Tuesday, April 26, 2011

THC and Natural Cannabinoids Counteract Cancer!!!

by Steve Kubby, Sierra Times
November 10th, 2003

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

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

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

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

In other words, this article explains several ways in which cannabinoids might be used to fight cancer, and, as the article says, "Cannabinoids are usually well tolerated, and do not produce the generalized toxic effects of conventional chemotherapies.
Usually, any story that even suggests the possibility of a new treatment for cancer is greeted with headlines about a "cancer cure" ­ however remote in the future and improbable in fact it might be. But if marijuana is involved, don't expect any coverage from mainstream media, especially since mainstream editors have been quietly killing this story for the past thirty years

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

The Washington Post reported on the 1974 study - in the "Local" section - on Aug. 18, 1974. Under the headline, "Cancer Curb Is Studied," it read in part: "The active chemical agent in marijuana curbs the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice and may also suppress the immunity reaction that causes rejection of organ transplants, a Medical College of Virginia team has discovered." The researchers "found that THC slowed the growth of lung cancers, breast cancers, and a virus-induced leukemia in laboratory mice, and prolonged their lives by as much as 36 percent."
"News coverage of the Madrid discovery has been virtually nonexistent in this country. The news broke quietly on Feb. 29, 2000 with a story that ran once on the UPI wire about the Nature Medicine article," complained MarijuanaNews.com editor Richard Cowan , who said he was only able to find the article through a link that appeared briefly on the Drudge Report Web page. "The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times all ignored the story, even though its newsworthiness is indisputable: a benign substance occurring in nature destroys deadly brain tumors," added Cowan.

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

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

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

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

Friday, April 15, 2011

Libya all about oil, or central banking?

http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MD14Ak02.html
By Ellen Brown

Several writers have noted the odd fact that the Libyan rebels took time out from their rebellion in March to create their own central bank - this before they even had a government. Robert Wenzel wrote in the Economic Policy Journal:

I have never before heard of a central bank being created in just a matter of weeks out of a popular uprising. This suggests we have a bit more than a rag tag bunch of rebels running around and that there are some pretty sophisticated influences.

Alex Newman wrote in the New American:

In a statement released last week, the rebels reported on the results of a meeting held on March 19. Among other things, the supposed rag-tag revolutionaries announced the "[d]esignation of the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and appointment of a Governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi."

Newman quoted CNBC senior editor John Carney, who asked, "Is this the first time a revolutionary group has created a central bank


while it is still in the midst of fighting the entrenched political power? It certainly seems to indicate how extraordinarily powerful central bankers have become in our era."

Another anomaly involves the official justification for taking up arms against Libya. Supposedly it's about human rights violations, but the evidence is contradictory. According to an article on the Fox News website on February 28:

As the United Nations works feverishly to condemn Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi for cracking down on protesters, the body's Human Rights Council is poised to adopt a report chock-full of praise for Libya's human rights record.

The review commends Libya for improving educational opportunities, for making human rights a "priority" and for bettering its "constitutional" framework. Several countries, including Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia but also Canada, give Libya positive marks for the legal protections afforded to its citizens - who are now revolting against the regime and facing bloody reprisal.

Whatever might be said of Gaddafi's personal crimes, the Libyan people seem to be thriving. A delegation of medical professionals from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus wrote in an appeal to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that after becoming acquainted with Libyan life, it was their view that in few nations did people live in such comfort:

[Libyans] are entitled to free treatment, and their hospitals provide the best in the world of medical equipment. Education in Libya is free, capable young people have the opportunity to study abroad at government expense. When marrying, young couples receive 60,000 Libyan dinars (about 50,000 US dollars) of financial assistance. Non-interest state loans, and as practice shows, undated. Due to government subsidies the price of cars is much lower than in Europe, and they are affordable for every family. Gasoline and bread cost a penny, no taxes for those who are engaged in agriculture. The Libyan people are quiet and peaceful, are not inclined to drink, and are very religious.

They maintained that the international community had been misinformed about the struggle against the regime. "Tell us," they said, "who would not like such a regime?"

Even if that is just propaganda, there is no denying at least one very popular achievement of the Libyan government: it brought water to the desert by building the largest and most expensive irrigation project in history, the US$33 billion GMMR (Great Man-Made River) project. Even more than oil, water is crucial to life in Libya.

The GMMR provides 70% of the population with water for drinking and irrigation, pumping it from Libya's vast underground Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System in the south to populated coastal areas 4,000 kilometers to the north. The Libyan government has done at least some things right.

Another explanation for the assault on Libya is that it is "all about oil", but that theory too is problematic. As noted in the National Journal, the country produces only about 2% of the world's oil. Saudi Arabia alone has enough spare capacity to make up for any lost production if Libyan oil were to disappear from the market. And if it's all about oil, why the rush to set up a new central bank?

Another provocative bit of data circulating on the Net is a 2007 "Democracy Now" interview of US General Wesley Clark (Ret). In it he says that about 10 days after September 11, 2001, he was told by a general that the decision had been made to go to war with Iraq. Clark was surprised and asked why. "I don't know!" was the response. "I guess they don't know what else to do!" Later, the same general said they planned to take out seven countries in five years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.

What do these seven countries have in common? In the context of banking, one that sticks out is that none of them is listed among the 56 member banks of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). That evidently puts them outside the long regulatory arm of the central bankers' central bank in Switzerland.

The most renegade of the lot could be Libya and Iraq, the two that have actually been attacked. Kenneth Schortgen Jr, writing on Examiner.com, noted that "[s]ix months before the US moved into Iraq to take down Saddam Hussein, the oil nation had made the move to accept euros instead of dollars for oil, and this became a threat to the global dominance of the dollar as the reserve currency, and its dominion as the petrodollar."

According to a Russian article titled "Bombing of Libya - Punishment for Ghaddafi for His Attempt to Refuse US Dollar", Gaddafi made a similarly bold move: he initiated a movement to refuse the dollar and the euro, and called on Arab and African nations to use a new currency instead, the gold dinar. Gaddafi suggested establishing a united African continent, with its 200 million people using this single currency.

During the past year, the idea was approved by many Arab countries and most African countries. The only opponents were the Republic of South Africa and the head of the League of Arab States. The initiative was viewed negatively by the USA and the European Union, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy calling Libya a threat to the financial security of mankind; but Gaddafi was not swayed and continued his push for the creation of a united Africa.

And that brings us back to the puzzle of the Libyan central bank. In an article posted on the Market Oracle, Eric Encina observed:

One seldom mentioned fact by western politicians and media pundits: the Central Bank of Libya is 100% State Owned ... Currently, the Libyan government creates its own money, the Libyan Dinar, through the facilities of its own central bank. Few can argue that Libya is a sovereign nation with its own great resources, able to sustain its own economic destiny. One major problem for globalist banking cartels is that in order to do business with Libya, they must go through the Libyan Central Bank and its national currency, a place where they have absolutely zero dominion or power-broking ability. Hence, taking down the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) may not appear in the speeches of Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy but this is certainly at the top of the globalist agenda for absorbing Libya into its hive of compliant nations.

Libya not only has oil. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), its central bank has nearly 144 tonnes of gold in its vaults. With that sort of asset base, who needs the BIS, the IMF and their rules?

All of which prompts a closer look at the BIS rules and their effect on local economies. An article on the BIS website states that central banks in the Central Bank Governance Network are supposed to have as their single or primary objective "to preserve price stability".

They are to be kept independent from government to make sure that political considerations don't interfere with this mandate. "Price stability" means maintaining a stable money supply, even if that means burdening the people with heavy foreign debts. Central banks are discouraged from increasing the money supply by printing money and using it for the benefit of the state, either directly or as loans.

In a 2002 article in Asia Times Online titled "The BIS vs national banks" Henry Liu maintained:

BIS regulations serve only the single purpose of strengthening the international private banking system, even at the peril of national economies. The BIS does to national banking systems what the IMF has done to national monetary regimes. National economies under financial globalization no longer serve national interests.

... FDI [foreign direct investment] denominated in foreign currencies, mostly dollars, has condemned many national economies into unbalanced development toward export, merely to make dollar-denominated interest payments to FDI, with little net benefit to the domestic economies.

He added, "Applying the State Theory of Money, any government can fund with its own currency all its domestic developmental needs to maintain full employment without inflation." The "state theory of money" refers to money created by governments rather than private banks.

The presumption of the rule against borrowing from the government's own central bank is that this will be inflationary, while borrowing existing money from foreign banks or the IMF will not. But all banks actually create the money they lend on their books, whether publicly owned or privately owned. Most new money today comes from bank loans. Borrowing it from the government's own central bank has the advantage that the loan is effectively interest-free. Eliminating interest has been shown to reduce the cost of public projects by an average of 50%.

And that appears to be how the Libyan system works. According to Wikipedia, the functions of the Central Bank of Libya include "issuing and regulating banknotes and coins in Libya" and "managing and issuing all state loans". Libya's wholly state-owned bank can and does issue the national currency and lend it for state purposes.

That would explain where Libya gets the money to provide free education and medical care, and to issue each young couple $50,000 in interest-free state loans. It would also explain where the country found the $33 billion to build the Great Man-Made River project. Libyans are worried that North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led air strikes are coming perilously close to this pipeline, threatening another humanitarian disaster.

So is this new war all about oil or all about banking? Maybe both - and water as well. With energy, water, and ample credit to develop the infrastructure to access them, a nation can be free of the grip of foreign creditors. And that may be the real threat of Libya: it could show the world what is possible.

Most countries don't have oil, but new technologies are being developed that could make non-oil-producing nations energy-independent, particularly if infrastructure costs are halved by borrowing from the nation's own publicly owned bank. Energy independence would free governments from the web of the international bankers, and of the need to shift production from domestic to foreign markets to service the loans.

If the Gaddafi government goes down, it will be interesting to watch whether the new central bank joins the BIS, whether the nationalized oil industry gets sold off to investors, and whether education and healthcare continue to be free.

Ellen Brown is an attorney and president of the Public Banking Institute, http://PublicBankingInstitute.org. In Web of Debt, her latest of eleven books, she shows how a private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Her websites are http://webofdebt.com and http://ellenbrown.com.

(Copyright Ellen Brown 2011)

Sampradaya Sun Continues its biased Double Standard Publishing Policy

Dear Editor,

I was straight forward and very clear about why I wanted the article removed. In fact quite contrary to Sun Staff's open speculation :"Perhaps the recent discussions in the Sun about the book changes have inspired him favorably towards Jayadvaita Swami, thus the confusion "- Had absolutely nothing to do with my request for retraction. I thought I made that clear in my initial request for a retraction.

I am sorry you or Rocana got his feelings hurt because I went and posted my own public retraction somewhere else. But that hardly indicates me being less than honest or 'not straightforward'. And it hardly indicates me taking the low road. It indicates my frustration at the Sun's editorial policy which as I understand is essentially Rocana's policy. Many of Rocana's tactics don't sit well with me frankly, and in fact I take offense to his personal attacks on me in regards to my substantive reality article which had nothing to do with him personally and did not mention him whatsoever.

Overall you are clearly operating a double standard. Frankly you don't even know what you are talking about. You don't know what honest and direct even means. (like face to face communication. communication that does not involve speculation) You so obviously are completely biased. Sampradaya sun is nothing more than Rocana Das extended forum for rolling speculative commentary on ISKCON and moreover any individual or philosophical point with whom he doesn't agree with exclusively point for point.

What really doesn't sit with you is anything that doesn't conform with your rampant speculations.


On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 7:05 AM, wrote:

Dear Josh

Hare Krsna, obeisances, All glories to Srila Prabhuapda.

Thank you for your submission. We are going to take a pass on it,
unfortunately.

Our last exchange with you left a lot to be desired.
(http://harekrsna.com/sun/editorials/08-10/editorials6475.htm) We felt
that your tactics were less than honest and direct, and your move to blog
the responsibility for the problem onto Rocana prabhu's shoulders didn't
sit well with us.

Had you simply been straightforward in the beginning about why you wanted
to retract your article, we might have been able to cooperate with you to
make that happen. But it seems you took the low road on that on. So
today, we'll chose to not do a repeat performance with you.

your servants,
Sun Staff

Thursday, April 14, 2011

He reasons especially ill...

"The occupational activities a man performs according to his own position are only so much useless labor if they do not provoke attraction for the message of the Personality of Godhead. "-Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 1.2.8

Pranams.

In response to Dharmapada Das' Dean Dominic DeLuca's article on Sampradaya Sun website, offensively titled: Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami's Death etc...I find the entire article and his subsequent rebuttals to be nothing more than purely speculative and in some instances outright offensive in nature. The golden fact is that Vaisnava's DO NOT DIE. This is the Scientific FACT of Bhagavata science, according to Bhagavad Gita, Srimad Bhagavatam, Sri Chaitanya Charitamrta, Bhakti Rasamrta Sindhu or The Nectar of Devotion etc. This FACT of Gaudiya Siddhanta is substantiated by the great Acharya, the Seventh Goswami, Bhaktivinoda Thakur, who emphatically states in his Saragrahi Vaisnava: "HE REASON'S ILL, who tells that Vaisnava's die. When thou art still living in sound." We experience and wholeheartedly appreciate the FACT that Srila Prabhupada is NOT DEAD.

Specifically to my point of the entirely speculative nature of this article, is the completely incongruous 'analysis?' of the horoscopes in question. They simply do not reflect my personal experience, to start, of Bhagavan Das, whom I have had discussions with. My experience with Bhagavan Das does not reflect your statements at all. Hridayananda Maharaja gets his 'due'? Maharaja openly declared to me in a small group in his house in the Berkelely hills that "what Srila Prabhupada didn't understand was..." in other words Hridayananda knows better than Srila Prabhupada. The physical EVIDENCE does not support Hridayananda's involvement in poisoning Srila Prabhupada. Not your so called analysis. His disposition towards his Guru in my personal experience is hardly favorable! Hridayananda was and is today introducing and perpetuating numerous philosophical deviations. (I am not going to go into all that here). There are numerous recorded instances where Hridayananda clearly demonstrates a disposition in fact directly opposed to Srila Prabhupada.

Your 'analysis' of Tamal Krishna Goswami DOES NOT SUPPORT the physical evidence surrounding the poisoning of Srila Prabhupada. Especially in relation to physical proximity, and independent laboratory voice analysis of said poison tape. (The tape is authentic). Neither does your 'analysis' match with the conversations that I have had with devotees who worked intimately with Tamal Krishna Goswami during that time. Neither your 'analysis' supports the untimely and inauspicious way in which he (Tamal Krishna Goswami) left this world. And for example: why would Tamal Krishna Goswami order the destruction of over 40 hours of tapes recorded between himself and Srila Prabhupada, which purportedly specifically related to the direction ISKCON was to take, post Prabhupada's departure??? This point specifically cast the greatest shadow, and has been substantiated by several devotees over the years. Why would Tamal Krishna Goswami, who as you say was so 'favorably disposed towards his Guru', change the entire course of ISKCON's management and preaching direction? Why would Tamal Krishna Goswami divert funds from ISKCON projects to finance his education? And then, why would Tamal Krishna Goswami write a heavily Mayavadi philosophically influenced Doctoral Thesis that completely contradicts the entire pranam mantra (nirvishesha, sunyavada) dedicated to His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, moreover the entire philosophical basis of Krishna consciousness??? Something that (to use the exact words of Hridayananda Das Goswami [or Krishnaksetra Prabhu borrowed from Hridayananda]) us "shop floor devotees' could never possibly understand!

The physical evidence does not support Rameswara, Jayapataka, or Harikesha no matter how much they have offended their Guru, or not. Bhavananda, however also falls within the proximity/extreme deviation category as Tamal Krishna Goswami in regards to the physical evidence. The bulk of the physical evidence does simply does not support your so called analysis Prabhu, plain and simple. Bhavananda backed by Hari Sauri Prabhu wrongly declared that the poison issue is 'ludicrous'. Actually the poison issue is a very serious issue, because Srila Prabhupada himself mentioned it, and more than once.

We know for a fact that Srila Prabhupada had much, much higher levels than normal of arsenic in his system than could be attributed to Bengali well water, as Hari Sauri hypothisized. Many of Srila Prabhupada's physical symptoms did in fact reflect advanced diabetes, rightly pointed out by Prabhupada's personal nurse Abhirama Prabhu (the most popular hypothesis of those who consider the poison issue 'superflous, crazy', or whatever). (Which by the way begs the question as to whether or not he [Abhirama Prabhu] was involved.) His (Abhirama Prabhu's) analysis could largely be interpreted as correct, short of the fact that Srila Prabhupada's hair folicle tested very high for arsenic (which could not possibly be a symptom of renal or kidney failure, or ultimately uraemia (postulated by Abhirama Prabhu). Also as you pointed out, Srila Prabhupada's extreme sensitivity to light, which is NOT in fact a symptom of uraemia or any of the other conditions (mentioned in Abhirama Prabhu's hypothesis). And another fact is that uraemia creates metabolic toxins in the system like uric acid, NOT ARSENIC!!!

However Dharmapada Prabhu, I don't feel that such a speculative, one sided so called 'analytical dialogue' about the horoscopes of those particular disciples on your part adds anything positive whatsoever, to the veracity of the question, as to 'who poisoned Srila Prabhupada?'. The only authentic astrologers according to Srila Prabhupada are the Brighu's anyways. So what you will do here? Uselessly try to show the world your erudition? Hamsavatara blessed by Srila Prabhupada, is humbly using his study of astrology to spread the Holy Name.
You on the other hand Prabhu, appear to be using this unfortunate scenario of Prabhupada's poisoning to push your own clearly biased agenda.

Furthermore you specifically requested the devotees to: "come forward to engage in useful dialogue on the matter, especially those that know astrology." Why did you make such a request Dharmapada, so you could publicly lambast anyone who disagreed with your analysis? I, like Hamsavatara Prabhu work for a living, I also have a growing family, and don't have much time (or energy) to waste. I have avoided posting on Sampradaya Sun for some time due to that fact. However your article Prabhu, and subsequent 'rebuttals' begs my disapproving attention. Hamsavatara is your senior in more ways than one, he is right to chastise you.

As for my personal opinion on this whole poison debate, I am torn. Individually we may know actually what happened, supersoul is after all, here, there, everywhere. However their appears to be little to no relevance at this point in "officially" establishing who did what. Other than to wag our tails and bark a lot. What to speak of endlessly speculating and 'debating'. It will hardly change the course of ISKCON, and for sure not Krishna Consciousness at this point, or at any point in time. Even if their were an 'official' inquiry, and or public trial, their is really very little positive outcome that it would accomplish, if any. Other than for us to simply know, exactly for a fact, what happened, and end all this useless speculation and posturing. On the other hand Srila Prabhupada did mention it, and Srila Prabhupada is very dear to us all, so naturally we want to know what, who, why, how, happened to him. Because we love him. Not because we want to show the world our so called learning.
Param satyam dhimahi.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Chant Hare Krishna & STOP WAR!

Wednesday, April 6, 2011