A Ray of Hope?

This article just came to my attention. If this new technology is workable and it does not get legislated out of existence or taxed beyond all reality, perhaps there is really a chance we can start to move away from Fossil fuels. Read on:

A UK company recently revealed the results of a top secret project it's been working on for the past four years: a synthetic fuel that could cause gas prices to plunge to $1.50 per gallon.

Developed at the prestigious Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford, Cella Energy CEO Stephen Voller claims that his company's hydrogen-based fuel produces no carbon emissions when burned, and could be the first step toward a transportation market that's unaffected by unstable oil prices.

"We have developed new micro-beads that can be used in an existing gasoline or petrol vehicle to replace oil-based fuels," Voller told Gizmag. "Early indications are that the micro-beads can be used in existing vehicles without engine modification."

If Cella Energy is able to produce this gas alternative on a commercial scale, it could be the missing link millions have been waiting for to help ease the pain of transition away from a fossil fuel-based economy.

Hydrogen, which produces only pure water when burned, is considered an ideal solution to cutting carbon emissions from petrol, which are estimated to cause 25 per cent of all carbon release. Until now, attempts to store it have not been consumer friendly so this has not been a viable option.

Currently "the only way to pack it [hydrogen] into a vehicle is to use very high pressures or very low temperatures, both of which are expensive to do. Our new hydrogen storage materials offer real potential for running cars, planes and other vehicles that currently use hydrocarbons on hydrogen, with little extra cost and no extra inconvenience to the driver", said Professor Stephen Bennington, lead scientist on the project for the UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council.

Copied from: Care2.com

The Truth is Finally coming to the front

Well the truth is finally starting to come to the forefront. Not because main stream media WANTS to report on these issues.....it's because the problems are becoming so big and obvious that they HAVE to say something!This article was copied in full from PrisonPlanet.com

8 Conspiracy Theories About Health That The Mainstream Media Has Been Forced To Admit Are Actually True

The American Dream
Jan 11, 2011

Who knows more about health – the mainstream media or those that believe in “conspiracy theories”? Well, the truth is that time after time after time those in the “alternative media” and those who believe in “conspiracy theories” have been proven to be far ahead of those in the mainstream media when it comes to matters of health. Sadly, the mainstream media receives so much funding and so many advertising dollars from the pharmaceutical industry, the medical industry, the big chemical companies and the health insurance industry that they are extremely cautious to report any information that would be harmful to any of them. So for years, the mainstream media generally refused to talk about the dangers posed by things such as fluoride, aspartame, prescription drugs, genetically modified crops and cell phones. But now the alternative media has been making so much noise about many of these health issues for so long that the mainstream media has been forced to acknowledge that some of these “conspiracy theories” about health are actually true.

Not that the mainstream media is all of a sudden turning their backs on the financial giants that are pumping billions of dollars into them. But the truth is that we are starting to see just a little bit more honest reporting about health issues from the mainstream media these days.

The following are 8 conspiracy theories about health that the mainstream media has been forced to admit are actually true….

#1 High Levels Of Fluoride In Our Drinking Water Is Bad – Amazingly, the U.S. federal government has now come out and is lowering the “recommended amount” of fluoride in our drinking water for the first time in 50 years. Of course it would be great if they just banned fluoride in our drinking water altogether, but for the government to even admit that high levels of fluoride could be a problem is a huge step. In a recent article on CNN, it was reported that the federal government is now saying that high levels of fluoride in the water has now officially been linked with fluorosis….

The Department of Health and Human Services and Environmental Protection Agency are proposing the change because of an increase in fluorosis — a condition that causes spotting and streaking on children’s teeth.

#2 Once We Allowed Genetically Modified Crops To Be Used They Would Spread Everywhere – For years, many of us have been trying to warn people that genetically modified crops are incredibly dangerous. Now, a very prominent newspaper in the UK is admitting that a very specific insecticide that is grown inside of genetically modified corn is rapidly getting into the water of the surrounding environment….

The insecticide is the product of a bacterial gene inserted into GM maize and other cereal crops to protect them against insects such as the European corn borer beetle. Scientists have detected the insecticide in a significant number of streams draining the great corn belt of the American mid-West.

#3 There Are Pharmaceutical Drugs And Cancer Causing Chemicals In Our Drinking Water – Over the past couple of years, the mainstream media has actually begun reporting on all of the nasty things that are now showing up in our water. For example, do you remember a highly carcinogenic chemical known as “hexavalent chromium” that was made famous by the movie Erin Brockovich? Well, just a few weeks ago the Washington Post reported that high levels of it has been found in the drinking water of 31 U.S. cities….

An environmental group that analyzed the drinking water in 35 cities across the United States, including Bethesda and Washington, found that most contained hexavalent chromium, a probable carcinogen that was made famous by the film “Erin Brockovich.”

But not only is there hexavalent chromium in our drinking water, the truth is that there are thousands of other chemicals and prescription drugs in our water supply as a Time Magazine article from a few months ago described….

All told, there are about 3,000 prescription pharmaceuticals in use in the U.S. and thousands more over-the-counter drugs, not to mention creams and ointments we smear on and then shower off. “Between cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and other sources,” says John Spatz, commissioner of Chicago’s department of water management, “there are 80,000 potential combinations of chemicals.” It’s impossible to keep our drinking supply safe from a gusher like that.

#4 Cell Phones Are Linked To Cancer – The mainstream media is not quite ready to come out and openly declare that cell phones cause cancer, but at least now they are beginning to report on the results of some very disturbing studies that seem to suggest a link between the two. For example, just consider the following sentence from one recent CNN article….

At the highest exposure levels — using a mobile phone half an hour a day over a 10-year period — the study found a 40 percent increased risk of glioma brain tumors.

#5 Bisphenol -A (BPA) Is Linked To Male Infertility – For years, many “conspiracy theorists” have been yelling and screaming that a chemical known as bisphenol-A that is found in thousands of plastic products is actually really, really bad for us. Well, now some in the mainstream media are starting to jump on board. Back in October, one of the largest UK newspapers published an article entitled “Bisphenol-A now linked to male infertility” which made the following unequivocal statement about the dangers of BPA….

Bisphenol-A (BPA), known as the “gender bending” chemical because of its connection to male impotence, has now been shown to decrease sperm mobility and quality.

#6 Prescription Drugs Kill Large Numbers Of Americans Every Single Year – For years, alternative health practitioners and “conspiracy theorists” have been asserting that bad reactions to prescription drugs are one of the leading causes of death in the United States. Well, the mainstream media is starting to catch up. A recent Vanity Fair article entitled “Deadly Medicine” began with the following statement….

Prescription drugs kill some 200,000 Americans every year. Will that number go up, now that most clinical trials are conducted overseas—on sick Russians, homeless Poles, and slum-dwelling Chinese—in places where regulation is virtually nonexistent, the F.D.A. doesn’t reach, and “mistakes” can end up in pauper’s graves?

#7 Aspartame Is Not Good For Our Health – Many mainstream news outlets are beginning to wake up to the fact that the artificial sweetener aspartame may not actually be healthy for us. This past summer, the Huffington Post (which is usually very “mainstream”) allowed Dr. Joseph Mercola to author an article about aspartame that began with the following absolutely stunning paragraph….

Aspartame is the most controversial food additive in history, and its approval for use in food was the most contested in FDA history. In the end, the artificial sweetener was approved, not on scientific grounds, but rather because of strong political and financial pressure. After all, aspartame was previously listed by the Pentagon as a biochemical warfare agent!

#8 Many Among The Global Elite (Such As Ted Turner) Want To Institute A Global One-Child Policy And Want To Reduce The World Population For The Good Of The Environment – Many Americans have a really, really hard time believing that some of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the world actually want to institute a global one-child policy and are obsessed with reducing the population of the earth. But sadly, as I have written about previously, this is very, very real. The following is how one major Canadian newspaper summarized public remarks that Ted Turner recently made about the global population….

Mr. Turner – a long-time advocate of population control – said the environmental stress on the Earth requires radical solutions, suggesting countries should follow China’s lead in instituting a one-child policy to reduce global population over time. He added that fertility rights could be sold so that poor people could profit from their decision not to reproduce.

Sadly, on other health issues the mainstream media continues to push the establishment agenda very strongly. For example, the mainstream media is absolutely rabid about defending the safety of vaccines.

But hopefully as the alternative media continues to tell the truth about these various health issues it will cause the American public to demand more balanced reporting from the mainstream media.

After all, it is only the health of millions upon millions of Americans that is at stake. When it comes to matters of life and death, you would think that it would not be too much to ask for a little honest reporting.

New for 2011...., How did we get here?

Here is an very INTERESTING FACT:

Evolution has no intelligence. It is totally dumb. It does not evaluate, plan, organize or have the ability to intentionally change something based on information of any sort. For evolution to create a sophisticated program powerful enough to run a human being is absolutely astounding for intelligent scientists to even consider it. It is absolutely impossible aside from God.

"To produce DNA, it requires over 75 different types of proteins. Yet DNA is essential for creating proteins." A Question of Origins video Did you see that!!! Proteins are required to make DNA and DNA is required to make proteins. Both extremely complicated systems are necessary at the same time and must be fully functioning in order to create the other.

DNA is like the information on a CD-ROM. Proteins are like the plastic CD-ROM. RNA is like the CD-ROM drive. In order for DNA to evolve and be useful it requires the DNA (complex information), several proteins (Plastic CD-ROM) and the RNA (the CD-ROM drive) for this program to have a chance to work. However, neither DNA, RNA or Protein would evolve by natural selection because they require the existence of the other systems. Evolution is hopelessly inadequate for producing DNA, not to mention the absolutely astounding complexity of a single cell.

So....the question remains....How did we get here??

An overall look at the state of things

Here is a movie you should watch. This is a clip from the movie "Hijacking Humanity"
I know you don't want to see or believe that what is contained in this could ever be real, but that will not change the facts, only how you will respond as more and more of your money, property and freedom are taken from you. A link is provided if you want to watch the entire movie here
Hijacking Humanity



How about our youth? Erica Goldson in her Valedictorian address speaks out about a system she feels is broken, our educational system which is supposed to be the underpinnings of our society in America.



And how about some insight from someone who is as well known for his comedy as he is for his political opinions. A groundbreaking style and wit that we laughed at for years, but he is serious about what he sees and he wants you to know....take a look

Start the New Year with New Understanding

This is a different kind of posting for me because I am posting multiple videos in one post. I feel it is important to sometimes connect the dots to give a clearer picture of what things are going on under the radar (pardon the pun, you will understand that later)

The world we live in is a world of energy. It's all around us as people like Nikola Tesla tried to tell us. He envisioned a world of limitless and wireless power drawn from our natural surroundings. He also saw the dark side of how his knowledge could be used if it fell in the wrong hands.....Military hands....to be used against people instead of for them. One avenue of his thinking was that all energy were wave forms of differing length and could be utilized for everything.....from an unlimited source of energy to, lifting and moving extreme weights (think pyramids and Coral Castle) and there is a growing body of evidence that these principles can also be utilized for more sinister reasons such as weather control, mind control and even as far as creating earthquakes. There are events that just don't have explanations that are really plausible unless you include the possibility of these things being real.

These are 3 documentaries dealing with how you might be being manipulated without your knowledge.



Now onto the newest technologies



And how about some "old" technology



None of this is intended to scare you .... it's intended to awaken you....open your mind....see if this all resonates with you that it is in fact possible.....and then after more research.....maybe even probable.

Let's learn how to re-create our world

Here is a video I think is a very important look at who we may really be and how to take back our Self. The answers have always been inside......if you can understand the information in this video, you may awaken just enough to understand what you can personally do to help the situation we find ourselves in.

Changes are coming

I want to state for the record that these issues were not created by Obama.....(but the picture IS funny) it is the culmination of 60 years of bad governance. It is not the fault of only one party or the other.....it is a systemic problem.....the system has been corrupted by big business and "special interest groups" (which is another name for big business) and the millions of dollars they add to the coffers of EVERY SENATOR AND CONGRESSMAN in Washington. There is NO ONE they cannot influence in some way with the money or "things" they are willing to provide.

This article was sent to me by a friend. It's a chilling reminder of what is taking place right here in YOURtown USA. Read it, understand it, react to it in some positive form.....get your legislators on board with a new way of doing business before it's too late for all but the richest of us.

CHANGES ARE COMING
PLEASE READ ALL OF THIS AND LEARN HOW OUR AMERICA IS CHANGING!

IT DOES NOT MATTER IF YOU ARE A DEMOCRAT OR A REPUBLICAN - THIS IS SAD FOR EVERYONE!

The commentary below is more than noteworthy. The implications of the things herein detailed, which are already underway, are eroding the foundation of our identities as individuals. Our physical and economic freedoms and liberties; and, the very continuation of our ability to sustain our rights to life liberty and property, hence pursuit of freedom and our way of life. All move in the direction of turning our existence and daily function over to "the Political Class". The attached document is proposed as an antidote. It is at least a beginning to restoring our Constitutional Republic and snatching control from the jaws of progressive liberalism, socialism, communism aka, statism. Read the commentary below first, then the attachment. CHANGES ARE COMING ---- Whether these changes are good or bad depends in part on how we adapt to them. But, ready or not, here they come 1. The Post Office. Get ready to imagine a world without the post office. They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it long term. Email, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum revenue needed to keep the post office alive. Most of your mail every day is junk mail and bills. 2. The Check. Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away with checks by 2018. It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process checks. Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the eventual demise of the check. This plays right into the death of the post office. If you never paid your bills by mail and never received them by mail, the post office would absolutely go out of business. 3. The Newspaper. The younger generation simply doesn't read the newspaper. They certainly don't subscribe to a daily delivered print edition. That may go the way of the milkman and the laundry man. As for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it. The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance. They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the major cell phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services. 4. The Book. You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages. I said the same thing about downloading music fromiTunes. I wanted my hard copy CD. But I quickly changed my mind when I discovered that I could get albums for half the price without ever leaving home to get the latest music. The same thing will happen with books. You can browse a bookstore online and even read a preview chapter before you buy. And the price is less than half that of a real book. And think of the convenience! Once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story, can't wait to see what happens next, and you forget that you're holding a gadget instead of a book. 5. The Land Line Telephone. Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local calls, you don't need it anymore. Most people keep it simply because they've always had it. But you are paying double charges for that extra service. All the cell phone companies will let you call customers using the same cell provider for no charge against your minutes. 6. Music. This is one of the saddest parts of the change story. The music industry is dying a slow death. Not just because of illegal downloading. It's the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it. Greed and corruption is the problem. The record labels and the radio conglomerates are simply self-destructing. Over 40% of the music purchased today is "catalog items," meaning traditional music that the public is familiar with. Older established artists. This is also true on the live concert circuit. To explore this fascinating and disturbing topic further, check out the book, "Appetite for Self-Destruction" by Steve Knopper, and the video documentary, "Before the Music Dies." 7. Television. Revenues to the networks are down dramatically. Not just because of the economy. People are watching TV and movies streamed from their computers. And they're playing games and doing lots of other things that take up the time that used to be spent watching TV. Prime time shows have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator. Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30 seconds. I say good riddance to most of it. It's time for the cable companies to be put out of our misery. Let the people choose what they want to watch online and through Netflix. 8. The "Things" That You Own. Many of the very possessions that we used to own are still in our lives, but we may not actually own them in the future. They may simply reside in "the cloud." Today your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies, and documents. Your software is on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be. But all of that is changing. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their latest "cloud services." That means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system. So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS will be tied straight into the Internet. If you click an icon, it will open something in the Internet cloud. If you save something, it will be saved to the cloud. And you may pay a monthly subscription fee to the cloud provider. In this virtual world, you can access your music or your books, or your whatever from any laptop or handheld device. That's the good news. But, will you actually own any of this "stuff" or will it all be able to disappear at any moment in a big "Poof?" Will most of the things in our lives be disposable and whimsical? It makes you want to run to the closet and pull out that photo album, grab a book from the shelf, or open up a CD case and pull out the insert. 9. Privacy. If there ever was a concept that we can look back on nostalgically, it would be privacy. That's gone. It's been gone for a long time anyway. There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, and even built into your computer and cell phone. But you can be sure that 24/7, "They" know who you are and where you are, right down to the GPS coordinates, and the Google Street View. If you buy something, your habit is put into a zillion profiles, and your ads will change to reflect those habits. And "They" will try to get you to buy something else. Again and again. All we will have that can't be changed are Memories. 19 Facts About The Deindustrialization Of America That Will Blow Your Mind The United States is rapidly becoming the very first "post-industrial" nation on the globe. All great economic empires eventually become fat and lazy and squander the great wealth that their forefathers have left them, but the pace at which America is accomplishing this is absolutely amazing. It was America that was at the forefront of the industrial revolution. It was America that showed the world how to mass produce everything from automobiles to televisions to airplanes. It was the great American manufacturing base that crushed Germany and Japan in World War II. But now we are witnessing the deindustrialization of America . Tens of thousands of factories have left the United States in the past decade alone. Millions upon millions of manufacturing jobs have been lost in the same time period. The United States has become a nation that consumes everything in sight and yet produces increasingly little. Do you know what our biggest export is today? Waste paper. Yes, trash is the number one thing that we ship out to the rest of the world as we voraciously blow our money on whatever the rest of the world wants to sell to us. The United States has become bloated and spoiled and our economy is now just a shadow of what it once was. Once upon a time America could literally out produce the rest of the world combined. Today that is no longer true, but Americans sure do consume more than anyone else in the world. If the deindustrialization of America continues at this current pace, what possible kind of a future are we going to be leaving to our children? Any great nation throughout history has been great at making things. So if the United States continues to allow its manufacturing base to erode at a staggering pace how in the world can the U.S. continue to consider itself to be a great nation? We have created the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world in an effort to maintain a very high standard of living, but the current state of affairs is not anywhere close to sustainable. Every single month America goes into more debt and every single month America gets poorer. So what happens when the debt bubble pops? The deindustrialization of the United States should be a top concern for every man, woman and child in the country. But sadly, most Americans do not have any idea what is going on around them . For people like that, take this article and print it out and hand it to them. Perhaps what they will read below will shock them badly enough to awaken them from their slumber. The following are 19 facts about the deindustrialization of America that will blow your mind.... #1 The United States has lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001. About 75 percent of those factories employed over 500 people when they were still in operation. #2 Dell Inc., one of America ’s largest manufacturers of computers, has announced plans to dramatically expand its operations in China with an investment of over $100 billion over the next decade. #3 Dell has announced that it will be closing its last large U.S. manufacturing facility in Winston-Salem , North Carolina in November. Approximately 900 jobs will be lost. #4 In 2008, 1.2 billion cell phones were sold worldwide. So how many of them were manufactured inside the United States ? Zero. #5 According to a new study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, if the U.S. trade deficit with China continues to increase at its current rate, the U.S. economy will lose over half a million jobs this year alone. #6 As of the end of July, the U.S. trade deficit with China had risen 18 percent compared to the same time period a year ago. #7 The United States has lost a total of about 5.5 million manufacturing jobs since October 2000. #8 According to Tax Notes, between 1999 and 2008 employment at the foreign affiliates of U.S. parent companies increased an astounding 30 percent to 10.1 million. During that exact same time period, U.S. employment at American multinational corporations declined 8 percent to 21.1 million. #9 In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of U.S. economic output. In 2008, it represented 11.5 percent. #10 Ford Motor Company recently announced the closure of a factory that produces the Ford Ranger in St. Paul , Minnesota . Approximately 750 good paying middle class jobs are going to be lost because making Ford Rangers in Minnesota does not fit in with Ford's new "global" manufacturing strategy. #11 As of the end of 2009, less than 12 million Americans worked in manufacturing. The last time less than 12 million Americans were employed in manufacturing was in 1941. #12 In the United States today, consumption accounts for 70 percent of GDP. Of this 70 percent, over half is spent on services. #13 The United States has lost a whopping 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000. #14 In 2001, the United States ranked fourth in the world in per capita broadband Internet use. Today it ranks 15th. #15 Manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry is actually lower in 2010 than it was in 1975. #16 Printed circuit boards are used in tens of thousands of different products. Asia now produces 84 percent of them worldwide. #17 The United States spends approximately $3.90 on Chinese goods for every $1 that the Chinese spend on goods from the United States . #18 One prominent economist is projecting that the Chinese economy will be three times larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2040. #19 The U.S. Census Bureau says that 43.6 million Americans are now living in poverty and according to them that is the highest number of poor Americans in the 51 years that records have been kept. So how many tens of thousands more factories do we need to lose before we do something about it? How many millions more Americans are going to become unemployed before we all admit that we have a very, very serious problem on our hands? How many more trillions of dollars are going to leave the country before we realize that we are losing wealth at a pace that is killing our economy? How many once great manufacturing cities are going to become rotting war zones like Detroit before we understand that we are committing national economic suicide?

Any suprize that your Government and Media would keep this information from you?

I copied this article in full

by Steve Kubby, Sierra Times
November 10th, 2003

A new study published in Nature Reviews-Cancer provides an historic and detailed explanation about how THC and natural cannabinoids counteract cancer, but preserve normal cells.

The study by Manuel Guzmán of Madrid Spain found that cannabinoids, the active components of marijuana, inhibit tumor growth in laboratory animals. They do so by modulating key cell-signalling pathways, thereby inducing direct growth arrest and death of tumor cells, as well as by inhibiting the growth of blood vessels that supply the tumor.

The Guzman study is very important according to Dr. Ethan Russo , a neurologist and world authority on medical cannabis: “Cancer occurs because cells become immortalized; they fail to heed normal signals to turn off growth. A normal function of remodelling in the body requires that cells die on cue. This is called apoptosis, or programmed cell death. That process fails to work in tumors. THC promotes its reappearance so that gliomas, leukemias, melanomas and other cell types will in fact heed the signals, stop dividing, and die.”

“But, that is not all,” explains Dr. Russo: “The other way that tumors grow is by ensuring that they are nourished: they send out signals to promote angiogenesis, the growth of new blood vessels. Cannabinoids turn off these signals as well. It is truly incredible, and elegant.”

In other words, this article explains several ways in which cannabinoids might be used to fight cancer, and, as the article says, “Cannabinoids are usually well tolerated, and do not produce the generalized toxic effects of conventional chemotherapies.

Usually, any story that even suggests the possibility of a new treatment for cancer is greeted with headlines about a “cancer cure” – however remote in the future and improbable in fact it might be. But if marijuana is involved, don’t expect any coverage from mainstream media, especially since mainstream editors have been quietly killing this story for the past thirty years…

That’s right, news about the abilility of pot to shrink tumors first surfaced, way back in 1974. Researchers at the Medical College of Virginia, who had been funded by the National Institutes of Health to find evidence that marijuana damages the immune system, found instead that THC slowed the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice — lung and breast cancer, and a virus-induced leukemia.

The Washington Post reported on the 1974 study — in the “Local” section — on Aug. 18, 1974. Under the headline, “Cancer Curb Is Studied,” it read in part: “The active chemical agent in marijuana curbs the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice and may also suppress the immunity reaction that causes rejection of organ transplants, a Medical College of Virginia team has discovered.” The researchers “found that THC slowed the growth of lung cancers, breast cancers, and a virus-induced leukemia in laboratory mice, and prolonged their lives by as much as 36 percent.”

“News coverage of the Madrid discovery has been virtually nonexistent in this country. The news broke quietly on Feb. 29, 2000 with a story that ran once on the UPI wire about the Nature Medicine article,” complained MarijuanaNews.com editor Richard Cowan , who said he was only able to find the article through a link that appeared briefly on the Drudge Report Web page. “The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times all ignored the story, even though its newsworthiness is indisputable: a benign substance occurring in nature destroys deadly brain tumors,” added Cowan.

On March 29, 2001, the San Antonio Current printed a carefully researched, bombshell of a story by Raymond Cushing titled, “POT SHRINKS TUMORS; GOVERNMENT KNEW IN ‘74.” Media coverage since then has been nonexistant, except for a copy of the story on Alternet.

It is hard to believe that the knowledge that cannabis can be used to fight cancer has been suppressed for almost thirty years , yet it seems likely that it will continue to be suppressed. Why?

According to Cowan, the answer is because it is a threat to cannabis prohibition . “If this article and its predecessors from 2000 and 1974 were the only evidence of the suppression of medical cannabis, then one might perhaps be able to rationalize it in some herniated way. However, there really is massive proof that the suppression of medical cannabis represents the greatest failure of the institutions of a free society, medicine, journalism, science, and our fundamental values,” Cowan notes.

Millions of people have died horrible deaths and in many cases, familes exhausted their savings on dangerous, toxic and expensive drugs. Now we are just beginning to realize that while marijuana has never killed anyone, marijuana prohibition has killed millions.

Oh this is VERY real

The Capitalist Conspiracy was produced in 1969

"The past record of man is burdened with accounts of assassinations, secret combines, palace plots, and betrayals in war. The tenet of conspiracy has been a dominant force in all history. But in spite of this clear record, an amazing number of people have begun to scoff at the possibility of conspiracy at work today."

This video reminds us that our PAST was riddled with conspiracies and back room deals and there is no evidence that these practices have stopped in the present day world.( just follow the money) When you listen you will also hear reference to a book that was written in 1912 ( Philip Dru - Administrator) that outlines all the policies and directives to get the federal banking system up and running here in the US and how the international banking cartel have control all major world events before and after the world wars. Do you really think the US is above corruption.....or is this just what they WANT you to believe?

DO NOT MISS SEEING THIS

Concerning Genetically Engineered Food

I have chosen to put a link to this article about the risks of GE (Genetically Engineered Foods) instead of paraphrasing what has been said. I feel this is a very important topic at this time and in relation to the article I posted just prior to this about Senate Bill S510.

UPDATE : Senate Bill s510 was signed into law the beginning of January with almost NOTHING mentioned in the media about it....except that a law to safeguard food was signed!

This is a bill being backed by Monsanto and big agriculture because in the end it will turn over all food production to ONLY big business. The full ramification of GE will be felt once people realize that by genetically engineering a plant.....the new strain of that plant can now be patented which means you will NOT be able to use and seeds from that plant without approval of the company that owns the patent. Just think about it....all food supplies controlled by a government......that means you will not be able to even grow enough food for your own survival without someones approval!

Please read this following article.....and then write your Senator and tell them NO on S510

Anup Shah, Genetically Engineered Food, Global Issues, Updated: September 26, 2002

OK Here goes the government trying to take over control of all the possible food resources

Sorry about posting this entire article here but I feel it is important enough that not only we in the US should be worried but all people should be aware of what they are trying to do with your food supply.

(NaturalNews) Senate Bill 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, has been called "the most dangerous bill in the history of the United States of America." It would grant the U.S. government new authority over the public's right to grow, trade and transport any foods. This would give Big brother the power to regulate the tomato plants in your backyard. It would grant them the power to arrest and imprison people selling cucumbers at farmer's markets. It would criminalize the transporting of organic produce if you don't comply with the authoritarian rules of the federal government.

"It will become the most offensive authority against the cultivation, trade and consumption of food and agricultural products of one's choice. It will be unconstitutional and contrary to natural law or, if you like, the will of God." - Dr. Shiv Chopra, Canada Health whistleblower (http://shivchopra.com/?page_id=2)

This tyrannical law puts all food production (yes, even food produced in your own garden) under the authority of the Department of Homeland Security. Yep -- the very same people running the TSA and its naked body scanner / passenger groping programs.

This law would also give the U.S. government the power to arrest any backyard food producer as a felon (a "smuggler") for merely growing lettuce and selling it at a local farmer's market.

It also sells out U.S. sovereignty over our own food supply by ceding to the authority of both the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Codex Alimentarius.

It would criminalize seed saving seeds turning backyard gardeners who save heirloom seeds into common criminals. This is obviously designed to give corporations like Monsanto a monopoly over seeds.

It would create an unreasonable paperwork burden that would put small food producers out of business, resulting in more power over the food supply shifting to large multinational corporations.

I encourage you to read more about this dangerous bill at the Food Freedom blog on Wordpress: Read more

Watch this excellent video on NaturalNews.TV which explains S.510 in more detail:
Video
Take action now or lose your right to grow your own food
Sign this petition at Citizens for Health:
Petition

Do you think that the 9/11 commission was correct?

I know it's really a hard pill to swallow, but I have maintained from the beginning of this horrible and tragic event that our own government was at the center of all of this.......not possible you say? Our own government would not do this to it's own people......those that believe our governments account are like lambs to the slaughter. Read on and then see what you think.......


9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey said that “There are ample reasons to suspect that there may be some alternative to what we outlined in our version . . . We didn’t have access . . . .” He also said that the investigation depended too heavily on the accounts of Al Qaeda detainees who were physically coerced into talking

• And the Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission (John Farmer) – who led the 9/11 staff’s inquiry – recently said “At some level of the government, at some point in time…there was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happened”. He also said “I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described …. The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years…. This is not spin. This is not true.” And he said: “It’s almost a culture of concealment, for lack of a better word. There were interviews made at the FAA’s New York center the night of 9/11 and those tapes were destroyed. The CIA tapes of the interrogations were destroyed. The story of 9/11 itself, to put it mildly, was distorted and was completely different from the way things happened”

If even the 9/11 Commissioners don’t buy the official story, why do you?

More Big Brother...Your rights don't exist anymore

This is from the Times

Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn't violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway — and no reasonable expectation that the government isn't tracking your movements.

That is the bizarre — and scary — rule that now applies in California and eight other Western states. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers this vast jurisdiction, recently decided the government can monitor you in this way virtually anytime it wants — with no need for a search warrant. (See a TIME photoessay on Cannabis Culture.)

It is a dangerous decision — one that, as the dissenting judges warned, could turn America into the sort of totalitarian state imagined by George Orwell. It is particularly offensive because the judges added insult to injury with some shocking class bias: the little personal privacy that still exists, the court suggested, should belong mainly to the rich.

This case began in 2007, when Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents decided to monitor Juan Pineda-Moreno, an Oregon resident who they suspected was growing marijuana. They snuck onto his property in the middle of the night and found his Jeep in his driveway, a few feet from his trailer home. Then they attached a GPS tracking device to the vehicle's underside.

After Pineda-Moreno challenged the DEA's actions, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled in January that it was all perfectly legal. More disturbingly, a larger group of judges on the circuit, who were subsequently asked to reconsider the ruling, decided this month to let it stand. (Pineda-Moreno has pleaded guilty conditionally to conspiracy to manufacture marijuana and manufacturing marijuana while appealing the denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained with the help of GPS.)

In fact, the government violated Pineda-Moreno's privacy rights in two different ways. For starters, the invasion of his driveway was wrong. The courts have long held that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their homes and in the "curtilage," a fancy legal term for the area around the home. The government's intrusion on property just a few feet away was clearly in this zone of privacy.

The judges veered into offensiveness when they explained why Pineda-Moreno's driveway was not private. It was open to strangers, they said, such as delivery people and neighborhood children, who could wander across it uninvited. (See the misadventures of the CIA.)

Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, who dissented from this month's decision refusing to reconsider the case, pointed out whose homes are not open to strangers: rich people's. The court's ruling, he said, means that people who protect their homes with electric gates, fences and security booths have a large protected zone of privacy around their homes. People who cannot afford such barriers have to put up with the government sneaking around at night.

Judge Kozinski is a leading conservative, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, but in his dissent he came across as a raging liberal. "There's been much talk about diversity on the bench, but there's one kind of diversity that doesn't exist," he wrote. "No truly poor people are appointed as federal judges, or as state judges for that matter." The judges in the majority, he charged, were guilty of "cultural elitism." (Read about one man's efforts to escape the surveillance state.)

The court went on to make a second terrible decision about privacy: that once a GPS device has been planted, the government is free to use it to track people without getting a warrant. There is a major battle under way in the federal and state courts over this issue, and the stakes are high. After all, if government agents can track people with secretly planted GPS devices virtually anytime they want, without having to go to a court for a warrant, we are one step closer to a classic police state — with technology taking on the role of the KGB or the East German Stasi.

Fortunately, other courts are coming to a different conclusion from the Ninth Circuit's — including the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. That court ruled, also this month, that tracking for an extended period of time with GPS is an invasion of privacy that requires a warrant. The issue is likely to end up in the Supreme Court.

In these highly partisan times, GPS monitoring is a subject that has both conservatives and liberals worried. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's pro-privacy ruling was unanimous — decided by judges appointed by Presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. (Comment on this story.)

Plenty of liberals have objected to this kind of spying, but it is the conservative Chief Judge Kozinski who has done so most passionately. "1984 may have come a bit later than predicted, but it's here at last," he lamented in his dissent. And invoking Orwell's totalitarian dystopia where privacy is essentially nonexistent, he warned: "Some day, soon, we may wake up and find we're living in Oceania."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2013150,00.html#ixzz0y6wH0siJ

George Orwell was right...Big Brother is here!

Invasion of privacy in the Internet age. Expanding the reach of law enforcement to snoop on e-mail traffic or on Web surfing. Those are among the criticisms being aimed at the FBI as it tries to update a key surveillance law.

With its proposed amendment, is the Obama administration merely clarifying a statute or expanding it? Only time and a suddenly on guard Congress will tell.

Federal law requires communications providers to produce records in counterintelligence investigations to the FBI, which doesn't need a judge's approval and court order to get them.

They can be obtained merely with the signature of a special agent in charge of any FBI field office and there is no need even for a suspicion of wrongdoing, merely that the records would be relevant in a counterintelligence or counterterrorism investigation. The person whose records the government wants doesn't even need to be a suspect.

The bureau's use of these so-called national security letters to gather information has a checkered history.

The bureau engaged in widespread and serious misuse of its authority to issue the letters, illegally collecting data from Americans and foreigners, the Justice Department's inspector general concluded in 2007. The bureau issued 192,499 national security letter requests from 2003 to 2006.

Weathering that controversy, the FBI has continued its reliance on the letters to gather information from telephone companies, banks, credit bureaus and other businesses with personal records about their customers or subscribers — and Internet service providers.

That last source is the focus of the Justice Department's push to get Congress to modify the law.

The law already requires Internet service providers to produce the records, said Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the Justice Department's national security division. But he said as written it also causes confusion and the potential for unnecessary litigation as some Internet companies have argued they are not always obligated to comply with the FBI requests.

A key Democrat on Capitol Hill, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont, wants a timeout.

The administration's proposal to change the Electronic Communications Privacy Act "raises serious privacy and civil liberties concerns," Leahy said Thursday in a statement.

"While the government should have the tools that it needs to keep us safe, American citizens should also have protections against improper intrusions into their private electronic communications and online transactions," said Leahy, who plans hearings in the fall on this and other issues involving the law.

Critics are lined up in opposition to what the Obama administration wants to do.

"The FBI is playing a shell game," says Al Gidari, whose clients have included major online companies, wireless service providers and their industry association.

"This is a huge expansion" of the FBI's authority "and burying it this way in the intelligence authorization bill is really intended to bury it from scrutiny," Gidari added.

Boyd, the Justice spokesman, said the changes being proposed will not allow the government to obtain or collect new categories of information; rather it simply seeks to clarify what Congress intended when the statute was amended in 1993, he argued.

Critics, however, point to a 2008 opinion by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel which found that the FBI's reach with national security letters extends only as far as getting a person's name, address, the period in which they were a customer and the numbers dialed on a telephone or to that phone.

The proposed amendment would add the category "electronic communications transactional records" to the section of the law that currently lists only those items cited in the Justice legal opinion. Those four words are already in another section of the law.

The problem the FBI has been having is that some providers, relying on the 2008 Justice opinion — issued during the Bush administration — have refused to turn over Internet records such as information about who a person e-mails and who has e-mailed them and information about a person's Web surfing history.

To deal with the issue, there's no need to change the law since the FBI has the authority to obtain the same information with a court order issued under a broad section of the Patriot Act, said Gregory Nojeim, director of the Project on Freedom, Security and Technology at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit Internet privacy group.

The critics say the proposed change would allow the FBI to remove federal judges and courts from scrutiny of its requests for sensitive information.

"The implications of the proposal are that no court is deciding whether even that low standard of `relevance' is met," said Nojeim. "The FBI uses national security letters to find not just who the target of an investigation e-mailed, but also who those people e-mailed and who e-mailed them."

Fracking or fracturing for natural gas

I don't know how many of you caught the movie Gasland but it's a real eye opener. Another example where the government has gone out of their way to be ignorant while the forces of money continue to ruin and destroy people and land by dumping 1000's of gallons of highly toxic chemicals into the ground. All of these chemicals (which they refuse to name) then eventually end up in out drinking water (which will burn in flames right out of the tap) and in our food supply. The term is called FRACKING and it's one way big energy is coming up with Natural Gas for our energy future. (Wind and sun are still free so no monetary advantage to exploit those forms of energy)

At what point do we (as humanity) stand up and say "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" We are getting to the point that money is everything and people are willing to hurt the earth we live on to get a few more dollars. What happens when they ruin the land and the water and the air?? What then? Where do we go....where are THEY planning on going?

No longer can we allow big business to make money as they starve people to death
People PLEASE wake up. Big business which is controlled by a small number of individuals run this world and everything in it. They control the food chain, the energy and they rape any countries they desire of their natural resources, and then they have the governments of the countries basically sell the people of that country into slavery. I know....it's impossible to get everyone to do this......but it's been happening for years.....your social security system is such a vehicle. Look it up. Your government sold your future income to pay for money borrowed when the country went broke in 1933....and that pattern continues all around the world.

Can you F'ing believe it????????

Interior's MMS issues new Louisiana offshore oil drilling permits

With still no clear plans presented to the public on how to deal with accidental oil gushers such as the current BP oil disaster, the Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service issued a new drilling permit to Bandon Oil and Gas, LP for a site about 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana and 115 feet below the ocean's surface. An Internet deep link search reveals Bandon Oil and Gas was recently known as Beryl Oil and Gas LP. Records also show that Bandon was recently acquired by Superior Energy Services, Inc.

The new drilling site is south of Rockefeller State Wildlife Refuge and Game Preserve, far to the west of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that triggered the BP spill.

Last Sunday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said "...an extended moratorium on deep water drilling was needed to provide time to implement new safety requirements".

"With the BP oil spill still growing in the Gulf, and investigations and reviews still under way, a six month pause in drilling is needed, appropriate, and prudent," Salazar said.

The approval is clearly duplicitous and misleading to the public as MMS says only offshore drilling deeper than 500 feet was suspended. I guess sorry we didn't ask.

How to rape a country and live in comfort

I became aware a few years back, of the cruise industry, to actually SELL cabins to people and then the owners could use them or lease them back as the needs of the Ship changed.

The big incentive was tax breaks for the millionaires that could afford the cabins and tax free income for the owners. It sounded at the time like another kind of tax loophole that the rich always seem to be afforded. I didn't think much more about the idea until I read this article today.

Thinking about the global financial meltdown, the natural and man made disasters that seem to be occurring on a regular basis now, and the real possibility that there will be upcoming food shortages and higher gas and energy prices in the not too distant future (you don't really believe BP is going to pay for the oil spill disaster do you?) , made this article all the more chilling to me when I read it....tell me what you think

The Really Creepy People Behind the Libertarian-Inspired Billionaire Sea Castles

How quickly can they turn your attention......

Well....here it is, a little more then a month since the oil rig blew up in the gulf of Mexico. Notice how it is slowly slipping from public attention, being supplemented by saber rattling with N Korea (wake up people, Kim il jong understands that if he nuked S Korea he would suffer the same fate as the people he nukes) or the happy news that the wealthiest countries are seeing a recovery from the economic downturn
(the mass people aren't feeling ANY recovery that I have seen or read about).

Our government is not taking any action against BP because they "don't want to dilute" the energy being put into BP's effort to cap this ecological disaster. Explain to me how a company was allowed to drill a well 1 mile deep WITHOUT multiple backup plans on a "worst case scenario"?? The relationship between BP, Haliburton and the governmental agency ment to oversee things like this is incestuous at BEST, and totally corrupt at it's heart. This will come to light soon I'm sure....but given our governments "hands off" policy at the moment with BP, Haliburton and Transocean there is plenty of time for the paper trail to be obscured or completely destroyed.

Oh by the way....if you think we are only facing the ONE natural disaster brought to you by our friends at BP here is one that your not really hearing about....can there be too much bad press??

FAIRBANKS, Alaska, May 26 (UPI) -- Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. said it closed the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline after oil spilled during a scheduled test at a pump station near Fairbanks.

The company said it lost power at a pump station near Fairbanks during the testing of a fire command system. As a result, relief valves opened and crude oil spilled into a secondary containment system.

"The pipeline is currently shut down and the North Slope producers have been prorated to 16 percent," the company explained.

The 800-mile pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, Alaska, had a design capacity of 2 million barrels per day in the 1970s, though production from the region has declined since the late 1980s.

British oil giant BP is the largest shareholder of the pipeline.

Alyeska said it estimated there were "several thousand barrels" of oil spilled as a result of the power failure. The containment area, the company said, has the capacity to hold more than 100,000 barrels of oil.

The pipeline operator said it activated a team to assess the situation.

So you THINK you don't live in a Police state?

This can happen to ANYONE in this country ANYTIME a government agency decides they want you. No proof of a crime is needed, just the possibility!

What you see here is an incident that took place in Missouri in February. This raid was conducted on a citizen of this country....in his own home....in FRONT OF HIS WIFE AND CHILD!! I want you to realize as you watch this that having small amounts of Marijuana is LEGAL in the state of Missouri, up to 34 grams.

In this case they kicked down the door of a tax paying citizen, terrorized his wife and child, shot 2 pets and killed one of them. This is the way your government has decided to "fight the war on drugs" against it's own citizens. I just thank the good Lord above that his child did not get killed by one of the American Gestapo's.

(the following is a report from Russ Belville)

Well, the “drugs” weren’t there, now, were they? But let’s pretend they were. Let’s say the man was holding enough marijuana to qualify for a felony charge in Missouri (over 35 grams). Are we to understand that holding any more than an ounce and a quarter in Missouri is justification enough to send SWAT to burst into a man’s home late at night and start firing weapons and slaughtering his pets and terrorizing his wife and children?

A Welsh Corgi - the most feared ankle-biting vicious canine the Missouri SWAT have ever seen!

And what exactly is it that made the SWAT team believe it couldn’t execute a successful warrant in the daytime? The presence of his pit bull and corgi (yes, these cops shot a corgi) or that his wife and child would be away so he wouldn’t mind going down guns blazing to protect his lucrative marijuana empire? And if he had enough pot to have a lucrative marijuana empire worth shooting cops over, how exactly did he manage to get rid of it all in the few hours between daytime and that night?

No, folks, the justification is simple: shock and awe. These cops are taught that “druggies” are dangerous armed hostile mentally deranged lunatics who all emulate Tony Montana from Scarface. Then they are taught how to dominate and intimidate and that one of the quickest ways you can do so is to show them you have the power of life and death. And they do this as a message to all the other “druggies” out there that they are not safe and that they are serious about engaging the “enemy” and winning the “war”.

Why doesn' the Federal Reserve want an audit??

Fed Documents Reveal Secret Lobbying Effort Against Audit Provision
The Federal Reserve is secretly engaged in an intense lobbying effort in an attempt to stave off moves to have the Government Accountability Office audit it, internal documents reveal. The Huffington Post has obtained the documents, which were distributed to Senate offices by a Fed official, whose identity the online news site agreed not to reveal. "The effort to beat back the audit relies on playing two members of the same caucus -- Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) -- off each other." writes Ryan Grim. Today will see a possible first round of votes on on amendments to Senator Christopher Dodd's financial-overhaul bill. One such amendment is S 604 The Federal Reserve Sunshine act, the Senate version of Congressman Ron Paul's Federal Transparency Act, sponsored by Sen. Sanders. The amendment calls for a full audit of the Fed. The unnamed Fed official in the documents essentially acknowledges support of a much more restrictive audit proposal by Sen. Merkley. "I am sending some information on the effects of audits of the Federal Reserve System as well as two additional documents - one summarizes the GAO and related provisions in the Dodd Bill as passed by the committee (Title XI, Sections 1151-1153) and the other is a summary of the Sanders and Paul/Grayson amendments," the Fed official wrote in an e-mail accompanying the documents. "As I mentioned, we believe that the bipartisan Corker-Merkley provision in the Dodd Bill is quite strong and addresses issues of transparency and disclosure without impinging on the independence of monetary policy," the Fed official writes. Ron Paul's Campaign For Liberty website has consistently addressed the problem with this watering down provision, noting that it guarantees continued secrecy for the Fed. Paul and Sanders have persistently disproved the Fed's claim that their provisions for an audit would interfere with monetary policy deliberations and the Fed's overall independence. Merkley's provision is essentially a Senate version of Congressman Mel Watt's (D-NC) amendment to the House financial reform bill, which would have severely limited the audit, and gutted Ron Paul's H.R. 1207 bill. The Watt amendment was also supported by the Fed before it was rejected in favour of Ron Paul's amendment by the House Financial Services Committee last November. Even Merkley himself notes that the provision weakens the prospect of an audit of the Fed: "I appreciate Representative [Alan] Grayson's concerns over accountability at the Federal Reserve. I have been a strong proponent of Fed reform and voted against the re-confirmation of Ben Bernanke because the Fed has been so lax in using its regulatory powers," Merkley said in a statement to HuffPost, responding to an analysis from Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) showing that the Senate bill did not meaningfully expand transparency. "Moreover, I felt strongly that we need to act now to empower the GAO to audit the extraordinary emergency programs created by the Fed and I succeeded in getting that power into the Senate bill. Rep. Grayson points out, fairly in my mind, that we need to go even further to audit the Fed's standing programs. I agree. While we need to protect the Fed's independence to implement monetary policy, I think the structure and use of their standard programs should be transparent." Merkley added. A full audit of the Fed under the Sanders and Paul/Grayson amendments would pave the way for disclosure of which financial institutions received $2 trillion in public bailout funds, information that the Fed refuses to make public and, along with the largest commercial banks in the U.S., has fought tooth and nail to keep secret. The Sanders and Paul/Grayson amendments would ensure that such lending could never again be done in secret. Their efforts were boosted yesterday by the damning revelations that former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan wanted internal warnings over the housing bubble kept secret in 2004, so that outsiders, whom he said did not fully understand the situation, would not be able to interject in the debate. In addition to the backlash from the Fed and the banks, the audit provisions face opposition from the White House, with the administration trotting out the same argument that an audit would threaten the independence of the Fed. "It's likely, in fact, that the Obama administration will be under intense pressure to veto the entire financial reform bill if 'audit the fed' survives.", notes Brian Beutler. White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is reportedly working closely with the Fed to kill off the audit provisions at all costs to protect the power structure dominated by the international banking elite. Yesterday Congressmen Grayson and Paul appeared on Dylan Ratigan to discuss the progress of their efforts to audit the Fed.