Positive Changes That Are Occurring

[Jeff]

Don, thanks so much for your kind words and encouragement.

I lived in Philly for two years, from 2008 to 2010. I chucked TB’s into the Delaware off the East Falls bridge, and up at Lambertville, also. Most of my gifting efforts at that time being in and around my hometown, about an hour north of Philly. I like to fling them out my window as I drive across bridges, usually at night. Once I forgot my passenger window was up and I smashed it with a TB, moving at baseball-pitch speed.

In Pittsburgh, I’ve thrown perhaps a couple of dozen, maybe 50 TB’s in the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers, and also into many of the nearby streams that feed it. I’ve also gone along the ridge above town (where the Ba’al pillars of old would have been situated, Ba’al was worshipped ‘on the heights’), and gifted the modern-version “communications” towers that line the ridge. I’ve rolled through town and sequestered TB’s in neighborhood I thought felt illin’.

Re: felt illin’, I never considered myself psychic – ever - until Dooney said to me, via phone, as she looked at my chakra’s “wow…do you consider yourself psychic?” She had just gotten to my crown chakra. I can’t “read minds”, anything like that, but would readily admit I’ve always been very “sensitive and intuitive”. I think we’re all “psychic”, we’ve just been conditioned over millennia to not realize it or cultivate it. I’m mentioning it to urge readers to “listen to their intuition” when they gift.

Re: a wider web presence, a couple people have asked me that, and I’ve been “shy”. I have this vision of the not-aggressively promoted thread working its inexorable way deeper and deeper into the matrix, setting off blasts of awareness here and there like munitions caches taken and destroyed by an advancing force. To use another metaphor, working its way in like water into cracked concrete. It’s the whole “non-centralized” concept that underpins the way the orgonite movement itself has expanded.

There’s a passage from Lord of the Rings that I’m reminded of: “Now silently the host of Rohan moved forward into the field of Gondor, pouring in slowly but steadily, like the rising tide through breaches in a dike that men have thought secure. But the mind and will of the Black Captain were bent wholly on the falling city, and as yet no tidings came to him warning that his designs held any flaw.” Moving forward quietly, but with similar grim determination and motive, coming to the aid of the beleaguered city.

I think to myself, “what Ph.D. student, what naturalist is going to discover my thread, and take it forward in some way as yet unimagined?” And then suddenly it won’t only be me, alone with my relatively few compatriots here on this forum. Early on Cassandria said she was translating it into French, and there’s another example of that unforeseen leap I was speaking of.

If anyone wants to post this material on the wider web, I’d be merry about it, and wouldn’t even need to know. It would be even wilder to not know and later have someone say something ‘dude, your stuff’s in the Czech republic!’, or wherever. I’d still just want to be referenced merely as Jeff (not that those of ill intent don’t know every last detail about my life). But in “the Princess Bride”, Inigo asks Westley “who ARE you?” And Westley smiles wryly and replies “no one of consequence.”

“I get more positive feedback from readers and EW participants about this thread than about any other part of the forum, by the way. I’m sure people are sending you news by now and if that’s happening it’s good to share about it.”

Amazing, wow, again. Much mahalo’s, as the Hawaiians say. But, no, no one’s sending me stuff. But I’m so terrible at checking PM’s here on the forum I better go do that!

[Jeff]

I’m working on the new document “Societal Changes”, now. And I just thought up another document, it’s going to be called “And, yes, they Conspire.” It’s going to be couplets of truth, juxtaposed against the manufactured lies, one after another after another, from all the documents.

Like:

August, 2010 – The divorce rate is at its lowest point since the early 1970s. And infidelity has continued to decline.

“It runs counter to this image people have of Tiger Woods and divorce. They get a sense from the media that divorce is prevalent but the reality is we’re not experiencing divorce that way.”

October, 2011 –Historically, we’ve never had it this peaceful. Statistics reveal dramatic reductions in war deaths, family violence, racism, rape, murder and all sorts of mayhem.

And it runs counter to what the mass media is reporting and essentially what we feel in our guts.

Again and again and again, just couplets, as short as possible.

The meme that our Black Magic-practicing masters use to handle and manage individuals who are handicapped by what J. Edgar Hoover called “coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous (they) cannot believe it exists” is “Well, if there were some big conspiracy, everyone would know about it…you couldn’t pull it off, it would be too complex.”

What those handicapped folks don’t understand - or more likely don’t want to understand - is that the first rule of Fight Club is you don’t talk about Fight Club.

I’m hoping that seeing the serial examples of that conspiracy will nudge those who are on the fence over the fence.

To level-set, when I discovered the first cloudbuster reports online in the early 2000’s, I though ‘hm, wow, ah, geez, these people think this works ?’ Although fortunately for me, I’ve always reasoned by saying “if true, implies x, if false, implies y”, and I’ll run both scenarios in my mind and see which feels more plausible. It took me probably from 2001 when I first read about cloudbusters until I started gifting in 2003, ordering ‘slimline’ TB’s online from Don Bradley.

Re: if true, X, reading the Pluto’s Cave and Devil’s Punchbowl gifting reports was more than enough for me. And Jeff Baggaley’s “Mission to Tibet” accounts in April 2003 were also a watershed for me.

I swear this is a true story: in the 1990’s, I was very into “UFO’s” and what is now called “Cryptozoology”. But I found a paper catalog of arcane books, and there was a ‘Conspiracy’ section. And I thought ‘people would spend precious time reading about or thinking such things? Sheesh!’ Not that I didn’t believe there were Conspiracies, but rather I felt that it was an unimportant topic, people worrying a bit too much about too little. I now have a different perspective.

So this is a process, for all of us.

[Jeff]

In the original Star Trek film “The Wrath of Khan”, William Shatner stars as Captain Kirk and Ricardo Montalban as Khan, Kirk’s nemesis. At one point Khan apparently has Kirk dead to rights and is about to vanquish the Enterprise. The presumedly-subjected Kirk pretends to be sending key data over to Khan’s ship, at Khan’s demand, but is actually secretly working with Spock to drop Khan’s ship’s shields.

Spock drops the shields, to the amazement and consternation of Khan and his pirate crew, and Shatner, with fist clenched, exclaims “Fire!” in a wonderfully theatrical way. He says it a bunch of times in a row, actually. And it’s great .

And that’s what I’m saying, right now, as I present “Societal Change”, a chronological reprise of stories in that vein collected from this thread.

“The transmission’s coming over right now, Khan.”

Societal Change

Between 1960 and 1980, California’s violent crime rate increased from 239 to 894 violent crimes per 100,000 residents—a staggering 274% rise.

2007 - Alcohol consumption in the United States has declined over time. Per capita consumption of alcohol by Americans age 14 and older has dropped from 2.75 gallons in 1980 to 2.31 in 2007 (the latest date for which statistics are available)."

Jan 3, 2007 - Domestic Violence Rates Drop Sharply -Although the rates of domestic violence followed a ten-year trend of general declining crime rates in the U.S., officials do not know the reason.

2008 – US: Organic sales grow by 17.1 percent in 2008. Sales of organic products in the USA, both food and non-food, reached 24.6 billion US Dollars by the end of 2008, growing an impressive 17.1 % over 2007 sales despite tough economic times, according to the Organic Trade Association (OTA).

2009 - The divorce rate decreased more from 2008 to 2009 than from 2007 to 2008.

2010 – The Organic Trade Association says organic food sales grew 7.7 percent in 2010 to $28.6 billion.

Jun 16, 2010 - A crime puzzle : Violent crime declines in America - Violent crime went down in America again last year.

Jun 18, 2010 – The US has seen “phenomenal” growth in organic food products in the past year

August, 2010 – The divorce rate is at its lowest point since the early 1970s. And infidelity has continued to decline. “It runs counter to this image people have of Tiger Woods and divorce. They get a sense from the media that divorce is prevalent but the reality is we’re not experiencing divorce that way.”

Sep 3, 2010 – Alcohol consumption in Britain sees sharpest fall since records began in 1948.

Sep 14, 2010 - Crime rate decline puzzles theorists

May 23, 2011 -Steady Decline in Major Crime Baffles Experts

Sep 21, 2011 - From 1993 through 2010, the rate of violent crime has declined by 70 percent.

Oct 31, 2011 - Most Americans Believe Crime in U.S. Is Worsening - Despite a sharp decline in the United States’ violent crime rate since the mid-1990s , the majority of Americans, 68%, continue to believe nation’s crime problem is getting worse, as they have for most of the past decade. Currently, 68% say there is more crime in the U.S. than there was a year ago, 17% say less, and 8% volunteer that crime is unchanged.

Jan 3, 2012 - Experts continue to be baffled by declining violent crime rate

Jun 11, 2012 - Still more ( and still puzzling ) crime rate declines reported

Oct 29, 2012 - Violent crime in the United States fell for the fifth consecutive year

Dec 26, 2012 - Shootings and murders have dropped this year along with a steep decline in the number of stop-and-frisks that NYPD officials have long touted as a weapon to stop gun violence.

2011 – Steady Decline in Major Crime Baffles Experts. The number of violent crimes in the United States dropped significantly last year, to what appeared to be the lowest rate in nearly 40 years, a development that was considered puzzling partly because it ran counter to the prevailing expectation that crime would increase during a recession. In all regions, the country appears to be safer. The odds of being murdered or robbed are now less than half of what they were in the early 1990s, when violent crime peaked in the United States. Small towns, especially, are seeing far fewer murders: In cities with populations under 10,000, the number plunged by more than 25 percent last year.

2011 - Organic Food Sales Hit Record in 2011; Sales Jump 15-20 Percent

2011 – The homicide rate in Russia dropped from 31,553 in 2004 down to 11,500 in 2011

Feb 15, 2011 - BBC News - Why is alcohol consumption falling?

Jul 21, 2011 - "The national crime rate has been falling steadily for the past 20 years and is now at its lowest level since 1973," Statistics Canada reported.

October, 2011 –It seems as if violence is everywhere, but it’s really on the run. Historically, we’ve never had it this peaceful. Statistics reveal dramatic reductions in war deaths, family violence, racism, rape, murder and all sorts of mayhem. “ The decline of violence may be the most significant and least appreciated development in the history of our species." And it runs counter to what the mass media is reporting and essentially what we feel in our guts. The reality is not painted in bloody anecdotes, but demonstrated in the black and white of spreadsheets and historical documents. They tell a story of a world moving away from violence.

The number of people killed in battle – calculated per 100,000 population – has dropped by 1,000-fold over the centuries as civilizations evolved. Before there were organized countries, battles killed on average more than 500 out of every 100,000 people. In 19th century France, it was 70. In the 20th century with two world wars and a few genocides, it was 60. Now battlefield deaths are down to three-tenths of a person per 100,000.

The rate of genocide deaths per world population was 1,400 times higher in 1942 than in 2008. Murder within families. The U.S. rate of husbands being killed by their wives has dropped from 1.2 per 100,000 in 1976 to just 0.2. For wives killed by their husbands, the rate has slipped from 1.4 to 0.8 over the same time period. Rape in the United States is down 80 percent since 1973. Lynchings, which used to occur at a rate of 150 a year, have disappeared.

It’s hard for many people to buy the decline in violence. Even those who deal in peace for a living at first couldn’t believe it when the first academics started counting up battle deaths and recognized the trends. The “Human Security Report 2009/2010,” a project led by Mack and funded by several governments, is a worldwide examination of war and violence and has been published as a book. It cites jarringly low numbers. While the number of wars has increased by 25 percent, they’ve been minor ones. The average annual battle death toll has dropped from nearly 10,000 per conflict in the 1950s to less than 1,000 in the 21st century. And the number of deadliest wars – those that kill at least 1,000 people a year – has fallen by 78 percent since 1988.

November 8, 2011 – Significant Fall in Violent Crime in Rio State, Brazil

December 20, 2011 – Violent Crime Rate in US Keeps Dropping, Lowest Since 1960s

2012 – Violent crime rates in the U.S. are reaching historic lows. Instances of murder declined overall by 1.9 percent from 2010 figures, while rape, robbery and aggravated assault declined by 4 percent nationwide. The decline is part of larger downward trend and the result of a series of changes that have contributed to a more peaceful society. “This is actually a pretty significant drop, which is fascinating because we’d normally expect crime to go up when we’re in an economic downturn .” The U.S. is experiencing the lowest crime levels since World War II.

2012 –Organic food share grew to 4.2% of total food sales in 2011, which was up from 4% in 2010 and compared with 1.4% in 2001.

2012 – Manila, Phillipines - Crime rate down 16% in first 3 months of 2012

2012 – SOUTH CAROLINA - Just a week after President Barack Obama was re-elected as President of the United States, seven petitions, including South and North Carolina, have reached the minimum number of signatures needed asking that their state secede from the Union.

Apr 24, 2012 - U.S. organic food sales of $29.2 billion in 2011 marked an increase of more than 9% from $26.7 billion in 2010.

Nov 13, 2012 – Residents of Indiana, other states want to secede from USA. Indiana is among 17 states whose residents have filed petitions to secede on the White House’s website.

December, 2012 – The number of crimes in Japan detected by police between January and November dropped 6.5 percent from a year earlier.

2013 – Crime statistics for Los Angeles, CA for 2013 show the lowest number of homicides since 1966 and the lowest number of Part I crimes since 1956 – with the lowest per capita Part I crime rate since 1949, the year before the Korean War. Every LAPD bureau experienced a reduction in crime last year.

April 2013 – Fall in UK crime rate baffles experts. The classic theory that property crime rises faster in times of economic strife no longer seems to apply. The surprise 8% fall in cri me last year, revealed by government statisticians on Thursday, is sending the academic experts scurrying to rewrite their basic ‘Criminology 101’ lecture and the theory that recession leads to rising crime, particularly property crime. The official statisticians say the latest crime figures for England and Wales, which include a 10% drop in the murder rate to 549 homicides, the lowest level since 1978 , herald a resumption in the long-term decline that has been going on for nearly 20 years.

February, 2013 – In February, Fox is down another 29% with viewers age 25-54 in primetime.

February 7, 2013 – Manila, Phillipines - January crime rate down by 60 percent

Mar 4, 2013 - UK alcohol consumption per head down again – 3.3 per cent drop in 2012. 16 per cent decline in consumption per head since 2004.

April, 2013 - Fox News though had the biggest drop in ratings, falling 33 percent from its 2012 numbers.

May, 2013 – May 2013 Ratings: MSNBC Hits Six-Year Low in Primetime

May 7, 2013 - Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak - Violent non-fatal crime victimization overall (with or without a firearm) also is down markedly (72%) over two decades.

May 9, 2013 – A spate of high-profile shootings has left Americans with the perception that gun crimes are on the rise , but a new study shows the opposite appears to be true. A Pew Research poll released this week found that 56 percent of adults believe that gun crime is more common now than 20 years ago. But a report by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics seems to show that crime involving firearms has fallen dramatically over the last 20 years , with the rate of homicides committed with guns cut in half since 1993. The rate of the violent crimes fell even more, and is now just a quarter of what it was. “When people respond in opinion polls, it’s shaped from what they’re getting through the network news, the New York Times, the Washington Post ."

May 19, 2013 - The alcohol consumption in Ireland has fallen by 20% over 12 years.

September 26, 2013 – Alcohol Consumption Plummeting In Scotland…an across the board decline of 15% to 30% in less than ten years!

May 23, 2013 - Student science experiment finds plants won’t grow near Wi-Fi router . Five ninth-grade young women from Denmark recently created a science experiment that is causing a stir in the scientific community. It started with an observation and a question. The girls noticed that if they slept with their mobile phones near their heads at night, they often had difficulty concentrating at school the next day. They wanted to test the effect of a cellphone’s radiation on humans, but their school, Hjallerup School in Denmark, did not have the equipment to handle such an experiment. So the girls designed an experiment that would test the effect of cellphone radiation on a plant instead.

The students placed six trays filled with Lepidium sativum, a type of garden cress, into a room without radiation, and six trays of the seeds into another room next to two routers that according to the girls’ calculations, emitted about the same type of radiation as an ordinary cellphone. Over the next 12 days, the girls observed, measured, weighed and photographed their results. By the end of the experiment the results were blatantly obvious — the cress seeds placed near the router had not grown. Many of them were completely dead. Meanwhile, the cress seeds planted in the other room, away from the routers, thrived.

June, 2013 - CNN plummeted in the second quarter this year to its lowest ratings since 1991.

June, 2013 - traditional TV viewing by 18-24-year-olds has now dropped for at least 5 consecutive quarters.

June 22, 2013 – Lead vaccine developer comes clean so she can “sleep at night”. Dr. Diane Harper was the lead researcher in the development of the human papilloma virus vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix. She is the latest to come forward and question the safety and effectiveness of these vaccines. She made the surprising announcement at the 4th International Public Conference on Vaccination, which took place in Reston, Virginia on Oct. 2nd through 4th, 2009. Her speech was supposed to promote the Gardasil and Cervarix vaccines, but she instead turned on her corporate bosses in a very public way. When questioned about the presentation, audience members remarked that they came away feeling that the vaccines should not be used. “I came away from the talk with the perception that the risk of adverse side effects is so much greater than the risk of cervical cancer, I couldn’t help but question why we need the vaccine at all.”

July, 2013 – Crime in England and Wales falls to lowest level since survey began in 1981.

July, 2013 – “As the Washington Post reports in ’Plummeting Crime Rates Puzzle Experts’ , many criminologists are baffled by this turn of events .”

July 16, 2013 – Coca-Cola says its profit dipped in the latest quarter, as the world’s largest beverage maker blamed bad weather and challenging economic conditions for weak volume growth. Coca-Cola’s shares fell nearly 3% in premarket trading. It is one of the 30 stocks in the benchmark Dow Jones industrial average. In its flagship North American market, volume declined 1%, including a 4% drop in sodas.

July 12, 2013 – Mexico Reports Drop in Crime-Related Homicides

July 16, 2013 – India bans captive dolphin shows , says dolphins should be seen as ‘non-human persons.’ In so doing, India became the largest of four countries to ban the practice – which includes Costa Rica, Hungary, and Chile. But the ministry didn’t stop there; their thoughtful reasoning behind the ban seems squarely aimed at the dozens of countries across the globe, like in Europe and the United States, where dolphin shows are big business. "Not only has the Indian government spoken out against cruelty, they have contributed to an emerging and vital dialogue about the ways we think about dolphins – as thinking, feeling beings rather than pieces of property to make money off of.”

August 27, 2013 –Texas might secede from the US after 2014 election.

August 30, 2013 - Long John Silver’s announced on Wednesday that the seafood chain has begun switching all U.S. restaurants to trans fat free cooking oil. The move is “part of the evolution of Long John Silver’s to a contemporary, relevant seafood brand.” In July the restaurant’s “Big Catch” fish platter was named the “Worst Restaurant Meal in America.” It called the dish a “heart attack on a hook” for what it said had more than 1300 calories, 33 grams of trans fats and 3700 milligrams of sodium.

August 30, 2013 – Monsanto insiders dump stock as the truth about GMOs spreads across Wall Street. Monsanto executives and insiders are dumping Monsanto stock in record volumes , sending the stock price spiraling downward. CEO Hugh Grant just sold off 40,000 shares at $97.74, and both Janet Holloway and Gerald Steiner - both high-level Monsanto executives - recently ditched more than 10,000 shares each. Tom Hartley also bailed on another 6,000 shares at $100.15. Hedge funds, meanwhile, are also dumping Monsanto stock , most likely due to sharply increased “negative sentiment.” This means people increasingly don’t like Monsanto, and that’s a direct result of all the growing realizations about the dangers of GMOs, Monsanto’s predatory business practices, the company’s dangerous experiments that have already unleashed genetic pollution, and the fact that GM corn has been experimentally found to cause widespread cancer tumors in rat studies.

September 3, 2014 – Canadian beekeepers sue Bayer, Syngenta over neonicotinoid pesticides. Class action lawsuit seeks $400 million in damages. Canadian beekeepers are suing the makers of popular crop pesticides for more than $400 million in damages , alleging that their use is causing the deaths of bee colonies.

Bayer maintains that the risk to bees from the pesticide is low , and it has recommended ways that farmers can minimize bees’ exposure to the pesticide.

September 16, 2013 – Japan nuclear-free as last reactor switched off. Japan went nuclear-free on Monday as it switched off its last operating reactor for an inspection, with no date scheduled for a restart amid strong public hostility to atomic power. Nuclear power supplied about one-third of the nation’s electricity before a tsunami knocked out cooling systems and sparked meltdowns at Fukushima, causing tens of thousands to flee their homes. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has openly backed a return to the widespread use of atomic energy , but the public remains divided over his support, with opponents concerned on safety grounds. Japan previously was without any nuclear energy in May 2012, when all of the country’s 50 commercial reactors stopped for checkups in the wake of the disaster. Utilities were unable immediately to restart them due to public opposition. It was the first time in more than four decades that Japan had been without nuclear power.

September 19, 2013 - Israel commits to ending water fluoridation by 2014, citing major health concerns. A recent announcement by Israel’s Supreme Court has declared that a 1974 law permitting – and a later 1998 law requiring – all public water supplies in Israel to be fluoridated are both outdated and invalid, and that all current fluoridation programs in the country will have to end by April 9, 2014, in order to comply with new public safety requirements.

A petition filed last year by two dedicated individuals, including a representative of Israel’s Association for Dissemination of Health Education, brought to light numerous dangers associated with water fluoridation. These include lowered IQ, brittle bones and teeth and damage to the thyroid gland, serious side effects that are hardly justified by the flimsy and antiquated arguments claiming that ingested fluoride somehow helps prevent tooth decay.

" Zealous fluoridation promoters try to convince the American public that 'everyone drinks fluoridated water. ’ But the opposite is true ," says Dr. Paul Connett, Ph.D., Executive Director of the Fluoride Action Network. " An overwhelming number of countries do not fluoridate, including 97 percent of the European population.

September 25, 2013 – A controversial legislative rider added by Monsanto to the Agriculture Department budget last spring will no longer be effective after Sept. 30 under a draft stopgap government funding bill being drafted by Senate Democrats. The provision touched off a storm last spring as critics accused Monsanto of “court-stripping” to protect its sales of the genetically modified seeds for which the St. Louis-based giant is a pioneer in commercializing.

The continuing resolution approved by the House last week would extend the rider without comment for the first months of the new fiscal year. But “That provision will be gone,” said Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), confirming the change to POLITICO. The Center for Food Safety, a Washington-based non-profit, welcomed the decision as “a major victory for the food movement” and “sea change in a political climate that all too often allows corporate earmarks to slide through must-pass legislation.”

Oct 7, 2013 - UK alcohol consumption dropped by 3.3 per cent last year and is now at the lowest level this century.

October 8, 2013 - Northwest Indiana casino revenues dropped 7.3 percent in September as compared to the year-ago-month. “Some blame cost, others say the games aren’t as much fun.”

October 11, 2013 - Gaming revenues down by 10 percent on Las Vegas Strip. “Internet cafés are being blamed.” “air-conditioning breakdown.”

Oct 17, 2013 - Drinking of alcohol by Russians has dropped by one-quarter over the past three years.

October 22, 2013 - It hasn’t been a good week for Monsanto and the rest of the biotech industry. Just three days ago, Mexico banned genetically engineered corn. Citing the risk of imminent harm to the environment, a Mexican judge ruled that, effective immediately, no genetically engineered corn can be planted in the country. This means that companies like Monsanto will no longer be allowed to plant or sell their corn within the country’s borders. At the same time, the County Council for the island of Kauai passed a law that mandates farms to disclose pesticide use and the presence of genetically modified crops. The bill also requires a 500-foot buffer zone near medical facilities, schools and homes — among other locations.

But perhaps the biggest bombshell of all is now unfolding in Washington state. The mail-in ballot state’s voters are already weighing in on Initiative 522, which would mandate the labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Knowing full well that 93 percent of the American public supports GMO labeling , and that if one state passes it, many others are likely to follow, entrenched agribusiness interests are pulling out all the stops to try to squelch yet another state labeling effort.

October 22, 2013 - Mississippi casinos won less money from gamblers in September for the 13th month out of 15. “September 11th Blamed for Revenue Drop.”

October 23, 2013 - Baton Rouge, LA casino revenue dropped to $20.9 million in September, 17 percent less than the $25.2 million posted for September 2012. “Attributed the drop in part to the early Labor Day weekend shaving one Saturday off the month.” “a calendar quirk”

November 8, 2013 – Police in Seattle, Washington have responded to a major public outcry by disabling a recently discovered law enforcement tool that critics said could be used to conduct sweeping surveillance across the city. The SPD said they had no bad intentions with installing the mesh network , but The Stranger article and the subsequent media coverage it spawned quickly caused the system to receive the type of attention that wasn’t very welcomed. Now only days after citizens began calling for the dismantling of the mesh network, The Stranger has confirmed that the SPD are disabling the devices until a proper policy could be adopted by the city.

November 25, 2013 – The TV business is having its worst year ever. Audience ratings have collapsed : Aside from a brief respite during the Olympics, there has been only negative ratings growth on broadcast and cable TV since September 201 1, according to Citi Research.

Media stock analysts Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson recently noted, “The pay-TV industry has reported its worst 12-month stretch ever.” All the major TV providers lost a collective 113,000 subscribers in Q3 2013. That doesn’t sound like a huge deal — but it includes internet subscribers, too.

Broadband internet was supposed to benefit from the end of cable TV, but it hasn’t. In all, about 5 million people ended their cable and broadband subs between the beginning of 2010 and the end of this year. People are unplugging.

The following charts show the evidence that cable TV is dying, and that people are also unplugging from broadband internet service. Cable TV ratings are sinking.

November 27, 2013 – Lake Tahoe, Nevada - casino revenue across the state down 2.6 percent from October 2012. On the South Shore gaming revenue fell 23 percent . “Editorial: Is Nintendo to Blame for Gaming’s Drop?”

December 6, 2013 – Big Island mayor signs GMO crop bill. Hawaii County Mayor Billy Kenoi signed Bill 113, which restricts the expansion of transgenic crops grown on the Big Island. "We all understand we must protect our island and preserve our precious natural resources"

December 9, 2013 – Earlier this week in Thailand, a shocking turn of events took place. Ordered to harass and block protesters, policemen instead yielded to the peaceful riot by laying down their barricades and helmets as a sign of solidarity. The gathering protesters explained that their goal is to destroy the political machine of former Prime Minister Thakskin Shinawatra, who is accused of widespread corruption and abuse of power.

The present Prime Minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, is Thakskin’s sister and is seen as a puppet of her brother. In a move to topple the Shinawatra government, protesters planned on storming the Bangkok Metropolitan Police Bureau. This act was devised and led by protest leader, Suthep Thaugsuban.

But what police did instead surprised many . Their lowering of arms and joining with protesters marks a turning point in the protests and a potential shift in power.

December 11, 2013 – Sales of low calorie soda fell by nearly 7 percent over the last year , while sales of regular soda dropped just over 2 percent. Consumption has been declining for several years. And while the industry once hoped that diet soda would be its salvation, the artificially sweetened soda has begun to contract more quickly than its full-sugar counterpart.

Contemporary consumers are particularly concerned about the safety of artificial sweeteners. As compared to 2007, more consumers in 2013 were concerned about avoiding sweeteners. The report also showed a rise in the number of people concerned with genetically modified ingredients —evidence that concern about soda could be part of a larger trend away from processed foods. “The biggest trend in food, really, is a desire for consumers to move away from things that are very processed.”

December 19, 2013 – Newly released surveillance video shows the terrifying moments an armed robber boarded a Seattle bus and how passengers took him down. " He came up to me … stuck the gun at me and took my phone. He jabbed me a little harder and said, ‘Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.’" As Brown made his way to the front of the bus, a seated passenger lunged at him and his gun , even as Brown pointed it in the passenger’s face, according to KOMO. Other passengers, including Briggs, then jumped into the fray and pinned Brown down to the ground. Brown was arrested and charged with three counts of robbery and one count of attempted robbery.

December 30, 2013 –The number of law-enforcement officers killed by firearms in 2013 fell to levels not seen since the 19th century. Deaths in the line of duty generally fell by 8 percent and were the fewest since 1959. The number of firearms deaths fell 33 percent in 2013 and was the lowest since 1887.

[Jeff]

December 31, 2013 –When budget woes reduced the sheriff’s department in one rural Oregon county to a bare-bones force, residents decided to take matters into their own hands – creating armed patrol groups in defiance of local officials.

2014 – In Chicago, IL, the first three months of 2014 saw 6 fewer murders than the same time frame in 2013 – a 9 percent drop – and 55 fewer murders than 2012 . There were 90 fewer shootings and 119 fewer shooting victims, drops of 26 and 29 percent respectively. Compared to the first quarter of 2012, there have been 222 fewer shootings and 292 fewer shooting victims. Overall crime is down 25 percent from last year.

Jan 3, 2014 – US organic food market to grow 14% from 2013-18

January 6, 2014 - Pennsylvania: Statewide, $2.38 billion was generated from slot machine revenue in 2013. That figure amounts to 3.5 percent less than in 2012. “More states compete for gambling revenue and jobs.” Weather blamed for Erie casino’s December slot-machine revenue”

January 8, 2014 – Forty-two percent of Americans, on average, identified as political independents in 2013, the highest Gallup has measured since it began conducting interviews by telephone 25 years ago . Americans are increasingly declaring independence from the political parties. The general trend in recent years, including the 2012 election year, has been toward greater percentages of Americans identifying with neither the Republican Party nor the Democratic Party. The rise in political independence is likely an outgrowth of Americans’ record or near-record negative views of the two major U.S. parties , of Congress, and their low level of trust in government more generally.

January 14, 2014 – Atlantic City’s casino revenue fell below $3 billion last year for the first time in 22 years. It marked the seventh straight year of plunging gambling revenue for Atlantic City, which won $5.2 billion in 2006. “A big decline in the play of baccarat, a volatile, high-roller game favored by Asian players, is largely to blame.”

January 15, 2014 - New Jersey gaming revenue falls despite introduction of online gambling. “Gaming lobbyists blame smoking ban.”

Jan 15, 2014 - Official figures showing crime falling are unreliable

January 16, 2014 - The House’s passage of a $1.1 trillion spending bill Wednesday that dictates the budgets for all federal agencies may be a desperately needed lifeline for the light bulb. The bill includes a prohibition on funding for “ the Administration’s onerous ‘light bulb’ standard ,” as Appropriations Committee chairman Hal Rogers (R., Ky) described it, which had sought to dramatically improve the energy efficiency of ordinary incandescent light bulbs but ultimately spelled the end of the road for the century-old technology. A portion of that 2007 law, which finally took effect on Jan. 1, mandated that manufacturers improve their light bulbs: 40W bulbs must draw just 10.5W, and 60W bulbs must draw no more than 11W. The result is the effectively a ban: Incandescents simply can’t keep up with those twisty compact fluorescent (CFL) and newer LED bulbs.

But there’s hope for those glass globes yet, however: Citing “a continued public desire for these products,” the Energy and Water Appropriations section of the bill would prohibit funds to implement or enforce the higher efficiency light bulb standards.

February 7, 2014 – Secession movement in New York pushes for Big Apple to split from Upstate

January 17, 2014 – Pennsylvania’s streak of winning hands, at least in terms of gambling revenue, has come to an end. For the first time since the first racetrack casino opened in the state in 2006, total gambling revenue dropped last yea r, according to numbers released Thursday by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board.

January 21, 2014 – On Google, it’s not just Texas that wants to secede. In total, 15 other states would also like to leav e, at least according to the Google auto complete search tool.

January 21, 2014 – Butter is now winning the fat wars. Unilever: “We have been too obsessed, overly obsessed” with margarine. Butter is back. Despite years of being warned that butter is bad for you , Americans are looking the other way. Sales of the rich stuff now top $2 billion a year in the U.S. — a 65% increase since 2000. The American Butter Institute also reports that per-capita consumption is now at a 40-year high of 5.6 pounds.

January 22, 2014 – Catalan National Assembly collects 235,000 signatures for independence in one weekend. Success of the massive ‘Sign for a vote for independence’ campaign, which continues to collect votes. The Catalan National Assembly collected 234,481 signatures in favor of independence as part of their campaign ‘Sign for a vote in favor of independence’ in the span of just two days, during the weekend of January 11-12. According to the ANC, the results were “much higher than they expected”.

January 27, 2014 – Let Banks Fail Is Iceland Mantra as 2% Joblessness in Sight. Iceland let its banks fail in 2008 because they proved too big to save. Now, the island is finding crisis-management decisions made half a decade ago have put it on a trajectory that’s turned 2 percent unemployment into a realistic goal. While the euro area grapples with record joblessness , led by more than 25 percent in Greece and Spain, only about 4 percent of Iceland’s labor force is without work. “Politicians always have something to worry about. We’d like to see unemployment going from where it’s now – around 4 percent – to under 2 percent, which may sound strange to most other western countries, but Icelanders aren’t accustomed to unemployment.”

The island’s sudden economic meltdown in October 2008 made international headlines as a debt-fueled banking boom ended in a matter of weeks when funding markets froze. Policy makers overseeing the $14 billion economy refused to back the banks, which subsequently defaulted on $85 billion. The government’s decision to protect state finances left it with the means to continue social support programs that shielded Icelanders from penury during the worst financial crisis in six decades.

February 8, 2014 – Organic food back in vogue as sales increase. Shoppers are now more concerned with the quality of what they eat, say retailers. After a sustained decline, demand for organic fruit, vegetables and dairy produce is on the rise, as consumers become more willing to pay a premium for food produced to higher farming standards. Growth was led by dairy products, which are outperforming sales in the non-organic dairy sector. Organic baby food makes up more than 54% of all baby-food purchases.

February 10, 2014 – McDonald’s says bad weather hurt its U.S. sales performance in January, representing another setback as the fast-food chain fights to fend off rivals and get its menu right. Company stock sank 1% to $94.97 per share in morning trading. The world’s biggest hamburger chain says sales fell 3.3% at established U.S. locations last month.

The decline in the U.S. is just the latest disappointment for McDonald’s, which has conceded that its kitchen operations got overly complicated by the pace of new menu offerings . CEO Don Thompson also recently noted that the chain has lost some of its “relevance” with customers. In hopes of attracting more diners, McDonald’s has been aggressively promoting its revamped Dollar Menu, which includes new burgers that cost more than a dollar. The rollout of the Dollar Menu & More was designed to help improve the company’s profit margins without alienating price-sensitive customers who’ve grown accustomed to the idea of paying just a buck for various items.

More broadly, McDonald’s is trying to adapt to shifting eating habits by introducing items that are positioned as healthy or fresh , such as its chicken wraps and breakfast sandwiches made with egg whites. The efforts have yet to pay off. According to a regulatory filing, McDonald’s saw customer traffic at established locations decline 1.6% in the U.S. last year.

February 12, 2014 – Western Marylanders push to secede from state

February 18, 2014 - Violent Crimes Declined Across Country in First Six Months of 2013. Violent crimes, including murders, fell by 5.4 percent in the first six months of 2013 compared with the same period in 2012, continuing a long reduction in violent crime across the country. The only category where the number increased was rape, but that number is slightly misleading because the 2013 figure is based on a broader definition of the crime adopted by the Justice Department. “We have had almost 25 years of a decline in crime, but on a year-to-year basis it’s hard to come up with a story.”

February 21, 2014 – Gambling Revenue Drops in New Orleans, Baton Rouge.

February 28, 2014 - Analysts shrug off decline in January gaming revenue. Nevada gaming revenue declined 2.76 percent in January to $884.2 million while Strip gaming revenue fell 1.41 percent to $499.8 million.

March, 2014 – Cincinatti, Ohio - A new survey shows that teen alcohol, tobacco and marijuana use have declined by 25 percent to 50 percent since 2000.

March 5, 2014 – Secession Movements Gains Steam

March 9, 2014 - The New USA? Secession Movement Gains Steam

March 9, 2014 - Obama refuses to recognize a Russian Crimea .

March 15, 2014 – For Crimea, Secession Is Only as Good as Recognition

March 24, 2014 – Europe’s Latest Secession Movement: Venice?

March 26, 2014 – Michigan boy, 8, pays it forward with $27K in lunch donations. Cayden Taipalus, 8, a newcomer to the Howell area, recently began a campaign to raise money so that all kids at his school would be able to purchase a hot meal. “He saw a boy have to put a hot lunch back and settle for a cheese sandwich and thought, ‘I’d like to help,’.” The family decided to open an online fundraising site, with the motto Pay It Forward: No Kid Goes Hungry, and what happened from there was stunning. In less than a month, that initial $64 has grown beyond anyone’s belief. “We’ve raised more than $27,000,” his mom said. “Donations have been coming in from all over the world…”

Quiet and soft-spoken , Cayden has been an anonymous benefactor to his fellow Challenger Elementary School students.

March 27, 2014 – Alaskans Plead to Leave U.S. and Reunite with Russia

March 31, 2014 - Low-Cal Carbonated Drinks Sank in 2013; Overall Soda Volumes Down 3%. A nearly decade-long decline in U.S. carbonated soft drink sales accelerated last year as more Americans turned their backs on artificially sweetened diet sodas, according to data published Monday.

The drop-off is a mounting problem for industry giants Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo Inc. and Dr. Pepper Snapple Group Inc ., which have long depended on zero-calorie sodas to make up the difference as Americans became increasingly concerned about the health effects of sugared drinks.

Overall soda volumes fell an estimated 3% in 2013, the ninth straight yearly contraction and more than double the 1.2% decline in 2012, according to Beverage Digest.

April 1, 2014 - Soft-drink sales have been declining for nine straight years. This is much more than a trend — it’s a fundamental shift in consumer tastes that poses a major problem for soda makers, no matter how diversified their product portfolios might be.

The latest numbers are astonishing , but not surprising. Sales of soda fell 3% by volume in 2013, to the lowest levels since 1995, according to a report from Beverage Digest issued on Monday. That would be a big drop no matter what, but it’s also more than double 2012’s decline. People are moving away from soda at an accelerating rate.

April 3, 2014 - Japan Halts Whaling Program in Response to International Court Ruling. Japan’s program to take minke, fin, and humpback whales in the Southern Ocean is not based on sound science, says court. Japan says it will abide by a Monday ruling from the United Nations’ International Court of Justice ordering the nation to stop hunting whales off Antarctica.

April 4, 2014 – Australian beer consumption plummets to 70-year lows

April 4, 2014 – Silicon Valley discovers secession, decides it’s supercool.

April 4, 2014 – Organic food: Pricey, not particularly healthy, won’t save you

April 5, 2014 – A new report from East Chicago Police shows crime rate is dropping — with some officials pointing to the lowest total crime rates in nearly two decades. The crime rate in the first three months of 2014 is down by one third compared to the same time last year. The total number of crimes reported to the FBI in the first quarter of 2014 compared to that of 2013 reflects a reduction in overall crime of 33 percent.

April 14, 2014 – Wisconsin Republicans to Vote on Secession.

April 15, 2014 – Hyderabad, India - Liquor sales plummet . Almost all the districts, except Ranga Reddy, Hyderabad and Nalgonda, have seen a drop in consumption. In Vizianagaram, the drop has been significant. In the state, the revenues went down by 8.58 per cent.

April 16, 2014 - UK alcohol consumption drops 18% in 10 years

April 19, 2014 – Homicides in Jersey City, NJ are down 80 percent from 2012 , with only one in the first quarter of 2014 compared to five in the first three months of 2012. Robberies are down 42 percent, from 199 in the first quarter of 2012 to 115 this year, while assaults are down 20 percent, from 369 to 295, and shootings decreased from 15 to 13. The figures are similar when compared to the first quarter of 2013: dramatic drops in most crime categories .

April 19, 2014 - Domestic violence has been dropping for 20 years. Here’s how to keep that going.

April 21, 2014 – Columbus, Ohio - 24 percent fewer crimes were reported in 2014’s first quarter when compared to 2013’s fourth quarter. “This is the third-best quarter in 25 quarters.”

April 24, 2014 - Falling overall crime levels are no one-year wonder. Crime rate in England and Wales fell 15% in 2013, the largest annual drop on record, but will the public accept it? For once the much-derided official figures tell a clear and unambiguous story, overall crime levels in England and Wales are not only down but fell in 2013 by the largest annual drop on record – 15%.

April 25, 2104 – Charlotte, N.C. saw crime drop in almost all of the major categories for the first quarter of this year including violent crime and robberies compared to the same period last year.

Apr 27, 2014 - The rate of domestic violence in the U.S. plummeted by 63 percent – yes, 63 percent – from 1994 to 2012.

April 27, 2014 – While the anti-family, social revolutionists continue to preach the death of the traditional family, those committed to marriage and children apparently aren’t buying it. The New York Times recently reported that the approximate 40 years of tinkering with the social system we call “family” appears to be running out of steam. The divorce rate, frequently and erroneously quoted at 50 percent, has been steadily falling for almost 20 years and is now “just above 40 percent among first-time marriages.”

April 28, 2014 – Camden, NJ - Crime in every major category except for arson — which held steady — was down from Jan. 1 to March 31 compared with the same period last year. The number of shootings dropped from 88 to 46.

April 29, 2014 – Violent crimes and property crimes were down in Winnipeg, Canada in the first four months of 2014 from the same time a year ago. Additionally, the city witnessed drops of 26.2% in violent crimes and 29.6% in property crimes over a five-year average.

May 15, 2014 – American appetite for organic products breaks through $35 billion mark. New survey shows organic sales jump nearly 12% in 2013 to a new record. “The U.S. organic market is experiencing strong expansion, with organic food and farming continuing to gain in popularity. Consumers are making the correlation between what we eat and our health , and that knowledge is spurring heightened consumer interest in organic products,” said Laura Batcha, executive director and CEO of OTA.

May 7, 2014 – Dallas, Texas ends over 50 years of water fluoridation. Anti water fluoridation advocates have been successful in the removal of fluoride from the water supply in Dallas, Texas. The ban comes after five decades of water fluoridation, but more and more people around the world have been gathering to put a stop to the practice over the last few years. “We don’t need it and we’d just save a million dollars that we can use for something else.” “Yeah, this is major big. I knew we would prevail. It only makes sense. We’re spending too much money on an ineffective program.” The decision was made after activists continually showed up to city council meetings , providing evidence and warning them regarding the risks involved with water fluoridation. As a result, the city could save over $1 million a year that is spent on the industrial chemical, that’s right, an industrial chemical.

May 13, 2014 – Organic Food Sales on the Rise. New data shows the organic food industry grew to $35.1 billion last year. American consumers are increasingly going organic. Sales of the additive-free offerings surged 11.5% in 2013 , to $35.1 billion. That represents the sector’s strongest sales in five years , and the OTA is predicting 12% growth in 2014.

May 13, 2014 – Increase in Organic Product Consumption in China due to Food Safety Fears.

May 14, 2014 - Local Protesters Are Killing Big Oil and Mining Projects Worldwide . Companies are increasingly having to deal with the social and environmental impacts of their work, and that it’s hurting them where it hurts most: their bottom lines. Out of 50 planned major extractive projects (oil drilling, new mine construction, that sort of thing), in fully half of them, local people launched some sort of “project blockade.” In 40 percent of the projects, someone died as a result of a physical protest, and 15 of the projects were suspended or abandoned altogether , according to Franks’ study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “There is a popular misconception that local communities are powerless in the face of large corporations and governments. Our findings show that community mobilization can be very effective at raising the costs to companies.”

May 19, 2014 – Violent crime plummets in Oakland. Shootings have plummeted 35 percent so far this year from last year. Homicides are down 18 percent (to 28 as of May 11).Robberies have also dropped significantly. In 2012, Oakland had more robberies than any other major American city, and 2013 was even worse. Armed robberies are nearly half of what they were a year ago.

May 22, 2014 –Overall Washington, D.C. Metro crime dropped by the double digits in the first quarter of 2014.

May 29, 2014 –Voters in two rural Northern California counties will weigh in next week on whether they want to secede to form their own inland state.

June 3, 2014 – Domestic violence rates have dropped in Tennessee. The report said this is the greatest year-to-year decrease. Last year, offenses dropped by close to six percent… while in 2012 calls decreased by about three percent.

June 5, 2014 – Tehama County in Northern California votes to secede from the state

June 9, 2014 - Poll finds support for casino gambling dropping in Massachusetts. " It seems like you’ve had a major shift in opinion as the reality of casinos and the regressive nature of what happens with the placement of casinos in Massachusetts in addition to some of the social issues (sets in ). I think the tide has turned , people realize more and more that they wouldn’t want one in their community…”

June 10, 2014 - The number of murders in New Orleans dropped by nearly 30 percent in the first three months of the year. The first-quarter drop in murders comes on the heels of an encouraging 2013, in which 155 people were murdered in the city, a 20 percent decline from 193 in 2012.

June 12, 2014 – Oregon Citizens Overwhelming Vote to Enforce Ban on Cultivation of GMO Crops. I think the citizens of Jackson County in Oregon have taken the right approach towards GMOs: forget about trying to force companies to label them, just ban them outright! Farmers and citizens of two Oregon counties have taken political action and passed laws banning the cultivation of GMO crops in their counties. Despite the flood of corporate money poured into two small Oregon counties , local residents voted to ban genetically engineered crops from being planted within their borders. The measure to ban genetically modified crops (GMOs) made headlines around the nation when it was revealed that large biotech companies like Monsanto were pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into the area in order to affect the vote’s outcome.

June 14, 2014 – It’s Not Just Europe; As Many As 16 California Counties May Seek Secession From The State

June 18, 2014 – The Maine Department of Public Safety said crime dropped 9.1 percent last year, the biggest drop in 20 years.

June 24, 2014 – Paper claiming GM link with tumours re-published. A controversial paper linking genetically modified maize to the development of tumours in rats, which was published in 2012 and retracted in 2013 , has now been published again, by a different journal. Four other journals offered to publish the paper, lead author Gilles-Eric Séralini told a press conference in Paris today. But, he said, he and his team chose SpringerOpen’s journal Environmental Sciences Europe because it is open-access and would make the study’s findings available to the whole scientific community. The paper that went online today after peer review, was slightly amended from the original. Four of the authors, including Séralini himself, also wrote an accompanying comment piece in which they allege that they had been the victims of censorship and that that their critics had “serious yet undisclosed conflicts of interests”.

The authors also published the raw data behind the study ; Séralini said he wanted to be a paragon of total transparency , in the hope that the genetically modified (GM) food industry will follow his example. He insisted that his work complied with standard international practice for toxicity studies, and lamented the fact that Monsanto and other GM companies publish no toxicity data on their products. “Not a single study has been conducted on the long-term effects of Roundup on rats’ blood,” he says, referring to the popular brand of the pesticide glyphosate made by Monsanto. “This is completely abnormal, and a scientific anomaly.”

The journal that had published the paper in its original form3, Food and Chemical Toxicology (FCT), published by Elsevier, retracted it in a storm of criticism in November 2013 after Séralini’s team refused to withdraw it . The journal found “no evidence of fraud or intentional misrepresentation of the data”. The study, conducted at the University of Caen in France, found that rats fed for two years with Monsanto’s glyphosate-resistant NK603 maize (corn) developed many more tumours and died earlier than did control animals. It also found that the rats developed tumours when glyphosate, the herbicide used with GM maize, was added to their drinking water.

June 25, 2014 – New tests find bee-killing pesticides in 51% of “bee-friendly” plants from garden centers across U.S. and Canada . Many “bee-friendly” home garden plants sold at Home Depot (NYSE: HD), Lowe’s (NYSE: LOW) and Walmart (NYSE: WMT) have been pre-treated with pesticides shown to harm and kill bees, according to a study released today by Friends of the Earth and allies.

The study, Gardeners Beware 2014, shows that 36 out of 71 (51 percent) of garden plant samples purchased at top garden retailers in 18 cities in the United States and Canada contain neonicotinoid (neonic) pesticides – a key contributor to recent bee declines. Some of the flowers contained neonic levels high enough to kill bees outright assuming comparable concentrations are present in the flowers’ pollen and nectar. Further, 40 percent of the positive samples contained two or more neonics.

A new meta-analysis of 800 peer-reviewed studies released this week by the Task Force on Systemic Pesticides – a group of global, independent scientists – confirms neonics are a key factor in bee declines and are harming beneficial organisms essential to functional ecosystems and food production, including soil microbes, butterflies, earthworms, reptiles, and birds. The Task Force called for immediate regulatory action to restrict neonicotinoids.

More than half a million Americans have signed petitions demanding that Lowe’s and Home Depot stop selling neonics. In the face of mounting evidence and growing consumer demand, nearly a dozen nurseries, landscaping companies and retailers, are taking steps to eliminate bee harming pesticides from their garden plants and their stores. BJ’s Wholesale Club, with more than 200 locations in 15 states, announced today it will require vendors to remove neonics from plants by the end of 2014 and/or require warning labels for plants treated with neonics.

A majority of the UK’s largest garden retailers, including Homebase, B&Q and Wickes, have already voluntarily stopped selling neonics.

Jun 28, 2014 - Coca-Cola Life, a new “healthy” soda created by Coca-Cola, has been introduced to the market in response to plummeting soda sales.

July 1, 2014 - Macau Casino Revenue Drops 3.7%, First Decline in 5 Years

July 7, 2014 – CLEVELAND, Ohio – The summer doldrums have arrived at casinos and racinos in Ohio, and whether low revenues can be blamed on warm weather and lure of outdoor activities may not be known until fall.

July 9, 2014 - Dayton, Ohio has had 222 gun crimes so far this year compared to 266 at this time last year, a more than 16 percent reduction. Gun injuries have also dropped from 71 to 52, a 27 percent reduction.

July 9, 2014 – Neonicotinoids linked to recent fall in farmland bird numbers. Research demonstrates for the first time the knock-on effects to other species of class of insecticides known to harm bees. New research has identified the world’s most widely used insecticides as the key factor in the recent reduction in numbers of farmland birds. The finding represents a significant escalation of the known dangers of the insecticides.

A two-year EU suspension on three of the poisons began at the end of 2013 . But the suspected knock-on effects on other species had not been demonstrated until now.

Peer-reviewed research published in Nature revealed data from the Netherlands showing that bird populations fell most sharply in those areas where neonicotinoid pollution was highest . Starlings, tree sparrows and swallows were among the most affected.

July 11, 2014 – The Economics of Scottish Secession

July 15, 2014 – Six Californias Initiative Lives!

July 15, 2014 – Good Samaritans stop, pummel carjacker in San Diego parking lot. The suspect, who cops identified as Ismael Hernandez, 21, tried to boost the minivan from a woman driving her young daughter in the parking lot when he slammed into a pole on Sunday. A group of bystanders pulled the suspect out of the vehicle and pummeled him until police arrived moments later. Once several bystanders saw the woman and the little girl were in danger, they quickly started to attack the bandit. “I see this guy in the backseat choking out the driver and there were a couple of other people in the window grabbing the keys from him. I was trying to figure out what was happening and once I realized, I didn’t feel sorry for the guy at all.”

July 17, 2014 - Detroit has experienced 37 percent fewer robberies in 2014 than during the same period last year, 22 percent fewer break-ins of businesses and homes, and 30 percent fewer carjackings.

July 19, 2014 – New poll suggests many young Mississippians support Southern secession.

July 21, 2014 - Online gambling was supposed to provide a financial boost to New Jersey’s ailing casinos , but revenue has fallen for the third month in a row and Fitch Ratings, a Wall Street credit rating firm, has cut its projection for Internet gambling this year by almost half.

July 21, 2014 - Most people believe only half of U.S. marriages make it. But a leading researcher is announcing the true divorce rate is much lower and always has been. This Atlanta-based couple often quoted in their writings and at conferences what they thought was accurate research: that most marriages are unhappy and 50 percent of them end in divorce, even in the Church. “I didn’t know. I’ve stood up on stage and said every one of these wrong statistics.”

Then eight years ago, she asked assistant Tally Whitehead for specific research on divorce for an article she was writing. After much digging, neither of them could find any real numbers.

[Jeff]

That kicked off a personal, years-long crusade to dig through the tremendously complicated, sometimes contradictory research to find the truth. The surprising revelations are revealed in her new book, The Good News About Marriage. “First-time marriages: probably 20 to 25 percent have ended in divorce on average. Now, okay, that’s still too high, but it’s a whole lot better than what people think it is.”

Shaunti and Jeff point out the 50 percent figure came from projections of what researchers thought the divorce rate would become as they watched the divorce numbers rising in the 1970s and early 1980s when states around the nation were passing no-fault divorce laws. “But the divorce rate has been dropping. We’ve never hit those numbers. We’ve never gotten close.”

And it’s even lower among churchgoers, where a couple’s chance of divorcing is more likely in the single digits or teens.

Jeff Feldhahn said anytime he tells people about his wife’s findings about how incorrect the 50 percent divorce rate actually is, they’re stunned. “Their mouth drops open and they’re just shocked,” he said. “They go, ‘I can’t believe I believed this all these years. And I’ve heard it so many times. And I’ve heard it from the pulpit so many times.’” Shaunti added, " This is a great chance to stand up and say. ‘We were all fooled. Not anymore.’"

July 23, 2014 – Wildlife Refuges To Phase Out Pesticide. Federal wildlife refuges in the Northwest and Hawaii will phase out a class of pesticides that are chemically similar to nicotine because they pose a threat to bees and other pollinators key to crop growth. The region covering Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Hawaii is the first in the agency to ban neonicotinoids. There is room for exemptions , but the goal is to phase out the pesticides by January 2016, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman Miel Corbett said Monday.

The Center for Food Safety and Center for Biological Diversity had petitioned Fish and Wildlife to ban neonicotinoids on wildlife refuges nationwide, but agency spokeswoman Miel Corbett said the decision was made independently.

June 23, 2014 – Organic Farmers Challenged By Demand Exceeding Supply

July 23, 2014 – Canada’s crime rate falls, as homicides hit lowest level since 1960s. The police-reported Crime Severity Index (CSI) fell by 9 per cent in 2013, the tenth consecutive annual decline. The index, which measures the volume and severity of crime based on average prison sentences handed down for convictions, was 36 per cent lower in 2013 than a decade earlier.

StatsCan says the traditional crime rate also declined last year compared with 2012, by 8 per cent. The national crime rate has been on a downward slide since the early 1990s, reaching its lowest level last year since 1969. The homicide rate was also at its lowest level since 1966 , at 1.44 victims per 100,000 population.

July 24, 2014 - In San Francisco, CA, violent crime, including rape, murder and aggravated assault dropped from the first half of 2013 to the first half of 2014 by 27 percent.

July 25, 2014 – Tiny city of Caribou, Maine, faces secessionist movement.

July 27, 2014 – Record growth of organic food consumption in the U.S. and India.

July 29, 2014 - South Minneapolis, MN - The stats from the first half of 2014 are startling. Robbery, aggravated assault, simple assault, vandalism and motor vehicle theft reports in Southwest’s Fifth Precinct are the lowest since at least 2000. Homicide, rape, larceny and narcotics reports are all down from 2013. The previous record-low January through June —2011 — saw about 4,200 reports of so-called “Part I” and “Part II” crimes. This year, it’s about 3,600. As recently as 2006, it was 6,300.

August 8, 2014 - McDonald’s monthly sales worst in more than 10 years. McDonald’s Corp. served up a disappointing July, largely due to food-safety concerns in Asia as well as widespread problems in the United States , the world’s largest restaurant company said on Friday.

For the second time this week, McDonald’s said that this year’s sales forecast “is now at risk” to be reduced further. July’s 2.5 percent decline in global comparable sales matched McDonald’s performance in June. Those are the worst comparable sales McDonald’s posted since March 2003 , when its global comparable sales plunged 3.7 percent.

In the United States, McDonald’s said it struggled in part because it had a big Monopoly event running in July 2013. At the same time, this year the chain was promoting premium beef and chicken options, which may have turned off some value-conscious diners . Currently, McDonald’s is promoting fare such as a $2 Jalapeno Double burger on its “Dollar Menu & More” board. McDonald’s U.S. same-store sales have now fallen in eight of the past nine months .

August 1, 2014 - South Miami reports steep drop in crime. Crime in South Miami was down 29 percent for the first six months of this year compared to the same period in 2013.

August 2, 2014 - Escambia County, Florida Sheriff’s Office reported Friday morning the crime rate from January to June of this year has decreased 11 percent compared to the first six months of 2013.

August 12, 2014 – Liberals Urge Southern Secession on Gamechanger Salon

August 12, 2014 – Atlantic City’s Revel Casino To Close In September. Atlantic City’s newest casino is shutting its doors just over two years after opening amid high hopes of turning around the crumbling seaside resort’s gambling market . Revel Casino Hotel will shut down next month after failing to find a buyer in bankruptcy court, company officials announced Tuesday. The $2.4 billion casino will close its doors on Sept. 10. It has never turned a profit. It will be the second of four Atlantic City casinos to shut down this year as the Atlantic City gambling market continues to crumble. The city started this year with 12 casinos. The Showboat will close on Aug. 31, and Trump Plaza is closing Sept. 16.

August 13, 2014 – Officials say homicides in Honduras have dropped over 15 percent in 2014 compared to the same period the previous year, but it is unclear whether this represents a real reduction in violent crime or is due to manipulation of statistics .

August 13, 2014 - SeaWorld Drops as Killer Whale Controversy Hurts Sales. SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. dropped to a record low after reporting earnings that missed analysts’ estimates and saying controversy over the treatment of captive whales in its theme-park shows hurt attendance. The shares tumbled 33 percent to $18.90 at the close in New York, the lowest since they started trading in April 2013 . Before today, SeaWorld had retreated 23 percent in a year following the release of “Blackfish,” a critical documentary about its performing killer whales.

The company acknowledged for the first time that pressure from animal-rights groups is reducing attendance , said Barton Crockett, an analyst at FBR & Co., calling second-quarter results “surprisingly weak.” The theme-park operator fought off a proposed ban on keeping orcas in captivity in California with a lobbying campaign that raised doubts about claims that the animals are harmed in its parks.

SeaWorld expects revenue to decline as much 7 percent in 2014.

August 13, 2014 – Organic food in Europe on the rise

August 13, 2014 - Americans are finally starting to realize the dangers of soda, with nearly two-thirds (63 percent) saying they actively try to avoid soda in their diet , a new Gallup poll revealed. This is a significant increase from 2002, when only 41 percent were trying to avoid soda, and a clear sign that, as TIME reported, “the soda craze is going flat.”

August 15, 2014 – With Highway Patrol, hugs and kisses replace tear gas in Ferguson. Suddenly, everything has changed. The heavy riot armor, the SWAT trucks with sniper posts, the hostile glares: tonight in Ferguson they were gone. A stunning change in tone radiated through the suburban streets where protests had turned violent each of the last four evenings following the police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown. But Thursday night, when more than a thousand protesters descended on the remains of QuickTrip – which was burned during riots on Sunday – they had a new leader.

The man at the front of the march, was Missouri Highway Patrol Capt. Ronald S. Johnson, a Ferguson native. “I’m not afraid to be in this crowd,” Johnson declared to reporters.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) announced Thursday afternoon that Johnson would take over security, and vowed that officers would take a different approach to handling the massive crowd s that have taken to Ferguson’s streets each night. Not only did Johnson march with the protesters, but he vowed to not blockade the street, to set up a media staging center, and to ensure that residents’ rights to assemble and protest were not infringed upon. Officers working crowd control, he said, have been told they must take off their gas masks.

“When I see a young lady cry because of fear of this uniform, that’s a problem.” Johnson said. “We’ve got to solve that.” Johnson hugged and kissed community members as they passed, slapping backs and sharing laughs. One man stopped, telling Capt. Johnson that his niece had been tear gassed earlier this week – “What would you say to her?” Johnson reached out his hand and replied: “Tell her Capt. Johnson is sorry and he apologizes.”

August 19, 2014 - 57 Percent of Americans Say Only Kids Who Win Should Get Trophies. When it comes to kids and their trophies, 57 percent of Americans think only the winning players should receive them. Another 40 percent say all kids on a sport team should receive a trophy for their participation.

August 20, 2014 - China pulls plug on genetically modified rice and corn. China’s Ministry of Agriculture has decided not to renew biosafety certificates that allowed research groups to grow genetically modified (GM) rice and corn. The permits, to grow two varieties of GM rice and one transgenic corn strain, expired on 17 August. The reasoning behind the move is not clear , and it has raised questions about the future of related research in China.

Since the certificates were issued, public skepticism about the benefits of GM crops has grown in China . Some scientists conducting GM plant research have been attacked when giving public lectures .

Why the ministry allowed the certificates to lapse is in dispute. Some environmentalists say public worries about GM crops played a decisive role . Others believe agricultural economics also influenced the decision . China has nearly reached self-sufficiency in producing rice using conventional varieties, so the ministry has decided there is no need to commercialize Bt rice in the near future, says Huang Jikun, director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy. He says that with commercialization off the table, there was no point in renewing the certifications. Huang says “rising public concerns [about the] safety of GM rice” likely also played a role.

The researchers behind the affected GM crops could not be reached for comment.

August 21, 2014 – ‘Jackass’ star Steve-O reveals he’s culprit behind ‘Sea World Sucks’ freeway sign prank. In the wake of last year’s documentary ‘Blackfish,’ there has been plenty of backlash against aquatic theme park over its treatment of killer whales. “Jackass” star Steve-O has a whale of a fish tale after the TV prankster revealed that he was the person who defaced a San Diego-area freeway sign to read, “Sea World sucks.”

The act of vandalism had made headlines in May, another salvo in a public relations war over Sea World’s treatment of orcas, or killer whales. “I’m putting my foot down for Shamu,” Steve-O, whose real name is Steve Glover, says in the beginning of a video posted Wednesday on his YouTube channel, name-checking the theme park’s most famous killer whale. "If doing that was wrong, I don’t want to be right; screw you Sea World!’

The debate over the keeping of orcas in captivity at Sea World parks was brought to light last year with the critically acclaimed documentary "Blackfish." The resulting boycott movement has been causing plenty of ripples, with the Orlando-based theme park company announcing last week that its stock price dropped 33%.

August 26, 2014 – Sorry, naysayers: KC’s crime rate actually dropping in 2014. Surprise : Crime is down 12 percent in Kansas City over the first six months of the year. At Kansas City’s police board meeting Tuesday, Mayor Sly James lamented that residents aren’t hearing enough about how crime rates have fallen in the city so far in 2014.

Overall, violent and property crimes were down 12 percent for the first six months. “We have good numbers,” James said. “There’s a good story.” Instead, he said, many residents are hearing too much about how the city is still “big, bad and ugly.”

That certainly fits the stereotypical view of how many critics and skeptics see the city — as a too dangerous place to live, work or play. Part of the problem is that the Kansas City Police Department doesn’t do a good enough job getting the crime numbers to the public in easily viewable form, on a regular basis.

August 28, 2014 –Non-GMO is a trend, not a fad.

September 4, 2014 – Brazil Amazon tribe takes direct action against loggers. A group of indigenous people in Brazil’s Amazon region have detained and expelled loggers working illegally in their ancestral lands. Leaders of the Ka’apor tribe accused the Brazilian authorities of failing to protect them.

They tied up the loggers and set fire to their trucks and chainsaws, before forcing them out .

The incident happened on 7 August but has only just been reported by Reuters .

The five tribes that live in the area say they had enough of waiting for government action to stop illegal exploitation in their ancestral lands. The indigenous group set up monitoring camps to prevent the return of the illegal loggers. Locals have set up an Indigenous Environmental Guard to fight for the preservation of their demarcated territory.

September 5, 2014 – Sydney, Australia. Bureau report shows crime rate drop. Sydney, Australia. The latest report from the Bureau of Crime Statistics (BOCSAR) shows a decrease in 7 of the 17 major offence categories in the two years to June 2014.

September 9, 2014 – Trump Casinos Bankruptcy Plan a New Blow to Atlantic City. Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc., the company founded by Donald Trump, will file for bankruptcy again this week, putting a fifth Atlantic City casino in danger of closing .

“What happened to Atlantic City, there’s a lot of competition from a lot of other locations ,” Trump said in a telephone interview yesterday. “It’s happening all over.”

Robert Griffin, chief executive officer of Atlantic City-based Trump Entertainment, declined to comment.

September 10, 2014 - CNN/ORC poll: Most think Congress is worst in their lifetime. 83% say they disapprove of how Congress is handling its job, while 65% describe it as the "worst Congress of their lifetime." The current approval rating for Congress is 14%, just four points higher than the all-time low of 10% in a September 2013 CNN/ORC Poll.

Sept. 10, 2014 – 2014 Crime Rate Drops In Venezuela. The internal affairs minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres, former head of intelligence services for 10 years , acknowledged that “ modest progresses [have been made ] in fighting crime,” but reaffirmed his office’s efforts “not only for the people’s security but also to improve the attention provided to people.” “We are not proud of the figures of homicides, but they have reduced.”

In the interview, the minister explained that this improvement was due to governmental programs , in addition to cooperative opposition mayors and governors of the country. Yet the improvement is still “circumstantial” - it relates only to 2014, and should be converted into a structural one, with a goal of 40 percent reduction of crime over the four next years, he said.

The minister didn´t provide details on the crime figures , arguing they could be used in the media to increase a feeling of insecurity that would not coincide with reality.

September 10, 2014 – From Kurdistan to Texas, Scots Spur Separatists. David Cameron, prime minister of Britain, said such a break would leave him “heartbroken.”

An official from Barcelona’s nationalist-led city hall told reporters it estimated turnout for the Catalan Independence demonstration at 1.8 million, but central government officials put the figure much lower.

September 11, 2014 – Showbiz, Music Industry Jobs Drop 19% in Two Years.

September 11, 2014 – Fast Food Sales: “That’s Not Ketchup…It’s Blood”. McDonald’s store sales just took another nose-dive. Global same store sales tanked more than three percent. One investment analyst entitled his analysis of McDonald’s prospective sales growth as “That’s not ketchup…it’s blood.”

Stock in the fast-food chain, which Thompson conceded is sometimes seen as little more than "a manufacturing plant," was down 0.6 percent at $91 in afternoon trading after reporting a 30 percent fall in third-quarter net income to $1.07 billion and traffic declines in every major region.

Thompson, who has been CEO for just over two years of his 25-year career at McDonald’s, said the company that now serves some 70 million customers a day worldwide has at various times during its history faced questions about whether it is still relevant to consumers, who are now craving more fresh, unprocessed food.

September 12, 2014 - Carlsbad notes mid-year crime rate drop in Sept. 9 report. Carlsbad officials are noting decreases in overall crime in the city based on the Sept. 9 release of mid-year statistics from the San Diego Association of Governments. Carlsbad’s specific trends match an overall countywide drop in crime.

September 17, 2014 – Angry mob drops Ukrainian politician into dumpster outside country’s parliament in Kiev. Vitaly Zhuravsky, who has been behind several unpopular bills , was grabbed outside the parliament building and forced into the garbage can by a massive group of furious citizens.

An angry mob bundled a top-ranking Ukrainian politician into a dumpster after he was spotted walking outside the country’s parliament. Dramatic cellphone footage sees the crowd grabbing MP Vitaly Zhuravsky and throwing him head first into the huge garbage can.

Fearing for his life, the briefcase-clutching elected official tries to climb out of the festering trash. But members of the screaming mob hold his head down — and toss a tire on top of him.

Liquid is then poured over his face, before a woman is heard shouting: "Boys, let me kick him at least one time."

Zhuravsky, once a prominent member of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of the Regions, could have been targeted after he approved an amnesty to pro-Russian rebels , according to ABC News.

He also became unpopular in January after authoring a bill severely tightening restrictions on anti-government protesters. Additionally he was behind a since-withdrawn controversial bill criminalizing libel.

September 17, 2014 – Angry passengers throw Pakistani politician off plane after getting stuck on tarmac waiting for him for two hours.

The delayed departure of one flight on Monday caused several enraged passengers to mount a virtual mutiny and eject one politician and block another from the plane before it could even take off. The incident occurred at the Karachi airport when Rehman Malik, a former interior minister best known for his colorful ties and erratic pronouncements , turned up two hours late for a flight to Islamabad.

The state airline often delays flights to accommodate tardy politicians and senior bureaucrats , which is seen as one reason for its patchy operational performance. Jeering passengers stood at the entrance to the airplane, blocking Malik’s way, witnesses said. The parliamentarian turned back and did not board the flight, and videos of the protesting passengers went viral on social media Monday evening.

Malik later denied that he was responsible for the drama , and blamed his political opponents. “I felt the drama was created by some passengers who were PTI folks,” he said in an interview on Tuesday, referring to members of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party led by the opposition politician Imran Khan.

Khan and his supporters have been camped out in central Islamabad for the past month, demanding the ouster of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

A lawmaker from the governing party who was also on the flight, Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, could also be seen being booed and heckled by passengers as he walked onto the plane. Passengers surrounded Vankwani’s window seat and, after confirming that he was a member of parliament, shouted “Shame, shame!”

In the videos, Vankwani pleads with his fellow passengers that the delay was not his fault. But the protesters ignore him and push him from the aircraft. “Beat him with shoes!” one person cries.

Shortly after, Malik could be seen approaching the plane on a jetway, but stopping after hearing the commotion. “You should be ashamed of yourself!” shouted one passenger, who appeared to be leading the charge. “Even if you are a minister, we don’t care. We don’t care anymore,” he said before adding, “How long will we put up with this nonsense in the country?”

September 20, 2014 - Another month, another wave of customer defections at your local Mickey D’s. McDonald’s (MCD) posted another disappointing showing in terms of store-level sales for the month of August. U.S. comparable sales slipped 2.8% for the month, falling by an even harder 3.7% worldwide. McDonald’s stock hit a new 52-week low on the news.

It’s been a rough go for McDonald’s domestically, but it was holding up relatively better overseas until this summer. August has offered a double whammy of international setbacks as a supplier scare has decimated its traffic in China, while Russian regulators shut down several locations on food safety concerns that may or may not have had political motivations.

McDonald’s is being cast as “the bad guy”. It’s been a year since the Service Employees International Union launched the Fight for 15 protests, trying to get fast food chains to boost their minimum wage to $15. As the country’s largest burger chain, McDonald’s has become the poster child for the campaign.

September 25, 2014 – Crimes Against Tourists Drop. Tobago – Tourist-related crime in Tobago fell by 76% in 2013.

September 30, 2014 – Told to End Protests, Organizers in Hong Kong Vow to Expand Them. Hong Kong’s leader on Tuesday called for the pro-democracy demonstrators who have blocked major roads in the city to return home immediately, but protest leaders responded with defiance, threatening to expand the demonstrations and to occupy government buildings.

Leung Chun-ying, the Beijing-selected chief executive of the semiautonomous Chinese territory, called on one of the two main groups organizing the protests, Occupy Central With Love and Peace, to end the demonstrations. He gave no sign that he was prepared to meet with protest organizers or compromise on their demands for open elections to choose his successor.

The crowds outside the local government headquarters swelled even larger on Tuesday night as people of all ages came to join the demonstration before public holidays on Wednesday, China’s National Day, and Thursday, which is a local holiday. A government observation of National Day on Wednesday morning proceeded relatively smoothly, despite chants by protesters outside calling for Mr. Leung’s resignation.

The police, whose use of tear gas on Sunday seemed only to motivate more people to join the protests , gave no indication Tuesday that they were preparing to disperse the demonstrators . Hui Chun-tak, the chief spokesman for the police, acknowledged that “the majority of protesters have expressed their views in a legal way” and praised organizers for being willing to discuss opening some lanes of the blocked roads in the city center for use by emergency vehicles.

October 1, 2014 – Tairawhiti, New Zealand - A strong focus on preventing crime and community partnerships has resulted in a 7.8 per cent drop in Tairawhiti crime, police say.

October 1, 2014 – Malaysia, Borneo, Sarawak - Drop in crime index not rhetoric, says Sarawak police commissioner. The drop in crime index is not rhetoric but statistics based on reports received, said Sarawak Police Commissioner Datuk Wira Muhammad Sabtu Osman . He said, for example, concern about snatch thefts had also been blown out of proportion in the papers when actually the number of cases was low if divided by districts.

"For the record, until Sept 29 a total of 6,371 crime reports have been received, a decrease of 6.84% or 468 cases compared with 6,838 cases for the same period last year," he said.

October 2, 2014 – Germany plans to make sending colleagues work emails after 6pm illegal. The advent of smartphones has allowed us to be plugged in and able to read work emails around the clock. But research suggests that this is adding an extra five hours to the average office worker’s day .

That is why Germany is considering bringing in new laws that will make it illegal to email colleagues after 6pm. The research, commissioned by the German minister for Labour, Andrea Nahles, also found a relationship between workers having constant access to their emails and poor mental health.

‘There is an undeniable relationship between constant availability and the increase of mental illness,’ Nahles told the Rheinische Post.

New legislation limiting worker’s access to their emails outside office hours could come into force in 2016, which would make Germany the first country in the world to pass such a la w, although France passed a similar legislation this year requiring workers to turn off their smartphones after 6pm.

October 2, 2014 – California’s 2013 violent-crime rate dropped to lowest level in 50 years. Californians today are less likely to be murdered or fall victim to violent crime than during any other time since the 1960s, according to new figures from the California Department of Justice. The murder rate last year was 4.6 killings per 100,000 California residents, an 8 percent decline from 2012 and a 64 percent decline from 1993, when cities throughout the state struggled to stop gang killings. The violent-crime rate last year was 397 per 100,000 Californians, down 7 percent from 2012 and a 64 percent decline from 1992.

October 3, 2014 – Bessemer, Alabama, USA - City’s crime rate continues drop. Burglaries down 35 percent, homicides down 50 percent, Vehicle Thefts down 30 percent, Felony Assaults down 17 percent.

October 4, 2014 – Local diner owner turns cash register over to God. When the going got tough at her Dallas restaurant, Dana Parris decided to turn the cash register over to God. Roger Self was at lunch last week when he discovered the unique pricing policy at East Main Street’s Just Cookin diner. When he went to settle his tab for a grilled chicken sandwich, he got a surprise instead of a bill. “Her response was, ‘What was it worth to you?’” Self said. Parris explained to Self that she wasn’t charging a set price, instead leaving that decision in the hands of her customers and God. “You stepped out on faith. I’m going to step out on faith, too,” Self told Parris — before handing her about double what he would have expected to pay. In fact, Parris said she has almost tripled her revenue in the first week of letting customers name their price. She had thought about doing the special pricing for a week but said Friday her customers’ reactions have convinced her to continue the new pricing policy indefinitely.

October 6, 2014 - Three out of four British babies are being fed organic food because of parents’ concerns about pesticides and contamination.

October 7, 2014 – Hartford, CT, USA - CT crime drops to 40-year low, Malloy touts state money for local police. Violent crime dropped by 10.8 percent (during 2013) and property crime has declined by 7.6 percent. “We have not seen crime numbers this low in more than 40 years and we have a population that is 20 percent larger today than it was 40 years ago.”

October 8, 2014 - RALEIGH: NC sees drop in crime for 6th year

October 16, 2014 - Crime in England and Wales is at its lowest level since 1981 after a record 16% fall in the past 12 months. The authoritative crime survey shows a decline in most offences, including a 23% fall in violent crime, a 20% drop in criminal damage and a 12% decline in theft.

The 15% fall in the overall rate meant that crime had fallen by 25% since 2007-08 and by 60% since its peak level in 1995.

[Jeff]

The second official measure of crime, the contested police-recorded crime figures, which have lost their national statistics status , showed a much smaller annual fall of 2% to 3.7m offences. Statisticians said this was possibly the result of a renewed focus on the quality of crime recording by the police following the political controversy over their integrity.

The large rise in rapes and other sexual offences was partly due to increases in offences involving children, according to statisticians. The police figures record 13,090 sexual offences involving a child under the age of 13 in 2013, the highest reported total for a decade, and an increase of 32% on the previous 12 months. They include a 54% increase in rapes and sexual assaults on boys under 13 which rose from 1,775 to 2,727 last year. The number of sexual attacks on girls under 13 rose by 25% to 7,611 last year.

Statisticians said that the rises reflected similar recent figures from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which attributed some of this increase to the impact of the Jimmy Savile case. They said that media coverage of Savile and the police investigation into historical sex crimes, Operation Yewtree, had prompted victims to come forward.

October 16, 2014 - The surprising comeback of train travel. It may seem like a lengthy commute, but Moore says he prefers this mode of travel. “Compared to a bus or a car, it’s much more spacious and comfortable.” As soon as Moore boards, he can start work, or socialize with the friends he’s made on the train over the years, or even stretch out his legs and spend a few hours reading a novel.

Moore is not the only one dedicated to passenger rail. There has been a 51% increase in ridership from 2001 to 2013 on Amtrak rail lines alone. More business travelers, students and people from the Northeast, Midwest and Western United States are turning to trains for their work and vacation travels.

Matt Hardison, a spokesman for Amtrak, the national rail operator, says the longstanding rumors from the 1980s that passenger rail is dying have changed. In the past 10 to 15 years, rail travel has seen a significant rise in ridership. “Rail has seen a real renaissance in the last decade ,” he says. “It’s been a great time to be here. People are turning to rail for inter-city travel.”

Rediscovering freedom in travel. The portrayal of trains as an old-fashioned mode of transportation isn’t a realistic reflection of the hundreds of thousands of people who use them daily.

“There is something incredibly liberating and thought-inducing about being on a train."

"The true luxury is freedom. There are no seat belts and for most of the journey you are free to walk around, or have a glass of this or that, or read, or go to the dining car for something to eat, or simply stare out the window and allow thoughts to wander."

That freedom is a rare commodity in today’s travel culture, Mathews says. "We let airlines treat us really badly. Whether you have to sleep curled up in a ball because you got bumped from your flight or they lost your luggage along the way, we roll with it. But we don’t let trains do that to us," he says.

“I think if people stop flying over our country and start seeing our country and how large it is and how beautiful it is, they’ll get it. It’s hard to have a train ride across the country and leave that and not be a patriot.”

October 18, 2014 – UCSF Study Links Soda To Premature Aging, Disease, Early Death

A new study looked at whether America’s thirst for soda speeds up how the body’s cells age. “We think we can get away with drinking lots of soda as long as we are not gaining weight, but this suggests that there is an invisible pathway that leads to accelerated aging, regardless of weight.”

Epel’s team discovered that in people who drank more sugar-sweetened beverages, the ends of their chromosomes, known as telomeres, were shorter. The shorter the telomere, the less a cell can regenerate thus aging the body, and raising the risk of disease and early death.

“This finding is alarming because it suggest that soda may be aging us, in ways we are not even aware of.” Still, helped by ad campaigns from various groups, soda companies are on a 4-year winning streak . Thirty bills to levy or raise taxes on sugary drinks have all failed.

The American Beverage Association declined an interview about the study , but insist the researchers did not find a “conclusive” link between soda and cell aging.

October 22, 2014 - The omnipresent McDonald’s corporation just posted its fourth straight quarter of falling U.S. same-store sales , and now the fast food chain, which has been staring down the grim effects of a public backlash against unhealthy food, may be considering a highly unlikely route to win back customers. “ You’ll see us in some categories looking to different products, possibly organics,” Chief Executive Officer Don Thompson said on a conference call according to Bloomberg.

October 31, 2014 – Hungary internet tax cancelled after mass protests. Hungary has decided to shelve a proposed tax on internet data traffic after mass protests against the plan. “This tax in its current form cannot be introduced,” Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday. Large-scale protests began on Sunday, when demonstrators hurled old computer parts at the headquarters of Mr Orban’s ruling Fidesz party. The draft law - condemned by the EU - would levy a fee on each gigabyte of internet data transferred.

The protesters objected to the financial burden but also feared the move would restrict free expression and access to information.

Victor Orban does not often back down, but he has done so on this occasion for several reasons.

He saw how unpopular the tax was. He managed with one stroke to do something which opposition leaders had tried and failed to do for five years: unify his opponents.

The government’s communication methods failed again - as they have with almost every major decision since Fidesz came to power.

"We are not Communists. We don’t go against the will of the people," he said - a sign that growing comparisons between Fidesz and the old Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party are hitting the mark.

Fidesz had said the special tax was needed to balance Hungary’s budget in 2015.

[Jeff]

For a good number of years, Americans flocked to Wal Mart, oblivious to the fact that their decision to buy underwear for fifty cents less than where they’d previously shopped was in fact destroying their towns’ businesses en masse .

I’m happy to say that Positive Changes That Are Occurring include six straight quarters of flat or declining same-store sales growth for the bloated, cannibal retail giant, whose logo you may note features the hexagonal Seal of Solomon prominent in the Black Magic grimoires of the middle ages.

They take pains to blame ‘a strong dollar ’ for their woes. What? Come again? Oh, that and ‘a reduction in food stamp benefit s.’ Whatever. While the article takes pains to focus on the grocery angle, it’s declining sales growth, period. People are unsubscribing.

Ever-dedicated to the Secret Handshake club, the article notes “ the memo calls for comprehensive markdowns across 32 departments .” 32 being a very important number to the Illuminists, but I digress.

Apparently the chain’s “fresh foods” are not selling well. The warning to rotate stock and get rid of expired items shows that the reason they’re not selling well is because they are not, in fact, fresh, big shocker, there.

You can also see how a manager unhappy about understaffing leaked the memo . See how the machine is going to fall apart from the inside?

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/wal-mart-urgent-memo-urges-improvement-u-stores-134351731–business.html

Wal-Mart ‘urgent’ memo urges improvement at U.S. stores : NYT

November 12, 2014

(Reuters) - Wal-Mart stores Inc issued an “urgent agenda” memo to its store managers across the United States last month, laying out guidelines to boost sales of “chilled and fresh” food, the New York Times reported.

The memo, marked “highly sensitive”, asks Wal-Mart marketing managers to make sure they discount aging meat and baked goods to maximize chances of selling them before their expiration dates, according to the report. Wal-Mart, which has posted six straight quarters of flat or declining same-store sales growth , has been battling a stronger dollar and a reduction in U.S. food stamp benefits, which has eaten into the budget of the retailer’s core customer base.

The Times said the memo calls for comprehensive markdowns across 32 departments , asks stores to find creative ways to sell clearance items and to keep “complete records of daily throws” of meat and poultry. Walmart spokeswoman Deisha Barnett confirmed the memo’s existence.

“Our CEO has been vocal about our need to improve in this (fresh foods) category. We know it’s very important to our customer and … to us as the largest grocer in the U.S.,” she told Reuters.

The memo, which the Times said was leaked for public use by a Wal-Mart manager unhappy about understaffing , urges managers to reduce inventory and warns them not to exceed budgets.

For meat departments, the report cited the memo as saying markdowns should start at 7 a.m. and be executed multiple times daily. The memo also advises stores to be sure to “rotate” dairy products and eggs, which means removing expired items and adding new stock at the bottom and back of display cases, the Times said.

[Jeff]

The next compilation article I’m going to be doing from the Positive Changes That Are Occurring thread is “The Environment”

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/wyoming-colorado-exceptional-cold-nuri/37351786
Coldest November Weather in Decades Infiltrates Wyoming to Texas From the North Pole

November 14, 2014

Temperatures plunged by as much as 60 degrees Fahrenheit across the Rockies and Plains early this week, and the unrelenting cold has remained entrenched across these areas all week.

It has been as much as 30-50 degrees below normal this week from Wyoming and Colorado all the way southward to Texas.

“This is exceptional cold,” AccuWeather.com Senior Meteorologist Henry Margusity said. "It’s the coldest air we’ve seen in decades during November."

[Jeff]

You can see below how the positive changes that are occurring at this time are literally unprecedented, at least in our lifetimes. I think the careful architecture and expansion of the Death energy matrix over generation upon generation led to a point at which the system got traction, and began to, with ever increasing speed, have a visible negative impact on the environment, animal life, plant life, all life. As one would imagine, given that said system was built to concentrate and distribute Death energy.

And, also over generations, most of humanity was able to explain away the negative impact the system was having. All the while, the folks who built and maintain and expand the network telling all who would listen how everything but their network was causing the decline.

It’s only when simple orgonite devices began to be distributed at, near or proximal to nodes on that Death energy network that the process began to be reversed. Orgonite changes what Wilhelm Reich called DOR, Dead Orgone Radiation, into POR, or Positive Orgone Radiation. POR has other names, Chi, Prana, there are many.

Reich’s books were burned and he was jailed and killed in jail because the folks who built the Death energy network don’t want you to ruin it for them with three dollar hunks of metal, resin and crystal.

I think we’re seeing, more and more, simply what the world used to be like, look like.

Welcome to the future, and so sorry, Death energy network architects and builders, it’s game over for you.

Please consider distributing orgonite where you feel appropriate, or sponsoring a gifter’s efforts.

http://www.mekongfishnetwork.o…est-coast/

Eat Up! These bottom fish make a dramatic recovery on West Coast

September 2, 2014

The United States’ most influential sustainable-seafood group believes a host of once-troubled West Coast bottom fish are now recovering so well that consumers should seek them out at restaurants and markets.

Marine scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium said Tuesday that government regulators and fishermen had made such strides in how they manage and catch 21 species of rockfish, flounder, lingcod and sole that it listed all among the “good” or “best” seafood choices in the new edition of its popular guide.

“This is the first time we’ve really seen this happen at this scale on the West Coast,” said Santi Roberts, science manager at the aquarium.

[Jeff]

The sweeping positive changes we’re seeing across the globe are environmental, and they’re also social, as noted in the many posts in this thread that feature dropping crime rates, dropping alcoholism, dropping gambling rates, and the like. Below, you’ll see how sea turtle poaching rates are plummeting in Nicaragua. That’s rising social awareness. And the larger conservation efforts in place that are assisting the turtles are another example of same.

A hundred years ago, guys sat up on Hawk Mountain, near where I grew up, and shotgunned every hawk and eagle that was swept past the lookout, for fun . And took pictures of themselves smiling next to the piles of bodies. Those were heady days for the barely-closeted Death worshippers who for the moment still rule us. Unfortunately for them, we’ve evolved, and won’t return to those times.

The article below notes, correctly, that the rebound of hawksbills in Nicaragua is part of a broader positive trend seen in several parts of the Caribbean. They don’t, however, go on to analyze and discuss how the comeback of the Hawksbill juxtaposes against simultaneous historically high salmon populations in both the Pacific and the Atlantic. Or against rebounding Bluefin tuna in Australia. Or rebounding Bluepoint Oysters on Long Island. Or the amazing explosion of life seen in what they call a “recruitment event” seen on the reefs of Hawaii just a couple of months ago.

But one step at a time.

The rising tide is lifting all the boats, you see.

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matte…-nicaragua

Critically endangered sea turtles rebound in Nicaragua

December 19, 2014

Hawksbill sea turtles are still rare, but after 15 years of conservation efforts in the Central American nation, their nest counts are up 200 percent and poaching has plummeted by more than 80 percent , Russell McLendon reports in this article for Mother Nature Network.

Hawksbill sea turtles can be found in tropical waters worldwide, but not very easily. Their global population has fallen more than 80 percent in the past century, due to poaching for their eggs and their beautifully patterned shells as well as beachfront development and entanglement in fishing gear.

Staging a comeback is often difficult for endangered wildlife, especially slow-paced species like hawksbills, which only mate every two to three years and take decades to reach sexual maturity. But thanks to a long game of turtle conservation being played in Nicaragua, these ancient reptiles are finally bouncing back in that Central American nation — part of a broader comeback among Caribbean hawksbills that hints at how local human communities often hold the key to preventing extinctions.

In Pearl Cays, a group of 18 islands off Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast, hawksbills are reaping the benefits of a 15-year conservation project led by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). The species’ nest count in Pearl Cays has risen 200 percent since the project began, from 154 in 2000 to 468 in 2014. Poaching is also down at least 80 percent, with 2014 marking the lowest poaching rate in the project’s history. And now that fewer poachers steal the turtles’ eggs, nest success has averaged 75 percent this year. More than 35,000 hawksbill hatchlings reached the sea by December, according to WCS.

Hawksbills are typically found near healthy coral reefs, where the opportunistic omnivores feed on sponges as well as fish, jellyfish, mollusks, crustaceans, sea urchins and marine algae. Their preference for sponges can make their meat harmful to humans, since sponges often contain toxic compounds that accumulate in the turtles’ tissues. That hasn’t prevented large-scale poaching of hawksbills, however, with poachers often more interested in their eggs and shells than their meat.

The species now enjoys widespread legal protection around the world, yet enforcement remains a challenge in some of the 70 countries where it has historically nested. Before the WCS began its Hawksbill Conservation Project in 2000, for example, a study found that nearly 100 percent of hawksbill nests in Pearl Cays were poached and most eggs were taken for human consumption.

On top of working with local residents to convey the unsustainable scale of this poaching, WCS helped establish the Pearl Cays Wildlife Refuge in 2010, which protects nesting, feeding, breeding and migratory areas for sea turtles as well as key habitats for other wildlife. Hawksbills still face plenty of man-made dangers — including plastic debris that resembles food or lost fishing nets that become death traps — but less poaching and habitat loss can nonetheless make a significant difference.

The rebound of hawksbills in Nicaragua is part of a broader positive trend seen in several parts of the Caribbean , namely Antigua, Barbados, Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. This correlates with protective measures at critical nesting sites, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, as well as decreased hunting at nearby foraging grounds.

While an international ban on the trade of sea turtle parts has also helped curb global demand for their shells, WCS says its recent success in Nicaragua was only possible once local communities understood what was happening to turtle populations and joined the effort to protect them.

“These recent nest counts show that by working with local communities, we can save sea turtles from extinction,” says Caleb McClennen, WCS director of marine conservation, in a statement. “Communities partnering with WCS are directly involved with safeguarding their own natural resources. Without their help and commitment, this project would fail, and Nicaragua’s hawksbill turtles would be doomed.”

[Jeff]

Check out, below, Ospreys in New Jersey experiencing “another record summer of reproduction” this year.

The article notes, correctly, conservation efforts, and the banning of the pesticide DDT, as factors in the comeback of the Osprey. And it correctly credits a gentleman who was very dedicated to protecting Osprey, and students building nesting platforms. All very, very good stuff, and data points showing positive societal change.

But please note, however, how the article takes special care to not mention the record summer of reproduction seen this year in everything from Hawaiian reef fish to Pink Footed geese to Grey Whales, and a host of others, all chronicled in this thread. They can’t even manage “mirrors the rebound of Osprey in New York state”, I think it was near Cornell’s campus. The article’s back in this thread.

And you have to go all the way to the bottom of the article to find this sentence:

“A healthy population of ospreys suggests South Jersey supports a healthy environment for fish and other aquatic species.” Yes. Yes, it does.

By the way, in journalistic parlance, putting something at the end like that is called ‘ burying ’ it.

I’m cheered, however, by the fact that the author could not dare to say “ Osprey growth simply part of the boom-bust cycles that accompany climate change. ” Which I think is a step forward. That having been the general line of defense for these serial liars for some time, now.

Try telling someone addicted to NPR that an animal or fish is doing great, is at record high numbers, and you’ll get that ‘boom bust’ reply as if you were talking to a parrot. That’s because those individuals have, sadly, been programmed , that’s why it’s called programming .

And I’m writing this thread to break that programming.

Osprey were put on the endangered species list in 1974. And were upgraded to threatened in 1985. And are about to come off the threatened list in 2015.

Can you see it, can you feel it?

http://njenvironmentnews.com/2…ew-jersey/

Ospreys make comeback in New Jersey

January 7, 2015

Ospreys soon could come off the state-threatened list after another record summer of reproduction in New Jersey.

The state Division of Fish and Wildlife will review the status of these diving fish hawks 41 years after they were given state protections.

Scientists counted 567 active breeding pairs in 2014 compared with just 53 pairs in 1973, when the pesticide DDT was decimating ospreys and bald eagles alike. Each nest averaged about two chicks this year, but some had as many as four survive.

Volunteers banded a record 526 babies in the nests they could reach.

“They’ve rebounded very well along the Atlantic coast,” said Kathleen Clark, who has spent much of her career working with ospreys in the state’s nongame and endangered species program.

Clark said the agency plans to review the status of ospreys in 2015.

Ospreys are South Jersey’s unofficial mascot, appearing on the names of housing developments such as Osprey Point in Upper Township and eco-tourism charter boats. When students go to basketball games at Richard Stockton College, they cheer the home-team Ospreys.

“It’s one of our signature species in New Jersey,” she said.

They were placed on the state’s endangered species list in 1974 and upgraded to threatened in 1985.

Clark said the late Paul “Pete” McLain, of Toms River, was largely responsible for helping ospreys recover in New Jersey. McLain started the state’s endangered species program and devoted his life to wildlife conservation. He died in June.

“He loved ospreys,” Clark said. “He started the endangered-species program and the osprey was one of the first species he worked on.”

North American ospreys breed from Alaska to Florida and spend the winter across Central and South America, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

A federal ban on DDT improved the survival of osprey chicks in the 1970s. But New Jersey was one of the first states to erect manmade osprey platforms in the marshes. These gave the birds more nesting opportunities in America’s most densely populated state.

Every year, biologists across the country call on New Jersey for advice about building and installing these platforms, she said. “We’ve been in the osprey business for a long time,” Clark said.

More New Jersey ospreys are nesting in trees and other natural structures, especially in places such as Cumberland County’s Maurice River. But Clark said the marsh platforms are crucial for another surprising reason.

“The difficulty with tree-nesting ospreys in New Jersey is great horned owls. South Jersey has one of the highest densities of great horned owls in the country,” she said.

Clark said osprey chicks in nests closer to the woods are more likely to be eaten by the owls that live there.

Retired teacher Hans Toft, of Dennis Township, banded wild ospreys with his science class at the Cape May County Technical High School. Each spring for more than two decades, as many as 45 of his students built and installed osprey platforms in the marshes of South Jersey.

Many of the platforms were damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, he said.

“The nest platforms are definitely one of the factors that helped ospreys recover. Water quality is another,” he said. “It wouldn’t matter how many nesting platforms we put up if you didn’t have the plankton feeding the fish feeding the bigger fish.”

Toft said his students often became stewards for the marshes and the ospreys, following the progress of the ospreys that took up residence on their new platforms.

“They took possession of the ospreys in a way,” he said.

A healthy population of ospreys suggests South Jersey supports a healthy environment for fish and other aquatic species. Toft said he is proud to have helped ospreys make a comeback in New Jersey.

“You can get paid. You can make a salary. But there are far richer things you can work for. That’s why I went into teaching,” he said.

[Jeff]

People are starting to grasp that the weed killer they are spraying in cracks on their sidewalks because they’re too lazy to reach down and pull the weeds is in fact a deadly toxin custom-designed to kick a leg out from under the world’s food chain.

In the article that follows, we see that “2014 couldn’t have been much better in terms of raised awareness. Pollinator peril has gone mainstream.” That’s the Rising Awareness tide floating all the boats - including the Pollinator boat.

We also see that “well-timed rains in the Midwestern breeding grounds and milder temps in Texas made for a late summer surge, and an exceptional year for Monarchs”.

Re: well-timed rains, the photo I’ve attached is from the article, and is of the Llano River, in Texas, and was taken in late April. It’s verdant, it looks like Nicaragua.

Those well-timed rains another example of the breaking of the great artificial drought, created and driven by the system of towers and repeaters that many still mistakenly presume only carries phone and weather radar traffic. Versus Death energy (or Dead Orgone Radiation), the distribution of which is the system’s primary purpose.

Fortunately for us all, the widespread distribution of simple, inexpensive orgonite devices in the vicinity of the aforementioned network’s towers and nodes has largely curtailed that horrific system’s ability to create drought and augment and steer storms.

And, funny, I thought it was the hottest year on record, blah, blah? How does that jive with ‘milder temps in Texas’? To maintain Cognitive Dissonance, tell self: “those are just wild temperature swings stemming from CLIMATE CHANGE.”

With rising “Pollinator awareness”, can we be far from the wholesale societal rejection of Roundup, just as we are seeing with the rejection of high fructose corn syrup, and of Aspartame, and of junk food?

Once someone figures out they’ve been conned, they’re extra cautious, and can’t and won’t be conned in that same way ever again.

http://texasbutterflyranch.com…awareness/

2014: From Worst Year for Monarch Butterflies to Rebound, Increased Pollinator Awareness

December 19, 2014

The end-of-the-year provokes a look back to assess progress–if any–on the pollinator front. 2014 held a mixed bag of good and bad news with occasional surprising twists.

We started out thinking 2014 might be the worst year in history for Monarchs given that the 2013 migration ranked lowest in population numbers ever. Remember the headlines? “90% drop in Monarch butterflies,” read Newsweek, the Washington Post, the New York Times and other media outlets. But the season surprised us.

A reprieve from the drought, well-timed rains in the Midwestern breeding grounds and milder temps in Texas made for a late summer surge, and an exceptional year for Monarchs . We look forward to hearing the numbers observed in Michoacán this winter. While this temporary boost won’t fix the longterm, persistent declines caused by pesticide use, genetically modified crops, climate change and general habitat loss, it’s a welcome, unexpected turn.

On the PR front, 2014 couldn’t have been much better in terms of raised awareness. Pollinator peril has gone mainstream.

The First Lady of the United States planted the first pollinator garden at the Whitehouse. The presidents of Mexico, the U.S. and Canada agreed to work together to restore Monarch and other pollinator habitat, and some of the top scientists and pollinator advocacy organizations in the country submitted the Monarch butterfly for consideration as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act.

Simultaneously, professional butterfly breeders gathered to create programs to systematically combat OE, the Monarch-centric spore driven disease that attacks Monarchs and other milkweed feeders. And a lively debate continues about the appropriateness of planting Tropical milkweed, Asclepias curassavica, the only Monarch host plant commercially available.

Again, while the facts still spell general decline and danger for pollinators, the awareness of the problem has been elevated like never before.

On April 2, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue added Swamp milkweed, Asclepias incarnata and Butterfly weed, Asclepias tuberosa to its 1500-square-foot vegetable garden. The milkweed species will serve as Monarch host plant as well as a favored nectar source to bees and other butterfly species. The milkweeds also marked the first time in history that a pollinator garden had been planted at the White House.

This year’s migration seemed to start early and end late, with the Monarchs taking their time and reproducing profusely along the way with optimal conditions in their favor. Here in Texas, our season was 7 – 10 later than usual for peak migration.

[Jeff]

I grew up north of Philadelphia, PA, and Camden, NJ has sadly been an epicenter of violence since I was a child. But, wait, wow, homicides dropped FORTY TWO PERCENT in Camden in 2014.

Which is amazing.

But how come the article says “ authorities credited the gains to a full year’s operation for the Camden County Police Department, which replaced a depleted city force in May 2013 ”, but doesn’t go on to mention that crime is dropping all over the U.S., and all over the world?

In about six minutes, I was able to compile other stories from December, 2014, showing similar drops in crime around the globe. Unsurprisingly, all of those articles were also scrupulously careful not to mention the global nature of the phenomenon of precipitously dropping crime and violence.

And please recall that the guy writing the story about Camden does this for a living . I guess he just didn’t notice that “the number of murders in New York City has dropped to what years ago would have seemed like an impossible low: 328 killings recorded in 2014, the lowest figure since at least 1963, when the Police Department began collecting reliable statistics.”

Fewer murders in New York than ever, in history . Wait, did I mention that, like Camden, New York has also sadly been an epicenter of violence since I was a child?

What I am outlining overall, here is exactly the same ‘compartmentalization’ strategy that’s being used - albeit with marginal and ever-lessening effectiveness - to try and blunt and obfuscate the good news of wildlife that is recovering and burgeoning worldwide.

As Gil Scott-Heron said in 1970, “the revolution will not be televised.” Fortunately, you can read all about it in a thread on an obscure internet forum.

http://www.courierpostonline.c…/21211131/

Homicides drop 42% in Camden

January 2, 2015

Violent crime in Camden fell sharply in 2014, led by a 42 percent drop in homicides , authorities said Friday. Property crimes also declined with one exception — the number of arsons was unchanged in a city riddled with abandoned buildings.

Authorities credited the gains to a full year’s operation for the Camden County Police Department, which replaced a depleted city force in May 2013.

The county-run agency, which emphasizes frequent patrols and community involvement, has 390 police officers. The former municipal force, hit hard by budget cuts and layoffs, had only about 250 officers in 2012, when homicides hit a record high in the city.

"When we took over, it was like the Wild West," said Camden County Freeholder-Director Louis Cappelli Jr. “The residents of the city now feel safer.”

“You’ve got good citizens waving and smiling at you now,” said Capt. Frank Falco of the prosecutor’s office. “They were afraid to do that before. That tells me there’s a big difference.”

http://guyanachronicle.com/pol…-november/

December 10, 2014

THE Guyana Police Force (GPF) yesterday reported that at the end of November 2014, they recorded an 11% drop in serious crimes when the period January 01 to November 30, 2014 is compared with the corresponding period in 2013.

December 31, 2014

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01…ating.html

Murders in New York Drop to a Record Low , but Officers Aren’t Celebrating

December 4, 2014

The number of murders in New York City has dropped to what years ago would have seemed like an impossible low: 328 killings recorded in 2014, the lowest figure since at least 1963 , when the Police Department began collecting reliable statistics.

Violent crime has decreased by almost 16 per cent, down to 320 incidents.

[Jeff]

I’ve compiled a number of headlines, below, showing dropping rates of alcohol consumption, dropping drug use, dropping smoking rates, and more.

You can see how alcohol consumption is dropping all over the world. Yet I’m told “licensing laws the likely cause” for falling alcohol consumption. Wait, was there a global licensing initiative I missed?

No, there wasn’t…it’s the same, tired tactic, used in the previous post about Tigers, and others about booming fish populations, and others about dropping crime rates, and in this one about alcohol. They all take pains to ignore the larger trend, and play off the drop as driven by something your helpful government has done, insert nation here.

I’m really pumped about the very last item: “Cancer death rates have dropped 22% in 20 years.”

People are getting smarter, across the globe, and are starting to avoid the things that have been driving increases in cancer rates for decades.

It’s a societal change that’s not going to stop, and that change is increasing in speed and magnitude.

April 8, 2010 - The decline in drinking is most marked in southern Europe, where there has been a notable dropping-off in wine-drinking

September 3, 2010 - Alcohol drinking in Britain sees sharpest fall since 1948

Sep 4, 2013 - Drug use among America’s youth is dropping

February 15, 2011 – BBC News - Why is alcohol consumption falling?

March 4, 2013 –UK alcohol consumption per head down again – 3.3 per cent drop in 2012

December 17, 2013 – Alcohol consumption in UK adults continues to fall

December 13, 2014 – Alcohol consumption in Scotland drops 9%

January 9, 2014 – BBC News - The rise of the young non-drinkers

March 31, 2014 – The Diet Soda Business Is in Freefall - WSJ

April 2, 2014 – Soda Losing Its Grip on America - ABC News

April 10, 2014 – Chinese wine consumption dropped 2.2% annually in 2013,

April 23, 2014 – Is Britain saying goodbye to bingeing culture?

July 31, 2014 – Coca-Cola: Sales Decline, Health Concerns Spur Relaunch .

September 11, 2014 - Survey: Americans Are Dropping Traditional Fast Food

November 12, 2014 – Licensing laws the likely cause for falling alcohol consumption

November 14, 2014 – Greece alcohol consumption halves in five years

January, 2015 - US Adult Smoking Rate Drops to New Low

January 6, 2015 - Cancer death rates have dropped 22% in 20 years

[Jeff]

Check out how the story that follows says that Harbor Seals in Sweden “increased by nearly 9 percent a year over the last decade.” Chopping it up over a decade like that allows them to avoid using the more impactful headline “have doubled in the last ten years.”

That’s called ‘dissembling.’ Dissemble: to give a false or misleading appearance to; conceal the truth or real nature of.

They also take care not to mention that Gray Seals are rebounding in Maine, in the U.S.

http://www.providencejournal.c…r-hunt.ece

and in Hawaii

http://hawaiitribune-herald.co…s-say.html

I guess “toxins are being reduced” in those environments, also, non ?

If we bring cruel logic to bear on the situation, we face the fact that the East Coast of Sweden is definitively “more toxic” than Maine, which is, in turn, more toxic than Hawaii. Yet seals are rebounding in all three areas, with “less toxins” the proffered driver of the rebound.

And so, ad nauseum , you see the compartmentalization of the good news, and the pandering of some plausible-deniability reason for same…a reason that does not tie back to the larger picture: nature booming and burgeoning, worldwide.

Desperate to avoid personal responsibility, the subconscious grasps the plausible-deniability straw, and accepts the authority of the authority figure, and, voila – that is what is called programming . Programming, you know, like they do on NPR.

p.s. Bet you the death of 3,000 seals from Bird Flu in April of last year, featured at the end of the article, was an op.

The ‘Mysterious Animal Deaths on the Rise’ meme that has previously been featured in this thread being an Organ of the State cover story for what secret agents actually do, these days: release toxins into the environment and set wildfires.

http://www.rcinet.ca/eye-on-th…in-sweden/

Harbor Seals on the Rebound in Sweden

January 6, 2015

Harbor seals are making a comeback in Sweden. According to the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management, the number of harbor seals in the Kalmar Strait, between the mainland and the island of Öland, has increased by nearly 9 percent a year over the past decade.

The strait is the only part of the Swedish east coast where there are harbor seals.

Swedish Television News reports that the increase is attributed to a reduction in toxins in the environment. But the fishing industry has complained about the damage to their equipment caused by seals.

Back in April some 3000 harbor seals died along the Swedish west coast, infected with bird flu

[Jeff]

The article that follows which states that “ Ocean Life Faces Mass Extinction ” is part of a “ Broad Study .” It says that conclusion was reached through “ groundbreaking analysis of data from hundreds of sources .” Wow, I’m so impressed, I’ll stop thinking right away!

The previous pompous smoke blowing being what’s called in the trade “ bullshitting ”, or “ talking out one’s ass .”

I can say that because, to the exact contrary of that dire message, I’ve included just four examples of floored-accelerator growth in marine life. Faithful readers of this thread have seen dozens, if not hundreds of examples of said vibrant marine life, which maps against vibrant growth in land animal populations, as well.

I guess the “Broad Study” did not include those hundreds of news stories of booming, burgeoning marine life.

But the positive change I see occurring - beyond the obvious, the booming, burgeoning life - is the variance between the lies and what’s actually occurring is increasing.

Exactly as " 2014 the hottest year on record " is at variance with

"Sept. 3, 2014 – Cold year: 2014 USA temperature record lows outpace record highs nearly 2-1 " and "Sept. 12, 2014 - Summer Chill: NOAA: 246 Low Max Records Broken or Tied"

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01…html?_r=0

Ocean Life Faces Mass Extinction, Broad Study Says

January 15, 2015

A team of scientists, in a groundbreaking analysis of data from hundreds of sources , has concluded that humans are on the verge of causing unprecedented damage to the oceans and the animals living in them.

“We may be sitting on a precipice of a major extinction event,” said Douglas J. McCauley, an ecologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an author of the new research, which was published on Thursday in the journal Science. But there is still time to avert catastrophe, Dr. McCauley and his colleagues also found. Compared with the continents, the oceans are mostly intact, still wild enough to bounce back to ecological health.

June 27, 2012 – Marine Life Booming in Monterey Bay - Thousands of dolphins and hundreds of whales can been seen splashing around the Monterey Bay this week

July 10, 2014 – Salmon Counts Break Records From Alaska To The Columbia River

July 15, 2014 – New Data Reveals North Sea Is Teeming

August 29, 2014 – Widespread reports of an unprecedented recruitment of reef fish juveniles in the Hawaiian Islands

September 5, 2014 - California blue whales bounce back to near historic numbers

[Jeff]

In the story that follows, you’ll see that wildlife in the San Francisco Bay area is doing great. And that the blogger writing it earnestly talks about how banning Flame Retardants (PBDE’s) is driving the recovery.

Please understand, I’m the first to acknowledge that banning those toxins has had an absolute, demonstrable positive effect. Yet how do the recovering harbor seals mentioned in the article map against their increasing brothers and sisters in Hawaii, where there is far less flame retardant in the environment?

And the Swedish harbor seals we talked about yesterday (whose increase is attributed to “a reduction in toxins in the environment); why doesn’t the article on the subject even tell me which toxins? And how do those less-toxic Swedish seals relate to increasing seal populations in far-less-toxic Hawaii? (Cue crickets chirping)

And how do increasing seal populations worldwide map against increasing salmon populations worldwide? Is removal of Flame Retardants driving those booms, as well?

Same tactic, different day, day after day. Provide some plausible-deniability straw for the subconscious to grasp, and assiduously fail to mention the larger trend, booming and burgeoning nature, worldwide.

The subconscious being well-ready to grasp the straw, to assist in avoidance of personal responsibility.

Fortunately, as Don Croft has said humorously many times, “personal discernment is becoming fashionable again.”

http://blogs.kqed.org/science/…-recovery/

10 Years After PBDE Ban, Bay Area Wildlife Shows Promising Signs of Recovery

January 16, 2015

On a recent winter morning, 30 bird watchers and I took a walk along San Francisco Bay. We enjoyed viewing large flocks of dunlin working their way along the mudflats, their heads bobbing like little sewing machines as they probed for food alongside larger willets and other shorebirds. Serene flotillas of ruddy ducks paddled lazily while a few surf scooters, cormorants and American widgeons drove beneath the surface to catch small fish as the sun broke through the thick fog creating a faint rainbow.

The good news that made me appreciate the morning even more was that the toxic load of flame retardants — in use since the 1970s — in San Francisco Bay waters, people and wildlife has been reduced over the last 10 years. In a study published in December in the scientific journal Environmental Science and Technology, scientists from the San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) found that since the phase out of flame retardants (PBDEs) in 2003, levels of the toxins have dropped dramatically. The study relayed that extremely high levels of PBDEs were detected in 2002 in harbor seal blubber, Forster’s tern eggs and sportfish (And a separate study also found alarming levels in tissue samples from women residing within the Bay Area.) These were the highest levels detected in wildlife worldwide and the highest levels ever reported in humans. The bay was a PBDE contamination “hot spot” and these PDBEs are no longer used.

The contaminants originated in flame retardants added to foam products: couch foam, carpet, drapery backing and plastic products (such as electronics along with building insulation.) These products outgas, or breakdown, and the persistent PDBEs mingle with household dust which humans inadvertently ingest. The products also enter the ecosystem through runoff and recycling activities. Since the San Francisco Bay is the watershed for nearly half of the state, it’s no surprise these chemicals accumulated in the bay mud, waters and wildlife. You can find out more about the concerns of PBDE bioaccumulation and implications for humans and wildlife on the fact sheet from Berkeley’s Green Science Policy organization.

With the ban on these PDBEs, wildlife has shown significant improvement, according to the study. Forster’s terns, which nest on islands in the bay including Brook’s Island, eat small fish. The SFEI study showed that concentration of PBDEs in the terns has dropped 80% between 2002 and now. Double-crested cormorants that also nest around the bay have tested for similar declines in contamination. Sport fish contamination has declined about 50%. Mussels and mud contamination have also been reduced. Similar declines were shown for humans, too.

Though this good news is worth celebrating, we need to remain vigilant. SFEI is currently testing for other contaminants in the ecosystem as manufacturers continue to use other potentially harmful chemicals for flame retardants.

[Don_Croft]

Jeff, people are asking me why you’re not featuring your research in a dedicated blog, since it’s entirely unique and quite empowering. I could mention that your thoroughness also sets an academic standard, which is something I’ve never attempted with my own writing.

The Global Warming hoax is an essential part of the Old Parasite’s international (mainly Europoid) brain police agenda so in order to effectively expose and dismantle it requires some thorough and persistent work and you exemplify that effort. All of the Big Lies, including that one, the War on Islam, ‘Peak Oil,’ etc., are in place in order to keep the Europoid Pajama People asleep and compliant while the corporate order continues to invade and plunder (mainly, these days) Middle and Central Asia. There are fewer orgonite-flingers in that part of the world than anywhere else and that’s not surprising to me. Whether China allows these baby killers to invade Iran (their cherished goal) is an open question, by now, though. The fascists in DC couldn’t even hang onto Baghdad, after all, and it looks like a tossup whether they can even destroy Assad with their British-directed, Muslim Brotherhood mercenaries.

Pajama People always wake up a bit, en masse, when they’re no longer capable of accepting the Big Lies. As you’ve seen, PJ folks in well-gifted areas typically now openly laugh at ‘global warming,’ for instance. It’s just too obvious to them that the climate is actually improving where they are.

This is also how the corporate order recently lost their ability to use assumed white supremacy as ploy to keep them compliant, for instance. Theosophy/gnostic-based racism, which was coincidentally the dogmatic underpinning of Hitler’s policy, had to go underground after that.

Another empowering aspect of properly documented and discussed Positive Changes is that this thread stands in stark contrast to the vast majority of conspiracy information websites because nearly all of those are CIA, NSA, British Secret Service, Mossadomite and/or KBG-sorts of disinformation operations, well designed to shunt the seeker off into one or another castrating, schismatic groupthink paradigm.

One of Theosophy’s signature scams is ‘irrationalism,’ which became quite popular in the late 1800s and is nearly universally assumed to be viable by now. I think this is why so many science-trained people are so strongly inclined to join irrational cults or at least adopt their mystical horse$#!+, for instance. Institutional schizophrenia?

The rational faculty, like the sense of smell, is an integral part of each of us, so when we abandon it we’re no longer capable of understanding reality in a practical way. The scam was an easy sell because by then science had become an engine of atheism and materialism, which kill the human spirit. By conning otherwise-intelligent people into assuming they need to choose mysticism over science the Old Parasite succeeded in paving the way for the present horror agenda of the new Axis of Evil (US/UK/Israel/Saudi Arabia/Pakistan) through the general acceptance of the irrational, pseudo-scientific ‘environmentalist’ assumptions. This is the same programming tactic that still causes people to assume they need to choose between two infantile intellectual assumptions: ‘creationism’ and ‘darwinism.’ It’s a common tactic of the corporate order.

It seems obvious enough to many, by now, that the Rockefeller-funded, dogmatic and aggressive Green Boots operate in the same way (sans the large-scale headbashing in the streets) as Hitler’s SA and Mussolini’s Black Shirts did in the '20s and ‘30s. To me, the rabid intellectual bullying of the Geen Boots is more insidious than their boneheaded progenitors’ strategically-directed rioting. There are a few good, reputable authors who thoroughly document this direct connection, by the way. I think that even PJ folks understand, by now, that the American/Brit oligarchy supported Hitler even through WWII. Since I’m not a scholar, all I can say is, ‘Look it up if you don’t believe me.’ It’s not that hard to find authors who are not just agency-enabled axe-grinders. I mainly discern them with my sense of smell. David Livingstone is the one I’m reading at the moment–good stuff and a fresh view!

My hope is always that the better postings on EW, including this enduring thread, will inspire our readers to get out and start distributing orgonite in the environment in an intelligent and systematic way. Just about anyone can afford to do it, after all, and it’s a very inclusive global movement. The ones who will pay attention (before, during and after) are the ones who will be most empowered and gratified but I think the majority of orgonite-flingers take on this activity just because it feels so good to get out and do it. My target audience are always the few who pay attention because these are the ones who are in a position to destroy the Old Parasite sooner than later.

Busting death towers is still the prerequisite agenda in most areas but my favorite orgonite effect is that it causes the PJ folks in a gifted area to get more freedom from fear. The Old Parasite literally lives on the fear of the Pajama People and in the case of the Europoid cultures, the Big Lies depend for their existence on the fear of PJ folks. Programmed fear in that case causes them to be suspicious and to suppress their natural curiosity.

Francisco and I saw a lot of positive changes on our little trip to Belize, by the way. On the way from Florida to Mexico we dropped about 150 tumbatorres (orgonita.eu’s term for ‘towerbusters’) from the open Zodiac along Cuba’s coast. The energy on that route was quite debilitating, even disregarding the rough seas and moonless night. Francisco saw two corridors of dark energy to left and right of us. On the way back along that route a few weeks later the energy was bright and pleasant, rather, and we were mobbed by four pods of little spinner dolphins, who I believe were grateful. Carol said they were, too. The visual part of the positive changes confirmation was an explosion of bright and distinct Sylphs overhead for as long as there was light to see them. We’ll write full reports and will assemble a nice YouTube film shortly.

I mentioned the sea gifting because when one pays attention this work is a lot more rewarding than just the endorphin rush of flinging TBs. I share Jeff’s basic assumption that we should each strive (and perhaps vie?) for personal refinement for the sake of our species.

Thanks again, Jeff, and EW is incredibly blessed to host your Positive Changes thread. I’m sure future historians will confirm your signal achievement. I know they can’t make you quit. If you want to make the Old Parasite even more afraid of you a blogsite will do the trick and I’m sure people would send you plenty of good material, too.

~Don

[Don_Croft]

If you set up a dedicated blog site please also keep adding the material here, of course.

~Don

[Jeff]

Don, thank you for your empowering positive feedback, and for urging me to keep raising the bar. This happened quite by happenstance, this whole thread, although in retrospect it’s also of course been evolving my whole life.

One of the things I love best about it is the fact that people who come to EW can read it, and be “broadened”, as it were, or rather experience my subjective perspective among a number of others, and so develop a pointillist picture for themselves. At this moment I’m thinking “A Jeff blog…unimaginable. So boastful.”

I love to sing, and have always liked being a voice among a larger chorus, vs. a soloist. And I’m conflict-averse. But I believe Josie Wales was conflict-averse, prior to the Yankees coming to his farm.

At this moment I’m not ready to step out more broadly, but I thank you for urging me, and for hosting. If and when I step out, what would make me do would be the concept of a force-multiplier, as you suggested. I think I may, like Patton, have spent many lives at war. In this life I have never yet struck another human in anger and catch and release bugs from my house. But you wouldn’t want to climb in through a window to rob the place.

My current vision is that I laugh, thinking that this thread is going to slowly go from person, to person, to person, and suddenly is going to become a cause celebre at, oh, I don’t know, some University somewhere, perhaps. And then the hits on EW will begin pinging up.

As I drove to work today, I thought “even my closest, closest friends, who love and support me utterly, don’t read this thread .”

It’s like, if you’re not there, yet, in your development, it will create anxiety and discomfort. So the double blind is in place of people using diligence to find EW (over the Controlled-Opposition faker-forums favored by the search engines), and only then getting to dive into this thread.

And you know how you try to keep the dialogue here focused, like not out into “fancy orgonite”, or “alternative healing”, or whatever? I find that stricture empowering, like “we’re going to cover a very simple thesis, repetitively, both for the record and as a vehicle for changing Programming”. And if multiple people all work on that the pointillist picture I mentioned previously gets created, and that work of art has focus , and a distinct point of view .