US Health Care System Wastes $750B a Year

Associated Press, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar , Sep 6, 2012

AP Photo/Steve Helber

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. health care system squanders $750 billion a year - roughly 30 cents of every medical dollar - through unneeded care, byzantine paperwork, fraud and other waste, the influential Institute of Medicine said Thursday in a report that ties directly into the presidential campaign.

President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney are accusing each other of trying to slash Medicare and put seniors at risk. But the counter-intuitive finding from the report is that deep cuts are possible without rationing, and a leaner system may even produce better quality.

"Health care in America presents a fundamental paradox," said the report from an 18-member panel of prominent experts, including doctors, business people, and public officials. "The past 50 years have seen an explosion in biomedical knowledge, dramatic innovation in therapies and surgical procedures, and management of conditions that previously were fatal ...

"Yet, American health care is falling short on basic dimensions of quality, outcomes, costs and equity," the report concluded.

If banking worked like health care, ATM transactions would take days, the report said. If home building were like health care, carpenters, electricians and plumbers would work from different blueprints and hardly talk to each other. If shopping were like health care, prices would not be posted and could vary widely within the same store, depending on who was paying.

If airline travel were like health care, individual pilots would be free to design their own preflight safety checks - or not perform one at all.

How much is $750 billion? The one-year estimate of health care waste is equal to more than ten years of Medicare cuts in Obama's health care law. It's more than the Pentagon budget. It's more than enough to care for the uninsured.

Getting health care costs better controlled is one of the keys to reducing the deficit, the biggest domestic challenge facing the next president. The report did not lay out a policy prescription for Medicare and Medicaid but suggested there's plenty of room for lawmakers to find a path.

Both Obama and Romney agree there has to be a limit to Medicare spending, but they differ on how to get that done. Obama would rely on a powerful board to cut payments to service providers, while gradually changing how hospitals and doctors are paid to reward results instead of volume. Romney would limit the amount of money future retirees can get from the government for medical insurance, relying on the private market to find an efficient solution. Each accuses of the other of jeopardizing the well-being of seniors.

But panel members urged a frank discussion with the public about the value Americans are getting for their health care dollars. As a model, they cited "Choosing Wisely," a campaign launched earlier this year by nine medical societies to challenge the widespread perception that more care is better.

"Rationing to me is when we are denying medical care that is helpful to patients, on the basis of costs," said cardiologist Dr. Rita Redberg, a medical school professor at the University of California, San Francisco. "We have a lot of medical care that is not helpful to patients, and some of it is harmful. The problem is when you talk about getting rid of any type of health care, someone yells, `Rationing.' "

More than 18 months in the making, the report identified six major areas of waste: unnecessary services ($210 billion annually); inefficient delivery of care ($130 billion); excess administrative costs ($190 billion); inflated prices ($105 billion); prevention failures ($55 billion), and fraud ($75 billion). Adjusting for some overlap among the categories, the panel settled on an estimate of $750 billion.

Examples of wasteful care include most repeat colonoscopies within 10 years of a first such test, early imaging for most back pain, and brain scans for patients who fainted but didn't have seizures.

The report makes ten recommendations, including payment reforms to reward quality results instead of reimbursing for each procedure, improving coordination among different kinds of service providers, leveraging technology to reinforce sound clinical decisions and educating patients to become more savvy consumers.

The report's main message for government is to accelerate payment reforms, said panel chair Dr. Mark Smith, president of the California HealthCare Foundation, a research group. For employers, it's to move beyond cost shifts to workers and start demanding accountability from hospitals and major medical groups. For doctors, it means getting beyond the bubble of solo practice and collaborating with peers and other clinicians.

"It's a huge hill to climb, and we're not going to get out of this overnight," said Smith. "The good news is that the very common notion that quality will suffer if less money is spent is simply not true. That should reassure people that the conversation about controlling costs is not necessarily about reducing quality."

The Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, is an independent organization that advises the government.

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"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Based in Greece, Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to built Africa to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.)

Elizabeth Warren DNC Speech Complete: 'Corporations Are Not People'

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Brussels suffers from lobbying excess

Deutsche Welle, 5 Sept. 2012

The organization Lobbycontrol is lobbying for more control on lobbying in the European Union. It's produced a new guide to the city, pointing out where undercover lobbyists hide.

Policy in Europe is increasingly being made in Brussels, rather than in the individual states. One way of measuring the development is to look at the number of lobbyists in Brussels. According to Graham Watson, a British Liberal Member of the European Parliament (MEP), "If you look at the number of lobbyists we have here in Brussels - more lobbyists than we have in Washington - they recognize the powers that are wielded here, and we've got to do something to make sure that our citizens understand this as well."

The official figures are almost ten years old. Even then, there were already between 15,000 and 30,000 lobbyists in the corridors of the EU. There are almost certainly more now. Nobody knows exactly: there is a lobbyists' register, but registration is voluntary.

Nina Katzemich of Lobbycontrol says that has to change. She wants to see more transparency and control of the situation. She's not opposed to lobbyists, but she does think the balance needs to be restored.

"The lobbyists here in Brussels always talk about a market of interests in which everyone can promote their own interests," she told DW. "But that's not how it is. Especially in Brussels, it's the lobbyists with the biggest budgets who have the best chance of getting their views heard."

As a result, she argues, the big business lobby groups are much better represented than organizations working for the public good.

Lobbies are most effective under cover 

The lobbyists know their way around
the EU buildings

Nina Katzemich and her colleague Timo Lange have invited members of the press on a tour of the European district in Brussels to show how and where the lobbies work. They both say the lobbies are most effective when they don't like lobbies. Neutral-sounding think-tanks may well turn out to be disguised lobby organizations, financed by specific companies. The way influence may be applied on members of the European Parliament can also be complex and indirect.

But it certainly works. Timo Lange points to the failure of a plan by the European Commission to introduce a traffic-light-style color-coding for food products.

"The food industry mobilized a billion euros to stop the traffic light for food," he says. And right now, with the financial crisis, the banks and their lobbyists are working hard to prevent tougher control of their business.

From commission to consultancy

Lobbycontrol is particularly critical of the conflict of interest that arises when recent commissioners promptly move into the business world.

"Five of the 13 commissioners in the last commission have lucrative jobs in private business," notes Katzemich. Well-financed lobbyists can thus gain "a direct view into the EU bureaucracy, insider information, and direct contact with senior positions in the EU bureaucracy."

Following massive criticism, the Commission has decided to extend the waiting time for former commissioners before they can go into business from one year to 18 months. Lobbycontrol would like to see three years - and would like to see the ban extended so that it does not only apply to the field in which the former commissioner was working.

A declared lobbyist 

The chemical industry can be sure its
views are well represented

So how do the lobbyists themselves react to the accusations made against them? Andreas Ogrinz admits that he's a lobbyist for the German chemical industry employers' federation, but he sees lobbying as a legitimate way to represent interests.

He complains that critics are one-sided: "Environmental lobbyists are also lobbyists," he told DW. "That's sometimes lost sight of in the debate. It's not just industry or employers who have interests; it's also environmentalists or human rights organizations."

But Ogrinz agrees with Lobbycontrol that there's a need for transparency for lobbyists. And he does see moral limits to their work: "For example, if you invite an MEP for a trip or give him a present, that is clearly trying to win influence illegitimately. I don't see that as lobbying - that's corruption."

Ogrinz is probably the kind of lobbyist with whom Lobbycontrol has few problems. Its main target is undercover lobbying, and there the methods are becoming increasingly sophisticated. It needs an expert to be able to decipher the real meaning of the organization names on the doors of the office blocks in Brussels.

Tim Berners-Lee: the internet has no off switch

Briton who launched first web page in 1990 reiterates opposition to extending government control of internet

guardian.co.uk, Charles Arthur and agencies, Wednesday 5 September 2012

Sir Tim Berners-Lee at the launch of the World Wide Web Foundation in London,
 where he said the internet 'has no one off switch'. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA

There is no "off switch" for the internet, says the British inventor of the world wide web – and that is a good thing, because it could only be undone by governments around the world coordinating to turn it into a centralised system.

Sir TimBerners-Lee, who launched the first web page on Christmas Day 1990, was speaking at the launch of a global league table showing which countries put the web to work best.

His "off switch" comments came after concerns were expressed last year that the former Egyptian regime led by Hosni Mubarak had suppressed the use of the web to try to damp down the revolution that eventually overthrew it.

Berners-Lee, 57, said: "The way the internet is designed is very much as a decentralised system. At the moment, because countries connect to each other in lots of different ways, there is no one off switch, there is no central place where you can turn it off.

"In order to be able to turn the whole thing off or really block, suppress one particular idea then the countries and governments would have to get together and agree and co-ordinate and turn it from a decentralised system to being a centralised system.

"And if that does happen it is really important that everybody fights against that sort of direction."

His comments came on the same day that Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of the collaborative online encyclopaedia Wikipedia, gave evidence to MPs about proposals to monitor and store details about emails and other internet communications. Wales has frequently expressed strong opposition to the suggestion of extending government control of the internet; earlier this year he called for a blackout of Wikipedia to protest at a proposed US law which would have been able to shut down non-US sites alleged to infringe copyright.

Berners-Lee told the Guardian earlier this year that the government should abandon the proposals, calling them "a destruction of human rights" and warning that "the amount of control you have over somebody if you can monitor internet activity is amazing."

The global league table, launched on Wednesday by the World Wide Web Foundation, showed Sweden as the top country for its use of the web, with the US second and the UK in third place. Nepal, Cameroon and Mali were the bottom three of 61 countries measured using indicators such as the political, economic and social impact of the web, connectivity and use.

The league table, which will be updated annually and will also try to measure absolute as well as relative improvements, uses data from the past five years, and compares elements such as the extent to which relevant and useful content is available to citizens; the political, economic and social impact of the web; the speed of connections; and levels of censorship. The UK's scores were lowest for web usage and social impact. China, despite having the world's largest internet population, ranked 29th, and was 42nd in terms of political impact out of the 61 countries examined.

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" ... Now I give you something that few think about: What do you think the Internet is all about, historically? Citizens of all the countries on Earth can talk to one another without electronic borders. The young people of those nations can all see each other, talk to each other, and express opinions. No matter what the country does to suppress it, they're doing it anyway. They are putting together a network of consciousness, of oneness, a multicultural consciousness. It's here to stay. It's part of the new energy. The young people know it and are leading the way.... "

" ... I gave you a prophecy more than 10 years ago. I told you there would come a day when everyone could talk to everyone and, therefore, there could be no conspiracy. For conspiracy depends on separation and secrecy - something hiding in the dark that only a few know about. Seen the news lately? What is happening? Could it be that there is a new paradigm happening that seems to go against history?... " Read More …. "The End of History"- Nov 20, 2010 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll)


"The New Paradigm of Reality" Part I/II – Feb 12, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Egypt Uprising, Iran/Persia Uprising, Peace in Middle East without Israel actively involved, Muhammad, "Conceptual" Youth Revolution, "Conceptual" (without a manager hierarchy) managed Businesses, Internet, Social Media, News Media, Google, Bankers, Global Unity,..... etc.)

Police admit to infiltrating Occupy Austin, may have acted as provocateurs

Raw Story, Muriel Kane, Friday, August 31, 2012

When the local offshoot of Occupy Wall Street began a five-month encampment in Austin, Texas last fall, the Austin police assigned at least three undercover officers to infiltrate the group and gather information on potentially illegal actions.

According to the Austin Statesman, court documents and interviews show that the infiltrators “camped with other participants in the movement, marched in rallies and attended strategy meetings.”

They may also have gone further, acting as provocateurs to encourage the use of lockboxes or “sleeping dragons” — lengths of PVC pipe into which protestors insert their arms to make it harder for police to remove them during a demonstration. 

Seven protestors who used the devices while blocking a port entrance in Houston last December 12 have been charged with a felony and face jail terms of from two to ten years under what the Statesman calls “an obscure statute that prohibits using a device that is manufactured or adapted for the purpose of participating in a crime.”

The question of the lockboxes came up during a district court hearing in Harris County this week at which one of those seven, Ronnie Garza, sought to have the charge against him dropped. It was disclosed at the hearing that Austin Police Detective Shannon Dowell — known to Occupiers as “Butch” — had purchased the necessary pipe and other materials using funds supplied by Occupy Austin, constructed the devices himself, and provided them to demonstrators.

According to Occupy Austin supporter Kit OConnell, the occupiers figured out “Butch’s” true identity after their encampment was evicted last winter. Affadavits from Occupy Austin members have pointed to Dowell as the person who pushed for the use of the lockboxes and allege that he would regularly pull participants aside “in order to express his frustration with debate and eagerness for more aggressive and provocative actions.”

Garza’s attorney, Greg Gladden of the National Lawyer’s Guild, has accused the police of entrapment and possible misconduct. Judge Joan Campbell, who had initially dismissed the case until prosecutors obtained indictments from a grand jury, says she will decide next week whether to allow the proceeding to go forward.

At the hearing, Dowell told the judge that he had could not produce subpoenaed documents because emails he had sent about the operation from his work computer had been deleted and he had lost a thumb drive containing photos when it dropped out of his pocket and fell in the gutter.

The Statesman reports that Judge Campbell expressed frustration with Dowell, while Garza’s attorney remarked, “I think he decided it was time the dog ate his homework.” 

Judge Campbell has threatened to dismiss the case unless the required documents and the real names of the two other undercover officers, “Dirk” and “Rick,” are presented at the next hearing on September 5.

Police officials declined to comment on the question of it was Dowell who first proposed using the lockboxes, but they did confirm that their department had ordered the infiltration.

Austin Police Chief Sean Mannix said that his department had begun receiving reports from confidential informants that the occupiers might be planning illegal protests. “We obviously had an interest in ensuring people didn’t step it up to criminal activity,” he said. “There is obviously a vested public interest to make sure that we didn’t allow civil unrest, violent actions to occur.”

Mannix does not believe any laws or departmental policies were violated, but he confirmed that the infiltration effort is the subject of a high-level internal review which is “absolutely looking into all aspects of what their undercover work was.”

Photo of an arrest at Occupy Austin by Ann Harkness via Flickr

Matthew message (Channelled by Suzanne Ward, Sep 1, 2012)

Matthew Books, Sep 1, 2012

Matthew

Ascension process on target; Earth’s destination fifth density; ongoing ET assistance; disclosure process; Hatonn: Obama reelection key to ET arrival, Golden Age master plan; fear deters soul evolvement

1. With loving greetings from all souls at this station, this is Matthew. Such excitement is in the air for all lighted souls—the countdown to the threshold of Earth’s Golden Age is months and weeks, not the decades, then years that followed the onset of her ascension!

2. Especially among newly awakened souls, but also some long-time dedicated lightworkers, there are differing perceptions about two aspects of this accomplishment that is unique in this universe: ascension itself and disclosure.  Some view these as singular, unrelated events while others consider ascension to be a process and disclosure an event. We shall speak about our perspective of these ongoing processes as the two sides of a coin, so to say.   

3. By your late 1930s, economic depression had taken a heavy toll on your society and the rise of Germany’s Third Reich was leading to invasions of nearby countries.  Gaia, Earth’s soul, knew what was brewing in her energy field of potential.  She knew that her planetary body, which was nearly bereft of light, was too weak to survive the inevitable World War II and other savagery that would ensue due to the hold of darkness on her humankind’s consciousness.

4. That is why—and when—she cried out for help. The immediate response was the massive infusion of light from distant civilizations that enabled Earth to jar loose from deep third density and slowly start rising into a higher, yet still very dense, energy level. That was the beginning of her ascension.

5. Now we shall fast-forward to this year at hand. During its last days and the early days of 2013, the planet will travel through the celestial window between third and fourth densities, where the energy wisps of both densities briefly comingle, and it will enter fourth density, where Earth’s Golden Age begins. 

6. But that glorious milestone is not the end of her journey. Ascension will continue until the planet is securely within fifth density, where Gaia originated in antiquity and so did her planetary body.  After eons of being in the low densities that were commensurate with the collective consciousness of successive civilizations, Gaia’s body will have returned home.

7. Indeed, Earth’s exiting third density will be heralded throughout the lighted universe!  However, knowing that this brilliant process will continue for long years to come will prevent despondency from befalling those who are expecting a dramatic event to occur on December 21st.  When nothing of dynamic proportions happens that day or any other in that same narrow timeframe, how sad it would be if those who are counting on something spectacular become so depressed that they decide at soul level to join the others who also choose not to remain on the planet for different reasons. 

8. Now then, let us speak about disclosure. Because this has been tied to an official announcement about your universal family’s presence, many lightworkers feel discouraged that this close to the end of your year 2012, still no such acknowledgement has come forth.

9. Although the Illuminati’s former power base has been shattered, they still have strong influence in some areas, and one is the media. By suppressing information they do not want known, they have prevented the majority of your populace from learning that souls from spiritually and intellectually advanced civilizations are surrounding the planet in thousands of ships or working side by side with you or living in Inner Earth. Thus, most in your world have no expectations whatsoever about meeting members of our universal family. So, in the collective consciousness there is a dearth of truthful knowledge about them and very few thoughts about welcoming them.

10. That, combined with the dark ones’ tenacious hold on some military sectors that can pose risk to you and landing parties, continues to delay an announcement and landings in numbers. But most assuredly, this has not diminished one iota the ongoing assistance of your brothers and sisters!

11. Essential strides in progress are continuing covertly on the ground and ships’ crews are continuing to use the technology aboard to reduce toxic pollution and block the functioning of powerful weaponry. They’re leveling out the effects of earthquakes, decreasing wind velocity and steering major storms away from heavily populated areas while still permitting the same amount of negativity to be released. Constant coordination between land and sky intelligence units is thwarting Illuminati “black ops” attempts such as organized terrorism and lengthy power outages or interruptions in communications systems.

12. So that you won’t dim your personal light by negative feelings because there has been no “disclosure” to date, we ask you to expand its definition, exposure or revelation, to include your expression “coming to light.” That is exactly what has been happening ever since Earth started her ascension course!

13. In those earliest years there was no evidence that anything unusual was happening, but as Earth’s journey continued and the light intensity increased, it started revealing despicable activities that formerly were known only to the malevolent perpetrators and those who were directly affected. As the long-time entrenched darkness was coming to light, without realizing that they, too, were responding to light’s vibrations, the peoples started opening their hearts and minds 

14. Consider the worldwide change in attitudes about war. The allied forces’ unity of spirit during WWII—it is patriotic to kill and honorable to die—has evolved into global rallies and meditations for peace.  Consider how much information has come to light about corruption in governments from community level to national, and in multinational corporations and financial institutions. Pedophiles have been identified in the priesthood and in organizations that at one time were considered havens for your children, and individuals once thought to be mentors or idols have fallen as their dark characteristics have been revealed.      

15. Now put those disclosures and all others into their proper context—an integral aspect of Earth’s ascension.  As the planet traveled through successively higher energy planes, more and more areas of criminality and abhorrent conditions that once were hidden have come to light. This was imperative so the peoples could see how darkness was controlling their lives, and in light of that realization, they were motivated to bring about benevolent changes.

16. The light energy of your civilization’s growing awareness, aspirations and actions has been lifting the collective consciousness all along Earth’s ascension journey. Only seventy-some years ago she was in death throes!  Her transit out of deep third density to the point of imminent entry into fourth density is a universal achievement unprecedented in speed and scope!  

17. By seeing disclosure as the essential and inseparable part of the ascension process that it is, there need be no disappointment or discouragement because official recognition of our family’s presence has not yet happened. Be assured, it will!  Their public reception by specific world leaders will be the crowning point of the entire disclosure process, and like you, we are eagerly anticipating that momentous day!

18. We do understand that knowing When? is very important to you, and I have asked Hatonn if he can give us an update on that.         

Hatonn:

Thank you for asking me, Matthew.  First I want to say that I concur with everything you said about disclosure and why an official welcome is still on hold. And I thank you for explaining that our crews in ships are doing whatever they can to help you while they’re waiting to land and our ground crews are holding up their end too. We’ve been in readiness for a decade to get this show on the road!  

But getting on to when we’ll be “announced,” safety still is an issue, of course, but the new key is the November presidential election in the United States. It’s essential that the Obama presidency continues. This has nothing at all to do with politics in that country or any other! It has everything to do with the Golden Age master plan!

The plan is according to what Gaia, Earth’s soul, wants. She wants a peaceful world with everyone having a fair share and everyone respecting all of her Nature realm. The highest universal council chose as a major player a soul with highly evolved spiritual status, ancient wisdom and world leadership experience in many lifetimes. That soul is Barack Obama.

He was born with and has retained Gaia’s vision of Earth, and he has the inspiration and qualifications to achieve it. His reelection is imperative to the plan going forward because his opponent isn’t capable of or interested in making the changes the plan requires.

We are totally apolitical and we’re NOT belittling Mitt Romney! It’s that he and those who share his views aren’t motivated to change the status quo where money’s concerned, and that gross inequity of the few with billions and the billions with little or nothing can’t go on and it won’t.  Earth will not allow that imbalance to continue.

I think more of the big picture is needed here. The master plan included that some individuals would cause the various kinds of suffering that gave many, many souls the chance to wind up their third density karma and balance other lifetime experiences so they could go along with Earth.  When that part of the plan was completed about ten years ago, those individuals were supposed to join the light forces. They didn’t, and that’s why wars, prejudices, corruption, greed, divisiveness, terrorism and other destructive third density conditions still are going on.   

According to the original plan, by now all of that would have been long gone.  It was intended that when Obama became president, he’d have worldwide support in unifying people of all nations and leading your world into the Golden Age. The plan called for you and us to meet up ten years ago and work together to clean up the mess on your planet caused by greedy, uncaring power players. 

Well, we’re still waiting and Obama’s efforts to get reforms going have been blocked by his foes in the Congress or the moneyed individuals who control most members.  Through either death threats to his family or bloc voting, Obama has been forced into decisions that are against his conscience and his world vision. After he knew that he and his family had our protection, his mind was relieved of that deep concern, but he still has had to deal with unyielding partisanship and blatant lies or distortions of facts.

That’s what’s on center stage in the US right now and what should be there is how that nation will cooperate with other countries to fix the sorry state your world is in! If our making an appearance becomes pivotal to Obama keeping his position, we’ll do that in sufficient time before the election.  If we see that his reelection is certain, we’ll show up soon afterwards. 

Again, this is NOT political!  Once we’re there, political differences won’t be an issue in any country. The truth about us and many other situations that will be disclosed will be.

Matthew, that’s as close as I can come to a date when we’ll be “out in the open.”  Thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak.

Matthew:     

    

19. Hatonn, we thank you for explaining the situation so clearly and for the assurance that whether shortly before or shortly after that election day, the official welcoming of our universal family is soon! That ends our concerns that souls might choose to leave when nothing dynamic happens December 21st—the spectacular drama will come with the introduction of our “space” family!

20. Beloved lightworkers, we know that your sense of urgency for public acknowledgement of other civilizations goes far beyond curiosity. It is your heartfelt desire for war and widespread suffering and acts of random violence to end.

21. As we have stated in prior messages, the continuance of those circumstances is due in large part to the prevailing vibrations that are magnifying duality’s characteristics and behavior—“good” gets better, “bad” gets worse.  And in keeping with what Hatonn said about timing in the master plan, it called for only “good having become better” at this point.

22. While the extra years of darkness caused horrendous adversity to many people, the greater importance is how their souls have been affected. When a short lifetime, trauma and severe hardships were not part of persons’ contracts, divine grace gave them evolved spiritual status, and when the perpetrators’ acts were outside of their contracts, their status devolved.  That is, the cycle of the eternal life of the soul was not adversely affected during those extra years of darkness, and many, many millions of souls took leaps forward spiritually and intellectually.

23. We feel that it is important to once again speak about the needlessness of feeling fearful about anything. You have seen that concerns about terrorism during the Olympic games were for naught.  We urge you to put all other fear-filled claims and predictions and reports in the same category—they will not come to pass!  This does not mean that the Illuminati have no intentions of trying to cause fear.  It does mean that just as their previous attempts have failed due to the intervention of our space family above and on the planet, so shall all of their other plans meet that fate until all darkness has been vanquished.  And soon it shall be!

24. This far along in Earth’s ascension, even the fears of many individuals cannot delay her steady pace or detour her course, but it can do that to the individuals’ growth in spiritual and conscious awareness. We are embracing all of you in unconditional love, that most powerful of all energies in this universe. If you will but accept this, you can be fearless about what is ahead and look forward with joyousness and excitement to the remaining days of this year and all years to come.  Oh, let us “edit” ourselves here—there are no linear time designations in the continuum that you are fast approaching, so instead of years, we say all lifetimes to come. 

25. Throughout your long journey in this lifetime, we have been traveling with you in spirit, and we are rejoicing with you that each footstep brings closer your victorious entry into Earth’s Golden Age. 

               

LOVE and PEACE

Suzanne Ward

www.matthewbooks.com

[Note from Suzy: 'Earth’s Golden Age—Life beyond 2012', the fifth in the Matthew Books series, will be available in a week or so in eBook for Kindle on Amazon.com. The print edition will be out later this fall.

Two weeks ago, I had the thrill of participating in “Transformation 2012” in Pagosa Springs, CO. The 150 people at the conference added a lot of light to the planet!

I’ll also be speaking at “The 2012 Scenario Conference Sedona,” October 26-28 in Sedona, AZ. This conference will be another meeting of kindred spirits whose love-filled energy will add lots of light to Earth. http://the2012scenario.com/

Recently I was interviewed for “White Buffalo: An American Prophecy,” the spiritual odyssey of four brothers to discover what Turtle Island’s ancient sacred wisdom portends for America. The documentary will be released later this year. 

Production website: www.whitebuffalomovie.com 

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCdXXHHV7Gc 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WhiteBuffaloMovie

If this message was forwarded to you and you would like to receive future messages directly, please follow the instructions at the top of Matthew’s Messages page on www.matthewbooks.com.]

China reevaluating brokerage executive salaries

Want China Times, Xinhua 2012-09-02

The government has emphasized a stronger, more complete evaluation
system is needed to ensure salaries are going into the right — and worthy —
pockets. (File photo/Xinhua)

China's top securities watchdog said Friday that it is considering regulating the salary of brokerage executives, in a bid to enhance management at securities firms.

In a set of draft rules released to seek public opinion, the China Securities Regulatory Commission said payment on more than 40% of brokerage executives' performance-related salary should be delayed for at least three years.

If executives fail to perform their duties and cause major irregularities or risks in the delay periods, the company should stop paying the remainder of the unpaid salary, according to the draft rules.

The commission said that the salaries of some Chinese brokerage executives are unreasonably structured and lack a complete evaluation mechanism. Therefore, the new rules require securities firms to establish more effective evaluation systems and set a link between wages and risks.

In a separate statement, the commission also released draft guidelines on the participation of securities firms in regional equity transactions, so as to better serve medium-sized, small and micro-enterprises.

Securities firms are able to participate in regional markets in two ways: either as members of the regional equity markets, or as shareholders of the regional markets involved in market regulation when starting a business, according to the commission.

Cardinal Carlo Martini says Church '200 years behind'

BBC News, 1 September 2012

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Cardinal Martini's body is lying
in state in Milan Cathedral

Italian Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini has described the Roman Catholic Church as being "200 years behind" the times.

The cardinal died on Friday, aged 85.

Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera has published his last interview, recorded in August, in which he said: "The Church is tired... our prayer rooms are empty."

Martini, once tipped as a future pope, urged the Church to recognise its errors and to embark on a radical path of change, beginning with the Pope.

Thousands of people have been filing past his coffin at Milan's cathedral, where he was archbishop for more than 20 years.

The cardinal, who had retired from the post in 2002, suffering from Parkinson's Disease, is to be buried on Monday.

'Old culture'

Martini, a popular figure with liberal stances on many issues, commanded great respect from both Pope John Paul II and his successor Pope Benedict XVI.

The cardinal - a member of the Jesuit religious order - was often critical in his writings and comments on Church teaching, says the BBC's David Willey in Rome.

He was a courageous and outspoken figure during the years he headed Europe's largest Catholic diocese, our correspondent says.

In his last interview, given to a fellow Jesuit priest less than a month ago and published the day after his death, the cardinal made sweeping criticisms of the Catholic Church.

Catholics lacked confidence in the Church, he said. "Our culture has grown old, our churches are big and empty and the church bureaucracy rises up, our religious rites and the vestments we wear are pompous."

Unless the Church adopted a more generous attitude towards divorced persons, it will lose the allegiance of future generations, the cardinal added. The question, he said, is not whether divorced couples can receive holy communion, but how the Church can help complex family situations.

And the advice he leaves behind to conquer the tiredness of the Church was a "radical transformation, beginning with the Pope and his bishops".

"The child sex scandals oblige us to undertake a journey of transformation," Cardinal Martini says, referring to the child sex abuse that has rocked the Catholic Church in the past few years.

He was not afraid, our correspondent adds, to speak his mind on matters that the Vatican sometimes considered taboo, including the use of condoms to fight Aids and the role of women in the Church.

In 2008, for example, he criticised the Church's prohibition of birth control, saying the stance had likely driven many faithful away, and publicly stated in 2006 that condoms could "in some situations, be a lesser evil".

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"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Based in Greece, Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.)

"Perceptions of God" – June 6, 2010 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Quantum Teaching, The Fear of God, Near-death Experience, God Becomes Mythology, Worship, Mastery, Intelligent Design, Benevolent Creator, Global Unity.... etc.) (Text version)

“.. For centuries you haven't been able to think past that box of what God must be like. So you create a Human-like God with wars in heaven, angel strife, things that would explain the devil, fallen angels, pearly gates, lists of dos and don'ts, and many rules still based on cultures that are centuries old. You create golden streets and even sexual pleasures as rewards for men (of course) - all Human perspective, pasted upon God. I want to tell you that it's a lot different than that. I want to remind you that there are those who have seen it! Why don't you ask somebody who has had what you would call a near-death experience?

Secret royal veto powers over new laws to be exposed

Information commissioner orders release of guide to how Queen and Prince Charles must be consulted before laws are passed

guardian.co.uk, Robert Booth, Friday 31 August 2012

Prince Charles views work on a property bought by the Duchy of Cornwall

 which, along with the Queen, must be consulted before laws are passed to

 ensure they don’t adversely affect their private interests. Photograph: Tim 

Graham/Getty Images

A little-known power enjoyed by the Queen and Prince of Wales to alter new laws is due to be exposed after the government lost a legal battle to keep details of its application private.

The information commissioner has ruled that the Cabinet Office must publish an internal Whitehall guide to the way the senior royals are consulted before legislation is introduced to ensure it does not harm their private interests.

The application of the controversial veto was revealed by the Guardian last year and has been described by constitutional lawyers as "a royal nuclear deterrent". Some believe it may underpin the influence Prince Charles appears to wield in Whitehall over pet issues ranging from architecture to healthcare.

A judgment issued last week by the deputy information commissioner, Graham Smith, means the Cabinet Office has until 25 September to release the confidential internal manual. It details how the consent of "The Crown and The Duchy of Cornwall" is obtained before bills are passed into law and what criteria ministers apply before asking the royals to amend draft laws. If it fails to do so it could face high court action.

In the past two parliamentary sessions Charles has been asked to consent to at least 12 draft bills on everything from wreck removals to co-operative societies. Between 2007 and 2009 he was consulted on bills relating to coroners, economic development and construction, marine and coastal access, housing and regeneration, energy and planning. In Charles's case, the little-known power stems from his role as the head of the £700m Duchy of Cornwall estate, which provides his £17m-a-year private income.

The government battled to keep the manual secret, claiming publication would breach legal professional privilege, and a spokeswoman for the Cabinet Office said it was still deciding whether to challenge the ruling at the information tribunal.

Lord Berkeley, a Labour peer who was told to seek Charles's consent on a marine navigation bill, said the commissioner's decision was "absolutely right". He said publication could shed light on a little-known procedure that allows the prince and the Queen "to fiddle around with bills to make sure they don't affect their private interests".

"People will start thinking, what the hell is going on?" he said. "We are in the 21st century, not the 18th century and it is crazy to think they are even trying to do this. The royal family should give up this special privilege and we should all obey the law of the land. Just because they have private estates, private incomes and land from several centuries ago doesn't mean they should have the right to interfere."

The latest crack in the edifice of secrecy around Charles's influence on public life came after a legal scholar, John Kirkhope, asked for Whitehall's internal manuals on consulting the royals. He said it was "clearly in the public interest that citizens understand how laws are made and applied as well as the circumstances in which the Duchy of Cornwall is consulted".

Kirkhope was researching a university thesis about the legal status of the duchy and wanted to know how ministers decided whether new laws affected the "hereditary revenues, personal property of the Duke [Charles] or other interests".

The Duchy of Cornwall runs farms and industrial property, builds houses and acts as a landlord as well as taking responsibility for large areas of the natural environment in south-west England. Its interests often overlap with Charles's own in areas such as town planning where past interventions in public debate have seen the prince accused of abusing his influence to distort the democratic process.

In 2009 Charles caused a storm when he stepped into the public planning debate for the Chelsea Barracks housing development designed by Richard Rogers. He privately complained to the site's owner, the prime minister of Qatar, that the design was "a gigantic experiment with the very soul of our capital city". Rogers was promptly sacked and the scheme redrawn in line with the prince's tastes.

Kirkhope said evidence he had gathered suggested the process of seeking royal consent for draft bills was not a mere formality. "The correspondence indicates that the effects of the bills are explained to the royal household, including the Duchy of Cornwall, discussions ensue and if necessary changes are made to proposed legislation," he said. "Departments of state have fought to avoid releasing correspondence which gives some hint of how the process works and the Cabinet Office has resisted releasing details of the guidance which determines whether the prince as Duke of Cornwall is consulted in the first place.

"As a citizen of this country I have a proper interest in ensuring the process by which laws are made should be transparent and that those who are given special privileges should be accountable. That is demonstrably not the case with regard to the Duchy of Cornwall."

Earlier in August Kirkhope forced the government to release edited emails showing how the Ministry of Justice consulted Buckingham Palace in 2008 and 2009 over the detail of the apprenticeships bill and how it would affect the Queen "in her personal capacity". As an employer of 1,200 staff the royal household stood to be affected, along with thousands of other employers. The civil servants wanted to know "Her Majesty's intentions in relation to the bill" before its second reading in the House of Commons.

One email refers to a note from the Queen's solicitors, Farrer and Co, "setting out his instructions in relation to the application of the apprenticeships bill to Her Majesty in her personal capacity".

The official states: "I understand from our discussion today that it might not be possible for what they want to happen without there being express provision in the bill".

It echoes correspondence released last year in which a minister wrote to the prince's office requesting his consent to a new planning bill because it was "capable of applying to ... [the] Prince of Wales' private interests".

Buckingham Palace and Clarence House released a joint statement in response to the information commissioner's ruling. "The royal household understands that the Cabinet Office is considering the information commissioner's decision and next step," it said. "It would not be a matter for the royal household to challenge any decision."