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Richard Swander
Sott.net 2012-09-13 16:18:00
The 11th Anniversary of September 11th, 2001 passed in all its political jingoistic sympathy-eliciting glory. With a patriotic backdrop, Romney and Obama used the solemn We are approaching the 13th anniversary of a far less publicized event, yet arguably more significant in causing loss of life, suffering and misery to millions of innocent victims over the past decade. On November 12, 1999 a $300 million lobbying effort by the banking and financial services industries lead to the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. The repeal separated commercial banks and investment banks thus freeing banks to expand into unsustainable speculative positions - prime examples being the devastating experiment with derivatives and subprime asset-backed securities. These high-risk, fraudulent ventures have resulted in the current financial crisis, global economic instability and what amounts to a 'Global Financial War' on innocent citizens taxed directly and by stealth-inflation to pay for the mistakes of the criminal banking mafia. On the surface these events are not connected, but what similarities do they share? |
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Kenneth Schortgen Jr.
Examiner.com 2012-09-12 22:00:00
On Sept. 11, Pastor Lindsey Williams, former minister to the global oil companies during the building of the Alaskan pipeline, announced the most significant event to affect the U.S. dollar since its inception as a currency. For the first time since the 1970's, when Henry Kissenger forged a trade agreement with the Royal house of Saud to sell oil using only U.S. dollars, China announced its intention to bypass the dollar for global oil customers and began selling the commodity using their own currency. Comment: Lindsey Williams: "The most significant day in the history of the American dollar, since its inception, happened on Thursday, Sept. 6. On that day, something took place that is going to affect your life, your family, your dinner table more than you can possibly imagine." "On Thursday, Sept. 6... just a few days ago, China made the official announcement. China said on that day, our banking system is ready, all of our communication systems are ready, all of the transfer systems are ready, and as of that day, Thursday, Sept. 6, any nation in the world that wishes from this point on, to buy, sell, or trade crude oil, can do using the Chinese currency, not the American dollar. - Interview with Natty Bumpo on the Just Measures Radio network, Sept. 11 This announcement by China is one of the most significant sea changes in the global economic and monetary systems, but was barely reported on due to its announcement taking place during the Democratic convention last week. The ramifications of this new action are vast, and could very well be the catalyst that brings down the dollar as the global reserve currency, and change the entire landscape of how the world purchases energy. |
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The Raw Story
2012-09-12 20:35:00
New York - A New York federal judge shot down part of a controversial anti-terror law Wednesday that journalists and scholars worry could see them locked up indefinitely for speaking their minds. Judge Katherine Forrest issued a ruling that permanently blocked a section of the National Defense Authorization Act signed by President Barack Obama at the end of last year authorizing the detention of US citizens accused of supporting terror groups. The suit was brought by activists, including former New York Times journalist Chris Hedges and outspoken academic Noam Chomsky, who said the law was vague and could be used to curtail reporters' and other civilian citizens' right to free speech guaranteed under the US Constitution's First Amendment. |
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Julian Borger and Tom Clark
The Guardian UK 2012-09-11 22:01:00
American influence on the world stage is being sapped by widespread distrust of US intentions, not just in the Middle East and south Asia but also among traditional European allies, according to a survey of global opinions. Suspicion of America outweighed faith in its good intentions by large margins in the Arab world and Pakistan, and even its heavyweight European ally Germany was more sceptical than trusting, a YouGov survey found. British and French opinion was more positive but still deeply divided. Negative Arab and Pakistani perceptions of America as overweening and untrustworthy clearly pose a daunting foreign policy challenge for the Obama administration. The fact that 78% of Pakistanis questioned by YouGov said they did not trust America to act responsibly underlines Washington's serious lack of soft power in the region as it attempts to extricate itself from Afghanistan. Attitudes towards the US in the Arab world were nearly as negative. Those respondents in the Middle East and north Africa who said they trusted America were outnumbered by more than two to one by those who said they did not, and 39% said they did not trust America at all. |
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| Puppet Masters |
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Patrick Rizzo
NBC News Economy Watch 2012-09-13 11:45:00
The bond buying will continue until employment improves. That's the message the Federal Reserve delivered when it announced it will take new steps to boost the sluggish recovery including buying an additional $40 billion of mortgage debt every month for the foreseeable future. "The employment situation remains a grave concern," Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said at an afternoon news conference to explain the central bank's decisions. The Fed said the fresh security purchases, which it will start on Friday, would come on top of its so-called Operation Twist program, in which it is selling short-term bonds to buy longer-term Treasury debt. "These actions, which together will increase the committee's holdings of longer-term securities by about $85 billion each month through the end of the year, should put downward pressure on longer-term interest rates, support mortgage markets, and to help make broader financial conditions more accommodative," the Fed said in a statement. | |
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Comment: An attempt to create an economic buffer as: Dollar no longer primary oil currency - China begins to sell oil using Yuan
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Rory Carrol
Cast say they were misled as evidence suggests film was post- dubbed and questions arise over funding and identity of director.The Guardian 2012-09-13 14:57:00 The anti-Islamic video that inflamed mayhem in Egypt and Libya and triggered a diplomatic crisis is at the centre of a growing mystery over whether it is a real film - or was ever intended to be. Initial reports about The Innocence of Muslims being a $5m production made by an Israeli-American director named Sam Bacile unravelled on Wednesday as ruins of the US consulate in Benghazi continued to smoulder. Bacile - originally described as a California-based Jewish real estate developer - appeared to be a fake identity, and Hollywood could find no trace of his supposed feature-length attack on the prophet Muhammad. The blasphemous, 13-minute "trailer" posted online - a ramshackle compilation of scenes which depicted Muhammad as an illegitimate, murderous paedophile - was real, but there was growing doubt that a film existed. |
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RT
2012-09-12 00:00:00
The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to extend the government's power to warrantlessly wiretap Americans for another five years by reauthorizing the 2008 amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Lawmakers in the House agreed from Washington, DC on Wednesday afternoon to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act's Amendments Act of 2008 (FAA), a polarizing legislation that has been challenged by privacy advocates and civil liberties organizations alike around the country. The extension was approved by a vote of 301 to 118. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was first signed into law in 1978 by President Jimmy Carter, but amendments added two decades later under the George W Bush administration provide for the government to conduct widespread and blanketing snooping of emails and phone calls of Americans. The FISA Amendments added in 2008, specifically section 702, specify that the government can eavesdrop on emails and phone calls sent from US citizens to persons reasonably suspected to be located abroad without ever requiring intelligence officials to receive a court order. If the US Senate echoes the House's extension of the act, the FAA will carry through for another five years until 2017, ensuring the federal intelligence community that they will be able to conduct surveillance on the correspondence of the country's own citizens well into the future. If no action is taken, the FAA is slated to expire at the end of 2012. Earlier this year, a plea from two US senators to see how many times the FAA has been used was refused by the National Security Administration. Last month, San Francisco's Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a lawsuit against the US Justice Department for failing to adhere to Freedom of Information Act requests for documents pertaining to the program. |
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RT
2012-09-13 00:00:00
Egyptian security forces are firing tear gas at a crowd of angry protesters near the US embassy in Cairo. Some 30 protesters were injured and 12 arrested, journalists on Twitter quoted the Egyptian Interior Ministry as saying. Hundreds of protesters are gathering outside the US embassy in Cairo and hurling stones at security personnel, who are retaliating by firing tear gas and warning shots at the crowd. On Wednesday, several hundred protesters rallied in front of the embassy, chanting "leave Egypt" and demanding that the US apologize for an American-made film that mocks Islam's Prophet Muhammad. Dozens of riot police were then deployed in the area to contain the demonstrators and divert them into side streets. Clashes continued into the night, with protesters throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at police. Some of the protesters were injured, state news agency MENA reported. Witnesses wrote on Twitter that as many as several dozen people may have been injured. At least six police officers suffered injuries during the clashes, said Alla Mahmoud, a spokesperson for Egypt's Interior Ministry. |
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Press TV
There were speculations before the Olympics that the British
government is using the games as an excuse to impose a police state in
London that would be otherwise impossible; now that seems to have come
true as the 'un-free zones' remain after the sports event. 2012-09-13 01:45:00
British councils and police retain powers to single out public spaces and suspend certain freedoms, including handing out leaflets and protesting there that means one will be punished in those zones for doing a perfectly legal thing. According to a map published on September 11 by Manifesto Club freedom campaign group, there are a dizzying 435 such zones in London that cover almost half of the whole area of the city, mostly in its central parts. Citizens can be fined or prosecuted in the restricted zones, now also imposed on some other cities, for leafleting, walking a dog, using alcohol, just being there, and in London, for protesting. There are 110 leafleting zones in London where you should have a license if you want to hand out leaflets -- that is you will not be free to even campaign for a human rights or relief cause unless the government sees it fit. There are also 32 active "dispersal zones" as well as many inactive ones in the British capital. |
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Lolita C. Baldor, Osama Alfitory and Maggie Michael
Warning: Story contains graphic imagesThe National 2012-09-12 06:39:00
U.S. officials say the Pentagon is moving two warships to the Libyan coast, in the aftermath of the attack in Benghazi that killed the U.S. ambassador and three others. Officials say one destroyer, the USS Laboon, moved to a position off the coast Wednesday, and the USS McFaul is en route and should be stationed off the coast within days. The officials say the ships, which carry Tomahawk missiles, do not have a specific mission. But they give commanders flexibility to respond to any mission ordered by the president. The destroyers have crews totaling about 300. There have been four destroyers in the Mediterranean for some time. These moves will increase that to five. Officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss troop movements. |
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BBC News
2012-09-13 04:20:00
Protesters angered by an anti-Islam film made in the US have stormed the grounds of the American embassy in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa. Police shot in the air in an attempt to hold back the crowds, but failed to prevent them gaining access to the compound and setting fire to vehicles. A number of people were reported to have been injured. On Tuesday, the US ambassador to Libya was killed in a fire started after the US consulate in Benghazi was stormed. Security force reinforcements in Sanaa used tear gas, water cannon and live fire to drive back protesters. They have now regained control of the Sanaa compound, but protests are continuing outside. Earlier on Thursday, US officials said they were investigating whether the attack in Libya was planned, citing suspicions that a militant jihadist group may have co-ordinated the violence. Three other US consul staff and several Libyans died in that attack, along with Ambassador J Christopher Stevens, who is believed to have died from smoke inhalation. |
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Gar Smith
Information Clearing House 2012-09-12 22:41:00
America is currently engaged in the most expensive presidential contest in world history. In the United States, money doesn't just talk - it dictates. How can we hope to make progress on the path to sustainability when the road is blocked by barricades of bullion backed by battalions of billionaires? How do we break through the political gridlock? Dave Brower's wife, Anne, once put a wise spin on this dilemma. "What we need," she said, is "a cure for greedlock." Earth's richest 1,000 individuals now control as much wealth as the poorest 2.5 billion people on the planet. This super elite uses its vast wealth to control the media, influence politicians, and bend laws to their favor. In the US, the wealthy dominate our government: 47 percent of US representatives are millionaires, as are 67 percent of US senators. The Center for Responsive Politics reports Congressional wealth has increased 11 percent between 2009 and 2011. Not only is our economy out of balance with nature, our economy is also out of balance with the practical limits of physical and fiscal reality. As the Occupy movement has indelibly framed it, we are now a society divided not only by haves and have-nots, but we are a nation - and a world - divided into the 99 percent and the 1 percent. Imagine if a tree were engineered like the US economy - with half of its mass centered in the top 10 percent of its height and 40 percent of its mass concentrated in the very topmost branches. Whether redwood or oak, such a tree would not be stable in a windstorm. It would be destined to topple. Of course, nature has better sense. |
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Pepe Escobar
Asia Times 2012-09-12 22:06:00
In David Cronenberg's awesome Cosmopolis (France/Canada, 2012), based on the homonymous novel by Don DeLillo, young billionaire Eric Packer (Robert Pattison) slowly cruises New York in his white limo, installed in a cushy leather throne with incrusted screens. He feels ... nothing; he essentially sucks up the world into his own inertia. Outside his moving silent chamber, it's total chaos, with activists spraying rats in posh restaurants and a tense threat of imminent apocalypse. This is the world morphing into, or being gobbled up by, dematerialized ultra-capitalism; a world in a state of crisis, driven by violence, and with violence as the only possible horizon. As a libidinous art dealer (Juliette Binoche) tells Packer: "It's cyber-capital that creates the future." A walk in the dead of a New York night to Ground Zero offers extra context to Cosmopolis. This is where our post-apocalyptic modernity began, 11 years go - and where cyber-capital still creates at least some of the future. As Cosmopolis shows, turbo-capitalism is not only in crisis; turbo-capitalism, in shorthand, IS crisis. Ground Zero remains an eerie sight deep in the dead of night. There's the memorial. There's the new unfinished glass tower. And there remain holes the size of Ground Zero all over the official narrative. |
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Suzanne Nossel
Huffington Post 2012-09-12 15:04:00
Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif's death at Guantánamo was announced yesterday on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11. This sad case is a stark illustration of the United States government bypassing human rights obligations in its counter-terrorism policies, leaving scores of detainees in Guantánamo to live, and sometimes die, in indefinite detention. Latif was seized by Pakistani police in December 2001 near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, handed over to U.S. custody, and transferred to Guantánamo on Jan. 17, 2002. He had been held at the naval base ever since, in deteriorating mental and physical health. Reportedly, Latif was born in 1976 in Yemen. According to his lawyer, David Remes, Latif was a mentally disturbed man who maintained that he went to Afghanistan seeking medical care because he was too poor to pay for it. But he got caught up in a military sweep and the U.S. government alleged that he was recruited by al Qaeda to travel to Afghanistan and that he trained and fought with the Taliban. Reportedly, the Department of Defense recommended Latif for transfer as far back as 2004, and again in 2006, 2008, and 2009. In July 2010, District Court Judge Henry Kennedy ruled that the government had not proved its case for holding Latif by "a preponderance of the evidence" and concluded that Latif's detention was unlawful. |
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Lucy Steigerwald
Reason.com 2012-09-12 11:55:00
During then nearly 11 years that Guantanamo Bay has held prisoners of the war on terror, nine people have died there - six of which were ostensibly suicides. The ninth man who died on September 8 doesn't seem to have left the planet by his own hand, though the official cause of death has not been released. Yemeni Adnan Farham Abdul Latif, though, was apparently sedated and depressed, and mostly left in solitary confinement. He made numerous suicide attempts during his stint in Gitmo, as well. So we'll have to see whether he finally succeeded, or whether the cause of his death was something else. But it gets worse. Latif, who spent nearly a third of his life in Gitmo after being captured by Pakistani police near the Afghanistan border in December 2001, was first cleared for freedom...in 2009. |
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Andy Worthington
andyworthington.co.uk 2012-09-11 00:00:00
This article was published simultaneously here, and on the "Close Guantánamo" website, which I established in January with US attorney Tom Wilner. Please join us - just an email address is required to be counted amongst those opposed to the ongoing existence of Guantánamo, and to receive updates of our activities by email. Over the weekend, Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, a Yemeni, became the ninth prisoner to die in Guantánamo. Adnan had been repeatedly cleared for release - under President Bush and President Obama, and by a US court - but had never been freed, like so many others in that disgraceful prison, which remains an insult to the rule of law ten years and eight months since it first opened. Adnan was one of the prisoners profiled in the major report I wrote in June, Guantánamo Scandal: The 40 Prisoners Still Held But Cleared for Release At Least Five Years Ago, and the overturning of his successful habeas corpus petition by politically motivated judges in the D.C. Circuit Court in October last year - and the refusal of the Supreme Court to rebuke the court, just three months ago - was notorious amongst attorneys for the prisoners and those interested in justice and the law, even though - sadly and shockingly - it had not awakened appropriate outrage in the mainstream media. |
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Mark Prigg
A character trait in psychopaths has been identified by scientisMail Online 2012-09-12 17:03:00
ts as a common thread in successful US presidents. Fearless dominance, which is linked to less social and physical apprehensiveness, boosts leadership, persuasiveness, crisis management and congressional relations, according to new research. Theodore Roosevelt, regarded as one of the most influential US leaders even though he was in office more than a hundred years ago, ranked highest for this type of personality followed by John F Kennedy, Franklin D Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. Then came Rutherford Hayes, Zachary Taylor, Bill Clinton, Martin Van Buren, Andrew Jackson and George W Bush. Fearless and dominant people are often a paradoxical mix of charm and nastiness. Cool and calm under pressure, they not easily rattled. |
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| Society's Child |
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CBS Boston
2012-09-13 17:14:00
A pediatric endocrinologist at Boston Children's Hospital was arrested Thursday on child pornography charges. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Dr. Richard Keller, 56, of Andover, "knowingly received films depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct." Read: The Criminal Complaint (.pdf) In a statement Thursday afternoon, federal prosecutors said Keller "purchased and ordered over 50 DVDs of child pornography online. At this time, more than 500 photographs and between 60 - 100 DVDs have been recovered during an ongoing search of Dr. Keller's home today." Keller is also a pediatrics instructor at Harvard Medical School. He was the Medical Director at Phillips Academy for 19 years before leaving in 2011. "Members of the public who have questions, concerns or information regarding this case should call 617-748-3274, and messages will be promptly returned," the U.S. Attorney's Office said. |
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CBS Miami
2012-09-13 17:06:00
A Transportation Security Administration screener at a major South Florida airport is in jail accused of possessing dozens of horrifying images of child pornography. Andrew Smeal is facing 25 counts of possessing child pornography showing young children engaged in sexual acts. Smeal works at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. The news came as a shock to neighbor Chris Petinaud. He said he saw police descend on Smeal's Hollywood home Tuesday morning. Petinaud said the charges leave him disgusted. "I had no idea," Petinaud told CBS 4′s Carey Codd. "My children come here in the summer, playing in the back, swimming and stuff. To know that's next door is disturbing." |
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Steve Beck
CBS Local 2012-09-13 17:01:00
A Doylestown man, who was naked and bleeding profusely, gnawed on woman's head all while "screaming like an animal" during a wild neighborhood rampage, state police said. The bizarre incident played out in the early morning hours of September 7th in Hawley Boro, which is in Wayne County, Pennsylvania. According to investigators, the incident began when 20-year-old suspect Richard Ciminio Jr. parked his car behind a home on Hudson Street, got out and stripped down to his underwear. State Police say Ciminio then tried to break into a home, but was unsuccessful. Police say Ciminio then took off his underwear and continued down Hudson Street and broke into an unoccupied home. While inside that home, police say Ciminio walked up to the home's second floor and jumped out a window, causing severe injuries to his arms and legs when he hit the ground. |
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Scott Gordon
NBC News 2012-09-13 16:54:00 A local Texas police department is standing by an officer who dragged a 77-year-old grandmother out of her car for speeding after she repeatedly refused to provide her driver's license. The entire arrest was caught on video by the Keene Police Department. The woman, Lynn Bedford, of nearby Cleburne, was stopped on Aug. 19 for driving 66 mph in a 50-mph zone. Bedford told Sgt. Gene Geheb that she had a bladder infection and had to go to the bathroom, but the situation quickly escalated when the officer asked several times for her identification and she refused. |
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Alison Sandy and Janelle Miles
The Courier Mail 2012-09-13 15:16:00
Hundreds of patients are dying every year after becoming dehydrated or malnourished in Queensland public hospitals. Hunger and thirst were either wholly or partly to blame for more than 2000 patient deaths last financial year and 10 per cent of those weren't malnourished or dehydrated when they were admitted, according to Queensland Health figures obtained by The Courier-Mail under Right to Information laws. Most of the patients were elderly, prompting concerns they are being neglected because of staff shortages and a lack of supervision at meal times. Stakeholders warn it's only going to get worse following State Budget cuts while others say the fault lay with under-resourced nursing homes where most of them come from or fasting patients who are continually bumped for surgery. |
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Terence P. Jeffrey
cnsNews 2012-09-07 04:37:00
The number of Americans whom the U.S. Department of Labor counted as "not in the civilian labor force" in August hit a record high of 88,921,000. The Labor Department counts a person as not in the civilian labor force if they are at least 16 years old, are not in the military or an institution such as a prison, mental hospital or nursing home, and have not actively looked for a job in the last four weeks. The department counts a person as in "the civilian labor force" if they are at least 16, are not in the military or an institution such as a prison, mental hospital or nursing home, and either do have a job or have actively looked for one in the last four weeks. In July, there were 155,013,000 in the U.S. civilian labor force. In August that dropped to 154,645,000 - meaning that on net 368,000 people simply dropped out of the labor force last month and did not even look for a job. |
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Cynthia Hubert & Stephen Magagnini
An Elk Grove boy who provided care to his disabled mother has been
accused of beating her so severely that she required hospital treatment,
authorities said Wednesday.Sacbee.com 2012-09-13 12:50:00 The boy, 11, is in juvenile hall facing charges of assault with a deadly weapon and elder abuse, said Elk Grove police spokesman Christopher Trim. The mother, 51, has been referred to Sacramento County Adult Protective Services. The Bee is protecting the identity of the mother and son because of his age and her disabilities. |
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RT
2012-07-20 00:00:00
A smoking ban in San Francisco could soon mean cleaner skies over The City by the Bay, but only a portion of the people that light up in Northern California will be affected. Lawmakers want to ban outdoor smoking - but not for medical pot patients. San Francisco Supervisor Eric Mar is asking the city's Board to wrap their brains around a ban that would prohibit people from smoking cigarettes at outdoor events held on city property, such as street fairs, festivals and other open-air events that require permits. If the proposal is passed in its current form, though, those wanting to take a match to marijuana joints won't be pressed with penalties. Mar says that the proposal is necessary to nix the dangerous toll that comes from inhaling secondhand cigarette smoking. As far as marijuana goes - which is legal for medicinal purposes in parts of the US, such as San Francisco - the supervisor doesn't see a problem. | |
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Comment: The dangers of smoking have been overstated in the media and the benefits all but ignored. For more information read:
Let's All Light Up! First They Came for the Smokers... And I said Nothing Because I Was Not a Smoker Study finds smoking wards off Parkinson's disease Nicotine helps Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Patients Nicotine Lessens Symptoms Of Depression In Nonsmokers Scientists Identify Brain Regions Where Nicotine Improves Attention, Other Cognitive Skills Can Smoking be GOOD for SOME People? |
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RT
2012-09-12 00:00:00
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has spoken out against the verdict handed to controversial punk band Pussy Riot, saying he believed the time they spent behind bars before and during the trial was punishment enough. "I feel that extending the prison time [for the band members] in this case is counterproductive," Medvedev said at a United Russia Party meeting in the Russian city of Penza. "In my opinion, probation would have been sufficient punishment, considering all the time they've already spent behind bars." Last month, a Moscow court sentenced three members of the feminist punk band to two years each in a medium-security prison on charges of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred and enmity. |
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RT
2012-09-12 00:00:00
The controversial film Innocence of Muslims, which portrays the prophet Muhammad as a child molester, has outraged Muslims worldwide. But offensive passages were dubbed in after filming, and the crew says the producer lied about his objectives. The now-notorious movie essentially claims Muhammad was a fraud, portraying Islam's holiest figure as a womanizer who approved of pedophilia, among other things. But a statement purportedly written on behalf of the film's crew says its producer "took advantage" of the team. "The entire cast and crew are extremely upset and feel taken advantage of by the producer," the statement, published by CNN, reads. "We are shocked by the drastic re-writes of the script and lies that were told to all involved. We are deeply saddened by the tragedies that have occurred." An actress who played a role in the movie told Gawker she was given no signs as to the true end product of the film, which had the working title Desert Warriors and was supposed to be set thousands of years before Muhammad lived. "It wasn't based on anything to do with religion, it was just on how things were run in Egypt," Cindy Lee Garcia said. "There wasn't anything about Muhammad or Muslims or anything." The name Muhammad was dubbed into the film's audio track during post-production, along with just about every other reference to Islam, offensive or not. |
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Colleen Long
USA Today 2012-09-13 05:55:00
New York - A 73-year-old woman who told police she was raped in Central Park says the man asked her if she remembered him before the attack. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the woman told police she thinks her assailant may have been a man she photographed exposing himself in the park days earlier. She told police she was attacked at about 11 a.m. Wednesday in a wooded area near the park's tranquil Strawberry Fields that serves as a memorial to John Lennon. After sexually assaulting her, the man made off with her backpack that contained a camera, police said. Eric Ozawa, a college professor and birdwatcher, found the woman and called 911. Authorities released surveillance images of the suspect, wearing black pants, a black T-shirt and white sneakers. Source: The Associated Press |
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| Secret History |
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Rossella Lorenzi
Discovery News 2012-09-13 11:29:00
Lisa Gherardini is coming closer to emerging from the grave. The remains of the woman believed to have inspired Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa likely are about to be exhumed by researchers. The announcement, at a news conference in Florence, follows the discovery of another skeleton, the fourth since the bone hunt began last year -- beneath an altar in the church of the now-derelict Convent of St. Orsola. "The skeleton doesn't belong to the Mona Lisa, but it's hinting to her burial. Indeed, she might be just underneath," Silvano Vinceti, president of a private organization known as the National Committee for the Promotion of Historic and Cultural Heritage, told a news conference on Wednesday. Vinceti's ambitious project aims to possibly reconstruct Lisa's face in order to see if her features match that of the iconic painting hanging at the Louvre Museum in Paris. Indeed, most scholars believe that the Mona Lisa, known as La Gioconda in Italian or La Joconde in French, is the portrait of Lisa Gherardini, a member of a minor noble family of rural origins who married the wealthy merchant Francesco del Giocondo. Known for controversial claims, like that letters and numbers are hidden inside the Mona Lisa painting, Vinceti has based his search in the convent on documents found by historian Giuseppe Pallanti some years ago. |
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| Science & Technology |
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Emily Sohn
Discovery News 2012-09-13 14:04:00
The highest-performing Presidents of the United States so far share a personality trait in common with psychopaths. With its long days and endless pressures to restore everything from economic crises to world peace, the job of President of the United States is stressful and usually thankless. And yet, every four years, plenty of candidates are crazy enough to devote their lives to getting votes. Craziness might not be the most scientific word for it. But a new study found that those who do well as presidents tend to score high on measures of a personality trait that they share in common with psychopaths. The trait, known as fearless dominance, describes people who are socially and physically bold, as well as emotionally resilient -- an outlook on life well summarized by Teddy Roosevelt's motto: "Speak softly and carry a big stick." Throughout our nation's history, the study found, bold presidents seem to have been particularly persuasive, driven by vision, and good at managing crises. Presidents aren't psychopaths, nor should they be, emphasized lead author Scott Lilienfeld, a psychologist at Emory University in Atlanta. Instead, his research suggests that certain traits associated with psychopathy may give people a leg up in some situations. "Most psychopaths end up being pretty unsuccessful and maladaptive, and they end up in prison, which is usually where psychologists study them," Lilienfeld said. "Even though the psychopathic personality as a whole shebang is not a good thing to have, this study raises the interesting possibility that at least some traits of this condition -- especially those linked to lack of social and physical apprehensiveness, immunity to stress, and resilience -- might be adaptive in real-world settings." "Is it good to have a psychopathic president?" he added. "The answer to that is easy: It's no. But maybe having a certain dash of those traits might give presidents a certain edge." |
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Megan Gannon
Live Science 2012-09-13 13:15:00
Researchers have identified four new species of horseshoe bats with large, strangely shaped noses in eastern Africa. Scientists had thought all four belonged to a single species, Hildebrandt's horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus hildebrandtii), first described in 1878. But reports of different echolocation frequencies recorded among the bats suggested there might be rifts in the species. (Sonar calls are often used to identify different types of bats.) Researchers led by Peter J. Taylor of South Africa's University of Venda found R.hildebrandtii indeed included four cryptic species with subtle differences in their sonar calls, skull shape and DNA. Cryptic species often cannot be distinguished by their physical features, putting the burden on genetics research to identify new creatures. The horseshoe bat family is characterized by their intricately shaped flaps dubbed "noseleaves" around their nostrils. While most bats emit sonar from their mouths, these bats send out their echolocation signals from their noses. Previous research showed that grooves created by the horseshoe bats' noseleaves help focus their sonar calls. The newly identified species include Cohen's horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus cohenae), found in South Africa's Mpumalanga Province; the Mount Mabu horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus mabuensis), of the mountainous region of northern Mozambique; Smithers' horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus smithersi), found across savanna woodlands of the Limpopo and Zambezi valleys; and the Mozambican horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus mossambicus), which likely lives across the savanna region of Zimbabwe and Mozambique, the researchers said. The new bats were described Wednesday in the journal PLoS ONE. |
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David Braun
National Geographic 2012-09-13 12:00:00
A monkey known as the lesula to local people in a remote part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been found to be a species new to science, researchers reported this week in the journal PLOS ONE. The species has been discovered just as it is being threatened with being hunted and eaten into extinction. It is only the second new species of African monkey discovered in the last 28 years, according to PLOS ONE. "The first lesula found was a young captive animal seen in 2007 in a school director's compound in the town of Opala in the Democratic Republic of Congo," the journal said in a news statement. "The young monkey bore a resemblance to the owl faced monkey, but its coloration was unlike that of any other known species." Since the initial sighting, researchers report in their PLOS ONE paper, the lesula was also found in the wild, where biologists were able to observe its behavior and ecology and determine its genetic and anatomical distinctiveness. The monkey has been assigned the scientific nameCercopithecus lomamiensis. The new monkey's range covers one of Congo's last "biologically unexplored" forest blocks, the PLOS ONE statement said, adding that although its range is remote and only lightly settled at present, the lesula is threatened by local bush meat hunting. |
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| Earth Changes |
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Huffington Post
2012-09-13 15:03:00
Guatemala's head of emergency evacuations says more than 33,000 people are fleeing the eruption of a long-active volcano just outside one of the country's most famous tourist attractions. Sergio Cabanas says the evacuees are leaving some 17 villages around the Volcano of Fire, which sits about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the colonial city of Antigua. The agency says the volcano spewed lava nearly 2,000 feet (600 meters) down slopes billowing with ash on Thursday. Seismologists also say a series of explosions have been coming from the 12,346-foot-high (3,763-meter-high) volcano. |
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PhysOrg
Tropical Storm Sanba exploded in intensity between Sept. 12 and 13,
becoming a major Category 4 Typhoon on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. NASA's
Aqua satellite captured infrared data that showed a large area of
powerful thunderstorms around the center of circulation, dropping heavy
rain over the western North Pacific Ocean.2012-09-13 14:35:00 NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Super Typhoon Sanba on Sept. 13 at 0447 UTC (12:47 a.m. EDT). The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument captured an infrared image of Sanba and found an eye about 20 nautical miles (23 miles/37 km) wide, surrounded by a thick area of strong convection (rising air that forms the thunderstorms that make up the storm) and strong thunderstorms. Forecasters at the Joint Typhoon Warning center noted that the AIRS imagery showed that there was "no banding outside of this ring, consistent with an annular typhoon."
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Laura L. Myers
Reuters 2012-09-12 10:30:00
Seattle - Fast-growing wildfires destroyed three homes in Washington state on Wednesday and threatened 350 more buildings as firefighters worked to keep the flames at bay and hundreds of residents prepared to evacuate. The fires raging in Washington have charred 130,000 acres and the weather could make things worse, officials said. The fires were among a cluster of blazes raging in the U.S. West. "Conditions look horrible," said Paul Perz, the state's assistant fire marshal. "We're anticipating that unstable conditions and winds in eastern Washington will fuel the fires." The wildfires were sparked by thousands of weekend lightning strikes that ignited more than 150 fires on Monday. Six new fires started on Wednesday. The most menacing of the blazes, located about 140 miles east of Seattle, has spread to 9,500 acres and is threatening about 125 homes. More than 700 residents have been urged to evacuate. Although 620 firefighters were on the scene, little of the fire was contained, Perz said. "Portions of the town are threatened," said John Kruse, Wenatchee police sergeant. "Right now, we're taking it 12 hours at a time." The so-called Barker Canyon Complex fire in the Grand Coulee region in eastern Washington destroyed three homes and nine outbuildings on Wednesday, but was 20 percent contained, Perz said. |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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CBS News / SPACE.com
2012-09-13 13:32:00
A newfound asteroid that may be the size of three football fields will whiz by Earth on Thursday (Sept. 13), and you can watch the close encounter live online. Asteroid 2012 QG42 is between 625 feet to 1,400 feet wide (190 to 430 meters) and was first spotted by scientists last month. Researchers say the space rock has no chance of hitting Earth this week when it makes its closest approach on Thursday. The asteroid will pass by at a safe distance of about 7.5 times the Earth-moon distance. The moon is, on average, about 238,000 miles from Earth. Asteroid 2012 QG42 is, however, listed as a "potentially hazardous asteroid" by the Minor Planet Center at Cambridge, Mass., meaning it may pose a threat in the future. At least two online observatories are tracking the asteroid's pass by Earth. The Virtual Telescope Project run by astronomer Gianluca Masi in Italy began providing a live video stream today at 6 p.m. EDT (22:00 UTC). You can see that video stream here. 2 NEO's flying past Earth Sept. 13-14, 2012 |
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ABC15.com
A mysterious formation in the Valley sky that shined bright Thursday
morning had hundreds of viewers emailing and calling ABC15. The
formation was seen shining bright around 5:30 a.m. and eventually
disappeared.2012-09-13 09:29:00
SEE MORE PHOTOS ON ABC15.COM |
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| Health & Wellness |
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ScienceDaily
New research could clarify how inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD),
conditions that include ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, are
triggered and develop.2012-09-13 16:28:00 Scientists at Emory University School of Medicine have shown how the immune system can compensate for a "leaky gut" and prevent disease in mice that are susceptible to intestinal inflammation. These findings could explain why some individuals who are susceptible to developing IBD do or do not get the disease. The results will be published online Sept. 13 in the journal Immunity. "Our results suggest that when there is a chronically leaky intestine, defects in the immune system need to be present for the development of IBD," says senior author Charles Parkos, MD, PhD, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Emory University School of Medicine. "Breakdown of the intestinal barrier can occur as a result of intestinal infections or stress. The normal response involves several components of the immune system that help to heal the injury while controlling invading bacteria. When this normal response is defective and there is a leaky barrier, the risk of developing IBD is increased." |
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ScienceDaily
2012-09-13 16:19:00
Moderate exercise may help people cope with anxiety and stress for an extended period of time post-workout, according to a study by kinesiology researchers in the University of Maryland School of Public Health published in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. "While it is well-known that exercise improves mood, among other benefits, not as much is known about the potency of exercise's impact on emotional state and whether these positive effects endure when we're faced with everyday stressors once we leave the gym," explains J. Carson Smith, assistant professor in the Department of Kinesiology. "We found that exercise helps to buffer the effects of emotional exposure. If you exercise, you'll not only reduce your anxiety, but you'll be better able to maintain that reduced anxiety when confronted with emotional events." Smith, whose research explores how exercise and physical activity affect brain function, aging and mental health, compared how moderate intensity cycling versus a period of quiet rest (both for 30 minutes) affected anxiety levels in a group of healthy college students. He assessed their anxiety state before the period of activity (or rest), shortly afterward (15 minutes after) and finally after exposing them to a variety of highly arousing pleasant and unpleasant photographs, as well as neutral images. At each point, study participants answered 20 questions from the State-Trait Anxiety inventory, which is designed to assess different symptoms of anxiety. All participants were put through both the exercise and the rest states (on different days) and tested for anxiety levels pre-exercise, post-exercise, and post-picture viewing. |
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ScienceDaily
A growing body of research shows that children who suffer severe neglect
and social isolation have cognitive and social impairments as adults. A
study from Boston Children's Hospital shows, for the first time, how
these functional impairments arise: Social isolation during early life
prevents the cells that make up the brain's white matter from maturing
and producing the right amount of myelin, the fatty "insulation" on
nerve fibers that helps them transmit long-distance messages within the
brain.2012-09-13 16:13:00 The study also identifies a molecular pathway that is involved in these abnormalities, showing it is disrupted by social isolation and suggesting it could potentially be targeted with drugs. Finally, the research indicates that the timing of social deprivation is an important factor in causing impairment. The findings are reported in the Sept. 14 issue of the journal Science. The researchers, led by Gabriel Corfas, PhD, and Manabu Makinodan, MD, PhD, both of the F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center at Boston Children's Hospital, modeled social deprivation in mice by putting them in isolation for two weeks. |
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Sayer Ji
GreenMedInfo.com 2012-09-11 11:35:00
A new study on aspartame has the potential to reignite the decades-old controversy behind this artificial sweetener's safety, or lack thereof. As far back as 1996, folks were writing about the potential link between aspartame and increasing brain tumor rates.[i] Indeed, its intrinsic neurotoxicity and carcinogenicity has been confirmed in the biomedical literature. And yet, aspartame has been approved for use in thousands of consumer products in over 90 countries, [ii] and is still being consumed by millions worldwide on a daily basis - despite the fact that over 40 adverse health effects of aspartame have been documented. The new study, published in the September edition of the Journal of Bioscience and titled, "Effect of chronic exposure to aspartame on oxidative stress in the brain of albino rats," aimed to test the hypothesis that chronic consumption of aspartame may be causing neurological damage in exposed populations. They found that chronic (90 day) administration of aspartame to rats, at ranges only 50% above what the FDA considers safe for human consumption, resulted in blood and brain tissue changes consistent with brain damage. |
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Jane E. Brody
The New York Times 2012-09-10 12:01:00
Antibiotics are important drugs, often restoring health and even saving lives. But like all drugs, they can have unwanted and serious side effects, some of which may not become apparent until many thousands of patients have been treated. Such is the case with an important class of antibiotics known as fluoroquinolones. The best known are Cipro (ciprofloxacin), Levaquin (levofloxacin) and Avelox (moxifloxacin). In 2010, Levaquin was the best-selling antibiotic in the United States. But by last year it was also the subject of more than 2,000 lawsuits from patients who had suffered severe reactions after taking it. | |
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Dov Smith
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 2012-09-12 19:00:00
New research from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem shows that a carefully scheduled high-fat diet can lead to a reduction in body weight and a unique metabolism in which ingested fats are not stored, but rather used for energy at times when no food is available. The research was conducted by Prof. Oren Froy along with Prof. Zecharia Madar, research student Yoni Genzer and research fellow Dr. Hadas Sherman at the Institute of Biochemistry, Food Science and Nutrition, at the Hebrew University's Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment. The results were published in FASEB Journal under the title 'Timed high-fat diet resets circadian metabolism and prevents obesity.' Previous research has established that disrupting mammals' daily rhythms, or feeding them a high-fat diet, disrupts metabolism and leads to obesity. The researchers wanted to determine the effect of combining a high-fat diet with long-term feeding on a fixed schedule. They hypothesized that careful scheduling of meals would regulate the biological clock and reduce the effects of a high-fat diet that, under normal circumstances, would lead to obesity. |
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| Science of the Spirit |
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Stephanie Pappas
Live Science 2012-09-13 13:01:00
Social isolation in youth may wreak havoc on the brain by disrupting a protein crucial to the development of the nervous system's support cells, new research finds. A new study in mice finds that when the animals are isolated during a crucial early period, brain cells called oligodendrocytes fail to mature properly. Oligodendrocytes build the fatty, insulating sheathes that cushion neurons, and their dysfunction seems to cause long-lasting behavioral changes. Research in rhesus monkeys and humans has shown that social isolation during childhood has an array of nasty and lifelong effects, from cognitive and social problems in neglected children to working memory troubles in isolated monkeys. These children and monkeys also show abnormalities in the white matter of the brain, which includes support cells such as oligodendrocytes as well as the fat-covered neural projections that act as the brain's communication system. But while previous studies had noted a correlation between white matter problems and cognitive struggles after isolation, they could not prove one caused the other. Gabriel Corfas, a professor of neurology and otolaryngology at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and his colleagues wanted to understand how the relationship works. They took baby mice from their mothers at 21 days of age, right after weaning. Some of the young mice were put in typical laboratory conditions, living in a cage with three other mice. Another group was given an enriched environment, with lots of mousey company and an ever-changing array of toys. The final group of mice was put in individual isolation for two weeks, never seeing another rodent. |
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Darioingach
Speaking of Research 2012-08-23 11:31:00
A group of scientists recently gathered at the Francis Crick Memorial Conference and issued the following declaration which as been widely covered in the media: Their good intentions duly noted, this is not a declaration of a scientific fact. |
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Jeremy Dean
PsyBlog 2012-09-11 11:21:00
We all have a kind of virtual policeman living inside us. Amongst other things he's the guy that helps us work towards our goals, whether personal or professional. When things go wrong and we stray off the straight and narrow, he reminds us what we were supposed to be doing. But what kind of policeman is he? Is he the kind with a riot shield, a baton and a bad attitude or does he offer a forgiving smile, a friendly word and a helping hand? People sometimes think of the latter, more relaxed internal policeman, as being weak and ineffectual. The danger, it is thought, with going easy on ourselves, is that it will lead to lower motivation. Surely if we don't use self-criticism to push ourselves, we'll never get anywhere? So, what stance should we adopt towards ourselves? |
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Evan Nowell
Columbia Business School 2012-09-12 18:37:00
The musician Paul Simon came to fame collaborating with his childhood friend Art Garfunkel, yet launched another chapter with his Graceland album, collaborating with musicians from Soweto. Ratan Tata made his name expanding his family's firms in India, yet in recent decades has reached even greater success helping foreign firms such as Daewoo and Jaguar find new markets. Whether artists, entrepreneurs, or executives, some individuals are especially able to bridge cultural gaps and leverage foreign ideas and opportunities. Why can some people collaborate creatively all around the world while others succeed only with people quite similar to themselves? Are there psychological characteristics that distinguish global collaborators? Do they form different kinds of relationships? New research by Michael Morris, the Chavkin-Chang Professor of Leadership at Columbia Business School, finds that mindfulness about cultural assumptions is a key driver. People who are habitually aware of their cultural frameworks tend to develop more affectively trusting relationships with people from other cultures, opening the free flow of ideas that is intrinsic to creative collaboration. The paper, published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, is led by former Columbia Business School doctoral student Roy Y.J. Chua (currently an assistant professor at Harvard Business School) and co-authored by current Columbia Business School doctoral student Shira Mor. The globalization of business is increasingly creating demand for managers adept at working creatively with people from diverse backgrounds. Researchers have drawn attention to individual differences in cultural metacognition, the proclivity to reflect on and fine-tune one's cultural assumptions when interacting with others. In three studies using different ways of measuring cross-cultural collaboration, Morris's research team found that success can be predicted from an individual's cultural metacognition score, assessed with a survey inventory beforehand. The first study asked business executives for lists of people from other cultures with whom they have worked over the course of their careers. The researchers then tracked down these associates and surveyed them about many aspects of the executive's management style, including the executive's success in collaborating creatively across cultural lines. These scores of intercultural collaboration success (from the vantage of individuals from different cultures) could be predicted by an executive's cultural metacognition score even when personality and other standard individual differences were controlled. |
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Anna Mikulak
So many acts in our daily lives - refusing that second slice of cake,
walking past the store with the latest gadgets, working on your tax
forms when you'd rather watch TV - seem to boil down to one essential
ingredient: self-control. Self-control is what enables us to maintain
healthy habits, save for a rainy day, and get important things done.Association for Psychological Science 2012-09-12 18:02:00 But what is self-control, really? And how does it work? In a new article in the September 2012 issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, researchers Michael Inzlicht of the University of Toronto and Brandon Schmeichel of Texas A&M University argue that the prevailing model of self-control may not be as precise as researchers once thought. Rather than being a limited resource, self-control may actually be more like a motivation- and attention-driven process. Research on self-control has surged in the last decade and much of it has centered on the resource model of self-control. According to this model, originally proposed by Roy Baumeister and colleagues, self-control is a limited resource - if we exercise a lot of self-control by refusing a second slice of cake, we may not have enough self-control later in the day to resist the urge to shop or watch TV. Over 100 papers have produced findings that support this model. Research has found, for example, that people who are required to manage their emotions show impaired performance on later tasks, such as solving a difficult puzzle, squeezing a handgrip exerciser, and keeping items in working memory. But Inzlicht and Schmeichel point out that a newer crop of studies are yielding results that don't fit with this idea of self-control as a depletable resource. Recent studies have shown that incentives, individual perceptions of task difficulty, personal beliefs about willpower, feedback on task performance, and changes in mood all seem to influence our ability to exercise self-control. These results suggest that self-control may not rely on a limited resource after all. |
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| High Strangeness |
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No new articles. |
| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
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