Category Archives: education

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Lay Out a Bold Plan in the State of the Union Address for Improving America’s Health | We the People: Your Voice in Our Government

From Neal Barnard, M.D., Physicians Committee (pcrm.org)

As you know, meat and cheese-heavy diets have led to an epidemic of childhood obesity and many other health problems. Despite efforts from the presidential administration, many problems remain unaddressed. We know that chronic health conditions that disproportionately impact low-income Americans are linked to poorer diet. We know that encouraging healthier eating at an early age instills healthier habits for a lifetime and can be reinforced in the school environment, in the workplace, in the home, and in the community.

Ask President Barack Obama to address health disparities and childhood obesity in the State of the Union. In order for our voice to be heard, we need your help to get 100,000 signatures on our White House petition leading up to the annual State of the Union address on Jan. 20.

We respectfully ask President Barack Obama to lay out a bold vision in his State of the Union Address for improving America’s health and combating childhood obesity by addressing (1) the poor state of health of many Americans, (2) the glaring health disparities between people who are economically challenged and those of means, and (3) continuing poor diet habits in children and the lack of progress in preventing childhood obesity, type 2 diabetes, and other chronic health conditions directly linked to poor diets.

The petition needs 100,000 signatures for the White House to provide a response.

Please ask your friends and family to sign the petition and share on Facebook and Twitter.

Sincerely,

 

Dr. Neal Barnard Headshot

 

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▶ The Crash Course – Chapter 25 – Future Shock – Chris Martenson

Published on Dec 27, 2014

Here at the penultimate chapter of The Crash Course, everything we’ve learned comes together into a single narrow range of time we’ll call the twenty-teens.

What this chapter offers is a comprehensive view of how all of our problems are actually interrelated and need to be viewed as such, or solutions will continue to elude us.

Each of the many key trends and threats mentioned earlier in The Crash Course will take many years, if not several decades, to address. And yet, we find them all parked directly in front of us without any serious national discussion or planning.

With every passing day we squander precious time while the problems grow larger and more costly, if not thoroughly intractable. Buying time, as the central bankers and politicians the world-over have opted to do, is not a strategy. Simply hoping for better times has a much different probability for success than having a well thought-out plan. The mark of a mature adult is someone who can manage complexity and plan ahead. The same description applies to an entire society. Here at Peak Prosperity, our opinion is that with precious few exceptions, the current political and corporate leadership of this country are not adequately managing the complexity of the situation. And they are not planning ahead.

Simply put: We’ve lived well beyond our economic, energetic and ecological budgets. It’s time to change that.

It is time, to return to living within our means. We need to set priorities, set budgets, and stick to both.

If we do, the next generations following us will have opportunity to pursue, as well as a plan and a narrative that makes sense and into which they fit, and which seems prudent and rational. If we don’t, they simply won’t.

And you? If you haven’t already, you need to begin to embrace the possibility that the road to the future will not be straight and smooth; it may take a few twists and turns and end up somewhere unexpected. You happen to be alive at one of the most interesting points in human history – a time when a great shift will occur. This can be frightening or it can be exhilarating. And that choice is yours.

More:

http://www.peakprosperity.com/

 

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Regular Guys Are Learning the Truth, and Spreading It – Gary North

This is a great personal testimony. It is also an accurate brief history of the media.

He got into this by finding out about three items that we conspiracy theorists have known for 40 years or more: the origins of public relations (Edward Bernays — though not Ivy Lee, meaning that he has more to learn), the FED (Jekyll Island), and Operation Northwoods. He awoke from his slumbers.

What he has done since then, others can do — and will do.

The establishments of the world are now on the defensive. This is good.

The Net Is Mightier Than The Sword – James Corbett at TEDxGroningen

via Regular Guys Are Learning the Truth, and Spreading It – LewRockwell.com.

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PCRM: Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine – Dr. Neal Barnard

I’d like to invite you to view our Best of 2014 slide show, which highlights our victories and progress on many fronts.

Here’s a sample:

 

The Physicians Committee led an international grassroots effort to convince the Taiwanese government to shelve plans for rabies experiments on beagle puppies. The beagles were spared!

Beagle in lab

PCRM: Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

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Taxpayer Subsidies for Unhealthy Foods – Dr. Michael Gregor – NutritionFacts.org

http://libertycrier.com/taxpayer-subsidies-unhealthy-foods/

Published on Apr 14, 2014

Subscribe for free to Dr. Greger’s videos at:

http://bit.ly/nutritionfactsupdates

DESCRIPTION: What if billions in tax dollars were invested in healthier options rather than given to corporations to subsidize the very foods that are making us sick?

For more on the power Big Food’s hold over our political system, check out videos such as:

• The McGovern Report (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/the-m…)

• Seeing Red No. 3 Coloring to Dye For (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/seein…)

• Who Determines if Food Additives are Safe? (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/who-d…)

• Salmonella in Chicken & Turkey: Deadly but Not Illegal (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/salmo…)

My video series on corporate influence over our federal nutrition guidelines may also be enlightening:

• Dietary Guidelines: Corporate Guidance (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/dieta…)

• Dietary Guidelines: With a Grain of Big Salt (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/dieta…)

• Dietary Guidelines: USDA Conflicts of Interest (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/dieta…)

• Dietary Guidelines: Just Say No (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/dieta…)

• Dietary Guidelines: The First 25 Years (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/dieta…)

• Dietary Guidelines: From Dairies to Berries (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/dieta…)

• Dietary Guidelines: It’s All Greek to the USDA (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/dieta…)

• Dietary Guidelines: Science versus Corporate Interest (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/dieta…)

• Dietary Guidelines: Advisory Committee Conflicts of Interest (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/dieta…)

• My Testimony Before the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Committee (http://nutritionfacts.org/2014/01/16/…)

And if we really wanted to save our country money we could start by trying to wipe out some of our leading killer chronic diseases:

• Resuscitating Medicare (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/resus…)

• Lifestyle Medicine: Treating the Causes of Disease (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/lifes…)

• Convincing Doctors to Embrace Lifestyle Medicine (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/convi…)

via Taxpayer Subsidies for Unhealthy Foods – YouTube.

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28% of Men and 40% of Women – Stefan Molyneux

Published on Nov 16, 2014

What is currently impacting approximately four out of ten Americans – or 92 million people?

28% of men, 40% of women and 39% of youth simply don’t want a job.

Over ninety-two million Americans age sixteen and older are no longer participating in the labor force – meaning they’re not currently employed or actively searching for work. This is the highest amount of individuals opting out of employment in thirty-six years.

Approximately one out of every six American men in their prime working years – 25 to 54 years old – does not have a job. 

Only 47% of working-age Americans have full-time jobs. 

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for latino Americans is 142% that of white Americans. The unemployment rate for black americans is 215% that of white Americans. The black unemployment rate hasn’t been this high in over five years. Asian Americans are 17% more likely to be employed than white Americans.

The unemployment rate for those over twenty years old is 13% higher for women than it is for men.

The last few years are the only back-to-back years on record when the number of Americans taking food stamps has outnumbered the amount of women working full-time year-round.

Over seven million Americans are employed as involuntary part-time workers due to their hours being cut, or simply being unable to find full time employment.

Approximately one out of every four involuntary part-time workers is living below the poverty line.

One out of every ten jobs is filled by a temp agency. 

According to a recent survey, 60 percent of unemployed Americans claim that looking for work has been harder than expected – while 47 percent of unemployed Americans have “completely given up” looking for a job.

36 percent of Americans have not saved a dime for retirement including 69% of all 18-29 year olds and 14% of people 65 and older. What is going to happen to them?

An astonishing 76 percent of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. 22% of the people surveyed had savings of less than $100 to cover a possible emergency, while 46% had less than $800. What happens to these people if and when that emergency happens? 

Over half of all working Americans make less than $30,000 a year – and almost a quarter shockingly make seventy-four hundred dollars or less per year. 

In February 2014, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that only 32.9 percent of youths aged 16 to 19 were working or actively looking for a job; this is the lowest record since the bureau started tracking the data in 1948. 

Compared to the general population, 18 to 29 year olds are twice as likely to be unemployed.

Unemployment rates for recent college graduates increased by about 160% between 2008 and 2010. Young people without a high school diploma had 33% unemployment in 2010. 

37 percent of college graduates are in jobs requiring a high-school diploma or less. Over two million college graduates with at least a bachelor’s degree level education are working in retail sales, as cashiers, waiters/waitresses, as stock clerks or – as janitors. 

Of the twenty fastest growing occupations in America, only four require a Bachelor’s degree or better, while ten don’t even require a high school diploma. 

Half of all college graduates – two years out of school – are still financially dependent on their parents. 16% of those surveyed reporting living on their own as unimportant to them. 

Median household income, when adjusted for inflation, is approximately $53,000, which is about 7% lower than it was in 2000. 

The number of foreign-born individuals holding jobs in the United States has hit a recorded high of 24,639,000. 

Sources: http://www.fdrurl.com/jobsandunemploy…

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China and the New World Order – Corbett Report

Military tensions, cyber espionage accusations, a brewing currency war; with every passing day, the headlines paint a convincing portrait of an emerging cold war between China and the West. But is this surface level reality the whole picture, or is there a deeper level to this conflict? Is China an opponent to the New World Order global governmental system or a witting collaborator with it? Join us in this in-depth edition of The Corbett Report podcast as we explore China’s position in the New World Order.

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From Table to Able: Combating Disabling Diseases with Food | NutritionFacts.org

From Table to Able: Combating Disabling Diseases with Food | NutritionFacts.org.

Doctor’s Note

Every year I scour the world’s scholarly literature on clinical nutrition, pulling together what I find to be the most interesting, practical, and groundbreaking science on how to best feed ourselves and our families. I start with the 12,000 or so papers published annually on human nutrition and, thanks to a crack team of volunteers (and now staff!), I’m able to whittle those down to about 3,000 studies, which are downloaded, categorized, read, analyzed, and churned into a few hundred short videos. This allows me to post new videos and articles every day, year-round, to NutritionFacts.org. This certainly makes the site unique. There’s no other science-based source for free daily updates on the latest discoveries in nutrition. The problem is that the amount of information can be overwhelming.Currently I have videos covering 1,814 nutrition topics. Where do you even begin? Many have expressed their appreciation for the breadth of material, but asked that I try to distill it into a coherent summary of how best to use diet to prevent and treat chronic disease. I took this feedback to heart and in 2012 developed Uprooting the Leading Causes of Death, which explored the role diet may play in preventing, arresting, and even reversing our top 15 killers. Not only did it rise to become one of the Top 10 Most Popular Videos of 2012, it remains my single most viewed video to date, watched over a million times (NutritionFacts.org is now up to more than a million hits a month!).In 2013 I developed the sequel, More Than an Apple a Day: Combating Common Diseases, in which I explored the role diet could play in treating some of our most common conditions. I’ve been presenting it around the country over the past year and it ended up #1 on our Top 10 Most Popular Videos of 2013.Now I’m honored to bring you the third of the trilogy, From Table to Able: Combating Disabling Diseases with Food, in which I explore the role of diet in correcting some of our leading causes of disability. To more easily navigate through the menu of diseases, it is also available on DVD through my website or Amazon. If you want to share copies with others, I have a five for $40 special (enter coupon code 5FOR40TTA). All proceeds from the sales of all my books, DVDs, and presentations go to the 501c3 nonprofit charity that keeps NutritionFacts.org free for all, for all time. If you want to support this initiative to educate millions about eradicating dietary diseases, please consider making a donation. After you’ve watched the new presentation, make sure you’re subscribed to get my video updates daily, weekly, or monthly to stay on top of all the latest. For now, though, air-pop some popcorn, sit back, and enjoy!

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Adair Turner: The Consequences of Money-Manager Capitalism – INET Economics

In the wake of World War II, much of the western world, particularly the United States, adopted a new form of capitalism called “managerial welfare-state capitalism.”

The system by design constrained financial institutions with significant social welfare reforms and large oligopolistic corporations that financed investment primarily out of retained earnings. Private sector debt was small, but government debt left over from financing the War was large, providing safe assets for households, firms, and banks. The structure of this system was financially robust and unlikely to generate a deep recession. However, the constraints within the system didn’t hold.

The relative stability of the first few decades after WWII encouraged ever-greater risk-taking, and over time the financial system was transformed into our modern overly financialized economy. Today, the dominant financial players are “managed money”—lightly regulated “shadow banks” like pension funds, hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds, and university endowments—with huge pools of capital in search of the highest returns. In turn, innovations by financial engineers have encouraged the growth of private debt relative to income and the increased reliance on volatile short-term finance and massive uses of leverage.

What are the implications of this financialization on the modern global economy? According to Adair Lord Turner, a Senior Fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking and a former head of the United Kingdom’s Financial Services Authority, it means that finance has become central to the daily operations of the economic system. More precisely, the private nonfinancial sectors of the economy have become more dependent on the smooth functioning of the financial sector in order to maintain the liquidity and solvency of their balance sheets and to improve and maintain their economic welfare. For example, households have increased their use of debt to fund education, healthcare, housing, transportation, and leisure. And at the same time, they have become more dependent on interest, dividends, and capital gains as a means to maintain and improve their standard of living.

Another major consequence of financialized economies is that they typically generate repeated financial bubbles and major debt overhangs, the aftermath of which tends to exacerbate inequality and retard economic growth. Booms turn to busts, distressed sellers sell their assets to the beneficiaries of the previous bubble, and income inequality expands.

In the view of Lord Turner, we have yet to come up with a sufficiently robust policy response to deal with the consequences of our new “money manager capitalism.” The upshot likely will be years more of economic stagnation and deteriorating living standards for many people around the world.

 

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Canadian Terror Attacks: What You Need to Know! – Stefan Molyneux

Soldier, 24, shot dead by Muslim convert Michael Zehaf-Bibeau who opened fire on Canadian Parliament in terrifying attack that left capital on lockdown. Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, 32, was shot dead after opening fire at Parliament Hill. He was born in Quebec but reportedly recently converted to Islam and had his passport seized after being designated a ‘high-risk traveler’. He shot reserve soldier Corporal Nathan Cirillo at the National War Memorial before running inside Parliament and exchanging gunfire with guards. Heroic Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers shot him dead. Police initially said there were multiple gunmen and at a press conference, they would not rule out other suspects. Witness accounts of a suspect include descriptions of him as short with long hair, overweight, wearing a dark jacket and ‘Arabic scarf’. What is the history behind the recent attack on Canada’s Parliament by reported Muslim convert Michael Zehaf-Bibeau? Why do these attacks happen? How can we stop them? Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain Radio, breaks down the deep history behind religious terrorism, and the relationship between ISIS, the war on terror, and modern terrorism.