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Can Climate Change Cause Mental Illnesses?

Anissa Haddadi
International Business Times
Thu, 01 Sep 2011 23:46 UTC
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© N/A
As climate change and its impacts on our planet and society are still debated, a new report by the Climate Institute of Australia warns against the devastating effects of extreme weather events on communities' mental health.

Taking severe weather events in Australia as a point of focus for the study, the report also blames adverse weather on climate change and says:
"Unabated, a more hostile climate will spell a substantial rise in the incidence of post-traumatic stress, anxiety and depression - all at great personal suffering and, consequently, social and economic cost."
The document, published this week, also warns that up to 20% of affected communities will suffer extremes stress, emotional injury, anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress and substance abuse.

The study found that as severe weather events in Australia increase in number, "climate change will have many adverse impacts on Australians' health - physical risks, infectious diseases, heat-related ill effects, food safety and nutritional risks, mental health problems and premature deaths.

Comment: An excellent form of meditation to reduce emotional pain or stress is to practice Éiriú Eolas Breathing and Meditation Program and can be found here.

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Snowman

Early Winter Snowfall Predicted For Ireland and UK

Mark Dunphy
Irish Weather Online
Sat, 03 Sep 2011 17:12 UTC
UK under snow
© MODIS
Ireland and UK from space on Christmas Day 2010.
A long range weather forecaster is predicting an early start to winter 2011-2012 for many regions of the United Kingdom and Ireland. James Madden of Exacta Weather says heavy snowfalls are likely in places as soon as late October and early November.

Last week, UK-based Positive Weather Solutions also predicted that the winter months will be colder than average everywhere and that some regions will experience significantly colder than average temperatures between December and March.
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Info

Inside the Christian Right Dominionist Movement That's Undermining Democracy in US

Chip Berlet
AlterNet
Thu, 01 Sep 2011 23:25 UTC
Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin have all flirted with Christian Right Dominionism, but there's lots of misinformation about just what that means.

American flag/cross
© n/a
Dominionists want to impose a form of Christian nationalism on the United States, a concept that was dismissed as eroding freedom and democracy by the founders of our country. Dominionism has become a major influence on the right-wing populist Tea Parties as Christian Right activists have flooded into the movement at the grassroots. At the same time, legitimate questions have been raised about whether or not potential Republican presidential nominees Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann, or Sarah Palin have moved from a generic form of Christian Right Dominionism toward the more totalitarian form know as Dominion Theology.

Clueless journalists and crafty Christian Right pundits have mocked the idea that Dominionism as a religiously motivated political tendency even exists. Scholars, however, have been writing about Dominionism for over a decade, some using the term directly, and others describing the tendency in other ways.
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Gear

Chomsky: U.S. has 'extreme contempt for democracy'

Noam Chomsky
RawReplay
Fri, 02 Sep 2011 19:55 UTC
In a new video, MIT professor Noam Chomsky discusses the nature of U.S imperialism as it compares to campaigns of violence carried out by other nations and groups.

Ultimately he drives the point home, suggesting the U.S. has an "extreme contempt for democracy" at home and around the world, and is not above resorting to violence to protect its interests.

"As long as the dictators back us, it doesn't matter what the population thinks. If there's a campaign of hatred against us among the populations and the dictators are in control, everything's fine. Euphoric headlines."

The interview is part of a series published by Histories of Violence, a "multi-media forum dedicated to exploring the theoretical, empirical and aesthetic dimensions to violence." The full site is planned to launch on Sept. 11, 2011.

This video is from Histories of Violence, published to YouTube on August 31, 2011.

Source: Stephen C. Webster

Comment: Chomsky avoids many very touchy topics and often misses the crux of the matter, but now and again, he manages to write things that are meaningful for individuals at the first stage of awakening.

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Bad Guys

Dick Cheney, the Ultimate American Terrorist

William Rivers Pitt
Truthout
Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:44 UTC
Dick Cheney
© Doug Mills / The New York Times
Vice President Dick Cheney in a June 20, 2007 file photo.
Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.

- Dick Cheney

It is axiomatic by now: when someone leaves government service, especially from a high-profile position, they write a book. They all do it, sometimes more than once. Richard Nixon is the main example of one who produced a multi-volume apologia; by the time he went into the ground, he'd penned enough books to fill a wide shelf. Henry Kissinger was similarly prolific, which leads one to wonder about the relationship between criminal activities and the printed page. Nixon was chased from office after a series of crimes that, at the time, had no precedent, and Kissinger is still so infamous that he cannot travel abroad for fear of arrest. Both wrote enough books to take up half the political science section of any local bookstore, perhaps in the vain attempt to explain away the lasting damage their actions did to the republic.
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Attention

7 Reasons To Brace For Impact

Snordelhans/Zen Gardner
YouTube
Wed, 24 Aug 2011 15:48 UTC

Comment: The PTB appear to be setting the stage for a US-China clash to usher in the next level of the post-9/11 Reign of Terror.

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Book

Book Review: Women Who Love Psychopaths

Haley Verrin
psychcentral.com
Wed, 31 Aug 2011 20:09 UTC
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© psychcentral.com
This book has many reasons to recommend it. Two are most powerful. First, its postulation through neuroscientific indications that the psychopath's brain is genetically different from his fellows and so he cannot change is paramount to letting go. Not understanding this, the victim is drawn, over and over again into the "vortex" of his power play. The term psychopath is used in the book to describe most of the "low/no empathy and conscience diagnoses" (p. 19). Further, the author delineates her hypothesis with a nature v. nurture debate regarding whether people become or are born this way. It is compelling.

The second, powerful hypothesis that Ms. Brown asserts is regarding the "Super Traits" (p. 206) of the victim that dovetail with the psychopath's. It would seem that the stronger and more independent the woman is, the more challenge and usefulness she provides for the man behind the mask. The psychopath is an opportunist as well as a sadist (in varying degrees). His parasitic lifestyle depends upon the strength of his victim and oftentimes her wealth. He will have many relationships to be certain that he always has a fresh supply of whatever he feels his needs are. The stronger woman will last longer. And yet, even after he has broken her, victims have reported that they have heard from these men a year or even ten years later. Many a woman will ask herself how this debacle happened; the book will give her a blow-by-blow description. And identifying the issue is a powerful way to begin a healing journey.

Comment: The author of Women Who Love Psychopaths, Sandra L. Brown wrote an excellent article in issue 13 of The Dot Connector Magazine titled The Unexamined Victim: Women Who Love Psychopaths . The article provides the reader with additional information and research about psychopaths and their negative effects on their victims.

In addition the following documentaries provide important information about psychopaths:

Defense Against the Psychopath

Documentary: Psychopath
"There are many psychopaths in society, that actually, we virtually know nothing about. These are the psychopaths who don't necessarily commit homicide, commit serious violence, or even come to the attention of the police. They may be successful businessmen. They may be successful politicians. They may be successful academics. They may be successful priests. They exist in all areas of society. There is a growing awareness that psychopathic behavior is around us in all walks of life."
For an in-depth view of psychopathy please see: Political Ponerology: The scientific study of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes

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Bad Guys

US: A Tip for Joe the Machinist and All Who Labor, Watch Your Back!!

Sam Pizzigati
Other Words
Mon, 29 Aug 2011 00:00 UTC
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© Kheel Center / Flickr
A Labor Day reflection: Corporate America no longer even pays lip service to the importance of encouraging hard work and skill.

You work hard. You do good work. You loyally stick with your employer through good times and bad. Do you have a right to a paycheck that rises over time?

On any Labor Day over the last 50 years, the answer - from labor and management alike - would be obvious: Of course!

But that answer doesn't seem to hold any more. Earlier this year, a trio of top business consultants openly challenged the notion that good employees doing valuable work deserve to see their paychecks steadily increase. This past July, the Harvard Business School circulated their challenge throughout corporate America's upper echelons.

This remarkably brazen assault on core American workplace values originated at Booz & Co., one of the nation's most prestigious corporate consulting firms. America's corporations, Booz analysts advised earlier this year, need to start attacking the "exorbitant" paychecks now going to their most prized, "steady and reliable" veteran workers.

The Booz analysts offer an example of the "significantly overpaid" worker they have in mind. They call him Joe the Machinist, "a stellar employee who knows the ins and outs of the organization, the result of his many years on the job."
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Dollar

25 Corporations Paid More To Their CEO Last Year Than They Paid In Taxes

Pat Garofalo
ThinkProgress
Wed, 31 Aug 2011 21:19 UTC
Last year, as Americans across the country grappled with the widespread effects of the Great Recession, tax dodging by corporations and the wealthy cost the average U.S. taxpayer $434, even as corporate profits soared 81 percent. In fact, according to a new report from the Institute for Policy Studies, "corporate tax dodging has gone so out of control that 25 major U.S. corporations last year paid their chief executives more than they paid Uncle Sam in federal income taxes."

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© Unknown
- Of last year's 100 highest-paid corporate chief executives in the United States, 25 took home more in CEO pay than their company paid in 2010 federal income taxes.

- These 25 CEOs averaged $16.7 million, well above last year's $10.8 million average for S&P 500 CEOs. Most of the companies they ran actually came out ahead at tax time, collecting tax refunds from the IRS that averaged $304 million.

- CEOs in 22 of these 25 firms enjoyed pay increases in 2010. In 13 of these companies, CEO paychecks ratcheted up while the corporate income tax bill either declined or the size of the corporate tax refund expanded.
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Alarm Clock

Global Warming Caused by Cosmic Rays and the Sun - Not Humans

Lawrence Solomon
The Financial Post
Fri, 26 Aug 2011 22:37 UTC
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New, convincing evidence indicates global warming is caused by cosmic rays and the sun - not humans

The science is now all-but-settled on global warming, convincing new evidence demonstrates, but Al Gore, the IPCC and other global warming doomsayers won't be celebrating. The new findings point to cosmic rays and the sun - not human activities - as the dominant controller of climate on Earth.

The research, published with little fanfare this week in the prestigious journal Nature, comes from über-prestigious CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, one of the world's largest centres for scientific research involving 60 countries and 8,000 scientists at more than 600 universities and national laboratories. CERN is the organization that invented the World Wide Web, that built the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider, and that has now built a pristinely clean stainless steel chamber that precisely recreated the Earth's atmosphere.
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