93% The Gatekeepers

All Critics (41) | Top Critics (17) | Fresh (38) | Rotten (3)

A sobering but welcome dose of honesty regarding issues and events that have otherwise been shrouded in secrecy and overheated rhetoric.

Israelis, generally speaking, tend to be tough, but the men who've commanded Shin Bet, Israel's secret service, are in a whole other category.

A lesser filmmaker might've been tripped up by such a narrow focus. A lesser filmmaker might've misjudged the melange of archival footage, fabricated surveillance footage and talking heads, which Moreh handles with a blend of cinematic flash and tact.

The film makes explicit and implicit endorsements. The strategy of vengeance and overkill is ineffective and leads Israel to horrific behavior described only through metaphor.

The subjects' openness is refreshing - and sometimes frightening.

A feat - of access and of passionate and appropriately unsettling political commentary.

Filmmaker Dror Moreh gives a unique look, from those in the know, of the inner workings of Israel's home intelligence service.

As Moreh probes the men, we, whether we agree with them or not, find ourselves drawn into their moral maze in all of its complexity.

This is a film that leaves a knot in the stomach, and no easy solutions as to how to get rid of it.

The 'other' Oscar-nominated feature about a war on terror, Dror Moreh's documentary The Gatekeepers proves more intellectually engaging than Hollywood's Zero Dark Thirty, and at least as unsettling.

Important and incomplete.

A blunt, clear-eyed, first-hand take on decades of Middle Eastern history, from practically the founding of the Jewish state up through the recent fits and starts of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Moreh has assembled a thorough, evenhanded and fascinating examination of people and operations straight out of a spy novel.

This brave documentary draws a line in the sand. One just wishes Moreh had asked these men what they were doing to change the situation now other than having changed their minds.

From the moment you hear one of these former insiders admitting his misgivings over an act of violence he perpetrated, you can't help but be drawn in.

The access boggles the mind, and some of the stories are riveting.

[T]houghtfully examines the difficulties of protecting a democracy from internal enemies. . .with realpolitik towards peace [and] repeated criticism of government leaders.

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_gatekeepers_2012/

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Cameron marks 1919 Amritsar massacre by British troops in India

By Harmeet Shah Singh, Dan Rivers and Laura Smith-Spark, CNN

updated 9:53 AM EST, Wed February 20, 2013

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• David Cameron visits a memorial to a 1919 massacre in the Indian city of Amritsar
• Cameron: "We must never forget what happened here"
• British prime minister stops short of a formal apology for the colonial-era massacre
• Hundreds of people were killed when British troops opened fire on unarmed protesters

New Delhi (CNN) -- UK Prime Minister David Cameron visited the site of the infamous 1919 Amritsar massacre by British troops in India on Wednesday -- but those hoping he might apologize for the atrocity were disappointed.

Cameron, the first serving British prime minister to visit Amritsar, a Sikh holy city in the northwestern state of Punjab, laid a wreath at a memorial to the hundreds killed in the massacre.

Writing in a book of condolences at the Jallianwala Bagh memorial, he described the massacre as "a deeply shameful event in British history." He added, "We must never forget what happened here."

However, he did not give a formal apology for the atrocity, which occurred while India was part of the British Empire.

A spokesman for Cameron said the British state had always described the massacre as monstrous, but that "we need to be careful about going around apologizing for things that happened 40 years before the prime minister was born."

Cameron's trip to India is focused on promoting closer trade and business links.

Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip, previously visited Amritsar in 1997.

In 1920, then-cabinet minister Winston Churchill condemned the massacre as "an episode which appears to me to be without precedent or parallel in the modern history of the British Empire ... It is an extraordinary event, a monstrous event, an event which stands in singular and sinister isolation."

The atrocity occurred when a British Army general ordered troops to open fire to disperse a crowd of unarmed protesters who had gathered in Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar.

A report by a British-led committee in the wake of the massacre put the number killed at close to 400, with three to four times as many people injured. Indian observers put the number killed at more than 1,000.

Part of complete coverage on

updated 3:37 PM EST, Tue February 19, 2013

He declared last summer to be a "dream come true." Now Oscar Pistorius has entered what could be one of the darkest periods of his life.

updated 1:16 PM EST, Wed February 20, 2013

Why has Italy fallen apart so badly over the past 20 years? Bill Emmott says it reminds him of the decline of the once great city-state of Venice.

updated 12:58 AM EST, Wed February 20, 2013

Director Eva Jin says the booming China film industry operates on "China Speed" -- much faster than Hollywood.

updated 7:58 AM EST, Wed February 20, 2013

After Mukhtar Mai was gang raped in Pakistan in 2002, tradition dictated she would commit suicide. But she fights on for women's rights.

updated 10:42 AM EST, Wed February 20, 2013

John Sutter says a proposal to airdrop food for polar bears in the Arctic is a sign of just how critical climate change has become.

It's that time of the year, and the Academy Awards are almost upon us. We want to know your favorite Oscar picks for this year.

updated 6:26 AM EST, Wed February 20, 2013

The Chinese government is sponsoring cyber-espionage to attack top U.S. companies, according to vice president of security firm Mandiant.

updated 7:55 AM EST, Wed February 20, 2013

Little more than a year after he resigned in disgrace as prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi is campaigning to win his old job back -- for the fourth time.

updated 8:35 AM EST, Wed February 20, 2013

The eyes of the gaming world are on Sony, which on Wednesday is expected to unveil the brand new PlayStation 4.

updated 8:38 AM EST, Wed February 20, 2013

Born into grinding poverty and almost blind, Terezinha Guilhermina first became aware of her athletic abilities when fleeing a school bully.

updated 9:42 AM EST, Wed February 20, 2013

"Driving from Europe all the way across the Sahara, you must be ready to die," says environmentalist, Newton Jibunoh.

Source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_latest/~3/xZXrQGm_XpQ/index.html

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The Functional Art: An Introduction to Information Graphics and ...

All my students have heard this over and over again from me: "Draw tons of sketches before you commit to any specific shape or layout in your infographics and visualizations." I am hardly alone in offering this advice: Both John Grimwade and Moritz Stefaner, who lie in opposite extremes of the infographics-dataviz spectrum, suggested the same idea when I interviewed them for The Functional Art.?I also?devoted a great portion of a chapter in the book (the 8th) to explain how sketches fit into the creative process.

Some take this advice as old fashioned and useless. Perhaps they think that a sketch is a wasteful step that lies in between the time-consuming initial research and planning and the exciting finished graphic. But sketching is much more than a formality endorsed by academics and experts: When you give your visual mental images a physical shape ?when you put them on paper, no matter how rough their execution is? hidden connections become visible and a deeper understanding of the information you're dealing with will arise. A sketch is an instrument for clear thinking. I don't draw sketches just to plan for my graphics, but to explore the story I want to tell. Call this learning by drawing, if you wish.
The bibliography about sketching and sketchnoting is growing quickly. The latest addition is the notable?The Sketchnote Handbook: the Illustrated Guide to Visual Note Taking, by?Mike Rohde. If you liked McCloud's?Understanding Comics,?Roam's?The Back of the Napkin, and Kleon's?Steal Like an Artist, this book should be part of your reading list.

The Sketchnote Handbook?doesn't cover principles of visual design, as the sketches Rohde is interested in are not intended to be shown to anybody else, but to be used by the authors themselves as mnemonic devices. A?sketchnote "is a memento, not a reference" (p. 120) and will help you focus while listening to a lecture: Sketching and taking notes force you to avoid distractions and pay attention at what's been said.
The book is organized in seven chapters that outline simple rules of thumb, strategies, and techniques. Many of them are excellent. Reading that "sketchnoting is about ideas, not art,"?for instance, may lead many people to overcome their fear of drawing. "I don't know how to draw!" is a deeply-rooted concern that is heard all the time in classes and workshops. Well, neither does my 7-year-old son, but this doesn't curb his artistic enthusiasm. School will do that for him, unfortunately, as Rudolf Arnheim explained in his magnificent classic?Visual Thinking. It is appropriate to quote him here (highlights are mine):

"The prejudicial discrimination between perception and thinking is still with us. (?) Our entire educational system continues to be based on the study of words and numbers. In kindergarten, to be sure, our youngsters learn by seeing and handling handsome shapes, and invent their own shapes on paper or in clay by thinking through perceiving. But with the first grade or elementary school the senses begin to lose educational status. More and more the arts are considered as a training in agreeable skills, as entertainment and mental release. As the ruling disciplines stress more rigorously the study of words and numbers, their kinship with the arts is increasingly obscured, and the arts are reduced to a desirable supplement. (?) The arts are neglected because they are based on perception, and perception is disdained because it is not assumed to involve thought."

Visual Thinking was published in 1969. More than forty years later, perhaps it is time to take Arnheim's words seriously and recover our inner visual thinkers. That's what books like The Sketchnote Handbook are trying to do in a fun, engaging, and ultimately thoughtful way. Let's praise them.

Source: http://www.thefunctionalart.com/2013/02/the-sketchnote-handbook.html

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Valentine's Day under attack in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD (AP) ? Romance is not dead in Pakistan, but it's under attack.

Conservatives in Pakistan tacked up posters urging people to boycott Valentine's Day on Thursday, saying it's a western-inspired event that's spreading vulgarity in their country. Romantics fought back with an arsenal of flowers, pink teddy bears and heart-shaped balloons.

"Here in this part of Pakistan we are faced with bomb blasts, and we don't have much opportunity to enjoy and celebrate so to me it is one of those few occasions to celebrate," said Taimur Hassan, a 29-year-old man working in the northwestern city of Peshawar. He was out buying a gift for his girlfriend, and looking for something different than a stuffed bear he got her last year.

That's exactly the type of behavior many of Pakistan's conservatives are worried about.

For them, Valentine's Day is nothing but an occasion to encourage illicit relations between the country's young ? unmarried ? males and females. It's a sign that Western culture and values are eating away the fabric of Pakistan's traditional, Islamic society. Valentine's Day, they say, is not a Pakistani holiday and not part of the culture here.

In the southern city of Karachi, billboards implored people to "Say no to Valentine's Day." The "no" was encapsulated in a black heart, and the sign said the holiday reflects insensitivity and ignorance of Islam.

Tanzeem-e-Islami, the organization that put up the billboards, called on the interior ministry to suspend cell phone service on the holiday that celebrates love. Group spokesman Muhammad Samee said many young people use mobile phones to send Valentine's Day greetings and suspending the service for the day would save people from "moral terrorism."

Attitudes toward Valentine's Day, named after a Christian saint said to have been martyred by the Romans in the 3rd Century, vary across the Arab world, with some devout Muslims opposing the holiday as a Western celebration of romantic love that corrupts Muslim youth.

Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, a hardline Pakistani cleric, warned that young people who celebrate Valentine's Day will be celebrating children's births in November.

"In Islam, there is a concept of respecting and loving mother, sister, wife and daughter for 365 days a year," said Ahmed, who thinks the holiday breeds vulgarity across the country.

Fearing a backlash against the holiday, Pakistani officials charged with monitoring and censoring television content issued a letter on Wednesday asking TV stations to be respectful when airing programs on Valentine's Day. The letter, issued by the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority, noted that large segments of society do not think the holiday is in line with Pakistani culture and religion.

However, the instructions were rescinded following a hue and cry on social media and pressure from TV channels, according to an official with the regulatory authority. The official spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

In Pakistan, social media like Twitter and Facebook have increasingly become a way for the country's small, liberal, secular segment of society to voice their opinions. By midday Thursday, Valentine's Day was one of the most popular themes on Twitter.

Despite the earlier regulatory warning, TV channels didn't seem to be shying away from Valentine's Day programming. Many featured video of people shopping for presents like heart-shaped balloons and interviews with helmeted motorcycle riders driving off with bouquets of flowers.

Mazhar Abbas, director of current affairs at Express News, said the station hadn't received any complaints on its programming.

While Valentine's Day is widely celebrated in some Muslim countries like the United Arab Emirates, in other areas it's been met with opposition:

?In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, government officials and clerics in Jakarta called for young people to skip Valentine's Day, saying it was an excuse for couples to have forbidden sex.

?In the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, the government opposes Valentine's Day, but tolerates it. It has not banned people or shops from celebrating the holiday. Some gift shops, toy stores and flower stores were selling special Valentine's Day items, but the celebrations are not widespread, mostly are observed by university students or newlyweds.

?Iranian officials in January banned the import of Valentine's Day gifts, but people in the capital, Tehran, were still out purchasing such gifts and making plans for meeting boyfriends or girlfriends for romantic dinners.

Despite the opposition in Pakistan, Valentine's Day romanticism ? or at least the marketing sentiment ? wasn't dampened much in the capital, Islamabad. Peddlers approached cars at stop signs hawking heart-shaped balloons, and the prices at flower stalls nearly doubled.

Eid Muhammed, a salesman at a gift shop in Peshawar, said gift card sales had dropped in recent years as people preferred to send text messages to their loved ones instead. But he said more people were buying gifts for their sweethearts. He estimated that about 90 percent of the customers were young people, and most were men.

One of the few exceptions was Amina Mahmood, a female college student, who was buying flowers for a special someone she chose not to describe.

"Some days are so special that we should not miss them," she said shyly.

__

Associated Press writers Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Adil Jawad in Karachi, Asif Shahzad and Munir Asif in Islamabad, Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, and Nasser Karimi in Tehran contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/valentines-day-under-attack-pakistan-142915308.html

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Marsh plants actively engineer their landscape

Feb. 13, 2013 ? Marsh plants, far from being passive wallflowers, are "secret gardeners" that actively engineer their landscape to increase their species' odds of survival, says a team of scientists from Duke University and the University of Padova in Italy.

Scientists have long believed that the distribution of plants within a marsh is a passive adaption in which species grow at different elevations because that's where conditions like soil aeration and salinity best meet their needs.

But this team found intertidal marsh plants in Italy's famed Venetian lagoon were able to subtly tune, or adjust, their elevations by producing different amounts of organic soil, and trapping and accumulating different amounts of inorganic sediments as part of a complex interplay with the environment.

"Our study identifies the visible signature of a two-way feedback occurring between the vegetation and the landscape," said Marco Marani, professor of ecohydrology at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment and Pratt School of Engineering. "Each species builds up the elevation of its substrate to within a favorable range for its survival, much the way corals in the animal kingdom do."

The finding may help scientists better predict marsh ecosystems' resilience to climatic changes such as sea level rise.

"Obviously, this is not a conscious choice on the part of the plants," Marani said. "It's a natural mechanism -- how marshes work. We just didn't understand it in such detail until now."

The study appears this week in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The team used numerical modeling to visualize the dynamic interactions of marsh ecosystems over time, and tested the models against detailed topographical surveys of elevations and distributions of plant species in the Venetian lagoon.

"We've been studying this same marsh for 15 years and, as in similar studies around the world, we were using GPS technology with an accuracy of plus or minus one centimeter in elevation," Marani explained. For the new study, they used a more precise surveying instrument, an electronic theodolite, which measure elevations accurately to within less than one millimeter. "It allowed us to observe differences so subtle that they went unnoticed before," he said.

The differences in substrate-building capabilities between species are often minute, but they allow each species to stabilize the soil within different stable states, or layers, in the marsh. Some species prefer elevations at or below mean sea level; others prefer higher elevations that are less often inundated.

"Interestingly, our models and surveys show that plants make trade-offs when colonizing within their preferential ranges," Marani said. "Entire sections of a species' vegetation patch often are located above the elevation needed for its maximum biomass productivity." This gives it a bit of margin to compensate for external fluctuations, such as the rates of relative sea level rise or sediment availability.

"Essentially," he said, "the species hedges its bet by trading maximum productivity for greater long-term stability."

Scientists have long known that biodiversity plays an important role in a marsh ecosystem's long-term health and survival, "but this paper provides a clear causal link suggesting how and why," he said. "The take-home message is that the more species you have colonizing different levels within a marsh, the more resilient to abrupt change the marsh as a whole will be."

He said that marshes in which an invasive species, such as cordgrass, has pushed out other species will be less resilient to climatic changes.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Duke University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. M. Marani, C. Da Lio, A. D'Alpaos. Vegetation engineers marsh morphology through multiple competing stable states. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2013; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1218327110

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/Rqy2BkI7Btw/130213152521.htm

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Not the Ducks! ? India.com and Cancer Quackery ? A Million Gods

There exists a massive problem in India and that is the notion of western medicine.

There is medicine and there is quackery. Vaccination is an eastern form of medicine but it is still used because it works. Medicine is EVERYTHING that works and is proven to work scientifically. Everything that doesn?t work is quackery.

Flogging ?Eastern? Medicine is just a method of denigrating real medicine by equating ?Eastern? medicine as an opposite equal.

And it kills. It?s simple.

Read this. This is not on a small website. This is a major website and it?s flogging some really dangerous things.

Retired?Major General Niranjan Singh?Kullar, an 86-year-old cancer survivor, still works 18 hours daily as advisor to the CEO, Imperial Hotel, New Delhi, after more than three decades of army service. His twinkling eyes, upright gait and trim appearance exude energy and vitality. Who would guess that he is a veteran survivor of not one, but two forms of cancer? Or that he cured cancer through holistic, natural methods exclusively, without chemotherapy or radiation? His?healing journey proves that miracles indeed happen to those who create them.

I call bollocks here. The problem is everyone who says they were cured from ?Cancer? by holistic (quackery) medicine often shows poor diagnosis of common ailments and dubious patient histories.

Or straight up makes miraculous claims of efficacy.

In 1971, he had myocarditis, and in 1981, his kidney was removed. In 1984, brain tumour was detected. He had an enlarged prostate gland since 1986. Prostate cancer was diagnosed in 1998 at the age of 77, when the Prostatic Specific Antigen (PSA) test showed a level of 54 ng/dl (normal 0.00 ? 4 ng/dl). It was the third stage of cancer. His elder brother and sister had died of cancer.

I call epic bullshit on this.

Myocarditis is caused by infections. Usually by Parvovirus. His kidney was removed due to what? I am pretty sure quacks don?t remove kidneys and I am sure doctors don?t remove them for shits and giggles.

A brain tumour in 1984? How vague can you get. Medical things have names. A Tumour is the medical equivalent of ?There is a Growth?. Tumour means unknown. There are neoplastic and non-neoplastic tumours. Benign and Malignant?

The stupid one here is the staging of prostate cancer.

Prostate Cancer Stage 1 is treatable. Stage 2 is treatable (you need to kill some lymph nodes).

Stage 3 indicates metastasis. The problem with prostatic cancer is that your prostate drains into venous plexus that are adjacent to the spine and any spinal?metastasis?is invariably fatal.

Major General Kullar advises, ?Do not? operate on the cancerous area. I have seen generals dying because of such operations. If you touch the knife to the cancer, the cells multiply and spread like wild fire.?

Here is the problem.

Major Generals are great if you want to wage war on an entrenched enemy on a large scale but pretty useless when you require medical advice. And cancer spreads via infiltrative and venous routes. If you do a surgery correctly it won?t spread.

In this realm Major General Kullar may as well be ?Joe the Plumber? for all the common sense his advice has. And the problem is people will listen to him and do what he says and people WILL die. It may not be a bullet of a gun but the people who listen to him will die of stuff that?s easily curable.

He used a herbal anti-cancer medicine prescribed by Mangilal Tanwar from Madhya Pradesh. He also followed the nutritional therapy devised by Captain Kailash C Saigal of Interocean Foundation, explained in the book, Down, Down Cancer. ?There is scientific proof that certain components in food can provide significant protection against cancer. Food is your medicine and medicine your food,? he explains.

You mean like Vincristine? Because real medics never use medicine derived from plants.

Again. Captain is a poorly recognised rank in medicine.

And the Interocean Foundation flogs quackery as real medicine. ?Down, Down Cancer? may as well read ?Fuck Up Your Cancer Treatment?. Certain foods are NOT protective against cancer, certain foods CAUSE cancer. If you eat a lot of preserved or smoked meat (AKA Salami) you are more prone for bowel cancer. If you keep eating spicy and overly hot food without cooling it down you can give yourself a gastric carcinoma (and ulcers). Oh the same applies if you quaff hot coffee or highly acidic Coca Cola or fruit juices like pineapple.

But here is the thing? You have to abuse those mechanisms a lot. There is nowt wrong with a bottle of coke once in a while. There is something wrong with abusing it.

However there are no such thing as ?Cancer Protective Food?. In fact the only food group I know off that actively reduces cancer incidence is Green Leafy Vegetables or Roughage. Eating the pages of ?Down, Down Cancer? would probably be better at preventing cancer than the instructions inside it!

?Exercise, for cancer patients, is medicine. They should walk in the morning and evening for one hour or half an hour. I once had two telephones at the office. I kept them on the floor ? one on the right, one on the left. I used to bend and pick them up for exercise,? he adds. He also underlines the importance of positive thinking. ?I am never under any?stress?or tension,? he says.

Here is the thing.

I come from a culture that LOVES walking. Yet cancer still occurs despite the fact that we have joggers who often put up miles of distance a day. Aussies get cancer in pretty hefty amounts and as a group of people they are (IMHO) amongst the most outdoorsy in the world.

Major General Kullar?s brain tumour remains harmless due to the anti-cancer regimen. He has been free from prostate cancer for the last six years. Now his PSA test reading is zero.

Or you know, it?s a benign growth being flogged as a malignancy.

And the problem with benign brain tumours is that they cause pressure symptoms unlike benign tumours of other parts of your body. Even if it were harmless you would still see symptoms due to it being there.

And as I said before. Stage III prostate cancer is metastasis and that means Kullar is

1. In denial

2. Lying

3. Misdiagnosed

Take your pick. I am a big fan of option 3 considering this is a man who has generally seen quacks and a truly smart quack would be benefited by misdiagnosis of benign prostate hypertrophy as cancer and stage it as such. Because he would be able to demonstrate a rapid improvement in condition with little to no cost of medicine while fighting ?Cancer?.

The ultimate joke is that the good Major General may not have any of these diseases. We speculate a lot but the claims he is making would (if true) give his doctor a Nobel Prize. Prostatic Cancer unfortunately has a high rate of metastasis due to the anatomy of the prostate.

The prostate is anatomically the male uterus, it?s role is to add secretions to sperm. It?s also covered in connective tissue which contains a rich plexus of veins. It?s why TRADITIONALLY the best approach to removal of the prostate is via the urethra (AKA we send things up your penis to remove the prostate from the inside?) rather than from the outside.

However this means in case of metastasis the cancer cells escape rather easily from the prostate. In addition the awfully silent nature of the prostate means that it is very very hard to detect early stages of prostatic cancer.

Star Jumps do not Cure Cancer. Occam?s razor dictates that the most likely explanation is ?faulty diagnosis?.

Cancer encompasses a class of diseases characterized by uncontrolled cell proliferation that can affect all organs. In metastasis, cancer cells multiply and travel through blood and the lymph system to the rest of the body. Cancer in any form remains a dreaded diagnosis, not just because of the looming shadow of death, but also due to the severe side-effects of allopathic treatments like chemotherapy and radiation.

This is one of the most important thins you can take away from this piece.

There is no such thing as side effects. There are effects. The effects that you do not want are considered side effects.

A simple example? What?s the side effect for your OTC Anti-histamines (Drowsiness). And what?s the side effect for your OTC Sleeping Pills (Dry Nose and Mouth). Often the medication is the same. The side effects are just the stuff you don?t want to happen.

Chemotherapy and Radiation make you feel miserable because they are designed to kill cells and cancer cells are just as tough as your ?own. We are trying to improve those methods to be extremely specific and indeed many modern chemotherapy and radiation treatments are a far cry from their early days.

If you are making the claim that ?x? food kills cancer then you better fucking explain how the hell food is able to tell the difference between two identical cells, one ?that?s behaving properly and one that?s not. Because that is the holy grail of cancer treatment. If we can identify individual cells based on a chemical nature rather than a visual one we can kill them a lot more effectively than with current treatments. Cancer would cease to be the killer that it is today.

Why Try Holistic Therapies?
According to a Los Angeles Times report, ?Over 75 per cent of the oncologists polled said that if they had cancer, they would never use the same chemotherapy they prescribe for their patients, because of the ineffectiveness of chemotherapy, and its unacceptable degree of toxicity.?

My mother is an oncologist.

She also fought and survived breast cancer.

With proper screening you can get 95% survival rates for breast cancer. Skin Cancer has a near 100% survival rate. Cancer is treatable and curable. We save a lot of lives using science.

I think this is ?fucking baloney? since the usage of Chemotherapy with regards to disease is reliant on what kind of cancer you have, what stage it?s at and quality of life.

You see, if you are diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer then it?s usually because Pancreatic Cancer has started dicking with you. The problem with pancreatic cancer is that it invariably is fatal. So you undergo the surgery and the cancer is still around.

It is in your interests not to take Chemo/Radiotherapy or take a reduced dose of Chemo because the goal now is not surviving but living a happy life with the time you have. In many inoperable cancers this may be a better plan.

However if your cancer is imminently treatable then Oncologists will take chemo/radiotherapy and surgery.

I know where this argument is from?

The basis for this highly idiotic argument is from a book by Philip Day

?Several full-time scientsts at the McGill Center sent to 118 doctors, all experts on lung cancer, a questionnaire to determine the level of trust they had in the therapies they were applying; they were asked to imagine that they themselves had contracted the disease and which of the six current experimental therapies they would choose. 79 doctors answered, 64 of them said that they would not consent to undergo any treatment containing cis-platinum ? one of the common chemotherapy drugs they used ? while 58 out of 79 believed that all the experimental therapies above were not accepted because of the ineffectiveness and the elevated level of toxicity of chemotherapy.? (Philip Day, ?Cancer: Why we?re still dying to know the truth?, Credence Publications, 2000)

The survey was done in 1985 and was not about ALL available therapies for lung cancer but about a new medication called cis-platin which was a new drug with many considerable side effects. Most doctors didn?t trust it as the research was just coming out and they wanted to see long time studies before taking it. The question in addition was about the use of cis-platin as a palliative treatment for non-small cell lung cancer which is incurable. 1 in 3 said yes.

The follow up was done in 1997 with the question of ??You are a 60-year-old oncologist with non-small-cell lung cancer, one liver metastasis, and bone metastases. Your?performance status is 1. Would you take chemotherapy? Yes or no?? to which around 2/3 said yes. A number that doubled for chemo and radiotherapy and a number that quadrupled for just chemotherapy alone.

Again you have to remember that this is for PALLIATIVE Care. These would increase the length and quality of life rather than stop the disease.

Another study quoted was from 1991?and this one involved different cancers and different stages from early to terminal and included experimental therapies. It shows percentages as HIGH as 98% of doctors willing to undergo chemotherapy.

This is the definition of spin.?

Because we know what chemotherapy does and how effective it is. The statement by India.com is a total and outright lie.

Chemotherapy and radiation kill cancer cells, but harm the immune system. The temporarily suppressed cancer often reappears, since the body cannot defend itself with weakened immunity. ?How much better it is to nourish the immune system directly by the use of natural therapies to assist it in getting you well, instead of destroying it by the use of these therapies! Then the immune system itself can kill the cancer cells without any side-effects, and heal your body at the same time,? writes Dr Loraine Day, M.D., who cured her breast cancer naturally.

Loraine Day is so quacktastic that she thinks Smallpox was not caused by Variola but by other things. She is anti-vaccine and has repeatedly flogged various things.

Loraine Day is a poster child for how not to do medicine. Her only real donation to medicine is HIV screening. Don?t believe me? I will let the expert at quackbusting deal with this bullshit.

If you aren?t willing to sit through the absolute madness that is Loraine Day then this is the most important paragraph you will read about Day.

?I know of one case in which a 68-year-old man with cancer in his throat and behind his nose canceled scheduled treatment with radiation after seeing one of Day?s videotapes. At that time, the doctors thought this treatment had 70% chance of?curing?him. Without treatment, however, the cancer gradually spread to the surrounding tissues. Over a two-year period, the cancer became extremely painful and ate a hole through the roof of his mouth that makes it difficult for him to eat without the food going out his nose. Radiation and chemotherapy therapy made the cancer disappear from his nose and throat, but it has recurred at the base of his brain. Chemotherapy may still prolong his survival, but his trust in Day?s story reduced the quality of his life and appears to have shortened it by several years.

Another case I know about involves a 39-year-old woman who suddenly discovered that she had a malignant melanoma that had metastasized to her brain. The doctors thought that without treatment she might live for a few months and that with chemotherapy, she might live for up to a year. Some people in this situation decide that they want to live as long as possible, whereas others decide that it would not be worth suffering with chemotherapy for such a short extension. After listening to Day?s tapes, this woman became terrified about chemotherapy and decided that Day?s methods would cure her. She lived for about two more months, during which she stopped eating nearly everything she enjoyed and ate mostly raw vegetables and fruits. Before she got sick, eating had been one of her favorite activities. But during her final weeks, she felt miserable because she craved her usual foods, but she would not eat them and wound up ?basically starving herself? and losing 40 pounds. I advise people who are terminally ill to spend their remaining time as pleasantly and productively as possible. The patient?s older sister, who shared this story with me, believes that Day?s advice greatly reduced the patient?s quality of life.?

And that?s without mentioning that she had more than one surgery to treat her breast cancer. What she does is an outright lie about her treatment which causes people to harm their own health.

Modern oncology (study of tumours) is based on the Halstead theory by W S Halstead. He focussed on treating and removing tumours to cure cancer. But cancer mortality rate remains unchanged despite advanced surgical techniques and aggressive modern treatments. Halstead?s theory is inadequate because it ignores the patient as a whole living organism.

Cancer Mortality Rates have fallen year after year.

The best example on here is Greta Christina whose cancer was beaten so handily that she didn?t even have the time to make a lifetime movie video. Halstead?s theory is solidly grounded by the increasing survival rates of cancer patients.

Also medicine recognises paraneoplastic syndromes as a real thing.

A paraneoplastic syndrome is a set of symptoms caused by the cancer due to the type of cells produced. The cancer basically produces hormones which screw over the body?s natural hormones balance since the hormones of the tumour are produced constantly rather than under the body?s control.

Yes there have been really weird cases where diabetes has been CURED by cancer. (The new cells produced insulin constantly).

But these indicate that medicine considers the entire body as a balanced living organism rather than a series of meat tubes.

?While conventional medicine primarily treats cancer as a focal disease with localized symptoms, naturally oriented physicians?view the body as a closed internal ecosystem, and believe that the dysfunction of this ecosystem leads to the development of cancer,? writes Dr Michael Lam, a top US-based physician and author of the book, Beating Cancer With Natural Medicine.

Michael Lam clearly doesn?t know anything about medicine if he thinks medics treat the body as a focal disease with localised symptoms.

There are symptoms caused by local growth and then there are symptoms caused by the cancer itself. The local growth stuff may be pressure atrophy or bone erosion.

Michael Lam is more famous amongst the skeptic community for his ?Magnetised Water?. I don?t even need a degree in Physics to point out how stupid the concept is. If Dr. Lam is a ?Top US-Based Physician? then I am the ?Saviour of the Universe?.

Deepak Chopra, the apostle of?Ayurveda?and mind/body medicine, in his book, Quantum Healing, asks, ?Why, when your body mends a broken arm, is it not considered a miracle, but when your body rids itself of cancer, it is?? Blending advanced physics with ancient Indian Ayurvedic insights, he shows that the human body is governed by a ?network of intelligence? grounded in quantum reality. This intelligence exists in our 50 trillion cells, and a cell can heal itself of even cancer. Strengthening of immunity, healthy lifestyle, diet, exercise and access to the Divine consciousness within, through yogic and meditative disciplines, can correct the wrong information that triggers uncontrollable cell multiplication, and cure cancer from the quantum level of the body.

Deepak Chopra is an apostle of industrial grade woo and doesn?t know what quantum even means. It just means Quantity healing which doesn?t sound as cool.

Your body gets rid of cancer on a DAILY basis. We actually have cells (Natural Killer Cells) which kill tumour cells.

However remember evolution? Yeah if a mutation occurs that provides the cancer cells the ability to lose structural elements that the NK Cells use to identify them as cancer cells then they become effectively resistant to the body?s own?defenses?(yes it?s a evolutionary mechanism if we treat the cells as a separate organism that just happens to have our DNA).

The prostate cancer actually exudes NK cell receptors which compete for cell receptors protecting them in much the same way that flares distract heat seeking missiles.

However back to dealing with Mr. Chopra.

The body has a mechanism for healing a broken bone because bones break REGULARLY. You actually break bits of your bone on a daily basis and it is advantageous to have a mechanism that fixes these tiny breaks. The bone healing procedure is not perfect as seen by the existence of malunions and by the fact internal fixation of bones is a real (and common) medical procedure.

And good grief the usage of quantum physics by Mr. Chopra is so patently stupid that it is absolute nonsense.

Ayurveda against Cancer
North and South Indian schools of?Ayurveda?offer time-tested treatments against cancer. As per ayurveda, the human body is governed by the?tridosha???vata, pitta and kapha. According to?Dr Partap Chauhan?of Jiva Ayurveda, Faridabad, ?Cancer is the result of the body?s reaction to what aggravates the tridosha.?

Ayurveda may have had some successes (Rhinoplasty and Vaccination) but they were based on things people knew fuck all about.

We know that cancer is caused by mutations to DNA that codes for cell replication and control restrictions. Ayurveda is wrong. It is not an opposite view it?s an incorrect view. Western People don?t function in a different way to Indians.

Ayurveda suggests sticking to?swastha, which includes regular seasonal routines of proper diet and natural lifestyle. When individuals ignore it and indulge in improper food, late nights, overwork, daytime sleep, stimulants, intoxicants, chemical drugs,?stress?and anxiety, the dosha imbalance starts triggering disease. This weakens the digestive fire (jataragni), causing formation of?ama?(toxins), which circulates in the body blocking channels (strotas). This causes deformation of channels. ?This vicious cycle of aggravation of?doshas?and?ama?formation, coupled with deformation of channels, triggers abnormal cell growth, causing cancer,? says Dr Chauhan.

I wish I had digestive fire?

The fact that India allows Dr. Chauhan to call himself a doctor is terrifying. These quacks sit on the coat tails of real medicine and flog bullshit while claiming the achievements of medicine for themselves.

That?s the thing, every single fucking piece of quackery out there blames medicine for modern ailments. When the biggest cause of death in India is the LACK of modern medicine. Indians when left to Ayurveda didn?t live in a society where the average lifespan was 78 years. They lived in one where 48 was considered a remarkable achievement.

For cancer treatment, Dr Chauhan recommends the following Ayurvedic holistic methods:
??Abstinence from root cause:?The first step is avoiding a harmful diet or lifestyle that aggravates the root cause, tridosha?imbalance.

Because medicine tells you to smoke cigarettes and drink heavily. (To clear a point? I used to smoke. I was a Djarum Black kind of man).

This is fine advice except for the bits that Dr. Chauhan claims to cause whatever Tridosha Imbalance is. If something causes cancer then it?s sane advice to avoid it.

However the things he claims cause cancer are just stuff you do normally. This way Dr. Chauhan is protected.

See! You may have eliminated everything but you still are doing a job! The stress from your job is unbalancing your tridosha

??Eliminating aggravated doshas:?They are eliminated by flushing them out of the body throughpanchakarma, involving purifying therapies to enhance metabolic processes.?Panchakarma?includes five techniques:
Vamana?? emetics,
Virecana?? laxatives,
Basti?? medicated enema,
Nasya?? nasal administrations,
Rakta moksana?? blood-letting

Purging is straight up dangerous. If you already are weak due to cancer then the last thing you need is vomiting or diarrhoea.

If you aren?t someone with an impacted bowel (AKA you have so much constipation that we need to give you an enema) or have motility issues of the bowel then an enema is not necessary. It?s a pointless practice. Your body is pretty efficient at pooping without pipping fluid up there to flush the damn thing out.

Blood Letting is plain stupid. And no, while medical leeches are a real thing the usage of them is for a SPECIFIC condition where we understand why they are used.

In haematomas and fluid accumulation fluid needs to be drained. Sterile leeches drain fluid, are painless and do so pretty rapidly. Problem solved. They aren?t given to treat cancer!

??Treating?jataragni:?Jataragni?controls digestion and nourishment. It helps the formation of nutritive fluid (ahara rasa), physical elements (doshas), tissues (dhatus) and waste (malas). Treatment maintains healthy?jataragni?functioning.

I don?t even know what all of this means but it sounds like bullshit.

Because our body doesn?t work like that. The actual belief from Ayurveda seems to be that all food is absorbed totally by the body and that stuff is excreted from the body to make up waste.

Rather than our body removing nutrients and leaving roughage to form the skeleton of waste along with gut flora. The majority of metabolic waste is either excreted as faeces in the form of bilirubin (the colour of faeces is due to the substance) or as urine and carbon dioxide.

??Rejuvenation:?Rasayana?medicines maintain enzymes and metabolism in peak condition, and enhance the generation of new cells and tissues.?Rasayanas?prevent and alleviate conditions associated with cancer, and increase?ojas?to boost immunity and strengthen cells and body.

I assume this is done by enzymes running up stairs while metabolism hangs out in a meat locker punching a side of beef.

??Satvavajaya chikitsa:?Ayurveda?considers mind and body as one entity. Cancer weakens the mind. Spiritual counselling and cultivating a positive, balanced mind are integral to Ayurvedic treatment. ?By bringing our internal, physical and psychological systems into balance, we remove the cause of disease, cure its symptoms, and allow the damage to heal itself,? explains Dr Chauhan.

Cancer does not weaken the mind. The fear of death does. And modern doctors cheer up patients up and tell them the value of positive thinking.

Of REAL positive thinking, not unicorn belief.

Dr Chauhan has effectively treated cancer patients from India and abroad. Namrata (name changed), 30, had breast cancer. She had surgery and chemotherapy. ?I lost weight, hair and appetite, and my skin looked like that of a 65-year-old. I went through it because I had no choice.? She also had sleeping disorder. After a year-and-a-half of treatment, cancer reappeared in 2005. She had another operation. Finally, she heard of Dr Chauhan. He gave Ayurvedic medicines to cure the side-effects of allopathic medicines, strengthen the body, and prevent cancerous cell formation. ?I am following the prescribed diet, and regularly taking the Ayurvedic medicines. My tests are normal now. My appetite is good. I am not losing hair. I am feeling energetic,? she says.

Your tests are normal because surgery and chemo killed the cancer. Dr. Chauhan used the placebo effect with his bullshit, took credit for the achievements of medicine and then walked away claiming he CURED CANCER.

It?s like suggesting that the act of pinning on a little pink ribbon did more to cure cancer than all the chemo and surgery.

Alan Copeland tried Jiva?s Ayunique package. ?My prostate, which was oversized, is now that of a healthy adolescent, according to the Western doctors. They don?t know why since their treatments only ?hold? the cancer, ? he writes. Jay Golding had non-Hodgkin?s Lymphoma and was treated by Dr Chauhan. ?My PET/CAT scans came back negative! No cancer!? He exclaims.

I know what Dr. Chauhan has done.

I too can cause your prostate to shrink. All you have to do is cut your meds with finasteride and doxazosin. Enlarged prostates in men are mainly due to Benign Prostate Hyperplasia and you can cause a marked improvement with these meds.

And Non-Hodgkins Lymphomas are treatable. I am sure Jay was on real medicine at the time and Dr. Chauhan just slinks about claiming it was his quackery that did all the heavy lifting.

Ashtavaidya?tradition is a unique ancient branch of Kerala Ayurveda. Ashtavaidyas use only purely traditional methods. Ashtavaidyan E T Divakaran Mooss is the chief physician of the?Vaidyaraj Oushadha Sala of Ashtavaidyas. He is also the advisor to?Maharishi Mahesh Yogi?s Maharishi Ayurvedic University, US. ?Cancer is completely curable through Ayurvedic treatment in the Ashtavaidya tradition. I have treated about 100 leukemia patients successfully,? he says. The Ashtavaidya tradition assures complete cure if the patients start treatment early without any damaging modern therapies.

Oh then get this man a fucking Nobel Prize! 100% cure rates for Leukemia?

How much money do you bet his defence when it doesn?t work is ?Well you used modern therapies eventually! If you stuck with my treatment it would have worked?.

And I love the numbers! I have treated about 100 Leukemia patients? My mother treats around 15 cases a week of breast cancer. Let?s say 50 patients a month. In 2 months my mother treats 100 patients. In a year my mother would have seen 6 times as many patients as this man would have seen.

This man is a deadly deadly quack. His entire mode of working is to ban real medicine so as to have a get out clause. The moment you suffer any major side effect from the cancer you will call an ambulance and activate his get out clause.

Cancer patients are initially given intensive three months treatment for removing toxins (ama) from the body, to purify and enhance immunity. Revitalised immunity heals cancer. Medicines are chosen according to the patient?s?dosha?constitution and the cancer condition. Patients must follow prescribed diet and Ayurvedic routine.?Panchakarma?is used only after the body recovers enough strength through detoxification. Finally,?rasayana?rejuvenation treatment through?kutipravesika or vatatapika?therapy is administered.?Kutipravesika?involves stringent rules and prolonged isolation indoors, which many patients avoid.?Vatatapika?is speedier and mostly used.?Rasayanas?are given life-long to prevent recurrence of cancer.

Imagine spending your life like this rather than actually getting treated.

Imagine doing a stupid song and dance that has ABSOLUTELY no effect apart from lining the pockets of these vultures.

Now remember where I work and what I have to deal with.

The Indian Government recognises this man as an equal to me. I have seen patients go to traditional bone setters (no really) rather than come see an?orthopedic surgeon resulting in a non-union of bone resulting in a massive surgery to fix the defect which could have been easily solved at the start. One is a manipulation followed by casting, the other is open surgery. The quacks have the same rank as me.

Vaidya Chandra Prakash Cancer Research Foundation treats cancer through medicines based onAyurvedic rasa shastra?(metallic therapy). Vaidya Balendu Prakash, who runs the foundation, first used the treatment on an infant with acute leukemia who had complete cancer remission within 40 days. In 1996, a project by the Union Ministry of?Health?and Family Welfare studied the effects of his metallic formulations in Acute Pro-myelocytic Leukemia (APML). Ten out of 15 patients enrolled experienced complete remission.

Rasa Shastra kills. Many of the compounds are heavy metals and are straight up bad for you. These include medications based on lead and mercury.

We are not talking about small doses or homeopathic doses either. We are talking clinically significant doses. Again, remember where I am currently and what I face.

Renowned Ayurvedic specialist, Dr Nandlal Tiwari, Jaipur, Rajasthan, invented the cancer drug Carctol, based on his experiments and information gathered from Assamese tribals. Carctol contains eight herbal ingredients, and has a?success?rate of 30-40 per cent.

There have been no published clinical studies that support the efficacy of carctol. The irony is that there are real herbal drugs out there like Vincristine (Periwinkle). If I remember correctly Dr. Edzard Ernst was highly dubious about the claims of this medication.

I am aware that it contains rhubarb (a known laxative) and could easily interfere with medical treatments. The mode of it?s operation is apparently through the excretion of ?acids? which is absolutely hilarious since the body has a method of dealing with pH imbalances already and if your body exceeds the narrow range of 7.35 to 7.45 (pH) bad things start to occur.

Your body doesn?t need help to maintain such a pH and any medication that causes a rise in pH is dangerous. Metabolic alkalosis is ?problematic?.

Arya Vaidya Sala, Kottakkal, Kerala, has a clinical research unit in the charitable hospital where 150 cancer patients take treatment weekly. Most patients there use?Ayurveda?as complementary to allopathy, though some opt for?Ayurveda?exclusively.

You can read more about alternative therapies to heal cancer here?

Urgh? That?s the worst thing. It?s that Indian doctors treat Ayurveda as an equal because they think Ayurveda is their cultural heritage and so agree with it?s bullshit.

In the west we have a method of at least finding out where blame lies in the death of a patient. In India the mechanism is not widely available. We don?t know how many people have died due to the quacks. We will never really know.

Source: http://freethoughtblogs.com/amilliongods/2013/02/03/not-the-ducks-india-com-and-cancer-quackery/

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GOP lawmakers propose overhaul NM tax system

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) -- Republican lawmakers proposed Thursday to significantly revamp New Mexico's governmental finance system by relying more on taxing people and businesses on what they consume and spend rather than the income they earn.

Rep. Tom Taylor and Sen. Bill Sharer, both of Farmington, outlined their proposal Thursday but conceded it's a work-in-progress and not fully clear how the tax burdens of individuals and businesses will change.

"It may overtax some areas and we need to understand all of that before we cast this thing in stone," Taylor said.

Sharer called it a "hard reboot of the New Mexico tax system."

The proposal would greatly expand what is subject to New Mexico's gross receipt tax, which applies to sales of many ? but not all ? goods and services.

Most groceries and food staples are tax exempt currently, but that would end under the proposed overhaul. Sharer said the tax would apply to "virtually everything that happens" in the state.

By broadening the tax base, the lawmakers propose to reduce the tax rate and eliminate most other taxes, including the state's corporate and personal income taxes.

However, income earned by individuals would be subject to what the lawmakers liken to a "consumption tax." Corporate income would not be subject to tax under their proposal.

The lawmakers call for a 2 percent tax rate imposed by the state and an additional 1 percent could be levied by cities and counties, which rely on gross receipts tax revenue to finance their operations.

The lawmakers said their proposal will keep severance taxes on oil and gas production, property taxes and taxes on gasoline, which help finance roads.

Under their tax overhaul, they said, the state and local governments should collect about the same amount of revenue as they do currently.

An economist for a social advocacy group said the proposed changes likely would make New Mexico's tax system more regressive and potentially move a greater share of the overall tax burden to individuals and away from businesses.

"When you've taken tax off from a group of people that doesn't consume all of their income and put it onto people who consume all of their income, it's pretty much guaranteed to be regressive and shift the tax burden," said Gerry Bradley, research director for New Mexico Voices for Children.

Taylor said the proposal will offer tax refunds for low-income New Mexicans.

The GOP lawmakers said the current gross receipts tax provides far too many deductions and exemptions, which has narrowed the base that is subject to taxation.

"The point here is the gross receipts tax is broken," Taylor said.

The gross receipts tax varies from place to place in New Mexico, ranging from about 5.1 percent to nearly 9 percent. The tax currently generates more than a third of the state's revenue. Personal and corporate income taxes provide about a fourth of the money that flows into the state's main budget account.

___

Follow Barry Massey on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bmasseyAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gop-lawmakers-propose-overhaul-nm-162151098.html

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