Charles Darwin

Worldwide the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin is being celebrated this year

And for most people he is remembered for the phrase "the survival of the fittest" stated in his "Origin of Species"

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This phrase only appears twice in that book and the second time it is to regret and apologise for using the term

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In the same book he uses the word love ninety three times, yet in the index there is only one entry

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OK so what about that other famous entry "selfish genes" for which he is remembered?

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Yes it is there but he says it is a 'base principle, which accounts for the low morality of savages'

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So then what can be opposite from selfishness?

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We find it is morality and lo we find that he uses this over ninety times

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Over ninety times for love and morality versus one or two times for the two phrases for which he is globally remembered

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Something seems funny here

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Funny really because he goes out of his way in his second opus "The Descent of Man" to dwell upon the thrust of the moral sense and the impact of social psychological development on an evolving species

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Cooperation and moral behaviour being of paramount importance to our current state of evolution

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In the conclusion of this book he clearly states "Important as the struggle for existence has been and even still is, yet as far as the highest part of our nature is concerned there are other agencies more important

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'For the moral qualities are advanced either directly or indirectly much more through the efforts of habit, by our reasoning powers, by instruction, by religion, etc than through natural selection'

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So how do we manage to remember what he says about our earlier and more primitive needs and forget about his powerful thinking and statements about moral behaviour as a current need?

Never in our history has moral behaviour been more important

Never have we needed to remember this more than now

And so here we are celebrating a great thinker for the first part of his contribution to our understanding of species evolution and totally ignoring what he wrote about our evolutionary needs today!

Way to go!!

His books are a long read requiring attention and effort so yet again our laziness allows those who choose to present half the story to do so

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Time to recognise that the second part of his efforts are what we need today

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Yes let's remember him for this

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Or can it be that there are people out there who want us to focus only on the selfish base instincts?

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Surely not

Mahatma Gandhi - 2

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.

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The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
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The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems.

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The only virtue I want to claim is truth and non-violence. I lay no claim to superhuman powers. I want none. I wear the same corruptible flesh that the weakest of my fellow beings wears, and am therefore as liable to err as any. My services have many limitations, but God has up to now blessed them in spite of the imperfections.

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The Seven Deadly Sins.

Wealth without work,

Pleasure without conscience,

Knowledge without character,

Commerce without morality,

Science without humanity,

Worship without sacrifice,

and Politics without principle.
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The test of friendship is assistance in adversity, and that too, unconditional assistance.

Co-operation which needs consideration is a commercial contract and not friendship.

Conditional co-operation is like adulterated cement which does not bind.
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The weak can never forgive.

Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
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There are times when you have to obey a call which is the highest of all, i.e. the voice of conscience even though such obedience may cost many a bitter tear, and even more, separation from friends, from family, from the state to which you may belong, from all that you have held as dear as life itself. For this obedience is the law of our being.

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They cannot take away our self-respect if we do not give it to them.

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Weeding is as necessary to agriculture as sowing.

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What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?

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When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won.

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There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall.

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Think of it – always.
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Whenever I see an erring man, I say to myself I have also erred; when I see a lustful man I say to myself, so was I once; and in this way I feel kinship with everyone in the world and feel that I cannot be happy without the humblest of us being happy.

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Whenever you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love.

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Who am I?

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I have no strength save what God gives me. I have no authority over my countrymen save the pure moral. If He holds me to be a pure instrument for the spread of non-violence in place of the awful violence now ruling the earth, He will give me the strength and show me the way. My greatest .weapon is mute prayer. The cause of peace is therefore, in God’s good hands.

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Woman is the companion of man, gifted with equal mental capacities.

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She has the right to participate in the minutest details in the activities of man, and she has an equal right of freedom and liberty within him.

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References: Collected from various sources.

It really works

What does?

Using, being love consciously

Understanding that love is a force

An energy

Love is the power

We hear a lot about hate and violence

We see it all the time in our media

Love we hear less about

Harder to talk about really

Hate and violence are more visible, more dramatic

The modern focus is on the dramatic, the shocking

Love on the other hand is about peace and harmony

It offers less visible drama

Less visual excitement

Love is central to our lives whatever our situation

We have it

We are in it

We are out of it

We wish we were in it

We wish we were out of it!

Some interesting things about it often escape our notice

Love helps guard our health

Love causes less wear and tear on our immune systems

Not necessarily a love of someone

A love of life will do fine

A love of being

Notice the symbol of love above

A heart

Why is this so?

Because our hearts are central to love

From our hearts we say

Heart to heart

Live a life of love

A life lived in love and everything is changed

Love is not something to be chased
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Love is inside all of us
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Love is something we open to
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Love is not given to us we open to it
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Sure someone might show love towards us however unless we are open to it it counts for little
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Even if you only agree with a part of the above love can change your life in so many ways
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Yes using love, as something that you let guide your emotions and experiences of life
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Being in love
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Being love works
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Works for what?
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A better more enjoyable different kind of life
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The opposite is also a choice that is to experience life as one of problems, fear and darkness
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No thanks!

Be warned though choosing love takes some work like anything else worthwhile

Body language

Is one of the hardest skills to master

Why?

Because in short, it’s about being truthful with yourself.

Human beings have a truly incredible ability to see what they want to or, for that matter, refuse to see the obvious in any objective way

In some circles this is known as “Seeking” and “Denial”.

Seeking is where you want to see signals that are important to you – even if they’re not really there -

While Denial is when you refuse to see signals that conflict with what you want to see.

For example, a man is talking to an attractive woman and she crosses her legs

He see this as a flirtatious gesture and in some cases it can be but in this context it is actually an attempt to end the contact – “I’m shutting my legs so you can’t come in”.

He is seeking what he wants by imagining the positive while at the same time refusing to accept that she doesn’t want to go further, she is denying him

He increases his advances and eventually she is forced to openly reject him.

His self esteem is damaged and later he describes her negatively as a tease.

He misinterpreted the signals because psychologically he could not, or would not, accept the truth of what he was seeing

So often body language is read as we want it to be and then we find ourselves frustrated when rejected

This applies to both sexes as we are all exposed to each other

The key to understanding body language is the ability to be objective

So again we come around to knowing yourself so that what we see is not filtered through our perceptions

The little signs can be learnt

Body language can also be learnt

However to become good at reading body language we need to go beyond the basic signs so that they can be put in the context of the bigger picture

As with many other skills this takes time and practice

However we all interact with each other every day so use your time to learn this useful skill

The way it is

If you truly wish to grow your consciousness and embark upon the path as a full life objective then this must be your personal private choice

Yours alone

Your personal decision

No one may push you

And when you do decide to consciously grow as your lifework then you must undertake this alone

No one may do this for you

This is nature's way

It is the law

All are equal in that any of us can undertake this journey

Any of us anywhere at any time

In any life

All may and all are equal in the eyes of nature

History shows this to be true

Throughout history there have been remarkable men and women, who came from very different and challenging backgrounds who walked on the path of consciousness evolution

All found their own way

At each stage you must risk

Risk before you know how things will turn out

Nature allows no other way

At each stage this is so

Risk is everything

Showing the courage to let go of your illusions

Your safety nets

Before you have any proof that things will work out

Learning to let go and accept that however things work out is fine

Giving your life to service

Accepting whatever may come your way, learning about love and sacrifice

Few people consciously choose this path

The choice must remain personal

There is no other way to advance our consciousness evolution beyond the mind

We must choose to do so because something speaks to us inside

Be warned should you decide to go this way

You will be challenged in ways you cannot imagine

And one of the first things to happen is that all your fears and weaknesses will be exposed

Exposed to you with no place to hide or ignore them

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And then on for the rest of the incarnation serving and learning, trusting nature

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Not easy at all and yet and yet a journey all are here to undertake

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Did we but know it

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PS - If you wonder about the picture it is of Lake Manasarovar one of the highest fresh water lakes in the world (15,00ft) and Mount Kailash (22,007ft).

Mount Kailash is considered to be the most sacred mountain in the world.

Both are in Western Tibet and are places of pilgrimage for many people in Asia

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I just like the picture

Lost in time

Humans have a relatively short memory as shown by our difficulty in remembering anything but a few high points from our own lives

Think about it how much can you really remember?

If challenged we can all recall high points and some memorable days or occasions

Not much else though

Of your more than ten thousand days so far in this life how many can you recall?

And as a collective species we have little idea about many of our ancestors or previous civilisations

Collectively we can go back ten or so thousand years after which we have little knowledge about what came before us

Nor what they knew

In point of fact we have no idea at all about their technology or lives apart from what has been left in scattered remains

Imagine our own world left untouched for a few tens of thousands of years

That's tens of thousands of years

What would be left?

Some radioactivity

A few stone monuments maybe some metal objects

Precious little else

And if we were the ones who then found those few objects what would we deduce about them?

Not much, maybe no more than what we deduce today about what little our archaeologists find of previous civilisations

And where are we going with this?

To state that the real remains of a culture or society are handed down orally

The intelligence and understanding often comes to us through music, myths and stories

And most today are lost in time

Atlantis, giants, floods, earthquakes, natural and man made disasters all were handed down in stories

Today these are so garbled and confused as to be almost useless as a guide to what came before

And what might or will come again

There is a way though to find this knowledge

Those who choose to follow what is known as the path most certainly access this information after they reach a certain level of consciousness

However they are few and do not share with those who have not themselves earned the right to such

So we will continue with our half truths until we wake up and reject false and lying teachings

Will we?

Yes one day many many years from now

We can bring this forward though but only if we are prepared to get involved in helping the evolution of consciousness

Each of us can assist in this

No matter where you are or what you do

Our collective energy matters

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It matters when we choose to live in an ethical and moral manner

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It matters when we choose to be the best we can in all we do

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Life matters

Yours too

Early waking

About one in five of us, for that is the proportion of people who wake during the night or early in the morning — often at 4am or thereabouts

Traditionally, early-morning waking has been linked with depression, but sleep expert Dr Neil Stanley of Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital believes that more and more of us — as many as 20% — are suffering from waking and worrying in the night, not because we are depressed, but because modern life is increasingly tense.

More than 80% of people who have anxiety or depression have insomnia, but insomnia is not necessarily a sign of depression, she says.

We’re working around the clock, waking up to never-ending to-do lists, childcare hassles and interest-rate fluctuations.

People are on the alert for disruption and stress at all times.

Even, it seems, when we should be getting some shut-eye.

Some research puts the number of people suffering from sleep problems even higher: a 2007 study by the National Sleep Foundation (NSF), in America, found that almost two-thirds of women report one to three disturbed nights’ sleep each week.

Interestingly, this also appears to be more of a female problem: women are almost 20% more likely to suffer from insomnia than men, according to the NSF — perhaps because of all the stressful demands of work and family that make the modern woman’s life so fraught.

When this started happening to me about a year ago, I assumed I was in a minority, until I began to talk to my girlfriends.

Nearly all of them were getting the 4am blues, too.

But why?

Research suggests our sleep patterns are determined by our genes; about 10% of us are morning larks and 10% night owls, with the rest of us somewhere in between.

You have as much chance of changing this as you would changing your eye colour.

Those of us who get the 4am blues probably went to sleep around midnight, and, struck by feelings of pre-dawn anxiety, we know that if we don’t get back to sleep, we’ll start the day feeling shattered.
In fact, we wake naturally many times during the night, as each sleep cycle of about two hours ends.

Plus, our body clocks aren’t programmed to make us feel sleepy and alert only twice in each sleep cycle. Animals — and human babies — often naturally sleep and wake many times in a day; and in hot countries, it’s normal to sleep for five hours at night and three in the afternoon as a siesta.

At night, the body normally shifts from deep sleep to the rapid eye movement (REM) phase of light pre-waking sleep from 3am onwards.

REM sleep prompts the body to wake up, so it is normal to have up to 60% of REM sleep in the second half of the night.

If we are already wound up, we become more sensitive to this internal wake-up signal — as we are to other signals such as rising body temperature

Once we’re in the pre-waking phase, signals in the environment can also easily disturb sleep — a partner snoring, the cat jumping on the bed, needing the loo, early summer dawn breaking or being too hot (for instance, during menstruation, a woman’s body temperature rises and she is more likely to wake).

Whatever the reason for waking, once we are awake, says Stanley, we’ve probably met most of our sleep needs, so the body doesn’t see any reason to let us go back to sleep.

As we age, our need for sleep also decreases, but that shouldn’t really affect women until their late forties.

However, he says, you tend to have more responsibilities in your thirties and therefore naturally have more worries — you’ve probably got a mortgage and are wondering how you’re going to be able to the pay bills.

As to why we often think negative thoughts when we wake in the early hours, that is entirely psychological.

It could be because we’re cut off from familiar stimuli. It’s dark and quiet; you’re trying not to move so you don’t wake your partner, and you have no way to communicate.

You haven’t got what you know — what’s familiar makes you feel relaxed, says Blair. That, coupled with just having been dreaming, makes things feel unreal, and that is a very disturbing feeling.

You can’t make normal decisions because you’re not in your normal framework, so it does feel like you can’t get tasks done.

The mentally nauseous feeling, similar to that of jet lag, is also caused by the same disorientating lack of familiar cues.

Stanley explains that the 4am blues are simply an evolutionary hangover, an instinctive fear of aloneness and of being cut off from our usual surroundings.

You’re not meant to be awake at night, he says, and we all have a residual primeval fear of the dark — it’s a time of being alone and vulnerable.

People say, I just want to be able to turn my brain off’,’ he adds, but apart from stopping the things that wake you up — like kicking your snoring partner out of bed — the cure is to be less stressed.

We all need to wind down in general.

If only it were that easy.

Sunday Times

Wind down, stress, pressure, turn my brain off, responsibilities, wound up, depression, increasingly tense, insomnia, life so fraught

So many different ways to say fear

Fear that impinges upon us all until we identify what they are

Then we need to get them out and look at them, and let them go

If we do not let them go then they simply stay with us and at some point cause more problems

Every atom

Every atom has its home in a molecule;

Every molecule has its home in a cell;

Every cell in a body

Every body in a greater body

The greater body, in this case our earth, has its habitat in the solar ether

The solar system has its home in the galaxy

The galaxy in the universe

The universe has its home in a vaster universe; and so on, ad infinitum.

And that ad infinitum is our way of saying Parabrahman

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With this profound and radical difference however

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That the root-idea is the inner, invisible, spiritual worlds

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Which Western thought almost universally ignores

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Everything exists in something else greater than itself

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And contains hosts of beings inferior to itself

FSO 89-91; also OG 1-2 - G. de Purucker

Bird brains

Can show us many things

One that has probably not crossed your mind is the construction of their brains

Ours too

Why do we have two major brain hemispheres?

Why not just one big lump of brain?

Many scientists have wondered about this for a long time

Then through the observation of birds, amongst other things, they understood something

This was that birds, other animals and ourselves need two distinct brain hemispheres for survival

In the case of birds they have to solve a big problem in order to stay alive

They have to be able to feed and look out for predators at the same time

One part of the bird’s brain has to focus intently to locate the piece of grain amongst all the gravel

While another part has to watch out equally intently so that it will not be eaten by some predator

What scientists know about the difference in attention between the two hemispheres makes the apparently impossible problem for birds possible

Birds pay narrowly focused attention to what they are eating with their right eye (left hemisphere) while keeping their left eye (right hemisphere) open for predators

And this difference is preserved as we evolve

The left hemisphere specializes in a sort of piecemeal attention that helps us make use of the world, but in doing so alters our relationship to it

While the right hemisphere subserves a broad open attention which enables us to see ourselves connected to and empathise with - whatever is other than ourselves

These kinds of attention are mutually incompatible though we need to be able to employ both simultaneously

In humans being able to stand back from the world the need for specialization becomes stronger

As we stand back we can either see the world as being separate from ourselves, as something we can use, or quite the opposite as connected to ourselves more deeply, we can see others, for the first time, as beings like ourselves, the ground of empathy

Being able to represent the world artificially - to map it conceptually, substituting tokens for things - enables us to have an overall strategy and this is what language achieves

But it inhibits us from being there, in the experiential world

It places us at one remove from things

So with humans the need to have both ways of understanding the world, and yet keeping them apart, is paramount

The left hemisphere has to do with the capacity to form concepts and the capacity for language and literally to manipulation with the right hand

The right is associated with a whole array of functions that distinguish us from other animals, and relate to our capacity for empathy in intimate connection with the right hemisphere as a whole

It plays a significant part in imagination, creating the capacity for religious awe, music, dance, poetry, art, love of nature a moral sense, a sense of humor and the ability to change our minds

The ways in which hemisphere differences affect what each hemisphere does are profound

Unfortunately, though the hemispheres need to cooperate they find themselves in competition, simply because the left hemispheres take on things is such it thinks it knows it all, while it cannot be aware of what the right hemisphere knows

Each needs the other, but the left hemisphere is more dependent on the right, than the right is on the left

Yet is thinks exactly the opposite, and thinks it can go it alone

The battle between the hemispheres (which is only a battle from the left hemispheres point of view) explains the history of ideas in the West and explains the predicament we find ourselves in today

To learn more visit Ian's website at   http://www.iainmcgilchrist.com/

Article by I.McGilchrist

Sunny weather

Does things to most of us

Clear skies with warm temperatures are conducive to relaxing

Enjoying life and letting worries go

Do not waste such days worrying about things

Use them to feel good

Worries can keep

Sunny weather allows us to shift gears

Most of us will go sunbathing at some point

Sunny weather also carries greater dangers today

Dangers of being burnt

Be careful what lotions and potions you use

Many contain metals such as aluminium, which in simple terms block the skin from breathing

20% of our breathing is through the skin

Shea Butter is a better option if you can find it

Whatever your choice of protection less rather than more nowadays is better for us

"Browning" is out "beige" is in

Our changing environment requires that we pay more attention to what we do with our bodies

Be prudent this summer

More on Pheromones

A gene that could explain how humans pick up powerful chemical signals called pheromones may have been pinpointed for the first time.
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The discovery promises to give scientists a new understanding of our basic instincts.

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Pheromones are known to trigger physical responses including sexual arousal and defensive behaviour in many species of insects, fish and animals.

There has long been speculation that humans may also use these chemicals to communicate instinctive urges.

Women living together often synchronise their menstrual cycles because they secrete an odourless chemical in underarm sweat.

But until now scientists have not been able to explain how and where in the body the chemicals are picked up and their messages passed to the brain.

Many animals, including mice, rabbits and pigs, have a special organ called the vomeronasal organ (VNO).

This relays chemical signals directly to the most primitive centres of the brain, stimulating instinctive reactions.

In human embryos these organs exist but they appear to perform no function after birth.

Now, scientists at Rockefeller University in New York and Yale University in Connecticut believe they have found a gene which may create pheromone receptors.

A receptor is an area on a cell that binds to specific molecules.

Called V1RL1, the gene resembles no other type of mammalian gene and bears a strong similarity to those thought to create pheromone receptors in rats and mice.

People have taken an anatomical approach to the issue in the past.

This is the first attempt to look at the molecular biology, said Dr Peter Mombaerts from Rockefeller University in the journal Nature Genetics.

Dr Mombaerts and his colleagues also found seven related snippets of DNA which should produce a protein but appear to have been turned off at some stage in their evolution.

Why these "pseudogenes" exist is a mystery.

One possible explanation could be that in their distant evolutionary past humans made more use of pheromones than they do now.

Much work still needs to be done to prove V1RL1 is a gene and does create pheromone receptors.

A biotechnology company called Senomyx in California is looking at how the gene may work and which aspects of human behaviour are controlled by pheromones.

Some ethicists are worried research could lead to pheromone abuse.

Certainly some clown will do so

Has it ever been thus

Trash-land

We live in an area where people fly tip wherever they feel like it

The kids drop papers, wrappings, bottles and so on wherever they feel like it

For us it is hard to believe that people can have no feeling or respect for the area they live in

How can people drop their rubbish in the very streets they walk down every day?

Allow their children to drop rubbish right in front of the houses they live in?

How can parents allow their children to do this?

Answer the parents are uneducated

Many have no interest in what their children get up to

Many have no idea where their children are

Others come from cultures and backgrounds where dropping your rubbish in the street is OK

The two main groups of Asians and Blacks in our area do not like each other very much and so tend to create tension as they pass each other

They do not communicate with each other so rubbish is left for the council to collect

No one would think of telling the admittedly tough neighborhood kids to pick up their rubbish

Few ever bother to report fly tipping

Schools do not teach children to pick up their rubbish

So both schools and parents must bear responsibility for this sorry state of affairs

For us three years is enough

Shame because the surrounding area is not bad with easy accesss to parks and shops

Living in a tough neighborhood with violence never far away is OK for a while but when you realise that the neighborhood will not change

Cannot change

Is even getting worse with police cars now sometimes being stationed in the street itself

The gangs getting more dangerous as the kids move from junior to senior crimes

You practice the art of the possible and move on yourself

The shame is it need not be this way

It need never be this way if people cared

Several of our neighbours did care and have been beaten and abused for their troubles

Such is the slippery slope of violence

Time to move on

Thanks for the lessons, shame for the kids

In the end no one wins

Black honeybee

The hardy black bee, whose honey once graced the tables of medieval monarchs, is being revived as numbers of imported crossbreeds are cut drastically

For decades, Britain's native black bee has been an outcast.

The Victorians threw Apis mellifera mellifera out of hives in favour of more industrious foreign species.

Modern beekeepers brand it lazy and aggressive.

Now, the nation's original honeybee is coming in from the cold.

Scientists believe the insect that made honey for the tables of medieval kings could reverse the collapse of bee numbers that has imperilled the annual pollination of crops worth £165m.

The Bee Improvement and Bee Breeders' Association (Bibba) believes the black honeybee, which has a thicker coat, could be hardy enough to survive the 21st century.

Its researchers hope to map wild populations across the British Isles with a view to reintroducing it to commercial hives, which produce 5,000 tonnes of honey a year.

People are asked to take pictures of it whenever they see it.

Bee populations slumped by 30 per cent in a single winter, 2007-08, the British Beekeepers Association (Bbka) says.

The decline is unexplained but the potential causes are pesticides, disease, mites and milder winters that encourage them to forage too soon.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is spending £4.3m on research into the decline. Bibba believes the distinctively-striped black bee could be the answer.

The black bee was used for centuries as the honey-producing bee but was replaced by more productive bees from Italy and Eastern Europe in the 19th century.

The Co-op Group, whose food stores sell apples, field beans and other crops pollinated by bees, is putting £10,000 into the project as part of its 10-point Plan Bee.

Native black honeybees are considered by some beekeepers to be more aggressive and poorer at producing honey than foreign strains, the Co-op said.

But over tens of thousands of years, the native black honeybee has evolved thick black hair and a larger body to help keep it warm in a cooler climate, and a shorter breeding season to reflect the UK summer.

With careful selection, they are good-tempered and good honey-producers.

The research coincides with a £100,000 study at Sussex University which aims to breed black bees more resistant to disease.

Beekeepers who think they have native or near-native black honeybees are asked to send samples to Bibba to test their origins.

Norman Carreck, of Sussex's Department of Biological and Ecological Science, said the location of the bee's remaining wild populations was unknown, but they were believed to be in the western British Isles, Cornwall, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

Of the Bibba research, he said: It's a very useful exercise because we don't really know much about their distribution.

Mr Carreck, a member of the BBKA's technical committee, blamed the aggressive reputation of the black bee on cross-breeding.

When bred with the Italian honeybee, the docile black bee could be aggressive, and kept its dominant markings.

There are estimated to be 250,000 hives in the UK.

With up to 30,000 bees per hive, the total number of commercial bees is about seven billion.

Times

Some thirty five percent of an average western diet depends on crops pollinated by bees and it is said that if the bees die out then humanity will follow four years later

A view attributed to Albert Einstein

Five or six large flowering trees or shrubs provide bees as much forage as an acre of wild flower meadow land

They also provide a single source of nectar that bees find easy to harvest
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One of the best ways to help honey bees is to plant a succession of flowering trees

Can you plant trees wherever you are or do you know people who can?

This is not just a British problem it is near global

Australia has so far avoided infestations of mites and is exporting bees to the US and other countries

Bees might not be high on many peoples ideas for saving planet earth but for sure they merit more support than we have given them thus far

Oh and for your interest there are very few things on planet earth that are not indigenous to this planet

One though is wheat, which many people have heard about and another which few have heard about is the bee

No prizes for guessing why bees were brought here and given to us

Bees are essential to our survival

Dishonest people

Sometimes they are right in front of us

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What do we mean 'sometimes' we should say often!

People who are not honest or even close to being honest

And that's fine so long as they stay in their own space

Trouble is we all get up close in trains, planes, buses, shops, malls and the rest

Not to mention work where we may have to spend time with them

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There are many other situations where we find ourselves with dishonest people

Anything to be done?

Yes we can change people and ourselves

For a start by calling them out when they lie

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Not being scared to say that you do not agree with them

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Being very clear that you do not like dishonesty so that the relationship is clearly defined

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Lies are spread through innuendo, make it your habit to be accurate and clear in what you say

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Avoid gossip

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When people talk about others who are not present, particularly when the comments are pointedly negative or bitchy note that this is often the favoured approach of dishonest people

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Dishonest people like to sow dissent, distrust and confusion

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Do not aid them in this practice

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Once dishonest people know where you stand they will either avoid you or moderate their behaviour when with you

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Either way you win because you have not compromised your own integrity

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Not having their company is better than being drawn into their webs of deceit

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For sure they will put you down

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For sure they will lie and distort anything and anyone to gain what they perceive to be an advantage

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They will also tell stories about you as they would anyone else

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This is life and a reality

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Choose what path you will the choice is yours however gaining a reputation for honesty and integrity is the only path that leads to peace of mind

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Over a lifetime dishonest people lose

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Why?

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Because they become known

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You can never know when they are telling the truth nor can they know themselves when others are

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Because they lie they can never trust others as they have to assume that others are like themselves

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Imagine never being able to trust anyone

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Everything they do is calculated on the basis of what's in it for them and this must lead to failure and exposure over time

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Only those who are also dishonest and sense an advantage will want to spend any time with them

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A life lived in lies takes its toll on the immune system

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The physical system shows the strain

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One of the great ironies of 'successfully dishonest people' is that a lot of their ill gotten gains has to be spent on personal security in all its myriad forms

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Much has to be spent on their health and because they are dishonest they have to go to the most expensive doctors, clinics etc as only this way can they believe that they are getting safe treatment

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Others have to be bought off, paid off and so it goes on, the web of deceit has to be maintained

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What from the outside is perceived as success is in reality a prison of mind numbing emptiness

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And at the end when they die there commences a terrible journey where they experience themselves what it felt like for those they cheated, killed and abused

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The double in point of fact

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Not much fun in the next life either as they have to come back and do it all over again

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And again until they learn their lessons

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Ever wondered why so much of the world is in pain?

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Why so many have such difficult lives?

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Everyone you see in pain, all of us are paying our karma

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All without exception

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This will be a world of pain for a long time to come yet

Dishonesty is not a very compelling choice once you understand the true costs

Food and travelling

Ever been stuck on a train?

On a plane

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In traffic

In a hotel late at night?

Wherever you go in today's world it makes sense to move with a bottle of water

Maybe with some dry biscuits and a small sachet of honey

No need to make a big deal of it

But get in the habit

One day you will be very happy you did.

Sometimes we are not able to eat or drink

Notice your sugar level going down

Do you get irritable when it does?

Does it make you tired?

Do you understand what it does to you?

When travelling food and drink can be more important particularly when things you are used to are not available

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Take time to learn about your own needs in terms of food and drink

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Know what you need when travelling

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Be prepared and just buy or prepare basic stuff which allows you to survive that unexpected delay

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Delays happen

The boundless all

The boundless All is totally instinct with consciousness and life, an infinitely immense and swarming multitude, endless and beginningless, of beings who form not merely the heart of the pulsating life of all that is, but provide the very consciousnesses which govern and control the innumerable universes of and in the boundless All. ...

No theosophist ... has ever denied Deity, i.e., limitless life in the boundless All; but this Deity is nothing like, nor in any sense can it be compared with, a finite creator ...

There is a host, a multitude, a hierarchy, of intelligent and of thinking and of highly spiritualized beings, from which the planetary chain sprang forth, but it is not our god, nor do we worship any such.

Those beings are our progenitors, our elder brothers in a very exalted sense, for they were men in former manvantaras long since past; but our "god," never, not even when considered as a unity and called the Logos.

Our "deity," if it is anything, is that indescribable, boundless life, in its highest aspects, back of everything, forming a background of all manifested being on whatever plane, ... indescribable, unthinkable, and therefore ineffable.'

FEP 505-7 - G. de Purucker

What next

Not far from where we live in London is a place called the Hackney marshes

We like to walk through them and over the canal to Springfield Park (above), a really pleasant converted house and cafe with a large park around it looking down on the canal and marshes

One day we were walking along towards the park when suddenly four or five police cars rushed past sirens blaring lights flashing

A police helicopter then arrived and started circling over head

The policemen jumped out of their cars, fanned out and started walking across the marshes

A real live manhunt for some local who had gone on the run

What was unusual was the place as the road and area is usually quiet and relatively unused

Made us think we have got so used to the police and police cars coming in and out of our street

Police helicopters flying around the neighbourhood at all hours of the day and night

The local teen gang hanging out opposite our apartment

That it is almost unusual not to have something going down somewhere around us

Question?

How is the area around where you live?

Is it quiet and peaceful or is it noisy?

Is it a safe area?

And then up one is it potentially dangerous?

Is there potential danger around where you live?

How are you with this?

For us we have no fear because of the way we experience life

Maybe as a result things are fine

Several of our neighbours want out

They have fear

And have experienced violence, robbery and mugging

We want out as well but more for the lack of cleanliness than the violence potential

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Fearing violence often attracts violence

Fearing robbery often attracts robberies

In other words what you fear is what you attract

You might argue that this is not true

But as you can never be totally sure that you are correct why not just take out some insurance?

Let go your fears

They really do provoke what you are frightened of

Yup

Vitamins undo exercise efforts

Vitamins 'undo exercise efforts'

Exercise triggers chemical changes in the body

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Taking vitamins after exercise may undo some of the beneficial effects of the workout, research suggests.

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Some advocate taking antioxidants like vitamin C and E to help protect the body from harmful chemical by-products it creates in breaking into a sweat.

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But German scientists now believe these "free radicals" may actually be good for us and even buffer against diabetes, PNAS reports.

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And mopping them up with antioxidants may do more harm than good.

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Sometimes we need to consider whether taking supplements is actually beneficial

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Dr Sarah Aldred Exercise biochemistry expert at the University of Birmingham

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It is thought that antioxidant vitamins may be able to prevent damage to the body's tissues called "oxidative stress" by eliminating the free radicals which are said to cause it.

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This damage has been implicated in several major diseases including cancer and heart disease as well as normal ageing.

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But Dr Michael Ristow, of the University of Jena, and his team have shown free radicals may have a positive effect on the body by increasing its sensitivity to insulin - something that is lost in type 2 diabetes.

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And this effect is blocked by antioxidant vitamins.

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Too much of a good thing

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Men who took vitamin C and E supplements showed no changes in their free radical levels, whereas those who did not take these antioxidants showed increased levels of free radical oxidative stress.

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After four weeks of intensive exercise training, insulin sensitivity was restored only in the group of men who did not take antioxidant supplements.

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The men who took the vitamin supplements fared worse, metabolically.

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Dr Sarah Aldred, a lecturer in exercise biochemistry at the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences at the University of Birmingham, said:

It doesn't mean that antioxidants like vitamin C and vitamin E are bad for us, it just means that sometimes we need to consider whether taking supplements is actually beneficial.

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As this study shows it is not actually always the case

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Dr Elisabeth Weichselbaum of the British Nutrition Foundation said: Antioxidants protect the cells in your body from damage and therefore help to reduce the risk of certain diseases such as cancer

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But you should not consume high doses on a regular basis as this can have negative effects on your body.

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If you stick to a healthy and varied diet, you generally get enough of the nutrients you need and you don't run the risk of consuming large amounts that may be harmful for you."

BBC News

At the end of the road

Some call it the dark night of the soul

That point where life is not worth living

Where you do not want to go on

You have reached the end

And yes in a way you have reached the end

The end of your current way of life

The end of a certain lifestyle or way of behaving

This terrible crisis is one most of us will experience at some point in our lives and yes it is terrible

Because we are brought face to face with all our fears

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And yes it is a dark time

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One where we even look at suicide

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Suicide is a no no because you hang in a terrible space after death until the time your life should have ended naturally

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Then you have to lead the life over again with the same problems presenting themselves

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And again should you fail to face yourself

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Nature is in no hurry

What to say?

You can come through the dark night of the soul and in a sense be reborn but only if you let go of what brought you there in the first place

Crying, screaming, shouting might relieve some tension but only introspection allows you to move on

Into the light of understanding

Nothing can stop you going on downhill if you so choose

Nothing, no drugs, not booze, no counselling, nothing can do it for you

Nothing

But should you choose to fight then a new life can be yours

The fight will be to let go of fears

To understand the games you have been playing with yourself and others

To adjust your perceptions

To let go of your negative traits

Nothing is more important in your personal evolution

In all the old books the subject one way or another is about this fight

For that is what it is

The fight to free ourselves from our fears

To make contact with our higher sell

The real you if you will, being really honest with ourselves

This prize for that is what it is can only be gained through many lives of fight

Slowly moving towards the light

And again this is what it is both figuratively and literally

Nothing to say if you cannot accept what I am writing

I can only share what I know to be true for me

What we have personally experienced and those who have helped us have shared

Consciousness evolution, for that is what it is, can only be achieved through your own choices

The journey of consciousness evolution is one we must all choose to undertake before any proof is offered

Proof that it is true

Proof that letting go is the way

Many ask for proof before they are willing to believe or try to believe

Be warned the universe does not operate this way

You must take the risk

You alone can do this

No one can do it for you

Brilliant

Because it truly means that we are all equal

All of us have to make this choice before we have any proof of anything

We have to reach inside ourselves and feel that this is what we want to do

That this is what we truly feel

That this is the truth for you

Opening our hearts to love

Trusting that the universe is love

That we accept to let go

And then and only then will nature show you her interest

Becoming honest with ourselves is not easy

No one said it was so be aware this test will come to you at some point in your life

The way through is by breaking down, letting go

Deeply without conditions nature is not into conditions

At the end of the road indeed

Lying will always catch you out

Greed ends in emptiness

Only serving others

Becoming altruistic leads us through the dark night of the soul

At the end of your road you choose

Comfort zone

Step out of your comfort zone I said

No way he replied "I like things the way they are"

Soreeeeee!

You might be able to bumble along for a while doing just what you want

But nature has her own plans for each of us

And in the case of the person above he did indeed stay in his comfort zone

And now he is crying about how unfair life is

Who ever said that life was fair?

Or even meant to be fair?

And he has now started asking why me?

Why him?

Well the simple answer is he created his situation

When life gets difficult and things keep going wrong take it as a warning to look at what you are doing

For sure there will be areas where you are avoiding doing what is needed and this is why things start going wrong or getting difficult

Time to wake up

It is amazing how many people blame everything under the sun other than themselves when things go wrong in their lives

They keep having "bad luck" and at no point do they ever consider that they might be the cause of this bad luck

Every time it is anything but themselves

The man in question is still loudly complaining about his bad luck and how unfair life is

Guess what life will continue to be unfair until he takes responsibility for his life and actions

Will he?

Who knows one thing is for sure though

No one can tell him anything until he asks for help

People like him do not listen

So his life will continue to be difficult

Shame really such a waste of a life

And on top of it all he will have to come back in another life and do it all over again until he learns his lessons

Nature is in no hurry

So understand clearly we create our own lives

We create what will be

We are today the products of what we created in the past

And what we do today creates what we will experience in the future

Really

So step outside of your comfort zone and engage life

There are always clues all around us

Not evil just wrong

Al Gore is about to feature in a new movie, but he's not going to like it very much.

Titled Not Evil Just Wrong: The True Cost of Global Warming Hysteria

The film presents a devastating account of the shaky foundations and hefty price of Mr. Gore's brand of self-interested and hypocritical alarmism.

Created by the Irish film making duo of Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney

Not Evil provides the perfect rebuttal to Mr. Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.

Despite being chock-a-block with inaccuracies and misrepresentations, Mr. Gore's movie has frightened schoolchildren all over the world, driven the public policy debate, and garnered both an Academy Award and a Nobel Peace Prize for its star.

Not Evil - which is due to be released later this year - will appear at a crucial time.

The world's crisis-beset nations are due to meet in Copenhagen in November to concoct a new policy straitjacket to succeed the meddlesome but failed Kyoto accord

Should our leaders decide at this meeting to commit us to further great expenditure then we are creating untold problems for ourselves

This is our planet not the toy of our leaders and special interest groups

Time we started acting as if we are involved

Have a look at this site and see how it resonates with you

http://www.ilovecarbondioxide.com/

Do you believe what you have been told on this subject?

Have you ever informed yourself?

The implications of bad decisions by our leaders at this time are immense

This is our world let us all involve ourselves please

Debunking CO2 myths

Science has now proven the following very important points:

CO2 is definitely not a pollutant.

It is a friendly trace gas necessary for all life.

Human-produced CO2 is a minuscule fraction of a percentage of greenhouse gases 96.5% of all greenhouse gases emit from the oceans, naturally.

Without CO2, vegetation dies, herbivores die, you die.

CO2 levels used to be much higher many times in the past.

Higher temperatures from the sun result in CO2 levels rising long afterwards.

Rising CO2 is an effect of global warming, not a cause.

Global warming and cooling is a natural phenomenon.

The higher the CO2 levels in the atmosphere, the greener our planet becomes.

Forests and plant life growth has increased by approx 40% over the last 50 years, thanks to CO2.

Increasing CO2 yields larger food crops.

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This is beneficial to a growing population.
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The Earth is not currently warming, it is in fact cooling.

Temperatures in the past have often been much warmer than today.

Even if it were to happen, a warmer Earth is far better than a colder one, for all life.

Many scientists believe we are on the brink of another ice age.

When the planet warms and cools it is purely due to the sun.

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Not your car.
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Polar ice is now at record levels and still growing.

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Climate changes happen all the time, and have occurred much faster than anything in modern times.

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The list goes on and on, supported by NASA data, weather satellites, and much of the meteorological and scientific world
.

Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is a dangerous nonsense.

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The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle.

It became an ideology, which is concerning. - Environmental Scientist Professor Delgado Domingos of Portugal, the founder of the Numerical Weather Forecast group

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As of today those who dare challenge are called deniers as if it is somehow wrong to challenge the whole global warming, climate change movement

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What is interesting is that this will most likely resolve in our own lifetime

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Notice your own behaviour on this subject

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One which effects your own life directly in the shape of taxes and constraints

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If you do not have your own point of view then inform yourself this subject is hardly trivial

.

Or do you prefer to accept what you are told?