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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 12/21/2016 10:34:15 AM
	Japan Recognizes First Thyroid Cancer Case As Fukushima Related, Offers Compensation DECEMBER 19, 2016 By Whitney Webb Even though Fukushima was the worst environmental disaster to have taken place in the last 30 years, you probably haven’t heard much about it. After the Tohoku earthquake in eastern Japan and subsequent tsunami, one of the cooling systems at Fukushima’s Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) nuclear power plant failed. The result was a devastating triple reactor meltdown that led to the evacuation of over half a million people and the creation of a 20-kilometer exclusion zone. Ever since the disaster, TEPCO as well as the Japanese government have consistently tried to downplay the disaster’s impacts nationally and globally. The collusion was so blatant that even TEPCO’s company president, Naomi Hirose, admitted that a “cover-up” had taken place. However, some of Fukushima’s effects are so obvious that even the Japanese government cannot continue to deny the enormity of the 2011 disaster. Within the last five years, many of the workers present at the Fukushima nuclear plant during the meltdown, as well as those involved in its clean-up, have developed cancer. Of the numerous workers seeking compensation, only two workers with leukemia were found to be entitled to workplace compensation by the Japanese health ministry. Yet, neither of these workers have so far received any money from the government for their treatment. Now, that is set to change. On Friday, Japan’s health ministry concluded that another worker, diagnosed with thyroid cancer three years ago, developed his illness due to radiation exposure during his time working for TEPCO. The man had worked at several nuclear power plants with the company between 1992 and 2012 and was present at the Fukushima plant during the disaster. The radiation present in the man’s body was found to be about 150 millisieverts, with 140 of which were believed to be a result of the 2011 disaster. This marks the first time that a former worker with thyroid cancer has won the right to work-related compensation as many other similar cases were previously rejected by the Japanese government. This most recent confirmed case of Fukushima-related cancer ultimately forced the hand of the Japanese government, prompting them to release their overall position on workers compensation for those who worked at the plant before and after the catastrophe. Officials said that workers who had been exposed to over 100 millisieverts and developed cancer five years or more after the disaster were entitled to compensation, though this quantity of radiation was said to be a “yardstick” – not a strict standard. According to a joint study by the UN and TEPCO, about 174 former workers are believed to have been exposed to over 100 millisieverts of radiation. However, the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun reported that more than 2,000 workers have radiation exceeding 100 millisieverts in their thyroid gland alone. Though this new policy is good news for former TEPCO employees, it does little to address the growing epidemic of thyroid cancer among Fukushima citizens. Thyroid cancer rates have soared since the disaster. The trend is particularly noticeable among Fukushima’s youngest residents as131 children have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer since 2011. Despite the spike in thyroid cancer, the Japanese government, TEPCO, and even the United Nations have insisted that there is “no direct link” between exposure to Fukushima radiation and thyroid cancer. However, exposure to Iodine-131, the main radionuclide released into the air and water during the meltdown, is known to increase one’s risk of thyroid cancer and is themost clearly defined environmental factor associated with thyroid tumors. If the Japanese government is offering compensation to workers for radiation exposure, it must also extend help to the disaster’s youngest victims. What are your thoughts? Please comment below and share this news! This article (Japan Recognizes First Thyroid Cancer Case As Fukushima-Related, Offers Compensation) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under aCreative Commons license with attribution to the author and TrueActivist.com Image Credit: Pixabay.com (activistpost.com)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 12/21/2016 10:47:48 AM
	DOOMSDAY NASA scientist warns Earth is due for 'extinction-level' event By Joshua Rhett Miller Published December 14, 2016 New York Post A NASA scientist is warning that Earth is due for an “extinction-level” event like a comet or asteroid strike — and claims there won’t be anything we can do to stop it. Joseph Nuth, an award-winning scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, told attendees during Monday’s annual American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco that policymakers should start preparing for such a possible cataclysmic strike, despite the extremely long odds of it happening. “But on the other hand, they are the extinction-level events, things like dinosaur killers, they’re 50 to 60 million years apart, essentially,” Nuth said. “You could say, of course, we’re due, but it’s a random course at that point.” Making matters even worse is Nuth’s claim that humanity isn’t close to being prepared for such a threat, The Guardian reported. “The biggest problem, basically, is there’s not a hell of a lot we can do about it at the moment,” Nuth said. Nuth is calling on NASA to build two spacecraft: an “interceptor” rocket and an observer spacecraft. If a comet or asteroid poses a strong enough threat to Earth, the rocket — which would be capable of carrying a nuclear bomb — could “mitigate the possibility of a sneaky asteroid coming in from a place that’s hard to observe, like from the sun,” he said. But NASA would need to drastically reduce the typical five-year span between mission approval and launch to make any such last-minute deflection attempt a possibility. “It’s really imperative that we reduce that reaction time,” Nuth said. Space.com reports that NASA would need to make a formal request to Congress to approve such a mission. “We’re talking a considerable amount of money,” Nuth said. “The NASA request would probably be for several hundred million dollars to produce one of these spacecraft.” Nuth stressed that he wasn’t speaking on behalf on NASA, saying he’s not a policymaker at the space agency. “I’m not even in the administration of NASA,” he said. “So this is more of a scientific recommendation.” Nuth said Earth had a “close encounter” just two years ago, when a comet passed “within cosmic spitting distance” of Mars. The cosmic snowball of frozen gases was discovered just 22 months before its near-collision with the Red Planet. “If you look at the schedule for high-reliability spacecraft and launching them, it takes five years to launch a spacecraft,” Nuth said. “We had 22 months of total warning.” But NASA officials, in a statement to The Post, said not to worry for at least the next century. “NASA places a high priority on finding and characterizing any hazardous asteroids and comets as much in advance as possible, to have sufficient time to protect our home planet from a potential impact,” the statement reads. “The agency continues to aggressively develop strategies and plans with partners in the US and abroad to enhance our identification and tracking efforts, and develop options for mitigation and planetary defense.” The statement continued: “To date, approximately 95 percent of potentially hazardous asteroids and comets larger than 1 kilometer in size that could pose danger to Earth have been found. Additionally, there are no detected impact threats for the next 100 years.” Nuth is a senior scientist for primitive bodies at Goddard Space Flight Center,according to his NASA bio. He has won several awards and commendations throughout his 38-year career, including an achievement award in astrobiology from NASA. This story first appeared in The New York Post. (foxnews.com)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 12/21/2016 2:03:51 PM
	Fake News: The Intensification Of Information Warfare DECEMBER 20, 2016 By Newsbud In this week’s Newsbud Roundtable Spiro Skouras is joined by Newsbud Founder Sibel Edmonds, James Corbett of corbettreport.com and Senior Producer at Newsbud Kurt Nimmo to discuss Nimmo’s recent exclusive article for Newsbud titled: ‘PropOrNot: Evidence of a CIA Psychological Operation’. We take a look at the war on free speech, the information war that is in full swing and much more. Join the Newsbud Community, visit Newsbud’s website, and follow Newsbud on Twitter. (activistpost.com)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 12/21/2016 2:29:45 PM
	THE TRUE REASON BEHIND THE 40-HOUR WORK WEEK & WHY WE ARE ECONOMIC SLAVES COLLECTIVE EVOLUTIONDECEMBER 20, 2016 (EV via anonhq) Economic slavery, or wage slavery, refers to one’s total and immediate dependence on wages to survive. Although people throughout history have had to work to get by, we now live in a culture where we are led to believe we have economic freedom, when unbeknownst to most citizens, we are in fact bound in servitude. We automatically accept a 40-hour workweek with meager hourly pay as normal, even though many work overtime and still struggle to survive. There are also those who make enough to live comfortably but are unable to request less hours—you either work 40 hours a week, or you don’t get to work at all. We submit when told what to wear, when we have to arrive and depart, when we’re allowed to eat, and even when we’re allowed to use the restroom. How is it we have come to allow this? The 40-hour-work week came about during the Industrial Revolution in Britain when at one point workers were putting in 10 to 16 hour days and began to protest. Working situations for Americans began to worsen as well, and by 1836, labor movement publications were also calling for a 40-hour workweek. Citizens in both situations were so overworked, an eight-hour day was easily accepted. This system is unnecessary now, if it ever was, but we still accept it due to the effects of our capitalist society. There are many contributing factors that have led to our current economic system and continued acceptance of the 40-hour workweek, three major factors being consumerism, inflation, and debt. First, it’s important to understand exactly what inflation is, how it works, and how it leads to debt. Inflation: To put inflation simply, let’s say the U.S. government needs money for whatever war they’ve decided to wage this year. They ask the Federal Reserve for a loan, and the Fed agrees to buy bonds (sort of like IOU’s) from the government in the amount of the requested loan. The U.S. government then prints up a bunch of pieces of paper that say “Treasury Bond” while at the same time, the Federal Reserve prints up a bunch of little pieces of paper that we know as money. A trade is made between the government and the Federal Reserve—the bonds for the money—and the U.S. government directly deposits this newly printed money in a different bank, which in turn, takes its cut in fees and interest. Voilà, money has been created out of thin air. Although this process takes place electronically now (only 3% of money is in physical form, the other 97% exists in computers) the problem either way is that it depletes the worth of the dollar. At one point in time, currency was worth gold. That was what gave money its value, but now the value of money is trusted to the Federal Reserve who has no moral objections to reducing that value by printing more money (basically legal counterfeit). For the cost of printing, the Federal Reserve creates money that the U.S. government has promised to pay back—money that didn’t even exist in the first place. It works like this with private bank loans to citizens as well. Each time a transaction of this sort happens, it reduces the value of actual currency, and thus we have inflation. One dollar in 1913 required $21.60 in 2007 to match its value. That’s a 96% devaluation since the Federal Reserve came into existence. How does this lead to economic slavery? By the debt inflation has caused. DEBT: Since money is created through loans, that means it’s created through debt. Money equals debt, and debt equals money. So the more money there is, the more debt there is, and vice versa. What this means is, if somehow the government and every citizen in debt were able to pay back those loans, there would not be a single dollar in circulation. Interest plays an important role in this equation as well. When you take out a loan and the bank gives you money that technically doesn’t exist, they also expect you to pay additional interest with it. If the money loaned is coming from the Federal Reserve, where is the money for the interest supposed to come from? The answer is nowhere. That means no matter what, the nation will never be able to get out of debt, and that is exactly the purpose of this meticulously orchestrated system. Like a toss of the coin, somebody somewhere will always go bankrupt to make up for the interest that is being paid with even more debt. And so, as the nation sinks further in the hole while the cost of living increases, surviving in the economy becomes more difficult. This desperation to survive, coupled with the fact that we were born into this system, is ultimately what causes us to accept the 40-hour workweek without a moment’s thought. So now we understand the element that forces us to accept our predicament, but how does the 40-hour workweek benefit banks and corporations? After all, studies show that the average office worker gets less than three hours worth of work done in an 8-hour work shift, and according to reports, US corporate profits are soaring while wages are declining. Bureau of Labor Statistics figures show that productivity has increased at a 2.3 percent annual rate in the third quarter, while hourly pay only increased 1.3 percent in the third quarter, and this has been the basic pattern for some time—it adds up after a while. Corporate profits are at their highest level in at least 85 years, so why aren’t we being paid more, working less, and providing additional jobs to those who need them? This brings us to consumerism. CONSUMERISM: Consumerism is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as: the belief that it is good for people to spend a lot of money on goods and services. At one point in time this belief may have rang true, but with the current capitalist system and cost of living, consumerism has begun to have negative effects on our society, especially when you take inflation and the increasing debt into consideration. The more we buy, the more we feed the corporations and banks who are in turn pushing us into economic slavery. Since the 1800’s and the Industrial Revolution, “consumers” have been spending increasing amounts of money on frivolous purchases. This over-indulgence has been nurtured and fed by the corporations using commercialism (the attitude or actions of people who are influenced too strongly by the desire to earn money or buy goods rather than by other values—Merriam-Webster) as a tool. Psychological insinuations have been planted into society’s subconscious for generations through consumer advertisements which have ultimately led to certain habits and beliefs. Some examples are: “Buy now pay later” – The General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC) started this mindset when it was established in 1919 and began to promote giving loans to people who bought cars. Americans eventually started to use the new credit plans on just about everything. “Keeping up with the Joneses” – Commonly thought to be the beginning of the American consumer culture, this mindset began when GM introduced the yearly automobile model change. People wanted to have the latest model each year, and soon this idea spread out. Most of us, whether we want to admit it or not, are familiar with this mentality. Rather than keeping our old toaster that works perfectly fine, we want the new retro-style stainless steel model because it looks swanky sitting on our kitchen counter. “1929-1945 Depression and War” – Soon after The Depression came WWII, during which advertisers promised products to be available when there was peace. As a result, customers (consumers) were eager to take up spending immediately after the war was over. “Peace” – When the war ended, consumer optimism and economic growth accompanied victory. “Charge it!” – Credit cards were first promoted through the Diners Club—a charge card company that services affluent and well-traveled individuals from around the world. Other companies followed suit and started advertising credit cards as a “time-saving device” rather than a way to spend money that wasn’t actually there. “Bigger is better” – During the 1970’s, companies began to send credit cards out by the masses to those who had not requested them. While Americans had already been developing the idea that “bigger is better”, the credit card boom ended up exploiting that idea. Now people had the means to obtain extravagant items they couldn’t before, even though it put many in colossal debt. Congress soon had to regulate the credit card boom, and ban sending cards to those who never requested them in the first place. Companies in all kinds of industries hold a huge stake in the public’s penchant to be careless with their money, and they encourage this habit of casual or non-essential spending when they can. For example, in the documentary The Corporation, a marketing psychologist discussed a method she used to increase sales that involved encouraging children to nag their parents to buy toys. Studies showed that 20% to 40% of purchases of this sort resulted after children nagged their parents. “You can manipulate consumers into wanting, and therefore buying, your products. It’s a game.” Lucy Hughes, co-creator of “The Nag Factor”. The 40-hour workweek is the ultimate tool for corporations to sustain this culture of over-indulgent spending. Under our current working conditions, people are forced to build a life in the evenings and their days-off. We find ourselves more inclined to spend heavily on entertainment and conveniences because we rarely have any free time. When we do have time to ourselves, it’s usually fleeting, and we eventually find ourselves neglecting those activities which are free—walking, exercising, reading, meditating, sports, hobbies, etc.—because they take too much time. While having extra money comes at the sacrifice of personal time for some, for others they not only are robbed of their personal freedom, but they struggle to make ends meet on top of it. The “perfect” consumer works full-time, earns a fair amount of money, indulges during their free time, and somehow just makes it by each month. However, even those who don’t earn fair wages sometimes find themselves wasting small increments of money on unnecessary items for the wrong reasons—a cup of Starbucks here, a McDonald’s cheeseburger there, and those really cool fuzzy dice hanging from the rear-view of your 1993 Honda Civic. Any way you look at it, we have become an unhappy, mindless, over-worked society. We buy silly items for a few moments of happiness before getting bored and moving on. We feel a need to keep up with fads, or to fulfill our childhood vision of what adulthood would be like. We hide our insecurities, avoid issues, and replace psychological needs with material items. By keeping society’s free time scarce, people will pay more for convenience, gratification, and any other relief they can buy. Keeping America unhealthy has become extremely profitable for big-business, and so far their efforts have paid-off beautifully. Our society has been transformed into an industry fueled by economic slavery, and consumerism is a key factor in this corrupt system—one the people have direct influence over. Consumers are the only ones who can stop consuming. Sources: Cain, David. True Activist. Dec 7, 2014. (http://www.trueactivist.com/your-lifestyle-has-already-been-designed-the-real-reason-for-the-forty-hour-workweek/) Ethos. Dir. Pete McGrain. Cinema Libre Studio, 2011. Documentary Graph supplied by: (http://economagic.com/) Jones, Shannon. World Socialist Web Site. Dec 4, 2014. (http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/12/04/wage-d04.html) Mt. Holyoke College Research Study. American Consumerism and the Global Environment. 2009. (http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~kelle20m/classweb/wp/index.html) Zeitgeist: Addendum. Dir. Peter Joseph. GMP LLC, 2008. Documentary. http://www.collective-evolution.com/2016/12/20/the-true-reason-behind-the-40-hour-work-week-why-we-are-economic-slaves/ Category: Collective Evolution
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 12/21/2016 5:48:27 PM
	Trump portrays Berlin attack as onslaught against Christians Olivier Knox Chief Washington Correspondent Yahoo NewsDecember 20, 2016 President-elect Donald Trump gestures during a rally in Hershey, Pa., on Thursday. (Photo: Matt Rourke/AP) President-elect Donald Trump characterized the gruesome truck attack on a Christmas market in Berlin as part of a systematic campaign by Muslim extremists against Christians, fueling speculation that he views the war on terrorism as a clash of civilizations and not a conflict against extremists. Trump’s late-Monday statement noted that the 12 people killed and 50 wounded were “innocent civilians.” But rather than identifying them as German citizens and tourists, he cast the attack in unusually religious terms. “ISIS and other Islamist terrorists continually slaughter Christians in their communities and places of worship as part of their global jihad,” Trump said. “These terrorists and their regional and worldwide networks must be eradicated from the face of the earth, a mission we will carry out with all freedom-loving partners.” Neither the White House nor the State Department described the attack in religious terms. But German officials, including Chancellor Angela Merkel and top prosecutor Peter Frank, have highlighted the symbolism of striking a Christmas market outside a church less than a week before the holiday. Frank suggested that the terrorists followed instructions from the so-called Islamic State and underlined that the attack occurred at “the prominent and symbolic target of a Christmas market.” Merkel said the victims “were looking forward to Christmas.” The president-elect’s rhetorical choices bear special scrutiny because the rest of the world is still trying to figure out what kind of leader he will become Jan. 20. Trump communications aides did not return an email seeking their perspective. And this is no mere debate about language. “The Trump statement on the Berlin attack rightly focuses on the victims who were celebrating the Christmas holiday, but he leaves out a critical point: the vast majority of ISIS’s victims are Muslims,” a former senior counter-terrorism official told Yahoo News. “In our counterterrorism fight, we need to enlist the support of Muslims around the world, and not alienate them by singling out Christians, as if they are the only victims of ISIS.” Throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, the real estate entrepreneur repeatedly promised to blame “radical Islamic terrorists” for such attacks, a clear break from the more cautious language his two immediate predecessors used. President Obama, who has avoided referring to “radical Islamic terrorists” or the “war on terrorism,” went on a bit of a tear earlier this year against Republicans who accuse him of being naive or politically correct. “There has not been a moment in my seven and a half years as president where we have not been able to pursue a strategy because we didn’t use the label ‘radical Islam,’” he said in June after a national security meeting at the White House. “Not once has an adviser of mine said, ‘Man, if we really use that phrase, we’re going to turn this whole thing around.’ Not once.” The president continued, “Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away. This is a political distraction.” Former President George W. Bush spent years trying to separate al-Qaida from mainstream Islam, starting with a visit to the Islamic Center in Washington, D.C., six days after 9/11. A tow truck operates at the scene where a truck plowed through a crowd at a Christmas market on Breitscheidplatz square near the fashionable Kurfürstendamm Avenue in Berlin on Tuesday. (Photo: Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters) “The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself,” Bush said. “The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends; it is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists and every government that supports them.” Bush, who had made no mention of Islam when he declared “war against terrorism” on 9/11, pitched his message to reach nervous Muslim allies overseas and a domestic audience that, his aides worried, might include some misguided souls looking for payback at home. “Immediately after 9/11, we could not gauge the public reaction in the U.S., nor the reaction in the Muslim world when we began to go after [al-Qaida] and the Taliban,” Elliott Abrams, who advised Bush on Middle East policy, told Yahoo News in February 2015. “It seemed important to separate those particular actors from all other Muslims, first to head off any possible anti-Muslim backlash at home and second to head off an anti-American backlash in the Islamic world.” But, according to Abrams, “I think we went too far in claiming we knew what ‘real’ Islam was and saying the actions of such terrorists ‘have nothing to do with Islam.’” Trump and his national security adviser-designate, retired Gen. Michael Flynn, have taken the opposite tack. “I think Islam hates us,” Trump declared in a CNN interview in March. (He later clarified that he meant “many” Muslims abhor the United States). Flynn has gone further, calling Islam “a malignant cancer” in one speech and Islamism — the militancy that demands government and society reflect Islamic law — “a vicious cancer inside the body of 1.7 billion people.” “We are facing another ‘ism,’ just like we faced Nazism, and fascism, and imperialism and communism,” Flynn said. The rhetoric has clearly unsettled some world leaders. “Senseless Islamophobia compounds suffering with more suffering. It stokes antagonism and exacerbates the clash of civilizations, which plays into the hands of extremists of all stripes,” Senegal President Macky Sall said in a September speech to the U.N. General Assembly. “Given the scale of the global terrorist threat which concerns us all, good sense dictates the need to cooperate to vanquish evil with a global, united, concerted response.” Slovak President Andrej Kiska, also speaking at the United Nations, warned that terrorists want to fulfill their “sick vision of the clash of civilizations” and warned against anti-Islam sentiment. “We must not respond by judging people by the color of their skin or their choice of worship. We need to stop growing anger, prejudice, and hostility toward different religions,” said Kiska. “The true leaderships brings hope, reinforces trust and offers sustainable solutions for safety and peaceful coexistence.” Obama himself delivered a very similar warning in August. “In order for us to ultimately win this fight,” he said, “we cannot frame this as a clash of civilizations between the West and Islam. That plays exactly into the hands of [the Islamic State] and the perversions and perverse interpretations of Islam that they’re putting forward.” For a longer look at the rhetoric of the war on terrorism, see this November column. (Yahoo News)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

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