Living Large in Small Houses

Per foot price pressure is forcing innovation on housing everywhere. This item shows us a little of the evolution taking place and much more needs to be done.

Every person needs access to a water service, a power service, a sewage service, a food service all of which can be delivered cheap enough. After that it is about a sleeping system and a work station and some extra room in which to swing the cat. Toss out the land budget and it is all modest. The real creativity comes in designing effective storage.

Every other need can be part of a shared environment because they normally call for social access anyway. Some will challenge the need for internalized food handling and other aspects, but I think the need for a private space should never be compromised and it happens to be cheap enough.

This all works best for a couple and two work spaces and singles usually want that option also.

It has all been worked around for years, but key is to produce a quality experience or it will simply fail.

Living large in small houses

By Alyse Nelson

Cross-posted from Sightline Daily

Nicholas BoullosaA Jay Shafer tiny home.

http://grist.org/living/living-large-in-small-houses/

My husband and I think we’ve found a way to pay off our mortgage early, without taking on an extra job or working nights. We’ve decided to construct a rental unit — a “mother-in-law suite” — within our home. If it pans out as we hope, the rental income will let us pay off our loan 10 years early. And who knows: It could give us a chance to live closer to family as we, or they, get on in years.

Jason and I are not alone; lots of folks across the country are experimenting with adding a second (or third) dwelling to an existing single-family home. And in perhaps the most interesting development, more and more people are choosing to buck the “bigger is better” trend in North American housing.

They’re taking small spaces — backyards, side lots, or freestanding garages — and using them to build tiny houses.

Ranging from 800 square feet to less than 100 square feet — a far cry from the 1,000 square feet per person that has become the North American norm — these “doll houses” take many shapes and sizes. And the people who live in them are as diverse as the homes themselves. Some hope to save money on housing; others hope to “live green” by choosing a smaller space; some are trading living space for a neighborhood they love; and others want to live closer to family or friends.

Here are some of their stories.

Jay Shafer, a founding father of the tiny home movement and a co-owner of the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, told the BBC: “People are thinking more about what really is a luxury now. Is it a 30-year mortgage, or is it just living simply and having the time to do more of what you want? And I think a lot of people are starting to really change their idea of the American Dream.”

Dee Williams decided to rethink her American Dream after building a school in Guatemala and having a close friend get cancer made her reevaluate her priorities. “He was getting sicker and sicker, and I didn’t have the time or the money to really throw myself into helping him. I was spending a lot of time and money on my house. So the house was the easiest thing to try to get rid of,” Williams told Yes! magazine. So she sold her 1,500-square-foot Portland home and built an 84-square-foot tiny home for $10,000. Now she lives without a mortgage, giving her the time and money to invest in her friends and community.

Akua Schatz and Brendon Purdy’s dream was to live near relatives, but they couldn’t afford a home in Vancouver, B.C.’s Dunbar neighborhood. Instead of moving to the suburbs, they decided to build a 500-square-foot laneway home in Purdy’s parents’ backyard. In a city where the average home price is $725,086, Schatz and Purdy spent $280,000 to build their home.

There’s another plus to their backyard home: Schatz and Purdy have babysitters just feet away from their front door. “It’s really a North American concept to have success tied to moving away or distancing yourself, so maybe we’re reinventing what it means to be successful, and that means keeping family close,” Schatz suggests in this video from CTV news.

But unlike Schatz and Purdy, who plan to eventually switch places with Purdy’s parents and live in the larger home as their family grows, Jon and Ryah Dietzen moved from their 1,500-square-foot home to a 400-square-foot cottage with two toddlers. They made the move for its financial freedom, but the benefits didn’t stop there. “We realized after a few months how much time, freedom, and peace we were gaining by not collecting and spending our time taking care of more ‘stuff,’” Jon Dietzen told me. By choosing a smaller house, they found a better balance between work and home life.

Small homes combat neighborhood decline brought on by shrinking household sizes. Adding people can revitalize a neighborhood, allowing schools to stay open, giving neighborhood businesses more customers, making transit service cost-effective, and saving on infrastructure costs. Infilling neighborhoods with backyard cottages helps add more people to a neighborhood, without altering its character.

As homeowners build small dwellings, they provide lower-cost housing within the existing fabric of their neighborhood, with no government support necessary. Vancouver’s planning director, Brent Toderian, sees this as the essential value of the trend towards small homes: “[It’s] about ordinary people. Thousands of individual homeowners can do it, one by one by one. It’s publicly propelled, not corporate-propelled, densification. It’s gradual. It’s discreet. It’s green.”

Now that many cities have figured out backyard cottage rules, they face a new challenge: dealing with homes even tinier than the typical accessory dwelling. Some cities’ regulations set minimum size requirements for dwellings. Others say a recreational vehicle can’t count as an accessory dwelling unit, which means “you can camp in your little house, but not live in it,” writes Dee Williams. Tiny houser Lina Menard suggests that “people should have the right to a tiny house as long as it accommodates their needs and desires.” But for people to exercise that right, cities will have to rethink the zoning rules that stand in the way of tiny homes.

After a year in a 120-square-foot tiny home, Menard has a good idea of how to live well in a small space. “I think one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that I’m much happier when I live with just the things I like best. My relationship to stuff has shifted dramatically over the past year and a half. I’m much less materialistic than I used to be. But I really appreciate the little touches, too. It’s not about deprivation, but about intention,” Menard told me.

She recognizes that tiny-home living isn’t for everyone, but thinks there’s a way to broaden its appeal: the “cohousing” model, where tiny homes would be coupled with shared kitchens, laundry facilities, guest rooms, and even amenities like barbeques, workshops, and gardens. “Tiny cohousing would just push the envelope,” Menard writes in her blog. “People who lived in a tiny house community would have access to all these things, but they wouldn’t have to own all these things themselves,” Menard explains.

Eli Spevak, owner of Orange Splot, LLC, has developed several innovative housing projects in Portland. “My goal is to keep modeling new ways of providing affordable, community-oriented houses,” Spevak told The Oregonian.

The Sabin Green cohousing community brings Spevak’s goals to fruition. Sabin Green includes four homes, built on a 75-by-100-foot lot. The lot had a single-family home and detached garage. The single-family home remains, but the detached garage was converted into a 600-square-foot cottage. A second home and a 600-square-foot accessory dwelling were built as well. The four homes face onto a central courtyard, but they also have access to shared gardens, a community room with space for visitors, and a bike storage shed. The sharing doesn’t stop with physical improvements: Residents also use just one internet service, share a newspaper subscription, and meet for weekly dinners.

Eli Spevak Sabin Green before its transformation. The new view from the street.

The project is home to a diverse group, including a young couple, retirees, a single woman, and a small family. Residents Laura Ford and Josh Devine paid just under $150,000 for their 530-square-foot home. They downsized from a 700-square-foot apartment, but see the loss of square footage as worth the cost. “If you live by yourself, you might not be able to afford the brick plaza, the teahouse, the gardens,” Devine told The Oregonian.

Ruth’s Garden Cottages — covered by Sightline here — takes tiny-home communities to another level. On a 50-by-100-foot lot in Northeast Portland that housed one small dwelling, Orange Splotadded two tiny cottages, each less than 200 square feet in size. The miniature structures have room for a sleeping loft, a bathroom, and a well-proportioned front porch. The cottages make use of the kitchen in the main home. A shared garden takes up the front 50 feet of the lot.

The recession and housing crisis, combined with changing demographics, have led many of us to reevaluate what we want in a home. More and more folks are looking for homes within walking distance of jobs, stores, and transit — and have proven willing to trade square footage for a vibrant neighborhood. At the same time, millennials increasingly look for alternatives to the car; baby boomers have reached the age where they don’t need a big home in the ‘burbs; and more and more families are choosing to live in multi-generational households.

Tiny houses are a great solution for all these needs. So whether you are a recent graduate wanting to be free from high rent, or a family looking to live without a mortgage, or you want to turn your detached garage into a mother-in-law suite, a small home might be for you. As Marcus Barksdale, who built his own small home in Asheville, N.C., said in this interview: “It would be really neat if more people sought to have smaller spaces, because it would free them up for a larger life.”

Alyse Nelson is a city planner for a small town in Kitsap County, Wash.

Dairy Cliff?

You know that they are going to fix this one, but a little unwanted drama may develop. Otherwise, read this item to just understand what is going on if someone gets excited about it all.

Legislative gamesmanship and its like is becoming decidedly wearing, particularly when problems are hoisted up as an outright cover to churn through a wish list of earmarks.

The US economic system demands serious reform and general overhaul. I continue to see no meaningful progress at all while the general economy remains deflated with little serious recovery even yet four years after the credit collapse. The only positive thing out there is that it has become possible to do business in the credit world that is not burdened by the past.

Get Ready for the Dairy Cliff

DASHIELL BENNETT2,225 ViewsDEC 21, 2012

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/12/get-ready-dairy-cliff/60239/

Lost in all the anxiety over the Fiscal Cliff, is another little noticed deadline that could force you to pay double the price for a gallon of milk come January 1. The New York Times reminds everyone today that Congress still hasn't renewed the 2008 farming bill, that establishes subsidies and other agriculture programs like crop insurance, nutrition programs, and even food stamps. Without the bill, which must be renewed every five years, our entire food system could get thrown out of whack. The Times wasn't the first to point his out, but others outlets shouting about it hasn't made Congress take notice.

One provision in particular could crush every non-lactose intolerant family in America. The current farm bill supersedes an outdated law from 1949, that requires the government to buy milk at certain prices, in order to prop up the market and support farmers. Without the new farm bill, that old bill—and its poorly devised formulas based on antiquated production methods—would once again be the law of the land, and Washington could be forced to buy milk for as much as $8 a gallon, more than double the current market rate.

That would be (temporarily) great for drought-stricken farmers, who would naturally flood the government with high-priced milk, but would soon create massive shortages that would drive up the price for everyone else. Other companies that rely on milk—cheese, butter and yogurt makers—would go overseas to find new suppliers, upsetting supply chains even more. And taxpayers would get nailed on both ends: Throwing away the government's money on milk it doesn't need, while paying more at the grocery store for the products they do.

The irony is that the "dairy cliff" was intentionally built into the existing farm bill as way to scare lawmakers into making it sure it always gets renewed on time. But with the fiscal cliff trying the same trick on a much larger scale, and every political fight becoming a cutthroat game of chicken, the farm bill has fallen by the wayside. Come January 1, we could all be screaming for outrageously priced ice cream.

Something Awful at Isfahan?

So far this story has near zero coverage and certainly no boots on the ground. As quoted it has come by way of the BBC and I am sure, no end of twitter messages.

However you only evacuate a population because of a disaster that can not be safely contained. That cuts things down pretty quickly to chemical disasters including gas blowouts and at worst radiation. The fact that it looks like a full evacuation pretty well confirms those options. Something very serious has occurred and it is necessary to put distance between the population and the event center. So just what direction is the evacuation taking?

Again this is a major news event and may signal a successful assault on Iran's nuclear capacity.

The actual urban area holds around three and a half million so the early news reports are using only the population for the city itself and are obviously misleading. What is certain is that they are evacuating something and it could be anywhere from a small district to the whole region.

In the meantime we have government denials regarding a nuclear leak and quite obviously a lot of tumult in the region when put together leads inescapably to the conclusion that a serious nuclear accident is underway and not under control.

Report: Iran orders evacuation of Isfahan, near nuke site

By JPOST.COM STAFF

01/03/2013 17:31 By JPOST.COM STAFF

http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=298324

Iranian officials on Wednesday ordered residents of Isfahan to evacuate the city, the BBC reported, sparking renewed concern a nearby uranium enrichment site is leaking radioactive material.

According to the report, the edict calls on Isfahan's one-and-a-half million people to leave the city “because pollution has now reached emergency levels.”

Iranian officials previously denied that a leak occurred at the facility, and accused the West of fabricating the story in order to create “tumult” in the region.

Molecular Levers

We are now modifying the molecular surface in such a way as to enhance its effect on nearby molecules. This is quite unexpected but will certainly impact industrial process sooner or later.

As posted before we have entered the age of engineering molecules directly to improve effectiveness and clearly getting way more confident and much less surprised. Again though it is early days although it is clear that chemistry is well on the way to been what electrical engineering became a few decades ago and biology became more recently.

They all support each other and the results remain wondrous.

Molecular levers may make materials better

by Staff Writers

Durham, NC (SPX) Dec 26, 2012

http://www.spacemart.com/reports/Molecular_levers_may_make_materials_better_999.html

In a forced game of molecular tug-of war, some strings of atoms can act like a lever, accelerating reactions 1000 times faster than other molecules. The discovery suggests that scientists could use these molecular levers to drive chemical and mechanical reactivity among atoms and ultimately engineer more efficient materials.

"We are interested in designing new, stress-responsive materials, so we are trying to develop reactions that are very slow normally but that can be accelerated efficiently by force," said Duke chemist Steve Craig, who headed the research.

In recent experiments, Craig and his team found that a molecule made with a polynorbornene backbone can act as a lever to open a ring embedded within the molecule 1000 times faster than a similar ring being tugged at on a polybutadiene scaffold. The results, which appear Dec. 23 in Nature Chemistry, suggest that a simple change in the backbone may affect the how fast mechanically assisted reactions occur.

Scientists are interested in this type of molecular tug-of-war because many materials break down after repeated cycles of tugging, stress and other forces.

"If we can channel usually destructive forces into constructive pathways, we could trigger reactions that make the material stronger when and where it is most useful," Craig said. Researchers might then be able to extend the material's lifetime, which might in the long term have applications ranging from composites for airplane frames to biomedical implants.

In the experiment, Craig, who is a professor and chair of the chemistry department, and his team used the equivalent of microscopic tweezers to grab onto two parts of atomic chains and pulled them so that they would break open, or react, in certain spots.

The team predicted that one molecule would react more efficiently than the other but was surprised to find that the force-induced rates differed by three orders of magnitude, an amount that suggests that the polynorbornene backbone can actually accelerate forced reactions the way a crowbar quickens pulling a nail from a wall.

Craig said changes to the molecular group undergoing the reaction may have a much smaller effect than changes to nearby, unreactive molecules like those on the backbone.

It is also a good starting point to identify other molecular backbones that are easy to make and have the largest response to changes in nearby reactions, features Craig said might help in developing even better, more responsive materials.

The research was supported by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, the Army Research Office and National Science Foundation. "A Backbone Lever Arm Effect Enhances Polymer Mechanochemistry." (2012) Klukovich, H. et al. Nature Chemistry. AOP. DOI: 10.1038/NCHEM.1540

Ten Point Model for a Mental Health System

Today, we have no system except in the form of hospital administered care which was never meant to handle this class of problem. This item is a valuable rethink of the whole project.

What I would add is my direct reconnection with agricultural process. A respite in the urban environment provides convenience to some at the expense of constraining patient options. A farm based environment allows an internal economy to emerge and ample opportunity for self development and exercising choice.

Again it is time to open a debate on this and to operate outright experiments to establish successful protocols that serve the needs of the patients themselves. There will always be issues and folks that cannot be helped. Yet the skills are out there, the working framework is plausible and need is dire. Applied even as well as can be, I would expect to see an excellent success rate and to have most returned to the community as gainfully employed people.

There will still be those who are physically damaged and that is another class of brain problem that normally needs special care and support in a separate regime.

The same hold true for drug rehabilitation cases.

Neither mix well with cases of mental breakdown of any kind but the commonality of mental breakdown is such that they can be all treated in much the same way by as described.

Yet the application of a rural respite works for all to some degree.

10-point model for a mental health system that works

Wednesday, December 19, 2012 by: Mike Bundrant

http://www.naturalnews.com/038403_mental_health_failure_solutions.html

(NaturalNews) The mental health system in America is an embarrassing failure. Here is an outline of principles upon which a new one might be based. Did I miss anything? Add your ideas and constructive criticism in the comments, please.

1. Regulated by the people, not government

Who determined that government was an effective regulator of mental health? It was a triad of sorts, a collusion of pharmaceutical giants, the American Psychiatric Association and the FDA.

The entire process is documented in the history of psychiatry by well-known psychiatric reformer Peter Breggin, MD and other concerned activist organizations.

The point here is, government "regulation" has wreaked havoc on the nation's mental health, sponsoring the mass drugging of American citizens (including children), psych-ward torture chambers in which innocent people's brains have been shocked into oblivion, erasing decades of memory on some occasions.

Of course, incarceration in a mental hospital leaves some hapless victims open to kidnapping and Mafioso style medical experiments. No one can advocate for these lost souls and the government has been known to take advantage of that.

People - real, caring people - need to regulate mental health in America; people who want to make a career out of helping others and can use their resources and connections to find a way to do so. This would most likely take place on a small scale, through local organizations. Read more under point #10.

2. Decisions by people, not accountants

Do you think your agency mental health counselor is calling the shots in how he or she determines to treat you? Wrong. The vast majority of mental health professional sheeple in America determine both the quantity and type of treatment you are allowed to receive in conjunction with your insurance company.

How many sessions do you get? What kind of therapy can be used? Should you have a medication evaluation? (Yes, of course). The bean counters are the decision-makers. Your therapist is the bean counter's bitch. I lived in this nightmare scenario as a young mental health counselor, until I figured out what was going on.

A skilled counselor or other compassionate people helper should decide the type and length of treatment you get - ALONG WITH YOU.

3. Therapy by skilled, caring people, not licensed professional sheeple

Mental health counselors, psychiatrists and social workers these days are largely products of the sheep herding system. After getting an education, they are indoctrinated during an internship and required to pass state sponsored exams to make sure they fall in line.

The college education and state exams have NOTHING to do with real, therapeutic skill. You can get an M.A. or Ph.D. - passing with flying colors - and still have ZERO skill to help people.

People with skills - regardless of where those skills came from - should be allowed to intervene on behalf of other people who are suffering mentally or emotionally. We all know this intuitively. The current system has shunned all sense of reality.

4. Biochemistry by nutritionists and fitness trainers, not psychiatrists

Biochemistry should be regulated by diet and activity, not pharmaceuticals. Nutritionists and fitness experts should oversee the physical aspects of mental health. Get rid of the junk food and couch potato lifestyle. This works wonders on its own.

Get on supplements that regulate brain chemistry naturally. Get back in touch with nature. Exercise. Check your vitamin D level! A skilled functional nutritionist works healing miracles. Psychiatry doesn't. Psychiatry doesn't heal anything at all. Isn't this a clue?

5. People, not pathology

You should hear counselors and psychiatrists talking shop in the staff room over lunch.

"Yeah, I got a major depressive disorder coming in after lunch. Poor guy is hopeless."

"You should have seen the borderline I dealt with last week. I was actually scared of him."

"Yeah, but the social phobics are the worst - so friggin' paranoid. I told one to carry his sedative with him and put it under his tongue when he needs it, but he's afraid people will see him doing it. Nuts."

While there are certainly exceptions, some counselors do not see people as people, but as diagnoses. They look for pathology, see pathology and treat pathology. If your counselor does not see you as a person with potential, who will?

6. Freedom, not restriction

When someone is having a meltdown, it is often because they feel restricted, trapped, with no way out. The conventional solution is often to restrain them, lock them down and drug them up.

I have personally seen people jumped by psych techs, restrained and drugged, when they could have been easily talked down if given some space and access to a person who had real communication skills.

The idea is to safely increase inner freedom and choice, not stifle it.

7. Truth treatment, not drug treatment

Nothing heals like the truth. Drugs do not heal at all. A mental health model based on taking responsibility for the truth in one's life may be all we need to live full, healthy lives. The enemy is denial.

The problem is, no one is in greater denial than those running mental health in America today. Drug therapy rules the day. Bean counters determine eligibility for treatment. State regulators determine what training practitioners need. And the professional sheeple follow along.

How can we even begin to help each other gain insight when the entire system is a mass of ignorance and repression?

8. Funded by people, not insurance

Beware of counselors who accept insurance as reimbursement. This is not always the case, but many of them are pathetically lacking in skill. Counselors with a lot of skill rarely accept insurance reimbursement. For one, insurance companies pay peanuts. For those peanuts, you have to put up with a mountain of paperwork and subject your practice to their control. Not worth it!

Counselors should get paid like any other professional in the free market. People will pay you if you are worth it! If you can't deliver results, you won't have a practice, AND YOU SHOULDN'T.

Insurance companies don't screen providers for skill. They screen them for credentials, state sponsored sheeple credentials. Get your paperwork done. Make medication referrals. Don't invite any lawsuits. All this has nothing to do with helping people. In fact, it takes a good counselor's energy away from helping people.

As a consequence, insurance providers are often those who cannot build a practice on their own merit and therefore must take referrals from the insurance company if they want to practice at all. These are usually the ones to avoid. This reality doesn't occur to most clients, who will usually just do what the customer service agent at the insurance company tells them to do.

If you have a hard time paying for good therapy, ask for a sliding scale. Many good practitioners offer this.

9. Choice, not control

The system doesn't seem to understand that even those suffering from mental health issues (as we all do) are capable of making choices for themselves. Who says people need to be coerced into drugs, confined and threatened into submission if they don't follow the rules as laid out by their psychiatrist?

People are remarkably resilient and capable of making choices in their own best interest, when given healthy options.

10. Respite houses, not hospitals

A mental health respite house would be a wonderful alternative to a hospital psych ward. I have some great ideas for how they might work. They would be private homes in normal neighborhoods, funded by private citizens, and offer a refuge from life, skilled counseling, functional nutrition, yoga, meditation and a variety of alternative therapies. They would be free or low cost. No drugs and diagnoses, just people helping people.

I actually have the means to create a respite house right now. I have skills to work with just about any mental or emotional issue. I count as friends some of the finest psychotherapists, alternative nutritionists, doctors and health freedom advocates in the world.

Why don't I march out and do this? I refer you back to point #1. Government regulations are unbelievable, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of red tape just open a group home or addiction treatment facility. Once you have it open, then you are subject to their regulators snooping into all of your operations, ready to fine you, imprison you or shut you down if you are out of line.

I am not the only one who is capable of starting a great safe house, of course. There could be one in every community, if a functional system were in place.

About the author:

Join Mike Bundrant for the free online seminar, Cultivating Empowering Beliefs, and learn specifically how to identify the limiting beliefs that keep you from your potential. Then, you will learn a four-step process for cultivating new and empowering beliefs. Two dates in January 2013! Click here for details and to register.

Get the free mini-course taken by more than 15,000 people, Three Soul Stirring Questions That Reveal your Deepest Goals.

Mike Bundrant is co-founder of the iNLP Center and host of Mental Health Exposed, a Natural News Radio program.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/038403_mental_health_failure_solutions.html#ixzz2FWWW79oQ 

Tobacco Can be Cancer Free?

This is actually ugly. I would posit that all other obvious carcinogens produced by the combustion process are readily handled by the body itself since we have actually been doing just so for millennia.

The problem is alpha emitters of any kind. Outside the body, they are effectively harmless. Recall how Radium glows so nicely and harmlessly. Inside they are in immediate contact and overwhelm the adjacent cells to trigger radiation induced carcinomas. I suspect that the body finds it difficult to remove these islands and the problems accumulate until the body is overwhelmed.

Why do we not know this and why do we not place a direct warning on our labels? Is it possible that heavy smoking with washed leaves hugely drops the cancer rate and even allows the industry to continue? Look at the second item. There we discover that the direct comparable is cancer free.

Suddenly, it is plausible to make tobacco cancer free. Now we need to make it addiction free and we may have another effective drug delivery system.

So About That ‘Glowing’ Cigarette…

BY DEBORAH BLUM

12.14.12

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/12/so-about-that-glowing-cigarette/

By the end of the 1920s, scientists already knew that tobacco smoke contained a small encyclopedia’s worth of risky chemical compounds: carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide, hydrogen sulfide and formaldehyde, ammonia and pyridine (a component in industrial solvents).

I discovered that list when I was researching my book about early 20th century toxicology, The Poisoner’s Handbook. And I remember being surprised because I had believed that it wasn’t until the mid-20th century, maybe a little before the famed 1964 U.S. Surgeon General report on the dangers of smoking – that we really knew anything about the health risks of smoking.

Of course, that 1920s list turns out to only be the bare start of the one we’ve assembled today. By some counts, there are a good 4,000 chemical compounds in cigarettes and, of those, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration classifies more than 100 as dangerous (from carcinogenic to addictive). Given the body of evidence, linking cigarette smoking to disease, it’s not necessarily a surprise to find that the smoke contains well-known bad actors ranging from arsenic to toluene.

Still, I’ll confess to being startled last week when I was researching the suspected radiation poisoning of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and discovered that one of the most common sources of radiation exposure is through smoking cigarettes. I wrote about that in the context of the recent exhumation of Arafat’s body and the toxicity texts underway in a post called “Yasser Arafat and the Radioactive Cigarette.”

And when I read the FDA list of hazardous compounds in cigarette smoke and found not only polonium-210 (the radioactive element suspected in Arafat’s death) but two well-known isotopes of uranium  best associated with nuclear reactors (uranium-235 and uranium-238), I thought – wow, how did I miss that?

As it turns out, there’s a real case to be made that I – and really all of us – missed this because the tobacco companies hid the information, that cigarette makers flagged the problem internally by 1960s and studied it in secret. The best evidence for that comes from the companies’  confidential documents, which were released in the 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement between four major companies – Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson and Lorillard – and attorney generals from 46 states.

An analysis of those documents by public health researchers at the University of California-Los Angeles was published last year in the journal, Nicotine and Tobacco Research.  As that study(paywall) notes:

The documents show that the industry was well aware of the presence of a radioactive substance in tobacco as early as 1959. Furthermore, the industry was not only cognizant of the potential “cancerous growth” in the lungs of regular smokers but also did quantitative radiobiological calculations to estimate the long-term (25 years) lung radiation absorption dose (rad) of ionizing alpha particles emitted from the cigarette smoke.

This wasn’t the first study to note the corporate coverup; an earlier report in American Journal of Public Health reached the same conclusion.  Still, let’s call the information an imperfectly kept secret (as so many are). In 1964, for instance, we find scientists from the Harvard School of Public Health reporting that they had discovered hot spots, fizzing with polonium-210, in the lungs of regular smokers.  They published that finding in the highly visible New England Journal of Medicine in 1965, warning that “we believe 210Po may be an important factor in the initiation of bronchial carcinoma in humans”.  It wasn’t, actually, that tobacco companies were entirely successful at hiding the radioactive nature of cigarettes; it was that the rest of us weren’t entirely successful at paying attention.

But, as the UCLA analysis points out, internal documents revealed something else. Not only did cigarette makers know about polonium-210 contamination of their product for decades – they knew how to fix it and chose not to. And to understand that, you need to know why tobacco plants become such little radiation factories.

The radioactive elements occur naturally in the Earth’s crust. So it’s not surprising to find them in soils where crops are grown. In the case of tobacco, this effect tends to be amplified because the most commonly used fertilizers for that plant are phosphate-rich mixtures based on the mineral apatite. And apatite is known to mix up with radioactive elements. Or as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency puts it: “When phosphate fertilizer is spread on the tobacco fields year after year, the concentration of lead-210 and polonoium-210 in the soil rises.” When the soil is stirred up – by planting, plowing, wind, whatever – radioactive particles drift into the air, attach to dust and other particulates there. As these settle back down to the ground, they are often trapped by the naturally sticky leaves of the tobacco plant.

These radioactive residues can be removed by acid-washing the plants. But the documents obtained by the California researchers showed that manufacturers refused to do that for fears that the acid would alter the nicotine and decrease the chemical kick that helps make the products popular. The UCLA analysts went on to calculate the resulting radiation health risk from regular smoking, based in part on the industry’s own analysis.  They set the cost of such alpha radiation in the lungs at 120-138 cancer deaths per 1,000 regular smokers.

As a story by British science writer Ed Yong points out, these are tricky numbers to set because the radiation dose comes in a smoke fog of treacherous chemistry. But as he also points there’s no disagreement that having polonium-210 delivered directly to the lungs is a very bad idea.  This is a highly energetic element, with a half-life of only 138 days; it’s considered 5,000 times as radioactive as radium. Like radium, it primarily emits alpha particles which, although, not particularly dangerous outside body (they lose energy on impact and don’t penetrate skin) wreak havoc once inside.

But inside the body, alpha particles are capable of doing wide-spread harm. Polonium-210 lodges in cells of the lungs like little hissing balls of radiation. It travels easily elsewhere in the body, irradiating tissue as it goes.  It settles into and destroys bone marrow, causing a host of blood-related disorders. At smoker-related exposure levels, health expects thus warn of diseases, such as cancer, that follow a kind of chronic, radiation-induced injury. At high levels, though, polonium-210 kills with relative speed.

The classic example is the 2006 death of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, who was purportedly killed by KGB agents who slipped polonium-210 into his drink during a meeting  in London. Litveninko died just three weeks after that November meeting. British police say there is enough evidence to charge two Russian agents with his death but Russia has refused to extradite them and –even today – angrily denies the accusations.

Which brings us back to the other possible assassination, the  suspected poisoning of the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who died in 2004. A months long investigation by Al Jazeera, which included testing of his clothes and even his famous checked kaffiyeh, found some unexpectedly high traces of polonium-210. The publication of those results in July led to calls for further testing and last month his body was exhumed and tissue and bone samples sent to three laboratories (one, ironically, in Russia). Results are not expected until early next year.

In my post last week, I pointed out that a possible explanation for evidence of polonium-210 exposure could, in fact, be cigarette smoke.  Arafat and his colleagues in the Ramallah compound were known to be  heavy smokers. Of course, I also somewhat undermined that idea by also pointing out that Israel had been known to restrict Arafat’s access to tobacco as a form of petty punishment. In other words, it’s worth exploring all possibilities but keeping them ones that make most sense.

It might be, as I’ve suggested,  that a smoky environment accounted for some of the polonium-210 traces in Arafat’s clothing. But there’s still no clear evidence that smoking killed him; no clear evidence that he was a victim of one of those polonium-201 induced lung cancers or similar illness.  So, beyond the first stage of this investigation, if  forensic work is able to show a lethal exposure then – as in the case of Litvinenko – we will indeed be talking about assassination and all its ugly and messy implications.

But while we wait, let me just emphasize my other point. Let me just  quote you the closing line of that UCLA look at radiation in cigarettes: “The evidence of lung cancer risk caused by cigarette smoke radioactivity is compelling enough to warrant its removal.” After all these years, it would be gratifying to see that message get a little traction too. And that conclusion,  we can safely call an understatement.

Study Finds No Link Between Marijuana Use And Lung Cancer

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060526083353.htm

May 26, 2006 — People who smoke marijuana--even heavy, long-term marijuana users--do not appear to be at increased risk of developing lung cancer, according to a study to be presented at the American Thoracic Society International Conference on May 23rd.

Marijuana smoking also did not appear to increase the risk of head and neck cancers, such as cancer of the tongue, mouth, throat, or esophagus, the study found.

The findings were a surprise to the researchers. "We expected that we would find that a history of heavy marijuana use--more than 500-1,000 uses--would increase the risk of cancer from several years to decades after exposure to marijuana," said the senior researcher, Donald Tashkin, M.D., Professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA in Los Angeles.

The study looked at 611 people in Los Angeles County who developed lung cancer, 601 who developed cancer of the head or neck regions, and 1,040 people without cancer who were matched on age, gender and neighborhood. The researchers used the University of Southern California Tumor Registry, which is notified as soon as a patient in Los Angeles County receives a diagnosis of cancer.

They limited the study to people under age 60. "If you were born prior to 1940, you were unlikely to be exposed to marijuana use during your teens and 20s--the time of peak marijuana use," Dr. Tashkin said. People who were exposed to marijuana use in their youth are just now getting to the age when cancer typically starts to develop, he added.

Subjects were asked about lifetime use of marijuana, tobacco and alcohol, as well as other drugs, their diet, occupation, family history of cancer and socioeconomic status. The subjects' reported use of marijuana was similar to that found in other surveys, Dr. Tashkin noted.

The heaviest smokers in the study had smoked more than 22,000 marijuana cigarettes, or joints, while moderately heavy smokers had smoked between 11,000 to 22,000 joints. Even these smokers did not have an increased risk of developing cancer. People who smoked more marijuana were not at any increased risk compared with those who smoked less marijuana or none at all.

The study found that 80% of lung cancer patients and 70% of patients with head and neck cancer had smoked tobacco, while only about half of patients with both types of cancer smoked marijuana.

There was a clear association between smoking tobacco and cancer. The study found a 20-fold increased risk of lung cancer in people who smoked two or more packs of cigarettes a day. The more tobacco a person smoked, the greater the risk of developing both lung cancer and head and neck cancers, findings that were consistent with many previous studies.

The new findings are surprising for several reasons, Dr. Tashkin said. Previous studies have shown that marijuana tar contains about 50% higher concentrations of chemicals linked to lung cancer, compared with tobacco tar, he noted. Smoking a marijuana cigarette deposits four times more tar in the lungs than smoking an equivalent amount of tobacco. "Marijuana is packed more loosely than tobacco, so there's less filtration through the rod of the cigarette, so more particles will be inhaled," Dr. Tashkin said. "And marijuana smokers typically smoke differently than tobacco smokers--they hold their breath about four times longer, allowing more time for extra fine particles to deposit in the lung."

One possible explanation for the new findings, he said, is that THC, a chemical in marijuana smoke, may encourage aging cells to die earlier and therefore be less likely to undergo cancerous transformation.

The next step, Dr. Tashkin says, is to study the DNA samples of the subjects, to see whether there are some heavy marijuana users who may be at increased risk of developing cancer if they have a genetic susceptibility for cancer.

Udo Wartena Encounter in 1940

As I have posted before, I will tackle specific UFO reports if they add something. This one is particularly important. First off, Udo had his encounter long before UFO's ever became public. This means no cultural contamination. Secondly, Udo was a prospector and that makes him a highly skilled observer who knows not to trust his memory and to make detailed notes immediately. I consider prospectors to be the true scientists out there and it is certainly part of my scientific education.

That is why this particular report is so good. He did not miss a thing and asked the right questions.

It also sets up a time line for UFO interaction on this planet. They did not apply a sampling protocol in 1940. This had changed by 1960. This was an unexpected interaction and conducted straight up. It is also clear that they will recruit accidentals and the individuals so met may well have been part of that stream although they infer otherwise.

The life spans also conform to the lifespans reported by the initial successors of the Noah expedition and are thus unsurprising but also additionally confirmed.

That the alien attempted to explain the science is astonishing. The rings need to be in the outer edge and the rotation implied may be field rotation rather than physical rotation. The scale and position is what could be expected for a magnetic field exclusion vessel (MFEV) as I have described elsewhere. That the configuration may also have a gravitation effect is unexpected but not implausible at this time.

Unfortunately I need access to a well equipped lab and a skilled technician or two to follow up on all this.

This is also a reminder that many observers never come forward at all although the internet is helping a lot with this.  I personally have received two separate reports by trusted friends who felt confident that they could confide in me.  They would never have been heard otherwise.

The Udo Wartena Encounter

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 02, 2013

http://naturalplane.blogspot.ca/2013/01/the-udo-wartena-encounter.html

This incident is one of the first UFO / alien encounter reports of the modern era. In May 1940 at Boulder Mountain, Montana, a returned Mormon missionary and miner namedUdo Wartena witnessed a large disc shaped object about 35 foot high and over 100 feet across hovering above a meadow. The object resembled two soup plates, one inverted over the other and stainless steel in appearance. Wartena then saw a staircase unfold from the bottom of the craft. Out of it came a man who asked him if the ship could take some water. The man then invited Wartena inside the object. Wartena accepted and met another man inside who told him they had come from a distant planet and were 609 years old. Though it sounds a bit hokey, it still remains classified as a standard cases and never proven either way. The case was first mentioned in James L. Thompson’s 1993 book Aliens & UFOs: Messengers or Deceivers?

The Alien Filesauthor Warren Aston wrote an investigative narrative on the encounter for UFO Magazine March/April 1998 edition:

An amazing alien encounter 7 years before either Roswell or Kenneth Arnold's sighting may offer our best chance yet to understand where some UFO's come from and why they are visiting our planet. 

For more than two decades, Udo Wartena, a Dutch immigrant living in the Western U.S., kept what had happened to him one spring morning in May 1940 a secret, not even telling his wife. Before dying in 1989 he finally confided in two friends and then wrote the details of his experience down so it would not be lost. 

Udo's incredible story remained completely unknown in UFO circles however, until the details were finally released by Australian researcher Warren Aston. 

Before we review what took place in this deceptively simple report we must remember that this is an unusually early case in the pre 1947 period, which has yielded only small numbers of UFO sightings worldwide, and almost no cases where the occupants of UFOs were reported. 

Let us remember that in 1940, World War II still raged in Europe, the first satellite was still 17 years in the future and the sound barrier had not yet been broken. 

Udo Wartena’s experience not only took place in daytime, but involved intimate and open alien contact with a reluctant witness. I have assembled the following from two handwritten accounts and one typewritten account by Udo and from verbal recollections through interviews with the handful of close friends and family members whom he confided in.

THE LANDING 

Udo's encounter took place mid-morning early in May, 1940 at his mining claim in the forest near the base of BoulderMountain, a short distance from Canyon Ferry Lake, near the small town of Townsend, southeast of Helena in Montana. 

Udo, a 37-year-old miner of Dutch origin was working in the area part-time for the Northwest Mining Company.

During the previous month he had found a glacial deposit at the base of the mountain, which showed indications of gold-bearing ore. He began working the site in his spare time and first cleared an old and neglected ditch, which ran around the mountainside, using it to divert the water he would need in his mining from a nearby stream. 

While moving some large boulders, he heard a humming or droning sound, which he first took to be aircraft, which flew over the area occasionally from Great Falls base in the north. At first Udo took little notice of the sound, but when the noise continued he thought that a vehicle had driven up so he climbed up onto higher ground. 

A large disc-shaped object, measuring about thirty five feet high and over a hundred feet across, was hovering a short distance away just above the meadow where he had built his dam. Udo described it as like "two soup plates, one inverted over the other" and resembling "stainless steel in color, though not as bright and shiny". 

As he stood watching, thinking at first that it was an airship, a circular stairway with a solid bottom forming part of the craft's hull was let down and a man who descended began walking towards him. 

"As I was somewhat more than interested," Udo later wrote, "I went to meet him. He stopped when we were ten or twelve feet apart. He was a nice looking man, seemingly about my age. He wore a light gray pair of overalls, a tam (a common term in that period derived from "Tam O 'Shanter" - a circular cap) of the same material on his head and on his feet were slippers or moccasins". 

The man came and shook his hand, apologizing that they had not known anyone was in the area, explaining that it was not their custom to interrupt or allow themselves to be seen. "He asked me if it would be alright if they took some water, and as I could not see why not, I said 'sure'. He then gave a signal and a hose or pipe was let down. His English was like mine, but he spoke slowly, as if he were a linguist and had to pick his way." [ obviously practiced at interacting and clearly able to do so without causing any fuss. This is the reason it went so smoothly – arclein ]

The man asked Udo what he was doing and this was explained. Udo, asked if he would be interested in coming aboard the ship, went willingly and without any sense of fear. As he got underneath the craft, Udo described the humming as "not loud, though it seemed to go through you"; once inside the ship the noise was hardly noticeable except what came up the stairwell.

INSIDE THE CRAFT 

"We entered into a room about twelve by sixteen feet, with a close-fitting sliding door on the farther end, indirect lighting near the ceiling and nice upholstered benches around the sides. There was an older man already in the room, plainly dressed, but his hair was snow white. I then noticed that the younger man's hair was also white." 

Udo described him as being "young and strong-looking" and having clear, almost translucent skin. 

Perhaps this explains the curious fact that Udo seems to have asked their age, even before asking their origin; clearly there was something about their appearance to prompt such an enquiry. 

The men answered that one was "about six hundred years old" as we measure time and the other was "over nine hundred years" of age. They informed him that they knew over five hundred languages and were learning ours and improving upon them all the time. 

When asked why they wanted to take water from the stream and not the lake, the younger man replied that, "the water was good and was free of algae (as if they had retrieved the same before) and it was convenient".

Many years later Udo indicated to a family member that hydrogen extracted from the water was in fact the fuel source for the craft. 

Udo then asked what caused the noise of the craft and was not only shown the mechanism that powered the disc, but also given what appears to be a full and open discussion of the key principle involved, in the following words:"...'as you noticed we are floating above the ground, and though the ground slopes the ship is level. There are in the outside rim, two flywheels, one turning one way and the other in the opposite direction'. 

"He explained [that] this gives the ship its own gravitation or rather overcomes the gravitational pull of the Earth and other planets, the sun and stars; and through the pull of the stars and planets...to ride on like you do when you sail on ice. 

[ Recall that we actually know nothing about gravity itself and this is quite suggestive. It immediately forms experimental protocols that beg to be worked up. Recall my posts reflecting on work done with thin plates and butterflys in Russia that I also noted. - arclein]

An interesting analogy. Elsewhere Udo described the 'flywheels' or rings as being about three feet wide and several inches thick, separated by rods turned by motors and next to 'battery of transformer'-like units all around the inside perimeter of the circular ship. 

Udo was told that the two revolving rings or wheels developed an electromagnetic force, a term he did not understand at the time and inferred from what he learned that the ability to develop a cheaper and more practical energy source was of the utmost importance to mankind. [ I do not understand using electromagnetism in this context and suspect a misunderstanding at least here. - arclein ]

He was also told that the craft was able to focus on a distant star and use its energy to draw itself through space at speeds faster than light, quote: "skipping upon the light waves". These 1940 explanations seem remarkably similar to the propulsion method Robert Lazar claimed to have learned while working on alien craft in possession of the U.S. government at 'Area 51' and also sounds very much like some of the theories now being advanced by physicists:...the creation of a local distortion of space-time is expanded behind the spaceship, contracted ahead of it, yielding a hyper surfer like motion faster that the speed of light as seen by observers...  [ I think it is a good analogy]

In essence, on the outgoing leg of its journey the spaceship is pushed away from Earth and pulled toward its distant destination by the engineered local expansion of space-time itself. 

Udo then wrote "I then asked them where they got the energy to run such a large ship? They said from the sun and other stars and would store this in batteries, though this was for emergency use only. They carried another source but did not explain this to me...'

Asked where they came from, he was told they lived on a distant planet and gave its name - unfortunately not recorded by Udo - and pointed in its direction. Udo asked what their object was for coming to Earth? 

"Well." he said, "as you have noticed, we look pretty much as you do, so we mingle with your people, gather information, leave instructions or give help where needed." Explaining that they were monitoring the progression and retrogression of our societies, the man claimed that they lived among us from time to time, a clear statement indicating long-term covert alien surveillance prior to 1940. Udo wrote that he did not understand what was meant by them "giving help where needed" but he did not feel it proper to ask about it further. 

When Udo asked if they knew of Jesus Christ and about religion he was told that they would "like to speak of these things but are unable. We cannot interfere in any way". The area of religion and belief systems was to be the only question the aliens refused to discuss. 

During his time on board, Udo was invited to be examined for impurities in his system by an "X-ray like machine" which passed over him. Little was recorded about this examination however and Udo seems to have attached scant importance to it. 

While talking with the two men, a light had come on which Udo believed indicated that the water had been taken care of. He mentioned that he felt it was time for him to leave. 

The alien's response was to ask if he was interested in going with them, to which Udo responded: " I said that I thought it would be interesting, but felt it would inconvenience too many people. Later, I wondered why I said that". 

Some time later, Udo recalled an incident about two years previously where a young man had vanished nearby without a trace, despite days of searching by a sheriff's team. He wondered if the young man had met the same craft and gone with them. 

As he started to leave the ship, they suggested to Udo that he "...'tell no-one, as no one would believe me at the time', but in years to come I could tell about this experience. When I walked away from the ship they raised the stairway, and when I got a couple of hundred feet away from the ship I turned around.

"A number [of] more portholes had opened up and though I could not see anyone, I felt sure they could see me, anyway I waved at them. The ship then rose straight up until it cleared the trees, then while circling slightly, it practically rose straight up and in a very short while was completely out of sight. 

"As I didn't have a watch, I did not know for sure how long I had been with them, but according to the sun it was around noon, or somewhat around two hours." 

Udo later related how some type of "energy" had permeated the area and that he lost his strength for several hours and was unable to walk. When his strength finally returned he went over to where the huge craft had hovered, finding only crushed grass where the stairway had rested. Later, still feeling overwhelmed by his unexpected experience, he walked back to his base camp. - Warren P. Aston 1997 - published UFO Magazine March/April 1998 [ strong electromagnetic field likely impacted him badly - arclein]

At the MUFON Annual Symposium in Michigan in July 1997, Warren P. Aston made this statement:

"The detailed and straightforward report of Udo Wartena is the most revealing, informative and totally credible of any claimed alien encounter that I have studied in some twenty years of research. There is not the slightest hint of any deception, evasion or fraud in his story and the witness enjoyed the highest imaginable endorsement for his integrity and honesty - often given unsolicited - by those who knew him best over his lifetime. If, as the evidence overwhelmingly suggests, this experience actually occurred, then at least part of the question about UFO origins is decisively answered. I am not claiming that this case reveals the full picture of alien activity on Earth; the spectrum of alien contact is much broader and more complex than any single case can reveal. I also do not claim that all genuine extraterrestrials have the same appearance that the aliens did in this case; however such aliens are more frequently reported than even many researchers are aware of, but seem to lack the news or book-selling value of the omnipresent 'greys'. My own research suggests that perhaps twenty or more different alien groups may be involved in visiting our planet and operating here at the present time, so obviously a number of motives and agendas are probable..."

An independent interview with Udo Wartena by an aquaintence named Timothy Kirk Grossnickle was published inAlien Encounters: The Deception Menace and can be found at this link - Udo Wartena interview  Grossnickle also provided a copy of a Wartena's 1980 letter to former astronaut and U.S. Senator of Ohio John Glenn:

In the forepart of May 1940, I had gone upon the mountain and found a glacier deposit. And from all indications had every possibility of carrying values.

As I was working part-time for the Northwest Mining Co., I could only prospect on my days off. So it was into the summer before I could prove the ground. There were a lot of large boulders to move but when I got to bedrock, I found some fine gold.

As I would need water for washing the material, I figured it was wise to bring the water down to where I could use it. The early day miners had dug a ditch around the mountain side (this was over sixty years before my time), so after clearing the logs and large trash out of it, I diverted the water out of the creek, into the ditch. As the ditch had not been used these many years, it was quite a mess. The ditch was practically level for the first quarter of a mile, so it was late in the afternoon by the time it would flow freely. The next morning I cleaned the main ditch to where I put in a dam. Then, dug a ditch to where I could use the water.

As the work for the Northwest Mining Co. had picked up, I wasn't able to work the prospect too much. Though every spare day I had was used there. I still had some large boulders to move and while doing this one morning I heard a noise. Like that of a high flying plane, as army planes flying over, from Great Falls. At first I didn't take much note, but as the noise continued, I thought a car had driven up. So I got upon higher ground. I saw, where I had put the dam in the main ditch, a large (I will call it ship). It looked like a blimp, only more pointed on each end, and not as thick through the middle. About 35' thick, better than 100' long. As I stood there, a stairway was let down and a man came down this and started walking towards me. As I was somewhat more than interested, I went to meet him. He stopped when we were about ten or twelve feet apart.

He was a nice looking man, seemingly about my age, 35 or more. He wore a light gray pair of coveralls, a tam of the same material on his head, and on his feet were slippers or moccasins.

He asked me if it would be alright if they took some of the water. I could not see why not, I said sure. He then gave a signal and a hose or pipe was let down.

His English was like mine, but he spoke slowly, as if he was a linguist. He asked me what I was doing. I explained this to him. He asked me if I would be interested to come aboard. As he seemed an intelligent and pleasant person, I figured it would be interesting.

As we got closer to the ship, I noticed that it was round, like two dinner plates, one inverted over the other. It seemed to be made of metal. As I look back and compare, it seemed like stainless steel, though not bright or shiny. The ship appeared to be about 35' thick and well over a hundred feet in diameter. When we got into the ship, we entered into a room about twelve by sixteen feet, with a close fitting door on the farther end. Indirect lighting near the ceiling, and nice upholstered benches around the sides.

There was an older man in the room, plainly dressed and with white hair. It was then that I noticed that the younger man also had white hair. Somehow I believe they knew who I was, but they did not introduce themselves. Perhaps if they had, I may have been a bit upset.

The younger man asked me what I would be interested in. So I first asked why they wanted this particular water. He said the water is good, as if they had gotten the same before, and it was convenient.

After we had entered the ship, I had noticed that the sound I had heard outside, was hardly noticeable, except what came up the stairwell. So I asked him what caused the noise or humming. He said this would be a bit complicated, but he would try to explain so I could understand. He said as you noticed we are floating above the ground, and though the ground slopes, the ship is level. There are in the outside rim of the ship two flywheels one turning one way and the other the opposite direction. He explained that this gives the ship its own gravitation, or rather overcomes the gravitational pull of the earth, other planets or the sun or stars. And though this pull is light, we use this gravitational pull of the stars and planets to ride on.

He went into somewhat greater detail on the power development by these two flywheels. He mentioned something about them developing an electromagnetic force. As this was quite new to me and he realized that, but he saw I had gotten the picture, so he stopped.

I asked him where he got the energy to run the ship. He said from the sun and stars, and he would store this in batteries, though this was for emergency use.

I also asked him what their object was or purpose in coming here. Well, he said, as you have noticed, we look pretty much as you do, so we mingle with you people, gather information, leave instructions, or give help where needed. I would have liked to ask him more about that, but didn't feel this proper, so let it ride at that.

While we had been talking, a light had come on apparently signaling that the water had been taken care of.

When I felt it was time for me to leave, I mentioned this. He asked me if I would be interested in going with them. I said that I thought it would be interesting to go with them but it would inconvenience too many people. Later I wondered why I had said that.

As I started to leave, they suggested that I tell no one, as no one would believe me at that time, but in years to come I could tell about this experience.

When I walked away from the ship, they raised the stairway, and when I got a couple of hundred feet away from the ship, I turned around.

A number more portholes had opened up and though I could see no one, I felt sure they saw me. Anyway, I waved at them.

The ship then rose straight up, then while circling slightly it continued going straight and in a very short while was completely out of sight.

As I didn't have a watch, I did not know how long I had been with them. It was around noon so it must have been about two hours from the time I first saw the ship.

This whole experience was so overwhelming that I did not go back to work. I kept going over in my mind all that had happened. I went back to where the stairway had been and though it hadn't gone into the soil, the grass was crushed down.

I wondered at the time, why I hadn't accepted the invitation to go with them but instead had said "that it would inconvenience too many people". I then recollected an incident which happened a few years before I came to this district.

A young man was staying with an old prospector, and early one morning before eating he put on a light jacket and told the man he would be gone for a while. When the young man did not show up all that next day or the next, the old prospector notified the Sheriff, and he with his deputies and about forty C.C.C. boys looked all over for him, but no trace was found.

I have wondered if he might have accepted an invitation to board a ship similar to mine.

I have wondered at times if this could have all been in my imagination. But then again I saw the impression of the ship in the grass.

Then over the years a number of things have come to mind. The explanation of how this ship moved, seemingly not affected by earths gravitational pull. From what the man told me at the time and what has come to me since, I believe I am not too far from an answer to this. It is for this reason I am writing to you. No doubt with the help of some other minds, the answer will be forthcoming.

We have just about reached the stage where we need a different type of air transportation and this is the answer. I feel confident that you could put me in touch with some people who could help to this end.

Udo Wartena

West Linn, Oregon – 1980

Personal notes and letters of Udo Wartena provided by Timothy Kirk Grossnickle

SSRIs and Linkage With Mass Shootings

 Let me see. We have 5000 linked events in which the spate of mass killings fit nicely in the third standard deviation in terms of a cause and effect relationship. If I recall correctly, alcohol abuse will likely also fit nicely into such a scenario except as it takes much longer and the effect is much weaker. It could well be that SSRI accelerates the effect.

Another aspect of SSRI's that has not gained any coverage is that some side effects are persistent long after discontinuance. I am bringing this little morsel up for those who have been exposed to these drugs and are then dealing with new apparently unrelated issues. The general effect became apparent from reports of sexual issues arising that allowed measurement. Needless to say no-one is studying any of this.

As an aside, I suggest that Vioxx victims would represent an excellent population to investigate as to a spectrum of persistent side effects.

What is badly needed is comparison work with populations from before these meds showed up ( pre 1988 ) and particularly with soldiers who certainly faced similar conditions. Vietnam veteran appears to be the obvious choice.

Prescription Drugs Often Behind Mass Shootings

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/health/prescription-drugs-are-often-behind-mass-shootings-327408.html

It is no secret that prescription drugs, notably antidepressants, can make psychiatric patients worse, not better and even precipitate violence. SSRI antidepressants like Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil are so linked to violence, they were given the FDA’s highest warning in 2004, a black box, for the suicidal risks they can create in young adults.

According to published reports, the gunmen involved in the Columbine High School, Red Lake reservation, Northern Illinois University and Virginia Tech mass shootings were under the influence of psychiatric drugs or withdrawing from such drugs. At least 5,000 other news stories, including school shootings, link psychiatric drugs to violent crime on the web site SSRI Stories.

Three men in their 70′s and 80′s attack their wives with hammers while under the influence of psychiatric drugs say news reports on the site. A 54-year-old respiratory patient with a breathing tube and an oxygen tank and no previous criminal record holds up a bank. An enraged man in Australia chases his mailman and threats to cut his throat . . . for bringing him junk mail. A 58-year-old Amarillo man with no criminal history tries to abduct three people and an Oklahoma woman accepts a cup of tea from an elderly nurse she’s just met--and kills her.

“The kind of energy, rage and insanity seen in a lot of crimes today was not seen before SSRIs appeared,” said Rosie Meysenburg, who co-founded SSRI Stories, in an interview shortly before her death this year.

Meysenburg is not the only one to observe the bizarre, unpredictable and inexplicable violence that has surfaced since the psychiatric drug craze began 25 years ago with Prozac. Did elderly people commit crimes so frequently in the past? Did people so frequently kill their families?

During a few weeks in 2009, a Middletown, MD man was accused of killing his wife and three children, a Milton, MA man was accused of killing his two sisters at a birthday party, a Santa Clara man was accused of killing his two children and three other relatives, a Orting, WA man was accused of killing his five children, a Chicago man was accused of killing his girlfriend’s sister, father and grandfather and an Alabama man was accused of killing his mother and grandparents. What?

And there’s another indication that the high rates of suicide and violence are linked to prescription drugs--the high suicide rate in the military where antidepressants are widely given. In just one month, July of 2011, there were 32 suspected suicides, 21 among active duty troops and 10 among reservists. In one report, 36 percent of the troops who killed themselves had never even been deployed. That means combat stress and PTSD were not factors in the self-injurious behavior.

You don’t have to be a cynic to ask if the reason so many troops are killing themselves is, at least partially, because they are taking drugs that make them kill themselves. Nor is it overly cynical to ask if the 20 million Americans in the general population taking such drugs are behind the frequent mass shootings and family killings.

Martha Rosenberg is the author of the acclaimed expose, “Born With a Junk Food Deficiency: How Flaks, Quacks and Hacks Pimp The Public Health” (Prometheus Books, 2012).