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| Puppet Masters |
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Kevin Barrett
Veteran's Today 2013-02-20 12:20:00
After a week-long on-site investigation, former National Security Agency officer Wayne Madsen is "100% certain" that 9/11 investigator and author Philip Marshall and his two children were killed in a black ops hit. Madsen's conclusion is that the cover story - an alleged murder-suicide - is transparently absurd. Madsen stated his conclusions on yesterday's Kevin Barrett show. Among the evidence cited by Madsen: *Neighbors' houses are "practically on top of" Marshall's house, so dozens of neighbors would have heard any gunshots that weren't muffled by a silencer...and Marshall's "patsy gun" did not have a silencer. *The crime scene was illegally and surreptitiously cleaned up by professionals, including "a SUV, license undetermined, with an array of communication antennas bristling from the roof." *Philip Marshall, who had expressed his fear of being harassed or silenced for his 9/11 revelations, never kept his doors open - but when the bodies were found, a side door Marshall never used was wide open. | |
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Michael Isikoff
MSNBC 2013-02-16 09:27:00
Declassified documents show that Bush administration officials wanted Saddam Hussein out of Iraq and were ready to start a war in order to achieve it. Just hours after the 9/11 attacks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld met in the Pentagon with Air Force General Richard Myers, then vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other top aides. Notes taken by Rumsfeld aide Steve Cambone (and referred to pages 334 and 335 of the 9/11 Commission Report) show the secretary asked for the "best info fast..judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] @ same time - not only UBL [Osama bin Laden]." Rumsfeld also tasked Jim Haynes, the Pentagon's top lawyer, "to talk w/ PW [Paul Wolfowitz] for additional support [for the] connection w/ UBL." Other comments from the notes: "Need to move swiftly...go massive - sweep it all up things related and not." Although the defense secretary had yet to be presented with any evidence linking the Iraqi leader to the World Trade Tower attacks, he was already considering whether the terrorist acts could be used as to justify a war on Iraq. | |
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Yahoo News / Sky News
2013-02-20 08:32:00
The FBI is examining possible insider trading in Heinz shares ahead of last week's $28bn (£18bn) takeover announcement. A spokeswoman confirmed the move, days after US regulators said they had identified suspicious trades from a Swiss account. Kelly Langmesser said: "We're aware of the trading anomalies the day before the announcement ... and we're consulting with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to see if a crime was committed." The SEC said last Friday it had identified highly suspicious trades in H.J Heinz before billionaire investor Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital announced they were acquiring the baked bean and ketchup maker. It also announced it had obtained an emergency order to freeze a Goldman Sachs bank account in Switzerland suspected of use in the trades. Unknown traders earned $1.7m (£1.1m) in profits through "irregular and highly suspicious" trades and added that it believed the traders had knowledge of the takeover ahead of the announcement early last Thursday morning in New York, according to the SEC. | |
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Amanda Holpuch
Guardian, UK 2013-02-19 00:00:00
Firedoglake blogger Daniel Wright publishes once-classified FBI documents that show extent of agency's investigation into Swartz A blogger has published once-classified FBI files that show how the agency tracked and collected information on internet activist Aaron Swartz. Swartz, who killed himself in January aged 26, had previously requested his files andposted them on his blog, but some new documents and redactions are included in the filespublished by Firedoglake blogger Daniel Wright. Wright was given 21 of 23 declassified documents, thanks to a rule that declassifies FBI files on the deceased. Wright said that he was told the other two pages of documents were not provided because of freedom of information subsections concerning privacy, "sources and methods," and that can "put someone's life in danger." The FBI's files concern Swartz's involvement in accessing the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (Pacer) documents. In pursuit of their investigation, the FBI had collected his personal information and was surveilling an Illinois address where he had his IP address registered. Aaron H. Swartz FBI File by Daniel Wright
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Philip Pullella and Robin Pomeroy
Huffington Post 2013-02-17 09:10:00
Pope Benedict's decision to live in the Vatican after he resigns will provide him with security and privacy. It will also offer legal protection from any attempt to prosecute him in connection with sexual abuse cases around the world, Church sources and legal experts say. "His continued presence in the Vatican is necessary, otherwise he might be defenseless. He wouldn't have his immunity, his prerogatives, his security, if he is anywhere else," said one Vatican official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It is absolutely necessary" that he stays in the Vatican, said the source, adding that Benedict should have a "dignified existence" in his remaining years. Vatican sources said officials had three main considerations in deciding that Benedict should live in a convent in the Vatican after he resigns on February 28. Vatican police, who already know the pope and his habits, will be able to guarantee his privacy and security and not have to entrust it to a foreign police force, which would be necessary if he moved to another country. "I see a big problem if he would go anywhere else. I'm thinking in terms of his personal security, his safety. We don't have a secret service that can devote huge resources (like they do) to ex-presidents," the official said. Another consideration was that if the pope did move permanently to another country, living in seclusion in a monastery in his native Germany, for example, the location might become a place of pilgrimage. | |
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Der Spiegel
2013-02-19 21:51:00
A number of developing nations have sold or leased much of their farmland to foreign investors. The list is led by Liberia, whose arable land is 100 percent under foreign ownership. The process is known as "land grabbing," and it is affecting countries in Africa, South America, Asia and Eastern Europe. Around half of the farmland of the Philippines is owned by foreign investors. In Ukraine, American companies have secured over one-third of the country's farmland. | |
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| Society's Child |
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Arturo Garcia
Former Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) admitted on Tuesday to fathering a child with Michelle Laxalt, the daughter of former Nevada Gov. and Sen. Paul Laxalt (R) after what she called "one night's mistake" more than 30 years ago.Raw Story 2013-02-20 15:28:00 According to Talking Points Memo, Domenici and Laxalt gave separate statements to theAlbuquerque Journal revealing the existence of their son, Nevada attorney Adam Paul Laxalt. "I have apologized as best as I can to my wife, and we have worked together to strengthen our relationship," Domenici said in his statement. "I deeply regret this and am very sorry for my behavior. I hope New Mexicans will view that my accomplishments for my beloved state outweigh my personal transgression." Domenici served six terms in the Senate, from 1973 until 2009. According to her autobiography statement on Politico's "The Arena," Michelle Laxalt worked as a lobbyist, and was named one of the "top 50 lobbyists in D.C." by The Washingtonianin 1993 and 1998. Her most recent lobbyings were made in 2010, on behalf of the American Gaming Association, and three companies connected to American financier T. Boone Pickens: BP Capital, Clean Energy Fuels and Mesa Wind and Mesa Water. It is unclear whether she ever lobbied Domenici. |
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Raw Story
2013-02-20 15:28:00
Belgian legislators opened a debate Wednesday on whether to amend a decade-old law on euthanasia to cover minors, being told by experts that it was already taking place in practice without any set guidelines. Currently, the law applies to those over 18 but one expert told the upper house of parliament that it was clear that euthanasia was being carried out on younger people, the Belga news agency reported. "We all know it," said Dominique Biarent, head of intensive care at Queen Fabiola Children's University Hospital in Brussels. Faced with this reality, "doctors need a legal framework," Biarent was quoted as saying by Belga. Another expert, Professor Chris Van Geet of Leuven University, said the proposed changes pose "an enormous ethical problem." The changes to the law, which would also include sufferers of Alzheimer's disease, were submitted to parliament in December and it is likely to be several months before any decision is taken on them. | |
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Mike Riggs
Reason.com 2013-02-19 13:13:00
What if I told you police in your town could desensitize themselves to the idea of shooting a (armed) child, pregnant woman, or young mother, for just a couple of bucks? The "No More Hesitation" series from Law Enforcement Targets Inc. offers exactly that. For less than 99 cents per target, police can shoot at real-life images "designed to give officers the experience of dealing with deadly force shooting scenarios with subjects that are not the norm during training." | |
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ABC News
2013-02-19 12:38:00
An 11-year-old cancer survivor who was hospitalized with a head injury is now recovering from third-degree burns after her shirt mysteriously caught fire in a Portland, Ore., hospital room. The girl, Ireland Lane, had been painting in her room at Doernbecher Children's Hospital,ABC affiliate KATU reported. Moments later, she ran into the hallway screaming, with her T-shirt aflame. "I've been in medicine going back 30 years now and never heard anything like this. And hopefully I never will again," Dr. Stacy Nicholson, physician-in-chief at Doernbecher Children's Hospital, told KATU. "Our safety experts are working closely with the Oregon State Fire Marshal's office on its investigation," Nicholson added in a statement to ABCNews.com. "We anxiously await the their findings and will certainly make adjustments if the cause was preventable." Hospital staff extinguished the flames, but the cause of the fire remains a mystery. Ireland said she used hand sanitizer to clean a table that rolled over her bed, where she had painted a wooden box as a gift for her nurses, the Oregonian reported. Officials are investigating whether the alcohol-based sanitizer and static electricity could have sparked the fire, a spokesman for the Oregon State Fire Marshal told ABCNews.com. | |
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ACS
2013-02-20 12:15:00
It may be the 21st century, with all its technological marvels, but 6 out of every 10 people on Earth still do not have access to flush toilets or other adequate sanitation that protects the user and the surrounding community from harmful health effects, a new study has found.The research, published in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology, says the number of people without access to improved sanitation is almost double the previous estimate. Jamie Bartram and colleagues explain that the current definition of "improved sanitation" focuses on separating humans from human excrement, but does not include treating that sewage or other measures to prevent it from contaminating rivers, lakes and oceans. Using that definition, 2010 United Nations estimates concluded that 4.3 billion people had access to improved sanitation and 2.6 billion did not. The new estimates used what the authors regarded as a more realistic definition from the standpoint of global health, since untreated sewage is a major cause of disease. They refined the definition of "improved sanitation" by discounting sewage systems lacking access to sewage treatment. They concluded that about 60 percent of the world's population does not have access to improved sanitation, up from the previous estimate of 38 percent. | |
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Agence France-Presse
2013-02-20 08:37:00
Three sisters aged between six and 11 were raped and murdered before their bodies were dumped down a village well in rural western India, police said on Wednesday. The bodies of the three schoolgirls were found last week, two days after they went missing on February 14 from their home in the Bhandara district of Maharashtra state, police superintendent Aarti Singh told AFP. "The bodies of the three young girls were found in a well, with their schoolbags and footwear," Singh told AFP by phone from Nagpur, adding they were aged six, nine and 11. "The post-mortem has confirmed that the girls were raped and then murdered." No arrests have been made but Singh said four people had been detained for questioning and investigations were still under way. Family members said the girls had gone out to look for their mother who was out of the house and no one heard from them again. | |
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Eric W. Dolan
The Raw Story 2013-02-18 22:53:00
While discussing the looming sequestration on MSNBC, journalist David Cay Boyle Johnston slammed Republicans for supporting cuts to a federal program that provides food to the infants of poor mothers. "Six hundred thousand pregnant women and mothers of small children will be cut from the [Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition program]," he said. "The Republicans are always telling us about their reverence for life. Really? They are going to have 600,000 poor women and children not have proper food." "There is a lifetime effect on development, especially mental development, if you don't have proper nutrition in the womb and when you're an infant, but they are determined to cut those poor children - who are helpless - out of good nutrition." | |
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Florida's first breast milk collection center opened in Miami on Tuesday. Dozens of parents and their children attended the ribbon cutting ceremony at The Gathering Place, a pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting resource center located at 5810 Biscayne Boulevard in Miami's Morningside neighborhood. Organizers showed off a freezer holding 500 ounces of breast milk provided by Ana Rodriguez, the first donor to the non-profit center. "I produce more than my baby can consume," said Rodriguez. "This is milk that I've pumped, basically, at work. It's a lot of work pumping so it's good that it's going to a good cause." | |
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Connor Sheets
International Business Times 2013-02-18 00:00:00
The University of Colorado at Colorado Springs Department of Public Safety has updated an online statement advising female students to consider a variety of unusual actions if they are attacked, including vomiting, urinating and claiming that they are menstruating. The advisory was updated Monday evening, just hours after the Colorado state House of Representatives passed a package of gun control bills that includes one that would make it illegal for people with concealed weapons permits to carry guns on the campuses of public universities. The bills still have to go to the state Senate and governor. Some of the pieces of advice which were updated Monday evening on the university's public safety website are ones that many would find familiar, from running away without looking back to "yelling, hitting or biting" your attacker. But the following two suggestions are a little stranger and are already causing quite the outcry on social media: "Tell your attacker that you have a disease or are menstruating," and "Vomiting or urinating may also convince the attacker to leave you alone." These less-conventional methods for fighting off a would-be rapist are apparently part ofRape Aggression Defense Systems, a class that the school's public safety department promotes as a means for female students to boost their self-defense skills. But the fact that the site providing the pointers was updated at 6:30 p.m. Monday suggests that the move may have been motivated by the Colorado House's passage on Monday of HB 1226, which would ban all people -- including concealed-weapons permit holders -- from carrying guns on the campuses of the state's public universities. The House passed the bill on Monday by a vote of 34-31, but not before it became the center of a major controversy when Democratic state Rep. Joe Salazar made commentsduring Friday's debate arguing that students should not have access to guns to protect themselves from being raped. | |
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Renee Maltezou
Greek workers walk off the job on Wednesday in a nationwide anti-austerity strike that will disrupt transport, shut public schools and tax offices and leave hospitals working with emergency staff.Reuters 2013-02-19 05:38:00
Greece's two biggest labor unions plan to bring much of the near-bankrupt country to a standstill during a 24-hour strike over the cuts, which they say only deepen the plight of a people struggling to get through the country's worst peacetime downturn. Representing about 2.5 million workers, the unions have gone on strike repeatedly since Europe's debt crisis erupted in late 2009, testing the government's will to implement necessary reforms in the face of growing public anger. "The (strike) is our answer to the dead-end policies that have squeezed the life out of workers, impoverished society and plunged the economy into recession and crisis," said the private sector union GSEE, which is organizing the walkout with its public sector sister union ADEDY. "Our struggle will continue for as long as these policies are implemented," it said. Prime Minister Antonis Samaras's eight-month-old coalition government has been eager to show it will implement reforms it promised the European Union and International Monetary Fund, which have bailed Athens out twice with over 200 billion euros. It has taken a tough line on striking workers, invoking emergency law twice this year to order seamen and subway workers back to the job after week-long walkouts that paralyzed public transport in Athens and led to food shortages on islands. But in a sign it is buckling under pressure, it announced on Monday it would not fire almost 1,900 civil servants earmarked for possible dismissal, despite promising foreign lenders it would seek to cut the public payroll. | |
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Lee Moran
New York Daily News 2013-02-15 08:36:00
A Michigan nurse claims she was banned from caring for a newborn child because of her skin color. Tonya Battle is suing her employers at Hurley Medical Center, in Flint, after they ordered her not to look after the baby in the neonatal intensive care unit following a request from its father, WNEM reports. The lawsuit states: "The father told the [nurse in charge] that he did not want an African Americans taking care of his baby." It adds that, during the conversation with Battle's supervisor, the father rolled up his sleeve to reveal a tattoo of a Swastika. | |
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Fox News
2013-02-20 00:00:00
Kansas City, Montana - A massive fire triggered by a gas explosion engulfed an entire block of an upscale Kansas City shopping district and injured more than a dozen people, a city official said Tuesday evening. City Manager Troy Schulte said he did not know of anyone being reported missing and had not heard of any fatalities. The cause of the explosion was not immediately known, but Schulte said it is believed that an accident involving a utility contractor may have caused the blast. Fox4KC.com reports that witnesses said the explosion was like an earthquake. The station said there were reports of blown-out windows and minor damage inside apartments near the blast. Kansas City Fire Chief Paul Berardi said late Tuesday that cadaver dogs were searching the smoldering remains of a restaurant that burned to the ground following the explosion and blaze. Berardi said the search for possible victims could take hours and that he expected his crews to be at the scene through the night. While officials have said they have no reports of fatalities, Berardi noted, "I would always fear there are fatalities in a scene like this." | |
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David Edwards
Raw Story 2013-02-19 10:28:00
A shooting rampage left four people dead and at least two people wounded in California on Monday. Orange County Sheriff's Department Jim Amormino told the Orange Country Register that a man went on a shooting spree that began with the death of a person at a home in Red Leaf at about 5:20 a.m. The suspect then fled in a SUV and shot a person, who was not fatally wounded, while trying to steal a car the area Red Hill Avenue in Tustin. Reports indicated that a driver was shot and killed near Village Way and the 55 freeway during a second carjacking. In the process of stealing another car in near Edinger and Newport Avenue, the shooter killed a person and a second person was injured. Police eventually located the suspected shooter driving on the 55 freeway. That's when "the suspect shot and killed himself," according to Tustin Police Department Lt. Paul Garaven said. | |
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Dan Whitcomb
Yahoo! Canada News 2013-02-19 00:00:00
Los Angeles - A body was found in a large water tank on top of a downtown Los Angeles hotel on Tuesday which may be a 21-year-old Canadian woman who went missing under suspicious circumstances while staying there late last month, police said. Elisa Lam, a student from Vancouver, British Columbia, who was visiting southern California on her own, was last seen at the Cecil Hotel on January 31. Local authorities had characterized her disappearance as suspicious. A security video taken in an elevator at the hotel and released by the Los Angeles Police Department last week showed Lam acting strangely, hiding in a corner and repeatedly peering around the elevator doors into the hallway. An Los Angeles police spokeswoman confirmed that a body had been found in one of four large water tanks on top of the Cecil Hotel early on Tuesday after a maintenance worker went up to investigate reports of low water pressure. The spokeswoman said police detectives were on the scene, but had not yet determined whether the remains were those of the missing woman. Source: Reuters | |
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The Washington Post
S2013-02-15 18:22:00
Frederick - The Frederick County Sheriff's Office says the death of a mentally disabled man in police custody has been ruled a homicide. Cpl. Jennifer Bailey said Friday that the state medical examiner determined that 26-year-old Robert Saylor of New Market died of asphyxia Jan. 12. Saylor had Down syndrome. Bailey says he died after resisting arrest by three deputies at a Frederick movie theater. An employee had called police because Saylor wouldn't leave his seat after a movie. Bailey says Saylor cursed at the deputies. She says he became medically distressed while they were escorting him in handcuffs from the theater. | |
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| Secret History |
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Owen Jarus
LiveScience 2013-02-20 12:36:00
Hidden in a necropolis situated high in the mountains of the Caucasus in Russia, researchers have discovered the grave of a male warrior laid to rest with gold jewelry, iron chain mail and numerous weapons, including a 36-inch (91 centimeters) iron sword set between his legs. That is just one amazing find among a wealth of ancient treasures dating back more than 2,000 years that scientists have uncovered there. Among their finds are two bronze helmets, discovered on the surface of the necropolis. One helmet (found in fragments and restored) has relief carvings of curled sheep horns while the other has ridges, zigzags and other odd shapes. Although looters had been through the necropolis before, the warrior's grave appears to have been untouched. The tip of the sword he was buried with points toward his pelvis, and researchers found "a round gold plaque with a polychrome inlay" near the tip, they write in a paper published in the most recent edition of the journal Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia. | |
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| Science & Technology |
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US Geological Survey
"Predicted population increases in this century can be expected to translate into more people dying from earthquakes. There will be more individual earthquakes with very large death tolls as well as more people dying during earthquakes than ever before, according to a newly published study led by U.S. Geological Survey engineering geologist Thomas L. Holzer."2013-02-20 15:36:00 Holzer and his USGS coauthor James Savage studied earthquakes with death tolls of more than 50,000, which they define as catastrophic, and reported global death tolls from roughly 1500 A.D. to the present. Comparing those events to estimates of world population, they found that the number of catastrophic earthquakes has increased as population has grown. After statistically correlating the number of catastrophic earthquakes in each century with world population, they were able to use new (2011) 21st-century population projections by the United Nations to project that approximately 21 catastrophic earthquakes will occur in the 21st century, a tripling of the seven that occurred in the 20th century. They also predict that total deaths in the century could more than double to approximately 3.5 million people if world population grows to 10.1 billion by 2100 from 6.1 billion in 2000. "This prediction need not be a prophesy: the National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program (NEHRP) in the U.S. can be a model for how science can inform engineering designs that are adopted into life-saving building codes in earthquake-prone regions," said USGS Associate Director for Natural Hazards David Applegate. "I also cannot stress enough the value of educated citizens - those who understand the natural hazards of this planet and are empowered to take action to reduce their risk." Four catastrophic earthquakes have already struck since the beginning of the 21st century, including the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake (and tsunami) and 2010 Haiti earthquake that each may have killed over 200,000 people. The study explains this increase in lethal earthquakes. It is not that we are having more earthquakes; it is that more people are living in seismically vulnerable buildings in the world's earthquake zones. |
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Jennifer Viegas
Discovery News 2013-02-19 18:05:00
Bottlenose dolphins call out the specific names of loved ones when they become separated, a study finds. Other than humans, the dolphins are the only animals known to do this, according to the study, published in the latest Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The big difference with bottlenose dolphins is that these communications consist of whistles, not words. Earlier research found that bottlenose dolphins name themselves, with dolphins having a "signature whistle" that encodes other information. It would be somewhat like a human shouting, "Hey everybody! I'm an adult healthy male named George, and I mean you no harm!" The new finding is that bottlenose dolphins also say the names of certain other dolphins. "Animals produced copies when they were separated from a close associate and this supports our belief that dolphins copy another animal's signature whistle when they want to reunite with that specific individual," lead author Stephanie King of the University of St. Andrews Sea Mammal Research Unit told Discovery News. | |
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| Earth Changes |
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US Geological Survey
2013-02-20 15:48:00
Event Time: 2013-02-20 21:23:16 UTC 2013-02-20 14:23:16 UTC-07:00 at epicenter Location: 18.824°N 103.728°W depth=66.0km (41.0mi) Nearby Cities: 11km (7mi) NNW of Coahuayana, Mexico 19km (12mi) ESE of Tecoman, Mexico 27km (17mi) ESE of Armeria, Mexico 42km (26mi) S of Coquimatlan, Mexico 488km (303mi) W of Mexico City, Mexico | |
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Tom Philpott
Mother Jones Magazine 2013-02-20 14:13:00
Corn and soy fields are rapidly swallowing up grassland in the western corn belt. In a post last year, I argued that to get ready for climate change, we should push Midwestern farmers to switch a chunk of their corn land into pasture for cows. The idea came from a paper by University of Tennessee and Bard College researchers, who calculated that such a move could suck up massive amounts of carbon in soil - enough to reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture by 36 percent. In addition to the CO2 reductions, you'd also get a bunch of high-quality, grass-fed beef (which has a significantly healthier fat profile than the corn-finished stuff). Turns out, farmers in the Midwest are doing just the opposite. Inspired by high crop prices driven up by the federal corn-ethanol program - as well as by federally subsidized crop insurance that mitigates their risk - farmers are expanding the vast carpet of corn and soy that covers the Midwest rather than retracting it. That's the message of a new paper (PDF) by South Dakota State University researchers published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. | |
Comment: The article above is a clear example of what 'corporate agriculture' has done to the US and the world as a whole. To understand more about the issues surrounding 'industrial corporate agriculture' read the following:
The Vegetarian Myth This misunderstanding is born of ignorance, an ignorance that runs the length and breadth of the vegetarian myth, through the nature of agriculture and ending in the nature of life. We are urban industrialists, and we don't know the origins of our food. This includes vegetarians, despite their claims to the truth. It included me, too, for twenty years. Anyone who ate meat was in denial; only I had faced the facts. Certainly, most people who consume factory-farmed meat have never asked what died and how it died. But frankly, neither have most vegetarians.Lierre Keith on 'The Vegetarian Myth - Food, Justice and Sustainability' The truth is that agriculture is a relentless assault against the planet, and more of the same won't save us. In service to annual grains, humans have devastated prairies and forests, driven countless species extinct, altered the climate, and destroyed the topsoil--the basis of life itself.Keith argues that if we are to save this planet, our food must be an act of profound and abiding repair: it must come from inside living communities, not be imposed across them. | |
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Deborah Stocks
A northern Arizona roadway is closed after the pavement collapsed Wednesday. The Arizona Department of Transportation says a 150-foot section of US 89 buckled this morning about 25 miles south of Page.ABC15.com 2013-02-20 12:26:00 Officials say the cause is not weather related and may be a "geologic event."
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| Fire in the Sky |
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Tony Santaella
Columbia, SC - News19 has gotten multiple reports of loud booms in Several Midlands neighborhoods.WLTX.com 2013-02-20 16:11:00 The reports began coming in around 3:45 p.m. Wednesday. We heard from worried residents in Sumter, Wedgefield, Manning, and Bishopville. The noise was so loud that windows rattled and homes shook. Reports also came out of Summerton, Eastover, Mayesville, and Sandy Run. We made several calls to try and find out what caused the sounds, and the State Emergecny Management Agency says it wasn't an earthquake. Shaw Air Force Base hasn't reported any unusual flying activity and the Lynn Douglas with the Columbia Airport says she knows of no sonic booms in the Midlands. |
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Carolyn Y. Johnson
Boston.com 2013-02-20 13:55:00
Today, I wrote a story about a mysterious explosion over Melrose in 1954 that shattered windows, cracked ceilings, and caused a local panic that seemed to echo what happened in Chelyabinsk, Russia last week. The Globe wrote three stories at the time, each asserting that the pressure wave that led 200 people to swarm the Melrose fire station was caused by several airplanes breaking the sound barrier while flying too close to the ground. But readers have questions about whether, technologically speaking, that could be the case. Steve Smith, an aviation buff, wrote in an e-mail that aircraft of the time were technologically incapable of breaking the sound barrier. Smith wrote: | |
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The Extinction Protocol
A race for cosmic souvenirs has begun after scientists said there were still many pieces of the meteorite that fell to earth near the Russian city of Chelyabinsk last week waiting to be found. The extraterrestrial origin of 53 rock fragments collected on the frozen surface of Lake Chebarkul was confirmed during analysis conducted by the Urals Federal University in the early hours of Monday. But this is just the start of the process of gathering the debris left by the large meteorite, which exploded on entering the earth's atmosphere and hit the ground in a series of fireballs on Friday. Viktor Grokhovsky, a member of the Russian Academy of Science's meteorite committee, has been put in charge of the scientific search operation. "There are a lot more fragments to be discovered in many other places ... it's only a matter of time," he said.2013-02-20 07:32:00 The search is being concentrated at the moment around a six-metre wide hole in Lake Chebarkul, about 50 miles from Chelyabinsk, discovered by locals shortly after the meteorite hit the ground. Military divers spent much of the weekend scouring the bottom of the lake, but were hampered by poor visibility and found nothing. Analysis of the pieces recovered so far, none of which had a diameter greater than 1cm, suggests that 10% of the meteorite was made up of iron. Traces of sulphite and the mineral olivine were also present. "It was a stone meteorite that belongs to a class of ordinary chondrite meteorites," said Grokhovsky. Link to video: Russian meteorite: first fragment finds claimed |
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Unexplained Things Are Out There
2013-02-19 00:00:00
A few minutes ago, at 19:18, a bright fireball was spotted in the skies of southern Italy. The first reports Strait from Messina reported a fireball on the Ionian Sea , with director from north to south, greenish and very bright magnitude. We are awaiting further reports that allow us to understand the scope of the sighting. After what happened in Russia, where a real asteroid 17 meters caused 1,500 wounded, This term is much more common. A fireball , or meteor meteoroid scientifically defined, is a piece of rock the size of a small stone, which enters our atmosphere at very high speeds, which in certain circumstances may be more than the 260,000 km / h. The vision of these bodies is characterized by a ball of fire falling from the sky quickly, leaving behind a trail of light lasting a few seconds, and that only in very rare cases assumes a hazard similar to what happened in the region of Chelyabinsk. Can take various colors from white to red, green to orange. In certain circumstances may even explode, creating spectacular light flashes (called flares) and / or change color, creating a memorable show for lucky observers. These phenomena fact can not be predicted, and being often have unpredictable occasional observers entirely. There are also very rare circumstances where the cars also produce a roar caused by the explosion, like distant thunder. | |
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| Health & Wellness |
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Raw Story
Bolivia's President Evo Morales on Wednesday slammed western fast food as "a threat to humanity" as he accused multinational firms of seeking to block the development of his country's staple food. Morales said US companies had led a campaign to stop the United Nations declaring 2013 as the international year of quinoa, which the Bolivian leader and UN chief Ban Ki-moon launched at the UN headquarters.2013-02-20 15:25:00 The grain-like quinoa is packed with vitamins and proteins and has been grown in the Andes for 7,000 years. But its cultivation was long banned by European colonizers. Now Morales and many experts are pushing quinoa as a potential answer to global food shortages. The left-wing Bolivian leader slammed capitalist "fast food" for causing cancer and other diseases, in a speech to the UN General Assembly to launch the commemorative year. "The fast food of the west is a great harm to humanity," the left-wing leader stormed in a speech in which he said capitalism had been a prime cause of climate change. "International companies opposed with great force the announcing of the international year of quinoa. They were led by the United States," he said. "These companies are trying to make sure that the year of quinoa will be a failure" because it will drive up the price and make the product less available. |
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Heidi Stevenson
Activist Post 2013-02-20 14:00:00
A new study clearly documents that the standard treatment for type 2 diabetes is a killer, resulting in more than double the deaths. The treatment justification has always been based on irrelevant criteria - just as it is with most pharmaceutical treatments. It seems so intuitive: People with diabetes should inject insulin. In the case of people with type 1 diabetes, in which the pancreas doesn't produce insulin, that's probably true. However, modern doctors routinely give insulin to people with type 2 diabetes simply because it reduces blood sugar levels. The reality, though, is that type 2 diabetics who take insulin injections die at more than double the rate of those given non-insulin treatment! | |
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Mike Ludwig
Truthout 2013-02-19 13:28:00
Just two weeks before the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) fully deregulated Monsanto's Roundup Ready alfalfa, a senior soil scientist alerted the department about a newly discovered, microscopic pathogen found in high concentrations of Roundup Ready corn and soy that researchers believe could be causing infertility in livestock and diseases in crops that could threaten the entire domestic food supply. Dr. Don Huber, a plant pathologist and retired Purdue University professor, wrote in a letter to the USDA that the pathogen is new to science and appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals and probably humans. "For the past 40 years, I have been a scientist in the professional and military agencies that evaluate and prepare for natural and manmade biological threats, including germ warfare and disease outbreaks," Huber wrote in his January 16 letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack. "Based on this experience, I believe the threat we are facing from this pathogen is unique and of a high risk status. In layman's terms, it should be treated as an emergency." | |
Comment: Watch the following interviews with Dr. Huber for more information about the negative effects of glyphosate and GM crops:
The Hidden Epidemic Destroying Your Gut Flora Dr. Huber's research, which spans over 55 years, has been devoted to looking at how the agricultural system can be managed for more effective crop production, better disease control, improved nutrition, and safety. The introduction of genetically engineered crops has dramatically affected and changed all agricultural components:Worse than DDT: When you eat this, it ends up lingering in your gut | |
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United Nations Environmental Health Program
World Health Organization 2013-02-19 12:57:00
Many synthetic chemicals, untested for their disrupting effects on the hormone system, could have significant health implications according to the State of the Science of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals, a new report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and World Health Organization (WHO). The joint study calls for more research to understand fully the associations between endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) - found in many household and industrial products - and specific diseases and disorders. The report notes that with more comprehensive assessments and better testing methods, potential disease risks could be reduced, with substantial savings to public health. Human health depends on a well-functioning endocrine system to regulate the release of certain hormones that are essential for functions such as metabolism, growth and development, sleep and mood. Some substances known as endocrine disruptors can change the function(s) of this hormonal system increasing the risk of adverse health effects. Some EDCs occur naturally, while synthetic varieties can be found in pesticides, electronics, personal care products and cosmetics. They can also be found as additives or contaminants in food. | |
Comment: Further research on exposure and effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals:
Big Chem, Big Harm? Endocrine Disruptors Really Do Suck 1,300+ Chemicals Are Messing with Your Hormones Scientists Want FDA to Ban BPA, Endocrine Disruptors Hormone Experts Worried About Plastics, Chemicals Shocking Health Effects of Commonly Used Pesticide: Brain Problems, Sexual Deformities and Paralysis | |
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Mick Meaney
While the UK media becomes hysterical over the discovery of horsemeat in the food chain, RINF Alternative News takes a look at the real dangers of a handful of chemicals that are added to our food, which we consume everyday.Activist Post 2013-02-19 12:49:00
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Newsone6
2013-02-20 11:43:00
The Sheriff in an eastern Oklahoma county said his office is investigating what could be a case of spontaneous combustion. Sequoyah County Sheriff Ron Lockhart told News On 6 that deputies were called to a house on Bawcom Road, between Sallisaw and Muldrow, around 10:50 a.m. Monday. A neighbor had reported seeing smoke coming out of a home. Lockhart said they found the nearly completely charred remains of a man in the kitchen, but that there was no other damage done to the home. The man has been identified as 65-year-old Danny Vanzandt, according to CBS affiliate in Fort Smith, KFSM. Sheriff Lockhart spent about 20 years as an arson investigator for the Fort Smith, Arkansas Police Department, before retiring to run for Sheriff in Sequoyah County. Lockhart said he'd never seen anything like it. He said it didn't seem that any accelerant was used and only the floor below Vanzandt's body was damaged. | |
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Miranda Tetlow
ABC Rural, Australia 2013-02-19 22:16:00
An Aboriginal arts centre in the Northern Territory is at the centre of a cosmic mystery. Every morning at 11:30 a series of stars lights up the floor at the arts centre at Yirrkala in north east Arnhem Land. No one has been able to explain why the stars appear and the locals believe they may be a message or a blessing from an Aboriginal artist who passed away last year. Will Stubbs is manager at Buku-Larrngay Mulka and says it's hard to explain. "We've only just noticed it in the last few weeks," he says. "The floor gets illuminated with star shapes that are very, very similar to the star shapes painted by a very important artist who passed away last year. |
