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Georgia's president Saakashvili concedes election defeat, signalling end of CIA's 'Rose Revolution'?
Luke Harding and Miriam Elder
The Guardian 2012-10-02 17:18:00
Mikheil Saakashvili says opposition led by Bidzina Ivanishvili will form new government after defeating UNM in parliamentary poll Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili, has conceded defeat in parliamentary elections, saying the opposition led by the billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili will form the country's new government. In a TV address, Saakashvili said his ruling United National Movement (UNM) had lost to Ivanishvili's Georgian Dream coalition. He urged Georgians to respect the result. "We think their [the opposition's] views are wrong, but democracy works this way," he said. Officials figures have yet to be confirmed but government sources said the coalition would have 84 parliamentary seats and the UNM 66. Ivanishvili's six-party coalition appears to have won about 51% of the popular vote, with 41% for UNM and 9% for other parties. The results are a blow to Saakashvili, who led Georgia's rose revolution in 2003. They also amount to an extraordinary moment in its post-Soviet history, with power transferred for the first time democratically and thus-far peacefully between rival political forces. |
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Press TV
2012-10-02 09:01:00
Journalists, experts and officials around the world continue to react to the assassination of Press TV's correspondent by western-backed insurgents in Syria. Maya Naser was killed by sniper fire in Damascus last week while reporting live for Press TV. He was shot twice in the neck and once in the chest. The channel's Damascus bureau chief, Hossein Mortada, was also shot and injured in the attack. "It's a terrible tragedy," Timur Shafir of Russian Union of Journalists told Press TV. "Journalists die in war zones and nothing protects them," he added. The assassination of Maya Naser, as some experts say, was meant to send a message to other war correspondents in Syria. "Those responsible for Maya Naser's death were targeting Press TV to silence the coverage of the war in Syria," Salim Ali, a Russian expert on Middle Eastern affairs, told Press TV. |
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Matthew Boyle
Daily Caller 2012-10-01 09:10:00
When Mexican authorities took Juarez drug cartel carnage king Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez - better known as "El Diego" - into custody, he had weapons from Operation Fast and Furious on his person, the English-language transcript of the Spanish-language television network Univision's special investigation into the scandal shows. "According to investigations, 'El Diego' forms the link between this massacre and Fast and Furious," an anchor read on air in Spanish Sunday evening, referring to two different mass killings drug cartel operatives used Fast and Furious weapons to conduct as Univision reported. "When he [El Diego] was captured in Chihuahua in the summer of 2011, he was found with weapons that the American government had allowed to enter Mexico," the anchor added. | |
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CBS News DC
2012-10-01 01:47:00
Drones could soon operate without the help of humans. Agence France-Presse is reporting that the Pentagon wants its drones to be more autonomous, so that they can run with little to no assistance from people. "Before they were blind, deaf and dumb," Mark Maybury, chief scientist for the U.S. Air Force, told AFP. "Now we're beginning to make them to see, hear and sense." Ronald Arkin, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, believes that drones will soon be able to kill enemies on their own independently. "It is not my belief that an unmanned system will be able to be perfectly ethical in the battlefield, but I am convinced that they can perform more ethically than human soldiers are capable of," Arkin told AFP. Arkin added that robotic weapons should be designed as "ethical" warriors and that these type of robots could wage war in a more "humane" way. |
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Ernesto Londoño
Washington Post 2012-10-01 01:47:00
Two days after the U.S. military resumed joint operations with Afghan security forces last week following a spate of "insider attacks," a platoon of American soldiers stopped at an Afghan army checkpoint in a volatile eastern province. The Americans had a cordial conversation and cracked a few jokes with their Afghan comrades during the Saturday afternoon patrol in Wardak province. The Afghans offered the Americans tea. Then, according to a U.S. military official, an Afghan soldier, without warning or provocation, raised his weapon and opened fire - mortally wounding the senior American on the patrol. In a war in which insider attacks have become commonplace, what happened next made the incident extraordinary, the American official said. Another Afghan soldier at the checkpoint opened fire on the Americans, killing a U.S. civilian contractor and wounding two other American soldiers. Soon, Afghan soldiers and possibly insurgents began firing at the Americans from several directions. NATO officials initially described the deadly episode as an insider attack but later said they had not yet classified it as such because of suspected insurgent involvement. A top Afghan military official denied that what took place was an insider attack and said the shooting was caused by a misunderstanding. |
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BBC News
2012-10-01 15:21:00
The White House has confirmed it was the target of a cyber-attack but says the breach hit an unclassified network. An unnamed administration official told US media that there was no indication any data had been removed. The conservative Washington Free Beacon reported on Sunday that hackers linked to the Chinese government had breached the White House Military Office. The White House would not say if the attack originated in China, describing it as a "spear-phishing" attempt. "Spear-phishing" typically works by sending fake e-mails that look like legitimate correspondence, but which link to a malicious website or file attachment. |
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David Swanson
A writer at the Atlantic named Conor Friedersdorf recently noted the level of evil many have been brought to support:
WarIsACrime 2012-10-01 21:29:00 "Tell certain liberals and progressives that you can't bring yourself to vote for a candidate who opposes gay rights, or who doesn't believe in Darwinian evolution, and they'll nod along. Say that you'd never vote for a politician caught using the 'n'-word, even if you agreed with him on more policy issues than his opponent, and the vast majority of left-leaning Americans would understand. But these same people cannot conceive of how anyone can discern Mitt Romney's flaws, which I've chronicled in the course of the campaign, and still not vote for Obama. Don't they see that Obama's transgressions are worse than any I've mentioned? I don't see how anyone who confronts Obama's record with clear eyes can enthusiastically support him. I do understand how they might concluded that he is the lesser of two evils, and back him reluctantly, but I'd have thought more people on the left would regard a sustained assault on civil liberties and the ongoing, needless killing of innocent kids as deal-breakers."Not long ago, I attended a speech by Obama, along with thousands of his adoring cheerleaders formerly known as citizens. I asked him to stop killing people in Afghanistan, and the Secret Service asked me to leave. But, just now, I got a phone call from the local Obama office. They had my name because I'd picked up a ticket to attend the speech. The young woman wanted to know if I would come help phone other people. I asked if she was familiar with the president's kill list and his policy of killing men, women, and children with drones. She said she knew nothing about that but "respected my opinion." She hung up. Objecting to presidential murder is now an opinion, and willingness to be aware of its existence is an appendage to the opinion. If you don't object to presidential murder by Democrat, then you simply arrange not to know about it. Thus, in your opinion, it doesn't exist. Some of my friends at this moment are in Pakistan apologizing to its government and its people for the endless murderous drone war fought there by our country. They're meeting with victims' families. They're speaking publicly in opposition to the crimes of our government. And my neighbors, living in some other universe, believe most fundamentally, not that one candidate will save us, not that the two parties are fundamentally opposed, not that a citizen's job is to vote, not that war is all right if it's meant well -- although they clearly believe all of those things -- but, most fundamentally, they believe that unpleasant facts should simply be avoided. So, in a spirit of afflicting the comfortable to comfort the afflicted, here are a few from recent days: |
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Activist Post
2012-09-30 17:49:00
Occupy Gardens plants in Queens Park destroyed without harvesting food Amid a growing food crisis, this morning workers from the City of Toronto were ordered by City of Toronto Parks Director Richard Ubbens that all live plants and food be removed from the People's Peas Garden in Queens Park. They were ordered to take the plants and food to the dump and lay sod overtop of this most beautiful free community food garden, without warning, without a chance to remove the rare heirloom plant species or harvest the food. The garden was planted by Occupy Gardens and allies on May 1st, in defense of local and global food security. While the garden has been growing undisturbed for nearly 5 months, with the help of hundreds in the community, the city deliberately decided to have it removed upon the eve of the Autumn Jam: A Harvest Party and celebration of sharing, community and free local food, which is happening tomorrow from 12-6pm at the garden in Queens Park (northwest section). | |
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Comment: Read more about how City Officials Are Waging A War On Gardens in Canada and the USA:
Government Threatens with Jail Time for Growing Produce in Front-Yard Garden US: Michigan Woman Faces 93 Days in Jail for Planting a Vegetable Garden Landlord Charged for Front Yard Garden - Tenant & Neighbors Fight Back |
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| Society's Child |
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Brittany Pelletz
WYMT.TV 2012-09-28 19:42:00
Williamsburg, Kentucky - A Chinese restaurant forced to shut its doors after getting caught with a dead deer in the kitchen. It happened Thursday afternoon at the Red Flower Chinese Restaurant in Williamsburg. "We were actually joking about the, you know, the whole Chinese restaurant. You know some rumors that you hear," says Katie Hopkins, a customer of the Red Flower restaurant. But, Hopkins and her friends never imaged what would happen next, after finishing up a buffet lunch. "Two of the workers came in wheeling a garbage can and they had a box sitting on top of it. And hanging out of the garbage can, they were trying to be real quick with it. So that nobody could see it. But there was like a tail, and a foot and leg. Sticking out of the garbage can and they wheeled it straight back into the kitchen," adds Hopkins. Hopkins immediately called the health department to describe what she saw, "Many people eat there. A lot of locals eat there on lunch breaks and stuff. It was very disturbing. There was actually a blood trail that they were mopping up behind the garbage can." Paul Lawson, the environmental health inspector in Whitley County says this is the craziest thing he's ever seen. |
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Maria Godoy
When French peasants stormed the Bastille on July 14, 1789, they weren't
just revolting against the monarchy's policies. They were also hungry.
From the French Revolution to the Arab Spring, high food prices have
been cited as a factor behind mass protest movements. But can food
prices actually help predict when social unrest is likely break out?
Yes, say a group of researchers who use mathematical modeling to
describe how food prices behave. Earlier this summer, their model had
predicted that the U.S. drought would push corn and wheat prices high
enough to spark social unrest in other parts of the world.United Press International 2012-10-02 10:13:00 "Now, of course, we do see this happening," says Yaneer Bar-Yam of the New England Complex Science Institute in Cambridge, Mass. And unless those food prices come down, the researchers warned last week, more waves of riots are coming.
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Matthew Sparkes
Eurozone unemployment has hit a record high, revealing further
evidence of a two-speed Europe as increasing numbers of young people in
Spain, Greece and Italy desperately seek work while Germany's jobless
rate continues to fall. The Telegraph, UK 2012-10-01 00:00:00
The eurozone unemployment rate was 11.4pc in August, up from 10.2pc last year. Data from the EU statistics agency Eurostat estimated that 25.5m men and women were out of work over the period, 18.2m of whom were in the eurozone. Compared with the previous month the number of unemployed people in the EU rose by 49,000 and in the eurozone by 34,000. The overall unemployment rate in Spain has reached 25.1pc, while the latest data from Greece for June shows a figure of 24.4pc. The outlook is far more optimistic in Germany, however, where just 5.5pc of people are out of work. |
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CBS San Francisco
2012-10-01 07:30:00
California - A man who decided to try out his costume and dress up ahead of Halloween prompted an explosives scare in downtown San Mateo Monday that resulted in the dispatch of a police bomb squad, authorities said. Police received several calls about a man in a car front of a market along the first block of East 4th Street wearing what witnesses described as a full gas mask and army gear with several grenades hanging around his neck. The San Mateo County sheriff's bomb squad responded and evacuated a half-block area about 9:30 a.m. Police detained the costumed man and said an "inert grenade" was found in his car, but they also indicated there was "no current danger" to the public. |
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David M. Herszenhorn
New York Times 2012-10-01 00:00:00
Russia, Moscow - A Moscow appellate court postponed a hearing on Monday in the case of the punk protest band Pussy Riot after one of three defendants said that she wanted to fire her lawyers because of disagreements. The three women, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, and Maria Alyokhina, 24, were convicted in August of hooliganism and sentenced to two years in a prison colony for staging a "punk prayer" in Moscow's main Russian Orthodox cathedral last February. They said the stunt was intended to protest against Vladimir V. Putin, who was running for president at the time, and to criticize support for Mr. Putin by the church patriarch, Kirill I. The prosecution of the three women, two of them mothers of young children, became an international sensation, and prompted wide criticism of Russia over the suppression of political speech. The women received support from a number of major music stars, including Sting and Madonna, as well as many governments. On the day of their conviction and sentencing, supporters rallied in dozens of cities around the world, many wearing colorful balaclavas - Pussy Riot's trademark head gear. But the judge who convicted the women, Marina Syrova, said that political comments were spliced into a video of the stunt later and that her verdict was based on the infiltration of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and the women's behavior in front of the altar, which she said amounted to "the insult and humiliation of the Christian faith and inciting religious hatred." |
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Gosia Wozniacka
2012-10-02 00:00:00
Hanford, California - Two cars and the locomotive of an Amtrak train carrying about 169 passengers derailed Monday after colliding with a big rig truck in California's Central Valley, authorities said. At least 20 passengers suffered minor to moderate injuries, authorities said. The 12:25 p.m. crash occurred when the driver of the tractor-trailer carrying cotton trash failed to yield and hit the train, authorities said. The impact pushed the two passenger cars and the locomotive off the tracks south of Hanford, a farming town. The train traveled about 600 feet after the collision before hitting a switchback and derailing, according to California Highway Patrol Officer Scott Harris. Officials have not determined how fast the train or the truck were going, but the average speed for Amtrak through the area is 70 to 80 mph, while the speed limit on the roadway where the truck was traveling is 55 mph, Harris said. After the crash, metal pieces from the truck could be seen inside the train, which was covered by cotton seeds. Several pieces of luggage were also scattered around the area. |
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Kathleen Pender
US, California - The White House took another big step Friday to
discourage government contractors from warning employees - just before
the November elections - that they could be laid off next year if
Congress can't reach a compromise to prevent automatic across-the-board
spending cuts known as sequestration.San Francisco Chronicle 2012-10-01 00:00:00 In a memo, the Office of Management and Budget said the government - i.e. taxpayers - would foot the bill if contractors lay off workers as a result of sequestration and get sued for failing to provide the layoff notices required by the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. William Gould, a Stanford Law School professor emeritus specializing in labor law, says the government's offer to pay for violations of the so-called Warn Act "so far as I'm aware is unprecedented." The offer applies only to government contractors - not to employers who lay off workers because they lose other types of federal funding such as research grants, according to the OMB. The Warn Act generally requires private-sector employers with 100 or more full-time employees to give workers at least 60 days' notice of plant closings and layoffs that exceed a certain threshold. If they don't, employees can sue to collect up to 60 days of back pay. There are exceptions, such as if the business can prove the layoff was the result of an "unforeseen business circumstance." |
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Kelvin Chan
ABC News 2012-10-01 00:00:00
Hong Kong - A boat packed with revelers on a long holiday weekend collided with a ferry and sank off Hong Kong, killing at least 36 people and injuring dozens in the deadliest accident to strike the Chinese territory in years. The boat was carrying utility company workers and their families to famed Victoria Harbour to watch a fireworks display in celebration of China's National Day and mid-autumn festival. The two vessels collided Monday night near Lamma Island off the southwestern coast of Hong Kong Island. The government said 36 bodies had been recovered as of Tuesday morning and the search was made difficult by low visibility and obstacles on the boat. Details about the victims were not given, though local outlet RTHK reported some of the dead were children. More than 100 people were rescued and sent to hospitals, and nine had serious or critical injuries, the government's statement said. At least one person appeared to be missing, according to government figures. |
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Joshua Rhett Miller
Fox News 2012-10-01 00:00:00
A New York college student has been charged with second-degree murder in the beating death of his 18-year-old girlfriend, who was found brutally assaulted in her dorm room, police said. Alexandra Kogut, of New Hartford, N.Y., was found dead in her room at The College at Brockport by university police at about 2:45 a.m. Saturday. The cause of death was blunt force trauma, Monroe County Sheriff's Office Cpl. John Helfer told FoxNews.com. Kogut's boyfriend, Clayton Whittemore, 21, was later arrested at a rest stop roughly 100 miles away and confessed to killing Kogut, a freshman communications major whose relatives remembered her as a "bright, beautiful" young woman excited to begin her college life. Whittemore, also of New Hartford, had apparently visited Kogut during the weekend. The student at Utica college helped his high school hockey team with consecutive state titles in 2009 and 2010, WKTV reports. Whittemore, who pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder during his arraignment Saturday, has nevertheless confessed to killing Kogut, Helfer said. |
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Erik Ortiz
New York Daily News 2012-10-01 23:03:00
A family member of an Oregon pig farmer discovered his relative's body parts scattered across the pen - a gruesome find leaving authorities to believe it was a case of hog eating human. A pathologist couldn't immediately determine whether the pigs were the actual cause of 70-year-old Terry Garner's death, but a forensic expert at the University of Oregon will conduct further tests, CBS affiliate KCBY reported Monday. "What a way," someone who answered the phone at Garner's home told NBC News. Investigators aren't ruling out the possibility another person could have been involved. "Due to the unusual circumstances, the Sheriff's Office is investigating to determine if foul play may have resulted in the death of Mr. Garner," District Attorney Paul Frasier told KCBY. Garner was at his farm near rural Riverton last Wednesday, when a family member went looking for him, according to The Register-Guard. |
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Times of India
A tribal woman, Dhani Murmu (45) was lynched on Thursday for allegedly
practising witchcraft at village Churchu under Churchu police station of
Hazaribag district by her brother-in-law and three relatives.2012-09-29 06:03:00 Surendra Ravidas, officer-in-charge of the Churchu police station said on Friday that wife of Nanku Charhe, brother-in-law of the victim was ill for quite for sometime and was not responding to treatment. When all efforts failed, Nanku was compelled to approach 'ojhas and tantriks' to understand the reason behind this and seek ways for speedy recovery. The latter visited Nanku's house and said it was due to the witchcraft by Dhani Murmu that Nanku's wife was not recovering and unless she is eliminated, condition of Nanku's wife will not improve. On hearing this, Nanku and three other relatives dragged her out of the house and started beating her with lathis due to which she fell unconscious. Her husband Mohan Charhe was out when the incident occurred. On receiving information about the assault on Dhani, her brother Mantik Murmu rushed to the spot and informed the Churchu police about the incident. The police then removed Dhani from the house and shifted her to a hospital where she succumbed to her injuries. Later Mantik lodged an FIR against Nanku and three others in the Churchu PS. The Churchu police arrested Nanku and three others- all women for killing Dhani. The people of the locality said Dhani was innocent and had nothing to do with witchcraft. |
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| Secret History |
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Megan Gannon
LiveScience 2012-10-02 14:43:00
Researchers have suspected that two Egyptian artificial toes are the world's oldest known prosthetic body parts. Volunteers without a big toe in a new study showed that the prosthetics would have made walking around in ancient Egyptian sandals much easier. One of the artifacts in question is the Greville Chester toe, now in the British Museum. It dates back before 600 B.C. and is made of cartonnage, an ancient type of papier maché made with a mixture of linen, animal glue and tinted plaster. The other is the wood and leather Cairo toe at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, which was found on a female mummy near Luxor and is thought to date back to between 950 and 710 B.C. If the parts were indeed used to help ancient Egyptians missing a big toe walk normally, they would be the earliest known practical prostheses - older than the bronze and wooden Roman Capua leg, which dates back to 300 B.C. "Several experts have examined these objects and had suggested that they were the earliest prosthetic devices in existence," University of Manchester researcher Jacky Finch, who led the study, said in a statement. "There are many instances of the ancient Egyptians creating false body parts for burial but the wear plus their design both suggest they were used by people to help them to walk." |
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| Science & Technology |
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Science Daily
2012-10-02 16:25:00
You can thank your parents for your smarts -- or at least some of them. Psychologists have long known that intelligence, like most other traits, is partly genetic. But a new study led by psychological scientist Christopher Chabris of Union College reveals the surprising fact that most of the specific genes long thought to be linked to intelligence probably have no bearing on one's IQ. And it may be some time before researchers can identify intelligence's specific genetic roots. Chabris and David Laibson, a Harvard economist, led an international team of researchers that analyzed a dozen genes using large data sets that included both intelligence testing and genetic data. In nearly every case, the researchers found that intelligence could not be linked to the specific genes that were tested. The results are published online in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. "In all of our tests we only found one gene that appeared to be associated with intelligence, and it was a very small effect. This does not mean intelligence does not have a genetic component. It means it's a lot harder to find the particular genes, or the particular genetic variants, that influence the differences in intelligence," said Chabris. |
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EarthSky.org
Scientists developed a computer model to identify four possible
instances of true polar wander in the past. And, they say, true polar
wander is happening now. Scientists based in Germany and Norway today published new results about a geophysical theory known as true polar wander.
That is a drifting of Earth's solid exterior - an actual change in
latitude for some land masses - relative to our planet's rotation axis.
These scientists used hotspots in Earth's mantle as part of a computer
model, which they say is accurate for the past 120 million years, to
identify four possible instances of true polar wander in the past. And,
they say, true polar wander is happening now. These scientists published
their results in the Journal for Geophysical Research today (October 1, 2012).2012-10-02 08:58:00
The scientists - including Pavel V. Doubrovine and Trond H. Torsvik of the University of Oslo, and Bernhard Steinberger of the Helmholtz Center in Potsdam, Germany - established what they believe is a stable reference frame for tracking true polar wander. Based on this reference frame, they say that twice - from 90 to 40 million years ago - the solid Earth traveled back and forth by nearly 9 degrees with respect to our planet's axis of rotation. What's more, for the past 40 million years, the Earth's solid outer layers have been slowly rotating at a rate of 0.2 degrees every million years, according to these scientists. |
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| Earth Changes |
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Tom Niziol
Weather.com 2012-10-02 10:15:00
During the upcoming 2012-13 winter season, The Weather Channel will name noteworthy winter storms. Our goal is to better communicate the threat and the timing of the significant impacts that accompany these events. The fact is, a storm with a name is easier to follow, which will mean fewer surprises and more preparation. Hurricanes and tropical storms have been given names since the 1940s. In the late 1800s, tropical systems near Australia were named as well. Weather systems, including winter storms, have been named in Europe since the 1950s. Important dividends have resulted from attaching names to these storms:
The question then becomes: "Why aren't winter storms named?" In fact, in Europe the naming of weather systems has been going on for a long time. Here in the U.S., summer time storms including thunderstorms and tornadoes occur on such a small time and space scale that there would be little benefit and much confusion trying to attach names to them. However, winter weather is different. Winter storms occur on a time and space scale that is similar to tropical systems. |
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The Extinction Protocol
2012-10-02 09:06:00
Heard Island on the Kerguelen Plateau in the southern Indian Ocean consists primarily of the emergent portion of two volcanic structures. The large glacier-covered composite basaltic-to-trachytic cone of Big Ben comprises most of the island, and the smaller Mt. Dixon volcano lies at the NW tip of the island across a narrow isthmus. Little is known about the structure of Big Ben volcano because of its extensive ice cover. The historically active Mawson Peak forms the island's 2745-m high point and lies within a 5-6 km wide caldera breached to the SW side of Big Ben. |
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Ronald Bailey
Reason.com 2009-08-27 00:00:00
A new study in the journal Science by a team of international of researchers led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research have found that the sunspot cycle has a big effect on the earth's weather. The puzzle has been how fluctuations in the sun's energy of about 0.1 percent over the course of the 11-year sunspot cycle could affect the weather? The press release describing the new study explains: The team first confirmed a theory that the slight increase in solar energy during the peak production of sunspots is absorbed by stratospheric ozone. The energy warms the air in the stratosphere over the tropics, where sunlight is most intense, while also stimulating the production of additional ozone there that absorbs even more solar energy. Since the stratosphere warms unevenly, with the most pronounced warming occurring at lower latitudes, stratospheric winds are altered and, through a chain of interconnected processes, end up strengthening tropical precipitation. | |
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Comment: Dr. Meehl is still trying to promote the man-made global warming agenda, in spite of evidence to the contrary.
'Forget global warming, prepare for Ice Age' Climate Change Swindlers and the Political Agenda |
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Walt Zwirko
WFAA.com 2012-09-29 11:42:00
Irving - The U.S. Geological Survey recorded a 3.4 magnitude earthquake centered near Irving at 11:05 p.m. Saturday. Four minutes later, there was a magnitude 3.1 quake in West Dallas. Both were estimated at a depth of 3.1 miles. News 8 has been receiving calls and Facebook postings from people who felt the earth moving in Richardson, Garland, Coppell, Dallas, Grapevine, and other locations in North Texas. The epicenter of the initial quake was located near MacArthur Boulevard and Rochelle Road near Farine Elementary School, according to coordinates provided by the USGS. The second tremor was centered near the intersection of Loop 12 and Interstate 30, about six miles southeast of the first earthquake. Irving's emergency operators were flooded with more than 400 calls after the initial quake as people reported such minor damage as cracks in some walls and a ceiling, pictures knocked down and a report of a possible gas leak, according to an emergency official, Pat McMacken. City officials said they were still following up on the various reports early Sunday. |
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US Geological Survey
2012-10-01 20:29:00
Event Time 2012-10-01 22:21:45 UTC 2012-10-02 08:21:45 UTC+10:00 at epicenter Location 39.853°N 143.047°E depth=9.7km (6.0mi) Nearby Cities 96km (60mi) ENE of Miyako, Japan 103km (64mi) ENE of Yamada, Japan 112km (70mi) ENE of Otsuchi, Japan 119km (74mi) ENE of Kamaishi, Japan 548km (341mi) NNE of Tokyo, Japan Technical Details |
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Jennifer Cockerell, David Mercer
The Independent 2012-10-29 00:00:00
A 52-year-old British woman has been reported missing in severe flooding which has so far claimed nine lives in southern Spain, authorities said today. Hundreds of people have been evacuated from their homes after torrential rain led to flash flooding in the Andalucian provinces of Malaga, Almeria and Murcia. The woman, who has yet to be named, was reported missing in Almeria, a spokeswoman for the regional government of Andalucia said. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it was looking into the reports as "a matter of urgency". Heavy downpours and resulting high waters have killed five people in the province of Murcia, three in Almeria and one in Malaga. Five people originally declared missing had been found alive. |
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Becky Bohrer
An Alaska scientist whose observations of drowned polar bears helped
galvanize the global warming movement has been reprimanded for improper
release of government documents.The Seattle Times 2012-09-28 15:41:00 Juneau, Alaska - An Alaska scientist whose observations of drowned polar bears helped galvanize the global warming movement has been reprimanded for improper release of government documents. An Interior Department official said emails released by Charles Monnett were cited by a federal appeals court in decisions to vacate approval by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management of an oil and gas company's Arctic exploration plan. The official, Walter Cruickshank, deputy director of BOEM, said in a memo that an inspector general's investigation contained findings that Monnett had improperly disclosed internal government documents, which he said were later used against the agency in court. He also said the investigation made other findings in regards to Monnett's conduct, but he wasn't taking action on those. He would not specify those findings. Cruickshank called Monnett's "misconduct very serious," and said any future misconduct may lead to more severe discipline, including removal from federal service. |
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Comment: Interesting that the scientist in question
was reprimanded for releasing government documents, but not for
perpetrating a hoax. A government investigation into the supposed
science surrounding this now-infamous urban legend has revealed that it
was likely nothing more than a pseudoscientific hoax propagated by
faulty math and perfunctory observations.
Global warming fraud: Iconic polar bear on melting ice cap a hoax Polar bear expert barred by global warmists Stubborn glaciers fail to retreat, awkward polar bears continue to multiply Forget About Global Warming: We're One Step From Extinction! |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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Kelly Beatty
For the first time ever, a meteor has grazed in and out of
Earth's atmosphere, slowing enough to become a temporary satellite that
lasted a full orbit.Sky and Telescope 2012-10-02 15:33:00
By evening on September 21st, an earlier storm had moved eastward and left skies over the British Isles beautifully clear. Martin Goff, an officer with the Greater Manchester [England] Police, was making his rounds when he spotted a dazzling meteor at 22:55 p.m. (21:55 Universal Time). "I immediately pulled the van over to better see the fireball," he recounts. "Although not an experienced astronomical observer I was able to log relevant information such as altitude and azimuth relative to the straight road I was on and to trees and streetlights nearby." He estimates it was about as bright as a full moon and remained visible for 35 to 40 seconds, fragmenting for at least the last half of that. "I was just flabbergasted to have seen it!" He was hardly alone in his amazement. Friday-night crowds were out and about when the bolide appeared, delighting and amazing untold thousands as it broke into dozens of pieces as it glided east to east across the sky. Dirk Ross, who tracks bright meteors and meteorite finds worldwide, logged 564 eyewitness reports from England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Norway. A few hours later, Ross received another burst of 126 sightings. But these weren't from Europe - instead, a fireball had appeared over southeastern Canada and the U.S. Northeast. What at first seemed the unlikely arrival of two dramatic bolides in a single night is now known to be something much more historic and scientifically profound. |
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| Health & Wellness |
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Katherine Czapp
Maninis Gluten Free Blog 2011-07-05 15:50:00
The Case for Rejecting or Respecting the Staff of Life Gluten intolerance, wheat allergy and celiac dis-ease are all related categories of digestive and immune system disorders that have become increasingly familiar to anyone following modern trends in human health. Barely a decade ago, gluten intolerance and celiac disease were considered uncommon genetic aberrations, occurring in perhaps 1 in 2500 persons worldwide. In just the last few years the prevalence of putative sufferers has been revised upward so frequently that it is hard to find general consensus moment by moment, but about 1 in 130 (or approaching 1 percent of the U.S. population) seems to be the current speculation by several researchers and celiac support organizations, with similar numbers recorded in Europe. The National Institutes of Health convened its first conference on celiac disease only in 2004, however, yet concluded in its report that the condition is "widely unrecognized" and "greatly underdiagnosed" while symptom-free cases appear to be increasing.[1] The story of how a class of food long revered as "the staff of life" should suddenly become a toxic substance to large numbers of people worldwide is complex and controversial, yet also provides revealing insights into modern agriculture, world trade and industrialized methods of food production. |
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Roni Caryn Rabin
The New York Times 2012-10-02 15:17:00
Private health insurance used to be the ticket to a doctor's appointment. But that's no longer the case in some affluent metropolitan enclaves, where many physicians no longer accept insurance and require upfront payment from patients - cash, checks and credit cards accepted. On Manhattan's Upper East Side, it's not unusual for a pregnant woman to pay $13,000 out of pocket in advance for childbirth and prenatal care to a physician who does not participate in any health plan. Some gynecologists are charging $650 for an annual checkup. And for pediatricians who shun insurance, parents on the Upper East Side are shelling out $150 to $250 whenever a child falls or runs a high fever. A closer look at big issues facing the country in the 2012 Election. |
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| Science of the Spirit |
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Alan McStravick
RedOrbit 2012-10-02 11:59:00
How many times have you driven a route that you were familiar with, made it safely to your destination, and then realized that you can't recall any of the specifics of your journey? Maybe you were focusing on the music on the radio or the stress of the day. Perhaps in our increasingly digital existence, you were paying attention to incoming texts or listening to the turn-by-turn directions of your GPS unit. This psychological condition, known as 'inattentional blindness', occurs when we increase our memory load with information that deflects our attention from the task at hand. When we are focused on tasks or specific information, we can sometimes be effectively blind to things that are in plain sight. Numerous real-world examples have been documented over the years. Workers in the medical or law enforcement fields - professionals regarded as educated, intelligent and even methodical - have botched their jobs in a manner that appeared careless or negligent and often led to dangerous or even fatal outcomes on account of inattentional blindness or the related phenomenon known as 'inattentional deafness'. According to a new study commissioned by the Wellcome Trust, when we try to keep an image we've just seen in our memory, we can blind ourselves to things we are actually looking at. A fun example, the now famous 'invisible gorilla' experiment, involves observers who are watching a video of basketball players passing around a basketball. They are asked to focus on and count the number of times the players pass the ball to one another. While focused on this task the observers fail to see a man in a gorilla suit who walks directly across the center of the screen. While the 'invisible gorilla' experiment is an interesting way to explain this phenomenon, not all examples are so light-hearted. In 1995, while responding to a downed officer, several police cars began to pursue four suspects who had fled in a car. According to Dick Lehr, a reporter for the Boston Globe, "Cops were flying in from all over. There were more than 20 cruisers involved at different points in the chase." The vehicle chase finally came to an end in a cul-de-sac when all four suspects fled on foot in different directions. |
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| High Strangeness |
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No new articles. |
| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
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Michelle
RocketNews24 2012-09-30 17:56:00
Do friends never know how you're feeling based on facial cues? Ever find yourself enviously eyeing your dog and its expressive posterior appendage? Oh tailless one, you are in luck! From the makers of Necomimi mind-controlled cat ears comes Shippo, a mind-controlled tail that wags based on your mood. Once attached to your backside, the mechanical moving tail is connected wirelessly to a brainwave sensor headset via bluetooth. When switched on, Shippo "waves with your 'mood'," letting the whole world know just how you feel regardless of your facial expression. According to Neurowear, the Japan-based makers of this furry appendage, Shippo is designed to move vigorously when it senses deep concentration and slowly when brainwaves are perceived to be in a relaxed state. Your mood is even read and logged using Shippo's accompanied app which also tracks the user's location and shares that information via Facebook or Twitter. Although Necomimi cat ears are available for purchase, unfortunately, Shippo is still in the prototype stage and Neurowear hasn't announce a release date yet. |
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