The Vancouver-based Dr. Gabor Maté argues that too many doctors seem to have forgotten what was once a commonplace assumption - that emotions are deeply implicated in both the development of illness and in the restoration of health. Based on medical studies and his own experience with chronically ill patients at the Palliative Care Unit at Vancouver Hospital, where he was the medical coordinator for seven years, Dr. Gabor Maté makes the case that there are important links between the mind and the immune system. He found that stress and individual emotional makeup play critical roles in an array of diseases. [includes rush transcript]

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. -Martin Luther King Jr.

The American public is suffering from an education deficit. By this I mean it exhibits a growing inability to think critically, question authority, be reflective, weigh evidence, discriminate between reasoned arguments and opinions, listen across differences and engage the mutually informing relationship between private problems and broader public issues. This growing political and cultural illiteracy is not merely a problem of the individual, one that points to simple ignorance. It is a collective and social problem that goes to the heart of the increasing attack on democratic public spheres and supportive public institutions that promote analytical capacities, thoughtful exchange and a willingness to view knowledge as a resource for informed modes of individual and social agency. One of the major consequences of the current education deficit and the pervasive culture of illiteracy that sustains it is what I call the ideology of the big lie - which propagates the myth that the free-market system is the only mechanism to ensure human freedom and safeguard democracy.

The education deficit, along with declining levels of civic literacy, is also part of the American public's collective refusal to know - a focused resistance on the part of many members of society to deal with knowledge that challenges common sense, or to think reflectively about facts and truths that are unsettling in terms of how they disturb some of our most cherished beliefs, especially those that denounce the sins of big government, legitimize existing levels of economic insecurity, social inequality and reduced or minimal government intervention in the field of welfare legislation."⁽¹⁾ The decline of civility and civic literacy in American society is a political dilemma, the social production of which is traceable to a broader constellation of forces deeply rooted in the shifting nature of education and the varied cultural apparatuses that produce it, extending from the new digital technologies and online journals to the mainstream media of newspapers, magazines and television. Politics is now held hostage to what the late Raymond Williams called the "force of permanent education," a kind of public pedagogy spread through a plethora of teaching machines that are shaping how our most powerful ideas are formed.⁽²⁾ For Williams, the concept of "permanent education" was a central political insight:

What it valuably stresses is the educational force of our whole social and cultural experience. It is therefore concerned, not only with continuing education, of a formal or informal kind, but with what the whole environment, its institutions and relationships, actively and profoundly teaches.... [Permanent education also refers to] the field in which our ideas of the world, of ourselves and of our possibilities, are most widely and often most powerfully formed and disseminated. To work for the recovery of control in this field is then, under any pressures, a priority. For who can doubt, looking at television or newspapers, or reading the women's magazines, that here, centrally, is teaching and teaching financed and distributed in a much larger way than is formal education.⁽³⁾

European leaders have no intention of resolving Greece's economic woes and have made it heavily indebted, transforming the country into an "insatiable beast" facing a burgeoning debt crisis, says an analyst.

The comment comes as Greek leaders are striving hard to form a coalition government while some experts say the prospects of the cash-stripped country's future remains uncertain as it may be forced to exit the EU bloc in case of not accepting bailout terms.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Niall Bradley, the editor of the Signs of the Times Scott.net [sic] to discuss the situation.

The video also offers the opinions of two other guests: economist, Shabir Razvi and Press TV correspondent, Constantine Venizelos. The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

It wasn't long after he met the man called Shareef that Khalifa Al-Akili began to sense he was being set up. Within days of their seemingly chance meeting, Shareef was offering to drive Akili, a 34-year-old Muslim living in East Liberty, Pennsylvania, to the local mosque for prayers. Shareef told Akili he was "all about fighting" and "had a lot of resources at his disposal." But when Shareef began to probe Akili about his views on jihad and asked him if he could obtain a gun, Akili grew nervous. "I begin to try to avoid him, but would still see him due to the fact that he lived two minutes' walking distance from my apartment," Akili said later. In January of this year, Shareef showed up with a "brother" who called himself Mohammed and was keen to meet Akili. Mohammed told Akili that he was a businessman from Pakistan involved in jihad. "He kept attempting to talk about the fighting going on in Afghanistan, which I clearly felt was an attempt to get me to talk about my views," Akili recalled. "I had a feeling that I had just played out a part in some Hollywood movie where I had just been introduced to the leader of a terrorist sleeper cell."

Out of curiosity, Akili did an Internet search on the cellphone number he'd received from Mohammed. Much to his surprise, he discovered that the man was, in fact, an FBI informant named Shahed Hussain, who had played a pivotal role in at least two major terrorism-related sting operations in recent years. In a lengthy posting on his Facebook page recounting these events, Akili wrote, "I would like to pursue a legal action against the FBI due to their continuous harassment." He also set up a press conference in Washington with Muslim civil liberties groups to publicize his fear that he was being entrapped. But it was too late. In mid-March, Akili was arrested and charged with being in possession of a .22-caliber rifle at a shooting range several years earlier, an act deemed illegal because of a decade-old drug conviction. Though his arrest was on nonterrorism-related charges, at his bond hearing FBI agents and US Attorneys told the judge they'd seen unspecified "jihadist literature" at his apartment and also alleged that he'd told one of the informants of his desire to go to Pakistan and join the Taliban. The judge ordered Akili held without bail.

An American author says agents of the CIA and MI6 are directing armed groups to carry out massacres inside Syria, Press TV reports.


Stephen Lendman, writer and radio host from Chicago, said the CIA and MI6 "special forces" are in Syria now, directing massacres.

"They go after pro-Assad loyalists," Lendman stated in an interview with Press TV on Saturday.

"There is no question this is a Washington-orchestrated war."

Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach.

Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas.

It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.

- All Quotes by Joseph Stalin

Know Your Enemy

I recall wanting to read Mein Kampf as a young kid, although to this day I have only read excerpts. I wanted to know what made this guy tick, what his thoughts were. How could someone justify such horrific actions. As I have progressed into adulthood I have only become more and more convinced that books written by psychopath killer dictators should be required reading for every single human being on the planet. In a similar vein, I remember hearing the argument back in high school that people should not read Machiavelli's The Prince. The argument was that if people read a manual on devious thoughts, and the application of ruthless behavior to achieve one's selfish ends, that it would permeate society and lead us all into a darker place. As soon as I heard this, of course, the first thing I did was head to the book store to buy it. I recall my reaction to the treatise vividly.

There is a dangerous person running for President in 2012, and his name is Baritt Obamney. I normally try not to attack specific candidates for political office, but Baritt Obamney is so offensive to American sensibilities that I had to share this warning with my fellow Americans. In 2012, we must vote against Obamney for President.

And why? Because here is what Obamney believes in, based on his actions and voting record:

- Big, bigger and even BIGGER government! The bigger the government, the better.

- GMOs: Obamney is a huge supporter of Monsanto and the biotech industry that produces genetically modified seeds. He wants all Americans to eat foods laced with pesticides grown by the crops themselves! This is all part of the mass poisoning plan to keep America sick and incapable of resisting tyranny.

Nervous Greeks are withdrawing up to 800 million euros ($1.01 billion) a day and stocking up on canned food as they fear the country will be forced to leave the eurozone after this Sunday's election.

Greek citizens fear the ramifications of a return to the country's previous currency, the drachma, if the radical left-wing party and strong election contender SYRIZA wins this weekend.

Bankers said daily withdrawals from the major banks were hitting €500-€800 million ($631.8 million-$1.01 billion), Reuters reported.

Meanwhile, retailers say consumers are stocking up on non-perishable foods like pasta and canned goods.

A 2010 Rockefeller Foundation document entitled "Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development" outlines a scenario which results in the death of 13,000 during the 2012 Olympics.

Rise of Authoritarianism

The first worrying prediction begins in 2012 when 'the pandemic the world had been anticipating for years', finally hits, infecting nearly 20 percent of world population and claiming 8 million lives. Due to this pandemic, the Rockefeller Foundation outlines how the public will welcome a more authoritative government and a tighter control across all aspects of life, including Biometric IDs for all citizens.

In this excerpt from The Happiness Diet, discover how Procter & Gamble convinced people to forgo butter and lard for cheap, factory-made oils loaded with trans fat.

Before highways and before railroads, America conducted her commerce via steamship over water through a system of rivers, canals, and lakes. In the 1800s, Cincinnati was the heart of the developed United States. At the time it was known to the world as Porkopolis. That's because not so long ago, the most widely consumed meat in this nation was swine.

This was before refrigeration. The biggest enemy of 19th-century butchers was spoilage. Eating cows didn't make a whole lot of sense: Distributing the meat of a freshly killed 1,500-pound animal before it went bad was difficult without roads and temperature-controlled trains. But pigs are fatty, which makes them excellent for salt curing because they don't lose flavor.