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Richard Sawyer
Sott.net 2013-01-31 05:51:00
In absolute disregard for both the US Constitution and international law, US drones are currently killing civilians, including women and children1, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Uganda and the Philippines. Thousands have been killed, and tens of thousands more terrorized, by fleets of remote-controlled 'drone' aircraft.2 For those living in these drone-infested regions, the reality they experience on a daily basis is horrifying. In the dark future envisaged in the science fiction Terminator movies, human decisions are removed from strategic operations once an artificial intelligence (AI) called 'Skynet' takes control. In real life we have the conscienceless Military-Industrial Complex - run by humanoids in the CIA, Pentagon, British Ministry of Defence, US and UK Government administrations and weapons manufacturers - working together to develop a war machine that has removed all semblance of humanity from combat operations. In the movies we're invited to excuse Skynet's creators because it is no longer under their control. In real life, terminator drones are programmed to 'double-tap' their targets, a euphemism for deliberately targeting rescuers attempting to drag victims from rubble in the aftermath of the initial drone strike. The predictable result, is that for every "terrorist" killed in Pakistan 49 civilians are murdered also . 10,000 Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) aka drones are said to be currently in service around the globe, "protecting Western civilization from terrorists". A thousand of these are armed and most of them are American-operated. It is reported they have killed more non-combatant civilians than died in 9/11 (and that's just the 'official estimates'). While military personnel cuts have shrunk the sizes of standing armies, 'theaters of operations' have expanded. In the US, the 'FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012', has seen the Federal Aviation Administration, NASA and other agencies work towards the total integration of commercial drones into US airspace. Ethical and privacy concerns are simply swept aside while the proliferation of drone technology is driven by the greed of powerful defense contractors. | |
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Sott Editors
In this second SOTT Talk Radio show, co-hosts Joe Quinn and Niall Bradley discuss the recent furor over proposed US government gun control legislation in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, and the implications for Americans' right to bear arms. Many 2nd Amendment advocates insist that a 'well-armed citizenry' is the last defense against tyrannical government, but are 80 million armed Americans really the solution to the problems of a corrupt government? An armed populace has not hindered the destruction of other civil liberties in the US to date, so is it a question of the curtailment of gun rights opening the way to tyrannical government, or is tyrannical government already here?Sott.net 2013-01-31 06:05:00 Along with their special guest, Jason Martin, a life-long student of martial arts and the history of warfare and combat theory, Joe and Niall discuss the root causes of the culture of violence in the USA, the history that gave rise to the US constitution and the Bill of Rights, citizens' justified fears that they cannot rely on the corrupt authorities to protect them and what kind of a revolution it would take for people to achieve real justice.
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| Puppet Masters |
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RT.com
2013-01-31 17:52:00
An Armenian presidential candidate has been shot in the center of Yerevan, the country's capital, late Thursday. The 64-year-old Paruyr Hayrikyan of the Union for National Self-Determination party, was taken to hospital following the incident. Hayrikyan was taken to the Saint Gregory the Illuminator medical center with two gunshot wounds, in the shoulder and in the chest. The chest wound is considered serious, but not immediately life-threatening, medics said. Hayrikyan is conscious but has not yet been operated on. A number of high-profile figures visited the politician in his ward, including Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan, Yerevan Police Chief Vladimir Gasparyan and Speaker of Parliament Hovik Abrahamyan, Regnum news agency reports. | |
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David Ferguson
Raw Story 2013-01-31 17:46:00
A Montana Republican state lawmaker wants to give criminals the option of choosing "corporal punishment in lieu of incarceration." According to Think Progress, the legislation is being proposed by Rep. Jerry O'Neil and would apply not just to misdemeanor crimes, but to some felonies as well. The law states that "(f)or purposes of this section, 'corporal punishment' means the infliction of physical pain on a defendant to carry out the sentence negotiated between the judge and the defendant." The law states that the exact nature of that pain shall be "commensurate with the severity, nature, and degree of the harm caused by the offender." | |
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Josh Harkinson
Mother Jones 2013-01-31 15:26:00
On May 20, 2010, on a highway in West Memphis, Arkansas, a father and son armed with a handgun and AK-47 assault rifle pumped 14 bullets into a police officer who'd pulled over their minivan on a routine traffic stop. The dead cop's partner took cover in his squad car but the AK-47 sliced through it and killed him too. A county sheriff and his chief deputy responded and were also hit. The last man standing was state wildlife officer Michael K. Neal, who sped his patrol car through the carnage, rammed the minivan, and opened fire through his broken windshield with an M-4 carbine. Within minutes, the suspects were dead. Gun control advocates held up the horrific episode as a textbook argument for banning assault rifles. Officer Neal, meanwhile, soon found himself at a Virginia meeting of the National Rifle Association, accepting its "Officer of the Year" award - and a complimentary Smith & Wesson pistol. | |
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RT.com
2013-01-31 15:22:00
Under the UK government's austerity program millions of low income households are facing a hike in their council tax bills of up to 333% a year. New changes are to be introduced this April, while Scotland and Wales chose not to implement the cuts. The UK benefits system is about to undergo it's most radical restructuring since the introduction of the welfare state after the Second World War and many families will be pushed further into poverty, a new report by the Resolution Foundation think tank reveals. The biggest shakeup will be in Council Tax, a tax paid by households to local councils, which is not decided by income. Currently people on low paid jobs or the unemployed can apply for Council Tax Benefit (CTB), effectively exempting them from paying the tax. All other means tested benefits will be streamlined into one national system, which will be called Universal Credit (UC), a move welcomed by the report's authors. | |
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RT.com
2013-01-31 15:18:00
North Korea has allegedly been placed under martial law and its ruler Kim Jong-un has ordered the army to "prepare for war", a South Korean daily claims. The North Korean leader issued a series of orders to his top defense and security officials on Saturday to conclude preparations for a new nuclear test, the Seoul based Korea JoongAng Daily alleges citing an unnamed source. The source reportedly said that Kim Jong-un issued a secret order to "complete preparations for a nuclear weapons test ... and carry it out soon". According to the source, Kim Jong-un also said, "The country will be under martial law starting from midnight January 29th and all the frontline and central units should be ready for war." The source told the South Korean daily that the nuclear test could come earlier than expected. Other analysts have said it would likely be held on February 16th, the birthday of the former leader Kim Jong-il, who died in 2011. | |
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Terry Macalister
Guardian 2013-01-31 15:16:00
Anglo-Dutch group has been responsible for over 20 pollution accidents in British waters over a six month period Shell and other major companies are spilling crude, diesel or other contaminants into the North Sea on a daily basis despite the oil industry's efforts to improve its safety record. On the day that Shell reported global annual profits of $27bn (£17 bn), government statistics revealed that the Anglo-Dutch group has been responsible for over 20 pollution accidents in British waters over a six-month period. Shell said that "no spill is acceptable" and that it had been working hard to ensure its safety performance was improved by investing heavily in the maintenance of North Sea platforms. But environmentalists said the latest spill statistics from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) meant Shell and others needed to be threatened with a ban and kept out of the most sensitive waters of the far north. | |
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David Edwards
Raw Story 2013-01-31 14:53:00
CNN host Soledad O'Brien on Thursday scolded Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and told him he should know better than to try to link assault weapons to "black violence on blacks" because most recent mass killings had been carried out by white men. Following National Rifle Association chief Wayne LaPierre's Wednesday testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he opposed universal background checks at gun shows, O'Brien asked Grassley why not support something that seemed like an obvious part of the solution. Grassley argued that universal background checks would burden people trying to buy a gun on Sunday. "Obviously we have some background checks, it's how encompassing do you do it?" he explained. "Do you do it for one father selling to a son or another relative or how do you cover everything? I think that's the issue. And also, the extent to which you have private sales on Sunday between relatives, and maybe you can't access the system all the time and as fast as you want to do it." O'Brien pressed Grassley on why he opposed an assault weapons ban, when even the temporary 1994 ban had reduced the number of crimes involving those firearms by between 17 percent and 72 percent, according to a 2004 study by the University of Pennsylvania. | |
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Karen McVeigh
Raw Story 2013-01-31 14:48:00
The state rated one of the worst for access to women's reproductive services, is debating introducing 'draconian' bills A new front in the battle over abortion and reproductive rights has opened in North Dakota, where state lawmakers are holding hearings into a series of draconian anti-abortion bills. The state, one of four in the US with only one abortion clinic, has already been rated as one of the worst for access to women's reproductive services, according to a report by Naral Pro-Choice America published last month. Among the measures introduced by five proposed bills in the state include: defining a "person" as a fertilised human egg; enforcing penalties on physicians who perform abortions after a foetal heartbeat is detected; restricting abortions to women only in the event of a threat to life; and criminalising physicians who perform them. | |
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Raw Story
2013-01-31 14:35:00
A military judge ordered the US government Thursday to stop censoring September 11 pre-trial hearings from outside his courtroom. Judge James Pohl said the government must "disconnect the outside feed or ability to suspend the broadcast" from outside his court. Proceedings are heard in the press room, and in a room where human rights groups and victims families sit, with a 40 second delay. This is done so that a security officer sitting next to the judge can block anything deemed classified. The ruling means classified information could still be blocked, but only by order of the judge and not from outside the courtroom. | |
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RT.com
2013-01-31 14:06:00
The Russian Foreign Ministry has issued a statement expressing deep concern over Israel's airstrike on Syria saying that it violates the UN Charter. The Ministry website says; if this information is confirmed that would mean that we have to deal with unprovoked attacks on the territory of a sovereign state which is inadmissible, whatever objectives are declared as a justification. Russian diplomats are taking urgent measures to clarify the situation and to establish the details of the incident. Russia has again called upon the international community to stop the violence in Syria, prevent foreign intervention in the conflict, and assist the start of a nationwide dialogue based on the Geneva agreements. | |
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RT.com
2013-01-31 14:03:00
Russia has imposed a temporary ban on US meat starting in February. The restrictions were enacted after the US Veterinary Service failed to meet regulations for levels of ractopamine, which stimulates muscle tissue growth. Chilled meat will be prohibited from February 4, and frozen meat imports will be banned starting on February 11. According to Russia's Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance, the US ignored numerous requests from the Russian regulative body, and refused to support its products with documentation confirming the absence of ractopamine. | |
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RT.com
2013-01-31 13:56:00
Though Israel has not yet claimed responsibility for an airstrike targeting a military site near Damascus, experts believe that Tel Aviv aimed to further destabilize Syria and undermine its military capabilities. Initial reports suggested that Israel conducted an airstrike on a convoy carrying sophisticated weaponry that was preparing to cross the Syria-Lebanon border. Israeli officials said the vehicles may have contained chemical weapons and Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles intended for Hezbollah in Lebanon. "This episode boils down to a warning by Israel to Syria and Hezbollah not to engage in the transfer of sensitive weapons," a regional security source told Reuters. But the latest reports from Syria suggest that the airstrike hit the Jamraya research center in the suburbs of Damascus, far from the Lebanese border. An anonymous diplomatic source told Reuters that chemical weapons may be stored at the center, and that the vehicles in Hezbollah convoy were unlikely to be carrying such arms. | |
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CBC News
2013-01-28 17:13:00
Harper tells MPs Parliament will be consulted on 'any further steps' Canadian special forces are on the ground inside the troubled West African country of Mali to protect Canadian assets there, CBC News has learned. The special forces are not there to train Malian troops - and they are not involved in any combat role, as the government has repeatedly stressed and Prime Minister Stephen Harper repeated again Monday in the House of Commons. The Department of National Defence would not confirm or deny the special forces are in Mali due to issues of security of personnel. But a spokesperson for Foreign Affairs told CBC News, "Steps have been taken to ensure our mission and Canadian personnel are protected." | |
Comment: The following article (Hat tip Cryptogon) from CBC News tells us exactly what it is the Canadians are so keen to 'protect': What Canada Is Doing in Mali:
Canadian bilateral trade with Mali doesn't amount to much. In 2011, we exported about $26 million worth of goods to Mali, most of that machinery and equipment. Imports from Mali came to less than $1 million. | |
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RT.com
2013-01-31 11:47:00
Though Washington tries to engineer Middle Eastern politics by influencing economies, Iran has never given in to such pressure, Middle East experts Hillary and Flynt Leverett told RT. Iran's concerns deserve fair consideration, they argue. The Leveretts acted were analysts in both the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, and are two of America's most informed Middle East experts. Their new book, 'Going to Tehran: Why the United States Must Come to Terms with the Islamic Republic of Iran,' offers a way out of the current diplomatic crisis facing the two countries. RT: Washington seems to be very happy with the sanctions. They are crippling the Iranian economy. Why should they change policies now? Why should they come to terms with Iran? Hillary Leverett: Sanctions are not going to work. Sanctions have not worked. We've seen sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran for 32 years. We saw crippling sanctions imposed on Iran during their 8 year war on Iraq from 1980 to 1988. We saw at that time half their GDP was erased, half of it. And still the Islamic Republic of Iran did not surrender to hostile foreign powers. The idea that now the sanctions are going to force the Islamic Republic of Iran to surrender to what it sees as hostile foreign powers and their demands, there's no basis for that in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran. And, frankly, there's no basis for that anywhere. The United States imposed crippling sanctions, for example, on Saddam Hussein's Iraq for over a decade, killing over a million people, half of them children, and even then Saddam Hussein's government did not implode and it did not concede to the demands of hostile foreign powers. It took a massive US land invasion to do that. | |
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RT.com
2013-01-31 11:45:00
Legislators in the US state of Arkansas approved by a wide margin Monday a measure that would allow churchgoers to bring concealed guns to their place of worship. The bill cites "personal security" as its impetus. The Arkansas State Senate voted 28-4 to pass the Church Protection Act of 2013, penned by Republican State Senator Bryan King. | |
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| Society's Child |
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Terry Dickson
Florida Times-Union 2013-01-31 17:55:00
A Charlton County High School teacher has been charged with having sex with seven students, officials said. DaNita Wilson, 32, faces seven counts of sexual assault after a one-day investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, said Stacy Carson, assistant special agent in charge of the GBI's Kingsland office. Six of the students were at least 16 and one was younger than 16, Carson said. "She turned herself in" at the Charlton County Sheriff's Office, which had requested the GBI's help, Carson said. Carson said the investigation is ongoing. | |
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A massive crash on I-70 west of the city has injured at least seven motorists and resulted in a major shutdown of the highway between Plainfield and Monrovia. The highway is expected to be blocked in both directions for several hours this evening. Indiana State Police have blocked westbound access to I-70 at the I-465 interchange. State police say the chain-reaction crash too place shortly after 2 p.m. near an overpass at Hendricks County Rolad 275 East. | |
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David Edwards
Raw Story 2013-01-31 15:35:00
A waitress says she was fired from her job at Applebee's after posting a note from a pastor who refused to tip, writing that "I give God 10% Why do you get 18." The waitress, who identified herself only as Chelsea, told The Consumerist that she originally posted the photo on the atheist section of social media website Reddit as a "lighthearted joke." "I thought the note was insulting, but it was also comical," she explained. "I posted it to Reddit because I thought other users would find it entertaining." On the receipt she posted, Applebee's computer system had added an automatic 18 percent gratuity because the dinner party had eight or more people. But the customer scratched out the $6.29 tip and wrote "0." The receipt included a note about giving God 10 percent and a signature which indicated that the diner was a "pastor." | |
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Stephen C. Webster
Raw Story 2013-01-31 14:59:00
Three people were seriously injured Wednesday after a container of butane exploded in a San Diego hotel room as two suspects tried to make hash oil out of marijuana, police toldThe Associated Press. Although hotel room explosions are usually association with making methamphetamines, they can happen any time an accellerant is improperly used, such as in the production of hash oil, a form of marijuana that is super-concentrated in liquid form, with roughly one drop equaling the amount of THC in a lower-potency joint. | |
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Corey Williams and Ed White
Huffington Post 2013-01-31 14:45:00
Blinding snow squalls, high winds and a slick highway led to a mile-long series of crashes in Detroit that left at least three people dead, including two children, and 20 more injured. Michigan State Police Lt. Michael Shaw said visibility was extremely poor when the mass of crashes happened on Interstate 75 on the southwest side of the city. The injured, also including children, have been taken to hospitals, Shaw said. SUVs with smashed front ends and cars with doors hanging open sat scattered across the debris-littered highway, some crunched against jackknifed tractor-trailers and tankers. Rescue crews went vehicle to vehicle in the search for survivors and to provide aid. | |
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Matt Goodman
WFAA 2013-01-31 14:28:00
Kaufman County Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse was shot dead outside the courthouse Thursday, spurring a complete lockdown of the grounds and an active search for the two shooters. Kaufman County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Pat Laney said the suspects ambushed the assistant DA on his way in to court and shot him multiple times in a parking lot at about 8:50 a.m. They then fled the scene. The courthouse was locked down and later closed for the day. Hasse, a longtime prosecutor for the Dallas County District Attorney's Office and current assistant DA for Kaufman County, is the man who was shot and killed, the Sheriff's Office confirmed. He was a felony prosecutor who headed murder and drug cases. Hasse joined the Kaufman County District Attorney's Office in July 2010, records show. | |
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Christian Boone
Atlanta Journal-Constitution 2013-01-31 14:26:00
A 14-year-old student shot in the head at an Atlanta school Thursday is "alert, conscious and breathing," said police. The shooting occurred outside Price Middle School in southeast Atlanta, said Atlanta police spokesman Carlos Campos. The victim has been taken to Grady Memorial Hospital. | |
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John Shryock and Mark Wilder
WSFA 2013-01-31 14:20:00
Authorities and the suspected killer of a school bus driver and abductor of a 6-year-old kindergartner remain locked in a hostage standoff in southeastern Alabama that's spanned nearly 2 days.. The child is said to be "okay", having been given access to medicine and the box of crayons and a coloring book he requested. The child, whose name isn't being published due to the ongoing investigation, has remained in an underground bunker with his captor since Tuesday afternoon when he was plucked from the school bus he was riding home. The abductor, identified as 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes, is accused of boarding the child's bus in the town of Midland City where he fatally shot the bus driver before kidnapping the boy. Hostage negotiators have pleaded with the suspect to hand over the child and give himself up to police. Communication with Dykes, via a PVC pipe connected to his bunker, has so far yielded no movement. At this time, federal law enforcement officials say FBI hostage negotiators are working with local law enforcement to try and bring the ordeal to a close. The child is said to have a medical condition, for which authorities were successful Wednesday morning in getting medication. The situation remains "static". | |
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Dominic Rushe
Guardian 2013-01-31 11:12:00
Jobless claims increased by 38,000 to 368,000 last week - more than forecasters expected and the largest rise since November The number of people filing their first claim for unemployment benefits in the US has risen by more than forecasters expected. Initial jobless claims increased by 38,000 to a seasonally adjusted 368,000 in the week ended January 26, the Labor Department said Thursday. The rise was the largest since early November, when claims spiked in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. The rise was higher than the 365,000 figure forecast by economists, but the jobs market still appears to be slowly recovering. Claims above 400,000 signal a deteriorating jobs market. The latest weekly figures come ahead of Friday's monthly non-farm figures, which give a far more comprehensive picture of the US jobs market. | |
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Raw Story
2013-01-31 10:49:00
One month into the new year Chicago has already set an ignominious record for homicides. By late Tuesday, the Chicago Police Department had logged 42 such killings, making this the second consecutive January to top 40 homicides and the most violent first month of the year since 2002. By sheer happenstance, the 42nd victim was a teenage girl who had performed with her high school band at President Obama's inauguration earlier this month. The January report does not bode well for turning the corner from last year, when homicides totaled 513 - the highest since 2008. Last summer, as the body count rose - primarily in marginalized swaths of Chicago where joblessness and poverty seem entrenched - Mayor Rahm Emmanuel and Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy stood together to blame the epidemic of shootings on squabbles between multiplying gang factions and a proliferation of illegal guns. Measures they have introduced to address the surge in homicides include partnering with CeaseFire, the nonprofit group that mediates street conflicts, and demolishing more than 200 vacant buildings that the city considers to be breeding grounds for crime. The police are also refocusing efforts from general sweeps of certain gangs and areas to hotspots or individuals deemed key to the shootings. Central to that strategy is an effort to determine when retaliation to a shooting may happen happen and who might be involved. | |
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Raw Story
2013-01-31 10:47:00
An owner of the Brazilian night club where 235 people perished in a weekend fire tried to commit suicide, police said Wednesday, as the number of survivors seeking medical treatment after the disaster continued to rise. Elissandro Sphor tried to kill himself with a plastic shower hose, said senior police official Lilian Carus in the town of Cruz Alta 125 kilometers (about 80 miles) from Santa Maria, where the club owner is hospitalized. "It was clear he wanted to hang himself," Carus told AFP, adding that a police officer arrived at the scene - a hospital where Sphor is being treated for gas poisoning - before anything happened. Police took Sphor and three others into custody as they pieced together what caused the inferno at the Kiss nightclub, which was packed with partying students when the blaze broke out early Sunday. About 75 injured victims of the fire are clinging to life, some in critical condition, in the college town of Santa Maria. | |
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David Edwards
Raw Story 2013-01-30 10:23:00
A senior fellow from the conservative Independent Women's Forum (IWF) on Wednesday told a Senate committee that assault weapons should not be outlawed because they were the "weapon of choice" for young mothers who need a "scary-looking gun." At Senate Judiciary Hearing on gun violence, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) asked IWF's Gayle Trotter, who also writes for The Daily Caller, if it would "disproportionately burden women" to ban assault rifles like the Bushmaster AR-15 used to slaughter 20 children in Newtown, Connecticut. | |
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Laurel J. Sweet
Boston Herald 2013-01-30 01:20:00
An alleged devil worshiper has been charged with harassing and threatening to kill a 25-year-old fitness instructor he met at Faneuil Hall, and then carving satanic symbols on the glass of his holding cell after his arrest, authorities said today. "Enjoy your dreams, sweetheart. Chances are you will never wake up," and "How would you like to find out what it's like to be burned alive?" are two of several disturbing text messages and voicemails Christopher Cori is alleged by Boston police to have sent the terrified victim over a two-day period. Cori, 21, of Rockaway Beach, Queens, N.Y., was ordered held on $100,000 bail today on charges of making threats to kill, criminal harassment, making annoying and harassing phone calls and willful and malicious destruction of property. He was arraigned today in Brighton District Court where he was also sent to Bridgewater State Hospital for observation. | |
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Eric W. Dolan
The Raw Story 2013-01-29 15:53:00
Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas said Monday night that President Barack Obama had a poor understanding of the Constitutional despite teaching constitutional law at one of the most prestigious universities in the country. Gohmert, along with Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), appeared on Fox News' Hannity to discuss a recent court ruling that found Obama had violated the Constitution when making recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The three-judge panel said the Senate remained formally in session when Obama made the appointments during Christmas break. "It is part of the Constitution," Gohmert said. "I think one of the big legal ramifications that should come out of this is a class-action lawsuit by all of those who had him as a constitutional law instructor to get their money back. I think it would be a lay-down case for them." Obama was a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School before launching his political career. "This guy does not respect the Constitution, he does not abide by the Constitution, and we've seen it repeatedly," Gohmert added. Blackburn also alleged the President didn't respect the Constitution and tried to circumvent Congress. | |
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David Ferguson
The Raw Story 2013-01-30 08:43:00
The Fox News Channel, the largest conservative media outlet, suffered its worst month since 2001 in January among the most coveted viewer demographic, according to the latest ratings figures. A press release from the NBC Media Center reported that Nielsen ratings for the month of January showed Fox News viewership at a 12-year low, while rival MSNBC gained ground in all categories in 2012. The right-leaning news juggernaut continues to dominates most cable news categories, hosting 9 of the top 10 programs, but it has lost considerable ground among the 25 to 54 demographic, turning in the worst ratings since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 and its lowest total day ratings since 2008. | |
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| Secret History |
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Sara C Nelson
Huffington Post 2013-01-29 10:15:00
Crop circles dating back to 1945 are proof the phenomenon is no modern hoax, a Tasmanian historian claims. The mystery of the increasingly intricate patterns was supposedly solved after several high-profile cases were revealed to be the work of artists and mischief-makers armed with barrels, planks of wood and plenty of spare time. Credit for the hoaxes has been laid largely at the feet of pranksters Dave Chorley and Doug Bower, who in 1991 announced they had been pulling the wool over people's eyes since 1978. (FYI, crop circles have also been blamed on unusual weather patterns, top secret military experiments and, er, stoned wallabies.) | |
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| Science & Technology |
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Tariq Malik
A NASA spacecraft studying the sun has recorded amazing video of a giant plume of super-hot plasma erupting from the star's surface, only to crash back down hours later.Space.com 2013-01-31 17:27:00 The solar plasma eruption, which NASA scientists nicknamed a "Dragon Tail," rose up from the sun's surface today (Jan. 31) and was spotted by the agency's Solar Dynamics Observatory, a powerful spacecraft that constantly records the sun's weather in different wavelengths of light. A video of the Dragon Tail solar eruption shows a tendril of solar plasma, which scientists call a "filament," extending across the northeastern face of the sun over the course of four hours. Near the end of the event, the filament begins to break apart.
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Rob Hastings
The Independent 2013-01-31 13:51:00
MPs call for Government to consider ending use of Cloud amid concerns that US authorities can access information Warning comes during a Whitehall drive for government departments to store their electronic information externally with private companies The Government should consider stopping sharing intelligence services with the US and end the use of Cloud computing due to concerns that sensitive personal information about British citizens can be spied upon by US authorities, MPs said today. The warning comes during a Whitehall drive for government departments to store their electronic information externally with private companies, meaning taxpayers' private data could be left vulnerable to large-scale surveillance. US law allows American agencies to access all private information stored by foreign nationals with firms falling within Washington's jurisdiction, if the information concerns US interests, without a warrant. Four suppliers of the UK Government's G-Cloud system are located in the US, leading to questions over the security of information is being stored overseas. | |
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Spencer Ackerman
Forget about a kill switch. Planned obsolescence? Already obsolete. The Pentagon's blue-sky researchers want tomorrow's military hardware to literally cease to exist at a predetermined point. Welcome to the age of suicidal sensors.Wired.com 2013-01-28 13:39:00 Darpa isn't imagining planes or ships that melt into a metallic puddle when their replacements come off the production line. The research agency is thinking, in one sense, smaller: sensors and other "sophisticated electronic mi
crosystems" that litter a warzone - and create enticing opportunities for adversaries to collect, study and reverse-engineer. Since it's not practical to pick them all up when U.S. forces withdraw, Darpa wants to usher in the age of "transient electronics." If you've ever lost your phone and worried about random strangers sifting through your data, you have a sense of why the idea appeals to Darpa. But you probably never imagined Apple creating a piece of hardware "capable of physically disappearing in a controlled, triggerable manner." That's where Darpa comes in. Next month, it's going to invite interested scientists and manufacturers to a Virginia conference to kick around ideas for creating what it calls "triggered degradation." Oh, and some of that degradation will occur inside a soldier's body. The program to create transient electronics is called VAPR, for Vanishing Programmable Resources. Darpa's going to say more about it in the coming weeks. But thus far, the idea is to make small hardware that performs just like current sensors, only fabricated from materials that can rapidly disintegrate on command. | |
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Lizzie Wade
Science Mag 2013-01-28 18:52:00
Each year, hundreds of millions of metric tons of dust, water, and humanmade pollutants make their way into the atmosphere, often traveling between continents on jet streams. Now a new study confirms that some microbes make the trip with them, seeding the skies with billions of bacteria and other organisms - and potentially affecting the weather. What's more, some of these high-flying organisms may actually be able to feed while traveling through the clouds, forming an active ecosystem high above the surface of the Earth. The discovery came about when a team of scientists based at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta hitched a ride on nine NASA airplane flights aimed at studying hurricanes. Previous studies carried out at the tops of mountains hinted that researchers were likely to find microorganisms at high altitudes, but no one had ever attempted to catalog the microscopic life floating above the oceans - let alone during raging tropical storms. After all, it isn't easy to take air samples while your plane is flying through a hurricane. Despite the technical challenges, the researchers managed to collect thousands upon thousands of airborne microorganisms floating in the troposphere about 10 kilometers over the Caribbean, as well as the continental United States and the coast of California. Studying their genes back on Earth, the scientists counted an average of 5100 bacterial cells per cubic meter of air, they report online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Although the researchers also captured various types of fungal cells, the bacteria were over two orders of magnitude more abundant in their samples. Well over 60% of all the microbes collected were still alive. | |
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| Earth Changes |
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Steff Gaulter
Al Jazeera 2013-01-29 17:36:00
Flooding and landslides have destroyed well over a hundred houses on the main island of Mahe. Parts of the Seychelles have been declared a state of emergency after severe weather hit the country. Fortunately no casualties have been reported, but flooding, landslides and rock falls have hit the main island of Mahe. Over 150 houses have been damaged by the extreme conditions. Pointe Au Sel in the southeast of the island reported 184mm of rain in a 24 hour period. This is nearly half the amount of rain which is expected in the entire month of January, which is the wettest month of the year. Many other parts of the island also received well over 100mm, easily enough to generate flooding. With the ground fully saturated, landslides were inevitable. | |
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Jim Andrews
Accuweather 2013-01-30 17:08:00
Tropical Cyclone Felleng has become the strongest cyclone of the South Indian 2012-2013 storm season and the strongest storm in this tropical cyclone region since last February. Highest sustained winds rose to an estimated 115 knots, or about 215 km/h, as of 1200 UTC Wednesday, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) said. The dangerous storm, equivalent to a Category-4 hurricane, was centered less than 400 miles northwest of Reunion and within 360 miles east-northeast of Antananarivo, Madagascar. Storm movement was towards the south-southwest 13 knots, or 24 km/h. Official forecasts tracking Felleng have been consistent since the first of the week, inasmuch as they have shown the southward-veering cyclone tracking "safely" between Madagascar and Reunion before racing southward over open water. | |
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Chris Mooney
Glaciologist Jason Box describes a post-warming world that you won't even be able to recognize.Mother Jones 2013-01-31 14:09:00 Last week, a much discussed new paper in the journal Nature seemed to suggest to some that we needn't worry too much about the melting of Greenland, the mile-thick mass of ice at the top of the globe. The research found that the Greenland ice sheet seems to have survived a previous warm period in Earth's history - the Eemian period, some 126,000 years ago - without vanishing (although it did melt considerably). But Ohio State glaciologist Jason Box isn't buying it. At Monday's Climate Desk Live briefing in Washington, D.C., Box, who has visited Greenland 23 times to track its changing climate, explained that we've already pushed atmospheric carbon dioxide 40 percent beyond Eemian levels. What's more, levels of atmospheric methane are a dramatic 240 percent higher - both with no signs of stopping. "There is no analogue for that in the ice record," said Box. And that's not all. The present mass scale human burning of trees and vegetation for clearing land and building fires, plus our pumping of aerosols into the atmosphere from human pollution, weren't happening during the Eemian. These human activities are darkening Greenland's icy surface, and weakening its ability to bounce incoming sunlight back away from the planet. Instead, more light is absorbed, leading to more melting, in a classic feedback process that is hard to slow down.
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Willis Eschenbach
Watts Up With That? 2013-01-31 10:36:00
I keep reading these claims that we're all going to starve because of global warming. People say it's going to be the death of agriculture, that increasing temperatures will cause significant drops in crop yields. Here's a typical bit of alarmism (emphasis mine): Whoa, a massive decline in crop yields due to increasing temperatures, sounds scary. So I thought I'd review the facts. Here is the global situation, showing the global yields of rice, corn, and wheat, along with the change in global temperature. | |
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Lynne Terry
The Oregonian 2013-01-31 08:45:00
The dead robins are back. More than 30 carcasses have been found on the ground in Northeast Portland in the past week. Wildlife experts don't know for sure what killed them but one possible cause is a berry binge -- just like in February 2008. That month, the carcasses of more than 50 American robins were found around Mount Tabor in Southeast Portland. When scientists opened them up, they found their bellies full of holly berries. "They had gorged themselves on fermenting berries," said Bob Sallinger, conservation director at the Audubon Society of Portland. The robins had died of alcohol poisoning. | |
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Kate Brumback
Kandi Cash trudged in rain through the splintered debris of her grandparents' home, hoping to salvage photos and other keepsakes after violent storms and tornadoes scoured the Southeast, leaving two people dead before the system advanced on the Northeast. The demolished home was one of many in the Georgia city of Adairsville splintered by a massive storm front as it punched across the Southeast on Wednesday and then headed across the densely populated Eastern seaboard on Thursday.Yahoo News / Associated Press 2013-01-31 08:37:00
The vast storm front stretching on a slanting north-south arc for hundreds of miles shattered homes and businesses around the Midwest and South with tornadoes and high winds earlier in the week. By Thursday, it had spread power outages from the Carolinas to Connecticut, triggered flash floods and forced water rescues in areas outside Washington, D.C. In the Northeast, utilities reported power outages affecting 74,000 users in Connecticut, nearly 25,000 others in Rhode Island and some 24,000 in upstate New York. Authorities in Rhode Island said gusting winds blew the roof off a building in Central Falls. A wind gust of 63 mph was recorded in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York as temperatures plunged with the cold air mass creeping up behind the front. Forecasters said snowfall was possible from the Great Lakes to the Northeast - some of it lake-effect snow. | |
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The Extinction Protocol
2013-01-31 07:57:00
Mount Lokon in Tomohon, North Sulawesi, erupted twice throughout Thursday (31/01/2013) afternoon. Head Volcano Observation Post Lokon and Mahawu, Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation (PVMBG) Bandung Geological Agency, Ruskanda Farid Bina, said the first explosion occurred at 6:54 pm and was followed by a second explosion at 10:44 pm, and that was followed by a boom that sounded up to the settlements located around the crater. "We could not observe the height of the eruption of dust because of the condition of the fog around the crater. At first eruption eruption dust altitude of about eight hundred yards," said Farid. He said the series of eruptions occurred after an increase in seismicity that occurred on Wednesday (30/1) at 22:54 pm. "Until now the status is still at alert level three," he said. - Inilah translated | |
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The Extinction Protocol
2013-01-31 07:54:00
It looks like we may be in for an earth-shattering explosion. A dormant super volcano appears to be stirring under the Phlegraen Fields of Naples in Italy. Rising soil temperatures and surface deformation in the area have alarmed seismologists. In the distant past, volcanic super eruptions caused global climate change responsible for mass extinctions of plant and animal species. So far, scientists are unable to model the potential consequences of an awakening supervolcano. Latest studies show that the Phlegraen Fields have actually been swelling above sea level at a rate of 3 cm per month. Micro quakes and large amounts of gases accumulated in soil indicate that the volcano may be preparing to erupt, says Vladimir Kiryanov, Assistant Professor of Geology at the St. Petersburg University. "The Phlegraen Fields is a supervolcano. Yellowstone in the United States and Toba in Indonesia are also supervolcanoes capable of spewing more than 1,000 cubic km of magma. These are catastrophic eruptions. There was a huge volcanic eruption in the Phlegraen Fields some 30,000-40,000 years ago. Volcanic ash from that eruption is still found in the Mediterranean, Bulgaria, Ukraine, and even in Russia. We are now seeing the expansion of a magma pocket, which means that there might be an eruption at a certain time." | |
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US Geological Survey
2013-01-31 07:43:00
Event Time: 2013-01-31 09:53:43 UTC 2013-01-31 00:53:43 UTC-09:00 at epicenter Location: 55.584°N 134.745°W depth=9.7km (6.0mi) Nearby Cities: 101km (63mi) W of Craig, Alaska 303km (188mi) S of Juneau, Alaska 316km (196mi) WNW of Prince Rupert, Canada 409km (254mi) WNW of Terrace, Canada 571km (355mi) S of Whitehorse, Canada | |
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Anthony Watts
Wattsupwiththat.com 2013-01-30 00:00:00
Apparently Mr. Connolley has edited 5428 Wikipedia articles, most about climate. Die Kalte Sonne: I'm not sure how accurate the translation is, but it suggests he was somehow part of the IPCC "short list" team. See it here at Die Kalte Sonne via this Google Translate link. With over 5000 articles he's edited, it makes you wonder if Mr. Connolley was employed by someone or some organization specifically for the task. | |
Comment: A 2009 report revealed that a British scientist and Wikipedia administrator rewrote climate history, editing more than 5,000 unique articles in the online encyclopedia to cover traces of a medieval warming period - something Climategate scientists saw as a major roadblock in the effort to spread the global warming message. Connolley, one man in the nine-member team who is a U.K. scientist, a software engineer and Green Party activist, took control of Wikipedia's entries to see that any trace of the true climate history would be erased.
Wikipedia History of climate gets 'erased' online | |
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US Geological Survey
2013-01-30 19:05:00
Event Time 2013-01-30 23:03:45 UTC 2013-01-31 10:03:45 UTC+11:00 at epicenter Location 10.518°S 166.486°E depth=10.0km (6.2mi) Nearby Cities 74km (46mi) ENE of Lata, Solomon Islands 559km (347mi) N of Luganville, Vanuatu 726km (451mi) E of Honiara, Solomon Islands 822km (511mi) NNW of Port-Vila, Vanuatu 1153km (716mi) N of We, New Caledonia | |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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Rob Taylor
Wrexham.com 2013-01-30 18:01:00
Just after 9pm tonight we had reports of a fireball shooting across the night sky. The fireball, possibly a meteor or space junk burning up, was zooming across the sky from South to North. It was described as being green in colour with a yellow or red tail. Its likely it is space junk, however there is an outside chance it is the start of an alien invasion. Update: We have had @wrexham twitter followers tweeting us, and one email in saying it 'broke up at the end' rather than being a meteor shower. One Wrexham.com heard a rumble and boom around the same time. In September a massive fireball, thought to be space junk, was sighted burning up over the skies of the UK - our report is here. | |
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| Health & Wellness |
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Anthony Gucciardi
Natural Society 2013-01-31 00:29:00
Right now we stand on the forefront of intellectual battle against biotechnology giants such as Monsanto who seek to monopolize the food supply through the extensive use of their genetically modified organisms, but what about tomorrow? It's crucial that we continue the fight against Monsanto and GMO ingredients within the food, but as many are busy campaigning against the visible roots of GMO technology, the unseen roots of the biotech industry have grown much deeper - deep enough to delay any debate over today's biotech initiatives until tomorrow. It's a powerful technique to utilize within the media, and I will highlight the specific key points in how it is deployed. You see as we are hammering Monsanto day in and day out over their pollution of the seed supply, corporations like Dow AgroSciences are working overtime on separate and far more serious initiatives. Initiatives are being set in motion to extend genetic modification to the human body at large. And it's no longer being done behind the scenes. | |
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| Science of the Spirit |
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Larry O'Hanlon
Discovery News 2013-01-30 08:50:00
Suicide is not a contagion, but it can sometimes spread like one, particularly with the help of the media, relationships and genes. On Jan. 14, Department of Defense officials acknowledged that during 2012, service members committed suicide at a record pace as more than 349 people took their own lives across all of the military's four branches. News of suicides, like these reports of suicides in the armed forces, can actually prompt people who are already emotionally vulnerable and mentally ill, to consider suicide themselves, say psychologists. "It tends to facilitate feelings of helplessness and hopelessness," said David Rudd, Dean and professor of psychology at the University of Utah's College of Social and Behavioral Science. "It also facilitates the false idea that suicide is a solution to life's problems." Media coverage of prominent suicides, in particular, can spark additional suicides because of all the praise that generally is heaped on the deceased, along with highlights of all their life achievements. That, said Rudd, suggests to vulnerable people that if such an admirable person saw suicide as a good choice, perhaps it really is a good idea and could even enhance a person's significance. It becomes a distorted kind of celebrity endorsement, if you will. | |
Comment: The author appears to be attempting to divert our attention from the real cause of the increasing military suicides, sexual assaults, alcohol abuse and domestic violence. These are actually a result of repeated tours of duty in the wars of terror. What the PTB does not want is for people to question the obvious effects of a decade of war on the psychological health of soldiers and their families.
Military suicides in 2012 hit yet another record high More U.S. Soldiers Take Their Own Lives than are Killed in Action | |
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Tia Ghose
LiveScience 2013-01-30 12:14:00
The brain apparently edits a person's conscious experience retroactively. Up to a half-second after an object disappears from view, the brain can "edit" the experience to retain that object, a new study from France shows. The finding may partly explain the weird feeling of being able to recall something you heard even when you don't consciously remember hearing it. The finding also contradicts the notion that the brain sequentially takes in sensory information, processes it and then consciously experiences it, said Tufts University cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett, whose books include Consciousness Explained. "You have to get away from the idea that consciousness is like a movie that's playing in your head and that once the processing is done happening then you've got this finished movie that you see." Dennett told LiveScience. "The editing can go on and on." The results were published online Dec. 13 in the journal Current Biology. | |
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| High Strangeness |
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