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Immigrants activists begin trek through Arizona desert, same taken by undocumented

[Author]by the El Reportero’s news services[/Author]

 

Fifty activists from the United States, Canada, Central America and Mexico on Monday began a trek on foot that will take them to Arizona by the same route used by undocumented migrants in crossing the desert.

The group began the march in the Mexican state of Sonora and in the coming days will cross the border on a journey of 120 kilometers (74 miles) that will bring them to Tucson next Sunday.

“It’s very sad to note that we continue hearing the same stories again and again,” Todd Miller, one of the founders of the 11-year-old Migrant Trail initiative, said at a press conference.

Miller related the story of an undocumented woman from Sonora who tried to cross the Arizona desert on foot as part of a group of migrants.

“On the third day, the water and food ran out, on the fifth she said that she could only describe it as if ‘the mountain talked to them,’ on the sixth, her nose began to bleed profusely and she suffered convulsions,” he said.

The group was rescued by the U.S. Border Patrol and the woman had to be revived in a hospital, Miller said.

At least 62 migrants have died in the Sonoran Desert since last October.

Miller said that when the trek was first started years ago they had hope that it would not need to go on for very long and that soon they could celebrate the approval of immigration reform. “Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened,” he added.

Immigration reform has remained blocked in the U.S. House of Representatives almost a year after a bipartisan reform bill was approved in the Senate.

 

Colombian Presidential Election Heads to Run-off

President Juan Manuel Santos and challenger Oscar Ivan Zuluaga are headed to a runoff on June 15 to determine who will be Colombia’s next president.

Zuluaga won 29.26 percent of the vote in Sunday’s presidential election, while Santos came in second with 25.66 percent.

“What came out clearly today is that Colombians will have two options in three weeks: they can choose between those of us who want an end to the war and those who prefer a war without end, and we are going to win with peace,” Santos told supporters after the results were released on Sunday night.

Zuluaga, who is backed by former President Alvaro Uribe, told his supporters he would work for peace with justice.

“I am going to work every day so that Colombia can achieve peace, but a peace that benefits only the Colombian people,” Zuluaga told supporters at a convention center in Bogota.

Zuluaga has been a harsh critic of the Santos administration’s peace negotiations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, guerrilla group.

The politician has said he would not allow FARC members to go unpunished for the crimes they committed.

Zuluaga got the biggest applause when he mentioned Uribe, his political godfather, vowing to take up the former president’s “standard” and give the country hope.

Santos, for his part, is pinning his hopes for a win in the runoff on support from the losing candidates.

“Today, those who want peace are the majority,” Santos said, referring to the support that the losing candidates received in Sunday’s election.

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Bilderberg agenda revealed: Elite desperate to rescue unipolar world

[Author]by Paul Joseph Watson[/Author]

 

The 2014 Bilderberg meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark is taking place amidst a climate of panic for many of the 120 globalists set to attend the secretive confab, with Russia’s intransigence on the crisis in Ukraine and the anti-EU revolution sweeping Europe posing a serious threat to the unipolar world order Bilderberg spent over 60 years helping to build.

Inside sources confirmed that the elite conference, which will take place from Thursday onwards at the five star Marriott Hotel, will center around how to derail a global political awakening that threatens to hinder Bilderberg’s long standing agenda to centralize power into a one world political federation, a goal set to be advanced with the passage of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which will undoubtedly be a central topic of discussion at this year’s meeting.

The TTIP represents an integral component of Bilderberg’s attempt to rescue the unipolar world by creating a “world company,” initially a free trade area, which would connect the United States with Europe. Just as the European Union started as a mere free trade area and was eventually transformed into a political federation which controls upwards of 50 per cent of its member states’ laws and regulations with total contempt for national sovereignty and democracy, TTIP is designed to accomplish the same goal, only on a bigger scale.

The deal is being spearheaded by Obama’s U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, a Wall Street insider and a CFR member, Bilderberg’s sister organization. Froman is simultaneously helping to build another block of this global government, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is a similar project involving Asian countries.

Given that Bilderberg schemed to create the Euro single currency as far back as 1955 (Bilderberg chairman Étienne Davignon bragged about how the Euro single currency was a brainchild of the Bilderberg in 2009 interview), the results of the European elections are sure to have stirred outright alarm amongst Bilderberg globalists who are aghast that their planned EU superstate is being eroded as a result of a populist resistance mainly centered around animosity towards uncontrolled immigration policies.

In Denmark itself, the buzz is centered around Morten Messerschmidt and the Danish People’s party, which won 27 percent of the vote in the Euro elections and doubled its number of MEPs. Although some are wary of Messerschmidt’s far right inclinations, his success reflects a general resentment not only in Denmark but across Europe towards immigration and the welfare state, concerns that the EU has only exasperated.

Meanwhile in France, Marine Le Pen is carving out a role as the face of a conservative movement that threatens “to break up one united Europe,” with her European election win being described as an “earthquake” that has rattled the political heart of Europe.

Voters in the United Kingdom also delivered a thumping rejection of the EU and in turn Bilderberg with the success of Nigel Farage and UKIP, a Euroskeptic triumph some are labeling the “most extraordinary” election result for 100 years.

As well as TTIP and the fallout from the European election disaster, Bilderberg will be tackling a number of other key issues, most of which will revolve around the continued effort to centralize economic power under several different guises, including a carbon tax paid directly to the United Nations, with the financial hit being taken by individuals as big companies are granted special “waivers” that will allow them to continue to pollute.

The rumbling crisis in Ukraine and the relationship between Russia and NATO will also be a focal point of Bilderberg 2014. Globalists now consider Vladimir Putin to have ostracized Russia from the new world order because he dared to “challenge the international system,” as John Kerry put it.

Bilderberg will discuss fears that Putin is intent on constructing an alternative world order based around the BRICS countries, a “multi-polar” system that would devastate the dollar as the world reserve currency and also heavily dilute the current US-EU-NATO power axis.

Infowars reporters will be on the ground all this week to cover the 2014 Bilderberg Group conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.

 

In the U.S.: Four major news networks, zero Bilderberg 2014 coverage

Full-on press blackout testament to dinosaur media’s growing irrelevance

 

[Author]by Adam Salazar[/Author]

 

With the exception of 24-hour cable news providers, Americans rely on 4 major television networks to deliver them information regarding important world events: ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox.

It is with predictable disappointment to announce all four networks failed to inform the public of a secretive and extremely exclusive meeting of central bankers, CEOs, public officials and world dignitaries taking place this weekend.

From May 29 through today, June 1, esteemed academicians, hand picked journalists, intelligence officials, world banking oligarchs and the CEOs and bosses of Royal Dutch Shell, Google and Microsoft, to name just a few, slinked behind closed doors at the Marriott hotel in Copenhagen, Denmark, to do God knows what.

But watching the major news networks and monitoring the domestic news wires, you’d never guess this meeting happened.

With the conference now into its fourth and final day, one would expect at least a trickle of articles from the mainstream press regarding Bilderberg 2014, if at the least to perform the routine mock, shame and ridicule of “tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorists” claiming participants are working towards a “new world order.”

Is it a rule in MSM that any Bilderberg coverage has to include the words “tin foil hat” or “lizard” in the first paragraph?

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) May 30, 2014

While past meetings have been afforded at least some press, this year neither of the four networks opted to cover Bilderberg 2014. Inforwars.

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California property taxes due to rise significantly

Through technology, we may eventually cheat death, but taxes are here to stay

[Author]by Russ Wetherill
Oc Housing News
[/Author]

 

The only things certain in life are death and taxes. Through technology, we may eventually cheat death, but taxes are here to stay.

What Proposition 8 giveth, Proposition 8 taketh away. California tax code section 51(e), enacted at the same time as Proposition 13, requires the tax assessor to annually adjust tax levies based on current full-market value. This was great when property values were falling and property tax bills fell dramatically. Now, property taxes are set to jump back up for homes bought during the bubble years.

Will a jump in property taxes cause more defaults, or will more equity owners sell at a loss because of cash-flow issues?

The CALIFORNIA TAX CODE SECTIONS 51(a) [Prop 13], and 51(e) [Prop 8], state the following:

51. (a) For purposes of subdivision (b) of Section 2 of Article

XIII A of the California Constitution, for each lien date after the

lien date in which the base year value is determined pursuant to

Section 110.1, the taxable value of real property shall, except as

otherwise provided in subdivision (b) or (c), be the lesser of:

(1) Its base year value, compounded annually since the base year

by an inflation factor, which shall be determined as follows:

(C) For any assessment year commencing on or after January 1,

1998, the inflation factor shall be the percentage change, rounded to

the nearest one-thousandth of 1 percent, from October of the prior

fiscal year to October of the current fiscal year in the California

Consumer Price Index for all items, as determined by the California

Department of Industrial Relations.

(D) In no event shall the percentage increase for any assessment

year determined pursuant to subparagraph (A), (B), or (C) exceed 2

percent of the prior year’s value.

51. (e) Nothing in this section shall be construed to require the

assessor to make an annual reappraisal of all assessable property.

However, for each lien date after the first lien date for which the

taxable value of property is reduced pursuant to paragraph (2) of

subdivision (a), the value of that property shall be annually

reappraised at its full cash value as defined in Section 110 until

that value exceeds the value determined pursuant to paragraph (1) of

subdivision (a). In no event shall the assessor condition the

implementation of the preceding sentence in any year upon the filing

of an assessment appeal.

As California property values rise, owners see big tax bill hikes

The revival of California’s economy and a rising housing market mean some hefty property tax increases for homeowners, the Legislature’s budget analyst believes.

When property values were dropping sharply during recession, county tax assessors adjusted tax rolls downward, which then lowered property tax bills. Many property owners also applied for reductions.

The average homeowner saw a $1,600 property tax cut while those for commercial property averaged $7,500. “In total, temporary property tax reductions depressed local government property tax revenues by an estimated $7 billion in 2013-14, amounting to a 15 percent reduction statewide,” the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) says in a new report.

Maybe the legislature will refund the excess tax revenue out of the goodness of their hearts? Clearly they don’t need the extra money – we have a balanced budget after all. Or maybe we could reduce the sales tax and roll back income taxes? In my opinion, we will see daily commutes to Mars and people breathing water before the legislature gives “unneeded” revenue back to taxpayers. I bet there is already a line forming in Sacramento to receive all the extra property tax money.

But with a rising market, the LAO says those cuts are being rescinded, as state law allows, and some property owners may see tax increases as high as 20 percent. It notes that home values rose statewide by 12 percent in 2012, but those increases were not immediately reflected in property tax bills.

Proposition 13, passed by voters in 1978, limits annual increases in taxable values to 2 percent, but state tax law also allows temporary decreases in those values to be fully recovered later if the market increases. Increases of up to 20 percent were reported during the 2013-14 fiscal year, based on the 2012 market rise.

“Looking ahead, property tax payments for many owners that received temporary property tax reductions during the real estate crisis could increase by more than 10 percent annually for the next several years,” the LAO said. “These increases likely will cause local property tax revenues to grow swiftly over the next several years as well.”

And I’m sure all this extra revenue will be spent efficiently, right? The easiest way to spend the money is to raise salaries of current workers. That way no extra work has to be done to deal with the problem of all these extra revenues.

The taxable value decreases were heaviest in communities — mostly in inland areas — that had felt the sharpest effect of the housing industry meltdown. Stanislaus County saw the steepest decline in home sale prices, 65 percent, and tax assessments were reduced for 51 percent of the county’s properties, so it could see the one of the biggest upticks.

I wonder how many properties there are left in these areas from the bubble days? Many of these were foreclosed on. Will banks holding REO continue to hold them when they get these higher tax bills? Will this slow the foreclosure process since banks don’t want to pay these high taxes?

The $7 billion reduction in local property tax revenues also affected the state budget because the state was required to make up the schools’ losses of about $3.2 billion. Therefore, the increases in property values and property taxes not only are increasing revenues to local governments but reducing the state’s constitutionally required level of education spending.

There is your answer. The state will take all the extra property tax revenue and reduce local contributions dollar-for-dollar. Once the initial $3.2B shortfall is zeroed-out, then extra taxes go to schools at 55% of the increase, I assume. I’m not sure if the local tax base will see any increase – it pays to be upriver, I guess. If you’re the state, you can take all the water, and send the sewage to the land of elsewhere.

Tax bills are going up for bubble owners. What is going to happen?

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13th anual SF DocFest screens three films three films of Latino film

[Author]Compiled by Laura Alvarellos[/Author]

 

San Francisco DocFest 2014 will screen 3 films of Latino interest. The names of the movies are The Engineer, directed by Juan Luis Passarelli and Matthew Charles; Of Kites and Borders, directed by Yolanda Pividal; and Life on the Line directed by Jen Gilomen.

In The Engineer, Israel Ticas is the only criminologist working in one of Latin America’s most dangerous countries, El Salvador. He has made it his mission to find the hundreds of missing teenagers who have fallen victim to the country’s brutal gang conflict. In Of kites and Borders, the film is made through the eyes of four working children in the city of Tijuana; we see the daily struggles of children living on the U.S-Mexico border. Finally, in Life on the Line, an eleven-year-old girl, Kimberly Torrez, finds her family separated by the U.S./Mexico border while her mother awaits a visa and her father awaits a liver transplant.

The SF DocFest will be June 5-19. For more info, visit www.sfindie.com or contact DocFest at 415-820-3907

The Mexican Museum is going to be part of the Yerba Buena Art Walk

The Mexican Museum will be participating in theYerba Buena Art Walk, the 7th annual spring art event hosted by the Yerba Buena Alliance. The full-afternoon event offers a colorful and creative array of exhibits, artists talks, receptions, wine tastings, and other events, all presented by the many art exhibitions, galleries, and institutions in the Yerba Buena neighborhood.

The Yerba Buena Art Walk is located between Market and Harrison and 2nd and 5th Streets in downtown San Francisco and this event will be taking place on Saturday, June 7, 2014

 

The Lariat, a new opera by Lisa Scola Prosek

The Center for Contemporary Opera, San Francisco International Arts Festival and Scolavox are pleased to present the first public rendition of the score and libretto of a new opera titled The Lariat.

The libretto created in collaboration with the Costanoan/Ohlone Esselen Nation of Monterey County will be in both the English and Esselen languages. The opera reveals intimate cultural details and beliefs of the Esselen tribe of Big Sur as its people face the influx of Spanish Missions towards the end of the 18th Century. The opera depicts the difficult relationship between the Missionaries and the Esselen and the gulf between the two religious worlds.

The show would be on Saturday, June 21, at 7 p.m., at Un-Scripted Theatre. 533 Sutter Street (Second Floor). San Francisco. Tickets: $15 General Admission.

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Almodóvar believes a film’s success is not dependent on awards

[Author]by the El Reportero’s news service[/Author]

Pedro Almodovar returned Saturday to Cannes as producer of “Wild Tales” by Argentina’s Damian Szifron, a film competing for a Palme d’Or that the Spaniard doesn’t believe it will win, but also believes that a movie “doesn’t have to win a prize for it to take off.”
Three years after presenting “The Skin I Live In” at the festival, Almodovar and his brother Agustin showed up as the producers of “Wild Tales,” a film full of well-known faces like Ricardo Darin, Leonardo Sbaraglia and Dario Grandinetti, and which was received at Cannes with laughter and applause.
This is a dark, violent comedy, which was exactly what attracted the Spanish moviemaker.
“I was seduced precisely by what the title suggests, the wild side,” he said in a brief statement to the press after the film’s official screening.
He was specifically talking about the episode starring Darin – the film is made up of six independent stories – who explodes with rage when a tow-truck drags his car away for being badly parked.
“Everybody would naturally do something like Darin against the bureaucracy we live under,” Almodovar said.
He also described as “liberating” what Darin does, not because citizens “have to go around blowing up offices, but because this is a movie, this is fiction, and violence is one of the great cinematographic themes.”
However, the Spanish director does not believe this dark comedy will pick up a prize in the official Cannes category in which it is competing.
“But I believe that afterwards it will take off in the rest of the markets – I think people are going to like it a lot,” he said.

Pitbull, JLo releases video of official World Cup song
Pitbull premiered on his official YouTube channel the official song of the World Cup in Brazil, “We Are One (Ole Ola),” which he sings together with Jennifer López and Brazil’s Claudia Leitte.
The music video shows the artists singing and dancing amid a boisterous Carnival atmosphere packed with those famous Brazilian girls and colors of the flags of all nations competing in the tourney, to be contested from June 12 to July 13.
Also seen in the video, which lasts slightly more than four minutes, are historic sequences from previous World Cups and some of soccer’s all-time stars like Lionel Messi from Argentina, the Brazilian Neymar, Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo, England’s Wayne Rooney, the Spaniard Andres Iniesta and more.
The video was shot in February on the beach at Fort Lauderdale, 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Miami.

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Message to Latino immigrant parents who study at public Schools

[Author]Elisa Rodríguez Furey
Facilitator for the Parents for Public Schools
[/Author]
Dear parents, Parents for Publics Schools of San Francisco (PPS-SF) is asking for your immediate attention to inform you about the new changes for funding San Francisco’s public schools. PPS-SF is committed to inform our Hispanic community of the new financial changes in the public schools in San Francisco and we want to make sure Latino families know that they have a right to express their thoughts on what is working or what needs improving in our city schools.
Many of our Latino students are English Learners. There will be additional funding to support these students to succeed academically across California’s school districts. Each year, a subset of English Learners are evaluated on their English language ability through a proficiency assessment called the CELDT (California English Language Development Test). Students who pass the test are reclassified as Proficient English students. It is imperative that our children get reclassified in order to help them expand their education options during their education period.
As a parent, do you know if your child’s school is preparing him or her to pass the CELDT test? Do you have access to information or are able to participate in your child’s school? What is happening at your school in terms of the school climate and student access? How is the school supporting our English Learner students in other academic areas such as math, science, and language arts? How is your school site implementing the new Common Core Standards and how is it making sure it will provide English Learners with the help they need?
How this change in funding will impact San Francisco’s public schools
California’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) was signed into law by Governor Brown in July 2013. Under enactment of the law, three distinct changes will occur. First, districts will receive increased support from the state in terms of resources, with “full funding” being reached across districts by 2020. Second, districts will have more flexibility in how funds are used across school sites; with additional funding being allocated to support students from low-income backgrounds, English learners, and foster youth. Lastly, districts will be requi ed to be more transparent with key constituencies – students, families, teachers, and the broader community – about how resources are being distributed and what student outcomes are being reached with these funds.
What is the Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP)?
With this added flexibility comes additional accountability. To ensure accountability toward student outcomes under the LCFF, districts will be required to design and implement a district-wide plan known as a Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP). The LCAP will comprise the district’s thinking regarding how they will use state funds toward services and programs that help students be successful. The LCAP creation process will require districts to work with parents, teachers, students and other community members to make sure the plan reflects what they think is important.
Each district’s LCAP has to include three general kinds of information: First, each district will be required to explain how their communities were engaged in the process. Important evidence will include what types of engagement opportunities were designed and facilitated in cultivating stakeholder input. Second, the district will be mandated to include information describing the district’s goals and indicators of success. Third, a description of the services districts will provide students, along with its funding stream, will be required.
What is the timeline?
Districts have until July 1st to finalize and approve their district LCAPs before budgets are approved for the 2014-2015 school year. On May 22, the San Francisco Unified School District will present the first draft of the LCAP at an open meeting. The meeting will be held at 555 Franklin Street in the main boardroom and will begin at 6pm. This meeting will be an opportunity for parents and community members to provide written feedback on the LCAP. The Board of Education will vote to approve the LCAP at an open Board of Education meeting on June 24.
What can I do as a Latino parent to get involved?
You can attend the next LCAP open meeting on May 22 at the San Francisco Unified School District. The meeting will be held at 555 Franklin Street in the main boardroom and will begin at 6 p.m. You can share prepared remarks on the LCAP and learn more about what is happening.
You can also get more information at your school with the staff at your school site.
You can visit the SFUSD web site www.sfusd.edu
You can contact PPS-SF at www.ppssf.org or 415-861-7077 if you have any questions.

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We call ourselves a free people in the land of liberty – but, are we?

[Author]Dear readers, in this edition, I am introducing you a concise article about the concept of freedom, who we really are, and which directly can challenge anyone perception on whether he or she is really free. Published by The Spoonfed Truth, the following lines will make you think again, before you say that you’re truly a free man or woman.[/Author]

“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” — James Madison

“In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man; brave, hated, and scorned. When his cause succeeds however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.” — Mark Twain

First published by The Spoonfed Truth

— Our anthems proudly sing the praises of this nation, and we raise our voices, wave our flags and join in song — but how many Americans realize they are not free? This is a myth perpetuated by the powers-that-be in order to avoid any major civil unrest, and to keep us all living under the thumb of a militaristic corporate Big Brother within the illusions that have been created for us.
The truth of the matter is this: what freedom has not been stolen from us, we have surrendered willingly through our silence and ignorance. As Americans, most of us have no idea how our freedoms are maintained — or lost. Don’t point to that beloved parchment, the Constitution, as a symbol of your enduring freedom. It is representative of a form of government which seemingly no longer exists in this country today.
The Constitution has been thrown out the window, the Republic shoved aside and replaced with a democracy. The thing is; most people in this country remain unaware that this is so because they simply do not know the truth — what lies beyond the myths. Your so-called government is not going to tell you, either.
Both the Constitutuion and the Declaration of Independence require that “all men are created equal” and that all “persons”, including governments, are treated equally IN EVERY RESPECT.
That means that no creation of men, including a government, can have any more authority than a single man. All ‘persons’, whether human or artificial are, in fact EQUAL in every respect, with the possible exception that artificial entities are not protected by the Bill of Rights. Any attempt to treat any government as having more power, authority, or rights than a single man, in fact, constitutes idolatry.
The source of all government power in America is The Sovereign People as individuals, who are human beings and are also called “natural persons”. Rather than being self-governing sovereigns as they were born, most people become obedient tax-paying debt slaves, not by choice, but coercion, deceit, threat and duress. Those who learn of their invisible shackles often wish to break free. Those who don’t… well… they go right along with the rest of the herd. You are told early on in life that paying taxes is your duty as an American. You are convinced that having a Social Security card is required, when it is optional, just as is paying taxes.
Men are born with free will, so why do they behave as slaves? Most in this country believe that the politicians are civil or “public” servants, while the common man is king. Most believe, because they cast a ballot to choose their “leaders,” that they are free, but the politicians among us are really the masters of a population of slaves. To paraphrase Charles de Gaulle, the politician simply poses as a servant in order to become the master.
In America today, the many are ruled by the few. The many allow this tyranny voluntarily, and with open arms. The only men who can be reduced to servitude are those who choose to do so. For men who cling to liberty with passion can never be ruled, and will never allow their freedom to be taken from them. These are men of truth and character, and sadly, they are the extreme minority. These men of integrity are now directly in the cross hairs of this oligarchy called America, and without them, the rest of society is doomed to a life of serfdom.

To obey the restrictive rules crafted by the politicians, and without resistance, is to guarantee the destruction of liberty. It is not only a fatal form of apathy, but it is also the basis for the destruction of our soul. Politicians after all, are the lowest form of man, and do not deserve respect when their aim is to rule over and control the rest of us.
For what are we if we simply do as others in power demand, without the courage to stand up for what is right? What are we if we bow our heads in fear when our fellow man is being trampled? What are we when we allow all that we have earned to be taken from us by force and say or do nothing to stop it? What have we become when the worth of a man is judged by his allegiance to the state?

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Five foods that can treat insomnia and improve sleep

[Author]by Michael Ravensthorpe
[/Author]

According to the Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine, nearly 1 in 10 adults in the United States suffers from insomnia. Although most of these people suffer from short-term insomnia, many of them also suffer from chronic insomnia (i.e., difficulty falling or staying asleep for more than six months). Such sleep deprivation can significantly decrease the quality of one’s life.
While stress related to work and family remains the number one cause of insomnia, eating the wrong foods — such as those rich in sugar, caffeine, gluten or polyunsaturated fat — can also contribute to insomnia. Therefore, improving one’s diet is an important first step toward ending insomnia, especially if one favors foods that are known to improve sleep.
Five foods that aid sleep

1) Almonds — Almonds are one of the best foods for treating insomnia since they’re excellent sources of magnesium, which is a natural muscle relaxant and contains anti-stress properties. A study published in the Journal of Research in Medical Sciences in December 2012 found that magnesium supplementation could “improve subjective measures of insomnia, such as ISI score, sleep efficiency, sleep time and sleep onset latency, early morning awakening, and likewise, insomnia objective measures, such as concentration of serum renin, melatonin and serum cortisol, in elderly people.”

2) Cherries — Cherries and cherry products have often been linked to improved sleep. For example, a study published in the European Journal of Nutrition in December 2012 found that volunteers who consumed a tart cherry juice concentrate for seven days demonstrated “significantly elevated” total melatonin content in their urine compared to the control group. Consequently, the study group experienced improved sleep quality and efficiency.
3) Bananas — Many people are often surprised to find that bananas can aid sleep, since they’re well-known for boosting energy. Nonetheless, bananas are also rich in magnesium, potassium and tryptophan, which are the “magic trio” of sleep boosters. Tryptophan is especially effective in this regard since it is the precursor to the two neurotransmitters, serotonin and melatonin, which modulate sleep.

4) Valerian — The root of the valerian plant, which is usually consumed in tea or tincture form, has been used as a sleeping aid since Ancient Greece and Rome. Moreover, its sedative and anxiolytic properties have been proven by numerous studies. For example, a 2011 study published in Menopause found that valerian extracts provided a “statistically significant” improvement in sleep quality among postmenopausal women suffering from insomnia. The study authors concluded that the “findings from this study add support to the reported effectiveness of valerian in the clinical management of insomnia.”

5) Oatmeal — Although oatmeal is usually associated with breakfast, its nutritional composition — high in magnesium and potassium — also makes it a suitable evening food. Even the very nature of oatmeal (warm, soothing and soft) is indicative of sleep and calm. Moreover, oatmeal tends to be mixed with milk, which is one of the best-known relaxation drinks.

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Colombian gov’t, FARC reach agreement to combat drug trafficking

[Author]by the El Reportero’s wire services[/Author]

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, guerrillas pledged to sever all ties to drug trafficking and contribute to a definitive solution to the problem of illegal narcotics in the Andean nation once a final peace accord is reached with the government.
The FARC’s commitment was announced as part of an “agreement on illicit drugs” reached on Friday in Havana, the third accord that government and rebel negotiators have hammered out since the peace talks began in 2012.
Earlier, partial agreement was reached on land reform and the guerrillas’s participation in politics, while other issues, including the disarmament of the rebels and reparation for victims of the conflict, remain pending.
The FARC pledged to “contribute effectively and with the utmost determination, in different ways and through practical actions, to a definitive solution to the problem of illegal drugs.”
The guerrillas said that once the decades-long conflict is brought to a close they will end any links they maintained to drug trafficking as a “function of the rebellion.”
Colombian officials and their U.S. patrons say the FARC is deeply involved in the drug trade, while the insurgents insist that they merely impose a “tax” on illicit crops in areas under their control.

Vigilante leader cleared of homicide charges in Mexico
The founder of the self-defense groups that were formed to battle the Caballeros Templarios drug cartel in the western Mexican state of Michoacan has been cleared of accessory to murder charges due to lack of evidence, judicial officials said.
Hipolito Mora, who walked out of the prison where he had been held for just over two months at around 8:30 p.m. Friday, read a message in which he said he was confident that judicial authorities and the Mexican government would solve the crimes for which he was arrested in March.
The vigilante leader also said he would join a newly formed rural defense unit in the town of Buenavista Tomatlan and register all of his weapons. He added that the time he spent behind bars surely “saved my life” consider all the threats he faced from drug-trafficking gangs.
A spokesman for the court in Michoacán that ordered Mora released told Efe that Judge Plácido Torres Pineda upheld his defense team’s appeal against a March 19 decision ordering him to stand trial.
Judge Juan Salvador Alonso Mejía handed down that ruling eight days after Mora was arrested on suspicion of involvement in the murders of two suspected members of the Los Caballeros Templarios (Knights Templar) drug cartel: Rafael Sánchez Moreno and his driver, José Luis Torres Castañeda.
The burned bodies of Sánchez Moreno and Torres Castañeda were found March 8 in Buenavista, a town near La Ruana in the Tierra Caliente region, which straddles Michoacan, Guerrero and Mexico states.
Luis Antonio Torres, leader of one of the self-defense groups that operates in Michoacan and a friend of Sánchez Moreno, accused Mora of being an accessory to the double homicide.

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Current sexualization of children predicted in 1932 novel

[Author]by Kit Daniels Book review
[/Author]

Alarming similarities between current trend to expose kids to sex and Brave New World

The current trend to “sexualize” young children, that is to expose children to sexual issues as early as kindergarten, shares striking similarities to the dystopian novel Brave New World in which children are encouraged to start exploring sex at a young age.
In the latest example of the trend, a couple of YouTube filmmakers produced a video in which they described homosexuality to children as young as five and asked for their opinions on the subject.
The filmmakers defended the video by stating that the “raw opinions of children” offer “incredibly valuable insight on our current society,” but the youngest of these kids likely had no clue about the subject until it was explained by the producers.
In a similar incident, a Kansas father of a 13-year-old girl became infuriated after discovering a poster hanging up at her school which listed several recreational sex acts, such as anal sex for example.
The school’s spokesperson referred to it as “district approved curriculum,” but the father disagreed.
“This has nothing to do with abstinence or sexual reproduction,” he said.
But Chicago public schools even went further than that by requiring mandatory sexual education in kindergarten classes.
As if these incidents weren’t concerning enough already, just compare them to Brave New World, a 1932 novel written by Aldous Huxley which anticipates a future society that is centrally controlled by a powerful government through the use of various techniques such as the sexualization of children.
In the book, the central planners encourage the populace to explore recreational sex starting from early childhood. The intent is to remove romantic relationships by cheapening sex in order to ensure that the citizens have complete allegiance to the state and not with each other through personal connections such as families.
This is further aided by the elimination of natural reproduction in favor of “creating” children in “hatcheries and conditioning centers” so that the World State in the novel can permanently limit the population to two billion people who are conditioned from birth to completely obey the government.
“The society described in Brave New World is a world-state, in which war has been eliminated and where the first aim of the rulers is at all costs to keep their subjects from making trouble,” Huxley wrote in his later essay Brave New World Revisited. “This they achieve by (among other methods) legalizing a degree of sexual freedom (made possible by the abolition of the family) that practically guarantees the Brave New Worlders against any form of destructive (or creative) emotional tension.”
“In 1984 the lust for power is satisfied by inflicting pain; in Brave New World, by inflicting a hardly less humiliating pleasure.”
He also added that children are also highly susceptible to propaganda, a fact that really highlights the danger of exposing young kids to sex.
“They are ignorant of the world and its ways, and therefore completely unsuspecting,” he wrote. “Their critical faculties are undeveloped.”
“The youngest of them have not yet reached the age of reason and the older ones lack the experience on which their new-found rationality can effectively work.”
With all that said, it should be no surprise that the current sexualization of children is occurring mainly in the public educational system, which has a built-in bias towards large, powerful government.
Additionally, families in real life are also being frowned upon just like in Brave New World, such as the notable example in which MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry stated that your children are not yours – they belong to the community.
“We have to break through our private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families,” she said, adding that kids belong “to whole communities” instead.
Now although the current sexualization of children and the attacks on families in our society haven’t quite reached the extremes presented in the novel, the similarities between these current trends and Brave New World are alarming nonetheless, and it’s not entirely far-fetched to believe that our future society will inch even further towards Huxley’s complete predictions. Infowars.com

In another book comment:

The global warming tipping point is near

by Andrew Thomas
American Thinker

Malcolm Gladwell’s great book The Tipping Point presents the case that sudden seismic shifts in society can result from small events, if the right factors are present. Tipping points happen when momentum toward an idea builds and finally crosses a threshold where it is evident that a major cultural change has occurred. The global warming tipping point is coming, but not the one anticipated by climate change “experts.”
Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory has been dominant for the past three decades as absolute fact in the public mind. In the last several years, however, cracks in the fortress of “settled science” have appeared, and public opinion has begun to shift. Increasingly, alarmist predictions have failed to come to fruition.
In 2004, NASA’s chief scientist James Hansen authoritatively announced that there is only a ten-year window to act on AGW (presumably by transferring mass quantities of taxpayer funds to global warmist causes) before climate Armageddon destroys humanity. Well, that window has now shut tight, and AGW is AWOL.
Al Gore, the high priest of AGW theory, has closed all of his Alliance for Climate Protection field offices, and laid off 90 percent of his staff. Contributions have all but dried up since 2008.
Australia’s conservative government has severely curtailed the country’s climate change initiatives and is in the process of repealing its business-killing carbon tax. A group of German scientists predicts dramatic global cooling over the next 90 years toward a new “little ice age.”
Of course, even many “low information” folks have an awareness of the record increase in Arctic sea ice, as well as the current highly-publicized predicament of the cadre of wealthy global warmists stuck in record-high sea ice while on a cruise to the Antarctic to prove the absence of sea ice.
Now the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has quietly downgraded their prediction for global warming for the next 30 years in the final draft of their landmark “Fifth Assessment Report.” The effect of this is that they are tacitly admitting that the computer models they have religiously relied-upon for decades as “proof” of AGW theory are dead wrong.
The tipping point is near. I can smell it.

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