How to avoid brands made with genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Delia — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 04:21:40 +0000

Genetic Engineering (GE) or Genetic Modification (GM) of
food involves the laboratory process of artificially inserting
genes into the DNA of food crops or animals. The result is
called a genetically modified organism or GMO. GMOs can be
engineered with genes from bacteria, viruses, insects, animals,
or even humans. Most Americans say they would not eat GMOs
if labeled, but unlike most other industrialized countries, the
U.S. does not require labeling.

This Non-GMO Shopping Guide is designed to help reclaim
your right to know about the foods you are buying, and help
you find and avoid GMO foods and ingredients.

Tips for avoiding GM crops

TIP #1: BUY ORGANIC
Certified organic products are not allowed to contain any
GMOs. Therefore, when you purchase products labeled “100%
organic,” “organic,” or “made with organic ingredients,” all
ingredients in these products are not allowed to be produced
from GMOs. For example, products labeled as “made with
organic ingredients” only require 70% of the ingredients to
be organic, but 100% must be non-GMO.

TIP #2: LOOK FOR“NON-GMO” LABELS
Companies may voluntarily label products as “non-GMO.”
Some labels state “non-GMO” while others spell out “Made
Without Genetically Modified Ingredients.” Some products
limit their claim to only one particular “At-Risk” ingredient
such as soy lecithin, listing it as “non-GMO.”

TIP #3: AVOID AT-RISK INGREDIENTS
Avoid products made with any of the crops that are GM. Most
GM ingredients are products made from the “Big Four:” corn,
soybeans, canola, and cottonseed, used in processed foods.
Some of the most common genetically engineered Big Four
ingredients in processed foods are:

Corn
■ Corn flour, meal, oil, starch, gluten, and syrup
■ Sweeteners such as fructose, dextrose, and glucose
■ Modified food starch*

Soy
■ Soy flour, lecithin, protein, isolate, and isoflavone
■ Vegetable oil* and vegetable protein*

Canola Canola oil (also called rapeseed oil)
Cotton Cottonseed oil
*May be derived from other sources

Additionally, GM beet sugar recently entered the food
supply. Look for organic and non-GMO sweeteners, candy and
chocolate products made with 100% cane sugar, evaporated
cane juice, agave, or organic sugar, to avoid GM beet sugar.

BUY PRODUCTS LISTED in The True Food Shopping Guide ( read below for details)

Today, thousands of products on supermarket shelves are made with ingredients from genetically modified (also known as genetically engineered [GE]) crops. But GM foods are not labeled in the U.S., despite warnings from doctors and scientists that these foods may not be safe in the diet or the environment. This lack of mandatory labeling can make it difficult to determine which products are made with GM ingredients and which are not. The True Food Shoppers Guide is designed to give you the tools you need to make informed purchasing decisions.
The True Food Shoppers Guide also arms you with valuable information regarding common GM ingredients, as well as brands to look for, and to look out for. The application includes a “Four Simple Tips” section, which offers easy ways to avoid GM ingredients, a “Supermarkets and GMOs” section to help consumers identify GM and non-GMO private-label store brands, and a rbGH and rbGH-free dairy guide.
In addition to a list of brands that produce foods with no GM content, the application also offers contact information for companies that do use GM ingredients. This feature enables consumers to personally voice their opposition to the use of GM foods directly to the parties involved. As a result, the app serves not only as a shopping guide and teaching tool, but one that can be used for widespread advocacy as well. The app also has a “Take Action” section allowing people to contact state and federal agencies and officials to demand better regulatory oversight, safety testing and labeling laws for GM foods and crops.

The mobile app was created to help you find and avoid GE ingredients wherever you shop. Our guide gives you valuable information on common GE ingredients, brands to look for, and look out for, and common sense tips to keep you in the know. Stop shopping in the dark and download your new pocket shoppers’ guide today!

Get it for free on iTunes (for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad) or Android Market by searching for “True Food.”
Don’t have a compatible mobile phone? Download our NEW printable True Food Shoppers Guide, updated for 2011 instead!
Go behind the label and get the facts on genetically engineered foods.

App Features:
• Our “Four Simple Tips” section gives you easy ways to avoid genetically modified ingredients in any product
• “What’s New” brings you an always-updated feed of the Center for Food Safety’s latest news and campaign developments on GMOs and other important food issues. You can even share these articles and announcements with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and more, right from the app!
• Our “Action” center brings you our latest action alerts on simple things you can do to demand True Food!
• “Supermarkets and GMOs” lists major supermarket chains across the US and their policies on GMOs and rbGH use. Here you can find non-gmo and rbGH-free store brands, and supermarkets that are entirely non-gmo in their private-label brands!
• You can browse the Shoppers Guide by category (16 categories in all) in a simple “Green” and “Red” list format, or search for products by brand name or food type
• The Shoppers Guide also includes the ability to call or email companies listed in the “Red” (those who do not avoid GM ingredients in their products) to let them know you will not buy their products until they drop GMOs
• Learn about the risks of gm crops and foods, the benefits of and where to buy organics, gm crops in development, rbGH, and more in “More Info”
• Join the CFS True Food Network or our new Mobile Activists list and get updates and action alerts on the most pressing food issues via email or text message! We are over 100,000 members strong, and growing. Add your voice!
• Connect with the CFS True Food Network on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube
The True Food Shoppers Guide was compiled because you have the right to know what’s in your food!
The Guide was compiled primarily from direct communications with food producers. In some cases, we received company policy statements from consumers who passed these on to us. In addition to written statements, we spoke to many company representatives to clarify or assess their position. Products on the RED list contain ingredients that come from the most common GE crops (corn, soy, canola, cotton). Companies with products on this list have confirmed that their products may have or are likely to be made with GE ingredients, or have not denied using GE foods when given the opportunity to do so. Companies on the GREEN list have made a concerted effort to avoid GE ingredients and have company policies asserting their position on avoiding GE foods.
As ingredients change in products all the time, the best thing is to check the ingredients list of the products you buy often. Keep a look out for:
Corn: corn oil, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, corn starch, corn meal
Soy: soy protein, soy lecithin, soy oil, soy sauce, soy isolates
Canola: canola oil
Cotton: cottonseed oil

Click below to download the NEW True Food Shopper’s Guide to avoid GE foods, updated for 2011, or get our True Food Shoppers Guide mobile application for iPhone and Android!

http://gefoodlabels.org/about/true-food-shoppers%e2%80%99-guide-to-avoiding-gmos/

Source: The Center for Food Safety

Vedic Punjab and Indian Civilization: A Review with Thanks to Bent Lorentzen: Why Punjab is the Defender of Natural World

Dr. Harmander Singh — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 17:28:03 +0000

Vedic Punjab and Indian Civilization: A Review with Thanks to Bent Lorentzen: Why Punjab is the Defender of Natural World

I personally have researched and found that Aryan Invasion is a false theory to mislead people when European have greater political and thus ruling powers. Based on all works and description that are preserved from Vedic Literature to latest that we know as Shri Guru Granth Sahib, the Holy Book of Sikhs (http://www.searchgurbani.com/guru_granth_sahib/introduction) as authority over mythology and history. It talks and discusses everything based on the Quantum Physics and presence of Arts that we know as Classical Indian Arts and present in the other parts of the world.

These Classical Arts always has been gained by all sages, saints and spirituals without teachers. This very thing is known as if gift from the Spirit. The knowledge has ego as its root of action and that needs accepting something or some authority as teacher, the Guru. For example even Lord Rama and Krishna, who were masters of 14 and 16 Classical Arts also requested the master of each art as their gurus.

We are left with least of these classical arts alive with their major and minor classes and categories in the Modern Indian Civilization and World in general.

These Gurus, the teachers who help to receive the gifts from the spirit to preserve the natural world. This natural world is thus considered the Visible Form of God. Thus, all of it helps preserve all the Arts that go into Genes and also creates an Environment.

Many people in the modern age, particularly in the west consider the Teacher-taught as if a theory that Indians follow to keep the Civilization alive. We have this very teacher-taught relation for all faculties of human knowledge and wisdom. It spreads into animal kingdom and green world, and thus to the natural world. The Natural World is thus considered a teacher in its own open school.

The incomparable respect is given to the mother as she simply does not just conceives a sperm that has been preserved and developed by nature in male but also in the womb in which the same nature nurtures the same sperm within the egg. This comes out as a human body and other forms among the mammals. As the 4 kinds of life include sweat (perspiration), placenta, vegetation (With thanks from the source: http://www.sikhnet.com/news/water-and-origin-life)

It thus also includes the scientific discussions from creation of the universes to invasions of the Mughals embrace that from the Vedas to Holy Bible, Holy Quran and some other modern scriptures has not been put to question with deep intuitive and divine research works that we call as finding the truth without external aids. That means after reading and understanding everything that meets the criteria of Six Schools of Philosophy that has been main thing in world civilization.

I have studied his grammar of Shri Guru Granth Sahib that is in the Gurumukhi Scrip, in which Bhai Sahib Singh has proved that the Gurmukhi Script as the Punjabi language is the modern form of the Sanskrit. His grammar book also inspired me to write my own grammar book that I finished in 1996 but has never have been able to put it into publication for some reasons. His Grammar of Gurmukhi and thus the Gurbani by itself is written as in the Gurmukhi Script Punjabi. (With thanks from the source: http://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/Professor_Sahib_Singh#Discovery_of_Gurbani_Grammar)

Vedic Punjab

The Rig-Veda, one of the older texts in South Asia, is generally thought to have been composed in the Greater Punjab. It embodies a literary record of the socio-cultural development of ancient Punjab (known as Sapta Sindhu) and affords us a glimpse of the life of its people. Vedic society was tribal in character. A number of families constituted a grama, a number of gramas a vis (clan) and a number of clans a Jana (tribe). The Janas, led by Rajans, were in constant inter-tribal warfare. From this warfare arose larger groupings of peoples ruled by great chieftains and kings. As a result, a new political philosophy of conquest and empire grew, which traced the origin of the state to the exigencies of war.

An important event of the Rigvedic era was the "Battle of Ten Kings" which was fought on the banks of the river Parusni (identified with the present-day river Ravi) between king Sudas of the Trtsu lineage of the Bharata clan on the one hand and a confederation of ten tribes on the other.[5] The ten tribes pitted against Sudas comprised five major the Purus, the Druhyus, the Anus, the Turvasas and the Yadus—and five minor ones, origin from the north-western and western frontiers of present-day Punjab—the Pakthas, the Alinas, the Bhalanas, the Visanins and the Sivas. King Sudas was supported by the Vedic Rishi Vasishtha, while his former Purohita the Rishi Viswamitra sided with the confederation of ten tribes.[6]

Out of such conflicts, struggles, conquests and movements of the Vedic of the Middle and Later Vedic age emerged the Punjab, a society that laid special stress on the value of action as depicted by their ideals and standards in the Hindu Epics, notably the Mahabharata.

Epic Punjab

The philosophy of heroism of the Epic Age is expounded in the Bhagavatagita section of the Mahabharata. That work is a synthesis of many doctrines and creeds, but its oldest core is arguably the enunciation of a martial and heroic cult. The Bhagavatagita expounds a philosophy of heroism probably current in the then Punjab. It provides a philosophical foundation to the profession of arms and invests the Kshatriya or warrior with respectable position and noble status. It canonizes his professional integrity and injects an intensity of purpose into it. The exploits of the civilization can be seen in the accounts of the charges of the Kauravas against the Pandavas. The epic says that the contingents of Gandharas, Kambojas, Sauviras, Madras and Trigartas occupied key positions in the Kaurava arrays throughout the epic war.[7]

Another important event that involved the Punjabis was the conflict between the Indo-Aryan Rishi Vishwamitra of the Kurukshetra area and Sage Vasishtha from the north-western parts of greater Punjab (i.e., the region extending from Swat/Kabul in the west to Delhi in the east).[8][9] The story emerges in the Rigveda and more clearly later Vedic texts and is portrayed in the Bala-Kanda section of the Valmiki Ramayana. The epic conflict is said to have been sparked over the re-possession of Kamadhenu, also known as Savala, a divine cow by Vishwamitra from a Brahmana sage of the Vasishtha lineage. Rsi Vasishtha solicited the military support of the frontier Punjabi warriors consisting of eastern Iranians—the Shakas, Kambojas, Pahlavas, etc., aided by Kirata, Harita and the Mlechcha soldiers from the Himalayas. This composite army from frontier Punjab ruined one Akshauni army of Vishwamitra, along with all of his 100 his sons except one.[10] Indologists like Dr H. C. Raychadhury, Dr B. C. Law, Dr Satya Shrava and others see in these verses the glimpses of the struggles of the Aryans with the mixed invading hordes of the barbaric Sakas, Yavanas, Kambojas, Pahlavas etc. from the north-west.[11][12][13][14] The time frame for these struggles is said to be the 2nd century BCE. Raychadhury fixes the date of the present version of the Valmiki Ramayana around/after 2nd century CE.[15]

Punjab during Buddhist times

The Buddhist text Anguttara Nikaya[16] mentions Gandhara and Kamboja among the sixteen great countries (Solas Mahajanapadas) which had evolved in/and around Jambudvipa prior to Buddha's times. Pali literature further endorses that only Kamboja and Gandhara of the sixteen ancient political powers belonged to the Uttarapatha or northern division of Jambudvipa but no precise boundaries for each have been explicitly specified. Gandhara and Kamboja are believed to have comprised the upper Indus regions and included Kashmir, eastern Afghanistan and most of the western Punjab which now forms part of Pakistan.[17] At times, the limits of Buddhist Gandhara had extended as far as Multan while those of Buddhist Kamboja comprised Rajauri/Poonch, Abhisara and Hazara as well as eastern Afghanistan including valleys of Swat and Kunar and Kapisa etc. Michael Witzel terms this region as forming parts of the Greater Punjab. Buddhist texts also mention that this northern region especially the Kamboja was renowned for its quality horses & horsemen and has been regularly mentioned as the home of horses.[18] However, Chulla-Niddesa, another ancient text of the Buddhist canon substitutes Yona for Gandhara and thus lists the Kamboja and the Yona as the only Mahajanapadas from Uttarapatha[19] This shows that Kamboja had included Gandhara at the time the Chulla-Niddesa list was written by Buddhists.

Pāṇinian and Kautiliyan Punjab

Pāṇini was a famous ancient Sanskrit grammarian born in Shalātura, identified with modern Lahur near Attock in the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan. One may infer from his work, the Ashtadhyayi, that the people of Greater Punjab lived prominently by the profession of arms. That text terms numerous clans as being "Ayudhajivin Samghas" or "Republics (oligarchies) that live by force of arms". Those living in the plains were called Vahika Samghas,[20] while those in the mountainous regions (including the north-east of present-day Afghanistan) were termed as Parvatiya Samghas (mountaineer republics).[21] According to an older opinion the Vahika Sanghas included prominently the Vrikas (possibly modern Virk Jatts), Damanis, confederation of six states known as Trigarta-shashthas, Yaudheyas (modern Joiya or Johiya Rajputs and some Kamboj), Parsus, Kekayas, Usinaras, Sibis[22] (possibly modern Sibia Jatts?), Kshudrakas, Malavas, Bhartas, and the Madraka clans,[23] while the other class, styled as Parvatiya Ayudhajivins, comprised among others partially the Trigartas, Darvas, the Gandharan clan of Hastayanas,[24] Niharas, Hamsamaragas, and the Kambojan clans of Ashvayanas[25] & Ashvakayanas,[26] Dharteyas (of the Dyrta town of the Ashvakayans), Apritas, Madhuwantas (all known as Rohitgiris), as well as the Daradas of the Chitral, Gilgit, etc. In addition, Pāṇini also refers to the Kshatriya monarchies of the Kuru, Gandhara and Kamboja.[27] These Kshatriyas or warrior communities followed different forms of republican or oligarchic constitutions, as is attested to by Pāṇini's Ashtadhyayi.

The Arthashastra of Kautiliya, whose oldest layer may go back to the 4th century BCE also talks of several martial republics and specifically refers to the [Kshatriya Srenis (warrior-bands) of the Kambojas, Surastras and some other frontier tribes as belonging to varta-Shastr-opajivin class (i.e., living by the profession of arms and varta), while the Madraka, Malla, the Kuru, etc., clans are called Raja-shabd-opajivins class (i.e., using the title of Raja).[28][29][30][31][32] Dr Arthur Coke Burnell observes: "In the West, there were the Kambojas and the Katas (Kathas) with a high reputation for courage and skill in war, the Saubhuties, the Yaudheyas, and the two federated peoples, the Sibis, the Malavas and the Kshudrakas, the most numerous and warlike of the Indian nations of the days".[33][34] Thus, it is seen that the heroicraditions cultivated in Vedic and Epic Age continued to the times of Pāṇini and Kautaliya. In fact, the entire region of Greater Punjab is known to have reeked with the martial people. History strongly witnesses that these Ayudhajivin clans had offered stiff resistance to the Achaemenid rulers in the 6th century, and later to the Macedonian invaders in the 4th century BC.

According to History of Punjab: "There is no doubt that the Kambojas, Daradas, Kaikayas, Madras, Pauravas, Yaudheyas, Malavas, Saindhavas and Kurus had jointly contributed to the heroic tradition and composite culture of ancient Punjab".[35][36]

Please read more about it including the following:

Invasions:
Persian domination
Alexander's invasion

Maurya Empire
Indo-Greek kingdom
The Shahi Kingdoms and the Muslim invasions
The Delhi Sultanate and Mughal empire (Main article: Mughal Empire)
The rule of the Sikhs
The British in Punjab
The Punjab of Republic of India and Pakistan

from the source with thanks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Punjab#Vedic_Punjab

Vedic Punjab and Indian Civilization: A Review with Thanks to Bent Lorentzen: Why Punjab is the Defender of Natural World has been inspired by a wonderful wall-post by Bent Lorentzen having the most beautiful words showing reverence for natural world as: "...the mother's side of the family into deep history, it additionally means that all life, the land and habitat systems that support life, is considered the deepest mother, again deeply reinforcing an indellible love, respect, connectivity and desire to preserve their habitat's ecosystem... and this is also reflected in the way many tribes and clans encourage their young to study the sciences that have to do with ecology." (With thanks from the Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2365310691026&id=1198146266)

Please read this article in detail at here: http://www.lifemetaphysical.co.cc/2011/09/history-of-vedic-punjab-and-indian.html

Cell phone towers and radiation

zhi hui ren — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 02:53:34 +0000

Just why would a cell phone tower be placed on a church, school or fire station? Money. Cell phone companies pay organizations handsomely to install cell tower equipment on these properties. This eliminates the need for the cell phone company to lease or purchase land or buildings to erect their own towers. They can simply rent existing structures from someone else. This "rent money" can range from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars a month. What school district or church couldn't use a few extra dollars to benefit a tight budget? But does the income outweigh the potential risk? The studies say absolutely not.

There are an estimated 1.3 million base station antennas installed on towers and rooftops worldwide. As more and more of these are installed to increase coverage and to power new applications the ocean of electropollution to which we are exposed will only continue to thicken. Cell towers and antennas are popping up everywhere. In the United States there are now more than 1,947,000 towers and antennas currently online. Towers are the structures on which antennas are placed and multiple antennas may be attached to a single tower. The antenna is the actual emitter of the radio signal. Antennas are placed not only on towers but also on fires stations, churches, schools, cemeteries, and even inour national parks. Did you know there's a cell tower near Old Faithful in Yellowstone Park? And to make them esthetically pleasing to the environment antenna towers are often disguised. It's not uncommon to see cell phone towers in the southwest that look like palm trees, for example. These towers and antennas are often hidden, too, in places like church steeples or placed on rooftops where they can't be seen. Can't sleep well in a hotel at night? There may be an antenna tower hidden on the roof.

As explained earlier, each cell phone tower emits its signal in a circular pattern that would look much like a flower petal if it were visible. In other words, the pattern spreads itself 360 degrees around the tower in a circle. This "circle" around the tower is called a "cell" and this is where the term "cell" in cell phone gets its name. When under the umbrella of the "cell" good reception is maintained. When out of this cell area the reception is poor. Cell phone towers, then, are positioned throughout the countryside in such a way that these "cells" overlap one another so that, ideally, one is never out of coverage anywhere.

Cell Phone Towers Placed On Schools, Fire Stations, and Church Steeples

Two-time Nobel Prize nominee, Dr. Gerald Hyland, a physicist, had this to say about cell phone towers. "Existing safety guidelines for cell phone towers are completely inadequate. Quite justifiably, the public remains skeptical of attempts by government and industry to reassure them that all is well, particularly given the unethical way in which they often operate symbiotically so as to promote their own vested interests."

Techniques for Forgiveness Part 1

Delia — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 09:33:22 +0000

Many times I asked myself this question: "Why is it so important to forgive those who hurt us and even to forgive ourselves?" The answer is because holding resentments towards a person, hurts not only the other person, but mostly ourselves and can lead to pain, sufferance and illness, due to the resonance with inferior energies. But many times forgiveness is a beautiful idea, until we have to put it in practice in our own life. In this article I will try to put together some ideas and techniques for forgiveness which proved to be successful.

Many times memories from the past seem to emerge from our deepest levels of the subconscious mind and although our present life situations have nothing to do with the past and are completely harmless, we judge them and the people we interact with, based on our memories.

Let's see what is the structure of the mind and how these memories emerge from our subconscious mind?
Our mind has 3 basic levels: the sub conscious mind, which is the deepest level, the conscious mind which is active during our daily activities, or it should be active if we would be completely awakened and the super conscious mind, which is beyond the former two, more like a witness which lives completely present in the moment of now. Above all and ultimately the source of all is the Divine Intelligence.

According to the Ho'oponopono teachings, the ancient Hawaiian system of healing, problem solving and transformation, brought to the world by Morrnah Simeona, who was the original founder of the Self I-Dentity through Ho'oponopono courses, continued by Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len from Hawaii,
"The subconscious mind experiences mimicking, echoing, replaying. It behaves, feels, sees and decides exactly as memories dictates. The conscious mind, too, operates, without its awareness, by memories replaying. The subconscious mind and conscious mind, comprising the Soul, do not generate their own ideas, thoughts, feelings and actions. The Soul does not generate experiences of its own. It sees as memories see. It feels as memories feel. It behaves as memories behave and decides as memories decide. Or, rarely, it sees, it feels, it behaves and decides as Inspiration sees, feels, behaves and decides.
It is crucial in problem solving to realize that the body and the world are not the problems in and of themselves, but the consequences, the effects of memories replaying in the subconscious mind!

Who's in charge?

The Void is the foundation of Self I-Dentity, of Mind, of the Cosmos. It is the precursor state to the infusion of Inspirations from Divine Intelligence into the Subconscious Mind.

Memories replaying displace the Void of Self I-Dentity, precluding the manifestation of Inspirations.
To remedy this displacement, to reestablish Self I-Dentity, memories need to be transformed to Void through transmutation by Divine Intelligence.

Ho'oponopono involves the full participation of the four members of Self I-Dentity: Divine Intelligence, Super Conscious Mind, Conscious Mind and Sub Conscious Mind - working together as a unit of one. The Super Conscious Mind is memory-free , unaffected by memories re-playing by the Sub Conscious Mind. It is always one with the Divine Intelligence.The only requirement for Inspiration, Divine Creativity, is for Self I-Dentity to be Self I-Dentity. To be Self I-Dentity requires incessant cleansing of memories.

So who's in charge? Inspiration or memories re-playing? The choice is in the hands of the Conscious Mind."

The basis of this system is the following prayer:
"I am sorry.
Please, forgive me.
Thank you.
And, I love you!"

Here forgiveness plays an important role in the process of healing and transformation.
“The repentance is feeling sorry for the data or memory in me that is the problem. The next step is forgiveness from the Divinity; to forgive whatever this data is that causes me to perceive a patient to be sick. The final step is called “transmutation” which only the Divinity can do. The Divinity will take whatever memories are in me, that I perceive the patient as being sick, convert it to zero; transmute it from a thought-form to pure energy; release the energy from my mind, and now I’m back at zero which means no judgment. The next step is insight. The insight moves in and the Divinity tells you what you can do next"

I would add here that practicing awareness, being conscious all the time, being connected to the Super Conscious Mind, attunes us with the flow of Divine Inspiration. And here, living completely and fully in the present moment is the fundamental key.

Eckhart Tolle speaks about living in the present moment in his book "The Power of Now" and he gives many keys for awakening and becoming conscious of who we really are: Divine beings.
He says that "Forgiveness means to stop being discontent and in this way, we renounce sufferance.
Forgiveness means to stop opposing or resisting our life's events - means to allow life to live through us. The alternatives are pain and sufferance, the diminishing of the vital energy and in many cases, physical illness.
When you truly forgive, you withdraw your power from the domination of mind. Your mind cannot forgive. Only you can. Become present in your own body, feel the peace and the vibrant silence overflowed by the Being. That's why Jesus said:
"Before you enter the temple, forgive!"

In her book about the metaphysical causes of illnesses, "Your Body is Telling You: Love Yourself", Lise Bourbeau says that:
"The only path to complete and permanent healing is through self-forgiveness and the forgiveness of others."

She also gives the steps of forgiveness:

"1. Identify your emotions.
2. Take responsibility
Simply means acknowledging that you are choosing to react out of fear. Accept that something inside you is attracting this person or situation in your life to help you get over the hurt that has been present since childhood.

3. Accept the other person and let go
Put yourself in their shoes and begin to see things from their perspective and better understand their intentions.

4. Forgive yourself
This is the most important step in forgiveness. It helps you make peace with yourself. Forgive yourself for having judged, criticized or accused the other person

5. Have the desire to express forgiveness
Imagine yourself face to face with the person concerned, telling them that because you were hurting, you have judged, criticized or condemned them.
6. See the person involved
Express your thoughts and feelings to that person, saying you regret your accusation, judgement or resentment

7. Make the connection to the past
Look back at the events of your life and find a similar circumstance that relates to an authority figure: a father, mother, grandparent, teacher. This person is usually of the same sex as the person you were accusing. Then, to liberate yourself, go over this 6 steps with the person from the past.

Take as much time as you need to go over these steps. It may take a day, a month, a year, but what is important is that you do this with sincerity.
Letting go through forgiveness doesn't mean that you agree with the offense. Rather, you see beyond the offense. You are able to look into the other person with the eyes of love, compassion and understanding."

Read more about other techniques for forgiveness in the next article.

I honor the divinity within you! Namaste!

With love,

Delia

Read the article on my blog "Open Your Heart Project"

http://openyourheartproject.blogspot.com/2011/08/techniques-for-forgivenes.html

Techniques for Forgiveness Part 2

Delia — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 09:33:15 +0000

Here are 2 techniques for forgiveness which I practiced and I still practice in my daily life and they proved to be very efficient.

Every time I have to deal with health problems, for example, I know that my body wants to send me the message that I had a wrong attitude towards people, situations or events in my life. I become more and more conscious that everything happens for a reason and I attract the people and situations which I deserve and make me grow, helping me to learn my lessons in this lifetime.

Recently I embrace every person and situation in my life as being a gift from God and although some of them might seem to be difficult at the first glance, I understand that there is a hidden message they want to tell me and a hidden lesson they help me to learn. In this way, I accept everything as an opportunity to learn, grow and evolve spiritually and I am grateful for everything which happens in my life.

Then I immediately undergo a process of introspection or reflexion, in which I review my attitudes and I recognize and accept full responsibly for my mistakes. Applying the techniques for forgiveness I harmonize my relationships with other people and also make changes within myself.

I also realized over the years that although sometimes I have the feeling that I overcame some obstacles and I removed some mind patterns, if they were not completely accepted and transformed into something better, they tend to come back and create the same problems over and over again. That's why, I applied these techniques for forgiveness for longer periods of time, until I attained a state of detachment towards the people or situations involved in this process.

The first step I take is making a list with all the people and situations in which I felt hurt or mistreated and then another list with the people I hurt or mistreated myself. Then I apply this technique for forgiveness with every person from my lists, sending the healing energy of forgiveness to those persons and myself. I also wrote messages to all the people in my lists asking for forgiveness or telling them that I sincerely forgave them. Some of the people answered to my messages, some not, but either way, I know that I did the best I could in order to restore the balance and harmony in my past or present relationships.
When I feel a state of detachment and acceptance of a person or situation in my life, that is the sign that the process of forgiveness was successful. It feels like a burden is taken away from my shoulders and I become very light, happy and free.

What I think is very important also, is to assume full responsibility for all my actions or reactions to the events and situations. Being responsible means to stop blaming others for what's going on in my life. It means to look with lucidity and sincerity inside my own being and see what can I make to improve myself. We are the creators of our life in every moment. When we become fully responsible for everything we think, feel or say and for all our actions, we no longer blame others for anything.
Responsibility is a sign of maturity and is the first step in the journey towards self-awareness, together with sincerity. From this moment on we can say that we become more and more conscious and present and we will see that our entire life will change in better every day, regaining its harmony and even healing at all levels: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.

These techniques for forgiveness were given by my spiritual mentor and teacher, Yoga Professor Gregorian Bivolaru, and you can find them in his exceptional book: "The Secret Tantric Path of Love to Happiness and Fulfillment in a Couple Relationship" which can be found on Amazon.com:

Technique for forgiveness #1:
"To forgive, you must attract in your inner universe, through invocation, the subtle energy of forgiveness. This can be done through sincere, humble, and loving imploring for help from God the Father. After you have consecrated the fruits of this action to God, ask Him to pour into your being the divine energy of forgiveness.

Standing up, facing towards East, say the following prayer:

"God Almighty, Heavenly Father, I beg you with all my humility to pour into my being your divine energy of forgiveness. I implore you to help me forgive totally and unconditionally all that has caused me grief, intentionally or not. Thank you for listening to my prayer and for helping me. Amen."

Say this simple prayer at least seven times, and every time, in the end, feel in your being how the divine energy of forgiveness flows, through the top of the head downwards, flooding your entire being. When you feel that this flow of energy stops, start the second repetition of the prayer and continue in the same way with each repetition.

At the end of these prayers think clearly of the person you wish to forgive and the actions or situations for which you forgive them. Then feel how the divine energy of forgiveness operates in an ineffable way. At the end feel a state of relief and purification which shows that the energy of forgiveness has accomplished the annihilation of suffering with success.

In the end, you will have the opportunity to validate the efficiency of forgiveness through the appearance in your being of a state of complete detachment towards the aspects, situations, actions that have caused you to suffer as well as the person who provoked them."

Technique for forgiveness #2:

As before, start by saying the above prayer at least 7 times. After you have charged your being with the divine energy of forgiveness, go on to the next stage.

Think about the person who hurted you or who made you suffer. Putting yourself in their position, aim to think with lucidity and detachment about what you would have done if you had been in their place, under the exact same circumstances. Ask yourself honestly and with maximum lucidity and detachment, how would you have reacted?

Immediately after that, examine the person who created that suffering or pain, outside the context in which she/he has offended us, imagining that person in a completely different context or setting. For example, imagine how the person you are trying to forgive looked in childhood, or even better, remember, as exactly as possible, a specific situation when the two of you got along really well. At the end of this visualisation exercise, remain with the eyes closed, in a state of recollection, and then aspire to open your heart fully, invoking the help of God the Father and asking Him to fill your heart and being with the subtle energy of His infinite compassion. At the end of this action, the state of complete detachment should appear.
When forgiveness is taken to completion with the help of the divine subtle energy attracted in our being from the Macrocosm, it represents a twofold grace: for the person who is forgiving, this is a liberating feeling that also eliminates sadness, suffering, tension, and anxiety that often flow uninterrupted in the absence of forgiveness.

The state of detachment that is settling in shortly after the forgiveness is completed, shows that you have succeeded to forgive completely. If the state of detachment is not settling in, redo the process until you are successful.

When we don't forgive the person who has hurt us, the state of suffering and pain remains continuously in our inner universe. Judgment contracts the soul and exposes it to endless suffering, but forgiveness frees immediately form these wounds and pains, and by calming it, forgiveness enables the soul to blossom."

The energy of forgiveness can be attracted continuously in our being through invocation and sincere aspiration. We only have to take one step towards it and we will see even miracles happening in our life: miraculous healings, a divine state of happiness and love without limits, the disappearance of prejudices and mental patterns and a state of purity of the mind and soul which takes us to the next step in our evolution. When we have pure thoughts, our life will be pure as well. Aim to always attract the divine energy of forgiveness in yourself and you will become a radiant source of love and purity!

I honor the divinity within you! Namaste!

With love,

Delia

Read the article on my blog "Open Your Heart Project"

http://openyourheartproject.blogspot.com/

The Essence of Happiness

Delia — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 09:33:06 +0000

Many times I wondered where love and happiness come from and how can we love with a pure, detached, selfless, unconditional love? I even started an experiment with two friends, a few weeks ago, to experience the detached, unconditional love, without expecting anything in return for 49 days in a row. Believe me, this is not easy. Because many times we expect from our lover the same kind of love we offer. We have expectations and we worry that we are not loved the way we would like to be loved. We have desires which transform into sufferance if they are not immediately fulfilled. We expect from our lover to make us happy, and we put our happiness in their hands. Is this real love or is just a mixture of desires, expectations and love? Is our happiness completely dependent on others or is entirely dependent on us? Is receiving love more fulfilling than giving love?

I started to look for answers to these questions and I found that my true nature is pure happiness and pure love; that my happiness doesn’t depend on the actions and reactions of anybody else, but me. I went deeper in this search, seeking for the essence of love and happiness and really wanting to experience them in their purest form.

So I did some research, reading the book “The mastery of Love” by Don Miguel Ruiz, in which I found a beautiful story about “The man who didn’t believe in love”.

In this story, there is this man who didn’t believe that love exists. He had his own experiences about love and he concluded that love is just an invention of the poets and of the religions who want to have control over people and make them believe. He even thought that love is addictive. When you get your daily dose of love, you feel happy. But what happens when you don’t? Then the fear that you won’t receive love anymore makes you controlling and even manipulative. So he told everyone he met that what humans call love is nothing but a fear relationship based on control.

Then one day, he met a woman who too believed that love doesn’t exist. She had her own experiences in her relationships and she also concluded that we look for love, we open our hearts and we become vulnerable, just to find selfishness. That hurts, so this will repeat no matter how many relationships we have, the same thing happens again, so what’s the point of looking for love anymore? So love doesn’t really exist.

So they realized that they are so much alike and they became the best friends ever! They respected each other and they never put each other down. They were happy exactly the way they were. There was no envy, or jealousy, no control or possessiveness. They loved being together, because they had a lot of fun and they were very happy!

But one day, the man had the weirdest idea: Maybe what I feel for her is love!

And he told her about his idea. She said that she had the same idea, but she didn’t want to tell him about it because she knew that he didn’t believe in love.

So they concluded that maybe love does exist, but it isn’t what everybody thought it was. So they started to live together and they became lovers and it was amazing that their relationship didn’t change.

Until one night, when the man’s heart was so full with love that a miracle happened: he was looking at the stars and he saw the most beautiful one, and his love was so big that the star started to come down right into his hand and his soul merged with the star. He was intensely happy and he couldn’t wait to go to the woman and put the star in her hands to prove his love for her. As soon as he put the star in her hands, she had a moment of doubt, and the star fell from her hands and broke into millions of pieces.

Now there is an old man walking around the world saying that love doesn’t exist and there is a beautiful old woman waiting for a man, shedding a tear for the paradise that once she had in her hands, but for one moment of doubt it was lost forever.

Don Miguel Ruiz concludes in his book:

“Who made the mistake? Do you want to guess what went wrong?
The mistake was on the man’s part in thinking he could give the woman his happiness. The star was his happiness and his mistake was to put his happiness in her hands. Happiness never comes from outside of us. He was happy because of the love coming out of him. She was happy because of the love coming out of her. But as soon as he made her responsible for his happiness, she broke the star because she could not be responsible for his happiness.

If you take your happiness and put it in someone’s hands, sooner or later she is going to break it. If you give your happiness to someone else, she can always take it away.

Then if happiness can only come from inside of you and is the result of your love, you are responsible for your happiness. We can never make anyone responsible for our own happiness.”

So here was the answer I was looking for! Happiness comes from inside of us, not from outside! As Eckhart Tolle also says, pure happiness is our true nature. We kind of look for reasons to be unhappy, many times in our life, but what we miss seeing and understanding is that we are truly happy right here and now, in the present moment! Really, if you take a moment and you stop everything you are doing right in this moment, you close your eyes and you merge deeply inside of your heart, what do you think you will discover there? That you are perfectly happy right in this moment! And the love you are always looking for outside of you, seeking and seeking and waiting for it to come in your life, is again inside of you! And you know what will happen next, after you realize these two important things? That when you give this love to someone and when you share this love and happiness with someone you love, just sharing, giving, without expecting anything in return, this love and happiness will double and even triple! Because now there is not only one happiness and love, there is more and even more, each day! And as long as you don’t put any restrictions to your love or happiness, it will flow uninterrupted forever and it will grow every day! So from this moment on, you are no longer dependent on the actions and reactions of somebody else, you are entirely responsible for your own happiness and you are in the flow of life, not beside it.

I honor the divinity within you! Namaste!

With love,

Delia

Read the article on my blog: "Open Your Heart Project"

http://openyourheartproject.blogspot.com/2011/06/essence-of-happiness.html

One the Best Comment Ever on My Articles is by Bent Lorentzen

Dr. Harmander Singh — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 09:53:57 +0000

One the Best Comment Ever on My Articles is by Bent Lorentzen:

"This is one of the most powerful and altogether deeply insightful articles on the subject of world peace that I've ever had the priviledge of reading!

I began copying a couple of sentences above, to illustrate your deceptively simple thinking, and gave up, for each thought simply integrated and merged itself into a symphony, and to distract anyone with a "unique sentence" would be like taking a Chopin piece, and only offering one note Each sentence brings forth a wisdom from all sorts of disciplines that is rarely seen synthesized so eloquently. I'm almost speechless. Thanks for writing this, Harmander!"

The above comment is on the article: World Peace Message for New World Order Accepting Others as We are-A Sharing of an Appeal

P.S.: I sincerely thank Bent Lorentzen

Ethanol and Methanol as Biofuels for Internal Combustion Engines in Motor Vehicles: Ethanol and Methanol can replace Petrol (Gasoline) with minor vehicle and fuel-storage modifications

Dr. Harmander Singh — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 19:53:57 +0000

Ethanol and Methanol as Biofuels for Internal Combustion Engines in Motor Vehicles: Ethanol and Methanol can replace Petrol (Gasoline) with minor vehicle and fuel-storage modifications

Ethanol (ethyl alcohol) and Methanol (methyl alcohol aka wood alcohol) can be used to fuel internal combustion motor vehicles, either as sole fuels or, more usually, when mixed with petrol (gasoline). As a warning, in case you think these alcohols are a cheap way of fuelling your cocktail cabinet, note that this ethanol is of a dangerously high proof and contains additives which make it poisonous (it is referred to as denatured alcohol). Methanol is well known to be a dangerous poison in its own right.

There are two generic sources of biofuels (for both biodiesel and methanol) referred to as biomass feedstock [1]. They are 'first generation' which comprise grain and other vegetable crops grown for their sugar, starch and oil content. Then there are the 'next generation' sources which comprise cellulose rich sources including wood, tall grasses, crop residues and municipal waste organics. The latter are dependent on developing technology to improve yields. Two technologies are favoured: gasification and hydrolysis using enzymes. These methods should enable next-generation to become competitively priced with first-generation sources but with the big advantages of offering the potential to dramatically increase the amounts of biofuels produced and with far less impact on the environment and ecology.

Most contemporary petrol cars will run on E10, a 10% mixture of ethanol to petrol, although warranties may state that a mix of 5% is the maximum allowed. Many major car manufacturers have developed cars which run on fuels containing higher proportions of alcohol, typically E85. Ethanol has some properties which are different from petrol; for example, in car engines, it has a higher octane rating, is more corrosive and abrasive, cleans the old deposits away (hence fuel filters, in converted vehicles, may need changing after a short time, initially), may create minor flow problems and can make starting more difficult. The national distribution network will also require modifications to some of its components, mainly because of the corrosive properties of alcohol and its ability to mix with water.

In the UK, in 2005, tax concessions for ethanol encouraged a minor shift and a 5% ethanol mixture entered the retail market. A firm called Greenenergy pioneered this and Tesco have been reported as the retailers (mainly in SE England), the ethanol source being Brazilian sugar cane. The real motivation may be cost (although the reduction in price to the UK customer is small) but even so that is no bad thing. In 2006 another supermarket, Morrisons, started selling E85 bio-ethanol in East Anglia. The 5% mix can be used in most petrol vehicles but the 85% mix is limited to a very small number of current vehicles. It is hoped that the trend continues with a significant expansion of the use of bio-ethanol in the UK, and other sources will be created, prodded by expected government policies. These are needed if vehicle manufacturers are to be tempted and oil companies are to be 'persuaded'. The way that the fuel distributors work means that they all need to cooperate for a substantial conversion to take place.

Please read more with thanks from the source: http://www.envocare.co.uk/ethanol.htm

Relevant articles: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=alcohol+petrol&aq=f&aqi=g1g-v9&aql=&oq=

Alcohol-Petrol as a Motor Fuel

Dr. Harmander Singh — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 19:47:38 +0000

Alcohol-Petrol as a Motor Fuel

Abstract

IN connexion with the leading article in NATURE of March 11 on the subject of power alcohol, it is of interest to find that an alcohol-petrol mixture has begun to be distributed in Great Britain from garages over a wide and extending area under the name of â€œKoolmotor Alcohol Blendâ€ at the same price per gallon as No. 1 Petrol. A mixture of alcohol in petrol has been in common use in racing cars for a year or two, but now the ordinary public will have for the first time an opportunity of testing its merits, in particular the absence of knocking. The anti-knock value is said to be equivalent to approximately 85 octane number.

Please read the full article, the news from the source with thanks: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v131/n3309/abs/131464a0.html

Life Dynamix - My Natural Lifestyle in Natural World - A Video

Dr. Harmander Singh — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 20:22:29 +0000

Life Dynamix - My Natural Lifestyle in Natural World - A Video

I created a slideshow - video about Life Dynamix - My Natural Lifestyle in Natural World. Its introduction says: Our natural world makes a difference in our life if we know how to live naturally. It is frugal living that is most natural. The nature is most frugal and wants us to know how to use its resources in best possible way so that it helps us, is not it. It is my personal story as an Indian naturalist.

The link to the video is: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/6133846/life_dynamix_my_natural_lifestyle_in_natural_world/

It is thanksgiving to Life Dynamix and thus Life Dynamix - My Natural Lifestyle in Natural World - A Video

Thanks!

Five Ways to Go Green on St. Patrick's Day for the Animals and the Environment

Dr. Harmander Singh — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 07:58:31 +0000

Five Ways to Go Green on St. Patrick's Day for the Animals and the Environment

What better day to go green than on St. Patrick's Day? We have come up with the following five simple ways that you can make this St. Patrick's Day one for the animals and the environment:

1. One of the leading causes of climate change is meat production. Inform yourself and everyone you know that "meat's not green"!

2. The best thing that you can do to help the environment is to go vegan. Go green (and help animals!) by pledging to go vegan today.

3. Share the "Meat's Not Green" video on Facebook and expose the truth behind factory farms.

4. Take it to the streets—pass out "Meat's Not Green" leaflets and encourage others to go green too!

5. Showcase your cooking talents to your friends and family with a delicious St. Patty's Day treat. We suggest vegan Irish whiskey cake.

Don't forget to wear green too—you don't want to get pinched!

With thanks from the source: http://www.peta.org/action/st-patricks-day.aspx as they also sent the following message:

Monday is usually the work day we dread the most, right? Well, not anymore! You can start to enjoy your Mondays by implementing Meatless Monday at your workplace. Not only will you have something to look forward to on Monday, you will also be making a difference in the lives of your coworkers and in the lives of animals.

As you may know, going vegan saves more than 100 animals a year and helps reduce climate change and world hunger, all the while improving your health. It's the single most effective way to help animals, and we've made it easier than ever to start this program, with Meatless Monday resources.

PETA has created a Meatless Monday pack that will help you successfully lead your company to join the Meatless Monday movement. Give it a shot—it's easy and fun, and you'll make a difference!

Sincerely,

PETA

Is Corruption Bad for Environmental Sustainability? A Cross-National Analysis

Dr. Harmander Singh — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 09:28:59 +0000

Is Corruption Bad for Environmental Sustainability? A Cross-National Analysis

Corruption, defined here as the “abuse of public power for private gain” (World Bank 1997), has long been highlighted as an important consideration in development, and today is part of the wider ‘good governance’ agenda promoted by aid agencies (Doig and McIvor 1999). The assumption is straightforward. Corruption can result in the diversion of resources from the public good to private consumption and overall result in losing the impacts that were intended to be of wider benefit. Indeed Doig and McIvor (1999) state that corruption “has distorted development priorities, led to massive human and financial capital flight, and undermined social and political stability ... corruption is deeply damaging to the social and political fabric, to investment, and to economic growth.” Given this statement it is no surprise that Hisamatsu (2003) states “it is difficult to overstate the economic and social significance of corruption”.

Causes of corruption are said to be many (World Bank 1997, Goudie and Stasavage 1998) but can broadly be divided into three aspects:

1. Opportunity. Included here will be aspects such as demand from foreign firms (Hisamatsu 2003) and ‘spaces of corruption’ where there is a lack of transparency combined with power (Zemanovicova 2002) and where there are “highly distorted policies” that create gaps between demand and supply (World Bank 1997).
2. Motive. This may be especially enhanced if salaries and living conditions of officials with opportunity are relatively poor (World Bank 1997).
3. Probability of being caught and punished. If this is low then corruption is likely to be encouraged. It should also be noted that corruption may actually be tolerated by citizens as a means of ‘making things happen’.

Corruption has not only been linked to social and economic development, but also to environmental sustainability (Lopez and Mitra 2000, Damania et al. 2003, Welsch 2004). While corruption is not environmentally destructive in a general sense (Robbins 2000) poor governance results in bad policy formulation, management, and enforcement, and this can become apparent through problems with environmental sustainability (Damania et al. 2003). Yet while there are many assumed cause-effect relationships between corruption and environmental sustainability there are few empirical analyses. One qualitative example focused on environmental regulation in the New York waste industry and how this interacts with organized crime is provided by Carter (1997). There are also examples that take a more quantitative approach by correlating measures of corruption with indicators of environmental sustainability in much the same way as others have tried with corruption and economic performance (Mauro 1995, Hall and Jones 1999). Since the turn of the century this has been facilitated somewhat by the emergence of the ‘high-profile’ Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) for nation states. The ESI, first published in 2001 and subsequently in 2002 and 2005, has seen an increasing popularity at least in the popular media (Morse 2004, Morse and Fraser 2005) and has been overtly linked in the press to the rule of law:

“Finland and Norway have the most environmentally sustainable economies. The Environmental Sustainability Index is an assessment of dozens of variables that influence the environmental health of economies. One of the strongest determinants, besides wealth, seems to be good governance including a broad commitment to the rule of law” Economist (2002).

The ESI is by no means the only index or indicator of sustainability (Sutton and Costanza 2002), and an approach also gaining in interest is the estimation of Critical Natural Capital (CNC). The increasing popularity of the ESI is in part related to the fact that it is promoted by the powerful World Economic Forum (WEF), and its release coincides with high-profile WEF meetings. The ESI is a thorough index in the sense that the rationale, methodology, and component data sets are carefully laid out in widely available documentation (www.ciesin.columbia.edu/indicators/ESI/). This greatly facilitates the use of the ESI for relating environmental sustainability to economic performance (Morse and Fraser 2005) as well as corruption. Corruption, however unlike economic performance which can be proxied with measures such as gross domestic product (GDP) and gross national product (GNP), is a complex human behavior that is notoriously difficult to measure precisely because its very nature makes it opaque (Lambsdorff 1999, Hisamatsu 2003). Those benefiting from corruption are unlikely to say so and even more unlikely to say how much they receive. Those on the giving end may be less reticent to talk about the extent of corruption, but there is a danger of them exaggerating their problems by confounding difficult bureaucracies and different ways of doing business with corruption. As a result, empirical analysis of corruption is a relatively new endeavor (Lambsdorff 1999), but even so national measures typically based on perceptions of its prevalence do exist and the ESI includes one of them (World Bank Corruption Survey) as a component. A more widely reported metric is the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) published each year by the Berlin-based Transparency International (TI). Both of these indices reflect an increasing desire to measure complex characteristics of society and to present the results in a comparative format, in this case league tables.

In a recent and pioneering contribution Welsch (2004) uses the cross-national data available in the ESI 2002 data sets to explore the relationship between air and water pollution and corruption. For the latter he employed the World Bank Corruption Survey data in the ESI data set. Both ‘state’ (ambient) and ‘pressure’ (emissions) were included[1], and the results suggest that there are two effects:

1. A direct effect, such that corruption interferes with monitoring, enforcement, etc. Hence, more corruption unambiguously corresponds with more pollution. As stated in the ESI 2005 report (Esty et al. 2005), “corruption contributes to lax enforcement of environmental regulations and an ability on the part of producers and consumers to evade responsibility for the environmental harms they cause”.
2. An indirect effect, as corruption is negatively related to prosperity, which in turn has more complex relationships with various measures of pollution. For low income countries an increase in GDP may increase pollution but there is a turning point beyond which increasing prosperity reduces pollution (Grossman and Krueger 1995).

As a result, “the effect of corruption on pollution is particularly strong in low income countries. Reducing corruption is therefore especially important for the less developed regions” (Welsch 2004). However, the linkage between ‘state’ and ‘pressure’ was unclear for some pollutants as emissions kept increasing beyond the point where ambient levels had peaked. Welsch (2004) puts this down to poor data quality for emissions such that values are underestimated, and suggests that this bias could be at least in part a result of corruption. Hence all of his subsequent analyses and conclusions deal only with state indicators. But how valid are such comparisons, even if they are addressing important questions, founded on highly aggregated indices expressed at national level? After all, deriving single values of environmental sustainability and corruption for a nation would appear to be simplistic in the extreme.

This paper aims to critically dissect the assumed relationship between corruption (independent variable; CPI) and environmental sustainability (dependent variable; ESI). Can such analyses yield valid insights into such an hypothesized relationship and what are the limitations inherent within such cross-national comparisons using simplified data sets? If insights can be derived then what are they?

Please read more from the source with thanks: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss1/art22/

Why Worry about 666 and 13 when we want to be creative contributors but never the mind controlled contributors

Dr. Harmander Singh — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 17:29:42 +0000

If the seekers of welfare of all are so serious about world it is a must read. We talk, study, teach, share and preach a lot about how better world can be created with controlled conditions as if patients in Intensive Care Units (ICU). The conditioning is better than brain control as without brain control all can be creative contributors rather than conditioned contributors.

If we think that there are some people, who are thinking for us, we are as wrong as if one waits for return of the dead husband from the sea. We do not seem to make any efforts for self-control and thus has arrived where we always have been arriving, the brain control, mental setup as if we, the humans are robots and conditioning of programming is facility.

Why brain or mind control is worse than curse, to learn it, please read it. Thanks for your time for self-disciple to control yourself as the master of the body and mind!

Why should we be afraid of 666, the NWO?

New World Order adds to 666 as it is NWO means 18 the strongest number for all conflicts related to money and moral. 666 adds as 18 without being compound number. Thus, we may have some better life if we choose 1 for moral and 6 for Venus, the money and replace 666 by 616 that adds to 13, the Proper Use of Power and Authority lest it leads to self-destruction. The number 13 is the best number but only if used wisely.

Well, never mind www is also adds to 666 and it is misuse not blaming science and technology. Controlling cheating and spam (616 adding all to 13) differs from simply saying that 666 is symbol of Antichrist as adding to 3 sixes we get 18, the financial conflicts. Then adding 18 to as a single number 9 for Mars as said for Wars rather than Discipline and Duty.

Please read more with thanks from the source with the bookmark: http://www.xomba.com/do_you_want_be_creative_contributor_or_mind_controlled_contributor

Thanks for your time reading it!

Learning about my universe

safwana — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 21:24:44 +0000

14/02/2011

Last night, the night sky was lit up brightly. It was as if the moon was having a conference.

Six bright stars form a hexagon around the bright moon to form a constellation called The Winter Circle. There are totally 88 recorded constellations out of which this one is not mentioned, so they call it an asterism/pattern because its so prominent and hard to miss.

Anyways, I located Aldebaran correctly last night. There are two bright orange-red stars in the sky - one is Aldebaran and the other is Betelgeuse.

Did you know stars have a lifespan too? Scientists say that Betelgeuse is running out of fuel and might explode anytime soon. It can be now or a few millions years later. But the view would be spectacular, because it would be a supernova explosion.

The Orion's belt is quite prominent and acts as a pointer to find rigel - another bright bluish star. Stars do have different colors depending upon their temperature.

What's interesting is that the moon's surface has these grey patches that is called Maria, formed due to impacts caused by various crater, asteroids and comets. Now that could have happened to our planet earth too, if not what for the atmosphere that protects us. The moon sadly does not have such an atmosphere to protect itself. There are different names of Maria which you can look up on google.

Some scientists believe that the moon is a part of the earth that got separated from it when the earth was hit with a mars sized object. But thats a theory they formed after studying a moon rock.

Spotting stars - my first time last night

safwana — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 07:16:18 +0000

13/02/2011

Last night, star gazing was exhilirating. I would have preferred an interesting partner by my side to share this experience but instead I was accompanied by big fat mosquitoes that were so annoying. The blood suckers kept buzzing in my ear. It took a while to settle down as I got my binoculars to focus on the sky.

I put my mat on the floor and lay down so I wouldn't get a neck sprain at the end of my pursuit. I was trying to find the bull's two horns, the bright stars eldebaran(bull's eye) and elnath. I thought I could draw an imaginary line and make the shape as I had drawn it on a piece of paper.

A few minutes past, the sky was a heavenly abode filled with twinkling stars and the mysterious moon shining right on my face. What a sight - absolutely gorgeous. I felt jealous of the people who own a telescope and live out of the city.

I thought I saw eldebaran(the fiery red star) as it was described in the website I am following until i checked this morning. I think what i spotted was Betelgeuse which is also a bright red star right opposite to the Orion's belt. Ohhh, it was beautiful though with the waxing moon gibbous right next to it. A sight to hold. I held my breath for a while, (well yeah - I am such a drama queen, but that's me)

The famous Orion's belt as some of you may already know is three bright stars in a short straight row with equal distance from each other. Can't miss it.

First time in my life, I ever tried to draw imaginary lines in the sky - let my imagination loose and just have fun. I want to do this more often.

Some tips for the first timers:

1. The good news is You don't need a bloody telescope to spot stars. Most of them are visible with a decent binoculars.

2. If you don't have a set of binoculars - jeez...just find the moon and gaze at it for a while. That's relaxing.

3. Know how to find the pointers such as the Orion's belt, north star and others. They show direction.

4. Lastly, if you are in my city, use a non poisonous repellent spray on your body so you can have some peace of mind ;-)

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