Books, US Passport Cards, US Visas, T, the fee for an Adult Passport which was $75, has been increased to $110. The fee for minors under 16 years was $60, and has increased to $80.

Adding extra passport was a free service before, but will now cost $83.

The cost of a new passport for an adult 16 or over is rising to $135 from $100, while a new passport for a child will cost $105 instead of $85. The cost of renewing an existing passport is increasing too — to $110 from $75.

The cost of applying for a U.S. passport jumps from $100 to $135 today. Renewal fees are being hiked by and even greater amount, from $75 to $110.

A passport card will now cost you $55, up from $45. And renouncing your U.S. citizneship, which used to be free of charge, will now set you back a whopping $450.

The U.S. Passport Book (required for US Citizens for international travel) has gone from
Adults: First-Time (Age 16 and older) $110 to $135
Adults: Renewal (Applying with DS-82) $110
Minors (Under age 16) $80 to $105

U.S. Passport Card (for travel to countries such as Mexico, Canada, Carribean Islands)
Adults: First-Time (Age 16 and older) $30 to $55
Adults: Renewal (Applying with DS-82) $30
Minors (Under age 16) $15 to $40

Other Service Fees
Additional Visa Pages $82
File Search Fee $150
Expedite Processing $60

To view more details of the fee increase, please click here and scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Preparing for a Disaster - Emergency Supply Kit

2011-01-09T06:51:00.000-08:00

Prepare a emergency supply kit - What this kit should include
Hometimelife.com

A disaster defined is: A sudden event that causes great harm to people and property. This could include severe weather, such as tornados or hurricanes, snow events, ice storms or floods. Disasters can also include man-made events such as large fires that involve chemicals, transportation accidents either by rail or on the highway or terrorist activity. Regardless of how these events happen being prepared is key to your safety and survival.

Being prepared starts with talking to your family. Talk about the type of things that are likely to happen in southeast Michigan, such as tornados, ice storms, snow storms and the man made causes mentioned above.

Prepare a emergency supply kit. This kit should include:

-A three-day supply of non-perishable food and water.
-Flashlight with extra batteries.
-A battery-powered radio with extra batteries.
-A change of clothing for each family member.
-An extra set of car keys and a credit card.
-Personal needs such as, medication, extra glasses and sanitation needs.
-Important phone numbers of friends and/or relatives who may be able to help you.

Place the supplies in a container that you can take with you in the event of an emergency where you have to leave your home.

Sometimes during a disaster you or another family member may be out of town. Or emergency officials may ask you to leave your home. In either case you will need a meeting place other than your home. This should be a place outside your neighborhood or even in another state.

Wherever this place is, pick it before a disaster occurs and make arrangements with friends or relatives in case you need to stay there during or after a disaster.

Make sure each family member in your household knows where to meet and has a telephone number if it becomes necessary to leave your home, they can't get home or you become separated either during or after the disaster strikes. Remember your key to safety is to be prepared.

Feds: Fluoride Levels In Drinking Water Too High

2011-01-08T12:20:00.000-08:00

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U.S. says too much fluoride in water
By Mike Stobbe
Associated Press

Health officials note that most communities have fluoride in their water, and toothpaste has it, too. Some children are given fluoride supplements.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is proposing to change the recommended fluoride level to 0.7 milligrams per liter of water. And the Environmental Protection Agency will review whether the maximum of 4 milligrams per liter is too high.

The U.S. standard since 1962 has been 0.7 milligrams to 1.2 milligrams per liter.

Maryland has among the highest fluoridation rates in the nation, said Dr. Harry Goodman, director of the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's Office of Oral Health. For public water systems that add fluoride to their water, Maryland recommends a level of 1 milligram of fluoride per liter, according to the Maryland Department of the Environment.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that fluorosis is unexpectedly common in children ages 12 to 15. And it appears to have grown much more common since the 1980s.

"One of the things that we're most concerned about is exactly that," said an Obama administration official who was not authorized to speak publicly before the release of the report. The official described the government's plans in an interview with the Associated Press.

But there are other concerns. A scientific report five years ago said that over a lifetime, too much fluoride can lead to crippling bone abnormalities and brittleness. That and other research issued Friday by the EPA about the health effects of fluoride are likely to re-energize groups that oppose adding it to water supplies.

The American Dental Association released a statement applauding the government announcement to change fluoride guidance.

Fluoride is a mineral that exists naturally in water and soil. About 70 years ago, scientists discovered that people whose supplies naturally had more fluoride had fewer cavities. Some locales have naturally occurring fluoridation levels above 1.2. Today, most public drinking water is fluoridated, especially in larger cities. An estimated 64 percent of Americans drink fluoridated water.

10-Year-Old Kills Mother Over Chores

2011-01-05T02:32:00.000-08:00

Mom asked her son to bring in firewood
By Scott Sarvay
Indiana News Center

A 10-year-old boy is accused of shooting and killing his mother after they argued over chores. The incident happened on Sunday.

According to the boy's sister her mother, 46-year-old Deborah McVay, had asked her son to bring in firewood, and the boy became angry grabbed a .22 caliber rifle and shot his mother in the back of the head.

The 10-year-old is in the custody of juvenile authorities and is charged with one count of murder.

America's Two Economies

2010-11-06T04:56:00.000-07:00

America's Two Economies, and Why One Is Recovering and the Other Isn't
By Robert Reich
Robert Reich's Blog

Next time you hear an economist or denizen of Wall Street talk about how the "American economy" is doing these days, watch your wallet.

There are two American economies. One is on the mend. The other is still coming apart.

The one that's mending is America's Big Money economy. It's comprised of Wall Street traders, big investors, and top professionals and corporate executives.

The Big Money economy is doing well these days. That's partly thanks to Ben Bernanke, whose Fed is keeping interest rates near zero by printing money as fast as it dare. It's essentially free money to America's Big Money economy.

Free money can almost always be put to uses that create more of it. Big corporations are buying back their shares of stock, thereby boosting corporate earnings. They're merging and acquiring other companies.

And they're going abroad in search of customers.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is back to where it was before the Lehman bankruptcy filing triggered the financial collapse. And profits at America's largest corporations are heading upward.

But there's another American economy, and it's not on the mend. Call it the Average Worker economy.

Last Friday's jobs report showed 159,000 new private-sector jobs in October. That's better than previous months. But 125,000 net new jobs are needed just to keep up with the growth of the American labor force. So another way of expressing what happened to jobs in October is to say 34,000 were added over what we need just to stay even.

Yet the American economy has lost 15 million jobs since the start of the Great Recession. And if you add in the growth of the labor force - including everyone too discouraged to look for a job - we're down about 22 million.

Or to put it another way, we're still getting nowhere on jobs.

One out of eight breadwinners is still out of work. Most families in the Average Worker economy rely on two breadwinners. So if one out of eight isn't working, chances are high that family incomes are down compared to what they were three years ago.

And that means the bills aren't getting paid.

To See Complete Article Click Here: READ MORE

Vatican synod calls for end to Israel’s ‘occupation’

2010-11-04T15:04:00.000-07:00

At conference on Christians in the Middle East, US Melkite archbishop says: "There is no longer a chosen people."
By Lisa Palmieri-Billig
Jerusalem Post Correspondent

ROME – Bishops from the Middle East who were summoned to Rome by the pope demanded on Saturday that Israel accept UN resolutions calling for an end to its “occupation” of Arab lands.

In a final joint communique, the bishops also told Israel it shouldn’t use the Bible to justify “injustices” against the Palestinians.

The bishops issued the statement at the close of their two-week meeting, called by Pope Benedict XVI to discuss the plight of Christians in the Middle East amid a major exodus of the faithful from the region.

The Catholic Church has long been a minority in the largely Muslim region but its presence is shrinking further as a result of war, conflict, discrimination and economic problems.

“The Holy Scriptures cannot be used to justify the return of Jews to Israel and the displacement of the Palestinians, to justify the occupation by Israel of Palestinian lands,” Monsignor Cyril Salim Bustros, Greek Melkite archbishop of Our Lady of the Annunciation in Boston, Massachusetts, and president of the “Commission for the Message,” said at Saturday’s Vatican press conference.

Click here to see complete article: Vatican synod calls for end to Israel's 'occupation'

UK announces 490,000 job cuts

2010-10-25T17:32:00.001-07:00

Harshest austerity measures since second world war unveiled as public spending is slashed to deal with country's debts

KNN News

Britain will cut 490,000 public sector jobs over four years under austerity measures designed to reduce the country's record deficit.

George Osborne, the finance minister, told parliament on Wednesday that the job losses were "unavoidable when the country has run out of money".

"Today is the day that Britain steps back from the brink.

It is a hard road but it leads to a better future," he said.He said he had ordered $130bn in spending cuts by 2015, aiming to reduce Britain's deficit of 11 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) to around two per cent within five years.

The measures will also hit the welfare state, cutting child benefits and pushing the state pension to 66 by 2020.The cuts come as figures reveal British public sector spending in September reached $25.5bn - a record high level for the month.

Analysts had initially forecast a slight rise from September 2009's public net borrowing of $24.4bn.ProtestsSmall protests against the cuts are already taking place with larger marches and rallies scheduled to take place in London, the capital, later on Wednesday.

Nazanine Moshiri, Al Jazeera's correspondent in London, said demonstrations so far were not matching the scale of anti-austerity protests seen previously in Europe."We're not seeing anything like the kind of protests we've seen in the streets of Paris in the last few days. "People here are looking at this as a way of blaming the previous government of the Labour party for what has happened, rather than blaming the current coalition government."

But she added the move was a "big gamble" for the Conservative-Liberal Democrat alliance."If the economy doesn't start to grow, who knows what could happen here," she said.

"Double Dip" Risk
Ruth Lea, a British economist, told Al Jazeera that Wednesday's cuts were needed to reduce the deficit.

"If we don't cut now the generations to come will have to pay for all this," she said.

Lea added that the prospect of a "double-dip" recession was unlikely, saying: "Even though we talk about these enormous cuts they only mean one per cent year-on-year," she said.

The International Monetary Fund has strongly backed plans for an aggressive reduction of Britain's record high public deficit, describing spending cuts as an "essential" weapon.

But some economists have warned that the measures will tip Britain back into recession.

Mervyn King, the central bank governor, painted a gloomy picture late on Tuesday, saying it would be a long while before Britain could recover from the 10 per cent drop in output seen in the last recession.

The opposition Labour Party, which the current Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government blames for running up Britain's massive debt when it was in power, has agreed there is a need for fiscal discipline.

But it says that the coalition are cutting too much too soon.

Alan Johnson, Labour's shadow finance minister, accused Osborne of "economic masochism", warning that his cuts would leave Britain trapped in a cycle of low growth and high unemployment for years.

Wednesday's measures will see spending cut across government departments, including the Foreign Office, which will lose 24 per cent from its budget, the police force, and the interior and justice departments.

The BBC is also being affected by the measures, with the government cutting funding to the World Service.The plans are also extending to Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, with royal household spending falling by 14 per cent in 2012 to 2013.

However the National Health Service, schools and overseas aid have been protected under the spending review.The National Institute of Economic and Social Research think tank has said it believes the government will only be able to push through half the planned cuts.

7 Ways to Boost Your Energy

2010-10-02T10:07:00.000-07:00

Many of us are looking for energy in all the wrong places
by Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS

Fatigue is one of the biggest problems of modern life, but we’re trying to fix that problem in all the wrong ways.

Trying to “get” or “find” energy is like trying to grab a fistful of water. If you want water (energy) to sit in your hand, you have to first create the conditions under which it’s possible — in the case of water, keeping your fingers tightly together and your hand cupped while open will do the trick — but trying to grab the water will not. It’s the same thing with energy.

Energy isn’t something you get or grab, but rather the by-product of certain conditions that allow it to show up in your life. If your health and attitude and body and mind are all aligned in the right way, there’s nothing else for you to do but to feel energized. It’s the natural “side-effect” of a healthy life — it just comes with the territory.

Let’s say you were a swimmer wearing a weight belt and you wanted to increase your time in the 50-yard freestyle. You could spend a lot of effort researching the latest titanium high-tech bathing suit — which might add a second or two to your time — but wouldn’t it be a lot more effective to simply drop the weight belt?

Most of us are carrying around weight belts and looking to increase our energy with coffee and stimulants when in fact if we just dropped the weight belt we’d automatically go faster.

Some of the items on our weight belt are: too little sleep, disorganization, toxic relationships, high-carb diets, undetected food sensitivities, and all sorts of other facts of modern life that I discuss in detail in my book, The 150 Most Effective Ways to Boost Your Energy. In this article I’m going to suggest seven ways to help drop the weight belt from your energy tank. Do them and you may be surprised at what a boost in energy they give you.

1) Support your liver.
You can help your liver do its job more effectively — and boost your energy in the bargain — by taking a daily dose of an herb called milk thistle. I consider the liver to be the most misunderstood and under-appreciated organ in the human body, because when it’s not working right, the first thing to suffer is your energy. Giving the liver all the nutrients it needs to perform its daily tasks is one of the most important things you can do to boost your energy.

2) Get ten minutes of sun every day.
“The sun gives you strength, lifts your spirits and is a source of energy”, says my friend Al Sears, MD, author of Your Best Health Under the Sun. Like a growing body of health experts, Sears thinks we’ve become so sun phobic that we’re missing out on the myriad mood-boosting and energy-enhancing benefits that vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin has to offer.

3) Disconnect for a day.
One of the great energy drainers of the 21st century is information overload. We’re deluged with stuff coming at us from emails, RSS feeds, blogs, social networking sites, TV, magazines, radio, fax machines, Blackberries… you get the picture. Knowledge may be power, but information overload is just… well, noise. Try a media-free day and feel your own energy accumulate — rather than dissipate as you attend to millions of distractions. Most of the chatter, when you think about it, won’t make much difference in the long run anyway. (If you find the idea of disconnecting for a day a frightening thought, you are exactly the person who needs to do it the most!)

4) Try the “No-Frills, No-Excuses, Anytime-Anywhere” workout.
We all know that exercise helps with energy — at least I hope we do — but when it comes to working out, time remains a big obstacle for many people. Here’s my own “no excuses” lo-tech workout that you can do just about anywhere in as little as 15 or 20 minutes for an amazing boost in energy: 1) run a mile, 2) do some squats, 3) do some push-ups, 4) do some crunches. Stretch and go about your business refreshed and energized. And if you can’t go out and run the mile, do some jumping jacks in your office, or run the stairs.

5) Revive your “qi”.
Acupuncture is based on the precepts of traditional Chinese Medicine that says the body and mind are inextricably linked; that vital energy, or qi, regulates a person’s spiritual, mental and physical health; that each of us is a delicate balance of opposing and inseparable forces called yin and yang — and when that balance is disrupted, vital energy becomes blocked or weakened. When our qi (energy) is at optimal levels and flowing smoothly, we’re ready to take on the world. Spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically we’re strong, healthy and energized. One terrific way to balance that energy is through acupuncture.

6) De-clutter and deep-six the energy drain. Here’s a rule I’ve found to be a universal truth: your energy has a perfect inverse relationship to the accumulation of stuff you don’t need. The more unwanted, unused, unneeded stuff you have cluttering up your life, the less energy you have. Believe it or not, the condition of your desk (and desktop) and office and living space actually reflects a lot of what’s going on in your head. If you take time to organize and de-clutter, you’ll actually be freeing up a lot of psychic space, and that can really turbo-charge your energy.

7) Take the right supplements.
While supplements don’t really “give” you energy, they can correct metabolic issues that are draining it. They can also speed along certain pathways that are nutrient-dependent and that get sluggish (and energy draining) when those nutrients are in short supply. One terrific energizing nutrient is coenzyme Q10. It helps transform fats and sugars into energy and is a potent antioxidant.

Vegan spot offers flavor

2010-09-29T20:22:00.001-07:00

Soul Vegetarian restaurant serves one hundred percent vegan cuisine
By McQuisha Smith
FAMU - Staff Editor

At 11 a.m. Ahmahtsiyah B. Rahm opens Soul Vegetarian with a smiling face peeking from behind his salt-and-pepper beard. Customers inhale the aroma of barbeque tofu, vegan macaroni and cheese and fresh steamed collard greens.

Soul Vegetarian is a vegan restaurant that features a full menu of lunch platters, sandwiches, specialty drinks and more.

"Soul Vegetarian is an off-shoot of the African Hebrew Israelite community of Jerusalem," said Rahm.

"Part of our culture is a vegan diet, so we opened restaurants for the public to partake in a one-hundred percent vegan cuisine with no animal products," Rahm said.

In 1996, the Jerusalem community participated in the Olympics in Atlanta. Customers were served from three mobile food trailers.

"Once the Olympics were over, there was an opportunity for us to purchase a food trailer here in Tallahassee," Rahm said.

Soul Vegetarian began first serving on Florida A&'M's campus in 1997.

"We worked the food trailer for 13 years on ‘The Set' every Friday up until last year, but now we have our own building," Rahm said.

"I found out about Soul Vegetarian my freshman year," said Craig Beacham, a senior philosophy student from Prince George's County, Md.

Beacham has been vegan for almost three years, and visits Soul Vegetarian to go to get a quick meal.

"It's definitely makes it easier; it's convenient when you're on the move," Beacham said.

Beacham believes his support of small chains like Soul Vegetarian is a part of what helps sustain the vital community restaurant.

"You're supporting a business, you're supporting a family and community with a positive vision," Beacham said.

"It works for people in a transition from a meat-based diet to a plant-based diet," said Ariel Wright, a master of social work student at Florida State and two-year vegetarian from Alexandria Va., also agrees that Soul Vegetarian is a good place for students.

"They bring a lot of different communities together, you have people who are vegan and non-vegan come together." Wright said.

Beacham and Wright said some of their favorites include the vegan pizza, Garvey burger and their blue berry smoothie.

"Our goal is to motivate people to eat better and live better." Rahm said.

Soul Vegetarian is located on 1205D South Adams St.

"I recommend Soul Vegetarian to people who are vegetarian and who aren't, the food there is good." Beacham said.

Rahm is glad to be able to give another alternative of food for his customers; he believes that having a healthy diet is crucial. "Our goal is to motivate people to eat better and live better." Rahm said.

Soul Vegetarian is located on 1205d South Adams Street, they are open Monday-Friday 11a.m to 7p.m., and Saturday 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Recession rips at US marriages, expands income gap

2010-09-29T20:12:00.000-07:00

Pleas for food stamps have reached a record high
Associated Press

The recession seems to be socking Americans in the heart as well as the wallet: Marriages have hit an all-time low while pleas for food stamps have reached a record high and the gap between rich and poor has grown to its widest ever.

The long recession technically ended in mid-2009, economists say, but U.S. Census data released Tuesday show the painful, lingering effects. The annual survey covers all of last year, when unemployment skyrocketed to 10 percent, and the jobless rate is still a stubbornly high 9.6 percent.

The figures also show that Americans on average have been spending about 36 fewer minutes in the office per week and are stuck in traffic a bit less than they had been. But that is hardly good news, either. The reason is largely that people have lost jobs or are scraping by with part-time work.

"Millions of people are stuck at home because they can't find a job. Poverty increased in a majority of states, and children have been hit especially hard," said Mark Mather, associate vice president of the Population Reference Bureau.

The economic "indicators say we're in recovery, but the impact on families and children will linger on for years," he said.

Take marriage.

In America, marriages fell to a record low in 2009, with just 52 percent of adults 18 and over saying they were joined in wedlock, compared to 57 percent in 2000.

The never-married included 46.3 percent of young adults 25-34, with sharp increases in single people in cities in the Midwest and Southwest, including Cleveland, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Albuquerque, N.M. It was the first time the share of unmarried young adults exceeded those who were married.

Marriages have been declining for years due to rising divorce, more unmarried couples living together and increased job prospects for women. But sociologists say younger people are also now increasingly choosing to delay marriage as they struggle to find work and resist making long-term commitments.

In dollar terms, the rich are still getting richer, and the poor are falling further behind them.

The income gap between the richest and poorest Americans grew last year to its largest margin ever, a stark divide as Democrats and Republicans spar over whether to extend Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy.

Click here for more: READ MORE

New 'McDonald's death ad' Promotes Vegetarianism

2010-09-21T04:24:00.001-07:00

'McDonald's (video) death ad' airs, proclaims "I was lovin' it"

Click here to view video or view below.

Tonight's "Daily Show" probably will have a pretty big audience thanks to Bill Clinton dropping by for a chat with host Jon Stewart. But some doctors will be watching for a different reason: the commercials.

During tonight's show, a commercial called the "McDonald's death ad" will run in the D.C. area. And it has stirred up controversy before it has even aired.

The 30-second spot, produced by the nonprofit group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, features an off-tune McDonald's theme song playing while a weeping women stands above a dead man. As the camera pans away, the golden McDonald's arches are drawn over the man's feet.

The tagline appears: "I was lovin' it" -- a riff on McDonald's "I'm lovin' it" ad campaign.

Susan Levin, the director of nutrition education at PCRM, says the group hopes the ad educates people on the dangers of eating fast food.

In case the ad's viewers missed the connection, the corpse is covered by a sheet, but his hand still grips a half-eaten hamburger.

Steve Siebold, the author of "Die Fat or Get Tough," said the advertisement shoulders McDonald's with the responsibility for obesity but people should be blamed for lacking control. "We're eating ourselves to death," he says. "Every eighth-grader knows McDonald's is not good for you."

Levin, a registered dietitian, said that may not be true. "McDonald's would say, 'We have a healthy menu.' They spend billions of dollars to convince us that's true. I think it's naive to assume that everyone thinks that eating at McDonald's is wrong for you."

She hopes the ad makes a small dent in what she sees as misleading advertising from McDonald's. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine advocates for a meat-free diet. The commercial ends with the words, "Tonight, Make It Vegetarian."

The ad will roll out in Washington first Levin said, as it has high concentration of fast-food restaurants and about 1,500 area residents who die annually from heart disease. The commercial will be shown in other U.S. cities in the next few days.

Bridget Coffing, vice president of McDonald's Global Communications, responded to the advertisement with an e-mailed statement: "This commercial is outrageous, misleading and unfair to all consumers. McDonald's trusts our customers to put such outlandish propaganda in perspective, and to make food and lifestyle choices that are right for them."

The Link Between Poverty, Obesity and Diabetes

2010-09-19T17:33:00.000-07:00

In the wealthiest nation in the world, one in five children live in poverty
Mark Hyman, MD
Practicing Physician
The Huffington Post

Not having enough food to eat may cause obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease. Most of us think the chronic disease epidemic is fueled by abundance, but it may be fueled as much by food scarcity and insecurity as it is by excess. And, right now, America is suffering from the highest levels of poverty and food insecurity that it has seen in more than a decade.

In 2008 49 million Americans--including 16.7 million children--lived in a home at risk of not having enough food on the table every day. After working in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, I learned that one in two Haitians wake up every day not knowing where their next meal will come from. But right here in the wealthiest nation in the world, one in five children live in poverty, one in four children live on food stamps, and one in 10 people don't know where their next meal will come from.

The Census Bureau recently reported that the nation's poverty rate increased to 14.3 percent in 2009--the highest level we've seen since 1994. 43.6 million Americans lived below the poverty line in 2009, earning less than $21,954 per year for a family of four or $10,956 for an individual. We now have the highest number of people living on the threshold of poverty in the history of government record keeping.

The poorest areas of the country are also the sickest and have the highest rates of obesity, diabetes, and premature death. These people are dying younger, and life expectancy is plummeting in the poorest states. These states also happen to be the fattest. For example, Mississippi--the poorest state in the union--has poverty rates over 20 percent, obesity rates over 33 percent, and extremely high childhood obesity rates. This is no coincidence.

How does not having enough to eat cause obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and early death? Let's investigate.

Food Insecurity: The Root of Obesity and Disease
The Life Sciences Research Office says food insecurity exists "whenever the availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or the ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways (e.g., without resorting to emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing, or other coping strategies) is limited or uncertain." This may mean going hungry for some. But for a large portion of Americans floating on or sinking beneath the poverty line this means bingeing on cheap, sugary, starchy, fatty calories in order to avoid hunger.

Many poor people in this country are consuming an excess of nutritionally-depleted, cheap calories from sodas, processed foods, and junk food. These folks scarcely eat whole, fresh foods at all, and for good reason: We have made calories cheap, but real food expensive.

Almost $300 billion of government subsidies support an agriculture industry that focuses on quantity not quality, on producing cheap sugar and fats from corn and soy that fuel both hunger and obesity. These calorie-rich, sugary, processed foods are what most people buy if they don't have enough money. You can fill up on 1200 calories of cookies or potato chips for $1, but you'll only get 250 calories from carrots for that same $1. If you were hungry, what would you buy?

Processed foods have become cheaper as real food grows more expensive. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that between 1985 and 2000 the retail price of carbonated soft drinks rose by 20 percent, fats and oils by 35 percent, and sugars and sweets by 46 percent. Compare that to the 118 percent increase in the retail price of fresh fruits and vegetables. In fifteen years the price of vegetables ballooned six times as fast as the cost of sugary, calorie-rich, nutrient-poor sodas.

This is further compounded by the fact that in some communities in America, the only place to buy food is a local convenience store where fruits, vegetables, or other whole, fresh, real foods cannot be found. Without a car in an urban setting you may have to walk miles to find anything resembling real food.

Social factors like these set the stage for the epidemics of obesity and disease we are facing. This in combination with the nature of human metabolism put our nation's poor in a trap from which it is very difficult to escape.

How the Biology of Starvation Contributes to Disease
What often happens in poverty-stricken families is a hunger-bingeing cycle that follows the economic conditions in the household. When resources come in, people buy cheap, abundant calories in the form of junk and processed foods that fill them up and stave off hunger. This leads to rapid fat storage--a common biological effect after a period of lower calorie intake or hunger. This is simply how human metabolism works.

When calories are scarce metabolism slows down and muscle is lost. As a result the blood sugar imbalances that drive the process of insulin resistance and lead to pre-diabetes and diabetes worsens, and soon people are caught in a recurrent pattern of bingeing on nutrient-poor calories once resources are again available.

Certainly people can learn to eat better for less as I pointed out in my recent blog on the topic, and doing so is an essential part of what needs to happen to break out of this cycle of poverty and disease as I will discuss more below. That said, breaking the hunger-binge cycle is easier said than done. Bingeing after food scarcity and the increased fat accumulation and insulin resistance that come along with it are hard-wired biological mechanisms to prevent us from starvation. Once you have diabetes, engaging in this cycle makes blood sugar control that much more difficult and leads to the swings of high and low sugar that drive health problems and their related costs.

Diabetics without access to adequate food have fives times as many doctor visits as diabetics who have enough to eat on a regular basis. The burden this creates in families already struggling to stay afloat is unspeakable. It's like they are caught in a Grecian hell--pushing the boulder of economic burden up a hill they will never see the top of, reaching for fruit that grows ever further from their reach.

We need to rethink how and what we feed our nation or the epidemics of disease and obesity will consume us. In Haiti, one in two people worry about where their next meal will come from. In America it is one in 10. In order to shift this we need a bold new vision and initiatives that can change our food culture and food availability.

Here are a few initiatives and ideas that may help shift this frightening tide of poverty and disease:

1. Stop or reduce subsidies of agriculture products that allow for the glut of cheap, high-calorie, nutrient-poor sugars and fats from corn and soy into the marketplace.

2. Consider taxing sugar and processed food to support national food programs and community projects, and help cover the hundreds of billions of dollars of health care costs from increasing obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

3. Fund community-based initiatives to support healthy eating including community kitchens, gardens, and cooking classes that teach how to make good food cheaply. This is part of the new health care bill, and on the agenda of the new Council on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health.

4. Make school lunches healthy by providing only real food and modeling healthy eating. Food can be both fun for you and good for you. Create national standards based on sound 21st century nutritional science and common sense. Most schools have only a microwave or deep fryer, hardly the tools needed to feed our children real, fresh food.

5. Expand the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly the Food Stamp Program). Increasing eligibility, helping those who are not aware they are eligible enroll, and creating new programs that support consumption of more healthful foods could shift the tide of the widening socioeconomic disparities in chronic disease. You should not be able to buy chips and soda with food stamps.

Everyone reading could also sign up for Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution and learn a recipe using inexpensive, fresh, whole food to create a delicious meal and teach that recipe to three people. They, in turn, could teach three more people. After just a few rounds of that, all of America would learn how to feed themselves again.

We need to reclaim our food supply and revive traditional ways of eating. As Michael Pollan says, "If 'food' was made in a plant, don't eat it. If it grows on a plant, then enjoy!"
To your good health,

The Return of Edenic Soul

2010-08-30T03:54:00.000-07:00

by Ahdeerah E. Michael
KNN-Atlanta

Edenic Soul is a live music series that features mostly independent artists who are committed to making music with a message. Hosted by spoken soul artist Fhena, it is a blend of open mic for vocalists and poets, feature performances and after party. Committed to presenting the highest quality entertainment in an atmosphere that is positive and peaceful, Edenic Soul is offering a new vibration of soul. The venue is non-smoking, non-alcoholic so all ages are welcome.

This installment features Atlanta based Starchile (starchile.com) and Ammi from Antigua. Check out www.myspace.com/edenicsoul to hear Ammi's fire vibe. Providing the backdrop for the evening is house band Fuzzy Logic and special guest sound moderator DJ 4th Wurld! Don't hear about it, be a part of the experience!

Sugarless & Live Weeks are coming soon!

2010-08-30T00:10:00.000-07:00

KNN-Village of Peace
Dimona, Israel

In its continual ascension into the higher realms in pursuit of perfect health and Everlasting Life, the Ministry of Divine Health under the auspices of the African Hebrew Israelite Community of Jerusalem has taken the reigns in regulating Sugarless and Live (raw) Foods consumption Weeks. This quarterly cycle of cleansing and rejuvenation was created by and for the Community's members, and has been observed worldwide for several years. This cycle is a viable health-enhancing lifestyle addition for anyone in pursuit of excellent health, a more vibrant life, more abundant strength, energy and longevity.

For ample time to prepare and put in place necessary procedures and items relative to this cycle such as obtaining maple syrup and other suitable sweeteners, fitting colon cleansers into the routine, scheduling colonics/colemas, ionic foot baths, etcetera, prior to the upcoming seasonal cycle, please make a note of the following dates:

03 September-Sugarless Week will begin at sunset on Yom Sheshe (Friday).
11 September-Sugarless Week will end on Mohtsai Shabbaht (Saturday at sunset).

11 September-Live Week will begin on Mohtsai Shabbaht (Saturday at sunset).
17 September-Live Week will end on Yom Sheshe (Friday) at sunset.

To date, the manifold benefits and blessings of Sugarless and Live Foods Weeks have been appreciated worldwide by thousands of Community members and non-members alike. Each season, these individuals reap its delicious fruits and bear precious personal testimonies of health success towards the attainment and maintenance of optimal health.

The standard, "curative" global health model's un-healthy evidence has been well documented. An alternative, "preventive" healthy model testifies of decreases in:

•frequency of hospital, doctor and pharmacy visits,
•occurrences of unpaid leave and "sick days" off of work due to illness,

•dependency on high-cost, high-risk pharmaceuticals and medical interventions.

Healthy lifestyle adjustments also brings in testimonies of increases in:
•weight loss,
•a more youthful appearance,
•intestinal (bowel) regularity,
•greater overall sense of well-being,
•ability to think/reason more clearly,
•ability to achieve a more sound sleep,
•greater relief from former troubling ailments,
•sense of empowerment, control of and responsibility for one's own health,
•greater financial freedom (more time at work earning full salary due to better health),

These health benefits are best achieved through consistent, conscientious application of the tried and proven health-enhancing lifestyle practices as a safeguard in the prevention of dis-ease.

To learn more about Sugarless and Live Foods consumption weeks, please click here. Otherwise, simply stay tuned to KNN for seasonal Sugarless and Live Foods Week updates.

For holistic health-related inquiries, The Ministry of Divine Health may be contacted at divine.healers@yahoo.com

"We are encouraging all to utilize this special cycle of Sugarless and Live Foods Weeks to prepare the Adamic mind/soul/body complex for the physical and spiritual elevation of THE NEW MAN."
-Ministry of Divine Health

KNN Offers Wholesale Maple Syrup

2010-08-23T23:51:00.000-07:00

Maple Syrup can be sweet for your health and pocket
by Ahtur Keymah
KNN-Cleveland

Maple syrup is one of the many wonders of the world. It is an excellent source of manganese and a good source of zinc. Maple syrup can also be sweet for your health as it is an excellent source of manganese and zinc.

The trace mineral manganese is an essential cofactor in a number of enzymes important in energy production and antioxidant defenses. For example, the key oxidative enzyme superoxide dismutase, which disarms free radicals produced within the mitochondria (the energy production factories within our cells), requires manganese. One ounce of maple syrup supplies 22.0% of the daily value for this very important trace mineral.

Maple syrup is also a good sweetener to use if you are trying to protect the health of your heart. The zinc supplied by maple syrup, in addition to acting as an antioxidant, has other functions that can decrease the progression of arteriosclerosis. Zinc is needed for the proper function of endothelial cells and helps to prevent the endothelial damage caused by oxidized LDL cholesterol and other oxidized fats. Additionally, studies have found that in adults deficient in manganese, the other trace mineral amply supplied in maple syrup, the level of HDL (the "good" cholesterol) is decreased.

Zinc and manganese are important allies in the immune system. Many types of immune cells appear to depend upon zinc for optimal function. Particularly in children, researchers have studied the effects of zinc deficiency (and zinc supplementation) on their immune response and their number of white blood cells.

Maple syrup may help to support reproductive health and provides special benefits for men. Zinc is concentrated more highly in the prostate than in any other human tissue, and low levels of zinc in this gland relate to a higher risk for prostate cancer. In fact, zinc is a mineral used therapeutically by healthcare practitioners to help reduce prostate size. Manganese may also play a role in supporting men's health since, as a catalyst in the synthesis of fatty acids and cholesterol, it also participates in the production of sex hormones, thus helping to maintain reproductive health.

For more info and to place your orders for maple syrup and granulated maple sugar, contact Ahtur Keymah today at keymah777@aol.com.

The Bitter Truth About Energy Drinks

2010-08-09T17:06:00.000-07:00

Recent Study Highlights The Potential Harm In Energy Drinks
by Scott James
ArticleTrader.com

A recent study has provided interesting outline evidence that suggests that possibly drinking energy drinks can cause significant irregularities within the drinker’s blood pressure. Now it has to be said right at the start that while this is a fairly small survey, the results it provides do make interesting reading and are well worth paying attention to.

Basically the issue is this. “Energy” drinks unlike sports drinks that contain water, sugar and salts are known to contain quite high levels of Caffeine and a substance known as Taurine that is aimed purely at increasing energy and/or “alertness”. Now Taurine, which is an Amino acid and is found in protein foods like fish or meat also has the same properties as Caffeine and hence as has been proved in the past can lead to raised blood pressure.

Now the initial results of this survey and study and I do need to re-emphasize at this particular point in time that it is indeed a small study, have provided us with the results that showed the following:

Basically researchers took 15 healthy young adults, who were volunteers and the group comprised of seven men and eight women whose average age was about 26 years and got them to stop consuming caffeine from other sources two days before also during the duration of the study. The researchers took the volunteers and at the outset of the study recorded the blood pressure and heart rate and carried out an ECG (electrocardiogram) to assess the heart function of each volunteer.

To Read More Click Here: Recent Study Highlights The Potential Harm In Energy Drinks

Solar Tsunami to Strike Earth Tonight

2010-08-03T11:20:00.000-07:00

The Sun's surface erupted early Sunday morning, blasting tons of plasma into interplanetary space -- directly towards the Earth.

That wall of ionized atoms should hit the planet tonight, say scientists, creating a geomagnetic storm and a spectacular light show and possibly threatening satellites in orbit.

"This eruption is directed right at us and is expected to get here early in the day on Aug. 4th," said Leon Golub of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "It's the first major Earth-directed eruption in quite some time."

The solar eruption, called a coronal mass ejection, was spotted by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, which captures high-definition views of the sun at a variety of wavelengths. SDO was launched in February and peers deep into the layers of the sun, investigating the mysteries of its inner workings.

"We got a beautiful view of this eruption," Golub said. "And there might be more beautiful views to come if it triggers aurorae."

Views of aurorae are usually associated with Canada and Alaska, but even skywatchers in the northern U.S. mainland are being told they can look toward the north Tuesday and Wednesday evenings for rippling "curtains" of green and red light.

When a coronal mass ejection reaches Earth, solar particles stream down our planet's magnetic field lines toward the poles. In the process, the particles collide with atoms of nitrogen and oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere, which then glow, creating an effect similar to miniature neon signs.

The interaction of the solar particles with our planet's magnetic field has the potential to create geomagnetic storms, or disturbances in Earth's magnetosphere. And while aurorae are normally visible only at high latitudes, they can light up the sky even at lower latitudes during a geomagnetic storm.

The solar particles could also affect satellites, though scientists think that possibility is remote. Orbital Sciences Corp. believe a similar blast may have been knocked its Galaxy 15 satellite permanently out of action.

The sun's activity usually ebbs and flows on a fairly predictable cycle. Typically, a cycle lasts about 11 years, taking roughly 5.5 years to move from a solar minimum, a period of time when there are few sunspots, to peak at the solar maximum, during which sunspot activity is amplified.

The last solar maximum occurred in 2001. The latest minimum was particularly weak and long- lasting. The most recent solar eruption is one of the first signs that the sun is waking up and heading toward another maximum.

Bubonic Plague outbreak hits northern Peru

2010-08-03T08:38:00.001-07:00

Associated Press
Lima, Peru

Peru's health minister says an outbreak of plague has killed a 14-year-old boy and infected at least 31 people in a northern coastal province.

Health Minister Oscar Ugarte says authorities are screening sugar and fish meal exports from Ascope province, located about 325 miles (520 kms) northwest of Lima. Popular Chicama beach isn't far away.

Ugarte says the boy, who had Down syndrome, died of bubonic plague July 26.

He said Monday that most of the infections are bubonic plague, with four cases of pneumonic plague. The former is transmitted by flea bites, the latter by airborne contagion. The disease is curable if treated early with antibiotics.

The first recorded plague outbreak in Peru was in 1903. The last, in 1994, killed 35 people.

Gulf separating rich and poor widest ever

2010-08-01T18:57:00.000-07:00

Maude Barlow:
“The World Has Divided into Rich and Poor as at No Time in History”
DemocracyNow.org

As world leaders gathered in Toronto for the G20 summit last week, leading activists from around the world joined thousands in Toronto's Massey Hall to oppose the G20 agenda. Among those who spoke was Maude Barlow. She heads the Council of Canadians, Canada's largest public advocacy organization. She's founder of the Blue Planet Project. This is a part of what she had to say.

MAUDE BARLOW: On the eve of this G-20 gathering, let's look at a few facts. Fact, the world has divided into rich and poor as at no time in our history. The richest 2% own more than half the household wealth in the world. The richest 10% hold 85% of total global assets and the bottom half of humanity owns less than 1% of the wealth in the world. The three richest men in the world have more money than the poorest 48 countries. Fact, while those responsible for the 2008 global financial crisis were bailed out and even rewarded by the G-20 government's gathering here, the International Labor Organization tells us that in 2009, 34 million people were added to the global unemployed, swelling those ranks to 239 million, the highest ever recorded.

Another 200 million are at risk in precarious jobs and the World Bank tells us that at the end of 2010, another 64 million will have lost their jobs. By 2030, more than half the population of the megacities of the Global South will be slumdwellers with no access to education, health care, water, or sanitation. Fact, global climate change is rapidly advancing, claiming at
least 300,000 lives and $125 billion in damages every year. Called the silent crisis, climate change is melting glaciers, eroding soil, causing freak and increasingly wild storms, displacing untold millions from rural communities to live in desperate poverty in peri-urban centers. Almost every victim lives in the Global South in communities not responsible for greenhouse gas emissions and not represented here at the summit.

The atmosphere has already warmed up a full degree in the last several decades and is on course to warm up another two degrees by 2100. Fact, half the tropical forests in the world, the lungs of our ecosystem, are gone. By 2030, at the present rate of extraction or so-called harvest, only 10% will be left standing. 90% of the big fish in the sea are gone, victim to wanton predatory fishing practice. Says a prominent scientist studying their demise, there is no blue frontier left. Half the world's wetlands, the kidneys of our ecosystem, have been destroyed in the 20th century.

Species extinction is taking place at a rate 1,000 times greater than before humans existed. According to a Smithsonian scientist, we are headed toward of biodiversity deficit in which species and ecosystems will be destroyed at a rate faster than nature can replace them with new ones. Fact, we are polluting our lakes, rivers and streams to death. Every day, two million tons of sewage and industrial agricultural waste are discharged into the world's water. That's the equivalent of the entire human population of 6.8 billion people. The amount of waste water produced annually is about six times more water than exists in all the rivers of the world. We are minding our ground water faster than we can replenish it, sucking it to grow water guzzling chemical-fed crops in deserts or to water thirsty cities who dump an astounding 700 trillion liters of land-based water into oceans every year as waste.

The global mining industry sucks up another 800 trillion liters which it also leaves behind as poison and fully one-third of global water withdrawals are now used to produce biofuels, enough water to feed the world. Nearly three billion people on our planet do not have running water within a kilometer of their home and every eight seconds, somewhere in our world, a child is dying of waterborne disease. The global water crisis is getting steadily worse with reports of countries from India to Pakistan to Yemen facing depletion. The World Bank says that by 2030, demand for water will outstrip supply by 40%. This may sound just like a statistic, but the suffering behind that is absolutely unspeakable. Fact, knowing there will not be enough food and water for all in the near future, wealthy countries and global investment pension and hedge funds are buying up land and water, fields and forests in the Global South, creating a new wave of invasive colonialism that will have huge geopolitical ramifications.

Rich countries faced by food shortages have already bought up an area in Africa alone more than twice the size of the United Kingdom. Now I don't think I exaggerate if I say that our world has never faced a greater set of threats and issues than it does today. So what are the twenty leaders who have gathered here, some already here and the others coming in tonight, what are they going to talk about over the next two days? By the way, their summit costs $1 million a minute. By the way, we figure it's going to be closer to $2 billion when it's finished, and the annual budget to run the United Nations is $1.9 billion. I assure you, they are not going to tackle the above issues in any serious way. The declarations have already been drafted, the failures already spun.

Instead, this global royalty who have more in common with one another than they do with their own citizens and they are here really to advance the issues and interest of their class are also here just to advance the status quo that serves the interest of the elite in their own countries and the business community or the B-20, the new term, a community that will get
private and privileged access to advance their free market solutions to these eager leaders. The agenda is more of the bad medicine that made the world sick in the first place. Environmental deregulation, unbridled financial speculation, unlimited growth, unregulated free trade, relentless resource exploitation, tax cuts for the wealthy, cuts to Social Security and a war on working people. In other words, savage capitalism. Now let's look at our own country here and the assault that has been launched on the work of generations of Canadians toward a just society. Stephen Harper's government has cut the heart out of any group that dissents, from First Nations people, to women, to international agencies and church groups like KAIROS, Alternative, and the Canadian Council for International Cooperation.

AMY GOODMAN: Maude Barlow, one of the major speakers at the event at Massey Hall on Friday night. Three thousand people packed-in to the Toronto event. This was at the same time the G8 and then the G20 met. Between 900 and 1,000 people are believed to have been arrested, the largest mass arrest in Canadian history. Among them, many journalists. More than a billion dollars, it's believed, were spent on so-called security, the most expensive security event in Canadian history.

Calling All Future-Eaters

2010-08-01T18:04:00.000-07:00

by Chris Hedges
TruthDig.com

The human species during its brief time on Earth has exhibited a remarkable capacity to kill itself off. Modern industrial warfare in the 20th century took at least 100 million lives, most of them civilians. And now we sit passive and dumb as corporations and the leaders of industrialized nations ensure that climate change will accelerate to levels that could mean the extinction of our species. Homo sapiens, as the biologist Tim Flannery points out, are the "future-eaters."

In the past when civilizations went belly up through greed, mismanagement and the exhaustion of natural resources, human beings migrated somewhere else to pillage anew. But this time the game is over. There is nowhere else to go. The industrialized nations spent the last century seizing half the planet and dominating most of the other half. We giddily exhausted our natural capital, especially fossil fuel, to engage in an orgy of consumption and waste that poisoned the Earth and attacked the ecosystem on which human life depends. It was quite a party if you were a member of the industrialized elite. But it was pretty stupid.

Collapse this time around will be global. We will disintegrate together. And there is no way out. The 10,000-year experiment of settled life is about to come to a crashing halt. And humankind, which thought it was given dominion over the Earth and all living things, will be taught a painful lesson in the necessity of balance, restraint and humility. There is no human monument or city ruin that is more than 5,000 years old. Civilization, Ronald Wright notes in "A Short History of Progress," "occupies a mere 0.2 percent of the two and a half million years since our first ancestor sharpened a stone." Bye-bye, Paris. Bye-bye, New York. Bye-bye, Tokyo. Welcome to the new experience of human existence, in which rooting around for grubs on islands in northern latitudes is the prerequisite for survival.

We view ourselves as rational creatures. But is it rational to wait like sheep in a pen as oil and natural gas companies, coal companies, chemical industries, plastics manufacturers, the automotive industry, arms manufacturers and the leaders of the industrial world, as they did in Copenhagen, take us to mass extinction? It is too late to prevent profound climate change. But why add fuel to the fire? Why allow our ruling elite, driven by the lust for profits, to accelerate the death spiral? Why continue to obey the laws and dictates of our executioners?

The news is grim. The accelerating disintegration of Arctic Sea ice means that summer ice will probably disappear within the next decade. The open water will absorb more solar radiation, significantly increasing the rate of global warming. The Siberian permafrost will disappear, sending up plumes of methane gas from underground. The Greenland ice sheet and the Himalayan-Tibetan glaciers will melt. Jay Zwally, a NASA climate scientist, declared in December 2007: "The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming. Now, as a sign of climate warming, the canary has died. It is time to start getting out of the coal mines."

But reality is rarely an impediment to human folly. The world's greenhouse gases have continued to grow since Zwally's statement. Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO22) from burning fossil fuels since 2000 have increased by 3 per cent a year. At that rate annual emissions will double every 25 years. James Hansen, the head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and one of the world's foremost climate experts, has warned that if we keep warming the planet it will be "a recipe for global disaster." The safe level of CO22 in the atmosphere, Hansen estimates, is no more than 350 parts per million (ppm). The current level of CO22 is 385 ppm and climbing. This already guarantees terrible consequences even if we act immediately to cut carbon emissions.

The natural carbon cycle for 3 million years has ensured that the atmosphere contained less than 300 ppm of CO22, which sustained the wide variety of life on the planet. The idea now championed by our corporate elite, at least those in contact with the reality of global warming, is that we will intentionally overshoot 350 ppm and then return to a safer climate through rapid and dramatic emission cuts. But as Clive Hamilton in his book "Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth About Climate Change" writes, even "if carbon dioxide concentrations reach 550 ppm, after which emissions fell to zero, the global temperatures would continue to rise for at least another century."

Copenhagen was perhaps the last chance to save ourselves. Barack Obama and the other leaders of the industrialized nations blew it. Radical climate change is certain. It is only a question now of how bad it will become. The engines of climate change will, climate scientists have warned, soon create a domino effect that could thrust the Earth into a chaotic state for thousands of years before it regains equilibrium. "Whether human beings would still be a force on the planet, or even survive, is a moot point," Hamilton writes. "One thing is certain: there will be far fewer of us."

We have fallen prey to the illusion that we can modify and control our environment, that human ingenuity ensures the inevitability of human progress and that our secular god of science will save us. The "intoxicating belief that we can conquer all has come up against a greater force, the Earth itself," Hamilton writes. "The prospect of runaway climate change challenges our technological hubris, our Enlightenment faith in reason and the whole modernist project. The Earth may soon demonstrate that, ultimately, it cannot be tamed and that the human urge to master nature has only roused a slumbering beast."

We face a terrible political truth. Those who hold power will not act with the urgency required to protect human life and the ecosystem. Decisions about the fate of the planet and human civilization are in the hands of moral and intellectual trolls such as BP's Tony Hayward. These political and corporate masters are driven by a craven desire to accumulate wealth at the expense of human life. They do this in the Gulf of Mexico. They do this in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, where the export-oriented industry is booming. China's transformation into totalitarian capitalism, done so world markets can be flooded with cheap consumer goods, is contributing to a dramatic rise in carbon dioxide emissions, which in China are expected to more than double by 2030, from a little over 5 billion metric tons to just under 12 billion.

This degradation of the planet by corporations is accompanied by a degradation of human beings. In the factories in Guangdong we see the face of our adversaries. The sociologist Ching Kwan Lee found "satanic mills" in China's industrial southeast that run "at such a nerve-racking pace that worker's physical limits and bodily strength are put to the test on a daily basis." Some employees put in workdays of 14 to 16 hours with no rest day during the month until payday. In these factories it is normal for an employee to work 400 hours or more a month, especially those in garment industry.

The leaders of these corporations now determine our fate. They are not endowed with human decency or compassion. Yet their lobbyists make the laws. Their public relations firms craft the propaganda and trivia pumped out through systems of mass communication. Their money determines elections. Their greed turns workers into global serfs and our planet into a wasteland.

As climate change advances we will face a choice between obeying the rules put in place by corporations or rebellion. Those who work human beings to death in overcrowded factories in China and turn the Gulf of Mexico into a dead zone are the enemy. They serve systems of death. They cannot be reformed or trusted.

The climate crisis is a political crisis. We will either defy the corporate elite, which will mean civil disobedience, a rejection of traditional politics for a new radicalism and the systematic breaking of laws, or see ourselves consumed. Time is not on our side. The longer we wait, the more assured our destruction becomes. The future, if we remain passive, will be wrested from us by events. Our moral obligation is not to structures of power, but life.

Socially active environment can cause cancer tumors to shrink and even disappear

2010-07-28T17:47:00.001-07:00

Making Friends Can Cause You To Live Longer
by S. L. Baker, features writer
NaturalNews.com

Submitted by Ahk Yehoeshahfaht - London

The new study, published in the July 9th issues of the journal Cell found that when mice with cancer were given enriched living conditions and a boost in their social life, their tumors shrank -- and some of their cancers disappeared completely.

That's powerful evidence, the scientists say, that social connections and an individual's mental state, play an important role in the way the body responds to malignancies. "Animals' interaction with the environment has a profound influence on the growth of cancer -- more than we knew was possible," Matthew During, who headed the study, said in a statement to the press.

The lab rodents were originally housed in groups of about five, given all the food they wanted and allowed to play all day. However, for the research project, mice with cancer were placed in an even better, enriched environment. They had bigger living groups with 15 to 20 other animals to interact with. They also had more space and extra toys, hiding places and running wheels.

During and his colleague, Lei Cao, found that malignant tumors in animals living in this enriched environment started to shrink. In fact, tumors decreased by an impressive 77 percent in mass and decreased in volume by 43 percent, the researchers report. Moreover, five percent of mice with cancer showed no evidence of the disease at all after just three weeks of living in their new home. That seemingly spontaneous cancer cure never happened in control animals kept in standard housing.

So what specifically is going on here that impacts cancer? Animals in a regular mice environment in the lab who exercised more didn't experience improvements in their cancer, so the scientists say more exercise isn't the total explanation. Instead, they think the complex social dimension in the new living arrangement was apparently the key.

The enriched living environment appears to have sparked more, but apparently cancer-fighting, stress in the cancer-stricken mice. The animals showed higher levels of stress hormones called glucocorticoids. What this means, the researchers said in statement to the media, is that low levels of stress, or certain kinds of stress, are probably beneficial.

Click Here To Read More: http://www.naturalnews.com/029305_socialize_cancer.html

100 days of oil: Gulf life will never be the same

2010-07-28T17:06:00.001-07:00

A gut-wrenching time for folks who work, play and live along the Gulf Coast
By Greg Bluestein, Mary Foster and Tamara Lush
Associated Press

Submitted by Ahk Eitai B.N. Aharon

A hundred days ago, shop owner Cherie Pete was getting ready for a busy summer serving ice cream and po-boys to hungry fishermen. Local official Billy Nungesser was planning his wedding. Environmental activist Enid Sisskin was preparing a speech about the dangers of offshore drilling.

Then the oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded off the coast of Louisiana, and in an instant, life along the Gulf Coast changed for good.

Pete spends her days worrying that the fishing industry may never recover. Nungesser has put his wedding on hold while he sits in meetings and argues with federal officials. And Sisskin continues to talk about the dangers of drilling — only now, people are listening.

The 100 days since the April 20 explosion have been a gut-wrenching time for folks who work, play and live along the Gulf Coast. The Gulf is a sanctuary for some, an employer for others, and now, a tragedy.

These are their stories.

Click Here for Full Story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill100_days

Wall St to Hollywood to Sports, American Icons Falling from Grace

2010-07-27T19:50:00.000-07:00

Photo: Lebron James & Warren Buffet

Americans Fed Up With Their Athletes And Rejecting Wall Street
by Keegan Bales
Yahoo News

Over the past year, the public images of Tiger Woods and LeBron James, who are not only professional athletes but lucrative brands, have been irrevocably tarnished. Likewise, Wall Street firms such as Goldman Sachs, which were once revered, were helped by government bailouts, their ethics called into question.

Todd Harrison, founder and CEO of Minyanville, tells Tech Ticker that the perception of the American icon, particularly in the sports world, crumbled with the stock market. He says that the recession and society's recent cynicism toward athletes and bankers are connected.

Socionomics

Harrison's argument is based on socionomics, a theory by Robert Prechter, a prominent stock market analyst and occasional guest on Tech Ticker. Prechter hypothesized that social mood drives economic and political activity, not the other way around as commonly believed.

According to socionomics, a person's decision making process is influenced by what is happening in their environment and their choices impact the market. He would say that the stock market crash did not cause the recession, rather the recession caused the stock market crash. Furthermore, it was an overall change in public attitude, a rise of pessimism and distrust in public figures, which sank the economy.

Americans Fed Up With Their Athletes

Sports traditionally provided Americans with an escape from turmoil going on in the country, something relaxing to watch for a couple hours. Harrison says that in today's tense social and political climate, the lurid scandals and massive pay checks that have become standard in professional sports are no longer acceptable. People are fed up with athletes and are rejecting their wealth.

"When you have these high profile brands like these athletes, that are going out there and grand standing for a $100 million contracts, it's going to rub people the wrong way," Harrison says.

Rejecting Wall Street in an Age of Austerity

The social mood is similarly negative toward bankers. Once considered to be at the pinnacle of society, they are now regarded as reckless, greedy and sometimes criminal. Warren Buffett, who was for years considered the patriarch of finance, has even come under question for his close relationship with Goldman Sachs and Moody's. Harrison says that this shift is part of a movement toward austerity.

"Money can buy a lot of things, but it can't buy public opinion," Harrison says. "Free will is going to be free will. That's endemic of a much larger shift for the economic social movement."

Texting as main source of communication?

2010-07-27T14:39:00.000-07:00

Is texting the new form of communication?
By Tara Twietmeyer
NewsNet5.com

"Beep, beep, beep.” Another text message alert goes off.

Why can’t he just pick up the phone and call me? How on earth is anyone supposed to get to know someone in 160 characters or less?

More and more, women are talking about men using text messages these days as their main source of communication in relationships.

And guess what guys? Many women are calling it an “unsettling” trend, saying they almost always prefer a phone call and are sick and tired of all the beeping and dinging!

“I understand if it is just a quick text to say, 'Hey' or 'I’m running late,'" said Leigh Walsh, a resident of Phoenix, Arizona, and single mom. “But, what drives me crazy is when it is a full on conversation over texting. It is so impersonal and quite frankly, annoying."

More often than not, women say they know what kind of mood a man is in by listening to the tone of a voice. But how is a woman supposed to do that over text messaging?

Texting has become the new form of communication, but is it going too far? Texting is great for a quick message, but it’s becoming the only way of communication. Now that the phones offer keypads, it just gets easier and more convenient to text message rather then picking up the phone, but it’s not as personal.

2.5 billion text messages are sent each day in the US. Most of the text messaging is being done by 13-17 age range. The next most popular age is 18-24. The average text message used each month is 357 compared to 204 phone calls. Text messaging is replacing talking, and hindering the ability to form a face-to-face relationship. Some of the concerns are that kids are not learning to communication with people directly.

Marriage of the Lamb Anniversary

2010-07-23T18:35:00.001-07:00

KNN - Dimona

Shalom, Yah Khai!

Beloved Sainthood, once again the Marriage of the Lamb Anniversary celebration is fast approaching. Every year we are filled with more joy and happiness as we anticipate the coming of this High, Holy and Sacred landmark in our lives.

This year we will be celebrating our 10th marriage anniversary. HalleluYah! Due to this year's date coinciding with the Shabbat, we will be celebrating Motsai Shabbat, August 7, 2010 with a renewal of the vows ceremony, a communal meal and festivities.

Let us give praises unto the Holy One of Israel for this blessed opportunity to be married once again unto him HalleluYah, Yah Khai.

Exercise may be best way to fight Alzheimer's

2010-07-12T20:38:00.000-07:00

Advances in detection show need for better drugs to prevent disease, scientists say

by MARILYNN MARCHIONE
Associated Press

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin — Scientists are reporting advances in detecting and predicting Alzheimer's disease at a conference in Honolulu this week, plus offering more proof that getting enough exercise and vitamin D may lower your risk.

There are better brain scans to spot Alzheimer's disease. More genes that affect risk. Blood and spinal fluid tests that may help tell who will develop the mind-robbing illness and when.

But what is needed most — a treatment that does more than just ease symptoms — is not at hand.

"We don't have anything that slows or stops the course," said William Thies, the Alzheimer's Association scientific director. "We're really in a silent window right now" with new drugs, he said.

Several promising ones flopped in late-stage tests — most recently, Pfizer Inc.'s Dimebon. Results on several others won't be ready until next year.

Still, there is some progress against Alzheimer's, a dementia that afflicts more than 26 million people worldwide. Highlights of the research being reported this week:

•Prevention. Moderate to heavy exercisers had half the risk of developing dementia compared with less active people, researchers from the long-running Framingham Heart Study reported Sunday. Earlier studies also found exercise helps.

"That seems to be as good as anything" for preventing dementia, said Dr. Richard Mayeux, a Columbia University neurologist and conference leader.

Another big government-funded study found that vitamin D deficiency can raise the risk of mental impairment up to fourfold. This doesn't mean taking supplements is a good idea, doctors warn. A large study is testing whether that is safe and helps prevent a variety of diseases.

•Novel treatments. Tests of an insulin nose spray to improve cognition gave encouraging results, but "it's still a pilot trial" and larger studies are needed to see if this works and is safe, said Laurie Ryan. She oversees Alzheimer's study grants for the National Institute on Aging, which funded the work.

It's based on the theory that Alzheimer's and diabetes are related. Diabetics seem to have a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's, and Alzheimer's patients tend to have insulin resistance, Ryan said. Giving insulin as a nose spray sends it straight to the brain without affecting blood-sugar levels, she explained.

"If it works, it would certainly be an easy thing to administer. It's not like taking a shot each day," and likely would be cheap, she said.

•Improved detection. Many types of imaging can document dementia, which usually is diagnosed through cognition tests. For several years, scientists have used one such method — a radioactive dye and PET scans — to see the sticky brain plaque that is a key feature of Alzheimer's. But the dye is tough to use, and at least four companies are developing better ones.

Until there are better treatments, there will be little demand for tests that show you have or are destined to get the disease, several experts said. There's little testing now for the first gene strongly tied to Alzheimer's risk, ApoE-4.

"It's kind of like finding high cholesterol" but not having drugs that can lower it, said Dr. Mark Sager, director of the Wisconsin Alzheimer's Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was involved in a study of a different Alzheimer's-linked gene that will be reported this week.
Scientists also don't know if the plaque is a cause, an effect, or just a sign of Alzheimer's. Two experimental drugs seemed to clear plaque but did not lead to clinical improvement.

"We've still got a long way to go," Sager said.

Vitamin D: The Sunshine Vitamin

2010-07-12T20:34:00.000-07:00

Why UVB from sunlight is the most effective, the most reliable, the most abundant, and the most natural source for Vitamin D

From sunshinevitamin.org

Sun exposure to the skin is the human race’s natural, intended, most effective and most neglected source of vitamin D.

Vitamin D sufficiency, along with diet and exercise, has emerged as one of the most important preventive factors in human health. Hundreds of studies now link vitamin D deficiency with significantly higher rates of many forms of cancer‚ as well as heart disease‚ osteoporosis‚ multiple sclerosis and many other conditions and diseases.

Because sunshine is a free commodity with no publicist or lobbyist, the Sunshine Vitamin Alliance is established as a coalition of right-minded physicians, individuals and organizations who advocate natural vitamin D production through regular, non-burning sun exposure.

•Humans make 90 percent of our vitamin D naturally from sunlight exposure to our skin – specifically, from ultraviolet B exposure to the skin, which naturally initiates the conversion of cholesterol in the skin to vitamin D3.

•Few foods naturally contain or are fortified with supplemental vitamin D. For example, an 8-ounce glass of whole milk is fortified with 100 IU (international units) of vitamin D – just 10 percent of what the most conservative vitamin D researchers now say we need daily. In contrast, sun exposure to the skin makes thousands of units of vitamin D naturally in a relatively short period of time.

•While vitamin D supplements are an alternative means of producing vitamin D when regular, non-burning sun exposure is not possible, oral supplementation of vitamin D is not nature’s intended means of producing this vitamin.

•While overexposure to sunlight carries risks, the cosmetic skin care industry has misled the public into believing that any UV exposure is harmful. No research has shown that regular, non-burning exposure to UV light poses a significant risk of skin damage.

•Humans spend less time in the sun today than at any point in human history – which is why more than 1 billion people worldwide are vitamin D deficient.

Vitamin D Comes From the Sun

Sunlight is the best and only natural source of vitamin D. Unlike dietary or supplementary vitamin D, when you get your ‘D’ from sunshine your body takes what it needs, and de-metabolizes any extra. That’s critical – as vitamin D experts and many health groups now advocate 1,000 to 2,000 IU of vitamin D daily – five to ten times the old recommendations. Because too much ‘D’ from dietary supplements may cause the body to over-process calcium, nobody really knows for sure how much supplementary vitamin D is safe. On the other hand, sunlight-induced vitamin D doesn’t have that problem – it’s the way your body is intended to make it!

Sunlight Exposure (full body exposure)* 3,000 – 20,000 IU
Salmon (3.5 oz. of fresh, wild salmon) 600 – 1,000 IU
Salmon (3.5 oz. of fresh, farmed salmon) 100 – 250 IU
Fortified Whole Milk, 8-oz. glass** 100 IU
Fortified Multi-vitamin 400 IU

Source: Holick, MF. Vitamin D Deficiency. New England Journal of Medicine, July 2007

* Sun exposure to the arms and legs for 10-15 minutes. The amount of vitamin D produced depends on the intensity of the UVB in the sun and many other factors. Darker-skinned individuals may need 5-10 times more exposure than a fair-skinned person to make the same amount of vitamin D. In northern climates sunlight is too weak in parts of the year to make any vitamin D – a period referred to as ‘Vitamin D Winter’.

** Vitamin D is supplemented into milk. It doesn’t occur naturally in milk.

DIMONA "MEAN JUDEANS" TAKE ISRAEL SOFTBALL 2010 CHAMPIONSHIP

2010-07-03T06:50:00.000-07:00

Truly an Ascension Experience Victory
KNN - Dimona

"The Mean Judeans were victorious in the finals of the 2010 softball championship and once again become Israel's champions with an 11-9 victory. It was an Ascension Experience Victory Classic!!!!

In the top of 6th inning of a 7 inning game, the score was 9-0 in favor of the opponent. The Mean Judeans scored 5 runs in the top of the 6th inning and held the opponent scoreless in the bottom of the 6th.

Dimona came back and scored 6 more runs in the top of the 7th inning. With the opponent at bat in the bottom of the 7th inning, with 2 outs, two men on base and the winning run at the plate, pitcher Ahk Yaron struck out the batter to retire the opponent and seal the victory!

They are MEAN!!! Truly an Ascension Experience Victory!!!!"

YAH KHAI and HALLALUYAH!!!!

Scientists Crack Code of How to Live Past 100: Vegetarianism, Religion, Good Genes

2010-07-03T06:38:00.000-07:00

They tend to eat vegetarian, exercise regularly, don't drink alcohol, and manage their stress

by Brian Merchant, Brooklyn

New York - Science & Technology

A group of US scientists studying human longevity believe they've gathered some invaluable evidence in the quest to predict which people will live to be older than 100. Based on genetic 'signposts', the scientists have worked out a mathematical model that determines a person's chance of living to be a centenarian. To gather the data, they looked at the biggest study yet done on centenarians, and found that there were common lifestyle choices and habits amongst those who lived longest: Vegetarianism, avoidance of alcohol, and a strong religion, to name a few. Beyond that though, it's up to having the right genes . . .

The BBC has more on the study:

"only one in 6,000 people in industrialised countries reaches such a ripe old age. And 90% them are still disability free by the age of 93. The researchers now think they have cracked the genetic secret of this longevity.

They identified genetic markers that are "most different" between centenarians and randomly selected individuals ... "We tested our model in an independent set of centenarians and achieved an accuracy of 77%," explained Professor Sebastiani. "So out of 100 centenarians we could correctly predict the outcome of 77."

"Their work builds on a previous study, which looked at a group of the longest-living Americans: Seventh Day Adventists. They were found to have the highest average life expectancy, at 88 years. One of the researchers explains the significance of that finding: "They get there by virtue of the fact that they have a religion that asks them to be vegetarian, they regularly exercise, they don't drink alcohol, they tend to manage their stress well through religion and time with family and they don't smoke."

But in order to make it 10 or more years longer, "genetics plays an increasingly important role."

a
The scientists are now setting to work devising a website that would allow the public to enter personal data in order to find out how long the model predicts they'll live. Which is kind of creepy. But also useful -- such a tool could eventually play a role in helping people prepare treatments or therapy plans accordingly. Perhaps if you knew how long your genes may allow you to live would act as a motivator for pursuing healthy eating and living habits. Of course, it could depress the hell out of you, pushing you into living a life of excess and indiscretion as well ...

Dimona books ticket to finals with win over Penticon

2010-06-29T19:40:00.000-07:00

The Dimona Judeans return to the Championship
By Gil Nehamkin
Haaretz.com

The Dimona Judeans sealed the first spot in next week's Israel Softball League finals with a 5-2 victory over Penticon Sunday night.

In a close-fought battle, the pitching of ageless wonder Yaron Ben Israel proved too much for Penticon as he struck out 12 and walked none. Ami Baran pitched well for Penticon, but in the seventh inning Dimona finally took advantage of Baran's sore shoulder and put the game out of reach.

KNN Green Tips

2010-06-29T19:32:00.001-07:00

The more awareness we bring to our relationship with Yah’s Holy Creations the healthier, safer and more in harmony with Yah and the Creations our lives become
KNN - Dimona

Water Conservation

A family of 4 can use up to 1,000 litres of water a day. Being a little more careful of our water consumption we can reduce this to only 100 litres a day.

►Check for leaks. One drip of water per second wastes 4 litres of water a day
►wash dishes in a bowl not under constant running water
►Run your washing machine on full loads only; a full load uses less water than 2 half loads. Each cycle uses up to 100 litres of water!
►Turn off the tap when brushing your teeth: running water for 1 minute uses up to 10 litres!
►Consider the amount of water you use in your garden. In 30 minutes a water sprinkler uses as much water as a family of four in a day, or 600 ml every two seconds

General Tips

►Eat enzyme rich foods and organically grown food as an investment in your health
►Freeze leftovers. Never throw food away if it can be prevented
►Grow sprouts and herbs indoors. Sprouting is a very inexpensive and health vitalizing practice.
►Cover what you are cooking. Water will boil faster and you’ll use less energy if you cover the pots while you cook.
►Use cloth napkins and shopping bags.
►Switch to energy saving light bulbs. Start by replacing the bulbs in the rooms that you use most often since this will save the most energy and money. Energy saving compact fluorescent bulbs are considerably more expensive, but you recoup your initial outlay quickly with the money you save in electric bills.

Watch out for environmental toxins

Cleanliness if vital for a healthy home, but the use of too many chemical cleaning products can have a harmful impact on our health and environment. Use Natural alternatives instead and keep your home well ventilated.

►Synthetic air fresheners disguise bad smells by releasing a chemical that coats the nasal passages with a film of oil or deadens the olfactory nerves
►The best cleaner in the world is water! Soaking is a very effective way of removing dirt. Heavy duty cleaners are more expensive and harmful to the health and environment.
►Any product that is labeled as “natural” only has to contain 1 % of natural ingredients. If a product is “organic” it may not contain chemicals but will possibly contain animal by-products.

Yah Kai! Yah Kai! Yah Kai!

Gulf Oil Spill: A Hole in the World

2010-06-22T13:02:00.001-07:00

The Deepwater Horizon disaster is not just an industrial accident – it is a violent wound inflicted on the Earth itself. In this special report from the Gulf coast, a leading author and activist shows how it lays bare the hubris at the heart of capitalism.

by Naomi Klein
The Guardian/UK

Everyone gathered for the town hall meeting had been repeatedly instructed to show civility to the gentlemen from BP and the federal government. These fine folks had made time in their busy schedules to come to a high school gymnasium on a Tuesday night in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, one of many coastal communities where brown poison was slithering through the marshes, part of what has come to be described as the largest environmental disaster in US history.

"Speak to others the way you would want to be spoken to," the chair of the meeting pleaded one last time before opening the floor for questions.

And for a while the crowd, mostly made up of fishing families, showed remarkable restraint. They listened patiently to Larry Thomas, a genial BP public relations flack, as he told them that he was committed to "doing better" to process their claims for lost revenue - then passed all the details off to a markedly less friendly subcontractor. They heard out the suit from the Environmental Protection Agency as he informed them that, contrary to what they have read about the lack of testing and the product being banned in Britain, the chemical dispersant being sprayed on the oil in massive quantities was really perfectly safe.

But patience started running out by the third time Ed Stanton, a coast guard captain, took to the podium to reassure them that "the coast guard intends to make sure that BP cleans it up".

"Put it in writing!" someone shouted out. By now the air conditioning had shut itself off and the coolers of Budweiser were running low. A shrimper named Matt O'Brien approached the mic. "We don't need to hear this anymore," he declared, hands on hips. It didn't matter what assurances they were offered because, he explained, "we just don't trust you guys!" And with that, such a loud cheer rose up from the floor you'd have thought the Oilers (the unfortunately named school football team) had scored a touchdown.

The showdown was cathartic, if nothing else. For weeks residents had been subjected to a barrage of pep talks and extravagant promises coming from Washington, Houston and London. Every time they turned on their TVs, there was the BP boss, Tony Hayward, offering his solemn word that he would "make it right". Or else it was President Barack Obama expressing his absolute confidence that his administration would "leave the Gulf coast in better shape than it was before", that he was "making sure" it "comes back even stronger than it was before this crisis".

It all sounded great. But for people whose livelihoods put them in intimate contact with the delicate chemistry of the wetlands, it also sounded completely ridiculous, painfully so. Once the oil coats the base of the marsh grass, as it had already done just a few miles from here, no miracle machine or chemical concoction could safely get it out. You can skim oil off the surface of open water, and you can rake it off a sandy beach, but an oiled marsh just sits there, slowly dying. The larvae of countless species for which the marsh is a spawning ground - shrimp, crab, oysters and fin fish - will be poisoned.

It was already happening. Earlier that day, I travelled through nearby marshes in a shallow water boat. Fish were jumping in waters encircled by white boom, the strips of thick cotton and mesh BP is using to soak up the oil. The circle of fouled material seemed to be tightening around the fish like a noose. Nearby, a red-winged blackbird perched atop a 2 metre (7ft) blade of oil-contaminated marsh grass. Death was creeping up the cane; the small bird may as well have been standing on a lit stick of dynamite.

And then there is the grass itself, or the Roseau cane, as the tall sharp blades are called. If oil seeps deeply enough into the marsh, it will not only kill the grass above ground but also the roots. Those roots are what hold the marsh together, keeping bright green land from collapsing into the Mississippi River delta and the Gulf of Mexico. So not only do places like Plaquemines Parish stand to lose their fisheries, but also much of the physical barrier that lessens the intensity of fierce storms like hurricane Katrina. Which could mean losing everything.

How long will it take for an ecosystem this ravaged to be "restored and made whole" as Obama's interior secretary has pledged to do? It's not at all clear that such a thing is remotely possible, at least not in a time frame we can easily wrap our heads around. The Alaskan fisheries have yet to fully recover from the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill and some species of fish never returned. Government scientists now estimate that as much as a Valdez-worth of oil may be entering the Gulf coastal waters every four days. An even worse prognosis emerges from the 1991 Gulf war spill, when an estimated 11m barrels of oil were dumped into the Persian Gulf - the largest spill ever. That oil entered the marshland and stayed there, burrowing deeper and deeper thanks to holes dug by crabs. It's not a perfect comparison, since so little clean-up was done, but according to a study conducted 12 years after the disaster, nearly 90% of the impacted muddy salt marshes and mangroves were still profoundly damaged.

We do know this. Far from being "made whole," the Gulf coast, more than likely, will be diminished. Its rich waters and crowded skies will be less alive than they are today. The physical space many communities occupy on the map will also shrink, thanks to erosion. And the coast's legendary culture will contract and wither. The fishing families up and down the coast do not just gather food, after all. They hold up an intricate network that includes family tradition, cuisine, music, art and endangered languages - much like the roots of grass holding up the land in the marsh. Without fishing, these unique cultures lose their root system, the very ground on which they stand. (BP, for its part, is well aware of the limits of recovery. The company's Gulf of Mexico regional oil spill response plan specifically instructs officials not to make "promises that property, ecology, or anything else will be restored to normal". Which is no doubt why its officials consistently favour folksy terms like "make it right".)

If Katrina pulled back the curtain on the reality of racism in America, the BP disaster pulls back the curtain on something far more hidden: how little control even the most ingenious among us have over the awesome, intricately interconnected natural forces with which we so casually meddle. BP cannot plug the hole in the Earth that it made. Obama cannot order fish species to survive, or brown pelicans not to go extinct (no matter whose ass he kicks). No amount of money - not BP's recently pledged $20bn (£13.5bn), not $100bn - can replace a culture that has lost its roots. And while our politicians and corporate leaders have yet to come to terms with these humbling truths, the people whose air, water and livelihoods have been contaminated are losing their illusions fast.

"Everything is dying," a woman said as the town hall meeting was finally coming to a close. "How can you honestly tell us that our Gulf is resilient and will bounce back? Because not one of you up here has a hint as to what is going to happen to our Gulf. You sit up here with a straight face and act like you know when you don't know."

This Gulf coast crisis is about many things - corruption, deregulation, the addiction to fossil fuels. But underneath it all, it's about this: our culture's excruciatingly dangerous claim to have such complete understanding and command over nature that we can radically manipulate and re-engineer it with minimal risk to the natural systems that sustain us. But as the BP disaster has revealed, nature is always more unpredictable than the most sophisticated mathematical and geological models imagine. During Thursday's congressional testimony, Hayward said: "The best minds and the deepest expertise are being brought to bear" on the crisis, and that, "with the possible exception of the space programme in the 1960s, it is difficult to imagine the gathering of a larger, more technically proficient team in one place in peacetime." And yet, in the face of what the geologist Jill Schneiderman has described as "Pandora's well", they are like the men at the front of that gymnasium: they act like they know, but they don't know.

BP's mission statement

In the arc of human history, the notion that nature is a machine for us to re-engineer at will is a relatively recent conceit. In her ground-breaking 1980 book The Death of Nature, the environmental historian Carolyn Merchant reminded readers that up until the 1600s, the Earth was alive, usually taking the form of a mother. Europeans - like indigenous people the world over - believed the planet to be a living organism, full of life-giving powers but also wrathful tempers. There were, for this reason, strong taboos against actions that would deform and desecrate "the mother", including mining.

The metaphor changed with the unlocking of some (but by no means all) of nature's mysteries during the scientific revolution of the 1600s. With nature now cast as a machine, devoid of mystery or divinity, its component parts could be dammed, extracted and remade with impunity. Nature still sometimes appeared as a woman, but one easily dominated and subdued. Sir Francis Bacon best encapsulated the new ethos when he wrote in the 1623 De dignitate et augmentis scientiarum that nature is to be "put in constraint, moulded, and made as it were new by art and the hand of man".

Those words may as well have been BP's corporate mission statement. Boldly inhabiting what the company called "the energy frontier", it dabbled in synthesising methane-producing microbes and announced that "a new area of investigation" would be geoengineering. And of course it bragged that, at its Tiber prospect in the Gulf of Mexico, it now had "the deepest well ever drilled by the oil and gas industry" - as deep under the ocean floor as jets fly overhead.

Imagining and preparing for what would happen if these experiments in altering the building blocks of life and geology went wrong occupied precious little space in the corporate imagination. As we have all discovered, after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on 20 April, the company had no systems in place to effectively respond to this scenario. Explaining why it did not have even the ultimately unsuccessful containment dome waiting to be activated on shore, a BP spokesman, Steve Rinehart, said: "I don't think anybody foresaw the circumstance that we're faced with now." Apparently, it "seemed inconceivable" that the blowout preventer would ever fail - so why prepare?

This refusal to contemplate failure clearly came straight from the top. A year ago, Hayward told a group of graduate students at Stanford University that he has a plaque on his desk that reads: "If you knew you could not fail, what would you try?" Far from being a benign inspirational slogan, this was actually an accurate description of how BP and its competitors behaved in the real world. In recent hearings on Capitol Hill, congressman Ed Markey of Massachusetts grilled representatives from the top oil and gas companies on the revealing ways in which they had allocated resources. Over three years, they had spent "$39bn to explore for new oil and gas. Yet, the average investment in research and development for safety, accident prevention and spill response was a paltry $20m a year."

These priorities go a long way towards explaining why the initial exploration plan that BP submitted to the federal government for the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon well reads like a Greek tragedy about human hubris. The phrase "little risk" appears five times. Even if there is a spill, BP confidently predicts that, thanks to "proven equipment and technology", adverse affects will be minimal. Presenting nature as a predictable and agreeable junior partner (or perhaps subcontractor), the report cheerfully explains that should a spill occur, "Currents and microbial degradation would remove the oil from the water column or dilute the constituents to background levels". The effects on fish, meanwhile, "would likely be sublethal" because of "the capability of adult fish and shellfish to avoid a spill [and] to metabolise hydrocarbons". (In BP's telling, rather than a dire threat, a spill emerges as an all-you-can-eat buffet for aquatic life.)

Best of all, should a major spill occur, there is, apparently, "little risk of contact or impact to the coastline" because of the company's projected speedy response (!) and "due to the distance [of the rig] to shore" - about 48 miles (77km). This is the most astonishing claim of all. In a gulf that often sees winds of more than 70km an hour, not to mention hurricanes, BP had so little respect for the ocean's capacity to ebb and flow, surge and heave, that it did not think oil could make a paltry 77km trip. (Last week, a shard of the exploded Deepwater Horizon showed up on a beach in Florida, 306km away.)

None of this sloppiness would have been possible, however, had BP not been making its predictions to a political class eager to believe that nature had indeed been mastered. Some, like Republican Lisa Murkowski, were more eager than others. The Alaskan senator was so awe-struck by the industry's four-dimensional seismic imaging that she proclaimed deep-sea drilling to have reached the very height of controlled artificiality. "It's better than Disneyland in terms of how you can take technologies and go after a resource that is thousands of years old and do so in an environmentally sound way," she told the Senate energy committee just seven months ago.

Drilling without thinking has of course been Republican party policy since May 2008. With gas prices soaring to unprecedented heights, that's when the conservative leader Newt Gingrich unveiled the slogan "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less" - with an emphasis on the now. The wildly popular campaign was a cry against caution, against study, against measured action. In Gingrich's telling, drilling at home wherever the oil and gas might be - locked in Rocky Mountain shale, in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and deep offshore - was a surefire way to lower the price at the pump, create jobs, and kick Arab ass all at once. In the face of this triple win, caring about the environment was for sissies: as senator Mitch McConnell put it, "in Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana and Texas, they think oil rigs are pretty". By the time the infamous "Drill Baby Drill" Republican national convention rolled around, the party base was in such a frenzy for US-made fossil fuels, they would have bored under the convention floor if someone had brought a big enough drill.

Obama, eventually, gave in, as he invariably does. With cosmic bad timing, just three weeks before the Deepwater Horizon blew up, the president announced he would open up previously protected parts of the country to offshore drilling. The practice was not as risky as he had thought, he explained. "Oil rigs today generally don't cause spills. They are technologically very advanced." That wasn't enough for Sarah Palin, however, who sneered at the Obama administration's plans to conduct more studies before drilling in some areas. "My goodness, folks, these areas have been studied to death," she told the Southern Republican leadership conference in New Orleans, now just 11 days before the blowout. "Let's drill, baby, drill, not stall, baby, stall!" And there was much rejoicing.

In his congressional testimony, Hayward said: "We and the entire industry will learn from this terrible event." And one might well imagine that a catastrophe of this magnitude would indeed instil BP executives and the "Drill Now" crowd with a new sense of humility. There are, however, no signs that this is the case. The response to the disaster - at the corporate and governmental levels - has been rife with the precise brand of arrogance and overly sunny predictions that created the disaster in the first place.

The ocean is big, she can take it, we heard from Hayward in the early days. While spokesman John Curry insisted that hungry microbes would consume whatever oil was in the water system, because "nature has a way of helping the situation". But nature has not been playing along. The deep-sea gusher has bust out of all BP's top hats, containment domes, and junk shots. The ocean's winds and currents have made a mockery of the lightweight booms BP has laid out to absorb the oil. "We told them," said Byron Encalade, the president of the Louisiana Oysters Association. "The oil's gonna go over the booms or underneath the bottom." Indeed it did. The marine biologist Rick Steiner, who has been following the clean up closely, estimates that "70% or 80% of the booms are doing absolutely nothing at all".

And then there are the controversial chemical dispersants: more than 1.3m gallons dumped with the company's trademark "what could go wrong?" attitude. As the angry residents at the Plaquemines Parish town hall rightly point out, few tests had been conducted, and there is scant research about what this unprecedented amount of dispersed oil will do to marine life. Nor is there a way to clean up the toxic mixture of oil and chemicals below the surface. Yes, fast multiplying microbes do devour underwater oil - but in the process they also absorb the water's oxygen, creating a whole new threat to marine life.

BP had even dared to imagine that it could prevent unflattering images of oil-covered beaches and birds from escaping the disaster zone. When I was on the water with a TV crew, for instance, we were approached by another boat whose captain asked, ""Y'all work for BP?" When we said no, the response - in the open ocean - was "You can't be here then". But of course these heavy-handed tactics, like all the others, have failed. There is simply too much oil in too many places. "You cannot tell God's air where to flow and go, and you can't tell water where to flow and go," I was told by Debra Ramirez. It was a lesson she had learned from living in Mossville, Louisiana, surrounded by 14 emission-spewing petrochemical plants, and watching illness spread from neighbour to neighbour.

Human limitation has been the one constant of this catastrophe. After two months, we still have no idea how much oil is flowing, nor when it will stop. The company's claim that it will complete relief wells by the end of August - repeated by Obama in his Oval Office address - is seen by many scientists as a bluff. The procedure is risky and could fail, and there is a real possibility that the oil could continue to leak for years.

The flow of denial shows no sign of abating either. Louisiana politicians indignantly oppose Obama's temporary freeze on deepwater drilling, accusing him of killing the one big industry left standing now that fishing and tourism are in crisis. Palin mused on Facebook that "no human endeavour is ever without risk", while Texas Republican congressman John Culberson described the disaster as a "statistical anomaly". By far the most sociopathic reaction, however, comes from veteran Washington commentator Llewellyn King: rather than turning away from big engineering risks, we should pause in "wonder that we can build machines so remarkable that they can lift the lid off the underworld".

Make the bleeding stop

Thankfully, many are taking a very different lesson from the disaster, standing not in wonder at humanity's power to reshape nature, but at our powerlessness to cope with the fierce natural forces we unleash. There is something else too. It is the feeling that the hole at the bottom of the ocean is more than an engineering accident or a broken machine. It is a violent wound in a living organism; that it is part of us. And thanks to BP's live camera feed, we can all watch the Earth's guts gush forth, in real time, 24 hours a day.

John Wathen, a conservationist with the Waterkeeper Alliance, was one of the few independent observers to fly over the spill in the early days of the disaster. After filming the thick red streaks of oil that the coast guard politely refers to as "rainbow sheen", he observed what many had felt: "The Gulf seems to be bleeding." This imagery comes up again and again in conversations and interviews. Monique Harden, an environmental rights lawyer in New Orleans, refuses to call the disaster an "oil spill" and instead says, "we are haemorrhaging". Others speak of the need to "make the bleeding stop". And I was personally struck, flying over the stretch of ocean where the Deepwater Horizon sank with the US Coast Guard, that the swirling shapes the oil made in the ocean waves looked remarkably like cave drawings: a feathery lung gasping for air, eyes staring upwards, a prehistoric bird. Messages from the deep.

And this is surely the strangest twist in the Gulf coast saga: it seems to be waking us up to the reality that the Earth never was a machine. After 400 years of being declared dead, and in the middle of so much death, the Earth is coming alive.

The experience of following the oil's progress through the ecosystem is a kind of crash course in deep ecology. Every day we learn more about how what seems to be a terrible problem in one isolated part of the world actually radiates out in ways most of us could never have imagined. One day we learn that the oil could reach Cuba - then Europe. Next we hear that fishermen all the way up the Atlantic in Prince Edward Island, Canada, are worried because the Bluefin tuna they catch off their shores are born thousands of miles away in those oil-stained Gulf waters. And we learn, too, that for birds, the Gulf coast wetlands are the equivalent of a busy airport hub - everyone seems to have a stopover: 110 species of migratory songbirds and 75% of all migratory US waterfowl.

It's one thing to be told by an incomprehensible chaos theorist that a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can set off a tornado in Texas. It's another to watch chaos theory unfold before your eyes. Carolyn Merchant puts the lesson like this: "The problem as BP has tragically and belatedly discovered is that nature as an active force cannot be so confined." Predictable outcomes are unusual within ecological systems, while "unpredictable, chaotic events [are] usual". And just in case we still didn't get it, a few days ago, a bolt of lightning struck a BP ship like an exclamation mark, forcing it to suspend its containment efforts. And don't even mention what a hurricane would do to BP's toxic soup.

There is, it must be stressed, something uniquely twisted about this particular path to enlightenment. They say that Americans learn where foreign countries are by bombing them. Now it seems we are all learning about nature's circulatory systems by poisoning them.

In the late 90s, an isolated indigenous group in Colombia captured world headlines with an almost Avatar-esque conflict. From their remote home in the Andean cloud forests, the U'wa let it be known that if Occidental Petroleum carried out plans to drill for oil on their territory, they would commit mass ritual suicide by jumping off a cliff. Their elders explained that oil is part of ruiria, "the blood of Mother Earth". They believe that all life, including their own, flows from ruiria, so pulling out the oil would bring on their destruction. (Oxy eventually withdrew from the region, saying there wasn't as much oil as it had previously thought.)

Virtually all indigenous cultures have myths about gods and spirits living in the natural world - in rocks, mountains, glaciers, forests - as did European culture before the scientific revolution. Katja Neves, an anthropologist at Concordia University, points out that the practice serves a practical purpose. Calling the Earth "sacred" is another way of expressing humility in the face of forces we do not fully comprehend. When something is sacred, it demands that we proceed with caution. Even awe.

If we are absorbing this lesson at long last, the implications could be profound. Public support for increased offshore drilling is dropping precipitously, down 22% from the peak of the "Drill Now" frenzy. The issue is not dead, however. It is only a matter of time before the Obama administration announces that, thanks to ingenious new technology and tough new regulations, it is now perfectly safe to drill in the deep sea, even in the Arctic, where an under-ice clean up would be infinitely more complex than the one underway in the Gulf. But perhaps this time we won't be so easily reassured, so quick to gamble with the few remaining protected havens.

Same goes for geoengineering. As climate change negotiations wear on, we should be ready to hear more from Dr Steven Koonin, Obama's undersecretary of energy for science. He is one of the leading proponents of the idea that climate change can be combated with techno tricks like releasing sulphate and aluminium particles into the atmosphere - and of course it's all perfectly safe, just like Disneyland! He also happens to be BP's former chief scientist, the man who just 15 months ago was still overseeing the technology behind BP's supposedly safe charge into deepwater drilling. Maybe this time we will opt not to let the good doctor experiment with the physics and chemistry of the Earth, and choose instead to reduce our consumption and shift to renewable energies that have the virtue that, when they fail, they fail small. As US comedian Bill Maher put it, "You know what happens when windmills collapse into the sea? A splash."

The most positive possible outcome of this disaster would be not only an acceleration of renewable energy sources like wind, but a full embrace of the precautionary principle in science. The mirror opposite of Hayward's "If you knew you could not fail" credo, the precautionary principle holds that "when an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health" we tread carefully, as if failure were possible, even likely. Perhaps we can even get Hayward a new desk plaque to contemplate as he signs compensation cheques. "You act like you know, but you don't know."

Naomi Klein visited the Gulf coast with a film-crew from Fault Lines [1], a documentary programme hosted by Avi Lewis on al-Jazeera English Television [2]. She was a consultant on the film.

UN urges global move to meat & dairy-free diet

2010-06-06T16:13:00.000-07:00

Lesser consumption of animal products is necessary to save the world from the worst impacts of climate change, UN report says

Felicity Carus
guardian.co.uk

The UN says agriculture is on a par with fossil fuel consumption because both rise rapidly with increased economic growth.

A global shift towards a vegan diet is vital to save the world from hunger, fuel poverty and the worst impacts of climate change, a UN report said today.

As the global population surges towards a predicted 9.1 billion people by 2050, western tastes for diets rich in meat and dairy products are unsustainable, says the report from United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP) international panel of sustainable resource management.

It says: "Impacts from agriculture are expected to increase substantially due to population growth increasing consumption of animal products. Unlike fossil fuels, it is difficult to look for alternatives: people have to eat. A substantial reduction of impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet change, away from animal products."

Professor Edgar Hertwich, the lead author of the report, said: "Animal products cause more damage than [producing] construction minerals such as sand or cement, plastics or metals. Biomass and crops for animals are as damaging as [burning] fossil fuels."

The recommendation follows advice last year that a vegetarian diet was better for the planet from Lord Nicholas Stern, former adviser to the Labour government on the economics of climate change. Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has also urged people to observe one meat-free day a week to curb carbon emissions.

The panel of experts ranked products, resources, economic activities and transport according to their environmental impacts. Agriculture was on a par with fossil fuel consumption because both rise rapidly with increased economic growth, they said.

Ernst von Weizsaecker, an environmental scientist who co-chaired the panel, said: "Rising affluence is triggering a shift in diets towards meat and dairy products - livestock now consumes much of the world's crops and by inference a great deal of freshwater, fertilisers and pesticides."

Both energy and agriculture need to be "decoupled" from economic growth because environmental impacts rise roughly 80% with a doubling of income, the report found.

Achim Steiner, the UN under-secretary general and executive director of the UNEP, said: "Decoupling growth from environmental degradation is the number one challenge facing governments in a world of rising numbers of people, rising incomes, rising consumption demands and the persistent challenge of poverty alleviation."

The panel, which drew on numerous studies including the Millennium ecosystem assessment, cites the following pressures on the environment as priorities for governments around the world: climate change, habitat change, wasteful use of nitrogen and phosphorus in fertilisers, over-exploitation of fisheries, forests and other resources, invasive species, unsafe drinking water and sanitation, lead exposure, urban air pollution and occupational exposure to particulate matter.

Agriculture, particularly meat and dairy products, accounts for 70% of global freshwater consumption, 38% of the total land use and 19% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, says the report, which has been launched to coincide with UN World Environment day on Saturday.

Last year the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation said that food production would have to increase globally by 70% by 2050 to feed the world's surging population. The panel says that efficiency gains in agriculture will be overwhelmed by the expected population growth.

Prof Hertwich, who is also the director of the industrial ecology programme at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, said that developing countries – where much of this population growth will take place – must not follow the western world's pattern of increasing consumption: "Developing countries should not follow our model. But it's up to us to develop the technologies in, say, renewable energy or irrigation methods."

Oil spill's toll spreads far beyond gulf

2010-05-22T11:04:00.001-07:00

Oil spill has spread as far as Europe and the Arctic
Science News

Environmental devastation from the gushing Gulf of Mexico oil spill has spread as far as Europe and the arctic, scientists said.

"This is not just a regional issue for the wildlife," Carl Safina, president of the Blue Ocean Institute, told members of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee as the panel scrutinized the much-criticized response to the spill.

Safina said multiple forms of marine life across the Atlantic Ocean come to the Gulf of Mexico to breed.

Like other scientists who testified before the committee, Safina criticized BP's response to the spill.

"I think asking BP for answers is the wrong place to look," he said. "They seem to have cut corners on some critical junctures. We keep asking their permission to go down and measure the oil that's coming out."

Sylvia Earle of The National Geographic Society said BP's playing a leading role in containment efforts would amount to "relying on the foxes to look after the chicken coop."

She and other scientists also questioned the decision to try to break up the spill by injecting chemicals into crude oil flowing from the seabed floor.

"We don't know effects of dispersants applied a mile underwater. There's been no laboratory testing at all," Earle said.

Carys Mitchelmore, a University of Maryland researcher, said the chemicals could cause harm.

"I'm very concerned because I don't know," she said. "There are so many unknowns. We can't see these organisms dying and dropping to the sea bed."

Safina suggested BP used dispersants so cameras would be unable to show the extent of the oil slick.

Kale, spinach top list of healthiest veggies

2010-05-18T15:04:00.000-07:00

Broccoli, carrots and bell peppers also are top-notch
By Kaye Spector
The Plain Dealer

Looking to get the biggest nutritional bang out of your veggies? Try eating the "healthiest veggies" identified by the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

CSPI calculated a score for each vegetable by adding up the percentage of the dietary Reference Intake for six nutrients, the Daily Value for fiber and the daily targets that CSPI devised for lutein and carotenoids other than lutein. Calcium, iron and folate were part of the score, too.

(Lutein was included because CSPI says evidence is growing that it may prevent cataracts. CSPI came up with a 3,000 microgram daily requirement based on cataract studies and the federal government's Institute of Medicine.)

The top 10:
Kale
Spinach
Collard greens
Turnip greens
Swiss chard
Raw spinach
Canned pumpkin
Mustard greens
Sweet potato with skin
Radicchio

Notice a pattern here? Brightly colored leafy greens. But broccoli, carrots and bell peppers also are top-notch, says CSPI. These veggies get high scores because they're rich in lutein and beta-carotene, but also supply vitamin K and some of just about everything else.

CSPI also does lists for top fruits, beans, grains and meat in its Healthy Foods guide, which is given free to subscribers of its monthly Nutrition Action newsletter.

Attention-deficit disorder may have link to common pesticides, research finds

2010-05-18T15:01:00.000-07:00

Detectable levels of pesticide compounds were found in the urine of almost all the children studied
By Associated Press health & medical staff

Research published today in the journal Pediactrics suggests a possible link between exposure to common pesticides used on fruits and vegetables and children's attention-deficit disorder.

Detectable levels of pesticide compounds were found in the urine of almost all the children studied. The kids with higher levels had increased chances of having ADHD, a common problem that causes students to have trouble in school.

The children may have eaten food treated with pesticides, breathed it in the air or swallowed it in their drinking water. The study didn't determine how they were exposed.

Experts say the research is well done. But more studies will be needed to confirm the connection is more than chance.

FDA should regulate amount of salt hidden in food products, health experts say

2010-05-18T14:52:00.000-07:00

Americans eat about 1½ teaspoons of salt daily, more than double what they need for good health
By Associated Press health & medical staff

Public health experts urged the Food and Drug Administration Tuesday to force food makers to gradually cut the salt hidden inside their products, something the agency is considering.

Americans eat about 1½ teaspoons of salt daily, more than double what they need for good health — and high enough to increase risk of high blood pressure and other problems. Most of that sodium comes inside common processed foods — from soups to frozen pizza to sliced cheese.
Tuesday, the prestigious Institute of Medicine said the food industry hasn't done enough to voluntarily cut back. It urged FDA to set maximum sodium levels for different foods in a stepwise rollback, so people have time to adjust to the change.

The FDA hasn't decided whether to regulate sodium levels, but "no options are off the table," said spokeswoman Meghan Scott.

"There is no initiative at the moment," she said. But, "there is very little debate any longer over the impact sodium has."

The IOM is an independent agency chartered by Congress to advise the federal government, and is just the latest in a string of health groups to pressure the FDA in recent years to cut the salt.

The American Medical Association has said that if the salt in processed and restaurant food were cut in half over 10 years, that ultimately 150,000 lives a year could be saved.

See: FDA should regulate amount of salt hidden in food products, health experts say

Ahk Dahveed Nelson actively defies "aging"

2010-05-05T07:24:00.000-07:00

KNN-Staff
Denver Press Release

The cover story for the JULY 1-7, 1992 issue of Westword featured legendary poet/entertainer Dahveed Nelson. Hailed in the article as “the father of rap” as a founding member of the world renowned 1960’s era Last Poets, this globetrotting septuagenarian is on the move again! Making a trek from his residence in Ghana, West Africa to Denver, Colorado he shows absolutely no signs of slowing down.

Nelson is travelling to the states to participate in the prestigious Denver Half Marathon which will take place on Sunday morning May 16th. He will be one of only a handful of 70-plus year old participants in the competition.

If that is not enough, this active super-senior is also issuing a friendly challenge to any senior (65 plus) basketball players in Denver to “choose up” for a three on three hoops game. Apparently, Dahveed has embarked upon what can only be described as very aggressive campaign to redefine the term “age appropriate”!

The whirlwind excursion will include a seminar on healthy living titled, "Seven Keys to Life". That presentation will feature recitations from Dahveed’s recent compilation, “The Last shall be First”. Information concerning the dates and times of these events will be forthcoming.

These latest series of activities are part of an ambitious (and undoubtedly exhausting) world tour that has included marathons, in St Croix USVI, Tiberius Israel, Accra, Ghana, St Louis, Missouri, and most recently a half marathon in February in Fort Lauderdale Florida.

As was mentioned before, the tour has also included basketball, poetry recitations, and healthy living seminars – all under the auspices of Divinity Inc. Divinity is the non-profit organization headed by Nelson. Divinity Inc. was created to promote the adoption of Active Healthy Holistic Sustainable (AHHS) lifestyles.

Soul Vegetarian Restaurant Opens in Tallahassee

2010-04-28T20:28:00.000-07:00

Popular mobile food cart opens its doors at new storefront

Ahkote Hitzhirealah Israel
KNN-Tallahassee, Florida

Traditionally known as “Soul Vegetarian on Wheels,” the popular mobile vegan food supplier celebrated the Grand Opening of its new Take-Out Restaurant on Shabbat (Saturday) April 24.

About 300 attendees crowded the storefront from 2 to 8 p.m. to enjoy menu items at 50 percent off, free food samples and new menu items such as pizza pockets, Jamaican patties, milkshakes and soy bean ice cream. The soy bean ice cream, Dream Cream, included vanilla bean, carob chocolate, and butter pecan flavors.

The Festivities featured remarks from founders, Ahmatsiyah and Daniella Rahm. Special guests Nasik (Prince) Rahm Ben Yehuda, who is the head of the Atlanta Jurisdiction of the African Hebrew Israelite Community, also shared a few words at the opening. He was among many representing Soul Vegetarian Restaurants in Atlanta and Houston.

“It was remarkable to see hundreds of people who stood in the lines sampling the various foods, desserts, soya ice creams for five hours straight,” Nasik Rahm said. “In all these years, I've never seen anything like it."

Attendees also enjoyed African drumming by the African Caribbean Dance Theatre, local craft vendors and live music. Restaurant owners even showcased a Solar Cooker, which they advocated as the latest green innovative means to prepare food. Due to an overcast, customers were unable to sample the food intended to be prepared by this process.

Soul Vegetarian has been operating in Tallahassee since 1997, after its owners purchased the mobile cart used by the 14-chain Soul Vegetarian Restaurant at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta. Today Soul Vegetarian restaurants are internationally renowned for its nutritious cuisine and remains dedicated to providing healthy vegan alternatives to traditional meals.

The Take-Out Restaurant is located at 1205 South Adams St., and is open Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturday from 5 to 10 p.m. Soul Vegetarian will continue to function from its mobile food cart during festivals and community events. For more information about the restaurant and menu items please contact Ahmatsiyah B. Rahm at (850) 893-8208.

Your Health is Your Wealth - Water

2010-04-07T15:37:00.000-07:00

Most people do not drink enough water
by Zakhah Baht Israel
KNN - Dimona

Before we can gain strong economic power, reclaim our youth, and join together in unity, we must first take a look at our health. What good is it to gain the whole world if we die at age 49 of a heart attack? For example, consider Reginald F. Lewis. He acquired millions became the richest Black man in history, structured the largest leveraged buyout ever of an international company- and died six years later of brain cancer at the age of 44. The true wealth is in changing our health for the better. All diseases are preventable. We can have it all and maintain our health at the same time, but we must reexamine our eating habits and lifestyle. In this article we will explore the benefits of drinking water.

WATER

As cited in You Are Not Sick, You Are Thirsty: Your Body’s Many Cries for Water by Dr. Batmanghelij, chronic long-term dehydration is the root cause of many illnesses. Dehydration causes stress on the body which can make us feel stressed out. Water has been known to cure every ailment from dehydration to peptic ulcers. It lowers the blood pressure, clears the skin and alleviates headaches. Water is needed to regenerate cells. It also flushes out toxins so that the body can better absorb nutrients.

Water regulates the body’s many intricate systems such as blood circulation, respiratory and nervous systems. Sufficient water is necessary so that the fluids will arrive at the right place, in the right amount, at the right time. The body has a hierarchy of which organs receive adequate fluids first. The heart, lungs, and liver are high on the priority list. The brain, skin and muscles are not. Our heart has to keep beating and we must breathe, but the trade-off will be loss of clarity of thought, muscle cramps and arthritis, and acne and skin rashes. We must drink enough water on a consistent basis so that every part of our body can enjoy its benefits.

The minimum requirement in order for the average body to function properly is 8 glasses to one gallon every single day. The body is 75% water. So guess what? Seventy-five percent of our diet should consist of water or water-dominant foods like fresh juices, delicious fruit and raw vegetables. Drinking water also helps with weight loss. Sometimes we think we are hungry when we are really thirsty because these two sensations feel similar. Drinking water can curb our appetite.

Most people do not drink enough water. Some do not drink water at all, citing that they do not enjoy the bland taste. There is no excuse not to take care of our health. To improve the taste of water, try adding a squirt of lemon. Always boil or freeze tap water to kill harmful microorganisms. Try drinking filtered, distilled, or spring water to determine which taste is preferred. There is much controversy surrounding which is the best water to drink, but instead of worrying about which water to drink, it is more important to drink enough water.

As a side note, NEVER drink and eat at the same time. Water dilutes the digestive enzymes in the stomach, causing the food to improperly digest. As a result, a number of disorders develop such as indigestion, stomach cramps, constipation, gas and malnutrition. (African-Americans are among the most malnourished people on the planet due to a poor, meat-based diet.) Our food must digest properly so that we can get the maximum amount of nutrients from it. The rule is to drink 30 minutes before or 1 hour after eating a meal.

If our body is not functioning properly with the basics- food, water, etc., then how can we move forward by focusing on our dreams, goals and spirituality? Drink water. Drink it in the morning when you first wake up. Drink it before lunchtime. Drink it during and after a good workout. Try it for a day and continue for a lifetime.

Zakhah is a graduate of The Institute of Regenerative Truth and The School of the Prophets Institute of Jerusalem (Israel) with a degree in Divine Nutrition. She is also a raw and living foods chef and the author of the world-reknown raw food recipe book The Joy of Living Live: A Raw Food Journey (www.joyoflivinglive.com), winner of the Holy Jerusalem Writers Conference Award. Zakhah is co-founder of the Elements of Truth Magazine and Catalog and a freelance health writer for various independent publications in the US and United Kingdom.

Fatty foods may cause cocaine-like addiction

2010-04-03T16:59:00.000-07:00

High-fat, high-calorie foods affect the brain in much the same way as cocaine and heroin
By Sarah Klein, Health.com

Scientists have finally confirmed what the rest of us have suspected for years: Bacon, cheesecake, and other delicious yet fattening foods may be addictive.

A new study in rats suggests that high-fat, high-calorie foods affect the brain in much the same way as cocaine and heroin. When rats consume these foods in great enough quantities, it leads to compulsive eating habits that resemble drug addiction, the study found.

Doing drugs such as cocaine and eating too much junk food both gradually overload the so-called pleasure centers in the brain, according to Paul J. Kenny, Ph.D., an associate professor of molecular therapeutics at the Scripps Research Institute, in Jupiter, Florida. Eventually the pleasure centers "crash," and achieving the same pleasure--or even just feeling normal--requires increasing amounts of the drug or food, says Kenny, the lead author of the study.

"People know intuitively that there's more to [overeating] than just willpower," he says. "There's a system in the brain that's been turned on or over-activated, and that's driving
[overeating] at some subconscious level."

In the study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, Kenny and his co-author studied three groups of lab rats for 40 days. One of the groups was fed regular rat food. A second was fed bacon, sausage, cheesecake, frosting, and other fattening, high-calorie foods--but only for one hour each day. The third group was allowed to pig out on the unhealthy foods for up to 23 hours a day.

Not surprisingly, the rats that gorged themselves on the human food quickly became obese. But their brains also changed. By monitoring implanted brain electrodes, the researchers found that the rats in the third group gradually developed a tolerance to the pleasure the food gave them and had to eat more to experience a high.

They began to eat compulsively, to the point where they continued to do so in the face of pain. When the researchers applied an electric shock to the rats' feet in the presence of the food, the rats in the first two groups were frightened away from eating. But the obese rats were not. "Their attention was solely focused on consuming food," says Kenny.

In previous studies, rats have exhibited similar brain changes when given unlimited access to cocaine or heroin. And rats have similarly ignored punishment to continue consuming cocaine, the researchers note.

Diabetes Rising Rapidly in China

2010-04-03T14:29:00.001-07:00

Urban populations had the highest risk of diabetes
KNN News

Researchers in China estimated that 9.7 percent (92.4 million) of Chinese adults had diabetes, and an additional 15.5 percent (148.2 million) had prediabetes during 2007 and 2008. The China National Diabetes and Metabolic Disorders Study looked at 46,239 adults in a wide range of provinces and municipalities. Previous surveys showed diabetes to affect approximately 3 percent of the population in 1994, and 5 percent in 2000 and 2001.

Urbanization in developing countries is associated with Westernized diets, physical inactivity, and obesity. Diabetes is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in China.

Grand Opening-Garden of Life Vegan Deli

2010-03-03T11:00:00.000-08:00

by Ahkote Havanah E. Shlomo
KNN-Houston, Texas

The Garden of Life Vegan Deli (GLVD) officially opened its doors for business on Saturday, February 13 after a ribbon-cutting ceremony inclusive of live music, dance, poetry, and food sampling and guest nutritionist speaker.

Aturah Yafah E. Yehoadeen, nutritionist and author of both the original Soul Vegetarian Cookbook and The New Soul Vegetarian Cookbook, shared some health facts and words of wisdom for eating and living for the attainment of everlasting life.

"This is so needed," Aturah Yafah said about the deli. "This is the future. This is the future right now. As you look out, our people can not continue to consume the things they consume and to have the lifestyle they have. You see what its doing to us in your own families-the degeneration, the disease, the unhealthiness of the body. It's not just occurring in African Americans and not just with the elders, but even our children are experiencing it now."

Aturah Yafah warned that in being a vegan, there are still limitations and cautious measures one must take to assure a healthy diet. She stressed the need for us to change our taste buds and to free ourselves from the desire of excess salt, sugar and fat.

"We have to make sure nether to become "SAD" (Standard American Diet) adherents nor to consume the "SAD"-vegan style diet. We can't do that. We have to change and retrain our taste buds," she said. "We were mis-educated. We have to re-educate our own selves. We let somebody else feed us and they did not do a good job. So we're firing them and we are taking control over own destiny through our own food. Our women are back in the kitchen again, halleluYah!"

Additionally, Aturah Yafah shared three phenomenal things that are destroying the health of the human family and the health of your family: a lack of water, a lack of a sleep, and stress.

"We must calm down. We must stop. There are many benefits in stopping and regenerating," she said.

GLVD is owned and operated by the Houston extension of the African Hebrew Israelite Community, and is but one of the many extensions of the Community's international chain of vegan restaurants including the Soul Vegetarian Restaurants, Ta'am Ha'Khieem (A Taste of Life) Restaurant (Israel), and Asasse Pa (The Earth is Good) (Ghana, West Africa). As a whole, the Community humbly promotes the vegan lifestyle that it has practiced for over 40 years, and assures its patrons that they can be free of all worries when dining in their eateries.

"Whether you are a vegan or transitioning into a vegan, this is the perfect place for you because it's not just the food we are going to give you. We are going to give you how to eat the food and explain what the food does for your body," said Bahtyah E. Shalame, the grand opening's mistress of ceremony.

"We just don't deal in the area of food, but we are the foremost nutritionists on the planet! I don't want you to think this is just another vegan restaurant. On our fliers, it says "a vegan's paradise. It means you have no fears, no worries when you come here and take part in the cuisine, because we are not just here cooking. This is our lifestyle."

The deli, located at 12121 Veterans Memorial, is Houston's only completely vegan deli. During the event, guests delighted their palates with samples of barbecue tofu, lentil bean soup, macaroni and our homemade soy cheeze, greens, jollof rice, marinated kale greens, carrot supreme, broccoli salad, almond nut loaf, wakame salad, cous cous, cornbread, sweet potato pie, vegan chocolate cake, vegan brownies and vegan chocolate covered strawberries.

Are you hungry yet? That's just a portion of the menu's offerings!

For more information about the deli or to check out daily specials, call (in the US) at +1 (281)893-4300.

Sugarless & Live Weeks are coming soon!

2010-03-02T21:50:00.000-08:00

Back by popular demand:
Sugarless & Live Foods Weeks
KNN-Village of Peace
Dimona, Israel

In its continual ascension into the higher realms in pursuit of perfect health and Everlasting Life, the African Hebrew Israelite Community's Ministry of Divine Health at Dimona, Israel has taken the reigns in directing and regulating Sugarless and Live (raw) Foods consumption Weeks. This quarterly cycle of cleansing and rejuvenation was created by and for the Community, and has been practiced by it members worldwide for several years. It is a viable health-enhancing lifestyle adddition for anyone in pursuit of excellent health, a more vibrant life, more abundant strength, energy and longevity than what is enjoyed prior to engaging it.

For ample time to prepare and put in place necessary procedures and items relative to this cycle such as maple syrup, colon cleanser, schedule colonics/colemas, ionic foot baths, etcetera, prior to the upcoming seasonal cycle, please make a note of the following dates:

12 March-Sugarless Week will begin at sunset on Yom Sheshe (Friday).
20 March Sugarless Week will end on Mohtsai Shabbaht (Saturday at sunset).

20 March-Live Week will begin on Mohtsai Shabbaht (Saturday at sunset).
26 March-Live Week will end on Yom Sheshe (Friday) at sunset.

To date, the manifold benefits and blessings of Sugarless and Live Foods Weeks have been appreciated worldwide by thousands of Community members and non-members alike. Each season, these individuals reap its delicious fruits and bear precious personal testimonies of health success towards the attainment and maintenence of optimal health.

The results of the standard curative global health model have been well noted. Alternatively, through conscienscious application of any of the Community's tried and proven health-enhancing lifestyle practices as a safeguard in the prevention of dis-ease, some of this preventive health model's benefits include decreases in:

frequency of hospital, doctor and pharmacy vists,
dependency on high-cost, high-risk medical interventions,
occurrences of unpaid leave and "sick days" off of work due to illness,

The healthy lifestyle adjustments also brings in testimonies of increases in:

weight loss,
intestinal (bowel) regularity,
overall greater sense of well-being,
ability to think/reason more clearly,
ability to achieve a more sound sleep,
greater relief from former troubling ailments,
sense of empowerment, control of and responsibility for one's own health,
greater financial freedom (more time at work earning full salary due to better health),

Do you have a testimony relative to the benefits of healthy lifestyle adaptation, such as Sugarless Week, Live Week, incorporating weekly exercise, increasing water consumption, transitioning towards a plant-based diet, etcetera? Then KNN welcomes you to share your testimony with us. Simply leave your brief testimony and name (optional) in the "comment" section below. As we desire to publish as many testimonies as we can, please remember to keep your testimony as succint as possible.

To learn more about Sugarless and Live Foods consumption weeks, please click here. Otherwise, simply stay tuned to KNN for seasonal Sugarless and Live Foods Week updates.

For holistic health-related inquiries, The Ministry of Divine Health may be contacted at divine.healers@yahoo.com

"We are encouraging all to utilize this special cycle of Sugarless and Live Foods Weeks to prepare the Adamic mind/soul/body complex for the physical and spiritual elevation of THE NEW MAN."
-Ministry of Divine Health

35 Years of Yom L'Mokereem

2010-02-25T19:51:00.001-08:00

KNN-Dimona, Israel

The Village of Peace

The African Hebrew Israelite Community is in the midst its 35th anniversary of Yom L'Mokereem (Day of Appreciation) Festivities.

Contrary to its name, the "Day" of Appreciation is a special time wherein acknowledgments of love and appreciation are exchanged between families, friends and loved ones of all ages locally and abroad for the entire second month (February).

As we near the closeout of this year's festivities, KNN hopes that this season of appreciation has been very blessed and exceedingly joyful! Remember to save up some of the fun, sweets and gestures of appreciation for next year's celebration!

YOM L'MOKEREEM SAMEHYAHK! (HAPPY APPRECIATION DAY!)

Divine Ag Min. Yadiel Delivers Agri-Truth

2010-02-23T21:14:00.000-08:00

Agriculture seminar slated for next month

Hosted by Antigua-Barbuda's Ministry of Agriculture African Hebrew Israelite Minister 'Sar' Yadiel conducts multimedia seminar presentation and Keynote Address

Please click on flyer to enlarge.

Written by Theresa Gordon
Antigua Sun Online

The Ministry of Agriculture in collaboration with the Institute of Regenerative Truth will be conducting a training seminar on the 4 March for local farmers and other agriculture stakeholders on the island.

The seminar entitled “Agrarian truth science” will focus on the dynamics of redemptive developments for African endemic communities, and environmental issues.

President of the Institute of Regenerative Truth Antigua Ammi Ben Israel told the AntiguaSun that the keynote speaker at the seminar, Sar Yadiel the minister of divine agriculture of the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem community, who is a scientist of the soil, will be presenting the relationship to man and the environment and environmental issues facing our society today, namely, water and air pollution, environmental degradation through a multimedia presentation.

“He is going to use video/audio to deal with each aspect of the presentation and tie these into biblical law, how the laws of God and nature affect both people and the environment as well as, it will also show you a breakdown of the years over the last three centuries as well as the positive things different groups have done to restore it."

Israel said that the Hebrew-Israelite community is one based on the application of truth in every aspect of life; the connection to the land, and environment being of utmost importance and this community lives according the laws given by the creator.

Minister Yadiel will also give insights on how people can increase health and dietary standards and show how much the latter is depending on our ability to provide for and feed ourselves.

“The minister has developed projects in Ghana and Benin. During the presentation, he will also be explaining how to farm in an eco-friendly manner, and how farmers can make their own pesticides and fertilisers from natural waste."

The seminar will be held at the Multipurpose Cultural and Exhibition Centre on 4 March at 5:30 pm.

New US Food & Drug Report finds

2010-02-23T14:04:00.000-08:00

Controversial diabetes drug harms heart
Internal F.D.A. reports are part of fierce debate over Avandia

By Gardiner Harris
New York Times

Hundreds of people taking Avandia, a controversial diabetes medicine, needlessly suffer heart attacks and heart failure each month, according to confidential government reports that recommend the drug be removed from the market.

The reports, obtained by The New York Times, say that if every diabetic now taking Avandia were instead given a similar pill named Actos, about 500 heart attacks and 300 cases of heart failure would be averted every month because Avandia can hurt the heart. Avandia, intended to treat Type 2 diabetes, is known as rosiglitazone and was linked to 304 deaths during the third quarter of 2009.

“Rosiglitazone should be removed from the market,” one report, by Dr. David Graham and Dr. Kate Gelperin of the Food and Drug Administration, concludes. Both authors recommended that Avandia be withdrawn.

The internal F.D.A. reports are part of a fierce debate within the agency over what to do about Avandia, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline. Some agency officials want the drug withdrawn because they believe there is a safer alternative; others insist that studies of the drug provide contradictory information and that Avandia should continue to be an option for doctors and patients. GlaxoSmithKline said that it had studied Avandia extensively and that “scientific evidence simply does not establish that Avandia increases” the risk of heart attacks.

Please click here to view full article.

Documentary Release- Beyond The Mountaintop

2010-02-23T10:38:00.000-08:00

Gamariyahu Ben Yehuda
KNN-Dimona, Israel-The Village of Peace

I send you greetings from the Holy Land and the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr/ Southern Christian Leadership Conference/ Ben Ammi Institute for a New Humanity(INH), a social development and research institution dedicated to the eradication of violence in all forms.

At this time I am blessed to be able to share news of the INH’s release of a profound documentary entitled “Beyond the Mountaintop: the Beloved Community, The Village of Peace.”
This video presentation explains the Civil Rights Movement and the profound work of Dr. King within its proper context in the overall Prophetic Redemptive Struggle as recorded by the ancient Hebrew Prophets in Biblical Scripture.

Learn about the “Penalty Box,” a 400 year captivity prophesied upon African Edenic peoples and lands.
Understand Dr. Martin Luther King’s historic role as a modern day prophet.

Explore the prophetic significance of King’s famous Mountaintop speech as revealed through scripture.

Discover the phenomenal story of the people that fulfilled King’s declaration that “we as a people will get to the Promised Land” to establish the long-awaited Beloved Community/ Kingdom of God.”

The world premiere of this profound documentary was held to rave reviews in the Village of Peace/ Shomrey Ha Shalom in Dimona, Israel and now available for international release.

To order, place inquiries, schedule a showing of the DVD, or receive information about the Institute For a New Humanity please call:
(215)469-6787 (USA)
+972-(0)52-533-4964 (Israel, include the "0" if calling from within Israel)
or
email: holyland@netvision.net.il

Peace and Blessings from the Holy Land,
Gamariyahu Ben Yehuda
Director

Hospital infections killed 48,000, report shows

2010-02-23T10:18:00.000-08:00

KNN Staff comments: "So, you're not feeling too well? You might want to really rethink that run to the local hospital. More importantly, you might want to rethink the relative ill lifestyle choices (seeds) that were made which resulted in illness (fruit).
It is far better to prevent sickness and dis-ease than it is to cure them!
Let a word to wise be sufficient... "

Reuters-Washington

Pneumonia and blood-borne infections caught in U.S. hospitals killed 48,000 patients and cost $8.1 billion in 2006, according to a report released on Monday.

The study is one of the first to put a price tag on the widespread problem, which is worsening and which some experts say is adding to the growing cost of healthcare in the United States.

"In many cases, these conditions could have been avoided with better infection control in hospitals," said Ramanan Laxminarayan of Resources for the Future, a think tank that sponsored the study.

Sepsis — a blood infection — killed 20 percent of patients who developed it after surgery, Laxminarayan and colleagues reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

They studied hospital discharge records from 69 million patients at hospitals in 40 U.S. states between 1998 and 2006, looking for two diagnoses — hospital-acquired pneumonia and sepsis.

Patients who developed sepsis after surgery had to stay in the hospital on average nearly 11 days extra, at a cost of $32,900 per patient, they found. And just under 20 percent of them died.
Pneumonia patients stayed an extra 14 days after surgery, at a cost of $46,400 and more than 11 percent of them died, the researchers found.

"That's the tragedy of such cases," said Anup Malani of the University of Chicago, who worked on the study.

"In some cases, relatively healthy people check into the hospital for routine surgery. They develop sepsis because of a lapse in infection control and they can die."

The researchers said that 1.7 million healthcare-associated infections are diagnosed every year.

Many are due to drug-resistant bacteria, such as methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA, which cost more to treat because only a few drugs can work against them. These infections can also be caught outside hospitals and some studies show that such community-acquired infections are also on the rise.

One estimate from Pfizer Inc suggested that treating MRSA alone cost $4 billion a year.

Measures to prevent infection are simple and include careful handwashing, hygiene and screening patients when they check in. However, these measures are difficult to enforce, many studies have found.

KNN's Celebrates 4 Blessed Years!

2010-02-22T00:00:00.000-08:00

KNN: Realizing the Need & Timing of the Seasons
Celebrates 4 Blessed Years of Divine Servitude
Ahtur Keymah B.N. Aharon
KNN-Cleveland

Greetings to our beloved family, friends and read-ience. We at KNN are humbled that this month we've made it to the 4-year mark of reporting on breaking news from around the world!

We feel greatly privileged to have been able to serve you in our capacity, and we look forward to continuing to keep you up-to-date on current events occurring in all sectors of society as well as within the Hebrew Israelite Community at large. It is our prayer that our articles have been informative, enlightening, refreshing and thought-provoking.

Within these past 4 years we has been blessed with over 100,000 visits to our site and we are excited about reaching even more people in the years to come. It is our goal to continue to provide you with up-to-date news articles that will give you a broader understanding about the world in which we all live.

We thank you for all of your love and support, and again for making the choice to plug in to KNN!

Peace and Blessings.

. . . . . .

Yom L'Mokereem Celebration 2010-Village of Peace

2010-02-18T10:16:00.000-08:00

Please click on poster for larger view.

KNN-Village of Peace
Dimona, Israel

Yom L'Mokereem Celebration 2010-Atlanta, GA

2010-02-18T10:00:00.000-08:00

Please click on poster for larger view.

In the Season of Divine Appreciation

2010-02-17T10:31:00.001-08:00

KNN Staff -Village of Peace
Dimona, Israel

All praises to Yah, we greet you in perfect love & peace.
Shalom, shalom. (Greetings of peace unto you.)
Yah Khai!!! (Yah Lives!!!)

The observance of Yom L'Mokereem (The Day of Appreciation) the most festive annual celebratory season observed by the African Hebrew Israelite Community (AHIC) in Dimona Israel, as well as throughout its satellite communities around the world, at underway. This is the time of year wherein all Community members take time demonstrate even greater acts of love, kindness and appreciation to and for one another throughout the entire month of February.

It is in the spirit of this season of Yom L'Mokereem that KNN would like to take this opportunity to officially recognize merely a fraction of the AHIC's many noteworthy international institutions, through whose tenacious advocacy in disseminating the Sacred Seeds of Truth to the four corners of the earth, we witness the steadily increasing testimonies and yield in the changing of socio-spiritual paradigms and policies towards the restoration of health and sanity to a world which more often than not suffers from, is plagued by, is dis-eased and dying SO NEEDLESSLY from the effects errant and preventable lifestyle-related health challenges.

A few of those agents of change are:
-the Ministry of Divine Health
-the Joy of Living Live Live Foods website
-the African Hebrew Development Agency (AHDA)
-the AHIC's official online audio/visual portal YahKhai.com
-the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem's official website
-the Ministry of Divine Information & the Audio Visual Truth Center
-and last but not least, the Soul Vegetarian, A Taste of Life, and Asasse Pa Vegan Restaurants worldwide.

For your unyielding efforts to nourish, feed and enlighten literally millions of people around the world regarding this alternative social system and its healthy lifestyle practices,
KNN humbly salutes you!!!

If you would like for KNN to post your extension's Yom L'Mokereem activities and events, on our site, please email them to Ahtur Keymah at keymah777@aol.com for publication ASAP!

Todah rabbah (thanks) for allowing KNN to serve you and
Yom L'Mokereem Samehyahk!
(Happy Day (Season) of Appreciation!)

. . . . .

Cali town's birth defect rate 'not unusual'

2010-02-09T22:04:00.000-08:00

Expansion of toxic waste facility OK'd by board despite increased rate of birth defects, infant deaths in Kettlemen, CA-a town of mostly Spanish-speakers

By GARANCE BURKE
Associated Press

California State health officials said Tuesday they found nothing unusual about the rate of infant birth defects in an impoverished San Joaquin Valley farm town located next to the West's largest toxic waste dump. The officials told a packed meeting of the Kings County Board of Supervisors that they had discovered no common cause for the birth abnormalities and facial defects among children in Kettleman City, prompting anguished comments from the audience.

"It's important to keep in mind that this is a preliminary finding, and we are going to be in the community gathering additional information," said Kevin Reilly, chief deputy director of the California Department of Public Health."Our interest is trying to find some answers for these families if we can." California's two U.S. senators pressed for answers as well, calling for a halt to the proposed expansion of the Chemical Waste Management Inc. landfill until a cause is found for the birth defects.

"I am very concerned about the recent surge in birth defects," Sen. Dianne Feinstein said in a statement. Sen. Barbara Boxer also said the health concerns deserved a closer look. Kettleman City saw an average of 1.09 birth defects per 100 live births between 1987 and 2008, Reilly said. The rate was not unusually high when compared to a rate of 0.94 for the surrounding five-county region between 1987 and 2007, he added. Regional data for 2008 is not yet available.

A survey done by Greenaction, an environmental justice group, found that of 20 children born in the area from September 2007 to November 2008, five had defects including clefts in their palates or lips. County officials recently said a sixth child was born with birth defects in roughly the same period. Community members blasted officials for drawing conclusions before interviewing mothers whose children have undergone surgeries to repair cleft palates.

"This was a bunch of guys up at the state fiddling around with statistics on the computer and slapping it together in a rough report," said resident Maricela Mares-Alatorre, whose niece's son was born two years ago with severe birth defects."This wasn't an in-depth look at anything going on in town." Many residents have said the health problems were caused by the hazardous waste landfill and have rallied to stop its proposed expansion, which needs state and federal approval.

Officials of Chemical Waste Management Inc. said they welcomed the state scrutiny and were confident it would show their operation was not causing health problems. "Our Kettleman Hills facility is safe, and we are proud of our 30-year legacy of safety and environmental stewardship," company spokeswoman Helen Herrera said. "With so many other potential environmental exposures in the area, this is just the first step in an ongoing process."

The landfill is one of the largest employers in the largely Spanish-speaking community of 1,500 people along Interstate 5, the main artery linking Northern and Southern California. Every day, thousands of diesel trucks pass by Kettleman City on the highway. In addition, the town is bisected by high-tension power lines, and many residents work in nearby fields sprayed with pesticides and chemical fertilizers.

Last month, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered the health department and the state EPA to conduct a full investigation, including interviews with residents, and reviews of soil samples and medical records. Reilly said his team planned to speak with relatives of children with birth defects. Last week, Jared Blumenfeld, regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, visited the area, toured the dump and promised to ensure all regulatory, enforcement and permitting procedures had been properly followed. The EPA did not immediately comment on the state health study.

Please click here for to read article entitled "Board OKs expansion of California toxic waste facility".

Third-hand smoke endangers child health

2010-02-09T21:02:00.000-08:00

A new study shows increased vulnerability in babies, toddlers to effects of carcinigenic residue from third-hand smoke
by Kathleen Blanchard RN
emaxhealth.com

A new study warns that third hand smoke is especially dangerous for children. Parents need to be aware of how toxins in extinguished cigarettes intermingle with fabrics, skin, hair, and other surfaces where children can easily get a dose of poison from third hand smoke that lingers.

The findings come from researchers at MassGeneral Hospital for Children (MGHfC) and colleagues. Jonathan Winickoff, MD, MPH, assistant director of the MGHfC Center for Child and Adolescent Health Policy warns that smoking anywhere – outside or when babies and children are not in the home – still puts them at health risks because they come in contact with toxins in cigarettes.

Children are especially vulnerable to third hand smoke as they crawl, touch and put their mouths on potential neurotoxins found in cigarettes that can also lead to cancer. "When you come into contact with your baby, even if you're not smoking at the time, she comes in contact with those toxins. And if you breastfeed, the toxins will transfer to your baby in your breast milk”, says Winickoff who also clarifies that breast milk is still preferable to bottle feeding.

Some of the chemical in cigarettes include toluene, used in paint thinner, lead, a known neurotoxin, chromium that might increase risk of lung cancer, polonium-210 that is a potent cancer causing chemical, and arsenic that is also cancer causes and can cause a variety of health related problems.

The scientists investigated how members of households perceive the dangers of third hand smoke. A survey of 1500 households showed that 95.4 percent of nonsmokers, but only 84.1 percent of smokers said they know about the health harm that could occur to children from third hand smoke. Non smokers were most likely to have stricter rules about smoking inside.

The researchers say education is needed to make people aware that third hand smoke is especially dangerous to children and lingers in the environment. Clinicians are urged to teach parents, and anti tobacco campaigns should also include information about the health dangers of toxins from third hand smoke to promote smoking bans in the home and give people another reason to quit smoking altogether.

Please click here for more details.

Mekodshet Announcement

2010-02-07T17:00:00.000-08:00

The Prophetic Priesthood
at Jerusalem

Shalom beloved family!

We are pleased to announce that the following couples have now entered into the sacred and holy cycle of Mekodeshet:

Ahk Chashavyah Ben Israel (Texas extension) & Akhote Oreet Baht Yehuda

Ahk Nisiel Ben Israel & Ahkote Ameetiyah Baht Aviav

Ahk Aminome Ben Israel & Ahkote Matanyah Baht Yaaziel (Both of the Atlanta extension)

Ahk Odayd Ben Israel & Ahkote Zoheret Baht Israel (Both of the Southern Eden extension)

Ahk Nahkoom Ben Israel & Ahkote Tseedkeeyah Baht Israel (Both of the Southern Eden extension)

Ahk Shamah Ben Israel (Antigua extension) & Ahkote Maskelah Baht Shlomo

Please govern yourselves accordingly upon the hearing of this special announcement.

HalleluYah!!!
Yah Khai!!!

US East & West Coasts Battle the Elements

2010-02-06T19:15:00.000-08:00

Washington shuts down, buried in record snowfall

Peter Nicholas-latimes.com
Alexandria, VA

Flights are grounded and power outages are widespread as the capital slumbers under more than 32 inches of snow.

A prolonged blizzard covered Washington, D.C., and the mid-Atlantic states in a smothering canvas of snow Saturday, grounding planes and triggering widespread power outages as people across the region turned to skis and sleds to traverse icy roads.

The storm proved a major disruption, with above-ground subways and buses in the Washington area shutting down and stores closing en masse in the face of a storm destined to go down as one of the major snowfalls in the area's history.

As of late afternoon, a total of 32.4 inches was recorded at Dulles International Airport outside of Washington, according to the National Weather Service. That two-day accumulation topped the previous record, compiled during the blizzard of January 1996, the weather service said.

Hundreds of thousands of homes in Maryland, Virginia and elsewhere lost power. Trees toppled under the snow's weight, blocking roads. Snowplows worked overtime to keep the streets cleared. Flights were canceled at Washington's major airports.

Not even the presidential motorcade was able to navigate the city's streets unscathed. An ambulance hit an SUV in the motorcade before President Obama's entourage left the White House on Saturday morning to address the Democratic National Committee at a hotel several blocks away. No one was hurt.

At the event, Obama asked after the whereabouts of Rep. Michael M. Honda (D-San Jose). "He's on his way," Obama said. "He's still shoveling."

While the president normally portrays himself as a hardy Chicagoan accustomed to bad weather, even he seemed impressed by the storm's ferocity. He called the blizzard "Snowmaggedon."

California Flash Floods, Mudslides Cause 500-Home Evacuation
Melvin Baker-AllHeadlinesNews.com
Los Angeles, CA

More than 500 homes were ordered evacuated Saturday after torrential rains led to mudslides that clogged roads and filled living rooms of homes nestled on hillsides already charred by last year's wildfires.

More than an inch of rain was expected in Los Angeles and Ventura counties by sundown Saturday, causing eroded hillsides to slough off soil that slammed into homes, rendering at least 12 of them uninhabitable, according to Los Angeles County officials. Debris basins designed to snare mud, rocks and trees had already been filled from two inches of rain that fell in previous hours.

At one home in Pickens Canyon, crews trying to find a gas leak dug through at least four feet of mud. In nearby homes, mud flowed through their interiors, muscling garage doors outward.

Several highways were closed by the flooding and mudflows.

Protective concrete barriers placed to reroute the water and mud failed, slamming into at least 25 vehicles.

A flash flood watch issued by the National Weather Service expired at 7:45 p.m. Eastern time.

Even so, more weather was on the way. The weather service predicted between 5 and 10 inches of snow would fall Saturday night in the mountains. Above 7,000 feet, accumulations of 8 to 14 inches were forecast.

The Joy of Living Live

2010-02-02T05:41:00.000-08:00

A Raw Food Journey
by Akote Zakhah
KNN-Dimona

Close your eyes and imagine a community of 100% vegans living a holistic lifestyle. A community virtually free of disease, crime, and immorality. A healthy environment where animals have no fear of being eaten. What would you call this place? Heaven? Paradise ?

Now you don’t have to just imagine it anymore. It is here on earth. Open your eyes and see the Village of Peace in Dimona, Israel . This is a community of former African Americans who moved to the Holy Land to establish a peaceful, harmonious, self-sustaining environment. According to the Ministry of Health of this 40-year young community, the cases of diabetes, strokes, heart attacks, cancers, STDs, HIV and AIDS are so minimal to non-existent that they are considered to be virtually eradicated. Meanwhile, these illnesses are among the top 10 killers of their African American counterparts in America.

Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee tested adult members of the Village of Peace and found that the community has essentially eliminated high blood pressure even if they had a family history of the disease. There are no nursing homes and the elders of the Village have been known to defeat the younger teams in sports activities. Since the community’s establishment in 1967, there have been fewer than 40 deaths in this community of over 2,500 residents.

The leaders of the Village of Peace see the value of a natural diet for healthy people and have incorporated it in their lifestyle. They eat only fruit, vegetables, nuts, grains, and seeds. Each week, the adults in the community have 3 no-salt days, 2 raw food days, 2 no-margarine days, and one day of fasting.

Four times a year with the change in seasons, the community prepares to elevate their diet even further with the observance of a “Sugarless Week” where the only sweeteners consumed are maple syrup, date syrup, and the stevia herb; and a “Live Foods Week” where they consume 80% to 100% raw and living foods and cleanse their digestive systems.

As a result of changes in diet and lifestyle, evidence has emerged that this may be the healthiest group of collective humans existing on the planet today. And did I mention that they own the largest chain of vegan restaurants in the world? They have 13 Soul Vegetarian restaurants on 4 continents.

The “secret” to their diet and lifestyle now has been revealed in a new book called The Joy of Living Live: A Raw Food Journey by Zakhah (www,joyoflivinglive.com). This full-color photographic book explores over 100 raw and living foods tasting experiences from various regions of the world, including the Mediterranean, Asia, West Africa, the Caribbean, and the Americas . Complete with recipes for health drinks, breakfast, lunches on the go, desserts, and spices; recipes such as Live Spring Rolls, Pizza Wraps, Brazilian Nut Milk, Kale & Avocado Salad, and Orange Cake with Maple Cream Icing will make you want to lick the pages. Instructions are simple and easy-to-follow for food items generally found at local markets and health food shops.

They are designed for raw foodists no matter the stage of development: 50%, 80% or 100% live. These delicious pages share wisdom on diet transitioning, eating organic, exercise, meditation, prayer, fasting, food combining, sprouting, healing properties of food, low-cost superfoods, detoxification, holistic dental care, gourmet food preparation,… WHEW! In other words, this book is a powerhouse for your practical raw food needs.

One of the most exciting features of this book is the testimonies from long-time raw foodists who have been raw 5, 10, 20, to over 30 years. They are doctors, raw food restaurant owners, celebrities, raw moms and their raw children, community leaders, and more.

They answer questions like what physical health changes can be expected by eating live foods, how vegans and raw foodists can prevent nutritional deficiencies, and how to have a raw pregnancy. The Joy of Living Live: A Raw Food Journey will make you scream and jump for JOY.

Sunshine Cashew Cheese

2 Cups Cashews, soaked
¼ Cup Nutritional Yeast
2 Garlic Cloves
1 teaspoon Sea Salt
½ Cup Purified Water

Place all ingredients except water in a blender or food processor and mix on high speed. Slowly pour in water until texture reaches desired consistency. Store in a refrigerator.

Sea Vegetable Salad

2 Cups Wakame Seaweed
1 small Onion, chopped
1 large Tomato, chopped
2 Garlic Cloves, sliced
2 tablespoons Mixed Herbs
1 tablespoon Granulated Garlic
2 teaspoons Onion Powder

Chop seaweed in a food processor using slicer blade. Soak for about 1 hour and drain. Add remaining ingredients. Enjoy!

The Joy of Living Live: A Raw Food Journey is now available from www.joyoflivinglive.com and several book and health food shops throughout the US, UK and Israel . For a listing in your area, e-mail thejoyoflivinglive@yahoo.com.

Zakhah is a graduate of the Institute of Regenerative Truth as well as the School of the Prophets Institute of Jerusalem (Israel) with a degree in Divine Nutrition. She is also a raw and living foods chef and the author of the world-reknown raw food recipe book The Joy of Living Live: A Raw Food Journey, winner of the Holy Jerusalem Writers Conference Award. Zakhah is co-founder of the Elements of Truth Magazine and Catalog and a freelance health writer for various independent publications in the US and United Kingdom.

The Institute of Regenerative Truth Goes Online

2010-01-27T04:01:00.000-08:00

The Institute of Regenerative Truth is a extension of the Holy School of the Prophets at Jerusalem (SOP). The School of the Prophets began in 1975 with a mission to spread truth, re-discover our biblical heritage and restore alignment with the Creator. This task was undertaken by His Excellency Prince Shaleahk Ben Yehuda, Head Master and Dean of the School of the Prophets. His wisdom and understanding remain the foundation of this historic institution.

The Institute of Regenerative Truth online university is specifically designed to offer access to the teachings to the universal principals that govern the Creation and form the tenants of the African Hebrew Israelite Community. The current dean of the School of the Prophets, Dr. Khazriel Ben Yehuda has commissioned the institution.

“About the time of the end, a body of men will be raised up who will turn their attention to the Prophecies, and insist upon their literal interpretation, in the midst of much clamor and opposition” Isaac Newton (English Mathematician and Physicist, "father of the modern science", 1642-1727)
.

Click here to see more: http://www.instituteofregenerativetruth.org/
.

CLASSES Start February 15, 2010 - Register Today!

Stem Cell Pork

2010-01-25T19:57:00.000-08:00

Scientists Grow Artificial Meat In Lab
by Maria Chang
Huffington Post

Submitted by Ahk Nahum

Call it pork in a petri dish – a technique to turn pig stem cells into strips of meat that scientists say could one day offer a green alternative to raising livestock, help alleviate world hunger, and save some pigs their bacon.

Dutch scientists have been growing pork in the laboratory since 2006, and while they admit they haven't gotten the texture quite right or even tasted the engineered meat, they say the technology promises to have widespread implications for our food supply.

"If we took the stem cells from one pig and multiplied it by a factor of a million, we would need one million fewer pigs to get the same amount of meat," said Mark Post, a biologist at Maastricht University involved in the In-vitro Meat Consortium, a network of publicly funded Dutch research institutions that is carrying out the experiments.

Post describes the texture of the meat as sort of like scallop, firm but a little squishy and moist. That's because the lab meat has less protein content than conventional meat.

Several other groups in the U.S., Scandinavia and Japan are also researching ways to make meat in the laboratory, but the Dutch project is the most advanced, said Jason Matheny, who has studied alternatives to conventional meat at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore and is not involved in the Dutch research.

In the U.S., similar research was funded by NASA, which hoped astronauts would be able to grow their own meat in space.. But after growing disappointingly thin sheets of tissue, NASA gave up and decided it would be better for its astronauts to simply eat vegetarian.

Full story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/15/stem-cell-pork-scientists_n_424759.html

China's Weather Manipulation Brings Crippling Snowstorm to Beijing

2010-01-24T01:49:00.000-08:00

The Chinese government employs the controversial practice of cloud seeding in an attempt to force precipitation in and around Beijing
PopularScience.Com

Submited by Ahsaf Ben Naseek Rahm

In The People's Republic of China, it's no secret that the Party controls just about everything. But as Beijing suffers through its second major snowstorm this season, residents are growing weary of their leadership's control-freak tendencies. After all, while the storm came as a surprise to residents, the government knew about it all along. In fact, the government caused it.

China has long tinkered with Mother Nature's waterworks, even establishing a state organ -- the Beijing Weather Modification Office -- whose sole purpose is to meddle with the weather. The purpose behind weather modification is less megalomaniacal than it sounds at first pass; a large swath of northeast China, including Beijing, has been mired in a drought for nearly a decade, and the party leadership would like to reverse that trend for both practical reasons and to show the Chinese people exactly who is in charge.

To do so, they've turned to cloud seeding, a controversial practice that involves launching (or dropping) chemicals into the atmosphere -- silver iodide in China, though dry ice and liquid propane also work -- that cause water vapor in the air to crystallize at temperatures it otherwise would not. Its effectiveness is dubious; while it's generally accepted that it works to some degree, it can only increase precipitation by 20 percent. Sometimes.

Weather manipulation is actually not as rare as one might think. Currently, 24 countries practice some kind of cloud seeding. Moscow's mayor keeps the Russian Air Force on cloud seeding duty to make sure it never rains on his parades (literally). The U.S. has dabbled with weather manipulation in attempts to curb the intensity of Gulf hurricanes back in the '60s, and the military seeded clouds over North Vietnam during the war there to extend the monsoon season. Oh, and the CIA seeded clouds in 1969 in an attempt to rain out the hippies gathering at Woodstock, but they partied right through it anyhow (that instance is unconfirmed, but groovy to think about).

For More Info See: China's Weather Manipulation Brings Crippling Snowstorm to Beijing

Obama, Bush, Clinton stand 'united' for Haiti

2010-01-16T14:34:00.001-08:00

By coming together in this way, these leaders send an unmistakable message to the people of Haiti
Yahoo News

President Barack Obama on Saturday brought together his White House predecessors, Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton, for a joint appeal for victims of Haiti's devastating earthquake.

"By coming together in this way, these two leaders send an unmistakable message to the people of Haiti and to the people of the world," Obama said in the Rose Garden, flanked by the two former leaders.

"In these difficult hours, America stands united. We stand united with the people of Haiti who have shown such incredible resilience, and we will help them to recover and to rebuild."

The United States was launching "one of the largest relief efforts in our history" to bring aid to Haiti following Tuesday's devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck the heart of the poorest nation in the Americas.

Bush, who congratulated Obama for his "swift and timely response to the disaster," said he was pleased to work with Clinton "to mobilize the compassion of the American people."

The challenges in Haiti "are immense, but there's a lot of devoted people leading the relief effort," he said.

"The most effective way for Americans to help the people of Haiti is to contribute money. That money will go to organizations on the ground who will be able to effectively spend it.

"I know a lot of people want to send blankets or water. Just send your cash," added Bush.

Clinton, the United Nations special envoy for Haiti, said the priority for now is to ship food, medicine and water to Haiti.

"But when we start the rebuilding effort... we want there to be a place where people can know their money will be well spent, where we will ensure the ongoing integrity of the process. And we want to stay with this over the long run," he said.

Obama and the ex-presidents directed people to the website www.clintonbushhaitifund.org to make donations.

Haiti earthquake relief arrives; thousands of survivors suffer without medical treatment, water

2010-01-14T08:47:00.001-08:00

Hundreds of thousands of people feared dead in Haiti
By Brian Kates
Daily News Staff Writer

With possibly hundreds of thousands of people feared dead in Haiti, aid groups from around the world were fighting against time to save the living.

"There's no water," said Jimitre Coquillon, a doctor's assistant at a makeshift triage center in a hotel parking lot. "There's nothing. Thirsty people are going to die."

Bodies - their faces contorted in grimaces, half covered by plastic tarps or white cotton sheets covered with blood and dust - were strewn about the streets. Survivors used sledgehammers and clawed through rubble with their bare hands to try to find victims.

They turned pickup trucks into ambulances and doors into stretchers to rush victims to makeshift triage centers in the capital.

As ambulances and U.N. trucks raced toward Port-au-Prince, refugees fled to the countryside, where the devastation was less severe, balancing suitcases and belongings on their heads.

See: Haiti earthquake relief arrives; thousands of survivors suffer without medical ...

Delta, Continental Raise Fees For Checked Bags

2010-01-13T03:38:00.000-08:00

The new fees apply to flights within and between the U.S., the U.S. Virgin Islands, Canada, and Puerto Rico
By Christopher Hinton
Wall Street Journal

Delta Air Lines (DAL) and Continental Airlines (CAL) will begin charging customers the highest fees in the industry this week for checked bags, tempting other legacy carriers to follow suit.

The new fees apply to flights within and between the U.S., the U.S. Virgin Islands, Canada, and Puerto Rico. Excluded are premium-class fliers, frequent fliers and active U.S. military members.

With a recovery in passenger revenue growth projected for later this year, the airlines appear to be taking no chances with coming up short with the cash they need to turn a profit. Ancillary fees, such as those for check-on luggage, have become an important driver for revenue growth.

Putting pressure on the industry is a recent jump in benchmark crude prices, which hit a 15-month high earlier this week.

"We have a real focus on growing the ancillary revenues in our business to act as a temper against the volatility of the business," said Delta Chief Executive Richard Anderson, during an investor meeting last month.

Anderson reckons total ancillary revenue, which include baggage fees, administrative fees, the frequent flier program, global services and ground handling businesses, will be in excess of $4 billion this year.

For 2010, analysts polled by FactSet Research predict Delta will swing to a profit of $1.13 a share on sales of $30.9 billion, on average, up from an estimated $28 billion in 2009.

Continental is expected to swing to a profit of $1.36 a share on sales of $14 billion, up from an estimated $12.7 billion last year.

Altogether, the global airline industry faces a $5.6 billion loss in 2010, an improvement from the estimated $11 billion loss last year, according to data provided by the International Air Transport Association.

Delta Air Lines raised its checked-on luggage fees to $25 for the first bag and $35 for the second, from $15 and $20, respectively. Continental said it later matched them.

The carriers offer a small discount for passengers that check their luggage on line, but they are still the highest in the industry. Delta and Continental have been trail blazers in past when raising their checked-on fees, with United Airlines, American Airlines and US Airways (LCC) raising their fees soon afterwards.

Last year, domestic airlines raked in more than $700 million from checked-bag fees during the third quarter, up 111% from last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

For Delta, the new rules apply to standard economy-class tickets purchased on or after Jan. 5 for flights beginning Tuesday. Continental's rules apply for tickets purchased on or after Jan. 9 for travel beginning Saturday.

Legacy carriers have the biggest check-on baggage fees in the industry in part because they focus more on the premium-paying business traveler and not the budget-conscious holiday traveler. Vacationers are often able to get discounted tickets when the airlines scramble to fill vacant seats, but airlines try to make up for the cheaper fare through extra charges such as the check-on baggage fees.

That's why budget carriers, who rely more heavily on leisure travel, often have the lowest check-on bag fees. And carriers such as Southwest Airlines (LUV) and JetBlue Airways (JBLU), avoid the extra charges altogether, at least for the first bag.

The airlines also don't offer discounts for checking bags online because most leisure travelers book their tickets through the carriers' websites, rather through a global distribution system such as Sabre or Amadeus, which are popular among corporate travel offices.

American and United are units of AMR Corp. (AMR) and UAL Corp. (UAUA), respectively.

The Hidden Benefits of Exercise

2010-01-06T16:41:00.000-08:00

Even moderate physical activity can boost the immune system and protect against chronic diseases
By Laura Landro
Wall Street Journal

As millions of people flock to the gym armed with New Year's resolutions to get in shape, medical experts are offering an additional reason to exercise: Regular workouts may help fight off colds and flu, reduce the risk of certain cancers and chronic diseases and slow the process of aging.

Physical activity has long been known to bestow such benefits as helping to maintain a healthy weight and reduce stress, not to mention tightening those abs. Now, a growing body of research is showing that regular exercise can boost the body's immune system, increasing the circulation of natural killer cells that fight off viruses and bacteria. And exercise has been shown to improve the body's response to the influenza vaccine, making it more effective at keeping the virus at bay.

See: The Hidden Benefits of Exercise - WSJ.com

Global Economy's Next Threat: China's Real Estate Bubble

2010-01-06T16:02:00.000-08:00

The popping of China's housing bubble could have widespread consequences
By Charles Smith
Daily Finance

We might be tempted to envy China's spectacularly resilient real estate boom: After sagging in the global financial meltdown of 2008, property values in China's urban centers skyrocketed in 2009. Shanghai's Pudong district, for example, experienced a 57% rise in a matter of months.

By comparison, residential real estate in the U.S. is up 3.4% on average from its bottom in May, but still almost 30% below its peak in April 2006.

However, those admiring China's reflated housing bubble might be careful what they wish for, as the new real estate bubble in China is even more precarious than the one which imploded in 2008.

The popping of China's current housing bubble -- considered inevitable by regional experts such as Andy Xie -- could have widespread consequences. If housing turns down in China, China's growth could slow or even decline. And since the entire world is looking to China to lead global growth, then that could spell major trouble for the "global economy is recovering" story.

See: http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/global-economys-next-threat-chinas-real-estate-bubble/19302329?sms_ss=email

Green Leafy Vegetables - Nutritional Powerhouses

2010-01-02T10:49:00.000-08:00

Eat Your Greens!
By Laura Dolson
About.com Guide

A nutrition professor once told me that it was common for our ancient ancestors to eat up to six pounds of leaves per day. He imagined them walking along from one place to another, just picking and eating leaves as they went. Can you imagine eating a grocery bag full of greens each and every day? Few of us even eat the minimum USDA recommendations of 3 cups of dark green vegetables per week. And yet, these veggies deliver a bonanza of vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients.

Health Benefits

Dark green leafy vegetables are, calorie for calorie, perhaps the most concentrated source of nutrition of any food. They are a rich source of minerals (including iron, calcium, potassium, and magnesium) and vitamins, including vitamins K, C, E, and many of the B vitamins. They also provide a variety of phytonutrients including beta-carotene, lutein, and zeaxanthin, which protect our cells from damage and our eyes from age-related problems, among many other effects. Dark green leaves even contain small amounts of Omega-3 fats.

Perhaps the star of these nutrients is Vitamin K. A cup of most cooked greens provides at least nine times the minimum recommended intake of Vitamin K, and even a couple of cups of dark salad greens usually provide the minimum all on their own. Recent research has provided evidence that this vitamin may be even more important than we once thought (the current minimum may not be optimal), and many people do not get enough of it.

For more info click here: Greens are Nutritional Powerhouses - Benefits of Green Leafy ...

“The Power of the People”

2009-12-06T03:35:00.001-08:00

KNN-The Village of Peace
Dimona, Israel

The Power of the People was on full display November 25th at the 2009 People's Ball in Dimona.
Like all gala events in the African Hebrew Israelite Community, the ball featured divine inner-attainment provided by top community recording artists, exquisite cuisine, home-grown comedy in a royal and wholesome atmosphere.

But what made this night so memorable was a return to the roots of the Peoples’ Ball – that is, all proceeds were donated to the upgrading of one particular entity within the Dimona community, also known as the Shomrey HaShalom Kibbutz.

“We knew it would be the best,” exclaimed Elyeefah E. Nasik Danyel, one of the coordinators.

“In challenging economic times many service areas need a boost. Our history has shown that collectively we can do anything. So for us it was an opportunity to turn toward each other and accomplish this worthy objective.”

The annual event originated in 1988, she explained, as a formal event in the community to assist in improving one selected national institution. Over the years that principle idea had given way to sponsoring entities. The time had come to revive a good idea and the result was better than expected.

For the equivalent of $8 entry fee, those in attendance were treated to command performances by top artists from within the Hebrew Israelite Community, including, Ahdaiyah; Kasadyah; Taviel’s Dance Troupe; and Rinaht of the Chosen Band.

The show was masterfully headlined by Nadeev with a special accompaniment by the renowned Shadaiyah, who happens to be his mother. It was a night they will not soon forget.

But that’s not all. There were door prizes for ticket-holders, donated from several community businesses and your choice of two after parties – all for the price of admission.

The result: smiles on everyone’s faces and more than $1000 raised toward the renovation of the Hilltop Manor auditorium and multi-purpose center.

“Needless to say, when two or more gather for a righteous purpose, there also Yah will be,” Elyeefah continued. “You know you’ve met the mark when the following day everyone who was absent says they wish they were there. And those that were are still smiling. It was the best ever!”

Donations were received from individuals and community entities in Israel and abroad and everyone will share in the benefits of an improvement to a national institution.

Atlanta's Red & Black Affair

2009-11-17T11:29:00.001-08:00

Is back again!!!
Ahk Ahmeenohn
KNN-Atlanta

Attention Saints & Friends of the Kingdom of Yah!

On behalf of the Brothers and Sisters on the Move on the Southern Region, we humbly invite you to enjoy a divine evening in royalty and elegance at this year's'Red & Black Affair'.

The Red and Black Affair is an annual function which is organized and hosted by the joint efforts of Brothers on the Move (BOM) and the Sisters on the Move (SOM) entities.

This year's Red and Black Affair will take place Mohtsai Shabbaht (Sat. night) December 19th, 2009, from 9:00 PM-until at the Return to Royalty Banquet Hall located at the Soul Vegetarian Restaurant South (Atlanta, Georgia).

Please stay tuned to KNN for more information on this upcoming event, or call Soul Vegetarian Restaurant at (404) 752-5194.

Sponsored by the Brothers and Sisters on the Move

Mekodeshet Announcement

2009-11-05T05:00:00.000-08:00

Shalom beloved family!

KNN is pleased to announce that the following couple has now entered into the sacred and holy cycle of Mekodeshet

Sar Elyahshuv and Ahkote Taahmenyah

Please govern yourselves accordingly upon the hearing of this special announcement.

HalleluYah!!!
Yah Khai!!!

Inventor Makes Water Out of Air

2009-11-04T20:50:00.000-08:00

Video courtesy of
Reuters.com

Air-to-water windmill inventor French inventor, Marc Parent, has come up with a windmill that turns thin air into water and says his creation could offer hope to millions of people around the world who do not have enough water, such as in most parts of Africa.

Please click here to view video.

Supersized wind farm set to go

2009-11-04T19:00:00.000-08:00

DONG Energy CEO Anders Elderup
Project leader Henrik Morup Lehmann

The world's biggest offshore wind farm has started production and is set to generate enough electricity for around 200,000 homes.

The development by state-owned DONG Energy is situated 30 kilometers off the coast of western Denmark.

The Horns Rev 2 wind park has 91 turbines with a total production capacity of 209 megawatts.
Current from the turbines goes by buried cables to a transformer on the platform from where the electricity is brought ashore by a subsea cable.

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Health Benefits of Cayenne Pepper

2009-11-03T19:21:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of Cayenne Pepper Info
Your Cayenne Pepper Guide

Cayenne Pepper Benefits
What are the health benefits of cayenne pepper, and how do cayenne peppers help you, if at all, with your weight loss diet regime?

The benefits of cayenne are almost too unbelieveable, but its reputation keeps growing and growing and deservedly so. It can do everything from kill cancer cells in the prostate, lungs, and pancreas to immediately stop a heart attack within 30 seconds. Incredible to hear I know.

Specific cayenne pepper benefits
Cayenne pepper (or cayanne pepper as it's sometimes spelled as) increases metabolism by immediately influencing the venous structure. It is nothing short of amazing with its effects on the circulatory system as it feeds the vital elements into the cell structure of capillaries, veins, arteries and helps adjust blood pressure to normal levels.

Yes, cayenne pepper for high blood pressure is certainly one of its core uses, but cayenne cleans the arteries as well, helping to rid the body of the bad LDL cholesterol and triglycerides. Considering that heart disease is the number one killer in America, this is significant.

Cayenne is also great for the stomach and the intestinal tract. It stimulates the peristaltic motion of the intestines and aids in assimilation and elimination. When taken internally, it warms the body and has even been used by some herbalist doctors to help heal and rebuild flesh due to frostbite.

Cayenne Pepper and Heart Health
The effect of cayenne pepper on your body is dramatic, even literally instant and no more so than with the heart. Cayenne pepper's benefits is one of the things that brought you to this article so now let’s discuss the phenomenal healing properties of cayenne pepper with the human heart.

Dr. John Christopher, the famed natural herbalist, was persecuted relentlessly by the government for his practice of herbal medicine all the while assisting patients in curing heart disease, cancer, tuberculosis, infertility, rheumatism, leukemia, and every other incurable under the sun.

One of his greatest stories in his long career was how he could instantly stop a heart attack if he could get the patient to drink a glass of warm cayenne water. He said, "A teaspoon of cayenne should bring the patient out of the heart attack."

While this is not directly related to cayenne pepper and heart health, with internal hemorrhaging, if the patient can drink a glass of extra warm cayenne water, Dr. Christopher wrote, "...by the count of ten the bleeding will stop. Instead of all the pressure being centralized, it is equalized and the clotting becomes more rapid."

Perhaps now you can see why cayenne pepper is regarded as a true "miracle herb." With over 700,000 thousands Americans experiencing a stroke each year and almost half a million dying yearly of either heart disease or related issues, believe it not the cure is as close as your local health food establishment.

Of course, the Scoville Heat Unit (SHU) rating of the cayenne pepper you're using should be known. Most cayenne is between 30,000 to 50,000 SHUs.

Another benefit of cayenne peppers is its antifungal properties. Cayenne pepper antifungal properties are significant although this is not its primary health benefit. Cayenne has been shown in some studies to be active against phomopsis and collectotrichum -- both are fungal pathogens.

These fungal pathogens affect fruits especially strawberries and are not directly related to humans. Currently, cayenne immune system benefits are also the subject of studies conducted by many nutritional supplement companies and microbiologists.

Please click here to view the original article in its entirety, including a comprehensive list of all the things cayenne can do for your health.

Traditional Americans are Losing Their Nation

2009-11-03T19:20:00.000-08:00

Pat Buchanan cites ways Obama progressives have alienated, radicalized white population

By Patrick J. Buchanan
World Daily Net

In the brief age of Obama, we have had "truthers," "birthers," tea party activists and town-hall dissenters. Comes now, the "Oath Keepers." And who might they be? Oath Keepers, depending on where one stands, are "either strident defenders of liberty or dangerous peddlers of paranoia" writes Alan Maimon in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Formed in March, they are ex-military and police who repledge themselves to defend the Constitution, even if it means disobeying orders. If the U.S. government ordered law enforcement agencies to violate Second Amendment rights by disarming the people, Oath Keepers will not obey.

"The whole point of Oath Keepers is to stop a dictatorship from ever happening here," says founding father Stewart Rhodes, an ex-Army paratrooper and Yale-trained lawyer. "My focus is on the guys with the guns, because they can't do it without them. "We say if the American people decide it's time for a revolution, we'll fight with you." Prediction: Brother Rhodes is headed for cable stardom. And if the Pelosi-Reid progressives went postal over town-hall protesters, calling them "un-American," "Nazis" and "evil-mongers," one can imagine what they will do with the Oath Keepers.

As with Jimmy Carter's long-range psychoanalysis of Joe Wilson, the reflexive reaction of the mainstream media will likely be that these are militia types, driven to irrationality because America has a black president. Yet, the establishment's reaction seems more problematic for the republic than anything the Oath Keepers are up to. For our political and media elite seem to have lost touch with the nation and to be wedded to a vision of America divorced from reality.

Progressives are the folks who, in the 1960s, could easily understand that urban riots that took scores of lives and destroyed billions in property were an inevitable reaction to racism, poverty and despair. They could empathize with the rage of campus radicals who burned down the ROTC building and bombed the Pentagon. The "dirty, immoral war in Vietnam" explains why the "finest generation we have ever produced" is behaving like this, they said. We must deal with the "root causes" of social disorder.

Yet, they cannot comprehend what would motivate Middle America to distrust its government, for it surely does, as Ron Brownstein reports in the National Journal: "Whites are not only more anxious, but also more alienated. Big majorities of whites say the past year's turmoil has diminished their confidence in government, corporations and the financial industry. ... Asked which institution they trust most to make economic decisions in their interest, a plurality of whites older than 30 pick 'none' – a grim statement."

Is all this due to Obama's race?
Even Obama laughs at that. As he told David Letterman, I was already black by the time I was elected. And he not only got a higher share of the white vote than Kerry or Gore, a third of white voters, who said in August 2008 that race was an important consideration in voting, said they were going to vote for Obama.

With black voters going 24 to 1 for Obama, he almost surely won more votes than he lost because of his race. Moreover, the alienation and radicalization of white America began long before Obama arrived. He acknowledged as much when he explained Middle Pennsylvanians to puzzled progressives in that closed-door meeting in San Francisco.

Referring to the white working-class voters in the industrial towns decimated by job losses, Obama said: "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." Yet, we had seen these folks before. They were Perotistas in 1992, opposed NAFTA in 1993 and blocked the Bush-Kennedy McCain amnesty in 2007.

In their lifetimes, they have seen their Christian faith purged from schools their taxes paid for, and mocked in movies and on TV. They have seen their factories shuttered in the thousands and their jobs outsourced in the millions to Mexico and China. They have seen trillions of tax dollars go for Great Society programs, but have seen no Great Society, only rising crime, illegitimacy, drug use and dropout rates.

They watch on cable TV as illegal aliens walk into their country, are rewarded with free educations and health care and take jobs at lower pay than American families can live on – then carry Mexican flags in American cities and demand U.S. citizenship.

They see Wall Street banks bailed out as they sweat their next paycheck, then read that bank profits are soaring, and the big bonuses for the brilliant bankers are back. Neither they nor their kids ever benefited from affirmative action, unlike Barack and Michelle Obama.

They see a government in Washington that cannot balance its books, win our wars or protect our borders. The government shovels out trillions to Fortune 500 corporations and banks to rescue the country from a crisis created by the government and Fortune 500 corporations and banks. America was once their country. They sense they are losing it. And they are right.

The Organic Revolution:

2009-11-03T19:15:00.000-08:00

How We Can Stop Global Warming
Article printed from CommonDreams.org
by Ronnie Cummins

Beyond the gloom and doom of the climate crisis, there lies a powerful and regenerative grassroots solution: organic food, farming, and ranching.

As politicians drag their heels and refuse to acknowledge that we have about ten years left of "business as usual" before we irreversibly destroy the climate and ourselves, there is a powerful, though largely unrecognized, life-force spreading its roots underground.

Millions of organic farmers, ranchers, conservationists, and backyard gardeners (supported by millions of organic consumers) are demonstrating that we can build a healthy alternative to industrial agriculture and Food Inc.

Our growing organic movement is proving that we can not only feed the world with healthy food, but also reverse global warming, by capturing and sequestering billions of tons of climate-destabilizing greenhouse gases in the soil, through plant photosynthesis, composting, cover crops, rotational grazing, wetlands preservation, and reforestation.

Organic farms and ranches can provide us with food that is much more nutritious than industrial farms and ranches-food filled with vitamins, anti-oxidants, and essential trace minerals, free from Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), pesticides, antibiotics, and sewage sludge.

In 2006, U.S. carbon dioxide pollution from fossil fuels (approximately 25% of the world's total) was estimated at nearly 6.5 billion tons.

If a 7,000 lb/CO2/ac/year sequestration rate were achieved on all 434 million acres of cropland in the United States, nearly 1.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide would be sequestered per year, mitigating close to one quarter of the country's total fossil fuel emissions.

If pastures and rangelands were similarly converted to organic practices, we would literally be well on our way to reversing global warming. But we need an organic revolution in ranching and livestock production, as well as farming and forestry.

We need to drastically reduce meat overproduction (77% of all U.S. agriculture resources are devoted to raising animals or animal feed), and over-consumption (a leading cause of obesity, heart disease and cancer) and ban methane-belching factory farms.

As the Rodale Institute points out, organic livestock raising practices can drastically reduce livestock-related emissions and, because of the massive acreage currently devoted to livestock production (nearly 2.5 times greater than croplands), can safely sequester approximately 60% of the total greenhouse gases that humans, animals, cars, and industry are pumping out every year.

The majority of Americans must not only stop buying chemical, GMO, globally sourced and so-called "natural" food, and switch to organic and more locally and regionally produced products, but we must also rise up as a political movement and change public policy.

We must literally force the politicians and the corporations to put a halt to our "business as usual" destruction of the climate and public health, and instead move to an ethical and scientifically grounded policy and practice that promotes health, conservation, greenhouse gas reduction, and organic sequestration.

To read more, please click here.

Expert: Multiyear Arctic ice effectively gone

2009-11-02T12:01:00.000-08:00

By David Ljunggren

Editing by Rob Wilson
OTTAWA (Reuters)

The multiyear ice covering the Arctic Ocean has effectively vanished, a startling development that will make it easier to open up polar shipping routes, an Arctic expert said on Thursday. Vast sheets of impenetrable multiyear ice, which can reach up to 80 meters (260 feet) thick, have for centuries blocked the path of ships seeking a quick short cut through the fabled Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They also ruled out the idea of sailing across the top of the world. But David Barber, Canada's Research Chair in Arctic System Science at the University of Manitoba, said the ice was melting at an extraordinarily fast rate.

"We are almost out of multiyear sea ice in the northern hemisphere," he said in a presentation in Parliament. The little that remains is jammed up against Canada's Arctic archipelago, far from potential shipping routes. Scientists link higher Arctic temperatures and melting sea ice to the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming. Barber spoke shortly after returning from an expedition that sought -- and largely failed to find -- a huge multiyear ice pack that should have been in the Beaufort Sea off the Canadian coastal town of Tuktoyaktuk.

Instead, his ice breaker found hundreds of miles of what he called "rotten ice" -- 50-cm (20-inch) thin layers of fresh ice covering small chunks of older ice. "I've never seen anything like this in my 30 years of working in the high Arctic ... it was very dramatic," he said. "From a practical perspective, if you want to ship across the pole, you're concerned about multiyear sea ice. You're not concerned about this rotten stuff we were doing 13 knots through. It's easy to navigate through."

Scientists have fretted for decades about the pace at which the Arctic ice sheets are shrinking. U.S. data shows the 2009 ice cover was the third-lowest on record, after 2007 and 2008. An increasing number of experts feel the North Pole will be ice free in summer by 2030 at the latest, for the first time in a million years. "I would argue that, from a practical perspective, we almost have a seasonally ice-free Arctic now, because multiyear sea ice is the barrier to the use and development of the Arctic," said Barber.

Fresh first-year ice always forms in the Arctic in the winter, when temperatures plunge far below freezing and the North Pole is not exposed to the sun. Shipping companies are already looking to benefit from warming waters. This year two German cargo ships successfully navigated from South Korea along Russia's northern Siberia coast without the help of icebreakers.

The Arctic is warming up three times more quickly than the rest of the Earth, in part because of the reflectivity, or the albedo feedback effect, of ice. As more and more ice melts, larger expanses of darker sea water are exposed. These absorb more sunlight than the ice and cause the water to heat up more quickly, thereby melting more ice. Barber said the ice was now being melted both by rays from the sun as well as from below by the warmer water.

Scientists are also seeing more cyclones, which pick up force as they absorb heat from the warmer water. The cyclones help generate waves that break up ice sheets and also dump large amounts of snow, which has an insulating effect and prevents the ice sheets from thickening. After a long search, Barber's ice breaker finally found a 16-km (10-mile) wide floe of multiyear ice that was around 6 to 8 meters (20-26 feet) thick. But as the crew watched, the floe was hit by a series of waves, and disintegrated in five minutes. "The Arctic is an early indicator of what we can expect at the global scale as we move through the next few decades ... So we should be paying attention to this very carefully," Barber said.

Oil spill fouls East Bay beaches, kills birds

2009-11-02T12:00:00.000-08:00

San Francisco Chronicle
Staff Writers-Kelly Zito, Peter Fimrite
Alameda

Some of the hundreds of gallons of bunker fuel oil spilled Friday in San Francisco Bay have started washing onto shore, polluting area beaches and killing dozens of birds.

Meanwhile, Coast Guard authorities said they would investigate whether any mistakes were made in the initial response to the spill. Some environmental groups questioned why it took several hours to position containment booms around the leak and beaches in the spill zone.

"That's what the Coast Guard and Fish and Game are looking at right now ... the timeliness," said Lt. Rob Roberts of the California Department of Fish and Game.

At 6:48 a.m. Friday, the Panamanian tanker Dubai Star spilled bunker oil into the bay as the ship was being refueled about 2 1/2 miles south of the Bay Bridge.

The oil sheen quickly covered a miles-long swath of water; however, aerial assessments and measurements of the tanker's fuel capacity showed "only" (?-KNN's emphasis) 400 to 800 gallons of bunker fuel had been spilled, officials said Saturday.

The cause of the spill is still under investigation, but early evidence pointed to mechanical failure.

For watchdogs of the bay's ecosystem and wildlife, the incident brought back memories of the disastrous 2007 Cosco Busan incident, which dumped nearly 60,000 gallons of bunker fuel, killing thousands of birds and fouling sensitive shorelines. The Coast Guard and other agencies came under attack for the poor communication and sluggish response to that spill, which occurred two years ago this month.

Response time
It took several hours Friday to deploy booms around the tanker. And at least one environmental group wondered why responders didn't immediately place a protective boom along Crown Memorial State Beach in Alameda - the spot hardest hit by the spill.

By Saturday, tar balls - some the size of silver dollars and a few as big as seat cushions - had washed up along shore every 5 to 10 yards.

About 60 oiled birds, about half that had died, were found at that site, according to the East Bay Regional Park District. The Coast Guard would confirm only the collection of 12 oiled-but-surviving birds.

"We have the beaches closed to provide an onshore refuge for the birds," Escobar said. "Oiled birds need to get onshore because they lose their insulation."

Herring habitat
Self worried about the oil's impact on eelgrass beds around Alameda, which provide important spawning habitat for herring. The herring season - the bay's last commercial fishery - was canceled in September because of concerns about the health of the fish population. Self and others believe the Cosco Busan spill may have played a large role in killing off herring eggs.

For its part, the Coast Guard and coordinating agencies said they responded with "surgical" precision, limiting the oil impact to about 6 miles of shoreline.

By Saturday afternoon, the Coast Guard had deployed 22 vessels, one helicopter and teams of wildlife crews to assess damage along San Francisco and Alameda shorelines. All told, 53,000 feet of containment booms had been set out around the ship itself as well as important beaches.

In addition to tar balls along Crown Memorial Beach, oil was washing up in the Ballena Isle Marina in Alameda, Coast Guard officials said.

Closed areas include the Alameda County shoreline between the Bay Bridge and the San Mateo Bridge. Fishing should be avoided anywhere there is a visible sheen.

Beach closures
San Francisco officials asked people to refrain from swimming in the bay and stay away from local beaches. But those warnings didn't keep everyone away. Shoshanna Tenn, 36, of Oakland, went to Crown Memorial Beach and offered to help, but she was turned away.

"The bay is huge and we all use it, so it is important to keep it clean," Tenn said as she stared out at the booms laid out in the water protecting the bird sanctuary. "Our kids come to this beach. It's our home."

Report oiled birds
The Oiled Wildlife Care Network is not asking for volunteer help at this point, but anyone who sees oiled wildlife should call (877) 823-6926.

Atlanta's Red & Black Affair

2009-11-01T16:29:00.000-08:00

Typhoon Smashes Philippines, Killing 11

2009-11-01T04:29:00.000-08:00

The Chosun Ilbo
english.chosun.com

A powerful typhoon smashed through the Philippines early Saturday, killing at least 11 people and bringing new floods to areas still recovering from two earlier storms.

Officials in the Philippines say typhoon Mirinae (locally known as "Santi") has weakened to a tropical storm and moved west. The total number of dead and missing is still being determined.

The typhoon made landfall in the eastern province of Quezon just early Friday and swept over the capital, Manila, and southern provinces on the main Luzon island, flooding entire villages.

All flights to and from Manila were canceled Saturday. The coast guard also halted all maritime traffic. More than 100,000 people had been evacuated from coastal areas ahead of the storm.

Tens of thousands of people were stranded on Luzon ahead of the All Saints holiday in early November, when many Filipinos travel to their home provinces to pay their respects to dead relatives.

Military troops and relief supplies have been sent to the flooded areas. Storms Ketsana (September 26) and Parma (October 3) caused the worst flooding in the Philippines in four decades.

The resulting floods and mudslides have killed more than 900 people, and affected nearly nine million others.

Vatican welcomes Anglicans into Catholic Church

2009-11-01T00:32:00.000-07:00

CNN
ROME, Italy

The Vatican said Tuesday it has worked out a way for groups of Anglicans who are dissatisfied with their faith to join the Catholic Church. The process will enable groups of Anglicans to become Catholic and recognize the pope as their leader, yet have parishes that retain Anglican rites, Vatican officials said.

The move comes some 450 years after King Henry VIII broke from Rome and created the Church of England, forerunner of the Anglican Communion. The parishes would be led by former Anglican clergy -- including those who are married -- who would be ordained as Catholic priests.

The number of Anglicans wishing to join the Catholic Church increased in recent years as the Anglican Church has welcomed the ordination of women and openly gay clergy and blessed homosexual partnerships.

Their talks with the Vatican recently began speeding up, Vatican officials said, leading to Tuesday's announcement. While married Anglican priests may be ordained as Catholic priests, the same does not apply to married Anglican bishops, Levada said.

"We've been praying for this unity for 40 years and we've not anticipated it happening now," Di Noia said. "The Holy Spirit is at work here."

The Right Rev. Daren K. Williams, bishop ordinary of the western diocese of the Anglican Church of America, said his parishioners have generally been "very warmly receiving" Tuesday's announcement."It is encouraging for them to know their worship experience wouldn't be turned upside down by the Roman Catholic Church," Williams said.

"The person in the pew should see very little difference in the way we pray. We might be asked to pray aloud for any pope who happens to be in office, in addition to praying for our primate. "Really, there'd be very little other difference."

The Church of England said the move ends a "period of uncertainty" for Anglican groups who wanted more unity with the Catholic Church. Both groups have a "substantial overlap in faith, doctrine and spirituality" and will continue to hold official dialogues, the archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster said in a joint statement.

Preserving Anglican traditions, such as mass rites, adds to the diversity of the Catholic Church, he said. "The unity of the church does not require a uniformity that ignores cultural diversity, as the history of Christianity shows," he said. "Moreover, the many diverse traditions present in the Catholic Church today are all rooted in the principle articulated by St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians: 'There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism.' "

Please click here to read full article.

Soul Vegetarian is Cooking with the Sun

2009-10-30T15:00:00.000-07:00

Soul Vegetarian begins cooking with their new solar cooker

Courtesy of
Ahk Yatneal Ben Nasik Rahm
Manager of Soul Vegetarian Restaurant #1
Atlanta

When the solar cooker was set up on the side of the resturant it started attracting attention left and right, and the food that we cooked that day was wonderful!

This is not some Boy Scout Field Badge project. The quality of the food cooked on the solar stove was far superior and better tasting than what we could have done on a conventional stove.

And, yes......all that's needed is a steady supply of sunshine!

For more information on the Solar Cooker, please call us at the Soul Vegetarian Restaurant at (404) 752-5194.

US Clocks Go Back 1 Hour on Nov 1

2009-10-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

Remember to reset your clocks!!!
KNN Staff

This past spring, the U.S. began its 2009 observance of Daylight Saving Time which resulted in longer days. Now, as the winter cycle draws nigh, the daily amount of sunlight hours is decreasing. This natural, seasonal change ushers in with it a later sunrise and an earlier sunset from now until next spring.

Although the Daylight Savings Time 'change' was created long ago to regulate natural time cycles, it has been made law by Congress, in modern times, throughout the US except for all Hawaii Islands and Arizona with the exception of the Navajo Nation which does observe DST.

In accordance with those laws, the time will "fall back" an hour to local standard time US time which "sprang forward" earlier this spring.

This year's Daylight Saving Time will officially end 2:00AM, on the first day (Sunday) of the 11th month (Nov. 1st or late Saturday night).

DST will re-commence next spring on March 14, 2010 and will end on November 7, 2010.

"And he shall think to change times and laws." - Dan.7:25

All-male college cracks down on cross-dressing

2009-10-27T04:57:00.000-07:00

By Lateef Mungin
CNN-Atlanta

An all-male college in Atlanta, Georgia, has banned the wearing of women's clothes, makeup, high heels and purses as part of a new crackdown on what the institution calls inappropriate attire. No dress-wearing is part of a larger dress code launched this week that Morehouse College is calling its "Appropriate Attire Policy." The policy also bans wearing hats in buildings, pajamas in public, do-rags, sagging pants, sunglasses in class and walking barefoot on campus.

However, it is the ban on cross-dressing that has brought national attention to the small historically African-American college. The dress-wearing ban is aimed at a small part of the private college's 2,700-member student body, said Dr. William Bynum, vice president for Student Services. "We are talking about five students who are living a gay lifestyle that is leading them to dress a way we do not expect in Morehouse men," he said.

Before the school released the policy, Bynum said, he met with Morehouse Safe Space, the campus' gay organization. "We talked about it and then they took a vote," he said. "Of the 27 people in the room, only three were against it." There has been a positive response along with some criticism throughout the campus, he said.

Senior Devon Watson said he disagrees with parts of the new policy, especially those that tell students what they should wear in free time outside of the classroom. "I feel that there will be a lot of resentment and backlash," Watson said. "It infringes on the student's freedom of expression. I matriculated successfully for three-and-half years dressing so how is this a problem?"

Senior Tyrone McGowan said he has mixed feelings about parts of the policy. "But I have been inspired by the conversation it has created," he said. "We have to find a way to create diverse leaders from this college. I don't want this to place all of us in one box."

Those breaking the policy will not be allowed to go to class unless they change. Chronic dress-code offenders could be suspended from the college. Bynum said the policy comes from the vision of the college's president, who wants the institution to create leaders like notable graduates Martin Luther King Jr., actor Samuel Jackson and film director Spike Lee.

Senior Cameron Titus applauds the change. "The policy is just saying that you have to show more respect in how you dress and there are things that are just not acceptable at Morehouse," Titus said. "We have a legacy that we are trying to uphold."