The whole world seems content to assume that, because the Texas explosion two days ago occurred at a fertilizer factory, it must have been fertilizer that caused the explosion. The problem with that theory is that the factory in question did not stock the commonly used fertilizer, ammonium nitrate, which is a solid, prone to exploding (with the proper ignition source) and is widely used by farmers and bomb makers (both the legal and illegal kinds). What the factory did stock was anhydrous ammonium, a gas, that is less volatile and, when ignited, less likely to explode with such force as seen at the West plant. For this reason, all mainstream media reports that have attempted to explain the explosion have been forced to refer to ammonium nitrate, despite the fact that there was no ammonium nitrate at the plant. This historical revisionism has already infected Wikipedia (no surprise there), where the West explosion is referred to as having been caused by ammonium nitrate.

'Marathon Monday' will never be the same for Bostonians. The 117th Boston Marathon ended abruptly when two bombs went off in quick succession at 2.50 pm EST near the finish line on Boylston Street in downtown Boston. As we go to press, 3 people have been confirmed dead, 17 are critically wounded and another 176 have been treated for injuries. The bombs - spaced some 500 yards and 10 seconds apart - went off on the same side of the street, where many spectators had gathered to cheer runners on to the finish line.

Flying limbs and streets awash in blood from what were effectively anti-personnel bombs, designed to maximise trauma, are daily occurrences in countries occupied by the U.S. military, but such gruesome scenes aren't usually seen on the streets of the 'homeland'. Until now.

As the initial shock subsides to make way for an official narrative that will no doubt squeeze every ounce of political capital from this heinous deed, we want to point out some of the inconsistencies we've noticed thus far.

In this second in our series of shows on the topic of science and its benefits and negative consequences for mankind, we took a look at the use and abuse of psychiatry and psychology.

From the psychotherapist's chair to anti-depressant drugs and diverse therapeutic modalities, psychiatry and psychology have come up with as many solutions for mental health issues as there are theories of what makes people tick.

While many individuals have benefited from some form of intervention or another, the application of psychological knowledge for propaganda purposes, mind control experiments and pure corporate greed has apparently left most people's psychological health more fragile than ever.

This week, we attempted to sort the good from the bad and the ugly by 'psychoanalyzing' some of the questionable practices and theories of the mind, and untangling the confusion produced by psychological terminology that frequently overlaps the same basic underlying problems people encounter in our stressful modern world.

Running Time: 02:16:00

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In this first in our series of shows on the topic of science and its benefits, or otherwise, to human beings, we subjected modern medicine to an in-depth and experience-based analysis of the root causes of human illness.

In combination with modern technology, modern medicine has undoubtedly brought various benefits for human health and longevity. At the same time however, a startlingly high percentage of people today, particularly those living in Western 'first world' counties, suffer from an increasing number of 'modern diseases' that have proven to be incurable with modern allopathic techniques.

From various forms of cancer to heart disease and diabetes, modern medical treatments can only alleviate the symptoms of these diseases by way of a plethora of pills (like statins) that sufferers often must consume for the rest of their lives. In addition, many of these pills carry significantly deleterious side-effects.

On the 'bright' side, as the sole purveyors of these pills to the doctors that prescribe them, multi-national pharmaceutical companies have grown outrageously wealthy, bringing into question whether or not there may be a conflict of interest and if these companies are truly committed to improving human health in a real way.

Studiously ignored by the medical establishment is the increasing evidence that diet is a major contributor to health and that what we eat may be a significant contributing factor to the rise of these modern diseases that have, in some cases, reached almost pandemic proportions.

Running Time: 02:11:00

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"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."

The War on Iraq was one of the most brutal events in modern history. Sold to the people on the basis of lies about non-existent WMDs and Saddam Hussein's non-existent ties to non-existent al Qaeda, the above quote from a Bush administration official encapsulates the pathological delusion of grandeur that is US government foreign policy.

On this week's show we'll be marking the 10th anniversary of 'Shock and Awe' by comparing American fantasy with reality and examining the disastrous choices American policy-makers have taken as the economy implodes. 9/11 gave the warmongers their "new Pearl Harbor." Couched in lofty rhetoric about spreading democracy and liberating the world from tyrannical dictators, America's glorious self-image stands in stark contrast to the brutal reality of ten years of bloody mayhem that has left Iraq and its people ripped apart.

But it's not just Iraqis that have suffered. This insane warmongering is having a disastrous effect on the American and European populations, both economically and morally. History shows that when a civilization reaches a certain level of selfishness and depravity, cosmic disaster follows.

Running Time: 02:08:00

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This week we revisit the topic of psychopaths but from the angle of the women who have fallen "in love" with them and suffered the consequences.

Our guest will be Sandra L. Brown. Sandra holds a master's degree in counseling with a former specialization in personality disorders/pathology. She is a program development specialist, lecturer, community educator, and award-winning author.

Sandra is also a writer for Psychology Today and has been interviewed in magazines such as Seventeen. She has appeared in more than 50 television shows including Anderson Cooper's daytime show, "Anderson". She has provided consultation to film producers regarding pathological love relationship dynamics based on her books.

Sandra's books include the award-winning Women Who Love Psychopaths: Inside the Relationships of inevitable Harm With Psychopaths, Sociopaths & Narcissists and How to Spot a Dangerous Man Before You Get Involved

Running Time: 02:05:00

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Ten years ago, more or less to the day, I wrote the following on the then Signs of the Times page:

"As I sit here, a motion in the UK House of commons has been defeated by some 415 votes to 149. Not that any other result would have stopped the US, yet it signifies a full green light for the attack on Iraq. Bush's 'ultimatum' to Saddam expires at midnight (GMT) Thursday (7pm EST). "Shock and Awe" (read "death and destruction") may come at any time between now and then. We have at most one day, one day left to ponder at the edge of the abyss before the coming darkness engulfs us all.

As if to mock those who are against this illegal invasion and the lies and deceit that have been used to justify it, Ari Fleishcer today stated that, even if Saddam went into exile now, the US would still invade. It's not about WMD, it's about domination and the destructive principle. Perhaps Ari feels he can be more truthful now that it is a 'done deal', now that Cheney, Rumsfeld and Blair have told the peace-loving people of the world to go f**k themselves. It must have been hard for Fleischer to stand up in front of the world's media every day and lie so profusely. (Then again, maybe not).

It's hard for me to describe the feelings I have right now; there is an enormous sense of impending doom, mixed with anger at being made to feel so helpless in the face of such rampant psychopathy. Who are these men that they can simply decide to throw the world and its inhabitants into "war without end", and who are we that they could, for so long, fool us with such pathetic and barely-disguised lies and know that we would just roll over and let them get away with it?"

Ten years ago today, the US and British military (with a posse of cowed 'allies' in tow) launched 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' aka 'Shock and Awe' aka, 'Operation Destroy the Critical Infrastructure of Iraq and Initiate an Overt Decade-long Attack on - and Occupation of - the Iraqi People.' To date, at least 1.5 million Iraqi civilians have been murdered, and at least 5 million displaced from their homes as a direct result of 'liberation'. This on top of millions killed and impoverished by US-led economic sanctions in the preceding decade. Deadly car bombings continue to this day. Suffice to say, Iraq was not liberated: it was destroyed, and destroyed deliberately.

Remember how we were told to eat all our veggies when we were younger because they were good for us? Is that really true? On this week's show, we took a look at the myth of the 'balanced diet' as promoted by the USDA and other state agencies. Mass cultivation of grains and vegetables has had devastating consequences for the planet's biosphere, not least the one billion-plus people who go hungry daily, a top soil exhausted of the basic nutrients for growing crops, and a mechanized global food industry that poisons the environment at every stage of production.

GMOs are promoted by Big Agribusiness as the answer to global food shortages, but independent studies indicate that genetically modified food is not fit for human or animal consumption. GMOs are already prevalent in the food supply so is it too late to stop Monsanto's world takeover? And is there really a food shortage to begin with? If Goldman Sachs and other market predators can pocket $400 million in 2012 alone from betting against the price of food, then commodity prices are clearly distorted. So what is the real outlook for food supply and demand?

People who seek healthy options appear to be hemmed in on all sides, but perhaps if we look to the past, we can find a way out? Our ancestors survived Ice Ages on paleo diets that were high in meat and saturated fats, and distinctly low on carbs. Tens of thousands of people experimenting with 'going paleo' have reported excellent health results -- results that the Big Agribusiness and Big Pharma-sponsored scientific establishment said should not have happened.

But they did, and now, on the eve of global civilization's collapse - due in large part to its addiction to increasingly refined carbs - word is getting around that saturated fat is where it's at.

Running Time: 02:13:00

Download: MP3

America continues to sink into a black pit of despair, already way beyond its event horizon. Chris Hedges refers to our future as one of sacrifice zones; those areas on this planet where the dead are simply consequences of a corporation's cost-benefit analysis. Few remain who willingly make the superhuman efforts required to protect the living world and her children. But they are out there. They remain.

Chris Hedges is one of the last to stand up to the corporate power that has taken America by the throat and strangled her until her purse spills to the ground. He is America's Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He is one of the last to stand while those with eyes to see turn their heads to avoid what their eyes are seeing.

"It's absolutely imperative that we begin to understand what unfettered, unregulated capitalism does," Hedges emphasized. "These are sacrifice zones, areas that have been destroyed for quarterly profit. And we're talking about environmentally destroyed, communities destroyed, human beings destroyed, families destroyed. And because there are no impediments left, these sacrifice zones are just going to spread outward."

The whole world has become a sacrifice zone. The shopping mall, main street, the Middle East, Africa and South America, the ground our families walk upon, even our families, are all sacrificed by idiots whose only sense of value is in self-indulgence. Hedges openly defies corporate power. He openly defies imperialism. He openly defies the puppet Obama, suing him for claiming the right to arbitrarily extinguish the lives of the sons and daughters of this world.

Filmmaker Andreas Nowak's excellent documentary, Ein ganz normaler Arzt ('A perfectly normal doctor'), dealing with crimes committed during the Second World War, won the Austrian Dr. Karl Renner Prize for Journalism in 2000. We are making this documentary available to a wider audience, complete with English subtitles, because it so clearly illustrates some of the important concepts put forward by Andrzej Lobaczewski in his ground-breaking work on psychopathy and psychopaths in power, Political Ponerology.



Nowak's film exposes the systematic practice of euthanasia - so-called "assisted death" - on disabled babies and children that took place during the Second World War. While there were undoubtedly many physicians and nurses involved in such crimes throughout the Third Reich, A Perfectly Normal Doctor focuses on Nazi doctor and psychologist Heinrich Gross, who was at one time in charge of an Austrian hospital where 800 children were killed. Only two cases were ever brought against Gross: one a few years after the end of World War II which resulted in a conviction for manslaughter but which was later overturned on a technicality, and another in 2005, 6 months before his death, where the case was dismissed on the grounds that Gross was suffering from dementia. After his crimes, Gross enjoyed a 50-year-long, high-profile career as a court-appointed expert in psychopathology.

What makes this documentary particularly important is that it not only exposes the pathological nature of the Nazi regime but also the 'Western liberal democracy' that came afterwards, which allowed 'ex-Nazis' like Gross to retain (or continue their rise into) positions of power over others.