Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky by Nikolay Kuznetsov, 1893

(Wikipedia)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky( 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893)was a Russian composer of the Romantic era. He wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the current classical repertoire, including the ballets Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, the 1812 Overture, his First Piano Concerto, several symphonies, and the opera Eugene Onegin.

Born into a middle-class family, Tchaikovsky's education prepared him for a career as a civil servant, despite the musical precocity he had demonstrated from an early age. Against the wishes of his family he chose to pursue a musical career, and in 1862 entered the St Petersburg Conservatory, graduating in 1865. This formal, Western-oriented training set him apart, musically, from the contemporary nationalistic movement embodied by the group of young Russian composers known as "The Five", with whom Tchaikovsky sustained a mixed professional relationship throughout his career.

As his style developed, Tchaikovsky wrote music across a range of genres, including symphony, opera, ballet, instrumental, chamber and song. Although he enjoyed many popular successes, he was never emotionally secure, and his life was punctuated by personal crises and periods of depression.  Amid private turmoil Tchaikovsky's public reputation grew; he was honoured by the Tsar, awarded a lifetime pension and lauded in the concert halls of the world. His sudden death at the age of 53 is generally ascribed to cholera, but some attribute it to suicide.

Although enduringly popular with concert audiences across the world, Tchaikovsky has at times been judged harshly by critics, musicians and composers. However, his reputation as a significant composer is now generally regarded as secure, the disdain with which Western critics in the early and mid-20th century dismissed his music as vulgar and lacking in elevated thought having largely dissipated.

1812 Overture

Ouverture Solennelle, L'Année 1812, Op. 49 (Festival Overture, The Year 1812) , better known as the 1812 Overture, is a classical opus written by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The piece was written to commemorate Russia's defense of Moscow against Napoleon's advancing Grande Armée at the Battle of Borodino in 1812. The Overture debuted in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow on August 20, 1882 (in the Gregorian or NS calendar; the date in the Julian or OS calendar was 8 August). The overture is best known for its climactic volley of cannon fire and ringing chimes.

While this piece has no historical connection with United States history, it is often a staple at Fourth of July celebrations.

Here is the performance on YoubTube:

Part 1  :  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzMGzBKRttU

Part 2  :  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkS9THHjp38&feature=related

(Clearwisdom.net)

1. The Persecution of Yang Ruichun

Ms. Yang Ruichun, 55 years old, was a retired worker from the County Supply and Marketing Company. She used to live at No.6 East, Unit 2, right building, Xiyuan District of the county. Before practicing Falun Dafa, Yang Ruichun had cerebrovascular disease, from which she fully recovered. After July 20, 1999, the local, county, and village police, and the people from her company repeatedly went to her house to disturb her, monitor her day and night, and broadcast her name with a loudspeaker throughout the village. They forced her to give up her Falun Gong books, find somebody to guarantee she would not appeal in Beijing, sign a banner that slandered Falun Dafa's founder Master Li, and they took away her identification card.

At about 10 a.m. on July 8, 2008, the chief of the Chengguan Police Gao Huaiying, as well as Liu Mengsheng and another person broke into her house and started to ask her questions such as if she still practiced Falun Gong.Yang Ruichun started to clarify the truth to them. In the end, they said they would come back again, and they left.

At about 6 a.m. on the morning of July 22, 2008, over 20 people, including the director of the county supply and marketing company Bai Jinkai, Liu Maosong and police from the Anxin Police Department, Chengguan Police Station went to her house and tricked her into opening the door. They searched her house illegally and threatened to take her son away. Yang Ruichun's old illnesses returned due to the stress and she fainted. The CCP personnel carried her downstairs from the 6^th floor, put her in the car, carried her on a stretcher to Anxin Police Department and then detained her at the Anxin Detention Center. Yang Ruichun was shocked three times during this period. In the meantime, the police confiscated her computer, the printer and Dafa books, and removed the satellite antenna from the balcony.

On July 25, 2008, after the family promised to prevent her from practicing Falun Gong, Yang Ruichun was allowed to return home, where she was monitored 24 hours a day.

Yang Ruichun's husband disappeared over ten years ago while he was driving his taxi and has not been hear from since. Yang Ruichun's whole family has been in a difficult situation. Through the power of cultivating in Dafa, Yang Ruichun raised her two children, despite all the pressure she was under with the small amount of retirement money she received in addition to running a small business. Due to the many times the police illegally broke into her house, she was under a lot of stress both mentally and physically. At 4 p.m. on March 6, 2009, Yang Ruichun fell down the stairs in her home. She died due to bleeding in her brain according to the hospital officials.

2. The Persecution of Ms. Jin Guifang

Ms. Jin Guifang, 67 years old, was a housewife from Dongliuzhuang Village, Anxin Town, Anxin County. She started to cultivate Falun Dafa in 1995. Not long after she started to cultivate, the diseases she had such as cerebral thrombus disappeared without any medical treatment. On October 1, 2000, she went to Beijing to appeal. The local plainclothes police followed her, took her to a courtyard in Beijing, and then the former Anxin County Police Department president, Tian Yueying, drove her back to her hometown, where she was held at the county detention center. At the detention center, the police and prisoners beat this elderly woman. They searched her house and sent her to a labor camp for a year. She was put on public trial alongside criminals at the No.1 middle school playground. She was forced to stand on a truck, wear a big sign that said, "evil cult Falun Gong member." She was also pulled along by her arms by two policemen, in a further attempt to humiliate her. She was able to be treated outside the prison due to the fact that she was rejected by the Baoding Labor Camp due to her high blood pressure.

On the morning of February 22, 2001, Jin Guifang and her two non-practitioner daughters, Wang Wenping and Wang Wenhong, were sent to a brainwashing session at the county teacher education school and persecuted there by Deputy Party Secretary Tian, who was in charge of persecuting Falun Gong at Anxin Town, and Shen Wanshan from the Synthesis Governing Managing Company. In May, she was transferred to the newly built brainwashing center next to the village detention center, called the Law and Education Class by the authorities. Jin Guifang resisted the persecution, and so was beaten and cursed by members of the 610 Office and the police. In order to try to get Ms. Jin and her daughters to give up Falun Gong, the 610 office encouraged family members to help. They isolated each of them in solitary confinement. Wang Wenhong then suffered a mental collapse after enduring a great deal of persecution. She appeared to say something and smile by herself. Also, there were no provisions for personal female care, which she needed. The three women strongly insisted that she be released, but the 610 office refused to release her. The head of the 610 office, Kang Huihe, constantly changed the means used to persecute them. Their meals were changed to two meals a day, with only a small bun for a meal. This starvation method lasted for over a month. They became emaciated after over a month of being starved.

Kang Huihe, who is in charge of the 610 office, dragged the elderly woman by her clothing with pliers. Policeman Liu Guangqi kicked Ms. Jin's leg. During the detention period, the CCP personnel refused any visits from family members who practice Falun Gong. In the end, they sent Ms. Jin to Baoding Labor Camp to persecute her further.

After Jin Guifang came back from Baoding Labor Camp, she was repeatedly harassed by the CCP. Due to the fear she felt after being persecuted for a long time, and the trauma to her head from torture, she died from a brain disease in September 2006.

While Uncle Sam's scramble for new revenue sources has recently kicked up the marijuana debate -- to legalize and tax, or not? -- hemp's feasibility as a stimulus plan has received less airtime.

But with a North American market that exceeds $300 million in annual retail sales and continued rising demand, industrial hemp could generate thousands of sustainable new jobs, helping America to get back on track.

"We're in the midst of a dark economic transition, but I believe hemp is an important facet and has tremendous economic potential," says Patrick Goggin, a board member on the California Council for Vote Hemp, the nation's leading industrial hemp-farming advocacy group. "Economically and environmentally, industrial hemp is an important part of the sustainability pie."

With 25,000 known applications from paper, clothing and food products -- which, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal this January, is the fastest growing new food category in North America -- to construction and automotive materials, hemp could be just the crop to jump-start America's green economy.

But growing hemp remains illegal in the U.S. The Drug Enforcement Administration has lumped the low-THC plant together with its psychoactive cousin, marijuana, making America the planet's only industrialized nation to ban hemp production. We can import it from Canada, which legalized it in 1997. But we can't grow it.

"It's a missed opportunity," says Goggin, who campaigned for California farmers to grow industrial hemp two years ago, although the bill was vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, citing the measure conflicted with federal law.

Considering California's position as an agricultural giant -- agriculture nets $36.6 billion dollars a year, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture -- Goggin's assessment is an understatement. Especially if extended nationwide.

"Jobs require capital investment, which isn't easy to come by at the moment, and we need hemp-processing facilities, because the infrastructure here went to seed. But this is a profitable crop, and the California farming community supports it."

Just how profitable? According to Chris Conrad, a respected authority on cannabis and industrial hemp and who authored Hemp for Health and Hemp, Lifeline to the Future, the industry would be regionally sustainable, reviving the local economy wherever it was grown.

"Hemp will create jobs in some of the hardest-hit sectors of the country -- rural agriculture, equipment manufacturing, transportable processing equipment and crews -- and the products could serve and develop the same community where the hemp is farmed: building ecological new homes, producing value-added and finished products, marketing and so forth," he writes in an e-mail from Amsterdam, where he is doing research. "Add to that all the secondary jobs -- restaurants, health care, food products, community-support networks, schools, etc., that will serve the workers. The Midwestern U.S. and the more remote parts of California and other states would see a surge of income, growth, jobs and consumer goods."

In America, industrial hemp has long been associated with marijuana, although the plants are different breeds of Cannabis sativa, just as poodles and Irish setters are different breeds of dog.

While hemp contains minute levels of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana (compare 0.3 percent or less in Canadian industrial hemp versus 3-20 percent for medical marijuana), to get high you'd have to smoke a joint the size of a telephone pole.

Still, the historical hysteria caused by federal anti-marijuana campaigns of the 1930s, which warned that marijuana caused insanity, lust, addiction, violence and crime, have had a long-term impact on its distant relative.

Doomed by the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, which in effect criminalized cannabis and levied high taxes on medical marijuana and industrial hemp, hemp cultivation wasn't technically disallowed.

However, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, the DEA's predecessor, said its agents couldn't differentiate between industrial hemp and marijuana, a stance the DEA maintains today, so fewer farmers were willing to grow it. The exception came during World War II, when the armed forces experienced a severe fiber shortage and the government launched an aggressive campaign to grow hemp.

But after the war, hemp production faded away, and the last legal crop was harvested in 1957. Marijuana's propaganda-fuelled history, one filled with lurid stories, one-sided information, slander and corporate profiteerism, is too lengthy to address here, but hemp has never managed to remain unscathed.

Considering today's economic crisis and the combined threats of peak oil and global warming, there is increasing pressure to move toward sustainable resources before everything goes up in smoke. If there was any time to revisit hemp, it's now.

"Industrial hemp is the best gift a farmer could have. It's the ideal alternative crop," says Gale Glenn, on the board of the North American Industrial Hemp Council. Glenn, now retired, owned and managed a 300-acre Kentucky farm producing burley tobacco, and she immediately launches into hemp's benefits: It's environmentally friendly, requiring no pesticides or herbicides, it's the perfect rotation crop because it detoxifies and regenerates the soil, and it's low labor.

"You just plant the seed, close the farm gate and four months later, cut it and bale it," she says.

And there's more. As a food, hemp is rich in essential omega-3 fatty acids; the plant's cellulose level, roughly three times that of wood, creates paper that yields four times as much pulp as trees; hemp is an ideal raw material for plant-based plastics, used to make everything from diapers to dashboards.

In fact, Germany's DaimlerChrysler Corp. has equipped its Mercedes-Benz C-class vehicles with natural-fiber-reinforced materials, including hemp, for years. Even Henry Ford himself manufactured a car from hemp-based plastic in 1941, archival footage of which can be found on YouTube, and the car ran on clean-burning hemp-based ethanol fuel.

This leads to the most compelling argument for hemp: fuel. Hemp seeds are ideal for making ethanol, the cleanest-burning liquid bio-alternative to gasoline, and when grown as an energy crop, hemp actually offsets carbon emissions because it absorbs more carbon dioxide than any other plant.

As the world rapidly depletes its reserves of petroleum, America needs to create a renewable, homegrown energy source to become energy independent. Luckily, unlike petrol, hemp is renewable, unless we run out of soil.

"As a farmer, it's frustrating not being able to grow this incredible crop," says Glenn. But if Glenn did try to grow it, the American government would consider her a felon guilty of trafficking, and she would face a fine of up to $4 million and a prison sentence of 5 to 40 years. Because no matter how low its THC content, hemp is still considered a Schedule I substance, grouped alongside heroin.

It's exactly this war-on-drugs logic that has kept serious discussion of hemp off the table.

"I've met with senators over the last 13 years, and I've been to the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) four times, and I'm always amazed by what they tell us -- that industrial hemp is by far one of the most superior fibers known to man, but since it's a green plant with a five-point leaf, you'll never grow it in America," says Bud Sholts chairman of the the North American Industrial Hemp Council and former economist for Wisconsin's State Department of Agriculture.

Sholts' research into sustainable agriculture convinced him of industrial hemp's value, and he has been lobbying for it ever since. "We're overlooking something huge."

Luckily, farmers are practical folk whose pragmatism ensures their survival, and they have championed industrial hemp, which they see as a potential economic boon, by pushing for it through their state legislatures, where it has become a bipartisan issue.

To date, 28 states have introduced hemp legislation, including Arkansas, California, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, Maryland, North Dakota, New Mexico, Virgina, Vermont and West Virginia. Fifteen have passed it, and seven have legalized hemp production, according to Vote Hemp.

Yet in cases like North Dakota, the DEA still insists that federal law trumps the state's and farmers need a DEA-granted license before growing. This is exactly what happened to David Monson and Wayne Hauge, two North Dakota farmers given state permission to grow but who have been waiting a while for their federal licenses -- in Monson's case, since 1997.

"Here we are in 2009, and it seems like we're still taking baby steps. We're a little closer, but I'm not making any predictions," says Monson, who also happens to be a Republican state representative.

Monson lives only 20 miles from the Canadian border, where fields of profitable industrial hemp have been growing since 1997, and he believes it's a simple case of "if they can grow it, why can't we?"

"The profit potential is there. Practically and economically, it makes sense to raise it," says Monson. "I truly believe as a farmer that hemp is good for farmers, it's good for the environment and it's good for state of North Dakota. And for that matter the whole nation."

As the law currently stands, to legalize hemp production, all the DEA has to do is remove hemp from its Schedule I drug list, a process that does not require a congressional vote.

Now that the Obama administration has announced an end to medical marijuana raids, hemp advocates are hopeful the move could open the door for hemp, because the president voted for a hemp bill while he was in the Illinois legislature.

The DEA follows the government's lead, and the government, which does not want to be seen as being soft on drugs, has been notoriously skittish tackling drug policy reform. If Obama told the DEA to move forward aggressively and issue all pending research, commercial and agronomic licenses, farmers like Monson could grow hemp tomorrow.

"Politically, I liken the situation to pulling bricks out of a dam," says Vote Hemp's Goggin. "There are now so many leaks, the dam's getting ready to burst. We're working hard for a shift in policy, but at the moment, Washington doesn't consider this a top issue."

While industrial-hemp advocates are becoming hopeful that policy change is in the winds, they caution that the industry still requires a massive, coordinated effort to develop.

"I'm hesitant overselling hemp and touting it like the magic beans that will save the economy or the planet," says Tom Murphy, national outreach coordinator for Vote Hemp. "Industrial hemp is an answer but not the answer. It has a great deal of potential -- but it doesn't have any potential if you can't grow it."

Conrad, who believes in American ingenuity to find creative solutions using hemp, says, "Only the scourge of prohibitionism can see to it that our economy and environment rot into sewage. It is up to the good, hard-working and honest people to end cannabis prohibition and start the process of rebuilding the planet and our global and regional economies."

Dara Colwell is a freelance writer based in San Francisco, CA.

By a practitioner in Heilongjiang province

(Clearwisdom.net) In 1975, the United Nations set March 8 as "International Women's Day" to promote equality between men and women. In 1979, the UN passed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. On July 17, 1980, the People's Republic of China signed the convention even as its rulers recklessly violated its tenets.

Falun Gong followers practice Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance in their daily lives, but the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has continued to persecute and torture them for the past nine years. Since 1999, the start of the persecution, in the Jixi area of Heilongjiang Province in northeastern China, many women have died as a result of being persecuted. Let us commemorate these women.

1. Ms. Bai Lixia used to work in the Jixi Mineral Affairs Administration. In 1997, Ms. Bai was diagnosed with breast cancer and couldn't take care of herself even after surgery. However, she recovered her health after she started practicing Falun Gong. Ms. Bai twice went to Beijing to appeal against the persecution, and as a result, she was imprisoned in the Harbin Forced Labor Camp in December 1999. The guards forced her to sleep on the cold floor during the winter, stand in the snow for long periods of time, and stand against the heating pipes. She was also locked in a bathroom, hung up in the air, and violently beaten. On February 28, 2002, Ms. Bai died because of the torture. She was 47 years old.

2. Ms. Liu Guihua was born in 1952. She used to be a teacher at Zhongxin Elementary School in Yong'an Township, Jixi County. Ms. Liu was imprisoned many times because she practiced Falun Gong. In prison, the guards kicked and beat her, hung her up in the air, shocked her with electric batons, slammed her head against the walls, pulled her teeth out with pliers, tied her up with rope, and wouldn't let her use the toilet. While she was in prison, the police secretly sentenced her to an additional six years in prison. She was emaciated due to the torture. On August 3, 2002, Ms. Liu died in the Harbin 211 Hospital.

3. Ms. Jiang Rongzhen used to work in the Jixi City Coal Machinery Factory. She started practicing Falun Gong in May 1999 and died on October 15, 2002, as a result of the persecution. She was 42 at the time. She was covered in wounds from electric shocks and beatings, and she had a hole in her head. On October 12, 2002, the provincial drug rehabilitation center escalated the torture against practitioners, but Ms. Jiang still refused to renounce her belief in Falun Gong. On October 13, the guards locked her in a cell in the freezing basement with the windows wide open. She only had on shorts and a T-shirt. By October 15, 2002, she was beaten to death.

4. Ms. Liu Guiying used to work in a concrete prefabrication factory in Mishan City. In 2002, the police arrested her and locked her in the Mishan City Detention Center. On October 24, 2002, police force fed her, which resulted in her death. On October 26, Ma Dousheng, head of the Detention Center, and Zhao Shuguang, director of a hospital, faked Ms. Liu's death certificate to cover up their crimes and hurried to cremate her body. Liu was 43 years old when she died.

5. Ms. Yang Hailing was 34 years old when she died. She used to work in the Donghai Mine in the Chengzihe District, Jixi City. After the persecution began, Ms. Yang was arrested many times and tortured. On April 12, 2003, Ma Baosheng, a male guard in the Mishan City Detention Center, grabbed Ms. Yang, lifted her up, and threw her to the ground. The force with which she hit the ground left her unconscious. Instead of getting her medical treatment, the guard put her in a freezer in a hospital. When her family arrived at the hospital ten hours later, Ms. Yang's body was still lukewarm. She died on April 13, 2003.

6. Ms. Guo Meisong lived in the Judong community of the Jiguan District Power Plant in Jixi City. She started practicing Falun Gong in 1998. The guards in the women's prison violently force fed Ms. Guo, causing her lungs to fester beyond possible treatment. She died two months after she left the prison for medical care, on May 8, 2003. She was 38 years old.

7. Ms. Zhao Chunying died on May 10, 2003, at the age of 54. She was in the Jixi City Second Detention Center for only 23 days before the prison doctor, Wang Lijun, tortured her to death. When Ms Zhao's family asked to have an autopsy done, it was found that the prison staff had already removed her heart, spleen, and pancreas without notifying the family.

8. Ms. Zhang Hong was 23 years old when she died. She was from Heitai Town, Mishan City. Ms. Zhang started practicing Falun Gong in 1997. On June 28, 2000, Wang Zhongjie, Secretary of the Heitai Town Political and Legal Commission, and Du Yongshan from the Political Security Division arrested her and put her in the Mishan City First Detention Center. Ms. Zhang was there for 72 days. The prison doctor, Qin (first name unknown), hit her many times on her head with a police baton and caused her to vomit blood. She died on February 2, 2004.

9. Ms. Liu Yanchen from Jidong County started practicing Falun Gong in1995. All of her illnesses disappeared. In 1999, Ms Liu was arrested three times and had to pay fines because she told people the truth about the persecution. Li Qinghua, from the Domestic Security Team, beat and kicked her, causing her blood pressure to rise dramatically. The guards took her to the hospital with handcuffs and shackles on. After her blood pressure was stabilized, the guards put her back in the detention center and continued the torture. She died on December 25, 2004, at the age of 43.

10. Ms. Gao Xizhen was 65 years old and retired from the Dongfanghong Forest Bureau in Hulin City. When she began practicing Falun Gong in 1998, all her illnesses disappeared. In October 2000, Ms. Gao went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong and was arrested, fined, and imprisoned. Guards Chang Yajun and Yu Zhanhai beat her many times and tied her to an iron chair overnight. In October 2003, she was arrested again for distributing fliers that contained information on Falun Gong. The police caught her and beat her until she collapsed. She fainted many times and died on January 23, 2005.

11. Ms. Yao Guoxiu died on March 13, 2005. She used to be a salesperson in a company that sold sugar and alcohol in Jixi City. After July 20, 1999, she twice went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong, and was sent to Wanjia Forced Labor Camp in Harbin for two years. In the camp, the guards often brainwashed her, locked her in solitary confinement, forced her to sit on an iron chair for long periods of time, beat her, and injected her with unknown drugs. In the end, she mentally collapsed, jumped off a building, and died.

12. Ms. Shi Guiying was born in 1957. She was a teacher at Anle Elementary School in the Huanshan District of Jixi City. Her foot disease and pain disappeared after she started practicing Falun Gong in March 1998. On October 28, 2005, Ms Shi went to visit a relative. On October 30, her family was informed that she was unconscious in a police station. In the hospital she became paralyzed and died on September 10, 2006.

The CCP has been suppressing Falun Gong in China for nearly ten years. Twelve female practitioners from the Jixi area are known to have died as a result of persecution. This is only a few of the numerous practitioners who have died since the persecution began.

On International Women's Day, as we remember our sisters who died safeguarding the truth. We again want to express our concern to the governments and organizations who care about human rights. The CCP maliciously disregards human rights, and we should not allow this deprivation of universal values to continue. I hope people of conscience will help to end this inhumane persecution of humanity in China.

By Jingcheng

(Clearwisdom.net) I recently read Human Rights Attorney Gao Zhisheng's article "Dark Night, Dark Hood and Kidnapping by Dark Mafia - (My account of more than 50 days of torture in 2007)." It reminded me of the torture that I went through nine years ago. That inhumane treatment was a nightmare to me and I didn't want to talk about it at all. However, after nine years, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has not let up in committing atrocities, and has become even worse. I am saddened and appalled. Mr. Gao recounted in his article that the evildoers said, after inflicting the torture, "Your death is sure if you share this with the outside world."

The evildoers know the consequences if their actions are exposed, so they try to hide it. Therefore, I decided to expose it, even though it meant opening old wounds.

Nine years ago, when Falun Dafa was persecuted by the Jiang Zemin and the CCP, I went to Tiananmen Square in Beijing to appeal against the persecution. I was illegally arrested and beaten, and then put into a detention center. There I was persecuted severely, suffering many tortures.

When we were taken to the detention center, we were forced to stand along a wall all day long in the freezing cold. I was beaten severely by the guards for not telling them my name [Note: Because of the CCP's policy of implication, Falun Gong practitioners often do not reveal their name or address in order to protect family members, friends and co-workers from being harassed and persecuted by CCP officials]. My face swelled and went numb. The guard even used a belt to strangle my neck until the belt broke.

Later I was handed over to two guards. They shocked my face, mouth, stomach and even my private parts with two electric batons. My facial muscles kept twitching, as if I were being cut with sharp knives. Mr. Gao said he was shocked by four electric batons. That pain would not just be double, but actually be several times more than the pain I suffered. The electric shock is so brutal that the guards use it to force Dafa disciples to tell their names and home addresses, then force them to give up cultivation.

Mr. Gao mentioned that Wang, the head evildoer, said, "We have prepared for you 12 courses. We only finished 3 last night. After a while you will see, you will have to eat your own [feces] and drink your own [urine]. A toothpick will be used to stab your [genitals]. Don't talk about torture by the Communist Party, because we will give you a comprehensive lesson now! You are correct, we torture Falun Gong. The 12 courses we're going to give to you were practiced on the Falun Gong. To tell you the truth, I am not afraid that you continue to write. We can torture you to death and your body will never be found."

As a Falun Gong practitioner, having experienced the torture nine years ago, now listening to these words, I am deeply grieved and indignant! Why is this torture still going on? Why can it exist in China? For every day the CCP exists, it is another day that the persecution will not be stopped.

I didn't tell them my name after being shocked. Then I was thrown into a prison cell, where I was brutally beaten by the inmates. They also tried to make me to drink urine, but stopped after I scolded them seriously.

The guards saw that these inmates were not evil enough, and transferred me to another cell.

In the new cell, I was stripped completely naked and in the freezing cold winter, several inmates poured icy water on my body non-stop. I felt every cell of my body become ice-cold. But in the end, they still could not get me to tell where I was from. They stopped when they were tired. My bones and muscles kept shaking uncontrollably.

When I was released to go home, the guard who beat me said, "Don't tell others about this when you get out." How similar is this to what Mr. Gao said in his article, "Every time I was tortured, I was always repeatedly threatened that, if I told later what had happened to me, I would be tortured again, but 'The next time it will happen in front of your wife and children.'" It is clear how much these evildoers fear having their actions exposed.

I hope that everyone can see the true nature of the CCP; that all their evil actions will be exposed so that people can really understand what the CCP is. I hope that everyone can read the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, and that those who still hold hope for the CCP will wake up quickly and quit the CCP and its affiliated organizations quickly.

By David Derbyshire
Last updated at 1:41 PM on 14th March 2009

The phasing out of traditional light bulbs could cause misery for thousands who have light-sensitive skin disorders, medical experts warned yesterday. Dr Robert Sarkany said some low-energy bulbs gave vulnerable people painful rashes and swelling. He backed calls by patient groups for the Government to give medical exemptions for those at risk. The warning comes as British shops start to clear their shelves of traditional bulbs, which are being replaced by more energy-efficient versions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

A break with tradition: Medical experts say people with light-sensitive skin disorders should be exempt from using low-energy light bulbs

Large retailers have already stopped selling conventional 100-watt bulbs, the most popular size.

They will be banned from September along with frosted 60-watt and 40-watt bulbs, followed by most others before 2012. Shoppers will then be able to buy only halogen bulbs - which resemble normal bulbs but use 70 per cent of the energy - or compact fluorescent ones, which use just 30 per cent of the energy.

Although low-energy bulbs cut household electricity bills, the move has proved unpopular with shoppers. Halogens are more expensive - costing around £1.99 each - while critics say the fluorescent type have an unattractive harsh light and take up to a minute to warm up to full strength. But medical charities say the light from low-energy bulbs triggers migraines, epilepsy and rashes.

Dr Sarkany, a photodermatologist at St John's Institute of Dermatology, St Thomas' Hospital, in London, said he has treated patients for rashes caused by exposure to low-energy lamps. Some suffer from lupus, a disease of the immune system that can cause skin to become hypersensitive to sunlight. But Dr Sarkany said lupus sufferers were also reporting an adverse reaction to fluorescent lights.

He added: 'Patients with lupus feel strongly about this. They feel their skin deteriorates with fluorescent lights and have taken this issue to Parliament.' A spokesman for Skin Care Campaign said: 'The main concern is over the intensity of the ultraviolet light from low-energy bulbs. 'Particularly for people with skin conditions such as lupus, eczema and psoriasis, it causes a lot of problem with burning. 'There are also more unusual conditions where people are completely light-sensitive.

'At the moment, they can use a traditional incandescent light bulb because the ultraviolet light is so dim.

'But low-energy fluorescent lights are a problem.'

(Clearwisdom.net) The Water and Environmental Division of the Chinese Geological Academy, whose headquarters is located in Zhengding County, Hebei Province, has been harassing and threatening retired researcher Ms. Liu Xiaoying and her family members while withholding her retirement pension for seven years.

Ms. Liu Xiaoying, 64, who retired in 2001, began cultivating in Falun Dafa in 1998. She followed the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance to be a good person. In April 2002, the local police accused her of going on the web to view banned sites and went to her home to arrest her. She was not at home at the time, but she has been forced to stay away from her home since then.

Subsequently, the Institute's Communist Party secretary, Yan Changqing, and director, Huang Zhixing, made the decision to stop her pension beginning in May 2002 and declared that they would confiscate her house, stop all benefits, and withhold her husband's pension if she did not come back. They also helped the local police go to other provinces to look for her.

At the time, only Ms. Liu's daughter and her one-year-old baby were living at the house. Her daughter had lost her job and was just divorced. The division sent the manager of the Organization Department, Zhou Gengwang, to her house frequently to threaten her daughter, trying to get her to reveal the whereabouts of Ms. Liu. They also followed and monitored her and limited her freedom.

Beginning in October 2002, Zhou Gengwang went to the house to harass her daughter almost every day. At the end of October, director Huang Zhixing went in person and threatened her, saying, "If you still don't tell us your mother's whereabouts, next time you will be talking with the police officers."

When all of these tactics failed, managers of the Water and Environment Division colluded with the local police station to ransack Ms. Liu's house and arrest her daughter, torturing and interrogating her for seven days. As a result, her legs lost all sensation and her life was in danger. Meanwhile, no one was taking care of her baby. In October 2002, the division announced in an all-staff meeting that Ms. Liu's pension had been terminated and sent Zhang Zhizong to inform her daughter.

In 2005, Party secretary Yan Changqing, who was behind all of this, died of liver cancer. In 2006, division director Huang Zhixing retired, and deputy director Shi Jiansheng was promoted to the position of director and continued to persecute Ms. Liu.

In 2008, Ms. Liu's daughter hired a lawyer to talk with director Shi Jiansheng and ask him for an explanation for the termination of Ms. Liu. Shi fiercely replied, "Liu Xiaoying talked with us on the phone and insisted on practicing Falun Gong. Falun Gong is not a legal issue. It is a political issue. We are dealing with it based on documents from the central government and have nothing to be concerned about. Besides, she has been terminated, and we don't consider her one of our employees. If you insist on seeing this documentation, I will call the police first." However, legally, the process of "terminating" someone cannot be applied to retired employees because to be retired means that one is not an employee anymore and therefore cannot be let go.

(Clearwisdom.net) The following is a compilation of incidents of persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in Wangpo Township, Pingshan County, Hebei Province

Gao Yunting and her husband, Gu Qinggen, were arrested while visiting relatives, their home ransacked

Mr. Gu Qinggen and Ms. Gao Yunting, his wife, are residents of Guqingtan Village, East Wangpo Township, Pingshan County. Ms. Gao started practicing Falun Gong in 1998 and improved herxinxing. Her husband started practicing in 2003. He improved his temperament and, in the process of cultivation, symptoms of stroke were healed.

On March 10, 2002, the couple went to visit their relatives. On their way back in the evening they ran into Wangpo Police Station officer Huo Qinhui, who had beaten practitioner Jie Fengting to death (as reported at http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2007/11/11/91269.html).

The officer took them to the Wangpo Police Station. Police station chief Huo Sanshuan asked them where they had visited. Ms. Gao said, "Does a common person have no freedom to visit relatives? I am not going to tell you." Huo Sanshuan, upset she dared to talk back, slapped her face violently. Ms. Gao said, "I am not going to tell you, even if you beat me." When Huo Sanshuan asked Mr. Gu, he also refused to answer. Huo Sanshuan threw Gu Qinggen to the ground, ordering, "Kneel, if you do not want to tell me." Then he called the county 610 Office.

The second day, Feng Qingfang, head of the Pingshan County Police Department's Political and Security Section, arrived. He and Huo Sanshuan and another person took Gao Yunting to her home. They searched it and confiscated her Falun Gong books, exercise music tapes, and 4,500 yuan cash.

They then took her to the Pingshan County Police Department and handcuffed her to the stair rail for the whole afternoon, followed by handcuffing her to a chair at night and threatening her. The third day they locked her up in a detention center.

During that time, Feng Qingfang demanded and got 5,000 yuan cash from Gao Yunting's family, without giving any receipt. Eighteen days later they transferred Ms. Gao to a brainwashing center in the Magnesium Plant. While there, agents from the 610 Office demanded another 1,000 yuan from her family before releasing her.

Mr. Gu Qinggen was detained in Wangpo Police Station for 19 days even though he had not yet begun Falun Gong practice at that time, and his heart condition was serious. His health deteriorated. Their three daughters were very young, and their parents' plight weighed heavily on their minds. They would tremble from fright whenever there was any commotion outside.

On July 19, 2008 a gang of people invaded their home. They included individuals from the county 610 Office, as well as Lu Shengfang from the Wangpo Township, Liu Erdan from the Guqingtan Village (Party Branch secretary), Cui Fengliang (Party Branch Committee member), and others. They broke down the door to Gao Yunting's home while no one was at home and ransacked the place. They confiscated all Falun Gong books, a satellite TV receiver, and photographs of Master Li, and destroyed the satellite dish.

During the Olympics, Party Branch deputy secretary Jiao Jianzhong, as well as Liu Erdan of the village and Cui Fengliang, went to Ms. Gao's home many times to harass the couple.

We demand that these Chinese Communist Party (CCP) personnel return the 10,500 yuan cash they extorted and return all the belongings they stole from the family. We ask for conscientious people to pursue charges against Feng Qingfang, Huo Sanshuan, Lu Shengfang, Liu Erdan, Cui Fengliang, and others for their crimes of breaking and entering and grand theft.

Mr. Gao Fengfeng was arrested many times, robbed, detained, and had large amounts of money extorted from him

Husband and wife Gao Fengfeng and Liu Xiting of East Wangpo Village, East Wangpo Township, began Falun Gong practice in 1998. Once he started practicing, his condition of intermittent shock was healed and all his bad habits also disappeared. Their family was harmonious and they had good relations with others. They felt from the bottom of their hearts that Falun Gong is great and were grateful to Master. When the CCP started persecuting such a good cultivation way, Mr. Gao wanted to use his personal experience to explain the truth to the governing regime. He went to Beijing to appeal on July 21, 1999, and was arrested at the west train station and then taken back to Baoding City.

As soon as he got out of the vehicle, he was surrounded by a group of armed police. He was beaten and kicked and taken to the Political and Security Section head, Feng Qingfang. The police took the practitioner's 200 yuan he had with him and then held him in a detention center for six days.

In the fall of 2001, county policemen Huo Jinhui and Liu Wenming forced their way into Gao Fengfeng's home and searched it without showing any legal document. They threw his clothes everywhere and confiscated Falun Gong books, materials, an audio player, and other belongings. Mr. Gao and Ms. Liu Xiting were taken to the station and then handcuffed to the stair rail. Afterward, the police took Mr. Gao to the county detention for two weeks. Police officer Feng Qingfang also extorted 5,000 yuan cash from his family.

On March 8, 2002 Mr. Gao Fengfeng was taken to the township police station by officer Huo Jinhui and others. He was held in the county detention center for more than 40 days. While there, police many times pressured Gao's family and extorted money from them. They threatened his family that, unless they paid the extortion, they would send Mr. Gao to a forced labor camp. On April 8, 2002, Chen Erjun, a police department deputy head responsible for persecuting Falun Gong, together with three others, extorted 550 yuan, ostensibly for their meals and drinks; afterwards, Chen Erjun extorted another 2,000 yuan. At about 7:00 p.m. that same night, Political and Security Section head Feng Qingfang extorted 500 yuan. At 2:00 pm on March 13, 2002, Feng Qingfang extorted 5,000 yuan from them again. On April 25, Feng Qingfang extorted another 1,000 yuan, and the same day at 4:00 pm, Wangpo Township agent Du Yunbo extorted 700 yuan for the 610 Office. This amounted to 9,650 yuan, and no receipt was ever given.

In the winter of 2003 Wang Guolin, the township Political and Security Committee head, deceived Gao Fengfeng to get him to come to his office. He then sent him to a brainwashing center in Wentang Township, where Gao Fengfeng was mistreated for six days and had another 100 yuan extorted from him.

Gao Baidan's whole family suffered from the persecution

Gao Baidan and Chen Huafeng, husband and wife, of East Wangpo Village, East Wangpo Township, Pingshan County, started practicing Falun Gong in September 1998. Prior to the practice, hepatitis made it difficult for Ms. Chen to even walk. She also had back pain and gynecological disease for many years, but after she took up the practice, she became healthy without treatment. Ms. Chen changed from a person that depended on others into a person able to shoulder the heavy burdens of family life. Mr. Gao Baidan ran a small business away from home. He strictly followed the standards of Truthfulness-Benevolence-Forbearance and improved his way of doing business. He discarded the dishonest habit of a small business owner short-changing goods in a transaction.

On July 20, 1999, the Communist regime began the large-scale persecution of Falun Gong. Mr. Gao went to Beijing to appeal. Police intercepted him at the west train station without due cause. Political and Security Section head Feng Qingang eventually took him back to the Pingshan County Police Department by vehicle. They detained him for three days and extorted 200 yuan before releasing him.

In October 1999, as the couple worked in the fields, about a dozen people, including police officers Feng Qingfang and Hu Yuetao, as well as Jiao Jianzhong, Yang Sanguo, and Liu Wenming from the township government, and Ho Jinhui and Zhao Zhijiang from Wangpo Police Station, went to Gao Baidan's home to ransack it. They took copies of Zhuan Falun and other Falun Gong materials and took Mr. Gao to the police station. Police chief Huo Jinhui slapped his face several times while yelling at him. He grabbed his collar and asked him whether he still wanted to practice Falun Gong and then hit on his chest with his fist. Mr. Gao backed up several steps and fell on a bed. The bed collapsed from the impact. Later on he was handcuffed to a large tree in the township government yard. In the evening they took him to a restaurant in Meng-Er village where he was handcuffed for 24 hours. The next day they took him to the county detention center and held him for 45 days. He was released only after Feng Qingfang had extorted 5,000 yuan from him.

One day in the fall of 2000 Mr. Gao was called to see Feng Qingfang again. Feng told him to sign a document that was pre-filled in: "Failed to respond when called last time." Mr. Gao said, "That is not true. You only called me this time, and I am here now. When was the last time?" Facing the question, Feng Qingfang and Hu Yuetao said, "Just sign it. It is only a formality. You can go home as soon as you sign it." Gao Baidan believed them and signed the document. They used this signature as evidence to extort another 5,000 yuan from Mr. Gao.

In 2001 after the period during which he was on bail awaiting ended, Mr. Gao went to the county police department to ask for the return of the 5,000 yuan from Feng Qingfang. He replied, "Because you did not respond to a call when you were on bail awaiting trial, the money has been confiscated." With this dirty trick, the police took the possession of Gao Baidan's money.

Gao Baidan went to the county authorities to appeal and recounted the above situation, but when the officer on-duty learned that he was a Falun Gong practitioner, he shifted the responsibility onto others and did not want to deal with the case. Later on, Mr. Gao went to the anti-corruption department of the Procuratorate. When he recounted the circumstances, the official on duty said, "We will take care of this case." When the officer was about to make a record, he asked, "Why were you detained?" Gao Baidan said, "Because I practice Falun Gong." Hearing "Falun Gong," the official said, "There are special stipulations about Falun Gong from above, and it is beyond our capability [to help you]." Gao Baidan's 5,000 yuan was gone forever.

In July 2004, while Mr. Gao and his wife were not home, township official Lu Shengfang and two agents from the county 610 Office ransacked their home once again. They confiscated Master's picture, a set of Falun Gong lecture CDs, and other Falun Gong materials.

http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html

All this talk about "stimulus packages" and "bailouts"...

A billion dollars...

A hundred billion dollars...

Eight hundred billion dollars...

One TRILLION dollars...

What does that look like? I mean, these various numbers are tossed around like so many doggie treats, so I thought I'd take Google Sketchup out for a test drive and try to get a sense of what exactly a trillion dollars looks like.

We'll start with a $100 dollar bill. Currently the largest U.S. denomination in general circulation. Most everyone has seen them, slighty fewer have owned them. Guaranteed to make friends wherever they go.

A packet of one hundred $100 bills is less than 1/2" thick and contains $10,000. Fits in your pocket easily and is more than enough for week or two of shamefully decadent fun.

Believe it or not, this next little pile is $1 million dollars (100 packets of $10,000). You could stuff that into a grocery bag and walk around with it.

While a measly $1 million looked a little unimpressive, $100 million is a little more respectable. It fits neatly on a standard pallet...

And $1 BILLION dollars... now we're really getting somewhere...

Next we'll look at ONE TRILLION dollars. This is that number we've been hearing so much about. What is a trillion dollars? Well, it's a million million. It's a thousand billion. It's a one followed by 12 zeros.

You ready for this?

It's pretty surprising.

Go ahead...

Scroll down...

Ladies and gentlemen... I give you $1 trillion dollars...

(And notice those pallets are double stacked.)

So the next time you hear someone toss around the phrase "trillion dollars"... that's what they're talking about.

(step by step calculations & dimensions are here for those who may be interested)

By Wu Zhiping

(Clearwisdom.net) I started practicing Falun Gong in January 1996 in Guangzhou City. In July 1999, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started the persecution of Falun Gong. On October 10, 2001, I was arrested and sent to Guangzhou No. 1 Labor Camp for two years of forced labor because I would not give up my belief. In the labor camp, from January 25 to June 8, 2002, I was hung up outside under the sun on the exercise grounds of the No. 5 Team. Every day, I was hung up for 17 hours and was only allowed to use the bathroom three times. The time allowed for eating meals and going to the bathroom was 10 minutes. In 2003, I was released from the labor camp. I escaped to Thailand after five years of hardship, and was rescued to Finland by the International Refugee Association.

Falun Gong practitioner Zhu Luoxin

My wife, Zhu Luoxin, is 43 years old. She had a skin disease before practicing Falun Gong, but after she started the practice, her health soon recovered. It validated the miracle of Falun Gong. Zhu Luoxin used to work for foreign investment companies like Nintendo and Guangzhou Sohu Company as an assistant manager. On December 13, 2001, the police from the Baiyun District of Guangzhou City arrested her when she was transporting Falun Gong materials in Guangzhou City. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison. She has been detained at Guangzhou Women's Prison for 8 years now. When she was first admitted to the prison, she was kept locked in a small cell for two years and ten months. Her hair turned gray. She was also tortured by other prisoners at the guards' instigation. She was forced to work intensively every day without pay to make cheap products for export.

My other family members were also persecuted for practicing Falun Gong. My brother, Wu Zhijun, used to work at the Microbiology Research Center of Zhongshan University Hospital in Guangzhou. Because he did not give up the practice, he was sentenced to 8 years in prison by the Wanxiu District Court in Wuzhou City, Guangxi. He used to be jailed at Guilin Prison in Guangxi. My mother, Wu Yuxian, 70 years old, used to be a vice president of Yuexiu District Chinese Traditional Medicine Hospital in Guangzhou City. She was sentenced to 7 years in prison because she did not give up her practice. During three years in prison, she was in critical condition as a result of torture and was bailed out for hospital treatment. But because of the brutal treatment she had suffered, she soon passed away. My aunt, Wu Yuwen, was a retired teacher from Jiangmen City No. 1 Middle School in Guangdong Province. She was sent to the brainwashing center three times. She was tortured for more than a year the third time and passed away.

I have not seen my wife for 8 years. I have not received any information about her for a long time, and I really worry about her health. The prison does not allow me to write to her--it has kept from her all the letters I have written to her.

I call on the international community, international human rights groups, and all kindhearted people and governments to support me and help rescue my wife, who is illegally detained in a CCP prison, and help end the persecution.