Massive earthquake at intermediate depth in Guerrero, Mexico
Last update: April 18, 2014 at 4:17 pm by By Armand Vervaeck
Update 16:15 UTC : Until now only some reports of broken windows and some collapsed walls.
Important Update 15:55 UTC : USGS has decreased the Magnitude to M7.2 but has also decreased the depth to 24 km – We still believe that this earthquake is extremely dangerous! USGS epicenter remains below land (no tsunami danger).
Below the epicenter and the seismogram as reported by the Mexican SSN seismological service. SSN report M7.0 at 10 km (10 km is also used as number if the precise depth has not yet been calculated). People should stay away from the shores and should NOT go into the water as strong currents may sweep them into the sea.
Update 15:50 UTC : Also the DF Mexico City suffered shortages of power and even the airport in Mexico City was a little while affected. The Mexican seismological agency is putting the epicenter in the ocean, a big difference with USGS below land. Still no news from the epicenter area, but this is NO surprise as telecommunications and power are down in this area.
Update 15:38 UTC : More reports of Power Cuts and loss of telecommunications in a number of provinces. No specific news yet from the epicenter area.
Update 15:35 UTC : Power, communications down in Chilpancingo, Guerrero state, Mexico
Update 15:30 UTC : This region is regularly hit by very strong to massive earthquakes the preceding years without generating massive damage. We hope this will be the case today too. Please take a look at the map below to see the earthquakes in the region since 1900!
Update 15:20 UTC : The theoretical injuries and fatalities engine from Max Wyss expects that this earthquake may cause 0 to 500 people to be injured and 0 – 50 people to be killed. The numbers are based on a Magnitude of M7.5 at a depth of 48 km
Update 15:11 UTC : Based on theoretical data from USGS this earthquake was felt by 130,000 people as severe shaking. Severe shaking is seen by Earthquake Report as a potential damage shaking
VERY DANGEROUS earthquake below Guerrero Mexico and the greater Acapulco area.
Update : The intermediate depth of 50 km will weaken the shaking a little bit but this earthquake remains extremely dangerous and serious injuries and collapsed houses will be NO surprise to us. This earthquake happens at the end of the Semana Santa in Mexico!
37km (23mi) N of Tecpan de Galeana, Mexico
53km (33mi) NW of Atoyac de Alvarez, Mexico
56km (35mi) E of Petatlan, Mexico
81km (50mi) S of Ciudad Altamirano, Mexico
265km (165mi) SW of Mexico City, Mexico
Most important Earthquake Data:
Magnitude : 7.2
Local Time (conversion only below land) : 2014-04-18 09:27:25
Aztec woman says her ‘Toxic Tour of Hell’ points out San Juan County sites that pollute the air
San Juan County officials say air quality is improving, complaints about pollution are few
by James Fenton The Daily Times
Updated: 03/31/2014 09:44:12 PM MDT
Environmental activist Shirley “Sug” McNall stands in front of an XTO Energy well on March 19 on Martinez Lane in Aztec. McNall added the well, which is near McCoy Elementary School, to her “Toxic Tour of Hell,” which includes sites in San Juan County she says are polluting the air. A spokeswoman for XTO Energy says a leak did not occur at the well site. (Megan Farmer — The Daily Times)
AZTEC — Shirley “Sug” McNall says the San Juan Basin can be an outdoors paradise for visitors. But for those who live here and breathe the air, she says, it’s just plain hell.
McNall, 69, is a member of an ad hoc environmentalist group — with friends Tweeti Blancett, Jan Rees and Kris Dixon — called the Four Grans.
“Tweeti’s family, like mine, were homesteaders and ranchers, with a long feuding history of dealing with the oil companies,” McNall said. “… Jan is our group’s expert on wildlife and the environment, and Kris is our statistician and organizer.”
The four Aztec grandmothers, who met at a clean-air conference more than a decade ago, work toward improving San Juan County’s air quality.
A well, which is owned by XTO Energy, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, is shown on March 19 on Martinez Lane in Aztec. Shirley “Sug” McNall says the well site was emitting strong gas fumes last month. An XTO Energy spokeswoman says there was no leak at the site. (Megan Farmer — The Daily Times)
For eight years, McNall has taken people on tours of the area in her small, sky-blue pickup truck, its tailgate plastered with progressive bumper stickers that stand out in Republican-dominated San Juan County. Her tour skips popular stops like Aztec Ruins or Quality Waters in favor of gas pads and waste disposal sites she says are guilty of polluting the air with noxious chemicals.
What McNall calls the “Toxic Tour of Hell,” began in 2005 after she attended a summit on oil and gas industry accountability in Farmington. She started with seven sites around the county she says are polluting.
“The summit brought together scientists, tribes, officials, and they wanted to actually see the sites they were hearing about, and I said I’d show them,” she said.
Over the years, McNall said she’s given the tour to a number of people, including film crews from Japan and South Africa and an official from the Natural Resources Defense Council’s office in Washington, D.C. She can also be seen in the 2010 HBO documentary on hydraulic fracturing — or “fracking” — called “Gasland.”
McNall’s family homesteaded more than 700 acres in the Crouch Mesa area and moved to her home off of Navajo Dam Road near Tiger Park in 1976. In the years she has lived there with her husband, Warren, McNall says she has seen wells pop up around her property.
Shirley “Sug” McNall is pictured on March 6. McNall is a member of the Four Grans, an ad hoc environmentalist group of four Aztec grandmothers who say oil companies are polluting San Juan County’s air. (Megan Farmer — The Daily Times)
In 2010, McNall and a group of friends formed the San Juan Bucket Brigade, a local program of Global Community Monitor, a nonprofit human rights organization, to take air quality samples at three oil and gas facilities in the county. McNall said all three came back with elevated levels of carcinogens that are above what the Environmental Protection Agency recommends.
“This county has higher than average rates of asthma, especially among children, and elevated rates of cancer, which is alarming,” said McNall, who says the air pollution has caused her and others eye irritation and trouble breathing. “The problem is that a lot of the oil field workers know what’s going on, but they don’t dare say a word. Of course, the workers get protective gear to wear, but what do us residents get?”
San Juan County Operations Officer Mike Stark argues air quality in the area is cleaner than in the past and is showing signs of improving even more with the planned unit reductions at two major power plants, Four Corners Power Plant and San Juan Generating Station, both near Farmington.
“We should actually see some improved air quality in the Four Corners with these environmentally friendly unit reductions,” Stark said. “And oil and gas drilling has been light the last three years. So, once again, less pollution. Things should be getting better.”
McNall said she understands the need for energy. Born and raised in the area, her grandparents, uncles and first husband worked in the oil patch. Despite that, McNall says she is enraged refineries can get away with emitting carcinogens and chemicals that pollute the air and do so in close proximity to neighborhoods.
The latest addition to her tour, stop No. 8, is a well site near McCoy Elementary School’s playground along Martinez Lane.
McNall added the well site, owned by XTO Energy Inc., a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, early last month when her friend, former City Commissioner Jack Scott, drove by the school and smelled gas fumes.
“Warren and I got a call from Jack telling us that the gas pad was stinkin’ something fierce, despite their car’s windows rolled up when they drove by,” McNall said.
She said she quickly wrote to Aztec Municipal School District Superintendent Kirk Carpenter, Aztec City Manager Josh Ray and Brandon Powell, a field inspector with the Aztec division office of the Environment Department’s Oil Conservation Division.
Emily Snooks, a spokeswoman for XTO Energy, said no leak occurred at the well site.
Inspections of the company’s well sites by an XTO Energy Lease Operator are conducted approximately every other day, Snooks wrote in an email.
“In February, XTO Energy staff responded to a complaint of an odor,” Snooks wrote in an email. “An XTO employee met an inspector from the New Mexico Oil Conservation Division at the well site. No leak was detected and XTO Energy was not fined or sited by the NMOCD.”
Snooks said XTO staff reviewed several days of automated reports at the well and did not find a loss of gas volume or pressure, which would have indicated a leak.
“The XTO employee noticed a manual water dump valve on the separator was not as pliable as a new valve would be so just as a precaution, it was replaced,” Snooks wrote.
San Juan County Commissioner Scott Eckstein, whose district includes Aztec and Bloomfield, said that in his eight years of service he has only received about four or five complaints over air pollution.
“I refer people who have complained to the state’s Air Quality Bureau. They deal with refineries as far as emissions and regulations go,” Eckstein said. “The handful of complaints over the years (have been) over a strong chemical smell from a refinery, for instance, but the state is in charge of that.”
An air quality index report for San Juan County on the Environmental Protection Agency’s website gives the county a “good” rating, with pollution in the air posing no threat to human health.
Despite that, McNall is adamant more should be done to regulate the county’s oil and gas industry to ensure a clean and safe county for its residents, present and future.
“It’s my purpose on the tour to show how people have to live among the wells and refineries and what that means to their pursuit of happiness and well-being,” she said. “In this county, big oil always reins supreme.”
In this ongoing story surrounding cattle rancher Cliven Bundy, there are a series of questions mainstream media has ignored. For instance, in the 20 years Bundy hasn’t been paying his fees, why hasn’t he been taken to court? Why this year spend nearly $1,000,000 of taxpayer money to round up 400 cattle that ultimately have to be returned? Why didn’t the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) just place a lien on the cattle rather than attempting to take them by force and then auction them off?
The Bureau of Land Management has suffered a huge black eye this week because of their response to the Bundy situation. Perhaps though, there is a reason the BLM chose force over the courts.
In an exclusive interview with Benswann.com, Montana cattle rancher Todd Devlin says the BLM is now considering new ways of dealing with the Cliven Bundy situation. Devlin is not just a Montana cattle rancher but is also a County Commissioner in Prairie County, Montana and he has worked with the Department of Interior, having taught workshops for the agency in the past. On Monday, Devlin reached out to his contacts in the Department of the Interior to find out why the Bureau of Land Management has refused to work with Bundy rather than simply attempting to run over him.
Among the questions Devlin asked of the BLM: “Is it possible that this guy (Cliven Bundy) has prescriptive rights?”
The response from top officials at the BLM: “We are worried that he might and he might use that defense.”
So what exactly are prescriptive rights?
Prescriptive right to property is an easement that gives someone the right to use land owned by someone else for a particular purpose. An example is using a path through Party A’s land to get to your land; in this case a prescriptive easement is allowed which gives the user the right to get to his land through A’s property.
In most states, if a trespass or use of land occurs regularly for at least 5 years without the “owner” of the land taking legal action, prescriptive rights come into play. Because Bundy stopped paying his grazing fees to the BLM in 1993 but continued to use the land for over 20 years, it is possible he now has prescriptive rights to the land. That might explain why the BLM has not taken this issue to court and never bothered to file a lien against the cattle.
Granted, there have been court actions over the years. In 1998 a federal judge issued a permanent injunction against Bundy, ordering him to remove his cattle from the federal lands. He lost an appeal to the San Francisco 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Yet, the “trespass cattle” remained on the BLM land. In fact, it took until August of 2013 for a court order to be issued saying Bundy had 45 days to remove his cattle from federal land. 15 years went by from the time of the last court case over the cattle, until the BLM attempted to remove the livestock.
Of course, Bundy has not made the claim that he will not pay the fees, he simply says he will not pay those fees to the BLM because he doesn’t recognize federal authority over the land. Bundy has said that in the past, that he would pay fees to Clarke County, Nevada, though Clarke County has refused to accept them. The BLM has insisted that Bundy owes $1.1 million dollars in grazing fees for his trespass cattle. “The actual number is probably around $200,000. The $1.1 million claimed by the BLM is probably mostly interest and penalties for trespass cattle.” says Devlin, who goes on to say that it is unlikely that Clarke County would be able to collect those penalties.
When Devlin reached out to the BLM, he suggested that the federal agency just allow Bundy to pay the fees to the county rather than continuing with these aggressive tactics to confiscate his cattle. “I got a call back from the liaison saying ‘Yes, pursue it’, says Devlin. Devlin reached out to contacts in Nevada to get that process moving forward. If that were to happen, Clarke County could collect the grazing fees and if it desired to do so could hand those fees over to the BLM.
Finally, Devlin says instead of allowing the situation with Bundy’s cattle to grow completely out of control, the BLM could have simply placed a lien on the cattle in the first place. Of course, that lien might have been rejected in court if Bundy were able to demonstrate those prescriptive rights. Then again, the courts so far have sided with the government, therefore it is even more baffling why the lien wasn’t placed on the livestock.
Days after the BLM has claimed they will stand down, they are now reportedly considering a lien on the cattle. “I asked why they didn’t put a lien against the cattle… They hadn’t thought about that but they are considering it now”.
Who Actually “Owns” America’s Land?
Here we see a modern representation of Americans awakening to the insidious growth of our Federal Creature. Over the weekend, the fierce stand-off between Bundy Ranch militiamen and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) came to a dramatic end – for now – with the protesters chasing government representatives off the disputed land.
But this situation raises the important question…. Does the Constitution make provision for the federal government to own and control “public land”? This is the only question we need to consider. Currently, the federal government “owns” approximately 30% of the United States territory. The majority of this federally owned land is in the West. For example, the feds control more than 80% of Nevada and more than 55% of Utah. The question has been long debated. At the debate’s soul is Article IV, Section 3, Clause 2 of the Constitution, which is know as the “Property Clause”. Proponents of federal expansion on both sides of the political aisle argue that this clause provides warrant for the federal government to control land throughout the United States.
The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States….
Those who say this clause delegates the feds control over whatever land they arbitrarily decide to lay claim to are grossly misinterpreting even the most basic structure of the Constitution.
It is said the Constitution is “written in plain English”. This is true. However, plain English does not allow one to remove context. Article IV does not grant Congress the power to exercise sovereignty over land. Article IV deals exclusively with state-to-state relations such as protection from invasion, slavery, full faith and credit, creation of new states and so on.
Historically, the Property Clause delegated federal control over territorial lands up until the point when that land would be formed as a state. This was necessary during the time of the ratification of the Constitution due to the lack of westward development. The clause was drafted to constitutionalize the Northwest Ordinance, which the Articles of Confederation did not have the power to support. This ordinance gave the newly formed Congress the power to create new states instead of allowing the states themselves to expand their own land claims.
The Property Clause and Northwest Ordinance are both limited in power and scope. Once a state is formed and accepted in the union, the federal government no longer has control over land within the state’s borders. From this moment, such land is considered property of the sovereign state. The continental United States is now formed of fifty independent, sovereign states. No “unclaimed” lands are technically in existence. Therefore, the Property Clause no longer applies within the realm of federal control over these states.
The powers of Congress are found only in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. With the exception of the less than two dozen powers delegated to Congress found within Article I, Section 8, Congress may make no laws, cannot form political agencies and cannot take any actions that seek to regulate outside of these enumerated powers.
Article I, Section 8 does lay forth the possibility of federal control over some land. What land? Clause 17 defines these few exceptions.
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over suchDistrict (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of Particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings– (Emphasis added).
Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 is known as the Enclave Clause. The clause gives federal control over the “Seat of Government” (Washington D.C.) and land that has been purchased by the federal government with consent of the state legislatures to build military posts and other needful buildings (post offices and other structures pursuant to Article I, Section 8). Nothing more.
State permission being a requirement, state authority was explicitly emphasized while drafting this clause. The founders and respective states insisted (with loud cries) that the states must consent before the federal government could purchase land from the states. Nowhere in this clause will you find the power for Congress to exercise legislative authority through regulation over 80% of Nevada, 55% of Utah, 45% of California, 70% of Alaska, or any other state. Unless, of course, the state has given the federal government the formal authority to do so, which they have not.
If a state legislature decides sell land to the federal government then at that point the Enclave Clause becomes applicable and the federal government may seize legislative and regulatory control in pursuance to the powers delegated by Article 1, Section 8.
In America’s infancy, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the Founding Fathers’ understanding of federal control over land. Justice Stephen J. Field wrote for the majority opinion in Fort Leavenworth Railroad Co. v. Lowe (1855) that federal authority over territorial land was “necessarily paramount.” However, once the territory was organized as a state and admitted to the union on equal ground, the state government assumes sovereignty over federal lands, and the federal government retains only the rights of an “individual proprietor”. This means that the federal government can only exercise general sovereignty over state property if the state legislatures formally grant the federal government the power to do so under the Enclave Clause with the exception of federal buildings (post offices) and military installations. This understanding was reaffirmed in Lessee of Pollard v. Hagan (1845), Permoli v. Municipality No. 1 of the city of New Orleans (1845) and Strader v. Graham (1850).
However, it did not take long for the Supreme Court to begin redefining the Constitution and legislating from the bench under the guise of interpretation. Case by case, the Court slowly redefined the Property Clause, which had always been understood to regard exclusively the transferring of federal to state sovereignty through statehood, to the conservation of unconstitutional federal supremacy.
Federal supremacists sitting on the Supreme Court understood that by insidiously redefining this clause then federal power would be expanded and conserved.
Through the centuries, by the hand of corrupt federal judges, we arrive and the Bundy Ranch in Nevada. The Founding Fathers never imagined the citizens of a state would be subject to such treatment at the hands of the federal government. Furthermore, they certainly never imagined the state legislatures themselves would allow such treatment to go unchecked. The latest updates appear to show that Bundy has won his battle against the feds– for now. However, it remains a damn shame that the state of Nevada would allow for such a situation to arise in the first place.
What does Nevada’s Constitution say about property? Section 1, titled “Inalienable Rights,” reads:
All men are by Nature free and equal and have certain inalienable rights among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty;Acquiring, Possessing and Protecting property and pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness. [Emphasis added]
In Section 22 of the Nevada Constitution, eminent domain is clarified. The state Constitution requires that the state prove public need, provide compensation and documentation before acquiring private property. In order to grant land to the federal government, the state must first control this land.
Bundy’s family has controlled the land for more than 140 years.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which is an agency created by Congress, claimed that Bundy was “violating the law of the land”. Perhaps the agency has forgotten that the law of the land is the Constitution, and the only constitutional violation here is the very modern existence of the agency’s presence in Nevada.
There is an incredible amount of knowledge that we as humans can gather up from the plant kingdom with a heart-centered approach. By gathering information directly from the “heart of nature”, we are able to realize the interconnectedness between humanity and the planet in a way that may conjure up themes from films such as Avatar. As more scientific research comes forward concerning the abilities and properties of plants, the more we learn that there are so many things that the plant kingdom is able to teach us, especially concerning harmony and balance.
A book that came our a few years ago entitled The Secret Teachings of Plants: The Intelligence of the Heart in the Direct Perception of Nature details these things in a very elegant way and shows us that the ancient shamanistic tales of oneness, interconnectedness, harmony, and balance with respect to humanity and nature’s relationship are indeed true. The human heart is significantly more important than most people realize, and in order to spread awareness of this reality, excerpts from the book will be provided to show just how important and sophisticated the heart truly is.
The Physical Heart: the Heart of the Central Nervous System
Between 60%-65% of the cells in the heart are neural cells. Yes, the same kinds as those in your brain. The neural connections between the brain and heart cannot be turned off. Information is always flowing between the two. The heart is directly wired into the central nervous system and brain, interconnected with the amygdala, thalamus, hippocampus, and cortex.
There are four brain centers primarily concerned with emotional memories and processing; sensory experience; memory, spatial relationships, the extraction of meaning from sensory inputs from the environment; and problem solving, reasoning, and learning.
The heart makes and releases its own neurotransmitters as it needs them. By monitoring central nervous system functioning, the heart can tell just what neurotransmitters it needs and when in order to enhance its communication with the brain. The heart also has its own memory. The heart stores memories which affect consciousness and behavior, how we perceive the world. They most often have to do with specific emotional experiences and the meanings embedded within them. The more intense the emotional experience, the more likely it will be stored by the heart as memory.
Neuronal discharge in the brain – the oscillating pattern of informational pulse release in the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, and sometimes the neocortex – is in phase with heart and lung cycles. These discharges are state-dependent. In other words, changes in heart activity–blood pressure, timing of beats, wave pulsations in the blood, hormone and neurotransmitter creation and release, and more–all shift the functioning of these areas of the brain. Information embedded within cardiac outputs directly reaches many of the subcortical areas of the brain involved in emotional processing.
The kinds of information that the heart sends significantly shifts functioning of the amygdala thus affecting emotions and other subcortical centers of the brain. The kind of activity displayed in the central nucleus of the amygdala has been found to be dependent on input from the aortic depressor or carotid sinus nerves. Heart researcher Rollin McCraty comments, “Cells within the amygdaloid complex specifically responded to information from the cardiac cycle.”
Single neurons in the brain alter their behavior in response to the signals received from each heartbeat. In response to cardiac input, complexes of neurons in the brain change their grouping and firing patterns. They alter their behavior in order to embed the information received through cardiac function and send it into the central nervous system. The information embedded within cardiac pulses alters central nervous function in behaviorally significant ways. There is, in fact, a two-way communication between heart and brain that shifts physiological functioning and behavior in response to the information exchanged.
Analysis of information flow into the human body has shown that much of it impacts the heart first, flowing to the brain only after it has been perceived by the heart. What this means is that our experience of the world is routed first through our heart, which “thinks” about the experience and then sends the data to the brain for further processing. When the heart receives information back from the brain about how to respond, the heart analyzes it and decides whether or not the actions that the brain wants to take will be effective. The heart routinely engages in a neural dialogue with the brain and, in essence, the two decide together what actions to take.
Heart-Brain Entrainment
When the brain entrains to the heart, connectivity increases between brain and body. Conversely, the location of consciousness in the brain leads to an increased disconnection between brain and body. When one shifts into heart-oriented cognition, mental dialogue is reduced.
Sympathetic and parasympathetic nerve pathways and the baroreceptor system directly link the heart and brain, allowing communications and information to flow freely. Messages flowing from the heart to the brain during this shift to coherence significantly alter the brain’s functioning, especially in the cortex, which profoundly affects perception and learning.
A new mode of cognition is activated…the holistic/intuitive/depth mode. Heart researcher McCraty comments, “[heart entrainment] leads to increased self-management of one’s mental and emotional states that automatically manifests as more highly ordered physiological states that affect the functioning of the whole body, including the brain. The practitioners of these heart focus techniques report an increased intuitive awareness and more efficient decision-making capability that is beyond their normal capacity from the mind and brain alone.”
Shifting the focus of consciousness to the heart–and away from the forebrain–results in entrainment of large populations of cells in the forebrain to cardiac functioning (rather than vice versa). These populations of forebrain cells begin oscillating to the rhythms produced by the heart, and the perception of those populations of cells, the kinds of information they begin to process during entrainment, is very different from what they process when entrainment is not occurring.
The human brain operates in a state that is far from equilibrium; it, like the heart, is a complex, non-linear oscillator. Every day, there is an incessant stream of incoming data–material to “think” about. These incoming signals cause the system to constantly shift from one state to another in response to the incoming signals. The system constantly wobbles in and out of dynamic equilibrium, reestablishing a new homeodynamic every time it is perturbed.
The neurons in the brain are non-linear, oscillators themselves, and can be influenced by extremely weak perturbations. They are very sensitive to such perturbations, for they, like all non-linear oscillators, use stochastic resonance to boost signal strength. A shift in the heart’s electromagnetic field is a perturbation that the brain has been evolutionarily intended to respond to. And when the heart goes coherent, the brain immediately begins to respond.
Coordinated interactions across extracellular space lead to long-range, coordinated dynamics of heart and brain function during heart/brain entrainment. When brain neurons entrain to the heart’s ECG activity, the timing of neuronal firings alters, and research shows that the timing of neuronal firing conveys several times more information than the firing count. Analysis of electroencephalogram readings shows that the heart’s signals are strongest in the occipital (posterior) regions of the brain and the right anterior (front) sections of the brain.
The brain’s alpha rhythms also synchronize to the heart, and their amplitude lowers when they do so. The brain’s alpha rhythyms are the fastest of the brain’s electromagnetic waves. Their amplitude is lower when brain arousal is lower or when a person concentrates on external sensory phenomena rather than on abstract analytical or symbolic thoughts.
After heart/brain entrainment, when a combination of both heart and brain waves are taken by electrocardiogram, what is seen is that the brain waves ride on top of the heart waves. Not only are they oscillating together; the brain’s wave patterns are, in fact, embedded within the larger field of the heart.
Hippocampal activity increases considerably when cognition is shifted to the heart, heart coherence occurs, and the brain entrains to the heart. Focusing on external sensory cues activates hippocampal functions, since all the sensory systems of our bodies converge in the hippocampus. The increased demand on hippocampal function stimulates stem cells to congregate in the hippocampus and form neurons and neuronal complexes. The reduced cortisol production that occurs during heart coherence directly enhances hippocampal activity as well.
The hippocampus, in other words, comes strongly online. It begins sifting the electromagnetic fields the heart is detecting for embedded patterns of information, eliciting meaning from background information. The hippocampus then sends information about those meanings to the neocortex, where it is encoded as memories. The more that sensory focus is on external environments, the more activated the hippocampus and its analysis of meaning becomes.
Shifting attention to any particular organ–in this case, the heart–increases registration of the feedback from that organ in the brain. This increase is measurable in electroencephalogram patterns. The shift to heart awareness initiates an alteration in body functioning via physiological mechanisms that operate through neural registration of organ feedback on the brain.
This kind of synchronization does not occur spontaneously, unless people habituate heart-focused perception. Since we have been habituated to the analytical mode of cognition through our schooling, taught to locate our consciousness in the brain and not the heart, this type of entrainment must be consciously practiced. (For most of us, heart-focused perception is not a natural mode of processing information, though it was for ancient peoples and sometimes still is for indigenous cultures.)
Even though the brain entrains with the heart through heart-focused techniques, the brain tends to wander in and out of entrainment. Because of the brain’s long use as the dominant mode of cognition, this entrainment is not permanent. Practice in entrainment helps the brain and any other system to main synchronization for longer and longer periods of time.
Impacts on Health and Disease
The heart is the most powerful oscillator in the body and its behavior is naturally non-linear and irregular. One measure of the irregular, non-linear activity of the heart is called heart rate variability or HRV. The resting heart, instead of beating regularly, engages in continual, spontaneous fluctuations. The heartbeat in young, healthy people is highly irregular. But heart beating patterns tend to become very regular and predictable as people get older or as their hearts become diseased. The greater the HRV, the more complex the heart’s beating patterns are and the healthier the heart is.
Complexity here refers specifically to a multiscale, fractal-type variability in structure or function. Many disease states are marked by less complex dynamics than those observed under healthy conditions. This decomplexification of systems with disease appears to be a common feature of many pathologies, as well as of aging. When physiological systems become less complex, their information content is degraded. As a result they are less adaptable and less able to cope with the exigencies of a constantly changing environment. To generate information a system must be capable of behaving in an unpredictable fashion… Certain pathologies are marked by a breakdown of this long-range organization property, producing an uncorrelated randomness similar to white noise
What is especially telling is that when the heart is entrained to the brain’s oscillating wave-form, rather than vice versa, the heart begins to, over time, lose coherence. The more the heart entrains to the brain, and the longer it does so, the less it displays a variable HRV, the less fractal its processes are, and the more regular it is. It is, in fact, entraining to a linear rather than a non-linear orientation.
It is not surprising then that our culture’s focus on a type of schooling that develops the brain to the exclusion of the heart, that fosters thinking instead of feeling, detachment instead of empathy, leads to disease. Heart disease is the number-one killer in the United States.
When any system begins to lose this dynamical-chaos aspect of its functioning and becomes more predictable, it begins to lose elegance of function. It, in fact, becomes diseased. Heart disease is always accompanied by an increasing loss of non-linearity of the heart. The more predictable and regular the heart becomes, the more diseased it is. Loss of heart rate variability, for instance, occurs in multiple sclerosis, fetal distress, aging, and congestive heart disease. To be healthy, the heart must remain in a highly unstable state of dynamic equilibrium.
Given all this, it is not surprising that unhealthy emotional states (major depression and panic disorders, for example) correlate with changes in HRV as well as alterations in the power spectral density of the heart (power spectral density refers to the range and number of electromagnetic waves produced by the heart).
During major depression and panic disorder, as in many pathological heart conditions, the heart’s electromagnetic spectrum begins to show a narrower range, and beating patterns again become very regular. This narrowing and increase in regularity also show direct impacts in the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Sympathetic nervous system activity and tone tend to increase, the parasympathetic to decrease.
These are all signs of increasing heart disease, as a disordered heart cannot produce the extreme variability and flexibility that is normal in the healthy heart. Since emotional experience comes, in part, from the electromagnetic field of the heart, a disordered, narrow, noncomplex electromagnetic field will produce emotional experiences, like depression and panic attacks, that are themselves disordered, narrow, and restricted in scope.
In many pathological conditions, the heart’s electrophysiologic system acts as if it were coupling itself to multiple oscillatory systems on a permanent basis. In other words, it behaves as if it can’t make up its mind, and its cells no longer beat as one unified group. Instead, the group begins to split (broken-hearted), pulled this way and that by different outside oscillating attractors.
Holding the consciousness to one state of being, the verbal/intellectual/analytical mode of cognition, of necessity produces a diminished heart function, a shallower mix of emotional states, and an impaired ability to respond to embedded meanings and communications from the environment and from the self.
Conversely, increasing heart coherence and heart/brain entrainment has shown a great many positive health effects. Increased heart coherence boosts the body’s production of immunoglobulin A, a naturally occurring compound that protects the body’s mucous membranes and helps prevent infections. Increased heart coherence and heart/brain entrainment also produces improvements in disorders such as arrhythmia, mitral valve prolapse, congestive heart failure, asthma, diabetes, fatigue, autoimmune conditions, autonomic exhaustion, anxiety, depression, AIDS, and post-traumatic stress disorder. In general, in many disease, overall healing rates are enhanced.
One specific treatment intervention study, for example, found that high blood pressure can be significantly lowered within six months–without the use of medication–if heart coherence is reestablished. And as heart/brain synchronization occurs, people experience less anxiety, depression, and stress overall.
Lack of cognitive focus on the body (habituation to the verbal/intellectual/analytical mode of cognition) results in disconnection and increased disorder in organ function–and is the foundation of many diseases, including heart disease. When attention is focused on different sensory cues (e.g., heartbeat, respiration, external visual stimuli) physiological function shifts significantly and becomes more healthy.
It becomes even healthier when specific kinds of emotions are activated: feelings of caring, love, and appreciation enhance internal coherence. The more confused, angry, or frustrated a person becomes, the more incoherent their heart’s electromagnetic field.
In the healthy heart, the varied and complex emotional mix we experience each day–generated by contact with our internal and external worlds–produces a range of heart rate patterns that is non-linear and constantly shifting. Communications are embedded within these shifting mixes and patterns, communications from and to our bodies, our loved ones, the world at large. The narrower the range of the electromagnetic spectrum, the more regular the beating patterns of the heart and the less “hearty” we become.
Heart Communication with the External World
Biological fields, as Renee Levi comments, are “composed of vibrations that are organized, nor random, and have the capacity to selectively react, interact, and transact internally and with other fields.” “Our body and brain, Joseph Chilton Pearce remarks, “form an intricate web of coherent frequencies organized to translate other frequencies and nestled within a nestled within a nested hierarchy of universal frequencies.”
Living organisms, including people, exchange electromagnetic energy through contact between their fields, and this electromagnetic energy carries information in much the same way radio transmitters and receivers carry music. When people or other living organisms touch, a subtle but highly complex exchange of information occurs via their electromagnetic fields.
Refined measurements reveal that there is an energy exchange between people, carried through the electromagnetic field of the heart, that while strongest with touch and up to 18 inches away, can still be measured (with instruments) when they are five feet apart. Though of course, our (technological) ability to measure electromagnetic radiation is very crude. Electromagnetic signals from living organisms, just like radio waves, continue outward indefinitely.
So, energy encoded with information is transferred from one electromagnetic field to another. In response to the information it receives, the heart alters its functioning and encodes in its fields, on a constantly shifting basis, its responses. Those responses can, in turn, alter the electromagnetic fields of whatever living organisms the heart is engaged with–for this is a living, ever-shifting dialogue.
The heart generates the strongest electromagnetic field of the body, and this field becomes more coherent as consciousness shifts from the brain to the heart. This coherence significantly contributes to the informational exchange that occurs during contact between different electromagnetic fields. The more coherent the field, the more potent the informational exchange.
A coherent heart affects the brain wave pattern not only of the person achieving coherence, but also of any person with whom it comes into contact. While direct skin-to-skin contact has the greatest effect on brain function, mere proximity elicits changes. A sender’s coherent heart-field is measurable not only in a receiving person’s electroencephalogram, but also in his or her entire electromagnetic field.
When people touch or are in close proximity, a transference of their heart’s electromagnetic energy occurs, and the two fields begin to entrain or resonate with each other. The result is a combined wave created by a combination of the original waves. This combined wave has the same frequency as the original waves but an increased amplitude. Both its power and depth are increased.
The signal of transfer is sometimes, but not always, detected as flowing in both directions; this depends to a great extent on the context of the transfer and the orientation of the sender. When a person projects a heart-coherent field filled with caring, love and attention, living organisms respond to the information in the field by becoming more responsive, open, affectionate, animated, and closely connected. Just to illustrate this in real life, this is something that anyone who has ever experienced the effects of MDMA and other empathogens knows all too well and can attest to this reality.
The importance of caring on outcomes in healing has been stressed in a great many cultures and types of healing professions. Healing practitioners that consciously produce coherence in the electromagnetic field of their hearts create a field that can be detected by other living systems and their biological tissues. This field is then amplified and used by the organism detecting it to shift biological function. When these loving, practitioner-generated fields are detected and (naturally) amplified by ill people, healing rates of wounds are increased, pain decreases, hemoglobin levels shift, DNA alters, and new psychological states manifest.
So, the best outcomes are dependent on the state of mind of the healer. Extreme importance should be attached to the kind of intention a practitioner has as he or she works. The more caring the practitioner, the more coherence there will be in their electromagnetic field and the better the healing will be.
When we are cared for or care for others, the heart releases an entirely different cascade of hormonal and neurotransmitter substances than it does in other, less hopeful, circumstances. Falling in love causes a tremendous expansion of the heart, a flood of DHEA and testosterone throughout the heart and body, and a flow of other hormones, such as dopamine, all of which affect adrenal, hypothalamus, and pituitary hormone output. More Immunoglobulin A, or IgA, is also released, stimulating the health and immune action of mucous membrane systems throughout the body.
The receiver’s receptivity to the practitioner’s heart-field also plays a part in the outcome. The more open he or she is to receiving caring, the more he or she will entrain with an external electromagnetic field. However, the elegance of the practitioner in creating and directing a coherent electromagnetic field to the patient is of more importance than the sufferer’s receptivity. In addition, the practitioner-generated field must be continually adjusted.
Since the heart’s electromagnetic field is non-linear, healers can alter the makeup of the field through a constantly shifting perception of the patient. As the healer shifts toward coherence, nor surprisingly, there is an alteration in his or her own cortical function. At this point, pesronal perception also alters considerably. The healer’s cognition is, as McCraty puts it, “dramatically changed.” This altered perception is by nature extremely sensitive to the fabric of external electromagnetic fields and the information contained within them.
As the practitioner’s perception and their facility in using it deepens, it is possible to use it in a highly directed fashion to extract more meaning from the patient and his or her interior world. As the patient’s electromagnetic field alters, as it will from moment to moment throughout the process, the kind of caring, attention, and love the practitioner sends and where it is directed can be adjusted, making it more highly sophisticated in its impacts.
Since the healer’s electromagnetic field is so personally directed and shaped to fit the unique needs and electromagnetic field of the patient, the patient’s sensitivity to the process increases the more it occurs. Anyone can, and will, responds with significant shifts in their electromagnetic field if the practitioner’s technique is elegant enough.
If the practitioner entrains themselves to the patient’s ECG or EEG, their heart can take on the disease patterns in the other person–beat and EEG pattern, and so on. Self-reflection will show the practitioner the pattern of disease in the patient, and by altering their own pattern back toward health, the practitioner can determine the processes, the steps necessary to produce health in the patient. But beyond this, the patient, in a state of synchronization, will tent to “follow” the leads embedded in the practitioner’s electromagnetic field, moving toward health.
The more accustomed people become to responding to coherent electromagnetic fields generated through a practitioner’s heart, the more rapidly they are able to physiologically respond when they detect a coherent electromagnetic field. The more interaction two living organisms have, the more imprinting that occurs on their hearts, the more alteration there is in their electromagnetic fields, the more shifts that occur in heart function.
Since this element of healing is almost absent in conventional, technological medicine, patients are not used to responding to coherent electromagnetic fields as part of their healing. In fact, the electromagnetic field of most medical healers is extremely incoherent, since they have been trained to use their brains to the exclusion of their hearts. The ill are immersed in incoherent electromagnetic fields throughout their healing process in hospitals, which, in and of itself, is a strong contributing element to the kinds of outcomes hospitals and physicians produce.
Now that you know about the incredible impact our hearts and their electromagnetic energy fields have on ourselves and others, use this information to your advantage and create coherence with those around you, enhancing not only your life but the lives of others and ultimately society as a whole.
A look at what utility companies, PUCs, and the former CIA director have to say about the ‘smart’ meters, data-mining, and surveillance — sans propaganda.
It’s always a drag to find out when a friend is saying one thing to your face, and another to your back. As uncovered in our film Take Back Your Power, the way in which most utilities are now delivering the lies and propaganda — with your individual rights, security, and potentially health on the line — is elevating the trait of “two-faced” to a completely new level.
It’s important to note that the first 4 of these references have to do with the smart meters / grid infrastructure capabilities as of this time. According to the sum of my research over the past 3 years, the plan involves achieving a greater and greater level of granularity and extraction of in-home data over time — see #5 and #6 below as examples (as well as my article on Google’s Nest acquisition). So as far as privacy and surveillance go, according to utilities’ own documentation and writings, ‘smart’ meters are effectively a trojan horse.
1) US Congressional Research Service report, “Smart Meter Data: Privacy and Cybersecurity” (February 2012)
With smart meters, police will have access to data that might be used to track residents’ daily lives and routines while in their homes, including their eating, sleeping, and showering habits, what appliances they use and when, and whether they prefer the television to the treadmill, among a host of other details.
2) Colorado Power Utility Commission report, “Smart Metering & Privacy: Existing Law and Competing Policies” (Spring 2009)
First, the privacy concerns are real, and should be addressed proactively in order to protect consumers. Second and related, a salient privacy invasion—were it to happen and get press—could create significant opposition to smart grid deployment efforts.
3) California Public Utility Commission press release, “California Commission Adopts Rules to Protect the Privacy and Security of Customer Electricity Usage Data” (July 2011)
Our action today will protect the privacy and security of customer usage data while enablingutilities and authorized third-parties to use the information to provide useful energy management and conservation services to customers.
I support today’s decision because it adopts reasonable privacy and security rules and expandsconsumer and third-party access to electricity usage and pricing information. I hope this decision stimulates market interest.
4) SF Chronicle article, “California Utilities Yield Energy Use Data” (July 2013)
California’s electric utilities last year disclosed the energy-use records and other personal information of thousands of customers, according to reports the companies filed with state regulators.
The vast majority of those disclosures – 4,062 – were made by one utility, San Diego Gas and Electric Co. In 4,000 of those cases, the information was subpoenaed by government agencies.
New digital smart meters being installed throughout the state can measure a home’s energy use hour by hour, showing when residents leave for work, go to sleep or travel on vacation. Older analog meters, which measured cumulative energy use over the course of a month, couldn’t do that.
“Before smart meters, what happened inside houses couldn’t be revealed unless there was a police officer inside with a warrant,” Ozer said.
6) Wired.com, “CIA Chief: We’ll Spy on You Through Your Dishwasher” (15 Mar 2012)
‘Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters — all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing,’ Petraeus said, ‘the latter now going to cloud computing, in many areas greater and greater supercomputing, and, ultimately, heading to quantum computing.
“Petraeus allowed that these household spy devices “change our notions of secrecy” and prompt a rethink of “our notions of identity and secrecy.” All of which is true — if convenient for a CIA director.”
Did we really think that the technocratic oligarchy would stop at collecting information about how we use our phones, who we call, and where we’re located? If we did, we were naive. Plainly, there is a corporate intention to effectively colonize your home.
However, there is also a rising awareness, and resistance, as new solutions are uncovered. The first step is to remove your consent, in writing.
The following is actually written into the California Civil Code. Not only do these provide a strong clue at how the corporatocracy functions (and gets away with what it does), but they also outline a basis for remedy: (notes in parentheses, italics)
California Civil Code (2009)
1619. A contract is either express or implied. (If you didn’t say no, you said yes.)
3515. He who consents to an act is not wronged by it.(The way they do business is in writing. If you didn’t send them a letter or notice to remove your consent, you have agreed to their terms, and thus have agreed to a reduction in rights.)
3521. He who takes the benefit must bear the burden. (Utilities and their executives – and many public servants – are taking the benefit. They must, according to their law, accept the liability for all harm if the liability is enforced.)
3523. For every wrong there is a remedy.(We are not bound into something which would have us be as slaves, if we do not want to be.)
3527. The law helps the vigilant, before those who sleep on their rights.
What statutes are YOUR utilities and governments bound by?
The French National Assembly has made a sweeping declaration with a new bill, effective immediately. No more genetically modified crops.
On Tuesday, the French lower house of parliament adopted a law immediately banning cultivation of any GMO corn, due to environmental safety concerns.
Recently, they also made a halt decree to prohibit planting the only GM crop allowed in the EU – Monsanto’s MON810 corn, with built-in insect resistance.
Jean-Marie Le Guen, the minister in charge of relations with parliament, said:
It is essential today to renew a widely shared desire to maintain the French ban. This bill strengthens the decree passed last March by preventing the immediate cultivation of GMO and extending their reach to all transgenic maize varieties.
Farmers and seed companies are challenging the rule, as they have blocked similar decrees before, viewing safety concerns insufficient. But Le Guen bound the rule so that member state decisions could not be litigated against.
The ban heads back to the Senate for final approval – if rejected, the French National Assembly gets to cast the final ruling. Future strains will be banned even if the EU states approve more.
Of course big biotech companies are not satisfied to let bans rest. If companies like Monsanto have any say, they’ll be back. The EU actually wants to give them that final say.
Additionally, DuPont and Dow Chemical are poised to crash the EU again, if allowed. They already jointly developed Pioneer 1507 GM corn and most of the member states did not gather enough votes to block it.
It appears these companies have money, power and persistence on their side to keep pushing despite wide-spread consumer and safety concerns.
The current energy is very supportive in getting done many of those things you have been putting off or, at the very least, not really wanting to do. You will find that things go smoothly, and evenly, and people actually seem to be very receptive. At the same time, it is well to be aware at all times of what is going on around you. While the surface energies are felicitous, that storm is brewing below and rumbles of thunder can be heard as the day moves towards its conclusion.
One theme of the week is Secrets Revealed. There are things that will be coming up in all areas that will be pointers to the truth of the matter. Be open and alert.
Overall Color for the Week: Gossamer White
This week will be a challenging one on all levels and in all areas. There will be emotional ups and downs throughout the week. More and more people are choosing to leave, and you will be seeing that occurring on a large scale. Pay attention to your senses. Right now they are working in more than one dimension. Things that you hear, see or smell can just be some of the leakages from other layers. Those animals or creatures or whatever that seem to be there, actually are there. Each one carries significance, and it is important that you become aware of that. Your very existence is shifting these days and there are helpers and markers along the way for guidance and assurance. You can find that on this 3D level that things may not be working out as you might have hoped. People that you thought were close friends may be turning their attention to others. Places in which you found comfort can begin to feel uncomfortable. This is a week for using your intuition as your first guide. This is a week for turning away from all the old habits, for seeing them for what they are, and for forging a new modus operandi. It will not be hard, but you will be finding yourself more ready than ever to make some shifts. There is always assistance there for you if you ask for it. You can find your emotions surfacing at odd and perhaps inappropriate times. When this happens, look into what is going on. Perhaps your deep inner knowing is responding to things that you cannot see on the surface. As always, start out each day centered and grounded, and do not forget to breathe.
The energies of the full moon and the lunar eclipse are going to cause some interesting effects on the Earth. There can be some unprecedented movement within and on the surface. Along with that there can be movements made by governments and their machines to carry out some agendas that involve takeovers or threats to the civilian population. You will see more and more that the people’s voices cannot be ignored. There is a new urgency in the air that motivates people to stand up for what they know is right as more and more see the illusory nature of what the media are spouting and the ads are touting and the “stars” are shouting. There is a time shift going on right now and it can result in things being reported before they happen. Likewise, you an be aware of things prior to their occurrence. This is interesting because you will be asked to look at things in a non-linear, time free perspective which can cause some interesting shifts in your own perception as well as that of the larger whole. The money siltation is even shakier as the markets fly up and down on bits of news and rumors. Moreover, whereas it used to be that the various market would all sift one way or the other, you will find some going up and some going down. This indicated that the traditional economic situation in falling apart and the time is coming for a new approach to things. Will it be Bitcoin ot some other web based program? Who knows, but changes are on the horizon in the area of finances. You will become aware of this as the week goes forward. There is also a huge burst in the atmosphere that will be felt near the end of the week as major storms and earth movements. There is a good possibility that there will be a message coming from the skies. You will need to check out alternative media in order to get the report.
(NaturalNews) In the aftermath of round one of the Bundy Ranch armed siege by the U.S. government, I have decided to offer the federal government an intelligent analysis of the new rules of engagement. People like Daniel P. Love, Special Agent in Charge of BLM Region 3, desperately need to review and learn these rules. Other federal agents also need to understand the tectonic shift of power that has just taken place and how it will impact their operations from here forward.
Why am I doing this? Because the BLM, through its astounding incompetence and arrogance, very nearly initiated a massacre at Bundy Ranch which would have been disastrous for the BLM agents actively engaged there. The incident very nearly came to a shooting war, and it is the outdated, ill-informed government playbook that inflamed the situation and brought it to a flashpoint of violence. At every step, BLM escalated the situation beyond reason: who brings snipers to a tortoise dispute? Who unleashes attack dogs on unarmed pregnant women and cancer survivors? The BLM, that’s who!
I know there remain many good agents in many different departments of the federal government. But there are also many incompetent agents who are still living in the 1990’s and think they can run an armed ranch siege in 2014 the same way the ATF ran the Waco, Texas siege in 1993. But the rules have changed. As proof of that, consider the now-historical fact that BLM agents publicly surrendered and retreated from hundreds of armed citizens near Bunkerville, Nevada. How did this happen, exactly? To understand that, you must understand the new rules of engagement between the feds, the media and the citizens.
So if you have any friends who are feds in any department — BLM, ATF, DEA, FBI, etc. — make sure they get a copy of this article… and we all might spare ourselves some bloodshed in the near future.
Personal context: As far as my own background, I am a long-time supporter of local law enforcement, a fan of certain individuals within the FBI who are still part of “the good guys” pulling for America, and an outspoken critic of overzealous abuse of power in any agency, including the ATF, DEA and of course the BLM. My personal beliefs on current events can best be summarized by the words of Judge Andrew Napolitano in this video interview.
Old rules of engagement? Coercion, intimidation and overwhelming show of force
The reason BLM just got hoodwinked at Bundy Ranch was because they were playing by the old rules of engagement which are based on “might makes right.” BLM foolishly thought that if they closed down the air space, threatened citizens with arrest, brought snipers to the scene and ordered the mainstream media to run a total blackout on the story, they would control the situation and easily be able to assert their will (which was to seize control of the land).
They were wrong. As we all now know, BLM Special Agent Daniel P. Love vastly over-estimated the strength of his position and wildly under-estimated the strength of his opposition. How did he make that mistake? He thought this was a war of kinetic action, but it was actually a war of information flow (more discussion below).
Federal agents are intentionally misinformed during their training
Much like Dan Love, most federal agents are still running on playbooks which are wildly outdated. Change is always slow to make its way into government training manuals, operational tactics and rules of engagement. Citizens, patriots and indy media journalists, on the other hand, are incredibly adaptable, technologically savvy and enjoy an ever-growing base of support which has only expanded due to the extreme abuses of liberty and freedom that have taken place under the Obama administration. The harder the feds push, the more they grow the popular resistance to coercion. Thus, the very application of the old rules of engagement automatically leads the feds to inevitable defeat in situations where federal rules conflict with core American values.
Feds are also wildly misinformed by their superiors about the truth of their opposition, and so they are handicapped from the start with disinfo that impedes their operational efficiency. Case in point: if you’re a federal agent, nearly all the people who are described to you as “anti-government” are actually pro-Constitutional government people. They are not anarchists, and they are not irrational. They are opponents of criminal corruption and die-hard advocates of honest, limited government.
Most of what you are being told about these people is propaganda, not factual truth. As a result, when you think you are about to go toe-to-toe with what you’ve been taught are “low IQ, inbred anti-government extremists,” the truth is that many of these people are actually far more cognitively accomplished than your own agents. For example, members of the Bundy family possess well-developed philosophical ideas about liberty, personal perseverance and spiritual courage. At the same time, most lower-tier federal agents have never spent any real time pondering ethics, values, courage or philosophy at all. Most federal agents, factually stated, are ignorant of the Bill of Rights and have almost no knowledge of the limitations of federal power. They are not taught, after all, to limit their reach but instead to find ways to work around such limitations and assert their power in any way possible. Such is the nature of every government agency and department. Most young men working as front-line agents in these departments have almost no knowledge of what they are truly facing.
Furthermore, federal agents are almost never instructed that their adversaries might be thoughtful, courageous, honorable people who primarily just want to be left alone. These people are also highly disciplined and principled. As the Bundy Ranch scenario clearly demonstrated, so-called “extremists” are willing and able to hold their fire and act with extraordinary self-discipline, even in the face of extreme escalations of violence perpetrated by government agents. Obviously, then, they are not extremists at all. What’s extreme is the BLM’s decision to bring snipers and government helicopters to a dispute they claim was about a desert tortoise.
Federal agents are almost never taught these truths about the everyday citizens they are facing in these scenarios. Instead, federal training programs go out of their way to vilify and smear rural white people as, for example, “low-IQ extremists” rather than the thoughtful, principled Americans they truly are. Just because somebody works on a ranch does not make them stupid. I own multiple John Deere tractors and raise chickens, yet my own cognitive function ranks in the top one-tenth of one percent of all Americans. Do not make the mistake of equating rural living with stupidity, and do not think that people only live on farms because they have no other choice. Many of us have gone to great lengths to deliberately pursue rural lifestyles because rural living is more in tune with our well-developed philosophies of happiness and purpose.
Background: The balance of power; weapons, information and decentralization
To understand the new rules of engagement, you need to understand how the American Revolution was won. And to understand that, you need to understand how the invention of interchangeable parts in firearms manufacturing allowed everyday men to attain fairly accurate rifles which could counter rifles held by centralized government personnel (in ANY government, not just the British government).
It was the proliferation of easy-to-make, easy-to-repair rifles — along with barrel rifling advancements — that allowed everyday people to rise up against government oppression and tyranny. This is how the United States of America came to be born, of course — by taking a stand against the tyranny of the King of England. That’s also why standing firm against tyranny is something that can never be taken out of the American spirit because it runs in our blood.
The ease of manufacturing and maintaining rifles shifted the balance of power from the hands of the few (government) to the hands of the many (Democracy). This is why the invention of the rifle unleashed a global wave of revolutions and revolt against centralized authority. Grassroots rifle manufacturing was, in fact, the first peer-to-peer offensive weapons manufacturing network of the modern world. If you don’t understand this trend in history, you will never understand what’s happening in America today.
Today, of course, government has far more advanced weapons than the common man. Government commands Hellfire missiles, Apache attack helicopters and even nuclear weapons. No common citizen’s group possesses such weapons, and because of this, government believes it now controls the balance of power. But that’s playing the old game from the 1700’s. Today, what matters is not so much who has the better weapons, but who has the better ability to share information. Information warfare is the paradigm of 2014 and beyond, not kinetic warfare.
The Pentagon already understands this, of course, which is why journalists are strictly controlled (“embedded”) when covering wars in the Middle East. The information war is far more important to shape and control than the kinetic war. Because it doesn’t really matter where the bombs land as long as you control which VIDEOS of the bombs get broadcast. Guiding the news coverage is far more important than guiding the ordinance, in other words. (Oops! Did ya just blow up a civilian hospital? Don’t worry, CNN will agree not to show it, aren’t they awesome?)
Government can no longer control the narrative
Centralized government can no longer control the news narrative for events taking place on U.S. soil. What’s happening today in information sharing now mirrors what took place over 200 years ago with rifle manufacturing sharing. When information can be passed from person to person, in a decentralized, peer-to-peer network with no central authority and no central point of control, facts, photos and videos easily bypass the usual firewalls government places upon mainstream media outlets. While it is exceedingly easy to control videos and photos in a foreign country, it is all but impossible to control such information when events are unfolding on U.S. soil (as they did near Bunkerville, Nevada).
The widespread ownership of video recording devices in 2014 mirrors the widespread ownership of rifles in 1775. Nearly every citizen today has a mobile phone recording device, and nearly everyone has an ability to post videos, photos, audio and tweets to the internet in near-real time. This is tactically equivalent to the ability of any citizen in 1775 to own and operate rifles capable of going head-to-head with the rifles carried by British soldiers who occupied the colonies of the Americas.
If you understand this concept of decentralized, readily-available technologies that shape the big trends of history, the you are ready to grasp the following NEW rules of engagement.
Rule #1) You no longer control the narrative
At Waco, Oklahoma City, Ruby Ridge and 9/11, the U.S. government wholly controlled the narrative. The centralized media institutions in place at the time exhibited total control over all media broadcasts in the nation. There was no social media. There was no Twitter. There was no Facebook. There were no blogs. Mainstream media’s control over information was absolute, and therefore so was White House control over the mainstream media.
Today, the mass decentralization of news media is nearly complete. While centralized news sources may agree to be obedient and complicit in broadcasting propaganda (or running a media blackout on a particular story), citizens now have ready access to multiple vectors through which information can be accumulated or shared. As I have said here on Natural News, social media allows us to share the news faster than the government can cover it up.
Almost by definition, no centralized authority can exercise timely and effective control over organic, decentralized news sharing fueled by extreme curiosity, interest and sometimes outrage by the public. The very things that make Facebook addictive to many people — the “wow” factor when learning new facts — also make people want to share those facts with others. The structure of social media is viral by its very nature. This structure is the antithesis of centralized government control over narratives of unfolding news events.
Freedom of information, in other words, constantly counteracts the inherent desire of tyrants to oppress and control information. The very existence of electronic, decentralized media is anti-tyrannical by its very nature. The democratization of information automatically leads to the democratization of power, which is the exact opposite of what the U.S. government really wants. Remember: the U.S. government strongly supports freedom fighters in Kiev, but is terrified of freedom fighters in America. Ever wonder why?
Rule #2) Your mainstream media blackouts will backfire and make alternative media more popular than ever
During the Bundy Ranch affair, mainstream media was ordered by the White House to completely refrain from covering the story. This, again, is a laughable mistake from an old-school playbook.
While the White House thought that erecting a blackout across the mainstream media would cause the story to vanish from national consciousness, what actually took place was precisely the opposite: the story took off like wildfire across the ‘net. But instead of Pulizer-prize-winning mainstream journalists going on scene and reporting live from Nevada, all the journalism glory went to citizen journalists like Pete Santilli and David Knight, both working for independent online media groups that can never be controlled by government authority.
At Bundy Ranch, the mainstream media blackout backfired, causing enormous rises in popularity for indy media and alternative media. I happen to know firsthand, for example, that one of my own stories on Bundy Ranch was read by over 3 million people. And that’s small compared to a story by Kit Daniels of Infowars which went so viral that it became the single most-shared story of the year, across ALL media.
I also happen to know that indy video networks like Next News Network attracted hundreds of thousands of new subscribers. The mainstream media blackout, it turns out, was an incredible gift to alternative media which enjoyed unprecedented viewership, ad revenues, new subscribers and new fans. The mainstream media blackout was the best news of the year across alt. media. The White House, in other words, just added huge viewership numbers to the very same independent media groups it is constantly trying to discredit.
Rule #3) You can’t stop the alternative media by stopping its leaders
The alternative media is a phenomenon of spontaneous, decentralized, peer-to-peer journalism. It’s not based on specific individuals, because there is always upward pressure from others to take the place of any individuals are might be intimidated into silence. Even if top voices of alternative media were to die or disappear, they would be immediately replaced by others who are ready to assume their roles.
Online audiences easily transfer from one alternative media outlet to another. A single super-viral story, for example, can gain an alternative media person over half a million new followers. This is partly why attempts to suppress alternative media via individual character assassination are all but useless. Alternative media followers already know everything printed in the mainstream media is pure propaganda, so running a hit piece on an alt. media personality in the mainstream media accomplishes nothing.
Furthermore, there is no central authority over alternative media. Thus, there is no single point of control or influence over the network of peer-to-peer alt. media publishers and broadcasters. While the mainstream media can simply be ordered into total silence by the White House — and this is exactly what happened with the Bundy Ranch story — alt. media by definition adhere to no such obedience or demands.
Notice, too, that in this case of the Bundy Ranch, one of the top alt. media personalities, Alex Jones, was not even at the forefront of the effort: it was his reporters — David Knight and Kit Daniels — who broke the biggest stories. This is by design. Alex has always sought to encourage his reporters to rise up and cover the really big stories while establishing their own independent credibility as investigative journalists. Do not misinterpret this as a mistake; it is AJ’s intention that his reporters pursue such paths. AJ has always had the intention that Infowars would continue on even if he were killed.
Rule #4) Escalations of coercion only encourage greater resistance
The single most important factor leading to the rise of the armed citizen’s revolt at the Bundy Ranch was the Youtube video showing attack dogs unleashed by BLM agents against unarmed citizens. This video has now become legendary, having been viewed many millions of times in all its renditions and copies.
This video clearly and unambiguously shows a BLM agent giving multiple verbal and body language commands to an attack dog, directed against unarmed civilians. It was the widespread sharing of this video that led to the uprising which ultimately led to BLM surrendering to American patriots.
In realizing this, the natural tendency of government tyrants and oppressors is to say, “We’ll just ban mobile devices or confiscate them all at gunpoint!” This is the same sort of abysmal thinking that led the BLM to somehow think erecting a “First Amendment Zone” would be acceptable to Americans. Apparently, the BLM believes the American people are so incredibly stupid that won’t remember the First Amendment applied everywhere in America, not just some temporary zones defined by a delusional gang of armed tyrants. The very idea that BLM would even attempt to set up such an area of so utterly offensive and disrespectful to the spirit of America that I still shake my head in disbelief over the fact that they tried it.
Rule #5) You will only have the cooperation of the People by their choice, not by coercion
The final rule in all this is something most feds will never quite understand. In most cases, federal agents receive cooperation from citizens by choice, not by force. For example, I have voluntarily provided information to the U.S. Department of Justice on criminal scams taking place in the natural products industry. I do this by choice, not by force, because it is the right thing to do and because it serves the public interest.
When federal agents make requests upon American citizens, there is a moment in which those requests are parsed for congruency with a person’s perceived understanding of both the law and moral justice. If a federal agent’s request is in alignment with law and moral justice, it will likely be voluntarily followed. For example, I (lawfully) carry a concealed firearm every time I visit the Austin airport. If a crazy person goes nuts with a machete at the airport, and I find myself side by side with an armed federal agent, have no doubt I will voluntarily cooperate with federal law enforcement officers in a joint armed effort to halt the violence of the armed assailant and thereby protect innocent people. (And being Austin, Texas, the machete-wielder will likely find himself riddled with bullets because hundreds of honorable, armed citizens carry concealed weapons at the Austin airport every single day.)
On the other hand, if a federal agent approaches me and orders me to rob a bank for him, I will tell him no. Why? Surely the agent can claim he is “giving me a lawful order” and I therefore must obey under law, correct? Yet when that “lawful order” stands at odds with what I know to be morally right, I will choose not to obey that order, regardless of what excuse the agent invokes.
This is precisely what happened at Bundy Ranch. BLM showed up with “lawful orders” backed up by two different (federal) courts. But the People did not perceive those order as being morally justified. Therefore, they chose not to recognize those orders as being lawful. As was the case at Bundy Ranch, Americans can and do think for themselves in such scenarios, and at any moment, they may decide that YOUR actions as a federal agent are grossly unlawful, immoral or unconstitutional. If enough people arrive at the same conclusion, you will sooner or later find yourself surrounded and possibly arrested by the People at gunpoint.
This concept does not compute with many federal agents because they were not taught the real roots of power in a free society. They are taught that a law written on a piece of paper is an absolute, irrefutable power which can never be questioned by lowly “civilians.” In reality, a law is nothing more than mutual consent of the governed. That consent, it turns out, can be invoked at any time if those who apply the law do so in a way that is egregious or unreasonable. All government power comes from the People, after all, and can therefore be revoked by the People if government becomes abusive or overreaching in its exercising of that power.
Laws mean nothing, after all, if they are not based on a sense of justice which can be recognized by the Common Man (or woman). The U.S. government, for example, once had laws on the books which said that blacks were not fully recognized as people. Such laws fly in the face of spiritual truth, and had I been an independent media reporter in the 1820’s, I would have been aggressively arguing for equal rights among all people, regardless of their skin color (and I would have been aggressively attacked by the establishment for defending such a “crazy” idea, of course).
Those are the new rules of engagement. Please send this article to your favorite fed. The more of them who read this and understand it, the greater chance we all have for lasting peace and avoidance of bloodshed caused by an arrogant, out-of-control federal government that has lost its way.
Milk is for babies, eh? Arnold: AP; Milk: Hemera Technologies/Thinkstock
Remember the backlash against the use of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbGH)? Many commercial dairies now market their milk as free of this synthetic hormone, but that label may not tell you everything you need to know. Thanks to the way it is produced nowadays, milk from a commercial dairy is likely to contain much higher levels of natural sex hormones than you’d find in milk from a traditional (pre-industrial) dairy herd. And that could pose an rbGH-type problem. Some research suggests that elevated levels of these hormones may affect childhood development and raise a person’s cancer risk.
“The milk we drink today is quite unlike the milk our ancestors were drinking,” Harvard researcher Ganmaa Davaasambuu, an expert on milk-related illnesses, said during a 2006 talk at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. It “may not be nature’s perfect food.”
In America and Japan, commercial dairy cows are kept pregnant so they can be milked 10 months a year.
In the early 2000s, Davaasambuu began investigating why the rate of prostate cancer in Japan, while much lower than that of the United States, had increased 25-fold over the past 50 years. She and a colleague, the Japanese doctor Akio Sato, examined 36 years of dietary data in Japan and found that the incidence of, and mortality from, prostate cancer correlated most closely with the consumption of milk. Dairy products weren’t widely available in Japan until after WWII, when it imported American cows and dairy techniques, and a new law, enacted in 1954, mandated that schoolchildren drink 200 milliliters of milk at every school lunch.
In a follow-up study, Davaasambu found that milk consumption strongly correlated with the rates of breast, ovarian, and uterine cancers in 40 countries. Part of the problem, she believed, was that milk contains high levels of sex hormones such as estrogen. It’s well known that estrogens can induce prostate cancer in rats, and some epidemiological studies (but not others) have associated higher blood levels of estrogens in humans with prostate cancer risk. Estrogen imbalances have also been linked to breast cancer, and milk may be a delivery vehicle for the hormone. A 2004 study published in the International Journal of Cancer found that rats fed a diet of milk developed more and larger mammary tumors than those fed a diet of artificial (non-dairy) milk.
If milk does increase our risk of developing certain cancers, Davaasambuu wondered, then why aren’t those cancers more common in traditional cow herding societies? Searching for answers, Sato, her Japanes colleague, took his team to Mongolia, where breast and prostate cancer rates are low. They discovered that whole milk from Japanese Holsteins contains far more estrogen and progesterone (67 percent and 650 percent, respectively) than whole milk from Mongolian cows. If Davaasambuu’s theory is correct, the difference in hormone levels could help explain the difference in cancer rates between the two populations.
In one study, the researchers concluded that children’s sexual maturation could be affected “by ordinary intake of cow milk.”
The reason that milk produced in America and Japan has more sex hormones than Mongolian milk is simple. The free-range cows kept by Mongolian nomads get pregnant naturally and are milked for five or six months after they give birth. In Japan and the United States, the typical dairy cow is milked for 10 months a year, which is only possible because she is impregnated by artificial insemination while still secreting milk from her previous pregnancy. Milk from pregnant cows contains far higher hormone levels than milk from nonpregnant ones—five times the estrogen during the first two months of pregnancy, according to one study, and a whopping 33 times as much estrogen as the cow gets closer to term.
As it turns out, the difference in hormone levels between Mongolian and American milk may indeed be significant enough to affect cancer rates. For example, a 2007 study published in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology found that rats fed commercial milk developed mammary tumors more often than those fed traditional milk. Other studies suggest a possible link between milk hormones and ovarian and uterine cancers: Davasaambuu found that rats fed on commercial milk had uteruses that were significantly heavier than those of rats on a dairy-free diet. A similar study published in 2010 in the journal Environmental Health and Preventative Medicine showed that a diet of traditional milk also affected rat uteruses, but not as much as a diet of commercial milk, which resulted in uteruses about 25 percent heavier on average.
At a 2006 symposium on milk, hormones, and human health in Boston, Davasaambuu and Sato went so far as to suggest that dairy companies add a new category of premium milk to their offerings: Milk produced exclusively from non-pregnant cows.
Of course, as Davasaambuu acknowledges, the science is far from settled. A 2012 study published in the Journal of Dairy Science found that feeding commercial milk to rats had no effect on uterine weights, for example. More animal and human tests must be conducted before scientists can draw firm conclusions, she says.
Health researchers are also interested in how hormones in commercial milk might affect development. In research published in 2007, Davasaambuu found that the blood-hormone levels of Mongolian third graders jumped after a month of being fed commercial American milk. A 2010 Japanese study saw similar results in children and adults—men’s testosterone levels decreased after they began drinking commercial milk. “Sexual maturation of prepubertal children could be affected by the ordinary intake of cow milk,” the researchers concluded.
“Milk is a very complex food; there are a lot of good things and also not very good things.”
Despite avid public interest in Davasaambuu’s milk research—”People are emailing me on almost a daily basis,” she told me—her lab and others have conducted few new studies in recent years. “Milk is a very complex food; there are a lot of good things and also not very good things,” which can make it hard to study, she noted. For instance, research suggests that other milk components, including calcium (in excess) and a hormone called insulin-like growth factor can also cause health problems.
Davasaambuu wanted to further compare the health effects of Mongolian and American milk, but in 2008 the National Institutes of Health denied her Harvard lab’s funding application, arguing that the dairy systems and human populations in the two countries were too different to merit comparison. Since then, she has cobbled together private funding for another study of 350 Mongolian schoolchildren, but hasn’t yet published the results. Mongolian authorities resisted the study, fearing their kids were being used as guinea pigs.
There are certainly downsides to living in a traditional society such as Mongolia, whose infant mortality rate, for example, is almost four times that of the United States. And the average Mongolian cow produces just 1.3 gallons of milk per day, compared with 9 gallons from the average American Holstein. Mongolian children drink one-third less dairy than their American counterparts. But judging from Mongolia’s low cancer rates, at least, its habit of drinking judicious amounts of traditionally produced free-range milk might be just what the doctor ordered.
![Environmental activist Shirley "Sug" McNall stands in front of an XTO Energy well on March 19 on Martinez Lane in Aztec. McNall added the well,](https://i1.wp.com/extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site567/2014/0330/20140330__TDT-L-HELL-0331%7Ep1_500.jpg?resize=500%2C335 "Environmental activist Shirley "Sug" McNall stands in front of an XTO Energy well on March 19 on Martinez Lane in Aztec. McNall added the well,")
![A well, which is owned by XTO Energy, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, is shown on March 19 on Martinez Lane in Aztec. Shirley "Sug" McNall says the](https://i2.wp.com/extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site567/2014/0330/20140330__TDT-L-HELL-0331%7Ep2_300.jpg?resize=300%2C216 "A well, which is owned by XTO Energy, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, is shown on March 19 on Martinez Lane in Aztec. Shirley "Sug" McNall says the")
![Shirley "Sug" McNall is pictured on March 6. McNall is a member of the Four Grans, an ad hoc environmentalist group of four Aztec grandmothers](https://i0.wp.com/extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site567/2014/0330/20140330__TDT-L-HELL-0331%7Ep3_300.jpg?resize=300%2C227 "Shirley "Sug" McNall is pictured on March 6. McNall is a member of the Four Grans, an ad hoc environmentalist group of four Aztec grandmothers")
Milk is for babies, eh? Arnold: AP; Milk: Hemera Technologies/Thinkstock