China Manufacturing Fake Eggs Made Of Plastic & Sold As Real Ones

May 18, 2013, 5:21 am

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Fake eggs made of waste plastic leftovers from factories are becoming a nuissance as citizens try to fry them and they smell and burn like plastic. Citizen, surnamed Wang, in Yantai City, Shangdong Province disclosed to the reporters that he recently bought fake eggs from the market.

Wang said, two days ago he purchased 1 kg of eggs in a shop at the residential community where he lives, and found that three fake eggs were mixed in them. When Wang wanted to break the eggsto cook, he noticed an egg was hard like a rock. The egg’s albumen has solidified and the color appeared yellow too, after he broke the egg.

Wang tried to cook it too to see how it would turn. In over 20 minutes cooking, the yolk of the egg became very flexible and it could bounce to 20 cm high when it was dropped to the ground.

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Dark, Massive Asteroid To Fly By Earth On May 31

May 19, 2013, 3:26 am

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It's 1.7 miles long. Its surface is covered in a sticky black substance similar to the gunk at the bottom of a barbecue. If it impacted Earth it would probably result in global extinction. Good thing it is just making a flyby.

Asteroid 1998 QE2 will make its closest pass to Earth on May 31 at 1:59 p.m. PDT.

The space rock's name is not an homage to England's Queen Elizabeth II, or to the famous 12-deck ocean liner that was retired from service in 2008. It's just the moniker assigned by the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass., which names each newfound asteroid according to an established alphanumeric scheme that lays out when it was discovered.

Scientists are not sure where this unusually large space rock, which was discovered 15 years ago, originated from. But the mysterious sooty substance on its surface could indicate it may be the result of a comet that flew too close to the sun, said Amy Mainzer, who tracks near-Earth objects at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge. It might also have leaked out of the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, she said.

We will know more after the asteroid zips closer to Earth and scientists using the Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, Calif., and the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico can get a better look at it. Astronomers at both observatories plan to track it closely from May 30 to June 9, according to a JPL release.

At its closest approach the asteroid will still be 3.6 million miles from our planet (about 15 times the distance between the Earth and the moon), but it will be close enough for these powerful radar antennas to see features as small as 12 feet across.

"With radar we can transform an object from a point of light into a small world with its own characteristics," Lance Benner, JPL's principal investigator for Goldstone radar observations, said in a statement.

There is no chance that asteroid 1998 QE2 could collide with Earth this go-around, and its next close approach won't be until 2119.

Still, Mainzer said the size of the asteroid, and its potential for mass destruction, should remind us that there are some scary things flying around in space.

"This is a really big asteroid, similar in size to the one that killed off the dinosaurs, and it's getting very close to us," she said. "Fortunately we've been tracking its orbit very carefully so we know with great certainty it won't hit us.

"We don't need to panic, but we do need to pay attention," she said.

SOURCE

Shock Report: 10,700 Men Raped In The US Military

May 19, 2013, 4:07 am

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Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Brian Lewis and several military female victims testified to harrowing sexual abuse at a U.S. Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel, March 13, 2013. Lewis stated he “was raped by a senior petty officer … told by a commander not to report it, and later was diagnosed with a personality disorder and discharged.”

Lewis says, “As I demonstrated, men are a majority of the victims in the military. DoD’s infamous ‘Ask her when she’s sober’ marginalizes male survivors and sends a message that men cannot be raped and therefore are not real survivors.”

Why is the best-kept military secret that most soldierly sexual assaults are now definitively homo, not heterosexual, male-on-male sexual exploitation?

The corporate dictionary definition of “sexual assault” is “to knowingly cause another person to engage in an unwanted sexual act by force or threat; ‘most states have replaced the common law definition of rape with statutes defining sexual assault.’” [Dictionary.com, WordNet® 3.0. Princeton University]

While men are statistically more loathe to report their sexual victimization than are women, 10,700 male soldiers, sailors and airmen in 2010 actually reported their sexual assaults. What this means is not totally clear, since men are cannot technically be raped, despite the term being regularly used in the recent hearings on the matter.

The Washington Times reported “The Defense Department estimates 19,000 sexual assaults occur each year, but only 17 percent are ever reported. In 2010 … 8,600 victims [who reported were female, an incredible 4 percent of the women in the military that year], and 10,700 victims were male, reported the Service Woman’s Action Network.”

The rape rate of our dedicated servicewomen is documented as unparalleled in our nation’s history and demands candid politically incorrect discussion. This column, however, focuses on the male-on-male sexual assault Mr. Lewis called rape; more accurately defined as forcible sodomy, that is “oral or anal copulation.”

Most likely, the definition of rape was expanded in the hearings to include the use of objects and unwanted masturbation, or other sexual invasion. Whatever definition of homosexual sexual assault is used, the numbers are shocking.

With 1,219,510 men serving in 2010, if only 17 percent of all male “rape” victims reported, does this mean, based on the aforementioned figure of 10,700 victims, that 62,941 military men were sexually assaulted by other men that year?

Does this mean “only” 5.16 percent of our bravest and best male servicemen were sexually violated by other lust-dominance-driven servicemen in 2010? Did some kind of sick form of hazing play a role?

Were these damning data widely known and debated in the public forum, the legislatures and the courts before the ban on homosexuality was lifted in 2011?

If not, why not? Precisely when did this traumatic rate of military sodomite abuse begin? Did it begin increasing when the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was implemented?

Does it coincide with the appearance of hazing by sodomy in high schools across the country in the last 10 years or so? Is the Boy Scouts board aware of the military homosexual abuser data as they debate their gay Scout ban?

Indeed, whether or not such outrageous male sexual assault estimates are 10,700 or 62,941, these crimes would be traumatizing to their victims and their colleagues, and could be a significant cause for the massive increase in military suicides – and revengeful violence.

A Center for Deployment Psychology (CDP) report notes that, “Historically the suicide rates have been lower in the military than those rates found in the general population.”

In an attempt to understand why recent “military suicide rates have been increasing and surpassing the rates for society at large,” the CDP authors wonder if the “continued wars in Iraq and Afghanistan” may account for the increase.

However, the hard data confirm “rape victims are prone to suicide,” although continued deployment would logically exacerbate such depression and despair.

Forcible sodomy of men and rape of women is certainly causally connected to completed and attempted suicides.

Yet, despite the high rates of male and female rape and forcible sodomy, the CDP report dodges the prominent role of both sexual abuse and pornography – that is, how-to sex abuse manuals and videos – in fueling the lust and contempt that spawns both offender sexual abuse and victim suicidal ideation.

Alcohol/drugs, fed and encouraged by pornography, often direct users to penetrate any available proximate object, indifferent to age, gender or political persuasion.

True, “The military is 85 percent men and 15 percent women.” Still, according to the Naval Personnel Command (2012 Sexual Assault Awareness Month Training Guide), “about 56 percent of estimated sexual assaults in our military are men, and 44 percent are women.”
 The politically correct Naval report ignores the Big Porn Elephant in the room as normalizing the rapes of women and the homosexist assaults on fellow servicemen.

While “heterosexual” pornography has commonly been used to arouse and then seduce “straights” into homosexual sex, “gay” pornography is widely available in mainstream homosexist publications like The Advocate Classified.

And, buff, “straight” military men are regularly depicted there as preferred, sexual targets.

Begun in 1976, The Advocate, our oldest and largest homosexist publication, always carried pornographic ads and films, but in 1992 shifted these to a separate Advocate Classifieds and later to the Internet.

On May 7 comes the Military Times reporting that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered inspection of all military offices and workplaces worldwide to root out any “materials that create a degrading or offensive work environment.”

Last year Air Force officers searched “troops’ desks and cubicles in search of photos, calendars, magazines, screen-savers, computer files and other items that might be considered degrading toward women.”

There was no mention of confiscating pornographic items degrading toward men.

The cleanup is a long time a comin’. In 1998 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld The Military Honor & Decency Act partly due to “the special circumstances of the military environment, in which the appearance of professionalism and proper conduct is critical.”

On July 1, Frank Rush, acting assistant secretary of defense for force management, signed DoD Instruction 4105.70, banning “Sale or Rental of Sexually Explicit Material on DoD Property.”

“We need a cultural change where every service member is treated with dignity and respect,” said Secretary Hagel, announcing new initiatives to prevent sexual assault.

“Hagel also unveiled the Defense Department’s annual report on sexual assault, which estimates that about 26,000 troops experienced some form of “unwanted sexual contact” during the past year. That’s roughly one in every 50 troops in the active-duty force.

But, if 10,700 men and 8,600 women reported the euphemized “unwanted sexual contact” – and if only 17 percent of victims report, how does this reduce to 26,000 military victims?

The official reports seem contradictory.

Secretary Hagel wants to eliminate pornography to “really drive the cultural change.” Of course, we can have no honorable or trustworthy military until all vestiges of pornography – from cartoons to Internet adverts, videos, films, calendars and phones, and the rapists and sodomites it trains and justifies – are excised from military service, from the Pentagon elites to the privates under them.

Now, does this mean the elite 5,200 child pornography users at the Pentagon will finally be arrested and tried? For, indeed there are “charms By which the property of youth and maidhood May be abused.”


SOURCE

Rare Undersea Discovery Could Extend Your Life by 10, 20 or 30 Years

May 19, 2013, 5:32 am

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Humans have made incredible health strides and are living longer lives than ever. Many of the maladies that struck down our ancestors have for the most part been completely eliminated – everything from tuberculosis, to polio to malaria.

Today, the biggest killers stem as much from our lifestyles as from microscopic bacteria and viruses. One of the worst of these is heart disease, and specifically high blood pressure. It’s a slow, but efficient killer that robs many people of what should be the last 10, 20 or 30 years of their lives.

Part of the reason that heart disease is so prevalent and intractable is that it often requires massive changes to one’s lifestyle— changes that are not easy to make. Everything from radically altering ones diet to implementing serious exercise routines. And while it’s never too late to start, people often realize the true danger only when it’s too late to make the changes and the damage is done.

Now, however, there may be a scientific breakthrough that could have an impact on high blood pressure comparable to penicillin’s ability treat infections or quinine’s effect on malaria.

Scientists are claiming that they have now isolated unusual ingredients in a rare seaweed discovered by fishermen off the coast of Korea that offer incredible health benefits—including the ability to restore blood pressure to normal levels.

Dr. Haengwoo Lee, a renowned biochemist living near Seattle, Washington conducted a massive 15 year, multimillion dollar clinical study on these two ingredients. The first is Seanol, an extremely rare seaweed extract from Ecklonia Cava that's proven to be 100 times more powerful than any land-based antioxidant. That's because it stays working in your body for 12 hours, compared to land-based antioxidants that work for 30 minutes.


"Its secret is its make-up of special polyphenol antioxidants that are a whopping 40% lipid (fat) soluble," Dr. Lee explains. "Unlike nearly all land-based antioxidants that are water soluble, Seanol's protective compounds can get into things like the fatty tissues of your brain and penetrate all three layers of your cells, including the outside, the oil-based cell membranes, and your DNA."

Indeed, Seanol is so powerful, it's the only FDA-approved Ecklonia Cava marine-algae extract in existence.

The second ingredient is Calamarine, a deep-sea omega-3 discovery that delivers 85% more DHA omega-3s to your heart, brain, joints, and eyes. It's known to combat everything from fatigue and poor memory, to vision problems, joint pain, mood swings and depression.

With that research in mind, Dr. Lee combined Seanol and Calamarine with a high dose of vitamin D to form Marine-D3, the newest supplement in the fight against age-related illnesses and high blood pressure.

According to the CDC, about 1 in 3 U.S. adults has high blood pressure, which increases the risk for heart disease and stroke, the two leading causes of death in the United States. Increasing your omega-3 intake can reduce high blood pressure, and because it's difficult to get enough omega-3s in foods like fish and nuts, many people turn to supplements.

Dr. Lee found that Calamarine delivers some of the greatest concentration of omega-3s known to science, and has been able to formulate it without any fishy burps or aftertaste. Combined with Seanol's ability to reduce body inflammation, as well as help cells get the nutrients they need to thrive, stay healthy and protected, Marine-D3 is able to boost a body's entire well being.


The makers of Marine-D3 are so confident that you'll see fast dramatic results from this product, that if you aren't happy after two full months, simply return the unused portion and they'll buy it back. They'll even give you ten dollars extra just for giving it an honest try! That kind of faith, combined with Dr. Lee's exhaustive research, shows that Marine-D3 really is a one-of-a-kind product.

SOURCE

Poop In Pools More Common Than You May Think, CDC Warns

May 19, 2013, 6:06 am

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Attention swimmers: More than half of the public pools tested in a new study contained bacterial evidence that someone may have pooped in the pool.

Investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention worked with state and local public health departments last summer to collect samples from pool filters at 161 pools in the metro-Atlanta area. Some of the pools were public, some were in private clubs and some were in water parks.

Over the winter, researchers used genetic tests to identify several types of pathogens in the filter samples. Among the 161 samples, 93 -- or 58% -- contained Escherichia coli, a bacterium that lives in the digestive tract of humans and other warm-blooded animals. The researchers treated the presence of E. coli as “a fecal indicator,” they wrote in their report.

How did it get into the pools? In all likelihood, swimmers delivered some of it into the water by failing to take a thorough, soapy shower before getting into the pool. “Each person has an average of 0.14 grams of fecal material on their perianal surface that could rinse into the water,” the report notes.

Larger quantities of E. coli could be introduced through “a formed or diarrheal fecal incident in the water.” Diarrhea is particularly troubling because it’s more likely to transmit pathogens to other swimmers, according to the study.

Pools in private clubs were less likely to have E. coli in their filters, but investigators still found it in 49% of cases. Municipal pools had the highest incidence of E. coli -- 70% -- followed by water parks, at 66%.

In one bright spot, none of the filters had evidence of the strain of E. coli known as O157:H7, which causes serious -- sometimes deadly -- cases of foodborne illness.

While E. coli was the most disgusting find, it wasn’t the most common. Investigators found Pseudomonas aeruginosa in 95 of the 161 filter samples, for a prevalence of 59%. The P. aeruginosa bacterium can cause swimmer’s ear, an inflammation of the outer ear and ear canal. It also causes itchy skin.

P. aeroginosa is a “ubiquitous microbe” that can make its way into pools via people, dirt, kickboard and other foam items, or even the water used to fill the pool in the first place. Once in the pool, it forms biofilms on pool walls, plumbing equipment and other submerged surfaces. This pathogen can be kept in check with proper pool maintenance, including use of chlorine and disinfection with ultraviolet light, according to the report.

Of the 161 pool filters tested, 121 (or 75%) were found to have at least one of the microbes investigators tested for. In addition, 67 (42%) of the pools had both E. coli and P. aeroginosa. Other pathogens were much less common – Giardia intestinalis was discovered on two filters, and Cryptosporidium spp. was found once. Other no-shows besides E. coli O157:H7 were norovirus GI, norovirus GII and adenovirus.

The results were published Thursday in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The researchers emphasized that the results of their Atlanta-area survey can't be generalized to the rest of the United States. But they noted that cases of recreational water illness have been on the rise from coast to coast, suggesting "that swimmers frequently introduce fecal material and pathogens into recreational water throughout the country." Reassuringly, there were no pool-related health outbreaks in Georgia during the months when the filter samples were collected.

Though poor maintenance was surely a factor in these pools, the study authors said that swimmers shoulder some of the blame.

“Swimmers have the power and responsibility to decrease the risk for RWIs by practicing good hygiene,” they wrote. That includes staying out of the water when sick with diarrhea; showering off with soap before entering the pool; taking bathroom breaks every 60 minutes; and rinsing off again before getting back into the pool. People caring for small children should be sure to check diapers every 30 to 60 minutes and refrain from changing diapers poolside to prevent pathogens from rinsing into the water.

Fecal matter isn’t the only body residue that can cause trouble in a pool. Urine and sweat contain nitrogen, which combines with free chlorine in the water to form compounds called di- and tri-chloramines that irritate the eyes and respiratory tract, the study says.

SOURCE

China's Top 9 Fake Foods

May 19, 2013, 8:12 am

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CARDBOARD SIOPAO SCANDAL

Chinese street vendors soak cardboard in industrial chemicals to soften it. Then it is chopped and mixed with pork fat and flavored powder.

The mixture is stuffed in dough and steamed.


In 2007, according to China Daily (A STATE-OWNED MEDIA), Beijing police have detained a television reporter for fabricating an investigative story about steamed buns stuffed with cardboard at a time when China's food safety is under intense international scrutiny.

A report directed by Beijing TV and played on state-run national broadcaster China Central Television that time said an unlicensed snack vend or in eastern Beijing was selling steamed dumplings stuffed with cardboard soaked in caustic soda and seasoned with pork flavouring.

MELAMINE MILK SCANDAL

In 2009. There was also a Melamine Milk Scandal in China. Around 53,000 Chinese children and infants have sickened by Melamine-tainted dairy products. 40,000 were treated as out-patients, 14,000 were Treated in various hospitals in China. And 4 infants have died because of this. Infusing the watered down milk with Melamine falsely increases the “protein” content of Milk, thereby fooling the Milk manufacturers.

FAKE CHICKEN EGGS SCANDAL

China is also famous in Fake Chicken eggs scandal. People discovered fake chicken eggs being produced and sold in China.


Fake egg’s shell is made of calcium carbonate. Egg yolk and egg white are made of sodium alginate, alum, gelatin, eatable calcium chloride and then add water and food coloring. First pour a set amount of sodium alginate into warm water and mix it into egg white like shape, then mix it with gelatin together with benzoic acid, alum and other chemicals to make the egg white. Egg yolk is just adding lemon yellow food coloring. Together with calcium chloride to form egg mixture into the mold to produce the egg membrane. Egg shell is made of paraffin wax, gypsum powder, calcium carbonate and other materials.

Source: http://www.chinahush.com/2009/04/24/how-to-identify-fake-chicken-eggs/
 

FAKE RICE NOODLES SCANDAL

In 2010, Large amounts of rice noodles made with rotten grain and potentially carcinogenic additives are being sold in south China, state press said.

Up to 50 factories in south China's Dongguan city near Hong Kong are producing about 500,000 kilogrammes (1.1 million pounds) of tainted rice noodles a day using stale and mouldy grain, the Beijing Youth Daily said that time.

FAKE RICE SCANDAL

In 2011, according to the Korean-language “Weekly Hong Kong” (which many Vietnam websites are referencing as well), Singapore media claim that fake rice is being distributed in the Chinese town of Taiyuan, in Shaanxi province. This “rice” is a mix of potatoes, sweet potatoes, and plastic. It is formed by mixing the potatoes and sweet potatoes into the shape of rice grains, then adding industrial synthetic resins. Since the rice does not behave like normal rice, it stays hard even after it has been cooked. Such synthetic resins can also be very harmful if consumed.

A Chinese Restaurant Association official said that eating three bowls of this fake rice would be like eating one plastic bag. Due to the seriousness of the matter, he added that there they conducted an investigation of factories alleged to be producing the rice.

Source: http://www.weeklyhk.com/news.php?code&mode=view&num=10793

BLUE GLOWING PORK SCANDAL

In the same year (2011), A woman who purchased a kilogram of pork from a wet market on Yang Gao North Road.

Afterward, she placed the leftover pork on a small table in the kitchen. At 11pm, Miss Chen got out of bed to use the toilet, and suddenly noticed a faint blue glow coming from the kitchen, and that the bright blue glow was coming from the pork itself.

Another resident from Changsha city one after another discovered that the pork they had purchased from supermarkets emitted a blue glow at night. After this phenomenon was reported by the media, the Changsha Food Safety Commission mobilized the efforts of the business, livestock, industry and commerce, health, and other departments and at the same time invited experts and professors to participate in the investigation.

Through scientific bacteria cultivation separation, experts discovered “blue glow pork” was caused by secondary bacterial contamination. Shanghai Health Supervision Department food experts say the pork that has been contaminated by phosphorescent bacteria.

Source: http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/pictures/blue-glowing-pork-meat-found-in-shanghai.html

FAKE WINE SCANDAL

In March 2012 according to REUTERS report, Master of Wine Jeannie Cho Lee tasted fake wine at a Hong Kong dinner party.

"What we're seeing across the country is a proliferation of knock-offs and copycats and outright counterfeit as the imported wine industry really explodes in this market," said Ian Ford of Summergate Fine Wines in Shanghai, adding that counterfeiters are taking advantage of inexperienced Chinese consumers.

FAKE MEAT MADE FROM RATS

More than 900 people have been arrested in China for involvement in meat-related crimes, including producing fake beef and mutton from animals such as rats, minks and foxes, authorities reported.

A total of 382 cases of alleged crimes in food industry were uncovered in a three-month campaign launched by China’s Ministry of Public Security on January 25, the ministry reported.

In addition to producing falsely-labeled meat, the crimes included using banned chemicals in processing of products, selling meat infected with various diseases and injecting water into meat to pad up its weight, according to Xinhua news agency.

Security officials seized more than 20,000 tons of illegal meat products during the crackdown.

The ministry said it will now focus on dairy products, continuing a larger campaign to combat crime and violations in food industry.

Crook producers faking meat to beef up the bottom line is hardly China’s exclusive problem. Europe recently had a major scandal over horsemeat laced with banned drug, which was sold as more expensive beef.

Source: http://rt.com/news/china-meat-crimes-crackdown-766/

CHINESE SELLING WALNUTS FILLED WITH CEMENT

The scam goes like this — the walnut husk had been emptied of its nutmeat, filled with concrete and paper and then glued shut again. For the fraudsters, they can almost double their profits with the trick, selling both the nutmeat and the fake nuts.

Such a trade makes sense in China, where walnuts have become ridiculously expensive over the last few years — from 350 yuan 10 years ago, to as much as 3,500 yuan, or 20,000 - 30,000 yuan (almost $5,000) last year.


Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-walnuts-filled-with-cement-2013-2

The Island Of The Dolls – A Dark Tourist Attraction In Mexico

May 19, 2013, 1:23 pm

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On a dark and creepy island in the canals of Xochimico near Mexico City sits what might be the world’s strangest and scariest tourist attraction ever. However, this sad island was never meant to be a stop on tourists’ holiday itineraries. The Island of the Dolls was dedicated to the lost soul of a poor little girl who met her fate too soon.

The Island of the Dolls (Isla de las Munecas) sits in the canals south of Mexico City and is the current home of hundreds of terrifying, mutilated dolls. Their severed limbs, decapitated heads, and blank eyes adorn trees, fences and nearly every available surface. The dolls appear menacing even in the bright light of midday, but in the dark they are particularly haunting.

Not surprisingly, the island’s origins lie in tragedy. The story goes that the island’s only inhabitant, Don Julian Santana, found the body of a drowned child in the canal some 50 years ago. He was haunted by her death, so when he saw a doll floating by in the canal soon after, he hung it in a tree to please the girl. He hoped to both appease her tortured soul and protect the island from further evil.

One doll in a tree, however, was not enough to ease Santana’s troubled mind. He continued to fish dolls and doll parts out of the canal whenever he saw them, hanging each one carefully on the island. There weren’t enough canal dolls to satisfy Santana’s tortured spirit, so he began scavenging more from trash heaps on his rare trips away from home. Later in life, he began trading his home-grown fruits and vegetables for dolls.

Many stories have been associated with the island over the years. A popular tale was that Don Julian had gone mad and believed the dolls to be real children who he pulled from the canal and tried to revive. But the truth, as told by his family members who now run the island as a tourist attraction, is that Don Julian simply believed the island was haunted by the spirit of the little girl. For reasons only known to Don Julian himself, he believed that he could make the dead girl happy and keep evil at bay by hanging discarded dolls in all of the island’s trees.

The story took a particularly sinister turn in 2001 when Don Julian drowned in the canal just like the little girl. Many people said that the dolls, inhabited by tortured spirits, conspired to murder the old man. Others believe that Santana’s death was an accident and that since his passing, the dolls have taken over his role as the island’s caretaker.

 

Although the island did not receive much tourist attention during Don Julian’s lifetime, it has become a well-known attraction since then. International television crews have filmed there several times, including one show that claimed to find proof the island is haunted.

Getting to the island is a long and difficult task, but walking among the creepy dolls is an experience like no other. Most, if not all, of these dolls were rejected by their previous owners for various reasons. Severed limbs and body-less heads hang side-by-side with whole, sun-bleached dolls. Mold covers some, while others are missing nearly all of their artificial hair. Spiders and insects have taken up residence in the hollow parts of most of the dolls.

Although Don Julian’s sentiment was innocent and admirable, the doll graveyard he created is undeniably creepy. Soulless eyes follow visitors as they move around the small island (which is actually a chinampa, or artificial floating garden), and many swear that they can hear the dolls whispering to them. This labor of love (or fear, as it were) has resulted in an accidental sensation amongst those who admire the bizarre and twisted side of tourism.

SOURCE

Untold Story: How They Rebuilt Stonehenge

May 19, 2013, 2:10 pm

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For decades the official Stonehenge guidebooks have been full of fascinating facts and figures and theories surrounding the world's greatest prehistoric monument. What the glossy brochures do not mention, however, is the systematic rebuilding of the 4,000 year old stone circle throughout the 20th Century. The restoration has been kept elusive and a large percentage of vacationers sitting in their hotels in London, planning a trip to the monument, have no idea that they aren't getting the full story."

This is one of the dark secrets of history archaeologists don't talk about: The day they had the builders in at Stonehenge to recreate the most famous ancient monument in Britain as they thought it ought to look.

 

This picture shows workers on the site in 1901 in a restoration which caused outrage at the time but which is rarely referred to in official guidebooks. For it means that Stonehenge, jewel in the crown of Britain's heritage industry, is not all it seems. Much of what the ancient site's millions of visitors see in fact dates back less than 50 years.

  

From 1901 to 1964, the majority of the stone circle was restored in a series of makeovers which have left it, in the words of one archaeologist, as 'a product of the 20th century heritage industry'. But the information is markedly absent from the guidebooks and info-phones used by tourists at the site. Coming in the wake of the news that the nearby Avebury stone circle was almost totally rebuilt in the 1920s, the revelation about Stonehenge has caused embarrassment among archaeologists. English Heritage, the guardian of the monument, is to rewrite the official guide, which dismisses the Henge's recent history in a few words.

 Dave Batchelor, English Heritage's senior archaeologist said he would personally rewrite the official guide. 'The detail was dropped in the Sixties', he admitted. 'But times have changed and we now believe this is an important piece of the Stonehenge story and must be told'. Cambridge University archaeological archivist and leading Stonehenge author Christopher Chippindale admitted: 'Not much of what we see at Stonehenge hasn't been touched in some way'.

And historical research student Brian Edwards, who recently revealed that the nearby Avebury Monument had been totally rebuilt, has found rare pictures of Stonehenge being restored. He said: 'It has been as if Stonehenge had been historically cleansed'. 'For too long people have been kept in the dark over the Stonehenge restoration work. I am astonished by how few people know about it. It is wonderful the guide book is going to tell the full story in the future.'

A million visitors a year are awe-struck as they look back in time into another age and marvel at the primitive technology and muscle-power which must have been employed transporting the huge monoliths and raising them on Salisbury Plain. They gasp as they are told about this strangely spiritual site.... mankind's first computer, its standing stones and precise lintels, lining up magically and mysteriously with the heavens above and the solstice suns.

But now, as if to head off a potential great archaeological controversy - and following interest displayed by historical researcher Brian Edwards and a local newspaper, the brochures will be re-written, to include the 'forgotten years'. The years when teams of navvies sat aboard the greatest cranes in the British Empire to hoist stones upright; drag leaning trilithons into position, replace fallen lintels which once sat atop the huge sarsens.

As Mr Edwards - the erstwhile enfant terrible of British archaeology following revelations that nearby Avebury was a total 20s and 30s rebuild by marmalade millionaire Alexander Keiller - says: 'What we have been looking at is a 20th Century landscape, which is reminiscent of what Stonehenge MIGHT have been like thousands of years ago. It has been created by the heritage industry and is NOT the creation of prehistoric people. What we saw at the Millennium is less than 50 years old.'

In archaeological terms the re-writing of the guidebooks is dynamite. English Heritage run Stonehenge on behalf of the nation, and an English Heritage insider revealed: 'Dark forces were at work in the 70s, when a decision was taken to drop the information about the restorations Now that is about to change.

The Restoration and Rebuild

The first restoration of Stonehenge was launched  more than100 years ago this year. 

And, in 1901, as the builders went to work, The Times letters column was full of bucolic missives of complaint. But the first stage of 'restoration' thundered ahead regardless and the style guru of the day, John Ruskin, released the maxim which was to outlive him.... 'Restoration is a lie,' he stormed. Nevertheless the Stonehenge makeover was to gather momentum and more work was carried out in 1919, 1920, 1958, 1959 and 1964. Christopher Chippindale, curator at the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and Anthropology, and author of Stonehenge Complete, admits: 'Nearly all the stones have been moved in some way and are standing in concrete.'

A stone was straightened and set in concrete in 1901, six further stones in 1919 and 1920, three more in 1959 and four in 1964. There was also the excavation of the Altar stone and re-erection of the Trilithon in 1958.

The guide book 'Stonehenge and Neighbouring Monuments' , and the audio tour of the Henge omit any comprehensive mention of the rebuilding in the 20th Century. Only on page 18 is there a slight reference...'A number of the leaning and fallen stones have been straightened and re-erected.' But even that official guide book does not contain clues to the large scale restoration, which was not deemed worth a full entry.

Why does John Constable's 1835 painting of the Henge on pages 18 and 19 look so vastly different from the latter-day pristine photograph across pages 28 and 29? REASON: A lot of restoration work had taken place in between the two images being recorded. And, during long hot summers it would be possible - if one could get near to the stones - to see the turf peeling back to reveal the concrete boots into which the majority of the stones are now set. A dead give-away, but difficult to spot now as proximity to the Henge is limited.

One wonders how an event as massive as the resurrection of a worldly monument such as Stonehenge went without notice. Today, it is rare to stumble upon any mention of the reconstruction of the historic monument. People like having clear guidelines that are followed, like those at an online casino where there is no room for misunderstandings. If the reconstruction of Stonehenge was made clear to the public it would only add to its historical value.

 The pictures clearly show the rebuilding in progress. Some were discovered by Mr Chippendale and were used in a revised edition of his book. Many of those have since been lost. Others were found by Mr Edwards who unearthed guide books from the time when Stonehenge was not ashamed of its past and featured photographs and stories of the restorations.


'The news is sensational,' said Mr Edwards, a decorate student at the University of the West of England. 'Once I realised how much work had been carried out, I was amazed to discover that practically no-one outside of the henge know of its reconstruction in the last 100 years. I have always thought that if people are bothering to make a trip to Stonehenge, from home or abroad, then the least they should expect is a true story.'



SOURCE

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Penis Theft Reported On The Rise In Africa

May 20, 2013, 3:58 am

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'Penis-snatching' city crime wave spreads to remote village in Central Africa

Reports of genital theft are a relatively common occurrence across West and Central Africa, scholars say.

Academics observing reports of penis snatching on the continent have previously deemed it an urban phenomenon - a manifestation of the anxieties that arise when a village becomes a city and rural people find themselves living among crowds of unfamiliar people.

So a U.S. anthropologist was 'intrigued' when she arrived in the tiny hamlet of Tiringoulou in the Central African Republic, to find two villagers claiming to have been the victims of genital theft.

Previous instances have been reported in crowded centres like Lagos, Nigeria, or Douala, in Cameroon.

Louisa Lombard, a postdoctoral fellow in geography at the University of California, Berkeley, said villagers in Tiringoulou told her of a traveller, upon arriving on a Sudanese merchant truck, removed two men's penises with a handshake.

The academic was told the stranger had targeted a tea seller in the market and a second man, she wrote in a report on alternet.org.

'After handing over his money, he [the stranger] clasped the vendor’s hand. The tea seller felt an electric tingling course through his body and immediately sensed that his penis had shrunk to a size smaller than that of a baby’s. His yells quickly drew a crowd.

'Somehow in the fray a second man fell victim as well,' she wrote.

Several eyewitnesses assured her the 'appendages did indeed shrink dramatically'.

Ms Lombard described victims 'on both sides' of the phenomenon, which she wrote was linked to a 'general resurgence of witchcraft' in Africa.

Having visited one of the so-called 'victims' and finding that he 'clearly seemed to be suffering' as he lay listless in the shade at his home, the academic was later told that the alleged penis-snatcher had been executed by gunshot by members of the armed rebel group that governs Tiringoulou.

The rebels' version of events was that the thief had 'mysteriously vanished from his holding cell', she wrote.

Ms Lombard said she was told the stolen organs were sold to occult healers.

Having asked the town doctor what could be done to help the victims, she was told: 'Western medicine is no match for this magic. It is a mysterious thing.'

SOURCE

Mother Brings Baby Back to Life With Two Hours Of Loving Cuddles After Doctors Pronounce Him Dead

May 20, 2013, 8:11 am

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Awful moment: Kate and David clasp each other and their son Jamie, circled, after being told he did not survive the birth. They were given the child to say their goodbyes but then, miraculously, two hours later he began to show signs of life

It was a final chance to say goodbye for grieving mother Kate Ogg after doctors gave up hope of saving her premature baby.

She tearfully told her lifeless son - born at 27 weeks weighing 2lb - how much she loved him and cuddled him tightly, not wanting to let him go.

Although little Jamie's twin sister Emily had been delivered successfully, doctors had given Mrs Ogg the news all mothers dread - that after 20 minutes of battling to get her son to breathe, they had declared him dead.

Signs of life: A smiling Kate holds Jamie after it becomes clear that her son is going to survive

 Having given up on a miracle, Mrs Ogg unwrapped the baby from his blanket and held him against her skin. And then an extraordinary thing happened.

After two hours of being hugged, touched and spoken to by his mother, the little boy began showing signs of life.

At first, it was just a gasp for air that was dismissed by doctors as a reflex action.

But then the startled mother fed him a little breast milk on her finger and he started breathing normally.

'I thought, "Oh my God, what's going on",' said Mrs Ogg.

'A short time later he opened his eyes. It was a miracle. Then he held out his hand and grabbed my finger.

'He opened his eyes and moved his head from side to side. The doctor kept shaking his head saying, "I don't believe it, I don't believe it".'

Proud mum: Kate with son Jamie when they appeared on Australian TVl. The boy was born prematurely with twin sister Emily at 27 weeks

The Australian mother spoke publicly for the first time yesterday to highlight the importance of skin-on-skin care for sick babies, which is being used at an increasing number of British hospitals.

In most cases, babies are rushed off to intensive care if there is a serious problem during the birth.

But the 'kangaroo care' technique, named after the way kangaroos hold their young in a pouch next to their bodies, allows the mother to act as a human incubator to keep babies warm, stimulated and fed.

Pre-term and low birth-weight babies treated with the skin-to-skin method have also been shown to have lower infection rates, less severe illness, improved sleep patterns and are at reduced risk of hypothermia.

Mrs Ogg and her husband David told how doctors gave up on saving their son after a three-hour labour in a Sydney hospital in March.

All smiles: It was after Kate gave her son some of her breast milk on her finger that he began breathing regularly

 The doctor asked me had we chosen a name for our son,' said Mrs Ogg. 'I said, "Jamie", and he turned around with my son already wrapped up and said, "We've lost Jamie, he didn't make it, sorry".

'It was the worse feeling I've ever felt. I unwrapped Jamie from his blanket. He was very limp.
'I took my gown off and arranged him on my chest with his head over my arm and just held him. He wasn't moving at all and we just started talking to him.

'We told him what his name was and that he had a sister. We told him the things we wanted to do with him throughout his life.

'Jamie occasionally gasped for air, which doctors said was a reflex action. But then I felt him move as if he were startled, then he started gasping more and more regularly.

'I gave Jamie some breast milk on my finger, he took it and started regular breathing.'

Mrs Ogg held her son, now five months old and fully recovered, as she spoke on the Australian TV show Today Tonight.

Her husband added: 'Luckily I've got a very strong, very smart wife.

'She instinctively did what she did. If she hadn't done that, Jamie probably wouldn't be here.'

 SOURCE

4.6 Million Fake Condoms Confiscated In China

May 20, 2013, 8:40 am

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Counterfeit Condom Ring Busted and Millions of Contraceptives Confiscated

A ring of underground workshops producing millions of counterfeit brand-name condoms -- including Durex, Contex and Jissbon -- was busted by police in central and east China.

Cops confiscated 4.65 million already packaged prophylactics and another 1,100 pounds of unpackaged condoms were found at the scene.

In a dimly lit room in the countryside of southeast China's Fujian province, dozens of workers were busy on a production line, lubricating the condoms when cops raided. The floor was piled high with the contraceptives, and according to police, the stench of the cheap oil lubricants was nauseating.

The racket was exposed in February when a policeman in Fujian province noticed that a store on Taobao.com, China's most popular online shopping site, was selling ridiculously low-priced condoms. He bought a few to test, and they proved to be fakes. The police then traced the fake products from the online store to a network of underground workshops.

A total of 37 suspects from Fujian, Zhejiang and Henan provinces were arrested during the police raid on the workshops on March 29. The details were announced by the police on Tuesday.

The official People's Daily newspaper reported that one of the ring's two bosses was surnamed Liu. He reportedly started his business last December. First, he allegedly bought the raw latex from a factory in Hebei, the province that surrounds the capital, Beijing. Then he applied cheap lubricants and packaged them in bags and boxes bearing well-known brand names, police told the newspaper. Liu's factory could crank out 20,000 counterfeit condoms a day. Each one cost 0.17 yuan to produce, and was sold for 1 Yuan, or about 16 cents.

Liu reportedly told the police that the condoms produced in his workshops were mostly sold on the internet, and through small vendors, supermarkets, pharmacies and rural sex toy stores.

About a month ago, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported that Ghana was facing a "major public health issue" after condoms supplied to the country's health service were found to contain holes and burst easily. The one million condoms, carrying the brand name "Be Safe" were all imported from China.

"When we tested those condoms, we found that they are poor quality, can burst in the course of sexual activity, and have holes which expose the users to unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease," Thomas Amedzra, head of drug enforcement at the Ghanaian Food and Drug Authority (FDA) told the Guardian.

The FDA traced the condoms back to the original manufacturer, which was in Henan province in central China.

China has a long history of producing counterfeit products, from fake iPhones to mislabeled meat. Some are exceedingly hard to detect. Auction houses have found some pricey antique vases that were so convincing that experts were not able to authenticate the vases without breaking them. As one Internet user who goes by the handle Myluoluo wrote on China's most popular microblog site Weibo: "fake mutton, fake meat? OK, fine. But fake condoms?if they're fine with us, would that be fine with the Family Planning Commission?"

SOURCE

Will the Taiwan-Philippines Dispute Unite Taiwan with China?

May 20, 2013, 12:51 pm

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The Philippine Coast Guard shot and killed a Taiwanese fisherman on May 9 in waters claimed by both nations, setting off a chain of events that could mend the breech between Beijing and Taipei.

Both Taiwan and the Philippines are allies of the United States, but Washington’s ties with Manila run deeper than those it has with Taipei. However, there’s one factor of much greater importance than which side the war-weary U.S. may choose.

Enter China

Beijing is actively courting Taiwan in the dispute. In the days after the fatal shooting, China’s Global Times published articles urging the Philippines to apologize, and Taiwan recalled its envoy to the Philippines and froze all hiring of Philippine workers. Philippine President Benigno Aquino responded by sending a personal representative to Taiwan to convey “his and the Filipino people’s deep regret” to the fisherman’s family and the people of Taiwan.

Taiwan and China stood together in rejecting Manila’s apology as “insincere.”

With the rejection came several more sanctions from Taiwan against the Philippines, including a travel alert and an announcement of plans to hold military exercises in the waters where the incident went down.

China’s Global Times applauded Taiwan’s punitive measures as a “second front” for China to stand up to neighbors in territorial disputes. The paper reminded readers that, in China’s eyes, Taiwan remains a province-in-waiting, and deserves China’s protection. “China has reiterated over time that Taiwan is an integral part of China. Now is a good opportunity to show that China will not tolerate the shooting of our fishermen, whether they are from the mainland or Taiwan, and that our government is determined to protect the life of its people,” one article said.

Since Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou took office in May 2008, Taipei and Beijing have taken many steps toward greater cooperation. And now the two governments are banding together in common aggression toward the Philippines, and by proxy, toward the United States. The two sides have some opposing interests in the dispute, but by the time Taiwan realizes this—and sees that China views the ordeal primarily as a chance to pry the Island nation out of Washington’s sphere of influence and into Beijing’s—it may be too late.

For several decades the close relationship between Taiwan and the U.S. has deterred China from using military force to accomplish its goal of bringing Taiwan officially under Beijing’s rule. But the current skirmish could persuade Taiwan to sacrifice its relationship with the Manila-friendly U.S., and to instead rely on China.

“Taiwan finds itself potentially crosswise with a U.S. treaty ally at the same time that it is being actively courted by Beijing,” said Scott Harold of the rand Corp. think tank. “This is in fact a far greater threat to Taipei than any dispute with Manila over fishing rights could ever possibly be.”

The China-Taiwan relationship has been moving closer for several years. This territorial dispute offers these Asian neighbors common ground that could be exploited for the unification project.

The simmering Taiwan-Philippine territorial dispute may become a key step toward fulfillment of those geopolitical predictions. Such an outcome would bolster China’s ability to push in the Pacific, and persuade other Asian states to rally behind Beijing.

SOURCE

US Government Claims 100% Ownership Over All Your DNA And Reproductive Rights

May 20, 2013, 3:45 pm

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The United States government claims 100% ownership over all your DNA and reproductive rights. This astonishing revelation has emerged from the fact that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office claims the power to assign ownership of your DNA to private companies and universities who apply for patents on your genes.

To date, more than 4,000 genes have been assigned ownership to corporations and universities by the U.S. patent office. Such an assignment of ownership proves that the government believes it owns 100% of all human genes -- you cannot transfer ownership of something unless you first own it yourself.

To date, 20 percent of your genetic code is owned by someone else. About two-thirds of these patents belong to private companies, and one-third belong to universities. The company that owns the most patents is called Incyte, a drug company based in California which "owns" the patents on 2,000 human genes.

Although you have never agreed to sell your body to a corporation, a multitude of corporations now claim ownership over every cell in your body. That ownership makes you a slave to their patent demands, and patent "troll" lawyers are some of the most vicious, blood-sucking demons on the planet who will threaten to drag you into a million-dollar court proceeding if you don't pay them money. Right now, at this very minute, dozens of corporations can lay claim to your body, and those claims will be 100% upheld in the U.S. court system.

Story continues below, following this infographic: 

Genetic enslavement is here

Virtually no one is aware of the fact that 20 percent of their genes are currently "owned" by corporations and universities. This ownership is, of course, a form of genetic enslavement that seeks to dominate and control all humans. How, exactly?

Consider this: When you have a child, you are replicating your genetic code. Because your genetic code is 20% patented and "owned" by someone else, the act of having a child is, by definition, an act of genetic piracy that you are committing in violation of the law.

These companies that "own" your genetic code can, if they wish, demand you pay royalties for every child you create. They can even demand that you pay them royalties for your own body replicating cells during processes like healing skin wounds or generating new red blood cells. Your body, in fact, replicates millions of cells each day, causing you to violate the U.S. government's laws on the theft of intellectual property. You are the criminal!

Corporate patents on human genes - a violation of human rights

This all comes down to a fundamental human rights issue. This is about human rights, women's rights and reproductive rights. The U.S. Patent office stands in violation of human rights, selling out the bodies of men and women to corporate interests that stand to generate trillions of dollars in profits through DNA testing and treatments.

People like Angelina Jolie actually betray women on this issue by pushing false fear that drives profits into the BRCA1 gene testing industry -- an industry that exploits women's bodies for profit. Jolie is using her celebrity status to spread huge fear about the BRCA1 gene mutation, causing women to rush into their doctor's offices to get tested... at $3,000 - $4,000 per test thanks to the royalty fees paid to the corporate patent holder.

The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to announce a decision on the issue of gene patenting in just a few weeks (which explains the timing of the recent media push we've all witnessed). If the Supreme Court rules against these patents on human genes, it would mean a multi-trillion-dollar loss to the human gene patenting industry which hopes to collect ongoing royalties on gene testing and gene research for the next thousand years.

By the way, the very idea that the Supreme Court can "rule" on this issue is also a fraud. No court has ownership over your genetic code. No government authority has a higher power than the Creator of the universe and the creative, life-giving forces that brought you into being. Your DNA is yours alone, and any claim over it is null and void from the start.


What else can be patented? Leaves, hands, birds and even green beans

If the Supreme Court upholds the absurd notion that human genes can be patented by corporations, then there's no end to where this all goes: corporations could file patents for grass, fruits, birds, ants, insects and even other human body parts such as ears, hands and feet. Your eye color could be patented because that's controlled by genes, too.

Once all these things that already exist in nature are patented, you can be hauled into court and forced to pay exhorbitant fines and fees for having them on your property. Got some ants invading your yard? That's piracy, you criminal, because those ants are patented!

If this sounds absurd, note carefully that Monsanto has successfully sued farmers using the exact same logic. Their patented GMO seeds were blown by the wind into farmers' fields, so Monsanto sued those farmers in court -- and won! The farmers' crimes? "Stealing" Monsanto's intellectual property.

Make no mistake that the entire point of seeking patents over things like human genes, animals and plants is so that the patents can be used as weapons of control against the masses. The patenting of human genes is, at every level, a crime against humanity. And all those who support this industry -- like Angelina Jolie -- are supporting criminals who exploit the bodies of men and women for profit.

Say NO to patents on human genes! Say NO to patents on animals! Say NO to Monsanto and NO to the insanity of government-enforced intellectual property laws that violate universal justice.

The Suicide Forest Uf Japan: Mount Fuji Beauty Spot Where Up To 100 Bodies Are Found Every Year

May 21, 2013, 9:54 am

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The Aokigahara Forest is a lonely place to die.

So dense is the vegetation at the foot of Japan's Mount Fuji, it is all too easy to disappear among the evergreens and never be seen again.

Remains: A human skeleton uncovered by Azusa Hayano and the film crew in the Aokigahara Forest, Japan's suicide hotspot

Exactly why so many choose to end their lives in the forest remains something of a mystery, though it has been suggested that the first among them were inspired by a novel set there.

Azusa Hayano has studied and tended to the forest for more than 30 years. Even he cannot make sense of the trend.

Such is the nature of his work, he is often faced with the grim task of uncovering suicide victims, or stepping in when he finds those for whom it is not too late. He estimates that he alone has stumbled across more than 100 bodies in the past 20 years.

The middle-aged geologist took a film crew from Vice.com deep inside the site known as 'Jukai' - the sea of trees - to share what he has learned.

Chilling: Boots and clothes remain intact on a skeleton found at the site of a suicide


Though Mr Hayano is unable to give any definitive answer as to why so many kill themselves at Aokigahara, he has gained great insight into the behaviour of those desperate enough to venture in with no intention of coming back.

In this haunting documentary he tells the film-makers how clues left among the trees can indicate what went through a person's mind in the moments before they took their own life - or, as is sometimes the case, had a change of heart and chose to live.

His interest in death and despair may seem to stem from morbid fascination, but as the film rolls on it becomes clear that this softly-spoken, pensive man acts out of a desire to understand and prevent these tragedies.

Though the footage includes disturbing stills of bodies found dangling in the forest, perhaps equally chilling are the possessions they leave behind, often signs of distress and indecision.

'Curse': Mr Hayano finds a doll nailed to a tree, which he says is an expression of hatred of society. Also visible is the plastic tape which people unravel to find their way out in case of a change of heart

The film opens with a car abandoned on the edge of the forest, a road map lying open on its front seat. Mr Hayano tells the camera it has been there for months.

'I'm assuming the owner of the car entered from here and never came out,' he says.

'I guess they went into the forest with troubled thoughts.'

Once inside, the crew passes a sign urging would-be suicide victims to think again. Positioned where a public trail turns into a cordoned-off area, for many it is the point of no return.

Above contacts details for the Suicide Prevention Association, the sign reads: 'Your life is a precious gift from your parents. Please think about your parents, siblings and children. Don't keep it to yourself. Talk about your troubles.'

Despite the alarming number of people who seem deaf to such pleas, there are those who change their minds.

Unsure of whether they are ready to die, they often unravel tape behind them, Mr Hayano explains, using it like a breadcrumb trail to guide them back to safety.

'In most cases if you follow the tape you find something at the end,' he told Vice.

'Either you find a dead body or you find traces that someone was there.'

At the end of one such trail, Mr Hayano finds a makeshift camp of tarpaulin and empty tents - evidence, he says, of hesitation. Though he finds no bodies there, a doll nailed to a tree is the remnant of a desperate episode.

Suspended upside down with its faced torn off, it is not a prank, says Mr Hayano, but a curse.

'I think this person was tortured by society,' he says.

Other unnerving finds include an embittered note nailed to a tree, a 'suicide manual' and a number of nooses.

At one point, Mr Hayano spots a yellow tent pitched in the middle of a public trail. Inside is a young man who claims to be camping.

But Mr Hayano, who tells the crew of the time he persuaded a man not hang himself, knows a suicidal person when he sees one.

After a friendly, potentially life-saving exchange, he tells the supposed camper: 'Take your time to think. Be positive.'

However, one final find confirms that there is simply no saving some people. The discovery of a human skeleton, still in clothes and boots, makes for a grisly end to the film.

Mr Hayano, for all his familiarity with death, appears shaken. His job has given him a unique perspective on those who kill themselves.

For him, suicide in Japan has changed over the years. Whereas it was once the preserve of samurai, who would commit ritual 'harakiri' to preserve their honour, today it is merely a mark of social isolation in the modern world.

'I think it's impossible to die heroically by committing suicide,' he says.

Mr Hayano believes it is a symptom of an increasingly impersonal and lonely way of life that emerged with the internet.

He adds: 'Now we can live our lives being online all day. However, the truth of the matter is we still need to see each other's faces, read their expressions, hear their voices so we can fully understand their emotions - to coexist.'



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Unborn Fetuses Used For Black Magic

May 21, 2013, 10:39 am

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The corpses of the unborn baby boys were found packed in a suitcase in his hotel room in Bangkok’s Chinatown district.

Chow Hok Kuen, 28, who holds a British passport but is of Taiwanese origin, confessed to police that he had bought the foetuses several days earlier for almost £4,000. The source of the foetuses is unclear.

He said he intended to smuggle them to Taiwan where they would be sold for as much as six times what he paid on the internet to people who believe that their possession would bring wealth and good luck.

The man told police that that he was hired by another Taiwanese man, named Kun Yichen, who regularly travelled to Thailand to collect the ritualistic foetuses.

Worship of the foetuses — observed by some on the Chinese community — is a Buddhist-animist practice known as Kuman Thong that is described in ancient Thai manuscripts.

 In Thaiblack magic rituals, also observed among some Chinese communities, preserved foetuses are believed to bring good fortune to the owner and are often kept in shrines within homes or businesses.

It required male foetuses surgically removed from the womb that were then dried as black magic incantations were said over the body, before it was covered in gold leaf. Kuman Thong means “golden baby boy”.

Lore has it that if the owner reveres the ritual foetus, its spirit will warn and protect its possessor of danger. In practice the foetuses have been replaced by wooden effigies.

Chow Hok Kuen faces up to a year in jail and a fine of £40 for possession of the foetuses, which police said showed development of between two and eight months.

Officers made the gruesome discovery in the hotel in the Yaowarat district of Bangkok, where they found that the foetuses had also been tattooed and were adorned with religious threads.

 Col Wiwat Kamhamnan, of Bangkok police, said: “He said he planned to sell the foetuses to clients who believe they will make them lucky and rich.”

Abortion is illegal in Thailand unless the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, or poses a threat to the mother’s health.

But women’s rights groups estimate that up to 400,000 Thai woman undergo abortions each year.

Last year two undertakers and woman who collected foetuses from illegal abortion clinics were jailed after more than 2,000 corpses were found at a temple morgue when the furnace for the crematorium broke down.

SOURCE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk

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Ask a Wizard: Divination and Why it Works

May 21, 2013, 11:07 am

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Editor’s Note: This article is written by a real occultist with the intent of offering up a few insights into the mind of a ritual magician. Even if you’re not of the magical mind, have a differing set of beliefs, or are a raging skeptic, the following piece remains an interesting glimpse into an often misunderstood and oft unseen mindset.

When you next roll a pair of dice, turn a Tarot card, play the lottery or read the I Chiing, consider this: How do you know that the game in question isn’t rigged? 

Divination systems work by simply removing the element of the seeker’s consciousness from the equation. We are presented with a randomized collection of symbolic data instead of suppositions, decisions, hopes, fears and other distractions. By eliminating expectation, we awaken the unconscious factors. These will vary based upon the individual, and it is useful to learn about the ancient systems of personality categorization. More modern systems like the DSM-IV-TR and related psychologically-based arrangements are heavily loaded with judgment and bias. The elder arts are human in origin and will have similar faults. Understanding a multitude of these systems is essential to the successful diviner.

To master this art requires more than a basic grasp of the psychological mechanics, however. There are many actors present in a single act of divination, even when the diviner is perfectly alone. It is for this reason that we must consider even the most neutral of divinations to be “rigged” by varying agents.

We are talking not of human agency; human beings are given to a variety of behaviors that are less than honorable under many conditions. The prisoner’s dilemma has many resolutions, as we may always find a new way of reinterpreting old things. But the tendency of some to cheat, or lie, or manipulate conditions or else blatantly disregard the humanity of others is not the most salient aspect of why calling a psychic or making use of online fortune telling is a chancy gambit.

We are talking not of human agency; human beings are given to a variety of behaviors that are less than honorable under many conditions. The prisoner’s dilemma has many resolutions, as we may always find a new way of reinterpreting old things. But the tendency of some to cheat, or lie, or manipulate conditions or else blatantly disregard the humanity of others is not the most salient aspect of why calling a psychic or making use of online fortune telling is a chancy gambit.

The venerable Vicar Francis Bacon knew well that games of chance and methods of divination were related. When we go back far enough in history, we discover prohibitions against very few behaviors and endorsements of very many. Much of what is today strictly regulated in the West was once common practice. We can make a clear argument that gambling is heavily restricted and that psychics remain largely unregulated and disregarded because the occult elite who rule in the West are acutely aware of the hidden actors that manipulate such things… But that is a matter for another time.

There are various areas of magic and mysticism that are regarded as fantastical by mainstream thinkers, and perhaps chief among these is the art of divination. We must bear in mind that magic is an art and the esoteric traditions constitute a kind of science only when reliable connections exist between action and result. The ultimate measure of a successful divination is the satisfaction of the parties involved – or else their terror, depending upon the nature of what is revealed. The point is that magic works when it works, and not at all when it does not. In this respect it is in no way dissimilar from other forms of science.

 Good divination is typically described as a process of distancing the active awareness from the question. In this way, we are attempting to access unconscious knowledge by freeing the client from preconceptions and misconceptions. Wondering about the future is natural, but accessing it is more on the order of a supernatural phenomenon. The typical occult understanding of divination is not complete, however, since practitioners will engage in two forms of deception for very good reasons.

1.) We are not given to explaining our “tricks” since then our market share would be limited… The Vicar is honor-bound to be honest about these things, and it will always be true that services will be rendered in exchange for consideration so long as human beings persist in utilizing an economy based in these relationships.

2.) We are not given to describing processes in terms that would scare the mortal shit out of our clients.

However, these articles were begun in the spirit of liberation, since that is the express mission of Athena’s Men (and we are not all men). Liberation is not merely a political force; indeed, at its finest it is a spiritual force. We seek to liberate individuals from false ideas and ideologies, and to free up the knowledge and wisdom of our forerunners. After all, if we have a lock on the true nature of the cosmos – at least from a human standpoint – then it is incumbent upon us to explain some stuff.

Divination does not merely work within the client and in a dynamic between client and occultist. Instead, it also accesses the Others, those numinous entities to which we sometimes refer as “Fae”, “alien”, “ghost”, “spirit“, “demon” or even “God”. The fact is that in a vast universe, beings quite beyond us absolutely must exist, and some of these will be discarnate. Moreover, these discarnate intelligences will sometimes be interested in our affairs. They may even favor a particular group, nation, people or individual. They can certainly be seen to attach themselves to families; this is where the idea of things like Banshees, fairies and various household deities comes from. These creatures do not appear to live according to the same natural laws that bind us, but this may have more to do with how they have evolved rather than any suspension of the universal order.

Not all of the Others are pleasant. Some are given to mischief, others are downright evil. We have no direct evidence of the occult sort that this is why we have phenomena like poltergeists and demonic possessions, but most master Way-workers would bank on it.

There are also positive spirits– again from a purely human perspective – and these can be relied upon to aid individuals awake to the Way in a variety of ways. One of these is in divination. The reason why the I Chiing or Tarot work when properly used is that there are always beings out there interacting with systems designed to “randomize” information. This is also why things like the Bible Code will yield spooky results. The scientific explanation turns generally upon factors like pareidolia, but this is really sort of asinine – with all due respect. There is a failure to recognize in such an explanation that the horse really should go in front of the cart. We evolved the capacity for pareidolia because patterns exist and are incredibly important for things like basic survival and complex designs such as language and mathematics. They are also useful in art and architecture and virtually every other field of human endeavor. Patterns are at the root of all things; these give rise to referential forces like synchronic resonance and through these elements magic can truly be seen to work.

The implications of pareidolia are essentially too terrifying for the average materialist to contemplate. It ends up that pareidolia will verify far more than it will debunk. This also means that the face we see in an otherwise “disorganized” structure is actually there – begging the question of who’s face it is? But this is more a matter of some Other being artful and forcing us to call our mundane explanations into question.

Divination is about drawing forth the overall pattern of a life, considering the various strands and threads that are woven together with that life, and searching for hints or other indications of things to come. The idea that psychics and fortunetellers utilize generalized statements and leading questions is essentially correct, but this is usually presented with a total lack of honesty by any skeptic. The purpose of these techniques and tools is to connect the individual to the process of divination. We all know that in life there will be trials and triumphs. It is an act of magic to accurately describe even a single one of these in advance of the actual occurrence.

Divination is also intended as a form of motivation. If I tell someone that their current course will bring them fortune, you can bet that it’s because I know that they are working on something intended to do just that, and if they do not let themselves be deterred, they are far more likely to succeed. In this, the practitioner both encourages and discovers: We shape the future even as we examine the permutations.

Socrates teaches us that all knowledge is already contained within each person, since consciousness is not a physical phenomenon. Our “souls” occupy these physical forms. Diseases and disorders in which people suffer from awkwardness and confusion and social disconnection are often caused by deep-seated disjunctions between the spiritual identity and the physical body. Uniting these can resolve such disorders completely and utterly, but the techniques involved will not be suitable for statistical review or other blasphemous arithmetic, and thus cannot be included in any legitimate scientific journal. To the esoteric philosopher, fully half – if not more – of the real human experience is ignored by the mainstream psychosocial conversation.

This “all-knowledge” is also unlocked by divination. When we throw the bones, a pattern emerges. The greater bones will represent greater themes and forces, and their relative position will imply relationships between these themes and forces in the life of the client. Some of these will be guided in their positioning by Others and it is best to work with a diviner who knows that she or he has a proven record of winning over the positive spirits and running off the negative ones. The superior evolutionary condition (in our human perception) of a discarnate being is also uniquely oriented to particular weaknesses. Many of the negative spirits feed upon painful human emotions, and when these can be dampened or otherwise dispelled, the meal is removed and the predatory beings will wander away. Calmness, peace, mercy and respect are the hallmarks of a good Way-walker, not least because these qualities generate a field of protection and a beacon that summons positive discarnate beings.

The Vicar heartily encourages any student of the occult to do what you have likely already done or are in the process of doing: Study the various techniques of divination. But it may be useful to also consider the possibility that any divinatory mechanism – even one of your own devising – will be effective provided that you remain open to the synchronicity that has woven echoes into our daily experiences. The Secret Language is everywhere and ever-present, and it cannot be ignored if we would master divination.

The pattern has a weaver, and every strand chooses its place. Weaver and strand are each in control. This is the secret of divination.

SOURCE

Transhumanism: How the Elite Plan to Live Forever

May 21, 2013, 11:43 am

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The eugenicists at The Royal Society, in conjunction with Academy of Medical Sciences, British Academy and Royal Academy of Engineering came together this month to discuss the potentials, opportunities and challenges of the melding of man with machine (i.e. transhumanism) under the guise of augmentation technologies.

At the Human Enhancement and the Future of Work conference, and further expanded upon in their published report, explains how science and ethics are coming into conflict as technology promises to replace the faulty human body with an eternal, mechanical replacement.

These transhumanists define human enhancement as everything that “encompasses a range of approaches that may be used to improve aspects of human function (e.g. memory, hearing, mobility). This may either be for the purpose of restoring an impaired function to previous or average levels, or to raise function to a level considered to be ‘beyond the norm’ for humans.”

Rebuilding the human body is being researched in institutions such as Stanford University in California has recently devised a mathematical algorithm, called ReFIT that can decipher neurological signals in the brain that convey movement, speed and accuracy. The public justification for this study is to improve “prosthetic system performance and robustness in paralyzed people”, yet the implications could serve to create super humans and super soldiers.

 

The Food and Drug Administration has approved ReFIT for human clinical trials as the researchers endeavor to create neuroprosthetics where mind – controlled robotic limbs will become a viable future.

One working prototype is the Bebionic3 myoelectric hand, formed from aluminum with alloy knuckles that mimic real human hand movements. This neuroprosthetic sends electro-signals to the human brain and helps the mind operate and control the function of the prosthetic.
The replacement of bio-mechanical creations in “the nature of work” for the future is expected to improve society by:

•Using autonomous robots in the workplace
• Altering the global temperament of work and business
• Transition robotic workforce to provide goods and services
• Structure organizations that influence international understanding of robotic advancements
• Utilize robotics in medical care to advert disease, change illnesses and add to the progress of medicine
• Promote a new sense of physical well-being 

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has a $2 billion yearly budget for research into creating a super solider as well as developing a synthetic police force. Working with the human genome, DARPA hopes to manipulate certain gene expressions. In experimentation, DARPA and the military industrial pharmaceutical complex are using natural abilities that are enhanced through genetic engineering.

Some of the medical feats DARPA would like to enhance are the ability of military soldiers to regrow limbs destroyed in battle.

By eliminating empathy, the Department of Defense (DoD) hopes to “enhance” a soldier’s ability to “kill without care or remorse, shows no fear, can fight battle after battle without fatigue and generally behave more like a machine than a man.”

Scientists are researching the construction of soldiers that feel no pain, terror and do not suffer from fatigue as tests on the wiring of the human brain are furthered by Jonathan Moreno, professor of bioethics at Pennsylvania State University. Moreno is working with the DoD in understanding neuroscience. The Pentagon allocated $400 million to this research.

Further study could be passed onto the general public in order to maximize profits as well as enhance the drug’s effectiveness. According to Joel Garreau, professor at Arizona University, DARPA is learning how to genetically modify human fat into pure energy by rewiring the metabolic switch which would create soldiers that require less food. By using gene therapy and combining enhancements to alter the color of the human eye is a blending of mutations that have no basis in the natural world.

Many transhumanist groups can be found throughout the world, such as the UK Transhumanist Association who believes that scientific research must be applied to answer questions of the human condition and bring substantial benefit to society. The Oxford Transhumanists promote “radical life extension, artificial intelligence, cognitive enhancement, existential risks and mind – uploading.”

The Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford endeavors to answer the “big – picture questions about humanity and its prospects.”

These transhumanists favor the Singularity Summit, an annual extension of the Singularity Institute wherein robotics, artificial intelligence, brain – computer interfacing and [various] emerging technologies” into genetics and regenerative medicine are examined under the perspective of transhumanism.

  

SOURCE

Do Near-Death Experiences Prove That Consciousness Exists Outside the Brain?

May 21, 2013, 2:22 pm

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The book “The Lost Symbol” by Dan Brown contains a chapter on some amazing experiments. According to the author, our soul is a material substance which can exist outside the body and can have weight. Therefore, it can be weighed. One of the characters in the book, Katherine Solomon, was able to weigh human soul. She placed a dying man (he had donated his body for scientific purposes) in an air-tight capsule, fitted with very sensitive micro weight detectors. While the man was alive, the scales showed a figure of 51, 4,534,644 kilograms. And after the old man’s death, the micro scales showed a decrease in the body weight. Brown does not specify this difference as a number, but makes a general comment: “This difference, though microscopic, is quite measurable.” This experiment allowed Brown to stipulate that the human soul does exist.

Dr. Duncan MacDougall from Haverhill (Massachusetts, USA), was the first scientist to conduct this kind of experiment in 1906, as reported by the New York Times on March 7, 1907. McDougall “detected” the change in the body weight when the person had died. The measurements were performed on a special bed, which was also a gigantic scale with high precision, and have shown that the “soul” weighs 22.4 grams. Another weight measurement of the “transient substance” was done almost 80 years later, in 1990, by another researcher – Lyell Watson from the University of New York. In his experiments, the deceased became 2.5 – 6.5 grams lighter. And almost identical results were obtained by Doctor of Science Eugenyus Kugis from the Institute of Semiconductors of the Lithuania Academy of Sciences in 2006. He found that at the time of death, the person loses between 3 to 7 grams of body weight.

It is not clear yet if the difference in weight can be attributed to the soul. But the question related to the existence of soul may be answered soon. The studies designed to prove the existence of soul have now been conducted in 25 clinics in the U.S., Canada and the UK. Dr. Sam Parnia is in charge of these experiments. He came up with an idea to test the hypothesis of human soul escaping the body after death, the phenomenon which has been persistently described by individuals who had experienced clinical death.

The Doctor and his assistance place cards with written notes in intensive care wards, in places not visible to the patients from their beds, on the ceiling, for instance. The patient who becomes “dead” for a short duration, will need to read the words written on cards and then tell them to physicians. If the word is read and told correctly by one of the patients, then it is possible to say that an intelligent entity is separated from the body during death. And what else can it be but the human soul? The experiment will end at the end of 2013, and the separation of this intelligent entity from the body will be observed in 1,500 patients.
Skeptics’ opinion

Russian scientist, the head of the intensive care unit and resuscitation, Nikolai Gubin said:

“My colleagues and I conducted experiments on mice to determine when and how the weight loss occurs when a living organism dies. Four newborn mice weighing 4 and 5 grams were injected with strychnine. After that, two of the mice were placed in the laboratory containers without lids. And the other two mice remained in tightly sealed special containers. When the mice were later weighed, it was found that the weight loss (meaning the “soul” separating from the body) occurred in the first two test subjects, which were dying in the open air. Their weight decreased by 3 and 6 mg.

The mice, isolated from the outside world, had their weight unchanged. It turns out that this possible weight loss during the process of dying can be attributed to natural physical processes (water losses during respiration, heat and evaporation losses), and their effect on difference in body weight can be eliminated by sealing the test subjects undergoing the process of dying.”

 In addition, it has been long known that a decrease in body weight can be recorded during sleep. In an experiment by Swiss scientists, 23 volunteers laid in bed, outfitted with ultra-sensitive scales and went to sleep. At the time when an individual transitioned from being awake to falling asleep, a weight loss between 4 and 6 grams had occurred.

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Most Weird and Unbelievable Predictions for 2013

May 21, 2013, 3:30 pm

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Many of us will become vegetarians and will be faced with earthquakes, famines and sinking. We will hear the announcements from the medical community about revolutionary methods of treatment and prevention of chronic and incurable diseases. NASA will enlighten us on the inhospitable surface of the Red Planet, while scientists at CERN will promise us a journey through time in ten years from now.

Betsey Lewis, writer, researcher of Earth mysteries and famous TV presenter in the U.S., gives us a glimpse of events that are predicted to take place in 2013.

From meat eaters to vegetarians
Many of us will change eating habits and become vegetarians. The surge in food prices such as milk, cereals 

and meat is the result of the prolonged drought that hit many regions of the world in 2012.

Mega earthquakes
Strong earthquakes will hit Indonesia, California and Peru. In Indonesia the mega earthquake will cause tsunamis, and in various parts of the Earth there will be earthquakes and intensification of volcanic activity. 

New scandals in the Catholic Church
Another scandal will hurt the Catholic Church and will have to do with revelations of sexual abuse of children by priests that will come to light.

Deaths of political leaders
The news is bad for Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa, and George Bush senior, former U.S. president. Both leaders will leave their last breath in 2013, according to the predictions of Betsey Lewis. 

UFO and extreme weather
This year we will see more UFO, weird cloud formations and unexplained phenomena in the sky. In addition, extreme weather events will affect many areas of the planet.

 

Corruption in banks
Corruption scandals will continue to plague financial institutions and economic organizations.

 

NASA
The U.S. space agency NASA will make a grandiose statement about the planet Mars in March 2013.

 

CERN
Scientists at CERN will announce that a journey through time is possible and will take place within the next ten years.

Announcements about treatment and prevention of cancer
Important announcements about the prevention and treatment of chronic and incurable diseases, mainly cancer, will take place in 2013.

 

Solar Event 

An unusual solar event will be recorded in the Northern Hemisphere and will be at the center of the interest of the scientific community.

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Signs Of The Times: Astrological Ages

May 21, 2013, 4:04 pm

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An astrological age is a time period which astrology postulates parallel major changes in the development of Earth's inhabitants, particularly relating to culture, society and politics. There are two broad approaches about the effects upon the world due to the astrological ages. Some astrologers believe the changes upon Earth are caused and marked by the influences of the given astrological sign, associated with the Age, while other astrologers do not follow the causative model and believe it is a matter of synchronicity.

 

Age of Cancer: 8640 to 6480 BC

Cancer rules: Food, Agriculture, Houses and house building, Community, Motherhood, and Family.

This age hosted the Neolithic Revolution and the invention of agriculture around the world. The traditional dates for the Neolithic Revolution are 9000 to 6000 BC, a rather exact fit for the Age of Cancer.

The traditional area for this new activity was the Near East. This was part of a matrix that included Eastern and Mediterranean Europe, and the Nile river valley. Another agricultural matrix began as early as 9000 BC in Southeast Asia, up into central China. New Guinea and the Rajasthan desert area of India was also a part of this matrix. And in the New World agriculture was being invented from the Yucatan in Mexico and Central America down the west coast of South America through Peru.

Houses were built and people settled into permanent year around communities, giving up the roving life of the hunter-gatherer. Scores of communities were settled throughout the Near East, leaving us ample record of their lives in the dry air of the deserts of the Middle East. There is little record of community living in the wetter climates of Southeast Asia or Central America, where building materials likely had rotted away thousands of years ago.

 

Age of Gemini: 6480 to 4320 BC

Gemini rules: Movement, Trade, Communication, Hand/eye coordination, the Mind and ideas.

The Age of Gemini opened up new vistas for exploration and interaction across large distances. Across the Near East we see an explosion of crafts industries with huge stone and bone industries creating a wide variety of articles, a statue industry and a bread industry. Gemini Age man began using his mind and his hands to create a more interesting life for himself.

The ceramics industry is the most remarkable of these industries in part because of the decorations used. Although ceramics were created before this age, it was right at 6500 BC that they exploded both in excellence of craftsmanship, and in the sheer numbers of vessels created. Almost immediately, everywhere, they were created with abstract decorations on them that led, over time, to beautiful polychrome glazes with a wide variety of abstract symbols for decoration. Ceramics also appeared in Europe, the artic fringe of Eurasia, in China and the Malay Peninsula.

These symbols, such as crosses and swastikas carried a new Gemini religious symbolism with them. Art during the Age of Cancer was representational. As we enter the Age of Gemini abstract symbolism quickly replaced representational art as the predominant form of art. Abstract imagery carried much more meaning and information for the Gemini mind.

Essentially all of our modern language families were created here. Experts agree that the proto-Indo-European language was begun around 5000 BC. This is the parent language of almost all of the languages spoken today. Other experts indicate that a parent to the Chinese language was created around 4800 BC in China.

The Gemini individual began to explore beyond the boundaries of the local village, and over the course of the age a huge trading network was created by 5000 BC that extended from the Mediterranean Basin through the Near East and up into southern Russia. In Gemini fashion the main commodity traded was information and knowledge. A similar trade network was created in the Archaic Culture in North America that extended out from the New England area west to the Yellowstone and south to the Caribbean.

Age of Taurus: 4320 TO 2160 BC

Taurus rules: Money and wealth, Monumental building, Permanence, Solidity.

Sometime after 4800 BC, the U’baid people in Mesopotamia moved out onto the harsh, resource poor river plains of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. There they invented money as a means of trade, and invented banks and banking to support the use of money. Their trading villages were remade into market towns. Their banks soon began to float loans and collect interest. Bartering gave way to the development of a money economy, along with business and banking, and the use of copper as a universal medium of exchange, the first known coinage. Money was deposited into these early U'baid banks to be applied, much as we do today, towards projects of civic improvement, which would in turn make more money. By 3500 BC these new U’baid towns were rich with imported goods. A whole new basis for community living was created. Indeed the sole archaeological indicator for growth during this age was the incremental increases in wealth found at these and other sites around the world.

The religions of this age were bound to the ideal of money and wealth. The gods showed their favor in a very Taurus way by showering wealth and goods on those who worshipped them. The temples became the center for the collection and redistribution of wealth, and priests were the administrators of this activity. The earliest examples of writing were temple business accounts listing what was coming into the temple warehouses, and what was being given out. Although writing is traditionally a Gemini quality, we can see here that Taurus was solidifying Gemini thought, in a very practical Taurus way, into a permanent Taurus business record.

Taurus spiritual thought revolved around the ideal of creating heaven here on earth by building cities in a hierarchal fashion to mimic the perceived structure of heaven. Towns were built with their walls facing the four directions. Temples were built as the center of town. Over the course of centuries they were constantly being rebuilt over the old foundation. Eventually these temples grew into huge mountainous pyramid structures called ziggurats in Mesopotamia that could be seen from miles away. The Egyptian pyramids were built at this same time. New finds in Peru have found huge pyramids being built there at this same time. In this same process towns grew to become cities.

Cultures began to organize themselves along hierarchical lines as well, creating class structure. India’s caste system began at this time. Most calendars give starting dates around 3000 BC as they began to organize time and the year around the equinox and solstice dates. Holy days were set so that a natural cycle of rituals marked the passage of time. In this way time was honored as hierarchical and sacred.

The Scorpio opposite energy can clearly be seen here as well. Scorpio rules death and rebirth. The Pharaohs of Egypt and the ruling Ens of the various city-states in Mesopotamia were buried in huge monumental tombs. With them they took much of their wealth and usually all of their servants so that they would be comfortable, in Taurus fashion, in the afterlife. Similar burial practices were found in the Archaic Culture in North America dating to this same period.

Age of Aries: 2160 to 0 BC

Aries rules: War and fighting, Challenge, Individuality, Independence.

Aries marks an important shift in world consciousness. The older matriarchal ideal of Taurus monumental solidarity, where everyone had his or her defined place in society, was the antithesis of the incoming Arian ideal of individualism. Around 2500 BC mythologists note a world wide mythic solarization happening where the new young hero god rises up and defeats the older Goddess, thus inaugurating a new order in heaven. Patriarchal paradigms replaced matriarchal paradigms everywhere, and men took over the running of society. Hero mythologies were created honoring these new gods and the masculine warrior ideal.

Aries brought with it war on a huge scale. This age was one of continual fighting. Empires were created. Sargon of Akkad created the first known military empire around 2300 BC. Following him, conquest became the norm, with a long list of empires being created through conquest, and then being conquered by another, until the rise of Rome in the first century BC. The ancient Greeks came to epitomize this energy and their Olympic religion glorified the warrior mentality. Gods and goddesses fought with each other. They chose sides in human wars so that they could take part in the glorious human battles being fought.

The Biblical Old Testament is an Aries tale. It was first written down around the 7th century BC, well into the Age of Aries. Although God is said to be a loving god, references to the older Taurus age mentality, he is portrayed in the written account as stern, jealous, and vindictive. In Aries fashion he is fighting for his own ascendancy over rival gods. He is pictured as a general leading his army of “Chosen People” in conquest of the “Promised Land” of Canaan. Those who do not follow his commands or commandments are punished or threatened with punishment for insubordination. He is often portrayed as smiting the enemies of his chosen.

In China, the militaristic Shang Dynasty overran the peaceful Lung Shan culture around 1850 BC inaugurating a long history of warfare. They were in turn overrun by the more powerful Chou Dynasty in 1122 BC. Recent finds in Peru have unearthed a city called Casma dating to 1500 BC. The pyramid temples have images of war and fighting carved into their walls.

Age of Pisces: 0 BC to 2160

Pisces rules: Transcendence, Spirituality, Contact with Other Worlds, Fear, Prophets and Prophecy, Dissolution, Dreams, Illusion, and Lack of Direction.

The Age of Pisces has been an age of great world religions, starting as early as 700 BC. The eras of an age mark a transition point where new energies are felt that lead to new directions that will welcome in the new age. This happens about 700 years before the new age begins. We notice that around 700 BC the Prophetic Revolution began the process of changing a local Semitic religion into the great world religion of the Hebrews. Around 500 BC Lao Tzu introduced Taoism to China. The Buddha was doing the same thing in India. Hinduism was also undergoing a Pisces shift. The warrior gods such as Agni were demoted while Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva were all elevated in importance as gods of a new transcendent reality beyond the mortal relative world. These were all religions of transcendence.

Judaism led to Christianity and Buddhism spread to encompass most of the Orient. These religions spread beyond national boundaries to become the first multinational organizations in history. National governments became theocracies, the secular arm of society working at the behest of the spiritual paradigm they represented. Europe was the Holy Roman Empire, a Christian empire following Christian precepts. Islam was created at the outset to also be a religious Moslem governing body. The same was true for Tibet. It was a spiritual nation.

War was turned inward in this age. The enemy was no longer just an external force or challenge. It was internal, and there was seen to be a great battle between good and evil, God and Satan that was constantly tearing at our souls.

The Church battled amongst itself while trying to create a set dogma for correct belief. The Inquisition was established to weed out incorrect thought and belief. Women were persecuted, tortured, and burned for the irrational belief that they were pagan and associates of Satan. Pisces fear rose to great heights to overshadow the compassionate and loving message of Christ. As a sad result Christianity ended up becoming the most violent institution in history.

In the Orient fear was focused in a different but equally Piscean direction. The great Satan was replaced by the idea that this earthly existence, the Wheel of Life, was a prison, and that we must transcend or escape to a higher heavenly awareness in order to be happy and free. Pisces rules imprisonment and escapism.

The great wars of this age were religious wars. The Crusades were fought to wrest the Holy Land from the Moslems creating a basic militaristic division between Moslem and Christian that still affects us today.

Age of Aquarius: 2160 to 4320

Aquarius rules: Brotherhood, Utopia, Genius and Science, Immortality, Hopes Dreams and Wishes, Revolution, Electricity.

Although we are not in the Age of Aquarius yet, we can see what is happening historically as we close in on that age. 700 years prior to Aquarius takes us back to the fifteenth century. This was the time of our Renaissance. Science rose up to rival religion as the new Aquarian paradigm. Along with this was a new focus on humanism and the human potential.

In addition, the Aquarius Era was from 1800 to 1980. This era saw the Industrial Revolution and the revolutionary advances of the Twentieth Century. Science and technology have revolutionized our world.

SOURCE