US Food Waste

http://www.world-science.net/othernews/091125_waste

For ex­am­ple, food waste is now es­ti­mat­ed to ac­count for more than one quar­ter of the to­tal freshwa­ter
con­sump­tion and more than 300 mil­lion bar­rels of oil per year rep­re­sent­ing about 4 per­cent of the to­tal U.S. oil con­sump­tion.

The re­search­ers found that pe­r-capita food waste has pro­gres­sively in­creased by about 50 per­cent since 1974, reach­ing more than 150 tril­lion Calo­ries year­ly. Pre­vi­ous cal­cula­t­ions are likely to have un­deres­ti­mat­ed the waste by as much as 25 per­cent, the group said.

Would Our Government Really Start a War to Try to Stimulate the Economy?

http://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=16082

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/11/confirmed-defense-spending-creates-less.html

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/11/military-spending-is-increasing.html

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9914

http://bnarchives.yorku.ca/205/02/20060809nb_cheap_wars.pdf

http://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=1297

http://mondediplo.com/2008/02/05military

Thermography for Breast Cancer

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2000/10/29/thermography.aspx
&
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/11/03/Doctors-Shocked-by-Hospital-Radiation-Overexposure.aspx

Hey if this info is correct there is a conspiracy by our Gov to make some money for cetain people?

October 23, 2000 from AlternativeMedicine.com

In September, a large-sample, long-term Canadian study proved that an annual mammogram was no more effective in preventing deaths from breast cancer than periodic physical examinations for women in their 50s.

The study was co-authored by Cornelia Baines, a professor of public health sciences at the University of Toronto and appeared in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. In the study of almost 40,000 women ages 50 to 59, half received periodic breast examinations alone and half received breast examinations plus mammograms. All learned to examine their own breasts as well.

By 1993, 13 years after the study began, there were 610 cases of invasive breast cancer and 105 deaths in the women who received only breast examinations, compared with 622 invasive breast cancers and 107 deaths in those who received breast examinations and mammograms. "They found smaller cancers, but ultimately the mortality rate was the same,¹¹ said Suzanne Fletcher, a professor of preventive medicine at Harvard Medical School. She added that cancer screening programs are built on the assumption that "finding it earlier is finding it better. . . . This study questions that assumption."

In fact, truly early detection would be better, but by the time a tumor has grown to a sufficient size to be detectable by either a mammogram or a physical examination, it has been growing for several years, and achieved more than 25 doublings of the malignant cell colony.

As Alternative Medicine has maintained for years, mammograms do far more harm than good. Their ionizing radiation mutates cells, and the mechanical pressure can spread cells that are already malignant (as can biopsies). In 1995 the British medical journal The Lancet reported that, since mammographic screening was introduced in 1983, the incidence of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), which represents 12% of all breast cancer cases, has increased by 328%, and 200% of this increase is due to the use of mammography. This increase is for all women: Since the inception of widespread mammographic screening, the increase for women under the age of 40 has gone up over 3000%.

Mammogram interpretation is often wrong. In 1996, the journal Archives of Internal Medicine published results of a test of 108 radiologists throughout the United States. The test used a set of 79 mammograms where the diagnosis had been verified by subsequent biopsies, surgeries or other follow-up. The radiologists missed cancer in 21% of the films, thought 10% of the women with no breast disease had cancer and thought 42% of benign lesions were cancerous.

Further, mammograms are not diagnostic and too frequently lead to unnecessary breast biopsies, which are an expensive, invasive surgical procedure that causes extreme anxiety, some pain and often physical harm to many women who do not have cancer.

According to the 1998 edition of the Merck Manual, for every case of breast cancer diagnosed each year, from 5 to 10 women will needlessly undergo a painful breast biopsy. Statistically, this means that any woman who has annual mammograms for 10 years has at least a 50% chance of having at least one biopsy -- even if she never develops breast cancer.

Why, then, does mainstream medicine keep recommending mammograms? Do the math: a $100 mammogram for all 62 million U.S. women over 40, and a $1,000+ biopsy for 1-to 2-million women, is an $8 billion per year industry. There is a superior alternative: advanced thermography, which does not use mechanical pressure or ionizing radiation, and which can detect signs of breast cancer years earlier than either mammography or a physical exam.

Mammography cannot detect a tumor until after it has been growing for years and reaches a certain size. Thermography is able to detect the possibility of breast cancer much earlier, because it can image the early stages of angiogenesis. Angiogenesis is the formation of a direct supply of blood to cancer cells, which is a necessary step before they can grow into tumors of size.

Thermographic breast screening is brilliantly simple. Thermography measures the radiation of infrared heat from our body and translates this information into anatomical images. Our normal blood circulation is under the control of our autonomic nervous system, which governs our body functions without our conscious will.

To screen for breast cancer, a thermographer blows cool air over a woman¹s breasts. In response, our autonomic nervous system reduces the amount of blood going to the breast, as a temperature-regulating measure. However, the pool of blood and primitive blood vessels that cancer cells create is not under autonomic control and is unaffected by the cool air. It will therefore stand out clearly on the thermographic image as a "hot spot."

Flu HINI

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/11/03/What-We-Have-Learned-About-the-Great-Swine-Flu-Pandemic.aspx

ICU Hospitalizations

Out of a population of 25 million people, 722 were admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) with a confirmed diagnosis of H1N1 influenza. Overall, 856 people were admitted with a flu virus, but 11.3% were a type A flu that was not subtyped and 4.3% were seasonal flu.

They also analyzed the number of people admitted with viral pneumonia and found the following:

Number of People Admitted to the Hospital each Year with Viral Pneumonia5

57 people in 2005
33 people in 2006
69 people in 2007
69 people in 2008
37 people in 2009
So we see that in 2009 they had 32 fewer people admitted with actual viral pneumonia. The CDC and other public health agents of fear like to imply that mass numbers of people are dying from “flu”, that is, actual influenza viral pneumonia, when in fact, most are dying from other complications secondary to underlying health problems -- either diagnosed or undiagnosed.
They also found that the average person’s risk of ending up in the ICU was one in 35,714 or about three thousandths of one percent (0.00285%), an incredibly low risk. When they looked at actual admission to the ICU, they found that it was people aged 25 to 49 who made up the largest number admitted. Infants from birth to age 1 year had the higher admission per population, and had a high mortality rate.

Majority of Children Respond POORLY to Flu Vaccine

It is interesting to note that babies this age respond poorly to either the seasonal flu vaccine or the H1N1 vaccine. One of the largest studies ever done, found that children below the age of 2 years received no protection at all from the seasonal flu vaccine.7

The recently completed study on the effectiveness of the new H1N1 vaccine reported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease found that 75% of small children below age 35 months received no protection from the H1N1 vaccine and that 65% of children between the ages of 3 years and 9 years received no protection from the vaccine.8

Flu Vaccine DOUBLES Risk of Getting H1N1

It is also important to view this in the face of the new unpublished Canadian study of 12 million people that found getting the seasonal flu vaccine, as recommended by the CDC and NIH, doubles one’s risk of developing the H1N1 infection. It would also make the infection much more serious. So much for expert advice from the government.

H1N1 Vaccine is NOT Made the Same as Regular Flu Vaccine!!

I am really upset at the insistence by the CDC, medical doctors and the media that all pregnant women should be vaccinated by this experimental vaccine. The media repeats the manufacturers’ mantra that this vaccine is produced exactly like the seasonal flu, when in fact it is not. Yes, they use chicken eggs, but the rest has been fast tracked and many shortcuts on safety procedures have been allowed.

There are 250,000 pregnant women in Australia and New Zealand combined. Only 66 pregnant women were admitted to the ICU, an incidence of 1 pregnant woman per 3,800 pregnant women or a risk of .03%.6 Put another way, a pregnant woman in these two countries can feel comfortable to know that there is a 99.97% chance that she will not get sick enough to end up in the ICU.

Pregnant Women NOT at Increased Risk, Obese Women Are!!

So, why did even 66 pregnant women end up in the ICU? As we shall see in the American study5, a significant number of these pregnant women were either obese or morbidly obese and most had underlying medical problems. The Australian/New Zealand study6 found that one of the major risk factors for pregnant women was indeed being obese and that obesity was associated with a high risk of underlying medical disorders.

They also found that death from H1N1 infection correlated best with increasing age, contrary to what the media says. They concluded the study with the following statement:

“ The proportion of patients who died in the hospital in our study is no higher than that previously reported among patients with seasonal influenza A who were admitted to the ICU.” 6

In fact, they report that of those infected with the H1N1 variant virus who were sick enough to be admitted to the ICU, 84.5 % went home and 14.3% died and that of those admitted with seasonal flu 72.9% were discharged and 16.2% died. That is, more died from the seasonal flu.

Recent NEJM Study of the American Experience

In the same Oct, 8th issue of the New England Journal of Medicine they reported on the American experience with the H1N1 variant virus.5 The study looked at data from 24 states with widespread influenza infection from April through June 2009. Remember, unlike most flu epidemics in the United States, this epidemic began early and by the end of September it was beginning to peak, with late October being the date it may begin to decline.

The study examined 13,217 cases of infection involving 1082 people who were hospitalized. Here is what they found:

Underlying Medical Conditions

Of the total hospitalized patients:

60% of children had underlying medical conditions
83% of adults had underlying medical conditions
They also found that 32% of patients had at least 2 medical conditions that would put them at risk. We are constantly told that it is the young adult aged 25 to 49 who is at the greatest risk. Note that 83% of these people had underlying medical conditions. This means that in truth only 292 “healthy” people out of 1082 in 24 states were sick enough to enter the hospital -- that is 292 healthy people out of tens of millions of people, not much of a risk if you do not have an underlying chronic medical problem.

Underlying Medical Conditions Risk Factor for H1N1 Deaths

When they looked at people over age 65 years of age, that is, the folks who are most likely to die in the hospital, 100% had underlying medical conditions -- all of them. So, there was not one healthy person over age 65 who has died out of 24 states combined.

What about the children, a special target of the fear mongering media and government agencies? This study found that 60% had underlying medical conditions and that 30% were either obese or morbidly obese.

A previous CDC study states that 2/3 of children who died had neurological disorders or respiratory diseases such as asthma.3 If we take the 60% figure, that means out of the 84 children reported to have died by October 24th, 2009, only 34 children considered healthy in a nation of 301 million people really died, not 84. It is also instructive to note that according to CDC figures, the seasonal flu last year killed 116 children.9

Remember, that is, 34 so-called healthy children out of a nation of 40 million children. In 2003 it was reported by the CDC that 90 children died from seasonal flu complications. Ironically, as shown by Neil Z. Miller in his excellent book -- Vaccine Safety Manuel -- once the flu vaccine was given to small children the death rate from flu increased 7-fold.10 Not surprising, since the mercury in the vaccine suppresses immunity.

Pediatric Flu Deaths by Year Made WORSE by Flu Vaccine

1999 -- - 29 deaths
2000 -- - 19 deaths
2001 -- - 13 deaths
2002 -- - 12 deaths
2003 -- - 90 deaths (Year of mass vaccinations of children under age 5 years)
2006 -- 78 deaths
2007 -- - 88 deaths
2008 – 116 deaths (40.9% vaccinated at age 6 months to 23 months)11
Parents should also keep in mind that this study, as well as the Australian/New Zealand Study found that childhood obesity played a major role in a child’s risk of being admitted to the ICU or dying. This is another dramatic demonstration as to the danger of obesity in children and that all parents should avoid MSG (all food-based excitotoxin additives), excess sugar and excess high glycemic carbohydrates in their children’s diets. This goes for pregnant moms as well.

Every Parent Needs to Know Other Vaccines INCREASE Risk of H1N1

One major factor being left out of all discussion of these vaccines, especially those for small children and babies, is the effect of other vaccinations on presently circulating viral infections such as the H1N1 variant virus. It is known that several of the vaccines are powerfully immune suppressing. For example, the measles, mumps and rubella virus are all immune suppressing, as seen with the MMR vaccine, a live virus vaccine.12, 13

This means that when a child receives the MMR vaccine, for about two to five weeks afterwards their immune system is suppressed, making them highly susceptible to catching viruses and bacterial infections circulating through the population. Very few mothers are ever told this, even though it is well accepted in the medical literature.

In fact, it is known that the Hib vaccine for haemophilus influenzae is an immune suppressing vaccine and that vaccinated children are at a higher risk of developing haemophilus influenzae meningitis for at least one week after receiving the vaccine.10,14 These small children receive both of these vaccines.

According to the vaccine schedule recommended by the CDC and used by most states, a child will receive their MMR vaccine and Hib vaccine at one year of age and both are immune suppressing.

At age 2 to 4 months, they will receive a Hib vaccine. Therefore at age 2 to 4 months, and again at age one year, they are at an extreme risk of serious infectious complications caused by vaccine-induced immune suppression. The New Zealand/Australian study found that the highest death in the young was from birth to age 12 months, the very time they were getting these immune-suppressing vaccines.6

The so-called healthy children and babies that have ended up in the hospital and have died may in fact be the victims of immune suppression caused by their routine childhood vaccines. We may never know because the medical elite will never record such data or conduct the necessary studies. Recall also that the seasonal flu vaccine, which is recommended for all babies 6 months to 35 months, is also immune suppressing because of the mercury-containing thimerosal in the vaccine.15

If parents allow their children to be vaccinated according to the CDC recommendations, that is 2 seasonal flu vaccines and 2 swine flu vaccines as well as a pneumococcal vaccine, that will increase the number of vaccines a child will have by age 6 years to 41. This amounts to an enormous amount of aluminum and mercury as well as intense brain inflammation triggered by vaccine-induced microglial activation.16

Risk of Serious Illness from the H1N1 Mutant Virus

Their survey of 24 states found that a total of 67 patients out of tens of millions of people ended up in the ICU. That is, only 6% of the people admitted to the hospital were so sick as to need intensive treatments. Of these 67 patients, 19 died (25%) and of these 67% had obvious underlying long-term medical illnesses. This means that only 6 patients out of tens of millions of people in 24 states that were considered “healthy” before their infection, had died. Is this justification for a mass vaccination campaign?

Of the 1082 hospitalized patients, 93% were eventually discharged recovered and only 7% died, a very low death rate. Their analysis of these cases concluded that those who died fell in three categories:

They were older patients
Antiviral medications were started 48 hours after the onset of the illness
There was no correlation to having had seasonal vaccines
The last item is especially interesting because they assume that having had seasonal flu vaccine would have offered some protection -- it offered none.

What they did find was that none who died had been given antiviral medications (Tamiflu or Relenza) within 48 hours of getting sick. Those given the antiviral medications within the golden 48-hour period rarely died. Relenza is far safer than Tamiflu. This was the only factor found to correlate with survival of severely ill ICU patients.

Pregnant Women Given Vaccine Have Babies with More Health Problems

It has always been a principle of medicine that one should not vaccinate pregnant women, except in extreme cases, because the risk to the baby is too high. Recently, we have seen two examples of violation of this policy. When the HPV vaccine Gardasil was first released the CDC and the manufacturer (Merck Pharmaceutical Company) recommended that it be given to pregnant women.

Shortly after beginning this dangerous practice it was ordered halted because a number of women were losing their babies and babies were being born with major malformations.26

It is known that stimulating a woman’s immune system during midterm and later term pregnancy significantly increases the risk that her baby will develop autism during childhood and schizophrenia sometime during the teenage years and afterward.27

Compelling scientific evidence also shows an increased risk of seizures in the baby and later as an adult.28 In fact, a number of neurodevelopmental and behavioral problems can occur in babies born to women immunologically stimulated during pregnancy.29-32

It is true that serious flu infections or E. coli infections during pregnancy are a major risk for all these complications, but a woman’s risk of becoming infected, as we have seen, is a very small fraction of 1 %, yet they are calling for all pregnant women to be vaccinated with at least three vaccines, two of which contain mercury. There is also evidence to show that a large number of these women will gain no protection from the vaccine.

Dr. Bronze, quoted above, notes that animal studies have shown that vaccines harm unborn babies and that no safety studies have been done in humans. A recent study done by Dr. Laura Hewitson, a professor of obstetrics at the University of Pittsburg Medical Center, found that a single vaccine used in human babies, when used in newborn monkeys, caused significant abnormalities in brainstem development.33 This mass vaccination program for H1N1 variant virus will be the largest experiment on pregnant women in history and could end as a monumental disaster.

How Many Cases are Really Swine Flu?

CBS, to their credit, conducted a three-month long investigation that indicates that we have all been hoodwinked by the governmental “protection” agency called euphemistically, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.34

What they tried to learn from the CDC was just what percentage of the “flu cases” were in fact H1N1. The CDC did all they could to protect this information and only after filing a Freedom of Information request and waiting 2 months did they finally release the data. Now we know why they wanted it protected and why they stopped testing for the H1N1 virus in late July.

The data revealed that in fact very few cases reported as swine flu were in fact H1N1 variant virus. CBS examined the data in all 50 states. What they found, for example, was that in Georgia only 2% of reported cases were H1N1 (97% negative for H1N1); in Alaska only 1% of reported cases were H1N1 (93% negative for flu and 5% seasonal flu) and in California only 2% of reported cases were H1N1 with 12% being other flu viruses and 86% negative for flu.

A recent release from the CDC found that their survey reported that of 12,943 specimens tested from around the country, only 26.3% of cases tested positive for H1N1 variant virus, but that 99.8% of the specimens tested positive for some type of other flu virus, most of which were regular seasonal flu.

The CDC has now changed all data reporting on the flu effects. They did this by stopping viral typing and subtyping and rolled back all previous numbers based on prior data. The new system for collecting data now started on August 30th, 2009.

The only reason I can imagine they did this is that the prior data was clearly demonstrating that the H1N1 variant virus was causing a very mild illness in most people (99.99%) with fewer hospitalizations, fewer cases of pneumonia and fewer deaths for all ages and groups than the prior seasonal flu in past years. This was true for the United States and the Southern Hemisphere, which has gone though the worst of its flu season.

Now that they are no longer typing the virus, they can attribute all cases of pneumonia, hospitalizations and deaths to H1N1, even though the majority of cases appear to be from a long list of other causes. In fact, they can classify many cases of primary pneumonia as caused by H1N1.

Flu Vaccine Exposed

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/09/26/Flu-Vaccine-Exposed.aspx

Ex Military Prison

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6848238.ece

About 12,000 veterans are on probation or parole, representing 6 per cent of the total, while 8,500 are in prison, representing 8.5 per cent of the jail population, according to the report by the National Association of Probation Officers (Napo).

In the United States 10 per cent of the population of both federal and state jails were veterans in 2004, according to US government figures.

The study found that chronic misuse of alcohol and drugs was a big factor in half of 90 cases where veterans had been given a community sentence. Almost half of the veterans were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or depression. The most common conviction was for violence in a domestic setting, which occurred in 39 cases, the Napo paper said. In ten other cases the main offence was against a child. No figures were available for Scotland.

A survey of sentenced prisoners conducted by the Government in 2003 suggested that 4 per cent of prisoners had served in the Armed Forces.

Battery Life

History of Battery Development



1600 Gilbert (England) Establishment electrochemistry study
1791 Galvani (Italy) Discovery of ‘animal electricity’
1800 Volta (Italy) Invention of the voltaic cell
1802 Cruickshank (England) First electric battery capable of mass production
1820 Ampère (France) Electricity through magnetism
1833 Faraday (England) Announcement of Faraday’s Law
1836 Daniell (England) Invention of the Daniell cell
1859 Planté (France) Invention of the lead acid battery
1868 Leclanché (France) Invention of the Leclanché cell
1888 Gassner (USA) Completion of the dry cell
1899 Jungner (Sweden) Invention of the nickel-cadmium battery
1901 Edison (USA) Invention of the nickel-iron battery
1932 Shlecht & Ackermann (Germany) Invention of the sintered pole plate
1947 Neumann (France) Successfully sealing the nickel-cadmium battery
Mid 1960 Union Carbide (USA) Development of primary alkaline battery
Mid 1970 Development of valve regulated lead acid battery
1990 Commercialization nickel-metal hydride battery
1992 Kordesch (Canada) Commercialization reusable alkaline battery
1999 Commercialization lithium-ion polymer
2001 Anticipated volume production of proton exchange membrane fuel cell




Figure 1-5: History of battery development.
The battery may be much older. It is believed that the Parthians who ruled Baghdad (ca. 250 bc) used batteries to electroplate silver. The Egyptians are said to have electroplated antimony onto copper over 4300 years ago.

Bisphenol-A (BPA) UK

Is it safe to use plastic baby bottles? I have heard they contain harmful chemicals.
Plastic baby bottles and other types of plastic food container are safe to use if they are used correctly.

You should always follow the manufacturer's instructions, but, generally, plastic bottles and containers are safe to use and reuse if they're not damaged and can be cleaned properly. Also, you can heat food in plastic containers in hot water or the microwave if the label says it is OK to do so.

Cans should not be reused. Once a can has been opened, any leftover food should be put in a sealable container in the fridge.

One chemical you may have heard of, in relation to baby bottles, is a substance called Bisphenol-A (BPA). It's used to make a range of plastic food containers, including baby bottles. It's also found in the resin used to coat the inside of food cans, to stop the metal contaminating the food.

Very small amounts of BPA can transfer from the packaging into food and drinks. It's possible that BPA might affect the hormone system in people's bodies. That said, there has been a lot of research carried out worldwide and there is still no conclusive evidence that these chemicals do have this effect in people.

Independent experts have calculated how much BPA can be eaten every day over a lifetime without it causing harm to our health. It has been estimated that the amounts we take in from food and drink are much lower than this level. There are also rules in place to protect the public. These rules set a maximum level of BPA that is allowed to transfer into food.

http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/asksam/keepingfoodsafe/asksamstoringpreparing/#A457998

Check
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/05/22/where-to-find-bpa-free-products.aspx
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/09/12/How-Moms-and-Minorities-are-Deceived-About-Dangers-of-Plastic.aspx

RABBI BARUCH KAPLAN

http://www.nkusa.org/Historical_Documents/KaplanInterview.cfm

This is a free translation of a Yiddish transcript of a taped interview made some twenty years ago with the late Rabbi Baruch Kaplan, who was a principal of the Beis Yaakov Girls School in Brooklyn, and who was a student in the Hebron yeshiva (religious school) in 1929 at the time of the killing of a number of Jews by some Arabs. Rabbi Kaplan explains how events unfolded, and how it was the arrogant and cowardly Zionist maniacs who perpetrated the events by provoking the Palestinians

“When I was in Hebron in 1929, there occurred the tragic massacre of over twenty yeshiva students, great scholars, plus another forty members of the Jewish community. I would like to describe the error that has circulated in Jewish communities – a horrible error, that accuses the Arabs in Hebron of being murderers who attacked the Jews simply because the Arabs were “bad people.” In order to correct the record, this error must be corrected. The Arabs were very friendly people, and the Jewish People in Hebron lived together with them and had very friendly relations with them. They worked with Jews, and everybody got along just fine.

To take just one example, I used to have the habit of walking a mile or two out of town all by myself to visit a tree that was believed to be the tree where our patriarch Abraham met the three angels, as described in Genesis. I especially enjoyed visiting the tree in the summertime. Along the way I would talk to the Arabs, though it was mostly using our hands because I didn’t speak any Arabic. Interestingly enough, no one in the yeshiva ever told me it was dangerous to go by myself among the Arabs. We just lived with them, and got along very well.

I have also seen a letter from the Grand Rabbi of the Gerrer Hassidim of those days, Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Alter of Poland, regarding his trip to the Holy Land during the days when people were talking about emigrating to Palestine. He wanted to find out what kind of people the Palestinians were, in order to be able to advise people whether to move there or not. He wrote in his letter that the Arabs were a very friendly and fine people.

Therefore it’s necessary to set the record straight about the accusations that the Palestinians were terrible killers who liked attacking Jews. This was never the situation at all!

Today’s wicked Zionists are just like their predecessors, who were responsible for causing terrible suffering in Palestine with their wars with the Arabs, may G-d have mercy. At that time in 1929, the Zionists had a slogan arguing that the Western Wall in Jerusalem was a Jewish “national symbol.” Of course, the Arabs disagreed with this idea, considering that they had control of the location for over 1,100 years. However, the Zionist mobs were yelling that “The Wall is ours!” It’s hard to understand why they felt that way considering they have no connection to the Jewish holy places whatsoever. An argument erupted in the Jewish newspapers about establishing a permanent prayer area for Jews at the Wall. This provoked the Arabs, and the rabbi of Jerusalem at the time, Rabbi Yosef Chaim Zonnenfeld begged them to stop and to be appreciative to the Arabs for allowing Jews to pray at the Wall for so many centuries undisturbed. However, the Zionists wanted a permanent setup under their control.

The Zionists refused to heed the calls of Rabbi Zonnenfeld, and they called a large meeting of Jews in Jerusalem – supposedly some 10,000 people showed up. One of the speakers was their “chief Rabbi” (Avraham Isaac Kook), who proclaimed, “Hear O Israel, the Wall is our Wall, the Wall is One” (which is a ridiculous pun on the blessing, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our G-d, the Lord is One”). This began the conflict at the time between the Zionists and the Arabs.

Afterwards, we were studying at the yeshiva in Hebron, and saw a bunch of boys in short pants carrying weapons on bicycles and motorcycles, running around the streets of Hebron. We were very worried about this. What were they up to?

In brief, our rabbi, the supervisor of our religious academy, Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Epstein, called them for a meeting, but they refused. He was forced to go over to them, and asked them what they were up to. He accused them of wanting to provoke the Arabs. They responded that they were coming to protect us!! We cried out, “Woe is us! G-d have mercy!” They didn’t want to leave town until it was too late!

These arrogant cowards only ran away when the local leaders of the Arabs called for a mass meeting of the people of the surrounding Arab villages. But it was too late; the Arabs got organized, and the Mufti called on his people to be ready Friday night when the yeshiva would be attending prayers. At this point, the yeshiva was alone against the Zionists, but the Arabs didn’t know to distinguish between us and the Zionists. Sadly they attacked and killed some of our people, including the great scholar, Rabbi Shmuel Rosenhaltz.

The next morning we heard about the excitement in town, and even worse, we heard the crying and shouting. I and a friend, Avraham Ushpener, lived in an apartment that was part of a three-story building leased by a Jew from an Arab. We could hear all the noise from our apartment on the third floor. We were terrified to let the Arabs in because we knew how angry they had become, but a while later things calmed down. In total, some 65 people were killed. On the other side of town, however, the Jews were spared.

Why am I telling this story? It is because I wanted to describe how the wicked Zionists, both today and in those days, were the cause of our suffering! They cooperated with the Nazis, and our religion teaches that a person who causes someone to sin is worse than someone who kills him.

It reminds me of an event recounted by Rabbi Moshe Schonfeld, who once visited Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz {Chazon Ish) when the Zionist state was established, and when there was fighting between the Zionists and the Arabs. Rabbi Schonfeld told Rabbi Karelitz about what was happening. Rabbi Karelitz told him that the crimes of the Zionists were much worse, because they were wicked heretics who were uprooting hundreds of thousands of Jews from their faith and that is much greater pain since our Sages stated that a person who causes another person to sin is much worse than if he kills him.

In our own days there is a Zionist leader (Begin), whose arrogance and selfishness is more important than anything else to him, and for which he is prepared to sacrifice hundreds and thousands of Jews. These heretics and evildoers, this Zionist leader of a state that killed the Judaism of the Yemenite and Moroccan Jews, and of many other Sephardic Jews! This is the work of these thugs and gangsters. And there are religious Jewish parties who dare to state that they love this man?! Everyone must know that the anger of the Arabs against us is only caused by the Zionists!

The Arabs were a friendly people to us, and I am a witness to it. We lived very well with them in Hebron. Rabbi Alter attested to this as well, and it is the accursed Zionists who caused them to hate us. The Zionists dare to use their power to expel the Arabs, and even today in Lebanon, they kill and butcher the Arabs; they wipe out whole villages with the airplanes they get from the United States.

Everyone should know who the murderers are – the Zionists are the biggest murderers in the world, who refuse to let the Jewish People live in peace either physically or spiritually!”

ADD/ADHD Ritalin®, Concerta®, Adderall®, and Strattera®

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/07/09/ADHD-Childlike-Behavior-or-Serious-Condition.aspx

What Exactly is ADD/ADHD?

Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) involve a cluster of symptoms that include inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsive behaviors. Often, children with the conditions may struggle in school and with relationships, and suffer from low self-esteem.

The term ADD has largely been replaced with ADHD, as it describes two of the most common symptoms of the condition, inattention and hyperactive-impulsive behavior.

Most children display a combination of these two traits, and may show the following symptoms:[iii]

Frequent fidgeting or squirming
Feels restless or often runs and climbs excessively, or leaves his or her seat in the classroom when not appropriate
Has difficulty playing quietly
Talks excessively, interrupts often, and may blurt out answers to questions at inappropriate times
Always seems on the go
Has difficulty waiting his or her turn

As you can see, many of these “symptoms” could describe most all children at one time or another. As such, those who display these symptoms at school but not at home or with friends are not considered to have ADHD. Likewise, with children who display symptoms at home but not at school.

Only children who struggle with inattention and hyperactive or impulsive behaviors around the clock are deemed to have ADHD, and if not dealt with properly the symptoms can continue well into adulthood.

What Causes ADD/ADHD?

Many parents and spouses are at their wit’s ends trying to cope with the relentless and upsetting behaviors caused by their unhappy, troubled children, teens, or adults. Adding to their frustration is not knowing the cause of the symptoms, nor what to do to fix them. It is no surprise that those dealing with ADD/ADHD-affected individuals can become desperate for answers.

But most experts are just as perplexed as everyone else.

One theory behind ADD/ADHD is that it is caused, at least in part, by inherited genetic factors. Some scientists are now aiming their research at finding genes that may make a person more susceptible to this disorder.[iv]

Another plausible theory is exposure to environmental toxins.

A 2006 study found that a mother's use of cigarettes, alcohol, or other drugs during pregnancy could increase the risk for ADHD. [v]

That same research also suggested that exposure to lead may cause ADHD symptoms, and the industrial chemicals polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have also been named as a potential culprit.

But as usual, few are focusing on nutrition, which I believe is a key factor. We know food choices of most children -- and adults -- today are incredibly poor. How can you possibly expect a child to have normal behavior if he is fed refined grains, sugars, processed foods loaded with chemicals, and juices and sodas instead of pure water?

Add to that the substandard amount of vegetables in most people’s diets -- up to 90 percent fewer than what is required for health -- an overabundance of omega-6 fats and a deficiency of omega-3 fats, and you can see a real pattern emerging.

If you are a nutritionist or dietician, you will know this is a recipe for disaster. You simply cannot have a child or adult with a healthy functioning brain, when the proper ingredients to develop or maintain a healthy brain are not being given!

Renowned children's health expert Dr. Lendon Smith, who passed away several years ago, was really one of the pioneer physicians in this area, and he had been effectively using nutrition and dietary interventions to help relieve the symptoms of ADHD for decades.

He realized that drugs like Ritalin were not the answer for ADHD right from the start. As he said in an interview I did with him back in 2001:[vi]

“It is too bad psychiatrists have failed to recognize that if a stimulant acts as a calming agent, then they must shore up the flagging enzyme that is under-producing. This all fits with the damage that we have done to the top soil. It is washing and blowing away and with it, the magnesium. The psychiatrists have made ADD/ADHD a disease, like pneumonia.

It is actually a syndrome due to a defect in the screening device of the brain. I understand that since they had made it a disease they can be compensated for treating it. Another rule they have used: 'If the Ritalin works, they need it.' Sort of like a Ritalin deficiency.”

According to Dr. Smith, stimulant drugs like Ritalin have a calming effect in children with ADHD because there is not enough norepinephrine, a hormone and neurotransmitter, in their limbic system, the part of the brain that is supposed to filter out unimportant stimuli.

Because of this, one common denominator that Dr. Smith often used as a diagnostic criterion for ADHD was being extremely ticklish.

In other words, they were unable to disregard unimportant stimuli.

Some people may also have ADD/ADHD symptoms due to allergic reactions to chemicals in the environment or their food. Chemically-sensitive people who have their clothing washed with perfumed and chemical-laden soap that they not only breathe in, but that their skin comes into close contact with daily, could likely have ADHD symptoms.

In addition, a number of people may be allergic to the chemicals that are added to clothes in the manufacturing process, such as permanent press or stain-resistant products. These too may initiate ADHD or ADHD-like reactions in sensitive individuals

Would You Give Your Child Cocaine?

For years, drug companies have been churning out various medications to try to stem this growing epidemic.

Ritalin®, Concerta®, Adderall®, and Strattera® have been the main drugs of choice.

These products, with the exception of Strattera®, all contain different formulations of methylphenidate, a powerful psychostimulant drug that is in the same class as cocaine.

In fact, a 2009 study shows that methylphenidate behaves similarly to addictive drugs like cocaine.

Investigators, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, showed that methylphenidate can cause physical changes in neurons in the “reward” regions of mouse brains -- and in some instances, these effects overlapped with those of cocaine.

The researchers exposed mice to two weeks of daily injections of cocaine or methylphenidate, after which reward areas of the brain were examined for changes that have been implicated in the long-term actions of addictive drugs.

Both drugs showed evidence of addiction in the brain, although each drug’s pattern of expression was unique. Interestingly, in some cases, methylphenidate produced even greater effects than cocaine![vii]

Ritalin has the same pharmacological profile as cocaine, yet its effects are even more potent. Using brain imaging, scientists have found that, in pill form, Ritalin occupies more of the neural transporters responsible for the “high” experienced by addicts than smoked or injected cocaine!

Doctors Bribed Hook Kids Drugs

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/08/11/Doctors-Bribed-to-Hook-Your-Kids-on-Drugs.aspx

Americans must start to question the legitimacy of the exploitative pharmaceutical-industrial complex, and the predatory people that run it.

The pharmaceutical-industrial complex has virtually annexed the mental health profession. Take, as one example, Harvard psychiatrist Joseph Biederman, the high-profile doctor most responsible for the explosion of kids on psychiatric drugs. Biederman took $1.6 million from drug makers from 2000 to 2007, and failed to report most of it to his university.

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Thimerosal Autism Neurotoxicity

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/08/06/Proof-That-Thimerosal-Induces-AutismLike-Neurotoxicity.aspx

A new scientific study proves that the mercury-based compound used as vaccine preservative -- known as ‘thimerosal’ -- induces neural damage similar to that seen in autism patients.......

.....As you’ve likely heard by now, rates of autism in the U.S. have increased nearly 60-fold since the late 1970s, rising right along with the increasing number of vaccinations added to the childhood vaccination schedule.

This oftentimes debilitating neurological disorder now affects about one in 150 U.S. children, but an article in the Daily Mail two years ago reported the rate of autism in Great Britain could be as high as 1 in 58........
==============================================================
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/03/22/u-s-government-concedes-that-mercury-causes-autism.aspx

The U.S. government has concluded that childhood vaccines contributed to symptoms of autism in 9-year-old Hannah Poling. The unprecedented concession was in response to one of three test cases that allege the mercury-containing vaccine preservative thimerosal caused autism in children.

According to the case, the child was healthy and developing normally until her 18-month well-baby visit, where she received vaccinations for nine diseases, two of which contained thimerosal. Within 48 hours of the shots, Hannah become ill, refused to walk and could not sleep through the night. Within three months, she began showing signs of autism.......

Your Car and Home Could Soon Be Powered By Urine

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/07/28/Your-Car-and-Home-Could-Soon-Be-Powered-By-Your-Urine.aspx

Urine-powered cars, homes and personal electronic devices could be available in six months.
Using a nickel-based electrode, scientists can create large amounts of cheap hydrogen from urine that could be burned or used in fuel cells. One cow can provide enough energy to supply hot water for 19 houses.
One molecule of urea, a major component of urine, contains four atoms of hydrogen bonded to two atoms of nitrogen. If you place a special nickel electrode into a pool of urine and apply an electrical current, hydrogen gas is released.
A urine-powered vehicle could theoretically travel 90 miles per gallon.Sources:
MSNBC July 8, 2009

How To subdue Insurgency.

First militarily oppress Insurgents and no matter your losses, attack, while saying we are doing it for a different reason, (get the International OK).

Then invite their moderates for a political solution, and waite until you find enough about the Insurgent heiracky. Put under cover people into the mix. You will not take any knowledge about your spies. They will die and thats what you got to pay.

Now you got the most of the leaders, now either kill them if they do not agree to your way, or pay them well to get themselves to be your medium level of law makers in the country.

US “rigged” elections Kyrgyzstan

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jul2009/pers-j25.shtml

25 July 2009

The brazen rigging of an election, the repression of the opposition and the use of police violence and live ammunition against demonstrators has been met with silence and indifference on the part of the Obama administration and the US media.

These events were taking place Thursday not in Iran, but rather in the landlocked Central Asian state of Kyrgyzstan.

In their habitual diplomatic language, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe election monitors declared that the Kyrgyz vote “fell short of key standards” and constituted a “disappointment.”

A closer reading of the OSCE report, however, discloses genuinely criminal methods used to deliver a nearly 90 percent majority to incumbent President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.

The OSCE cites “ballot stuffing” and “multiple voting” on election day, while physical force, including the use of tear gas, was employed to stop observers from the opposition party from entering a polling place. “The process further deteriorated during the vote count,” the organization said.

When thousands of people took to the streets of Kyrgyzstan’s capital to protest the vote fraud, police attacked them with percussion grenades and tear gas, while firing live ammunition over their heads.

In the run-up to the election, the OSCE said, “The distinction between the ruling party and the state was blurred.” Concretely, this meant that the offices of Bakiyev’s Ak-Zhol party were set up inside government buildings. Government workers and students were coerced into attending the party’s rallies under threat of being fired or thrown out of school.

Campaign events by the opposition were blocked by the police and its leaders and supporters were subjected to a reign of terror. One of the opposition leaders, Emilbek Kaptagaev, reported being kidnapped by a group of men, one wearing a police uniform, taken to the edge of the capital and brutally beaten. He received a call three weeks later warning him that if he didn’t stop campaigning for the leading opposition candidate—former prime minister Almazbek Atambaev of the Social Democratic Party—he would get more of the same and worse.

The opposition was virtually blacked out in the mass media. Three national television stations suspended all news coverage at the end of June as the vote approached. Over the past year, the government has carried out the systematic suppression of opposition newspapers, taking them to court on charges of libeling the president’s relatives, imposing massive fines and confiscating equipment.

Earlier this month, the journalist Almaz Tashiyev, who had published articles critical of the government, suffered a fatal beating at the hands of eight policemen. It was the sixth violent attack on journalists this year and the second fatal attack since October 2007, when independent journalist Alisher Saipov was gunned down execution style. No one has been arrested for that killing.

The electoral fraud hardly came as a surprise. During the run-up to local elections last year, the head of the Central election commission fled the country after saying that the president’s son had threatened her life.

Human rights groups say torture of detainees in Kyrgyzstan is common. Among the more infamous cases is that of the arrest of 32 people last year at a protest in the town of Nookat. While awaiting trial, police beat them on the soles of their feet, poured hot and cold water on them and brought them to the brink of suffocation by putting plastic bags over their heads. When one of the women prisoners told her tormentors that she was pregnant, they assaulted her, causing a miscarriage.

Last month, President Barack Obama sent a letter to President Bakiyev, praising his regime for its “efforts in stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan and the fight against international terrorism.”

This remains Washington’s position. Why haven’t Obama and Hillary Clinton declared

Afghanistan NATO Forces

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/international_security_bt/628.php?nid=&id=&pnt=628&lb=

new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of nations around the world finds that most publics polled believe that the Afghan people want NATO forces to leave Afghanistan now. On average 53 percent have this belief, while 30 percent assume that most Afghans want NATO forces to stay.

Among those who believe that the Afghan people want NATO forces to leave, 76 percent say that NATO forces should leave. Among those who believe that the Afghan people want NATO forces to stay, 83 percent say NATO forces should stay. Overall, on average, 37 percent think that NATO forces should remain in Afghanistan, while 50 percent think the mission should be ended now.

Swine Flu GlaxoSmithKline

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,637748,00.html#ref=nlint


British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline has orders for its swine flu vaccine from 16 countries and is in talks with 50 more.

British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is set to reap billions as fear of the swine flu pandemic grows. The world's second-largest drug company has secured orders from 16 countries for 195 million doses of the vaccine it is developing against the H1N1 virus, which has killed more than 740 people worldwide.

The Brentford (England)-based drugmaker began production of its new flu vaccine in June and is on track to begin shipping the first doses in September.
==================================================================================
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/07/28/What-are-the-Dangers-of-Mandatory-Swine-Flu-Vaccination.aspx


By Dr. Mercola

In early May, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius admitted the swine flu virus was not quite the fearsome plague it was widely reported to be in April when the novel influenza A strain (official name H1N1) first emerged in the U.S.

On May 6, Sebelius said:

“We are cautiously optimistic that what we are seeing right now is presenting itself as a much milder virus than the initial cases ... in Mexico.”[1]

Ms. Sebelius’ remark was likely prompted by the fact the swine flu virus is showing itself to have mild symptoms, quick recovery time, and low incidence of death among the vast majority of H1N1 patients throughout the world (with the single exception of Mexico).

A little over a month later, on June 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) raised its swine flu pandemic alert from a 5 to a 6. [2] Phase 6 is the highest level alert, and reflects the speed with which a virus is spreading – not its severity.

WHO actually considers the severity of the H1N1 virus to be moderate, generally defined as an illness requiring neither hospitalization nor even medical care.[3]
...........................
===================================================================================
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13433

............"According to the Canadian Medical Association Journal, the flu kills up to 2,500 Canadians and about 36,000 Americans annually. Worldwide, the number of deaths attributed to the flu each year is between 250,000 and 500,000" .................

................ The Mexican Minister of Health, José Ángel Córdova confirmed that there were "2498 serious cases of atypical pneumonia associated with a flu condition" ...[which] could be related to the A/H1N1 virus". Out of those 2498 cases of influenza, 159 died, of influenza or related ailments, but only seven of these deaths were related to the swine flu, according to the official statement of the Minister of Health.

The figures above are consistent with the overall pattern of influenza observed in Mexico in previous years. "In a normal year, between 6,500 and 7,500 Mexicans die from pneumonia-like diseases" (Ibid)

159 reported deaths "have been blamed on the outbreak" but the lab reports suggest that the swine flu was the cause of death only in seven out of 159 cases.

For instance, in the Veracruz town of La Gloria where there was an outbreak of acute respiratory infections, out of 450 cases, 35 were tested for the swine flu virus and only one came back positive. (That is a ratio of 1/450) .............

........... In the US there have been 109 reported cases of the virus (April 30, 2009), of which only five were hospitalized. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control confirmed that a 23 month child in Texas had died from the swine flu virus, following hospitalisation and clinical examination. ................

Mahmoud al-Sarsak, IDF, Sccer Player

http://www.uruknet.de:80/?s1=1&p=56280&s2=24

Israel arrests soccer player of Palestinian national team
Xinhua

GAZA, July 23, 2009 (Xinhua) -- Israel arrested a Palestinian soccer player en route from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip to the West Bank, the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) said Thursday.

"This is an Israeli piracy targeting sport in Palestine," the PFA said in a statement, adding that "We call on the FIFA to press the Israeli authorities to release al-Sarsak immediately."

Mahmoud al-Sarsak, 22, a Gaza-based player and a member of the national team, was detained late Wednesday at Erez crossing point between Gaza and Israel, a source in the PFA told Xinhua.

Two of his colleagues have been turned back to Gaza, said the source on condition of anonymity.

The three were on their way to the West Bank to play for Balataclub in Nablus town. The PFA said it had contacted with Israel in advance to allow the players to cross.

The PFA said Israeli intelligence officers interrogated al-Sarsak and other players for eight hours at the crossing and then detained al-Sarsak.

Meanwhile, relatives of al-Sarsak confirmed the arrest, saying they have received a phone call from the Israeli army Thursday telling them that al-Sarsak was under detention in a prison at Ashkelon town.

Mohammad Srour IDF Kidnapping UN

http://www.uruknet.de:80/?s1=1&p=56274&s2=24

Soldiers kidnap Ni’lin resident for testifying before a UN Committee probing Israeli violations
Saed Bannoura



- IMEMC - July 23, 2009

Israeli soldiers kidnapped on Wednesday a Palestinian resident of Ni’lin village, near the central West Bank city of Ramallah immediately after he returned from Geneva after testifying before a UN committee investigating the Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip, and other Israeli violations.


The resident was identified as Mohammad Srour. He was previously shot and wounded by Israeli soldiers who attacked a nonviolent protest against the Annexation Wall in the West Bank village, near Ramallah. Two Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire during the attack.

Israeli activist, Jonathan Pollack of the Anarchists Against the Wall also testified before the committee of Judge Richard Goldstone.

Srour returned to his village two days ago and was kidnapped by Israeli security officials at the Allenby Bridge between Jordan and the West Bank, and was moved to Ofer detention center.

His family told the Israeli Ynet News that the army kidnapped him because he testified before the international committee, and exposed the Israeli violations against the Palestinians and against nonviolent protests against the illegal Annexation Wall.

Israeli security officials claimed that Srour was not detained because he testified in Geneva, and added that he was detained due to alleged involvement of what Israel described as a 'terror activity’.

His brother said that the Israeli claim is bogus especially since Mohammad received a permission from Israel to leave the country, and crossed via the Israeli-controlled bridge between the West Bank and Jordan.

U.S. rabbis human kidneys

http://www.uruknet.de:80/?s1=1&p=56288&s2=24

U.S. rabbis suspected of brokering sale of human kidneys
Reuters



July 23, 2009

Three New Jersey mayors and several rabbis were arrested on Thursday in a sweeping federal investigation into political corruption that also uncovered human kidney sales and money laundering from Brooklyn to Israel, authorities said.

Among the 44 people arrested were Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano, who took office 23 days ago.

Cammarano, at 31 the city's youngest-ever mayor, was charged with taking $25,000 in bribes, including e10,000 last Thursday, said the U.S. Attorney's office in Newark, New Jersey.

The case exposed "a corrupt network of public officials who were all too willing to take cash in exchange for promised official action," Acting U.S. Attorney Ralph Marra said in a statement. "It seemed that everyone wanted a piece of the action. The corruption was widespread and pervasive."

Bird flu

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/21/pandemic.warning

Up to 75,000 Britons will in die in an "inevitable" flu pandemic that could kill as many as 50 million people worldwide, a parliamentary committee warns today.

The outbreak, most likely to be caused by a strain of bird flu, will be on a scale not seen for 40 years and cause "massive" disruption in the UK.

The committee report (click for PDF) warns that surveillance of emerging disease threats around the world needs to be overhauled to provide early warning of potential pandemics.

A new and potentially deadly infectious disease emerges somewhere in the world every year, threatening "devastating consequences" across the globe, warns the Lords intergovernmental organisations committee. Its report, published today, criticises Britain's "poorly coordinated" disease control systems.

Reform of the World Health Organisation (WHO) is "essential", as the global health agency is "dysfunctional" and lacking the organisation and resources to curb a major outbreak, it says.........................
================================================================================
Diseases Know No Frontiers: How effective are Intergovernmental Organisations in
controlling their pread?
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldselect/ldintergov/143/143.pdf

whales, Intelligence

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/magazine/12whales-t.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

A female humpback was spotted in December 2005 east of the Farallon Islands, just off the coast of San Francisco. She was entangled in a web of crab-trap lines, hundreds of yards of nylon rope that had become wrapped around her mouth, torso and tail, the weight of the traps causing her to struggle to stay afloat. A rescue team arrived within a few hours and decided that the only way to save her was to dive in and cut her loose.

For an hour they cut at the lines and rope with curved knives, all the while trying to steer clear of a tail they knew could kill them with one swipe. When the whale was finally freed, the divers said, she swam around them for a time in what appeared to be joyous circles. She then came back and visited with each one of them, nudging them all gently, as if in thanks. The divers said it was the most beautiful experience they ever had. As for the diver who cut free the rope that was entangled in the whale’s mouth, her huge eye was following him the entire time, and he said that he will never be the same.

TO DATE, NO neurological studies of the gray-whale brain have been done. In 2006, however, researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine analyzed the brains of two other baleen species — humpback and finback whales — as well as those of a number of toothed whales like dolphins and killer and sperm whales. The study revealed brain structures surprisingly similar to our own. Some, in fact, contained large concentrations of spindle cells — often referred to as the cells that make us human because of their link to higher cognitive functions like self-awareness, a sense of compassion and linguistic expression — with the added kick that whales evolved these same highly specialized neurons as many as 15 million years before we humans did, a stunning instance of a phenomenon biologists refer to as parallel evolution.

“In spite of the relative scarcity of information on many cetacean species,” the Mount Sinai scientists concluded in a report in the November 2006 edition of the journal The Anatomical Record, “it is important to note in this context that sperm whales, killer whales and certainly humpback whales exhibit complex social patterns that include intricate communication skills, coalition formation, cooperation, cultural transmission and tool usage.” They added that it is therefore “likely that some of these abilities” are related to the comparable complexity in the brain structures of whales and hominids.

The sperm whale, for example, which has the largest brain on earth, weighing as much as 19 pounds, has been found to live in large, elaborately structured societal groups, or clans, that typically number in the tens of thousands and wander over many thousands of miles of ocean. The whales of a clan are not all related, but within each clan there are smaller, close-knit, matriarchal family units. Young whales are raised within an extended, multitiered network of doting female caregivers, including the mother, aunts and grandmothers, who help in the nurturing of babies and, researchers suspect, in teaching them patterns of movement, hunting techniques and communication skills. “It’s like they’re living in these massive, multicultural, undersea societies,” says Hal Whitehead, a marine biologist at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia and the world’s foremost expert on the sperm whale. “It’s sort of strange. Really the closest analogy we have for it would be ourselves.”

Whitehead has even discovered distinct clan dialects using different codas, what he describes as a “Morse code-like pattern of clicks” that the whales make with their long head cavities and use to communicate with one another over many miles, reinforcing social bonds and declaring clan affiliation. Whitehead, who has been tracking and recording sperm whales around the globe since the early 1980s, has positively identified five distinct clan dialects and studied two extensively. “The regular clan,” he told me in a phone conversation from his lab in Nova Scotia, “makes three to eight equally spaced clicks. And then there are the Plus-One clans. They have two to eight clicks and then a pause and an added click at the end, kind of like the Canadian ‘eh.’ We’ve also noticed that these clans ply the water differently. Regular groups move in wiggly tracks closer to shore, while the Plus-Ones swim further from shore in straight lines.”

Whales display an incredible degree of coordination and cooperation in their efforts. Aaron Thode, an associate research scientist from the Scripps Institution, who was in Baja doing acoustical studies of grays, told me of another project he is involved in, using the latest research tools to gain insights into how whales perceive the world. He showed me an extraordinary video of sperm whales pilfering catch from fishermen’s lines in Alaska, 50-foot-long, massive-jawed behemoths delicately snatching a single black cod from a longline’s dangling hook, like an hors d’oeuvre from a cocktail toothpick. Fishermen are currently losing 5 to 10 percent of their yearly haul and fear the problem could become worse because whales who have mastered the technique are busily teaching it to others. The news seems to be rapidly spreading, as reports of similar fish-snatching are coming in from fishermen all over the world.

Humpback whales, meanwhile, have devised a prime example of what Fred Sharpe, executive director of the Alaska Whale Foundation, has described as “communal tool use.” Based on 20 years of observing humpbacks at sea and simulating their behaviors in the laboratory, Sharpe has been able to piece together the humpback’s rather ingenious fishing strategy. A group of humpbacks will get together and begin herding prey — herring, for example — toward the sea surface through the use of coordinated hunting calls. A designated leader of the group, meanwhile, will dive beneath the herded fish and emit from its blowhole an intense stream of rising bubbles, essentially forming a tube-shaped net to hold the fish in place. Waiting for the precise moment when the net has fully formed and captured the optimum number of fish, the group then rises as one, mouths agape, toward the surface.

Somehow the more we learn about whales, the more we’re coming to appreciate the sublimely discomfiting reality that a kind of parallel “us” has long been out there roaming the oceans' depths, succumbing to our assaults. Indeed, when that baby gray calf bobbed up out of the sea and held there that first morning, staring at me with his huge, slow-blinking eye, it felt to me as if he were taking one impossibly long and quizzical look in the mirror.

I asked Frohoff at one point if, given both the dark past of human-whale interactions in those lagoons and what we’ve now come to know about whale intelligence, there could possibly be some element of knowing forgiveness behind their actions. She took a deep breath and widened her eyes, making it clear that she wanted to be very careful about how she answered such a question.

“Those are the kinds of things that for the longest time a scientist wouldn’t dare consider,” she said. “But thank goodness we’ve gone through a kind of cognitive revolution when it comes to studying the intelligence and emotion of other species. In fact, I’d say now that it is my obligation as a scientist not to discount that possibility. We do have compelling evidence of the experience of grief in cetaceans; and of joy, anger, frustration and distress and self-awareness and tool use; and of protecting not just their young but also their companions from humans and other predators. So these are reasons why something like forgiveness is a possibility. And even if it’s not that exactly, I believe it’s something. That there’s something very potent occurring here from a behavioral and a biological perspective. I mean, I’d put my career on the line and challenge anybody to say that these whales are not actively soliciting and engaging in a form of communication with humans, both through eye contact and tactile interaction and perhaps acoustically in ways that we have not yet determined. I find the reality of it far more enthralling than all our past whale mythology.”

US Terror Interrogation Unit

http://www.uruknet.de:80/?s1=1&p=56130&s2=19

July 18, 2009

WASHINGTON, AP – The Obama administration is considering creating a special unit of professional interrogators to handle key terror suspects, focusing on intelligence-gathering rather than building criminal cases for prosecution, a government official said Saturday.

The recommendation is expected from a presidential task force on interrogation methods that plans to send some findings to the White House on Tuesday.

The official said the panel, which has not completed its work, has concluded that the unit of intelligence and law enforcement agencies should be created. The task force is unsure which agencies should have a role, though the CIA and FBI are expected to be important players, according to the official. He was not authorized to publicly discuss the panel's work and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Harry Truman, Christian Zionist

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article23098.htm

Harry Truman, a Christian Zionist, remains one of the more notable recipients of funds. In 1948, he was trailing badly in the polls and in fundraising. His prospects brightened dramatically in May after he recognized as a legitimate state an enclave of Jewish extremists who originally planned to settle in Argentina before putting their sights on Palestine.

That recognition was opposed by Secretary of State George C. Marshall, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the bulk of the diplomatic corps, the fledgling Central Intelligence Agency and numerous distinguished Americans, including moderate and secular Jews concerned at the troubles that were certain to follow. Not until 1984 was it revealed that a network of Jewish Zionists had funded Truman’s campaign by financially refueling his whistle-stop campaign train with $400,000 in cash ($3 million in 2009 dollars).

AIPAC

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article23098.htm

Jewish Achievement reports that 42% of the largest political donors to the 2000 election cycle were Jewish, including four of the top five. That compares to less than 2% of Americans who are Jewish. Of the Forbes 400 richest Americans, 25% are Jewish according to Michael Steinhardt, a key funder of the Democratic Leadership Council. The DLC was led by Jewish Zionist Senator Joe Lieberman when he resigned in 2000 to run as vice president with pro-Israeli presidential candidate Al Gore.

Money was never a constraint. Pro-Israeli donors were limited only by how much they could lawfully contribute to AIPAC-screened candidates. McCain-Feingold raised a key limit. The full impact of this foreign influence has yet to be tallied. What’s known, however, is sufficient to apply the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Of the top 50 neoconservatives who advocated war in Iraq, 26 were Jewish (52%).

Credit Rating

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/credit-rating-credit-score

Universal credit ratings are a myth, they don't exist in the UK. Each lender scores you based on its ‘perfect customer’ wish list. Yet so many people are under this misapprehension, and look for info on it, we've had to deliberately mis-title this article.

This is a step-by-step guide to how banks and others assess you, and how to boost your ability to get mortgages, credit cards and more. It includes details on hidden fraud scoring, a trick to instantly get all your credit files for free, and the unique, quick Credit Checker tool that assesses your history and allows you to work out your credit weakness.

Get a loan, mortgage, overdraft, credit card, contract mobile phone or even monthly car insurance and lenders ‘score’ you to predict your likely behaviour. Scoring systems are never published and differ lender-to-lender, and product-to-product. So just because one company rejects you, it doesn't automatically mean another will.

Credit scoring doesn't just dictate what products you'll receive, but also how good the ones you actually get are. For example, most loan rates are ‘typical', meaning the APR depends on your credit score; with credit cards, if your score's too low for the sexy deal you wanted, you might get accepted but sent a different product.

There are two big myths to clear up though…

Universal credit ‘ratings’ and ‘blacklists’ DON’T exist.

It mightn't feel like that though, as while each lender scores differently, the information they use is similar. A bad risk for one lender is often a bad risk for others too. You'll be given a different credit rating by each of the three credit agencies (a snapshot on the day you get it). But lenders use that score as just one part of their decision to lend, and each lender will look for a different type of borrower.

Lenders aren't obliged to dole out credit.

Applications are aggregated into millions, and banks prefer to deny a few good quality applicants rather than overspend on personalised vetting procedures or accepting large numbers of unprofitable customers.



It’s all about how financially attractive you are...

Many people still find it deeply frustrating that they get rejected. Yet as the saying sometimes goes, “it's not you, it's them”. While it's crucial to check for errors and do all you can to be as attractive to a lender as possible, sometimes you just aren’t what they’re looking for. Think of it like this:



Jane Bank and Sarah Lender are out on the pull. Neither like guys who are overweight, and both are looking for dark hair, dark eyes and good looks. Yet while Jane leans towards guys with a stubble, Sarah likes a clean shaven man. While Jane likes intense men, Sarah values a sense of humour. So while there's lots of guys they both reject without question, and some they both lust after, they can still end up fancying different blokes.


Credit scoring works the same way. Different companies are looking for different things so a rejection by one doesn't necessarily mean a rejection by all. Yet some borrowers are unattractive to almost all lenders so if you're a bad risk most will turn you down. However, a few (very few in the credit crunch) may have a fetish for those with poor credit histories as they can charge more.

And sadly for those rejected, just as when the guys ask Sarah or Jane why they're not interested, they just say: "Cos I don't fancy you," and that's about it. We don't always get to know other than: "Your credit score wasn’t high enough."



The aim of this guide is to make sure that lenders see you in the best possible light, that when they’re looking at you, you’re always dressed up to the nines, looking as hot as you can, and your skirt/shirt isn't tucked into your pants without you knowing.



Credit scoring's about profit not risk...

This is so important, let's make it as clear as possible.

Even good risks can be rejected simply because they won't make the bank money!

Banks pick customers for their own good, NOT yours, so the scoring process is about profit not risk. Of course, risk plays a part, as those unlikely to repay are a threat to profits. Yet even the most solvent may be rejected if they're unlikely to act in a way that'll generate profit for lenders.

The credit crunch has only magnified this. The sooner we understand banks are there to make money, not help us, the better we can play the system

It’s about sophisticated customer weeding

At the high end, the whole process is about lenders picking their perfect customers, and their reasons for rejection can seem bizarre on the outside, but make perfect sense to them. For example…

Credit card companies may reject you for always repaying cards in full.

While you feel like the perfect punter, for credit card companies, you’re a nightmare. If they can spot this trend, you’re likely to be rejected. The most profitable credit card customers are those who are perpetually in debt, never defaulting, but always managing to meet the minimum repayment.

Pay off in full every month, don’t use cards enough, or always shift debt to 0% cards, and if they can spot you, they may reject you.

Banks score you based on products they'd like to sell you in future.

Imagine this scenario: a bank wants new mortgage customers, yet that’s a costly sell. Instead, it draws you in with a current account paying a high rate of interest on a small amount kept in it. Yet, when you apply, rather than scoring you as a bank account customer, it could actually be scoring to see if you’re likely to be a profitable mortgage borrower in the future.


What they know about you
Banks use a variety of information to make their decision whether to lend to you, including data held by three companies known as ‘credit reference agencies’: Experian, Equifax and Callcredit. Yet the info they have is by no means comprehensive.



What banks know about you…

There are three prime sources of information used for scores.

The application form.

Here, lenders obtain the crucial details of your postcode, salary, family size, reason for the loan and whether you're a home owner. Ensure you fill the forms in carefully. One slight slip, such as “£2,000” salary rather than “£20,000”, can immediately kibosh any application and possibly future ones too. See the fraud scoring section

Past dealings with the company.

Companies use any previous dealings with you to help assess your behaviour, though complicated data protection rules can limit which separate units of a company can communicate to each other. This could mean if you've behaved well with one company, but poorly with others, it's more likely to give you credit.

Credit reference agency files.

Experian, Equifax and Callcredit compile information, allowing them to send data on any UK individual to prospective lenders. All lenders use at least one agency when assessing your file. This data comes from five main sources:



Electoral roll information. This is publicly available and contains address and who lives with whom details.

Court records. County Court Judgements (CCJs) and Bankruptcies indicate if you have a history of debt problems.

Search, address and linked data. This includes records of other lenders who've searched your file when you've applied for credit, addresses you're linked to or other people you have a financial association with.

Fraud data. If you've committed a fraud (or someone has stolen your identity and committed fraud) this will be held on your file under the CIFAS section. More on that below.

Account data. Banks, building societies and other organisations compile details of all your payments and transactions on credit/store cards, loans, mortgages, bank accounts and mobile phone contracts. In theory, they could also hold your record of paying utility bills, though few, if any, utility firms submit the necessary data.

Around 350 million records a month are tracked including details 'default data', where you're officially in default, and 'full data' which incorporates how you generally operate the account, from being the model customer to defaulting.

‘Default data’ has always been shared by financial companies but now ‘full data’ is shared too. This means each lender now has access to all information about you from other organisations.

Now, the 'full data' that credit card companies share about you is increasing. From 1 December 2008, Barclaycard, Capital One, GE Money, HBOS and MBNA began sharing a lot more.

As well as your available credit, actual debts, and whether you've missed repayments, they'll include the amount you repay (ie, if it's the minimum, or repaying in full) and whether you've a promotional deal (plus, if you use credit card cash advances, which you NEVER EVER should).

While, overall, the aim is to stop irresponsible lending, we suspect lenders are salivating that they'll now have info to score out those customers who play the system, and constantly shift from 0% to 0% deals.

What banks don't know about you…

There are many myths about what information is held on credit files. Don't be fooled, though. They hold an enormous amount of financial data, but not everything.

The following things are NOT listed on your report that lenders can see:

Parking or Driving Fines. Any fines you have incurred, for example parking or driving fines. Even though they’re issued by the courts they aren’t ‘credit’ issues so they’re not listed.

Race, Religion, Colour. None of these personal details about you are held.

Whether you've checked your file. While this info is held, and does appear when you check your file, it isn't passed on to lenders and doesn't play any role in any assessment of you.

Salary. How much you earn isn't on your file either, though you will usually be asked on the application form.

Savings Accounts. As savings are not a credit product they don’t appear on credit files.

Medical History. Medical problems you may have had in the past aren't listed.

Criminal record. No criminal convictions are listed.

Child Support Agency. Information from the Child Support Agency is excluded.

Information on relatives. Provided you don’t have any joint financial products (see later) there is no information about members of your family who live, or have lived, with you or any other third parties.

Student Loans (for some). Until recently, no info about official Student Loans Company loans was passed to credit reference agencies, unless you had a County Court Judgement (CCJ) against you for lack of payment. That meant they don't know whether you have one or not.

However, in early 2009, the SLC has said it will start including defaults on old-style 'mortgage-loans' which students who started Uni pre-1998 have, as part of credit reference agency data. This doesn't apply to the modern loans which are paid through the tax system.

Declined applications. Lenders can only see whether you've applied for credit elsewhere, not whether you've been accepted or declined. However, they may be able to guess by examining the credit accounts you have open.

Some defaults or missed payments. Usually, these stay on your file for six years, so anything before that may be wiped off. However, if you close an account, then missed payments could remain on your file until the sixth anniversary of account closure. With bankruptcy, it is wiped six years from the date you're declared bankrupt, as long as you're been discharged from the bankruptcy.


Check your credit files for free
As every company uses a different credit scoring procedure, pinpointing how any given one will view you is impossible. Yet keeping an eye on your general credit healthiness is important.

You’ve a statutory right under the Consumer Credit Act to write and get your files, yet this is slow and costs £2 per agency (see the officially checking credit files note). Instead, there’s a trick to instantly get more detailed info online for free at the two main agencies (see the section below). After you’ve done this, have a play with the quick, anonymous credit checker below to see if you can improve your score too.

How many and how often?

If possible, check all three agencies, as there’s no harm. While doing a check is recorded on your file, it does NOT add a ‘credit search’ that a lender can see, so has no impact. It's worth checking because an error can cause you a problem. It’s a good idea to do a check-up roughly every year to 18 months, and always do one in good time before making any important applications.

If time is short and you can only use one, then choose Experian or Equifax.



Check your file for free online...

Credit ratings have become big business. In the old days, the agencies made their money flogging their data to lenders, but our desire for credit means they spotted a lucrative market to sell it back to us too. Luckily, this leaves open a nice loophole.

The top end service offered is ‘credit monitoring', which costs around £70 a year (find out more about other credit services ). To tempt you in, they offer free month-long trials, which require you to set up a Direct Debit or regular credit card payment.

Of course, the aim is you’ll not bother to cancel it when the month’s up so it still drips from your account, so much so, often it may look like you're just signing up for a freebie, until they ask for your card details, that is.

The Trick…

As part of the monitoring service you get to see your credit file online whenever you want, and laid out in a much easier to understand way than if you order the statutory file.

Therefore sign up, then view your file at no cost (you may be able to do this instantly, though may have to be posted a passcode), and then cancel the subscription. Even though they allow 30 days, it's best to cancel straight away, as leave it a month, and you may forget.

The different systems are as follows:

Experian’s Credit Expert.

Details: Credit Expert* offers a ‘free 30-day trial, then £6.99 per month' service which includes your credit report, so if you want your credit reference file just sign up and cancel this. Don’t confuse it with the Credit Score service which costs a one off £5.95.

How to cancel: It makes it very easy, just call the free-phone number 0800 656 9000.

Equifax’s Credit Watch Gold.

Details: Credit Watch Gold* has two options, one at £7.50 a month, but the one you need to choose is the ‘Free for 30 days and then £69.99 for the year'. When you sign up, a payment card will need to be authorised but the £1 fee is not actually charged to your card if you cancel in time.

How to cancel: To request cancellation call 0870 0100583 and quote your account reference.

If you're worried about hassle, then the best system is simply use the official credit checking system.

Get paid to check your file

And even better, you can sometimes get paid up to £7 to check your credit file if you go via a Cashback Websites. It’s worth checking.





What to check on your file
Once you’ve got your credit files, the key is to check the accuracy of the info that banks are judging you on. As we're talking billions of pieces of data, there are always mistakes. So, quite simply…

Check EVERYTHING! One mistake can be a hammer-blow to credit applications

First, the obvious stuff. Are all your debts correctly listed? Are there any inaccuracies on your repayment history?

Yet other details are important too. Check your present and past address details. Errors here can lead to you being judged on someone else's credit history. Also, your finances may be incorrectly linked with someone else's. Focus especially on any currently active accounts. If they're still open, even if you haven't used them for years, it can cause problems.



What to do if there's an error?

If you disagree with anything on your file, just write to the agency and request it's changed. If the agency agrees it should quickly change the file, though sometimes you'll need to talk to the company that originally filed the data.

Unfortunately, sometimes it may refuse to amend your file. If this happens you're entitled to add your own comments as a ‘notice of correction'. This will often mean your credit applications take longer, but it may help you to obtain better deals.

Don't go on too much when explaining the error, though, and don't overly berate. Be concise, explanatory and factual.


Fraud Scoring... the hidden credit killer.
When you apply for a product, it isn't just a case of assessing whether you're desirable, but also checking that the application is legitimate. Therefore, as well as the credit reference agencies, lenders also use completely separate anti-fraud agencies to try and weed out problems. The two big ones work in very different ways

National Hunter. Spots anomolies on application forms, so be consistent

How it operates. This system's much less factual and therefore is prone to greater errors. However, it's used by almost all major banks and building societies, receives 100,000 applications a day and has a real impact, yet is very rarely mentioned.

It works by looking for inconsistencies between your current application form and any past applications you've made, trying to spot factual errors. While it can't block your application itself, it triggers a red warning flag to lenders, and this happens roughly 1 in 20 times. Lenders can then check the info, and either ignore it, or do further checks. They are not allowed to reject you based on the National Hunter ref flag alone.

Things like a number of applications in a few days can also trigger warnings, though generally that's more acceptable with mortgages where it's more common than with credit cards.

What to watch for. It's crucial to be consistent, even over long periods, when you fill in application forms. If you have a number of job titles or phone numbers try and use the same one, on every application. Changes to guidance introduced in 2009 mean lenders are supposed to tell you if National Hunter has been a contributing reason for your rejection.

Check your file. To check the info it holds on you, it's necessary to write to it making a data protection request and enclosing £10. The National Hunter website explains this. This can also be a useful thing to do if you think you're a victim of ID fraud.

What you'll get is effectively a list of the information you've put on past applications. If there's an error on the file, which is possible, you can't correct it directly with National Hunter, you'll need to go back to the lender who submitted that application to have it corrected.

CIFAS: Lists confirmed past fraud

How it operates. It is simply a record of known fraud, so if you're on there, in general, you should know about it. It's also the organisation to speak to if you think you've been a victim of ID fraud. Worryingly, any fraud committed at your address could appear on your CIFAS file, even if you did not commit the fraud.

Though like with National Hunter, a lender cannot refuse your application based on the CIFAS data, but must investigate first. Hopefully, that should prove you were not the perpetrator.

Check your file. The info it holds on you should be contained on your credit report under the CIFAS section. For a £10 fee, you can also request a copy of any files CIFAS holds on you (which is hopefully nothing). Full details on the CIFAS website.

If you've a dispute with the info held, you need to contact the company that logged the information on your CIFAS file first. If you're not happy with the response, once you've recevied a final response letter, you can then contact CIFAS to investigate.

For more information on ID fraud protection see the free ID fraud help guide.


Manage and improve your credit score
Once you know what lenders see, you are in a better position to sway their opinion. You do this by thinking tactically and behaving appropriately. Unfortunately though, there's no magic. After all, every lender does it differently, but there are easy ways to improve the odds.

A quick note, though. You may've seen adverts for credit repair agencies promising to improve your ‘rating' for a fee, yet there's nothing they can legally do that you can't do yourself for nowt (find out more about credit repair agencies ).



The quick Credit Checker tool...

Answering ten quick questions gives you a rough indication of how good a risk you’re likely to be to lenders. Of course, risk isn’t everything, profitability is, but this is a good clue to general attitudes.

Don’t be afraid to play

The most used credit reference agency, Experian*, provided the calculations and data to build this tool, so the results are kosher. Try playing with different answers, and see the impact on your score. Once you’ve pondered the list below and thought what you can possibly improve, plug some different answers into the checker and see if it affects the results.







Improve your credit score...

While it's not an exact science, there are a number of specific things you can do as good practice to improve both your credit score and lenders' attitudes towards you.

Get on the electoral roll.

If you're not on the roll, it's unlikely you'll get any credit. Write to your local council to ensure you are. Do it immediately, don't wait for it to send round the annual forms.

For those who aren't eligible to vote (mainly foreign nationals), send all the credit reference agencies proof of residency and ask them to add a note to verify this.

Time applications correctly.

Lots of credit searches, the notes left on your file when you apply for things, in a short space of time hurt your score. Space out applications, not just for credit but for car insurance, mobile phones and others, as all can leave searches on your file.

Moving house also disrupts a score, so make important applications pre-moving. Plus, you'll score better when you're earning, so if you're about to take time off, go on maternity leave or suspect potential redundancy, apply beforehand - though never lie on applications, if asked.

Building a good credit history/repairing past problems.

Credit scoring tries to predict your behaviour. If you've no credit history it's more difficult for lenders to do this, so you're more likely to be rejected. Therefore, both for those with poor and no credit histories, you need to build a good one.

Use ‘expensive’ credit cards.

If you can't get credit, sadly, the solution is apply for hideous 30%-ish rate credit cards offered by the likes of Barclaycard Initial*, Capital One Classic*, Monument, Aquacard* and Vanquis*

You can also try the special Smartsearch from comparison site MoneySupermarket*, which effectively assesses your credit worthiness (a bit like our Credit Checker), then tries to match you up with the best card.

Importantly, it doesn’t do a credit search, as that itself would hit your credit score. Instead, it just asks a few basic credit history questions and works with credit reference agency Equifax to give a rough and ready assessment, followed by indicating ‘suitable cards’.

To help rebuild your credit rating, you can use these for six to twelve months, spending a little every month. It's even better if you can use two cards to build more data. But there is a vital golden rule....

Strictly repay EVERY month, in FULL, so there's no interest cost.

After that, you should've built a credit history allowing you to move into the mainstream. This tactic is also useful for those who've defaulted in the past.

As a last resort pay for a special prepaid card.

If you've been rejected for cards like this, there is a 'last resort' solution. The Cashplus Creditbuilder* is a prepaid card costing £9.95, meaning you have to load it with cash before spending, rather than having a credit facility.

Cunningly, it charges a £4.95 monthly fee, which technically counts as a £59.40/year loan. As long as you pay the fee every month for a year, this info will be passed on to credit reference agency Experian.

Crucially, though, no credit check is needed to get the card. Once you've made 12 payments, it should show on your credit history as a fully repaid loan agreement, making you a more attractive customer (to those companies that use Experian for credit scoring, which is the vast majority of them) and hopefully meaning you can apply for better credit card and loan deals. Though you are, of course, paying £70 for it!

For more details on this, including pros and cons, read Cashplus Creditbuilder discussion.

Keep up payments and never be late.

Always try to follow at least the minimum repayment plan for your financial products. Even if you're struggling, don't default or miss payments. Doing this once or twice could cause problems that can cost you for years (though you may be able to get past charges back – see Bank Charges Reclaiming article). Though those in the previous 12 months will hurt you the most.

If you are in difficulties, the cliché 'contact your lender' is a good one. Hopefully, it will try and help a little. Changing your repayment schedule is preferable to you defaulting - and though it will hit your credit score, it's better than a County Court Judgment (CCJ) against you.

For repaying credit cards, the simplest method is to set up a Direct Debit to repay it each month. Then, you'll always hit the key criteria. If you have to, just do it for the minimum repayment, but then always try and pay extra by web, phone or post to get rid of the debt quicker (see the minimum repayments guide)

Marriage doesn't hurt, joint finances do.

Simply marrying or living with someone with a bad credit score shouldn't impact your finances, as third-party data (ie, someone else's info) doesn't appear on your file.

Yet if you're 'financially linked' to someone on any product, it can have an impact. Even just a joint bills account for flat sharers can mean you are co-scored. If one partner has a poor history, keep your finances rigidly separate, and it should maintain access to good credit for the other.

In fact, there are only two common products that can infer financial linking: mortgages and joint bank accounts. As a note, there's no such thing as a ‘joint' credit card. Technically, it's one person's account and the other just has access to it. It is technically possible that joint utility bills could be reported on credit files, though current practice is not to do so.

If you split up with someone you've joint finances with, once the accounts are separated or no longer active, always write to the credit reference agencies and ask for a notice of 'disassociation', to stop their credit history affecting yours in future.

Get a 'quotation search' not a 'credit search'.

If you're just trying to get a specific quote for a loan, ask the lender to do a ‘quotation search' and not a ‘credit search'. This means the enquiry won't have a negative impact on your credit score. Sadly, many lenders haven't yet adopted this practice, but it is worth asking. If not, consider whether you really want to get a quote - if it's unlikely you'll get the product, don't bother.

In both the Personal Loan and Credit Card Balance Transfer articles, there are details on special comparisons available to find out who's likely to accept you, without actually applying. Plus the credit checker gives you an idea for free of the type of cards you’ll get.

Frankly, this situation is a disgrace, we should have a right to know the rate you’ll get before applications go on credit files. Apply for a product and it puts a search on your credit file which hits your credit score, yet many products are rate for risk, without applying you can’t know the rate. This vicious circle thats hurts comparing products should be stopped. Until it does, be careful.

Evidence of stability is good.

Home owners rather than renters, and those who are employed, rather than self-employed, tend to be accepted more. Putting a fixed (land) line rather than a mobile number on application forms can help with security checks and improve your chances. Being with the same employer, bank and current address for a while all help too.

Check the address on all active accounts.

You may not have used your old mobile contract or credit card for five years, but if the account is still listed as open and you had a different address this can stymie applications due to ID checks. Check your file and go through every active account's address to ensure it's up to date.

Avoid the ‘rejection spiral'.

There’s a nightmare scenario you need to avoid, called the rejection spiral. It works like this:

You apply.
You get rejected (sometimes falsely, due to an error).
You apply elsewhere.
You get rejected again.

This continues, until finally you check your files and get the error corrected.

You apply again
You’re rejected, not due to the error, but because of all the recent ‘searches’.

Thus, if you're rejected once, immediately check the files are correct, otherwise you may mess up your score for an age as more applications mean more searches, which compounds the problem. You'll be told by the lender which credit reference agency it used to assess your info, so focus on that.

It is possible after an error to get successive searches wiped, but it involves negotiation both with the agency and the lender, and isn't easy.

The rejection spiral also applies when you apply for credit normally reserved for those with an 'excellent' score when you, say, only have a good score (sadly, many lenders do not publish their criteria so it's difficult to know in advance). So you're a perfectly acceptable risk for most, yet once you get that first rejection, it can harm your chances of getting further credit because a search has been registered. So check your file and call lenders you plan to apply to in advance to check.

Dealing with defaults on your file.

One of the major problems people face are past debt defaults on your file, these can easily hamper most apppications to get new credit and if they're genuine and fair are tough to deal with. There are a few things you can try though especially if the default is unfair.

Complain to the Ombudsman. First write to the company and complain the default isn't fair and lay out your terms. Ask it to wipe the fault from your file, which it can do if it's disputed. If that fails, complain to the Financial Ombudsman the free independent arbiteur of disputes, it can rule both that the debt is unfair and that the default can be wiped.

Negotiate with the lender. If you are prepared to settle the debt, either in part or in full, then you can enter a negotiation with whomever you owe the money. As part of this you can make a condition of settlement that the default is wiped off your credit file. Companies are allowed to do this for disputed defaults.

Add a 'Notice of Correction'. If all else fails, and you believe the default's justifiably unfair, add a notice of correction to the file explaining the problem eg,saying: "It was a joint account and the debt was run up once I no longer had access by my errant ex-husband/wife." This will slow applications down, as most companies will look at it manually, but as a substantial default is likely to stop you getting credit anyway, that's usually not a problem, providing it helps.

Cancel unused credit cards, debts and accounts.

Access to too much credit, even if it isn't used, can be a problem. If you have a range of unused credit cards, cancel most of them; this lowers your available credit and should help (see the Cancel Old Cards article for full info on what to close when).

However long standing bank accounts with good credit histories can be a benefit to your credit score, so they're often best left open.

Use any savings to pay off debts.

The amount of outstanding debt you have is part of the info lenders have access to, so minimising this is a clever strategy. In general, you’ll be better off by using savings to pay off expensive debts anyway (read Pay off Debts with Savings).

With the credit crunch biting, this is particularly true if the product you’re applying for is a mortgage. People who haven’t paid much of their mortgage debt off are struggling to get decent new deals (see the Remortgage guide).

For those with an LTV (Loan to Value ratio) of over 90%, meaning your mortgage debt is at least 90% of the house’s value, getting a new mortgage has become very difficult. For those with an 80% to 90% LTV you should get a new deal, but it won’t be too cheap.

So if you have savings, and can use them to significantly lower your mortgage borrowing, enabling you to get a better deal, it's often worth doing. The extra amount your savings will earn isn’t likely to be as much as the benefit from a cheaper mortgage. Read Should I Pay Off My Mortgage?

And a final thought. Though it may be tempting, lying on your application form doesn't help. Firstly it's an offence, but also if lenders can't corroborate your information you may well get rejected anyway.