Gifford's Shooter and Mental Illness

I think that we can get one thing straight.  This individual was seriously mentally challenged and by any conceivable standard needed custodial care.  If it was been managed by drugs, then custodial care was even more indicated as those drugs are difficult to sustain and going off them is the norm from reports that I have noted.

There is really no grey area with this chap.  He was nuts long before he got his hands on a gun and unloaded it into a crowd around Gifford.  Had Gifford not been there, would we have even heard of this?

This type of mental instability is completely identifiable, unlike recent examples of teenage depression responses that are just as dangerous.  It is inexcusable to provide close monitoring and necessary intervention.

  The rules are simple.  On your meds, you check in daily and off your meds, you join a contemplation retreat to enjoy a drug clear mind.  This allows maximum freedom of action for an afflicted person.  The real miracle is that we can manage it with meds at all.

This is not too great a price to pay in order to both protect society and manage the human resource in a positive manner.

If we are fortunate, some practical good may come out of all this.  In the meantime, my condolences to the affected families caught in this horror.

Giffords shooter shows pattern of psychiatric derangement; no clear political affiliation

Saturday, January 08, 2011

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

Learn more:

http://www.naturalnews.com/030953_Gabrielle_Giffords_shooting.html#ixzz1Aase6diB

http://www.naturalnews.com/030953_Gabrielle_Giffords_shooting.html

(NaturalNews) Of all the senseless acts of violence we've seen over the years, today's shooting at a Gabrielle Giffords public event in Tucson really strikes home. I spent time in the company of "Gabby" Giffords and met many members of her staff during her first run for Congress. I saw her as a "balanced" representative (a former Republican turned Democrat who still, for example, supported Second Amendment rights) who I thought could bring some new energy into Washington, which seems to perpetually suffer from "Good 'Old Boys" syndrome.

That she has been violently attacked by an individual who is obviously mentally deranged is shocking and extremely disturbing. Almost as disturbing is how the mainstream media has latched onto this story as a way to demonize anyone who believes in the U.S. Constitution. The shooting suspect Jared Lee Loughner, is, by any sensible interpretation, mentally deranged. Yes, he mentioned the Constitution among his various ramblings, but he also listed the Communist Manifestoas being among his favorite books. In addition, he released a YouTube video containing unintelligible ramblings of repeated nonsense phrases, including references to the government taking away "grammar," of having a colorful bird on his shoulder, brainwashing and what he called "conscience dreaming."

The utterly false and irresponsible accusation floating around certain circles on the 'net that Loughner was some sort of extreme right winger who targeted a Democrat is extremely irresponsible and hateful. Giffords was pro Second Amendment and publicly supported the right of the People to keep and bear arms. She's actually a gun owner who urged the U.S. Supreme Court to protect Second Amendment rights. She was also a huge supporter ofa stronger border with Mexico, which has traditionally been one of the key positions of Arizona conservatives. Giffords can't be pigeonholed into a label, you see. Her views are far more complex than "Democrat" vs "Republican." She is certainly no "left-wing liberal," and the attack on her doesn't appear to be politically motivated at all (see below).

A pattern of psychiatric intervention?

What's clear from the shooting is that Loughner was gunning for EVERYBODY, not just Giffords. He unloaded multiple rounds (15 - 20 rounds, according to press reports) on anybody and everybody standing nearby: Children, adults, etc.

Does this ring a bell for anyone? A young white male, disillusioned, confused, mentally deranged... and opening fire on innocent people? That's the pattern we saw in the Columbine High School shootings in 1999, and it turned out that the shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, were on psychiatric medications.

In fact, numerous public shootings have been carried out by those who are either on psychiatric medications or who have recently stopped taking them (which can be just as dangerous in the short term). Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold talked about how their world had become like a dream, where they couldn't tell the difference between the dream world and the waking world.Those are now virtually the same words as Jared Lee Loughner who, in his various ramblings, talked about "sleepwalking" during the day and "conscience dreaming [sic]" at other times.

While we have no proof yet that psychiatric drugs are involved here, we do see a very suspicious pattern of mental instability that suggests a likely connection. The sleepwalking behaviors Loughner describes are, in fact, common side effects of psychotropic drugs such as Ambien, which is famous for causing people to actually "sleep drive" into town and suddenly awake in the middle of the road, driving their car in their pajamas, with no knowledge of how they got there

(http://www.naturalnews.com/019413.html).

I must stress that we don't yet know whether Loughner was on sleeping medications or psychiatric drugs, but his behavior fits the pattern of someone who was: The lack of touch with reality, the violent and indiscriminate shooting, and the interweaving of the dream world with the real world. These are red flags of someone who is either suffering from a severe nutritional deficiency that affects brain function (vitamin D, for example, is important for preventing schizophrenia) or someone whose brain has been chemically altered through pharmacological intervention.

The phrase "young white male" should scream out the obvious statistical link to ADHD drugs, by the way. NaturalNews is attempting to determine whether Loughner was previously on psychiatric medications.

What is VERY clear at this point is that Loughner was not of the presence of mind to be rationally affiliated with ANY political party: Not on the left, nor the right. His apparent psychosis takes him way out of the realm of rational participation in any particular philosophy. Even his favorite books listed on his Myspace page adhere to no particularly consistent overriding philosophy. He was, however, fascinated with the question of what is real versus what's just an imaginary dream. He was a fan of Alice in Wonderland, for example, as well as George Orwell's Animal Farm.

Don't be fooled by the MSM coverage of this story

Although there is still much more to emerge from this tragic event, it is clear that this is not some simple story about a disgruntled patriot who wanted to kill a Democrat. In fact, Loughner was no patriot at all: He openly talked about burning the American flag.

Rather, this is really a story about mental illness in America, and the roots of this mental illness are undoubtedly partly found in these elements:

• The chemical contamination of our food and water (fluoride, food additives, etc.)
• Widespread nutritional deficiencies that promote mental illness
• The scourge of the psychiatric drug industry and the widespread drugging of teens and children

... and also, quite possibly:

• The "programming" of young males with extremely violent video games which are now also used in the military to desensitize young adults to the violence of killing. Loughner, by the way, was reportedly a military recruit.

As more facts emerge from this story, we will do our best to cover them here on NaturalNews. I am personally angered by these events as well as the mainstream media's outrageously dishonest attempts to twist this story into some sort of "gun nut" angle, which it most definitely is not.

I am also extremely saddened at the loss of life that occurred today, right in Tucson, virtually right next door to where I used to shop for organic produce at the Whole Foods on Oracle (used to be Wild Oats). That was not a "bad" part of town. That whole section of Tucson is actually the safer part of the town. In many ways, it is the "yuppie" part of town where the wealthier folks lived, with their high-end schools. Loughner attended one of those high schools on the northwest side of Tucson, I've been told. He was not part of the far rougher schools on the South side of that city.

My heart goes out to Giffords, her family, and the other victims of this senseless crime. Most especially to the young child who was reportedly shot, and the federal judge who was reportedly killed. Several Giffords staff members were also harmed or killed (we don't have solid details yet). I can tell you that, from my personal experience, the Giffords staff members are very dedicated, hard-working honest people and none of them deserve this kind of treatment. I may not agree with all the political decisions of Giffords (she voted for Obamacare, for example), but neither do I condone any use of violence to settle such disagreements.

But remember, this was not an act of political activism. This was an act of madness carried out by a mentally deranged individual. I do not believe Giffords' political positions had anything to do with it at all. After all, Loughner shot at all the other people in the crowd, too, and he had no way to know their political views either.

Tucson cops, concealed carry firearms and more

There is a report that one individual in the crowd was carrying a concealed firearm and managed to bring it to bear in an effort to stop Loughner from committing further violence. This may have been a lifesaving action. Many people in Arizona carry concealed firearms legally, acting as a sort of "citizens response team" to prevent such violence from taking place. In fact, the Tucson police department, for which I helped raise thousands of dollars as part of my non-profit volunteerism there, is desperately short on cash and actually recruits citizens to help law enforcement do their jobs more effectively there.

I will write more about the dynamics of this, and the Tucson police force, in follow-up articles right here on NaturalNews. As someone who used to attend law enforcement meetings in Tucson, I know many of the high-ranking police officials on a personal basis, and I know them to be some of the most dedicated local law enforcement professionals I've ever met. Watch NaturalNews for more follow-up reports as we attempt to dig into this story and find out what could have possibly led to such an act of senseless violence.

We will also take part in any fundraising efforts that get organized to help the victims of this shooting. But the most important thing we can do right now is try to get to the bottom of what's behind this shooting and then take action to prevent such a terrible act of violence from occurring again.

Learn more:

http://www.naturalnews.com/030953_Gabrielle_Giffords_shooting.html#ixzz1AasR0UEl

7 Billion this Year

Without question we are conducting a massive experiment in population dynamics and it will be interesting to observe how it all plays out over the next two generations.  After that, we will have a lot of interesting answers to today’s questions.

I now think that Earth’s population can readily reach thirty billion and with a number of significant improvements in agricultural potential we have already discussed, it could go up to one hundred billion, while sustaining a vibrant wild.

For now we can take seven billion.

2011: The year we’ll hit 7 billion 

BY Lisa Hymas

31 DEC 2010

http://www.grist.org/article/2011-01-01-year-we-hit-7-billion-population

Sometime in the latter half of this year, the world population will hit a new milestone: 7 billion people. Already? Didn't we just hit 6 billion? Yep, a mere dozen years ago -- and that's probably the last time you heard much about population. It takes a big, round number with lots of zeroes to get MSMattention.

So in 2011, expect to hear the P word a lot more than you did in 2010, and a lot more than you will in 2012. National Geographic is kicking off the action with a cover story and photo essay.

It's projected to take us slightly longer to get to the next big, round number with lots of zeroes -- 14 years instead of 12. While the total number of people on the planet is still growing fast, the nature and speed of that growth has been changing dramatically. This Economist video gives you great visual overview of the trends. (Is it just me or does that graphic look like a packet of birth-control pills?)

Even as we're adding people, we're also dramatically changing the demographic composition of entire societies, and creating different kinds of problems along the way -- like the challenge of aging populationsin many developed countries. Bryan Walsh of Time suggests that immigration could be one solution:

[H]ere's the planet we could have in 2050: an overpopulated, overstressed developing world and an aging, economically stagnant developed world, with inequality even larger than it is today. Is there any way to escape that fate? While development and education will be incredibly important (especially for women -- literacy is one of the best ways to reduce fertility), the answer may end up being immigration. Think about it -- in the future the developed world will lack young workers, and the developing world will have an excess of that resource. Immigration could be a way to balance demographics and economics -- alleviating population pressure in the poorer parts of the world while jump starting aging developed nations. The U.S. already does this -- immigration will providemost of American population growth. It would be a radical solution, given the political resistance to increased immigration in much of the rich world. (If you think it's a hot topic in the U.S., try Japan, which steadfastly resists assimilating foreigners, despite the dire threat posed by an aging population.) But it might be the only way to save our overpopulated planet.

So much juicy stuff to talk about this year.

UPDATE: I had included here a big graphic about population growth, but a reader pointed out that at least some of the info in the graphic was incorrect, so I've removed it. Here instead is a National Geographicvideo that accompanies the magazine's cover story on population:

US Bee Populations in Freefall

This item informs us that we have lost an astounding 96% of the bumble bee population.  The quoted causation is at best rubbish except for the use of pesticides.

We already know that Bayer’s corn seed pesticide is disastrous and implies a particularly damaging pathway for all bees.  Effectively, the pollen collected on and by the bees act as a pesticide collector to produce a cumulative load that eventually concentrates with the queen to kill her.  This is a purely mechanical problem that could never have been predicted and plausibly acts over a wide range of pesticides and has simply never been understood in this way before.

Thus a pesticide naturally safe at low dosages turns into a hive destroying cancer that eventually kills the queen.

In fact the characteristics of a colony collapse syndrome (CCS) conform to the sudden demise of the Queen and its sister larvae (who are all fed pollen).

The populations can recover very quickly and we will still have plenty of refugia out there.

Yet this can only begin with a complete review of all pesticide protocols for any sign of cumulative toxicity in the food provided to queens.

Bees in freefall as study shows sharp US decline

From the Guardian Jan 4, 2011

http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/news/44696

The abundance of four common species of bumblebee in the US has dropped by 96% in just the past few decades, according to the most comprehensive national census of the insects. Scientists said the alarming decline, which could have devastating implications for the pollination of both wild and farmed plants, was likely to be a result of disease and low genetic diversity in bee populations.

Bumblebees are important pollinators of wild plants and agricultural crops around the world including tomatoes and berries thanks to their large body size, long tongues, and high-frequency buzzing, which helps release pollen from flowers.

Bees in general pollinate some 90% of the world's commercial plants, including most fruits, vegetables and nuts. Coffee, soya beans and cotton are all dependent on pollination by bees to increase yields. It is the start of a food chain that also sustains wild birds and animals.

But the insects, along with other crucial pollinators such as moths and hoverflies, have been in serious decline around the world since the last few decades of the 20th century. It is unclear why, but scientists think it is from a combination of new diseases, changing habitats around cities, and increasing use of pesticides.

Sydney Cameron, an entomologist at the University of Illinois, led a team on a three-year study of the changing distribution, genetic diversity and pathogens in eight species of bumblebees in the US.

By comparing her results with those in museum records of bee populations, she showed that the relative abundance of four of the sampled species (Bombus occidentalis, B. pensylvanicus, B. affinis and B. terricola) had declined by up to 96% and that their geographic ranges had contracted by 23% to 87%, some within just the past two decades.

Cameron's findings reflect similar studies across the world. According to the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in the UK, three of the 25 British species of bumblebee are already extinct and half of the remainder have shown serious declines, often up to 70%, since around the 1970s. Last year, scientists inaugurated a £10m programme, called the Insect Pollinators Initiative, to look at the reasons behind the devastation in the insect population.

Cameron's team also showed that declining species of bee had higher infection levels of a pathogen called Nosema bombi and lower genetic diversity compared with the four species of bee that were not in decline – B. bifarius, B. vosnesenskii, B. impatiens and B. bimaculatus.

The N. bombi pathogen is commonly found in bumblebees throughout Europe but until now has been largely unstudied in North America. The infection reduces the lifespans of individual bees and also results in smaller colony sizes.

The reduction in genetic diversity seen in the declining bees means that they are less able to fight off any new pathogens or resist pollution or predators. "Higher pathogen prevalence and reduced genetic diversity are, thus, realistic predictors of these alarming patterns of decline in north America, although cause and effect remain uncertain," Cameron wrote today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Insects such as bees, moths and hoverflies pollinate around a third of the crops grown worldwide. If all of the UK's insect pollinators were wiped out, the drop in crop production would cost the UK economy up to £440m a year, equivalent to around 13% of the UK's income from farming.

The collapse in the global bee population is a major threat to crops. It is estimated that a third of everything we eat depends upon pollination by bees, which means they contribute some £26bn to the global economy.

Other identified causes of bee decline include parasites such as the bloodsucking varroa mite and viral and bacterial infections, pesticides and poor nutrition stemming from intensive farming methods.

"Pollinator decline has become a worldwide issue, raising increasing concerns over impacts on global food production, stability of pollination services, and disruption of plant-pollinator networks," wrote Cameron. "In accordance with the goals of the United Nations convention on biological diversity to reduce the rate of species loss by 2010, such efforts to elucidate the causes and ecological impacts of bumble bee decline, in co-ordination with informed conservation strategies, will go a long way to mitigating further losses."

Can ET And Christmas Co-exist?

Until ET decides to talk with us and share the insights of other lifeforms, we are stuck with our own purportedly received insights.  Maybe those are important.

In the meantime, we can have delightful hypothetical discussions such as the following article and book pitch.

Otherwise, Christianity as known served to rescue Western civilization from a continuing treadmill of institutionalized barbarism one painful step at a time.  Those values, however masked, are now doing the same everywhere else.  Was that the whole purpose?

All I am sure of is that I am not going to the coliseum to witness and cheer blood sports with real casualties.  Nor am I keeping slaves to prove my importance.  All that took two thousand years to accomplish and we have now reached a state that we can almost look in ET’s eye and not be trembling in guilt.

I do think these thoughts are now timely.

Can ET And Christmas Co-exist?

December 22, 2010

http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2010/12/22/132232192/can-et-and-christmas-co-exist

by ROBERT KRULWICH

Imagine there's intelligent life somewhere out in the universe. Then think about the message of Christmas.

The essential Christmas story is that Christ came in human form to live among us on Earth to save all sinners here. What if there are intelligent beings out "there?" Do they have Christmas too?

If the question sounds silly, some people take it very seriously.

In a soon-to-be published book, First Contact, The Washington Post's Marc Kaufman quotes Gary Bates, the head of Creation Ministries in Atlanta, who says he is deeply uncomfortable with the notion of extraterrestrial life.

"My theological perspective is that ET life would actually make a mockery of the very reason Christ came to die for our sins, for our redemption," he told [Kaufman]. Bates believes that "the entire focus of creation is mankind on this Earth" and that intelligent, morally aware extraterrestrial life would undermine that view and belief in the incarnation, resurrection and redemption drama so central to the faith. "It is a huge problem that many Christians have not really thought about."

Oh, but they have. And not only Christians.

There could be other beings, also intelligent, created by God.

-         Jesuit astronomer Jose Gabriel Funes

Epicurus, long, long ago, proposed that life exists on other celestial bodies. Aristotle proposed the opposite: that life is here and nowhere else. Aristotle's view was taken up by the Church. In 1600, philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for, among other things, believing in a "plurality of world," so this question is old, contentious and sometimes dangerous.

But doctrines can change. A statue of Giordano Bruno now stands in Rome, near the Vatican. Two years ago, the director of the Vatican Observatory matter-of-factly referred to potential life in the universe as our "extraterrestrial brothers."

"As a multiplicity of creatures exists on Earth, so there could be other beings, also intelligent, created by God."  said Jesuit astronomer Jose Gabriel Funes. "This does not conflict with our faith because we cannot put limits on the creative freedom of God."

That remark got a lot of attention, from, among others, the always alert TV comedian Stephen Colbert (himself a Catholic) who invited a Vatican astronomer from Arizona, Brother Guy Consolmagno, to come on the show.

Brother Guy, (previously trained as a physicist at MIT) told Colbert that the Church has always recognized extraterrestrials, beings with wings who live in a zone that is near but not of Earth. They are called "angels."  "The whole mythology of angels in the Jewish and Christian tradition shows that the Church, the religious people, the people that wrote the bible, were not afraid of other intelligent creatures who are also worshipping God," Guy said.

Colbert, speaking tongue-in-cheek but for many in his audience, wondered "Doesn't this upset our place at the center of God's creation?"  Quoting the catechism, about how Jesus was "born of the Virgin Mary and became man," he wondered if other intelligent communities have their own saviors, also sent by God, and if it turns out there are multiple Christmas stories, doesn't that somehow diminish our own?

I know Colbert is a comedian, not a theologian, but he's obviously smart, sensitive and maybe even a believer. More important, he knows how to press a point. Though he pushed Brother Guy pretty hard, the physicist-turned-monk seemed very comfortable with the idea of extraterrestrial Christmases.

When Colbert went all the way and asked could there be different saviors on different planets across the universe, to the audience's astonishment, Brother Consolmagno didn't  object. Instead he smiled and said, "I'm not there, I haven't found out.'

So that's the question: What happens to Christmas when there are not one, but two, three or 40,000 civilizations across the universe?  Can the baby Jesus and ET share the holiday? No, says Gary Bates. Yes, says Brother Guy. This is not a real question yet, because the only intelligent life we know is here. But if that changes, will Christmas change too?

---

Marc Kaufman's new book, First Contact: Scientific Breakthroughs in the Hunt for Life Beyond Earth (Simon and Schuster), will be published in April, 2011. Brother Guy Consolmagno's book on astronomy is called The Heavens Proclaim, Astronomy and the Vatican. Stephen Colbert's conversation with Brother Guy Consolmagno — based on an article Marc wrote in the Washington Post, can be seen here. My own contribution to this theological discussion, a Christmas cartoon fable called Santa and the Space Nicks describes an intergalactic gathering of Santa Clauses.

Autism Fraud

In the end it was fraud.  A scientific fiction was perpetrated against society and vigorously promoted producing uncounted individuals who modified their behavior at some danger to themselves and to others.

I have always been generally dismissive of the autism claim, not because I actually looked at the science, but the science claimed was at best a likely statistical fluke rather than a real effect and would take huge expense to eliminate.  Besides, where was the biological logic behind these claims?

It really was a stretch.

My own interest came from working at one time with autistic children and knowing enough to be skeptical of a simple causation.  The best suspect is a prenatal developmental issue that the growing brain is unable to correct naturally.  The genesis is unknown and it strikes across the population.

Retracted autism study an 'elaborate fraud,' British journal finds

By the CNN Wire Staff

January 5, 2011 8:14 p.m. EST

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/05/autism.vaccines/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

NEW: Dr. Andrew Wakefield says his work has been "grossly distorted"

British journal BMJ accuses Wakefield of faking data for his 1998 paper

"The damage to public health continues" as a result of the autism-vaccine claim

The study was retracted and Wakefield lost his license in 2010

Editor's note: Watch Anderson Cooper's interview with the author of the discredited study, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, on "AC360°" at 10 p.m. ET tonight.

(CNN) -- A now-retracted British study that linked autism to childhood vaccines was an "elaborate fraud" that has done long-lasting damage to public health, a leading medical publication reported Wednesday.

An investigation published by the British medical journal BMJ concludes the study's author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study -- and that there was "no doubt" Wakefield was responsible.

"It's one thing to have a bad study, a study full of error, and for the authors then to admit that they made errors," Fiona Godlee, BMJ's editor-in-chief, told CNN. "But in this case, we have a very different picture of what seems to be a deliberate attempt to create an impression that there was a link by falsifying the data."

Britain stripped Wakefield of his medical license in May. "Meanwhile, the damage to public health continues, fueled by unbalanced media reporting and an ineffective response from government, researchers, journals and the medical profession," BMJ states in an editorial accompanying the work.

plainer: Autism and vaccines

Speaking to CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360," Wakefield said his work has been "grossly distorted" and that he was the target of "a ruthless, pragmatic attempt to crush any attempt to investigate valid vaccine safety concerns."

The now-discredited paper panicked many parents and led to a sharp drop in the number of children getting the vaccine that prevents measles, mumps and rubella. Vaccination rates dropped sharply in Britain after its publication, falling as low as 80% by 2004. Measles cases have gone up sharply in the ensuing years.

In the United States, more cases of measles were reported in 2008 than in any other year since 1997, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 90% of those infected had not been vaccinated or their vaccination status was unknown, the CDC reported.

"But perhaps as important as the scare's effect on infectious disease is the energy, emotion and money that have been diverted away from efforts to understand the real causes of autism and how to help children and families who live with it," the BMJ editorial states.

Wakefield has been unable to reproduce his results in the face of criticism, and other researchers have been unable to match them. Most of his co-authors withdrew their names from the study in 2004 after learning he had had been paid by a law firm that intended to sue vaccine manufacturers -- a serious conflict of interest he failed to disclose. After years on controversy, the Lancet, the prestigious journal that originally published the research, retracted Wakefield's paper last February.

The series of articles launched Wednesday are investigative journalism, not results of a clinical study. The writer, Brian Deer, said Wakefield "chiseled" the data before him, "falsifying medical histories of children and essentially concocting a picture, which was the picture he was contracted to find by lawyers hoping to sue vaccine manufacturers and to create a vaccine scare."

According to BMJ, Wakefield received more than 435,000 pounds ($674,000) from the lawyers. Godlee said the study shows that of the 12 cases Wakefield examined in his paper, five showed developmental problems before receiving the MMR vaccine and three never had autism.

"It's always hard to explain fraud and where it affects people to lie in science," Godlee said. "But it does seem a financial motive was underlying this, both in terms of payments by lawyers and through legal aid grants that he received but also through financial schemes that he hoped would benefit him through diagnostic and other tests for autism and MMR-related issues."

But Wakefield told CNN that claims of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism "came from the parents, not me," and that his paper had "nothing to do with the litigation."

"These children were seen on the basis of their clinical symptoms, for their clinical need, and they were seen by expert clinicians and their disease diagnosed by them, not by me," he said.

Wakefield dismissed Deer as "a hit man who has been brought into take me down" by pharmaceutical interests. Deer has signed a disclosure form stating that he has no financial interest in the business.

Dr. Max Wiznitzer, a pediatric neurologist at Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital in Cleveland, said the reporting "represents Wakefield as a person where the ends justified the means." But he said the latest news may have little effect on those families who still blame vaccines for their children's conditions.

"Unfortunately, his core group of supporters is not going to let the facts dissuade their beliefs that MMR causes autism," Wiznitzer said. "They need to be open-minded and examine the information as everybody else."

Wakefield's defenders include David Kirby, a journalist who has written extensively on autism. He told CNN that Wakefield not only has denied falsifying data, he has said he had no way to do so.

"I have known him for a number of years. He does not strike me as a charlatan or a liar," Kirby said. If the BMJ allegations are true, then Wakefield "did a terrible thing" -- but he added, "I personally find it hard to believe that he did that."

Karpen's Pile Operates for Sixty Years

Read this.  First of all, the cathode and anode are two metals that I reasonably assume do not contribute free ions into the near purity sulphuric acid.  I assume that the acid is sealed off from the environment.  Thus we can assume that the acid collects a surplus of electrons from the environment that are then released by the work produced.

The container may be and surely must be an insulator but still has sufficient electron leakage to build up a charge.  The remaining question is how direction of electron flow may be established.  At worst we have the Earth’s magnetic field.

This protocol deserves to be worked on and replicated.  A simple coil could direct the produced electron surplus to give serious work.

I must say that concentrating electrons in an insulated pile is a novel idea and may be vastly more efficient than any would guess from this demonstration.  The next question is to discover how it varies with level of insulation or access to ground.

A battery operates continuously in Romanian museum since 1950

by Terrence Aym

http://www.helium.com/items/2058640-a-battery-operates-continuously-in-romanian-museum-since-1950?page=2

For more than three centuries inventors—usually crackpots—have sought the elusive fantasy of a perpetual motion machine.

Now investigators of an amazing object stuck in the dusty corners of an obscure Romanian museum may have found the next best thing: a perpetual battery.

Whether a battery that has operated continuously since 1950 without a recharge can be termed perpetual may be open to debate, yet the fact remains that the remarkable device has never ceased working and doesn't look like it's about to give up the ghost anytime soon.

The battery that's been pumping out electricity faithfully for 60 years was built by Vasile Karpen.

Karpen's Pile

The director of the Dimitrie Leonida National Technical Museum in Romania,Nicolae Diaconescu, when interviewed about the battery by the Romanian newspaper, ZIUA (The Day) said, "I admit it's also hard for me to advance the idea of an overunity generator without sounding ridiculous, even if the object exists."

That the battery—called "Karpen's Pile"—exists is indisputable.

 

When Karpen built the battery he claimed it would function forever. Although decades ago engineers and physicists that studied it believed it would stop working soon it never has stopped.

Those engineers and physicists are now long dead, but the amazing "perpetual" battery keeps humming along.

Patented in 1922, most scientists that have studied it over the ensuing decades cannot fathom exactly how or why it works. 

The Karpen's pile that sits in the director's office at the museum was a prototype built to Karpen's specifications. It has two series-connected electric piles that move a small galvanometric motor. That motor spins a blade that's connected to a switch. Every half rotation the blade opens and then closes the circuit during the second half of the rotation.

According to some engineers that have analyzed the ingenious device, the blade's rotation is exactly timed to allow the piles to recharge themselves and re-establish their polarity before the next rotation of the blade.

ZIUA also reported that a measurement of the current established a steady one volt output—exactly the same as when the battery was first activated in 1950.

During the interview with the newspaper, Diaconescu added that "unlike the lessons they teach you in the 7th grade physics class, the 'Karpen's Pile' has one of its electrodes made of gold, the other of platinum, and the electrolyte (the liquid that the two electrodes are immersed in), is high-purity sulfuric acid."

The museum director also asserted the battery could be made larger to produce more power.

"The French showed themselves very interested by this patrimonial object in the 70s," Diaconescu said, "and wanted to take it. Our museum has been able to keep it, though. As time passed, the fact that the battery doesn't stop producing energy is more and more clear, giving birth to the legend of a perpetual motion machine."

Recently, some leading European electrical engineers proposed that the device creates power by converting heat into mechanical energy. Diaconescu doesn't agree.

The fascination over Karpen's Pile is fed by the possible physics behind it. Some who have studied the theory Karpen created explaining the functionality of his battery believe the engineer's device violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Others scoff at that, but then go on to argue that it may well be an application of the physics inherent in drawing power from the theoretical "Zero Point," thus making it a Zero Point Energy device.

Whatever the cause, understanding the driving principle underlying Karpen's Pile might revolutionize both physics and the search for alternative energy sources.

And it certainly puts to shame the Energizer Bunny.

Peak Oil Again

This is of course a tout on oil stocks, but the message is important.  Present demand and production is now in balance at levels that are the same as two years ago.  This blog has reported on the many replacement efforts and the revolution now taking place in oil development.  We actually will be able to produce several times what has been produced to date at the present pricing regime.  It will still take a massive investment which is certainly happening.

More disturbing is that the global economy is now notching into new high ground and there may be no slack to handle sudden production shocks.  Anyone who wishes to identify a real black swan that will hurt, this is the present vulnerability that is ready to really bite us.

I am optimistic today that the petro fracking revolution will soon solve all that much quicker than anyone expects.  My sense is that we need to get through only the next three years to feel much more secure.

The flip side for the oil business is that no one wants to pay these prices even if we are doing it all inside North America.  Oil is simply a very expensive fuel today.  It is so expensive, that most alternatives are close to viability and are attracting huge investor attention.

And the breakthroughs are happening all around us.  North America is shortly going to embark on a fossil fuel free energy system expansion simply because the present regime cannot do the big job of full electrification of transport.

We Just Hit Peak Production

By Christian A. DeHaemer | Friday, January 7th, 2011

This is as clear a picture as you are likely to find regarding the price of liquid energy including oil...

http://images.angelpub.com/2011/01/7023/1711_eacchart.png

Right now, the world is producing as much liquid energy as it ever has before.

Part of this is due to an increase in liquid natural gas and biofuels, but the majority is from oil.

The last time the planet was producing this much oil, the price of oil was at an all time high of $147...

(You could make the argument that the price was due to hedge fund speculation driving it higher.)

OPEC’s reserve

It should also be noted that non-OPEC fuel production has made up the majority of the increase, which leaves OPEC with some room to run.

That said, it seems like a good bet that the increase in global GDP for 2011 — coupled with the destruction of all major currencies — will continue to drive up the price of oil and gasoline.

Morgan Stanley’s economists have put out a bullish analysis:

… our U.S. economists' 2011 GDP forecast to 3.6% from 2.9%. They also see a modest uptick in inflation to 2.1%, from 1.7% in 2010. A key pillar in this improving growth outlook is exports.

In October, exports surged 3.2% over September, and should contribute 3.2% of the 4.2% GDP growth in 4Q10. Looking forward, the strong growth in EM bodes well for U.S. growth, as it accounts for an increasingly large share of U.S. export, a reflection of global rebalancing.

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Head out on the highway

So-called emerging markets — those countries that are developing at a fast pace like China, Indonesia, India, Chile, Israel, and Brazil, among others — have bounced back from their global recession much more quickly than the highly indebted Europe and the United States.

And these countries need a constant expansion of energy to fuel their growth.

China, who recently took the number one slot in auto sales from the United States, is also the world's leading energy consumer.

http://images.angelpub.com/2011/01/7016/china-energy-demand.gif

Chinese oil drill

I’m sure you’ve heard that China is expected to be the world’s largest auto market in 2011 with sales increasing 15 percent, usurping the United States in sales for the third year in a row...

But did you know that Brazil has eclipsed Germany in car sales? Or that Russia is the fastest growing car market in Europe?

A major investment theme of the past ten years is China's seeking out oil and energy around the globe.

The country recently gave Venezuela $40 billion to fund oil infrastructure projects. 

In another example, the Middle Kingdom recently became the world’s fourth largest offshore energy prouder — a task that requires a high degree of technical skill.

Putting oil in the tank

But China is further adding to the demand side by building its strategic petroleum reserve as a buffer against supply disruptions. The Chinese plan to go from 103 million barrels in holding tanks to 500 million barrels over the next few years. 

If they suck up just one third of it this year, that will equal 10% of the IEA’s forecasted increase in oil consumption.

Some prognosticators have done the math and claim that this will at $6.50 to every barrel of oil sold in 2011.

The upshot of this is that oil prices are going up this year, based on high emerging market car sales, global recovery, and China buying 397 million barrels to fill its reserve.

The best way to play this is to buy junior oil companies. 

The last time oil went from $90 to $147 a barrel... these companies went up 1000%.

Not only will he let it happen... He will help it along.

Until then,

Christian DeHaemer
Editor, Energy & Capital

North Magnetic Pole at 55 kpy

This is one more attempt at explaining the nature of the Earth’s magnetic field.  The presumption is that a deep plume moving slowly will twist and distort the magnetic field.

How such movements may be produced in the high pressure and heat of the deep mantle escapes me or even to describe a motive force that would not be reflected in massive surface movements which are clearly missing.

Besides a mapping of the Earth’s magnetic field fails to conform to the implied internal geometry.  We instead get a clear lack of symmetry and shifts back and forth over the Earth’s surface.

I have made the conjecture of a thin layer at the appropriate transition zone around a hundred miles deep at least and plausibly much deeper consisting of a hundred meters or more of molten carbon having a near zero viscosity.  This is particularly evidenced by diamond pipes that rocket to the surface at close to seventy miles per hour according to sources.

Such a layer provides a guide for powerful electron flows able to produce the necessary magnetic fields that we encounter.  It also provides for the necessary mobility we also observe in the time frames presented.  Just as obviously, such a layer easily allows pole reversal already known but not explained in any way that is not nonsense.

The level of movement presently observed is also confirmed in the geological record.  It is our good fortune to see it sped up.

Why is the north magnetic pole racing toward Siberia?

By John Matson | Dec 24, 2010

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=why-is-the-north-magnetic-pole-raci-2010-12-24

Finding Santa Claus's home at the North Pole is easy on a globe—just look for the point on top where all the lines of longitude meet. But that is just the "geographic" North Pole; there are several other definitions for the poles, all useful in different scientific or navigational contexts. Among the many north poles, let us rejoice that Santa Claus did not choose the magnetic pole for his home, for he would have to spend as much time moving as delivering presents. 

The north magnetic pole (NMP), also known as the dip pole, is the point on Earth where the planet's magnetic field points straight down into the ground. Scottish explorer James Clark Ross first located the NMP in 1831 on the Boothia Peninsula in what is now northern Canada, and with the planting of a flag claimed it for Great Britain. 

But the NMP drifts from year to year as geophysical processes within Earth change. For more than 150 years after Ross's measurement its movement was gradual, generally less than 15 kilometers per year. But then, in the 1990s, it picked up speed in a big way, bolting north–northwest into the Arctic Ocean at more than 55 kilometers per year. If it keeps going it could pass the geographic north pole in a decade or so and carry on toward Siberia. But why?

One compelling explanation appears in the December 21 Eos, the weekly transactions of the American Geophysical Union. In their Eos article (subscription required), and in a longer paper published earlier in 2010 in the Journal of Geophysical Research–Solid Earth, Arnaud Chulliat of the Institute of Earth Physics of Paris and his colleagues venture that a twisting molten plume beneath the Artic could be the cause:

 According to some recent models, plumes of less dense fluid form at the inner core boundary and subsequently rise within [a cylinder] whose central axis is the Earth’s rotation axis. Such plumes undergo a strong helical motion due to the Earth’s rapid rotation, a phenomenon also observed in laboratory experiments with water. In the core, helical plumes advect and twist the magnetic field lines, forming what scientists call "polar magnetic upwellings." 

Those upwellings, unloaded into the Arctic mantle, could produce intense patches of magnetic activity on the sort of decade-long timescales needed to explain the NMP's sudden acceleration. (The authors compare these patches to a kind of terrestrial version of sunspots.) And magnetic field measurements show dramatic shifts near the New Siberian Islands that seem to fit the bill.

"What happened under the New Siberian Islands at the core surface is that the rate of change of the magnetic field changed by a large amount during the 1990s," Chulliat says. That activity, he and his colleagues have found, could account for a large portion of the NMP's acceleration. But whether magnetic field changes under the New Siberian Islands and the speeding north magnetic pole ultimately arise from a twisted plume of fluid rising through the core remains unproved, Chulliat and his co-authors note. A resolution of the mystery will await better modeling, along with more data from satellites monitoring the Arctic's magnetic environment. The necessity of satellites, interestingly enough, is a consequence of the pole's recent movement—as the NMP drifts farther out to sea, it becomes harder and harder to reach the region with magnetometer-equipped aircraft.