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| Puppet Masters |
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Richard Manning
Richard Manning, author of Against the Grain (2004), discusses the 'Green Revolution' and the end of cheap oil. It's only about 5 minutes, and well worth the time.Evolvify 2012-09-05 14:58:00
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Stephen Lendman
Peoples Voice 2012-09-07 02:54:00
Romney is America's first non-Christian presidential nominee. He's a Mormon (aka Latter Day Saints Church member - LDS). Does it matter? More on that below. Before he entered politics, he spent years as a Massachusetts Mormon leader. He began in the mid-1970s. From 1986 - 1994, he was president of the Boston Stake. It's similar to a Catholic diocese. Before that he was a Belmont and Cambridge bishop. His duties involved organizational work and counseling. Later he taught Sunday school and oversaw church programs for teenagers. He overstepped by lecturing women on their sex lives and roles as homemakers. A 1994 Boston Phoenix cited an anonymous woman. As bishop, Romney discouraged her from having an abortion vital for health reasons. The same article mentioned an area professor. She urged him to address domestic abuse. He refused and wouldn't do it. He's an elitist. He surrounds himself in church, business, and political life with powerful white men. He's insensitive about ordinary popular needs. He doesn't convince people he cares. He calls homosexuality "perverse and reprehensible." His dark side is largely hidden. He believes in traditional gender roles. Male dominance is fundamental. Women should be child bearers and homemakers. |
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John W. Schoen
NBC News 2012-09-07 11:45:00
No matter who ends up occupying the White House in January, many of the forces that have kept unemployment high and jobs growth slow will be beyond his control. With job growth stuck a slower pace than in any recovery in the last half century, the presidential campaign now turns on which candidate -- President Barack Obama or Gov. Mitt Romney -- has the better plan to boost employment. The latest jobs data will do little to change the debate. The economy added just 96,000 new jobs in August, well below the roughly 130,000 economists had been expecting. Gains in the prior two months were revised down by a combined 41,000. Manufacturers cut 15,000 jobs last month, while another 7,000 government jobs were lost. Temporary employment fell by almost 5,000 workers. Other recent employment measures have painted a somewhat better picture. Fewer people applied for unemployment benefits last week, and a private survey by payroll processor ADP found that companies created some 200,000 new jobs in August. Another private report showed that service sector companies, such as hotels, retailers, and financial services firms, expanded at a faster rate last month. | ||
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Comment: 4 years into the Great Recession and
everyone's still playing the optimist card. Europe (Euro) is collapsing
with Spain, Italy and Greece growing more enslaved to the IMF and World
Bank. It's not a sputtering economy, it's simply that money isn't moving
from the hands with it to the hands without it. Bank loans are stifled
as each (propped up, fake) economic bubble continues to pop.
Here's something you might consider in preparation for what's to come: Social Harmony in Times of Global Dischord You can of course keep on dreamin', as if the following were not reality.
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Anatole Kaletsky
The North Atlantic hurricane season runs from mid-August to October,
with a strong peak in storm activity around the middle of September. A
less familiar but even more destructive pattern of disturbances is the
financial hurricane season, which coincides with the meteorological one
almost to the day. Most of the great financial crises of modern history
have occurred in the two months from mid-August: the Wall Street crashes
of Oct. 22, 1907, Oct. 24, 1929, and Oct. 19, 1987; Britain's
abandonment of the gold standard on Sept. 19, 1931; the postwar sterling
devaluation on Sept. 19, 1949; the collapse of the Bretton Woods global
monetary system on Aug. 15, 1971; the Mexican default that triggered
the Third World debt crisis on Aug. 20, 1982; the breakup of the
European exchange-rate mechanism on Sept. 16, 1992; the Russian default
on Aug. 17, 1998, the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on Sept. 15. 2008 -
and this list could go on.Insurance Journal 2012-09-07 09:38:00 The coincidence between financial and meteorological hurricanes may not be entirely fortuitous. The global economy, like the world's atmosphere, is a finely balanced complex system. In such systems, small perturbations can accumulate to trigger big effects. And just as the meteorological tipping points tend to occur when autumn air circulation starts to disrupt the humid air accumulated in the summer doldrums, something similar seems to happen to financial markets when trading becalmed by the summer holidays returns to normal. The result can be sudden and violent reaction to events accumulated over the summer that markets had seemed to ignore. |
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John Aziz
Azizonomics 2012-09-07 04:44:00
The first rule of Fight Club? You don't talk about Fight Club. Obama isn't a member of Fight Club; he's a member of Drone Club - which targets individuals in foreign lands, including American citizens and their families, for extrajudicial assassination by drone. And the first rule of Drone Club? You don't talk about it. |
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The Economic Collapse Blog
2012-09-07 03:05:00
The fastest way to go broke in America is to go to the hospital. These days it seems like almost everyone has an outrageous hospital bill story to share. It is getting to the point where most people are deathly afraid to go to the hospital. All the financial progress that you have made in recent years can literally be wiped out in just a matter of hours. For example, you are about to read about an Arizona woman that was recently charged $83,046 for a 3 hour hospital visit. How in the world is anyone supposed to pay a bill like that? I have a really hard time understanding why a visit to the doctor should ever be more than a couple hundred bucks or why a hospital stay should ever be more than a couple thousand dollars. Outrageous hospital bills are a real pet peeve of mine and I have not even been to the hospital in ages. What makes all of this even more infuriating is that Medicare, Medicaid and the big insurance companies are often charged less than 10 percent of what the rest of us are billed for the same procedures. There is a reason why 41 percent of all working age Americans are struggling with medical debt right now. It is because our health care system has become a giant money making scam. Millions of desperate Americans go into hospitals each year assuming that they will be treated fairly, but in the end they get stuck with incredibly outrageous bills and in many cases cruel debt collection techniques are employed against them if they don't pay. So why do we have to pay so much for medical care? Back in 1980, less than 10 percent of U.S. GDP went to health care. Today, about 18 percent of U.S. GDP goes toward health care. |
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| Society's Child |
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Michael Snyder
Activist Post 2012-09-07 16:30:00
A devastating global food crisis unlike anything we have ever seen in modern times is coming. Crippling drought and bizarre weather patterns have damaged food production all over the world this summer, and the UN and the World Bank have both issued ominous warnings about the food inflation that is coming. To those of us in the Western world, a rise in the price of food can be a major inconvenience, but in the developing world it can mean the difference between life and death. Just remember what happened back in 2008. When food prices hit record highs it led to food riots in 28 different countries. Today, there are approximately 2 billion people that are malnourished around the globe. Even rumors of food shortages are enough to spark mass chaos in many areas of the planet. When people fear that they are not going to be able to feed their families they tend to get very desperate. That is why a recent CNN article declared that "2013 will be a year of serious global crisis". The truth is that we are not just facing rumors of a global food crisis - one is actually starting to unfold right in front of our eyes. The United States experienced the worst drought in more than 50 years this summer, and some experts are already declaring that the weather has been so dry for so long that tremendous damage has already been done to next year's crops. On the other side of the world, Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan have all seen their wheat crops devastated by the horrible drought this summer. Australia has also been dealing with drought, and in India monsoon rains were about 15 percent behind pace in mid-August. Global food production is going to be much less than expected this year, and global food demand continues to steadily rise. What that means is that food inflation, food shortages and food riots are coming, and it isn't going to be pretty. The United States exports more food than anyone else in the world, and that is why the entire globe has been nervously watching the horrific drought in the United States this summer with deep concern. It has been the worst drought in more than 50 years, and it has absolutely devastated corn crops all over the nation. According to Bill Witherell, the U.S. corn crop this year "is said to be on a par with that of 1988 crop, the worst in the past thirty years." | |
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Comment: We have been warned. Even if all other
potential global catastrophes do not come to pass in our lifes, this one
will be here sooner rather than later. It will not hurt anyone to be
prepared.
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Ian Millhiser
Source 2012-09-07 09:00:00
Last summer, a drunk Arizona police officer named Robb Gary Evans drove himself to a bar, flashed his badge to avoid paying cover at the door, and then walked up behind a woman, put his hand up her skirt, and ran his fingers over her genitals. A jury convicted him of sexual abuse, a felony with a maximum sentence of 2 and a half years in prison, and Evans was fired from the police force after an internal investigation. Nevertheless, Arizona trial Judge Jacqueline Hatch, who was appointed to the bench by Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ), decided that Evans' actions did not warrant jail time - sentencing him probation and 100 hours of community service. Evans also will not have to register as a sex offender. Yet, while Judge Hatch apparently did not view the disgraced former cop's actions as particularly serious, she had some very harsh words for the woman he assaulted: |
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Erik Badia, Rocco Parascandola
And
New York Daily News 2012-09-07 05:43:00
The NYPD was responding to the armed robbery when a cop and the fleeing shop worker fatally collided, police said. The loot: $700 in cash, scratch-off lottery tickets and Newport cigarettes. 'He didn't have his hands up and they shot him,' the victim's cousin said. 'They didn't say nothing. They just shot him. He was just trying to run away because he was scared.' An unarmed bodega worker fleeing a botched armed robbery at his uncle's Bronx store was "accidentally" shot and killed by a cop answering a 911 call early Friday, police said. Reynaldo Cuevas, 20, was mortally wounded when the officer's gun went off after the bodega worker plowed into the cop as he rushed out of the robbery scene at full speed, said NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly. Cuevas, 20, was shot once shortly after three masked gunmen burst into the Nathalie Deli & Grocery in Morrisania as the bodega was shutting down at 1:50 a.m., according to witnesses and the victim's relatives. A security video captured Cuevas crashing full-tilt into the officer, who was outside the deli with his weapon in his hand. "Mr. Cuevas ... ran full-speed into the officer," Kelly said. "The two became entangled, at which point, we believe, the officer accidentally discharged his weapon." |
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Larry Neumeister
ABC News 2012-09-07 14:58:00
The artist who created the HOPE poster that came to symbolize Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign was ordered to do 300 hours of community service Friday for a criminal contempt conviction but was spared jail time. Shepard Fairey, 42, of Los Angeles nodded his head several times and said "OK" as U.S. Magistrate Judge Frank Maas told him he must commit no crimes during two years of probation and must pay a $25,000 fine to the U.S. government. During remarks before the sentence was announced, Fairey called his decision to fabricate evidence in a civil lawsuit he brought against The Associated Press in 2009 the "worst thing I've done in my life." He also apologized. "I am deeply ashamed and remorseful that I didn't live up to my own standards of honesty and integrity," he said. After the sentencing, Fairey hugged his lawyers, was kissed by his wife, and shook hands with more than a dozen friends who packed into the small Manhattan courtroom. Maas said the sentence needed to send a message to others who might destroy or fabricate evidence in a civil case that the consequences of covering up what they did is far worse than telling the truth. But he said Fairey's considerable charity work over a long period of time mitigated the need for prison on a misdemeanor charge that carried a maximum potential sentence of six months. |
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Richard Esposito and Pierre Thomas
ABC News 2012-09-06 00:00:00
"It was like Seal Team Six. The SWAT Team from Philly, they were pretty awesome," said Kurt Weber, a passenger on the Dallas-bound US Air flight that returned to Philadelphia today because of a bomb hoax. Weber, who was sitting in seat 4-D, got a front row seat in the quick, surgical end to the bomb scare. "We got on to the plane, it was a flight like every other flight I have taken, completely uneventful. And frankly, I took a nap. Before we taxied off the runway, I was asleep," Weber told ABC News. "At some point, the pilot came over the intercom and told us he was having trouble with instruments and needed to return to Philly to evaluate the instruments," Weber said. "At that point I was awake and I stayed awake," Weber said, "And as we landed there were a whole lot of emergency vehicles and police vehicles racing out and the girl next to me, said, 'I'm sure glad we are not going where those guys are going.' And then we wind up taxiing over to them." |
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UPI
Santa Barbara, Colombia -- A woman from northwestern Colombia was beaten
to death and set on fire after she was accused of being a witch,
officials said.2012-09-03 10:04:00 The woman was found dead in her home in a rural area about 10 miles from Medellin, police said. Investigators said her killers beat her to death, then poured gasoline on her body and set it afire, Colombia Reports said Sunday. The mayor of a community in the area condemned the killing and spoke out against an "abhorrent intolerance that resembles the days of the inquisition." Residents said the woman was accused of casting a spell on a local boy, but police said a search of her home Friday found no indication she practiced witchcraft, Colombia Reports said. The mayor said another woman was killed in the village six years ago after she was accused of being a witch. |
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NBC News
2012-09-07 08:05:00
Job creation slipped further into the doldrums last month, heightening worries about the state of the recovery and adding to the hurdle President Barack Obama needs to leap to win re-election in November. The Labor Department reported Friday that the economy created a tepid 96,000 jobs in August, well below the 125,000 expected by economists and a far stretch from the plus-250,0000 needed to show robust growth. The unemployment rate slid to 8.1 percent from 8.3 percent as more Americans gave up looking for work. The data was further evidence of a Goldilocks economy -- not too hot, not too cold, but not just right either -- that could prompt the Federal Reserve to take new steps to boost growth. "This weak employment report, in jobs, wages, hours worked and participation is probably the last piece the Fed needs before launching another round of quantitative easing [QE] next week. QE will boost equities, damage the dollar and do little for the economy, but what else can an activist Fed do? " said Joseph Trevisani, chief market strategist at Wordwide Markets. |
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Oliver Staley
Business Week 2012-09-07 09:03:00
As a pharmaceutical salesman in Greece for 17 years, Tilemachos Karachalios wore a suit, drove a company car and had an expense account. He now mops schools in Sweden, forced from his home by Greece's economic crisis. "It was a very good job," said Karachalios, 40, of his former life. "Now I clean Swedish s---." Karachalios, who left behind his 6-year-old daughter to be raised by his parents, is one of thousands fleeing Greece's record 24 percent unemployment and austerity measures that threaten to undermine growth. The number of Greeks seeking permission to settle in Sweden, where there are more jobs and a stable economy, almost doubled to 1,093 last year from 2010, and is on pace to increase again this year. "I'm trying to survive," Karachalios said in an interview in Stockholm. "It's difficult here, very difficult. I would prefer to stay in Greece. But we don't have jobs." Greece is in its fifth year of recession, with the economy expected to contract 6.9 percent this year, the same as in 2011, according to the Athens-based Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research. Since 2008, the number of jobless has more than tripled to a record 1.22 million as of June, out of a total population of 10.8 million. |
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NECN.com
2012-09-06 01:30:00
The city of Springfield has reached a $575,000 settlement with a man who was severely beaten by a police officer during a traffic stop. City attorney John Liebel made the settlement public yesterday following a two-day mediation in U.S. District Court. Melvin Jones III sued the city and police for civil rights violations, negligence and assault in connection with the beating in November 2009 by Officer Jeffrey Asher. Asher was subsequently fired and sent to jail for 18 months on an assault and battery conviction. Jones was beaten unconscious with a flashlight, blinded in one eye and had broken bones and teeth. The beating was caught on video. Asher has said he thought Jones was reaching for another officer's gun. Source: The Associated Press |
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Fox News
2012-09-06 00:00:00
Montreal - The suspect in a deadly shooting at a rally following the election of Quebec's new separatist premier was arraigned Thursday on 16 charges, including murder, attempted murder and possession of explosives. Richard Henry Bain, 61, of La Conception, Quebec, made his first appearance in court behind protective glass after being accused of opening fire outside the midnight victory rally Tuesday for Pauline Marois of the Parti Quebecois. Prosecutors said that after the shooting, Bain used a flare to light a small fire. The heavyset Bain, wearing a white T-shirt, appeared calm and alert during his appearance in the highly secured courtroom. He spoke briefly with his court-appointed lawyer but did not address the court, and there was no plea. Bain is scheduled to return to court Oct. 11. The shooting killed Denis Blanchette, 48, and wounded a 27-year-old just outside a Montreal theater. The suspect's gun jammed after the initial shots were fired, a Quebec police official said Thursday, possibly saving lives. Prosecutor Elaine Perreault said outside the courtroom that Bain had two weapons on him and three more in his car nearby. She said the weapon used in the shooting was a legally registered long gun. |
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| Secret History |
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Cheng Yingqi
The Archaeology News Network 2012-09-07 15:02:00
Fake fossils are duping scientists and museums, a senior paleontologist has warned, after a scholar was forced to retract a controversial essay that stated the cheetah originated in China. According to Li Chun, associate researcher at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, counterfeits are now widespread and have become a serious risk to genuine study projects. "I believe many scholars are victims of fake fossils," he said, before estimating that more than 80 percent of marine reptile specimens on display in Chinese museums "have been altered or artificially combined to varying degrees". "Without professional training in paleontology, it's impossible for researchers to recognize fakes from the real thing." Li's alert follows the debunking last month of an essay co-authored by Huang Ji, a Chinese scientist, and Danish researcher Per Christiansen in 2008 about an alleged new species of cheetah. The key piece of evidence was a fossilized skull unearthed in Gansu province that dated back 2.5 million years. "Primitive Late Pliocene Cheetah, and Evolution of the Cheetah Lineage," which appeared in 2009 in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, an international journal, stated the "new species" was the oldest cheetah ever found, which overturned people's belief that the animal originated in North America. On Aug 21, the journal published a retraction. |
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| Science & Technology |
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Kate Taylor
TG Daily 2012-09-07 15:37:00
The mass extinction that took out the dinosaurs was already well underway by the time a six-mile asteroid slammed into Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula 65 million years ago, it appears. New University of Washington research indicates that life on the sea floor was already dying, thanks to volcanic eruptions on India's Deccan Plateau that warmed the planet and killed life on the ocean floor. "The eruptions started 300,000 to 200,000 years before the impact, and they may have lasted 100,000 years," says doctoral student Thomas Tobin. The eruptions would have filled the atmosphere with fine particles, or aerosols, that initially cooled the planet. As time passed, though, they would have spewed out carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. | |
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Comment: Indeed, mass eruptions of volcanoes go hand in
hand with mass influx of cometary debris. This idea that one single
asteroid killed off the dinosaurs is as improbable as it is
unscientific. The fact of the matter is that comet swarms periodically
load Earth's atmosphere with millions of tonnes of debris, most of which
is 'meteor smoke'. This has far greater and more frequent effects than
occasional impacts like the one in the Yucatán Peninsula.
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Lawrence LeBlond
RedOrbit 2012-09-07 15:09:00
Finding alien life beyond our solar system would be the most profound discovery in all of humanity, and a royal astronomer for the Queen of England believes it could happen within the next 40 years. Former Royal Society president, Lord Martin Rees, speaking at the launch of Professor Stephen Hawking's new series Grand Design, said evidence of whether alien life exists elsewhere in the universe could be answered in that timeframe. He said he believes that astro-physicists could be able to view images of distant planets outside the solar system as early as 2025, potentially leading to the discovery of some form of life, the Telegraph reported. "We know now that stars are orbited by retinues of planets just as our sun is. We have learned this in just the last decade, essentially," Rees said. "Within 10 or 20 years we will be able to image other planets like the earth, orbiting other stars. That will be a really exciting subject to see if there is evidence for [extra-terrestrial] life or not." Hawking's series, which will air on Discovery Channel beginning next Thursday, will be based on his best-selling book by the same name. It will study everything from Isaac Newton's theories on gravity to the recent Higgs boson findings, and everything in between. He will also air his take on the relationship between God and science, and what the meaning of life is for humans, reports Mail Online's Liz Thomas. |
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Marshall Honorof
The escapist 2012-09-04 00:00:00
We should all be pretty well aware at this point that the robot apocalypse (or "robopocalypse," if you will) is on its way. Our most gifted storytellers have been warning us about it for years, from the legend of the golem to James Cameron's Skynet. In their latest volley against an unsuspecting human race, our metallic overlords-to-be have conscripted MIT researcher Kate Darling to draft a new research paper that suggests humans grant rights to robots. According to Darling, robots don't need rights on par with humans (yet), but due to the emotional connections humans can create with them, we may find it beneficial to ascribe them similar rights to our pets. All right, calling Darling a pawn of the robots may be going too far, considering that her 18-page paper lays out a digestible, cogent argument for robot rights sooner rather than later. "The typical debate surrounding 'rights for robots' assumes a futuristic world of fully autonomous and highly sophisticated androids that are nearly indistinguishable from humans," she writes. "While technological development may someday lead to such a Blade Runner-esque scenario, the future relevant legal issues are currently shrouded by unforeseeable factors." Darling describes the robots of today, from Sony's robotic dogs, to Paro the seal (who has seen proven success in geriatric therapeutics), and even Roomba vacuum cleaners, explaining that each one can generate a companionate, emotional reaction in humans, especially in small children. This interaction, she argues, is not the same as an interaction with nonresponsive toys. "While a child is aware of the projection onto an inanimate toy and can engage or not engage in it at will, a robot that demands attention by playing off of our natural responses may cause a subconscious engagement that is less voluntary." |
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Amanda Doyle
Astrobiology 2012-09-06 00:00:00
Triton was discovered in 1846 by the British astronomer William Lassell, but much about Neptune's largest moon still remains a mystery. A Voyager 2 flyby in 1989 offered a quick peak at the satellite, and revealed a surface composition comprised mainly of water ice. The moon's surface also had nitrogen, methane, and carbon dioxide. As Triton's density is quite high, it is suspected that it has a large core of silicate rock. It is possible that a liquid ocean could have formed between the rocky core and icy surface shell, and scientists have investigated if this ocean could have survived until now. |
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| Earth Changes |
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Agence France-Presse
2012-09-06 07:47:00
Tokyo - Pressure in the magma chamber of Japan's Mount Fuji is now higher than it was the last time the volcano erupted more than 300 years ago, scientists say, according to a report Thursday. Tectonic shifts triggered by last year's huge 9.0 magnitude undersea quake have left the chamber under 16 times the minimum pressure at which an eruption can occur, researchers said. Researchers at the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention studied the tectonic movements caused by the tsunami-triggering quake on March 11, 2011 and a magnitude 6.4 quake that rocked central Japan four days later, Kyodo News reported. They estimated that 1.6 megapascals of pressure, equivalent to atmospheric pressure of some 15.8 kilograms per square centimetre (226 pounds per square inch), was being exerted on the magma chamber. Volcanic eruptions can be triggered by as little as 0.1 megapascals of pressure, and the reading of 1.6 megapascals is "not a small figure", said senior researcher Eisuke Fujita, according to Kyodo. |
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Scott Wise
CNN 2012-09-02 14:51:00
Yunnan Province, China - A huge half-meter-long earthworm was found in the gutter of a residential house Thursday in Binchuan Country, Yunnan Province in southwest China. Li Zhiwei, a worker from the Forestry Bureau of Binchuan County, saw the slinking worm by the gutter when he was putting out some Chinese dates to dry in the backyard. "It looked like a snake, I looked carefully and found it was actually a huge earthworm," said Li, who added that he decided to keep the worm and raise it in his backyard. The elongated earthworm has attracted neighbors, who have never seen one this long before. Depending on the species, an adult earthworm can be anywhere from 10 mm long and 1 mm wide to 3 m long and over 25 mm wide. |
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LA Times
The second Beverly Hills earthquake in a week caused no reported damage,
but it did prompt worried calls to the front desk from guests at the
deluxe Montage Beverly Hills hotel. "Do we need to evacuate?" they
asked. "We do get guest calls as soon as they happen," said Andrew
Tredici, overnight supervisor. Tredici said hotel staff could easily
distinguish locals or others accustomed to tremors from East Coast and
foreign guests for whom the earth movements were a more startling
experience.2012-09-07 14:27:00 Two earthquakes centered near Beverly Hills have struck this week. A magnitude 3.5 earthquake was reported at 12:03 a.m. Friday. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the epicenter was one mile from Century City, two miles from West Hollywood, nine miles from Inglewood and nine miles from the Los Angeles Civic Center. A magnitude 3.2 temblor hit Beverly Hills on Monday. That quake set off some security alarms but caused no damage. Tredici said the smaller earthquakes are manageable. On Monday, he said, "A couple of things fell down in the gift shop." Even though Friday morning's quake was stronger, the hotel found no evidence of damage or spills. Still, said Tredici, who recently relocated to the Los Angeles area from Arizona: "We don't want a 5.5 or, God forbid, an 8." USGS data |
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NBC Today
In Phoenix, Ariz., a massive dust cloud more than 2,500 feet high and
stretching some 30 miles blew through the area. The phenomenon, known as
a haboob, is becoming a familiar sight in the skies around Arizona. TODAY's Tamron Hall reports.2012-09-07 10:11:00
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NBC News
Two earthquakes struck in Huron, Calif., Friday, registering magnitudes of 4.2 and 4.0, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.2012-09-07 10:40:00 The first earthquake hit at 6:22 a.m. PT. One minute later, the 4.2 earthquake was reported. According to the USGS, the epicenter was eight miles from Avenal, Calif., nine miles from Kettleman City, Calif., 17 miles from Coalinga, Calif., and 132 miles from San Jose. Huron, Calif., is about 50 miles south of Fresno. About six hours earlier, a magnitude 3.5 earthquake struck Beverly Hills. Thousands of people reported feeling it, the Associated Press reported. A spokesman from the USGS told NBC News the earthquakes caused no reported damage. Seismologists say the quakes are not on the San Andreas Fault and weren't triggered by a magnitude-7.6 earthquake in Costa Rica, according to the Associated Press. |
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Scotsman
2012-09-07 11:08:00
Residents of the Chinese city of Chongqing were surprised to find that the famous Yangtze river had turned a shade of red yesterday. The colouration of the waters of Asia's longest river was reported at several points. The cause for the river turning red is still under investigation by officials, but that did not stop many locals carrying out their normal water-based activities. |
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ABC News
2012-09-05 00:00:00
A Duke University law student driving by a fast food restaurant near campus was slowed to a halt Tuesday when his car fell into a sinkhole. Rajiv Thairani, 27, from San Francisco, was driving his girlfriend's 2001 Honda Prelude in an empty lot next to a Bojangles restaurant in Durham, N.C., around 2 p.m. when he struck the sinkhole. "I was going to use the lot to turn around so I just turned into it and my car is relatively low to the ground and the hole wasn't visible from the street," Thairani told ABCNews.com. "My initial reaction was that the ground underneath me had given way, like it had collapsed." Thairani fell into an eight-foot deep sinkhole. The hole had appeared in the ground the day before but had not been properly marked off, according to Thairani. |
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Berita Satu
Jakarta Globe 2012-09-07 09:00:00
The Indonesian Vulcanology Office issued a warning on Thursday for the public to take extra caution when visiting Mount Tangkuban Perahu just northwest of Bandung in West Java, after a series of tremors shook the mountain and put officials on edge. "Tourist operators and tourists should understand that no matter how sophisticated the equipment, it's useless if the warnings are not heeded," Surono, the head of the Vulcanology and Geological Disaster Agency (PVMBG) said. Surono said that from 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday up until 4:20 a.m. on Thursday, a series of tremors shook the mountain, while poisonous gases seeped from the crater. "Those inhaling the gas [will] not die . . . but can suffer from dizziness and nausea; therefore, we are recommending no activity whatsoever be held within a radius of 1.5 kilometers from the crater," Surono said. |
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PhysOrg
2012-09-06 08:56:00
Pressure in the magma chamber of Japan's Mount Fuji is now higher than it was the last time the volcano erupted more than 300 years ago, scientists say, according to a report Thursday. Tectonic shifts triggered by last year's huge 9.0 magnitude undersea quake have left the chamber under 16 times the minimum pressure at which an eruption can occur, researchers said. Researchers at the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention studied the tectonic movements caused by the tsunami-triggering quake on March 11, 2011 and a magnitude 6.4 quake that rocked central Japan four days later, Kyodo News reported. They estimated that 1.6 megapascals of pressure, equivalent to atmospheric pressure of some 15.8 kilograms per square centimetre (226 pounds per square inch), was being exerted on the magma chamber. Volcanic eruptions can be triggered by as little as 0.1 megapascals of pressure, and the reading of 1.6 megapascals is "not a small figure", said senior researcher Eisuke Fujita, according to Kyodo. Mount Fuji, an almost perfectly cone-shaped mountain that stands as one of Japan's national symbols, last erupted in 1707, after an earthquake struck and boosted the pressure on its magma chamber, the report said, citing researchers. |
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CSMonitor.com
Southwestern China was hit with a series of shallow, damaging
earthquakes Friday. The quakes damaged an estimated 20,000 homes and
buildings in rural China.2012-09-07 08:53:00
USGS data |
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NYDailyNews.com
Hurricane Michael has strengthened to a Category 3 storm, the first one
of the Atlantic hurricane season. The hurricane is not an immediate
threat to land. Michael's maximum speed sustained winds increased to 115
mph early Thursday. Michael is centered about 1,020 miles
west-southwest of the Azores and is moving northeast near 7 mph.2012-09-07 08:50:00
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China.org.cn
More than 500 aftershocks, including one as strong as 5.1 on the Richter
scale, continued to rattle Costa Rica one day after a 7.6-magnitude
quake jolted northwest Guanacaste province early Wednesday. According to
the latest report from Costa Rica's Volcano and Earthquake Watch
(Ovsicori), issued at 7:30 am local time (1330 GMT) Thursday, some 530
aftershocks stronger than 2 on the Richter scale have been registered,
with the strongest occurring before dawn on Thursday, at 3:07 am (0907
GMT).2012-09-07 08:46:00 The epicenter of the 5.1 quake was also located in Guanacaste, 151 kilometers west of the capital San Jose, and 14 kilometers beneath the earth's surface, seismic experts said. Aftershocks as strong as 6 on the Richter scale are normal as shifting tectonic plates release energy following an earthquake of major magnitude, like the quake on Wednesday, said the experts.
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Chillymanjaro
The Watchers 2012-09-05 00:00:00
Monitoring the subtle change in Earth's gravity and its effects may reveal some details about movements of magma deep inside volcano[es]. After monitoring the gravity at one of the world's most active volcanoes - Kīlauea volcano on Hawaii, scientists discovered a regular cycle of fluctuations that suggest magma is churning about a kilometer (0.6 miles) below the surface. Underground processes are difficult to monitor. However, they can give us valuable information about how persistent volcanoes are and whether or not they might catastrophically erupt in the future. Continuous gravity measurements of active volcanoes are still not enough used. Most results come from Mount Etna in Italy. Because of expenssivity, gravity measurements are mostly used by oil and mining companies in search for resources. Anything that has mass has a gravity field that pull objects toward it. Underground monitor can be achieved by looking at Earth's gravity as well. Because Earth's mass is not equally distributed so the planet's gravitational pull is stronger in some places and weaker in others. The flow of magma from one place to another can be detected from above. |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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No new articles. |
| Health & Wellness |
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Natasha Longo
Prevent Disease 2012-09-07 15:21:00
A September 11th deadline is around the corner for a new round of herbicide resistant genetically modified (GM) crops that are coincidentally on the table for fast-tracked approval. Since the introduction of GM crops, the US has seen herbicide use increase by over 300 million pounds. Big Biotech originally claimed that weeds would not develop resistance to glyphosate (RoundUp), but they have and these new "superweeds" have become the driving force behind new crops engineered for stacked, or multiple, herbicide tolerances. Adoption of these new crops will lead to dramatic increases in the use of higher risk herbicides perpetuating the herbicide treadmill that is already in place. 1. Glyphosate (herbicide) Tolerant Soybeans - Bayer's petition to force its new controversial herbicide (isoxaflutole) tolerant soy on the market conceals crucial information on potential allergenicity and toxicity that came to light when EU experts examined the GMO soybean. - BASF's petition - Dow AgroSciences' petition 2. Glyphosate (herbicide) Tolerant Canola - Monsanto's petition - Pioneer's petition 3. Glyphosate (herbicide) Tolerant Corn - Genective's petition 4. Hybrid Corn - Monsanto's petition - Four of the nine are genetically engineered with a soil bacteria that keeps them alive even when they're sprayed with massive doses of the herbicide glyphosate (Monsanto's RoundUp). More of these so-called "RoundUp Ready" crops mean more RoundUp sprayed on our food. This is horrible because Monsanto's RoundUp causes birth defects. Instead of "RoundUp Ready" we should call these GMOs "Birth-Defect Ready"! According to a report published by Earth Open Source, industry's own studies -- including one commissioned by Monsanto -- showed as long ago as the 1980's that RoundUp's active ingredient, glyphosate, causes birth defects in laboratory animals. |
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ScienceDaily
2012-09-05 00:00:00
Each time Sharon DeWitte takes a 3-foot by 1-foot archival box off the shelf at the Museum of London she hopes it will be heavy. "Heavy means you know you have a relatively complete skeleton," said DeWitte, an anthropologist at the University of South Carolina who has spent summers examining hundreds of Medieval skeletons, each time shedding new light on the dark subject of the Black Death. Since 2003, DeWitte has been studying the medieval mass killer that wiped out 30 percent of Europeans and nearly half of Londoners from 1347-1351. She is among a small group of scientists devoted to decoding the ancient plague and the person researchers turn to for providing evidence from skeletal remains. Her findings may provide clues about the effects of disease on human evolution. "It can tell us something about the nature of human variation today and whether there is an artifact of diseases we have faced in the past. Knowing how strongly these diseases can actually shape human biology can give us tools to work with in the future to understand disease and how it might affect us," she said. Having previously analyzed more than 600 skeletons of people who died during and after the Black Death, DeWitte turned her attention this summer to studying the remains of some 300 people who lived in the 11th and 12th centuries before the Black Death. Comparing the life span of people who lived before and after the blight, she expected to see a post-Black Death population that lived longer. The more complete the skeletons she studies, the more information she has about the people and their health at the time they died. | |
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GreenMedInfo
2012-09-03 00:00:00
Millionaire vaccine inventor and mandatory vaccine advocate Paul Offit recently released a short VIDEO for doctors on medscape. Here is a transcript of the speech. This statement that outlines Offit's personal belief system could be a prelude to the legal removal of all philosophical and religious vaccine exemptions in the United States of America. This is something that Offit has been working toward for years, and the likely end-purpose of his series of books. Paul Offit believes that exempting your child from vaccination is morally reprehensible. He considers himself an authority on autism, all infectious diseases, morality, history, every religious system, and infant immunology. You may also recognize Dr Offit as the one who says that all vaccines are perfectly safe and infants can tolerate theoretically 10,000 of them at once: "A more practical way to determine the diversity of the immune response would be to estimate the number of vaccines to which a child could respond at one time... each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10, 000 vaccines at any one time." [1]The status accorded to him by the pharmaceutical and medical fields permits him to influence the opinions and practice of lower rung physicians regarding vaccine exemptions. Unfortunately, even doctors will simply believe the "expert"[2] without bothering to go and check their own medical literature, to see if the self-proclaimed expertise has a solid scientific foundation. Research shows that when people listen to the expert, the part of their brains that is capable of independent thought goes to sleep.[3] |
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Tony Cartalucci
Anti-organic "study" is not news, rather, coordinated propaganda campaign.Activitst Post 2012-09-05 00:00:00
Harry Wallop of the London Telegraph ends his anti-organic food editorial with the following sentence: "Tomorrow, the baby is going to get an extra dollop of pesticide-sprayed carrots." Whether or not Wallop is as brain-addled as he leads on to being, the point of his editorial is to encourage similar attitudes amongst the Telegraph's readership, attempting to manipulate public perception in the wake of a recent Stanford "study" regarding organic food. Whether or not readers of the Telegraph will put their own health and that of their children at risk for the sake of protecting big-agri's bottom line and the faltering paradigm that big-agri products are safe for human consumption simply because Harry Wallop thinks its good to feed his baby with pesticide-sprayed carrots remains to be seen. The London Telegraph, when not fabricating news to support England's latest imperial adventures overseas, is at the forefront of many of the largest corporate-financier funded lobbying campaigns. Recently, someone has splurged, and splurged big on anti-organic food lobbying built atop a suspect Stanford study. A Flawed "Study" When entire news cycles are dominated by headlines built on a single university study, with editorials attempting to hammer in big-agri talking points, a lobbying effort is clearly afoot. |
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Mike Barrett
Natural Society 2012-08-24 18:06:00
Due to the near future voting on November 6, 2012 for California's Proposition 37, there has been a lot of heat going back and forth concerning GMO foods. Up until now, 10′s of million of dollars have been funneled into the opposing side of the bill, with biotechnology giant Monsanto dishing out a whopping $4.2 million alone. Monsanto has even recently published a page on their site titled "Taking a Stand: Proposition 37, The California Labeling Proposal," where the GMO giant attempts to logically explain why it is against GMO labeling. Needless to say, the post reeks of false and misleading statements, and oftentimes downright deception. Here are the top 7 lies Monsanto wants you to believe regarding GMO labeling and Prop 37. |
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| Science of the Spirit |
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No new articles. |
| High Strangeness |
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Jim Forman
King 5 News 2012-09-06 17:55:00
Julie Schickling stood out on her porch in West Seattle just after midnight because she couldn't explain what she was hearing. So she recorded the sound (listen here on West Seattle Blog). "It gets high and lower, and goes away, then comes back," said Schickling. Some of her neighbors report being shaken out of bed by the low rumble, also described as a growl. In fact, as many people you talk with is about how many different words you heard to describe it. "It is kind of creepy," Kay Kirkpatrick, the West Seattle resident said of the sound. "It creeps you out a little bit." The neighboring large industries say they aren't to blame. Then what is? Something the City of Seattle is looking into. Some long time residents say they've heard this sound before over the years. Others say it's the first encounter they've had with the eerie noise. "We want to know," Kirkpatrick said. "Tell us what it is." | |
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Perth Now
2012-09-07 10:49:00
Western Australia - Community News photographer Bruce Hunt spotted this mystery object over Ascot this morning. He took this image at 7.30am. The object was travelling in a westerly direction and at speed, he told InMyCommunity. "I quickly ran in and got my camera and took a few shots." Read more at InMyCommunity.com.au This most recent find may be of interest to teenage UFO hunter Dylan Sakiri. Sakiri, 18, spends much of his free time staring up at the night sky, looking to uncover the truth. He reckons he may have proof of extraterrestrial life after capturing a range of unusual lights on camera over Cooloongup and Mandurah. |
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Tom Rose
Examiner 2012-09-06 10:41:00
Another "accidental" UFO sighting was caught on video, this time over an unidentified seaside area in Russia, by rafters enjoying a day out on the ocean. The video, posted to YouTube, shows a group of rafting enthusiasts pulling up their inflatables to the shore after an obviously enjoyable excursion. Something flies overhead at an incredible speed, and it's only noticeable when the sequence is slowed down and enhanced. Thankfully, the makers of the video oblige and the results are spectacular. The unidentified flying object is of the saucer type, elongated and dark in color. It doesn't look like a bird and it's flying past so quickly, it's not like any known conventional aircraft. So what is it? |
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Warren Green
Please be patient as initially I couldn't get the strange object in my
viewfinder straight away. At first I thought this mysterious object was a
balloon, but it appears symmetrical and uniform in shape. The object
which I have coined 'The Flying Sofa' moved silently overhead, spinning
in a controlled fashion and intermittently flashing a bright, white
light from its own suface like a beacon, (not light reflections from the
sun) as the weather was quite overcast and the object was a dark, black
colour and not metallic. It didn't look like part of an aeroplane and
I'm sure any man made object/ satallite this size coming from space
would have burned up in the Earth's atmosphere. Later in the video you
can see how far I had to zoom in to see it, so I think the object could
possibly have been between the size of a family car and a single decker
bus at about a thousand feet or more as an estimate. It casually moved
off, seeming to stay airborne and not falling to the ground. What could
this strange and intriguing object be???YouTube 2012-08-31 10:19:00
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Sigrid Grothe
Inexplicata 2012-09-05 09:02:00
Businessman Federico Rojo Feria provided us with a truly amazing story. During the spring of 1990, while at the Torre de Santa María building with female a co-worker, he found himself watching a human-looking flying entity from the 19th storey of the building. His account of the facts states that the vision was so surprising and shocking that both co-workers were paralyzed for almost two minutes -- the uncanny experience's duration. Raul Nuñez interviewed Mr. Rojo and kindly conveyed the report to our Bestiary. The witness re-stated his experiences of the time, saying that a flying entity passed only a few meters away from the large window at which they were located, engaging in a wide elliptical flight maneuver, gliding over the Mapocho River before climbing away toward the Cordillera. The wings were like those of a giant bird, but the other parts of the body were configured like a human's. He was unable to make out the arms clearly, as they blended into the shape of the large wings. |
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| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
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Source
2012-09-07 14:28:00
Christopher Boyd, a homeless Los Angeles man who handed out his resume alongside LA freeways, has been hired. The 44-year-old is working for Jack The Roofer in Simi Valley for a week and then will work full time for JB Wholesale, a Los Angeles roofing and building supply company who works with Jack The Roofer. Boyd was spotted along the freeways handing out flyers listing his skills ranging from marketing, property management, construction to professional driving. |
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Idaho Press / Associated Press
2012-09-07 08:19:00
"The zombies are coming!" the Homeland Security Department says. Tongue firmly in cheek, the government urged citizens Thursday to prepare for a zombie apocalypse, part of a public health campaign to encourage better preparation for genuine disasters and emergencies. The theory: If you're prepared for a zombie attack, the same preparations will help during a hurricane, pandemic, earthquake or terrorist attack. The Federal Emergency Management Agency hosted an online seminar for its Citizen Corps organization to help emergency planners better prepare their communities for disaster. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last year first launched a zombie apocalypse social media campaign for the same purposes. Emergency planners were encouraged to use the threat of zombies - the flesh-hungry, walking dead - to encourage citizens to prepare for disasters. Organizers also noted the relative proximity to Halloween. |
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