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Allyn Fisher-Ilan
Israel's high court ruled on Wednesday that the largest
unauthorized Jewish settler outpost on occupied West Bank territory must
be evacuated by next Tuesday.Reuters 2012-08-29 01:31:00
The court rejected an appeal by the settlers to delay the evacuation of Migron, a hilltop settlement of about 50 families, which a separate ruling a year ago decided was built on privately-owned Palestinian land. The Migron settlement was one of dozens built more than a decade ago without Israeli government authorization on land captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East War but which Palestinians claim for a hoped-for independent state. The court had delayed several deadlines set for evacuating the settlement in the past year, after last-minute appeals, and has now dismissed the latest request. In their latest appeal, settlers had sought a delay in moving out, saying temporary homes for them elsewhere in the West Bank were not ready. Others maintained they had purchased the land in question. |
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Brian Donohue
ThreatPost 2012-08-28 12:03:00
The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) posted a broad agency announcement [PDF] recently, calling on contractors to submit concept papers detailing technological demonstrations of 'cyberspace warfare operations' (CWO) capabilities. The Air Force is looking to obtain CWO capabilities falling into a number of categories including: 'cyberspace warfare attack' and 'cyberspace warfare support.' The broad agency announcement defines 'cyberspace warfare attack' capabilities as those which would give them the ability to "destroy, deny, degrade, disrupt, deceive, corrupt, or usurp the adversaries [sic] ability to use the cyberspace domain for his advantage." Cyberspace warfare support capabilities, the document claims, would include actions deployed by operational commanders in order to, intercept, identify, and locate sources of access and vulnerability for threat recognition, targeting, and planning, both immediately and for future operations. This also includes the providing of information required for the immediate decisions involving CWOs and data used to produce intelligence or provide targeting for an electronic attack. In addition to those listed above, the Air Force is seeking 'situational awareness capabilities that give an operator near real-time effectiveness feedback in a form that is readily observed by the operator.' This would address the 'mapping of networks (both data and voice),' 'access to cyberspace domain, information, networks, systems, or devices,' 'denial of service on cyberspace resources, current/future operating systems, and network devices,' and 'Data manipulation.' |
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Fars News Agency
2012-08-29 10:36:00
The draft of the final statement of the Palestine Committee of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) ministerial meeting in Tehran underlined the necessity for finding a fair and sustainable solution to the crisis in the Palestinian territories, an Iranian NAM official said Wednesday. "The draft document of the statement of the Palestine Committee underscores the Palestinians' critical situation and asks for finding a fair, comprehensive and sustainable solution" to the Palestinian issue, member of the NAM's Secretariat Mahmoud Abdollahi told FNA on Wednesday. "NAM has always put the Palestinian issue on its agenda on the sidelines of its high-level meetings within the framework of the Palestine Committee," he added. His remarks came after Palestinian Authority (PA) Envoy to the UN Riyadh Mansour called on the participants at the NAM summit to pay special attention to the issue of Palestine, especially after the recent uprisings in the Middle-East. |
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The Independent, UK
Four US soldiers plotted to assassinate Barack Obama and overthrow the government, a court has heard.2012-08-29 05:13:00 One, private Michael Burnett, has pleaded guilty to manslaughter and gang charges in the killings last December of former soldier Michael Roark and his girlfriend, 17-year-old Tiffany York. Burnett said that Roark, who had just left the army, knew of the militia group's plans and was killed because he was "a loose end." Prosecutor Isabel Pauley said the group bought $87,000 (£55,000) of guns and bomb-making materials and plotted to take over Fort Stewart, bomb targets in Savannah and Washington state, as well as assassinate the president. Source: The Associated Press |
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Alice Slater
War is a Crime 2012-08-29 04:54:00
The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), formed in 1961 during the Cold War, is a group of 120 states and 17 observer states not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. The NAM held its opening 2012 session yesterday under the new chairmanship of Iran, which succeeded Egypt as the Chair. Significantly, an Associated Press story in the Washington Post headlined, "Iran opens nonaligned summit with calls for nuclear arms ban", reported that "Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi opened the gathering by noting commitment to a previous goal from the nonaligned group, known as NAM, to remove the world's nuclear arsenals within 13 years. 'We believe that the timetable for ultimate removal of nuclear weapons by 2025, which was proposed by NAM, will only be realized if we follow it up decisively,' he told delegates." Yet the New York Times, which has been beating the drums for war with Iran, just as it played a disgraceful role in the deceptive reporting during the lead-up to the Iraq War, never mentioned Iran's proposal for nuclear abolition. The Times carried the bland headline on its front page, "At Summit Meeting, Iran Has a Message for the World", and then went on to state, "the message is clear. As Iran plays host to the biggest international conference ...it wants to tell its side of the long standoff with the Western powers which are increasingly convinced that Tehran is pursuing nuclear weapons", without ever reporting Iran's offer to support the NAM proposal for the abolition of nuclear weapons by 2025. |
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Laura Poitras
New York Times 2012-08-29 04:41:00
It took me a few days to work up the nerve to phone William Binney. As someone already a "target" of the United States government, I found it difficult not to worry about the chain of unintended consequences I might unleash by calling Mr. Binney, a 32-year veteran of the National Security Agency turned whistle-blower. He picked up. I nervously explained I was a documentary filmmaker and wanted to speak to him. To my surprise he replied: "I'm tired of my government harassing me and violating the Constitution. Yes, I'll talk to you." Two weeks later, driving past the headquarters of the N.S.A. in Maryland, outside Washington, Mr. Binney described details about Stellar Wind, the N.S.A.'s top-secret domestic spying program begun after 9/11, which was so controversial that it nearly caused top Justice Department officials to resign in protest, in 2004. "The decision must have been made in September 2001," Mr. Binney told me and the cinematographer Kirsten Johnson. "That's when the equipment started coming in." In this Op-Doc, Mr. Binney explains how the program he created for foreign intelligence gathering was turned inward on this country. He resigned over this in 2001 and began speaking out publicly in the last year. He is among a group of N.S.A. whistle-blowers, including Thomas A. Drake, who have each risked everything - their freedom, livelihoods and personal relationships - to warn Americans about the dangers of N.S.A. domestic spying. |
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Trowbridge H. Ford
codshit.com 2004-06-22 04:24:00
Why A British Gamekeeper Turned Poacher With President Ronald Reagan's re-election in November 1984, the militant anti-communists in Washington and London decided that the day had finally come for rolling back the Iron Curtain, and bringing down the Soviet Union. With the death of CPSU General Secretary Yuri Andropov, replaced by the caretaker government of chain-smoking Konstantin Chernenko, the Soviet bloc seemed to be reduced to a regime on auto-pilot, only going through the motions of protecting itself while expecting the apparent inevitable - its collapse - what Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's government was already well advanced in achieving, and the Republican administration in Washington would now follow. With the policy of détente with Moscow well and truly buried, it was time to do all the dirty work to make it a reality. Andropov's death seemed an augury of the system's own fate. Head of the KGB since 1967 - thanks to his belief after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution that only force could keep communist systems in power - he directed the suppression of all dissent against the established regimes in Czechoslovakia in 1968, in Afghanistan in 1979, and Warsaw in 1981. In these efforts, Andropov was assisted by Vladimir Kryuchkov, the head of his personal secretariat who later became head of the KGB's First Chief Directorate, and ultimately the chief of the foreign intelligence service itself. According to Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin in The Sword and the Shield, Andropov deliberately destroyed the Prague Spring on the pretext that the CIA and NATO were behind it - what he knew to be untrue. (pp. 256-7) In fact, Mitrokhin was inclined to become a mole for the West because of the fabrications Andropov engaged in justifying the overthrow of Afghan President Hafizullah Amin, a so-called "agent of American imperialism." (p. 11) For the Soviet defector, the process was completed when the KGB chief forced the Polish communists to adopt martial law in order to suppress Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement, its Polish intelligence counterpart fabricating a film claiming that it was in the pay of the West. (p. 522ff.) Little wonder that after Andropov took over control from Leonid Brezhnev, he apparently let all his paranoid fears run wild after Reagan rejected his calls for reducing intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Euorpe, and for a summit to promote world peace by calling for the adoption of STAR WARS. Then, according to most reports, Moscow "went ape" when Korean Air Lines Flight 007 inadvertently strayed over Soviet air space in the Far East, resulting in its being shot down by a Soviet fighter with the loss of 269 lives, including 61 Americans - what resulted in West Germany approving the deployment of U.S. Pershing II and cruise missiles. Kryuchkov, whose KGB had long been issuing instructions to counter alleged Western threats, and which Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky published later in two volumes, now used NATO's routine Able Archer Exercise as an excuse for instituting Operation RYAN (the Russian acronym for nuclear missile attack), calling for fortnightly reports from all residencies of evidence of Western plans for a first strike against the Soviets - what Andrew and Mitrokhin again dismissed as being totally without foundation. (p. 433) According to them, thanks to deliberate efforts by Washington and London, starting in 1984 to reassure Moscow of their peaceful intentions, cooler heads and plans soon prevailed in the Kremlin. |
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Ben Quinn
The Guardian 2012-08-29 04:02:00
Metropolitan police passes information to authorities in Sweden about killing of Olof Palme in 1986 Eva Rausing, who was found dead in July at the London home she shared with her husband, an heir to the TetraPak fortune, had passed on information about the unsolved 1986 murder of Swedish prime minister Olof Palme, Swedish prosecutors have revealed. Scotland Yard confirmed on Tuesday night that it had given information to authorities in Sweden, where investigators are now reported as wanting to question Hans Kristian Rausing as a possible witness about the information his wife claimed to have obtained. A Swedish author who has written two books on the Palme killing said Mrs Rausing first contacted him in June 2011. She claimed she had learned that Palme had been killed by an entrepreneur who feared the politician was a threat to his business. | |
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Comment: For more on Rausing's suspicious death: Tetra Pak heir Hans Kristian Rausing treated in hospital after police discover body of his wife in their London home
Olaf Palme was a thorn in the side of certain nefarious regimes and was clearly a target in high-level intelligence circles: How Iran-Contra Led to Palme's Assassination: Illegal Arms Shipments Through Sweden Forced It |
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Press TV
2012-08-29 00:00:00
At least two people have been killed in an attack carried out by a US assassination drone in Yemen. The drone targeted a vehicle on a road between the provinces of Marib and Hadhramout on Tuesday. Reports say a Saudi citizen and a Yemeni tribesman were killed in the air strike. Yemeni military officials confirmed the attack. The United States uses drones for combat and espionage missions in several countries including Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Washington claims the unmanned aircraft target militants, but many of the victims turn out to be civilians. The United Nations says the US drone attacks are targeted killings that flout international law. |
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RT
2012-08-28 00:00:00
The US Air Force is spending $10 million on an effort to hack into opponents' computer networks to "destroy, deny, degrade, disrupt, deceive, corrupt or usurp" their ability to use the Internet to their advantage. The ability to hack into networks is part of a list of the military's "Cyberspace Warfare Operations Capabilities" that it wishes to acquire, reports Wired. Instead of giving the ability to conduct cyber strikes solely to the White House, the Air Force wants its Trojans and worms to be available to its own officials, including top personnel and operational commanders. Last week, the Pentagon announced a new $110 million program to make cyber strikes a more routine effort in wartime military operations. "Plan X," as the Pentagon named it, will officially begin on September 20, but Darpa has already invested $600,000 to cyber security firm Invincea to begin its research immediately. |
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RT
2012-08-28 00:00:00
French prosecutors have launched an official inquiry into the 2004 murder of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, after his family claimed he had been poisoned. Arafat's family initiated legal action in France last month over claims the Palestinian leader died of radioactive polonium poisoning. His widow, Suha Arafat, has asked that her late husband's body be exhumed for further testing. The Palestinian Authority has already consented to the procedure. Earlier, a nine-month investigation conducted by Al-Jazeera concluded that Arafat's personal belongings contained abnormally high levels of polonium, a rare and highly radioactive element. The items, including his clothing, his toothbrush, and even his iconic kaffiyeh, were supplied to Al-Jazeera by his widow. They were then analyzed at the Institut de Radiophysique in Lausanne, Switzerland. | |
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RT
2012-08-28 00:00:00
A new emergency pamphlet in Israel instructs residents to prepare for the worst if Tel Aviv conducts a military strike on Iran. But the face on the brochure isn't the country's President or Prime Minister - it's a Muppet. The cover of the 15-page leaflet pictures a smiling Moishe Oofnik, the Israeli Muppet version of Oscar the Grouch. He's the resident pessimist on Rechov Sumsum, Israel's co-production of the long-running American children's program Sesame Street. Muppets on the popular show are known for teaching children numbers and the alphabet, but Moishe Oofnik has taken on a different job with this pamphlet - instructing Israelis how to react if their nation's government launches a war against Iran. The booklet, issued by the Israeli military, says that once air raid sirens sound, residents of the Jewish state would have between 30 seconds and three minutes to find cover before rockets hit their area. The brochure, which is being distributed across the country, also teaches Israelis how to prepare a safe room or shelter for emergency situations. The furry Muppet puts a happy face on the warnings, though the issue is anything but lighthearted: Israeli ministers have estimated that up to 500 civilians could die in the conflict that would follow a strike on Iran. The pamphlet comes in the wake of recent remarks by Israeli officials suggesting that Tel Aviv may soon launch a unilateral attack on Tehran's nuclear program. Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak reportedly favor a strike on Iran. Public statements and anonymous quotes to Israeli media in the past week have raised speculation that Israel may soon attack Iran. |
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Kimberly Dozier
The Washington Post 2012-08-28 09:58:00
Washington - A firsthand account of the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden contradicts previous accounts by administration officials, raising questions as to whether the terror mastermind presented a clear threat when SEALs first fired upon him. Bin Laden apparently was hit in the head when he looked out of his bedroom door into the top-floor hallway of his compound as SEALs rushed up a narrow stairwell in his direction, according to former Navy SEAL Mark Bissonnette, writing under the pseudonym Mark Owen in No Easy Day. The book is to be published next week by Penguin Group (USA)'s Dutton imprint. Bissonnette says he was directly behind a "point man" going up the stairs. "Less than five steps" from top of the stairs, he heard "suppressed" gunfire: "BOP. BOP." The point man had seen a "man peeking out of the door" on the right side of the hallway Bissonnette writes that bin Laden ducked back into his bedroom and the SEALs followed, only to find the terrorist crumpled on the floor in a pool of blood with a hole visible on the right side of his head and two women wailing over his body. | |
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Comment: For more information on bin Laden's death, see:
Osama bin Dead Awhile Can US Offer Final Proof Of Osama's Death? Did Osama Really Die on Monday in Abbottabad? |
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Sean Lennon
The New York Times 2012-08-27 22:45:00
On the northern tip of Delaware County, N.Y., where the Catskill Mountains curl up into little kitten hills, and Ouleout Creek slithers north into the Susquehanna River, there is a farm my parents bought before I was born. My earliest memories there are of skipping stones with my father and drinking unpasteurized milk. There are bald eagles and majestic pines, honeybees and raspberries. My mother even planted a ring of white birch trees around the property for protection. A few months ago I was asked by a neighbor near our farm to attend a town meeting at the local high school. Some gas companies at the meeting were trying very hard to sell us on a plan to tear through our wilderness and make room for a new pipeline: infrastructure for hydraulic fracturing. Most of the residents at the meeting, many of them organic farmers, were openly defiant. The gas companies didn't seem to care. They gave us the feeling that whether we liked it or not, they were going to fracture our little town. In the late '70s, when Manhattanites like Andy Warhol and Bianca Jagger were turning Montauk and East Hampton into an epicurean Shangri-La for the Studio 54 crowd, my parents, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, were looking to become amateur dairy farmers. My first introduction to a cow was being taught how to milk it by hand. I'll never forget the realization that fresh milk could be so much sweeter than what we bought in grocery stores. Although I was rarely able to persuade my schoolmates to leave Long Island for what seemed to them an unreasonably rural escapade, I was lucky enough to experience trout fishing instead of tennis lessons, swimming holes instead of swimming pools and campfires instead of cable television. Though my father died when I was 5, I have always felt lucky to live on land he loved dearly; land in an area that is now on the verge of being destroyed. When the gas companies showed up in our backyard, I felt I needed to do some research. I looked into Pennsylvania, where hundreds of families have been left with ruined drinking water, toxic fumes in the air, industrialized landscapes, thousands of trucks and new roads crosshatching the wilderness, and a devastating and irreversible decline in property value. Natural gas has been sold as clean energy. But when the gas comes from fracturing bedrock with about five million gallons of toxic water per well, the word "clean" takes on a disturbingly Orwellian tone. Don't be fooled. Fracking for shale gas is in truth dirty energy. It inevitably leaks toxic chemicals into the air and water. Industry studies show that 5 percent of wells can leak immediately, and 60 percent over 30 years. There is no such thing as pipes and concrete that won't eventually break down. It releases a cocktail of chemicals from a menu of more than 600 toxic substances, climate-changing methane, radium and, of course, uranium. |
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The Economic Collapse Blog
2012-08-28 20:12:00
Is the stock market going to crash by the end of this year? Are we on the verge of major financial chaos on a global scale? Well, this is the time of the year when investors start getting nervous. We all remember what happened during the fall of 1929, the fall of 1987 and the fall of 2008. However, it is important to keep in mind that we do not see a stock market crash in the fall of every year. Some years the stock market cruises through the months of September, October, November and December without any problems whatsoever. But this year conditions certainly seem to be right for a "perfect storm" to develop. Technical indicators are screaming that a stock market decline is imminent and sources in the financial industry all over the world are warning that a massive crisis is on the way. In fact, the Telegraph ran a story with the following shocking headline the other day: "Market crash 'could hit within weeks', warn bankers". What you are about to read should alarm you. But it is not a guarantee that anything will or will not happen. When Ben Bernanke gives his speech at the Jackson Hole summit on Friday he could announce to the rest of the world that the Federal Reserve has decided to launch QE3 and that the Fed will be printing up trillions of new dollars. If that happened global financial markets would leap for joy. So it is always a dangerous thing when anyone out there tries to tell you that they can "guarantee" what is about to happen in the financial world. There are just so many moving parts. But if we do not see major intervention by the governments of the world or by global central banks a major financial crisis could rapidly develop this fall. The conditions are certainly right for a stock market collapse, and we could easily see a repeat of what happened back in 2008. The truth is that the second half of 2012 looks a little bit more like the second half of 2008 with each passing day. |
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| Society's Child |
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Neetzan Zimmerman
Gawker.com 2012-08-28 05:17:00
A deaf preschooler in Grand Island, Nebraska, has been prohibited from signing his own name because school administrators believe the gesture he uses looks too much like a gun. "He's deaf, and his name sign, they say, is a violation of their weapons policy," Hunter Spanjer's father Brian told Channel 10/11. Hunter uses Signing Exact English or SEE - a form of manual communication that uses modified ASL handshapes in an effort to better mimic the spoken English language. "Anybody that I have talked to thinks this is absolutely ridiculous," Hunter's grandmother told the news outlet. "This is not threatening in any way." The preschool, which has a strict zero-tolerance policy toward "any instrument...that looks like a weapon," would not discuss the matter, but said they were working with the parents on a compromise. Meanwhile, the ACLU and the National Association of the Deaf have reached out to the family in support, committing themselves to assist should a legal avenue be pursued. |
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Chris Hedges
truthdig.com 2012-08-27 05:00:00
"A Hologram for the King" - A book by Dave Eggers Dave Eggers' gem of a book, "A Hologram for the King," is a parable about the decadence, fragility and heartlessness of late, decayed corporate capitalism. It is about the small, largely colorless men and women who serve as managers in our suicidal outsourcing of manufacturing jobs and the methodical breaking of labor unions. It is about the lie of globalization, a lie that impoverishes us all to increase corporate profits. "A Hologram for the King" tells the story of Alan, a lackluster 54-year-old consultant who is desperately trying to snag one final big contract in Saudi Arabia for Reliant, a corporation that is "the largest I.T. supplier in the world," to save himself from financial ruin. Alan has come to realize that managers like him who made outsourcing possible will be discarded as human refuse now that the process is complete, left to wander like ghosts - or holograms - among the ruins. And Eggers' novel is a subtle, deft and poignant look at the horrendous toll this corporate process takes on self-esteem, on family, on health, on community and finally on the nation itself. It does so, like parables from Greek tragedy or George Orwell, by finding the perfect story to make a point that is universal. |
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Larisa Brown
Daily Mail 2012-08-28 07:27:00
Bournemouth, England - A police officer repeatedly punched his pregnant ex-girlfriend in the stomach because he did not want her to have his baby. Matthew Cherry, 35, is alleged to have barged his way into police officer Caroline Craft's flat in Bournemouth, wearing a balaclava and hooded top, to carry out the attack and try to force a miscarriage. Cherry, a Dorset Police officer at the time, was angry, aggressive and desperate for Miss Craft to have an abortion, a court has heard. He is also alleged to have told her that he had thought about punching her in the stomach so she would lose her baby. The pair split up after she decided not to have a termination. Miss Craft was six months' pregnant when she was attacked, Winchester Crown Court heard. Cherry, from Parkstone in Poole, Dorset, denies attempting to cause grievous bodily harm with intent and said he was not the attacker. |
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NBC News Washington
2012-08-28 10:55:00
The Wicomico County Sheriff's Office says a 21-year-old man has been charged in connection with the deaths of nearly 70,000 chickens. Authorities say Joshua Shelton has been charged with burglary, malicious destruction of property and trespassing. The sheriff's office says the owner of a farm on East Line Road in Delmar told a deputy early Saturday that the power had been turned off in three poultry houses, which deprived the chickens of food, water and cooling fans. Shelton was found lying in the power control shed. Authorities say he was wearing a T-shirt and boxer shorts and smelled of alcohol. The sheriff's office says the deputy determined that Shelton had turned off the circuit breakers that controlled electricity to the poultry houses. Source: The Associated Press |
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Joseph Ax and Martinne Geller
Yahoo! News - Canada 2012-08-28 00:00:00
The New York State Attorney General issued subpoenas in July to three firms that make energy drinks, including PepsiCo Inc, seeking information on the companies' marketing and advertising practices, a person familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. Besides Pepsi, maker of AMP, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman also sent subpoenas to Monster Beverage Corp and Living Essentials LLC, maker of the 5-Hour Energy drink, said the source, who declined to be identified, citing lack of authorization to speak to the media. A spokeswoman for Schneiderman declined to comment, as did PepsiCo. Living Essentials also declined to comment beyond its July offering memorandum in which it said that it had recently received an inquiry from a state attorney general asking for documents relating to its product and marketing. The company said in the memorandum, which was distributed in connection with a debt offering, that it was responding to the inquiry. |
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Click Orlando
2012-08-28 16:59:00
Protesters from Code Pink wanted to make citizen's arrest for war crimes Tampa, Florida - Police in Tampa stopped a dozen anti-war protesters from entering an event attended by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice after the group said it intended to arrest her for war crimes. The protesters from Code Pink carried handcuffs Tuesday and tried to enter a performing arts center. Rice was attending an event in conjunction with the Republican National Convention. They said they wanted to make a citizen's arrest of Rice, who was Secretary of State when the Iraq War started. The officers told the protesters to leave because they were on private property. They went back to the sidewalk and several lay down under sheets made to look like they were blood-splattered. |
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Joe Arnold
WHAS11.com 2012-08-27 03:34:00
Louisville, Kentucky -- Workers preparing historic Whiskey Row buildings for interior demolition have discovered what appears to be the remnants of a sado-masochistic swingers club, abandoned for decades. "This is the weirdest I've ever found," said Greg Harris, the superintendent of the project for Sullivan-Cozart. Two floors below Main Street, a large black and white logo displays the word "LATEX," presumably the name of the club, painted on the century old wall. From deep inside the subterranean blackness, a series of oil paintings depict a series of bizarre images, sexual and violent. "Very disturbing," Harris said. |
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Source
A top US commander says 2012 is expected to be another "tough year"
for the country's entire military as the number of suicides in the US
Army ranks is expected to hit a new high for the year.
2012-08-28 00:00:00
"Even with the attention of the leadership, I think all the services are feeling it," Marine Corps Commandant General James Amos said after a speech at the National Press Club on Tuesday, adding, "This year... is going to be a tough year for all the services." Amos further noted that the Marine Corps has taken action, including using interactive videos and other measures, to cut the suicide rates in its rank. |
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RT
2012-08-28 00:00:00
As the Republican National Convention takes off in Tampa, the upcoming Democratic National Convention is in the spotlight over skyrocketing accommodation prices that are forcing many low-income Charlotte families out of the motels where they live. Unemployed and low-income Charlotte residents often live in cheap motels - sometimes with whole families occupying a single room. And as the upcoming DNC prompts motel costs to rise, some motel residents will have no choice but to check out. "I work all day for $60," Eric Jones, who predicts that each night in his motel room could end up costing his full daily income, told the Los Angeles Times. "Why am I going to pay $60 for a room? Then I won't have enough to spend on food or anything." But a room at the Sunset Inn, which is usually priced between $35 to $40 a night, will increase to $250 a night during the DNC, WCNC.com reports. On average, Charlotte's room prices will increase by 109 percent during the convention. Homeless advocacy agencies predict that the number of people without a place to stay could rise significantly as a result. To prevent the displaced from living on the streets, groups affiliated with the Homeless Services Network have raised $20,000 to help pay for housing. Part of this money will go directly to the expected 100-plus at-risk families to help them pay the increased motel costs. The fund will also pay for a shelter at the Salvation Army, rooms in a congregational shelter and transportation to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools for children. |
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| Secret History |
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BBC News
Explosives experts in Germany have detonated the remains of a 550-pound
World War II bomb in central Munich. The dapd news agency cited a police
spokesman as saying the bomb was successfully destroyed Tuesday
evening. Still, burning debris caused fires in several nearby buildings
that had been evacuated after the bomb was discovered Monday in the
Schwabing district.2012-08-29 14:59:00 Efforts to defuse the bomb failed and experts decided to pack it with explosives and detonate it rather than risk an uncontrolled explosion. Allied airplanes dropped millions of tons of ordnance on Germany during World War II in an effort to cripple the Nazi war machine. Tens of thousands of unexploded bombs are believed still to be lying in the ground in Germany.
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LiveScience
2012-08-29 12:04:00
The Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) said archaeologists have uncovered two 9,500-year-old animal figurines in excavations just outside of Jerusalem. Found at the Tel Moza site, one of the Neolithic figures is a limestone ram with precisely carved spiral horns. The other is a more abstract sculpture of a wild bovine fashioned from dolomite, according to the IAA. Both are about 6 inches (15 centimeters) long. The figurines were found near the remains of an ancient, round building, dating back to a dynamic time in the region's history when humans were transitioning from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one of farming and settling in villages. The animal figurines then may have been associated with the process of animal domestication, an IAA statement said, though one excavator at the site, Hamoudi Khalaily, believes they may have been "good-luck statues" to ensure hunting success. Excavations at Tel Moza are taking place ahead of the expansion of Highway 1, the main road connecting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. |
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| Science & Technology |
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MedicalXpress.com
A new study by researchers at UT Dallas' Center for Vital Longevity,
Duke University, and the University of Michigan has found that the
strength of communication between the left and right hemispheres of the
brain predicts performance on basic arithmetic problems. The findings
shed light on the neural basis of human math abilities and suggest a
possible route to aiding those who suffer from dyscalculia - an inability to understand and manipulate numbers.2012-08-29 15:44:00
It has been known for some time that the parietal cortex, the top/middle region of the brain, plays a central role in so-called numerical cognition - our ability to process numerical information. Previous brain imaging studies have shown that the right parietal region is primarily involved in basic quantity processing (like gauging relative amounts of fruit in baskets), while the left parietal region is involved in more precise numerical operations like addition and subtraction. What has not been known is whether the two hemispheres can work together to improve math performance. |
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PhysOrg
2012-08-29 15:39:00
Japan's government on Wednesday unveiled a worst case disaster scenario that warned a monster earthquake in the Pacific Ocean could kill over 320,000 people, dwarfing last year's quake-tsunami disaster. Tokyo's casualty toll estimate was based on a catastrophic scenario in which a powerful undersea quake of about 9.0 magnitude sparked a giant tsunami that swamps Japan's coastline south of Tokyo The Cabinet Office's hypothetical disaster would see the quake strike at nighttime during the winter with strong winds helping unleash waves that reach 34-metre (110 feet), sweeping many victims away as they slept. Many of the estimated 323,000 victims would be drowned by the tsunami, crushed under falling objects or in fires sparked by the disaster, it said. On March 11 last year, a 9.0 magnitude quake struck seismically-active Japan in the early afternoon, triggering tsunami waves that reached 20 metres. About 19,000 were killed or remain missing while the tsunami slammed into the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, sending reactors into meltdown and sparking the worst atomic crisis in a generation. |
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Andrew Tarantola
Gizmodo 2012-08-29 14:17:00
Concentric rings of highly charged radiation encircle our planet, and we know surprisingly little about them. But once NASA completes a $686 million mission to launch a twin pair of space probes into the eye of this solar storm, the Van Allen belts should be much less of a mystery. The Van Allen belts were discovered in 1958 by University of Iowa professor James A. Van Allen. The belts are two layers of the same doughnut of charged plasma - the inner belt stretches from the edge of the atmosphere to a radius of 4,000 miles, and the outer belt stretches from 8,000 miles to roughly 24,000. Thy're held in place by our planet's magnetic field. Nearly all of humanity's communications satellites orbit at the outer edge of the 4,000-mile gap that separates the two belts. These belts shrink and swell in accordance to the larger solar weather patterns in our galactic neighborhood. Increased solar activity can bend these bands closer to the Earth and into the orbital range of our communication satellites. Much like solar flares, these bands of intensely-charged particles can wreak havoc with modern electronics, GPS, power grids, and satellites. The belts tend to knock satellites offline, but NASA has developed a specialized pair of satellites to send in there to figure out why. |
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Jason Major
Universe Today 2012-08-29 13:29:00
Locked in a spiraling orbital embrace, the super-dense remains of two dead stars are giving astronomers the evidence needed to confirm one of Einstein's predictions about the Universe. A binary system located about 3,000 light-years away, SDSS J065133.338+284423.37 (J0651 for short) contains two white dwarfs orbiting each other rapidly - once every 12.75 minutes. The system was discovered in April 2011, and since then astronomers have had their eyes - and four separate telescopes in locations around the world - on it to see if gravitational effects first predicted by Einstein could be seen. According to Einstein, space-time is a structure in itself, in which all cosmic objects - planets, stars, galaxies - reside. Every object with mass puts a "dent" in this structure in all dimensions; the more massive an object, the "deeper" the dent. Light energy travels in a straight line, but when it encounters these dents it can dip in and veer off-course, an effect we see from Earth as gravitational lensing. Einstein also predicted that exceptionally massive, rapidly rotating objects - such as a white dwarf binary pair - would create outwardly-expanding ripples in space-time that would ultimately "steal" kinetic energy from the objects themselves. These gravitational waves would be very subtle, yet in theory, observable. |
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Stephen Clark
Spaceflight Now 2012-08-29 05:41:00
NASA is studying the placement of an instrument on a commercial or U.S. government communications satellite to detect and track asteroids near Earth for potential human visits. The space agency has released a request for information seeking ideas for a sensor to discover a hypothesized set of asteroids very near Earth, opening the possibility for exploration by future astronaut crews. Instead of funding a dedicated spacecraft to survey asteroid populations, NASA is considering a piggyback instrument on a satellite in geosynchronous orbit, a perch more than 22,000 miles above the equator tailored for communications missions. The request for information will supply NASA officials with information on what options exist to obtain data on asteroids near Earth, objects which would be easiest to reach on a human expedition. | |
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Comment: This nonsense is put out there to make people
feel like our hapless governments can actually DO anything in the face
of cosmic climate change. They can't. Or even if they could, they have
no intention of doing so. It's all over bar the crying.
The Apocalypse: Comets, Asteroids and Cyclical Catastrophe |
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Cosmos Magazine
2012-08-29 05:29:00
A novel technique for dating the 'exposure age' of rocks is uncovering how the East Antarctic Ice Sheet responded to past climate change. "We found two really unexpected results," said Duanne White, a geoscientist at the University of Canberra, who is part of a group of researchers using the new dating technique. "Previously it had been thought that during the last Ice Age the Ice Sheet expanded all the way out to the continental shelf and was a thousand metres thicker at the margin. But we found quite the opposite - along the whole length of the Lambert Glacier, there was only a relatively small change. "But the kicker for us was this happened very soon after global temperatures and sea level began to rise at the end of the last Ice Age. So while the response wasn't large at that particular time, it happened very quickly." | |
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Jesse Emspak
Discovery News 2012-08-28 07:01:00
One of the staples of science fiction is embedding the human body with sensors, to merge humans and machines. That goal may be a bit closer. A team of chemists and anesthesiologists has found a way to embed nanometer-scale wires into living tissue. When implanted into a body, the "cyborg" tissue could potentially sense and monitor medicine or inflammation and keep doctors aware of whether the transplant is working. The scientists started with a mesh of silicon wires coated in an organic polymer, each 30 to 80 nanometers in diameter. The mesh is three-dimensional, like a sponge, and can be bent into any shape. Next, the scientists seeded the mesh with living cells that were grown in a culture. The result was living cells with a three-dimensional mechanical support able to carry electrical signals. While two-dimensional scaffolds have been made before, those don't replicate what happens in the human body, where cells are in three-dimensional structures. |
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| Earth Changes |
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PhysOrg
Tropical Storm Kirk looks more like a comet than a tropical storm in
infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite because of wind shear. NASA
infrared imagery also revealed powerful thunderstorms around the center
of circulation which are indicators that Kirk will continue
strengthening. Meanwhile, another low pressure area appears to be
organizing in the eastern Atlantic, far to the southeast of Kirk.2012-08-29 15:10:00 Tropical Depression Kirk formed from the eleventh tropical depression of the Atlantic Ocean season. Tropical Depression 11 formed on Aug. 28 at 5 p.m. EDT about 1,270 miles (2,045 km) east-northeast of the Lesser Antilles. On Aug. 29 at 12:29 a.m. EDT the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite captured infrared data on Tropical Storm Kirk's clouds.
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LA Now
Earthquake swarms continued Wednesday in Imperial County as the city of
Brawley declared an emergency to deal with the damage. The swarm that
began Sunday morning showed signs of slowing down Wednesday, with fewer
quakes reported by the U.S. Geological Survey than on recent days. The
magnitude of the quakes is also declining.2012-08-29 14:47:00 There was scattered damage around Brawley, but officials have not yet compiled a full estimate of the costs. The Brawley City Council on Tuesday declared a local emergency, according to the Imperial Valley Press.
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Lewis Page
The Register 2012-08-29 06:27:00
'CO2 is certainly a climate factor, but so is the Sun' A team of boffins in Germany say they have found a statistical link between periods of low solar activity and very cold winters in Europe. Some physicists believe that a long period of low solar activity - like the "Maunder Minimum" of the 17th and 18th centuries - could be on the cards in coming decades, so the new research might indicate an upcoming "mini Ice Age". The new study was published over the weekend in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Lead author Professor-Doktor Frank Sirocko of the Johannes Gutenberg Universität (University) of Mainz in Germany - and his colleagues - compared old records showing which years the Rhine river iced over to the record of sunspot activity. |
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LA Times
2012-08-28 06:24:00
Hundreds of earthquakes have rattled Imperial County since Sunday morning as an earthquake swarm continued. But experts say the swarm does not necessarily indicates a larger temblor is on the way. Certainly, the weekend's quakes were troubling for Imperial County, which is located in one of California's most earthquake prone regions. More than 400 earthquakes have been detected since Saturday evening, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. One local family felt 15 quakes in 21/2 hours. But for all the ground movement, experts said there is no evidence the earthquake swarms were a precursor to much larger quakes on longer, more dangerous faults. And scientists don't see any immediate signs of added pressure to the San Andreas fault, which is not far from the location of the earthquake swarm. |
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Huffington Post
2012-08-28 06:19:00
Wildlife authorities say a strong earthquake in the Pacific Ocean late Sunday destroyed more than 45,000 endangered sea turtle eggs on the coast of El Salvador. The director of the turtle conservation program for the El Salvador Zoological Foundation says the 7.4-magnitude undersea quake sent at least three waves at least 30 feet high up the beach and destroyed thousands of nests and just-hatched turtles. It also washed up on about 150 people collecting eggs in order to protect them in special pens hundreds of feet up the beach. The waves injured three. Program director Emilio Leon said that in the last year and a half the foundation has successfully hatched and released 700,000 turtles from four species at risk of extinction. | |
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Becky Bohrer
Fox News 2012-08-28 06:08:00
Alaska is known for pioneering, self-reliant residents who are accustomed to remote locations and harsh weather. Despite that, Gov. Sean Parnell worries a major earthquake or volcanic eruption could leave the state's 720,000 residents stranded and cut off from food and supply lines. His answer: Build giant warehouses full of emergency food and supplies, just in case. For some in the lower 48, it may seem like an extreme step. But Parnell says this is just Alaska. In many ways, the state is no different than the rest of America. Most people buy their groceries at stores, and rely on a central grid for power and heat. But, unlike the rest of the lower 48, help isn't a few miles away. When a fall storm cut off Nome from its final fuel supply last winter, a Russian tanker spent weeks breaking through thick ice to reach the remote town. Weather isn't the only thing that can wreak havoc in Alaska, where small planes are a preferred mode of transportation and the drive from Seattle to Juneau requires a ferry ride and 38 hours in a car. The state's worst natural disaster was in 1964, when a magnitude-9.2 earthquake and resulting tsunami killed 131 people and disrupted electrical systems, water mains and communication lines in Anchorage and other cities. |
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Rory Carroll and Tom Dart
The Guardian 2012-08-29 06:04:00
New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu warns residents 'we're in the hunker-down phase' as city waits for storm surge and flooding Hurricane Isaac made landfall as a category 1 storm with top wind speeds of 80mph Tuesday in extreme south-eastern Louisiana, where authorities warned that the slow-moving storm could hit inland areas as well as coastlines hard. The National Hurricane Center reported "strong winds and a dangerous storm surge" along the Gulf coast after the storm came ashore at 7:45pm ET. A second landfall was expected overnight. As wind and rain intensified in New Orleans as the hurricane made landfall at the extreme southern part of the Plaquemines Parish region, mayor Mitch Landrieu held a press conference at 8pm ET. "The message of this press conference is to let you know that your city is secure," he said. |
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John Nelson
There is a sweet sweet machine
orbiting the earth soaking up it's emitted photons at various
wavelengths. One of the benefits of this is it's ability to, with
reasonable confidence, pinpoint the location and intensity of a "thermal
anomaly," or fire. So, armed with over a decade of these events, you can make a map of literal hot spots.IDV User Experience 2012-07-13 03:40:00 As it happens, the same satellite that scans for fires also provided the basemap image. I heart NASA.
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Comment: It's probably related to Earth Changes:
Reign of Fire: Meteorites, Wildfires, Planetary Chaos and the Sixth Extinction Fire and Ice, the Day After Tomorrow |
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Press TV
A strong typhoon has hit South Korea, killing at least 15 people and leaving 10 others missing at sea. 2012-08-29 01:58:00
Typhoon Bolaven, which is considered the strongest to hit the Asian country in about a decade, left damage in the country's southwestern and south-central regions. The storm smashed two Chinese vessels off the southern island of Jeju on Tuesday. South Korean coast guard rescuers saved 12 fishermen, and they recovered five bodies from the sea. Search was also underway for 10 missing crewmen. According to South Korea's public administration ministry, the typhoon snapped 235 traffic lights, caused 7,857 trees to collapse and damaged 42 ships or boats, 35 houses and 1,195 greenhouses.The strong pacific storm also damaged 6,418 hectares (15,852 acres) of farmland. |
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Manuel Vigo
Peru This Week 2012-08-28 19:48:00
Peruvian geologists have revealed that recent activity at El Misti signal that the volcano is active. Last Thursday researchers at the Geophysical Institute of Peru (IGP) found that El Misti - located 17km outside the city of Arequipa - had recently recorded the highest amount of seismic activity than in the past five years. Engineer Orlando Macedo told El Comercio that 224 earthquakes were registered at El Misti - an event known as an earthquake swarm - and which signaled that the volcano was no longer dormant. El Misti, he said, experienced 143 volcano tectonic earthquakes, which were caused by the fracture of rock inside the volcano, due to sudden changes in pressure and temperature. Despite the recent increase in activity, the IGP said there were still no conditions for an eruption to occur at El Misti, which last erupted sometime between 1450 and 1470. For an eruption to happen, Macedo said, El Misti would have to experience continued earthquakes, which "would have to occur after long-term movements of magma, and causing these earthquakes known as tremors, with lava." |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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Sarah N. Mattero
New Englanders were treated to a celestial light show Monday night when an apparent meteor blasted past them.Boston Globe 2012-08-29 05:57:00 Multiple reports from people in Massachusetts and Maine, posted on the American Meteor Society website, described a large, bright object traveling slowly across the sky between 9 and 10 p.m., leaving a trail behind it before abruptly vanishing. The observers described the meteor as a brightly colored object. Such meteors - also known as fireballs - can vary in color, depending on the different elements, like sodium and magnesium, vaporizing within them, said Mike Hankey, operations manager of the meteor society, in an e-mail. "Based on the witness reports, it looks like the fireball was headed mostly west to east and probably ended somewhere over the ocean," Hankey said. A report submitted by a Peabody resident said the fireball seemed to move very slowly, with a "white/red" tint at first that changed to a "heavy greenish color." |
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Alice McKeegan
Manchester Evening News 2012-08-28 05:51:00
A mystery 'fireball' spotted in the skies above Manchester on Monday night was a meteor, experts have said. The bright object was seen to shoot across the atmosphere before disappearing just seconds later behind the clouds. Hundreds of people witnessed the phenomenon at around 11.10pm on Monday night. Experts have now confirmed it was a golf ball sized meteor, which exploded above South Wales and caused a sonic boom, shaking windows and setting off car alarms. The rare sight caused alarm on Twitter with Manchester residents tweeting their amazement at the incident. Damien Sawyer wrote that it appeared to be a 'huge bright light streaking past the moon' and asked GMP if any other sightings had been reported. The 26-year-old, who works as a resource analyst for the Co-operative Bank, spotted it from the bedroom window of his home in Gee Cross, Hyde. | |
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Comment: Yes, the one in March this year was even more spectacular:
Meteor Lights up the Sky Across England They keep trying to play this phenomenon down but it keeps getting more and more noticeable. |
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| Health & Wellness |
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Sayer Ji
GreenMedInfo 2012-08-29 11:00:00
The Bill & Melinda Gates foundation launched the Grand Challenges in Global Health (GCGH) in partnership with the National Institutes of Health in 2003 which, according to the GCGH website, is aimed at "creating new tools that can radically improve health in the developing world." So far, 45 grants totaling $458 million were awarded for research projects involving scientists in over 30 countries.1 But where has all the money actually gone? Towards developing water purification systems? Or nutritional support aimed at immune optimization? How about providing shelter and medical facilities for the homeless? Not even close. For example, a $100K grant was recently disbursed to Seth C. Kalichman, professor at the Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut, for "Establishing an Anti-Vaccine Surveillance and Alert System," which intends to "establish an internet-based global monitoring and rapid alert system for finding, analyzing, and counteracting misinformation communication campaigns regarding vaccines to support global immunization efforts." [emphasis added] We can only wonder what organizations might be labeled as "misinformation communication campaigns" considering the fact that Bill Gates, in a Feb. 4th, 2011 interview on CNN with Sanjay Gupta said that "anti-vaccine groups "kill children."" It is quite possible that any dissenting voice not in support of universal vaccination campaigns may be included in this type of "surveillance and alert system" as a potentially endangering the lives of others, i.e. "killing children." |
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Peter Attia
marksdailyapple.com 2012-08-29 12:37:00
This is a guest post by Peter Attia and is a summary based on a 10-part series of the same name that you can find at The Eating Academy. To put this summary post and, more importantly, this 10-part series in perspective, let's examine one of the most pervasive pieces of dietary advice given to people worldwide: No summary of this length can begin to fully address a topic as comprehensive as cholesterol metabolism and the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. In fact, those of us who challenge conventional wisdom often find ourselves needing to do exactly what Frederic Bastiat suggested: So, at the risk of trying to minimize the "long and arid" part of this process, below are the 10 things you need to know to be the judge - for yourself - if the conventional advice about cholesterol is correct. |
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Alliance for Natural Health
2012-08-21 11:54:00
Which organic brands really believe in organic - and which are working behind the scenes to betray natural health consumers? It's time for a boycott. Many natural and organic brands are actually owned by huge conglomerates that don't support sustainable, organic, non-GMO, non-toxic agriculture. In fact, their product labels are often designed to mislead consumers just so they can grab a share of the lucrative health-conscious consumer market. Even worse, many of the conglomerate companies that produce so-called natural foods - and even some labeled "organic" - are allied with the biotech industry fighting by any means to defeat "Label GMO," a.k.a. Prop 37, the California Right to Know 2012 Ballot Initiative. Why are they doing such a thing? Because they sell more food that has GMO ingredients than organic food, and don't want consumers to have a choice about the GMO. They especially don't want consumers to know what is actually in their so-called "natural" products. |
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Anthony Gucciardi
Natural Society 2012-08-23 11:18:00
As California remains the proverbial battlefield for GMO labeling, an increased interest is growing over ways to actually start avoiding GMOs in your daily life. By far the best tip, which may not be applicable at all times, is to stick to high quality organic sources. Preferably 100% organic or locally grown by organic-based farmers. This certainly is not always an option, so I've compiled a quick 'cheat sheet' of the top genetically modified crops and substances that you can remember when avoiding GMOs in your daily life. |
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Nicholas D. Kristof
New York Times 2012-08-25 11:01:00
New research is demonstrating that some common chemicals all around us may be even more harmful than previously thought. It seems that they may damage us in ways that are transmitted generation after generation, imperiling not only us but also our descendants. Yet following the script of Big Tobacco a generation ago, Big Chem has, so far, blocked any serious regulation of these endocrine disruptors, so called because they play havoc with hormones in the body's endocrine system. One of the most common and alarming is bisphenol-A, better known as BPA. The failure to regulate it means that it is unavoidable. BPA is found in everything from plastics to canned food to A.T.M. receipts. More than 90 percent of Americans have it in their urine. |
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Lana Lokteff
Red Ice Creations 2012-06-13 00:00:00
Most people freak out without their morning wheat toast. However, more and more people are beginning to turn to the wheat-free diet, experiencing liberation from chronic health ailments, weight and blood sugar spikes. In the book, Wheat Belly, preventative cardiologist William Davis explains how eliminating wheat from our diets is the key to achieving permanent weight loss and relief from a range of health issues. After witnessing over 2,000 patients regain their health after giving up wheat, Davis reached the disturbing conclusion that wheat is the single largest contributor to the nationwide obesity epidemic - and its elimination is key to dramatic weight loss and optimal health. | |
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Comment: For more information read:
The Addictive Opioids in Wheat and Dairy Foods Gluten: What You Don't Know Might Kill You The Myth That Vegetables Are Good For You |
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Sheila Eldred
Discovery News 2012-08-28 18:09:00
Instead of the healthy cries of newborns, hospitals are now hearing an increase in shrieking just after birth -- just one sign in a rising epidemic of infants born addicted to prescription drugs. Nationally, the rate of newborns suffering withdrawal, or "neonatal abstinence syndrome," rose 330 percent from 2000 to 2009, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association last spring. In some states, it's much worse: In Kentucky, the rate rose 2,400 percent. In Florida, it rose 500 percent between 2004 and 2011, the Sun Sentinel reports. And those figures are likely on the low side, since they don't include infants without immediate symptoms who go home with parents who don't report their drug use. "It's a silent epidemic that's going on out there," Audrey Tayse Haynes, secretary of the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, told USA Today in its story on the issue. "You need to say: 'Stop the madness. This is too much.'" It's no surprise that the numbers are high in Kentucky and other states with rampant prescription drug abuse. Still, when Van Ingram, executive director of Kentucky's Office of Drug Control Policy, requested statistics on infant hospitalizations, he was shocked. "I was blown away," he told USA Today. "We need to slow the tide." |
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Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN
Several years ago Knox Gelatin introduced a new product named Nutrajoint
with great fanfare. This supplement contains gelatin, vitamin C and
calcium, and advertisements touted "recent scientific studies" proving
that gelatin can contribute to the building of strong cartilage and
bones.Weston A. Price Foundation 2003-06-18 11:14:00 In fact, the evidence goes back more than a century, and not only established gelatin's value to cartilage and bones but also to the skin, digestive tract, immune system, heart and muscles.
These early studies, however, have fallen off the radar screen of Knox as well as that of nearly everyone else. So it was not surprising in 1997 when the editors of the Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter advised consumers not to buy Nutrajoint or similar supplements because the idea that gelatin can contribute to the building of strong cartilage and bones "is a theory that has yet to be investigated." As for the theory itself, they sniffed that it "sounds tidy--rather along the lines of 'you are what you eat.'" In conclusion, they stated that even if Nutrajoint worked as claimed, it would be totally unnecessary because "the body can manufacture its own proline and glycine as needed and therefore suffers no shortfall."1 The notion that the body can create proline and glycine is, of course, the reason that neither amino is considered "essential." The ability to manufacture them easily and abundantly as needed, however, is probably true only of people enjoying radiant good health.Common sense suggests that the millions of Americans suffering from stiff joints, skin diseases and other collagen, connective tissue and cartilage disorders might be suffering serious shortfalls of proline, glycine and other needed nutrients. |
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| Science of the Spirit |
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Sherry Noik
IFpress.com 2012-08-28 18:04:00
A new Canadian study suggests that psychopaths are not mentally ill and should be held entirely responsible for their violent and manipulative actions. Researchers from universities in Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan studied 289 murderers, rapists and other violent offenders, and concluded "psychopaths are executing a well-functioning, if unscrupulous strategy." Psychopaths, with their trademark ruthless, risk-taking and often violent behaviour, "may have evolved to exploit others." The theory rests in part on the victims of psychopaths. Mental disorders "disrupt" the mechanism that stops people from hurting their families. But the violent offenders researchers spoke to, who were diagnosed as psychopaths, tended not to hurt family members. "On average, psychopathy is associated with less harm to genetic relatives - that's exactly what you'd expect of healthy people," lead author Daniel Krupp, of Queen's University, told QMI Agency. They are preserving their genetic material, he said. |
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| High Strangeness |
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TubeHDR
U.F.O. photo & video footage, all captured in the same place in central Italy July & August 2012YouTube 2012-08-24 09:15:00 Also, a larger version of this video, can be seen on Lisa Boccanera's official Facebook page (Just make sure to click "on" the "HQ" button to view it in better quality if you see it on there) http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=351559291590415
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Scott Corrales
Inexplicata 2012-08-29 08:54:00
In 1920, when Karel Capek wrote the three-act play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) he probably didn't realize he would be changing humanity's conception of what it is to be alive for generations to come, much less had the word "robot" to the world's collective glossary. Derived from the Slavic term "robota", meaning the work done by an indentured servant, robots have gone on to become a staple of science-fiction. We take their functions and existence for granted, with our own efforts at robotics ranging from industrial mechanical arms to the new wave of lovely Japanese automata. According to our age group, we look back fondly at either Robbie the Robot or Artoo-Detoo and See-Threepio. Perhaps some even remember seeing the graceful "María" making her appearance for the first time in Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Only a year after "R.U.R." appeared on the stage, French director André Deed created one of the first science-fiction movies involving robots: L'uomo Meccanico (The Mechanical Man), depicting a giant humanoid robot created for criminal purposes, but who is checked by another equally sizeable machine, settling their differences inside an Italian opera house. These original "rock'em-sock'em robots" showed audiences that the mechanical men, while emotionless, could serve the cause of good as well as evil. Rampaging Robots In an article for SAGA UFO Report (UFO Annual, 1975), Otto Binder wrote: "[Robots represent] a rather rare category of UFOnauts, but one that cannot be ignored. Witnesses often describe these creatures as having stiff movements and also having angular lines quite unlike living human beings. These strange entities range from the uncanny to the eerie." He goes on to add: "We can logically assume that some worlds do not send their living explorers to Earth, but use robots somewhat like the Russian mobile vehicle on the Moon. But apparently the aliens have perfected observation vehicles in the form of living creatures." Binder refers to the automated Lunakhod probe, but a more updated example would be our own Curiosity rover on Mars, about to engage on a study of the red planet in 2012. |
