The Emergency Homesteader

We often think of homesteading as an old western term and like me when thinking of homesteading I think of the Waltons or Little House on the Prairie. But let me assure you these are not those times. In this modern age, homesteading is now I believe a way of life and a self sufficient living arrangment. Having property and becoming the most independent we can from the system is a worthwhile goal. It's time we rethink what the modern homesteader is, I believe that a modern homesteader would and could be any one of us whether we live in a city or have land. A homesteader as the word definition of homesteader has changed with these modern times and modern threats. An emergency homesteader is someone or group of like minded people that have realized that being as far from government dependence as possible is the key to a happy and prepared life. A modern homesteader will now have an array of modern worries to prepare for unlike any previous homesteading days. We homesteaders now have to worry about the rising cost of food, the quality of food, chemicals in our every day life around us, EMP's, war, crooked administrations that have sold our basic human rights, healthcare, natural disasters, man made chaos, and tons of threats all around us. We as homesteaders need to be prepared for anything by stocking up on storage food, having the ability to grow our own food, own guns and a means of defense, procuring our own water source, creating a means of power supply for your homestead, and any off the grid way of life steps we can take. A modern homesteader has more technology now to completely transform thier household into a prepared and stocked place of security and comfort.

Hi my name is Justin and I operate the Emergency Homesteader , at Emergency Homesteader we offer many things.

We offer: Heirloom seeds, Emergency storage food, survival gear, home security options, self sufficiency items, water filters, solar generators, wind turbines, infrared security cameras for your house or farm, and the list goes on and on.

I also provide up to date information on growing food laws, gardening tips, survival tips, and plenty of information on heirloom seeds, storage food, and survival gear. I am dedicated to educating the people on your right to grow food and many ways to improve your family's survival in a crisis event. There are many ways to prepare but we tend to forget the most important things due to the fact of every day conveniences we take for granted. When it comes to my own family I want the best possible solutions for surviving any event. I encourage everyone to prepare for the worst while hoping for the best.

As humans we have the right to grow our own food, stockpile storage food, have a means for self sufficiency to ensure our family's future. We all need to consider how many bad things can happen in this day and age, watch the news and you will see what I'm talking about. It seems we are on the brink of war, the US government has thrown out the Bill of Rights, they are soon making it illegal to grow, store, and produce our own food on our own land. As government cracks down on our civil liberties we must stand up and fight and take back control of our food supply. Regulations and laws are written and passed to accommodate the greedy people who write them. It is disturbing the amount of rights being thrown out that we used to have just a decade ago.

So in turn we must prepare ourselves and families for any situation. We must stock, store, and prepare for the worst. Then we can know that we have done what we can do, at Emergency Homesteader we provide information as well as many self sufficiency items key for your family's survival.

We hear a lot of talk of GMO's these days, what foods contain them and are they really so bad for us? First let's understand a little about GMO's. There's a bacteria that lives in soil known as Bacillus thuringiensis that produces a toxic substance that kills pests on food crops (corn and soybeans, for example). You could say that it contains organic and natural pesticide. Somehow, scientist familiar with genetic engineering realized that they could take the toxin-producing gene from the bacteria and introduce it into crops. After a few tries, a crop strain that produces the natural pesticide was found and proven to be more resistant to attacks from ravenous insects.

You might ask "Is it such a bad thing to have insect resistant plants for food consumption? " It seems like a good idea at first until we start seeing consequences in our health. Unfortunately, the toxic substance that's produced by the soybeans could accumulate in our bodies, and it is difficult to say what are its long-term impacts. What is even more distressing is that the genetic material that causes the soy to produce natural pesticide can be transferred to the genetic structure of native bacteria that inhabit your intestines, and they may continue making toxin for decades. And the possible problems don't stop right here. In many cases, GM food products have been shown to threaten us with health problems, including:
Fragments of genetic material from GM crops have been found throughout the body and even brain of cattle that have been fed GM foods.
Foreign proteins found in GM food products can cause mild to severe allergic reactions. In some countries, the incidence of soy allergies jump to about 50 percent after GM soy was made available.

A couple of years ago, a supplement that uses GM materials were released to the public without proper tests. Before it was withdrawn off the market, it might be linked to nearly 40 deaths and thousands of other reported health problem cases. You should think hard about how GM foods can affect your family, and find a way to limit the amount consumed and if possible eliminate GM foods that could already be present in your everyday eating habits.

GM foods often look similar with unmodified foods, so it can be tricky to tell whether a food product contains GM ingredient, especially if you are shopping for food products in countries with advanced agriculture technology, such as United States. There is an exception, though, for example the European Union, all GM food products must be properly labeled to let buyers know that they contain GM ingredients. When you are trying to determine which foods that contain GM ingredients, it is a good idea to know which animals and plants are usually modified. The most common are soybeans and corn - two of the most important calories sources in many countries. Recent estimates show that roughly three-fourth of soybean crops and about a quarter the corn crops have been genetically modified in the U.S. That's a vast amount of food! Both crops are used to produce many different kinds of food ingredients that are used in processed foods (for example, high fructose corn syrup and soybean oil are found on many processed foods in the grocery store). Some scientists say that when we add up all the GM foods that are made with GM ingredients, nearly 80 percent of foods that are sold in grocery store in the U.S. contain genetically modified ingredients in some sort of way.
Several other crops are regularly messed with at their genetic level, including wheat, rice, alfalfa, squash, papaya, tomatoes, canola, sugar cane, sugar beets, cantaloupe, flax and potatoes. This is not a complete list by any means, as it's next to impossible to obtain accurate information about which crops that have been modified genetically. The reviews and regulations of genetic modification on food products are lax and sparse at best. And it isn't limited to plants. Major bio-tech companies are now making GM animals, too. Until now, cows, goats, fish, and pigs have been genetically modified to enhance some of their benefits for human and for now it seems that trend isn't slowing down. Just like with GM plants, too few rules or regulations exist to curtail the use of GM animal-derived ingredients for food in the U.S., so it can be really tough to know what has been genetically modified and what hasn't. So what you should do when entering a grocery store and find shelves of foods that are likely have been altered genetically? In some countries, there are no requirements for GM foods. The real way to ensure you are not buying or consuming GM foods is to find a "100 percent organic." label. That's actually a viable practice to follow whenever you have the opportunity.
Many animals are fed GMO derived feed. According to Weston A. Price Foundation, meat, dairy, farmed fish and eggs are given GMO fed from corn, soy and wheat to raise these animals for market for consumers to buy. In order to avoid GMO-fed meats, dairy products, fish and eggs; look for organically fed animals or 100 percent grass-fed. Look for organic dairy products that are derived from cows that are not injected with bovine hormones to increase milk production.

Tomatoes, potatoes, papaya, zucchini, squash and canola oil are other GMO crops. These crops are not commonly known as GMO crops, according to the Weston A Price Foundation. When shopping for vegetables, purchase organically grown fruits and vegetables.

Soybean and cottonseed oils are being grown with genetically modified pesticides encoded into the DNA of these plants. Cottonseed has grown as a valuable GMO crop beyond manufacturing cotton for clothing. The oil is used for margarines, fat hardening and most commonly used for potato chip frying. According to Margaret Mellon, Ph.D., J.D. and Jane Rissler, Ph.D. with the Union of Concerned Scientist, GMO crops increase the possibility of introducing new allergens to humans with the cross-pollination of new genes from other plants, animals and microorganisms. Introducing new genes to plants from animal, human or other plant sources that normal wouldn't cross-pollinate under natural circumstances may pose a risk to humans.

Corn is used primarily as a concentrated sweetener for baked goods and carbonated soft drinks. High fructose corn syrup is widely used in consumer goods. Cooking oil made from corn oil is derived from genetically engineered corn. Bees and monarch butterflies populations have decreased with the growth of GMO corn. The GMO foods pose an environmental threat by destroying bee and butterfly populations, according to Mellon and Rissler. Bees and butterflies naturally pollinate flowers of crops that ensures the natural growing cycle of plants. By disrupting this cycle with the introduction of corn crops that are coded with a pesticide introduces plants that naturally are not supposed to survive. The coded pesticide inside the GMO crops kill insects that are not resistant to the pesticide. Scientists do not fully understand the environmental effects of losing bees and butterflies.

But now they are seeing the impact on butterflies and bees, scientist have discovered that populations are declining and mutations are being found in their DNA.

Huffington Post reports on studies done by the Russian Academy of Sciences, and completed in 2010. Researchers fed hamsters GMO soybeans over a two-year period. The GMO soybean-fed hamsters had poor weight gain and a high infant mortality rate. By the third generation, most of the GMO-fed hamsters were sterile. An earlier study in 2005 at the Russian Academy of Sciences used mother rats and their offspring. More than half of all baby rats whose mothers were fed GMO soybeans died within three weeks. Surviving baby rats suffered from low weight, poor growth and sterility.

One of the modifications made to GMO corn is the insertion of genes from the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt. According to the Mothers for Natural Law website, the Bt genes are used to control larval stages of insects that damage corn. The toxin in natural Bt is an effective organic insecticide when dusted on a crop in the traditional manner, and it degrades naturally. The molecular structure of the Bt toxin in GMO corn, however, is unnaturally truncated. The Bt toxin is released from the roots of the GMO corn into the soil, where it remains bound to soil particles and does not degrade. One bacterium developed for GMO seed corn specifically designed for ethanol processing left residues that made the soil infertile. Subsequent corn crops grew three inches tall and died.

So as we can see the benefits of GMO crops are outweighed by all the long term consequences. GMO's cause severe health risk and screwing up the natural order of things for profit. There is nothing good or healthy about GMO foods, and te be told different is just being lied to by big Pharma, FDA, Monsanto, and USDA.

So how do we avoid all these foods if it seems most of our food chain has been introduced to GMO's? Here some things to look for:
On labels of products look for PLU code and look for these numbers:
If it's a four digit number, the food is conventionally produced. If it is a five digit number beginning with an 8 it is GM. If it is a five digit number beginning with a 9 it is organic.

Make sure your eggs say (natural or cage free-free range) and 100% organic. Purchase beef that is grass fed and 100% organic with no injected bovine growth hormone. Although alfalfa and other grain can be GMO in their own right before being fed to animals, you will have to find a company that does not use these crops. Shopping at your local farmers market and butcher can increase your safety in your food. Remember that anything that comes in a box is usually fake food filled with GM ingredients. So make meals from scratch and know where your ingredients come from. Labels can be misleading so read thoroughly.

Growing your own food is the only way to ensure GMOfree

FDA Deletes 1 Million Signatures for GMO Labeling Campaign

Mike Barrett
Infowars.com
March 31, 2012

While the Food and Drug Administration has seemingly reached the limit for unbelievable behavior, the company's decisions continue to astound and appall consumers and health activists alike. In the agency's latest decision, undoubtedly amazing thousands of individuals yet again, the FDA virtually erased 1 million signatures and comments on the 'Just Label It' campaign calling for the labeling of genetically modified foods.
FDA Deletes 1 Million Signatures for GMO Labeling Campaign

The 'Just Label It" campaign has gotten more signatures than any campaign in history for the labeling of genetically modified foods. Since October of 2011, the campaign has received over 900,000 signatures, with 55 politicians joining in on the movement. So what's the problem here?
Evidently, the FDA counts the amount of signatures not by how many people signed, but how many different individual letters are brought to it. To the FDA, even tens of thousands of signatures presented on a single petition are counted as - you guessed it - a single comment. This is how, despite over a million supporters being gathered by the petition, the FDA concluded a count of only 394.

"This is an election year and there are more than a million people who say this is important to them. This is petition has nothing to do with whether or genetically modified foods are dangerous. We don't label dangerous foods, we take them off the shelves. This petition is about a the citizens' right to know what they are eating and whether or not these foods represent a novel change." said Andrew Kimbrell an attorney for the Center for Food Safety, one of the partner groups on the Just Label It campaign.

The argument as to whether genetically modified foods are dangerous is a whole discussion on its own, but for the FDA to completely sidestep away from the labeling of GM foods is completely and utterly irresponsible. Consumers have every right to know what they are consuming. Needless to say, biotechology giant Monsanto is against GMO labeling, claiming that it would mislead consumers since GMOs are 'perfectly safe'. Of course there is plenty of evidence proving that GMOs are not completely safe, and how they affect life in the long-term is questionable to say the least. Either way, there is enough controversy surrounding the issue which is cause for alarm for millions of people, and Monsanto's opinion on GMOs safety is a sorry excuse for not labeling foods as GM. Is the FDA avoiding such an issue because so many ties exist between genetically modified makers like Monsanto and the agency?

The bottom line is that you have the right to know what is in your food, and what your food IS. Denying that right, whether it be by the essential deletion of millions of signatures on a petition, or by ignoring the voices of thousands of people on the street, is taking power away from the people.

This article orginally appeared at Natural Society.
Thanks natural news..

Again it's all about the money..

Bill Gates, Monsanto, and eugenics:
How one of the world's wealthiest men
is actively promoting a corporate takeover
of global agriculture.

(NaturalNews) After it was exposed that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the philanthropic brainchild of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, purchased 500,000 shares in Monsanto back in 2010 valued at more than $23 million, it became abundantly clear that this so-called benevolent charity is up to something other than eradicating disease and feeding the world's poor (http://www.guardian.co.uk). It turns out that the Gates family legacy has long been one of trying to dominate and control the world's systems, including in the areas of technology, medicine, and now agriculture.

The Gates Foundation, aka the tax-exempt Gates Family Trust, is currently in the process of spending billions of dollars in the name of humanitarianism to establish a global food monopoly dominated by genetically-modified (GM) crops and seeds. And based on the Gates family's history of involvement in world affairs, it appears that one of its main goals besides simply establishing corporate control of the world's food supply is to reduce the world's population by a significant amount in the process.

William H. Gates Sr., former head of eugenics group Planned Parenthood

Bill Gates' father, William H. Gates Sr., has long been involved with the eugenics group Planned Parenthood, a rebranded organization birthed out of the American Eugenics Society. In a 2003 interview with PBS' Bill Moyers, Bill Gates admitted that his father used to be the head of Planned Parenthood, which was founded on the concept that most human beings are just "reckless breeders" and "human weeds" in need of culling (http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_gates.html).

Gates also admitted during the interview that his family's involvement in reproductive issues throughout the years has been extensive, referencing his own prior adherence to the beliefs of eugenicist Thomas Robert Malthus, who believed that populations of the world need to be controlled through reproductive restrictions. Though Gates claims he now holds a different view, it appears as though his foundation's initiatives are just a modified Malthusian approach that much more discreetly reduces populations through vaccines and GMOs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus).

Gates Foundation has invested heavily in converting Asian, African agricultural systems to GMOs
William Gates Sr.'s association with Planned Parenthood and continued influence in the realm of "population and reproductive health" is significant because Gates Sr. is co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (http://www.gatesfoundation.org/leadership/Pages/william-gates-sr.aspx). This long-time eugenicist "guides the vision and strategic direction" of the Gates Foundation, which is currently heavily focused on forcing GMOs on Africa via its financing of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).

The Gates Foundation has admittedly given at least $264.5 million in grant commitments to AGRA (www.gatesfoundation.org/about/Documents/BMGFFactSheet.pdf), and also reportedly hired Dr. Robert Horsch, a former Monsanto executive for 25 years who developed Roundup, to head up AGRA back in 2006. According to a report published in La Via Campesina back in 2010, 70 percent of AGRA's grantees in Kenya work directly with Monsanto, and nearly 80 percent of the Gates Foundation funding is devoted to biotechnology (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_21606.cfm).

The same report explains that the Gates Foundation pledged $880 million in April 2010 to create the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), which is a heavy promoter of GMOs. GAFSP, of course, was responsible for providing $35 million in "aid" to earthquake-shattered Haiti to be used for implementing GMO agricultural systems and technologies.

Back in 2003, the Gates Foundation invested $25 million in "GM (genetically modified) research to develop vitamin and protein-enriched seeds for the world's poor," a move that many international charities and farmers groups vehemently opposed (http://healthfreedoms.org). And in 2008, the Gates Foundation awarded $26.8 million to Cornell University to research GM wheat, which is the next major food crop in the crosshairs of Monsanto's GM food crop pipeline (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_21606.cfm).
If you control agriculture, you control the populations of the world

The Gates Foundation's ties with Monsanto and corporate agriculture in general speak volumes about its real agenda, which is to create a monopolistic system of world control in every area of human life. Vaccines, pharmaceuticals, GMOs, reproductive control, weather manipulation, global warming -- these and many other points of entry are the means by which the Gates Foundation is making great strides to control the world by pretending to help improve and save it.

Rather than promote real food sovereignty and address the underlying political and economic issues that breed poverty, Gates and Co. has instead embraced the promotion of corporately-owned and controlled agriculture and medicine paradigms that will only further enslave the world's most impoverished. It is abundantly evident that GMOs have ravished already-impoverished people groups by destroying their native agricultural systems, as has been seen in India (http://www.naturalnews.com/030913_Monsanto_suicides.html).

Some may say Gates' endeavors are all about the money, while others may say they are about power and control. Perhaps it is a combination of both, where Gates is still in the business of promoting his own commercial investments, which includes buying shares in Monsanto while simultaneously investing in programs to promote Monsanto.

Whatever the case may be, there is simply no denying that Gates now has a direct interest in seeing Monsanto succeed in spreading GMOs around the world. And since Gates is openly facilitating Monsanto's growth into new markets through his "humanitarian" efforts, it is clear that the Gates family is in bed with Monsanto.

"Although Bill Gates might try to say that the Foundation is not linked to his business, all it proves is the opposite: most of their donations end up favoring the commercial investments of the tycoon, not really "donating" anything, but instead of paying taxes to state coffers, he invests his profits in where it is favorable to him economically, including propaganda from their supposed good intentions," wrote Silvia Ribeiro in the Mexican news source La Jornada back in 2010.

"On the contrary, their 'donations' finance projects as destructive as geoengineering or replacement of natural community medicines for high-tech patented medicines in the poorest areas of the world ... Gates is also engaged in trying to destroy rural farming worldwide, mainly through the 'Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa' (AGRA). It works as a Trojan horse to deprive poor African farmers of their traditional seeds, replacing them with the seeds of their companies first, finally by genetically modified (GM)."

FEMA Executive Orders
During an emergency crisis there are a number of executive orders that would suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and gives FEMA complete control over the United States. These Executive Orders have been on record for almost 30 years and could be enabled immediatly by a Presidential signature:

%u2022 EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990 allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports
%u2022 EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995 allows the government to seize and control the communication media.
%u2022 EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997 allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals
%u2022 EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998 allows the government to seize all means of transportation, including personal cars, trucks or vehicles of any kind and total control over all highways, seaports, and waterways
%u2022 EXECUTIVE ORDER 10999 allows the government to take over all food resources and farms
%u2022 EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000 allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision
%u2022 EXECUTIVE ORDER 11001 allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare functions.
%u2022 EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002 designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons
%u2022 EXECUTIVE ORDER 11003 allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft
%u2022 EXECUTIVE ORDER 11004 allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations
%u2022 EXECUTIVE ORDER 11005 allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities
%u2022 EXECUTIVE ORDER 11051 specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis
%u2022 EXECUTIVE ORDER 11310 grants authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President
%u2022 EXECUTIVE ORDER 11049 assigns emergency preparedness function to federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative Executive Orders issued over a fifteen year period
%u2022 EXECUTIVE ORDER 11921 allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial institution in any undefined national emergency. It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared by the President, Congress cannot review the action for six months. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has broad powers in every aspect of the nation. General Frank Salzedo, chief of FEMA's Civil Security Division stated in a 1983 conference that he saw FEMA's role as a "new frontier in the protection of individual and governmental leaders from assassination, and of civil and military installations from sabotage and/or attack, as well as prevention of dissident groups from gaining access to U.S. opinion, or a global audience in times of crisis." FEMA's powers were consolidated by President Carter to incorporate:
o the National Security Act of 1947, which allows for the strategic relocation of industries, services, government and other essential economic activities, and to rationalize the requirements for manpower, resources and production facilities;
o the 1950 Defense Production Act, which gives the President sweeping powers over all aspects of the economy;
o the Act of August 29, 1916, which authorizes the Secretary of the Army, in time of war, to take possession of any transportation system for transporting troops, material, or any other purpose related to the emergency;
o the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which enables the President to seize the property of a foreign country or national. These powers were transferred to FEMA in a sweeping consolidation in 1979

Obama has resigned all these orders and currently are being prepared for by the establishment to have the power in any circumstance to declare Marshall Law and have unlimited power over the people.
This is very similar to Nazi Germany land and farm seizure's during the world wars.

'Michael Taylor was just appointed senior advisor to the commissioner of the FDA. This is the same man that was in charge of FDA policy when GMO's were allowed into the US food supply without undergoing a single test to determine their safety. He "had been Monsanto's attorney before becoming policy chief at the FDA [and then] he became Monsanto's Vice President and chief lobbyist. This month [he] became the senior advisor to the commissioner of the FDA. He is now America's food safety czar. This is no joke".

This month Michael Taylor became the senior advisor to the commissioner of the FDA. He is now America's food safety czar. What have we done?

The person who may be responsible for more food-related illness and death than anyone in history has just been made the US food safety czar. This is no joke.

Here's the back story.

When FDA scientists were asked to weigh in on what was to become the most radical and potentially dangerous change in our food supply-the introduction of genetically modified (GM) foods-secret documents now reveal that the experts were very concerned. Memo after memo described toxins, new diseases, nutritional deficiencies, and hard-to-detect allergens. They were adamant that the technology carried "serious health hazards," and required careful, long-term research, including human studies, before any genetically modified organisms (GMOs) could be safely released into the food supply.

But the biotech industry had rigged the game so that neither science nor scientists would stand in their way. They had placed their own man in charge of FDA policy and he wasn't going to be swayed by feeble arguments related to food safety. No, he was going to do what corporations had done for decades to get past these types of pesky concerns. He was going to lie.

Dangerous Food Safety Lies

When the FDA was constructing their GMO policy in 1991-2, their scientists were clear that gene-sliced foods were significantly different and could lead to "different risks" than conventional foods. But official policy declared the opposite, claiming that the FDA knew nothing of significant differences, and declared GMOs substantially equivalent.

This fiction became the rationale for allowing GM foods on the market without any required safety studies whatsoever! The determination of whether GM foods were safe to eat was placed entirely in the hands of the companies that made them-companies like Monsanto, which told us that the PCBs, DDT, and Agent Orange were safe.

GMOs were rushed onto our plates in 1996. Over the next nine years, multiple chronic illnesses in the US nearly doubled-from 7% to 13%. Allergy-related emergency room visits doubled between 1997 and 2002 while food allergies, especially among children, skyrocketed. We also witnessed a dramatic rise in asthma, autism, obesity, diabetes, digestive disorders, and certain cancers.

In January of this year, Dr. P. M. Bhargava, one of the world's top biologists, told me that after reviewing 600 scientific journals, he concluded that the GM foods in the US are largely responsible for the increase in many serious diseases.

In May, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine concluded that animal studies have demonstrated a causal relationship between GM foods and infertility, accelerated aging, dysfunctional insulin regulation, changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system, and immune problems such as asthma, allergies, and inflammation

In July, a report by eight international experts determined that the flimsy and superficial evaluations of GMOs by both regulators and GM companies "systematically overlook the side effects" and significantly underestimate "the initial signs of diseases like cancer and diseases of the hormonal, immune, nervous and reproductive systems, among others."

THIS IS WHY WE MUST STAND UP AND GROW OUR OWN FOOD SUPPLY!!! If we all grow something on our property or land , eventually we will have enough food to not only feed neighbor's but the needy as well. We could eradicate hunger and have healthier food floating around the food chain and not have to pay out the ass for healthy food. This is rediculous!! It's like they want to kill us slowly by means of extorting our hard earned dollars on natural-healthy-left alone food. You ever notice that the cheaper the cost the worst for ya it is? For it is easier to eat for a dollar and by a dollar burger for you and your three kids for under 5 bucks. The problem is 5 bucks will barely get you squat for healthy food (something Whole Foods) has been prifiting off of for years. Even if you don't go the mainstream rout for your fresh food and go to road side stands and farms, five bucks won't get you enough of different things to actually make a meal. So statistically the more money you have the better you can eat, and afford the healthiest food. For people living on a budget, growing thier own food might in the long run save them thousands. It's hard in a society of convenience and consumerism to not get sucked into quick food. Contributing to obesity, diabetes, heart problems, and general health issues, Dead Food is all around us and we need to put them out of business by not buying thier crap! It's a mindset that 50% of Americans have to break or a solution will never be gained. People need to wake up and take the power back and stop being complacent in life. It's hard to maintain family, jobs, and all resposibilities that entangle us in every day life, I Get It... But we all need to break free from the pushed norms that are bombarding us every day.

So let's stand up and do what we each can do to contribute to better world....

SO THE SOLUTION IS:

EVERYONE GROW!! If we could get one out of three households growing some form of food for community contribution, it will drastically lower any cost of food in the general market. It would also make more readily available food which means plenty to give away to homeless shelter's and people in need. If you live in a community I strongly urge you to invest in growing something in your backyard and organize a weekly or monthly neighborhood market to barter and sell your fruits of your labor..

What to do with all those eggs?

When you have chickens, you soon realize you can have eggs coming out the wazoo. Once you figure out you can't give away any more eggs and your still sitting on an overwhelming amount, you need a way to use or preserve them. Preserving them is easier than you think, and they have been doing just that it in other countries for millennia. My mother has had this problem for a while until she learned this.
When a chicken lays an egg, it has a natural coating on it known as the bloom. This bloom is a layer of protection for the egg which keeps out oxygen as well as harmful bacteria and germs. It's very, very common for those who raise chickens for their eggs to collect them and then keep them on the counter until they are ready to use-not put them in the refrigerator. And in fact, the majority of the grocery stores in the world don't put their eggs in a refrigerated environment. When they're ready to use the eggs, they either wash them, which eliminates the bloom and any bacteria or germs, or they crack them open-just as is-but take care not to do so over food that they are going to eat. Instead, they crack them into a separate dish or into a clean hand, but never over the food that they are mixing them. Also, in order to not spread the outside germs into the eggs, they never separate them with the egg shells; instead, they use their hands to separate the yolks from the whites.
While it's absolutely normal for you and I to get our eggs from the refrigerated department of the grocery stores, it's actually very unusual in the rest of the world; eggs, butter, and most cheese products are usually just sitting on the shelf, not in a refrigerated display. We tend to get spoiled in the modern world, my 6 year old thinks meat comes from a package not a cow. He will soon realize.
So what do we do with all those eggs?
Did you know you can preserve your eggs long-term without worrying about your family getting sick? There are several methods you can use. But my favorite one (because it's the easiest) is using mineral oil.
All you have to do is warm a quarter cup of mineral oil (just about 10 seconds in the microwave will do). Set your eggs outside of the carton (because it will be hard to get them out one you start using the mineral oil). Dab a little bit of the warmed mineral oil on your hands and then pick up an egg. Run your oiled hands all over the eggs, making sure to cover it completely with the mineral oil. Don't worry if you're putting it on too thick or thin, just so long as every part of it is covered. When you're finished with an egg, put it in the egg carton, small pointed side down. A quarter cup of mineral oil should easily do 4 to 6 dozen eggs.
Now, store your egg cartons in a cool, dry place. You want the temperature to be about 68 degrees for long-term storage otherwise storing them like this in your regular room temperature is just fine for a few weeks. If you have a second fridge then you could place in there and the eggs will keep better.
Don't worry about an egg going bad and you not knowing it. Believe me; in this case the nose knows. Rotten eggs smell awful. They won't be able to sneak up on you. The gas hydrogen sulfide develops as bacteria breaks down the proteins in the egg white, creating that nasty gas smell.
There's another way to tell if your egg has gone bad. As oxygen gets into the egg, it creates an air bubble inside in place of moisture and carbon dioxide. This will cause the egg to float when placed in cold water (at least double the depth as the length of the egg). Anything other than a floating egg is fine to ingest.
Yes, you can do this method on grocery store eggs. The grocery store egg distributors make sure to wash off the bloom and then refrigerate them. Your mineral oil essentially reapplies the bloom. Of course I always look at the dates on the egg cartons and get them as "new" as possible. This preserving eggs method will allow your eggs to stay good for 9 months and sometimes as much as 12. Obviously, rotating through your eggs is standard, so my mother likes to number or alphabetize her eggs so that she can keep the egg cartons together in the batches that were purchased in. That way if there ever is a problem with a group of eggs, She knows where they came from. She has solved her problem with all those eggs, but she still gives away dozens a week to friends.

The number of products that contain aluminium is unbelievable. The globalists and the government don't want you to know what products contain aluminium. So why are the government and the globalists not advising you, the consumer, of the risks of using products that contain aluminium? The only logical reasons I can think of would be because many of the globalists have vested interests in organisations that produce profitable products that contain aluminium, and the government is reaping millions of dollars in tax from the purchase of products that contain aluminium. The following is a list of household products that the globalists and the government don't want you to know that contain aluminium.

Antiperspirants
Antacids
Many body lotions and creams
Most cosmetics
Shampoos and conditioners
Soaps
Suntan lotions
Lip Balm
Processed cheese
Baking powder
Cake mix
Frozen dough
Pancake mix
Self-raising flour
Pickled vegetables.

Also, the following food additives contain aluminium compounds. They are E173, E520, E521, E523 E541, E545, E554, E555 E556 and E559.

Aluminium salts are also found in many common medicines.

Antacids
Anti-diarrhea products
Anti-hemorrhoid preparations.
Vaccines

Please note, if your doctor has prescribed the above three medicines, please do not discontinue using them. Speak to your doctor at your next appointment and ask if there are any suitable alternatives.

Other Risks

The risk of developing breast cancer from excessive use of aluminium is also evident. A study published in 2003 by the European Journal of Cancer Prevention found a correlation between earlier diagnosis of breast cancer and antiperspirant deodorant use (5). A 2003 study also indicated "underarm shaving with antiperspirant deodorant use may play a role in breast cancer [5].

Thankfully, the link between breast cancer and aluminium is not conclusive and still needs considerable research to be conducted. A 2004 study reviewing the evidence for and against the possible link between breast cancer and underarm cosmetics wrote "Although animal and laboratory studies suggest a possible link between certain chemicals used in underarm cosmetics and breast cancer development, there is no reliable evidence that underarm cosmetics use increases breast cancer risk in humans [6].

Symptoms of Overexposure to Aluminium

The fundamental problem we all face is that the many symptoms of aluminium poisoning are usually associated with other illnesses. This therefore poses a risk to the identification and causes of many illnesses. Symptoms of over exposure to aluminium can be:

Aluminium production and cancer
Colic
Rickets
Gastrointestinal problems
Interference with the metabolism of calcium
Extreme nervousness
Anemia
Headaches
Decreased liver and kidney function
Memory loss
Speech problems
Softening of the bones
Aching muscles

How to Remove Aluminium from your Body

There are many options available if you would like to remove heavy metals such as aluminium from your body. One recommendation I would first suggest would be to visit your local Naturopath. Your local Naturopath would have a good understanding of what foods are ordinarily consumed were you live and the local remedies that are available. Common foods that can be used to detox heavy metals are as follows:

Chlorella
Lemon Juice
Apples
Soaking your feet with Epsom salts and sea salt (1/2 cup each).
Turmeric
Garlic
Fish Oil
Vitamin C
Kelp
Ionic Foot Bath
Modifilan
Chelation Therapy - EDTA, DMSO, etc. Chelation can be done by IV, orally or by suppository.
Detox clay bath
Malic acid - in supplement form or just eat apples.
Magnesium - helps shut out aluminium from cells. Works hand in hand with malic acid.
Eat sulfur-rich foods such as eggs, cabbage, beans and onions. [7]

Conclusion

The risks associated with being exposed to aluminium regularly outweigh the cost of avoidance. This harmful product is found in our food, medications and cosmetics. Overexposure can increase the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and various other illnesses. The best way to reduce the risk of being overexposed to aluminium is to avoid it all together. What the globalists and our government are doing here is exactly the same as what they did with the use of BPA in children's products. I encourage you to begin making the necessary changes to your daily routine to eliminate this heavy metal from your body. We are already overexposed to many heavy metals and poisons, and this is one that can be easily eliminated.

Sources:

Graves AB, White E, Koepsell TD, Reifler BV, van Belle G, Larson EB (1990). "The association between aluminium-containing products and Alzheimer's disease". Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 43 (1): 35-44
Sappino, A.-P., Buser, R., Lesne, L., Gimelli, S., Béna, F., Belin, D. and Mandriota, S. J. (2012), Aluminium chloride promotes anchorage-independent growth in human mammary epithelial cells. Journal of Applied Toxicology
Andreotti, G. and Silverman, D. T. (2012), Occupational risk factors and pancreatic cancer: A review of recent findings. Molecular Carcinogenesis, 51: 98-108
Gibbs, G.W. (1985) Mortality of aluminum reduction plant workers, 1950 through 1977. J. occup. Med., 27, 761-770
McGrath KG (December 2003). "An earlier age of breast cancer diagnosis related to more frequent use of antiperspirants/deodorants and underarm shaving" (PDF). European Journal of Cancer Prevention 12 (6): 479-85
Gikas PD, Mansfield L, Mokbel K (September-October 2004). "Do underarm cosmetics cause breast cancer?". Int J Fertil Womens Med 49 (5): 212-4

Andrew Puhanic is the founder of The Globalist Report, a website designed to provide you with the information you need to make informed decisions and understand world events and how they affect you. The Globalists, and those who support world government, can only be halted when their plans for world domination are made public. You can contact Andrew directly at Andrew @ The Globalist Report.

Make an effort for a aluminum free lifestyle and ensure a cancer free life.

I recently had a question about storing seeds, and the way to store your seeds is very simple. For the best long term storage abilities for your seeds is to have them vacuum sealed in mylar, then put in a dark dry container, then stored in a cold dry place. The colder the better is rule of thumb, hence why we are building a seed vault in Antartica. It is really simple to store your seeds but you will need the right tools like a mylar bag vauum seal machine, and dark water tight cases, and then a cold place to put them. If you are using and replacing seeds as you go always rotate your seeds for freshness but if your only concerned about long term storage, make sure your seed source is a good one that ensures a high germination rate even after 4 years of storage. At Emergency Seed Bank my favorite supplier is Heirloom Organics. They use the same storage-vaulting technology that the National Seed Banks use. Once you have a great source then you can have quality seeds for storage. Just remember that dry, dark and cool are the best way to store your seeds.

I Have personally used Silver Sol and have an amazing story, last summer I started feeling sick and thought oh just a bug, flu, or something. As the next day approached I felt worse and could not seem to get better. Three days passed and I was not feeling better but ten times worse, I knew something was wrong, seriously wrong. I could not get out of bed and I ached like never before. I had muscle pain, staggering headaches, truly the worse I've ever felt. My wife who is a nurse by profession was very concerned about me and saw that I was completely ill, and couldn't figure out what is was. I had never been so sick in my life!! On the fourth day I was so sick I couldn't move literally, so my wife worried as she was called an ambulance to come to our house. She said I looked dead, no color, couldn't and haven't been able to keep food down for four days, and looked horrible. The ambulance arrived and I could barely walk to back doors, no joke walking was nearly impossible. They took me to a local hospital and started running test. Nothing came up in hours of extensive testing so they decided to do a spinal tap to check spinal fluid for infection. A couple hours later they decided to do a second spinal tap and they came to the conclusion I had viral meningitis. So after pumping me full of fluids they sent me home and said there is nothing they can do really and to let it run it's course.

So after 8 hours of being poked and prodded, two spinal taps, and being told to let the meningitis run it's course they sent me home. Desperate to feel better I had remembered my mother had sent me a four pack box of Silver Sol Liquid and the Gel's they provide for topical applications. I was relieved when I remembered I had it and figured why not try it and see what happens. I had read the book which was amazing the tests they put silver sol through, and decided to give it a try. Since the silver does not build up in your body because it is infused into water molecules to allow your body to pass it easier, I drank 2 shot glasses worth every three hours and in a 24 hr period drank a whole bottle. Even though the recommended dose is smaller my mother informed me that it was safe to take in more. My mother has been an herbologist for 30 years and has a natural remedy for everything, she researched the effects of ingesting that much silver sol and could not find any evidence that it was unsafe to spike your system so to speak.

After drinking a bottle in a 24 hour period, I woke up the next morning and could not believe how much better I felt. All the nausea, vomiting, headaches, body aches, and all around crappy feeling was gone. I was able to stand up and walk around again, which I was not able to do for three days. I no longer felt too sick to do anything, I could breathe easier and would say that 85% of my overall feeling was improved. I could think clearly again and was really in disbelief at first. I remember thinking no way, no way could I have felt this much better taking any antibiotic or any other remedy. I was truly in disbelief untill my day progressed and I continued to feel better, I continued drinking the silver in smaller doses for about another day then stopped taking it all together. 48 hours after leaving the hospital to return home sick as a dog, I was back at work and never regressed into sickness from that point on. Simply amazing I thought, I told everybody about it and this was now a year before I ever considred selling Silver Sol, I had no motives for exaggeration or hype. This is truly an amazing product and since I have told more family and friends about it, they have there own story of how good this stuff really is and they will be submitting to me thier testimonies to share. Silver Sol is the best product with versatile uses for any ailment. I will soon be posting thier testimonies in my post/articles page so they can share thier own experience.
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Leaked: US to Start 'Trade Wars' with Nations Opposed to Monsanto, GMO Crops

Anthony Gucciardi
Infowars.com
January 3, 2012

The United States is threatening nations who oppose Monsanto's genetically modified (GM) crops with military-style trade wars, according to information obtained and released by the organization WikiLeaks.
Nations like France, which have moved to ban one of Monsanto's GM corn varieties, were requested to be 'penalized' by the United States for opposing Monsanto and genetically modified foods.

The information reveals just how deep Monsanto's roots have penetrated key positions within the United States government, with the cables reporting that many U.S. diplomats work directly for Monsanto.
The WikiLeaks cable reveals that in late 2007, the United States ambassador to France and business partner to George W. Bush, Craig Stapleton, requested that the European Union along with particular nations that did not support GMO crops be penalized. Stapleton, who co-owned the Dallas/Fort Worth-based Texas Rangers baseball team with Bush in the 1990s, stated:
Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits. The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory. Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices.

The Leaked Political Agenda Behind Monsanto's GMO Crops
The ambassador plainly calls for 'target retaliation' against nations who are against using Monsanto's genetically modified corn, admittedly linked to organ damage and environmental devastation.
Amazingly, this is not an isolated case. In similar newly released cables, United States diplomats are found to have pushed GMO crops as a strategic government and commercial imperative.
Furthermore, the U.S. specifically targeted advisers to the Pope, due to the fact that many Catholic bishops and figureheads have openly denounced GMO crops. In fact, the Vatican has openly declared Monsanto's GMO crops as a 'new form of slavery'.
'A Martino deputy told us recently that the cardinal had co-operated with embassy Vatican on biotech over the past two years in part to compensate for his vocal disapproval of the Iraq war and its aftermath - to keep relations with the USG [US government] smooth. According to our source, Martino no longer feels the need to take this approach,' says the cable.

Perhaps the most shocking piece of information exposed by the cables is the fact that these U.S. diplomats are actually working directly for biotech corporations like Monsanto. The cables also highlight the relationship between the U.S. and Spain in their conquest to persuade other nations to allow for the expansion of GMO crops. Not only did the Spanish government secretly correspond with the U.S. government on the subject, but the U.S. government actually knew beforehand how Spain would vote before the Spanish biotech commission reported their decision regarding GMO crops. The cable states:

'In response to recent urgent requests by [Spanish rural affairs ministry] state secretary Josep Puxeu and Monsanto, post requests renewed US government support of Spain's science-based agricultural biotechnology position through high-level US government intervention.'
Monsanto has undoubtedly infiltrated the United States government in order to push their health-endangering agenda, and this has been known long before the release of these WikiLeaks cables. The U.S. is the only place where Monsanto's synthetic hormone Posilac is still used in roughly 1/3 of all cows, with 27 nations banning the substance over legitimate health concerns. Despite Monsanto's best attempts at incognito political corruption, nothing can stop the grassroots anti-Monsanto movement that is taking over cities and nations alike.
Will Organic Farmers See Their Day in Court Against Monsanto?

Judge to consider oral argument in lawsuit against Monsanto
Activist Post
December 31, 2011

In a development celebrated by the organic plaintiffs, Judge Naomi Buchwald announced yesterday that oral arguments on Monsanto's motion to dismiss the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA) et al v. Monsanto will be heard in federal district court January 31, 2012 in Manhattan. Judge Buchwald's decision will establish if organic farmers are to see their day in court.
The eighty-three family farmers, small and family owned seed businesses, and agricultural organizations comprising the organic plaintiff group represent over 300,000 individuals. The landmark lawsuit, filed in March 2011, challenges the validity of Monsanto's transgenic/GMO patents and seeks court protection for innocent family farmers who may become contaminated by Monsanto seed.
"We are grateful that Judge Buchwald has agreed to our request to hear oral argument on the motion," said Jim Gerritsen, President of lead plaintiff OSGATA. "Last August we submitted our written rebuttal and it made clear that Monsanto's motion was without merit. Our legal team, from the Public Patent Foundation, is looking forward to orally presenting our position. The family farmers deserve their day in court. We are anxious that this case go to trial as soon as possible so that our innocent farmers may receive Court protection."
OSGATA is a membership organization composed primarily of farmers and seed businesses. Their mission is to develop and protect the organic seed industry along with their growers. In an effort to raise funds, OSGATA has launched a "Farmers Travel Fund" enabling family farmers from the plaintiff group to attend the court proceedings and related events. See www.osgata.org.
Background information on the OSGATA v. Monsanto lawsuit may be found at www.osgata.org

Hungary Destroys All Monsanto GMO Maize Fields

Shellee Tyler
Planet Save
July 25, 2011
In an effort to rid the country of Monsanto's GMO products, Hungary has stepped up the pace. This looks like its going to be another slap in the face for Monsanto. A new regulation was introduced this March which stipulates that seeds are supposed to be checked for GMO before they are introduced to the market. Unfortunately, some GMO seeds made it to the farmers without them knowing it.
Almost 1000 acres of maize found to have been grown with genetically modified seeds have been destroyed throughout Hungary deputy state secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development Lajos Bognar said. The GMO maize has been ploughed under, said Lajos Bognar, but pollen has not spread from the maize, he added.

Unlike several EU members, GMO seeds are banned in Hungary. The checks will continue despite the fact that seed traders are obliged to make sure that their products are GMO free, Bognar said.
During their investigation, controllers have found Pioneer and Monsanto products among the seeds planted.
The free movement of goods within the EU means that authorities will not investigate how the seeds arrived in Hungary but they will check where the goods can be found, Bognar said. Regional public radio reported that the two biggest international seed producing companies are affected in the matter and GMO seeds could have been sown on up to thousands of hectares in the country.
Most of the local farmers have complained since they just discovered they were using GMO seeds. With season already under way, it is too late to sow new seeds, so this years harvest has been lost.
Fresh food that lasts from eFoodsDirect (AD)

And to make things even worse for the farmers, the company that distributed the seeds in Baranya county is under liquidation. Therefore, if any compensation is paid by the international seed producers, the money will be paid primarily to that company's creditors, rather than the farmers.

So it seems they want to kill us off by continuing to poison us and the world in the name of progression.

Common indoor plants may provide a valuable weapon in the fight against rising levels of indoor air pollution. NASA scientists are finding them to be surprisingly useful in absorbing potentially harmful gases and cleaning the air inside homes, indoor public spaces and office buildings.
The indoor pollutants that affect health are formaldehyde, Volatile Organic Compounds (benzene and trichloroethylene or TCE), airborne biological pollutants, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides, pesticides and disinfectants (phenols), and radon. These pollutants contribute to 'sick building syndrome', which causes symptoms ranging from allergies, headaches and fatigue through to nervous-system disorders, cancer and death.

Top ten plants for removing formaldehyde, benzene, and carbon monoxide from the air:

1. Areca Palm (Chrysalidocarpus lutescens)
Also called the "Butterfly Palm". An upright houseplant that is somewhat vase shaped. Specimen plants can reach 10 to 12 foot in height. Prefers a humid area to avoid tip damage. Requires pruning. When selecting an Areca palm look for plants with larger caliber trunks at the base of the plant. Plants that have pencil thin stems tend to topple over and are quite difficult to maintain.

2. Lady Palm (Rhapis excelsa)
Also called the "Lady Palm", this durable palm species adapts well to most interiors. The Rhapis are some of the easiest palms to grow, but each species has its own particular environment and culture requirements. The "Lady Palm" grows slowly, but can grow to more than 14%u2032 in height with broad clumps often having a diameter as wide as their height.

3. Bamboo palm (Chamaedorea seifrizii)
Also called the "reed palm", this palm prefers bright indirect light. New plants will lose of some interior foliage as they acclimate to indoor settings. This plant likes to stay uniformly moist, but does not like to be over-watered or to sit in standing water. Indoor palms may attract spider mites which can be controlled by spraying with a soapy solution.

4. Rubber Plant (Ficus robusta)
Grows very well indoors, preferring semi-sun lighting. Avoid direct sunlight, especially in summer. Young plants may need to be supported by a stake. The Ficus grows to 8' with a spread of 5'. Wear gloves when pruning, as the milky sap may irritate the skin. Water thoroughly when in active growth, then allow the soil to become fairly dry before watering again. In winter keep slightly moist.

5. Dracaena "Janet Craig" (Dracaena deremensis)
The Dracaena grows to 10' with a spread of 3'. Easy to grow, these plants do best in bright indirect sunlight coming from the east/west. They can adapt to lower light levels if the watering is reduced. Keep the soil evenly moist and mist frequently with warm water. Remove any dead leaves. Leaf tips will go brown if the plant is under watered but this browning may be trimmed.

6. Philodendron (Philodendron sp.)
One of the most durable of all house plants. Philodendrons prefer medium intensity light but will tolerate low light. Direct sun will burn the leaves and stunt plant growth. This plant is available in climbing and non-climbing varieties. When grown indoors, they need to be misted regularly and the leaves kept free of dust. Soil should be evenly moist, but allowed to dry between watering.

7. Dwarf Date Palm (Phoenix roebelenii)
A hardy, drought-tolerant and long-lived plant, the Dwarf Date Palm needs a bright spot which is free of drafts. It grows slowly, reaching heights of 8-10'. The Dwarf Date Palm should not be placed near children's play areas because it has sharp needle-like spines arranged near the base of the leaf stem. These can easily penetrate skin and even protective clothing.

8. Ficus Alii (Ficus macleilandii "Alii")
The Ficus Alii grows easily indoors, and resists insects. It prefers a humid environment and low to medium light when grown indoors. The Ficus Aliii should not be placed near heating or air conditioning vents, or near drafts because this could cause leaf loss. Soil should be kept moist but allowed to dry between watering.

9. Boston Fern (Nephrolepis exaltata "Bostoniensis")
The Boston fern grows to 4' in height with a spread up to 5'. It has feathery ferns which are best displayed as a hanging plant. It prefers bright indirect sunlight. Keep the soil barely moist and mist frequently with warm water. This plant is prone to spider mites and whitefly which can be controlled using a soapy water spray. Inspect new plants for bugs before bringing them home.

10. Peace Lily (Spathiphyllum "Mauna Loa")
The Peace Lily is a compact plant which grows to a height of 3' with a 2' spread. This hardy plant tolerates neglect. It prefers indirect sunlight and high humidity, but needs to be placed out of drafts. For best results, the Peace Lily should be thoroughly watered, then allowed to go moderately dry between watering's. The leaves should be misted frequently with warm water.

So here some great ways to ensure your air quality for your home and enjoy the greenery too.

When disaster strikes five keys to your family's survival-

Number 1:
Have plenty of food on hand, the more storage food the better. If you have a garden great, but beyond that storage food is key. Have seeds in your storage supplies as well, being able to grow food in the future is very important for long term sustenance. If the outside environment is unstable for growing food you should have plenty of storage food. There are many food buckets, MRE's, and add water- type foods on the market, choose the one's that fit your family's needs for at least one year's worth of food.

Number 2:
Water is essential for life. It would be smart to have at least 20 gallons of water on hand and rotate for freshness. Water filters are a must as well. If you don't trust a water source that you might be forced to use, having a great water filter will make things a little easier. There are many water filters today on the market to choose from, even ones that filter out radiation and 99.9% of impurities. Research the different filters and the capabilities of them, and then buy a dozen. Being able to melt snow, collect rain, gather water from rivers, streams, or lakes and be able to filter out bad bacteria and metals is very important.

Number 3:
Security for your household or farm and the ability to keep people off your land is important if looting for food and weapons become reality. For a relatively low cost you can outfit your property with infrared security cameras and motion sensors. Knowing if and when people might trespass on your land you will have video of them. There are many other primitive ways to keep people off your land but I will let you decide which ways suit you best.. Fences, heavy duty locks, surveillance, and firearms are just a few ways to keep out intruders. In all out chaos, food will be the biggest commodity for bandits. If you have storage food, and emergency supplies you will want to keep them under lock and key in a cool dry place. All the people who didn't prepare will turn against you if you have the means to stay alive and don't share. Protecting your loved one's food supply and lives is one of the most important keys to survival.

Number 4:
Communication with outside world if power grid or cell towers and satellites go down is important to know what's going on out beyond your land. Hamm radios, handheld uhf radios, crank powered AM-FM radios, and any device that doesn't depend on internet, cell towers, and new technology. Sometimes the more archaic the device the more dependable it is. You will want to know what's happening in the outside world to be completely forewarned and prepared if things get really bad.

Number 5:
Electricity is mostly thought of as always there and sometimes taken for granted. Having no power can be a detriment if not prepared for it. There are gas generators that will eventually run out of gas, propane generators are nice if you have plenty of propane, but if you don't have all that you can purchase a solar generator for the same cost as most good gas generators. Wind turbines to store power are cheaper than you might think, and are a good way to create off grid power. There are some things that will require power if it all goes down and you will want to have the ability to run a few things.

I hope everyone takes the time to take these things seriously and not rely on the garbage fed to us that is designed to keep us tame, blind, and dependent on them (the system). The more self-sufficient you can become the less you will have to rely on the infrastructure. Be prepared and informed and you too can become fully protected and prepared for any event that might come our way.
These items can all be found on my site, as well as other things that are useful in event of an emergency situation. We don't know how bad it could get; watching the news from around the world and investigating for myself on the internet has led me to believe good times are not ahead of us. There is just way too much evil, corruption, and greed. A select few are trying to take every one of our civil liberties away and we need to be prepared for any situation. Hoping for the best.. but being prepared for the worst.
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Government admits failure of 'new' farmers
HARARE - Black farmers must use stolen white farms properly as the government was tired of "begging for food" said President Robert Mugabe at Heroes Day celebrations - admitting for the first time a link between his controversial land reforms and widespread food shortages.
"If farming is not in your blood, switch to what you are good at. We want those with land to use it. We don't want to keep begging for food," said the aging dictator.

Zimbabwe has grappled severe food shortages since Mugabe began seizing land from whites six years ago under the guise of redistribution to landless backs in what he said was a mission to correct a colonial and unfair land tenure system.
But most of the farms seized from whites remain idle because new black owners, most of them senior officials the ruling party, have failed to utilize them for commercial farming.

The failure by government to support resettled black peasants with inputs and skills training has also contributed to food output dropping by about 60 percent since the farm seizures began.
Mugabe threatened to take land back from those who weren't using it properly.

Farm workers admit defeat
BULAWAYO - Farm workers have abandoned work fearing arrest and prosecution for continuing to till the land at white-owned farms being targeted by Zanu (PF) officials and sympathizers. Heavy weights have targeted the workers on white-owned farms, many of whom have required hospital treatment for their injuries)

A report by the Commercial Framers Union (CFU) said that thousands of farm workers had become targets of Zanu (PF) officials, in a bid to intimidate them from continuing to work at the last remaining white owned commercial farms.
"Farm employees are under constant threat and, when the farmer is not present, the attorney general's office (AG's) frequently targets the employees. A significant number have been prosecuted and even imprisoned, resulting in their being unable to produce desperately needed food for a food-insecure nation heavily dependent for the last decade on food aid," Deon Theron, the CFU president wrote in a report detaining the continued disturbances on white-owned farms.

Farm grabs by Zanu (PF) officials and army officers continue despite the formation of a unity government that has called for a stop to farm disturbances. A SADC tribunal outlawing the land grabs has largely been ignored.

According to Theron, the current increased onslaught against CFU members and employees will have a huge catastrophic effect on "the ability of the nation to feed itself in the 2009/2010 season." About 150 white commercial farmers face prosecution for contesting moves to grab their farms. The chaotic land reform which began in 2000 is blamed for the yearly food shortages, a charge that President Robert Mugabe denies.

Three million Zimbabweans urgently need food relief
JOHANNESBURG:

AT least three million Zimbabweans are starving and desperately need food relief, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) announced yesterday (Sunday) in Johannesburg.
Following eight years of under utilization of the white owned commercial farms, which were forcibly taken from them by Zimbabwe's former freedom fighters, MDC is today appealing for the international community, including the United Nations (UN), Red Cross and the World Food Program (WFP) to intensif

JOHANNESBURG:
AT least three million Zimbabweans are starving and desperately need food relief, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) announced yesterday (Sunday) in Johannesburg.
Following eight years of under utilization of the white owned commercial farms, which were forcibly taken from them by Zimbabwe's former freedom fighters, MDC is today appealing for the international community, including the United Nations (UN), Red Cross and the World Food Program (WFP) to intensif.

Millions of Zimbabweans have been reduced to groveling for food
As the Zanu (PF) fat cats cling to multiple stolen farms, millions of Zimbabweans have been reduced to grovelling for food.

More farms seized, Government ignores treaties,

HARARE - Zimbabwe will expropriate more farms that are protected under bilateral investment promotion and protection agreements (BIPPA) signed with other countries for redistribution to landless blacks, according to Land
Reform Minister Didymus Mutasa.

Mutasa, who was speaking last week at a coordinating meeting for heads of government departments in the eastern Manicaland province, said some BIPPAs, concluded before Zimbabwe was ostracized from the international community, were hurriedly negotiated and could not be allowed to stand in the way of land reforms.
"We will not stop acquiring the farms because they are under BIPPAs. We will acquire the farms and compensate the owners. I am sure these agreements were made in a hurry," Mutasa said.
He did not say whether the government would pay for actual land as well, only saying that the government would address the "issue of farms under the BIPPAs on a case-by-case basis."

The Harare administration, which has over the past six years seized nearly all land previously owned by the country's about 4 000 white farmers and gave it over to blacks, has in the past maintained it would not pay for the land because white colonial authorities stole it from blacks in the first place.

The government has to date paid compensation to a handful of former white landowners and only for improvements on farms such as buildings, roads and dams.

But a group of Dutch nationals whose farms in Zimbabwe were seized by the government have dragged the Harare administration before the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Paris demanding US$15 million in damages for the loss their properties.
The chaotic and often violent land reform program - that Mugabe says was necessary to ensure blacks also owned some of the best land previously reserved for whites by former colonial governments - is blamed for destabilizing the mainstay agriculture sector and knocking down food production by about 60 percent.

Zimbabwe has largely survived largely on food handouts from international relief agencies since the land reforms began seven years ago.

Soldiers fight hunger

HARARE - The Zimbabwe government has begun deploying hundreds of soldiers on state farms as part of a new Stalinist-style command agriculture drive that President Robert Mugabe says is necessary to boost farm output and end food shortages in the country. Addressing Parliament last week, Mugabe said the new farm exercise, codenamed Operation Food Security, would see selected privately-owned farms required to produce specific quantities of strategic crops such as maize, wheat and tobacco. Zimbabwe army soldiers would also be deployed on farms owned by the state Agricultural and Rural Development Agency (ARDA) to produce food under the plan. Investigations by ZimOnline revealed that the government has since last week been moving soldiers from various army camps to more than 50 ARDA farms around the country. Hundreds of soldiers were seen being transported from the army's 3 Brigade headquarters near Mutare city in Manicaland province to various ARDA farms in the province, which is one of the country's prime agricultural regions. Senior army officers, who spoke on condition that they were not named, said that the movement of soldiers to farms was being carried out countrywide. "Our men will cover farms in Manicaland but the operation is countrywide and each brigade will focus on farms in its zone," said one colonel. At most of the farms where soldiers have moved in, thousands of workers, except managers and those with special skills, have been dismissed to allow the army men to take control of operations. It was not possible to get comment from Defense Minister Sydney Sekeramayi or from Agriculture Minister Joseph Made on the initiative, which agricultural experts have said is certain to fail because soldiers are trained to fight and not to grow crops or milk cows. The experts also say that shortages of fuel and farm inputs that have hampered civilian farmers would also hinder the soldiers, But State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa, who is also in charge of land reform and food aid distribution, defended the use of soldiers to try and revive Zimbabwe's collapsed agricultural sector. "They (the army) have been helping in other government operations. The army has agricultural experts and the manpower and we are sure they will come in handy," Mutasa said. On a visit to ARDA Odzi farm, formerly known as Kondozi farm and one of Zimbabwe's biggest agro-export projects before it was seized by the state last year, our reporters could see soldiers already running operations. Some workers at the farm, that had become near-derelict since being taken over by the state, said they had been told to leave because the soldiers would now be doing all the farm work. "They (soldiers) just sent us home without giving us our pay. They said they were taking over everything at the farm," said Mavis Matongwe, a former worker at ARDA Odzi. She said many of her colleagues had already left the farm for their rural homes or to look for alternative jobs at neighboring farms.

This was reported in the Zimbabwean and it is scary to think of the corruption that is spreading around the world. Farms being seized from hard working people just to have it stolen from you through corrupt people in power changing laws to accomodate thier greed. Sad thing is that it could happen here in the US, it happened in Germany during the World Wars, and it's happening now.

At least 200 farms will be seized from white farmers and handed over to Zanu (PF) supporters, according to a report tabled at the party conference last week.

About 4000 white-owned farms have already been occupied - some violently - by supporters of President Robert Mugabe in the controversial land reform programme.

The remaining land now earmarked for seizure makes up the remaining 10 percent of farms previously owned by white Zimbabweans.

The plan is contained in a Central Commitrtee report tabled at the conference which also states that another 223 white farmers are facing prosecution for failing to vacate their land. The government said nearly 55,000 blacks had received their own commercial plots, while the rest had been allocated space on communal land.

War veterans were guaranteed land if they have not yet been allocated it, the party resolved at its 12th annual national people's conference that ended in Bulawayo on Saturday. The announcement comes amid unconfirmed reports that the majority of farms taken from white owners have been given to high-ranking party officials, rather than redistributed to poor Zimbabweans.

Emergency Homesteader

White House bypasses Senate to ink agreement that could allow Chinese companies to demand ISPs remove web content in US with no legal oversight

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Thursday, January 26, 2012

Months before the debate about Internet censorship raged as SOPA and PIPA dominated the concerns of web users, President Obama signed an international treaty that would allow companies in China or any other country in the world to demand ISPs remove web content in the US with no legal oversight whatsoever.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement was signed by Obama on October 1 2011, yet is currently the subject of a White House petition demanding Senators be forced to ratify the treaty. The White House has circumvented the necessity to have the treaty confirmed by lawmakers by presenting it an as "executive agreement," although legal scholars have highlighted the dubious nature of this characterization.
The hacktivist group Anonymous attacked and took offline the Federal Trade Commission's website yesterday in protest against the treaty, which was also the subject of demonstrations across major cities in Poland, a country set to sign the agreement today.
Under the provisions of ACTA, copyright holders will be granted sweeping direct powers to demand ISPs remove material from the Internet on a whim. Whereas ISPs normally are only forced to remove content after a court order, all legal oversight will be abolished, a precedent that will apply globally, rendering the treaty worse in its potential scope for abuse than SOPA or PIPA.

A country known for its enforcement of harsh Internet censorship policies like China could demand under the treaty that an ISP in the United States remove content or terminate a website on its server altogether. As we have seen from the enforcement of similar copyright policies in the US, websites are sometimes targeted for no justifiable reason.

The groups pushing the treaty also want to empower copyright holders with the ability to demand that users who violate intellectual property rights (with no legal process) have their Internet connections terminated, a punishment that could only ever be properly enforced by the creation of an individual Internet ID card for every web user, a system that is already in the works.

"The same industry rights holder groups that support the creation of ACTA have also called for mandatory network-level filtering by Internet Service Providers and for Internet Service Providers to terminate citizens' Internet connection on repeat allegation of copyright infringement (the "Three Strikes" /Graduated Response) so there is reason to believe that ACTA will seek to increase intermediary liability and require these things of Internet Service Providers," reports the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Poland's support for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, has sparked days of Internet protests by groups who fear it could lead to online censorship. Now several sites plan to go dark in protest. ACTA shares some similarities with the hotly debated Stop Online Piracy Act in the U.S., which was shelved by lawmakers last week.

Several popular Polish Web sites are planning to go dark for an hour Tuesday evening to protest the government's plan to sign an international copyright treaty.

Poland's support for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, has sparked days of Internet protests by groups who fear it could lead to online censorship.

The sites that are protesting are primarily ones that are popular with young people and carry a mix of celebrity news, jokes, funny photographs and other entertaining material.

One site -- http://www.wykop.pl -- said that "under the banner of fighting piracy and concerns about intellectual property, ACTA will limit the rights of each of us."

However, an influential group representing authors and composers -- known by its Polish acronym, ZAIKS -- has thrown its support behind ACTA. ZAIKS argued that ACTA will not hurt Internet freedom but protect the rights of creators. It said that Internet piracy is now robbing artists and the state treasury of hundreds of millions of zlotys (many millions of dollars) in income.

ACTA shares some similarities with the hotly debated Stop Online Piracy Act in the U.S., which was shelved by lawmakers last week after Wikipedia and Google blacked out or partially obscured their Web sites for a day in protest.
In recent days, a group calling itself "Anonymous" attacked Polish government Web sites, leaving several paralyzed on Sunday and Monday. On Tuesday, most appeared to be working again, though the prime minister's site was unreachable. Still, Polish leaders are vowing to stick to plans to sign ACTA in Tokyo on Thursday.

ACTA has been negotiated by a number of industrialized countries that have been struggling for ways to fight counterfeiting and intellectual property theft -- crimes that cause huge losses to the movie and music industries and many other sectors.
The far-reaching agreement would cover everything from counterfeit pharmaceuticals to fake designer handbags to online piracy. The U.S. government calls it "a groundbreaking initiative by key trading partners to strengthen the international legal framework for effectively combating global proliferation of commercial- scale counterfeiting and piracy."

The United States signed ACTA in October in Tokyo along with seven other countries: Australia, Canada, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Morocco and Singapore.

Now it awaits signing by a number of other parties involved in negotiating the agreement, including the European Union, Mexico and Switzerland, according to the Web site of the Office of the United States Trade Representative.

Critics of ACTA accuse the negotiating countries of hammering out the agreement in secret and failing to consult with the broader societies along the way.

In the ashes of SOPA and PIPA (at least in their current form), there is also the hope that a new political force is rising -- one untethered to existing ideologies or the rules of terrestrial politics. In 1996, cyber-libertarian and former Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow issued his stirring A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, writing:

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.
We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.
Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions.
This vision, almost Randian in its purity, had decayed beyond the incremental compromises one expects to happen with time. It had been all but given up for dead, as the role of the State in regulating the "wild west" of the Internet has become an increasingly commonplace assumption even in Western democracies. Yet in recent months, Americans on both the right and left united to stop SOPA and PIPA. They had little else in common, but understood that a free and open Internet is now the basis of everything else -- the indispensable medium through which ideas are communicated and movements organized.

SOPA and PIPA were not about right vs. left. They were about new vs. old. Will the communications technologies of the future be delivered to passive conusmers in static celluloid packages -- the Hollywood way -- or will the consumers become collaborators and take an active role in shaping the content and platforms of the future -- the way of the Internet? It was this shared sense of connection between Internet platforms and their users that allowed sites like Wikipedia to lead, and millions to follow.
For libertarians, there is new hope in the power of a self-organizing and self-regulating Internet to stand up for itself against invasive governments and powerful legacy industries that seek to manage our options as consumers. If the Internet can hold out and become the one area of our society to escape massive regulation -- in the words of Jeff Jarvis, an Eighth Continent where people from America and Iran can to go to interact freely -- it can continue to flourish and serve as a beacon for how the thorny problems of the offline world can be solved -- not through government, but through decentralized startup innovation.

The Stop Online Piracy Act, otherwise known as "SOPA," is losing friends fast, and now it looks like there's a good chance it'll lose the support it needs to make it out of Congress alive, much less the White House.
SOPA and its Senate bill cousin PIPA, the Protect IP Act, have been controversial from the beginning, but a recent round of protests have made them almost toxic. High-profile websites like Reddit and Wikipedia went dark last Wednesday to give visitors a taste of what SOPA and PIPA opponents say the whole Internet could look like if they become law. Smaller sites participated as well, and even Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) put up a black banner and provided links to information, though it still let visitors do their thing.
The bills are backed mainly by large content providers -- movie studios, record labels and other big-time media producers. They're designed to be a way to keep digital piracy in check. For example, under SOPA, if a rights holder has a copyright bone to pick with a foreign website, the rights holder can take steps to shut that site off from several vital channels -- search engines, ad networks, even Internet service providers. That stuff's like food and water to the survival of most sites, so in other words, under SOPA, a rights holder could basically starve the offending site out of existence.
But SOPA's and PIPA's opponents aren't just a bunch of piracy fanatics who can't bear the thought of having to pay a few bucks to see "Iron Man 2" instead of torrenting. A lot of them are actually against piracy. What worries critics about SOPA is what they see as a lack of oversight. They say it makes it way too easy to simply snuff out a supposedly offending site just by writing a strongly worded letter. There's also concern that SOPA would overburden legitimate sites with a huge new set of legal obligations and leave a door open for Internet blacklists that threaten the freedom of expression.
Those opponents have been getting their message through with info campaigns and lawmaker briefings, but Wednesday was the day of the big online protest, and it seems to have had some real results. U.S. lawmakers' websites were reportedly inundated with messages from constituents, Google delivered a 4-million-name petition against SOPA, and several erstwhile SOPA-loving legislators jumped the fence on the issue. The weekend before, President Obama revealed that he doesn't care for SOPA either.
The protests rankled SOPA and PIPA supporters in the movie and music industries. MPAA Chief Chris Dodd released a statement calling the Web blackout "an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today," apparently without a hint of irony. And RIAA spokesperson Jonathan Lamy joked on Twitter about students actually having to do original research with Wikipedia out of commission, though he apparently deleted it soon after.
Just for the record, most serious Wikipedia articles are stuffed with links to cited materials, many of which are well-regarded scientific studies and academic papers. So it can help with research, if you use it right.
Anyway, it's all very democratic and grass-rootsy to see so many websites fly the banner, distribute information, and angle for widespread public opposition to bills most people probably weren't aware were even being considered a few days prior. And if Wednesday's action does prove to be a main factor in SOPA's and PIPA's unraveling, it'll show that a great big protest still can make a difference in the passage of legislation.
But the bills' backers are experienced political wranglers. They know how to get Congress' attention, they know how to lobby, and they know just where to put the money to make sure laws are passed. They won't give up on their goal to stem piracy, and it's a reasonable goal in itself. But in order to ensure that future efforts don't look anything like SOPA or PIPA, perhaps the Web companies that have stood up to the bills will need to start playing Washington from the inside a little harder, just like every other industry with interests to protect.

The mass online blackout protest against the "Stop Online Piracy Act" (SOPA) and the "PROTECT IP Act" (PIPA) is officially over. At this early stage, it's nearly impossible to say whether or not the blackout can be considered a "success," in any empirical terms - that will ultimately be decided by how Congress votes on these bills, and whether the vocal, widespread opposition to these pieces of legislation has any effects on how the entertainment industry pushes to curb piracy in the future. But a quick look at the facts and figures surrounding the January 18 blackout show an unprecedented picture of online activism in the US. Here, a by-the-numbers roundup of the day the Web went black.

75,000: Approximate of websites that participated in the blackout, according to SOPAStrike.com, which helped organize the protest.

25,000: Number of WordPress blogs that completely blacked out their sites to protest the bills

12,500: Number of WordPress blogs that placed the "Stop Censorship" ribbon on their blogs

162 million: Number of people who saw the Wikipedia blackout page

4.5 million: Number of people who signed Google's anti-SOPA petition on Wednesday

1.458 million: Number of people who signed other similar anti-SOPA/PIPA petitions, according to activist websites Avaaz.org and Fight for the Future (FFTF)

35,000: Approximate number of people who sent letters to their senators and representatives as a result of the blackout

2 million: Number of emails sent through the Electronic Frontier Foundation, FFTF and Demand Progress

2.4 million: Number of SOPA/PIPA-related tweets sent out on Wednesday, between 12am and 4pm, according to Twitter

25: Number of senators who publicly opposed PIPA after the blackout went into effect

13: Number of additional senators who are "leaning towards opposition," according to OpenCongress and the numbers are increasing.

33: Total number of senators who currently support PIPA which is currently decreasing.

36: Total number of senators who oppose, or are leaning in opposition of, PIPA which keeps growing

16: Number of senators who remain undecided which is flexuating.

3: Number of representatives who came out against SOPA this week, including Rep. Ben Quayle (R-AZ), Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE) and Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL)

29: Number of representatives who remain on the list of SOPA sponsors and co-sponsors

339: Total number of representatives who remain undecided on SOPA which is also flexuating.

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

More from Digital Trends

http://www.facebook.com/katalystman

Right now, there are two pieces of legislation in Congress that would change the Internet forever if they are enacted. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) would give the federal government the ability to potentially shut down millions of websites. SOPA (the version being considered in the U.S. House of Representatives) is the more dangerous of the two. It would essentially be the equivalent of a nuclear bomb being dropped on the Internet. It would give government officials unlimited power to very rapidly shut down any website that is found to "engage in, enable or facilitate" copyright infringement. That language is very broad and very vague. Many fear that it will be used to shut down any websites that even inadvertently link to "infringing material". Can you imagine a world where there is no more Facebook, Twitter or YouTube? Sites like those would be forced to hire thousands of Internet censors to make sure that no "infringing material" is posted, and many prominent websites may simply decide that allowing users to post content is no longer profitable and is just not worth the hassle. Are you starting to get the picture? That is why we must stop SOPA. If SOPA is enacted, it could be the death of the free Internet.

But this is exactly the kind of bill that the establishment media has been waiting for. It would give them back control. SOPA is being heavily promoted by big media corporations. If they are able to shut down free speech on the Internet, then suddenly everyone would be forced to rely on them for news and entertainment once again.

That is why SOPA and PIPA must be stopped. A recent editorial in the New York Times described how these new laws would work%u2026.

The bills would empower the attorney general to create a blacklist of sites to be blocked by Internet service providers, search engines, payment providers and advertising networks, all without a court hearing or a trial. The House version goes further, allowing private companies to sue service providers for even briefly and unknowingly hosting content that infringes on copyright - a sharp change from current law, which protects the service providers from civil liability if they remove the problematic content immediately upon notification. The intention is not the same as China's Great Firewall, a nationwide system of Web censorship, but the practical effect could be similar.

Everyone would be deathly scared of allowing anything to be posted on their websites in such an environment. Free speech on the Internet would be a thing of the past.

An article on lifehacker.com explained how easy it would be to bring a claim against a website under SOPA%u2026.

If it's possible to post pirated content on the site, or information that could further online piracy, a claim can be brought against it. This can be something as minor as you posting a copyrighted image to your Facebook page, or piracy-friendly information in the comments of a post such as this one. The vague, sweeping language in this bill is what makes it so troubling.

Fortunately, some of the biggest names on the Internet are rallying to defeat SOPA. For example, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt says that he believes that SOPA will actually "criminalize" links%u2026.

"By criminalizing links, what these bills do is they force you to take content off the Internet"

Another huge name, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, is alarmed that SOPA would give the U.S. government the power to censor search results without even having to go through a court trial%u2026.

"Imagine my astonishment when the newest threat to free speech has come from none other but the United States. Two bills currently making their way through congress - SOPA and PIPA - give the U.S. government and copyright holders extraordinary powers including the ability to hijack DNS and censor search results (and this is even without so much as a proper court trial)"

In the United States, we used to believe that the government should not take our property away without a fair trial.

But now SOPA would allow the U.S. government to hit Internet websites with a "death penalty" without even having to go to court.

If SOPA becomes law, the Internet will change dramatically.

If there were no websites where people could post thoughts and ideas, what would the world look like?

Over recent months we have seen how sites like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook can literally change the face of the globe. The following comes from the same New York Times article referenced above%u2026.

YouTube, Twitter and Facebook have played an important role in political movements from Tahrir Square to Zuccotti Park. At present, social networking services are protected by a "safe harbor" provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which grants Web sites immunity from prosecution as long as they act in good faith to take down infringing content as soon as rights-holders point it out to them. The House bill would destroy that immunity, putting the onus on YouTube to vet videos in advance or risk legal action. It would put Twitter in a similar position to that of its Chinese cousin, Weibo, which reportedly employs around 1,000 people to monitor and censor user content and keep the company in good standing with authorities.

Do we really want Chinese-style Internet censorship in America?

Thankfully, the Internet community is fighting back against SOPA really hard.

Initially, GoDaddy.com was publicly supporting SOPA, but a boycott organized on Reddit has hit them really hard. In fact, GoDaddy lost more than 70,000 domains just last week.

All of this pressure forced GoDaddy to renounce its support for SOPA. However, they are not actively opposing the bill at this point.

Congress is in recess right now, so action on SOPA and PIPA is stalled for now. But the battle is far from over.

And the stakes are incredibly high. One blogger recently put it this way%u2026.

"If either the U.S. Senate's Protect IP Act (PIPA) & the U.S. House's Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) become law, political blogs such as Red Mass Group [conservative] & Blue Mass Group [liberal] will cease to exist"

Yes, the free Internet that we all love and enjoy today is under assault.

If we do not stand up now, we may lose it forever.

Every single day, control of the Internet gets tighter and tighter. For example, did you know that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is now watching everything that is said on Facebook and Twitter?

The following comes from a recent Daily Mail article%u2026.

The Department of Homeland Security makes fake Twitter and Facebook profiles for the specific purpose of scanning the networks for 'sensitive' words - and tracking people who use them.

Simply using a word or phrase from the DHS's 'watch' list could mean that spies from the government read your posts, investigate your account, and attempt to identify you from it, acccording to an online privacy group.

But it is one thing for them to watch the Internet.

It is another thing for them to shut down free speech on the Internet entirely.

Please do what you can to save the open and free Internet.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is helping to organize users of the Internet to protest this draconian legislation. The following is from a statement that the EFF recently put out%u2026.

As drafted, the legislation would grant the government and private parties unprecedented power to interfere with the Internet's domain name system (DNS). The government would be able to force ISPs and search engines to redirect or dump users' attempts to reach certain websites' URLs. In response, third parties will woo average users to alternative servers that offer access to the entire Internet (not just the newly censored U.S. version), which will create new computer security vulnerabilities as the reliability and universality of the DNS evaporates.

It gets worse: Under SOPA's provisions, service providers (including hosting services) would be under new pressure to monitor and police their users' activities. While PROTECT-IP targeted sites "dedicated to infringing activities," SOPA targets websites that simply don't do enough to track and police infringement (and it is not at all clear what would be enough). And it creates new powers to shut down folks who provide tools to help users get access to the Internet the rest of the world sees (not just the "U.S. authorized version").

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has created a page that makes it very easy to send a letter about SOPA to your representatives in Congress. You can find it right here.

There is also a website called "Stop American Censorship" that has even more ways to let the federal government know that you do not want SOPA to pass. You can find that site right here.

We must stop SOPA. The Internet has made it possible for average people all over the world to communicate with one another on a grand scale, and this is a direct threat to the establishment and the big media corporations that they control. They are going to try again and again to take back control over the flow of information. We must not allow them to succeed.

Please share this article with as many people as you can, and please do what you can to help defeat SOPA.