20 Attorneys General Launch Climate Fraud Investigation of Exxon

From:  EcoWatch

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In a move many are hailing as a “turning point” in the climate fight, 20 state Attorneys General on Tuesday launched an unprecedented, multi-state effort to investigate and prosecute the “high-funded and morally vacant forces” that have stymied attempts to combat global warming—starting with holding ExxonMobil and other industry giants accountable for fraud and suppression of key climate science.

“Everyone is impacted by climate change, which means everyone has a stake in these investigations,” said 350.org executive director May Boeve. “A trial of ExxonMobil and the fossil fuel industry would be even bigger than the cases against Big Tobacco.” Photo credot: 350.org

“This is about facts, and science, and transparency,” said Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, who spoke at a press conference alongside New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, former Vice President Al Gore and seven other Attorneys General.

“Fossil fuel companies that deceived investors and consumers about the dangers of climate change should be, must be held accountable,” Healey continued, saying there is a “troubling disconnect between what Exxon knew, what industry folks knew and the company and industry chose to share with investors and the American public.”  MORE

CIA photographed detainees naked before sending them to be tortured

From:  The Guardian 

Classified pictures showing CIA captives bruised, blindfolded and bound raise new questions about US’s willingness to use ‘sexual humiliation’ on suspects

Some human rights campaigners described the act of naked photography on unwilling detainees as a potential war crime by the CIA. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

 

 

 

The CIA took naked photographs of people it sent to its foreign partners for torture, the Guardian can reveal.

A former US official who had seen some of the photographs described them as “very gruesome”.

The naked imagery of CIA captives raises new questions about the seeming willingness of the US to use what one medical and human rights expert called “sexual humiliation” in its post-9/11 captivity of terrorism suspects. Some human rights campaigners described the act of naked photography on unwilling detainees as a potential war crime. MORE

Is the Latest “ISIS Attack” Another False Flag?

From:  Paul Craig Roberts

Paul Craig Roberts

I have not looked into the latest attack blamed on ISIS, this time in Belgium, and I am not going to investigate it. The explanation was set in stone by the initial reporting, and any skepticism that is expressed is disregarded as conspiracy theory. I have seen reports that the bombs were in the ceilings and that the initial film released by authorities was in fact film from several years ago of the Chechnya attack on a Russian airport. If these reports are correct, they raise questions about the official set-in-stone story. 

But the questions won’t be asked.

If the various bombings are false flag attacks, the governments will get away with them, because the attacks blamed on Muslim terrorists fit every agenda that is out there. Government agendas for more war, military spending, and police state measures are served. But so also are the agendas of those who want to limit immigration, those who want to blame the bombings on blowback from Western imperialism, those such as the Russian government who desire a united front against terrorism, and those who use the bombings to stress the innate goodness of the West, which attracts hatred because of its goodness. Washington likes the bombings because they keep Europeans scared and the governments under Washington’s thumb.

Anyone who raises real questions is set upon by every group for whom the bombings blamed on ISIS are a blessing to their agenda.

Just as we hear today that ISIS bombed an airport or whatever, we heard throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s that this or that communist group, such as the Red Brigades, the Red Army Faction or Baader-Meinhof gang had bombed a train station. In truth these bombings were the work of Operation Gladio, a conspiracy of the CIA and European intelligence services against the European peoples. The conspiracy was revealed by the Italian government and culminated in an extensive investigation in which intelligence operatives testified that they focused on killing woman and children because it had the greatest impact in discrediting the communists on whom the attacks were blamed. European communist parties in Italy and France were growing in electoral success, and Washington wanted the communists discredited. That is what the bombings achieved.

So today when you hear the presstitutes report that ISIS bombed this and that, all you really know is that this is the government’s claim and that governments made similar claims in the post-WWII 20th century when Washington regarded it as imperative to discredit European communist parties.

Western governments have always found it easy to hoodwink their populations, and it is just as easy today.

March 26, 2016, A Report from Warsaw, Poland:

Dear Dr Roberts,
With the reference to your article on the Bruxelles attacks, I was impatiently waiting for your comments during the recent days. As you indicated the RT immediately found that the 2011 Domodedovo airport attacks film was used by the media to depict the attack in Bruxelles. Also, no images of dead corpses were shown.

But let me report a bizarre thing from Poland. One, the right-wing PM immediately declared that there will be no refugees accepted in Poland, and it seems the authorities were waiting for such an event. Two, it came out the right-wing government, which has majority in the Sejm (Polish parliament), forced a draft of an extreme anti-terrorism bill, which grants virtually unlimited power to the secret police, the ABW, allows it and other security agencies to put anyone under surveillance without a court approval. It also grants the secret police access to all IT systems within Poland, and, most oddly, forces the registration of pre-paid telephone SIM cards, which were always accessible in Poland for a fee of just 5 PLN (ca. US$1.25) at any kiosk, supermarket or gas station without any need to provide your ID and/or address. To make matters worse, the draft did not explain what the “terrorist threat” means, which allows broad interpretation by the authorities and the imposition of martial law. It seems the draft was prepared well before the Bruxelles events because of its complicated character.

All these lead to a conclusion that the Bruxelles attacks were staged. RT also reported that an Israeli security company was responsible was Bruxelles airport security, which adds more doubts.

$153 million in Bill and Hillary Clinton speaking fees, documented

From:  CNN

By Robert Yoon, CNN

Feb. 6, 2016 

(CNN)Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, combined to earn more than $153 million in paid speeches from 2001 until Hillary Clinton launched her presidential campaign last spring, a CNN analysis shows.

In total, the two gave 729 speeches from February 2001 until May, receiving an average payday of $210,795 for each address. The two also reported at least $7.7 million for at least 39 speeches to big banks, including Goldman Sachs and UBS, with Hillary Clinton, the Democratic 2016 front-runner, collecting at least $1.8 million for at least eight speeches to big banks.

The analysis was made at a time when Hillary Clinton has been under scrutiny for her ties to Wall Street, which has been a major focus of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on the campaign trail. MORE

Democracy Struggles To Recover From Betrayal

From:  Paul Craig Roberts

March 20, 2016 

Paul Craig Roberts

First announcements. Then content.

In responses to my questions about the usefulness of the newsletter service that informs you of new postings to the website, a number of you confused the “newsletter” with the website and urged me to continue to write. The question is not whether or not I continue to write. That depends on your financial support of the website. The “newsletter,” perhaps a wrong choice of words by the person who designed the website, is merely a notice that new material has been posted. The “newsletter” is not the site. As the “newsletter” service is costly and is about to break into a higher cost because of the growing number of subscribers, what I had hoped to learn was how important the notices of new postings are to the one-third of you who actually open the notices. 

Because a substantial percentage of respondants confused the “newsletter” with the content of the website, it remains unclear to me the value of the notice service. 

Here is the deal: Those of you who subscribe to the notices of new postings but do not bother to open the notices, please unsubscribe. The opportunity to unsubscribe is available on every email notice you receive of new postings. Please do not send emails to me to unsubscribe you, as only you can unsubscribe yourself. Just as the website has no control over your credit card and cannot charge you for a donation, the website cannot unsubscribe you. Only you can do that. 

If I find that the remaining subscribers to the notice service actually open the notices, I will continue the service. If I find that non-donors are imposing costs on the website for a non-used service, I will discontinue the “newsletter.” The website will still exist and you can access it by going to www.paulcraigroberts.org, which is what most readers do. Alternatively, you can set up a RSS feed to notify you of new postings. 

This website has some very committed supporters. Some make automatic monthly donations so that there is revenue flow during the periods between my quarterly requests. Others donate generously depending on their circumstances in response to the quarterly requests for your support. Remember, I retired from my syndicated column, and it was readers’ requests that caused me to create this website and to continue to write.

I thank you for your commitment. It is what sustains the website and my commitment to all the work it takes to explain reality in contrast to the matrix of lies in which Western peoples live. My columns are re-posted by many websites and are translated into a large number of languages. This large readership is sustained by a relatively small number of donors. 

It is like Margaret Mead said, “a small number of committed people can change the world.”

With much help from the failures of neoliberal economic policy and neoconservative foreign policy, we are changing the world.

Look at Bernie Sanders’ inroads on the corrupt Clintons’ control of the Democratic Party. Look at how easily Donald Trump defeated the Republican establishment’s candidates. Some Americans are catching on, shedding their unawareness. I am not confident that Sanders or Trump could bring change. In The Deep State (2016), Mike Lofgren concludes that powerful private interest groups, such as the military/security complex and the financial sector, have hijacked democracy. Still, voters’ interest in Sanders and Trump, despite the beating they receive in the media, is a positive sign. Voters are supporting them not so much for their positions on issues as for the fact that neither are part of the Washington establishment. Many voters now understand that the political establishment represents the One Percent, not them. 

A New Russia has appeared on the scene and demonstrated to the entire world its power to checkmate the hegemonic ambition of the crazed neoconservatives who have controlled the US government since Bill Clinton. The world now understands that the leadership for peace comes from Russia not from warmonger Washington.

Washington’s vassals in Europe are in disarray, with the Northern European EU members plundering the Southern EU members, with all of Europe overrun with refugees fleeing Washington’s hoax “war against terrorism.” Europeans are beginning to realize that the establishment political parties that they have blindly supported since World War 2 are nothing but agents of Washington, who serve Washington and not Europeans. Merkel, Cameron, Hollande are puppets of Washington, not leaders of the German, British, and French people.

The Chinese government is finally beginning to realize that the neoliberal American economic policies that it has so slavishly been copying have led it into economic difficulties. Perhaps China will now cease to follow America into oblivion. 

The Russians have learned that being part of the Western system subjects them to economic sanctions and makes it easy for Washington to interfere in Russian internal affairs. The Russians are beginning to show that their desire for their independence is greater than their desire to be accepted by a corrupt, immoral, decadent, and failing West.

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders speak to Americans’ loss of economic opportunity and financial independence. Today the 99 Percent are slaves to their debt burdens and lack of productive employment, while those who deceived them into these burdens and lowly-paid employment in domestic services are reveling in multi-million dollar annual paychecks.

The US Treasury, Federal Reserve, and financial regulators are corrupted by the private financial interests that control them. The US government serves only the One Percent. Despite this obvious fact, many Democratic Party voters—-traditionally the less well off, union members, and American blacks—-are turning out for Hillary Clinton, a tried and proven representative of the One Percent. The Clintons have been enriched to the amount of $153 million by the ruling One Percent who own the Clintons lock, stock, and barrel. Yet the dispossessed vote for Hillary. http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/05/politics/hillary-clinton-bill-clinton-paid-speeches/ 

Clearly, many American voters, as Thomas Frank made clear in his book, What’s the Matter with Kansas?, still have no clue as to their own interests and vote to elect their worst enemies.

Many Americans are still trapped in The Matrix and kept there by the propaganda that masquerades in the US as “news.” 

Consider the possible implications if Americans were to enable Hillary Clinton to become President. Trump has said that he would work things out with Vladimir Putin, but Hillary has declared the President of Russia to be “the new Hitler.” How can Hillary work anything out with “the new Hitler”? She cannot.

It is a great irony that the American lower class, traditionally served by the Democratic Party, could put in the White House not only a person who only represents the super-rich but also a person who cannot escape confict with Russia, a country with possibly the most capable military force on the planet. 

The psychopathic Washington neoconservatives who have controlled US foreign policy since the Clinton regime, misintepret Vladimir Putin’s peaceful diplomacy as a sign of Russian weakness. The neocons say: “See Putin is weak. He is pulling out of Syria.” But what Putin says is different. Putin says: “We have created the conditions for peace in Syria.” If Washington abuses these conditions, “Russia can, in several hours, build up its forces in Syria to a size capable of dealing with an escalating situation and use the entire range of means at its disposal.” 

Putin adds: “We hope the parties involved would show common sense.”

From a position of strength, Putin has rolled the dice. Is there common sense in the West? I fail to see any. I see arrogance, hubris, idiocy, immorality, inhumanity, complete and total stupidity. These are the characteristics of Western governments. They amount to a deranged criminal enterprise organized against humanity.

In the awards of medals to those Russians who served against ISIS, Putin stated: “Our uncompromising attitude to terrorism remains unchanged.” If we take this statement broadly, it means not merely Muslim jihadists but the terrorism of the West—-the destruction of seven or more countries by the US and its vassals in the 21st century, the long-term sanctions against Iran, Russia, and a number of other countries whose governments do not comply with Washington’s dictates. Putin has told Washington and Washington’s European puppets, Cameron, Merkel, Hollande, that he has had enough of them. They must reform themselves, become honorable governments committed to the welfare of humanity, and abandon self-serving policies of plunder.

Considering the total failure of the United States to subdue after 15 years a few thousand lightly armed Taliban, the American people need to understand that the US military, corrupted by privatizations to enhance former vice president Dick Cheney’s stock options in Halliburton and by over-cost weapons systems that serve the profits of the armaments industries and not the military competence of the fighting force, has lost its edge in weapons superiority. The latest over-cost American fighter jet, for example, according to the Air Force’s own conclusions cannot match the old figher it is intended to replace, whereas the lastest Russian fighter is said to have the capability to electronically shut down American control systems, track simultaneously 24 enemy fighters and lock on 10 simultanteously for unavoidable destruction. Members of the US military command have expressed concern over the high quality of Russian weapon systems.

Everyone needs to understand that the establishments of the two American political parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, are less interested in winning the election than in continuing to control the party. Trump and Sanders are hated by the party establishments, because Trump and Sanders are not members of the establishment. Control over the party by the party establishment is so important that we have many members of the Republican establishment declaring that if Trump wins the Republican nomination, they will vote for the Democrat. This has happened before. It was Republicans that denied the presidency to Republican candidate Barry Goldwater.

The United States is a failing society. Citizens’ hopes are being snuffed out. There are few good jobs or enough jobs of any kind, as the collapse of the labor force participation rate confirms. People are drowning in debts that they have no prospect of ever paying off. Young adults cannot form independent households. The oligarchy that rules and controls the country has committed America to massively expensive wars and privacy invasions for the purpose of establishing a hegemony that enriches elite private interests. 

The corupt and unrepentant financial sector, having survived its mortgage-backed security fiasco without prosecution or correction has repeated its previous folly with a new weapon of potential financial mass destrution. Speculators have bought up distressed properties and rented them. The rental streams are bundled into financial instruments, as were the mortgage payments previously, and sold to investors. Is a renter more committed and better able to pay than a person with a mortgage?

Jobs offshoring and financialization have drained the US economy of the ability to grow. The ladders of upward mobility have been dismantled, and the service of debt curtails consumer demand for goods and services. The wage saving from offshoring jobs raises corporate profits and brings executive bonuses and capital gains to the One Percent. Financialization diverts consumer purchasing power into the service of debt. The result is stagnation and decline.

Foreign policy based on threats and coercion means constant conflict. The US has been in constant conflict since the Clinton regime overthrew the government in Serbia. Constant conflict is expensive, and Americans have had these expensive costs imposed on them simultaneously with the costs of jobs offshoring and financialization. 

It was 20 months ago that Malaysian Airlines flight 17 was destroyed over Ukraine. Despite the inability of the investigation to come to a conclusion, from the first moment Western propaganda has blamed the loss of 298 lives on Russia. Three days after the airliner’s destruction, US Secretary of State John Kerry set in stone the blame on Russia with his claim that “we saw the take-off [of the Buk missile]. We saw the trajectory. We saw the hit. We saw this airplane disappear from the radar screens. So there is really no mystery about where it came from and where these weapons have come from.” http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-ever-curiouser-mh-17-case/5514946 

If the US has all the evidence, why hasn’t the US government released it? Obviously, there is no such evidence. Why would Washington fail to release evidence that proved Russian responsibility? Kerry’s evidence no more exists than the alleged evidence the US government claims to have from numerous security cameras that a passenger airliner hit the Pentagon on 9/11. If the government had such evidence why has the government refused to release it for almost 15 years? If the government produced this evidence, it would be a death blow to the 9/11 Truth movement. The evidence no more exists than the alleged evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, that Iran had a nuclear weapons program, that Assad used chemical weapons, that Russia invaded Ukraine.

The terms of the last three US presidents have been used to squander trillions of dollars on pointless wars and construction of a domestic police state on the basis of a non-existant “terrorist threat.” This alleged threat has been reinforced with false flag events and a fake history spun from lies repeateded endlessly by government and its presstitutes.

In 1994 Christopher Lasch wrote in The Revolt of the Elites: “In our time, the chief threat seems to come from those at the top of the social hierarchy.” As Lasch said, the greed of the elites for money and power have undermined the constitutional basis of the United States. The elites have used their power to betray democracy. Will the American people succeed in clawing back their democracy?

The Shale Reckoning Comes to Oklahoma

From:  Bloomberg 

by Asjylyn Loder 

 

An industry built on cheap debt and new technology pushed oil production to a 40-year high.

"An oil field worker at a fracking site near Stillwater, Oklahoma."

Photographer: J Pat Carter/Getty Images

 In January 2012, I traveled to Oklahoma City for the first time to report on what was considered a surprising development: a U.S. oil boom. Until then, hydraulic fracturing—aka fracking—was best known for boosting U.S. natural gas production. It was just starting to be used to unlock oil trapped in deep underground layers of rock like the Bakken Shale in North Dakota, the Eagle Ford in Texas, and the Mississippi Lime in Oklahoma.

Still folded in my notebook is a typed list given to me that week by Gene Pflughoft, then the executive director of Central Oklahoma Regional Development. It enumerated the benefits of tapping shale: “Leasing the land, drilling rigs, built with hundreds of components, thousands of employees; trucks to deliver drilling rigs; drilling: many employees, highly skilled; training facilities, teachers, cooks, coordinators, janitors. Restaurants full. Motels full. Welding shops opening.”

The list now reads like a prediction of everything that’s being lost in the bust. Oklahoma City was once the beating heart of the shale revolution, home to pioneers such as Chesapeake Energy, Devon Energy, and Continental Resources. It’s now an object lesson in how quickly things fall apart when energy prices collapse. A somber symbol of the reversal: Thousands gathered in Oklahoma City to honor Aubrey McClendon, 56, co-founder of Chesapeake and one of the industry’s best-known champions, who died in a car crash on March 2, the day after he was indicted on bid-rigging charges.  MORE

How to Fire Your Local Police Force

From:  Laissez Faire

By Chris Campbell

Mar 10, 2016 

 We begin today’s episode with a Facebook post we noticed just this morning… 

“I’m curious,” one of our friends, Hannah McCoy, said in response, “as to why people call the cops when they feel unsafe. The average response time is 10-20 minutes. And in that amount of time, if someone really wanted to break into your place, rape you, harm you, steal from you… they would be done and gone.”

“Why not,” McCoy says, “purchase a gun and train yourself how to use it so you are self-sufficient and can protect yourself?”

Indeed. Self-defense is the first step to keeping you and your family safe from home intruders.  MORE

Monsanto threatens to quit Indian GM-cotton market if govt cuts its royalties

From:  RT

Published time: 5 Mar, 2016 01:42

Farmers plough and sow cotton seeds in a field in Shahpur village, India © Amit Dave / Reuters

American agrochemical giant Monsanto has threatened to pull out of India and hold back new genetically modified cotton technologies if the government continues its “arbitrary and potentially destructive” interventions that seek to cut the company’s royalty fees. 

Last year the Indian government issued an order to control cotton seed prices effective from the 2016-17 crop year. In a ruling, the antitrust regulator, Competition Commission of India, accused the GMO giant of potentially abusing its dominant position on the market. The Agriculture Ministry set up a special committee tasked with implementing brackets for seed price along with royalty fees, after the completion of an investigation into the matter.

Mahyco Monsanto Biotech (MMB), a joint venture with India’s Mahyco, licenses its products to a number of local seed companies in exchange for royalties. The company also sells seeds directly though the local licensees.  MORE

Oil spilled in Louisiana platform blaze

From:  UpStream

By Caroline Evans and news reports
15 March 2016 23:35 GMT

On fire: Louisiana oil platform US Coast Guard

An "unkown amount" of oil spilled from a storage tank into a Louisiana canal Tuesday after the platform it was on caught fire, according to the US Coast Guard.

 

The fire started Tuesday morning while the platform near the community of Bayou Sorrel was being dismantled.

There were two people on the platform at the time, but no injuries were reported.

The platform houses two storage tanks containing up to 786 barrels of oil. Both caught fire and were still burning late Tuesday, according to the Coast Guard. MORE

Would you live in a house made of sand and bacteria? It's a surprisingly good idea

From:  CNN

By Kieron Monks, for CNN

Peter Trimble found his formula through trial and error. A design student at the University of Edinburgh, he was aiming to produce an artistic exhibition for a module on sustainability, when he stumbled on "Dupe," a living alternative to concrete. 

A lab technician introduced Trimble to Sporosarcina pasteurii, a bacterium with binding qualities, sometimes used to solidify soil to hold road signs in place. The student tested it with one of the world's most abundant resources - sand. Pumping bacterial solution into a sand-filled mould, he added nutrients, urea derived from urine as fertilizer and calcium. After a year, and hundreds of failed experiments, this process manufactured a stool around 70% the compression strength of concrete. 

The process requires less than one-sixth of the energy used in concrete production, and is completely biodegradable. Crucially, Trimble believes his mechanism has the added benefit that it could be employed by anyone, anywhere.MORE

Permit for 98-year-old pipelines under St. Clair River sparks alarm

From:  MLive

by Garrett Ellison

The Marlene Green freighter leaves Lake St. Clair and heads into the St. Clair River, the border between the United States and Canada, on Thursday, Aug. 7, 2008. (AP file/Duane Burleson)

 MARYSVILLE, MI — A pair of idled St. Clair River oil pipelines originally built in 1918 are generating outrage among Michigan environmental groups and attention from Congressional legislators although the pipeline owners say there are no current plans to send crude oil through them.

Texas-based Plains All American Pipeline's request to update usage permits on a group of border-crossing pipelines the company bought in 2012 touched off alarm among environmentalists after a Federal Register notice flew under everyone's radar until the public feedback window expired on Feb. 24.

The lack of environmental review by the U.S. State Department, which has jurisdiction over border-crossing pipelines, has upset groups like the Sierra Club and FLOW (Flow Love of Water), which only became aware of the pipelines last week, just as public comment on the permit was ending.  MORE

 

 

A disaster waiting to happen in Oklahoma? The link between fracking and earthquakes is causing alarm in an oil-rich town

From:  Independent 


by Andrew Dewson - April 6, 2015

A transportation hub, Cushing, Oklahoma, is home to just 8,000 people and 87 million barrels of oil. Due to fracking, it’s now one of the most active seismic areas in the US – and potentially the scene of a catastrophe. 

Oil storage tanks in Cushing, Oklahoma, located at the convergence

of several pipelines; the number of earthquakes above 3.0 on the Richter scale has risen from two in 2008 to 585 in 2014 Bloomberg

 At first glance the small town of less than 8,000 inhabitants looks like typical country America, the kind of place that John Updike might once have written about. Except Cushing, in north-east Oklahoma, is very different.

On top of its human residents, it is also home to about 87 million barrels of oil storage. The biggest ocean-going supertankers carry about two million barrels. The Exxon Valdez spilled less than half that amount when it hit Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska, in 1989.

Now, more tanks are being built in Cushing as storage companies seek to increase stocks at lower oil prices.  MORE

Do you feel anxious?

 Steve is an inventor, with multiple products, which he originated after he nearly died of petroleum poisoning.  He has written multiple books and is completely dedicated to making life healthier. 

by Steve Tvedten

If I told you that bacteria could alleviate your anxiety you’d probably think I was joking or uninformed. But, if you suffer from anxiety, particularly social anxiety, you’ll be happy to learn about the exciting research conducted by researchers at the College of William and Mary, in Williamsburg, Virginia that shows bacteria, indeed, may be the solution to your anxiety. The study, which was published in Psychiatry Research, found that regular consumption of fermented foods replete with plentifu l amounts of beneficial bacteria reduced social anxiety.

In the College of William and Mary study, 710 students completed food diaries about their intake of fermented foods over the previous 30 days. They were also asked about exercise frequency and their consumption of fruits and vegetables so that the researchers could control for healthy habits beyond fermented food intake. Researchers found that those who ate higher amounts of fermented foods had lower levels of social anxiety. The link was particularly noticeable among those who demonstrated signs of neuroticism.

Matthew Hilimire, a professor of psychology at the College of William and Mary and one of the researchers who conducted the study said in an interview with PsychCentral, “It is likely that the probiotics in the fermented foods are favorably changing the environment in the gut, and changes in the gut in turn influence social anxiety,”

The study found that those people who are prone to anxiety experience less social anxiety when they frequently consume fermented foods replete with probiotics.

It may be hard to comprehend how bacteria can affect your mind, but an increasing body of research is proving that they do. A study conducted by researchers at McMaster University, in Hamilton, Canada and published in the medical journal Gastroenterology, found that the specific probiotic known as Bifidobacterium longum eliminated anxiety and normalized behavior. The Canadian scientists found that chronic gastrointestinal inflammation induces anxiety-like behavior and alters the biochemistry of the central nervous system.

A French study published in the British Journal of Nutrition confirms both the American and Canadian studies. They found that the same probiotic strain studied by the Canadians: B. longum, along with another probiotic strain known as Lactobacillus helveticus reduced anxiety. Additionally, the French found that these two probiotics reduced psychological stress, depression and feelings of anger and hostility.

While it is not yet clear the exact mechanism or mechanisms at work, it is believed that the probiotics reduce gastrointestinal inflammation and boost serotonin levels. Serotonin, a feel-good brain hormone sometimes called the happiness hormone, once believed to be the exclusive domain of the brain, is also produced by the gut. Actually, it is estimated that about 90 percent of the body’s serotonin can actually be found in the gastrointestinal tract (GI tract). That’s right: your intestines do some of the same work as your brain. Actually, many scientists now refer to the gut as the body’s “second brain” because the gut-brain health link has been the focus of a growing body of research proving the connection.

While yogurt is probably the fermented food that first comes to mind and indeed offers many health benefits, there are many superior fermented foods that offer larger volumes of probiotics and a wider variety of strains, such as kimchi and sauerkraut. Check out my article “9 Reasons to Love Sauerkraut” and “Make Your Own Sauerkraut” for more information.

 

Dr. Michelle Schoffro Cook, PhD, DNM is a registered nutritionist and international best-selling and 19-time published book author whose works include: The Probiotic Promise: Simple Steps to Heal Your Body from the Inside Out.

OBITUARY: Shale impresario Aubrey McClendon dies on heels of indictment

From:  Energy Wire 

Mike Lee, Saqib Rahim and Mike Soraghan, E&E reporters
EnergyWire: Thursday, March 3, 2016

 

Aubrey McClendon, the larger-than-life co-founder of Chesapeake Energy Corp. who was a leader of the American oil and gas renaissance, died yesterday in a fiery car crash, less than a day after the Justice Department announced he had been indicted on federal antitrust charges.

McClendon was at the wheel of a 2013 Chevy Tahoe that crossed the center line of a road in Oklahoma City and crashed into a bridge support just after 9 a.m. local time yesterday, Capt. Paco Balderrama of the Oklahoma City Police Department said in a videotaped news conference. The Tahoe was engulfed in flames (E&ENews PM, March 2).

"He pretty much drove straight into the wall," Balderrama said. "There was plenty of opportunity for him to correct or get back on the road, and that didn't occur."  MORE