5 Simple Steps For Helping Yourself & Others Avoid Chronic Aspartame Poisoning

This sweetener is marketed under a number of trademark names, including Tropicana Slim, Equal, NutraSweet, and Canderel, and is an ingredient of approximately 6,000 consumer foods and beverages sold worldwide.

1.  PROTECT YOURSELF
    ----------------
    Completely stop ingesting aspartame.  Even a small amount is a 
    slow poison.  Check the labels carefully for the word 
    "aspartame."  Please be aware that aspartame can be hidden in 
    gum, candy, over-the-counter medications (under "inactive 
    ingredients"), prescription medications (check with the
    pharmacist), sugar-containing foods, soups, supplements, and many 
    other items.  So, please read the label.

2.  POSITIVE STEPS
    --------------
    Replace aspartame with healthier sweeteners.  See the "Healthy 
    Sweetener Resource List" on this web page:

             http://www.holisticmed.com/sweet/

    for information on obtaining healthier sweeteners.  Please keep 
    in mind:

    a) that it is very helpful to shop at a natural food stores 
       because usually healthier sweeteners are obtainable.

    b) that it is important to avoid the newer, potentially toxic 
       (from *long-term* ingestion) artificial sweeteners 
       (acesulfame-k also known as Sunette/Sweet One/Sweet & Safe
       and sucralose also known as Splenda).

    c) Stevia is a good low-calorie replacement for diabetics and the 
       general population.  I prefer the taste of the Sunrider brand, 
       but other brands are good.  Some extracts are more suitable for 
       cooking than other extracts.  Purchase the new book about 
       stevia by Linda Bonvie from Body Ecology Diet for more information.

    Beyond this, please consider reading some of the articles about
    Food & Nutrition, Yoga, Preventive Medicine, Healing, etc. on the 
    main health page that may provide additional health benefit and
    will provide unbiased information, not corporate public relations 
    pushed through organizations (e.g., ADA, IFIC, FDA) or the TV 
    news.
             http://www.holisticmed.com/

    By moving in this direction as well as by reading books on non-
    toxic substitute products in the home and office such as "Nontoxic, 
    Natural & Earthwise" by Debra Lynn Dadd, you will become immune to
    PR campaigns and advertisements about the latest toxic product.

3.  SHARE
    -----
    Share the key files, including the sample toxicity reaction files
    with family, friends, acquintences and anyone you care about who
    may inadvertantly ingest aspartame.  When you share the 
    information, please ask them to make copies and pass it along.
    Feel free to share this information as well as the draft
    scientific/historic review and FAQs in the Scientific Section of 
    the Aspartame Toxicity Information Center web page with physicians
    and scientists.

        http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/

    If you see aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful), acesulfame-k 
    (Sunette, Sweet One, Sweet & Safe), or sucralose (Splenda) sold 
    in any health food stores, please firmly, but politely insist 
    upon filing a complaint *directly* with the manager.  These toxic 
    and potentially toxic "sweeteners" have no place in a health food 
    store any more than you would expect to see chewing tobacco or
    rat poison mixed with food at these stores.  If the manager has
    any questions, I would be more than happy to answer them.
    Several stores have already removed these toxic sweeteners after
    seeing *independent* information.

    Also, please feel free to translate these documents into other
    languages and distribute them.

4.  LINK
    ----
    It is extremely helpful to put a link from a web page to the main 
    "Aspartame Toxicity Information Center" web page:

        http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/

    Many people have included a link to this page.  Even if your page 
    is not health-related, it can be useful to include a link stating 
    that "The Aspartame/NutraSweet toxicity page provides very 
    important data that can affect the health of your family and 
    friends," or something to that effect.  If the page is health-
    related, it is important to include a link because many people 
    may be suffering and not be aware of chronic aspartame poisoning 
    as a common cause or contribuatory factor for a number of 
    ailments.

5.  CONTACT
    -------
    Please refer any questions or requests for information from 
    scientists, physicians, the media, or the general public to me.
    I will answer the requests as best I can and/or forward the 
    requests on to the appropriate scientists or group.  The email
    contact is:  mgold@holisticmed.com.   By voice, the number is:
    603-225-2110.


A Special Note
--------------
I greatly appreciate all help in warning people about the dangers of 
long-term, chronic aspartame poisoning.  Many people who find out 
that they, their family, or their friends have been poisoned by 
aspartame are angry.  When they find out that the manufacturer, the 
FDA, and many of the companies selling it know of the dangers, they 
become angrier still.

Becoming angry because of this situation and expressing that anger in 
appropriate ways is a natural and healthy occurence for most people.  
Expressing the anger as opposed to hiding the feelings can be 
healing.  However, I urge everyone to not hold on to the anger 
*indefinately* because of the ill health and turmoil that it can bring 
to your life.  Cultivating forgiveness towards these people that have 
caused harm is, in the long run, the best way to go.  (See short 
(somewhat esoteric, but useful) article at:

       http://www.spiritweb.org/Spirit/forgiveness-omni.html

for some useful tools in this area).

On the other hand, the world food supply is being poisoned with 
aspartame.  So, while it is helpful to eventually cultivate 
forgiveness, it is important to use the steps mentioned above to warn 
others about the dangers and to change regulations so poisons cannot 
regularly be approved.

(See: http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/asp-act2.txt for 
advanced steps)

Best Wishes,

5:06 AM - 6 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Winged cats discovered in western China

Geneticists have a less romantic theory. They believe it could be a genetic defect, a skin condition, or the result of poor grooming.

5:35 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

China used planes, rockets to prevent wet end of Games

Meteorologists dispatched eight planes to release rain dispersal chemicals and fired 241 rockets into incoming clouds to ensure a dry Beijing Olympics closing ceremony, state media said Monday.

Rain clouds from the north of China had started to move towards the capital on Sunday afternoon, Guo Hu, head of the Beijing Observatory, was quoted by the official Xinhua news agency as saying.

"We decided to use planes to cover a larger area, along with firing rain dispersal rockets from the ground," said Zhang Qiang, an official at the Beijing Weather Modification Office, according to Xinhua.

Meteorologists also fired more than 1,000 rockets into clouds on August 8 to prevent showers from ruining the opening ceremony -- the biggest-ever operation of its kind by China.

China has long dabbled in rain dispersal and rain-making technology, using a vast array of chemicals to either induce or prevent rainfall.

Scientists have viewed the technology as promising, but acknowledge that no method has been developed to objectively prove that such techniques work.

People remarked before the olympics began that China could control the weather as they "guaranteed" clear weather for the games.

8:59 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Ben Bernanke: an idiot for the ages.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Friday the financial crisis that has pounded the country — coupled with higher inflation — is taking a toll on the economy and poses a major challenge to Fed policymakers as they try to restore stability.

"Although we have seen some improved functioning in some markets, the financial storm that reached gale force" around this time last year "has not yet subsided, and its effects on the broader economy are becoming apparent in the form of softening economic activity and rising unemployment," Bernanke said in a speech to a high-profile economics conference here.

Although Bernanke welcomed the recent drops in prices for oil and other commodities, and believes inflation will moderate this year and next, the Fed chief said the inflation outlook remains highly uncertain.

The Fed, he said, would monitor the situation closely and will "act as necessary" to make sure that inflation doesn't get out of hand.

The current financial and economic environment is one of the most challenging to Fed policymakers "in memory," he acknowledged.

Given those dueling economic cross-currents_ weak economic growth and higher inflation — many economists believe the Fed will leave rates where they are at its next meeting on Sept 16 and probably through the rest of this year.

The bulk of Bernanke's speech dealt with the need to bolster oversight of the nation's financial system to make it better able in the future to withstand future shocks.

To that end, Bernanke recommended that regulators work on ways to assess the health of the entire financial system, rather than the condition of individual banks, Wall Street investment firms or other financial companies — as is currently the focus.

"Such an approach would appear well justified as our financial system has become less bank centered," he said. "Some caution is in order, however, as this more comprehensive approach would be technically demanding and possibly very costly both for the regulators and the firms they supervise," he added.

He also said that "stress tests" for a range of financial firms might also be helpful.

Bernanke's remarks come amid renewed worries on Wall Street about the financial health of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The mortgage giants' stock has gotten hammered this week as investors became increasingly convinced a government bailout is inevitable.

Although the Fed chief didn't mention the companies, he said that one of the critical questions facing the country is how to strengthen the financial system and at the same time protect against "moral hazard," where financial companies take extra risks because they believe the Fed or the government will ultimately bail them out.

"Some particularly thorny issues are raised by the existence of financial institutions that may be perceived as ..too big to fail' and the moral hazard issues that may arise when governments intervene in a financial crisis," he said.

Mitigating that problem is another challenge facing policymakers, he said.

3:14 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

13 Things That Don’t Make Sense

When we look to the "anomalies" that science can't explain, we often discover where science is about to go. Here are a few of the anomalies that Michael Brooks investigates in 13 Things That Don't Make Sense:

Homeopathic remedies seem to have biological effects that cannot be explained by chemistry

Gases have been detected on Mars that could only have come from carbon-based life forms

Cold fusion, theoretically impossible and discredited in the 1980s, seems to work in some modern laboratory experiments

It's quite likely we have nothing close to free will

Life and non-life may exist along a continuum, which may pave the way for us to create life in the near future

Sexual reproduction doesn't line up with evolutionary theory and, moreover, there's no good scientific explanation for why we must die

Science starts to get interesting when things don't make sense.

Is it possible that the universe, rather than slowly drifting apart as the physics of the big bang had once predicted, is actually expanding at an ever-faster speed?  Brooks travels to a basement in Turin to subject himself to repeated shocks in a test of the placebo response. No study has ever been able to definitively show how the placebo effect works, so why has it become a pillar of medical science? Moreover, is 96 percent of the universe missing? Is a 1977 signal from outer space a transmission from an alien civilization? Might giant viruses explain how life began? Why are some NASA satellites speeding up as they get farther from the sun—and what does that mean for the laws of physics?

Science's best-kept secret is this: even today, there are experimental results and reliable data that the most brilliant scientists can neither explain nor dismiss. In the past, similar "anomalies" have revolutionized our world, like in the sixteenth century, when a set of celestial anomalies led Copernicus to realize that the Earth goes around the sun and not the reverse, and in the 1770s, when two chemists discovered oxygen because of experimental results that defied all the theories of the day. And so, if history is any precedent, we should look to today's inexplicable results to forecast the future of science.

"In science, being stuck can be a sign that you are about to make a great leap forward. The things that don't make sense are, in some ways, the only things that matter." - michael brooks

7:23 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

White Americans no longer a majority by 2042

White people will no longer make up a majority of Americans by 2042, according to new government projections. That's eight years sooner than previous estimates, made in 2004.

The nation has been growing more diverse for decades, but the process has sped up through immigration and higher birth rates among minority residents, especially Hispanics.

It is also growing older.

"The white population is older and very much centered around the aging baby boomers who are well past their high fertility years," said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "The future of America is epitomized by the young people today. They are basically the melting pot we are going to see in the future."

The Census Bureau Thursday released population projections through 2050, based on rates for births, deaths and immigration. They are subject to big revisions, depending on immigration policy, cultural changes and natural or manmade disasters.

The U.S. has nearly 305 million people today. The population is projected to hit 400 million in 2039 and 439 million in 2050.

That's like adding all the people from France and Britain, said Steve A. Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington group that advocates tighter immigration policies.

White non-Hispanics make up about two-thirds of the population, but only 55 percent of those younger than 5.

By 2050, whites will make up 46 percent of the population and blacks will make up 15 percent, a relatively small increase from today. Hispanics, who make up about 15 percent of the population today, will account for 30 percent in 2050, according to the new projections.

Asians, which make up about 5 percent of the population, are projected to increase to 9 percent by 2050.

The population 85 and older is projected to more than triple by 2050, to 19 million.

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Grease-fuel your diesel

A grease car is a diesel car, truck or Jeep that runs on waste vegetable oil from your local greasy spoon or fine-dining establishment. A grease car also significantly reduce a bevy of environmental badness -- asthma-triggering particulate matter, smog-forming carbon monoxide, likely carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and the sulfur emissions that lead to acid rain. The only environmental downside is a small increase in smog-forming nitrogen oxide.

Sold? Good. The first thing you need is, of course, a diesel vehicle. Old Mercedeses and V.W. Rabbits and Jettas -- costing about 2,000 to 4,000 bucks -- are popular among greasers. Or, if you're feeling flush, you might want to spring for one of the V.W.s, Mercedes or Jeeps in showrooms now.

Next you need grease. Local restaurants and other food service establishments -- cafeterias, caterers, hotels -- are all good sources of what, in greaser parlance, is known as WVO, waste vegetable oil. "Just go into a restaurant during nonbusy hours and ask to speak with the manager," advises California environmental consultant and greaser Stephanie Collins. The food folks usually give it up for free.

Your next step is to decide between two fueling options. Straight vegetable oil (SVO) or biodiesel. SVO is filtered WVO; to use it, you usually have to modify your car's fuel system. Biodiesel is WVO catalyzed with methanol and lye. Biodiesel can be used in many diesel engines without modification. But making the stuff necessitates using and storing caustic and combustible chemicals.

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"Modifying the car to run straight vegetable oil is great, and if you have just one vehicle, it makes more sense because it's simpler," says Lyle Rudensey, owner of Seattle's BioLyle's Biodiesel Workshop, which offers instruction on making your own fuel.

Key to success is careful filtration of your French fry grease. Otherwise you risk clogging your vehicle's fuel injector and damaging the engine. Filtration systems run from low-cost/low-tech solutions that sell for next to nothing to mechanized systems that can cost as much as $1,500.

To make sure his grease is engine safe, SVO user Chuck Wyatt, a Holliston, Mass., Web developer, lets the oil he has collected sit in containers for a week or two, so most of the water and food remnants settle out. Then he pours the grease into a large hanging filter positioned above a 55-gallon drum. After the first filtering, he heats the grease with an electric heater and pumps it through a diesel-fuel filter into a second drum. "It's not glamorous, but it works," Wyatt says. Higher-priced mechanized systems can do all the work for you.

If you're disinclined to get your hands dirty, you can purchase ready-to-use vegetable oil from a relatively small number of biofuels co-ops and fueling stations, such as Ithaca Biodiesel, in upstate New York.

Because SVO is more viscous than regular diesel fuel, you'll probably need to have a mechanic install a kit that creates two fuel lines for your car -- one for regular diesel, one for vegetable oil. You switch between one line and the other once the vegetable oil has been heated by the car's engine. Modification kits cost about $1,000; mechanics, $1,000 to $1,500. (Here's another good thing about your grease car: You can use "dino" (petroleum) diesel if you run out of the veggie stuff.)

Although SVO has many fans, biodiesel has its boosters, too. You can brew biodiesel at home, but "most of the people who do it are tinkerers," observes Meghan Murphy, one of Ithaca Biodiesel's founders. The equipment needed to make the stuff starts at $1,400 and can run as much as $13,000. That's why the fuel is often produced by co-ops, whose members can share the cost of automated fuel-processing equipment. (Rudensey helped organize a 24-member group in Seattle.) WVO-based biodiesel is available at a growing number of fueling stations across the country, such as Berkeley, Calif.'s Biofuels Oasis. (Check out biodiesel.org for a national listing of stations and offerings.) If you do choose biodiesel, make sure to have a mechanic swap any rubber parts in your car's fuel system for metal ones; biodiesel has some solvent properties that can cause rubber parts to crack and leak.

In most cases, grease cars are against the law because they use a fuel that hasn't had emissions testing approved by the Environmental Protection Agency. (Some fueling stations, including Ithaca Biodiesel and Biofuels Oasis, do offer EPA-approved biofuels.) The EPA has also yet to approve fuel system modification kits. None of the greasers I talked to, however, has heard of anyone being prosecuted under the federal Clean Air Act. But EPA spokeswoman Roxanne Smith says: "We have conducted some inspections regarding possible noncompliant biodiesel. Because these investigations are ongoing, we cannot discuss them."

Depending upon where you live, you may be subject to certain road and fuel taxes that are usually included in the cost of petroleum at the pump. So consult a tax expert. And Bob McCormick, a biofuels expert at the federal National Renewable Energy Laboratory, warns that using waste vegetable oil can cause "carbon deposits in the engine, which could lead to poor performance." None of the greasers reported engine trouble or knew of grease car users plagued by engine trouble.

Running your car on WVO isn't for the time strapped. Wyatt estimates that collecting and processing grease takes him two hours a week. "You've got to be willing to put in the work," he says. "It's a hobby." But a profitable one: Given his 70-mile round-trip commute, Wyatt says, "I'm saving about $200 a month on gas. I only need to fill up on diesel about once a month."

Sadly, WVO isn't the answer to the nation's transportation fuel problems -- there's simply not enough of the stuff. The United States produces about 200 million gallons of waste grease each year, compared with a combined total of 180 billion gallons of gasoline and petroleum diesel used annually.

Nevertheless, running a car on WVO is definitely worth doing, says Rich Kassel, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Clean Fuels and Vehicles Project. "We'll never solve global warming by relying on used grease from the corner diner. But every little bit helps."

3:05 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Hidden van Gogh Revealed

Scientists have made a colored view of an early rejected painting underneath Vincent van Gogh's 'Patch of Grass' painting, using advanced X-ray techniques, a Dutch university said on Wednesday.

The very detailed image shows the face of a woman and may give art historians a better understanding of the way Van Gogh developed as a painter.

"It is estimated that one third of Vincent van Gogh's early paintings have been painted on top of existing ones. Van Gogh literally recycled his own canvasses," scientist Joris Dik of the Delft University of Technology said.

Conventional X-ray techniques give a colorless, partial view of the hidden painting and only show vague contours of a person behind 'Patch of Grass', the university said.

By recycling his work Van Gogh painted many layers over the original painting but the scientists managed to scan all the different elements in those layers of the relevant area with X-ray fluorescence.

10:18 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Japan to test missile interceptor in U.S.

Japan will conduct its first test-firing of a land-to-air missile interceptor in the United States in September to ensure that a missile shield for the Japanese capital will function properly if it falls under attack, the Defense Ministry said.

The PAC-3 Patriot interceptor will be fired at White Sands Missile Range in the state of New Mexico during the week of Sept. 15, according to a ministry statement obtained Saturday.

The test comes as Japan and the U.S. accelerate their joint missile defense program following North Korea's missile and nuclear tests in 2006.

The planned test "aims to confirm the functions of the Patriot system that has been upgraded with ballistic missile defense capabilities," the ministry said.

Japan has deployed four PAC-3 systems — each including several launchers, a radar vehicle and a control station — around Tokyo to protect the capital region, including the country's largest naval base in nearby Yokosuka, also the homeport of the U.S. Seventh Fleet.

Japan has been aggressively augmenting its missile defense capabilities amid concerns about a possible threat from North Korea. Japan plans to deploy the PAC-3 defense system at several more bases around the country by March 2011.

11:36 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

The British Standard

A British high school student received credit for writing nothing but a two-word obscenity on an exam paper because the phrase expressed meaning and was spelled correctly.

The Times newspaper on Monday quoted examiner Peter Buckroyd as saying he gave the student — who wrote an expletive starting with f, followed by the word "off" — two points out of a possible 27 for the English paper.

"It would be wicked to give it zero because it does show some very basic skills we are looking for, like conveying some meaning and some spelling," Buckroyd was quoted as saying.

"It's better than someone that doesn't write anything at all."

Buckroyd said the student would have received a higher mark if the phrase had been punctuated.

Buckroyd is a senior examiner for the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance, one of several bodies that grade British high school exams.

He said the expletive was used in 2006 by a student in response to the question: "Describe the room you are sitting in."

The alliance confirmed the newspaper's story was accurate, but said Buckroyd's decision to award the student marks was not official policy.

"The example cited was unique in the experience of the senior examiner concerned and was used in a pre-training session to emphasize the importance of adhering to the mark scheme: i.e. if a candidate makes any sort of response to a question then it must be at least given consideration to be awarded a mark," the company said in a statement.

It said obscenities on exam papers "should either be disregarded, or action will be taken against the candidate, depending on the seriousness of the case."

6:32 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment