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Niall Bradley
Sott.net 2012-12-18 17:21:00
The massacre of 20 children and 7 adults at the Sandy Hook elementary school last Friday was one more in a long line of atrocious mass murders committed in the USA. By now, four days later, an official version of events has more or less solidified to explain the chain of events. The familiar 'lone gunman' narrative has once more stoked the hot-button issue of gun control and left the general population as clueless as ever as to why people suddenly 'go postal' and target the most vulnerable members of society. On closer inspection, however, there is clearly more to many of these mass shootings than meets the eye. Very often the earliest reports present information that directly contradicts key foundations of the final 'official' analysis of events. Granted, confusion is natural when a story breaks, but some of the initial reports conflict so completely with the lone gunman narrative that I'm going to compile them here and then try to put this tragedy in a more objective context. In his speech at the Sandy Hook Interfaith Prayer Vigil in Newtown, Connecticut on Sunday night, President Obama quoted the following biblical passage: The traumatised Newtown community deserves the facts without the spin. Everyone touched by this brutal event deserves to know what really happened, so let's fix our eyes on what remains unseen... | |
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Joe Quinn
Sott.net 2012-12-18 17:20:00
As you probably know, a lot of conspiracy web sites and '2nd amendment' types in the USA are up in arms (literally?) right now about what they suspect is a covert attempt by the US government (or some section thereof) to rob them of their right to own guns. The plot, according to the hard-line conspiracy theorists, is that the recent massacre in Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut was in some way 'staged' and was, essentially, a means to an end, the end being that the massacre provides plausible just cause for the government, congress etc. to table legislation to abolish, or at least water down, the 2nd amendment right to bear arms. Why would the government want to disarm the US population? Well, it's pretty obvious! The only thing stopping the US government from implementing an overt police state in the USA is the 100 million American's that own guns. That's the theory anyway. Of course, probably very few gun lovers in the US are hardened conspiracy theorists who think that the government was behind the Sandy Hook school massacre, but you can bet that most of them are conspiratorially-minded enough to believe that the government may try to use the massacre to rob them of their favorite piece of cold hard steel. My take on the Sandy Hook massacre is that there are enough surpassingly strange and as yet unexplained aspects of the shooting for me to, at the very least, question the veracity of the official 'lone nut' story. At the same time however, my take on the gun lovers' conspiracy theory is that it is bunk. That is to say, if the Sandy Hook massacre was some kind of government psy-op, it had nothing to do with any attempt to take guns out of American society so that the government could implement an overt police state. The reasons are as elementary as the classes that were being given to those beautiful children just before they were slaughtered. | |
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| Puppet Masters |
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Glen Greenwald
The Guardian 2012-12-17 15:59:00
Nothing is more vital than enabling true transparency and adversarial journalism, and preventing further assaults on them Several weeks ago, I wrote about the steps taken by the US government to pressure large corporations to choke off the finances and other means of support for WikiLeaks in retaliation for the group's exposure of substantial government deceit, wrongdoing and illegality. Because WikiLeaks has never been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crime, I wrote: "that the US government largely succeeded in using extra-legal and extra-judicial means to cripple an adverse journalistic outlet is a truly consequential episode." At the end of that column, I disclosed that I had been involved in discussions "regarding the formation of a new organization designed to support independent journalists and groups such as WikiLeaks under attack by the US and other governments." That group has now been formed and, this morning, was formally launched. Its name is Freedom of the Press Foundation. Its website is here and its Twitter account, which will be quite active, is @FreedomOfPress. | |
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Eric Peter
Eric Peters Auto 2012-12-18 11:39:00
In the original Terminator movie, Reese - the heroic resistance character sent to our present from a horrific future in which machines tyrannize humanity - displays a bar code embedded on his arm to convince Sarah Conner he's not nuts and that his story is all-too-real. The bar code, of course, is used to scan people instead of groceries. Creepy sci-fi in 1984, when the first Terminator movie came out. An even creepier reality this 2012 - a time when men use machines to tyrannize man. In Virginia - my home state, but by no means the only state looking into this - lawmakers are "studying" the idea of bar-coding license plates and possibly even embedding radio frequency identification (RFID) tags into them so that every car - and thus, every driver - can be more readily kept track of. Ostensibly, for mere revenue collection.
The Virginia soviet - er, DMV - issued a report (see here) about a week ago bemoaning the loss of toll fees resulting from cars being able to slip through the revenue gantlet, particularly along the I-95 corridor near Richmond, where automated toll machines are supposed to snap pictures of toll both scofflaws and send them a piece of payin' paper in the mail. It is insufferable that anyone escape paying "their fair share" to use roads they've already paid more than their fair share to use via motor fuels taxes and all the countless other taxes each of us is already forced to pay. But toll-skippers are small fry - just a convenient excuse to bar code and chip our cars. And thus, us. The DMV soviet's study estimates that, at most, $70,474.73 is lost each year to toll non-payers. Chump change - for an entity that disposes of $85 billionannually (see here). Seventy thousand? It's amazing they even noticed it. Probably, that amount of other people's money is spent on lawmakers' mini-bar incidentals in a month. | ||
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Bill Quigley
Common Dreams 2012-12-17 10:59:00
Remember the 20 children who died in Newtown, Connecticut. Remember the 35 children who died in Gaza this month from Israeli bombardments. Remember the 168 children who have been killed by US drone attacks in Pakistan since 2006. Remember the 231 children killed in Afghanistan in the first 6 months of this year. | |
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| Society's Child |
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The Telegraph
2012-12-18 15:17:00
French authorities have pleaded with New Age fanatics, sightseers and media crews not to converge on Bugarach, the tiny village some believe will be one of the few places spared when the world supposedly ends. Jean-Pierre Delord, the mayor of Bugarach, said: "I am making an appeal to the world - do not come to Bugarach." He added that police will from Wednesday block access to the southwestern village of 200 residents. | |
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Chris Morran
The Consumerist 2012-12-17 23:51:00
It's no surprise that there are horrible people in this world who will try to take advantage of peoples' desire to do something, anything, positive in the wake of a tragic event. Sadly, the shooting deaths of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary is no exception to that rule. As with many tragedies, scammers immediately come wriggling out of the muck. According to NotB4coffee.com, within hours of the police releasing the names of the Sandy Hook victims, fake Facebook pages were set up in the names of each child. Some of these are asking for people to make donations, though most are not legitimate. There are also numerous pages that appear to be set up with the purpose of memorializing the victims through photos and "Like"-worthy quotes, but it's possible that the people running some of these pages are simply doing this to flip the pages for a profit. Technorati's Shea Wong explains why all those "Likes," Re-Tweets, and shares could add up to cash for underhanded marketers:
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Steve Doughty
Mail Online 2012-12-10 19:40:00
There is no need for a law that makes it a crime to insult someone, the Director of Public Prosecutions has said. In a boost to free-speech campaigners, Keir Starmer QC said it was safe to reform the controversial law that says it is a criminal offence to use 'insulting words or behaviour'. The clause of the 26-year-old Public Order Act has spurred a campaign which has united gay and secular activists, celebrities and conservative Christian evangelicals in favour of a robust right for people to insult each other. In October, comedian Rowan Atkinson said the law was having a 'chilling effect on free expression and free protest'. He warned: 'The clear problem of the outlawing of insult is that too many things can be interpreted as such. Criticism, ridicule, sarcasm, merely stating an alternative point of view to the orthodoxy, can be interpreted as insult.' | |
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RT.com
2012-12-17 14:27:00
The number of homeless students in America topped one million for the first time last year as a result of the economic recession, a number that has risen 57 percent since 2007. The US Department of Education found that of these 1,065,794 children, many lived in abandoned homes, cheap hotels, stations, church basements and hospitals. Some spent their time sleeping over at the houses of various friends whenever they could. Others fell victim to drugs and sexual abuse, in some cases trading sexual acts for food, clothing and shelter or selling illegal drugs. The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987 requires pubic schools to register homeless children. The Department of Education report was only able to compile data from those currently enrolled in school, which indicates that there may be many more homeless children or infants living on the streets without an education. The southern US state of Georgia has in recent years always had the highest number of homeless children. As many as 45,000 homeless kids and teens are on the street or in a temporary shelter each night in Georgia, 14,000 of which are in Atlanta. But the states that reported the largest year-to-year increases in the June report were Kentucky at 47 percent, Utah at 47 percent, Michigan at 38 percent, West Virginia at 38 percent and Mississippi at 35 percent. In Michigan, where unemployment is above the national average, every county reported an increase in the number of homeless students. | |
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| Secret History |
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Digital One
2012-12-18 15:52:00
Thousands of images from the Dead Sea scrolls, which date back more than two millennia, were on Tuesday made available to the world on a joint Israel Antiquities Authority and Google website. The new website ims to make "the most important archaeological finds of the 20th century accessible to both scholars and the general public," an IAA statement said. Using technology developed for NASA, the website offers high-resolution images of the ancient scrolls along with an advanced search engine. The IAA is in the process of uploading images of the 900 biblical and other manuscripts, comprising some 30,000 fragments, which were discovered between 1947 and 1956 in the Qumran caves above the Dead Sea and photographed in their entirety with infra-red technology in the 1950s. The parchment and papyrus scrolls contain Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic script, and include several of the earliest-known texts from the Bible, including the oldest surviving copy of the Ten Commandments. The oldest of the documents dates to the third century BC and the most recent to about 70 AD, when Roman troops destroyed the Second Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. The artefacts are housed at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, where the larger pieces are shown at the dimly lit Shrine of the Book on a rotational basis in order to minimise damage from exposure. When not on show, they are kept in a dark, climate-controlled storeroom in conditions similar to those in the Qumran caves, where the humidity, temperature and darkness preserved the scrolls for two millennia. | |
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Heather Pringle
ScienceNow 2012-12-17 18:30:00
For more than a century, Egyptologists have puzzled over the mysterious demise of Ramses III in 1155 B.C.E. According to trial records preserved on the Judicial Papyrus of Turin, an assassin murdered the pharaoh during a bloody palace coup. But was this truly the case, and if so, who led the plot? A new study published today in BMJ shows that Ramesses III died violently after conspirators slashed his throat and reveals that one of the alleged ringleaders, Ramesses's son Pentawere, may have later been strangled. The research team arrived at these findings after analyzing both DNA samples and CT scans from two mummies: Ramesses III (with linen bandage, above right) and a previously unidentified young man found with him in a cache in Deir el Bahari. The unidentified 20-year-old (shown with arrows pointing to unusual compressed skin folds) proved to be one of Ramesses's sons: He appeared to have been strangled (also evidenced in the scan by overinflated thorax) and buried with a goat skin, a pelt that ancient Egyptians deemed ritually impure and therefore a mark of dishonor befitting an assassin. Sitting on a throne has long been a perilous business, it seems. | |
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Post Horizons
Close to the small Mexican village of Onavas, south Sonora, archaeologists have uncovered the first pre-Hispanic cemetery of that area, dating to around 1,000 years ago.2012-12-16 18:06:00
A unique burial ground
The burial ground consists of 25 individuals; 13 have intentional cranial deformation and five also have dental mutilation, cultural practices which are similar to those of pre-Hispanic groups in southern Sinaloa and northern Nayarit, but until now, have not been seen in Sonora. Some of the individuals were wearing ornaments such as as bangles, nose rings, earrings, pendants made from shells found in the Gulf of California, and one burial contained a turtle shell, carefully placed over the abdomen. However, the archaeologists noted that the burials were not accompanied by the expected offerings and containers. For archaeologists, the discovery is exciting new evidence of cranial deformation, something which has not been recorded before in the Sonora cultural groups. "This unique find shows a mix of traditions from different groups of northern Mexico. The use of ornaments made from sea shells from the Gulf of California had never been found before in Sonoran territory and this discovery extends the limit of influence of Mesoamerican peoples farther north than has been previously recorded," said archaeologist Cristina Garcia Moreno, director of the research project. Garcia Moreno has been conducting work on behalf of Arizona State University with approval of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). | ||
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| Science & Technology |
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| Earth Changes |
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Marlon Ramos
Philippine Daily Inquirer/Asia News Network 2012-12-18 15:47:00
The death toll from Typhoon "Pablo" (international name: Bopha) has reached 1,043 as Philippine government workers with the recovery of 23 more cadavers in Compostela Valley, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) said yesterday. In its latest report, the NDRRMC said the typhoon destroyed more than 24.1 billion pesos worth of properties, including close to 16.4 billion pesos in agricultural crops and products. The agency said searchers found and identified 22 bodies in Monkayo town and another cadaver in Compostela town, both in Compostela Valley province. Of the total number of recovered bodies, it said 645 had been identified. | |
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IRIN
2012-12-18 15:41:00
More than 6,000 people have been evacuated following heavy rain and flooding across parts of Sri Lanka, say officials. "The number will likely increase," Pradeep Kodipilli, assistant director of the Sri Lankan Disaster Management Center (DMC), told IRIN on 18 December in Colombo, noting flood warnings remain in effect across 10 of the country's 25 districts - Galle, Matale, Kandy, Nuwara Eliya, Polonnaruwa, Badulla, Baticaloa, Hambantota, Moneragala and Kurunegala. | |
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Thomas Whittle
Heavy snow caused a traffic jam that extended to about 20 kilometers on a highway linking the Ukrainian capital and the Hungarian border as of late Sunday, authorities said.NZWeek 2012-12-17 15:35:00 The jam took place after a highway section between Buh and Brody districts was blanketed by snow as deep as three meters, said the Emergencies Ministry. As of Monday morning, traffic were resumed for small vehicles as emergencies workers were struggling to clear the snow. A woman stuck in the traffic jam had to give birth to her baby in her car before the emergency crews arrived. The mother and the baby were later sent to a local hospital. Witnesses told Xinhua that they saw hundreds of cars were trapped, with snow piled up to the car roofs. The trapped were seeking help from nearby village for food and heating. Souce:Xinhua |
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Irish Times
2012-12-18 15:26:00
Cold has killed 37 people in Ukraine so far this month as temperatures reached minus - 23 degrees in parts of the country, the government said. The health ministry said 190 people had sought medical help and 162 had been hospitalised. Night temperatures are expected to drop to -28 degrees in northern, central and eastern Ukraine this week, weather forecasters say. The cold snap followed heavy snowfall which left some areas covered with as much as 53cm of snow. The emergencies ministry said this week it was setting up hundreds of heated tents across the country where people could get hot drinks and receive first aid. Last February, as Ukraine went through its coldest winter in six years, more than 130 people died of cold in the country of 45 million. | |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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| Health & Wellness |
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Sayer Ji
GreenMedInfo 2012-12-18 11:36:00
Hormones and/or hormone-mimicking chemicals are omnipresent environmental contaminants. Already found in places as varied as our teeth (dental sealant) to our paper products (receipts, money), our meat to our canned foods, new research now indicates that even fresh, whole vegetables and fruits are no longer immune to this growing biological and chemical threat. A newly released study has found that a variety of substances with hormone-disrupting properties now widely contaminate commercially available fresh vegetables and fruits, in some cases at concentrations exceeding the recommended acceptable daily intake (ADI) for children as recommended by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA). Published this month in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, researchers at the Indian River Research and Education Center, University of Florida/IFAS, found the synthetic endocrine-disrupting chemicals bisphenol A (BPA), nonylphenol (NP), and the natural steroidal estrogen 17-β-estradiol, in vegetables and fruits randomly sampled from local markets, using gas chromotagraphy with tandem mass spectrometry.[i] According to the researchers, the "BPA was detected in all vegetable and fruit samples, ranging from 0.2±0.1 to 9.0±4.9 µg kg-1, indicating significant exposure potential for humans." Nonylphenol (NP), a chemical in the alkylphenol class mainly used to manufacturer detergents, was detected in pumpkin, sweet potato, citrus, and apple samples. Concentrations of 17-β-estradiol in vegetables and fruits ranged from 1.3±0.4 to 2.2±1.0 µg kg-1 except those in tomato and strawberry. | |
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| Science of the Spirit |
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Tia Ghose
LiveScience 2012-12-17 15:00:00
Universal emotions like anger, sadness and happiness are expressed nearly the same in both music and movement across cultures, according to new research. The researchers found that when Dartmouth undergraduates and members of a remote Cambodian hill tribe were asked to use sliding bars to adjust traits such as the speed, pitch, or regularity of music, they used the same types of characteristics to expressprimal emotions. What's more, the same types of patterns were used to express the same emotions in animations of movement in both cultures. "The kinds of dynamics you find in movement, you find also in music and they're used in the same way to provide the same kind of meaning," said study co-author Thalia Wheatley, a neuroscientist at Dartmouth University. The findings suggest music's intense power may lie in the fact it is processed by ancient brain circuitry used to read emotion in our movement. "The study suggests why music is so fundamental and engaging for us," said Jonathan Schooler, a professor of brain and psychological sciences at the University of California at Santa Barbara, who was not involved in the study. "It takes advantage of some very, very basic and, in some sense, primitive systems that understand how motion relates to emotion." | |
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