Daily Archives: June 27, 2016

Home | Nassau, Bahamas – Embassy of the United States

Posted: June 27, 2016 at 6:32 am

On behalf of U.S. Embassy Nassau, I extend our deepest condolences to the family of Cassandra Butts, who passed away on May 24, 2016. Cassandra Butts was honored that President Obama had asked her to be the next U.S. Ambassador to the Commonwealth of The Bahamas. She was greatly looking forward to forging even stronger ties between our two nations.

The U.S. Embassy, through the U.S. Department of State sponsored a subregional International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) professional exchange program focused on Combating Corruption from March 6 16, 2016. Supreme Court Judge, Justice Bernard Turner and Tribune reporter Khrisna Virgil represented The Bahamas in the program. Other countries represented included Guyana, Jamaica, and Suriname.

U.S. Embassy Charg dAffaires a.i. Lisa A. Johnson toured the Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF) Police Training College and Canine Unit with Minister of National Security Dr. Bernard Nottage and Commissioner of Police Mr. Ellison Greenslade. The purpose of the visit was to see the results of several ongoing projects funded by the Embassys International Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) Section through the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI).

Continuing corrections reform cooperation under the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI), the U.S. Embassys International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) Section presented the Bahamas Department of Correctional Services with three state-of-the-art cell contraband detection devices, valued at approximately $46,000.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration has announced that on February 19, 2016 all handwritten Bahamians passports will be canceled and become null and void. The Bahamas Information Service additionally advised that all Bahamians, in possession of those passports should immediately surrender them and obtain an electronic passport.

On Friday, January 29th, the U.S. Embassys Acting Deputy Chief of Mission Neda Brown hosted a reception at the U.S. Ambassadors Residence in honor of the 2015-2016 Bahamas Fulbright Scholar Dr. Amelia Moore, PhD. Dr. Moore currently serves as the Assistant Professor in the Department of Marine Affairs at the University of Rhode Island. On hand for the event was President of The College of The Bahamas Dr. Rodney Smith and a cross-section of the community representing the fields of education, tourism, environmental NGOs, government and the arts.

The U.S. Embassys International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) Section and Sandilands Rehabilitation Centre marked the end of a joint 15-month, $500,000 project to provide train-the-trainer training for substance use treatment professionals on January 29 at the Public Hospital Authority. As part of the project, a cadre of 22 substance use treatment professionals from across government and civil society received train-the-trainer training in the comprehensive Universal Treatment Curriculum (UTC) for Substance Use Disorders.

Bahamas All-Inclusive Resorts, Bahamas All-Inclusive …

Posted: at 6:32 am

Find a Deal

Select Airport Abbotsford, BC (YXX) Aberdeen, SD (ABR) Abilene, TX (ABI ) Akron/Canton, OH (CAK) Akutan, AK (KQA) Alamogordo, MN (ALM) Alamosa, CO (ALS) Albany, GA (ABY) Albany, NY (ALB) Albuquerque, NM (ABQ) Alexandria, LA (AEX) Allentown, PA (ABE) Alliance, NE (AIA) Alpena, MI (APN) Altoona, PA (AOO) Amarillo, TX (AMA) Ambler, AK (ABL) Anchorage, AK (ANC) Aniak, AK (ANI) Appleton, WI (ATW) Asheville, NC (AVL) Aspen, CO (ASE) Athens, GA (AHN) Atlanta, GA (ATL) Atlantic City - Bader Field, NJ (AIY) Atlantic City, NJ (ACY) Augusta, GA (AGS) Augusta, ME (AUG) Austin, TX (AUS) Bagotville, QC (YBG) Baie Comeau, QC (YBC) Bakersfield, CA (BFL) Baltimore, MD (BWI) Banff, AB (YBA) Bangor, ME (BGR) Bar Harbor, ME (BHB) Barrow, AK (BRW) Bathurst, NB (ZBF) Baton Rouge, LA (BTR) Battle Creek, MI (BTL) Bay City, MI (MBS) Beaufort, SC (BFT) Beaumont/Port Arthur, TX (BPT) Beaver Creek, CO (ZBV) Beckley, WV (BKW) Bedford, MA (BED) Bellingham, WA (BLI) Bemidji, MN (BJI) Benton Harbour, MI (BEH) Bethel, AK (BET) Bettles, AK (BTT) Big Lake, AK (BGQ) Billings, MT (BIL) Binghamton, NY (BGM) Birmingham, AL (BHM) Bismarck, ND (BIS) Bloomington, IL (BMI) Bluefield, WV (BLF) Boca Raton, FL (BCT) Boise, ID (BOI) Boston, MA (BOS) Boulder Hiltons Har H, CO (WHH) Boulder, CO (WBU) Bozeman, MT (BZN) Bradford, PA (BFD) Brainerd, MN (BRD) Branson, MO (BKG) Breckenridge, CO (QKB) Bridgeport, CT (BDR) Brookings, SD (BKX) Brownsville, TX (BRO) Brownwood, TX (BWD) Brunswick, GA (BQK) Brunswick, ME (NHZ) Bryce, UT (BCE) Buckland, AK (BKC) Buffalo, NY (BUF) Burbank, CA (BUR) Burlington, IA (BRL) Burlington, VT (BTV) Butte, MT (BTM) Calgary, AB (YYC) Cambridge, MA (JHY) Campbell River, BC (YBL) Cape Girardeau, MO (CGI) Carlsbad, CA (CLD) Carlsbad, NM (CNM) Casper, WY (CPR) Castlegar, BC (YCG) Cedar City, UT (CDC) Cedar Rapids, IA (CID) Chadron, NE (CDR) Champaign/Urbana, IL (CMI) Charleston, SC (CHS) Charleston, WV (CRW) Charlotte, NC (CLT) Charlottesville, VA (CHO) Charlottetown, PE (YYG) Chattanooga, TN (CHA) Chevak, AK (VAK) Cheyenne, WY (CYS) Chibougamau, QC (YMT) Chicago Midway, IL (MDW) Chicago O'Hare, IL (ORD) Chico, CA (CIC) Cincinnati, OH (CVG) Clarksburg, WV (CKB) Clearwater, FL (CLW) Cleveland, OH (CLE) Clintonville, WI (CLI) Clovis, NM (CVN) Coatesville, PA (CTH) Cody/Yellowstone, WY (COD) Cold Bay, AK (CDB) College Station,TX (CLL) Colorado Springs, CO (COS) Columbia, MO (COU) Columbia, SC (CAE) Columbus AFB, MS (CBM) Columbus Rickenbacker, OH (LCK) Columbus, GA (CSG) Columbus, MS (GTR) Columbus, OH (CMH) Comox, BC (YQQ) Copper Mountain, CO (QCE) Cordova, AK (CDV) Corpus Christi, TX (CRP) Cortez, CO (CEZ) Corvallis, OR (CVO) Craig, AK (CGA) Cranbrook, BC (YXC) Crescent City, CA (CEC) Crested Butte, CO (CSE) Cumberland, MD (CBE) Dallas Love Field, TX (DAL) Dallas/Fort Worth, TX (DFW) Danbury, CT (DXR) Danville, Virginia (DAN) Dayton, OH (DAY) Daytona Beach, FL (DAB) Decatur, IL (DEC) Deer Lake, NL (YDF) Del Rio, TX (DRT) Delta Junction, AK (DJN) Denver, CO (DEN) Des Moines, IA (DSM) Detroit Metro, MI (DTW) Devils Lake, ND (DVL) Dickinson, ND (DIK) Dillingham, AK (DLG) Dodge City, KS (DDC) Dothan, AL (DHN) Dubois, PA (DUJ) Dubuque, IA (DBQ) Duluth, MN (DLH) Durango, CO (DRO) Dutch Harbor, AK (DUT) Eastsound, WA (ESD) Eau Claire, WI (EAU) Edmonton, AB (YEG) El Centro, CA (NJK) El Dorado, AR (ELD) El Paso, TX (ELP) Elko, NV (EKO) Ellington Field, TX (EFD) Elmira, NY (ELM) Ely, MN (LYU) Ely, NV (ELY) Emporia, KS (EMP) Enig, OK (WDG) Erie, PA (ERI) Escanaba, MI (ESC) Eugene, OR (EUG) Eureka Acarta, CA (ACV) Eureka Murray, CA (EKA) Evansville, IN (EVV) Everett, WA (PAE) Fairbanks (Eielson), AK (EIL) Fairbanks, AK (FAI) Fairmont, MN (FRM) Fargo, ND (FAR) Farmington, NM (FMN) Fayetteville Drake, AR (FYV) Fayetteville, AR (XNA) Fayetteville, NC (FAY) Flagstaff, AZ (FLG) Flint, MI (FNT) Florence, SC (FLO) Franklin, PA (FKL) Fredericton, NB (YFC) Fresno, CA (FAT) Friday Harbour, Washington (FRD) Ft. Collins, CO (QWF) Ft. Collins/Loveland, CO (FNL) Ft. Dodge, Iowa (FOD) Ft. Huachuca/Sierra Vista, AZ (FHU) Ft. Lauderdale, FL (FLL) Ft. Leonard Wood, MO (TBN) Ft. McMurray, AB (YMM) Ft. Myers (Page Field), FL (FMY) Ft. Myers, FL (RSW) Ft. Pierce, FL (FPR) Ft. Richardson, AK (FRN) Ft. Smith, AR (FSM) Ft. St. John, BC (YXJ) Ft. Walton Beach, FL (VPS) Ft. Wayne, IN (FWA) Gainesville, FL (GNV) Gallup, NM (GUP) Gander, NF (YQX) Garden City, KS (GCK) Gary, IN (GYY) Gaspe, QC (YGP) Gettysburg, PA (GTY) Gillette, WY (GCC) Glasgow, MT (GGW) Glendale, CA (JGX) Glendive, MT (GDV) Goodland, KS (GLD) Goose Bay, NF (YYR) Grand Canyon, AZ (GCN) Grand Forks, ND (GFK) Grand Island, NE (GRI) Grand Junction, CO (GJT) Grand Rapids, MI (GRR) Grand Rapids, MN (GPZ) Grande Prairie, AB (YQU) Great Bend, KS (GBD) Great Falls, MT (GTF) Green Bay, WI (GRB) Greenbrier, WV (LWB) Greensboro, NC (GSO) Greenville, MS (GLH) Greenville, NC (PGV) Greenville, SC (GSP) Guam (GUM) Gulfport/Biloxi, MS (GPT) Gunnison, CO (GUC) Gustavus, AK (GST) Hagerstown, MD (HGR) Haines, AK (HNS) Halifax, NS (YHZ) Hana Maui, HI (HNM) Hancock, MI (CMX) Harlingen, TX (HRL) Harrisburg, PA (MDT) Harrison, AZ (HRO) Hartford (Bradley), CT (BDL) Hartford (Brainard), CT (HFD) Havre, MT (HVR) Hays, KS (HYS) Helena, MT (HLN) Hibbings, MN (HIB) Hickory, NC (HKY) Hilo, HI (ITO) Hilton Head Island, SC (HHH) Hobbs, NM (HOB) Hollis, AK (HYL) Hollywood, FL (HWO) Homer, AK (HOM) Honolulu, HI (HNL) Hoonah, AK (HNH) Hooper Bay, AK (HPB) Hot Springs, AR (HOT) Houston Hobby, TX (HOU) Houston Intercontinental, TX (IAH) Huntington, WV (HTS) Huntsville (Redstone), AL (HUA) Huntsville, AL (HSV) Huron, SD (HON) Huslia, AK (HSL) Hyannis, MA (HYA) Idaho Falls, ID (IDA) Iles-de-la Madeleine, QC (YGR) Iliamna, AK (ILI) Imperial, CA (IPL) Indianapolis, IN (IND) International Falls, MN (INL) Inykern, CA (IYK) Iron Mountain, MI (IMT) Ironwood, MI (IWD) Islip, NY (ISP) Ithaca, NY (ITH) Jackson Hole, WY (JAC) Jackson, MS (JAN) Jackson, TN (MKL) Jacksonville, FL (JAX) Jacksonville, NC (OAJ) Jamestown, ND (JMS) Jamestown, NY (JHW) Jasper, AB (YJA) Johnstown, PA (JST) Joliet, IL (JOT) Jonesboro, AR (JBR) Joplin, MO (JLN) Juneau, AK (JNU) Kake, AK (KAE) Kalamazoo, MI (AZO) Kalaupapa, HI (LUP) Kalispell/Glacier, MT (FCA) Kaltag, AK (KAL) Kamloops, BC (YKA) Kamuela, HI (MUE) Kansas City Municipal, MO (MKC) Kansas City, MO (MCI) Kapalua West, HI (JHM) Kearney, NE (EAR) Keene, NH (EEN) Kelowna, BC (YLW) Kenai, AK (ENA) Ketchikan, AK (KTN) Key West, FL (EYW) Keystone, CO (QKS) Killeen (Ft. Hood), TX (GRK) Killeen (Skylark), TX (ILE) King Salomon, AK (AKN) Kingman, AZ (IGM) Kingston, ON (YGK) Kinston, NC (ISO) Kirksville, MO (IRK) Kitchener/Waterloo, ON (YKF) Kivalina, AK (KVL) Klamath Falls, OR (LMT) Knoxville, TN (TYS) Kodiak, AK (ADQ) Koliganek, AK (KGK) Kona, HI (KOA) Kotzbue, AK (OTZ) Koyukuk, AK (KYU) Kwethluk, AK (KWT) La Crosse, WI (LSE) Lafayette, IN (LAF) Lafayette, LA (LFT) Lake Charles, LA (LCH) Lake Havasu City, AZ (HII) Lake Tahoe, CA (TVL) Lanai, HI (LNY) Lancaster, PA (LNS) Lansing, MI (LAN) Laramie, WY (LAR) Laredo, TX (LRD) Las Cruces International, NM (LRU) Las Vegas North, NV (VGT) Las Vegas, NV (LAS) Latrobe, PA (LBE) Laughlin/Bullhead International, AZ (IFP) Laurel, MS (PIB) Lawton, OK (LAW) Lebanon, NH (LEB) Lethbridge, AB (YQL) Levelock, AK (KLL) Lewiston, ID (LWS) Lewiston, MT (LWT) Lexington, KY (LEX) Liberal, KS (LBL) Lihue, HI (LIH) Lincoln, NE (LNK) Little Rock, AR (LIT) London, ON (YXU) Long Beach, CA (LGB) Longview, TX (GGG) Lopez Island, WA (LPS) Los Angeles, CA (LAX) Louisville, KY (SDF) Loveland, CO (LLD) Lubbock, TX (LBB) Lynchburg, VA (LYH) Macon, GA (MCN) Madison, WI (MSN) Mammoth, CA (MMH) Manchester, NH (MHT) Manhattan, KS (MHK) Manistee, MI (MBL) Mankato, MN (MKT) Manteo, NC (MEO) Marathon, FL (MTH) Marietta, GA (MGE) Marion, IL (MWA) Marquette, MI (MQT) Marshall, NJ (MML) Martha's Vineyard, MA (MVY) Mason City, IA (MCW) Massea/ Richards, NY (MSS) Maui, HI (OGG) McAllen, TX (MFE) McCook, NE (MCK) McGarth, AK (MCG) Medford, OR (MFR) Medicine Hat, AB (YXH) Melbourne, FL (MLB) Memphis, TN (MEM) Merced, CA (MCE) Meridian, MS (MEI) Metlakatla, AK (MTM) Miami Seaplane, FL (MPB) Miami, FL (MIA) Midland/Odessa, TX (MAF) Miles City, MT (MLS) Milwaukee, WI (MKE) Minneapolis, MN (MSP) Minot, ND (MOT) Missoula, MT (MSO) Moab, UT (CNY) Mobile, AL (MOB) Modesto, CA (MOD) Moline, IL (MLI) Molokai, HI (MKK) Moncton, NB (YQM) Monroe, LA (MLU) Mont Joli, QC (YYY) Mont Tremblant, QC (YTM) Montauk, NY (MTP) Monterey, CA (MRY) Montgomery, AL (MGM) Monticello, NY (MSV) Montreal (Trudeau), QC (YUL) Montrose/Delta, CO (MTJ) Monument Valley, UT (GMV) Morgantown, WV (MGW) Morristown, NJ (MMU) Moses Lake Larson AFB, WA (LRN) Moses Lake, WA (MWH) Mount Holly, NJ (LLY) Mountain Home, AR (WMH) Mountain View, CA (NUQ) Muncie, IN (MIE) Muscle Shoals, AL (MSL) Muskegon, MI (MKG) Myrtle Beach, SC (MYR) Nanaimo, BC (YCD) Nantucket, MA (ACK) Napa, CA (APC) Naples, FL (APF) Nashville, TN (BNA) New Bedford, MA (EWB) New Bern, NC (EWN) New Haven, CT (HVN) New London, CT (GON) New Orleans, LA (MSY) New York Kennedy, NY (JFK) New York LaGuardia, NY (LGA) Newark, NJ (EWR) Newport News,VA (PHF) Newport, OR (ONP) Newport, RI (NPT) Niagara Falls, ON (XLV) Nome, AK (OME) Norfolk, NE (OFK) Norfolk, VA (ORF) North Bay, ON (YYB) North Bend, OR (OTH) North Platte, NE (LBF) Norwalk, CT (ORQ) Norwood, MA (OWD) Nulato, AK (NUL) Oak Harbor, WA (ODW) Oakland County, CA (PTK) Oakland, CA (OAK) Oakville, ON (XOK) Ogden Municipal, UT Ogdensburg, NY (OGS) Oklahoma City, OK (OKC) Olympia, WA (OLM) Omaha, NE (OMA) Ontario, CA (ONT) Orange County, CA (SNA) Orlando Metropolitan, FL (ORL) Orlando, FL (MCO) Oshkosh, WI (OSH) Ottawa, ON (YOW) Ottumwa, IA (OTM) Owensboro, KY (OWB) Oxnard, CA (OXR) Paducah/Barkley, KY (PAH) Page Municipal, AZ (PGA) Palm Beach, FL (PBI) Palm Springs, CA (PSP) Palmdale, CA (PMD) Palmer, AK (PAQ) Palo Alto, CA (PAO) Panama City (County), FL (PFN) Panama City, FL (ECP) Parkersburg, WV (PKB) Pasadena, CA (JPD) Pasco, WA (PSC) Pelican, AK (PEC) Pellston, MI (PLN) Pendleton, OR (PDT) Pensacola, FL (PNS) Penticton, BC (YYF) Peoria, IL (PIA) Perryville, AK (KPV) Petersburg, AK (PSG) Philadelphia, PA (PHL) Phoenix, AZ (PHX) Phoenix-Mesa Gateway (AZA) Pierre, SD (PIR) Pilot Point, AK (PIP) Pilot Point/Ugashnik Bay, AK (UGB) Pilot Station, AK (PQS) Pinehurst, NC (SOP) Pittsburgh, PA (PIT) Platinum, AK (PTU) Plattsburgh Intl, NY (PBG) Plattsburgh, NY (PLB) Pleasanton, CA (JBS) Pocatello, ID (PIH) Point Baker, AK (KPB) Point Hope, AK (PHO) Point Lay, AK (PIZ) Pompano Beach, FL (PPM) Ponca City, OK (PNC) Port Alsworth, AK (PTA) Port Angeles, WA (CLM) Port Canaveral, FL (XPC) Port Clarence, AK (KPC) Port Moller, AK (PML) Portland, ME (PWM) Portland, OR (PDX) Portsmouth (Pease), NH (PSM) Portsmouth, NH (PMH) Poughkeepsie, NY (POU) Prescott, AZ (PRC) Presque Isle, ME (PQI) Prince George, BC (YXS) Prince Rupert, BC (YPR) Princeton, NJ (PCT) Providence, RI (PVD) Provincetown, MA (PVC) Provo, UT (PVU) Prudhoe Bay (Deadhorse), AK (SCC) Prudhoe Bay, AK (PUO) Pueblo, CO (PUB) Pullman, WA (PUW) Purgatory, CO (ZPU) Quakertown, PA (UKT) Quebec, QC (YQB) Quesnel, BC (YQZ) Quincy, IL (UIN) Raleigh-Durham, NC (RDU) Rampart, AK (RMP) Rapid City, SD (RAP) Reading, PA (RDG) Red Devil, AK (RDV) Redding, CA (RDD) Redmond, OR (RDM) Regina, SK (YQR) Reno, NV (RNO) Rhinelander, WI (RHI) Richmond, VA (RIC) Riverton, WY (RIW) Roanoke, VA (ROA) Roberval, QC (YRJ) Roche Harbor, WA (RCE) Rochester Municipal, MN (JRC) Rochester, MN (RST) Rochester, NY (ROC) Rock Springs, WY (RKS) Rockford (Park & Ride), IL (ZRF) Rockford, IL (RFD) Rockland, ME (RKD) Rocky Mount, NC (RWI) Rosario, WA (RSJ) Roswell, NM (ROW) Rouyn, QC (YUY) Rutland, VT (RUT) Sacramento, CA (SMF) Salem, OR (SLE) Salina, KS (SLN) Salisbury, MD (SBY) Salt Lake City, UT (SLC) San Angelo, TX (SJT) San Antonio, TX (SAT) San Diego, CA (SAN) San Francisco, CA (SFO) San Jose, CA (SJC) San Juan, PR (SJU) San Luis Obispo County, CA (SBP) San Luis Obispo, CA (CSL) San Pedro, CA (SPQ) Sand Point, AK (SDP) Sandspit, BC (YZP) Sanford, FL (SFB) Santa Barbara, CA (SBA) Santa Clara, CA (ZSM) Santa Fe, NM (SAF) Santa Maria, CA (SMX) Santa Monica, CA (SMO) Santa Rosa, CA (STS) Saranac Lake, NY (SLK) Sarasota, FL (SRQ) Sarnia, ON (YZR) Saskatoon, SK (YXE) Sault Ste Marie, MI (CIU) Sault Ste-Marie, ON (YAM) Saulte Ste. Marie (SSM) Savannah, GA (SAV) Scottsbluff, NE (BFF) Scottsdale, AZ (SCF) Scranton, PA (SCR) Seattle (Boeing), WA (BFI) Seattle, WA (SEA) Sedona, AZ (SDX) Seldovia, AK (SOV) Sept-Iles, QC (YZV) Seward, AK (SWD) Sheridan, WY (SHR) Show Low, AZ (SOW) Shreveport, LA (SHV) Sidney, MT (SDY) Silver City, NM (SVC) Sioux City, IA (SUX) Sioux Falls, SD (FSD) Sitka, AK (SIT) Skagway, AK (SGY) Smithers, BC (YYD) Smyrna, TN (MQY) Soldotna, AK (SXQ) South Bend, IN (SBN) Southfield, MI (DTF) Sparta, IL (SAR) Spencer, IA (SPW) Spokane, WA (GEG) Springfield, IL (SPI) Springfield, MO (SGF) St. Cloud, MN (STC) St. Croix, US Virgin Islands (STX) St. George, UT (SGU) St. John Island, UVI (SJF) St. John, NB (YSJ) St. Johns, NF (YYT) St. Louis, MO (STL) St. Mary's, AK (KSM) St. Michael, AK (SMK) St. Paul, AK (SNP) St. Petersburg, FL (PIE) St. Thomas / St. John, US Virgin Islands (STT) State College, PA (SCE) Staunton, VA (SHD) Steamboat Springs, CO (SBS) Stebbins, AK (WBB) Stevens Point, WI (STE) Stevens Village, AK (SUS) Stewart International, NY (SWF) Stillwater, OK (SWO) Stockton, CA (SCK) Sudbury, ON (YSB) Sun Valley, ID (SUN) Sydney, NS (YQY) Syracuse, NY (SYR) Tacoma, WA (TIW) Talkeetna, AK (TKA) Tallahassee, FL (TLH) Tampa, FL (TPA) Taos, NM (TSM) Tatitlek, AK (TEK) Telluride, CO (TEX) Terrace, BC (YXT) Terre Haute, IN (HUF) Teterboro, NJ (TEB) Texarkana, AR (TXK) Thief River Falls, MN (TVF) Thunder Bay, ON (YQT) Timmins, ON (YTS) Tin City, AK (TNC) Togiak, AK (TOG) Tok, AK (TKJ) Toksook, AK (OOK) Toledo, OH (TOL) Topeka, KS (FOE) Topp, AK (TOP) Toronto Metropolitan Area, ON (YTO) Toronto Pearson International, ON (YYZ) Torrance, CA (TOA) Traverse City, MI (TVC) Trenton, NJ (TTN) Tri-City Airport, TN (TRI) Tucson, AZ (TUS) Tulsa, OK (TUL) Tuluksak, AK (TLT) Tununak, AK (TNK) Tupelo, MS (TUP) Tuscaloosa, AL (TCL) Twin Falls, ID (TWF) Tyler, TX (TYR) Unalakleet, AK (UNK) Utica, NY (UCA) Vail/Eagle, CO (EGE) Val D'Or, QC (YVO) Valdez, AK (VDZ) Valdosta, GA (VLD) Vancouver, BC (YVR) Venetic, AK (VEE) Vernal, UT (VEL) Vero Beach, FL (VRB) Victoria, BC (YYJ) Victoria, TX (VCT) Visalia, CA (VIS) Wabush, NL (YWK) Waco, TX (ACT) Wainwright, AK (AIN) Walla Walla, WA (ALW) Waltham, MA (WLM) Washington Dulles, DC(IAD) Washington National, DC (DCA) Wasilla, AK (WWA) Waterfall, AK (KWF) Waterloo, IA (ALO) Watertown, NY (ART) Watertown, SD (ATY) Waukesha, WI (UES) Wausau, WI (AUW) Wausau/Stvns Pnt, WI (CWA) Wenatchee, WA (EAT) Westerly, RI (WST) Westport, CT (WPT) Westsound, WA (WSX) White Mountain, AK (WMO) White Plains, NY (HPN) Whitehorse, YT (YXY) Wichita Falls, TX (SPS) Wichita, KS (ICT) Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, PA (AVP) Williams Lake, BC (YWL) Williamsport, PA (IPT) Williston, ND (ISN) Willow, AK (WOW) Wilmington, NC (ILM) Wilmington/New Castle, DE (ILG) Windsor, ON (YQG) Winnipeg, MB (YWG) Winona, MN (ONA) Winston/Salem, NC (INT) Wolf Point, MT (OLF) Worcester, MA (ORH) Worland, WY (WRL) Wrangell, AK (WRG) Yakima, WA (YKM) Yakutat, AK (YAK) Yampa Valley, CO (HDN) Yankton, SD (YKN) Yellowstone, MT (WYS) Yosemite, CA (YOS) Youngstown, OH (YNG) Yuma, AZ (YUM)

Every Bahamian will tell you, "It's better in the Bahamas," and we cant disagree. Only 50 miles east of Florida and scattered across 100,000 square miles, the 700 isles of the Bahamas seduce travelers with sugar-white sands, lush tropical greenery and shimmering blue waters.

Vacation ready year-round with high temperatures between 74 and 89 degrees, these islands are perfect for a Spring Break retreat, summer holiday or winter escape. All-inclusive resorts are popular lodging options, because accommodations, meals, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages and activities are included in one affordable price.

Some of the islands most popular resorts are found around Nassau, the colorful capital of the Bahamas. Here, colonial charm is energized by a distinct tropical attitude -- nearly every building is swathed in vibrant colors, from private homes to the pink parliament building. In Freeport on Grand Bahama Island, you'll find botanical gardens, well-kept state parks and high-end shopping. A quieter escape awaits on Exuma, a spot so secluded that its recently emerged as a celebrity hideout.

And no matter where you stay, be ready to hit the water. The islands encircle the worlds third-largest barrier reef, where submerged caverns and coral gardens lure scuba and snorkeling enthusiasts of all skill levels. Crystal-clear seas allow for visibility up to 200 feet beneath the surface.

For more information about a particular resort, click any resort name below.

See the article here:

Bahamas All-Inclusive Resorts, Bahamas All-Inclusive ...

Posted in Bahamas | Comments Off

Protecting Ocean Life on the High Seas – Pew Trusts

Posted: at 6:31 am

The high seas make up about two-thirds of the worlds ocean. These vast expanses of water are so far from shore that they fall outside the jurisdiction of any country.

While early explorers once thought of these areas as essentially barren, thanks to research over recent decades, we now know that the high seas hold some of the largest reservoirs of biodiversity on Earth. They support abundant fisheries, provide important migratory routes for whales and sharks, and brim with deep-water corals and other unique marine life.

These areas beyond national jurisdiction are rich in resources but scarce in oversight. A patchwork of rules and regulations provides little in the way of conservation safeguards to protect the greater marine ecosystem from growing commercial activities such as fishing, oil and gas exploration, and deep sea mining.

The development of marine protected areas and reservesthe equivalent of national parks at seawould be a good first step toward providing protection. Unfortunately, the world lacks an international legal instrument to establish such areas in high seas waters. The Pew Charitable Trusts project to protect ocean life on the high seas was launched to help change that.

Go here to see the original:

Protecting Ocean Life on the High Seas - Pew Trusts

Posted in High Seas | Comments Off

Intentional Communities Asheville (Asheville, NC) – Meetup

Posted: at 6:31 am

What is your vision of living in an intentional community?

We are a diverse and welcoming bunch of communitarians on a common journey to create intentional communities in the Asheville, NC area. Among us are outdoors enthusiasts and hikers, tutors, nurses, young families, retirees, entrepreneurs, builders, and more! Some want intergenerational communities, whilesomepreferelder communities, includinga variety of diet preferences, settings, and lifestyles. We welcome women, men, LGBT membersanyone interested in building intentional community with shared governance.

The purpose of the Intentional Communities Asheville Meetup is to define the various ways we wish to live in community, share information on available resources, explore existing projects and opportunities in our area, meet and learn from those who have experienced creating and living in community, and support groups of people as they begin to form their individual projects.

We will focus on providing ample opportunities to make connections with others seeking community through frequent get-togethers including social events and meetups on various topics related to creating and living in intentional communities.

Whether you are already living in an intentional community, in the process of creating one, or just starting out on your journey and eager to learn more, Asheville Intentional Communities Meetup wants to enable people to find and form their village!

Pleasejoin us! We meet regularly and often!

Visit link:

Intentional Communities Asheville (Asheville, NC) - Meetup

Posted in Intentional Communities | Comments Off

Prison Planet.com Bill Gates And Neo-Eugenics: Vaccines …

Posted: at 6:31 am

F. William Engdahl Financial Sense Friday, March 5, 2010

Microsoft founder and one of the worlds wealthiest men, Bill Gates, projects an image of a benign philanthropist using his billions via his (tax exempt) Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to tackle diseases, solve food shortages in Africa and alleviate poverty. In a recent conference in California, Gates reveals a less public agenda of his philanthropypopulation reduction, otherwise known as eugenics.

Gates made his remarks to the invitation-only Long Beach, California TED2010 Conference, in a speech titled, Innovating to Zero!. Along with the scientifically absurd proposition of reducing manmade CO2 emissions worldwide to zero by 2050, approximately four and a half minutes into the talk, Gates declares, First we got population. The world today has 6.8 billion people. Thats headed up to about 9 billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent.1 (authors emphasis).

In plain English, one of the most powerful men in the world states clearly that he expects vaccines to be used to reduce population growth. When Bill Gates speaks about vaccines, he speaks with authority. In January 2010 at the elite Davos World Economic Forum, Gates announced his foundation would give $10 billion (circa 7.5 billion) over the next decade to develop and deliver new vaccines to children in the developing world. 2

The primary focus of his multi-billion dollar Gates Foundation is vaccinations, especially in Africa and other underdeveloped countries. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a founding member of the GAVI Alliance (Global Alliance for Vaccinations and Immunization) in partnership with the World Bank, WHO and the vaccine industry. The goal of GAVI is to vaccinate every newborn child in the developing world.

Now that sounds like noble philanthropic work. The problem is that the vaccine industry has been repeatedly caught dumping dangerousmeaning unsafe because untested or proven harmfulvaccines onto unwitting Third World populations when they cannot get rid of the vaccines in the West. 3 Some organizations have suggested that the true aim of the vaccinations is to make people sicker and even more susceptible to disease and premature death.4

Dumping toxins on the Third World

In the aftermath of the most recent unnecessary Pandemic declaration of a global H1N1 swine flu emergency, industrial countries were left sitting on hundreds of millions of doses of untested vaccines. They decided to get rid of the embarrassing leftover drugs by handing them over to the WHO which in turn plans to dump them for free on select poor countries. France has given 91 million of the 94 million doses the Sarkozy government bought from the pharma giants; Britain gave 55 million of its 60 million doses. The story for Germany and Norway is similar.5

As Dr. Thomas Jefferson, an epidemiologist with the Cochrane Research Center in Rome noted, Why do they give the vaccines to the developing countries at all? The pandemic has been called off in most parts of the world. The greatest threat in poor countries right now is heart and circulatory diseases while the virus figures at the bottom of the list. What is the medical reason for donating 180 million doses? 6 As well, flu is a minor problem in countries with abundant sunshine, and it turned out that the feared H1N1 Pandemic new great plague was the mildest flu on record.

The pharmaceutical vaccine makers do not speak about the enormous health damage from infant vaccination including autism and numerous neuro-muscular deformities that have been traced back to the toxic adjuvants and preservatives used in most vaccines. Many vaccines, especially multi-dose vaccines that are made more cheaply for sale to the Third World, contain something called Thimerosal (Thiomersol in the EU), a compound (sodium ethylmercurithiosalicylate), containing some 50% mercury, used as a preservative.

In July 1999 the US National Vaccine Information Center declared in a press release that, The cumulative effects of ingesting mercury can cause brain damage. The same month, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) alerted the public about the possible health effects associated with thimerosal-containing vaccines. They strongly recommended that thimerosal be removed from vaccines as soon as possible. Under the directive of the FDA Modernization Act of 1997, the Food and Drug Administration also determined that infants who received several thimerosal-containing vaccines may be receiving mercury exposure over and above the recommended federal guidelines.7

(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)

A new form of eugenics?

Gates interest in inducing population reduction among black and other minority populations is not new unfortunately. As I document in my book, Seeds of Destruction,8 since the 1920s the Rockefeller Foundation had funded the eugenics research in Germany through the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institutes in Berlin and Munich, including well into the Third Reich. They praised the forced sterilization of people by Hirtler Germany, and the Nazi ideas on race purity. It was John D. Rockefeller III, a life-long advocate of eugenics, who used his tax free foundation money to initiate the population reduction neo-Malthusian movement through his private Population Council in New York beginning in the 1950s.

The idea of using vaccines to covertly reduce births in the Third World is also not new. Bill Gates good friend, David Rockefeller and his Rockefeller Foundation were involved as early as 1972 in a major project together with WHO and others to perfect another new vaccine.

The results of the WHO-Rockefeller project were put into mass application on human guinea pigs in the early 1990s. The WHO oversaw massive vaccination campaigns against tetanus in Nicaragua, Mexico and the Philippines. Comite Pro Vida de Mexico, a Roman Catholic lay organization, became suspicious of the motives behind the WHO program and decided to test numerous vials of the vaccine and found them to contain human Chorionic Gonadotrophin, or hCG. That was a curious component for a vaccine designed to protect people against lock-jaw arising from infection with rusty nail wounds or other contact with certain bacteria found in soil. The tetanus disease was indeed, also rather rare. It was also curious because hCG was a natural hormone needed to maintain a pregnancy. However, when combined with a tetanus toxoid carrier, it stimulated formation of antibodies against hCG, rendering a woman incapable of maintaining a pregnancy, a form of concealed abortion. Similar reports of vaccines laced with hCG hormones came from the Philippines and Nicaragua.9

Gates Gene Revolution in Africa

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, along with David Rockefellers Rockefeller Foundation, the creators of the GMO biotechnology, are also financing a project called The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) headed by former UN chief, Kofi Annan. Accepting the role as AGRA head in June 2007 Annan expressed his gratitude to the Rockefeller Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and all others who support our African campaign. The AGRA board is dominated by people from both the Gates and Rockefeller foundations. 10

Monsanto, DuPont, Dow, Syngenta and other major GMO agribusiness giants are reported at the heart of AGRA, using it as a back-door to spread their patented GMO seeds across Africa under the deceptive label, bio-technology, a euphemism for genetically engineered patented seeds. The person from the Gates Foundation responsible for its work with AGRA is Dr. Robert Horsch, a 25-year Monsanto GMO veteran who was on the team that developed Monsantos RoundUp Ready GMO technologies. His job is reportedly to use Gates money to introduce GMO into Africa.11

To date South Africa is the only African country permitting legal planting of GMO crops. In 2003 Burkina Faso authorized GMO trials. In 2005 Kofi Annans Ghana drafted bio-safety legislation and key officials expressed their intentions to pursue research into GMO crops. AGRA is being used to create networks of agro-dealers across Africa, at first with no mention of GMO seeds or herbicides, in order to have the infrastructure in place to massively introduce GMO.12

GMO, glyphosate and population reduction

GMO crops have never been proven safe for human or animal consumption. Moreover, they are inherently genetically unstable as they are an unnatural product of introducing a foreign bacteria such as Bacillus Thuringiensis (Bt) or other material into the DNA of a given seed to change its traits. Perhaps equally dangerous are the paired chemical herbicides sold as a mandatory part of a GMO contract, such as Monsantos Roundup, the most widely used such herbicide in the world. It contains highly toxic glyphosate compounds that have been independently tested and proven to exist in toxic concentrations in GMO applications far above that safe for humans or animals. Tests show that tiny amounts of glyphosate compounds would do damage to a human umbilical, embryonic and placental cells in a pregnant woman drinking the ground water near a GMO field.13

One long-standing project of the US Government has been to perfect a genetically-modified variety of corn, the diet staple in Mexico and many other Latin American countries. The corn has been field tested in tests financed by the US Department of Agriculture along with a small California bio-tech company named Epicyte. Announcing his success at a 2001 press conference, the president of Epicyte, Mitch Hein, pointing to his GMO corn plants, announced, We have a hothouse filled with corn plants that make anti-sperm antibodies. 14

Hein explained that they had taken antibodies from women with a rare condition known as immune infertility, isolated the genes that regulated the manufacture of those infertility antibodies, and, using genetic engineering techniques, had inserted the genes into ordinary corn seeds used to produce corn plants. In this manner, in reality they produced a concealed contraceptive embedded in corn meant for human consumption. Essentially, the antibodies are attracted to surface receptors on the sperm, said Hein. They latch on and make each sperm so heavy it cannot move forward. It just shakes about as if it was doing the lambada. 15 Hein claimed it was a possible solution to world over-population. The moral and ethical issues of feeding it to humans in Third World poor countries without their knowing it countries he left out of his remarks.

Spermicides hidden in GMO corn provided to starving Third World populations through the generosity of the Gates foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and Kofi Annans AGRA or vaccines that contain undisclosed sterilization agents are just two documented cases of using vaccines or GMO seeds to reduce population.

And the Good Club

Gates TED2010 speech on zero emissions and population reduction is consistent with a report that appeared in New York Citys ethnic media, Irish.Central.com in May 2009. According to the report, a secret meeting took place on May 5, 2009 at the home of Sir Paul Nurse, President of Rockefeller University, among some of the wealthiest people in America. Investment guru Warren Buffett who in 2006 decided to pool his $30 billion Buffett Foundation into the Gates foundation to create the worlds largest private foundation with some $60 billions of tax-free dollars was present. Banker David Rockefeller was the host.

The exclusive letter of invitation was signed by Gates, Rockefeller and Buffett. They decided to call themselves the Good Club. Also present was media czar Ted Turner, billionaire founder of CNN who stated in a 1996 interview for the Audubon nature magazine, where he said that a 95% reduction of world population to between 225-300 million would be ideal. In a 2008 interview at Philadelphias Temple University, Turner fine-tuned the number to 2 billion, a cut of more than 70% from todays population. Even less elegantly than Gates, Turner stated, we have too many people. Thats why we have global warming. We need less people using less stuff (sic).16

Others attending this first meeting of the Good Club reportedly were: Eli Broad real estate billionaire, New Yorks billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Wall Street billionaire and Council on Foreign Relations former head, Peter G. Peterson.

In addition, Julian H. Robertson, Jr., hedge-fund billionaire who worked with Soros attacking the currencies of Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea and the Asian Tigen economies, precipitating the 1997-98 Asia Crisis. Also present at the first session of the Good Club was Patty Stonesifer, former chief executive of the Gates foundation, and John Morgridge of Cisco Systems. The group represented a combined fortune of more than $125 billion. 17

According to reports apparently leaked by one of the attendees, the meeting was held in response to the global economic downturn and the numerous health and environmental crises that are plaguing the globe.

But the central theme and purpose of the secret Good Club meeting of the plutocrats was the priority concern posed by Bill Gates, namely, how to advance more effectively their agenda of birth control and global population reduction. In the talks a consensus reportedly emerged that they would back a strategy in which population growth would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat. 18

Global Eugenics agenda

Gates and Buffett are major funders of global population reduction programs, as is Turner, whose UN Foundation was created to funnel $1 billion of his tax-free stock option earnings in AOL-Time-Warner into various birth reduction programs in the developing world.19 The programs in Africa and elsewhere are masked as philanthropy and providing health services for poor Africans. In reality they involve involuntary population sterilization via vaccination and other medicines that make women of child-bearing age infertile. The Gates Foundation, where Buffett deposited the bulk of his wealth two years ago, is also backing introduction of GMO seeds into Africa under the cloak of the Kofi Annan-led Second Green Revolution in Africa. The introduction of GMO patented seeds in Africa to date has met with enormous indigenous resistance.

Health experts point out that were the intent of Gates really to improve the health and well-being of black Africans, the same hundreds of millions of dollars the Gates Foundation has invested in untested and unsafe vaccines could be used in providing minimal sanitary water and sewage systems. Vaccinating a child who then goes to drink feces-polluted river water is hardly healthy in any respect. But of course cleaning up the water and sewage systems of Africa would revolutionize the health conditions of the Continent.

Gates TED2010 comments about having new vaccines to reduce global population were obviously no off-the-cuff remark. For those who doubt, the presentation Gates made at the TED2009 annual gathering said almost exactly the same thing about reducing population to cut global warming. For the mighty and powerful of the Good Club, human beings seem to be a form of pollution equal to CO2.

Resources:

1 Bill Gates, Innovating to Zero!, speech to the TED2010 annual conference, Long Beach, California, February 18, 2010, accessed in http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates.html.

2 Telegraph.co.uk, Bill Gates makes $10 billion vaccine pledge, London Telegraph, January 29, 2010, accessed in t: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/dav

3 Louise Voller, Kristian Villesen, WHO Donates Millions of Doses of Surplus Medical Supplies to Developing countries, Danish Information, 22 December 2009, accessed in http://www.theflucase.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2419%3Awhos-swine-flu-jab-donations-to-developing-countries-demarks-information-reports&catid=41%3Ahighlighted-news&Itemid=105&lang=en

4 One is the Population Research Institute in Washington, http://pop.org/

5 Louise Voller et al, op. cit.

6 Ibid.

7 Noted in Vaccinations and Autism, accessed in http://www.mercurypoisoningnews.com/vacautism.html

8 F. William Engdahl, Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation, Global Research (www.globalresearch.ca), Montreal, 2007, pp. 79-84.

9 James A. Miller, Are New Vaccines Laced With Birth-Control Drugs?, HLI Reports, Human Life International, Gaithersburg, Maryland; June-July 1995.

10 Cited in F. William Engdahl, Doomsday Seed Vault in the Arctic: Bill Gates, Rockefeller and the GMO giants know something we dont, Global Research, December 4, 2007, accessed in http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7529

11 Mariam Mayet, Africas Green Revolution rolls out the Gene Revolution, African Centre for Biosafety, ACB Briefing Paper No. 6/2009, Melville, South Africa, April 2009.

12 Ibid.

13 Nora Benachour and Gilles-Eric Seralini, Glyphosate Formulations Induce Apoptosis and Necrosis in Human Umbilical Embryonic, and Placental Cells, Chemical Research in Toxicology Journal, American Chemical Society, 2009, 22 (1), pp 97105.

14 Robin McKie, GMO Corn Set to Stop Man Spreading His Seed, London, The Observer, 9 September 2001.

15 Ibid. McKie writes, The pregnancy prevention plants are the handiwork of the San Diego biotechnology company Epicyte, where researchers have discovered a rare class of human antibodies that attack spermthe company has created tiny horticultural factories that make contraceptivesEssentially, the antibodies are attracted to surface receptors on the sperm, said Hein. They latch on and make each sperm so heavy it cannot move forward. It just shakes about as if it was doing the lambada.

16 Ted Turner, cited along with youTube video of Turner in Aaron Dykes, Ted Turner: World Needs a Voluntary One-Child Policy for the Next Hundred Years, Jones Report.com, April 29, 2008. Accessed in http://www.jonesreport.com/article/04_08/28turner_911.html

17 John Harlow, Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation, London, The Sunday Times May 24, 2009. Accessed online in http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6350303.ece.

18 Ibid.

19 United Nations Foundation, Women and Population Program, accessed in http://www.unfoundation.org/about-unf/experts/

Full story here.

This article was posted: Friday, March 5, 2010 at 11:31 am

Continue reading here:

Prison Planet.com Bill Gates And Neo-Eugenics: Vaccines ...

Posted in Neo-eugenics | Comments Off

Singularity Q&A | KurzweilAI

Posted: at 6:30 am

Originally published in 2005 with the launch of The Singularity Is Near.

Questions and Answers

So what is the Singularity?

Within a quarter century, nonbiological intelligence will match the range and subtlety of human intelligence. It will then soar past it because of the continuing acceleration of information-based technologies, as well as the ability of machines to instantly share their knowledge. Intelligent nanorobots will be deeply integrated in our bodies, our brains, and our environment, overcoming pollution and poverty, providing vastly extended longevity, full-immersion virtual reality incorporating all of the senses (like The Matrix), experience beaming (like Being John Malkovich), and vastly enhanced human intelligence. The result will be an intimate merger between the technology-creating species and the technological evolutionary process it spawned.

And thats the Singularity?

No, thats just the precursor. Nonbiological intelligence will have access to its own design and will be able to improve itself in an increasingly rapid redesign cycle. Well get to a point where technical progress will be so fast that unenhanced human intelligence will be unable to follow it. That will mark the Singularity.

When will that occur?

I set the date for the Singularityrepresenting a profound and disruptive transformation in human capabilityas 2045. The nonbiological intelligence created in that year will be one billion times more powerful than all human intelligence today.

Why is this called the Singularity?

The term Singularity in my book is comparable to the use of this term by the physics community. Just as we find it hard to see beyond the event horizon of a black hole, we also find it difficult to see beyond the event horizon of the historical Singularity. How can we, with our limited biological brains, imagine what our future civilization, with its intelligence multiplied trillions-fold, be capable of thinking and doing? Nevertheless, just as we can draw conclusions about the nature of black holes through our conceptual thinking, despite never having actually been inside one, our thinking today is powerful enough to have meaningful insights into the implications of the Singularity. Thats what Ive tried to do in this book.

Okay, lets break this down. It seems a key part of your thesis is that we will be able to capture the intelligence of our brains in a machine.

Indeed.

So how are we going to achieve that?

We can break this down further into hardware and software requirements. In the book, I show how we need about 10 quadrillion (1016) calculations per second (cps) to provide a functional equivalent to all the regions of the brain. Some estimates are lower than this by a factor of 100. Supercomputers are already at 100 trillion (1014) cps, and will hit 1016 cps around the end of this decade. Several supercomputers with 1 quadrillion cps are already on the drawing board, with two Japanese efforts targeting 10 quadrillion cps around the end of the decade. By 2020, 10 quadrillion cps will be available for around $1,000. Achieving the hardware requirement was controversial when my last book on this topic, The Age of Spiritual Machines, came out in 1999, but is now pretty much of a mainstream view among informed observers. Now the controversy is focused on the algorithms.

And how will we recreate the algorithms of human intelligence?

To understand the principles of human intelligence we need to reverse-engineer the human brain. Here, progress is far greater than most people realize. The spatial and temporal (time) resolution of brain scanning is also progressing at an exponential rate, roughly doubling each year, like most everything else having to do with information. Just recently, scanning tools can see individual interneuronal connections, and watch them fire in real time. Already, we have mathematical models and simulations of a couple dozen regions of the brain, including the cerebellum, which comprises more than half the neurons in the brain. IBM is now creating a simulation of about 10,000 cortical neurons, including tens of millions of connections. The first version will simulate the electrical activity, and a future version will also simulate the relevant chemical activity. By the mid 2020s, its conservative to conclude that we will have effective models for all of the brain.

So at that point well just copy a human brain into a supercomputer?

I would rather put it this way: At that point, well have a full understanding of the methods of the human brain. One benefit will be a deep understanding of ourselves, but the key implication is that it will expand the toolkit of techniques we can apply to create artificial intelligence. We will then be able to create nonbiological systems that match human intelligence in the ways that humans are now superior, for example, our pattern- recognition abilities. These superintelligent computers will be able to do things we are not able to do, such as share knowledge and skills at electronic speeds.

By 2030, a thousand dollars of computation will be about a thousand times more powerful than a human brain. Keep in mind also that computers will not be organized as discrete objects as they are today. There will be a web of computing deeply integrated into the environment, our bodies and brains.

You mentioned the AI tool kit. Hasnt AI failed to live up to its expectations?

There was a boom and bust cycle in AI during the 1980s, similar to what we saw recently in e-commerce and telecommunications. Such boom-bust cycles are often harbingers of true revolutions; recall the railroad boom and bust in the 19th century. But just as the Internet bust was not the end of the Internet, the so-called AI Winter was not the end of the story for AI either. There are hundreds of applications of narrow AI (machine intelligence that equals or exceeds human intelligence for specific tasks) now permeating our modern infrastructure. Every time you send an email or make a cell phone call, intelligent algorithms route the information. AI programs diagnose electrocardiograms with an accuracy rivaling doctors, evaluate medical images, fly and land airplanes, guide intelligent autonomous weapons, make automated investment decisions for over a trillion dollars of funds, and guide industrial processes. These were all research projects a couple of decades ago. If all the intelligent software in the world were to suddenly stop functioning, modern civilization would grind to a halt. Of course, our AI programs are not intelligent enough to organize such a conspiracy, at least not yet.

Why dont more people see these profound changes ahead?

Hopefully after they read my new book, they will. But the primary failure is the inability of many observers to think in exponential terms. Most long-range forecasts of what is technically feasible in future time periods dramatically underestimate the power of future developments because they are based on what I call the intuitive linear view of history rather than the historical exponential view. My models show that we are doubling the paradigm-shift rate every decade. Thus the 20th century was gradually speeding up to the rate of progress at the end of the century; its achievements, therefore, were equivalent to about twenty years of progress at the rate in 2000. Well make another twenty years of progress in just fourteen years (by 2014), and then do the same again in only seven years. To express this another way, we wont experience one hundred years of technological advance in the 21st century; we will witness on the order of 20,000 years of progress (again, when measured by the rate of progress in 2000), or about 1,000 times greater than what was achieved in the 20th century.

The exponential growth of information technologies is even greater: were doubling the power of information technologies, as measured by price-performance, bandwidth, capacity and many other types of measures, about every year. Thats a factor of a thousand in ten years, a million in twenty years, and a billion in thirty years. This goes far beyond Moores law (the shrinking of transistors on an integrated circuit, allowing us to double the price-performance of electronics each year). Electronics is just one example of many. As another example, it took us 14 years to sequence HIV; we recently sequenced SARS in only 31 days.

So this acceleration of information technologies applies to biology as well?

Absolutely. Its not just computer devices like cell phones and digital cameras that are accelerating in capability. Ultimately, everything of importance will be comprised essentially of information technology. With the advent of nanotechnology-based manufacturing in the 2020s, well be able to use inexpensive table-top devices to manufacture on-demand just about anything from very inexpensive raw materials using information processes that will rearrange matter and energy at the molecular level.

Well meet our energy needs using nanotechnology-based solar panels that will capture the energy in .03 percent of the sunlight that falls on the Earth, which is all we need to meet our projected energy needs in 2030. Well store the energy in highly distributed fuel cells.

I want to come back to both biology and nanotechnology, but how can you be so sure of these developments? Isnt technical progress on specific projects essentially unpredictable?

Predicting specific projects is indeed not feasible. But the result of the overall complex, chaotic evolutionary process of technological progress is predictable.

People intuitively assume that the current rate of progress will continue for future periods. Even for those who have been around long enough to experience how the pace of change increases over time, unexamined intuition leaves one with the impression that change occurs at the same rate that we have experienced most recently. From the mathematicians perspective, the reason for this is that an exponential curve looks like a straight line when examined for only a brief duration. As a result, even sophisticated commentators, when considering the future, typically use the current pace of change to determine their expectations in extrapolating progress over the next ten years or one hundred years. This is why I describe this way of looking at the future as the intuitive linear view. But a serious assessment of the history of technology reveals that technological change is exponential. Exponential growth is a feature of any evolutionary process, of which technology is a primary example.

As I show in the book, this has also been true of biological evolution. Indeed, technological evolution emerges from biological evolution. You can examine the data in different ways, on different timescales, and for a wide variety of technologies, ranging from electronic to biological, as well as for their implications, ranging from the amount of human knowledge to the size of the economy, and you get the same exponentialnot linearprogression. I have over forty graphs in the book from a broad variety of fields that show the exponential nature of progress in information-based measures. For the price-performance of computing, this goes back over a century, well before Gordon Moore was even born.

Arent there are a lot of predictions of the future from the past that look a little ridiculous now?

Yes, any number of bad predictions from other futurists in earlier eras can be cited to support the notion that we cannot make reliable predictions. In general, these prognosticators were not using a methodology based on a sound theory of technology evolution. I say this not just looking backwards now. Ive been making accurate forward-looking predictions for over twenty years based on these models.

But how can it be the case that we can reliably predict the overall progression of these technologies if we cannot even predict the outcome of a single project?

Predicting which company or product will succeed is indeed very difficult, if not impossible. The same difficulty occurs in predicting which technical design or standard will prevail. For example, how will the wireless-communication protocols Wimax, CDMA, and 3G fare over the next several years? However, as I argue extensively in the book, we find remarkably precise and predictable exponential trends when assessing the overall effectiveness (as measured in a variety of ways) of information technologies. And as I mentioned above, information technology will ultimately underlie everything of value.

But how can that be?

We see examples in other areas of science of very smooth and reliable outcomes resulting from the interaction of a great many unpredictable events. Consider that predicting the path of a single molecule in a gas is essentially impossible, but predicting the properties of the entire gascomprised of a great many chaotically interacting moleculescan be done very reliably through the laws of thermodynamics. Analogously, it is not possible to reliably predict the results of a specific project or company, but the overall capabilities of information technology, comprised of many chaotic activities, can nonetheless be dependably anticipated through what I call the law of accelerating returns.

What will the impact of these developments be?

Radical life extension, for one.

Sounds interesting, how does that work?

In the book, I talk about three great overlapping revolutions that go by the letters GNR, which stands for genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics. Each will provide a dramatic increase to human longevity, among other profound impacts. Were in the early stages of the geneticsalso called biotechnologyrevolution right now. Biotechnology is providing the means to actually change your genes: not just designer babies but designer baby boomers. Well also be able to rejuvenate all of your bodys tissues and organs by transforming your skin cells into youthful versions of every other cell type. Already, new drug development is precisely targeting key steps in the process of atherosclerosis (the cause of heart disease), cancerous tumor formation, and the metabolic processes underlying each major disease and aging process. The biotechnology revolution is already in its early stages and will reach its peak in the second decade of this century, at which point well be able to overcome most major diseases and dramatically slow down the aging process.

That will bring us to the nanotechnology revolution, which will achieve maturity in the 2020s. With nanotechnology, we will be able to go beyond the limits of biology, and replace your current human body version 1.0 with a dramatically upgraded version 2.0, providing radical life extension.

And how does that work?

The killer app of nanotechnology is nanobots, which are blood-cell sized robots that can travel in the bloodstream destroying pathogens, removing debris, correcting DNA errors, and reversing aging processes.

Human body version 2.0?

Were already in the early stages of augmenting and replacing each of our organs, even portions of our brains with neural implants, the most recent versions of which allow patients to download new software to their neural implants from outside their bodies. In the book, I describe how each of our organs will ultimately be replaced. For example, nanobots could deliver to our bloodstream an optimal set of all the nutrients, hormones, and other substances we need, as well as remove toxins and waste products. The gastrointestinal tract could be reserved for culinary pleasures rather than the tedious biological function of providing nutrients. After all, weve already in some ways separated the communication and pleasurable aspects of sex from its biological function.

And the third revolution?

The robotics revolution, which really refers to strong AI, that is, artificial intelligence at the human level, which we talked about earlier. Well have both the hardware and software to recreate human intelligence by the end of the 2020s. Well be able to improve these methods and harness the speed, memory capabilities, and knowledge- sharing ability of machines.

Well ultimately be able to scan all the salient details of our brains from inside, using billions of nanobots in the capillaries. We can then back up the information. Using nanotechnology-based manufacturing, we could recreate your brain, or better yet reinstantiate it in a more capable computing substrate.

Which means?

Our biological brains use chemical signaling, which transmit information at only a few hundred feet per second. Electronics is already millions of times faster than this. In the book, I show how one cubic inch of nanotube circuitry would be about one hundred million times more powerful than the human brain. So well have more powerful means of instantiating our intelligence than the extremely slow speeds of our interneuronal connections.

So well just replace our biological brains with circuitry?

I see this starting with nanobots in our bodies and brains. The nanobots will keep us healthy, provide full-immersion virtual reality from within the nervous system, provide direct brain-to-brain communication over the Internet, and otherwise greatly expand human intelligence. But keep in mind that nonbiological intelligence is doubling in capability each year, whereas our biological intelligence is essentially fixed in capacity. As we get to the 2030s, the nonbiological portion of our intelligence will predominate.

The closest life extension technology, however, is biotechnology, isnt that right?

Theres certainly overlap in the G, N and R revolutions, but thats essentially correct.

So tell me more about how genetics or biotechnology works.

As we are learning about the information processes underlying biology, we are devising ways of mastering them to overcome disease and aging and extend human potential. One powerful approach is to start with biologys information backbone: the genome. With gene technologies, were now on the verge of being able to control how genes express themselves. We now have a powerful new tool called RNA interference (RNAi), which is capable of turning specific genes off. It blocks the messenger RNA of specific genes, preventing them from creating proteins. Since viral diseases, cancer, and many other diseases use gene expression at some crucial point in their life cycle, this promises to be a breakthrough technology. One gene wed like to turn off is the fat insulin receptor gene, which tells the fat cells to hold on to every calorie. When that gene was blocked in mice, those mice ate a lot but remained thin and healthy, and actually lived 20 percent longer.

New means of adding new genes, called gene therapy, are also emerging that have overcome earlier problems with achieving precise placement of the new genetic information. One company Im involved with, United Therapeutics, cured pulmonary hypertension in animals using a new form of gene therapy and it has now been approved for human trials.

So were going to essentially reprogram our DNA.

Thats a good way to put it, but thats only one broad approach. Another important line of attack is to regrow our own cells, tissues, and even whole organs, and introduce them into our bodies without surgery. One major benefit of this therapeutic cloning technique is that we will be able to create these new tissues and organs from versions of our cells that have also been made youngerthe emerging field of rejuvenation medicine. For example, we will be able to create new heart cells from your skin cells and introduce them into your system through the bloodstream. Over time, your heart cells get replaced with these new cells, and the result is a rejuvenated young heart with your own DNA.

Drug discovery was once a matter of finding substances that produced some beneficial effect without excessive side effects. This process was similar to early humans tool discovery, which was limited to simply finding rocks and natural implements that could be used for helpful purposes. Today, we are learning the precise biochemical pathways that underlie both disease and aging processes, and are able to design drugs to carry out precise missions at the molecular level. The scope and scale of these efforts is vast.

But perfecting our biology will only get us so far. The reality is that biology will never be able to match what we will be capable of engineering, now that we are gaining a deep understanding of biologys principles of operation.

Isnt nature optimal?

Not at all. Our interneuronal connections compute at about 200 transactions per second, at least a million times slower than electronics. As another example, a nanotechnology theorist, Rob Freitas, has a conceptual design for nanobots that replace our red blood cells. A conservative analysis shows that if you replaced 10 percent of your red blood cells with Freitas respirocytes, you could sit at the bottom of a pool for four hours without taking a breath.

If people stop dying, isnt that going to lead to overpopulation?

A common mistake that people make when considering the future is to envision a major change to todays world, such as radical life extension, as if nothing else were going to change. The GNR revolutions will result in other transformations that address this issue. For example, nanotechnology will enable us to create virtually any physical product from information and very inexpensive raw materials, leading to radical wealth creation. Well have the means to meet the material needs of any conceivable size population of biological humans. Nanotechnology will also provide the means of cleaning up environmental damage from earlier stages of industrialization.

So well overcome disease, pollution, and povertysounds like a utopian vision.

Its true that the dramatic scale of the technologies of the next couple of decades will enable human civilization to overcome problems that we have struggled with for eons. But these developments are not without their dangers. Technology is a double edged swordwe dont have to look past the 20th century to see the intertwined promise and peril of technology.

What sort of perils?

G, N, and R each have their downsides. The existential threat from genetic technologies is already here: the same technology that will soon make major strides against cancer, heart disease, and other diseases could also be employed by a bioterrorist to create a bioengineered biological virus that combines ease of transmission, deadliness, and stealthiness, that is, a long incubation period. The tools and knowledge to do this are far more widespread than the tools and knowledge to create an atomic bomb, and the impact could be far worse.

So maybe we shouldnt go down this road.

Its a little late for that. But the idea of relinquishing new technologies such as biotechnology and nanotechnology is already being advocated. I argue in the book that this would be the wrong strategy. Besides depriving human society of the profound benefits of these technologies, such a strategy would actually make the dangers worse by driving development underground, where responsible scientists would not have easy access to the tools needed to defend us.

So how do we protect ourselves?

I discuss strategies for protecting against dangers from abuse or accidental misuse of these very powerful technologies in chapter 8. The overall message is that we need to give a higher priority to preparing protective strategies and systems. We need to put a few more stones on the defense side of the scale. Ive given testimony to Congress on a specific proposal for a Manhattan style project to create a rapid response system that could protect society from a new virulent biological virus. One strategy would be to use RNAi, which has been shown to be effective against viral diseases. We would set up a system that could quickly sequence a new virus, prepare a RNA interference medication, and rapidly gear up production. We have the knowledge to create such a system, but we have not done so. We need to have something like this in place before its needed.

Ultimately, however, nanotechnology will provide a completely effective defense against biological viruses.

But doesnt nanotechnology have its own self-replicating danger?

Yes, but that potential wont exist for a couple more decades. The existential threat from engineered biological viruses exists right now.

Okay, but how will we defend against self-replicating nanotechnology?

There are already proposals for ethical standards for nanotechnology that are based on the Asilomar conference standards that have worked well thus far in biotechnology. These standards will be effective against unintentional dangers. For example, we do not need to provide self-replication to accomplish nanotechnology manufacturing.

But what about intentional abuse, as in terrorism?

Well need to create a nanotechnology immune systemgood nanobots that can protect us from the bad ones.

Blue goo to protect us from the gray goo!

Yes, well put. And ultimately well need the nanobots comprising the immune system to be self-replicating. Ive debated this particular point with a number of other theorists, but I show in the book why the nanobot immune system we put in place will need the ability to self-replicate. Thats basically the same lesson that biological evolution learned.

Ultimately, however, strong AI will provide a completely effective defense against self-replicating nanotechnology.

Okay, whats going to protect us against a pathological AI?

Yes, well, that would have to be a yet more intelligent AI.

This is starting to sound like that story about the universe being on the back of a turtle, and that turtle standing on the back of another turtle, and so on all the way down. So what if this more intelligent AI is unfriendly? Another even smarter AI?

History teaches us that the more intelligent civilizationthe one with the most advanced technologyprevails. But I do have an overall strategy for dealing with unfriendly AI, which I discuss in chapter 8.

Okay, so Ill have to read the book for that one. But arent there limits to exponential growth? You know the story about rabbits in Australiathey didnt keep growing exponentially forever.

There are limits to the exponential growth inherent in each paradigm. Moores law was not the first paradigm to bring exponential growth to computing, but rather the fifth. In the 1950s they were shrinking vacuum tubes to keep the exponential growth going and then that paradigm hit a wall. But the exponential growth of computing didnt stop. It kept going, with the new paradigm of transistors taking over. Each time we can see the end of the road for a paradigm, it creates research pressure to create the next one. Thats happening now with Moores law, even though we are still about fifteen years away from the end of our ability to shrink transistors on a flat integrated circuit. Were making dramatic progress in creating the sixth paradigm, which is three-dimensional molecular computing.

But isnt there an overall limit to our ability to expand the power of computation?

Yes, I discuss these limits in the book. The ultimate 2 pound computer could provide 1042 cps, which will be about 10 quadrillion (1016) times more powerful than all human brains put together today. And thats if we restrict the computer to staying at a cold temperature. If we allow it to get hot, we could improve that by a factor of another 100 million. And, of course, well be devoting more than two pounds of matter to computing. Ultimately, well use a significant portion of the matter and energy in our vicinity. So, yes, there are limits, but theyre not very limiting.

And when we saturate the ability of the matter and energy in our solar system to support intelligent processes, what happens then?

Then well expand to the rest of the Universe.

Which will take a long time I presume.

Well, that depends on whether we can use wormholes to get to other places in the Universe quickly, or otherwise circumvent the speed of light. If wormholes are feasible, and analyses show they are consistent with general relativity, we could saturate the universe with our intelligence within a couple of centuries. I discuss the prospects for this in the chapter 6. But regardless of speculation on wormholes, well get to the limits of computing in our solar system within this century. At that point, well have expanded the powers of our intelligence by trillions of trillions.

Getting back to life extension, isnt it natural to age, to die?

Other natural things include malaria, Ebola, appendicitis, and tsunamis. Many natural things are worth changing. Aging may be natural, but I dont see anything positive in losing my mental agility, sensory acuity, physical limberness, sexual desire, or any other human ability.

In my view, death is a tragedy. Its a tremendous loss of personality, skills, knowledge, relationships. Weve rationalized it as a good thing because thats really been the only alternative weve had. But disease, aging, and death are problems we are now in a position to overcome.

Wait, you said that the golden era of biotechnology was still a decade away. We dont have radical life extension today, do we?

Plurilogue: The Posthuman

Posted: at 6:30 am

Rosi Braidotti, The Posthuman, Polity, 2013, 229 pp., 14.99 (pbk.), ISBN 9780745641584

Francesca Ferrando, Universit di Roma Tre

Rosi Braidottis The Posthuman sheds much needed light on a movement which, due to its relative novelty, is often misunderstood. The Posthuman is thematically divided into four chapters, each focusing on a specific connotation of the posthuman shift.

The first chapter, Post-Humanism: Life beyond the Self', develops a criticism of humanism through different but related Western models, such as Protagoras sense of man as the measure of all things, the ideal of bodily perfection in Leonardos Vitruvian man, and the myth of progress and rationality in the Enlightenment. Such models are based on implicit practices of universalization and homogenization. Their subject is male and white, among other terms; the others, such as women or slaves, are the excluded, the pejorative terms diverging from the norm, the less than human. To use Braidottis words, in this type of cultural episteme difference spells inferiority (p. 15). In contrast, difference is the kernel of posthumanism, which recognizes humans in all of their varieties; the human is not one, but many. The openness of the posthuman deconstructs the fixity and permanence of the notion of the human itself; the human is no longer defined in a strict dualism against the non-human realm. Posthumanism is thus a post-anthropocentrism (the subject of the second chapter), which places the human species among and not above other non-human species, and implies a critical approach to humanistic hierarchical values.

It is important to note that Braidotti is not only a pioneer of the posthuman approach, but also one of the key thinkers of new materialism the term itself was coined independently by Rosi Braidotti and Manuel De Landa in the mid nineties.

With its natural-cultural continuum, Braidottis posthumanism is also a becoming-machine. Inspired by Gilles Deleuze and Flix Guattari, as well as by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varelas notion of autopoiesis, such a becoming raises issues of bio-genetics, information technologies and technobodies. Highly critical of technological reductionism, Braidotti is particularly interested in technologically mediated sites of embodied practices. Her

Achille

January 23, 2014

Read this article:

Plurilogue: The Posthuman

Posted in Posthuman | Comments Off

Watch: Entering Godmode How Entheogens Tap … – Reset.me

Posted: at 6:29 am

by April M. Short

on March 19, 2015

The word entheogenic means God-facilitating.

This is how Jason Silvas latest video begins. The beanie-and-sweatshirt-clad spoken word freestyler releases a video each week in which he chews over such topics as human consciousness, societal systems, existence itself, and the allure of scientific thought. In this rendition heis sitting on a cliff above the ocean, discussing thealtered states of consciousness brought forth by entheogens,a type ofpsychoactive substancesthat includes ayahuasca, DMT, iboga, cannabis, psilocybin, salvia, MDMA and many others. He describes a phenomenon happening now, across humanity, that he calls the entheogenic revolution.

Dubbingthese ecstasy-enducing substances God hacks, he explains that they are tools that can act as conduits and mediators for encounters with the numinous.

He quotes Terence McKenna who said, Do not give into the astonishment, and says the realization that reality is but a matrix of perception, that we can pierce that veil is astonishing.

Against a swirling backdrop of starscapes, rabbit holes and other superimposed special effects, Silvaexplains that philosopherMircea Eliade spoke aboutTechniques of Ecstasy, describingshamans as literally ecstatic technicians of the sacred.

Within all of us, Silva says, is the ability to hack in to the divine, and that via entheogens we actually are able to create conditions, to create spaces for all of us to become statisticians of the sacred.

Watch Silvaspoetic narrationbelow:

Written by April M. Short.

Watch: Entering Godmode How Entheogens Tap ... - Reset.me

Posted in Entheogens | Comments Off

Eugenics in the United States – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Posted: at 6:27 am

Eugenics, the set of beliefs and practices which aims at improving the genetic quality of the human population[2][3] played a significant role in the history and culture of the United States prior to its involvement in World War II.[4]

Eugenics was practised in the United States many years before eugenics programs in Nazi Germany[5] and U.S. programs provided much of the inspiration for the latter.[6][7][8] Stefan Khl has documented the consensus between Nazi race policies and those of eugenicists in other countries, including the United States, and points out that eugenicists understood Nazi policies and measures as the realization of their goals and demands.[9]

During the Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th century, eugenics was considered[by whom?] a method of preserving and improving the dominant groups in the population; it is now generally associated with racist and nativist elements[citation needed] (as the movement was to some extent a reaction to a change in emigration from Europe) rather than scientific genetics.

The American eugenics movement was rooted in the biological determinist ideas of Sir Francis Galton, which originated in the 1880s. Galton studied the upper classes of Britain, and arrived at the conclusion that their social positions were due to a superior genetic makeup.[10] Early proponents of eugenics believed that, through selective breeding, the human species should direct its own evolution. They tended to believe in the genetic superiority of Nordic, Germanic and Anglo-Saxon peoples; supported strict immigration and anti-miscegenation laws; and supported the forcible sterilization of the poor, disabled and "immoral".[11] Eugenics was also supported by African Americans intellectuals such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Thomas Wyatt Turner, and many academics at Tuskegee University, Howard University, and Hampton University; however they believed the best blacks were as good as the best whites and "The Talented Tenth" of all races should mix.[12] W. E. B. Du Bois believed "only fit blacks should procreate to eradicate the race's heritage of moral iniquity."[12][13]

The American eugenics movement received extensive funding from various corporate foundations including the Carnegie Institution, Rockefeller Foundation, and the Harriman railroad fortune.[7] In 1906 J.H. Kellogg provided funding to help found the Race Betterment Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan.[10] The Eugenics Record Office (ERO) was founded in Cold Spring Harbor, New York in 1911 by the renowned biologist Charles B. Davenport, using money from both the Harriman railroad fortune and the Carnegie Institution. As late as the 1920s, the ERO was one of the leading organizations in the American eugenics movement.[10][14] In years to come, the ERO collected a mass of family pedigrees and concluded that those who were unfit came from economically and socially poor backgrounds. Eugenicists such as Davenport, the psychologist Henry H. Goddard, Harry H. Laughlin, and the conservationist Madison Grant (all well respected in their time) began to lobby for various solutions to the problem of the "unfit". Davenport favored immigration restriction and sterilization as primary methods; Goddard favored segregation in his The Kallikak Family; Grant favored all of the above and more, even entertaining the idea of extermination.[15] The Eugenics Record Office later became the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Eugenics was widely accepted in the U.S. academic community.[7] By 1928 there were 376 separate university courses in some of the United States' leading schools, enrolling more than 20,000 students, which included eugenics in the curriculum.[16] It did, however, have scientific detractors (notably, Thomas Hunt Morgan, one of the few Mendelians to explicitly criticize eugenics), though most of these focused more on what they considered the crude methodology of eugenicists, and the characterization of almost every human characteristic as being hereditary, rather than the idea of eugenics itself.[17]

By 1910, there was a large and dynamic network of scientists, reformers and professionals engaged in national eugenics projects and actively promoting eugenic legislation. The American Breeder's Association was the first eugenic body in the U.S., established in 1906 under the direction of biologist Charles B. Davenport. The ABA was formed specifically to "investigate and report on heredity in the human race, and emphasize the value of superior blood and the menace to society of inferior blood." Membership included Alexander Graham Bell, Stanford president David Starr Jordan and Luther Burbank.[18][19] The American Association for the Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality was one of the first organizations to begin investigating infant mortality rates in terms of eugenics.[20] They promoted government intervention in attempts to promote the health of future citizens.[21][verification needed]

Several feminist reformers advocated an agenda of eugenic legal reform. The National Federation of Women's Clubs, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and the National League of Women Voters were among the variety of state and local feminist organization that at some point lobbied for eugenic reforms.[22]

One of the most prominent feminists to champion the eugenic agenda was Margaret Sanger, the leader of the American birth control movement. Margaret Sanger saw birth control as a means to prevent unwanted children from being born into a disadvantaged life, and incorporated the language of eugenics to advance the movement.[23][24] Sanger also sought to discourage the reproduction of persons who, it was believed, would pass on mental disease or serious physical defect. She advocated sterilization in cases where the subject was unable to use birth control.[23] Unlike other eugenicists, she rejected euthanasia.[25] For Sanger, it was individual women and not the state who should determine whether or not to have a child.[26][27]

In the Deep South, women's associations played an important role in rallying support for eugenic legal reform. Eugenicists recognized the political and social influence of southern clubwomen in their communities, and used them to help implement eugenics across the region.[28] Between 1915 and 1920, federated women's clubs in every state of the Deep South had a critical role in establishing public eugenic institutions that were segregated by sex.[29] For example, the Legislative Committee of the Florida State Federation of Women's Clubs successfully lobbied to institute a eugenic institution for the mentally retarded that was segregated by sex.[30] Their aim was to separate mentally retarded men and women to prevent them from breeding more "feebleminded" individuals.

Public acceptance in the U.S. was the reason eugenic legislation was passed. Almost 19 million people attended the PanamaPacific International Exposition in San Francisco, open for 10 months from February 20 to December 4, 1915.[31][32] The PPIE was a fair devoted to extolling the virtues of a rapidly progressing nation, featuring new developments in science, agriculture, manufacturing and technology. A subject that received a large amount of time and space was that of the developments concerning health and disease, particularly the areas of tropical medicine and race betterment (tropical medicine being the combined study of bacteriology, parasitology and entomology while racial betterment being the promotion of eugenic studies). Having these areas so closely intertwined, it seemed that they were both categorized in the main theme of the fair, the advancement of civilization. Thus in the public eye, the seemingly contradictory[clarification needed] areas of study were both represented under progressive banners of improvement and were made to seem like plausible courses of action to better American society.[33][verification needed]

Beginning with Connecticut in 1896, many states enacted marriage laws with eugenic criteria, prohibiting anyone who was "epileptic, imbecile or feeble-minded"[34] from marrying.[citation needed]

The first state to introduce a compulsory sterilization bill was Michigan, in 1897 but the proposed law failed to garner enough votes by legislators to be adopted. Eight years later Pennsylvania's state legislators passed a sterilization bill that was vetoed by the governor. Indiana became the first state to enact sterilization legislation in 1907,[35] followed closely by Washington and California in 1909. Sterilization rates across the country were relatively low (California being the sole exception) until the 1927 Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell which legitimized the forced sterilization of patients at a Virginia home for the mentally retarded. The number of sterilizations performed per year increased until another Supreme Court case, Skinner v. Oklahoma, 1942, complicated the legal situation by ruling against sterilization of criminals if the equal protection clause of the constitution was violated. That is, if sterilization was to be performed, then it could not exempt white-collar criminals.[36] The state of California was at the vanguard of the American eugenics movement, performing about 20,000 sterilizations or one third of the 60,000 nationwide from 1909 up until the 1960s.[37]

While California had the highest number of sterilizations, North Carolina's eugenics program which operated from 1933 to 1977, was the most aggressive of the 32 states that had eugenics programs.[38] An IQ of 70 or lower meant sterilization was appropriate in North Carolina.[39] The North Carolina Eugenics Board almost always approved proposals brought before them by local welfare boards.[39] Of all states, only North Carolina gave social workers the power to designate people for sterilization.[38] "Here, at last, was a method of preventing unwanted pregnancies by an acceptable, practical, and inexpensive method," wrote Wallace Kuralt in the March 1967 journal of the N.C. Board of Public Welfare. "The poor readily adopted the new techniques for birth control."[39]

The Immigration Restriction League was the first American entity associated officially with eugenics. Founded in 1894 by three recent Harvard University graduates, the League sought to bar what it considered inferior races from entering America and diluting what it saw as the superior American racial stock (upper class Northerners of Anglo-Saxon heritage). They felt that social and sexual involvement with these less-evolved and less-civilized races would pose a biological threat to the American population. The League lobbied for a literacy test for immigrants, based on the belief that literacy rates were low among "inferior races". Literacy test bills were vetoed by Presidents in 1897, 1913 and 1915; eventually, President Wilson's second veto was overruled by Congress in 1917. Membership in the League included: A. Lawrence Lowell, president of Harvard, William DeWitt Hyde, president of Bowdoin College, James T. Young, director of Wharton School and David Starr Jordan, president of Stanford University.[40]

The League allied themselves with the American Breeder's Association to gain influence and further its goals and in 1909 established a Committee on Eugenics chaired by David Starr Jordan with members Charles Davenport, Alexander Graham Bell, Vernon Kellogg, Luther Burbank, William Ernest Castle, Adolf Meyer, H. J. Webber and Friedrich Woods. The ABA's immigration legislation committee, formed in 1911 and headed by League's founder Prescott F. Hall, formalized the committee's already strong relationship with the Immigration Restriction League. They also founded the Eugenics Record Office, which was headed by Harry H. Laughlin.[41] In their mission statement, they wrote:

Society must protect itself; as it claims the right to deprive the murderer of his life so it may also annihilate the hideous serpent of hopelessly vicious protoplasm. Here is where appropriate legislation will aid in eugenics and creating a healthier, saner society in the future."[41]

Money from the Harriman railroad fortune was also given to local charities, in order to find immigrants from specific ethnic groups and deport, confine, or forcibly sterilize them.[7]

With the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, eugenicists for the first time played an important role in the Congressional debate as expert advisers on the threat of "inferior stock" from eastern and southern Europe.[42][verification needed] The new act, inspired by the eugenic belief in the racial superiority of "old stock" white Americans as members of the "Nordic race" (a form of white supremacy), strengthened the position of existing laws prohibiting race-mixing.[43] Eugenic considerations also lay behind the adoption of incest laws in much of the U.S. and were used to justify many anti-miscegenation laws.[44]

Stephen Jay Gould asserted that restrictions on immigration passed in the United States during the 1920s (and overhauled in 1965 with the Immigration and Nationality Act) were motivated by the goals of eugenics. During the early 20th century, the United States and Canada began to receive far higher numbers of Southern and Eastern European immigrants. Influential eugenicists like Lothrop Stoddard and Harry Laughlin (who was appointed as an expert witness for the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization in 1920) presented arguments they would pollute the national gene pool if their numbers went unrestricted.[45][46] It has been argued that this stirred both Canada and the United States into passing laws creating a hierarchy of nationalities, rating them from the most desirable Anglo-Saxon and Nordic peoples to the Chinese and Japanese immigrants, who were almost completely banned from entering the country.[43][47]

Both class and race factored into eugenic definitions of "fit" and "unfit." By using intelligence testing, American eugenicists asserted that social mobility was indicative of one's genetic fitness.[48] This reaffirmed the existing class and racial hierarchies and explained why the upper-to-middle class was predominantly white. Middle-to-upper class status was a marker of "superior strains."[30] In contrast, eugenicists believed poverty to be a characteristic of genetic inferiority, which meant that that those deemed "unfit" were predominantly of the lower classes.[30]

Because class status designated some more fit than others, eugenicists treated upper and lower class women differently. Positive eugenicists, who promoted procreation among the fittest in society, encouraged middle class women to bear more children. Between 1900 and 1960, Eugenicists appealed to middle class white women to become more "family minded," and to help better the race.[49] To this end, eugenicists often denied middle and upper class women sterilization and birth control.[50]

Since poverty was associated with prostitution and "mental idiocy," women of the lower classes were the first to be deemed "unfit" and "promiscuous."[30] These women, who were predominantly immigrants or women of color[citation needed], were discouraged from bearing children, and were encouraged to use birth control.

In 1907, Indiana passed the first eugenics-based compulsory sterilization law in the world. Thirty U.S. states would soon follow their lead.[51][52] Although the law was overturned by the Indiana Supreme Court in 1921,[53] the U.S. Supreme Court, in Buck v. Bell, upheld the constitutionality of the Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924, allowing for the compulsory sterilization of patients of state mental institutions in 1927.[54]

Some states sterilized "imbeciles" for much of the 20th century. Although compulsory sterilization is now considered an abuse of human rights, Buck v. Bell was never overturned, and Virginia did not repeal its sterilization law until 1974.[55] The most significant era of eugenic sterilization was between 1907 and 1963, when over 64,000 individuals were forcibly sterilized under eugenic legislation in the United States.[56] Beginning around 1930, there was a steady increase in the percentage of women sterilized, and in a few states only young women were sterilized. From 1930 to the 1960s, sterilizations were performed on many more institutionalized women than men.[30] By 1961, 61 percent of the 62,162 total eugenic sterilizations in the United States were performed on women.[30] A favorable report on the results of sterilization in California, the state with the most sterilizations by far, was published in book form by the biologist Paul Popenoe and was widely cited by the Nazi government as evidence that wide-reaching sterilization programs were feasible and humane.[57][58]

Men and women were compulsorily sterilized for different reasons. Men were sterilized to treat their aggression and to eliminate their criminal behavior, while women were sterilized to control the results of their sexuality.[30] Since women bore children, eugenicists held women more accountable than men for the reproduction of the less "desirable" members of society.[30] Eugenicists therefore predominantly targeted women in their efforts to regulate the birth rate, to "protect" white racial health, and weed out the "defectives" of society.[30]

A 1937 Fortune magazine poll found that 2/3 of respondents supported eugenic sterilization of "mental defectives", 63% supported sterilization of criminals, and only 15% opposed both.[59]

In the 1970s, several activists and women's rights groups discovered several physicians to be performing coerced sterilizations of specific ethnic groups of society. All were abuses of poor, nonwhite, or mentally retarded women, while no abuses against white or middle-class women were recorded.[60] Although the sterilizations were not explicitly motivated by eugenics, the sterilizations were similar to the eugenics movement[according to whom?] because they were done without the patients' consent.

For example, in 1972, United States Senate committee testimony brought to light that at least 2,000 involuntary sterilizations had been performed on poor black women without their consent or knowledge. An investigation revealed that the surgeries were all performed in the South, and were all performed on black welfare mothers with multiple children. Testimony revealed that many of these women were threatened with an end to their welfare benefits until they consented to sterilization.[61] These surgeries were instances of sterilization abuse, a term applied to any sterilization performed without the consent or knowledge of the recipient, or in which the recipient is pressured into accepting the surgery. Because the funds used to carry out the surgeries came from the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity, the sterilization abuse raised older suspicions, especially amongst the black community, that "federal programs were underwriting eugenicists who wanted to impose their views about population quality on minorities and poor women."[30]

Native American women were also victims of sterilization abuse up into the 1970s.[62] The organization WARN (Women of All Red Nations) publicized that Native American women were threatened that, if they had more children, they would be denied welfare benefits. The Indian Health Service also repeatedly refused to deliver Native American babies until their mothers, in labor, consented to sterilization. Many Native American women unknowingly gave consent, since directions were not given in their native language. According to the General Accounting Office, an estimate of 3,406 Indian women were sterilized.[62] The General Accounting Office stated that the Indian Health Service had not followed the necessary regulations, and that the "informed consent forms did not adhere to the standards set by the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW)."[63]

One of the methods that was commonly suggested to get rid of "inferior" populations was euthanasia. A 1911 Carnegie Institute report mentioned euthanasia as one of its recommended "solutions" to the problem of cleansing society of unfit genetic attributes. The most commonly suggested method was to set up local gas chambers. However, many in the eugenics movement did not believe that Americans were ready to implement a large-scale euthanasia program, so many doctors had to find clever ways of subtly implementing eugenic euthanasia in various medical institutions. For example, a mental institution in Lincoln, Illinois fed its incoming patients milk infected with tuberculosis (reasoning that genetically fit individuals would be resistant), resulting in 30-40% annual death rates. Other doctors practiced euthanasia through various forms of lethal neglect.[64]

In the 1930s, there was a wave of portrayals of eugenic "mercy killings" in American film, newspapers, and magazines. In 1931, the Illinois Homeopathic Medicine Association began lobbying for the right to euthanize "imbeciles" and other defectives. The Euthanasia Society of America was founded in 1938.[65]

Overall, however, euthanasia was marginalized in the U.S., motivating people to turn to forced segregation and sterilization programs as a means for keeping the "unfit" from reproducing.[66]

Mary deGormo, a former classroom teacher was the first person to combine ideas about health and intelligence standards with competitions at state fairs, in the form of "better baby" contests. She developed the first such contest, the "Scientific Baby Contest" for the Louisiana State Fair in Shreveport, in 1908. She saw these contests as a contribution to the "social efficiency" movement, which was advocating for the standardization of all aspects of American life as a means of increasing efficiency.[20] deGarmo was assisted by the pediatrician Dr. Jacob Bodenheimer, who helped her develop grading sheets for contestants, which combined physical measurements with standardized measurements of intelligence.[67] Scoring was based on a deduction system, in that every child started at 1000 points and then was docked points for having measurements that were below a designated average. The child with the most points (and the least defections) was ideal.[68][verification needed]

The topic of standardization through scientific judgment was a topic that was very serious in the eyes of the scientific community, but has often been downplayed as just a popular fad or trend. Nevertheless, a lot of time, effort, and money were put into these contests and their scientific backing, which would influence cultural ideas as well as local and state government practices.[69][verification needed]

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People promoted eugenics by hosting "Better Baby" contests and the proceeds would go to its anti-lynching campaign.[12]

First appearing in 1920 at the Kansas Free Fair, Fitter Family competitions, continued all the way until WWII. Mary T. Watts and Dr. Florence Brown Sherbon,[70][71] both initiators of the Better Baby Contests in Iowa, took the idea of positive eugenics for babies and combined it with a determinist concept of biology to come up with fitter family competitions.[72]

There were several different categories that families were judged in: Size of the family, overall attractiveness, and health of the family, all of which helped to determine the likelihood of having healthy children. These competitions were simply a continuation of the Better Baby contests that promoted certain physical and mental qualities.[73] At the time, it was believed that certain behavioral qualities were inherited from your parents. This led to the addition of several judging categories including: generosity, self-sacrificing, and quality of familial bonds. Additionally, there were negative features that were judged: selfishness, jealousy, suspiciousness, high temperedness, and cruelty. Feeblemindedness, alcoholism, and paralysis were few among other traits that were included as physical traits to be judged when looking at family lineage.[74]

Doctors and specialists from the community would offer their time to judge these competitions, which were originally sponsored by the Red Cross.[74] The winners of these competitions were given a Bronze Medal as well as champion cups called "Capper Medals." The cups were named after then Governor and Senator, Arthur Capper and he would present them to "Grade A individuals".[75]

The perks of entering into the contests were that the competitions provided a way for families to get a free health check up by a doctor as well as some of the pride and prestige that came from winning the competitions.[74]

By 1925 the Eugenics Records Office was distributing standardized forms for judging eugenically fit families, which were used in contests in several U.S. states.[76]

After the eugenics movement was well established in the United States, it spread to Germany. California eugenicists began producing literature promoting eugenics and sterilization and sending it overseas to German scientists and medical professionals.[66] By 1933, California had subjected more people to forceful sterilization than all other U.S. states combined. The forced sterilization program engineered by the Nazis was partly inspired by California's.[8]

The Rockefeller Foundation helped develop and fund various German eugenics programs,[77] including the one that Josef Mengele worked in before he went to Auschwitz.[7][78]

Upon returning from Germany in 1934, where more than 5,000 people per month were being forcibly sterilized, the California eugenics leader C. M. Goethe bragged to a colleague:

"You will be interested to know that your work has played a powerful part in shaping the opinions of the group of intellectuals who are behind Hitler in this epoch-making program. Everywhere I sensed that their opinions have been tremendously stimulated by American thought . . . I want you, my dear friend, to carry this thought with you for the rest of your life, that you have really jolted into action a great government of 60 million people."[79]

Eugenics researcher Harry H. Laughlin often bragged that his Model Eugenic Sterilization laws had been implemented in the 1935 Nuremberg racial hygiene laws.[80] In 1936, Laughlin was invited to an award ceremony at Heidelberg University in Germany (scheduled on the anniversary of Hitler's 1934 purge of Jews from the Heidelberg faculty), to receive an honorary doctorate for his work on the "science of racial cleansing". Due to financial limitations, Laughlin was unable to attend the ceremony and had to pick it up from the Rockefeller Institute. Afterwards, he proudly shared the award with his colleagues, remarking that he felt that it symbolized the "common understanding of German and American scientists of the nature of eugenics."[81]

After 1945, however, historians began to attempt to portray the US eugenics movement as distinct and distant from Nazi eugenics.[82]Jon Entine wrote that eugenics simply means "good genes" and using it as synonym for genocide is an "all-too-common distortion of the social history of genetics policy in the United States." According to Entine, eugenics developed out of the Progressive Era and not "Hitler's twisted Final Solution."[83]

See the original post:

Eugenics in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Posted in Eugenics | Comments Off

Indiana Eugenics: History and Legacy

Posted: at 6:27 am

In 1907, a new law passed by the state legislature and signed by the Governor of Indiana provided for the involuntary sterilization of "confirmed criminals, idiots, imbeciles and rapists." Although it was eventually found to be unconstitutional, this law is widely regarded as the first eugenics sterilization legislation passed in the world. In 1927, a revised law was implemented and before it was repealed in 1974, over 2,300 of the States most vulnerable citizens were involuntarily sterilized. In addition, Indiana established a state-funded Committee on Mental Defectives that carried out eugenic family studies in over twenty counties and was home to an active "better babies" movement that encouraged scientific motherhood and infant hygiene as routes to human improvement.

News Release

American Medical Association News Article

The centenary of the 1907 legislation provides a unique opportunity to evaluate the far-reaching significance of this event by exploring the largely untold history of eugenics in Indiana, and the relevance of this history to contemporary issues in human genomics, public health genetics, and reproductive health in other parts of the country. An expert project team has been assembled of historians, bioethicists, lawyers, and art/design faculty to undertake a series of scholarly and public projects to mark the 100th anniversary of the Indiana eugenics legislation. These included:

Daily Archives: June 27, 2016

Home | Nassau, Bahamas – Embassy of the United States

Bahamas All-Inclusive Resorts, Bahamas All-Inclusive …

Protecting Ocean Life on the High Seas – Pew Trusts

Intentional Communities Asheville (Asheville, NC) – Meetup

Prison Planet.com Bill Gates And Neo-Eugenics: Vaccines …

Singularity Q&A | KurzweilAI

Plurilogue: The Posthuman

Watch: Entering Godmode How Entheogens Tap … – Reset.me

Eugenics in the United States – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Indiana Eugenics: History and Legacy

The Prometheus League

Breaking News and Updates

Prometheism

Forbidden Fruit

The Evolutionary Perspective

Transtopia Menu

Library Updates

Library Books

Future Euvolution

Lucid Dreams from Childhood

Genetic Revolution

Speciation + Self-Directed Evolution