welcome back to the big picture i'm tom hartman coming up in this half hour the world's economic elite are party it up in davos switzerland for the world economic forum they're actually doing anything to help the rest of the world and who's making all the noise floor a listers there and she'll tell also on tonight's geeky science segment we all know magic mushrooms made the sixty's a colorful bore but what is new research showing us about the possible beneficial effects and they have been raging grandmothers and babies alike in the church off x. ray porno scanners in our airports actually make us safer just part of an elaborate show.

political and economic leaders from around the world are gathered in davos switzerland for the second day of the world economic forum never has the forum been held to mince such global instability and financial uncertainty and its attracted its fair share of protests the occupy movement building igloos outside the swiss alps resort as world leaders gather leaders gathered inside the davos resort know that the pressures of the global capitalist economy can no longer be ignored and there are growing calls for fundamental reform even the founder of the world economic forum an organizer of the event klaus schwab was quoted as saying capitalism in its current form has no place in the world around us and on wednesday south africa's desmond tutu offered his explanation as to why the world economy is in such a mess calling for a revolution for women. i have i have i have

tried to see you know what we need is it. i think. we ought to be see to me that. you have made enemies. just get and left us. it can't be ignore that the majority of financial elites on this planet are men so maybe ten to two has a point but there are also a lot of other big issues at play here or there in davos with the world economy hanging on the brink joining us now for an update from davos what's going on high up in the mountains of the swiss alps i'm joined by lauren lyster host of capital account lauren welcome. tom la thank you for having me on the cell thanks for joining us did the bishops comment provoke any follow up there. you know tom

i don't want to be a naysayer but i do have to say that although this is great and you know it's certainly are they are strong statements and they did come in the opening remarks after angela merkel made her big opening remarks bishop desmond tutu then followed a you know and kind of the keynote speeches of the first night of davos this is one of davos is initiatives more gender equality that sort of thing but is that really a major point of this forum or a major topic of discussion i don't really think so i mean really the things overshadowing this forum are they grow zone crisis are economic issues that's not to mention that a lot of what happens at this forum is all the unofficial business that goes on that's not on the stages so is this good in theory yes it doesn't make a big splash i'm not sure at least a half a dozen of the billionaires there have spoken out publicly against the levels of wealth inequality in the united states and many other parts of the world do you

think that they're concerned about these levels of inequality because they're the same levels the almost identical now here in the united states to just before the stock market crash of one thousand twenty nine or is it is this discussion of inequality the result of the ninety nine percent movement occupying davos in their igloos. well considering that the occupy davos guys in there haven't been made into the forum i don't know how concerned people in the form genuinely are about what their thoughts are i think that inequality really ranks and is becoming part of the agenda in so far as they've seen the political discontent that has forced changes to political leadership as a result of that and some of the arab spring nations and i think that that is what's brought inequality to the center of the debate and then that we've seen that in western democracies or the occupy movement is i think what makes the global one percent need to be more aware of it i think in so far as it threatens their position is why inequality has become really part of the agenda very interesting

what's up with the occupy movement there what are they doing we see the clips of the igloos but what else yeah i got to tell you tom if you're going to have a protest build an igloo because it gets you a press coverage everybody is you know talking about the igloos you know they are here to their credit they are sleeping in these igloos they have collapsed on them they are standing strong it's not a large group it is a small group but as i said they're sticking it out in the elements and davos is a far removed you know ski resort town hours from zurich by train very very tight security there's a no fly zone overhead and very tight security perimeter so the fact that they're here i think does speak to the fact that this is you know a really important issue they have seen and i globalist movements and protests of the forum in davos this year it's of course the occupy movement has asked the forum we see some of these issues take in terms of protest movements what was the reaction to david cameron basically justifying britain's maintenance of the pound

by saying that many of the use problems are trade imbalances probably code for saying that germany is gaming the whole export system. yeah you know that's funny he talked a lot about the trade deficit it's not just budget deficits that are the problem talking about how surplus nations have to carry the weight of everybody else we have a single currency very clearly talking about germany so i think with the business community they probably love it because david cameron is saying we need more bailout money for europe and they need to do all of these things so that they're basically a better investment while he sits there touting the pro-business agenda and the deregulation of britain so i think for a crowd like this it goes over very well for bureaucrats in brussels and for angle of surely not fans because angela merkel is here. if you keep going. no no it's fine i was just saying angela merkel is not a fan she's there trying to convince everybody that they don't need more bailout money and that integration is enough but everybody's kind of saying you know

germany is not doing enough you know george soros is pointing out the nations that control their own currency like the u.s. or the u.k. will never have a bond default because at the very worst they can simply inflate their currency and pay off their bonds and so he's suggesting if i if i understand this correctly greece for example should be able to issue bonds that aren't absolutely tied to the euro houser going over there and i interpreted that right. i think you have a very you might be and there's a lot of aspects to his plan that have gotten a lot of different attention one of the things has to do with the treasury bills that a one percent rate that would allow spain and italy to refinance their debt which is really a big deal because obviously italy and spain are the larger economies that are struggling in the euro zone that could really really be a problem if they were in serious trouble or would be in a situation where they couldn't pay their bills or turn over their debt but he's also talking about euro bonds as an as necessary thing that he sees in his view in

order to keep the euro zone together which is something that he has pushed for now he is very much pushing his plan he had an f.t. op ed today he had a press lunch talking about all of these things on the sidelines of davos with press and this is these are the same things and same ideas that he is pushing to participants and speeches and the things that he's done here tell us that this is very much what he is pushing as far as perception you know people listen to george soros so it makes news and makes the splash but. you know politicians have rejected the plan up to now so we'll have to see what happens every foreign minister thanks so much for being with us tonight. out of. the sixties generation. grave go or is in college kids alike are going to love this geeky science today a new report in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences suggests that

the key ingredient in magic mushrooms may be the perfect aid for certain mental disorders early research has shown the civil side of it is helpful for terminally ill cancer patients dealing with anxiety and possibly people with severe forms of depression essentially solo side been targets both the medial prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex regions of the brain the former chairman so a person thinks feels and behaves soul side been alters this activity in the brain thereby opening up a person's personality in thoughts and in the interiors in the anterior cingulate cortex region cilla side and decreases the amount of activity that's occurring therefore decreasing activities associated with depression not only that this research shows the positive effects from shrooms last for as long as twenty five years the possibility that magic mushrooms can help with neurological problems is really nothing new however timothy leary a famous american psychologist was

a strong advocate for the use of second psychedelic drugs for the treatment of mental disorders from the one nine hundred sixty s. until his death in one thousand nine hundred six leary who first took solace in one thousand sixty argued that substances like l.s.d. and still aside even when used in a controlled setting a proper dosages and under the guidance of an experienced therapist was beneficial in treating mental disorders from depression to addiction in ways the traditional therapy had failed despite larry's research in these new findings showing magic mushrooms are promising in treating depression anxiety don't hold your breath waiting for them to become available from your local pharmacy because there's way too much money to be made from other drugs that alter our consciousness like alpha alcohol caffeine and tobacco and they all have lobbyists so let's see positive effects last twenty five years the last time i took magic mushrooms was more than thirty years ago. i'm overdue.

crazy alerts that's a lot of birds talent grange kentucky has a bird epidemic on in san each night thousands of black birds filled the sky in virtual clouds of birds residents of the town are complaining that they're constantly cleaning up from the avian aerial assaults problems so bad that le grange is being compared alfred hitchcock's classic the birds is what a couple residents had to say about the birds. this move would. make you gay i was scared the far out i mean i was scared i didn't know what was happening but if that sounds like rain coming down i mean literally from inside of our apartment you think that it's raining outside. when residents who are outside at night they're literally forced to take on relatives with them to protect themselves according to some reports the bird brigade is even causing respiratory problems among the residents of la grange environmentalists and scientists who study the birds aren't

quite sure why they've chosen lagrange as their birdbath or why the group is so large despite attempts to scare off the birds they just keep coming back one of two explanations either rick perry is funny nearby or this is the first assault on the planet by the robotic pigeons and is from xenu now under disguise not sure which is scarier. coming up on tonight's daily take they've scanned gramma's babies and senators alike are these porno scanners keeping us safe or are they just another example of security theater.

with. this month's supply particles that make up the fabric of the universe find what you're looking for in the deep siberian forests prevent a fire with the help of lasers in fibers pull out your tablet of a new gaming religion and let the teacher begin all of that here in novosibirsk technology update here on. the future coverage. more news today violence is once again flared up. and these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. china corporations rule the day.

here take my take is your chance to send in your questions comments rants and observations about anything we talk about here in the big picture or during my radio show that i first comment came to us from lysander on our thom hartmann dot com message board page sander said it is the parent's duty to educate their children not corporations or the government if the government is to be involved it should be at the local level i also think that you're confusing education with schooling everybody educates themselves every day and most of it is outside of schools people read books magazines listen to talk radio etc should the government take over all these areas as well or publishing houses educating me or my buying their products to educate myself. well actually our founding fathers especially

thomas jefferson would disagree with a lot of your worldview there in fact is eighteen zero six state of the union address jefferson called for a constitutional amendment calling on the federal government to support education saying an amendment to our constitution must here in here come in aid of the public education the influence over government must be shared among all people by that he meant that all the people must have influence over the government we must control our government and that's only possible with a well educated and informed citizenry and as tombstone jefferson wanted it known that he was the founder of the university of virginia free college more than he wanted people to know that he was the third president the united states that's how much he cared about education education is a part of our commons therefore it's our responsibility through a government made up of us to educate our kids and our last comment today is from

our viewer rant line come at almost every advancement human history has been through our military that's how we develop new technology the fact that the military is going green is extraordinary and i'm so glad the president talked about this through the united seeing the joint chiefs of staff chairman talking about it on the stand and i thought the moment has come at last we are going into the suits her heart by. i completely agree and i think it was one of the most overlooked parts of the president's speech our military is the single biggest consumer of oil on the planet if it goes green it could drastically reduce the amount of foreign oil we buy from nations who many of whom don't really like a celeb much and since the military is such a huge consumer of energy it would create a massive new demand for alternative energy which means new high paying jobs for americans working on the cutting edge of clean technologies this is definitely

something worth keeping your eyes on that's it for your take my take tonight if you'd like your comments and questions heard on the segment the big picture listen up we want to know your take send us your comments by visiting the tom hartman facebook page by a twitter at tom underscore hartman or in the chat room on the message boards or through the blog at thom hartmann dot com you can also leave a message on our rant line at two two five three six fifty three zero six agree disagree sound off it's all welcome but remember that your comments may be used on the air. yeah but it's the good the bad and the very very ignoble asli ugly the good bill gates in an interview with the b.b.c. gates was asked to respond to president obama's call to increase taxes on the wealthiest americans gates. the united states has a huge budget deficit so taxes are going to have to go up and i certainly agree

they should go up more on the rich than everyone else. that's just justice i don't feel like. people like myself are paying as much as we showed. of course mitt romney has destroyed people like gates claiming they're riddled with envy however bill gates and other billionaires like warren buffet who feel the same way have far more money than romney and view pay more taxes as doing their fair share to help the country and the economy that bill gates in the league of extraordinarily rich americans are ready and willing to pay their fair share in taxes and capitalism vultures like mitt romney should be too well said bill the bad sniper crosshairs in missouri five democratic state senators missouri return to work tuesday only to find large orange crosshairs stickers plastered over their new office nameplates the crosshairs covered the doors of only four democratic women in the state senate

and the door of the democratic minority leader some of the senators remove the stickers only to find larger ones covering the doors later in the day in response the missouri capitol police have increased security around the democratic offices and the capitol as a whole but they have no leads on the possible call republicans routinely use crosshairs for political purposes most notably sarah pail and we all figured the rhetoric would be toned down after the get gabby giffords shooting last year tragically that's not the case as are. and the very very ugly rick don't google my name santorum president obama discussed his plans to increase access to higher education in his state of the union speech on tuesday in response to those plans santorum sold told c.b.s. news on wednesday that it's no wonder president obama wants every kid to go to college indoctrination that occurs in american universities as one of the kids in a well if told him to have maintaining power in america. when kids learn more about

the world and science they tend to vote for democrats or maybe that says something about sometimes republican party more than it says about the so-called indoctrination by the way i guess the only indoctrination prefers is the kind that teaches kids the same sex marriage eventually leads to man on dog marriages it's very clear. right now at this very moment odds are someone is get on a plane someplace with a condom full of heroin or cocaine shoved up some hole in their body all probability it's happening right now as we speak and twenty four and t.s.a. security has no chance of finding none at all unless they want to bust out the

k.-y. jelly and latex gloves but think about this that balloon could just as easily be filled with c. four plastic explosive instead of hero and once that person is on the plane you can go in the bathroom pull out the balloon and well you can imagine what would happen and like the drugs t.s.a. security has no chance of finding explosives. that's because those high tech x. ray scanners that are in the airports all around the nation shooting doses of radiation at us and displaying our new bodies to t.s.a. agents they only look at the outside of our bodies that are keeping us safe from a terrorist attack so why the hell are we using them because we're scared stupid we're scared stupid because bush and cheney made us that way after nine eleven we got hit pretty bad but instead of telling americans we'll be ok and we'll come out of the stronger than before bush and cheney freaked out and so did the rest of the

nation instead of treating nine eleven like the crime it was and working with our allies to find those who committed it and bring them to justice in the same way clinton brought to mcveigh to justice we went on the war path we started a war in afghanistan that we're still fighting today we went to war in iraq we started an unknown number of covert wars all around the world in countries from somalia to yemen to pakistan everything our nation has done in the name of security after nine eleven has been over kill and his stereo especially if you ploy in these x. ray porno scanners in our airports back in one nine hundred ninety eight a team of radiation experts were shown some new technology by the food drug industry in hopes of getting their takes on the public health risks of this new technology that new machine was called the secure one thousand or what is now known as the church of x. ray porno scanner it was being used in a few prisons to make sure inmates were bringing weapons it but the machine made

the radiation experts uneasy as the director of new jersey's radiation protection program joel poti said i think this is really a slippery slope i'm concerned with expanding this type of product for the traveling public. the inventor of the secure one thousand a guy named stephen w. smith agreed but he assured the health experts that places i think you are not going to see these in the next five years is lower security facilities particularly power plants embassies courthouses airports and governments i would be extremely surprised in the next five to ten years of the secure one thousand sold to any of these famous last words because three years later nine eleven happened we all got scared stupid by the bush administration and now these machines are in airports all across the country and as for the concerns by radiation experts in one

thousand nine hundred eighty eight they were largely ignored and their calls for greater research were drowned out by a massive lobbying effort by security corporations who knew that they could make a fortune off these x. ray porno scanners they knew that they could exploit our fear and they did company rapid skin which built some of these machines spent four hundred twenty thousand dollars just in two thousand. lobbying lawmakers their return on that investment in lobbying was a two thousand and nine contract for one hundred seventy three million dollars worth of these machines for our airports former homeland security director michael chertoff who played his part in hyping up fear while working for the bush administration went on to become a lobbyist and then went on t.v. telling the american people that these machines were needed to keep us safe and guess who was one of chertoff lobbyists rapid skin so we all bought it hook line

and sinker and now we're all being a radiated when we board airplanes with little regard to the health risks and there are risks. according to research as many as one hundred americans could get cancer from these scanners every single year and in boston union reps at logan airport worry that these scanners may be responsible for cancer clusters that are showing up among t.s.a. agents and despite requests from the union the t.s.a. has yet to provide individual dosimeters to t.s.a. agents to wear or to measure the radiation they're getting hit with from the scanners so senator susan collins is introducing legislation this week to call for a new independent health study of these scanners and some people might argue that one hundred cases of cancer plus a few sick t.s.a. agents out of the billions of passengers and flights here is a risk we're willing to take to stay safe but these scanners as i said earlier don't work if someone wants to blow up a plane they will and ultimately our best security is actually the other passengers

around us on the plane i'm in no one's going to let that happen again these scanners are security theater brought to us by the bush administration and lobbyists who are making millions after all they work so well. why isn't israel which is under more threat than the united states using and why is your a band it's time to stop being scared it's time to stop being doused with radiation and getting groped in the name of so-called security we need to become the land of the free and the home of the brave again as the airport security agent in germany said to me a year ago when she said i don't have to take off my shoes before walking through the metal detector we're not that frightened so enough with the x. rays and don't touch my junk that's it for the big picture tonight for more information or to see any segment of the show you may have missed check out our website at www dot com and don't forget democracy begins when you show up when you participate get out there and get active tag your suitable.

technology innovation. developments. a painful scandal in an already troubled post gadhafi libya as human rights groups accuse the military of torturing detainees to death. angry activists are back on the streets of poland to protest against the government's signing of an international anti piracy act they say will result in internet censorship. in iran and syria is banning oil sales to europe and head of the e.u. decision to stop importing oil from the country if you like its tensions rise and

agree americans feel that starting a war with iran would be a grave mistake. well news and comment twenty four hours a day this is out he says several detainees in libya have died in recent weeks as a result of torture according to amnesty international human rights group says the crimes were committed by the libyan military and security forces thousands of gadhafi loyalists remain behind bars they are suffering the same atrocities handed out on the colonel's regime ortiz roof a national mall doctors without borders known for going do their job in the most dangerous and notorious places around the globe but in n t c iran libya the group has encountered a formidable obstacle.