ScienceDaily

A neuro-imaging study shows that personal values that people refuse to disavow, even when offered cash to do so, are processed differently in the brain than those values that are willingly sold.”Our experiment found that the realm of the sacred — whether it’s a strong religious belief, a national identity or a code of ethics — is a distinct cognitive process,” says Gregory Berns, director of the Center for Neuropolicy at Emory University and lead author of the study. The results were published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

Sacred values prompt greater activation of an area of the brain associated with rules-based, right-or-wrong thought processes, the study showed, as opposed to the regions linked to processing of costs-versus-benefits.

Berns headed a team that included economists and information scientists from Emory University, a psychologist from the New School for Social Research and anthropologists from the Institute Jean Nicod in Paris, France. The research was funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the National Science Foundation.

“We’ve come up with a method to start answering scientific questions about how people make decisions involving sacred values, and that has major implications if you want to better understand what influences human behavior across countries and cultures,” Berns says. “We are seeing how fundamental cultural values are represented in the brain.”

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ScienceDaily

A newly published paper from Rhode Island Hospital reports on the impact to patients if five personality disorders are removed from the upcoming revision to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 5th edition (DSM-5).

Based on their study, the researchers believe these changes could result in false-negative diagnoses for patients. The paper is published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry and is now available online in advance of print.http://beyondthecurtain.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post-new.php?post_type=post

The DSM-5 Personality and Personality Disorders work group made several recommendations to change the approach toward diagnosing personality disorders. One of those recommendations is to delete five personality disorders as a way to reduce the level of comorbidity among the disorders. The ones originally slated to be removed include paranoid, schizoid, histrionic, narcissistic and dependent personality disorders.

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New consensus is that there’s no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to ‘decarbonize’ the world’s economy

Wall Street Journal

A candidate for public office in any contemporary democracy may have to consider what, if anything, to do about “global warming.” Candidates should understand that the oft-repeated claim that nearly all scientists demand that something dramatic be done to stop global warming is not true. In fact, a large and growing number of distinguished scientists and engineers do not agree that drastic actions on global warming are needed.

In September, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ivar Giaever, a supporter of President Obama in the last election, publicly resigned from the American Physical Society (APS) with a letter that begins: “I did not renew [my membership] because I cannot live with the [APS policy] statement: ‘The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.’ In the APS it is OK to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?”

In spite of a multidecade international campaign to enforce the message that increasing amounts of the “pollutant” carbon dioxide will destroy civilization, large numbers of scientists, many very prominent, share the opinions of Dr. Giaever. And the number of scientific “heretics” is growing with each passing year. The reason is a collection of stubborn scientific facts.

Read the full WSJ report here

Note: The above statement is signed by the following scientists:

Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris; J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting; Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University; Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society; Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences; William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton; Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K.; William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT; James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Technical University; Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences; Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne; Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator; Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service; Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva.

Investment bank Merrill Lynch predicts a $40 rise in oil prices if the country’s 2.2 million barrels day of crude are shut off completely.

Press TV

A Russian news network says Iran can react to the European Union’s new sanctions on its oil sector by stopping oil exports to EU member states.

The Russia Today reported on Thursday that Iran’s move will be a good response to EU sanctions which have been already slammed by Iran’s close allies like China. The report quoted Nasser Soudani, a member of Iran Majlis (parliament) Energy Committee, as saying that in reaction to EU measure, Iranian lawmakers are drafting a new law, which would stop oil supply to European countries as soon as possible.

“A number of representatives of the Majlis and I are seeking to approve a bill according to which all European countries that made Iran the target of their sanctions will not be able to buy even one drop of oil from Iran, and oil taps will be turned off to them so that they will not play with fire again,” the lawmaker added.

The report stated that the legislation may be ratified in Iran’s Majlis as early as this Sunday, adding that such a ban would result in a fuel shortage in Europe as the countries which joined the sanctions, while receiving a considerable amount of crude from Iran, would not have enough time to secure a substitute.

In their latest meeting in Brussels on January 23, EU foreign ministers imposed new sanctions on Iran which include a ban on purchasing oil from the country, a freeze on the assets of Iran’s Central Bank within the EU, and a ban on the sale of diamonds, gold and other precious metals to Iran.

EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, claimed that the new sanctions aim to bring Iran back to negotiations with P5+1 — US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany — over the country’s peaceful nuclear program.

The United States, Israel and some of their allies accuse Tehran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear program. Iran has strongly rejected the allegation.

SS/MA

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com

In the following video, Alex Jones takes the TSA to task for its pathological lying about the danger of naked body porno scanners.

But as Jones notes, it is not simply the TSA that continually lies. The entire government is perpetually and habitually involved in all kinds of lies and fabrications – from George Bush’s deadly lie about WMDs in Iraq (that cost over a million Iraqis their lives) to countless sundry lies on all kinds of government activity (most recently the lies told to us about the government’s gun running operation to the banker drug cartels in Mexico).

In the video, Alex breaks down the lie told by government and its compliant corporate media propaganda tool about the outrageous and unconstitutional detainment of Kentucky Senator Rand Paul at the airport in Nashville.

The cops in Tennessee insisted Paul was “irate” about his illegal detainment, but a security video later released shows the Senator sitting calmly in a chair waiting for the TSA and the cops to let him travel. Of course, after insisting Paul was angry and uncooperative, the corporate media lie machine did not bother to pick up on the story published by The Tennessean.

Government – from the local cop shop and city council to Congress and the president – habitually lie. Government lies are about as dependable as the sun coming up in the morning.

History is sickeningly replete with all kinds of instances of government lying to the American people and the world at large.

President Woodrow Wilson lied us into World War One (35 million people slaughtered), the North Vietnamese didn’t attack the U.S. military in the Gulf of Tonkin (the Vietnam War: around 4 million killed), the Teflon president Reagan knew about about Iran-Contra, Bush Senior lied about no new taxes, Bill Clinton lied about not inhaling and having sex with that woman, Nixon was indeed a crook, the government lied when it said children were molested at the Branch Davidian complex in Waco (and thus proceeded to barbeque them), Bush and his neocon cronies lied about the Taliban harboring Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein’s nuclear and chemical weapons programs, the passengers of Flight 93 overtook box-cutter terrorists, and fire brought down WTC 1, 2 and 7.

There are more lies told by the government as it conducts its sordid criminal business. It would take a book the size of the New York Metro White Pages to tell them all.

I am exaggerating… but not much.

Ethan A. Huff
NaturalNews

In order to simulate various flavors in processed foods, some food manufacturers are actually using aborted fetal cells to test and produce these artificial chemical enhancers that millions of Americans consume every single day. Concerned about the ethical and moral implications of such a process, Oklahoma Senator Ralph Shortey has introduced new legislation to prohibit this practice from occurring in his home state.

Senomyx, a California-based biotechnology company that specializes in developing food flavorings, is one such company that uses aborted embryonic cells to create “isolated human taste receptors,” which are used in the production of food chemicals. And this company has partnered with several major food manufacturers, including Kraft, PepsiCo, and Nestle (http://www.naturalnews.com/032043_human_fetal_cells_artificial_flavors.html).

“There is a potential that there are companies that are using aborted human babies in their research and development of basically enhancing flavor for artificial flavors,” Sen. Shortey is quoted as saying by KRMG News Talk Radio. “What I am saying is that if it does happen then we are not going to allow it to manufacture here.”

White House bypasses Senate to ink agreement that could allow Chinese companies to demand ISPs remove web content in US with no legal oversight

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com

Months before the debate about Internet censorship raged as SOPA and PIPA dominated the concerns of web users, President Obama signed an international treaty that would allow companies in China or any other country in the world to demand ISPs remove web content in the US with no legal oversight whatsoever.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement was signed by Obama on October 1 2011, yet is currently the subject of a White House petition demanding Senators be forced to ratify the treaty. The White House has circumvented the necessity to have the treaty confirmed by lawmakers by presenting it an as “executive agreement,” although legal scholars have highlighted the dubious nature of this characterization.

The hacktivist group Anonymous attacked and took offline the Federal Trade Commission’s website yesterday in protest against the treaty, which was also the subject of demonstrations across major cities in Poland, a country set to sign the agreement today.

Under the provisions of ACTA, copyright holders will be granted sweeping direct powers to demand ISPs remove material from the Internet on a whim. Whereas ISPs normally are only forced to remove content after a court order, all legal oversight will be abolished, a precedent that will apply globally, rendering the treaty worse in its potential scope for abuse than SOPA or PIPA.

A country known for its enforcement of harsh Internet censorship policies like China could demand under the treaty that an ISP in the United States remove content or terminate a website on its server altogether. As we have seen from the enforcement of similar copyright policies in the US, websites are sometimes targeted for no justifiable reason.

The groups pushing the treaty also want to empower copyright holders with the ability to demand that users who violate intellectual property rights (with no legal process) have their Internet connections terminated, a punishment that could only ever be properly enforced by the creation of an individual Internet ID card for every web user, a system that is already in the works.

“The same industry rightsholder groups that support the creation of ACTA have also called for mandatory network-level filtering by Internet Service Providers and for Internet Service Providers to terminate citizens’ Internet connection on repeat allegation of copyright infringement (the “Three Strikes” /Graduated Response) so there is reason to believe that ACTA will seek to increase intermediary liability and require these things of Internet Service Providers,” reports the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The treaty will also mandate that ISPs disclose personal user information to the copyright holder, while providing authorities across the globe with broader powers to search laptops and Internet-capable devices at border checkpoints.

In presenting ACTA as an “international agreement” rather than a treaty, the Obama administration managed to circumvent the legislative process and avoid having to get Senate approval, a method questioned by Senator Wyden.

“That said, even if Obama has declared ACTA an executive agreement (while those in Europe insist that it’s a binding treaty), there is a very real Constitutional question here: can it actually be an executive agreement?” asks TechDirt. “The law is clear that the only things that can be covered by executive agreements are things that involve items that are solely under the President’s mandate. That is, you can’t sign an executive agreement that impacts the things Congress has control over. But here’s the thing: intellectual property, in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, is an issue given to Congress, not the President. Thus, there’s a pretty strong argument that the president legally cannot sign any intellectual property agreements as an executive agreement and, instead, must submit them to the Senate.”.

26 European Union member states along with the EU itself are set to sign the treaty at a ceremony today in Tokyo. Other countries wishing to sign the agreement have until May 2013 to do so.

Critics are urging those concerned about Obama’s decision to sign the document with no legislative oversight to demand the Senate be forced to ratify the treaty.

Infowars.com

Alex talks with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, author and Middle East expert Chris Hedges about his lawsuit challenging the legality of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which Obama signed at the end of 2011. Hedges is the author of The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress, Collateral Damage, American Fascists and other titles.