Battle of the Hook Revolutionary War Reenactment Media Representatives Encouraged to Attend

More than 1,500 Revolutionary War reenactors, 30 horses and multiple period boats will descend on the Inn at Warner Hall in Gloucester Oct. 19 and 20 for what’s billed as the largest Revolutionary War reenactment in the country this year.

GLOUCESTER, VA – The British are coming back, along with the French and Americans, too.

And the Return to the Hook steering committee would love to see the media follow suit.

On Oct. 19 and 20, the Allies will engage the British Legion and other Crown forces in a reenactment of the 1781 Battle of the Hook at the Inn at Warner Hall in Gloucester, Va.

The historic battle took place in 1781 in Gloucester and choked off the British supply line to the British troops in Yorktown, helping pave the way for American Independence. 

The reenactment, one of the largest recreations of a Revolutionary War battle, will bring together more than 1,500 infantry, cavalry, artillery and maritime landing reenactors from across the country to the home of President George Washington’s ancestors. 

Labeled a national event, the reenactment is sponsored by the Continental Line, British Brigade, and Brigade of the American Revolution, as well as regional and statewide businesses and Gloucester County.

Throughout the Battle of the Hook reenactment weekend, in addition to the battle and military scenes, daylong activities for visitors include a live field archeology dig and demonstration display of actual artifacts from the Battle of the Hook, period music by civilian and military performers, 18^th century farm setting with live animals, colonial tavern demonstration, camp life by the British, American and French forces, and period merchants and craftsmen demonstrating their skills and selling their wares.

Media are encouraged to cover this visual and dynamic living history event.

The Inn at Warner Hall is located at 4750 Warner Hall Road in Gloucester, Va.

Journalists are asked to RSVP to Battle of the Hook Steering Committee Member Stephanie Heinatz at sheinatz@cox.net or 757.713.2199.

Preferred media parking is located in the field on the left hand side of Warner Hall Road as you approach the Inn. Please show identification from your media outlet to access the preferred parking. Parking conditions are expected to be muddy due to all the rain. In the event that the parking field is closed due to weather conditions – shuttles will be running from Gloucester High School throughout the day.

Following arrival to Warner Hall, media representatives should check in at the registration tent to receive a media badge, which is good throughout the entire weekend.

Media representatives with their badge will have access a media headquarters, special viewing areas on the battlefield and video and still imagery being shot on the battlefield itself by the event’s official media crews (Eastriver Marketing and Sara Harris Photography).

Videographers and photographers on the battlefield will be limited to the event’s official media crews both for safety and to help keep the event as authentic as possible. Media crews on the battlefield will be in period clothing. Several reenactors will be equipped with video cameras on their bodies (GoPro). That licensed footage is available for your use.

Return to the Hook Schedule of Events:

Saturday, October 19

The Inn at Warner Hall

9 a.m.

Site opens to the public

9:30 to 10 a.m.  

Wreath Laying Ceremony at the Warner/Lewis Cemetery – Warner Hall Cemetery

9:30 to 10:30 a.m.

Battalion Drill – All Armies, Respective Drill Areas

10 to 10:30 a.m.

Artillery demonstration, Main Battlefield

11 to 11:30 a.m.

French Boat Landing and Skirmish with Crown Troops - Boat Landing Battlefield

11:30 to noon

Colonial Ladies Program and Tea – Manor House Front Porch

11:45 a.m.

A Revolutionary Drama – “James and Elizabeth” – Manor House Stage (creek side)

1:30 to 2 p.m.

Cavalry Demonstration, Crown and Allied Forces - Main Battlefield

2 to 2:15 p.m.    

Encounter with Mrs. Whiting – Main Battlefield

2:30 to 3:30 p.m.

Battle of the Hook - Main Battlefield

4 to 4:30 p.m.

British Public Court Martial – British Camp

4:30 p.m.

Site Close to Public

6:15 to 6:30 p.m.

Dusk Artillery Demonstration - Main Battlefield

6:30 to 7 p.m.

Storming of Redoubt – Main Battlefield

Sunday, October 20

10 a.m.

Site opens to the public

10 to 10:30 a.m.

Period Church Service – Arts and Education Tent

11 to 11:30 a.m.

British Boat Landing, and Skirmish with Allied Troops - Boat Landing Battlefield

12:15 p.m.

British Brigade Sending for the Colours Ceremony

12:30 p.m.

Massed Military Music – Manor House Stage area – (creek side of house)

12:30 p.m.

British Artillery Drill – Main Battlefield

1 p.m.

Fashions of the Revolution – Manor House front porch

1:30 to 2:30 p.m.

Attack on the Gloucester Redoubts – Main Battlefield, all troops

3 p.m.

Event closes

The Battle of the Hook in American History

The events leading up to the Revolutionary War’s Yorktown Campaign and the subsequent victory of the Allies that insured the independence of the United States are well known. Less well known is the Battle of the Hook – the battle that took place across the York River from Yorktown 16 days before the British capitulation. Although rather brief, it included the largest cavalry engagement of the war, with more than 500 horsemen involved.

When British Gen. Charles Cornwallis occupied Yorktown in August 1781, he dispatched a portion of his troops to occupy and fortify Gloucester Town (now Gloucester Point), across the river from Yorktown. These forces would, he hoped, be able to secure the British Army's flank, protect a possible escape route, and forage for food, livestock and supplies in the fertile farmland of Gloucester County.

Then American Gen. Washington and his French allies recognized the importance of this area to the siege at Yorktown and sent a force to join the Virginia militia to block the British in Gloucester.

On October 19, 1781, the last surrender of British forces in America occurred — not at Yorktown, as is widely believed, but an hour later, outside the works at Gloucester, where some 1,100 Englishmen, Scotsmen, Welshmen, Germans and American loyalists, and 300 horses, were surrendered to 100 French and 200 American militiamen. American independence was assured, thanks largely to the victory in Gloucester.

The “Hook” battlefield is now an empty field, hallowed ground with little to note its significance day to day except a small roadside marker and a deteriorating concrete monument.

Its significance, however, will be celebrated with the reenactment at the Inn at Warner Hall in October.

Related articles

• Battle of the Hook Pre Show, Liberty's Kids 35, James Armistead
• Battle of the Hook Pre Show, Liberty's Kids 34, Deborah Samson
• Battle of the Hook Pre Show, Liberty's kids 33, Conflict In The South
• Battle of the Hook Pre Show, Liberty's Kids 31, Bostonians
• Liberty's Kids 29, The Great Galvez - Battle of the Hook Pre Show
• Liberty's Kids 28, Not Yet Begun To Fight, Battle of the Hook Pre Show

High Cost Credit The money pouring into a boom for consumer loans

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

June 13, 2013 by Jason Lewis

The rapid growth of the high-cost consumer credit industry has attracted considerable investment despite criticism of the huge interest rates charged by many companies.

The Bureau’s investigation into the sector, which includes many payday loan companies, reveals that Britain’s high street banks have put millions of pounds into the industry. US companies, some banned by law from issuing payday loans in the American states where they are based, are also investing in the UK’s less regulated market. Many have bought up UK companies, paying the UK founders millions of pounds for their shareholdings.

Criticism of the industry has focused on the level of interest charged, with some loans costing up to 4,474% in interest. The government has rejected calls to cap the interest rates the firms can charge, claiming it would force people to turn to illegal loan sharks.

Instead the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is attempting to crack down on the industry, threatening to remove firms’ licences if they fail to check whether customers can afford the loans or use aggressive debt collection tactics. The OFT has already removed three licences.

Buying in
Despite this new attempt at regulation, international businessmen including some from eastern Europe, a South African mining company president and US venture capitalist Don Valentine – who made his name funding Apple, Google and YouTube – have bought into the industry.

Many of the companies in the Bureau’s research offer payday loans, a term referring to a short-term, high-cost loan, regardless of whether the payment is linked to a borrower’s payday. These companies charge over 4,000% interest rates. Other companies provide loans, some more long-term, with interest rates above 50% – considerably higher than conventional mortgages, overdraft facilities and even credit cards.

Among those who have invested is the Arbuthnot Bank Group run by chief executive Henry Angest, a Swiss-born millionaire, and a major Conservative Party donor.

Angest now controls Everyday Loans Limited, which offers the ‘financial freedom’ of unsecured loans of between £500 and £10,000 at 74.8%. This is not a short term payday loan company, but has rates of interest higher than other more traditional consumer loans such as credit cards.

US companies, some banned by law from issuing payday loans in the American States where they are based, are also investing in the UK’s less regulated market. 

A former Conservative party treasurer, Angest has contributed £7m to the party in loans and donations.

Last year Everyday Loans was purchased by an Arbuthnot group subsidiary, Secure Trust Bank, which is investing millions of pounds to fund new lending.

Arbuthnot Latham, a private bank, in which Angest owns a majority stake, and which is also part of the Arbuthnot group, has offered a £5m loan to the Conservative Party at 3.5% interest. The loan is listed on the official Electoral Commission register but a Conservative Party spokesman described it as a ‘credit facility’ which the Party had not drawn upon.

A spokesman for Everyday Loans claimed the company was a responsible lender. He said the firm does not provide ‘payday loans’ nor is it a ‘short-term lender’.

He said customers had to borrow over a minimum of 13 months and added: ‘Everyday Loans provides loans to customers who are underserved by the high street banks. If Everyday Loans did not provide this service those looking for loans would have to approach payday loan companies, pawnbrokers or home collected credit companies where interest rates would be very much higher.’

He said: ‘We are not engaged or plan to engage in payday lending. The interest rate charged on [our] loans reflects the risks involved in lending to the individual borrowers. The rates we charge are typically 3 times less than the representative rates of lenders like the home collected credit companies and 20 times less than payday lenders.’

Asked whether the firm or its chairman and chief executive Henry Angest had discussed the company’s business with the prime minster or the government, the spokesman added: ‘We can confirm that we have not discussed the business of Everyday Loans Limited with either the Conservative Party, the current Government or Civil Servants.’

Angest is the second leading Conservative donor with a connection to a high-risk lending company. Adrian Beecroft runs Dawn Capital Investments, a private investors fund, which has a major stake in Wonga, one of Britain’s best-known and fastest growing payday lenders.

Beecroft, who is also a government adviser, has given almost £800,000 to the Conservatives since 2006, most recently contributing more than £100,000 last December. Wonga’s turnover has trebled to almost £185m the last year.

Related article: Get the data – The high cost lending companies

Research by the Bureau also shows that these high-cost lending companies are often heavily reliant on the leading high street banks for funding and set up costs.

Despite widespread criticism that the major banks are reluctant to lend to small businesses and entrepreneurs planning start-ups, payday lenders have found them willing partners.

One major payday firm, US-based Lending Stream, describes Barclays Bank, which currently lends to businesses at 5.1% APR, as a major ‘strategic partner’.

3,378% interest rate
The firm, owned by Delaware-registered Global Analytics Holdings Inc, had a £32.7m turnover in 2011 with 142,000 British customers borrowing £31.2m. Its customers pay 3,378% APR to borrow from it.

The firm’s Californian-based boss Krishna Gopinathan claims he founded the firm to ‘give back’ and to ‘empower’ people with low access to credit.

How much Barclays lends the firm is not disclosed, but it has a fixed charge over the company’s deposits providing, according to Lending Stream, ‘integrated banking solutions … lending, risk management, trade, cash and liquidity management, and specialist asset and sales financing’.

Barclays, which at one stage sought a taxpayer-funded government bail out before instead reaching a deal with Middle East investors, is also involved with several other high-cost lenders.

Barclays Capital, its investment arm, lent £75m to Everyday Loans Limited according to its filings to Companies House to provide ‘funding for the provision of consumer finance lending to customers’, until this was paid off when the firm was bought out last year.

According to documents filed at Companies House the bank also has a charge over credit balances facility for TxTLoan Limited, a firm offering 4,474% interest loans through mobile text messaging.

Barclays confirmed it had previously been involved with firms in the industry. But a spokeswoman for Barclays Bank said this was no longer the case. ’We do not lend to any of these companies,’ she said.

Related story: Revealed – The £1billion high cost lending industry

Other major banks are also involved in funding the industry. HSBC provided seed capital for Money in Advance Limited, a firm registered in the British Virgin Islands, the offshore tax haven, which explains, for example, that it will loan customers £250 for 22 days and collect £305 – an interest rate of 3,697% APR.

Taxpayer-owned Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which was bailed out after the financial collapse in 2008 with £45bn from the government, is another that has invested in the high-cost credit sector.

RBS funds Amigo Loans Limited, owned by entrepreneur James Benamor, who is paid £890,000 a year. His firm, which says it has now stopped doing payday loans, was, until recently lending at 199% APR. The Bureau has included the company in its data as the financial records cover the period when it was still operating as a payday lender.

Before the bail out the bank, though subsidiary NatWest, helped Nottingham city jeweller Henry Hallam build up his Money Shop business before he sold out to US-giant Dollar Finance in a deal in 1999.

Its website advertised: ‘Borrow £400 for 31 days, pay £400 interest’.

Taxpayer-owned Royal Bank of Scotland, which was bailed out after the financial collapse in 2008 with £45bn from the government, is another that has invested heavily in the payday business.

At the end of last year it replaced these with new longer term ‘guarantor loans… Based on how much your friends trust you, NOT your credit score’, it says. These loans charge 49.9% APR in interest.

Lloyds TSB, which took £5.5bn from the taxpayer to save it from collapse, is another high-street name involved in funding the payday market.

The bank helped fund Instant Cash Loans Limited, owners of the Money Shop.

Investment in the industry is flowing in from the US too. The Bureau’s research highlights the growing involvement of US firms in the British payday industry at a time when such companies are facing tighter regulation of their activities at home.

Rapid growth
Dollar Finance has overseen the massive growth of the Money Shop taking it from a company with 34 staff and a turnover of £2.9m in 1998 to one with 2,300 staff and an income of £172.3m today.

The success of its Money Shop stores has made Dollar Finance, which is owned by Philadelphia-based DFC Global Corporation, keen to expand.

In 2009 it acquired Express Finance (Bromley) from Michael Thorpe, who, before the buy out, had employed his 25-year-old son and his wife to help run the business, for almost £5m. In the three years after the takeover the company’s revenues increased tenfold to £51.7m and it is making profits of almost £17m a year.

In April 2011 Dollar Finance expanded further, buying internet loans business MEM Consumer Finance, which trades as PaydayUK and issued £30m worth of loans last year.

Expansion of the payday loans industry in the US has been curtailed by a growing clampdown on high interest rates by state governments. Some states have even banned payday loans.

In 13 states the loans are either illegal or, while not explicitly banned, prohibited by strict usury limits – hard interest rate caps on the annual percentage rate.

Since 2007 a federal law has also capped lending to military personnel at a maximum of 36%.

Dollar Finance is based in Pennsylvania, where state laws cap interest rates on short term loans at 30% compared to the 2,949% APR offered on its PayDayUK website this week.

In 13 states the loans are either illegal or, while not explicitly banned, prohibited by strict usury limits – hard interest rate caps on the annual percentage rate.

Cash Choice UK Limited is another firm owned in a US state where its interest rates, advertised on its website as 3,491% APR, would be outlawed.

The firm is owned by US citizen David Vickers, president of Cash Choice Inc, based in Atlanta, Georgia, where payday loans have been banned for more than 100 years.

A statement on the Georgia governor’s website says: ‘Payday loans have become a multibillion dollar industry in recent years. Nevertheless, it is illegal in Georgia to make a payday loan.

‘(The) law authorizes felony and racketeering charges against violators, as well as fines of up to $25,000 per violation and a possible jail sentence of 25 years.’

The risks of similar legislation in Britain is reflected in the annual report of Texas-based Cash America International Inc, owners of one of the biggest UK payday lending firms. CashEuroNetUK, which trades as QuickQuid and Pounds To Pocket, and advertises interest rates of 1,734% APR.

In Texas the state senate has been pushing for new laws that would put limits on payday and short-term loan firms charging interest rates of 1,000%.

The latest proposal would limit customers to one payday loan at a time. The size of the loans would also be limited by their monthly income and the loan could only be renewed four times.

With the UK operation generating revenues of £198m, Cash America warned its shareholders: ‘If prescriptive regulations are adopted  (in the UK) the Company’s compliance costs will be significantly increased’.

RBS and Lloyds did not respond to the Bureau’s questions.

http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2013/06/13/the-money-pouring-into-a-boom-for-consumer-loans/  Link back to original story.  

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Organized Crime Ring The Pharmaceutical Drug Cartel

English: Example of promotional "freebies" given to physicians by pharmaceutical companies (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Dr. Mercola

Even though the video above is a few years old now and bigger fines of $3 billion have been assessed to GlaxoSmithKline two years ago, it is a good summary of how the drug cartels operate.

Did you know that nearly 20 percent of corporate crime is being committed by companies that make products for your health?

Sad but true, no less than 19 pharmaceutical companies made AllBusiness.com's Top 100 Corporate Criminals List for the 1990s, and the trend has continued if not increased into the 21st Century. Crimes committed by some of the most well-known drug companies include:

• Fabricated studies
• Covering up serious problems with their drugs
• False claims
• Bribery, illegal kick-backs, and defrauding Medicare, Medicaid, and even the FDA
• Immoral threat and intimidation tactics (recall the international drug company Merck actually had a hit list of doctors to be "neutralized" or discredited for criticizing the lethally dangerous painkiller Vioxx. "We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live," a Merck employee wrote, according to an email excerpt read in court.)

Pulling Back the Curtain on Organized Crime

Fortunately, organizations like the Bureau of Investigative Journalism,1 the False Claims Act Legal Center,2 and Politicol News3 have all started investigating and publicizing the criminal actions these companies have been getting away with for decades.

Most recently, the British Medical Journal’s blog featured an article4 by former BMJ editor and director of the United Health Group’s chronic disease initiative, Richard Smith, aptly titled: "Is the Pharmaceutical Industry Like the Mafia?"

The piece is also the foreword to the book, Deadly Medicines and Organized Crime: How Big Pharma Has Corrupted Healthcare, written by Peter Gøtzsche, head of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, which is considered the gold standard in terms of independent research reviews.

In related news, a recently published study concluded that most drug commercials are misleading or outright false.5 There’s a literal mountain of evidence proving that pharmaceutical companies are untrustworthy at best, and criminal at worst. And yet they’re the backbone of our modern “healthcare” system...

Even Forbes Magazine6 recently published an article with the provocative headline: "Is Big Pharma Addicted To Fraud?" and asked out loud “whether any aspect of the pharmaceutical business can be trusted.”

Is It Fair to Compare the Pharmaceutical Industry with the Mafia?

If you depend on conventional medical care to address your health problems, then you’re basically entrusting your health to organizations that clearly have far more interest in their bottom line than your health. In his article, Is the Pharmaceutical Industry Like the Mafia? Smith writes:7

“The characteristics of organized crime, racketeering, is defined in US law as the act of engaging repeatedly in certain types of offence, including extortion, fraud, federal drug offenses, bribery, embezzlement, obstruction of justice, obstruction of law enforcement, tampering with witnesses, and political corruption.

Peter [Gøtzsche] produces evidence, most of it detailed, to support his case that pharmaceutical companies are guilty of most of these offenses.

And he is not the first to compare the industry with the Mafia or mob. He quotes a former vice-president of Pfizer, who has said:

‘It is scary how many similarities there are between this industry and the mob. The mob makes obscene amounts of money, as does this industry. The side effects of organized crime are killings and deaths, and the side effects are the same in this industry. The mob bribes politicians and others, and so does the drug industry…’

Smith also notes that many more people are killed by the pharmaceutical industry than the mob. Prescription drugs also kill far more people than illegal drugs, and while most major causes of preventable deaths are declining, those from prescription drug use are on the incline.8, 9

For example, prescription drug fatalities more than doubled among teens and young adults between 2000 and 2008, and more than tripled among people aged 50 to 69.

Legal prescription drug abuse is a silent epidemic, and is part of the reason why the modern American medical system has become one of the leading causes of death and injury in the United States.

An estimated 450,000 preventable medication-related adverse events occur in the US every year. Merck’s painkiller Vioxx alone killed more than 60,000 people within a few years’ time before being withdrawn from the market.

“... [T]he benefits of drugs are exaggerated, often because of serious distortions of the evidence behind the drugs, a ‘crime’ that can be attributed confidently to the industry,” Smith writes.“The great doctor William Osler famously said that it would be good for humankind and bad for the fishes if all the drugs were thrown into the sea.

He was speaking before the therapeutic revolution in the middle of the 20th century that led to penicillin, other antibiotics, and many other effective drugs, but Peter comes close to agreeing with him and does speculate that we would be better off without most psychoactive drugs, where the benefits are small, the harms considerable, and the level of prescribing massive.”

'Science-Based' Medicine Has Fallen on Its Own Sword

There are many areas within which corruption can take root, and the drug industry has nurtured corruption in most if not all of them. It would require an entire book to begin to address them all, which is exactly what Peter Gøtzsche has done in his book, Deadly Medicines and Organized Crime: How Big Pharma Has Corrupted Healthcare.

One of the most dangerous forms of corruption is that which occurs within medical science. For example, according to data from Thomson Reuters,10 the number of retractions of scientific studies have increased more than 15-fold since 2001, and a review11 published just last year showed that nearly 75 percent of all retracted drug studies were attributed to “scientific misconduct,” which includes:

• Data falsification or fabrication
• Questionable veracity
• Unethical author conduct
• Plagiarism

Corruption of science is incredibly serious, as health care professionals rely on published studies to make treatment recommendations, and large numbers of patients can be harmed when false findings are published. The average lag time between publication of the study and the issuing of a retraction is 39 months. And that's if the misconduct is ever caught at all. What’s worse, about 32 percent of retractions are never published,12 leaving the readers completely in the dark about the inaccuracies in those studies!

Poster Children for Corrupted Science

One clear example of how deadly corrupted science can be is the painkiller Vioxx. There were many indications that this would be a dangerous drug, despite Merck’s claims, and I warned my readers to avoid it before its FDA approval in 1999. In 2008, four years after the drug was withdrawn from the market, an editorial13 published in the Journal of the American Medical Association(JAMA) suggested Merck might have deliberately manipulated dozens of academic documents published in the medical literature, in order to promote Vioxx under false pretenses.

The diabetes drug Avandia is another potent example. Between 1999 and 2007, Avandia is estimated to have caused over 80,000 unnecessary heart attacks,14 although the actual numbers of people harmed or killed by the drug is still largely unknown. Avandia is a poster child for the lethal paradigm of corrupted science as GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the manufacturer of Avandia,hid damaging information about the drug for over 10 years, as they knew it would adversely affect sales!

Two years ago, GSK agreed to a $3 billion settlement over the sales and marketing practices of several of its drugs, including Avandia. This was the largest federal drug-company settlement in US history, surpassing the $2.3 billion paid by Pfizer in 2009(see video above) for illegally promoting off-label uses of four of its drugs. Most recently, GSK’s crooked ways made international headlines yet again when Chinese authorities arrested four of the company’s senior executives on charges of cash and sexual bribery. Another 18 GSK employees and medical personnel were also reportedly detained.15 As reported by The Guardian:16

“The Chinese authorities have accused GSK of acting like a criminal "godfather", using a network of 700 middlemen and travel agencies to bribe doctors with £320m [$489 million] cash and sexual favors in return for prescribing GSK drugs. Gao said the police have evidence that bribery has been a 'core part' of GSK China's business model since 2007.” [Emphasis mine]

As Smith writes in the featured article:

“The drug industry has systematically corrupted science to play up the benefits and play down the harms of their drugs... the industry has bought doctors, academics, journals, professional and patient organizations, university departments, journalists, regulators, and politicians. These are the methods of the mob.

The book doesn’t let doctors and academics avoid blame... doctors and academics are supposed to have a higher calling. Laws that are requiring companies to declare payments to doctors are showing that very high proportions of doctors are beholden to the drug industry and that many are being paid six figures sums for advising companies or giving talks on their behalf. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that these ‘key opinion leaders’ are being bought. They are the ‘hired guns’ of the industry.

And, as with the mob, woe be to anybody who whistleblows or gives evidence against the industry. Peter tells several stories of whistleblowers being hounded, and John Le Carré’s novel describing drug company ruthlessness became a bestseller and a successful Hollywood film.”

New Study Finds Most Drug Commercials Misleading

In related news, a recent study17 concluded that a majority of American drug commercials—60 percent of prescription drug ads, and 80 percent of ads for over-the-counter (OTC) drugs—are either misleading or outright false. Lead author Adrienne E. Faerber told Scientific American:18

“There were cases of blatant lying, but these half-truths form more than half of our analysis.”

In all, the researchers analyzed 84 prescription and 84 OTC drug ads aired on major networks between 2008 and 2010. Ads deemed to be “potentially misleading” omitted important information, exaggerated information, made lifestyle associations, or expressed opinions. Ads making false claims were either factually false or unsubstantiated. Ads promoting erectile dysfunction drugs were among the worst offenders. OTC drugs, which are overseen by the Federal Trade Commission and not the FDA, were also more likely to be misleading or false. Overall, a mere 33 percent of drug ads were found to be “objectively true.”

Interestingly enough, other research published in the journal Psychological Science19, 20 found that warnings of adverse side effects in drug ads can actually backfire over time. While initially making viewers cautious, over the course of time people tend to ignore the warnings. People even began to see the warning as "an indication of the firm's honesty and trustworthiness!" According to the authors:

“In four studies, we demonstrated this phenomenon. For example, participants could buy cigarettes or artificial sweeteners after viewing an ad promoting the product. Immediately afterward, the quantity that participants bought predictably decreased if the ad they saw included a warning about adverse side effects. With temporal distance (product to be delivered 3 months later, or 2 weeks after the ad was viewed), however, participants who had seen an ad noting the benefits of the product but warning of risky side effects bought more than those who had seen an ad noting only benefits.”

But Who Is Behind the Drug Companies?

While it is true that there were fines of $2 billion and $3 billion against the drug companies, that really pales in comparison to the fines being leveraged against the financial industry. JP Morgan will likely receive an $11 billion dollar fine.21 This level of fine doesn’t even begin to come close to what these criminal institutions really deserve for how they have ruined the US economy.

But keeping the article focused on health, you have to wonder if there is some common thread here and I believe there is.  The drug companies are typically owned by other corporations. Just as the featured video shows, the shell game that Pfizer played shielded them by developing tiered lower-level corporations. What is rarely ever explained is that the corporate shield also runs in the other direction. The primary owners of most of these drug companies are the international banksters that are responsible for most of the problems we see not only in the health arena, but in all areas of the world.

How To Avoid Becoming a Disease Statistic

Ultimately, the take-home message here is that even if a drug or treatment is "backed by science," this in no way guarantees it is safe or effective. Likewise, if an alternative treatment has not been published in a medical journal, it does not mean it is unsafe or ineffective. Also, when a drug or treatment does come with warnings, do yourself a favor and don’t tuck that information into some recessed corner in the back of your mind!

You've got to use all the resources available to you, including your own sense of common sense and reason, true experts' advice and other's experiences, to determine what medical treatment or advice will be best for you in any given situation. I advise you to remain skeptical but open -- even if it is something I'm saying, you need to realize that YOU are responsible for your and your family's health, not me, and certainly not drug companies trying to sell their wares and convince you to take dangerous "symptom-cover-ups" disguised as science-based solutions.

When it comes to health, an ounce of prevention is certainly better than a pound of cure, especially when the cure comes in a pill. Please keep in mind that leading a common-sense, healthy lifestyle is your best bet to achieve and maintain a healthy body and mind. And while conventional medical science may flip-flop back and forth in its recommendations, there are certain basic tenets of optimal health (and healthy weight) that do not change, including the following:

1. Proper Food Choices: For a comprehensive guide on which foods to eat and which to avoid, see my nutrition plan. Generally speaking, you should be looking to focus your diet on whole, ideally organic, unprocessed foods. For the best nutrition and health benefits, you will want to eat a good portion of your food raw.
Avoid sugar, and fructose in particular. All forms of sugar have toxic effects when consumed in excess, and drive multiple disease processes in your body, not the least of which is insulin resistance, a major cause of chronic disease and accelerated aging. I believe the two primary keys for successful weight management are severely restricting carbohydrates (sugars, fructose, and grains) in your diet, and increasing healthy fat consumption. This will optimize insulin and leptin levels, which is key for maintaining a healthy weight and optimal health.
2. Regular exercise: Even if you're eating the healthiest diet in the world, you still need to exercise to reach the highest levels of health, and you need to be exercising effectively, which means including high-intensity activities into your rotation. High-intensity interval-type training boosts human growth hormone (HGH) production, which is essential for optimal health, strength and vigor. HGH also helps boost weight loss. So along with core-strengthening exercises, strength training, and stretching, I highly recommend that twice a week you do Peak Fitness exercises, which raise your heart rate up to your anaerobic threshold for 20 to 30 seconds, followed by a 90-second recovery period.
3. Stress Reduction: You cannot be optimally healthy if you avoid addressing the emotional component of your health and longevity, as your emotional state plays a role in nearly every physical disease -- from heart disease and depression, to arthritis and cancer. Meditation, prayer, social support and exercise are all viable options that can help you maintain emotional and mental equilibrium. I also strongly believe in using simple tools such as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) to address deeper, oftentimes hidden, emotional problems.
4. Drink plenty of clean water.
5. Maintain a healthy gut: About 80 percent of your immune system resides in your gut, and research is stacking up showing that probiotics—beneficial bacteria—affect your health in a myriad of ways; it can even influence your ability to lose weight. A healthy diet is the ideal way to maintain a healthy gut, and regularly consuming traditionally fermented foods is the easiest, most cost effective way to ensure optimal gut flora.
6. Optimize your vitamin D levels: Research has shown that increasing your vitamin D levels can reduce your risk of death from ALL causes. For practical guidelines on how to use natural sun exposure to optimize your vitamin D benefits, please see my previous article on how to determine if enough UVB is able to penetrate the atmosphere to allow for vitamin D production in your skin.
7. Avoid as many chemicals, toxins, and pollutants as possible: This includes tossing out your toxic household cleaners, soaps, personal hygiene products, air fresheners, bug sprays, lawn pesticides, and insecticides, just to name a few, and replacing them with non-toxic alternatives.
8. Get plenty of high quality sleep: Regularly catching only a few hours of sleep can hinder metabolism and hormone production in a way that is similar to the effects of aging and the early stages of diabetes. Chronic sleep loss may speed the onset or increase the severity of age-related conditions such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, and memory loss.

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Battle of the Hook Pre Show, Liberty's Kids 35, James Armistead

Battle of the Hook Pre Show.  Liberty's Kids episode number 35, James Armistead.  We are now only a few short days away from the event of the Battle of the Hook here in Gloucester, Virginia.  If you have not heard about this event until now, what rock have you been hiding under?  This is the event of the year.  An American Revolutionary War Reenactment and one of the largest and most complete ever seen in one location.  If you are just hearing about this now and you have the time to spare and do not mind traveling, we highly recommend it.  The are here is sold out of rooms but Williamsburg still has rooms left and is only about a 30 minute drive away along one of the most incredible roads in the nation.

Below are directions on how to get to Gloucester from the main points around Virginia.

Gloucester, Virginia Crier, Battle of the Hook Directions from Chuck Thompson

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