…

Via the NY Times: How Psychedelic drugs can help patients face death:

“I think it’s kind of goofy,” Halpern says, “but the thinking is that with the aid of the psychedelic, you may come to see the object in a different light. It may help bring back memories; it promotes introspection, it can be a touchstone, it can be grounding.”

Sakuda brought a few pictures of loved ones, which, Grob recalled, she clutched in her hands as she lay back on the bed. By her side were Grob and one of his research assistants, both of whom stayed with the subjects for the six-to-seven-hour treatment session. Sakuda knew that there would be time set aside in the days and weeks following when she would meet with Grob and his team to process what would happen in that room. Black eyeshades were draped over Sakuda’s face, encouraging her to look inward. She was given headphones. Music was piped in: the sounds of rivers rushing, sweet staccatos, deep drumming. Each hour, Grob and his staff checked in with Sakuda, as they did with every subject, asking if all was O.K. and taking her blood pressure. At one point, Grob observed that Sakuda, with the eyeshades draped over her face, began to cry. Later on, Sakuda would reveal to Grob that the source of her tears was a keen empathetic understanding of what her spouse Norbert would feel when she died.

Grob’s setup — the eyeshades, the objects, the mystical music, the floral aromas and flowing fabrics — was drawn from the work of Stanislav Grof, a psychiatrist born in Prague and a father of the study of psychedelic medicine for the dying. In the mid-’60s — before words like “acid” and “bong” and “Deadhead” transformed the American landscape, at a time when psychedelics were not illegal because most people didn’t know what they were and thus had no urge to ingest them — Grof began giving the drug to cancer patients at the Spring Grove State Hospital near Baltimore and documenting their effects.

Grof kept careful notes of his many psychedelic sessions, and in his various papers and books derived from those sessions, he described cancer patients clenched with fear who, under the influence of LSD or DPT, experienced relief from the terror of dying — and not just during their psychedelic sessions but for weeks and months afterward. Grof continued his investigations into psychedelics for the dying until the culture caught up with him — the recreational use of drugs and the reaction against them leading to harsh antidrug laws. (Richard Nixon famously called Timothy Leary “the most dangerous man in America.”) Financing for psychedelic studies dried up, and Grof turned his attention to developing alternative methods of accessing higher states of consciousness. It is only now, decades later, that Grob and a handful of his fellow scientists feel they can re-examine Grof’s methods and outcomes without risking their reputations.

Finally some visible progression.

In a matter of days, One World Trade Center could be the tallest building in Manhattan and one of the tallest in the world.

The building is expected to be taller than New York’s iconic Empire State Building, which currently rises 1,250 feet to the 102nd floor observation deck.

One World Trade is being built on the site of the original World Trade Center towers – or Twin Towers. They were the tallest buildings in the city, but were destroyed in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, in which an estimated 3,000 people were killed.

From Microsofts Press release:

One of the challenges in building personal cloud storage for billions of people is scaling capacity and managing costs, while also meeting the needs of both enthusiasts and mainstream users. Different cloud providers take different approaches. Many promise unlimited storage or big referral incentives to attract enthusiasts – but then have lots of strings attached, which can make the service more confusing and less accessible to mainstream users. Do I really have to read multiple pages to understand my storage limits? Why do other people’s files count against my storage limit? Why does my upload speed slow down? Why do I get gobs of free storage but have to pay to sync my desktop files?

Our model for SkyDrive is friendly and accessible to all, and just as importantly, provides a gimmick-free service that strikes the right balance of being free for the vast majority of customers, and low-priced for those who want more.

Starting today, we are now offering:

• 7GB free for all new SkyDrive users. We chose 7GB as it provides enough space for over 99% of people to store their entire Office document library and share photos for several years, along with room for growth. To put things in perspective, 99.94% of SkyDrive customers today use 7GB or less – and 7GB is enough for over 20,000 Office documents or 7,000 photos. Since the current base of customers using SkyDrive tilts towards enthusiasts, we are confident that, as we expand the range of people using SkyDrive, this 7GB free limit will prove to be more than enough for even more people.



• Ability to upload large files – up to 2GB – and folders using SkyDrive for the Windows desktop or SkyDrive for OS X Lion.

• Paid storage plans (+20GB, +50GB, +100GB) so that power users who need more storage can easily add more at competitive prices (US$10/year, US$25/year, US$50/year). Please note that paid-for storage requires the ability to pay by credit card (or via PayPal, in some markets) and a Windows Live ID that can be associated with that credit card or PayPal account.

We know that many of you signed up for a service that offered 25GB, and some are already using more than 7GB of storage. So, starting today, for a limited time, any registered SkyDrive user *who has uploaded files to SkyDrive* as of April 22nd can opt in to keep 25GB of free storage while still getting all of the benefits of the new service. (For users who are already using more than 4GB as of April 1, we’ve automatically opted you in to 25GB of free storage to avoid any issues.) Justsign in here or view our FAQ.

From Natural News:

The United States has several major regulatory agencies and “cancer prevention” organizations which have not only been suppressing natural cancer cures for 70 years, but have been approving, supporting, endorsing and profiting from cancer-causing agents in food, beverages and cosmetics since World War II.

1. Sodium Benzoate: This stealthy killer flies under most people’s radar, and is found in just about everything in jars and bottles, like salad dressing, pickles, sauces, mayonnaise, almost all soda and juice drinks, and even in foods labeled as “all natural.”

2. Canola Oil: This artificial, Canadian-exported GMO is super popular and is found in over 30% of all products. It chokes out your mitochondrial cells. Canola oil is really rapeseed oil and can cause emphysema and respiratory distress, eventually leading to cancer.

3. Monosodium Glutamate (MSG): The FDA allows 20 “pseudo” names for it including autolyzed yeast extract, free glutamate, glutamic acid, soy lecithin, calcium caseinate, hydrolyzed corn, hydrolyzed soy protein, and maltodextrin to name a few. Just because a product says “No MSG” doesn’t mean it’s not in there!

4. Sodium Nitrates (nitrosamines): Used for fertilizers and explosives, and as a solvent in the dry cleaning industry. This ingredient keeps hemoglobin molecules in your blood from carrying oxygen to your body tissues. It’s considered a “super salt” (like MSG) added to things like hot dogs, cold cuts and bacon for added shelf-life, color and flavor. Problems compound when microwaved.

5. Margarine: The body cannot incorporate trans-fatty acids into membranes, thus causing deformed cellular structures. Vegetable shortening and partially hydrogenated vegetable oils accelerate aging and degenerative changes in tissues.

6. Anti-foaming agents: (Dimethylpolysiloxane) An industrial chemical used in caulks and sealants. This component is mostly used in fast food chicken nuggets and eggs. Also watch for TBHQ, a petroleum derivative, used as a stabilizer in perfumes, resins, varnishes and oil field chemicals, and linked to stomach tumors and DNA damage.

7. Anti-caking agents: Chemicals that absorb moisture and prevent other compounds from sticking together. These are added to table salt and powdered food products. They are often composed of phosphate, carbonate, silicate and oxide compounds which contain aluminum. Watch for sodium alumino-silicate, alumino-calcium silicate and aluminium silicate. Aluminum is linked to Alzheimer’s and is also used in flu shots and vaccines.

8. Artificial colorings: Synthetic petrochemicals made from petroleum, antifreeze and ammonia. Blue #1 causes kidney tumors in mice. Red #2 and Blue #2 cause brain and bladder tumors in rats. Red #3 causes thyroid cancer in animals, and is banned in cosmetics, but still allowed in food. Red #40 debilitates the immune-system. Green #3 causes bladder and testes tumors. Yellow #5 and #6 cause adrenal tumors in animals.

9. Emulsifiers: Carrageenan, polysorbate 80 and brominated vegetable oil (BVO). These are stabilizing, smoothing and thickening agents. They are typically found in chocolate milk, cottage cheese, ice cream, infant formula and jelly. BVO remains in body fat for years. Polysorbate 80 is also found in most vaccines.

10. Artificial Sweeteners: Aspartame, Acesulfame K, Sucralose, Sorbitol, Truvia, and of course, Saccharin. Because they taste sweet, these chemical sweeteners trick the body into ingesting them and holding on to them for extended periods of time, turning rancid in the body fat. Fake sugars are the “Trojan horses” of the cell-choking and mutating, food agent industry. Sorbitol is also found in many vaccines.

“With the executive system we didn’t come up with 16%, we got 7%. And when we look at the teacher and the cop, we couldn’t get 19%, we got 10% and finally when we got to our doctor not 23…16%. And if you will notice, that looks like tax fairness.
7,10,16,18. More income you have, higher your tax rate.”

“The will get out hundreds of thousands of dollars more in benefits spent in social security and medicare than they ever pay in taxes”

Instagram made the announcement today on their blog:

When Mike and I started Instagram nearly two years ago, we set out to change and improve the way the world communicates and shares. We’ve had an amazing time watching Instagram grow into a vibrant community of people from all around the globe. Today, we couldn’t be happier to announce that Instagram has agreed to be acquired by Facebook.

Every day that passes, we see more experiences being shared through Instagram in ways that we never thought possible. It’s because of our dedicated and talented team that we’ve gotten this far, and with the support and cross-pollination of ideas and talent at a place like Facebook, we hope to create an even more exciting future for Instagram and Facebook alike.

It’s important to be clear that Instagram is not going away. We’ll be working with Facebook to evolve Instagram and build the network. We’ll continue to add new features to the product and find new ways to create a better mobile photos experience.

The Instagram app will still be the same one you know and love. You’ll still have all the same people you follow and that follow you.You’ll still be able to share to other social networks. And you’ll still have all the other features that make the app so fun and unique.
We’re psyched to be joining Facebook and are excited to build a better Instagram for everyone.

Best,
Kevin

CEO, Instagram

The popular photo-sharing app maker Instagram will be acquired by Facebook for $1 billion in cash and stock in what is the social network’s biggest acquisition to date.

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg made clear in a statement that while he plans to integrate some aspects of Instagram into Facebook, he expects it to operate as an independent company.

“We will try to learn from Instagram’s experience to build similar features into our other products,” Mr. Zuckerberg said in a statement. “At the same time, we will try to help Instagram continue to grow by using Facebook’s strong engineering team and infrastructure.”

Facebook said the deal is expected to close later this quarter.

The deal caps a startling rise for a 15-month-old start-up with barely a dozen employees, a free app and no revenue.

Since being founded in the fall of 2010, the company has amassed more than 30 million users of its app.

Like many early-stage tech companies quickly building up large user bases, monetization has taken a back seat. While major retailers have taken to opening Instagram accounts to promote their brands, it’s not clear how the company was planning to create significant revenue, especially since its smartphone focus—the company doesn’t offer its content on a website—limits its ability to present advertisements.

In early 2011, Instagram raised $7 million in venture funding from Benchmark Capital that valued the company at about $25 million. It had also raised about $500,000 in seed money from Andreessen Horowitz and Baseline Ventures.

 

WATER or COKE – Can you believe this….? Not even about the sugar!

WATER
#1. 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. (also applies to half the world population)
#2. In 37% of Americans, the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is mistaken for hunger.
#3. Even MILD dehydration will slow down one’s metabolism as 3%.
#4. One glass of water will shut down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters studied in a University of Washington study.
#5. Lack of water, the #1 trigger of daytime fatigue.
#6. Preliminary research indicates that 8-10 glasses of water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers.
#7. A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer screen or on a printed page.
#8. Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer by 45%, plus it can slash the risk of breast cancer by 79% and one is 50% less likely to develop bladder cancer. Are you drinking the amount of water you should drink every day?

COKE
#1. In many states the highway patrol carries two gallons of Coke in the trunk to remove blood from the highway after a car accident.
#2. You can put a T-bone steak in a bowl of Coke and it will be gone in two days.
#3. To clean a toilet: Pour a can of Coca-Cola into the toilet bowl and let the ‘real thing’ sit for one hour, then flush clean. The citric acid in Coke removes stains from vitreous china.
#4. To remove rust spots from chrome car bumpers: Rub the bumper with a rumpled-up piece of Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil dipped in Coca-Cola.
#5. To clean corrosion from car battery terminals: Pour a can of Coca-Cola over the terminals to bubble away the corrosion. Apply a cloth soaked in Coca-Cola to the rusted bolt for several minutes.
#7. To bake a moist ham: Empty a can of Coca-Cola into the baking pan, wrap the ham in aluminum foil, and bake. Thirty minutes before ham is finished, remove the foil, allowing the drippings to mix with the Coke for a sumptuous brown gravy.
#8. To remove grease from clothes: Empty a can of Coke into the load of greasy clothes, add detergent, and run through a regular cycle. The Coca-Cola will help loosen grease stains. It will also clean road haze from your windshield.

FOR YOUR INFORMATION:
#1. The active ingredient in Coke is phosphoric acid. It will dissolve a nail in about four days. Phosphoric acid also leaches
calcium from bones and is a major contributor to the rising increase of osteoporosis.
#2. To carry Coca-Cola syrup! (the concentrate) the commercial trucks must use a hazardous Material place cards reserved for highly corrosive materials.
#3. The distributors of Coke have been using it to clean engines of the trucks for about 20 years!

So the question is, would you like a glass of water? or Coke?

These claims have been reviewed by Snopes.com and determined to be False.

Many of the entries above are just simple household tips involving Coca-Cola, as provided by Joey Green in his 1995 book Polish Your Furniture with Panty Hose and on his web site. That you can cook and clean with Coke is relatively meaningless from a safety standpoint ? you can use a wide array of common household substances (including water) for the same purposes; that fact alone doesn’t necessarily make them dangerous to ingest. Nearly all carbonated soft drinks contain carbonic acid, which is moderately useful for tasks such as removing stains and dissolving rust deposits (although plain soda water is much better for some of these purposes than Coca-Cola or other soft drinks, as it doesn’t leave a sticky sugar residue behind). Carbonic acid is relatively weak, however, and people have been drinking carbonated water for many years with no detrimental effects.

The rest of the claims offered here are specious. Coca-Cola does contain small amounts of citric acid and phosphoric acid; however, all the insinuations about the dangers these acids might pose to people who drink Coca-Cola ignore a simple concept familiar to any first-year chemistry student: concentration. Coca-Cola contains less citric acid than orange juice does, and the concentration of phosphoric acid in Coke is far too small (a mere 11 to 13 grams per gallon of syrup, or about 0.20 to 0.30 per cent of the total formula) to dissolve a steak, a tooth, or a nail overnight. (Much of the item will dissolve eventually, but after a day or two you’ll still have most of the tooth, a whole nail, and one very soggy t-bone.)

Besides, the gastric acid in your stomach is much stronger than any of the acids in Coca-Cola, so the Coca-Cola is harmless.

The next time you’re stopped by a highway patrolman, try asking him if he’s ever scrubbed blood stains off a highway with Coca-Cola (or anything else). If you’re lucky, by the time he stops laughing he’ll have forgotten about the citation he was going to give you.

Brad Pitt

Jennifer Lopez

Lucy Lawless & Zoe Bell