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Court gave NSA broad leeway in surveillance, documents show
2014-06-30, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/court-gave-nsa-broad-le...

A classified 2010 legal certification and other documents indicate the NSA has been given a far more elastic authority than previously known, one that allows it to intercept through U.S. companies not just the communications of its overseas targets but any communications about its targets as well. The certification approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and included among a set of documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden lists 193 countries that would be of valid interest for U.S. intelligence. The certification also permitted the agency to gather intelligence about entities including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the International Atomic Energy Agency. The documents underscore the remarkable breadth of potential foreign intelligence collection. An affidavit in support of the 2010 foreign-government certification said the NSA believes that foreigners who will be targeted for collection possess, are expected to receive and/or are likely to communicate foreign intelligence information concerning these foreign powers. That language could allow for surveillance of academics, journalists and human rights researchers. A Swiss academic who has information on the German governments position in the run-up to an international trade negotiation, for instance, could be targeted if the government has determined there is a foreign-intelligence need for that information. If a U.S. college professor e-mails the Swiss professors e-mail address or phone number to a colleague, the Americans e-mail could be collected as well, under the programs court-approved rules.

Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing intelligence agency news articles from reliable major media sources.


This Is Why Your Local Police Department Might Have a Tank
2014-06-24, Time Magazine
http://time.com/2907307/aclu-swat-local-police/

As the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have wound down, police departments have been obtaining military equipment, vehicles and uniforms that have flowed directly from the Department of Defense. According to a new report by the ACLU, the federal government has funneled $4.3 billion of military property to law enforcement agencies since the late 1990s, including $450 million worth in 2013. Five hundred law enforcement agencies have received Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, built to withstand bomb blasts. More than 15,000 items of military protective equipment and battle dress uniforms have been transferred. More Americans are becoming aware of the militarization of policing, but the use of paramilitary tactics to fight the war on drugs has been going on for a very long time, says the ACLUs Kara Dansky. As police departments have added military gear, theyve also upped the number of SWAT deployments, especially for use in drug warrants. Almost two-thirds of SWAT deployments between 2011 and 2012 were for drug raids. Many of those units, says Kraska, base their strategy and tactics on military special operations like Navy SEALs. When people refer to the militarization of police, its not in a pejorative or judgmental sense, [Peter Kraska, a criminal justice professor at Eastern Kentucky University] says. Contemporary police agencies have moved significantly along a continuum culturally, materially, operationally, while using a Navy SEALs model. All of those are clear indications that theyre moving away from a civilian model of policing.

Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


The open source revolution is coming and it will conquer the 1% - ex CIA spy
2014-06-19, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/jun/19/open-source-...

Robert David Steele, former Marine, CIA case officer, and US co-founder of the US Marine Corps intelligence activity, is ... widely recognised as the leader of the Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) paradigm. In 1992, despite opposition from the CIA, he obtained Marine Corps permission to organise a landmark international conference on open source intelligence the paradigm of deriving information to support policy decisions not through secret activities, but from open public sources available to all. The conference was such a success it brought in over 620 attendees from the intelligence world. But the CIA ... ensured that Steele was prohibited from running a second conference, [prompting] him to resign from his position as second-ranking civilian in Marine Corps intelligence. Last month, Steele presented a startling paper at the Libtech conference in New York. Drawing on principles set out in his latest book, The Open-Source Everything Manifesto ... he told the audience that all the major preconditions for revolution set out in his 1976 graduate thesis were now present in the United States and Britain. Steele's book ... connects up the increasing corruption, inefficiency and unaccountability of the intelligence system and its political and financial masters with escalating inequalities and environmental crises. But he also offers a comprehensive vision of hope. "Sharing, not secrecy, is the means by which we ... can create a nonzero win-win Earth that works for one hundred percent of humanity."

Note: Watch an excellent video showing Mr. Steele believes that most terrorist attacks are false flag operations.


Nonprofit pay-what-you-can cafes let diners pay it forward
2014-06-18, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/pay-what-you-can-cafes-let-di...

I first encountered the concept of pay-what-you-can cafes last summer in Boone, N.C., where I ate at F.A.R.M. (Feed All Regardless of Means) Cafe. You can volunteer to earn your meal, pay the suggested price ($10) or less, or you can overpay [towards] a future patrons meal. As Healthy World Cafe opened in York in April, I signed up for a volunteer shift and planned my visit. F.A.R.M and Healthy World are part of a growing trend of community cafes. Denise Cerreta ... runs the One World Everybody Eats Foundation, helping others replicate her pay-what-you-can model. Most of the nonprofit, volunteer-run cafes are started by individuals or groups, but Panera Bread and the Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation also have opened cafes with Cerretas guidance. To date, nearly 60 have opened across the country, and another 20 are in the planning stages. Generally, 80 percent of customers pay the suggested price or more, and the remainder pay less or volunteer for meals. I think the community cafe is truly a hand up, not a handout, Cerreta said. Everyone eats there, no one needs to know whether you volunteered, underpaid or overpaid. You can maintain your dignity and eat organic, healthy, local food. The successful cafes not only address hunger and food insecurity but also become integral parts of their neighborhoods- whether its a place to learn skills or hear live music. Some enlist culinary school students as volunteers, some teach cooking to seniors, some offer free used books.

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


An expanding Koch network aims to spend $300 million to shape Senate fight and 2016
2014-06-18, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/an-expanding-koch-network-aims-to-spen...

The political network backed by the Koch brothers, already spending tens of millions of dollars this year to boost Republicans chances of retaking the Senate, is expanding its national playbook as part of a long-term strategy designed to strengthen conservatives heading into the 2016 presidential campaign. The effort, part of an overall budget that organizers expect to total nearly $300 million this year, includes broadening outreach to veterans, viewed as an energized constituency in the wake of the recent Veterans Affairs scandal, and messages tailored for Latinos and young people, long considered core Democratic constituencies. The strategy for 2014 includes a new super PAC that can pour all its money into overt election activity. The plan underscores the huge reach of the Koch-backed operation, a singular force in American politics that has functioned outside the traditional campaign finance system. The Koch-backed network, a coalition of nonprofit organizations not required to disclose their donors, raised $407 million in the 2012 cycle, a presidential election year in which outside spending increased greatly on both sides of the aisle. This year, the network is likely to outstrip other organizations on both the left and the right with spending on television ads and on-the-ground organizing. Its main political organ, the free-market advocacy group Americans for Prosperity, has 240 full-time employees in 32 states, more than double the size of its 2012 staff.

Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing elections news articles from reliable major media sources.


Lift Assange out of legal limbo
2014-06-17, USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/06/17/assange-wikileaks-espionage-...

A whistle-blower living in exile in Russia. A publisher seeking the asylum he has already been granted while his sources are imprisoned. This isn't the cast of a summer blockbuster. It's a perfect storm of real-life cases that make it clear that constitutional guarantees of a free press and government accountability are rhetorical devices, not political realities. The whistle-blower is Edward Snowden. This month marks the first anniversary of his disclosures of massive National Security Agency surveillance. The publisher is Julian Assange. Thursday marks two years since he sought refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Meanwhile, two of Assange's sources, Chelsea Manning (formerly known as Bradley Manning) and Jeremy Hammond, remain in prison for providing WikiLeaks with confidential documents. Harassment, targeting and prosecution of whistle-blowers, journalists and publishers have become a dangerous new normal one we should refuse to accept, especially in a time when governments are becoming more powerful and less accountable. It's time to end this assault, starting with granting Snowden amnesty and withdrawing the threat of U.S. criminal prosecution of Assange. Similar harsh treatment and excessive punishments haven't applied to the people in government who perpetrated the crimes exposed by these whistle-blowers and published by WikiLeaks. In fact, people such as national intelligence director James Clapper, who lied under oath to Congress, have avoided consequences altogether.

Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing civil liberties news articles from reliable major media sources.


Inside the Koch Brothers Secret Billionaire Summit
2014-06-17, The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/article/180267/exclusive-behind-koch-brothers-secret...

Charles and David Koch wrapped up their annual summer seminar on June 16. [Their] combined net worth is more than $100 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The highly secretive mega-donor conference, called American Courage: Our Commitment to a Free Society, featured a whos who of Republican political elites. 300 individualsworth at least a billion eachwere present. The explicit goal was to raise $500 million to take the Senate in the 2014 midterms and another $500 million to make sure Hillary Clinton is never president. The Koch network raised an estimated $407 million in the 2012 presidential election, according to an analysis by The Washington Post and the Center for Responsive Politics. Intriguing in its ambiguity was the Energy: Changing the Narrative session, presumably meant to change the narrative of climate change to one of energy independence. The Kochs are investing large sums in a new energy initiative with what looks like a deregulatory, pro-consumer spin to combat President Obamas new regulations on carbon dioxide emissions and liberal billionaire Tom Steyers $100 million commitment to fight climate change. It is not hard to see why the Kochs, as the owners of a large carbon-based energy conglomerate with interests in oil, natural gas and coal, are some of the most vocal climate deniers. In 2013, Forbes listed Koch Industries as the second largest privately held company in the country. This conclave of billionaires is determined to roll back Obamacare and carbon restrictions. In an America where money equals speech, Koch is king.

Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing elections news articles from reliable major media sources.


Study asserts startling numbers of insider trading rogues
2014-06-17, CNBC
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101764568

There is often a tip. Before many big mergers and acquisitions, word leaks out to select investors who seek to covertly trade on the information. Stocks and options move in unusual ways that aren't immediately clear. Then news of the deals crosses the ticker, surprising everyone except for those already in the know. Sometimes the investor is found out and is prosecuted, sometimes not. That's what everyone suspects, though until now the evidence has been largely anecdotal. Now, a groundbreaking new study finally puts what we've instinctively thought into hard numbers and the truth is worse than we imagined. A quarter of all public company deals may involve some kind of insider trading, according to the study by two professors at the Stern School of Business at New York University and one professor from McGill University. The study, perhaps the most detailed and exhaustive of its kind, examined hundreds of transactions from 1996 through the end of 2012. The professors examined stock option movements when an investor buys an option to acquire a stock in the future at a set price as a way of determining whether unusual activity took place in the 30 days before a deal's announcement. The professors are so confident in their findings of pervasive insider trading that they determined statistically that the odds of the trading "arising out of chance" were "about three in a trillion." But, the professors conclude, the Securities and Exchange Commission litigated only "about 4.7 percent of the 1,859 ... deals included in our sample."

Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing financial corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


US Pushing Local Cops to Stay Mum on Surveillance
2014-06-12, ABC News/Associated Press
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/us-pushing-local-cops-stay-mum-surve...

The Obama administration has been quietly advising local police not to disclose details about surveillance technology they are using to sweep up basic cellphone data from entire neighborhoods. Citing security reasons, the U.S. has intervened in routine state public records cases and criminal trials regarding use of the technology. This has resulted in police departments withholding materials or heavily censoring documents in rare instances when they disclose any [information] about the purchase and use of such powerful surveillance equipment. One well-known type of this surveillance equipment is known as a Stingray. The equipment tricks cellphones into identifying some of their owners' account information, like a unique subscriber number, and transmitting data to police as if it were a phone company's tower. That allows police to obtain cellphone information without having to ask for help from service providers ... and can locate a phone without the user even making a call or sending a text message. The Obama administration is asking agencies to withhold common information about the equipment, such as how the technology is used and how to turn it on. "These extreme secrecy efforts are in relation to very controversial, local government surveillance practices using highly invasive technology," said Nathan Freed Wessler, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, which has fought for the release of these types of records. "People should have the facts about what the government is doing to them."

Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing government surveillance news articles from reliable major media sources.


Guys, Your Smartphone Is Hurting Your Sperm
2014-06-10, Time Magazine
http://time.com/2850594/guys-your-smartphone-is-hurting-your-sperm/

Even while the debate over whether cell phones cause cancer rages on, researchers are starting to explore other potentially harmful effects that the ubiquitous devices may have on our health. Because they emit low-level electromagnetic radiation (EMR), its possible that they can disturb normal cell functions and even sleep. And with male infertility on the rise, Fiona Mathews at the University of Exeter, in England, and her colleagues decided to investigate what role cell phones might play in that trend. In their new research, they analyzed 10 previous studies, seven of which involved the study of sperm motility, concentration and viability in the lab, and three that included male patients at fertility clinics. Overall, among the 1,492 samples, exposure-to-cell-phone EMR lowered sperm motility by 8%, and viability by 9%. Exactly how much the cell phones are contributing to lower-quality sperm isnt clear yet the researchers note that how long the phones are kept in pockets, as well as how much EMR the phones emit (most are legally required to stay below 2.0 W/kg) are also important things to consider when figuring out an individuals risk. But the lab-dish studies do show that sperm are affected by the exposure, and that provides enough reason to investigate the possibility that cell phones may be contributing to lower-quality sperm and potentially some cases of infertility.

Note: Remember how for decades the tobacco industry claimed cigarettes caused no harm even while they were hiding studies which proved the opposite. For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing health news articles from reliable major media sources.


War Gear Flows to Police Departments
2014-06-09, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-police-departments.html

As President Obama ushers in the end of what he called Americas long season of war, the former tools of combat M-16 rifles, grenade launchers, silencers and more are ending up in local police departments, often with little public notice. During the Obama administration, according to Pentagon data, police departments have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft. The equipment has been added to the armories of police departments that already look and act like military units. Police SWAT teams are now deployed tens of thousands of times each year, increasingly for routine jobs. Police departments ... are adding more firepower and military gear than ever. Some, especially in larger cities, have used federal grant money to buy armored cars and other tactical gear. And the free surplus program remains a favorite of many police chiefs who say they could otherwise not afford such equipment. The number of SWAT teams has skyrocketed since the 1980s, according to studies by Peter B. Kraska, an Eastern Kentucky University professor who has been researching the issue for decades. Recruiting videos feature clips of officers storming into homes with smoke grenades and firing automatic weapons. In Springdale, Ark., a police recruiting video is dominated by SWAT clips, including officers throwing a flash grenade into a house and creeping through a field in camouflage.

Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


Missing Malaysia Airlines flight: Oil rig worker Mike McKay loses job after MH370 'fire in the sky' report
2014-06-09, Sydney Morning Herald (One of Australia's leading newspapers)
http://www.smh.com.au/world/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-oil-rig-worker-m...

Reports from an oil rig worker who saw a fire in the sky on the night Malaysia Airlines flight 370 disappeared are being taken seriously, police sources have confirmed. But New Zealander Mike McKay, 55, has lost his job in the circus that developed after his report to authorities was leaked. Mr McKay had been working on the Songa Mercur oil rig in the South China Sea when he saw an orange light on an especially clear night. The object was still in one piece and close to where MH370 first dropped off radar between Malaysia and Vietnam on March 8 with 239 people on board. He emailed his employer and Vietnamese authorities about his sighting, but his statement was leaked, which included his full name, email, passport number, and full details of the company operating the rig. In the ensuing media storm, Mr McKay said the Japanese-based petroleum company, Idemitsu, was flooded with emails and he was taken off the rig. He is now unemployed and disappointed his efforts at reporting potentially vital information turned into such a circus. I was only trying to privately help, he told Fairfax Media during a series of interviews. If it was the aeroplane I saw, then it must have been an external fire. How far would an aeroplane stay in the air after such a fire?

Note: So much strangeness here. Why was this man fired for reporting simply what he saw? And why isn't this getting more media attention? For possible answers, see our essay on media corruption.


Pope Francis hosts Israeli, Palestinian leaders at prayer summit
2014-06-08, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/pope-francis-hosts-israeli-palestinian-le...

Pope Francis brought together the presidents of Israel and the Palestinian Authority ... at the Vatican to join in prayer and promise to seek peace though their governments are officially not talking. Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas concluded the two-hour ceremony by kissing each other on the cheek and then planting an olive tree, gestures intended to signal a commitment to trying to end one of the longest-running, most intractable conflicts in the world. Peacemaking calls for courage, much more so than warfare, Pope Francis said during the gathering, dubbed a prayer summit. Instill in our hearts the courage to take concrete steps to achieve peace. The meeting was historic. The prayer summit was a remarkable show of the new popes intention to mix spiritual matters and real-world diplomacy. Francis was visiting the Holy Land just two weeks ago when he invited the two leaders to come to the Vatican. No one is presumptuous enough to think peace will break out on Monday, the Rev. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, a church official in charge of Catholic sites in the Holy Land, [said]. The intention of this initiative is to reopen a road that has been closed for some time; to re-create a desire, a possibility; to make people dream, he said. During the service, Jewish, Christian and Muslim prayers were recited in English, Italian, Arabic and Hebrew. The words were intended to thank God for His creation, to seek forgiveness for the failure to act as brothers and sisters, and to ask for peace in the Holy Land.

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


Vodafone: governments use secret cables to tap phones
2014-06-06, The Telegraph (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet-security/10880208/Vodafone-gov...

Government agencies are able to listen to phone conversations live and even track the location of citizens without warrants using secret cables connected directly to network equipment, admits Vodafone today. The company said that secret wires have been connected to its network and those belonging to competitors, giving government agencies the ability to tap in to phone and broadband traffic. In many countries this is mandatory for all telecoms companies, it said. Vodafone is today publishing its first Law Enforcement Disclosure Report which will describe exactly how the governments it deals with are eavesdropping on citizens. It is calling for an end to the use of direct access eavesdropping and transparency on the number of warrants issued giving access to private data. Gus Hosein, executive director of Privacy International, said: "Vodafone is taking a commendable step by taking this issue on at an international scale. And they are trying to identify the legal basis for governments' claimed powers. Governments around the world are unashamedly abusing privacy by demanding access to communications and data, and alarmingly, sometimes granting themselves direct access to the networks. Now that Vodafone has been more open, the entire industry has cover to take the necessary next step of pushing back. Pushing back against bad requests is a start, pushing back against bad laws is the next step. The usefulness of transparency reports hinges on governments abiding by the rule of law. We now know that these reports only provide a limited picture of what is going on.

Note: For more on government surveillance of the world's population, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.


Ireland Investigates Alleged Discovery of 800 Babies in Sewer Tank
2014-06-05, NBC News
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/ireland-investigates-alleged-discovery-800-...

Reports that nearly 800 dead babies were discovered in the septic tank of a home run by nuns [have] sparked calls for accountability from government and Catholic Church officials. Some 796 children were secretly buried in the sewage tank of the home in Tuam, County Galway, where unmarried pregnant women were sent to give birth in an attempt to preserve the country's devout Catholic image. The home was run by nuns from the Bon Secours Sisters congregation between 1925 and 1961. People who lived near the home said they have known about the unmarked mass grave for decades, but a fresh investigation was sparked this week after research by local historian Catherine Corless ... showed that of the hundreds of children who died at the home, only one was buried at a cemetery. She also said that health board records from the 1940s said conditions at the home were dire, with children suffering malnutrition and neglect and dying at a rate four times higher than in the rest of Ireland. The claims came to light after Corless obtained death records for the home and cross checked them with local cemetery records. According to Eoin O'Sullivan, associate professor at Trinity College Dublin, "Tuam was a former workhouse and conditions were pretty bleak," said O'Sullivan, co-author of the 2001 book Suffer the Little Children: The inside Story of Ireland's Industrial Schools. "Ireland's first mother and baby home, at Bessborough, in Cork, had an even worse infant mortality rate of around 82 percent: In the year ending March 31, 1944, 124 children were born or admitted there, and 102 died."

Note: For more on institutional abuse of children, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.


Fasting for three days can regenerate entire immune system, study finds
2014-06-05, The Telegraph (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10878625/Fasting-for-three-days-can-re...

Fasting for as little as three days can regenerate the entire immune system, even in the elderly, scientists have found in a breakthrough. Although fasting diets have been criticised by nutritionists for being unhealthy, new research suggests starving the body kick-starts stem cells into producing new white blood cells, which fight off infection. Scientists at the University of Southern California say the discovery could be particularly beneficial for people suffering from damaged immune systems, such as cancer patients on chemotherapy. It could also help the elderly whose immune system becomes less effective as they age, making it harder for them to fight off even common diseases. The researchers say fasting "flips a regenerative switch" which prompts stem cells to create brand new white blood cells, essentially regenerating the entire immune system. "It gives the 'OK' for stem cells to go ahead and begin proliferating and rebuild the entire system," said Prof Valter Longo, Professor of Gerontology and the Biological Sciences at the University of California. "And the good news is that the body got rid of the parts of the system that might be damaged or old, the inefficient parts, during the fasting. Now, if you start with a system heavily damaged by chemotherapy or ageing, fasting cycles can generate, literally, a new immune system." Prolonged fasting forces the body to use stores of glucose and fat but also breaks down a significant portion of white blood cells. During each cycle of fasting, this depletion of white blood cells induces changes that trigger stem cell-based regeneration of new immune system cells.

Note: For a treasure trove of great news articles which will inspire you to make a difference, click here.


The Power of Ambition: Homeless Valedictorian to Attend FSU
2014-06-04, NBC News
http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/power-ambition-homeless-valedictorian-att...

Griffin Furlong is a Florida teenager who knows something about heartaches and joy. The 18-year-old is homeless, but he graduated at the top of his class from Florida Coast High School. Furlong managed to achieve a 4.65 grade point average ... making him the valedictorian. Hell attend Florida State University in the fall. Everyone thinks I try to make good grades because Im smart. Not true, he told his fellow graduates. I perform the way that I do in the classroom because I have everything to lose. Furlongs mother died of leukemia when he was just 6 years old. Soon afterward, Furlong, his father, and older brother lost their home and ended up in homeless shelters. Furlong said he often went to bed hungry and there were times when he wanted to give up. He sought temporary shelter with his girlfriends parents then moved in with an aunt and uncle, who said Furlong had laser-like focus on his school work. He had nothing else but to study," said his aunt, Nancy Nancarrow. He didnt have the things that most children have. He would go to his room when he was home and he studied. That is his entertainment. Were proud of him. Now, [Furlong] says he hopes his story inspires other kids who are also facing hardships. Despite the obstacles I faced, I know that I can actually do something with education. His only wish, he said, is that his mother could see him deliver his speech. Dont dwell on the past, use it as motivation for your future, he told the graduates. Its amazing what you can do with your life when you have motivation, ambition and most importantly, a purpose.

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


How did Alexander Shulgin become known as the Godfather of Ecstasy?
2014-06-03, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.theguardian.com/science/shortcuts/2014/jun/03/alexander-shulgin-ma...

The explosion of dance music culture during the late '80s and early '90s conferred fame on some unlikely people, but few were quite as unlikely as Alexander Shulgin, who died on 2 June at his home in California at the age of 88. He was nearly 70 by the time he became known as the Godfather of Ecstasy, a title that made it sound like he had invented MDMA, which he hadn't: Shulgin had only introduced the drug to west coast psychotherapists in the late 70s. But, he had created more than 200 psychoactive compounds in his home laboratory, tested them all on himself and his wife and written about them in a 1991 book titled Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved. The combination of the book, his association with ecstasy, and that drug's burgeoning popularity made him a hugely celebrated figure. Shulgin thought all drugs should be legalised, but he seemed about as far removed from the bug-eyed psychedelic proselyte of popular myth as it was possible to get. His writing was measured, calm and witty. He did not court the attention of the rave generation. If anything, he seemed faintly exasperated by the way MDMA was being used. "Go banging about with a psychedelic drug for a Saturday night turn-on, and you can get into a really bad place, psychologically," he had warned. Later he was to lament that MDMA had been "sidetracked into the Yahoo generation". None of the drugs Shulgin invented became as famous as the one he didn't. In the late '90s, there was talk that a compound called 2CB was "the new ecstasy" but it never attained the ubiquity of E. Nevertheless, Shulgin's legend was assured.

Note: To see Shulgin's fun and iconoclastic character, watch this fun four-minute video. Explore major media articles showing breakthroughs in therapy from an excellent compilation of news articles on mind altering drugs. And read the personal journey to healing of courageous CNN reporter Amber Lyon using these "medicines."


IMF chief says banks haven't changed since financial crisis
2014-05-27, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/may/27/imf-chief-lagarde-bankers-eth...

The head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, told an audience in London that six years on from the deep financial crisis that engulfed the global economy, banks were resisting reform and still too focused on excessive risk taking to secure their bonuses at the expense of public trust. She said: "The behaviour of the financial sector has not changed fundamentally in a number of dimensions since the crisis. The industry still prizes short-term profit over long-term prudence, today's bonus over tomorrow's relationship. Some prominent firms have even been mired in scandals that violate the most basic ethical norms - Libor and foreign exchange rigging, money laundering, illegal foreclosure." Lagarde warned the too-big-to-fail problem among some of the world's largest financial institutions was still unresolved and remained a major source of systematic risk, with implicit subsidies of $70bn (42bn) in the US, and up to $300bn in the eurozone. Lagarde said international progress to reform the financial system was too slow. Lagarde told [the] conference that rising inequality was also a barrier to growth, and could undermine democracy and human rights. The issue has risen up the agenda in recent months with the publication of the French economist Thomas Piketty's book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. "One of the leading economic stories of our time is rising income inequality, and the dark shadow it casts across the global economy," Lagarde said.

Note: For more on financial corruption, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.


Europe's Secret Success
2014-05-26, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/26/opinion/krugman-europes-secret-success.html

European economies, France in particular, get very bad press in America. Our political discourse is dominated by reverse Robin-Hoodism the belief that economic success depends on being nice to the rich, who wont create jobs if they are heavily taxed, and nasty to ordinary workers, who wont accept jobs unless they have no alternative. And according to this ideology, Europe with its high taxes and generous welfare states does everything wrong. So Europes economic system must be collapsing, and a lot of reporting simply states the postulated collapse as a fact. The reality, however, is very different. Yes, Southern Europe is experiencing an economic crisis thanks to [a money muddle caused by Europe's premature adoption of a single currency]. But Northern European nations, France included, have done far better [than America]. French adults in their prime working years (25 to 54) are substantially more likely to have jobs than their U.S. counterparts. Frances prime-age employment rate overtook Americas early in the Bush administration. Other European nations with big welfare states, like Sweden and the Netherlands, do even better. On the core issue of providing jobs for people who really should be working, at this point old Europe is beating us hands down despite social benefits and regulations that, according to free-market ideologues, should be hugely job-destroying.

Note: For more on the collusion of the US government with financial corporations to maintain their profitability, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.


Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.