Author: Serkadis

In the digital age many of us have become accustomed to RSS readers. They’re simple, they’re convenient, and for the most part they deliver just the information without all the frills. But sometimes people want the frills. After all, it’s not so long ago that we went to the end of the driveway to pick up the newspaper every morning. To that end, there is Press Display, a service which allows you to view your favorite newspapers from around the world, right down to the formatting. You download the publication, meaning you can read it offline, a huge, huge plus for the traveling worker. Their latest development, as we learn from jkOnTheRun, is PressReader, an application which allows you to view those publications on your BlackBerry.

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The Prime Minister has announced plans to tighten the points-based system of immigration.

During a speech in west London this morning, the PM said he favoured a “tough but fair approach” to immigration under which the Government would decide what categories of skills were allowed into the country.

He said points-based immigration creates a system that serves the national interest by “recognising what we, as a country, need for a successful economy; but also what will strengthen our society and our communities”.

“Under this system, first and foremost – we must continue our efforts to equip our people with the skills they need to compete in the global economy.”

The PM said the Government also needed to manage the impact of immigration on communities through mainstream funding and the new Migration Impact Fund, which would see newcomers pay an additional contribution to help ease the pressures of population change.

And migrants wanting to stay in the UK permanently would be required to “earn” UK citizenship, Mr Brown said.

“It is because we believe those who look to build a new life in Britain should earn the right to do so that we will now push forward the points-based system to the next stage by introducing a points-based test not just for entry, but also for permanent residence and citizenship.”

Gordon Brown said at the same time the Government was continuing to focus on strengthening UK borders.

Annual figures for net inward migration show that overall net immigration is down 44% on last year, the PM said.

Speeches and transcripts: Speech on immigration

CHICAGO (Reuters) – CVS Caremark Corp (CVS.N) said on Tuesday it would start offering pharmacy benefit management clients more genetic services next year under a deal with Generation Health Inc, in which it is taking a minority stake.

The deal with privately held Generation Health will expand pharmacogenomic clinical and testing services.

Such services can help doctors evaluate a patient’s genetic make-up to determine if a medication will be effective and should help improve care for patients who do not respond to or have adverse reactions to their medication, CVS said.

CVS Caremark’s pharmacy benefits management business, or PBM, administers prescription drug benefits for employers and health plans and operates a large mail-order pharmacy.

Last week, CVS stunned investors when it said that its PBM had lost $4.8 billion in business heading into next year.

CVS Caremark already provides pharmacogenomic intervention services in its specialty pharmacy business. Now, under the new partnership, it plans to introduce those services for certain drugs dispensed under the traditional PBM.

The companies said they would first focus on clinical and testing programs that predict how a patient will respond to medications in areas such as oncology, cardiovascular medicine and the treatment of HIV.

The services are set to be introduced to CVS Caremark’s PBM clients in the second quarter of 2010.

As part of the deal, CVS Chief Medical Officer Dr. Troyen Brennan will join Generation Health’s board of directors.

Generation Health was created in November 2008 with funding from its founders and venture capital firm Highland Capital Partners. (Reporting by Jessica Wohl, editing by Maureen Bavdek)

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Well I don’t think now is the time for a review. Clearly, the game is not yet finished, given that the game has only two maps at the moment (one in beta phase) and that the Runes gameplay feature is still a “work in progress.” Giving it a review right now will be unfair for the developers seeing how this Warcraft DotA clone shows much promise.

It’s again downloading updates right now (a VERY good sign) so I can’t play this free PC multiplayer strategy game. What with my shift coming up, I might as well sit down and write about my first impressions.

The impressions and download links after the jump.

League of Legends: Clash of Fates is a free-to-play real-time strategy game that is being developed by Riot Games. Part of the dev team are Steve “Guinsoo” Feak and Steve “Pendragon” Mescon, two people who were directly involved in the development of the highly-popular Warcraft: The Frozen Throne mod, DotA.

League of Legends: Clash of Fates is a clone of the original Defense of the Ancients, in it, two teams still defend their base, which are connected by three lanes that are lined with turrets. Just like DotA All-Stars, both bases continuously spawn a steady stream of minions. It is up to you and your team to help these minions destroy the enemies’ base.

Whoa, this is turning into a review. Crud. Ok, first impressions:

• Game has a retail version. Did you know that? Yep, it has. Buying the retail version speeds up the process of unlocking the game’s various unlockables. Then again, I’m not sure if the retail version comes with all the unlockables unlocked. I have yet to check on this.
• It has an account system. Playing more games grants you “Mastery” points that you can purchase to give whatever Champion you choose infinitesimal boosts like 0.66% Critical, etc. They may not be game-changing benefits, but they sure are handy.
• Yes, your account “levels up.”
• No heroes here. Kidding. The game names them as “Champions.” You are the “Summoner” of these champions.
• There is also a Rune system. It’s not clear to me yet, as I’ve got to do some reading (IT company work and gaming websites don’t mix well lol!), but it looks like you can unlock certain Runes as your account levels up. You can then (I think) choose from your collection which Runes to use for a certain match.
• The audio is awesome.
• Oddly enough, while the audio is awesome, the game makes me feels as if I’m “floating” above it. It’s not immersive enough like that of DotA’s. With Warcraft, when I walk a character, it really feels like I’m there gallivanting across the hills and dales of the terrain. With this game, I feel detached. I don’t know, but there’s something lacking that I can’t put a finger to. Let’s hope they fix this.

• The graphics are toony. This could be a good or bad thing depending on your preferences. It’s not exactly a bad thing for “grit lovers” though — at higher video settings, the game really shines. One can just look at all those Youtube League of Legends: Clash of Fates gameplay videos. At lower video settings, it reminds you of those cheapo, free-to-play MMO PC RPG games.

• The game has recipes and items — this massive collective absolutely swamps, floods, drowns, buries, and obliterates that of DotA. Newbies (wait. Edit: “Fellow newbies.”) need not be alarmed however; the game presents suggestion weapon and items for your Champion of choice. Here’s more: clicking those items will bring down, recipe trees, enabling you to easily see which items are needed to create them. Expanding on that innovative twist, the developers have even made the recipe trees interactive — click on the components, and the “Buy” button lights up, giving you the option to immediately buy that item from the tree without going back to the main, relatively labyrinthine “Health-Defense-Critical-Movement” menu.

All in all, this is one of the greatest freeware release the free-to-play world has seen. Warcraft and DotA players, take heed: League of Legends: Clash of Fate is something you need to get into. Even in its WIP state, it’s still is awesome.

>>> The download link and an HD trailer of the game can be found HERE

>>> See more downloadable free full version real-time strategy (RTS) games HERE

LONDON (Reuters) – British private equity firm 3i Group (III.L) said asset values increased just 2 percent in the first half of its financial year as the real economy failed to keep up with rebounding stock markets.

Its shares were 6.5 percent lower, leading the list of UK blue-chip fallers, after it said net asset value per share (NAV) increased to 286 pence at the end of September from 279 pence six months earlier, towards the bottom of analysts’ expectations.

“It is difficult to see what will drive the NAV in the short term; realisations are likely to be low for some time, with activity levels in the private equity market only slowly picking up,” said Cazenove analyst Chris Brown in a note.

Cazenove said it was likely to adjust its new NAV target for 3i to 276 pence a share, down from 307 pence.

“Recent stock market rallies do not seem to reflect the real economy and, as a result, we remain cautious,” 3i said.

It had hoped to be reporting clear evidence of an upturn, but has only seen clear signs of recovery in India and China.

There are mixed signals from the U.S., while Europe remains challenging due to a combination of high government debt, low consumer demand and stressed banking sectors, which it sees creating a tough environment for some time to come.

As a result, the group invested just 190 million pounds in the six months to end September, compared with 668 million over the same period of 2008.

Realisations were also down to 507 million pounds from 597 million as the group limited portfolio company disposals in the depressed M&A market.

It declared an interim dividend of 1 pence, down from 3.8p the previous year.

By Simon Meads

(Editing by Will Waterman)

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Despite all the gains other companies (Google, Facebook) have made, it’s still Microsoft’s world, according to new statistics from comScore.  comScore found that, in terms of time spent on sites, the Redmond-based corporation continues to maintain a huge lead over its competitors.

People spent about 3.920 billion hours on Microsoft’s sites in September, which equates to about 14.5 percent of the total time spent online.  Meanwhile, people only spent about 2.512 hours on Google-owned sites, which works out to 9.3 percent of the total.  And Google barely logged more growth than Microsoft (48 percent versus 44 percent).

Things looked even more depressing for Yahoo, as the chart below shows.  The real surprise, though, relates to Facebook, the social network that doesn’t "do" much of anything compared to three companies that offer search engines, email, maps, and all other sorts of stuff.

comScore determined that individuals spent about 5.1 percent of their online time on Facebook in September, and that represents an impressive 2.9 percent year-over-year increase.  If Facebook can sustain this rate of growth, it might not be long before Yahoo’s forced to eat its dust.

Oddly, Lycos sites experienced a lot of growth in the last year, too, so they may bear watching.

Related Articles:

> Google Top Search Engine In The Asia-Pacific Region

> U.K. Social Networking Accounts For 25% Of Display Ads

> Bing Gains Ground In August

OK, now the USB gadget craze gets really silly. Tokyo-based crap USB accessory maker Thanko has been selling USB-powered slippers and gloves that are supposed to keep you warm in the past, but the new model, Dinosaur foot-shaped slipper(s) [JP] (of all things), is probably the silliest.

The thing isn’t only suitable for your feet, but can apparently serve as a warm bed for your pets, too (as Thanko shows in their official promo pics – see below). There’s a heater placed in the slipper, which is powered by USB, meaning the thing is even more useless without a PC in the vicinity.

Thanko is selling the Dinosaur foot slipper in their Japanese online store now. If you live outside Japan, head over to Geek Stuff 4 U and get them for $31.64 plus shipping.

Kevin Cummings writes in with the news that romance novel publishing giant Harlequin is setting up a new ebook division to offer digital books directly from the company’s own websites, as well as via various online retailers. That, by itself, isn’t a huge surprise these days, but the article does note that the publisher decided to go without DRM on the books. Now, that seems like a smart, consumer-friendly move that should be applauded. However, the reporter who covered the announcement claims this move is “troubling,” which seems like an odd statement. How could treating customers with respect be “troubling”?

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Well, I think we finally know what Asus does when they get a dead motherboard. They take it apart, and turn it into a picture! Behold the loveliness that is the Motherboard Mona Lisa, a model of PCI and AGP slot beauty and mystery.

This Mona Lisa isn’t on display in the Louvre, but rather the lobby of Asus’ corporate headquarters.

[via Technabob]

(NaturalNews) The Associated Press continues its assault on alternative medicine, led by writer Marilynn Marchione who writes attack pieces on everything under the sun (including the sun itself) related to alternative medicine and natural therapies. The Associated Press continues to publish stories carrying this highly-opinionated (and provably false) header:

EDITOR’S NOTE: Ten years and $2.5 billion in research have found no cures from alternative medicine. Yet these mostly unproven treatments are now mainstream and used by more than a third of all Americans. This is one in an occasional Associated Press series on their use and potential risks.

As NaturalNews previously reported, it’s all part of the AP’s assault on natural medicine, nutrition, medicinal herbs and naturopathic therapies (http://www.naturalnews.com/027424_medicine_alternative_Associated_Press.html). The AP, it seems, has decided to ally itself with pharmaceutical medicine and spend its time and money hiring writers who promote drugs and discredit anything natural. A recent story by Marchione, for example, claims that statin drugs help prevent swine flu!

It’s quite clear that AP is following a specific agenda to destroy the reputation of natural medicine while boosting public perception of pharmaceuticals. And yet, in reality, it is Big Pharma that has delivered no cures. But the sick-care industry has delivered America into financial bankruptcy and helped our nation become the most diseased population in the history of human civilization. AP feels no need to report on that inconvenient truth. Rather, it sees its job as encouraging yet more pharmaceutical use in America while destroying the credibility of far safer and more effective natural therapies that could help turn around America’s health.

The Associated Press is sadly misinformed about natural medicine, and yet their stories are syndicated across thousands of newspapers and millions of web pages each day.

We need your help in educating AP editors about natural medicine.

Take action now to educate the Associated Press
NaturalNews is asking readers to contact AP and express both your displeasure with their outright bias against natural medicine and their lack of information about the safety and effectiveness of natural, “alternative” therapies.

AP’s contact information is here:

http://www.ap.org/pages/contact/contact.html

Their general email address is [email protected]

Their main phone number is (212) 621-1500.

You can also find phone numbers for their various local bureaus at the web page link provided above.

Call or email the AP today and tell them their stories by Marilynn Marchione are a disgrace to the AP’s own reputation as an “objective” news source. Share with them why you’d like to see more balanced coverage of alternative medicine.

Rules of engagement: Be polite. Do not scream or use profanity when contacting the AP. Be professional but firm. The way in which you interact with AP will shape the way they see perceive people from the alternative health community.

You may wish to share a success story of how alternative medicine has helped you overcome a disease, or you might express how much you dislike the obvious pro-pharma bias found in Marchione’s articles.

If you’d like to take this even further, call your local paper that’s using AP stories and complain about the quality of the biased stories being published. Tell your local newspaper editor that AP has become a biased news organization operating with an agenda to attack and discredit alternative medicine, and that if your paper continues to run such biased AP stories, you will cancel your subscription or stop buying the paper.

You have no idea how much power you have as a news consumer willing to pick up the phone and make your voice heard. Your comments will make huge waves across the newspaper industry, and your effort can help correct the AP’s misguided assault on alternative medicine, hopefully returning it to a more objective and balanced news provider.

So please join NaturalNews readers from all across the world in calling and emailing the Associated Press today to object to their biased, highly-opinionated attacks on alternative medicine.

Here’s the contact page, once again:
http://www.ap.org/pages/contact/contact.html

Share this story everywhere
Share this story on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other social networks. Use the power of the internet to get this story out to as many people as possible, and encourage them to join in this effort to help educate the Associated Press about the many benefits of alternative medicine.

This is important. The AP is syndicated across thousands of news publishers. Because of their position, they have a special responsibility to be objective in their coverage of alternative medicine. Each day that they publish distorted stories attacking alternative medicine is another day that potentially millions of readers around the world are deceived into thinking natural medicine is worthless. (This is, of course, the whole purpose of the AP’s agenda.)

My own letter to the Associated Press
Dear Associated Press,

As the editor of NaturalNews.com, I am appalled at the highly-opinionated, agenda-driven news stories your organization continues to publish. Written by Marilynn Marchione, these stories carry a header “editor’s note” that essentially declares alternative medicine to be utterly worthless. Each of these stories then proceeds to attack alternative medicine in a blatantly biased, opinionated manner that has absolutely no journalistic credibility.

With each one of these stories you publish, your organization is losing more of its journalistic integrity. While “AP” once stood for objective, honest journalism, these attacks on alternative medicine are now earning you a reputation for agenda-driven reporting, fueled by the financial interests of the pharmaceutical companies that provide tens of millions of dollars in advertising revenue each year to the newspapers that carry your stories.

Word is already spreading across the ‘net: The Associated Press has lost its street cred. The news you publish is “shaped” to appease corporate interests. Rather than seeking to report the facts, the Associated Press is now engaged in a campaign to intentionally misinform readers and destroy alternative medicine.

If this highly opinionated, biased reporting continues to be published by AP, NaturalNews and other independent media sites across the ‘net will announce an “AP boycott” that seeks to encourage newspapers and websites to drop AP services altogether. We will bring together millions of readers who find tremendous value in alternative medicine and natural therapies, and we will make our voices heard with local and national newspapers that subscribe to AP services.

Due to declining revenues, many newspapers are right now reevaluating their contracts with AP. Some have already announced plans to drop your services. Should you continue to publish such biased and defamatory articles attacking alternative medicine, we will seek to rally millions of alternative medicine supporters to contact their local papers and complain about the lack of journalistic integrity in AP stories.

There’s nothing wrong with publishing objective stories pointing out both the strengths and weaknesses of various alternative medicine therapies, but to publish an AP story with the pretext that alternative medicine is worthless is simply inexcusable. It’s also inaccurate. In fact, it turns out that conventional (pharmaceutical) medicine is the branch of medicine that has offered no cures for degenerative disease. Alternative medicine provides many cures, including affordable, readily-available cures for diabetes, heart disease and cancer. If you are not aware of these cures, perhaps your writers need to familiarize themselves with more of what’s really happening across America: The raw foods movement, juicing, healing and rejuvenation centers, chelation therapy, herbal medicine, superfoods and energy medicine (to name just a few).

Years ago, when I followed conventional medicine, I was nearly obese, diabetes, depressed and diseased. Today, after adhering to “alternative” (natural) therapies, I remain in perfect health. I haven’t been sick in years and no longer carry any health insurance because I take responsibility for my own health. My risk of cancer is near-zero, and even if I developed cancer, I know precisely how to reverse it using natural therapies.

This is the kind of information your readers deserve to know. But instead of educating your readers, you are isolating them from the very information that could save their lives. In this way, the AP is not merely violating journalist integrity, it is also violating the laws of morality and common human decency. You have a responsibility to use your influence to help bring real health solutions to consumers, but sadly, you have chosen to use your organization to keep the People ignorant of natural health solutions while promoting the corporate agenda of the pharmaceutical companies.

The People have the right to know the truth about the healing potential of safe, natural healing therapies, and you have a journalistic responsibility to cover these stories objectively and honestly. By continuing to publish your opinionated and distorted stories attacking alternative medicine, you only destroy your own reputation as a once-trusted news organization that has now sold out its reputation to Big Pharma.

End your assault on alternative medicine and you will restore credibility to the AP.

Regards,
– Mike Adams
Editor, NaturalNews.com

(NaturalNews) Faced with a growing prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, hospitals in the United Kingdom are adopting traditional medicinal techniques to fight infection, such as maggots and honey.

Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and other drug-resistant infections kill or hasten the death of 8,000 British patients per year, while MRSA now kills more people in the United States annually than AIDS.

At the Royal United Hospital in Bath, England, many wounds are now being disinfected with Manuka honey rather than pharmaceutical antibiotics.

“Honey has been used in healing for centuries, but now new products have overcome the problems associated with using conventional honey and bring it into a modern healthcare setting,” said the hospital’s Kate Purser.

Honey is one of the oldest forms of medicine known, and was employed both as food and antibiotic by the ancient Egyptians and, more recently, by German doctors during World War I. Its high sugar content means that the water in honey is almost chemically inert, making it unavailable for the growth of bacteria, fungi or viruses. A naturally occurring enzyme known as glucose oxidase also makes honey acidic enough to create a hostile environment for most bacteria.

The honey used by Royal United Hospital is not the same as the honey found on supermarket shelves, however. The honey is a variety known as Manuka honey, which is produced from the manuka plant, native to New Zealand. This honey is then irradiated to kill any trace bacterial spores.

According to Manuka honey products company Honeymark, the honey has proven effective at killing MRSA in scientific trials. While honey already contains a variety of chemicals that can be beneficial to the body — such as the antioxidant pinocembrin, which only occurs in honey — Honeymark claims that Manuka honey contains even more of these beneficial compounds, which are derived from the manuka flower.

“These medicinal compounds, in most cases, outperform many pharmaceuticals and traditional forms of medicine,” the company said in a press release.

Honeymark claims that Manuka honey can be use both topically and internally to treat conditions caused by bacteria, viruses or fungi, including infected wounds, acne, eczema, stomach ulcers or other gastrointestinal conditions, ringworm and upper respiratory infections. No side effects have been reported, and in contrast to pharmaceutical antibiotics, bacteria appear unable to develop resistance to Manuka honey.

Manuka has a further benefit over pharmaceuticals, according to Honeymark.

“Antibiotics are indiscriminate killers. When taken orally, antibiotics kill all bacteria, both good and bad,” the company said. “For reasons that are currently unknown, Manuka Honey does not effect good bacteria in the body and only destroys harmful, infectious bacteria. This is something that pharmaceuticals have not been able to accomplish.”

Dorothy Yeo of Bath said that honey dressings led to drastic improvement in her ulcer. “I felt I wasn’t getting anywhere and the pain made it hard to sleep,” she said. “But now I’m able to sleep without tablets, and new skin is forming over my ulcer. I’m very pleased and I’d recommend it to anyone.”

While honey can kill the bacteria that cause infection, sometimes other measures are required to remove the dead tissue left by infection or injury. At Royal United Hospital, one such technique is the application of sterilized greenbottle fly larvae, more commonly known as maggots.

“We may use maggots when conventional dressings have not been successful or if a wound needs a more rapid form of treatment,” Purser said. “There is something of the ‘yuck’ factor, but once the maggots are applied some people may feel a tickling sensation while most don’t feel a thing.”

Maggots consume rotting flesh while ignoring healthy tissue, thereby both cleaning out and disinfecting necrotic wounds.

“Someone explained the maggots were bred for this purpose only and I felt reassured,” said Jack Foster of Keynsham, England. “After one treatment, there has already been some improvement and my second starts tomorrow.”

Sources for this story include: www.dailymail.co.uk; www.bignews.biz.

(NaturalNews) According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), the Ginkgo biloba (G. biloba) is one of the oldest types of trees in the world. Ginkgo herbal treatments have been used in traditional Chinese medicine for thousands of years to treat a host of ills including asthma, bronchitis, fatigue, and tinnitus (ringing or roaring sounds in the ears). Now 21st century scientists may have discovered yet another Ginkgo-based therapy.

According to a study just published in the International Journal of Low Radiation, antioxidant extracts of the leaves of the G. biloba tree may protect cells in the human body from radiation damage. The discovery could offer a way to protect cancer patients from side effects produced by radiotherapy. G. biloba might also offer protection from medical tests that involve radiation, such as X-rays.

Chang-Mo Kang of the Korea Institute of Radiological and Medical Sciences in Taegu and colleagues have been investigating well-known herbal remedies to see what actual medicinal effects they may have. They specifically decided to study extracts made from G. biloba leaves because these substances are known to contain several antioxidant compounds, called ginkgolides and bilobalides, that are thought to protect cells in the body from damage caused by free radicals and other reactive oxidizing species. Free radicals are generated by the body’s normal metabolism and are also produced in excess as a result of certain diseases and from exposure to pollution or radiation. If left unchecked, they can damage proteins and DNA and even kill cells.

Dr. Kang and his research team collected human white blood cells, known as lymphocytes, from healthy volunteers between the ages of 18 and 50. Then they treated half of these cells in the lab with a G. biloba extract. The other half of the cells were used as a control group and exposed to only a salt solution. Next, both sets of white blood cells were treated with gamma radiation from radioactive cesium.

The scientists used a light microscope to measure how many lymphocytes were undergoing programmed cell death, known as apoptosis, caused by the exposure to radiation. They found a significant increase in apoptosis in the untreated cells but the lymphocytes treated with G. biloba extract tended to be protected from the radiation. In all, about a third of the untreated cells underwent apoptosis compared with only one in twenty of the Ginkgo treated cells.

In a statement to the media, the researchers noted that other studies using laboratory mice have also demonstrated a similar protective effect when Ginkgo was used to shield the animals against radiation poisoning. The results of the latest research suggest that the G. biloba extracts actually neutralize the free radicals and oxidizing agents produced in the cells by radiation — and that appears to prevent the cells from undergoing apoptosis.

As NaturalNews reported recently, other research has found evidence Ginkgo biloba extract may reduce brain damage after a stroke by about 50 percent (http://www.naturalnews.com/025981.html) and it may also be a natural memory booster (http://www.naturalnews.com/025722_disease_dementia_health.html). NCCAM is currently funding numerous studies on Ginkgo for asthma, symptoms of multiple sclerosis, vascular function (intermittent claudication), cognitive decline, sexual dysfunction due to antidepressants, and insulin resistance.

Reference:
“Protective effect of Ginkgo biloba against radiation-induced cellular damage in human peripheral lymphocytes and murine spleen cells”, International Journal of Low Radiation, 2009, 6, 209-218.

For more information:
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ind/ijlr/2009/00000006/00000003/art00004
http://nccam.nih.gov/health/ginkgo/

(NaturalNews) A teenage Virginia athlete is in a wheel chair now after suffering Guillain-Barre Syndrome within hours after receiving an H1N1 swine flu vaccine shot. 14-year-old Jordan McFarland developed severe headaches, muscle spasms and weakness in his legs after being injected. He will need “extensive physical therapy” to recovery, reports MSNBC. Plus, he’ll need the help of a walker for four to six weeks.

Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) is the name given to anyone who exhibits a particular set of neurological symptoms including muscle weakness and muscle spasms. GBS is now increasingly occurring following H1N1 vaccine injections. It was diagnosed in thousands of patients following the 1976 swine flu vaccine scare, and it appears to be recurring here in 2009 as the swine flu vaccine makes it into more widespread distribution.

Health authorities, however, remain adamant that H1N1 vaccines are never the cause of GBS, and that such diagnoses are “pure coincidence.” This blatantly unscientific P.R. tactic is designed to dismiss any and all concerns over the neurological side effects of H1N1 vaccines by simply denying they exist. To date, the CDC has received reports of five additional people being diagnosed with GBS following swine flu vaccinations, but it dismisses them all as coincidence. “It’s much less than we’d expect,” says CDC official Dr. Claudia J. Vellozzi. (Which is sort of interesting all by itself, because it reveals that the CDC expects a lot more people to get GBS following vaccine injections…)

At the same time, part of the reason the CDC isn’t receiving many reports on neurological disorders caused by H1N1 vaccines is because they participated in a massive media brainwashing event that prepped the population to dismiss all side effects by pre-announcing the bizarre idea that “side effects experienced after vaccine injections are not related to vaccines.”

This was an organized, nationwide media brainwashing campaign engineered by the CDC, FDA and drug companies. It sought to pre-program health consumers to automatically dismiss serious side effects that appeared in the hours after receiving swine flu vaccine injections.

The campaign worked. In fact, even the GBS of this young man, Jordan McFarland, wasn’t submitted to the CDC. It only came to light when his step-mother submitted details to MSNBC.com’s reader reporting tool. In other words, this was citizen journalism at work, where a parent submitted information directly to the media.

For this to occur is exceedingly rare. Most parents would simply wait for their doctor to submit such information to health authorities, not knowing that submitting reports of vaccine-related side effects remains voluntary in modern medicine.

No requirement to report vaccine side effects
You read that right: There is no requirement that doctors send reports of vaccine side effects to any health authority at all. And that raises the question: So how do they really know how many people are suffering neurological side effects from the H1N1 vaccines?

The answer? They don’t. Nobody knows.

And that’s the way the drug companies (and the CDC) would like to keep it. Because reports of neurological disorders tend to (understandably) freak people out and make them more cautious about receiving swine flu vaccines — especially given how mild swine flu is in the first place. As drug companies well know, the best way to sell more vaccines is to pretend the side effects don’t exist at all. That has become the standard operating procedure of the vaccine industry: Deny, deny, deny. Bury the truth and pretend it doesn’t exist. Keep the vaccines flowing and keep consumers guessing. Declare all vaccines to be perfectly safe with zero side effects, and widen the target consumer base to include children and pregnant women. This is the mantra of the vaccine industry.

Consider this: If teen boys wound up in the hospital after taking a dietary supplement, the FDA and media would have gone crazy over the report. The FDA would have issued public warnings and perhaps even confiscated the products from the supplement manufacturer. Or if these kinds of symptoms were being reported after people take medicinal herbs, you’d see a similar media frenzy as accusations of the dangers of the herbs appeared all over the ‘net. But somehow when the medicine is a vaccine — a vaccine that has NEVER been tested in a scientific clinical trial — the drug industry gets a free pass! All side effects are dismissed. All the people hospitalized, paralyzed or killed are simply forgotten and written off as unimportant.

This is the state of the vaccine industry today: It is corrupt, highly dishonest industry that poses a clear and present danger to the health of the People. And yet absolutely nothing is being done to protect the people from unsafe vaccines. No clinical trials are being done. No cautions are being advised. All concerns are simply dismissed out of hand, with absolutely no intelligent scrutiny or investigation.

No questions allowed
That’s really what the vaccine industry has become today: A cabal of “untouchables.” You can’t question vaccines without being derided as a quack. You can’t demand vaccine clinical trials without being labeled a “non-believer.” Vaccines have become the cult of modern medicine. You’re supposed to simply line up, drink your Kool-Aid take your vaccine shot, obey all directives (do what you’re told) and above all stop asking questions!

But here at NaturalNews, we refuse to stop asking questions. In fact, we have more questions all the time, like why is a healthy young boy suddenly in a wheel chair within hours after receiving a swine flu vaccine shot?

Why have no placebo-controlled clinical trials ever been conducted on ANY flu vaccine?

Why do we even need a shot for H1N1 when the epidemic is so mild that it has only killed a fraction of the number of people who normally die from seasonal flu?

Why did the FDA grant approval for four H1N1 vaccines all on the same day, without any scientific testing at all?

Why are people so easily brainwashed / scared into taking vaccine shots when all they really need is vitamin D?

And for that matter, why does there continue to be a media blackout on the use of vitamin D to prevent swine flu infections?

These are the questions we should be asking, but these are the questions considered “off limits” by health authorities and the complicit mainstream media. At least MSNBC had the guts to print this story about 14-year-old Jordan McFarland. Most media outlets would have simply canned the story right from the start.

Sources for this story include:

MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33845867/ns/health-cold_and_flu/

Prison Planet
http://www.prisonplanet.com/teen-diagnosed-with-guillain-barre-syndrome-after-swine-flu-shot.html

(NaturalNews) This week’s NaturalNews Talk Hour features Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., discussing “Making Yourself Heart Attack Proof”. Discover Dr. Esselstyn’s groundbreaking program backed by the irrefutable results from a 20-year study proving that changes in diet and nutrition can actually cure heart disease.

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This week’s guest: Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D.
Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D. , Making Yourself Heart Attack Proof
Thu. Nov. 12th

Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn has directed pioneering research demonstrating that the progression of even severe coronary heart disease can often be reversed by making comprehensive change in diet and lifestyle.

–Dean Ornish, M.D, Founder, President and Director of Preventive Medicine Research Institute and author of Dr. Dean Ornish’s Program for Reversing Heart Disease

Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., received his B.A. from Yale University and his M.D. from Western Reserve University. In 1956, pulling the No. 6 oar as a member of the victorious United States rowing team, he was awarded a gold medal at the Olympic Games. He was trained as a surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic and at St. George’s Hospital in London. In 1968, as an Army surgeon in Vietnam, he was awarded the Bronze Star.

Dr. Esselstyn has been associated with the Cleveland Clinic since 1968. During that time, he has served as President of the Staff and as a member of the Board of Governors. He chaired the Clinic’s Breast Cancer Task Force and headed its Section of Thyroid and Parathyroid Surgery.

In 1991, Dr. Esselstyn served as President of the American Association of Endocrine Surgeons, That same year he organized the first National Conference on the Elimination of Coronary Artery Disease, which was held in Tucson, Arizona. In 1997, he chaired a follow-up conference, the Summit on Cholesterol and Coronary Disease, which brought together more than 500 physicians and health-care workers in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. In April, 2005, Dr. Esselstyn became the first recipient of the Benjamin Spock Award for Compassion in Medicine.

In 1995, he published his bench mark long-term nutritional research arresting and reversing coronary artery disease in severely ill patients. That same study was updated at 12 years making it one of the longest longitudinal studies of its type. It is most compelling, as no compliant patients have sustained disease progression. Today, 20 years later compliant patients continue to thrive.

Tune in and discover a groundbreaking program backed by the irrefutable results from Dr. Esselstyn’s 20-year study proving changes in diet and nutrition can actually cure heart disease. You’ll learn a wealth of information as he presents his most recent findings on the NaturalNews Talk Hour this Thursday.

Register now using the email form in the right column, and you will be emailed the call-in number before the show.

1. Business strategy
Business Strategy is a document that should be the primary foundation rests in the manufacture of I / T strategy as mentioned in the document’s vision and mission and performance targets of each function in the organizational structure. Within this document also emphasized the role of information technology in accordance with corporate strategy (remember that for every kind of enterprise, information technology positions may be different), so the philosophy used in the development of I / T strategy should be in accordance with it.

2. Business Trend
Business Trends is everything related to the tendency of business patterns that will occur in the future in relation to a particular industry. For example in the financial industry such as banking, insurance, and securities. There is a tendency that in the future, the three business entities will be used to separate merged into a financial company in which multi-functional products and services provided may vary. Another example is the tourism industry involving transportation companies (land, sea, and air), hotels, tourist sites, amusement parks and so forth. Currently, each company is in line its own business, but with the advancement in information technology and the phenomenon of the formation of strategic partnerships (strategic alliances) among several firms, the trend in the future will form a type of service company which combines the services usually done in companies the tourism industry.

3. Competitor Analysis
Competitor Analysis is an activity that must be remembered that the strategy was basically created because of the competition. The purpose of the development of information technology is to improve the performance of companies that can produce a product or service cheaper, better, and faster than the products or services produced by competitors. Thus clear that the purpose of holding the competition analysis of the business is to see how cheap, how well and how quickly the products and services offered by other companies so that it can be the benchmark targets.

4. I / T Trend
Destination studied the I / T trend is to avoid mistakes in choosing the technology applied and developed in the company. Not all products classified as information technology well. With so many products on offer, more of us fail to survive in the market than successful.
Companies must be able to do the sorting of any technology that is still in experimental stages or introduction (Infancy / emerging), the development (growth), stable (mature), and starting left (facing out).
In addition to the above-mentioned objectives, see the trend in the development of information technology means that learning opportunities (opportunities) that can only enhance the company’s performance in the future, both in increased revenue, decreased costs, or the possibility of new business development.

5. (Existing I / T).
The main reason is because in essence the development of information technology in the future is built on the infrastructure owned by the current (baseline), rather than create something completely new (at least if it was decided to not use the existing infrastructure, it still needed a strategy for facing out).

(by: Fernando Sitindaon)

http://www.google.com/ig/adde?moduleurl=http://feeds.feedburner.com/time/topstories&source=imag&val=3

Polyphony Digital boss Kasunori Yamauchi is said to to be toying with the idea of putting in more toys for the big boys in the Gran Turismo series. T…

LEDs have really changed the flashlight market. It used to be that a Maglight was the pinnacle of illumination technology. Not any more.

Now, the LED flashlight is king. Lower energy requirements, higher lumens, less heat; the LED really makes a difference. At first, there were problems with focusing the beam, however nowadays it’s not an issue. Most LED flashlights are quite functional, durable (try dropping an incandescent bulb light from 6 feet up) and if you’ll pardon the pun, the future is quite bright.

Enter the mPower. Designed to be used as an emergency flashlight, it’s main power source is a CR123 (photocell) battery, along with a special reserve battery. The reserve battery (which is technology that the builder mPhase specializes in) has a shelf life of 20 years.

In addition to this special power source, the mPower has a built in USB port for emergency charging your cell phone, as well as any other device. The best part: if the CR123 battery is dead, the backup cell will charge your device for you. We don’t know yet how many lumens or any of the other information that really matters to flashlight geeks like myself, unfortunately.

Expect to be released into the wild in March of 2010, the mPower flashlight will set you back somewhere between $250 and $300. Ouch.

[via CNET]

Taking risks can be scary, because they can fail. But if no one takes risks, then it’s pretty hard to innovate — and that’s the situation many newspapers find themselves in. Jay Rosen points us to Alan Mutter’s musings on how so many innovative ideas for newspapers have been killed off by the simple phrase “who else is doing it?” Very few people want to be the first. That’s why so many newspaper execs have talked about putting up paywalls, but few do (not that I think paywalls are innovative, but it does show why there’s so much talk, and so little action). That’s not the only thing, of course, but it does highlight that newspapers have been around for centuries without having to do much innovation at all. So, perhaps it’s understandable (even if unfortunate) that they’ve been so slow to embrace the internet in a reasonable way.

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